As politicians breathe fire about the ‘constitutional outrage’ of proroguing Parliament, can I remind readers of this column that I first suggested this strategy to the former Prime Minister on the floor of the Commons in December of last year. My suggestion was tongue-in-cheek, because the circumstance then would indeed have been an outrage: proroguing parliament purely to avoid being defeated in a parliamentary vote.
Let me give an example of such an outrage: Suppose that either a vote of confidence, or proceedings on a bill to prevent a no-deal BREXIT were scheduled to be debated the Commons later next week, and the Government -in fear of defeat, announced the prorogation of Parliament on the eve of the debate. Yes, that would indeed be a constitutional outrage!

My generation will remember the Mysterons: aliens from Mars that waged war on Earth, which was defended by Captain Scarlet. It was a Children’s TV drama using puppets not dissimilar to Joe 90 or Fireball XL5.
At the start of each episode the Mysterons abandoned any concept of surprise by publicly announcing their plan, giving Captain Scarlet every opportunity to thwart it.
The Government has just adopted the Mysteron strategy: no subterfuge; no surprise; it has clearly laid out the Parliamentary timetable, giving notice to its opponents how and when to organise in order to prevent a no-deal BREXIT. In effect, the Government has thrown down a challenge to its opponents.
In terms of the planned siting days that will now be lost, the three days in question are hardly worth the fuss that is being made of them. With our ‘activist’ Speaker, there will be no shortage of time for the Government’s opponents to rise to this challenge.

In my estimate the Government’s action further reduces the possibility of leaving the EU without an agreement, because it sends an even stronger signal of the Government’s determination to leave on 31st October whatever the circumstance.
The EU, never hitherto believing that we would do it (a belief re-enforced by the parliamentary ‘5th column’ insisting that they would prevent it), now has to -for the first time- contemplate this real possibility and negotiate to avert it.
As I have always said, taking no-deal off the table, increased the possibility of a no-deal BREXIT because it reduced the strength of our negotiating hand to secure a deal that could get through Parliament.
It is ironic that most of those who are most vehement in their opposition to no-deal, were overwhelmingly the ones who voted against the current Withdrawal Agreement. For so many of them, what they really oppose is our leaving the EU at all.

Good luck to the Mysterons, it’s time they had a win.

Now think of the Government Pairing Whip -with the majority reduced to one.
I’ve done that job too, and much worse than Accommodation Whip (described in last weeks column) who, at least has a relatively quiet time between reshuffles and the immediate aftermath of an election.
For the Pairing whip there is no relief: you are responsible for the Government’s majority in votes throughout the day, and every day you are besieged with requests from colleagues to be ‘slipped’ from votes in order to deal with essential government business, attend events in their constituencies, parental duties, I even remember one current very senior whip asking me to be allowed to go home because his dog had just died.
Invariably the number of requests vastly exceeded my capacity to grant them, and still to retain a working majority present at Westminster.

Under the coalition government we had a paper majority of nearly 80, but one quickly discovered that some colleagues could not be relied on at all, and this had to be factored into my daily headcount.
I could always get some additional flexibility by accommodating ministerial business overseas through maintaining a good working relationship with my Labour opposite number, we would ‘pair’ the absent ministers with Labour absentees. It is always harder for the Opposition to keep its members at Westminster: if you are likely to lose votes, does it really matter if you lose by one more.

The real difficulty was the prospect of rebellions. These were frequent because of the very nature of the coalition. A significant minority of Tories were never reconciled to it and opposed many of what they considered its Liberal Democrat tendencies.
The moment there was a whiff of a rebellion, Labour -to maximise the pressure- would withdraw the pairing, and I would hit the phones to get ministers back from abroad and colleagues from wherever else they’d got to. Most were very understanding. William Hague was a real gentleman about it. Others were less so. There were even some cads whose business always seemed to count for more that the Government’s majority.
The problem was that I had to act at the first sign of trouble: if you have to get ministers back from Asia, Africa, and the Americas you cannot afford to wait. 48 hours or so later, with the problem vote imminent, the whipping operation having been in overdrive, many of the rebels had been ‘burnt-off’, but I couldn’t have known that at the early stages of the operation. Consequently, one could end up winning embarrassingly easily, but having put one’s colleagues to enormous trouble.

In reality, the current pairing whip will have a much easier ride. It was my very ability to be flexible that made for the work and the agonising choices. With a majority of only one, the fellow will not be able to let anyone out, what is more, colleagues will understand this, so they probably won’t ask.

Gavin Barwell, lately chief of staff at 10 Downing Street, tells a story of overhearing me on the phone to an absent colleague with an important vote approaching,
“yes, I know your wife has just died…but you’re okay aren’t you”
I deny it. He is suffering from false memory syndrome

One parliamentarian who will be having a particularly grizzly summer is the Government Accommodation Whip in whose gift are the offices for members and their staff within the parliamentary estate.

Far from being a position of power and patronage, it is a miserable chore. I was once the Accommodation Whip, so I know from bitter experience.

There is insufficient office space on the parliamentary estate, and what there is, varies from the truly grand to the absolutely frightful, pokey, cramped and windowless. Some are close by, but others are a hike.
Furthermore, there is a financial incentive to cram as many staff into the estate as possible because there is no rent payable, whereas if you accommodate your staff in your constituency you will have to rent an office for them to work in.

The Accommodation Whip is constantly badgered by colleagues who believe that they deserve a better office than the one they’ve got. The simple fact is that you have no stock of empty rooms, and quite a few members are having to share rooms with one another.

The worst time for the Accommodation Whip is the aftermath of a large government reshuffle such as the one that Boris has just implemented.
When you become a minister you give up your Commons office, because you are the ‘cat that got the cream’ and you are going to get a grand office elsewhere in Whitehall in your new department of state. So, in the Commons you are allocated little more than a booth on the ministerial corridor (and some are a lot better than others).
The difficulty presented by a reshuffle is the mismatch in circumstances between those being promoted and those being sacked. The latter tend to be more senior, their pride has already taken a substantial knock, and they want to be comforted by getting a decent Commons office appropriate to their seniority. Alas, those being promoted into their places tend to be junior and consequently are vacating the least desirable accommodation in the Commons. Arranging this swap-over is a nightmare.

But I’m alright Jack!
It’s been six years since I was the Accommodation Whip, and I have a convenient and well-appointed office that was once occupied by the nineteenth century Irish Nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell. I understand that he had a reputation as a lothario, so who knows what might have gone on in that office.
Anyway I’m staying, and the only whip that can get me out of it are the voters of the New Forest.

I was glad to see that Jacob Rees-Mogg, the excellent new Leader of the House of Commons, has issued a memorandum to his private office setting out some standards for written English including a restricted vocabulary.

When I was a minister, I didn’t issue a written instruction, but I certainly made it clear that low-grade managerial ‘newspeak’ was off-limits in anything  given me to read or to sign. I am glad to see that there is a significant overlap in the words and phrases that I banned and that Rees-Mogg has now banned, including the frightful ‘ongoing’, but -for the life of me- I cannot see what he has against ‘very’.
My own bete noir was our widely-shared habit of turning nouns into verbs. Although I am often guilty myself, I detest it in others.
The word ‘showcasing’ would drive me into an apoplectic fit and my staff quickly learnt to avoid it.

I must have been a dreadful pedant as a schoolmaster. It was some time ago. Indeed, 39 years ago I taught at Charterhouse where Jeremy Hunt, lately Foreign Secretary, was a mere junior boy and too young to attend any of my classes. Now he joins me on the back benches.

A number of colleagues and constituents wished me well as the reshuffle commenced. Of course, one wouldn’t be a politician without the desire to rule one day. As Arthur Miller said “a salesman’s got to dream boy, it comes with the territory”.
The luxury however, of not anticipating any crumbs to fall from the table, was that when parliamentary business ended early last Tuesday and Wednesday and whilst anxious colleagues were continually fretting and checking their phones, I relaxed in Hyde Park reading Andrew Robert’s excellent biography of Churchill, confident that I could catch-up with events listening to Ritala Shah on the wireless at ten o’clock.

I thoroughly enjoyed being a minister and there are aspects of it I miss. I recall however, that Digby Jones, the businessman and former head of the CBI, was made a minister by Gordon Brown. When Jones resigned 18 month later he was reported as saying it was a most “dehumanising experience” .
I know what he meant.
As a minister you are confined to your own brief which can be very frustrating when great events -the focus of the nations attention- are taking place beyond it and you may not give your own commentary. Equally, you can sometimes become aware that matters at the heart of your brief -on which you have become the nation’s expert- have been decided above your head and you weren’t even asked your opinion. It happens

After 5 years as David Cameron’s parliamentary secretary in the frustration of opposition, we finally got into Downing Street in 2010. Not so long afterwards, I recall observing in conversation with him that we still seemed to spend half our time finding out what the Government was doing, and the other half trying to stop it

The Government defeat in the Commons last week on an amendment to a  Northern Ireland bill was unwelcome but it doesn’t change ‘the price of fish’.

The Northern Ireland bill is a short technical measure to prolong attempts to re-start the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont and avoid having to revert to direct rule in Ulster from Westminster.
The measure was ‘hijacked’ a fortnight ago to force abortion and same-sex marriage on to the reluctant province, and last week it was hijacked to try and stop a no-deal Brexit, on the assumption that the new Prime Minister would prorogue Parliament to prevent it from interfering.

The amended bill required the Government to give frequent updates to Parliament on progress in restarting the assembly, thus making it difficult to adhere to this requirement if Parliament were prorogued. The further amendment went another step by requiring that if the Government couldn’t meet that reporting obligation because of a prorogation, then a Royal Proclamation would require Parliament to meet the next day and for five subsequent days.

This perceived “Remainer triumph” is based on one quite false assumption, namely that there ever was a serious plan to prorogue Parliament in the first place. There wasn’t. It just isn’t serious politics. Regular readers of this column may recall that I addressed the issue several weeks ago and reminded them that when King Charles I prorogued the Long Parliament, it didn’t end well for him.

Of course, Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson refused to rule out the possibility of a prorogation, but refusing to rule something out is very different from having a plan to do it. The first rule of any serious negotiator is to keep all possibilities open.

The damage that the defeat has done, is not that it has removed a serious option, but that it sends a further signal to the EU -as if one were needed- indicating that Parliament will oppose a no-deal BREXIT, and therefore that the threat is a paper-tiger and that they need not engage seriously in negotiations to avoid it.
Once again Parliament has had the effect of acting like a fifth column in undermining the Government’s BREXIT negotiations.

How reliable is the signal that Parliament has sent?
The Government defeat was large, but does it really indicate that a majority in Parliament would vote to block a no-deal BREXIT?
I doubt it.
The actual vote was on the question of potentially side-lining Parliament at a key moment in our history, not something to be taken lightly in a modern parliamentary democracy that takes itself seriously.
Frankly, in such a circumstance it isn’t difficult to persuade democrats of any persuasion to resist the Government whip on such a question.

It is a quite different question however, to ask democrats representing constituencies that voted by 70% and upwards in favour of leaving the EU, instead to vote to change the law and prevent the UK leaving on All Souls Day.
The last time the Commons voted on the possibility of availing itself of such a power, it demurred and the proposal was defeated by 11 votes.
I conclude that no-deal remains on the table, and the EU better believe it.

A relatively small number of constituents have written to ask me why I voted against extending the equal marriage provisions of England and Wales to Northern Ireland earlier this week.
That correspondence pales into insignificance compared to the deluge of mail that I received over months and years from 2010 until the passing of the Equal Marriage Act in 2013.
I was a prominent supported of that legislation and sought to stiffen David Cameron’s resolve to persevere with it in the teeth of vociferous opposition.
I recall being assured by some constituents that it would destroy marriage, and by others that it would bring down the wrath of God upon our nation.
On that second point I was able to write to reassure them that the provisions applied only to civil marriage: a legal contract between two parties; and that the legislation had no effect on Holy Matrimony celebrated in churches and blessed by Almighty God.
On the first point I assured them that it wouldn’t have any effect on any marriage except where the couple specifically wanted it to: the provisions of the Act were voluntary and not compulsory; if same sex marriage doesn’t appeal to you, then you needn’t enter into one!
I told my correspondents that such same sex marriages would be occasions of joy and celebration to the participants, their friends and relations, and wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to anyone else.
So it has proved: Marriage has not been destroyed, and the wrath of God has yet to be visited upon us.

So, why did I not support amendments to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill last week, which were designed to extend the same marriage provisions to the province as are now enjoyed on the mainland?
The answer is simple. Our devolution settlement with Northern Ireland devolves decisions relating to marriage to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. In short, the decision is one to be made by Northern Ireland and for Northern Ireland, and not one to be imposed by Westminster.
It struck me a supreme irony that a bill designed to get the Assembly back up and running again, should be amended with provisions that usurped its proper jurisdiction.

Exactly the same principle determined my opposition to other amendments that were similarly tabled and which were designed to extend abortion in Northern Ireland.

I do not doubt the well-meaning intent of those who supported (and carried) these amendments.
I sit on the House of Commons Northern Ireland Select Committee however, and I am conscious of the sensitivities of people who want to take decisions democratically for themselves rather than having them imposed from the mainland. There remains a ‘fragility’ within the province of which we need to take proper account.

In Canada the euphemism they use is ‘maid’: medical assistance in dying (and I do mean euphemism rather than just acronym).
The last attempt in Parliament to introduce changes in our law to allow it was seen-off so decisively by the House of Commons in 2015, that I am surprised that this agenda has raised its head again so soon after its comprehensive defeat, and I am at a loss to identify anything significant that has happened to bring it back on to the political agenda. Nevertheless, it was debated in the Commons again last week (though no vote took place).

The one change that has taken place is that the Royal College of Physicians has moved from a stance of opposition to medical assistance in dying, to one of neutrality. This change was secured after a ballot of its members. Curiously, the rules for the ballot required a majority of 60% to maintain what was then the status quo (opposition to doctor assisted dying). At 43.4 % most physicians voted to keep the College’s opposition, 31.6% voted to have the College support it and Only 25% thought the college should be neutral. The College has therefore adopted the position taken by fewest of its voting members!
I wonder what consideration was given to how profoundly the proposal would change the nature of the medical profession. How will our attitude to doctors change when, in addition to healing, they also bring the instruments of death?

Suicide itself used to be against the law. Now some 5000 people commit suicide in the UK every year, of which it is estimated that about 400 do so because they have a terminal medical condition.
In the Netherlands by contrast, the annual number of doctor-assisted deaths is 21,000. Are we really ready for the scale of what is proposed?

I have every sympathy for those with a terminal condition but who do not have the means to visit the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland, and who want to have the option of their doctor killing them when their condition becomes too painful and undignified to bear any longer.
The consequences of changing the law to accommodate them however, strike me a potentially much worse.
What begins as an ‘option’ may quickly become an ‘expectation’.
“After all, you wouldn’t want to become a burden, would you?”

A clinical director from Canada visited Parliament recently and made a presentation in the House of Lords at which I was present. One of the more worrying points that she made was her suggestion that palliative care budgets in Canada are being squeezed to fund the new medical assistance in dying service.
We are at our most expensive in terms of our consumption of healthcare in the last weeks of our lives. Think of the savings to be had for NHS budgets if only we could persuade more people to do the “decent thing”.
What a grotesque calculation!
Change the law however, and one day not so far off, we’ll end up making it.

Whilst the focus of political news has remained on the Conservative Leadership contest, and in particular its implications for BREXIT, largely unreported Parliament has continued to legislate on important matters, even if rather fewer MPs appear to be participating in this process.

Last week the House of Commons gave a second reading to a bill bringing in the most profound changes to our divorce law since the nineteen sixties. I am simplifying a complex measure, but basically the current law still requires ‘irretrievable breakdown’ to be proved through adultery, desertion or unreasonable conduct by one of the parties before divorce is granted. The Alternative is a separation of two years, but where one party opposes the divorce the other must wait fully five years to get one.

The reform approved by the commons last week will change this fundamentally: The long waits of two and five years are swept aside and the concept of ‘fault’ in divorce is removed.
Clearly, irretrievable breakdown on the basis of unreasonable behaviour means that at least one of the parties has behaved unreasonably and is at fault. The focus of the measure before Parliament is to grant ‘no fault divorce’: to simply accept that a relationship has broken down when either party applies for a divorce, rather than having to demonstrate it by attributing blame.

This is not uncontroversial. I have received a significant amount of correspondence opposing these reforms. Constituents have complained that they trivialise both marriage and divorce. Furthermore, that they fly in the face of the facts: there is fault in divorce, people do behave unreasonably, and surely the law should recognise this.
Some of our clergy have complained that the sanctity of marriage is undermined by making it so easy to end it.

I have a great deal of sympathy with these arguments, and I had to reflect for a long time before giving my assent to the bill.
The question of ‘sanctity’ in marriage is a religious one. Of course, a change in the law of marriage as a civil contract cannot change what the Church teaches about ‘Holy Matrimony’ and its indissolubility, or otherwise.
The key issue is the question of ‘fault’. I accept that there is fault in divorce, but in my experience it is the requirement to attribute that fault -to lay the blame- that can make divorce a so much more malicious affair.
So often divorced constituents have come to my surgeries seeking my assistance in a continuing warfare with their former spouse, where the children are being used as the weapons.

It was on the basis of lowering the temperature by removing the need for one party to blame the other when seeking a divorce, that I gave my consent to the bill.
I hope, with the assistance of like-minded MPs, to extract a commitment from the Government during the remaining stages of the bill, to greater support for struggling couples earlier in their marriage.

Against my better judgement, I watched the BBC debate between the Conservative leadership candidates last week.

The highly partisan questioners were the least of it. Frankly, such is the preponderance of a left-wing outlook among broadcast journalists in general, and the BBC in particular, that I have come to expect treatment of that sort as standard practice.

Rather, It is the format that is so biased in favour of the journalist and against the politicians participating -whatever their politics may be.
A ‘bun-fight’ fight is deliberately set up so that none of the participants can come out of it smelling of roses. The compere however, with prepared one-line put-downs, and giving little time for her targets to respond, comes out as the master, looking reasonable, clever and in command of misbehaving school-boys.

I am happy to be interviewed anytime, but for some-time now I have been refusing to do broadcast discussions, unless they are very strictly refereed -where one can only speak at the invitation of the referee. The moment participants are allowed to interrupt each other the whole thing goes the way that the broadcasters always intended: never content with reporting the news, rather they want to make it; by creating a spectacle.
As I have implied, all the participants lose out in this format by appearing pushy and unreasonable. Personally, I always come off worst in these arguments because I am just too polite: I was taught not to interrupt.

Of course, as an ordinary civilian, rather than in my persona as a politician, I interact in conversation just like anyone else. It doesn’t matter if I’m interrupted because I can wait, then proceed as soon the person who has interrupted has finished. In a radio or TV studio, you just don’t have that chance: you are at the mercy of their pressured schedules. It is that pressure to get one’s point across while there is still time -and before the compere or the other participants interrupt again, that makes the whole thing so frightful.

Formerly, as a member of the directing staff at the Army’s commissioning board I would put potential officers through any number of tests, one of which was to watch them engage with one another in conversations on controversial subjects. The objective, was to see that they could make an argument logically and communicate effectively, at the same time to see that they were not ‘hogging it’ and that they were properly mindful of the others. Indeed, extra merit might be earned by a candidate that turned to one more reticent candidates and afforded him or her an opportunity to participate.
Many large employers have adopted a similar format when recruiting graduates.
To work effectively however, it needs plenty of time, the one thing you don’t get in a TV discussion.

Putting five politicians on the spot and at the mercy of a compere with ‘reputation’ and only an hour to cover any number of subjects was bound to end the way it did: with none of the participants coming over well. As, I believe, was always the intention.
It was for that reason this I urged David Cameron not to challenge Gordon Brown to debates in the 2010 election. I failed. Three participants were bad enough, but in 2017 with six it was just excruciating.

TV seeks to entertain viewers with ever shorter attention spans. I regret having defended the licence fee in this column last week: Television is making morons of us. Please turn it off

I have received a great deal of correspondence about Free TV licences for the over those seventy-five years of age.

The Government is guaranteeing this concession, which costs £745 million per year, until 2020. Thereafter, the concession is the responsibility of the BBC. This was agreed at the last negotiation of the TV licence fee – which generates £3.85 billion annually for the BBC. In addition to which, the BBC makes another £1 billion or so, from its commercial activities, including selling programmes to other broadcasters.

When the agreement was reached with the Government that from 2020 the concession should be the BBC’s responsibility, the BBC’s Director General observed that the cost of the concession was more than matched by the funding settlement it had received.

The BBC has now decided to not to make the concession to all the over seventy-fives after 2020, but instead, to means-test it by confining the free licence only to pensioners receiving pension credit.

Frankly, given the settlement that the BBC got, and the agreement it made, I think that tax-payers are being short-changed.
I certainly don’t think that tax-payers should be expected to pick up the tab for this once again.
The BBC has ‘pulled a fast one’ and ought to reconsider.

Constituents have however, pressed me on the principle that TV licences should be free for the over seventy-fives. Here I have some difficulty – I don’t see why they should.
Every autumn, I get a dozen or so letters from pensioners embarrassed by receiving their winter fuel allowance. They complain that they do not need it and that it would be better spent by giving rather more to those in greater need. I agree with them. If the allowance were mean-tested we could afford to make a more generous payment to those who really need it.
I cannot see why the means-testing principle should not also apply to the TV licence too. Clearly there will be many who can well afford to pay for their own. A colour TV licence is £154.50 per year, that’s just over 40 pence per day.

My granny used to save-up for her TV licence. When I was a little boy, she would send me down the street to get her ‘messages’, by which she meant her shopping (and which, in those days, meant waiting to be served in a number of shops, rather than helping-yourself in a supermarket).
Often, this would involve a trip to the post-office to purchase her TV stamp: By collecting the weekly stamp, she spread the cost of purchasing her licence annually.
I am nervous about ‘moral hazard’ in the expectation that things should be free.

Pension Credit is currently under-claimed: Many pensioners who are entitled to it, are not claiming it. They will therefore, from 2020, also miss out on a free TV licence if they are over 75.
This should be a greater incentive to claim what they paid their national insurance contributions for, and live more comfortably as a consequence.

As for the rest of us, we should continue to pay for our own licences.