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

I do agree. The interesting thing about the report is that it tends to concentrate on structures. They are a necessary and vital first step in achieving reform, but they are not in themselves sufficient. We will also have to change the culture of this place if we are to achieve real reform. For example, we must stop seeing total party loyalty as the be-all and end-all of everything. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire questioned whether parties should have primacy. Of course we need Whips and strong party discipline for the effective running of government, but we also need MPs with an independence of mind if we are to be an effective Parliament. In the last 10 years, we have the perfect example of failing to be independent of mind, and the country is still paying the price. When the former Prime Minister made that extraordinary speech introducing the Iraq war, many Members of Parliament from all parties had enormous doubts. Had they been left to their own consciences, they would not have given their support to the Government that night. Many of them have felt let down subsequently and doubted themselves because they were seduced into being loyal to the then Prime Minister, who certainly made a very powerful speech. I suspect that the House did not cast its votes in the way that Members really believed that night, and we have paid an enormous price. If there had been a genuinely free vote, and Members had voted as they felt the arguments led them to do, the result would have been different and we would not have been involved in that disastrous war.