Backbench Business Committee

David Heath Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I beg to move,

That—

(1) this House endorses the principle that parties should elect members of the Backbench Business Committee each Session and thereafter when a vacancy arises in a secret ballot of all Members of that party by whichever transparent and democratic method they choose.

(2) Standing Order No. 122D (Election of Backbench Business Committee) shall be amended as follows—

(a) line 7, at end, insert—

‘(ba) No Member may be a candidate for the chair of the committee if that Member’s party is represented in Her Majesty’s Government.’;

(b) in line 12, leave out from second ‘of’ to end of line 14 and insert ‘a party represented in Her Majesty’s Government and no fewer than ten shall be members of a party not so represented or of no party’;

(c) line 28, leave out paragraph (2);

(d) line 64, leave out sub-paragraph (b); and

(e) in the Title, after the word ‘of’, insert ‘chair of’.

(3) Standing Order No. 152J (Backbench Business Committee) shall be amended as follows—

(a) line 7, leave out paragraph (3) and insert—

‘(3) The chair of the committee shall continue as chair for the remainder of the Session in which that person is elected as chair unless the chair is declared vacant by the Speaker under the provisions of Standing Order No. 122C (Resignation or removal of chairs of select committees) as applied by paragraph (3) of Standing Order No. 122D (Election of Backbench Business Committee).’;

(b) in line 12, leave out ‘and members’;

(c) line 21, at end, insert—

‘(6A) The Committee shall have power to invite Members of the House who are not members of the Committee and who are of a party not represented on the Committee or of no party to attend its meetings and, at the discretion of the chair, take part in its proceedings, but—

(a) no more than one Member may be so invited to attend in respect of the same meeting;

(b) a Member so invited shall not move any motion or amendment to any motion, vote or be counted in the quorum.’.

As the House will be aware, the Select Committee on Procedure, which is chaired with such distinction by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), is conducting a review of the Backbench Business Committee. The Government look forward to contributing to that review and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House looks forward to giving oral evidence. I am sure that the whole House will look forward to the conclusions set out in the review and the Government will certainly consider any recommendations very carefully.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for his preamble. In the light of what he has said, why do the Government consider it inappropriate to leave this motion until after the Procedure Committee has reported?

[Mr Heath]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. Having already said what a splendid fellow he is, I am happy to address the issue that he raises. We expect the Procedure Committee’s conclusions to be of great value, as they have been on a number of other topics. I want to emphasise that today’s motion is not intended to pre-empt the review—[Interruption.] Well, it simply does not. It makes three changes that need to be made this Session in order to take effect before the next elections for members of the Backbench Business Committee and therefore before the completion of the review. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, those changes arise in part from points made in evidence to the Procedure Committee’s inquiry into the 2010 elections and that Committee itself envisaged changes as regards minority parties being made in advance of the review.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for giving way and I apologise as I am chairing a Committee upstairs at 4.30 pm and will therefore be unable to stay and listen to the end of his remarks. As a member of the Procedure Committee, I thought I would raise the notion that the question of whether the Committee should be elected on a party basis is a difficult matter that I shall be considering very carefully during the forthcoming proceedings of the Procedure Committee. In the meantime, given that he is proposing to make that change without such consideration having taken place, I have no option other than to vote against the Government this evening.

[Mr Heath]

I am sorry to hear that, obviously, but it is for the House to make that decision in the light of today’s debate. There would be very little point in our determining that we should have made a change to the process of election after the elections had been held for the next Session. It seems appropriate to me that the House should have the opportunity, as it does today, to consider the matter and come to a conclusion. The will of the House on whether it wishes to make the suggested changes will then prevail.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it is for the House to make its decision as this concerns House of Commons business. Will he tell us whether Government members and parliamentary private secretaries are being whipped on this business, and if so why?

[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to ask his right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary about the position on whipping. There are motions on the Order Paper for debate later today that very much reflect the Government’s position on the conduct of business. On those matters, it is quite clear that right hon. and hon. Members who are members of the Government will be whipped to support the Government view, and they are of course here as a consequence.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, it is perfectly possible that the Government will get this motion through, without any of the amendments that have been tabled, on the back of a payroll vote. Will he undertake that if that does happen and the Procedure Committee then decides that it wants to take the House down a slightly different route, he will table motions to allow that to happen in the next Session?

[Mr Heath]

I have already indicated that we will want to see the Procedure Committee’s conclusions. It has been the practice of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and myself to bring forward motions to allow the House to consider the Procedure Committee’s recommendations. I do not think we have anything to be ashamed of in that respect as we have been very careful to ensure that the House has opportunities, where possible, to determine these matters. Obviously, we shall have to wait and see what emerges from the Committee in due course.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way but he still has yet to explain why he and the Government are pre-empting the Procedure Committee’s findings, particularly given one of its last known findings, at paragraph 59 of its latest report, which stated:

“We have received no adverse comments on the arrangements for the elections to the Backbench Business Committee”.

Can the Government justify their position?

[Mr Heath]

There was limited scope for complaints about elections to the Backbench Business Committee because, certainly on the Government side of the House, there were no elections: the Members who serve on the Committee were elected unopposed. However, the Procedure Committee proposed that we needed to consider the position of minority parties and I assured Members from the minority parties when we first debated this matter that we would look into this and come back with proposals. I think we would be deficient in our response to the House if we were not to have that debate before the opportunity arises to vote again on the Backbench Business Committee.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for using the word “deficient” because his proposals for the minority parties are clearly deficient and unsatisfactory. Our being given observer status on a Backbench Business Committee—a Committee of the House—as though we were second or third-class citizens of the House is totally unacceptable to us, so if this is all about the minority parties and the smaller parties, he can forget it.

[Mr Heath]

I am rather minded to forget it. I went to a great deal of trouble to address the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman asked me to consider when we first debated this. He asked for his party and the other minority parties to be allowed to put up candidates for election as the Chair of the Committee. That is what we are proposing today and he says, “Forget it.” Well, we shall see whether he supports the contention when it comes to the vote.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I think I should make a little more progress as I have yet to explain what the proposal is, but I will come back to right hon. and hon. Members who wish to contribute.

The motion aligns the method of election to the Backbench Business Committee with that for other Select Committees. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) might feel aggrieved that he does not have representation on all the Select Committees of the House, but he does not because, on the basis of the formula, he does not have enough party members in the House to have that level of representation. The motion provides protection against unwarranted interference by a future Government in the election of the Chair—something that some hon. Members were very concerned about. We propose to give the House an opportunity to determine that issue today. The motion provides also for participation by the minority parties, however ungrateful they may be, in the Committee.

Nearly a month ago, the Government’s response to the Procedure Committee’s report was published. It stated quite explicitly that

“the Government believe that it would be appropriate for the House to address the anomaly whereby members of the Backbench Business Committee other than the Chair (unlike those of other select committees) are elected by the House as a whole rather than by Members of the political party to which they belong before the next elections of members. The Government propose to allow time for consideration of proposals to this effect towards the end of the current Session.”

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Should not a strong and confident Government accept whatever kind of scrutiny the House thinks is appropriate? Does the hon. Gentleman not get the mood of the House today? Everyone who has spoken so far today and, I think, those who have not spoken believe he should withdraw the motion and await the proper conclusions of the Committee?

[Mr Heath]

I prefer to hear the preponderance of voices in a Division, rather than take a snapshot of how the House may feel before it has had a chance to hear the debate. It is for the House to determine which way it wants to go on the proposals—

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

I shall make a little more progress. I have been reasonably generous in giving way to hon. Members, and I will no doubt be sufficiently generous again.

The Government could not have been clearer about their intentions. There has been some suggestion that the motion has been sprung on the House without notice or at the wrong time. I suggest that that contention is without merit.

When moving the motion which led to the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee on 15 June 2010, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House pointed out that

“For the first time in over a century, the House will be given control over significant parts of its own agenda.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 779.]

That shift in control is one which this Government facilitated and to which they remain fully committed. The subjects of debate and the form that motions for debate take on the equivalent of 35 days a Session, including at least 27 days on the Floor of the House, are now properly a matter for the Backbench Business Committee. The debates chosen by the Backbench Business Committee have helped to raise the public profile of the House of Commons, and increased public awareness of the crucial role of the House in holding the Executive to account. The subjects chosen might well not have been chosen by the Government, or indeed by the Opposition, and have been challenging for us. That is part and parcel of the switch of power that the Wright Committee envisaged.

The Government are committed to the continuing role of the Backbench Business Committee, and to providing the time to that Committee in a Session of normal length which is set out in Standing Orders. The motion before us today does not affect in any way the Committee’s powers or its role.

The first change addresses an anomaly in the method of election of members of the Backbench Business Committee. At present, all members of the Committee are elected by the whole House. This is wholly appropriate for the Chair of the Committee, who represents the whole House, but it may not be appropriate for the other members. It is wrong in principle that, for example, the choice of Opposition Members on a Committee could be decided by the votes of Members on the Government Benches, who will inevitably outnumber them.

I read a comment in the electronic media earlier today—because of the anomaly, why do we not change the rules for all the other Select Committees to match those for the Backbench Business Committee? The reason is obvious. If we were to do that, the Government of the day would control who the Opposition parties put on Select Committees. The House would rightly be outraged if that were the position, yet that is the position that we currently have with the Backbench Business Committee.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the Chair of the Public Administration Committee.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

No doubt my hon. Friend has seen the evidence submitted by Dr Meg Russell to the Procedure Committee, in which she expressed her view that to go down the route he has chosen

“would be very much contrary to the spirit of what the Wright Committee intended.”

Is not the answer that the Backbench Business Committee is a special committee, not like an ordinary Select Committee, and that its Chair should be selected in the same manner as the Speaker and represent the whole House, as indeed should its members? That is what Wright intended. Why is he departing from Wright?

[Mr Heath]

As I said when responding to the debate on the original motion to set up the Backbench Business Committee, Wright is not holy writ and should not be treated as such, not least because there are internal contradictions in the Wright report, just as there are sometimes in holy writ. Therefore, the House has to take a view on what is in the best interests of its procedures. That will be for the House to decide. I simply contend that it is a strange situation where the biggest party represented in the House can override the interests and decisions of other parties in deciding who its representatives on the Committee will be. I would have thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex had confidence in the ability of his own party’s procedures —I am afraid I have no specialist knowledge of them—to make a proper determination of who should serve on the Committee on its behalf.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex that different considerations apply to the Chair of the Committee, as he set out, which is why we propose that the Chair should continue to be elected by the whole House, with one proviso: we think that the Government should not provide the Chair, for perfectly obvious reasons. The situation is exactly analogous to that of two other Committees—the Standards and Privileges Committee and the Public Accounts Committee. There is a strong argument in favour of the Committee’s decisions not being seen as the result of some sort of internal collusion between the Government and the legislature, and I think that the clearest way of indicating that they are not is to ensure that the Chair comes from a party that is not represented in Government.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

So, the Deputy Leader of the House can of course give us an assurance that the Government are not seeking to change the rules now because existing members of the Committee have proved too independent.

[Mr Heath]

I can give that clear assurance, because I have absolute confidence that the members elected by the party groups will be every bit as independent as those elected by the whole House, and perhaps even identical in person. What I am trying to do is prevent the potential abuse of that process, which could clearly happen under the present rules. I hope that each of the parties, through their internal mechanisms, will have sufficiently robust structures in place to ensure that the Whips, if they come running to Back-Bench Members to have a particular Member elected to the Committee, will be robustly told where to go. But we shall see, because that is internal to the various parties and their internal democratic processes.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am struggling a little to follow the argument the Deputy Leader of the House is making. If it is the case that the present Chair and members of the Committee have been conducting themselves excellently, why change now in a hurry when we are still waiting for a report? If the Government are so concerned about this—perhaps there is a point I have overlooked—why did he not bring in the arrangement he is proposing at the beginning of the process? Why are we bringing it in when the process is well under way, given that the people who have been running the Backbench Business Committee appear to be doing such a splendid job?

[Mr Heath]

I have already said why. We are doing that now because we are about to have elections, and we do not change the rules of elections after elections. It is normal practice, and normally more constructive, to change the rules before elections, rather than afterwards.

The hon. Gentleman asks why we did not start from a different basis. I accept, and the House is fully aware, that we started with the draft proposals from the Wright Committee, and it was obvious then that what applied to the Backbench Business Committee was different from what applied to any other Select Committee. The precautionary principle in elections to other Select Committees exists for a reason: to stop interference—in a party political way, between the parties—as to who on Select Committees should represent Members. I think that is quite an important principle, but the House must decide whether it considers it to be an important principle. If the House considers it to be nugatory, the House will vote accordingly.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I realise that my hon. Friend is keen to bring the rules of the Backbench Business Committee into line with those of other Select Committees, so why does he not propose to bring it into line with Standing Order No. 151(11) so that its members are elected for the whole Parliament, rather than for a Session at a time?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman raises a separate issue, one that we explored at length when we set up the Committee. The answer is that the Committee is a Committee of the House which deals with the topical issues before it, and it is right that Back Benchers have a regular opportunity to express their view on its performance; I make no apologies for that. It is sensible that the House has such control, because if we were to elect the Committee’s members for an entire Parliament, the House would lose that opportunity to reflect on, or to see, whether the Committee was conducting itself as the House had hoped.

That is entirely different in kind from the responsibilities, within a Select Committee, of Select Committee members, who need such continuity in order to do effectively their job of holding to account the Department in question. To my mind there is a clear separation, but the hon. Gentleman may take a different view. I am simply confident that the House is capable of making decisions about the way in which it conducts its affairs, and of doing so without the benefit of distortions of any kind in the system. That is what is proposed today.

[Mr Baron]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Heath]

I am going to have to make some progress very soon, because I have gone very little distance in explaining the tenor of my comments, but I will give way once more to the hon. Gentleman, as I am a very generous man.

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend is being very kind, but in all these exchanges he has singularly failed to answer one simple question: why are the Government pre-empting the findings of the Procedure Committee?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman says that I have singularly failed to answer the question, but I have answered it several times; he simply does not like the answer I have given. There is a subtle distinction between not answering and others not accepting the answer. As I have said, the answer is that this is the opportunity we have before the elections.

The Procedure Committee will not report before the elections are due, and I do not want to put any further pressure on it to complete its report in a hurry, because these are very important matters on which we want the full benefit of its advice. It is no good crying after the event if it proves that we have made an error in our election of Members to the Backbench Business Committee. That is why the House has been given the opportunity today to consider whether it wants to make the changes that I have suggested.

The motion achieves that—

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Heath]

Yes, but this will be the last intervention for some time.

[John Hemming]

On that point, the problem so far in getting Procedure Committee debates on to the Floor of the House has been the Government allocating time for the Backbench Business Committee so that the Committee can allocate time to debate a Procedure Committee report. If the Government were to promise to allocate time immediately to debate a Procedure Committee report, there would be no difficulty in getting that through in time for the elections.

[Mr Heath]

There is one small difficulty with that, which is that the Backbench Business Committee is precluded from putting forward time for amendments to its own constitution. That is why it has to be a matter for the Government, and why we are providing time today, and would provide time in future, to consider the results of the Procedure Committee report.

The motion achieves what I have been describing by a simple endorsement of the principle that parties should elect members of the Backbench Business Committee each Session, and thereafter when a vacancy arises, in a secret ballot of all Members from that party by whichever transparent and democratic method they choose, following the same approach as that agreed for other Select Committees on 4 March 2010. In consequence, we are, if the House agrees, removing the provisions in Standing Orders for elections of members of the Committee other than the Chair. The amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and others would remove the provisions whose purpose I have described and retain the current arrangements. Given what I have said, it will be no surprise that I will not support those amendments, but it is open to the House to do so if it wishes.

The second element of the motion relates to the Chair of the Committee, and I have already indicated why I believe that it introduces a beneficial change. The Government believe that it would not be appropriate for a Member from the governing party, or parties, to be nominated for the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, because that might give rise to the Government’s appearing to seek to influence a key position in the House in an improper way. Having an Opposition Member chairing the Backbench Business Committee headlines the Committee’s independence not only from the business managers—of whom I am one, on behalf of the Government—but the influence of the Government party generally. My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) stood for the post of Chair in 2010, when the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) was elected, and his wisdom and experience have subsequently been deployed in his service as Chair of the Administration Committee. However, conventions evolve over time, and we think the time is now right to recognise that the Chair should be held by an Opposition Member.

At the same time, we are taking the opportunity to remedy an anomaly in the Standing Order that was identified by my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and referred to by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire during the debate on 15 June 2010—namely, that at present no Member can be nominated for the Chair unless he or she belongs to a party with at least 11 Members of this House. I acknowledged on that occasion that my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman had identified a possible defect in the Standing Order that needed to be considered, and I am pleased to move this motion to remedy it—[Interruption]—despite the protestations of the hon. Gentleman who, it seems, is never satisfied. We propose to replace it with a provision that requires cross-party support of comparable strength but allows Members from minority parties to stand for Chair of the Committee.

Finally, the motion makes provision for hon. Members from parties not represented on the Backbench Business Committee to participate in its work. The motion allows the Committee to invite an hon. Member who does not belong to a party represented on it to participate in its proceedings, including deliberative sessions, but not to vote. It would be for the Committee to decide whether to invite one hon. Member for a Session or a shorter period or to invite different hon. Members to different meetings. [Interruption.] The Government believe that this effectively addresses minority party concerns—although clearly, according to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, it does not—in a manner consistent with the principle that the composition of the Committee should reflect the party composition of the House. The hon. Gentleman protests from a sedentary position that it does not reflect it because he wants full membership of the Committee, but that is not the way in which this House has determined its membership of Select Committees, whereby such membership reflects the composition of the House as a whole. It seems to me that that principle of proportionality is something that the House would wish to maintain, because otherwise it becomes open to the House to distort the composition of the House as represented in the membership of its Select Committees, and I am not sure that the Backbench Business Committee should be separate from that consideration.

We made it clear in our response to the Procedure Committee, which was published last month, that we do not agree with the proposal for full membership for a minority party Member. Our proposal allows for the participation of hon. Members from different parties, as and when the Backbench Business Committee considers it appropriate, whereas the amendments would provide for only a single hon. Member to participate. That is why we oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire and others.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) would apply the principle of whole-House elections to the election of a minority party Member. That is instructive about the conduct of this whole debate. Were the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire and the amendments to them tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley successful, the larger parties in the House would determine not only which Member from the minority parties would appear on the Committee, but which party would be represented. That would put the larger parties in the inappropriate position of deciding whether it should be a Member from the Democratic Unionist party, the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru who was selected for the position. That amply demonstrates what is wrong with the current system of elections.

In conclusion, the motion will change the elections for the membership of the Backbench Business Committee and how Members participate in its work in a way that enables the Committee to continue to work effectively. It will make those changes at the right time—in fact, the only possible time—before the membership is settled in the next Session. The motion will facilitate the Committee’s effective operation in the future and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I am sorry; I do not have enough time.

I could stand for the position of Chair of the Committee, but I have as much chance of becoming its Chair as the Deputy Leader of the House has of becoming the SNP Member for Somerton and Frome. There is no chance whatsoever of a member of one of the minority parties being allowed—

[Mr Heath]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I will give way briefly to the Deputy Leader of the House.

[Mr Heath]

If it is of such little consequence that the hon. Gentleman could stand for the position of Chair, why on earth did he make such a song and dance about it two years ago?

[Pete Wishart]

What we were making such a song and dance about was membership of the Committee. I should be delighted to be able to stand for the position of Chair of the Committee as a member of the Committee, but for me to be able to stand for that position without having a place on the Committee is utterly and absolutely ridiculous.

We in the minority parties will have to have a think about this. We cannot have a Backbench Business Committee of some of the House; it must be a Backbench Business Committee of the whole House. We decided that we would involve ourselves with the Committee over the last two years, despite our great disappointment about what happened. We were reassured by the Chair, who has been fantastic with the minority parties, and who has been able to work with us to ensure that we could at least secure some of our debates. However, we will now have to take a good long look at our relationship with the Committee. I suggest to other members of the smaller parties that we should be saying, “If you, the House, do not want us, why on earth should we have anything to do with you?” If this is to be a Back-Bench Committee consisting exclusively of members of the Government parties and the Labour Opposition, why should we have anything to do with it at all?

We must ensure that the Backbench Business Committee is a Committee of the whole House. The present arrangements are nonsense, the idea of observer status is absurd, and I appeal to the House to back the amendments and ensure that we have equality in the House. There are five other political parties here. There is more than just a Labour Opposition; there are other members, there are other parties, and we must ensure that we are properly represented in the House. The Wright Committee has been a disaster for the smaller parties. We have effectively been turfed out of Select Committees, and now the same is happening with other Committees in the House.

I urge Members to back the amendments. I urge them to ensure that there is justice for the smaller parties, and to ensure that we have a Backbench Business Committee that represents the whole House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

It is a good thing that Chief Whips are not required to speak in these debates. We have heard some full tributes to the work of the Backbench Business Committee from the Deputy Leader of the House and his shadow, and I would be very surprised if the Government Chief Whip would be able to utter the same words of praise and thanksgiving for the work of the Backbench Business Committee, because the Committee has been an utter pain for the Government Whips Office. It is no good the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) nodding her head, because the Committee has been bringing to the Floor of the House issues that very often neither Front-Bench team wanted brought here—they wanted to suppress them. That has been the great strength of this Committee.

If the coalition Government have a problem with who was elected to the Backbench Business Committee or how it was elected, they have nobody to blame but themselves, because some posts went uncontested. That shows a remarkable lack of assiduousness, given how the Whips Offices usually try to influence such elections. We should have no doubt that this operation today is an exercise designed to reduce the accountability and responsiveness of the Committee.

Let us briefly consider the detail of the motion. Most important is the proposal that the regularity of elections will reduced: they will be held once per Parliament. If this motion goes through, the election in the new Session will be the last this Parliament—

[Mr Heath]

No.

[Mr Jenkin]

I beg my hon. Friend’s pardon if I misunderstood things, and I stand corrected.

The motion is also determined to reduce the way in which the membership of the Committee reflects the views of the whole House, on the basis of the spurious idea that parties voting for Members of other parties have a malign intent. The Chair is to be chosen from the Opposition, but that will reduce the Chair’s authority. The great authority that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) has is that she was elected as much by the votes of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats as by the votes of the Labour party. She was not a choice predetermined by the Standing Orders of this House and it was not a predetermined choice that she was chosen from her party.

For all those reasons, we should want to defend the existing system, not least because the Wright Committee intended the election of the Backbench Business Committee and its Chair to be carried out on a different basis from the elections to the other Select Committees. The Deputy Leader of the House keeps saying that he has given a reason for needing to pre-empt the findings of the Procedure Committee. He may have given a “reason”, but it is an excuse and a motive; it is not a justification for pre-empting the findings of the Procedure Committee.

I wish to conclude by making a brief point. Those of us from the previous Parliament who went through—how shall I describe it?—the purifying fire of the expenses debacle came out of it determined that things should change in this House, that politics should change and that at least some of what happens in this House should be taken out of the ghetto of the Westminster political parties talking to themselves. Are we now seeing this House reverting to type? Are we seeing the vested interests beginning to reassert themselves? I urge this House to be ever more vigilant to make sure that that does not occur and ever more vigilant because we are seeing today how determined the forces of darkness in politics can be.