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The hon. Member made several proposals about how the situation might be addressed, which were echoed eloquently by his hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper): ending the system of e-tabling; requiring all parliamentary questions to be handed in by a Member to the Table Office; and/or requiring a Member’s signature at the end of the question as it is handed in, rather than at the bottom of the form, to help preclude the use of pre-signed forms.
Let me be frank: I do not want to be seen—the Government do not want to be seen—as seeking to clamp down in any way on Members’ ability to scrutinise the Executive. Members have different perspectives on what is important and how they wish to pursue their work, or on how to use their staff. That is absolutely right and proper. But the Government agree with the hon. Member that the volume of written parliamentary questions is causing difficulties. In practice, as the Leader of the House pointed out today, in many ways, the Government are now subject to wider scrutiny, from even more directions—both parliamentary and non-parliamentary—than was ever the case in the past. It is certainly not for the Government to seek to impose changes on the House in this regard. It is healthy that the concerns expressed this evening have come from an individual Member—an Opposition Member, indeed—and his colleagues, and not from the Executive.
I have drawn the hon. Member’s concerns to the attention of the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight). He chairs the Procedure Committee, which last examined the issue four years ago under other chairmanship. The right hon. Member is minded to ask his Committee to consider the hon. Member’s proposals, and will write to him after he has studied them more fully. That, in turn, could pave the way to the tabling of questions when the House is not sitting. A review by the Procedure Committee could allow a proper assessment of the views of other Members to establish the extent to which the hon. Member’s concerns are shared, and the extent to which Members are prepared to consider changes in practices that will involve co-operation on all sides. Let me make it clear again that the objective would be better scrutiny, not less scrutiny, of the Executive by the House.
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends for giving us an opportunity to discuss the issues more fully.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Six o’clock.
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