Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I stand corrected, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do apologise. I slipped from quoting from the letter into a direct address. I do hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will reconsider his position on this matter. Other parties are taking part and he would be able to play a valuable role in the process. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who is no longer here, raised a question about the public order provisions in the Bill, which I would like to address. He asked why certain conditions were not set out in the Bill, and I want to reassure him—I hope that he reads this in Hansard tomorrow—that schedule 4 is very explicit about the powers that the police will have to impose conditions on demonstrations. The only additional power that the police will have around Parliament, above and beyond those that they will have in the rest of England and Wales, is the power to impose conditions on a demonstration to secure access around Parliament. Clearly, there are concerns about this on both sides of the House, and I would like to say that the Government have an open mind on these questions and will continue to engage with the House authorities and any interested Members on them. We heard a characteristically serious and radical contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). I would like to take this opportunity to say that he has made a huge contribution to this Government's programme of constitutional reform over the years. We have heard a lot of praise for it— not altogether universally for this Bill, but I believe that every Member who has contributed to the debate has recognised that this Government have engaged over the past 12 years on a very serious programme of constitutional reform—and, as I said, my hon. Friend has played a huge part in the reform. My hon. Friend rightly pointed out that we do not have only organic change in this country, we also have decisive radical action. He is right about that, and I do not think that anyone would claim that this Bill represents a decisive moment in our programme of constitutional change, but that does not mean that it is not valuable or that everything in it does not play an important part in the continuing programme of constitutional reform. My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to the importance of measures on freedom of information, devolution and the independence of national statistics—and of course I agree with him. The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) made a serious speech. He talked about special advisers, so let me respond briefly on that subject. We should say that special advisers are already clearly governed by transparent terms and conditions of employment. As my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor said, it is important to note that any transgressions of those terms are punished, but that that does not invalidate their existence. This Government were the first to introduce and publish a model contract and code of conduct for special advisers that clearly sets out what they can and cannot do and their relationship with the permanent civil service. We are going to table an amendment—this might be of particular interest to Scottish and Welsh Members—to make similar arrangements to those in place for our civil service in respect of special advisers for Scotland and Wales. Under the proposed amendment, the Minister for the civil service may publish separate codes of conduct for special advisers in the Scottish Executive and in the Welsh Assembly Government. Where separate codes are drawn up for special advisers in the devolved Administrations, the Minister for the civil service must consult the First Ministers for Wales and Scotland, who must in turn lay the relevant code before the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. I hope that that addresses some of the concerns that I know have been raised in both Scotland and Wales about that matter.