It seems someone from Tony Wright’s House of Commons reform committee has been speaking to the Times, which recently provided a sneak preview of the committee’s main recommendations. The decision to leak aspects of the report to the media is amusing only in that the committee contains many MPs who regularly demonise the government for making announcements to the press before they do so in the citadel of our democracy. If you can’t beat’em join’em.
Wright was asked by Gordon Brown to come up with proposals for strengthening parliament’s position vis-à-vis that of the executive. Since both Labour and Conservative leaderships appear to have retreated from their pre-summer talk of pushing radical political reform – whatever happened to that “new constitutional settlement” we were promised? - the Wright committee probably represents the best opportunity to shake things up in the wake of the damaging expenses saga. For this reason alone we should welcome whatever it comes up with, as it may well be all we get.
According to the press leaks, the committee plans to major on three recommendations. The first, and potentially the most important, will be to argue that Parliament is given greater control over its own timetable and agenda, which is currently controlled by the whips. This is long over-due: a period should be set aside each week to allow MPs to discuss and vote on matters of their choosing, giving Parliament much greater prominence in policy debates. Crucially control over allocating this time should rest with MPs, for example through a cross-party backbench committee, and not the whips. Details are important here.
Secondly, it looks like the committee will propose that select committee chairs should be elected in a secret ballot by MPs and not be handpicked by the whips office. This has been on all parliamentary reformers wish-list for a long time and would genuinely help boost the independence of select committees and improve their scrutiny of government activity. It would also help develop an alternative career path for those MPs who prefer to keep an eye on government, rather than be part of it.
But if select committees are to be really beefed up they need to be given new powers, for instance, they should be given confirmation powers over senior public appointments, and they should also be properly resourced. Sadly, however, Wright’s terms of referencedid not extend to cover such matters.
Finally it appears that the committee will recommend giving MPs’ a power to trigger a debate on public petitions they support. It’s not clear how this will work but the Times reports that the committee came out against the introduction of a Scottish Parliament-style Public Petitions Committee. This is a pity. The Scottish modelhas worked well, providing the public with a real ability to shape the political agenda and even on occasion change the law. The expenses scandal revealed the public’s deep frustration with a system that offers them little opportunity to exercise influence over their elected representatives, so it is worrying if the committee missed an opportunity to rectify this. Expect MPs to be accused of still not “getting it”.
Inevitably these measures will not go far enough for some critics. And of course they don’t cover all aspects of parliamentary life. Two glaring omissions appear to be the failure to recommend a reduction in the number of ministers and shrink the payroll vote, or to push for the overhaul of public bill committees which are hopelessly inadequate. But it would be unfair to blame the committee for such omissions. Its terms of reference were narrow, and even had it wanted to interpret them more imaginatively it was hugely constrained by the timetable it was set, having only a few weeks to pull the report together.
From the coverage that has emerged so far it is clear that the committee has done a good job and focused on sensible and achievable reforms. Attention will now turn to the party leaderships to see whether they back these proposals or find some lamentable excuse for once again walking away from real reform.
Guy Lodge is an Associate Director at IPPR
