Revisiting Rebuilding the House: the impact of the Wright reforms

Written evidence submitted by Unlock Democracy (WR 25)

 

About Us

Unlock Democracy is the UK’s leading campaign for democracy, rights and freedoms. A grassroots movement, we are owned and run by our members. In particular, we campaign for fair, open and honest elections, stronger parliament and accountable government, and a written constitution. We want to bring power closer to the people and create a culture of informed political interest and responsibility.

Introduction

Unlock Democracy welcomed the publication of the Rebuilding the House report and campaigned to ensure that its proposals were implemented. We are grateful for this opportunity to reflect on the impact of these reforms.

Although on balance we argue that the reforms have improved the work of parliament, in particular in differentiating the work of parliament from the government, they have done little to improve public engagement with parliament. In particular we are disappointed with the way that petitioning has been implemented and the failure to take action on exploring options for agenda initiative.

We have limited our comments to the issues and recommendations made in Rebuilding the House. However there are a number of ways that we believe Parliament could go further in engaging the public with the legislative process such as the use of Citizens Veto. This mechanism would allow the public to trigger a referendum to reject a piece of legislation that had been passed. While there are extensive debates about whether referendums should be held on contentious issues, they can currently only be initiated by the government. Unlock Democracy also believes that it should also be possible for citizens to initiate referendums in certain circumstances.

To what extent have the Wright reforms succeeded in making the House of Commons matter more, increasing its vitality, and rebalancing its relationship with the Executive?

Backbench Business Committee

1. The Wright reforms have certainly strengthened the role of backbenchers within Parliament. The Backbench Business Committee has given Parliament greater control over timetabling business than it had previously. This is a significant step, but it could be taken further. The Procedure Committee recommend that it should be a regularly scheduled slot, for example once a week in the parliamentary calendar. This would allow for better planning, although there may need to be exceptions, such as for debates on the Queen’s Speech or the Budget. However, this is a principle that should be established.

2. So far, the Backbench Business Committee has scheduled debates on a wide range of topics such as Afghanistan, Iran, a European referendum and other subjects which the government were not necessarily keen on making time for. This is good for public perception of MPs and the reputation of debate in parliament.

3. However, the House Business Committee has not yet been implemented. This was recommended in the Wright reforms as a means to allow for greater involvement in and scrutiny of government business. This should be addressed.

4. Furthermore, it is regrettable that the government took the decision to change the way the Backbench Business Committee was elected. It was envisaged originally that having the whole House elect the Committee would ensure that members had cross-party support, providing a career path for backbench MPs outside of the party system. The different method of electing members to the committee reflected how the Backbench Business Committee differed from other committees in its role. The move to party caucuses- as is the case with other committees- is particularly disappointing as the government did not wait until the Procedure Committee had completed its inquiry into the Backbench Business Committee. It shows that the cultural change towards giving backbenchers more autonomy will take some time, and that the process in moving towards this shift needs to be defended.

Elections of Select Committee chairs and members

5. Two years ago, the Wright recommendation that chairs of committees should be elected by secret ballot was implemented, along with the election of committee members. This is working very well. The independence of select committees has been strengthened, with a number of positive consequences. Chairs of select committees have been increasingly using their mandate to develop the investigative nature of the committees beyond scrutiny and into policy development. In general, select committees are playing an increasingly prominent role both in parliament and in the eyes of the public, and this is to be welcomed.

To what extent have the Wright reforms succeeded in giving the public a greater voice in parliamentary proceedings?

6. The Wright reforms have had very limited success in giving the public a greater voice in parliamentary proceedings. The mechanism for petitioning was not implemented as recommended in the Wright report, where it was recommended that the Procedure Committee would become the Procedure and Petitions Committee, and giving petitions a greater significance in House proceedings.

Petitions

7. Rather than implement the Wright Committee recommendations the government chose to introduce e-petitions and link them to the Backbench Business Committee without any consultation. At launch, publicity raised expectations of the public beyond the capability of the e-petitions system: a large number of citizens hold the belief that 100,000 signatures on an e-petition will automatically trigger a debate. Rather, the committee has to consider whether a debate should be held which is considerably weaker. As there are a limited number of days for backbench business and there will always be a number of competing demands for this time, this does not give much opportunity for the debate of petitions. Also the mechanism forces MPs to become gatekeepers to which petitions are debated in parliament, rather than having set criteria.

8. Unlock Democracy is particularly concerned about the focus on e-petitions. While a large number of people are using the internet, there are many, particularly from already-disadvantaged groups who do not, and therefore an e-petitions system is inadequate in giving many citizens a greater voice in parliamentary proceedings. We argued when the reforms were first proposed that any petitioning mechanism should be as widely-accessible as possible so that those without the resources or skills to participate may be able to do so.

9. E-petitions do not actually promote engagement with parliament, as there is no discussion or deliberation between signatories and parliament. Politics is all too often seen as something that is remote, incomprehensible and only conducted in Westminster. This mechanism does nothing to change this perception.

10. We have consistently argued that a better alternative to this would be to introduce a Petitions Committee, which would give the process a human face, but it also has the advantage of increasing engagement by bringing the process outside of Westminster. A comparison here is the Scottish Petitions Committee which has gone into schools to take evidence from pupils on the public health impact of cheap alcohol.

11. The Public Petitions Committee (PPC) in Scotland accepts petitions from any individual who is not an MSP, and there is no threshold in relation to the number of signatures. An individual can submit a petition with one signature and as long as it is a devolved matter it will be considered by the Committee. We recognise that the House of Commons may be concerned about the number of petitions that any equivalent committee may receive. Therefore, the House may wish to consider setting a threshold of a certain number of signatures that a petition has to receive before it can be considered.

12. The PPC meets fortnightly when the Parliament is sitting and all its meetings are held in public. Its membership broadly reflects the balance of the various political groupings in the Parliament. About eight new petitions are normally considered at each meeting as well as a number of current petitions. Should the PPC consider it necessary, in order to broaden its understanding of a petition, it may invite a petitioner to give oral evidence before it. This may be where a petition raises a new issue. Petitioners may also provide written evidence in support of their petition.

13. The role of the PPC is to ensure that appropriate action is taken in respect of each admissible petition. In fulfilling this function, it takes responsibility for the initial consideration of the issues raised.

14. This may involve hearing oral evidence from the petitioners or seeking written evidence from organisations with an interest in the issues raised e.g. the Scottish Government. Following consideration of the written and any oral evidence, a decision will be taken as to whether the issues raised merit further consideration. The PPC may also refer a petition to the relevant subject committee of the Parliament for further investigation. It can also bid for parliamentary time for a petition to be debated by the whole Parliament. Having considered a petition the PPC (or the relevant subject committee) may agree that no further action is required and close it. In all cases, the petitioner will be notified of any action.

15. Unlock Democracy believes that it is the involvement of the petitioner in the process and the fact that they are kept informed at each stage that makes the PPC a particularly valuable example of how petitioning can be used to enable the public to initiate debates and proceedings in the House of Commons.

Public Bill Reading Stage

16. In the spirit of the recommendation that parliament should be more open to influencing the content of draft laws, the Coalition has piloted a "public reading" stage for the Protections of Freedoms Bill and Small Charitable Donations Bill (for which a special website was set up). To date, the way this has been implemented seems to be very similar to a public consultation.

17. It is not yet clear what action will be taken in bringing this forward, and what resources will be put into this mechanism. How it is resourced is likely to be crucial to the success of this process. We have already seen in the first pilot that the briefing document on public comments on the Bill was not circulated to committee members in advance. This made it very difficult for them to be considered in detail. Unlock Democracy has run several processes facilitating public engagement with select committee inquiries and government consultations - the level of response ranging from 1,330 to over 4,000. We are very keen to continue promoting this engagement but committees are not resourced to able to handle significant public engagement.

18. We also question whether this is an appropriate stage at which to involve the public, as the policy has already been decided on. It is likely that a more robust petitioning service and the agenda initiative (see below) would have a greater impact in getting the public involved.

Which reforms proposed by the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons have not yet been implemented?

19. The Wright Committee called for "the House to commission an investigation of the practicalities of such a procedure at national level, drawing on local and international experience". Unlock Democracy is disappointed that this recommendation has been ignored.

20. Unlock Democracy believes that it should be possible for members of the public to suggest issues for consideration by Parliament. All too often political participation is seen as nothing more than cast a vote once every four or five years. We believe that enabling the public to propose ideas for discussion in Parliament is one way to start to fix the disconnect between Parliament and the public. The measures we recommend would also encourage the public to engage with the work that Parliament does outside the media set-pieces such as Prime Minister’s Questions (which is far from representative of the work of the legislature).

21. Agenda initiative is a direct democracy tool but it does not lead to a referendum and decision-making rests firmly with the legislature, rather than being held jointly with citizens. Generally speaking an agenda initiative leads to either a committee of the Legislature, or the Legislature as a whole examining the issue, deciding whether it has merit and how if at all it should be taken forward.

22. An agenda initiative procedure is the right of a group of voters, meeting predetermined requirements, to initiate a process for the revision of a law, the introduction of a new law or an amendment to the constitution. While it is voters who make the proposal, the Legislature retains full decision-making power.

23. Agenda initiative procedures first began to be used in Europe in the aftermath of the First World War and are now used in 22 countries across Europe, with a further seven countries allowing agenda initiatives only at a sub-national level. The types of issues that have been raised include proposals to improve the teacher training programme in Poland and the introduction of a 40-hour week in Austria. The Lisbon Treaty also established a process whereby EU citizens [1] are able to petition the EU Commission to bring forward proposals. A petition on access to water [2] has now exceeded the 1 million signature threshold.

24. The predetermined requirements that have to be met can include the subjects on which proposals can be made, the number of signatures required for a proposal to be considered, the amount of time allowed to collect the signatures and how the signatures can be collected.

25. These requirements determine how easy or difficult it is to use this tool and how likely it is that the public will engage with it. For example, the requirement to collect a high number of signatures, in a short period of time, and with those signatures required to have been collected in specific places means that very few proposals will be successful. This may discourage people from trying to use the tool. However those that are successful are guaranteed to have widespread support. An agenda initiative system which requires a low number of signatures which can be collected over a long period of time means that many more proposals are likely to reach the threshold and be considered by the Legislature. This makes it more likely that the public will use the tool but may create more work for the legislature. Unlock Democracy believes that it should be difficult to submit a proposal under an agenda initiative system but that it should be possible. We would therefore support high thresholds.

26. Some countries restrict the subjects on which an agenda initiative can be proposed. For example Austria, Brazil, Cape Verde and Thailand do not allow agenda initiative to be used for amendments to the constitution while Niger does not allow agenda initiative on devolution.

27. Although petitions and agenda initiatives are different mechanisms they are both tools designed to make Parliament more responsive to voters in between elections. These tools enable voters to raise issues, demonstrate that there is a significant level of public support and provide a formal mechanism for Parliament to respond. We believe that these mechanisms will help to address the disconnect between Parliament and the public.

What is the reason for delay in implementation?

28. It is not clear what the delay in implementation is, we can only assume a lack of political leadership in taking this issue forward.

What impact would these reforms be likely to have on how the House of Commons functions and is perceived by the public?

29. The impact of these reforms are likely to have little impact on public perception, as they have done little to improve public involvement. It is possible that there will be an increased negative perception due to e-petitions not working in the way many had assumed they did.

April 2013