Parliamentary Reform

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for sparking this debate, which is obviously of great interest to colleagues judging by the attendance.

We should be careful about supposing that we are completely beneath public contempt. The excellent paper produced by the Hansard Society mentions public perception. It states that

“60% believe that Parliament is a worthwhile institution and 75% that a strong Parliament is good for democracy.”

What the public do not like are MPs who fiddle their expenses, and half the public at any one time dislike the decisions taken by Parliament, which may be for political and personal reasons. We will not easily get over those difficulties, and I do not think that the prescription being offered by the hon. Lady necessarily meets the real needs of Parliament today, if we are to improve ourselves as a legislature controlling the Executive.

To contribute to a debate on reform and not endorse every single point made by the initiator of the debate risks being branded a reactionary. I realise that if I allude for one moment to the experience that I have had in this House, I shall equally be condemned as an old fogey. I am taking a risk by even speaking in this debate.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I do not think that anyone thinks that, bearing in mind that the right hon. Gentleman has accepted that we should trial iPads in Committee. I understand that he is an enthusiast on that front, which is absolutely marvellous.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

My hon. Friend is in danger of stealing my thunder, because I was about to say that I regard myself as a reformer. If hon. Members look at the evidence that I have given to the Modernisation Committee over a period of years, they will appreciate that I have fizzed with ideas as to how we might change our procedures and practices. However, I remain a conservative with a small “c” as far as our institutions are concerned. Change should not be rushed—if it is, we tend to recant very quickly, as in the case of the Tuesday sitting hours, when we went one way before going back the other. We have introduced topical debates, but we do not think that they are a particularly great idea, and we have gone for topical questions, which we think are a good idea. We should think things through before we rush into them. The stability of our Parliament, in contrast to many others, is testament to the way in which we have gone about things.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that our absolute purpose, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has said, is to hold the Executive to account and to debate matters fully and properly, but that the way in which business is scheduled in the House militates against that? In that respect, I apologise for not being able to stay for the end of the debate, because two other debates, in which I am also keen to participate, are happening simultaneously. We have to look at allocating time, so that we can debate issues properly, because that does not happen now.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am going to be slightly meaner in my disposition towards interventions; otherwise I shall never get through my argument. The hon. Lady’s point is absolutely relevant to something that I will say later in response to the proposals by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion.

The House has renewed itself, and the fact that we are in this Chamber is one symbol of that. The fact that we are here at the behest of a Backbench Business Committee is further testament to the fact that we are capable of doing things differently. At first, this Chamber was greeted with suspicion, but it is now readily embraced and is ripe for further exploitation—a point that is also made in the Hansard Society paper. Why not use this Chamber for uncontentious Second Reading debates? Why not repeat the experiment with cross-cutting question sessions, which was cast aside too lightly? Why not table questions to the person representing the House of Commons Commission or the Church Commissioners in this Chamber, rather than in the main Chamber? We might also bring into the sequence the Chair of the Finance and Services Committee or the Chair of the Administration Committee—I mention the last of those modestly. The fact is that such things should be open to more questioning by hon. Members.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I want to press on, because many hon. Members want to speak.

A lot of change has taken place in my time. Radio and TV have come in, and broadcasters have progressively achieved more flexible access. All-night sittings have almost been expunged, and sittings beyond 10 pm are now rare. The programming of legislation is now the norm. Departmental Select Committees were only set up in 1981. Notice for questions is now shorter, and topical questions have been introduced. Deferred Divisions have been set up. New technology is being cautiously embraced. Time limits have been introduced on speeches, and we could go further with that in Committee, on Report and during discussion of private Members’ Bills. The Backbench Business Committee has been established. Elections are now rife, giving more power to Back Benchers. The Standing Orders are continually being changed—the ink is hardly dry on the paper, such has been the pace of reform.

The Hansard Society paper has a great many good ideas in it, particularly regarding the legislative process. I do not want to go into that in detail, but I commend the paper as a subject for further discussion. Let me be up-front, however, about where I caution against change. This Parliament is a debating chamber—that is what distinguishes it from many other Parliaments—and our performance is of high quality. We should keep away from the idea of written speeches, which kill debate.

I would keep the indirect form of address. Having watched the Parliament and, worse, the state Parliaments in action in Australia, I have seen abuse to which the direct form of address gives rise, which is shocking. Our system acts as a filter, ensuring that debates are conducted in a civilised manner. The fact is that we also forget the names of colleagues across the Floor half the time, so referring to them as “the hon. Member” is a good cover.

The House should not press for the list of speakers in a debate to be published. Having spent 13 years handling such situations, I know that hon. Members are not entirely reliable in their relationships with the Chair. The Chair tries to make up for that by being considerate and juggling lists to enable hon. Members to go off and do things that suddenly arise. Under the list proposal, however, the hon. Member who did not turn up— unfortunately that happens quite a lot—would then find that the local press were on to them to ask why they had not been present for a debate. The proposal is not, therefore, quite the obvious solution it might be thought to be. Furthermore, someone who thinks that they know when they will speak in a debate might absent themselves for rather more of the time, so I am not sure that the proposal is entirely forward-looking.

I am very suspicious about electronic voting at a single time of day. There is the question of amendments being contingent one on another. If we want a process that increasingly divorces debate from decision, that is the way to go, but there are times when we have to dispose of one amendment before we can logically go on to the next, and that has not been sufficiently thought through.

[Caroline Lucas]

We have discussed that extensively with the Clerks, who have pointed out that it is perfectly possible to have a mechanism whereby the Chair could indicate which votes are contingent on other amendments. It is not beyond our wit to work out a system whereby we can vote electronically and in sequence, with the votes the way they have been put down.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I take that point, but the hon. Lady possibly overestimates the skills of Members when they are suddenly asked to look at complicated things. For all the explanations that might be available, it is sometimes difficult for us to get our ideas straight, particularly when we have to vote instantly, rather than having a couple of minutes to think carefully about an issue.

I am not against private Members’ Bills staying on Fridays. The fact that a proposal is a private Member’s Bill does not immediately invest it with merit, and some pretty ordinary ones come up. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has suggested a mid-week slot, when the rest of her argument about the timing of sittings goes against spending time on such things in the evenings after a full day’s debate, which seems inconsistent. I would keep private Members’ Bills on Fridays. One argument is that if hon. Members cannot get 100 colleagues into the House to support them, their proposal may not be worth supporting, but I will not go down that line. I will go halfway towards what the hon. Lady has said by suggesting that private Members’ Bills should be on Fridays, but that there should be a specific three-hour slot for debate, with a deferred Division, at another time in the week. That would be a useful way of looking at the issue.

On the sitting pattern, it is important that we get the balance right between our duties in our constituencies and our duties in Westminster. The balance has moved too far, to the point that we are overly obsessed with what happens in our constituencies while we are away in Westminster.

We also have to decide whether we want predictability or an element of spontaneity as our guideline. If this place is to keep up with topical issues, we may need to adjust the Order Paper to take account of that. At the moment, the only person, beyond the Executive, who has the power to do that is the Speaker. Our Parliament treats the Speaker with greater puritanism than any other Parliament in the world. We say that someone becomes independent from the moment they become the Speaker and that they never go back to party political association. That being the case, we are telling every Member, even if they are the only Member representing a party or independent minority group, that they can trust the Speaker to give them a fair deal, because the Speaker has no axe to grind. If we accept that, do we want the Speaker to grant urgent questions or even Standing Order No. 24 emergency debates, which will simply shatter the business for the following day? Alternatively, are we content, as has happened in my experience, to have two Government statements and an urgent question take an absolutely huge chunk out of the time, when an important debate would otherwise have been scheduled for that day? We must think about that and get the compromise right.

I declare an interest as Chair of the Administration Committee, because in a sense that shows me another side of the practice of the House, which is keeping the turnstiles turning and the cash registers ringing. I have also been a distant Member of the House as well, having represented, for a period of years, the north Manchester seat of Middleton and Prestwich, so when I discuss family-friendly arrangements, I understand them from two different angles. We should not only discuss arrangements that are family-friendly for hon. Members who live in London, as the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) has mentioned in an intervention. If we think only from that point of view, what we decide will be self-fulfilling, and we shall put more pressure on hon. Members to live in London and visit their constituencies, and I am not sure whether the Selection Committee would be entirely enamoured by our doing that.

A Member who finishes at 6pm will not get to Manchester in time to tuck up the children in bed, and they will have to get up jolly early to be here by 9 am the following morning—or 8 am to put in a prayer slip to reserve a seat for that day. Mention has been made of a parent in London wanting to take the children to school, who might have difficulty getting here by that early hour. We should also think of our staff. Members should not forget the amount of preparatory work that must be done from the lowliest level up to the Clerks, to ensure that our business can start at the hour when it does. We may be forcing staff to get up terribly early— 4 am or 4.30 am—to get here to do the jobs they must do for us to function. We should take their welfare into account, too.

What is friendly in terms of making this Parliament operate more effectively? The Chamber is the heart of our system and at the moment other activities partly overlap with the sittings of the Chamber. If we go to a 9 am to 6 pm arrangement, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has proposed, there will be a complete overlap for every other activity in the House, including Select Committees, Public Bill Committees and all-party groups. If hon. Members cast an eye over the “All Party Whip” they will see the wide range of all-party groups—scarcely a condition of the human body is not covered by one. Those are legitimate activities, and there are deep interests at stake for small groups of Members, who must be accommodated. There are also lobby events, where hon. Members want to hear from particular groups. Ad hoc meetings crop up, outside visits must be undertaken and there must be contact time with Departments of State, councils and other bodies to which Members are making representations on behalf of their constituents. How will all that fit in satisfactorily in human and logistical terms? Will all the rooms be available at the right time? It is difficult enough now to get attendance at Select Committees, but if they are to be effective and their reports are to be valid, attendance must be constant.

The competition for hon. Members’ time is intense, and fitting everything into a shorter period of time will, I suggest, be very difficult. It would create a risk that the Chamber would become even more sparsely attended than it sometimes is today. Alternatively Members will multi-task in the Chamber. That is part of the justification for having BlackBerrys and other devices in the Chamber. Members of the public are beginning to dislike that as much as the absence of Members from the Chamber, and Mr Speaker gets letters on the subject. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who left his place earlier, has also received representations from his constituents about that.

[Mr Carswell]

Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that many of the people who follow me on Twitter and who follow blogs written in the Chamber take exception to what I am doing? Is not the practice a good thing, which allows me to connect with people who do not sit and watch TV?

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend, but the public are beginning to notice and believe that Members should not have their heads down looking at those devices while they are meant to be listening to a debate. That is their opinion—it may be wrong but it is their opinion and they do not like it. [Hon. Members: “He’s twittering.”] My hon. Friend may find that there is a ruling yet from the Chair dealing with Twitter as distinct from other things. [Interruption.] It is difficult to silence the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).

A point that has not been discussed so far is the fact that we make this place available for members of the public to tour in the mornings. Many hon. Members like the opportunity for their constituents to be here—schools in particular—and Parliament is conducting a big outreach programme. That would become much more difficult under the regime that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has put forward.

[Jo Swinson]

On tourists, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is difficult for most members of the public to visit Parliament on weekdays? It would be helpful if Parliament were open at weekends for people to come and have a look round.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am very interested in the question of access, but do not want to go too far into it now. I am happy to receive representations in my capacity as Chair of the Administration Committee. The House is, of course, open on a Saturday, but I am not sure whether it is entirely suitable for school parties to come then. I just mentioned that point as another thing to be factored into the equation.

We have changed over the years. The pace may not be fast enough for some, but we can speed up the process of examining all the new ideas. I do not, however, believe that we need another Committee. We have had the experience of the Modernisation Committee and, frankly, to have it running side by side with the Procedure Committee was unsatisfactory. The Procedure Committee should be invested with the relevant responsibilities and, if necessary, it should be geed up to work faster, if the House believes that the issues are important ones and need to be examined. Perhaps the right expression—which would be appreciated by the Chair of the Procedure Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), as a motoring man—is that we need to change gear and move a little faster. That would help to satisfy those who feel that some things have been ignored for too long.

The real challenge is how we are to make the House more effective. I think that the content of the Hansard Society paper that has been circulated is perhaps more relevant than what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has said, because concentrating on the cutting or rearrangement of hours is not the main priority or the best route towards a more effective Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are committed to bringing forward a full business of the House committee. We will not do so until we have seen the way in which the Backbench Business Committee has operated, so that we can learn from experience. Certainly, the early experiences have been good. We should be able to move towards a sensible use of time in this Chamber even without such a Committee, but that needs a degree of co-operation and a bit of grown-up politics, so that when we provide more time for Bills it is used sensibly and not used exclusively by Opposition Front Benchers to the exclusion of Back Benchers. Such issues are important for the whole House. We should ensure that the issues that parliamentarians wish to address have sufficient time to be addressed properly. When we come to a sensible agreement, we should keep to it, because it benefits everybody. My plea is that we discuss these matters, both informally and formally, stick to agreements and try to find the right time for everybody to have their say.

I want briefly to deal with some of the issues that have been raised in debate. For many of them, I will simply say, “It is not a matter for Government.” I will be right, because it is a matter for the House. The House, in both my mind and the mind of the Leader of the House, has a key role to play. We have the Procedure Committee considering sitting hours. There are very strong views on either side of the argument. It is not a question of right and wrong, but a question of what is least bad for many Members. I am looking forward to the options that the Procedure Committee will produce for the House to consider.

As for electronic voting, when I was first elected back in 1997, we discussed whether the current voting system is sensible. The Modernisation Committee cogitated for six months before coming up with its conclusion, which was to do away with the two Clerks on high stools solemnly ticking us all off as we filed past and dramatically replace it with three Clerks on high stools ticking us all off, which was the extent of modernisation in this House. That was the decision of the House. The House wanted to keep to its system, because it was argued that that was the way in which Members could rub shoulders with Ministers. As an Opposition Member, I could never quite see when I would get to rub shoulders with a Minister. It is an issue that is perfectly proper for us to consider. I am struggling at the moment to persuade the Clerks of the House that they need to take a few people off the G to M section during a vote. [Interruption.] There are 20% more in our column than in the other two columns, so I have a partisan view on that.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I refresh the Deputy Leader of the House’s mind that there was one occasion when the England football team were involved in a critical World cup match. A Division occurred in the middle of the match and it was accomplished in nine minutes. Where there is a will, there is a way.

[Mr Heath]

Yes, sometimes. Congestion is a problem—perhaps we should have a congestion charge in the Lobbies.

There are obvious arguments in favour of occasional deferred voting. However, there are also problems with sequential amendments, which were outlined by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst). We need to look at how that problem might be managed if occasional deferred voting is to proceed, but that is another matter for the House to consider.

Regarding abstentions, it has always struck me as odd that we have no way of differentiating between an abstention and an absenteeism. There is no way of knowing that a right hon. Member or hon. Member is here in Parliament but has chosen not to vote for the options before the House. Of course, the results of votes are now recorded electronically and are sent around the country. Constituents believe that their MP simply was not there rather than that they were there, had listened to the arguments made in the debate and were not persuaded by either of the positions that were taken.

I hope that we will make progress on private Members’ Bills. As has already been said, the Procedure Committee is looking at that issue.

Regarding explanations for amendments, we had the experiment in Committee and I am certainly happy, as far as the Government are concerned, for that experiment to proceed. Perhaps we ought to look at having such explanations on Report, too. I have argued that occasionally there is room for rubric on motions, including the type of business motion that appears late at night before the House that is completely inexplicable to most Members of the House but is actually entirely benign. I think that we can speed up our progress, but I have been told by the Clerks that we cannot possibly put a bit of rubric on the Order Paper to explain why we are doing it. I do not know why that is the case.

Parliamentary language is an issue that we could debate all evening and I will not enter into it other than to say that we have heard the arguments on both sides.

The additional use of Westminster Hall is an important issue. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden was one of the pioneers of its additional use. He is not an old fogey. He pioneered real innovation in this House in helping to create this Chamber, and if we can use it more effectively we should do so. We ought to look at that issue.

Regarding the legislative process, pre-legislative scrutiny is important, and this Government are committed to it. By the end of this Session, we will have subjected far more Bills to a process of pre-legislative scrutiny than the previous Government did in the final Session of the previous Parliament. It has not happened yet simply because we are a new Government, and inevitably with new legislation one has to start somewhere, otherwise the whole system grinds to a halt. However, we are certainly committed to that process, as we are to the process of post-legislative scrutiny. Indeed, some of the levers for that are already there in the hands of the Select Committees, if they choose to use them.

The issue of commissions of inquiry was raised by the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher). He might remember that, before I was in my present not-very-exalted position, I introduced a Bill to allow commissions of inquiry. There is a strong argument for them, and I am engaging with Ministers to see whether there will be a legislative opportunity for doing exactly as he wishes.

Regarding scrutiny of expenditure, we have already had the clear line of sight programme from the Treasury, which is important and which has allowed a degree of co-ordination in scrutinising expenditure, but we can go further in allowing the House to scrutinise Government expenditure more effectively. Again, however, the Select Committees have an important scrutiny role, which they have not fully exploited. As for lobbyists, we intend to introduce legislation shortly to deal with their registration. I agree that that is an important issue, too.

I will start to wind up now, Mr Benton, because the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby), who will speak for the Procedure Committee—I am so sorry that the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), the Chairman of the Committee, is indisposed today and is unable to be here—wishes to speak.

The problem that we had with the previous Government was their attempt to lead the House’s modernisation agenda themselves, by using the Modernisation Committee, chairing it and then effectively abandoning it in the final months and years of the previous Parliament. We are making real progress on a wide front in reforming Parliament, and where there is a need for legislation we will introduce it. The procedure and processes of the House are a matter for the House itself, and we are keen that the House takes the lead on those issues. We might have clear views, and we will express them, but as a Government we should not impose processes on the House.