Bernard Jenkin MP: Why I, a practising member of the Church of England, will vote for same-sex marriage today

Bernard Jenkin is the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. Follow Bernard on Twitter.

David Cameron’s initiative to create a new institution of “civil marriage” for same sex couples has stirred a heated and angry debate, particularly between government ministers and the churches, and within the Conservative Party. A lot of MPs (and this includes a lot of Labour MPs, whom the media permit to suffer in the anonymity of opposition) are fed up to find themselves confronted by this question. It hardly seemed urgent or pressing before David Cameron put it on the political agenda.  I certainly would not have encouraged him to do so.  Many regard this as “the final straw” on the top of many other mid-term frustrations.  I can honestly say that no other measure this parliament seems to have made so many colleagues feel so unhappy.  Nevertheless, after some intense consideration, I decided to support the principle of same sex marriage some months ago.  Despite the political unhappiness of it, I remain ever firmer in this view and I will vote for the Bill.

The two extremes of this debate both repel, and we should do our best to ignore them.  The more ardent supporters do not build consensus and confidence in their judgement by branding every opponent as “bigot” or “homophobe”.  They are a turn-off.  Equally, even the most passionate opponents of gay marriage should recognise that same sex relationships can embody passion, love and care, and are not solely about the sex or possibly not even remotely about sex (with which some opponents can appear over-preoccupied).  The vast majority of representations I have received, and conversations with colleagues, have been on an altogether higher plane of debate, and I pay tribute to their moderation and sincerity on both sides.

Bernard Jenkin MP: Clegg's hypocrisy on boundary changes

Bernard Jenkin is the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. Follow Bernard on Twitter.

A vote to delay fair boundaries will shorten the coalition’s life.

“Up and down the country, constituencies can vary enormously in size, and that's a major cause for concern...  For example, 87,000 voters in the East Ham constituency together get one say in the government.  The 66,000 voters living 10 miles away in Islington North get one say too.  So, if you live in Islington, your voice counts for more.  But why should the vote of a person living in, say, Holborn, Brentford or Kingston be worth less than a person living in Putney, Greenwich or Kensington?  And why was the last election held on boundaries that are 10 years out of date?  Redrawing the boundaries lets us make constituencies more equal in size and more current, and it's an opportunity to cut the number of MPs."

So said the Deputy Prime Minister in August 2010.  And we Conservatives all agreed!  Why do politicians say things they don’t believe?  Is it any wonder the public despair of our principles?  The principle of fairness in elections is obvious.  It has been the basis of Nick Clegg’s appeal for electoral reform throughout his career.  What changed his mind?

All constituencies send one MP to Westminster.  Yet the mainland constituency with the largest electorate, East ham, has 91,531 registered voters, while the smallest, Wirral West, has just 55,077.  The largest and smallest constituencies in the UK are both island constituencies: the Isle of Wight with 110,924 and the Western Isles with 21,837, respectively.  Redrawing boundaries to make constituencies more equal in size would help give votes equal weight.  As would reducing the time between boundary reviews, because ten years between reviews means they are based on out-of-date population data.  Otherwise, As Nick Clegg himself told MPs:

“It is one of the founding principles of any democracy that votes should be valued in the same way, wherever they are cast.  Over the years, all sorts of anomalies have developed, such that different people's votes are simply not worth the same in elections to this place.  That surely cannot be right."

That’s why Nick Clegg and his LibDems voted for the boundary review process.

Bernard Jenkin MP: If David Cameron doesn't adopt a clear European policy soon, Labour may beat us to it

Bernard Jenkin is the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee.  Follow Bernard on Twitter.

The surprising defeat for the Coalition over the EU budget is a portent of things to come.  Unless David Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague take the Conservative Party out of the present policy-free zone in respect of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, the UK’s relationship with the EU will become more and more dysfunctional, frayed and fractious. The only way out for the Conservative Party is a referendum in this parliament. Wednesday was a watershed for the future of the UK in the EU. Labour’s decision to back euro--scepticism is a game changer. Yes, they were deliberately setting the hurdle of success in the EU budget negotiations higher than is likely to be achieved. Yes, they are hypocritical and all that, but that’s Westminster village talk which cuts no ice with voters. Nor does it nullify the shattering effect of a commons defeat.  That’s why Nick Clegg is so angry: because it is shattering for those who want to maintain our present membership of the EU. For Conservative EU-sceptics, the message of Wednesday is even more profound.

Many Conservatives are bitterly angry that a Conservative Prime Minister should ask MPs to vote in support of continuing massive financial subventions to the EU.  We reflect the views of voters. Moreover, ministers were asking for our support for money which is for funding EU federalism.  Neither the Conservative Party nor voters have ever subscribed to European federalism.  The UK net contribution will rise from today’s £7 billion per year (already several times more than the annual cost of maintaining the Trident nuclear deterrent until 2050) to £9.4 billion by 2014-15.  Even with a so-called “freeze” our net contribution would continue to rise to around £12 billion by the end of the new plan period: more than the entire UK aid budget and getting on for a third of what we spend on the Armed Forces. Moreover, the EU demands ever more, even though their auditors have refused to sign off their accounts for the 17^th year in a row, because they are so “materially affected by error”. This is not simply outrageous; it is toxic for defenders of our present terms of EU membership when you read how they tried to justify opposing a budget cut. 

Bernard Jenkin MP: Combining the next election with a referendum would set us on a constitutional slippery slope

Bernard Jenkin is the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. Bernard was the architect of “North East Says No” and also helped to set up and guide “No2AV”. Follow Bernard on Twitter.

Tim Montgomerie is one of the most creative Conservative thinkers of our generation, but it would be unfair to insist that his ideas should achieve a 100 per cent hit rate. His suggestion that a referendum on the EU could be held on the same day as the next general election, to boost the turnout of Conservative voters and potentially to reduce the number of voters defecting to UKIP, sounds like a brilliant wheeze for us, but this would be dangerous in practice, and wrong in principle. This is poisoning the well of direct democracy, not advancing it.

We politicians may use elections to gain power, but that is not their main purpose. Their purpose is to provide for democratic consent. Equally, it may be tempting to use referendums to help us get power, but that both destroys the moral case for demanding this special and unique form of democratic consent, and could fatally undermine the legitimacy and authority of the result. Elections are subject to strict rules and procedures so they are fair, so that they serve to allow the people to choose their representatives. Referendums need to be subject to similar rules. A referendum should be an opportunity for the electorate to determine a major constitutional issue, which is best resolved independently of party politics and of who holds power. For a government arbitrarily to use the process of a referendum to deliberately manipulate the result of an election, or vice versa, sets dangerous precedents, which we would live to regret.

Just last year, Alex Salmond advocated that the referendum on whether Scotland should leave the UK should be held on the same day as the Scottish Parliament elections or the general election. Why did he suggest this? He told Canada’s Globe and Mail last year: “so that the opposition parties would have the tactics of their ‘No’ campaigns tied up with their fates in the legislative election”. The government would be right to deny him this opportunity to manipulate the elections. It is plainly wrong to try to use a referendum to influence a general election result, as it is to use an election to sway a referendum result.

Bernard Jenkin MP: The EU was free to try to resolve the Euro crisis without clobbering the City of London

Bernard Jenkin is the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. Follow Bernard on Twitter.

David Cameron was right to use the veto. His demands were extremely modest. It may be fashionable to bash bankers, but the City employs 1.3 million people and pays 11 per cent of UK tax revenues. It is astonishing that some in the EU would rather block the treaty that they want, rather than allow the UK to protect its vital national interests. The BBC is wrong to report that David has “vetoed the solution to Euro crisis”. The EU is free to try to resolve the Euro crisis without clobbering the City of London.

But this veto does not resolve our relationship with the EU. The fact that the Euro states and others will now make their arrangements for fiscal union separately underlines just how fundamentally the character of the EU is changing. Our present relationship with the existing treaties becomes even more unacceptable. Our interests remain under attack from the EU. The city has no safeguards. The UK’s financial services industry is still being confronted by 49 new EU directives and regulations, and the financial transactions tax. The EU is still imposing excessive cost and regulation on business. We are still paying a net contribution bigger than the UK aid budget, and interfering in immigration, justice and other policies, which are wholly unnecessary for trade in the EU.

Bernard Jenkin MP: Can government change fast enough? Or will the whole public services reform agenda fail?

Bernard Jenkin MP is Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. He writes here about the Committee's new report on delivering change in government.
Follow Bernard on Twitter.

Here is a new select committee report which should be of interest anyone who wants this government to succeed: “Change in Government: the agenda for leadership” (download a PDF of the report).  The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has been following up the promise made by the Prime Minister to “turn government on its head; taking power away from Whitehall and putting it into the hands of people and communities.” This involves the commitment to the ‘Big Society’; localism and decentralisation; openness and transparency; and making Whitehall fit for the ‘post-bureaucratic age’.  This would be bold and radical at the best of times, but against the overriding priority of deficit reduction, the scale and nature of the reform programmeis unprecedented.

PASC’s principle remit is to look at government as a whole, at the quality of management and process in Whitehall.  This is critical to the success of government.  What exactly is being done to implement this reform?  What objectives are being set?  What organisational changes are being made?  How is the process being led?  How lessons learned are being shared across departments.  Is the civil service workforce engaged in the process of change?  What will be the outcome in say three years’ time?

The overall conclusion is stark.  Unless government can develop and implement a comprehensive plan for cross-departmental reform in Whitehall, the Government's wider ambitions for public service reform, the Big Society, localism and decentralisation will fail.  As our report points out, we know that the Prime Minister’s Director of Strategy, Steve Hilton, and others at senior levels in the Government, are exasperated by lack of progress and are apparently appalled by the ‘custom and practice’ of Whitehall and by the deadweight of inherited policy, not least by the overbearing constraints imposed by the vast body of EU law and regulation and by the direct application of the Human Rights Act.  The report also highlights the lack of specialist expertise and other key skills, institutional inertia and complacency which justify the Prime Minister's complaint about "the enemies of enterprise" within Whitehall (which so enraged the Cabinet Secretary).

Bernard Jenkin MP: The meeting of 90 MPs today to discuss the EU is not a rebellion, but might be the genesis of something big

Bernard Jenkin is the MP for Harwich and North Essex and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee.

It is reported that perhaps 90 Conservative back-benchers will meet to discuss the UK’s future relationship with the EU. This is the initiative led by George Eustice, former director of the No-campaign, and other members of the new intake. As George has been at pains to point out, this meeting is not a “rebellion”. Nor is it likely to lead to one. It seems likely that some whips and even ministers will attend. But why are MPs gathering in this way, and what are the questions back benchers will wish to discuss?

Foremost in our minds is the Euro-crisis and its implications. Many warned the Euro would be a disaster, and so it has proved. The sovereign debt default of even just a few of the Euro states will create a crisis far greater than the collapse of Lehman Brothers. George Osborne has decided that the government has no option but to try to save the Euro and to advocate “fiscal union” (ie. an economic government of the EU which can tax, borrow and spend), but the implications of this are enormous. First, could it actually succeed? Some economists say it could, but it is hard to see how the EU will have the political legitimacy to enforce the necessary decisions to make the Euro work. It might buy some time, but many are warning that the longer the Euro is propped up, the worse the defaults will be, and the damage to EU and global economies. The sensible policy would be to call a halt to the bailouts, to encourage an orderly break-up of the Euro, and to limit the potential for default in the future. But that would take an act of Churchillian leadership, ready to face howls of outrage and cries of betrayal.

Bernard Jenkin MP: A mere 2.0 per cent of GDP for defence: a small price to pay for the freedom, security and prosperity that we take for granted.

Bernard Jenkin MP (Shadow Defence Secretary 2001-3, and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee.

Paul Goodman responded to my piece at the end of last week with an assertion: “we should stop fighting major wars outside the European theatre”.  This misrepresents what I said.  He is attacking a different concept of what “defence” is, and what the armed forces are for.  This is a vital debate, but he should stop putting words into my mouth.

I do not advocate “fighting wars”.  You only start fighting a war when everything else has gone wrong.  This is why the doctrine of “liberal interventionism” is mistaken.  Military intervention as deliberate a tool of foreign policy might have suited the Romans, but it tends to madness in the modern world.  It is fraught with risk.  As the great German General Von Moltke commented, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.  The question is not “whether or not to fund major wars outside Europe”.  The whole point of possessing defence capability is to be able to deter aggression without fighting: not to make war, but to keep the peace.  And the point is: it is so much cheaper to do that, than to get it wrong and to have to resort to force.

Bernard Jenkin MP: It is far cheaper to be ready to deter wars than to have to fight them

Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex, is Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee and was Shadow Defence Secretary during the Iraq war.

Reading Paul Goodman’s article yesterday it may seem remarkable that the Defence budget remains as large as it is.  He echoes Niall Furguson’s narrative about how great powers decline; for today’s great powers, defence becomes an optional luxury, rather than an essential like pensions or education. But Paul’s piece reflects many fallacies.

The first is that today’s defence budget, at barely 2% of GDP, is the one thing that holds this country back.  From the end-WW2 high of nearly 50% of GDP, it has declined dramatically.  Even at the end of the Cold War it was only 4%.  Since then, we have halved it again. This is in stark contrast to the inexorable rise in the burden of health, pensions, welfare and the general cost of government.  So the very idea, advanced by Corelli Barnett in past decades, that we are continuing to inflict uncompetitiveness and decline on our economy because we spend too much on defence is clearly complete baloney.  It is the burden of other programmes, and of taxation at destructively high rates, and of over-regulation, which has destroyed, and is destroying growth in our economy.

Bernard Jenkin MP: The UK has now reached a tipping point on defence

Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex and was a member of the Defence Committee in the last Parliament. He is now the elected Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee.

This week, I launched a new report, published by the Henry Jackson Society: ‘The Tipping Point: British National Strategy and the UK’s Future World Role’.  The report is available for download here.

At stake is whether we wish to maintain our position as a global power or become by default just another European country.  British national interests are irrevocably global, and our national strategy must reflect this. The Government still aspires to a global role, but is cutting our capabilities to the point where this will no longer be possible.

Bernard Jenkin MP: No more concessions to Clegg. No more appeasement. No more sell outs.

Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex.

So electoral reform has been lost. Changing the voting system for many LibDems was the sole justification of entering into coalition at all, let alone with the Tories who many LibDems dislike far more than Labour. But Nick Clegg rightly does not consider that all is dust and ashes. His meteoric political career need not be destined to crash ignominiously. His career as leader of what is currently called the Liberal Democrat Party may well be limited, but his role as a senior figure in a broad Conservative government, along with some of his more modern and able LibDem colleagues, could yet be enhanced.

In May last year, let us recall how two young men, entering into the prime of their professional lives, found themselves within reach of everything they had worked for: power. It was clear in meetings with David Cameron at that time that he saw taking power as the imperative. I imagine that Nick Clegg was of the same mind. David Cameron launched the “big ask”. Nick Clegg responded. It was immediately obvious that the only question to be resolved was the terms. Electoral “reform” was the crunch issue. For David Cameron, this was a gamble which has paid off. But did Clegg ever really believe that he could rally the country around the despised alternative vote system, which he had personally so derided as a “miserable compromise”? In fact, even the Electoral Reform Society, which funded the Yes campaign, had to suspend its anti-AV policy in order to support it.

They had to find a “clean skin”, the capable and charming Katie Ghose, to lead the campaign – the only significant person in the campaign who was not compromised by previous public hostility to AV. She had previously had no campaign experience. Clegg would be a complete fool to have entered the coalition banking on winning such a referendum – and Clegg is no fool. So the last thing the David Cameron should now do is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and start to make concessions to his rivals in office.

Bernard Jenkin MP: It's a frustrating time for EU-sceptics inside the Conservative Party

Bernard Jenkin, first elected in 1992, is MP for Harwich and North Essex, a member of the 1922 Executive and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee.

You would have thought that this would be a great time for EU-sceptics in the Conservative Party.  We warned that the euro would be a disaster – and so it has proved.  It is now unarguable that we EU-sceptics of all parties have the best interests of the UK at heart, and of Europe as a whole, but we are having a frustrating time.

The new Government has accepted every transfer of power to the EU as fait accompli - including every aspect of the Lisbon Treaty, on which we promised a referendum.  The Government has decided to pass up a golden opportunity to offer a referendum on the post-Lisbon settlement by making it clear that there will be no referendum on any Treaty to deal with the euro-crisis. 

Instead, the Government is handing over new powers to Brussels, such as the new provisions for economic governance (Yes, ministers are justified in claiming that non-euro members will not be subject to specific sanctions, but they cannot reasonably deny that EU jurisdiction over the UK budget process is being strengthened).   The Government has agreed to new, powerful EU institutions, such as the EU External Action Service, which will cost €billions and will endanger the pre-eminence of our own Foreign Office, which is being cut back.  The UK Government voluntarily opted in to the EU investigative orders. 

To top it all, while we slash defence spending and other programmes at home, the Government asked the House of Commons to accept a wholly unjustified increase in the EU budget of 2.9 per cent.  There are now signs that there could be a freeze, but this is only because a substantial revolt of Conservative MPs persuaded the Government to accept an amendment, without a vote, in the name of Bill Cash, to reject any increase – quite a shock to the Commission and European Parliament.  However, this will still see the UK net contribution rise from £3.0 billion in 2008-9 to £9.5 billion by 2013-14.  This is testing the patience of many Conservative MPs (both within and outside the Government).  It is also having a corrosive effect on the party in the country.

Bernard Jenkin MP: Why Britain should vote No to AV

Bernard Jenkin is the Conservative MP for North Essex.

Earlier this month, Julia Gillard – the leader of the Australian Labor party – walked back into Kirribilli House despite having lost the election on first preferences. Last week, Ed Miliband assumed the title of leader of the Labour Party despite, just like Ms Gillard, having polled fewer votes than his nearest rival. There is a common factor in both of these miscarriages of electoral justice: it is the Alternative Vote system, the very same system that British voters will be voting to accept or to reject in place of the current system in next year’s referendum.

In Australia, Julia Gillard negotiated her way back into power. As is often the case in a contest fought using AV, there was no outright winner in the August elections. In such situations, the minority parties become all powerful. Just as the Liberal Democrats became the key political party in May, despite actually losing seats in the General Election, so Australia’s Green Party and the Independent MP’s have been able to determine the country’s political direction until the next election.

In the case of Labour’s leadership contest, the younger Miliband has become the new Leader of the Opposition by targeting a core section of the Labour Party - the trade unions and affiliates, who subsequently tipped the balance in his favour. David, by contrast, tried a broader appeal - to be the Obama ‘change’ candidate (as evidenced by those excruciating dinner party guides). The Alternative Vote lesson learned here is that far from removing the cause of tactical voting, the Alternative Vote creates the conditions where tactical electioneering becomes the only way of winning a tight race.

These two very recent examples of the Alternative Vote’s problems are crucial if people are to understand why the referendum next year is as important as the last time Britain was asked to decide a constitutional issue back in 1975, and could have as big an impact on our way of life. Few people would claim to understand how the Labour Leadership count worked. The air of confusion in the Conference Hall was evident, as the Labour Convention Chair was prompted to counsel the delegates against clapping after each tally was announced, because even they failed to understand the significance of these figures.

So this is what we're headed for in Britain if the country votes yes to the Alternative Vote next year. Firstly, electoral instability and coalition governments will become the norm. As electoral change advocate Professor Vernon Bogdanor has put it: "AV makes hung parliaments much more likely", which in turn removes the decision over who forms the Government from the people and puts it into the hands of politicians doing secret deals behind closed doors . Second, tactical voting is taken to its most extreme; voting becomes about keeping candidates out, rather than electing the most popular candidate.

Our current system, tried and tested, is the most widely used in democracies across the world, including the two greatest democracies, India and the United States. By contrast, the Alternative Vote system in various forms is used by just three: Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and Australia (which has a special variation).  However, Fiji has just decided to ditch the alternative vote. If the UK votes for the Alternative Vote next year, how long will it take before we ditch it?  Of course, the Alternative Vote is not the system which the LibDems and so-called electoral reformers really want, so presumably they will be plotting to ditch it as soon possible. Let’s live by experience - vote "no2av" next year.

Bernard Jenkin MP: The politicians and the military must understand each other better to avoid making the mistakes of the past decade

Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex and was a member of the Defence Committee in the last Parliament. He is now the elected Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee.

The imminent departure of Sir Jock Stirrup fundamentally alters nothing.  (Indeed, he was always expected to go soon after the election.)   The conclusions drawn from The Times’ timely survey of the history of recent military deployments must be a key driver of the forthcoming Strategic Defence and Security Review.  There has indeed been institutional denial in the Armed Forces and at the heart of Whitehall.  There are lessons to learn. 

Sadly, the Chilcot inquiry is likely to be too preoccupied with the political chaff surrounding the decision to go to war, rather than with the way that ministers and military chiefs interacted, both before and during the conflict.  Having watched events in Iraq and Afghanistan unfold since 2001, first as Shadow Defence Secretary, and then later as a member of the House of Commons Defence Committee, it is clear that the relationship between the MoD and the rest of Whitehall is dysfunctional.

When confronted with the consequences of military failure, each gives a stock response.  The politician says, “We acted on military advice”, as though the Prime Minister could just consult a defence chief like a doctor.  In turn, the military chief says “I am just a servant of the Crown, answerable to ministers.  I can only and advise and act as I am instructed.”  The lid was blown off when General Sir Richard Dannatt took over as Chief of the General Staff and promptly warned, “We must not break the British Army over this [Iraq].” 

Bernard Jenkin: It is time for some honesty from Nick Clegg on Trident

Bernard Jenkin is Conservative Candidate for Harwich and North Essex and served for four years on the Defence Select Committee in the last Parliament.

Unlike Nick Clegg, the generals who have joined calls to scrap the Trident nuclear deterrent are at least being honest and sincere.  There have always been a few anti-nuclear dissidents from the armed forces.  Remember Lord Mountbatten who said the same even at the height of the Cold War. 

But Nick Clegg keeps saying he can “save £100 billion” by scrapping Trident.  He does not spell out that his policy is (at least officially!) to replace Trident with something else.  He does not know what that replacement would be, and certainly does not know what such a replacement would cost.  And it is "£100 billion" (actually about £78 billion) over the 35-year lifetime of the new submarines, which don't start to come into service until the 2020s.  This should remind us that he is more left-wing and irresponsible than Brown.

He won’t say, because he can’t say.  The Lib Dem defence guru, Sir Menzies Campbell (who is far more anti-establishment than he pretends) has been mumbling something about submarine launched nuclear cruise missiles, but no such weapons system currently exists, so it would require to be developed from scratch with a new warhead.   This would be a breach of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty – such a great start for an internationalist like Ming!

This should remind us just how duplicitous and dangerous the Lib Dems actually are.  It is an easy hit on a largely uninformed public to promise to “save £100 billion”, but this is surely the kind of utterly dishonest politics Clegg says he is against.