Parliamentary Reform

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, which was incredibly helpful.

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

With great respect to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), the Procedure Committee has in fact started its work and we had a very useful opening seminar in Portcullis House last week to take evidence from a variety of sources. The work is under way.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Thank you, Mr Benton. I will take careful note of what you have said and restrict my comments by not repeating many of the points that other Members have raised. However, it would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate.

I repeat the fact that I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and I have listened carefully all afternoon to the points everyone has made, and will continue to do so for the rest of the debate. I do so with an open mind. It is important that matters of parliamentary reform be considered from the basis of how we can best do our job most effectively. What is the best way that we can conduct our affairs for the benefit of our constituents?

One major problem is not so much the quantity of legislation that Parliament produces, but its quality. I am obliged to the Hansard Society for drawing my attention to the increasing volume of legislation that has been passed by Parliament over the years:

“In 1950 Parliament passed 3,690 pages of legislation. By 1970 this had grown to 5,990 pages and by 1990 to 8,940. But just over 15 years later the number of pages had almost doubled to 16,031.”

Looking just at criminal offences, it states:

“All criminal offences passed between 1351 & 1988”—

a period of 637 years—

“are contained in one volume of Halsbury’s Statutes of Criminal Law encompassing 1,382 pages of law. The offences for the 19 years between 1989 and 2008 are contained in three volumes encompassing 3,746 pages!”

There is plenty of evidence that whatever else Parliament may be criticised for, it certainly cannot be criticised for lack of productivity. Whether we are producing legislation of high quality is another matter. One idea, if I could throw my six penn’orth into the reform idea pot, is for more pre-legislative scrutiny and the improvement of the legislative process. That would have a virtuous effect. The biggest problem, which I think sums up the whole debate, is how best to use our time. To solve the problem of defective legislation would in itself be an enormous boon, because we would then spend less time sorting out the problems created by poor, inadequate and inefficient legislation. I hope that is one area that we will be able to look at in the course of proceedings.

Finally, I caution Members that before we go down any road of reform we look at the procedures that are already available to us and ensure that we are already using them to full capacity. For example, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who I congratulate on her tremendous work as the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, made mention of the work of Committees. I entirely agree that Committees are a useful tool for the House, but I wonder whether we are using them as effectively as we could. As evidence, I would cite the one power that all Committees have, except a very few dealing with private Bills, which is the power, almost never used, to take evidence on oath under the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871. It is a rare power, but it already exists and may be something that we could use.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is right. In fact, I would make it standard for all Committees to take evidence on oath. It is extraordinary that often Committees want somebody to give evidence but never go through the process of forcing them to attend, which is still technically possible. For example, Rupert Murdoch is one of the most significant players in British media and in British society, yet he has never appeared before a Select Committee of this House, nor has any member of the Murdoch family. That is extraordinary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. As my vicar reminds us every Sunday morning, Parliament is the “high court” of Parliament. Perhaps through our Select Committees we could take such matters more seriously and ensure that witnesses do attend when they are asked to appear to give evidence before Committees. At this point, I thank the first three speakers in this debate, all of whom appeared before the Procedure Committee last week to help in our deliberations on the reform of sitting hours.

I am conscious of the fact that many have spoken but that many still wish to speak, so I conclude with a final comment from the Hansard Society’s report, which is worth our bearing in mind. It said that new measures may destabilise existing procedures and create inconsistencies and unintended consequences that undermine the coherence and rationality of the process as a whole. I caution all Members that we must be wary of the unintended consequences of any reform that we propose and upon which we embark.