Business of the House (13 May)

That, at the sitting on Monday 13 May, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of Penny Mordaunt relating to Risk-Based Exclusion not later than two hours after the commencement of proceedings on that Motion; such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings on that Motion may be entered upon and may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.—(Joy Morrissey.)

We have, I think, another hour and three quarters, or a little longer, in which to debate this motion. The point I want to make at the outset is this: why are we wasting so much valuable sitting time because of the way the Order Paper is being arranged? Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who I hope will respond to this short debate, can explain to us how it comes about that we have the best part of two hours to debate this motion, yet the motion states that we have two hours maximum to debate a much more important motion on Monday. That motion is in the name of the Leader of the House and relates to the exclusion of MPs. We had, I think, four amendments tabled to the Finance Bill, but there are already eight amendments tabled to the motion for Monday, which shows that there is quite a lot of interest in it. Those amendments include one from the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), who wishes us to go back to the situation that pertained in the original motion relating to the risk-based exclusion of MPs.

The original proposal was that Members could be excluded just on the grounds of suspicion. I tabled amendments against that proposal, together with colleagues, and it is to the credit of the Leader of the House that she has come back with a revised motion that makes it clear that exclusion would not begin to apply unless or until somebody had been charged with a violent or sexual offence.

As one of the colleagues who signed my hon. Friend’s suggested amendment, I found alarming the suggestion that an MP could be suspended on the basis of an allegation. It does not require much imagination to see certain circumstances in which an MP could be targeted by someone making a serious allegation with no factual underpinning whatsoever, and then having to be suspended. It is astonishing, frankly, that we could be put into such a situation on so flimsy a basis.

I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend, to whom I am grateful for supporting my amendments to the original motion. I am sure that it will be of concern to him that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) has tabled amendment (h) for debate on Monday, which would effectively take us back to the original motion by suggesting that, instead of having to be charged, a Member would only have to be arrested on suspicion of committing an offence in order to be excluded from this House.

On the previous intervention, I do not know how many rape, sexual violence or violence arrests the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) and the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) have handled, but an arrest does not happen on the basis of “flimsy” allegations; it takes weeks. I just put that on the record, as someone who deals with this week in, week out. The idea that somebody gets arrested just on someone’s say-so is for the birds.

Before we resume this debate, I point out that the motion before us is incredibly narrow. I fear that we may be having the debate that we will have on Monday, and we do not want that. This is just about the amount of time that will be allocated. The debate that we are sort of having now is really for Monday.

I take that point absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think we have already had a taste, from the couple of interventions, of the fact that this is a controversial subject, for which two hours of debate on Monday is inadequate. The purpose of this debate is to decide whether we believe that a motion limiting debate on Monday to two hours is the right or wrong course, and I would suggest that it is the wrong course.

While fully accepting your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, I must say in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) that I said nothing about somebody who had been arrested. The original wording to which I objected did not refer to someone having been arrested; it was simply about whether somebody had been accused of something. On the point about someone having been arrested, I might well agree with her interpretation; it would depend on factors such as the bail circumstances.

One issue is that people can be arrested and not know whether they will be charged for months, if not years. During that period, they are in limbo and under suspicion, but are, under the principles of justice in this country, innocent until proven guilty. I think it is reasonable, if somebody is charged with an offence, that the matter is moved on, and that their identity is known. However, quite often, people may be arrested and their identity will not be known.

The point I am making is that this is a controversial subject. The new motion that the Leader of the House has brought before us is more in line with what is proposed in the other place, which probably has even more legal wisdom than this House. It decided in a similar debate that it would be wrong to exclude Members from the parliamentary estate on the basis of suspicion or mere arrest, and that a charge was needed. I submit that it is desirable to have consistent rules across the whole parliamentary estate, because people can move freely between the different parts of the estate, so if somebody in the other place is subject to a different regime from somebody in this place, that will create extraordinary anomalies.

However many hours we spend debating this, is the fundamental problem not that the aim is to do this by motion, rather than by legislation, and that any exclusion of a Member except by a specific vote on that Member needs to be a legislative requirement for attendance of the House, not a mere motion?

I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend. Indeed, that point could be made in Monday’s debate without the need to discuss the amendments to which I have been referring, but why are we placing a restriction of two hours on a debate on an issue of such fundamental importance? My right hon. Friend’s point is another reason why we should not support a two-hour restriction on Monday’s debate. I do not really understand why that limit is necessary, because Monday’s Order Paper looks very light, as indeed today’s Order Paper has been. At the moment, just a couple of motions have been tabled, dealing with regulations. Why is it proposed that everybody should again have an early night on Monday, and that we will arbitrarily impose upon ourselves a time limit for debating the important issue of risk-based exclusion?

It is quite a straightforward point. The Leader of the House has tabled the motion and is faced with a number of amendments, including one on a very controversial topic: the issue of whether we should contaminate the whole proxy voting system in this House by allowing somebody who has been charged with a sexual offence to benefit from proxy voting. Why should they be allowed to vote by proxy? What is the justification for that? If somebody is charged with a sexual offence, they would potentially have bail conditions or custody conditions imposed as a consequence, and provided that there are no bail conditions excluding that person from participating in the proceedings of the House, they should be able to continue that participation. Should that not be the natural consequence?

Instead, the motion tabled for Monday proposes that a person would be entitled to a proxy vote in those circumstances. The reason I say that is controversial is because it would contaminate the whole proxy voting system. At the moment, a person with a proxy vote is a person who has a condition—either a medical condition, or they are expecting a baby or are the father of a new baby, and so on.

Order. The hon. Gentleman’s speech is getting to the substance of Monday’s debate. This debate is simply about the business of the House motion before us; it is not about what we are going to be debating next week. Can we be absolutely clear about that? I know that Mr Evans has already made that clear, so I am just reinforcing the point that we need to discuss what is before us, not the substance of next week’s debate.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I absolutely agree. My purpose in speaking to this motion today is to try to illustrate by example the scope of the motion that is down for debate on Monday, and why two hours, in my submission, is an inadequate amount of time in which to discuss such a motion.

The motion before the House today suggests that Standing Order No. 41A, on deferred Divisions, shall not apply. I wonder whether my hon. Friend thinks it is wise to put before the House motions that randomly suspend Standing Orders, or whether it is not important to maintain the integrity of Standing Orders, which, Madam Deputy Speaker, is clearly a legitimate part of today’s motion.

My right hon. Friend makes another very good point. We know that the Leader of the House—and he is a distinguished former Leader of the House—has two hats: they act as a member of the Government and on behalf of the Government, but they also defend the rights of Back Benchers to have issues such as this properly debated. That is why I express openly my disappointment that the Leader of the House has chosen to table a motion that would limit the amount of time for debate, instead of providing reasonable time for such a debate, which could be three hours. That would not be unusual, taking into account the complexity of the issues.

To give another example of the complexity of the issue, this has been debated in the House, at business questions, in Committees, and by the House of Commons Commission, for the best part of a year. Why has it taken so long for it to be debated in those forums? Because it is a complex and controversial subject. It just seems to me that such a controversial and complex subject demands more time than has so far been allocated.

However, there is no point in my repeating my points any more, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I certainly do not want to get myself in a position where I cannot be called in the substantive debate on Monday, but I certainly look forward to that debate.