Parliamentary Reform

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I support the hon. Lady. Such a reform would also help with the House’s family-friendly policies. I make no complaint about that. I have not seen my seven-year-old son since Sunday night, and I will not see him until I get back at 9 o’clock tonight. I do not always want to stay on Fridays, not only because of constituency duties but because it is the only day of the week when I can take my son to school. My constituency is 225 miles away. The opportunity for a deferred vote on a private Member’s Bill on a mid-week day or consideration on another day would be ideal for both purposes.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has unanimous support.

[Caroline Lucas]

I shall proceed while I am on a roll. Another issue, albeit small, is the adoption of more accessible language, which would increase the transparency of this place and give some indication that we want people to understand what we are doing. All too often it looks as though we are deliberately mystifying what we do here to create the illusion that it is even more special than it is. There is a strong case for a systematic overhaul of the language to make it more self-explanatory. If the language of the Commons was made easier to understand, more people, especially younger people, would be more attracted to politics. MPs should be able to use each other’s names. We should drop phrases that, to the public, look at best like arcane jargon but at worst make Parliament seem inaccessible, distant and remote. Why should MPs not refer to each other in debate as Mrs Smith or John Jones? That would make proceedings more intelligible without reducing the necessary formality and without changing the practice of speaking through the Chair. A methodical overhaul of the language of the procedures and offices of the House based on the principle that it should be self-explanatory and easily understandable for the public should not be beyond something on which we can all agree.

In conclusion, we will all have many ideas about how we can improve the way in which this House works. The early-day motion to which this debate has been tagged is suggesting not specific changes but the idea that there should be some mechanism whereby a range of different ideas can be discussed and taken forward. I recognise that the Procedure Committee is doing excellent work, but it is already stressed in terms of its capacity to take on some of the very big issues that it is dealing with, such as sitting hours.

I hope that I have demonstrated not just my own wish list but also that other Members have ideas that need to be considered. I am passionate about the subject; Parliament has to become more effective so that it can better serve the nation. It cannot continue to be seen to waste taxpayers’ money and MPs’ time on antique processes that are not fit for purpose. Even where there is disagreement on the details, I hope that hon. Members will accept that my underlying concern is that much more can be done so that MPs are more efficient and more easily understood. Given that, we have a duty to be more effective about the way in which we work.

During the past couple of years, the public have heard a lot of warm words about a new politics. In the wake of the expenses scandal, hon. Members will recall the words of the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) before he became Prime Minister. He said that

“this political crisis shows that big change is required. We do need a new politics in this country. We do need sweeping reform.”

Last year, the Deputy Prime Minister told the House:

“Every Member of this House was elected knowing that this Parliament must be unlike any other—that we have a unique duty to restore the trust in our political system that has been tested to its limits in recent times.”—[Official Report, 5 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 23.]

In 2009, we heard similar things from senior Labour figures. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), now Leader of the Opposition, said:

“Out of a set of terrible issues, this is a moment for big reform and government must take advantage of it. We need a more pluralistic political system where power is shared in different ways.”

The former shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), was right when he said with characteristic colour:

“The current public mood of anger and disquiet... demands a response. We need to overhaul the engine, not just clean the upholstery.”

I hope that my points this afternoon are not simply seen as “cleaning the upholstery.” The upholstery needs cleaning; we can make the way in which we work more efficient, but there are other more fundamental issues about how we hold the power of the Executive to account. I know that several other hon. Members will raise those issues as well, and I look forward to the debate.

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[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.

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[Chris Bryant]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend would consider an idea that was suggested earlier, which is having Second Reading debates of private Members’ Bills in Westminster Hall with the vote subsequently, at a fixed time, as a deferred Division in the main Chamber.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. To widen that point, I want to see Westminster Hall being used as a more experimental Chamber. As the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden said, some of the experiments that were conducted in the past worked and some did not. That is what experiments are all about, to see whether or not they work, and unless we actually have a go at them we will not find out. Westminster Hall seems to be exactly the type of forum where we can conduct those experiments. I would have ministerial statements and any number of things taking place in Westminster Hall that currently we may or may not do in the main Chamber.

I want to make a very broad point before I make my one suggestion for parliamentary reform. That broad point is about being very clear what we as parliamentarians do and to make that our starting point for reform. I was with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion when we were giving evidence to the Procedure Committee on reforming sitting hours, in a pre-inquiry seminar, and one of the points that emerged is that every MP is different. There are different parties, but MPs are also different as individuals. They have different lives, different backgrounds and different experiences that they bring to Parliament. No one way of doing things will suit everybody, but we have come quite far from there being a clear idea of what we do in Parliament. The increasing focus that we have given our constituency work, which is something that has been happening over a long period, not only undermines the work that used to be done by local councillors and local authorities—work that they should be doing—but there has been a direct correlation between the amount of time that we spend doing very local constituency casework and the amount of time that we do not spend scrutinising legislation in Parliament and holding the Executive to account. I wonder whether the Hansard Society would like to carry out some proper research into that issue. It is a very important case that we need to make.

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[Simon Hart]

On the basis that the First Minister was sitting at the front and everybody was behind him, I suppose that there was a connection with that word. However, I felt that this week’s Prime Minister’s questions was a bit like going to the Oval to watch the cricket, only to find that it had been rained off and having to sit under an umbrella waiting for something to happen.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hart]

I would be delighted to give way, as always.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Benton. I will take careful note of what you have said and restrict my comments by not repeating many of the points that other Members have raised. However, it would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate.

I repeat the fact that I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and I have listened carefully all afternoon to the points everyone has made, and will continue to do so for the rest of the debate. I do so with an open mind. It is important that matters of parliamentary reform be considered from the basis of how we can best do our job most effectively. What is the best way that we can conduct our affairs for the benefit of our constituents?

One major problem is not so much the quantity of legislation that Parliament produces, but its quality. I am obliged to the Hansard Society for drawing my attention to the increasing volume of legislation that has been passed by Parliament over the years:

“In 1950 Parliament passed 3,690 pages of legislation. By 1970 this had grown to 5,990 pages and by 1990 to 8,940. But just over 15 years later the number of pages had almost doubled to 16,031.”

Looking just at criminal offences, it states:

“All criminal offences passed between 1351 & 1988”—

a period of 637 years—

“are contained in one volume of Halsbury’s Statutes of Criminal Law encompassing 1,382 pages of law. The offences for the 19 years between 1989 and 2008 are contained in three volumes encompassing 3,746 pages!”

There is plenty of evidence that whatever else Parliament may be criticised for, it certainly cannot be criticised for lack of productivity. Whether we are producing legislation of high quality is another matter. One idea, if I could throw my six penn’orth into the reform idea pot, is for more pre-legislative scrutiny and the improvement of the legislative process. That would have a virtuous effect. The biggest problem, which I think sums up the whole debate, is how best to use our time. To solve the problem of defective legislation would in itself be an enormous boon, because we would then spend less time sorting out the problems created by poor, inadequate and inefficient legislation. I hope that is one area that we will be able to look at in the course of proceedings.

Finally, I caution Members that before we go down any road of reform we look at the procedures that are already available to us and ensure that we are already using them to full capacity. For example, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who I congratulate on her tremendous work as the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, made mention of the work of Committees. I entirely agree that Committees are a useful tool for the House, but I wonder whether we are using them as effectively as we could. As evidence, I would cite the one power that all Committees have, except a very few dealing with private Bills, which is the power, almost never used, to take evidence on oath under the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871. It is a rare power, but it already exists and may be something that we could use.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is right. In fact, I would make it standard for all Committees to take evidence on oath. It is extraordinary that often Committees want somebody to give evidence but never go through the process of forcing them to attend, which is still technically possible. For example, Rupert Murdoch is one of the most significant players in British media and in British society, yet he has never appeared before a Select Committee of this House, nor has any member of the Murdoch family. That is extraordinary.

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[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate on parliamentary reform. The subject cries out for discussion and debate. She focused largely on the admittedly archaic procedures of this place, but I want to concentrate on power and accountability. I shall try to be brief.

At the nadir of the expenses scandal, it was finally agreed by all three political parties that the rock-bottom reputation of Parliament could best be salvaged by a new, forceful, democratic role for Parliament and an effective scrutinising and decision-making Chamber for the nation’s business. The Wright Committee—the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons—was set up. It was given little time but it reached its conclusions in rapid order and produced an excellent, well-argued report which ushered in two important changes, as we all know.

The first was the Backbench Business Committee, which has been successful under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). It wrested some limited control of the parliamentary agenda from the Executive, which had monopolised it for decades, although—I say this in the presence of the Leader of the House, whom we are glad to see here—we look to the conclusion of that process by the setting up of a House business committee at an early stage. The other important change was to secure the election, as opposed to the selection by Whips, of the Chairs of Select Committees who, as we all know, are by far the most effective mechanism for holding Ministers to account. Both innovations have worked extremely well.

However, valuable as those reforms are, they scarcely begin to redress the balance of power that has subordinated Parliament over the past several decades. Its power has drained away through the increasing concentration of power in No. 10. It continually seeps away to Brussels as the European Union mandate spreads ever wider, and the judiciary increasingly encroaches on the parliamentary prerogative, presumably prompted by the judges’ view that if Parliament cannot hold the Executive to account, they will.

A parliamentary revival needs to be tackled at several levels. At one level, we drastically have to overhaul our existing procedures. I want to give a few examples. Bills in Committee—the stage at which they should be seriously scrutinised—can often emerge after dozens if not hundreds of hours of scrutiny with minimal changes. I have even known them to emerge with no change. Why? Because a Whip-chosen majority of the governing party can simply block amendments. We should look at the Scottish system in which Bills no longer go to a Standing Committee but to the appropriate Select Committee, which has a track record of expertise. Of course, that would require considerable strengthening of Select Committees in terms of resources, the number of Sub-Committees and also time, but it would be a serious and much better alternative.

Report is the one stage at which Members of this House can make important changes to Bills through votes of the whole House. One abuse is that the Government can all too easily prevent later amendments. Of course, amendments are often not wanted by Governments—that is hardly surprising—and they can ensure that they are not even reached by talking out earlier amendments. One recent example of that, of course, is the European Union Bill, but there are many others.

Another problem, which has been mentioned, is not the fault of either the Whips or the Government but of Members. How many Members vote at the suggestion of their Whips as they approach the lobby without actually knowing what they are voting on? It is a serious abuse, and one of the reasons it is problematic is that most people cannot understand what the amendment is actually about. I have had that experience many times when looking at the amendment paper. A proposal, which I believe has the support of the Government, is that there should be a short explanation—two or three lines, for example—of the purpose and nature of every amendment on Report so that people can more easily make a judgment.

[Chris Bryant]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Meacher]

I realise that many people wish to speak, but I shall give way very briefly.

[Chris Bryant]

When a knife or a guillotine come in, the Government Whips are happy for amendments to be talked out because they know that the rules of the House specify that the Government amendment will still be taken. If we were to abolish that rule, some of their power over time would disappear.

[Mr Meacher]

That is a fair point, and I entirely agree. I do not have time to suggest ways of dealing with all the problems, which are extensive. This House is meant to be a serious, scrutinising body, but it simply is not so at present.

The third issue that I wish to raise briefly is about the public, who are involved in this—their lives are controlled by the Bills that we put through. There should be a pre-legislative stage for Bills at which outside experts can be brought in to give detailed evidence, and where members of the public and, indeed—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey)—Members of Parliament have an opportunity to make representations.

That is all about existing procedures. I want to say something very quickly about a further range of reforms whereby Parliament could and should assert its authority as the elected voice of the people. On matters of overriding national importance—the obvious example of the past decade was the Iraq war; it took 15 months before this House even had a debate on it—Parliament should have the right to set up its own commissions of inquiry and not simply depend on the Executive or No. 10 to do so, because, of course, it is usually their actions that are the subject of the investigation. That is not a particularly novel suggestion or innovative proposal—it is exactly what our Victorian predecessors did quite regularly.

Secondly, when committees of inquiry are set up by the Prime Minister, which will probably remain the normal practice, the House should be empowered to scrutinise the terms of reference and approve the appointment of the chair and members of those bodies, because the choice of personnel and the terms of reference can significantly skew the final report in a particular direction. Many of us know that all too well.

Thirdly, on patronage, Select Committees should routinely carry out confirmation hearings. Again, there is nothing original about that—that is exactly what happens and has happened for years in the United States Congress. That should be done, obviously, for persons who are appointed to leading quango posts but also, perhaps, for some ministerial appointments. People from outside who have never been elected to Parliament are brought in by Prime Ministers and suddenly appointed to important posts. Parliament has a right to call them for examination, and to vote to approve their appointment at the end.

Fourthly, there are often obscure and complex legal issues in many of these matters. Parliament should be served by its own legal counsel if it is to be an effective check on Executive power.

I will make three further quick points. One is the control of expenditure, since the annual Government expenditure of £650 billion is a key exercise of power. Parliament should establish a framework for the contemporaneous monitoring and cross-examination of major expenditure programmes—not just the ex post facto examination by the Public Accounts Committee, though that is valuable and I would want to keep it. It should be aided by a cadre of expert external advisers. Whether that is done through Select Committees—which might be the best way—or through a new specialist estimates Committee, is for discussion. The allocation of huge quantities of public money and the whole question of value for money are of legitimate interest to Parliament, at the time that the decisions are still in the making.

Secondly, professional lobbyists are a very serious issue. They have now hugely increased their influence over the political process. Parliament should require that a public register is kept, including the scope of their activities, their source of funding and their meeting with Ministers. If there is to be the transparency that democracy demands, that murky area needs to be cleaned up.

Thirdly, several hon. Members mentioned petitions. I agree that where a very high—and the bar should be high—threshold number of electors have signed a petition, there is a case for saying that it should be debated and voted on in the House. We need a new constitutional settlement if we are to get off our knees and be an effective check on Executive power. Many of those proposals, as well as others, need to be looked at seriously.

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[Joseph Johnson]

That is as may be, but institutionalised prayer and congregational worship have fallen out of practice in this country over the past century, as people may notice from the attendance at their local church. I am not against going to church, which is something that people should feel free to do, but it is something that MPs should be encouraged to do in their own time. There are plenty of places of worship in the Palace of Westminster for them to go to if they want to be put in a God-fearing state of mind at the start of play. I can recommend the chapel of St Mary Undercroft. It has some fine—

[Chris Bryant]

It is hideous.

[Joseph Johnson]

It has some fine depictions of the fates of those who are not sufficiently respectful of others in their daily activities. There are plenty of ways for MPs to put themselves in the right frame of mind—a selfless frame of mind—at the start of play. Institutionalised worship in the main Chamber is not a good use of everyone’s time.

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[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.

[Hilary Benn]

From a sedentary position, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) suggests how it could be done.

I am not convinced that that is the most urgent of the reforms that is needed. The truth is that there is a tension here. On the one hand, we are members of parties; some are on their own and others have more around them, but that is part of the reason why we are elected to this place. We may or may not have great qualities as individuals, but we are elected because of what we represent, but that bringing together enables Parliament to do business. The other part of the tension is how that impinges on Members exercising their independent judgment, a point that I shall return to in a moment.

I welcome the Procedure Committee’s report on ministerial statements, and its inquiry into sitting hours. I sense that we have a moment for further reform. Today’s debate demonstrates that, not least because there are long-standing Members here today who have expressed an interest and shared their views with us, and there are many new Members here—a large number of new Members. That is why the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has done us such a great service. One thing that struck me today, which is not always the case in all debates, was that as the hon. Lady spoke—indeed, as all hon. Members spoke—every one of us was listening intently to what was being said, which is how it should be. That is a characteristic of Westminster Hall, and sometimes—and sometimes not—it is a characteristic of the main Chamber, which tells us something about the importance of our discussion.

Turning to the specific proposals, I agree that we should consider ways to provide greater certainty about when votes are taking place, and I am all for considering ways to speed up the process. However, the chance for Members to come together collectively is important, and it is the reason for the proposed change. On sitting hours, I am in favour of returning to 11.30 am to 7 pm on Tuesdays, and I am in favour of moving private Members’ Bills to Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. It is wrong that Members should have to make a choice on a Friday between their constituency responsibilities—many choose to exercise them, myself included—and considering legislation. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), I agree that Bills should be disposed of by a vote and not by trying to talk them out.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely. The neatness to the solution of having private Members’ Bills on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings is this. One of the arguments against the old hours was that, “Well, the place is dead in the evenings,” but there would be plenty to discuss for those who wish to stay and take part. That would acknowledge the fact that we have responsibilities to our constituencies, which we all understand, and would not put us in a bind.

As for amendments and explanations, I am absolutely in favour of the recommendation. We had an experiment, but not everyone did so. A simple way to ensure that everybody does it is to say that those who want to table an amendment must offer an explanation or it will not be considered.

Turning to the broader questions, many hon. Members have mentioned balancing competing pressures on time, and we happen to be sitting in one of the solutions. The Adjournment debates that take place in Westminster Hall are hugely important for Back Benchers who want to raise issues and get an answer from Ministers. A number of ideas relating to that have been suggested by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) and others. The Procedure Committee has recommended that we use this place to question Ministers on written ministerial statements, which is a most sensible suggestion that I hope the House will adopt. The other question is who should control the time, as we seek to expand it to deal with the competing demands.

The second matter is the fundamental one of the balance of power between the legislature and the Executive.

[Chris Bryant]

By convention, constitutional Bills are dealt with entirely on the Floor of the House. In practice, the process of going through them line by line means that we end up with fewer hours of debate. I wonder whether there is a means of having those debates in Westminster Hall, so as to allow a longer debate, more in the style of a normal sitting on the Committee corridor, but with the votes still being held in the main Chamber.

[Hilary Benn]

That would be one way of addressing some of the pressures that we have been discussing. I shall return in a moment to how we could take it all forward.

I was a local councillor for 20 years and, picking up on a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher), when I was first elected to the House, I was astonished at the lack of scrutiny of expenditure, because councillors went through every year’s budget line by line. We have a lot of means by which to hold the Executive to account, if we choose to exercise them, and we can discuss ways to acquire more means. My right hon. Friend has made a number of suggestions on that point.

The third question is how Parliament is seen and covered by the media. I regret the fact that there is more commentary and sketch writing about what is said in Parliament than there is reporting of what parliamentarians say. It is a bit like “Match of the Day” having about five minutes of football and 55 minutes of analysis. We have to get the balance right, but it is up to us.

We should think back to the tuition fees debate, when a wide range of views was expressed. That day, the eyes of the nation were on Parliament. My son told me that he went to the bar at university and saw something that he had never seen before—students watching the Parliament channel on television. On that day, people were looking to us, because we were debating something important. When the bankers appeared before the Treasury Committee—those folk had contributed somewhat to the economic difficulties that we face—people were interested in the process.

The fourth question is how we legislate. I agree with the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and others about the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny. With the benefit of some ministerial experience, I can say that Governments of all colours do not draft perfect legislation. The notion that the Government should unveil legislation in the House and then repel all boarders, wherever they come from, is nonsense. The act of scrutinising legislation, both pre-legislative and in Committee, means that we end up with better legislation, which is what we want. That process tests the legislation, and things that have not been thought of are exposed. I agree with those who say that we should have the chance to vote on proposals, and not see them slip off the edge of the Order Paper. The Government should have the courage of the argument and respect the vote.

Turning to how representative we are, we have not touched on House of Lords reform, because that would have taken all of our time, but I am wholly in favour of the second Chamber being 100% elected. It should be part of the system of checks and balances while recognising that the first elected Chamber should ultimately have its way.

Where do we go now? We need a process to take forward the ferment of ideas that we have heard this afternoon, and we must not lose the moment—for reasons that many Members have mentioned. The Procedure Committee, which is ably chaired by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight)—I am sorry that he is not well and we have sent our best wishes to him—is the furnace from which the ideas should come. The ideas should be presented to us; we can debate them and then have a chance to vote on them. Completely different views have been expressed this afternoon, which is great. In the end, though, we have to have a mechanism for deciding whether or not we are going to do something. Voting is a wonderful way in which we can try to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable.

Finally, why does this all matter? My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) expressed it on behalf of us all when she said that people look to this Parliament to be the forum for national debate. They want to see that their voices are heard. They want to see us solving their problems and they want their hopes and aspirations realised by what we do. In the words of the prayer, we seek

“to improve the condition of all mankind”—

I would change that to humankind—and it is good to reflect on that when we start the day. The truth is that our democracy is our best and only hope of doing those things; it is our Parliament, so let us make it work for the people whom we have the privilege of representing.