Oral evidence: Private Members’ bills, HC 684Wednesday 2 March 2016
Oral evidence, 2 March 2016.
Witness
Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Leader of the House of Commons, gave evidence.
Chair
Thank you very much, Leader, for coming to see us. You are going to be our final witness in this review of private Members’ Bills and we have covered a lot of ground. It has been hard going at times, good to firm to very soft, but we are nearly there. Our nose is about to go across the finishing line. Now, Leader, in the last Parliament I felt that there was not a great appetite within Government for change. This disappointed me because I think it is important that Parliament, if not admired by our constituents, is at least respected. I think they do not respect Parliament as much as they should do when they see our conduct in relation to private Members’ Bills. I am hoping that when we bring forward our recommendations in the next few weeks, the Government will be open-minded in receiving those recommendations on this basis. I do think when it comes to private Members’ Bills the Government are now in the last-chance saloon. I cannot speak for the Committee, but I do not believe the Committee is going to be as radical as it otherwise would be and I do not believe it is going to be as radical as it could be because I think it has confidence and trust in you that we are going to get some real progress in trying to improve the current situation.
Chris Grayling
There are clearly shortcomings that have been identified. We have to start with what our objectives are in this. We need to ensure that private Members’ Bills do from time to time become law, not that they are guaranteed to become law. All too often they are really engendered as part of external campaigns rather than as serious bids for legislation. Whatever this Committee recommends and whatever the Government and Parliament choose to do, we must be very careful to ensure that we do not deliver unintended consequences and in doing so make it less easy rather than more easy for an individual Member to pursue a matter of great principle. We should be most concerned about those Bills, I think, and perhaps less about those that are simply vehicles for external campaigns. I would not want us to be in a position where it is no longer possible for an individual Member to drive a Bill through this House and to get it on to the statute book.
Chair
With the Committee’s indulgence—again, I am not signing the Committee up to the Charles Walker vision—can I just give the Leader a hint of where we might be going on some of the areas we are looking at and then I will bring Jenny in? For example, in common with our previous report, we could give a golden ticket on the first seven Fridays. The first Bill on each of those Fridays would get a Second Reading; just the first seven. For example, say three or four were Government hand-out Bills on any given year, you would get, if you were in Opposition, three golden tickets. Do not squander these because you will get your Bill into Committee. Now, of course, you can kill it in Committee, you can kill it on Report, but at least you will have that space, that time, to negotiate with Government and try to make progress. I think that is good. The other thing we might be interested in doing is saying, “Tell you what, let’s take a couple of Fridays, say, a couple of Bills, and allow the Backbench Business Committee to decide on the merits of a Bill.” You might get seven or eight Members of Parliament to come in with their supporters and entourage to make a bid, and we would hope that the Backbench Business Committee, if we could persuade them to the merits of this, would exercise their great brains and good judgment to come up with two that they felt captured the essence of what a private Members’ Bill should be. Finally—just an idea, and it would not be a requirement—maybe there could be a voluntary arrangement that the Clerks would handle. It would be on the Order Paper that when you draw in the ballot and you get your private Members’ Bills, you could go and get 20 Opposition names and 20 names from the Government Benches—real heavyweights potentially, people who have an interest in the field or the area that you are covering—so you could demonstrate to that Conservative Minister, as it is the case now, that your Bill is taken seriously by great people on each side of the House. That is just my little canter through. I will leave you to reflect on those without having to respond immediately because it might not be in my interests for you to respond immediately. Jenny, over to you.
Jenny Chapman
I am quite astounded that you said that you thought there might be a danger that we make the process less likely to enable a Back-Bencher to get a Bill through because I do not see how it could be any less likely, given the evidence we have had on what has happened in the last few decades from the Clerks; they were very, very clear that all and only Government Bills get through. I do not have a problem with that if that is honestly articulated via the process, but obviously at the moment it is not. Many witnesses have said that what is missing is transparency and honesty and that the only way to achieve transparency and honesty is via a vote. Should we wish to propose that votes are taken at some stage, how do you think and when do you think and by what means do you think a vote could be applied?
Chris Grayling
The first thing to say is I think that any private Members’ Bill that passes through the House should command very substantial support. That is the one bit I would debate about in terms of the golden ticket proposal. The hedgehog culling Bill with the support of very small numbers of people that arrived in the House on a Friday morning and got through to Committee might not necessarily command the majority view of the House, whereas the hedgehog national protection Bill might indeed do so. It is a topic of Business Questions regularly at the moment, as you will be aware, Mr Walker. I do think that the expectation of the public would be that if a private Members’ Bill is to become law it should command substantial support. I am not arguing for all aspects of the current system. I would simply observe that in order to be certain to get a Bill to the next stage on a Friday, you have to have substantial support of people who are willing to turn up and back it. The caveat I would give around a system, for example, that debated and then subjected to a deferred Division later, for example, is that it might well be much easier for the Government of the day to block something it was not keen on. It might be less easy to get a Bill through because of that. You simply have to be careful. There are times when the private Members’ Bill system allows a Bill to pass through to Committee because a substantial number of people had turned up to back it on a Friday, whereas a straightforward deferred Division vote on a Wednesday lunchtime might lead to a vote against it.
Sir Edward Leigh
I am not sure anybody suggested that.
Jenny Chapman
How could it be less—
Chris Grayling
You asked me to illustrate a point about—
Jenny Chapman
It does not make sense because you are not—
Chris Grayling
You asked me to illustrate a point.
Jenny Chapman
Excuse me, you are not confronting the fact that most of them do not get a vote, which at least would be honest about what the Government think. The Government are talking out Bills at the moment, which has the same effect as a vote but is dishonest. That is what we are trying to get around here.
Chris Grayling
But you asked me the question about votes at different times and I have said there are situations in which that might make a Bill less likely to make progress than more. There have been examples where Opposition MPs have succeeded in getting Bills through to the statute book simply by marshalling enough support on a Friday to take them through. I am not passing judgment one way or the other, but you asked me to illustrate a situation in which that could be an issue and I have given you one.
Jenny Chapman
You are wrong. When has a Back-Bench Opposition MP got something on the statute book?
Chris Grayling
Well, Cheryl Gillan did in the 2005-2009 Parliament.
Jenny Chapman
No, she is not Opposition. An Opposition MP?
Chris Grayling
She was in the 2005-2010 Parliament when she succeeded in getting the Autism Bill on to the statute book.
Jenny Chapman
Once.
Chris Grayling
You asked for an example and I have given you one.
Jenny Chapman
Well, forgive me if I do not put too much store by that process.
Chris Grayling
Okay, but you asked me the question and to give you an example. I am simply saying that if you have votes on private Members’ Bills when all Members of Parliament are present, it creates a very different dynamic to the one that exists on a Friday. You asked me for an illustration about what happens if you move votes to different times of the week and I have simply given you one.
Mr Mak
As you will know, Leader, at the moment per session 20 private Members’ Bills are chosen from the ballot. I wonder if you have any thoughts on whether that number should be reduced so as to give the small number of winners, if you like, of the ballot more time, more space and more support to work on their Bill.
Chris Grayling
I think there is a case for that to be done and, indeed, the Committee in the past has made some quite thoughtful recommendations about the appearance of Bills on the Order Paper. I personally think that we should seek to try to reduce the sense in the eyes of the public that something is going to happen as a result of something being on the Order Paper. You and I have talked, Mr Walker, about my concern about Early Day Motions with half a dozen signatures and the case of a ten-minute rule Bill that sits on the Order Paper as something in the pipeline around which a campaign can be and often is built. We do have to ask ourselves the question: are we raising the expectations of our constituents that something is going to happen? I will listen very carefully to the report of this Committee. It is a new Committee. You will undoubtedly have some different views to the ones you came up with in the last Parliament, but I do think this is one of the areas where there is some logic in looking at change.
Nic Dakin
Thank you for that, Leader. Our concern primarily is this thing around transparency, particularly at a time when Parliament’s standing has been under particular scrutiny. If we take something like the Daylight Saving Bill in the last Parliament, everybody outside Parliament thought that there was a genuine chance of this becoming law, but because of the way it was on a Friday it was talked out and so on, even though there was significant support from across the House. Would it be better if, as the Chair said at the beginning, there was a small number of Bills that could go perhaps through the Backbench Business Committee and be guaranteed a vote at Second Reading so there was clear transparency about what was happening?
Chris Grayling
The idea of the involvement of the Backbench Business Committee is an interesting one. It is not one that has been put to me before today. I would like to take a look at what form your recommendations come, but I certainly do not rule out some involvement of the Backbench Business Committee in the process.
Nic Dakin
What about this sense that at least if there is a vote at Second Reading that gives a clarity; it is clear that the Government cannot be pretending, for example, to be supporting a Bill when in reality it is getting a couple of Back-Benchers to talk it out, which is confusing and a bit dishonest to the public and does not really do any of us any credit? This other thing that keeps consistently coming up is this idea that there should be a vote at Second Reading. What is your view on that?
Chris Grayling
Again, going back to what I said about unintended consequences, I have said we will look at that proposal very carefully. I would simply offer back the concern I would have. In order to do that, you clearly have to set a time limit on the debate of a private Members’ Bill. If you look at the debate over the Assisted Dying Bill, for example, where there was a very, very substantial day’s debate followed by a vote, I would not wish to be in a position where one curtailed that kind of debate. I think the Committee would need to think through quite carefully before it makes any recommendation about precisely how that would be managed.
Nic Dakin
Presumably, again, if the Backbench Business Committee, for example, had some purchase—you get a sense of how much time, and you will be much better at this than most of us around the table because you are allocating time for various things. Some things need more time and some things need less time, and that is very much the same with private Members’ Bills as it is with anything else. It is about the principle of a vote at the end of a process, and allocation of time could be different for different Bills.
Chris Grayling
I think it would be interesting to see how you think through how that might work, because to pick times for a particular measure—that is a two-hour measure, that is a four-hour measure, that is a six-hour measure—is a difficult step as well. I think we need to look very carefully at the way we are doing it. I certainly would not want to endanger the process. If I look back and say what has been the best Friday debate that we have had in this Parliament, indeed for a good many years, it has been how that particular measure was handled. It was a very passionate debate. It was an extended debate. It was not in any way time limited beyond the time available in its entirety for the day. It was subject to a proper vote and I think that showed the House in a good light. Had the vote gone the other way, clearly that Bill would have gone into Committee and I think would have had a very good chance of going through and becoming law. To my mind, it is that kind of measure that should be used for private Members’ Bills. If I have a slight frustration now with the private Members’ Bill system, it is that not enough Members who secure slots in the ballot use it to deliver their own personal change, the vision they have, and I think that was a very good example of how the system works well.
Sir Edward Leigh
I am anxious to protect the rights of individual Back-Benchers whose views might be eccentric today but may be consensus tomorrow. Therefore, I am not in favour of having some sort of hurdle you have to overcome and to get 40, 50, 80 supporters signing up to your Bill. The other point I am worried about is that I do not want to make life even easier for the Government to kill Bills. Can I ask you this question? Is it easier for the Government to bring in its supporters to vote down a private Members’ Bill on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening or on a Friday at 2.30?
Chris Grayling
Definitely, and that is the point I was making earlier. The unintended consequence of a Division at a different time of the week is clearly if you are holding that Division on a day when there are large numbers of people around, it is much easier for the Government to block something it does not like. I am not seeking to pass judgment, I am simply saying that this is one of the factors that you as the Committee need to take into account. I am not suggesting either that you should have to have a certain number of signatures before you can bring forward a Bill, but it is the case that in order to have a chance of bringing a private Members’ Bill through a process, you need to be able to have a substantial block of people with you. That I think is good for the system, but there is no doubt a vote that takes place on a day when most Members of Parliament are here the Government is much more likely to be able to block it than one on a day when they are not.
Sir Edward Leigh
I think there is merit in having, not on Tuesday or Thursday but at 2.30 on Friday, a convention by which on the first six Bills—you have had a whole day’s debate possibly and the debate has carried on until 2.15—a vote is guaranteed. If you do not want to answer this now you do not have to because we can produce our own report and you can consider it, but what worries me is—and we just had the Shadow Leader of the House—is it in the interests of the Government to have 100 people here at 2.15 on a Friday to vote something down when they can just have five people here to filibuster it? You do not have to answer that if you do not want to; I just make that comment.
Chris Grayling
Either way it is a challenge because it should be the case that the person promoting that private Members’ Bill should be able to demonstrate substantial support for it before it makes progress. But I take the point you are making.
Patricia Gibson
I was just going to say, Mr Grayling, that we know that perfectly sensible and decent legislation has been lost, proposals have been lost, because of the way that private Members’ Bills work, despite the fact that there might be a lot of support for them out in the public. The fact that they fall and come to nothing can only further estrange people from what goes on in this place and make them more cynical and disengaged from what we do. I just wondered if you had a view, if you think there should be formal time limits on speeches in private Members’ Bills so that all items on the Order Paper are able to be voted upon. That is not uncommon in other legislative proposals, as you know. Or would that not be in any particular Government’s interests to go down that road?
Chris Grayling
I think that it is certainly something that if the Committee recommends it we would take a look at seriously. There are advantages and disadvantages in doing that. What I would be encouraging the Committee to do is—I accept, we accept, that this is an area that is attracting extensive interest. There are some frustrations about the way the current system works. I do not want to necessarily set out for you today a detailed Government response because I would like to look at what you are suggesting and how it might work, what the impact would be. Yes, it is certainly the case that there will be Bills that come forward that Government do not want to pass through for a variety of different reasons, sometimes because they are technically flawed, sometimes because Government disagrees with them, but at the same time I want the private Members’ Bill system to be one where it is possible for a Bill to make good progress and to become law. The hurdle that we have at the moment is that in order for an individual Member to legislate, they ultimately need to be able to fall back on 100 Members of Parliament, which is not an unduly high bar to cross for something that is going to become the law of the land. Of course, if you have that threshold, the speaking limit becomes almost immaterial because if you have that level of support you can move a closure if you need to. If we are going to replace that system and do it differently, which is perfectly feasible and we are perfectly able to consider, what I would like to see is the Committee’s view about how that should happen.
Patrick Grady
But even if you had 100 Members turn up a week on Friday—on 11 March—for Caroline Lucas’s National Health Service Bill, because it is second on the Order Paper if that debate starts any time after about 10.30 or 11.00, even if there are 100 Members there, there is no guarantee the Speaker would allow the closure. I suspect you can tell me whether or not a Minister is likely to sit down at 15.28 or 14.28 to allow a vote on it. I suspect not. Even then the system is a charade, as the Shadow Leader said, because there is no time for that Bill to go through a Committee and come back in the remaining parliamentary session.
Chris Grayling
Any Bill coming through at this stage is unlikely to make progress and typically it has been the Bills at the top of the ballot that make progress. With the best will in the world, I think it is highly unlikely that the Bill you described would command a majority view in the House. It is also a Bill that has a particular political purpose to it. I think that the use of private Members’ Bills is all about the debate we had on assisted dying. That is the use of the private Members’ Bill system at its best: a very serious issue brought before the House; a debate involving very large numbers of Members on all sides; a very busy House; and a conclusion reached that is of significant importance constitutionally and legally in our nation. That to my mind is where the private Members’ Bill is at its strongest and that was an example of how it can work and work well.
Simon Hoare
Leader, I just wondered what assessment, if any, has been made as to is there any capacity in terms of house staff to resource and clerk and chair private Members’ legislation on days other than Fridays. One thinks particularly of Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Chris Grayling
Clearly, there are implications for staff if the House sits later than it does at the moment. What I would observe simply in my role as Leader is how many pressures there are on the time we have available. There are on a day by day basis now significant numbers of requests for urgent questions, some of which are granted, some of which are not, and there are statements from Ministers. There is demand from the Backbench Business Committee to protect the time they have available. There are demands from the Opposition parties to have more time available for debate at Report stage, for example. One of the challenges we have at the moment is fitting everything in that needs to be fitted in and give to Opposition parties and the Backbench Business Committee the time they have had allocated. If we were to do this, it would extend the hours of the staff extensively. Of course, you have the unforeseen—tonight, for example, we have Lords amendments to do. We have the designated days for the estimates and, of course, we also have two urgent questions. Today is a classic example of a day when there is a lot of work to get through.
Chair
That does not seem to concern the Government, and I say this with the greatest of respect, Leader. The Government routinely varies the hours the House rises. It is happening at an unprecedented level at the moment. We sit later than the usual time of rising. The Government do not get themselves into a lather, do they, about the cost and the implications on House staff?
Chris Grayling
No, but the point I am making, though, is our time is already under pressure. If you take tonight when we have to debate the Lords amendments on the Welfare Bill, we are not seeking to take time away from the Backbench Business Committee to do that. We are not seeking to take time away from Opposition parties to do that. Of course, on a day by day basis, we have to deal with the decisions that the Speaker makes and the implications they have on time as well. The one thing I would describe is that allocation of time in this place is immensely difficult.
Chair
The problem I have is I recognise that there are many talented and skilled colleagues here. Some of those skills are on display on Fridays, but it is a fairly rancid exhibition, it really is. It is an in-joke. Those of us who know what is going on think there is a bit of political machismo to be able to speak for 55, 58 minutes, an hour. Yes, there is a skill but it is not a constructive skill. It is not a building skill. It is not a skill that most people out there look in on Parliament and say, “That is admirable. That is Parliament at its best”. I do not feel that Government have yet grasped—I think you have a better idea than your predecessor—just how awful Fridays are. That is not to diminish any of those experts who manage Fridays as their own personal day of jollity and frivolity. It is just a statement. It is an observation and it is just awful. It is awful.
Chris Grayling
I think as you described earlier, the issue of the number of Bills—in fact, no, it was Mr Mak who talked about the number of Bills that appear. It may be a question that what we have is quantity of debate rather than quality of subject. However and wherever we do private Members’ Bills, it may be that there are just too many things and a higher quality system that was debating issues that are typically a matter for a free vote or very frequently a matter for a free vote, where there are fewer subjects of more significant importance, where they are brought forward by Members who have a particular view they want to get across—one of the things that you have raised before is the question of changing the ballot system, for example. Maybe there are different ways of bringing forward private Members’ Bills that will attract a broader range of interest and debate rather than simply a topic that enables you to pick up something an external campaign is trying to run and create some headlines. Private Members’ Bills are at least across the piece now, whether they are standard Friday ballot Bills, whether they are Bills simply tabled before the House on a day by day basis, whether they are ten-minute rule Bills—an awful lot of them are about campaigns. Maybe one of the things this Committee should be looking at is how we get private Members’ Bills back to the great moments in history that they have always been. If you look at some of the great changes in this country, they have come through private Members’ Bills. They have come through the kind of debate that we experienced over assisted dying where we chose not to make a change but often in the past we have chosen to make a change.
Chair
I understand that you cannot have too many great moments in history, that is the problem. Then they will cease to be great moments.
Chris Grayling
That is true.
Chair
The issue we have is that yes of course we have—I think you are absolutely right, Leader—some very frivolous Bills brought forward that are simply campaigning Bills and have no chance of getting on the statute, but likewise we have Government hand-out Bills that do not have much impact on the sum total and happiness of mankind either. I do appreciate the pressures here. Perhaps I would just prefer it—and maybe other Committee members would prefer it—if when there was something the Government did not like, instead of saying, “We approve this and we appreciate it coming forward,” it says, “We will allow a full debate to happen, but as the Minister I am telling you now I am not going to allow this to get through and I am going to tell you now upfront it is not going to happen.”
Chris Grayling
I am all in favour of honesty, so I do not have a particular issue with that. I think, though, that there is an issue of quantity as well. One of the things that you have rightly identified in the past is the number of Bills that appear on the Order Paper that are either not Bills in their own right or Bills that are so far down the list that they have absolutely no chance of being debated, let alone becoming law. That may be one of the things that this Committee wants to think about.
Sir Edward Leigh
I put to you that when we have these great moments in history, we have wonderful debates and we always have a vote because nobody even tries to stop the closure—for example, on the Hunting Bill and on assisted dying. As the Chairman said, there are only so many great issues every year. I think the system works quite well for the great issues and it does not work so bad if they are little issues either, the present system. Many years ago I had a little Bill on footpaths and I was, I think, sixth in the thing. I know it is of minor interest, but I got the Government lined up, the Opposition lined up, the CLA, even the ramblers and the NFU, and it got through and it became law. I do not think, with respect, Chairman, that the present system is absolutely dire. If you have a serious Bill, if it is a very modest Bill, does not cost a lot of money, if you get agreement, if you are only a private Member and not the Government, you can get it through. I just put that to you, but beware of unintended consequences.
Chris Grayling
That is the point I made at the start. Your footpath Bill is clearly not a great moment in the same way as assisted dying or whatever is, but that kind of measure has a valid place. An individual Member identifies an issue that has not been resolved in legislation previously, where everyone says, “That is plain common sense.” It is a vehicle for that kind of change to be delivered. What you have described proves the point that it can be done. What I am talking about is change with a purpose. All too often the Bills that come before us have a campaigning purpose rather than a legislative purpose. I do think that a way of ensuring that the kind of scenario you have just painted, Sir Edward, is what lies at the heart of the private Members’ Bill process, either on a grand scale or on a smaller scale, is the best way of doing it.
Chair
I would just say all vested interests defend their position by saying beware of unintended consequences. Even the Government in relation to the EU referendum seem to be using that very phrase at the moment. Anyway, Leader, thank you very much.
Chris Grayling
You are welcome.
Chair
You have to get down the corridor for your next engagement and I shall be following hot on your heels.
Chris Grayling
As do you as well, yes.
Chair
Thank you very much. As ever, I think you were very open and straightforward and honest with the Committee and I do appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Chris Grayling
You are welcome. Thank you. Oral evidence: Private Members’ bills, HC 684 2