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Mr. Phil Hope (Corby): The right hon. Gentleman talks about the rights of Back Benchers to scrutinise Parliament. Will he explain why Conservative members of the Education and Employment Committee attended only one third of the meetings they were entitled to attend?
Mr. Hague: What a devastating piece of information. Hon. Members of all parties do their best to attend Select Committees. [Hon. Members: "Answer."] I will give the answer, which concerns what really needs doing with Select Committees. I agree with the Liaison Committee report on Select Committees. The Government claim to have given more time for debates on Select Committee reports, but that is no substitute for giving real power and independence to Select Committees and making sure that Parliament can exercise rigorous scrutiny of the Government.
Twenty-one of the 33 members who produced the Liaison Committee report are Labour Members, and they say:
- There has been a tendency to use the extent or frequency of debates on select committee reports as a criterion of success.
It is time to reform the House of Commons and improve our procedures, but not with reforms that diminish our power to scrutinise Government legislation and not with Modernisation Committee reports that make it easier for Ministers to avoid being held accountable to Parliament.
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby): My right hon. Friend may be interested to know that, at a meeting of the Select Committee on International Development two weeks ago, four members out of eleven were present--three Conservatives and one Liberal.
Mr. Hague: We could go on with these records for a long time. The point is that Select Committees need strengthening.
The so-called Modernisation Committee was supposed to come up with reforms that would strengthen Parliament, and it set out its spirited aims last year. Its wishes were to restore the Chamber as a place where the Executive is held properly to account by Members; where Government policy is first announced and tested; and where the terms of trade between Government and House are shifted back to the House. These are aims that I unreservedly support, and reforms to Parliament which promote them should be universally supported across this House.
However, the latest report from the Modernisation Committee has tragically failed its own remit. Its latest report proposes changes to the programming of legislation and the timing of votes that would shift the terms of trade in the opposite direction by greatly reducing the opportunities for the Opposition--and the Government's own Back Benchers--to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account.
Mr. Hague: I have given way several times, and I will give way again later.
The report proposes timetabling all Government Bills and delaying all votes which would otherwise be taken after 10 o'clock until the following Wednesday afternoon. These proposals represent a serious assault on the power of Back Benchers. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Shouting will not help the tempo of the debate and will make no difference to whether or not the right hon. Gentleman takes interventions.
Mr. Hague: These proposals represent a serious assault on the power of Back Benchers. Delaying votes until days after a debate strips away any possibility that a Member
of Parliament may be influenced by what has been said in the debate before a Division, and is designed mainly for the convenience of the Government because even the Prime Minister could get a decent voting record, as the votes would coincide with his weekly visits to the House of Commons. The ideas of the Modernisation Committee have not come--
Mr. Hague: I shall not give way until I have talked about the Modernisation Committee for a few moments.
The ideas have not come from Back Benchers, but have been driven forward by the Leader of the House, who is the Chairman of the Committee. I have a copy of the first draft of the report, the top of which shows that it was faxed to Parliament from an office in Whitehall. Nothing could symbolise better how the rights and relevance of Parliament are being progressively diminished by the Government themselves than the fact that the reports of our own Committee now originate in Whitehall.
The minority report of the Modernisation Committee notes:
- The absolute divorce of decision from discussion in the method proposed, for the convenience of government supporters, will heighten cynicism about the relevance of debate and discussion, and undermines the parliamentary process.
We should look at the history of recent late sittings. The House sat until 3 am on the remaining stages of the Terrorism Bill in March because Labour Back Benchers and Liberal Democrat Members were alarmed at what they felt were the implications for civil liberties. Parliament gave them a platform so that they could have their say.
The House sat until 1 am in early April considering the Freedom of Information Bill because Labour Back Benchers were deeply unhappy with legislation which, they felt, did not match their party's commitments. They wanted to press the Government to improve the Bill.
Opportunities for debate do not just make better Back Benchers--they make better Ministers, too. When I was a junior Minister taking a Bill through the House, there were times when the late Bob Cryer would debate the detail of it exhaustively with me, testing whether I knew what I was talking about. It is a good job for the Prime Minister that Bob Cryer is not here today, as he would not have been afraid of questioning Labour Ministers any more than he was of questioning Conservative Ministers.
Today, people such as my right hon. Friends the Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) do that to Labour Ministers. I am sure that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) spoke for many Members when she said that neither of my right hon. Friends was automatically high on the list of people whom she loved dearly. However, she thought that their actions were legitimate, and said:
- Parliament cannot be organised into a nice, neat tidy bundle so that the Executive takes decisions, tells Parliament what it has decided and produces Bill that, even if they are wrong, can be
- presented as a package and pushed through, because no one any longer alters a word of them.--[Official Report, 22 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 687.]
The answer to those who say that staying up late to debate Government legislation is wearing them out is simple: we should have a legislative programme that is not so packed that there is no scope for debate. We should have a legislative programme that is not so bursting at the seams that even its own supporters cannot press amendments. We should have a legislative programme that is not so stuffed with poorly drafted Bills that it requires hundreds of Government amendments that are never even considered. The Modernisation Committee's approach to the weight of the legislative programme should not be to make it even easier for Ministers to force their business through, which further weakens the vital link in this House between the governed and the Government.
The House needs reform. [Interruption.] I shall give way to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) before putting forward my own reforms.
Mr. Peter Bradley (The Wrekin): Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the point of whether he knows what he is talking about, may I ask a question? He does not have a country to run and does not have policies to develop, as that is the job of the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo). All he has to do is sit in his office and dream up punch lines for Prime Minister's questions. In those circumstances, will he explain why he votes in less than a third of Divisions?
Mr. Hague: Attacking me for voting 32 per cent of the time when the Prime Minister votes 5 per cent. of the time strikes me as a spectacular own goal. The Prime Minister has enough time to run around for a photo opportunity every day, so he should have enough time to come to the House of Commons.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield): As a member of the Modernisation Committee, can I ask my right hon. Friend how he believes the House should deal with a situation in which the timing of votes means that votes on matters discussed after 10 o'clock on a Wednesday or Thursday, and on which there will be a Division, will not be taken until the following Wednesday? How will the House deal with Members who were not even in the country when the debate took place; and how will it deal with those who took part in the debate but who, for legitimate parliamentary reasons, cannot attend the following Wednesday afternoon?
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