Canterbury City Council Bill

House of Commons, 31 January 2013.

Lindsay Hoyle (Labour, Chorley)

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that we are debating Lords amendments to four different private Bills simultaneously today. This is because the four Bills are close to identical, and so are the amendments made in another place.

While we will debate the amendments together, the Questions to dispose of the Lord amendments will be put on each Bill in turn. That means that all Questions on the Canterbury City Council Bill will be disposed of before I put any Questions on the Leeds City Council Bill. I will then put the Questions necessary to dispose of all the Lords amendments to the Leeds City Council Bill before I proceed to the Questions relating to the Nottingham City Council Bill, and so forth.

On the amendment paper, the Lords amendments are printed for each Bill sequentially, starting with all the Lords amendments to the Canterbury City Council Bill. Each Lords amendment has a letter against its number—C for Canterbury, L for Leeds—and guess what?—N for Nottingham and R for Reading.

Clause 2 — Interpretation

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment C3.

Lindsay Hoyle (Labour, Chorley)

With this it will be convenient to take the following:

Lords amendments C4, C5, C10 to C14, C18, C20 to C26, C27 and amendments (a) to (g) thereto, C29 and C30 to the Canterbury City Council Bill.

Lords amendments L1, L2 and L6 to L18, and L19 and amendments (a) to (f) thereto to the Leeds City Council Bill.

Lords amendments N1, N2 and N7 to N19, and N20 and amendments (a) to (f) thereto to the Nottingham City Council Bill.

Lords amendments R1 to R3 and R9 to R21, and R22 and amendments (a) to (g) thereto, and amendment R23 to the Reading Borough City Council.

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)? He has spent considerable time on the Bill and I thank him. His duties on the Select Committee on Justice will prevent him from being in the Chamber for the duration of the debate. My only hope is that he does not regret asking me to help with the Bill today.

As I have said, considerable time has been spent debating these issues, and it is therefore not my intention to speak for too long. The first group of amendments made in the other place relates to enforcement. When the Bill was introduced to the Lords, the Bill provided that council officers could seize articles, receptacles or equipment when a person was reasonably suspected of committing a street-trading offence or of helping another to commit the offence. The Bill also stated that a court

before which a person is convicted of a street-trading offence could order the forfeiture of seized items, and that an authorised council officer could serve a fixed penalty notice on a person whom he reasonably believed had committed a street-trading offence, or an offence of aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of such offences.

The Lords Committee was concerned that some of those enforcement powers were disproportionate, and that they could be used to prevent pedlars from lawfully carrying out their business. It therefore removed the power of seizure, but left the power to issue fixed penalty notices. It inserted a provision requiring councils to train all officials charged with exercising the remaining powers, and to publicise on their websites information about street trading and street trading enforcement in their areas.

I am aware that amendments to Lords amendments have been tabled. The amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) are, as I understand it, concerned with the publicity provisions. They would specifically require the details to include information on the streets contained in the designated areas within which special provision on pedlars will apply. The amendments would mean that the publicity must describe the boundaries of designated areas and require the councils to display the information prominently in a designated area.

The councils believe that the amendments are unnecessary. The information that they publish will be comprehensive and it would be neither practicable nor desirable to display all the information in a designated area. These days, most people have access to the internet, where all the information would be found. The prudent street trader would check the rules in advance of trading.

There are also concerns about the proliferation of signs and unnecessary street clutter. I hope the House supports the amendments I have tabled.

Julian Brazier (Conservative, Canterbury)

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for taking this on. I will not be able to be in the Chamber for most of the debate because of the duties he mentioned. The matter has been running for some years and has cost Canterbury city council a great deal of money—no doubt, it has cost the other councils a great deal of money too. We made concessions on the original Bill in the Commons and further concessions were made in the Lords. I very much hope we can get this business finished this afternoon.

Matthew Hancock (Conservative, West Suffolk)

Given the first two speeches, it might be advantageous for the House if I set out the Government’s position. We do not normally seek to intervene on private business, but we have in this case—not on the substance, but to ensure that it is consistent with the EU services directive. We are content for the business to go forward. As it happens, I am a great personal fan of all four cities concerned not least because one is the city of my forefathers—that is my personal position. The Government’s position is that we are content for the Bill to go forward.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I have listened with interest to the three contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), with typical understatement, said that their lordships had some concerns about the Bill—the disproportionate powers, the power of seizure and so on. We will discuss the pedlars aspect of the Bill under the second group of Lords amendments, but essentially, their lordships have filleted the Bill. The Bill originally extended to some 18 clauses, but it now has only 13. The clauses that have been taken out are the subject of the Lords amendments we are discussing under this group—clause 6, on seizure; clause 7, on the seizure of perishable items; clause 8, on the return and disposal of seized items; clause 9, on the forfeiture of seized items; and clause 10, on compensation when seizure is unlawful.

You, Mr Deputy Speaker, may recall that the concerns expressed by their lordships were also expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I, and by other hon. Members, during the passage of the Canterbury City Council Bill and the three other Bills we are considering.

Let us briefly remind ourselves of the history. The Canterbury City Council Bill was presented to Parliament as a private Bill on 27 November 2007. I do not know whether the fact that we are still considering it is some sort of record. The Bill was read the First time on 22 January 2008. Second Reading began on 12 June 2008 and continued on 29 October 2008. The Canterbury City Council Bill was completed, but the need to keep the four Bills together meant there was a third day on Second Reading on 3 June 2009. Significantly—this is one of the important messages that should go out from this exercise—because there were no Commons petitions against the Bills, the matter went to a Committee on Unopposed Bills, which rubber-stamped the provisions on 8 July 2009. The fact that the Bill came straight back from a Committee on Unopposed Bills meant we were unable to debate the Bill on Report. We were therefore able to express our concerns further only on Third Reading on 14 January 2010, just over three years ago.

Fortunately, Members of the other place took the Bills seriously—we owe them a great debt of gratitude. My noble Friend Lord Lucas, who took an interest in earlier Bills, did not serve in Committee in the other place, but he has been instrumental in working closely with pedlars and their representatives to ensure that the importance of the Bill was raised in the other place. As a result of that and Lords petitions against the Canterbury City Council Bill and the other Bills, the House of Lords Opposed Bill Committee sat for three days in November 2011. The other place debated the Bill in Committee on 24 November 2011, which was followed by a debate on Third Reading on 3 December 2012.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to the Front Bench. I was hoping that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who was in his place earlier in the Bill’s passage, would continue his interest in today’s subject matter, but unfortunately he is unable to do so. What the Minister failed to tell us about in his short contribution was that between the Committee stage on 24 November 2011 and Third Reading on 3 December 2012 in the other place, the Government issued yet another consultation paper on the subject of pedlars. I will refer in more detail to some aspects of that consultation paper in relation to the

second group of amendments to which I think it has a greater relevance, but let us remind ourselves that the effect of the Government’s proposals is to abolish all existing legislation relating to pedlars and to replace it. They argue that the existing legislation is at odds with the European Union services directive. When I raised this matter in the House in 2010, people thought it was a device to try to prolong proceedings. However, it is apparent that this was an important issue of substance and, although it seems to have taken a long time, the Government have realised that the EU services directive did and does impinge on the Bills.

One consequence of what the Minister said—if the Government are happy for the Bills, as amended by their lordships, to go on to the statute book—is that we will have several different regimes for dealing with the regulation of pedlars operating in this country: the regimes of councils that got their Bills through before now and that tend to have a tighter regulation than this one; the Bills before us today; and all councils continuing to operate under the existing law relating to pedlars. The Government have said that they do not think that that is satisfactory. I am therefore surprised that they seem to be relaxed about allowing to go on to the statute book four new local Bills that will be inconsistent with the Government’s intentions as set out in the consultation paper. My hon. Friend the Minister could argue that the closing date for contributions to the consultation paper is not until 15 February 2013, and that the Government will then listen to the representations received. In the light of that, I am surprised that the Government are not saying, “Hold on a moment, let us see whether what is proposed by their lordships as a result of these amendments is consistent with what we have in mind.”

In the Third Reading debate on the Canterbury City Council Bill in the other place—

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Before my hon. Friend moves on, given that a number of the amendments relate to the amount of training that would need to be given to people by local authorities, would it not be a spectacular waste of money for local authorities to spend an awful lot of money on training people, only for a Government Bill to make all that training completely redundant?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend on that point. He refers to the money that has been wasted. Councils and council tax payers will need to ask questions about how they got themselves into this mess. They have each probably spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to try to promote legislation that was ill-conceived from the outset and was certainly ill-conceived following the implementation and introduction of the EU services directive. It has also been much criticised at all stages in this House and in the other place.

It would be wrong not to pay tribute to the work that was done in the other place to examine the Bills in detail. The Committee was set up and chaired with enormous aplomb by Baroness Knight of Collingtree, whom we all remember as a formidable Member of this House. Its members included Lord Blair of Boughton,

Viscount Eccles, Lord Glasman and Lord Strasburger, who took a detailed interest. If any hon. Member wishes to have a handy summary of its conclusions, they are set out in the House of Lords Third Reading debate on 3 December in

Hansard

. I will not quote extensively from it, but in the context of this group of Lords amendments let me say that Lord Bilston, who introduced Third Reading in the other place, said on the issue of enforcement:

“All four Bills would have allowed the councils to seize items from unlawful street traders. The committee thought that this was a step too far and removed the seizure provisions. The councils were naturally disappointed, but were pleased that the committee was content leave in the fixed-penalty provisions.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 444.]

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Given the extent to which the Lords amendments fillet the Bill, as my hon. Friend described, where do they leave its substance? He will recall that when we were debating these matters in the previous Parliament, we were told that all the clauses relating to seizure were essential for local authorities, and that without them the Bill would be pointless and worthless. Does my hon. Friend have any comment on where it would leave the Bill if we were to accept the Lords amendments?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It would leave the Bill exactly as it is now, but with those aspects removed. The point needs to be made—my hon. Friend is probably making it—that there are going to be a lot of words to be eaten as a result of this. Some of my hon. Friends and Opposition Members were saying how essential these powers were, and that the Bill would be wholly unworkable without them. Now that these powers have been removed and they are carrying on quite contentedly. Either their bluff has been called, or they do not want to face up to the new reality. I cannot ascribe motives to my hon. Friends or to Opposition Members; all I can say is that the councils will need to think carefully about whether they took the right line in promoting the Bills. Apart from anything else, Baroness Knight said that

“the four Bills presented would undoubtedly have given councils a disproportionate power in relation to suspected street trading offences.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 446.]

That is why they reduced those powers significantly and, in relation to the issuing of fixed penalty notices, introduced a requirement that councils trained all officials. Viscount Eccles was even more robust, saying:

“I want to talk briefly about fixed penalties. I think that in principle fixed penalties are undesirable. They may be necessary but, when they are, they are a necessary evil. The problem is that many people acquire the power to impose fixed penalties. We try to offset that by training and I hope that that works, but”—

it had to be recognised that—

“all power corrupts.”

He could see the dangers in the Bill as originally drafted, and that there is still potential danger in the Bill as amended by their lordships in relation to training. Then the noble Lord Strasburger explained:

“We added a requirement for better training of council officials on trading laws and”—

my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey did not make this point—

“constrained the value of fixed penalties.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 452.]

That differentiated, for example, between the fixed penalties imposed for failing to give a name and address from those imposed for giving a false name and address. That was a sensible amendment from their lordships’ House.

The amendments on enforcement are steps in the right direction, but I have tabled amendments to amendment C27 on information and training, which inserts a new clause after clause 17, but leaves rather a lot of loopholes. For instance, amendment (a) would leave out “on its internet website”, so that subsection (1) would read:

“The council shall publish information about—“

Why tell a council that it only needs to publish such information on its internet website?

It might have been a slip of the tongue, but my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said that all street traders could access the internet and find out what was going on, but the Bill is primarily concerned with pedlars, and pedlars and street traders are very different animals. Pedlars are on their own and normally travelling from town to town and from street to street. It is important, therefore, that a pedlar registered with the police in, say, Liverpool, when visiting Canterbury can find out what the rules are. A pedlar who has travelled to Canterbury from, say, Gravesend, might not have had access to the internet—perhaps because the local library was shut over the weekend, or whatever.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I have much sympathy with my hon. Friend’s point, but were we to remove “on its internet website”, how does he imagine that the information either would or should be published?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I imagine it would be published in a form that people could read, without having to access the internet—in other words, in a document or notice that could be obtained from local council offices or sent in advance.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I am presuming that, in essence, my hon. Friend’s amendment would actually help local authorities. Under their lordships’ amendment, the information would have to be published on the council’s internet website, whereas if his amendment was accepted, presumably the council could publish it in any form it liked. It could still be on the website, but the council would have a choice.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I accept that. If my hon. Friend is saying that my amendment is ill-conceived because it would not achieve the objective of enabling pedlars in a city such as Canterbury to find out what was happening, I am beginning to understand his point. That, however, is why I tabled amendment (e), stating that the information

“shall also be displayed prominently in any designated area”.

That would mean that when a pedlar arrived in a street on which he was not allowed to operate as a pedlar unimpeded, there would be notices in the street telling him so.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I certainly agree with that, but I was merely making the point that my hon. Friend’s initial amendment seemed to help the local authority by being less prescriptive and bureaucratic, and that perhaps it was an indication that he was going soft in his old age.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I take those sorts of allegations very seriously, particularly if one is talking about going soft in the head. I think my hon. Friend was referring to the Local Government Association. It is worth pointing out, therefore, the disparaging remarks made in the other place about how the LGA responded to the Government’s consultation in November. The noble Lord Lucas said:

“It would have been nice, too, to be able to praise the Local Government Association, but its reaction to the consultation was immediate, negative and silly.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 450.]

Even if I am going soft on the LGA, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the noble Lord Lucas is not pulling his punches.

Amendment (b), which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), would insert a new paragraph after paragraph (a). The clause would then read:

“The council shall publish on its internet website information about the provision of this Act and of the 1982 Act as amended by this Act; and any street comprised in any area designated in section 5.”

If particular streets are to be brought within the ambit of streets on which pedlars cannot carry on their business normally but have to comply with requirements set out in these Bills, it is essential that there be no doubt about the ambit of those streets and that pedlars be given proper notice of where they may operate. That is why I tabled amendment (b)—so that the council has to publish information about any street comprised in a designated area.

Amendment (c), which would insert a new paragraph after subsection (1)(b), deals with information about

“the boundaries of areas designated under section 5.”

It would require that the information provided cover not only the streets but the boundaries of those areas. At the moment, the Bill enables the council to designate an area either on health and safety grounds or because the highway might be obstructed. The Bill gives it those powers but without the requirement to specify exactly how they are being applied.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I totally support my hon. Friend on these amendments. Does he agree that it is in the local authority’s interest to make this information clear, because if it wants to deal with an issue in a particular part of its city or district, it would be helpful for that information to be made clear? Given that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey seemed to dismiss his amendments very quickly, are we not in danger of repeating the scenario where amendments are discarded but later shown to have been perfectly sensible?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It is a significant danger, and that is the problem. Whenever anyone suggests we should deal with something on the nod, it means that the full implications of the proposal are not examined, but that is the whole purpose of scrutiny in this place. That is why I hope that in responding to this debate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey will address the substance of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and I are making.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Has my hon. Friend had any discussions with the local authorities concerned to understand better why they seem to object to his sensible amendments?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

In all honesty, I had not expected that there would be objections, save perhaps on the basis of the “not invented here” formula, because people are not always generous in accepting other people’s ideas and suggestions.

However, I would like to put on record the fact that in considering these four Bills, I had a constructive meeting with a representative from Leeds city council, from which came the idea that the way forward would be to impose constraints on the size of the trolleys that pedlars can use in Leeds city centre. That theme has now been picked up in the other Bills and the Lords amendments, as well as in the suggestions in the Government’s consultation paper on where we go from here. That was a good example of constructive working between a Member of this House and an official from one of the councils seeking to promote this legislation. My hon. Friend might remember that when the question arose of whether any of the other councils would be prepared to accept similar constraints or amendments, they resolutely refused to engage. In a sense, they have now been forced to do so as a result of what happened in the other place, but there is always a lot more scope for those promoting these Bills and the officials behind them to speak with colleagues directly about issues such as the one my hon. Friend identifies.

Let me turn to my amendments to subsection (2) of the proposed new clause to be inserted after clause 17 by Lords amendment C27. Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause currently reads:

“The information published shall, in particular, be such as the council reasonably considers is sufficient to enable those wishing to trade in the city to understand the circumstances in which they may lawfully do so.”

That would be much stronger if, instead of saying that the information shall be such as “the council reasonably considers”, it said that the information shall, in particular, be “such as is sufficient”. The important thing is that the information should be sufficient to enable those wishing to trade in the city to understand the circumstances. Whether the council thinks that information is sufficient is of subsidiary importance.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Is my hon. Friend contending that if the council reasonably considered that it did not need to provide any information at all, that would be fine under the current wording? He is much more skilled in the law than I am. What constraints would there be on the local authority before a court if the existing wording was not amended as he seeks?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It would be open to a council to provide minimal information, on the basis that the council reasonably considered it to be sufficient. Somebody who felt that it was insufficient—a pedlar who was potentially suffering a fixed penalty—would not be able to argue that the information was not sufficient to enable him to understand the circumstances under which he could trade, because all the council had to do was provide information that the council itself reasonably considered sufficient. The council would therefore be introducing a subjective test, thereby removing the effectiveness of what, on the face of it, seems perfectly sensible—that the information provided should be sufficient. The notion that the information is sufficient if the council considers it to be sufficient effectively negates what would otherwise be a worthwhile amendment.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I would like to press my hon. Friend on the words “the council reasonably considers”. Would what the council reasonably considered sufficient be materially different from what anybody else reasonably considered to be sufficient?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It may well be, and that is my concern. Let us look at what has happened in the past. Their lordships found a lot of evidence that councils were making assertions about the conduct of pedlars that they could not back up with evidence before their lordships’ Committee, so a council might consider something to be sufficient when it is not sufficient, because of that council or its officers having a particular prejudice or taking a cavalier approach.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative, North East Somerset)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Bill would surely be clearer if it did not allow the council discretion. If the council were to err in its use of discretion, that could lead to judicial reviews and all sorts of expenses to the council, so the promoters of these Bills would benefit by accepting his amendments.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that succinct and, I hope, persuasive—indeed, conclusive—argument in support of my amendments. I hope that our hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey has noted it—although sadly I do not see any messages being passed between him and the people sitting in the officials’ Box on behalf of the promoters of the Bills.

Let me turn to my amendment (e), which would add the following words at the end of subsection (2) of the proposed new clause inserted by Lords amendment C27:

“and shall also be displayed prominently in any designated area.”

It is obviously useful for a motorist visiting a town who is thinking of parking somewhere to know where the parking restrictions apply, and the way to find out is by looking at a notice close to where they intend to park. Similarly, it is quite useful for pedlars intending to peddle their goods in a city or town centre to be able to see on a notice whether a different regime operates there compared with the national regime. That is fundamental to ensuring fair play and justice for visitors to a designated area who are not quite sure whether it is indeed a designated area, and so on. What harm would there be in requiring signs on the circumference of a designated area to make it absolutely clear to any passer-by?

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative, North East Somerset)

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has given any consideration to the design of such signs and how it might be made clear to people that they are in a peddling or non-peddling zone.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It would be useful if there were distinct signs. Indeed, an enterprising local authority might want to invite local schools to enter a competition to see who could produce the best design for such a sign. I do not think there should necessarily be uniform signs across the country, because that sounds rather bureaucratic and top-down. The most important thing is that the signs should be prominent and clear and not contain a lot of detail—unlike the conditions on the back of one’s new credit card, for example. There need to be relatively few words, prominently displayed.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

I urge my hon. Friend not to do down the communist route of centrally dictating things, because these are individual Bills. It would not be beyond the wit of man to have little signs, as we do with conservation areas, for instance. That would be useful. Will the promoters of the Bill will accept these amendments?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I thank my hon. Friend for supporting these amendments. I have yet to hear officially, although in introducing the debate on their Lordships’ amendments and mine at the beginning of the debate—I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough was not in his place at that time—our hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey implied en passant that he did not want to accept any of these amendments. Perhaps in the light of the ensuing debate, he will change his mind.

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

indicated dissent.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Colleagues elected in 2010 have discovered that when they are asked by promoters to promote a Bill in this House, it does not mean that they lose all their discretion over it. It is ultimately up to them as Members of Parliament to decide what to accept and what not to accept, and they do not need to be beholden to the officials.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative, North East Somerset)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I was getting very worried about this constitutional principle. It is surely up to this House and not up to individual promoters or local councils, to decide what passes into law.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Absolutely, and I am sorry if I did not make that clear. There was an occasion—you may remember it, Mr Deputy Speaker—on a different private Bill earlier in this Parliament when one of my hon. Friends felt a certain reluctance to do anything other than what he had been told to do by the promoters. I explained to him that he would be doing the promoters, himself and the House a good service if he showed some flexibility. In fairness to him, he did show such flexibility. That is a good precedent, and I draw it to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey in case he was not there at the time.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Going back to the substantial issue of notices, as my hon. Friend knows, I am with him on virtually all of this and have been for a number of years. However, we are in danger of parting company, I fear, on the issue of the notices being different in every local authority. Surely the whole point of the objection is that people going from one place to another cannot be expected to know the exact regime in a particular place. Surely therefore it would be helpful if the same notice were in place in each local authority. Just as “no parking” notices are the same across the country, should not the same thing apply to pedlars’ notices?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Fortunately, if we disagree on this issue, it need not concern us because the amendment does not spell that out. It was only in response to an intervention from our hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) that I ventured to suggest that if any notices were produced, they need not be uniform across the country. That, of course, would be

left to the discretion of the local authority, so I think my hon. Friend and I can probably live together on that particular interpretation.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

That is next Tuesday’s business.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Sorry, I should not anticipate next Tuesday’s debate. I can see that my hon. Friend is going to be on really good form next week.

Amendment (f) to subsection (1) of the inserted new clause on training deals with the same theme of trying to remove the subjective test for the council so that there is some objectivity about it. Instead of saying:

“The council shall not authorise an officer to act for the purposes of this Act unless they are satisfied that the officer has received adequate training”,

subsection (1) of the inserted new clause on training would say:

“The council shall not authorise an officer to act for the purposes of this Act unless the officer has received adequate training”.

It would no longer be an issue of whether or not the council was satisfied, but a more objective test of whether the officer had received adequate training. Obviously, if the council is doing the training and it is by any objective test inadequate, that would not be a problem under the current wording. Only when the council has to satisfy an objective test in relation to training will we ensure that the right quality of training, to which our noble Friends in the other place referred, will be implemented. My amendment would strengthen this part of clause 17.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I am sympathetic to what my hon. Friend says, as he is making a good point. Does he know how this compares with what is required for other officers employed by local authorities—whether it be parking attendants or even perhaps the police force? Are my hon. Friend’s proposals the norm or is what is in the Bill the norm in that respect?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

In all honesty, I do not have the comparable statutory provisions before me to be able to answer my hon. Friend’s point. I am sure, however, that with the resources that have gone into the budgets of the promoters’ advisers, that sort of information should be available. Perhaps we will hear in due course from our hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey and find out whether similar provisions apply anywhere else.

This issue should not be treated lightly. Their Lordships were quite concerned that, if we are going to allow people who are not constables or police community support officers to intervene in these areas, and we are going to allow “authorised persons” to intervene, it is essential that those authorised people are properly trained.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

In many respects, this amendment is more important than my hon. Friend’s previous amendment. The provisions on information at least ask the council “reasonably” to consider whether they are sufficient, whereas without my hon. Friend’s amendment, the wording on the training provisions is that the council needs only to be “satisfied”—not that it “has reason” to be satisfied or is “reasonably” satisfied. It is literally as blanket as that. Surely my hon. Friend would agree that his amendment on the training aspect is even more important than the one on information.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. If we cannot vote on all my amendments and have to select one—

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

A shame.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Yes, it would be a shame if we could not vote on all of them—perhaps some of them will be accepted. I must not be downhearted at this stage, as they might all be accepted. However, in the event that this one is not accepted, I can understand my hon. Friend’s point that it would be a useful amendment on which to test the opinion of the House. The essence of my amendment (f) is that it is designed to prevent the officers of the local authority from being judges in their own courts. That is a pretty fundamental principle, and I would have thought that all Members would like to sign up to it and apply it in practice.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

I am sorry that I was not in my place to hear the beginning of my hon. Friend’s exposition of his various amendments. On this particular amendment and even allowing for it, it will still be up to the council to determine what is and what is not “adequate”. Does my hon. Friend think that it is right for the council to decide rather than some independent body?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I would have hoped that we could trust councils to provide adequate training. The purpose of my amendment is to try to ensure that that happens. If the training is not adequate, it will be open to somebody to make a complaint to the council or the councillors; ultimately, it could be used as a defence to a fixed penalty notice or something like that—although I would not want to speculate on that. The test is that the officers must be properly trained: that is what the provisions would require—rather than that the council thought the training was adequate. I hope it would not be necessary to set up a new bureaucracy—an appeals panel or something like that—to deal with the situation, as we are already overburdened with bureaucracy and officialdom in this country, and we do not want even more of it.

My amendment (g) to Lords amendment C27 proposes the deletion of subsection (2), which makes training provided by the council mandatory. It states:

“The council shall make the training referred to in subsection (1) available also to constables and community support officers empowered by section 5(1) to give a fixed penalty notice.”

That is redundant, because constables and community support officers receive training that enables them to perform this function outside the ambit of any particular local Act relating to pedlars, and it is therefore unnecessary to require the council to become involved in training them. Obviously, if the chief constable asks the local council whether it will provide training for constables and community support officers, the council will probably be happy to oblige and to explain the procedure.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—he is being exceptionally generous—but did he mean to refer to the police and crime commissioner just now, rather than the chief constable?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I think that it would be the chief constable in this instance. My understanding is that police and crime commissioners are there to decide whether to hire and fire, and to set out the budget for the police authorities,

whereas operational issues are dealt with by the chief constables. I would regard the question of whether constables or community support officers on the beat are capable or knowledgeable enough to introduce or apply a fixed penalty notice regime as an operational issue.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

I would understand my hon. Friend’s logic if this were national legislation, but given that it is local legislation, by virtue of being a private Bill, surely it should be up to the police and crime commissioner to decide whether he wants to get involved with this nonsense at all.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but I trust that police and crime commissioners have bigger fish to fry.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey will support my amendments. As was made clear earlier, they also apply to the other Bills with which we are dealing today. We are not picking on Canterbury in particular, but it is the first Bill on the Order Paper.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) not just for his speech, although it was of the customary calibre, but for his dedication in ensuring that, if the Bill ever leaves this place, it will leave in a much better state than the state in which it arrived. Without my hon. Friend’s personal dedication to this issue, and his determination that we should do what we ought to do in this place—that is, defend people’s freedoms and defend enterprise—the Bill would have passed through Parliament in a much less satisfactory manner.

Like my hon. Friend, I am grateful for the work that was done by their lordships. I do not know whether my hon. Friend felt the same, but I feared that the Bill would go through on the nod in the House of Lords. Their lordships should be commended for going through it in great detail and considering the arguments properly, and, consequently, tabling some amendments with which I think we can be particularly pleased.

I agree with what my hon. Friend said about many of the amendments. He focused on the subject of seizures, and on the Lords amendments that proposed the omission of various clauses relating to it. He may recall that the issue caused great controversy when it was debated for the first time in this place. It struck me as unacceptable that local authorities should employ authorised officers to go around seizing people’s goods willy-nilly. As my hon. Friend will recall, we argued the case vehemently for many months. We were told that the clauses were essential to the Bill, and that without them it would be unworkable and meaningless. We were also told that the proposals in the amendments would be unenforceable, and that they were in effect wrecking amendments: that, if I remember rightly, is what my hon. Friend was accused of when he tried to persuade the promoters that what they were saying was over the top.

I should be interested to know why the promoters thought that removing those clauses then would wreck the Bill, whereas removing them today apparently does not wreck it all. It seems that it will still be fit to proceed into law. It is difficult for us to consider the merits of the

amendments until we are given some satisfactory answers to the question of how important the clauses are to the Bill as a whole.

I have the impression that we have reached a stage at which the promoters are determined to produce an Act of Parliament, irrespective of what is in it and whether anything that is in it will ever be applied. This seems to have become a war of attrition, a battle of wills. The promoters seem merely to want an Act of Parliament to hang their hat on. I certainly support the removal of all these clauses—page after page of them—and I think we should be grateful for the fact that the promoters may have come round to my hon. Friend’s way of thinking.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

My hon. Friend has made a good point. Is there not a chance that because so much council tax payers’ money has been wasted on Bills that were not thought through thoroughly to start with, the promoters are determined to drive through a Bill to justify that waste?

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

My hon. Friend is right. A similar attitude was taken by the previous Government. The idea is to waste a lot of money on something that is clearly not working, and then, instead of drawing stumps and cutting your losses, to keep spending more and more, just so that there is something to show for all the money spent. All that happens, though, is that even more money is wasted.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

Is that not what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said in his autobiography about the Dome? The last Labour Government were affected by exactly the same syndrome.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

My hon. Friend is far better read than I am. The right hon. Gentleman’s book is gathering dust on my shelf, and I have not got round to reading it. However, I will look out for that section when I do get round to it. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch had to say about seizures, and our comments about seized items are on the record from the previous debates. I stand by what I said then and I am sure that he also stands by what he said, and I am delighted that their lordships have agreed.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that other promoters preparing private Bills take into account the verdict of their lordships on these seizure powers? We have seen a lot of attempts to introduce or smuggle equivalent powers in other private Bills.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I absolutely agree. I hope that, in many respects, what their lordships have done will set a precedent and that we will not have to worry so much about some of the worst consequences of such legislation.

A notable omission from my hon. Friend’s speech was the issue of touting, although I appreciate that he was trying to be as brief as possible. If he did mention that and I missed it, I apologise to him. One amendment before us today deals with touting. He did not mention it—[Interruption.] I think it comes later on in our

proceedings. It is in the third group, so I will save up my expertise on touting until that time; I apologise for mentioning it now.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch were focused mainly on training. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) is my parliamentary neighbour and an excellent Member of Parliament. The only bad thing about having him as my neighbour is that he puts me to shame. He has already successfully steered a private Member’s Bill through Parliament in his short time in the House. He did so with an awful lot of panache and charm, and by being practical and reasonable about what it was sensible to do in order to get that legislation through. I very much hope he will adopt the same strategy now, because he saw how well it worked with his Bill; I hope he will use that experience when considering this legislation, too.

Let us consider the debate we have had so far from a layman’s perspective—from the point of view of people who have no vested interest in the legislation and who have not been going through battles which started six years ago, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said. People who do not have that baggage and who listened to the argument that my hon. Friend made for his amendments to Lords amendment C27 could not fail to have been persuaded by his case. We started from the position that these Bills were designed to give local authorities far too much power—that was the whole point for us when we started out. As a result of my hon. Friend’s work and what happened in their lordships’ House, gradually, bit by bit, the excessive powers have been whittled down. We hope to end up with legislation that, although perhaps not ideal—it may not be something we particularly agree with—will certainly be an awful lot better than it was when we started out. We have an opportunity to carry on the theme that my hon. Friend started, and that their lordships continued, by removing some of the remaining parts that put far too much power in the hands of local authorities and give far too little protection, literally, to the man on the street.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative, North East Somerset)

Is it not very reassuring that the upper House has carried out its traditional role of defending the liberty of the subject from the seizure of goods? Such seizure has been unknown and unwelcome in this country since Magna Carta.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. It is why some of us felt so strongly about these Bills and, in particular, about the issues relating to seizure. It is to be commended that their lordships have done what they have historically done—defend people’s freedoms—but we should not have to rely on their lordships for that; we should be doing that in this place, too. We have a great opportunity to demonstrate how important that is to us through my hon. Friend’s amendments.

The promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill chose well when they selected my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey as the person to steer it through the House. I am sure that it would be in everybody’s interests if the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch were accepted. I am a signatory to them, so I would say that, but their genesis lies with my hon. Friend and I do not want to take the credit away from him.

I am not so bothered about amendment (a) to Lords amendment C27. Lords amendment C27 seeks to provide that:

“The council shall publish on its internet website information”.

My hon. Friend wishes to remove the words “on its internet website” from that provision. I am not so bothered about that one, not because I disagree with it, but because I am not sure it would achieve what he intends. It would not preclude the council from simply putting the information on its website; the council would still be able to do exactly the same thing, so we would be no further forward. I think my hon. Friend intended that the council should not simply be allowed to leave it at that and that other forms of communications should be used, particularly for people who do not have access to the internet and the relevant website. I agree with his approach, but the amendment would not achieve its purpose and we could end up with a bizarre situation where the unintended consequence was that the local authority published even less information than was available for pedlars. Amendment (a) certainly does not require the local authority to publish more information, so I think we can leave it to one side—I hope my hon. Friend will agree.

There is far more merit in my hon. Friend’s other amendments to Lords amendment C27, and I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey will give them serious thought. None of us wishes unnecessarily to delay further the proceedings on this legislation, and I am sure that the Bill’s promoters do not wish it to be delayed further, so my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey has a great opportunity here. I cannot speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch but I think that if my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey were to give way on these amendments, the progress of this legislation could be much speedier. That would be a small price for the Bill’s promoters to pay, because not only are these amendments designed to make things better for the pedlar, but, as far as I can see, they are better for the local authority.

Amendments (b) and (c) would mean that the council would make things abundantly clear by publishing details of the streets covered by the legislation. That is not catered for in the Bill at the moment. If that is such a big issue for these local authorities and something that needs all this time and expense to deal with it, surely it is in the best interests of these councils that everybody knows which streets are affected and which are not, and the boundaries of these rules. With the best will in the world, I am sure that even my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey would not suggest—I hope he will not—that council officials will be on every corner of every street waiting for pedlars to appear in order to turn them around at the first opportunity and issue them with a fixed penalty notice. I would like to think that council resources do not stretch that far. On those days when there is no council official waiting to move a pedlar on or to issue them with a fixed penalty notice, surely it is in the interests of the local residents and the local area that people are following the rules because things are clear and that they are not mistakenly in a place where they should not be. Through his amendments my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is striking a blow not only for freedom but for the efficiency of the local authority in carrying out its wishes.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Is not one of the problems the fact that local authorities have form on this issue? On Third Reading in the other place, the noble Lord Strasburger said that the Select Committee spent a lot of time trying to find out why the four local authorities wanted the powers to seize and introduce fixed penalties. It was told that pedlars sell substandard goods, but as he said

“no evidence whatever was offered to prove this allegation”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 451.]

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

My hon. Friend is right. In many respects, the attitude that some local authorities have adopted has been sad—

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

With the leave of the House, I will put the questions on Lords amendments C4 and C5 to the Canterbury City Council Bill together.

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment C6.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

With this it will be convenient to take the following:

Lords amendments C7 and C8, and C9 and amendments (a) to (h) thereto to the Canterbury City Council Bill.

Lords amendments L3 and L4, and L5 and amendments (a) to (h) thereto to the Leeds City Council Bill.

Lords amendments N3 to N5, and N6 and amendments (a) to (i) thereto to the Nottingham City Council Bill.

Lords amendments R4 to R7, and R8 and amendments (a) to (i) thereto to the Reading Borough Council Bill.

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

My understated manner was mentioned earlier, and I plan to carry on in that manner as I speak to this group of amendments. The pedlar provisions have generated the most interest, from those who petitioned against the Bills in the Lords and from a number of hon. Members in this House. Under the existing licensing legislation, an exception is given to persons who act as a pedlar under the authority of a pedlars certificate granted under the Pedlars Act 1871. The Bills would have limited

that exemption so that it applied only to pedlars who traded by way of house-to-house visits. All other pedlars would have required a street-trading licence or consent.

The Lords Committee amended the pedlar provision very much in favour of pedlars. The amendments made will now restrict the exemption from the street-trading regime enjoyed by pedlars to trading by house-to-house visits, trading without any means of support—that is, by traders carrying the items they wish to sell—or trading with a wheeled trolley that does not exceed 0.75 metres in width, 0.5 metres in depth and 1.25 metres in height. The overall size of the display of goods has also been listed in the provision. So the Committee has limited the circumstances in which the restrictions on acting as a pedlar can apply.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

My hon. Friend has referred to the Committee stage of the Bills in the other place. He will be aware that since then, on 27 November last year, the Government issued a consultation paper that proposes to repeal the UK-wide Pedlars Act in order to comply with the European services directive. How is that consistent with the rewriting of clause 5, which still purports to amend the Pedlars Act?

Stuart Andrew (Conservative, Pudsey)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Honestly. This process has been going on for a considerable time. In fact, even back in the 1990s, the Home Office was promising to introduce changes, although it never did so. We could go on debating these matters for many years to come. I shall now continue to make my points.

In addition, the amendments provide that the restrictions on pedlars’ activities should be confined to areas that have been designated by the councils. Each designation must be justified against two criteria. One involves ensuring road safety; the other involves preventing the obstruction of the highway. So, as I mentioned, the regime in the Bills is now far more generous to pedlars than the one originally set out in the Bills. The promoters of course accept the decision of the Lords in this regard.

I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has tabled further amendments to these amendments on all four Bills. His amendments are mainly concerned with the designation of areas. They would have the effect of allowing designation of streets rather than areas, and would limit the reasons for designation further than the Lords Committee thought necessary. The promoters do not agree that his amendments are necessary or desirable. They believe it to be entirely appropriate that they should be able to safeguard against obstruction of the highway, as the Lords decided.

My hon. Friend has also tabled amendments to the Nottingham City Council Bill and the Reading Borough Council Bill. Nottingham and Reading have included extra provision whereby the councils will be able to control the purchase, as well as the sale, of tickets under street-trading legislation. It is perhaps worth noting that the sale of tickets on the street is already subject to street-trading legislation nationally, but ticket touts buy tickets as well as sell them. My hon. Friend’s amendments would not change the position in general for Nottingham and Reading councils. They would still be able to control the buying of tickets. The Lords amendment that he is

seeking to alter is a consequential one, and the councils do not believe the change to be necessary or desirable. I therefore commend the Lords amendments to the House.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) suggested, we have now come to the meat of the Bills—namely, the provisions on pedlars and street trading. Their lordships looked at the issues and decided that clause 4 should be left out. Amendment C8 covers that. Under amendment C9, clause 5 would be left out and the new clause to which my hon. Friend briefly referred would be inserted.

Confusion has been caused. Since the Lords looked at these issues in November 2011, the Government have come forward with a consultation that effectively says that, because of the impact of the services directive, it is important that the Pedlars Act be repealed nationally. Although I agree that this process has been going on for a while—many years, perhaps—this is the first time we have got what might be described as a European dimension. If the European services directive is going to apply as the Government interpret it, we in this subordinate legislature will not be able to act outside its terms. The Government will not have any option but to proceed along the lines set out in the consultation document.

The Minister is looking at me in a way that suggests he wishes to intervene and put me right. If that is correct, I will be happy to give way to him.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

Will my hon. Friend give way to me instead?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Yes, of course.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills impact assessment states:

“In any case, our assessment is that the Government has no choice but to abolish the Pedlars Act to comply with the European Services Directive.”

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reinforcing my point, and if the Minister wishes to intervene, I would be happy to give way.

Matthew Hancock (Conservative, West Suffolk)

Unusually, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) accurately represents the Government position. Some aspects of the Pedlars Act are inconsistent with the European services directive. The consultation that will close on 15 February is known to the four authorities involved; they know that a consultation about a change in the national law is taking place. The proposals up for discussion in the consultation include repealing the Pedlars Act and amending the national street trading regime, and the local authorities would need to amend their legislation to take account of any such changes.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I therefore presume that the Government will vote against Lords amendment C9, which was passed in the other place in 2011, as it has been overtaken by events. It tinkers with amendments to the pedlars legislation, but the Minister says the legislation should be completely repealed.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

On this basis, it is irrelevant whether Members vote for or against that amendment. It does not matter which way the Government vote, therefore, because it will be a complete waste of time whichever way they go.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

That may be the case in the future, but our national Parliament is still sovereign to the extent that, until we implement the services directive in legislative form, we will have the existing law on the statute book. If we accept Lords amendment C9, we will in effect be re-enacting something the Government tell us is no longer consistent with European law.

Many Members—and, I suspect, many pedlars, too—would be very pleased if we were to free ourselves from the shackles of Brussels, and we are greatly looking forward to the referendum on the matter. The points being discussed today are part of the campaign, as we are setting out reasons why we would be better off out. Until we rid ourselves of distractions from Brussels, however, we are stuck with having its rule of law apply to our own legislation. I hope that in due course the Minister will explain the Government’s position: do they support or oppose amendment C9?

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Is my hon. Friend in favour of Amendment C9?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I have some sympathy with amendment C9 as it contains many of the proposals that we were trying to persuade councils other than Leeds to accept when this Bill was before our House. Leeds conceded that instead of having a regime under which pedlars could only go from door to door, it would be content with one where pedlars could go to pedestrianised high street areas, provided they did not cause an obstruction by having a very elaborate and large apparatus. That is where the concept of having trolleys of limited size came from; it came from Leeds city council, and the idea was discussed with me and some of my hon. Friends. The proposal to give pedlars the freedom to operate on the street with a trolley of sufficient size to enable them to display their goods and provide articles to those who wish to purchase them is a valuable development and makes a lot of common sense. Although the Government consultation specifies a maximum size of trolley rather larger than the one specified in amendment C9, they appear to accept the principle.

On whether I personally agree with that amendment, I am still very sceptical about whether the Government interpretation of the services directive is correct. When we first raised this issue after the services directive had come into force, the Government took the line that it was of no consequence or interest, so their interpretation has changed significantly in just a couple of years, and they might change it again. Because things are in a state of flux, it would seem to me premature—if one can use that word in respect of a Bill that has been before this House for over six years—to proceed now with amendment C9.

The Minister has said that the amendment was passed in the Lords and since then there have been developments, but there has been no opportunity for us to accommodate this in our legislative process, because the promoters of the Bill could not anticipate what the Government were going to say in their consultation at the end of November. It is interesting that the consultation paper was issued so late that it would not have been possible, even with their lordships’ procedures, for the promoters to move a Third Reading amendment, even if they had been really on the ball. The promoters have therefore not been able to reflect in the Bills what the Government now say is the position.

One would have expected the Government to table amendments to the Lords amendments to set out, beyond peradventure, what, if anything, should be in the Bill instead of clause 5, which is being left out. I find the situation rather perplexing. It is important that it is clarified.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

My hon. Friend mentioned that it was suggested in the consultation document that a rather larger trolley be allowed. Is he as surprised as I am that neither the promoters nor the Government have brought forward amendments to bring the new clause in Lords amendment C9 in line with the consultation document?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am surprised about that. I am also a bit disappointed in myself, because I should have tabled such an amendment so that the House could have discussed it. I failed to do that, so the House does not have the opportunity to compare the alternative proposals for the best size of trolley.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

While we are on the sizes of trolleys, my hon. Friend will see that Lords amendment C9 gives specific measurements for trolleys, including a width of 0.88 metres, a depth of 0.83 metres and a height of 1.63 metres. First, can he help those of us who do not understand the meaning of 0.83 metres by telling us what those measurements mean in old money? Secondly, does he have any idea why those measurements are so specific?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The short answer is that I am not able to convert metres into feet and inches. I take my hon. Friend’s point that it would be much better if the measurements were expressed in a way that most people can understand. Most people understand feet. I am told that I am approaching 2 metres in height, if that gives my hon. Friend any guidance on the size of the trolleys.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

How wide are you though?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The issue of depth is also an important one.

Matthew Hancock (Conservative, West Suffolk)

As my hon. Friend knows, the consultation is ongoing, so there is good reason not to bring forward amendments at this stage. To do so might be seen as prejudging the consultation. The appropriate size of trolleys is part of the consultation, so when the consultation closes, we will bring forward conclusions on what is the appropriate size.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

So does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea for the promoters of the Bills, when the appointed time for discussing them today has expired, to seek the indulgence of the Chairman of Ways and Means to ensure that the Bills are not brought back before the House until after the conclusion of the consultation period and until the Government’s position is clearer? That would enable the necessary consequential amendments to be made to the Bills, rather than their being rushed on to the statute book only for the councils that promote them to come back with fresh amendments in the future. Surely he would think that good advice for the promoters of the Bills.

Were our consideration delayed beyond the expiry date of the consultation, would the Government come forward with amendments to Lords amendment C9 so that it properly reflected the Government’s view on the impact of the services directive?

Matthew Hancock (Conservative, West Suffolk)

As a relatively new Member and Minister, I have much to learn from my hon. Friend about the procedures of this place. His ability to describe as rushed legislation that has so far been six and a bit years in the making, while at the same time speaking at great length to ensure that it is scrutinised properly, is very impressive. What he has said about timing is on the record and these things are always looked at.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous comments, and for noting, without expressing an opinion, that the point is now on the record for the promoters of the Bill. It is hard to imagine, but if I were a promoter of a private Bill, I would certainly be keen for everything to be dealt with in one Bill, rather than face a situation in which my Bill was amended and put on the statute book in a form that would not comply with legislation brought forward by the Government in due course. One difficulty the Government may have is that to amend private legislation that is different in different parts of the country could either involve hybrid Bills or rely on individual local authorities to bring forward their own private Bills, with all the scope that would offer for people to raise petitions and so on.

There is a serious issue about the status of pedlars, and what was said in the other place and resulted in these Lords amendments is highly pertinent to today’s discussion. The noble Lord Bilston told their lordships that the Bills were disproportionate, and that there was concern to protect the rights of

“genuine pedlars…who play by the rules, who move around when trading and who do not use oversized stores to display their wares.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 443.]

That is why he was keen to include in the Bill provisions to restrict the size of stores that can be used by pedlars, but otherwise enable them to carry on as before. His concerns were reflected by other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness Knight of Collingtree who said that, in essence, and as far as she interpreted the Bills, local authorities were

“seeking the total eradication of pedlars from their streets.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 445.]

Their lordships were, I think, wise and helpful in responding to the concerns expressed by pedlars on these issues, but I am not sure that they went as far as they could have done in ensuring that the new regime will work well in practice. The principal reason for saying that is reflected in my amendments to C9, which are centred around whether we should have “designated areas” or streets. Everybody understands a street; it has a name and can be found on a Google map—just to show how modern I am—and that name can be seen at the side of the street as someone walks along. A “designated area”, however, is much vaguer and could be large or small. The most difficult concept for us to deal with in clause 9, as amended, is that subsection (7) now states:

“The council may designate an area for the purposes of this section only if it has reason to believe that it is necessary to do so to ensure road safety or prevent obstruction of the highway.”

I have tabled three amendments to subsection (7). Amendment (e) would leave out “an area” and insert “a street”, and amendment (f) would remove the words

“it has reason to believe”

thereby introducing an objective, rather than subjective, test as to whether the provision is necessary to ensure road safety.

My biggest concern is expressed in amendment (g), which seeks to leave out the words

“or to prevent obstruction of the highway”.

Obstruction of the highway is a wide and vague term, and means that any trolley, including one that complies with the sizes in the Bill, could be regarded as capable of creating an obstruction in the highway. The wording of the Lords amendment would enable a council to develop its bad faith towards pedlars. There is a lot of evidence that councils have such bad faith and that they wish to support the interests of their own street traders, who are licensed and pay substantial fees. Councils want to protect that income against competition from pedlars. We know that such ill will exists. The current wording would facilitate its development to the detriment of pedlars.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, if the words of the Lords amendment remained and were taken literally, virtually any article in the highway could be construed as an obstruction of it? It would therefore be possible for the authority to name virtually any street as being at risk of falling foul of the provision.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Exactly—my hon. Friend is right to make that point.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way—he is being exceptionally generous. In his desire to rush through his speech so that we can complete the business today, he has not admitted the fact that any obstruction of the highway is a police matter, and that they can deal with it. The measure is therefore superfluous.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Such measures are quite often a matter of interpretation. The trained police officer is in a far better position to interpret the law than a council that is prejudiced against the interests of pedlars. To reinforce the point about prejudice, the noble Lord Strasburger said on Third Reading that:

“It was alleged that pedlars create a situation that attracts pickpockets, but…no evidence was offered. It was also said that pedlars cause obstruction of the highway. Little evidence for this allegation was offered apart from a small number of cases where wide and expanding trolleys had been used…The witnesses who spoke for the local authorities were somewhat unconvincing. We heard evidence from pedlars that many council officers and the police are ignorant about the 1871 Act, and we also heard much evidence of a bullying culture on the part of council officials towards honest and hard-working pedlars.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 451-52.]

That is why we need to be alert to the precise wording of the Lords amendments. We need to ensure that the intention is to establish a level playing field for pedlars and street traders, and to ensure that pedlars cannot be undermined by over-zealous or prejudiced council officials. For those reasons, Lords amendment C9 would be much improved by amendments (a) to (h), which I have tabled.

Amendment (h) would remove subsection (8), which states that:

“The provisions of sub-paragraph…(2)…of Schedule 4 to the 1982 Act shall apply to a resolution under this section as they apply to a resolution under that paragraph but as if…for ‘street’ there were substituted ‘area’”.

That completely undermines the concept of pedlars’ freedom to go from house to house and sell their wares on the public highway by trading from street to street.

The Lords amendments grouped under the heading “Pedlars and street trading” are a significant improvement.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I was concerned that my hon. Friend seemed to be coming to a close. He does not seem to have mentioned—if he did, he glossed over it very quickly—Lords amendment C8, which relates to leaving out clause 4, something I think he mentioned only in passing. Does he have a view on whether leaving out clause 4 is a requirement of the services directive? It is unclear to me.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to the attention of the House, because it takes us back to our discussions on clause 4 in the previous Parliament. It was in the context of the provision of services that the issue of the services directive was raised. That was why, as I recall, we were arguing that the provision of services should not be covered under these particular local Acts. There seems to be a recognition that clause 4 is outlawed by the services directive. What I do not understand—I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about this—is why the directive also applies to pedlars who are dealing not in services, but goods. How does the directive apply to the sale of goods by pedlars? That is causing concern among the pedlar fraternity.

There may be as many as 4,000 pedlars in this country, so the implications are significant. They are concerned that if the legislation, which sets out a separate regime for pedlars and has been established for well over 100 years, is torn up and repealed, it may be that the significant status and freedom that pedlars have hitherto enjoyed—of being able to obtain a certificate and, as long as they are of good character, trade from door to door, place to place and town to town—will be removed from them.

As was said in their lordships’ House, pedlary goes back long before the time of Shakespeare to the time of Chaucer, if not before. Therefore, to tear up the 1871 Act, as the Government seem to be proposing in their consultation paper, would be damaging to the interests of pedlars.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

Perhaps my hon. Friend can explain something to me before he concludes his opening remarks on this group of amendments. It is Government policy to encourage micro-businesses, and pedlars are small business men at the very smallest level. Therefore, it appears to me that these councils are going against Government policy.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

That may well be so. If councils are going against Government policy, one would expect the Government to say to their supporters in the Chamber that they wish them to vote on the amendments in a particular way.

Sadly, my hon. Friend the Minister is temporarily not in his place, but I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) in his place instead. I am sure he will make a careful note of what I am about to say. Under the heading, “Chapter 1 - Proposal to repeal the Pedlars Acts 1871 and 1881 (Part 2 of the draft Regulations at Annex A)”, the Government’s consultation paper, which is still out for consultation, reads:

“Below we detail our proposals (reflected in the proposed draft Regulations set out at Annex A) to repeal the Pedlars Acts 1871 and 1881 in relation to the whole of the UK.”

That is not a discussion of the possibility of repealing the Acts, but a specific proposal to repeal the Acts in toto. The proposal might still be out to consultation, but the Government have effectively made up their mind to repeal the Acts.

For reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and others explained, the Government have been diffident about declaring their hand in relation to the provisions in the Bills when they have had the opportunity to do so. One of the difficulties when considering Lords amendments is finding out why they were proposed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) just pointed out, removing clause 4 from this Bill and equivalent provisions in the other Bills was not referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey. It was taken as a given, despite its having significant implications.

Neither was there proper explanation of why, if they thought that removing clause 4 would satisfy the services directive, the Government now say that to satisfy it we would effectively have to repeal clause 5 in toto and not replace it with any other provision relating to pedlars.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

During the debate on the first group of amendments, my hon. Friend said, quite rightly, that the Lords had “filleted” the Bill. On the second group, does he contend that the removal of clause 4 and the total rewriting of clause 5 has the same effect of destroying the original arguments for why the Bill was necessary?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Absolutely. This takes us back to the precursors to these Bills, one of which was the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill. The argument put forward by the promoters was that life was intolerable for retailers in the city centres because of the activities of pedlars, and therefore that pedlars needed to be banned outright from the city centres. Now, as a result of their lordships’ amendment, the promoters have recognised that pedlars are welcome and free to operate in city centres—or is that really what they intend? Does the local authority really want pedlars to be free, or will it seize on the provisions about obstructing the highways to create designated areas where pedlars cannot operate?

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Does that mean that clause 5, as amended by amendment C9, would cause more confusion about what would be allowed, making it difficult for a pedlar to be clear about how each of the four local authorities might interpret the same clause, even though the provisions are the same for each authority?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Absolutely, because this clause—new clause 5, as I am calling it—effectively gives local authorities the discretion to interpret in their own way what they regard

as a road safety issue or a potential obstruction of the highway, and what it is necessary to do to ensure road safety or prevent an obstruction of the highway. If local authorities are able to persuade themselves that something is necessary for the purposes of road safety—a wide concept that includes pedestrian safety—and they couple that with the need to prevent obstruction of the highway, that almost drives a coach and horses through the provisions. Local authorities would thereby retain almost absolute discretion to designate areas as they wished, potentially arbitrarily way to the detriment of the pedlar fraternity.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

My hon. Friend’s amendment (f) would remove the words

“it has reason to believe that”

from subsection (7) of the clause inserted by Lords amendment C9. I apologise for appearing for ever to be picking his legal brains, but does he have any idea what, as far as a court is concerned, would constitute a legitimate “reason to believe”?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Obviously I cannot give any legal advice, but the short answer is that if we are talking about a subjective test, all the council has to do is to say that it has reason to believe, whereas if we are talking about an objective test, the issue is not what the council believes, but what actually happened and the impact. If something was going to be an obstruction to the highway or have an impact on road safety, that could be objectively verified.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Is not the key to this the word “reason”? The council must have a reason to believe, as opposed to just believing without reason. Presumably, there must be some tangible reason to justify the belief; I am just concerned about how strenuous that reason would need to be.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I cannot advise my hon. Friend on that. Obviously the reasonableness of any reason that was put forward could, I suppose, be tested, although that is more an academic or theoretical question, rather than a question about what will happen in practice. My concern is that the provision will be used to perpetuate a campaign of discrimination against pedlars and try to drive them out of particular cities, which was of course the original intent behind the four Bills.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

What I am trying to get at is this: if my hon. Friend’s amendment (f) were accepted and we removed the words “reason to believe”—so that subsection (7) read: “only if it is necessary to do so”—what difference does he think that would make in practice to how the council had to operate?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

If we left out the words “it has reason to believe that”, subsection (7) would read: “The council may designate an area for the purposes of this section only if it is necessary to do so to ensure road safety”. That is something on which evidence could be drawn from all angles. One could argue that designating an area was necessary for road safety or that it was not, but it would not depend on the council. Under subsection (7) as currently worded, as long as the council says that in its view designating an area is necessary for road safety, that is the end of the matter and it cannot be challenged.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

I understand the thrust of what my hon. Friend is saying and, as he knows, I am sympathetic to it, but if subsection (7) was simply left to read: “The council may designate an area for the purposes of this section only if it is necessary to do so”, would not the people deciding whether it was necessary to designate an area still be the council?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Yes, obviously they would—I am sorry that it seems to have taken my hon. Friend quite a long time to drill out the answer he was looking for from this particular stone—because the council will be the one determining the matter. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is going to make reference in his own contribution to the circularity of the argument, but I understand the point he is getting at. I think the way to put it is to say “I surrender”.

Looking at the amendments in the context of the revisions to the legislation envisaged by the Government, my own view is that it would be wrong for the House to accept amendment C9 as drafted. Amendment C9 is a lot better than the provisions that were in place before it. If it were simply an amendment to leave out clause 5, that would be fine, but to

“insert the following new Clause”

as set out in C9 risks the danger that the provisions, when enacted, will be totally at odds with legislation brought forward by the Government, whether it be legislation relating to the size of the trolleys or to the circumstances in which those trolleys can be used by pedlars, particularly because C9 seeks to amend the pedlars legislation at a time when the Government are saying that those Acts have to be repealed.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

On that very point, is my hon. Friend aware of any reason why such very specific measurements are included in their lordships’ amendment C9? I refer to where a width of 0.75 metres, a depth of 0.5 metres and a height of 1.25 metres are specified. It would have been far better to go with the Government’s originally suggested amendments and measurements of 1 metre and 2 metres.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is that when their lordships drew up these amendments in November 2011, the Government had not declared their hand. They did not do that until November 2012—and nobody can be blamed for not anticipating what the Government would say.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

I may be wrong, but could it possibly be that 0.88 metres is actually equivalent to a yard?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

If that is correct, I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I cannot understand why we do not use yards and feet rather than refer to 0.88 metres. We always say when we come to this place that we always learn something. That is certainly something I have learned today, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for it.

Let me reach a summation on these particular issues. I have seen some movement on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey, and I hope he will

ensure that we have time to listen to the Minister’s response, as it is very important for the Minister to send out some clear messages to pedlars, many of whom are very worried by the proposed changes to the legislation and are confused by the attitude of the Government, particularly towards amendment C9 when looked at alongside the Government’s consultation paper.

I fear that an atmosphere is developing in which the Bill’s promoters think, “Well, it has taken us so long, so rather than try to improve it further, we might as well try to drive it home as quickly as we can and curtail debate as much as possible”, which obviously has the effect of creating a reaction. We know that the House’s procedures have resulted in a considerable curtailing of the rights of Members to speak in some debates. Fortunately, in private business, we still have the right to try to insist on getting the promoters of Bills to listen to our arguments.

I think that that is what we are looking for on this occasion. We are asking the promoters to reflect on the arguments that we have presented, and to consider tabling their own amendments to the Lords amendments. One of the virtues of a debate organised in this way is that, in this instance, we have so far discussed and voted on only Lords amendments C3, C4 and C5, which means that the promoters still have an opportunity to table their own amendments to those on which we have not yet voted.

Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s full explanation of the position. As I understand it, the benefit of the procedure that we are using today will result, eventually, in a better Act of Parliament. By allowing the promoters to reflect on the arguments and then come up with amendments that may even improve on those tabled by my hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and me, we are likely to end up with a much better Bill. Would it not be great if the Government followed the example set by private business and dropped programme motions? Then this could happen week in, week out when we debated Government business.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I think that there is a strong case for asking the Procedure Committee to look into the possibility of applying the principles relating to private business to public business. What has happened today demonstrates the virtues of being able to engage in what might be described as an iterative process, during which we discuss the issues, and the promoters have a chance to reflect on the points that have been made—over weeks, months or years—and to respond to them accordingly.

I do not need to speak any longer on this group of amendments—[Hon. Members: “Shame!”] I know that—

Three hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings, the debate stood adjourned (Order, 22 January).

Debate to be resumed on Wednesday 6 February at Four o’clock.

Backbench Business — Education Committee Report (GCSE Reform)

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the publication of the Eighth Report of the Education Committee, From GCSEs to EBCs: The Government’s proposals for reform, HC 808.

It is a pleasure to participate in this relatively new way of presenting reports to Parliament.

I have in my hand a copy of the report “From GCSEs to EBCs: The Government’s proposals for reform”, which was published today. Decisions about reforming GCSEs and the way in which they are administered are some of the most important decisions that Ministers will make. Those decisions will have profound and far-reaching consequences that will affect the lives of many children for years to come, and they need to be considered carefully, as part of a coherent review of curriculum, assessment and school accountability for this stage of education.

The Education Committee was not reassured by the Secretary of State’s assertion that

“coherence comes at the end of the process.”

Coherence is achieved not by accident, but by design. No sensible reform of assessment can take place without clarity in regard to what is to be taught and how the qualifications will be used in the school accountability system.

The Education Committee believes that the Government have yet to prove their case that GCSEs in key academic subjects should necessarily be abolished and replaced by the new English baccalaureate certificates. We also fear that they are trying to do too much too quickly. We agree with them that improvements should be made to GCSEs and to the system in which they operate, in order to restore public confidence in our exams.

We welcome the changes that the Government are introducing, such as a return to end of course exams in most subjects and limits on the number of re-sits, but the Government must demonstrate that the GCSE brand is so discredited that it is beyond repair. Ministers want to introduce a new qualification and a step change in standards, and to alter the way in which exams are administered, all at the same time and to a tight timetable.

David Nuttall (Conservative, Bury North)

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important facets of any examination system is the trust that employers have in it?

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. The Government want to restore the currency of 16-year-olds’ qualifications, and restore confidence among employers and universities in the value of those qualifications. That is one of the Government’s aims and they are right to take that approach. Although I am not talking about the main, fundamental changes beneath the surface, it is interesting to note just how few people from the university sector or employers agree with the decision to abolish GCSEs in the core subjects. They worry about what

that says about the other subjects left behind—I am sure that my hon. Friend will be concerned about what it says about GCSE religious education. How can it be right that those subjects are seen as second tier compared with the reformed EBCs?

We saw last year, with GCSE English, the turbulence and disruption that can happen when changes are made to a high-stakes qualification. The Government are proposing change on a much greater scale and the risks are correspondingly higher. We are concerned that rushing through multiple fundamental changes could jeopardise the quality of the reforms and the stability of the wider exam system. The Committee has particular concerns about how well the Government’s proposals will serve lower-attaining pupils, who are often the most disadvantaged. It is unclear how raising the bar will automatically help those young people, and we call on the Government to rethink their plans for a statement of achievement, specifically for lower-attaining pupils, as it could be less useful to young people than a low-grade GCSE or alternative qualification. It must not be allowed to become a badge of failure. One of the Government’s stated priorities—rightly so—is to narrow the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students. We have not seen evidence to suggest that EBCs will do that any better than GCSEs already do.

The Committee agrees that changes are needed to the way exams are run. We concluded in our report last year that the current system leads to downward pressure on standards. All options for reform, including franchising subjects to exam boards, have benefits and drawbacks. Our concern is that the Government need to give proper consideration to the likely unintended consequences of franchising, as well as to the complexities of the tendering process. Today’s west coast main line news shows how easy it is for Governments to get that wrong, and the profound and expensive consequences that can arise.

Significant concerns about the Government’s proposals have been expressed by curriculum and assessment experts, including the chief regulator at Ofqual, and by employers and key figures in the arts world. The Secretary of State told us that

“if a red light flashes, we will take account of it.”

What we are saying to the Secretary of State today with our report is that we believe a red light is indeed flashing, and we call on the Government to take time for careful consideration, slow the pace of change and ensure that their reforms are built to last.

Kevin Brennan (Labour, Cardiff West)

I thank the Chair and the rest of the Committee for their report. Does he agree that the problem with the Secretary of State’s EBC proposals is that although there is a consensus that we need reform to exams at 16, this is the wrong reform, being done to the wrong timetable and being done the wrong way round, because we do not yet know what the curriculum is? As a former teacher and educator who went through this kind of change when GCSEs were introduced after O-levels, I cannot, for the life of me, see how this change can actually take place. Even if it does, I cannot see how it can last for long. Without proper piloting and proper consensus across the educational and political worlds, these major high-stake exam reforms just do not last, as we know from experience. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be better if the Secretary of State listened to what the Committee said,

scrapped this particular proposal and worked together across the piece for a lasting reform that will command a broad consensus and would be proofed against any future political changes?

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his invention and I certainly agree with his last point. Let us be clear that the Select Committee’s report does not say that the Government should necessarily scrap the reforms but that they should make the case for them. They need to prove that the GCSE brand is so fundamentally broken that it cannot be reformed. It seemed to us to be difficult to see what was so intrinsic to the GCSE in the core subjects that could not be repaired with the right approach.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to highlight the need for consensus. Some 650,000 children a year move through our education system and there are nearly 500,000 teachers in state schools. This is a mammoth enterprise and not something to which we can make quick changes. The repercussions will go on for a long time and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take it well if I chide his party by pointing out what happened with the diploma. Then, we had a Secretary of State who was determined to bring about change and who rightly identified the need to improve vocational education and qualifications in this country, but the assessment and exam experts said that he was going at an unrealistic pace, suggested that he slowed down and said that there was a risk that the tremendous legacy of transforming vocational education in this country could end up withering on the vine. That is exactly what happened. The children who took the diploma will have a certificate that employers will struggle to recognise in a few years’ time, vast amounts of public money were expended and those in the education system who marched to that tune and worked so hard to bring colleges and schools together to deliver the diploma have been left high and dry. We do not want to see that happen to these reforms, which are even more fundamental to the education system. We do not want the reforms brought in by this Secretary of State to go the way of the diploma.

We need only to look back to last year and the English GCSE furore. The judge in the judicial review has not yet pronounced, so I hesitate to talk too much about it, but many of the problems arose from the fact that the previous Government decided to change what was taught, how it was taught, who assessed it and how it was assessed all at once. That caused what happened in 2012 and whenever that many changes are made to a qualification, there is turbulence and volatility. That is why we saw so many schools with a history of doing well suddenly doing badly. The first EBCs will be taught

in 2015 if the Government proceed according to their current timetable, so the timing will be tight. This will be a much bigger reform than that of the English GCSE last year and the risks and downsides are great.

We are not saying that the Government have necessarily got it wrong and we agree broadly with their critique of the existing situation. We also agree about the need for more rigour, for reform and for world-class qualifications at 16 to be put in place. We are questioning whether these particular reforms and the abolition of GCSEs in the core subjects need necessarily go ahead. We remain to be convinced of that argument.

A major secondary issue, which is probably less likely to be picked up by the press but could prove phenomenally significant, is the move to franchising. In effect, that gives us an insight into why the timetable is so truncated. Awarding bodies have not seen the outcome of the revised curriculum and therefore do not know exactly what they are supposed to teach, but they are having to design the new qualifications now. They will thereby effectively control the curriculum, rather than schools and educators. The awarding bodies are designing the qualifications now and the timetable means that a winner will be chosen for each of the core subjects by this summer. The Secretary of State will pick a winner who will stay in place for five years. What happens at the end of that time? It brings up a lot of questions.

If everybody who has expertise in assessment in English works for one board and if quite a lot of people retire because they are not prepared to move, meaning that we lose expertise, will there be genuine competition at the end of that five years? Or will we simply have created a monopoly in certain subjects for certain awarding bodies? What about flexibility during that time? What if changes need to be introduced? Will the spec that the Secretary of State chooses this summer have to be fixed in place for five years? We do not really know the detail—there is an awful lot that we do not know—and it important that we get this right.

I want this evangelising, driven, passionate and committed Secretary of State to be remembered as a tremendous, successful and reforming Secretary of State—there is every chance of that—but if he makes errors with the examinations that sit at the centre of our system, he will be remembered not in that way, but as having presided over something that did not work out. I do not want that to be the Secretary of State’s legacy and I certainly do not want it to be legacy of this Government, but I know that Education Ministers are champions who will want to ensure that we get this right, as will the Secretary of State himself.

Question put and agreed to.

Select Committee Effectiveness, Resources and Powers

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the report of the Liaison Committee on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers, Second Report of Session 2012-13, HC 697, and the responses to it, Third Report of Session 2012-13, HC 911; welcomes the positive impact of the Wright reforms, particularly the election of committee chairs and members, on the effectiveness and authority of select committees; endorses the Committee’s recommendations for committee best practice and the revised core tasks for departmental select committees; looks forward to agreement on procedures for committee statements on the floor of the House and arrangements for debates on committee reports; agrees that co-operation from Government is crucial to effective scrutiny; and supports the Committee’s call for a new relationship between Parliament and Government, which recognises the public interest in greater accountability.

It is a pleasure to move the motion, which stands in my name and that of many Committee Chairs. It is fortuitous—it is about the only bit of good luck we have had this afternoon—that this debate follows a statement by a Committee Chair about a report that his Committee has produced. That relatively recent innovation tends to work rather better when the statement is made closer to the ministerial statements of the day, but it is welcome and something that we simply did not have in previous Parliaments.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee, the Chair of which is in the Chamber, for allowing the debate to be held. The motion is based on a report that the Liaison Committee produced in November and the responses to it from the Government and the House authorities, which we have published.

There are various aspects of the role of Parliament: we make laws; we create and oppose Governments, with this House being the forum in which the political contest between parties takes place; and we raise the grievances of our constituents as individuals or communities. However, there is a fourth function, which was sometimes neglected in earlier years: holding all Governments and the public service to account on how public money is spent, the effectiveness of administration and the development of policy.

Over the years, the Select Committee system has developed as the main means of addressing that fourth objective. The creation of a comprehensive structure of departmental Committees moved the process a long way forward at the time of the late Norman St John-Stevas. The previous Parliament left us a valuable legacy of further strengthening with the report of the Wright Committee which, in particular, put in place the election of Select Committee Chairs by the House as a whole, as well as the election of Committee members within parties. That has given Committees a new authority and mandate, and the influx of new Members, as well as the return of several experienced and senior Members to Select Committee work, has built on that authority.

Many new and more senior Members find their involvement in Select Committees just about the most rewarding part of their work in Parliament. They spend many a Wednesday listening to, or attempting to take part in, Prime Minister’s questions and they troop through

the Lobby to support their party’s view in particular votes, but they can really get their teeth into things through the Select Committee process, in which they have the opportunity to question and challenge how things are being done, and to influence the shape of things in the future.

Our Committees have very small teams of staff, but the quality of their work and the way in which they cope with the demanding timetables of the Committee process are essential elements of Committees’ success. Our staff include people drawn from the Clerks Department of the House. Some appointments are made from outside, and we have indicated that there are circumstances in which it might be appropriate for such appointments to be made not only at the more specialist levels but even for the Clerk of a Committee. The Scrutiny Unit is a valuable resource for Select Committees, and we also draw on the Library—indirectly and directly, as Library staff are seconded to Select Committee service—and the National Audit Office, which I have found ready to co-operate not only with the Public Accounts Committee, as it does primarily, but with individual Committees when its expertise is valuable to their work.

Select Committees have proved to be one of the most effective ways of promoting public engagement with the House of Commons. We are always being urged to increase public engagement, and if we look at the wide range of people waiting on the Committee corridors in this building and Portcullis House to give evidence to Committees or to listen to their proceedings, and then think of all the people who watch the sittings at home on the Parliament channel or through the web system, we realise that Committees probably engage many more people than much else that goes on in the Commons. People are engaged because they are closely interested in the Committees’ work.

Today the Hansard Society published some survey results which showed a 9% increase in the past year in the public belief that Parliament holds Government to account. The survey showed that figure rising to 47%, which is just short of half, but it is a nine percentage point increase on the same question the previous year.

Select Committee inquiries have had a very high public profile. Most striking was the global coverage achieved by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into News International and phone hacking, but others, too, have attracted a high level of interest. The Science and Technology Committee’s report on the Government’s alcohol guidelines stimulated widespread discussion about safe drinking limits. The Treasury Committee’s work on retail banking has attracted close interest not only in the financial world but among the wider public, and the Banking Commission, which is now conducting its inquiries, is a partner of the Treasury Committee—a Joint Committee drawn partly from the Treasury Committee and led by its Chairman. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s current inquiry into the UK’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is attracting international interest.

Some Committees are less often in the national media but have a very high profile in the professional press and the stakeholder community. The International Development Committee is one example. Another is the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, whose Chairman is at a funeral today, or she would have been here pointing to much of the work that it does. There are many

examples of the work of my own Committee, the Justice Committee, changing the way things are done. As a direct result of a report that we produced, new guidelines have been introduced by the Director of Public Prosecutions on charging on a joint enterprise basis, which had proved to be quite a difficult and controversial issue. I had a letter only the other day from a Minister setting out precisely how the Government would implement the Committee’s recommendations—not challenging them, but setting out how the Government was going to implement them. That is a record of which Select Committees can be proud.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have so far barely scratched the surface of using social media to engage people with the workings of Parliament? The Select Committees are particularly well placed to do that, and he will know that before a session with the Secretary of State for Education, the Select Committee went on Twitter with #askGove to ask people to come up with questions. We were inundated—there were more than 5,000 tweets. We sorted through them, grouped them by theme and went through them with the Secretary of State who, in typical style, was able to give rapid-fire answers and people felt they were genuinely able to engage with Parliament through the Select Committee and hold the powerful to account.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. My own Committee has held online consultations with people in the public service who cannot come out openly to express their views, but whose views are important to us. We did an online consultation with prison officers which gave us a much better understanding of their working environment and problems. We did the same with probation officers. We had difficulty with the Ministry of Justice when we tried to do the same with court staff who were affected by the court interpretation and translation service changes, on which we will report in a few days. We were rather surprised to find the Department much less co-operative in that instance than it had been on previous occasions.

The social media are extremely important to the work of Select Committees, as are Parliament’s website facilities. The web and intranet service is working on some new designs for Select Committee homepages that will allow for more individual branding, giving Committees more control over the appearance of their online presence and greater flexibility in respect of what individual Committees can promote on their homepage. We would like to see this implemented as soon as possible. I do not claim to be the House’s expert on social media—I am the last person to make such a claim—but they clearly offer tremendous opportunities for engaging with the people who are affected by what is agreed and passed in the House. That is one of the things at the forefront of Committees’ work.

Our report honestly assesses where Select Committees can do better. It makes a range of best practice recommendations. We encourage Committees to be forward-looking in their scrutiny of departmental performance, not confining themselves to raking over the coals of past events unless there are important lessons to be learned from them. We urge Committees to give more attention to the financial implications of

departmental policy and how Departments assess the effectiveness of their spending. We encourage them to experiment with different approaches to evidence taking; to broaden the range of witnesses and make more use of commissioned research; to produce shorter reports, making it clear which are the most important recommendations and who is supposed to be carrying them out; to follow up recommendations to ensure that reports have impact; and to report to the House at least once each Session on what their Committee has been doing.

Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said, Committees need to be more effective at communicating. That involves the social media, but it also involves traditional print and broadcast media. We get a lot of coverage and a lot of interest from the broadcasters. Occasionally they annoy us by failing to distinguish between Select Committees of this House, elected by the House, and all-party groups, which have a role and a usefulness but are not the same thing. A Select Committee of this House is a Committee of people who have a degree of expertise developed over a period but are not united by a common cause in their membership of the Committee, as is so often the case with an all-party group. There is a big difference between the nature of a report produced by a Select Committee and one produced by an all-party group. The use of the term “a group of MPs” to describe either body, which we find in the broadcasts even of the BBC, is something we deplore.

The motion before the House invites us to endorse these best practice recommendations. They are not a straitjacket; it is for each Committee to determine its own priorities in how it goes about its business. However, Committees have core tasks, and we hope that they will see the good sense of the recommendations that we are making; indeed, many are already doing so.

One of the areas where we want to develop the work of Committees is in our scrutiny of policy development at the European level. We have had a lot of discussions about this with the European Scrutiny Committee and with the Minister for Europe. Far too often, this House is confronted with draft European legislation long after the important decisions and negotiations have taken place. Committees can much more usefully engage at the early stages, as long as they can be clear which work programme issues of the Commission are attracting real interest and are likely to get somewhere; otherwise they can get submerged in a vast amount of material that is not really going anywhere.

Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that another way to ensure that we scrutinise much better what is happening in Europe is to have better liaison relationships with Chairs of Committees in other national Parliaments? That will help us to understand what is happening in those countries and develop these relationships even further.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Yes, I agree. I have tried to do that, as has the right hon. Gentleman, conspicuously so, in the home affairs field. We should also communicate more effectively with British Members of the European Parliament so that they are aware when Committees have done some work on a subject and do not go blind into discussions completely unaware that this Parliament has already examined that subject in detail and expressed

views on it. We have also been arguing for some time that we want the very good assistance that we get from UK representatives in Brussels and their staff to be used on a more active and less passive basis so that Committees are alerted when issues that they could usefully consider are coming up, such as those that may be of concern to the Government or are likely to excite controversy.

We talk about the powers and privileges of Committees. Sometimes an impression is given in public discussion that Committees are lacking the powers to do their job. By and large, I do not believe that to be the case. There are improvements that we could make, and the report deals with some of them. There are also some things that it is rather difficult to do—for example, in relation to privilege and the compelling of witnesses. The Liaison Committee is not convinced that statute is necessarily the right way to go, but the issue is shortly to be examined in a Joint Committee.

John Whittingdale (Conservative, Maldon)

My right hon. Friend will be aware that my Committee—the Culture, Media and Sport Committee—has perhaps tested the boundaries of Select Committee powers more than most. The situation seems unsatisfactory in two areas. First, when we served warrants on Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks to appear before the Committee, it was not at all clear what the consequences would be had they failed to respond to that summons. Secondly, when we reported to this House that we believed we had been lied to by people who had given evidence to the Committee, it was, and remains, extremely unclear what the consequences of that are.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

That is certainly true and I think it is one of the issues that will have to be examined by the Joint Committee, which is about to embark on this work. The problems are difficult to solve and affect only a few inquiries. They certainly affected the work of my hon. Friend’s Committee, which was notably successful in getting some potentially unwilling witnesses to appear before it. I congratulate him on what the Committee achieved.

It should be stressed that, for the vast majority of the time, Committees deal with willing witnesses who are very happy to come and be examined by us, even if, sometimes, they are critically examined. Most of the time, we are gaining information from willing witnesses. I will come in a moment to what happens when we deal with Government. So far as all other bodies and persons are concerned, the instances in which a draconian power might be required are very few. My hon. Friend is right that such powers as the House has in this area are not very easy to use, and we will have to further consider that issue.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

What was the Liaison Committee’s thinking behind paragraph 133 of the report? It states that the Committee was

“persuaded that the disadvantages of enshrining parliamentary privilege in statute would outweigh the benefits”,

but that conclusion was reached ahead of all the work that is being done. It seems to pre-empt a lot of work that is ongoing.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

It was an honest statement of the view of Committee members that the possibility of the activities of the House being questioned in the courts as a consequence of the exercise of powers would be more damaging to the House than the current situation. Were the Joint Committee to come to a different conclusion after careful examination, we would, obviously, look at the issue again, but it was an honest statement of the Liaison Committee’s opinion at the time. My opinion has not changed so far, but I am clear that the matter will have to be looked at very carefully indeed.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I must back my right hon. Friend and say how much I agree with him. I was one of those on the Liaison Committee who felt that very strongly. We have had people who were not keen to appear before the Education Committee, but they were told that they were expected to turn up, that it would be seen as a failure on their part not to do so and that powers could be exercised against them if they did not do so. They came. That is the test. If we move to something more legalistic, people will hire lawyers to find out exactly how many days’ delay they can use, based on precedent, so that they can put it off as long as they can and, in effect, thwart the will of Parliament, which is for them to appear. Whatever the current situation’s shortcomings, in my opinion, subject to what the Joint Committee finds out, it is the right one: it works for Parliament and does so in a speedy and effective way.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

My hon. Friend puts the point extremely well.

The appearances of members of the Government and civil service officials are governed by the Osmotherly rules. The Committee is stringent about those rules in paragraph 113:

“We do not accept that the Osmotherly rules should have any bearing on whom a select committee should choose to summon as a witness. The Osmotherly rules are merely internal for Government. They have never been accepted by Parliament. Where the inquiry relates to departmental delivery rather than ministerial decision-making, it is vital that committees should be able to question the responsible official directly—even if they have moved on to another job. It does of course remain the case that an official can decline to answer for matters of policy, on the basis that it is for the minister to answer for the policy, but officials owe a direct obligation to Parliament to report on matters of fact and implementation. This does not alter the doctrine of ministerial accountability in any way. Ministers should never require an official to withhold information from a select committee. It cannot be a breach of the principle of ministerial responsibility for an official to give a truthful answer to a select committee question.”

Joan Walley (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North)

I welcome the opportunity to debate this report briefly. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is not just about officials appearing before Committees? The Environmental Audit Committee had hoped that the Deputy Prime Minister could meet our long-standing request for him to appear before us and report back on his work on the Rio+20 agenda, but it was impossible for him to do so in his capacity as the Deputy Prime Minister. We have, therefore, had to arrange for him to appear before the Liaison Committee. That throws up the problem of a lack of accountability not just from officials, but from Ministers as well.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

The hon. Lady raises an—

Lindsay Hoyle (Labour, Chorley)

Order. May I just remind the right hon. Gentleman that we said that speeches should last between 10 and 15 minutes? He has now had 19 minutes, and other Members wish to speak. We also do not have as much time as usual.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will bear it in mind that several hon. Members, having looked at the clock, have decided to get their point across by intervening on me.

I should like to answer the hon. Lady’s question. She makes an important point. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have both taken the view that once they started going to Select Committees, they would end up being asked to go to all of them. Our response to both of them was that if that was their position, we would bring them to the Liaison Committee so that they could be questioned on matters in which they had played an important part.

I referred to the Osmotherly rules at some length because they are an important point of contention between the Committee and Ministers. We deal more fully with that in our report. We are saying to the Government that they need to engage with us on the way in which the Government relate to Parliament, rather than simply talking about consulting us on revising the rules.

The world has changed significantly. The election of Committees, and the way in which Members now see them as the main means of holding the Government to account, means that the Government must recognise that things are clearly different. Many Departments co-operate very well with the Committees, and quite a few Ministers find it helpful to have Committees looking at issues over which they—the Ministers—are involved in internal battles, either within their Department or with the Government. Many a Minister has had cause to thank a Select Committee for its support on such issues. There must be a recognition right across Government that Select Committees have a role to play in one of the most important functions of Parliament. There must be a clear understanding that Select Committees are entitled to information and that they should have the full co-operation of the Government.

Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East)

It is a real pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). He covered so much ground with his description of how the Select Committees began that I am tempted just to say, “I agree” and sit down. But this would not be Parliament without everyone adding a little extra to what he has said.

I should like to acknowledge the presence in the Chamber of many of the Select Committee Chairs. This could almost be the Liaison Committee meeting for the first time in the Chamber of the House of Commons. The Chairmen of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Environmental Audit Committee, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the Education Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee are all here this afternoon, as is my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

I would not want this debate to consist only of us talking about ourselves and about how well we have all done. The reason that we are in this place, and the reason that so much has changed in the past five years, is that Parliament has changed. The occupant of the Chair, in the person of Mr Speaker, has decided that the procedures of Parliament should make the Government much more accountable than I can remember them being in all the 25 years I have been in the House. I know that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has been here even longer than that. The fact that Mr Speaker has decided to use those processes to a much greater extent than they have ever been used before, and the fact that we have put in place the right reforms and that those on both Front Benches decided to implement them, mean that the Select Committee system is almost there, as far as scrutiny of the Government is concerned. I say “almost there” because, although the Chairman of the Liaison Committee rightly mentioned all the positive aspects of the system, there are a couple of things that I think could make it even better.

I also want to pay tribute to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in the persona of the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), for going where no Committee, or Committee Chair, has dared to go before. He rightly mentioned phone hacking and the Rupert Murdoch affair, because those events represented a line in the sand for the powers of Select Committees. I can tell him that frequently when witnesses refuse to appear before the Home Affairs Committee, I do not have to come here and seek an order; all I have to do is remind them of what happened to Mr Rupert Murdoch when he decided he would not appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee—which conducted a very good inquiry, of course.

In a sense, however, we are making these rules up as we go along. As has been said, we do not know what powers we have at our disposal if somebody refuses to appear before a Committee. When witnesses say they are sick, I now ask for a sick note sent via a doctor with initials after their name, so I can be certain that that is why the witness cannot attend. We must clarify what these powers are. In one sense, I am reluctant to do so because it is always useful to have the mystique of Parliament—to have the fear of the unknown, so that people do not know what will happen. In that respect, therefore, it is better not to write things down, but to keep them vague and use that as a way to cajole people to appear. At some stage, somebody will refuse to attend and will not answer to a warrant, however, and that is when we will have to decide how to proceed.

I want to pay tribute to my Committee secretariat staff: Tom Healey, Richard Benwell, Elizabeth Flood and all the other staff who work extremely hard. The Chair of the Liaison Committee said that we had good staff, but he did not point out that we do not have sufficient resources. We need more resources if we are to be able to do our job effectively.

We need to put a stop to the practice of Clerks being moved around too regularly, and often just when they are about to really get into their job. In the past they have moved rather too swiftly. One of my former Clerks has ended up clerking three Committees and is currently clerking the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. She is so good that, like Ronaldo, she gets passed on to all the big teams. We should allow Committee staff to

develop their specialisms. I am grateful to the powers that be for the fact that over the past year my Clerks have not changed, and I hope very much that we can stick to the unwritten rule that we have them for the whole of the Parliament, as that enables them to develop fields of expertise.

We look across the Atlantic in awe at the number of staff the chairs of congressional and senate committees have. Only a few months ago, I was in Washington and I met the chair of the homeland security committee, the equivalent of our Home Affairs Committee. I was told he had a staff of 32 and that was just for the majority side in Congress. I am not suggesting for one moment that we should increase the staffing of the HAC from nine to 32, because I know I would never get away with that. If we are to do our job, however, we need staff with expertise.

We also need to make sure our Committee staff are, indeed, Committee staff; far too often, they have to go off and do other House duties because that is part of the deal. I want them to be able to concentrate fully on the work we do.

Despite that little whinge, the HAC has thus far in this Session produced 11 reports, seen 118 witnesses in 49 sittings, and addressed 20 subjects. The House may therefore think that nine staff members is sufficient, and that the HAC should not be given any more staff as that would only mean we would go on for even longer. We are able to do so much work, however, only because of the expertise of the people who work for us.

The HAC has tried to travel around the country, although we do not do so often enough. We should engage with the public by getting them to come here, although they are very willing to do so because of the new regime that now runs the visitors’ facilities. We should also use social media, as the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said that he did in the Education Committee. We stole his idea and used it the last time the Home Secretary appeared before the HAC.

Not all of the questions that were suggested by members of the public were constructive, but it is always nice to hear their thoughts not just about the Home Secretary, but about members of the Home Affairs Committee. That is all about public engagement, and I am willing to try anything new.

I welcome what has been done by the House authorities to change the websites over the past few years. We should embrace the new technology and develop it in the best way that we can.

Another way in which we could help the public to understand the distinctive contribution that Select Committees make would be to end the great ballot to find out in which room Select Committees will sit on any given day. In America, Select Committees have confirmed office space and rooms. Under that system, one would know that the Home Affairs Committee would always sit in Committee Room 19. I know that there is a problem in that the broadcasters choose which is the best session to cover.

I think that the House’s facilities should be used more imaginatively so that not only do we have a degree of permanence in where we sit, but Select Committee

Chairs are close to their staff. I have an office in Norman Shaw North, but my Select Committee staff are in Millbank. I do not know about other Select Committee Chairs, but I would think that at least 60% to 70% of my work in this House is Select Committee related. It is not difficult to ring up Select Committee staff, but it would be much more helpful if they were in close proximity to the Chairs of their Committees.

We have reached a stage that some of us would not have thought possible even a few years ago. However, it is not enough to stand still. We need to move forward, because I still believe that the most effective way to scrutinise the operation of any Government is not at the Dispatch Box, where Members have the opportunity to ask just one question, apart from the Leader of the Opposition who gets several bites of the cherry, but in a Select Committee system, where one can probe, ask and sometimes even argue. At the end of the day, I believe that that sort of scrutiny gets a better result.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Order. Three Members want to take part in this debate. We also need to get both Front Benchers in and leave a couple of minutes at the end for Sir Alan to wind up. I therefore ask Members to be mindful of the length of their contributions.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I will try to be mindful of your suggestion, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has allocated time for us to debate the report of the Liaison Committee following the 2010 Wright reforms. It is fair to say that Select Committees are stronger and have more influence on Government than ever before. This is the first Parliament in which the members of Select Committees have been voted for in secret ballots by their own parties, and in which the Chairs of Select Committees have been elected by the whole House. That has given additional independence to Select Committees. It is no wonder that there are grimaces from the faces of Government Whips, and it is right that there should be. If there are not grimaces on the faces of Government Whips, we do not have a strong and assertive enough legislature. We do have an assertive legislature, but we can go further.

In the Leader of the House, we have such a fine parliamentarian, such a tremendous Minister and a man of such self-confidence, personality and breadth of philosophy that he will not think that he can hold the line and make no concessions. He understands the need for the whole House to improve the way in which it holds the Government to account and to recognise the powerful role that Select Committees play.

Select Committees not only have a role in scrutiny; they inform the character of this place. In this Chamber, we sit opposite each other and make tribal noises. I like making tribal, partisan noises as much the next man— in fact, probably rather more than most—but Select Committees bring us together and form us in teams across party lines. They build deep friendships and relationships. They help us to understand where other people are coming from. That has a civilising impact on

the way in which this place works, which I hope permeates through to the way in which we make law. It makes Ministers more confident about conceding ground at times, and means we are more effective in representing the overall interests of the people who send us to this place. If it does that, a Select Committee is a very fine thing indeed.

Mindful of what you have said, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will drop the rest of my remarks because we have already touched on many good points. I will simply say that Select Committees are stronger now than they were in the past and a positive influence on Parliament. They are an excellent check on the Executive, and I know that the Leader of the House and Ministers will listen to calls from the Liaison Committee to strengthen those powers going forward.

Hywel Francis (Labour, Aberavon)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chair of the Liaison Committee. I apologise for missing the first minute or so of the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent and cogent contribution. I was speaking in Westminster Hall on a matter of great interest and concern to him: the Welsh language and the Welsh language channel.

I welcome the report and wish to identify three recommendations that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has already begun to implement to the benefit, I hope, of both Houses. The first concerns best practice and a recommendation on away-days. We have implemented that recommendation in order to discuss which inquiries we should choose and review our work. In doing so, we have engaged with civil society and outside organisations, and it has been a worthwhile exercise.

Secondly, there was a recommendation on leading questioners. Our Committee may be a little unusual, because its members comes from two Houses and have a wide range of experience. Decisions on certain inquiries are often led by the recommendation of a particular member. For example, the inquiry on independent living came from a strong proposal from an eminent and experienced member at the time—Baroness Campbell of Surbiton. Although it was implicit, we all recognised that she was the expert, and she basically led that inquiry. Equally, the Committee’s well-known inquiry on extradition was proposed by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), and for most of the time we deferred to him. I was delighted that both inquiries resulted in unanimous reports.

One intriguing recommendation that I warmly recognise and embrace concerns the importance of principles of diversity and of engaging as fully as possible with civil society and small but well-known groups at national level. For example, yesterday we met Praxis community projects. It has helped a small group, Better Futures, which related to our inquiry into young unaccompanied migrant children. I am certain that the inquiry and report will benefit enormously from the first-hand experiences—often very traumatic experiences—that we heard about from those young unaccompanied migrant children, some of whom were from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.

On principles of diversity, we are all familiar with the fact that Chairs of Select Committees are invited to conferences, and whether it is a large international conference or a small one, I always benefit from it. I am sure the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) will recall the conference that we both attended and addressed last year on 18 April here in Westminster on Parliaments and human rights. It marked the end of the UK’s chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. It was a sobering experience to have such a wide range of voices and experiences from this country and throughout the world looking specifically at the work of my Committee, and it made me reflect on my work as a Chair and on the work of the Committee as a whole.

There have been other conferences, including one in November in Geneva on strengthening the role of parliamentarians in establishing human rights, which was organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth secretariat. Human rights are being struggled for, and people from some countries say, “We are freedom fighters and have fought to achieve what you have in your country.” It was sobering to hear them talking about their experiences and to reflect on the benefits of the Human Rights Act and the Joint Committee.

I recently had the privilege of speaking to the new commissioners on the Equality and Human Rights Commission. They scrutinised me and my Committee on our work, as we will do shortly when they come to meet us in the next few months.

On behalf of my Committee, I warmly welcome the report and look forward to implementing more and more of it. I look forward to Ministers doing the same. I am sure they will take the report seriously and ensure that officials see Committees as and when they are expected to do so. I endorse other Select Committee Chairs in thanking their Clerks—I thank my Clerks, Mike Hennessy and Mark Davies—and all their staff, for all their hard work. I look forward to them having more resources as a consequence of the implementation of the report.

Joan Walley (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North)

In the brief amount of time I have available to me I want to welcome the manner in which the Chairman of the Liaison Committee has introduced the report. We should do anything we can to get away from the widespread perception that Parliament is all about what happens at Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday at 12 o’clock—that is simply not the case. A great deal of detailed scrutiny work is done not just by the Liaison Committee and Committee Chairs, but by members of Select Committees. It is important that people out there who follow what Parliament does understand that MPs can make a difference in our day-to-day work in holding the Government to account. The report shows how we have taken that forward.

I would like the time to thank my Committee Clerks—the second Clerk has just become a proud father for the second time; I am sure he would like a mention in Hansard for that—but it is important in the short amount of time I have to concentrate on what will make a difference. Select Committees work not just to hold an inquiry, get a Government response and put

out a press release, but to follow up their detailed recommendations. We tenaciously follow up Select Committee recommendations so that we get Ministers to come to Parliament to respond. That is important.

Select Committee Chairs also have the opportunity to request that Committee reports are tagged. That shows that we are contributing to the work that goes on in government and holding the Government to account, which is important.

The Environmental Audit Committee is a cross-cutting Committee. Therefore, it is important that we have a working relationship with all Secretaries of State in their strategic work through the Cabinet and in their business plans. The Liaison Committee report sets out how we can take that forward.

I echo previous comments on resources, which is a big issue for my Committee. When the Government got rid of the Sustainable Development Commission, there was an in-built assumption that the Committee would take over that work. I want to leave the House with a plea. The resources available to my Committee in no way compensate for those that the Government took away and cut from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs budget and the budgets of other Departments.

My Committee was told that the National Audit Office was at our disposal, but the Government cannot dictate what the NAO does. I simply make the point that the NAO needs to look at its resources. Although we have one officer seconded to our Committee, and for whom we are grateful, that is nowhere near sufficient. We need to ensure that the NAO recognises that environmental and sustainability issues matter.

In an attempt to try to compensate for our current lack of resources, we have sought advice from other sources—something very much in keeping with the thrust of the Liaison Committee report. One of our specialist advisers, Professor Tim O’Riordan, has taken the lead in organising a network of academics with research interests in sustainability, pulling together researchers from many universities and think-tanks. I am pleased to say that the network convened at Keele university in north Staffordshire for the first time in October 2011 with members of the Committee. It is producing a database of sustainable development research to inform the Committee’s sustainable development-related inquiries, once they are under way. As we take the work of the Liaison Committee forward, I hope we are mindful of the way that others are contributing to the work of Parliament.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

I welcome the report from the Liaison Committee. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and all right hon. and hon. Members of his Committee on their work. We have heard from some of them this afternoon: my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), and my hon. Friends the Members for Aberavon (Dr Francis) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley). All do excellent work in their Select Committees to hold Government and other organisations to account.

As the report says, looking back over the last year of activity, Select Committees have done an important and successful job. The role of Select Committees has been continually evolving ever since their creation by Norman St John Stevas, who sadly passed away last year. The election of Chairs and of Committee members has strengthened the independence of Committees. It is two years since that was implemented following the recommendation of the Wright Report, and it has worked well.

As the report states, despite the many demands on Members’ time, attendance is high—approximately 75%—and very few Members have a low attendance rate. The Committee noted that there are often good reasons for low attendance, not least the need to be in several places at once—something Members know only too well. That rate reflects the importance the House attaches to the role of Committees, and, I suspect, the impact that membership of a Committee can have on job satisfaction.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She made reference to the difficulties that Committees face. Many Members are placed on Bill Committees and Statutory Instrument Committees, and many are lost to the increasing size of the Executive, including Parliamentary Private Secretaries, and the shadow Executive.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not know what the answer is, given that Members of Parliament often have ambitions to be in the shadow Government or the Government and like to get promoted. We have made progress in the past few years in setting up a career path for those who wish to specialise in Select Committees, particularly in the area of scrutiny.

The report rightly says that holding the Government to account is the main purpose of Committee work. However, our constituents expect more than that. Parliament is here to hold the powerful to account, as well as the Government. Major multinationals are one example of powerful organisations that our constituents expect us to hold to account.

In that context, I congratulate the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who is in his place, on their work. The PAC has exposed the shocking conduct of companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google in minimising the taxes they pay in this country. The work of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in its relentless pursuit and questioning of News International over phone hacking, often when the issue was ignored by many others, has already been commented on. I would like to add my congratulations to its members on playing such a major role in uncovering the scandal. It is only right that we use this debate to highlight the important work that our Select Committee system has done and to congratulate those involved on the work they do. The Liaison Committee’s report rightly praises the Transport Committee, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), for its inquiry into motor insurance, which brought to light a major scandal.

It is not only major companies, however, that Select Committees need to scrutinise. The Government’s programme of increasing the involvement of the private sector in public services and the breaking up of the health service means that lines of accountability are becoming more and more blurred. The House and Select Committees have the opportunity to scrutinise what these new organisations are up to with public money, and we have to ensure that the Select Committees maintain their ability to follow public money, even if that involves the accounts of private companies. That is an area to which we have to pay particular attention given some of the changes being made.

I agree with the Liaison Committee report that the primary function of Select Committees is to scrutinise the Government, but I do not want to minimise the important role they perform in holding others to account. We share the Committee’s disappointment that the Government have not published more Bills in draft. They only published 18 Bills in draft in the 2010-12 parliamentary Session. Pre-legislative scrutiny is beneficial to the legislative process and is an area where Committees made up of members with in-depth policy knowledge can add real value. Will the Leader of the House commit, therefore, to increasing the proportion of Bills that the Government publish in draft? Even when the Government have published bills in draft, however, they have allowed insufficient time in some cases for effective pre-legislative scrutiny.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Department for Education on conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of the special educational needs clauses of a forthcoming Bill. It was a tight timetable, but it gave us the chance to do the job. Ministers have been very open to meetings and to following up and taking onboard the advice of the Committee. It really can work.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

As someone who gave evidence before entering the House to what were then known as Special Standing Committees, which evolved into pre-legislative scrutiny Committees, I think it is important to highlight best practice and carry on evolving positively the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny.

The Energy Bill and the Civil Aviation Bill are cited in the Committee’s report as examples of where the Government have not allowed enough time for Select Committees to do their work. The Committee is also right to highlight the shambles of the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill: the Select Committee members reorganised their work to enable scrutiny of the Bill at very short notice, only for the Government to pull the Bill and re-introduce it this Session. In retrospect, Committee Members could have spent many hours scrutinising it without the time constraint, which turned out not to be a time constraint. I hope that the Leader of the House will take note of the need for better organisation.

We note the Liaison Committee’s suggestion that Commons Select Committees should have first choice on whether to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny, rather than it being a decision of the Government. A Joint Committee could make a valuable contribution, but it is this House that is democratically elected and, as the Liaison Committee rights says in its report, it would

make sense for a Committee of this House to consider whether a Bill should be referred to a Joint Committee. Will the Leader of the House comment on that suggestion?

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

There is a further strong argument, which is that once there is a Joint Committee, election will no longer be the process by which this House elects Committees. Instead, the Whips will perform the kind of function that they normally perform for Bill Committees, and that is not what we want.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

I note that that is precisely the point the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee members made in their report. By highlighting that section, I am agreeing with him.

It is also worth considering whether we should go one step further. At the moment, it is for the Government to decide whether to use pre-legislative scrutiny at all. The Government are currently rushing ill-thought-out welfare legislation through the House that will hit people in work on low incomes the hardest. This is a piece of legislation that would have benefited from pre-legislative scrutiny, particularly evidence sessions. That was not allowed to happen, so could the Leader of the House consider whether, allowing for the Government to legislate immediately when there is an obvious need, we could have a Committee of this House deciding whether a Bill should receive pre-legislative scrutiny? These are not suggestions on which I have a settled view, but I am interested in hearing the views of right hon. and hon. Members about possible changes in that direction.

The Liaison Committee is right to comment on the role of Select Committees in scrutinising ministerial appointments. As it says in its report, the Committee previously commented on this in its 2011 report, “Select Committees and Public Appointments”, which made recommendations for reforming the process. The Government’s response prompted a further report from the Liaison Committee last September, which highlighted the

“inadequacy of the Government’s response to our proposals”.

There has been no response from the Government to date, which is clearly unsatisfactory. This has been left hanging in the air for far too long, so will the Leader of the House say when the Government will be responding?

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

Governments tend to grow more and more grudging about ceding powers, whereas parties in opposition make free—they return to philosophical first principles and they tend to make promises. Let me push the hon. Lady on this point. What is the Labour party’s position on a few of these points? She should put it on the record. If there is ever a Labour Government in future, it may or may not be her that takes that position forward, but it would be useful to have on the record some promises that we can hold someone to account for in future.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

The hon. Gentleman is tempting me in all sorts of areas. I hope he realises from the tone of what I am saying that I am particularly interested in seeing what we can do to strengthen the role of the legislature in some of these areas. It is important to have a debate about the practicalities before we formulate an approach to this in the run-up to the next election. I am sure that he will be an avid reader of what comes out of that.

The Liaison Committee describes the main role of Select Committees as “influencing” Government. I understand the point the Committee is seeking to make. In outlining the role of Select Committees, the functions it describes are scrutinising and holding the Government to account. For me, however, the language of “scrutiny” is preferable to “influencing”. The measure of a Select Committee’s success should not be the sum total of its recommendations that the Government adopt. The core objectives of Select Committees, as first set out by the Modernisation Committee in 2002, have worked well, with an emphasis on their role in scrutinising the Government. However, the Liaison Committee was right to consider whether more streamlined objectives would be suitable. The proposed new guidance for Select Committees is sensible, although I note that it places a lot of weight on Select Committees in terms of their duties.

I agree with what the Liaison Committee says about how Select Committees can act as a public forum for ideas to be debated. I agree that this is an element of Select Committee work, but there are many routes for debates to take place in Parliament. It is not the primary purpose of Select Committee work to set off debates. I regret the fact that it has had to propose a compact between the Government and parliamentary Committees —again, a feature of the report we are debating—but sadly this appears necessary. The Government’s guidelines to Departments—the Osmotherly rules—state that

“departments should aim to respond to reports within two months”,

but as the Liaison Committee notes, responses frequently appear much later.

It says something about this Government that the Cabinet Office, which is supposed to be taking the lead on making government more efficient, took nine months to respond to the Liaison Committee’s report on “Select Committees and Public Appointments”, when we would have wanted it to lead a little more by example. When Government Departments finally get round to responding to Select Committee reports, the responses are often inadequate. In its evidence to the Liaison Committee, the Regulatory Policy Institute’s better government programme described the Government’s responses as “models of evasion”. Will the Leader of the House say something about what Ministers could do to respond to these criticisms from the Liaison Committee and perhaps to improve performance in the areas of timeliness and clarity of response?

There are many sensible recommendations in this report, and I do not intend to go through them all. I think that members of Select Committees will want to consider for themselves the many recommendations on how Committees can have a greater impact. I support the recommendation for Committees to experiment with different approaches, such as appointing rapporteurs to lead inquiries, commissioning external research and, perhaps more controversially, using special advisers to question witnesses on technical subjects. That can be seen in other Parliaments, and I certainly think that Committees could trial ideas in and around these areas.

I welcome the suggestion that Committees could make better use of the parliamentary website. Although, as right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned, this has improved, it is still difficult for members of the

public to navigate and its existence is poorly communicated. As we place more and more emphasis on the work of Committees, we should work harder to communicate their activities and ensure our constituents can readily access information about them. I welcome, too, the suggestion for substantive motions for debates on Committee reports. In its report, the Liaison Committee said that, subject to further discussion, it would explore ways to implement that.

On privilege, I note what the Committee has said. As it says in its report, a Joint Committee is considering this currently—or will be. I said earlier that there were occasions when a Joint Committee might bring benefits, and I look forward to the recommendations. I am not as certain as the Liaison Committee appears to be that there is no argument for changes in the area of privilege.

As I said at the start of my remarks, I welcome this report and many of its recommendations. Select Committees are an important part of the work of this House. I conclude by paying tribute to the work of all right hon. and hon. Members who serve on them and to the sterling work of House staff and all those who help make our Committee system effective.

Andrew Lansley (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire)

I join the shadow Leader of the House in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on securing this debate, and I thank our colleagues, the Chairs of a number of Select Committees, for attending and contributing to the debate. It is good to see them here.

I shall, of course, want to respond to the Liaison Committee. The House will recall and members of the Liaison Committee will be aware that I did so on behalf of the Government in my letter of 14 January, which was published on 24 January. I will not attempt to rehearse or reiterate all the points that were made there. One recommendation was specifically aimed at the Government, and I shall refer to it later, but there are other important issues in the report that I want to touch on.

The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) raised a number of other issues that were not necessarily the subject of the Liaison Committee’s report. I shall seek to respond to some of them, perhaps in next week’s business questions. It may be useful for me to recall precisely what proportion of Bills in this Session have been published in draft and subjected to scrutiny. I believe that the number would considerably exceed that in Parliaments under the previous Government.

The hon. Lady is quite right to say that we are looking for more pre-legislative scrutiny. I recently gave evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and specifically touched on the mechanisms available for formal scrutiny, public reading stages, and evidence taking in Select Committees and Public Bill Committees. I think we should be flexible rather than being rigid and adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. The hon. Lady is only too aware—as, I know, are other Members—of the exigencies of government, and the requirement for legislation sometimes to be introduced without all those mechanisms necessarily being appropriate or available.

The background to this debate is the fact that the House now has far more power to hold the Executive to account than it has had in the past. In the last Parliament, it would not have been possible for the Liaison Committee to table a substantive motion for debate unless the Government had agreed to it and allocated time for it to be debated. The establishment of the Backbench Business Committee—it is good to see its Chair, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), in her place—gave Back Benchers the power to table substantive motions. That is a significant departure from the Executive control of the agenda that we saw in the last Parliament, and one that is greatly to be welcomed.

The motion welcomes the positive impact of recent reforms, particularly the election of Committee Chairs and members, on the effectiveness and authority of Select Committees. I agree with that. I think that the changes we have seen during this Parliament are some of the most significant since the introduction of the departmental Select Committee system in 1979. I pay tribute not least to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young)—who is now the Patronage Secretary—for his work in implementing reforms in the House, and for much else besides.

The motion also deals with two specific issues to which I wish to refer, but before I do so, let me comment on the Liaison Committee’s observation that it considers the Government’s response to be positive in tone. I am glad of that: it was intended to be positive in tone, and I hope that our further discussions will be as well.

One of those two specific issues is the procedure for Committee report launches on the Floor of the House. I look forward, along with the Committee, to agreement being reached on a procedure that will help to provide a proper structure for Select Committee report launches. I should make it clear that our preference is that the choice of reports to be launched rest with the Backbench Business Committee, rather than with Mr Speaker, as was suggested by the Liaison Committee. That would be in line with the recommendations of the Procedure Committee’s report on the work of the Backbench Business Committee. I know from my own observation of the Backbench Business Committee’s work in just the last few months that it is extremely well placed to interpret and judge, on behalf of the House, the relative priorities that Members—but not necessarily the Government—would attach to opportunities for short debates on substantive motions relating to Select Committee reports.

Natascha Engel (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

One of the main issues involved in the launches of Select Committee reports is timing. As it is the Government who allocate time to the Backbench Business Committee, it is not always possible for Select Committee Chairs to launch their reports on the days that suit them best. It would be very helpful to us if the Leader of the House could commit himself to working more closely with the Backbench Business Committee to ensure that reports were launched on days that were convenient to the Chairs.

Andrew Lansley (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire)

I hope the hon. Lady knows that we are constantly willing and able, whenever possible, to accommodate the requests of the Backbench Business

Committee. This is the second time today she has asked me to extend to the Committee opportunities that are not often open even to heads of Departments who try to secure time for statements or debates on specific days. However, we will of course do all that we can.

That brings me to the second issue that I wanted to raise, that of substantive motions for debate in Westminster Hall. The Liaison Committee says that it is

“ready to explore whether the spirit of these proposals could be better approached in other ways”,

and I welcome that. I agree with the Committee that the 20 Thursday sittings allocated to it in Westminster Hall have not always been well attended. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed will know, the debate on the Justice Committee’s report on its post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act finished before its allotted time. I find that surprising, given the extent of the interest in the administration of the Freedom of Information Act.

When I thought about the matter in preparation for this debate, I wondered whether we should at least try to look for a practical way of solving the problem. Noticeably, the Thursday Westminster Hall debates chosen by the Backbench Business Committee are often well attended, and I suspect that that Committee would be willing and able to schedule more debates in Westminster Hall if that time was available. If the Liaison Committee were to think about working with the Backbench Business Committee, perhaps even giving up some of its allocation of time in Westminster Hall, and if Chairs of Select Committees were, in parallel, more frequent bidders to the Backbench Business Committee for debates on Select Committee business on a substantive motion in this Chamber, we might find a solution that benefits both the Backbench Business Committee and the Liaison Committee, and, especially, the House as a whole. Such an approach might allow precious debating time in Westminster Hall to be used and allow the particular characteristics of a substantive motion in this House to be used; things might be optimised both ways.

Natascha Engel (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

I wish briefly to put it on the record that the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee is a member of the Liaison Committee. That membership facilitates exactly that kind of negotiation between the Chairs of the Select Committees and the Backbench Business Committee to ensure that where it is best to debate and vote on a report on the Floor of the House, we can do that. We are talking about time available to Back Benchers, and we can decide between ourselves how best to allocate it. We work very closely together on this.

Andrew Lansley (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire)

I entirely understand that that is so, and I knew it to be the case. I would not wish the House to interpret what I am saying to mean that I want to interfere in any way in this matter. Having observed the situation, I simply think that there is an opportunity for that working together to take place. That flexibility is available and the two Committees might do that.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I entirely endorse what the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee has said; we get on very well, we are able to negotiate and it is quite easy. It would not be ideal to give the Backbench Business Committee the job of judging between reports of Select

Committees and then placing them in competition with debates that Back Benchers want because there is a big constituency interest. We must have a procedure that ensures that, either in Westminster Hall or in the House, some kind of priority can be attached to those matters where a Select Committee wishes to warn the House that something is going wrong in the system of government.

Andrew Lansley (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire)

My right hon. Friend makes a perfectly fair point, but I am happy to see that informal work proceed. I do not think that at this moment we are talking about any requirement for a formal change in the procedure of the House. We are simply talking about the exercise of flexibility, which need not be at my behest in any sense; it might entirely be to best meet the needs of the Members of this House, be it as members of Select Committees, as constituency Members or in pursuit of their particular interests.

The recommendation of the Liaison Committee to have substantive motions in Westminster Hall has the potential to impact significantly on the procedures in this House, including possibly by disrupting the business on the Floor to take votes following debates in Westminster Hall. The proposition was made on the basis that debates on e-petitions in Westminster Hall take place on substantive motions. Such debates, which are being conducted on a pilot basis, actually take place on a motion with the formula “That this House has considered”; such a motion is not meant to be amended or divided upon. Should that happen in reality, the potential effects on procedure would be significant, and they have not been tested or evaluated. Changes of the significance suggested deserve far greater consideration of the possible consequences, and it may be that the Procedure Committee could consider those in a more general review of the types of business suitable to be taken in Westminster Hall.

Only one recommendation is specifically aimed at the Government, and it relates to a review of the relationship between Government and Select Committees, with the aim of producing joint guidelines. The Liaison Committee report said:

“We believe that the Government has not yet recognised the changed mood in the House and the strength of our resolve to achieve change.”

I would say in response that the Government have been responsible for the most significant transfer of powers for decades and I believe we can rightly be pleased with what we have achieved together. I understand the mood among Select Committee Chairs and in the House as a whole. and I hope that the Liaison Committee will accept my assurance that all the comments in our response were offered constructively with the aim of securing reform where it is necessary or improves the current situation for Members and in the eyes of the public.

There is a growing public and parliamentary interest in the accountability not only of Ministers but of civil servants. The civil service reform plan, published in June 2012, contained a number of recommendations on that accountability. The Government believe that the existing model of ministerial accountability is well established and should continue to underpin the effective workings of government. We know that we can

sharpen that accountability for civil servants in a way that enables Select Committees to understand, invigilate and take views on the performance of Departments in relation to delivery, but I would not want that process to undermine the principle that Ministers are accountable for the policy and performance of their Departments.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed will know, the Government are reviewing the document known as the Osmotherly rules, which provides guidance for civil servants. As part of this review the Government will liaise with the Liaison Committee and the Constitution Committee in the other place. I look forward to the productive and constructive discussions between my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and representatives of the Liaison Committee. I recognise, of course, that plans are in place for former accounting officers to be held to account.

Before I finish, I entirely endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said about the description of Select Committees. They carry the authority of Parliament and are distinct from any other cross-party group or group of Members. I noted that the Education Committee was described this morning in the early bulletins as a “cross-party group of MPs” and the Transport Committee was called “a Committee of MPs”. Select Committees engage the authority of Parliament and I urge the media to recognise that as well as the distinctiveness of that authority.

I thoroughly commend the Liaison Committee’s recommendation to other Select Committees that the National Audit Office is available to support them in their scrutiny of the use of resources. Indeed, the NAO told the Public Accounts Commission that it supported that recommendation.

The work that has been done is a thorough and timely consideration of the work of Select Committees. In its follow-up report, the Liaison Committee emphasised the importance of focusing on impact rather than simply publishing reports and letting recommendations lie. That is clearly the right approach. Select Committees have greater authority and a responsibility to be the champions of good scrutiny. They have greater access to time and to debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall and we can continue to use those opportunities more effectively. On behalf of the Government, I look forward to working with the Liaison Committee and others to pursue the recommendations.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

This has been a short but worthwhile debate and I am grateful for the insights offered by my colleagues from the Home Affairs Committee, the Education Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Environmental Audit Committee as well as the shadow Leader of the House. They have all added something. I particularly appreciated the point made by the Chair of the Education Committee about how Committee work changes people’s perceptions of each other and significantly assists the work of Parliament.

I also welcome the Leader of the House’s clear assertion that the Government are ready to discuss in a co-operative way the revision of the Osmotherly rules. I hope that he will be personally present at the discussions with the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General

as it would be useful to have the Leader of the House closely and directly involved in carrying those things forward.

My final objective, after thanking all Members who have taken part in the debate, is to seek the support of the House in carrying the motion and asserting that we want to continue the effective reforms that followed on from the Wright Committee’s work, which have so enhanced the effectiveness of the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the report of the Liaison Committee on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers, Second Report of Session 2012-13, HC 697, and the responses to it, Third Report of Session 2012-13, HC 911; welcomes the positive impact of the Wright reforms, particularly the election of committee chairs and members, on the effectiveness and authority of select committees; endorses the Committee’s recommendations for committee best practice and the revised core tasks for departmental select committees; looks forward to agreement on procedures for committee statements on the floor of the House and arrangements for debates on committee reports; agrees that co-operation from Government is crucial to effective scrutiny; and supports the Committee’s call for a new relationship between Parliament and Government, which recognises the public interest in greater accountability.