HC Deb 25 January 2000 vol 343 cc143-5
43. Mr. Paul Clark (Gillingham)

If she will make a statement on (a) the changes made in the House as a result of the work of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons and (b) their impact on (i) hon. Members and (ii) staff of the House and of hon. Members. [104974]

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett)

Forty-seven of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Modernisation have already been implemented. They include more Bills scrutinised in draft and experiments with earlier sittings on Thursday and with sittings in Westminster Hall. Together they have provided more time for debates, better structured debates and better use of time for Members and staff.

Mr. Clark

I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House are pleased to see progress, but bearing in mind the fact that the remit of the Modernisation Committee is to look at efficient and effective use of time in the House of Commons, does she agree that the recent antics by the Conservative party call for greater timetabling of legislation? Would that not be a matter for the Modernisation Committee to consider?

Mrs. Beckett

As my hon. Friend may know, it is one of the issues that, on an all-party basis, the Modernisation Committee considered at the outset of the Parliament. It recommended that we should make greater use of programming, so that we can be confident that the most important issues in legislation that comes before the House are adequately covered and that time is not wasted on things that are not important. However, I fear that the understanding and agreement across the House in the earliest days of this Parliament seem to be waning. My hon. Friend is right to identify that, if we continue to have exceptional problems, that will cause further difficulties which the Government and the House will have to consider.

Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire)

The Modernisation Committee's first report mentioned use of Joint Committees with the Upper House as a useful way of making progress on pre-legislative scrutiny. In order to deal with reports that the Government are planning to drag their feet on stage 2 of House of Lords reform, will the right hon. Lady tell the House when she proposes to establish the promised Joint Committee to take forward the Wakeham report?

Mrs. Beckett

As the right hon. Gentleman is already well aware, the Government have not made a decision on the timetable for that Joint Committee. He will also know that, of the half dozen draft Bills that have been considered in Committees of the House or of both Houses, two—the draft Local Government Bill and Financial Services and Markets Bill—were considered in Joint Committees.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)

Is my right hon. Friend aware that democracy is indeed a messy and expensive business; that the timetabling of all Bills would lead irrevocably to Back Benchers of all parties having fewer and fewer rights in this place; and that the fact that Front Benchers may agree on a particular measure is not—if she will forgive my saying so, with the greatest respect—any guarantee that it is in the interests either of the House of Commons or of the electorate?

Mrs. Beckett

I completely understand the basic point that my hon. Friend is making. First, however, I should remind her that the Modernisation Committee is not composed only of Front Benchers—only two Front Benchers serve on it—but contains mostly Back Benchers, from both sides of the House.

Secondly, I accept that timetabling all Bills would have implications. I have the greatest respect for my hon. Friend, but this is one issue on which we do not agree. In opposition, I took the view that major legislation should be timetabled. As an Opposition Front Bencher, I always pursued that policy in seeking to ensure that we dealt with the issues that really should be dealt with, because I have never thought that the public understand why some hon. Members waste time on what hours or days we should sit. I take the same attitude in government as I took in opposition.