Home Affairs and Justice

I still think and hope that PPSs will vote against the Government from time to time and might survive in office for doing so, but throughout that 35-year period, the size of Government within the Chamber has increased—an undesirable development. I think it fairly unlikely that the Government will achieve much in the way of strengthening Parliament for the reasons that I have set out. The Government should also bear in mind the importance of supporting the role of MPs. If the Government are worried about leaks, they have themselves to blame. First, they have failed to bring in a civil service Bill which could strengthen the civil service code, and secondly, they have set the tone with their own leaks. The very Government who complain about leaks are filling the newspapers with things that in my early days in Parliament were practically hanging offences. Revealing the contents of the Queen's Speech before the Queen uttered it was regarded as a very serious matter indeed in my earlier years. As for the contents of a Budget, for those to be revealed was a resigning matter for the Chancellor.