Valerie Vaz
MP for Walsall and Bloxwich · Labour · United Kingdom
“May I ask the Leader of the House if we can have a debate in Government time on the best use of public money? Some £50 million has been allocated for a free school—against Government policy and against the evidence.”
“This House has heard, sadly, the comments that the Minister has made about the Government pressing this case. He will know that it was pressure from this House, and from the families, that caused the release of the other hostages in Iran. Will he undertake, as the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). I will try to address some of the points she made, but I am bound to mention the recent elections. Engaging in the democratic process is important, but not all areas had elections.”
“Fifty million pounds has been allocated for a free school in my constituency that, on the evidence, is not needed. The National Audit Office has reported falling rolls in primary schools, and that fall in numbers will feed into secondary schools. I was told that the decision about the school was made in 2017.”
“Despite what the evidence shows, there will be building on Reedswood Park, which is not what local people want. It is the same with the Walsall Leather Museum, a beloved local cultural and heritage icon; the deal with the then Conservative-controlled council was a novel and contentious transaction, made against the wishes of visitors, con…”
“We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so it is very important that we all work together. When it comes to climate change policies, we cannot specify a particular area; they are for our whole country, and our whole planet.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Valerie Vaz, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 8 of 12.
“Worse still, in the Black Country plan Walsall has 23 permissions or allocations of land for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, whereas Dudley has only two. Instead of investing in young people, the council has chased them off the site, to waste money right in the heart of the community in Pleck. What about communities and local economies? Of the towns fund recipients announced in spring this year, 39 out of the 45 were in tier 1 Conservative constituencies. I do not recall the Chancellor namechecking any Opposition constituencies in the Budget speech. The UK shared prosperity fund does not deliver the £1.5 billion a year until—wait for it—2024-25. Funding for next year is just £400 million, so the Government are failing even to replace the EU funds. What about our high streets?”
“That would be a catch-up, but 60% of schools have not even recovered from using their budgets for covid, and there is nothing for them. Schools in my constituency have had to get food bags ready for their pupils. What are family hubs when we had Sure Starts? Sure Start Palfrey was rated outstanding by Ofsted twice, yet it is now closed. The National Youth Agency found this year that local authority annual expenditure on youth services has dropped by £l billion. Children in affluent areas of England are twice as likely to have access to youth clubs and other out-of-school activities as children in poorer parts. The youth service in Walsall had a building on the Narrow Lane site in Pleck, but Walsall Council has now pushed through a Traveller transit site at that location. A better site was identified in the site allocation document.”
“The recovery package for children is so bad that the Government’s own commissioner had to resign. Sir Kevan Collins asked for £15 billion but was allocated £5 billion, spread across 8.2 million children—that is less than £500 per pupil. Members can compare that with the Netherlands, which is spending £2,100 per pupil. The Chancellor has rejected the idea of extending free school meal provision for three years, thereby affecting the health and wellbeing of millions of children throughout the country. He should have supported parents and teachers by facilitating a nurse or counsellor in every school, to help with children’s mental health. Or he could have funded a tutor or two, targeted at each school, to help teachers and classroom assistants.”
“However, this is a contradictory Chancellor. He said he wanted to support the imagination and drive of entrepreneurial people, but the 3 million self-employed and small entrepreneurs who did not qualify for covid relief—the excluded—still do not qualify for any other support. He is the Instagram Chancellor—the Insta Chancellor, although none of the money is coming instantly, as he said himself. Everything is going in in 2024-25, before the next election, but we need something now, and I want to focus on three areas: young people, communities and the climate emergency. First, on education, I am sorry to say that the Government lack ambition for our children. Walsall schools have been suffering: they have been on the frontline for the past two years, making sure that the children of key workers, and other children, are educated.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), but I am sure she will agree that this Budget is a wasted opportunity. It is a missed opportunity because the Chancellor did not focus on an ambitious future for our country and for those on the frontline during the pandemic. This is a conflicted Chancellor, who is giving money to bankers by cutting the surcharge on bank profits from 8% to 3%, but has nothing on tax evasion or avoidance. Welcome relief is being provided for theatres and galleries, and I hope that that means the new art gallery in Walsall will not have to scrounge and scrabble around for money every year. Of course, we also have the 50% business rate discount for businesses in leisure, hospitality—an area the hon. Lady mentioned—and retail, and the benefit change.”
“I am very grateful. I do not think that my hon. Friend knows how important this debate is to me. Having been born in Aden, and now seeing it war-torn in such a way, I am extremely concerned about what is going on there. I would like to return, at some stage, and I feel that, with the help of Martin Griffiths, the penholder, we can possibly find a road to peace. Does my hon. Friend agree?”
“I thank the Minister for his attention to this subject. Could I ask a double-headed question? I am sorry, but time is obviously limited. What accountability is there to ensure the money is actually going to where it should go, and when was the last time the Minister spoke to Martin Griffiths?”
“As well as building new hospitals, the Government appear to be downgrading existing ones. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the downgrading of Walsall Manor, so that I can explain it to constituents and whistleblowers?”
“The main point about healthcare—the right to healthcare—has not been enshrined in the Bill. It must be stopped now, and people and patients should be put first.”
“They have already had a slap in the face with a 1% pay rise and now they are facing further reorganisation. Workforce planning is key to a smart organisation. Clause 33 says who is responsible, but not what must be delivered. Instead of reporting once every five years, how about laying that before Parliament every year? The modelling will have to be done on the workforce assessment, so why can it not be made transparent and available? As the British Medical Association said, we need independently verified projections of future workforce supply so that local and regional decisions can be made on safe staffing levels. That phrase is not even in the Bill, post Francis. The Secretary of State should think again, as this is the wrong time. The graphs are going up. The BMA and the royal colleges are against this Bill.”
“My second point is that we do not trust the Government on contracts. Look what happened during the pandemic: £347 million to Randox, the Tory-linked private healthcare company whose testing kits had to be recalled over the summer because of concerns about contamination. We warned them about section 75 and opening this out to tender. The transaction costs associated with that drain the NHS of resources. There is fragmentation and destabilisation. Just ending section 75 is not sufficient; the NHS must become the first and the default option, and private providers cannot be involved in the ICS or in commissioning decisions. We cannot have a select group of fast-tracked friends. My third point is about the workforce and it has already been raised. They have been magnificent.”
“We managed to pause the Bill but the Government continued to press ahead. Integrated care is Labour party policy. We have seen it. We visited Torbay, where the fictitious Mrs Smith had a single point of entry and everyone was able to track her all the way through the system—through hospital and out—for all her needs. But the 2012 Act stopped that. It stopped the pooling of resources. Integrated care can work only if there are adequate resources for local authorities. Austerity measures since 2010 have starved local authorities and other public services of funding. That is what is making people angry. But the governance of the integrated care system has no clinicians and no patients. People who use it or work in it do not get a say. All sorts of other people can be added on.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) and to congratulate him on the birth of his child. First, I am going to vote against giving this Bill a Second Reading. I cannot believe that the Government are going ahead with the Bill at this time. It is irresponsible and without any consideration to those who have worked to save our lives and continue to save our lives. The Secretary of State is going to have to assert himself, because he is only just in the job and he seems to have been bounced into this legislation. Why is this happening now? We have been through this before. I was on the Health Committee from 2010 to 2015. The right hon. Stephen Dorrell was its Chair. On a cross-party basis, we heard evidence that the Bill introduced in 2012 was not the best solution for the NHS.”
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to ensure that Transport for West Midlands withdraws its application to build a car park on green belt land. And the petitioners remain, etc. [P002674]”
“The petition declares: The petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that Transport for West Midlands should withdraw its proposal to build a 300-space Park and Ride car park on land adjacent to the Bell Inn, Birmingham Road; further that the proposed location of the car park is green belt land, which contravenes the National Planning Policy Framework and Walsall MBC’s Site Allocation Document; further that there was no consultation with local residents before this decision was made by Transport for West Midlands and that four mature trees have now been removed along Birmingham Road as part of this project, also without any consultation; further that no consultation was carried out by Walsall MBC before it approved an Environmental Impact Assessment Screening option for this site, removing important environmental safeguards by exempting the proposals from a full Environmental Impact Assessment.”
“Can I start by wishing the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) a speedy recovery? He is a great person and a great parliamentarian. My petition is about the Sprint route car park, and it is from the residents of Walsall South.”
“Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) mentioned, and there is no mention of climate change. Why does the Minister not mandate that every new build should have solar panels on the roof? There are serious concerns about making planning changes. My next point is about transparency and conflicts of interest.”
“The council’s cabinet agreed on the location without even looking at the site allocation document or referring to it in the background papers, and that is what is going to happen under the Government’s proposals: they will say that they have had the consultation with the local plan, but there will be no further involvement with our constituents and councillors, and the Secretary of State will be free to decide what they want, without local involvement. Here is the warning: the decision maker can depart from the local plan. Our constituents will remain helpless under these hopeless proposals. The Government say that this is about housing, but 1 million homes have been approved but not built. Some are built on floodplains, as my hon.”
“61% said they did not think that the planning process was fair.” The Minister will know the story of Narrow Lane, but I have to repeat it. In Walsall, we had a plan. We had the site allocation document—a document on how the land will be used. There was extensive consultation and it was approved by the planning inspector in 2019. Without any notice or consultation, Walsall Council’s cabinet decided that Narrow Lane was to be the location for a Traveller transit site. The site is on a junction, so there is poor air quality and there have been a number of accidents, including one two weeks ago, when an elderly person was knocked over.”
“I have had to cut my speech down. I welcome this motion, following the publication of the report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. The Minister will know that my Adjournment debate was a foretaste of what my constituents have had to put up with and what the future holds if the Government proceed with the as yet unpublished White Paper. The Government’s hopeless response is to exclude the public even more from the process, instead of improving processes now. It is a developers’ charter that is becoming the people’s nightmare. The Select Committee’s report included an interesting statistic on the planning process, stating on page 112: “63% said they were not satisfied with their experience.”
“The Secretary of State has already admitted that that was “unlawful by reason of apparent bias.” I have asked the Minister to investigate the earlier decision of Walsall Council’s cabinet. I ask him again: could he please do so? If he is serious about making changes, could he also mandate that every planning committee has a compulsory recorded vote for every decision that they make, as that would increase transparency and accountability? In conclusion, we need more consultation, not less, including with all civic society and historical associations. The Town and Country Planning Association said: “All of these reforms have a common theme of removing local voices from the process.” Buildings and places do not exist without the people who breathe life into them, just as we have seen during the pandemic.”
“I absolutely agree. In our case, it was agreed in the SAD that the transit site would be placed on a site that was environmentally suitable, near to a settled community—everything to integrate that community—but it happened to be in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who used to be a councillor on Walsall Council. The portfolio holder used to work for him, but he now works for the Conservative party, registering his interest only days after the scrutiny committee meeting. Our legal advice said that there was bias, just as there was with the approval of the £1 billion Westferry Printworks in Tower Hamlets.”
“May I put on record my thanks to the Minister for taking a personal interest in Joseph Leckie Academy? The building is looking absolutely fantastic, and I hope he comes to visit. However, I want to pick him up on funding, because some of my heads in Walsall South do not recognise the extra funding that the Government say they are giving. Many are operating on a deficit. Will he write to me and set out exactly which schools are operating on a deficit and which are operating on a surplus?”
“The selection of the site was wrong and the planning application should be withdrawn. I am confident that the Minister will come to the right conclusion and intervene with an investigation into this erroneous decision of Walsall Council. I will be very pleased to meet him to discuss this urgently.”
“I call on the Minister to carry out an investigation into the way that Walsall Council made its decisions and, in particular, the decision to place a GRT transit site at Narrow Lane. The reasons are compelling and can be summarised as follows: flawed decision making that did not take into account relevant considerations and took into account irrelevant considerations; failure of the council to take reasonable steps to inform itself; hidden conflicts of interests; failures by members to declare relevant pecuniary interests and to maintain the Nolan principles; perceived bias of key decision makers; lack of scrutiny of cabinet decisions; and a failure to abide by statutory guidelines. I know that the Minister, who is a straightforward person, will look at the facts. My constituents, the residents of Pleck, have had their rights trampled on.”
“I would suggest that the Minister, if he could, view the proceedings of the scrutiny committee, which resulted from a call-in by Councillor Aftab Nawaz and ward councillors Harbans Sarohi, Khizar Hussain and Naheed Gultasib. All our councillors must abide by the Nolan principles of behaviour in public life when making decisions. The focus is on objectivity, openness and transparency. By law, the scrutiny committee’s purpose is to act as a check and balance on the cabinet of Walsall Council, not a rubber stamp. Members of a scrutiny committee must adopt an independent mindset. Members must put aside the natural impulse to support decisions made by their own party. The way that the scrutiny committee examined this matter does not bear out these principles at all.”
“Councillor Bird concluded at the cabinet meeting: “It may be and has proven to be the case in Sandwell, where the temporary transit site has never been used, because the travellers know that if they go into Sandwell, they will be directed to that site and they don’t want to do that.” So the leader of Walsall Council believes that the transit site may never even be used by the GRT community in Walsall, and yet approved a budget of £160,000 for the construction of the site before consulting with residents in the area. He thinks that the transit site may act as a deterrent for Travellers entering into Walsall, which undermines his very claim that this site is being proposed in the best interests of the GRT community. What does this tell us about the governance at Walsall Council?”
“Councillor Andrew said the Narrow Lane site was suitable as it was “near to motorways.” He appears to be completely unaware that air pollution is a criterion that must be used in determining suitable Traveller sites, despite this being Walsall Council policy. Councillor Perry said that the transit site option should not be rushed into: “Legislation is changing and it’s going to change again, which will give further protective powers to the authority and to the police.” I agree. Rushing into the transit site option is exactly what Walsall Council is doing, with the application put on an expedited timescale in time for the summer: not only that, but rushing through a decision at the height of the pandemic lockdown, when it would be far more difficult for residents to express their opinions or hold the cabinet to account.”
“Within days, Councillor Andrew amended his entry in the register of interests to state that he is employed as the campaign manager for the Conservative party, although he has not included the fact, as confirmed on his LinkedIn profile, that this is for Walsall North and Walsall South. The fact that the three sites designated in the SAD were in Walsall North could lead to an informed observer thinking that the cabinet’s minds were closed to alternatives because they did not serve their party political agenda. The fact that we now know that Councillor Andrew is paid by the Conservative party to further its interests in the locality of the Narrow Lane site and in Walsall places an even greater question mark over the issue of bias in the making of this decision. But there were other inconsistent matters raised at the cabinet meeting.”
“That was until, at the scrutiny committee meeting, in response to the suggestion that this affected Councillor Andrew’s decision making, as the three sites identified in the SAD for the future Traveller sites but not chosen by the cabinet were all found in Walsall North, he said, “This is not true.” At the scrutiny committee meeting, the leader of the council said that he had this information in his pocket for eight months. That was not disclosed, yet the requirement under the members’ code of conduct, at paragraph 2.1(3), requires members to disclose this to the monitoring officer within 28 days of the change.”
“Councillor Adrian Andrew was the portfolio holder for regeneration and is deputy leader of Walsall Council, and the report went to the cabinet in his name and was presented by him. As confirmed by his entry in the council’s register of interests, he worked for the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who is aware, as I have told him, that I am mentioning his name in this debate. That is what was on the council’s website and what was held out to the public.”
“The council employs experts for public health and children’s services. Their analysis, based on data and real evidence, and their opinion and recommendations must form—and should have formed—an integral part of such a report. That is shockingly absent. There was no consideration of air quality and no evidence of an air quality assessment. Sadly, in press reports, the children and families who would use a new Travellers site for transit purposes were described as “renegades” by members of Walsall’s cabinet. However, I did not think I would see in 2021 Traveller families being deliberately housed in an unhealthy environment, subject to poor air quality and pollution, when there is a perfectly viable alternative available and agreed upon. Turning now to bias, what would a reasonable or informed observer conclude?”
“Where does the director notify the cabinet that she supports families and children living in caravans and vehicles at a polluted junction of two busy main roads? She does not. No reasonable or responsible director of children’s services would. The cabinet report also claims that the health priorities of the council will be met. Where is the data on air quality and air pollution at this busy junction? The council identified this spot as suffering from poor air quality. A reasonable portfolio holder would be very concerned about housing children in a polluted environment when cleaner alternatives are available. Where are the director of public health’s comments and analysis of the Narrow Lane site? There are none. The report claims improved health for children living next to a busy road junction. Where is the evidence?”
“She said: “I do think the site is a poor site; I know for a fact how busy the roads are around there, I know how poor the air quality is and also how fast the roads are because the emergency vehicles will go to the Manor Hospital; it is really dangerous.” Dr Hesham, who also gave evidence to the scrutiny committee, commented: “The effect on children is particularly significant. The vast majority of children in hospital present with infections and the majority of those infections are respiratory infections, infecting the heart and the lungs in upper airways”. The report that went to cabinet claims in paragraph 4.34 that key council priorities for children will be met by the proposal for a Travellers site at Narrow Lane. Yet there are no comments or input from the director of children’s services in the report to justify that bold statement.”
“The Narrow Lane site is adjacent to the junction of Darlaston Road and Old Pleck Road, two busy A roads with signal controlled traffic. The Narrow Lane site suffers from extremely poor air quality—a criterion Walsall Council stipulated must be used in determining that locations/sites are not suitable for Travellers’ sites. Walsall Council’s own document “Air Quality—Walsall Nitrogen Dioxide Areas of Exceedance 2020” clearly identifies the junction and area surrounding Pleck as a nitrogen dioxide exceedance area. I raised that in a letter to the chief executive on 9 February, but received no response. The headteacher of the local primary school, Lynne Cherry, also raised that issue at the scrutiny meeting.”
“the Secretary of State for the Environment, fairness was said to require disclosure of sufficient information about the reasons relied on by a public authority so that members of the public can challenge the accuracy of any facts and the validity of the arguments. Decisions based on undisclosed policies or criteria may be unlawful. Is the Minister going to say that that is acceptable? Why were environmental and health factors not taken into account by the cabinet in the decision? The Minister will know about a landmark case that established that air pollution from an adjacent road was a material cause of the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah. Walsall Council appears to have given no consideration to the implications of that case for any children who will be affected by the decision.”
“It is not clear who drew up the criteria set out in appendix A of the council’s report to the cabinet or how they were settled on. No explanation has been given of how those criteria are applied as part of the desktop review. The refined set of criteria has not been disclosed to residents or councillors and is unexplained. There is no evidence that cabinet members themselves were presented with the refined set of criteria or an explanation for its use and how that affected the choice of Narrow Lane. That prompts questions of what the criteria were, how they were formulated, how many development sites they were applied to, how they were applied, and why Narrow Lane emerged as the only suitable site to put to cabinet. In Bushell v.”
“Also at a meeting of the scrutiny committee, a council officer said that “it is absolutely right to say that there was no direct consultation around this site”. The council will say that it will consult on the planning application that was made on 19 March, but section 70 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 says that the planning committee is unlikely to consider site selection. That consultation will not address the issue of how Narrow Lane has been chosen; and whether there are more suitable sites that were overlooked or rejected. What about the other criticisms—failing to take into account relevant considerations and taking into account irrelevant considerations? It is unclear why the existing criteria in the SAD were not used. If there were new criteria, there should have been a wider consultation process.”
“As it is a departure from the widely consulted-on SAD, the council should have consulted on the Narrow Lane site and any other potential sites that were considered but not identified in the SAD, on the grounds of fairness, transparency and good administration. The issue was raised by local resident Shakil Younis, who told the council’s scrutiny committee: “Wolverhampton City Council have got a similar project that they’re doing with their transit site; what they did was a public consultation. They invited all the people directly affected by these proposals and they sat down and had a discussion with them. But what have Walsall Council done? Nothing. we’ve not even had a letter, nothing. we mean nothing to them, just got to pay Council Tax .”
“The council designated this as a key decision—a very important one with significant financial or community impact. Article 11 of the council’s rules states that all decisions of the council have to be made in accordance with principles that include due consultation and a presumption in favour of openness. There was a working group, which met two representatives of the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups and fifteen other people, mostly council employees. There was no wider consultation, and a host of other stakeholders, including the people who live nearby and even the democratically elected Member of Parliament and councillors, were not consulted. There was no list of potential sites.”
“Legal opinion confirms that the decision taken by Walsall Council’s cabinet was flawed. It failed to take steps to properly inform itself; it took into account irrelevant considerations; and there was apparent bias. Regarding the council’s failure to take reasonable steps to inform itself, it could have looked at the relevant materials, in particular the SAD—the key land use document, which should have been central to the decision on where the site should be allocated and which had been the subject of extensive consultation. Yet no explanation or consideration was given to why the three sites identified in the SAD, which were capable of satisfying the more demanding criteria for permanent sites, were not considered. What about consultation?”
“Dolphin Close is identified as particularly suitable because integration with the local community would be helped by the presence of a “large GT community in bricks and mortar housing nearby”. There is no distinction in the SAD on whether their use should be as a permanent site or a transit site. I have visited Dolphin Close. It is tranquil; it overlooks the canal and has open space. It has cleaner air for children to breathe, is close to a primary school, has road links nearby in every direction, and the Traveller community has settled links in the local community that will encourage community cohesion. There is a reason why Dolphin Close was identified as recently as 2019: it is the most suitable larger site in the borough, whether for permanent or transit pitches.”
“The council had already identified and approved sufficient new Travellers sites to accommodate a transit site proposal. The Walsall borough site allocation document, which I will refer to as the SAD, was only recently approved by the planning inspector, in 2019. The proposals for new Travellers sites were presented to the public and the stakeholders for consultation, approved by Walsall Council and finally approved by the planning inspector. The SAD is Walsall Council’s key land use document. It identifies sites that can be developed for new Travellers sites: Willenhall Lane caravan site, two pitches; the rear of 48 to 72 Foster Street, Blakenall, three pitches; and Dolphin Close, Goscote, 10 pitches.”
“On behalf of the people of Pleck and the wider Walsall community, I want to persuade the Minister to do something about this, to launch an investigation into the decision-making process by Walsall Council, and to request Walsall Council to withdraw the current planning application and revisit its decision to place a transit site at Narrow Lane. This is not about local residents rejecting the GRT community; on the contrary, it is about supporting my constituents and supporting the GRT community to ensure that the most suitable site is chosen in Walsall if one is required. It is also about preventing serious health issues for children and families who are already subject to poor health outcomes in comparison with the population generally. Why did Narrow Lane appear from nowhere to be the council’s choice for the GRT transit site?”
“How the council made that decision and why goes to the very heart of why residents and voters feel that they are ignored and trampled over by politicians who refuse to include local communities in decisions that affect their lives. I know that the Minister will have a lot more representatives beating at his door with the planning Bill for very similar reasons. Not only has the decision-making process been completely flawed, but the site is environmentally unsuitable for a Travellers site because of severe air pollution issues, which would place serious health risks on children and families living in vehicles and caravans.”
“I thank the Speaker for granting this very important Adjournment debate about the choice of Narrow Lane as a transit site in my constituency. Narrow Lane is one of the oldest historically identifiable places in the neighbourhood of Pleck in Walsall. It currently includes a vacant site, which recently has been used for a neighbourhood office and a small home for the elderly. The site is surrounded by a densely populated and densely developed residential and commercial area and stands at the junction of two very busy major roads. Along with thousands of local residents, I was flabbergasted when Walsall Council decided to choose this site for development as a temporary Gypsy, Roma and Traveller transit site.”
“I know that he suggested that it was about the decision maker, but actually, as the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) pointed out, it is an individual decision maker. They are all separate and they are all different. That is why there should be a set of rules that everybody can see and everybody can apply. In no quasi-judicial situation do we ever have different decision makers making different decisions on a rule that is not clear. The amendment sought to clarify that, so I hope that the Leader of the House will too.”
“The person has to hold a parliamentary pass, and the change is to whether or not former members of the parliamentary community—whether it is a Clerk, a Member or anybody else—hold a parliamentary pass. I think that that offends the principles of natural justice, one of which, I remind hon. Members, is procedural fairness—the right to a fair hearing. That means that people know the rules by which they are being judged and that people act fairly, act in good faith, without bias, and give each party an opportunity to state their case. Procedural fairness, in my view, is not changing the rules and making them apply retrospectively. The Leader of the House did not actually say whether the rules were retrospective or not, so I ask him to confirm whether any changes made today will apply to the current cases that are going forward.”
“People should not have to go to different places to find out what the procedures are. I am happy to work with him and anyone else to ensure that the procedures are published in full, so that everyone is aware of them. Again, victimising a complainant for bringing a complaint would be treated as an aggravating factor. I turn to the vexatious question that has been before the House on the change to the drafting in relation to non-recent cases, which was agreed in July—that it should be possible to complain about the conduct of any former member of the parliamentary community, be they Clerks or anyone else, whether or not they hold a parliamentary pass when the complaint is made. As currently drafted, there is an “and” in paragraph 4.3, as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) said.”
“It is also stated that the existing procedure documents have been shortened and amended to make it clear that they provide an outline only of the procedure, and that further detailed information on the different stages of the process is available from both the ICGS team and the relevant decision-making body. The Leader of the House has not clarified some of the questions that were asked. I find it concerning that the procedures should be in lots of different places and that they are not in a usable form. We have Standing Orders and “Erskine May”, so things are out there and transparent. We also have obiter dicta from his podcast about how Parliament works. Making it obscure and asking the team in the relevant decision-making body does not give clarity, certainty and transparency.”