§ 35. Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield)What plans she has to extend the Select Committee system. [41332]
§ The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor)It is less than a year since the Select Committee system was last extended. I therefore have no immediate plans to make further changes.
§ Mr. SheermanI know that my hon. Friend will agree that the Select Committee system is at the very heart of our traditional role of checking the Executive. Will she encourage recently mooted developments in which Select Committees assess and give marks—even out of 10—for departmental performance? Will she also give counsel to some Select Committees—who would perhaps be better off studying some of the newer management techniques to improve their performance, rather than thinking that they had to travel around the world to discover such techniques?
§ Mrs. TaylorI agree with my hon. Friend that the Select Committees' role is a very important one. I am sure that new and experienced hon. Members alike will agree with that statement and think that the work that they do on Select Committees is extremely important. As for suggesting to Select Committees the precise inquiries that they should undertake, or whether and how they should assess departmental performance, I know that Select Committees guard their freedoms and individual rights very jealously. They might not welcome advice from myself or from others on how they should conduct themselves.
§ Mrs. Gillian Shephard (South-West Norfolk)I am certainly in favour of using the Select Committee system in the most effective way possible. However, does the right hon. Lady not agree that, in her Government's increasingly farcical handling of the arms to Sierra Leone affair, it was hardly a contribution to the effectiveness of Select Committees that, last week, during Business Questions, she should have referred to correspondence directed to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that the House had not seen, but which—I need hardly add with this Government—the BBC had?
§ Mrs. TaylorI made it clear that the letter was addressed to the Chairman of the Select Committee. As I had been asked by Opposition Members for the latest information on the issue, I thought it incumbent upon me to give them the latest information.