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

Indeed. In fact, there are many such examples. Clearly, if there were more time for debate on Report, Members' speeches might expand to fill that extra time. In its holistic report, the Committee made the legitimate point that restrictions on the length of speeches on Report might well be appropriate and could be identified in advance to ensure that we completed our business on Report. Scrutiny of legislation is critical. The real question is, whose business is it to scrutinise Government-sponsored legislation? Is it the Government's business, or is it the business of the House? It is clearly the business of the House, and therefore, at the very least, it should be within the purview of the House business committee. Front Benchers must clearly be represented, because they must identify their priorities. Both the report and our amendment guarantee that they would be given the time that they require to get their business through, which may be why the Leader of the House felt able to support the amendment. However, it has also been pointed out that it is important for us to improve scrutiny, and to recognise that what happens at present is often the opposite of scrutiny. Select Committee scrutiny is also critical. As we heard from the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, it is simply wrong for the Government to appoint members of Committees that scrutinise them. The same applies to the Opposition: as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South, the shadow Minister will soon be the Minister. More than that is required, however: we need to ensure that Select Committee reports do not just sit on a shelf. The Government must be bound to respond to those reports, because sometimes they do not even do that. I serve on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and we have written time and again to request even a response to some of our reports. Sometimes, when the Government do respond, they do not address the issues. If we could ensure that, in due course, some Select Committee recommendations were subjected to a decision on the Floor of the House, the Government would be forced to respond properly and to justify their rejection of recommendations. They would have to whip the House to oppose them, as they have a right to do, but those who serve on Select Committees would see that there was an end point at which the House itself considered and, indeed, voted on selected amendments. If Select Committee members felt that that would happen, they would be more engaged, they would turn up, and we would have stronger scrutiny.