Amendments to Bills (Explanatory Statements)

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Commons Chamber

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

Not for the first time, I find myself in complete disagreement with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I shall endeavour to explain why, but let me first express my genuine appreciation to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), the Chair of the Procedure Committee, who has brought a breath of fresh air to the important issue of reform of parliamentary procedure.

I support amendment (a). Despite what I have just said, I believe that the Committee’s modest position represents a major missed opportunity, in that the gain from making brief explanatory statements mandatory is enormous, while the extra effort required to achieve it—and here I strongly disagree with the hon. Member for North East Somerset—is minuscule. At present, particularly on Report, Members who have not participated in Committee often do not know, and have made little or no effort to find out, what precisely they are casting their vote for. Anecdotal evidence suggests the proportion could be as high as seven or eight out of 10. This is of great significance because, particularly if the Government Whips have exercised a tight leash over Committee stage, the Report stage is often the only real opportunity for the House to modify the content of the Bill. The debates on Report are usually focused on important issues where strong views are known to be held by the public. Echoing what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, it is a reasonable assumption that if the public were more widely aware that these matters of considerable importance to them were treated in such a cavalier fashion by many, if not a great many, Members who often vote blind—and I confess that I am one of them occasionally, because of the difficulties of finding out exactly what we are voting for—there would be a huge outcry that Parliament was abusing its proper functions.

Currently, if a Member is diligent—and many are, of course—they will need to obtain a copy of the Bill, a copy of the list of amendments and, on the day, a copy of the grouped amendments selected by the Speaker. A number of Members with a particular interest will undoubtedly do this, but in most cases I submit it will be a minority. In the absence of obtaining the necessary documentation and reading it in order to understand the point at issue and reaching a considered view, the default position, as we all know, is for Members to follow their Whips on arrival in the Chamber.

Even if a Member did take the trouble to get and read the relevant documents, it is often quite difficult for someone who has not been following a Bill closely to understand what precisely the amendment is designed to do. This adds up to quite a serious flaw in the whole process of scrutiny of Government legislation, which is the central function of Parliament. It can be so easily remedied by requiring that a short statement of no more than 50 words explaining the purpose is attached to every amendment on the Order Paper and reproduced on the television monitor.

What are the objections? Here I come to the points made by the hon. Member for North East Somerset. I chair the all-party group for reform of parliamentary procedure, and the only objection raised with us is that while the Government have their civil servants to deal with amendments and provide explanatory statements, the Opposition do not have the same resources and adding the requirement for explanatory statements would impose too great a burden.

I simply do not accept that that objection is tenable. Speaking as someone who in my 43 years has taken many Bills through the House, I know that it certainly takes a huge amount of time to get to grips in particular with a large Bill—to consult outside experts over all its detailed aspects, to identify areas where modification needs to be sought and to draft amendments in an appropriate parliamentary form. Once hundreds of hours have been expended on doing that, however—that has to be done by any responsible Front Bench—adding a short statement distilling the essence of an amendment would take less than half a minute.

There is already evidence that a large majority of the House is in favour of this proposal Many hon. Members have indicated how helpful they found the two recent pilots when the Government introduced this reform for two recent Bills. In addition, Parliament First—that is the name of our all-party group—carried out a survey of all Members seeking their reaction to six proposed reforms of the House procedure, including explanatory statements. I have the results here and I will show them to anyone who cares to look. The response rate was more than 20%, which is not bad for parliamentarians. Of those respondents, 87% were in favour of explanatory statements, and there was very little difference between the two main parties.

This is a modest reform. The gain to everyone would be enormous and the effort to bring it about in practice is relatively tiny. I hope that, for those reasons, the House will support amendment (a).

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

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

This has been a sleaze-ridden Government, as we all know. There have been at least eight well-reported lobbyist scandals in the past three years and one thing links them all—none of them will be covered by this Bill, including the enormous scandal over Lynton Crosby. The Bill is ridiculously narrow—it is estimated to cover only 1% of ministerial meetings—and that ensures that more than 80% of the activity of the lobbying industry will not be regulated and will not have to register.

The Bill actually provides less transparency than there is now. It sets up a new register with much lower standards of practice than there are even under the voluntary register—for example, it contains no code of conduct. Loopholes mean that lobbyists will still keep their client lists secret. Lobbyists will not have to register if they have a business that, it can be argued, is mainly a non-lobbying business—that will give lawyers a field day. The Bill will not require consultant lobbyists to declare how much they spent on their lobbying activities. That is a crucial omission, but the biggest omission is the lack of a code of conduct backed by sanctions, which means that the whole exercise is spineless, as there will be no penalties for bad practice.

As we know, part 2 outrageously curtails the ability of charities and other non-party groups to campaign on political issues in the 12 months before a general election. The Bill cuts by almost two thirds the amount that third-party groups can spend during that period. As has frequently been mentioned, there is great uncertainty about what the Bill means by “for political purposes”. The uncertainty about how exactly that will be operated is bound to have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

The Bill also contains anti-trade union provisions. Unions with more than 10,000 members are to be required to submit to the certification officer an annual membership audit certificate, in addition to the current duty to submit an annual return. The certification officer will have the power to require the production of relevant documents, including membership records and even private correspondence. What is the rationale for these draconian provisions? No evidence is put forward in the discussion paper to demonstrate that communications are not reaching union members or that there are any shortcomings in the trade unions’ duty to maintain a register of members. Not a single objection has been raised to the certification officer in the past two years on these grounds. Lobbyists are being let off the hook almost entirely by the Bill, so why are trade unions gratuitously and wantonly being screwed down to tighten a system that is already working perfectly satisfactorily, without a shred of evidence being provided to suggest otherwise? [Laughter.] There has not been a single objection in the past two years to the certification officer; the hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) ought to consult the facts.

Surely it is obvious that the real motive behind this part of the Bill is that the Government are eager to help employers to mount injunction proceedings when union members have voted for industrial action, seizing on minor, if not minuscule, details which the Court of Appeal had previously regarded as de minimis or accidental. That whole process of inserting minor, minute, technical, bureaucratic obstacles and hurdles in the path of unions that are carrying out their perfectly legitimate and proper functions is really behind part 3.

Even by the standards of this Government, this is a nasty little Bill. It is full of vicious partisanship and it will be a stain on the statute book of this country if it is allowed to pass. Like many hon. Members, I strongly believe that what is needed is for the Leader of the House to have the courage to withdraw this Bill, in the light of the fact that there is almost no support for it across the House, and to start the process again via consultation and negotiation in the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform.

Wright Committee

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing the debate and on his fine, principled and even visionary statement about how the House could and should operate. I do not think that there is anyone in the House with a longer or more robust record of wishing to see reform to parliamentary procedure, so it is a great pleasure to follow him.

On the key question of the House business committee, which is central to the debate, and to which my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) referred, the Government made it absolutely clear in their coalition agreement that such a committee would be introduced within three years—in other words by May this year, which is now two months ago. It is by far the most important of the Wright Committee reforms that have not been implemented so far.

One normally gets only two chances a year to ask a question to the Prime Minister, but I was called at the beginning of the year to ask him about progress on the business committee. The Prime Minister said that the matter was very firmly under consideration, so we would like to know from the Deputy Leader of the House why, after three years, these considerations are continuing to go on endlessly.

The purpose of the House business committee, as proposed by the Wright Committee, was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North said so eloquently, to enable the House to gain control of its own agenda. At present, the Executive, under Standing Order No. 14, overwhelmingly control the use of parliamentary time, even following the creation of the excellent Backbench Business Committee. The Executive not only decide what business is put before the House, but the scheduling of that business.

The Wright Committee’s proposal was that the House agenda should be determined not unilaterally by Ministers, but rather by the House itself, working in collaboration with Ministers. Ministers would still have adequate time to carry through their own business—no one is challenging that—but the rest of the business should be not a matter for the Executive alone, but for the House as a whole.

The main reform recommended by Wright for that purpose was that the House as a whole should be able to vote on the agenda for the next week or weeks, rather than, as we all know is the case at present, the agenda being delivered to the House ex cathedra by the Leader of the House, although sometimes, of course, that is after prior consultation with the Opposition through the usual channels. I repeat again, because this must not be used as an argument against change, that that process would in no way prevent the Government—indeed, this could be written into the Standing Orders if necessary—from being able to bring forward all their business for proper debate and a vote on the Floor of the House, and within an agreed time scale, so there would be no threat to the Government at all. Instead, the aim was to ensure that the remainder of parliamentary business was managed in a way that required the consent of the House and that was not manipulated in a manner designed to suit the interests of the Executive.

At present, as has been said, Backbench Business Committee debates are invariably shunted to Thursdays. I am very glad that the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), is sitting beside me, and it is perfectly true that those Thursday debates are well attended.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that 56 Members attended a Thursday debate about cycling.

[Mr Meacher]

Yes, but it is also true that when more controversial issues are discussed—although the great advantage of the Backbench Business Committee is that a lot of issues that would never arise in the House, but are of great interest to a significant proportion of the public, are debated—as the last vote is often on Wednesday at 7 pm, those debates are not sufficiently well attended to secure a vote that would properly reflect the balance of the whole House. Of course, many Members depart for other commitments on a Wednesday. That is their choice, even if many of us think that they should not do so, but the temptation to do so, because of the organisation of the agenda, is considerable.

Private Member’s Bills are largely marginalised because they are confined to Fridays, when most MPs are in their constituencies, and there is a high voting bar to secure Second Reading. Such Bills are also subject to severe time constraints, and they can be readily squeezed out due to filibustering on prior Bills taken the same day.

The Report stage of Bills is crucial, but it is often a caricature of scrutiny: inadequate time is allotted to consider extremely important issues; many Members—I will return to this point—are not properly informed about what they are voting on; and many significant amendments are simply not reached at all. Equally, Lords amendments, which generally focus on issues that are not only the most controversial, but the most important, are frequently not given the time and consideration that they clearly deserve. Given the time pressure, less important business is often given a measure of priority that could be challenged.

All those drawbacks and deficiencies could begin to be redressed by the principle of a votable agenda. I repeat that the Government would still command a majority in the House, but they would have to listen much more carefully to the strongly held views of Members, particularly when there was a consensus between the Opposition and Government Back Benchers. Crucially, it would introduce transparency into setting the agenda, which could involve all Members, not simply Front Benchers engaged in discussions through the usual channels behind the scenes.

The Wright Committee envisaged that the votable agenda motion would supersede Thursday’s business questions, and that it would be subject to debate and amendment, with the Speaker having the right to select and group amendments as happens now with other business. If an amendment was selected, it could be debated for up to 45 minutes, with time-limited speeches of perhaps five minutes. If no amendment was tabled, there could of course still be a question and answer session, which would be similar to what happens now.

Clearly a votable motion could be presented by the Leader of the House and amended via the formalities of open debate on the Floor, followed by a Division. However, the whole process of agreeing the business agenda—agreement is the key point—is likely to be far better negotiated, in a more inclusive and participative manner, if there have been detailed discussions between representatives of both the Executive and the legislature beforehand. Surely all Members must agree that openness is key to achieving better democratic accountability. Regular meetings—perhaps weekly—between both sides, in the forum of a House business committee, are much more likely to secure the outcome that the management of Government business is a genuinely shared process that is not subject to hidden traps that the House discovers only later, at considerable cost, as happens all too often at present. The object of the exercise is not in any way to aggravate the Executive or to contest votes, but to build a consensus. It is about involvement in the actual decision making for the scheduling of Government business, not merely the scrutiny of decisions already taken.

I shall say a quick word about how the House business committee might work, as several questions need to be settled. First, it should not pre-empt, incorporate or supersede in any way the excellent work of the Backbench Business Committee, which has been referred to strongly in the debate. That Committee has an entirely separate function and, by general consent, has fulfilled it extremely well. It has established the right of Back Benchers to debate issues that otherwise might never have been debated, which often does not accord with the wishes of either Front Bench team. That should continue and not become confused with the very separate role of specifically scheduling Government business.

Secondly, if the House business committee is not to be the usual channels writ large, it should not be chaired by either the Government Chief Whip or the Leader of the House. Since the essential characteristic of the chair should be exercising a non-partisan role, the obvious person to chair it would be the Speaker.

Thirdly, the membership of the House business committee—of course, considerable discussion of this issue is needed—should be equally balanced between the legislature and the Executive. In a Committee of 15 members, for example, the Executive could choose its own seven representatives, while the other seven might be composed of, say, three chosen by the Opposition parties and two elected by Back Benchers—in other words, excluding Front Benchers—with two ex-officio members, whom I would suggest could be the Chairs of the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee.

Fourthly, the secretariat would have to be provided both by the seconded civil servants who work for the Executive and by the Clerks whose broad role is to support Parliament in holding the Executive to account. Any disputes between them would have to be settled by the House business committee itself.

I want to make another key point very quickly. An utterly essential and fundamental way of improving the scrutiny of Government legislation is to ensure that Members have a clear and readily available opportunity to ascertain exactly what they are being asked to vote for when amendments or new clauses are considered in Committee and on Report. At present, especially on Report, Members who have not participated in the Bill’s Committee stage often do not know, or have made little effort to find out, precisely what they are voting for. Many times, when the bell rings and, like everyone else, I troop down the escalator through to the Palace, I turn to whoever is standing beside me, of whichever party, and ask, “By the way, what are we voting for?” Perhaps a third of Members shrug their shoulders. Another third say, “Oh it’s the Social Security Bill,” and when I ask, “Yes, but what exactly are we voting for?” I doubt that more than one or two Members actually know. I am guilty of that too—I am not being holier than anyone else, but that seems to be a huge failing.

This is a matter of great significance because Report is often the only real opportunity—especially if the Minister and Government Whip have kept the Committee stage of a Bill on a tight leash—for the House to modify a Bill. The debates on Report are usually focused on important issues about which the public hold strong views. It is a reasonable assumption that if the public were aware that matters of considerable importance to themselves were treated in such a cavalier fashion by many Members, if not most, and that they vote blind without even knowing what they are voting for, there would be a huge outcry that Parliament was abusing its proper functions.

If a Member is diligent—and some are—it is necessary to obtain a copy of the Bill, a copy of the amendments and, on the day of consideration, a copy of the grouping of amendments selected by the Speaker. Of course, a number of Members with a particular interest will do that but, in most cases, they will be in the minority. In the absence of obtaining the necessary documentation, applying it to understand the point at hand, which is quite difficult, and reaching a considered view—perhaps after taking account of arguments advanced by letter or e-mail from interested individuals or organisations—the default position is for Members to troop in, see on which side their Whips are standing, and just follow them into the Lobby like sheep.

Even if a Member took the trouble to get and read the relevant documents, however, it is often difficult for someone who has not been following a Bill closely to understand precisely what an amendment is designed to do. Some amendments—even important ones—may seem obscure to someone who is not familiar with the underlying arguments behind a Bill, and I think that that is a very serious flaw.

A key proposal to remedy that problem from the Wright Committee and the Parliament First all-party group, which I chair, is that every amendment or new clause tabled by the Government, the Opposition, the smaller parties or individual Back Benchers should have a short statement attached to it of no more than 50 words that explains the measure’s purpose. Those statements would be set out on the amendment paper, and one would appear at the bottom of every amendment.

Let me turn, for one minute, to the objections to that proposal—apart, of course, from those of the Whips, whose control over every aspect of the parliamentary process might begin to be questioned more. The only objection raised, as far as I know, is that while the Government have their civil servants to deal with amendments and to provide explanatory statements, the Opposition do not have the same resources, and adding a requirement for explanatory statements would impose too great a burden. To put it simply, I think that that is utterly untenable. It takes a great deal of time to get to grips with a new Bill, to consult outside experts over all its detailed aspects, to identify areas in which modifications need to be sought and to draft amendments in an acceptable parliamentary form. However, once all that has been done, drafting a short statement that distils the essence of the amendment would take no more than seconds. I hope that explanatory statements, as well as the House business committee, are something that the Government will look on favourably and introduce quickly.

[Mr Hollobone]

rose—

Cabinet Secretary Report (Government Response)

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I agree with my hon. Friend that this should not become part of the political currency between the two parties. On the issue of lobbying, as I think he knows, we plan to publish a consultation document early next month on our proposals for a statutory register of lobbyists, with a view to legislating next year.

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

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s seemingly all-encompassing catchment in the designation of lobbyists, but I would like assurance on two points. First, will he confirm that the ultimate funding of all lobbyists, think-tanks and all others who seek to exert influence will be revealed on an open public register that is readily accessible and tell us what the sanctions will be if that is not done? Secondly, since all those who seek to manipulate always want to escape detection, how will he deal with the admittedly difficult situation in which formal meetings suddenly morph into informal meetings where significant commitments might be made but remain undetected?

[Sir George Young]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The answer to the first section of his question is yes, that is exactly what we have in mind: an open, accessible register of statutory lobbyists. On the other issues, we propose to consult on what exactly a lobbyist is. I think the definition should embrace what people outside generally believe to be lobbying and should be comprehensive. On the question of what activity is then caught, we would be very grateful for his views during the consultation process.

Parliamentary Reform

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[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.

Backbench Business Committee

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

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

I think we have had a good and thoughtful debate, although it had a rather rickety start. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who, in an eloquent and comprehensive speech, spelt out how exciting and important this period is in Parliament’s history; and, like others, I pay tribute to the Government for the promptness with which they introduced Standing Orders to allow the establishment of a Back-Bench business committee. There is no doubt that that reflects the good will, commitment and supportiveness of the Leader of the House and his deputy, and I thank them for all that they did in preparing the orders.

The debate marks the culmination of a long struggle that stretches back many years to the formation of the cross-party Parliament First group, which has consistently and effectively campaigned for parliamentary democratic reform under the chairmanship of the former Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent, Central, my very good friend Mark Fisher. We will, of course, continue to owe a great and continuing debt of gratitude to the Wright Committee, chaired so admirably by my former hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase.

Having issued those plaudits—with great sincerity—I have to say that I think the Government’s initial ardour seems to have cooled just a tad. A number of modifications have crept in, which, in my view, have undermined some of the original commitment. It is because the combined effect of those slippages has clearly been to weaken the position of Back Benchers that, along with many of my hon. Friends, I have tabled a number of amendments designed to ensure that the Government’s initial commitment survives.

The most important amendment relates to a question that has been raised a number of times, and because of its importance I make no apology for raising it again. It concerns the term of membership of the Chair. The order proposes that members and the Chair should serve for only one year after election, but we strongly reject that proposal on the ground that no other parliamentary Committee—including Select Committees —is being treated in that way. The elections to Select Committees, which, admirably, are taking place at this time—for the Chairs, who have been chosen, and the members, who are about to be chosen—are for a full Parliament of five years, and there seems to be no valid reason for diverging from that principle.

The Leader of the House was questioned about the issue, and I noted what he said. He spoke of the importance of accountability—of course we all agree with that—and of the need for new blood to refresh the Committee. Of course I understand that too, but it applies to Select Committees as well. I do not think that the Leader of the House took on board adequately the point made behind him about the question of independence. We believe that members, once elected, should be fully independent. We do not think that they should have continually to look over their shoulders, or feel liable to the Whips or Front-Bench pressure in order to secure repeat elections year after year.

Annual elections give too much power to the Whips and the establishment, allowing them to exert influence on the Chair not because he or she is inadequate or incompetent, but precisely because he or she is too effective. Let me suggest to the Leader of the House, in all friendliness, that annual elections will profoundly undercut the impact of reforms that are excellent in so many other ways.

Another issue—I was not going to mention it until my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North did so and I think he was right—is that the Government are proposing that, before any business starts that has been decided on by the Back-Bench business committee, a member of the committee must make a brief statement of up to five minutes to explain why the committee made that decision. Again—it hardly needs repeating—no one else does that in any other part of the House. No Minister is ever required to do that. If for any reason either the chair or any member of the committee wishes, with permission, to make such a statement, there is nothing to prevent them from doing so. However, to require that to happen in every case, when in most circumstances Members will be well aware of the thinking behind the decision, seems unnecessary, a waste of time or even obstructive.

The Leader of the House will know perfectly well that Members will want to get quickly on to the debate. They will not want to be diverted by what they will perceive as superfluous formality. I hope that he will consider whether that proposal should just be quietly dropped.

I recognise that, when the Leader of the House was questioned last Thursday, he went as far as he could, leaning in our direction, by offering an allocation of 27 days. He has now gone further still by agreeing to accept our amendment. I thank him warmly for that. However, always wanting to go a bit further, I think that 35 days would be even better, not least because it is only on the Floor of this House that the votes will take place. The Leader of the House pointed out that the implication of that, to which he is probably quite sympathetic, is that the House might have to sit into August. However, I hope that he will reconsider and be prepared to consult about various alternatives that could achieve the objective of 35 days on the Floor of the House without encroaching into August.

One of those options is the use of more Fridays. In previous years—indeed in previous decades—the House has sat on Fridays to a far greater degree than it does today. I am well aware that, whatever one suggests, it will not please everyone, but I hope that the Leader of the House will genuinely consult to find a way forward that is acceptable and desirable to the majority. The important point is that 27 Back-Bench business committee days in this House should be the bottom line, consolidated by the Standing Order and not dependent on discretion. That is why I am grateful—I am sure that we all are—that he has accepted the amendment.

By and large, this is an excellent set of Standing Orders, for which the Government are to be congratulated. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept that the amendments that we have had to table are not in any way designed to oppose what he is trying to do; they are designed to improve that. I hope that he and other hon. Members will look upon them in that spirit.