House of Commons (Procedure)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 19 February 1979.

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Sir D. Renfon:

I must make clear to my hon. Friends that our proposals are in no way weakened by the fact that they commend themselves to our opponents. This is a matter on which we must try to bridge the gulf between the parties, in the public interest. The public get very fed up with us sometimes, merely for the way in which we disagree with each other. When the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is so good as to make the point that he has just made, we should welcome it with open arms. I hope that he will be equally open-minded about proposals coming from the Opposition Benches. From time to time we may commend them to him.

If the structure is to be reorganised, on what principle should that be done? What type of demarcation—if that is not a dirty word—should one allow to operate? In our Select Committee we discussed two real alternative ways in which one could organise a complete structure of Select Committees. One was called the functional method and the other the departmental method. I suppose that one could say, for example, that the Nationalised Industries Committee is based on the functional method. One could also say that the Overseas Development Committee is based on the departmental method. I give those just as two illustrations drawn from the present structure.

We decided that it should be the departmental concept. For good, commonsense reasons, which I hope that there is not much need to elaborate, but if anyone wants to see our reasons he will find them set out in paragraph 5.18. We called them "Departmental Committees". If that is too big a mouthful we could call them "DR Committees" and ignore the coincidence.

We do not want a large number of Committees. We say that there should be about one dozen. We grouped several Departments together, naturally. The results are set out in paragraph 5.24. We suggest that the Committee should be established as follows: agriculture; defence; education, science and arts; energy; environment; foreign affairs; home affairs—which includes the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Law Officers' Department—industry and employment; social services—which includes the Lord Chancellors' Department of Health and Social Security—trade and consumer affairs; transport; and the Treasury.

We suggest that the Treasury Committee should be responsible for examining the affairs not only of the Treasury but of the Civil Service Department and the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.

The membership of each Committee should average about 10. That would mean that there would be about 120 members in all. That compares with the 105 members of the present Committees. This includes not only the live Committees that I have mentioned but the small Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck), which examines the reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner. I have no doubt that that Committee has been of great help to the Commissioner and to the House.

We thought that since we were restructuring, the PCA Committee should be stood down and its general work done by the Treasury Committee, although individual cases would be dealt with by the departmentally related Committees. I confess that I do not feel strongly about this, but I know how strongly my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester feels. I invite the House and my hon. and learned Friend to study paragraphs 5.33 and 5.34.

I am not surprised to learn that the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr), who has been an active and helpful Chairman of the Nationalised Industries Committee, will be defending his wicket. I have enjoyed playing cricket with him in the past for the Lords and Commons. He and his Committee, with him as captain, have scored many runs. But I hope that on reflection the hon. Member and the members of his Committee might feel that the time has come to draw stumps and enjoy playing in a new series.

Apart from some of the members of the existing Select Committees who will want to defend their wickets, the only other people who may want assurance about the proposed new structure are past, present and future Ministers and their officials. We can assure them. These new Committees will have a dual purpose. First they will help the House by finding out what Departments are doing and why and how they are doing it, and examining their expenditure. Secondly, they will be of help to Ministers by trying to understand their problems, becoming well informed about their Departments' work and perhaps sometimes warning them about the dark clouds ahead.

Any Minister or future Minister who is worth his salt should welcome the chance to co-operate with a small group of hon. Members who are taking a critical but constructive interest in the work of his Department.

In chapter 6 we recommend the strengthening of the powers of the Select Committees, ensuring that they have the staff that they require. We are anxious that once the structure is set up the work of the Select Committees comes, as required, to the Floor of the House. Not each report can be debated. We are short of time for debates on Select Committees at present. In recommendation No. (44) we suggest that there should, in Government time, on eight Mondays each Session, be debates on the reports of Select Committees on substantive motions proposed by the Committees.

That would not preclude either the Government or the Opposition from providing other days for debating reports on Select Committees.

Many hon. Members feel that there are not enough debates on Select Committee reports at present and that those that take place are mainly on "take-note" motions. That does not get us anywhere.

I turn to EEC legislation and the Scrutiny Committee.