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

I, too, wish to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and all the members of his Committee, who put so much work into these proposals. However, I share the disappointment expressed by many Members about the way in which this process has been dealt with since the publication of the Committee's report. The report made it clear that the Committee would like the proposals to be voted on by the House within two months. It is now more than three months since the Committee's proposals were published and it would be a fair characterisation—it would perhaps even be charitable—to say that the Government have dragged their heels on this issue. They announced the date for this debate only after being questioned week in, week out in business questions. In fact, it has taken them longer to bring forward these proposals for debate than it took the Committee to form, call for evidence, consider the evidence, meet, debate and come up with all the proposals. The Government's lack of urgency has shown that this important subject of reform has not been given the level of priority within government that I would have liked. There seems almost to have been confusion about the different parts of the motions to be put forward and how that could be done, given that page 94 of the report contained a sample motion that was drafted and ready to be put before the House. That would have allowed us to discuss it, rather than to have the Government decide, after asking the Committee to investigate an issue and bring forward recommendations, which ones to cherry-pick and put to the House. The proposals in the report are somewhat timid. I agree with those who say that they are a step in the right direction, but I would describe them as a baby-step. Given the difficulty that we have had even in getting to this stage of the debate, it has been like trying to take a baby-step through treacle. I appreciate that the Committee was constrained in its terms of reference. We heard an interesting exchange earlier, when a lot of interest was expressed by Members in different parts of the House for taking forward some of the ideas that were not able to be developed in full within the confines of the Committee. Too much was left to later decision or future review, whereas we needed to have strong and robust recommendations, be they on the issue of September sittings, Public Bill Committees or public engagement, to which I shall return. It is worth asking ourselves why reform is so necessary and vital. We need to remember that this is happening in the context of the reputation of Parliament and, indeed, of our democracy having been dragged through the mire in recent months. Cleaning up our discredited expenses system is a vital part of the solution, but it is only part of the solution. In May, I asked hundreds of my constituents who are signed up to an online consultation what they thought was necessary to restore faith in politics. I received dozens of answers. Alongside people saying that we needed transparency, an end to personal profit through the expenses system, proper sanctions when people did things that were wrong and a new expenses system, much wider issues were raised in the consultation. Even when the expenses scandal was at its height, my constituents were raising issues such as electoral reform and how to ensure that people's votes count no matter where their constituency, rather than having them count only in some marginal constituencies. Even reform of the House of Commons was a theme that emerged in that consultation exercise; it was common for people to say to me that they thought that the power of the Whips should be reduced compared with the power and influence of individual, independent-minded MPs. Some of the reforms, such as the election of Select Committees, will help to rebalance that power, because they will reduce the power of patronage of the Whips Offices. Scheduling business through a committee that is representative of Parliament, rather than just Government, will enable individual MPs to hold the Government to account better. My name stands alongside those of 120 other hon. Members in support of amendment (a) to motion 9, which is in favour of the proposal for a House business committee, even though that cannot be voted on tonight. It is important to remember that this is how Parliaments across the world work, and that includes the Scottish Parliament; the sky does not fall in if a committee of people drawn from across the parties decides what Parliament will discuss. This is, thus, a very important reform.