Shameful: Vital work is ruined

26 March 2010

This week West Ham MP Lyn Brown writes of time wasting on important issues

IT is a rare moment when I am shocked by cynical political moves - but shocked I was last Friday. Fridays are the days allocated to Private Members' Bills.

They are normally short, but well-meaning Bills, put forward by backbench MPs from all sides of the House. I have spent some time over the lifetime of this Parliament supporting their passage into law.

Last Friday was the very last Private Members' day of this Parliament. Bills would either be passed or fall, there was no other option.

I was there to support a few that are close to my heart.

I wanted to support the Bill to outlaw the use of sunbeds by the under 18s, a measure which is vital to protect young people from the damage that sunbeds can cause, and also to support the one to protect the world's poorest from the activities of so-called 'vulture funds'.

And two other bills - to give people more power to make a difference in their local area and to make sure that councils are given further powers to scrutinise locally delivered services - were also in the day's business.

The House of Commons was quite empty, as it often is on Fridays, but emptier than usual on the opposition benches.

In fact, at the start of proceedings, there were only three members of the Conservative opposition in the Chamber: one backbench MP and two whips.

I suppose I should have smelt a rat when a procedural motion was moved and then voted upon to waste time. An opposition whip, quite contrary to the usual procedure, stood in to make sure the vote was counted. That was the first fifteen minutes of the day wasted.

Though wasting fifteen minutes does not sound like the end of the world, it was an indication of the events to come. All through the day, cynical, time-wasting votes on amendments stopped many of these important Bills being passed. And when I say "cynical," there were three votes taken where not one person voted in favour of the motion. Once called, votes take a minimum of eight or nine minutes. The votes were called simply to waste time.

And what is the result of these cynical manoeuvrings?

The law banning 'vulture funds' was scuppered. Now many of the poorest countries in the world will continue suffering at the hands of reckless and unethical investors.

A law to give more power to local people to have their say in what happens in their area was also timed out by time-wasting amendments. This was yet another Bill that the Conservatives claimed to support.

The Tories also claimed to support the Bill to make sure local councils are given further powers to scrutinise locally delivered services, but that one, too, fell due to the time wasting tactics I witnessed on Friday.

But we did manage to pass the law to ban under-18s from using tanning salons, a vital step towards reducing skin cancer.

New laws should, of course, always be debated and be scrutinised by Parliament.

Debated and scrutinised they all had been.

So much work has been done, across all the parties, on important issues like these. Yet all this work can be rapidly undone by those willing to cynically squander all that effort, for no good reason. I'm sorry for the rant but this really stuck in my throat.

If you have any concerns on issues such as vulture funds or any other matter, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Write to Lyn Brown MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA, call my office on (020) 7219 6999, or e-mail me at lyn@lynbrown.org.uk