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Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his generous remarks in referring to this incident in parliamentary development and history. Does he agree that the real nonsense of the proposal--dreamed up by the then Government Whips Office to prevent my reappointment to the Health Committee--was that it referred only to Conservative Members? The real problem was not only that it was a plot by the then Government Whips Office, but that the Opposition Whips Office connived.

Mr. Sheldon: The interesting thing was that I was about to embark on my fourth Parliament as Chairman of the PAC and there was no problem with that. I was criticising all sorts of people, as I have done unfailingly throughout my period in this House.

The introduction of a new system to deal with a problem such as that is clearly wrong and we must find better ways of handling such matters. In light of the current demands for modernisation--a matter discussed on Tuesday, when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House played a prominent role--it is wholly unacceptable for the Government, through their Whips, to choose the very Members who will be examining aspects of the Government. Nor should the charge be made--however unfairly--that the basis of membership of a Select Committee should be at the disposal of party, rather than the basis being the Member's knowledge, understanding and commitment.

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The Liaison Committee proposed that the Committee should be renamed the Select Committee Panel and that it should copy the role of the Chairmen's Panel for Standing Committees. The proposal is that the Chairman would have two Deputy Chairmen. The current membership of the Liaison Committee is 33; it is too large for detailed decision-making. The Panel should have the power to appoint an executive of the Committee and the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen, after consideration with all concerned, would put forward names for the House to consider.

I emphasise that the important point is not the precise formulation by the Committee, but that there should be a firm acceptance that Members examining the Government should not be chosen by the Government; nor should they be chosen on the basis of convenience to the party managers.

The Whips have an important role to play in putting forward names for consideration. They have a detailed knowledge of the interests and concerns of Members, and that information needs to be relayed to the Panel who would put the names of Members to the House to accept, reject or amend. We wish to make the House much more involved in the manner and details of selection.

Paragraph 29 of the report mentions "An alternative career".

Ministerial office has a powerful attraction for many back-benchers on the government side of the House. But it is a matter of concern when able and effective select committee members--and sometimes even Chairmen--are so easily tempted by the lowliest of government and opposition appointments. We must be realistic about this; many Members understandably aspire to be Ministers, and of course former Ministers bring valuable knowledge and experience to their service on select committees.

It goes on to say:

What we would like to see is a better balance between the attractions of government office and of service on select committees. If all the recommendations in this report are implemented, we think there will be a significant shift in that balance. Members generally (and perhaps especially those relatively new to the House) should then see service on select committees as a career path which, in terms of status and influence, will be a proper reward for their hard work and commitment.

It is probable that a career path is more important now that the House of Commons has 659 Members who have an overwhelmingly full-time commitment to the parliamentary process. This has been an undoubted change over the past five or 10 years--certainly in the many years since I first came to the House. Not only can proper use be made of their time but a proper scrutiny of Government can be undertaken which many members of the Government respect, appreciate and frequently welcome. Civil servants frequently make that point to me.

One of the most useful suggestions to emerge from the valuable meeting that we had last autumn at the London school of economics was from the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis). Paragraph 40 says:

What is needed is a new way of giving timely and effective exposure to reports. We propose that, once a week after Questions, there should be a period of half an hour devoted to a report--normally one published within the previous fortnight. The proceedings would begin with a Minister giving an initial response to the report for five minutes . . .

The recommendation is for an initial response, not a final response. After all, the press and everyone else give an initial response. Let the Government say which matters

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need to be considered. They do that in emergency situations; why not in this case? Paragraph 40 goes on to say that the initial response would be

followed by the Chairman of the committee, or another Member speaking on its behalf, for five minutes. The remainder of the half-hour would give an opportunity for Opposition front-benchers to comment, together with any back-benchers who caught the eye of the Chair. A procedure of this sort is already used in some other Parliaments, for example in Australia and Canada.

There is nothing new about the suggestion. We are saying that there are 659 Members of Parliament, but where are they all? What are they doing? There is plenty of work here for them to do, and the sooner they devote themselves to it and develop an alternative career structure, the better. We may want to reduce the numbers of Members of Parliament at some stage in the future, but that is a very long way off. Meanwhile, there is work for them to do.

Paragraph 40 concludes that the introduction of such a procedure here

would help to keep the work of select committees at the forefront of Parliamentary and public attention.

Half an hour is not very long, and such a debate could be fitted in easily. If the House regards all the work we do and the reports we produce as important, they should be worth half an hour's debate a week.

I shall now deal with some of the other recommendations. Paragraph 52 says:

Some select committees have made a practice of following up their recommendations and criticisms at regular intervals; and the Agriculture and Defence Committees produce annual reports bringing matters up to date and detailing any progress made. This is an area where we believe that concerted action will have a disproportionate effect. Accordingly, we will expect all appropriate select committees, by the rise of the House for the Christmas 2000 recess, to assess progress on "live" recommendations and criticisms, and to report. This may be possible with written evidence only; or one or more oral evidence hearings may be necessary. But we are in no doubt of the value of the exercise.

This recommendation follows the monitoring by the National Audit Office--incidentally, I happen to be the chairman of the Public Accounts Commission. The NAO produces reports which are examined and commented on by the members of the Public Accounts Committee. Those comments are published in a report, and it does not end there. The NAO is asked to keep the matter under review, and it does. A year or so later, it tells the PAC that progress has been such-and-such and the matter is considered further. That is an automatic process, and we propose that it should also be applied to Select Committee reports. At present, so much of the work of the Select Committee is dealt with in the report and the matter does not proceed very much further. It needs to be monitored in the same way.

Paragraph 55 says:

Each committee should make its annual report before Christmas each year. In the following January, we (or our successor Panel)--

if it is introduced--

will consider all the reports, with two aims: first, to draw conclusions about the overall effectiveness of the select committee system; and second, to address any problems affecting committees, such as--for example--access to documents, attendance of witnesses, or quality of government replies.

One area where there is a need for monitoring is that of departmental expenditure plans. Not much time is spent on them at present--it is not very well organised.

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Of course, the estimates are very difficult to read, other than by those who have a professional or particular interest. However, it is crucial. In Public Accounts Committee annual debates, I used to tease Select Committees whose members did not examine departmental proposals in the estimates. I used to say, "For heaven's sake, let us just say that we agree with everything that the Department is doing, and move on to the next business." That shows what a nonsense it is. However, it is now possible to do something about that because resource accounting will make it much easier for Committees to understand and focus on expenditure, and to make useful comments on it and the order of the priorities involved.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the view on estimates that he is expressing to the House on behalf of the Liaison Committee, which he chairs with distinction, is also fully reflected in the unanimous report to the House from the Procedure Committee?

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