House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Mar 1992

Ms. Hilary Armstrong (Durham, North-West) : When I served on the Committee, I was particularly concerned about two issues. Democracy is not as strong here as we in the House sometimes try to pretend. Many people are sceptical about our democratic rights. I wanted to see how we could become more effective in the House and more representative of the population. Both are important elements of democracy. My main anxiety was that the Committee was so constrained in what we could consider that it was difficult to address those two issues.

The main way to achieve more representative government with more people interested in how and what decisions are taken is to have much more devolution. That is also a more effective way of getting more women and working-class people involved.

Anyone who wants to come to Westminster as a representative knows that he or she will not lead a normal life. If one wants a normal life, the last thing that one would do would be to put oneself forward as a Member of Parliament. However, although we are part of a system that means that normality is not an option, we still have a responsibility to know, understand and be part of as much of the life of our constituents as is humanely possible, given the constraints of the job.

In considering how Parliament could become more effective and representative, I listened carefully to those hon. Members who have experiences other than my own. I confess that my views are prejudiced by the fact that I have been a Member in a Parliament in which the Government have had a huge majority which they have been prepared to use ruthlessly. That means that I have not experienced the position in which a Government have had a tight majority and the Opposition have been able to use time as a weapon. In my experience, if the House sat for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, we would not have an effective Parliament. It is not the length of time that is important ; it is the way in which we use time most effectively, which will allow us to scrutinise legislation properly.

I should have liked the Committee to consider other matters, but its terms of reference were specific. However, I believe that the Committee took some steps forward and that it came down much more on the side of those hon. Members who have constituencies and families outside London. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) : if his constituency and home were 250 miles from London, he would not enjoy Fridays in the same way.

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We have a full-time job, but we have responsibilities in Parliament and in our constituencies. I employ people who work in my constituency. As an employer, I have the responsibility to meet my secretaries and assistants at least once a week. I should be able to do that without insisting that they should be as lunatic as me and work on Saturdays and Sundays as well. Being in the constituency on a Friday has become important to me. I want to do that without neglecting my responsibility to Parliament.

The Committee heard numerous views that it wished to accommodate. I was impressed by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and agree that our rights are critical for democracy and civil rights. However, sitting all the hours available is not the most effective way in which to defend those rights. If the House cannot organise itself effectively, what right do we have to pretend that we can organise the rest of the country? 9.27 pm

Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West) : I have two brief comments to make. The first is about Members being forced to vote or being encouraged to vote when they are seriously ill. Some suggestions have been made to ameliorate the problem, and I very much reject the attitude--my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House hinted at it--that there is no such problem. That problem is not confined to those periods when normal arrangements break down or when the Government have a tight majority.

There have been occasions when the Conservative party has been the Government, with a normal and natural majority, and when there was pressure on hon. Members to risk their health by sitting in ambulances or in overheated taxis in New Palace Yard simply because of ineffective whipping or because a wrong view had been taken about the nature of the business. I remember it happening to me. I had the pleasure of sitting in New Palace Yard with a high temperature, when my doctor had insisted that I stay in bed, in order to form part of a majority of 126 on two separate votes.

Mr. Tony Banks : More fool you.

Mr. Stern : I agree, but unfortunately we are all, from time to time, at the mercy of the vagaries of those who are appointed to advise us on the nature of the business. The attitude so far evinced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on alternative systems of voting for sick Members is simply not good enough and needs to be reconsidered.

The second point that I wish to make concerns a group of Members who have not been considered so far in the debate. May I make a shameful admission? A few of my best friends are members of the Government. Although long sittings are inefficient from the point of view of ordinary Members, we should remember that they are not necessarily efficient for the good government of the country. When we play our party games here, we can make matters much more difficult for members of the Government to carry out the job which we ask them to do and for which they are paid. That is the role of the Opposition and of Back Benchers. I hope that, in considering the length of sittings, we shall also consider the

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fact that there is a group, who, although sometimes spoken for by Front-Bench Members on both sides, are entitled to consideration as Members of the House.

9.31 pm

Mr. John McFall (Dumbarton) : I was privileged to serve on the Select Committee as a recently elected Member in 1987 and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) on his chairmanship. I learned a lot from sitting on the Committee.

It has already been said that any change recommended by the House usually results in an increase in Executive powers. I am worried that that may happen as a result of this report. We have a democratic deficit, as illustrated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who called the House a museum. After sitting on the Committee for many hours and listening to experienced and inexperienced Committee members, I could not agree more. It is the hardest place in the world to change.

I tabled an amendment concerning sick Members. The Committee has received a reply from the Leader of the House on that issue, but his reply was nothing short of disgraceful. He has clearly not given his attention to the issue. We must consider whether we are a civilised Parliament and, if so, whether we should allow people to sit in ambulances in New Palace Yard. It is a grotesque spectacle that has never been dealt with before. The experienced members of the Committee were more against my amendment than inexperienced members. Perhaps that tells us that this place should be demolished so that we can start again, because it is extremely hard to get anything done here.

The amendment asked whether we could put our trust in a medical person, who has the trust of the House, to ensure that no sick or dying Member came to the House. Need we repeat the mistakes of the 1974-79 Government, when three hon. Members were brought to the House in that condition? One was the late Frank McElhone, who was forklifted on to a plane in Glasgow airport and brought here so that he could lie in a room and be passed as fit to vote. That action is inhuman and barbarian, and it must stop. I am glad to note that my amendment was passed, albeit with a slim margin of seven votes to six.

The holidays in July are another issue of concern to me as a Scottish Member. Last year on 29 July, as a member of the Select Committee on Defence, I was questioning the Secretary of State for Defence. One month previously, on 29 June, my family had their holidays and I had no time with them. I am expressing not just my point of view but that of other Scottish Members. If we have any interest in the welfare and well-being of Members and Members' families, surely we must do something about that aspect.

I was keen that we should have at least two weeks' notice of business. To be honest, I think that we should have more notice than that. A women's guild in my constituency sent me a letter last June inviting me to address the guild on the evening of Thursday 13 February this year. I wrong back to thank the guild for the kind invitation, but said that I could give a definite answer only

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the Friday before. That system must be changed. Can we make some advances so that we truly represent our constituents?

I accept the timetabling aspects of the Committee's proposals, which represent a good move, but the value of the Floor of the House for debate has been debased. We seek to scrutinise legislation and pin down the Executive. My experience over the past four or five years is that the Floor of the House has proved an inadequate place for me to air the cares and concerns of my constituents.

If this timid report is to do anything, it will advance change a little bit, so we should accept it. But as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said, we are here to represent the electorate, who are insufficiently represented. The report makes only a small advance, and we must remember that.

9.37 pm

Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham) : I wish to make just three points. First, the Committee skilfully produced a report which cleverly reflects the views expressed by the House, particularly the concern about late hours, as well as more obvious follies.

Secondly, much to my surprise, I have come round to the view that limiting speeches to 10 minutes is an acceptable and sensible approach. That rule should be applied as the general rule, with a number of exceptions. It should certainly be widely used in a large number of debates.

The third point involves a serious reservation. I am glad that this debate puts down a marker for the new Parliament, rather than trying to impose suggestions on the new Parliament. The broad acceptance of timetabling--the difference between timetabling and guillotines is marginal--has come as a great surprise to me. Of course we take advantage of timetabling, and are always grateful when a timetable is imposed. However, I regard the general acceptance of timetabling as one of the greatest abdications of a Back Bencher's power over the Executive, and see it as a reflection of Governments with large majorities.

I would always choose to be on the side of a Government with a large majority, given that option. Often Parliaments are not like that, however, and there are Governments with small majorities. In those circumstances, for the Opposition to give up the right to use time is an enormous sacrifice. The next Parliament could look different, were there to be a majority of just 20 or 30 for either party, and to give up such a power for the sake of certainty and timetabling is dangerous.

It is not just a matter of defeating Governments, which does not happen often. Through the use of time, one can secure concessions, and deals can be struck between small numbers of rebels on either side. I recall when Opposition Members and I helped to defeat a Government Bill. Unfortunately, it came back the following year, but we used our power. If we give up that right, I believe that Back Benchers and Opposition Members will probably be surrendering one of their greatest powers. That issue should be carefully considered in the next Parliament, not determined in this one.

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9.38 pm

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : I wish to speak about a couple of the amendments which I tabled to the report, but which were lost in Committee. Like the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), I warn against the guillotine or timetabling.

On occasions, we all take advantage of our next engagement. If we are out in our constituency, and people buttonhole us with awkward questions, it is always nice to be able to say that we would love to answer them, but are sorry we have got to be somewhere else within the next minute or so, so that we can duck away--[ Hon. Members :-- "Shame!"] It is shameful, but I bet that we have all done it at least once, if not more often. The advantage to Ministers of guillotines or timetabling is that they can fill out the time.

Let us consider the performance of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) when she came to the Dispatch Box for 15 minutes. Sometimes people would say that she had gone on a bit answering this or that question, but it spun out the time and cut down the number of awkward questions that she had to answer. Guillotines and timetables let Ministers off the hook.

I do not support the idea of 10-minute speeches. Tonight's debate was a good example of self-discipline. I may have been called right at the end, with only a few seconds to go, but I prefer that to people being restricted to 10 minutes. They do not give way or take interventions, which spoils the debating atmosphere. If we are not going to give way, we might as well, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said, hand in our speeches at the Table Office and not bother coming to the debate. The whole point of this place is that it is a debating Chamber.

The House is always at its worst when there is consensus between Front Bench spokesmen. It is important to ensure that the minority view is well represented. To try to squeeze it into 10 minutes when two Front-Bench spokesmen have had an hour in which to make their case is unsatisfactory. I warn the House : beware of the 10-minute rule and make sure that plenty of discretion is allowed.

Our effectiveness in this place has to do partly with time spent in the Chamber and partly with resources. I understand that that Top Salaries Review Body has been looking at Members' secretarial allowances and other resources, and I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to give us some news about what has happened to that review. We need some reform of our procedures, but we also need the resources to do our job more effectively.

9.41 pm

Mr. Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin) : When the Select Committee was set up last July, I would not have given it much chance of having its report debated before the general election, not because I doubted the skills of the Members serving on it, but because I thought that the election would be much earlier. If by any chance the Prime Minister ducks out of 9 April, I hope that we shall have another debate on these matters so that we can make some decisions before the change of Government when we take over later this year. It would be nice to sort out some of the problems before that happens.

I welcome many of the Select Committee's recommendations, but I have strong reservations about others, not

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least because, as I said when we set up the Committee, the report puts the cart before the horse, as several of my hon. Friends said. I can think of no other institution in the world which would discuss how long it ought to work before discussing what it was trying to do and how effectively it was doing it. Those are the prior questions that should be dealt with. It is not so much a matter of whether the horse should be better fed or the cart wheels oiled as of whether the horse and cart are the best means of getting from A to B. We perform many of the functions that we are supposed to carry out in this House badly. Although that is not a popular thing to say, it echoes the description of this place as a museum by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). For instance, do we scrutinise the Executive effectively ? The answer is no. Do we scrutinise legislation effectively ? Emphatically, no. How good are we are at redressing the grievances of constituents ? There is even a fairly large question mark over that.

Mr. Cryer : That is because there is not enough time.

Mr. Grocott : I shall come to that.

How effective are we as a debating Chamber, as a forum for debate? I regret to say that we are pretty bad at that, too. This may not be a popular opinion, but "Question Time" on the BBC is often a more effective debate.

Mr. Tony Banks : One has to get on it first--it is even more difficult than catching Mr. Speaker's eye.

Mr. Grocott : Some are luckier than others.

We should, as I say, ask ourselves how effectively we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. For example, many of the assumptions behind the report and behind the ideas of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) seem to rest on the idea that a Bill given two days for Second Reading, 100 hours for Committee and four days for Report and Third Reading will be twice as good as a Bill given one day for Second Reading, 50 hours for Committee and two days for Report and Third Reading. That may be true, but I have seen no evidence to suggest that it is the case. Even with endless scrutiny, the House produces appalling legislation. I am sorry to bring in a sour and partisan note, but in that context I refer to the poll tax legislation. Conservative Members now understand as well as we do that that was appalling legislation, which brought great discredit to the Conservative party. I am pleased about that, but regrettably it brought a fair amount of discredit to this place because people say, "What a ludicrous Bill--how on earth was it passed?"

Mr. Cryer : It was passed because the Government have a big majority.

Mr. Grocott : Yes, the Government have a big majority, but we must seek better ways to scrutinise legislation, so that the worst faults are ironed out. Debating Bills for longer and longer is not the answer.

That deals with the issue of how effectively we perform our functions. The other question, which has been answered in many ways by the Select Committee, is how Members' time should be split between time spent in the House and time spent on constituency work. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield spoke accurately about the enormous growth in the Executive's power. Do

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we deal with that simply by extending the sitting hours or should there be a better and more effective division of our time? In that respect, the demands on Members have changed dramatically. I do not regret that, because I consider that time spent addressing meetings such as those described by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) is just as effective as, and more important than, time spent in the House late at night scrutinising legislation which ends up with no change whatever in its content. We must ask basic questions about what we are doing here and about the balance between time in this place and time spent outside.

I strongly support some of the Committee's recommendations, including the recommendation for more notice of parliamentary business. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton said that two weeks' notice is far too short, but it is a step in the right direction. The fact that we receive only a week's notice is in many ways an indication of the contempt that the House seems to have for the needs and rights of constituents. There is a feeling that the business of the House, however obscure, must take precedence over the demands of people outside.

I welcome greater notice of recesses and endorse the attention paid to Scottish Members and to Members from the north and the midlands. They make tremendous sacrifices to be here. The argument about school holidays applies to many areas, but especially to Scotland, and we should respect that. The suggestion that legislation should be timetabled is also important, but I accept the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), who is a member of the Committee, that that risks giving tremendous power to the Government. After 9 April, I shall be much more sympathetic about giving tremendous power to the Government. However, I accept that there must be some balance in timetable motions, and the way to obtain that is to ensure that legislation is scrutinised by calling witnesses and following Select Committee-type procedures. I disagree in many respects with the Select Committee's recommendations about the parliamentary day. We have heard again the arguments against late and morning sittings. This is probably the only job in the world--certainly the only job in Britain--where meeting after 10 o'clock is described as a late sitting. In any group of members that I represented as a trade unionist, 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock would be described as a late shift, as would 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : This job is a lot easier than working down the pit.

Mr. Grocott : No one disputes that--of course it is easier. That is well established and understood, but as my hon. Friend knows, there are arguments for improving working conditions wherever work takes place.

Conservative Members have argued against morning sittings, using the excuse that Ministers would not have time to come to the House. Against that, I have a game, set and match argument. Fifteen Cabinet Ministers managed to come along on a Friday three weeks ago to ensure that the unspeakable could chase after the uneatable. If they can turn up on a Friday in such vast numbers, I am sure

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that Ministers would be able to come along on any other morning when that was required, either to answer questions or to deal with debates. I see no good grounds for not having morning sittings, and I hope that we shall move towards that when the earlier recommendations have been implemented.

I endorse the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield. In many ways, this place is a museum. It is time that we recognised that the world outside has changed and that we should be better able to reflect its needs. I welcome the report as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough and I ask for further improvements.

9.50 pm

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor) : I warmly congratulate, yet again, my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) and all the members of his Committee on the speed and thoroughness of their work. When I invited the House on 9 July to set up the Select Committee, I made it clear that I had received many representations from all parts of the House about the need for parliamentary reform, but that it was also clear that there was little agreement as to what reforms were necessary. That dichotomy has been reflected in the debate and draws attention to the excellent way in which my right hon. Friend's Committee has performed. It is to be congratulated on achieving a unanimous report in what is, by common consent, a most complex matter. Another complex job is arranging the business of the House. Anyone who has tried to do it will know that it is not as simple as it sounds to arrange and announce business weeks ahead, because many demands are made at the last minute.

I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) that this is a modest report. He did less than justice to himself and to his fellow Committee members. The report has covered a wide range of subjects. It is notable for being practical, as I would expect from my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, a former Chief Whip. Often, we make advances by practical steps that can be achieved and realised in performance.

We have had a good debate. I am delighted that hon. Members exercised self- restraint and enabled everyone who wished to do so to speak. It has been noticeable that there has not been agreement on several issues, and that draws attention to the difficulties that the House will face in reaching decisions on the report and recommendations.

The hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) suggested that the report made things easier for the Government and my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer) questioned some aspects of the report from a similar point of view. I do not see it that way. The Committee was originally set up because of the pressure put on me from Members of Parliament on both sides of the House who wanted me to make parliamentary reforms in the interests of Parliament and of Members of Parliament. I should like to disabuse everyone of the notions that the Committee was set up to make the life of the Government easier and that it will necessarily do that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale spoke about the balance between the

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Government, the Opposition and Back Benchers. Paragraph 7 outlines the principles that the Committee had in mind in looking at that balance. They include :

"(i

(the Government of the day must get its business, and within that principle must ultimately control the time of the House ;) (ii

(the Opposition must have enough opportunity to scrutinise the actions of the Government and to approve or oppose its legislation as it thinks fit ; and)

(iii

(backbench Members on both sides of the Chamber should have reasonable opportunities to raise matters of concern to them and to their constituents.")

That sets out the aims that the reforms are trying to achieve. The Committee, in approaching its work and in the recommendations that it has made, has kept that balance in mind.

The other important part of the balance is the amount of time given in the House to each of those different interests. In my paper to the Committee, I analysed how that time had been divided in recent sessions. I do not make this point to criticise, because it is right that we should do so, but it is a fact that we give more time to Back Benchers than practically any other legislature in the world. That was made clear to me when I visited Australia and New Zealand recently.

When considering the hours and sittings of the House it is important that we endeavour to keep the balance between the Government, the Opposition and Back Benchers. That was very much a theme which I took up in my remarks, and I think that it is reflected in the report.

It is clear from the comments of my hon. Friends and Opposition Members this evening--this is very much a theme of the report, and it appears at the beginning of it--that we must take into account constituency duties, a work load that has increased. I think that we would all say amen to that. That has been emphasised by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) and others. I very much disagree with the view of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that by restricting some of our sitting hours to enable Members to attend to their constituency duties we are introducing a three-and-a-half day week, or whatever. I believe strongly that it is right to say that constituency duties have increased and that we are all spending more time on them. The report reflects my belief. It has been kindly said that the report follows my advice closely. It clearly follows the endeavour to keep the balance between the Government, the Opposition and Back Benchers. I am grateful that some of the personal points of view that I expressed have been taken up in the report. It is right, however--I defend the independence of the Select Committee--that it has rejected some of my views, and certainly I have reservations about some of the recommendations. Those reservations can be dealt with later when we come to consider in detail what we shall do about the report.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) talked about the impact of the report and the need to consider the issues raised from the point of view of having more women Members. I am on record as having said on many occasions that I want to see many more women Members, and I think that my hon. Friend made many sensible comments in that respect, as did the hon. Member for Durham, North-West.

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The fact remains that a Member's job will always be a heavy one. As the hon. Member for Durham, North-West said, it is not a normal life. Although we may make it easier for some women to participate in parliamentary activities through some reforms, that is only a part of the process.

One of the most interesting features of the debate--certainly until the later stages--was the degree of support for timetabling Bills in Committee. There is a distinction between timetabling and guillotining. A personal view that I expressed to the Select Committee is that timetabling enables the House to do a more effective job in its scrutiny of Bills. We all know that in the past the House and Committees have not done an effective job in considering a number of Bills. We have all been involved in that. Far too much time has been spent on the earlier parts of Bills, for whatever reason. One of the things that emerged most clearly during the debate was support for timetabling. I suspect that that reflects a change from the outcome of previous discussions on the issue. An important matter that the Select Committee reflected strongly in its recommendations, and which I reiterate, is emphasised in paragraph 8. The passage reads :

"The House, frontbenchers and backbenchers, must be united in its determination to use these procedural reforms to secure both reasonable hours and effective scrutiny. Otherwise our proposals for the more effective conduct of business of the House will mean little or nothing."

I am convinced that that is right. As I said in evidence to the Committee, whatever may eventually be agreed on arrangements for sittings of the House, their success will depend on the co-operation and self-discipline of Members. Whether Members will regularly see the House adjourn in the evening will rest to a large degree with Members. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) when he said that a small number of Members can frustrate the workings of the House. That is a view that we must have in mind when we approach the reforms.

I made it clear on 20 February that we shall go into the details later--I am not going into detailed recommendations tonight. I made it clear also on 20 February that I was keen that the House should have an early opportunity to express its view on the report as soon as possible. I believe that the House has welcomed the chance to hold this debate before we decide how to move forward on the specific recommendations. I felt that it was important that the House should have an early opportunity to express views, and this opportunity has been valuable.

The fact that I set up the Committee shows that we recognise the need for parliamentary reforms and that we have accepted in principle a willingness to undertake appropriate reforms. I can cite examples in relation to European Select Committees, the Transport and Works Bill and many others in which, in this Session alone, we have carried through a number of reforms. There is, however, no commitment--that was clear tonight--to any of the recommendations in the report. There will need to be further detailed consideration of those recommendations. Differing views have been expressed. It will be a fairly complex process to reach agreement on all the reforms. The views of the new House, before we decide how to take the issues forward, will also have to be taken into account, but tonight's debate has been a valuable first step.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions)

Mr. Speaker : We now come to the Church of England Measures. Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker : Is it on this matter?

Mr. Cryer : It is not on this matter, it is on another matter connected to the Palace of Westminister. The Government have been defeated on the Education (Schools) Bill, and that raises important issues. I wonder whether you have had an application from the Department of Education and Science to make a statement to the House about the Government's defeat in the House of Lords on what they regard an important privatisation measure. If Government support is crumbling on the wing down the corridor--the geriatric wing of the Palace of Westminster--and if it is crumbling everywhere, we should know about it.

Mr. Speaker : That has some relevance to the previous debate. I know nothing about what has gone on in another place.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker : It was not a point of order for me. If the Government have been defeated in the other place, presumably we shall debate that when we consider Lords amendments.

Mr. Bennett : As the Leader of the House is present, I wonder whether he has asked you whether he can make a statement about any change of business, because we are under considerable pressure with various guillotines and other business that must proceed this week. It would be very helpful if the Leader of the House could tell us whether it will be necessary, in view of that defeat in the House of Lords, for there to be any change of business this week.

Mr. Speaker : The Leader of the House was present throughout the previous debate, as I was, and will be as much in the dark as I am about what went on in another place.

10.2 pm

Mr. Michael Alison (Selby) : I beg to move,

That the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure, passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

As its short title suggests, the Measure contains provisions on a wide range of matters, most of which are neither controversial nor exciting but will be extremely useful in their own ways. I do not want to detain the House by attempting to deal with all of them, but perhaps I may mention one or two. Schedule 1, for example, deals with parochial registers and records, some of which are very ancient. Quite apart from their importance to the Church, the documents are of great interest to historians and

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genealogists, so it is important that they should be properly preserved and cared for. The amendment in schedule 1 will help to ensure that.

On a completely different subject, clauses 2 and 3 will help to ensure that the rector or vicar of a parish will normally be responsible, if requested, for the funerals of his own parishioners, even if their funerals are to be held in a cemetery or a crematorium which lies outside his own parish boundaries. They will also help ecclesiastical law to deal more adequately with the ever more widespread practice of cremation.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : I am grateful to the blessed and holy Member for giving way. This is a genuine inquiry, which is not my usual form of inquiry. Is it possible for me to be buried at the end of my garden if I so choose? Does the ground have to be consecrated? If I were to be cremated-- [Interruption.] I am not anticipating anything unfortunate happening on 9 April. My parrot is buried at the end of the garden, so why cannot I be?

Mr. Alison : The hon. Gentleman can be buried at sea if he wants. There is a good deal of flexibility as to where the hon. Gentleman may prescribe that his remains should be disposed of--although long may that day be delayed. The limited purpose of the clause is to ensure that a vicar who wants to bury a parishioner with whom he had a particular association in another parish, away from his own, cannot be prevented from so doing by some obstreperous incumbent forbidding him to cross the constituency boundary, so to speak.

Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston) : I remind my right hon. Friend that a Member of another place was convinced that, when he died, his remains should be fed to dogs.

Mr. David Harris (St. Ives) : He must have been a Liberal.

Dame Jill Knight : My hon. Friend is right. We will pass over any suggestion that the noble Lord's wishes reflected his mental condition. Does the measure incorporate the regulation that forbade that Member of another place to be eaten by dogs after his demise?

Mr. Alison : My hon. Friend has managed, by a subtle side wind, to introduce the topic of the Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill into this debate. I hastily ask for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in being invited to follow that line. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) that the narrow ambit of the measure relating to burials has nothing to do with the technicalities of the way in which the poor deceased's body may be disposed of, but entirely concerns the right of a parish priest to secure the funeral of someone who was a member of his flock in a cemetery or crematorium that lies in another parson's constituency, so to speak--and to prevent that parson from objecting to an outsider working on his territory.

I will attempt to take the House away from those rather sombre aspects of the Bill. The main intention behind clauses 1 and 11 is to save unnecesary paperwork, and thus unwelcome expense, when a rector or vicar resigns, or when a parish is temporarily without a rector or vicar for some other reason.

Turning to Church of England activities on a broader front, clause 6 will help it to forge closer links with

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