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Kate Hoey: To be clear, for the benefit of Liberal Democrat supporters all over the country, is it the official Liberal Democrat view that the Parliament Act should be used to force through a ban on hunting?
Andrew George:
I am speaking for the Front Bench, but it is a free vote for the party. The party is in favour of a ban on hunting, but I have made it clear that I am
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offering my personal judgment. It is a free vote for all Liberal Democrats and the whole parliamentary party. My judgment is that we have spent quite enough time on this issue and that we cannot allow perpetual obstruction to continue. The matter must be resolved and, regrettably, it may have to be resolved in this way.
Andrew George: No, I will not give way because I want to move on—
Andrew George: Very well, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Greenway: I am grateful, as I seek further clarification. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the current Bill is preferable to the Bill that the Government originally introduced?
Kate Hoey: It is the Liberal Democrat view.
Andrew George: The hon. Lady says that this is the Liberal Democrat view, but I have already said that the party has a clear position on the issue of hunting and that all Members in the parliamentary party have a free vote. I have also made it clear, during many hours of debate on Third Reading and on Report—the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) may not have been around; otherwise he would know—that I favour a Bill closer to the Minister's original Bill, which included a form of regulation, than the current Bill. However, none of us is in any position to design our own Bill. There is a free vote. There could well be 659 different versions of the Bill. At the end of the day, a compromise and a judgment have to be reached. My judgment is that a number of faults could be ironed out and may be ironed out in due course, but that I will support the Bill in its current form today.
Chris Bryant: I hate to help out a Liberal Democrat when he is creating a fudge, as the hon. Gentleman seems to be doing now. However, does he agree that the real problem about the relationship between our Chamber and the second Chamber, with respect to the Parliament Act, is that many people in the country who do not follow every jot and tittle of what we do in Parliament see us vote successively with significant majorities in favour of a ban on hunting, yet still it never comes to pass, which undermines parliamentary democracy?
Andrew George: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has a greater knowledge of the implications of the Parliament Act than the Liberal Democrats and I do. He is certainly right to recognise that the general population would be astounded to think that an unelected House of Lords could overrule the House of Commons.
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con):
Is not the key issue one of parliamentary democracy in a bicameral system? This is a moral question, which is why there is a free vote with no fixed party positions. The issue is similar to
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abortion and assisted dying, where it is for individuals to reach their own point of view. The Government are required to provide parliamentary time for such issues to pass. However, the other Chamber should also endorse the legislative changes when they are as controversial as this issue, abortion or assisted dying. There should be a triple lock—both Chambers and the Government making time for legislation—before we start removing the liberties that have been held by substantial minorities for so long.
Andrew George: I agree that we should be cautious about how we proceed, but my reading of the House of Lords debate on Second Reading and in Committee is that nothing new was brought to the overall debate that had not already been argued in the House of Commons. If I thought that there were significant matters that we had not considered prior to the debate in the other place, my attitude would be different. It is a question of judgment. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the House of Lords debate, but I can assure him I found nothing new in it. I believe that the Lords are engaged in simple obstruction of the settled will of this democratic Chamber.
The hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) also referred to the issue of liberty, which has been repeated by many hon. Members in their contributions to the debate. It is quite interesting that that issue has been presented—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman just mentioned the time that we might have for the Second Reading debate. We will have more time for that if hon. Members deal quickly with the procedure motion. I ask him and future speakers to make sure that their remarks relate to that motion.
Andrew George: I am grateful for that advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point that I was making about the procedural motion has to do with the extent to which we in this Chamber have the right to question the approach taken by the House of Lords to defending the apparent liberties of alleged minorities. I want to address that issue, but I shall take your advice and save my comments on liberty and minority rights until the Second Reading debate.
2.10 pm
Phil Sawford (Kettering) (Lab): We are discussing procedure and urgency in this debate, but I was concerned to learn this morning that people wearing masks were in a vehicle outside my home last night. The vehicle apparently contained some sacks of manure and there appears to have been an intention to carry out an illegal or criminal act around my home. It seems that the people in the vehicle left when they saw police cars arrive, but that is not surprising as I live two doors along from a police station.
I was surprised to learn that the local media had colluded in this disgraceful attempt to harass and intimidate my family. I was even more concerned to learn from a local reporter that the people involved initially got the wrong address, which would have meant that their target would have been my parents' home rather than mine. My father is 79 years old, and my
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mother, who has a heart condition, is 78. Those masked intruders were planning to intimidate and harass the wrong people.
I come now to the question of procedure. I suspect that the people to whom I have referred are not representative of the vast majority of hunt supporters and that they belong to some kind of lunatic fringe. However, I think that there is a degree of urgency about this matter if that is the way such people are going to act in an attempt to intimidate—nay, terrorise—the families of Members who speak in this Chamber. The sooner we bring this matter to a conclusion, the better.
It is important for us to deal with the procedural question and enshrine the decision of this Chamber in the law of the land. We must implement that decision at the earliest opportunity, in the hope that we can prevent further examples of the sort of activity that took place yesterday evening outside my constituency home. The Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Hope), is a constituent of mine, and I understand that his family were subjected to similar treatment. The people involved left when they saw some police vehicles.
Mr. Banks: The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) thinks that that is funny.
Phil Sawford: I regret that such intimidation of Members' families seems to amuse certain Opposition Members. This is an urgent matter and I beg the House to resolve it today.
Mr. Heald: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course no one on these Benches would dream of countenancing or supporting any sort of criminal activity or misbehaviour, but my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) just remarked to me that not much was being said about procedural matters. Many hon. Members wish to speak on Second Reading, when there will be an eight-minute limit. Is it really in order for the hon. Member for Kettering (Phil Sawford) to plough on talking about other things?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman can safely leave such matters to the Chair.
2.14 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): Of course no hon. Member would ever condone the sort of actions to which the hon. Member for Kettering (Phil Sawford) referred, regardless of his or her position on the procedure motion or the substantive issue facing us today.
I want to refer to the admirable and courageous speech made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who has now left the Chamber. It is not easy to speak against one's own side or the majority of one's colleagues, as I know from experience. The hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) knows that I spoke out in favour of retaining the Greater London council when it was being abolished, and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who is not here, knows that I voted against the closure of the coal mines. I therefore know what it is like to be in a minority. I want to urge
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Labour Members, and those on my side who are in favour of this Bill, to pause for a moment to consider the consequences of this procedural motion.
We are discussing this motion for one reason only—the embarrassment of the Prime Minister. On the one hand, he is constantly being reminded of the off-the-cuff commitment that he gave in a television interview; on the other, he feels somewhat beleaguered among Labour Members as a result of policies that many of his colleagues do not like. It so happens that I am one of his great supporters on the most important of those policies, but that is neither here nor there. The Prime Minister's Iraq policy is very unpopular among Labour Members, and he feels that he has got to give them some red meat. He has therefore authorised his business managers to bring in this extraordinary procedural motion, and in so doing he has deprived the House of a proper opportunity to discuss the Bill.
That course of action appears all the more disgraceful when we remember that the original Bill introduced by the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality was markedly different from the one that we are discussing today. I give credit to the Minister because he tried very hard to fight his corner.
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