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Charlotte Atkins: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have concluded my remarks.
8.9 pm
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): This has been a fascinating debate in revealing so many contrasting views on the wonderful world of Westminster. I should start by saying that I do not yet feel myself to be a Westminster man but a Sheffield man who has the good fortune to represent my constituents here. On Fridays, I do not visit my constituency, I go home. On Mondays, I come away again from my home. It is very much that way round rather than in any other direction.
I hope that this place does not run like the boarding school that it often seems to be, in that prefects who have been here the longest get the most say over what happens. I should prefer it to be run rather like a business or modern organisation in which new people with fresh perspectives and new ideas are welcome and often able to set the agenda, because they have come in from outside with a different view. I hope that we are a representative democracy, representing all views, spectrums and genders, rather than the gerontocracy that we may sometimes appear to be.
I should class myself as a radical moderniser. Like the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter), I am waiting for that outlook to change, with the dramatic realisation
that things are done the best way that they possibly can be and should not change at all ever again. I await that moment.
I am fully aware that I have only 18 months' experience in the House. However, having been through our consideration of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill and its attendant shenanigans, I feel that I may have had an accelerated learning process in studying the House's more arcane procedures, which I hope--if other reforms are passed--will never have to be used again. Nevertheless, with my 18 months, I have not yet swung away from that modernising view. Currently, I see no prospect that I shall do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) said in his speech that the Committee's proposals are a small step, and that, in deciding whether to choose option one or option two, we are angels dancing on the head of a pin. We are considering a small part of a bigger agenda, which is discussed comprehensively in the report. I hope that the House will soon be considering some of the bigger changes.
The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) was right to say the proposals are about evolution. The evolution model is a very good one to use in considering modernisation. Students of Darwin will know that evolution is all about an organism's response to a changing environment. Our environment is changing significantly in two key aspects: first, the legislative process; and, secondly, the role of hon. Members.
Hon. Members have to be more responsive on the legislative process. New things are coming along--we must respond to European directives, international conventions and technology changes. I recently spent time with Centrica, which is the British Gas successor, and was told about its efforts to enter the electricity market. It desperately needs legislation on reforming that market. Centrica knows that, because of how the House works, there is no prospect for two or perhaps three years of getting that legislation. I know of other businesses that are in a similar situation, in which a swifter response by Parliament is required to meet their requirements. I do not believe that our current structures allow us to make all the necessary responses.
I am firmly of the view--speaking on the legislative process as an Opposition Member--that quality should be a more significant factor than quantity in deciding the House's business. We need better time management--which both the current report and previous reports dealt with--rather than only having more time. I do not believe that having more time in which we do not do anything useful will gain us much, although other heads in the House say that the time weapon is an important one. As I observed Parliament before being elected as an hon. Member, it did not seem to me that, particularly the Government of Baroness Thatcher, were significantly diverted from their path because the Opposition were able to sit up all night complaining about the Government's actions, yet losing every Division and failing to change anything.
The second key category of change is the role of hon. Members--which has moved on. I very much feel that I am a public servant, answerable to the public and paid for by the public. I believe that the public have a right to their view on what my job should be. To me, their view is that they expect me to be with them at certain times.
Earlier today, for example, I spent time with some young people from Sheffield--young Sheffielders--who wanted to talk to me about the political process. They are not interested in coming into the Chamber and listening to our debates, and no wave of a magic wand will suddenly make them interested in them. I cannot turn around and say, "Sonny Jim, you ought to come and listen to our debates." That is not what they want. They want me to be with them, talking about politics in their terms. I want to have the time to do that.
I honestly believe that I will do as much for the public process by being outside the House debating and talking with my constituents in their schools, youth clubs and communities as often I will do in this place. Having that time is not only about me promoting myself in my constituency but about the public good. I believe that such time is significant.
I believe also that my experience outside the House with people in my constituency informs my contributions in the House and gives me a much better balance, stopping me from getting out of touch and developing "Westminsteritis" in which I see everything from the Westminster perspective. Such experience benefits particularly hon. Members from more distant constituencies, where people's views of life, of London and of events here are very different from the reality.
I deal with my constituency work in Sheffield. My office there is close to my constituents. I do not have the option in the morning of going through my constituency mail here; it is dealt with in the constituency. I believe that dealing with it there gives a better service. Many other new hon. Members have organised themselves similarly. It is perfectly reasonable, especially if one is operating at some distance, to have Sheffielders in a Sheffield office that has open access to deal with constituency work. I work with them on Mondays and Fridays, but, during the week, they deal with the work in Sheffield.
We have an alternative to evolution: extinction. We can moan all we like about how the media ignore us--whereas in a golden age they avidly took down every word that we said--but I do not believe that that moaning will improve matters. The reality is that most citizens would rather watch politics in the form of a media stunt somewhere rather than as a dry statement in the House. In a Stalinist state, one can control the media and insist that all citizens sit in front of the television and watch our proceedings from beginning to end. Fortunately, in our liberal society, we do not have that option.
It is very important that we evolve to cope with events outside the House. We may not like those developments, but they are the reality and the environment in which we live. The issue is very much one of evolving to work and cope with that environment, or of becoming extinct--ever less relevant, so that we are simply talking to ourselves about how we feel spurned, how no one is interested in us any more and what a shame it is that we cannot return to the golden age of 10, 20 or 30 years ago, depending on one's perspective.
On longer-term proposals, I should prefer the House to consider the parliamentary calendar from scratch. I was very interested in the notion of blocks of working at Westminster and blocks of working in constituencies. I find that option very attractive for myself, not only for my family life, which is a consideration for all hon.
Members, but because it would enable me to give my constituents--the ones whom I was talking about, such as young people and various groups of workers--a firm time commitment and to spend a considerable period of my working life with the people who elected me to this place and pay my wages.
I should like the block system to be introduced. However, I think that we have also to consider matters such as the summer recess, to consider the whole system from scratch. The report rejected the block system, largely because it left in place the summer recess. I should be perfectly happy to have a couple of weeks holiday in August and then to work the rest of August and September, as other workers do. There is nothing wrong with that. The long recess should not be set in stone or obstruct more significant reform.
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