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Mr. Maxton: Will the right hon. Gentleman extend his argument and ask why a Government elected by the people of this country should traipse down the Corridor to listen to the Queen tell us what we are going to do?
Sir Peter Emery: I happen to believe that some of the traditions of this country, which are admired throughout the world, attract tourism and are part of the strength and standing of Britain in the world, should be maintained. That is one, and I would not wish to see it abolished. I hope that there is some support for that position even on the Government Front Bench.
Mr. Winnick: As the right hon. Gentleman says, the Procedure Committee in the last Parliament made a recommendation which the Conservative Government would not accept--that we should not ask permission to elect a Speaker. I trust that the Labour Government--more radical than the last--will implement that recommendation. The right hon. Gentleman was honest enough to say that he was a traditionalist. Should not the House be a workplace? Why the wigs, why the gowns? What purpose do they serve? Parliament is not a tourist attraction. With the greatest respect to you, Madam Speaker, when the Deputy Speakers are in the Chair they wear modern dress, and they command the same respect as the Speaker. It is not necessary to dress up just because something happened 400 or 500 years ago. There is no need for the Clerks to wear gowns.
Sir Peter Emery: If I may say so, Madam Speaker, I do not consider the way you look in the Chair as dressing up. You bring dignity to this place, and do it with great charm.
We must help Scottish Members in a way in which my Government did not. It is right and proper that we should arrange the summer sittings to allow Scottish Members of
Parliament to spend some time with their family before their children go back to school. If that means that the House has to come back for two weeks--say, the second and third weeks of September--to complete some business, it would not be a bad thing and would accommodate an area of the country which is pretty set upon by the timing of the sittings of the House at present.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley)
rose--
Sir Peter Emery:
I give way to my friend.
Mr. Pike:
Apart from Scotland, many parts of Lancashire and other parts of the country have traditional wakes weeks. Burnley's holidays, for example, are the first fortnight in July. Those parts of the country are equally affected by the problem of the timing of the summer recess.
Sir Peter Emery:
I knew that I would not have to say much about Lancashire because my hon. Friend, who has been a member of my Committee, has always stood up well and properly for the rights of Lancashire.
Might I also suggest to the President of the Council that she should look at Command Paper 397 which sets out the work of the Procedure Committee of the previous Parliament in which a number of her hon. Friends participated? That report contains a number of extra thoughts and ideas that are worthy of consideration. I hope that the new Committee, it will not be known as the Jopling Committee, but perhaps the Taylor Committee or whatever, will give some further thought to that report.
May I offer a revolutionary thought?
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Be careful.
Sir Peter Emery:
I would like to advocate the setting up of a parliamentary television channel. I believe that there is much more interest among the public about what happens in this House than we know. I accept that it might not be possible to show the work of the Select Committees at the time that they are sitting, but reports at other times of their work would be of interest to many of our constituents. They would also be interested in this type of debate, which would attract no attention on the normal television channels.
There is some considerable merit in us considering the establishment of a parliamentary television channel, even if it has to be managed or paid for by the House. It would be a great service to our constituents because it would enable them to see to a greater extent the work of Parliament. The broadcast of Prime Minister's Question Time gives a wrong impression of the work of the House and it would be useful if we could overcome it.
Mrs. Gwyneth P. Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
I had contemplated making a speech of four and a half hours on procedure, but somehow I suspect that I might
The procedures of this place are not just a matter of arcane debate, but the methods by which we pass laws. I hope that, when we come to debate any changes, we shall seriously consider not only what has gone before but the hazards that we sometimes face in seeking to modernise without totally understanding what we are doing.
For example, may I point out that the House actually sits fewer hours than it did before the Jopling report recommendations were accepted? It has abandoned the privilege, and an extremely hard-fought privilege, of Back-Bench Members having the right to introduce private Member's notions on a Friday and have votes on them in exchange for a number of hours of debate on a Wednesday morning. It is perfectly true that we were told, "Give up Fridays and you'll still have the same number of hours of debate," but it is also true that we do not have votes on Wednesday morning.
Individual constituency matters may be raised on a Wednesday morning, but, because we do not have such votes on Friday, we shall no longer be able to influence legislation such as that passed previously on abortion law and homosexual reform. Many of the Bills that were introduced in the first Parliament that I enjoyed as a Member would have faced considerable difficulties if an exchange had then been made between Fridays with voting rights for Wednesday morning debates. It is important that we realise that.
On the European Committees, it is not good enough simply to say that we should staff five more such Committees. Of course one could and one should, but Members must turn up and do the work. The House has to give those Committees the right, and not an alternative right, to bring a resolution to the Floor of the House and have it debated. At the moment, it does not matter how much work we do upstairs in those European Committees--no decision reached in Committee is brought back to the Floor of the House and voted on. No matter how strongly one may feel about any matter, that cannot influence the final result. It does not matter whether one has 10,000 connections with the European Parliament--no one will take any more notice than they do at the present time. It is important to realise that.
Above all, I would say to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that we should explain to people that one of the problems in the previous Parliament was its parliamentarians. We skip over that. If people sit in Committees and do not listen to what is said or take part in the amending resolutions, it does not matter how often we change where we sit or how many electronic toys we have. If that happens, it does not matter how many people we get rid of in exchange for a number of gadgets that somehow give the impression that we have been modernised. If we do not do the work, if we do not listen, participate or check what is happening at Government level as well as every other level, the House of Commons is the poorer for it.
I must also ask my right hon. Friend to look first at the role of Government. Look at why parliamentary draftsmen are not given enough time to come up with effective and properly drafted legislation. Look at why so many Committees in the House have to deal not only with existing legislation but with a thousand amendments
tabled by Ministers who are panicked at the final moment when they discover suddenly that the legislation says something different from what they expected it to say.
Those are important matters, and they will not be altered by saying to people they now have all sorts of new toys that they did not have before and that therefore they must have better control over the legislature. That is not what happens. Back Benchers have to look at everything that happens. They have to read it, and they must be very careful about understanding what it says. That must be done irrespective of the Government who are in power.
The House is very well served by servants of all types at every level. The people who service the House day by day in all its Departments are of an astonishingly high standard. We must stop treating them as though they were pawns to be moved around a chessboard without consultation, without understanding their problems and without allowing them a response. We must not think that it does not matter if we decide to do different hours and introduce different arrangements. We must not think that that is of no importance to the people who work here and who, after all, enjoy a lower level of consultation than we would accept in the worst sweatshop factory anywhere in our own constituencies. I find that offensive and unacceptable. I will not sit quietly by and see that happen.
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