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Business of the House

We will keep the rota of questions under review after we have changed it. The hon. Gentleman mentioned elections in the UK. It is in the interests of all hon. Members to get everybody who is entitled to vote on the electoral register. Currently, 3 million to 4 million people do not get a chance to cast their vote because they are not on the electoral register. It is also in our interests to ensure that all those on the register vote. A high percentage of people voting gives legitimacy to institutions. That should be our only interest in UK elections when we legislate. The hon. Gentleman mentioned different levels of elections—European elections, local elections, Scottish or Welsh elections—on the same day. The reason for holding them on the same day is to increase turnout—there is concern about low turnout in some important local elections. There is a balance to be struck. Is it best to hold several elections on the same day, with people perhaps not distinguishing between the responsibility of the different tiers of government, or to have chronically low turnout? We must reflect on those matters. The hon. Gentleman spoke about counting by machine. Extensive piloting of machine counting has taken place. Obviously, we must keep all those issues under review. He asked who takes responsibility for the elections. Hon. Members of all parties are responsible for legislation on elections. The Electoral Commission has independent responsibility, and all parties have a responsibility to work together to improve the position. The hon. Gentleman asked about accountability and scrutiny of prisons. I agree—I am sure that that applies to all hon. Members—that that is an important issue. One of the improvements that he and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) proposed for our rota of questions is that the Justice Ministry, which is now responsible for prisons, should have an hour's Question Time instead of half an hour, which is clearly inadequate given the importance of prisons as well other Ministry of Justice issues. The hon. Gentleman asked about group actions on equal pay. Several organisations—women's organisations and trade unions—raised that in response to our consultation and we are reflecting on the matter. The hon. Gentleman asked whether there would be changes in the draft legislative programme as a result of our publishing it in advance. As I acknowledged at the time, publication was very late in the day in the context of the gestation of the Government's legislative programme. The new Prime Minister did not make the decision— ...Well, just listen. A new Prime Minister took office in June and the decision was then made to publish the draft legislative programme. Hon. Members know that an awful lot of a draft legislative programme that is to be presented to the House in November is pretty finalised, as one would expect. [Interruption.] It is the Government's legislative programme. Next year, we intend to go beyond simply conducting an exercise in transparency—hon. Members should bear it in mind that the draft legislative programme would be secret until November had we not changed the position in July. We also had a chance to debate it in July. We hope that, next year, we will publish the draft legislative programme earlier so that there is a genuine opportunity for people to influence the outcome and propose Bills that they want. There is a big demand for people to be more engaged in the contents of our draft legislative programme. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will set aside his cynicism for a moment and agree that it is a good idea to be more transparent and have more consultation. We are striving to achieve that.