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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1002-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

procedure committee

 

 

early day motions

 

 

Tuesday 28 March 2006

NORMAN BAKER MP, RT HON DOUGLAS HOGG MP and MR DAVID KIDNEY MP

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 34

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Procedure Committee

on Tuesday 28 March 2006

Members present

Mr Greg Knight, in the Chair

Mr David Anderson

Mr Christopher Chope

Mr David Gauke

Mr Eric Illsley

Rosemary McKenna

Sir Robert Smith

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Witnesses: Norman Baker, a Member of the House, Rt Hon Douglas Hogg, a Member of the House, and Mr David Kidney, a Member of the House, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you for coming. We realise your time is at a premium and we appreciate you volunteering to give evidence to us. Unfortunately, I am going to have to leave in about one minute's time. Mr Kidney will know the reason why. I happen to be in the middle of a speech in Standing Committee A, which is adjourned until 4.30, so I am going to ask Rosemary McKenna to chair the meeting in my absence, but I do hope to return whilst you are still with us and giving evidence. We are dealing with this in a fairly relaxed way so we are quite happy either for you just to answer our questions or, if you wish, to make a short statement, either before or after your evidence session, really setting out your views, and so I invite you to do so and I invite Rosemary to take over the Chair.

In the absence of the Chairman, Rosemary McKenna was called to the Chair

Mr Kidney: We are all agreed that we do not need to make any opening statements, so on with the questions.

Q2 Rosemary McKenna: Can I begin then, gentlemen, by welcoming you and asking you what uses you make personally of EDMs, both in respect of tabling your own and adding your names to those tabled by others? Would you normally sign an EDM if asked to by a colleague, your Whips or a constituent? Many EDMs are promoted by organisations outside Parliament, some explicitly, some not; does this concern you and what should be done about it? It is a pretty wide, opening question.

Mr Hogg: I never sign Early Day Motions which I am asked to sign by anybody, neither by constituents nor by lobby groups nor by colleagues. My general practice, when I am asked, is to say I do not sign them because I think they are devalued currency. Over the last 12 months, I will not be exact about this, I think I have drafted two EDMs and signed one, but that is the order of it, I might be slightly wrong but that is the order of it. Occasionally I do draft Early Day Motions. The two I drafted is one suggesting that the Prime Minister should be impeached over his dishonesty over Iraq, that was one EDM; the other EDM is I suggested, with regard to the Chinook helicopter crash, that a senior judicial figure should be appointed to review the evidence, to advise the Secretary of State as to whether or not his Department was negligent. I do not recall what the third one was but I sign only things which I think are of major importance and I never do it when I am nagged.

Q3 Rosemary McKenna: What about outside organisations; what would be your view?

Mr Hogg: I think they are greatly devalued but I do not think that the mischief is so great that I would try to prevent them occurring. There is a case, I think, for some restrictions on the number of EDMs that Members of Parliament sign in any session; that might protect them as against their constituents, I speak in respect of those MPs that need protection from their constituents, and it might, in fact, serve as a curb on the numbers of them. My overall opinion is that whilst they are devalued the mischief that they create is not so great that I would wish to interfere with Members of Parliament having the right to sign them, if that is what they choose.

Norman Baker: I agree with the definition of 'devalued currency' although I think I would put it more colloquially by saying they are the toilet paper of Parliament these days. They are devalued in the sense that we have got now, I think, looking at the Order Paper today, 1,908 so far this session and they are so common now that any influence they may have had, in terms of changing government policy or beginning campaigns out there in the big wide world, has become less than otherwise it would have been. It is also the case that every single NGO and pressure group, and indeed others beyond that, has identified EDMs as what they regard as a meaningful way of influencing Parliament, and the consequence is that any researcher for an NGO, as part of their parliamentary research, will suggest firstly an EDM as a way of raising the matter, and therefore EDMs come to us. Particularly when I was environment spokesman for my Party, obviously the environment NGOs would come forward and say, "Would you table this EDM?" There is significant pressure on you to do so because, first of all, you may agree with the terms of the EDM, and the contents of it often are quite sensible, and secondly you do not wish to be unhelpful to people with whom you deal on a regular basis and with whom you have a lot in common. Thirdly, of course, I suppose if you do not table it then someone else will, which is one argument about how actually they operate. We have got constituents writing to us now, as I am sure you know, on a regular basis, saying, "Will you sign this EDM?" as if it is the most important thing which is going, and if you agree with it and do not sign it then you can be seen as being somewhat perverse. I have tried the argument Douglas puts forward, about it being devalued currency, but my constituents do not really like that very much, they take a dim view and think you are trying to shuffle off responsibility for it; they want you actually to sign these EDMs and so most of the time you end up doing so. I think it is very important that, the good part of the EDM, which is the opportunity to raise issues which otherwise may not have a vehicle, say, something like 'primates as pets', which otherwise would not naturally occur but nevertheless it is an important issue for a large number of people, you have to be able to find a way of using a vehicle to raise that and the EDM is one. Also you have to find a way of eliminating those EDMs, in my view, either directly or on a two-tier system somehow, which otherwise devalue the whole process. I do not think a serious issue such as the one raised by Douglas, about whether the Prime Minister should be impeached, should be regarded as being on the same level playing‑field as whether or not a particular football team should be congratulated on winning a particular football match.

Mr Kidney: I do promote Early Day Motions and I do sign them. I have been a PPS for a while now, so now I have to stop signing the ones that are critical of the Government or call on the Government to change its policy, so perhaps I sign fewer than I used to. I think it is a pretty healthy activity. It has long been called 'political graffiti', but out of the graffiti come some important messages to us sometimes which have not got an outlet somewhere else. I have had experience of campaigning organisations using an Early Day Motion which they get somebody to table and then they get all their supporters, in everybody's constituency, to write to the MPs to say, "You must sign this one." It quite impresses me how much faith the individual puts into urging me to sign this Early Day Motion, as though it is going to make some real great difference to their lives, and I do wonder sometimes if we are misleading the public slightly in those campaigns. What I would say about their influence is that I do know now, from being at the PPS end, that ministers do take an interest in what is going down as an Early Day Motion, how many people are signing, so there is an opportunity there in the background to influence ministers. My own answer to trying to stop the slightly more trivial ones is to make Early Day Motions potentially debatable, which would mean, first of all, they would have to follow the rules for adjournment debates. That would cut down a little bit, I think, on what would be permissible as an Early Day Motion and also might make MPs think a little bit more carefully about what they are putting their names to, if they think that this is something that is actually going to get a debate in Parliament.

Q4 Sir Robert Smith: We are going to come to questions on the subject matter later on but, thinking of other ways, you have all raised the issue of maybe too many Early Day Motions and I think are suggesting, in response to our survey, some kind of restriction on the number of Early Day Motions or we should reduce the number of Early Day Motions on the Order Paper. I suppose you have touched on it but what is the real problem with having too many Early Day Motions?

Mr Hogg: At the end of the day, I do not think there is a serious problem. We are all agreed, I think, that they are devalued, that many trivial ones are brought forward, and that is bad news in the sense that we are deceiving; the point that David made, about deceiving your constituents, I think is right about this. It is one of the reasons I dislike signing them because I feel it is a form of humbuggery, that actually you are deceiving people into thinking you are doing something significant but you are not. If you ask yourself what is a serious question which really should trouble us, I do not think honestly there is a sufficiently serious message actually to try seriously to restrict the number or content.

Norman Baker: I will answer in a different way. I believe that the concept of having an opportunity for Members of Parliament to express their views in a slightly more free way is a good one. I think also it is useful that EDMs encourage cross-party discussions and initiatives, which I think we should do more of in this place rather than less. Therefore, the concept of an EDM, a bit like propaganda on a Chinese wall in Mao's time, seems to me to be a good one, while it can be possible for ministers to pick up on the feelings of Members which they may not be aware of, so the concept is one which I think is good. The answer, Bob, is that there are too many and therefore the good ones, and the use to which EDMs can be put, become diluted by the ones which are chaff. If we can find just some way of promoting those ones which genuinely raise important points, which genuinely are ones which Members feel strongly about, cross-party, then that will be doing a service to Parliament.

Mr Kidney: Yes, and to put that in just a slightly different way, if there is a problem it is "Can't see the trees for the woods" problem; there are so many that we cannot pick out which ones are the significant ones. There is a danger then that something which could be quite useful becomes useless because there are too many others that are masking the one that is important.

Q5 Sir Robert Smith: Taking up your issue, when a constituent writes in saying, "I'm asking you to sign this EDM" quite often I do. Is there any point and what does it achieve, and I think that maybe there is a point there that you raised about constituents being misled by organisations. There are several suggestions of trying to reduce the number maybe by a ration, so many a year per Member, or requiring a certain number of signatures before it can actually be tabled, or dropping the EDM if it did not get any more support after so long?

Mr Hogg: Of course, that does happen; it comes off the Order Paper on a Thursday if you have not increased the number of signatures.

Q6 Sir Robert Smith: It is still available though?

Mr Hogg: It is still available but it will not come back onto the Order Paper unless you can increase the number of signatures; at least, I think that is correct.

Q7 Sir Robert Smith: Does anybody have any views on a quota per year per Member, or a threshold?

Mr Hogg: I would recommend against a threshold, for this reason, that if it were an unpopular cause you can be quite sure that the 'usual channels', by which I mean the Whips' Office, would come and bear down on the party to try to restrict the numbers and anything that increases the power of a party or the Whips' Office is deeply to be deplored, so we must do nothing to increase the power of the Whips' Offices or the 'usual channels'.

Mr Kidney: Just to add to that point, the fact that only a small number of people hold a particular point of view does not make it a point of view that should not be listened to. It might be actually a very significant point that is being made but only a very small number of people, so definitely I agree that you should not have a limit depending on how many people you can get to sign and, personally, it does not appeal to me to put a quota on each MP. I would much prefer to try to put a greater sense of responsibility on individual MPs not to table or to have rules which stop them tabling EDMs on subjects that are not particularly interesting to Parliament.

Q8 Mr Illsley: I think we are going to come on to this when we talk about debating EDMs, but here we seem to be advocating a categorisation system whereby you could have the toilet paper, graffiti element at one end and perhaps the more serious EDM towards the other end. I wonder how we could differentiate between the two?

Mr Hogg: I do not see how, definitively, you would distinguish between the two, unless you were to give to an individual the right to filter those going down, and I would be very reluctant to see that. Your diagnosis is right, what you have described is wholly correct, but I do not think I have the solution to the problem.

Norman Baker: Can I try to find one maybe, which is that we all agree there are too many and we are looking for a way of limiting it without having unforeseen and unwelcome consequences. Certainly I would not wish to increase the powers of the 'usual channels' but (with exploitation ?) I am not in favour of the 'usual channels' at the best of times. Nor am I in favour of somebody acting as God and saying you can have something and you cannot have something else. I think that is very difficult. I have suggested a relevant number of signatures but I accept there may be a potential danger of downside to that. I think it might be worth looking at a two-tier system whereby you have, effectively, perhaps a required number of signatures for certain motions. Perhaps those can be framed in such a way as can be open for debate as adjournment debates and they are ones, if you like, which Members will seriously want to take further, perhaps Douglas' one about impeachment, for example, and you could have those in a particular category. You may want to have a qualification number for that or cross-party for three parties, a certain number for each party, a bit like all‑party groups, for example, where that principle already applies; alternatively, a significant percentage of one particular party, if one party wanted to say something. On the other hand, you could have a second tier, whereby you could have people who want to say things about football teams, but that would not detract necessarily from the upper tier. I do not know whether that would work or not, maybe it is slightly bureaucratic, but it seems to me one way of getting round the problem.

Q9 Rosemary McKenna: There could be a third regulatory element in that system where the Members themselves would say that there was a different level?

Norman Baker: You could do, yes.

Q10 Mr Illsley: How would you react to a category of debatable and non-debatable EDMs, whereby the Member himself, or herself, when tabling EDMs, said to the Table Office, "This is a non-debatable EDM; this one is a debatable EDM," and the wording then would have to be more strict, in line with the pre-1995 debatable backbench motions that we used to have?

Mr Hogg: I would be very much in favour of having debatable EDMs but I am not sure I would use it as the filter for distinguishing between EDMs, but the concept of debating EDMs I think is a very good one and I do remember Private Members' Motions. The only thing I would say is I would not allow the selection of the EDM to be anywhere near the 'usual channels', it ought to be determined by the Speaker, or, if we are going to have a Business Committee, by a Business Committee, but not by the Whips' Offices.

Q11 Mr Chope: Everybody is saying they want to have some sort of restriction on the subject matter. One idea is that would be limiting the subject matter, for example, as with adjournment debates, where there is a requirement to engage ministerial responsibility. Do any of you buy into that, as an idea?

Mr Kidney: I do, because my proposal that we should have debatable Early Day Motions brings with it, I think, the corollary that therefore the Early Day Motions must follow the same requirements of adjournment debates, and you can find the current requirements in Erskine May, 23rd Edition, pages 379 and 380. Basically, as you say, first of all they have to engage ministerial responsibility, and secondly they must not call for legislation, and there are some usual rules about not being sub judice and not having a slogan for a title. I would say that all Early Day Motions should be like that and that would get out of the way all the ones "Well done to my local football team," because clearly they would not qualify.

Norman Baker: It would prevent also, for example, the outpouring of genuine support for, say, Nelson Mandela, when South Africa changed its status, and, more seriously, or even more pertinently to now, it would prevent people bringing forward senseless suggestions for legislation which currently can be put down in EDMs. For example, I put down an EDM suggesting that county councils or (hybrid ?) authorities ought to have the power to set 20‑mile‑per‑hour limits, as opposed to having to ask the Department for Transport for permission every time; now that is a call for legislation. It so happened, three months later on, the Government did it, not that they gave me any credit for it, but I assume it is to do with my EDM perhaps. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity to raise an issue which is legislation, so I would not want those sorts of things to be outlawed, particularly when you seem to be getting cross‑party support.

Mr Kidney: I think we are an inventive group of people, Members of Parliament. If we cannot find a way to air our point of view and attract a little bit of publicity for it in the meantime then we are not doing our jobs properly.

Mr Hogg: Can I answer Mr Chope's comments with two observations. What I think we should not exclude is the important issue, even if it is not one for immediate ministerial operation. I can think of, for example, things connected with the United Nations which one might very well want to talk about, which is not immediately a departmental matter; or take my own question about the impeachment of the Prime Minister, that is not ministerial, that is calling the House of Commons to do something and that is different. In any event, this is against David, if I may, I agree that the football ones are nonsense but you could always bring them before the House on an EDM simply by asking the Culture Secretary to make an award to X Football Club as a recognition that then they will get into the language of that sort of EDM. I think that, by going down the road that you have indicated, Mr Chope, probably you would not achieve the desired effect, if you were successful, and you might be doing positive damage too.

Norman Baker: One way to deal with the problem of the football EDM, if we are calling it that, is to allow that to continue but to elevate some others to a different level whereby clearly they are distinguishable from such EDMs and to make them debatable. I think it is impossible to decide that by content, actually, for the reasons we have heard, but it would be possible to decide it on a factual basis by the number of signatures or the number of parties involved or some other mechanism which triggered that. That then would make debates for those matters more pressing and more likely to occur.

Mr Kidney: I do not want to continue the debate between the two of us, but, first of all, there is a ministerial responsibility to the United Nations because we have votes on things like the World Bank and the IMF that we are responsible for in Government. Secondly, if people thought that they could get round the rules simply by calling on the Minister to congratulate the local football team, the discipline that I think would stop that is the very fact that an Early Day Motion could be selected for a debate. Who would like to stand up in front of Westminster Hall, or whatever, to lead a debate calling on the Minister to congratulate a local football team?

Norman Baker: Quite a lot of people.

Q12 Mr Chope: One of the EDMs which was very well supported was the Jimmy Johnstone one, and if we introduced a system limited by numbers then probably that would have got through, and perhaps nobody would be ashamed of standing up and expressing condolences for the departing of Jimmy Johnstone?

Mr Kidney: You will know that I do not support selecting an Early Day Motion for debate by the number of people who sign it, precisely because you would have some just ridiculous campaign for a large number of people to sign something which is totally not worth voting in Parliament. I do think judgment is required.

Mr Hogg: I think David is absolutely right about this. I really do hope that we would never use the number of signatures on an Early Day Motion as a way of promoting a debate.

Q13 Rosemary McKenna: Could we just make it clear, would the others agree with Mr Hogg that it should be the Speaker, or a Business Committee, if there was a Business Committee, which we do not have at the moment, who would select the EDM for debate?

Norman Baker: I am not sure I would, because I think that the alternatives for deciding which EDM should be either allowed or not allowed at all, or regarded as serious or not serious, the alternatives, which is either someone assessing content or someone constructing a mechanism to deal with ministerial accountability, or whatever, are all unsatisfactory and can be got round. I think at least an issue, whatever formulation it is, with signatures, cross‑party or otherwise, is factually there and no‑one can dispute whether or not a test has been met; so I am not sure I do agree with that.

Q14 Mr Gauke: I was going to ask the question, and I think all of you have touched on this to some extent, on what basis should individual EDMs be chosen for debate, and we seem to have a range of views but I do not know whether you want just to carry this further?

Mr Hogg: I have a suggestion, yes. I think that there should be a condition precedent, to start with. To start off with, I think it should be selected by the Speaker or a Business Committee. I think that there has to be an application to, let us say, the Speaker by the lead signature. I think, before the thing could be entertained for a debate, there would have to be a minimum number of signatures, and that is a matter for negotiation what the minimum number is. I think you would also have to define the criteria which the Speaker would have to apply and there are lots of precedents for that. If you go back to what it used to be, I think, when I first came here, Standing Order 20, was it, 'some urgent and weighty matter', you would not be using that phraseology. You will be using some phraseology 'matter of substantial importance not otherwise likely to be debated in the near future'; that will be the sort of concept and it will be for the Speaker, receiving an application, looking at the numbers, determining whether it fell within the criteria and then exercising his, or her, judgment, is the way I would sort of do it.

Norman Baker: I think there is a danger there. Although I am attracted to the idea of the Speaker avoiding, or circumventing, the 'usual channels', which is doubtless what part of the argument there is, I am certainly concerned that would bring the Speaker into sharp political focus as to what he, or she, was selecting. At the moment, the Speaker receives applications, for example, for urgent questions; we do not know what those requests are, we just know they are the ones which are granted. If an EDM were on the Order Paper with a certain number of signatures and a debate were granted for one with fewer signatures, for example, then that could lead the Speaker into the question of why he had taken that particular decision. I think we have to be careful to protect the impartiality of the Speaker.

Q15 Mr Gauke: Would there be an argument in the way, as I understand it, Westminster Hall debates are done, that perhaps if you had a number of conditions precedent then all those EDMs which satisfied those conditions could go into a ballot, say; would that be satisfactory?

Norman Baker: Yes.

Mr Hogg: The numbers would be huge though, I think; at least, they would be very considerable. That may not be an obstacle but they would be large numbers.

Mr Kidney: In my letter, I suggested that maybe those Thursday three-hour debates in Westminster Hall would be the right location for these kinds of debates. I would be looking to you then to recommend that there must be a minimum of, I do not know, one a month, or whatever the quota would be, of those Thursdays; it would definitely be a time for debating one or more Early Day Motions. Then we come to the selection. How do we select at the moment what gets debated there on a Thursday? The Liaison Committee chooses which select committee reports it thinks are worthy of debate and puts them forward to the Leader of the House and the usual channels decide them. I was saying, why do we not accept what happens and let the usual channels make the decisions about which ones of these are debated? Personally, I would love to see a Business Committee allocating the time in this House rather than the usual channels, but until we get there, it just seems to me, why try to invent all sorts of other rules when one exists already?

Q16 Rosemary McKenna: Would you agree with the suggestion that if EDMs were debated there should be no vote, they should be treated like an adjournment debate?

Mr Kidney: That is my proposal in my letter, that they should be just on the adjournments, yes.

Mr Hogg: I think it depends also where they were held; if they were held in Westminster Hall you would have to be correct about that. My recollection, I will be corrected by your Clerk on this, is that the old Private Members' Motions were votable and I can see that there might well be circumstances, to go back to my impeachment motion, I would like to see the Prime Minister impeached, I make no bones about it, and I would like to bring that before the House and I would like to bring it before the House on a vote. The question is whether I should be able to do that, and I think that it is desirable in a democracy that Members of Parliament should be able to bring forward those kinds of applications and have them voted on.

Q17 Rosemary McKenna: Would it be possible then, if there was going to be a division, that it would be a deferred division; would that cover it?

Mr Hogg: No; no. I have in mind a full-dress debate and the parties can jolly well whip it, if they want. I am against whipping, as you probably know, Ms McKenna, but they can jolly well whip it and see where the cards fall.

Norman Baker: The First Division will be whipped as well but in a different way, of course. I would anticipate that there would be debates on EDMs; most of them would be on the adjournment. I think probably it is in the interests of the Member who introduces the debate to have it in that fashion, because he, or she, will have constructed a coalition of people from different parties and, particularly if they are not from the governing party, they will want to ensure that colleagues from the governing party can stand up and support what they are saying without being backed into a corner on a vote. I think, just from pure commonsense, you would want to have an adjournment debate, but there may be particular occasions when you do feel strongly enough that you want to force it to a vote, and if you do that then obviously maybe some of your support will disappear in the process, but that is the risk you take. You have to have the opportunity to do that, if you feel that strongly on something.

Q18 Sir Robert Smith: We have seen examples of that, where Early Day Motions have been tabled as the motions for the Opposition debate and suddenly all the support disappears?

Norman Baker: Yes, that is right.

Q19 Mr Chope: One suggestion is that we might have a new standing committee to debate EDMs and that standing committee then could have a vote and, if need be, it could be referred to a further debate on the floor of the House, akin to, for example, a European standing committee?

Mr Hogg: Do you mean appointing a standing committee for each EDM, or would it be a 'standing' standing committee?

Q20 Mr Chope: We are seeking a position; this proposal is at its very early stages of development, I think, Mr Hogg.

Mr Hogg: I do not think anybody would want to be on a standing committee to debate Early Day Motions. There would not be any volunteers; it would be a penance.

Norman Baker: I am not sure that would work, because you would have a collection of Members who had to have the range of views and knowledge which covered all the EDMs on the Order Paper. We could not possibly have that, nor would we have the interest, and actually the interest would be generated predominately by those who signed the EDM. It is slightly odd to have a group of people who have not signed the EDM debating the EDM.

Q21 Mr Gauke: I suppose the reason why there is this discussion about the possibility of debating EDMs is to enable backbenchers, in particular, to have an opportunity to raise a matter and debate a matter. Mr Hogg has mentioned a couple of times what we used to have here long before some of us arrived, Private Members' Motions, 14 such debates a year; actually would that be a better way of addressing this issue, rather than looking at EDMs?

Mr Hogg: Certainly, looking back, I regret the fact that we abolished them. I do not think you would do both, because then probably you would overload the Order Paper; so it is perhaps an either/or. I have not directed my mind to which is preferable but they are, if one comes to think about it, very much the same thing.

Mr Kidney: I am an MP, like yourself, who has come since they were stopped, but I tend to see my suggestion as - how can I put this - traditional values in a modern setting, though we can debate them in Westminster Hall on the adjournment. That we get back to the basic desire of MPs to debate subjects which they have chosen for debate but we do not have the instability, as far as the Government is concerned, that they are going to lose votes or have to whip people to vote against them.

Q22 Mr Illsley: I can actually recall being selected for a Private Member's Motion on a Friday and I think the procedure was that three were drawn from the ballot and debated in turn on a Friday morning. I think those unlucky enough to have been chosen for the second debate, the first debate took the whole of the time available on the Friday morning, rather like a private Member's bill. I cannot recall whether we had a vote at the end of the morning; they were voted.

Mr Kidney: As I understand it, they used to be votable, yes.

Mr Hogg: I do not think they were restricted to a Friday. You are absolutely right that they did sometimes take place on a Friday but there were other days as well.

Q23 Rosemary McKenna: I think, given the different ways in which MPs operate at the moment, Friday would be incredibly difficult to go back to?

Norman Baker: Yes.

Mr Hogg: Yes, one would think so.

Rosemary McKenna: It is different. I read some research last week which indicated the difference between how MPs operate now and what they did 30 years ago.

Q24 Mr Chope: Can I try out on our experts here whether they think that it might be an interim solution to say let us have a Private Member's Motion for debate, because at the moment we are one of the few democracies where you are not allowed to do that, as an ordinary backbencher, but then, recognising the difficulties that the Executive has got, coupling that with a deferred division, rather than having no division at all? Might that be a reasonable compromise?

Mr Hogg: Faute de mieux, yes.

Mr Kidney: Just to say, I have suggested that they are all on the adjournment for a specific reason, obviously, but personally I do not mind if we have votable Early Day Motions, and, if we did have, a deferred division is probably the obvious way in which to get the votes cast.

Rosemary McKenna: Can we move on now to electronic tabling.

Q25 Mr Illsley: Mr Baker and Mr Hogg, you have both said you oppose electronic tabling of EDMs. Would you like to expand on why you oppose that?

Norman Baker: Certainly I said that, because I think that unless there are changes to the EDM arrangements, which you recommend and which are adopted, then that will make them even more worthless than they are at the present time, because even more people will sign them. At least, at the moment, you have to go to the Table Office and do something about it; if they were available electronically, you could sit in your office and sign them when a constituent's letter came in, so there would be even more EDMs and even more signatures. I think, until we sort out the system, we should not be overloading it even further than we are. I might say also, with electronic tabling of questions, if I can digress slightly, since that has come in what we are seeing in Oral Questions, and I have not done an analysis of this yet, is a larger number of Government backbenchers coming up on the Order Paper for Oral Questions. Therefore, I think that has been unhelpful to the operation of Parliament in the scrutiny of the Executive. I think you have to be very careful, when we do something which appears to be helpful to Members, actually to make sure that it is helpful.

Mr Hogg: I think probably that is right and I endorse what has been said.

Mr Kidney: I do not disagree with that.

Q26 Mr Illsley: Would you apply that to both tabling and getting signatures?

Norman Baker: Personally, I would, yes.

Q27 Mr Illsley: You oppose electronic tabling and electronic additions?

Norman Baker: Yes; until such a time, if we have a system which gives them more value then I will be prepared to look at it again.

The Chairman resumed the Chair

Q28 Mr Illsley: You made the point, David, that MPs are very effective when we find ways of getting an opinion or an expression on the Order Paper. If we were to restrict EDMs or make them debatable or in any way reduce the number, is it likely that MPs would find a different vehicle to use as a substitute EDM; (- inaudible -) bills or private bills?

Mr Kidney: I am sure they would find lots of ways to have their opinion recorded and made available to the public outside. I do not have any problem with them trying; that is what we are like, as Members of Parliament, and why should we stop them. I am a bit disappointed though, Mr Chairman, that the last question was directed only to these two, because they are the dinosaurs who do not agree with using electronic means for communicating Members' views.

Mr Hogg: No. I just do not want it for this particular purpose. I do use e-mails and all the rest of it.

Mr Kidney: I just want to make it clear that if there is a problem with the system of Early Day Motions we should fix the system and not stop people from working in modern ways with modern technology.

Q29 Chairman: Even if it costs the House £40,000, or more?

Mr Kidney: Even if it costs the House £40,000, or more, it is saving Members of Parliament huge amounts of their time, which is very valuable too.

Q30 Sir Robert Smith: Can I just clarify this rationing by technology. Of course, you can add your name to an EDM just by sending in a letter, so you can still sit at your desk and sign it. Do you seriously think that the electronic procedure would increase even more the numbers?

Norman Baker: Yes, I do. It is not the executive powers but certainly it would increase the number of questions; you get a number of failed Oral Questions now, massively increasing what it was before, before electronic tabling of questions came in, so I do think it would. I am not against electronic tabling, per se, and certainly I am not against new technology, so I object to being called a dinosaur by my good friend at the end there, and certainly I use e‑mail and everything else very readily. I think, just at the moment, the overload on EDMs is such that anything which makes it easier to add your name is not welcome, at the present time, until the system is fixed.

Q31 Rosemary McKenna: It was this Committee which recommended e‑tabling for parliamentary questions and I supported that, and I use e‑mail, but there are concerns about the authentication process. There are concerns that some Members are giving their researchers the right to use their electronic signature, and therefore the number of parliamentary questions tabled, in some areas, is absolutely huge, by individual MPs. Would that be concerning to you, if the same system were introduced for EDMS and is there a way in which we can make sure that does not happen, if the recommendation is to do that?

Mr Hogg: I do not think it can. This takes you to a slightly broader issue. There are two other factors that come into play, Ms McKenna, which are worth keeping in mind. I do not have a research assistant, but there are a lot of research assistants in a number of offices basically twiddling their thumbs and looking for things to do.

Norman Baker: In my office, there are not.

Mr Hogg: That may be so, but certainly it is true of a lot of offices. Also there is the fact that the various online networks which measure Members' of Parliament performance, look at e.g. questions, interventions, I do not know whether they look at Early Day Motions but they can very well do so, and I can see Members of Parliament using their research assistants, who are twiddling their thumbs, in order to get to the top of the list. All of this would be aggravated by enabling them to use the electronic media to register that interest to the Vote Office.

Mr Kidney: Clearly, I would want there to be as many restrictions as possible. I table lots of my questions now electronically, but only I have tabled questions for David Kidney, I do not allow anybody else to do that, in the slightest. It would be good practice for all MPs to follow that practice; but if there are people abusing it then we do need to try to devise systems to stop the abuse.

Q32 Sir Robert Smith: Reverting back though to that inquiry, in questioning there was a suggestion that even in the days of old technology it did not take much for a Member to sit down and sign a whole sheaf of question papers and leave them lying in their office.

Norman Baker: At least they really signed them.

Q33 Sir Robert Smith: You can sign them before they are filled in?

Norman Baker: I suppose so, but at least you knew you were signing something which might then be used. I grant you, the old system was not perfect, but if you sit down there and sign 25 blank pieces of paper then I think you are a fool, frankly, if you do that. At least you knew it was happening; whereas now you can have questions tabled, or potentially, under this system, with electronic communication, without even knowing about it.

Q34 Chairman: Gentlemen, can I thank you for coming. I can assure, I will make it my business to get a full report and briefing on what you have had to say during my absence.

Mr Hogg: We will read your speech, in return.

Chairman: I think I got the better deal though. After today, if you have any further thoughts, this inquiry is likely to last for several weeks yet so please do write to us. Thank you.