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

Obviously that is what Government Back Benchers should be doing, but they also have the right to judge whether their interpretation of the mandate is being put into effect. Some opponents have given the impression that the present system is one of vast antiquity, and that our arrangements would fall apart without it. That is simply not the case. The present system came into being in 1963, without debate, following a report by a Select Committee on Procedure which simply said vaguely that the old system was obsolete. What happened, historically, is quite interesting. The arrangement allowing the Government to take all the time of the House was not introduced until 1915 under Asquith, who promised that he would not use it to enact any party or partisan legislation. Churchill repeated that promise in the 1940s, when it was used again. Only after the war—in some very bad-tempered debates under the 1945 Government—was the arrangement extended to peacetime. But even then it was only Session by Session. It became a Standing Order in 1963 because people had forgotten how to oppose. In an era of consensus and bipolar politics, with very low rates of Back-Bench rebellion, Parliament forgot its job. But now, in a different era with multi-party politics and the end of consensus politics, it is still the basis of our politics. In a situation of fragmentation, the idea that the Government should dominate the agenda of the House entirely is an idea whose time has gone. If we are to revive our politics, this is where we must start.