---

Dr. Starkey: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Peter Emery: This must be the last time.

Dr. Starkey: I am a little behind hand, but I was trying to find a reference in the report. The right hon. Gentleman has talked of the difficulties for staff in preparing for Standing Committees. Can he confirm what paragraph 50 of the report says? It makes it clear:

"If the standing committees were to meet as early as 9.00 am, we think it would be desirable to impose an earlier cut-off time for the timetabling of amendments, so that the papers for a Thursday morning meeting could me made generally available on a Wednesday evening."

Sir Peter Emery: I understand that that is a simple statement, but what would the hon. Lady do if a Standing Committee sat until 7 or 8 pm? Could there be an earlier cut-off time? The Committee would not be able to discuss amendments that had arisen from debate if that were so. I do not see that that makes any sense at all.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden): It would reduce the power of the Committee.

Sir Peter Emery: It would, as my right hon. Friend so rightly says, reduce the power of the Committee.

Let me turn to what the proposals mean to the work of the House. If we meet at 11.30 am on a Thursday, questions will run until 12.30 pm. We shall then have the business statement, which will run, under normal circumstances, until about 1 pm or 1.15 pm. Is that the moment at which Ministers or Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen will wish to stand up to make the main speech on the debate of the day? Will they want to do that in the middle of the lunch hour? Is that sensible? Is that what people want? Is that what Ministers really want? I do not think so. It has not been fully thought out.

The amendment would simply make it certain that our Standing Committees can continue as normal from11.30 am until 1 pm.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Ten-thirty.

Sir Peter Emery: From 10.30 am until 1 pm. If we began at 11.30 am, we could have the main speeches of a

16 Dec 1998 : Column 1022

debate. We could then break for questions at 2.30 pm, having had our Standing Committees meet as normal. After that, any statement could be made.

That does not alter the revolutionary factor of change. It has been suggested that the amendment is an attempt to defeat the whole modernisation of the House. It does no such thing. It ensures that the House can operate more sensibly and reasonably, for the convenience of hon. Members. When it was suggested in Committee that the Conservatives were always against change, I reminded hon. Members that I spent my 14 years as Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure trying to drag procedures into the 20th century, never mind the 21st.

The Jopling Committee was Conservative led, and proposals went to it rather than the Procedure Committee, so that senior Labour Members could deal with them. That Committee was unanimous, but its recommendations were delayed for two and a half years--not by the Conservatives, but by the then Deputy Chief Whip of the Labour party, who objected to any modernisation and change. The Conservative Government could have forced change with their majority, but they chose not to do so, because the Conservative party has always believed in carrying the vast majority of the House rather than forcing procedural change over substantial opposition.

Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland): The right hon. Gentleman labours under a grave misapprehension. He and I have been in this place a long time, and he is immensely experienced. We sat together on the Select Committee on Trade and Industry when God was a lad, and he was a distinguished Chairman of the Procedure Committee. However, I must tell him that it was not the Deputy Chief Whip who frustrated him. My deputy was acting on my authority, as I was the Chief Whip at that time; I conceded only when it was obvious that my party would win the election, and that it would be to our advantage to have shorter hours. I thought that that was a good negotiating posture.

I have immense respect for the right hon. Gentleman's arguments, and I urge my younger colleagues not to dismiss them as though they were being made by a man who does not know what he is talking about. The right hon. Gentleman knows a great deal about these matters, and we should listen carefully to him.

Sir Peter Emery: I am most grateful to the former Labour Chief Whip, who is equally distinguished, and a man of great character. A man who can get up and take the blame, which is normally passed on to his deputy, and say that it was him and not the deputy, is a man worthy of great respect. For the right hon. Gentleman to say that the only reason for Labour's agreement was party political is to admit more than I would ever have suggested was behind that agreement.

Let me now discuss the possibility of having a Main Committee or some other Committee. After many years here, I believe that any action that detracted from the importance of the House--the Floor of this Chamber--must be deprecated. However, having said that, I believe that we have to find another way of dealing with some of the mass of matters that--because of pressure of time and because we do not want to sit after midnight so that everybody can speak--are not currently debated, especially reports of Select Committees and the individual private Members' motions that were once a feature of Fridays in the House but have now disappeared.

16 Dec 1998 : Column 1023

I acknowledge the possibility of a Main Committee, as long as it does not detract from the Chamber, enabling a whole host of matters which are no longer debated by the House to be considered. If that is what would happen, the proposal is worthy of close consideration.

I finish rather as the Leader of the House finished. The right hon. Lady said that she found it most difficult that the Opposition had tabled an amendment to her motion; and that it was with some sadness that she had to advise the House to vote against the amendment and for her motion. May I suggest that, if there had been no amendment, she would have urged her colleagues to vote for her motion--motion 4? I believe that she would have done so.

Mrs. Beckett indicated assent.

Sir Peter Emery: The right hon. Lady nods. If that had been the case, the House would never have had the opportunity of deciding whether the arguments that I have advanced ought to be tested in a Division.

In an early-day motion, 48 hon. Members--a considerable number--have urged that the House should not move away from having questions at 2.30 pm. It is interesting to note that, almost without exception, the Chairmen's Panel perceives no terrible difficulty being caused to the modernisation by holding to 11.30 am and 2.30 pm. I urge hon. Members to think much more fully, not about the glib party political aspects, but about the working of the House. It is the working of the House in which I am interested. If it is passed, the motion will not help the working of the House--in fact, the reverse is true.

6.54 pm

Dr. Phyllis Starkey (Milton Keynes, South-West): I hope that the right hon. Member for East Devon(Sir P. Emery) accepts that all of us are concerned about the working of the House; it is just that we have different opinions about how to make the House work best.

I sat through the start of the debate when Opposition Members were making great play of the fact that the public should have respect for Parliament. I agree, but have to tell them that they are completely out of touch with the public. The public would not find it unreasonable that people should sometimes be asked to come to work at 7.30 am. The reason why doing so in London is difficult is that the vast majority of people in London are coming to work at precisely that time. The public do not find it reasonable that the House should habitually work in the Chamber from 2.30 pm to 10.30 pm, or beyond; nor, if they realised it, would they find it reasonable that sometimes debates are kept going artificially until 10 pm, because hon. Members--on both sides--are attending important dinners and cannot get back until 10 pm.

The public would not think unreasonable the notion that both staff and Members of Parliament have families and family commitments. I know that one member of the Committee is fortunate enough to have his spouse here, but most of us are not in that position.

Mrs. Ann Winterton: Would the hon. Lady give way on that point?

Dr. Starkey: Certainly.

Mrs. Winterton: I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. May I ask, first and foremost, on what

16 Dec 1998 : Column 1024

she bases her research into what the people out there want? I have not had a raft of letters suggesting that we should come to work at 9 am.

Secondly, if she and other hon. Members wanted a nine-to-five job, perhaps they should not have stood for Parliament. It is the greatest honour to represent constituents in this place; it is a way of life and not just a job.

Finally, I should like to point out that I did 12 years as a wife living in the constituency and bringing up children--the best job that any woman can do. I was able to do that while my husband was a Member of Parliament and, subsequently, I was able to join him in Parliament. Perhaps hon. Members should think of their constituents first, rather than their own way of life.

---