Nomination of Members to Committees

Part of Business of the House (Today) – in the House of Commons at 9:42 pm on 12 September 2017.

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Photo of Chris Matheson Chris Matheson Labour, City of Chester 9:42, 12 September 2017

I have not calculated that, but my advice to the right hon. Gentleman would be to win a general election with a proper majority next time and then he would not have that problem.

Last night, we saw a power grab. We know there was a power grab with the so-called Henry VIII powers and with the Government giving themselves the authority to pass any order on any matter. However, that was only the most recent aspect of the twisting of the rules.

We saw the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which required charities not to get involved in politics and potentially prevented them from scrutinising the activities of this Government. It did not apply to corporations or to newspapers, which are so keen to tell us how to vote, but only to charities and trade unions.

We saw the Trade Union Act 2016, which fundamentally altered the structure of the relationship between trade unions and the Labour party, thereby cutting funding for opposition to the Conservatives, even though there was no call for that from within trade union membership, and even though funding was not denied to any other political party. We saw the length of the Session doubled by the Leader of the House, but she has not doubled the number of Opposition days—and nor the number of private Member’s Bill days—to provide for scrutiny of the Government, including by Back Benchers. We have seen proposals to alter the number of constituencies, with very tight limits being given to the Electoral Commission. Apparently, that would give 30 extra seats to the Conservatives. Once again, they were changing the rules in the same way they are seeking to do tonight.

There is a clear authoritarian streak in what the Government propose—an anti-democratic streak. They seem to be running scared.