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Mr. Davis: I thank the right hon. Lady. The simple fact is that Members of Parliament fill in forms ad nauseam. I seem to spend vast quantities of my weekends writing down where I have been in my own constituency, so I certainly do not think that a condition as light as this could not be administered by the Fees Office and I am glad that it is willing to do so. Is the right hon. Lady accepting my amendment?
Mrs. Beckett indicated assent.
Mr. Davis: In that case, my speech has achieved its objective and, I hope, saved the taxpayer several hundred thousand pounds.
7.35 pm
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) can feel satisfied that his amendment has been accepted by the Government and that he now finds the motion acceptable, but I am afraid that I must apply a harsher test than that which the
Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has applied. I have great respect for the work that he does as Chairman of that Committee, and I have no wish whatever to make a bid for his job, but I am afraid that I must adopt a tougher view of the expenditure of public money than the one which he has apparently adopted by graciously giving in to the Government tonight.
Mr. David Davis: I object to the notion that I have given in to the Government. So far as I can see, the Government have given in to me.
Mr. Maclean: Whatever this is, it is consensus and there is something rather vulgar about consensus when it involves the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and those on the Treasury Bench.
I listened with incredulity once again this week when the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) suggested that it is our duty to our constituents to travel to Rome in August or to Lisbon--[Interruption.] He did not say August.
Mr. Sheerman:
I am concerned, and have always been concerned, only with European institutions, particularly those in Brussels. Any Member of the House who does not know how the European institutions work and how to take advantage of them for his constituents is not doing his job properly and is not serving his constituents to the fullest extent.
Mr. Maclean:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. It seems, therefore, that he is opposed to the extension of the scheme from Brussels and the European institutions to the other European capitals. I am sorry that I did him a disservice. I thought that he suggested in his intervention that it would be meritorious for us all to travel to those other European capitals and that it was our duty to our constituents to travel to Rome, Madrid, Athens and Paris--using taxpayers' money and at appropriate times of the year, of course--to study the national Parliaments and learn how they work so as to be better able to serve our constituents.
I must say that the hon. Gentleman is more persuasive than I am. I must admit that, using all my skills, I cannot sit opposite a constituent, look him or her in the eye and say, "I must have some of your money so that I can travel to Paris, Lisbon and Rome and to the other European Parliaments at your expense to make me a better MP so that I am more knowledgeable of the affairs of those countries and better able to do my duty to you." Who are we kidding?
A scheme has been proposed by the Government, but we can tell from its history that they know that it is bad politics. That is why they tried to sneak it in on numerous occasions after 10 o'clock at night and why they tried to bounce it through on the nod on Fridays, and on many other occasions. They know fine that it would not wash if the public--our constituents--found out that the House had extended an unused scheme for Members of Parliament to visit Brussels, Luxembourg and European institutions.
It seems that the scheme is used by less than a tenth of the Members of the House, but, because we are not working that scheme and are not taking up the amount of taxpayers' money that we have already allocated to
ourselves, we have decided to make the scheme sexier and make it more likely that we will soak up the taxpayers' money by adding some juicier and more exciting capitals.
Mrs. Beckett:
First, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the scheme is in no way in the interests of the Government, because Ministers are covered if they need to travel on parliamentary business.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman has not been in opposition very long--although I feel confident that, given the way that he is carrying on, he will get plenty of practice--so what I know from my experience as an Opposition Member may not have occurred to him. That is that there are occasions when hon. Members, of all parties, are engaged in business that means that it is beneficial, sensible and helpful to liaise with politicians in other member states.
Visits of various kinds are arranged for that purpose. In opposition, many Labour Members had to make such visits at their own expense. Those visits were not for pleasure, but were in pursuit of parliamentary business. On the basis of that experience, it seemed to me only sensible to propose an extension to the scheme.
Finally, and even more briefly, the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) have every right to object to the motion and to insist on it being debated. However, the right hon. Gentleman is talking about the reputation of Parliament. Nothing does more harm to that than the continued assertion by Members of Parliament that every foreign trip is a jaunt. He is kidding himself if he thinks that the public do not make a distinction between the sort of cases that he describes and worthwhile trips by Select Committees.
Mr. Maclean:
I am grateful for that long exposition by the right hon. Lady. However, I have been in opposition for the same number of days as she has been in government. One day, perhaps, we shall both be better at our respective roles.
Of course there is no advantage to Ministers in the proposal, but there certainly is to Government Back Benchers, that vast army of the bored unemployed. That army is not so vast tonight, of course, because so many Labour Members have pressing business in their constituencies. However, it is in the Government's interest that that vast army should be out of the House when contentious debates are coming up, whether they be on the Immigration and Asylum Bill, or on cutting welfare benefits or disability benefits. Those contentious debates may well turn out to be very convenient moments for Government Back Benchers to acquaint themselves with the workings of the Athens Parliament.
Mr. Sheerman:
It dismays many Government Members--and some Opposition Members too--when the right hon. Gentleman continually makes assertions that lower the reputation for integrity of Members of the House. I find it offensive. The right hon. Gentleman rejects even the notion that, in some senses, we are in a European federal state, and he believes that we should not travel throughout Europe. Some people do not like what
Mr. Maclean:
I do not believe that the trips are free. They are free for Members of Parliament, but they are paid for by our constituents. What is the justification for that?
Of course the Leader of the House is right to say that Ministers gain no advantage through the proposal, and that not every foreign trip is a jaunt. When the Deputy Prime Minister was in India, Mauritius and other places at Easter or during the Budget, we all know that that was not a jaunt. Of course not: the scuba diving was essential to his understanding of the conditions in those countries, which he clearly intended to adopt in his integrated transport policy for this country. I look forward to the scuba diving aspect being implemented in some way in Hull, or Huddersfield, or elsewhere.
Of course, Ministers need some recreation time on foreign trips, which involve a lot of hard work, as I know for a fact. If one does not take control of the programme, the embassy will have one working from 4 o'clock in the morning until midnight. I have no complaint about the work that Ministers do, but no Back Bencher should ever pretend that all foreign trips are arduous and tough. That is not the case. We can make them arduous if we wish, but there is no need for the money that has not been taken up to be soaked up by being spread across other institutions in Europe.
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