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7.27 pm
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall): It is always difficult to follow the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)--or the hon. Member for masochism, whichever he prefers. It will be even more difficult this evening, because I propose to be slightly more radical than he was.
Before I do so, I join the Leader of the House in welcoming the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) to his new role, although later in my speech I shall dissent slightly from one of the points that he made. I am sure that he will bring to the Modernisation Committee an openness of mind and a feel for the way in which the House of Commons works that will be extremely helpful.
I also pay tribute to the Leader of the House as Chair of the Modernisation Committee. Her patience is legendary, although on occasion she must have wished that we in the Committee had set a time limit on speeches, which we had not, and others might have shared that view. It has to be said that the Committee is moving painfully slowly, because it is the intention of all members of the Committee, particularly the Chair, to try to reach agreement by consensus. What is remarkable about the number of Divisions that took place on one of the reports is that it showed how exceptional it was that one of our members was unable to join that consensus; on every other occasion, we have been completely united.
I want to discuss the motivation for this exercise, because it is easy to get so stuck on the details of reports that we forget the motivation. As it is now a full year since the Committee was set up, I want to return to the core issues and the rationale behind it. There are three core elements: the scrutiny of legislation; the accountability of the Executive, to which the hon. Member for Bolsover rightly referred, and the improvement of the way in which we represent our constituents. All the recommendations that we make to the House--the rather slim ones that we are discussing tonight, the more substantial ones that we discussed last summer and future proposals--have to be tested against those three propositions. If we are not making progress on those three broad points, we must ask ourselves whether the exercise is worth while.
In response to the work that we have done so far, Members on both sides of the House have said to me, "It is going well. It is going in the right direction, but it is disappointing that you are not making more progress." The hon. Member for Bolsover would agree with me on that.
First, on scrutiny of legislation, modest improvements will result from the carry-over provisions, but we have not yet fully developed the options put before the House--and agreed by the House--in our first report. That set out the options that are already available to us to improve the scrutiny of legislation, but the Government have been unable, or have not seen fit, to take up some of the more imaginative ways in which we can tackle that problem.
If the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire thinks that the way in which we have been dealing with the constitutional Bills--by taking every single sentence, clause, full stop and comma on the Floor of the House--is the envy of the world, he is living in cloud cuckoo land. Most Members of the House know that taking the whole Committee stage of such legislation on the Floor of the House is plain barmy. It has resulted in many of the important parts of that legislation not receiving the attention that they should have received and which was precisely one of the objectives that we stated in our first report.
It is now critical that we examine and take advantage of the recent experience on the Scotland Bill, the Government of Wales Bill and the Human Rights Bill. We must recognise that the proper way to proceed on Bills of such complexity is to consider the principles on the Floor of the House, as we do with the Finance Bill and as we did with the Sunday Trading Act 1994 and, I believe, a local government Bill. Once all hon. Members have had a full opportunity--a much greater opportunity than they have had in the proceedings on those constitutional Bills--to assess the priorities and principles of the legislation, the scrutiny of the detail is much better undertaken in Committee.
Even the modest proposals for carry-over will not extend the time allowed for legislation in future Sessions to the extent that we will be able to give Bills more time on the Floor of the House. Indeed, the past year has been exceptional in that the parliamentary year has been extended, and unless something odd occurs, that will not happen again in the near future. The House must examine--I hope that, through the usual channels, this will be arranged rapidly--our recent experience and reconsider the recommendations in the first report of the Modernisation Committee.
On the accountability of the Executive, great strides have been made in trying to examine new ways in which we can operate in the House. When I first came to the House in 1974, Select Committees did not exist. Their advent introduced a new way of operating. It was a new experience for Members to sit together and interrogate and challenge representatives of the Executive. That still does not happen in this particular part of the building, but it happens upstairs, and we are getting better and better at it. Surely it is critical that we provide more, rather than fewer, opportunities for that to happen. We must find ways of debating the results of Select Committee inquiries.
The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) is not here, but if we were to apply the Mackinlay test, as defined yesterday at Prime Minister's questions, to what happens in Select Committees, we would find that most
hon. Members would pass with flying colours. However, the same Members in the Chamber at Prime Minister's questions all too often ask
I hope that the implications of transferring more business out of the Chamber, and making sure that more work is done in that environment, will be examined with reference to the assessment of the parliamentary year, the parliamentary day and the parliamentary hours. Many Members on both sides of the House are disappointed that after 12 months, the Modernisation Committee has not reached even tentative conclusions on those issues. Once we take more business away from the Floor of the House, we can tackle the problem of our hours, days and years. We can achieve that by liberalising our attitudes and responses to the opportunities to call the Executive to account.
It is true--I am sure that the Leader of the House will want to make this point later--that the Committee is beginning to have very imaginative ideas about that. As a member of the Committee, reflecting the views of many other hon. Members, I hope that we will now get a move on. There is a great deal of work to be done in this respect and I believe it to be extremely important.
On representation of our constituents, I do not find that people come to my advice surgery saying that they are worried about the top hat or the garb worn by the Speaker, the Clerks or the Serjeant at Arms. Hon. Members may recall that on Monday, in a debate on electoral reform, Conservative Members repeatedly asked whether that subject was constantly mentioned in our mailbags or advice surgeries. The answer is no, but it is equally true that people do not come to our advice surgeries saying, "Whatever you do, maintain the first-past-the-post system." If that is to be the litmus test of what people are worried about, we should consider the fact that members of the public are fed up to the teeth with the confrontational image that they have of us.
On Monday, an NOP poll demonstrated that 57 per cent. of the electorate strongly agree that:
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
Eighty-four per cent.
Mr. Tyler:
I am grateful to my more numerate hon. Friend. Eighty-four per cent. of the electorate agree with that proposition. That is a real test, rather than the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) wondering why people do not come to his surgery. Eight-four per cent. of the electorate believe that we are too confrontational. Clearly, we have to find ways to achieve more consensus in the House, and more transparency.
Mrs. Dunwoody:
Frankly, that is the biggest load of rubbish that I have ever heard in my life. It is important that we stop talking too much arrant nonsense. It is difficult for many of our constituents these days to know
Mr. Tyler:
The hon. Lady is making my point for me. If the electorate concentrate only on the charade or cabaret show of that one half-hour in the week, like the American viewers of that extraordinary late-night programme that shows it, that is exactly the reaction that we will get. However, the hon. Lady says, and she is right, that the House of Commons should be more elector-friendlyand more transparent. I agree, and many of the recommendations in our latest report on the conduct in the Chamber should address that.
It is not only a matter of courtesy. Of course, it is more helpful if we are courteous to each other. However. the whole point of being in the House to hear people speak before or after us is that there is a better chance of a real debate. It is more likely that there will be a proper dialogue across the House. If one walks in, makes one's set prepared speech and then goes out to dinner, it is unlikely that one will hear how other hon. Members respond to that speech or how the Leader of the House or the Minister replies to the whole debate.
It is the essence of a debate that one does not pop in and out of it--one is part of a continuum. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who has an excellent reputation for taking part in debates in that sense--being here, listening and taking part--is a prime example of a real parliamentarian. To my mind, the type of parliamentarian who pops in at Prime Minister's questions, makes a funny intervention and departs is not serving his or her constituents well.
That is precisely why the report--which may appear to be rather peripheral--about the conduct of debate is extremely important. If we cannot debate issues in a way that develops a result--a continuum, a conclusion and, often, a consensus--we are not a debating chamber but a forum for a slanging match: a cockpit in which people throw alternative views at one another.
On the timing of speeches--[Interruption.] Some hon. Members are looking at me askance--
"fawning, obsequious, softball, well-rehearsed and planted questions".--[Official Report, 3 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 358.]
That does not happen in Select Committees, where there is true accountability of the Executive.
"Politicians spend too much time bickering and don't work together."
A further 27 per cent. agree, less strongly. My maths is not very good, but that adds up to--
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