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Conservative dissent on climate change

Yesterday the House of Commons continued to debate the Climate Change Bill. In particular, the Government is eager that emissions from shipping and international aviation be reduced. They have not been included in the Bill's target of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, however.

Instead amendments have been introduced that would require the Government to publish regular projections for emissions from international aviation and shipping. Within five years shipping and international aviation should be included in the Government's targets or an explanation laid before Parliament as to why they have not been.

The Conservative front bench has welcomed this development. However, some Conservative MPs have dissented.

Hitchin & Harpenden MP Peter Lilley (a former Secretary of State for Social Security) offered this observation:

"In the speeches of a number of hon. Members, it has been assumed that the whole House is unanimous on the measures before us, and on the Bill that they amend or add to. Historically, the House has made its worst mistakes not when it is divided, but when it is virtually unanimous; not when it is adversarial, but when MPs switch off their critical faculties in a spasm of moral self-congratulation. My concern is that, in considering these measures, we are displaying that tendency. It is vital that we bring the House back down to earth by considering the hard costs and benefits of, and alternatives to, what is proposed and what we are doing. We have not done that very much so far in the debates in the House. Only once in Committee was mention made of the costs and benefits of what we are proposing."

Conservative MPs disagree over TV licence fee

On Friday, backbencher Christopher Chope had the Second Reading of his Broadcasting (Television Licence Fee Abolition) Bill. He explained:

"This debate is about abolishing the television licence fee, which is more accurately described as the television tax. It is not about abolishing the BBC. One can be a friend of the BBC—as I am—without being a supporter of the licence fee, although the lengths to which the BBC sometimes goes to defend the licence fee often create enemies."

His effort, inevitably for now, failed. It was opposed by Shadow Arts Minister Ed Vaizey, who said:

"I want to put it on record that I am a firm supporter of the licence fee, as is the Conservative party. Nevertheless, no one should be afraid to rehearse the arguments about whether the licence fee is the best funding mechanism."

Mr Chope quoted former BBC Director-General Greg Dyke, who said the licence fee has:

“always been an unfair tax—the rich pay the same as the poor—and...it will be increasingly difficult for the BBC to collect the amount they collect now. In the age of internet TV, how can you insist people continue to pay a licence fee? A licence fee for what? Already you don’t need to pay the licence fee to watch most of the BBC’s programmes if you watch them on your computer via the iPlayer”.

Christopher Chope MP questions benefits of EU membership and highlights costs

Christopher Chope yesterday presented the European Union (Audit of Benefits and Costs of UK Membership) Bill.  It stands next to no chance of coming into force.

Christopher Chope on how Gordon Brown exaggerates our economic relationship with the EU: "Only as recently as Wednesday, the Prime Minister was using that familiar refrain of justification for our position in the European Union, by saying that 60 per cent. of our trade is with the EU and that 3 million jobs depend on the EU. He told my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) that it would be “bad for Britain” to be out of Europe altogether.

However, the Prime Minister’s claim about trade is wrong. The Library note for this debate summarising national statistics data says that in 2007, 52 per cent. of the UK’s total trade in goods and services related to the European Union, which was lower than it was in 2006. The Prime Minister was therefore wrong in asserting that the figure was 60 per cent. He was also wrong in implying, as the Euro enthusiasts do so often, that, because perhaps 3 millions jobs depend on exports to the European Union, they would be in jeopardy were our relationship with the European Union to be different.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) made that point well in the debate on European affairs earlier this week, saying:  “In fact, 6.4 million jobs in continental Europe depend on trade with the United Kingdom. Germany exports more goods and services to the UK than we do to it. Some 3.2 per cent. of German gross domestic product is exported to the United Kingdom.”

He then gave some other figures and concluded by saying: “Imports from the EU 27 to the UK have grown by an average of 13 per cent. over the past two years."

At the same time, our exports have been static or declining. Anybody who suggests that our having a different relationship with the European Union would put those 3 million jobs at risk will find that there is no evidence for that suggestion."

In a question to Mr Chope Philip Davies argues that the costs of EU regulation outweigh the benefits of the single market: "The European Commission has been very helpful in acknowledging that the cost of regulation is €600 billion and that the benefits of the single market are something in the region of €160 billion. On its own admission, the costs of regulation are about three times more than the benefits of the single market. Does my hon. Friend agree that whereas only about 10 per cent. of businesses in this country get any benefit from the single market, every single business faces the cost of all the regulations?"

Tory MPs "say no" to votes for sixteen year-olds

Tory MPs speak against Julie Morgan MP's Private Members' Bill in favour of lowering the voting age to sixteen.

Brooks Newmark: "One of the big challenges is that it is hard enough to get 18 to 21-year-olds to vote, yet they too, at an earlier stage, called for more representation and wanted a say in politics? Surely we should focus our energies on trying to figure out how we are going to motivate them to get voting instead of continually trying to lower the age limit."

Nigel Evans: "There has to be a dividing line somewhere, and one could argue that it could be 17, 16, 15, 14 or 12, but 18 seems to be the appropriate voting age in the vast majority of places in the world."

Christopher Chope: "Her Bill is not even supported by members of the United Kingdom Youth Parliament, who, when they met in the other place in May and were asked to vote on what they regarded as the three most important issues to campaign on this year, declined to vote in favour of this proposal because they thought that there were three other issues of greater importance?"

Greg Knight: "Most 16-year-olds have the mental capacity to vote. The problem lies in the fact that many of them have not been educated at school about our democratic system. It is a problem of education, rather than of the mental incapacity or immaturity of a 16-year-old."

Mark Harper: "By saying that someone becomes an adult at 18 and someone below that age is a child, we are not, in any sense, disparaging children; we are simply saying that a line has to be drawn. Let us follow the hon. Lady’s argument to its logical conclusion. If we were to move the line for voting to 16, would we not implicitly be saying that there was something not worthy or not appropriate about 14 and 15-year-olds voting? There would be no logical reason not just to drop the voting age all the way down to zero. The fact is that there must be a line somewhere, and wherever it is drawn there will be people on the wrong side of it who have the maturity to take such a decision. The right place for that line to stay is at 18... If we are to say to young people that we do not think that they are sufficiently responsible or competent to take a decision about driving a motor car, using a firearm, consuming alcohol or buying cigarettes, it would be extraordinary to say at the same time that we think that they are mature enough to make a decision about the future of our country and about people who might deploy our armed forces. We know how the Liberal Democrats feel about the decisions made by the Government about committing our armed forces. Those are important and serious decisions, and I cannot see how it would be wise to say that a young person under 18 could not consume alcohol but could vote for a Government who could authorise the use of force in an armed conflict. That is completely inconsistent."

Eleanor Laing: "My main argument against the Bill concerns the question of rights. Correctly, we often discuss rights in this House, but whenever we create a right, there must be a corresponding responsibility. If there is no responsibility, then there is no right, because rights without responsibilities are meaningless. By giving people the right to vote, we are also conferring on them the burden of the responsibility to vote. I argue that 16 and 17-year-olds are gradually given plenty of responsibilities as they move on through life and grow up. It is not right to pile on all those responsibilities at once. Children of younger age groups have to be protected and 16 and 17-year-olds still have to be nurtured and helped along the way while they gradually make the transition from childhood to adulthood."

Stewart Jackson attacks LibDem Lynne Featherstone for comparing the issue to women's campaign for the vote: "The hon. Lady is making a completely fallacious comparison. Women were imprisoned, and, in some cases, they were tortured and they died. They sacrificed their own lives and chained themselves to parts of this building to secure, rightly, the universal franchise for both genders. That bears no comparison with whether a 16-year-old or a 15-year-old can be bothered to fill in a form so that they can vote in 2008."

Exchange between Julie Morgan MP, sponsor of the Bill, and Mark Harper:

Julie Morgan: "The phrase “no taxation without representation” has been used by many groups struggling for political rights over the years, but it applies no less to 16 and 17-year olds working and paying tax who are denied the vote, because there is no age limit on paying income tax and national insurance. Tax is taken on full or part-time work including tips and bonuses, and the most up-to-date figures show that 548,000 16 and 17-year-olds are in some form or employment."

Mark Harper: "The fact is that many children, far younger than 16, pay indirect taxes on the money that they spend. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that a 10-year-old who goes to buy a CD on which VAT is payable should get the vote?"

Julie Morgan: "I do not think that that is a valid intervention."