I have always believed that the storm faced by Parliament was composed of two distinct elements building up over the last few decades to the crescendo that broke in the spring of this year. The first and most obvious was the perception, confirmed by the revelations this year, that MPs have their noses firmly in the trough. The second element is the perception that they had ceased to do what they were elected to do: in short, that Parliament simply wasn't working.
How can Parliament do its job of legislating and holding the Government to account when it is only sitting for 126 days this year?
Who decided that we should only sit for 126 days?
It is the Government itself –the very one that Parliament is supposed to hold to account- that determines how many days we should sit for. This fact is symptomatic of so much that is wrong with the relationship of Government to Parliament. It is the Government that determines the parliamentary time table deciding exactly what is debated and when. It can manipulate proceedings to stifle debate, avoid criticism, and even ensure that business -on which it might be defeated- is never reached.
It's whips determine the majority of select committee places and chairmen: it, therefore, chooses by whom it will be scrutinised.
Parliament is supposed to make our law but the vast majority of our legislation is made, not by Parliament, but by the Government: most bills which come before Parliament these days set out powers in only the most general terms but give ministers the authority to make the detailed regulations subsequently. The consequences of legislation when it goes wrong, as it now so often does, is as much a surprise to MPs as to everyone else, because it was so little –if at all- debated in Parliament.
In effect Parliament has become the mere creature of Government, meekly doing what ministers require of it. Sometimes, however, the spirit of a free Parliament revives and we bite back with a rare defeat for the Government, as we did with the Ghurkhas earlier this year.
If Parliament really is to retrieve its reputation however, it not only has to embrace root and branch reform to exorcise the expenses scandal, it must also start to do its proper job again and that means taking back its powers from the Government. The first priority must be to set a powerful new committee to determine the parliamentary time table. It should, of course, allocate sufficient time to government bills, so that manifesto pledges can be honoured, but no longer can the requirements of government be allowed to dominate the entire parliamentary agenda. Next, we need to elect the chairmen and members of the important select committees so that they act with the sanction of Parliament rather than merely by leave of government. Many believe that these elections need to be by secret ballot. I am not comfortable at all with parliamentary secret ballots: we have a representative democracy where I represent the voters of New Forest West. If I am to be properly accountable to them then they must know exactly how I have voted on every question, so my voting record must always be a matter of public record. I know that we have already breached this principle by allowing a secret ballot for the election of John Bercow as Speaker but I believe it was a mistake and should not be repeated.
Finally, Parliament must get back to the hard grind of legislating in detail rather than simply handing that power over wholesale to ministers and their civil servants. This will mean that the standing committees which undertake this important work of going through bills, clause by clause and line by line, will have to sit for much longer, as we habitually used to. So-called family friendly hours will have to be sacrificed for proper and rigorous scrutiny. That, after all, is what Parliament is for and what it is elected to do.
None of this can be achieved in so few as 126 sitting parliamentary days in the year. If Parliament is to do the job properly it must have sufficient time to do it in. MPs will therefore have to spend more time at Westminster doing the job they fought so hard to be elected to do. As they will not be able to be in two places at once, this means less time spent in their constituencies getting in the way of properly elected local councillors and sticking their noses into business that simply is not part of their parliamentary duties. Of, course MPs, as representatives, need to keep in touch with the opinion of voters, so I am not advocating absentee MPs who rarely visit their constituencies, I just want to redress the balance and restore a proper working week at Westminster for a greater part of the year. We do have to recognise, however, that we live in the age of instantaneous electronic communication and a modern transport network: a visit is not necessary if it can be dealt with in an email or a telephone call. Even when it is necessary to go and meet the voters we must not pretend that we are still in the age of the horse and cart: the reality is that, given modern communications, MPs can get about much more swiftly to visit their constituents, so it follows that we can get by adequately by having far fewer of them. And that really would be a popular reform. |
