Backbench Business Committee

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I will keep my comments brief, in order that Back Benchers are given a bit more time.

I am deeply disappointed that the Government have tabled this motion without consulting either the Procedure Committee or the Backbench Business Committee. It goes absolutely against the spirit of the sort of relationship that has grown up between the Backbench Business Committee and the Government. The fact that motions affecting the Backbench Business Committee’s operation have been tabled while the Procedure Committee is still looking at that matter in detail and asking people far and wide, inside the House and beyond, for their ideas means that today’s debate cannot be as informed as it should be. Furthermore, to allocate one and a half hours for such a debate is laughable. Members are being asked to make decisions on matters that require much more information.

The Backbench Business Committee will produce its report either this week or next week. The Procedure Committee could work much more quickly on its review of the operation of the Backbench Business Committee if it needed to, and could report very quickly on it. If the Government were willing to withdraw the motion, I am certain that we would benefit from a debate informed by the end-of-term report from the Backbench Business Committee and by the Procedure Committee’s report, well before the end of the Session and timed to coincide with the elections to the Backbench Business Committee. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are willing to consider withdrawing the motion and having a debate on these matters on another day? I am sure that the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) and I would work very quickly to produce our Committees’ reports in order to facilitate such a debate.

The amendments tabled in my name deal with the minority parties. This matter has been a running sore to the Backbench Business Committee. We are, by accident, a Committee of Members from England. We have three members from the east midlands region, and we are an entirely English Committee. We could be far more representative not only of Back Benchers but of the country as a whole if the minority parties were more actively involved.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

As a Member from Wales, I endorse what the hon. Lady has just said. She will be aware that the leading characters from Wales came to her to put their case for a St David’s day debate, and I am happy to report that the English members of the Committee yielded to that request, but it took two years to achieve that. The point that she makes about geographic spread is an important one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Natascha Engel]

Indeed. Such representation would give added flavour to the Backbench Business Committee.

[Pete Wishart]

It is more than that; the Committee must be for Back Benchers of the whole House, not just those of the Government parties and the Labour Opposition. There are five other political parties in the House; surely they should be represented if it is to be a Back-Bench Committee of the whole House.

[Natascha Engel]

That goes to the heart of the amendments. The minority parties are Back Benchers. They can never really be Front Benchers. It is very unlikely that we will ever see a member of one of the minority parties at the Dispatch Box.

Using the principle of proportionality is also wrong. The Committee has four members from the Conservative party, one from the Liberal Democrats and two from the Labour party, plus the Chair, who has a casting vote. An additional member from one of the minority parties would not automatically lose the Government their majority—certainly not during a coalition Government, and I see no reason why we should not consider expanding the number of members of the Committee if there were not a coalition.

The Backbench Business Committee is different from other Select Committees, in that it represents all Back Benchers of the House. At the moment, however, we do that very poorly by not having representation from the minority parties. The Procedure Committee’s report of October 2011 recommended that these changes be made, and that an additional place on the Backbench Business Committee be created in order that the minority parties be given representation. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire has just made the point that, after the Procedure Committee had reported, we could table motions to amend what had been decided today. That is sort of true, but only the Government are able to table motions that affect the Backbench Business Committee. Quite rightly, we as a Backbench Business Committee cannot table motions that affect our own operation. What the right hon. Gentleman says is rather difficult unless it is within the Government’s agreement that the motions are tabled. That worries me. That brings me back to asking why the Government cannot simply wait until the Procedure Committee has produced its report and the Backbench Business Committee has told the House about its experiences in the one and a half years of its existence.

Let me briefly support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) that deals with the issue of the whole House participating in the elections. This goes back to the point that the Backbench Business Committee is somewhat different from other Select Committees, in that it represents all Back Benchers. Therefore, the whole House should have a say in who it wants on the Backbench Business Committee.

[Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

The hon. Lady and I both served on the Wright Committee, and I am sure that she remembers, as I do, that it was very much that Committee’s deliberate intention to achieve a cultural change in the House of Commons. Part of that was precisely the issue of the Backbench Business Committee being elected by and representing the whole House, not individual parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Natascha Engel]

That is absolutely right. We should not throw away that important principle today. I am worried by the fact that the Government have tabled these motions. There has been inadequate time to look at them and inadequate time to explore all the different consequences arising from them. We are dealing with something that is not broken, so I do not understand why the Government want to fix it.

[Mr Leigh]

Apparently, some people in the Government think that under the current arrangements the Labour party can gang up to ensure that so-called troublemakers are on this Committee. Is that not to politicise the whole issue? The fact is that members of the Committee are independent. They are not troublemakers; they are independent-minded people. We should keep party politics out of this.

[Natascha Engel]

That goes back to my point that the Backbench Business Committee is not broken. We do not vote on party lines and the discussions we have are not on party lines. Its members are independent-minded. They are members of different political parties, but the wider issue is about how we best represent Back Benchers as a whole. We currently have a spread on the Committee, with every type of Back Bencher in today’s Parliament represented.

I urge Members to vote for the amendment that includes the minority parties as full voting members. We do not want them to be there only as a result of some kind of patronage of the Chair which allows them to attend and listen to the Committee’s words of wisdom. We want them to have full membership and full voting rights. I also urge support for the amendment tabled to allow the entire House to vote on who should represent Back Benchers on the Backbench Business Committee.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—