House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Jul 1991

Mr. Chope : I shall come to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. It is not every day that the House can consider 144 amendments in such a relatively short time.

I should now like to thank the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) for his considerable contributions to our debate. We have not agreed on everything, but his contributions have always been succinct and to the point. I am grateful to him for that. Nor shall I forget the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn), who has been in his place throughout our debate today and was a persistent and regular attender in Committee. Nobody could ask for more.

I hope that the House will accept the Lords amendment.

Mr. Corbyn : Is there any possibility of the Minister's Department changing the form of its presentation of road accident statistics so that there can be greater public understanding of the danger and loss of life resulting from road accidents?

Mr. Chope : We are always prepared to look at new ways of presenting statistics. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham is joining the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) in holding a celebration at the Royal Automobile Club either next week or the week after specifically to draw attention to the enormous progress that has been made in the past three or four years in reducing the terrible toll on our roads. Neither my hon. Friend nor anybody else is complacent about the situation. If we can further draw the attention of the public to the need to adopt road safety measures, that is all the better.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

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Schedule 5

Parking Penalties

Lords amendment : No. 104, in page 89, line 3, leave out from "serve" to end of line 4 and insert "a notice ( a notice to owner') on the person who appears to them to have been the owner of the vehicle when the alleged contravention occurred."

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.-- [Mr. Chope.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker : With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendments Nos. 105 to 120.

Mr. Peter Bottomley : Can my hon. Friend advise the House whether the amendment was one of the recommendations of the North committee and, whether or not it was, will he take this opportunity to place on the record what was said earlier in the Bill's passage--that many of those who gave advice to the Government should be pleased with the progress that has been made because their detailed work has been the foundation of much of part I? That fact should be recorded as we approach the end of our deliberations on the Lords amendments. Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &C.

Rights of the Subject

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.). That the draft Access to Personal Files (Social Services) (Amendment) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.-- [Mr. Chapman.]

Question agreed to.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order NO. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.). That the draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Special Exemptions) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.-- [Mr. Chapman.]

Question agreed to.

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Computer Services for Members

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Chapman.]

6.54 pm

Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland) : Many of those interested in the provision of computer services to hon. Members will probably have groaned inwardly and silently when the Leader of the House stated that the House would debate the fourth report of the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) of Session 1989-90 tonight, on the grounds that it would come on at a late hour. Clearly, the Leader of the House knew something that we did not.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for finding the time to debate the report, because I know that many Select Committee and other reports vie for time for debate on the Floor of the House, and not all are successful. Therefore, speaking as the Chairman of the Computer Sub-Committee, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for finding time for the debate this evening.

I know that we are debating this matter on a motion for the Adjournment, but I hope that we shall hear from the Leader of the House that, as long as there is general approval for the unanimous recommendations of the report, the right hon. Gentleman will move to expedite its recommendations and to put into motion the work that can be started immediately to improve services for hon. Members. Almost exactly six years ago--in July 1985--the House debated an earlier report from the Services Committee on the same subject, also on the motion for the Adjournment. Sadly, no action was taken on the recommendations in that report, but I hope that we shall have more success following our deliberations this evening. Six years on, we are debating a much more modest set of proposals about the use of computers by hon. Members.

The report originated with the Computer Sub-Committee, the Chairmanship of which I inherited from my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). The Sub-Committee is concerned with the provision of computer services for Members and Officers. It meets only rarely, but nevertheless it has done important work on behalf of the House. It is worth noting that the budget for expenditure on computers for staff in the House totals £3.2 million for the current financial year, but that there is no budget for the provision of computers from central funds for Members. That is an eloquent comment. We are obviously willing to invest significant sums for services for Officers, but nothing like the same approach has been taken yet on behalf of Members.

I have described the report as "modest"--and it is certainly much more modest than I would have liked. I make extensive use of computers in my own offices, here and elsewhere. I know that some people manage without them, but I find it hard to understand how. As Chairman of the Computer Sub- Committee, I was persuaded to seek a unanimous report--to go for a consensus report--and to achieve the support of hon. Members of all parties ; that is what I did, and we are now considering the report.

The appearance of the motion on the Order Paper a full year after the report was approved--I suppose that by parliamentary standards that counts as expedition--encourages me to think that, on the one hand, I am fortunate, but that, on the other hand, the other Select

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Committee proposed by the Leader of the House--a Committee on procedures in the House--cannot come a moment too soon.

The report builds on the work of the Computer Sub-Committee during the 1983 Parliament. That Sub-Committee was ably and enthusiastically chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam), and its report, "Information Technology : Members' Requirements", was agreed in December 1984 and debated in July 1985. The report drew on the results of a detailed study by The Economist intelligence unit on Members' information technology needs.

The 1984 report proposed the phased introduction of a local cable network based on broad-band cabling throughout the Palace of Westminster and its outbuildings, with a view to giving all Members, their staff and the Departments of the House access to centrally generated information services such as POLIS and a wide range of commercial services and databases.

During the debate on the report, suggestions were made that the Sub- Committee had not consulted widely enough among Members at large. Other criticisms, too, were made, including some rather cranky views, such as that Members did not really need computer systems or word processing, and that those who did were a tiny minority. It would be nice to think that those ideas had bitten the dust, not least because, for our most recent study, we again examined Members' circumstances so as fully to inform the work of the Sub-Committee before producing our report.

For example, we conducted another survey along almost identical lines to the earlier survey. The results are summarised in paragraphs 14 to 16 of our report, and are set out in more detail in page 13, at the back of the volume. They show what can be described only as a staggering increase in the use of computers by Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Simon Coombs (Swindon) : As the hon. Gentleman said, the report is already a year old. Does he have any more recent information on that trend?

Dr. Cunningham : I have only anecdotal evidence, but it all suggests increasing use of computer systems of various kinds by Members and their staff. It is impossible to keep updating the information in reports in the hope that one day they might be debated on the Floor of the House. I take the intention of the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) to be supportive, in that he agrees that those important developments continue to gather momentum. Of the 355 Members who returned the questionnaire, 293 were already using computerised equipment of some kind and a further 21 were planning to do so. Even if no account is taken of the non-respondents, more than a year ago 48 per cent. of all Members and a clear majority of Back Benchers had entered the world of the late 20th century and introduced some kind of information technology appliance into their offices. In other words, the use of computers and word processors had increased threefold in the five years between the earlier report and the report now before the House.

The basic point is clear. When the Sub-Committee discusses Members' information technology needs, we are not hypothesising about something that will happen in the future : we are talking about what has already happened and is a continuing trend. A majority of Members now use

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computer systems, as, of course, do all modern businesses, educational establishments and people in industry, commerce and administration throughout Whitehall. The House is engaged in a catching-up exercise on behalf of Members, in the interests not only of more efficient offices here--and, one hopes, more effective scrutiny of Ministers from time to time--but of providing a more efficient service on behalf of our constituents.

Computers and word processors are now almost a routine part of office life in Westminster, and I hope that we shall agree tonight that we need to take certain steps--I emphasise that they are modest steps--to regularise the situation. The House has a responsibility to decide how best those formidable services can be provided for Members, and what we can do collectively to help colleagues to take full advantage of what computer systems have to offer.

We accept that the priority is the need to provide proper offices for Members. Like many other Members in the Chamber today, I have been in the House a long time, yet we still have not achieved the modest goal of providing an office for each Member. I accept that as an objective of the House administration, but we should also accept the need to provide proper computer and information technology systems for all Members.

I acknowledge the debt that we owe the Leader of the House and his immediate predecessor for adopting a new and more energetic approach to improving the workings of the House in all its aspects. However, in this case, the most remarkable aspect of the growth in the use of computers by Members is that it has happened entirely as a result of individual decisions. Members have acted on their own behalf, not because of any collective decision or provision at Westminster. Of course, the piecemeal approach has had a price in terms of public expenditure. First, there is no guarantee that the equipment bought through the office costs allowance is the best available, the most suitable in the circumstances, or the best value for money. Secondly, piecemeal individual purchases of computers, word processors and fax machines guarantees that, in terms of public expenditure, the worst bargain is probably struck.

As paragraph 31 of the report explains :

"no other large scale user of computers (whether in industry or in government) would countenance off-the-shelf purchase at standard retail prices when contemplating the acquisition of many hundreds of machines."

Yet that is how equipment is provided here. People make individual decisions and go out and acquire what they think is the best buy off the shelf. If bulk purchasing were available, the cost to the public purse would be significantly reduced, without necessarily eliminating choice for Members. The same considerations apply to the maintenance of equipment.

Page 34 of the report describes the Computer Officer of the House as suggesting that savings of at least 30 per cent. could be made by central purchasing of computers. He cites a saving of almost 70 per cent. in maintenance costs if there were some collective provision. Thirdly, Members buy expensive equipment, yet often use it only in routine and basic ways, such as for word processing, keeping personal records and filing, whereas

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they could use the same equipment to tap into the vast amount of information available on public and commercial databases. That happens because we have failed collectively to provide an efficient system whereby all our machines could talk to each other and use the computerised information systems available in the House, in Government and in the outside world. So there is huge under-utilisation of even the resources that we have.

The Sub-Committee's report makes a number of proposals to address the inadequacies of the present system. As I said, they are extremely modest proposals. My personal preference would be for the House to accept full responsibility for the provision of computers and associated equipment for all Members' offices and to establish a comprehensive network to support the machines. However, I have been persuaded that, for the time being, we should not seek such an all-embracing and comprehensive approach--hence the line taken in the report.

Our first proposals are designed to ensure that there is proper provision in the Palace and outbuildings for the transmission of computer data between Members' offices, and between Members' offices and the wide range of data services now available. We therefore propose, at paragraph 44, that discussions should be held between the Parliamentary Works Office, the Computer Officer--to whom I pay tribute for his excellent work in servicing the Committee and in providing advice and information to the House more widely--the Communications Manager, the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency and appropriate commercial contractors, to identify the type and capacity of cable required to meet the long-term needs of the House for the transmission of both data and television signals. A consultants' study of the recabling of the House and surrounding buildings for staff services and the annunciator service has already been commissioned. That is an important and useful development, but it is also important to recognise that we shall need to recable the House for the annunciator and Library services and for other services. It would be nonsense and short-sighted not to take into account, before that decision is made, the needs of hon. Members for information technology services. We would expect the consultations to lead to an early decision to introduce a new broad-band cable throughout the Palace and the outbuildings which would meet the needs of the House for the foreseeable future.

There are additional reasons for introducing such a cable, not directly connected with computers. The Services Committee has recently been under great pressure from hon. Members who understandably want access to terrestrial, satellite and cable television in their offices. Some hon. Members already have access to some of those services in existing buildings, but the majority have not. Moreover, from October, those hon. Members who are lucky enough to have palaces in phase 1 of the new building --[ Hon. Members :-- "Palaces?"] I meant "offices" ; it was a slip of the tongue. It may be a palace, but it is no prize.

Such hon. Members will already have annunciator screens doubling as conventional television sets that can carry all terrestrial television services and one or two satellite services. In the rest of the buildings, the annunciator system is now antique and is extremely expensive to operate and maintain, especially given that

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every single replacement has to be tailormade because the existing annunciator screens can no longer be bought off the shelf. A new cable throughout the buildings would therefore serve three separate and important functions : to link Members' computers into what could develop into a computer network ; to provide all Members' offices with access to commercial television services ; and to provide the framework for the replacement of the annunciator system. The Committee's second main proposal, at paragraph 57 of the report, is for the establishment of a working party to draw up specifications for the interfaces required between Members' work stations and the cable system, and to draw up a list of approved types of computers, word processors and other standard office equipment. Among others, the working party would include representatives of the Library, whose POLIS system is the most obvious readily available database to which hon. Members may wish to have access. The vast majority of hon. Members who replied to the questionnaire last year wanted access to the POLIS service. Such provision may in itself cut public expenditure by reducing the cost of Members' gaining access to the information that they require. For example, many questions may not need to be tabled, and the necessity for reports to be commissioned on behalf of Members' may be eliminated. That means that there is a potential benefit in cost terms, too.

A list of approved equipment would be the first tentative move towards the standardisation of equipment in Members' offices and, as the report says at paragraph 60,

"would be an interim stage towards the likely ultimate objective of transferring responsibility for the purchase of Members' basic equipment from the individual Member to a central fund".

At that interim stage, we could begin to see the advantage of central purchasing and maintenance under an arrangement which allowed Members to buy equipment through a central agency, preferably the Computer Officer, and to buy into standard maintenance and training contracts, thus saving considerable sums.

The report goes on to say that the House may well wish in future to take the "final step" towards the central ownership and maintenance of computerised office equipment, but that is not recommended now ; nor is it an inevitable consequence of what the Committee proposes. I remind the House, however, that such a move would not exactly be revolutionary. It is the common practice in many Commonwealth and European Parliaments, and as long ago as 1987, the Top Salaries Review Body expressed the view

"that there would be considerable advantages in the central provision of equipment by the House, especially in terms of standardisation and bulk buying".

For the time being, we do not propose that the House should go down that road, and we respect the right of those hon. Members who wish to continue to bang out their constituency mail on ancient manual typewriters or to have the right not to be connected into any on-line information system. The fact that the equipment is there in Members' offices and ready to tap into does not mean that Members are obliged to use it.

However, an agreement that only certain types of equipment may be purchased through the office costs allowance would be a small step in the right direction, because it would mean that we could move towards

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compatible systems throughout the House. It would also probably not be that painful for individual Members. Our survey last year suggested that the overwhelming majority--93 per cent.--of computer equipment was already IBM PC-compatible, so a good deal of basic standardisation is already taking place through hon. Members' own decisions.

The House will be wondering what all this will cost. When I took over the chairmanship of the Computer Sub-Committee, I was warned that cost would be the big stumbling block in the way of anything that we thought of proposing. Since then, the Parliamentary Works Office has done some basic sums for us in March this year, it concluded that about £1.5 million would provide us with a new cable, completely new annunciators capable of carrying television pictures, and facilities for connecting all equipment to the cable. Given that the annunciator system is now life-expired and will have to be replaced, by the Government's own admission, in the next few years, the total sum about which we are talking is relatively tiny. Let me put the sum of £1.5 million into a wider context. The Members' pay and allowances vote for 1991-92 is £57.5 million. The vote for the House of Commons administration is £44.25 million and the parliamentary works vote is £29.36 million. Set beside those sums, £1.5 million to purchase the kind of cabling that we suggest--some of which will be necessary in any event--is a modest sum, and no one could describe it as an outrageous drain on public expenditure. In return for that sum, the House would acquire the basic framework into which we could build a computer and communications network to suit the changing demands of Members during the next few decades. It seems to me a small price to pay, and the taxpayer would be getting better value for his money than under the present arrangements for such expenditure. Of course, the ultimate objective--which may not gain favour with every hon. Member--is more effective scrutiny by Members of what happens here, and more effective representation of our constituents.

Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that spending that amount of money would undoubtedly bring significant savings? For example, telephone bills would be much smaller because people would use far fewer outside lines to get back into what they could access internally.

Dr. Cunningham : I am happy to agree with that point, although it is difficult to quantify the gains at this stage. When I was elected 21 years ago, Members did not even have their own telephones. There may even have been a time when Members provided their own telephones. I do not know whether that is the case. Perhaps I should ask the Library to check. It seems preposterous now to propose that a telephone cabling system should not be provided for our use and the use of our staff. I am sure that, in a few years, when people look back, they will see that we took an inordinately long time to modernise the way in which we provide information to Members and researchers.

I believe that the Leader of the House will want to respond positively to the report, as he has responded positively to other suggestions for improvements and progress in the way in which the House manages its affairs. I certainly hope that he will respond positively. The most positive step that he could take would be to make it clear

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that, following this debate, he will initiate the necessary action with the House of Commons Commission and other committees to make progress on implementing the recommendations.

The report concludes in paragraph 68 :

"The House cannot continue to adopt a wholly amateur approach to the use of new technologies which are already the standard tools of work in industry, business, education and government services of all kinds throughout the developed world".

Members' actions show that we believe that there is a need to move forward and become more professional in our approach. All that is needed is the collective will on the part of the Government and the House of Commons Commission to allow that more professional approach to be adopted.

We do not expect Members to rig up their own telephone lines, as I said a few moments ago. We should no longer expect them to rig up their own computer systems. From time to time--indeed, more regularly than ever as the general election approaches--I talk to business men and women who look forward to a change of Government. While they do not all necessarily support my view, they have one view in common when they come to the House. They never cease to be amazed at the quaintness and faded gentility of the place and the appalling lack of services and facilities in the offices in which we work to represent them, their employees and our constituents. In the main, they go away thinking that Parliament is always at the forefront of demands that other organisations, establishments and groups reform themselves. In this respect, as in some others, they think that it is about time that we reformed ourselves for a change.

7.22 pm

Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) : Until he made his last few comments, I had been about to say that I entirely agreed with everything that the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) said. Clearly, I must dissociate myself from the only mistake in his whole speech. He will not win the next election. However, I am sure that he will take everything else in the spirit that I intend. I support everything that he said about the matter that we are debating. When I first entered the House in 1987, I was luckier than many of my colleagues, in that I had used a word processor before. Apart from that, I was computer-illiterate. I suppose that there are those who would say that I am illiterate, but for the purposes of this debate let us settle for computer-illiterate.

As all my colleagues will know, when I first arrived I was provided with a desk, a telephone, two filing cabinets and a not ungenerous office allowance. But otherwise, I was utterly and completely on my own. Four years later, I have two Amstrad minicomputers, a word processing package, a database and a modem link to the Parliamentary On-Line Information System. I hasten to add that I am one of just 49 Members who have taken advantage of the opportunity to be linked up directly to POLIS. To this day, I am slightly amazed that all that technology works. Whether it works well is a different matter, but I am constantly amazed that it works.

It is clear to me that my computer equipment enables me to do things that I could not possibly do otherwise.

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However, I am conscious that I am not getting the best even from my fairly small basic personal computer. There are still things that I do not understand about my word processing package. Many a time when I am using it, someone comes along and says, "Why are you doing that? All that you need to do is the other." I am still learning, four years on.

I know now that, when I set up on my own small database which I had bought off the shelf, I did not do it properly. Some 10,000 records later it is rather difficult to alter. But perhaps someone knows different and can tell me how to alter it--one of the points that the hon. Gentleman made. I have yet to get to grips with POLIS. To obtain all that equipment set me--or the taxpayer--back £5,000. I have not the faintest idea whether it was good value for money. I have no means and no knowledge to test that. Such a tangle does the mother of Parliaments no credit whatever. When other people can put men on the moon, many an office in the House still has steam-driven typewriters, as the hon. Gentleman said. It really is not good enough.

Therefore, I welcome the debate and I support the proposals in the report. However, I am appalled that nothing seemed to be done after the debate in 1985. I hope that this time we shall not have a rerun of what happened then. In supporting the report, I wish to explain three matters as they seem to me. I shall state, first, why I believe that we need to change ; secondly, what seems sensible for us to do ; and, thirdly, how we should make those changes.

The reasons why we need to make the changes have been well set out in the report and by the hon. Gentleman. If we follow his Committee's recommendations we shall end up as better legislators and better representatives of our constituents, irrespective of our party. We and other people will be able to judge whether the money we spend gives us value for money.

How would we become better legislators ? First, we would be better informed. It is amazing that events can take place in the world outside and we do not know about them. My leg is always pulled when I complain that I do not have access to television. People say that all that I want to do is stay up late at night and watch what I read about in the newspapers. But I can work here all day and not know the first thing about some major news item, because I am confined to the Chamber or my office. I do not regularly have access to the world outside. If we were better informed, we should be better legislators.

Secondly, it would be easier for all of us to do research. The hon. Gentleman said that there would be fewer demands on House of Commons staff. I am convinced that that is right. I am very conscious of how often I ask other people to do something which I know could be done more simply if only I had the means to do so. There would be enormous savings. We would also be encouraged to do more research. Sometimes I am reluctant to use the time of a member of the Library staff to research a matter which I consider interesting but relatively trivial compared with the demands of others. We would be able to do more and better research if we could do it ourselves.

One advantage about which the Government--whatever party is in power ; this is not a party political point--may not be so keen is that we would be better legislators because the system would bring us closer to the Government and the Departments. It would make us much more able to ask questions, exchange information and go back and ask again. We would no longer have to

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exchange interminable letters and wait a long time for the replies. We would be better legislators if we were closer to the Government. Why would we be better representatives? I am sure that, given a system that we all understood and could plug into, we would give our constituents a quicker and fuller response to their inquiries. We would be in a much better position to seek help from them if we could communicate with people. We would find it much easier to communicate with our constituents. How often are we criticised for being remote and out of touch? It would be easier for constituents to communicate with us.

I know of 10-year-old constituents who are capable of faxing information who are amazed when I look blank and say that such things do not happen here. We have all known occasions when people want to fax important information to us and we have scratched our heads and replied that we are not sure how that could be done. If we had a cabling system, as proposed by the hon. Member for Copeland, we should be better able to communicate with our constituents and they with us.

Value for money is important. If the proposed system was installed, we could make better use of our time. At the moment, there is a quaint tradition of pieces of paper rushing around the Palace after us. I pay great tribute to those who try to find us in appalling circumstances, but it does us no credit that we communicate with each other in this place by means of little bits of paper. Sometimes they do not catch up with us for several days.

The new system would also make better use of the time of our staff. How many of us have had to dispatch someone from Abbey gardens, to Dean's yard, Norman Shaw North or to the Palace? If one totted up the amount of time spent obtaining information it would be clear that obtaining it via the cable system suggested by the hon. Member for Copeland would represent a sensible saving of taxpayers' money. I am equally convinced that we would use our allowances in a different way if the new facilities were introduced. Bulk purchasing would save money, as would the standardisation of equipment. I am also sure that there would be less wastage. I do not know whether some of the things that I did were a waste of money, but I am sure that others have done what they thought to be right only to discover, through no fault of their own, that their system is not compatible with others. They may discuss the matter with colleagues and discover that, had they done so earlier, they would have done things differently.

We may argue about whether we can quantify the cost of telephone calls--the hon. Member for Copeland is right that we may be unable to do so--but I am certain that the proposed new system would result in getting more from the same amount of expenditure. I am sure that that would happen even if we did not reduce the individual allowance to pay for the central funding of the system. I believe that, under the new system, we would get more from the current level of expenditure and that is just as important as a value-for- money exercise, as is one to discover ways in which to spend less.

What should we do? Certainly we should do more than we did in 1985. However, we should do nothing until we have wired up the system. No matter how hard an individual may beaver away, we cannot do anything until we are linked with the central system. The wiring up of the system must be top of the list.

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Standardised, specially designed equipment is just as important as the ability to bulk purchase. The word processing packages, mail boxes, message systems and diary systems should be specially designed for us and centrally available. We must also have a comprehensive database system. POLIS is all right up to a point, but it simply tells us where to look in Hansard for what we want--it does not tell us what is in Hansard. A comprehensive database system would go way beyond POLIS, useful though that is.

We should ensure that all the facilities can be accessed from each of our constituencies--that important point was not stressed in the report. Increasingly, individual Members are taking the view, often rightly, that a better service to constituents can be given if staff are based in the constituency rather than here. Whatever we set up in the Palace, it must be readily accessed from our constituencies. We must ensure that help is provided for all hon. Members. When I came to the House, I considered myself lucky, as I knew a little about word processing. We must establish a proper system to help hon. Members make better use of the equipment available. They should understand what they might need in the future. The starting point for that system must be an invitation for bids for its design and development. Despite what the report says, I do not want another in-house Committee to be established which will run for years. It is no good hon. Members scratching their heads about what will happen next. We should go to the experts straight away. They should design and develop what we need for the future.

We should set up a central purchasing system as quickly as possible because, even if we do not follow some of the other proposals, that would be a sensible step ahead. We must establish urgently advisory as well as training services for hon. Members and their staff--it is probably more important to train our staff to use the equipment. That training and advice must be basic as well as advanced and readily accessible to all.

I have explained why I believe that we should support the report and why the Government should take firm action. I believe that that action will make us better legislators and better representatives. It would also help us to achieve better value for money. It only remains for me to comment on when we should act--in a word, now. If we leave it just for a moment, it will be too late. The longer we wait, the greater the waste. The longer we wait, the longer constituents will go on receiving less than the ideal service that they have every right to expect. The longer we wait, the longer we will miss an important opportunity to enable us to ensure that our legislation is of the highest quality. We pass up such an opportunity at our peril. 7.36 pm

Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) : My speech will echo largely what has already been said. The work that has been done by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and his Sub-Committee is to be warmly welcomed. It is not typical of him to have such radical notions about making fast progress--that is in no sense a criticism--but I wish that he had used his considerable energy and resourcefulness to push the conclusions of the report further. However, he has explained his reasons, and I accept them. I agree with the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) that we are not talking about a minor, technical

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matter. We must decide whether such new services would make us better legislators and more readily acessible to the outside world. I have been a Member of the House for two Parliaments--other hon. Members have been here much longer--and even in that time I have noticed a dramatic increase in the volume of paper that is pushed across our desks. It is difficult to be sure that one has dealt conscientiously with all that paper unless one has the best and most modern information technology systems available.

I do not believe that it is particularly difficult to work out what we need. The work of the Committee has been signal in that regard, as it has identified that we need a broad-band cable network throughout the precincts of the Palace and outstations such as Norman Shaw North.

The hon. Member for Copeland was right to say that some of the work could be done in parallel with other projects--for example, the replacement of the annunciator system. I hope that the Government will be able to take decisions quickly enough to achieve the cost benefits that would accrue from cabling the network and replacing the annunciator system quickly. Presumably that means that that would be done within months rather than years.

We have already had a delay of six years since the last report, which is a great shame. I do not know who is to blame for that, and I know that processes in this place work exceedingly slow, but we shall stand condemned of unconscionable delay if we do not seize the moment to make the progress that the Committee indentified as possible. The Committee report makes a telling point when it alludes to what is being done in sister parliaments on the other side of the Atlantic and in Europe. Although the precedent may not be entirely in point, it is clear that there are many lessons to be learned. In the main, those countries are miles ahead in terms of what is available to us. It is a great shame that the mother of Parliaments should not at least try to keep up with the times.

As a Scot who represents a rural area in south-east Scotland, I find it most frustrating that, for many weeks of the year, I am at home. I am not on holiday, but Parliament is in recess. Everyone understands that there is a substantial difference. I find it frustrating and difficult to continue the amount of work that I can achieve in Westminster when I am in my constituency for the long summer recess. If I had the advantage of the technological facilities that are now readily available, as a matter of course, even to medium-sized businesses in my constituency, I would be better able to continue the work that I would like to do. Increasingly, people seek access to me by fax machine or electronic mail, but I cannot respond to electronic mail. Although POLIS has limitations, access to it would allow us better to scrutinise the Executive which, after all, is what this place is supposed to be about.

I should not like anything that I have said to be taken as a suggestion that information technology can replace the invaluable personal service that we receive from the Library, the Computer Officer and others. However, much of the strain could be taken from them if hon. Members could use the machinery and the information technology themselves.

I am less worried about staff being trained. Staff have more time than we have and, in my experience, they are

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more concerned with text generation. I am interested in having more access to data. Therefore, although I accept that training is an essential part of the whole package, when I try to persuade my colleagues to move into information technology and supply themselves with IBM-compatible personal computers, those who have had no access to information technology are confronted by a fear barrier. Once one has established the difference between a disk operating system and a piece of software, one is halfway there. It takes no more than two hours if one applies one's mind to it. Most of my colleagues are intelligent enough to master that. A wee bit of push and access to a couple of hours' training by experts, just to cross that initial fear barrier, would generate not simply the threefold increase noted in the report--dramatic though that is--but much more. The hon. Member for Copeland is absolutely right to say that the standardisation and centralisation of the hardware would have massive advantages in terms of system commonality. There may be a price to pay--and I note that the report rightly says that that would not necessarily mean limiting ourselves to a single supplier, which would be wrong. Apricot and Compaq--both well established firms which produce machines in this country to a high standard--provide a range of machines.

However, if we could achieve some sort of standardisation and if serving Members knew that there were three or four industry-standard software packages, they could be given a great deal of help and become confident. If they found that there was a quirk in their software package, a quick telephone call would sort it out because they would be dealing with only two or three industry-standard software packages. So a great deal could be gained from standardising the hardware and some of the software packages.

I spend some time following developments in information technology as best as I can. I must confess to the hon. Member for Copeland that I was among those who did not return the last questionnaire because I was too busy trying to move the paper across my desk. To that extent, I stand condemned. However, the hon. Gentleman can add me to the list of people who have machines and try to stay at the forefront of the technology. I must admit that even I find it difficult to work out whether there is an advantage to acquiring DOS 5 as apposed to DOS 3.3, but the experts would no doubt argue for hours about the relative merits.

If I could telephone an expert and say, "I have the standard hardware package and a couple of standard word processing and software packages--is this sensible?", the answer would be yes or no. That would avoid my having to spend hours reading computer magazines on train and plane journeys between my constituency and Westminster, so there are massive advantages to be had.

The Committee's work is valuable, and I hope that we shall not waste any more time. There are many reasons for proceeding, as the Select Committee suggests, as soon as possible. I almost said that I have only an academic interest in who is in Government after the next general election, but that is not true. If I have any influence in the next Government, one of the first measures that we should introduce to this place is a longer-term, more visionary approach to providing facilities for hon. Members who are re -elected.

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I hope that tonight's debate will make it easier for those of us who are re-elected and any new Members to start afresh and be confident that, in the four or five years of the next Parliament, facilities will be available to enable us to act in a modern way, represent our constituencies and scrutinise the Executive to the limits of our power. I hope that that will be provided centrally by the Services Select Committee with the information technology that best enables it to do so.

7.46 pm

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