Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
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“His previous responsibility was to try to push such measures through, but now that he is wearing his new hat as a Home Office Minister, the idea is to give people the impression that something is being done on the issue when we know that not very much is being done. The Bill is a complete side-show compared with the main issue. If the legislation is brought into effect and people are prosecuted under it, it will not address the largest proportion of offenders: those caught with cannabis in their system. The measures in the Bill should have been included in one of the criminal justice Bills that the Home Office brings forward with such regularity. When my hon.”
“They talk the talk; they say, “We want to outlaw drug-driving” and they announced, with a fanfare, in the Queen’s Speech before last that they would legislate on the issue. The Prime Minister congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central and met some of his constituents who had experienced tragedy as a result of death by drug-driving. Today, the Minister has the opportunity to tell us exactly when section 5A will come into effect—legislation that was forecast and supported in 2010 in the North report—but he is choosing not to; I do not know why. Perhaps it is because, as a Home Office Minister who has been a Transport Minister, he has, in a sense, a split personality on the issue.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is nodding sagely, but there is something to be said for putting pressure on the Government—more pressure than he has so far—to respond to these points. My understanding is that there has always been a strong conflict between the desires of the Department for Transport, which I had the privilege of serving in as a Minister, and the Home Office, which is resisting taking such measures. If I am wrong about that, and the Minister can give me a target date for full implementation of section 5A, I will happily give way to him—if he is listening. The fact that he does not wish to intervene to try to ensure reasonable cross-party consensus shows that the Government are again playing games with the House.”
“There is nothing to stop the Government providing extra time on the Floor of the House for Second Reading of this Bill, and responding on the issue of these very important road safety challenges. In my constituency, people are absolutely exasperated by the Government’s failure to deliver on this important issue of drug-driving.”
“The Minister may well be able to answer it, and I am happy to give way to him if he wants to intervene. [Interruption.] I am being heckled by Members on the Bench in front of me who say that the Minister has not yet had the chance to speech. Of course, we know that he did, but he chose not to follow the right hon. Member for Delyn. This Bill was brought forward by the Government. When my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale spoke to it, he read from a text on top of which was written “restricted”, which shows that it is essentially a Government Bill. The Government have the power to give the Bill more time. I challenge them to provide more time for this debate, so that the Minister can give a full response to the very important points made by the right hon. Member for Delyn.”
“The hon. Gentleman’s last point is precisely not dealt with by the new clause. The new clause asks for an assessment to be made within one month of Royal Assent, and then lets the matter stand on its own. It does not require the Government to take any action as a result of that assessment. Does that not make the new clause rather nugatory?”
“I do not understand what these provisions are all about, but the Bill would be better if these specific provisions were excluded from it. In a sense, my amendments could properly be described as probing amendments. As I say, I cannot really understand all the detail of clause 42, but I think the Bill would be better without the provisions which my amendments would remove. I would certainly be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about why we have a bespoke regulated period for one particular scenario, while such a bespoke period will not be necessary in the future. Why has no provision been made for the interaction of the general election and the proposed Scottish referendum?”
“We are getting into dangerous territory whereby the Government are taking transitional powers, interfering with existing law, and doing so on the grounds that the situation is complicated by the European parliamentary elections next May, while at the same time not dealing with the situation of the Scottish referendum in September next year. I do not understand why there are no transitional provisions for that Scottish referendum; perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us. If we are to have strict limits on spending by registered political parties during a period that includes what amounts to a national referendum in Scotland on whether or not Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom, surely we need some special provision to deal with related expenditure.”
“The explanatory notes state that because of the interaction of the European Parliament elections in the latter part of May next year and the fixed-term Parliament provisions that assure us of a general election in May 2015, we need special provisions to cover that scenario. As explained therein: “Clause 42 makes provision to deal with this situation by creating” what is described as “a bespoke regulated period…that will apply only in relation to the next UK general parliamentary election.” I am instinctively suspicious of “bespoke” regulated periods or of anything brought into statute in order to deal with a particular scenario; I am much more in favour of general principles that can be applied whatever the circumstances.”
“The way in which the Government do legislation nowadays seems to me to be about leaving as many opportunities as possible for further order-making, when the statute book and our democracy would be enhanced if we were able to have greater clarity so that the provisions enacted were actually implemented from the commencement of the Act, alongside all the other provisions. Again, I would be interested to hear what the Minister thinks about that. My second group of amendments—10, 11 and 12 —relate to clause 42. Amendment 10 would leave out subsections (3) to (6); amendment 11 would leave out subsections (7) and (8); and amendment 12 would leave out subsection (9). Clause 42 is quite important, because it deals with “Transitional provision”. It is quite complex.”
“If that is a good idea—I am not disputing that it might be—why not include it and implement it from the day of Royal Assent? Why leave everybody guessing about whether the provisions might be brought forward at some subsequent stage through an order-making power? Again, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation. Similarly, clause 35, dealing with “Functions of Electoral Commission with respect to compliance”, changes the general function and substitutes the expression “duties”. It deals with legislation relating to the Electoral Commission. If that is a good thing—obviously, the Government think it is—why is it not such a good thing that it cannot be brought into effect on the day of Royal Assent?”
“If we want to give the Secretary of State that power, why do we need to cover it by saying, “Well, we won’t give him the power to make an order until he has brought forward an order giving himself the power to make the order”? By including sub-paragraph (i) in clause 41, we are making the provisions less direct and more confusing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation of why he thinks clause 41 is so vital. Similar arguments relate to my amendments 5 and 6, which would ensure that clauses 30, 34 and 35 came into effect directly on the date of Royal Assent. Looking at those clauses, one again wonders why the Government are nervous about allowing these provisions to take legal effect from the day of Royal Assent. Clause 34 deals with “Third party expenditure in respect of candidates”, changing the limit from £500 to £700.”
“Obviously, if a Bill that becomes an Act of Parliament makes certain provisions, which are not implemented immediately but might be implemented at some stage in the future, that in itself creates doubt. Clause 30, for example, to which my amendment 4 refers, deals with “Extension of power to vary specified sums” under section 155 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, enabling the Secretary of State, “by order”, to “vary any percentage for the time being specified” in that Act’s provisions. That amounts to an order-making power. Why does the order-making power itself need to be made subject to another order-making power? If clause 30 came into effect and into law on the day the Bill received Royal Assent, its provisions would still be subject to the Secretary of State’s having the power to make a variation.”
“Regulatory impact assessments should be produced while legislation is being considered by this House, so that we can respond to them by tabling appropriate amendments. My amendments—modest as they are, as always—were designed to bring clarity to the question of commencement. At the moment, clause 41 provides for the Bill’s provisions to come into effect on the day in which the Act is passed, but with a whole lot of exceptions, some of which are set out. I am seeking to remove those exceptions through my amendments 4, 5 and 6, which would leave out sub-paragraphs (i), (iii) and (iv). Thus clauses 30, 34 and 35 would come into effect on the day the Act is passed rather than on some subsequent day when a Minister might decide to bring forward a commencement order.”
“Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), some of which have resulted in the welcome tabling of Government amendments in Committee and now, on Report. It would have been far better, however, if this had been done the other way round. We should have had proper pre-legislative scrutiny, consultations and exchanges of views with bodies such as the Electoral Commission, which were established specifically to advise Parliament and the Government on issues of electoral law. My concern about new clauses 2 and 3 is that, although they recognise the reality of the situation, they would not provide an effective remedy. It is no good saying that there should be a report on the implications of the legislation within a month of its receiving Royal Assent. Nothing would happen as a result of that, because it would be too late to change the law.”
“Before I address the amendments, I should like to put on record my appreciation of the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, whose Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is here today. I have had the privilege of serving on the Committee since it was first set up at the beginning of this Parliament. It is frustrating at the best of times to serve on a Select Committee, but it is doubly frustrating when a Committee produces reports to which the Government say they will respond but never do so, and merely bring forward their own legislation, ex cathedra, as they have done with this Bill. The Committee met in early September to try to deal with these issues, as well as at the end of July, soon after the Bill had been published. We raised a lot of questions with the then Minister, my hon.”
“I should like to address my remarks to amendments 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12, which have been included in this group with the new clauses. I am grateful that they have been so included, because they were tabled in Committee but were not reached because we ran out of time. It is therefore an agreeable surprise that I have this opportunity to speak to them today. My concern has always been that the House should introduce legislation that is clear and precise. That is particularly true of legislation relating to electoral law, which is becoming increasingly complex in this country. It could almost be argued that it now presents a barrier to entry to new people who want to start a political party, to engage in the political process or to contribute to an established party.”
“It would, at best, be closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, and it would not be a helpful substitute for dealing effectively with the substance of the Bill before we give it final approval and it receives Royal Assent. The time to do that is now, and we are doing it. Obviously we hope that those in the other place will do even more of it, and that when the Bill returns to the Commons, it will be much better than it was before. I end as I began, by regretting that this process has caused us to deal too much with the form and the process rather than with the substance, which is what we should be dealing with in this House.”
“If things are found to be wrong with part 2 as a result of “an assessment of the separate and specific impacts of Part 2…on third-party engagement”, and so on, that will need to be put right before Royal Assent, rather than being left to a post-legislative assessment on a time scale that is imprecise and unspecified. I understand why the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) is frustrated by this whole process, but I beg to differ with him on whether his proposed solution is the right one. Similarly, as I said earlier in an intervention on the hon. Gentleman’s speech, I do not think that the requirement in new clause 3 for “Within one month of Royal Assent…full cost projections of the impact of Part 2 on their running costs” from the Electoral Commission, along with an “assessment of the administrative impact” is any good.”
“I do not think that I need to make a meal of this, and I am sure that the House will wish to hear further from the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, but I will say that I do not think that new clause 2 really cuts the mustard. All that it says is: “Part 2 of this Act shall not come into force until the Electoral Commission and the Minister have laid a report before both Houses of Parliament”. That in itself introduces a concept of indecision. People looking at the legislation will want to know when part 2 will come into force.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his succinct intervention, and also for his generous comments. The points that he has made are exactly the points that caused me to vote against the programme motion yesterday. I think the least that can be done if a Bill has not been given sufficient pre-legislative scrutiny is to ensure that there is sufficient time for it to be scrutinised properly in the House. I may be wrong, but I doubt very much whether we shall have time even to debate all the groups of amendments and new clauses that have been tabled for debate today. As I said earlier, we were not able to reach some of the amendments that were tabled in Committee, although fortunately some of them were tabled again on Report, and are being debated now.”
“We can help you, but we need a bit of time if we are to do so.” As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am always an optimist. I hope that, before the end of this evening’s proceedings, we shall have heard the Government say that they wish not to press the matter to the end, but to give the House a chance to engage in further debates, and that they will table further amendments.”
“If I were a member of the Government faced with such advice from a body on which the Government rely to give them advice, I would say “We will withdraw the Bill, or at least delay further consideration of it until we have received a proper response.” That, I think, would have been the mature way in which to deal with the matter, if I may put in it in a somewhat patronising way. There are many examples of Bills that have been held up between their Committee and Report stages. Normally they have been held up for a good reason, namely that the Government have been having a rethink, discussing with third parties and other interests what is the best solution. Here we have a glaring example of something else. Effectively, the statutory adviser on these issues has said to the Government “We do not know what the implications are. Please help us.”
“I think that this is an instance in which we should be aiming for consensus, and if consensus could be achieved by the Government’s withdrawing the Bill, or not continuing with it at the current pace, I should be all in favour of it.”
“Obviously I do. I am often suspicious of the word “consensus”, but I think that when we are dealing with changes in electoral law, consensus is very important. In my capacity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I go off and monitor a fair number of elections, and the most difficult cases with which to deal are those in which a Government have used their majority to introduce changes in the electoral law, and, in some cases, have used a politically motivated electoral commission to support their actions. That brings democracy into disrepute, especially in some of the emerging democracies in eastern Europe.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It is invidious to make comparisons, and I know that his is a Joint Committee of both Houses, but I think it a pity that the Committee has not been able to present a report to the House by this stage. If our Committee could do it, I am sure that his Committee would, or should, have been able to do it as well. It is very sad that his Committee’s no doubt excellent report will be available to their lordships, but is not available to Members of this House. This is not a criticism of the hon. Gentleman, but I hope in future he will cancel all leave when necessary and bring his troops back.”
“I am not going to get into the semantics of the difference between consensus and common agreement, but I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I am pleased the Government have done quite a lot of listening. They have brought forward a number of amendments and put forward various propositions. Some people are claiming what the Government are saying will not work in practice in the way they say it would, but that is a reason for having further discussions, instead of forcing inadequate law through this House.”
“The right hon. Gentleman says that it is important that people should be able to get up to speed, but many of the Bill’s provisions will take effect on the day of Royal Assent. How is it that people will be able to get up to speed on those provisions in time but not on this provision?”
“Going back to the point about people needing to be given time to get up to speed, if clause 30 was brought in immediately on Royal Assent, it would state: “The Secretary of State may by order vary any percentage for the time being specified”. What is the point of not bringing that into effect on Royal Assent, because the only impact of doing so would be to give the Secretary of State the power to bring it in? Does the Secretary of State need to be brought up to speed?”
“My hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) tabled amendment 1, which is exactly the same as amendments 28 and 29 tabled by the Government. Is my hon. Friend saying that he no longer thinks amendment 1 and therefore amendments 28 and 29 are appropriate and that new clause 1 should be the preferred way forward?”
“As I understand it, the Government said in the Queen’s Speech that they would introduce an immigration Bill, which could include nationality issues. Surely this proposal would be much better suited to that Bill, as we could then have a full range of amendments, including the one to which my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) referred.”
“I am sorry to return to my earlier intervention, but if this change is supported by the Government, why do they not bring this measure forward in their immigration Bill? Then we would be able to test whether this very narrow Bill is too narrow and should be extended to a wider range of people. For example, a constituent of mine married a Russian citizen and they have been working in Russia in the UK interest for 18 years. Because they have been working outside the country, that lady cannot get British citizenship without coming back to the UK.”
“My hon. Friend says that an immigration Bill is a matter for the Government, but it seems, by the way he is introducing his Bill, that his Bill is a matter for the Government too.”
“Will my hon. Friend explain the ambit of the term “armed forces”? Will it, for example, cover the support staff, engineers and technicians who support our armed forces? Let us take as an example the base at Akrotiri. How many of the people working on that base will be covered by the Bill?”
“My hon. Friend describes a situation in which it seems as if almost everybody in the Welsh Guards is a foreigner. Surely we are talking about very small numbers of people. At a time when our armed forces are being reduced in number and it is becoming more difficult for people to get into the armed forces, should not the policy of the Government be to ensure, as far as possible, that British people rather than foreign people join our armed forces?”
“Is not the implication of this that somebody who has not set foot in this country for five years will be able to become a naturalised citizen? Is that the purpose of this Bill?”
“Will my hon. Friend comment on the concern, which I certainly have, that one of the perverse consequence of this legislation might be to encourage the armed forces to do more overseas and foreign recruiting, rather than concentrating on trying to recruit at home? We know that it is difficult to recruit reservists at the moment—the Government are hard up against the issue of how they will meet the target on reservists—but it seems that this could be an agenda whereby we will fill our armed forces with people from overseas instead of from our own country.”
“My hon. Friend might be going on to say this, but there is already a provision on the statute book, in section 39 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, that is identical to the provisions of the Bill. Why not use the legislation that is already on the statute book, rather than re-legislating?”
“I raised the issue of retrospection. As a result of the retrospective nature of the Bill, how many people will be eligible who would not otherwise have been eligible?”
“My concern was about eligibility: I did not ask how many people would take advantage of the Bill. I wanted to know how many people would legally be eligible. That brings us back to the big national debate about how many people are eligible to come here from Bulgaria and Romania to work, compared with the number of people who will come. How many will be eligible as a result of the retrospection?”
“I think the Minister is nearing the end of his remarks, but before he does, can he address my question about why this issue cannot be dealt with in the forthcoming immigration Bill? Doing so would enable us to consider, for example, the case that I raised of a constituent who has been out in Russia for a long time, because she has been married to a British citizen living out there, looking after their children. She has been unable to apply for naturalisation because she has not been living in the UK.”
“I did speak to you in your position in the Chair to indicate that I would seek to catch your eye in order to make a short contribution after the Minister had spoken. If you had said to me at that stage that you would not call me at this point, I would have sought to make my contribution earlier. I was here at the very beginning of the debate, and I have made a lot of interventions. I have been here for almost all of the Minister’s response. It is a matter for your discretion whether you call me to make a short contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall leave that with you. I put it on record that I would not wish any discourtesy to the House, even if I were not a member of the Panel of Chairs.”
“I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) will be able to deal with this matter during the later stages of his Bill. The Bill seems to be amending section 39 of the 2009 Act, rather than repealing it, thereby compounding the felony of making the statute book even more difficult to comprehend. I do not expect my hon. Friend the Minister to respond to this point now, but at some stage during the Bill’s progress, we need to work out why we are keeping on the statute book provisions that the Government say they oppose. Why will the Government not repeal them? Why are they seeking to amend a section of the 2009 Act that they do not wish to implement? Would it not be better to legislate de novo? Those are the short points that I wanted to make, and I am grateful to you for allowing me to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker.”
“I feel a heavy weight on my shoulders, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for your indulgence. I have expressed concern on a number of occasions about the integrity and comprehensibility of our statute book. The Minister said that the reason that we could not use the existing wording in section 39 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 was that it was “all bound up with the earned citizenship measures”. The Government have said that they will not proceed with the implementation of the earned citizenship provisions, so they will have to legislate separately. If the Government do not wish to proceed with the earned citizenship provisions in the 2009 Act, surely those provisions should be repealed, rather than left in limbo. If they are left in limbo, it will be open to a subsequent Government to commence them.”
“The Bill is confined to online retailers. What about ordinary retailers? If someone goes into, say, John Lewis and orders some goods, the shop assistant will not say at the outset “Where do you live? If you live in X it will cost you Y.” The transaction will continue, and at the end of it the assistant will ask for the customer’s name and address, and will say “If you live in the highlands and islands, there will be a delivery surcharge.” Why should an online retailer have to say in advance what the costs will be?”
“However, I do not think that there is anywhere in the retail world that is more competitive than online. I recently visited a shop in Christchurch that supplements direct retail with online retail. The proprietor told me about a product called “Bananarama”. Unless the shop is the cheapest online retailer of that product, they will not make any sales. The proprietor showed me at least 20 or 30 examples of where the product was available for sale, and the cut-throat way in which it was being sold. That shows the benefits of healthy competition. If an online retailer is alienating his customers by not providing clear information about delivery charges, then he is unlikely to stay in business for very long.”
“This is an example of a private Member’s Bill that is well suited to raising the issue, having a proper discussion and getting a response from a Minister. I note that the Minister offered to have a delivery charges summit under her chairmanship. I hope that the promoter of the Bill thinks that that will be a sufficient reward for having been successful in the private Member’s Bill ballot. I do not think that introducing new regulations with criminal sanctions against those who break the regulations is the way to improve matters. Of course, by shopping online one probably undermines the viability of many of one’s own local retailers, and if we want to campaign for small shops in rural areas we do not necessarily want to encourage people to engage in online retail.”
“An outline retailer would be able to avoid all the burden of this Bill by saying at the beginning that it did not sell goods to islands in Scotland or England, such as the Isles of Scilly or the highlands and islands, or the Isle of Man. That could be counter-productive, because people who live in those more remote areas want to have access to goods, but they recognise that the other side of the coin of living in a remote rural area is that delivery charges are higher. I do not think that anyone has suggested yet in this debate, and perhaps in due course they will, that there should be cross-subsidy of those—”
“I have always been a great believer in putting bad legislation out of its misery at the earliest possible stage, so I have no compunction in saying that I will be doing the House a great service if I ensure that the Bill does not have its Second Reading. It is ill-conceived and the wrong way to address the problem. I do not represent a rural constituency, but there are a lot of online retailers and they do not want to be burdened with the excessive regulations proposed in the Bill. Apart from anything else, and as so often happens with such proposed legislation, it would be counter-productive. Clause 1 requires that the online retailer sets out what the charges will be.”
“It is only at the end of the transaction that the online retailer will be in a position to say what will be a reasonable charge. The Bill, therefore, is completely over the top. It states that the Government would have to introduce regulations, thereby transferring responsibility for drafting from my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) to the Government. I just wonder how the Government would ever be able to introduce regulations requiring online retailers to include a clear statement of, for example, “a reasonable indication” of the total cost. What do we mean by “a reasonable indication”? Do we mean an approximate indication or a reasonable guess? The Bill is riddled with anomalies and problems.”