Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
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“That is why the Government fear a referendum on the Bill, because the voters would certainly reject the idea of replacing the current effective, proven and appointed House with more elected politicians, appointed to lists by their respective parties on ludicrous 15-year terms. So what is the Bill really about? The Deputy Prime Minister should be careful about accusing others of having ulterior motives, because what is his? The Bill is about power. It is about the Government remaining in office now and about the Liberal Democrats building a power base for when they are not in office. It is the product of a stitch-up, a deal between two coalition parties to stay in power. It is a bid permanently to shift the balance of power away from this House and towards a more legitimate House of Lords.”
“What is the House of Lords for? Does it operate effectively as it is? Would the changes be likely to improve or impair its effectiveness? The answers are pretty straightforward. First, it is intended to be a revising Chamber, not a senate or a rival to the House of Commons. Secondly, as the Deputy Prime Minister has himself admitted on many occasions, the current Chamber is very effective. Thirdly, the changes seem to be intended to supplant expertise and experience with more party politics, which is hardly likely to improve the Chamber’s effectiveness. The Bill addresses no evident crisis of the legitimacy of our constitution, yet it threatens to create a political crisis on top of an economic crisis. There is no public clamour for the change, and there are no crowds in Parliament square crying out their support.”
“It is not as though the Government were not already beset by problems and challenges on an awesome scale, as many Members have said. Economic growth is well below forecast, borrowing is still far too high and the unresolved and unresolvable euro crisis is probably leading us towards some kind of economic precipice. We are facing an economic emergency, as well as all the other challenges of government in a time of recession. This is the last moment for any Government to choose to pick a fight to alter any part of the constitution, when there is clearly no real consensus or common understanding of what needs to be done. The debate so far can leave no one in any doubt that this is a massive constitutional change, but the Government have utterly failed to address the most fundamental questions about the upper House.”
“Is not my hon. Friend adverting to the fundamental conundrum at the heart of the Government’s presentation of the Bill? On the one hand, they are arguing for a more legitimate House; on the other, they are arguing that there will be no change in the relationship between the two Houses. It does not add up.”
“I am in danger of agreeing with one or two things that the right hon. Gentleman is saying. The Maastricht debates were a disaster for Parliament because of the way in which they were conducted. The solution then would have been to have a referendum, and the solution now is to have a referendum to avoid the kind of disaster that he is talking about.”
“I remind the hon. Lady that the Liberal Democrats were not keen to have a referendum on the AV system; it was forced on them by circumstance.”
“I remember the hon. Gentleman railing against Governments who impose timetables and guillotines when he was in opposition, so how can he now come to this House and guillotine a constitutional measure—which would have been unthinkable under Winston Churchill, incidentally—which is not going to be subject to a referendum and may be Parliament Acted, so that when it is being scrutinised by the other place, he will have no option but to propose that the same damaged and inadequate Bill go back to the other House, as he tries to force it through?”
“Will my right hon. Friend convey my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for making an accommodation to make sure that the motion on the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests is dealt with before the end of term? I would like to record my thanks to my right hon. Friend for generously accommodating and showing his commitment to Back-Bench time. May I therefore make a further request about Monday’s business? Will he table a motion to lift the 10 o’clock rule, because it would be a travesty if that debate was so over-subscribed that speeches were truncated? I remind him that Second Reading of the Bill on the Maastricht treaty was spread over two days and went significantly into the night, providing the opportunity for a great many more Members to participate.”
“However painful the statement is, and it must be bitter for my right hon. Friend to deliver it, we recognise that it is an inevitable consequence of the circumstances we face. Does he accept, and will he underline in his response, that there is an element of gambling in every defence review and decision, and that the ability to regenerate is central? Will he also confirm that the importance of maintaining the equipment programme—equipment takes much longer to regenerate—is reflected in the priorities of his Department?”
“A few moments ago, the right hon. Gentleman said that even if the House votes for establishing a Joint Committee, Her Majesty’s official Opposition will continue to press for a judicial inquiry. Will he clarify that? Does that mean that he will be discouraging Members from the Labour party, be they in either House, from co-operating with and taking part in a Joint Committee? Is he going to wreck it?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I regret to say that I cannot hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Speaker regularly reminds this House that we do not look very good to the public, and I think this might be a prime example.”
“He referred to the Marconi scandal of 1912; this is its 100th anniversary, and I will say a few words about it soon if I have time. The parallels are chilling. First, I shall say a brief word about the powers of Select Committees. The shadow Chancellor is completely wrong—we have the powers. There is some doubt about the manner of their exercise and how we might deal with contempt, but there is no doubt that we have the powers. As Chairman of a Select Committee, I have exercised them. People are in fear of them. It does the House no service for the shadow Chancellor to go around saying that we do not have powers. That undermines the authority of the House and it is not in the interests of the House.”
“The City itself will be in utter despair that Front Benchers should have chosen to use this opportunity to tear chunks out of each other instead of co-operating to find a solution on which they can agree. No solution will work unless there is consensus. I say that with a very heavy heart, having great respect for the prodigious abilities of both my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and the shadow Chancellor, as well as for their public service in the House. But I really think that we have to do better. Anybody could have seen over the past few days that the debate would be a complete car crash, and so it has been. We must seek to extract something positive from it at the end of the day. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) raised the tone of the debate in a laudable manner.”
“The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) has underlined the importance of having a banking system that commands public confidence. I do not know how serious the LIBOR scandal is in relation to the ability of the banks to support jobs and growth, which we so desperately need at the moment, but it is clearly a mortal blow to the reputation of the City so we need to deal with it effectively and quickly. I say to Front Benchers on both sides in this debate that this has not been the finest hour of the House of Commons. We have not seen the finest, highest and most principled leadership from Front Benchers of either side. Many among the public will look at the debate and scoff at our self-importance and arrogance.”
“How is the House meant to make a judgment about whether to vote for the motion unless we have a clear view from the shadow Chancellor? My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester mentioned the Marconi scandal. That occurred when Ministers—Liberal Democrat Ministers, I hasten to add, just for fun—were accused of buying and selling shares for profit—”
“We must be mindful, not least, that if Ministers or ex-Ministers were to be called to give evidence to try to sort out the absurd row that we have seen this afternoon, the Committee could not possibly function. Indeed, it could not possibly function if Opposition Front Benchers were determined to undermine its authority and operation. It was highly irresponsible of the shadow Chancellor to fail to answer my question or that of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor about whether the Opposition will go on non-speaks if the motion is carried. I commend the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), who said that even if the Opposition lose the vote, Scottish National party Members will co-operate with the inquiry.”
“Actually, it is the Liaison Committee on which I serve as a Select Committee Chairman. I am personally looking into the matter and will report to the Liaison Committee next week; that will be part of our report on the powers and effectiveness of Select Committees, which we hope to produce before the end of this term. It greatly ill serves the House to denigrate the powers of Select Committees. I am going to support the Government motion. I am not in favour of a judicial inquiry; I think it would be completely dotty to plunge us into such a lengthy procedure. However, I want to sound some warnings about the dangers that might befall a parliamentary Select Committee inquiry as proposed in the Government motion.”
“I would also recommend recalling a senior Clerk who has recently retired instead of raiding a Clerk from another Committee, because otherwise all our work will be disrupted.”
“As I say, I am going to support the motion, but I add one other caveat. I would be grateful if the Minister will confirm that the Government will not present any objection to providing the resources—the money—that the Joint Committee will need to carry out its functions. We cannot have this new Committee raiding the staff and resources of other Committees. I think that if the inquiry is confined to matters of policy and recommendations for legislation rather than trying to settle the internecine disputes that we have seen on the Floor of the House this afternoon, then it can function with the support of the Opposition, but if the Government want it to happen it must have the necessary resources, which may be substantial.”
“The report by the Salmon royal commission on tribunals and inquiries, which was produced in the 1960s and is still the bible of how tribunals and inquiries are conducted, said that it would be “a retrograde step” to resurrect the format of a judicial inquiry within Parliament. Among the drawbacks listed by Lord Salmon were that Committees were composed of Members representing the relative strength of parties in the House, that parliamentary Committees do not hear counsel—something that has been suggested today—that some of, if not all, their members will have no experience of taking evidence or cross-examining witnesses, and that witnesses might not enjoy the same absolute privilege as in a tribunal set up under the Act. Those are the dangers that we have to guard against when we vote for the motion.”
“Friend the Member for Chichester that he will draw stumps on the exercise if there is any danger that the Joint Committee is going to collapse in such a welter of recrimination. First, it could not produce a decent report under such circumstances; and secondly, it would damage this House in a very serious manner. I do not wish to give succour to Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, but I note that the consequence of the Marconi scandal was the passing of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 when, following a subsequent scandal that engulfed the Government, it was decided that there had to be an alternative means of conducting a judicial inquiry outside Parliament with a judge, and that is how that format came into being.”
“I beg my hon. Friend’s pardon. Of course—rebranded to cleanse the history. Lloyd George’s Government were deeply embroiled in what we would call an insider dealing scandal. A Select Committee was very contentiously set up. It divided on party lines, it divided on whether to call Ministers as witnesses, it divided into party groups during the questioning of witnesses, and it divided along party lines in the writing of the report. In fact, it produced three reports—the official report, the Chairman’s report, and a minority report. Interestingly, the introduction to the 23rd edition of “Erskine May” says: “Such highly visible failure condemned their successors”— Select Committees— “to a very limited role for almost half a century.” I place great faith in my hon.”
“Is my hon. Friend saying that wrong regulation rather than under-regulation robs the system of discipline, and that we want a more capitalist, self-disciplined system rather than more bad regulation?”
“My hon. Friend is making a very interesting speech. Is he saying that because it was widely known that the Government were prepared to rescue the banks, the self-discipline that liability for bankruptcy provides in a banking system was abandoned and the whole market was distorted?”
“The other motion tabled for that day is in the name of members of the Public Administration Committee, and invites the House to give its opinion of our recommendation that the adviser on ministerial interests should be able to instigate his own inquiries instead of having to wait for a referral from the Prime Minister. Given that this is a very topical issue and that the Government have yet to respond to our latest report, may I ask my right hon. Friend to find time for that debate, not least because I am sure he would not want the impression to be given that the Government were reluctant to debate the issue?”
“Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to remind the House that there is a crucial EU summit at the end of this week? Which is more important for UK growth and jobs: the implications of the massive changes being proposed in the EU or House of Lords reform?”
“How would a Labour Government have dealt with the £38 billion overhang that the Conservatives inherited from the previous Labour Government? Also, is the hon. Gentleman saying he would, in fact, spend more on defence than the current Government? He should be explicit about that, but his motion is not explicit.”
“I remind the hon. Gentleman, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) and the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) that the £38 billion figure was furnished to the Defence Committee under the previous Labour Government when the hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the Ministry of Defence. At the same time, Mr Bernard Gray produced a report saying that, on present plans, the MOD could order no new equipment at all for the next 10 years, so dire was the state of its finances. It is only by bringing defence spending within the Department back into balance that any new equipment has been able to be ordered at all.”
“There is speculation that the process is being elongated, perhaps over a number of months, because of political considerations. Does my hon. Friend accept what a large number of armed service men and women are saying—that uncertainty is extremely corrosive, damaging and morale sapping, and the sooner these decisions, however difficult and unpleasant they are, can be made, the better?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for publishing a civil service reform plan, which will prove to be the comprehensive cross-departmental change programme that the Public Administration Committee has long been calling for. Will he engage all his fellow Ministers to ensure that they lead the programme alongside permanent secretaries? Without effective leadership, no change programme will succeed. Finally, will he reaffirm that the civil service must remain one of our great institutions and a force for the stability of government, our constitution and our nation?”
“Will my right hon. Friend explain, particularly to the Scottish nationalists, how many jobs would be lost in Scotland if the investment were to be cancelled or if Scotland were to vote for separation from the rest of the United Kingdom? In that case, all the UK defence jobs in Scotland would be withdrawn.”
“Will my right hon. Friend confirm that next week the Government are going to publish their civil service reform plan, and that this issue may be one that the plan addresses as the Government try to set out a clear change programme for the whole of government?”
“He would command little public confidence if he could not instigate his own investigations. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended the same thing for the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, on more than one occasion. The mystery is why these recommendations have not been implemented, and why the previous Labour Government did not accept them. The Opposition are now proposing this motion precisely because their Government refused to implement them.”
“Our principal recommendation, as has already been advertised by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), is that the independent adviser should be empowered to instigate his own investigations. There is nothing radical about that. Our predecessor Committee made the same recommendation in the last Parliament, and I would say to my Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Newport West, that although he might be tribal, and although he might be excoriating about this Government, he is completely consistent, because he was just as excoriating about the previous Government. Our predecessor Committee, on which he served, made the same recommendation. That is exactly how other regulators work, and it is how our own Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards operates.”
“The first thing I would say to the House about this debate is that it represents a failure of government and a failure of our politics. The exchanges that have just taken place between the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is showing extraordinary forbearance under immense pressure, demonstrate that this is not the forum, the place or the way to resolve these issues. It should never be necessary for such a motion to be tabled. Earlier this year, the Public Administration Committee, which I chair, again made the recommendation that would render motions such as this redundant. Our report, entitled “The Prime Minister’s adviser on Ministers’ interests: independent or not?”, was published on 17 March, before the controversy about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State arose.”
“A Prime Minister is damned if he does and damned if he does not. Either he condemns his colleague by referring him, placing him under immediate pressure to resign, or he condemns himself, because it looks as though he is protecting someone from proper scrutiny. I wonder whether, if the Prime Minister had referred this matter to the independent adviser immediately, the Secretary of State would already have been investigated for any breach of the ministerial code by now, and exonerated. This situation places the Secretary of State in an invidious position.”
“It is hard to see how any adviser on Ministers’ interests can be deemed to be independent if he is unable to investigate prima facie breaches of the ministerial code without the permission of the Prime Minister. It is only his independence from Government that can provide the necessary assurance that Ministers, including the Prime Minister, will be held objectively and impartially to the standards of the ministerial code. If we deprive him of his independence by depriving him of his initiative, we remove the assurance that we want the public to have. Above all, it is surely beneficial for Prime Ministers to be absolved of the invidious duty of deciding whether or not to refer potential breaches to the independent adviser. With that responsibility comes a great deal of controversy and public opprobrium.”
“I would very much like that. This is not a difficult recommendation for the Government to accept. No legislation is required. The Prime Minister could simply accept it and implement it. We are still waiting for the Government’s response to our report. The previous Government declined to take up the recommendation, explaining that “it must ultimately be for the Prime Minister to account to Parliament for his decisions and actions in relation to the appointment of his Ministers”. So the Opposition have no one but themselves to blame for the fact that they have had to table this motion today. Why would it be desirable for the independent adviser to decide what to investigate without waiting for a referral from the Prime Minister? The expectation that that should be the case is generated by the official job title.”
“I will come to that point. It is ironic that the hon. Member for Newport West describes Sir Alex Allan as a poodle. That is not what we said in our report, incidentally. We were concerned about the manner of his appointment, and about whether it was appropriate for a recently retired civil servant to take that role, because he would not be seen as independent. We did not say that he was not fit to fulfil the role.”
“Those are the hon. Gentleman’s words, but the Committee went on to say: “In fairness, it is unlikely that many retiring civil servants will have had the opportunity to demonstrate the necessary independence from Government in their career to date.” I think that that places the right emphasis on the matter. If the role is to be seen to be independent, the manner of the appointment needs to be different and it would help to have someone who had demonstrated independence in their career to date.”
“I put it to the House that this is effectively a vote of confidence in the Minister, rather than a decision of the House whether or not to refer. That is precisely why it should be for the independent adviser himself to decide whether to investigate. That would take the decision out of the political arena and place it firmly in the hands of a person who is impartial in these matters. That is the basis of everything I have said on this matter. I have never made a judgment about the merits or otherwise of the case in question.”
“That would be a matter for the independent adviser, not the Prime Minister, to decide. At the start of the present Parliament, the Committee resolved not to inquire into individual cases. Accordingly, we have made no judgment of any of the evidence on the conduct of the Secretary of State, which others in the House seem to have done. It is therefore not for me to say whether the Prime Minister should refer the Secretary of State to the independent adviser. It is highly unlikely that there are many right hon. or hon. Members who take a disinterested view of the evidence. Indeed, some of those named on the motion have already called for the Secretary of State’s resignation; they have already made up their minds.”
“I would even go so far as to ask—perhaps controversially—whether the top of the civil service has lost some of the self-confidence and authority that in yesteryear might have seen a permanent secretary act more decisively in such a situation. I hope that we will never again see a special adviser fired from his job for doing what he believed to be the right thing, simply because he had been left in ignorance of the boundaries of conduct that he should have observed.”
“Whom did Adam Smith really believe he was serving in his role as go-between? Was it his Secretary of State, who is nominally responsible for the conduct of special advisers under the ministerial code? Or was it “the government as a whole”? That is a phrase I use advisedly, because the code was changed under the new Government, and all special advisers now serve “the government as a whole”. Has that phrase subtly changed the accountability of SpAds so that they are now no longer clear about to whom they are ultimately accountable? What is the role of the permanent secretary in the supervision of the conduct of a special adviser, who is, after all, still a civil servant?”
“Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) that the Public Administration Committee had already embarked on an inquiry into this subject before the resignation of Adam Smith, which served only to intensify the debate about numbers of special advisers, about what they are really there for, about whether the new code of conduct for special advisers is effective, and about how special advisers should be held accountable for what they do, and to whom. Under the Blair Administration, the role of special advisers was changed. Happily, it has now changed back, but this has done something to change the terms of trade for special advisers in government, and Whitehall is still adapting to that change. Our inquiry is exploring that matter. There are further questions to which we still need answers.”
“If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not. Now that Sir Alex Allan himself has said that the Leveson inquiry’s probing and taking evidence under oath means that he does not believe that he could usefully add to the facts in this case, I personally wonder why the Opposition are persisting with the motion. This does not absolve the Government from addressing many awkward questions. I have too many remarks for the time available, but they concern matters that the Government might not want to hear about, including the role and function of special advisers. I am happy to inform my hon.”
“Following the comments of the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), my Liberal Democrat colleague on the Public Administration Committee, will the hon. Lady commit her party to supporting our recommendation that the independent adviser should be able to instigate his own investigations?”
“Will my right hon. Friend stress an important assurance which I think he made, that HMRC will continue to be blind as to whether they are dealing with somebody who works for the public sector or the private sector, that all people will be treated equally by HMRC, and that for the most part in his statement he was speaking as an employer? In his review of IR35, will he take great care not to catch up with musicians, artists and others who are traditionally regarded as self-employed but may have controlling roles in organisations? It would be a great mistake if we made the cost of employing those people, particularly international people, much more expensive, to the detriment of the arts in this country.”
“Listening to these exchanges, I hear many matters that we have discussed and considered carefully, and I hope that the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee will have regard to the findings that I hope we will produce in short order, which should provide not only some guidance on how the Committee should conduct its investigation into the matter, but some guidance to the House on what the consequences of contempt should be and, in future, on whether we will need to avail ourselves of the courts or of our own procedures. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for emphasising that we are a House with a penal jurisdiction. That was a very important thing to put on the record.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I regret the fact that I have been in the Chamber for only part of the debate, but I heard the opening remarks. I feel it is appropriate for me to inform the House that the Liaison Committee has charged me with working with colleagues to investigate the whole question—it is very germane to this debate—of how Select Committee powers should be exercised.”