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

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, as I do on so many occasions. The importance of local party democracy is central. Although throughout this debate we have identified the importance of this House in holding the Government to account, the other thrust, which we have perhaps not discussed enough, is the sense that reform will help us to create and sense our own identity—an identity distinct from that of the Government. It is difficult in this House to hold that paradox in one's head. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has a solution to that: the separation of powers. That is not a solution that appeals to me. We have to hold on to that paradox and get the tension in it to work in our favour. However, in doing so we have to see a distinct identity for this place, and not see it as simply a rubber stamp for the party in government. That has been the weakness of the Parliaments of the past few years, a weakness that has been compounded by the enormous majorities that the country has sent us here with. I suspect that the next Parliament will not have the same kind of monumental majority, which has been a source of huge weakness, so it might not have the same problem. However, if the next Parliament—albeit without the benefit of many of the people who have spoken in this debate—can find a sense of its own identity, it will be able to carry forward the reform that the committee of inquiry chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase deserves. He has given us the foundation of the reform that we desperately need. If we are to carry it forward in the next Parliament, we have to have that sense of our own identity.