Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I hope and believe that there are common values on this issue throughout the House. It is something we have legislated on and we seek to pursue it in the public sector. The evidence today suggests that we have made more progress than appears generally to be the case in the private sector. The hon. Lady will recall that equal pay day in the private sector was 27 August. We have to make progress on the issue. If an opportunity arises for a debate, not least through the Backbench Business Committee, I for one would welcome it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May we have a full day’s debate in Government time on Britain’s rapidly increasing population? Official statistics suggest that Britain’s population will increase from 63.7 million today to 73.3 million in 2037 and that we will have to absorb another city the size of Greater London, which will put huge pressures on our public services, social cohesion, jobs and wages.

[Mr Lansley]

Those are interesting figures from the Office for National Statistics, although they are in the nature of a forecast, some aspects of which we can influence and some we cannot. For example, over roughly the past decade, this country’s birth rate has gone up by, I think, about 16%. There is a limit to what we can do. The increase in population is also a result of increased longevity. The combination of those two things will inevitably mean an increase in our population and we have to respond to that.

We must therefore ensure that we manage migration into this country better than has been done in the past. That is why we set ourselves the objective of bringing net migration down from a quarter of a million a year to the tens of thousands. We have made considerable progress and have reduced net migration by a third. We need to continue with that because of the simple fact that an increase in the total population creates pressure on resources.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

If my recollection is correct, I believe I heard Foreign Office Ministers refer to this matter during Foreign Office questions. I will check if that is the case. If it is not, I will talk to them and ensure that they write to the hon. Gentleman and consider at what point it might be appropriate to make a written statement to the House.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

We all enjoy the contribution from the shadow Leader of the House, but this week she made a good point about the number of special advisers in the Government. If she is right that there are 19 special advisers in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, that, quite frankly, is a disgrace. May we have a statement on how many special advisers the Deputy Prime Minister has and when he plans to cut that number?

[Mr Lansley]

I apologise to the shadow Leader of the House for not answering that point. My recollection is that last week the limit on the number of special advisers was further reiterated by my colleagues at the Cabinet Office. If I may say so—this will not make me popular with my hon. Friend—it has to be understood that coalition Government creates special circumstances and a necessity for independent sources of advice to the two parties working together in coalition.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I was quite depressed at what the report said on the progress young people are making. Clearly, literacy and numeracy are the foundations on which all further achievement in education depend, and are critical for work and everyday life. We need to do more work to raise the quality of English and maths throughout the country. Our reforms to schools and further education will improve the quality of the teaching work force, reward the best providers and ensure that learners are stretched to achieve the best they can. He might have heard the Minister for Schools set out in his statement last week exactly what we are doing to ensure that standards in all schools are improved.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Like most of my constituents in Kettering, I believe that if a foreign national commits a crime they should be sent back to their country of origin and banned from re-entering the UK. That very sensible policy platform is outlined in my Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill, which is scheduled for debate tomorrow. Are the Deputy Leader of the House and Her Majesty’s Government inclined to support that sensible policy?

[Tom Brake]

I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill and his concern about foreign nationals who commit crimes. We will listen to the debate on his Bill, but I cannot reassure him today from the Dispatch Box that the Government will support it.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am happy to report that the Immigration Minister is available and ready to introduce the Bill presently. As my hon. Friend will have noted, I have announced a date for its Second Reading, so that we can make progress with a vital measure that will ensure fairness in relation to access to services and the country’s immigration structures.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Like me, the Leader of the House represents constituents who are heavily affected by the A14. He will have been as saddened as I was to learn of a fatal car accident that occurred in the summer on the A14 near Kettering, in which two young people in their twenties lost their lives because a drunk driver was driving along the road in the wrong direction. That drunk driver was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment by Northampton Crown court. Along with many of my constituents, I feel that that simply is not enough. May we have a statement from the Ministry of Justice, or a debate on the Floor of the House, about the sentences that are imposed on people who kill passengers on our roads as a result of either bad driving or drink-driving?

[Mr Lansley]

I entirely share my hon. Friend’s distress at what happened. The character of such events, not only on the A14 but on other roads, is very disturbing. My hon. Friend may have heard the Prime Minister say, during Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday, that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice had asked the Sentencing Council to review sentences for driving offences, including the offence of causing death through dangerous driving. I will refer my hon. Friend’s question to the Secretary of State for Justice, and will try to establish when he may be able to report further on the issue.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady might be interested to know that on the Tuesday that we return after the conference recess, the Ministry of Justice will be responding to questions. I shall draw the Department’s attention to the point that she has made—it might be able to respond in the meantime—but that might otherwise be an opportunity for her to raise that important constituency issue.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In 2007, the High Court rejected a bid from a pupil to be allowed to wear her niqab in class. The staff powerfully argued that they needed to see her face to see whether she was paying attention, engaged in her work or distressed. Subsequent to that ruling, the Department for Education issued guidelines permitting schools and colleges to insist that they be able to see pupils’ faces at all times, and this week Birmingham Metropolitan college did just that. Will my right hon. Friend urge the Department for Education to reissue its guidance so that the public can see that Birmingham Metropolitan college has acted entirely within the rules and applied what most people in this country would regard as a common-sense policy with regard to the visibility of students?

[Mr Speaker]

I trust we can have a statement or a debate on the matter as well.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will draw my hon. Friend’s early-day motion to the attention of the Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson). I know that the people in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) will be grateful to him once again for raising their concerns about community services.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

When will the Bill to ensure that foreign nationals will be charged for using the NHS come before the House? Will it address the concerns of the constituent who wrote to me this week to say:

“As an NHS nurse of 33 years…I find I am providing care for elderly patients with chronic health needs who have never lived in the UK at any point of their life, who have come to live with their family members who have recently settled in the UK…most recently from Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia”?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will recall that, the week before last, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health published a consultation relating to access to NHS services for those coming from abroad. That consultation will enable us to introduce the legislation described in the Queen’s Speech later this year. On my hon. Friend’s point about his constituent, any NHS services provided to older and retired people from other European Union member states can be charged back to the member state, and that is what we do.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) thought momentarily that he was speaking from the Front Bench rather than the Back Benches.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Trusting that the Leader of the House is an honest fellow who is sensitive to the mood of the House at all times and given the comments that have been made today, may I urge him to reconsider his decision and to hold the debate and vote in September? Given that most of Europe, and especially the European Commission, goes on holiday in July, August and early September, I am sure that a delay until our September sittings would do no harm at all to our renegotiation prospects.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

As I hope I am able to do for all MPs, I will endeavour to secure a response to the hon. Gentleman in relation to his continuing problem with his constituent.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

This week we have learned that, over the past three years, the BBC has spent £25 million on severance packages for 150 senior executives, a quarter of whom received more than they were entitled to, while in Whitehall a permanent secretary has accepted a severance package of almost half a million pounds, £200,000 of which was in the form of a discretionary payment. My constituents in Kettering are outraged at this public sector largesse. May we have statements from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport about the abuse of licence fee-payers’ money and from the Cabinet Office about what it will do to stop mandarins getting excessive compensation payments?

[Mr Lansley]

If I may, I will not repeat myself; I am sure my hon. Friend will have heard what I said earlier about the BBC and about what the role of the Public Accounts Committee might be. I shall raise the other issue with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), or the Chief Secretary, both of whom are very concerned about the issue.

Wright Committee

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest, and he is making a powerful case. Page 27 of the coalition agreement, which brought the present Government to power, says in black and white:

“We will bring forward the proposals of the Wright Committee for reform to the House of Commons in full—starting with the proposed committee for management of backbench business. A House Business Committee, to consider government business, will be established by the third year of the Parliament.”

Why does the hon. Gentleman think the Government have not fulfilled their pledge, which is written in blood in the coalition agreement?

[Mr Allen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I also congratulate him on being an obvious example of those colleagues in the House who put the parliamentary interest above the alternative Executive interest, and he is always courageous in doing so. He makes a good point about the coalition agreement, although I do not wish to intrude on private grief between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat partners. However, the Liberal Democrats were always great reformers when they had no chance of being in government. On many of these issues, I agreed very much with their views—even more than with the Labour party’s views. However, the appeal of those views seems to have lost its glitter for them in the past three years, as the seduction of being in government, and of being seen to be the leading personalities in the Government, has overtaken the desire actually to do something about this issue. The Labour party should take cognisance of that.

On the specific point about why the Government have done nothing, I will let the Minister respond, because he is better placed to do so. He will be able to tell us the ins and outs of why the problem has occurred and why nothing has happened. What we have seen is, however, part of the process of integration; it is almost reminiscent of the old show trials, in that people are put through the fire and made to recant. Sometimes they have to appear in the dock, holding up their trousers because their belt has been taken away, as in the 1930s movies of the reformed Communist party in the Soviet Union. However, perhaps the Minister is wearing a belt today—I look forward to finding out.

It is strange that the indignity involved here is crystal clear because, as the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) said, the words are in the coalition agreement. There is no room for equivocation in the words he read out, as the agreement says the changes “will” happen. None the less, the Minister, whom I have a lot of time for, and the Leader of the House get up in public to recant and deny; they tell us what their sins were and say they will not repeat them, even though their earlier words are written, as the hon. Gentleman said, in blood in the coalition agreement, which apparently governs the country. That is a great shame, because hard-won manifesto commitments and sacred commitments in coalition agreements between parties should not be cast aside lightly or quietly. One reason I applied for the debate was so that the House could see—should it wish to—why such a strong promise has been broken.

Those who believe in the parliamentary interest, as I and most other people in the Chamber do, need to prepare for the next opportunity. Opportunities are rare, but in 2015, when a new Government come to power, there will be a brief moment when further progress can be made on reforming the House. We should do that not in a starry-eyed way, but in the certain knowledge that if we press too far, the Executive will block any serious change. We need to be ready for incremental change, and we need leadership and commitment from various parties to make it happen.

The hon. Gentleman has tempted me to talk a little about the coalition. My assumption is that there will be an attempt before the 2015 election to differentiate the two coalition partners. I hope that the Conservative party takes the opportunity to restate its commitment to this issue, particularly as it may, in the past few years, have witnessed Parliament operating more effectively than at any point during my time in the House. I also hope that the Liberal Democrats will rediscover their tradition of democratic reform, which is much needed. I hope, too, that Labour party Front Benchers will see that just running the machine without an effective Parliament—that keeping Parliament down and placated —is choosing to tackle our nation’s serious problems with one hand tied behind our backs. Let us become an effective partnership, with Parliament doing its job and its duty of making the Government better.

The Wright process introduced much of which we can be proud, but still there is a great deal to be done. Many in the large 2010 intake of new Members thankfully take the progress for granted, but they should know that much of it was incredibly hard won, and was fought for over decades. It needs to be preserved and extended in the face of Executive power—a power that is unfettered by a clear constitution. That power will always try, when the opportunity arises, to regain total control over its parliamentary vassal and vehicle, if there are no bulwarks against that inevitable process to prevent the internalised culture in Whitehall from making its mark. That process has been made more difficult by the fact that the Government are a coalition. However, a return to one-party business as usual will bring a strong revival of Executive retrenchment and many people will be licking their lips at the prospect of putting Parliament back in its place where it belongs, to do what it is told. I speak not out of fantasy, but as one who served some time in the Government Whips Office and saw that process. I saw a clear demonstration of how that power is used against the parliamentary interest.

It is incumbent on all of us who believe in an independent Parliament to outline the next steps in the unfinished business of the Wright Committee and to help to formulate some proposals. Then, in the brief window after 2015, if all the other astrological conjunctions occur as they did at the time of the Committee, it may be possible to take a few more steps forward. First, however, let us celebrate and take a rare moment to savour some of the achievements.

The election of Select Committee members by MPs in a secret ballot, rather than their being appointed by the agents of the Government, was one of the biggest steps forward. Some new Members do not believe that things were ever done in another way. I warn them that they were, for my political lifetime, done differently, and that, if parliamentarians are not vigilant, those days could return. The second achievement was the election of Select Committee Chairs by MPs in a secret ballot of the whole House, meaning that they now speak for Parliament and their colleagues, rather than being awarded their chairmanship as a consolation prize for losing office, as often happened. That has led to a glimmer of an alternative path for parliamentarians who want to pursue a legitimate, respected and honourable trade as a member of the legislature, disdaining offers of office and feeling that their role is not to be in office, but to hold the Government to account.

[Mr Allen]

Select Committee Chairs, of whom I am one, regard their post as the most incredible honour—particularly now that it is awarded by colleagues. The quality of Select Committee work has improved immeasurably in the past few years. The quality of the reports, and the fact that Chairs speak not only for their Committees but for the House, mean that there is greater strength in what they say. Their effect as well as their status has improved. I can give only a personal answer to the hon. Gentleman, who is strident in his support of the parliamentary interest as opposed to the Executive interest, often at some cost to himself. For me, the honour of being a Select Committee Chair is a great thing, and I did not seek it for recompense. I would be happy to have a personal assistant for the Committee—not a Committee Clerk—because I would regard that as a greater advantage and help to me, in the job that I do, than the extra payment. I do not even know what that payment is, but perhaps we should all put those sums into a pool to strengthen the efforts of our Select Committee structure and build it even more strongly.

The final achievement, in addition to the election of Select Committee members and Chairs by secret ballot, without the assistance of the Government or the alternative Government to help Members decide, was the creation of the Backbench Business Committee, which enabled Parliament to get the smallest toehold to show that it can run even a small part of its own business with maturity and creativity. I commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who chairs the Select Committee, and I am delighted to see her in the Chamber. She did not always agree with the direction of the Wright Committee, but she has turned herself into a central figure—whether she likes it or not—in the reform of the House of Commons. I congratulate her on the serious and mature approach of the new Backbench Business Committee. Everyone thought that if we had such a Committee, civilisation would collapse, but it has proved its case.

Perhaps above all, the Backbench Business Committee gives us the confidence to say, “We can do this; we do not need some unnamed civil servant”—I shall not name anyone, but they know who they are: the most powerful people in British Government who run the House of Commons. My hon. Friend can do her job capably, and Select Committee Chairs can run their Select Committees very well. The House should take confidence from the progress of the Backbench Business Committee and, instead of fearing that something might be lost, should use it as a base from which to build an ever-stronger and more independent House of Commons and Parliament.

What is the unfinished business? The main thing is the creation of a House business committee. Parliament is not allowed to set its own agenda, or even to be consulted on it, other than in the most ritualistic, formulaic way. Remarkably, the very Government who are meant to be held to account set the agenda of the institution that, theoretically at least, is meant to do that holding to account. If this were any other walk of life, the average High Court judge would throw out such an arrangement as counter to natural justice, but in Parliament we swallow the mythology and treat it as part of everyday life, without challenge. It takes centuries of self-deception to get normally intelligent people to swallow that without question, but we are now being given the opportunity, through the Wright Committee proposals, to question that seriously—perhaps for the first time.



I do not mean that the Government should not get their business. I am clear about that, as was the Wright Committee. We introduced stringent safeguards, up to and including the nuclear weapon enabling the Government to vote through the business statement if they ever felt the slightest bit challenged. It is not a weapon that we give the Government gladly, but it is there if they want to take it up. However, the Government getting their own business need not mean that Parliament cannot be properly involved and consulted on its own agenda. The Backbench Business Committee proved that that can happen without civilisation collapsing. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that I chair will report on that issue soon, and it is no secret that we shall try to propose ways forward—being co-operative, and being partners in the process—that will not make the Government anxious. Parliament might be the emaciated pet mouse of the 800 lb gorilla of Executive power, but we are ever conscious of how sensitive and highly strung our master is, so our proposals will not be too frightening—I say that to all Front Benchers listening attentively everywhere.

There is a lot more unfinished business beyond that of the House business committee. The Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee is still not elected effectively and properly, for example. We are grown up enough, as many democracies are, to elect our own person. It beggars belief in this day and age that we are treated like children incapable of making decisions on such sensitive matters. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire might want to say more in her contribution, but timetabling Back-Bench business for Thursdays lowers its status. A number of Members take the opportunity to go early. If we were properly respected, much, if not all, of that business would be taken at times when we could guarantee greater attendance in the House. That needs to be examined so that we can do that job properly.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech immensely. He is making a good point about Thursdays, but of course it is not the whole point. In the early days, Back-Bench business on Thursdays often had a votable motion, and the attendance proved to be large, the votes were well supported and the debates much enhanced.

[Mr Allen]

There is a nuance in the debate on votable motions for Back-Bench business. In setting up the Backbench Business Committee, I certainly felt that we did not want to frighten the Government, and I was not in favour of votable business from the Backbench Business Committee. That now needs to be reconsidered, however, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, who chairs the Committee, will mention that, too.

One area where we could perhaps make immediate progress is on having more votes on the recommendations of carefully put together, impartial Select Committee reports. The Select Committees of this House, which are now not the creatures of the Whips but are elected independently, should be capable of speaking for the House and making recommendations on policy, with some of the key recommendations heard on the Floor of the House. I hope we can take that matter further as part of the unfinished business of Wright.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Meacher]

Yes, but it is also true that when more controversial issues are discussed—although the great advantage of the Backbench Business Committee is that a lot of issues that would never arise in the House, but are of great interest to a significant proportion of the public, are debated—as the last vote is often on Wednesday at 7 pm, those debates are not sufficiently well attended to secure a vote that would properly reflect the balance of the whole House. Of course, many Members depart for other commitments on a Wednesday. That is their choice, even if many of us think that they should not do so, but the temptation to do so, because of the organisation of the agenda, is considerable.

Private Member’s Bills are largely marginalised because they are confined to Fridays, when most MPs are in their constituencies, and there is a high voting bar to secure Second Reading. Such Bills are also subject to severe time constraints, and they can be readily squeezed out due to filibustering on prior Bills taken the same day.

The Report stage of Bills is crucial, but it is often a caricature of scrutiny: inadequate time is allotted to consider extremely important issues; many Members—I will return to this point—are not properly informed about what they are voting on; and many significant amendments are simply not reached at all. Equally, Lords amendments, which generally focus on issues that are not only the most controversial, but the most important, are frequently not given the time and consideration that they clearly deserve. Given the time pressure, less important business is often given a measure of priority that could be challenged.

All those drawbacks and deficiencies could begin to be redressed by the principle of a votable agenda. I repeat that the Government would still command a majority in the House, but they would have to listen much more carefully to the strongly held views of Members, particularly when there was a consensus between the Opposition and Government Back Benchers. Crucially, it would introduce transparency into setting the agenda, which could involve all Members, not simply Front Benchers engaged in discussions through the usual channels behind the scenes.

The Wright Committee envisaged that the votable agenda motion would supersede Thursday’s business questions, and that it would be subject to debate and amendment, with the Speaker having the right to select and group amendments as happens now with other business. If an amendment was selected, it could be debated for up to 45 minutes, with time-limited speeches of perhaps five minutes. If no amendment was tabled, there could of course still be a question and answer session, which would be similar to what happens now.

Clearly a votable motion could be presented by the Leader of the House and amended via the formalities of open debate on the Floor, followed by a Division. However, the whole process of agreeing the business agenda—agreement is the key point—is likely to be far better negotiated, in a more inclusive and participative manner, if there have been detailed discussions between representatives of both the Executive and the legislature beforehand. Surely all Members must agree that openness is key to achieving better democratic accountability. Regular meetings—perhaps weekly—between both sides, in the forum of a House business committee, are much more likely to secure the outcome that the management of Government business is a genuinely shared process that is not subject to hidden traps that the House discovers only later, at considerable cost, as happens all too often at present. The object of the exercise is not in any way to aggravate the Executive or to contest votes, but to build a consensus. It is about involvement in the actual decision making for the scheduling of Government business, not merely the scrutiny of decisions already taken.

I shall say a quick word about how the House business committee might work, as several questions need to be settled. First, it should not pre-empt, incorporate or supersede in any way the excellent work of the Backbench Business Committee, which has been referred to strongly in the debate. That Committee has an entirely separate function and, by general consent, has fulfilled it extremely well. It has established the right of Back Benchers to debate issues that otherwise might never have been debated, which often does not accord with the wishes of either Front Bench team. That should continue and not become confused with the very separate role of specifically scheduling Government business.

Secondly, if the House business committee is not to be the usual channels writ large, it should not be chaired by either the Government Chief Whip or the Leader of the House. Since the essential characteristic of the chair should be exercising a non-partisan role, the obvious person to chair it would be the Speaker.

Thirdly, the membership of the House business committee—of course, considerable discussion of this issue is needed—should be equally balanced between the legislature and the Executive. In a Committee of 15 members, for example, the Executive could choose its own seven representatives, while the other seven might be composed of, say, three chosen by the Opposition parties and two elected by Back Benchers—in other words, excluding Front Benchers—with two ex-officio members, whom I would suggest could be the Chairs of the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee.

Fourthly, the secretariat would have to be provided both by the seconded civil servants who work for the Executive and by the Clerks whose broad role is to support Parliament in holding the Executive to account. Any disputes between them would have to be settled by the House business committee itself.

I want to make another key point very quickly. An utterly essential and fundamental way of improving the scrutiny of Government legislation is to ensure that Members have a clear and readily available opportunity to ascertain exactly what they are being asked to vote for when amendments or new clauses are considered in Committee and on Report. At present, especially on Report, Members who have not participated in the Bill’s Committee stage often do not know, or have made little effort to find out, precisely what they are voting for. Many times, when the bell rings and, like everyone else, I troop down the escalator through to the Palace, I turn to whoever is standing beside me, of whichever party, and ask, “By the way, what are we voting for?” Perhaps a third of Members shrug their shoulders. Another third say, “Oh it’s the Social Security Bill,” and when I ask, “Yes, but what exactly are we voting for?” I doubt that more than one or two Members actually know. I am guilty of that too—I am not being holier than anyone else, but that seems to be a huge failing.

This is a matter of great significance because Report is often the only real opportunity—especially if the Minister and Government Whip have kept the Committee stage of a Bill on a tight leash—for the House to modify a Bill. The debates on Report are usually focused on important issues about which the public hold strong views. It is a reasonable assumption that if the public were aware that matters of considerable importance to themselves were treated in such a cavalier fashion by many Members, if not most, and that they vote blind without even knowing what they are voting for, there would be a huge outcry that Parliament was abusing its proper functions.

If a Member is diligent—and some are—it is necessary to obtain a copy of the Bill, a copy of the amendments and, on the day of consideration, a copy of the grouping of amendments selected by the Speaker. Of course, a number of Members with a particular interest will do that but, in most cases, they will be in the minority. In the absence of obtaining the necessary documentation, applying it to understand the point at hand, which is quite difficult, and reaching a considered view—perhaps after taking account of arguments advanced by letter or e-mail from interested individuals or organisations—the default position is for Members to troop in, see on which side their Whips are standing, and just follow them into the Lobby like sheep.

Even if a Member took the trouble to get and read the relevant documents, however, it is often difficult for someone who has not been following a Bill closely to understand precisely what an amendment is designed to do. Some amendments—even important ones—may seem obscure to someone who is not familiar with the underlying arguments behind a Bill, and I think that that is a very serious flaw.

A key proposal to remedy that problem from the Wright Committee and the Parliament First all-party group, which I chair, is that every amendment or new clause tabled by the Government, the Opposition, the smaller parties or individual Back Benchers should have a short statement attached to it of no more than 50 words that explains the measure’s purpose. Those statements would be set out on the amendment paper, and one would appear at the bottom of every amendment.

Let me turn, for one minute, to the objections to that proposal—apart, of course, from those of the Whips, whose control over every aspect of the parliamentary process might begin to be questioned more. The only objection raised, as far as I know, is that while the Government have their civil servants to deal with amendments and to provide explanatory statements, the Opposition do not have the same resources, and adding a requirement for explanatory statements would impose too great a burden. To put it simply, I think that that is utterly untenable. It takes a great deal of time to get to grips with a new Bill, to consult outside experts over all its detailed aspects, to identify areas in which modifications need to be sought and to draft amendments in an acceptable parliamentary form. However, once all that has been done, drafting a short statement that distils the essence of the amendment would take no more than seconds. I hope that explanatory statements, as well as the House business committee, are something that the Government will look on favourably and introduce quickly.

[Mr Hollobone]

rose—

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

Order. I want to call the first Front Bencher at 10.40 am, so I call Mr Hollobone to make a very short speech.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Crausby. The establishment of the Backbench Business Committee, under the outstanding chairmanship of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), has been a tremendous success and the outstanding advance of this Parliament. Gone are the days when the Chamber is empty for debates chosen by the Government. Whether the motions are votable or not, Back-Bench business debates attract keen interest, and the public want to see Parliament busy.

The Backbench Business Committee shows that Parliament can run its own affairs, which is why a House business committee should be established along the lines that hon. Members have indicated this morning. E-petitions need to be taken away from Her Majesty’s Government and given to Parliament. After all, the big green bag that sits on the back of the Speaker’s Chair is Parliament’s big green bag, not the Government’s.

The Committee of Selection needs to be elected by the whole House and its hearings need to be held in public. Hon. Members need to present themselves in front of the Committee, under the scrutiny of TV cameras, to justify their place on a Bill Committee.

This is my personal favourite. If we can hold the Executive to account, it does not matter where in the Chamber hon. Members sit. They should be able to sit on either side of the House, because Parliament’s function is not primarily to represent one’s party; it is to hold the Government to account on behalf of the constituents who elect us all.

Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry to hear about the case in Gwent, although I do not know the circumstances and cannot comment on it directly. In my county, I am pleased to say, the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable are working together very effectively. It is clear that that should rest on the chief constable and the police service understanding that the police and crime commissioner has a democratic mandate to set priorities and strategy and allocate resources, and they should respect that. At the same time, police and crime commissioners, like the police authorities that preceded them, should respect the police’s responsibility to take charge of operational matters.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

With the sixth fastest household growth rate in the whole country, the borough of Kettering has many new residential developments that have unadopted roads. There is effectively no legal mechanism whereby the local authority can force developers to develop the roads to an adoptable standard. Unless they are adopted, there are no parking controls, no proper street lighting and so on. May we have a statement from the Department for Transport on the legal mechanisms it could make available to local authorities to get roads up to adoptable standards?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an interesting point. In my constituency, which, like his, has had many recent developments, many such roads have been adopted, so it is clear that many authorities are taking up the opportunity that exists. However, I will of course talk with my friends in the Department for Transport to secure a fuller answer for him. If he wishes to raise the matter on behalf of his constituents, Ministers will be here to answer questions on 27 June.