Backbench Business Committee

Graham Allen Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

We are implementing the recommendations of the Wright Committee, of which the hon. Gentleman was a distinguished member. The Wright Committee said that the committee should have between seven and nine members, and we are proposing that it should have eight members—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman may not have been able to persuade other members of the Wright Committee to recommend a larger business committee that would have greater opportunity to include minority parties, but the proposition—

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

May I attempt to help the Leader of the House?

[Sir George Young]

If the hon. Gentleman will help me, I will of course give way.

[Mr Allen]

I cannot remember an occasion on which I did anything other than help the Leader of the House. I even attempted to help previous Leaders of the House. I shall try to elaborate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd). The Back-Bench committee is the culmination of a process. When it meets and puts its report to the House, that will be the summit of a process that will involve much wider and deeper consultations with all parties and any Back Bencher who wishes to participate. So we do not need to have a vast, all-encompassing committee that would be too bulky to work properly. The members of the Wright Committee felt that that was an appropriate approach and we had no intention of trying to freeze anyone out.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I may give way to him later if I feel that he can elucidate my points as well as he has just elucidated that one.

I turn now to the question of why the committee should be elected every year. The committee will have power to schedule business in the House and Westminster Hall. Given the significance of this, we believe that members of the committee should be accountable to their peers for the decisions they take in scheduling debates. This will not affect the eligibility of the chair and members, who will still be able to offer themselves for re-election. This will be by secret ballot, so there is no question of Members coming under the malign influence of the usual channels in making their choices. As well as providing accountability, it will, I hope, also provide a way of bringing new blood on to the committee from time to time, to keep its thinking fresh.

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[Sir George Young]

I am not sure that I buy that point. The object of the Back-Bench business committee is to reflect the views of the House in selecting the agenda for discussion. I am not sure that a display of heroic independence—to an extent that led the committee away from the centre of gravity of the House—is what the committee should be about.

Motion 4 defines Back-Bench business and provides for the committee to have 35 days at its disposal in the House and in Westminster Hall. This is one of the central recommendations of the report, but it is important to remember the bigger picture. The Wright Committee noted:

“The single greatest cause of dissatisfaction…with current scheduling of legislative business in the House arises from the handling of the report stage of government bills.”

In implementing one part of the Wright report, it is important not to undermine what another part of the same report says. In addition, the Back-Bench business committee is only half of the picture, and we must not lose sight of the progress that we want to see made in the third year of this Parliament on a House business committee. The creation of a House committee—looking at both the scheduling of Government and Back-Bench time as a single entity—will be better able to balance the time more effectively between debates and scrutiny.

I shall explain briefly how the proposals will work. The committee will have a total of 35 days at its disposal, which equates, as the Wright Committee recommended, to about one day per sitting week. The time will be divided between the House and Westminster Hall. The Liaison Committee will have 20 Thursday sittings in Westminster Hall for debates on Select Committee reports, and all other Thursdays will be for business determined by the Back-Bench business committee. Each of these Thursdays will count as half a day towards the total allocation of 35. In a typical Session of about 35 sitting weeks, therefore, the committee will use seven or eight days of its allocation in Westminster Hall debates, and the remainder—about 27 or 28 days—will be taken in the Chamber. Some of that time may be taken in the form of 90-minute topical debates, under Standing Order No. 24A, which will count as a quarter of a day; and I am happy to say that I see no difficulty in accepting amendment (a) to motion 4, which encapsulates the 27 days in the form I just outlined.

It may also be helpful if I say to the House that it is my intention to invite the Procedure Committee to consider whether the sittings in Westminster Hall could be extended to allow for sittings on Monday afternoons. That would provide the Back-Bench business committee with even more flexibility in how it schedules business. In future, it will also be for the Back-Bench business committee, not the Government, to schedule debates on pre-recess Adjournments, on set-piece debates on defence, Welsh affairs and international women’s day, and on topical debates. These decisions will rest entirely in its hands, and just as I am accountable to the House for Government business, so it will be so accountable for Back-Bench business.

Finally on the Wright Committee recommendations, we propose that the operation of the new system should be reviewed at the beginning of the next Session, in late 2011. I recognise that there is concern about the reasoning behind this review, but the object of the review is to enable the House to move forwards, rather than, as some have said, to wind back. There is absolutely no intention to shut down the Back-Bench committee after the first Session. We are committed to establishing a House business committee, dealing with both Government and Back-Bench business, by the third year of this Parliament, so a review of the Back-Bench business committee any later than that would make no sense. I would therefore urge the hon. Member for Nottingham North not to press his amendment deferring the review until the beginning of the next Parliament, which, as I said, will be after the House business committee has been set up.

I shall now deal briefly in turn with each of the remaining motions on the Order Paper.

[Mr Allen]

If having a review every year is such a good system, will it be extended to decisions on Select Committees, the occupant of the Chair and perhaps even to Government Ministers? If it is so good to review everybody and put everything up in the air annually, does the Leader of the House intend to extend the practice?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman was a distinguished member of the Wright Committee, which said that its recommendations needed to be implemented in stages. To that extent, the proposals before the House are different from those that govern other Select Committees, which are well established and do not need to be subject to review to make progress. For example, I have just outlined that we have not gone the whole way on the 35 days—they will not all be allocated to the Chamber—but I hope to make progress, and the review that I have outlined will enable the Government and the Back-Bench committee to see what progress has been made and how the momentum might be driven further forward.

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[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for that intervention, which deals with a very important point that I will briefly touch on. There is a problem with the way Fridays are run, but because of how the motions were laid before the House by the Executive, as I said before, I am rather limited in what I can say on that particular point.

[Mr Allen]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I am sorry that he has had to delve into the internecine conflict between the Conservatives and Liberals who now occupy the Front Bench, so I will try to help him back to the core of the issue. Does he accept that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, this is not about quantity, but about quality? If we had fewer private Members’ Bills, perhaps even only six, but they were brought to a conclusion, that would be much to the credit of this House. On this more than any other issue, people outside this House look to us. Interest groups, charities and others invest immense amounts of time in the process, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), who incredibly managed to get two such Bills through. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we could do better by focusing on that area?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who shows great interest in these matters. I am aware that I am in danger of getting somewhat out of order here, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I would say that the hon. Gentleman is both right and wrong. Yes, we want quality, but we also want the same number of days, so I do not accept that it is an either/or choice. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to speak of an alleged dispute between the two parties on the Front Bench. I have an interesting quote from the Leader of the House, who was most helpful in the January debate. He was quite right to say he could give no commitment, but let us look at what he did say on 6 January 2010:

“It is important that the House jealously protects private Members’ time… Of course, I sympathise with my hon. Friend’s desire to maximise the number of days for private Members’ Bills.”

He went on to say that one of my

“more compelling points was that in a shorter Session, the number of days decreases, but in a longer Session, the number does not increase. The House may want to revert to that in the context of the Wright debate and allocating the future business of the House.”—[Official Report, 6 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 227.]

Of course, that is exactly what tonight’s debate is about. I do not think that there is a division among the Front Benchers on that. Furthermore, when the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House were in opposition, they were supportive, and I am sure that nothing has changed just because they are now sitting on the Government side and have red boxes. I genuinely mean that.

I would like to explain to new Members that the issue here is about parliamentary Sessions, most of which run from the beginning of November to the next November. Because of the election in May, however, this Session will run from May until November 2011, which makes it particularly long. All my amendment would do is restore the five days for private Members’ Bills that were lost in the last Session to this unusually long Session.

Any member of the public reading this debate in Hansard might wonder why we should spend parliamentary time on such a seemingly arcane matter. However, private Members’ Bills are vital for democracy, and every individual in the country should have been worried about the growing power of the Executive over the last 10 years. Private Members’ Bills are important because they provide one of the few chances for Members of Parliament who are not part of the Executive to initiate, debate and ultimately create legislation, thus giving power and influence to Parliament and Back-Bench Members—outside the direct control of the Government.

There are many issues that Governments fail to recognise as important, but individual Members might see them as a priority. For example, in my view there should be an Act of Parliament requiring children to wear cycle helmets when they are riding on the public highway, but the Government will not necessarily want to bring such legislation forward. Equally, and perhaps more worryingly, because Government and Opposition Front Benchers take the same view on some important issues, they might not get aired in Parliament or be made subject to a substantive motion in the House. An example might be a referendum on our membership of the European Union. That is clearly an important issue, but the two Front-Bench teams can collude so that it never gets debated, whereas a Back-Bench Member could introduce such a Bill. Indeed, some issues might have no hope of ever getting passed into law, but they are so important that they should be discussed and drawn to the public’s attention.

There has been a great deal of upheaval in politics over the past year. We have a coalition Government and Liberal Ministers. Just a few weeks ago such a situation would have been unthinkable, but I have to say that the addition of Liberal Ministers to the Government has been remarkably successful so far as they have seemed to turn themselves into neo-Conservatives.

Let me make a more serious point. We have a remarkably large intake of new Members of Parliament in all parties, who have shown themselves to be very impressive and independent-minded. I have sat here and been amazed at the style and substance of maiden speeches. Surely that proves to everyone that the public are hungry for change, and if we are to deliver that change—which means more than just setting up reviews on transparency, or creating an unworkable expenses system—we must ensure that Back Benchers can hold this Government to account, and that the House is truly a place for debate. As the Speaker said recently, MPs must become citizens of the Chamber, and as I look around the Chamber tonight, I see a very good example of that. I think that there are more Members in the Chamber now than we saw at almost any time in the last Parliament.

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[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not had the opportunity to congratulate you since your election.

Before I deal with the main issue, I want to reflect a little on the time when we all served on the Wright Committee.

[Mr Allen]

Happy days.

[Natascha Engel]

They were indeed happy days, and very interesting. I am sorry that Tony Wright is not here to take part in the debate. I also want, especially, to say a big thank you to Mark Fisher, who did so much work with Parliament First, and to Evan Harris. He, too, is no longer with us. The Chamber misses him greatly, and I hate to think how he feels about not being in the Chamber any more; indeed, it does not bear thinking about.

I may not have agreed with the conclusions reached by the people whom I have mentioned, but I certainly agreed with much of the analysis of the problem that we had here in Parliament—in the context of scrutiny of the Executive, what we did as Back Benchers, and our control over our time. When I was on the Wright Committee I produced a minority report, but I consistently supported the establishment of a Back-Bench business Committee. I have always thought that, if established in the right way and for the right reasons, it could not just make debates livelier, but give Members much more control and a greater feeling of ownership of debates. Moreover, if we, as Back Benchers, could decide what issue to debate, by definition they would become more topical.

Many members of the Wright Committee are present today. I believe that our motivation was the same: we wanted to make proceedings in Parliament far more open and transparent. The detail is being discussed today, but the principle of the proposal was transparency. What people really objected to was not having an input, and not being able to see what was decided behind closed doors. The purpose of the Wright Committee was to begin re-establishing trust between not just the House, but us—its Members—and those who have elected us to represent and serve them. If we are to do justice to that intention, we must be much more open and transparent about what we do here. Without openness and transparency, people outside cannot have any say about what we do, far less have any influence on what we do.

In supporting the establishment of a Back-Bench committee, I think that we need to guard against a few things. We need to ask ourselves whether we are making a change for change’s sake. In the case of the Back-Bench committee, that is absolutely not the case—it is a necessary, good change. We also need to guard against unforeseen consequences. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) spoke earlier about the membership of Select Committees and said that the proposals on nominating Chairs and members excluded some of the minor parties. Those are all examples of unforeseen consequences. We need to take our time and to be careful to ensure that this is as open, transparent and fair as possible, so that we do not have unforeseen consequences—or even foreseen consequences.

My greatest concern—the thing that we most need to guard against, which I mentioned again and again when I was on the Select Committee and afterwards—is in relation to the transfer of power from one elite to another. The way that the Back-Bench committee is to be formulated and the way that its membership is to be elected means there is a danger of transferring power from the Whips Office, where deals are done behind closed doors and we learn what deal has been done when it is announced here by Front Benchers, to another back room where seven members and the Chair of the Back-Bench committee make the decision. I am not convinced that a member of that committee making an announcement of five minutes or less about its deliberations, or laying a report before the House about those deliberations, is enough. I would much rather see all the proceedings—every meeting—held in public. That is the only way in which we can ensure absolute openness and transparency. Not only that—it will engage people outside in what Back Benchers do in dealing with business here. It will engage them in a way that we have never engaged the public before. That would be a massive leap forward.

All of us would like to see an end to the current system of power and patronage held by the Whips, but we would be naive to think that, just by moving the power away from the Whips and giving it to a small group of Back Benchers, we will get rid of the patronage. We will not. If meetings of the Back-Bench committee are held behind closed doors, there will just be a direct transfer of patronage from the Whips Office to the Back-Bench committee.

[Natascha Engel]

That is something that we should look at. Smaller memberships are not beneficial—we should look at having a much wider membership.

I want to look at the ways in which we can participate better, not just as Members, but by engaging people who have an interest in this matter. Many democracy organisations and members of the public have a deep interest in what we do. The instinct to restrict the size of things is a bad one—I would much rather see it broadened out.

[Mr Allen]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s strong, clear and valuable contributions in the Wright Committee. I must, however, perhaps test her on one thing. If we had a business committee that always met in public, would there not be a danger that some of the necessary decisions that have to be taken on a give-and-take, wheeler-dealer basis, where someone does one thing and another person does another and where things are postponed, would go into the undergrowth? We might be no better off. Although I agree that some of the sittings should be in public, other sittings would benefit from being in private.

[Natascha Engel]

rose—

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, you are the last of the new Deputy Speakers whom I am able to congratulate on your election and elevation. It is always good to leave the best till last—if that does not get me called early in debates, I do not know what will.

Is it not unfortunate that we have heard no maiden speeches today? I am really missing the kaleidoscope tours of UK constituencies that we have become used to hearing each day, but perhaps a new Member can run to the Chamber and get in.

Although I am probably alone in this, I cannot share the enthusiasm for the Back-Bench business committee and the great reforming zeal of the Wright proposals. There are serious problems for the minority parties. We have already recognised some of the problems that have inadvertently been created, and I am grateful to the Leader of the House and his deputy for trying to address our concerns and for speedily withdrawing motion 13. I, like all my colleagues, am grateful to both of them for ensuring that the question of whether minority party Members can be considered for Select Committees will be addressed.

The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) —unfortunately, she is no longer in the Chamber—made a pertinent point about the quota for securing a place on the Back-Bench committee. We just cannot do it. We have only six Members. Plaid Cymru has only three. The Democratic Unionist party is the largest of the minority parties, and the fourth largest party in the House, but it cannot do it. I am glad that there is a genuine attempt to address the matter. Hopefully, we can make sure that we are in the race to get a place if we can increase membership of the Committee to a reasonable size that will allow us the opportunity to participate in the House.

This has not been a good few weeks for the minority parties; things have been really poor. I do not know what is going on. I came back to the House expecting that we would secure more input into the House and better representation, but since coming back we have experienced further entrenched exclusion. Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister got to his feet in the House and announced a new Committee on reform of the House of Lords. There was no consultation with the minority parties—or much consultation with the rest of the parties. We found that there would be no place for minority parties on that Committee. There is now a Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. Constitutional reform is what our parties are about; it is our reason for being here, but there is no place on the Committee for the minority parties.

There is still no resolution on the issue of the Liaison Committee. Fair enough, we do not have a Chair of a Select Committee, but the Liaison Committee is a Select Committee of the House, and arithmetically, we are entitled to a place on it. That was conceded by the former Government, and I hope that it is conceded by those on the Government Front Bench. We need that opportunity to question the Prime Minister on a monthly basis. That opportunity should not be confined to the three main parties of the House. The minority parties have to get on the Liaison Committee.

Then there is the biggest disappointment of all: the Wright proposals. We are to be excluded for all the “good” reasons. We are excluded in the name of democratic reform and making the House accountable—things that we agree with. There will be no place for us on the Back-Bench business committee. It is just not possible that there will be, given that it has eight members; it is not going to happen. I just wish that the Wrightinistas, as I call them—those pioneers of reform, those champions making sure that this place is much more accountable, out there fighting the good fight against the dark forces of the Government Whips—would concede that, and acknowledge that on a Committee of eight, there is absolutely no way of that happening.

[Mr Allen]

When the hon. Gentleman got to his feet, he had a great deal of sympathy from all parts of the House, but now that he is flailing around, blaming absolutely everybody, he is in danger of losing his friends as rapidly as he made them on this issue. The Wright Committee proposed that on every Committee of the House there be one reserve place for the Speaker to allocate—a Speaker’s pick—so that justice could be done. That place might be for the minority parties or, indeed, those with minority opinions within larger parties. That proposal was not brought forward, but that was the doing of not the Wrightinistas, or whatever pejorative term the hon. Gentleman wishes to make up, but the Government and the Front Benchers of the day.

[Pete Wishart]

I thought “the Wrightinistas” was quite an endearing term. If the hon. Gentleman takes offence, I am sorry about it, but he is being a tad sensitive. He is possibly right that what was suggested by Wright was probably okay, but there have been inadvertent mistakes, such as the 10-Member quota; that was a result of the Wright Committee, and there is a problem with that. Thank goodness that the Front Benchers have decided that they will address that. The hon. Gentleman cannot in all honesty say that the Wright proposals were bulletproof, soundproof and correct in every instance, because they were proven to be wrong in that instance.

The hon. Gentleman is right, but it seems to us that we are caught in the middle of a fight between the Wrightinistas—I apologise to him—and the Whips. It is a fight between the two big boys in the playground. They are battering lumps out of each other, trying to gain ascendency, and all of a sudden they see the little boy sitting eating his piece in the bike shed. That is us—the minority parties. It is we on whom they have decided to take out all their frustrations, we who are losing places on Committees, and we who are being excluded in this House. It just is not right or fair. We should be on Select Committees, and we should be making sure that we make our contribution.

Where we have served on Select Committees, we have made a constructive, useful contribution, as has been recognised by several Members from across the House tonight. We have played a part on cross-party Committees of the House, trying to ensure positive reforms, particularly with regard to expenses. My hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) served on the Wright Committee, and pointed out some of the inconsistencies and difficulties that emerged. Unfortunately, he was not listened to on those issues.

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[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on being the first woman elected to the senior position of the deputy speakership. It is symptomatic of what is a really exciting time. I envy the new Members, whether they are from Beckenham, Sherwood or Brighton, Pavilion. They are entering the House of Commons at a fantastically exciting time. There has, of course, been a change of Government and there is a sense of new politics, if only because of the need for a coalition. Furthermore, we are seeing a number of very significant and serious changes in Parliament. The election of our Deputy Speakers has been one.

Last week, for the first time ever, there was an election by secret ballot of all the Chairs of Select Committees. This week, individual parties will be selecting the Members whom they wish to put on to those Select Committees. In 1832 and subsequently, our forebears kicked off with the liberating effect of the ballot box. The ability of Members to make decisions as their consciences see fit is having remarkable impacts on the House of Commons.

I hope that this burst of activity will not be confined to the first week or so; I hope that we sustain it. In particular, I hope that the new Members take it for granted that the House is their base. I do not mean that they should think that we have done well in the first week and that we can relax—instead, they should say, “No, we’ve got to go further.” Whichever party they come from, I hope that they will seize this opportunity to move things forward. The past week or so has been exciting for Members, and I use the word advisedly.

[Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his recent election to the chairmanship of his important Select Committee. Does he agree that the momentum for change, of which we are clearly a part this evening, must be maintained and that an important part of maintaining it is the setting of a clear timetable, to go on from what we are doing this evening towards the establishment of a House business committee? That would ensure not only that the Government had the opportunity to get their business on to the statute book, but that we as a House had an opportunity properly to scrutinise it as it went through our processes.

[Mr Allen]

Left to their own devices, Governments and Front Benchers never become more radical. They start with ideas and radicalism, and it is the role of Back Benchers not only to hold them to account but to stimulate them into maintaining their reforming and radical instincts. I do not want this to develop into too much of a love-in, but if we—certainly those on the Opposition Benches—had been able to select a Leader of the House from the Conservative party, it would have been the current Leader of the House. Similarly, had we been able to select someone from the Liberal Democrats to be the Deputy Leader of the House, it would have been the current incumbent.

We have a conjunction of remarkable, coincidental fortune that means that we can take the issue on now—and we should. Now is not the time to be timid. We have free votes on the motions from 9.30 onwards. I hope that Members—above all, new Members—will seize that opportunity. Obviously, I want them to vote with me in my Lobby tonight, but if they do not, they must please vote according to what they feel is important rather than because they are trying to figure out the main chance of getting on to the slippery slope and getting that red box one day. They will be respected more if they use this unique opportunity to take our Parliament further than if they merely look around to see which Whip—unofficially, of course—is twitching in the leftwards or rightwards direction.

There is a fundamental balance—imbalance, perhaps—between Parliament and the Executive. It has been evident throughout my political life, but newcomers particularly may be able to taste a rebalancing through which, for once, the parliamentary midget is growing and taking on the 800-pound gorilla of the Executive. I hope that the midget has been working out over the past couple of weeks and building muscles, although it should not challenge or frighten the Executive. Governments should welcome a strong Parliament. A strong Parliament is not a threat; it helps to produce better law and better value for money. It makes life better for our citizens. It complements and is a partner to Government, occasionally drawing attention to their defects. Are not we stronger when our defects are remedied? Perhaps I am too optimistic, but in my political lifetime, the moment has come when there is a sense that we can push on and have a Parliament worthy of the name.

Although the subject of business is the Back-Bench business committee, the occasion is far more important than the particular internal committee that we will set up. It is important because, in the past two or three years, not one Member who is not new has not felt pressure and shame about the way in which we have been portrayed—occasionally deservedly so. Now we have a chance to show that Members of Parliament are not as they are described day after day in The Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail, but that they bring genuine value to our political life, that they are an asset to our politics and can make a real contribution through Select Committees, on the Floor of the House, through questioning or in Westminster Hall. We need to have the passion returned to our Chamber so that we can do such work. If we can do that openly and honestly, we will win people over. They will say that we are once again worthy of being the British people’s forum—not a nice little ancient backdrop to Government statements or simply leather Benches and ornate wood work, but fundamental to what people want to discuss in our democracy.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his election as the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. Hearing him speak makes me think that he is well chosen. He is giving voice to incredibly welcome ideas. As he says, it is an exciting time to be elected to this Parliament—there is a wind of change, and a real step forward in, for example, the election of Chairs and members of Select Committees. I welcome the amendments that would increase the House’s transparency and democracy—that is incredibly important—but hope that we can go further. I take comfort from his comments that we are the beginning, not the end of a process. I would like us to learn from other legislatures, too. That might be a radical suggestion, but there are many legislatures that do an interesting job from which we could learn. I therefore warmly commend that the hon. Gentleman consider other things, too.

[Mr Allen]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and welcome her to the House. I am sure that she will contribute not only to environmental politics but to a broader sphere, particularly in the ideas that she has expressed about our democracy. We should have humility and learn from not only other nations but from the operation of the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where—dare I say it?—one can sometimes find a more real Parliament than we have here. Sometimes, one can find genuine debate and exchange, which has been so rare here. However, we can recapture it if we work at it.

The Back-Bench business committee will help us create such a Parliament here. It will help us revert to being the people’s forum. Rather than the debates in which we are all interested happening on the “Today” programme or “Newsnight”, those interactions and key conversations could take place here. When I woke up the other morning, I listened to “Today”, which was considering three main issues: a possible increase in student fees; a report about a possible 3 million unemployed; and a report about abused children and whether there is a way in which to sort out the problem much earlier in their lives. Those are three genuinely important issues, which we all want to discuss. I came to the House of Commons and the whole day went by without a single one of those items, which had been headline news that morning, being debated or discussed. It should be the other way round. If we recreate our Parliament, we will raise the issues and the media will follow behind us. We should all aspire to that sort of House of Commons. The Back-Bench business committee is a small flame that can move outwards and ensure that we do that job particularly well.

Like so many hon. Members, I must say that the Government have done a remarkable thing in introducing the proposals today. Within weeks of a general election, they have moved on the subject. I must be blunt—I do not wish to offend any Labour colleagues, but we dragged our feet. The Wright Committee made every possible effort to conclude the matter. We tried to engage with the most senior people in our party to show that we cared about that and if only for purely political and electoral reasons, demonstrate that we cared about the future of our political system. The new coalition Government deserve credit for, and should be congratulated on, tabling the proposals. That needs to be put on record.

Some 95% of the proposals are what the Wright Committee suggested, but there is a bit of slippage with some. That has happened because, when one gets into government, certain practicalities get in the way. There is a desire to ensure that other priorities are fulfilled, as well as the dead-weight, often of senior civil service bureaucracy, and sometimes of our colleagues in the various Whips Offices, who feel that things must stay exactly as they are because that is how they control things. It reflects the old joke, “How many MPs does it take to change a light bulb?” “Change? Change?!” Sometimes we get a sense from our colleagues of better safe than sorry. If there is a little risk-taking in the Chamber, I hope that Labour Members will make allowance for it and grant it leeway, particularly if people fall flat on their face when it happens. We need to advance our system so that our democracy can prosper.

In the past week or so, we have witnessed the beginning of a sensible conversation. In trying to create a Back-Bench business committee, the interaction between all the different people who are involved—certainly the minority parties, which have been sorely tested by the failure of the usual channels to give them a fair crack of the whip—has been important. Back Benchers have been involved, and Select Committee Chairs, within days of being elected, have shown their muscle and their desire to protect the rights of the House. Front Benchers have also played a positive role—I include my new Front-Bench colleague as well as other Front Benchers in that. I hope that, rather than proposals having to be withdrawn on the Floor of the House—for which I am grateful; I will deal with that later—the dialogue can take place a little more formally and a little earlier in future. If we can make progress with the conversation, perhaps we can address such matters by consensus rather than by withdrawing stuff on the Floor of the House. It is a difficult task, especially so for two new incumbents, but I wish them well in trying to get the conversation under way.

Let me deal with the amendments. Many are in my name and the names of 32 other Back-Bench colleagues. It could have been 232, and I claim no credit for the amendments, but my name appears first, so I am happy to speak about them. But first, I should like to give a little more perspective on what can be very dry, dusty stuff—the Back-Bench business committee, what is a quorum and how we elect the Chair—and say what the proposed committee is really about. The committee is about taking the chunk of business that all of us accept is the province, property and interest of Back-Benchers, pulling it together and taking a Back-Bench view on how best to use it. Rather than the Leader of the House deciding that we should have a general debate next week on something or other, there would be a process by which all of us, collectively, could decide what that debate should be about. We could decide that tomorrow’s debate will be about something that happened overnight or a Government announcement on widows’ pensions. The debate could be on the terrible murders in the north-west, how we respond to the BP crisis or whatever, but it should be on a cause that we feel, collectively, should be debated, and that our constituents would like us to debate. They might even want to turn the television on to see us talking about that subject live, rather than see a digest later with John Humphrys, Jeremy Paxman or somebody else.

However, we need to be clear that when we talk about a Back-Bench business committee—the Wright Committee made this absolutely plain—it is not a case of, “Tomorrow, the world!” Some distinguished colleagues on that Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who spoke about this tonight, made it very clear that the Government have a right to discuss their business. It is part of the House’s role to examine seriously legislation that the Government introduce, but at the end of the day, providing they have a majority, they should carry their business. We are talking about that bit of business that is non-legislative but which involves the keen interest of Members of Parliament.

Too often, we see Members of Parliament rattling through lists of things that they regard as important. If I may say, Mr Deputy Speaker, you are one of the greatest exponents of the early-day motion. With the proposed committee, we are almost turning the early-day motion into a motion that we can genuinely discuss at an early day. If there is so much interest in debating a particular topic, it could be on the agenda the next day or the day after that, even if we would need a further mechanism for that. The Government need not fear that their agenda will be taken over, but Parliament could for the first time say, “Our agenda, at least in part, is our possession,” and it will be able to decide, on a small number of days, what we will discuss. That is very important—it is one of the key things that the committee will do.

There is a group of amendments on the Order Paper that addresses a questionable aspect of the Government’s proposals; namely, the one-year termination. The Government proposal is that members of the Back-Bench business committee will be members for only one year, which is unlike tenures for other parliamentary offices and institutions, which last five years. Chairs and members of Select Committees—there can barely be a Member in the Chamber tonight who is not standing for membership of a Select Committee—will be in office for five years if they are successful, which gives a sense of continuity, and members and Chairs have the ability to learn a subject, and to grow as a Committee with their colleagues.

Let us imagine if we were on Select Committees for only one year. We would already be counting down the time, thinking, “There might be something else on the way. I might want to swap over. Somebody doesn’t like me and I don’t get on with so-and-so, and the chair is a bit of a pain.” The Chair, of course, would be saying, “I’ve only got a year, but I really want to do something long term with this Select Committee, so let’s pick up whatever is in the papers.”

There is a more insidious problem. If Members are really good as Back Benchers, they might just cross Front Benchers—the wrong people. They might be so good—they might expose something, or scrutinise and call their those on their Front Bench to account—that instead of being lauded and given plaudits, they go on a list. I have been in the Whips office, and I have had my lists. The vow of silence forbids me from going further on that, but I can tell the House that we were not lining up to give accolades to the Gwyneth Dunwoodys—precisely the opposite. Let us imagine the whispering campaigns that would take place if Select Committee members or Chairs had a one-year tenure, and the undermining that could go on. People would say, “You can get rid of that Chairman and have a go yourself,” or, “You’re not on a Select Committee. So-and-so is not very good. She or he always creates a problem, so why don’t you think about putting your name forward.”

I know that colleagues on the Government Bench—the Leader and Deputy Leader of the House—do not intend that. However, much as I wish them longevity, they might not be here this time next year, and some less benign people might be. The latter might propose a review not to strengthen the Back-Bench business committee, but to undermine it. If someone took that chance, we would all greatly regret it, because we have a historic opportunity. This is the one and only time in my long political lifetime in this place that such an opportunity has come to pass. The right hon. and hon. Gentlemen have been incredibly flexible today, so I ask them, before the winding-up speeches, whether they wish to continue to oppose the amendments in my name and those of my colleagues by which we seek to provide the same sort of lifespan and stability that we expect as members or Chairs of Select Committees, so that this new bud can be protected should there be some stormy weather a year out that we cannot predict now.

Perhaps I am being too suspicious—it may be those years in the Whips Office and my brain is still a bit frazzled. We could pass the matter over if there were just one proposal to undermine the committee—the proposal to review the committee after one year. However, there is a second occasion when the committee might be undermined, because its members must be elected after a year. There is even a third occasion, because the Chair must be elected after a year. With those three proposals we are, as Sherlock Holmes said, starting to develop a pattern. With great respect, I say to Government Front Benchers that there is still a moment when they might ask themselves whether they want to perpetuate that pattern, or whether they could generously reconsider the matter and either allow the amendments to be made, or decide not to promote their proposals.

There is another, rather demeaning aspect, which I was surprised to see included. When the Back-Bench business committee meets, it will have arguments. I intervened, regretfully, on this point in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, who otherwise made some very good points. If the meetings are wholly in public, decision-making will be driven underground, because sometimes it is dirty and messy. It can be a compromise, with promises made, so that something else is done in six months’ time when people will not know that it is the result of a deal already done. I would like as much of that as possible to take place openly in the business committee, but not necessarily in the full glare of publicity. If decision-making is totally open, people will behave differently, and we may end up with worse decisions.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a distinction with which we are already familiar in other Select Committees? Evidence is heard in public, but the deliberations take place in private, for the good reason that that enables us to work collaboratively and informally, and we come to better conclusions as a result.

[Mr Allen]

We are trying to move to a better place, but we cannot do it all in one go. There is not only a Back-Bench business committee now, but other business committees—the usual channels, which get together in a cabal, and, semi-formally, the Committee of Selection. Let us not pretend that we do not already have a business committee. We do, and it is underground and tolerates no dissent. Furthermore, it allows no Back-Bench influence. We need to strike a balance—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire was trying to do that. She was not laying out one particular view—neither am I—but we need to try to ensure that the Back-Bench business committee works effectively. If it does not, we cannot get to stage 2, which is a fully fledged business committee, with Back Benchers, Whips and others represented.

[Natascha Engel]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his election as Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. In my speech, I was trying to say that our starting point should be that the Back-Bench business committee should be open and transparent to avoid what he—of all the members of the Wright Committee—most disliked, which is the murkiness of the usual channels. If that is our starting point, we can examine the question of meeting in private or public, but we need to establish how Back Benchers will make representations to the committee to have an influence on the business of the House. Those discussions should be held in public. The decisions that are then taken can be taken in private.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

With good will—and the only reason we are here tonight is because there is good will, and the Government have provided time on the Floor of the House tonight for this debate—we can overcome all those problems and ensure that the Back-Bench business committee works. The prize of making the committee responsible and practical is not just topical and sensible debates in the House, but the next stage, which will mean a fully fledged business committee. If new members can help to achieve that, over the next two to three years, it will be an irreversible step in parliamentary history.

I said that this process might be a little demeaning. When a subject for debate is chosen by the Government—as it always is at present—we do not say that someone must come and explain to us why it has been chosen. We do not, although perhaps we should, get the Chief Whip to the Dispatch Box to explain—

[Mr Heath]

It happens on Thursdays.

[Mr Allen]

Yes, but the Leader of the House explains the business on a Thursday. He does not have to get up before every debate and give a little reason or excuse for its subject matter. I accept that I am finding fault in a generally excellent set of proposals, but if I do not do so now, we could be stuck with the proposal that a member of the Back-Bench business committee must give an explanation before every topical debate, general debate and Adjournment debate. That is an onerous task. The Wright Committee expressed the view that every member of the Back-Bench business committee should play a part, so would the most junior member have to stand at the Dispatch Box to give a little trailer of what is to come? Would they be cross-examined by Members about why the committee did not pick an important constituency issue or why it neglected another vital issue? How silly! This is a piece of trivia that we should reject tonight. I hope that the Leader of the House, who has got so much right here, will not hang himself on a vote—whether he wins or loses it—on getting Back-Bench business committee members to explain why a particular subject was chosen, other than at business questions, as he does, where the committee chair would be available, as the Church Commissioner and others are during different question times, to chip in and answer questions, make sensible changes, and respond to requests. We would all like to see that.

[Natascha Engel]

I really do not understand. How then is the Back-Bench business committee accountable? How is it open and transparent, and how will other Back-Bench Members know how it has gone about selecting the business for the day?

[Mr Allen]

The Wright Committee went into this in detail. Essentially, we decided that the chair of the Back-Bench business committee would be seated in the House during business questions. The Leader of the House would give the normal business statement, and if someone had a specific question about Back-Bench business, the chair could answer it.

[Natascha Engel]

How is that different from the usual channels?

[Mr Allen]

It is very different from the usual channels, who do not say anything—in fact, are banned from saying anything—on the Floor of the House. So this would make it more open. However, to insist that that person appears three or four, five or even a dozen times a week to explain why one person’s topic, rather than those of 50 other people, was chosen would take it, in this case only, to a level of absurdity. That would fly in the face of all the other very sensible provisions in the Back-Bench business motions before us.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

Would it not be even more absurd, because it would not be the same person every time? As I understand the proposals, it would be just a committee member making a brief statement, with no debate, no opportunity for questions and, frankly, no purpose.

[Mr Allen]

Indeed, but I do not want to labour the point, because it is just one piece of silliness in what is generally an excellent effort by Government Front-Bench Members. So I shall not continue on that.

I pay tribute to the Leader of the House for deciding to provide in Standing Orders for 27 days’ debate on the Floor of the House. It is not easy to come to the House and say, “Someone else has got it right, and I will take that on board.” That has always been the situation—in fact, he was quoted earlier saying it would always be the situation—but he, to his great credit, has taken that step forward and said that he will put it in the Standing Orders. I am sure that I speak for everyone who signed amendment (a) to motion 4 when I say that I am extremely grateful to him for doing that.

That is not all. On Select Committee membership, the response of the Leader and deputy Leader of the House to the newly elected Select Committee Chairs was excellent politics. I am sure that other colleagues will talk about this. Had they been involved a little earlier and been able to delve, holding their noses, into the usual channels, they could have helped much earlier. Instead, we have today’s late decision to pull motion 13, which would have driven a coach and horses through the idea that Select Committees should be nimble and have, as standard, 11 members. As the Wright Committee and the Liaison Committee said, there is an optimum number of members on a Select Committee. Having served on many Select Committees, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know that they start to ramble on, and get frayed at the edges, cliquey and difficult to manage when they get to 13, 14, 15 or 16 members. That is why the Liaison Committee and the Wright Committee said, “Nine is optimum, 11 is maximum,” in order to try to put right what was, frankly, a cock-up by the usual channels, which resulted in Committees being bumped up to 16, thereby destroying their credibility and coherence. That is why there was such resistance from the Select Committee Chairs and why almost every newly elected Select Committee Chair signed the amendments requesting that the proposal not go ahead. It is to the great credit of the Leader and Deputy Leader of the House that they listened to those representations, so that we now have a much better situation than we did earlier. Motion 13, which is about membership, will therefore not proceed.

I hope very much that over the next week or so, the difficulty that we were all trying to address—the representation of minority parties on Select Committees—will be addressed sensibly. I hope too that minority parties will have representation on the territorial Committees—the Scottish and Welsh Committees—as they should do and as they are entitled to expect, and that the numbers are brought back to the Floor of the House. [Interruption.] I know that the Leader of the House is listening, even though his colleague the Secretary of State for International Development is talking to him—he is listening with one ear, which is his important ear. He will understand that next week, when we bring the motions relating to Select Committees back to the Floor of the House, and particularly those relating to Scottish and Welsh Committees, there should be minority representation as of right. Of course that might require a small increase in the numbers to get through the current problems, but the other Select Committees should remain at no more than 11, so that they can be effective.

The people who devised the system whereby Select Committees are bumped up to get round particular difficulties are people who do not care what Select Committees do. They do not mind if they are rambling, if they do not produce coherent reports or if they have lots of members who do not show up. The job of those people is just to set Select Committees up and get them out of the way, so that they can get on with the other business. That is no longer acceptable in a Parliament that elects its Select Committee Chairs and members by secret ballot. Until other people are elected by secret ballot, those people have absolutely no right whatever to destroy the work of one of our key arms of accountability, the Select Committees in this House.

I congratulate those on the Government Front Bench on withdrawing those proposals to change Select Committee memberships without one word of consultation with the Chairs of the Treasury Committee, the Justice Committee or the Defence Committee. That shows a contempt and arrogance on the part of certain people who are not in the Chamber towards the conduct of the House, and I for one hope that we will never see that again. In putting on record what I hope is an important caveat about the role and rights of minorities in this House—rights that must always be defended, which is something that you said in one of your hustings speeches you were determined to do, Mr Deputy Speaker, and something that I know you will stick to—let me say that it is important that we should continue to ensure that balance.

Finally, I would like to add my thanks to those who have gone before us—we are, as the saying goes, standing on the shoulders of previous generations. First and foremost is Tony Wright, but there were also many other members of the Wright Committee, such as our colleagues Chris Mullin—we can refer to them by name, as they are no longer Members—David Howarth, David Drew and Nick Palmer. I am sure that other colleagues can think of those who also worked incredibly hard—Phyllis Starkey is another—over a short period to produce the Wright report. They were aided by people such as Meg Russell from the constitution unit and many others. We took evidence from the Chief Whips and from academic and media experts to produce the Wright report. However, there are many others who worked incredibly hard. Robin Cook has been mentioned, but there are lots of other colleagues, from all parts of the House, Front-Bench and Back, who would have given their right arms to be here today.

I finish where I started. These past couple of weeks have been some of the most exciting weeks in our recent parliamentary history. Incredible changes have been made: changes to elect Select Committee Chairs and members; changes to elect, for the first time ever, those who serve in your Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, with the first woman ever to be elected to that position. This is a moment when real change is possible—we have a new Government and, for the first time in our present political system, a coalition—but it is a moment that will not last long. It is a moment that needs to be sustained by our new Members, and a moment that we need to continue tonight by supporting the amendments tabled by myself and 32 Back-Bench colleagues. I hope that as many colleagues as possible will join us in the Lobby to maintain the momentum that the reform of our House of Commons needs if we are genuinely to win back the trust of the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

My hon. Friend is right that I did not respond to that question. I will take her points back to my colleagues in government because there is clearly an argument that, as she says, it should not be for the Government to elect those who serve on the Back-Bench committee. That issue is not specifically addressed in the motions, but we ought to listen carefully to her point.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) on his election as Chair of the Treasury Committee. He was absolutely right to say that we are lucky to have such an enlightened Leader of the House. He likened the relationship between the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip to that between Esau and Jacob, although I am not quite sure who is in possession of the mess of pottage. He is right to say that the Government’s attitude is to bring forward proposals for modernisation and then to take them forward. It is about not just paying lip service to an idea, but actually making it happen, which is what we are doing this evening.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the representation of minority parties, and of course that was the main thrust of the argument of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire. Wright has something to say on the subject. The Wright Committee report says:

“Members in individual cases can be added to specific committees to accommodate the legitimate demands of the smaller parties.”

I repeat to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I are absolutely determined to find ways to make sure that the minority parties are properly represented in the Select Committee system. I have to say to him that enlarging the Committees beyond the size that Wright recommended and that the Liaison Committee wanted is probably not the way to do it. We have to find an alternative way of accommodating his request, but my door is certainly always open to him and his colleagues, so that we can discuss the matter further and make sure—with, I think, a degree of dispatch—that something happens.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) made the point that the Wright Committee suggested having an added Speaker’s Member on Select Committees. Unfortunately, the Committee did not make that a recommendation; I wish that it had, because it would have made our life a little easier when dealing with this difficult problem.

The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) raised the issue of European business—no surprise there, perhaps—but it is specifically mentioned in the motions as “government business”. Indeed, in the second report of the Wright Committee, the draft Standing Order changes specify that that should be the case. Of course, when we have the House committee, we will be able to enter into the sort of partnership arrangement suggested, and we will be able to make sure that those matters are dealt with properly. I have to say that I was a little put off by the hon. Gentleman accusing me of sophistry in my approach to annual elections; I had not said a word on the subject. I must have given him a sophistical look at some stage. I will deal with the issue of annual elections in just a moment.

[Mr Allen]

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks on the committee’s annual nature, given that every other Committee runs for five years. We started off with the possibility of 10 Divisions tonight, but because of the generosity of Members in all parts of the Chamber, and because of the strength of the replies from the Front-Bench team, we are now down to five Divisions, virtually all of which refer to the question: why should the committee not have a life of more than one year? Why is it on probation? If the hon. Gentleman can give us some satisfaction by saying that he will take the issue away and look at it seriously, and not press the proposal tonight, we may all get home a lot quicker than we would if there were five Divisions.

[Mr Heath]

I was about to say what a huge contribution the hon. Gentleman had made to the debate not just this evening, but over the past few years in which he has pressed the case for reform. That is appreciated. He, among others, has been making sure that we are true to our word on many of these subjects. We have already agreed that we will accept his amendment (a) to motion 4 on the issue of the 27 days. I will go further: having listened to what he and the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) said, we are prepared not to press forward this evening with the proposal for the introductory statement. We hear what they say, and we will accept the relevant amendment on that basis.

As far as the one-year election is concerned, that is a suggestion that puts the Back-Bench business committee into the hands of Back-Bench Members, making it accountable to them. It may be that Members do not want to have the committee in their hands; they may wish to have a one-off election and not review the matter, but it is right that the House has the decision. That is not a matter for the Government and Ministers; it is for the House to decide whether it believes that the proposal is a useful introduction. I am happy for the House to have its say on the matter.

To recap, we will not move motion 13. We will accept amendment (a) on 27 days tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North and the amendments on the introductory statement. Annual election is a matter for the House to decide. On private Members’ Bills, I hope we will make rapid progress in improving the situation. We need to address the representation of minorities as a matter of urgency. September sittings are, again, a matter for the House.

We have not in any way resiled from the spirit of the Wright Committee recommendations, but we cannot treat them as holy writ because, as in so much of holy writ, there are occasionally internal contradictions. There are competing pressures. The House would not thank us if we made sure that there were no end of general debates on the Floor of the House, but we had no time, for instance, for Report stage of important Bills. We have tried to be practical about it, and I hope we have succeeded in that intention.