There are three reasons why Parliament today has a very low standing in the eyes of a large majority of the public. It has lost the confidence and trust of the voters because of widespread perceptions of the reappearance of sleaze, as evidenced currently by the allegations against several peers in the Lords and the recent row in the Commons about concealment of Members’ allowances. If confidence is to be restored, anyone found to have committed a serious misdemeanour in either House, once the evidence is proven, should be punished severely, including where appropriate expulsion from the House. But there are two other major reasons why Parliament has fallen well below the respect that is needed if it is to function properly. One is that the legislature patently fails to hold the Executive to account effectively, and the other is that in an electronic and increasingly participatory age Parliament is seen as remote from the electorate and not sharing in a two-way democratic dialogue that many voters now want. Both of these failures should be, and can be, addressed.

I have 4 proposals to make the accountability of the Government to Parliament much more effective. First, Cabinet Ministers who are nominated by the Prime Minister should require to be ratified by Parliament, as happens with Congressional hearings in the US. This would establish a dual accountability both to the PM and to the House. The relevant Select Committee would not only hold confirmation hearings at the outset of an appointment, but would retain the right to recall the Cabinet Minister at a later stage for cross-examination, if doubts about competency or performance were later to arise. In addition, these confirmation hearings shouyld also embrace key posts outside Parliament, including the heads of the civil service, judiciary, police, security services, and regulatory authorities.
Second, there should be a Business Committee of the House which would act as co-partner with the Government in determining the agenda of the House. At present, Government decides everything itself, to suit its own interests. It is really extraordinary that the two most important issues in the last 5 years have never been tabked for debate with a motion and vote at the end – namely the lessons of the Iraq War and the current economic meltdown which is without doubt the most traumatic international episode since the Second World War, but not yet the subject of any debate.
Third, membership of Select Committees, which are the most important channel of accountability, should not be chosen by the Whips (who want loyalists who won’t cause any trouble for the Government, whatever the issue), but via a secret ballot of Members of the whole House. In addition, some of the Select Committee reports, which may be extremely good and can lay the foundations for real reform, should (subject to prioritisation by the Liaison Committee) be brought to the floor of the House, with a motion tabled by the Select Committee itself and a vote of the whole House on the main proposals at the end of the debate.
Fourth , the House should take to itself the right, which its Victorian forebears used to use, to set up its own Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry to investigate matters of high public concern, when for whatever reason the Government refuses to do so. Recent examples might include the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the IK involvement in rendition, Gulf War syndrome after soldiers were chemically sprayed in Kuwait in the first Gulf War, and the infecting of haemophiliacs with hepatitis C and HIV after they were given contaminated blood transfusions in the 1980s.
Lastly, Parliament should become a more participatory institution and one offering a two-way dialogue with the electors by taking on-line comments and proposals for bills as they pass through their pre-legislative scrutiny. Also, we should offer voters the right, which they already have in a number of countries, to mount petitions which, subject to their collecting a high number of signatures (say, 5% of the electorate) Parliament would then be obliged to debate and vote upon.

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