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Administration Committee

I have no difficulty in giving my hon. Friend a firm commitment that I have no intention of leaving the chairmanship of the Select Committee unless someone offers me the opportunity to be a hereditary duchess. I rather fancy the title Duchess Dunwoody of Crewe, which has an endearing music hall ring. However, I intend to stick with the Select Committee, no matter who tries to dissuade me. Select Committees operate best when their members and their Chairmen are Back Benchers, when their membership has a balance of all the relevant parties and when they understand that they are there to scrutinise—to ask the awkward questions and make them public. I therefore take issue with some of motions. The Liaison Committee did much work on the size of Committees, took evidence and worked with the Hansard Society to try to ascertain how Select Committees could be made better—““improved”” is the word that I was looking for but nowadays English is out the window. I am therefore sad that Her Majesty’s Government have gone for more than 11 members. I have served on and chaired Committees with more than 11 members. Unless one intends to extend the session to an unwieldy length, all the members cannot get in to question Ministers. That leaves the Chairman in the difficult position of either excluding some members, who have every right to ask questions, or allowing the person who gives evidence to escape proper scrutiny because one is trying hard to get members in, irrespective of the quality of the questioning. It is a recipe for disaster. We have been there and done that. The Liaison Committee produced a report, which carefully set out the reasons why we believed that big Committees were unworkable. Nevertheless, we appear to be reverting to the status quo ante. I hope that that will not be pushed. It is a retrograde, not a progressive step. The open manoeuvring on not only the membership but the chairmanship of the Committees does not reflect well on this place, even if it was slightly different from previous occasions. We ought to have had enough common sense last time to vote to retain the selection for Select Committees in the House of Commons. We should have had enough confidence in our judgment to accept that. The Whips Office comprises men and women of such superior intellect, tact, ability and charm that one could not under any circumstances criticise anything that they do. However, there is the odd occasion when the House of Commons would do better to decide for itself in the Chamber not only the membership but the chairmanship of Select Committees. There used to be an assumption that the Committee chose its Chairman. That was a pretty good system. In my time, before the Labour Government came to office, my Whips Office put me on a Select Committee to take the Chair. The then members had already decided that they wanted someone else and they voted the other person into the Chair. I accepted that with as much dignity as a short, fat Welsh woman can. It is vital that we get ourselves organised in regard to what we want from the scrutiny Committees. At the moment, that is not the case. We see-saw between accepting the usual channels arranging these matters and then saying publicly that we do not like the results. Many Members give many years of service without ever becoming a junior or middle-ranking Minister, but they are no less talented than those who progress through the Government system—believe me, I have watched this process for 30 years. Having been a junior Minister, I can say that those who frequently go in and out of Government are no more talented than those who are never offered such opportunities. I was even approached to join the Chairmen’s Panel, and I served on it very happily for a long time. That, too, involved an arrangement that was difficult to evaluate. Nevertheless, it was an honour to serve on it, and I was glad that I was able to do so. Members of Parliament are no longer prepared to take on these duties. There is no longer the same degree of understanding. That is because we have created the totally artificial and, to my mind, unacceptable theory that a person can fulfil their role as a Member of Parliament only as a junior Minister in a large Department. That is a very short-sighted and limited attitude, and it is one that I do not want to see. The Select Committees operate best when they are a reasonable size, and when they are made up of Back Benchers who got there because they really have something to contribute, and want to do so. They operate best when the Chairmen are chosen by the members of the Committee, and when they are able to call before them people and papers in a wide and open manner, so that they cannot be told that they may not call special advisers because they are not paid, or that they may not call people who are known to be taking policy decisions but whose influence on the Government it is thought undesirable to demonstrate. Such Select Committees are an important part of the working of this place. They are something to be proud of, and we should stop trying to dilute them. We should not regard them as a dumping ground for people for whom we have no other occupation.