House of Commons (Procedure)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 February 1976.

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Photo of Mr George Cunningham Mr George Cunningham , Islington South and Finsbury 12:00, 2 February 1976

In the discussion so far I have detected only one point where there was considerable political content. It was in the speeches of hon. Members who said that part of the reform that is needed is a reduction in the amount of legislation. I know that many hon. Members have strong views about that, but I beg them not to press that point as one which should be examined by the proposed Committee and not to have it at the forefront of their minds when considering reform of procedure.

The fact is that it is not only this Parliament under a Labour Government which is experiencing a huge increase in the amount of legislation. It is happening in all legislatures throughout the free world. If people were to look at the amount of legislation that goes through Congress in Washington, they would be less struck by the uniqueness of our situation. There is a great deal of agreement across the House about what needs to be done to change our procedure, but if this item were to be given to the Committee it would provoke disagreement between people who otherwise could broadly agree.

It was just before the last war that Christopher Hollis wrote his book "Can Parliament Survive?" I always regarded is as a silly title because there is never any doubt in Britain about whether an institution will survive. It stays on the shelf long after it has ceased to operate. The real question is, can Parliament work? It is a question to which we should direct our attention.

The House of Commons at present does not work and it seriously fails the nation in the discharge of its functions. However, the changes that are needed to remedy that situation, although important, are surprisingly modest. That is just as well, because there are very few occasions when a country is not prepared to rewrite substantially its constitution or its constitutional habits. The French were prepared to do so in 1968, but we are not in that kind of situation. We shall not get fundamental or far-reaching changes in our habits and we should content ourselves with more modest changes.

I welcome the proposal to set up the Committee. However, I express three cautionary thoughts. First, if the Committee embarks on a study which is too fundamental it will be in danger of never coming up with practical proposals, or, at least, with practical proposals which any House of Commons is likely to accept.

Secondly, I hope that we can leave the future of the House of Lords right out of the discussion. Whatever is wrong with the House of Lords is as nothing compared with what is wrong with this place and it matters a lot less. We can have a working democracy even with their hereditary Lordships along the Corridor, but we cannot have a properly responsive democracy if we carry on with our habits in this place. If the Committee were to go into that subject, it would never come up with what is needed for this place.

Thirdly, although I understand why my right hon. Friend the Lord President wants to have outside people on the Committee, I strongly oppose the suggestion. The intervention of the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) on that point will be taken as persuasive, given his particular background. No doubt the idea is that we should have representatives of the TUC, the CBI and one or two other bodies. However, we should presumably decide that in principle before we knew who they would be. One representative might do a good job but another might be a dead loss. We should not know before we took the decision in principle which kind of person we would get.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) hinted at another consideration. The CBI and the TUC are both accustomed to dealing with the Government. They have direct links to the Government which they cherish. They do not pay much attention to this place. The CBI and the TUC do not brief Back Bench Members of this House a great deal because they believe that it would prejudice their links with the Government. Their notion of how Parliament should behave is more likely to be similar to that of the Government—that Members should do what the Government want as quietly as possible—than to the attitude of Bank Bench Members.