Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
21 JULY 2004
RT HON
ERIC FORTH
MP, MR GEORGE
HOWARTH MP, RT
HON ANDREW
MACKAY MP, MS
MEG MUNN
MP AND JON
TRICKETT MP
Q20 Mr Salter: You lost me, Jon, with
some of the analysis but it was very entertaining. You are clearly
not hoping for much out of the reshuffle and I commend your bravery!
I want to come back to what you describe as this collegiate argument,
which I have real problems embracing. I think in some people's
minds it is a code for drinking and the rest of it—which
is fine, I am not a prude—but what sort of image do you
think we give the public when we traipse out of the bars and vote
on laws in the land? One of the strong arguments for me for reform
was that you can do your work, you can vote at seven, half past
seven, and then people can socialise, enjoy a drink and have that
collegiate atmosphere. This fuzzy, lack of distinction between
the two is very difficult to explain to our constituents. I am
not suggesting breathalysers at the doors of the division lobbies,
but an awful lot of people would take great exception if they
realised the lack of preparation in the votes that we make in
the Chamber.
Jon Trickett: If people are drinking
and voting laws into the country and sometimes voting on questions
of war and peace having been drinking, I do not think it sends
the right signal at all. We do not allow people to drive if they
have had three half pints, and we ought not to be passing laws
if we are drinking great amounts of alcohol in the bars downstairs.
Q21 Sir Nicholas Winterton: I think we
really need to be very careful in having evidence like that. It
is very unfair to say that members of this House are drinking
too much as a general comment.
Mr Howarth: And there is no evidence
to support that.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: There is no evidence
and I hope that Jon Trickett, under mature consideration, would
withdraw the allegations that he has made.
Q22 Barbara Follett: I would like to
look at the issue of predictability which Meg brought up. We have
a good example of how unpredictable the day can become today,
and it happened yesterday. There were three Statements yesterday
and two today which pushes business, eats into Government time
and Opposition time and often makes it difficult for backbenchers
of any parties to get up and speak. In one of the Modernisation
Committee's reports, the report we produced under Robin Cook,
there was a suggestion for an hour or so of Statement time before
the main business so you would have a Statements hour from 10.00
until 11.00. Now, I liked that. It transpired that the Speaker
found it impossible to do it, but if there were no Statements
you simply commenced business at eleven or at the usual time,
but you had a time that was set aside for Statements which did
not eat into business, and I would like to know how people feel
about that. Tacked on to that for predictability is how they feel
about the September two weeks.
Mr Mackay: I am very much against
that first proposal. You know that I am regularly complaining
to you that there is not a Statement on this or that or the other,
and I think one of the successes of the House is its flexibility
and the fact that we are topical. What worries me so often is
we are not topical. The one thing that makes us topical is ministers
coming down and making a Statement, either on policy or when there
has been some great event often of a very tragic nature take place,
and it is very important that that is in prime time. My worry
would be that ministers would not have had time to prepare the
Statement, nor would we have had time to reflect on what has happened
if it was as early as you suggest, and after Questions, which
in practical terms means about lunch time, is the right time to
have it, and I would hate to think that Peter as Leader of the
House got a message that backbench members wanted less Statements.
I think most of us within reasonable parameters want more because
it is a good way of holding the Government to account and being
topical. Very quickly, on the two weeks in September, I strongly
am in favour of the change of the two weeks in September providing
that we get the time back elsewhere and there is not slippage,
because I do not think that Parliament does its job properly if
it has too long a break in one go. The Government is not properly
held to account and we come back for two weeks in September and
we can hold them to account again, and that is preferable to what
we were starting to slip into which was a recall of Parliament
because something has happened during the summer recess which
is hugely costly, inefficient, and causes great inconvenience,
so I would hate to think we were going to lose those two weeks
in September and revert to the old calendar.
Mr Forth: My view on predictability
is that I am against it. I think Parliament should be completely
spontaneous, disorganised and the Government should be caught
off balance as often as possible because that is probably the
most effective way the House as a whole can do its job. I think
this trend towards utter predictability, total timetabling, members
knowing exactly what is going to happen and when, is counter productive
in a parliamentary sense.
Q23 Chairman: And September would be
part of that view?
Mr Forth: No. Actually, I am very
radical on September. I think what we should do is to have whatever
it is, five or six weeks off in July and August, come back early
September and sit continuously from then on, and if we must have
party conferences, which are such a complete waste of time, then
what we should do is for three weekends the House should rise
on, say, Wednesday, if necessary, or even on Thursday, and the
party should then have a longish weekend for their party conferences,
and if we are serious—which I am not—and if we think
people should go—which I do not—and if we want participation—which
I have never particularly favoured at any level—having them
at weekends would allow real people to go to party conferences
instead of anoraks and idiots. So let's pick up the September
theme and say if the House is serious—and this would give
us more time, by the way, as well—come back in early September
and sit continuously, and then have a tweak perhaps for conferences
for three weekends. That is what I would do.
Mr Howarth: I am mindful of the
argument that there was an increasing tendency for Parliament
to be recalled in September. I think probably we should work on
the presumption that it will sit but we do not sit unless there
is any good reason to do so. Last September, quite honestly, it
was a complete waste of time. Nothing useful was done in September
last year, and so unless there is anything useful to do then we
should be free to work in our constituencies rather than come
here to do nothing.
Ms Munn: I am finding myself in
the strange position here of agreeing with Eric Forth on the September
issue and I think the issue about conferences is well worth looking
at. I was not here last September because I was away on a visit
so I did not have the experience, but it does seem to me that
two weeks is an odd and very short period to be here for, so I
think that is well worth exploring. Also, rather than having more
time here, my experience in terms of the Chamber is that we seem
to have sometimes things on which nobody wants to talk or be there
for and Whips are running around to get people to talk about and
we could have maybe weeks at other times of the year which are
not the traditional holidays. What I find very difficult is it
is difficult to get into schools and so on if you are only ever
on recess when the schools are on recess, so I think we could
perhaps look at an odd week off at another period when Parliament
does not sit, and that would help with things like visits. Even
under the old system when Parliament did not sit until 2.30 pm
it was still enormously difficult without getting up at the crack
of dawn for people from my constituency to get here and have a
full tour of the House before Parliament sat. I think those kinds
of things are well worth looking at.
Jon Trickett: Briefly, I think
you should retain September as it is now, but we need Government
business and there was not any last time that I could see.
Q24 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Meg Munn
has talked about the fact that she was not here last September.
She said she was on a visit. Was that a visit under the auspices
of the CPA or the IPU?
Ms Munn: It was the British American
Parliamentary Group.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Again, we have
to take into account, when we are dealing with the sittings of
this House in respect of both the hours and whether we sit or
not in September, the other activities that are bona fide and
important and valuable for members of Parliament—that is,
the activities of the Inter Parliamentary Union, the CPA, and
the British American Parliamentary Group. The new sittings in
September have caused some, as Peter Pike will know as a member
of the Executive, and I too, of the CPA and, for that matter,
the IPU, problems, because there are occasions when Whips do not
want members to be away for critical business, albeit I have to
say to date September has not featured critical business. But
can I commend Meg Munn for what she said at the beginning? I do
think one of the mistakes this Committee has made, and perhaps
even in a way my own Procedure Committee, is not looking at this
whole matter with a fresh clean sheet of paper. I think that advice
is very good.
Chairman: I think that is a fairly common
view around.
Q25 Mr Stunell: My point has passed in
relation to September because there seems to be a broad consensus
that it serves some purpose, but it raises a further point which
is that there is a tension between predictability and accountability,
and in fact if we want to have September meaningful and we are
now saying we do want Government business to be in it—we
are saying "Please could the Government structure things
more rather than less"—and looking at the point about
school visits and things like that, there is a tension between
what members want as individual constituency members and what
maybe the system needs in terms of accountability and predictability.
Will you comment, not just in relation to September but elsewhere,
where you want to strike that line?
Ms Munn: I think I would have
a lot more sympathy with the issues about accountability if I
did not see so many opportunities where people could be held to
accountability wasted, and where people are talking about things
which do not matter or wasting time. It is as much about what
people do with the time available, and I think you can do that
within predictable time by being concise. I do not think it is
unpredictability that delivers accountability; it is what we do
with the time we have, and I know there are reasons why this happens.
Not in the Chamber but particularly on Bill Committees, that is
something which I think is very unknown outside Parliament and
even as somebody who had been interested in politics for many
years I had no concept of the scrutiny of legislation, and I think
we could improve enormously on the way we do that, not in terms
of how long we do it for but the way we do it. Pre-legislative
scrutiny is enormously important, and I think the input from people
outside can be helpful on that, whether that is done as part of
the Bill Committee or pre-legislative scrutiny. But also I think
people complaining that there is a knife at the point when they
get up and talk nonsense on various issues does not go down well.
Chairman: I do not want to get into programming,
which is a separate issue. Peter, could you probe a bit on the
PMB issue?
Mr Pike: I want to come in on PMBs because
this has been touched on. I have long been an advocate in the
21 years I have been here that Friday should be a day that members
can be in their constituency. When I first came in we used to
have Government business, some of it voted on a Friday and gradually
that changed, and then we did away with all Government business
on Fridays and now it is Private Members' Bills, but I tabled
an Early Day Motion on the subject and quite a lot of people have
signed suggesting that it should go to Tuesday. Now, obviously
you will recognise that if it went to Tuesday, Tuesday in itself
does not give enough hours if we were to compare it with five
hours on a Friday, so we would probably need to talk of Tuesday
and Wednesday which would be a split debate on occasions which
would be a bit unusual and would also make it a long day, particularly
obviously for some of the officers of the House and others who
we have to take account of. So how would you view this? Also,
Eric, you were here a few weeks ago when we had a Private Members'
Bill, and it has happened on a few occasions recently, when I
came here on a Friday and cancelled all my engagements in the
constituency to speak on a Bill on homeless young people and some
of your colleagues, and I think you were supportive of them, moved
that the House sat in private and it fell and MPs like myself,
and it happened on another one a couple of weeks ago with different
people involved on that occasion, had lost all their constituency
day here to no purpose at all at the end of the day. So could
you touch on all those issues that I have raised there, because
it is no good being in the House to be here for a purpose if you
then lose that.
Q26 Chairman: Can I say that a number
of ministers have raised exactly that point with me, of keeping
a Friday free to reach a Bill which then does not come up, so
it is a complete waste of everybody's time. Can I just have quick
responses to Private Members' Bills being moved?
Ms Munn: I think it would be good.
I know there is a view that the Whips would be nervous about it
but if there is an issue, and they are often issues which would
not get parliamentary time otherwise or would have to wait for
a relevant Bill to come up, that a lot of members feel strongly
about, then why should that not happen? After all, the opportunities
for backbenchers to make law and to influence what goes on are
very limited, and I think increasing the likelihood of that happening
cannot be a bad thing, and I do not understand—
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Mr Chairman,
I really do think we should delay debate on this because if you
allowed time for the Procedure Committee's report to be debated,
which was published over six months ago on procedures for debates,
Private Members' Bills and the role of the Speaker, this very
matter that has been put to Meg Munn could be debated fully in
the House because my Committee has dealt with it, making recommendations
which I think are very sensible.
Q27 Chairman: Would Meg's support for
moving PMBs solve the Tuesday night problem?
Mr Howarth: No. I think in order
to answer that I need to answer Martin and Jon's point about this
collegiate atmosphere being just a code for people having more
time to get drunk.
Jon Trickett: That is not what
I said.
Mr Howarth: That was the import
of what you both said. I think, frankly, I agree with Sir Nicholas
on that: that is a disgraceful attack on the conduct of Members
of this House. I do not want those times to be made available
just so that I or anybody else can spend more time in the bar.
If anybody really believes that then I am really disappointed
that they should believe that.
Q28 Mr Pike: Do you want PMBs on a Friday,
though?
Mr Howarth: That is the context
of it. I do not believe moving Private Members' Bills business
to Tuesday night, however, would achieve my belief that we need
more effective time where a large number of Members, including
Government Members, are around. What would inevitably happen on
a Tuesday if we moved Private Members' business to it, is that
only those who are interested in those particular bills would
stay behind to debate them or vote on them. That would not increase
the effective time available to the House—
Q29 Mr Pike: If we moved them from Friday
where would we put them?
Mr Howarth: That is not an issue
that I have given any great thought to. I would leave them on
a Friday.
Q30 Chairman: Any other views?
Jon Trickett: I regret if I have
given the impression—I certainly was not saying that the
reason why people are arguing for returning to the hours is so
they can get drunk. That is not what I said. If I, in any way,
gave the impression that I did, I withdraw that. What I was saying
was that it was about the pressure to conform. That was the point
I was making. There is a perception in the country, which the
press foster and which occasionally people foster as well, that
there is more drinking time available. That was the only point
I was making on that. Certainly I withdraw any other implication
and certainly would not have upset George in the way that he clearly
is. On the question of Private Members' business, I think it would
be better, actually, if Fridays were clear and it was clear to
everybody—to the press and everybody—that Fridays
were for the rest of civil society. That then allows us to look
at Tuesdays. I would just say this, that the point made by Peter
Pike was that Tuesdays would provide insufficient time. I am not
clear on that because we get five hours on a Friday but it is
not every Friday, whereas it might well be every Tuesday, for
example.
Q31 Chairman: Just as a point of information:
the 13 sitting days on PMBs would equate to about 22 on a Tuesday
evening.
Jon Trickett: Twenty-two sitting
Tuesdays?
Q32 Chairman: Out of around 35.
Jon Trickett: I do think that
the capacity of backbenchers to take initiatives is limited in
this place, frankly. I think to put Private Members' Bills more
centre stage than they are now—and I think they would be
more centre stage on Tuesday because more of us would be around
and probably more press and media—would not be a bad thing
at all.
Mr Mackay: Peter, as you are aware,
I supported Joan Ruddock's proposal that they should be moved
to Tuesdays. Tuesday is the ideal day and it is a happy compromise
that people are saying perhaps we should sit longer on Tuesdays.
As you have just pointed out, the hours that we look at Private
Members' Bills would be exactly the same if we sit on slightly
more Tuesdays on Private Members' Bills. I am strongly in favour.
Q33 Chairman: As a former Government
Whip, Andrew, do you have any observations on the implications
for Governments of having Private Members' Bills on Tuesday compared
with Friday?
Mr Mackay: Yes, there are going
to be a few. One of the advantages of getting a bill killed is
that there are not many people around on a Friday. It is going
to be slightly harder on a Tuesday. Governments, of whatever political
party, will have to do a better job of persuading Parliament that
the Private Members' Bill is wrong. I think that is quite healthy.
Q34 Chairman: That is a very democratic
spirit, but I am just interested because you mentioned when you
are back in power but if you were to be a Whip back in power do
you think you would take the same view?
Mr Mackay: I do. I think what
is more important is the reputation of Parliament. If I can say
so, I want very much to back up what Nicholas said. I do not think
Jon meant what he said but it did come over in a public session
in a way that our critics out there will have their prejudices
more than confirmed that there is excessive drinking in this place.
I first came here in a crazy by-election in a place that was almost
Hodge Hill 27 years ago and I can tell you the change from then
to now on the amount of drinking is huge; it is very, very little
to what it was then. I think, Jon, unintentionally, you gave a
very false impression and it will give a further stick for certain
people in the media to beat us all.
Q35 Chairman: I think Jon has accepted
that. Do you want to say anything about Private Members' Bills?
Mr Forth: Peter gave the game
away when he said he wanted to come here on one Friday for one
Bill and he was very disappointed that something went a bit wrong.
First of all, we know all the 13 Private Members' Bill Fridays
a year ahead, so there is no excuse not to be here. Secondly,
I have always taken the view that all MPs should be here on Private
Members' Bill Fridays because we are making law. Thirdly, the
only reason that the bill beloved of Peter fell was because there
were not even 40 MPs here, and that is a pretty disgraceful admission—that
when the House is legislating 40 out of 659 people cannot get
themselves here for something that is alleged to be important.
I have a view about Private Members' Bills. I am here every Friday
for Private Members' Bills and I know a little bit about them,
but we will deal with them just as well on Tuesdays as we do on
Fridays.
Mr Pike: Eric knows quite well it is
not true to say there were not 40 here; 40 people did not vote
but there were more than 40 people here, because all those who
wanted to get on to the next bill deliberately did not vote. I
want to move on to committees.
Chairman: Before we come to committees,
Martin wanted to deal with the issue of the arrangement of business.
Martin Linton: Can I ask Jon or other
colleagues, do you think there is a danger that if we have unwhipped
business on Tuesday night that what will happen at the end of
the day is that Government business, whipped business, will intrude?
Patrick expressed a view earlier on, before he had to leave, that
he thought that if PMBs were on Tuesdays they would become whipped.
There is clearly no point in moving them on the assumption that
all this business can be unwhipped if it turns out not to be the
case.
Q36 Chairman: Can we include in that
adjournment debates and other business like House matters and
so on?
Mr Mackay: The reality is that
the payroll has always been whipped for certain controversial
Private Members' Bills that the Government does not want to go
forward. The payroll has been called in from time to time by every
government on a Friday and the payroll will be again called in—and
this is what Patrick was referring to—and there will be
an unofficial whip.
Jon Trickett: I think that is
a fair answer. I suppose, really, on reflection it is the non-government
business rather than non-whipped business, if we want to be precise
about it. Clearly, the Government will have a view—and does
have—about Private Members' business, but it is the capacity
for the private Member to initiate business which is probably
more important than the aspect of whipping. Probably there will
be some informal whipping and probably some formal whipping as
well, and I think that should not trouble us too much. What is
important is putting the private Member, the backbencher, at the
centre of play during the middle of the week, really.
Q37 Anne Picking: I think Jon only addressed
the issue of Thursdays and the possibility of moving business
questions, and I think it has been an invaluable vehicle because
if we move it elsewhere where would it be best moved to in order
to give Thursday a full sitting day?
Jon Trickett: Just speaking purely
from our party's point of view, we now meet on a Monday evening,
and I think other parties are doing something similar. It would
then, logically, I think, lead to the Leader's announcement being
made on a Tuesday lunchtime to announce the business for the following
week and it would give us time for preparation. It seems to me
curious that we are announcing business at the end of the week,
on a Thursday, to some extent, rather than towards the beginning
of the week. I would have thought earlier in the week would be
the appropriate time. If that cannot be organised—and you
would know better than I of just how the mechanisms of these things
work—it may be a statement earlier on a Thursday, before
11.30, from the Leader of the House might be another option. What
I was trying to urge on you to achieve was to make Thursdays a
real day when government business can be debated and when a significant
amount of time, five hours or so—
Q38 Chairman: Or an Opposition debate
as well?
Jon Trickett: Equally important,
yes.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I think we must
not avoid the fact that we have days when there are, perhaps,
two or even occasionally three statements, and that is on a Monday,
Tuesday or a Wednesday. So I come back to what Meg Munn said;
I think if we are going to look at sitting hours we have got to
be much more radical and actually have a clean sheet of paper
because I do believe there is good reason for bringing the business
of next week forward and making, therefore, the shorter day on
Thursday more meaningful for a full day debate rather than an
hour shorter. Of course, there are two things I would say to you,
Peter, as Leader of the House, one of which is that one way to
solve part of our problem is to have less legislation but more
debate. I think that refers to all political parties, particularly
to those that form Government. I do come back to the question
which you did not allow any of our witnesses to answer, particularly
my question to Eric. If you bring Question Time forward and start
the day at, say, 9 o'clock, which I have to say I think was a
Maverick proposal that Mr Forth put forward when we were debating
sitting hours (I am not sure that he was actually that serious
but he did the House a service, nonetheless), you have got to
take account of the activities of the committees of this House,
whether they are Standing Committees, whether they are Select
Committees. It really would be, I think, very wrong, unless we
are going to change the time of Question Time and the delivery
of statements by Government ministers, to have the Committees
sitting for Question Time and statements. There are terrible problems
at the moment, which I think you have all admitted, on a Tuesday
and Wednesday, being the two major days of the week when committees
sit.
Chairman: Since you raise the issue of
committees, I know Oliver wanted to put a point.
Q39 Mr Heald: If I can just add another
part to it, at the moment we seem to have got into a practice
of sitting on Standing Committees at 9.30 in the morning and going
through to 11.25, although in theory, of course, they should sit
at 8.55 am in order to give us the time which we used to have,
the full two-and-a-half hours. What do colleagues think about
that, and is there some way of restoring that extra time or, at
least, making the Standing Committees have the time they need
to really scrutinise the legislation? We are not being offered
more sessions through the usual channels for these Standing Committees,
and it is important that we have the time we need to scrutinise
legislation.
Ms Munn: I have just sat on the
Domestic Violence Bill and there was a kind of compromise situation
where actually we started at ten-past-nine, which seemed to suit
people, because I know that people who do have families in London
sometimes have the opportunity to take kids to school in the morning.
That seemed a reasonable compromise, and the compromise we had
was that we went later in the afternoon because there does not
seem to be a reason why there has to be that fixed time in the
afternoon, particularly as business in the Chamber is going on
till seven, as to why those Committees cannot go later. There
was actually quite a relaxed approach taken, there were not any
knives put in and the time of sessions seemed to work. To some
extent, my view is that it seems when you get over-programmed
and over-tight on that kind of finishing it leads to people doing
more time-wasting and less relevant talking, whereas if you say,
"The time is there" people focus on the real issue.
I would just go later in the afternoon session.
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