Business of the House

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in thanking all members of the Committee, and I thank him too. I recognise that there were a lot of evidence sessions. The Committee got through a lot of work and heard from a lot of people with expertise and experience. That has clearly benefited the report.

On legislation and the possible amendment of the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978, we will of course have to listen to the views of the House in the debate. If, as I expect, there is a great deal of support for the Committee, it will be important to be able to get on with the legislation. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate better than most how difficult it might be to ensure proper scrutiny at this stage of a Parliament. The House has a record of wanting to scrutinise legislation on House of Commons matters, as indeed on most other matters. I cannot guarantee that, but I am happy to discuss the matter further with him and the other members of the Committee.

[Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Further to the reply my right hon. Friend has just given, may I join the chorus of approval for the work of the Governance Committee, so ably led by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)? It has been a model for how a Select Committee should work. Can I take it from what my right hon. Friend has just said that he plans to table the draft motion in annex C when we have the debate on the report? Who has responsibility for implementing the recommendation in paragraph 186:

“that the ‘paused’ recruitment process be formally terminated. We believe that this action should be taken immediately.”?

[Mr Hague]

I will clarify the motion when we announce the debate. It is very helpful of the Committee to put forward a draft resolution, which must be the frontrunner candidate to be the motion for that debate. On the responsibility for implementing that recommendation, I think that rests with the appointment panel that worked on it. The matter can be considered even before we come to a debate.