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Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed): I agree with much that the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) said, but if she leaves it to unknown people on Committees to achieve the things that she wants, they will never happen. I bear the scars from the Administration Committee and the Accommodation and Works Committee during my 19 years as a member of the House of Commons Commission, I can tell the hon. Lady privately why we do not have a creche and precisely who was responsible for ensuring that we did not have one. We are talking of responsibilities that should not be left to those who lack radical passion.
My having served on the Commission for so long is probably a disqualification from taking part in the debate. I shall exculpate myself by saying that my years of service
did not make me feel that we should leave everything as it is. Indeed, they were years that were marked by a constant battle to do what was said to be impossible.
It was said that it was impossible for the House to take control of the buildings in which we meet and that that was a responsibility that the Government would never relinquish. When Geoffrey Howe was Leader of the House, he decided that he wanted to appoint Sir Robin Ibbs, and it was a good idea to do so. He asked whether we would support the appointment and I said, "Only on condition that we can have the future of the buildings addressed in the Ibbs report." At that stage, the House took control of its own buildings, taking a step that it had been told it could not make.
We were told that it would be impossible for the House to introduce its own vote covering its own expenses. None the less, we do so. We have done it ever since the Ibbs report. Everything that we suggest in this area tends to be impossible until it is demonstrated that it can be done.
The Braithwaite report refers to the fact that it took six months to set up the Finance and Services Committee. Why was that? The report does not reveal the reason. In fact, it was because the Government of the day insisted that the then Leader of the House had to chair the Committee. Chairmanship could not be released into the hands of Back-Bench Members. We put up a fight and said, "No, we are not going ahead unless it is done as Ibbs said, with a Back-Bench Member doing that job." That battle was eventually won.
It is now suggested that the Member who chairs the Finance and Services Committee should be paid a salary. I remember saying at the time, "You have either to pay this person a salary or give him the best room in the building, otherwise you will never get anyone to take on the job." To be done properly, it requires a great deal of time and attention. It needs to be a priority activity. I see the post as a more important one than it has been up to now. It has not developed to the extent that Ibbs said that it should.
I see also the holder of the post can be of considerable assistance to you, Madam Speaker. Members do not always realise what a submerged iceberg of work surrounds the Speaker's role in the management of the House and in the House of Commons Commission. The Chairman of the Finance and Services Committee can be of invaluable assistance.
It is extraordinary that the minutes of domestic Committees were denied to the Braithwaite inquiry. It revealed some of the problems that we experience in relating the Commission's work to the domestic Committees. I am not surprised that the domestic Committees found it difficult to adjust to the advisory role that Ibbs recommended, and the massive turnover of Members cannot have helped. However, those involved in selecting people for ministerial posts must have regard to the need for a corpus of experienced Members on a Committee. The Commission has such a corpus, but the domestic Committees, like the Select Committee on Social Security, which my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) chairs, do not. There has almost been a total turnover of members of that Select Committee since the general election. It is impossible to run an efficient system in that way.
The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) pressed the case for a separate chief executive. The hon. Gentleman was the reincarnation of our former colleague John Garrett, who pressed that case for many years. I have much sympathy with him. Until recently, those who reached the post of chief executive by becoming Clerk of the House had been recruited and trained for a different role. In recent years, it has been acknowledged that those who become Clerk of the House will become chief executive. That has been reflected in the work of recent Clerks of the House.
It is not the most logical arrangement, but the alternatives do not convince me. To put it in basic terms, which the report expresses in more flowery language, why appoint two people to grade 1 jobs when one person can do both jobs? The Clerk of the House has to be of senior status because he has to defend the rights of the House against the Executive. That job cannot be downgraded. The chief executive needs to have senior status, too. I am inclined to keep the current system as long as we can make it work.
When we examine political responsibility, perhaps we should consider the bureau and quaestor systems to which the report refers. Earlier this week, I was in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, and I noted that it had moved towards such a system--it has a formalised bureau system. Some hon. Members claim that the Speaker should not play such a demanding role in the executive management of the House, but the Scottish Parliament has established such an arrangement. My colleague, Lord Steel, who is the Presiding Officer, retains the role of Chairman of the Bureau and is recognised by all Members of the Scottish Parliament as the apex of the structure that manages the Parliament's functions. That seems to work.
Hon. Members would probably find the allocation of more individual responsibility for different activities, such as that of the Chairman of the Finance and Services Committee, easier to tackle. We could make changes to ensure that the system provides the services that hon. Members need. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) made wider suggestions, which were outside the remit of the report, for changes to the way in which we manage time. However, if we are to make some of the fundamental changes that the House needs, we would have to persuade the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and his one or two colleagues who occupied the House's time for most of the earlier part of this afternoon that there are more important things in life than taking up time.
Mr. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East):
Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was a systems analyst. Reading the Braithwaite report was therefore interesting. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) made most of the points that I intended to make, so I shall be brief. I endorse all her
It is crucial that our constituency offices are recognised. The Commission must take that on board, especially in relation to the IT recommendations in the report. They need to do that.
The suggestions for dealing with information technology do not take into account the speed of change. I hope that the Commission will take that on board, particularly in relation to training, support for Members and support for staff who provide support for Members.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst):
What depressed me when I first read the report was the statement in paragraph 23 that
In the early days of the European Community, as it then was, the analogy of a bicycle was always used. We were told that, as in the case of riding a bicycle, if it did not keep moving forward, it would fall over. That was presented as the reason for the need constantly to drive forward and constantly to change, which was usually dressed up with words such as "progress", "improvement" or "modernisation".
Ms Oona King:
Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that change cannot help but come when, for example, the number of women Members has gone from one in 10 to one in six? Does he recognise that women have certain needs, such as child care facilities?
"the status quo is not an option. The process of change needs support or it may falter".
The report would say that, would it not? If we ask management consultants to produce a report, they must refer to the inevitability of change because that is how they earn their living. In the context of the ghastly modernisation fetish that the House is undergoing, a report must almost inevitability refer to the benefits of change.
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