§ 46. Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest. West)What further proposals she plans to put before the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons. [159335]
§ The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett)The Modernisation Committee has already instigated radical experiments with Westminster Hall, programming and deferred Divisions. I expect the Committee's major task to be monitoring those experiments, although we continue to discuss other issues, such as the use of electronic voting.
§ Mr. SwayneThat is regrettable. The right hon. Lady will be aware that many Labour Members are exhausted by the pace of reform, particularly the late night sittings to which, perversely, it has given rise. Can we not all have a rest from that business?
§ Mrs. BeckettI think that the notion that the reforms have created greater difficulties instead of easing some of them is not wholly shared. Of course, I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, although I note that he, like other Members, has taken advantage of the new opportunities in Westminster Hall.
§ Mr. Martin Salter (Reading, West)Does my right hon. Friend accept that many Labour Members thoroughly welcome the modernisation process? Those of us who were first elected in 1997 still find it bemusing that, while it would be an act of treason if the IRA or the Ulster Volunteer Force put a drug in the water supply of the House of Commons to ensure that Ministers were tired, 20 irritable and unable to concentrate through lack of sleep, until we fully modernise the House, we have made sleep deprivation a constitutional requirement.
§ Mrs. BeckettMy hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I merely say to him what I have often said in other debates in this House: people are rarely more eloquent in the early hours of the morning, although unfortunately, all too often, they think they are.
§ Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West)May I put it to the Leader of the House that one thing that should not be modernised is the opportunity for individual Members of Parliament to raise individual cases in this House and with Ministers in other ways? As an example, I hope that we will maintain the opportunity for me to raise the case of a constituent who has been asked to wait 15 months for an appointment at a hospital. For all the legislation that we have, for all the glitz and the glamour, each Member of Parliament must fight to ensure that our national health service is not a national waiting service.
§ Mrs. BeckettThe hon. Gentleman uses the opportunity skilfully to raise a slightly different point. Of course he is right that individual Members of Parliament must always have the facility to raise cases of the kind to which he refers. Indeed, many of us raised them frequently—much more frequently than is necessary today—during the years in which his party was in power.