Parliamentary Standards Bill

I invite the Justice Secretary to listen to my arguments. The Bill further undermines MPs' independent capacity to represent the interests of their constituents in the national interest. As the Justice Secretary said, the House of Commons already sits shorter and shorter hours. Recesses seem to get longer and more numerous. An increasing number of decisions are taken other than in Parliament—in Whitehall, in Brussels, or in the courts, and increasingly not even in our own courts. Legislation increasingly passes through the House of Commons without being scrutinised, this Bill being a case in point, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester remarked. Ministers have more and more order-making powers, and there is more and more delegated legislation. Ministers have become legislators in their own right, not least when they sit in the EU Council of Ministers. More and more public money is voted through without any semblance of debate. At the state opening of Parliament, we slam the door of our House in the face of the sovereign's messenger to signal the hard-fought independence of the House of Commons from the Crown, but these days such a ceremony is becoming an ironic charade, as today's Prime Ministers have more unfettered power and control over Parliament than any monarch for at least 300 years. The powers of the Crown are vested in the Prime Minister, and he virtually controls Parliament. Only the Government determine the timetable for the House's business, only the Government have the power to determine changes to Standing Orders, and only the Government can table a motion to suspend the time limit on sittings. Before the second world war, the Government payroll was perhaps a little more than 50 MPs, and a sitting MP who accepted ministerial office was subject to what today's radicals would call "recall"—that is, they had to resign and fight their seat in a by-election. Today, the payroll has nearly trebled to more than 140 MPs, and ministerial office is just one of the bribes and threats that a modern Prime Minister can hold over MPs without consequence. The proposal for the regulation of MPs without the regulation of Ministers, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) pointed out, graphically underlines the disparity in power that now exists between Parliament and the Executive whom we are meant to be holding to account. With Parliament so powerless, the voters share that sense of powerlessness. It fuels the anger and outrage about our expenses, the failure of the whole political class, the loss of control over issues such as immigration, the reams of meaningless and unaccountable laws, the endless taxation and waste and the untouchable tyranny of officialdom. That is why the British National party now wins seats in European elections. It is ironic, at a time when everyone seems to agree that the House of Commons has become too weak and the Government too strong, that the Government should bring forward this Bill to regulate Parliament with a new quango, new criminal offences specific to MPs and, according to the Clerk of the House, new limitations on parliamentary privilege that will have what he calls a "chilling effect" on free speech. The Bill of Rights of 1689 came about as a reaction to a long period of monarchical rule during which Parliament was either ignored or did not sit at all. It limited the royal prerogative and established key rights for Parliament, not least the right of free speech. This Bill threatens to turn the clock back, not forward, and to put MPs more in fear of the apparatus of the modern state, not make them stronger or more independent. As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) pointed out, the unworkable requirements for the declaration of outside interests are not neutral but designed to cow MPs by creating a sense that outside earnings are invidious. The role of MP need not be a full-time job—as has been asked, how else do so many MPs also have time to serve as Ministers? MPs are becoming more like party drones than independent tribunes of the people. They should be representatives, not party delegates. They should represent their constituency at Westminster, not their Westminster party in their constituency. MPs today are expected to behave more and more as employees of some kind of corporation, not to exercise their individual judgment according to conscience. That is why we should not have a job description. Mine is written every time I stand in front of my constituents for re-election. Some day, this House must demand back from Government what successive Governments have taken away. A competent Government need a strong Parliament to hold them accountable, and there is certainly no evidence that weaker Parliaments have made Governments any better. The Justice Secretary perhaps started a process of reversal with his concession about clause 6, but he will need to make many, many more concessions before the Bill wins my confidence. I shall certainly vote against the time limit on consideration of the Bill, which exemplifies everything that has gone wrong with the governance of our nation. Ultimately, we need a new House of Commons with fresh blood and a fresh mandate to reclaim the rights and powers that should not be the property of our rulers but belong to the people, and should be safeguarded in this House by the representatives they send here to safeguard their freedoms.