Clegg, Kennedy & Hemming on the Queen's Speech

5.47.00pm GMT Thu 19th Nov 2009

• [Nov 18] Nicholas Clegg: ' . . . ALL the pageantry in the world cannot cover up the fact that this is a fantasy Queen's Speech, from a Government who are running out of road and a Parliament that has lost the trust of the British people. It is a Queen's Speech that will not give people the help with housing, bank lending or adult joblessness that they so desperately need in this recession and that will not fix our rotten politics .. '

I would obviously like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of Rifleman Andrew Ian Fentiman from 7th Battalion the Rifles and Corporal Loren Marlton-Thomas from 33 Engineer Regiment, who tragically lost their lives in Afghanistan this week. It is clear now to everyone, in all parts of the House, that we are arriving at a pivotal, make-or-break moment in the debate about our mission in Afghanistan, as announcements are made here, in Kabul by President Karzai and, most importantly of all, in Washington by President Obama. All of us will need to decide whether those announcements collectively represent the sufficient step change from a failing strategy to a strategy of success. However, throughout all that, we will never forget the professionalism, bravery and sacrifice of all those brave British servicemen and women who are serving in Afghanistan.

I should like to join others in congratulating the mover and seconder of the Loyal Address. Frank Dobson did a truly excellent job of opening the debate. He is widely admired in all parts of the House for his unbending refusal to follow fads and fashions. He is known as a determined campaigner who never gives up-so much so, I discovered this week, that his "Frank for Mayor" campaign website is still live on the internet. Throughout his long political career, he has often spoken words of wisdom; words that, it may surprise him to learn-it might even dismay him-I have often agreed with. There was the time in 1980 when he said that nuclear missiles were okay, so long as anyone who launched them was compelled to stay above ground afterwards. Then there was the time in 1988 when he argued in favour of televising the House of Commons because, as he put it beautifully, we did not have "any reputation to damage". There was also the moment in 2003 when he memorably remarked to the Labour party that, if a "Slaughter of the First Born" Bill were issued from Downing street, there was a group of super-loyalists who would vote for it.

Speaking of super-loyalists, I thought that Emily Thornberry gave a compelling speech. When she recounted some of her life experiences, it was also very moving. As it happens, I had the privilege a few years ago of travelling with her and some other hon. Members on the fund-raising charity trek north of the Arctic circle that has been referred to several times already today. I saw then, as I think that we all did, that she is a force to be reckoned with.

The hon. Lady will remember that we all tried fishing through holes in the ice, but she was the only one to catch anything-which was extraordinary, given her confession just now of an interest in marine matters, fishing and the marine Bill. I can report that, with impressive strength and a little brutality, she bludgeoned the life out of a poor fish right there on the ice. [ Interruption. ] She did indeed. As we stood watching with a growing sense of alarm, she turned to me and my hon. Friend Jenny Willott and said, "I enjoyed that; I pretended it was a Liberal Democrat fish." That is true.

I turn now to the substance of the Gracious Speech. All the pageantry in the world cannot cover up the fact that this is a fantasy Queen's Speech, from a Government who are running out of road and a Parliament that has lost the trust of the British people. It is a Queen's Speech that will not give people the help with housing, bank lending or adult joblessness that they so desperately need in this recession and that will not fix our rotten politics. After 12 long years, in which this Government have passed nearly 500 different laws and countless thousands of statutory instruments, it is right to stop and ask the simple question, "What is this Queen's Speech really for?"

When they are backed into a corner and unsure of what to do, this Government have always reached for their pen to start drafting yet another new law. Legislation is Labour's comfort blanket; it makes the party feel good. Yet in these dying days of the Labour Government, when people desperately need help, the Government should legislate less and focus on getting things done. That means creating jobs-beyond the re-announcements of today-for the 2.5 million people who are unemployed. It means drawing up plans for a fair tax system, closing loopholes at the top to cut taxes for people on low and average incomes. It means getting the banks to start lending again so that businesses can survive. It means setting out a new and workable strategy in Afghanistan. Those should be the Government's priorities, not fantasy Bills that we know will not even make it on to the statute book.

Of the Bills proposed in last year's Queen's Speech, just two had made it on to the statute book by May this year, and this coming year will not be any different. The legislation promised today is just a political displacement activity for real action to help people. How absurd is it to have a fiscal responsibility Bill making it law for the Government to halve the deficit over four years? It is like passing a law promising to get up early every morning-one does not pass a law for that; one just does it. Does the Prime Minister have so little faith in his own self-discipline?

Then there is the Child Poverty Bill: it sets a legal target, but it does not put a single penny in the pocket of a single struggling family. If laws could feed and clothe children, there would not be a single family in poverty in Britain after 12 years under Labour. Another law will do nothing. We need action.

Then there are the laws that are simply unnecessary, because the Government could act without them. For example, the financial services Bill is supposedly being introduced to crack down on bonuses, but everyone knows that the Financial Services Authority already has most of the powers that the Government are promising in the Bill. Real, radical action would be to take the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England and finally split up the banks to separate retail and investment banking and so protect consumers. Until that is done, the Government should impose an extra levy on the profits of the banks, so that they pay for the taxpayer guarantee by which they have been propped up and we get a return on our investment. The Bill announced today does none of that, being just more displacement activity to make it look as though the Government are sorting out the banks.

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Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour): By far the most robust banking system in the western world is the Canadian one, where retail and investment banking are not split, so why are the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend Dr. Cable so fixated on splitting banks into retail and investment, when that is clearly not the problem-as demonstrated by the robustness of the Canadian system?

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Nicholas Clegg: With respect, I will heed the views of the Governor of the Bank of England on the issue slightly more than I do those of the hon. Gentleman. The Governor makes a simple, compelling case, starting from first principles. Retail banking-keeping people's deposits safe and lending prudently to businesses and households-should not be mixed up with the high-risk, over-leveraged business model of casino banking. Full stop. It is as simple as that.

We have an improving schools Bill, which is highly unlikely to improve schools. If the Government wanted to improve schools, they would take bureaucracy away from teachers, not impose more. It will be the 12th education Bill in as many years, so why do the Government imagine this one will work when none of the others does.

The policing, crime and private security Bill will yet again tweak the over-tweaked ASBO regime. Is it not time for the Government to accept that passing laws does not cut crime, but that more police officers out on the beat do?

Worst of all, some Bills in the Queen's Speech cynically raise expectations, yet the Government know that they will deliver far less than they promise. The Bill to outlaw cluster bombs sounds great, but in fact we know that it will outlaw only some cluster bombs. There will be a Bill that-supposedly-delivers free personal care. After the Prime Minister's media interviews this morning, tens of thousands of elderly people up and down Britain will have been led to believe that they will be properly looked after from now on, yet it will not happen. He has raised the hopes of some of the most vulnerable people in this country, when he knows perfectly well that the Bill will offer free personal care only to a fraction of the people who are struggling to pay for the help that they need.

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Keith Vaz (Leicester East, Labour): The right hon. Gentleman did not mention the digital economy Bill. Surely, he will support the measures in that Bill to implement for the first time the recommendations of the Byron report on violent video games. He must accept that there is a need for legislation to deal with such issues-we cannot just talk about expenses all the time.

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Nicholas Clegg: Absolutely not. Of course, I accept that we shall scrutinise the Bills in the Queen's Speech and support or oppose them, as is the duty of a responsible Opposition party.

I return to the basic question of what the Queen's Speech should be doing in the very little time available to this Parliament.

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John Redwood (Wokingham, Conservative): I am grateful to the leader of the Liberal Democrats for giving way. How big a reduction in the deficit would he recommend and what should be the balance between expenditure cuts and tax rises?

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Nicholas Clegg: We accept that the most important thing is to be credible in any plan to fill the structural deficit. Simply passing a law saying that the Government will halve the deficit over the next four years is irrelevant if they do not spell out the difficult choices. That is why the Liberal Democrats have advocated big, difficult, bold decisions-not renewing like for like the Trident nuclear missile system, ending tax credits for above average income families and ending the child trust fund of £250 for every 18-year-old in the country. That is not because the choices are popular; they are difficult, and we need to spell them out if we are to be credible about the deficit reduction programme that is absolutely necessary.

What should Parliament be doing in these final weeks? The Queen's Speech should have been replaced by an emergency programme of political reform. After the expenses scandal, this Parliament has destroyed its legitimacy. In the few weeks remaining to it, the one gift that this failed Parliament can give its successor is a fresh start. When we move out of a house, we clean it for the people moving in. That must be the final task of this rump Parliament.

Let me set out in a few words what real reform would look like-what the focus of the last 70 days of this Parliament should have been. We should introduce a power of recall, so that people can sack any MP found guilty of serious misconduct. All candidates at the next election should declare their financial interests, as Sir Christopher Kelly demanded. We should have real action to reform the House of Lords, not yet more delaying tactics from the draft legislation proposed in today's Queen's Speech. We need changes to House of Commons procedure to reduce Executive power.

We should agree a total change in party funding, so that big money and the whiff of corruption that it brings are removed from politics for good. We should introduce fixed-term Parliaments, so that voters can never again be toyed with by a Prime Minister planning an election timetable to save his or her skin. Finally, we should have real action on electoral reform, so that every citizen knows that their vote counts.

Of course those changes are a tall order, but with political will, they could transform our threadbare democratic institutions. Instead of being just a sorry footnote to a shameful year at Westminster, these months could have been a moment of important and permanent change in British political history. After today's Queen's Speech, however, we know that that opportunity to do the right thing has been squandered, yet again, by this Government.

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• . . Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber, Liberal Democrat): Following on from Sir Stuart Bell and his concluding remarks in particular, may I point out that many of us felt, long before the allowances issue or the expenses scandal-choose your terminology as you wish-earlier this year, that there was a distinct sense of drift about this Parliament? Curiously, that goes right back to the aftermath of the 2005 Labour general election victory. I was struck by how soon after the historically successful outcome of that election, among colleagues and friends in the parliamentary Labour party, the plot internally moved on to the question of how long Tony Blair would stay and, if it looked as though he was going to stay too long, what means could be found of moving him out sooner rather than later. We saw a failed attempt at that. Eventually Blair did go and the present incumbent came in. What finished it for him was the election that never was. He must look back now not in anger but in sorrow at the missed opportunity that he had.

We now find ourselves at the tail-end of this Parliament. The late Roy Jenkins once said to the present Prime Minister when he was Chancellor that if he inherited the Labour leadership and the premiership with it, he would not want to inherit it in Callaghan-like terms, taking over when things had already gone wrong and managing as best he could towards probably inevitable defeat. That is the strong sense that we have about the drift that has characterised the past 18 months, made disastrous by the international circumstances and particularly the parliamentary circumstances of the past six to 12 months.

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Denis MacShane (Rotherham, Labour): Would the right hon. Gentleman care to reflect on changes of leadership in his own party?

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Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber, Liberal Democrat): Yes. The Liberal Democrats have an awful lot to answer for in this Parliament, because, having been first out of the trap on that issue, we found enthusiasm for it. I had almost lost count of the number of leaders we went through before we reached this happy situation-where we are now and will, I hope, remain for many years to come. Other parties have followed suit, and I can only say that our position, looking towards the next election with our change of leadership over and done with, is happier than that of the right hon. Gentleman's party. I wish him well in the future leadership contest or contests that he may have to look forward to. It is not so much a case of waiting for Godot as waiting for Gordon, but the Prime Minister should remember that "Waiting for Godot" was always defined as a two-act play in which nothing happened twice.

This has been something of a broken-backed Parliament, certainly since the expenses issue, and today we have had a very thin Queen's Speech. That is out of necessity. I do not blame the Government, because all Governments legislate far too much anyway, and a more limited Queen's Speech is rather welcome. However, something struck me about today-it was true this afternoon and when the House convened for Prayers this morning. As I said, it is a thin Queen's Speech and that is a product of necessity, but there is a rather thin sense of occasion about everything-in terms of attendance, energy about the place and the inescapability of the political choice that we all know is only five or six months ahead of us.

That sense of dispiritment, which goes to all parts of the Chamber, is more than a reflection of the turnout in the parliamentary by-election in Glasgow just a few days ago. Indeed, that was the worst turnout for any Scottish parliamentary by-election in modern times: two-thirds of the electorate did not even participate in the choice of a new Member of Parliament. As my right hon. Friend the leader of the Liberal Democrats said earlier, we really must look beyond the content of the Queen's Speech today to the wider political vista over the next few months. The challenge is upon us all to try not only to gear ourselves up again, but to re-engage the electorate along the way.

My right hon. Friend was right to speak about the broad issues, most of which do not feature today. However, in the cause of reform, I welcome the further nod in the direction of the House of Lords. Let us hope that we do not have to nod in its direction too much longer, and that we bring it on to a properly accountable, elected, basis like the House of Commons. It is only a century overdue.

There is also a nod in the Queen's Speech to the final report of the Calman commission on the ongoing evolution of Holyrood and Scottish devolution. I do not intend to get into a great debate about that this afternoon, but one irony of the expenses scandal is that it has made many people-not just elected Members but those in authority in and around the Palace of Westminster- realise that there are other ways and-would you believe it?- better ways of managing parliamentary institutions. Lessons can be learned from the new devolved institutions. That is true of the way in which Holyrood has managed expenses, and it has also been proved true in legislative terms. For example, there is pre-legislative scrutiny, which this House has now embraced and which all of us, who have had any experience of it, would say is a good way of widening people's participation in, and influencing of, legislation in a more consultative way than ever. We can learn from elsewhere.

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John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in having a business management committee, Holyrood provides another lesson that this House could learn?

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Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber, Liberal Democrat): I most certainly do. I suggest to the next House of Commons, and to whichever party or combination thereof forms the next Administration, that they look at the basis on which Parliament is structured, so that the relationship between this body, the legislative body, and the Executive is defined more rationally and reasonably.

I hope that this side of Christmas we will see the publication of greater intent on the part of the Government politically in terms of their response to Calman, if for no other reason than that that would greatly inform the debate in Scotland at the next UK general election. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have all signed up to this, although I would like to see the full colour of the Conservatives' money. Those of us who want to continue to reform and improve the United Kingdom-in my preference, in a more federal direction-without seeing it separated out into constituent parts would like that argument, in its varying shapes and forms, to be on the front foot, and the nationalist alternative to be very much where it belongs, in a UK Westminster election, as something of a sideline, or certainly on the back foot. I hope that the Government will take note of that in the light of what is in the Queen's Speech.

I want to touch on two specific measures, particularly from a constituency point of view. Both are broadly welcome, and I think that my experience locally will be not dissimilar from that of colleagues in all parties and in all parts of the country. First, the Government have spoken about energy policy in the context of the wider environmental issues; Copenhagen has been mentioned, and we hope that that will yet succeed. Earlier this year, I was able to introduce a private Member's Bill on this subject. I can see that by fortuitous coincidence the Minister who was involved, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Mr. Kidney, has just arrived on the Treasury Bench. The Bill was probably not going to make much headway, but we were able to discuss the broader issues of carbon capture and storage and whether there might be a window of opportunity to deal with them in the Queen's Speech. I know that he, like me and many others, will welcome the fact that that has proved to be the case, which is a welcome step forward. May I enter a plea to the Government? Against the backdrop domestically, by which I mean domestically in this country and in terms of people's fuel needs and consumption in their homes, lower energy prices mean that we need to maintain the political pressure, right across the board, on the big suppliers to continue to invest in energy-saving devices and technology generally if there is to be the proper return that we would look for.

The Government say that they will want to further the whole issue of energy in the legislation announced in the Queen's Speech. That is very significant for those in fuel poverty. Let me give an example from my constituency. A couple of days ago, the citizens advice bureau for Skye and Lochalsh issued a statement in which it described many of its clients as drowning in debt. That is because, as in so many places, unemployment has gone up, incomes have not risen, certainly in the case of pensioners and those on low earnings, and people's financial reserves, if they had any in the first place-those who I am talking about probably did not-have been all but exhausted. The category of families and households who have to spend a large proportion of what domestic income they have-a good deal of which probably comes in the form of state benefits of one kind or another-on their fuel needs, and who therefore find themselves in fuel poverty, is very marked. When the Government are considering this legislation, they must recognise those people's circumstances, particularly in relation to heating fuels. This time last year the Prime Minister talked a good game on energy conservation, but a lot of it has been left to the big energy firms, and the reality does not always match the aspirations set out by the Head of Government himself.

I mentioned the area of Skye and Lochalsh in my constituency. Last month, a constituent on the Isle of Skye was informed, at the hands of BP, of an increase in the unit cost of liquid petroleum gas by 50 per cent. in a single increment. When I raised the matter with BP, it responded that as a global company fuel poverty was not something that it could be concerned with. It said:

"The issue of fuel poverty is clearly a very serious problem, and the best way to alleviate it in the long term is to ensure a competitive market, and to encourage efficiency in both the production and use of energy."

We would all say amen to that. However, it goes on to say:

"But in terms of addressing the social consequences of fuel poverty today, this must be an issue for government in determining how best the tax and benefit systems should alleviate the hardship. Fuel poverty levels differ in both scale and severity across the world, and a global company such as BP has neither the legitimacy nor the ability to deal with this problem on a national basis".

There is a big argument in this respect; time does not allow for it today, but it can perhaps be gone into in greater detail when the legislation is introduced. The Government have left it too much to the six biggest energy companies to take action, particularly as regards social tariffs, and have done nothing to address the rest of the energy sector. When one sees the dramatic impact that that can have on a single household in a remote and isolated part of the United Kingdom, one realises that the difference between the rhetoric and the reality at a local level becomes very marked. I hope that the Government can deal with that properly in the legislation.

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Tim Farron (Westmorland & Lonsdale, Liberal Democrat): Does my right hon. Friend agree that in rural and upland constituencies such as his and mine, the Government have seriously missed a trick when it comes to taking advantage of the natural renewable resources that exist there? I am thinking particularly of anaerobic digestion and hydro power. Given that there are 38 anaerobic digesters in this country compared with 25,000 in Germany, and that in my county of Cumbria, which has the fastest falling water in England, there are only four working hydro schemes, does he agree that the Government need to give much more attention to that aspect?

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Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker)

Order. May I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is not very helpful for him to turn his back on the Chair? It means that his words are less easily recorded by the Official Reporters.

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Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber, Liberal Democrat): My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Two words that I am happy to re-record for the Official Report are "hydro board". Not only do I come from the home of Scottish Hydro Electric, which is in the highlands of Scotland, but my father's employment for many decades as draughtsman with the old Hydro-Electric Board brought in the money that put food on the table in our house, so it is very much part of the family in that sense. Tom Johnston, the post-second world war Labour Secretary of State for Scotland-a great political figure of his time and one of the great definitive Scottish Secretaries in a century of that office-spoke about power to the glens when referring to the development of the hydro schemes of that time. In terms of social impact and economic well-being, those schemes probably did more than anything else in history to transform for the better the prospects of our part of the country.

I want to look forward to something that has an equal role to play and represents something as revolutionary as did hydro power in its time in the highlands and islands generally. Broadband is another issue to which the Government have given welcome attention in the Queen's Speech. I want to enter another plea. I represent a part of the country where a significant number of people have no broadband, or have broadband connections only by means of satellite because of their distance from an exchange. It is hard to help those categories of people.

However, broadband provides the big, historic, electronic opportunity to overcome at speed the disadvantage of those in the Lake District, part of which my hon. Friend Tim Farron represents, or in my part of the country or any other of the peripheral parts of the UK's islands. Those parts of the country are at a natural economic disadvantage, for all the obvious reasons, including geographical factors such as transport infrastructure links, distance from the larger markets and the higher prices it costs to import raw materials that can be used to make something that can be exported from an area. Ironically, our areas find it most difficult to get the access that would begin to create the sense of a more level playing field. We have suffered the disadvantage of the uneven playing field for so many years and decades past.

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Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute, Liberal Democrat): My right hon. Friend is perfectly correct. I was on the Isle of Coll on Saturday and found that there is a limit to the number of available broadband slots, and that BT seems to have been operating the situation very haphazardly. For example, when a constituent who came to my surgery moved house, he lost his broadband connection, and the slot was allocated to the lucky person who happened to phone BT on the day he moved. That is haphazard. My right hon. Friend is right: we need a system of universal broadband to cover the whole country.

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Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber, Liberal Democrat): I completely endorse what my hon. Friend says. I have noted time and again in my constituency precisely the kind of anecdotal example to which he draws the House's attention. Indeed, if I have any sympathy at all, it is not for the Government, who are trying to deal with these problems, but for the Hansard Reporters during my short contribution. Given the many locations I have mentioned and the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, this is becoming a bit of a round Britain quiz, but that at least makes the point that broadband is vital precisely because of the nature of the communities that we represent.

In the mainland area of the Highlands, which encompasses quite of lot of my constituency, the city of Inverness, and the larger towns, such as Dingwall and Fort William, everybody should be able to access a universal standard. However, getting the edge on broadband speed is important when it comes to fast-tracking the next generation of broadband. Representatives from across the political spectrum and those of us in elected public positions have learned-from our own work as MPs, but certainly from schools, the vital public services such as the police, hospitals and the health service, and business generally-that providing broadband services is the big problem that has to be overcome more successfully if we are to have a properly and fairly connected UK operating with the economic success that broadband technology can bring.

Although there is not long left in this Parliament, there will at least be further parliamentary time to debate the social opportunities and social injustices of fuel poverty and fully flexible and modern broadband connections, which are insufficient at the moment. The time available to us, as representatives, can be well spent discussing those matters.

Finally, I welcome the obligatory reference at the outset of the Queen's Speech to Europe. That reference is encouraging because of the history and future of the fuel poverty and broadband issues that I have raised-and not only for the area that I represent, but for the country as a whole. An awful lot of the decision making is now done at European level, and rightly so. The infrastructure investment that becomes available is crucially dependent on our being able to attract funding from the EU, and to match funding out of our UK coffers for the funding that is available from the EU. That underpins the need for this country to have an ongoing, sane and constructive engagement at a European level.

Although I have great and deep criticisms of the Prime Minister and his predecessor for having missed tremendous, historic opportunities for this country where Europe is concerned, I none the less feel reassured that this Queen's Speech acknowledged Europe's role in a sane and rational way, even if I would like the Government to be more ambitious in their approach. Heaven knows what kind of approach would be signalled following a change of Government and a Conservative Queen's Speech in six or seven months. I hate to think of the damage that that would do to the long-term interests of all our constituents.

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• . . John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): I am pleased to speak after Mr. Purchase. The issue of council housing has a lot of purchase with me, too. In Birmingham, we can at least say that we are building a small number of new council houses, even if that is done through a municipal housing trust, so that we are not trapped by the housing revenue account calculations and the tax on tenants.

The issue of housing is important not just in isolation but because of its wider effect on people. I have visited two organisations in my constituency that deal with family support: Home Start, which is a voluntary organisation, and a Sure Start centre. I asked Home Start what proportion of family problems arose primarily from housing, and it said 50 per cent. I asked Sure Start what proportion of problems in families with whom it dealt arose primarily from housing, and it said 75 per cent. It is extremely clear that the difficulties at the bottom end-the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East made a point about the poverty trap and the fact that it is difficult for people at that level-have a continuing effect. It may have been conscious Government policy to try to drive up housing prices, and thus debt on housing, through the constraints on the availability of housing, but there has been a massive social cost. That issue has to be addressed, whoever comes into government, because in practice other costs arise from it. For example, children go into foster care at £40,000 a year, which is a lot of money. A family with a number of children-and I have discussed this with a senior social worker-may go into crisis because of bad housing, and it suddenly costs £150,000 a year to deal with a situation that has arisen as a result of bad housing, rather than from a lack of intent or of ability.

Turning to the Queen's Speech, we face a complex situation arising from the fact that there is a relatively short period before a general election is definitely held. I think the latest date for an election is June-everyone expects one in May at the moment-which in itself causes difficulties. One of the bigger problems is the failure to use processes properly. I am a glutton for punishment, and I serve on the Select Committees on Regulatory Reform, on Procedure, and on Modernisation of the House of Commons. I took the fact that the Modernisation Committee had stopped meeting to mean that we are now modern, but I am not sure that that is true. I am interested to see what happens with the Committee chaired by Dr. Wright, because the basic problem with the House of Commons stems from the fact that it is controlled by the Executive, who control what is debated and when it is debated. They also control standing orders, although interestingly an Opposition day could be used to modify them.

The fact that the Executive control Parliament's rules and timetable means that Parliament is hobbled. Parliament does not do too good a job of scrutinising legislation. If a mass of Government amendments are tabled to a Bill on Report, for example, and everything is cut out by knives, it is impossible to exercise such scrutiny. The relevant Bill Committee does reasonably well, but we must resolve that problem. We should not have an immigration Bill every year-points have been made about the chief executive of Birmingham city council, who is now running Birmingham international airport-and unless we have less legislation, and unless we get it right as it goes through the House, we have a problem.

Legislation is used for things for which it should not be used. There is a Bill to cut the deficit, but that is not what Bills should be used for. They are meant to establish law. I disagree profoundly with Keith Vaz and with Mr. Howard, as I believe that judicial review is a mechanism to make the Government follow the law, which is set by Parliament. Judicial review is a function whereby Ministers, civil servants, quangos and public authorities generally are required to follow the law. As for the issue of how judges are accountable, they make decisions or orders, and they explain the reasoning for their decisions in a judgment. If there is a problem with a judicial review decision, people should read the judgment and find out about the point of law in which all the difficulties lie. If they are not happy with judges controlling Ministers through judicial review, they should change the law, but judges are there to make sure that Ministers follow the law.

Much as I am critical of the way in which Parliament manages to manage the legislative process, I am more critical of the way in which we hold the Government to account by tabling questions. For a long period, I have been concerned about the fact that, if those questions are not answered, nothing very much is done. The Minister for Europe told the Procedure Committee that, in short, if Members did not like the fact that the Government did not answer questions, they should beat the Government at the next election. That method of accountability is no good, and I have described it as trying to avoid a car crash by looking in the rear view mirror at the car crash that happened two years ago. We are not monitoring what the Government are doing now-what we are monitoring is the report that came out about a disaster some time ago. Nothing is done to address the serious problems that affect different aspects of the system of accountability today.

Silly things have arisen such as the fact that the Government suddenly announced that the uniform business rate was not going to go up but, in practice, councils could not change their computer systems, so everyone was charged the increased rate. That sort of nonsense goes on all the time. A lot is driven by the media agenda, rather than by good government, and what we get is a disaster from government. I take an interest in legal issues, particularly in the family division. One of my constituents came to see me about her son, who had been jailed for five years, because he had set fire to the house in which they lived. We looked through the paperwork, which said that the Crown Prosecution Service had looked at his case, and thought that he should be sectioned, because he was a bit inadequate and doolally. However, he could not be sectioned, because the health service would not accept him, so the CPS wanted a hospital order, and therefore prosecuted him. He ended up with a five-year jail sentence, and the barrister said that there was no way in which the family could appeal it. The mother came to see me, we filled in all the forms and sent them to the Court of Appeal, and her son was released.

The issue there is the advice desert. If someone gets legal aid and loses in a case, they get an opinion from the same barrister as to whether they would win on appeal. That is a mistake, because the barrister is asked to write an opinion about what they got wrong. When a case is lost and an opinion is written as to the chances of an appeal, it would be far better procedurally if it were written by somebody other than the person who handled the original case. One of the problems is miscarriages of justice. In that case there was a clear miscarriage of justice.

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Angela Watkinson (Whip, Whips; Upminster, Conservative): Does the hon. Gentleman think the Sentencing Guidelines Council is advantageous? Does it improve the way that judges carry out their jobs or is it a hindrance?

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John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): I like to look at cases in detail and I do not know enough about that. Much of the time, what we do in this place is pick on a case that seems wrong. There are cases that seem wrong superficially, but we need to consider a set of cases. There are systematic problems in child protection, for instance-take the Climbié inquiry or the case of baby P-but often we focus on one case. I am sorry, but I do not know enough to answer that question, which may seem an odd thing to say.

I spend a lot of time looking at individual cases. The case that I cited is still grinding through the system. I wrote to the Ministry of Justice and asked who takes responsibility for stopping miscarriages of justice. The answer was the judges. Another area of concern to me is medical evidence, particularly in areas such as shaken baby syndrome, where there is no settled scientific opinion. There is no scientific proof that the opinion relied on in court is reliable. A number of people have been released after miscarriages of justice in such cases.

That brings me to another interesting point about miscarriages of justice. We spend considerable amounts of money on people who are released from jail and who were guilty. That is a reasonable thing to do, in the sense that we do not want to dump people straight away. But we spend no money on people who are released from jail and who were innocent. That is absurd. I had a meeting with a number of people who were innocent and jailed. They raised a number of issues, and we looked at compensation for miscarriages of justice.

It is interesting that a number of people have died before getting their final compensation, which does not seem very good from my point of view, although there are interim arrangements. The number is about 20, although four of those were posthumous. Those people had been sentenced to death in the past, and the miscarriage of justice was identified only after the person had died, so we cannot complain that compensation was not paid until after they had died. In the other 16 cases, there is a concern that we are not treating with respect people who have been jailed wrongly. In fact, we are treating them with less respect than those people who have committed the offence and been properly jailed. That is an issue that the Government need to examine, although it may not require legislation.

Another area about which I am concerned is the lack of action by the Ministry of Justice on the Crown dependencies. Because I undertake work in the family division, many people contact me. I currently have two cases relating to the Isle of Man, and I have a senator living in my flat in London. Senator Stuart Syvret was elected by the whole island of Jersey. He revealed on his web log that a nurse, Andrew Marolia, had been found to have probably murdered a number of patients. He was then prosecuted under the Data Protection Act by Jersey. He was not allowed to adduce as evidence the case to which he referred on his web log, which is a public interest defence-that he needed to reveal the failures of the judicial system in Jersey.

Anyone who has been following the case will know that there are great concerns in Jersey. A number of people have written to me from Jersey expressing concerns about the failure of the criminal justice system. The argument has been put that people should take everything through the judicial process in Jersey, but when there is a failure to prosecute child abusers in Jersey, which is happening-people have seen the "Panorama" programmes on that-and there is no process of judicial review for the prosecuting apparatus, which is what the Attorney-General in Jersey says, that is a serious problem. It is a problem for which the Ministry of Justice is responsible.

Although Jersey is not part of the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Justice is responsible for good law in Jersey. Someone who was elected by the whole island of Jersey, and who got the largest number of vote across the island-it is not a big island, so 15,000 was the largest number of votes-is effectively in exile in London, while warrants for his arrest continue to be issued on Jersey. He wants to come and talk to hon. Members and I am sure we will sort that out in the near future. Although something was done about the Turks and Caicos islands, nothing is being done about Jersey. That is a clear failing of the Government.

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Andrew MacKinlay (Thurrock, Labour): I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. There is a difference between the Turks and Caicos islands, which is an overseas territory, where competence for good governance and European norms rests with the Foreign Office. Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are separate jurisdictions. Provided they meet European Union norms, their systems are their business and the business of their voters.

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John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): The Berkeley brothers took the issue of the system of law in Sark, which is linked with Guernsey, to judicial review. It was seen clearly as a responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. It is settled UK law that that responsibility rests within the UK. I accept that there are differences of status. Whereas I am not sure about the settled legal position on the Turks and Caicos islands, there is a settled legal position for Crown dependencies, which is that the Ministry of Justice has a duty to act. [Interruption.] Andrew Mackinlay interrupts from a sedentary position, referring to European norms. That is correct. Under article 6 requirements, the UK is responsible for maintaining the compliance with the European convention on human rights of the Crown dependencies.

That brings me to the point raised earlier about the European convention on human rights. There is a proposal that judges in England should not be allowed to look at the European convention on human rights, but that people should still be able to take a case, as an individual case, to Strasbourg. That is absurd. A case must go all the way through the courts in England before they can consider whether it is compliant with the European convention.

I had a case in my constituency on the Child Support Agency recently in which we did quite well. Partners had split up, somebody had got married and got more children. The money being asked for from the CSA was such that it was in the financial interests of the second couple to split up. The amount of money that the new wife was being asked to contribute, effectively to go to the older children, was such that the couple would be financially better off if they split up. We decided to put the case to the CSA tribunal with an article 8 argument, which is that the Government do not have the legal right to interfere with the family and force them to split up.

We won. This may be the first time that that has happened. Hon. Members are aware how difficult it is to deal with the CSA. That is a good example of how the European convention on human rights in domestic law can work well. There are silly cases, and people have a right to ask for silly things and be told no. But the European convention does protect people's rights.

Chairing Justice for Families-I declare my interest-I work with a number of hon. Members to get their constituents' cases into the European court. We have the usual problem that it is all well and good getting legal aid in the lower courts, but in the higher courts it is very difficult to get any support. I have a network of about 70 people across England, a couple in Scotland and a couple in Wales who help people in courts. They help them fight the injustice that goes on in the family courts, where there are many procedural problems.

I am very pleased that on Monday the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe decided to establish an inquiry into family courts and human rights across Europe, with Paul Rowen as its rapporteur.

We now have an opportunity to look at that issue in more detail. I find it sad that, when the UK has had so many stresses in family law, we have not managed to do the same in the UK Parliament. The UK has had stresses in private family law, which deals with situations when partners divide; and in public family law, which deals with situations when the state interferes in the family. Often the two overlap, and that issue is a responsibility for the UK Parliament.

On patterns of accountability, it is wrong to say that judges are not accountable, because they are. They are required to explain their judgments. The Queen's Speech does not mention this measure, but I am pleased that the Government will improve the accountability of judges in the family court. The problem is that one cannot discuss publicly, even if anonymously, the contents of a judgment in the family court unless it has gone to the Court of Appeal or one has judicial permission. It is good that the Government have introduced some pilot schemes, and they should happen in all courts. The courts should not say, "This is the decision, but you can't say why it has been taken." Court orders are always public documents, and that is why super-injunctions are strange. I discussed that issue with a Law Lord recently. There is an argument for a super-injunction lasting a week or two, when assets are being frozen around the world and one does not want people to find out what is going on. However, court orders should be public documents. The European convention on human rights makes that very clear. One may redact part of it, but not otherwise.

Freedom of speech is in a dreadful mess in this country, such that American newspapers are considering banning Britons from viewing their websites and stopping selling American newspapers here because of libel tourism. The issue is not about the damages; it is all about the costs. The threat of libel costs has a chilling effect on free speech in the scientific and general media arenas. That is our responsibility: there is no reason why we should allow a dispute over damages of £1,000 to have potential costs of £500,000 on each side. There is a tradition in UK law that the costs follow the action, but why that should be so for a strict liability offence, such as defamation, is unclear. One may say that damages should be limited to £5,000, but the issue is serious and ongoing, and there is no mention in the Gracious Speech about the effect on freedom of speech in this country. To be fair to the courts, new procedural rules were introduced in October to manage the costs situation, but we have a real problem with the constraints on freedom of speech which arise from legal costs.

On family law, the Government have done a really good job-gradually. They could have done it a lot faster, but let us recognise that progress is being made in opening up the family courts. There is a wide range of concerns about family life, and some of it comes from the judicial environment, in which bad practice is encouraged at times and tolerated by the system. It should not be. Judges are held to account by their judgments; however, at times, it is very difficult to get a written judgment out of the courts. It can take a number of months. They say that three months is reasonable for a judgment, but I am not talking about reserve judgments, when a decision has not been taken; I am talking about the circumstances in which a decision has been taken and implemented, but one cannot get the judge's reasons in writing for three months.

I have had cases in which it has taken six months to get judges' reasonings. One cannot really appeal a case until one has the judge's reasoning, so that makes things very difficult, although we have appealed cases on the basis of no reasoning, which is a basis for an appeal. However, that should not have to happen. There is accountability for the process, but merely leaving the issue to lawyers is not adequate.

The rule of law is important to absolutely everybody. If one knows the law, one should follow it. We should not have to go to court to enforce the law, because people should follow it, and the court is there to enforce the law if people do not follow it. We have particular problems in family law. This year is the 20th anniversary of the Children Act 1989, but that Act gives us procedure, not law. It does not say what should happen in certain circumstances or, for instance, that both parents have a duty when they split up to make sure the child stays in touch with them. That would be a good first step and some real law. However, the Act actually says, "If you want the court to make a decision, you need to fill in this application for this section and that application for that section."

Similarly, Baroness Deech said that there is a problem with divorce law. The same principle exists: we do not have law; we leave the judges with massive discretion. That is a really big problem, because in public family law people know which judge will give which answer, and some judges will give one answer and others judges will give another. That is not law; that is just giving power to a judge. I am working with Mr. Syms on a case involving a 17-year-old boy who has been sectioned while in care. We have some serious concerns about that, but getting a handle on it and any proper explanation from the system is not easy. That is no good at all when somebody is in such a powerless situation-perhaps they have been sectioned and their family are concerned-and we should develop some proper family law. Currently, we do not have family law; we have family procedure. Such measures would make a big difference, because one would be able to tell people, "We expect that if parents split up, they'll put the best interests of the child first and try and work together to maintain contact." Instead, a report last week said that people use children as bargaining chips, which is fundamentally wrong. We do not have any law that says, "You mustn't use children as bargaining chips," and such legislation would be a good way forward. It would be nice if the Government made an effort in that area.

With all the secrecy in the family division, one difficulty is that people do not know what decisions have been taken or why. The Government are gradually going to open up the system to reveal what decisions have been taken and why. That will allow Parliament or the public to scrutinise more widely on an anonymous basis what is going on. People should not be required to dress up as super-heroes to draw attention to their situation. The amount of gagging that prevents people from talking about their cases is fundamentally wrong, but I recognise that the Government have made two important if small steps in the right direction and that they are talking about making a third during this Parliament, even if the Queen's Speech does not actually mention it.

One of my particular concerns is the use of mental capacity and adjudging people not capable to instruct a solicitor. I have had two cases in which mothers were prevented from contesting their cases-both have gone to the European Court of Human Rights-because they were told that they were too stupid to instruct a solicitor. The expert who wrote that was jointly appointed by the local authority. That is standard practice, but they are therefore beholden to the authority, and that is a ludicrous situation.

One mother was an Asian lady who did not speak English, and she was given an IQ test through an interpreter. We should not disqualify somebody from the right to instruct their own solicitor because they fail an IQ test taken through an interpreter. That is madness, but it has been going on in the family division. Luckily, article 9 of the Bill of Rights applies, and I can therefore talk about that case. I am not a lawyer; I am a physicist by training and more of a mathematical person. But in my view, as somebody who is not a lawyer, it is spectacularly bad to exclude someone from the judicial process. The authorities are saying, "You can't oppose this, because you are too stupid and it is like you're in a coma." Then, the Official Solicitor comes in and concedes everything against such people. Those two cases are not unique, but one does not see them all.

We need to look towards a change of culture in the children's care environment. On Saturday, I had a meeting in my constituency office with several parents of children who are on the autistic spectrum, all of whom said that they feel as though the system does not listen to them at all. They are, to be fair, the people who know their children best, but they are kept out of it, so that when a panel makes a decision they are not allowed to attend. I hope, with my local authority, to see whether we can improve the situation and get better communication. Again, the situation arises whereby things are done to people without their consent. Things are working very badly in many of these areas, yet there is no mention of that whatsoever in the Gracious Speech. We need to get more of a focus on what should be done.

Legislating to introduce measures that are really Government policy-for instance, cutting the budget deficit by 50 per cent.-is a misuse of legislation, which is not intended for that purpose. Legislation is intended to establish law; Government policy is a separate matter. Policy should be reviewable now, not in retrospect two years later, which is what happens at the moment. There are some serious problems to deal with before we get to the major financial problems that we face, and proper attention is not being given to those issues.

On Afghanistan, people fail to understand the nature of segmented societies. There is a topic of study called political anthropology whereby one can look at how societies operate. In essence, we are trying to change the culture of a society through military means. I have a lot of confidence in the British armed forces-I am sure that they can win any battle-but using them to try to change a culture is the wrong mechanism. If a culture is going to change, it will do so over a number of years. In an honour-based system whereby if somebody's tribal brother is killed it is then their duty to take revenge, it is very difficult to calm these situations down. Much as I pay tribute to the British armed forces and have great confidence in their ability to win any military battle, the Government are making a mistake by giving them a cultural and political objective rather than a military objective. That is another matter that the Government should review urgently but does not appear in the Queen's Speech.

We face a lot of problems as a society. The Government are misusing the Queen's Speech. There should be a general election now; sadly, we know that there will not be. However, whatever happens in future, I intend to continue to try to deal with these issues, which are not necessarily party political; I find that I work with hon. Members in all parts of the House. I intend to press to reduce miscarriages of justice, particularly in the family division, and I look forward to working with hon. Members in doing so.