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Report from the House of Commons Reform Committee on Rebuilding the House

My hon. Friend—for whom, as she knows, I have great affection, whom I encouraged to be on our Committee, and who is a unique dissenter to be cherished—anticipates my next point. Our terms of reference were deliberately more modest, although, I believe, not unconnected with this larger task. We were not invited to reform Parliament in a more general sense, or to pronounce on the role of a Member of Parliament. I am the first to recognise that there are important matters with which we have not been able to deal, even given a generous interpretation of the "closely connected matters" in our terms of reference.