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Mr. Winterton: My hon. Friend highlights the fact that you are an overlord of this Chamber this evening, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and you come from north of Hadrian's wall. I can only say that I am delighted to see you in the Chair and you are ensuring that we have a meaningful, positive and robust debate tonight.
Will the Minister who replies consider some of the observations that have been made from the Conservative Benches and the two amendments that have been tabled by the Liberal Democrats and selected for debate? I believe that they make a better balance. Will the Leader of the House say whether she thinks that the extension of the House in Westminster Hall is not also an appropriate forum for meaningful debate on regional matters? Of course, there was an important debate the other day in Westminster Hall on the Diamond Synchrotron, which is highly controversial. Any hon. Member from the north-west could attend on an equal basis.
Mrs. Ann Winterton: Or from anywhere else.
Mr. Winterton: Or from anywhere else, as my hon. Friend says. Does the Leader of the House not believe that that forum is ideal for the sort of debate that is to be transferred to the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs? I am sure that she has said so in various debates that we have had on modernisation.
Mrs. Beckett: Of course I accept that there may be occasions when Westminster Hall might be thought to be
a suitable forum, assuming that the experiment continues. I do not rule it out, especially perhaps for matters that by their nature transcend more than one region. However, I would be reluctant to see Westminster Hall dominated by such debates, which I fear could happen if it were the sole forum. I am certain that, should such debates draw a large participation from Members representing Scottish and Welsh constituencies--there is no reason why they should not, as the forum is open to all Members of the House--we would not have addressed in any way the need for a forum for hon. Members who sit for English constituencies. It may be that Conservative Members have decided that they no longer feel that that is a matter of concern; I believe that it is.
Mr. Winterton: I am grateful for that constructive intervention. It is important that the House properly explores the motion that the Government have put on the Order Paper to amend substantially Standing Order No. 117. But will she give me, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire and other Conservative Members an assurance that she will take seriously our concerns? Last autumn, we debated the Procedure Committee's recommendation relating to the procedural consequences of devolution, taken with other matters that have subsequently arisen in respect of a further report from the Procedure Committee about how we debate financial matters and estimates in the House, together with the far-reaching recommendations to shift the balance of the Liaison Committee. If she indicates that she will take those matters seriously, I shall be slightly more sympathetic to the motion.
Mrs. Beckett: I always take seriously recommendations such as those to which the hon. Gentleman referred--he listed a series of reports and recommendations--although that does not mean that we can accept all of them.
It is possible that my remarks did not include a point that I had intended to make--perhaps because I took 10 interventions. I had intended to say that I do not suggest that our proposals are set in stone nor that, over time, the House might not agree on ways to amend and improve them. I merely point out that they seem to be a worthwhile first shot.
Mr. Winterton: Again, I am grateful to the Leader of the House. However, I hope that, when her hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office replies to the debate, he will take on board and respond not only to many of the matters that have been legitimately and properly raised, but to some of the severe reservations expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire.
Under paragraph (6)(c), a Minister of the Crown can specify
- when and where (within England) the Committee shall meet.
It was premature to table the motion. The right hon. Lady said that the Modernisation Committee had not pursued the matter a year ago because of the Westminster Hall experiment. Although I make no bones about the fact that I am trying to make that experiment a success, it is none the less an experiment. We do not know whether it will survive. Do we need a further experiment that might complicate the way that the House is run and hinder Members in undertaking all the jobs that they want to do on behalf of the House, the country and their constituents?
The matter is serious. It did not receive adequate thought before the motion was tabled for debate tonight. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire and other hon. Members have done us a service in raising important issues that cause us concern.
11.58 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish): I welcome what is perhaps a timid and faltering step towards the scrutiny of our regional government.
We should realise that we already have regional government. Planning conferences have been set up. There are regional development agencies and the Government offices. Regional chambers are being developed, although their role is somewhat ambiguous. They are supposed to exercise scrutiny, but most of their members are substantial providers in the regions. However regional government has been established, we need to provide for effective scrutiny of it. The measure is not ideal, but it is a first step, so we should welcome it.
It has been suggested that there could be a clash with the work of the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. There need be no clash. That Select Committee has a work load that is probably impossible. In the past two months, the Committee has met three times a week. It oversees a huge number of non-governmental organisations, but we are not able to scrutinise them all. There are more than 30 that we have still not examined in this Parliament. Members have referred a huge list of topics to us for our consideration and the members of the Committee want to consider them. Its work load is substantial.
The Select Committee considered regional development agencies when the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 went through the House, and we examined them again last year. We should re-examine them, but it is difficult to envisage how the Committee could scrutinise each of the agencies in the English regions. That is an almost impossible task for us to perform. Two issues are involved. The first is the way in which the agencies are developing nationally and the other is the regional policies that each pursues. It is high time that we found a way to scrutinise them. Ideally, that would be done by Members of Parliament from the relevant regions, and this proposal is a small step in that direction.
The House should grasp this opportunity. It amazes me that the Opposition are likely to vote against more scrutiny in Parliament; that is crazy. I also find it odd that they are worried about voting. How many votes have they
won so far in this Parliament? It is not their voting power that is significant. I should have thought that they would want to extract guarantees through the usual channels so that they could at least have some say on the debates to be held and on when they are held. However, they are demanding the right to vote and, presumably, to lose regularly, and it does not matter whether they lose on the basis of the votes of English Members or of those from the United Kingdom as a whole--they will still lose.Liberal Members have asked who will chair the Committee. As I understand it, if the Chairman is a member of the Chairman's Panel, he will vote according to precedent. He would not exercise judgment in the party political sense. What will happen if someone chairing the Committee behaves as if he were the Chairman of a Select Committee? My experience in the previous Parliament as the Chairman of a Select Committee with a majority of Members from other parties is that, in many ways, the Chairman is constrained by the Committee's members. I do not think that worrying greatly about who chairs the new Committee is the crucial issue. I advise the Conservative party to get stuck into scrutiny. It should certainly get stuck into scrutiny of regional affairs and it should use the usual channels to ensure that it receives a fair amount of the time available for debate.
I will not follow my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) in listing all the subjects that I would like to be scrutinised in the north-west. It is a long and substantial list, and the sooner that we get to it, the better.
I am reluctant to speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), but I give one assurance to the House for us both because we jointly chair the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. The new procedure will not in any way curtail or intimidate the activities of that Committee.
We should now move forward, accepting that the proposal is very limited. We should grasp the opportunity and demand that the Committee is used vigorously in the next few months. The Government could undertake that there will be at least one meeting in each of the English regions before July. We could then assess whether the Committee's powers were adequate or whether we needed to demand further powers.
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