Oral evidence: Private Members’ bills, HC 684Wednesday 24 February 2016

Oral evidence, 24 February 2016.

Witness

Dr Ruth Fox, Director and Head of Research, Hansard Society, gave evidence.

Chair

Ruth, is this your first visit to us in this Parliament or your second?

Ruth Fox

Second; first officially.

Chair

Yes, first official when your evidence is being recorded. Welcome. I can assure you it will not be your last.

Ruth Fox

I try.

Chair

I am not sure that in the last Parliament we had a huge track record of success of taking our discussions forward, but we will try extra-specially hard in this Parliament. Ruth, you would have listened to that discussion. It was good natured and good humoured, and some important ground was covered. I think it was confined within the realms of reality. We did not go off-piste too much. Let us have your thoughts before I immediately ask colleagues to ask you questions and quiz you on that.

Ruth Fox

I think that, compared with Mr Natzler, I probably conform more to the practical rather than the romantic vision of these things. I take the view along the lines that you similarly articulated. There is a range now of opportunities for Members to take forward ideas and campaigns, to raise minority views and to take forward proposals in a way that there was not perhaps in the past. Private Members’ Bills were always seen as playing a multiple number of roles, but now in the House there are other avenues where the fire alarm, the minority view, the safety valve and the raising the issue-type campaign can come forward and get a hearing, and can develop an argument—an idea—over time that can then, perhaps, find form at a later date in a legislative proposition. But I do not think that necessarily, when inviting any Member to participate in a ballot—I think it is important to say, going back also to what David was saying about protecting the rights of Members to initiate legislation, that they only have that right in respect of ballot Bills if they succeed in the ballot, so there is an infringement on the process already—it is necessary to have 400 Members to put themselves forward to the ballot for the right to initiate legislation when some, although not all, have no idea what it is that they want to do with it. What I would like to see is a series, almost like a pyramid, where you have a range of opportunities for Members to have these ideas, and the opportunity to campaign and take them forward through these mechanisms over time, but once they get to the top of the pyramid—the legislative opportunity—there has been more thought and preparation, and you have a better process in place to consider that seriously. I do not want to see more legislation going on the statute book as a result of that process automatically, but I do want to see a better approach to that, if you can put in place something that facilitates that, whether it is prelegislative scrutiny or requiring Members to have supporters prior to going into the ballot, whatever it may be. I think there are different avenues to that, but I would like to see PMBs becoming a genuine legislative focus, rather than simply a campaign raising an issue or—

Chair

A gold standard.

Ruth Fox

Yes, or the handout Bill necessarily.

Helen Goodman

I entirely share your concern about handout Bills. However, why shouldn’t a Member who has not been campaigning on something for a considerable length of time not be one of the 400 people who put their name into the ballot?

Ruth Fox

If you are going to bring forward a piece of legislation or going to go forward for legislation, I like the idea that you might have some idea what it is that you want to do, rather than coming out in the ballot at one end and then deciding within a matter of weeks. If you think about the timing of the ballot and then the presentation of the Bill and the first sitting Friday, it is only a matter of weeks. I don’t think that is a particularly satisfactory process for bringing forward a well thought-out idea, if it is not a handout Bill—if it is your own you are thinking up after succeeding in the ballot.

Helen Goodman

Supposing I came up in the private Members’ ballot, I could think of a range of issues where I would love to see changes in the law. I may have campaigned on some of them and I may not have campaigned on others, and having come up, it is worth my while investing some time and thought into finding out which of my four or five possible ideas is practically implementable. I am not going to spend my time working that out. I am an extremely busy Member of Parliament with lots of things to do and a very needy constituency. I am not going to spend my time working something up in order to satisfy a bureaucratic filter before I put my name in. That is an absurd suggestion, surely.

Ruth Fox

No, I do not think it is. If you are bringing forward a legislative idea, I find it conversely quite odd that you are going to the ballot and you might have a number of ideas that you then have a matter of just a few weeks in which you decide which one it is that you are going to do. It may be true in terms of your circumstances, but there is evidence from other Members that they do not have an idea of what it is they want. They are deluged by NGO and constituency correspondence and contacts, and then decide what they are doing to do. I find that slightly bizarre, I have to say.

Helen Goodman

Why should we not be influenced by constituents and civil society when it comes to drafting private Members’ Bills when we are influenced by them when it comes to putting down parliamentary questions, making speeches in the House and tabling amendments to Bills? What is the difference?

Ruth Fox

That was not what I was implying. I would expect that you would be influenced by that, but further on the process in terms of thinking about what the issues are that you might want to bring forward.

Helen Goodman

But how is your pre-filter going to operate? How are you going to be in a position to judge whether I have thought sufficiently before I write my name in the private Members’ ballot book? Who is going to do that?

Ruth Fox

You could have a situation where one of the options was that you bring forward an idea and sign up Members for support for it beforehand. You might have a situation where in order to enter the ballot, you had to have demonstrated that you perhaps have that level of support. Perhaps you had pursued it as an issue previously through a Backbench Business Committee or ten-minute rule debate. There is a range of ways that you could demonstrate that you had shown and expressed an interest on this previously.

Helen Goodman

Do you think it is reasonable for me, if I do not know that I am going to come up in the private Members’ ballot, to go round to colleagues across the House and say, “Please sign this”? Wouldn’t the implication of that be that rather than 20 or 13 colleagues looking for 40 signatures, we then had 400 colleagues doing precisely that?

Ruth Fox

Not necessarily, because I think the point is that you reduce the number of people putting in because they have to think about it more seriously at the outset before they go in. Some do, but I do not think that is universal.

Helen Goodman

I just want to challenge your notion that a bureaucratic process is the route to judging whether Members have thought things through and whether these changes to the law would be better because somebody had been obsessing about it for 10 months rather than alighting on it.

Ruth Fox

I do.

Helen Goodman

What is your evidence?

Ruth Fox

I challenge the argument that it is necessarily a bureaucratic process. I am talking about private Members’ Bills as a way to bring forward campaign ideas, to raise issues, to address minority issues and so on. I am saying that there is a range of opportunities for how that can be done, but that once you get to the private Members’ Bill stage—if you see it as a genuine legislative opportunity where what you try to focus on is that opportunity for Members genuinely to get with all the other procedural changes that would be needed to get the legislation on the statute book, and to have a reasonable chance at it—I think it is not unreasonable to hope that a Member would have done a little bit more preparation and thinking and to have engaged with the issues before going into the ballot, rather than getting to the ballot, putting their name in and then deciding what issue it is that they are going to pick up. It is perfectly legitimate to take a different view. That is just my view looking at it from outside.

Helen Goodman

Speaking for myself, as a Member of Parliament, I probably do a lot of work on half a dozen issues. I do not work on everything, but there are probably half a dozen things where I do lots of work and some of the things I do work on have money implications, and that is ruled out, and some of them do not. I simply cannot understand why you think that one should have done a lot of work for a possibility where you have a one-in-20 chance of it coming up. That simply does not seem to me to be a good use of time or a pragmatic approach at all.

Ruth Fox

I disagree, and I do not think it necessarily implies an awful lot of work because what I am talking about is that you decide what issue it is you want to pursue. Okay, we take a different view.

Mr Nuttall

Am I right in thinking that really what you are suggesting is that before Members enter the ballot they have to demonstrate some support for their Bill?

Ruth Fox

Yes, and to have demonstrated some interest and—

Mr Nuttall

Your thought would be that this will improve the quality of the Bills that come forward. Is it not likely that what possibly—just conceivably—might happen is that some Members may be helpfully guided towards adopting, at an early stage, an orphan Bill waiting in the maternity unit of the Government’s legislation unit and be asked to adopt that Bill and make reference of it in their application to the ballot? So, in fact, the idea that your suggestion will change what is happening at the moment is very far from the reality of what will happen.

Ruth Fox

Quite possibly.

Chair

But there is no harm in dreaming the dream. I am with Ruth here. I do not think, by the way, that what Ruth is suggesting is going to work, but that is perfectly reasonable. Of course we can discuss it, but the principle is not wrong and the principle is—I see some colleagues getting a nod in—that a private Member’s Bill should be the gold standard that a Back Bencher tries to attain. It is not a Westminster Hall debate; it is not a ten-minute rule Bill; it is not an urgent question; it is not an end-of-evening Adjournment debate—it is the gold standard. Can I just put this proposition very quickly? If we gave a guaranteed Second Reading to the first seven Bills, the Government would probably get four of them—when I say the Government, I mean Government Back Benchers—and three would go to Opposition Back Benchers, and they would have an incentive to say, “I have a chance here, so I am not going to do something really stupid. I am going to do something really worthwhile”. Over to you, Simon.

Simon Hoare

I fear, Dr Fox, that if you were running Camelot, you would want me to tell you what I would spend the money on before I had bought the lottery ticket. I think there is a danger in that if you take what Harriet Harman said when we came to the re-election of the Speaker. I think what is proposed by having to propose or demonstrate a paper trail of a history of campaigning—I rather agree with what Mrs Goodman was saying—is that it is, by definition, discriminatory against new Members. I drew 10 and Mike Wood drew No. 2 or 3—I cannot quite remember why, but he was relatively higher. We had no track record in this House, although I could claim that I had an interest with the guide dogs because I collected milk bottle tops for them for the Blue Peter appeal. I had an interest in local government because I had been a district councillor for 11 years, but I had had no ability in this place to demonstrate a track record of campaigning interest on the issue that I then promoted because I had not been a Member of this place beforehand. I think that is one disincentive because it is then discriminatory, and why I referenced Harriet Harman was that the point that she had made was, “From the day of the election we are all equal and we all have an equal right to speak and do things in this House.” Sir Edward, I am still naive enough to believe in that. I think the other issue as well is that there could very well be a pressing issue. Let us take, for example, the wild animals in circuses idea. It may be that there are 22 people who would wish to promote that and they have campaigned upon it and so on. If they all put that up as an idea and if they all then demonstrate that they have an interest, it then looks as if it is just too populist and jumping on a bandwagon and so on. You should win the prize. I agree with the Chairman that there should be an additional weight here, because a private Member’s Bill is proposed legislation, not just a flag-waving exercise. It has to be a sensible job, but you should then have the luxury to decide what you are going to spend your prize money on and not demonstrate it to the lottery organiser beforehand.

Ruth Fox

With regard to new Members, I can see that that is an issue, but you could make accommodations for that. I am not saying that you have this sort of tick-box exercise where you are putting this in. What I am saying is that in terms of the culture and approach to Bills, I find it odd that Members decide the issue after they have put in for the ballot and have not given as much thought as ideally a citizen looking from outside would like to think was given to them at the point when they are so successful.

Simon Hoare

Nobody thinks what they are going to spend their £32 million from the lottery on. You buy the ticket, you see if you win, and then you cogitate, reflect, discuss and take soundings from colleagues.

Ruth Fox

I think it just goes to sort of the game playing that, frankly, the public sees in this process.

Bob Blackman

With respect to Simon, I do not think we should have legislation by lottery—we should not be deciding legislation by that. I am strongly with you on demonstrating interest and support for legislation before it comes forward. Could you talk us through how you would envisage the process working? Obviously you put your name in the hat, the ballot comes and then you have a very short space of time to determine what you are going to spend your prize money on and seek support and so on. If we had a position whereby a Member wishing to bring forward legislation had to demonstrate, for example, support from 20 or 40 Members—whatever the number is—when do you see that happening and how would you see the process for allocating time for Second Reading and so on?

Ruth Fox

I think there is a starting point that is: do you want prelegislative scrutiny? That is not public evidence, that is prelegislative scrutiny, and what form does that take? In principle, we would say that that is a good thing for all legislation but, of course, we know that the amount that comes through is pretty modest in terms of Government Bills. But do you want prelegislative scrutiny for private Members’ Bills in principle, because that affects the timetable that you would apply? One very radical option would be to say you do want that prelegislative scrutiny, whether that is via a Committee—a Select Committee looking at it or an ad hoc Committee set up just for that Bill—or whatever it may be. That would have implications timewise in terms of how long a gap there is between what emerges after the ballot and the point when you go to Second Reading. So there are big implications there as to whether you want that and what form that takes. In terms of going into the ballot, I see it as you demonstrate some support and that could be whatever number it is—I think it is 18 in the Scottish Parliament, drawn from half the parties represented in the parliamentary business bureau. That demonstrates a level of reasonable cross-party engagement and you could get some Members into the debate. There are dangers with that and relying solely on that, a bit like with early-day motions or all-party groups. People sign up to things, but are you signing up to the Bill or are you signing up to the policy proposition? We have to be clear about that. You are not necessarily signing up to the Bill because you may not have seen the Bill, and that particularly goes to the issue about the point at which it is properly drafted. Then it is just about indicating whether you have brought up this up previously and tried to raise it in questions or through a debate—whatever it may be—and then it goes forward. It would not need to prevent you going forward, and that could be taken into account. All I am suggesting is that it would be ideal—perhaps not ideal in the first year of a Parliament, but certainly later on, and if you had prelegislative scrutiny in the first year and Bills coming through in the second year, you could deal with that. It would be better to have given some evidence of engagement with it.

Bob Blackman

What you are saying is that Members newly elected in the year after an election would potentially be at a disadvantage, but thereafter they catch up.

Ruth Fox

Yes, but that could be taken into account.

Bob Blackman

Taking your ideal scenario, you would have prelegislative scrutiny in year 1 and then in year 2 you would get to a process of legislation, if it was applicable, which would then presumably feed from one Parliament to another if need be. Having done prelegislative scrutiny on Bills in the year 5 of a Parliament, year 1 of the new Parliament could consider those and take those forward.

Ruth Fox

Yes. There is the issue not just of prelegislative scrutiny but also carry-over, so that you would not necessarily need to have a whole year taken up with prelegislative scrutiny on a relatively small Bill. But there is the option of carry-over from Sessions and, likely, across Parliaments, I would say.

Bob Blackman

Moving on from that, one of the proposals at the moment is that we have 20 that succeed in the ballot and potentially could get discussed, but that once you go beyond a reasonable number, you have no chance really of getting through. Would you envisage a smaller number of Bills being blessed in this sort of way, or could it be any number going through prelegislative scrutiny and then concertinaed down if it was considered they were not applicable?

Ruth Fox

No, I think if you are going with a ballot and you want to stick with, say, 20, you prioritise the top seven in terms of the order. Whether you then go forward with the next seven and six, I think the top ones certainly should receive that priority going through the process.

Jenny Chapman

I agree with what you are saying about the ballot. I do find it odd—I did it myself once and I thought this was a very strange thing to do—to put your name in a book with absolutely no idea of what you would do and to hope that you are not going to come out in the top few because you do not really want to do it. But, for whatever reason, we obediently do this thing and I think it is a strange way to carry on. Accepting what colleagues are chuntering about on the other side there about having to prove that you have a track record of campaigning or raising an issue, I do see the point that that does seem to be disadvantaging certain Members who for whatever reason may not have used the formal processes internally to raise an issue, but may come in. Kate Green, for example, came in with a very strong track record on campaigning on child poverty and on day one could probably have put forward a very strong Bill but, under your suggestion, would not be able to. Is there not a way that you could keep a ballot but have a requirement where you do not have to show that you are a lifelong parliamentary campaigner or something, but you have to have perhaps a title for the Bill and show some support from both sides of the House to show that you have at least woken up to the idea that at the end of this you may have to have a Bill?

Ruth Fox

Yes. That is the point—to prevent the situation where you are going into the room and putting your name in the book, but not having an idea what it is that you are going to pursue. I am not suggesting that you have to have these tick-boxes where you have to demonstrate all these levels of support, but that you have to make a case for the Bill, of which these elements of support and campaigning would be part, and the title, knowing what it is that you are going in for, would be key to that. I find it very odd that you would go into it without a view as to what it is you want to pursue, and that itself might culturally stop the situation where you go into the room and put your name in the book without knowing what it is you want to do and, therefore, you have fewer people in the ballot and you have a better chance of getting through.

Sir Edward Leigh

I do not agree with that. If you are saying that when you sign up for the ballot you should put down a title of a Bill, I do not agree with that. For instance, there is a perfectly good negotiation that goes on. I might want to do a repeal of the Hunting Act or limit the time for abortion, but I might think once I am successful in the ballot, there is no point doing that, because I happen to believe in those things but there is absolutely no chance of getting through. I take soundings, and then I do some little handout Bill, and why shouldn’t I because I want to get a Bill through? Also I am not sure it would, in practice, make much difference because we all—every one of us—have our own little hobbyhorses and within five minutes we could ring up the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children or the Middle Way Group, or whatever our little hobbyhorse organisation is, and we could get enough backup to do it. We have already had this debate about getting a significant number of Members from both sides of the House to support a Bill, and you probably heard the earlier questions—there is no point repeating all that. I am sorry; I just do not agree with you. I think one person should be allowed to put their name in the ballot and once they are successful they decide, on the balance of probabilities, whether they want to go for a campaigning Bill that has no chance of being passed, or a very uncontroversial Bill that can get their name on the statute book. That is a perfectly fair and good system.

Chair

It is perfectly reasonable for you to disagree with Ruth.

Ruth Fox

Yes, I just disagree.

Edward Argar

I do see the point that both you and Jenny made, although from slightly different directions, in terms of the need to show support and also an engagement with an issue. But I have to say I am convinced by what Simon and Edward have said. There are a number of concerns I would have with that, which is why I am afraid I am not convinced by what you are suggesting. Simon is absolutely right that for those of us who were elected last May, it would essentially say, “For a year keep quiet and do not do anything.” There will be people who have come in with a track record of campaigning outside this place and they care passionately, but there will be people who have not, yet still believe passionately in something that they put forward. In terms of saying upfront, “Here is my title,” or, “Here is my topic and here is why,” again I would agree with Edward. I do not have any problem with people putting their names into the ballot. I think that when a lot of people in this House do that, even if it is not fully formed, they probably have a rough idea of the sort of thing they might like to do. But part of the democratic process in this country and in this House is that you will come up with that and then you will have discussions with people. You are often willing to be convinced that maybe there is something that has a better chance of success or that you could argue passionately for and you do genuinely believe in, but that you had not thought about in this context and where you could add real value. I sat on a Friday afternoon listening to the passionate exposition put forward as to why changes to the rules on pavement parking were the right thing to do. I dare say before entering the ballot Simon probably had not decided that as his topic, but a more passionate and eloquent exposition of why it was the right thing to do you would go a long way to find. It is part of that process that once you come out of the ballot, you will engage with a range of organisations, colleagues and others. I would be very hesitant to see us start putting preconditions on what you do or do not want to put in a private Member’s Bill before you know whether you have a chance to put it forward or explore it.

Ruth Fox

I do not think it has to be a precondition. All I am suggesting is that some of that discussion and consideration takes place before you go into the ballot and that you have an idea when you put it down.

Edward Argar

I think it probably does in many cases. Every day in this place we are talking to each other about what bothers us, be it Government business, Opposition business or particular issues. It is the case that the first year of a new Parliament is almost an odd exception because the ballot comes so swiftly and there are a lot of new Members who may not know each other or have really engaged with it. But, in subsequent years, when we come to do this—in the next Session—I would be very surprised if any Member who had put their name forward did not have some idea of what might interest them or what they might find interesting.

Jenny Chapman

You are going to be surprised.

Edward Argar

No, I disagree. I have a higher opinion of my fellow Members than perhaps—

Chair

The clock is running down. Helen, a last go, and in a very nice, gentle way.

Helen Goodman

I can imagine that there are two things that I would like to do if I came up in the private Members’ ballot. One thing I would like to do is to incorporate the UN convention on the rights of the child, signed by Virginia Bottomley, into English law, I am sure I could get 40 people across the House to support it. Another thing I would like to do is to see the ratification of the Hague treaty on the treatment of archaeological sites in the time of war, and I think I could get lots of people for that. I think the Government would far prefer me to do the second than the first. Don’t you think that having a pre-ballot process or discussion with the Executive, far from strengthening the private Member, would actually strengthen the power of the Executive because they too are in a negotiation? There could be somebody in the Department for Education who thought, “Actually, following through with what Virginia Bottomley did in 1989 is a perfectly sensible thing,” but they will also be trying to make it as difficult as possible for anything radical to come up. Can you not see that if we go down the path that you are suggesting, we will strengthen the Executive at the expense of the ordinary Member?

Ruth Fox

In a situation where, as I understand it, nine out of 10 Bills are effectively handout Bills that are getting through, I am not sure that it makes much difference. The discussion either takes place beforehand or after—the Government will have their position as to what they want to bring forward or what they is prepared to support or not. It seems to me that it is your opportunity to bring forward a piece of legislation—what is it that you want?

Chair

Helen, can I say, because I am the Chairman, what a brilliant intervention you make and what two very laudable things, and I hope that the Committee adopts much of the previous report. There is protection for the first seven Bills—you are one of the first seven because you have a clear idea of what it is you want to do, and you will know you have that degree of protection that will allow you to do it, and also you are a skilled parliamentarian who will secure lots of support. I think we will call it a day. Ruth, that was fairly searching, but you are used to that in front of this Committee, aren’t you? Thank you for retaining your good humour throughout it, and for being equally resilient and bullish in your responses. Thank you very much, and we will no doubt see you at some stage in the near future. Oral evidence: Private Members’ bills, HC 684 17