I was at the Institute for Government last night for the launch of the report of the Better Government Initiative entitled Good Government: Reforming Parliament and the Executive. You can read a copy here. It makes a number of sensible recommendations, not only in respect of relationships within government – between Departments and the centre – but also in relation to the legislative process. The proposals regarding pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny are especially cogent.
Tomorrow sees the publication of the report of the Constitution Committee in the Lords on The Cabinet Office and the Centre of Government. This also has a number of recommendations relating to how Government is run at the centre. Watch this space.
UPDATE: You can read the Constitution Committee report here. You can also listen to Lord Butler and me discuss both reports tomorrow (Saturday) on BBC Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster.
I read somewhere that there are more than 1000
staff in the Cabinet office which seemed a disgusting number of people, considering the airs and graces that the staff give themselves, seeming more like only half a dozen.
Select committees have plenty of opportunity to debate in the chamber once their committee work has reached a certain ‘pass’
so I can’t quite see the point of those suggestions.
Selecting the chairmen from the vote of the whole house? Who has done the chairman selection in the past? The Whips office.
It is only recently that the Chairmen have been paid at all, and some committees do not have a very long life at all, so how are they paid? Pro rata?
Is the Legislation committee a new one? I could not quite see that, on leafing thru.
I am certainly not familiar with its workings. I’ll have another look.
I often wonder about the powers and relations between the first permanent secretary and the ministers/Secretaries.
I was acquainted with one gentleman who presided ,in that capacity, over the increase in Social security benefit payments from about 800,000 people to more than 3million, and I did wonder whether it was just his own empire building which was the cause of it.
He used to sign the dole cheques as I recall, and it must have been one heck of a long job signing all of those, but apparently his signature was embossed on the cheques once and for all.
We ought to remember that there are now 10m more people, in these islands, than there were when the figures, for pages of bills, are last quoted, but it still would not justify the exponential increase.
This paper has some very interesting and well thought out points but, as its authors point out, may be hard to implement. The executive seems to be under a great deal of pressure to entertain the media. In the short term, it might be possible to relieve this pressure by creating alternative circuses.
In the US, various committees regularly draw the attention of the media. Unfortunately, this can often be in rather horrific witch trail-like hearings. While I would not want the same in the UK, it might be possible to use committees to take some of the 24hr news away from the government. I don’t think I have ever seen a committee announce their findings in a big press conference or a representative from the House of Lords hold a press conference to explain why a government bill was rejected…
It is really only the senate committees that catch our attention in a ‘lick-spitteling’ way, and particularly US Foreign Affairs.
I have done spot checks on the source of news on News 24 in the last two or three years. Members It does seem to me that, while the origin of the stories is from parliament, the media does its best to develop the themes presented to them with alternative comment not from the witnesses themselves but from other experts who want to have a say, and are prepared to turn up at the studio to say so.
Don’t tell Steve, our BBC correspondent/producer on this Blog that I said so, since I always shout “propaganda” as a euphemism for “BBC News” but in fairness they do attempt political EDUCATION as part of their Reithian brief, and that does not exclude an alternative view from the ones put forward, at Commons Select committee, by the Witnesses.
I really can not comment on HofL Select committees , since I have more than once been excluded from them, as a member of the public, so they can not really be so concerned with the opinion of Joe Public at all.
Gordon Brown is putting forward a system of AV voting to MP`s perhaps for a referendum. He`s obviously been doing some math and figures Labour would come out better.Most people are apathetic where voting is concerned now let alone if they then have to do multiple choice to vote. Bad, worse or worst. Hmmmm
The upcoming election will either see total apathy or many votes for smaller parties, unfortunately this will include the BNP. People are fed up with Labour and it`s ultra left wing policies. They do not want the Tories either, the taste of Thatcher lingers still. LD ? Not a hope, sorry and all that you really haven`t got the media or strong leadership.
Question to Lord Norton. Now I don`t like party politics as you know, I`m alway`s carping on about free voting and independence.
What would happen if the people voted purely for all independent representatives ? How would that work ? Or wouldn`t it ?