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Home Affairs

In response to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), I should say that the Modernisation Committee is different from other Select Committees. It has always been chaired by the Leader of the House—[Interruption.] That always has been the case by custom and practice. Departmental Select Committees are never chaired by Cabinet Ministers. I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna) that this is an exceptional process, and it is not one that I would want to hurry into on any future occasion. I accept that it is exceptional. We have arrived at this position because the Home Affairs Committee has lost its Chair because of his appointment to the Cabinet. That is not the case with other Select Committees. I resent the suggestion that, by proposing a name for the House to vote on in substitution for another hon. Member, I am somehow questioning the competence or ability of all the other members of the Committee. I am most certainly not doing that. Far from it—least of all with regard to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). That is not my point. I am not saying that they are not all competent and able. Of course they are. What I am fundamentally proposing is that the House moves a currently serving member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) is, to serve as a member of the Home Affairs Committee. If he is suitable, as we believe he is, for the House to vote him on to the Constitutional Affairs Committee, he is suitable also for the House to vote him on to the Home Affairs Committee. I do not accept either that Select Committees do nothing over the summer. Whether or not they do nothing is a matter for them. I know that many of them are extremely active over the summer. I want to correct something. I said that the Prime Minister had to deal with the appointment of Cabinet Ministers, junior Ministers and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries. I should have added Parliamentary Private Secretaries as well, because those are subsequent to the appointment of Parliamentary Under-Secretaries. It was not until it was clear who were going to be Parliamentary Private Secretaries and to what Department they would be allocated that we were in a position to know who might be available for the Home Affairs Committee.