Downing Street Says » Constitutional Renewal

The PMS said the discussion at Cabinet on constitutional renewal had been wide-ranging and concentrated on how to re-establish trust in politics. The Prime Minister believed that we had to respond to the scale of the breakdown of trust in the political process, in a similar way to how we had to respond to the breakdown of trust in financial markets and institutions towards the end of last year. It was therefore right to establish similar processes in Government to drive forward our agenda, and as a result the Cabinet agreed to establish an equivalent to the National Economic Council (NEC) to push forward the Government s agenda in this area. Like the NEC, the National Democratic Renewal Council (NDRC) would be chaired by the Prime Minister and would initially meet twice a week.

The Cabinet also decided to bring forward and publish new provisions in the Constitutional Renewal Bill, and to do so as a matter or urgency by no later than the end of this session. The provisions would introduce the new Parliamentary Standards Authority, which would independently supervise all matters relating to MPs pay and expenses, as well as to legislate for a new code of conduct for MPs.

There was a clear sense at Cabinet that these measures alone would not be enough to satisfy the public about the health and vitality of Britain s democratic system and its accountability, therefore it was decided we needed to go further in a number of areas. Firstly we needed to open up wider issues of political and constitutional reform, which had been debated before but closed due to lack of consensus. What we were suggesting would need to go beyond issues such as how to hold MPs to account for inappropriate behaviour between Parliaments or the extension of Freedom of Information (FOI).

Secondly we would need to have cross-party talks on the modernisation of Parliament, including the role of select committees, the timetabling of debates and enabling the public to petition parliament and initiate debates.

Thirdly, there was a strong consensus at Cabinet that we needed to create a new means to broaden debate in the country, led by the new NDRC asking individuals outside Government to foster interest and discussion amongst the public on key reform issues and report back their conclusions in the autumn, as part of an informed and constructive national conversation about far reaching reform of our political system.

The Cabinet was determined to address public concerns and anger about MPs expenses and to do so urgently. The Government wanted to do this in order to defend and strengthen the role and accountability of MPs, not to attack them.

The first step therefore, was to take direct action to restore trust in politicians. This was the action we were pushing ahead with as a matter of urgency through the Constitutional Renewal Bill, the establishment of the independent regulator code of conduct, as well as dealing with all the past expense claims. The next and subsequent steps were to create new faith in the political system as a whole.

The Prime Minister was going to canvass opinion further about how best to take forward this agenda, and the Cabinet would have a further discussion next week.

Asked who else would sit on the NDRC, the PMS said that we would be bringing forward our proposals on the NDRC s membership, but the important point to remember was that this was not an exclusive process. Clearly there needed to be a mechanism for the Government to formulate its view and take forward its agenda and we wanted to do so in a way that was open and consultative. We needed to establish new mechanisms in Government in the way that we established the NEC to deal with the urgent economic issues; a process that was widely regarded as having worked well in terms of pushing forward coherent Government agenda on economic policy. We were not suggesting for one minute that this alone was sufficient to deal with the issues and that was why it was important that we brought in external independent people.

Asked if the NDRC would meet in private, the PMS said that the NDRC was a Government body and as such would operate in a similar way to the NEC. This was a means by which the Government formulated its position, but it was not sufficient for the Government to simply reach conclusions and announce those conclusions. We needed other processes alongside that, which would enable us to reach out and engage the public.

Asked when the NEC last met, the PMS said that the NEC initially met twice a week and now met at least on a weekly basis.

Asked about the new provisions in the Constitutional Renewal Bill, the PMS said that there was a process of cross-party discussion on this and there would need to be detailed drafting of legislation. We wanted to act on this as a matter of urgency so that we could introduce the new independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and we would like to publish the new provisions by the end of the session.

Asked if the first meeting of the NDRC would have any external people in attendance, the PMS said that there were two separate issues. Firstly, how to take forward the Government process; it was right to respond to the scale of the issues by changing some of the machinery of Government. Secondly, there was a separate process about how we best used independent people and how to best engage the public. This was initially discussed at Cabinet and the Prime Minister would canvass opinion further during the course of this week and there would be a further discussion at Cabinet next week.

There would be separate processes involving external people that we would be able to say more about in the next week or so. This was by no means an exclusive process.

Put that it had taken a long time to appoint outside experts to the National Security Forum, the PMS said that the NEC had been set up quickly and had its first meeting within a week or so of its announcement.

Asked if this had taken over from cross-party discussions, the PMS said no; where appropriate it was right to do whatever we could on a cross-party basis. For example, the discussions on the Parliamentary Standards Authority had been very constructive and Jack Straw was leading further discussions. We were also saying today that we would discuss other issues such as the role of select committees and time-tabling of debates with other parties. We did not rule out further cross-party talks but we also needed to strengthen the machinery of Government around some of these constitutional matters in the way that we did when dealing with the economic crisis last autumn. This was about how to put in place better systems in Government for dealing with this but it did not rule out further cross-party talks.

Asked if the Constitutional Renewal Bill pre-judged the Kelly review, the PMS said that Kelly was looking at the system of allowances but what we were talking about today was the wider architecture of governance on a permanent basis.

Asked if the Prime Minister knew of any more MPs paying back expenses or standing down at the next election, the PMS said that it was for individual MPs to announce their intentions to stand down. In terms of expenses there was a systematic process whereby all Ministers were going through their expense claims in detail with the Cabinet Office ahead of publication. If there were any further announcements by individual Ministers or MPs then they would make them themselves.

Asked how long the process of looking at expenses with the Cabinet Office would take, the PMS said that there was a huge amount of paperwork to be gone through and prior to publication it would have to be signed off by the Fees Office. If the Prime Minister had his way then this would have been published several weeks ago, however this was a big logistical exercise and in terms of publication it was not entirely in our control as we had to have agreement from the Fees Office.

Put that the NEC was last year dealing with a problem that was fast moving and complicated but that the constitutional problem was well understood and had been endlessly debated, the PMS said that he wouldn t accept the characterisation of the role of the NEC. There were some very fast-moving decisions that had to be taken in relation to banks, but in fact a lot of those decisions were taken before the NEC was established. What the NEC allowed us to do was put in place proper machinery of Government to look at these issues in a systematic way and that was what we needed to do in relation to some of the wider issues around the political process.

Asked if the Prime Minister had the moral authority to implement these constitutional changes, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had been making the point in the past couple of days that it was important for Parliament to reform itself, just as it was important that we continued to push ahead with measures to help people deal with the economic downturn.

Asked if the Prime Minister was convinced that these new complicated measures would alleviate peoples fury about the workings of Parliament, the PMS said that the Prime Minister didn t think that at all, but we had already taken action to deal with individual Ministers; one Minister had already stood down pending the conclusions of a review into his financial affairs. We needed to do more and this was the start of a process rather than the end of a process. We were not suggesting for one minute that simply strengthening how we deal with these issues inside Government would solve public anger.

Asked about when legislation would go through, the PMS said that we would want to legislate as soon as possible through the Constitutional Renewal Bill on some of the urgent issues around the workings of Parliament.

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» Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Constitutional Renewal

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