I have heard from both the Chair of the Petitions Committee, Helen Jones MP, and Steve Double MP who both confirm that the MP leading a Westminster Hall debate on an e-petition is under no obligation to say anything positive about the e-petition at all, nor even to be neutral. I am grateful to them both for that clarification.
They both say that I clearly did not understand the procedure – they are right. Even now it is explained for the first time, I cannot understand why Parliament would set up a system to ask the public their views and then when the requisite number of people have expressed a view that view could be introduced in such an exceptionally negative way. Having looked at many of the previous debates I have not seen one introduced in a remotely similar way before.
I have no difficulty in understanding that MPs with strong interests will fight their own corner when a debate is under way and so they did last week – that is to be expected. But you might think that the person introducing a debate might have some obligation to those many people who have brought the subject to Parliament – but apparently not. In fact, undoubtedly not.
Well, I asked the question on behalf of many of you, and that is the answer.
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Why am I not surprised #closedshop
Yet another example of why so many people feel betrayed and disenfranchised by the establishment and the ruling classes – in all major political parties . This arrogant, insular behaviour is what leads to protest voting as witnessed in Brexit, Trump; or arguably even worse, total apathy in the whole system.
Following you through this campaign has opened my eyes to a lot of things that I was naively complacent about. Not least the way our democracy and government works. Also it’s not theory but what actually happens in practice that matters. I feel I must have led a very sheltered life up to now. You have opened up the windows for me – just a pity that it’s a bitter wind that is blowing in.
Not giving up though – after all knowledge is power. Keep moving forward, we are following after.
That’s politics – and its worth bearing in mind that the shooting lobby led by the Countryside Alliance are trying to use its ‘not fair’ tactics to stifle debate – especially leaning on the BBC. What you have to remember is that the sort of disrespect shown to the 123,000 signatories may well rebound on those who’ve shown it, probably already is from the anger many people are feeling – especially with yet another of England’s increasingly scarce Hen harriers prematurely biting the heather.
Looking forward to the next steps in this campaign. Was good to see two strongly worded blogs on raptor persecution & driven grouse shooting from RSPB today:
‘Rowan – a personal reflection’ by Guy Shorrock (Investigations Officer): http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/investigations/archive/2016/11/09/rowan-a-personal-reflection.aspx
‘Improving the environmental condition of our uplands: planning the next steps’ by Martin Harper (Conservation Director): http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2016/11/09/hen-harriers-planning-the-next-steps.aspx
SG, thank you for these links.
Martin says that he believes that all parties want to see the law enforced. No. No they don’t.
On the 31st, the tories proved that that is not the case at all. In fact the opposite is true. If the law in this case were to be enforced, then DGS would HAVE to be banned.
It is entirely in the interests of most Tory MPs and their friends that the law is not enforced.
And if Labour MPs had any interest in the law being enforced, they would have turned up to the debate.
I’m afraid that Martin Harper has his head deeply in the sand over this issue.
The tories ARE the shooters, the grouse moor owners, the grouse moor owners friends.
Recognising the crimes and enforcing the law would end their ‘sport’, their perks, their public funding. They can’t. They won’t.
You can talk to them for another 40 years and it will still be the case.
Martin, you need to go public with this. You need to trust your members with this information. Inform them of the debate, how it was handled, and ask their opinion in a survey.
Will your members be happy that their wildlife is being slaughtered while you carry on talks that have proved useless in the past.
Have the bottle to ask them.
It’s still a huge ask of the RSPB since a proportion of their membership will be a part of that Tory mindset who just happen to like the birds and Nature’s Home package without delving too deep into reality – a bit like watching Planet Earth II without doing anything else in life to connect with that natural world. If the RSPB takes too bold a line surely it risks losing membership on a larger scale than it has over the DGS issue.
As Paul suggests however they could sail a whole lot closer to the wind than they do at present instead of staying on the beach with heads in the sand.
CG1 says it all for me in his remarks on the ‘Improving the environmental condition of our uplands: planning the next steps’ blog.
Martin calls for “creative and novel ways of maintaining the political and public profile”. Would unleashing the million voices for nature help?!
If the society does not listen to the 123,000 then, as CG1 suggests, a temporary (or permanent) suspension of membership funds might truly focus the collective brain!
If they don’t protect birds what is the point of them – theme parks?
PD – ‘if they don’t protect birds’ then indeed there would be no point to them (or very little). But are you suggesting that they don’t protect birds? At all? Not even a little bit? Or actually quite a lot? Come off it! RSPB might be a bit wet sometimes, but no-one can say that they don’t protect birds.
Mark, if the overall trend line for all species was heading upward I’d give more credit, as it is its going down and for certain species going down very sharply.
I look ahead to the logical conclusions of that as do a few others judging by comments and we need urgent action now – the sort of action you yourself are manfully supplying (even if I don’t always agree with your “style”).
We simply can’t afford our major bird conservation body to be wet. You have more insight than most. What are the constraints? Is the “Royal” thing. If so ditch it!!
I think there is a direct analogy with Brexit, Trump, Corbyn etc etc. Or am I missing something?
Mark, I just ran a query against my mapping database. These figures are national breeding season trends at 2011:
Willow Tit -92%
Tree Sparrow -92%
Grey Partridge -91%
Turtle Dove -91%
Corn Bunting -90%
Lesser Redpoll -88%
Spotted Flycatcher -87%
Woodcock -83%
Starling -78%
Yellow Wagtail -75%
Tree Pipit -75%
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker -70%
Marsh Tit -68%
House Sparrow -66%
Cuckoo -61%
Curlew -60%
Conformed by the BTO at that time!
Pretty disturbing. The above?
If I were to be fair, I might put the impotence down to the “overwhelming weight of established orthodoxies” that a staffer at Jonathon Porritt’s Forum for the Future once said to me in response to similar expressions of despair at the seeming impossibility of saving our environment/wildlife/selves!
Still I suppose all of these organisations are making money so good luck to them. Perhaps we should just lie down and accept the inevitable? Enjoy what we still have while we’ve got it and bugger the future generations.
But then reading about Thomas Fowell Buxton who freed existing slaves 20 odd years after Wilberforce managed to abolish the trade.
These monumental things can be done!
Anybody got the number for Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall?
Sorry just babbling away to myself!!
Thanks for those links. Guy’s blog helped me figure out one piece in the Hen Harrier crime jigsaw.
http://treshnishbirdlog.co.uk/?p=1817
Any reasonable person would assume that a neutral stance would be the norm. I can understand that a positive introduction might not be likely (petitions could be asking just about anything, I suppose), but a total lack of initial spin should be a given. To hear that this isn’t so, it’s not just Westminster bubble, it’s actually Double bubble.
There seems to be a veritable storm of travesties at the moment. Appalling that large numbers of electors acting in good faith be treated so shabbily by parliament.
Probably the stakes are too low in other debates so there’s no risk in presenting both sides of the argument.
The stakes are very high here that threaten the house itself and their way of life. This debate threatens key societal values which the house traditional defends but are becoming increasing challenged by a more modern progressive society e.g. ideas animal rights, the morality of privilege, the ethics of killing for fun, urban/rural divides, class divides, intensive land management, climate warming, conservation etc
Christmas is coming and the Turkeys are not calling for a referendum
Just a quick point on this to present a slightly different view. Elected members be they national, county or district who serve on committee are entitled under law within the Localism Act to have a view, or to be more accurate not to be showing predetermination by the expression of their view prior to any decision. It’s a basic requirement of our system that we elect people to represent us to have a view but not to have such a closed mind that their view cannot be changed by reasoned debate. You cannot then expect any member who introduces a debate not to have a view prior to that debate; that is the basis on which committees function however that is not to say that atoutcomes are not influenced by reasoned arguments. At District and County level the check on this is that normal proceadure is the the most influential committee which is the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, is always chaired by a member of the opposition and that the membership broadly reflects the balance of the members. I must say at this point that my knowledge on parliamentary committees is very poor but at district level the system worked well within my authority. We had a Conservative administration which I was part of but a Labour chair on the O&C and came in for a lot of constructive criticism. Very often my views and others where influenced by the evidence we heard even if the chair or member who introduced the item had put his or her case first
Julian, what you say is fine but has no direct bearing on the Petitions Committee procedure and debate. Steve Double is, and was, perfectly entitled to a view and to express it, but his first task was to present to the House on behalf of the Petitions Committee a petition which had received the required number of signatures and been the subject of extensive evidence gathering by that Committee. It would be reasonable for the Petitions Committee to wish to convey something of that to the House to inform and support the debate. But Steve Double did not do that, indeed there was nothing to suggest that he had acquainted himself with any of the evidence. He thus showed contempt for both the petitioners and Parliament by offering nothing better than a lazy, tedious recital of his own ignorance and prejudices. He should resign from the Committee.
Time to leave the petition and debate now. It has done its job in exposing the weakness of the DGS argument and it has given the movement the moral high ground. The petition was our way of doing the right thing. Their response can only harm their argument and not ours. In subsequent stages, whatever they may be, people will be able to refer back and say that they had the chance to discuss it reasonably, but refused.
Thanks for this update Mark. Good that you have had a response, at least. I had meaning to ask whether there was any official guidelines on the role of the introductory speaker, so this answers my question.
The introduction remains appalling, but it’s only right that it should be clarified that nothing improper was done.
Why would they act honourably, 11% payrise and now a 25% increase in their pensions?
Real world …. all is good as long as the general public keep on funding it all?
Yes, I’m sure there are many truly honourable #forthemanynotjustthefew? But they’re as rare as breeding Hen Harriers on upland grouse moors?
As Bob M says, onwards to the next phase ….
Alan, fair point but i think you’ve misunderstood the role of committees. They are autonomous bodies which work on a democratic basis within their terms of reference. Some have executive powers (such as planning) and some such as overview have the power to decide their agenda, call for evidence and report directly to the council etc in that they work outside of the party system. What they decide or report is decided within the committee by the members. As i said i am no expert on parliamentary committees as it was well above my pay grade but I suspect they work on much the same basis as district or county. I suspect that the petition committee’s role has been misunderstood in this case. The fact that a committee member holds a view contrary to the petitioners is certainly not grounds for that member to withhold his views or indeed resign. For instance planning committee members who vote against the applicants position would not obviously be expected to resign as I’m sure you would agree. I hope this helps ?
Julian, what outraged me to the point that my views of Mr Double would be impolite to put in print, is not that he disagreed with the petition or argued against it. It’s that he, and most of the other Tory MPs present, reveled in treating the petitioners with complete contempt. They were repeatedly gratuitously insulting and deceitful.
I don’t think any of us expected to “win” the debate. I didn’t expect it to be particularly balanced or well informed. I did expect that 123000 people, who had used the means that parliament created to facilitate citizens bringing issues of concern to their attention, would not be insulted merely for daring to use that mechanism.
I deal with Local Authority Councillors regularly, of all 3 mainstream English political parties, and have never, ever, encountered such personal rudeness and arrogance directed at the public. It seems that Parliament as an institution and many MPs as individuals have much lower standards of common decency than any of the Local Authorities and Councillors I’ve met in 30 years.
Julian, thank you for trying to help me. However, to repeat, I am not suggesting that Steve Double was not entitled to hold and express views on the petition. I am suggesting that he should resign because he so abjectly failed to do what the petitioners, the Committee and members of the House attending the debate might reasonably have expected him to do in introducing the petition to the House following Committee consideration.
The Petitions Committee, though based on an ancient tradition, is quite new, and plainly sui generis. It was set up following a report by the House of Commons Procedure Committee, which I commend to you; in particular para 26: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmproced/235/235.pdf
Just because it is new, it is important that the Committee should not quickly set bad precedents. When you have read the Procedure Committee report, as I am sure Steve Double did before he spoke, I hope you will agree that he knowingly or recklessly acted entirely against the spirit and letter of what is proposed there: and should resign.
“Grouse shooting
I recently led a debate in Westminster Hall, called by over one hundred thousand people signing a petition to ban grouse shooting.
You can read my contribution here:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-10-31/debates/06472E95-10EC-49A0-BF93-84CAD2BE4191/DrivenGrouseShooting
In summary I argued against the ban as there is evidence that grouse shooting, not only helps the environment by reducing flooding and increasing biodiversity, but also rural economies who depend on it as a source of income.”
This from Steven’s blog, well really! He still does not get the point about ‘driven’ vs ‘walked up’. And he thinks that when you shoot a grouse, that reduces flooding. Are we allowed to call him by that West Country term of endearment, a ‘dunderhead’?
One’s faith in democracy reduces to virtually zero when 123,000 people are treated like this with complete disrespect. Westminster MPs seem to be largely locked in a Victorian time lock.
Give or take there were only around 20 MPs present, so where were those others many of us asked to represent our views? Better things to do I’ve no doubt but it is also perhaps telling of what they thought about their constituents?
Let’s move on to the next phase, we’ve used this mechanism and learned that it is along the same lines as many other aspects of the ‘democratic’ system purporting to work for the many not just the few?
How on earth have we got too a place where not only do our MP’s defend an industry that relies on criminal behaviour, but worst still are actually involved in the industry?!!
Farming online gives the debate quite a fair write up:
http://www.farming.co.uk/news/article/12998
John – thank you. Not bad at all.
I think most of us agree it was a sham, but as I think someone has already said, if they had pretended to listen and to act, that may have been harder to deal with. Now, we are all so outraged, that we are more determined than ever to continue the fight. They may think they have stifled the debate, but in reality they have fueled it. The RSPB could have been silenced if the Government had offered some compromise, but they did not and now even the RSPB is hardening their position (slowly!). In time, the debate may well be seen as the thing that actually turned things in our favour.
Mark – thanks for sharing this.
Our biggest potential ‘spanner’ to tighten the screw onthis issue is the RSPB. With over 1 million members, the word ‘Royal’ in their name and being a world famous organisation we need to make them act.
How do we put the pressure on them? Try to organise a boycott to stop people renewing membership? Make Hen Harrier day not just about wildlife crime but about pathetic NGOs sitting on their hands?
I love the RSPB and I don’t really want to have to criticise it. It’s a wonderful institution…but they need to wake up and grow some cajones. Their current position is utterly ridiculous and will achieve nothing.
🙁
My local MP has other interests than the natural environment (which is fair enough, no MP can “prioritise” every issue).
However I was so appalled at how the debate was conducted that I’ve arranged a slot at his surgery to talk to him about how Parliament conducts its business, in particular how it respects, or in this case shows contempt for, the people it represents.
I’ll report back if anything interesting happens.