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Mr. John Healey (Wentworth): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way on that point. Does she agree that the case is not made in the report and that it is not self-evident that a system whereby three individuals, no matter how senior, would decide on the nominations to all Select Committees would not necessarily produce a more transparent system, a system less open to the influence of patronage or party, or a system that would bring about a stronger Select Committee scrutiny process?
Mrs. Beckett: I share my hon. Friend's reservations. The situation is bad enough now, even within party and even within our party, where we have a structure for the proposals. There are occasions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) correctly identified, when such appointments become a matter of considerable contention. There is the real possibility that it could be a matter of even more contention where a group of individuals exercise the patronage and are explicitly intended to be outside the normal system and route of pressure.
I shall say no more about that now, as I must make progress. I am conscious of the time that I have taken, and I must deal with a couple of other issues.
The report suggests also that we ought to increase the business taken in the main Chamber. That, as hon. Members will recognise, goes against the flow not only of the handling of business in the House over many years, but of many reports that have come from outside this place from people--about whose work I am sometimes sceptical--who have asked how Parliament can be made of more interest. As far as I am aware, none of them has suggested that we should add to the work of the House; indeed, many have suggested that we should reduce the work of the Chamber.
The Liaison Committee proposes not only that we should move the ten-minute rule procedure from a Tuesday to a Monday, which I would be reluctant to do, as it is very much to the advantage of an individual private Member, but that we should add to the business in the main Chamber at prime time by providing an opportunity to debate briefly a Select Committee report shortly after it has been produced, with the Minister being required to give, in effect, an off-the-cuff response to what might and should be, if we are to take the Select Committees as seriously as we ought, a report of considerable weight and moment.
There are already--there always are--more claims on prime time in the main Chamber than any Government have been able to entertain. Of course, under the present Government, there is scope to expand the opportunities for Select Committee scrutiny in Westminster Hall--opportunities that are, perhaps, not as fully exploited at present as they might be.
There are other suggestions about how debates on Select Committee reports should be handled. It is proposed that those debates should be taken on substantive motions. I understand that, of course, but I simply say to the House that if Select Committee reports are to be taken on a substantive motion which gives an expression of opinion about the recommendations of that report, there is no way that will not become a matter of party political interest and party political decision and pressure.
Anyone who imagines that that party political interest and pressure will confine itself merely to the occasion when the report is debated is living in cloud cuckoo land. Any Government who did not take an interest in the likely recommendations of a Select Committee would be taking no heed of their interests and of the position in which they might find themselves in the House.
I had always understood that one of the most cherished traditions of our Select Committees was that they should be able to be independent in party political terms. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne rightly referred to that in his remarks.
If we are to see decisions of substance being put to the House on the recommendations of Select Committees, we are going in the opposite direction; so too are we on the mechanics. The proposal of the Committee is that such votes should not only be substantive, but that they should be taken not at a fixed time, as they are, say, on estimates day at present, but whenever the debate of substance on the report comes to an end.
We are talking about more debates and decisions in prime time; we are talking about their being taken on a basis where there will be a party political interest; and we are talking about their being taken at unpredictable times, not at a fixed time, as now arranged for the convenience of the House. All these proposals in their different ways run counter to the way in which the House has been moving for the past 10 years.
There is much in the Liaison Committee's report that is worthy of serious consideration. There is very little in it that is of so little weight and substance that it justifies the House simply accepting it and coming to a decision off the cuff and without mature consideration.
I make one final observation on that, in response to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton and her hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). Two days ago the Government brought before the House programming proposals which have been aired, discussed, re-discussed, recommended and considered for a minimum of 10, and probably more like 20, years.
In sharp contrast, we have been invited, not just by the hon. Lady and her hon. Friend, but by many engaged in the report, after its publication to move to a decision on it today, before even the formality of an initial debate in the House. The Government were not and are not prepared
to take that step. This is the initial debate. This is the first opportunity that anyone in the House has had to pronounce on the recommendations of the Liaison Committee, and sadly--I use that word advisedly; it is sad--we all know that not many hon. Members will have focused on the detailed implications of what the Liaison Committee proposes.
Mr. John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon): The right hon. Lady says that the House is invited to come to substantive conclusions when it has not had the opportunity to discuss the issues. When that matter was put to her in several interventions on Tuesday, she denied that that was the case and said that it was perfectly all right, when the Government tabled proposals, for extensive debate and discussion not to take place. Today she is saying the contrary.
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman seems not to have followed the point that I have just made--most uncharacteristically, I know. What I said today is precisely what I said on Tuesday. The issues that we decided on Tuesday--it was Tuesday, was it not? Sometimes the days run together--were issues that had been aired and discussed in various forms--[Interruption.] They were discussed in the Select Committee on Procedure and were part of the recommendations of the Jopling report 10 years ago.
One of those on the hon. Gentleman's Front Bench--speaking, I accept, as an individual, but as a member of the then Government--recommended the Jopling committee's proposals. I referred to that on Tuesday night. The vast bulk of that advice was that we should go to programming of all our discussions and all our legislation. To compare that with this report, which has come out only in this Session and which is being aired in the House for the first time, is not, I suggest to the hon. Gentleman, a valid comparison.
Sir Peter Emery: The Leader of the House's comments on guillotining or programming are true: the procedure has been around for a long time. However, the concept of taking votes which would usually be taken after 10 pm on Wednesday at 3 pm is new. It has hardly been discussed in the Modernisation Committee. The idea that it was all right to present that proposal to the Committee, vote on it with next to no debate, and almost guillotine that debate, is unacceptable. We must get the facts right. The right hon. Lady is correct about programming, but wrong about voting.
Mrs. Beckett: I accept that there is a substantial difference between the two, but I stress two points. First, on Tuesday, I made the point--albeit one that the right hon. Gentleman does not consider valid--that on occasions, we separate the decision from the debate, especially in the case of Report and Committee stage. Earlier, I referred to another occasion when we do that: estimates days. It has been decided for the convenience of the House to take a vote at a specific point. The Liaison Committee suggests that we should reverse that.
Secondly, while I accept that the proposal for a specific day on specific issues was new to the House--although it had been discussed in the Modernisation Committee--the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) knows that the principle has been before us for a long time.
Tony Wright (Cannock Chase): I apologise for impeding my right hon. Friend's progress, but I should
like her to clarify a point. She said, quite properly, that it would be improper to have a vote after a first debate. For the avoidance of doubt and for the record, can I establish that there will be a second debate, when a vote will be held, and that, as the Prime Minister promised, it will be a free vote?
Mrs. Beckett: It depends what exactly my hon. Friend means. He is right to say that, when the Prime Minister was asked whether any vote on the matter would be a free vote, my right hon. Friend confirmed that, as always for Labour Members, votes on House matters are free votes. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) will note that I emphasise that point because many Conservative Members had grave reservations about the report, but they seem to have diminished or evaporated since Conservative Front Benchers expressed pronounced views in favour of it. The Prime Minister gave an assurance that free votes are held on House matters. He went so far and no further. [Interruption.] I must progress.
The Government welcome much in the Liaison Committee's report. Indeed, we would have liked the Committee to say much more about the implications for joint working between Departments and for cross-cutting the Select Committees than the report contains. I should have liked the Committee to say more, not only about the publication of draft legislation, but about the role that Select Committees can play in post-legislative scrutiny, and in ascertaining how legislation works in practice, as opposed to the way in which we imagine it will work when we put it on the statute book.
I am mindful that, whether recommendations are made for the scrutiny of the financial reports of Departments or for pre-legislative or post-legislative scrutiny, we stray increasingly into the realm of prescribing Select Committee's actions. That has hitherto been unwelcome to Select Committees. I was reminded of that again by the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne. That aspect of the report deserves further consideration.
I have said nothing about the available resources, whether for our method of paying for the Chairs of Select Committees, for extra research support for them or for such support for Select Committees. Those matters are all worthy of consideration. However, just as those issues are important, the full package that is currently proposed could completely reshape the work of a Member of Parliament, create two-tier or even three-tier membership structures in the House and bring Select Committees into government and party politics. That has hitherto been anathema to those who have so much admired our Select Committee structure.
The proposals in the report are worthy of examination. None should be decided off the cuff.
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