Section:GDN F2 PaGe:1 Edition Date:090521 Edition:01 Zone:
The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009
Towards a blueprint for reforming government
T
hese are exceptional times. You
have to go back to the days before
the 1832 reform act, to the “old
corruption” with its vote-buying,
electoral intimidation and rotten
boroughs, to find an era in which
the British way of politics was as widely discred-
ited and in need of reform as it is today. Two cen-
turies ago, the answer to the scandals seemed
plain – systemic reform and, though it was 100
years coming, votes for all. Today, faced with
an alarmingly comparable collapse of esteem
for politics under the democratic system, the
answer to the new corruption is the same as it
was to the old: systemic political reform and a
modern, reinvigorated, devolved democracy.
Amid the continuing torrent of jaw-dropping
expenses revelations, it is hard to comprehend
how so many apparently decent MPs could each
have set aside their capacity for moral judgment
about their own actions. Even so, the expenses
crisis is not simply a set of personal failings and
transgressions, occasionally exaggerated. That
is why it is not enough to call for heads to roll.
The deeper problem is systemic. It is rooted in
the whole way we do our politics. A general elec-
tion is certainly not irrelevant to addressing that
problem; but it is not a fundamental solution
either. In the end, we need a new politics more
than we need a new government.
The mood of anger is understandable. Moods
of anger often are. But they are rarely good guides
to wise action. That is why it is far more impor-
tant to focus on what should be built rather than
on what should be destroyed. The White House
chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, observed last
TYPOGRAPHY: KITCHING/STOTHARD THE TYPOGRAPHY WORKSHOP 2009
Sent at 20/5/2009 19:03
year that one should “never want a serious cri-
sis to go to waste”. A crisis is not just an occa-
sion for blame and punishment. It is also, as Mr
Emmanuel added, “an opportunity to do things
you could not do before”.
That insight has been powerfully borne out by
the expenses crisis. Agendas that for years had
seemed trapped on the political margins have
suddenly been swept into the mainstream and
have captured the public mood. Radical pruning
of MPs’ allowances. An end to parliamentary self-
regulation. All-party agreement in advance to
accept Sir Christopher Kelly’s report. A Speaker
driven from office for the first time since the
17th century. Party leaders calling on local par-
ties to purge errant MPs. Approving references
to Oliver Cromwell. Genuine all-party agreement
on reform. None of these things happened before
the publication of MPs’ expenses. All of them
have happened since.
The reform agenda can go much further. It
must now do so. Fixing the expenses system is
not enough. The reformers who urged the case for
radical reform of MPs’ finances have also earned
the right to have the rest of their menu of politi-
cal reform taken more seriously and urgently.
The reactionaries who opposed change, often
on the grounds that these are not “real” issues
of interest to “real” people should have learned
that reality bites hard and that reform is not a side
issue. Nick Clegg yesterday called this a once-in-
a-generation moment to change politics for good.
He was spot on.
cYanmaGentaYellowblack
1
Today, Guardian and Observer writers map
out some of the possible moves. They range from
the composition of select committees through
reform of the House of Lords to the role of the
press. Online debate on the ideas is already vig-
orous. Some proposals are systemic; others are
more focused. Some, such as Lords reform, would
take some time to implement; others, such as
reform of the role of the attorney general, could
be made today. Most require all-party agreement,
while some could properly be initiated by the
government alone. All of them are urgent.
P
ublic life matters. It should be a
high calling, not a base one. Gor-
don Brown often speaks for the
better angels of politics, but he
presides over an unprecedented
pandemonium of its fallen ones.
His handling of the expenses crisis has often
been clumsy. This week, however, largely
because he listened to others and learned from
his mistakes, he finds himself in the right place
on these issues at last. He must now go much fur-
ther on the equally imperative reform agenda.
He has the means, motive and opportunity to
help shape the new politics that modern Brit-
ain, so different a country from the Britain that
spawned our broken parties and our discredited
institutions, craves. It took the founding fathers
of the United States four months to agree their
constitution. Mr Brown has longer than that. He
has a year in which to cement his place in history
as a great political reformer or as a great political
failure. These are exceptional times. And this is
an exceptional opportunity.
Section:GDN F2 PaGe:2 Edition Date:090521 Edition:01 Zone:
2 The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009
Here, Guardian and Observer
writers launch a major
debate on renewing British
politics. With your help, we
hope to build a blueprint for
reform. Join the discussion
on each of these topics at
guardian.co.uk/anewpolitics –
and tell us what we’ve missed.
We’ll keep you informed
of progress
Written constitution
The great goal
Timothy
Garton Ash
h ents? People will leave court unhappy, but
We need a written constitution. That is
the largest conclusion we should draw
from a crisis that is also an opportunity.
Our legislature has compromised itself.
Our executive has long been over-mighty.
Our judiciary remains largely credible, but
its independence needs to be reinforced.
In 10 years’ time, I wish to walk round
Westminster and show a visitor three great
buildings housing three separate powers of
a renewed democracy. Every schoolchild
should know what each does, by what
explicit rules, and how they relate to each
other. And how our individual rights and
liberties are secured within this constitu-
tion. Nothing less will do.
This need not be a revolution. Most ele-
ments of a constitution are there already.
Unlike many countries after wars or dic-
tatorships, we won’t have to rebuild from
rubble. Many British institutions function
well, and even many aspects of our parlia-
ment. We should beware the hyperbole of
crisis. But we do need to put together these
elements as we never have before, add a
few, reform some, and make the whole
thing explicit, clear and transparent.
The question is how we go about this.
We will need a government ready to pro-
pose to parliament a new great reform bill.
We must build a constitution by constitu-
tional means. But before we reach that
point, we need a great debate. That can
start right now, and right here.
The monarchy
A corrosive symbol
Gary
Younge
Thanks to hanging chads and the supreme
court, the left could poke fun at the credi-
bility of George Bush’s first term. But when
it comes to Britain, there can really be no
debate about the democratic credentials
of our head of state. She has none.
For all the fetishisation of modernity,
there is one glaring omission – the abo-
lition of the monarchy. Power has been
devolved to Scotland and Wales; there
will soon be a supreme court. But when
it comes to the little things like declaring
war, dissolving parliament and ratifying
treaties, all power lies with the monarch.
Those who insist the role is merely
symbolic miss the point. It symbolises
something extremely corrosive in our
history and culture: that your life chances
are determined not by what you can do,
but to whom you were born. Moreover,
it enshrines the notion that power can be
unaccountable.
The tendency to point out the personal
deficiencies of the nation’s first family is
understandable, but flawed. “Kings were
put to death long before 21 January 1793,”
wrote Albert Camus, referring to Louis
XVI’s execution. “But regicides of earlier
times … were interested in attacking the
person, not the principle, of the king.”
The issue is not the individuals but the
institution, not personalities but politics.
A call to remove the Queen’s constitu-
tional powers may well attract broad sup-
port, leaving the ceremonial and symbolic
and little else. That would be a start.
Electoral reform
Our system is bust
John
Harris
Above all others, there is one institutional
wrong that sits underneath the sickness
of our politics. It enables governments
to claim thumping mandates while they
attract the support of a small minority,
thereby facilitating rule-by-clique. It results
in focusing on marginal seats and scything
out whole swaths of voters, from residents
of the old Labour heartlands to suburban
middle-class liberals – and, truth be told,
rightwing Tories. It has led to too many
“safe” seats, creating the climate in which
MPs stretched or broke the rules, with little
thought of their constituencies.
Self-evidently, our first-past-the-post
model is as busted as the allowances sys-
tem, and now is the time for a new elec-
toral settlement. I’d settle for a version of
alternative vote plus ( but with the propor-
tional “top-up” share of MPs bigger) or the
additional member system of the Scottish
parliament, and the assemblies in London
and Wales, but the practice of closed party
lists should be binned.
Although David Cameron has made
most of the recent running on political
reform and a quick general election, the
Tories’ likely success would be based on
the usual grim mathematics – a big Com-
mons majority on a minority of the vote,
and all the dysfunction that implies – but
given that change would tear up so many
of their standard calculations, will either of
the main parties listen?
Parliamentary protocol
Earth calling
Planet Westminster
Hugh
Muir
Who, designing a representative body for
the 21st century, would start from here?
Who would allow the House of Com-
mons to be run by the Speaker as we know
the role, the candidate of least resistance,
Sent at 20/5/2009 19:23
using the same principle under which we
organise the refereeing of football? Who
would have Black Rod, with his tights and
mace? Would anyone bother with that
blather about “honourable” and “right
honourable gentlemen”?
If it didn’t seem ridiculous before,
it certainly does now. Why go on with
those interminable maiden speeches?
The pat questions to ministers planted
by the whips? The ritual investigation of
the prime minister on his engagements?
This is a body barely recognisable to most
people: Planet Westminster.
There is a modernisation of the house
select committee system under way – proof
that the wheels turn slowly. Our courts can
hardly be held up as an example but they
have recognised that arcane practices and
language can cut ordinary people off. Have
our courts been rendered less effective by
the shift away from wigs and gowns, or by
allowing solicitors directly to represent cli-
few complain they didn’t understand it.
Let the honourable member for Black-
burn become plain Mr Straw, let the
Speaker be independent of the parties
and let’s have members of both houses
discussing the issues inside parliament
in the terms they might use outside it. As
for Black Rod and those tights – what a gift
to cabaret.
House of Lords
We must be able to
choose our rulers
Jonathan
Freedland
You would think it was a sine qua non of a
democracy that those who write the laws of
the land would be chosen by its people .
Imagine if MPs were not elected but
emerged through some other cloudy proc-
ess – because they were one of 92 people
with aristocratic blood, one of 26 bishops
affiliated with the state-approved version
of Christianity, or picked by the prime
minister.
If anyone suggested that be the process
by which we pick members of the British
legislature there would be howls of laugh-
ter and outrage. It would be an affront to
democracy. Yet, that is how one half of our
legislature is chosen. The House of Lords is
often presented as some ceremonial body
of sleeping old gents who add to the dig-
nity of national life. But the upper house
shares in the writing of our laws.
The principle – that, in a democracy,
the people elect those who govern them
– should trump all others. Electing mem-
bers of the second chamber creates com-
plications in our constitutional set-up
(wouldn’t an elected “Lords” threaten the
primacy of the Commons?) have held back
reform for at least a century.
It is not impossible to devise an election
method that would preserve what people
admire, ensuring the new second chamber
does not comprise party hacks, and still has
access to the wisdom of elders. But what
comes first in a democracy is the right to
elect – and remove – those who govern us. It
is long past time that we demanded it.
Democracy
Reorchestrating the
second chamber
Will
Hutton
Democracy is a process and an attitude of
mind. It understands that the to-and-fro
of argument is the best way communities
feel their way to good decisions and good
law. It holds executive power to account
day by day for its actions, and periodically
through elections. It protects liberty.
British democracy falls short of these
aspirations in many ways. It is a two-cham-
ber system that may genuflect to the role of
deliberation and argument, but the House
of Commons is ruthlessly controlled by the
executive while the Lords is a useful revis-
cYanmaGentaYellowblack
ing chamber, but essentially a democratic
cipher. That must change.
The British will always site the govern-
ment of the day in the Commons. As a
result, its capacity to revise, deliberate and
argue will always be weak. The role must
fall to the House of Lords. Its standing must
be raised to become the co-determiner of
British law. The Commons must lose its
power always to trump the Lords.
That will require that the Lords is com-
posed through democratic mandate. But
to avoid relative party strengths predeter-
mining outcomes so that it becomes a mere
simulacrum of the Commons, there need to
be substantive innovations. The first is that
a critical mass of Lords – say, a third – must
be elected as independent crossbenchers
so that the government must win assent for
its legislation through force of argument
and not political arm-twisting.
The second is that each nation and
region of the UK must be represented, so
larger interests are considered. The third
is that its select and working committees
should be able to co-opt external experts as
members. Britain would then have a 21st-
century democratic chamber of which it
could be proud.
Local government
Restore power and
accountability
Simon
Jenkins
At the root of this scandal has been a
transformation in the role of a member of
parliament: MPs have become the leading
citizens of their municipalities. They are
the first port of call for citizen complaints.
Their surgeries deal almost entirely with
local matters requiring complex nego-
tiation with councils and agencies. They
have become what in any other European
democracy would be the local mayor, the
best-known elected person in town.
The result has been a steadily more
shrill demand for them to “live in the
constituency”, unheard of 50 years ago.
The erosion of localism has sucked MPs
into the vacuum, and they are now paying
the price. An MP’s job is hopelessly con-
fused, as a party hack in London and as
a prominent civic leader back home. The
consequence is two homes, two lives, two
expenses rackets and misery.
This will only stop when locally elected
officials – I am convinced this means may-
ors as in most other countries – are intro-
duced to relieve MPs of their local duties
and thus of some of their pre-eminence.
Their present agony is entirely the result
of their resistance to local democracy.
Political Britain needs a whole new cast
list of local mayors, governors, parochial
and municipal leaders to return status and
political accountability to the local level.
The Speaker
Redefine every part
of the role
Jackie
Ashley
If MPs, the press and the public are agreed
on one thing, it’s that the new Speaker
should be a reformer. That means a change
in each and every aspect of the Speaker’s
role. It’s already clear that the new Speaker
will not be in charge of MPs’ pay and
expenses. Within hours of Michael Martin
announcing his decision to quit, the prime
minister made it clear that an independ-
ent commission will take over the day to
day administration of the Commons.
The Speaker’s main role will continue
to be chairing debates and keeping order.
But he must do much more that: dragging
parliament into the 21st century, he should
ensure that procedures and debates are
comprehensible to all, inside and outside
the chamber. No more “remaining orders”
that no one understands.
He would do well to put a total stop to
all that yah-booing, too. For years it has
put the public off Westminster – not sur-
prisingly. The new Speaker can also take
a leaf from the Lord Speaker’s book. Since
2006, Lady Hayman, as Speaker of the
Lords, has made it clear that her job is to
act as an ambassador for the Lords, with a
full programme of speeches, conferences,
outreach events, charity work, engage-
ment with young people and foreign visi-
tors. Now, more than ever, the House of
Commons needs an ambassador.
MP numbers
Slash the head-
count to 400
Polly
Toynbee
In the sea of faces on the green benches,
how many of those 647 MPs can you rec-
ognise? Most will never be ministers. We
have so many, they say, because of the
sacred link between MP and constituency,
one to roughly every 60,000 voters. But
that mystical bond is mostly the wishful
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The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009
thinking of self-deluding MPs. Both the
good and the useless are swept in and out
of office on their party’s coat-tails. We need
fewer, representing larger areas, to make
them more powerful national figures.
If there were, say, 400, most would have
a valuable role to play in party and parlia-
ment. Their business should be governing
the country: too much time is spent now
as advocates for individual local cases on
housing, benefits and vast numbers of
immigration pleas, often queue-jumping
existing appeals and complaints proce-
dures, to the aggravation of officials. Some
casework should go to councillors, if more
power is to be devolved. Good MPs say they
need some casework, to see at first hand
where government departments are fail-
ing, but the balance is out of kilter.
A proportional representation system,
such as the Jenkins plan, means grouping
MPs together in clumps of six, in larger
constituencies, so that voters are repre-
sented by someone they voted for. No
system is perfect, but fewer MPs grouped
in larger constituencies would better rep-
resent more people.
Representation
The House should
reflect those it serves
Madeleine
Bunting
We need a House of Commons that reflects
the people it is designated to represent and
serve. Voters need to see in this institution
a closer reflection of themselves, instead
of the anachronisms of a macho, predomi-
nantly white culture that still owes many
of its characteristics to the English tradi-
tions of public school and Oxbridge.
We need many more women in the
place and a much wider variety of back-
grounds. It’s not that they will be made of
better moral fibre, but that such an influx
will disrupt the cosy, self-referentialism
that has done so much damage.
All parties should sign up to a quota for
female candidates – it could be for a lim-
ited period of, say, 10 years. Over the past
25 years, Norway, Sweden and Denmark
have all achieved high representation of
women through quotas of 40% on candi-
date lists.
The UK parliament is currently 58th out
of 187 democratic countries in the world
for its meagre 18% female representation
in the Commons. Only quotas will bring
the big breakthrough. Alongside more
women, concerted action is needed to
improve the paltry 2.1% of MPs from eth-
nic minorities – just 15. All-black shortlists
in key areas is the kind of measure that
could crack this long-running issue.
Direct democracy
Use the jury system
as a model
Julian
Glover
Bill Clinton put it most snappily: “If you
want to change the world,” he said, “join
a focus group.” He had something in com-
mon with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who
commented: “The people of England
think they are free. They are gravely mis-
taken. They are free only during the elec-
tion of members of parliament.”
Both were getting at the same thing:
the people are asked to pick other people
to take decisions for them. While their
choice – Britain’s parliament – implodes
under the strain of the expenses scandal,
the public can only watch and howl.
Constitutionalists propose all sorts
of fixes: proportional representation;
devolved assemblies; an elected Lords; a
smaller parliament or a bigger one. But in
every case they still ask voters to choose
someone else to do the governing.
Think of that revered constitutional
linchpin, the jury system. We are happy
for randomly picked, untrained members
of the public to weigh the evidence and the
argument, and imprison someone for life.
It works. Why not for goverment, too?
Gordon Brown did once talk of what he
called citizen’s juries, but they turned out
to be nothing more than state-funded party
political focus groups. A bad start, though,
should not ruin a good idea. We could give
such juries real power – if not to swing deci-
sions, at least to contribute to them.
In a democracy, ruling and being ruled
should be part of the same thing.
MPs’ pay
Link to average
earnings
Aditya
Chakrabortty
Easily the most galling aspect of the
expenses debacle is the way MPs defend
their abuse. Our politicians really mean
it when they say these outlandish claims
were only to top up inadequate wages.
Hang on, MPs not paid properly? The
£64,766 salary puts them comfortably
into the top 5% of all single earners. The
median salary in the UK is £25,100; take
into account pensioners and others living
off benefits, and the average person lives
on less than £16,000.
As for parliamentary pay lagging behind
other industries, that is a canard. MPs’ pay
rises between 1990 and the end of 2006 far
outstripped increases in inflation, average
earnings and public-sector pay. If parlia-
mentarians want to claim, as the late Tony
Banks did, that they are “a sort of high-
powered social worker”, they should note
that a social worker’s position in Camden
(a borough that neighbours Westminster)
is advertised on the Guardian’s jobs web-
site for between £30,045 and £39,228.
If MPs complain about constituency
work, they should be given more case-
workers. If the Westminster working day
is antisocial), then it should be changed,
by shortening recesses. True, the life of
an elected representative is an uncertain
one, but that is compensated for by one of
those increasingly rare creatures, a gener-
ous final-salary pension scheme.
A pay regime for parliamentarians
should reflect the work carried out, and
be democratically justifiable. The solu-
tion is to link MPs’ wages to average earn-
ings. Put backbenchers on, say, two times
Sent at 20/5/2009 19:40
the average wage and increase their salary
in line with average earnings. That would
remind politicians that their job is to repre-
sent their constituents – and give them an
interest in improving the lot of voters.
MPs’ pay
Boost salaries and
abolish allowances
Jenni
Russell
It’s not a popular moment to suggest such
a thing, but MPs’ headline salary should be
raised and allowances cut. There’s nothing
honest about the current system, in which
most MPs treat second home allowances
as an integral part of salary, in effect rais-
ing their income to £104,000 before tax.
The danger is that representing people
in parliament will now look so tarnished
that talented potential candidates will
be put off – being an MP should attract
people of the same calibre as those who
work at high levels in public service: sen-
ior civil servants, judges, headteachers
of large schools. Consider this: the civil
servant who ran the fees office was earn-
ing £125,000 a year, nearly twice as much
as the MPs whose expenses he oversaw.
The heads of large London schools get
£107,000. Judges and senior doctors get
more than £100,000 a year.
If we pretend that pay shouldn’t matter
to MPs, we’ll end up with a high propor-
tion of low-calibre candidates, or those
who have sufficient private incomes not
to care. Don’t forget that Lloyd George
introduced payments for MPs in 1911 pre-
cisely so that the pool of politicians could
extend beyond the privileged class.
Let us be brave now. Remove the second
home allowance, and make office travel as
transparent as it is in any company. Link
MPs’ pay to those of civil servants’ grades,
or those of judges, and fix them some-
where in the region of £85,000-95,000 a
year. Take that issue out of the political
realm – and free us from the demeaning
spectacle of MPs arguing that bathplugs,
antique rugs and £8,000 TV sets are a nec-
essary requirement for doing their jobs.
MPs’ hours
Shorten the holidays
Anne
Perkins
One of the better parliamentary reforms
of the past 10 years has been changing the
hours to reflect a normal working week,
rather than the traditional arrangement of
the day around 18th-century gentlemen’s
clubs and society hostesses’ drawing
rooms, slightly modified in the 20th cen-
tury to allow lawyers to get in a day’s work
before turning up in the late afternoon.
The reforms (take a bow, Harriet Har-
man) removed a hurdle for people with
young families taking part in Westmin-
ster politics, either as MPs or as officials, or
even journalists. Along with other reforms,
of which easily the most important has
been the dramatic – if still insufficient –
increase in the number of women, this
change has slowly softened the culture of
the place.
But it came at a high cost. The change
to the working day removed probably the
most powerful weapon an ordinary back-
bencher had – the power to delay, some-
times to derail, the government’s busi-
ness. The balance is now heavily weighted
against the ordinary backbencher and in
favour of the executive. No longer could
a Michael Foot talk for hours in order to
preventa half-baked plan for reform of the
Lords going through. In fact, half-baked
plans speed through nowadays, with
ministers often redrafting important bits
of legislation in the final stages. So much
for better scrutiny.
Don’t make MPs’ days longer. Cut the
holidays, change procedure and give MPs
back the chance to get right up the execu-
tive’s nose.
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The executive
Let MPs reclaim
control in the house
Martin
Kettle
Parliament exists to sustain a govern-
ment by passing its bills and approving its
actions. But it also exists to hold a govern-
ment and its ministers to account. Modern
parliaments have been infinitely better at
the former than the latter – think of Iraq,
think of some anti-terror laws, and think,
in particular, about the needless prolifera-
tion of laws and regulations.
MPs need to stop being sheep and start
being watchdogs. The rest of us, the media
in particular, need to assist them.
Parliament should draw up its own
bill of parliamentary rights to control the
executive. It should limit the power of
the prime minister to alter Whitehall. It
could restrict the number of ministers.
Select committees could sit many more
days and ministers could be required to
account them more regularly.
MPs should reclaim control of parlia-
mentary business, giving the Speaker more
routine power to set the Commons agenda.
MPs should remove the government’s
patronage over who sits on and chairs
committees. In the end, we should go the
whole hog and move towards a more com-
plete separation, along US lines, in which
MPs are no longer ministers. That would
remove a lot of the current conflicts.
A change of political culture is needed,
too. Everybody knows ministers and MPs
have differing views on most issues. So be
more grown-up about allowing those views
to be heard in public. Why not modify the
doctrine of collective responsibility so that
ministers and MPs can speak their minds
more freely without losing their posts?
The current system stifles debate and
public engagement. A new system would
throw the windows open.
3
Party whips
A devilish discipline
David
Hencke
The whips are essential to the running of
an efficient political process in the sense
that elected governments need to push
policies through parliament. However,
they have too much power and too much
say over what happens to MPs.
Whips have myriad ways of taking
revenge on or rewarding people. An accom-
modation whip, for example, can decide
which MP gets what room – a suite for the
helpfully toadying member or a hole-in-the-
corner office for a troublemaker. Though
not the root of the current malaise, the
power of the whip – unrecognised as a par-
liamentary post – rules supreme, inhibits
democracy and encourages a herd instinct
and mindlessly partisan behaviour.
A major reform is essential to bring
back meaningful debate to parliament. At
present, both government and opposition
chief whips – who, incidentally, receive
additional salaries from the taxpayer – are
creatures of the political party. They have
a stranglehold over the committee system
in the House of Commons – influencing
who sits on committees and having some
say over who becomes chairman. They are
also good at arm-twisting MPs to follow
the party leader on motions, which means
debates in the Commons – as opposed to
the Lords, where there are more cross-
benchers – are often stilted events, where
real issues are ignored.
Those perks that presently lie within
the gift of the whips’ office – rooms, travel,
committee places – should be apportioned
by an independent parliamentary body,
not by party apparatchiks. Party discipline
should be enforced by appeal and persua-
sion, rather than by patronage and the
granting or withholding of favours.
Select committees
Backbenchers need
to wrest control
Michael
White
Congressional committees in Washing-
ton have sweeping powers to tackle the
executive. But the US constitution rests
on a separate executive, judiciary and leg-
islature, whereas Britain’s remains inte-
grated, a medieval legacy the Americans
rejected in 1787.
MPs are paid, of course, to represent
their constituents, to vet the government’s
legislation and hold the government of the
day to account. If necessary, they do that by
turning off the tax revenues. Charles I even-
tually discovered that hard fact when he
tried to manage without them. The basics
of politics never change. But it needs a John
Pym or an Oliver Cromwell once in a while
to give the system a well-aimed kick.
All models have problems, but parlia-
ment’s select committees could benefit
from the conviction among backbench-
ers that being a committee chairman is
at least as useful a public career as being
a junior minister in charge of paperclips.
“Ministerialitis” is a curse.
MPs have the power to summon wit-
nesses – as they demonstrated with the
errant bankers – and issue severe reports.
But committee membership is still con-
trolled on all but rare occasions by the
party whips. Labour’s chief whip, Nick
Brown, explicitly argues that serial rebels
should be denied a committee place. Tory
governments have removed troublemak-
ers such as Nicholas Winterton.
Reform will require backbenchers to
take control of committee membership
and the appointment of chairmen away
from the party whips and hand it to their
own committee of selection.
It’s small constitutional beer compared
with sweeping proposals such as demands
for proportional representation voting at
Westminster, but modest changes often
matter more than dramatic ones. That
coupled with changing attitudes.
Section:GDN F2 PaGe:4 Edition Date:090521 Edition:01 Zone:
4 The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009
Secondary legislation
Cancel ministers’
blank cheques
es
Henry
Porter
Any reform of parliament should urgently
include means to restrict the use of second-
ary legislation – usually statutory instru-
ments (SIs) – and provide better ways of
scrutinising what are essentially minis-
terial edicts. Most bills contain clauses
that allow for secondary legislation to be
drafted in certain vaguely specified areas
at a later stage – a blank cheque, if you like.
Eventually these refined measures are pre-
sented to parliament and made law with
almost no debate. Research shows that
in the last two decades SIs have doubled,
with a noticeable spike at the beginning
of the Blair era. In 2005, there were an
incredible 14,580 pages of legislation, of
which nearly 12,000 were SIs.
Much of this amounts to harmless
regulation but increasingly we are seeing
criminal offences created by unscrutinised
measures that ride into the law on the back
of primary legislation. The general point
about SIs is that they greatly increase the
power of the executive and allow minis-
ters to avoid unfavourable publicity and
critical examination.
A statutory instrument should be pub-
lished in draft form giving MPs the chance
to look at the measure on its merits and
describe in simple terms what it means.
A sifting committee should apply a sys-
tematic scrutiny and decide whether the
measure should be debated.
To restore power and respect to MPs,
SIs should be amendable by either house
and both houses should have the power to
refer back to the ministry concerned with
precise suggestions. Once the measure
becomes law there should be opportuni-
ties for post legislative scrutiny to see how
it is working in practice.
Political parties
Reach out afresh to
the public
Andrew
Rawnsley
A parliament of independents: what an
attractive idea. The Right Hon Martin Bell.
Hooray! The Right Hon Esther Rantzen. Er,
well, maybe. The Right Hon Russell Brand.
Hmm. Perhaps this idea needs a rethink.
Political parties are here to stay. An
assembly of independents may be an Athe-
nian ideal, but even in ancient Greece it
wasn’t much put into practice. It isn’t going
to work in a complex modern democracy.
We need parties to guide, lead and clar-
ify debate. When the talking stops, some-
one has to take a decision whether to sign
that treaty, change that tax level, increase
that budget and decrease that one. The
trick is to reduce what’s bad about them
and accentuate what’s good. All the parties
desperately need to modernise their rela-
tionship with the public, not least because
boosting membership is one way to reduce
dependency on funding by vested inter-
ests. Parties need empowering so that it is
worth being a member again.
We need parties to supply MPs who can
provide a pool of talent to become minis-
ters and supply the Commons with quality
invigilators of a powerful executive. The
people the parties send to parliament
need to be both more representative of
the country and of a higher calibre.
That means no more of MPs taking
money in chandeliers, plasma screens,
massage chairs and all the scandalous rest
of it. It also means paying them a good sal-
ary. Would we like to see a Commons with
fewer party hacks and more people with
experiences, skills and perspectives devel-
oped in other walks of life? Would we,
say, like to make it more attractive for the
accomplished head of a comprehensive to
make the career switch into politics?
Then we should pay MPs that sort
of salary.
Party funding
Beware shovelling
state money
Seumas
Milne
Before it was cash for MPs’ moats and flat-
screen TVs, there was cash for questions
and cash for honours. The growing con-
viction that influence can be bought by
handouts from billionaires and corporate
donors has been at the heart of the collapse
in confidence in mainstream politics. Any
reform has to include action to bring party
funding and spending under control.
That means tighter caps on national and
local expenditure. The arms race between
parties is the main factor feeding demand
for dodgy donations. Closing it down
would also make it easier to limit funding:
you can’t buy much influence if personal
donations are capped at, say, £1,000.
Larger-scale funding should depend on
transparency and accountability: share-
holder endorsement, at least, in the cor-
porate world; democratic backing in the
voluntary sector. Which is already what
happens in the trade unions. The demand
to clamp down on union funding – the only
clean money left in politics – would be to
miss the point of the political crisis.
Union funding is already open, regulated
and accountable. It’s also one of the few
factors kicking against the monopolisation
of parliament by the professional middle
class. Extending the model could help to
open up Westminster’s magic circle.
Far better than extending the dead hand
of state funding, which tends to lock out
new entrants, freeze the existing setup and
make it less dependent on public participa-
tion. Quite apart from that, shovelling more
money into the parties after the events of
the past fortnight is surely a non-starter.
Communications
More transparency,
new technology
ogyy
Andrew
Sparrow
Democracy only works if voters can access
information that allows them to exercise
choice. The problem is that parliament
is institutionally hostile to scrutiny by
the media. In recent years, parliament
has become more open and the old lobby
system, involving collective, unattribut-
able briefings on a daily basis, has been
scrapped. Political correspondents can still
Sent at 20/5/2009 19:23
have a cosy relationship with sources, but
that’s inevitable anywhere where report-
ers are “embedded” with their contacts.
The solution is more transparency:
Access Parliament should let virtually any
journalists in. If there aren’t enough desks,
there should be a press centre for bloggers
– even Guido Fawkes.
Lobby Ditto lobby briefings. Officials
worry about single-issue obsessives, but
everyone would soon get used to them.
TV The rules on the use of footage from
the chamber should be abolished. Have I
Got News for You should be able to use the
pictures and it should be easy for MPs to
put footage on YouTube. The Tory MEP
Daniel Hannan could offer some advice.
Announcements Statements should be
published well before a minister speaks at
the dispatch box, so that MPs have time to
think up good questions.
Cameras and laptops MPs should be
allowed to send pictures from the green
benches. And journalists should be allowed
to blog from the press gallery overlooking
the chamber. I’d love to be the first.
Lobbying
Full disclosure and
scrutiny
Peter
Preston
There are constant themes to any West-
minster reform: transparency, rigour, out-
side independent monitoring and enforce-
ment. And that, in turn, means members’
interests and lobbying rules require few
key changes. Much of the work was done 14
years ago by the committee on standards in
public life (set up after the Guardian’s cash-
for-questions revelations in 1994).
Still, some holes need filling: post inter-
ests on the net within a week, not a month;
declare gifts under 1% of a parliamentary
salary (you can buy lots of bath plugs and
toilet seats for £640); inspect lobbying
firms prior to access to the Commons – and
withdraw access if they transgress; make
it impossible to pay lobbyists and also con-
tribute to political party funds.
But then – most crucial of all – comes
the need for independent outside con-
trol. The Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards is just another “servant of
the House” chosen by the House itself. But
blow away their rotten expenses system
and, in grim logic, members’ interests
have to be policed by outsiders as well.
So, bring in servants of the public and
publish every ruling they give. Give com-
missioners job security: no more ditching
Elizabeth Filkin if she makes too many
waves, no more neutering of high-profile
heads of the committee on standards
(such as Sir Alistair Graham).
Oh, and no more politicians on the
standards committee either. They’re our
watchdogs now. Not poodles playing on
College Green.
MPs’ staff
Don’t hire relatives
Catherine
Bennett
Each day, as more names are added to the
villainy index, the reputations of the MPs
who disdained to join in the great fiddle rise
in public esteem. The Telegraph calls them
“the saints”. But is it possible to be both
virtuous and a specialist in nepotism?
Hilary Benn, for instance, is one of
many MPs who couldn’t think of a better
parliamentary assistant than the person
he had married. Not that one can deny the
economies that must come from key staff
sharing beds, free food and stimulating
DVDs with their line managers.
In fact, to listen to Margaret Beckett,
explaining what fabulous value her hus-
band, Leo, represents, being available to
the minister at all hours, even on caravan-
ning holidays, is to wonder why more pub-
lic servants aren’t encouraged to recruit
within the home. Don’t most have a spouse,
cYanmaGentaYellowblack
child, sibling, or even, like Peter Hain, an
elderly parent, who could use the money?
MPs’ patronage, under the guise of a
“staffing allowance”, is up there with their
expenses as an insulting, salary-boosting
scam parading as baroque parliamentary
tradition. They should sack any relations
in their employment and replace them
with properly recruited staff, to be paid
directly by the House of Commons. And
that includes the saints.
Attorney general
One law for all
Tom
Clark
The outpouring of rage over MPs’ expenses
reflects the sense that there is one set of
rules for the people in charge, and another
for everyone else. To rebuild trust, politi-
cians must show that they understand that
legal processes will always apply without
fear or favour – including to themselves.
The Iraq war and the pulled prosecu-
tion of BAE Systems are the two recent
instances where this principle has been
most egregiously breached. The attor-
ney general was at the heart of both, and
reformers would do well to start here. The
attorney has three traditional tasks – to pro-
vide rigorous legal advice, to oversee pros-
ecutions in the public interest, and to serve
No 10 as a loyal minister. There is an urgent
need to split these jobs up, a task Gordon
Brown started but failed to finish.
The criminal probe into BAE’s Saudi
dealings was dropped after Tony Blair
had personally written to the attorney. In
the case of Iraq, the attorney was called
into No 10 for talks on the eve of war, twice
changing his mind on the legal position
before finally giving the green light .
Strengthening the rule of law must be at
the heart of constitutional reform. A new
respect for the courts, and perhaps new
powers to strike down laws may eventu-
ally be part of the mix. But there is no bet-
ter starting point than completing the half-
finished reform of the attorney general.
The press
The vanishing
reporter
Ian
Aitken
A factor in the present collapse of public
respect for parliament that is rarely dis-
cussed is the shrinking – almost vanishing
– of the coverage of parliamentary debates
in national newspapers. Defenders of the
press argue this is down to MPs’ lack of
interest in day-to-day business, demon-
strated by the chamber’s emptiness during
debates and the generally poor speeches.
They are simply not worth reporting.
This is partly true, but it is a two-way
process. Many MPs don’t bother to par-
ticipate in debates they know will not
be reported. Why spend hours preparing
speeches to appear only in Hansard?
There is solid factual evidence for this
assertion. In the 50s a strike in Fleet Street’s
print shops closed down the national press
for nearly three weeks. During that time
there was a noticeable fall in the attendance
of MPs, with an even sharper fall in ques-
tions tabled for ministers. In those days,
even the popular newspapers maintained
one or (in the case of the Mail and Express)
two gallery correspondents. The Times
and the Telegraph had teams of shorthand
reporters. The Manchester Guardian had
the incomparable Norman Shrapnel.
Today the gallery correspondent is vir-
tually extinct. Instead, there are sketch
writers whose job is to be funny about par-
liament. I have no objection to sketch writ-
ers. But if a paper is going to make fun of
MPs, it owes it to parliament to report what
actually happens – which means rather
more than recording the twice-weekly
slapstick of prime minister’s questions.
Most of the reforms must come from
MPs. But this is one that could come from
the press, and it is crucial not just to restor-
ing the perception of parliament but also
to reviving its function as the watchdog
of the nation. You can’t be a successful
watchdog if no one can hear you bark.
Entertainment
Settle votes with
swordplay
Simon
Hoggart
What parliament needs to reconnect with
the public is more fun and more entertain-
ment. The Commons is competing with a
host of other entertainments and, of course,
the internet. The public gallery usually has
half a dozen people in it listening to a bill
written in antique language being debated
according to antique procedures. So, my
suggestions are:
Britain’s Got Legislators An annual TV
series including tests for debating, com-
mittee work, expenses-claiming, etc. The
winner spends the next year as an MP, sit-
ting in the chamber, debating, asking ques-
tions, raising points of order and voting.
Better costumes Bring back wigs – not
just for the Speaker, but for everyone. It
could resemble the start of the London
marathon, with MPs turning up in clown
costume, diving suits, baby nappies, etc.
Music There should be musical interludes
between debates.
Swords MPs already have hooks on which
to hang their swords, and the chamber
famously has red lines to keep members
two sword-lengths apart. Settling votes
with cold steel instead of ballots would
get the viewers in and, by reducing the
numbers of MPs, would save money.
Sponsorship This would bring in huge
sums, enough for any number of chande-
liers, flat-screen TVs, Christmas decora-
tions, etc. The Sainsbury’s Sunday open-
ing debate, for example, or the Boursin
cheese appropriations bill. The new
Speaker would say, “Order, order. This
supply day is brought to you by Blossom
Hill, the wine for when old friends get
together for good times. Mr Cameron ... ”