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

I welcome interventions from any hon. Member, and as many as possible, to make up for the fact that I tried to intervene so many times. Part of the reason I tried to intervene so many times is that although I am not alone in the way that I feel, I know I am a minority in the House. I believe in reform, but I feel passionately that the proposals before us are not reform. One of the big problems for me has been the narrow focus of the Committee, looking chiefly at the role of Select Committees and the so-called democratisation of them. Introducing a Back-Bench business committee and a House business committee are both technocratic changes that might be a move in the right direction, but I think they are a step in the wrong direction. The danger is that we will thereby say to ourselves and to people outside that we have done reform—that we have responded to people outside who said they wanted Parliament to change, and that having done that, we will move on.