---

Home Affairs

I suppose that we have to accept at face value what the Leader of House has told us—namely that on Monday, and apparently on Tuesday, the Government had no business to put to the Selection Committee. Bearing in mind the fact that, as we have heard from a number of contributors to this debate, the Prime Minister formed his Government by appointing Cabinet Ministers, Ministers of State and Under-Secretaries some time ago, it seems strange that the Leader of the House, for whom—I repeat—I have considerable affection and regard, should not have put the motion to the House until the penultimate day before we break for the summer recess and that the Government should be ignoring the provisions of Standing Order No. 121 on the nomination of Select Committees. It has been made clear, not least by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey, that there is no reason why the Select Committee should not continue under the very positive and able acting chairmanship of the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). Nobody has a better reputation for outspokenness and integrity than he does. I would have thought that the Home Affairs Committee could continue its work under his chairmanship, but no contributor to the debate has told the House what work the Committee is to undertake between now and 8 October when the House meets again following the summer recess. I am going to throw in the following, as it has not been mentioned so far: if the House wants value for money, it appears strange to appoint a Chairman who will be paid the full rate as a Select Committee Chairman when he and his Committee are to do very little, if anything, on behalf of the House or the people of this country for the next two and a half months. I feel very deeply about this matter, because the Standing Orders of the House are a safeguard for the House in standing up to the power and influence of the Executive. We are being asked to suspend Standing Orders, and that is an abuse of the House, as I said to the Leader of the House in a point of order before the debate began. May I make a plea, to add to the requests made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire and the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey? If the right hon. and learned Lady is serious about being even-handed in her role as Leader of the House and about representing the interests of all Members of the House and not just her own political party, she will take our request to withdraw the motion very seriously indeed. I hope that she will accede to that request. I am not going to refer to the right hon. and learned Lady’s attainment in due course of the chairmanship of the Modernisation Committee, but I look forward to working with her—I say that with total commitment and sincerity and sometimes against the wishes of some of my colleagues—because I fervently believe in the integrity and sovereignty of the House of Commons in dealing with the Executive. Will she therefore represent the interests of the House by withdrawing the motion?