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House of Commons (Effectiveness)

To misquote one of my contemporary political heroes, my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), whom I have come to regard as a friend as well as a colleague, this will be the last speech that I shall ever make as a Member of this House of Commons. It comes at the end of what some have called the Manure Parliament, at a time when the stench of corruption and personal greed has overwhelmed the good that we try to do and the reasons why the vast majority of us come to this place. In my last contribution I want to mount a staunch defence of politics and politicians: not as an apologist for the status quo—because I have always been on what one could call the Hezbollah wing of the reform movement—but because I believe passionately that a precondition for the survival of a healthy democracy is the holding of regular elections, and that for those elections to function there must be candidates. Those candidates who eventually succeed in securing the approval of the electors will, whether they like it or not, grow up to become politicians, just as night follows day. Yet, if we follow the subtext of much of the media coverage of our politics—and it long predates last spring's expenses scandal—things would be so much better if somehow we could have politics without politicians and clear out the whole political class. All the ills of the world are easily solved, all problems are simple, and politicians—us lot—only make matters worse. Then, by adding a dose of xenophobia and a dollop of snobbery with some implied racism mixed in from time to time, we have the gospel according to Rod Liddle, Melanie Phillips, Jan Moir, Richard Littlejohn and a dozen other commentators of the fourth estate, who know it all. Well, anyone can write about what other people should be doing. I have spent a quarter of a century of my life as a public representative, often listening to other people telling me what I should be doing. I only wish I had spent half as long hearing people ask how they, too, could come forward and serve their communities assiduously, as the best of us here and in councils and assemblies the length and breadth of this land try to do. I want to quote—more accurately—another of my contemporary heroes, my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), who gave the 2009 lecture for The Political Quarterly, which I commend to hon. Members. That provided much of the inspiration for this debate. He said of politicians:""You see someone has to do it—someone has to take responsibility. As politicians we give voice to the hopes of the people and inevitably we will also feed their disappointments."" Those are wise words and they apply as much to Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama as to Tony Blair or Winston Churchill. We should not apologise for coming together to form political parties. It is what the public want us to do. They want us to forge alliances based on common programmes and principles. The notion of a House of Commons filled with 650 independents, unable to agree on a single thing, has never appealed to the electorate, although it is in their gift to deliver it. At its best this place is the cockpit of our democracy, where the battle of ideas is fought out, and the hopes and aspirations of the people who sent us here receive expression and are sometimes realised. At its worst the Commons can be a craven institution, in thrall to either the Executive or party advantage, and pandering to the baser parts of the media. The day we finally subcontract our law-making to the likes of Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch will be the day on which representative democracy dies. Collectively we will have lost the moral authority that we have left. We have gone far too far down that road already, giving too much power, without accountability, to unelected press barons who draw their political lineage and set their moral compasses from such repulsive headlines as "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" in the Daily Mail of 15 January 1934; I think that it has become more extreme over the years. Who will ever forget the famous headline in The Sun of 9 November 1998: "Are we being run by a gay mafia?" It was particularly demeaning to see the former leader of my party attempting to formulate child protection policy on the basis of a News of the World witch hunt that led to a mob attack on the home of a paediatrician, rather than by listening to the sensible, informed opinions of senior police officials and experts from organisations such as Barnardo's and Save the Children, who know a thing or two about managing paeodphiles released from prison. We have yet to find out what price Mr. Murdoch has extracted from the Leader of the Opposition in return for the political endorsement of The Sun. I worry that we may see the break-up of the BBC and certainly a diminution in the regulatory powers of Ofcom. This debate almost never happened. My original intention, shared with the Leader of the House, was that the debate should be entitled "In Praise of Politics." The Clerks ruled that out of order. I then compromised with "In Praise of Parliament." That was also the subject of a banning order from the men in wigs. We eventually settled on today's somewhat obtuse title. There we have it: as politicians we cannot hold a debate about politics and as parliamentarians we cannot praise Parliament. There clearly remains much to reform about this place, including the arcane rules that govern our proceedings and the regime that so delights in enforcing them. Some 13 years ago I made my maiden speech on the case for reform of the House of Commons, calling for nothing less than a new politics for a new century, and a political system that would connect with the public and their aspirations. In the intervening period I have done my level best to put as much of the reform agenda as I could into practice, but collectively we have fallen disappointingly short of those worthy objectives, which seemed so achievable in those far-off days of hope in the summer of 1997. Anyone who served with good intent on the Modernisation Committee or, more recently, on the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, knows through long and bitter experience how intensely conservative this institution is—how resistance to change has been elevated to an art form and how achieving radical reform is as difficult as nailing blancmange to a wall. Just look at the inordinate length of time it took to allow the citizens of tomorrow, in the shape of the United Kingdom Youth Parliament, to hold their annual meeting in the House of Commons. It took five years from the publication in 2004 of the modernisation report, which I helped to draft, for us belatedly to follow in the footsteps of that great reforming body, the House of Lords, and allow the unelected bottoms of the UKYP to sit on those green Benches and participate in what proved to be a lively and articulate debate, which showcased the best of our young people, and hopefully launched a political career or two. I suppose that it was better late than never; but why such fuss and delay? Of course, there is a powerful case for further reforms—for permanent, if not incremental, revolution. I have argued before for ending moonlighting and paying MPs properly. It is a full-time job and we should work full-time hours. I would provide proper resources to meet the increasing demands of our constituents. They are not the same from constituency from constituency. Constituencies such as mine or those of my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) have, in their nature, vastly more casework. I talk to Members of Parliament for other constituencies who have given up holding advice surgeries, because no one comes. That is fine, too, but let us ensure that the resources meet the demand. I want genuine public engagement. I want to end the farce of early-day motions, and conning the people that they mean something. I argued for that in my maiden speech and in the Wright Committee. If sufficient Members across the party political divide put their name to a limited number of motions it should drive House business, and there should be a debate in the House. That would properly engage the public. I have looked at examples from Australia where Members can use interesting devices such as three-minute constituency statements, in which a matter of import—particularly local import—can be raised without a convoluted attempt to tack it onto a question about something else. I am bitterly disappointed that 13 years on we shall still not see reform of the House of Lords completed. I remain a defender of the principle of a second Chamber. All too often, perhaps because of the ineffectiveness of the House of Commons, the second Chamber does a better job of scrutinising legislation, which should be a matter of shame for us all. We really must end time-wasting as a political weapon. It is monstrously unfair that we do not have time to put through much-needed legislation and reform and yet waste hour upon hour marching organisations up to the top of the hill for private Members' Bills and other motions that simply go nowhere because of the ability to filibuster. In this place the most disempowered group are the critical friends of whoever are in Government. In Public Bill Committees Government Members are encouraged to keep quiet—often I do not follow that advice. Why do we not co-opt outside expertise onto those Committees? The notion that a Bill, once published, must travel through Parliament for a form of mock scrutiny, during which not a semicolon, paragraph or phrase can be amended, is ridiculous. We are all paid a reasonable salary to do a little better than that and to apply our judgment and that of our advisers and constituents. Perhaps we should go further and set a maximum age limit for Members. I am leaving this place because I vowed not to be rattling around the House in my 60s. That is not to say that people here in their 60s do not do a fantastic job, but I became a councillor 25 years ago when I was 29 years old and there are other things that I want to do with my life. I will raise a point about our staff that has been overlooked. It is difficult for any Member facing re-election to criticise the report and recommendations of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, but we should take a closer look at what it is seeking it to do to our staff. The 10 per cent. staff pension allowance that was formerly paid centrally now comes out of the starting budget, yet with no corresponding increase. If Members pay their staff up to the maximum, and those representing places like Reading have to pay the maximum to get good staff—we are only as good as the people working for us—they will effectively have to implement a 7 per cent. wage cut. That is monstrous. For all I have read about the expenses scandal, which applied to only a minority of Members from across the House, I have never come across a staffer or researcher who spent money on a duck house or a moat or who claimed for a false mortgage, but once again it is the poor bloody infantry who are carrying the can, not the officer class.