UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

HOUSE OF COMMONS

REPRESENTATIONS MADE TO THE

BACKBENCH BUSINESS COMMITTEE

BACKBENCH BUSINESS

TUESDAY 21 JANUARY 2014

JOHN HEALEY and GUTO BEBB

NICK HERBERT, RICHARD BENYON and JOAN WALLEY

JIM FITZPATRICK, PETER ALDOUS and CHRIS WILLIAMSON

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Representations

Made to the Backbench Business Committee

on Tuesday 21 January 2014

Members present:

Natascha Engel (Chair)

Mr David Amess

Bob Blackman

Oliver Colvile

John Hemming

Ian Mearns

Alec Shelbrooke

Pete Wishart

John Healey and Guto Bebb made representations.

Q1 Chair: May we have John Healey and Guto Bebb, please? We have had your application for a proposed transatlantic trade and investment partnership debate for the Chamber on a motion for a half day. Just for the sake of the record, John, could you read the motion?

John Healey: Yes, we won’t put in this motion, but it is an attempt to be helpful. We are happy to have a default "This House has noted", if necessary, but it is in the notes that I hope everybody has. It says: "This House notes the Government’s support for the proposed transatlantic trade and investment partnership, but further notes that more needs to be done to make the negotiations open and transparent, and to encourage broad support amongst businesses, workers, consumers and the wider public for a fair and ambitious deal."

In many cases, that captures the current state of public interest, concern and debate, and signifies the way that this has moved quite considerably since you allowed us the debate in July, just before the summer recess. Hence our desire to come back to this issue and have it back on the Floor of the House for what we propose should be half a day. If you want Guto or me to elaborate on any of the points in the note, we are happy to do so. Just to say, personal apologies from Jonathan Edwards and Mark Williams. Both are entirely happy to be part of promoting this as part of the all-party pitch. Both are stuck in Wales. Jonathan is still finishing off his paternity leave and Mark is in Borth, on constituency business.

Q2 Chair: Did you want to add something, Guto?

Guto Bebb: No. In terms of the pitch, it is all in front of you. In terms of topicality and the interest of Members, it has grown significantly. I think that indicates that we could get a good debate in the Chamber again.

Q3 Chair: Okay. The only issue that I would raise is the fact that you have got, between you, four names on the list and we have been a bit more ferocious about asking Members to put forward names of people who do not just support the idea of having a debate, but who you feel would be confident that they would participate. The Chamber time that we have is so valuable that we do not want to waste any of it.

John Healey: Let me say that we won’t let you down. We didn’t last time, in July. We had more than enough speakers and a time limit on the debate. I have said in the note here that an indication of the breadth of interest is that this all-party group in six months has grown. There were 70 members in this note and a week on there are 80. This is very much a growing area of concern, and constituency Members are also finding this coming through. May I say one final thing on topicality? It is much clearer now, given some of the potential upsides and therefore the importance of this deal, and some of the potential concerns that need to be ironed out in the negotiations.

In terms of topicality, we have listed in the final paragraph some of the things that are now becoming pressing concerns. We had an all-party group meeting 10 days ago. There were 75 people in the room, including 19 parliamentarians. This is an issue which is gaining considerable momentum. Today, the European Commission has announced that they are putting a moratorium-a pause-on negotiations on a specific area of concern, investor-state arbitration. They are consulting all 28 member states on their views whether, and if so how, this should be part of the negotiations in the future. So it is even more important at this time, over the next few months, that we have a debate, and then we are able to say to the Government, "Listen to these areas of concern in the Chamber. What stance is the UK Government going to take to this formal consultation that the Commission has just launched?"

Q4 Bob Blackman: Without rehearsing the debate, where is the opposition going to come to in order to get a balanced debate? Are we going to get all serious speakers saying how important transatlantic trade is and so on, with no-one saying we shouldn’t be doing this? Can we just be clear that it is not going to be a one-sided view?

Guto Bebb: I think there will be more opposition and more concerns raised in this debate compared to the first one, perhaps. Certainly, at the last meeting of the APPG, some of us who are very supportive of the concept of this trade agreement felt outnumbered in the room. I think there are increasingly concerns, for example, about the issue of protection for the health service, if this sort of deal went through as it is currently envisaged. I think what we want to try and ensure is that these issues are debated on the Floor of the House, rather than being dealt with by officials behind closed doors.

John Hemming: May I ask what the actual guidance is on the number of names we ask people to provide for this debate? Is it 15?

Q5 Chair: That was the guidance, but I was going to wind up by asking whether you could submit a list of names of people that you would be confident would come and speak in the debate, before we would schedule it? You are confident that you can do that?

John Healey: Apologies, Madam Chair, I was not aware of that guidance. I was not aware that there was a target list of speakers. If you want to give us a number, we will meet it.

John Hemming: I don’t think there is any doubt that you will meet it, but you need to know what the number is to hit. You need to be told that.

Q6 Chair: It is roughly 15. Thank you. That is really helpful.

John Healey: Does that mean if we get more than 15 then you might look at a full day?

Q7 Chair: To be honest, if there is a vast number of names, we will allocate the time according to the number of names that are on the paper. If there are, for example, 150 names, then obviously we would look at a possible full day.

John Healey: Whilst I totally understand the concern that you don’t want debates to peter out, there is a certain issue about quality rather than quantity. If time limits on speeches become too tight, you actually compromise the quality. All I can say is that in July we had more than enough speakers. We did have time limits on the debate. There are certainly more members of the group. There are more Members of the House on all sides interested in this issue. We would have no trouble in staging a really good, full debate-certainly half a day.

John Hemming: I don’t think there is any doubt you would be able to find the speakers. It is just trying to be fair to everybody and having the same rules for everybody, the Committee having developed the guidance as it went along.

John Healey: Are there any other boxes you wish us to tick?

Q8 Alec Shelbrooke: My concern is to try and make sure that the debate can be had in the time we outline. From your experience in July, do you think that your motion is likely to be hijacked with an amendment about the ongoing whole EU referendum in-out argument? Can I get your view on that? Or do you think that there would probably be enough in the motion to allow all sides of the argument to feel they don’t need to lay the amendment so that we don’t use up a big chunk of the time when someone moves another amendment to it? I suppose the plea is to make sure that the motion which you put in will be the motion discussed, and will not attract someone to try and stick an amendment to it. As you say, I think you will get a lot of speakers, but if someone sticks an amendment down and the Speaker approves it, you are going to lose 40 minutes of that time.

John Healey: Absolutely.

Guto Bebb: My gut reaction is that I would be surprised if that was the case. We had two or three very Eurosceptic speakers in the last debate and quite a few people were very supportive of the European Union. I think there is something in this debate for all sides of that particular debate, because there are those who argue that, if the EU cannot deliver this issue, it proves that the EU is not up to scratch. Others argue that the mere fact that the EU is leading on this issue shows why Europe is relevant. I think there is enough within the debate on both sides of the argument to avoid the need to highjack this issue with a side issue from this point of view.

Q9 Alec Shelbrooke: The concern is to make sure that when time is allocated-we will probably have a considerable number of speakers-we do not want to have it used up with somebody’s whim.

Guto Bebb: I can offer no guarantees, but I would be surprised.

Alec Shelbrooke: Of course you can’t. It was more your judgment I was asking for.

Q10 Oliver Colvile: Thank you very much for coming to see us. Is your aim also to try to understand where the Government are coming from on this issue? What is the aim of the debate? Is it just to have a wonderful chat around the family or to have some clarification?

John Healey: The aim is twofold and reflects the founding aims of the all-party group that Guto and I established back in the summer of last year. The first is to raise the level of parliamentary and public debate to try to make sure that more people are aware of, and are behind, an ambitious deal that brings benefits not just to British business but to British workers and consumers.

The second aim is that we are conscious, as this Committee will be, that in our Parliament we do not have a well-established system for Government reporting or accounting to this House, and therefore to the public, for the actions they take as part of the European Union. Other countries have formal systems, including some before they go into European negotiations, for getting a mandate from their domestic Parliament. We have nothing of that, therefore we believe that this Committee, on an issue like this, is playing a very important constitutional role in providing the opportunity to put Government Ministers on the spot, to be able to exercise some scrutiny on behalf the public and our proper role as parliamentarians in debating and offering some sort of challenge to Ministers and the actions they are taking on our behalf within the European Union.

Q11 Chair: May I ask one final question? We have quite a lot of things to allocate. At the moment we are looking to allocate two hours at the end of the day on the 27 January-next Monday-so that is very soon. We have a full day on Thursday 30 January and we have a half-day on 6 February, again on a Thursday. Is there any reason why-

John Healey: What was the second debate?

Chair: Thursday 30 January.

John Healey: Of February?

Chair: The last one is 6 February, a half-day.

John Healey: I beg your pardon; you did say 13 January twice.

Chair: I said 30 January. That is a full day that we will be allocating today. We will be getting more Thursdays, but we have run out of time in the middle of March. Is there a reason why it must happen before a certain time or is this just something that needs to happen as soon as possible? Are there any dates that you cannot do?

John Healey: I would have to check the two or three dates that you have suggested. I think, particularly given today’s development, where there are three months of formal consultation on an area which is central to the whole question of trade agreements and a number of concerns of groups, I think Guto and I would argue that a debate before the Easter recess is essential if we are not going to miss the moment. Beyond that, I do not think it is an issue.

Q12 Chair: In that case, if you could come back to us with as many names of people as you think will participate in the debate, we will judge the amount of time to allocate accordingly. If you could do that as soon as possible, that would be fantastic.

John Healey: Okay.

Chair: Brilliant.

John Healey: May I just say that I am reluctant to start getting 15 names if we are looking at only a couple of hours or less?

Chair: I think a couple of hours at the end of the day would be inappropriate for you, because that could drop right down to half an hour, so we would not consider that. I just wanted to let you know what we had to allocate. We would be looking at between half a day and a full day on this debate.

John Healey: Okay, thank you.

Chair: Thank you very much for coming in.

Nick Herbert, Richard Benyon and Joan Walley made representations.

Q13 Chair: Your application is for a half-day general debate in the Chamber on international wildlife crime.

Nick Herbert: That is right, Chair. Would you like me to explain why we are proposing this?

Chair: Yes, please.

Nick Herbert: Specifically, it is to tie in with a major international summit on the illegal wildlife trade that is being hosted by the Government on Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 February. It is the first time that a summit like that has been held, and it is a very significant opportunity to try to secure an international agreement on tackling the wildlife trade. As Members who are concerned about this issue, and knowing the depth of concern in our constituencies about the illegal wildlife trade and, in particular, its impact on endangered species, we felt that there really ought to be a parliamentary opportunity to discuss the issues, preferably just ahead of that conference. It would be ideal, if it was possible, for the debate to coincide with the conference, so that Members can draw attention to these issues and suggest the kinds of things that might be discussed at the summit, as well as solutions, and represent the views of our constituents, who constantly take these issues up with us.

It is also important to note that this is not just about the impact on wildlife species. That is really serious-the damage to species such as rhino, elephant and tigers from poaching is immense-but there is also an increasingly serious crime issue. International wildlife crime is now ranked the third biggest harm after the drugs trade and people trafficking. It is causing billions of pounds-worth of harm globally each year. It involves organised crime gangs, and is being taken seriously by our new National Crime Agency, and it features in the Government’s strategy for that agency. There is, therefore, quite an important spill-over into crime issues. These issues have not been debated in the House of Commons for some time, but for all those reasons, we thought this was a timely opportunity to do so.

Q14 Chair: The only thing I was going to ask was this: the summit is on 12 and 13 February, and the House rises for half-term on Thursday 14 February, which is more than likely to be the day that we would be allocated.

Bob Blackman: Thursday 13 February.

Chair: I was looking at the dates for 2013; sorry. Thank you for that. Is that Thursday the day you are looking at, or is it beforehand?

Nick Herbert: No. It would be before, if possible, not least because I am afraid that some of us would have a problem with being able to attend on Thursday 13 February. Also, that would be the second day of the conference; the conference would have already started by the time we had our debate.

Q15 Chair: So you are looking specifically at Thursday 6 February?

Nick Herbert: Or if there was an earlier day that week-I do not know whether there is an allocation for business then.

Q16 Chair: No, we do not have that. I think that a debate on international wildlife crime will be one of those debates that will be quite well attended. On Monday 27 January we have an end-of-day debate, which is anything between half an hour and three hours, but we do not know until the day.

Nick Herbert: It could be compressed.

Q17 Chair: It could be a really small amount of time, which I think in your case is not really right. You are after a general debate. We have Thursday 30 January and Thursday 6 February, but 6 February is a half-day. Those are the only two days available to us.

Nick Herbert: In that case it would be Thursday 6 February, which would be the week before. That would give the House an opportunity to express a view the week before the summit.

Chair: Okay.

Q18 John Hemming: You have asked for the Chamber, but you do not have a motion; would you reject Westminster Hall if it was offered?

Nick Herbert: No. We would rather have a Westminster Hall debate than nothing. We felt that there would be sufficient interest to merit a debate on the Floor of the House.

Chair: Do you want to pursue that, John?

John Hemming: Well, that was the basic question, really.

Q19 Oliver Colvile: Are you seeking to smoke out the Government, as to how they are going to react to this?

Nick Herbert: Yes. We are interested to know what will be proposed. There is some debate over, for instance, the right way to deal with ivory stockpiles and, if there is a ban, what period that ban should trace back to. Although I think this is a bipartisan issue, there are issues of detail about how this trail is handled that merit discussion, and on which we would like to hear from a Minister.

Joan Walley: Thank you for hearing these representations. It might be helpful if I refer to the Environmental Audit Committee report, which was debated in the past 12 months, I think through the Liaison Committee; there was a lot of interest in the House. Our report and recommendations were in advance of this meeting, which is now taking place in February.

One of the key issues, particularly with the ever-accelerating effects of wildlife crime on, for example, the elephant population, is trying to get the best possible line out of the Government at this conference, looking at whether the African elephant action plan could be taken on board in the conference, and showing what support there is. It is in everyone’s interest to get the best possible and most beneficial outcome from the conference.

Q20 Alec Shelbrooke: May I clarify how much time you are seeking? You said Thursday 6 February, but that is only 90 minutes.

Ian Mearns: It is three hours.

Alec Shelbrooke: I beg your pardon. But do you need the three hours? That is the point.

Nick Herbert: Given the number of Members who are likely to contribute, I would have thought yes, three hours.

Q21 Chair: On that, we said the same thing to the previous people who came to us. At the moment you have three of you here, and you have Zac Goldsmith, Jim Fitzpatrick and Caroline Lucas supporting this. Time is at such a premium, and people have put on their forms people who support the idea of having a debate, but who do not turn up on the day. What we have asked for, to make sure that the debate does not collapse early-this is simply because otherwise we could allocate a little less time and allocate something else as well-is a longer list. We say, as guidance, that 15 names would fill a three-hour debate.

Nick Herbert: I have no doubt that we can produce that. There are four of us; Jim Fitzpatrick is here as well.

Q22 Chair: Brilliant. If you could provide us with a list of people who you are certain would attend a debate as soon as possible, we would be grateful.

Joan Walley: That would very much depend on when you say which date it was.

Q23 Chair: Sure. I think we can do that after the meeting. If we are in touch with you after the meeting, we can go from there. I am just putting on the record that we need more names.

Nick Herbert: I am absolutely certain that we will have no difficulty in producing a list.

Q24 Chair: Richard, did you want to add something?

Richard Benyon: I am interested to know whether you have any clout as to who responds to these debates. It is quite an interesting case across Government. It was considered to be just a niche environmental issue, but as Nick says, it is as much about security, alongside animal-related issues.

Q25 Chair: We do not have any power to force individual Ministers to respond, but we can ask Ministers and say, "We would particularly like such-and-such a Minister to respond to this." Most of the time, they have done so, to be honest, if they are in the country; when it is foreign affairs, that can be quite difficult. We can definitely put in a request.

Richard Benyon: I am not saying that I have any strong views, but that should be considered, given the breadth of this issue, in terms of international development, foreign affairs, security and the environment.

Chair: If you do have a view about who you want to respond, let us know. We can put in a request.

Q26 Oliver Colvile: You can also try to get someone to write an article in one of the national newspapers. You can raise the profile of the issue in a big way-or is that me talking as a PR expert?

Joan Walley: May I be slightly controversial? When this was discussed last time, we had the one ministerial response, but I think there might be a case for looking at some kind of a job-share ministerial response. As Nick pointed out, it is a question for the Home Office, DEFRA and DFID. It is a cross-cutting issue. Sometimes, Government are not quite equipped to deal with cross-cutting issues.

Nick Herbert: The conference is co-sponsored principally by the Foreign Office and DEFRA.

Chair: Okay. We will have a look at what we can do, but it sounds very interesting. Thank you for coming.

Jim Fitzpatrick, Peter Aldous and Chris Williamson made representations.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Thanks very much for seeing us. Mary Glindon and Roger Williams said that they would try to get here to join us, and Chris is here as one of our 14 names. We canvassed the all-party fire safety and rescue group and asked its members if they would be supportive and prepared to speak, provided that there was not conflict with something constituency-based. So far, 14 have said that they would.

May I clarify a point? Apologies: we did put in for the Westminster Hall Thursday 90-minute debate, but we are very flexible. Given that we already have 14 names and could probably add some, we are very much in the Committee’s hands as to what might be possible in allocating time, should you choose to do that.

The essence of the debate is to support fire sprinkler week, which is sponsored by the Chief Fire Officers Association and supported by the Business Sprinkler Alliance and business throughout the country. Fire sprinklers prevent small fires becoming major fires. A recent report produced by the Building Research Establishment and the Centre for Economics and Business Research that says that there are avoidable losses of £1 billion every five years. There is a reception here to launch that next week.

Fire sprinkler week begins on 3 February, which is the week after. David Amess is the chair of the all-party fire safety and rescue group, so I know that he would be on this list, were he not compromised by his position on the Committee. The essence of the debate is to promote fire sprinklers, because they save lives, reduce environmental impact, ensure business continuity, and reduce unemployment, the impact on the supply chain, and loss of production.

We have European comparators: in the UK, the building size requiring fire sprinklers is 20,000 square metres, whereas in Norway it is 800 square metres and in Germany it is 1,800 square metres, so there is a big variation in the fire protection in Europe and the UK. These are avoidable losses, and we would hope to impress on DCLG and BIS that this is a technology whose time has been coming for some decades. They should be doing more to promote it across society.

John Hemming: I think you answered my question. When you ticked "Westminster Hall Thursday", you did not mean "not Tuesday", right? And you would accept the Chamber and everything else like that. I think you answered that question, so I will not ask it.

Q27 Mr Amess: Jim, all I was going to say-I have a vested interest in this-is that we are confident that there are enough colleagues who want to be sprinkled; is it likely that anyone would argue against it in a debate?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I do not think anybody will argue against it. It is a matter of raising the profile and trying to get some positive comments from Government. As it is a regulatory issue, Government will obviously be reluctant and resistant, and many of the colleagues whose names are on the list are either members of the all-party group, have held shadow or ministerial positions, or have had major fires in their constituency and have seen the impact on local jobs, employment and productivity, and want to share that disappointment and sadness to try to promote sprinklers. I cannot imagine that anybody will be opposed to the idea; it is very much a matter of persuading Government to do more to help promote it.

Chris Williamson: Having said that, of course, we know that there has been resistance in the past from the Department. We are interested in ensuring that there is a debate and that an alternative proposition is put forward, but we have seen some push-back from both parties in government. While it is hard to believe that people could oppose such an eminently sensible proposition, there is a very real likelihood that some Members will put an alternative point of view. If the Committee’s concern is that we will have a one-eyed debate with no alternative views put forward, I do not think that you need necessarily fear too much for that, for the reasons I just outlined.

Peter Aldous: The reason why I am here is that I had a fire in my constituency that razed a factory to the ground. It employed 200 people and is now a bare site. If there had been sprinklers, the fire would have been put out in four minutes and the fire service would have been back in the station very quickly. It is clear that there are misconceptions about sprinklers that I think we are gradually overcoming, but there is still work to be done there.

There is also the economic, social and environmental impact of fires that could so easily be avoided, plus the morality of sending fire service people to work on fires that could so readily be avoided. That is why I think we need this debate.

Q28 Bob Blackman: Briefly, what is the preferred date for holding the debate? Obviously, fire sprinkler week commences on 3 February. Would you rather have it during that week or before?

Jim Fitzpatrick: We are very flexible. We will obviously promote the week. We have the reception, and the chief fire officers are coming in on the 29th to launch the report from the Building Research Establishment and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, so we would be very happy to get parliamentary time any time that week or the week before.

Q29 Chair: We also have 90 minutes in Westminster Hall on that Tuesday. DCLG will be one of the answering Departments, so that may also fit in.

Jim Fitzpatrick: That could be very good.

Chair: Thank you very much for coming. We will let you know this afternoon.