Just as we suspected, last night's supposed Labour rebellion on AV ended in a damp squib. Most opponents of electoral reform reasoned that it wasn't worth sticking their necks out on a bill that probably won't be passed anyway. In the end, a measly three Labour diehards - Diane Abbott, Kelvin Hopkins and Meg Munn - voted against Jack Straw's plans to hold a referendum on AV by October 2011. They were joined by one Lib Dem, Paul Rowen (Rochdale). But all the other Liberal Democrat MPs who voted supported the Government, meaning that the clause passed by a massive majority of 178.
Of more interest was the subsequent vote on the single transferable vote, proposed predictably by the Liberal Democrats. The Tories (equally predictably) opposed the amendment, but four Labour MPs joined the Lib Dems in the aye lobby: Jim Cousins, Dr Doug Naysmith, Andrew Smith... and James Purnell. That is Purnell's first ever vote against the party whip. Who'd've thought it?
As long as it doesn’t lose you £100 in bets (see below), sometimes it’s good to be able to plead total ignorance. And we are in exactly that situation with regard to the forthcoming vote on AV.
The key variable here is what happens to the PLP, which has been long divided over electoral reform. Way back in 1993, when Labour was contemplating PR under John Smith, the late Derek Fatchett's First-Past-the-Post group attracted the support of 86 Labour MPs, including John Spellar, Bruce Grocott and Gerald Kaufman, while Jeff (now Lord) Rooker, chairman of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, had 62 backbenchers supporting him, including Peter Mandelson (then cast into the outer darkness by Smith) and Dr Tony Wright.
Since then, these splits have not gone away – but there’s relatively little evidence on which to base any estimates of current forces within the PLP.
Things will not have been helped by the fact that plenty of the current whips office – note the name of John Spellar in the above list – are opponents of electoral reform (in general) or AV (in particular), and several of them have been known to have been making their opposition clear behind the scenes.
However, in terms of winning a vote, the Government has several things in its favour, including: grudging support from the Lib Dems (‘a very small step in the right direction’); the fact that this isn’t a vote on AV itself, but merely one on having a referendum on the subject; and the fast approaching election. The last always makes MPs more likely to bite their tongues at the best of times, but in this case it also leads plenty of Labour MPs to doubt anything will happen, suspecting (as do we) that the bill won’t get through parliament before the election is called, and will then get lost in the election wash-up. In which case, what’s the point of bothering to go to all the trouble of voting against it?
There's a Far Side cartoon in which (from memory) a student asks to be excused on the basis that his head is now full. We know the feeling, and sometimes (often?) wonder how useful all the things we know about parliament are. Surely all that space taken up with knowledge about, say, Harry Cohen's voting record could be better utilised with a deeper understanding of art, or music, or whatever.
But every now and again it does prove useful to know things. This, last Tuesday, was just such an occasion. And as a result, the Macular Disease Society will be £100 better off. Who needs art, anyway?
Two doesn’t make a trend, but yesterday (Monday, 11 January) saw the Conservative frontbench oppose the principle of Government legislation for the second time this year. As we reported in our recent briefing paper (pdf), the Conservatives only opposed four bills in the whole of the last session.
The latest Conservative frontbench reasoned amendment – declining to support the Children, Schools and Families Bill – also attracted three Labour rebels: Jeremy Corbyn, David Drew and John McDonnell. Small fry, but some Labour MPs, including Kate Hoey (who abstained on Second Reading), also expressed concerns over the Government’s plans to regulate home education. Those plans – outlined in the Badman Report – have also been opposed in a large number of petitions presented to the House by Conservative MPs. The Government also intends to make personal, social and health education (PSHE) (‘sex education’ to you and me) compulsory, which we suspect may also provoke a rebellions from socially conservative Labour MPs worried about introducing sex education into Church and faith schools should the Bill make it to Report stage before the general election.
Standing Order 14 allows for at least 13 Fridays for Private Members’ Bills. Last week, however, the Government moved a motion to reduce the number of backbench Fridays from 13 to eight, on the basis that the 2009-10 session will be a truncated because of the impending general election. Eight days would be, pro rata, roughly the correct amount for a short session and on the last two occasions when we’ve had a fifth session – in 1991-92 and 1996-97 – the Conservative Government of the day moved similar motions to restrict the number of backbench Fridays, and neither were contested by the Opposition.
This time around, however, Peter Bone, the Conservative MP for Wellingborough was having none of it. He moved an amendment to restore the 13 days for backbench business. Seeing the scale of support for Bone’s amendment, Sir George Young, the Shadow Leader of the House, allowed his backbenchers, though not his frontbench, a free vote, as did the Liberal Democrats. But while all the Lib Dem MPs present voted for Bone’s amendment, the Conservatives split nearly in half: 30 Tory backbenchers supported the amendment, while only 27 Conservatives (24 of them frontbenchers) opposed it. Bone’s amendment, however was heavily defeated by 254 votes to 78, with Labour whipping their side against Bone’s amendment. Only three Labour MPs – Paul Flynn, Kelvin Hopkins and Austin Mitchell – defied the whips.
This debate (and vote) matters because it reflects wider backbench concerns over the Government’s failure thus far to debate Building the House, the Wright Report into the Reform of the House of Commons, which reported back in November. Wright’s proposals include the creation of a backbench Business Committee to protect backbench time, together with a House Business Committee, responsible for putting a weekly agenda to the House for its decision. Such plans mean challenging the Executive’s current hold over what gets debated.
In our eagerness to mention that the Conservatives had actually opposed a Government bill at Second Reading, we neglected to mention that four Labour backbenchers – Diane Abbott, Katy Clark, Jeremy Corbyn and Linda Riordan – also opposed the legislation, objecting to the scale of cuts potentially required.
Frank Field, who abstained on the Bill, however delivered a very different, bone-chilling prediction (in the manner of a latter-day Enoch Powell) about the perilous state of the public finances. Comparing the debate in the political parties over how to lower the deficit to the ‘phoney war’ that led up to world war two, he claimed that voters did not 'have any idea how serious the financial position of this country is, or how massive the cuts will have to be if we are to return to some semblance of order to our national accounts'.
Field said that the country was living in ‘cloud cuckoo land’, unaware that the Government had been printing money, most of which had been used to buy Government debt. What happens, Field, asked when the Government stops printing money? What did the Government have up its sleeve if it faced a ‘gilt strike’ on the international money markets? ‘Please God’, Field intoned, ‘I hope that this Government have a lot up their sleeve'.
One nugget that we spotted, when going through our end-of-session calculations last year, was the extent to which the Conservative frontbench voted against a mere four bills at Second or Third Reading in the last session -- just 15% of government legislation. This is part of a parliament-on-parliament decline since 1997. We provide the details in this very short briefing note (pdf).
The note's been written up in today's Times. The Conservative explanation is that this is all Gordon Brown's fault: "He wants to manoeuvre us into a position where we are seen to be voting against motherhood and apple pie. So rather than vote against the Bill as a whole we try to change it later. There is a lot in the Equality Bill that we did not like at all, but they would have loved it had we been put in a position where we were opposing equality. Brown has also been trying to get us to oppose the 50p tax rate. But we won’t play his game.”
We think there's something in this. But, as our note shows, the decline began before Gordon Brown became Prime Minister: the Conservatives opposed just 21 and 22 percent of legislation in the 2005 and 2006 sessions of this parliament, when Tony Blair was still Prime Minister. So there's also something else going on.
David Taylor, who died on Boxing Day, was one of the leading Labour rebels. First elected in 1997, he progressively became more rebellious: he cast just five dissenting votes against the whips during the first Blair term, 39 in the second, and by the time of his death he’d already rebelled 76 times during the current parliament. He went from being the joint 72nd most rebellious Labour MP in 1997-01 to being the eighth most rebellious in this parliament.
He was a man of deep religious convictions, leading him to vote in a socially conservative direction when it came to matters of conscience and because the Labour Whips’ Office has preferred in recent years to whip many such issues, he found himself casting yet more dissenting votes on matters as diverse as the deregulation of the gambling industry and whether clergymen should be allowed to exercise free speech when it came to expressing their opposition to homosexuality. Indeed, his last dissenting vote – on 2 December – saw Taylor support an amendment to the Equality Bill that would have provided exemptions for religious organisations in employment matters on grounds of sexual orientation.
However, Taylor will be remembered most by the anoraks on the Revolts team as a serial abstainer. The procedures of the House of Commons give MPs just two formal options: to vote aye or no on whatever question is before the House. MPs occasionally get around this by voting in both lobbies – but David Taylor did it in earnest. By the Christmas recess, Taylor had registered no fewer than 33 deliberate abstentions in this Parliament alone, the most recent being in protest at the Government’s policy on disability benefits for the elderly during a Conservative Opposition Day motion on 8 December.
When the House of Commons returns in January, and we start casting our eyes over division lists yet again, there will be a huge gap, not just in the aye or no lobbies, but where David Taylor’s name was often to be found – in both lobbies.
Last week, the Equality Bill reached its Report stage in the House of Commons – and provoked splits in no fewer than four parties.
The Bill had previously seen very little dissent: John Bercow was the only MP from to vote against the Bill’s Second Reading. Bercow, now Speaker, is now studiously neutral on the matter, and cannot vote. But that didn’t stop other MPs from doing so. Some wanted the Bill to go further; others thought it should do less. The largest rebellion saw 14 Labour MPs support a Liberal Democrat clause that would have introduced mandatory pay audits for the purpose of identifying differences in pay between male and female employees. (James Plaskitt also voted in both lobbies) The same evening saw another Labour rebellion, this time in a more conservative direction. Eight Labour MPs, including the former Cabinet Minister, Ruth Kelly, supported David Drew’s amendment that would have deleted the part of the Bill that appeared to weaken the exemption provided for religious organisations, especially in relation to an employee’s sexual orientation. The issue also saw splits in the Liberal Democrats. Six Lib Dems voted for the amendment (including five frontbenchers), while 38 voted against. The SNP also split: 3/2 in favour of the amendment.
When it came to the Third Reading of the Bill, it was the turn of the Conservatives to split, albeit only a handful of them: with the Conservative frontbench abstaining, six Tory backbenchers – four of them from the 2005 intake plus Ann Widdecombe and Sir Nicholas Winterton – voted against the Bill in its entirety.
Here's our latest set of scores-on-the-doors, based on figures up to the end of the fourth session of this parliament, and as reported this morning by the Telegraph.
The headlines:
* Labour MPs defied their whips on 74 occasions, a rebellion in 30 percent of divisions, exactly the same as the preceding session’s figure.
* The Parliament as a whole is currently averaging a rate of 27 percent, on course to become the most rebellious in the post-war era. The current record is 21 percent, set by the 2001 Parliament.
* In absolute terms, that record has already been achieved; the 2005 Parliament has already seen more revolts against the whip by members of the governing party than any other post-war parliament.
* A total of 102 Labour MPs voted against their whips during the session; the total number of Labour rebels under Brown now stands at 137.
* Rebellion remains concentrated amongst a small group of Labour MPs. The top ten rebels in the 2008-09 session accounted for marginally under half (46%) of the total rebellious votes cast; the top 20 rebels accounted for exactly two-thirds (66%) of the total.
* John McDonnell took the top spot as the most rebellious Labour MP in the fourth session, clocking up 46 dissenting votes.
* He was closely followed by Jeremy Corbyn on 45. Corbyn’s total number of votes against the whip for the Brown administration alone has now passed the 100 mark, with more than 400 in total since 1997.
* The government suffered two defeats during the session as a result of its backbenchers defying the whip – on Gurkhas and Parliamentary Standards.
And one fact not in the paper: The Parliament as a whole has now seen six defeats, caused by backbench dissent, on whipped votes. No Parliament with a majority of over 60 has seen this many defeats in the post-war era.
Every week has seen at least one Labour rebellion since the Commons returned, and Monday's night saw a tiddler: 11 Labour MPs supporting an amendment in the name of Labour backbencher, Katy Clark during the Report stage of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill that would have strengthened the minister's power to designate Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs).
The division also saw Jeremy Corbyn's 99th rebellious vote under Gordon Brown; he managed 301 under Blair. Less than a week, we reckon, before Corbyn hits the century.
We love this Mystic Meg stuff. No sooner had we written a post about growing discontent on opposition day motions, than we get one over the TA, followed by a complete government U turn. At least they've learnt something from the Gurkhas...
Most of the government’s trouble with its backbenchers comes from a pretty predictable group of people. For example, who was the top rebel under Tony Blair? Jeremy Corbyn. Top rebel under Gordon Brown? You’ve guessed it: J Corbyn. But glance at the rebellion lists for the last year, and you see some much more surprising names mixed in with all the Corbyns and the McDonnells, including people like Robert Flello, Jim Dowd, Dari Taylor and even Gordon Banks (previously considered a safe pair of hands).* There are 17 Labour MPs who’ve rebelled under Brown who did not do so under Blair (along with one, Virendra Sharma, who entered the Commons after Brown became Prime Minister and who’s also rebelled).
Top new rebel? Mark Todd (six votes against the whip during the Brown government), closely followed by Shona McIssac and Ian Cawsey (four), and Nick Palmer and Fiona Mactaggart (three). There are five MPs whose rebellions you’d not have put money on two years ago.
*Yes, we know he’s Scottish, not English. And that he’s not the goalkeeper. But it’s too good (or bad) a joke not to use.
There were two Labour rebellions last week, both on Liberal Democrat Opposition Day motions. One, on compensation for policyholders of Equitable Life, saw 18 Labour MPs vote against their whip, and the government’s majority reduced to 35. The second, on the so-called ‘10:10 campaign’ for a delivery plan to achieve a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, saw 12 Labour rebels voting against their party line.
This is just the latest Opposition Day motion to attract a half-decent revolt. Under Brown’s leadership, there have been 22 separate rebellions over Opposition Day matters, including those in favour of an Iraq inquiry (12 rebels, March 2008), against Post Office closures (19 rebels, March 2008), the proposed third runaway at Heathrow (28 rebels, January 2009), and of course, the Government defeat on the immigration rights of Gurkhas (27 rebels and loads of abstentions, 29 April 2009). Compare that to the first Blair parliament, between 1997 and 2001, when there were just two Labour rebellions on Opposition Days.
This is a second front for the whips office. It means that the Government Whips’ Office now has to contend not only with rebellions on contentious legislation, but also on motions on topics carefully crafted by the Opposition to cause maximum embarrassment to the Government.
Well, we’re sort of back. Still no funding, so we’re on a sort of revolts.co.uk life-support system, with the ECG monitor beeping faintly and sporadically in the background. But there’s lots going on, so it seemed a shame to miss it completely.
For example, on the first week back since the summer recess, Labour rebels returned to their old habits. There were five Labour rebellions, the largest of which saw 14 backbenchers support a new clause in the name of Andrew Mackinlay during the passage of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill (what an appalling title?). Mackinlay was so incensed with the minister responsible, Rosie Winterton that at one point, he declared: ‘I will simply not let her get away with this nonsense’. He later described as ‘rubbish’ that part of the Local Government Act 2000 that abolished the old committee-based structure for councils with populations less than 85,000. Mackinlay wanted to restore that choice by upping the maximum to councils with up to one million people.
Mackinlay has really upped his rate of rebellions under Gordon Brown. He rebelled 27 times during the whole of the Blair decade; he has now matched that figure after only two-and-a-half years of Brown’s leadership.
Labour rebellions are running at an alarming rate – 28% of all divisions so far this session.