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Mr. Curry: Regarding the representation of minority parties on Select Committees, the Conservative party is quite stretched in trying to man all its commitments, the Liberal Democrat party is seriously stretched in that way, and the minority parties are impossibly stretched. If we were to have a deliberate policy of having more minority party Members on Select Committees, we would need some assurances about attendance. I would extend that to Members of the other parties as well.
Mr. Cameron: I agree with my right hon. Friend. This debate has brought out a lot of very interesting points that have not been made before. I think it was the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) who said that there should be penalties for absenteeism. That is a very good suggestion and I hope that it will be taken up. Perhaps that would address the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry).
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I think it was also the hon. Member for Pendle who gave the House what I considered an extraordinarily surprising statistic, namely, that a very large number of Labour Members of Parliament sit on more than one Select Committee. Given their numbers in the House, that seems rather odd. Does my hon. Friend think it right that an individual should sit on more than one Select Committee? Is this a matter that the House should look at? Obviously, the Chairman of a Committee rightly has to sit on the Liaison Committee, so I would not count that as membership of a second Committee.
Mr. Cameron: I think it is a matter that we should look at.
The hon. Member for Pendle produced the fascinating statistic that 65 Labour MPs were not members of any Select Committee. I wanted to ask him—but deemed it a bit partisan on a day like today—whether there was any correlation between those 65 and Members who habitually vote against their own Front Bench. Perhaps we could return to that question at some point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield should be given credit for being open and up front. No one could accuse him of lurking in the shadows. He made a strong case for the inclusion of the Procedure Committee on the list. As I have said, I think the response from the Government Front Bench may well be, "If the Procedure Committee is to be included, what about the Standards and Privileges Committee? What about the Modernisation Committee?" I should hate to think that we were increasing the pay of the Leader of the House still further, but I shall be interested to hear what the Deputy Leader has to say.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) that we need to deal with the issue of patronage and nomination. He seemed to be saying that we had put the cart of payment before the horse of nomination. I shall vote for the motion because I think
it makes some progress, but I think it vital to deal with both horse and cart even if we do not deal with them in the right order.To me, the principle is clear. If we are to introduce an alternative career path and if we are to provide some payment for it, we need greater independence for those who receive the payment. The SSRB could be said to have hinted at the existence of a problem in its report. In its evaluation of the job done by a Select Committee Chairman it concluded, on page 6, that
- "the technical know how of Select Committee Chairmen was considerably greater than that of backbench MPs. Chairmen need to combine substantial accumulated wisdom about politics and the House itself with in-depth knowledge of at least part of the subject matter covered by the committee. (The consultants accepted that this assessment was not entirely consistent with the selection processes currently employed to appoint committee Chairmen.)"
The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned the Modernisation Committee report. I think that it got the principle of nomination processes right. It said:
- "Any new method of nomination needs to be independent, authoritative, transparent and able to command the confidence of the House on both sides."
- "The Committee of Selection has come to interpret its role as limited to confirming the proposals put to it by the front benches on both sides."
I am probably a little naive, but I still think there are weaknesses in the Modernisation Committee's report. I feel that it placed too much weight on seniority. My naivety extends to a belief that there could be some role for election. When I looked at the proposal, I thought of Strom Thurmond and the seniority system in the Senate as it was. I would favour either indirect elections to a nomination committee, or direct election among Back Benchers to Select Committees. There could even be cross-party elections, in which seats on Committees could be allotted to the various parties—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): You would not win any seats.
Mr. Cameron: I think I have answered that point.
Places could be allotted to the parties on the basis of a vote by all Back Benchers. Of course there would be a danger of all of us voting for each other's troublemakers, and playing party games. The hon. Member for Pendle would probably get a record poll, but people would not necessarily behave like that. We will not know until we try, and on the whole we should consider methods of election, rather than other methods, in choosing Select Committee members.
The splendid speech of the hon. Member for Thurrock was an advertisement for why we should not have time limits in every debate. When he said that we should not have two classes of MP, I was taken back to a speech that I heard as a student—he will not like this—
when I sat in the Gallery and watched Enoch Powell make the same point. The hon. Gentleman may be called in for a career development interview after his remarks about the Whips, but his was a powerful speech. He made a very interesting point, which was backed up by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West, about whether Select Committees have the powers to do their job properly. He also mentioned the Hutton inquiry, and perhaps the Modernisation Committee or the House in general will have to return to this issue in the light of that inquiry, to ensure that we give Select Committees the power to call papers and witnesses, for example.In a strong speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon said that we should not try to combine elements of a Parliament, in which the Executive also sit, with elements of a Congress. Consistency can sometimes be the enemy of progress, and my concern is that we need to do more to make this place more independent of the Executive, and to improve its powers of scrutiny. Although I would not go the whole hog with the hon. Member for Thurrock, who wants to throw all Ministers out of this place, we can do some things to improve our independence and the way in which we legislate and scrutinise. What we are talking about is a first step. The hon. Gentleman and many others mentioned the problem of Ministers and Select Committee Chairmen swapping places, and in a good intervention my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) came up with a very good answer to it: a quarantine period between being a Select Committee Chairman and a Minister. The hon. Member for Thurrock offered an alternative suggestion: if someone becomes a Chairman, they should accept the post for the duration of that Parliament. I am attracted to both suggestions, and I hope that we can return to this issue in order to ensure that, if we are to have paid Select Committee Chairman and proper nomination procedures, such posts do not simply become retirement homes for former Ministers. That said, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South did a splendid job on the Home Affairs Committee.
As I said, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West pointed out that support for Select Committees is not adequate, and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) made the same point. He believes that the problem is not paying Select Committee Chairmen, but providing the resources to enable them to do their job. I have some concern about that argument. A Chairman can work with the Committee Clerk and make use of the Clerk's resources to do the job. That is surely the right way to improve resourcing of Select Committees, rather than giving greater cost allowance to Chairmen. The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) said that there could be a public outcry if we voted for paying Select Committee Chairmen. But if we think it right to have an alternative career path, and if there is cause for paying Select Committee Chairmen to help enhance that path, we should have the courage to do it.
The hon. Member for Pendle made a very interesting speech, in which he referred to some of the practices that go on in his own party. I am sure that the Whips will have some interesting words with him about that. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire called on the Deputy Leader of the House, whom I am about to allow to speak, to make clear his
intentions as to whether we should have a nomination committee, and whether the Government remain committed to returning to the Select Committee report. I hope that he will make that clear, because the theme of today's debate has been pretty clear. There are Members who are opposed to paying Select Committee Chairmen and Members in favour, but there has been virtual unanimity about one thing: we must take more of the patronage out of the way in which we choose the members and Chairmen of Select Committees, and ensure that the process is independent and transparent. As a result, Select Committees will be able to work better, which is what all Members of this House want.
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