What is it about the Conservative party and its predilection for avoiding scrutiny in the House? It tried that during the withdrawal Act process, and even to some extent during the Australia and New Zealand free trade agreement debate. Now it is at it again. Of all the concerns that I and hundreds of my constituents have about the Bill, I will focus on a single, central topic: democracy and, specifically, how this legislation directly attacks the very system underpinning our democracy in Westminster.
Some might ask, “How could a Bill that repeals laws attack our democracy?” It is simple. The Bill gives huge and sweeping powers to Ministers to wipe out laws that already exist: important laws that govern everything from our rights at work to protections for our planet. This is not a party political issue—I see that many right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches have put their names to amendment 36, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), which I will support along with those tabled by my Opposition Front-Bench colleagues.
As I stand here, I think back 250 years to a predecessor of mine, the hon. Member for Middlesex, John Wilkes, who is famous in Brentford for being the cause of the riot at the 1769 election hustings in the Butts in the centre of Brentford. It is a tree-lined square filled with elegant houses, many of which were probably standing then. John Wilkes was at first a radical journalist with a flair for words and a sharp tongue, but more importantly he fought for both the rights of parliamentarians and the rights of his electors. He stood up repeatedly for the rights of the majority of the electors in Middlesex, who sent him to Parliament as their representative. Despite Parliament repeatedly trying to exclude him, because of his locally popular but nationally unfashionable views, he was re-elected again and again, and Parliament kept trying to exclude him. Parliament won the battle to exclude him but not the war, and six years later he was again elected. In 1782, Parliament finally expunged the orders and resolutions it had passed to try to get rid of him.
Why do I speak about an election held 250 years ago, apart from grabbing for a constituency link in this debate? It relates to a simple and historical right—the right of our voters to elect Members to represent them in this House of Commons, where we vote on and scrutinise legislation. We have seen a remarkable number of changes since Wilkes’s time, and probably one of the most important is that the franchise eventually spread to all women and men. However, a constant is the right of Members of this House, not Government Ministers and their civil servants, to amend and change the law.
The laws that this Bill covers impact on our constituents every single day. We sit in this House not only to try to stop bad laws being passed, but to ensure that much-needed laws remain, such as laws that protect pregnant women
from being sacked; laws that protect our planet from toxic chemicals; laws that protect vehicle occupants and other road users, and airline passengers; laws that provide regulatory certainty for business; and much more. Then there are all the laws that the Government are not currently aware of because they do not have a complete list. Yet this Bill removes this power from elected Members and passes powers directly to Ministers, and those powers turn Government Ministers into monarchs—monarchs of old—who are able to remove our laws at the stroke of a pen.
With this legislation we see a bonfire being stoked, on to which we know the Government wish to throw our hard-won rights in order to watch them burn. Tonight this House has a chance to reject this bonfire. I will be supporting amendments that protect these hard-won rights and these good laws, and will ensure that this House has the final say on those that need repealing, amending or keeping, not the petty monarchs on the Treasury Bench.