Don't Try This at Home

The Select Committees may be running down towards the imminent end of this Parliament, but in spite of the fact that they are demob happy (or perhaps because of it) there is still plenty of fun to be had in observing the behaviour of Committee members and witnesses. Take the Public Accounts Committee hearing on problem drug use a couple of weeks ago. Edward Leigh, the Chair, who is retiring, began with the remark "400 [hearings] down; four more to go". We were then treated to the unusual experience of a witness answering back to him. Paul Hayes, Chief Executive of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, told him "I recognise you want me to be brief but if you bring issues that are not within the Report to the table then what do you expect?" Luckily for him, this raised a laugh, in which Edward Leigh joined heartily.

Later, Austin Mitchell suggested that Paul Hayes was wrong about the trend in drug-related deaths. His response: "No, I am absolutely right." Edward Leigh: "Are you ever wrong?" Mr Hayes: "It has been known." More laughs - at least from Committee Watch.

How did Paul Hayes get away with it? It was not just luck. First, he was extremely well-informed, with all the facts and figures at his fingertips. He never looked at his brief - he just knew it. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, he was patently passionate about his job and his subject and he demonstrated authentic concern for drug users, their families and the victims of drug-related crime. Thirdly, he had the ability to hold the attention of the Committee by making the statistics come alive through discussion of the motivations and behaviour of the individual drug user. Austin Mitchell actually referred to the "impressive manner" in which his evidence was delivered.

My advice to any witness tempted to answer back to a Committee is "don't". But if you can replicate Paul Hayes's knowledge, passion, sense of humour and communication skills, you might just get away with it.

Base Camp

The debate on 22 February on the Wright Committee's recommendations was inconclusive (although some fine speeches were made) and only the more minor resolutions were passed without objection. This meant that expectations were not unduly high for the outcome of the votes on some of the more contentious recommendations after the resumed debate on 4 March. But those of us who had given up hope of progress after the long drawn-out agony of the government's handling of the report (see previous posts) were confounded. Finally, the House of Commons more or less got it together. They agreed that from the beginning of the next Parliament the Chairs (no longer "Chairmen") of the departmental Select Committees, the Environmental Audit Committee, the Public Administration Select Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Procedure Committee will be elected by the whole House. And they endorsed the principle that members of Select Committees should be elected by the parties. They also approved the recommendation in the report for the establishment of a Backbench Business Committee.

So where exactly does this get us? Harriet Harman described it as "the most far-reaching package of reforms ever agreed". Sir George Young was more cautious but he said "I believe that the resolutions represent our best opportunity for decades to start rebalancing the terms of trade away from the Executive and to start strengthening Parliament and making it more effective, more accountable and more relevant to the people outside it". Others, however, took a slightly different line. David Heath, for the Lib Dems, said "An Everest of reform is necessary...if we were climbing Everest, we would simple be at base camp." Michael Meacher described the two main proposals on elected Select Committees and the Backbench Business Committee as "certainly not revolutionary. Actually, they are quite modest". It was Tony Wright, perhaps unsurprisingly, who summed things up:

"We have taken some steps in this Parliament that unfortunately have had the effect of weakening the institution. We all now know that the task is to strengthen it. These measures by themselves will not do that; all they do is provide a set of tools that people in the next Parliament, our successors, can use, if they want to, to make this place a more vital institution. That is our job today; it is their job tomorrow."

All depends, therefore, on the way that the MPs new to Parliament who will make up the bulk of backbenchers after the election respond to the opportunities created for them. Which means in fact that it is up to me and you, the electorate, to make sure that those we elect are the right people and understand our expectations of them. If all goes well, however, the decisions made on 4 March shoudl mean that we can look forward to more effective scrutiny of the Executive in future. Let's continue to scrutinise the scrutineers to ensure that happens.