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Legislative Process

I speak as an enthusiastic moderniser and a former long-standing member of the Modernisation Committee. The modernisation of our arcane and antiquated procedures was the subject of my maiden speech, which was described by ““Dods”” as ““brilliant””, but was ignored by everyone else. Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that I support motions 6 and 7 on the proposed communications allowance and the ending of September sittings. Like the majority of hon. Members, I supported the Cook reforms of 2002, which were a good thing. I thought that they would all work, and I was enthusiastic in organising support for them. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) will remember that we won the vote on sitting hours by seven votes, so it was a tense night in the House. Many of those reforms were successful, and we ended the absurd spectacle of our legislating in the early hours of the morning. I often wondered what would have happened if journalists interviewed hon. Members leaving the Smoking Room or the bars at 2 am. What if a microphone had been put before us and we were asked what we were voting on? I am not sure that I knew exactly what I was doing at that time of the morning—perhaps it was only the Whips Office that knew. I accept that one of the Cook reforms did not work. Politicians do not like to admit that they were wrong, but as an enthusiastic moderniser and as a friend and supporter of Robin Cook I have absolutely no hesitation in admitting that we got it wrong on September sittings. I bought the argument, voiced by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) earlier, that the long summer recess gave the media a stick with which to beat us. It was too long period for the Government to escape scrutiny. However if we compare Parliament with other legislatures, we can see how enthusiastic and conscientious we are. League tables are very much in vogue, and I have with me one showing that, in 2005, the US Senate sat for 159 days and the House of Representatives for 140 days; in 2004, the House of Representatives sat for 110 days, and the Senate for 133 days. In 2005, the House of Commons sat for 133 days in 2005 for 160 days in 2004—the highest number of sitting days for any legislature in the table and certainly in the western world. At the bottom of the league, it is worth noting the efforts, or the lack of them, expended by the German Bundesrat, which managed a princely 12 days in 2004 and 11 days in 2005. The Bundestag, which is the lower House, managed 67 and 64 days respectively. We are not top of the league, as the Leader of the House and I discussed earlier. Greek parliamentarians win the gold medal, because in 2005, they managed to sit for 248 days, and for 110 days the previous year. I do not know what happened in Greek politics between 2004 and 2005, but it took up an awful lot of parliamentary time. Without boring the House with endless figures, out of all the modern Parliaments, we not only sit for more days, but sit for longer hours, too.