Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

That was it. My noble friend Lord Barnett was the first chairman, and he was followed by my noble friend Lord Sheldon. During the period of my noble friend Lord Barnett’s chairmanship, the attendance was almost 100 per cent. It was a very well attended committee to which Members of the House were prepared to give much of their time. Yet when I looked at the Sessional Return for 2009-10, the attendance rate had dropped to 42.5 per cent—in other words, a substantial reduction in attendance over the 20 years following the period when I was first elected. Even in 1990 when I came off that committee, attendances were very high. Take other committees. The Science and Technology Committee has 41.4 per cent attendance. What is happening? Why has there been a substantial reduction in the number of people available to attend House of Commons committees? Take the Justice Sub-Committee: attendance is just 23.8 per cent. Many members of the Justice Sub-Committee in the House of Commons failed completely to attend any sessions of the committee, I presume because they simply did not have the time available to them. The Regulatory Reform Committee had attendance of only 33.3 per cent. I was under the impression that that committee in the House of Commons, chaired very competently by Andrew Miller, would attract the interest of Members, but only one-third of the meetings were attended.