Governance of Britain

Let me try to deal briefly with those points. First, I regret the first point that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made about the order of the statements today. When I was Leader of the House, and in the case of every predecessor, there were a number of occasions when it was for the convenience of the House and colleagues that I, as Leader of the House, made my statement after a ministerial statement. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House on this occasion. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is indeed making an important speech. My statement was intended to ensure that in advance of that speech, the House is informed of all substantive developments that he is speaking about. The fact that we are proposing a British Bill of Rights and responsibilities and developing such a Bill has been made very clear in the House on a number of occasions. When the consultative document, which I am currently working on, is ready to publish, it will be published first to the House. The hon. Gentleman made some extraordinarily muddled comments about the ratification of treaties, and about war powers. I always do my best to ensure that Opposition spokespeople have documents like the ones under discussion as soon as possible. That I tried to do this morning. As for the European treaty, the Ponsonby rule does not apply to that. Why? Because there is a far better procedure in respect of all EU treaties. They are the subject of line-by-line examination by separate Bill. On war powers, I do not know what the hon. Gentleman was going on about when he talked about retrospective approval. There are paragraphs in the document, as we have made clear, about where retrospective approval should apply, and how we could have retrospective approval without undermining the armed forces. The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we should prevent recommendations for membership of the Intelligence and Security Committee from being influenced by the Government Whips. That is well above his pay grade and mine. If he is proposing that we get to a situation in which the Government Whips exert no influence whatever on the membership of Committees, I look forward to that time arriving—but I am not sure that that will be while he or I are in the House. On protests about Parliament, I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will recognise that references to Tiananmen square are completely misplaced. I heard the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) saying from a sedentary position, but not sotto voce, that what the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said about that was rubbish. Provided that that is parliamentary, Mr. Speaker, I agree with it. I am making a serious point to the hon. Gentleman. People died in Tiananmen square. [Interruption.] His language was very intemperate indeed. On the judiciary, again the hon. Gentleman was profoundly muddled. Nothing has been imperilled by the creation of the Ministry of Justice. The protection of the judiciary remains. I have made it clear that I have no intention of undermining its budget. The case for a supreme court has been widely supported across the country. The hon. Gentleman's last point was extraordinary, suggesting that if we sought a more diverse judiciary, somehow it would be less well qualified. I hope that that is not the official position of the Opposition. The House has been strengthened by the introduction of more women and more black and Asian Members, and it will be more strengthened still by more women and black and Asian Members. Exactly the same applies to the judiciary...May I apologise for that, and I will ensure that it is rectified as soon as possible. And I must add that in one passage in the middle of the statement, I busked.