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"such a body would be a great asset to the people of Northern Ireland, extending as it would to their affairs the same scrutiny as is provided for the rest of the United Kingdom. In our view, the establishment of a Northern Ireland Select Committee should not be delayed for the invalid reason that some day a structure of Government may be invented for Northern Ireland."Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) : My right hon. Friend might remember that the Front-Bench spokesman for the Opposition today the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott), referred to the need for a Select Committee to scrutinise at the sharp end of Government. Is it not a shame and a travesty of scrutiny in the House that, since Select Committees were established, the sharp end of Government has not been scrutinised?
Mr. Molyneaux : Yes, and my hon. Friend will be delighted that he and I were supported by the Select Committee on Procedure in its second report, especially paragraphs 272 to 278. The report stated : "Accordingly, whilst we do not believe that the uncertainties over the future administration of the Province can be allowed to preclude indefinitely the establishment of proper arrangements for the scrutiny by the House of the Northern Ireland Department, we accept that this will not be a sensible moment to recommend the establishment of a Select Committee on Northern Ireland affairs. Nevertheless, we consider that the Government cannot postpone dealing with this matter for very much longer and we will keep the position under review."
Then comes the key sentence :
"We may well wish to return to it once the outcome of the current talks is clear."
The earlier talks had ended two weeks before the debate on 18 July 1991. In that debate, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure said, not unreasonably, that, although the talks had ended :
"there has not been enough time for us to reconsider the issue."--[ Official Report, 18 July 1991 ; Vol. 195, c. 585.]
I do not know whether the Committee reconsidered the matter in the nine months that elapsed before entirely new talks commenced. It is true that the new talks are currently under way. Just in case the Government have it in mind to wheel out the old device of blocking the amendment on the ground that this would not be a sensible time to establish a Select Committee, I should tell the House that all the participants in the current talks have taken the view that the establishment of a Northern Ireland Select Committee is a matter for the House of Commons and not for those participating in or engaged in the talks.
The former obstacle is therefore removed ; I hope that the Government will not grub around in search of another obstacle, because that would be equally unconvincing.
Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North) : Is it not right to say that, if the talks succeeded, there would be matters for which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his colleagues would be responsible to the House? Will they never be brought into scrutiny by the House? Do they have some sort of special exemption by which the House can never question them about how they do their work or make them give an account of their stewardship of Northern Ireland?
Mr. Molyneaux : My hon. Friend has reminded me that we now have a five-way agreement. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is here representing us and standing up for us. My hon. Friend has reminded me that we have a five-way agreement,
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because the Government team in the talks--we are not giving away secrets--has also agreed that there are certain matters which will remain in perpetuity the sole responsibility of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. We have a five-way agreement that this is a matter for the House of Commons to decide tonight, minus the malign influence of the Whips Office.I hope that the Government will not look round for another obstacle. To do so would cast a shadow over the Government's integrity in the light of the response towards the end of the debate on 18 July 1991, when the then Leader of the House declared : "now is not the time to set up such a Select Committee. However, I assure the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley that the matter can be reviewed again at appropriate times, and that I shall be prepared to do that."--[ Official Report, 18 July 1991 ; Vol. 195, c. 602-3.] The present Leader of the House was informed last week of our intention to press for a decision this evening. I know that he understands our reason for asking to be included with the other countries in the United Kingdom. It is simply to enable the Government to demonstrate that their philosophy of open government shall apply to all parts of the United Kingdom, in line with the assertions and undertakings given by the Prime Minister in the heat of the last week of the general election campaign. Those facilities and benefits should not be withheld from one part of the kingdom which has suffered greatly from being different simply because the Government insist on making it different.
The establishment of a Select Committee would be a stabilising factor. It would not compete with the current talks, but would be an injection of confidence which could and would assist all of us who are currently engaged in the talks and trying hard to agree on a more effective method of governing Northern Ireland. It would be a prize that would cost the Government nothing. Because it is a benefit that the House of Commons has the power to bestow, it would restore faith in the willingness of the House of Commons to extend that protection to the interests of majorities and minorities alike.
9.44 pm
Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South) : The text for this evening's debate was presented by the Leader of the House when he referred to the relative modesty of the motion. Never have truer words been spoken. I am very disappointed by the modesty of the proposals and I cannot allow the debate to proceed much further without expressing as a Back Bencher my profound sense of dissatisfaction. I have been a member of the Select Committee on Defence since 1979, and as I believe in the potential of Select Committees as the jewel in the crown of our legislature, I cannot believe that we are going to wait so long before our Select Committee system is reactivated. Staff are sitting on their hands through no fault of their own and areas of policy desperately require the scrutiny that qualified Select Committee members can provide. I do not want to discuss where the blame lies--whether with the Government or with the Opposition. However, next time round and after the next general election, we should try to do things better than we have managed after every election since the Select Committees were established in 1979. The Select Committees were set up in 1979, although it took many months before they were activated. After 13 years, I had hoped that we would have been able to reflect
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on the performance of Select Committees and decide how they should operate in future. I am disappointed by the modest proposals in the Procedure Committee's report.The key to understanding why our Committee system is one of the weakest in the western world is that we have a combination of members of the Executive who can set the ground rules for the way in which the legislature operates in the same way as corrupt boxing promoters can choose the contenders, the boxing board and even the referee. The procedure is a sad reflection on this House and on the way in which the Executive operate.
While I can understand why the Government want to abolish the Department of Energy, although I disagree with that, the case for a Select Committee on Energy is overwhelming. Why should the Executive determine the form of scrutiny in the House? I hope that hon. Members will have the guts to vote against the motion. However, we fail not simply because of the overbearing dominance of the Executive, who have ruled this House for generations, but also because we have been too supine.
Hordes of hon. Members around the building are doing their correspondence as they watch television. They will not have heard the arguments, and if there is a vote, they will support the Government. They will not have heard the arguments why there should be Energy and Northern Ireland Select Committees or stronger Sub-Committees. Why should the Executive tell a Select Committee that it cannot set up a Sub-Committee because that will cause too much work for the Executive and be costly?
We need only consider the Standing Committees and Select Committees of the House to discover what scrutiny costs the taxpayer. The Select Committee of which I have had the privilege to be a member is scrutinising a labyrinthine Department which is probably the most devious in the western world. I should like to know whether there is a more devious Department than the Ministry of Defence--
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : What about the Northern Ireland Office?
Mr. George : I think that the Ministry of Defence is the most devious.
We must consider how much is spent on scrutiny compared with what we are scrutinising. We are scrutinising £20,000 million of taxpayers' money. Compared with that sum, the expenditure devoted to Select Committees is puny. We should not feel remotely guilty about wanting more power and better staffing, but we did not ask for that in the Procedure Committee report and we shall not get it. The date 25 June 1979 should have been a crucial date in 20th-century parliamentary history, because that is when my Select Committee was set up. Lord St. John of Fawsley set the Committees up and, for his pains, was sacked shortly afterwards. He spoke of a change in the balance of power between the legislature and the Executive. On reflection, that was rather a pious hope.
The history of parliamentary reform is deeply unimpressive. Changes have been many--mostly to the advantage of the Executive in running this place-- but reforms have been few. One of the few reforms that we can record in the 20th century is the establishment of the Select Committee system. Regrettably, it has been downhill all the way before and since.
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The Stevas reform slightly slowed down the further decline in the power of the House, but unless we provide more power of parliamentary scrutiny by Committees, the Executive will become even more dominant. The motion merely shuffles the deckchairs around on the sinking Titanic. That is all that we are doing today. We are considering whether to add a little Committee here and remove a Committee there or whether to set up a Sub-Committee here or there. We are not discussing the powers of the Committees. That does not reflect well on the way in which we operate.My principal criticism is not of the Leader of the House, whom I admire, but of my colleagues. I intend no disrespect to them, but recommendation xxvii of the report, "The Working of the Select Committee System", says :
"We do not consider that new or additional powers for Select Committees are necessary or would be workable."
That is an appalling admission.
What should we be doing? We should not be messing around considering which Select Committee to set up. We should be asking why the Select Committees cannot play a role in the budgetary process. Why is ours virtually the only committee system in the democratic world which is excluded from the budgetary process? In the Defence Select Committee we have amiable seminars on the defence estimates, but we do not have a real budgetary role.
The Select Committee ought to have some role in the budgetary process. We ought to be able to set up sub-committees. When one is dealing with a Department like the Ministry of Defence, one must strike across a wide variety of areas of policy, administration and expenditure. That is why we need Sub-Committees and, in some cases, more than 11 members. That follows on from the points that have been made.
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee had an Overseas Aid Committee, which was busted. What has happened subsequently to overseas aid? Once a Select Committee cannot set up a Sub-Committee, its role has declined. I believe that Sub-Committees are important. The Defence Select Committee should have a role in the procurement process, but we do not have such a role because we operate within a culture of ministerial secrecy.
In conclusion, the Select Committee's lack of power is partly our fault. The establishment of the Select Committees was an attempt to rationalise a hotch-potch of Committees which had evolved over decades, indeed, centuries. It was an attempt to make those Committees rational by simply setting up Committees to match Government Departments. But while the Executive has sought to overcome departmentalism and to break down the difficulties of running Governments exclusively through watertight Departments, we have made no commensurate effort to do so. We, the members of the Select Committees, guard our pitches jealously. We should have the power to establish Joint Committees.
Why should we not have set up a Joint Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee on the Falklands, the Westland affair or the Iraqi dispute? The Select Committee on Trade and Industry examined the super-gun affair. The Public Committee has poached consistently. It has been a classic case of divide and rule. So long as we fight against each other, the Executive remain relatively unscrutinised.
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Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) : I fully sympathise with the splendid argument that the hon. Gentleman advances on behalf of Back Benchers, but I hope that he will not forget, for example, that in the last Parliament the Health Select Committee and the Social Security Select Committee undertook a joint inquiry into the level of fees for private residential and nursing homes. The lead Committee was the Social Security Committee. If Select Committees are determined to do things, they have the power to do so within the authority of the House. The hon. Gentleman is right that the Select Committees have notched up a problem by not necessarily doing precisely what the House wanted. They are not prepared to stand up for their authority and perform the duties that they can undertake with the authority of the House.
Mr. George : I appreciate that that is true, but the fact that the hon. Gentleman gave an example of a joint inquiry that is unique illustrates my point. Those two Committees were one and, at least in the short term, had the habit of working together. However, the Select Committee on Defence would no more run a joint inquiry with the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs than the Americans would have gone to the moon with the Russians 10 years ago.
Mr. Dalyell : Is there not a crisp answer to my hon. Friend's question, "Why?" It is simply that party comes before Parliament in the House of Commons. Unlike the American legislature, we are a so-called pool of talent from which both the Executive and the legislature are selected. It was a crying shame that the House of Commons was not far tougher with Leon Brittan, as it ought to have called Lady Thatcher before it.
Mr. George : As a member of that Committee, I can reinforce what my hon. Friend says.
While travelling around eastern Europe to help--or hinder, as some people might say--to set up legislatures and committees, I recall a bizarre occasion when I spoke in Bulgaria at a conference on the control of intelligence services. I confess that the section on United Kingdom intelligence in my presentation was not protracted. One must bear in mind the fact that many of the countries which we accused of having rubber-stamp legislatures of no consequence have jumped over our heads and achieved a level of legislative scrutiny of their Executive that should put us to shame. We are in danger of moving from being a reactive to a rubber-stamp legislature. Select Committees, which are functioning and financed properly, with the powers and respect that they deserve, could help to redress the inexorable decline of the legislature. If we simply allow the Government to get away with telling us what to do and tinkering with the existing system, we shall deserve to slip even further into political impotence--and we shall fully deserve that unless we fight against it.
9.56 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : I can do no better than follow the general constitutional argument that the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) advanced so well. It is vital to democracy that the legislature scrutinises the Executive--whoever they are--effectively. The logic of that is that, as soon as a new Government are formed, Parliament should set up its own
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Select Committee structure automatically, within a matter of days. If it does not, it is not merely a question of wasting the resources of people who are ready to do the job of serving Members. The Government make decisions from the day that they take office, and Parliament should be scrutinising those decisions and asking questions from that day onwards.Obviously, some elements of the motion are welcome, some are logical and some overdue. With the setting up of a new Department of National Heritage, a Select Committee to shadow it is welcome. I heard and agreed with the remark made by the hon. Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark) and the intervention by his hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson), as I welcome a Select Committee to shadow the Government on science and technology matters--it is long overdue. It is not possible to contemplate a progressive democracy in which acute thinking, observation and discussion occur in relation to huge areas of great importance without such a Select Committee. The Select Committee on Education and Science was 90 per cent. education and 10 per cent. science. It was not wrong to spend that time on education--far from it--but it was wrong that we did not spend the appropriate time on science and technology. So that is progress. Clearly, there has been no progress over a series of matters which are the subject of the amendments which were selected and those tabled but not selected. My hon. Friends and I share the view enunciated clearly by the former Chairman of the Energy Select Committee, the hon. Member for Rochford--there is all-party support for it--that it is not realistic or appropriate for energy matters to be subsumed within the Department of Trade and Industry.
Whatever the argument about the logic of the disappearance of the Department of Energy, it does not follow automatically that Departments must be mirrored absolutely by the House. The reasons are obvious : first, the decision as to how to monitor Government should be for the House ; and, secondly, practical questions arise about the enormity of the work load. However, the energy policy of this resource-rich country and the agenda of issues, adequately enunciated by the former Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy--as evidenced by the work of that Committee over the years--logically point to the need for one group of people to continue to concentrate on energy. Questions put in this debate have already shown that it will not be possible for a Committee to straddle the portfolios of the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Energy. The Committee will probably do justice to neither, let alone to both. We support the idea that energy should be looked after by a separate Committee. We believe that that attitude will be vindicated by a decision taken by the House in the future, if not tonight.
My right hon. and hon. Friends and I tabled an amendment to provide the logical second-best to a separate Select Committee on Energy. If one must put energy anywhere, it should, logically, be considered with other natural resources--water, land and air. That is why we tabled our amendment to include the energy portfolio in the Department of the Environment's brief. That is the logical approach adopted by other countries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), our Chief Whip, has also
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put his name to the amendment calling for a Select Committee on Northern Ireland, on which we shall vote. We support the argument of the leader of the Ulster Unionists that it is ludicrous that the House does not have such a Select Committee. That is unfair to the people of Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom is made up of four separate entities, and it is unfair that the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are denied the ability to scrutinise legislation.The current arrangement is even more illogical when one considers the way in which we handle Northern Ireland legislation in the House. We have all been here when such legislation, which is parallel to a Bill that is debated at length on Second Reading, in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading, is put through the House, by order, in an hour and a half or three hours. That system for primary Northern Ireland legislation makes the argument for a Select Committee even stronger. My colleagues and I want to make it as clear as possible that that system is unfair to the people of Northern Ireland, their parliamentary representatives and to the House.
Rev. Martin Smyth : I welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for the new Select Committees that will be established. Does he agree that there is some duplicity on the Government's part? They argue that they need those new Select Committees because it is policy to shadow each Department, but they withhold their support for a Select Committee to shadow the Northern Ireland Office.
Mr. Hughes : I entirely agree. The Scottish Office, the Welsh Office and the Northern Ireland Office are responsible for a range of issues and, therefore, if one intends to cover all relevant business, the argument for a Select Committee to shadow each Department is keen.
If matters are put to a vote, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I will support the amendment selected. The second amendment, which relates to Sub- Committees, is the second best option. If the amendments are not carried, we will, reluctantly, support the motion, but it, too, is a second best option. We hope that the House will change its procedures sooner rather than later, so that we can do the proper job for which we are elected to this place.
10.5 pm
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : Hon. Members have argued the case strongly, though they have been soft on the Leader of the House, who has let down the House by the way in which he dealt with the issue tonight.
I have no doubt that consultations took place through the usual channels. But in a matter such as this, the Leader of the House would have done well to remember that Back Benchers are not part of the usual channels, nor are the vast majority of political parties represented in the House. Had that consultation gone more widely, we might not be faced with a situation in which there can be a Select Committee report in favour of retaining the Select Committee on Energy, and a motion signed by 88 Members, yet the House does not have the opportunity tonight even to vote on the specific question of whether there should be a Select Committee on Energy to scrutinise energy policy.
Most disgraceful of all, the Leader of the House does not have the guts to allow the matter to be decided by a free vote. After all, the issue is about the rights of Back Benchers to scrutinise Government. Not only do the
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Executive want to control the vote to decide how they are scrutinised, but they will not let the matter be decided by those who are present and taking part in the debate. In all those matters, the Leader of the House has not served himself or the House well. The arguments in favour of having a Select Committee on Energy are extremely powerful. The Leader of the House is not in a strong position--given the experience of not having a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs for the last five years--in saying that Select Committees must inevitably parallel Government Departments. If, over the past five years, the Government were prepared to have a Department and no Select Committee, they can hardly now argue that we cannot have a Select Committee and no Department.It would be a simple matter to have a Select Committee on Energy without a Department of Energy. The disappearance of the Department does not mean that the areas to be scrutinised disappear with it. As the hon. Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark) ably demonstrated, those areas remain and the work of the Select Committee remains to be done. Safety in the nuclear, coal and offshore oil industries and the consequences of electricity privatisation remain to be scrutinised by the House of Commons, yet we will not have the ability, because of the abolition of the Select Committee, to scrutinise them properly. I agree that a Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry would be only a second-best answer. Let us be under no illusions about how limited the ability of such a committee would be to scrutinise energy matters. The hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle), a distinguished member of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, will recall that, towards the end of the last Parliament, that Select Committee had to meet twice a week to conduct its business, and that happened before the President of the Board of Trade had expanded the powers of the Department of Trade and Industry.
Mr. Hoyle : In those days the President of the Board of Trade was called the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I pointed out in an intervention the difficulty that will confront us if, in addition to the matters that will have to be looked into by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, other items concerned with energy must be addressed. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is underlining my earlier remarks and is reinforcing what was said by the distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy. One hopes that our words will be taken into account, particularly by Conservative Members, should the matter go to a vote.
Mr. Salmond : Many hon. Members will be looking forward to the President of the Board of Trade grandstanding it in front of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry. It is to be hoped that that Committee will be able to prick that bubble somewhat when it examines his policies. As we know, that Select Committee was overworked in the last Parliament. It will not now, either of itself or by way of a Sub-Committee, be able to give adequate scrutiny to energy matters. We have already had the example of how, at Trade and Industry Question Time, energy questions have been relegated to fewer than a third of the questions answered.
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The best that can be hoped for from the Select Committee on Trade and Industry is a similar percentage of time going to energy issues. Who will do the work that was done in the last Parliament by the Select Committee on Energy?The Leader of the House was kind enough to say that the Select Committee on Energy had been successful. That hardly seems a reason for abolishing it-- except of course that it might be convenient for the Government to abolish successful committees of scrutiny. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman meant that the Energy Select Committee, its members and its able Chairman were far too successful for their own good, for the sake of their own survival. But it is parliamentary scrutiny that will be lost. Anyone looking at the history of decision-making and energy policy will realise that that will have an impact on Government decisions. The Government themselves will be losers as a result of clumsy and careless decisions not being adequately scrutinised by an Energy Select Committee.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton : Although I am not unsympathetic to the excellent argument that the hon. Gentleman is deploying, may I ask him whether he accepts that the system that we have operated since 1980 is based on a report of the Procedure Committee in 1978? The new Government of 1979 acted on that report, and the new departmental Select Committees came into being in 1980. The present system is based on recommendations of a Committee of the House. I accept that those proposals resulted in Government recommendations, but ultimately it is up to the House to decide what sort of Select Committees it should have. If the House is prepared to exercise its authority--it could if it so chose--the argument that the leader of the Scottish National party is advancing might well be implemented.
Mr. Salmond : I am familiar with the report to which the hon. Gentleman referred--indeed, I mentioned it in an intervention. The hon. Gentleman, as an experienced parliamentarian, will have scrutinised the Energy Select Committee's report on this question. We faced this point directly and pointed out that in 1978 the Select Committee on Procedure argued not that Committees need monitor Government Departments exclusively but that they should do so "primarily". Most certainly it did not seek to prohibit the flexibility for which we are now calling in respect of this issue of energy policy, which is sufficiently distinctive and important to have a distinctive scrutiny Committee.
Unfortunately, given the procedures of the House, there does not seem to be a method of forcing the matter to the vote, even if only for the satisfaction of being outvoted by people who are currently engaged in watching the tennis, sitting in the tea rooms or giving constituents the benefit of their assistance. We shall not even have an opportunity to make a last stand--no doubt a gallant but futile stand--on behalf of the Energy Select Committee. So much for Parliament, when we do not even give ourselves the ability to make a declaration about what should be done.
The Energy Select Committee was one of the very few bodies which took very seriously the positions of both Northern Ireland and Scotland, areas that did not have Select Committees in the last Parliament. Although the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) and I were committed in advancing the Scottish cause, we would not
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have been able to have so many Scottish subjects brought forward for examination had it not been for the willingness shown by other members of the Committee.The Energy Select Committee also took on the job of scrutinising electricity privatisation in Northern Ireland. I thought that it was disgraceful that, although every Northern Ireland Member, from whatever political party, was against, or at least had grave doubts about, the direction of electricity privatisation, they did not themselves have the ability to question and scrutinise in respect of that vital policy matter. It was the Energy Select Committee that stepped into that breach.
I want to make a final appeal to the Leader of the House. I hope that in his summing up he will have the imagination to show that he realises that something rather important is about to be lost unless he is prepared to make a concession to the House of Commons to show that he is aware of the strength of feeling among members of every political party represented in the Chamber. The Energy Select Committee has performed a vital function, and it should be allowed to continue to do so.
10.14 pm
Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : I did not intend to speak in this debate, but, having been called, I shall be brief. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the house for moving the motion and for the way in which he responded to the appeals that were made to him during business questions in successive weeks. Having said that, I have to point out that we have a very unsatisfactory situation. Parliament will resume in October after the summer recess, so, realistically, it will be November before any Select Committee is fully operational and engaged in scrutinising the work of its Department.
Hon. Members from all parties will accept that a Government who are not scrutinised are liable to go wrong. It is the legislature's duty to scrutinise the Executive--not to carp or criticise unnecessarily, but to examine, monitor and sometimes assist. It is wrong that this Parliament, which was elected on 9th April, met for the first time on 27 April and had its state opening on 5 May should be considering this motion on 30 June. There must be another way in another Parliament.
I believe that we should think of a mechanism. After all, we have four or five years in which to do so. The first step that a Parliament takes is to chose its Speaker. Immediately after the Speaker has been elected, Deputy Speakers are appointed. We then have four people whom the House trusts to balance debates. The responsibility lies with Madam Speaker and her Deputies to decide who will speak in debates, to try to ensure that all arguments are properly advanced and that every point of view, however unpopular, has an opportunity to be heard. All of us, individually and collectively, have great confidence in our Speaker and those who assist her.
It may be appropriate, in a new Parliament, for Madam Speaker, assisted by her Deputies and the Chairman of the Selection Committee--if he or she has been returned to Parliament--immediately to sit down within a stated time limit of 28 days after the first meeting of Parliament and set about choosing those who will serve on Select Committees. Obviously, they will take advice from people in the usual channels. I do not suggest that the usual channels do not have a proper part to play--they do--but I believe that the
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status, standing and stature of the Select Committees can only be increased if they are chosen by a Committee presided over by the Speaker.We should consider this matter along those lines during the life of this Parliament, so that when a new Parliament is elected we do not have that long and, frankly, potentially dangerous gap. It is wrong that several months should go by before Ministers can be asked to give evidence, civil servants can be summoned and those in other walks of life can be called to give evidence. I earnestly commend to the House a reconsideration of the process so that there is a strict time limit and Select Committees are fully operational within a couple of months of Parliament meeting--28 days for selection and then they get down to work. I commend a procedure along those lines to hon. Members on both sides of the House.
10.18 pm
Dr. Jeremy Bray (Motherwell, South) : I wish to ask the Leader of the House questions about the Science and Technology Select Committee, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has already asked. I hope that the Committee does not suffer from the disadvantages that my hon. Friend fears. The list of ministerial responsibilities defines the Chancellor of the Duchy as being "also responsible for the Office of Science and Technology, which, in addition to responsibility for government policy on science and technology, is responsible for the science budget and the five Research Councils".
He is responsible for the science and technology policy of the Government, not just for its co-ordination or over-view.
Select Committees are bound by their terms of reference, but page 618 of Erskine May states clearly :
"The interpretation of the order of reference of a select committee is, however, a matter for the committee."
There are ample precedents for that being exercised in the past. The chief scientific adviser already sees all the Government Departments when they prepare their public expenditure estimates for research and development, and has subsequent meetings with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to review departmental proposals on research and development. Presumably it is open to the Chancellor of the Duchy to take over that role from his chief scientific official. Certainly officials of the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Education, and the Ministry of Defence, could be summoned to the Select Committee on Science and Technology, as I am sure that they will be. If that Committee conducts itself properly, other Ministers may ask to appear. I am not sure whether it would be wise for the Committee to allow them to do so.
For example, an inquiry by the Royal Society into the epidemiology of bovine spongiform encephalopathy may come up with damning proposals which make the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food squirm. It would be for the Committee on Agriculture to deal with him, but the objective evidence on what is happening in the epidemiology of BSE should be clearly spelt out by the Select Committee on Science and Technology. That Committee has a valuable additional role to play. I am sure that it will carry it out and that hon. Members from all parties will be able to contribute to it.
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10.22 pmMr. Bill Walker (Tayside, North) : I wish to make some brief comments on the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. I am sure that I need not remind the House that there have been problems in the past ; we should not ignore them because we do so at our peril. It is important when selecting members of a Select Committee to ensure that they recognise their responsibilities to the House. They are Members of the House and their duty is to the House. A Committee member should not be--certainly the Chairman of the Select Committee should not be--an individual whose policy is clearly to challenge the authority of the House and the authority of a Department to carry out the Government's policies. That is an important principle. I believe that the House should think carefully before it once again finds itself with people who are more determined to break up the United Kingdom than to present reports to the House.
Mr. Salmond : On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I ask for your guidance? Surely we are discussing not who should be on Select Committees, but whether there should be Select Committees.
Madam Speaker : The way in which Select Committees work is of interest and is associated with the motion and the amendments.
Mr. Walker : I am speaking about the structure and personnel of the Select Committees. We face problems in different parts of the United Kingdom where there are forces afoot who make no secret of the fact that they wish to break up the United Kingdom and to remove from this Parliament its authority over their part of the United Kingdom. We must address that issue, which is a House of Commons matter and not a Government responsibility. That is why I am addressing the House today.
Mr. John D. Taylor (Strangford) : On the subject of those who wish to break up the Union, until now the Government's position on Northern Ireland has been that they will make no decision until the present inter- party talks have made progress and reached a conclusion. The Leader of the House is probably aware that political parties participating in those talks --be they for or against the Union--have agreed that the decision on a Select Committee is not for them, but for the House of Commons. That changes the scene and puts the responsibility right back on the shoulders of the Leader of the House. Does the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) therefore agree that we should have a Select Committee on Northern Ireland?
Mr. Walker : It is not my job to answer for the Government, and I shall not do so. My views on how Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales should be treated in this unitary Parliament are well known and I shall not change them. I believe that we should treat all parts of the United Kingdom alike--and that includes Select Committees and everything else.
10.24 pm
Mr. Newton : I entirely accept that it is not the task of my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) to answer on behalf of the Government. The
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problem is that I now have little time left in which to do so and I hope that the House will therefore understand if I rattle along. Some of the remarks made by the hon. Members for Walsall, South (Mr. George), for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and, perhaps most strikingly, for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond)--I well appreciate why they were made--were a little grudging when we are proceeding to the establishment of Select Committees significantly faster than after either of the previous two general elections and when I hope and expect that we have paved the way to breaking the log jam on the setting up of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. The remarks of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan were a little ungenerous, and I hope that he will not mind my saying so.Mr. Terence L. Higgins (Worthing) : There seems to be some misunderstanding. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, if the Committee of Selection settles down to the job, there is still time to set up the Select Committees before the recess so that they can elect their Chairmen and fix their programmes before we rise?
Mr. Newton : One of the awkwardnesses of my position, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has just said, is that today's debate is not about the appointment of members or Chairmen, which is for the Committee of Selection and not something in which I should intervene. But there are at least two more normal meetings of the Committee of Selection, if not three, before the House rises for the summer recess. I am not aware of any deliberate blockage in the usual channels to prevent action being taken following the approval of the motion today. That will represent significantly faster progress than in either of the previous two Parliaments. I would not wish to exaggerate the claim, but contrary to some of the comments that have been made, that is not a bad record.
I must comment briefly on some of the points that have been made, particularly on energy matters and Northern Ireland. In passing, I acknowledge the remarks made by the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) who rightly drew attention to the width of the responsibilities of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in respect of science.
I fear that, as the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux), would expect, I can say little more to him than that the Government's position on the establishment of a Northern Ireland Select Committee is well known. In principle, a Select Committee concerned solely with the work of the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Departments may be desirable, but we believe that the right way to carry forward consideration of that matter is in the context of the talks which are continuing-- [Interruption.] --and their outcome. The fact that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been present during the debate is an acknowledgment of the strength of feeling which exists, but I am not in a position today to add to what my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and others have said on a number of occasions.
I paid tribute earlier to the work of the Energy Select Committee, but the question is whether it is appropriate, on an ad hoc basis, to depart from the central core of the foundation on which Select Committees have operated in the House for well over a decade. I cannot recommend that
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we should do that today ; nor can I recommend to the House that it would be appropriate to set up a Sub- Committee. Some compelling arguments against that were put by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark). I entirely accept that energy is important and I hope that the Trade and Industry Select Committee will afford it the importance that it deserves in balancing consideration of the subjects that it should choose for inquiry. I am not convinced, however, that the interests of energy, the House or the Select Committee on Trade and Industry would be served by giving it the Sub-Committee power proposed in the amendment.I cannot recommend either of the amendments, but I hope that the House will approve the motion and let us get on with the job of setting up the Select Committees.
Amendment proposed : (f) in line 14, at end insert--
! by inserting the words--!
!" . Northern Ireland!Northern Ireland Office!16!6".'.! !-- [Mr. Molyneaux.] !
Question put, That the amendment be made :--
The House divided : Ayes 28, Noes 201.
Division No. 46] [10.28 pm
AYES
Adams, Mrs Irene
Barnes, Harry
Beggs, Roy
Beith, Rt Hon A. J.
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)
Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)
Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C & S)
Kilfedder, Sir James
Kirkwood, Archy
Llwyd, Elfyn
Lynne, Ms Liz
McAllion, John
McKelvey, William
McMaster, Gordon
Maginnis, Ken
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James
Paisley, Rev Ian
Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)
Salmond, Alex
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)
Taylor, Rt Hon D. (Strangford)
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Trimble, David
Tyler, Paul
Walker, Bill (N Tayside)
Watson, Mike
Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)
Tellers for the Ayes :
Mr. William Ross, and
Mr. Simon Hughes
NOES
Aitken, Jonathan
Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)
Allen, Graham
Amess, David
Ancram, Michael
Arbuthnot, James
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)
Ashton, Joe
Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Baldry, Tony
Bates, Michael
Bayley, Hugh
Bellingham, Henry
Blackburn, Dr John G.
Boateng, Paul
Boswell, Tim
Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia
Bowis, John
Brandreth, Gyles
Brazier, Julian
Bright, Graham
Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)
Burns, Simon
Burt, Alistair
Butcher, John
Carrington, Matthew
Cash, William
Chaplin, Mrs Judith
Clappison, James
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)
Connarty, Michael
Conway, Derek
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)
Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
Davis, David (Boothferry)
Deva, Nirj Joseph
Devlin, Tim
Dorrell, Stephen
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Duncan, Alan
Durant, Sir Anthony
Eggar, Tim
Elletson, Harold
Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)
Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Evennett, David
Fishburn, John Dudley
Forman, Nigel
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Forth, Eric
Foster, Derek (B'p Auckland)
Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)
Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)
Freeman, Roger
Gale, Roger
Gallie, Phil
Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan
Gill, Christopher
Gillan, Ms Cheryl
Golding, Mrs Llin
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