Akash Paun (London, Constitution Unit): Tomorrow's debate on the Modernisation Committee's report, Revitalising the Chamber: The role of the backbench member (opens pdf), offers the Brown government a chance to demonstrate its reformist credentials and its commitment to strengthening the House of Commons. Indeed, in the government's response to the committee - which is after all chaired by a Cabinet minister - it indicated its support for several sensible, if minor, procedural changes to make debates and question times more topical among other things, while rejecting proposals that might have had a greater impact such as the resurrection of facilities for private members' motions.
However the fact that even uncontroversial and incremental reforms of this kind can only be made when government decides to allocate time for debate bolsters the central recommendation of the Constitution Unit's recent report The House Rules?, discussed on this website by Andrew Blick. In this publication, we called for a clear separation of government and non-government business, with a dedicated weekly slot of at least half a day to be set aside for ‘House Business' under the control of a new Backbench Business Committee. Time in this slot could be allocated to private members' bills and motions, consideration of committee reports and procedural reforms, or topical debates, leaving sufficient time for government legislation and other business. The present arrangements give almost exclusive control of the agenda to the government, leading to the anachronism that the Commons' ability to fulfil its central function as a check on the executive depends to a large extent on decisions taken by the executive.
The report makes a total of 60 recommendations for reform of the parliamentary timetable, of appointments processes to committees and other positions, and of the way that parliamentary procedure is determined. All are informed by a sense that the dominance of the ‘usual channels' undermines the principle of parliamentary autonomy and, as a result, is potentially damaging to the health of British democracy. No-one would expect the government wholeheartedly to sign up to this package; but with cross-party agreement that parliament should be strengthened, our report may at least help to push this debate forward.
