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

I agree with that; unfortunately, my friends in the Whips Office did not seem to do so. That is why I did not make much progress in my time on parliamentary Labour party Back-Bench committee. Nevertheless, we have moved on, and I hope that we can now see the benefit of doing so. I shall move on quickly, as a number of other hon. Members want to speak. I welcome the business committee. I am not quite sure how it will cohabit with the way in which the usual channels will, I suppose, continue to operate; but, if nothing else, we can be much more transparent in how we plan our business and in how we know what is coming up and why. I will point the finger at the Opposition as well as the Government. There is nothing more galling when a debate is coming up next week than preparing a wonderful speech—just as I have not on this occasion—and finding at a moment's notice that that debate has been pulled and something else put in its place. There ought to be fairness, and Back Benchers ought to have some security in the knowledge that the debates that they are expecting will take place. It is not beyond the realm of personkind to have topicality, without wrecking one's ability to programme one's life and willingness to engage in the House. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire commented on how petitions need to be organised much more meaningfully. We have made a small amount of progress. We need to ensure that petitions are properly recognised in the House and to allow hon. Members to debate the issues properly, so that our constituents can feel that they have some traction on us. I want to finish by referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who is not in his place, but I will embarrass him by saying that the art of the possible is to keep on raising the same issue so many times that people eventually get so sick of hearing it that they give in and take notice. He is absolutely right about September days. It is right that the House should sit then. In the good old way that we referred to Baker days when I was teaching in the 1980s and we got formal in-service days for the first time, we should call them Mullin days, so that we can recall his dogged persistence. However, I would go even further: I would make those days in September parliamentary days, with no Government business, other than when the Government are being called to account. We could have a series of debates based on topical issues that perhaps were not the ones that we were able to discuss before the recess. More particularly, given the way in which our timetable works, I should like some opportunity for private Members' Bills to be carried through, rather than their being culled because we do not have enough time. That would be an important standpoint for Parliament. The Government would have to respond to Parliament, rather than Parliament responding to the Government. That is an important reason why that couple of weeks should be used and should be different from the usual business. They come round only once a year, but that would be an important way in which Parliament would assert itself, or—dare I say?—reassert itself. I hope that those are the sort of things that we can take forward. As everyone has said, this is not the end of the process. Indeed, we hope that it is the start of the process, and we could move forward with many other things if only parliamentarians had the independence of mind, the will power and the sheer gall to ensure that, from time to time, the Executive respond to us, rather than our always having to respond to the Executive.