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1.59 pm
Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester): I want to raise an issue that I am constantly warned not to raise on the Floor of the House. I am told that raising it seems like self-interest and whingeing, and sends a signal that whoever raises it does not really want to be a Member of Parliament.
The issue that I want to raise is modernisation of the House of Commons, and changing the role of Members of Parliament. I am aware that it is once more a topical issue, following last week's decision by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Ms Kingham) to announce, quite publicly, that she would not stand at the next election. That prompted considerable concern about the workings of the House of Commons. In my maiden speech, after I was elected three years ago, I made some observations about being a Member of Parliament. I was told by a colleague that that was most unwise, it was better to put up with the situation--not moan or complain--and my constituents would not understand if, having worked so hard to get here, I started complaining about the process.
There is a reluctance among some hon. Members in all parts of the House to raise the matter because it makes them seem unhappy with the job. I love the job and enjoy being the Member of Parliament for Winchester--but I am deeply dissatisfied with the process by which we serve. I want that changed not out of self-interest but because I genuinely believe that the manner in which we operate is not good for the country. Other hon. Members will follow the hon. Member for Gloucester, and prospective parliamentary candidates may be discouraged from standing for election.
Over the past week in particular, there has been much press focus on women MPs, who are said to be fed up with the working hours. I believe that there is cross-party disquiet among hon Members of both sexes. If male Members do not argue the point, it will be said that the Blair babes are revolting on the issue when concern goes much wider.
Much time has been spent studying why the electorate are turned off politics. In the mayoral and local council election a few weeks ago, many attempts were made to improve turnout. Watford, example, tried holding elections on Saturday or Sunday, with polling in Asda or Tesco. I welcome those innovations but the evidence is that turnout did not increase in many cases. I believe that one factor turning off the electorate is the workings of Parliament that they see on television every night of the week.
Those who argue for a change in our working hours are not doing so to get to lie in bed longer in the morning or take longer holidays. It is a question of using the time that we have more effectively. I am arguing that we should work not fewer hours, but more sensible hours, and that we should structure the parliamentary week in a much better way. When the Modernisation Committee considers the matter the week after we return from the recess, I hope that it will look carefully at the radical options, which include a fixed working week with fixed hours. We could debate for ever what those hours should be. My personal preference is for a guaranteed finish at 7 o'clock, with a change in the hours of Select Committees, with some sitting in the evening.
In one sense, time is not the issue. The critical factor is predictability, so that one knows what is going to take place. I do not mind staying here until 2 am to debate emergency situations in Kosovo and Sierra Leone or major domestic issues but I object--
Mr. John Cryer (Hornchurch): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the few weapons available to the Opposition--I will not say whether I approve--is time? Does he propose taking that weapon away from the Opposition?
Mr. Oaten: No, but I do not believe that that weapon is used by the Opposition. It is used by a couple of hon Members who want to throw the business of the House into chaos. Speeches made by those hon. Members at 1, 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning contain no points of substance. I am not convinced that they are a serious challenge to the Government on key issues. Such speeches are designed to play public schoolboy games. I do not believe people have any time for hon Members who do such a thing at that time of night. I am more than happy to be here if the Executive is being held to account. It is not.
When I tell constituents about the time scale that we work to, sometimes going through to 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, they cannot believe that the Government are making critical decisions at that time in the morning. What other sensible organisation would make its most important decisions at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, when hon. Members are tired and often tetchy?
The House of Commons Library has produced a number of figures on how Parliaments operate throughout the world. I have not had a chance to read that in detail, but I believe that we are the Parliament that works longest and that sits until the latest hour, apart from Australia, which sits until 11 o'clock on Mondays, so the Modernisation Committee needs to look carefully at the issue of hours.
I want to move on to some of the other issues, because we are in danger on getting hung up on thinking that modernisation is just about hours. It is about many more things, too. The tag on to the hour issue is electronic voting and the way in which we physically vote in the House of Commons.
I know that the issue has been looked at in the past and that Members have rejected it. I think that the various options confused many Members. That was probably one of the reasons why there was no clear vote in favour of electronic voting. If there is a cut-off point of, say, 10 o'clock, when business is guaranteed to end, because of the voting system, the House can often go through to 11 o'clock or 11.30, if there are four or five votes after that time. Again, that is nonsense.
The argument that we need to have pushing and shoving down two corridors because it is an opportunity for hon. Members to bump into other hon. Members, or indeed to rub shoulders with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, does not seem credible. Their voting records suggest that those right hon. Members are not in those corridors anyway, so there is not much chance of bumping into them.
Divisions are one of the rather amusing anecdotes that we can tell in after-dinner speeches. During a tour of the House of Commons, one of the amusing moments is when constituents are made to push and shove through the corridors. Everyone has a good laugh. It is all very funny when we are showing constituents around in the morning. It is a lot less funny and seems very silly when it is done at 11 and 12 o'clock at night. I see no reason why we cannot quickly move to electronic voting to speed up that process.
The image of the House of Commons itself raises wider concerns about why we find it hard to engage the public in politics and to encourage young people in particular to get involved in the political system. If we step back and look at the image that comes across on the television screens, what do we see? For example, there is the issue of whether we can clap in the Chamber. If someone makes a good point, instead of clapping--which is universally accepted throughout the world as the way of showing support and appreciation--we all have to go, "Hear, hear, hear" and we sound like a bunch of farmyard animals. When people watch that on television, they do not understand. They cannot understand why that sort of noise is coming from grown men and women. That turns people off from looking at politics.
There is also the issue of attracting your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Again, when people are looking at the House of Commons, they do not understand why it is that we are all bobbing up and down trying to catch your eye. They write to us asking whether we can make a point on the Floor of the House, raise a question or try to participate in a debate. They do not understand when we say, "I will bob and up and down, but there is no guarantee that I will be called in that debate."
One of the problems is that, often, not many Members are in the Chamber itself. The difficulty is knowing whether they will be able to catch the Speaker's eye during a debate. There must be a better system of guaranteeing fairness, so that both sides can take part in the debate, obviously allowing for spontaneous interest and for interventions to take place in the debate. Surely, there must be a more formal way in which we can guarantee that Members will get individual slots, rather than having to try to catch the Speaker's eye in the rather old-fashioned way of bobbing up and down.
I add another thing about image: the issue of calling hon. Members "hon. Members" and not being able to use the word "you" in the Chamber--I am glad, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you have not just picked me up on that. There are occasions when the word "you" is used and is not meant to be a deliberate phrase against an individual, but the amount of times that I have been picked up on that in Committee is immensely irritating, and it stops the flow of thought. I find it very difficult. I am amazed at how Members and Deputy Speakers can do it, but I cannot remember the names of the constituencies of hon. Members. I would like to refer to them more often, but feel held back from doing that because we have to call them "hon. Members."
I had hoped to speak for only 10 minutes--to make the point that one of the ways in which the House could be improved would be for hon. Members to speak less--but I beg the House's indulgence to allow me quickly to make two more points, the first of which is on the resources and facilities provided to hon. Members.
Like other hon. Members, I have found it extremely difficult to work within our office cost allowances. Although my bank manager would tell me that I have always been bad with money, I have to say that, as evidence shows that more than 100 Members of Parliament overspent their most recent office cost allowance, we cannot all be bad with money. The allocation that we are given to run our offices is simply not adequate.
By the time that I have paid £12,000 for my rented office in Winchester--where one cannot find a cheaper office--and a similar amount to a researcher and to a secretary, in Westminster, to a dictation secretary, in my constituency, and for computers, I have nothing left. If hon. Members are going to be proper, democratically accountable Members of Parliament, providing a good service, they have a serious problem if they are not being provided with adequate resources to do the job properly.
I believe that the solution lies in having fewer and better-resourced--but also much more accountable--Members of Parliament. That is why I argue that there should be a legal requirement for hon. Members to produce an annual report, which would go to all their constituents, list what they have done, show that they are accountable and try to restore the link between the public's election of someone to this place and their knowledge of what those individuals are doing here, other than disappearing for four or five years.
If we made more resources available to hon. Members, but required them to be accountable, we would also help to restore the role of Members of Parliament, which is not highly valued in many constituencies.
I hope that the Modernisation Committee does not limit its work to narrow changes and to tweaks at the edges. I accept that, in this Parliament, we shall perhaps make progress only on hours and electronic voting. However, I believe that there is an enormous opportunity for the Government--a modernising Government who want to reconsider issues and be positive about creating a new democracy--to do some significant work, to bring in some consultants and to consider examples from around the world, to make real change in the way in which we run democracy.
My hope is based not on self-interest, but on a genuine belief that the way things are being run is not good, that we are turning off good people from coming into politics, and that we are turning off the electorate from the work that we do.
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