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Chair (Terminology)

This is House business; the motions are on the Order Paper, there is no whipping and there is no insight I can give that hon. Members cannot work out for themselves by reading it, so I am not going to take any interventions. I say that because this is not about me; it is about every individual Member of this House making their decision. The hon. Gentleman can therefore ask himself the question and answer it. We are not starting from scratch; the proposals that we return to today are not the beginning of reform, nor will they be the end of reform, but they are substantial reforms and, once again, I wish to record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and the other members of the Committee for their work. I thank him for his proposal to establish the Committee, which I readily supported. Today's business enables Members to have a series of votes on the Commons Reform Committee's proposals. I shall address the motions in the order in which they will be put to the House. Motion 3 removes the term "chairman" from the Standing Orders and replaces it with the term "chair", and I support it. Motion 4 creates a new Standing Order with effect from the beginning of the next Parliament, which provides for a process for electing the Chairs of departmental and similar Select Committees by secret ballot of the whole House, based on party distributions proposed by the Speaker and agreed by the parties and the House. Amendment (p), which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and others, would add the Procedure Committee to the list of Committees whose Chairs are to be elected in this way. The Commons Reform Committee recommended that this procedure should apply to""departmental and similar select committees"." The Procedure Committee is not a departmental or similar Select Committee; it is, as we Latin scholars would say, sui generis. The amendment goes beyond the scope of the recommendation and for that reason I shall be voting against it. Nor shall I be supporting amendment (o), which stands in the names of the hon. Members for Christchurch and for North Thanet (Mr. Gale).