In the absence of the Brown package for Parliamentary democratisation, I propose the Meacher package as a prototype for a fresh Labour start. Clearly it must begin with cleaning the Augean stables of the expenses scandal. The most serious misdemeanours exposed are (i) flipping the designations of homes for no other demonstrably plausible reason than the maximisation of financial gain, (ii) avoiding capital gains tax on the sale of a house or flat, often again by changing the designation from a second home to a main home, (iii) charging for a phantom mortgage, (iv) furnishings or other accoutrements on a scale far beyond the strictly necessary requirements of a second home for Parliamentary purposes. All those who fall into these categories should be dealt with quickly and very firmly, irrespective of rank, by the party Star Chambers, and where appropriate by the police and the courts. Curiously, however, neither the Telegraph nor anybody else has raised one further issue: if an interest-only mortgage is obtained for a second home and the State pays the interest for the duration of the mortgage, should not the whole of the capital gain (not just the 18% capital gains tax on the rise in its value) accrue back to the State? But parallel to this process of cleansing the current momentum should be used to push forward quickly the radical programme of restoring democracy and accountability to Parliament that the public is demanding. It should contain 16 points.

1 The new Speaker elected on 22 June should be the one who, irrespective of party, displays in the hustings the most convincing commitment to radical Parliamentary reform.
2 A referendum should be offered at the same time as the next general election on electoral reform, to reflect more closely the pluralism of modern democratic electorates. I would advocate the Additional Member system, with the Alternative Vote Plus system as the second best option.
3 A Constitutional Renewal Bill should enshrine the right of the public to ‘recall’ an MP for an electoral re-run where s/he has committed a misdemeanour serious enough to be censored by Parliament.
4 The Bill should also establish the right of Parliament to call a Cabinet Minister nominated by the PM befor the appropriate Select Committee to be cross-examined before s/he can be ratified in office, as already happens in US Congressional hearings. If the Committee votes not to ratify that person, another person would have to be nominated by the PM till a satisfactory ratification takes place. Where a Minister is found to be incompetent or negligent or otherwise manifestly failing in their duties, the Select Committee should have the right to ‘recall’ him/her for cross-examination about their performance and to reach a verdict by vote on their tenure. This process would establish the key principle of dual accountability of Ministers to both the PM and to Parliament.
The Bill should also give MPs the powers to run the Parliamentary agenda in what is in effect their own House:
5 It should establish a Business Committee of the House, elected by all Members of the Commons by secret ballot, which, whilst of course allowing the Government adequate and proper time to put through their own legislation, would arrange debates, statements, and question time in a manner that won majority approval.
6 It should provide for the election of the chairs and members of Select Committees by all MPs by secret ballot, thus removing patronage from the Whips and No.10 and greatly increasing the independence of the scrutiny process.
7 It should further provide that, in a limited number of cases per year (perhaps 6-12) where priority is determined by the Liaison Committee, a chair of a Select Committee would have the right to table a substantive motion for debate on the floor of the House reflecting the key recommendations of his/her Committee, with a vote at the end.
8 Where a Committee of Inquiry is being set up on a major issue of the day, the Bill should give Parliament or one of its Select Committees the right to ratify or otherwise the chair and members and terms of reference of the Committee as proposed by the PM.
9 Where on a key contentious issue of the day the PM is unwilling to establish a Committee of Inquiry that the House believes is required, the Bill would give Parliament the right to establish its own Commission of Inquiry, as the Victorian Parliament used to do, drawing up its own chair and members and terms of reference and requiring the report to be made to itself within a given timescale.
The Bill should also change the balance of power away from No.10 and in favour of the parliamentary legislature in other key ways:
10 The Bill should also establish an Estimates Committee, backed by much greater resources, funding and personnel than current Select Committees, for continuous monitoring and cross-examination of major Government expenditure programmes, aided by a cadre of expert external advisers, to assess policies by value-for-money criteria in achieving stated objectives and to examine alternative options.
11 The Bill should provide for the annual election of the Whips by each party to strengthen independence in policy-making and holding the Executive to account.
12 The Bill should also give the House a greater say over the exercise of extra-Parliamentary power, by giving Select Committees the right to summon top civil servants where appropriate for detailed cross-examination on policies they manage as well as the Minister, and also by calling before them those appointed to key public sector posts including regulators, permanent secretaries, judges, police chiefs, and ambassadors.
13 The Bill should require that all those who lobby Parliament or Ministers should be publicly registered, including the scope of their lobbying activities and the source of their funding, and that all meetings between Ministers (and particularly the PM) and lobbying organisations should equally be publicly recorded.
Finally, the Bill should address three other key issues affecting the operation of Parliament:
14 It should complete the reform of the House of Lords by removing the remaining 92 hereditary peers, transforming it into a wholly elected chamber (or at the very least to get all-party agreement, 80% elected), and granting it clear specific powers as a modern Senate.
15 The Bill should enable direct access to the floor of the Commons for the electorate by permitting petitions signed by a high threshold number of electors to be debated and voted on in Parliament.
16 The Bill should prescribe a low ceiling figure (perhaps £20 million?) for expenditure by each political party over a whole 5-year term (not just over the last 4 weeks before a general election), rather than pursuing again the illusory goal of all-party agreement on the related issue of party funding, and the Power Inquiry’s proposal of allowing individual taxpayers to make small tax-free contributions to parties (to encourage a proliferation of small contributions rather than a few very big ones) should certainly be reconsidered.

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