Good morning and welcome to this public evidence session of the Procedure Committee. The Leader of the House of Commons is said to act as the Government’s representative in the House and the House’s representative in Government, and provides a pivotal link between the two. Given our focus on how the House of Commons procedures operate, historically there has been a very close relationship between this Committee and the Leader of the House. To that end, I am delighted to welcome the right hon. Sir Alan Campbell MP, Leader of the House of Commons and Chair of the Modernisation Committee, who will be sitting before this Committee for the first time since his appointment, to take some questions from us. Good morning. Before we begin, could I ask you to introduce yourself formally for the record?

I am Alan Campbell, Member of Parliament for Tamworth and the Leader of the House and Lord President of the Council.

You are very welcome this morning. The first question comes from me, and it is just a starter for 10: do the Government have any headline priorities for procedural reform in this Parliament?

Thank you for inviting me, first of all. As you know, I am quite recently appointed to the job, so I am learning as we go along, but there are three strands of work that I am involved in. The first is a legislative one; it is no secret that we are putting together a second Session, and therefore much of my time is taken up with that. The second is chairing the Modernisation Committee. Then the third is—hopefully—moving forward on R&R. The overarching priority in that, for me and for the Government, is making sure that this place works properly—that the Commons works properly and that the procedures that are in place work properly. Sometimes that means going back, revisiting and making sure that they are as they were intended, but the other strand of that, of course, is that, if they are not working properly, we reform them where they need to be reformed. That is not just a question for the Modernisation Committee; it is a question for this Committee and, indeed, for some other Committees as well.

We have recently had UK Parliament Week, and I find that it is a really good opportunity for us as constituency MPs to engage with our constituents. However, it always falls when the House is sitting, which makes it incredibly difficult for those of us with constituencies a long way from London to fully engage. Have you had any conversations with the Speaker, or whoever decides when Parliament Week falls, about holding it during a time the House is in recess? Alternatively, could the September sitting be changed so that Parliament Week falls then, allowing MPs the time to engage in those activities in their constituencies?

The short answer to your question is no, I have not had conversations with the Speaker. As you know, the Speaker is a great advocate for Parliament, and he encourages and cajoles us to make sure that MPs are making full use of that. I take your point that part of that is what happens here and people seeing it, but also going back to constituencies, and that is difficult. There is another side to that, which I hope we can get on to later, about how we spend our time here and how often we are here. It is an interesting question that I will take away and think about—whether it could be put somewhere else—but there are an awful lot of people who come here during Parliament Week, because it is Parliament Week as well. I am not sure there is a perfect answer to the question. It might be that we need to think a bit harder, not about where Parliament Week falls, but about what we do during that week to ensure that, when MPs are invited to take part in school visits—the typical example—they are able to do that.

You mentioned working on the next Session. Can you provide us with any more certainty on the timings for the present Session of Parliament, following the announcement by your predecessor in September that the present Session would continue into spring 2026?

Yes. I cannot give you a precise date, because I do not have one, but I think it is a fairly open secret that this is a long Session. It is not an unusually long Session; the first Session of the coalition Government in 2010 was of equal length, and we have done a great deal in this Session. There will be somewhere in the region of about 60 Bills that we will have dealt with, and we will have a number of Bills that we will need to take forward into the second Session. There are a lot of carry-over Bills, too, and it is something we might want to touch on. I think there are lessons to learn from this Session, but I am not suggesting that it is that unusual. It is going to look like pretty much a two-year Session, ending in spring 2026. I suspect it will be post the local elections, to put it that way. By the time we get through what we need to and get some of the Bills that are not going to be carry-over Bills through, I suspect the definition will be more towards May rather than March.

Recently, there have been several instances where the House has had to be suspended because statements have not been delivered to Parliament in good time. As the House’s representative in Government, what actions are you taking to ensure that your ministerial colleagues are providing information to Parliament in a timely manner?

Yes, this is a real issue. I am not saying it is a new issue; I do not know whether it has got worse or better, but it is a real issue, and I take it very seriously indeed. It goes back to what I said at the beginning about making sure that, where we have conventions and rules, they are followed. I continue to make the point in Cabinet to Secretaries of State about how their Departments work, but I also met permanent secretaries recently and went through how it is meant to work. I have also met parliamentary clerks to reassure them of our support for what they are trying to do in Departments and to make sure that Parliament is at the forefront of what Departments are doing, and that Ministers recognise their responsibilities to Parliament. I think there is a learning exercise to do. I hope it is because, in the fairly recent past, there have been a number of upheavals in the way Parliament and Government work. I do not park everything at the door of covid, but it did change the way in which Parliament functions. I do not know whether there is a bit of malaise in what we do and it is a relearning exercise, or whether we need to change the rules. However, I am very clear that statements need to be provided in a timely fashion and need to have the information that the Opposition need to see. There is another element to this, which is probably worthy of another session, and that is the relationship between the Government and the Opposition. The Opposition are part of the constitution. They are the official Opposition. The Conservative party is a key player in what we do. Partly because of the time that I’ve spent in this place in the Whips Office, I am very keen that the usual channels work properly and that there is a real understanding by Government, whoever the Government are, that the Opposition have rights and Ministers have responsibilities. So I continue to make the case. As you know, the Speaker continues to make the case, too. I think there is an issue about the timeliness of statements and when the Opposition get to see them. There is perhaps a discussion, maybe a debate, to be had about when statements are appropriate and when they are not appropriate. The place we are at now is to say that Parliament should hear first. That is the starting point. I do, however, sometimes ask whether that is realistic in a world in which Government are working particularly in a different media environment. Probably not that long ago, statements were delivered at half past three on a Monday to get the six o’clock news on the BBC. No disrespect to the BBC, but who gets the news at six o’clock of an evening? There are all sorts of ways in which information gets out there. Any Government have to take that into account, and we need to take that into account and have a bit of understanding.

Going back to the parliamentary Session, Alan, you have a massive amount of experience. You have seen short Sessions and longer Sessions. As Leader of the House, what is your preference? Do you think the yearly structure of a parliamentary Session is better than over two years?

I do not think there is a simple answer to that. I do not hide the fact that my preference is for annual Sessions, which I would quite like to get back to, but that has probably gone. We still have the short November recess because the Sovereign’s speech was inevitably in November. We knew when the Session started and there was a pattern to it. I think that has probably gone, if I am honest, but I am in favour of getting more regular and knowing when they start and when they finish. I think there is an issue around the length of the first Session. As I said during the coalition Government, the then Government would have had similar issues. We were ready for Government. However, the election was a bit earlier than we thought it might have been—[Interruption.] Well, it was. And the expectation that Bills were all on the shelf and ready to go is just not true. An awful lot of work went into that, but it was not the case that it was ready to go. Ministers learn during those early months about the pattern and the flow. Departments need to learn as well what the Government’s expectation is of them. There is a combination of factors. It is not a question of blaming anybody; it is just a question of how it has turned out to be a longer Session. I am going to say it because I am here: it is a longer Session than I anticipated, and my preference probably would have been to end it a bit earlier, but that is not where we are going to get to. There is a bit of politics in here as well. You want to start and you want to stop in the right place because any Government need to be thinking about what the future looks like. What have you got to do in one Session to make sure that, as I say, the seeds you plant are flowering by the time you need them to flower? It is quite difficult—I am mixing my metaphors—to get the pipeline ready. You know what I mean. But my preference is an annual Session. I may be a bit old fashioned in that.

I totally agree with you on that.

Do you think that some delays could have been avoided? The two things I am thinking about are the readiness of the Bills and delays in the other place, which have led to things taking time to come to us.

That is a really good question. We need to think about that, because there need to be lessons learned. Again, there are a lot of aspects to it: one is the new Government having a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do, particularly where it was set out in the manifesto, and there were commitments we had made, usually about time of delivery. One of the lessons is that you need to be careful before you commit to a time of delivery, but every Opposition probably do that as they approach a general election. I will use an analogy—my office will be sick of hearing me say this and it runs the risk of the wrong headlines, but I will say it: we have too many Christmas tree Bills and we need more bonsai Bills. We need small and beautiful Bills that do not grow of their own accord. What happens, particularly in the Home Office but in other Departments as well, is that something gets tagged on to a very good idea along the way, and that opens up the scope of the Bill and something else gets tagged on to it. The result is a much bigger Bill that takes longer than anticipated. It is quite often the case that the thing you did not anticipate would cause a problem is what causes the problem and the row. We have a number of Bills coming back in ping-pong from the other place—they are entitled to do it, if that is what they want to do—but it is slightly unusual in that sense. It is about focusing on the size of Bills. One thing I have said to permanent secretaries is to think about the Bill and get it right before it is brought to a Public Bill Committee. The first question you have to ask yourself is whether you actually need a Bill to do what you are doing. The second question you need to ask yourself is whether it has to be primary legislation, or whether it can be done through secondary legislation. The third question you should ask is whether the Department has to do it. As we approach a new Session, there will be a new round of private Members’ Bills—I suspect it will be quite different from the last round, by its nature—and it is no surprise that people might want to pick up things that the Government are supportive of, and you can use that as a track. That potentially gives you some of the 13 extra days to legislate on. I am very much in favour of Back-Bench Members picking up Bills, seeing where they get to and, if they can, changing what is going on. So there are a number of things that we can do and questions that you need to ask. Management is important, but it is more difficult than it looks from the outside. In terms of the other place, it is frustrating sometimes, not least because we have a big majority in the Commons but not in the upper House. They have a different way of working and they have different rules. We programme and do all sorts of things that give the Government of the day that advantage, and they do not have that. Therefore, it is about building a different coalition and working in a different way. It is tough. Looking from the outside from the Government’s point of view, it is frustrating. However, going back to what the Chair said about my role, I fully understand and support the right of the upper House to scrutinise and do what they are doing. But, as we all know, with rights come responsibilities. Scrutiny is one thing, and the Opposition have the right to scrutinise, whether they are in the upper House or in our House. But at the end of the day, we did win the election and, therefore, we have a right to get our business done.

You may be aware that we have been doing an inquiry into call lists. One of the key themes that has come out of that is a desire from Members for more certainty about the flow of the parliamentary day. In your view, is the increasing number of urgent questions and statements affecting the amount of time that Members have to contribute to debates on important or controversial legislation?

Good question. One thing I did very early on, which flowed from an earlier Procedure Committee report, was ask to look at what a typical working week looked like. An earlier Procedure Committee inquiry, if I am correct, looked at private Members’ Bills, sitting Fridays and all those things. I thought it was a good time to take stock of how long, so I asked for some numbers on that. I had anticipated that Government legislation would probably get, if not the lion’s share, half the parliamentary week, but we have not: we have about a third of the parliamentary week, because, as you rightly point out, other things have grown. You could count statements as the Government bringing forward things that they want to talk about or tell the House about, but I am just talking about legislation, and that is not even half. The biggest bit, by far, includes things like urgent questions and statements. I think statements and urgent questions are really important, but I would very gently say that they are perhaps not what they were set up to be, in terms of time. I am old and long in the tooth enough to remember when statements were meant to be 45 minutes; I have also been here long enough to remember that UQs were meant to be 30 minutes. I am not criticising the Chair in any way for this, but they do tend to roll on. Also, how many do we have? Although the Government have control over statements, they do not really have that control over urgent questions. There is an interplay, of course: when something that looks worthy of being reported to the House pops up, if the Government do not bring forward a statement, it increases the chance that there will be an urgent question. There is then a tendency in Government to say, “Well, we need to make a statement anyway.” I have not solved this problem, Tom, but I have said from the Whips’ perspective that we really need to look at the Monday we come back after recess—particularly in the summer, but also after Christmas—because there will invariably be something, and probably a lot of things, that need to be reported back to the House. We were having Government legislation scheduled on that day that was either knocked out, and which we then needed to find another slot for, or was not given enough time for debate. Therefore, craftily, we thought we would take a softer approach and put Back-Bench business on then, because that could be a bit more stretchable, but the reality is that some of that got knocked out too. Bob Blackman, as Chair of the Committee, was quite rightly asking me if they could have guaranteed time. It is interesting to focus on that day at the beginning of term and see whether there is anything else we can do. Some of it is a self-denying ordinance. It is about pulling back and saying, “Do we actually need to do that?” But I am very conscious of this. It would be quite interesting to look at the numbers and see what the timeliness of statements and UQs looks like. I think the attitude of getting everybody in is what is stretching the day. People have different expectations, don’t they?

May we ask you some questions about the Modernisation Committee, which you have taken over chairing? Do you expect the Committee to have any big inquiries coming up? Is there anything that is likely to touch on procedural matters, or anything that we should be aware of on that front?

I will start by saying how I see the Modernisation Committee fitting in. I know that there are some problems with this already, but I see it as a hub and spoke mechanism. We are busy refreshing Modernisation: we have changed our side, and I know that there are some changes coming on the Conservative side too, so there will be a number of new faces. That is a good thing, actually, not because there was a problem with the people who are going, but because you need to refresh it and get new people on it generating ideas. That will be really interesting, with a new Chair and perhaps a largely new Committee. The accessibility report is coming out tomorrow, I think, which is important. Not only does it look at the physical accessibility of the place, but it starts to focus on whether what we do and how we describe what we do is very accessible—the language that we use and so on. I think that bit of it will probably be an ongoing thing and may be more where Procedure fits than the other. There are some ongoing streams. I have to pay tribute to Lucy Powell, my predecessor as Chair, in that regard, because she did a lot of the heavy lifting on this, and I am finishing these things off. When we come back in the new year, one of the things that we are going to discuss and have a look at—and which I think will lead to other things, by the way—is what I have already alluded to: what does the parliamentary week look like? What are the expectations of Members of Parliament in relation to their constituency work? Do we need to have a look at whether the way we do things, and when we do them, is actually the best way? Also, when you look at the parliamentary week, you are looking at what the parliamentary Session looks like, too. There are a number of big things in there; again, I think we need to look at whether they are doing what was on the tin when they were brought in. I think Bob Blackman is doing a fantastic job with the Backbench Business Committee, but it gets 35 days, 27 of which are on the Floor of the House, so one of the first things that happens when you are looking at a three-week period is that you think “If we do not put Back-Bench business in there regularly, we are going to have a great number of days when they are there.” Also, the Opposition parties get, I think, 21 days between them for Opposition days. They go in, too. So from asking what the week looks like, I think we need to look at what the Session looks like, and if the balance is right in that. I do not know the answer, but I think it is worth asking the questions.

Is it your instinct that Back-Bench business gets too much time, or too little?

There are a number of things. This is not a criticism of Back-Bench business, but it will sound like it, so let me get that out there. Some of the things that were expected of them in the original reforms are not happening. That is partly due to the nature of how MPs—new MPs in particular—are seeking to use this place. There is a lot of merit in reflecting what is in their postbag, what is happening in their constituencies or what they are campaigning on at the time. I think it is really important to protect that, by the way, but there are things that are missing from the parliamentary calendar that we perhaps expected would have been picked up. I am old enough to remember that there used to be four or five days—Chris will remember—when we looked at armed forces and military matters. If they happen now, either they happen through Back-Bench business, almost by accident rather than design, or the Government have to bring forward those days, and we do not have all of those days to make it happen. Are there things that we are missing that the House would be looking for that are not being delivered in that way? Do we have to deliver those differently? If you put something in, you have to reduce the numbers for other things as well. But—in answer to your question, or perhaps not—in my head, we need to define what “Back-Bench” actually means, because it is not just about Back Benchers going to a Committee to get time in the House. Beyond the role of the Government and the Opposition, what does the rest look like? How do Back-Bench Members of Parliament, either through private Members’ Bills or whatever, get their time in the sun as well? It is interesting to look at the idea of rebalancing that.

You have touched on the accessibility report that is coming out tomorrow, so it would not really be fair to ask you what that is going to contain. You also touched on the fact that you will refer to some of the proposals of the Procedure Committee; that is appreciated. Can I go off track a bit? I always remember that I had a vague aspiration, many years ago, to shove the conference recess later in the year, because the two-week period that we have is quite difficult when you are trying to make Government business work. Has any thought ever been given—admittedly, this has to be quite a long-term shift—to making that two-week period a bit more substantive and working with all the parties to move the conference session to maybe two weeks later? I think we would all get a lot more value, from a legislative point of view, if you had a four-week run instead of a two-week run.

I see. That is an interesting proposition. I am guessing that the one thing you cannot shift is the conferences, because they will be booked years ahead and we know when they will land. Are you saying, “What is the worth of the conference recess?”

It is more about having a discussion, because you are right; Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Reform will have booked in two or three years ahead. We are almost saying that in three years’ time, this is where we are looking to reshape the parliamentary year. You have got that two-week session that does not add an awful lot of value. It would be more useful to have a more substantive thing. Has there been any thought about working with the parties to say that in 2029 we would like the parliamentary year to be shaped in a slightly different way? I tried vaguely with Patrick McLoughlin, but he was quite adamant that he did not want to shift anything when he was chairman of the party and I was Chief Whip. Is it worth some thinking?

It is worth some thinking, and I will go away and think about it. However, one of the immovable things—and I am not just talking about dates—might be political parties. We have to be clear that if they make their mind up about when their conference is going to be, that is when it is going to be, whether they have booked it or have yet to book it; some parties do book quite a way ahead. It is about working around that. I gently point out—and I made this conscious decision in September 2025—that it was much more substantive in terms of the business. Then, when we got into the substantive nature of the business, it felt heavy-going because people had got it in their heads that in previous years it was interesting, but it was not heavy legislative-wise. We did it partly because we needed to, but more importantly I wanted to send out the message that this is two weeks of working time. A wider question, which is probably still asked by older hands, is why we have that two-week period. It goes back to what I said before about looking at the shape of the year. Do the recesses that we have fit with school holidays? They might fit with English school holidays, but not Scottish ones. Is there some way we can reshape the year? I do not think our electors would expect us to have even more time in recess. I know that is not what you are suggesting, even though we are, I am informed, probably the longest-sitting legislature in the world—if not, we are one of the longest. We do sit longer than most, but we work in a different way from many of them as well. It is not about reducing the time that we are here; it is about making better use of the time.

I was going to ask about Back-Bench business and whether you anticipated bringing that forward, because it was in the memorandum, but from what you have said it sounds as though it is certainly on the agenda down the line. Moving on to the detail—I think you have touched on some of this already—what do you see as the right balance between time for scrutiny of Government legislation and time for debate on broader policy matters or matters of national importance?

There needs to be balance in that. It is about getting it clear in our mind, from a Government perspective, what the role of Parliament is, and respecting the role of Parliament to talk about the things it wants to talk about. Getting that balance is a mutual understanding. The primary purpose of this place is the scrutiny of Government and the legislation that the Government bring forward. We need to focus on that. We are legislators; that is what we are sent here for. Of course we are sent to give a voice to our constituents and to find often ingenious ways of raising issues with a constituency niche that might not be reflected in Government legislation. All of that is important, but at the end of the day the Government need time to bring forward their legislation and for Parliament to scrutinise it. That is why I am absolutely passionate about the importance of focusing on the Chamber as the central point of this. The Chamber is the bit that people think about when they think about Parliament; it is central to what we do. It is about making that work even better than it works now, and ensuring that the Government is held to account and that MPs have an opportunity to raise the issues they want to raise. It is about balance. I hope I didn’t give the impression, certainly with Back-Bench business, that I have an answer or a point that I want to get to. I am quite happy saying that, at this point in time, it should be on the table and we should be prepared to think about it. If we are going to stick with what we’ve got, let’s stick with what we’ve got, but if we need to change it, let’s change it. There is definitely a balance.

It is clear that there is a discussion. I think my initial question has been answered in the sense that that discussion is coming forward. Going back to your point about the usual channels and making sure the Opposition is part of the process of Parliament, what steps will you take to build and maintain consensus across the House on any procedural reforms that are proposed by the Modernisation Committee so that there is as much consensus as we can get?

It is really important to do that. I spend a great deal of time talking to the Opposition parties. I will talk to anybody, but particularly the Opposition parties and their representatives to try to get consensus. It is not always possible, but I like to work on a consensual basis if possible. From my fairly limited experience of the Modernisation Committee, I know that we are looking for areas of consensus. I hope it does not happen soon, but Governments do come and go, and what you wish for in opposition is not necessarily something that you would relish when you are in government. We therefore have to be open to that, but I prefer to work on that basis. We cannot definitely say that if the Opposition parties do not agree, nothing happens, but we should do that. Just because Governments have big majorities, that does not mean that they should force through any old thing. You should respect Parliament and the role that MPs and political parties play. I am very conscious of that.

Alan, what do you think the working relationship between the Modernisation Committee and the Procedure Committee should look like in practice?

Thanks, Mary—that is a good question. I said before that in my mind it is a hub and spoke model. The overall answer to your question is that we should work really closely. I meet Cat. I am happy to talk to anybody about the work of any Committee, but this Committee is very close to a lot of what we do. I want to work to a hub and spoke model if I can because, however good the members are in Modernisation, they are there because they are primarily interested in modernisation, and this Committee has looked at some issues in greater detail and has greater knowledge of them. It is a way of working whereby, to some extent, we get to an issue that we want to look at and we ask Committees to take it away and look at it. That is already a bit of a problem because of your workload. I am not in a position to say to you, “Right, scrap everything else. This is what I want you to do.” Let me be clear: I am a big advocate and fan of Select Committees, House Committees and whatever else. I think they are moving from strength to strength, and it is not for me to try to influence their work programme or how they work. I therefore hope we can find some common ground, and I hope it can fit in with your work programme. It would be nice if it fitted in with the timescale that we are looking for, but that is quite difficult to achieve.

The second part of that question is: how do you ensure that the work of the Modernisation Committee complements rather than conflicts with the work of other Committees?

The secretariat of the Modernisation Committee needs to keep a tally of what other Committees are doing to avoid duplication. If PACAC is doing an inquiry, Modernisation and Procedure don’t need to do the same inquiry. At the end of the day, Mary, it is about trusting colleagues who are off looking at something that happens to be more in their area, rather than the wider spread of Modernisation, and seeing where they get to and how it complements what we are doing. Modernisation is a bit of a moveable feast, whereas other Committees focus slightly more on what they have been set up to look at.

When we were asked to undertake our inquiry into proxy voting, the Government indicated to us that they thought there were outstanding issues with the operation and the scope of the scheme. What matters do you think the Committee should bear in mind in future work in this space?

Thank you for the work that you have been doing. We need to be careful about the changes that we make. I will come back to the overarching reason why that is the case, but I understand that you will do a further inquiry into proxy voting at some point in the future. Is that the plan?

Yes.

I certainly look forward to seeing that. I have already put on the Order Paper the order that will extend the changes necessary until the end of this Session. I think the others are on, but the ill health one is not covered until the end of the Session, so that is on the Order Paper and we will bring that forward at some point. In answer to your question, or what is behind it, I do not think we should rush ahead with this. I am very sympathetic to colleagues who, for whatever reason, cannot be here to vote in person. Proxy voting partly answers that question and it is a relatively new thing, but there is another side to how you can handle this, which is by using the human resource side of whipping offices. There is scope, particularly where you are operating with a big majority, for the Whips Office to say to people, “You don’t need to be here,” in cases of family bereavement, illness or whatever. There always has been. There are different ways of recording somebody’s vote. We do not do it so much now, but there is nodding through, where you accept that someone cannot physically come and vote, and therefore you accept that their vote will be accounted for. There are a number of ways other than proxy voting in which you can address the issue. The problem is partly to do with the way that MPs believe that they are—and perhaps they are—being scrutinised by their constituents. There is a kind of virtue—and I do it, or I used to, anyway—in looking at how many times you have voted and thinking, “I need to be in the top half of that, for certain.” How many questions have you put down? How many times have you spoken, and so on? If it is not quantifiable, it does not really match up. The reality is that we should be thinking about quality as well as quantity, and whether somebody is here to vote on a particular day, or even a particular week or fortnight or whatever it happens to be, does not usually make a world of difference. If you have a good reason for not being here, your constituents, by and large, will understand. But I think we are a bit in the headlights of, “If I’m not here and my vote is not recorded, somehow people think I’m not doing my job properly.” I do not think that that is true. Well, I know it is not true, but we are a bit in the headlights at the minute, and I think proxy voting to some extent was introduced in that context.

Thank you for that. You have kind of answered my second question, but during our recent inquiry we heard representations that proxy voting should be available in a wider range of circumstances, such as for colleagues with caring responsibilities, chronic illnesses and mental health situations—and probably bereavement as well, I would imagine. What are your views on those specific circumstances?

I suppose my answer is that this is a work in progress and we should continue to look at cases on their merit. I am not saying that proxy voting would not extend in future. However, as I have already said, I am cautious about that, partly because cases can be accounted for in different ways. They can be dealt with in different ways. I think we should take it on a case-by-case basis, but we should work on the basis of consent. In the horrible situation of bereavement, even if a tough vote were coming up, there is no question of people not being allowed to be away and with their loved ones, and to take time if they needed to. The caring issue is important. Some people might not think this, but I always found in our work in the Whips Office that we are absolutely understanding if people need to be away for caring responsibilities. That is not the same thing, however, as saying that it is not helpful that Parliament sits until 10 o’clock on a Monday or 7 o’clock on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, and that it is therefore not family friendly. The debate about family friendly hours will go on, but I would be cautious. Parliament is a place of work and we have a big job to do. We can do a bit of a workaround for individuals, but by and large the hours are a lot more family friendly than they were. They are also the way they are for good reason. The view of someone who lives in London is often quite different from someone who lives where you live, Mr Stevenson, because you cannot go home. I presume you are here from Monday probably until Thursday night, and so am I. When I am here, I want to work all the hours I need to work down here so that I can get away on a Thursday, or whatever it happens to be, and work in my constituency. Let’s just think about why the hours are the way that they are, and then let’s see what we can do to accommodate the very genuine concerns individuals have, before we jump in with a one-size-fits-all and say we will just extend proxies—I know you are not saying this—so that if you want a proxy, you can have one. I do not believe in that.

I should declare that I am a member of the Modernisation Committee, which is why I have not been asking questions about modernisation. A lot of what you’ve said, Alan, is like a breath of fresh air, and very welcome. There is lots of common sense there. Can I follow up on the question of expectations? When I first got into this place, we had two-line Whips that really counted, which meant that people were not expected to vote. They could vote if they wanted to, and they could pair. The expectation was that people’s voting record would not be counted on the basis of the number of Divisions they had voted in, but it was certainly a case of woe betide anybody who did not vote on a three-line Whip. We have now almost replaced all the two-line Whips with three-line Whips and, as a result, public expectations are out of kilter with the reality that people are allowed by their Whips to absent themselves. Do you think we could do anything to, in a sense, educate the public, the press and the media so that they recognise that people can do a lot as Members of Parliament without actually having to turn up for every single vote, even on relatively minor matters?

I am mindful of what the great Bill Cash said to me over Europe: “You are agreeing with me too much. It won’t do your career any good.” But we do agree a bit on this, Chris. I look at it from a different point of view, actually. Without wanting to go into whipping too much, when we did a series of two-line Whips, everybody scratched their head and said, “What does that mean then? We know what a one-line Whip means and we know what a three-line Whip means, but what is a two-line Whip?” It gives you a kind of instruction on what you need to do, but everybody thinks, “It’s much simpler if I just turn up, or get slipped or something.” I look at it from a different point of view. The Government put on a three-line Whip to protect their business, but if the Opposition said to the Government, some time out from a debate on a Bill, “We’re not going to vote on this,” it would change the game a bit, and that is what used to happen. Where is the trust in that now? We do work closely with the Opposition parties, but we have been through a fairly tumultuous period in which some of that trust has been kind of mislaid somewhere. The other question, which is a serious one, is, “Why do we need to vote so often?” In the Lords, they do not often vote on Second Readings, and there is a logic for that. Even if you do not like the Bill, you don’t vote on Second Reading, because you let it go—you don’t vote for it—and then you try to change it in Committee; and if it does not change into the Bill you want, you vote against it on Third Reading. That is a perfectly logical place to be. What we do—we were guilty of this when we were in opposition, and the current Opposition are too—is that if you don’t like something, you have to vote against it. You have to nail your colours to the mast and be really clear about what you are doing, instead of saying to people, “There’s a process here, whereby although I don’t like it, I am going to see if we can change it, and at the end of it all, if I still don’t like it, I will vote against it at that point.” I do not think it is about educating the public, who are quite wise in an awful lot of these matters, and we shouldn’t think they are not; it is about us having a think about what we do and whether or not we make use of the conventions and the usual channels in what we do. Politics has got quite fractious, hasn’t it? You have to have a different position from what the Opposition are saying, or what the Government are saying. This is not a trip down memory lane, but we got into a bit of a situation where we were abstaining on Bills—we did not like them, but we abstained on them—and then we got absolutely whacked because we were weak and we did not have a view. Of course we had a view. Abstention is a perfectly decent place to be; you are just withholding your support or withholding your objection, to see where you get to. We got absolutely whacked, and therefore, as the Chief Whip, I would be told, “Pick a position on this. You’re either for it or against it.” That is not how the House is necessarily set up to work. Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you very much.

The last substantive set of questions is on written parliamentary questions. To get us started, what pressure are you putting on your colleagues in Departments to answer questions promptly, with high-quality answers?

I am putting pressure on them as far as I can, but there is another issue that we need to think about in this context. I am doing it by saying to Secretaries of State at Cabinet, “You need to check. If not, you’re going to be hauled up before the appropriate Committee—and a good thing, too—and held to account for that, and you’re going to have to have some good answers.” We spent some time talking about this with the permanent secretaries, and I particularly talked to the parliamentary clerks about this too. Parliamentary clerks are a really important part of the system, and I am not sure they are always given the proper respect and resourced properly. We expect it to filter down within Departments from Secretaries of State, but we also say to Ministers, “You need to take this seriously. It’s a really important part of what you do.” When I was a Home Office Minister, I would personally sign off every PQ, and if it was not answered in time, I would want to know why. I would also want to see the original question, not just the answer, to make sure that it answered the question. I would say this, but that is what good Ministers should do. They should do that, and if they did, we would not have the issue that we have got. However, PQs have exploded in number, haven’t they? They just have, and I think it is a really good opportunity to have a look at why. There may be some sinister things going on. I mean, who is actually writing them? As we move into a world of AI, are they actually being generated in that way? I do not know the answer to that question, so I think we should try to find out. Also, is having two different types of PQs—named day and ordinary—the best way forward? There are a number of Parliaments where that does not happen, and I do not think it has a detrimental effect. I do think we need to do that, and we need to gently find a way, perhaps, of saying to colleagues, “You need to prioritise what you’re doing here, because every PQ costs money.” The system got changed because the then Back Bencher John Bercow, when he first came in, put down hundreds of PQs and the cost was phenomenal. I am not blaming him, but that is why we moved to where are now, and I think it is good to ask the question. It is not just a question for Departments, “Are you doing your job properly?” We perhaps have to ask, “Can Departments do that job properly if the numbers have gone through the roof in the way that they have?” Of course I want Back Benchers to be able to hold Departments and the Government to account. That is the priority. If it has to be the way it is, it has to be the way it is, but does it need that number of PQs? As I understand it, if you put down a PQ two days before the Christmas recess, it will not actually land in the Department until after the Christmas recess. Now, I do not want people to work over the Christmas recess, but imagine this in the summer recess. Imagine you are the parliamentary clerk in a busy Department the day after the summer recess, and you are sitting looking at 300 PQs and the clock is already ticking. As you are dealing with them, more are coming in as people come back to Parliament. So there is an issue about the system that we’ve got for PQs now. We need a way of saying to MPs, “Prioritise.” It might go back to what Chris has been talking about and what I mentioned, which is a sense of, “Look at me, I’ve put in all these PQs. I must be a really good MP.” I can tell you that when that happens your neighbour gets it in the neck because people say, “Why have they put in 2,000 PQs and you haven’t?” or whatever. To put it simply, we may have to limit the number and say to people, “Choose what you want to do,” and give people a reasonable timescale. We should ask, “What is your priority?” because it is costing money, and I am not sure the outcome is always worth the money.

Another way of getting information out of Government Departments is, of course, to write to that Department and ask for the information. But we have also heard from colleagues—I have had this experience myself—about not having your letters replied to and using WPQs to ask when you will get a reply to your correspondence. I have asked you about timely and good-quality responses to WPQs. Have you done anything specific around Government Departments replying to correspondence from MPs?

I have said the same thing, but there is also something else that can be a bit of a magic wand here: get on your feet on a Thursday morning at business questions and ask why a Department has not answered your question. You would be surprised at how quick you get an answer—but please don’t take that as an invitation for everybody to come to business questions; I am just shining a light on it. There will always be times when you literally cannot get the answer, or it is not good value for money to do that, but that does not explain some of the delays, frankly. Let me be very clear: this is not a criticism of civil servants or many Ministers—certainly not civil servants. When they look at the issue of PQs, they are trying their best in Departments. You have to ask yourself where it sits in the priority of Departments. Where is the instruction to say, “These are the rules. Make sure you stick to the rules. If not, your Ministers will be held responsible.” The civil servants are often willing; they just find it difficult to get there. We have to do it better.

This might be a good opportunity to mention that we have an open inquiry into written parliamentary questions.

Which is helpful.

For the benefit of anyone watching at home, they can submit written evidence to that. Chris, you have a query about written parliamentary questions.

Well, hardly any questions arise from that, because you have given us a fantastic opening to our inquiry and lots of food for thought there. I have just a couple of examples from my own background. My next-door neighbour in Dorset was for a time the shadow Minister for Wales, and as shadow Minister for Wales he asked the Wales Office an enormous number of questions. Then he was taken to task in the general election by his opponents who said he asked hardly any questions about Dorset; almost all his questions were about Wales. This is a problem of public perception. To illustrate the last point you were making about how in the end Departments will respond, last night there was an Adjournment debate on illegal migrants’ unknown whereabouts. My colleague Rupert Lowe, who was introducing the debate, was complaining about non-answers to some questions. After getting through all the stuff that the Minister says, the Minister actually said, “After internal reviews, my officials have acknowledged that the interpretation of an absconder requires clearer definition in departmental policy.” Well, it has taken since January for Rupert Lowe to keep asking questions and getting fobbed off, and then the Minister last night actually admitted that there was a problem about defining an absconder, so full marks to him. He is now trying to address that. The supplementary questions, the pursuant questions—certainly the ones that I have put in—are asked because the original answer wasn’t any good. We need to look at that area because, as you say, most Ministers would look at the questions that come in on the basis that they would give them an insight into what is going on in their Departments. The question would not have been asked if there were not an issue. Perhaps these days too much is going to special advisers, but when the Minister is apprised of the issue, they should be able to respond in a better way and make adjustments in their departmental policy.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of what happened in the Adjournment debate yesterday. I knew it was happening, but I did not see it; I will go away and have a look at it. I would gently say that, in my experience—for obvious reasons, I don’t put questions down in the way that I did—Departments might struggle with what an absconder is. That might not just be about how they define it; it might be in the nature of the question itself. The blame sometimes lies with the question itself, and that means that Departments struggle to work out what the Member actually wants. I am not explaining this very well, but I think that getting the question right in the first instance is important. I don’t think it is always a case of using that as an opportunity not to come back and avoiding answering questions since January. It is genuinely a case of understanding what the Member is trying to get to. I am not sure what the Member’s motivation was, but of course it is often the case that you do not get the answer that you want.

That is almost invariably the situation for somebody who is in the opposition, or even an independent.

Going back to what you said before, I was going to be glib and say, “That’s politics, isn’t it? Your opponent is trying to unseat you and is looking at how you spend your time and what you answer questions about,” but there is a wider issue. I am certainly not offering to go away and come up with a solution to it, but I do think there is an issue around how the official Opposition are able to get the information that they need to do their job. I know there are all sorts of party structures to make that happen, but—again, there is a question about whether this should happen—traditionally Opposition spokespersons, particularly junior shadow Ministers, have gone on to Select Committees. Part of that, apart from the fact that they are interested in the subject, is to generate information that they might be able to use in debates and their questioning of Ministers. To some extent, that is frowned upon, but to be honest it might be necessary in order to ensure they have the support they need to do it. I think there is an issue about how well Oppositions are supported in what they are doing. Maybe the Member from Dorset doesn’t have to ask questions about Wales; maybe there is a different route. I am not offering an answer, but it is a genuine issue. Again, it is about respecting the Opposition.

Thank you very much.

We have talked about the significant rise in PQs. One thing you have suggested is that, if people have a problem getting a timely response, it can be raised at business questions. I will make sure I say at the next parliamentary party meeting for the Lib Dems that you have encouraged people to come to business questions.

They always do, Tom. There are more Liberals there than you can shake a stick at.

What other steps can you take in your role to make sure responses are timely and high quality?

I am trying. Again, it is about making sure it is on the agenda of Secretaries of State. I emphasised to the permanent secretaries that this is a key thing that MPs are looking at. It is about having some empathy about the job that MPs actually do. What is it that they are looking for? They are not aways out to catch out Departments. They want genuine information, so it is about making sure the culture in a Department is one that says not just, “These are the rules that you have to live by in terms of questions,” but, “Put your shoulder to it and try as far as you can”—there are limits to what you might want to have out there—“to give MPs what they need to do their job.” That is through Departments. Again, drawing attention to it can often move this on. If MPs want to, as they do, take it up with me, I take it up with Departments and sometimes it works.

We have recently launched an inquiry that will conduct a deep dive into the nature, the purpose and the use of written parliamentary questions. First, will the Government be submitting written evidence? Secondly, will you agree, Alan, to come back to us at some stage in the future to provide some oral evidence to that inquiry?

The answer to the second question is yes. To the first one, it is a provisional yes; I just need to go and check. Probably it is a double yes.

I do not think we have any further questions on written parliamentary questions, so there is one final question from me, Alan, on restoration and renewal. What involvement have you had with the restoration and renewal programme since becoming Leader of the House? Do you have anything to update us about?

Well, despite the fact that I have been here a very long time, I never had a view on restoration and renewal, because I accepted that I did not really need one. In my previous job, I never needed one. I have suddenly discovered in this job that I need one, so I have got one, and it is not exactly what people thought it might be. I am part of the commission that looks at it, and I am part of the client board, too. The key motivation for me was not necessarily to have a very clear idea of where we are going to get to—I will come back to whose choice that will be in a moment—but to make some progress. I am second to none in my respect for this place, but sometimes it is not a great working environment for MPs or for staff. We need to do something about it. It is an iconic building. In the last poll asking members of the public whether they thought the place should be restored, 72% of them said, “Yes, it should.” How and when and what the cost will be is interesting and will no doubt colour the debate, but I think people are very much aware of that. If you ask people which building symbolises our country, they may say Buckingham Palace, but I am guessing they would say this place. They may not always be proud of what we do here, but they are very proud of where we are and what we are doing. I think we need to seize the opportunity of where we are now. It is no secret—I think it is out there—that the client board has looked at this, and there will be a report coming out in the new year with a way forward. I am not going to go into the detail of that because it is in the report. The other thing that is critical, and to which I just alluded, is that Members will have their say. We will bring forward a motion on the report, and Members will have their say on it. My view is that we need to make some decisions. We are spending a lot of money on this place now—an eye-watering amount, actually. It is necessary, but I am not sure it has made that much difference, because it is not addressing the central issue, which is, “Do we want to renew it? How do we renew it over a period of time? How do we restore an iconic building for this nation that we can be proud of?” I get that, and therefore getting towards a decision about the way forward and signposting when those real decisions will need to be made is important. I can tell you that that is where we are getting to.

Thank you so much, Alan. You have been very generous with your answers this morning. I do not think we have any further questions from the Committee, so I will end by asking whether you will come back to our Committee in future and give us regular updates about your work.

Of course, I would be delighted to.

If there is nothing further, that concludes today’s evidence session.