House of Commons Reform
Oral Answers to Questions — Leader of the House
10:30 am
Paul Flynn (Newport West, Labour)
What progress he has made on the implementation of the Wright proposals on House of Commons reform in the last 12 months.
David Heath (Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, House of Commons; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
This Government have successfully implemented recommendations to introduce elections to Select Committee membership, established a Backbench Business Committee and, within the last 12 months, introduced an e-petition system to achieve a greater degree of public participation. The
majority of the remaining recommendations of the Wright Committee are a matter for the House rather than the Government.
Paul Flynn (Newport West, Labour)
Can we improve the choreography of the parliamentary week by doing what the Wright proposals suggested—moving Prime Minister’s Question Time to Thursdays, allowing Wednesdays to be used for the increasingly important Back-Bench business debates?
David Heath (Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, House of Commons; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, the Procedure Committee is now completing and in the very late stages of production of a report on the parliamentary calendar. We would prefer to wait and see what suggestions the Procedure Committee makes rather than taking a unilateral view on what is best for the House.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire, Conservative)
What is the Government’s analysis of the effect of adopting the recommendations in the Wright Committee report? I understand that the creation of the Backbench Business Committee was blocked by the previous Government.
David Heath (Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, House of Commons; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
It was indeed; there was no progress whatever under the previous Government on this matter. I am very proud of the fact that we moved quickly to establish the Backbench Business Committee. Speaking personally, I think it has been a great success. It is something that the House should have done some time ago. I look forward to building on it in the years to come, and I look forward to the review of the Backbench Business Committee’s work, which will give us an indication of how the House views its performance more widely.
Angela Eagle (Wallasey, Labour)
The Wright proposals are about increasing ministerial accountability to this House, but there have been too many examples recently of Ministers preferring to do anything other than appear at the Dispatch Box to make statements on their own responsibilities or face departmental questions. This is a huge discourtesy not only to you, Mr Speaker, but to Parliament. To tackle this, might the Leader of the House consider introducing a penalty points system—or, with a reshuffle on the way, a “three strikes and you’re out” rule?
David Heath (Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, House of Commons; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
That was what might be considered a bold attempt to transfer the answer for Question 1 that the hon. Lady had prepared to Question 2. I do not think that the Wright Committee was in any way concerned with the subject to which she referred. As she has raised the issue, however, let me remind her that the present Government have, on average, made more statements than their predecessors. We made 191 in the last Session, an average of 0.7 per sitting day, which compares favourably with the last Administration’s average of 0.4 per sitting day during the 2009-10 Session. We did almost twice as well as they did.