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10.15 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): To debate reform of procedure at this late hour and with the school holidays well under way may seem ironic. After what has been said about the conventions of the House, it is with caution that I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) on securing this debate. Presumably he applied for it about a fortnight ago. In the meantime--last Wednesday--he demonstrated some of the merits of the House's conventions on freedom of speech. His actions were not without controversy, even though he admits to increasing maturity.
Before I address what has been said about our procedures and practices, let me remind the House that some changes have been made in the last two years. Despite what has been said, there is no longer any risk of this debate being interrupted by the apocalypse, or by hon. Members spying strangers or raising points of order while
wearing an opera hat. Neither need we be concerned that the military background of any hon. Members who seek to intervene in this debate will lead to them being referred to by the term "gallant"--the Modernisation Committee put that tradition away in the cupboard. At the same time, the precedence of Privy Councillors in debate has been dispensed with.
I understand what has been said about the conventions of addressing the Chair, referring to other Members as honourable and referring to their constituencies rather than surnames. Personally, I do not get enough opportunity to use the word "Bradley" in this House. My colleagues in the Ministry of Defence can say the word "Bradley" when they talk about military tactics and vehicles. Ministers at the Department for Education and Employment, when answering the frequent debates on devolved theories of the metaphysical basis of absolute idealism, may invoke the memory of the philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley. Even my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport may talk about Bill Bradley, who played basketball for the New York Knickerbockers before becoming Democratic Senator for New Jersey.
It is strange that we can now call Sebastian Coe by his real name since he ceased to be the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne. However, that other Olympic runner must remain the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell).
As hon. Members will know, others have tried before to reform some stranger aspects of this place. Richard Crossman tried to abolish the Clerks' wigs. His diary records that
My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin--as I call him more in affection than by tradition--has fallen foul of these conventions from time to time. His political career nearly came to an untimely end on 1 February this year when he said:
The convention that remarks are addressed to the Chair is not unique to this House and its advantages are well known. Apart from avoiding overly personal remarks,
it avoids ambiguity about who is being addressed. In a packed House such as tonight's, confusion would easily arise if my remarks were not addressed to the Chair.
To many new Members, it seemed old-fashioned that Members were referred to not by name, but by constituency. Apart from anything else, it involved learning not just the names and faces of fellow Members but also constituency names--not all of which are as distinctive as The Wrekin or Sherwood. I recently heard the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) refer to the Member for "Easter Island"--what a treat it would be to represent such an exotic place.
A senior Member put all this into context for me when he said:
When the House resumes in October we will have a debate on the procedural consequences of devolution, and will be able to compare procedures in the devolved legislatures with those operated here. Some of us may envy the opportunities that the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales have had to start with a clean sheet. How different things might be if we could start again from scratch. We will be able to watch how the new procedures in Edinburgh and Cardiff work in practice, and there will be lessons to learn and new methods to copy. We should not be afraid of trying to identify good and improved practice elsewhere or of considering its introduction here.
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall):
The Minister is replying engagingly to an engaging speech by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley). Will he address one point? The hon. Gentleman was critical of the Select Committee on Modernisation, but was guilty of a misunderstanding. The Committee has made serious proposals that deserve the attention of the House, but it has run into extreme difficulty among the dinosaurs, particularly those who are part of the usual channels.
Mr. Tipping:
The autumn will bring experimental sittings in Westminster Hall, allowing four more Back Benchers' debates a week. It will also enable three dozen more Select Committee reports to be debated each year. Refinements will be needed as we learn how those sittings work. It will be interesting to see whether the semi-circular layout of the Grand Committee Room encourages a different atmosphere and more informal style of debate.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire):
I wish the hon. Gentleman a good recess but does he agree that the only modernisation or experiments that count are those that bring more life back into this Chamber?
Mr. Tipping:
The hon. Gentleman sheds light with all that he says. I read his columns with much interest. The task before us is to encourage the Westminster Hall experiment but ensure that the prime focus remains in this Chamber.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Tipping:
I am not going to give way any more.
Mr. Mackinlay:
I am a kinsman.
Mr. Tipping:
As my hon. Friend is a kinsman, I give way.
Mr. Mackinlay:
The real radical changes that are required involve not the cosmetics of wigs and silk stockings but whether we can make the Chamber able to scrutinise the Executive and make them accountable to this place. That is what has been eroded over many years, not just by this Government, and it should be repatriated by a radical Government to this place.
Mr. Tipping:
As my hon. Friend knows, I am keen to give Back Benchers an opportunity to raise and pursue issues, as he just did so vigorously. The Westminster Hall experiment will give us an opportunity to do that but we can do far more.
I am delighted that the end of this year will see stage 1 of the reformed House of Lords, if all goes to plan. We can only speculate on the effect that the departure of90 per cent. of hereditary peers will have on that place. The removal of the hereditary element will be the most dramatic form of modernisation of our Parliament, a truly radical reform of our procedures of which we can all be proud.
We must recognise that over the past two years several improvements have been made in our procedures. The work of Select Committees in pre-legislative scrutiny has been widely welcomed. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin played an important part in examining the draft Freedom of Information Bill as a member of the Public Administration Committee. When that and other draft Bills come to the House in their final form, we will all benefit from greater scrutiny. The quality of the eventual Acts of Parliament will be all the better.
As part of the process of improving the quality of legislation, we have also published new explanatory notes setting out the purpose and implications of each Government Bill, giving a detailed commentary on each clause. What is more, they are written in a language that we can all understand.
I talked earlier about getting rid of the term "gallant", and the Modernisation Committee has done that. It has done other things. The report on conduct in the Chamber published in March last year talked about greater flexibility in time limits on speeches. Tonight, we had a 15-minute rule on speeches. We relaxed the rules on quotations from other proceedings. The farce of opera hats and spying strangers has gone. The scrutiny of European documents has been extended as promised in our manifesto.
One reform that was examined but not proceeded with was electronic voting. The Modernisation Committee--I think that this was the point of the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler)--consulted all Members but none of the options commanded the support of more than 13 per cent. of those who responded. Despite what was said tonight, I think that we will eventually return to that.
Only last week, the Modernisation Committee reported on how the new arrangements for Thursday sittings have worked and concluded that on the evidence that it had received, the balance between work in Westminster and in our constituencies had been maintained. Its report conclusively showed that the topics for discussion, the substance and the extra time available constituted a useful and radical step forward.
In closing my remarks, I turn to an annual procedure and tradition--the summer recess. It will be a time not only for rest but to address the concerns of all our constituents, who live in the real world. More importantly, it gives us time to reflect and formulate proposals for change. Our procedures have changed, and I anticipate that they will continue to do so. The rate of change is in our hands. With that, I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the House and its staff and all my colleagues an enjoyable break.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
I am sure that I reciprocate the Minister's final remarks.
Question put and agreed to.
"I even got the Cabinet to grant the wish of the Clerks at the Table to have their wigs abolished--despite the Prime Minister's proposal that they should wear them during Question Time and take them off at 3.30 pm."
In the event, the motion to abolish the wigs fell because the Opposition did not support the change.
"The hon. Gentleman misses the point. The point is that in your election guide in 1997, your party made great play of the fact--"
At that point, the Deputy Speaker called him to order and said:
"The hon. Gentleman should use the correct form of address. He is addressing me at the moment."
To which my hon. Friend replied:
"Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The conventions of this House require attention, like the conventions of the other House."--[Official Report, 1 February 1996; Vol. 324, c. 674.]
My hon. Friend recovered later when he described the Opposition spokesman on constitutional matters--the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox)--as the Scarlet Pimpernel:
"They seek him here, they seek him there, but they cannot find him anywhere".--[Official Report, 1 February 1999; Vol. 324, c 666.]
That remark was in the highest traditions of invective in the House--it amused all present and left the victim uncertain whether to feel flattered or insulted.
"I wish to make one point about our practice of calling hon. Members by their constituencies rather than by their names. I have always been proud to be the Member of Parliament for Ashton-Under-Lyne. It is my constituency and I am not here because I am myself, but because I represent the people of my constituency. It would be a retrograde step if we were to abandon that practice."--[Official Report, 13 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 1072.]
The third strand of our conventions is wording--is another Member hon. or right hon. or a Member or a Friend? I do not recall any hon. Member being called to order for omitting the "hon.". We have all tripped over whether a particular Member is "right" as well as "hon." or whether to say "Friend" or "Member". I am told that in the House of Lords, peers refer to extended relatives who are also peers as "my noble kinsman". It would give us all a great deal of pleasure if my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) described my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) as his "right hon. kinsman". Perhaps we should not encourage such familiarity, given the record number of Members with a spouse in the House. Who knows where such intimacy might lead?
Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.
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