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

I am delighted that I decided to give way to the hon. Gentleman and genuinely pleased to have an endorsement from that source. The issue of balance arises on every occasion that parliamentary reform is contemplated or discussed. I have been reading my way through the two-day debate in the House in February 1979 on the Procedure Committee report that proposed the Select Committees. The report was introduced by the Conservative Member Sir David Renton, who commended it to the House with these words:""For many years Governments of both main parties have enjoyed dominion over the House of Commons. That is not merely because they have had a majority, large or tenuous, but more because of their power, which has grown over the last 100 years or so, of controlling business, including controlling, in effect, the amendment of Standing Orders. The recommendations in the report would help to restore the balance between the Government and the rest of the House in ways that would be advantageous to both. They would also be advantageous to the people who sent us here."—[Official Report, 19 February 1979; Vol. 963, c. 55.]" I could use identical words today in presenting our report. In that debate, almost the only voice of resistance to the Procedure Committee's recommendations came from the then Leader of the House, Michael Foot, who feared for the vitality of the Chamber. Now we fear for the vitality of the whole House.