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Mr. Sheldon: Undoubtedly; I shall pay tribute any time on these matters to the hon. Gentleman.
It is essential that expenditure is considered and that useful comment is made on it. In that way, the Committee can see how Departments deal with problems that the Committee knows something about--for example, by accepting the estimates, putting them in limbo or amending them.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield): My right hon. Friend knows that I am a relatively new Chairman of a Select Committee. His recommendations place great demands on Select Committees and their staff. I find it very difficult, with the slender resources that we have, to give our full attention, in sufficient detail, to the growing burden of work. My Committee would like to do more work, but the staff and resources that we have are simply inadequate to do the job and be accountable to the House for the efficient working of the Select Committee. I was amazed at the smallness of the resources provided for doing an expanding job.
Mr. Sheldon: There is no question about that. We have quite a bit to say on staffing. I shall be dealing with that later, although not in any particular detail, as there is so much, and showing the kind of approach that I believe to be necessary.
We have at present three days of the Session on expenditure linked to Select Committee reports. We consider that that should be increased to six days. For more than 30 years, those interested in the ordering and priorities of public expenditure--including many in the Government and the civil service--have wanted these priorities to be debated and decided in a rather better way than has been the case for so long. That was, in effect, the birth of departmentally related Select Committees.
The proposals would make it possible to look at priorities and make assessments. There is now a great momentum in the country and the House for more informed and better decision making--no question about it. Resource accounting is expected to lead finally to a proper assessment of how we decide on the Government's detailed expenditure plans.
On the issue of evidence, uncorrected replies by Ministers are available on the internet the following day. We managed to get that concession, but other uncorrected evidence, which is reported in the press and on the radio, is not available on the internet or, indeed, in any other form. I have been saying for some time that all uncorrected evidence should automatically be available on the internet so that the following morning we can look up what has been said, as I do with ministerial evidence. Large typeface makes it clear that the evidence is uncorrected. It can, of course, be corrected subsequently. All uncorrected evidence should be available to everyone. We see that important evidence in the press, but we cannot get access to it for ourselves. That is nonsense, and I have made my views on that clear.
Sir Peter Emery (East Devon): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I was going to refer to him as my right hon. Friend because we have served in the House for so long together. I hope that he would not take that amiss.
Given the criticisms that the right hon. Gentleman has outlined and those contained in the report, and the fact that the Government talk about wanting to listen to the House, does he agree that it is not fair that this subject is being discussed in an Adjournment debate? There should be a proper motion so that the House can vote and show its disregard for the replies that were given to his two excellent reports.
Mr. Sheldon: I shall come to that matter before I conclude. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman--or perhaps I should say my right hon. Friend--for raising it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) mentioned staffing. The report deals with the format of our publications and the publicity that they receive. Those are important matters and I hope that they will receive full consideration. Staffing is also important. Responsibility for that lies partly within our own province, but we need the assistance of the Commission. Our demands are modest in comparison with demands generally. The whole expenditure of the Select Committee system is manageable if it is regarded as important. We have set out what staff would be needed to produce the information that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield wants. I will not go into detail, but it is in the report, and I hope that staffing will receive proper consideration.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) rightly makes much of the format of our publications, and it is awful that our reports are produced in such a way. Government reports have lots of colour and are fancy, but we are prohibited from publishing reports that look like that. It is an absurd situation and relegates us to the also-rans in the publicity stakes.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I am sorry to trouble the right hon. Gentleman at this stage of his speech, but will he press the rewind button and return to the subject of the composition of Committees? In light of his earlier remarks, does he agree that it is curious--to put it most charitably--that the Modernisation Committee should not
only be chaired by a member of the Government, no matter how distinguished that individual might be, but that it should also include no fewer than three parliamentary private secretaries to Ministers? Is it not wrong that such a Committee of the House should have the fingerprints of the Government Whips Office all over it?
Mr. Sheldon: I should not like to comment on that. I have a great deal of admiration for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. She was born in my constituency, remember. She visits it from time to time and I welcome her with great pleasure.
Following our first report "Shifting the Balance", other commentators have published plans that largely follow our main recommendations. They go further than our report, but their involvement gives an idea of the pressure for change that has certainly been aroused. Three or four major non-Select Committee reports have commented on the future and how we should proceed.
Early-day motion 1135 was tabled yesterday. It is signed by the 30 Select Committee Chairmen. I do not usually sign early-day motions, but I was delighted to sign this one. The signatories include the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, both Chairmen of the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee. All 30 are dedicated Members of the House who seek to improve the administration and competence of the Government and the laws of our country.
The report was passed unanimously by the Select Committee Chairmen, all of whom are senior Members of the House. On Tuesday, substantive motions were introduced in the Chamber on the second report of the Modernisation Committee, but that Committee was divided on its report, not unanimous. Proposals to implement the majority report of the divided Committee were agreed to. I am not arguing against that, but explaining that our report was unanimous. We are entitled to ask for substantive motions on it to be put to the House.
2.57 pm
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): Perhaps the first and most important point to make is that the Government are not attacking the worth of the work done by Select Committees, nor do we seek in any way to weaken their responsibilities, independence or role in the House. It should not be necessary to say that, but I think it is necessary because of the way in which the Government's response to the very profound and far-reaching recommendations in the Liaison Committee's report have been reported and described.
The Liaison Committee itself describes its proposals as modest. It does itself less than justice. My own view is that the overall impact of its recommendations would be profound. They would impinge on the role of every individual Member in the House, not just on the way in which the House deals with the Executive. It is arguable that they would even impinge on our constitutional conventions because it seems to me that the Committee envisages a perceptible shift away from the long- established role of Select Committees--perhaps going back hundreds of years--to scrutinise decisions of Government, and towards Select Committees beginning,
unprecedentedly, to substitute their judgment for that of Government. [Interruption.] I am glad to hear that the Opposition agree that that is what is envisaged. It is, of course, worthy of discussion, but it is a profound and not a modest change.Moreover, recommendations in the Liaison Committee's report, such as the call for decisions to be taken on substantive motions, may well lead to greater party pressure on Select Committees and their members than is the case at present or, indeed, has been the case for many years. I accept, of course, that the case of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) was an exception, but we all know that, outrageous though that case may have been, it was probably unique and certainly did no good to those who brought it about.
Let me remind the House that the Government have already and without pressure made improvements for Select Committees. The European Scrutiny Committee has been given new scope and a new remit--the full role that it should have had. Select Committees have been given a role in examining treaties and draft legislation. Albeit with some opposition from the Opposition, the rules have already been eased--we are perfectly prepared to look at them afresh--to make it easier for Committees to work together. Guidance has been issued telling Departments to co-operate with Select Committee reviews of their previous work, as well as on-going reports and recommendations. Moreover, the Westminster Hall experiment has meant that the number of debates on Select Committee reports is now higher than even the most ambitious Committee ever requested, and the matter may be reconsidered. Far from resisting the extension of scrutiny, the current Government have shown remarkable willingness to envisage greater scrutiny, and that shift towards greater scrutiny has been larger in the three years of this Government than in many previous years.
However, as I have already said, one fundamental principle underpins the Government's approach to Select Committee work: it is that Select Committees exist, as they always have, to scrutinise the decisions made by Government, not to substitute their own judgment for that of the Executive. Those who draw simple comparisons between our work and that of other legislatures sometimes overlook the huge difference between a legislature in which the Executive is not represented, and one from which the Executive draws its authority and to which members of the Executive are, as Ministers, personally accountable. For example, accountability for ministerial appointments runs through the Minister directly to the Members of this House as the legislature, and the Minister is answerable for the decisions that he or she takes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) referred to the Liaison Committee's proposals for which legislative authority is sought, but he knows, and I remind the House, that, as is pointed out in the Government's reply,
- The Committee on Standards in Public Life considered this issue and recommended not Select Committee hearings, but a Commissioner for Public Appointments.
The Government have been accused of rejecting "virtually every recommendation" in the Liaison Committee report. I reject that accusation. The Government wholeheartedly accept the need for joint working,
whether between Committees in this House or between Committees in this House and in the House of Lords. The Government also accept the Committee's strictures on the need for sound and timely responses to Select Committee reports. We do not dispute a number of recommendations made by the Liaison Committee about what is best practice and how that can be spread. Several other recommendations are for the Select Committees themselves, but the Government do not in any way disagree with them.However, there is a genuine and key difficulty, which might have led to the remarks I mentioned earlier, in that a substantial number of the recommendations made by the Committee depend on one central and key recommendation relating to the role of the Chairman of the Liaison Committee and his or her colleagues on that Committee: the report proposes an enormous increase in their role and authority. The Government believe that that needs serious and thoughtful examination because it has genuinely profound implications for the working of the House as a whole.
Let me highlight one of the central propositions underlying the report--one that does not depend directly on the detailed proposals regarding the role of the Liaison Committee, but does underpin many of the recommendations. I refer to the thrust of the recommendations that would, in effect, establish a separate career structure for Members of the House who choose to make a Select Committee route the chief focus of their work as Members of Parliament.
I fully recognise, as do the Government, that it has long been argued that not only is the work of Select Committees valuable, but it should be even more highly regarded than it is today. That is a view I strongly share. However, in many ways, the route to that greater regard lies in the hands of individual members of Select Committees themselves. The report deplores the fact that some hon. Members are less than assiduous in their attendance at the Select Committee to which they are appointed, suggesting that some have been appointed who are less than anxious to serve on those Select Committees. All of those problems, which I realise are genuine, appear to lie at the door of the Whips of the relevant parties and the appointments mechanism itself.
I suggest to the House, in all seriousness, that we ought to stop and think for a moment about what we are saying about the interests and concerns of individual Members. The stated assumption is that there is a plethora of Members of Parliament burning to serve on the Select Committees in place of those who, for whatever reason, have found it difficult to find sufficient time to carry out their Select Committee responsibilities. Would that it were always so. All Members of Parliament carry more burdens and face more calls on their time and more responsibilities than any human being can sustain; they all have to make choices about their priorities, but only the individual Member can make his or her own choices. I accept that the Liaison Committee has tried, in all good faith, to find answers to the question of how we make Select Committees work more highly regarded, but I maintain that many of the answers to the problem that they pose lie in the hands of individual Members themselves, in the attitude they adopt to the work of the Select Committees, in the nature of their reports and in the studies that are carried out.
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