Memorandum from Rt Hon Sir Alan Haselhurst
MP, Chairman of Ways and Means (M42)
STRENGTHENING THE
ROLE OF
THE BACKBENCHER
AND MAKING
BETTER USE
OF NON-LEGISLATIVE
TIME
INTRODUCTION
1. I am grateful for the chance to contribute
to the Modernisation Committee's enquiries into Strengthening
the Role of the Backbencher and Making Better Use of Non-Legislative
Time. The Committee has expressed the hope that the two inquiries
"will feed into one another". I myself certainly see
a link between the two subjects, to the extent that strengthening
the backbencher's role is likely to involve some enhancement of
opportunities to initiate or take part in debates other than those
which involve the scrutiny of legislation.
2. I have not, therefore, attempted in this
memorandum to deal under the separate inquiry headings with the
specific issues suggested by the Committee for discussion.
3. I start from the proposition, as I think
does the Committee, that the recent reductions in overall sitting
time to permit Members to spend more time in their constituencies
seem to be an accepted part of the Parliamentary timetable. There
may not be much appetite for reversing this trend by, for example,
providing for more Friday sittings, in addition to the 13 dedicated
to Private Members' Bills. It follows, therefore, that any attempt
to carve out greater opportunities for backbenchers must involve
either additional sitting time within the existing envelope of
the Parliamentary week, some readjustment of the way in which
time is currently employed, or making better use of existing time-slots.
INDUCTION FOR
NEW MEMBERS
4. Induction for new Members, in the broadest
sense, has improved greatly in recent years, and more particularly
over the last decade or so. A great deal of effort by the staff
of the House is now put into ensuring that a formal reception
process is followed by a series of briefings and seminars on such
issues as accommodation, IT and other office support, basic procedure,
and security. These measures are all fine as far as they go. What
is missing, in my view, is advice to newly elected Members on
what might best be described as "how to understand the procedures
and conventions of the House and to be effective". It is
true that the first of these issues is partly addressed in the
statement to the House which Mr Speaker now makes at the opening
of every Session (and by occasional written reminders about the
conventions and courtesies of the House). But I believe that there
is no substitute for new Members as a group hearing directly from
their more experienced colleagues about the responsibilities and
duties of Members, as well as about how best to take advantage
of the various Parliamentary opportunities open to them. I recall
from my own initial election to the House in the 1970s that the
then Conservative Chief Whip organised a seminar for new Members
on precisely these matters. I understand that his successors arranged
something similar after the 2001 and 2005 general elections. I
would welcome a situation in which this type of induction were
provided by all the parties to their new Members as a matter of
routine after every election. I would suggest that such a process
might benefit from appropriate input by relevant Officers of the
House on matters such as registration of interests. I also think
that it would be helpful if the Clerk of the House, as Chief Executive
of the House service, formally welcomed all new Members as a group
on their first day at Westminster, to be followed by the Heads
of the various Departments introducing themselves and explaining
their roles. Such an event works very well, I understand, in the
Australian House of Representatives, where it takes place in the
Chamber.
5. The first and paramount role of a Member
of the House of Commons is to represent his or her constituents
at Westminster, not the other way round, and, in doing
so, to carry out scrutiny of legislation and the activities of
the Executive. It is not clear to me that all Members, particularly
those elected more recently, accept (or at least act on) this
principle. That in turn raises the question of how much time Members
are willing to commit to being at Westminster. And the scrutiny
role is challenged by a much wider range of activities competing
for Members' time than used to be the case. I would mention in
this context, for example, party meetings, backbench committees,
pressure groups, campaigns of various kinds and, of course, the
ever-increasing demands of the 24 hour media. It is sometimes
said, and it is difficult to deny, that a one minute soundbite
on the evening television news is worth any number of speeches
on the floor of the House, not least because of the opportunity
it offers to make direct contact with a large and captive audience.
The pressure to create more time for constituency and campaigning
work was one of the main driving forces behind the changes in
sitting hours introduced during the last two Parliaments. They
in turn have led to a clash of commitments for Members at Westminster,
with the scrutiny function suffering. A further effect of the
changes has often been to turn Thursdays, for example, into a
virtual non-day. Whipped business is now rarely taken, and, if
it is, the last votes are often scheduled for four or five o'clock.
The main business frequently consists of uncontroversial, rather
anodyne adjournment debates of the sort that used to be taken
on Government Fridays. It is scarcely surprising that once Question
Time and the Business Statement have finished, the Chamber empties.
PREDICTABILITY AND
TOPICALITY OF
BUSINESS
6. It is not easy to see what can be done
about this state of affairs. Two solutions sometimes suggested
are greater predictability in the timing of business and more
topicality in the House's proceedings. I deal with each of these
in turn.
7. I can understand why greater predictability
(particularly as regards voting and speaking) is attractive to
some Members. But it is not a view I share, not least because
it clashes with the other, and I believe more important, goal
of topicality.
8. It is in any case unrealistic to expect
business to be entirely predictable. Business managers need some
margin of flexibility in their forward planning and timing proceedings
down to the last minute would, in any case, be undesirably restrictive.
But it ought to be possible, for example, to avoid the sort of
situation that occurs from time to time, in which business is
announced by the Leader of the House which is plainly not sufficient
to occupy a whole day's sitting time. There is nothing more dispiriting
for Members than to see business collapsing several hours before
the scheduled close, with the resultant loss of debating time
which is at such a premium, particularly for backbenchers.
9. I should add that I would not favour
bringing back the former practice of second and third adjournment
debates. Because of the short notice at which they were called,
and the lack of opportunity for Ministers to be properly briefed,
these often took the form of statements read into the record by
the Member concerned rather than a debate in the proper sense
of the word.
10. Nor would I welcome the introduction
of published speakers' lists as a means of giving Members greater
predictability as to whether, and if so when, they will be called
in a particular debate. Any gain in certainty of timing would,
in my view, be more than outweighed by the loss of spontaneity
in debate and the temptation for Members to spend even less time
listening to their colleagues' contributions. This would, unless
counteracted by pretty rigid and difficult to enforce rules, further
erode the principle that, in order to be able to speak, Members
need to be in the Chamber.
11. I do, however, have one or two thoughts
to offer which are designed to enhance the topicality of proceedings,
as well as to ensure that those items of business which are already
topical, such as Ministerial statements, are used more effectively.
STATEMENTS
12. The first idea, which the Committee
might like to revisit, is that statements should be made available
in advance to all Members, rather than simply to Opposition
front bench spokesmen. I can see no practical difficulty with
such an arrangement, other than that of creating sufficient copies
in time. But, given the political will, departmental resources
ought to be equal to this challenge. [1]Receiving
a statement, say, half an hour in advance would enable Members
to digest its contents and to put specific questions to the Minister
on points of clarification or elucidation, rather than, as often
happens at present, rehearse matters already covered in the Minister's
remarks. And the Committee may also wish to consider whether,
building on what it and Mr Speaker have already achieved in this
area, there is further scope for injecting more crispness and
discipline into the Statement procedure. This would produce the
double benefit of creating more time for backbenchers to put questions
and of enabling statements to be more effectively scrutinised.
[2]I
appreciate that some statements may not be finalized until close
to their delivery in the House—in which case Departments
should still use their best endeavours to ensure that copies are
available to the Vote Office as speedily as possible.
URGENT QUESTIONS
13. So far as Urgent Questions are concerned,
the Committee might like to consider the criteria which currently
govern the Speaker's decisions.
14. Under Standing Order No 21(2) the Speaker
may grant an Urgent Question which is "of an urgent character"
and relates "either to matters of public importance or to
the arrangement of business". The Committee might wish to
consider whether, in consultation with Mr Speaker, it would be
useful to draw up some informal guidelines about the sorts of
issues or events which would meet the test set out in the Standing
Order, with a view to tilting the balance slightly more in favour
of Urgent Questions being granted.
15. It would assist in the goal of creating
more opportunities for backbenchers to take part in statements
and Urgent Questions if the occupants of the Chair felt able to
let the proceedings run for a little longer than is customary
at present. They would doubtless be encouraged to do this if they
did not feel under pressure to protect the subsequent business
from undue encroachment. The best way of ensuring this would be
to provide for "injury" time. It could be argued that
such a course would run counter both to the desire for predictability
and to the aim of avoiding late votes (or votes later than the
moment of interruption). For that reason, I would restrict the
use of injury time in this way to Opposition days and to remaining
stages of bills—the two types of business where loss of
time to statements and Urgent Questions is particularly unwelcome
and disruptive.
16. The suggestions I have made in relation
to Urgent Questions and statements, apart from creating more opportunities
for backbenchers to raise issues in the House, would, in parallel,
also contribute to a goal to which the Committee rightly attaches
importance—namely, connecting better with the public. It
would do this by showing that procedure is not acting as an unreasonable
barrier to the ventilation in the House of matters of concern
to voters in their everyday lives.
PRIVATE MEMBERS'
MOTIONS
17. One opportunity for backbenchers which
no longer exists is Private Members' Motions. These were abolished
in 1995 as part of a package of procedural changes, the full significance
of which the House may not fully have appreciated at the time.
I personally think it a pity that backbenchers do not have a chance
to test the mood of the House by putting a specific proposition
before it, in addition to being able to raise an issue with a
Minister. Some means of selecting such Motions for debate would
be needed—either a ballot, as used previously, a Speaker's
discretion or some combination of both. This task could also form
one of the roles of a new Business Committee, whose creation I
favour but which is perhaps a little outside the scope of the
Committee's current inquiries.
WESTMINSTER HALL
18. Westminster Hall is a valuable source
of debating opportunities for backbenchers (and, on frequent Thursdays,
for Select Committees). It has now established itself as part
of the parliamentary scene to the extent that many Members who
originally opposed its introduction as a distraction from the
Chamber have now changed their minds. This does not, however,
mean that it could not be put to better use. In general, Westminster
Hall offers a hitherto unexploited forum for taking more unwhipped
business and for trying out new ideas (whether they are intended
for eventual implementation in the Chamber or Westminster Hall
itself). In terms of specific proposals, I have in mind two possibilities:
debates on uncontroversial legislation and opportunities to raise
topical issues. These innovations would be worth introducing in
their own right. But there would also be the benefit, in the case
of debates on uncontroversial legislation, of bringing Westminster
Hall closer into line with the Main Committee in the Australian
House of Representatives—on which it was originally modelled.
Indeed, the Standing Order relating to Westminster Hall allows
for other categories of business to be taken there in addition
to adjournment debates. If more debating time were thought to
be needed as a result of these changes, Monday afternoons might
be a possibility:
(a) Debates on uncontroversial Legislation
19. I see no reason why, for example, second
readings of uncontroversial bills (that is to say those on which
no division is expected) should not be taken in Westminster Hall,
thus freeing valuable debating time in the Chamber. This might
include debates on bills of the sort which are currently referred
to a Second Reading Committee. Such a development ought not to
cause a headache for the Government business managers, since they
would have the assurance, under the Standing Order, of knowing
that, if a division were unexpectedly called, this would be remitted
to the floor of the House. I accept, of course, that taking Committee
and Remaining Stages in Westminster Hall would not be practicable,
because of the dependence of proceedings on the outcome of earlier
decisions.
(b) Raising topical issues
20. Another possible development of Westminster
Hall—perhaps on a trial basis initially—would be the
establishment of a 30 minute slot[3]
for "issues of concern". This would enable ten Members
to raise for three minutes each, and without notice, a matter
of national, local or constituency interest without the need for
a Ministerial reply. If this trial were successful I would hope
the new procedure could be introduced in the Chamber.
(c) Select Committee Reports
21. Another topical use of time in Westminster
Hall would be a weekly half hour slot, along the lines originally
recommended by the Liaison Committee in 2000, [4]for
debating newly published Select Committee reports. The slot would
begin with a Minister giving an initial response to the report
for five minutes, followed by the Chairman of the Committee, or
another Member speaking on its behalf, for five minutes. The remainder
of the half-hour would be available for other Members to comment.
There would need to be a mechanism for the selection of reports
for debate in this way, which ought to involve the Liaison Committee.
Since it would not be practicable for the Committee to meet every
week, the task could be delegated to the Chairman, consulting
other members of the Committee as appropriate. If this idea worked
well in Westminster Hall, I would hope that serious consideration
would be given to transferring it to the Chamber.
(d) Cross-cutting Questions
22. I would also mention in this context
cross-cutting questions. These were introduced in Westminster
Hall as a means of enabling Members to raise issues which engaged
the responsibilities of more than one Department. Although the
experience was variable (not least because the interaction of
Ministers from different Departments depended to a large extent
on the ability of Members to table suitable Questions), I regret
the fact that this practice appears to have fallen into abeyance.
The last session of cross-cutting questions was held in October
2004. I would hope that some way could be found of restoring the
procedure for a more extended trial period.
PROGRAMMING
23. The principle of programming bills is
not necessarily objectionable, but it needs to be applied more
sensitively and flexibly. If programming were modified in this
way, something approaching a consensus on its use might be achievable.
I set out below some examples of what I have in mind:
— The outdate for the bill should
be the product of genuine negotiation between the usual channels,
with the Government prepared to give serious consideration to
requests for more time for the passage of the bill, whether overall
or in respect of a particular stage; the flexibility Ministers
have shown on some bills in acceding to requests for additional
sittings at the Committee stage needs to be more routinely observed.
And the rights of backbenchers, or groups of backbenchers, with
a view distinct from that of their party must also be given proper
weight.
— In the case of major or particularly
complex bills, more time should be allowed for Report stages;
it is not conducive to effective scrutiny of a bill if debate
on amendments is truncated or if whole groups of amendments are
not even reached before the knife falls. To the extent that the
Speaker's grouping of amendments inevitably takes into account
the total time available and the incidence of any knives, this
can lead to larger groups than would otherwise be the case.
— Injury time should be allowed
for divisions at the end of Report stage; it is wrong that votes
should eat into the already limited time for Third Reading. I
suggest that this would best be achieved by allowing a protected
maximum time of, say, one hour for Third Reading. I acknowledge
that this would remove one aspect of predictability in the timing
of business. But the additional time would not be taken up in
all cases; and when it was it would almost always be in relation
to an important or controversial bill.
— Third Reading itself should
revert to its traditional, and proper, purpose of reviewing the
progress of the bill, highlighting the main amendments made, including
concessions to the Opposition parties, and indicating any outstanding
issues to be resolved; whilst there is a place for expressing
brief thanks to those who have made a contribution to the passage
of the bill, this has become, in many cases, the centrepiece of
Third Reading speeches, particularly those from the front benches.
SHORT SPEECHES
24. The short speeches provision is, in
principle, a useful adjunct to the power of the Chair to seek
to regulate debate—in this case in order to ensure that
in oversubscribed debates as many Members as possible can be called.
But I have some doubt as to whether the relevant Standing Order
is working well in practice. At present, Mr Speaker can impose
a time limit on backbench speeches of not less than 8 minutes,
which is announced at the beginning of the debate. And, following
a recent change to the Standing Order, the Chair can now, with
Mr Speaker's agreement and if the number of Members still wishing
to speak appears to justify it, introduce a shorter limit of not
less than three minutes between certain designated times (for
practical purposes, the last hour). [5]It
is not always straightforward for Mr Speaker to assess the demand
to speak in a particular debate from the number of Members who
write in in advance. Some Members who have not made a written
request to speak come to the Chair during the debate itself and
may be able to muster a persuasive case to be called—though
not necessarily with any priority. Others, by contrast, deterred
by the prospect of waiting several hours without any guarantee
of being called, may give up and leave the Chamber. And however
hard the Chair tries to accommodate as many Members as possible,
there is bound to be some disappointment at the end of a heavily
over-subscribed debate.
25. I would like to see more flexibility
in the operation of the short speeches Standing Order. It should
be possible, at the beginning of a debate, for the Chair to announce
a provisional limit on speeches of, say, 10 minutes. That
would represent a maximum figure, which would not be increased.
But, as the debate progresses and the Chair was able to form a
clearer picture of the number of Members seeking to get in, a
lower limit of perhaps seven or eight minutes could be imposed—to
take effect from the next but one speech after it is announced.
This additional flexibility would help to avoid the abrupt transition
from a reasonably generous allocation of, say, 10 minutes or more
to a minimum limit under the Standing Order of only three minutes
during the last hour. Not only is the concept of the last hour
of the debate definable only in terms of a pre-determined starting
time for the front bench wind-up(s), but some Members who have
waited patiently throughout the debate might prefer not to speak
at all rather than condense their remarks into such a short time
limit.
26. I have put forward these ideas in a
personal capacity and purely in the context of the themes of the
Committee's inquiries. No doubt the Committee, if it decides to
pursue them in more detail, would wish to seek Mr Speaker's views.
March 2007
1 Under the existing arrangements, Departments already
supply 300 copies of a statement to the Vote Office, to be distributed
when the relevant Minister sits down. Back
2
I welcome the recent announcement by the Leader of the House that
he intends to give notice, on the Order Paper, of oral statements,
whenever possible. Back
3
ie a maximum of 30 minutes. Back
4
Shifting the Balance: Select Committees and the Executive,
First Report of the Liaison Committee, HC (1999-2000) 300. Back
5
The relevant recommendation from the Procedure Committee referred
to "the last hour before the wind-ups". The Standing
Order itself refers only to "between certain hours". Back
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