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)

80 Tory backbenchers voted for Lords reform last night. 110 did not.

By Matthew Barrett
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We know that 91 Tories voted against the Lords Reform Bill last night. That's the big, headline grabbing figure - the biggest rebellion in this Parliament. 

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41 Tory MPs join call by Robert Halfon MP for OFT to investigate high petrol prices

By Matthew Barrett
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Robert Halfon, the Member of Parliament for Harlow, and one of the most successful campaigning MPs in Parliament, has organised a motion, backed by 60 MPs from all parties, and including 41 Tories, calling for the Office of Fair Trading to investigate allegations of price-fixing by British oil companies. The full motion is worded as follows:

"That this House urges the OFT to investigate oil firms active in the UK; calls on the Government to consider the emergency actions being taken in other G20 nations to cut fuel prices, for example President Obama strengthening Federal supervision of the U.S. oil market, and increasing penalties for “market manipulation”, and Germany and Austria setting up a new oil regulator, with orders to help stabilise the price of petrol in the country; finally urges the Office of Fair Trading to note that the Federal Cartel Office in Germany is now investigating oil firms active in the UK, after allegations of price-fixing."

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Esther McVey and Stephen McPartland address global poverty in their maiden speeches

Thursday's debate on global poverty saw maiden speeches from two more members of the 2010 Conservative intake.

Esther McVey, who won Wirral West at th election at her second attempt, said that she was moved to speak in this debate after receiving letters from the 20 members of a class at Hayfield primary school in her constituency:

"Class P has signed up to the 1GOAL campaign to help global poverty through education. The campaign is trying to use the profile of the 2010 World cup in South Africa, bringing together footballers and fans of all ages with charities and local and world leaders, to make education a reality for 72 million primary school children worldwide by 2015. I asked Class P to explain what poverty meant to them. They said it was about not being able to go to school to learn and make friends, about being sick but not having a doctor and about living in fear. Most of all, poverty is about living with no hope and dying with no one caring. According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die that way each day, and 10.6 million children die before the age of five—that is the same total as all the children of France, Germany, Greece and Italy added together. So today I bring the message of the next generation to the attention of the current generation—beat poverty through education.

"Yes, and I believe in the goodness of human beings and the thread of humanity that touches the core of every one of us. It is here in this Chamber, on all sides of the House, and it is in class P at Hayfield school.

"All of us come here with the desire to help others and, ultimately, to enable them to help themselves, but different times—and we are living in different times—require different solutions. We are living in a financial downturn and at a time of financial restraint. We have inherited a record deficit, so we have to do things differently. We have to have a different strategy but, that said, we must work together and use and acknowledge the successes of past Parliaments.

"So I welcome the new coalition Government’s commitment to spending 0.7% of gross national income as aid by 2013, helping the poorest in the world. I hope that that is welcomed by all Members of the House, and I am sure that it will be—just as it will be welcomed by the children at Hayfield school."

Later in the same debate, Stevenage's new MP, Stephen McPartland, called on the Government to "target our resources both at home and abroad to focus on activities that deliver results and will make a real impact on the lives of millions of people":

"I will take two examples of where significant progress can be made quickly. The first is the millennium development goal to reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under the age of five. There is concern that this, like many of the other goals, will not be achieved by 2015, but if we take targeted action we can make real progress. At the moment, around the world, one child dies every 15 seconds from pneumonia, which is the leading killer of children under the age of five. The majority of those deaths are preventable because there are effective vaccines that can protect against the majority of strains of the disease and effective treatments such as antibiotics.

"Increasing evidence shows that pneumonia is linked to global poverty, and 98% of these deaths occur in the developing world, mostly in marginalised communities. Yet pneumonia is a disease that can be managed relatively simply if the resources are available. I am proud of the leading role that GlaxoSmithKline, a major employer in my constituency, has taken to try to save the lives of millions of children in the world’s poorest countries. GSK is one of the first manufacturers to sign an advanced market commitment, which, by guaranteeing an affordable long-term price, will support the sustained use of vaccines. GSK has worked closely with GAVI and IVAC—the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, and the International Vaccine Access Centre—the leading NGOs in trying to sort the problem out, and whose work I commend.

"Turning closer to home, we know that here in the UK, it is possible to help a child out of poverty and improve their chances in life if they receive a good education. However, we are not doing enough; we are not lifting enough people out of poverty. In my constituency, like in so many others across the UK, there are children who have tried so hard in school. There is a cadre of dedicated and professional staff who have helped them along the way and invested so much of themselves in helping those children try to improve their life chances, but the system does not seem to work. Those children are being forced through an education system that pushes them out the other end with little chance of getting a job, as they do not have the skills that local employers want.

"We need to encourage employers to work with local schools and colleges, to get fully involved in education, to highlight the skills that are missing and even perhaps to take preventive action, possibly by designing some of the more vocational courses. Perhaps the prize at the end of the course should be a job or an apprenticeship with the employer. We need to be innovative and flexible, so that courses can reflect the skills gap locally and more local people can get local jobs. Only by focusing on results here and abroad will we be able to help people lift themselves out of poverty."

Jonathan Isaby