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Legislative Process

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I must make progress on the remaining motions, beginning with that on sub judice. The reports from the Procedure Committee, for which we thank the previous Chairman, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) and the current Chairman, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), arise from concerns that the House’s existing sub judice resolution causes difficulties for coroners’ proceedings. Although the Committee ruled out changes to the resolution, it proposed several ways in which its implementation might involve a more relaxed attitude to the exercise of the Chair’s discretion. The effect should be to mitigate the sort of problems that hon. Members faced in the past. The Committee has also proposed a new Standing Order to give more power to the Chair if the extra latitude is breached. The motion on Select Committee evidence responds to a Liaison Committee proposal to facilitate internet publication of written evidence. By approving the report, we will approve a new practice for certain evidence to be ““ordered to be published”” rather than ““ordered to be printed””. Such evidence will continue to be covered by the privilege granted to documents ordered to be published by Parliament. The power will allow Committees to place evidence safely on the internet at the beginning of an inquiry—that is important—without having to decide that it should also be printed at that point. That is especially beneficial to our constituents and the media. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) will be pleased to hear that the motion on European Standing Committees would simply allow the present temporary system for the appointment of those Committees to continue. Their appointment on a one-off basis as and when needed, rather than appointing permanent Committees as envisaged under Standing Order No. 119, works well as a temporary measure until any more comprehensive reform of the European scrutiny system is established. The power to appoint committees in that way will expire at the end of the Session and I propose that we roll it over for a further Session.