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Parliament and the Public: Information Committee Report

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in this debate and to respond to the report on behalf of Her Majesty's Official Opposition. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute not only to my noble friend Lord Renton but to all members of the committee who contributed to this outstanding report. My noble friend Lord Renton has led from the front in the area of technology. I looked on the web and found a very fetching YouTube performance, as well as blogging. The YouTube performance was distinctly better than that of the Prime Minister recently. It was a real progress and a good example of what we can achieve. As noble Lords mentioned, the first report of the committee was an ice-breaker. The area of communication and engagement is front and centre of the agenda. Some very positive things are happening. The Information Committee is concerned with the Parliamentary Information and Communications Technology service, the Library service, the information service including Hansard and public information, bicameral services and the parliamentary archives. As a relatively new Member of this House, with experience in another place, I have been hugely impressed with the support received from these departments and services. The dedication, professionalism and courtesy of the staff are enormously impressive and must be recognised and celebrated at every opportunity. In common with several Committee members, I have had the privilege of welcoming guests here, and also visiting schools and colleges to talk about the work that we do. Last week, I welcomed to this great building a group of sixth-formers from Emmanuel College, Gateshead. I was struck by two things. First, they were incredibly knowledgeable about the House of Lords and its workings. Doubtless that was because it was part of the curriculum—they were working on a project—and also because of access to the internet. They were also immensely grateful for the red bags of goodies that were prepared and given to them to take away: that made a difference as well. In the areas that puzzled them, there was only one question that I had difficulty in answering. They asked why it was that after Question Time had taken place, which they had observed from the gallery, the House emptied from 200 down to 10 at a speed which would grace any fire drill. I found it difficult to provide an adequate answer: it might be something to which more established Members of your Lordships' House might turn their attention. Mention was made of the excellent website TheyWorkForYou. That has helped journalists to keep track of when we are speaking. However, TheyWorkForYou will not cover this debate, because we are in Committee. That is a disappointment. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Renton, on behalf of his committee and others, could take that up with the excellent people who run the website, because Grand Committees are not covered. As one would expect from an Information Committee report specialising in communication, I found the annual report one of the easiest documents to digest that I have ever read. That may be because I have become used to studying government legislation over the past few months. In particular, Appendix 2 sets out the recommendations in a very clear form. The Government might take note of this as a way in which data can be presented. Of course, one of the downsides of presenting accessible information in a transparent way is that it becomes immediately apparent what has been implemented and what has not. Huge numbers of recommendations are being progressed, others are being considered, but I have yet to see one that has been implemented. That would be encouraging. However, as an example of how things should be presented, the report is outstanding. I turn to the points made in the report. Engagement with the media is central to all that we do. I know that there is a wish for us to communicate directly with the electorate. However, for the next 100 years or so I am sure that we will rely on the media, and so having a constructive relationship with them and making it as easy as possible for them to do their job is a sensible approach. Having been interviewed in the "cupboard" a few times myself, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has made a wise point. Personally, I rather like the idea of an Oscar winner designing a set for the studio of your Lordships’ House. If that were to be proposed, I think that it would be very welcome indeed. The report begins thus: ""Parliament’s reputation is at a low point"." Media coverage about Peers’ allowances and MPs’ expenses and the suspension of two Members of the House of Lords has had a negative impact on people’s perception of Parliament. I am comforted that this opening makes us all deeply uncomfortable. That is the point from which we start: that we have a problem. The fact is that in 2009-10 a Parliament which has been meeting on this site since 1215 when Magna Carta was signed has, almost 800 years later, reached a low point. It is a particularly difficult problem. Granted King John probably did not have to contend with a Freedom of Information Act, let alone the Daily Telegraph, but the fact is that we are at a low point and therefore action needs to be taken. That is what is required, and I am pleased that my right honourable friend David Cameron has made some clear statements about it: ""People are fed up with politicians hiding behind the cloak of independent inquiries and endless reviews. They want us to stand up, grasp the issue by the scruff of the neck and start dealing with it"." He has set out in response a number of proposals to fix our broken politics. He has also said that we do not believe that an arrogant or controlling Government sitting in London passing endless rules and regulations actually make things better. In fact, they can often make matters worse. That is why we want to embark on the most ambitious shift of power from the centre as a way of engaging people in local communities that has been seen for generations. We will cut Ministers’ salaries by 5 per cent. We will have a pay freeze for all Members of Parliament. We will take a long, hard look, as they say, at the gold-plated pension scheme operating for Ministers and parliamentarians. We will cut the number of MPs by 10 per cent because we have one of the largest legislatures in the world. As well as cleaning up Parliament, we need to empower it to fulfil its proper constitutional role of holding the Executive to account. There would be more emphasis on scrutinising how existing legislation is being implemented rather than proposing rafts of new legislation. There will be a focus on simplifying government and the tax system, not only because it would save money, but because complexity in any system obscures what is actually happening and makes it less effective. It makes it less accessible to the lay person. The fact that 3,700 pieces of legislation went through this place between 2007 and 2008 is a case in point. How on earth is a Parliament made up of 1,200 Members supposed to be able to scrutinise that amount of legislation going through at such a high rate? We will introduce the power of recall to allow voters in constituencies to kick out MPs in mid-Parliament who are proved to be guilty of serious wrong-doing. We will introduce more open primaries to give every constituent the right to choose their candidates for election. We will create a right of initiative nationally whereby any petition that can collect 100,000 signatures will be eligible to be formally debated in Parliament. Any petition with a million signatures will allow members of the public to table a Bill that could end up being voted on in Parliament. These examples are not in any way gimmicks, they are very much ways of engaging people, particularly young people. The fact is that young people using forms of social media could collect signatures for a Bill and have a direct influence on Parliament. It is something that will invigorate our system. We will also introduce a public reading stage for Bills to give the public an opportunity to comment on new legislation. We will limit the number of special advisers to protect the independence of the Civil Service, which is one of the most important guarantees of the independence and scrutiny powers of our system of government. I want also to comment on the remarks made by Timothy Kirkhope, Leader of the Conservative Party Group in the European Parliament and vice chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, as well as being a distinguished former Member of the other place and a Home Office Minister. He has made the point that one of the biggest constitutional changes in our history has been our membership of the European Union, and yet it has passed Parliament by largely unnoticed. We are hopeless at scrutinising European legislation.