Constitutional Reform

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Corporal Paul Joszko, Private Scott Kennedy, and Private James Kerr, all of whom died in Basra, and to Captain Sean Dolan and Sergeant Dave Wilkinson, who were killed in Afghanistan. They died serving their country. I join the Prime Minister, too, in his praise for the work of the police, the emergency services and the security services and also in thanking the public both for their bravery and for their vigilance. I thank the Prime Minister for his statement today. Let me begin by congratulating him on becoming Prime Minister. He has achieved his long-held ambition, and I hope that there will be opportunities for us to work together, not least on the issue of terrorism and the safety of our people. The British system of government and politics needs real and lasting change. The country is too centralised, Parliament is too weak, Ministers do not give straight answers and people feel shut out of decision making. That is why we need change. We welcome much of what is in the statement: the national security council was in our policy review; confirmation hearings—one of our proposals; and neighbourhood budgets are in the Sustainable Communities Bill being taken through the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd). But we have to ask this of the Prime Minister: he says he wants to decentralise Government, but is he not the one who has imposed 3,000 central targets on our public services and local government? He says he wants to strengthen Parliament, but how can we forget the 10 years that he has spent on new ways of trying to avoid Parliament, with his stealth tax changes not even mentioned in his Budget? He says he wants all his Ministers to give straight answers, but when he was Chancellor he did not answer a single question about the tax credit system for which he was responsible for more than two and a half years. The Prime Minister says he wants to restore trust in politics, but surely he has to recognise that he has been at the heart of the Government who have done more than any other Government in living memory to destroy trust in politics. He says he wants to get to the truth. In that case, I have to ask him why he opposes holding an inquiry into Iraq where, above all, we must get to the truth. That is why, when it comes to restoring trust in politics, we simply do not see that the Prime Minister can be the change this country needs. Let us look at the detail. There are three key relationships: between Government and Parliament, between different parts of the United Kingdom, and between politics and the people. On Parliament, in May last year I said that Parliament should vote on peace and war and on international treaties, so I am glad the Prime Minister will be introducing that; it has our full support. In June this year, I called for real power for Select Committees. The Prime Minister said a lot about the Intelligence and Security Committee, but there was little in the statement about other Select Committees. Will they be getting more power? Three years ago, we sponsored a Civil Service Bill. Can the Prime Minister confirm that what he was talking about in his statement is a full civil service Act? Does the Prime Minister agree that in changing the relationship between Government and Parliament, we should go further? Is it not time to give the House of Commons the right to determine its own timetable? Is not that the absolute key to restoring power in Parliament? I listened carefully to what the Prime Minister said about electoral reform. I have to say this: as a Prime Minister who was not elected by the British people, he must understand that any attempt to alter the electoral system without the consent of the people will be seen for what it is—an attempt to change the rules to suit one party’s interests and to cling to power. As the Prime Minister did, let us turn to the relationship between different parts of the United Kingdom. Today, the situation is that neither he, nor I, nor any Member of the House has the right to vote on hospitals, schools or housing in his constituency or in other parts of Scotland, yet he is able to vote on hospitals, schools and housing in my constituency. We already have two classes of MP. Is it not the case that the only effective way to solve that problem is to give MPs in English constituencies the decisive say in the House on issues that affect only England? The Prime Minister has had 30 years to come up with answers to the West Lothian question, and I have to tell him that Question Time for regional Ministers just does not cut it. Does he not see that the failure to answer that question is actually putting the Union at risk? Now let us look at the third and most important relationship—that between politics and people. Part of the Prime Minister’s answer will clearly be the Bill of Rights and duties, but surely at this most serious of times we need greater clarity about the Human Rights Act 1998. Is it not the case that it is now almost impossible to deport foreign nationals who may do this country harm? That is why we believe a proper British Bill of Rights should mean replacing the Human Rights Act. On the subject of things that have sapped trust in politics, why have the Prime Minister’s Government systematically taken more power from local councils and given it to unelected regional assemblies? The only people who were asked their views about that—people in the north-east—gave a resounding no, so why does he not recognise today that regional assemblies are costly, unnecessary and unwanted and should be scrapped? Above all, how can the Prime Minister possibly restore trust in politics if he will not give the people the final say on one of the biggest constitutional questions of all—whether to sign up to what is in effect the European constitution? He talks about citizens juries. Why not have a jury of all our citizens and ask them to give their verdict on that issue? However worthy, however sensible and however desirable some of the changes that the Prime Minister has outlined, let us not pretend that they are the answer to restoring trust in politics. Constitutional change is not the solution to broken trust, because the constitution is not the cause of broken trust. It is broken promises that are the cause of broken trust. A vote on Europe, no tax rises, fixing the NHS—these are broken promises and people will ask how the person who broke this trust can be the person to mend it. Four vital questions go to the heart of this statement. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that real decentralisation must mean scrapping top-down targets? Does he accept that when there is constitutional change—transferring power from Westminster to Brussels—it should be put to the people in a referendum? Does he accept that real power for Parliament means the House of Commons—not the Government of the day—determining its own agenda? Does he not understand that real reform must mean answering the West Lothian question, which he failed to do today? Now the Prime Minister tells us that he wants a proper debate in Parliament in which Ministers answer questions. He can start today—four straight questions needing four straight answers. We will engage in this constitutional debate, as we have for the last 18 months, but engagement must involve tackling the real reasons why people in this country are so disillusioned with their politics and the political process.