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Parliament and the Public

My Lords, before I begin my allotted time it gives me huge pleasure to congratulate the noble Baroness on her most thoughtful maiden speech. She has brought her experience of media matters as a former Minister in DCMS, but we shall of course look forward to her informing and entertaining us in future with what she is better known for—her experience as a former teacher and former Secretary of State for Education. She is the third member of her family with whom I have had the pleasure of serving in another place. It was a great pleasure a few moments ago to see my old friend, her uncle Alf, standing at the Bar of the House listening to her maiden speech. She comes from a very distinguished parliamentary family, and I hope that she will not be offended if I were to call it one of our most distinguished parliamentary dynasties. We look forward to hearing from her again on many occasions. I welcome the opportunity to debate the report that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has produced. I have had a long interest in the matters of parliamentary modernisation and effectiveness. I was an early advocate of the Select Committee system in another place. I served on two of the Crossman Select Committees in the 1960s, and I negotiated with the Opposition in setting up the current departmental Select Committees, which have done so much to extend and improve parliamentary scrutiny. Again, in 1991, I had the great privilege of being the chairman of the Select Committee on sittings of the House in another place, which led to a good many changes, for instance the ending of the absurd nonsense of debating the Consolidated Fund Bill several times a year through the night into the following morning. My first reaction to the report was that it should be seen in the context of the composition of what is called the ““commission””, although I am not sure of the difference between a commission and a committee. Over half the members of the commission had a media background, whereas less than a third were active parliamentarians, which seemed somewhat skewed. Rather like a referendum if you know the answer you want you can pitch the question to get it. I suspect there might be just a little bit of that here. I understand why the media always press for greater access and transparency. It is only natural in this commission with this membership that many of the proposals are slanted for exactly that. We need to assess the report both in terms of what the media want and what is best for the system of parliamentary government. Those two things do not always fit together. Incidentally, in the section of the report with recommendations under the chapter headed ““Media coverage of Parliament”” on page 81, I notice that there are many lectures handed out to the BBC but there is very little advice given to the press. I often think that in terms of reporting Parliament the press need a good many more lessons than the BBC. The lack of interest shown by the press and broadcasters in Parliament leads us to many of our current problems. I have often despaired over the years at the situation where an excellent Select Committee report, which is often acclaimed by the people over whom it has effect, is totally ignored by the media, the press in particular, at the expense of trivia. An example is the Westminster Dog of the Year competition. The coverage given to trivia of that sort at the expense of dealing with Select Committee reports is one of the tragedies of modern Parliament. On communications, I agree with a great many of the proposals in the report. I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Howe that there is a vast and urgent job to do in improving parliamentary communications. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, referred to the fact that it would be a huge step forward if we had a proper, modern visitor centre attached to this House, whether beyond Black Rod’s Garden or somewhere between Westminster Hall and the road. That would deal with a great many of the points in the report that refer to young people. I am really not sure about having children in the Chamber during the Recesses. I understand that the replica of the House of Commons Chamber that used to be on the premises of Granada television, which they let out for tours, was dismantled some years ago. Whether that was because of lack of interest I do not know. It is not necessary to tamper with anything simply because it smacks of tradition. The report says that we should no longer refer to strangers. When I was a Member of another place, my constituents were tickled to death by being described as strangers. Let us remember the old saying that tradition is a good servant but a bad master. Of course government can govern only by the consent of Parliament, but I question some of the recommendations to transfer some decision-making from Front Bench to Back Bench. Would Members of the House of Commons or your Lordships’ House queue up to stand for election as members of the commission at the other end, or at this end as members of the House Committee? I rather think that they would not. Some people say that the membership of Select Committees should be decided not by the Whips but by election. That might be a good idea for committees on defence or foreign affairs, where there would certainly be a long queue. However, I remember from a former incarnation as a government Chief Whip at the other end that, for some Select Committees, one would have been pushed to find anybody to stand for election at all. I happen to be a member of the august Select Committee on Merits of Statutory Instruments; frankly, I do it only as a favour to the noble Lord the Chief Whip, and I do not know anyone else who would wish to stand in the circumstances. We must be realistic in our Parliament. Unlike the parliament of the United States, we do not have one based on divided powers. Under our system, it is inevitable that Parliament is government-driven, with the consent of Back-Benchers and the opposition parties, of course. Finally, I want to say something as the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has been kind enough to come here. There is a need for governments to regain the respect for Parliament that they had in the past. I am sure that she knows precisely what I am going to say. One of her great failings as Leader of the House—likewise her predecessor—has been the lamentable way in which government departments treat this House in answering Questions. I shall give one example about which I have tabled a Question, which again is awaiting a reply. Parliamentary Questions are supposed to be answered in two weeks. Last week, we had a Question to the Home Office that had been down for 18 weeks. It was tabled in June and had still not been answered. The noble Baroness keeps telling us that she is doing her best; she will have to do a great deal better. That is simply one example of the ways in which governments successively have had less and less respect for Parliament. Parliament will get much more respect in the country if it is respected much better by government.