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Administration Committee

I am always grateful for my hon. Friend’s concern, and I am even more grateful for his questions. I sure that his final point will be tabled as a written question, when I shall answer it, but I cannot answer it off the top of my head Motion 36 is an effective motion that gives effect to the previous motion to which the Queen’s recommendation has been signified, because it involves Government expenditure, including the Treasury contribution to Members’ pensions. It will be moved if the House agrees the opinion motion without amendment. Motion 37 extends the current arrangements for Select Committee Chairmen’s pay to those Select Committees that are not already eligible. In its 2003 report on Select Committee Chairmen’s pay, the SSRB suggested which Committee Chairmen should be remunerated, but it said that the final decision should rest with the House. At the time, there was some unhappiness that the distinction between externally focused scrutiny Committees and other Committees did not fairly reflect the relative work loads. In introducing the motion on Standing Committee Chairs, I thought it only right to give the House the opportunity to decide whether the remaining Select Committees should also receive remuneration. The remaining Committees include the Administration Committee—this is contingent on the motion appointing that Committee being agreed by the House—the Finance and Services Committee, the Liaison Committee, the Procedure Committee, the Committee of Selection and the Committee on Standards and Privileges. Those Committee Chairmen’s responsibilities are varied, but they are comparable in work load to those that are already paid. In some ways, those Chairmen are even more deserving, because they do their work on behalf of us all out of the media spotlight. The cost of the proposal depends on take-up, but it would amount to around £17,000 a year per Chairman, including national insurance and pensions contributions. Motion 38 is again an effective motion—it gives effect to the opinion motion on Select Committee pay—to which the Queen’s recommendation has been signified. Motion 39 amends Standing Order No. 4 so that members of the Panel would continue to serve on it until the end of the Parliament, unless they were discharged by the Speaker. At present, the Speaker has to reappoint the Panel each Session. The change is intended to remove an unnecessary complication in the arrangements for additional pay by making service continuous. Finally, motion 40 amends Standing Order No. 137A to empower the Welsh Affairs Committee to hold formal joint meetings with Committees of the National Assembly for Wales. That would make permanent a change agreed by the House, on an experimental basis, in the previous Parliament. The Welsh Affairs Committee and Committees of the National Assembly for Wales held eight joint meetings under that temporary power for the scrutiny of Bills and draft Bills and other purposes, and the Liaison Committee has pointed out the strong case for making the power permanent. Taken together, the motions amount to a useful package, which will strengthen parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive and enhance how we operate within this House. They provide a basis for hon. Members to take forward the work of scrutiny and for further modernisation in the Parliament ahead. I commend the motions to the House.