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Points of Order
4.27 pm
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek your guidance. As you will recall, the House received a serious admission from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 16 March by written answer that his Parliamentary Private Secretary had received, before its publication, a draft copy of the report by the Select Committee on Social Security on taxing child benefit. However, at the time, the Chancellor had not answered other questions about the involvement of his political adviser, or possibly his officials. Therefore, I asked that question again. However, on 19 March, the Chancellor's answer to that specific question was simply to refer me back to his answer of 16 March; in other words, he refused to answer the question.
My point of order is to refer the House to the clear guidelines that are set down in paragraph 1 of the ministerial code. The paragraph is taken from a resolution of the House, which says:
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst):
Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Can you guide us on what redress is available to the House of Commons if we find, as we increasingly do--the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) seems to exemplify it yet again--that Ministers refuse point blank to answer a question that has been accepted by the Table Office, and refuse on a second or subsequent occasion to give any further information? Is the House of Commons then simply left completely lost? Is there nothing that we can do? Are the Government now able, as they never were in the past, to stonewall and to refuse the House any information after a question has passed through the Table Office?
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough):
Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. I am a member of the said Select Committee: the Select Committee on Social Security. The facts are clear. The Chancellor has admitted that his Parliamentary Private Secretary received a draft report. I have tabled a question to ask from whom he received the draft report. I await the answer to that question anxiously.
Surely the answer is simple. It is inconceivable that one of your Clerks, Madam Speaker, gave the PPS that Select Committee report. It is unlikely that a Conservative Member provided the report. However, someone must
own up to providing it. If the Executive received a draft report from the Select Committee and no one owns up to providing it, it is difficult to see how the system will be able to continue operating. The system will simply collapse. We therefore do need your help and guidance on the matter.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
On a different point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker:
Let me deal first with the first point of order.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) for giving me a little notice of what guidance he was seeking. As the House knows, Ministers take responsibility for the answers that they give, and I cannot comment on the specific answer to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
In general, the House is entitled to expect--as I do--that all Ministers will comply with the resolution on ministerial accountability. Enforcement of that resolution, however, is a matter for the House and not for the occupant of the Chair. I am sure that hon. Members, using our procedures, will find further ways of pursuing questions. Moreover, Ministers will have heard the points of order that have been raised and will take note of my response to them.
I call Mr. Bercow.
Mr. Bercow:
Thank you, Madam Speaker. May I seek your guidance on the implications for the House following a report--on page 2 of The Sunday Times yesterday, by Jonathan Carr-Brown--of a transport conference being organised by Professor David Begg, which is due to take place tomorrow and to be addressed by, among others, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions? The report states--the Department has not contradicted it--that the Secretary of State will make what is described as a "keynote speech" on bus policy, and that he is billed as launching the Government's White Paper on buses.
As the conference is advertised on that basis, and as charges--of between £175 and £275--are levied for attendance, is it not a matter of the utmost seriousness? Given that you have made very clear your views on the importance of informing the House first--and as Ministers might be hard of hearing--would you care to reiterate your views on this important matter?
Madam Speaker:
I pay little attention to such newspaper reports, and am not in the least bit interested in keynote speeches made outside the House by Ministers. It is not a matter for me. Ministers know my views on the matter, and certainly the Deputy Prime Minister has an excellent record in coming to the House first before making announcements outside it. He also knows full well my views on the matter. If there is any new policy or a policy change, he is a Minister who usually comes to the House first before announcing the policy outside it.
Madam Speaker:
We now come to the first debate on the Opposition motions. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam):
I beg to move,
In the same debate, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
Two years on, is Labour taking responsibility? Last November, the Deputy Prime Minister came to the Dispatch Box to announce Labour's second local government settlement. We were treated to much of the usual display of smoke and mirrors. We were told that council tax need rise by no more than 4.5 per cent., and Ministers spent the day going around television and radio studios underlining the positive message of only a 4.5 per cent. council tax increase. Moreover, we were told that the settlement was the most generous since council tax was introduced.
We know now how wrong those claims were. Council tax bills are rising by 6.8 per cent.--an average increase of £51 on band D in England alone. The Government have to take responsibility; they must stop blaming local authorities and councillors for the consequences of Government decisions taken in the House with the support of Back-Bench Labour Members.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle):
Why is the average council tax per dwelling so much higher in Liberal Democrat areas than in Labour or Conservative areas?
Mr. Burstow:
If this is going to be one of those debates when we trade variations of statistics, we can cite with the band D average, which shows a 6 per cent. increase for Liberal Democrat authorities.
"It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament".
It goes on to say that Ministers may refuse to provide information
"only when disclosure would not be in the public interest".--[Official Report, 19 March 1997; Vol. 292, c. 1047.]
As the code is at one with the resolution that was passed by the House, is not the Chancellor abusing the House and the public whom Parliament serves by refusing to answer that question? Do you agree that the Chancellor should now come before the House, apologise for his failure to uphold that code--which the Prime Minister stressed in his opening remarks in the code--and answer, once and for all, the question whether his advisers or officials were involved in that leaked draft report?
4.33 pm
That this House notes that the prime determinant of council tax levels is the amount of funding allocated by central government to local authorities; further notes that as a consequence of inadequate financial settlements for local government in recent years there has been a substantial real-terms year-on-year increase in council tax; and calls on the Government to improve the funding of local services and abolish budget capping within the lifetime of this Parliament.
Shortly before the 1997 general election, the House debated the then Conservative Government's last local government settlement. During the debate, the then shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, now the Secretary of State for Health, declared:
"The incoming Labour Government will be based on the supposition that democracy depends on the people who take the decisions carrying the can".
That is absolutely right. It is what this debate is all about--that those who take the decisions should carry the can for them. As our motion clearly states, the Government's responsibility is plain and clear when it comes to the increases that councils are now having to foist upon their citizens.
"We shall not roam around the country blaming local councillors for decisions that we have taken in the House of Commons."--[Official Report, 3 February 1997; Vol. 289, c. 701.]
That, too, is absolutely right.
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