Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Mark Durkan

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

As a minority party Member, I am of course disqualified from membership of the Backbench Business Committee, but happily, I am not disqualified from participating in the debate, which so far has involved many of the Members who have worked very hard on that Committee.

The Leader of the House helped us by canvassing suggestions as to where we might go from here. It is important to use the motion not just as a “wailing wall” exercise to talk about every past transgression on statements, or to compare how many press briefings this Government give compared with the previous Government. There is guilt all around, so we need to consider how we go forward. If the motion is passed tonight, it will go to the Procedure Committee, but what will it do?

One basic problem touched on by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) is that the ministerial code as such is deemed to be in the charge of the Prime Minister as opposed to the House. One of the things that I would want to see the Procedure Committee do is to draw up a House code of accountability that would apply to Ministers and to Select Committee Chairs if making statements or bringing serious matters— that they have investigated or have made recommendations on—to the attention of the House. A clear House code of accountability would get past the circular argument that takes place whenever hon. Members make a point of order about the lack of a statement—or the alleged inaccuracy of a statement—and then you say that it is not a matter for you, Mr Speaker. In the end, Ministers are meant to be accountable to Parliament, but there is no accountability when these things go wrong. A clear House code of accountability would help us to achieve that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if there were to be such a House code, it should look at mechanisms to deal with the situation in which, however inadvertently, Ministers mislead the House—as a Minister did when he claimed that my local authority had only 2% cuts—or do not answer questions when asked? We do not have a proper remedy in such circumstances, which are all too common at present.

[Mark Durkan]

I accept what my hon. Friend says. However, I doubt that a new House code of accountability would be able to cover all these issues. It would have to be more like a highway code than an exhaustive and comprehensive law that was specific in all cases. On the basis of case law and application, it could improve, and then Ministers would not be able to claim that they were in any doubt about what it required.

We must also be careful, as Back Benchers who want to ensure that announcements are made in this House rather than being pre-spun to the press and elsewhere, that we do not end up complaining that too many statements are being made and we do not have enough time to spend on substantive legislative business. For another couple of months, I will carry on serving in another Chamber, and that is a common complaint there. We have too many set-piece statements that do not amount to very much and people find it hard to see anything key, important or new in them. Those three words have all been used at various times to describe the test for whether statements should be made in this House.

I sat on the Benches opposite during the last Parliament and heard many statements that did not contain much new. It might have been that the Prime Minister wanted to identify himself with a policy, but the policy itself was not new, and at times we wondered why statements were being made. While we want to press the point that statements should be made in this House rather than being presented through the media or at other set-piece events, we do not want to end up in a ridiculous situation.

The Leader of the House made some useful suggestions. We should not always have oral statements with up to an hour of questions. Often the questions become repetitive and, just as Minister’s statements are accused of spin, so too the questions and the replies can be accused of counter-spin. It cuts both ways. Are there intermediate arrangements that we could have between a written statement, which involves no questions or time for questions, and an oral statement accompanied by a lengthy opportunity for questions? My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) referred earlier to a possible gradation of statements. As the Leader of the House suggested, if a statement were available in writing, it could then be the subject of questions without the statement being rehearsed in the House.