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Administration Committee

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. I do not know whether the sensation has afflicted other right hon. and hon. Members this afternoon, but the infuriating thing for me is that we have been here before. This afternoon, I feel as though we are playing a very long-running tape all over again. To put it another way, I have the sensation that I am once again, after a gap of about 15 years, reading that magnificent novel by Kafka—““The Trial””, in which K is treated appallingly by the bureaucracy and goes round in circles. There is also his other magnificent tome, ““The Castle””, in which the hero thinks that he is advancing closer and closer to it, but on every step towards it that he takes, he discovers that he is step further away than he was before. Well, I have that sensation, Madam Deputy Speaker, in relation to the composition of Select Committees. We have had these debates before. As long ago as July 2001, the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who was then the Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who was then shadow Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), who was not then but is now the Father of the House, all argued that the process needed decisive reform, and needed it then. Four years later, that has not happened and there appears to be no enthusiasm among those on the Front Benches for it. What is even more depressing is that there is insufficient enthusiasm for reform on the Back Benches on both sides of the House. That is what is urgently needed.