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

I, too, want to thank all our speakers. We have had a wide-ranging debate today, with contributions from 30 right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House—20 main speakers and 10 other contributions. That was a tremendous effort. It might have been a Christmas tree debate, as the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who is no longer in his place, said earlier, but, as I am sure the shadow Leader of the House will admit, it was much more themed than the pre-recess Adjournment debates. I believe that our aim tonight should be to support reforms that help to create a more vibrant and balanced House of Commons in the future. There have been a number of comments in the debate doubting the Government's commitment to reform issues and I want to refer to the most recent appearance before the Liaison Committee on 2 February of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. He spoke about reform and said that""there are major changes we can make that can improve the working of our democracy."" These were to:""Make power more accountable to people, make people have a more direct relationship with their representatives and, of course, make the Executive give up some power it should not have to the House of Commons and to the elected authorities."" I believe that was an important statement of intent before our debate tonight. Many Members have referred to the pressing need to rebuild public confidence in this House and one of the key aspects of that change will be to increase public engagement with the House. We must consider how we can make what happens in this House more relevant to the public and also how we can give the public influence over some of the subjects for debate in Parliament. A number of Members have talked about this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) said that the way in which we deal with petitions is "absurd." It is clear that there is a case for change and that our processes for presenting petitions from the public are no longer satisfactory. Indeed, the presentation of petitions is a practice of great antiquity as well as a method of modern democratic participation. A recent survey by the Hansard Society found that signing a petition was the most popular democratic activity and that 76 per cent. of the people surveyed had done so in the previous year. This figure was only 2 per cent. less than the number of people surveyed who had voted. As a Back-Bench MP—this was a role of which I was proud—I presented petitions on a range of subjects. One was directed at the G8 leaders when they were meeting at Gleneagles, whereas others concerned local bus services. All were equally important and I understand the importance that constituents attach to petitioning this House.