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Legislative Process

This has been an excellent day’s debate. It has covered the ground comprehensively, and it is striking that one of the consistent themes expressed on both sides of the House is that Members are anxious better to serve their constituents. I want to make two points, not least to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) and others. I do not think that he was in his place when I opened my remarks—[Interruption.] If he was, I apologise. In my opening remarks, I was spelling out factual evidence suggesting that the House has become more effective, not less, in scrutinising the work of Ministers. I do not dispute that we still have a long way to go. The 27 years that I have been in the House, however, have seen the crucial introduction of departmental Select Committees by the then Leader of the House, Norman St. John-Stevas, in the 1979-80 Session, and their considerable strengthening over the years. We have seen the introduction of Westminster Hall. In relation to the intelligence and security agencies, of which not only was no parliamentary scrutiny allowed but Governments’ official position was not to aver their existence, we now have the Intelligence and Security Committee. Legislative changes that we have made, such as the Modernisation Committee agenda but also the Human Rights Act 1998 and Freedom of Information Act 2000, have opened up government to an extent undreamt of a generation or so ago. My second point is on the issue of trust and the media. If we go outside and ask people whom they most and least trust, the most trusted include ministers of religion, doctors, teachers and nurses. Competing at the bottom for the wooden spoon, depending on which day one asks such questions, are estate agents, journalists and politicians, with a special place reserved for those estate agents who are also journalists and politicians. Generally, we get low scores. But if we ask members of the public to say what they think about their own Member of Parliament, or a Member of Parliament they reckon they know, the scores rise rapidly. If they not only know their Member of Parliament but have respect for them, the scores are high and, these days, rising. I see part of my task as Leader of the House to increase those scores for everybody, in order better to facilitate the work of Members. Let me deal with the main issues in turn. I am grateful to the House, and I know that all members of the Modernisation Committee will be, for the overwhelming welcome for the changes proposed to the way in which Bills are scrutinised in Committee, and for the changes proposed for greater flexibility on Report. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has pointed out, Report has been up to now among the most important stages. We want Committee to be of equal importance. Additional scrutiny in Committee, provided that we introduce it carefully with improved resources available and commitments on all sides, should help to achieve that. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) who, in relation to the use of technology, has been committed to trying to bring the House into the 21st century at the beginning rather than the middle or end of the century. She has not only made important points but proposals that have fed their way into pages 32 and 33 of the report. On the communications allowance, it is fair to say that the principle of it has received general but certainly not universal support. I emphasise, however, that if colleagues read the motion, they will see that it asks them to welcome the principle of the proposal without committing themselves at this stage to its final introduction, which will have to await the recommendations of the Members Estimate Committee. The matter will then come back to the House. Of course, the Members Estimate Committee—the Commission under a different title—will take full account of the observations made. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) raised the issue of whether there should be one allowance or two, and it depends how we construct the rules. To pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling), the one thing that is certain is that once the allowance is introduced, there will be caps on spending on communication, both on stationery and envelopes and on wider communications. Whether we have one allowance or two, the aggregate amount will be less than the sums currently being spent by some hon. Members on both sides. This should not be seen as Members having the chance to spend even more money: it should be seen as a way of responding to the changing expectations and increasing demands of constituents. It is also a way to improve probity, rather than undermine it. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) formerly opposed the proposal, but when he reads his speech in Hansard tomorrow I hope that he will see that he made a very good case for change, and the introduction of a rules-based communications allowance. That was the gravamen of our report.