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(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the House is sitting, no standing committee sitting at Westminster shall sit between the hours of one o'clock and half-past three o'clock, except as provided in paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 88 (Meeting of standing committees); and
(b) on Thursdays when the House is sitting, no standing committee sitting at Westminster shall sit between the hours of half-past eleven o'clock and half-past twelve o'clock, except as provided in paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 88 (Meetings of standing committees) with the substitution in that paragraph of "half-past eleven o'clock" for "one o'clock" and "a quarter to twelve o'clock" for "a quarter past one o'clock".
Meetings of Standing Committees (No. 2)--
That, with effect from Monday 11th January until the end of the present session of Parliament, the Standing Orders and practice of the House shall have effect subject to the modifications set out below:
Mrs. Beckett:
The motions on the Order Paper are designed to put before the House the unanimously agreed report from the Select Committee on Modernisation, which contains recommendations for an experiment with our sittings.
Meetings of standing committees:
Standing committees shall have leave to sit at any hour and notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, subject to the following provisions: on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when the House is sitting, no standing committee sitting at Westminster shall sit between the hours of one o'clock and half-past three o'clock, except as provided in paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 88 (Meeting of standing committees).
I bow to no one in the House in my respect for its traditions and its history, but I recognise that institutions that fail to change are institutions that die. Certainly the work of the Modernisation Committee itself has been undertaken--or so I thought until a moment ago--very much in the spirit of the best traditions of the House: seeking, if not always finding, common ground; respecting the different experience and different views of others; but nevertheless exploring proposals for change. That was the general spirit of the Committee, and I hope that it will also be the spirit of an informed debate.
Let me begin by identifying the areas where there is undoubted agreement underlying both the work of the Committee and the report before the House. First, I hope that it is entirely clear to everyone that the proposals which the report enshrines do not envisage the House sitting for fewer hours than we do now. Within the same
number of hours, the Committee considered whether there are ways in which we can use that time and address our work more effectively.
Secondly, the issue of how this place might work more effectively is the overall and underlying theme of all the work that the Committee has undertaken, including that reflected in its previous reports.
Thirdly, apart from the specific proposals on which the House will be asked to decide tonight, it is hoped that, today and later, hon. Members will examine other issues, such as the operations of the Main Committee in the Australian Parliament, which might contribute to further thinking about the effectiveness of our own methods of parliamentary scrutiny and debate.
That proposal for an alternative forum for debate reinforces the point that I made at the outset: the proposals are not about reducing the work or the hours of Parliament. That idea--raised today only to encourage debate, not for decision--is intended to make available more time and opportunity than now for both scrutiny and debate.
Taking the proposals in the report as a whole--those put forward for decision today and those put forward for debate--the House will see that, far from proposing a reduction in the work of the House, if we pursued all these ideas, there might be both more effective use of time and more time.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow):
The right hon. Lady has been at pains to explain that the number of hours that the House works will not be reduced. Will she tell us, frankly, whether she is satisfied that the opportunities for Back Benchers to hold the Executive to account will not be reduced as a result of the proposals?
Mrs. Beckett:
Absolutely and categorically. Although the proposals for a Main Committee are not before the House today for anything other than discussion, should the House so choose, they would actually offer more opportunity for scrutiny and debate.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
Does the right hon. Lady imagine that the proposed Main Committee would sit concurrently with the House or at a different time? If it sat concurrently, when the House was dealing with main business and legislation, the House would be even emptier than it sometimes is already. If the Main Committee sat at a different time, Members of Parliament would have even less time to deal with their correspondence and their constituencies than they have at present.
Mrs. Beckett:
No doubt, in the fulness of time, the House will consider those matters and take them into account. I am not an expert on them; the Committee's extensive discussions on them took place before I joined it. In one Parliament that has tried that procedure, the outcome was not that suggested by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
According to the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who just intervened, the House should hold no Committee meetings--whether they be Select or Standing
Mrs. Beckett:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification.
Mr. Jenkin:
The suggestion by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) is utterly ridiculous. We must clearly strike a balance between the number of Committee meetings and hon. Members' duties outside the Chamber and responsibilities in the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman claimed that as many Committee meetings as possible should be held outside the Chamber because they have been effective in the past. That is a ludicrous extrapolation.
Mrs. Beckett:
I did not think my hon. Friend said that. However, as I said before, I am confident that the hon. Member for North Essex has read the report and will contribute to the debate if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I turn to the specific proposals put forward for decision today. First, I remind the House that the context of the proposals is provided by the earlier reports of the Modernisation Committee approved by the House, which should promote more effective use of the time that we spend in the scrutiny of legislation, for example. Most recently, the House agreed to proposals on scrutinising European Union business that will allow wider and much more effective scrutiny than in the past.
Last Session, we carried the Committee's proposals that more Bills should be published in draft and receive pre-legislative scrutiny. In this Session, for example, I hope that we shall make use of a Joint Committee on the draft Financial Services and Markets Bill and that other Bills in draft will receive other forms of pre-legislative scrutiny.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mr. Bercow:
The right honourable Lady referred to the opportunity for improved scrutiny of European Union legislation. Presumably she is not seriously suggesting that the House will have a better opportunity to scrutinise the judgments of the European Court of Justice.
Mrs. Beckett:
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman was either not present or not listening when the proposals for scrutiny of European legislation were advanced. If he had been, he would be well aware that the proposals put forward by several Select Committees--and finally by the Modernisation Committee--extend the areas of scrutiny to the other pillars that were not within the ambit of the scrutiny procedures originally before the Committee. In consequence, not only is a wider area available for scrutiny--including scrutiny of legislation that comes from the Commission--but we have established a different Committee structure to facilitate more effective scrutiny.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover):
Before we get bogged down in an argument about the scrutiny of European
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