---

Administration Committee

I accept that, and a member of the Liaison Committee has no need to take part in the questioning of the Prime Minister if he or she thinks that it is inappropriate to do so. However, I also remind the hon. Gentleman that in the last Parliament, the Liaison Committee produced two excellent reports—as I am sure the right hon. Member for Swansea, West remembers, because he chaired the Committee—on how Parliament could better scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account. The reports also addressed the role of Select Committees. That had nothing to do with party politics, and it is important that the Liaison Committee—one of the most powerful Committees, if not the most powerful, in the House of Commons, because it is composed of the Chairmen of all the other Committees—should have a non-party political input into matters relating to the way in which the House undertakes its work. The reports published by the Liaison Committee were very important, but they were not heeded sufficiently by the Government. I hope that in the future such reports will receive better attention and a more sympathetic hearing from the Government of the day. I hope that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook), my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and other distinguished Members on both sides of the House will receive a little more sympathy from the Deputy Leader of the House than, sadly, it received from the Leader of the House. It offers a constructive way of bringing an element of continuity in the Liaison Committee from one Parliament to another. As the hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, work out, there will be many new members of the Liaison committee, so an element of continuity will do no harm. I do not make that point out of any particular preference for myself, but in future the senior Member on the Chairman’s Panel could add usefully to the work, knowledge and experience of the Liaison Committee. In the main, I warmly support the motions that the Government have tabled today. It is important that the Select Committees be set up, and I was extremely encouraged that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West indicated that the Liaison Committee would meet before we break for the summer recess. That is a fantastic gesture and I hope that it will be taken up and that it will prove possible to hold that meeting.