Modernisation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:04 pm on 6 November 2003.

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Photo of Mr Paul Tyler Mr Paul Tyler Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall 2:04, 6 November 2003

The hon. Gentleman is a welcome addition to the Committee, but he did not have the opportunity, as I did, to listen to Sir George Young in the previous Parliament, when he made an important contribution to the Committee's work. That contribution can be seen in several reports. Nor has the hon. Gentleman yet had a full opportunity to hear Sir Nicholas Winterton, who has made a positive contribution to our discussions over a long period. The hon. Gentleman will recognise that we are not all ghastly, as claimed by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst.

I hope that everyone who has witnessed how the changes have operated in recent years will accept two truths—that programming does not work, even in the eyes of people who, like me, have some sympathy with the objectives, and that the previous arrangements of a so-called golden age are a complete will o'the wisp. They never worked particularly well, for a variety of reasons but not least because different parties have different interests. That is why it is important to ensure that the terms of trade—an expression that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire used to use in the Committee—are reasonably well balanced, so that we all can make an intelligent contribution to improving legislation.

I hope that all hon. Members participating in this debate have read the full report of the Select Committee, including the contribution that comes in the form of an alternative report by Mr. Shepherd. I pay tribute to him, and we are indebted to him for extracting the data about how this business has been handled in the past.

When people read the report, I hope that they will not assume that we are satisfied with the present arrangements, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich said, or that the Committee does not have a real wish to improve matters. We are currently frustrated, but the issue will not go away.

Paragraph 11, to which reference has been made from both the other Front Benches, describes a modest objective: ensuring that different interests in the House are met by the way in which we operate. However, paragraph 25 is the most important one and, if hon. Members have a copy of the report, perhaps they could take this opportunity quickly to read it. It notes that we should be looking for a way of operating that gives the Government a reasonable chance to get their legislative programme through. "Reasonable" is the important word. Some years ago when a colleague and I found ourselves in the relevant Lobby, we counted up the inches of statute that the House had passed from the beginning of the 16th century to 1950. At that moment, it was the same length as the section showing the statutes passed by the House since 1950.

In this place, we try to consume a huge amount of extremely detailed legislation and we frequently give ourselves legislative indigestion. A previous Modernisation Committee report recommended that other Select Committees should play a larger role in pre-legislative scrutiny. In due course, I hope that that would improve the situation but hon. Members will agree that such work would not be the first choice for Members of Select Committees; they enjoy paying fact-finding visits to other parts of the world much more than scrutinising proposed legislation. I fear that we all tend to have that fault.

Paragraph 25 also states that Opposition parties have a prime responsibility to identify which parts of a Bill require particular scrutiny. That lays a great responsibility on us. Under the previous arrangements, a great deal of time was taken up in discussion of sittings motions, which neither did justice to the importance of the issues that were to follow nor gave Parliament a good reputation. The most important thing is that we try to ensure that the product of this place is better. We should be in a win-win-win situation. Clearly, we are not at present, but that should be our objective. The Government should be more confident that legislation will be reasonably assessed and scrutinised and that it will be done in time, and the Opposition should have much more influence over the way in which that detailed work is undertaken. At the end of the day, however, it is vital that we pass better legislation.

I share the concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that we are trying to do far too much. If devolution does nothing else, I hope that eventually it will take away from this place some of the issues that do not need to be dealt with here. The previous Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, had the misfortune to invent a rather ugly word—subsidiarity—but the principle was right: decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people whom they affect. The House still has to find a mechanism for achieving that.