Backbench Business Committee
Representations: Backbench Debates
Tuesday 12 July 2016
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 12 Jul 2016.
Watch the meeting
Members present: Ian Mearns (Chair); Bob Blackman; Kevin Foster; Wendy Morton; Gavin Newlands; Mr David Nuttall; William Wragg.
Questions 1-11
Witnesses
Ian Blackford, George Kerevan and Drew Hendry,
James Cartlidge
Written evidence from witnesses:
– [Add names of witnesses and hyperlink to submissions]
Ian Blackford, George Kerevan and Drew Hendry made representations.
Q1 Chair: Good afternoon and welcome to the Backbench Business Committee. This afternoon we have two applications, the first of which is on quantitative easing and will be presented by Ian Blackford.
Ian Blackford: Thank you, Chair, for the invitation to come along and speak about this. I am delighted to say that the approach that we are putting to the Committee has the support of 60 Members of Parliament on a cross-party basis. Why are we doing this? If we look back over the last few years, we see that the quantitative easing programme began in 2009, under the previous Labour Government. The Bank of England, in executing that programme, has now purchased assets to the value of £375 billion. And of course the topicality of this issue has been brought to the fore by the Brexit vote and some discussion as to whether the quantitative easing programme may be reinstigated. So I think it is right that Members of the House should have a discussion on the effectiveness of the programme.
I think that at the beginning there was an expectation that the quantitative easing programme would have a direct impact on money supply. Take M4 as an example. There has been very little growth in M4 in the course of the nine or eight years since QE came in. So I think it is right to call on the Bank of England to make an assessment of the effectiveness of the programme and alternatives that it may be wishing to use to seek to deliver on its objectives. This is not, as far as I am aware, a debate that the House has had since the launch of the programme in 2009, and it would be a timely one for the House to have.
Q2 Chair: Thank you. George, do you have anything to add?
George Kerevan: Yes, just briefly on behalf of myself and Steve Baker—we are both members of the Treasury Committee. We are very keen to have this debate. We have been pushing to have a broader discussion in the Treasury Committee, but with all the things that are piled up it has been pushed back until later this year or next year, and I think we should set the scene. One impact of quantitative easing is that gilt yields have fallen on to the floor, with all the impact that has on interest rates, savings and so on. We don’t have a monetary policy system anymore, because quantitative easing has simply taken use of the Bank rate out of existence as a major tool. So I can assure you that from the libertarian right to the Corbynista left, there is a feeling that we need to look at QE again.
Q3 Mr Nuttall: The wording of the substantive motion is that the House calls on the Bank of England to provide the detailed analysis that you seek. Although I accept that that is where the information may come from, is it not more normally our practice to call on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide the information, and then it is up to the Chancellor to go to the Bank of England, or indeed whoever, and secure the information?
Ian Blackford: David, that is a very good and pertinent question. I and, I suspect, others have been putting questions about the QE programme—written and oral questions—to the Chancellor in the course of the last year or so, and we are always rebuffed and told that this is solely the responsibility of the Bank of England. I am not precious about the exact wording of our motion, so we would be happy to amend it if that is your guidance, but I do think that in this circumstance it is right to call on the Bank of England to provide its own assessment, which it would make available to the House.
Q4 Chair: So possibly the motion should be something along the lines of, “This House calls on Her Majesty’s Government” or the Chancellor of the Exchequer “to secure from the Bank of England”.
Ian Blackford: Yes, I think that would prove to be acceptable to those who have signed the motion.
Q5 Chair: Do any other Members have any comments or questions? No. In that case, thank you for your application. It seems entirely in order. We will of course discuss it. The only thing I would add relates to timing, not that we can always provide the most appropriate time—time is of the essence, from our perspective. When would you prefer the debate to take place?
Ian Blackford: I understand that we are only a week away from the recess, so if the debate happens when we come back from recess, that will be entirely acceptable. The QE programme has been in existence since 2009. It is important that we have an informed debate to which Members across the House have the opportunity to contribute. If we leave this until we come back after the recess, that will be fine and proper.
Chair: Okay. Thank you very much indeed.
James Cartlidge made representations.
Q6 Chair: The title of the next application is: compensation for victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism. Over to you.
James Cartlidge: This is a very long-running issue. The reason I am here is the all-party group led by Andrew Rosindell, which includes many MPs from all parties, and we all have victims in our constituencies. In my case, it is the brother of a WPC who was murdered in the Harrods bomb—she was only 21 years old—and I promised that I would do all I could to seek justice for that.
The key point is this: the materials for these bombs were supplied by the Libyan regime at the time. Obviously, the police here tried to arrest the specific Irish terrorists, but there is a feeling that there has never been justice in respect of Libya. When I first raised the issue with the Minister, the point was made that there was no precedent for compensation, because this was not what they call direct terrorism. When the Lockerbie plane was brought down, there was a precedent, because that was done by Libyans. I then pursued it and eventually, after many months, had a formal recognition from the Government that American victims were compensated. To me, this is the most important point: American victims of the Harrods bomb, for example, were compensated by the Libyan regime and our citizens were not, despite being caught by the same bomb, on British soil, and this being our closest ally.
This has been debated in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and there have been individual debates—for example, Jim Fitzpatrick had a debate about the Docklands bomb. The priority for bringing this forward as a Back-Bench debate is to keep up the momentum as Libya starts to move towards, possibly, a more credible Government, because the line from our Government has always been, “If there’s no credible Government, we can’t ask for compensation”, which is kind of fair enough.
There is also the issue of frozen assets. There are £7 billion of frozen Libyan assets. Many of us believe it would be right, under law and a basic sense of justice, for those victims to receive something from the assets. The Government always try to stonewall on this point. Our priority is to keep up the momentum, and to find a way of enabling all those Members of Parliament who have victims to speak up for them and to make the case. As I say, my fundamental point is the fact that British citizens never received any compensation, but Americans did.
Q7 Bob Blackman: James, which Department do you see answering this debate?
James Cartlidge: The Foreign Office.
Bob Blackman: Not the Treasury? Given that you are asking for compensation, where the compensation comes from is under issue.
James Cartlidge: That is a fair point. Our all-party group has discussed whether we should seek compensation directly from the British Government. Personally, I would not want to go down that road at the moment, because at the end of the day the weapons were supplied by the Libyans with full intent and knowledge of what was going to happen—they are responsible and they need to be held to account—and the Foreign Office is the Department responsible for that conduit. Tobias Ellwood has been the Minister responding, and I presume that will continue. From our point of view, it is just a worry that the Government are happy if this goes into the long grass.
Q8 Bob Blackman: The other issue is that you have applied for a debate in the Chamber, but it is a general debate—you don’t have a specific motion. Potentially, there is an opportunity to have a debate in Westminster Hall. Given what you are saying, what you may wish to do—this is up to you, because it is your application—is to have a general debate in Westminster Hall. You can see what the Government say and then, if they do not come back with appropriate answers or what you want to see happen, it will be open to you to reapply to this Committee—I think you would get a favourable response—to have a debate in the Chamber with a substantive motion calling on the Government to do something.
The reason I say that is that, given that we are not quite sure what can be achieved or when, a general debate often elicits a Government response that is either positive or negative. Whichever way it goes, that does then lead to a more substantive motion, which you might all want to unite around to actually get the Government to do something.
James Cartlidge: That is a very fair point. Mathematically, we will probably have a new Minister and certainly a new Foreign Secretary, and I would think it a good thing if they got the sense that this mattered to a lot of Members of Parliament. But I am a new MP, and if the advice is that that is the best way to proceed, I will relate that back to the group, which is meeting on Thursday.
Q9 Bob Blackman: There is an opportunity to have a debate in Westminster Hall on Thursday 21 July—the last Thursday before we break up for the recess. If that was offered to you, would you be in a position to take it?
James Cartlidge: Would that be an hour and a half?
Q10 Bob Blackman: No, it would be for three hours. You do not have to take three hours, but it is up to three hours.
James Cartlidge: I think plenty of MPs would want to speak, and our colleagues from Northern Ireland are always happy to occupy the crease in resplendent fashion. This obviously means a lot to them in particular. I will put it to the group and see what the reaction is. Lord Empey has a Bill going through the Lords relating to this, so we are trying all angles.
Q11 Wendy Morton: My question was along the lines of Bob’s—just seeking clarity on what you were looking for from the debate, what the topic was and whether that was actually the motion—so I am not going to take it any further. You have made the point. I am looking for a little bit more clarity on what you are looking for and what we have available. There may be some other options, like Westminster Hall.
James Cartlidge: There are lots of grey areas in this issue. For example, Tony Blair was part of a deal hatched with the Libyan regime about compensation, which we have never had full answers about. He has appeared in front of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. There is something murky about it. I saw the debate with Jim Fitzpatrick. We did not get full answers on the frozen assets. Maybe we could do that again in Westminster Hall. I am happy to take advice on that.
Chair: There is a tentative offer on the table. We do have availability on the 21st. Bear in mind that is the last day of term. Would you take that away and let us know as soon as possible after your meeting on Thursday what your attitude towards that is, please? Thank you very much for your attendance. We will now go into closed session. I thank everyone for their attendance.