Select Committee on Governance of the House

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Some years ago the Victoria and Albert museum ran an advertising campaign that said, “An ace café with quite a nice museum attached.” In a sense, Parliament is not the first institution that has a core function, which is to be a legislative body, but also has access to the public. There is nothing new in the problem we face, which is to be not only inward looking but outward looking in reaching out. We just need to face up to that. The requirements for running the ace café and for running the museum are quite different, and we need to acknowledge that, particularly as we have huge restoration functions and greater access to the public. As Members have said, we have not run this House in the best possible way.

The second issue relates to legal advice and the fact that we are a legislative body. As a Member, there have been two occasions in which I have had to draw on legal advice. One was when I was representing this House at the Convention on the Future of Europe in Brussels. To the Foreign Office’s dismay—two Members of this House may remember this—I decided to take Mr Speaker’s legal counsel with me, because I thought that the advice I would receive would be a darn sight more wide-reaching. The second instance was as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee when we held the inquiry into the extremely unfortunate death of Dr David Kelly. Those were events where we needed extremely deep and sensitive legal advice, which was very specific to this House.

First and foremost, we must remember that our function is as legislators. To be effective legislators, we must reach out. To reach out, this place must be run effectively and efficiently. The best thing we can do now is to draw a line under what has happened in the past and to stop sniping at Mr Speaker. If we do not accept his support and acknowledge his authority, this place will not function. The sooner we can move on with the Select Committee and arrive at a decision that allows us to move on in 2015 so this place can function going into the general election, the better.