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Democracy: POWER Inquiry

Noble Lords took their time there! I am sure my noble friend will not mind me saying that. Since governments are elected on their manifestos, it is the role of the Whips to remind MPs, in particular, but also Members of this House, about that manifesto and their role. I do not think that the Whips consider themselves to be over-powerful. There are plenty of people who can demonstrate that they do not obey the Whips on every occasion. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dean, about Select Committees and pre-legislative scrutiny. They are important but are still reasonably new ideas that we should be proud of in terms of democracy. I shall end by touching on the media. On the one hand, people trust the media, particularly the major broadcasting companies—the BBC and ITV and so on—and the broadsheets and they are very aware of what the tabloids are like and what they do. I do not think we should necessarily be persuaded that the tabloids are read by people who take in every word. We have to recognise that we have the media that we have and we must find other ways of engaging with people and making sure that there is an opportunity for them to find out more about the political system and their politicians. But the media also play an important role in making sure that we have a healthier culture so I am not going to pursue the route of doing more to curb them. We need to engage with them more effectively to make sure that, as well as producing the parliamentary sketch of the week—interesting and occasionally very funny though that can be—they understand and listen to what is being said. I agree with my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws that it is an incredible tribute to people that they have participated in this report. My noble friend said that she was very aware of the incredible things that people do. I share that view completely. People are engaged in all sorts of facets of life and do the most amazing things. We should not see that as suggesting any real disengagement from our society. The question is how we engage with them again to make sure the engagement is a proper process where they have the opportunity to influence what is actually happening. It is important that we enrich the representative democracy that we have. What we need to do is think about a healthier way of getting people to participate in order to improve our representative democracy. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for initiating the debate.