government by explanation: some ideas from the select committee corridor

8/7/2019 Government by Explanation: Some ideas from the select committee corridor

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Inside OUTA series of personal perspectiveson government e ectiveness

Government by ExplanationSome ideas from the select committee corridor

Andrew Tyrie MP

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INSIDE


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Foreword 3

ForewordSelect committees have come to play a central role in the UKs system o parliamentarydemocracy. Only in 1979 was the modern House o Commons committee system established,with dedicated cross-party committees scrutinising the work o each governmentdepartment. Since then, the capacity, status and e ectiveness o committees has increasedsteadily. Select committees today are as established a part o Westminster li e as PrimeMinisters Questions.

But as Andrew Tyrie sets out in this pamphlet we could and should move urther in enhancingthe in luence o select committees. Andrew Tyrie is well-placed to lead the discussion on thisagenda. He is a long-time campaigner or greater accountability o government to Parliament.And under his chairmanship, the Treasury Committee recently won an unprecedented veto

power over appointment to the independent O ice or Budget Responsibility.

In this important pamphlet, Andrew Tyrie sets out a broad vision or re orm o the selectcommittee system, guided by the insight that the key role o committees is to securegovernment by explanation, in which the executive is required to explain its proposals andjusti y its actions. He makes a number o signi icant and radical proposals, including stepsto enhance the role o the Liaison Committee, re orm to the method by which committeemembers are selected, and urther committee powers over key public appointments (in linewith the Institute or Governments recent Balancing Act report).

I am delighted that the Institute or Government is able to publish this document as part oour InsideOUT series. I hope that its publication will lead to a lively discussion about the roleo parliament, and serious consideration o the vision and the proposals contained within.

Andrew Adonis

Director, Institute or Government


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4 About the Author

About the AuthorAndrew Tyrie was elected Chairman o the House o Commons Treasury Select Committeein June 2010 and he has been Conservative Member o Parliament or Chichester since 1997.He has served on many Select and Standing Committees and as an opposition TreasurySpokesman. He has written extensively on economic and constitutional issues.

AcknowledgementsMany o the ideas in this paper derive rom conversations with Parliamentary colleagues andsta over the years. Its theme originated in a conversation with Andrew Adonis, Chairmano the Institute or Government, in which we tried to think o ways in which the quality oGovernment could be improved by strengthening Parliament. I would particularly like tothank Sir Alan Beith, John Benger, David Doig, Oonagh Gay, Dorian Gerhold, Roger Gough,Lucinda Maer, Zoe Oliver-Watts, Crispin Poyser, Peter Riddell, Robert Rogers, Eve Samson,Paul Seaward, and a good number o others who would pre er not to be named, or theirsuggestions. Akash Paun o the Institute or Government provided an enormous amounto research support, much o which is re lected in the Institute or Governments paper,Balancing Act: The right role for parliament in public appointments,published with this paper.Others at the Institute or Government who helped include Gareth Morgan and NadineSmith.


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Introduction 5

IntroductionThe question I will try to address here is a simple one: what level and type o Parliamentaryscrutiny maximises the e ectiveness o Government?

A very power ul Parliament, which exercised powers o li e and death over weak governments(on the model or example o the French Fourth Republic) would be a recipe or paralysis,particularly ill-suited to a time when strong executive leadership is needed to tackle our

iscal crisis. A supine Parliament which ailed to hold the executive properly in check wouldleave the way ree to abuse and corruption, the experience o numerous countries all overthe world.

Both lead to poor quality government. In theory, the executive requires the assent o

Parliament to govern. But it is embedded within Parliament and, in practice, it can dominateit. Party loyalty or occasionally, as now, coalition loyalty, provides the bedrock o supportor it.

Intra-party discourse on the Governments side is the primary restraint on un etteredGovernment action a neglected subject, o ten out o the public gaze, which here I willdo nothing to redress. Nor will I address the role that a second Chamber, re ormed andbolstered by democratic legitimacy, could start to play. And I will also sidestep the issue owhether electoral re orm or the Commons could help provide a better balance betweenthe executive and the legislature; on that Im a deep sceptic. In what ollows, when I re er to

Parliament, I am re erring to the elected House.


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6 What can be done by Parliament to improve the quality of Government?

What can be done by Parliamentto improve the quality ofGovernment?It has been said that democracy is government by explanation. I agree. The main rolethat Parliament must play, and play better, is that o orcing the Government to explain itsproposals and justi y its actions. This is largely what is meant by the overused term scrutiny.When done well, orcing the Government to explain can mean persuading it to think again.Much more important, the knowledge that Parliamentary scrutiny awaits can and shouldin luence policy ormation in Whitehall. For each public governmental re-think, there mayhave already been ive behind the scenes, triggered or in luenced by the instruments oParliamentary scrutiny, even be ore they are deployed.

Better quality explanations, and the knowledge that they will be tested in Parliament, shouldthere ore provide better quality Government. We are some way rom this constitutionalidyll, as recent U-turns on Government proposals testi y. I we are to secure government byexplanation, there is no blueprint that can be derived rom irst principles, nor simply copied

rom elsewhere. We need to start with what we have and build on the re orms o the lastthree decades, in particular the role o select committees, which will provide the main ocuso my remarks. A ter describing recent developments, I will conclude by setting out someproposals or urther re orm.


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Where do we stand at present? 7

Where do we stand at present?A year ago as I was speaking in the House a moth came out o the green upholstery andsettled momentarily on my notes be ore moving on to the lapel o a colleague. An hour laterwhile enjoying a piece o cake in the tea room, I noticed mice running between the eet ocolleagues. I was assured that they are ed by hand by one o the Tory whips. In the car parkjust be ore Christmas I spotted a rat o the urry type no doubt sheltering rom the coldweather.

It is hard not to see here metaphors or a decaying parliamentary democracy, and therehave been times that Parliaments decline has indeed seemed to be beyond parody. Some owhat I am about to say will be critical o Parliament. But, be ore going overboard, it is worthpointing out some o the strengths o British democracy.

We are ortunate to live in a highly sophisticated democratic culture a culture which runsdeep in the bones o our country and society. All across my constituency, re lecting other partso the country, one can ind small organisations and voluntary associations going about theirbusiness within a ramework o understandings, written constitutions, committee meetingsand minutes. This is the world o grass-roots involvement that de Tocqueville described inDemocracy in America.

One should be wary o the notion that such civic virtue blooms exclusively in Anglo-Saxongardens, but voluntary association remains an important measure o our political health.

Furthermore, or all the criticism o it, Parliament still orms and provides legitimacy orGovernments and their decisions, it still authorises taxation and spending, and it stillcontributes to orcing the Government to explain its actions to the electorate, directly in theChamber and committees and indirectly through MPs, acting as the link between Parliamentand their constituents. And while our Parliament may be de ective, many other countrieslegislatures are scarcely paragons.

The idea that we have declined rom a golden age is absurdly overdone. Nonetheless, thereis general agreement that Parliament does less well than it should. I concluded soon a terbeing elected to the House in 1997 that the executive was overmighty and that somethingneeded to be done about it. That is why, over a decade ago, I wroteMr Blairs Poodle,anexplanation o the scope and limits o executive ascendancy and how to reverse it. In asubsequent companion volume, Mr Blairs Poodle Goes To War,I sought to illustrate theextent to which, a ter the Iraq War, Parliament and its committees were thwarted by theexecutive in their attempts to establish what really happened in the months prior to war.

Pressure rom the media and the public to get to the truth, rather than rom Parliament, wascrucial in securing a series o extra-Parliamentary inquiries: Hutton, Butler, and now Chilcot.I Parliament had got urther with its own investigations some o those might not have beenneeded. That they were set up partly, perhaps mainly, as a result o outside pressure alsotesti ies to the weakness o Parliament.


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8 Where do we stand at present?

A super icial reading o those events might lead one to conclude that, when it comes toscrutiny o the executive, Parliaments loss was the executives gain, and that we werewitnessing a constitutional zero sum game. Much constitutional theory appears to lendweight to this argument, with its language o balance and the separation o powers, but it is

undamentally mistaken.

The executives ability to end o Parliament on so many issues has led to a loss o publiccon idence in political leadership, including government leadership. This is because theerosion o trust has weakened our political system as a whole. Di icult as it was to persuadethe public to take on trust the need or war in 2003, how much more di icult would it be ora Prime Minister to persuade the public to rely on similar assurances in 2011? Any dilution otrust, and the consent which lows rom it, weakens our democracy and to the extent thatit circumscribes the scope or necessary executive action in uture it may make Britain lesssecure.

Iraq was only one staging post, albeit an important one, in a gradual erosion o respect orour institutions which has come over many decades. This was already gathering pace longbe ore the Blair administration came to o ice: we have only to think o the circumstances inwhich Lord Nolans Committee was established to con irm this. Nonetheless, i Parliamenthad got to the truth over Iraq, the crisis o trust would surely be less deep now. A lesstrusted executive and one less capable o persuading the public o its strategy is only oneconsequence o the executives ascendancy over Parliament.

There are many others:

ill thought-out legislation;

the irrelevance of Parliament in the eyes of the public;

the replacement of Parliament by the media as a primary source of information aboutthe executive;

the bypassing of Parliament with the growth of presidentialism and celebrity politics;and

the enhanced capacity of government to take action without providing a full explanation,an explanation which might, in act, orce it to think again.

Action has been needed or some time.


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The reform record: Labour and the Coalition 9

The reform record: Labour and theCoalitionTo their credit, the last Labour Government responded, o ten implementing proposals madeby backbenchers, including opposition members, as well as by select committees. It tookaction, and on many ronts. This included:

the introduction of evidence gathering sessions to Public Bill Committees, prior to theirline by line examination o bills;

greater resources for select committees;

biannual appearances by the PM before the Liaison Committee;

giving Members more power to debate topics they chose through the introduction ofWestminster Hall;

the introduction of topical parliamentary questions;

at least trying to introduce bills in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny;

some experiment with post-legislative scrutiny;

establishing the principle that Parliament should vote before military action is authorised;and

the enactment of FOI.

Taken together, these measures have strengthened MPs hands to some degree.

The incoming coalition Government has also acted to implement a number o improvements,some o them developed in opposition by Ken Clarkes Democracy Task Force, on which Iserved. These have included two important re orms. First, the creation o a backbenchBusiness Committee, with more control over Parliamentary time, is certainly a step orward.We will have to wait to ind out how big. Second, the election o select committee chairmenby secret ballot o the whole House, already approved with cross-party support prior to theelection, was implemented in 2010. This could have even more pro ound consequences. Itcreates a group o backbenchers at once independent o party pressure and accountable toParliament to guide scrutiny o the executive. We are already seeing some bene its o this.

For example, the cull o the quangos has been challenged by the Public AdministrationSelect Committee on the grounds that the Bill contains insu icient sa eguards to prevent themisuse o powers by ministers and that it should contain a general sunset clause. StephenDorrells Health Committee has challenged the rationale or the Governments ambitioushealth re orms. And in our look at the Governments proposals or re orm o inancialservices regulation, the Treasury Committee argued that the Governments timetable wastoo ambitious; there was insu icient detail about the considerable powers to be given to theBank o England; there needed to be ar more thought about the accountability o the newregulators and about the role o government in the new structure. These are all matters thatcan be resolved but there is now more pressure on the Government to resolve them.


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10 The reform record: Labour and the Coalition

Select committees can orce government to ill the explanations de icit, a de icit whichincidentally has led so many theorists over the years wrongly to conclude that we live in anelective dictatorship. All this suggests that government by explanation can work as a way o

orcing an e ective government to take time to get it right and to explain properly why it isright.

I urther Parliamentary re orm can entrench the notion that the Government must explainthe reason or its actions, and i that can be accomplished in a way that is digestible to thewider public, then the Parliamentary re ormers will have really achieved a good deal.

Modern government is complex. Many o the tools bequeathed to us rom the nineteenthcentury or holding the Government to account mainly designed or deployment in theChamber cockpit are not just ine ective. They are ill-suited to securing consent in atwenty- irst century democracy. Much o what goes on in the Chamber strikes the public particularly the young as little more than late Victorian pantomime. And o ten scarcely

more is accomplished by it. I the public is to be recruited to take an interest in Parliamentwe must ind a medium and orm o discourse which has more in common with what theysee and experience in their daily lives. The committee corridor can provide some o it.

The UK Parliament ar more than others has undervalued the committee corridor. Incontrast to most other democracies relying on committees is a recent phenomenon. Only in1979 was a proper select committee system established at Westminster, with a committeededicated to scrutinising each Department o State. British select committees have ewpowers in comparison to their counterparts in other countries such as the US. Nor do theyplay much o a role in the legislative process, unlike many European legislatures and closer

to home the Scottish Parliament.


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The quiet advance of select committees 11

The quiet advance of selectcommitteesWhile select committees may have ew ormal powers o control over the Government, theyhave gradually developed their role o getting the Government to explain, and to improve,policy-making. Its still ar rom per ect. In the past some committees were loath to useeven the ew powers they do have, such as the power to summon witnesses be ore them.Many are now building their capacity and their bite. More and more, committees have beenshowing the sel con idence, the desire and the capacity to challenge government across abroad ront. There are a good number o reasons why this is happening.

First, partisanship has been urther diluted, o ten triggered by independent-minded

chairmen, such as the late Gwyneth Dunwoody. This Parliament began with a major blowto partisanship. With the removal o the whips rom the appointment o chairmen there hasbeen a palpable shi t o mood. Select committee chairmen now eel accountable to thosewho elected them - their ellow MPs. The election o members o committees by their ownparties rather than as whips appointments has also diluted the whips in luence.

In addition, there is a greater willingness on the part o a growing number o select committeemembers to stay or a long tour. This helps develop a committee memory and a sense ocollegiality, modi ying party tribalism. The balance between committee loyalty and partyloyalty has certainly been altered, and in subtle ways.

Secondly, the scope or detailed scrutiny, or getting under the skin o an issue, is steadilyincreasing. This is partly as a consequence o improvements in brie ing by sta and alsothe development o knowledge o the ield by members, enabling the right questions to beasked. Sustained cross-examination by a well-in ormed committee member can generatein ormation and explanation by ministers that ritual exchanges on the loor o the House,where partisanship clouds as much as it clari ies, o ten ail to do. Committee evidencesessions two hours or more o intense questioning o a cabinet minister can do a ar moresubtle job o questioning the Government than the ten minutes John Humphrys or JeremyPaxman has onToday or Newsnight.

Third, greater public and media attention increases the attractiveness o committeemembership to backbenchers, while encouraging better attendance and diligence. Alongsidethe carrot o asking a pertinent question is the stick that the media might criticise a committeeand its members or being asleep on the job. As the bankers came in to the Treasury SelectCommittee in February 2009 or a high-pro ile cross examination, along with a massivemedia scrum, one o my more experienced colleagues leant over to me and said: Its not justthem who are on trial, you know, its us.

Public attention acts as an equally e ective discipline on witnesses. It was clear to anybodywatching that, when the Chancellor came be ore the Treasury Committee in early November,he had prepared care ully. Explanations were orthcoming, answers were ull and detailed.


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12 The quiet advance of select committees

For example, ar more light was shed on the distributional e ects o the emergency budgetthan any previous Chancellor had provided. He knew the questions were coming. Hedprepared or them. And hed decided that detailed answers were likely to give a better pressthan evasion. And they did.

The public attention that can come with committee scrutiny changes the way ministersnow address the decisions that they must take. When a minister is making a choice, he hasto put it through the prism not only o explanation on the loor o the House, which heknows may be per unctory, even i subject to an Urgent Question but also in committee.The committee corridor has not wrested the scrutiny role back rom the media - theToday programme and Newsnight still igure in the ministers thoughts, too, because they usuallyreach a wider audience but it is now a more important player.

Fourth, the scrutiny o civil servants has steadily intensi ied. Their replies can be compared tothose o ministers: the Treasury Committee has usually called be ore it senior civil servants

working on the Budget, immediately be ore seeing the Chancellor. It is important thatscrutiny exposes departments where too much is le t to o icials to decide.

Fi th, the committee corridor is now developing its scrutiny o the Prime Minister. InMr Blairs Poodle,I argued that Parliament needed to do more to scrutinise power where it reallylies. In our increasingly presidential system, an examination o the e icient rather than thedigni ied elements in our polity must mean detailed questioning o the Prime Minister. To hiscredit, and probably because he knew it would play to his strengths, Tony Blair accepted theinvitation to make regular appearances be ore the Liaison Committee, which brings togetherthe select committee chairmen. The Liaison Committees per ormance was mixed, but an

important new instrument o scrutiny was established. These are some signs o progress.


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A programme for further reform 13

A programme for further reformIn the remainder o this paper, I will ocus on a ew re orms which could urther strengthencommittees. I recognise that Im neglecting other important areas or improving Parliamentsuch as the legislative process. What ollows does no more than set out a tentative agenda.I hope that colleagues will improve it by addition and amendment. Some items arementioned as no more than a basis or discussion; others, such as the proposals that selectcommittees extend their role by vetting quango appointments, have been well developedby the Institute.

First, scrutiny of public appointmentsSelect committees should be given a greater role in scrutinising appointments to majorquangos and other public bodies. For many years, almost all such public appointmentswere wholly a matter or the executive, with all the risks o patronage this brought with it.Since 1995 there has at least been an independent Commissioner or Public Appointmentsto regulate the recruitment process. But until much more recently there was no rolewhatsoever or MPs or select committees in scrutinising appointments to these importantposts, even though the size and scope o the quango state has grown considerably. In recentyears Parliament has put its toe in the door.

The Treasury Committee took a lead here more than a decade ago, introducing pre-commencement hearings or members o the Monetary Policy Committee when the Banko England was given control over monetary policy. Since 2008, other committees have hadthe ability to hold pre-appointment hearings over a range o senior public sector posts. ButCommittees have or the most part been reluctant to press the point despite having seriousreservations about candidates rom time to time. And on the two occasions that committeeshave asked ministers to reconsider the appointment o a member o the MPC, and theappointment o the Childrens Commissioner the decisions were still pushed through byministers. Over the past year, however, things have begun to move urther and aster.

Again, I am pleased to say that the Treasury Select Committee has been active. When theChancellor came be ore the Committee or the irst time on 15 July last year, he respondedto a request that we had made to him, that the independence o the newly created O iceo Budget Responsibility be buttressed by a new orm o Parliamentary accountability. Hecame back with a suggestion. He proposed that the committee should play a partnershiprole in the appointment o the OBRs Chairman. That is, he o ered the Committee a vetoover the appointment. We accepted. We went urther and demanded and obtained more.First, we demanded that the veto be rein orced by statute. Secondly, we demanded a vetoover the power o the Government to dismiss the OBR Chairman. The latter point is crucial.It means that i and when an OBR Chairman produces a iscal assessment or orecast which isinconvenient or embarrassing to the Government, his or her independence can be protectedby the Treasury Committee. There is now a double-lock, protecting the OBR. And the actthat the Committee is deeply engaged in the Chairmans appointment and dismissal means

that the OBR is now very directly accountable or its actions.


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14 A programme for further reform

I dont think that Parliament should stop there. What may look like a small change orone committee can serve as a beacon or a radical extension o committee scrutiny andParliamentary authority. This was vividly brought home to me by a remark made by a verysenior member o the Government a ew weeks a ter the TSC secured the concession. Hesidled up to me in the lobby and said, This is a one-o , you know. We dont want this toserve as a precedent. Exactly. Committees now have a route map. They know what theyshould do. They can do best by marching resolutely towards the sound o gun ire.

The opportunity is now there, right across Whitehall, or select committees to open up thequango state. It is now up to us to restrain and reverse the growth o executive patronage.Already, the process has begun. In January this year Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, agreedthat when he appoints a new In ormation Commissioner in three years time, he will acceptthe Committees conclusion on whether or not the candidate should be appointed. A urtherprecedent has been set.

Im delighted that the Institute or Government has engaged in this debate, ollowing onrom an in ormal meeting with a number o select committee chairmen some months ago.

The result o that is the outstanding consultation paper on appointments published by theInstitute. I agree with all its main proposals.

The consultation paper reminds us that the volume o quango appointments is vast.Ministers are responsible or making several thousand appointments to a wide array o Non-Departmental Public Bodies, Non-Ministerial Departments, Advisory Councils, Commissions,Grant-Making Bodies and more.

It would, o course, be absurd to expect committees to engage with all o these. However,as the Institute recommends, there is a smallish category o the most senior regulators,ombudsmen, inspectors and constitutional watchdogs, where Parliament, and selectcommittees in particular, should certainly play a greater role in con irming appointments.This category o posts, described in the paper as the A List, has been identi ied on the basiso the ollowing our criteria:

Independence. Committees should have a say in appointments where the credibilityo the body in question depends upon its independence rom government. This can beillustrated by looking at Treasury related appointments. Independence is mani estlyneeded or the OBR. On the same grounds, similar treatment could be applied to theGovernorship o the Bank o England, the head o the Competition Commission and theChair o the UK Statistics Authority.

Certainly, consideration now needs to be given to this, not least by the Treasury SelectCommittee and we will be examining some o this as part o our recently announcedinquiry into the accountability o the Bank o England. With the new powers beingcon erred on it, the Bank will shortly be by ar the most power ul quango in the land.

Representation. Greater committee involvement is required where a posts responsibilitiesinclude representation o the public interest in dealings with government. TheParliamentary Ombudsman and the In ormation Commissioner are two examples.


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Public Interest. Committees should engage where there is particularly strong publicinterest in how the candidate will carry out his or her responsibilities. This might apply

or the Chie Inspector o Schools or the Chair o the BBC Trust.

Parliament. Where the post is important to the workings o Parliament itsel , as or the

Chairman o the House o Lords Appointments Commission, committees should alsokeep alert.

Id be tempted to add a i th criterion to cover an issue already identi ied in the Institutespaper: where anad hoc or temporary appointment is made which, or the duration o his or herappointment, would all within the above our criteria, the most relevant select committeeshould also be involved. This should enable enquiries to be covered such as those chaired byLord Butler, Lord Hutton, Sir Thomas Legg and Sir Peter Gibson. In total, the Institute listsaround 25 top posts to which an appointment should not be made i the select committeeexpress their opposition to the Governments proposed candidate.

This leaves a number o questions. At least two are crucial, the answers to which may vary,case by case. First, should the committees powers be entrenched in Statute? Second, shouldthe House as a whole in practice the Government, by mobilizing its majority retain theauthority to override a committee veto? I wont answer either o these questions now,except to say that the exercise o any override process should certainly require a good dealo government by explanation on the loor o the House. This will also act as a restraint onarbitrary use o power by the committee it, too, would have to explain its decision.

So, a new system is available to us. It has already been tested in pilot schemes. It seems towork. The OBR Directors have acquired some added authority by having received, in public, astamp o approval rom the Treasury Select Committee. Now the same can and should applyacross the quango state.


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Second, scrutiny of the Prime MinisterOn this, I am a radical and I know that many colleagues will disagree. Meetings with the PrimeMinister should take place monthly when Parliament is sitting, rather than every six months.Arguably, during the week o that meeting, there could be no session o Prime Ministers

Question Time. The latter would provide some compensation or the higher workload orthe Prime Minister implied by requent committee appearances. I cant see him agreeingwithout some sort o quid pro quo.

The main objection is that more requent appearances would urther bolster Prime Ministerialpower at the expense o his or her Cabinet colleagues. In my view, this concern needs to betempered by two points.

First, as earlier mentioned, power needs to be scrutinised where it really lies: Parliament hasresponded relatively poorly, so ar, to the steady growth o presidentialism in our system ogovernment in recent decades. Second, Prime Ministers can and do already by-pass theircolleagues they have many tools at their disposal to do so, not least press con erences atNumber 10- a counterpart to a US President appearing on his lawn at the White House. Inour parliamentary system would it not be better to bring at least some o these exchangesin house?

Meetings should be restricted to two hours. The topics to be raised should be given greateradvance publicity. Scrutiny can be more penetrative and enlightening than the PMQs,Number 10 press con erences or i teen minute interviews on the Today programme.

A meeting o some thirty committee chairmen is too big and lacks ocus. Instead, the Liaison

Committee should be represented by a smaller group o about a dozen chairmen, whilehaving the scope to co-opt another chairman when his or her expertise is needed. There maybe other approaches to reducing the numbers it is up to us to sort this out.

There are arguments both ways about the proposal or more requent appearances but I amsure about one thing: Parliament should not sit idly by while the Presidential Premiershipcontinues to develop.

Third, other Liaison Committee reforms

The Liaison Committee, chaired by Sir Alan Beith, can help set the agenda on behal oParliament. It is composed o a group o people who, inso ar as it can be said o anyone,represent the back benches o the House o Commons. But they are little seen as a group. Iwe as a group o select committee chairmen eel that more needs to be done, it is or us tospeak up. I hope it develops in this way.

We could start by examining the Institutes excellent proposals on appointments. Theresmuch more that we can do, including linking the work o committees more closely withthat o the Chamber, better oversight o parliamentary budgeting, both on committees andmore widely, bringing more light to bear on the House o Commons Commissions work, andmuch more besides. It seems sensible at least to consider such ideas. Collectively, I eel that

we could become more than shop stewards or our respective committees.


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Fourth, the balance between committees and the ChamberCommittee scrutiny is rom time to time stymied by the plenary business in the Chamber. Wecan have the absurdity o a ull committee corridor emptying to vote on business debatedin the Chamber by only a hand ul o members. We should consider a recon iguration o the

Parliamentary week, giving greater scope or uninterrupted committee work.

There are numerous possible routes to achieving this. I would be inclined to consider creatinga Committee day, as have many other Parliaments, although I realise that the executive, andsome traditionalists, will baulk at the idea. Few i any parliaments in advanced democraciesrely so much on the main Chamber. Too much o what goes on there is time and energywasted. As ar as the Chamber is concerned, less can mean more. A Chamber which acted asa orum or crucial issues could and should then be able to allocate more time or this: theIraq debate is a case in point.

Fifth, resources and supportMost committees could do more i they had the resources. Given the inancial stringencynecessitated by the de icit, now is not the time to bid or more cash, but resources canbe reallocated. Would it be too radical to suggest that committees should, within a givenbudget allocation, decide on their own priorities? I hope I do not upset too many colleaguesby suggesting that there had to be, or example, some reduction in travel budgets.

At the same time, much more imagination should be used to get access to high qualityadvisers rom outside bodies, and to obtain secondees or speci ic projects in ways whichdo not imperil Parliamentary independence. With this in mind, Alan Beith and I developed a

revised set o guidelines or committees, now accepted, to enable the greater deploymento outside expertise. I am very grate ul to my own committee clerk or working up theseproposals. She and I both have more ideas in the pipeline.

In my experience, committee clerks and sta are extremely dedicated and motivated bytheir work, and I have enormous respect or the high calibre and commitment o the clerksto making Parliament work. Still, I agree with the recommendations o the Menzies Campbellenquiry into the running o the House triggered by the Damian Green a air that, early inthis Parliament, there should be a resh examination o the roles and responsibilities o theo icers o the House.

The time has probably come or urther re orm, including changes in the way that seniorHouse sta are recruited and their careers managed. Among other things, we shouldconsider measures to secure greater integration o sta support with that o the Library andcommittee experts. We could also consider the recruitment o more people in mid-career,particularly rom the private sector, and those with management expertise.


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Sixth, the Osmotherly rulesThese rules need to be re-examined. They make it clear that civil servants speak on behalo ministers and, to that extent, the rules act to protect them rom scrutiny. The House oCommons has neither accepted, nor approved, the Osmotherly rules: they are nothing more

than internal government guidelines, which the Government has chosen to make availableto committees. On some occasions when committees have demanded that named civilservants appear, Ministers have come in their stead. In previous Parliaments, committeeshave seemed content with this. I a committee had insisted on calling a named civil servant,the decision would have been re erred to the House as a whole, and the committee wouldhave lost.

It is said that the Osmotherly convention may be breaking down. In my view, it is probablytime that it did break down, and committees should not shrink rom summoning namedcivil servants i they eel it necessary. Any Ministerial resistance should be given maximum

sunlight.One urther idea put to me at least worth exploring would be to make contempt o acommittee, that is, ailing to appear, a criminal act. But this might get the courts into an areaParliament would pre er them not to tread, which makes me wary.

Seventh, committee members and outside interestsI have been on the committee corridor or more than twelve o the ourteen years that I havebeen in Parliament. For most o that time, I have served on at least two, sometimes threeand occasionally our select committees simultaneously. It is hard work. But it is not and

it should not be a ull time job. I have learned a huge amount rom those colleagues withexperience rom their working lives, both rom past and current employment.

To draw on a personal example, I ound my experience serving on the boards o two publiccompanies has given me insights on much parliamentary work not just with respect toFSMA, but also in broader discussions o , or example, corporate governance when on theTreasury Committee, or o shore inancial centres when on the Justice Committee.

I am concerned that the trend to pro essionalisation o politics could reduce the numbercoming to Parliament with that experience. I am equally concerned that well-meaning but

ill thought out guidelines on outside interests may deter some o the most knowledgeableMPs rom making a contribution on the select committee corridor. Declarations o interestshould not have the e ect o becoming a bar on interests, but they are threatening to do so.Parliament would be the weaker.


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Eighth, setting the agendaFor the most part, committees in previous Parliaments have responded to executive action.Since the election the Treasury Select Committee has been coming orward with someinitiatives o its own, inviting the Government to react. For example, we ought, I think with

some success, to in luence the legislation creating the OBR by producing a detailed reporton its structure and role, well be ore the Government inalized the shape o the Bill. Similarly,we are already engaging, be ore the budget, on the tax principles that should underlie iscalre orm and on how the Bank o England should be made more accountable or its greaterpowers, be ore the Government inalizes its ideas.

The Committee is starting to produce two distinct strands o work. One will orce theGovernment to explain itsel . The second will orce the Government to consider and respondto proposals rom the Committee itsel . I dont expect that the Government will immediatelyadopt all our recommendations. I do hope that we can play a signi icant role in shaping thedebate.

Ninth and last, election for allMost Members o Parliament agree that election o select committee chairmen by secretballot has been a success, so ar. Sooner or later there will be a case or revisiting whetherparties should continue to elect committee members. It might be a bit administrativelycumbersome but there is a good case or electing all members by secret ballot o the wholeHouse. Parties are already coping with by-elections. Robin Cook proposed something in asimilar spirit as long ago as 2001. This appealing idea was de eated by the scarcely disguisedcooperation o government and opposition whips. The rules setting out eligibility may need

to be revisited urther to demarcate membership o committees rom the executive.

A beguiling ideaLastly, it is worth commenting brie ly on an idea, one among many, that latters to deceive.It is o ten proposed that committees should, as their bread and butter business, ocus ondepartmental spending and estimates. Public expenditure does indeed need to be betterscrutinised and the Treasury Committee has created a sub group to monitor the spendingo the Treasury and its sub-departments. I am, however, wary o proposals that would givecommittees the authority to restrict or delay supply. It is important to think through theconsequences o such powers, and the scope or pork barrel politics that could eventuallydevelop. The American experience here is not a happy one.


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20 Conclusion: government by explanation, not government by Parliament

Conclusion: government byexplanation, not government byParliamentNone o what I have said, nor the ideas inMr Blairs Poodlerepresent a undamental shi tin balance o power between executive and legislature. Parliamentary democracy does notneed to be government by Parliament. Governments should generally be allowed to geton with the job, once they have secured a mandate. A weak government, hamstrung andharassed, whose legislative programme lay ever vulnerable to an assertive Parliament, haslittle appeal or me. What I have tried to set out is a level o parliamentary scrutiny calculatedto increase the quality o government, the rigour o arguments behind its decisions and thescope to secure consent or them by explaining its actions. It is by concentrating on this taskthat select committees can best make their contribution to British constitutional li e.

In Westminster, we are surrounded by the digni ied parts o our constitution, made amous bymemoirs and diaries over centuries. Even be ore the moth and rodents got to work, the publichad turned away rom it some time ago. Alongside the relics o that digni ied past, however,the energy o our democratic culture is generating revival, incremental but cumulativelysigni icant. How ar it will go I cannot tell. Perhaps, in time, election o chairmen and powerover appointments will be seen as a very British Parliamentary coup. What is certain is that,almost without realising it, we are creating a new part o the e icient constitution. The

measures I have proposed here are designed to entrench it.


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government by explanation: some ideas from the select committee corridor

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