Parliamentary Procedure

HC Deb 13 October 1975 vol 897 cc855-7

32. Mr. Tomlinson

asked the Lord President of the Council when he plans to move to set up a Select Committee to examine the workings of Parliament.

Mr. Edward Short

I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) on 7th July.—[Vol. 894, c. 23.]

Mr. Tomlinson

Is my right hon. Friend aware that we have had the Third Report from the Select Committee on Procedure, that it was an abortive report because of the statement made by my right hon. Friend on 19th May, and that the House is waiting for action on the promised radical look at the way in which the House of Commons is doing its business? Hon. Members will not be patient for much longer in waiting for details of the Select Committee which is to do what was promised several months ago.

Mr. Short

I promised a Select Committee in the new Session of Parliament. That Select Committee will be set up in the new Session of Parliament.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is nothing much wrong with the workings of the House of Commons but there is a great deal wrong with the workings of Government? If the Government would legislate less we should not need to set up a Committee, because we should have less work to do, and that would be to the benefit of the country as well as the House of Commons.

Mr. Short

There is a great deal wrong with the working of the Opposition, also, from what I saw on television last week.

Dr. Bray

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the question of the proceedings of the House is for the Select Committee on Procedure, with appropriate terms of reference?

Mr. Short

That is a point of view, but I suggested—and I asked any hon. Members who were interested to discuss it with me—that as this was a major radical view it might be worth considering the possibility of a mixed Committee of eminent outsiders and a majority of Members of the House.

Mr. Peyton

I hope that the Leader of the House will not too lightly dismiss the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis). Will he give careful consideration to the idea of examining the whole working of Government, the Departments of which have become more and more swollen and more and more inept as time has gone on? I am not blaming individual civil servants. The organisation of Government has not been looked at for far too long, and far too often Parliament is made the scapegoat for the Government's ineptitude.

Mr. Short

That is a different question, which is for the Prime Minister and not for me. I am concerned with the working of the House. I am not entirely satisfied about it at present. There is a case for a radical review of the way we do our work and the functioning of Parliament in a modern democracy in the last quarter of the twentieth century.