Pay for Chairmen of Select Committees

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:36 pm on 30 October 2003.

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Photo of David Curry David Curry Conservative, Skipton and Ripon 2:36, 30 October 2003

I do not think that we have passed that point. I am not aware that the rationale for setting up the Select Committees was to create a parallel career path. That notion has been introduced a great deal more recently to the debate. If we look at the reality, one wonders whether we will see a break between what is happening now and what will happen in the future.

Those Select Committee chairmanships that are in Conservative hands are very largely in the hands of ex-Ministers. I am an example and, although I hasten to add that my right hon. Friend Sir George Young would not benefit from the proposals, he is another example. Let us consider the most spectacular example of recent Labour practice. I think that I am right in saying that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr. Mullin, was Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. He was then made a Minister. He then reverted to being Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, in which role he made some serious points about how much more preferable it was to be in that position. He then became a Minister again. The Chair of that Committee was filled by Mr. Denham, who had recently resigned from the Government. That is an example of the practice. Are we going to say that there will be a total break from that practice? I regret that example—there is much that is ill about it. The arguments for some sort of quarantine period are valid.

I am pointing out the extent to which the present practice is likely to change if there is supposed to be a decent ethos. When we swap sides in this House, which I am sure will happen much more rapidly than the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission, Mr. Williams, suggested a short while ago, I bet my bottom dollar that there will be a great many ex-ministerial candidates lining up to chair Select Committees. That is not a bad thing. The Select Committees are there to scrutinise Government Departments. Knowing how Departments work is an asset that can be brought to that role. It is not an indispensable asset—I am not saying that other qualities are not required—but it is important to have that asset too.

Of course, it would help if the control of the Whips were relaxed. The Leader of the House said that it has been; I will describe in a minute why I do not think that that has made a great deal of difference to the functioning of the Select Committees.

A practical consideration comes to mind. When people enter the House, are they going to sign up to say that they want to be on the scrutiny or on the ministerial ambition side? Will there be a red, green or blue channel—a trajectory that we describe for ourselves? Will it be possible to change channels? Can one buy oneself out of one channel and into the other if circumstances change? If the Prime Minister is good enough to say, "You've impressed me so much in your scrutiny role that I would like that dialectical and analytical mind at the service of my Government", is one going to say, "Sorry, guv, I've signed up for this role and I will forgo the services I can render to the nation in ministerial office"?