Procedure Committee Reports

David Heath Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman said that the agreement was on the voluntary introduction of explanatory statements, but we are driving towards something mandatory. In his response to the Committee’s report, words such as “significant burden”, “lukewarm support”, “inconclusive” and “disappointing” strongly suggest that the Government are not firmly behind our proposal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The lukewarm response was not from the Government—this Government and previous Governments have been happy to table explanatory amendments—but from other Members who showed not the slightest inclination to do so. That is the concern.

Let us go back to the origins. The experiment with explanatory statements on amendments was first proposed by the Modernisation Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), in its 2006 report on the legislative process. The Committee envisaged that the main benefit would be helping Ministers and civil servants to understand the intention behind Back-Bench and Opposition amendments, so that the Minister was prepared to address the issues that the Member wanted to debate and to respond to the queries or concerns being raised. They were envisaged as a vehicle for Back Benchers to explain their amendments, rather than for the Government to explain their amendments, for which there are many other mechanisms. Despite that, and although the Government have participated fully in each pilot, the take-up by Back Benchers has been low and has declined since the first pilot.

We have to acknowledge the resource implications. The Procedure Committee was told in the previous Parliament that the general application of explanatory notes to all Committee papers would cost the House services alone more than £100,000, and the costs would be greater still if applied on Report. That takes no account of the staff resource implications for the House services and the Government. The Government agreed to provide explanatory notes to all amendments in previous pilot schemes, and the Procedure Committee envisaged a mandatory requirement for Government amendments on Report. At the same time, however, the Committee rejected imposing such a requirement on others. I take it from what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said that she would like that to apply mandatorily to others. There is some justification for that, but there is little justification for the current asymmetrical approach.

If the motion is agreed to, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will write to the Procedure Committee with proposals for the pilot. This is the last chance to show that the voluntary approach for everyone other than the Government could work as originally envisaged by the Modernisation Committee. We will want the experiment to demonstrate clear value-for-money benefits to the House, and if it does not, we might decline to support any further proposals along the same lines.

I support the final motion on written parliamentary questions. Again, the proposal is for a pilot scheme involving an earlier cut-off point for electronically tabled questions and a daily quota of five written questions that could be so tabled for an experimental period of three months. The right to table questions belongs to hon. Members and hon. Members alone. If the experiment encourages Members to take a closer interest in questions prepared by their staff, that would surely be a good thing. The average cost to the taxpayer of tabling a question is £239. Although overall quotas are not proposed, I am sure that hon. Members will wish to be mindful of the costs of what they do. We are keen to ensure that all written questions receive timely, substantive answers. If the pilot leads to “fewer, better questions”, as the Procedure Committee hopes, I would hope also to see quicker, better answers. We will provide the statistics on the timeliness of answers in the current Session on the timetable requested by the Procedure Committee.

To end where I began—on the theme of technological change—I can confirm that the Government are keen to work closely with the House authorities to take forward proposals for the electronic distribution of answers, which would benefit all Members.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—