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Mrs. Browning: The right hon. Lady correctly points out those aspects of the Liaison Committee report with which she disagrees, and she explained her reasons clearly. Does she not understand that, had she tabled orders on a substantive motion on the report, she could have identified her areas of concern and we, as Members of Parliament, could have voted on them or tabled amendments? The trouble is that we now face an all-or-nothing situation, not her carefully thought-through reasons for disagreeing with certain aspects of the report.
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Lady is entirely wrong. I shall presently discuss her point but, for the moment, I simply say that this is the first occasion on which the House has had an opportunity to discuss these matters. It is the first occasion on which hon. Members have had the chance to express their views and, in fact, the first occasion on which I have had an opportunity to express my views on the Floor of the House. That is all--no more, no less. Nothing about today's debate will confine the House's options in future.
Mr. Bercow: Will the right hon. Lady give way on that point?
Mrs. Beckett: No, I shall get on. I may give way on it later. [Interruption.] I have not finished making my case, and I want to complete this part of my speech.
Certainly, I take the view that were appointments to Select Committees in comparatively few hands--particularly at the outset in a new Parliament, but even later in a Parliament--we would not have dispensed with a system of patronage and information about the interests of Members or about who may or may not be a worthy person to contribute to a Select Committee's work. Instead, we would have replaced a system of patronage that all know and understand and relate to the system of patronage within the parliamentary parties with a free-standing system of patronage that would depend entirely on the judgment of individuals, on the information that was made available to those individuals and on the channel of knowledge and influence that they themselves, as individual Members of the House, would exercise.
I do not doubt--I say this in all sincerity--that there is a case to be made for such proposals. I simply say that they are indeed important proposals that should be seriously considered and not merely nodded through or accepted as if they were of no consequence whatever, because they are of considerable consequence to every Member of the House.
I know that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, "We should have an opportunity to put our views." If I recall correctly, the Leader of the Opposition committed the Conservative party, from the Opposition
Dispatch Box, to accepting many of the proposals. I very much doubt whether he had read all the report before he did so. My response to the hon. Lady is that hon. Members should re-read the report, think about it and come to a view about whether the proposed path is the one that the House should tread.
Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford): Is not the essence of the right hon. Lady's argument the fact that she objects to the transfer of power from the Government, the individuals who lead the Government Whips Office and the Leader of the House to those who are elected by Parliament?
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. After all, however the names arise--I shall discuss that in a second--they will be put to the House on a motion with which the House could disagree. He will know that although it is rare for the House to disagree with a nomination, it has been known to do so. I cannot recall whether I shall discuss this matter further later in my speech; if I do, I apologise to the House for the repetition. Whatever the position of the Conservative party--in this context or in others, it has never been my practice to dwell on private grief--my party has a procedure, which is neither infallible nor perfect, for self-nomination to the membership of Select Committees. That procedure is open, and recommendations have to be put to my party for affirmation before they are put forward by the Whips to the Committee of Selection. There is no need for a wholly changed system to secure input of that kind.
Mr. Bercow: A few moments ago, the right hon. Lady observed that this is the House's first opportunity to debate the report, and she apparently sought thereby to justify the fact that we shall not have a chance to vote on it today. Does she agree, on reflection, that that is an entirely spurious argument, because the fact that every Second Reading debate is also the first opportunity to consider a Bill's merits or demerits is not used to justify holding a debate on an Adjournment motion?
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me; although I shall come back to his argument, I shall not respond at this point.
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway): My right hon. Friend's point about the number of people who are involved in selection is, of course, one of substance; it is also a point of detail, and that detail can be changed if the principle is accepted. Does she understand that the principle in this context--the root principle in terms of patronage--is that such people will of course exercise patronage, but that they will do so on behalf of the House of Commons and that they will do so transparently? There is a difference between that and patronage being exercised by the Whips, transparently on behalf of the Government or party, which is a completely different matter.
Mrs. Beckett: I shall make two brief points to my hon. and learned Friend. To pick up the latter first, yes, he is quite right--the situation that he described is different from a role exercised in a party, whether the party of opposition or of government. There is scope for a debate about the way in which we, in the House and in
this country, discuss the role of the party--I might have much to say, perhaps when I retire from the Front Bench, on that. I think that we take too little account of the role of political parties. With the possible exception of the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), whose circumstances are unique, not one hon. Member is in Parliament for any reason other than because we are representatives of our parties. However, the workings of the House continue to treat all hon. Members as if we were gentlemen and amateurs who were returned to the House several hundred years ago. That approach does not reflect the role and the existence of parties, although it should do so, and I take issue with my hon. and learned Friend in that respect. Only in this country is it considered somehow ignoble to be a party representative, and to be above parties is considered to be the highest accolade that a politician can receive. It is usually given when politicians are either superannuated or about to be kicked out of their party.
Mr. David Davis: Given what the right hon. Lady has just said, I hope that she will not take it amiss if I say that I look forward to her return to the Back Benches, if only so that she can reveal that information.
On the very important point that was made by the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), the difference that the right hon. Lady did not highlight--between members of the Liaison Committee choosing which parts of the Queen's Speech should be presented as draft legislation before going through the normal procedure, and the Government so choosing--is that members of the Liaison Committee have a single interest: enhancing scrutiny.
Since the genesis of that argument, a good example of the reverse situation has occurred in the Public Accounts Committee. A year or so ago, my Committee was promised a draft of what became the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000. The arrangements were such that it was impossible for the Committee to examine the draft Bill, with the result, which is understood by hon. Members on both sides of the House, that it was badly flawed. That situation arose because the Government and the Scrutiny Committees have different interests with regard to Bills.
Mrs. Beckett: Without dwelling on what I know was a matter of contention and disagreement in the past, I simply say to the right hon. Gentleman that I hope he is aware that the Government have already proposed further mechanisms whereby hon. Members across the House can give an opinion about the weight that they give to various proposals. It is true that, like our predecessors, we have at present only a limited range of proposals about what is looked at in draft, but I hope and anticipate that we will expand that aspect of dealing with legislation. The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not dwell on that now.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) made a slightly different point about structure. I say to him--with the deepest respect for my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne and for any others who may be proposed as part of the initial group that begins to make appointments--that much thought needs to be given, not least by hon. Members who have not been engaged in the discussions on the Liaison Committee and who may not have considered as fully as my right hon. Friend no doubt has, to the full implications of the recommendations.
If we were to take the route recommended in the report, we would have a separate group of hon. Members not coming through the route of party office--hon. Members who may be in that position and hold that responsibility for far longer than anyone does, given the transient nature of appointments in our party political structure.
Those hon. Members would, as individuals, exercise enormous influence. How would they make their judgments, as now we do, about which new hon. Members coming in were particularly interested? Yes, there could be self-nomination and so on, but we all know what will happen: they would draw on the experience, understanding and discussion of other hon. Members. That is what happens now, but it happens through the Whips Office and with party influence and changing personnel. These are interesting ideas, but they require considerable thought and weighing.
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