Council of Europe

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman was part of the original constitutional Select Committee, the Wright Committee, which recommended that all Committees of this House should be elected. Does this whole incident not demonstrate that not only should such European committees be elected by the House, but House Committees should be elected as well?

[Mr Allen]

That is absolutely right. We have already seen slippage. I will not go into any detail, but the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was abolished by Government Front Benchers who decided that they did not want it to continue with some of its work. We have seen stalling for six years on the creation of a House business Committee, to which all parties said they would sign up. We are now seeing an erosion of the principle that the secret ballot should rule when we appoint colleagues in the House to representative positions outside it. This is an area of very great concern. It should concern Members of independent mind and none. Members should hold the line on this very significant issue. It has been painted as trivial, but it is actually one of the most fundamental things a Parliament can discuss.