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Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): The White Suit party.
Mr. Howarth: Or, indeed, the White Suit party. He could use one of those names, provided that it could not be confused with that of another party and that it met the tests of the Bill. People will be able to continue to stand as independents provided that their use of the name is not intended to cause confusion through identification with a legitimate registered party.
Mr. Brady: I fear that the Minister is missing the point. Our concern is not the permissibility of using the name "independent", but whether it is permitted to use the names Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat in conjunction with it. The use of the word "independent" must surely be sufficient to make it clear that there is no intention to deceive.
Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The conjunction of the words "independent" and "party" is probably a tautology, so perhaps we should not be drawn down that road--we can have that debate at greater length in Committee.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said at the outset, the Bill is largely a technical measure, but it is none the less important. Once it has been enacted, there will be proper protection at elections for the names of political parties from spoiler candidates who use deliberately misleading descriptions. The electorate will have a much greater certainty that whoever they vote for represents the party that he or she claims to represent--I know that the House will welcome that.
We believe that it is vital that, for the purposes of list-style elections, the political parties have a simple and straightforward means of putting forward their candidates. The Bill is also right for the other reasons that I have mentioned, and it meets all the challenges that were set for it. I commend it to the House.
?Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).
Queen's recommendation having been signified--
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor):
I beg to move,
The purpose of the debate is straightforward--to seek the approval of the House to the changes proposed in the third and fourth reports of the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons.
The Committee's first report, which dealt with the legislative process, recommended that, in appropriate cases, carry-over could be used as a positive means of improving the quality of legislation--the report was agreed by the House on 13 November last year. Our third report brings the attention of the House to a memorandum by the Clerks of both Houses on how the carry-over procedure could operate in practice. I should make it clear that the Government do not yet have any specific Bill in mind that should be subject to the procedure. Moreover, no change to Standing Orders is required at this stage. However, we should be clear about the process and the restrictions that would be placed on its use.
The basic reasons for having some end-of-Session flexibility were laid out in our first report, but it may be worth reiterating them. It may mean that, in time, we can move towards spreading legislation more evenly throughout a parliamentary Session. We may be able to avoid Bills having to be rushed through just before the end of the Session to avoid the cut-off. As the Modernisation Committee pointed out, introducing this flexibility gives the Government some assurance that any extra time that might be necessary for extra scrutiny--such as by means of a draft Bill, or by using the mechanism of a Special Standing Committee--would not put a Bill at risk.
Essentially, the carry-over procedure would be used in co-operation through the usual channels and between the two Houses. The Committee has suggested first that the Government Bills to be carried over should not have completed their passage through the House in which they originated--that is, not sent to the second House--although, presumably, they will have been advanced as far as possible. Secondly, it is suggested that they should be carried over by specific ad hoc motions and not by any easy change to Standing Orders. Thirdly, they should be Bills whose eligibility for the carry-over has been agreed through the usual channels. Those are important safeguards which should be mentioned.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
This is a very important point. Am I to take it that it will be made clear that this will be allowed to happen only on the basis of total agreement and on non-controversial matters, because, frankly, should this become a habit, it could become an extremely dangerous precedent in the hands of some Governments?
Mrs. Taylor:
I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend. I and Committee members with ministerial experience in
Mr. Robert Sheldon (Ashton-under-Lyne):
I fully accept my right hon. Friend's point, and she has done some good work on both reports. I am not sure whether we would need a motion on each of the matters to be carried over--a necessary safeguard, I should have thought--and whether the motions would be debatable. The report does not mention what sort of time my right hon. Friend has in mind for such a debate. Can she enlighten us?
Mrs. Taylor:
I hope that there will be agreement, but we would need the safeguard of allowing the House to express its opinion and we would need the House's formal approval. I would envisage that we would debate such a motion.
Mrs. Taylor:
Yes, were there to be more than one in any Session. At the moment, we are in new territory, and I have in mind no specific Bill on which to use the procedure in this Session. There is plenty of time to discuss the details of how this will work.
Part of the reason for discussing the principle is to encourage the Government to be less hesitant. Previous Governments have always been hesitant about allowing Bills either to go to Special Standing Committees or to be considered in draft form by Select Committees, simply because of the time constraints that the cut-off at the end of a Session can provide. It is envisaged that specific motions would be moved on any measure proposed to be dealt with in this way.
I remind the House that the Procedure Committee in the House of Lords recently recommended similar procedures to those I am proposing. It acknowledged that a Bill carried over in one Session and sent up from the Commons at the start of the subsequent Session should be treated in the same way as other Bills. Paragraphs 13 and 14 of the appendix to the Modernisation Committee's third report make it clear that the carry-over should not give rise to any particular problems for the Lords, which is generally willing to accept this procedure.
The Committee's fourth report, "Conduct in the Chamber", covers a wide variety of areas in which Members rightly feel that the House's way of working needs to be brought up to date. Looking at the list of recommendations, it is surprising that some of those procedures have survived for so long. The recommendations are a mixture of procedural and administrative changes, some of which can be implemented by the Chair, while others will need changes to Standing Orders--hence the motion.
Some hon. Members think that the changes we are proposing are not necessarily the last word in terms of how the House conducts itself. The report deals with issues such as time limits on speeches; the ending of the
automatic precedent for Privy Councillors; and ending some of the anachronisms, such as opera hats for points of order in Divisions, spying strangers and the banning of quotations from the Lords. The report also contains some simple measures to be more helpful to Members, such as putting the names of Members' constituencies on the annunciator and, where possible, giving notice on the annunciator and the PDVN of time limits on speeches.
I will deal first with changes that can be implemented by the Speaker without any change to Standing Orders. The first is our recommendation in paragraph 28 that the Speaker should be
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Registration of Political Parties Bill, it is expedient to authorise--
(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment, and
(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.--[Mr. Allen.]
6.36 pm
That this House approves the Third and Fourth Reports from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons on Carry-over of Public Bills and Conduct in the Chamber (HC 543 and 600).
First, I welcome the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) to the debate. He has had to deal with business questions and a debate on modernisation on the same day, so I hope that he will soon feel truly initiated into his new role.
"under no obligation to give any precedence to Privy Councillors in debate."
Considering the initial reaction, that may the most welcome of the changes we have suggested. I am aware that some, although not all, Privy Councillors have reservations.
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