Thomas Docherty
Main Page: Thomas Docherty (Labour - Dunfermline and West Fife)Department Debates - View all Thomas Docherty's debates with the Leader of the House
(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Allen
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. In looking to improve around the margins some of the things that the Backbench Business Committee does, we should not miss the big picture. The Committee has been an incredibly powerful change, it is progress for the House and it gives us great courage and strength when considering what further the House could do. At the time of the recommendation, people were saying, “This is ridiculous. These people will be out of control. They will be doing pet topics. It depends who seizes control of the Committee, and it will be absolute chaos.” Well, people should look at private Members’ Bills if they want to talk about chaos—they are another issue that needs to be resolved and cleaned up. The Backbench Business Committee has proved that the House is capable of executing its own business and agenda responsibly and maturely, and it gives us great faith that that could happen in the proper context of a House business committee.
There are other things that we need to consider, and I have mentioned private Members’ Bills. What a shameful farce it is to talk to members of the public about the process for private Members’ Bills. The process has always been a farce, and it needs to be cleaned up so that the House can proceed with a small number of Bills—perhaps only three or four—that are guaranteed to be given a Second Reading and to go into Committee, if a majority in the House agrees. Such Bills could be voted down if the Government do not like them, but we should end the nonsense of talking stuff out, using procedural tricks and all the other stuff that just brings the House and Members into disrepute. Let us be honest about private Members’ Bills.
There are many other things. Early-day motions are political graffiti. The Wright Committee recommended that a number of motions could be used to secure Members’ debates on the Floor of the House. Again, there would be a small number of occasional debates, but early days could be found so that some credibility is restored to early-day motions, rather than their being used to buy off constituents who have raised a particular issue with their Member of Parliament and feel that signing an early-day motion will change something. Let us actually create a process through which we can change something where there is sufficient cross-party support for an early-day motion.
The Government’s abuse of petitioning also needs to be addressed. The Government have stuck their nose into e-petitioning and have misrepresented what it can do. They have tried to foist the consequences on to the Backbench Business Committee and the legislature. We should send e-petitioning back to the Government and say, “If the Government are petitioned, they must answer and respond.” If people wish to petition and e-petition the House separately asking for a proper debate, the House should take that seriously, but it should not be given a ceiling. Editors in newsrooms tell their journalists they have to pump up the numbers so that they can press the House to have a vote on something that is on their agenda; petitions should be given back to the people. The Government should separate from Parliament on petitioning, and we should address petitions in our own way internally. Hopefully, it will result in a number of debates taking place on which people have genuinely petitioned the House.
We also need to revisit the inadvertent squeeze on minority parties caused by the changes. The Wright Committee proposed that the Speaker be allowed to nominate one person to Select Committees. That power would be used wisely, I am sure, by the incumbent, who would ensure that minority parties were represented where they otherwise would not be.
The question of filling casual vacancies on Select Committees needs to be addressed, and will become ever more pressing as we approach an election and colleagues leave Select Committees, some to go into Government and some to defend a marginal seat a little more assiduously than they attend Select Committees. Some Select Committees are already experiencing that pressure. The question must be addressed now, and as the Executive control Parliament, they must address it, rather than letting it happen and then saying, “Look, these people can’t even fill the Select Committees.” It is the Government who cannot fill casual vacancies in Select Committees. Committee members are not elected. Those vacancies need to be filled—again, ironically—by the very people whom Select Committees hold to account.
I have two last items of unfinished business. One main item is pre-legislative scrutiny. We have invented pre-legislative scrutiny because legislative scrutiny is so pathetic. We have a new process, for which I was partly responsible, but it is a convention, so when very important matters come before the House, it is open to Government to ram them through. When the Government need to react to the media or tomorrow’s newspapers, they can introduce a Bill.
A classic recent example is the lobbying Bill, which will have no formal pre-legislative scrutiny. It will be rushed forward, even though my Select Committee considered the issue and produced a serious report more than a year ago. The Government have not replied to that report. They are pretty casual about replying—“There’s no real need; let’s just chill out and do it when we’re ready”—but given a couple of scandals, they react: “We’ve got to show we’re doing something.” Even though what they are doing has no relevance to the two cases that recently hit the headlines, they are ramming the Bill through quickly to get it into the sausage machine. Prostituting Parliament in that way will not make people respect the laws that are finally produced.
Pre-legislative scrutiny is important. It is not a nice add-on; it should be central business of this House, and in my opinion, it should be in our Parliament’s Standing Orders that as well as Second Reading, Report and consideration by the Lords, pre-legislative scrutiny should be mandatory unless the Speaker, in an emergency, says that it should not take place.
The final issue that needs to be tackled is Report. If there is a Member here who feels that Report is a good process and shows the House in a great light, I will gladly give way. It is shameful how Government and their administrators abuse the House of Commons by flooding the Order Paper with late amendments. Not content to do so on Report in the Commons, they then do the same in the House of Lords and when the Bill returns to the House of Commons. They are treating the House with absolute contempt. It is one of the hallmarks of our subservience to the Executive that we tolerate it and see it as a sensible way to do our business. It is not. It should be sorted out, and when it is, we may have a Parliament worthy of the name.
The Wright Committee did a great job. Tony Wright, the Chair, did an absolutely magnificent job of steering it. Its recommendations were not picked up by the then Labour Government—they were blocked—but we finally made some progress in the early days of the new Government. We must remember that next time: a solemn and binding promise agreed by not one but two parties—arguably, by three—has been broken.
Mr Allen
He affirms that that is the case, which I think is sad, and it proves how much work we all have to do if we get into government and do something with government other than just change the bums on the seats. There is an awful lot of work still to do, but the Wright Committee has made great progress.
As far as I am concerned, this debate should be a signal to those who believe that we should have a strong and independent Parliament that it is possible to win small victories, but we must ensure in the longer term that we continue to make our democracy into something with Parliament at the heart of it, where the parliamentary interest is separate, and hopefully separately elected, from the Government interest, which needs to be properly elected and legitimised. When that day comes, we will have two strong institutions working together. Our democracy will be stronger for it, and our nation will too.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on a powerful speech. I entirely agree with its content, so I shall go a little—in fact, a lot—further and faster. I think that his reluctance to do so is due to the fact that unfortunately, he has spent a bit of time in the Whips Office, which does something to dent the spirit.
When I first came to the House in 2005, I had a whole mound of mail, which I spent most of my time throwing in the bin. I opened an envelope, and there was a little book signed by the author, Graham Allen. It was an interesting book about the relationship with the Prime Minister: was he now actually the President? I could not put it down, and I have treasured it. It was nice to get it, but it was also a well-argued book.
One of the debates that the book raises is whether we should have separation of powers and an Executive that is completely independent of Parliament. On balance, I think that is a bad thing, because we have the wonderful opportunity, even if only on a Wednesday now, to ask the head of the Executive questions. There are still advantages to how our system works. However, the problem is that people in opposition who want to be in government or become Prime Minister can analyse things correctly and sensibly. When the current Prime Minister was in opposition, he produced a wonderful speech called “Fixing Broken Politics”, which I urge every Member to read. Everything in it is right. He decided how he was going to correct things. He is now Prime Minister, and none of those things have been corrected. I argue that in many cases, they have got worse.
There are a lot of things that we could easily do to bring Parliament back, even just a little. We can only move the pendulum back a bit at the moment, but one simple thing that we could do is restore Prime Minister’s questions to twice a week, and have one occasion on a Thursday. At the moment, Members come down late on Monday for a vote in the evening, and on Wednesday evening, after Prime Minister’s questions, they want to go. One thing that I have never understood is why so many Members work so hard to be elected and come to this place when, once they are here, all they want to do is get away from it. It is an extraordinary state of affairs. Regrettably, this debate is not particularly well attended. It should be packed. This is what parliamentarians should care about.
Thomas Docherty
May I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality?
Mr Bone
As the hon. Gentleman and I recently slept together—[Laughter.] I must explain that a little; it was an attempt by the hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), who is in the Chamber, another colleague and me to take a little power back from the Executive. We spent four nights sleeping outside the Table Office, so that we were first in the queue for presentation Bills. We presented about 50 Bills last week; we took that power away from the Executive, so that we could introduce Bills. One of the Bills that I introduced was for an allowance for married couples, which I did not realise that the Chancellor was to take up this very week. In a small way, doing such things achieves something, although it is ridiculous that we have to spend four nights sleeping in a small attic room to take a little power back for Parliament.
Mr Bone
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, although he may hear one such wish, because I am not sure yet. I do not trust the Government or the shadow Executive on the subject. I think that they will say, “Because the Backbench Business Committee is great, that is doing Back-Bench business. The other committee, therefore, must be for the Executive”—a business committee would be an Executive one. That is the danger.
If we have a proper committee for the business of the House, it should have no members of the Executive or shadow Executive on it, it should be elected by the House and it should produce a timetable that is amendable and can be voted on—that might go a little further than the hon. Gentleman intended. That is the real way to do things. We are a grown-up place; if we are to be a Parliament, that is how it should work. Otherwise, perhaps we should go completely the other way and have separation of powers. At the moment, however, we have a pretend Parliament on so many different issues. It breaks my heart that, with rare exceptions, Parliament does not bite back.
Recently, we have had two good examples of how Parliament does and does not work. On same-sex marriages, because all the party leaders and their Front Benchers agreed with it, the Bill was rammed through Parliament without proper debate, and many amendments were not even reached. That was completely what is wrong with Parliament. The week before, we had the amendment to the Queen’s Speech, arising from a revolt among Back-Bench Members that had resulted, unbelievably, within the week, in the Government completely changing their policy on an issue, because Parliament had said, “This is what we want to happen.” We need more of that, and less of stuff being rammed through.
There is so much we can do, but I am disappointed, because I do not think we will achieve any of it. The Deputy Leader of the House will give us a wonderful explanation of why we have not had the business committee in three years. It will be an absolutely wonderful explanation and it will be, of course, total rubbish, because I know the reason why we have not had that committee. I know what the Government care about because of where I sit in the House of Commons. You probably know, Mr Crausby, that I sit on the second Bench, behind the Ministers and the Whips. Any time there is discussion of the business committee of the House, the Whips, including the Leader of the House and Chief Whip, say, “Over my dead body!” I assume that that is what the Deputy Leader of the House will tell us. The Whips are completely opposed to the idea of a business committee of the House—it is just not going to happen.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman must have misspoken. Surely the Chief Whip could not have said, “Over my dead body” because it is on the record that the Chief Whip was a huge enthusiast in his previous job for a business committee and surely he cannot have changed his mind now that he is a Whip.
Mr Bone
I think we have answered the question then. It is a wonderful piece of magic that these things happen when people change their position. Having said that, however, if I was sitting on the second Bench on the opposite side of the House of Commons, the Labour Whips would be saying exactly the same as the Government Whips, and that is the problem. It is not as if the Opposition are pushing for a business committee; they are not. The Opposition are muted—they say nothing—and I am really sad about that. I hope that what the hon. Member for Nottingham North has said today highlights the problem and I also hope that colleagues take it up. There may be a window of opportunity at the beginning of the next Parliament, but at the moment I see that we are going backwards rather than forwards.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I am grateful, Mr Crausby, to have the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship. As I said to you last night, I think that this is the first time that I have had such a pleasure. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing the debate. The discussion has been quite lively and thought provoking. Unfortunately, I do not agree with all his analysis, not least the point about separation of powers. There is an excellent book called “Plain, Honest Men”, which I commend to him. It is about the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. It is a thought-provoking book that gives some idea as to why the United States has a separation of powers between the Executive and the legislature, but like many things from the United States, it is in itself a reason not to go down that route. Parliament would be weaker if we separated our Executive from our legislature in the way that I think my hon. Friend was alluding to.
Thomas Docherty
That is a splendid offer. I look forward to receiving the book.
There are seven or eight points that I would like to respond to in the limited time that I have. First, this might be heresy to some colleagues, but the Wright report is not a panacea. There is now this mythology that somehow it got everything right. I think that it is about time that a reality check was applied to that. This Parliament has made huge strides towards modernisation, but not just because of the Wright report. There are three other factors that have changed the dynamic of this Parliament compared with previous ones.
One factor is the 2010 intake of Members. I do not say that just because that was my intake; we have seen that it has been the most rebellious of intakes. In the excellent blog by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), he busts the myths about some of the rebellions that have taken place on the Government side and he points out that some of the most effective and important rebellions were led by Members who were part of the 2010 intake. I am referring to the entirely sensible pushing back against the Deputy Prime Minister’s nonsensical ideas for House of Lords reform, the EU budget vote that took place and what happened on the EU referendum. Those rebellions were all led by Members from the 2010 intake. They have been much more effective and much more willing to challenge their own Government than perhaps was the case in previous Parliaments.
The second factor is Mr Speaker. I am a huge fan of the current Speaker. He has changed how Parliament engages with the wider public and the use of urgent questions. I think that in the last Session, there were 130 days on which an urgent question was granted to hold the Executive to account. That should be commended.
Thirdly—this is not a good change—there is the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. IPSA has changed how Members of Parliament operate. It has driven Members away from taking part in Parliament. I think that, so far, Professor Wright has failed to change IPSA now that he is a board member and that he needs to be held to account for that failure to curb IPSA’s worst excesses.
On Select Committees, I agree that we have some very effective Select Committees, but—I say this very gently—there has been a contradiction today. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North applauded the fact that the choice of Select Committee members has been taken out of the hands of the Whips, but later he bemoaned the fact that keeping hold of Select Committee members as we get closer to the general election becomes harder and harder. This is a valid point. One problem that we have is that because they were elected by colleagues from their own party, many Members went on to Select Committees on the basis of their name. They arrived in the House in the 2010 intake with a reputation from outside and were elected on to Select Committees, but they have not been very effective performers in many cases. We must recognise the drawbacks.
If I may criticise the Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North—
Thomas Docherty
May I just finish this point?
I think that the Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North meets on the wrong day of the week, at the wrong time. It is an excellent Select Committee—he has mentioned its work on lobbying, for example—but unfortunately it clashes with the highlight of the week, which is business questions. I think that if he moved it off the Thursday morning, he would have many people coming before it or wanting to take part in it.
Michael Connarty
I just want my hon. Friend to clarify his criticism of those Members who go on to Select Committees. Is he suggesting that the Whips should put Members on Select Committees regardless of their aspirations?
Thomas Docherty
I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. My point is that this is a balancing act. We should not consider that simply having had an election has made the system better, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North said, some Select Committees are struggling to get quoracy because Members were put on them at the start of the Parliament and have lost interest, been promoted or whatever else. There is also a broader point about whether Front Benchers should routinely be allowed to serve on Select Committees. I think that, in the previous Parliament, that happened. Many members of what was then the Conservative Opposition served on Select Committees. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but on the Education Committee, the Defence Committee and others, there were Front Benchers who served, and there is merit in that, because Select Committees have more opportunity to learn about the intricacies of a Department than Oppositions do.
Thomas Docherty
I will not, because I am conscious of the time and my hon. Friend was given half an hour at the start.
I also disagree about the Intelligence and Security Committee. That must be dealt with by the usual channels, because of the very sensitive work that that Committee, by its very nature, undertakes. The Defence Committee struggled earlier in this Parliament, because, as we all know, there was a problem with one of its members. Not just our Government but other Governments refused to share information with the Defence Committee, because they believed that one of its members was unsound. We need to be very careful about the Intelligence and Security Committee and where we get to with that.
A number of points were made about things such as private Members’ Bills and early-day motions. Let me gently point to the fact that the Procedure Committee has either published reports or is in the process of publishing reports on those two issues. I say to the House that it is worth waiting just a couple more weeks until we get those reports.
The issue of the petitioning system was raised. I welcome the fact that the Leader of the House wrote just last week to both the Backbench Business Committee and the Procedure Committee to invite them to look at the whole petition system—both electronic and written petitions. Again, I refer to the three previous reports from the Procedure Committee about e-petitions. I hope that when the motion comes forward in my name and that of the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), all Members will put it through on the nod to allow e-petitions that reach the threshold to be the subject of a Westminster Hall debate on a Monday afternoon. That worked pretty well in the last Session, and I hope that it continues.
On the House business committee, let me clear up the matter once and for all. As the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), said in front of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee just a few weeks ago, the Opposition remain deeply sceptical about the House business committee. Even after three and a half years, the Government have yet to come up with proposals. We therefore welcome the fact that on 20 June the Leader of the House confirmed—and provided some certainty in the debate—that the Government do not propose to bring forward a House business committee. It could be argued that this is a bit like the proverbial tree falling over in a wood. The Leader of the House has, by my estimation, now said three times that the Government do not plan to bring forward a House business committee, yet we continue to have a discussion about when he is bringing one forward, so we welcome that certainty.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) made quite a lengthy contribution about explanatory statements. Let me gently point him to order 47 in the “Future Business” section of the Order Paper, which is in my name and the names of the Deputy Leader of the House, the shadow Leader of the House, the Leader of the House and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee. It precisely says that there shall be explanatory statements on a permissive basis and that the House will provide such assistance as is required. I hope that he will add his name to it. [Interruption.] It has to be permissive—I hope that I can eat into the time of the Deputy Leader of the House by 30 seconds—because there will be times when it is common sense that an explanatory statement is not required. I do not think that it requires the time or effort to produce an explanatory statement if all we are doing is changing a date, for example from “2017” to 2014”—to take a private Member’s Bill that may be debated. Furthermore, we cannot bind the Speaker’s hand so that he will accept only amendments for which there are explanatory statements. I gently refer my right hon. Friend to the Procedure Committee’s fourth report of 2012-13, which sets out why that is the case.
I am conscious that I am eating into the time of the Deputy Leader of the House. I commend the debate and I hope I have provided some clarity.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, and to respond to this timely debate on the implementation of the Wright Committee’s outstanding recommendations.
We are in the third year of this Parliament, which provides an opportunity to reflect on the success of recent reforms and allows time to deliver further reform in this Parliament, where the case for such reform is made. Before addressing the points raised by Members, which relate to the outstanding recommendations, I would like briefly to reflect on what has been delivered, because there is a positive story to tell. The reform Committee made 50 recommendations in its report, and a majority have been implemented in full or require no further action—in other words, those cases where there was a statement of principle, for example. Specific achievements that directly relate to the recommendations include the election of Select Committee Chairs; the election of Deputy Speakers; the ability to debate substantive motions; the provision of Monday afternoons in Westminster Hall for debates on e-petitions, which I hope we are about to renew; the endorsement of September sittings; and, arguably the most important change, the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee.
In addition, I remind Members of the changes we have introduced for the scrutiny of legislation, which a few Members have suggested is wanting in some respects. Some of those changes were made in direct response to recommendations of the reform Committee. They include an increased number of multi-day report stages, so two days on Report is now common for major Bills, although I would not say that it was routine; the increased use of pre-legislative scrutiny, which Members welcome, with 17 sets of measures published in draft last session; and more time for scrutiny: most Public Bill Committees—nearly 80%—in the 2012-13 Session finished early. The changes also include successful pilots on public readings—for example, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 and the Children and Families Bill; and successful pilots of explanatory statements on amendments, and I welcome the fact that that will proceed. I wondered whether the Opposition’s initial reluctance was because they were not certain what their amendments were going to do, but given that they are going to support explanatory statements, that is clearly not the case.
Thomas Docherty
Our concern was about not only the official Opposition, but individual Members and minority parties, which do not have the resources. We are not as well served as the Deputy Leader of the House is by his excellent civil servants.
Tom Brake
I agree and I understand the point. It was just a cheap jibe, to which the hon. Gentleman responded. The changes also include the use of social media by Select Committees during inquiries and meetings.
Having put on record some of the substantial achievements, I shall respond to some of the points made in our debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing the debate. I do not share his rather apocalyptic vision of our parliamentary democracy. He knows that Parliament and the Executive are not separate. I do not believe, as he seems to, that Government are dominating Parliament. The Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), might have been slightly offended by that suggestion, because it is widely recognised that her Committee has grasped a substantial proportion of what was previously Government time and on the back of that initiated a series of important debates, a third of which have taken place on days other than Thursday. They do not always take place on Thursdays, but as she commented, Thursday is a sitting day. Many of us spent many years campaigning to secure our positions in Parliament, so one would expect Members to be willing to work or stay on Thursdays to participate in debates that take place then.
I think the hon. Member for Nottingham North encouraged me to push reform, if not in government then certainly in a future Liberal Democrat manifesto. David Howarth, who is no longer a Member of Parliament, did a good job of pushing that agenda when he was here, and he continues to do so. I am sure we will want to return to this matter in a future manifesto. We have achieved a substantial amount. The hon. Gentleman threw down the gauntlet to me—as did other Members, including the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher)—over the creation of a House business committee, and I will throw down the gauntlet gently in his face, to mix my metaphors. The Government’s position is that if there were a House business committee proposal on the table it would have to pass certain tests, and some Members outlined what those tests should be. The Government should retain control of their legislative programme, and the committee should respect the remit of the Backbench Business Committee; it should take into account the views of all parts of the House; it should retain the flexibility to change the business at short notice in response to fast-moving events; and it should co-ordinate business with the House of Lords, to which I do not think any Member referred. If any Members came forward with such a proposal, I am sure that other Ministers and I would want to look at it carefully.