Select Committee Effectiveness, Resources and Powers
Lord Beith Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House welcomes the report of the Liaison Committee on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers, Second Report of Session 2012-13, HC 697, and the responses to it, Third Report of Session 2012-13, HC 911; welcomes the positive impact of the Wright reforms, particularly the election of committee chairs and members, on the effectiveness and authority of select committees; endorses the Committee’s recommendations for committee best practice and the revised core tasks for departmental select committees; looks forward to agreement on procedures for committee statements on the floor of the House and arrangements for debates on committee reports; agrees that co-operation from Government is crucial to effective scrutiny; and supports the Committee’s call for a new relationship between Parliament and Government, which recognises the public interest in greater accountability.
It is a pleasure to move the motion, which stands in my name and that of many Committee Chairs. It is fortuitous—it is about the only bit of good luck we have had this afternoon—that this debate follows a statement by a Committee Chair about a report that his Committee has produced. That relatively recent innovation tends to work rather better when the statement is made closer to the ministerial statements of the day, but it is welcome and something that we simply did not have in previous Parliaments.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee, the Chair of which is in the Chamber, for allowing the debate to be held. The motion is based on a report that the Liaison Committee produced in November and the responses to it from the Government and the House authorities, which we have published.
There are various aspects of the role of Parliament: we make laws; we create and oppose Governments, with this House being the forum in which the political contest between parties takes place; and we raise the grievances of our constituents as individuals or communities. However, there is a fourth function, which was sometimes neglected in earlier years: holding all Governments and the public service to account on how public money is spent, the effectiveness of administration and the development of policy.
Over the years, the Select Committee system has developed as the main means of addressing that fourth objective. The creation of a comprehensive structure of departmental Committees moved the process a long way forward at the time of the late Norman St John-Stevas. The previous Parliament left us a valuable legacy of further strengthening with the report of the Wright Committee which, in particular, put in place the election of Select Committee Chairs by the House as a whole, as well as the election of Committee members within parties. That has given Committees a new authority and mandate, and the influx of new Members, as well as the return of several experienced and senior Members to Select Committee work, has built on that authority.
Many new and more senior Members find their involvement in Select Committees just about the most rewarding part of their work in Parliament. They spend many a Wednesday listening to, or attempting to take part in, Prime Minister’s questions and they troop through the Lobby to support their party’s view in particular votes, but they can really get their teeth into things through the Select Committee process, in which they have the opportunity to question and challenge how things are being done, and to influence the shape of things in the future.
Our Committees have very small teams of staff, but the quality of their work and the way in which they cope with the demanding timetables of the Committee process are essential elements of Committees’ success. Our staff include people drawn from the Clerks Department of the House. Some appointments are made from outside, and we have indicated that there are circumstances in which it might be appropriate for such appointments to be made not only at the more specialist levels but even for the Clerk of a Committee. The Scrutiny Unit is a valuable resource for Select Committees, and we also draw on the Library—indirectly and directly, as Library staff are seconded to Select Committee service—and the National Audit Office, which I have found ready to co-operate not only with the Public Accounts Committee, as it does primarily, but with individual Committees when its expertise is valuable to their work.
Select Committees have proved to be one of the most effective ways of promoting public engagement with the House of Commons. We are always being urged to increase public engagement, and if we look at the wide range of people waiting on the Committee corridors in this building and Portcullis House to give evidence to Committees or to listen to their proceedings, and then think of all the people who watch the sittings at home on the Parliament channel or through the web system, we realise that Committees probably engage many more people than much else that goes on in the Commons. People are engaged because they are closely interested in the Committees’ work.
Today the Hansard Society published some survey results which showed a 9% increase in the past year in the public belief that Parliament holds Government to account. The survey showed that figure rising to 47%, which is just short of half, but it is a nine percentage point increase on the same question the previous year.
Select Committee inquiries have had a very high public profile. Most striking was the global coverage achieved by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into News International and phone hacking, but others, too, have attracted a high level of interest. The Science and Technology Committee’s report on the Government’s alcohol guidelines stimulated widespread discussion about safe drinking limits. The Treasury Committee’s work on retail banking has attracted close interest not only in the financial world but among the wider public, and the Banking Commission, which is now conducting its inquiries, is a partner of the Treasury Committee—a Joint Committee drawn partly from the Treasury Committee and led by its Chairman. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s current inquiry into the UK’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is attracting international interest.
Some Committees are less often in the national media but have a very high profile in the professional press and the stakeholder community. The International Development Committee is one example. Another is the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, whose Chairman is at a funeral today, or she would have been here pointing to much of the work that it does. There are many examples of the work of my own Committee, the Justice Committee, changing the way things are done. As a direct result of a report that we produced, new guidelines have been introduced by the Director of Public Prosecutions on charging on a joint enterprise basis, which had proved to be quite a difficult and controversial issue. I had a letter only the other day from a Minister setting out precisely how the Government would implement the Committee’s recommendations—not challenging them, but setting out how the Government was going to implement them. That is a record of which Select Committees can be proud.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have so far barely scratched the surface of using social media to engage people with the workings of Parliament? The Select Committees are particularly well placed to do that, and he will know that before a session with the Secretary of State for Education, the Select Committee went on Twitter with #askGove to ask people to come up with questions. We were inundated—there were more than 5,000 tweets. We sorted through them, grouped them by theme and went through them with the Secretary of State who, in typical style, was able to give rapid-fire answers and people felt they were genuinely able to engage with Parliament through the Select Committee and hold the powerful to account.
Sir Alan Beith
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. My own Committee has held online consultations with people in the public service who cannot come out openly to express their views, but whose views are important to us. We did an online consultation with prison officers which gave us a much better understanding of their working environment and problems. We did the same with probation officers. We had difficulty with the Ministry of Justice when we tried to do the same with court staff who were affected by the court interpretation and translation service changes, on which we will report in a few days. We were rather surprised to find the Department much less co-operative in that instance than it had been on previous occasions.
The social media are extremely important to the work of Select Committees, as are Parliament’s website facilities. The web and intranet service is working on some new designs for Select Committee homepages that will allow for more individual branding, giving Committees more control over the appearance of their online presence and greater flexibility in respect of what individual Committees can promote on their homepage. We would like to see this implemented as soon as possible. I do not claim to be the House’s expert on social media—I am the last person to make such a claim—but they clearly offer tremendous opportunities for engaging with the people who are affected by what is agreed and passed in the House. That is one of the things at the forefront of Committees’ work.
Our report honestly assesses where Select Committees can do better. It makes a range of best practice recommendations. We encourage Committees to be forward-looking in their scrutiny of departmental performance, not confining themselves to raking over the coals of past events unless there are important lessons to be learned from them. We urge Committees to give more attention to the financial implications of departmental policy and how Departments assess the effectiveness of their spending. We encourage them to experiment with different approaches to evidence taking; to broaden the range of witnesses and make more use of commissioned research; to produce shorter reports, making it clear which are the most important recommendations and who is supposed to be carrying them out; to follow up recommendations to ensure that reports have impact; and to report to the House at least once each Session on what their Committee has been doing.
Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said, Committees need to be more effective at communicating. That involves the social media, but it also involves traditional print and broadcast media. We get a lot of coverage and a lot of interest from the broadcasters. Occasionally they annoy us by failing to distinguish between Select Committees of this House, elected by the House, and all-party groups, which have a role and a usefulness but are not the same thing. A Select Committee of this House is a Committee of people who have a degree of expertise developed over a period but are not united by a common cause in their membership of the Committee, as is so often the case with an all-party group. There is a big difference between the nature of a report produced by a Select Committee and one produced by an all-party group. The use of the term “a group of MPs” to describe either body, which we find in the broadcasts even of the BBC, is something we deplore.
The motion before the House invites us to endorse these best practice recommendations. They are not a straitjacket; it is for each Committee to determine its own priorities in how it goes about its business. However, Committees have core tasks, and we hope that they will see the good sense of the recommendations that we are making; indeed, many are already doing so.
One of the areas where we want to develop the work of Committees is in our scrutiny of policy development at the European level. We have had a lot of discussions about this with the European Scrutiny Committee and with the Minister for Europe. Far too often, this House is confronted with draft European legislation long after the important decisions and negotiations have taken place. Committees can much more usefully engage at the early stages, as long as they can be clear which work programme issues of the Commission are attracting real interest and are likely to get somewhere; otherwise they can get submerged in a vast amount of material that is not really going anywhere.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that another way to ensure that we scrutinise much better what is happening in Europe is to have better liaison relationships with Chairs of Committees in other national Parliaments? That will help us to understand what is happening in those countries and develop these relationships even further.
Sir Alan Beith
Yes, I agree. I have tried to do that, as has the right hon. Gentleman, conspicuously so, in the home affairs field. We should also communicate more effectively with British Members of the European Parliament so that they are aware when Committees have done some work on a subject and do not go blind into discussions completely unaware that this Parliament has already examined that subject in detail and expressed views on it. We have also been arguing for some time that we want the very good assistance that we get from UK representatives in Brussels and their staff to be used on a more active and less passive basis so that Committees are alerted when issues that they could usefully consider are coming up, such as those that may be of concern to the Government or are likely to excite controversy.
We talk about the powers and privileges of Committees. Sometimes an impression is given in public discussion that Committees are lacking the powers to do their job. By and large, I do not believe that to be the case. There are improvements that we could make, and the report deals with some of them. There are also some things that it is rather difficult to do—for example, in relation to privilege and the compelling of witnesses. The Liaison Committee is not convinced that statute is necessarily the right way to go, but the issue is shortly to be examined in a Joint Committee.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that my Committee—the Culture, Media and Sport Committee—has perhaps tested the boundaries of Select Committee powers more than most. The situation seems unsatisfactory in two areas. First, when we served warrants on Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks to appear before the Committee, it was not at all clear what the consequences would be had they failed to respond to that summons. Secondly, when we reported to this House that we believed we had been lied to by people who had given evidence to the Committee, it was, and remains, extremely unclear what the consequences of that are.
Sir Alan Beith
That is certainly true and I think it is one of the issues that will have to be examined by the Joint Committee, which is about to embark on this work. The problems are difficult to solve and affect only a few inquiries. They certainly affected the work of my hon. Friend’s Committee, which was notably successful in getting some potentially unwilling witnesses to appear before it. I congratulate him on what the Committee achieved.
It should be stressed that, for the vast majority of the time, Committees deal with willing witnesses who are very happy to come and be examined by us, even if, sometimes, they are critically examined. Most of the time, we are gaining information from willing witnesses. I will come in a moment to what happens when we deal with Government. So far as all other bodies and persons are concerned, the instances in which a draconian power might be required are very few. My hon. Friend is right that such powers as the House has in this area are not very easy to use, and we will have to further consider that issue.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
What was the Liaison Committee’s thinking behind paragraph 133 of the report? It states that the Committee was
“persuaded that the disadvantages of enshrining parliamentary privilege in statute would outweigh the benefits”,
but that conclusion was reached ahead of all the work that is being done. It seems to pre-empt a lot of work that is ongoing.
Sir Alan Beith
It was an honest statement of the view of Committee members that the possibility of the activities of the House being questioned in the courts as a consequence of the exercise of powers would be more damaging to the House than the current situation. Were the Joint Committee to come to a different conclusion after careful examination, we would, obviously, look at the issue again, but it was an honest statement of the Liaison Committee’s opinion at the time. My opinion has not changed so far, but I am clear that the matter will have to be looked at very carefully indeed.
Mr Graham Stuart
I must back my right hon. Friend and say how much I agree with him. I was one of those on the Liaison Committee who felt that very strongly. We have had people who were not keen to appear before the Education Committee, but they were told that they were expected to turn up, that it would be seen as a failure on their part not to do so and that powers could be exercised against them if they did not do so. They came. That is the test. If we move to something more legalistic, people will hire lawyers to find out exactly how many days’ delay they can use, based on precedent, so that they can put it off as long as they can and, in effect, thwart the will of Parliament, which is for them to appear. Whatever the current situation’s shortcomings, in my opinion, subject to what the Joint Committee finds out, it is the right one: it works for Parliament and does so in a speedy and effective way.
Sir Alan Beith
My hon. Friend puts the point extremely well.
The appearances of members of the Government and civil service officials are governed by the Osmotherly rules. The Committee is stringent about those rules in paragraph 113:
“We do not accept that the Osmotherly rules should have any bearing on whom a select committee should choose to summon as a witness. The Osmotherly rules are merely internal for Government. They have never been accepted by Parliament. Where the inquiry relates to departmental delivery rather than ministerial decision-making, it is vital that committees should be able to question the responsible official directly—even if they have moved on to another job. It does of course remain the case that an official can decline to answer for matters of policy, on the basis that it is for the minister to answer for the policy, but officials owe a direct obligation to Parliament to report on matters of fact and implementation. This does not alter the doctrine of ministerial accountability in any way. Ministers should never require an official to withhold information from a select committee. It cannot be a breach of the principle of ministerial responsibility for an official to give a truthful answer to a select committee question.”
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I welcome the opportunity to debate this report briefly. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is not just about officials appearing before Committees? The Environmental Audit Committee had hoped that the Deputy Prime Minister could meet our long-standing request for him to appear before us and report back on his work on the Rio+20 agenda, but it was impossible for him to do so in his capacity as the Deputy Prime Minister. We have, therefore, had to arrange for him to appear before the Liaison Committee. That throws up the problem of a lack of accountability not just from officials, but from Ministers as well.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I just remind the right hon. Gentleman that we said that speeches should last between 10 and 15 minutes? He has now had 19 minutes, and other Members wish to speak. We also do not have as much time as usual.
Sir Alan Beith
Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will bear it in mind that several hon. Members, having looked at the clock, have decided to get their point across by intervening on me.
I should like to answer the hon. Lady’s question. She makes an important point. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have both taken the view that once they started going to Select Committees, they would end up being asked to go to all of them. Our response to both of them was that if that was their position, we would bring them to the Liaison Committee so that they could be questioned on matters in which they had played an important part.
I referred to the Osmotherly rules at some length because they are an important point of contention between the Committee and Ministers. We deal more fully with that in our report. We are saying to the Government that they need to engage with us on the way in which the Government relate to Parliament, rather than simply talking about consulting us on revising the rules.
The world has changed significantly. The election of Committees, and the way in which Members now see them as the main means of holding the Government to account, means that the Government must recognise that things are clearly different. Many Departments co-operate very well with the Committees, and quite a few Ministers find it helpful to have Committees looking at issues over which they—the Ministers—are involved in internal battles, either within their Department or with the Government. Many a Minister has had cause to thank a Select Committee for its support on such issues. There must be a recognition right across Government that Select Committees have a role to play in one of the most important functions of Parliament. There must be a clear understanding that Select Committees are entitled to information and that they should have the full co-operation of the Government.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I welcome the report from the Liaison Committee. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and all right hon. and hon. Members of his Committee on their work. We have heard from some of them this afternoon: my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), and my hon. Friends the Members for Aberavon (Dr Francis) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley). All do excellent work in their Select Committees to hold Government and other organisations to account.
As the report says, looking back over the last year of activity, Select Committees have done an important and successful job. The role of Select Committees has been continually evolving ever since their creation by Norman St John Stevas, who sadly passed away last year. The election of Chairs and of Committee members has strengthened the independence of Committees. It is two years since that was implemented following the recommendation of the Wright report, and it has worked well.
As the report states, despite the many demands on Members’ time, attendance is high—approximately 75%—and very few Members have a low attendance rate. The Committee noted that there are often good reasons for low attendance, not least the need to be in several places at once—something Members know only too well. That rate reflects the importance the House attaches to the role of Committees, and, I suspect, the impact that membership of a Committee can have on job satisfaction.
Sir Alan Beith
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She made reference to the difficulties that Committees face. Many Members are placed on Bill Committees and Statutory Instrument Committees, and many are lost to the increasing size of the Executive, including Parliamentary Private Secretaries, and the shadow Executive.
Ms Eagle
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not know what the answer is, given that Members of Parliament often have ambitions to be in the shadow Government or the Government and like to get promoted. We have made progress in the past few years in setting up a career path for those who wish to specialise in Select Committees, particularly in the area of scrutiny.
The report rightly says that holding the Government to account is the main purpose of Committee work. However, our constituents expect more than that. Parliament is here to hold the powerful to account, as well as the Government. Major multinationals are one example of powerful organisations that our constituents expect us to hold to account.
In that context, I congratulate the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who is in his place, on their work. The PAC has exposed the shocking conduct of companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google in minimising the taxes they pay in this country. The work of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in its relentless pursuit and questioning of News International over phone hacking, often when the issue was ignored by many others, has already been commented on. I would like to add my congratulations to its members on playing such a major role in uncovering the scandal. It is only right that we use this debate to highlight the important work that our Select Committee system has done and to congratulate those involved on the work they do. The Liaison Committee’s report rightly praises the Transport Committee, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), for its inquiry into motor insurance, which brought to light a major scandal.
It is not only major companies, however, that Select Committees need to scrutinise. The Government’s programme of increasing the involvement of the private sector in public services and the breaking up of the health service means that lines of accountability are becoming more and more blurred. The House and Select Committees have the opportunity to scrutinise what these new organisations are up to with public money, and we have to ensure that the Select Committees maintain their ability to follow public money, even if that involves the accounts of private companies. That is an area to which we have to pay particular attention given some of the changes being made.
I agree with the Liaison Committee report that the primary function of Select Committees is to scrutinise the Government, but I do not want to minimise the important role they perform in holding others to account. We share the Committee’s disappointment that the Government have not published more Bills in draft. They only published 18 Bills in draft in the 2010-12 parliamentary Session. Pre-legislative scrutiny is beneficial to the legislative process and is an area where Committees made up of members with in-depth policy knowledge can add real value. Will the Leader of the House commit, therefore, to increasing the proportion of Bills that the Government publish in draft? Even when the Government have published bills in draft, however, they have allowed insufficient time in some cases for effective pre-legislative scrutiny.
Ms Eagle
As someone who gave evidence before entering the House to what were then known as Special Standing Committees, which evolved into pre-legislative scrutiny Committees, I think it is important to highlight best practice and carry on evolving positively the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Energy Bill and the Civil Aviation Bill are cited in the Committee’s report as examples of where the Government have not allowed enough time for Select Committees to do their work. The Committee is also right to highlight the shambles of the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill: the Select Committee members reorganised their work to enable scrutiny of the Bill at very short notice, only for the Government to pull the Bill and re-introduce it this Session. In retrospect, Committee Members could have spent many hours scrutinising it without the time constraint, which turned out not to be a time constraint. I hope that the Leader of the House will take note of the need for better organisation.
We note the Liaison Committee’s suggestion that Commons Select Committees should have first choice on whether to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny, rather than it being a decision of the Government. A Joint Committee could make a valuable contribution, but it is this House that is democratically elected and, as the Liaison Committee rights says in its report, it would make sense for a Committee of this House to consider whether a Bill should be referred to a Joint Committee. Will the Leader of the House comment on that suggestion?
Sir Alan Beith
There is a further strong argument, which is that once there is a Joint Committee, election will no longer be the process by which this House elects Committees. Instead, the Whips will perform the kind of function that they normally perform for Bill Committees, and that is not what we want.
Ms Eagle
I note that that is precisely the point the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee members made in their report. By highlighting that section, I am agreeing with him.
It is also worth considering whether we should go one step further. At the moment, it is for the Government to decide whether to use pre-legislative scrutiny at all. The Government are currently rushing ill-thought-out welfare legislation through the House that will hit people in work on low incomes the hardest. This is a piece of legislation that would have benefited from pre-legislative scrutiny, particularly evidence sessions. That was not allowed to happen, so could the Leader of the House consider whether, allowing for the Government to legislate immediately when there is an obvious need, we could have a Committee of this House deciding whether a Bill should receive pre-legislative scrutiny? These are not suggestions on which I have a settled view, but I am interested in hearing the views of right hon. and hon. Members about possible changes in that direction.
The Liaison Committee is right to comment on the role of Select Committees in scrutinising ministerial appointments. As it says in its report, the Committee previously commented on this in its 2011 report, “Select Committees and Public Appointments”, which made recommendations for reforming the process. The Government’s response prompted a further report from the Liaison Committee last September, which highlighted the
“inadequacy of the Government’s response to our proposals”.
There has been no response from the Government to date, which is clearly unsatisfactory. This has been left hanging in the air for far too long, so will the Leader of the House say when the Government will be responding?
Mr Lansley
I entirely understand that that is so, and I knew it to be the case. I would not wish the House to interpret what I am saying to mean that I want to interfere in any way in this matter. Having observed the situation, I simply think that there is an opportunity for that working together to take place. That flexibility is available and the two Committees might do that.
Sir Alan Beith
I entirely endorse what the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee has said; we get on very well, we are able to negotiate and it is quite easy. It would not be ideal to give the Backbench Business Committee the job of judging between reports of Select Committees and then placing them in competition with debates that Back Benchers want because there is a big constituency interest. We must have a procedure that ensures that, either in Westminster Hall or in the House, some kind of priority can be attached to those matters where a Select Committee wishes to warn the House that something is going wrong in the system of government.
Mr Lansley
My right hon. Friend makes a perfectly fair point, but I am happy to see that informal work proceed. I do not think that at this moment we are talking about any requirement for a formal change in the procedure of the House. We are simply talking about the exercise of flexibility, which need not be at my behest in any sense; it might entirely be to best meet the needs of the Members of this House, be it as members of Select Committees, as constituency Members or in pursuit of their particular interests.
The recommendation of the Liaison Committee to have substantive motions in Westminster Hall has the potential to impact significantly on the procedures in this House, including possibly by disrupting the business on the Floor to take votes following debates in Westminster Hall. The proposition was made on the basis that debates on e-petitions in Westminster Hall take place on substantive motions. Such debates, which are being conducted on a pilot basis, actually take place on a motion with the formula “That this House has considered”; such a motion is not meant to be amended or divided upon. Should that happen in reality, the potential effects on procedure would be significant, and they have not been tested or evaluated. Changes of the significance suggested deserve far greater consideration of the possible consequences, and it may be that the Procedure Committee could consider those in a more general review of the types of business suitable to be taken in Westminster Hall.
Only one recommendation is specifically aimed at the Government, and it relates to a review of the relationship between Government and Select Committees, with the aim of producing joint guidelines. The Liaison Committee report said:
“We believe that the Government has not yet recognised the changed mood in the House and the strength of our resolve to achieve change.”
I would say in response that the Government have been responsible for the most significant transfer of powers for decades and I believe we can rightly be pleased with what we have achieved together. I understand the mood among Select Committee Chairs and in the House as a whole. and I hope that the Liaison Committee will accept my assurance that all the comments in our response were offered constructively with the aim of securing reform where it is necessary or improves the current situation for Members and in the eyes of the public.
There is a growing public and parliamentary interest in the accountability not only of Ministers but of civil servants. The civil service reform plan, published in June 2012, contained a number of recommendations on that accountability. The Government believe that the existing model of ministerial accountability is well established and should continue to underpin the effective workings of government. We know that we can sharpen that accountability for civil servants in a way that enables Select Committees to understand, invigilate and take views on the performance of Departments in relation to delivery, but I would not want that process to undermine the principle that Ministers are accountable for the policy and performance of their Departments.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed will know, the Government are reviewing the document known as the Osmotherly rules, which provides guidance for civil servants. As part of this review the Government will liaise with the Liaison Committee and the Constitution Committee in the other place. I look forward to the productive and constructive discussions between my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and representatives of the Liaison Committee. I recognise, of course, that plans are in place for former accounting officers to be held to account.
Before I finish, I entirely endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said about the description of Select Committees. They carry the authority of Parliament and are distinct from any other cross-party group or group of Members. I noted that the Education Committee was described this morning in the early bulletins as a “cross-party group of MPs” and the Transport Committee was called “a Committee of MPs”. Select Committees engage the authority of Parliament and I urge the media to recognise that as well as the distinctiveness of that authority.
I thoroughly commend the Liaison Committee’s recommendation to other Select Committees that the National Audit Office is available to support them in their scrutiny of the use of resources. Indeed, the NAO told the Public Accounts Commission that it supported that recommendation.
The work that has been done is a thorough and timely consideration of the work of Select Committees. In its follow-up report, the Liaison Committee emphasised the importance of focusing on impact rather than simply publishing reports and letting recommendations lie. That is clearly the right approach. Select Committees have greater authority and a responsibility to be the champions of good scrutiny. They have greater access to time and to debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall and we can continue to use those opportunities more effectively. On behalf of the Government, I look forward to working with the Liaison Committee and others to pursue the recommendations.
Sir Alan Beith
This has been a short but worthwhile debate and I am grateful for the insights offered by my colleagues from the Home Affairs Committee, the Education Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Environmental Audit Committee as well as the shadow Leader of the House. They have all added something. I particularly appreciated the point made by the Chair of the Education Committee about how Committee work changes people’s perceptions of each other and significantly assists the work of Parliament.
I also welcome the Leader of the House’s clear assertion that the Government are ready to discuss in a co-operative way the revision of the Osmotherly rules. I hope that he will be personally present at the discussions with the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General as it would be useful to have the Leader of the House closely and directly involved in carrying those things forward.
My final objective, after thanking all Members who have taken part in the debate, is to seek the support of the House in carrying the motion and asserting that we want to continue the effective reforms that followed on from the Wright Committee’s work, which have so enhanced the effectiveness of the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the report of the Liaison Committee on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers, Second Report of Session 2012-13, HC 697, and the responses to it, Third Report of Session 2012-13, HC 911; welcomes the positive impact of the Wright reforms, particularly the election of committee chairs and members, on the effectiveness and authority of select committees; endorses the Committee’s recommendations for committee best practice and the revised core tasks for departmental select committees; looks forward to agreement on procedures for committee statements on the floor of the House and arrangements for debates on committee reports; agrees that co-operation from Government is crucial to effective scrutiny; and supports the Committee’s call for a new relationship between Parliament and Government, which recognises the public interest in greater accountability.
House of Commons Administration and Savings Programme
Lord Beith Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
May I reassure my hon. Friend that that is a reasonable saving? I discovered early on in my 39-year parliamentary career that the accumulation of bound volumes of Hansard was not very practical from a domestic point of view.
John Thurso
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I can tell him that I have had particular praise from the wife of one hon. Friend, who thanked me profusely for having relieved her of the duty of piling those up in the loft. So all in all, it is a wise move but, as I say, for those who wish to continue to receive bound volumes of Hansard, we have made provision for them to be purchased.
The next point that I would like to touch on is the provision of ICT. The aim here is to move to a more cloud-based system. This will allow Members to access all the services they need from virtually any equipment they choose to use. It moves the security aspects—one of the most important points—from their individual pieces of hardware on to the cloud system. So cloud e-mail and office services which are designed to provide flexible access from anywhere and virtually any device should be a truly enabling feature for Members.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) on his work and on how he has brought his business experience to bear for the benefit of the House. I am glad we are having this debate. It has been a long journey from the 1970s, when I was involved in the House of Commons Commission when it was first established. Nobody then had an idea how the House’s money was being spent, but now we are at the point where the House makes its own decisions, assisted by my hon. Friend and the Finance and Services Committee.
As Chair of the Liaison Committee, I need to ensure that the necessary cuts to the House budget—they are necessary to ensure we co-operate with the rest of the system in austerity—do not reduce the effectiveness of Select Committees and hamper us in our efforts to hold the Government to account and engage the public in our work. Subject to the Committee, I make decisions about travel and other expenditure. We try to steward our resources as carefully as we can, but the Committee has looked more broadly at resources, including in a report published today on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers.
The report reviews how Committees go about their work and the importance of it. We took a great deal of encouraging evidence. Academic research has indicated that Committees are successful in influencing Government and public debate, and that we play an important part in promoting public engagement with the parliamentary and political process. Of all the work that MPs do, the work of Select Committees is among the most accessible to the public, because we deal with subjects that relate directly to people’s lives, and our inquiries draw constantly on the evidence, and often the oral evidence, of people who experience the laws we pass. My Committee—the Justice Committee—regularly has in front of it victims of crime, ex-offenders and all kinds of people who bring their life experience to bear on the processes of the House. As much as possible, Committees take their inquiries out of Westminster, giving people who feel remote from the House of Commons the opportunity to see that our work is relevant and important to them.
Chapter 6 of the Liaison Committee report states:
“While committees greatly value the service they receive”
from the House service and external advisers,
“there has been concern among some chairs about turnover of staff in the Committee Office, the balance between generalists and specialists among committee staff, and the flexibility of the House Service to respond to the changing requirements of committee members. We have also been concerned to ensure that the current programme of cuts to the overall budget of the House of Commons should not damage our capacity to carry out effective scrutiny.”
Another concern of Committee Chairs is the increasing burdens on their staff and constituency staff that arise from the increased expectations of them—they are now directly elected. Some of those costs should fall on the House budget rather than the budget provided to assist Members in their constituency work. The Liaison Committee report notes that the Committee Office is embarking on a change programme following a review under the savings programme. Its objectives include making oral and written evidence to Committees accessible to the public, so that they can read it quickly and easily online. With that goes an end to the routine printing of written evidence. Some Committees have found that difficult to accept initially, but because of how people access information now, it is a logical and cost-saving way to go.
Another objective is to provide Committee members with easier access to Committee documents so that they can be read any time, anywhere, and that is part of using IT more effectively. Committees, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) indicated earlier, are experimenting with paperless operation—indeed, he has his iPad in front of him now—but not all parts of the parliamentary estate are equipped for this purpose. This presents a real problem, and we may have to spend in order to save, by ensuring that wi-fi is available, for example, and Committees can make the transfer from paper to online.
The programme seeks to make better use of staff resources, for example by reducing the effort now devoted to preparation for printing. These sorts of actions can reduce costs and use resources more effectively. The Liaison Committee welcomes the programme as an opportunity to improve and modernise the service that the Committee Office gives Committees and the public, but we emphasise that it is important that it should be shaped not just by the need to produce savings, but by the longer term goal of increasing Committee effectiveness. Our report recommends more stability in Committee staffing; the ability to recruit some Committee Clerks directly from outside; greater flexibility in bringing in outside experts; and a modest increase in the number of media officers to enable us to have the work of Committees better explained and properly understood in the media.
In the longer term, we would like to see funding for additional staff in Chairs’ offices, for the reason I gave earlier, and we look forward to a positive response from the House of Commons Commission to our recommendations on resources in due course.
We conclude, in chapter 6 of the report:
“Now may not be the best time to argue for increased resources, but it should be the long-term goal of the House to build up the capacity of select committees, to improve their effectiveness and status, to increase their powers and influence, and to improve their efficiency by providing chairs and staffs with accommodation and infrastructure to enable them to hold Government to account.”
When the House decided that the Chairs of Select Committees should be elected in secret ballot by the House as a whole, and that all members of Select Committees should be elected by the Members in their party, again in secret ballots, the House made an important decision about the role that Committees play. That decision has had a real effect on Committees’ self-confidence; on the way the Government treat Committees; how Committees are seen outside; and Committees’ ability to function independently and provide a scrutiny process that is different from the partisan argument about broad political policy issues that dominates the reporting of Prime Minister’s questions and such events. It is increasingly recognised what an important part of the parliamentary process the Select Committee system is, and the way in which we shape and use our resources needs to reflect that importance.
Sittings of the House
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Mr Knight
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I shall come on to Mondays shortly.
The Procedure Committee accepts that our sitting hours are a matter of judgment for the House as a whole, which is why I have tabled motions to facilitate the majority view prevailing in respect of days Monday through to Thursday. Any changes made by the House will have consequences, which I hope Members will reflect on before they decide how to vote.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I am sure my right hon. Friend would be the first to recognise that it is not just a matter of individual preference; the House does not sit only in the Chamber, because Select Committees have to meet, preferably at times when they are not interrupted by votes and when witnesses can come a long distance to attend the meetings. That explains why Tuesday mornings, for example, are extensively used by Select Committees.
House of Lords Reform Bill
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Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Yesterday we heard a string of passionate and heartfelt speeches about this, the most persistent and difficult piece of unfinished business. On the way into the Chamber we had a flurry of Twitter traffic and nudges and winks which culminated in the statement made by the Leader of the House.
After yesterday’s Liberal Democrat day in this two-day debate, we have arrived at the Conservative day. The right hon. Gentleman promised me last week that there would not be any difference in tone and approach between the two days. I have detected a slight difference since he made his opening statement, but we have now arrived at the Conservative day, opened by the Leader of the House with his usual courtesy and good humour. At least, I thought his speech was a bit dodgy at the beginning, but he recovered his humour and courtesy. The debate will be wound up by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).
The Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform embarked on a kamikaze tactic on the radio yesterday in support of the Bill when he asserted that Winston Churchill would vote for it if he were here tonight. Let me give the hon. Gentleman a little friendly advice. Never think that it is possible to know more about the political views of a great statesman, a parliamentarian and a war leader than his grandson does. If his grandson happens to be a Member of the House and might be listening to the radio while re-reading his op-ed which torpedoed Government policy in The Daily Telegraph, it is probably better to keep such dubious insights to oneself.
The Deputy Prime Minister did not make himself any more popular among those on the Government Benches when he appeared to denigrate the work of the Lords during his opening speech yesterday. It was noticeable that it took an age before any of his Liberal Democrat colleagues decided to try to help him cope with the friendly fire from behind. His cause was not helped by the Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Oakeshott, who referred to some thankfully unnamed peers as “deadbeats” and “has-beens”. I presume he excluded himself from that colourful description of his colleagues, although I am not sure the compliment would be returned.
Surely we should be able to discuss this important constitutional reform without resorting to such abuse. Surely the issue is not so much about the personal attributes of individual Members of the second Chamber as about how they came to be there.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
It is my position, as the husband of a Member of the upper House, to speak dispassionately and without disparaging that House, but surely the hon. Lady must recognise that, as in this House, a wide variety of personalities are to found there, although not a very wide variety of ages, but all its Members have one thing in common: none of them was elected to be there.
Ms Eagle
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I support replacing the current House of Lords with a wholly elected second Chamber. At the last election I stood on a manifesto that contained a commitment to legislate for a wholly elected second Chamber. On all the occasions when the Commons has considered Lords reform in the 20 years I have been a Member of this House, I have always voted for a democratically elected second Chamber, unlike everyone on both Front Benches. It is a matter of principle for me that those who legislate should always bring a democratic mandate to the task.
The Labour party is committed to an elected second Chamber, which is why we will vote for one tonight when we support the Bill on Second Reading. We will do so despite our reservations about the Government’s current proposals, which I will turn to in a moment. The Government’s decision to withdraw the programme motion today is a victory for Parliament. Although we will support the Bill’s Second Reading, we could not have supported the Government’s attempts to curtail debate with a programme motion. We welcome the fact that they have faced up to this reality and withdrawn the motion.
Ms Eagle
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. As I said earlier, both the Leader of the House and I have experience of getting Bills on to the statute book perfectly sensibly before the era of programme motions. The House is capable of doing that, and it can do it again.
The Opposition have other concerns about the Government’s proposals which we hope to explore further in Committee and on Report, but we will support Second Reading, because we believe the House should ensure that the Bill is properly scrutinised.
Sir Alan Beith
It ought to be recognised that the hon. Lady has made very constructive points this afternoon, but she is not really arguing for a motion that ensures that issues that she and other hon. Members regard as important are debated with some protected time. At the end of the day, it should not be possible to block the Bill merely because some hon. Members will continue talking with that deliberate intent.
Privilege
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Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and I join him and other Members in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for the great care and skill with which he chaired what was a lengthy and challenging inquiry.
I want to address the key point that the hon. Member for Rhondda brought to our attention: there must not be no sanction for lying to a parliamentary Committee. However, although we may like reassuring ourselves about the traditions of this House and its rights, it is not clear what the sanctions should be. It is unclear whether someone giving evidence not under oath to a Select Committee has the same obligations as if they were under oath. The Committee obviously considered that before the Murdochs gave evidence to us last July. I believe it is very important that there are consistent procedures. There should not be some witnesses who are made to swear on the Bible and some witnesses who are not.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Are we not in danger of getting into a situation where all witnesses before Committees have to appear under oath? The vast majority of witnesses who appear before Select Committees do so willingly in order to give of their information and expertise, and these issues therefore do not arise.
Damian Collins
I agree, but it should be implicit that someone giving evidence to a parliamentary Committee is telling the truth. I therefore do not think there should be a separate group of people who are made to take an oath. It should be implicit in the act of their giving evidence that they are telling the truth and openly answering the questions asked by Members of Parliament. It must be built into the processes of our methods of inquiry, particularly in Select Committees, that witnesses will tell the truth and there is some form of sanction against them if it can be demonstrated that they have not done so.
At present, however, that is not clear. It is not clear what powers the Standards and Privileges Committee has to punish or recommend punishment. There may even be a question as to whether the recommendation of a penal sentence, as the hon. Member for Rhondda suggested, would itself be open to some form of legal challenge in the courts, including the European Court, which may seek to overrule the House on any such decision. We therefore need much clearer guidance about the available punishments and the processes for summoning witnesses to appear before a Committee.
The Select Committee is posing an interesting challenge to the Standards and Privileges Committee, because in our conclusions in chapter 8 of the report we make recommendations about three named individuals—Colin Myler, Tom Crone and Les Hinton—in respect of instances where we believe they gave misleading evidence to the Committee. Members can read the report, the evidence given in previous sessions and the written evidence presented to the Committee, and thereby see that there are discrepancies in testimony and, I feel, clear evidence that we were given misleading testimony by those witnesses.
There is a second issue that the Standards and Privileges Committee must consider: the corporate guilt of News Corporation, as also expressed in the conclusions of the report, and what sanctions there should be against a company and its directors and representatives, as opposed to a named individual who has given misleading testimony to Parliament. This is an important issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon touched on it in his speech.
We must consider what in the evidence that was given has undone the News Corporation executives. They were not undone by a witness changing their story or a new witness giving evidence that was different from evidence given to our predecessor Committee in the last Parliament. They have largely been undone by documents that have always existed and were in the possession of the company, and which subsequently came to light as a result of the inquiry—by information that was always there and was always accessible to those executives, and that we believe they could, and should, have had access to. Indeed, we know that some of them—including Tom Crone and Colin Myler, who played a pivotal role in these investigations—did have access. We know that they had access to the Queen’s Counsel opinion suggesting that phone hacking and the use of illegal methods to obtain information was widespread. We know that information was received by the legal department of the company. We know that Clive Goodman suggested in his letter to Les Hinton that phone hacking was widely discussed within the company, and that that was rejected. We know that that information was known, and these executives have been undone by information that was neither presented to Parliament nor freely given but released as a result of cross-examination of witnesses by the Committee or released by lawyers or other people who chose to make it available to us. It would have been much better if the company, when it gave evidence last July, had provided that information. If the Murdochs had sought it themselves, they might have given us clearer and better evidence last July and we would have been able to conclude our inquiry somewhat sooner.
We were consistently given false reassurances about the rigour of internal investigation, the work that was done to uncover phone hacking and those who had knowledge of it. Indeed, we have received information from Surrey police that states categorically that the police discussed the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone with executives at News of the World in 2002. That was not a minor discrepancy or new information that had recently come to light; the information was known by people within that company for a very long time. Parliament was misled over a long time by some of those people and I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda that we will probably not get the full picture until the conclusion of the police investigation and any subsequent trials. I am sure that the Committee, next year or in future years, will wish to return to the matter and give the House a fuller picture of exactly what happened based on all the evidence that has come to light.
Business of the House
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Mr Heath
For the convenience of the House, it may be helpful if I say that it is not my intention later to move motion 7. There are two reasons for that: first, there is a deficiency in the printed version of the motion on the Order Paper; also, not moving it will allow further discussions with the Chair of the Liaison Committee and others on the consequences of the changes that we are proposing.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I welcome my hon. Friend’s willingness to use this unexpected interlude to ensure that, at the end of the day, Select Committees can be confident that they will have the opportunity to debate and report on the abolition of public bodies before such matters come to the Floor of the House or a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Mr Heath
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, with whom I have been in correspondence on these matters. I am keen to ensure that we have a system that fits the needs of the House in dealing with such important issues.
The first motion and the other four motions that we are debating with it arise from three considerations. First, they arise from the need to adapt the House’s procedures to spring-to-spring Sessions. Secondly, they arise from the alignment project, which was initiated by the last Administration and has been taken forward by this Government. Thirdly, it is proposed to take this opportunity to undertake some minor tidying-up of the relevant Standing Orders. Some of the changes before the House are quite technical, not to say rather long. The House will be pleased to know that I do not intend to go through them individually; rather, I shall explain their purposes. The provisions are explained in detail in an explanatory memorandum that has been placed in the Vote Office.
On 13 September last year, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House announced the Government’s intention to move the usual date of Prorogation and state opening from November to the spring, to create a fixed-term Parliament of five equal, 12-month Sessions. That decision has some consequences for financial business. The first motion before us today would adapt the House’s existing procedures for carry-over to enable the Finance Bill to be carried over from one Session to the next. The House has already passed legislation, in last year’s Finance Bill, to ensure that resolutions under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 have continued legal effect from one Session to the next. The motion makes matching provision in the House’s procedures. My right hon. Friend consulted the Procedure Committee on the proposal in February. The Chair replied on 9 March indicating that the Committee was content with the proposal.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) referred to what he described as a “queue” of Members waiting to speak, and went on to express his concerns about the proposals. I think he is seeing shadows on the wall in both respects. It seems to me that if the Government were to abuse the process that they are asking us to approve—having put the matter to the Procedure Committee on the basis on which they have put it to the House today—Members in all parts of the House would seek to hold them to account. The Government have made clear that these are changes of process to accommodate occasions on which the House does not prorogue at the normal time, and I therefore think that the hon. Gentleman’s concerns are misplaced.
The Leader of the House initially wrote to the Procedure Committee on 8 February this year asking whether the Committee was content for the Government to develop proposals to set aside the principle of sessionality in respect of supply procedure, and to provide for the carry-over of Finance Bills from one session to the next. The Committee subsequently engaged in a detailed discussion about a number of issues relating to the proposed procedure, following which we decided that we were content with it and with the Government’s reasons for proposing it..
If the House prorogues in April or May, as the Government propose, proceedings on supply will be interrupted. At present the supply cycle begins with the provisional authorisation of expenditure in November, with legislative authorisation being given in the summer. The Votes on Account are presented in November, and the House is asked to approve 45% of Government spending to cover the period between the beginning of the next financial year in April and the passing of the Appropriation Act in the summer. The principle of sessionality meant that expenditure approved in the Votes on Account had to be appropriated before prorogation.
The problem could, of course, be overcome by means of an Appropriation Act passed in the spring, as happens before a general election, but that was not considered to be an ideal solution. It would mean that the main estimate each year would contain details of only 55% of Government expenditure, the remaining 45% having already been appropriated after the Votes on Account. A further disadvantage of that approach would be that the Votes on Account contain less detail than the main estimates, and 45% of the total of public expenditure would therefore be appropriated on the basis of less detailed spending plans. It might be considered unfortunate if, at the same time as the beginning of the alignment project, a separate change meant that the main estimate only ever included 55% of the expenditure for which parliamentary approval was needed. The Government instead propose that the resolutions on which the Appropriation Act is founded should not fall at the end of a Session but should be time-limited. The Procedure Committee, on a cross-party basis, thought this was quite a reasonable way to proceed.
With a Budget in March or April, the Finance Bill, brought in on resolutions following the Budget, will not have completed its passage before the House prorogues in April or May and will have to be carried over to the new Session. It is also necessary for the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 to be amended, because under it, the Budget resolutions cease to have effect when the House prorogues.
The Finance Bill could be introduced in the new Session rather than being carried over, but would therefore not be published until May. Although a draft Finance Bill could be published following the Budget, with the Finance Bill itself being introduced in the new Session, the Government of the day would not thereby have the flexibility to introduce some proceedings on the Bill, such as Second Reading, before the House prorogued. The Procedure Committee therefore concluded that the Government’s proposals for the carry-over of the Finance Bill would not affect the opportunities available to Members to scrutinise the Bill and vote on its provisions, and there would be no impact on the length of the Committee stage, for example.
Given that the Government wish to make the Budget statement in March, it seemed to us—again, there was cross-party agreement—that the carry-over of the Finance Bill is probably the simplest solution to the problem of the House proroguing in the spring, and one that does not interfere with Members’ ability to scrutinise the Bill.
We therefore concluded that these proposals were modest and reasonable, and I hope the House will reach the same conclusion.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I am slightly surprised at the sudden growth of opposition to this motion among Labour Members. I wonder whether there is any other aspect of today’s timetabling, or other matters, that may have entered into consideration, but I could be wrong about that.
I want to welcome the action the Government are taking, but before doing so let me say that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) made what is in principle an important point: sessional discipline is significant in the way in which the House operates. It brings pressure to bear in circumstances where, otherwise, Government majorities tend to prevail; it causes them to stop and think as a degree of blockage occurs in the Lords at that stage of a Session.
We are talking about Bills—Finance Bills—founded on a Ways and Means resolution for a limited, specific and entirely explainable purpose related to the whole financial timetable of both the House and the Government. I was bemused by the idea of what state a Government trying to carry over a Finance Bill through three Sessions could possibly be in, other than the one envisaged by some Opposition Members in dealing with our current financial circumstances. This is not the debate to go into that, however.
I will deal first with the increase from three to five in the number of estimates days for this Session, which is a long Session. That is welcome, but I must put on the record the Liaison Committee’s request that there be five estimates days in normal Sessions, and our desire that that request be properly considered when we resume Sessions of the normal duration. There has been some Government resistance to that request—wait until we have at least seen more of the impact of the Backbench Business Committee. We have already seen the beneficial impact of that Committee, though, and I see no conflict there at all. Indeed, the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee are developing good ways of working together to ensure we maximise use of House time as Members want it to be used.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Alan Beith
I have a choice. I will give way first to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), then to his hon. Friend.
Sir Alan Beith
I am an avid and long-standing supporter of the principle of a House business committee. I think you would rule me out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, were I to stray too far into that subject, but let me say that that is indeed a matter that could be so resolved were that committee in existence. For the moment, however, we must look to the Leader of the House to do such things for us.
Mr Syms
It has always seemed strange to me that on estimates days we have before us vast tomes showing where the Government have switched money from one Department or one heading to another, but we tend to debate leisure centres or swimming or something else—nothing to do with money. If this House is serious about money, surely we ought to look at the estimates rather than debate some odd other subject?
Sir Alan Beith
Absolutely so, and I have been advocating that for some time.
That brings me to my next point, which is about ensuring that Select Committees, which are the proper place to look at some of the substance of the estimates decisions and the movements of money from one thing to another, have appropriate time to consider such matters—as much time as possible, so that they can conduct meaningful scrutiny. Our discussions with the Treasury and the Leader of the House about that are reflected in the motions, but we will watch carefully to make sure that Select Committees are not expected within ridiculous periods—a few days—to produce considered views on the serious substance of estimates.
To sum up, the two major points that the Liaison Committee will certainly be considering and that we want the Government to consider are that due regard is given to the Committee’s previous recommendation of five estimates days per Session, and that Select Committees have time to consider estimates properly and so assist the House in doing what many right hon. and hon. Members have long felt should be done when we deal with estimates.
Ministerial Statements
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Chris Bryant
The only response to that is, “Touché.” By definition, the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I wholeheartedly agree, that large parts of that autumn statement were pre-leaked over the weekend. Although I have my criticisms of what went on when we were in power, may I point out to hon. Members that the last Queen’s Speech was leaked? I do not think that that has ever happened before. Although you, Mr Speaker, investigated what happened—you can investigate what happens here—the Prime Minister, as far as I am aware, made no investigation into how that happened. That is a gross discourtesy to the House. In addition, figures from last year’s Budget were leaked. There is a danger that people have learned the lessons of our Government in the wrong way and are now exercising their powers incorrectly.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
In this particular respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman is doing a disservice to the Government of whom he was a member. They decided, under a previous Prime Minister, to make it known what the Government’s main legislative intentions were much earlier than is traditional with the Queen's speech, which was a welcome change.
Chris Bryant
Indeed we had a draft legislative programme, which we brought forward six months before the Queen’s speech, but that was presented to Parliament. It was not issued in a press release to the regional media or briefed to Andrew Marr. That is the process that we should adopt.
I want to raise one concern in relation to the motion. It says that, where a Member feels that the code has been broken—the ministerial code, which is written into a motion of the House as well; it is not just the Prime Minister’s ministerial code—the Member should report that to the Speaker, who would make a judgment and could then refer the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. That is not the process that we have for other standards and privileges issues, or matters of privilege. At the moment, we write to you, Mr Speaker, and you decide whether we can have a debate on the matter. At the end of that, either it is decided to refer the matter without a Division, or there is a Division, so it becomes the decision of the House to refer the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges; it is not your decision, Mr Speaker. There is a double anxiety here. The proposed process would bring you into deciding whether a Minister should be referred. That process of referral would probably mean that the Minister had to lose his job at that point, such would be the clamour among the press and so on. Equally, if you were to bring the matter to the House, the almost inevitable conclusion, given that Ministers by definition always enjoy a majority in the House, is that the matter would never be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.
Procedure Committee Reports
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Mr Knight
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but he thereby underlines my case for passing the motion unamended. He has made it quite clear that if Committees were exempt, he would not allow the use of electronic devices, whatever view we took in the House. If we wish to see the use of electronic devices, I would invite the House to reject the amendment and pass the motion unamended.
The point about participation is not one that we can ignore, either. There is an argument that Members are more likely to attend debates if they are able to do other work while they are waiting to be called. That is why I believe we should allow the use of electronic devices in Committee and on the Floor of the House.
The remaining motions on the Order Paper, which you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have indicated we may debate together, contain three sets of recommendations that share a common aim: improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny. First, the Procedure Committee was asked by the Liaison Committee to consider whether Select Committees should be allowed to table amendments to Bills and motions being taken on the Floor of the House. We agreed to look at this and think there is a case for their being able to do so, subject to certain safeguards. Any amendment tagged as a Select Committee amendment should be agreed unanimously at a quorate meeting of the Committee, and notice should be given to all its members that such amendments will be proposed for consideration at a forthcoming meeting. We have also suggested that, subject to the established conventions on selection for debate and decision, the Speaker or the Chairman of Ways and Means might look favourably on a Select Committee seeking a separate Division on its amendments where business is programmed.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Let me say on behalf of the Liaison Committee that we are grateful that the Procedure Committee has not only accepted our proposal, which originated from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but refined it, building in helpful safeguards. Is my right hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Government appear to have it in mind to use the payroll vote to prevent what we propose from happening?
Mr Knight
I hope that the Government will have a change of heart even as this debate progresses, but I rather share the right hon. Gentleman’s feeling that that may not come about.
Secondly, we also recommended that we should conduct a further experiment in this Parliament whereby Members and Opposition spokesmen are encouraged to attach explanatory statements to amendments and the Government provide explanatory statements clarifying the origin of amendments and new clauses proposed on Report.
Thirdly, our Committee recognises that although written parliamentary questions are a vital part of parliamentary scrutiny, they impose a significant cost on the public purse. Although we felt it would be wrong to consider imposing restrictions on Members’ ability to table questions in person, we think we should have a three-month trial whereby Members are restricted to a quota of five written questions a day submitted electronically.
To assist Members, we also recommended that the Government should deliver all answers to parliamentary questions to the Member concerned by e-mail at the same time as the answer is delivered to the House, which is vital. I do not know whether Members know this, but answers are delivered by a person who literally walks round the building. He takes the answer into Hansard and then to the Press Gallery, and then he puts it on the notice board for the Member. I asked a question recently, and in my case I was the last point in the journey. The House business was collapsing and I was on a train when I had a phone call from a journalist wanting to know my view on the answer to my question, which my office had not received. On checking the board, I found that it had still not got there. I therefore do not think it acceptable for Members to be the last in the queue when receiving answers to their questions. That is why we feel that there ought to be a system in place whereby Members always receive an electronic reply immediately the answer is available.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
With the leave of the House, I should like to put on record my tribute to the work of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who discharged her duties in the House assiduously and will be a very hard act to follow.
We on the Opposition Front Bench support the motion on explanatory statements put forward by the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight). The Committee’s recommendation marks progress from a position already established, and as I understand it, Government Front Benchers have also adopted the recommendation, so I hope that it receives support from all parts of the House today.
We also support the sensible recommendation on written parliamentary questions, because there are alternatives to electronically tabled written questions, and if implemented the recommendation will not curtail the opportunities for Members to table written questions, as is their right.
We do, however, believe that the motion on a Select Committee’s right to table amendments to legislation should be sent back to the Procedure Committee for further consideration, as it has not been thoroughly thought out.
Sir Alan Beith
That recommendation was introduced by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in the previous Session; it was carefully considered by the Liaison Committee; and it has now been carefully considered and substantially modified by the Procedure Committee in order to meet those concerns. Do we have another case of the two Front-Bench teams conniving to stop Select Committees and Back Benchers having rights in this House?
Angela Smith
Perish the thought.
My point is that, if we give Select Committees the right to table amendments to legislation, business relating to the Floor of the House and Public Bill Committees, will it not create the danger of Select Committees taking a much less consensual approach to their work? That is the real risk with the recommendation, and for that reason it should go back for further consideration.
I turn to the recommendation on hand-held devices. I do not need to repeat the background to the debate which goes back to the decision in 2007, because the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire outlined it very clearly. Suffice it to say that technology has moved things forward at a rapid pace—to the extent that we now have smartphones, iPads and other tablets, which have completely transformed the way in which Members conduct their business.
On top of that, we have new forms of communication. According to the Procedure Committee’s report, 225 Members tweet or have Twitter accounts, but in today’s debate we have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) state that the figure now stands at 300. That demonstrates how over a six-month period 75 Members have signed up for Twitter accounts. It also shows the popularity of the device as a means of communication, and for that reason alone Members increasingly see new forms of communication such as Twitter as making it easier for us to open up a dialogue with the world outside—with the people we serve. Those new forms of communication and technology have called into question once again how we conduct our business in the Chamber.
I was elected in 2005. At that point, I never thought that I would be standing here on the Front Bench making arguments about smartphones, iPads and Twitter accounts, but that in itself demonstrates how quickly the world is moving forward and how difficult it is for the House to keep up. It would be all too easy to step backwards and pretend that the world has not changed. We could pretend that Steve Jobs never existed and say to ourselves that the business of the House should stay true to the days of paper, pen and ink. However, to do that would be to deny reality and to deny the dynamic relationship that now exists between Parliament and the world outside. Even if we deny it, the media, quite rightly, will not. We cannot, therefore, fulfil our obligations as legislators effectively if we pretend that the world outside has not got smaller and smaller in terms of how quickly news travels.
There are advantages and disadvantages in allowing a more relaxed approach to the use of hand-held devices by Members on the Floor of the House and in Committee, for it is undoubtedly the case that members of the public sometimes object to seeing Members of this House using their phones or their iPads while here in the Chamber. If the Chair of the Administration Committee were in his place, I am sure that he would testify to that fact.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
High-speed debates sound like a very good idea, Mr Deputy Speaker.
As I did not get to warmly welcome the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) to her new responsibilities in our cameo appearances last night, may I do so now? I echo what she said about her predecessor, the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), with whom I always enjoyed debating. I wish her well in her new responsibilities.
I congratulate the Chairman of the Procedure Committee on securing this debate on his Committee’s proposals. The one area in which I disagree with him is on whether this debate should be held in Backbench Business Committee time. The Government have implemented the Wright Committee’s report, which was explicit on this matter. We hold to the position that the House should follow what the Wright Committee said on this matter. It is therefore the responsibility of the Backbench Business Committee.
I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on the motions, which I will take in order. The first motion on electronic devices is very much a House of Commons matter. Perhaps I should indicate that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I will support the motion, although some ministerial colleagues may hold other views.
Changes in technology have been swift and the Procedure Committee has taken a sensible approach in seeking to update the 2007 resolution in a way that might not need constant updating as technologies change. The Committee helpfully demonstrates how its proposed change is in line with trends in other legislatures. The concept of not impairing decorum that has been adopted by the US House of Representatives is helpful. I am sure that Mr Speaker will decide, with characteristic wisdom, how this resolution will be interpreted in practice, just as he has provided general guidance about appropriate conduct in the Chamber.
I support the comparable changes for Committees, although I have one reservation in that respect, to which the Procedure Committee has referred. Tweeting about an ongoing evidence session would be discourteous and disclosing deliberations in that way could be a breach of privilege. That is an important reservation to enter at this point.
There is no Government position on the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) and others, although enforcement of the resolution, if amended in that way, might pose significant challenges for the occupant of the Chair.
I noticed that in opposing the amendment the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) asked why Members should not receive facts while they are preparing to speak. The explanation, perhaps, is that facts would entirely demolish the speeches of some hon. Members. Of course, just because a Member has received a fact does not mean that they have to take any notice of it.
The second motion, on Select Committee amendments, is where the Government part company with the Procedure Committee, because we do not believe that the case for the change has been made. We are continuing the position of the previous Government, which I believe is still that of the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge and the Opposition. Interestingly, that position was expressed at the time by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I am not sure whether he still takes that view.
Currently, amendments are tabled in the name of a Member of the House—it does not matter whether they are tabled by the Government, the official Opposition or anybody else. The Procedure Committee argues that if an amendment appears simply in the names of members of a Select Committee, other Members may not realise its status, but I am not convinced by that.
The Government have taken a number of steps to strengthen the Select Committee system—arguably more than any Government since that of 1979, under whom departmental Select Committees were established. We have enabled the House to take the bold step of electing Select Committee Chairs, and the profile of the Select Committee system continues to increase. I believe that an amendment in the name of members of a Select Committee will almost invariably be recognised as such by the House without the need for additional steps.
Sir Alan Beith
I am very surprised to find myself in disagreement with my hon. Friend on a House matter, because we very rarely disagree on them. However, a Select Committee amendment would have had to be approved unanimously by it. Is his real fear not that of the Whips Office—that on just one or two more occasions an amendment that was not moved by a Minister might be selected by the Chair and be debated in the House? Is he not simply echoing the traditional Front-Bench view that anything that allows Back Benchers to get anywhere near getting amendments selected is far too dangerous to be permitted?
Mr Heath
It is extremely rare that I disagree with my right hon. Friend, but I do on this matter. The selection of amendments is, of course, a matter for the Chair, and if the Chair feels that a Select Committee’s members are proposing an amendment that needs to be debated, it will be selected. However, it is a serious concern that under the Procedure Committee’s proposal three members of a Select Committee, who would form a quorum, could obtain a Committee’s imprimatur for an amendment. That amendment would attribute to all members of the Committee a position that was held only by those present at a meeting. I do not think that that does the House a service.
Sir Alan Beith
I want to make a further correction, because I do not want to delay the debate any further by making a speech—I want the rail debate to go ahead.
My hon. Friend must recognise that any member of a Committee who felt dissatisfied with an amendment tabled in the name of their Committee, their having been notified of a meeting but not gone to it, would make that abundantly clear. Indeed, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) made it clear at the beginning of the debate that he did not support the motion moved by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight).
Mr Heath
I am sure an hon. Member in that position would make their dissatisfaction abundantly clear, but equally it does not seem beyond the bound of reason that a Chair of a Select Committee could make it abundantly clear that he or she was presenting an amendment in the name of the Committee. The same arguments apply, and I am not persuaded by my right hon. Friend, which is why my ministerial colleagues and I will vote against the motion.
I turn to the third motion, on explanatory statements on amendments, and the remarks of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The crux of what she said was that the Government were being unreasonably obstructive and unhelpful in their approach. However, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is quoted in the Committee’s report as having said:
“I would certainly not oppose the continuation of explanatory statements”.
The report also quotes my comment:
“I am certainly happy, as far as the Government are concerned, for that experiment to proceed.”—[Official Report, 3 February 2011; Vol. 522, c. 384WH.]
It might be said that the barriers that we have sought to erect to prevent it from happening are rather low indeed. I repeat today the Government’s position that we will support the recommendation. However, it is important that we express caveats for the benefit of the House.
Sir Malcolm Jack KCB
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Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
It is a pleasure to offer, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, support for the motion in recognition of the work of Sir Malcolm Jack. Forty-four years is an extraordinarily long time in the service of the House. I always find it worrying when people who have been here longer than I have leave, for one reason or another. Like policemen getting younger, it is a reminder of things one does not want to know about.
Sir Malcolm arrived here from a background which was, in those days, not conventional, and all the better for that. He had been educated at school in Hong Kong and attended Liverpool university where he got a first- class degree. It is a model not sufficiently followed, perhaps, even in subsequent years and one to which we should return to draw a wide breadth of talent into the service of the House. It was certainly not a mistake to recruit that Liverpool university graduate—quite the contrary. It was a very wise move.
In the course of Sir Malcolm’s time here, it has been a pleasure to be able to talk to a scholar of achievement and repute, which marks him out, and that has been of great benefit to us. But the line in the motion that most appeals to me is the reference to his “courteous and helpful advice”. If the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) self-deprecatingly described himself as the fool who started the argument with Sir Malcolm Jack, I was the slightly wiser man who sought his advice. It was the Justice Committee which asked the Clerk of the House to give us evidence, took that evidence from him, published it in a report and made it available to the House so that it had a powerful effect on the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. I think we all acknowledge how important it was to protect the rights of our constituents that are embodied in that unhelpful phrase, “parliamentary privilege”, a subject on which he has a surpassing knowledge.
While supplying that “courteous and helpful advice” and doing the things that Clerks traditionally do, Sir Malcolm was continuing a process by which the Clerk of the House became the chief executive of the House—a pretty challenging process and one in which he has helped us significantly. It is a process that will continue under his distinguished successor, and its difficulties and challenges must not be underestimated. The fact that Sir Malcolm coped well with those is a mark of the respect in which we now hold him and is a further and particularly compelling reason why we should thank him for his service to the House and wish him much happiness, enjoyment and scholarship in the future.
Business of the House (Today)
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Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Will the Leader of the House confirm that, because the following motion will reduce the time available for the estimates debates tabled by Select Committees, an opportunity will be provided to debate the Prevent strategy—likely to be the one squeezed out today—at a later date?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question and I can give him that assurance. He is entitled to injury time and it will be provided.
Question put and agreed to.