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6.25 pm
Sir Peter Emery (East Devon): I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike). He serves with me on the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons and was an astute Member of my Procedure Committee for many years in the previous Parliaments. He would support my claim that nobody has been a greater procedural reformer in the House than I have tried to be over the 14 years that I chaired the Procedure Committee.
I remember discussing with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) the need to set up a Jopling-type Committee--for example, with a number of Privy Counsellors, and the chairman of the parliamentary Labour party--rather than leave everything with the Procedure Committee. That was so that greater weight could be put into the recommendations and so that the Committee had the strength to command the approval of the vast majority of the House.
It has been pointed out that it takes very little to stop procedural reform. I remind new Members that Jopling was delayed for two years because of the conservatism of one particular Member of Parliament. At that time, he sat on the Opposition Front Bench next to the Gangway. Don Dixon was Deputy Chief Whip of the Labour party. Only when we could swing him round could we proceed with Jopling. We therefore need reports that can be carried with the vast majority of opinion in the affirmative.
Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North):
I remind the House that Mr. Don Dixon, now the noble Lord Dixon, was not swung round at all. He is still very much averse to the Jopling proposals. I remind the House that the need for Jopling arose because the Government left the reports issued so regularly and consistently by the Procedure Committee, of which I was also a member, on the shelf gathering dust.
Sir Peter Emery:
I do not disagree with anything that the hon. Gentleman says. It only goes to show that proposals need Government support, whichever Government are in power, and I shall fight this Government as I fought my own to advance the procedures.
I should like to pose a few questions--I do not know who is to wind up. I am delighted that the report expresses a unanimous view that we must find procedures to ensure that all parts of a Bill are debated in Committee before it comes back to the House. It was a crying disgrace that legislation used to come back on Report when perhaps only a third--or sometimes a quarter--of the Bill had been considered in Committee. That is not the way in which the Opposition should perform, and I would not want the Conservative party in opposition to perform in
that manner. We are here to try to make the best possible legislation, and that must mean that all sections of a Bill must be considered in Committee.
I am sure that, like me, the whole House welcomes the Committee's suggestions on pre-legislative scrutiny. Such scrutiny would make legislation much better, so when will we start? When will one or two Bills that the Government have in train be considered by a pre-legislative Committee, so that we can carry forward the suggestions made in paragraphs 19 and 20 of the report?
I come now to paragraph 43. I am delighted that, as I pointed out in my intervention on the right hon. Member for South Norfolk--
Mr. MacGregor:
I thought I was your friend.
Sir Peter Emery:
I am sorry--the right hon. Member is a close friend, if I may say so without being misinterpreted. The Special Standing Committee procedure has been in the Standing Orders for long enough and the report urges that it should be used more often. I am sorry to say that we have not yet seen it used by the Government.
Sir Peter Emery:
I know that it is early days yet, but a lot of legislation is coming through now and I hope to receive an assurance that some of it will go to a Special Standing Committee.
Paragraphs 83 and 95 deal with Committee procedure and Committees on European and secondary legislation. Way back in June, we were told that the Government would consider and report on that subject, but we have seen nothing yet. May we put a rocket under the Government so that they express their view and allow that aspect of the report to be carried forward?
I hope that the very sensible suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk that Lords amendments could be sent back to the original Committee for consideration, so that they do not have to be galloped through on the Floor of the House, is accepted. Let us make certain that that comes about.
I have one slight worry. I was willing to go along with the proposal on enabling Bills to be carried over from one Session to the next, but it is imperative that, by agreeing to that, the Opposition do not let the Government off the hook and so allow the Government to play legislation any way they please for however long they want. Such practice is to the detriment both of good legislation and of the Opposition. I understand that if a Bill is introduced late in a Session, there might be an argument for carrying it over, but we must look carefully at such a recommendation, to ensure that it does not emasculate the power of the Opposition.
I now refer to points relating to the Chairmen's Panel. In common with the hon. Member for Burnley, other hon. Members might welcome powers being given to Chairmen to limit the length of speeches in Committees. It is interesting that the Chairmen's Panel went further than the Select Committee and suggested that
Sir Peter Emery:
I entirely agree with my close and right hon. Friend. However, like the hon. Member for Burnley, I believe that if a time limit is applied, additional time should be allowed when interventions use up part of the allotted time.
We suggested that the Opposition should have access to advisers in Committees, but the Chairmen's Panel has said that that might be complicated and difficult. The Select Committee should look again at that suggestion--the idea behind it is correct, but I understand the Chairmen's point.
It is not my job, as a member of the Select Committee, to put forward new ideas, but I have one that has been a hobby-horse for some time. We have a large number of Select Committees whose members work immensely hard. The Leader of the House tells me that nearly 470 hon. Members sit on such Committees, but how many of their reports are debated on the Floor of the House? If we are lucky, we get about six debates on departmental Select Committee reports scattered throughout the Session, through what used to be called Supply day procedure, although we are now hoping to use some of the Wednesday morning slots. Have we not reached the point where we should set up a "Select Committee Grand Committee" in which every Select Committee report could be debated--a Grand Committee with perhaps 50 members with voting rights and every hon. Member having the right to attend and speak? Every recommendation or report from a Select Committee would go to that Grand Committee, thereby ensuring that the work of the few could be properly debated and considered on behalf of the whole House.
Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North):
I am aware that I have already spoken on several occasions during this Parliament; on at least one of those occasions I spoke at considerable length. I want to assure the House that those speeches were not exercises in self-indulgence: I spoke because I needed to and I spoke at length because I needed to cover the subject. On this occasion, once again, I shall speak not because I want to be in the Chamber but because I have a job to do. I must explain that I am speaking as a member of the Chairmen's Panel. I have consulted collectively with my colleagues--and individually, in and out of formal session--and it would be remiss of me if I did not draw attention to some of the points that cause us concern as Chairmen.
I remind the House that members of the Chairmen's Panel commit themselves to sitting--as you do, Mr. Deputy Speaker--throughout the proceedings of a Committee, unable to walk in or out of the Committee Room as they might wish. They must stay there whether they like it or not. They must stay awake and alert. They must exercise good humour, patience and diligence. They must do all that with the good grace that you, your colleagues and Madam Speaker exercise in the Chamber--not an inconsiderable responsibility.
Chairmen do so because they believe in the parliamentary process, not because they are committed to a party political alliance or line--they save that for other occasions. When they sit in the Chair, they exercise a stark level of clinical impartiality. I believe that, for the effort that they put in, they deserve the greatest attention. I pray for that attention now.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) would berate me if I did not draw attention to the following points. We concern ourselves with the interests of the individual Back Bencher and the protection of those interests. There is a fear that concentration on the acceleration of business through the House and through its processes might to some extent damage and debilitate the interests of the individual Member when acting in an individual role.
Let me take an example. In paragraph 8 of our report, we plead for a Front-Bench spokesperson, when operating in Committee, to bear in mind the interests and views of the Members sitting behind him or her on the same side of the Committee. An unfortunate example of what can happen when that does not occur, which comes readily to mind, is what happened during the passage of the Bill that became the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, when we were discussing changes in firearms legislation as a direct result of the tragedy that occurred at Hungerford.
I was acting as Opposition Whip. Both sides of the Committee were split on the requirements of the legislation as laid down, and the Government probably had more of their Committee members opposing the proposals than they had supporting them. I believe that it was the first time in history that the Government lost their sittings motion at the first sitting, because there was such diversity of opinion.
If such a situation were repeated, one would need an assurance that the Front-Bench spokesmen would be prepared to heed--not necessarily accommodate in full agreement, but accommodate with some kind of presentational skills--views that were at variance with those expressed by the Government or with the Front-Bench policy statement. That would certainly apply if a time limit were to be imposed.
I take on board the comments made by the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) regarding time limits. We suggested that a similar limitation be placed on Ministers, because otherwise a Minister can take up almost the whole session. As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) said, he spoke for four hours in Committee simply to take up time. Ministers can take four hours, whether or not they want to take up time. I believe that the record in Committee is 11 hours 25 minutes, during consideration of the Telecommunications Bill.
"the power to limit the length of speeches should apply to Ministers and other frontbench spokesmen"
13 Nov 1997 : Column 1084
and not only to Back Benchers. That idea from the Chairmen's Panel is revolutionary, but it is nevertheless interesting and we should bear it in mind.
Mr. MacGregor:
I understand the reasons behind that suggestion, but I have always felt that the difficulty facing Ministers is that so many hon. Members want to intervene and probe the Minister on the legislation or whatever is being discussed that their speeches are inevitably lengthened. Will my right hon. Friend bear that in mind?
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