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[That this House expresses its concern that select committees are not able to obtain from the Government the documents and witnesses necessary in order to fulfil their role of scrutinizing the Executive; notes the comments of the honourable Member for Thurrock in the debate on the Hutton Report when he said that Lord Hutton had been able to cross-examine John Scarlet in public, but the Foreign Affairs Committee was refused access to him, and that they had been refused the drafts of the September dossier but Lord Hutton published them on the worldwide web; and calls on the Leader of the House to institute a major review into the way in which Government and ministers treat select committees and the provisions of the Osmotherly Rules and the Ministerial Code.]
Has the Leader of the House done anything yet about the Sessional Orders, following the Procedure Committee's important report?
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Finally, can the Leader of the House tell us whether the Butler report on the handling of intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war will be published before the by-elections on 15 July, or will it mysteriously be delayed until the following week, the very last of the parliamentary Session?
Mr. Hain: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position. I fully understand the important duties that the shadow Leader of the House is undertaking, and we all accept his explanation.
First, I shall respond to the hon. Gentleman's last question. The timing of the publication of the Butler report is a matter for Lord Butler.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): Oh please.
Mr. Hain: The former shadow Leader of the House shouts out in his normal fashion, but I suggest that he makes that comment to Lord Butler, with more courtesy than he uses towards me.
On the comprehensive spending review, I understand the importance of advance knowledge of the date. I am discussing the matter with the Chancellor, and as soon as we can give the House that information, we shall do so.
On the Bill to ratify the European constitutional treaty, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) knows that we must obtain a text that has been through the legal process, which is normal practice after intergovernmental conferences. That text is not expected until October at the earliest, and the Bill will follow in due course, so he must wait for the Queen's Speech.
The Conservative party said that it would oppose the new European constitutional treaty before it knew what was in it. One year ago, it said that it would oppose the treaty, and, a few weeks ago, it repeated that point before the final negotiations occurred. After the final negotiations, it became self-evident that the treaty is a good deal for Britain and that all the key red lines promised by the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have been met. Now Conservative Members say that they want to proceed rapidly, before they have seen a legally sanitised text. The Foreign Secretary has agreed to publish the political text as a White Paper in September, which is something that I am sure the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire welcomes, and we will, of course, want to debate it.
The distinction between the regional assemblies referendums and the European constitutional treaty referendum is clear, as I have said consistently over the past few weeks. A draft Bill on the regional assemblies referendums will be published before the recess, at which point it will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, about which the House has already been informed.
The two approaches to referendums are not inconsistent. The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire will recall in respect of Wales, and you, Mr. Speaker, and other hon. Members will recall in respect of Scotland, that the people of Wales and Scotland were invited to make a decision on the principle whether they wanted a Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament. That matter was rightly decided before the Bill was
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introduced. We are now considering whether to ratify a constitutional treaty. Before we hold a referendum, it is important to prepare the Bill and have the full text of the final treaty before the House so that we can debate it in detail. There is no inconsistency in that.
As I have already made clear, we want to hold a debate on Iraq as soon as it is possible and appropriate. I shall inform the House accordingly.
I am keen to hold a debate on Select Committee powers and Sessional Orders. We will do that as soon as we can.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op): Does my right hon. Friend agree that opinion polling and the opinion polling industry are of central concern in a modern parliamentary democracy? Can he help me in my attempts to hold a debate on the opinion polling industry in the Chamber or at least in Westminster Hall? I have spent three weeks trying, with great help from the Speaker's Office, to get a Department to take responsibility for that. The Department of Trade and Industry passes the matter to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which passes it back. I am not getting anywhere. Will my right hon. Friend intervene and bang some heads together so that the important subject is debated at an early date?
Mr. Hain: I acknowledge my hon. Friend's expert ferreting on opinion polls. He has developed a powerful case, which everybody needs to answer, about the role of opinion polls and their regulation, especially during election periods. The more he is encouraged to pursue that, the more everybody involved, including opinion poll companies, will have to respond to his points.
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall) (LD): We greatly welcome the debate on Zimbabwe. Will the Leader of the House guarantee clarification of the Government's position on sporting links, especially cricket tours, including one-day fixtures? In his radical, Liberal days, the Leader of the House took a strong view on the extent to which such connections can give apparent support and endorsement to dictatorial regimes. I hope that he agrees that that remains an important issue. On 6 May, my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and I raised the matter with him. My hon. Friend said that we should seek
"an opportunity for all parties in the House to join together to pressure the International Cricket Council to change its rules to allow the cancellation of such tours on the ground of moral issues, without fines being imposed".
The Leader of the House, in an excellent response, said:
"I am at one with the hon. Gentleman on this. Undoubtedly, the villain of the piece at present is not just Robert Mugabe's despotic regime, but the way in which the ICC is turning a blind eye to that."—[Official Report, 6 May 2004; Vol. 420, c. 1503.]
However, in correspondence with my hon. Friend, the Minister for Sport and Tourism said:
"I am not persuaded to lobby the ICC to change their rules so that moral issues can be a legitimate reason for tour cancellation."
May we have a clear statement on the Government's position in next week's debate? Will the Leader of the House please ensure that his forthright views take precedence?
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I was amazed to hear the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) on the radio this morning saying that the Government may impose a three-line Whip on the Human Tissue Bill on Monday. The Liberal Democrats will have a free vote and I understand that that also applies to Conservative Members. Four prominent Labour Members, including the Father of the House, previously introduced private Members' Bills on the subject. Will they be forced on Monday to take a position that goes against their judgment?
Mr. Hain: Government policy on voting and whipping on the Human Tissue Bill remains unchanged.
The hon. Gentleman referred to my past days—they were my past, anti-apartheid days—in respect of white South African sports links. I have made my views clear on Zimbabwe. That also applies to the Minister for Sport and Tourism and the Foreign Secretary. We hold the same view. We wish that there were no cricketing and other sporting links with Zimbabwe because Robert Mugabe uses them as a propaganda weapon. However, we are not in a position to instruct the cricket authorities to do anything. The hon. Gentleman should not ask us to do that. We can simply express our point of view.
Ms Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab): Did my right hon. Friend read an article in one of yesterday's papers, entitled, "Women fight late nights for MPs"? It refers to correspondence that was sent to members of the Modernisation Committee for yesterday's private session. In the article, the shadow Leader of the House, who is a member of the Committee, makes a party political point. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a sorry state of affairs when papers are leaked, without the correspondents being informed, from a Committee, one of the aims of which is to re-establish the reputation of Parliament? Does he also agree that leaking documents from Select Committees is a breach of parliamentary standards, does nothing to enhance Parliament's reputation and is a serious matter?
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