Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
JOHN BERCOW
MP, MR ANDREW
DISMORE MP AND
MARTIN SALTER
MP
28 MARCH 2007
Q160 Chairman: Good morning and thank
you for coming to give evidence and for the memoranda you have
sent in. We are very grateful to you. I know you understand the
scope of these inquiries which is about strengthening the role
of the backbencher, and linked to this is the better use of non-legislative
time. Could I start off by asking this question of each of you?
Each of you came in at the same time in 1997, you have been here
10 years; each of you actually is active in the Chamber as well
as outside and you represent constituencies with varying degrees
of marginality so you are a spectrum to that extent, proving that
it is possible to be active in the Chamber as well as active elsewhere
and I have no doubt active on behalf of your constituents. Reflecting
on your experience and intuition about this place, what do you
think we ought to be doing to encourage more Members to take part
in their parliamentary work as opposed to constituency work? What
we are struck by on this Committee is the fact that there has
been a sort of retreat into constituency work.
Martin Salter: I think the answer
to your question is actually the evidence from Philip Norton and,
to some extent, backed up by the evidence from Philip Cowley and
the evidence from the new Members. We have all looked very carefully
at the evidence sessions you have had and it is interesting, looking
at the contributions from Philip and some of the other new Members,
it is not a retreat into constituency work, it is a tidal wave
of it that overwhelms you in a way that you quite rightly yourself
said when you very skilfully deflected the Jenkins Report. You
helpfully dug up the figures from the House of Commons Post Office
from the 1950s which showed that Members of Parliament in those
days got between 15 and 25 letters a week; we are now, as everyone
here knows—thanks to whoever it was who invented e-mail—getting
between 300 and 500 different communications a week. In Andrew's
case a lot more because he obviously goes out and looks for it
as well, as indeed many assiduous Members do. There is then a
resource implication and it is something that the House authorities
and Parliament cannot escape. If work is increasing by 10 or fifteen
fold I firmly believe—we put it in our submission here—that
we are only as effective as the skills we have and the staff we
have working for us. There are real issues about capacity; there
are real issues about prioritisation. There are also real issues
about a pay structure which I think is risible to say the least.
Any decent business, any public service employer would have, within
a pay structure, the ability to pay increments for loyalty and
for experience. What we have is a flat budget. Most of us are
spending to the upper limit of our budget and often topping it
up (particular in the south-east where you are paying London office
rents) from our own salaries. Therefore we cannot pay our staff
a reward—an incremental point if you like—for experience,
for getting up skills, for getting well trained, so there are
real issues about resources as well. We could all spend more time
in the Chamber if we could cope with the tidal wave and we had
the resources to do so. The second point I would make—and
again it is backed up by the evidence particularly from new Members—I
am not sure that people are prepared to trade six hours sitting
in the Chamber, not getting called, when there is six hours' worth
of work that is piling up from constituents and from NGOs and
from other organisations. It is the ability to speak and the ability
to use our time efficiently and effectively and it is the resources
that we have to do the job (and it is a job that is growing).
It is not a question of retreat.
Mr Dismore: I have two points
to make, the first is the point that Martin has made, and that
is the resource implication. This must be the only job in the
world where productivity is a downer, not something to be praised.
The net result of more productivity is more hassle and ultimately
a poorer service to everybody else because you have those limited
resources. I do not think we would necessarily want to re-run
the SSRB submissions today, but on behalf of the London MPs—I
chair the London Labour MPs Group—I did a lot of research
to put a pitch to SSRB showing how much extra it costs to run
a constituency in London and the significantly higher work load
generated by the peculiar circumstances of the work that we have
in London and the fact that the populations we represent are significantly
under-represented on the register. As far as spending time in
the Chamber is concerned, I do not spend nearly as much time as
I would like to primarily because I think a lot of the time it
is a waste of time. I think the key to it would be a speakers'
list. If I know I am going to get called at a certain time that
would be helpful. You can adjust it a bit by saying that you have
to be there for a speech or two before and afterwards, but if
you are going to spend half a day—three or four hours—preparing
a good speech and then sitting in the Chamber for hours waiting
to deliver it, that is crazy. I remember, I think it was over
Iraq, where I sat through three debates before I was called and
that was a waste of something like 18 hours altogether and all
that time you have this tsunami wave coming up behind you that
takes forever to catch up.
Q161 Chairman: I am not being facetious
here, but was it a waste or did you learn something?
Mr Dismore: I did not learn anything
I could not have learned from reading the newspaper reports and
the huge amount of other material they had around it. It is good
to participate in debates but I think in the end it gets very
ritualistic and I think what we have to try to do is make sure
that people's time is spent effectively, is not wasted and that
we do have some proper time management. I think in any business
where you spend six hours twiddling your thumbs because you cannot
do anything else is a complete waste of quite well-paid people's
time.
John Bercow: I agree very much
with what has already been said. Specifically so far as Martin's
opening remarks are concerned I think I would say this, that if
colleagues are disproportionately immersed in work in the office
on behalf of constituents when they could—and perhaps should—be
engaged in committee work or Chamber activity, it is absolutely
inescapable that the reason for that is that they do not have,
for whatever reasons, a sufficient staff resource. I think we
have boldly to argue the case for an increase in resources and
as, in fairness has been done to a degree already—not least
during the period when Robin Cook was Leader of the House—the
Leader of the House has to make that case and has to be able to
rely upon cross-party support. We have to try, with an act of
statesmanship—if I can put it in that slightly pretentious
way—to take on those in the media who would rubbish and
belittle and decry us and suggest that of course it is just snouts
in the trough. On the one hand you have constituents saying, "I
want an answer. I expect this; I expect that". On the other
hand they are inevitably prey to an extent to the cheapest media
headline and grubbiest campaign to try to rubbish the idea of
increased allowances. It infuriates me beyond belief that it is
sometimes suggested that we are paid a couple of hundred thousand
pounds a year. This is nonsense. All colleagues here know that
those resources that are allowances are paid to staff or used
to purchase equipment, but if we are to make progress it has to
be done on a cross-party basis. So far as getting colleagues into
the Chamber and contributing more often is concerned, I think
the one theme that has come through the evidence that you have
heard and received in writing so far is that what takes place
in the Chamber has to be to a greater extent topical, relevant
and the subject of an outcome. Insofar as it lacks one or more
of those qualities, then the opportunity cost of going into the
Chamber is too great and colleagues will do something else. We
can explore some of these ideas in detail, but let me put it like
this: when I came into this place—and I love it every bit
as much now as I did when I came in after 1 May 1997—I was,
perhaps because I am a Conservative, quite attracted to some of
the ritualistic practices of the House. After a while, frankly
they pall when you see that the ritual is not for the preservation
of some great tradition which is of benefit to our scrutiny or
our reputation or our effectiveness, but ritual for the sake of
ritual. Too much of what is done here falls into the category
of ritual for the sake of ritual. I would like to see more opportunities
for colleagues to speak and that does have implications for the
timing of debates, the timing of speeches and if people are to
feel that this is actually going to have an outcome then we have
to have something at the end of it which justifies the commitment
of time and effort. All too often at the moment I think that is
lacking.
Q162 Ms Butler: I would like to thank
you all for your contributions and your papers which I found very
interesting. In fact you have covered all the points that need
to be covered except for technology. There is an omission of technology
there. I am not actually going to touch on that although I normally
do because I was so excited by your paper, I must say; you are
all modernisers sitting there and I think it is excellent because
we do not have that many modernisers really. However, I did a
little bit of research and read, Martin, particularly your maiden
speech and I was absolutely shocked to find in your maiden speech
in 1997 that you made some modernisation points there. What shocked
me even further is that we are making the same points again and
we still have not moved very far. I am just wondering, does this
place somehow beat the modernisation out of you after a certain
amount of time or do you just submit to it and say that this is
the way it is going to be forever? What advice would you give
to this Committee to make sure that in another 20 years' time
we are not still raising the same points again? I wanted to raise
a couple of points that were highlighted in your paper. I quite
like the idea of considering a longer period of time following
a general election before we open Parliament to give Members a
time to settle into the role, to give us time to get started and
so on. I think that is a very valuable point and I wonder if you
would expand on that. Another point, which is very, very prevalent—especially
with me being the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group—is
opening up Parliament at the weekend for groups such as the UK
Youth Parliament so they could maybe come in and hold debates.
I think that is so important to the democracy of our country and
young people getting involved in politics and I just wondered
if you would expand on those two points for me.
Martin Salter: The cause of modernisation
is a lonely, lonely furrow. There are many great reforms that
are more than well rehearsed across the generations before they
are enacted in this place. I think specifically I remember making
the argument in my maiden speech—many other Members have
made it and you have had it in your evidence sessions—early
day motions are political graffiti at the moment. We can sign
them to keep our constituents happy but, as John was saying, there
is very little outcome and we would be very grateful if the Committee
could give some serious consideration to this idea of 200 or 250
names, on a cross-party basis, actually triggering a debate I
would say in the main Chamber potentially at prime time because
there is an outcome there and it makes the process real.
Q163 Sir Nicholas Winterton: On a
substantive motion?
Martin Salter: It could be on
a substantive motion, Sir Nicholas. This is something you have
to explore. What we are doing is putting ideas forward and we
are looking forward to your report. Secondly, I did raise this
issue and it was the cause of some conflict between me and Sir
Nicholas about the idea that non-elected bottoms could sit on
the green benches. I think it would be fantastic for the UK Youth
Parliament and possibly for other groups of young people. Part
of our job, as we said in our introduction, is to bring our democracy
alive. Is it not ironic that apparently the Scottish Parliament
allows young people in at the weekends to experience the flavour
of their Chamber and I am told that even the House of Lords has
just granted that concession, but in the House of Commons we shut
it up at weekends and there is a wonderful resource for people
there that would really benefit them and we are very happy to
be putting that proposal forward for further consideration again.
Mr Dismore: I think first of all
there is a generational thing here. I think the 1997 intake and
post-1997 had a very different attitude to the way politics were
dealt with. I think that people who have been here a lot longer
are rather more resistant to change. I think their way of doing
the job was very different to 1997. It is cross-party, not just
the Labour intake. I think the same can be said about 2001 and
2005; there is a very different attitude in the way they do the
job. I think we have to start making sure that the processes here
reflect that. Secondly, I caution about thinking that things are
not going to happen the day after you are elected. I remember
when I was elected my honeymoon period lasted the bank holiday
weekend because of a major issue relating to the NHS in my constituency
and I came in on the Tuesday to a pile of post that high
already. I think the key to it is to make sure the resources are
in place even if they are temporary resources to enable people
to immediately get down to work whilst they get themselves properly
sorted out: an office, a phone and at least somebody to help with
the secretarial side and also to show you the way around and how
things work. The key to it is to make sure you use the time in
the Chamber effectively. One idea I have which I have not put
in the paper is that one of the most popular debates is at the
end of term adjournments (the Easter adjournment and the Christmas
adjournment) so why do we not have more debates like that—say
one a month—ballot to go into them and speak in the order
that your name comes out of the hat as we do for private Members'
bills. Everybody gets 10 minutes on a particular subject which
they can notify three or four days ahead. It is topical, you know
you are going to get called, you know when you are going to get
called and you are going to get to make a point which the Government
will answer at the end of the debate. I think that would be quite
a useful experiment and I think you ought to think about doing
it with existing end of term debates as well. That way everybody
gets a fair crack of the whip and if people are concerned about
speakers' lists—as I think we should be doing, as I said
before—this would be a useful way to try to experiment with
it.
John Bercow: Opening the House
at the weekend to outside groups and in particular to the UK Youth
Parliament or offshoots of it is not just a gesture. It would
be a gesture, but I think it would be a very welcome gesture and
a display of openness by the House and I am rather horrified and
disappointed to discover that the House of Lords has beaten us
to it. I think that we should be spurred by that to do something
sooner rather than later. It would actually be taken up and in
terms of impact I think it would probably be very great. It is
one thing to say that the chair or host will present prizes following
debating competitions between schools or students in our constituencies.
It is quite another thing to say, "Sample it for real; come
here and have a go". Of course there will be objections—there
are objections to everything—of course there will be people
who say that the seats might get damaged or whatever. You have
to take some risks in this life and it seems to me that if we
are to engage with young people I cannot think of a single initiative
that would more positively say to those people: "Be part
of our world for a weekend; do what you do, your attempt at full-hearted
and detailed debate, in our Chamber". I think that would
be a very worthwhile thing. There is another important point about
the introduction to life in the House of Commons. When people
get here, first of all if they do not have staff, there ought
to be some sort of arrangement whereby one can draw upon a pool
of temporary staff to facilitate one's activities. I was shocked
and rather surprised when I discovered from Emily Thornberry (who
I think gave evidence to you very recently) that she was in an
appalling situation when she first came into this place. She did
not have facilities; she did not have a proper office (she had
what I gather is called a hot desk); it was a completely unsatisfactory
situation. She had come in with a very small majority and she
had to put up with her political opponents in her constituency
firing off letters or e-mails to the local paper saying, "Where's
Emily? She's not answering our correspondence." She just
did not have the resources. No modern, professional, reputable
organisation or employer should operate in that way. May I say
that the whips do have their purposes. I am not one of those who
subscribes to the Power Inquiry view of the world; I think it
is na-ve and ill-informed. The whips do have an important
role. The whips really should not have a role in the allocation
of office accommodation. Of course they have to be challenged,
as they have to be challenged on other things, because people
who have power—even if they are not very good at exercising
it and even if they are not the appropriate people to have it—do
not want to give it up. Of course they do not want to give it
up but they have to be told that they should give it up and that
system has to be changed.
Q164 Mark Lazarowicz: I would like
to raise three points, first of all on the question of the extra
London costs. I accept there are issues about London, but I know
that in my case I have office costs, rates of pay, the kind of
mixture of work which probably gives me greater demands on my
costs than probably apply to my colleagues 50 or 60 miles further
away. The issues of office costs vary between different parts
of the country just as much in London, outside London, they might
vary in different parts of Scotland and there will be issues about
people with big constituencies who might well argue for two offices
if they are a hundred miles apart. I would like your reaction
to that; would it not be the case that if you go for an increase
in office costs there would have to be some ring fencing of an
extra allowance to allow for the different costs in different
parts of the country? The second point is in relation to time
limits and debates and speakers' lists. I can see the argument
that having speakers' lists could lead to the Chamber becoming
very much a ritual presentation of 10 minute prepared speeches
where people come and go and there is no debate. I would not mind
being told that I had to stay in the Chamber for a full three
hours of debate, and if it was only a three hour debate and if
there was a 10 minute limit as a rule so we all had a reasonable
chance of taking part in the debate; if we did not then at least
we would not be spending the entire day there. The last point
is this, which is this issue of the flood of e-mails and letters
that we all get. There is of course a problem in that this is
an area where the demand is uncontrollable, partly because the
nature of politics means we seek that kind of work and also the
nature of communications means that the amount of that kind of
letters is going to increase beyond any possibility of coping
with it. How do we respond to the fact that this is an area where
we are never going to be able to deal with it just by providing
more staff and resources because there is no end to what we could
actually be faced with if we simply meet the potential growth
with the provision of more resources to deal with it?
Mr Dismore: Can I deal with the
office costs point first? It might be helpful if I tell you about
the submission I sent to the SSRB because it had a lot of very
detailed, worked out numbers. London is not unique in this respect;
it probably has more higher costs than anywhere else but there
are other high cost areas and I think the way you deal with the
costs of the rent, for example, is to say that X square feet—or
square metres in modern money—is an appropriate size for
an office for a Member, so you go round the estate agents, submit
two or three estimates from appropriate places to prove you are
not fiddling it and take the cheapest of the two or three that
actually fit that. In fact when I did the exercise for this purpose
I found that we are living in a hovel and any decent office would
be at least twice what we are paying now or even more like three
times. I think that is easily coped with. Similarly in relation
to staff wages I think there are arguments in certain high cost
areas for similar allowances. However, the fact remains that what
we should be trying to do is to push people off the parliamentary
estate because it is very, very expensive office space, into the
constituencies where inevitably it is going to be cheaper. Rates
in Hendon are cheaper than in Westminster even though they are
very expensive compared to other places. I think we have to make
sure they are properly equipped with a photocopier, with the phone
bills met (because that is a very expensive cost compared to free
phones here, free photocopying here and so forth). We should have
a properly set up office suite for however many staff is appropriate.
On the time limit point, what I simply say about this is that
if people know they are going to be called it is not unreasonable
to expect them to be there for two or three speeches before and
afterwards, and the opening and closing of the debate and if they
are not then the Speaker has the discretion not to call them.
As far as speaker times is concerned, I think that 10 minutes
is probably the norm but there will be days when it is slack and
you do not need a time limit and there will be days when you need
a much tighter time limit. I think the House of Lords has a very
good way of organising it which is to find out how many people
want to speak and divvy it up between them and if it turns out
you have four minutes then that is what you have; if it turns
out that you have eight minutes or 12 minutes, that is what you
have, but everybody has a chance. That might be an interesting
way to look at it. As far as the volume of work is concerned,
I do not see anything wrong with that. We should be encouraging
people to engage with us as politicians. Picking up the point
that John and Martin have made, if people want to write to us
or sign a petition or send us an e-mail or contact us through
a website we should be encouraging that and responding to it if
we are serious about trying to make politics relevant to modern
society and engage people and let them think we have something
to say on their behalf here. That is what we should be encouraging.
Martin Salter: Regional variations
are what John and I put in our paper and not London, which picks
your points up. I do not have a problem with a large rural constituency
having two offices, one at each end. We have an allowance within
the amount of money allowable for election expenses which distinguishes
between a county seat and an urban seat. We actually spend more
pence per elector if you have a rural seat and that is precisely
built into the system for local elections and national elections
because of that very point. We think 10 minute limits on speeches
should be the norm. One other point that came up when we were
talking to colleagues was this idea of having six or seven frustrated
Members at the end of a debate unable to get in at all. Why not
axe the last speaker? Why not divvy up the times so that people
can make even a two minute contribution?
Q165 Sir Nicholas Winterton: It is
in the Standing Orders already.
Martin Salter: Sir Nicholas, there
is a world of difference between theory and what actually happens.
Q166 Sir Nicholas Winterton: It is
not theory, it is there.
Martin Salter: Privy Counsellors
are not supposed to have priority in speaking yet everybody knows
that they do, so let us talk about the real world. The last point
again came out in the evidence. We cannot manage the demand, therefore
we have to manage the supply.
John Bercow: I agree with what
Martin has said on time limits. Picking up on Sir Nicholas's point
that there is already provision in standing orders on this, Sir
Nicholas, I accept that but I think it still does not apply very
often. I know I was one of those 10 who fell into this category
who was asked to make a three minute contribution in the second
reading debate on the Education and Inspections Bill. The bulk
of the time had been taken up and then I think it was Sir Michael
Lord in the chair who said to me, "John, you will get in
tonight but it will just be a very quick snippet". I think
I am right in saying, Sir Nicholas, that that provision has not
been often applied and I think it ought to become the norm rather
than the exception. It should not simply be left to the usual
channels to see if they can reach an agreement between colleagues
on different sides because then all sorts of other factors can
come into play, whether one person who is itching to make a 10
minute contribution dislikes the chap or woman on the other side
and is not willing to let that person in. I do not think it should
work that way; it should be the norm rather than the exception
and it is perfectly doable. As someone who is not naturally brief,
all I know is that if I have to do it I can and I do not want
the shame and slight humiliation of being told to sit down so
I simply look at the clock and I make sure that whatever the limit
is I do finish within time. On the subject of this great profusion
of correspondence which is increasing, I broadly agree with what
has been said. I think the only point that I would make in addition
is this: we have to manage it as colleagues and we should not
be slaves to people whose preference for the use of technology
leads them either explicitly or implicitly to demand a quicker
reply than Mrs Higgins writing on a piece of exercise book note
paper and sending her letter with a second class stamp which she
feels she can ill afford from her rather small pension. There
is no reason why she should have to wait longer and I think we
have to decide what is a priority, what is urgent. I am always
happy to deal with people by e-mail if they so wish, but I do
tend to say to people, particularly those who are prolific e-mailers
to me, that I will deal with it in general terms depending on
the seriousness of a particular case or emergency, I deal with
cases sequentially.
Q167 Philip Davies: Andrew is one
of the people I admire most, certainly on private Members' bills
and so given that he is the new Eric Forth in terms of Fridays
I think it would be interesting to find out his view about how
Fridays work and the whole private Members' bill thing. More generally,
I have a deal of sympathy with the points you make, but just to
try to test them out a bit more, I think the chairman made a very
perceptive point at the start which is that you are diligent MPs
both in the Chamber and outside and therefore that would lead
me to say that clearly it can be done. I think I spend an above
average amount of time in the Chamber; John Bercow has always
sat two seats in front of me whenever I am in there, so he must
be in there virtually all the time. What strikes me about the
Chamber is that it is like Madam Tussauds, it is the same faces
in there; whatever the debate, the same faces are in there all
the time. There is always an excuse why you people cannot be in
the Chamber, but if you did increase the allowances and increase
staffing and all this kind of thing, would any more people turn
up? Clearly people can turn up if they want to already. People
like Philip Hollobone have no staff and they are always in there
so they can do it as well. Is it that nobody is in the Chamber
because the public do not care what goes on in the Chamber? Or
do the public not care what goes on in the Chamber because nobody
is in the Chamber? Which way round is it? If it is the fact that
the public do not see a great deal of relevance in what goes on
in the Chamber, surely however many allowances you gave people
or whatever changes you made, if the public do not think that
what goes on in the Chamber makes a fat lot of difference to the
world nobody would be in the Chamber whatever happened, they would
still be in their constituencies cutting ribbons for new factories
that have opened or something.
John Bercow: That is why, if I
may say so, an increase in allowances is a necessary but not a
sufficient condition of increasing and improving Chamber activity.
I think that it would enable our staff to pick up some of the
slack and deal with matters in the office and give colleagues
the chance to contribute in the Chamber, but that is not enough.
I think you need to do more. You need to make debates in the Chamber
more accessible and more interesting and more topical. I would
like to see a lot more short, sharp debates in the Chamber. When
I say short and sharp I mean not exceeding two hours and, in some
cases, even shorter debates than that, preferably topical. One
can argue the toss as to the means by which one topic rather than
another would be selected; more SO No. 24 requests put forward
and, when appropriate, granted. I think that the Liberal Democrats
did get a worthwhile debate on the NatWest Three and I think there
was real interest in the Chamber and in the media in that. I also
feel that we probably need a new culture. We need to show some
self-respect if we are expecting to be respected. What that means
is showing that the role of the backbencher is valued. If people
come into this place and they think that the only purpose of being
here is to climb the ministerial or shadow ministerial ladder,
then it is inevitable that people will not think that being in
the Chamber is very important. Philip, you are one of the very
small number of people who have come into this house and said
right at the outset, "I intend to be the voice of Shipley;
I have no desire to be a member of the front bench at any stage",
but very few people are in that category. I would like to think
we could have a genuine career path for people who either will
not become front benchers, were and do not want to be again, or
whatever. We have not really got that yet. We have made some progress
in paying chairmen of select committees and so on and I think
we probably still need to think of new ways of investing the role
of the backbencher with greater respect and importance than are
currently attached to it.
Mr Dismore: I was asked about
Fridays. The present system is not very effective but it is a
system. I do not think it should be easy to get a private Member's
bill through; that is my starting point. It should be subject
to proper scrutiny and there are certain basic conventions. It
should be relatively modest, it should not cost anything and it
should attract broad support across the House. When bills do not,
they get into trouble; when they do, they have a reasonable prospect.
I did put in a paper to Sir Nicholas Winterton's former Committee
for a comprehensive reform of the system which involved pre-legislative
scrutiny, timetabling and so forth which I think would achieve
all the objectives without having to shift from Fridays and I
think we circulated a copy. [1]Rather
than go through that now, I think it is all set out there in a
pretty comprehensive way. It should also include an opportunity
to get 10 minute rule bills through as well, although subject
to certain criteria. I think topicality is the key to it. I am
the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I have been
trying to get a debate through the Liaison Committee on people
trafficking since the end of last October/November and it still
has not been timetabled. If anything is topical at the moment
it is people trafficking and it has still not been timetabled.
I think part of the problem with select committee debates is that
now they have been shoved off to Westminster Hall they are less
attractive. Westminster Hall provides a useful function and we
should use it more, not less, but at the same time we have to
recognise that certain debates are rather more important and should
be back on the floor of the House. Equally, some of the stuff
on the floor of the House probably could be sent off to Westminster
Hall, some of the more general debates.
1. Procedure Committee, Fourth Report of Session
2002-03, Procedures for Debates, Private Members' Bills and
the Powers of the Speaker, HC 333, Ev 71.
Q168 Chairman: On the people trafficking
debate, have you also suggested that to the whips or to my office?
I was not aware of it. I can think of two or three occasions recently
where we might have found a half day slot for it.
Mr Dismore: That is a useful thought;
I shall write to you forthwith.
Chairman: I think it shows deficiencies
in how we allocate government time that is available for non-legislative
debates.
Q169 Sir Nicholas Winterton: I have
three questions; I hope our witnesses can answer them. All three
have made great play about the need for more resources, more office
staff. Do our witnesses not think that Members of Parliament are
now taking on responsibility for matters which have absolutely
no bearing on their responsibilities at all, particularly local
government matters relating to housing and planning, et cetera?
It is because people are so conscious of wanting to be re-elected
that they take on every approach, every representation. Is that
not one of the reasons why Members are now flooded with e-mails,
letters, telephone calls, et cetera? Instead of concentrating
on matters of importance, that is holding the Government to account,
they are more conscious of being re-elected and their constituency
duties actually come before their duties to this House. That is
question one. Question two: would our witnesses wish us, in this
Committee, to make representations to the Speaker who has not
been mentioned so far in the questioning today but who is critically
important not only in respect of whether or not we can establish
the precedent of the House of Lords, ie having a speakers' list
(by the way, the House of Lords has also set the pace in respect
of questions where there are questions and a debate on that question,
ie a short debate) and the Speaker is also very relevant in respect
of implementing the standing orders relating to short speeches
at the end of a half day debate or a full day debate, the last
hour or half hour being devoted to short questions. Would our
witnesses like to see the establishment of a business committee
which could be representative of backbenchers in all parts of
the House which could facilitate, for instance, the debate on
an early day motion which has 200 or 250 signatures to it and
which has cross-party support and is also very relevant and current?
Those are three questions and to my mind they are critical to
this inquiry.
Martin Salter: Let me start off
with the first one. With respect, there is a cultural difference
here. There are Members of Parliament who do not believe we should
be taking up individual cases at all. Eric Forth was a classic
example. Eric believed—and I respected him for it—
that his prime duty was to legislate and not much else. There
are Members of Parliament who do not hold constituency surgeries,
but there are not that many of them now. Actually it is not for
us to determine what the public want or should have. The public
is the boss here; we are their representatives. If they choose
to raise policy issues with us, if they choose to ask us to take
up issues, then in some ways we have to respect that and we have
to respect that change of atmosphere. I do not think there is
anything to be ashamed of for MPs wanting to get re-elected. Politics
is the battle of ideas and it manifests itself through elections.
I got the second biggest swing in the country in 2001 but I did
not do it by being diligent in the Chamber. I am not particularly
diligent in the Chamber, I do not mind admitting it. My priority
is my constituency. I live there; I travel up every day, de facto
I have less time to devote to work in the Chamber. There are so
many other devices you can use like interventions, like early
day motions and the rest of it which allow you to skate the surface
of a debate and satisfy a constituent, but you are not really
getting in there and getting under the argument in the way that
you and John do with your much more diligent presence in the Chamber.
I am afraid we just have to recognise that the public's requirements
and the public's aspirations have changed and we have to skill
up and resource up and change our process to meet the demand,
because otherwise there is going to be even more dissatisfaction
with our political process and even less engagement.
Mr Dismore: I would simply say
that if a lone parent with four kids in a one bed flat that is
damp comes to me because the local authority (which is not of
my particular persuasion) refuses to engage with her or have anything
to do with her or re-house her, I am not going to turn that person
away. To that person what I do is extremely important indeed.
It may not be important in the national scheme of things, but
politics is about people and if we cannot engage with the people
we are here to represent and help them, then what are we doing
here? It is important that we hold the Government to account;
it is important that we scrutinise and select committee work is
a vital part of that, but if we are not helping our people not
only will we not get re-elected, I do not think we are actually
being human beings and experiencing what our constituents are
experiencing (albeit at second hand) so that when we do speak
here we can speak with some authority and background on the issues
we are talking about. If I talk about housing I am talking not
of my own housing experience but from the cases that have been
brought to me by constituents complaining about over-crowding,
complaining about the inability to get re-housed, about poor conditions,
and that means I can speak with a degree of passion and also with
a degree of authority which would not otherwise be there.
John Bercow: I think that you
get a proportion of letters from people, for example, about planning
matters and when you do it is quite important to be clear what
you can do and what, frankly, you cannot do. In dealing with representations
on those matters I will tend to say, that yes, I am happy to write
to the Planning Committee but it is important for you to know
that there is no question of Mr Bercow using his power to tell
the Planning Committee—or the Development Control Committee
in my area—what to do; it does not work like that. I am
disinclined to get involved in lengthy correspondence about matters
of that kind because I do think that they fall within the bailiwick
of councillors. However, I distinguish, if I may say so, between
that and the sort of case that Andrew has just described. I do
see myself as standing up for the person who is battling for a
better life either against an imperious public agency or against
corporate misbehaviour by a large company (or indeed a small company
for that matter). Frankly there is scarcely a limit as to how
much time I am prepared to spend when I think that somebody otherwise
is going to have his or her life badly damaged. I would not attach
too much significance to the supposed impact of us being asked
to deal with too many things that are not our business. I think
the idea of a business committee is excellent. I have said it
before. I came before your Committee in May of last year and I
said on that occasion that I think that a business committee of
the House would be a good thing. [2]I
do not myself object to programming. I think, however, programming
has been effectively corrupted and abused and the reason is that
it is run by people who should not be running it. To be fair,
the Government should not be determining the programming. I do
believe that a business committee, preferably with no overall
party majority on it, would be a better way of ensuring that time
is divvied up in such a manner as to allow the likes of minorities
to be represented and to give Members, including above all backbench
Members, a chance to contribute. One other point, I like the business
committee model but I am open to the idea, if people do not want
to run with that, of giving more powers to the Speaker him or
herself. My main point is that just as I object to the executive
picking the members of select committees which then scrutinise
it, so I object to the executive determining how much time should
be devoted to the scrutiny of it in relation to particular subjects.
2 Select Committee on Modernisation of the House
of Commons, First Report of Session 2005-06, The Legislative
Process, HC 1097, Ev 26.
Q170 Mr Wright: Can I mention two very
brief points? In terms of career progression I am particularly
concerned about up-skilling, about continuing professional development,
and I would throw that question that you have in your memorandum
back at you and ask if you have any practical ideas as to how
we can do that. Given the range of skills that a modern Member
of Parliament needs—we have talked about the expansion of
office resources, management of staff—in terms of continuing
professional development to strengthen the role of the backbencher,
what do you suggest?
John Bercow: I think there is
a lot to be said for better training of Members at the outset
and, to use the jargon, continuing professional development, in
other words the chance of refresher courses. It probably would
be quite expensive to do, but worthwhile because democracy costs.
Why can people who have a particular interest in a given subject
not have an opportunity to explore that interest further? I think
somebody floated the idea of secondments. At the moment we have
quite an old-fashioned idea: you can either go on an Industry
of Parliament Trust Fellowship or you can go on the Armed Forces
Parliamentary Scheme or I think there is possibly provision to
do some time working with the police or whatever. I would like
to see a much wider range of opportunities. If somebody wants
to specialise in housing or in mental health policy or, dare I
say it, a particular passion of mine over the last year or so,
in the field of special needs, why should one not have a chance
to do an internship with one of those specialists in the field.
I think that would be a really good thing. The only other point
I would make at this point, lest I forget, is this: Martin talked
about the need for more relevant debates and fewer rather formulaic
debates. I do think—I made this point to each of the last
two of your predecessors—we ought to look at this ritualistic
practice of having several debates a year on motions for the adjournment
on the European Union lasting several hours each, defence in the
UK, defence in the world and Wales. It is not in any sense an
insult to be interested in the European Union or defence in the
UK or defence in the world or Wales; it is simply that I feel
that the Government puts those debates on as a filler and it would
be much better to have topical two hour debates not with a 10
minute speech limit but a five minute speech limit. Instead of
giving people the impression that all that really matters is rising
onto the front bench, you would get some credit and some respect
from your colleagues in the House by taking part in those, then
we could gradually make some progress.
Martin Salter: It is funny how
Members can find time to go to Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth,
always to nice hot places when it is cold over here. Apparently
you can learn an amazing amount having lunches with ambassadors
and visiting nice places and the rest of it. That is good for
democracy and that up-skills us, but how about spending a day
or a week working as a care worker or having a secondment to whatever
public service or, as John said, a particular passion that grips
our fancy?
Q171 Sir Peter Soulsby: I found all
the written evidence we have had very helpful. You have commented
quite a bit on the effect of the growth in electronic communications
and particularly focussed on the effect of the tsunami of e-mails
that we all suffer from. Can I just ask you about two other aspects
of this? One is the growth of websites like TheyWorkForYou and
the effect you think that is having in terms of enabling people
to use it to contact us but also because of the measurements that
they use, perhaps having a perverse incentive to Members to behave
in ways they would not otherwise. Also on the point of electronic
communications, the availability of these things—PDAs—and
whether you think there is a case for these to be used quite openly
in the Chamber in the way that many of us use them rather covertly
both in committees and in the Chamber. It does enable us to keep
on top of some of those e-mails and to make some contact with
the outside world and to be doing something useful while we are
sitting waiting to have our 10 minutes of speech.
Martin Salter: I think the electronic
communication point also relates to a point that Emily Thornberry
and others gave in evidence. How crazy is it that you are there
for six hours and you can be pulled up for signing a letter or
going through paper work in a more obvious way, and yet we have
all seen the video footage of MPs asleep on the green benches.
You do not operate in that way anywhere else. I think the TheyWorkForYou
website is actually insidious because the measurements that are
used are manipulatable. There is the same rating on it for an
intervention as for a speech and frankly this is a service that
Parliament should be offering. Philip Cowley said this; we have
allowed it to be sub-contracted to freelancers out there. This
is a service that we should operate and it should be done on an
objective basis. I feel really sorry for new Members who are running
around, worrying about their scores on the TheyWorkForYou website
(this is something that Sir Nicholas and I at least agree on).
Many of us on the Government side do not actually table parliamentary
questions because we will get more information by actually writing
directly to a minister and expanding an argument and hopefully
getting a coherent response more so than you ever will do by taking
PQs, but that does not make us less diligent Members of Parliament;
it just means we have been more comprehensive about how we have
taken up a policy issue on behalf of our constituents.
John Bercow: The House is still
very amateurish in that way and Martin is right, we ought to have
our own system and of course if there is a void it is filled.
I do think that the TheyWorkForYou website has had a partially
damaging effect but I am not particularly inclined to moan very
much about it. I think we have to put something in its stead.
I suppose because I believe in healthy competition I tend to say
"So be it", if they are making a mess of it and they
are misrepresenting the significance of one activity rather than
another, then it is up to another player to come in the market—perhaps
indeed the House of Commons itself—to put the record straight.
On the question of technology, very simply what I would say to
Peter Soulsby is that my only concern about the use of electronic
devices in the Chamber or in standing committees is disturbance
and interruption. In other words I have no pompous concern that
it is interfering with the integrity and independence of Members;
it is quite wrong that members of the public should be able to
send us e-mails while we are in committee. That is what I call
the pompous objection which does not do anything for the reputation
of the House. I have no problem with people communicating with
us while we are in committee, but what I think is important is
that we do not have a constant clatter. We do not want typing
taking place or noise being generated. It is difficult enough
sometimes with the acoustics of this place to get focus and concentrated
attention in our work and we do not want that being interfered
with. Otherwise I have no objection whatsoever to the greater
use of technology. It seems to me to be a reflection, if we accept
it, that this place is coming into the 21st century.
Mr Dismore: I would simply say
that the genie is out of the bottle with all these websites. There
is nothing we can do about it and we just have to live with it.
It is also a way of people monitoring us, holding us to account
and also, through those websites, communicating with us. I do
not object to them in that respect. As far as electronic devices
are concerned, I would draw the line on them in select committees.
I have one member who is always on his mobile phone and it is
extremely distracting for the members and in particular I think
it is a discourtesy to witnesses. Otherwise I would agree with
what John says, so long as they are not scaring the horses it
is not a problem.
Q172 Ms Butler: Can I just say on
this point, we went to Wales where they had rubber keyboards so
they were very silent and also part of the thinking behind having
it in committees is that you have all the papers on the screen
so you can cross-reference, look at the explanatory notes and
all of that on line and have it colour co-ordinated just to make
the process simpler rather than being able to do work there.
Martin Salter: Can I just throw
a point back on that one? We all know what happens. Primarily
the government members of a standing committee would sit at the
back there, we will do our case work, we will take very little
notice of the proceedings. There is a bit of a to-ing and fro-ing
between the frontbenchers but it is okay for us to carry on our
case work in a standing committee whether we are scrutinising
or not important legislation, but if we dared to do it in the
House where we might be sitting for seven or eight hours, apparently
that is wrong. This stuff is for the birds, it really is.
Q173 Ann Coffey: If a million people
petitioned Downing Street objecting to road charging, do you think
that should trigger off a substantive debate on a substantive
motion and a vote in the Commons? If not, why not? Why should
people contact their MPs if they can contact the Prime Minister?
Do you think that there are some tensions in that kind of impact
on the Internet in terms of direct actions and the traditional
role of an MP representing their constituents and how do you think
we can deal with that and still make Parliament seem relevant
to people and, indeed, make MPs relevant to people?
Mr Dismore: I think the real problem
is to respond not to those who shout loudest. You get a very good
pressure group campaign where everybody is terrified of it because
you get this pile of postcards or e-mails or demands to do this,
that and the other and I think you have to step back from those
sorts of things. I think if people contact their individual MPs
there should be a way of trying to feed that through perhaps in
letters to the House, not just take it up with the minister as
an issue but say, "Look, I've had fifty postcards or fifty
communications on this particular issue" and if other Members
are seeing the same maybe we would want to think about having
a debate on that particular issue or look at some of the other
reforms that have been suggested by us here as a method of triggering
a debate. I do not think people bombarding Downing Street websites
is necessarily a good indicator of what should or should not be
debated. It may be something that has been debated the day before
and they object to what the Prime Minister had to say. I do not
think that is necessarily a good trigger.
John Bercow: There is a difference
between numbers and quality. I do not think there should just
be a numerical trigger because I think quite a lot of people can
be persuaded, particularly when it is very easy and convenient
to sign up to something and they will not necessarily have given
it any significant thought.
Q174 Ann Coffey: Does that go for
MPs signing EDMs as well?
John Bercow: Yes, it does, which
is why we should have a better system whereby instead of just
having parliamentary loo paper we should have a system whereby
colleagues know that if they sign an EDM there is a possibility
that a debate will be triggered and they can then be legitimately
looked to—particularly if they are a top six signatory—to
be a participant in the debate. I think we have to be very careful
not to replace one form of ritualism and automaticity (about which
I was complaining earlier) with another form of ritualism and
automaticity. Yes, we want to engage with people and we want people
to have the right to feed in their views, but the idea that we
should allow a well-organised pressure group campaign to dictate
the parliamentary agenda is wrong. If you were to say, "Don't
we open ourselves to that", there comes a point at which
we have to remember that we have judgment and we have to have
the guts to assert ourselves sometimes in exercising it and to
say that it is a relevant issue, the Prime Minister, the Government,
Parliament note that a lot of signatories have put their names
to this, but that does not of itself justify changing our timetable
or our agenda and we do not intend to do so.
Q175 Ann Coffey: Following on from
that, when we had the editors from the papers they said that part
of the difficulty with this place is that we are not seen to respond
to what is out there. If you are saying, well actually we should
not be responding to what is out there, we should be taking the
judgment, is that not just furthering the problem that people
already see, that what they are thinking we are not debating?
John Bercow: Not really because
I think the fact that somebody signs up to something like a petition
to Number 10 after a very considerable amount of pressure has
been exerted in a short period is not necessarily indicative of
very much. I think it would be more significant if, over a sustained
period, there was a lot of evidence—qualitative evidence
as opposed to merely evidence of numbers—that said "We
feel that Parliament simply has not addressed X issue or Y issue".
This is fairly knee-jerk stuff and I do not myself believe the
Government should change its legislative timetable or its parliamentary
timetable simply to reflect that. If we do that we are absolutely
making a rod for our own backs and instead of being here exercising
our judgment we become simply delegates in what is effectively
a plebiscitary democracy.
Q176 Ann Coffey: What is the point
of Downing Street having these kinds of websites? People feel
they have influence and access here.
Martin Salter: That is a question
for the Prime Minister. It is not the power of a Number 10 petition,
it is the fact of what happens to petitions when they arrive here
and they are presented in the middle of the night to an empty
Chamber and put in a bag basically. I think the Scottish Parliament
at least has a Petitions Committee and some process whereby the
petitions can go somewhere and trigger something. That is what
you should be looking for.
Q177 Chairman: The Procedure Committee
are doing something on petitions, by the way.
Mr Dismore: The short answer to
that is that if people e-mail the Prime Minister, it is for the
Prime Minister to respond to them. If he wants to give his explanation
of what he has done and why then that is up to him, it is nothing
to do with us.
Q178 Mr Sanders: I would like to
test your views on topicality. The idea in oral questions to have
a catch all question that could open up a topical debate of something
that has happened maybe in the previous 24 hours rather than several
days before when questions would have been tabled, what are your
views on that?
Martin Salter: We think that is
rather clever and we are annoyed we had not thought of it.
Mr Dismore: It is like doing PMQs
with cabinet ministers; there is no problem with it as long as
it does not become the dominant feature of the question time.
Prime Minister's Questions is a circus; it is not about actually
eliciting information or achieving a debate. The thing about ordinary
ministerial question time is that it does give the opportunity
to develop a series of arguments backwards and forwards across
the Chamber through six or seven—even more sometimes—supplementaries,
whereas PMQs is one, one, one, one, one; there is no effort to
develop the debate. That is why I think what the Liaison Committee
does with the Prime Minister is so important because we can, in
the Liaison Committee, develop a line of argument which you cannot
do through the open question system.
John Bercow: I agree with that
suggestion from Adrian. What I would say is that in a 60 minute
question session it is perfectly reasonable to have a reserved
portion lasting, say, 10 minutes in which such a topical matter
can be raised. The worst example of the weakness of the old system,
partially reformed now when you have to submit questions for oral
answer only three days before as opposed to a fortnight before,
was the time when in Foreign Office questions nobody could raise
the subject of Pinochet because it was not on the Order Paper
but it was in everybody's minds. The Speaker of course can assert
himself and insist on very short supplementaries and make it clear
that in that 10 minutes he hopes to get in at least half a dozen
colleagues.
Martin Salter: If you are successful,
Adrian, it will become known henceforth as the Sanders Slot.
Q179 Chairman: The Procedure Committee
is looking at this. It is irritating if you are a minister in
the Foreign Office, time and again wanting to say something about
a particular issue, even with the three day notice, not being
able to get in. I would like now to ask a couple of points. I
am going to lead the witnesses because the clerk tells me it is
helpful to have this as evidence based report. When I came in
all those years ago I used to sit on the backbenches as well as
in committee doing my constituency correspondence. No-one upbraided
me for this. I used to sign letters in there and was discreet
about it. I cannot for the life of me see what the difference
is in principle between doing that at a time when only paper and
pen was available, and somebody being able to use discreetly a
PDA to perform exactly the same task. Would you agree?
John Bercow: Yes, I have no problem
with that at all.
1 Back
2
Back
|
