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Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): No.
Mr. Stunell: It should benefit Back Benchers, our constituents, Select Committees and those who introduce reports from those Committees. It should allow those with special policy interests to develop them formally. It should benefit both the principal Opposition and the other Opposition parties, giving an opportunity to challenge and discuss what the Government are doing across a wider range of topics. It even gives the Government some benefits, offering the opportunity for improved outputs from both the House and the Government.
The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) said that the value of the House of Commons should not be downgraded. I agree with that, but I must point out, as one who sits in on Adjournment debates and pays attention to what happens here, that the proportion of Members who find it possible to spend a significant amount of time in the Chamber is low. If 10 per cent. of Members are here, the 60 or 70 of them make the House look full, but the other 90 per cent. of Members are finding other things to do. The proposal poses no great risk to the credibility or effectiveness of the Chamber, and the new arrangements will provide opportunities for Members to bring concerns into the public domain and to challenge the Government.
To those who have muttered throughout my speech, from Bromley and from other places, I can say only that a mixed message comes from the critics. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has appeared to maintain from a sedentary position that he can see nothing wrong with the present system and everything wrong with any suggested change. Yet I have heard the
right hon. Gentleman several times speaking with outrage about the Government's overweening power and the way in which the House is being suborned and undermined.
We have before us an opportunity to improve the situation, but, lo and behold, the right hon. Gentleman is not jumping to embrace the idea, but doing his very best to wreck it. It is time that he made a short trip to the road to Damascus. He ought to recognise that if he wants improved accountability and more effective control of the Executive, our current procedures are not sufficient.
I wish that the proposals before us went further. I wish that we were proposing sittings lasting the full 18 hours proposed in the Select Committee report, not the shorter sittings proposed in the motion. I should like other things too, and I have mentioned them elsewhere. We should move rapidly to having statements timetabled in the way that questions are, so that Departments are given slots for statements. We should do the same with Select Committee reports. The proposal that topics should be chosen for debate by the Liaison Committee reflects our present procedures, but it might be more appropriate to give Select Committees a slot and allow them to choose the report for debate.
I would set aside additional time for Adjournment debates scheduled by Department or by policy area, so that bids for them could be more structured than they are under our current random system. I support the suggestion of the right hon. Member for East Devon that we should seek to restore some quality control and effectiveness to early-day motions and private Members' motions, although I am afraid that I am too young to know anything about the latter.
I urge the House to support these sensible and symbolic proposals for improvement. They are a step towards a more modern and effective legislature, and I hope that the House will resist the various wrecking moves.
Mrs. Dunwoody:
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. When we have this new, excellent Chamber, will there be a continuation of the Standing Order that states that hon. Members should not read their speeches word for word?
Madam Speaker:
I am sure, and I would hope, that our Standing Orders will apply to the parallel Chamber. The strictures on rhetoric and repetition should also apply.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
I speak as another enthusiastic supporter of the Westminster Hall Committee. I hope that not only will the report and the proposed Standing Order changes be accepted, but that it will be the will of the House to give the experiment a fair wind and trial and not to kill it at birth.
I am one of those Members who believes that some of the Modernisation Committee's proposals to date have not been the subject of the experimentation and trial that I would have liked. If the carrying over of legislation and many other proposals had been fully implemented, it could have improved the way in which the House scrutinises and works. However, I accept that it is early days and experiments are still taking place.
It is important to accept this proposal because it will enable the House and the Modernisation Committee to consider the parliamentary year and week. I am not
talking about Members of Parliament working less because that is not what I am in the business for. We have a varied and mixed job, with work here and in our constituencies, but sometimes that work is not as effective as it should be. It is nonsense that we do not know when the recesses will be. I accept that the House could be called back and the dates changed in a national emergency, but we should be able to plan. Our constituents think it crazy that we cannot tell them when we will be in the constituency.
Likewise, non-sitting Fridays tend to come in groups and then we have a mass of sitting Fridays. If one has urgent things to do in the constituency--and this is particularly true of those hon. Members who represent constituencies some distance away--it is extremely difficult. Sometimes, I have a whole list of things waiting for me to do. As you may remember, Madam Speaker, I was involved in three successive private Members' Bills on Fridays, and that makes life difficult.
Once the new system is working, I would like private Members' Bills to be moved to Wednesdays. That has not been discussed or agreed by the Modernisation Committee, but it is my view. That would be a fairer way to scrutinise and debate such Bills and it would allow the opportunity for them to make progress if they have the support of both sides of the House. That is one reason why I want to open up our procedures and allow more time for debate.
The cost of the experiment is being kept to a minimum. The Modernisation Committee was concerned about cost and one or two hon. Members have mentioned it in the debate. Most of the expenditure referred to in the report was scheduled for the Grand Committee Room in any event either this year, next year or the following year. That money would have to be spent anyway.
Mr. Pike:
Yes. It is scheduled in the programme of work. We were told so by the Serjeant at Arms when he gave evidence to the Committee. We made it absolutely clear that we did not want the purpose-built furniture for the experimental period and that we must find furniture within the House to make the experiment possible. It is important to remember that.
I strongly support the proposal that the experimental parallel Chamber should take the form of a semi-circle. The Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament have not gone for the format that is used in this Chamber because they wanted to try something new. I would strongly resist, as would you, Madam Speaker, the suggestion that we should knock the walls down to the Division Lobbies and put in a new Chamber here. This Chamber is right--it is historically right and we should preserve it. However, in the new situation it is right to start with something new. That is one reason why I opposed the idea that the experiment should take place in Committee Room 14, which was one option.
Anyone who is keen on the Select Committee system, as I am, should fully support the proposal. I have listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and I have great regard for her, but I strongly disagree with her on this issue. The proposal will create extra opportunities to consider Select Committee reports that are not currently debated and so serve a more
useful purpose. I should have thought that any hon. Member on a Select Committee would welcome that. Paragraph 28 of the report clearly states that the Liaison Committee will retain its role in determining the subjects to be debated.
The additional opportunities for hon. Members to hold Adjournment debates are welcome and important, but enough has been said on that. We should keep motions under review. I hope that not only the Modernisation Committee but the whole House will keep the experiment under review. We should not wait 14 months but learn from how the new Chamber functions. If we need to adjust it in December, January or February, we should make the adjustment straight away. Obviously, that would have to be done under the Standing Order changes that we are considering today.
The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) mentioned early-day motions. Like him, I think that they have become nonsense. They can congratulate anyone. We once congratulated a football club on reaching its highest league position, although it has now been promoted to the Premiership. That shows how silly some early-day motions have become. In Committee and elsewhere, I have noted the dangers of saying that early-day motions should be determined as of right. We should not work by numbers, but by importance and subject. We all get letters and other forms of pressure and the fact that we receive a certain number on a certain subject does not necessarily prove that it is the most important. We must watch that carefully.
8.35 pm
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