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

If we remove the power from Government alone, we will open the door to that debate. I agree that such changes will not necessarily follow, but I was raising the point as I think that it is ridiculous how we plan business. I hope and have more confidence that, if I have colleagues on a House business committee, they might be more likely to listen to my views—I will certainly argue for those views. It will also be in everyone's interest if not only one party knows what business will be discussed on a particular day. Let me turn to public involvement and engagement, which is what I particularly want to mention. The report is good on warm words, but light on specific actions. At least it opens the door to greater public engagement in future and suggests that it should be reviewed and reconsidered in the new Parliament. I think that this was a missed opportunity, and so I have sympathy with the comments made by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) about the fact that the Committee did not consider in full all of the issues that it could have. On public engagement, there is much that needs to be done, because this place is so alien to most people who turn on BBC Parliament—if they do—and watch what we are doing in this Chamber as well as the way in which we do it. There are many opportunities, particularly with new technology, to reach out and to engage the public better, yet this House seems to be good at missing those opportunities. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) mentioned the Procedure Committee's report on improving the petitions system. The Committee produced an excellent report, and what happened to it? Nothing. We have had the report, which said how we could do it, but we are still saying, "Oh, we should consider this at a future date." It is not rocket science—we could just get on and do it. Two years ago, I started campaigning to allow clips from the filming of Parliament to be shown on YouTube so that people could share them with their friends or so that members of a pressure group that might be interested in a particular exchange could see them. It is getting there, but progress is so slow. Now we are allowed to put clips on YouTube, but there are ridiculous restrictions—we cannot share them, for example, and comments need to be moderated—that are wholly inappropriate when it comes to understanding how the internet works and how people engage with it. There has been an excellent campaign called "Free our Bills", which seeks to ensure that legislation online is tagged to make it easy for the public to follow different stages and to comment on what is happening, but the cogs move so slowly in this place when we try to get change. I have sympathy with many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda), which he also raised in his speech during the hustings for the speakership, about allowing our constituents to vote directly to express the things that they would like us to discuss—whether they do so through online or telephone polls or through encouraging people to sign early-day motions that, once they have received a certain number of signatures, will require a debate to be held. There is no reason why we cannot consider engaging the public in such ways. It is a real shame that we do not yet have those proposals on the table to vote for today, or for next Thursday when the many votes might happen. I wholeheartedly hope that this report is not a conclusion to the process of reform but the beginning of it. We need radically to increase public engagement in this place. The hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) talked about the process of reform. Let me say to hon. Members that people outside this place look in and wonder what planet we are on with our archaic rules, procedural wrangling and bizarre traditions. The measures outlined in this report represent modest progress, but progress none the less. It is frustrating how even these mild reforms require such energetic campaigning to get votes on the relevant measures and to get 130 signatures so that we can have a debate on a particular motion, but I am glad that we are doing that. I truly believe that this House will be able to regain credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of the public only when it wholeheartedly embraces reform, but that does not seem to be the case currently. Today, we have heard impassioned voices from both sides of the House in favour of reform. We need to back this report as the first step to that reform, and to work together in the coming months and years to continue the process of creating a House of Commons that is fit for the 21st century.