House of Commons Procedure Committee Procedures for Debates, Private Members’ Bills and the Powers of the Speaker Fourth Report of Session 2002–03 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 19 November 2003 HC 333 Published on 27 November 2003 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £18.50 The 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. Current membership Sir Nicholas Winterton MP (Conservative, Macclesfield) (Chairman) Mr Peter Atkinson MP (Conservative, Hexham) Mr John Burnett MP (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon) David Hamilton MP (Labour, Midlothian) Mr Eric Illsley MP (Labour, Barnsley Central) Huw Irranca-Davies MP (Labour, Ogmore) Eric Joyce MP (Labour, Falkirk West) Mr Iain Luke MP (Labour, Dundee East) Rosemary McKenna MP (Labour, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) Mr Tony McWalter MP (Labour, Hemel Hempstead) Sir Robert Smith MP (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) Mr Desmond Swayne MP (Conservative, New Forest West) David Wright MP (Labour, Telford) 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. Publication 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/parliamentary_ committees/procedure_committee.cfm. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Simon Patrick and Jenny McCullough (Clerks) and Susan Morrison (Committee Assistant). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerks 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] Procedures for Debates, Private Members’ Bills and the Powers of the Speaker 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 2 Debates 5 Debates: the existing arrangements 6 Criticisms and proposals for change 7 Front-bench speeches 7 Shorter back-bench speeches 8 Priority to speak 9 Lists of speakers 9 The “alternate sides” convention 11 Undelivered speeches 12 Parliamentary conventions 12 Reading speeches 13 Initiative in choosing subjects for debate 13 Tuesday and Wednesday evenings 14 “Injury time” on Opposition Days 15 A business committee 15 3 Private Members’ Bills 16 The current arrangements 16 Drafting assistance 18 Government approach to private Members’ bills 18 Carry-over of bills to next session 18 Other times of the week 19 Proposals for procedural change 19 4 Powers of the Speaker 19 Emergency recall of the House 19 Business during a recall 21 Conclusions and recommendations 22 Appendix: Conventions and Courtesies of the House 25 Formal minutes 28 Witnesses 29 List of written evidence 30 Procedures for Debates, Private Members’ Bills and the Powers of the Speaker 3 Summary With the current rules for debates, including the possibility of a limit on the length of speeches of eight minutes or more, back-benchers cannot be expected to be called, on average, more than four times a year for ordinary full or half-day debates (including second readings and Opposition days, but not committee or report stages and Lords Amendments). To enable more back-benchers to be called, we recommend that front- benchers should aim for no more than twenty minutes of speech material (less for a half- day debate), and recommend the experimental introduction of a period of an hour (half an hour in a half-day debate) which would be shared between those Members who had attended (substantially) the whole debate and wished to speak, subject to a lower limit of three minutes per Member (for details see paragraph 13). This is a development of the current informal (and therefore unenforceable) system of dividing up the time remaining before the wind-up speeches between the remaining Members. The Speaker has re-issued his letter to all Members on “Conventions and Courtesies of the House” (see page 25), which includes guidance on the factors the Speaker takes into account when choosing whom to call. We welcome this, and suggest that Members should include concise details of relevant experience, etc., when applying to speak, but that the Speaker should continue to retain absolute discretion, including departing from the convention of calling Members from alternate sides of the House where a shortage of Members attending on one side or the other makes this desirable. We recommend that, for selected debates, a list of those who have applied to speak should be posted in the No division lobby (for details see paragraph 23). We are not in favour of printing undelivered speeches in the Official Report; we support the existing conventions on the method of referring in debate to other Members and to speaking from notes rather than reading out a full text. Since 1995 all private Members’ debates have taken place on motions for the adjournment of the House, and the same practice has prevailed in Westminster Hall. We recommend that some Westminster Hall debates should be chosen by reference to Early Day Motions which have attracted a certain number of signatures, with support from Members from a certain number of parties, but that the actual debate should still be on an adjournment motion. It would be possible to use Tuesday or Wednesday evenings for more debates, but this would be dependent on the current experimental earlier sittings being made permanent and sufficient notice being given for appropriate staffing arrangements to be made. We recommend that the Government should respond favourably to requests for extra time on Opposition days when a lengthy statement is expected (as happened on 9 September), and we propose to return to the subject of a business committee in future. On private Members’ bills, we point out that changing the rules would not necessarily result in a higher success rate—it might simply result in opposition manifesting itself at different stages—but recommend that the Government should be ready to provide drafting help as soon as private Members’ bills receive a second reading; also, the drafting allowance of £200 for each of the top ten Members in the ballot (introduced in 1971) should be 4 Procedures for Debates, Private Members’ Bills and the Powers of the Speaker updated and become index-linked. Members who wish the Government to support their bills should bear in mind the need to get them printed in enough time before second reading for the Government to take a view on them. We do not recommend carrying-over private Members’ bills from one session to the next. The Speaker should be able to recall the House on his own authority (rather than, as at present, only on request from the Government); we would expect him to take into account the number and source of representations requesting a recall, but do not recommend specifying details in a standing order. The Government should remain responsible for deciding the business to be taken during a recall, but any motion specifying the number of days on which the House should sit after the recall has taken place should be debatable unless it is tabled with the approval of the Speaker. A list of our conclusions and recommendations appears on p 22. Procedures for Debates, Private Members’ Bills and the Powers of the Speaker 5 1 Introduction 1. Last autumn we decided to conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into several of the core areas of the House’s work which are of concern to many Members. We have covered: — procedures for debates, including the pressure on time, the way in which Members are called to speak, some of the conventions of debate; the role of the Opposition and private Members in initiating debates; — private Members’ bills; — the powers of the Speaker, concentrating on the Speaker’s role in recalling the House in an emergency. 2. Members were invited to contribute by an announcement in the All-Party Notices and a letter from our Chairman to all Members first elected in 1997 and later. Many Members wrote to us, and their letters appear among the written evidence; and fifteen gave us oral evidence, including members of the all-party Parliament First Group and the Leader and (then) Shadow Leader of the House (Mr Peter Hain and Mr Eric Forth). We also heard from the Hansard Society, the Clerk of the House and his colleagues and witnesses from the House of Lords. In addition, we had the benefit of private discussions with the Speaker and with Sir Alan Haselhurst, Chairman of Ways and Means.1 To everyone who helped with this inquiry, we express our thanks. 3. Several witnesses raised matters which were of considerable interest but fell outside the areas on which we have eventually decided to concentrate for this Report. These included the House’s scrutiny of the Government’s use of powers under the Royal Prerogative.2 2 Debates 4. Parliaments are places dedicated to talking. They take decisions too, and it is sometimes held that the main purpose of debate is to attempt to persuade the other side in the use of their votes. Perhaps, in a party system with an overall majority, this attempt is not often successful, in which case the debate may still serve to challenge, in a public way, the policies and actions of the Government and to put forward alternative suggestions which, in turn, are subject to challenge.