Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I shall be very brief. In some ways, this should be called the "constitutional highways and byways" Bill, because we have roamed freely during its passage. For a moment I wish to return to where we started, because I was keen on where we started and, in particular, on the proposition that the time had finally come, after 150 years, to put the civil service on to a statutory basis. Many of us had been campaigning year in, year out on the issue and undertakings had been given by this Government and, in some respects, by the previous one, that this would happen, but I had begun to think that it never would. I am delighted that it has been possible, through political consensus—that was always the precondition for this happening—to get within a close distance of having secured it. I can say to the House that this measure will be an enormous source of satisfaction to the civil service of this country, which has wanted this constitutional underpinning for a long time—securing it will be a huge achievement. Whatever else happens in the remaining life of this Bill, I hope that we can at least secure that provision because that was its core constitutional element when we set out and not to secure it at this stage would be serious. Given that that provision was the Bill's core element at the beginning, I regret very much that many amendments relating to it were never able to be taken because we went off on this constitutional tour. However, I am delighted that the Government have now accepted what is contained in amendment 35. It has not been discussed at any point, and in a different world it would have been the subject of exhaustive discussion because it turns on the powers that we think special advisers should have; this would have been a major item of debate on this Bill. So although I say that it is good that right at the end the Government have accepted an amendment that the Public Administration Committee had proposed, it is not satisfactory that it has not been discussed as we progressed. A long list of other amendments on the civil service have not been discussed either, and that cannot be satisfactory. Having said that, I was one of those who was pressing for some of the highways and byways to be explored and, in particular, some of the tidying-up measures relating to the House of Lords. I was pleased that we managed to accommodate those in the Bill, but my regret is that we did so selectively. The Government have taken up large elements of Lord Steel's Bill, but they failed to take up the residual bit that proposes that it is time to put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis. I think that the House of Lords will have something to say about that omission. That bears directly on today's controversy about Lord Ashcroft, because it cannot be right that when a non-statutory body imposes an obligation on a prospective Member of the House of Lords to come onshore for tax purposes that can be disregarded without any sanction. It cannot be right that a non-statutory body can start inventing rules of that kind which are then not enforced. We have to be serious about this machinery and not just have a row about the consequences of it. We must ensure that we have the machinery embedded, constitutionally, in the proper place—I suspect that we are not done on that. I was not one of those who was pressing to include a provision on the electoral system, but, on balance, I think that the alternative vote system is probably preferable to first past the post. I merely note in the margin of that discussion that it has implications for us. Everyone party to that discussion was lining up to say how much they believe in the single Member constituency. Of course we all love the single Member constituency because we are all "the single Member". I am not sure that it looks quite the same from the point of view of the citizen. I am about to become what we like to call "an ordinary person" and, as such, my view of these matters is liable to be quite different from the one that I have as the single Member for my constituency sitting in this place. Casting an eye in the Speaker's direction, I shall simply say that at some point we will have to revisit the guidance if we are all so attached to the single Member constituency. After all, we send letters out to people saying that we cannot possibly deal with their case if they are not one of our constituents. In fact we say—I do it, too—that there is a strict parliamentary convention against it. If someone happens to have a Member of Parliament who they find politically or personally so antipathetic that they want to go nowhere near them, which is not inconceivable, and seeks to approach another Member of Parliament to take up their cause, I am not so sure that that citizen—that ordinary person—will feel quite so attached to the single Member constituency when they get the letter saying that there is a strict parliamentary convention that means that the second MP cannot deal with them. If that is the general consensus of opinion in the House, even if we might change in the direction of the alternative vote, we must revisit some of the conventions to which we say we are so attached. I had hoped to go to my political grave having secured one further thing, which I have failed to do. It is a simple thing: to allow citizens to take up cases directly with the ombudsman. When the House set up the ombudsman system in 1967, it worried that the system would undermine the ability of Members of Parliament to deal with the grievances of their constituents. That turned out to be completely false. For the past 30 years, successive ombudsmen have called for the right of direct citizen access. The Cabinet Office had a discussion 10 years ago and it recorded that there was universal dissatisfaction with the present system. In 2004, my Committee, in association with the ombudsman, did a survey of all Members of Parliament and found that there was a clear majority in favour of direct access. Here we are again, about to face a general election and for many weeks citizens will not have access to the ombudsman because there will not be a Member of Parliament through whom they can do so. As the ombudsman has pointed out, this is a completely unsustainable position. It would take one simple clause of the kind that we have described to make the required change and I suspect that the House of Lords will be interested in that, even if we are not. Finally, I said earlier that I thought that the Bill was a Christmas tree without Christmas, but I do think that there are things of value in it that should be welcomed. We might not get all the goodies that Christmas can bring, but we shall get the orange and the chocolate mouse, and they are certainly worth having.