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Mr. Bercow: I sincerely hope not.
Mrs. Laing: I am sure that my hon. Friend is being gallant in saying that.
The hon. Member for Deptford seemed confused about the balance between constituency duties and parliamentary duties. Are we our constituents' representatives in Parliament, or Parliament's representatives in our constituencies? I would argue that we are the former: only the Member of Parliament can represent the views of his or her constituents in the House. Many people can carry out other duties in our constituencies. It is not our job to look at the inconvenient location of bus stops. That does not mean that we do not have to know about it, but we do not have to devote our time to looking at those locations. It is our job to be here. Councillors and others can do those other jobs. We need to know about them, but only we can be here in this Chamber.
Joan Ruddock: I do not remember saying anything about bus stops, and I do not think that any of my hon. Friends mentioned them. We have said repeatedly that it is a matter of balance, and that we need to hear our constituents' views before representing them here. The arrangements that have been made have led to more, not fewer, sitting hours.
Mrs. Laing: I am not suggesting that anyone mentioned bus stops today, but the hon. Lady and other Labour Members went through so many tedious examples of what they do in their constituencies that I cannot remember what they were. Bus stops are merely one example. If she cannot tell the difference between a literal example and a mere point, she is not paying attention to the debate--although I give her credit for having been here throughout.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) made some excellent points. He knows the subject as well as, if not better than, anyone else in the House. I share his concern about paragraph 13 of the report, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office, will confirm that the Government will not transfer business of substance from this Chamber to Westminster Hall.
My right hon. Friend is right about the importance of restoring Prime Minister's Question Time to Tuesdays and Thursdays, instead of just Wednesdays. Thursdays
should be restored to their full importance, because we must be concerned with holding the Government to account and not with the convenience of Members.The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson) is right about the interaction of our role here and our meetings with people in our constituencies, but I disagree profoundly with her about abolishing Fridays. The less time we spend here, the less scrutiny there is of the Government and the more powerful become the Executive and the Prime Minister, to the diminution of Parliament and the people.
If Labour Members are lulled into thinking that it is a good idea to spend less time here and more in their constituencies, let them think what it would be like for them to have a Government with whom they disagree and whom they would like to hold to account. I assure them that the Labour party will not be in power for ever--or indeed for much longer. They smile at one another because they do not believe me. They think that the present Prime Minister will stay on for ever. They cannot imagine what it would be like to disagree with a Government. They are irresponsible in their outlook on what Parliament is all about.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) made many good points, one of which was his warning of the danger of a one-day-a-week Parliament and the consequent diminution of the democratic process. The less debate and holding to account that we have in this Chamber, the less powerful Parliament becomes and the more the democratic process is undermined.
The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell- Savours) made some puzzling points. I am not sure what he means when he says that hon. Members with marginal seats have greater constituency duties to undertake. I believe that he said that a Member of Parliament's constituency duties increase as we approach a general election. Is he suggesting that the purpose of constituency work is to gain votes? That is an outrageous suggestion. All Members of Parliament, at all times, have duties to their constituents, regardless of the approach of general elections or how marginal their seats are.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The answer is in the words of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean). That is precisely what he said in relation to calling debates in the House of Commons.
Mrs. Laing: My right hon. Friend could not possibly have made such an outrageous suggestion. I was rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman made it, because he is one of the few Labour Members who uphold parliamentary democracy and dare to speak out against the Government.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) correctly emphasised a neglected role of Parliament: to act as the voice of the electorate between elections. She made some sincere, considered and practical suggestions, which I hope the Liaison Committee will take into account.
The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) must have had some reason for making the speech that he made, but I have a feeling that it had very little to do with his concern for Westminster Hall. He made an unusual confession: that he had changed his mind on one point. I must say that I agree with his previous position. As the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich rightly said, time is an effective weapon for an Opposition or for anyone who wants to hinder the Government's progress in any course.
It is strange that the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush started making a short and to-the-point speech about how time is not a valid weapon and then began to filibuster, for some reason unknown to me. We all know that he is perfectly capable of making a good point succinctly. He made his points at the beginning of his speech and then spoke for more than 20 minutes about how one should not use time as a weapon.
Mr. Soley: I took about six or eight interventions.
Mrs. Laing: I noticed that the hon. Gentleman gallantly gave way to Labour Members who had very little to say.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) made some excellent points. He has devoted much of his great energy to holding the Government to account and he is absolutely right to say that that cannot be done properly and effectively in an Adjournment debate.
All Members of Parliament have the right to speak, but they do not have the right to have attention paid to their words, especially if they do not have the courtesy to be here at the beginning of a debate, which has been the case with many Labour Members today. The irrelevancies of the hon. Members for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) and for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) showed clearly that they had not listened to the debate. I do not know why they came in two hours after the debate had started and made irrelevant speeches.
Mr. David Taylor: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Laing: No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Forth: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mrs. Laing: I will certainly give way to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Forth: I want to help my hon. Friend. Does she accept the possibility that, halfway through the debate, the Chamber mysteriously filled up with the hon. Members whom she mentioned because the Government decided that they wished to prolong debate to minimise the time available for the following debate? That is precisely what the hon. Member for shepherd's pie said should not happen. [Laughter.] Does my hon. Friend see the contradiction between the one thing and the other?
Mrs. Laing: I most certainly do see the contradiction between one and the other. It is amazing that Labour Members do not see the contradiction or, indeed, the value of holding the Government to account.
My right hon. Friend reminds me that at the weekend I spoke to a gentleman with some experience of public affairs, although he is not a party political gentleman. He asked me a simple question: why do the hundreds of Labour Back Benchers not hold the Government to account instead of kowtowing to them? I tried to explain why, but I fear that if I repeated that explanation here, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would call me to order. I would not be sorry to do so but it would be ungallant and perhaps libellous.
In contrast to the irrelevancies that I have mentioned, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) spoke honestly and without fear. I do not always agree with what he says but I think that we all appreciate that his contributions add substance as well as passion to the debate. Although he says that he does not want to be a Minister, many Conservative Members hope that he might be elected to another position, that at some point he might want such a position and that he will continue to hold the Government to account in whatever role he might, hypothetically, have in future.
This debate has not been about secondary matters of organisation and management, unlike the waffle from some hon. Ladies on the Labour Benches. It is difficult to be a woman in politics when one is grouped with people who pathetically say that women cannot argue long into the night, that they cannot hold their own in an argument against men, that they do not want to be adversarial and that they want to agree with everyone all the time. That view undermines the position of women who have fought to have their voice heard in politics--not those who have been slipped in easily at election time. That will show in future. I say that with some vehemence because I mean it. Some of us deal with this all the time, and it really is rather pathetic.
This debate is not about organisation, management, consensus or the way in which the chairs are arranged--it is far more important than that. It is about democracy, and there is no more important matter for discussion. I sincerely hope that the Leader of the House will take into account all the serious points that have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
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