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House of Commons Reform

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood, and that of Mr. Atkinson earlier in the debate. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) on securing this debate and on opening it so well. It is an important issue for the House to discuss: we can see that from the number of contributions. I counted about 17 hon. Members at certain points in the debate, although slightly fewer are present now. As this debate has developed in the House, I have been grateful for the chance to listen to the views of all hon. Members who have contributed to it, including today the hon. Members for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd)—always difficult to pronounce—and for Castle Point (Bob Spink), my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), my hon. Friends the Members for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) and for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the hon. Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and for Banbury (Tony Baldry), my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) and for Reading, West (Martin Salter), my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), and the Opposition Front Bench spokesmen, the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara). As many hon. and right hon. Members have said, reform of the House is a broad, important subject, but it is not new: it is a continual process and we should regard it as such. There should be change as procedures become outdated or new systems develop. I support a number of the reforms that have been advanced by both the Modernisation Committee and the Procedure Committee since 1997. Indeed, it was recently 10 years since Westminster Hall started to be used as the parallel Chamber, and it is useful, as we have seen today, in allowing debates that are open to all hon. Members. The Modernisation Committee recommended establishing this room as a second debating Chamber. That change was not met with support throughout the whole House. It is interesting to note that our current Speaker was a key opponent of that reform. But I think that we can agree, particularly today, that this change has been a successful innovation. Other reforms brought about by the Modernisation Committee have been important too, including changes to the sitting hours of the House and deferred Divisions. We do not always want to find ourselves—particularly those hon. Members with children—voting at 11.20 pm or 11.40 pm, as we did last night: that is not family-friendly. Another reform is the introduction of core tasks for Select Committees. More recently we have had topical questions and topical debates, which hon. Members have mentioned. As with the use of Westminster Hall for wider debates, topical questions and debates will be reviewed in terms of how they are working. I think most hon. Members would agree that the topical questions innovation is working. Recently, we debated the House of Commons annual report, although that debate was not as well attended as this one, and discussed the importance of public engagement and involvement. There were not many contributions on that matter today, but it is a vital part of what we need to develop in our reform agenda. Another change stemming from the Modernisation Committee was the report that set up the Regional Select and Regional Grand Committees. I defend the Regional Select Committees and particularly the Regional Grand Committees that met throughout the summer. I read the reports of those Committees, in which some useful debates were held, particularly on factors such as the economic downturn.