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Mr. Sheldon: The Crossman reforms were undertaken--including some very silly ones--and a number were subsequently altered. We have seen that happen, and it will happen again. I have no objection to that.
I wish to comment on the role of the Member of Parliament with his or her constituency. My enormous advantage--and that of other hon. Members--is that I represent a constituency. I am the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne--that is what I am known as. I am against lists, because I want to be responsible. I know full well that I can offend an awful lot of people, and it will not make much difference to my large majority. However, that is not the way in which I operate. I want every individual who walks into my advice bureau to lay their troubles to one side, and know that someone is looking after them. That individual approach is important. It is a question not of votes, but of responsibility.
The major problem of this Parliament is that there is a large majority, and the House of Commons is not designed for a large majority. It is not designed to have such a large number of people with nothing very much to do. I have been in 10 Parliaments--five in opposition and five in government. Admittedly--and unfortunately--I have not spent as long in government as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I have had an opportunity to see things from both sides.
Dr. Starkey:
Could my right hon. Friend cite any Member of Parliament who has come to him and said that they had nothing to do?
Mr. Sheldon:
I must apologise. I used that expression in the conventional sense of the House of Commons doing what it has always done--allowing Members to bring their views to the Prime Minister and leaders of the Government, and to alter the affairs of state. I am not referring to looking after constituents. Constituencies are important, but they should not take up so much of a Member's time. Duncan Sandys, who was accused of not visiting his constituency, said that he represented Streatham in Parliament, not Parliament in Streatham.
I am in my constituency every weekend--that is enough. Constituents can see me, and I can look after their affairs and respond to their correspondence. Nobody has accused me of failing to represent my area, and I am proud of that. That does not mean that Members should ignore their position here--this is where we were elected for. We are Members of Parliament--not councillors, who live and work in an area every day. That is their job. By all means let us converse about the big issues, but Members must not spend too much time on that.
There are 418 Government Members, of whom about 350 are Back Benchers. That is a very large number. In a normal situation, with 350 Government Members,
there are only 280 Back Benchers, and they have much greater influence and involvement. When they question a Minister, they have much more power. Now we have a problem, in that attendance in the Chamber does not reflect the voting in the country as a whole, because Back Benchers do not feel that they need to be here. I suggest that an important criterion for judging the success of any alteration is how it affects attendance in the Chamber. We shall see what happens at the end of the summer.
My predecessor, Lord Hervey Rhodes--a wonderful man, of whom I had an enormously high opinion--never used to have anything to do with his local authority. His advice to me was not to have anything to do with mine. That was possible in the 1950s and until the early 1960s, but much legislation now involves local authorities, because they get so much of their money from central Government. I now represent parts of two local authorities, and sometimes they disagree with each other, which creates problems for me, but I have to live with those. One has to represent the authorities in discussions with Ministers.
We must have an understanding of local problems, but not at the expense of our work in the House. This is a debating Chamber, in which issues facing the country must be argued. Poorer attendance means poorer reporting. We cannot blame the press for the empty Press Gallery when we do not attend ourselves. There was a time when The Times had a large reporting staff here in its own special room, and all one's speeches were reported; now it does not even report Ministers' speeches. Many hon. Members feel that they can exercise more influence through a letter to a prominent newspaper than by making a contribution in the House, and that is very sad.
The first priority is to impress on everybody the importance of the House of Commons. There is a wonderful quotation to the effect that the greatest ambition of an Englishman is to be elected as a Member of Parliament. With the change of "Englishman" to "Briton", I would accept that wholly. It was never my aim to be a Member of Parliament--that was far too lofty an ambition--but circumstances so fell out that I was fortunate enough to come here. I have never ceased to be astonished at my good fortune.
It is crucial to retain the elements of Parliament that have established our reputation all over the world. Whenever we travel abroad, an assumption is made, not out of deference to us, that we understand parliamentary matters well, because of our long history.
One of the important changes we have made is the establishment of Select Committees. I have been associated with them for well over 30 years, as a member or a Chairman. I well remember Michael Foot speaking against Select Committees and saying that they would detract from the House. To a certain extent he was right. There is no doubt that sending people upstairs to debate important matters means that they cannot be here in the Chamber, but there had to be some way of holding the Government to account; it was not enough to make a brilliant speech and hope to change policy, or to ask a question which could be dodged by a clever manipulation of words.
In a Select Committee, one can ask a question again and again, until the Minister or official is forced to give an answer. I remember my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, when he was in the Public Accounts
Committee, banging the table and saying, "I've only got one minute, and I'm going to get an answer, yes or no." Those asking questions in the Committee were given only 15 minutes, because there was such a demand to speak, as people realised that they were doing something important. The reluctant civil servant said, "Yes."
The battles are fought here, and the decisions must be made here, preferably with a large attendance, but it is difficult to hold the Government to account with a handful of hon. Members behind one. In a crowded House, one can have much more impact. That is what we must try to achieve.
The most important change that I support for Select Committees is, strangely, to put their proceedings on the internet. At present, reports are not put on the internet until corrections have been made, three weeks later. Minutes of evidence are not part of the functioning of the House. A Select Committee can get real answers from, say, the Home Secretary or the Governor of the Bank of England, and there is a bit in the press, but nothing in the House until three or four weeks later.
Uncorrected minutes of evidence should be put on the internet. I have arranged for that to be done overnight, if necessary. The reporters can do that, but we are tied down by questions of privilege. The newspapers, television and radio can use uncorrected minutes of evidence, but the House of Commons cannot. That is absolute nonsense. I am arguing with the legal people, and I have put some points to the various Committees and to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who has been sympathetic, so I am hoping for some change.
That is important, not only because the House can then consider that evidence at Question Time the following day, but because people can see what has been said, and take it as part of the political discussion of the day. When Chairmen and members of Select Committees appear on radio and television, they are a bit apprehensive about saying what was discussed, because they do not have the transcript. They know that what they say is not privileged, so they are careful. If they had the transcript, they could do exactly what the press and the other media do.
I want draft Bills to be scrutinised by Select Committees. That is important, because the Committees build up expertise that can be tapped. I know that we are putting enormous pressure on Select Committee members, but fortunately they are doing very well, and feel that, as the Opposition--if I may say so--are not doing as good a job as they should, part of the scrutiny is being done by Select Committees, and that is of enormous value to us all. Pre-legislation should go to Select Committees.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush was right to say that we need to see reports of debates. On Main Committees, I have nothing against matters going upstairs, but I am a little uneasy about having a replica of the House of Commons. We used to have Standing Committees for regional affairs in which Ministers would respond, so one could argue the case for certain things happening in the north-west, for example. That system was quite popular. I do not know why it was dropped. Perhaps it was taking up too much
ministerial time. We do not want anything too overblown, but particular matters could be devolved to Committee Room 14, say.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton:
The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent address, and bringing to our debate a balance and a knowledge of what goes on here. He has highlighted the importance of Select Committees, but does he believe, with the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), that more Select Committee reports should be debated here, and if so, how can that be done?
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