Debate on the Address — [1st Day]

Part of Outlawries Bill – in the House of Commons at 7:29 pm on 9 May 2012.

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Photo of John Cryer John Cryer Labour, Leyton and Wanstead 7:29, 9 May 2012

It is always a pleasure to follow the sane and balanced observations of Mr Amess. Given that the hon. Gentleman brought up the issue of the Iraq war and the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, I remind him that I voted against the war—I think seven times, but certainly six. I did not have any particular prescience or a crystal ball, but some of us could very early on see that it was going to be an horrendous mistake. It was entirely wrong, and we opposed it every step of the way.

I remember the hon. Gentleman asking the then Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions:

“What plans he has to visit Southend, West.”

The answer was:

“I have no plans to visit Southend—and I rather think that the hon. Gentleman did not either, until he saw the writing on the wall in Basildon.—[Hansard, 19 May 1999; Vol. 331, c. 1061.]

That might explain his criticism of the former Prime Minister.

I, like many hon. Members, note that House of Lords reform is not exactly the centre of my universe. I do not lie awake at night fretting about it, but a number of speeches today have prompted me to make a few comments on it. Simon Hughes, at the end of his remarks, seemed to imply that the Government will come along with proposals meaning that the new upper House, whatever it is called, will be 100% elected. I suspect that that is wrong, and that the proportion will be 60%, 70% or perhaps 80%—a range of options, just like the previous Government gave the House some years ago.

I have always voted for 100% elected when the opportunity has come along. I have never sought that opportunity, but when it has come along I have always voted for 100% and against anything less than that, and, if the opportunity arises again, I personally—I do not speak on behalf of my party—will oppose anything less than 100% elected, although I would rather not spend any time on the issue at all.

On a related issue, the Chamber that requires more urgent reform than the House of Lords, which after all is just a revising Chamber, is this one. I agree with the earlier comments of my hon. Friend Meg Hillier, but another problem with this Chamber—to which many references have been made for many years—is that power has flowed from it to Whitehall, Downing street and Brussels for about 40 years or even more.

In conversation a while ago with Mr Davis, I mentioned that power had been flowing from the elected Chamber to unelected institutions for the past 40 years, but he said, “It’s been much longer than that. Power has been taken away from the House of Commons since roughly 1880.” I do not know whether he was around in 1880; I certainly was not! I am sure that if he had been he would have told MPs then that their proposals were an absolute outrage and a betrayal of the parliamentary principle, but prior to that Back Benchers dictated all business on the Floor of the House. It never happened again; it was taken away during that period.

In the relatively recent past, we have had the Jopling proposals, in 1994 under John Major’s Government, followed by the more rigid measure of timetabling, which was introduced post 1997 and which, by the way, I also voted against. Those two things—particularly the Jopling proposals—have cemented a relationship between this place and Whitehall which is entirely unbalanced and needs to be brought back into balance.

That leads me on to an incident that occurred when I was an MP previously, for Hornchurch, with Eric Forth, the much missed, late Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who was a great parliamentarian and a terrific speaker. He was speaking against everything that had happened since 1994, against timetabling and guillotining, and I pointed out from a sedentary position on the Government Benches that he had actually supported the Jopling proposals. I probably used some fairly Anglo-Saxon language when doing so, but Eric’s response was, “Well, I regret it now and wish I had voted against them.” Funnily enough, he was in opposition at the time.

I shall move on to two issues that do concern my constituents. Like many in the Chamber, I have worn myself out over the past few months knocking on doors, and, as everybody else who has spoken today has said, nobody on the doorstep or at street surgeries mentioned House of Lords reform, but two issues that were mentioned day in, day out were, first, housing and the appalling state of accommodation—certainly in my constituency and many others in England, Scotland and Wales—and, secondly, economic insecurity. Those two things were right at the top of the agenda day in, day out during the campaign.

The Queen’s Speech mentions housing in passing, I suppose. It states:

My Government will strive to improve the lives of children and families.”

The problem is that the lives of children and families in my constituency are not being improved; they are going in the opposite direction. In Leyton and, to some extent, in Leytonstone, both of which are in my constituency, we are seeing almost Victorian levels of overcrowding, with appalling cowboy private landlords treating people terribly, and the waiting list in Waltham Forest, which makes up most of my constituency, is now more than 20,000.