| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.24 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): If the House had before it a proposition that judges should also be foremen of the jury, it would be laughed out of court, but, in effect, that is what we are debating, and my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) elegantly made that point.
Like my right hon. Friend, I have absolutely nothing against the Leader of the House—quite the contrary. I think that he is an admirable man in every way. He has shown resourcefulness and political courage and he has performed—
Mr. Forth: As my hon. Friend's pair.
Sir Patrick Cormack: No, not as my pair as well. I am just putting in a bid. I can think of very few Committees that would not be adorned by his presence and, indeed, by that of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), his Parliamentary Private Secretary, but not while one is a member of Her Majesty's Government and the other is a bag carrier. That is wrong.
I am one of those who has almost unreserved scepticism about the activities of the Modernisation Committee. When it was formed, I served on it briefly and referred to it at that time as potentially an emasculation Committee. That is what it has done to the House; it has taken away much of the power of the House of Commons and delivered to the Executive a control over the legislature that is inimical to the spirit of a free Parliament. I believe that it has done untold harm to this institution.
I would like the Modernisation Committee to be swept away, bag and baggage, and replaced by a proper business Select Committee of the House to which the Leader of the House would indeed be answerable. Such a Committee would monitor his activities and he would be called before it. I had the honour to serve on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday, when the Foreign Secretary came before us. I believe that the Chancellor has today appeared before the Select Committee on the Treasury. That is the right relationship. Select Committees work pretty well in this place and, by and large, do not divide along party lines. I think that I am right in saying that all the reports that the Foreign Affairs Committee has produced during this Parliament have been unanimous. Of course, we have a Chairman who has been drawn from the Labour party, and that is perfectly proper, but we try to consider issues on their merits. That is how any Select Committee of this House should perform.
What we need is not a Modernisation Committee driven by that spurious buzzword, but a Committee that truly monitors the performance of this Chamber and the various other Committees of Parliament and tries to see how best we should hold the Executive to account. That Committee should regularly examine and interrogate the Leader of the House, who should appear before it, and it should produce reports to the House on the way in which he discharges his functions.
The Modernisation Committee has not served Parliament or the House of Commons well. I do not wish to see the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) remain on it because he has his own agenda and has made that very plain. If we are to have a Chairman drawn from the Executive, I would very much rather that it was indeed the Leader of the House than the right hon. Member for Livingston, because I think that he has less grandiose ambitions in the direction of
modernisation, and I hope that we will have bit of consolidation with him if we persist with this ridiculous Committee.I would also like to see some reversal, because one of the recent innovations of the Modernisation Committee, the changing of the hours of this House, has met a great deal of opposition even from many who supported the recommendations when they were placed before the House. Frankly, those recommendations were driven through by the then Leader of the House, who spoke in such a partisan manner. That was quite wrong.
I urge the Leader of the House, whom I genuinely welcome to his new responsibilities and for whom I have a high regard, to take the motion away—
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden): Can he speak against it?
Sir Patrick Cormack: As my right hon. Friend says, it would be very good if the right hon. Gentleman spoke against the motion. That would be marvellous; if he did so, he would earn a lot of brownie points.
I should like the right hon. Gentleman to take the motion away and to give serious thought to my suggestions regarding an entirely different Select Committee to monitor the affairs of the Chamber and the Committees of this House, and to which he would be answerable. If he cannot do that, I hope that, at the very least, he will offer us a self-denying ordinance whereby he will not seek the chair of the Modernisation Committee; that the Committee will genuinely, in a properly free and unfettered manner, choose its Chairman; and that neither he nor his charming Parliamentary Private Secretary will take part in any vote on that issue in the Committee. That is the very least that we can expect.
I hope that when the Leader of the House responds he will acknowledge the force of at least some of the arguments that were advanced with the typically modest, self-effacing gentility of my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, the delightful verbal elegance of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire, and my own bluff common sense.
5.30 pm
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): I had not intended to try to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) jogged my memory when he mentioned the unfortunate precedent of one party's seeking to interfere with another's nomination in respect of the nomination to the House of Commons Commission of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). I recollect that that took the form of a motion in the name of a Minister of the Crown—a Government motion—that was voted down by a large number of Labour Members, including 14 Parliamentary Private Secretaries. If my memory serves me correctly, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) was among them; I am sure that she will correct me if I am wrong.
I am surprised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that no Labour Member is trying to catch your eye—not least the hon. Member for Don Valley, because the House is owed an
explanation of her position on the spectrum of modernisation. We are, after all, being asked to substitute her for the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mrs. Fitzsimons). As the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) was reluctant to put on the record his sedentary intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who invited him to do so, I shall do it for him. He was shouting to my right hon. Friend that as the hon. Member for Rochdale, the PPS of the former Leader of the House, had sat on the Committee, it was entirely logical that the PPS of the new Leader of the House should do likewise.I do not follow that logic. Even if we accept it, however, we are still being asked to support a motion that will substitute two members of the Committee for two others. We are owed an explanation of the position of those members in relation to a subject that is highly controversial on both sides of the House. If they are to be believed, recent reports in the press give us some idea of the position of the Leader of the House on modernisation, which I find mildly encouraging, given my position on such matters. However, I want to hear the hon. Member for Don Valley give an exposition of her views about modernisation. I have no doubt that the Leader of the House will do so; he certainly appears to be making notes. We can look forward to that, but our deliberations will be sadly lacking, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. Lady does not seek to catch your eye.
5.34 pm
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch): I am sorry that the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has not yet sought to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I want to express my concern at the prospect of a Parliamentary Private Secretary taking up a valuable place on a high-powered, active Committee. By convention, Parliamentary Private Secretaries do not speak when they serve on Committees. That means that a place will be taken by a person who will say nothing. I am sure that the Leader of the House does not need someone to carry his bags into and out of the Committee. The hon. Member for Don Valley would be a bit part player on the Committee. Perhaps the best outcome would be for the Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) to take the two places. An open contest could ensue on who should become the Chairman.
Mr. Forth: Does not my hon. Friend agree that in some ways it would be a blessing if Parliamentary Private Secretaries on such a Committee said nothing, given that they are likely to speak only on matters that favour the Government rather than the House?
Mr. Chope: I accept my right hon. Friend's comments, namely, that whatever a Parliamentary Private Secretary said would merely echo the views of Front-Bench Members and the Government position.
Positions on the Committee are scarce. In a bidding process, I am sure that many bids would be made for a place. The current Leader of the House aspires to serve on the Committee, and the former Leader of the House would like to continue to serve on it. It would therefore be sensible for both to be members and for the Committee to determine the chairmanship.
There is an unhealthy development in the House whereby the Executive determines the chairmanship of Select Committees. That is inherent in the motion. I was first elected in 1983 with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and others—I believe that the intake included more than 100 new Members. Shortly after arriving, places became available on Select Committees. I did not serve on one, but a colleague believed that I did and invited me for a drink in Annie's Bar. He lobbied me strongly to vote for him as Chairman of that Select Committee. When I said that I did not believe that people who were not members had a vote for the Chairman, he admitted that he had mistaken me for another hon. Member. He abandoned his drinks immediately—it is fortunate that he had already paid the bill—and went off to try to lobby more effectively.
That happened in an era when the Government, despite having a large majority, tried to keep their nose out of Select Committee's affairs. I hope that hon. Members will take the opportunity to re-establish the convention that Select Committees should be run by hon. Members who are not part of the Executive and that the two should be kept separate.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |