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8.19 pm
Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey): I welcome the opportunity to discuss modernisation of the House and fully support the changes sought by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. However, I am glad that the Committee's proposals are only initial ones. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) has left the Chamber. He asked earlier about receiving Select Committee minutes overnight. Perhaps he does not know that new technology permits immediate conversation of voice-to-type. Obtaining minutes is therefore not an issue, as technology will produce the minutes. We also do not need stenographers as technology is changing so rapidly that it can service democracy much quicker.
I have a small favour to ask of my right hon. Friend. In future reports on modernisation, will she provide financial models so that we can see the likely cost to the House of proposed changes?
Reform of the House should start with an examination of the nature of the Executive--the role of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Those roles are undergoing
changes as we move to elected assemblies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as in the English regions over the next 10 years, together with the possibility of an elected upper House.
The Prime Minister is frequently referred to as the chief executive of UK plc. As a new Member, perhaps I could present a different perspective. No chief executive of a FTSE 100 company has 22 directors of the board, as we have in the Cabinet. We have more Cabinet members today than when we ran the empire 100 years ago. No chief executive of a FTSE 100 company, having asked his senior management to work a 14-hour day, then rewards them by giving them more work in red boxes that they have to read by the morning. No chief executive of a FTSE 100 company makes his middle managers--us--work at least 12 hours a day and frequently 15, 16 or more for less than £65,000 a year. At 10 o'clock, 11.30 or even 1.30 in the morning in the Lobbies, there can be upwards of £27 million worth of senior management voting. They vote on issues on which many of them have failed to speak--or even attend the debate.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West):
The hon. Gentleman's analogy is interesting. Inadvertently or not, he has made it clear that he regards Members of Parliament as analogous to middle managers. He appears to be missing the point that we are here to hold the Executive to account, not to assist it in its management functions. That is true of hon. Members on both sides.
Mr. Wyatt:
That is our role in a modern democracy, but how best do we do it? We are the middle managers between our constituency and the Executive. [Hon. Members: "No!"] Opposition Members can disagree.
There will be some hon. Members who have prepared speeches for tonight's debate but who will not be called to speak. It is a shame that those speeches cannot be published in Hansard. It seems absurd to go on with such a system.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton:
I speak from the heart.
The House of Lords divides the time available by the number of Members wishing to speak. Why do we not follow suit?
No chief executive would arrange such strange working hours and then allow most of his employees a 10-week break in the summer. It is not clear to me why the House of Commons is different from the rest of the country. Most people seem to manage with two weeks' holiday in the summer.
We have a working day that no union member and no member of the CBI would adhere to. Why? We need root-and-branch reform of the House of Commons if we are to modernise the country. We should be leading, not following. In everything that we have done to modernise the House, we have been reactive rather than proactive. The tail is wagging the institution. That cannot be right.
I look forward to the day when the House sits from 9.30 in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening from Monday to Thursday. I should like to see financial models of the cost of such a move.
The current system actively discourages me from having any sort of family life. Is that right in a modern Parliament? Are we proud of it? I am not. It is a relic of the past. We send the wrong signals to the population. We want the best people here. To ensure that, we must give them the best facilities and the best systems. We do not have that.
Funnily enough, I have no contract of employment. I find that rather bizarre. It is true that I am Whipped to my delight and am here to vote and to be on-message--whatever that means. However, my constituents--the reason that I am here--do not have the foggiest idea what their expectations of me should be. They do not know whether I should live in the constituency. They do not know whether I should be holding weekly, fortnightly or monthly surgeries--or no surgeries. They do not know whether I should have a local office or whether I should be spending hours visiting schools, businesses and voluntary services. It is time that the House considered whether there should be a memorandum of understanding spelling out our responsibilities.
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire):
Beyond pathetic!
Mr. Wyatt:
My speech is going down famously among the Conservatives.
Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton):
The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) made an interesting speech. I shall read some of his comments with great interest in Hansard tomorrow.
I should like to pick the hon. Gentleman up on one or two issues. I was horrified that he described Members of Parliament as middle management. There seems to be a basic misunderstanding of our role. We all stand on a party ticket, but once we are elected we must represent the whole of our constituency, not just those who voted for us. We are certainly not middle management. We are here to represent our constituents to Ministers or to whatever organisation our constituents have problems with. I felt that I had to correct that.
We have had an interesting debate, with strong views expressed. I have intervened once or twice--perhaps rather fiercely at times, but that reflects the strength of my views. I have been here for only 15 years. Surprise, surprise--before I came here, I managed to have a normal family life, and have continued to do so since I was elected. Although some newer Members appear not to like the terms and conditions of this place and our role here, hundreds of people stand at every election, and would willingly swap with us.
I regret that the debate has been rather polarised. At times, it seems to have broken down on party lines. This is a matter for the House of Commons--for the Back Benchers. We are here to keep a check on the Government. Having been on the Government Benches for many years, I find it sobering to be in opposition. Many of the young bloods on the Government Benches
may find themselves in the same situation one day. Their role is to keep a check on their Government on behalf of their constituents.
Two of the most telling contributions this evening have come from two Privy Councillors on the Government Benches--the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster), a former Labour Chief Whip, and the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon). I hope that the new Members, who are every bit as much a part of this place as those of us who have been here a little longer, will consider carefully what those two experienced Members said, because it was most telling.
Sir George Young:
With the leave of the House, I shall respond to some of the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) opened up a new quarry, and many of us will spend Christmas reading his speech to see how we can best deploy some of his arguments.
In the light of the debate, I ask the Leader of the House whether we can have a separate debate on the Main Committee. Many speeches touched on the issue, but the debate has focused on Thursdays. When we return, perhaps on a Thursday, may we have a proper debate on the Main Committee, and encourage hon. Members to focus their minds on it?
I regret that we spent so much time on procedural issues. I genuinely believe that our approach has enabled the House to choose between two options, but I agree with the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) that those who have listened to today's debate may take the view that the Modernisation Committee was conducted with the same tone. It was not. It was a fairly harmonious, conciliatory process. I very much hope that, after a seasonal break and with some good will, the Committee will resume in the new year in a spirit of co-operation.
The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) suggested--I think in some anger--that Opposition Members on the Committee should compile a minority report. I hope that, on reflection, he will feel able to withdraw that remark. He will not find four more conciliatory Conservative Members than the four who sit on the Modernisation Committee. We made a number of concessions, and we will approach our future agenda with good will.
The high point of the debate was the speech of the former Labour Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster). He blew out of the water the Government's moral case that Labour Members had agreed to Jopling because it was the right course of action for the House. He made it quite clear that they agreed to it only when they thought that they would win the next election. They agreed to it out of base partisan motives, not the high-minded motives that we had been led to believe.
The main debate has been about whether Standing Committees should sit at 9 am or 10.30 am, and whether Question Time should be at 11.30 am or 2.30 pm. The
balance of the debate has gone very much withthe amendment. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) made a bridge-building speech, and we heard many speeches from those who chair our Standing Committees, including my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) and for North Thanet (Mr. Gale). Those of us who sit on Standing Committees have a duty to listen to those who chair them. Their unanimous view was that the 10.30 am option is better than the 9 am one.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet took us through some of the procedural consequences, and the implications for staff, if we invited Standing Committees to meet at 9 am. If we are to change, I hope that we make the right change, and heed the advice of those who chair our Standing Committees.
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