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Mrs. Beckett: I am sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman say that. I know that some hon. Members take that view, but the reports that the Modernisation Committee has received do not show that it is widely shared, any more than it is believed to detract from the Chamber when Committees or other arrangements are held at the same time.
Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the view of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is not held universally? Some technical subjects or others that affect only some hon. Members--for example a recent debate on park home owners, and another on electronic conveyancing in which I participated--should be discussed in the House. However, there is insufficient time to do that in the Chamber and it is therefore appropriate to use Westminster Hall.
Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Apart from the many hon. Members who have already obtained debates in Westminster Hall and found it a satisfactory outlet, I know from the remarks of those who take the Chair there that they have sat through some excellent debates. It is not likely that we would have been able to find time for them on the Floor, but they are nevertheless worth while.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet): If my right hon. Friend listened to Home Office questions earlier, she will have heard me raise a subject that is important to me: proposals to relax the double jeopardy rule. We were able to debate that rule in great depth in Westminster Hall some weeks ago at an early stage of the proposals. We would not have been able to get involved at such an early stage of a consultation exercise without Westminster Hall and Thursday afternoon debates.
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, which all hon. Members should take seriously. He identifies the way in which our new flexibility enables the House to do more work. Surely that is helpful.
Some hon. Members continue to question the use of Adjournment debates, but the Government believe that they are a vital part of parliamentary scrutiny. The relevant Ministers and their officials must thoroughly consider the topics that will be raised in the debate and be sure of their ground. They are a valuable means of holding the Executive to account. Although they are sometimes regarded as routine and unglamorous, they can be searching.
Westminster Hall has already provided an extra 170 debates, or 120 hours of parliamentary time. In returning debates before the recess to the Floor of the House, it has also increased Back-Bench opportunities in the Chamber.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): I have found Adjournment debates useful in focusing a Minister's attention on a specific problem. However, could not that be done on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and, indeed--
Mr. Swayne: No, I would not go so far as Friday. As so many Labour Members are keen to have ordinary office hours, could not Adjournment debates be held on those mornings when the Chamber does not sit? Many Conservative Members resent the fact that Westminster Hall functions while the Chamber is working. Hon. Members cannot be in two places at once.
Mrs. Beckett: Westminster Hall will function on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings without clashing with the Chamber. As we said earlier, sometimes sittings in the Chamber clash with events elsewhere. However, the House is experienced at juggling different issues.
Select Committee reports have also benefited from Westminster Hall. To date, 15 extra debates have been held on Select Committee reports. The Modernisation Committee proposes that the allocation of debates on Select Committee reports should be increased. That will be done if the reports and motions that we are discussing are approved.
When this matter was discussed in the House, regrettably there was a misunderstanding when I referred to the possibility of those extra debates. It seems to have been assumed that I was threatening to reduce the time set aside for Committees. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Modernisation Committee felt that, of the experiments that have taken place in Westminster Hall so far, the Government Adjournment debates were the least successful part of the experiment, so those debates will be reduced to provide more time for consideration of Select Committee reports. I trust that that will be a welcome change.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon): In considering the use of Westminster Hall for further debates, could the right hon. Lady examine the possibility of discussing reports coming through from the National Assembly for Wales--I shall not refer to Scotland--and the matters arising from those reports that need the House's attention, perhaps through legislative amendment? There needs to be a forum in which they can be debated by Members not just from Wales, as can be done in the Welsh Grand Committee, but from elsewhere.
Mrs. Beckett: The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, and he obviously has some ideas in mind. From the beginning, the Government have set their face against the use of Westminster Hall to extend legislative opportunity. We were anxious that it should be used to extend scrutiny and debate, rather than to add an extra channel for legislation. It depends on exactly what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind, but no doubt he and his colleagues will return to the matter.
Mr. Winnick: In order to disprove the view that fewer Members attend debates in this Chamber because of Westminster Hall, I should point out that no Westminster Hall debates are taking place at the moment but the
Opposition Benches are not full of Members. There are eight Conservative Members on the Back Benches, one of whom may be a Front-Bench spokesperson. Surely that shows that Westminster Hall does not take away attendance from this Chamber, as has been suggested.
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend is entirely right. There is no evidence that Westminster Hall detracts from attendance in this Chamber.
As the report emphasises, this is an experiment and we are free to try different ways of working. The hemicycle arrangement in Westminster Hall has not been to everyone's liking, so as foreshadowed in the original proposals, the Committee recommends that we try a new seating arrangement in which, thanks to concerns drawn to the Committee's attention by the shadow Leader of the House, space in the Public Gallery will be reserved for associates of the initiator of the debate. The orders implement the changes proposed by the Modernisation Committee so that the House can not only continue with the experiment, but modify it to find the best possible way of doing things.
When Westminster Hall was introduced, there was concern that it would detract from this Chamber. I do not believe that that has happened, or that there is evidence to show that it has. It was suggested that Westminster Hall would not be worth while, and that no Members would be interested in taking part in debates there, yet almost as soon as those sittings began there were vociferous complaints about the lack of clean feed transmission from that Chamber, showing that there was already interest on the part of hon. Members.
Moreover, as the report makes it clear, Westminster Hall is now covered by the national, regional and specialist press, just as the Committee hoped it would be when it proposed those sittings.
Westminster Hall has enabled Back Benchers more fully to scrutinise Government. It has increased the amount of time for consideration of Select Committee reports, and it has provided more valuable opportunities for Members to hold the Government to account. It has not--as some alleged that it would--enabled the Government to expand their legislative programme, and it was not intended that it should.
I hope that all those who are so often vociferous in this Chamber in calling for further parliamentary scrutiny will join me in voting for a continuation of Westminster Hall, where the bulk of the business is initiated by Back Benchers and Select Committees.
3.54 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): With permission, Mr. Speaker, may I begin by correcting my speech on 7 November on the Modernisation Committee's proposals for the programming of Bills? Column 228 of Hansard shows that, in quoting Greg Power of the Hansard Society, I referred to the principal requirement of "back bench" MPs to vote with the party, and I inserted the words "New Labour" before "back bench". The words "New Labour" were my words. My intention is as in Hansard, but I would not wish people to believe that the words "New Labour" were written by the Hansard Society, which is not party political. I hope that that corrects my inadvertent error.
I regard the report as a curate's egg. In the main, I am able to support it, primarily because it proposes a continuation of an experiment. In that context, I am happy to support the proposals on Westminster Hall and Thursday sittings. I am pleased that those matters will be considered again after the end of the first Session of the next Parliament, when new Members to the Parliament will have had an opportunity to see both experiments in operation. I have no problem with that at all.
Many hon. Members who do not represent a Greater London seat believe that many of the Modernisation Committee's proposals on Thursday sittings are in the interests not so much of democracy in the House but of the needs of Members who represent seats not too far from the centre of the capital. The change that has been made since I have been a Member of Parliament of finishing business at 7 o'clock on a Thursday has allowed those of us who have quite a journey back to our constituencies and who regard our constituency work at the weekend as important--not least those of us with a large area to cover--to discharge our duties as constituency Members of Parliament and, I hope, to pay due and proper attention to the scrutiny of the business in the House. That change has enabled those of us who like to get back to base before it is too late on a Thursday to do so with some safety.
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