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Mr. Bennett: Does my hon. Friend accept that he is making the mistake that I complained about at the start of our debate? He is assessing changes on policy as a result of what happened in the Chamber. He should have studied how the changes that occurred in that period came about. While a few people were in the Chamber keeping the House going, a lot of people were in the Tea Room, bars, restaurants and other parts of the building arguing about political issues, and some of that effort resulted in change.
Mr. Soley: Quite frankly, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) was far better than me at keeping people here through the night. I accept his argument that other useful things were happening elsewhere, but it is difficult to argue that that alone makes our system for examining legislation good. It does not, and we must focus on the quality of the time available.
Mr. Tom Levitt (High Peak): I am sure that my hon. Friend does not need me to ride to his assistance, but I am happy to contribute. Will he cast his mind back to the early weeks of this year and when I had the privilege--if that is the word--of being parliamentary private secretary during
the 28-hour Second Reading of the Disqualifications Bill. I reckon that there are not many people in the Chamber--with the exception, perhaps, of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow)--who could tell us what was in that Bill. Although it took 28 hours to debate a Bill with four clauses, that had no effect on the quality or quantity of the legislation, and we lost Prime Minister's questions the next day, because the Opposition obviously did not want their leader to have to face up to the Prime Minister.
Mr. Soley: My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) is right about what happened. That is part of the old game-playing method of time wasting, which brought the House into disrepute.
May I return to the core of our debate? When I joined the Modernisation Committee, I was one of those who argued about the way in which the House used time and whether we used it sensibly. I increasingly came to the view that the House of Commons sits much longer than most other Parliaments and works long hours. It may work long hours, but it does not work very effective hours. I submitted a paper to the Modernisation Committee arguing for a parallel Chamber because certain matters that were taken on the Floor of the House needed to be discussed elsewhere so that the attention of this Chamber could be focused on the really big issues of the day. Members on both sides have said that fewer and fewer people watch or attend the Chamber, and perhaps part of the problem is that we debate matters that should not be discussed here. Westminster Hall was a necessary step in dealing with the number of hours that we sit.
We should consider the main tasks of a Member of Parliament. We all know that there is an endless list of tasks, but the three main ones are holding the Government to account, examining legislation and trying to make satisfactory changes to it, and, finally, representing one's constituents and understanding and responding to their needs. Those matters take up an enormous amount of Members' time. If we want to do those three things, but accept that sitting in the Chamber through the night is not a good way of achieving that, we should make sure that we can deliver a means of meeting our aim.
I agree with some of the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich made about Select Committees, and believe that we must examine the procedure governing those Committees because it is not working as well as I would like it to do. The recent report that dealt with the matter included some attractive proposals.
The key point is that Westminster Hall will enable us to have more debates for Back Benchers, which is good in its own right. Those debates should be removed from the Floor of the House, which should focus much more on the major issues of the day. Greater importance should be given to the Committee structure because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish argued, it is profoundly important, and people outside do not realise the amount of work that goes into it.
Enabling Members of Parliament to spend time in their constituencies is also important. Again, an old, almost 19th-century argument that, in reality, died out some time ago, proposed that Members of Parliament should represent their constituents in Westminster, and should
not necessarily be in their constituencies. However, especially with modern methods, Members must spend a lot of time in their constituencies, as they need to visit institutes and establishments and talk to their staff to understand the issues.We must give Members of Parliament time to visit their constituencies. Westminster Hall will enable us to focus debates in the Chamber on more politically contentious issues that draw the attention of the media and the public. We also need, eventually, to redesign the whole parliamentary year so that we can enable Members of Parliament to spend time in their constituencies, examine legislation and hold the Government to account. The 7 o'clock finish on Thursday therefore makes sense, as most people have to travel a long way to their constituencies. Westminster Hall also makes sense, for the reasons that I have given. Ultimately, we must look at other issues such as the way in which Select Committees function.
In other words, we are embarked on a process of change. We have achieved a great deal--I think that we shall achieve much more--with the programming of legislation. That should allow us to examine legislation that is passing through a Committee by taking evidence on it. The Tories introduced the process in the 1980s. As I have said, they stopped doing it because of the perverse interpretation of the time weapon. We all know that Governments are afraid of losing control of the legislative timetable. If that can be brought under control, people will again be allowed to give evidence on proposed legislation. The other necessary step is to take evidence on how an Act is working. The Conservative party might have been grateful for that procedure. Both the Child Support Agency and the poll tax would have been chucked out much earlier if there had been feedback.
The two experiments need to continue. They should be seen as introducing a more effective way of enabling Members to focus their time on holding the Executive to account, to examine legislation and to service their constituents. That is part of a much wider agenda. Although there is a wish to work by consent and agreement in this place, things would be much easier if the Conservative party would not adopt the paranoid view that everything is a wicked plot by the Government. It should understand that some of us have spent enough time in opposition to know what failed and that we wish to try to put things right for Parliament as a whole and not only for ourselves.
6.31 pm
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): According to the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley), it is an old-fashioned concept that time is a weapon. The idea that Members, especially Opposition Members, could talk at length and pad out debates to delay the Government--to use the weapon of time--is one that the hon. Gentleman suggests is no longer appropriate. Yet have we not seen a splendid example of that process this evening? Indeed, it is still continuing, as it will for the next three hours. New Labour Members have been asked to come into the Chamber to pad out the debate. I am talking not about some of the old faces, the regular attenders, but those who have been drafted in to pad out the debate so that the debate on the immigration appeals motion does not begin until after 10 o'clock.
We know that many Labour Members are concerned about the motion, and the Government do not want it to be debated in prime time. As a result, the current debate will be padded out by Labour Members who perhaps did not have the issues before us at the forefront of their minds when the Government Whips approached them today. The Government are using time as a weapon in this debate.
I look forward to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) returning to the Chamber. I am happy to criticise him in his absence because he made his usual snide remarks at the start of the debate about the number of Members in the Chamber, particularly on the Opposition Benches. He then disappeared.
Mr. Bercow: My right hon. Friend is making an extremely important point. Does he agree, for the record, that the hon. Members for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor), for Upminster (Mr. Darvill) and for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase), whatever their other merits or demerits, were assuredly absent at the beginning of the debate?
Mr. Maclean: I am not able to say authoritatively who was in the Chamber at the start of the debate. However, I can recognise some of the faces of new Labour Members who have been drafted in.
Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): The proposals of the Modernisation Committee are being debated and I am a member of that Committee. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is entirely proper that I should be present? There is nothing sinister in my presence.
Mr. Maclean: Of course it would be appropriate to be present. However, the hon. Gentleman was not in his place at the start of the debate. The Chamber is much fuller now than it was at the start of the debate. It is clear that my name has appeared on the monitor and it has attracted many Members to the Chamber.
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