Business of the House Commission Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

That was it. I have it here somewhere, unless somebody has pinched it. Here it is: “The Coalition: our programme for government”. Let us remember that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives got together; there were four wise men and they produced this brilliant document—it was, to be fair, how the coalition governed for that duration, and they pretty much stuck to it. There is one section I rather like and have always liked, on page 27:

“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.”

Brilliant, I thought. We have created a Backbench Business Committee, but it seems that they forgot to move on to the House. I once asked my Chief Whip at the time when we were going to get that. He said, “Over my dead body.” I could understand why the Chief Whip on our side does not want to give up power, but then I realised that the lot over there were not complaining because when their Chief Whip gets into power, he wants to do exactly the same.

The previous Speaker had a little word with me. He said, “Peter, I don’t think this Government is going to bring this in.” I said, “It’s in the bible—it’s there!” He said, “No, Peter, they’re not going to do it.” When I challenged the Government on it, they said there was no agreement. Hang on a minute. There was agreement from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, who were a really powerful party in those days. There were 50-odd of them—certainly more than now. The Labour party was supportive of it, too. How could they argue that there was no agreement?

It is great to see the excellent Minister here. We have always agreed, including on my Bill on constituency boundaries, which went through. In fact, in Committee, she actually debated my Bill by accident and not the Government’s Bill. All we are doing today is agreeing with something that everyone agreed with back then, when there was a crisis in Parliament.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case for the Government to give up control of the timing of Parliament.

Turkeys might talk about Christmas. They might promise Christmas at election time. They might write about dreams of Christmas in optimistic documents with other ends. But why, when it comes to it, would turkeys ever vote for Christmas? How could we persuade them to do so?

[Mr Bone]

The first reason they should do so—in this particular case—is that it is good for them. This change will happen only when there is a Government in crisis, which is why the Wright reforms produced the Backbench Business Committee and the election of Select Committee chairs; they were all magnificent reforms. We now have an opportunity. Some argue—I could not possibly put this forward—that there is a bit of a crisis going on in the Government at the moment. Maybe one reason is that they have taken Parliament for granted. They have not done what they are supposed to do.

Did the Leader of the House suggest earlier this week that we have a presidential system, and there might have to be a general election if there is a change of Prime Minister? Hang on, we do not have a presidential system, and I happen to know that if the President is removed, there is always someone to replace him—there is never an election, so I did not follow that logic. The real issue, which has driven me and many people in the House up the wall, not least Mr Speaker, is the announcement of Government policy to the media first. That is not behaving properly in this House. That is an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs and it needs to be changed. If Downing Street is in a listening mood at the moment, which I think it may be, it needs to do something and stop that. I do not want to see any reports announced by “Sky News”, rather than by a Minister at that Dispatch Box.