The debate on enhancing Parliament’s ability to communicate with the public was held yesterday. What was remarkable was the number of peers who contributed, not least given that it was the last debate before we rose for Christmas. I gather it was the best supported debate prior to the Christmas recess since we began using Thursdays as our general debate days.
What was also notable was the extent to which Lords of the Blog was mentioned. Guest blogger Lord Renton quoted some of the responses he received. The Chairman of Committees, Lord Brabazon, in replying to the debate, mentioned those who had responded to my earlier post on the subject. Bloggers Lords Soley and Tyler contributed and Baroness d’Souza was present for the entire debate.
I stressed the importance of seeing communication as a two-way process. Having strengthened our means of communicating with the public, it is important to focus on how members of the public can communicate with us. I suggested various ways of enhancing both parts of the process – some of these will be familiar to readers, not least those who responded to my earlier post. All those speaking made some excellent and complementary suggestions. Recognition of the need to build on what both Houses have already done was a core theme of the debate.
One particularly constructive proposal came from Lord Renton. He said that he would recommend to the Information Committee in the New Year that it undertake an inquiry into Parliament and the public. As and when it gets under way, it will be inviting input from all those with an interest. I will keep you posted.
I’ve gotten through a bit of the Hansard text, and theres two things I want to bring up.
The first is that you say that “Parliament does not, and should not, operate in a vacuum.” I think that this is untrue (from my limited perspective I admit), Parliament started as a way for a limited group of men to run the country, and if you wanted to change the laws, then you needed to know the people in charge. In this day-and-age, you join an interest group.
I think that before the rise of the Interest Group, most people just put up with it; but now that they are a part of the political machine, when you add the belief that the public thinks MPs are out for themselves it makes more sense to pick a selection of pressure groups to support than join a party.
The second is Lord McNally refering to the idea that you should only engage the people who are willing to be engaged. I don’t think that this would be such a problem. Would it?
I read parts of it – the first Hansard debate I’ve ever ead. Some good points were made, sadly one of the best being that this stuff is way too verbose.
All the fancy phrases are great for the tourists but the signal/noise ratio of it all is really low. It’s hard to quickly find the points being made. The huge speech length discourages quick back-and-forth discussion. The debate comes off as a series of pre-written speechs that are adjust ad-hoc to refer (occasionally) to previous speechs.
This is why slashcode debates hide the rest of a comment if it’s longer than 6/7 paragraphs – it encourages concision, which lets more people take part.
By the way, at one point it’s claimed bills are already published in XML form. Where?! I was unable to find them, although I didn’t spend a long time looking.
Troika21: I would stick by my point that Parliament does not operate in a vacuum. There has been a massive growth of interest groups in the past forty years, but interest groups in one form or another have been around for centuries. Parliamentarians may have inhabited a relatively closed world in earlier centuries, but it was never a wholly closed one: they were influenced by a range of outside bodies as well as by the Crown. My point in the debate was to show just how much things have changed in recent years. Parliament is far more open than ever before.
Mike: I have just responded to your earlier comments on my earlier post regarding online debates. There is a case for succinct contributions, and we get some succinct exchanges through the medium of Question Time. The point I make in reponse to your earlier comments is that online exchanges can complement existing debates. The advantage of parliamentary debates is that they permit depth, but – in the Lords – they do so without going on for too long. Our speeches are time limited. In Thursday’s debate, for example, because of the number of speakers in the time-limited debate, each speaker – with the exception of the mover of the motion (me, with 15 minutes), the opposition front-benchers (10 minutes each) and the Chairman of Committees (20 minutes) – had a maximum of eight minutes. This is not very long in terms of debating time. Given the nature of the debate, where there was no notable disagreement between the speakers, there were no interruptions. In other debates, particularly on legislation, one gets a shorter and more interactive exchange. As I mentioned in the debate, Parliament has variously made use of online consultations, more so than other parliaments, and I think we can usefully build on what we already do to ensure a greater exchange with those outside. On your last point, Bills are published in XML format, for which one needs a (free) click-use license. If you need more information on this, let me know.