| Mark Lazarowicz
(Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op):
I am delighted that the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman
Baker) did not give his party colleague a soft time in his comments, but
I must say that it was a pretty bad advert for six years of Liberal Democrat
rule. The Lib Dems have had an iron grip on the Commission for the past
few years, but, hopefully, things will change.
I am glad that the debate seems to have become an annual debate, but I
hope that it does not become a traditional one, in which the same speakers
put forward the same points each year and not much happens in between.
Today, I shall concentrate on some areas in which we have not made as
much progress as we should have since the last report. I shall inevitably
not deal with the areas in which progress has been made, but I recognise
that there has been progress. Obviously, the current security pressures
mean that there are many pressures on staff and Members. In picking up
on failings, I do not wish to minimise what has been achieved.
I am mainly interested in the issue of engaging with the public, and the
"Connecting Parliament with the Public" report. My hon. Friend
the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) made an excellent and eloquent
speech, making a lot of good points, many of which I endorse; indeed,
I would make them myself. Some people would probably consider them to
be as revolutionary in their way as Guy Fawkes's attempt to change this
place, and would probably want my hon. Friend to receive the same penalty,
too. However, I want to put on record my support for practically everything
he said.
I want to concentrate on issues of particular
relevance to those of us who represent constituencies further afield than
London and the south-east. That is why I am particularly interested in
outreach and how we put into practice the commitment that has been made
to develop our outreach work in the education unit and in other ways.
Outreach work is not only an issue for those of us who represent constituencies
that are further afield. If we were successful, we would have problems
in finding room for the number of people—children or young people,
for instance—who want to come to see how Parliament works. Therefore,
outreach is in many ways as relevant for schools and communities just
down the road from Westminster as it is for those of us whose schools
and constituencies are further away, although there are clearly different
issues for those of us from further afield.
The Modernisation Committee, whose work is considered by the House of
Commons Commission, produced a report almost two years ago that suggested
a number of steps be taken to develop the House's outreach work. One recommendation
was for the appointment of staff in the education unit, and I welcome
that, but there were others. For example, it was suggested that we might
want to set up a parliamentary roadshow that could go around the country
and give an opportunity for a bit of Parliament to be seen in parts of
the country where the public, including children and young people, cannot
easily visit Westminster.
However, in the Committee's report, the suggestion that there should be
a parliamentary roadshow was qualified with the following comment: "We
recommend that before any further consideration is given to establishing
an educational roadshow, the House should examine the scope for a Parliamentary
partnering scheme with, for example, local authorities."
That is a good idea in itself, and Members may be aware that the Scottish
Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and, to an extent, even the
European Commission, have partner libraries and outlets where the public
can find information about the work of such institutions. However, it
is my understanding that we have not even begun to think of how we might
do something like that. If we have not even begun to develop a partnering
scheme, we appear to be even further from developing a parliamentary roadshow,
which was only to happen if we tried a partnering scheme first.
I am disappointed that we have not gone further down that road. There
are, of course, resource implications, but leaving aside the fact that
it is important to spend money on ensuring that we connect with the public,
it is possible to do some of this type of work in a cheap and cost-effective
way, and then to build on that in the future.
For example, the Scottish Parliament and
the Welsh Assembly have their own information centres that provide information
about not only their buildings, which are quite expensive in the case
of the Scottish Parliament, but about the political process. At present,
precious little in those institutions relates those bodies to the UK parliamentary
process, just as it precious little here relays what we do in the devolved
process. A possibility surely exists for us to have an arrangement whereby
those centres and similar facilities provide some information about the
House of Commons and the House of Lords, and we provide similar information
about their institutions. I do not know whether they would welcome such
an approach, but we could think about that.
The question of what we do with the outreach staff we appoint is also
important. There would clearly not be much point in members of staff trying
to visit every single school in the country, but I hope that we will ensure
we are as active in reaching schools and other educational and community
organisations that are a long way from Westminster as we are in reaching
those that are nearer. That is why I will be interested to read what the
hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) writes to me about what we are
doing in that respect.
We could do much better in other areas
of contact with the public. I had some difficulty last year in getting
materials and information from the education unit in some of the main
ethnic minority languages. That has improved recently, but the Scottish
Parliament and the National Assembly of Wales have a range of information
in various ethnic minority languages, and we do not seem to have that
here, and certainly not in as easily accessible form as in those other
institutions.
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