Political and Constitutional Reform Committee

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It might be for the convenience of the House if I explain that I intend that this motion should be debated together with motions 4, 5 and 6.

22:16

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I beg to move,

That the following new Standing Order be made, until the end of the current Parliament:–

(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to consider political and constitutional reform.

(2) The committee shall consist of eleven members.

(3) The committee shall have power–

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time; and

(b) to appoint specialist advisers to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference.

(4) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(5) The committee shall have power to appoint a sub-committee, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report to the committee from time to time.

(6) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the evidence taken before the sub-committee.

[Mr Speaker]

With this we shall discuss the following motions on: Select Committees (Election and Allocation of Chairs)—

(1) That Standing Order No. 122B (Election of select committee chairs) be amended by inserting, after line 6:

‘(aa) the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee;’

(2) That the Order of 26 May relating to Select Committees (Allocation of Chairs) be amended by inserting at the appropriate place in the Table:

[Mr Heath]

This is a fairly straightforward matter, but I know that nothing is totally straightforward at this time in the evening and with a full Chamber, so I shall take a little time to explain what the motions will do.

Motion 3 will establish a Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, which reflects the new portfolio of the Deputy Prime Minister. Motion 4 will provide for the Chair of the Committee—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This noise is not fair to the Deputy Leader of the House, who is trying to explain these important matters. There are far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber, which I am sure will now cease.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker.

Motion 4 will provide for the Chair of the Committee to be elected from among the Labour Members of the House in accordance with the distribution of Select Committee Chairs that you indicated at the beginning of the Parliament, Mr Speaker. Motions 5 and 6 will provide for the Chair of the Select Committee to be paid.

The Government have committed to establishing the Committee as quickly as possible and with cross-party support, to ensure that the House is able to scrutinise the work of the Deputy Prime Minister. I stress that that scrutiny will be in addition to the Deputy Prime Minister’s regular questions sessions in this house. It is our intention, if the House so agrees, that the election of the Chair of the Committee will take place on Wednesday, alongside the election of all other Chairs of Select Committees, to ensure that the Committee can start work as soon as possible.

I do not wish to anticipate the debate or any individual Member’s contribution, but I shall pick up one point in advance. I think that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) suggested that a joint Committee of both Houses might be set up. Perhaps it will be helpful if I say from the outset that the Government do not believe that a joint Committee is the right way forward. First, no other Minister would be scrutinised by a Committee of both Houses. Secondly, the House of Lords Constitution Committee will continue, as its remit states, to

“examine the constitutional implication of all public Bills coming before the House; and to keep under review the operation of the constitution.”

I will be interested to hear Members’ comments, to which I shall respond. However, that is sufficient at this stage to introduce the motions.

22:20

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is the dawn of a new age and I congratulate the Deputy Leader of the House on introducing the debate so ably. When he was on the other side of the Chamber, he was keen on scrutinising the House’s actions. The House is not packed by chance tonight with Members wanting to see how the business progresses. I am sure that that will happen on many future occasions. It is a great achievement by the new Government.

For new Members, let me explain that, in the past, the Government would try to get something through on the nod, at the end of a sitting. If no one objected, it would become law. That will not happen under the coalition. The Government will table the issues for debate. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but let us consider what the Leader of the House said last Thursday.

The motion was tabled for the best of reasons. As the Deputy Leader of the House said, it was done to speed up the elections so that they could coincide with those for other Select Committee Chairmen on Wednesday. It was therefore introduced for a noble and proper reason. However, there are some questions about the Committee. As soon as an objection was made, the Leader of the House did not sulk, as the previous Leader of the House used to do. In business questions, he made helpful remarks. He explained that the motion had been tabled for speed and for the benefit of the House, but also said:

“The consequence”

of not allowing the motion to go through on Thursday

“would be that we would lose a bit of time in establishing this new Select Committee, but it would not be the end of the world if that happened—and my hon. Friend”

the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)

“could, indeed, raise in that subsequent debate the broader questions about how this proposed new Select Committee would interface with, for example, the Public Administration and the Justice Select Committees.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 582.]

In my five years in Parliament, I never heard the Labour Leader of the House say anything so supportive to the House. The new transparency and the idea that we will discuss business after 10 o’clock if necessary are a refreshing change, on which the Leader of the House should be congratulated.

Several little issues have arisen. If we could consider them briefly, that might become the pattern for such little debates, when we have a packed House and people can raise some issues. When I sat on the Opposition Benches, we were never given such opportunities.

Some people have asked me forcefully today, “Why waste the House’s time? Why keep it sitting for three or four hours?” The House will not sit for three or four hours if I have my way. However, it is wrong, when setting up a Select Committee on an issue as important as constitutional change, to deny hon. Members the opportunity to raise significant issues. Other hon. Members have said that sitting after 10 o’clock might inconvenience some Members. The fact that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has made people commute makes it difficult for Members to be here late. However, we should not be running the House for the benefit of IPSA, but for that of democracy. It is not the House that should change its hours, but IPSA that should change its rules.

This is not a minor matter: we are talking about a Committee to scrutinise our constitution. I believe that such a Committee is thoroughly right. The Deputy Prime Minister helpfully said that he is proposing the biggest reform of our constitution since the Great Reform Act of 1832, so we certainly need to ensure that we set up the proposed Committee correctly. On 2 June, the Prime Minister announced in a statement that

“the Deputy Prime Minister has been given special responsibility for political and constitutional reform”.—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 22WS.]

That includes major items and reforms such as fixed-term Parliaments, holding a referendum on the alternative vote system, the West Lothian question, all-postal primaries and, significantly, a mostly elected second Chamber, so we need to get the scrutinising Committee right.

My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House anticipated what I was going to say on that. In the previous Parliament, I sat on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. The former dealt with matters that affected both Houses, but the latter dealt only with matters affecting this House. If, as we have been told, the Deputy Prime Minister is to introduce reforms to the House of Lords, surely the scrutinising Committee should be a Joint Committee. The Deputy Leader of the House alluded to that in his opening remarks, but will he address that specifically in his winding-up speech?

Select Committees cost about £500,000 a year to run, so if we are going to set up a Committee, we must be sure that another Committee cannot do that work. I do not argue, as I used to hear when I sat on the Opposition Benches, that we will not do this or that because it will cost too much money—democracy cannot cost too much—but we must have an answer on that from the Deputy Leader of the House. Could the powers of scrutiny have been undertaken by the Select Committee on Justice? We are trying to cut the cost of government, so could that existing Committee have reviewed the activities of the Deputy Prime Minister, at no extra cost?

Given that there will be overlap between the Justice Committee, the Select Committee on Public Administration and the proposed Committee—if it is established—how do the Government see those conflicting interests working? We could have the absurd situation in which three Select Committees look at the same item and produce three reports. What does the Deputy Leader of the House have in mind and how will that tension be resolved?

On a more minor matter, paragraph (4) of the proposed Standing Order states:

“Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.”

That is fine in itself, but it suggests that the Whips will nominate the members of the Committee, whereas other Select Committees will be elected by party groups. I do not know whether that is just a matter of wording, but will the Deputy Leader of the House clarify that matter?

On the election of the proposed Committee’s Chairman, motion 4 states that he must be a Labour Member, but that is wrong, because it should state that a member of Her Majesty’s official Opposition will chair the Committee. During this fixed-term Parliament, there could be a vote of no confidence in the coalition—of course, that is extremely unlikely—and a change of government, but the Chairman of the Committee would still be a Labour Member. That is not the case, of course, with the Public Accounts Committee, which has to be chaired by a member of Her Majesty’s official Opposition. I wonder whether we could look at this further, because I do not think it was the Government’s intention to bring that situation into being. A committee looking at constitutional reform should surely be chaired by someone who is not part of the governing party.

Finally—[Interruption.] Finally, in concluding my opening remarks, I would like to deal with Standing Orders, which exist to protect this House and the power of the Back Benchers. We should always change Standing Orders with great reluctance and with a lot of thought. This motion changes paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 122B, under which 14 days’ notice is required for nominations to be given for Select Committee Chairmen, once the Committee has been set up. It is instead proposed that we set up the Committee tonight, that the nominations close tomorrow and that the election takes place the following day.

I have certain concerns about elections suddenly being announced, nominations being opened and elections being held the following day. Unless there is a really good reason for that to happen, it should not. In this particular case, there is a problem, because if Labour Members have nominated themselves to be Chairmen of an existing Select Committee, they are ruled out of putting themselves forward to be Chairman of the proposed Committee, which they did not know would be established when they put their names forward. Again, I would like to hear the views of the Government and the Deputy Leader of the House on that.

With that, I finish, having raised the issues that I wanted to raise in the debate. If we can have debates like this in future—with a packed House in which Members can raise issues about House business, rather than one in which things go through on the nod—we will be putting Parliament first. That would be a change in our democracy; this coalition has got off to a very good start.

22:32

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the formation of this Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I rise to speak because, in common with other Members, I was disconcerted by the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech today, in which he announced the formation of another constitutional Committee, which is not being created as a Committee of this House and is not going through this careful and laborious process. When the Deputy Prime Minister announced the membership thereof, he excluded all the Members of the smaller Opposition parties. I thought that that was, frankly, a disgrace. That initiative to prepare legislation for reform of the second Chamber was really disappointing.

The present proposal, which provides an opportunity for the House properly to scrutinise the other constitutional reforms offered by the current Government, risks, I think, a combination of cynicism from the Conservatives and over-optimism from the Liberal Democrats who have coalesced with them. It is important that constitutional change wins the trust not just of the whole House, but of the citizens whom we have the privilege to represent. It is very important that this Committee gets the same level of respect and power as all the other Select Committees of the House so that it can look at House of Lords reform as much as at the other issues with which it is concerned. I hope to hear from the Deputy Leader of the House that that will be the case and that the bounced-forward Committee that was announced earlier today will not in any way take powers away from the Select Committee that we are debating tonight.

22:35

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I do not think that there is a time in recent history when there was a greater need for a Committee of the kind that we are discussing this evening. I also believe that the issues that we are concerned with in 2010 largely turn on the question of who governs Britain and how. Those are matters that the Committee should and must look at very carefully indeed.

One point that I would like to put to the Leader of the House—or the Deputy Leader of the House, if he is replying to the debate—is this: are we sure that there will be an opportunity for the momentous issues put forward in the coalition agreement to be considered by the Committee before the decisions are taken and put through? I am thinking, for example, of the question of the alternative vote and the referendum on it.

I am also thinking of whether other referendums—of the kind that relate to the European Union—would be considered by the Committee and given full weight, in the light of the fact that, for so much of the legislation that goes through this House, it is in fact incumbent on us to pass it, because of section 2 of European Communities Act 1972. That raises the question of sovereignty, which is another matter that has to be considered in the Committee before decisions are taken, because the fact is that the sovereignty of this House is not just the sovereignty of this House; it is the sovereignty of the people who elect us to this House. This is their Parliament, not ours. For that reason, sovereignty is another matter that needs to be given the most careful consideration.

Then there is the issue of fixed-term Parliaments, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) mentioned, and the 55% rule that is being brought forward. Is that not something that the Committee should look at? If we are serious about the importance of a Select Committee to look into such matters, with powers, as the motion says,

“to send for persons, papers and records…to adjourn…and to report from time to time; and…to appoint specialist advisers,”

is it not incumbent on us in passing it to be aware that it is essential that such matters should be considered by the Committee before decisions are taken? Otherwise the motion might turn out to be no more than an empty piece of paper.

Then there is the further issue, which my hon. Friend also mentioned, of the West Lothian question, along with the whole question of devolution—I look across the Chamber to the Members from the Democratic Unionist party and other minority parties. These are huge issues; they are not just minor matters, to be rammed through at a moment’s notice. They need careful and proper consideration, and the Committee would be able to give them just that.

I should also mention the fact that the coalition agreement contains proposals on the sovereignty issue, which has now been taken out of our manifesto commitments, much to my regret, and put into what I hope will not be the long grass, so that there can be a proper consideration of the necessity of having a sovereignty Act—a gold-standard sovereignty Act, if I may say so, along the lines of that which I have proposed, which has been approved by eminent constitutional authorities. The reason for that necessity is that there are occasions already when measures go through—at least three such measures have gone through the European system—without proper consideration by the European Scrutiny Committee, and they are matters that would normally be subject to scrutiny reserve. The Leader of the House has kindly replied to me this evening regarding my concern on those points. They are huge matters affecting the entire economy of this country and its stabilisation, not to mention the City of London, regulation and many other things.

Then there is the whole question of human rights. That is another matter that might overlap to some extent with another Select Committee, but it is a matter of enormous importance, because it affects the entire social fabric of the nation. The Lord Chief Justice himself has recently remarked that we must beware of the manner in which the common law is being superseded by the decisions and precedents being taken by our judiciary at the expense of the common law. He mentioned in particular the Strasbourg convention—let alone the Human Rights Act itself. In a recent and very important speech, Lord Hoffmann, a former Law Lord, pointed out that the Strasbourg Court aggrandises itself, and believes that it is no more than a federal system.

In a speech the other day, the Deputy Prime Minister described the Reform Act of 1832 as the basis for the reforms now being proposed. There have been several Reform Acts, but the 1832 Act, in itself, was far less important than the Reform Act of 1867 and the Acts that followed from it, for the simple reason that the Reform Act of 1867 resulted from a massive campaign by the people of this country, in the wake of the repeal of the corn laws, to ensure that there was a proper and democratic system whereby the people’s own views would be expressed in general elections on a scale commensurate with the requirements of the time.

I must point out, with respect to the Deputy Prime Minister, that the 1832 Act was necessary to get rid of corrupt rotten boroughs, although it did not prevent rotten boroughs from persisting. The borough of Stafford, which I had the honour to represent for about 14 years, was up for the chop in 1835. The Bill to disfranchise the electors of Stafford was passed in the House of Commons, and they were only saved by the intervention of a general election.

This is an issue of the greatest importance. Parliamentary reform—radical parliamentary reform—is fundamental to the future of this Parliament and of this nation. I believe that the Committee can do the job, but it will not be able to do the job that is being prescribed for it if decisions have already been made, under the coalition Government and agreement or otherwise, which pre-empt its ability to make recommendations about the seminal reforms that are needed to return true democracy to this country.

22:42

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I should like the Leader of the House to clarify a point. This has been a learning curve for everyone. We are now to have two Committees on constitutional reform, the one proposed by the Leader of the House and the one mentioned by the Deputy Prime Minister earlier today. The Deputy Prime Minister did not seem sure of his position; he did not want to take interventions or to answer questions.

I want clarity on this issue. If we are to have major reforms—radical and far-reaching reforms—surely the best possible debate should take place in the House among Members who are representative of the whole of the United Kingdom. Is it the case that minority parties representing people in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will not be represented in either of the Committees that have been mentioned in the House today? Is that what the Deputy Prime Minister was saying? Surely it will not be reaffirmed in the House tonight, for that would be absolutely disgraceful.

22:44

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

This is a very welcome debate, which was promised by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House when I raised the issue on Thursday. It seemed from informal conversations that I held with him afterwards that the debate would take place in prime time on Tuesday week. It has been brought forward, but that does not mean that people should feel they have been detained here and must stay here. Let me say, at the risk of inviting a mass exodus, that neither I nor, I am sure, any of my hon. Friends intend to call a Division this evening; therefore there will not be a vote, and therefore there is no need for anyone to stay here unless they wish to listen to the arguments.

In brief, my argument is that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House introduced this motion without notice last Thursday, he said it could have gone through on the nod then but that he would be pleased for questions on it to be put to him, and I would like to put some of them to him now.

First, how will this proposed Political and Constitutional Reform Committee interact with the other Select Committees proposed for the new House, for whose Chairmen we will be voting on Wednesday? On the face of it, this does not seem to be a departmental Select Committee. If it were a departmental Select Committee, it would be the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and would deal with all the activities and responsibilities of that Department, including, most importantly, that Department’s budget, but it appears instead to be a cross-cutting Committee on political and constitutional reform. Therefore, I hope that this question can be responded to in answering this debate: if the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is not going to be scrutinised by this Select Committee, by which Select Committee will its responsibilities that fall outside political and constitutional reform be monitored and held to account?

Following on from that point is this question: if this is a Political and Constitutional Reform Committee with a remit to consider political and constitutional reform, does that mean that all other Select Committees of this House are precluded from looking at issues of political and constitutional reform when they think those issues are material to the matters falling within their particular remits? If the purpose of tonight’s motion is effectively to exclude all other Committees of the House from considering political and constitutional reform, the implications of that should be clearly spelled out.

Finally, how will this new Committee interact specifically with the Justice Committee and the Public Administration Committee? Prima facie, the Public Administration Committee has a remit that would cover a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities of the Cabinet Office. Will they still be within its remit, or will they instead be within the remit of this new Committee? If it will not be the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Select Committee, why are we not spelling that out in terms?

It is a pity that this motion was put on Thursday’s Order Paper without any prior notice. We were invited to let it go through on the nod on Thursday evening, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said that that should not happen so he objected to it. We have now rightly got a debate about it, and I hope that, in the spirit of the new politics, we will have some proper answers, including to the question that if this was such a good idea, why was it not thought of initially when we were setting up all the original Select Committees? Why, in other words, does it appear to be rather an afterthought?

[Mr Speaker]

With the leave of the House, I invite the Deputy Leader of the House to reply.

22:49

[Mr Heath]

First, may I say how gratifying it is that we so often seem to have a full House late in the evenings? That is, perhaps, a sign of the new Parliament’s commitment. I also must say that I am basking in the approbation of the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope). That is an unlikely position for a Deputy Leader of the House to find himself or herself in. The hon. Member for Christchurch regretted slightly that this debate was not in prime time, but what could be primer time than 10.49 pm for this House? It is the perfect opportunity to debate this matter.

Let me try to respond to the questions that have been put. One of the key issues for the hon. Members for Wellingborough and for Christchurch was how this Committee relates to other Select Committees of the House, and whether there is any overlap or crossover. Let us first be clear that it could not have been set up last week, because before last Wednesday there had not been the written ministerial statement setting out the new ministerial responsibilities and machinery of government changes that mean that the Deputy Prime Minister has areas of responsibility not covered by other Ministers of the Crown. Until that had happened, we were therefore unable to put the matter before the House in terms of Select Committees. That is an important point to make.

The second point is that as soon as that had happened, those areas of responsibility ceased to be the responsibility of, for instance, the Ministry of Justice, so they were then outwith the responsibility of the Select Committee on Justice. Therefore, if this House is properly to scrutinise those areas, it is absolutely essential that a Select Committee be formed for that purpose.

I turn to the third element. Several references were made, particularly by the hon. Member for Christchurch, to the “Office of the Deputy Prime Minister”. Let us be absolutely clear: my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has an office, but it is within the Cabinet Office. It is clear that this Select Committee is being set up to look at the specific political responsibilities of the Deputy Prime Minister, not the rest of the Cabinet Office responsibilities, which remain the province of the Public Administration Committee. I hope that once this Committee is set up and begins its work—provided that the House agrees to it—the Chairs of it, the Justice Committee and the Public Administration Committee will have an early opportunity to ensure that they are clear about their separate roles and that there is no work overlap, that they seek the advice of the Liaison Committee if there is any difficulty, and that we have a clear differentiation.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

That would appear to make sense at face value, but if we have enhanced Calman proposals on initial devolution to Scotland and the proposed referendum on parliamentary powers in Wales, would they be scrutinised by this Select Committee, with the Deputy Prime Minister’s powers over the constitution, or by the Select Committees on Scottish and Welsh Affairs?

[Mr Heath]

The position would be no different from that which obtains now in respect of the responsibilities of the Justice Committee—at least until the changes in the machinery of government—where there was that overlap and it was quite proper for the Justice Committee to look at devolution issues. Indeed, having served as a member of the Justice Committee, I know that we did look at devolution matters, but I do not think that at any stage we trod on the toes of the Scottish or Welsh Affairs Committees in the process. It is quite possible to have proper co-ordination that prevents that from happening.

Mention was made of Lords reform. Obviously, this is a key area of the Deputy Prime Minister’s responsibilities, so of course, the Committee will have the capacity to look at it if it chooses. I am not going to pre-empt the work programme that the Committee will agree. It would be a huge abuse for a Minister to set out what a Select Committee should choose to do, but I would expect it to be an early priority for the Committee to look at the emerging picture of constitutional reform, which would include Lords reform.

In answer to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), there is also a clear commitment in the setting up of the proposals for Lords reform that, first, there would be pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposals that emerge, which would involve any Member of this House who chose to take an interest. As a constitutional Bill, when any legislation is introduced—indeed this applies even to the preliminary motions before the House—it would be taken on the Floor of the House and involve every Member of the House. Therefore, I do not think that he needs to be concerned.

I listened to what the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) had to say about how disappointed she was about today’s announcement of the Government Committee—it will not be a Select Committee of the House, and that is an important distinction—to consider and introduce proposals for Lords reform. If she was disappointed at that announcement, she must have been devastated when her own Justice Secretary—her own Lord Chancellor—did exactly the same thing in the previous Parliament. I served on that Government Committee, which did not contain any Members from minority parties; only the three main parties were represented. She must have been devastated to have heard of that arrangement then, so our doing the same thing has simply added, like Pelion on Ossa, to her discomfiture. That is not a concern that we need to dwell on, because it is clear that this Government programme of consideration of Lords reform will result in proposals that will receive more than adequate scrutiny in this House.

[Mr Cash]

The Deputy Leader of the House has addressed a number of points, but not some of the ones that I raised. Would he be kind enough to consider my point regarding whether this Committee might, to put it in ordinary parlance, be bounced by the fact that decisions have been taken under the coalition agreement, or by other means, to put through proposals such as the alternative vote and other matters of the kind that I mentioned, before the Committee has had a chance to consider the issues? In particular, will he state now that the proposals under the coalition agreement to implement the Wright Committee’s recommendations in full mean just that, and that the wording of the Standing Order that will be introduced shortly will be exactly the same as that of the one proposed earlier this year?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman wished me to answer his points before I had dealt with those of other hon. Members, and I am sorry that he had to be a little patient in that respect. He said that decisions have been taken, but Parliament takes decisions on legislation. Perhaps the key difference between this Administration and the previous one is that we want Parliament to take these decisions. It is for the Government to propose and for this House to dispose of those propositions. Therefore, it is not wrong in any way for the Government to be committed to a programme of government that is placed before this House for consideration. Both my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I are absolutely committed to ensuring that this House has the proper opportunities to have its say. That is the difference between how we do business and how the previous Government did it. I am unable to deal with the hon. Gentleman’s point about the Wright Committee, because that would be completely outside the terms of this motion. However, he will find that his questions on implementing the Wright Committee recommendations will be answered in the very near future.

Let me deal briefly with the other points raised, one of which related to costs. We know that it costs money to have Select Committees, but it is equally important that this House has the opportunity to scrutinise the decisions of every Minister of this House. Thus, this is a cost that we have to bear, but I must say to the hon. Member for Wellingborough that we have abolished a whole tier of Select Committees in the form of the Regional Select Committees, which were an unnecessary and expensive farce. We have got rid of them, so we have a little money in the bank, as it were, in terms of the cost of scrutiny.

I was asked whether the membership of this Committee would be appointed. No, it will be elected, like that of every other Select Committee; this is a perfectly normal Select Committee of the House.

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

The Deputy Leader of the House is totally wrong to say that the abolition of Regional Select Committees will save any money that could be put to this new Committee. That is not true because the Regional Select Committees were served by staff who already worked on the Select Committees that were previously in place. I have inquired about this and he is wrong to say that there is any saving from the abolition of Regional Select Committees.

[Mr Heath]

It is an intriguing argument that however many Select Committees there were, they could operate and travel around the country at no cost to the House at all. That is an interesting argument, but not one for today, perhaps.

I was asked why the chairmanship of this Committee is to be Labour, and it was suggested that perhaps the wording should be “the official Opposition”. This was a decision of the House, and it decided that the Speaker should allocate the Chairs of the various Select Committees according to the proportion of Members in the House elected from each party. It was the Speaker’s decision—based, I am sure, on excellent mathematical principles—that this chairmanship should be allocated to the Labour party. Unless the House decides otherwise, it is not the Government’s position that the decision that the House has already taken should be changed.

On the time interval for nominations, that is for the convenience of the House. If the House does not like it, it is at liberty to say that it wants the full period for nominations, but I think that most want the Select Committees up and running at the earliest opportunity. They want to make sure that people have the opportunity to vote for the Chairs of all the Select Committees at the same time. They want to make sure that the best people, and not people who have been rejected for other chairmanships, put themselves forward for the Chairs in which they are most interested. I think that is the right way of doing things, but it is for the House to decide.

I think I have dealt with all the points that have been raised.

[Mr Chope]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?

[Mr Heath]

Yes, but this is the very last effort from the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Chope]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for the way in which he has responded to the debate. One point that I raised that he has not addressed yet is whether this Select Committee will have exclusive control over the consideration of political and constitutional reform, or whether other Select Committees that wish to consider aspects of political and constitutional reform that fall within their ambit will be free so to do.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is right that I did not answer that point other than tangentially in relation to the question about Wales and Scotland that was raised by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie). Every Select Committee has the right to consider matters that fall within the ambit of the Department or ministerial team that it scrutinises, and nothing will change on that. This Committee is exactly the same as every other Select Committee of the House. I expect Committees to be sensible about this and not to duplicate each other’s activities, but there are no artificial barriers and no one is going to say to a Committee that has an issue or a constitutional bearing within its departmental responsibilities, “You are not allowed to scrutinise that because we now have this new Select Committee to do the job.” That is not the way that I would expect Select Committees to work. I would expect the Chairs of Committees to discuss these matters with one another, to use the good offices of the Liaison Committee when it is set up and to make sure that there is not duplication of effort. On that basis, I hope that I have responded to the debate and that the House will accept the motions before us so that we can get the system up and running as quickly as possible and extend the scrutiny of the House to the full range of members of the ministerial team.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That the following new Standing Order be made, until the end of the current Parliament:–

(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to consider political and constitutional reform.

(2) The committee shall consist of eleven members.

(3) The committee shall have power–

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time; and

(b) to appoint specialist advisers to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference.

(4) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(5) The committee shall have power to appoint a sub-committee, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report to the committee from time to time.

(6) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the evidence taken before the sub-committee.