Parliament First, the all-Party group that I chair, is engaged on a series of meetings with the Party Leaders, and the new Speaker, to test how serious they are about Reform.
Our main agenda is:
- a Business Committee so that the decisions about when the Commons debates and what on, when and how, is shared between Government and the Commons
- the election of Select Committees and their chairs so that the Government does not control who sits in judgement on them.
- a Petitions Committee which will allow the most urgent concens of the Public to be debated and acted on in the Commons.
- the right of the Commons to call an indepenent Committee of Inquiry (on such subjects as the Iraq War, or the deficiencies in Stafford hospital) in public!
Our first meeting with Harriet Harman (representing Gordon Brown in her capacity as Leader of the House) was surprising. She immediately agreed to all four points, saying "their time has come". She insisted that Gordon Brown agreed with her.
It remains to be seen whether she finds it easy to get those reforms through the Cabinet. It's already clear that the Prime Minister's view of what an independent Committee of Inquiry is differs considerably from ours and he has had to be dragged into conceding that it should be held mainly in public.
He (just) won that vote in the Commons - I voted against the Government along with 19 other Labour MPs such as Frank Field, Kate Hoey and Bob Marshall- Andrews - but he's lost the argument and I'm confident that the Committee will appear in public and on oath, except (reasonably) where there are matters of national secuirty and intelligence being discussed.
We have still to see David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the new speaker before the House rises on the 21st July.