House of Commons Governance

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Tami

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. When she rose as I was speaking about leaks, I thought perhaps she had something to say about her work as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, but I was on the wrong track. Of course she is right about that, and I greatly welcome the initiative that you, Mr Speaker, have taken.

We have endeavoured to ensure that all our recommendations will assist in decision taking for the restoration and renewal programme that will take place in the next Parliament. Those decisions will have to be made on a bicameral basis: it is a single building for two Chambers. It is the essence of any properly functioning bicameral system that each Chamber should govern its own work, and it was no part of our remit or intent to usurp the autonomy of the other place. However, we took plenty of evidence from both ends of the Palace, including from the Lord Speaker, about how, co-operatively, there could be better joint working between the two Houses. Those proposals are highlighted in recommendations 1 and 2 of our report.

I turn now to the Commons itself and the current corporate arrangements for running this place, which are essentially with the House of Commons Commission, chaired by you, Mr Speaker, and, underneath that, the Management Board. The respective roles of the Commission and the Management Board were unclear not only to staff and Members—to many Members their roles were not only unclear but their existence was unknown—but even to some of those who sat on those bodies. The Committee’s recommendations for reform of the Commission and the replacement of the Management Board with an Executive Committee flow directly from the assessment that those two bodies are not working, either individually or together, as effectively as they should. Our aim has been to bring together Members and officials into a single coherent structure.

One key change proposed to the Commission is in respect of Back-Bench Members of the Commission. We recommend that the current three—one from each of the largest parties—should be replaced by four Members, by the addition of a fourth from the minority parties. At present, the Back-Bench Members, distinguished though they are, are effectively nominated by the Whips Offices. In future—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, will you note the fact that the Opposition Whip has broken rule one of all Whips, which is to remain silent. [Interruption.] No, it was not a cough. I was about to say that the current Back-Bench Members are effectively nominated by the dark forces of the Whips, but I decided to be nice to them by leaving that out. I will now ensure that it goes back on the record. In future, to avoid these dark forces of the Whips Office, we recommended that each of the four should be elected by the whole House. We also added that they should be remunerated on the same basis as Chairs of Committees.

We looked carefully at the work of the Finance and Services Committee and of the Administration Committee. Each has been very ably chaired by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), who is in his place, and by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst). The former happens to have been also a member of the Commission, while the latter has not. We thought that that was unsatisfactory, and that the Chairs of both those Committees should, ex officio, be members of the Commission.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

As a member of the Administration Committee and also a Whip—I declare my role as a dark force—I think that that is a very important point. Without that direct link, the Administration Committee is undermined. It is important that the Chair of that Committee is on the Commission.

[Mr Straw]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I should also say that my general remarks about Whips exclude him, as a pairing Whip, because I have to ingratiate myself with him on a regular basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention and for his evidence. We did come to the issue from different perspectives, but the fact that this is a unanimous report does not reflect any sense of it coming from a search of the lowest common denominators—rather, the highest common factors. I will come on to the issue of implementation in a moment.

A second reform that we propose to the Commission concerns non-executive members. At the moment, there are external, non-executive members, who have great outside professional experience, who sit on the Management Board, but not on the Commission. We thought that this was a rather eccentric arrangement not consistent with the principles of governance outside, and that it ought to be the other way round. We therefore proposed that two non-executives should sit on the Commission and, in addition, so too would the two senior officials of the House, a matter I shall come on to in a moment.

As I have indicated, the evidence we received showed clearly that the relationship between the Commission and the Management Board was opaque. So alongside the strengthened Commission, the Management Board will be replaced by a streamlined executive committee.

The potentially trickiest issue for us to deal with was the senior leadership of the House service. As the House is well aware, not least from the debate that we had on 10 September and from the evidence that we received, there is a wide range of opinion on this issue. Some favoured the status quo, some wanted a chief executive above the Clerk, some wanted a chief operating officer under the Clerk, and some thought the two functions should be separated entirely, with a Clerk and a chief executive of equal status. We thought hard about this. There are, as we all recognised, advantages and disadvantages to each proposal. In the end the Committee responded to what it heard from staff and from many others by endorsing the objective of a single unified House service.

This was significant because the House service is often portrayed as being divided into parliamentary and non-parliamentary elements. Asserting that the service should be unified is important both for rejecting the perception that some parts of the service are second class, and for emphasising that the primary purpose of the whole service—all parts of it—is to support the House’s parliamentary functions. But we also accepted that there had to be a strengthening of the leadership of those functions and of the hundreds of staff beyond the direct work of the Clerks.

It is not accidental, in our view, that although in the whole time that I have sat in the House there have rarely been any complaints or concerns about the standards of service provided to this House and its Committees in respect of our core functions, there have been myriad complaints about the way our employers—the public—have been treated when they try to get into this place, and from Members about the IT system, room bookings and many aspects of the maintenance of this place.

I have already spoken about leaks in the Members’ Lobby. I hope Mr Speaker will allow me an excursion into the bowels of what was the cell block of the old Canon Row police station, which has housed the House of Commons gym for some decades. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Leader of the House, and I are often to be seen there ensuring that we remain trim and fit. The refurbishment of the Commons’ gym may seem a second-order issue to those who do not use the facility, but for those of us who do, and for the dedicated staff of the gym, the saga of its refurbishment has not been a pretty one—nor, as the weekend’s press indicates, has it enhanced the reputation of Parliament.

Classic and avoidable errors were made in the refurbishment programme, which was due to be finished in early September and has only just been finished. I understand that the costs quadrupled. I know for certain that the specifications were changed and changed again after agreement had been reached with the gym management. It was disruptive in the extreme to us who use it and also to the staff. I thought that I had been able to put cold showers behind me when I left school 50 years ago but, like many other Members, I have had to endure cold showers, or no showers, as late as last week.

On Monday, having spent my two hours in the gym, I came out in anticipation of having a shower, only to discover that in the two hours that I had been working away in the gym, the showers had packed up. Happily, I did not meet any constituents, but other rather surprised Members will have seen me wearing my jacket over my gym kit and carrying the rest of my clothes, on my way to find a shower elsewhere. It is amusing—we are all tolerant of the situation—but it tells a story about why a better grip is needed of such issues.

[Mark Tami]

I do not understand how we have reached such a state, but the fact that the building is listed makes it difficult to do certain things, such as putting up a sign. I was amazed to learn that there is a signage committee in the House, which will decide on the type of sign and the size and colour of the signs that are permitted. It takes ages to get even the simplest thing done.

[Mr Straw]

I accept that there are such problems. This is a grade I listed building. I do not dispute the dedication of staff, but stronger leadership and greater clarity are needed.

We propose that the position of Clerk and chief executive should be split. There should in future be a Clerk, and working alongside her or him, there should be a new post of director general of the House of Commons. We had lots of debate about nomenclature. Others may lift the veil on the wide range of titles we considered. We decided on this title, rather than CEO or COO and many others, because, as we say in paragraph 157, we wanted a title that emphasised the authority of the new post, and would allow it to evolve unburdened by preconceptions.

As a consequence of calling this senior person director general of the House of Commons, the people currently titled directors general will need to be re-titled directors. There is a separate issue about whether the new post should become an additional accounting officer, an arrangement that exists in some Government Departments. I hope the Commission will consider that.