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Chair (Terminology)

First, may I express regret that we have not been given an opportunity to vote on all the recommendations of the Wright Committee today? May I highlight an amendment that is in my name and that of a number of other Members, which would enable the chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee to be voted on by secret ballot while giving the Prime Minister a veto at the nomination stage? That modest reform would have improved the credibility of the ISC's scrutiny and work, and public confidence in it. That is particularly apposite in view of the Committee's apparent failure to be able to scrutinise adequately the Binyam Mohamed case. I wish to make two other extremely brief points. After some considerable thought I am going to support amendment (b) to motion 7. I realise that that will disappoint some in the House—[Interruption.] I can tell that this is so from a few nodding heads. I still feel that we should proceed cautiously on the creation of the business committee. I am a supporter of it—I have supported it for a long time and have said so—but I take the view that, as a number of others have said this afternoon, it is an experiment. I do not think it an experiment that we should not even try—that appeared to be the view of the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett). If the experiment works, as I suspect it will, we will then be able to take the reform further. I shall end my contribution by saying that by far the most important reform looks as if it will go through, and I very much hope it will. I am talking about the proposal for the election of Chairmen of Select Committees by secret ballot. That will be by far the most important single change to the scrutiny of the Executive by this place to have occurred since the St. John-Stevas reforms in 1979. Over time, the proposal has the capacity to transform the effectiveness of this place. I have supported and campaigned for this measure for more than a decade, so I am so pleased that the Wright Committee has proposed it. The proposal will enable us, finally, to scrutinise the Executive, with spokesmen for this place able to take on the Executive in the media outside and to act as spokesmen for us here in Parliament.