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

The one thing that is bothering me about this debate is this: where are the opponents? I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) for his marvellous chairmanship of the Committee and to its staff for getting us through the process of the report, but as a member of the Committee, I know that there are large numbers in the House who are against our proposals, yet they have not spoken tonight. Given that I have only eight minutes, I want to talk about one aspect of the report—the reform of Standing Order No. 14 and the House business committee—and to try to reassure people who are not here tonight but who might be listening to those voices of reaction that the proposal is not that radical. In fact, I am amazed by its moderation. It is said by opponents of our proposals that Standing Order No. 14, which gives the Government complete control over the House's timetable, is necessary to get the Government's programme through, but that is plainly untrue, given what happens in other countries. Standing Order No. 14 is completely over the top given how other European legislatures work. The only legislature that is subject to anywhere near the same degree of Executive control as ours is the Dáil, presumably because of the historical connection. However, in the Dáil, private Members' Bills cannot be talked out because they can be carried over to the next slot, and Opposition parties can introduce legislation on which they can require the House to vote. If the Government do not like it, they must vote it down. It is important to realise that the Committee is suggesting not the radical Dutch system, in which the House decides almost from minute to minute what it is going to talk about, but a very moderate system. We are suggesting that a Deputy Speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means, acts as a mediator between the Government, the parties and the Back-Bench committee. The Deputy Speaker then brings to the House the motion concerning what it will discuss in the following week. That would give the Government two enormous safeguards. First, it would be possible for a Standing Order to require the Deputy Speaker to ensure that the Government had time to get their Bills through the House, and had an out date. We can build that into the system. Secondly, the Deputy Speaker would put to the House a motion that would be amendable. If the Government—with their majority—did not like what was proposed, they could, in the final resort, propose an amendment in order to get their way, but they would have to do it openly and transparently, and that would itself constitute the main change. The Government would no longer fill the week with pointless debates with no vote in order to avoid a proper debate on the Report stage of a Bill, because if they did so they would have to do it openly, on the Floor of the House. For the same reason, they would be less likely even to want to try to restrict the number of days for debate on Report or in Committee of the whole House. The House would therefore be more likely to end up talking about, and voting on, matters of public concern—and that is what would make us more relevant. I suppose that, in the end, it is a matter of principle. Ultimately, the House should decide its own agenda. The present system provides for the Government as the Government, not as the majority, to decide our agenda, and that is different from the majority deciding it. I feel that those who think we are moving away from our present system of a fusion of powers towards a separation of powers—and I know that some Members would like us to move in that direction—do not understand what we are proposing. What we are proposing would give the majority more power. The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) is worried about the transfer of power that our proposal involves, but what, in fact, is that transfer of power? It is not even a transfer of power between the Executive and the legislature, but a transfer of power between the Government Front Bench and the Government Back Bench. The single group of people who will be most empowered by what we are proposing are Government Back Benchers. It seems to me, from where I sit, that they are the most disempowered group of all in this Parliament, but they are the people who would benefit most from our proposal, and they would be able to do their job better. There are opponents who claim that we are somehow interfering with the "manifesto mandate" theory. I am not a great fan of that theory, because I do not see how a mandate can result from a manifesto that very few people read, on 35 per cent. of the vote. However, even those who do believe in it must ask themselves the big question: who will be given the opportunity to interpret that mandate? Will it be simply the Front Bench of the governing party, or will it be the whole of the parliamentary section of the party that won the election? That is the question that we are posing in our proposals for reform, but at this point we are proposing a different answer. Our answer is that we are transferring power, but we are transferring it from the Government Front Bench to the Government Back Bench.