Yeesterday we saw how a full whipped vote of the Commons is binding, requiring the government to accept its terms or engineer a reversal or amendment. Today I wish to look at the new question of “backbench” or “thursday” business.

       I welcome David Cameron’s excellent decision to introduce a number of days in the Parliamentary year when backbench MPs can choose the business. Normally business is chosen by the government, or by the leadership of the opposition, to an agreed timetable. Backbench business days  are as good for Parliamentary demcoracy as John Major’s great decision to launch powerful Select Committees to question and advise government departments on policy and administration.

          Because in the early period of the new system backbenchers sometimes chose issues which did not suit the government, and arranged votes which could result in a government view or policy being overturned, the government is now seeking to establish the convention that backbench business can only result in a non  binding vote. Again, this needs examination.

           Two weeks ago I attended Parliament when we were debating the issue of the closure of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. I had divided views on topic. I had sympathy with the local MPs who wished to defend their battalion. I also understood the need to allow senior officers and Ministers to streamline the forces sensibly, given the decision to cut the amount of money spent on the army. At the end of the exchanges there was a division. I asked the whips for advice on how I should vote. They said that they were instructing all government payroll members to abstain, so that was also  their advice to me. I agreed to do so.

           The vote resulted in a government defeat by 57 to 3. Those voting for the maintenance of the battalion were mainly local MPs concerned about it, and defence specialists who are unhappy about the army cuts. MPs came from both sides of the House to vote Yes to the motion.  The government says this was a non binding vote.

           I think they have a better case here than over the EU vote. The turnout was small. Many MPs accepted whips advice to abstain. If a significant  group of MPs or the official opposition  think the mood of the whole house might support overturning government policy on this issue, then they could insist on another vote in official opposition time or on some other occasion. If the Opposition picked it up as an issue, the government would then  have to instruct its MPs to vote it down.

             It would be better if the government simply voted down backbench motions they do not accept at the time. However, I can see the force of allowing low turnout votes. Then it is up to Parliament to insist on a proper vote where the government has to engage its forces, to test the true will of the House, if people think the minority raising the issue in debate in practice speak for the majority. All of these things are subject to argument and day by day tactics.

          Parliament is likely to  allow government non binding  votes  on backbench business, but they could be escalated to binding  votes if Parliament wishes. If government were to  lose a thursday vote by a large margin with more than half the House against, I think it then has to accept that was a binding vote after all. I do not think there is anything like a majority to save the 2nd Battalion, so the will of the House was not on this occasion thwarted.

          Perhaps there should be a convention that where the government wants a thursday vote to be non binding, the Backbench Business Committee should table a motion starting with “This House advises the government to….”

Then the government could respond during the debate or shortly after to the advice either way. It would be entitled to reject it. It would also need , of course, to watch carefully the voting patterns. If too many MPs overall, or too many government MPs supported the advisory motion, there could also be a binding motion later.

      I am intrigued by the new doctrine of the non binding vote.  As far as I am concerned, a vote in Parliament is a vote in Parliament. It results in whatever action or expression of opinion is contained in the motion approved. As sensible Ministers accepted yesterday morning, Parliament had expressed a view and the government has to live with that result.

      It is true that Mr Reckless’s amendment did not simply  instruct the government to negotiate a cut in the EU budget. It did however call on  the government to seek a real terms cut. It did not specify how large the cut should be nor how the government should try to negotiate it. That was sensibly left to the government to determine, as Mr Reckless was not seeking to oppose the government but to strengthen its negotiating hand. The actual words approved were ” so calls on the government to strengthen its stance so that the next MFF (financial framework) is reduced in real terms”.

        The government can scarcely argue now that just seeking a real terms freeze is sufficient response to the motion as passed. Parliament’s will was clear. It wishes the government to seek a real terms cut. That is exactly what the government should do.  The government put its case as to why it should not seek a cut, and lost the vote.

     The government cannot argue that there was something unclear about the amendment, nor can they say Parliament failed to express its view with sufficient numbers. 601 MPs  voted, an unusually large number. All were whipped to do so. 13 Conservatives abstained. 9 of those abstained on principle, because they did not agree with either the government or the amendment, or perhaps did not wish to vote with Labour on the amendment whilst agreeing with it. 4 were granted leave of absence. Doubtless some members of other parties were also away on approved duties  or ill. A rerun is unlikely to produce a different result or many more voting.

         The government should now draft a new budget proposal which results in a real terms cut. They should then seek to win over other member states to their view. Sweden is already working on cuts to the budget.  Germany is not keen to see spending going up.

          There is another reason why the government should seek to do as Parliament advises. If the government does at some stage agree a budget and a framework with the rest of the EU, it will need Parliamentary approval for the expenditure that entails.  If Parliament is satisfied the government tried its best to get a real terms cut, Parliament may  vote for the money. If Parliament thinks the government did not try or does not like the outcome, Parliament can refuse to sign the cheques, leaving the government without the means to implement its promises to the EU. At some stage the government will need a very binding vote, a vote to approve spending. That is when government and Parliament had best agree. Ministers cannot take for granted the voting of extra spending for the EU after the vote this week. They need to explain that to the rest of the EU. They also need to reassure Parliament that we should vote for the final outcome, because they have done their best to get a deal Parliament regards as acceptable in the circumstances.

                The Heseltine Report “No stone unturned”  was a return to the rain drenched downlands of little Neddies and Labour’s economic plans of the 1960s, laced with that old storm, balkanised England. The Report proudly sets out suggested bondaries for another effort at regional government. I prefer the government’s approach, ending RDAs, regional planning quangos and much of the rest of the panoply of false regional splits in  England. We do not need or want yet another layer of government. We do not want our country broken up  in the way the EU seeks.  Large projects require the national government, smaller ones can be handled by Councils if the public sector is needed at all.

                 Nor are the proposals much more welcome when it comes to analysing their democratic content. The Report recommends taking nearly £50 billion of spending over a four year period and giving it to unelected bodies like LEPs to distribute.  This is money largely at the moment allocated and supervised by elected Ministers.  Businesses are to be encouraged or dragooned into Trade Associations and Chambers of Commerce, who will then speak for them, supply them with services and regulate them all at the same time. The old mysteries or guilds have been long asleep, but this report seems to wish to waken them back into life.

                   The Report throws in for good measure the abolition of all remaining two tier local government, whatever the local preferences.

                    The answer to the UK’s growth needs rests more with tax reduction and simplification,  with simplification and removal of complex and less desirable regulations, and mending the banks.  Changing local government fundamentally, redirecting training and apprenticeship monies, and seeking to give wide ranging powers to unelected regional bodies is not the answer.

            Parliament today voted for a real terms cut in the EU budget. The government would be wise to welcome this guidance, and to strengthen its efforts to instil some budget commonsense and discipline into the EU partners.  The Coalition Minister responding to the debate made clear that he and his colleagues also think there is much waste and less desirable spending in the Eu budget, so they do not seem to disagree with the desirability of making reductions.

           The fact that the Labour party voted for the Conservative backbench amendment shows how far the mood of the country has swung against more spending and more power being exercised from Brussels. Labour, after all, was the party that needlessly gave away part of our rebate, and agreed to a substantial uplift in the EU budget for the last longer term budget settlement.  We seem now to have agreement amongst most politicians that the EU budget is too large and the spending powers of the EU too great, at a time when national  budgets have to be pruned or controlled.  I voted for a smaller EU budget.

           On Monday evening I heard a lecture given by Judge Lenarts, Vice President of the European Court of Justice. 

            He began by conceding  many thought there is a democratic deficit in the EU. He argued that the Council and Commission are not directly elected. More power to the EU undermines national Parliaments. There can be a lack of transparency in a  complex decision making process. The EU Parliament does not have full powers of control over the EU government.

             So far so good. However, the thrust of his lecture sought to establish two propositions. The first is that the EU is not a state and does not intend to become a state. The second is that the ECJ, Parliament and Council between them do offer appropriate democratic accountability for the institutions of the Union.  He argued it with several audience pleasing genuflections to UK democracy and court systems, with intelligence and numerous case examples of ECJ decisions. Each was designed to show how in his view the ECJ tried to uphold or strengthen democracy at both EU and national Parliamentary levels.

              I found it unconvincing as an argument. It is difficult to maintain that a set of institutions that have a flag, a supreme court, a currency, a central bank, a Parliament and a vast law code is not seeking to be a state. It is also difficult to argue that a Court which sets out to judge and decide against the wishes of national Parliaments is other than an attempt to impose a superior international law and discipline on unruly democracies that think differently about problems. It was interesting to see  UK Judges, UK Supreme Court judges and a Minister sitting at his feet to hear how he thinks the superior jurisdiction of the EU will develop and affect them.

               The problem with this dispute is that it is fundamental to understanding and tackling the problems of the Euro and the current disagreements between EU states. The Judge took an altogether very laid back approach to it all, as if the EU has all the time in the world to evolve answers to its democratic deficit. Meanwhile the system is posing crucial questions of why should citizens in Greece or Spain obey the policies and laws of the EU  when they feel powerless to change them?

           The UK is a heavy contributor to the EU budget. The EU’s wish to increase this budget in cash and real terms is unpopular in the UK. Many people here think that we need to cut our deficit, and that we need to do this by reducing public spending. EU spending should be at the top of the list of budgets to cut, not at the top of the list of budgets to protect and increase.

            The UK in particular dislikes the high subsidies paid to small and inefficient farmers on the continent from our money. We dislike the regional policy, which entails UK taxpayers subsidising relatively affluent regions on the continent. We dislike the large regulatory bureaucracy, which imposes costs directly through the EU budget, and indirectly by requiring us to have so many enforcement and compliance officials in domestic departments.  There could be a fairer and cheaper agricultural and regional policy, and less regulation. Mr Blair was promised agricultural reform in return for losing some of our rebate. The reform was never delivered.

             On Wednesday in the Commons the government will ask the Commons to express its view on this important issue. Many of us think that  now is the time for the UK to say that we do not want to lock ourselves into a rising budget for the period 2014-20.Maybe  now is the time to consider how the budget could be cut, or to consider how the UK could have a new relationship that did not require us to be part of the expensive policies that we currently do not like. The government has tabled the idea of a real terms standstill. Mr Reckless, a Conservative MP, has proposed an amendment to press the EU for a real terms cuts. The UK has a veto over the seven year budget settlement, a rare event in EU matters these days. There will be a debate over how far this veto can be used and when the UK is going to set out the new relationship the government says it seeks.

           Past governments have tended to concentrate on the UK’s net contribution to the EU. We should, of course, look at the gross contribution. Getting some of our own money back in ways the EU wishes to spend it is no great deal for us. It is all public spending, and all needs tax revenue to pay for it. That is why we should be able to  review all of the spending and decide which we no longer need, and which we should sacrifice in difficult times because it is not a priority.

           In the event of a veto being exercised so there is no new multiannual framework Article 312 of the Treaty says they have to stay within the limits of the last year of the old multiannual framework, i.e. no increase.  If the Council and Parliament fail to agree  or set an annual budget, the Commission proceeds on a monthly basis  with no increase on the previous year.

        I read in yesterday’s papers that the Uk government will soon receive advice from Lord Heseltine on how to promote growth. Advice from anyone with ideas on how to do that is welcome. Lord Heseltine himself was a successful businessman in the magazine industry for many years and knows how to grow a small business well.

        Let’s hope  his advice will concentrate on the tax, banking  and regulatory obstacles to growing small and medium sized enterprises.  What we do not need is an agenda to recreate the regional government the Coalition has rightly just demolished, nor to turn the Local Enterprise Partnerships into the RDAs which  have also bit the dust. Some of the articles imply the report he proposes wishes to put the clock back and spend yet more money on needless layers of regional government.

         Regions which depended on regional development strategies and RDA schemes remained poorer and less successful than regions which did not. Indeed, during the high period of Labour’s support through conventional regional subsidies, the out performance of London and the South-east grew rather than diminished.

          The last thing this Uk economy needs is yet more bureaucracy and government administrative costs. The RDAs often ossified the private sector land and buildings markets, leaving investors with less choice and flexibility than the open market approach in the most successful areas through private sector competing agents and landlords.

             Lord Heseltine also favours unitary local government to replace Counties and Districts. I have no problem with that,as Berkshire opted to carry out that change 20 years ago.  I do think, however, it has to be done at the request of the local area to ensure smooth passage . Unhappy Councils and Councillors can make such a transition expensive and problematic.

             He also favours elected Mayors. These have been offered in various parts of the country, but have not proved popular with electors.  Reforming local government may be worth doing for its own sake, but will not of itself transform the UK’s growth prospects. That requires lower taxes, more sensible regulations, and easier access to bank credit and risk capital.  More demand also helps.

          In a majority style democracy there is always a danger that the majority will get things wrong or will fail to heed wise words by the minority. This should all come out in the wash of elections and the public debate. A mature democracy also understands that treating minority groups and dissenters well is an important part of being truly democratic. Tolerance of others’ viewpoints is important, as long as they all accept the underlying system of resolving conflicts by debate , by votes and by allowing differing conducts and views to co-exist wherever possible.

          Some self appointed “left wing” moralisers like to castigate Conservatives as failing to appreciate the problems of minorities, of failing to understand what it feels like to be discriminated against and monstered for who you are rather than for what you do. In falsely portraying Conservatives like this, they give Conservatives direct experience of the minorities problem. It means we understand only too well what it feels like, as with their friends in the media the “left” seek to misrepesent us and put us on the back foot on so many issues.

           For years Eurosceptics  have been made to feel that they are  part of a minority by being  Eurosceptic. Never mind the polls which have often suggested majority support for not being in the Euro or for being critical of the Euro project. For a long time if you wished to argue that the Euro would be bad for jobs, prosperity and freedom you were thought by the BBC and others to be  beyond the pale of acceptable political views. Today many are rushing to appear as Euro currency  sceptics, but still regard it as an unacceptable view to say the Uk just wants to trade and be friends with the EU but  does not wish to be tied up in common government. Being a Eurosceptic is still a barrier for some when trying to get over  views on other topics.

             Because these commentators and media people regard this viewpoint as “right wing” – ignoring people like Benn and the Labour MPs who agree with it – Eurosceptics  are then often treated to guilt by association. The fact that they want a more democratic UK with less EU interference does not make them  a fan of the extreme right, any more than a democratic socialist wanting more equality from state action wants a communist tyranny modelled on the USSR circa 1956. It is time more commentators saw that Eurosceptics are democrats who have seen just how much damage the Euro and false political union can do to the peoples of  Europe.

          The Uk motor industry has been a success story in recent years. Tata’s launch of the new Range Rover has underlined its move to strong growth at home and abroad, with attractive 4 wheel drive products that the world market wants.  BMW’s Mini remains a popular vehicle, whilst the leading Japanese companies make high quality cars in the UK and export around Europe from this base. The Uk has become a specialist centre for engine manufacture for groups like Ford and BMW. Cutting edge engineering for Formula One cars remains a central feature of the UK’s exposure to this important sector.

         The decision by Ford to close its Transit assembly in Southampton was part of a wide range of closures and retrenchments around Europe. The industry is now being badly hit by the collapse in demand for autos in the stressed southern countries of Euroland, and by the slowdown in France and Germany. Much of the Euro area is in  or is moving into recession. Motor manufacturers have high levels of operational gearing. When final demand falls away stock levels need to fall, so demand for new product from the factory falls by considerably more than the decline in final customer demand.

          The way through for the UK industry is to sell more into the growing markets of China, India and the rest of the emerging world, and to design and produce such good products that they will gain market share even in declining markets.  The issues today for motor manufacturing relate to energy and logistics costs  more than to labour costs. Modern factories are highly automated and very energy dependent. Bought in materials and components are crucial to cost and manufacturing efficiency. The Uk government has to have in place an energy and transport policy which is friendly to mass production of engineered products.  It also needs to make sure there is a plentiful supply of skilled engineers and managers capable of organising sophisticated modern output.

          The figures for much of the rest of the EU make depressing reading. In September Greek purchases of cars were down by 48% on September 2011. In Spain the fall was 36.8%, Italy down by a quarter, France almost by a fifth and Germany itself down by 11%. The huge falls in the southern states shows how intense the austerity squeeze now is. The collapse in car sales will help mend balance of payments deficits, at the cost of hitting output  across the Eurozone. UK car sales are up so far this year, though even here there was a drop in September.  The Euro crisis is now having a big impact on living standards and jobs.