Revisiting Rebuilding the House: the impact of the Wright reforms

WR 06

Written submission from Natascha Engel MP

Thank you for the opportunity to submit my thoughts on the implementation of the proposals set out in the Wright Committee report. I am writing this both as a former member of the Wright Committee as well as the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.  

I have restricted my submission to the issues surrounding the establishment of a House Business Committee as the Liaison Committee has recently completed its review of the new Select Committee system and the Procedure Committee has reported on its review of the Backbench Business Committee.

I look forward to giving oral evidence.

HOUSE BUSINESS COMMITTEE

Introduction

The allocation of time is a great, and often hidden, power in Parliament. Controlling the allocation of time means controlling the agenda.

The Wright Committee looked in detail at the ownership of Parliamentary time and concluded that the Executive had almost total control of it. This meant that Parliament was unable to do its job properly: to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Executive to account.

This, the Wright Committee concluded, often led to bad laws and a discredited Parliament. The Committee proposed the establishment of a House Business Committee to enable Parliament, that is, backbenchers, to hold the Government of the day to account better on their scheduling decisions and redress the power balance between Parliament and the Executive.

On the other hand, the Executive would argue that it has been elected to put through its laws in the manner and time of its choosing. It believes that a House Business Committee would gum up the legislative programme and stop the Government from doing what it was directly elected to do.

Ownership of time

Ownership of the time of the House is to be distinguished from responsibility for sponsoring or promoting the business before it. There is a strong case for regarding all time as the House’s time. It is not the Government that seeks a debate but the House: what the Government needs are the decisions which enable it to carry out its programme.

(129. Wright Committee report)

Section 4 of the Wright Committee report Business of the House lists the different types of business the House deals with and who controls the scheduling. This has altered somewhat with the introduction of the Backbench Business Committee but still largely holds:

Under the current system, the Executive ultimately controls a significant majority of Parliamentary time. Even Opposition days, Backbench days and Private Members’ Bills days, are in the gift of the Government.

1. The Executive controls not just the scheduling of all ministerial business (on what days business is to be taken) but also the timetabling – the decisions about how long each separate part should be, from second reading, to remaining stages and third reading. These are generally negotiated with the official Opposition, but are then imposed on the House. Programme Motions are very rarely defeated.

2. The amount of time a bill is in committee is also decided by the Party managers who appoint their members on the Committee of Selection which, in turn, decides on the membership of the bill committees.

3. The criticism has always been that the Executive chooses by whom it is held to account and who scrutinises its legislation.

4. There are 13 Private Members’ Bills Fridays each session. These are determined by the Executive. (The Procedure Committee is currently reviewing Private Members’ Bills.)

5. However, it is also true that a full quarter of Commons time is now allocated by the Backbench Business Committee when backbenchers choose the topics for debates and can table votable motions.

6. Opposition parties own 20 days per session on which they can table votable motions on the subjects of their choice.

7. The Liaison Committee largely controls Thursday sittings in Westminster Hall for the debate of Select Committee reports.

8. Adjournment debates and short debates in Westminster Hall are selected on the basis of a random ballot by the Speaker’s office. Some are chosen on merit. Currently there are eight Members who put in for each slot.

9. The Speaker has the power to grant Urgent Questions and SO24s (Emergency Debates).

10. The public now also has an indirect power to influence Parliamentary time with the introduction of e-petitions. Once an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures, if a Member brings it to the Backbench Business Committee, up to three hours in Westminster Hall will be allocated to it, or even be debated on the floor of the House on a votable motion.

How the current system works

Business Managers

The "Business Managers" is the collective name for the whips’ offices, the Leader of the House and the civil servants who manage the business. These civil servants are attached to the Cabinet Office and provide the secretariat to the whips, both government and Opposition.

The Principal Private Secretary to the Chief Whip, also called the Usual Channels, does not change when either the Chief Whip changes or when there is a change of government. His job is to ensure that the government of the day gets its business through as quickly and unproblematically as possible. Together with his equivalents in the House of Lords, he has complete oversight of the legislative programme, session by session.

The Whips’ Offices negotiate amongst themselves the give-and-take of "we won’t push this to a vote if you give us more time on this".

Once the Business is agreed, it is announced at Business Questions by the Leader of the House. The Leader of the House is the bridge between the House and the Cabinet – Parliament’s voice on the Executive and the Executive’s voice in Parliament.

Backbenchers are allowed to ask one question of the Leader of the House in the usual Departmental Question Time format but there is no real opportunity to interrogate the Government on why it has scheduled that business this week or only given one day to Second Reading and so little time for Report Stage.

Clerks

As the Usual Channels provides a civil service to the Executive, so the clerks serve Parliament, and that means backbenchers, to support them in holding the Executive to account.

In the same way that the Usual Channels will find the best way of delivering the government’s agenda, so the clerks will help backbenchers to find ways to scrutinise that agenda more thoroughly. The struggle that exists between the Executive and Parliament is therefore played out between the Usual Channels and the clerks.

With the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee, Parliament was given a considerable chunk of the Executive’s scheduling powers. This for the first time gave the clerks, who provide the secretariat to the Backbench Business Committee, experience of scheduling business on the floor of the House.

The Speaker

The clerks are ultimately responsible to the Speaker. Where the Clerk of the House acts as its Chief Executive, the Speaker is the Chair.

Every day, in private conference with the most senior clerks, the Speaker decides on the running order and timings of the business of the day, whether Urgent Questions or Emergency Debates are granted and which amendments are to be selected. These are non-partisan decisions made on the basis of merit and whether something falls within or without the scope of a bill. These decisions cannot be challenged, nor does the Speaker justify why decisions have been taken.

House Business Committee

The proposal is to establish a House Business Committee to allow Parliament better scrutiny of the Government’s scheduling decisions. However, the proposals in the Wright report are explicitly about shifting power away from the Executive.

It is one thing to take power away from the Executive but quite another where that power is put. How we hold to account those people to whom the power is given is yet another.

This means that we need to answer a number of questions about the purpose of a House Business Committee:

1) Does Parliament want to scrutinise better the scheduling decisions taken by the Executive or does it want involvement in those scheduling decisions?

This is the most important question as this will determine the membership, powers and output of a House Business Committee.

2) Who sits on the Committee?

Most legislatures with business committees comprise of whips from the main political parties. The business is negotiated in advance of the meeting and rubber-stamped. This is a formalisation of the Business Managers and would not improve anything in our current system.

So, which representatives from the backbenches should sit on a House Business Committee?

a) Should there be ex-officio representation by the Chairs of the Liaison Committee, Committee of Selection and the Backbench Business Committee?

b) Should Parliament elect its representatives?

c) How many backbenchers should sit on the Committee?

d) Who from the Executive should be represented?

e) Who from the Opposition parties?

f) How are the Party balances calculated?

g) What is the balance of power between Executive and Backbench Members and how do the Opposition parties fit into this?

3) What are the Committee’s powers?

One proposal in the Wright report was a votable and amendable business motion every week which would then be debated in place of Business Questions on a Thursday. To pursue such a proposal would mean considering more carefully the composition of a House Business Committee as well as its voting powers.

Alternatively, the House Business Committee could work more like a Select Committee interrogating the Leader of the House on a weekly basis and challenging the Executive’s scheduling decisions before they are brought to the House on a Thursday at Business Questions. This would not give Parliament an input into scheduling decisions, but would provide an opportunity to question the scheduling decisions taken by the Executive.

4) Who chairs the Committee?

a) The Speaker: In some legislatures, business committees are chaired by the Speaker or one of the Deputies, for instance, the Chairman of Ways and Means. The advantages are that these are non-partisan roles which would make non-partisan decisions about scheduling. The possible disadvantages are that it brings the Speaker into a political and scheduling realm which may open his non-partisanship up to undue influence over the selection of amendments and the running of business in general.

b) The Chief Whip: The Executive will put a strong case for the Chief Whip or the Leader of the House as Business Managers to chair a House Business Committee and to have a Government and Executive majority on it. In which case, the House Business Committee would merely be an extension of the Usual Channels widening it out to include some backbenchers.

c) A Backbencher: If a Backbencher were to chair a House Business Committee, who would that be? Would that be an ex-officio position such as the Chair of the Liaison Committee? A backbencher directly elected by the House? And if so, from which political party?

5) Does it meet in private or in public?

Meeting in public would force the Executive to account for its scheduling decisions better but would also mean that it would be less willing to share any confidential information. Meeting in private would allow personal trust relationships to grow between members of the Committee and mean a greater sharing of information which would be impossible in a more adversarial setting in public. It has the clear disadvantage of contradicting the principle of opening scheduling decisions up to greater transparency.

6) Who provides the secretariat?

a) The Usual Channels: would it be the civil service that works to the Executive and has total oversight of the administration of scheduling Government time? If it is the Usual Channels, then how can the House Business Committee be sure that it was in possession of all the scheduling facts and not just a selection of facts (such as when a bill is coming out of the Lords, out of committee, how heavily amended it is, when Royal Assents are possible).

b) The clerks: what involvement would clerks have? Would they take on the role of informing themselves exactly at what stage every piece of legislation is in order that Parliament has an independent set of scheduling facts? What additional administrative burdens are we proposing to place on clerks?

c) Both: what would be the division of responsibilities and who would agree those?

7) What happens to the Backbench Business Committee?

Under some models, the Backbench Business Committee becomes the House Business Committee. This would be either by the Executive making representation to it or by expanding the Backbench Business Committee to include members from the Executive.

Whilst this would certainly mean that backbenchers, elected by the House, would have greater input into the Executive’s scheduling decisions, it would be in danger of swamping the Backbench Business Committee, confusing its role and purpose and politicising it.

The Backbench Business Committee has established an independent role for backbenchers to schedule backbench time. Its strength lies in the fact that it cannot instigate legislation, but gives voice to the House. This would be lost if the Backbench Business Committee was anything other than a separate entity from a House Business Committee.

Conclusion

The election of Chairs and Members of Select Committees as well as the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee have been successful reforms in Parliament which have significantly strengthened the hand of backbenchers in holding the Executive to account better.

The establishment of a House Business Committee is not as straightforward as these other reforms and has possible consequences which could, if not done with great care, take away some of the hard-won independence and strength that Parliament has gained.

Established correctly, a House Business Committee would enable Parliament to scrutinise the scheduling decisions made by the Executive. It could address some of the dissatisfactions expressed about report stages of bills as well as challenging the Executive on reasons why little time is allocated to important parts of bills, such as Second Readings.

How, though, such a House Business Committee would be established with all the necessary safeguards is something which is not immediately clear.

As Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, though, I would argue that its independence from any House Business Committee must be retained at all costs.

February 2013