70 Tory MPs vote to repeal the Human Rights Act

By Matthew Barrett
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Yesterday in Parliament, Richard Bacon, a Conservative backbencher, tried to introduce a Bill which would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. One of Mr Bacon's lines of argument was that the legal requirement for Ministers to amend legislation - without a vote in Parliament - in order to comply with European human rights legislation - is "fundamentally undemocratic":

"Under section 10, a Minister of the Crown may make such amendments to primary legislation as are considered necessary to enable the incompatibility to be removed by the simple expedient of making an order. In effect, because the accepted practice is that the United Kingdom observes its international obligations, a supranational court can impose its will against ours. In my view this is fundamentally undemocratic."

Mr Bacon also compellingly argued that the controversial social issues that judges often like to get involved in should be decided by "elected representatives and not by unelected judges":

"[T]here is no point in belonging to a club if one is not prepared to obey its rules. The solution is therefore not to defy judgments of the Court, but rather to remove the power of the Court over us. ... Judges do not have access to a tablet of stone not available to the rest of us which enables them to discern what our people need better than we can possibly do as their elected, fallible, corrigible representatives. There is no set of values that are so universally agreed that we can appeal to them as a useful final arbiter. In the end they will always be shown up as either uselessly vague or controversially specific. Questions of major social policy, whether on abortion, capital punishment, the right to bear firearms or workers rights, should ultimately be decided by elected representatives and not by unelected judges."

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The 118 Tory MPs the Daily Mail lists as being opposed to gay marriage

By Matthew Barrett
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The Daily Mail this morning reports on the 118 Conservative MPs who have written to constituents indicating their opposition to gay marriage proposals. The Mail says "Their opposition has been expressed in letters and emails sent to constituents who have contacted them with their own concerns", and points out that if these MPs voted against proposals, it would constitute the biggest Tory rebellion in modern times. However, Equalities Minister (and Secretary of State for Culture) Maria Miller pointed out on Twitter that since any vote on the issue would be a free vote, it would not technically be counted as a rebellion.

I have listed the MPs from the Mail's story below.

1. Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty)
2. Peter Aldous (Waveney)
3. Tony Baldry (Banbury)
4. Guto Bebb (Aberconwy)
5. Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk)
6. Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley)
7. Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen)
8. Andrew Bingham (High Peak)
9. Brian Binley (Northampton South)
10. Bob Blackman (Harrow East)
11. Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon)
12. Peter Bone (Wellingborough)
13. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West)
14. Julian Brazier (Canterbury)
15. Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire)
16. Steve Brine (Winchester)
17. Fiona Bruce (Congleton)
18. Robert Buckland (South Swindon)
19. Conor Burns (Bournemouth West)*
20. Simon Burns (Chelmsford)
21. David Burrowes (Enfield Southgate)
22. Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan)
23. Douglas Carswell (Clacton)
24. William Cash (Stone)
25. Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham)
26. Christopher Chope (Christchurch)
27. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds)
28. Therese Coffey (Suffolk Coastal)
29. Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon)
30. Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire)
31. David Davies (Monmouth)
32. Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire)
33. Philip Davies (Shipley)
34. David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden)
35. Nick de Bois (Enfield North)
36. Caroline Dinenage (Gosport)
37. Richard Drax (South Dorset)
38. Charlie Elphicke (Dover)
39. Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North)
40. David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford)
41. George Freeman (Mid Norfolk)
42. Richard Fuller (Bedford)
43. Roger Gale (North Thanet)
44. Edward Garnier (Harborough)
45. John Glen (Salisbury)
46. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham)
47. Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby)
48. Robert Halfon (Harlow)
49. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge)
50. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings)
51. Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
52. George Hollingbery (Meon Valley)
53. Philip Hollobone (Kettering)
54. Adam Holloway (Gravesham)
55. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot)
56. Stewart Jackson (Peterborough)
57. Gareth Johnson (Dartford)
58. David Jones (Clwyd West)
59. Marcus Jones (Nuneaton)
60. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest)
61. Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire)
62. Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire)
63. Philip Lee (Bracknell)
64. Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford)
65. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
66. Julian Lewis (New Forest East)
67. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset)
68. Peter Lilley (Hitchen and Harpenden)
69. Jonathan Lord (Woking)
70. Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham)
71. Anne Main (St Albans)
72. Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys)
73. Anne-Marie Morris (Newton Abbot)
74. Karl McCartney (Lincoln)
75. Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton)
76. Stephen McPartland (Stevenage)
77. Esther McVey (Wirral West)
78. Steve Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock)
79. Nicky Morgan (Loughborough)
80. David Nuttall (Bury North)
81. Matthew Offord (Hendon)
82. Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton)
83. Priti Patel (Witham)
84. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire)
85. Mark Pawsey (Rugby)
86. Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead)
87. Christopher Pincher (Tamworth)
88. Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin)
89. John Redwood (Wokingham)
90. Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset)
91. Simon Reevell (Dewsbury)
92. Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire)
93. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury)
94. Andrew Rosindell (Romford)
95. David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds)
96. David Rutley (Macclesfield)
97. Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire)
98. Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell)
99. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills)
100. Henry Smith (Crawley)
101. John Stevenson (Carlisle)
102. Bob Stewart (Beckenham)
103. Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
104. Mel Stride (Central Devon)
105. Robert Syms (Poole)
106. David Tredinnick (Bosworth)
107. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight)
108. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester)
109. Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West)
110. Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes)
111. Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North)
112. Robert Walter (North Dorset)
113. James Wharton (Stockton South)
114. Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley)
115. John Whittingdale (Maldon)
116. Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire)
117. Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire)
118. Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam)

Conservative Select Committee appointments announced

By Matthew Barrett
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Guido Fawkes has a list of new Conservative members of Select Committees, from Graham Brady's office. Mr Brady explains: "For the following committees I have received the same number of nominations as there are vacancies, the following are therefore elected". The appointments are:

Communities and Local Government

John Stevenson (Carlisle), replacing George Hollingbery (Meon Valley), who became PPS to Theresa May at the reshuffle.

Education

Chris Skidmore (Kingswood), replacing Damian Hinds (East Hampshire), who became PPS to Mark Francois, the Minister of State for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans.

Health

Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole), replacing Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich), who was made the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Health Services.

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What is the Fresh Start Project? Matthew Barrett profiles the Tory MPs trying to forge a new UK-EU relationship

By Matthew Barrett
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My series profiling the backbench groups of Tory MPs has usually featured groups with general ideological goals. Groups representing the traditional right or Thatcherite wing of the Party cannot be said to focus on a single area of political life. Nor can newer groups like the Free Enterprise Group, or the 2020 Conservatives. However, Fresh Start, the subject of this profile, is focused on one big area of politics: Europe.

Origins of Fresh Start

Fresh Start was formed before the summer recess in 2011, and formally launched in September last year, at an event to which all Conservative MPs were invited. Anthony Browne, in his ConservativeHome column, reported on the launch of Fresh Start at the time:

"By one count there were 104 Conservative MPs; another put it at 120 – twice the total number of Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons. Either way, it was standing room only in the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House last night, as much of the parliamentary Conservative party (and the odd hanger-on like me) met to discuss Britain’s way forward with the European Union."

The founders are Andrea Leadsom, Chris Heaton-Harris, and George Eustice, all 2010 intake members:

• Leadsom, the Member of Parliament for South Northamptonshire, had a career in the City prior to entering politics, having been Financial Institutions Director at Barclays Bank, Managing Director of a London hedge fund and then, Head of Corporate Governance for Invesco Perpetual. Leadsom runs Fresh Start and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for European Reform (see below) from her office, and has regular co-ordinating messages with Heaton-Harris and Eustice.
• Heaton-Harris, from Daventry, which neighbours Leadsom's constituency, was a Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region from 1999 until 2009. He was an advocate of reform and helped found the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform (CPR). Heaton-Harris also helped publicise the case of Marta Andreasen, now a UKIP MEP, who, as the European Commission's Chief Accountant, complained about fraud and waste in the European institutions in 2002. 
• Eustice is the Member of Parliament for Camborne and Redruth, and was a UKIP candidate for the South West of England region at the 1999 European Parliament elections. He has also been Campaign Director for the cross-party campaign against the €uro in 2000, Head of Press for Michael Howard during the 2005 election, and Press Secretary for David Cameron from when Cameron launched his leadership campaign until he was well established as leader, at the end of 2008. Eustice also played a key role in the Conservative effort to win a "no" vote in the AV referendum.

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The People's Pledge announce shortlist of 39 constituencies for new European referendums

By Matthew Barrett
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4pm update: People's Pledge sources tells me that Anne Marie Morris, the MP for Newton Abbot has come out in support of a referendum. 

Mike Freer, the MP for Finchley and Golders Green, has also backed a referendum. This is significant because Freer was not one of the 81 rebels, but has now come round to the view that Britain should have an in/out European referendum. 

These two new additions to the list of MPs supporting the People's Pledge means 68 MPs - from several parties - back a referendum. 

***

Following on from their successful referendum campaign in Thurrock - turnout was higher than in the recent local elections - The People's Pledge campaign have announced further referendums, to be held in 3 contiguous seats. The campaign has announced a shortlist of 39 seats, grouped in 13 contiguous triples, from different regions, from which one triplet will be chosen in the next few days, with a polling date set for late July.

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What is the 40 group? Matthew Barrett profiles the MPs trying to keep hold of the most marginal Tory seats

By Matthew Barrett
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I recently profiled the 2020 and Free Enterprise groups of Tory MPs. Those two groups are formed by ideology: MPs are attracted to the groups because, in the case of the Free Enterprise Group, members wish to open up markets and make Britain business-friendly enough to compete with other world class economies. The 2020's members want to renew and refresh Project Cameron, while considering how the country should look after a majority Conservative government.

The 40 is rather different as it is a group of MPs brought together solely by necessity - the members are those MPs who were elected in 2010 with the narrowest majorities in the Party.

Origins of the group and key members

The group was founded early last year by Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood), Graham Evans (Weaver Vale), and David Mowat (Warrington South). There is no rigid structure to the group as such, given its non-ideological purpose, but when it meets, the convener is usually David Mowat. Other key "executive" members of the group include Evans and Ollerenshaw, as well as Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye), James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) and Ben Gummer (Ipswich).

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Majority of the 50 most "cost-efficient" MPs are Conservatives

By Matthew Barrett
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The company Key Business Insight's "Commons Performance Cockpit" ranks MPs by their total cost - that is, staffing costs, travel expenses, office costs, salary, and so on. The majority of the 50 "most efficient" MPs, in terms of total cost, are Conservatives. 

The top 50 "most efficient" MPs between 1st April, 2010 and 31st March, 2011 are listed below:

1. Dan Jarvis (Labour, Barnsley Central) £5,457*
2. Deborah Abrahams (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth) £12,472**
3. Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central) £57,485***
4. Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Richmond Park) £59,242
5. Rushanara Ali (Labour, Bethnal Green and Bow) £59,242
6. Ben Gummer (Conservative, Ipswich) £60,422
7. Gavin Shuker (Labour, Luton South) £60,687
8. George Eustice (Conservative, Camborne and Redruth) £60,692
9. Sam Gyimah (Conservative, East Surrey) £60,899
10. Matthew Offord (Conservative, Hendon) £61,077
11. Anne-Marie Morris (Conservative, Newton Abbot) £61,292
12. Teresa Pearce (Labour, Erith and Thamesmead) £61,776
13. Mark Reckless (Conservative, Rochester and Strood) £61,780
14. Guy Opperman (Conservative, Hexham) £61,857
15. Gemma Doyle (Labour, West Dunbartonshire) £62,324
16. Christopher Pincher (Conservative, Tamworth) £62,583
17. Stella Creasy (Labour, Walthamstow)  £63,510
18. Ian Paisley, Jnr (Democratic Unionist, North Antrim) £64,755
19. Richard Drax (Conservative, South Dorset)  £65,102
20. Owen Smith (Labour, Pontypridd) £65,157
21. Damian Hinds (Conservative, East Hampshire) £65,365
22. Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) £65,396
23. Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative, Spelthorne) £65,571
24. Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)  £65,651
25. Jonathan Lord (Conservative, Woking) £66,162
26. Rebecca Harris (Conservative, Castle Point) £66,576
27. Anas Sarwar (Labour, Glasgow Central) £67,630
28. Andrea Leadsom (Conservative, South Northamptonshire)  £67,940
29. Claire Perry (Conservative, Devizes) £68,047
30. Sajid Javid (Conservative, Bromsgrove)  £68,171
31. Sarah Newton (Conservative, Truro and Falmouth) £68,172
32. Conor Burns (Conservative, Bournemouth West) £68,443
33. Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative, Lancaster and Fleetwood)  £68,624
34. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP, South Down) £68,705
35. Rehman Chisti (Conservative, Gillingham and Rainham) £68,917
36. Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist, Strangford)  £69,063
37. Liz Kendall (Labour, Leicester West) £69,147
38. George Hollingberry (Conservative, Meon Valley) £69,251
39. Alok Sharma (Conservative, Reading West)  £69,273
40. Chris Kelly (Conservative, Dudley South) £70,316
41. Angie Bray (Conservative, Ealing Central and Acton) £70,334
42. Naomi Long (Alliance, Belfast East) £70,581
43. Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)  £70,619
44. Margot James (Conservative, Stourbridge)  £70,755
45. Pamela Nash (Labour, Airdrie and Shotts) £70,842
46. Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham Erdington)  £70,912
47. Kris Hopkins (Conservative, Keighley)  £70,944
48. Stephen Metcalfe (Conservative, South Basildon and East Thurrock) £70,966
49. Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Birmingham Ladywood) £71,072
50. Tristram Hunt (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central) £71,269

*Took his seat on 3rd March, 2011
**Took her seat on 13th January, 2011
***Resigned his seat on 8th February, 2011 

Mel Stride, Anne Marie Morris, Martin Vickers and Jane Ellison all discuss educational issues in their maiden speeches

Here are extracts from four more maiden speeches given during yesterday’s debate on developing a high-skilled economy which focused on education.

Mel Stride, the MP for the newly drawn constituency of Devon Central, spoke passionately in favour of education being “the great highway of social mobility”:

“I have a strong belief that the greatest gift that any young person can receive, after a loving family, is that of a good education. For those who choose the vocational path, it is vital that education be provided with the same energy and vigour as that afforded to the more traditional academic routes.”

“Education is the great highway of social mobility—for individuals to move on and up, in many cases escaping poverty and deprivation in the process. I say that as someone whose mother and father left school at ages 15 and 14, and whose life was transformed by the winning of a free place at a grammar school. The greatest opportunity ever provided to me, that school became the foundation on which the rest of my life was built. I would like to see others have the opportunity that I was privileged to receive.

“I have long admired the ideas and the reforming passion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and my hon. Friend the Minister of State. They have fully understood the force for good that education and skills can represent, but they have done more than that. They have truly understood the disgraceful and inhumane waste that is represented by continued educational failure—the appalling destruction of life chances, especially among the least advantaged. It is they who have understood the extraordinary power of choice; that choice will drive up standards; that parents know better than bureaucrats; that giving power to those who otherwise just have to take what they are given is the key to raising up the less advantaged; that future generations must be sustained not just by hope but by taking control of their destinies; and most important of all, that there is an age-old truth that the quest to create a stronger and better society cannot be left to the planners, to the bureaucracies, to the well-meaning architects of the state, but must be gifted to those for whom the consequences of success or failure are most keenly felt.”

Anne Marie Morris, who gained Newton Abbot from the Lib Dems at the election, spoke in favour of more vocational tertiary education:

“We should try to improve quality and variety in education along the line—primary, secondary and tertiary. There has been a focus in tertiary education on what I can only describe as the intellectual professions, such as law and accountancy. There has not been a focus on careers as plumbers, engineers and electricians. Those are all valid careers that require no less intelligence, just intelligence of a different variety. I should like some colleges to be the technical colleges that we all knew and loved when we were younger. They should look at proper hands-on training. When I visit colleges I am distressed to find that because of health and safety and all the other rules and regulation, education is all about bits of paper, not about students getting their hands dirty. Getting one’s hands dirty is an extremely good and valuable thing.”

“Then there is the issue of linking tertiary education with jobs, and for my money it is absolutely crucial that we give apprenticeships a real chance. When I talk to people with small businesses in my community, they say, “Anne Marie, one of the challenges is that we cannot afford to take on apprentices, because at the moment all of the burden falls on the employer and it is a huge burden.” I am therefore very pleased to see new initiatives from the new Government that will share the cost of apprenticeships.”

The new MP for Cleethorpes, Martin Vickers, was also keen to see apprenticeships and appropriate training for school leavers:

“I welcome the Government’s pledge to increase the quality and quantity of apprenticeships that will be available. I hope that such pledges will further the work of facilities such as CATCH—the Centre for the Assessment of Technical Competence, Humber—and training providers such as HETA, the Humberside Engineering Training Association, which operate there. During the election campaign, the Minister for Universities and Science, who was then a shadow Minister and is now, I am pleased to say, a member of the Government, visited the CATCH facility in Stallingborough and I think it fair to say that he was suitably impressed. It is a joint venture between the public and private sectors, and it has an extremely good success rate in securing permanent positions for the young people who train there, educating and training today’s school leavers, so that they become not a lost and forgotten generation but a driving force behind the economic recovery that remains the key aim of Government policy.”

Meanwhile, Jane Ellison, who gained Battersea, explained her hope that the former Bolingbroke Hospital in her constituency can be re-opened as a Free School:

“Many of us in Battersea hope that the next chapter in its life story will be as a school. For the parents involved in the Neighbourhood School Campaign, supported by Wandsworth council, the free schools legislation offers the best chance of realising their dream of a new state secondary school for south Battersea. A new school would be enormously important, giving further choice to parents in my constituency, irrespective of their means—an important factor in an area that has a lot of families on low incomes. I therefore particularly welcome the coalition’s plans for a pupil premium and more apprenticeships, and its determination to boost the private sector. All those things will greatly assist the many young people in my constituency for whom life is a struggle against the odds from the start, and for whom a good education and a skilled job are an essential way of getting on in life.”

Jonathan Isaby