House of Commons - Modernisation of the House of Commons

Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons First Report

Introduction

1. On 29 October 2002, the House of Commons adopted a new pattern of sitting hours proposed in the Modernisation Committee's Report, Modernisation of the House of Commons: A Reform Programme.[1] In October 2002, the House agreed temporary Standing Orders to give effect to the new sitting hours until the end of the present Parliament.[2] As it stands, once the temporary Standing Orders expire, the House will revert automatically to the pre-2003 sitting hours which are established by the Standing Orders of the House. Such a significant and unplanned change to the sitting hours of the House would clearly compromise its effective functioning and it is now therefore essential for the House to take a decision on sitting hours in the next Parliament. Any new Parliament inherits from its predecessors a corpus of practices, procedures and conventions which are embodied in the Standing Orders.[3] Although no decision taken in this Parliament would be binding on its successor, we believe that the House has a duty now to make sensible sitting arrangements which will continue in effect immediately after a general election. For reference, the current and former sitting hours are set out in the table below:

Current sitting hours to scheduled end of main business[4] Sitting Hours before January 2003 to scheduled end of main business

Monday 2.30 p.m.-10.00 p.m. 2.30 p.m.-10.00 p.m.

Tuesday 11.30 a.m.-7.00 p.m. 2.30 p.m.-10.00 p.m.

Wednesday 11.30 a.m.-7.00 p.m. 2.30 p.m.-10.00 p.m.

Thursday 11.30 a.m.-6.00 p.m. 11.30 a.m.-7.00 p.m.

Friday[5] 9.30 a.m.-2.30 p.m. 9.30 a.m.-2.30 p.m.

Source: Standing Orders No. 9 (Sittings of the House) and 11 (Friday sittings), and Orders of 29 October 2002.

2. We are grateful to the Procedure Committee for its survey of Members' views of the new sitting hours, conducted at the beginning of 2004.[6] We have taken the Committee's survey results into account in our own consideration of this subject. The Leader of the House wrote to all Members on 8 January in his capacity as Leader of the House, and again on 29 June, in his capacity as Chairman of this Committee, seeking representations on the subject.[7] We received well over 100 responses. We also took oral evidence from a group of back-bench Members,[8] the Clerk of the House and the Director of Finance and Administration,[9] representatives of the staff of the House,[10] and the Chairman of Ways and Means and representatives of the Chairmen's Panel.[11] Informally, we have consulted very widely among Members in all parts of the House.

3. The current arrangements have now had nearly two years to bed down. Members should now be well-placed to make a judgement on any refinements which might be needed and, if any changes are to be made, it is essential that the House administration is given the maximum possible notice to prepare for them.[12] We recommend that, well before the likely end of the current Session, the Leader of the House make time for a debate on a Motion to amend the Standing Orders so as to make the current sitting hours permanent, subject to the changes proposed in this Report.

4. As a result of our investigations and listening to all the representations that we have received, we are convinced that an important objective of any changes to the current sitting hours should be to re-balance the sitting week by making Thursday more consistently effective for a full day's business. We are concerned at the practice whereby Thursdays cannot be used for a normal full day's business, so that for many Members the week can end on Wednesday evening. We believe that a four-day sitting week should be seen as the norm, and our recommendations are aimed at reducing the tendency for almost all the week's major business, including committee meetings, to be crammed into two or three days, with the emphasis on Tuesday and Wednesday.

5. Despite this 'bunching' effect, we note that the new sitting arrangements have not led to a decline in Parliamentary activity. The House, which has long sat for more days and hours per year than most other Parliaments in the democratic world,[13] sat for a total of 1,206 hours over 153 days in 2003 under the new sitting hours, compared with 1,176 hours over 150 days in 2002 under the old ones.[14] The length of Hansard—a good overall indicator of levels of activity since it contains reports of the Chamber and Westminster Hall, written statements and written answers—rose from an average of 159 to 165 pages per sitting day after the new hours were introduced.[15] Select committee activity also increased from 1,037 meetings per year to 1,312 and from 201 reports to 232. This was partly driven by the establishment of several committees on draft bills. There was a reduction in the level of standing committee activity, however: in Financial Year 2002-03, there were 477 standing committee meetings, producing a total of 9,036 pages of Hansard. In 2003-04, the equivalent figures were 399 meetings and 7,826 pages of debate. This is partly attributable to there being fewer Government bills in the latter period.[16]

Options for change

6. It is clear from debates in the House, the responses to the Procedure Committee's questionnaire and the submissions we have received that many, if not most Members feel strongly about the issue of sitting hours. It is equally clear that there is no strong consensus of opinion on which of the many possible options for change should be pursued. When the changes were originally agreed to, an amendment to retain the old hours on Wednesdays was defeated by 23 votes and the arrangements for earlier sittings on Tuesdays were passed with a majority of just seven votes.[17]

7. The initial impetus for the change in hours came from a widespread feeling that it was wrong in principle for Parliament to be legislating at 10 p.m. or later and that sitting late contributed neither to the quality of the debates nor to the esteem in which the House was held. But Members would be less than human if these points of principle were not interwoven with many other considerations, such as how the hours could be made to fit in with their constituency work, with their family life and with patterns of travel between home, constituency and Westminster. These considerations, however, affected Members in a host of different ways, depending not only on whether they had a family and where they lived, but also on their approach to the work of a Member of Parliament. The same considerations often weighed on both sides of an argument. While some Members welcomed the family-friendly nature of the new hours, others pointed out that it was no improvement for those with family homes in constituencies away from the London area. While some thought the new hours made better use of the Parliamentary day, others complained that they created congestion in committees and kept them away from their offices during normal office hours. Some Members argued that the new hours appear more normal to constituents, whereas others emphasised the special nature of the House's business and the consequent need sometimes to adopt unusual working practices. To compound matters, some Members who originally opposed the changes now support them, and vice versa.

8. The Procedure Committee put forward a set of principles which it felt should guide further reform of sitting hours—

a) that there was no single option which was likely to achieve a large amount of cross-party support, but that reverting to the old hours on one day might be a possible compromise;

b) that, in considering hours, committees and other calls on Members' time should be considered alongside the Chamber;

c) that, given the unique character of MPs' work, it might not be possible to move over completely to 'normal' office hours;

d) that decisions should be taken in the full knowledge of their impact on staff working patterns and adequate notice should be given of any change; and

e) that using Tuesday or Wednesday evening for extra business would require more staff and would depend on the time concerned being regularly available.[18]

To this list of considerations we would add a sixth. The current Government has retained, for two consecutive Parliaments, what is an unusually large majority in historical terms.[19] Any changes to the way in which the House works should therefore be introduced in such a way as to be effective whatever the size of a future Government's majority. As the Chairman of Ways and Means pointed out:

'So many Members of the House are only used to a House made up as the present House is made up and things can be very different in a situation where the governing party has a small majority. It is very important to make decisions which apply to as many circumstances as one can conceive'.[20]

9. Although there is no consensus among Members on the way forward, a fairly well-defined range of options has begun to emerge in respect of each day of the week. Below, we consider those options for each day and set out our recommendations and the reasons for them. In making these proposals, our aim has been to re-balance the Parliamentary week and to seek to avoid its excessive compression into Tuesday and Wednesday.

Monday

10. There is not and never has been any significant call for a change to the current Monday sitting hours.[21] The current arrangements, broadly the same as those adopted in 1946, are convenient for Members with non-London constituencies, many of whom are able to travel to London from their constituencies on Monday morning, rather than on Sunday night, and still be present for a full day's business in the Chamber. For London Members, they provide a predictable opportunity to schedule work in the constituency. Monday mornings also provide an extended opportunity of several hours for guests to tour the Palace. We recommend that the House retain the current sitting hours on Mondays, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which immediately follow a recess. We see some scope, however, for additional select committee activity late on Monday afternoons—although we recognise that it is for committees themselves to decide when to meet. We also believe that there might be scope for more standing committee meetings on Monday afternoons, but we would discourage any move in that direction until the Chairmen's Panel has had an opportunity to consider its possible consequences.

Tuesday

11. Most of the debate about sitting hours has centred on Tuesday and, to a lesser extent, Wednesday. The issues surrounding the two days are substantially the same, and four main options have been put forward—

a) to retain the current hours;

b) to revert to the old hours, sitting at 2.30 p.m. with the moment of interruption at 10 p.m.;[22]

c) to retain the moment of interruption at 7 p.m. but to arrange unwhipped business, such as adjournment debates, afterwards, running till 10 p.m.; or

d) to retain the moment of interruption for Government business at 7 p.m. but to take private Members' bills afterwards (either for a specified period of time or until a certain hour).

In the case of option d), Friday sittings could be abandoned entirely, giving Members a predictable day each week on which to schedule appointments in their constituencies.

Private Members' bills in the evening

12. We gave very careful consideration to the question of scheduling business after the moment of interruption, in particular the possibility of moving private Members' bills to Tuesday evenings and designating every Friday as a constituency day. We deal later (paragraphs 31 and 32) with the arguments about the present Friday sittings. We have concluded that moving private Members' bills is not a viable option at the moment: the changes involved to the character of private Members' bill procedure would be radical and we do not believe that it would be proper for changes of that nature and magnitude to happen as a simple consequence of sitting hours modernisation, although we wish to leave the option open for the future.

13. Private Members' bills are not whipped. It is up to the Member in charge of a bill to ensure that he or she has enough supporters on the day for the bill to make progress. This means that an absolute minimum of 40 Members must be present at all times in order to prevent the bill being carried over as a result of an inquorate division,[23] and in practice a bill will usually need 100 supporters—the minimum necessary to carry a closure Motion.[24] The vast majority of private Members' bills fail due to lack of time. Most Members feel that, unless there is a bill which they strongly support (or oppose) on the Order Paper, their time is better spent in their constituencies on a Friday, so the requirement to have 100 Members on hand to vote in any division which may be called is often difficult to meet. Private Members' bills are therefore only likely to pass if they enjoy significant, active support from backbenchers, and the acquiescence of the Government.

14. The fact that the majority of PMBs fail is not necessarily a weakness of the system. Some Members promoting a bill see it as a focus around which to build a campaign on a particular issue, as well as an opportunity to get something on the statute book. Since a bill uniquely can give a Member a substantial amount of time in the Chamber during the main part of the sitting day, they remain a much valued parliamentary opportunity. A thorough assessment needs to be made of their effectiveness and of whether there is scope to increase backbench influence on Parliament's legislative output in other ways. In the meantime, however, we assess the likely impact of doing no more than simply moving the time at which PMBs are taken. Moving PMBs to a weekday night would result in increased attendance which would in turn make it easier for Members to find the necessary 100 supporters for their bill and therefore easier, other things being equal, for those bills to get through. Since there will be occasions on which any responsible Government will feel the need to block a private Member's bill—because, for instance, it is contrary to a manifesto commitment, conflicts with established policies or involves significant, unplanned additional Government expenditure—it would probably be felt necessary for the Government to whip PMBs if they were taken on a weekday evening. If the fate of bills were to be decided by the outcome of votes, rather than the availability of time, it is likely that any Opposition would also apply the whip, in order to ensure support in the lobbies for the bills which it favoured and on occasions when they saw scope for embarrassing the Government of the day.

15. It seems certain to us that private Members' bills, if they were taken on a weekday evening, would often become whipped business. Not only would this lead to a day with 11 hours or more of whipped business, it would fundamentally change the character of the proceedings, with the intrusion of whipping into time which has so far been at the free disposal of backbenchers; there might also be other, less predictable changes. It could result in legislative business being settled very late in the evening on those occasions when Government business continued much beyond 7 p.m. (see paragraph 17 below). Our judgement is that it would not be right for such a major overhaul of private Members' bills procedure to happen as a by-product of changes to the sitting hours of the House. We recommend that private Members' bills should retain their place on 13 Fridays each year for the time being, until we have had an opportunity to carry out a comprehensive review of the purpose of private Members' bills and of PMB procedure, consulting with the Procedure Committee which has investigated this matter.

Other business after 7 p.m.

16. A few Members suggested that unwhipped business should be taken between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Tuesday or Wednesday. In response to the Procedure Committee's questionnaire, 13% favoured some kind of business being taken after 7 p.m. on Tuesday and 17% on Wednesday.[25] This option was less popular than taking PMBs on a weekday evening, presumably because it did not include the quid pro quo of an end to Friday sittings. We are reluctant to accept this suggestion for a number of reasons, primarily that it is entirely contrary to the principles of sitting hours modernisation which we and the House have already accepted, essentially involving a return to late-night sittings going beyond 10 p.m. on a regular basis. The start and finish times of such business would be unpredictable because of the potential over-run of Government business, especially in the run-up to the Summer recess and towards the end of a Session.[26]

17. There are three ways of dealing with business after the moment of interruption: to allow it to proceed until a specified hour, to allow it to proceed for a specified time, or to allow it to proceed indefinitely.[27] In any case, the preceding Government business is likely to over-run by at least a few minutes (in the case of a single division at the moment of interruption), and sometimes by an hour or significantly longer. The conclusion of a report stage of a bill, or consideration of Lords Amendments, for example, can result in five or more divisions;[28] even a second reading can on occasion result in up to six.[29] A wide range of business is exempted, meaning that it may be proceeded with after the moment of interruption, and the Government from time to time exempts other items of business by giving notice of a motion to be moved at the moment of interruption.[30] If business after 7 p.m. were to proceed until a specified hour, then Government business would on occasion encroach so seriously into the time available as to leave insufficient time. If it were to proceed for a specified time, then the House would end up on occasion sitting late into the night.

18. We are also uneasy with the suggestion that business after 7 p.m. should be 'optional', at least for Members. Adjournment debates are often poorly attended as it stands. There is every reason to assume that debates in the evening would be even less popular. We are not confident that the benefits of 'optional' business in the evenings outweigh the financial costs, nor the additional burden that such a long sitting day would place on staff of the House, on front-bench spokesmen, Ministers and whips, and the difficulties it would create for the House in trying to meet its statutory duties as an employer.[31]

19. We are also wary of any suggestion that the House adopt as the normal pattern a combination of late night and early morning sittings, whether or not the majority of Members' presence would be required. Such a move could have a potentially serious impact on a few staff of the House and would certainly disadvantage many of those whose working hours are linked to sittings of the House. We are mindful of the fact that the work of the House imposes peculiar demands on Members and staff alike. Nonetheless, we believe that our national Parliament should strive to be a good employer. The Clerk of the House (who is also Chief Executive of the House of Commons Service), the Director of Finance and Administration and representatives of the House of Commons Trade Union Side explained to us the serious difficulties which a pattern of late nights followed by early mornings could create for the House in trying to meet its obligations as an employer.[32] Such a pattern could lead to a small but significant number of staff working from 7.30 a.m. till 11 p.m. on a regular basis. In the long-term, additional staff resources could alleviate this problem, but might compromise the continuity of personal service which Members currently enjoy. Staffing issues should not be seen as an absolute barrier to the House deciding on any pattern of sittings which it chooses; but nor should such decisions be taken without a full awareness of their potential impact on staff and on the House as an employer.

20. The establishment of sittings in Westminster Hall, in response to a recommendation from this Committee, has provided nine hours each week for non-substantive backbench adjournment debates, in addition to the two or two and a half provided in the Chamber, as well as a three-hour debate on a select committee report or a subject chosen by the Government. While there is no shortage of demand from backbench Members for time on the Floor of the House, it should be remembered that adjournment debates are only one of many opportunities available to Members—they are suitable for some purposes but not others. There is little evidence to suggest that demand for these debates significantly exceeds supply and, as we have already noted, we should be wary of creating a situation in which the reverse is the case.

21. We note that many of the arguments against taking adjournment debates after the moment of interruption apply even more compellingly to substantive business such as private Members' bills.

Reversion to the old hours

22. The arguments for changing to the new sitting hours have been well rehearsed in our earlier Report and in the subsequent debates in the House. The new hours were adopted by a small majority but since then many Members who opposed the change have embraced it, just as many who originally favoured the change now oppose it. The Procedure Committee's survey at the beginning of 2004 found that there was no strong consensus on reverting to the old hours and that significantly more Members preferred to keep the new hours on a Wednesday. A small majority (52%) would then have preferred to revert to the old hours on a Tuesday. The principal reasons given were that it would result in fewer clashes between the House and committee meetings, less concentration of activity of all kinds and more opportunity to deal with outside bodies during the normal working day. Reasons given for preferring the new hours were that they were more like normal working hours, they resulted in better press coverage of the House, and that they enabled Members to make more effective use of the Parliamentary day. Only 31% favoured the new hours on a Tuesday, with the remaining 13% preferring an 11.30 a.m. start and a 7 p.m. finish for the main business, with private Members' bills or some other kind of unwhipped business being taken afterwards, as we have discussed above.[33]

23. We acknowledge that there are arguments against the new hours on Tuesday but we believe, on balance, that they are preferable to a pattern of sitting from mid-afternoon, late into the night. This pattern was established around the end of the 19th Century,[34] a time when many MPs had to earn a living outside Parliament before attending to their duties in the Chamber.[35] It is not appropriate that a 21st Century Parliament should seek to return to such outdated sitting patterns. Nor do we believe that the House should routinely be legislating late at night, as was formerly the practice. The diversity of Members of Parliament—their constituency workloads, their own working practices and their domestic circumstances—is such that there is no pattern of sitting hours which will please everybody. In the absence of such a panacea, we believe that a pattern of work which more closely matches the norm, while taking account of the special nature of Members' work, is highly desirable.

24. We recognise that the new sitting hours have had some undesirable consequences and we suggest below ways in which these might be mitigated. But after almost two years' experience, we do not believe that the arguments for the new sitting hours are any less compelling than they were originally. We expect that the House will be able to express a clear view on Tuesday sittings when this report is debated and we recommend that the House retain the current sitting arrangements on Tuesdays.

Wednesday

25. The proposals we have discussed above relating to Tuesday apply equally to Wednesday. However, many more Members favour keeping the current sitting hours for Wednesday than for Tuesday. Earlier this year, when the Procedure Committee conducted its survey of Members, 52% would have preferred to revert to the old hours on a Tuesday, but only 35% would have preferred to do so on a Wednesday. More Members also actively supported the new hours on a Wednesday than on a Tuesday: 44% compared to 31%.[36] We believe that the arguments surrounding Tuesday and Wednesday sittings are essentially the same, although there is significantly less support among Members for any change to the current arrangements on a Wednesday than on a Tuesday. We recommend that the House retain the current sitting arrangements on Wednesdays.

Thursday

26. Thursday has, to some extent, ceased to be a full working day. This is not entirely as a consequence of the latest reforms. Long before the earlier Thursday sitting was introduced in 1998,[37] Thursdays were frequently used for uncontroversial business with a one- or two-line whip although, until 1997, Prime Minister's Questions at 3.15 p.m. ensured that many Members stayed in the House until late afternoon, at least. The fact that the House sits for one hour less than on other days makes it difficult to schedule major business on a Thursday, which has led to poor attendance in the Chamber and little select committee activity.[38] We believe that it should be a priority for the House to restore Thursday to a full sitting day. In order to do so, we believe that it will be necessary to find an additional sitting hour on Thursdays in order to put it on an equal footing with other days. There might still be a disproportionate amount of 'light' business on Thursdays. There is a small amount of essential business each year which is not heavily whipped, such as Estimates Days, the annual defence debates and debates on matters to be considered before the forthcoming adjournment, and it will usually still make sense to take that business on a Thursday or a Monday.

27. But we believe that the House should at least revert to the practice of taking substantial business on the majority of Thursdays. The fact that Members currently expect Thursdays to be largely unwhipped means that it has become more difficult to organise select committee and other meetings on a Thursday. If the Government were to use Thursdays for significant, whipped business as a matter of course, then it would, we believe, have a knock-on effect on levels of other Parliamentary activity on that day. It is only in this way that the growing expectation that the effective sitting week will end on Wednesday evening will be broken.

28. We do not consider that sitting an hour later in the evening is the best solution to this problem. For many Members with constituencies some way from London, the slightly earlier time of rising makes the difference between being able to travel to their constituency at a reasonable time on Thursday night and having either to arrive home very late at night or wait until Friday morning to travel. A move to later sittings on a Thursday would impinge disproportionately on those Members.

29. One way of finding an extra hour would be to move the Business Question to another day of the week. There are, however, a number of problems with this option. Firstly, it adds time to the Thursday sitting at the expense of time on another day. Secondly, there can be no guarantee that the main business on a Thursday (as on any other day) will not in any case be compressed by Urgent Questions or statements. Thirdly, the Business Question is taken shortly after Cabinet on a Thursday morning; if it were to be taken earlier in the week, before Cabinet met, there would be a greater likelihood of the following week's business changing and a supplementary statement having to be made.

30. We recommend that, in order to gain an hour at Thursday sittings, the House should meet one hour earlier on a Thursday morning, at 10.30 a.m. Notice periods for Urgent Questions, presentation of public petitions and other business for which notice is usually given on the day of the sitting should also change accordingly.

Friday

31. We have already discussed the scope for abandoning Friday sittings entirely, by moving private Members' bills to a Tuesday or Wednesday evening, and concluded that it should not be done unless a comprehensive review of private Members' bills procedure and the consequences of such a move has first been carried out by this Committee. The House now sits on only 13 Fridays each year.[39] The projected calendar for 2004-05 provides for 24 sitting weeks on which the House does not meet on Friday—ample time, which has been announced well in advance, for Members to plan constituency work.

32. The present hours for sitting Fridays have been unchanged since January 1980,[40] and there does not appear to be widespread dissatisfaction with the sitting and rising times on a Friday at the moment. Because business is unwhipped, attendance in the Chamber on a Friday is more variable than on other days, but controversial or high-profile bills still attract a good turnout even though Friday is the only working day which Members may predictably and consistently spend working in their constituencies. We recommend that the arrangements for Friday sittings remain unchanged although, as we have already indicated, we believe that this Committee should conduct a thorough review of the purpose of private Members' bills and the procedure governing them, in consultation with the Procedure Committee.

1 Second Report from the Committee, Session 2001-02, HC 1168-I, pp. 15-18. Back

2 Orders of 29 October 2002 (New Provision for Earlier Sittings on Wednesdays, and for Thursdays and Fridays; and New Provision for Earlier Sittings on Tuesdays). See Standing Orders relating to Public Business, 2004, HC 2, 2003-04, pp. 161-164. Back

3 Other procedural Resolutions and Orders, rulings from the Chair and other precedents also have a lasting effect beyond the end of a Parliament. Back

4 The end of the main business is followed by a half-hour adjournment debate, initiated by a back-bench MP. Whereas the time at which a sitting starts is fixed, it may, and often does in practice, go on beyond the scheduled time. We discuss this in more detail later in the Report. Back

5 The House sits on only 13 Fridays each year. Back

6 Second Report from the Procedure Committee, 2003-04, HC 491, Results of the Sitting Hours Questionnaire. Back

7 Ev 51. Back

8 Ev 1. Back

9 Ev 20. Back

10 Ev 29. Back

11 Ev 39. Back

12 QQ 86 & 106 (Clerk of the House). Back