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Chair (Terminology)

I will be very brief. If we looked at constitutional definitions of the purpose of being an MP, we would probably find three things: first, to hold the Government to account—that is what we are focusing on in these discussions—secondly, to deliberate on legislation, and thirdly, to represent, in the Burkean sense, a constituency. My grandfather, who was a Member of this House in the 1930s, would probably have recognised that role pretty well, but I would ask those Members present to say, in all honesty, whether that is a recognisable description of the activities of most MPs now. Most MPs, particularly those occupying marginal seats, spend most of their time fulfilling the function of a super-councillor, representing and pursuing individual concerns as vigorously as possible, knowing perfectly well the premium that is attached to that function by their voters. If we are honest, however, the matters that we are discussing now are not the matters that attract a premium from our voters. I have not been approached by my constituents urging me to support these reforms. I will do so, because I think that that they are the best things that we can do, but we would be under an illusion if we thought that they offered a solution to our difficulties in engaging with the public. The first task that we must undertake—I recognise that the Committee did not have the opportunity or the brief to do this—is properly to debate with our citizens what the function of an MP actually is in the modern world. It has changed utterly since my grandfather was here—in fact, probably in the past 40 years, which is rather less time than that. It has changed utterly, and without any proper engagement with the public as to what they want from MPs, what balance they think should be struck between our functions and what resources should be allocated to those tasks. The proposals before us today do not attempt to address that issue. They will alter, in a beneficial way, the way in which we make decisions about the processes of the House and about how we allocate its time, but they do not address the issue of resources. They do not deal with the time resources of MPs, or with the resources that MPs need to conduct high-quality work in their Select Committees. There was an oblique reference earlier to the attendance problem in relation to MPs serving on Select Committees and other Committees of the House. I have to say that that observation was profoundly accurate. As a pretty assiduous attender myself, I have sat on Committees that have been sparsely attended all too often. I am leaving the House at the next election, but I would ask Members of the new Parliament to conduct a basic review of their own function. They must ask what we are for, and how we resource the work that we do. These reforms are of some value. They might alter the balance between the Executive and the ordinary Member. I say "might" because patronage is an insidious process, and I strongly suspect that, however one constructs the mechanism of choice, those with an interest in producing an outcome that favours the Executive or the Front Bench will find ways of doing so. I would be surprised if that were not true, and I certainly recognise from the operations of my own party that the networking processes and regional groupings that we form have a significant influence on Members' voting patterns for posts in the party. I would be very surprised if that were not replicated in these elections, too. The measures would alter the elites who make judgments, but elites will remain. There will be a large number of new Members of the House after the coming election, and they will feel lost in this space. I suspect that they will find themselves with very little leverage to achieve the outcomes that they want in the Select Committee processes. It might be the case that they would have done better under the old, discredited models—