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Review of the Backbench Business Committee

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Review of the Backbench Business Committee House of Commons Procedure Committee Review of the Backbench Business Committee Second Report of Session 2012–13 Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/proccom Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 7 November 2012 HC 168 Published on 22 November 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 Procedure Committee The Procedure Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to consider the practice and procedure of the House in the conduct of public business, and to make recommendations. Membership during the Session Mr Charles Walker MP (Conservative, Broxbourne) (Chair) Jenny Chapman MP (Labour, Darlington) Nic Dakin MP (Labour, Scunthorpe) Thomas Docherty MP (Labour, Dunfermline and West Fife) Sir Roger Gale MP (Conservative, North Thanet) Helen Goodman MP (Labour, Bishop Auckland) Mr James Gray MP (Conservative, North Wiltshire) Tom Greatrex MP (Lab/Co-op, Rutherglen and Hamilton West) John Hemming MP (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham Yardley) Mr David Nuttall MP (Conservative, Bury North) Jacob Rees-Mogg MP (Conservative, North East Somerset) Martin Vickers MP (Conservative, Cleethorpes) The following Members were also members of the Committee during the Parliament: Rt Hon Greg Knight MP (Conservative, Yorkshire East) (Chair until 6 September 2012) Karen Bradley MP (Conservative, Staffordshire Moorlands) Andrew Percy MP (Conservative, Brigg and Goole) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Angela Smith MP (Labour, Penistone and Stocksbridge) Sir Peter Soulsby MP (Labour, Leicester South) Mike Wood MP (Labour, Batley and Spen) Powers The powers of the Committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 147. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/proccom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Huw Yardley (Clerk), Lloyd Owen (Second Clerk), Rowena Macdonald and Carolyn Bowes (Committee Assistants). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Procedure Committee, Journal Office, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3318; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 Our inquiry 5 Success of the Committee 6 2 Composition and method of election 8 Method of election 8 Representation of the minority parties 9 3 Committee working methods 13 4 Allocation of time for backbench business 14 Amount of time available 14 Way in which time is allocated 15 “Set piece” debates 18 Reports from the Standards and Privileges Committee 20 Select Committee statements 21 Adjournment debates in Westminster Hall 23 5 Organising backbench time 25 Business motions 25 Time limits on frontbench speeches 27 Conclusions and recommendations 28 Formal Minutes 30 Witnesses 31 List of written evidence 31 List of additional written evidence 32 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 33 3 Summary The Backbench Business Committee has been widely welcomed as a successful and effective innovation. We congratulate the Chair and all those who have served as members of the Committee on making it so. We see no need for major substantial change to the practices or procedures which have developed around backbench business and the work of the Committee. This report makes a number of generally modest recommendations intended to improve and refine the framework within which the Committee operates. Concerning the composition and election of the Committee, we do not consider it appropriate to recommend further changes so soon after the decisions of the House in March this year. We will return to these matters in a future inquiry. We encourage the minority parties to reconsider their decision not to participate in the proceedings of the Backbench Business Committee under the provisions made for such participation in March, and in return undertake to reconsider the position at the end of the next Session. We note the widespread approval for the Committee’s innovative approach in hearing representations from Members pitching for debating time in public, and recommend a change to the Standing Orders to regularise that approach. A judgement on whether 35 days is the correct amount of time to allocate to backbench business in a Session is difficult to make given that the one Session of the Backbench Business Committee’s operation so far has been of unusual length; the House may wish to return to the issue when there is evidence from a session of normal length. We recommend that standing orders be amended to provide that the allocation of days to backbench business should be increased proportionate to the length of the Session, where a session exceeds a year in length. There is scope for the Government to allow the Backbench Business Committee a legitimate expectation of a backbench business slot, in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall, in every sitting week, with exceptions at certain times of the parliamentary year (for example, the debate on the Queen’s Speech and the Budget). Such an expectation will ensure a more even spread of backbench days over the year, and enable the Backbench Business Committee to plan ahead more effectively. We acknowledge the concerns of those who wish to ensure the place of the traditional “set-piece” debates in the Parliamentary timetable and will keep the issue under close review in the light of the comments by the Leader of the House and by the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee concerning the scheduling of those debates. We recommend that a new Standing Order be made enabling the Speaker to determine that a select committee Chair, or other member acting on its behalf, may make a statement on the day of publication on a select committee report, either in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall. We also propose that responsibility for scheduling one of the four 90- minute adjournment debates per week in Westminster Hall be transferred from the Speaker to the Backbench Business Committee, on a one-year trial basis. Within certain parameters, we recommend that the Backbench Business Committee be given the power to table business motions to regulate the time for which it is responsible. 4 To protect the time available for backbenchers in backbench business debates, we also recommend that the Speaker be enabled to set limits on the length of frontbench speeches, where he has set a limit on backbench contributions. 5 1 Introduction 1. The establishment of the Backbench Business Committee at the beginning of this Parliament was a direct consequence of the work in the last Parliament of the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, chaired by Dr Tony Wright (“the Wright Committee”). The Wright Committee considered that The core business of Parliament has to matter more to the public and to individual Members. At present many Members do not see the point in attending debates or making the House the primary focus of their activities. In order to address this we must give Members back a sense of ownership of their own institution, the ability to set its agenda and take meaningful decisions, and ensure the business of the Chamber is responsive to public concerns. We believe this is what the public demands, what the institution needs and what most Members want.1 2. The Backbench Business Committee was seen as an essential—if not in itself a sufficient—step in “giving Members back a sense of ownership of their own institution”. Along with a House Business Committee, it would give effect to the first of the five principles enunciated by the Wright Committee, namely that “We should seek to enhance the House of Commons’s control over its own agenda, timetable and procedures, in consultation with Government and Opposition, whilst doing nothing to reduce or compromise such powers where they already exist.”2 The Wright Committee saw the benefits of the establishment of a Backbench Business Committee as follows: We believe that establishment of clear “backbench time” managed by a Backbench Business Committee will be a major step forward. Without in any way compromising Government’s ability to have its own initiatives discussed and scrutinised, this Committee will take clear charge of part of the agenda for at least one day a week or its equivalent for the House collectively to discuss those matters that Members feel should be prioritised. It will create new opportunities for all Members, giving them a greater sense of ownership and responsibility for what goes on in their own House. It will make debates more responsive to public concerns, as fed in to Members by their constituents. It will strengthen the position of the widely- respected select committees. We feel that this is an essential reform which will have many benefits for Members, for Parliament as a whole, and for the esteem in which it is held.3 Our inquiry 3. Our inquiry has been held in response to the resolution of the House of 15 June 2010 stating that, in the opinion of the House, “the operation of the Backbench Business 1 First Report of the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, Session 2008–9 (HC 1117), Rebuilding the House, para 3. 2 HC (2008–09) 1117, para 22. 3 HC (2008–09) 1117, para 181. 6 Committee should be reviewed at the beginning of the next Session of Parliament”.4 Our terms of reference were as follows: To review the operation of the Backbench Business Committee during Session 2010– 12, and in particular to inquire into: • issues relating to the membership of the Committee; • the amount of time available to the Committee and the way in which the Government allocates that time; • the powers of the Committee, and the process by which the Committee determines the matters to be debated in backbench time.5 4.
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