Parliamentary Reform

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

As a fellow inhabitant of Norman Shaw North, I share the hon. Lady’s pain. At least it gives us a bit of exercise.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, but is she really saying that we should press a button to vote? It is difficult enough at the moment to get people into the Division Lobby with any idea of what they are voting on. They would be pressing a button because the Whips had told them to, and parliamentary democracy would be destroyed.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman raised that point because I have another proposal, which I will come to in a moment, that against each amendment there should be an explanatory statement that explains what it is about. That would mean that far more hon. Members had a better idea of what they were voting on. In terms of electronic voting devices, I am suggesting not that such voting should be done in the isolation of one’s office, but that there should be a particular time when we vote each day. That would deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) about not knowing when to start running over from Norman Shaw North. We would have a particular time when we would vote. It would be done by hon. Members either sitting in the Chamber or, because there is not room for everyone, in the Lobbies. People would still get the chance to lobby Ministers, but there would be a fixed time in the day when we could vote electronically. I will explain why we would have a better idea of what we were voting on shortly. From my experience in the European Parliament, I can tell hon. Members that six votes take a minute and a half with electronic voting. Six votes in this place take at least an hour and a half. I find it hard to justify that.

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[Natascha Engel]

I agree. Sometimes, however, we are in slight danger of overplaying the idea that Whips infantilise Members and sometimes we should just be big enough to stand up to them, if we have an issue.

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Natascha Engel]

As the hon. Gentleman has frequently done.

[Mr Bone]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on making a very powerful speech. I want to bring to the attention of the House my private Member’s Bill abolishing the Whips Office. I have tabled it for a Wednesday night—7 September 2011. All things come if we wait.

[Natascha Engel]

I look forward to taking part in that debate. In fact, that brings me to the end of my general points. There is one thing that I consider would be a really good piece of parliamentary reform and it relates to Select Committees. Select Committees are the thing that we as a Parliament do really well. They are possibly the only forum where Members of Parliament, after they are elected, learn, gain in expertise and develop. It is an absolute privilege for MPs to be members of Select Committees. Being a member of a Select Committee is not open to everyone. In fact, it is only open to a minority of MPs. We have taken away the ability of Whips alone to appoint people to Select Committees and we now have elections across the House, and that has worked really well.

I do not see why the Select Committee principle cannot go much wider. Initially, I thought that every MP should be allowed to be a member of a Sub-Committee of a Select Committee that looks in greater detail at individual issues that may be cross-departmental, and that we should also have departmental co-ordinating Committees. However, I think that we should go even further and invite Members of the House of Lords to take part in that process.

We massively neglect the House of Lords. Regardless of whether we believe that Members of the Lords should be elected, or even if we do not believe that they should be there at all, there are people in the Lords who are specifically there for their expertise; indeed, it is their only reason for being in the Lords. Sometimes, we have people who are very expert in the House of Commons, but in the House of Lords there is a group of people who are expert in a certain subject. I would love to see Select Committee membership widened to include absolutely everybody.

For example, instead of a Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, or on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we should have a Select Committee that examines the issue of waste management and incineration. In almost every single constituency, the issue of where an incinerator is placed is a massive one. It involves planning laws, waste management and the local authority; all these different aspects of the issue need resolving.

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[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Benton. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. My speech will be very short, and I will not dwell on any points that have been made before.

There is one proposal that has the potential, if adopted, not only to save time but to improve the image that we project, both internally and externally. It is rather controversial, but we could save three or four minutes every day by not having Prayers in the main Chamber. If we want to have Prayers, let us shift them into the secondary Chamber—Westminster Hall. There are various reasons why we should make that move. First, it is important that Parliament reflects the country as it is today. It is increasingly not a monotheistic country —we are not an overwhelmingly Christian country any more.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend is making a hopeless point, but in a very good way. Is it not correct that, in a recent poll, 75% of British people thought that they were Christians?

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[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing for us this debate, with the support of the Backbench Business Committee. The turnout shows how many hon. Members want to discuss the subject. For me, what ran like a thread through all the speeches this afternoon was a passion for this place because of what it can do for the people whom we represent. That is why this issue matters.

Like others, I pay tribute to those who have worked to bring about reform, including, certainly in the past year or so, the Wright Committee. I pay tribute to the former Leader of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and to the current Leader of the House for the work that they have done to improve the way in which Parliament operates.

The other thing that has been striking about today’s debate is the number of hon. Members who have come along and said, “My mind has been moved by my experience in the House.” It is very encouraging to see so many newly elected Members here. People’s minds have also been moved by the quality of the argument and the force of the case that has been put. We owe a lot to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion for the cogent and forceful way in which she has argued the case.

The hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) referred to recent events surrounding the resignation of the hon. Member for Belfast West. The Leader of the House has been so good as to come and listen to the debate, although he is not winding up. When I suggested a change in the system, because I believe that if a Member wants to resign, they ought to be able to write to the Speaker and say, “I hereby resign from the House of Commons,” the Leader of the House chided me slightly by saying that our procedure for the Chiltern hundreds had stood us in good stead for, as I recall, some 260 years and the Government were not inclined to change it. His reputation as a reformer goes before him. I trust that that is not an argument that we will hear deployed too often when we come to debate some of the other changes that have been discussed this afternoon, because the response to any proposal put forward by hon. Members should be that it will be considered on its merits. We certainly should not argue, “Well, we’ve always done it this way.” We should argue the case, listen to the different views—we have heard a very wide range of views this afternoon—and make a decision.

The work of the Wright Committee and others has meant that real change has happened. The election of Select Committee Chairs and membership has been a very important step in taking those positions away from the power of Governments and Whips and putting them in the hands of hon. Members. Select Committees are a very powerful force in the House. The change has been an important assertion of the principle of independent scrutiny of what the Executive do.

More urgent questions have been granted. I pay tribute, if one can without breaching parliamentary order, to Mr Speaker, because he has certainly increased the number that are granted. The fact that more Back Benchers are now called to ask questions—business questions and others—has helped to re-energise the Chamber.

For me, however, the most significant change of the lot has been the creation of the Backbench Business Committee. In fairness, a reading of history would probably suggest that the Executive really grabbed control of time at some point in the 17th century. The creation of the Backbench Business Committee has wrested back for Back Benchers the opportunity to determine what we debate, how we debate it and whether it is put to a vote. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) for the skill with which she has chaired the Committee and for the really open way in which she and the other members of the Committee meet every week and say to hon. Members, “Come and tell us what you want to discuss.”

The salon, so christened by the Leader of the House, is an open and transparent way for Members to have the chance to say, “This is what we would like to discuss.” It is a profound change, and we are still getting to grips with it, but one occasion crystallises the force of the change in my mind. That was the first of the Backbench Business Committee’s debates, on contaminated blood, which included a vote. I have never encountered such a thing in my time in the House. We have seen that same force in this afternoon’s debates, and there will be another example next week with the debate on voting rights for prisoners.

[Mr Bone]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point. On transparency—he was discussing votes—does he share my desire that, in order for people to see what is really going on in Parliament, if voting is organised by the business manager, in other words it is whipped, it should be displayed in public and recorded in Hansard? If the party is whipping people to vote in a particular way, those outside should be able to see it.

[Chris Bryant]

They could tweet it.

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[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

It has been a great pleasure to listen to this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing it.

I am pleased that so many new Members have come along and contributed. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) hit the nail on the end when she said that there is a brief moment before we become institutionalised by this place where we actually see things as others see them. It is important that we have that perspective and make use of it.

I also say that this is a triumph for the Backbench Business Committee, and I am so pleased that the Leader of the House has been able to sit through the debate. I hope that he is here not to ensure that I do not say something completely out of order but because he, like me, shares a zeal for reform. The best thing that we have done so far in this House is create the Backbench Business Committee, which we argued for in opposition, which the Wright Committee proposed and which we now have doing its job. Without the Backbench Business Committee, we would not have had the two well-subscribed, relevant debates in the main Chamber today and this debate happening here. We can contrast that with the lacklustre, so-called topical debates that we had in the previous Parliament, which were chosen by the Leader of the House. Those debates were neither topical nor debates, because Members were not really interested in them, so we have made a huge stride in the way in which we work. Of course, there are many other things that have happened, such as the election of Committees and their Chairs, which is directly relevant to what the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) has said. She is able to be a member of the Health Committee because she has the confidence of her colleagues rather than the patronage of the Whips, which is an important distinction.

Two themes underlie our debate. One is how we make this House more efficient in the way in which it does its job, so that Members of Parliament can do their jobs better. The other—this picks up the point that was very well made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart)—relates to making this House fit for purpose, which is both relevant and a matter of good governance. I agree that we reached a nadir of parliamentary performance a couple of years ago. It coincided, as it happened, with the expenses scandal, and amplified it because the general public were saying, “These people are abusing the system, and what use are they anyway, because Parliament is not doing the job for which we elected it—holding the Executive to account?”

Making the House more efficient and improving good governance are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the situation is the reverse, because they are complementary. The key word—it has been used many times—is balance. There are countervailing balances all the way through the proceedings. For individuals, it is how they use their time—in their constituencies, in the Chamber and with their families, which we often forget as part of the equation. There are competing pressures on their time when they are actually in Parliament. There are Select Committees, Public Bill Committees, the main Chamber and this place. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) had to leave this debate to be in another debate in which she has a keen interest, which demonstrates how we have to balance those pressures.

There is the further balance between legislation and scrutiny, which are both important. The key is time. Very often people make mutually impossible demands on the programme of the House. They say, “We want more time to scrutinise Bills.” At the same time, they say, “We want more statements before the House.” Then they say, “We want more opportunities to see Ministers in the Chamber, but we do not want the hours to be any longer, and we do not want the recesses to be any shorter. We want all these things to happen within the same short period that we have available as parliamentarians.” Sometimes, we have to strike a balance. Part of that balance is ensuring that legislation, which is a key part of this House’s work, is scrutinised effectively and that there is time for that to happen and for the Government to put forward legislation in a proper way.

[Mr Bone]

We are very lucky today to have the presence of three outstanding parliamentarians—the Leader of the House, the Deputy Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House. When we were in opposition, we were united in our opposition to programme motions and the reduction in time. I still hold that view, although I am not entirely sure whether the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House still do. Perhaps the answer to my problem is the introduction of a business of the House committee. What does the Deputy Leader of the House say to that?

[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.