Sittings of the House

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Knight]

That is one option, but I have to say that my constituents prefer me to give them a guided tour, and I prefer to give them a guided tour rather than putting them into the hands of others.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Following up the important intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), does the right hon. Gentleman agree that for those fortunate enough to bring up their children in inner London, as I was, notwithstanding the fact that I have a constituency 225 miles away, there is no rule to say that a 7 o’clock finish on a Tuesday is more “family-friendly” than one at 10 o’clock? As I know for certain, having talked to younger Members today, it varies greatly according to the family circumstances. No one should presume to speak for those Members—men or women—who happen to have young children about what is “best for them”.

[Mr Knight]

And of course it depends on the whipping that is in force on any particular day as well. I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Knight]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say, but I must tell him that the evidence that the Committee received from Members was rather mixed. There was little, if any, enthusiasm for September sittings. Many Members felt that little of substance was achieved during those two-week periods, and that any presentational benefit was outweighed by the financial costs of setting up the House so that Members could be brought back for just eight or nine sitting days before the conference recess. Many also regretted the loss of opportunities for constituency work in September, particularly visits to schools.

However, the view in other quarters—including, I believe, the Government—rather reflected that of the hon. Gentleman, namely that any move to return to the long summer recess would be very difficult in presentational terms, and would also create a long period during which the House would be unable effectively to fulfil its task of scrutinising the Government and holding Ministers to account. Indeed, that may well be the view of the official Opposition.

[Mr Straw]

Under a Labour Government, when we were operating the old system of no September sittings, the House had to be recalled on three occasions. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the cost and disruption involved in recalling Members from their holidays, and the disruption of works in this building, far outweighs the cost of programmed, regular September sittings?

[Mr Knight]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. However, I should add that the Clerk of the House has estimated that the additional cost of September sittings is some £1.5 million, mainly from the capital budget. That cost arises from the need to manage some projects within the tighter timetable that results from the breaking up of the long summer recess. Costs will of course vary from year to year. The key factor for the Parliamentary Estates Directorate is certainty about the parliamentary calendar to allow for effective planning. One reason for the Committee’s wish for the matter to be decided today, either way, is that at least it will bring certainty to 2013 and beyond.

The House has not had an opportunity since the general election to debate the question of whether September sittings should become the norm. We have had two years of September sittings since the election, and we think that the time is now ripe for all Members to judge the desirability of such sittings. The House has already agreed to a motion providing for a sitting in September 2012, and today we have an opportunity to decide whether we should sit in September from 2013 onwards. I have proposed that we sit in September, and any Member who opposes September sittings should divide the House and vote against motion 8.

We all have our own views on the sitting hours that we personally prefer. Today the Procedure Committee, above all else, wants the House of Commons, in the present Parliament, to have an opportunity to decide its own sitting hours. I hope that the motions that I have tabled will enable that to be achieved simply and with the minimum of fuss.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

He has indeed. The motions are concerned with the hours in which the House sits. That is all we are concerning ourselves with. What matters to most of us is that we have to vote on legislation that comes before the Chamber. The timings determine when we are obliged to be here, as opposed to our offices, our local offices, at home working or anywhere else. It removes choice. It is about the choice of when we are required to be here and voting. If the sitting hours of the day are moved forward, there will be no question of working fewer hours; we will simply work different hours.

[Mr Straw]

My right hon. Friend referred to the Hansard Society findings about the pressures on families when people enter the House. Those are undoubted. Does she accept, however, that the vast majority of Members have constituencies and families way beyond commuting distance from here, so whether the House finishes at 7 pm or 10 pm is irrelevant to whether they see their families? Moreover, as I know from talking to new Members, the pressures on families arise not from whether we finish at 7 pm or 10 pm but from the fact that Members are under increasing power to work on Fridays, during the day and in the evening, and on Saturdays and Sundays?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I shall stick to five minutes for my speech, Mr Speaker.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) for the work he and other members of the Procedure Committee have done. I have no nostalgia for the old hours at all. Sitting into the small hours and going on until 11.30 pm was absurd. I also strongly support what my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) said about Friday sittings. We should not move private Members’ business to a separate ghetto after normal business. There should, for example, be 13 days allocated to private Member’s Bills in the normal sitting week, which the business of the House committee that would be formed would allocate according to need, and there should be proper knives coming down for that business, as with any other business.

We would be in grave error if we moved to a 7 o’clock finish on a Tuesday, however. We tried that, based on the 2001 Modernisation Committee report, and it was found not to be workable. In the words of one of my hon. Friends—who is not known as a neanderthal—in the Tea Room earlier, it was a “nightmare to operate.”

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

When it came to the vote, 225 voted to retain the early hours and 292 voted against, so 225 Members of the 2001-05 Parliament thought the hours did work.

[Mr Straw]

My hon. Friend makes my point. The vote was decisively lost—[Interruption.] It was lost.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I am afraid I will not take any more interventions, or I shall suffer the injunction of Mr Speaker.

I remind the House of what was said at the time in favour of those changes. We were told that the changes to the hours

“would bring us closer to the people”.

Extravagant claims have been made about changing the hours, which have all turned to dust.

I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford did not push the family-friendly argument, as that was the argument that was made before and, as we have now accepted, there is no single rule about what suits families. As it happens, my family were brought up in London even though my constituency is a distance away. I did my best, like every other Member of this House, to meet my family obligations, including chairing the governing body of our children’s inner-London comprehensive. The old hours happened to suit that, because I could go and come back. The thing that made the biggest difference to family-friendly hours was nothing to do with the formal hours at which we finish; it was pairing. I was able to pair with Conservative colleagues who also had small children. If we wish to get back to sensible arrangements that take account of individual circumstances, we must put pressure on the Patronage Secretary and our own Whips to reintroduce a pairing system. A natural equilibrium results from a pairing system, as those like me, old stagers who do not have families to go back to, give way to those who do have families to go back to.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

I will not, if the hon. Lady will excuse me.

Finally, the reason we had to change back, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) pointed out, was that there was a clash with the meeting of Committees and with the meetings of Government in Cabinet and Cabinet Committees. I tell my hon. Friends that I do not wish us to stay in opposition as a perpetual state; I regard it as temporary. I wish to be on the Government Benches. The change would also be disruptive, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition would find, to the work of the Opposition. The shadow Cabinet meets on a Tuesday morning and will find that all sorts of meetings cannot happen.

The hon. Gentleman who is the Member for Slough—

[Iain Stewart]

Milton Keynes South.

[Mr Straw]

One of those new towns, anyway he made some important points about Tuesday morning being the only time of the week when he felt safe about holding meetings.

I hope that, taking account of all those factors, Members will not make the error that they made in 2001 and that the House had to put right, by a big majority, just a few years later.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—