Harriet Harman’s stalling yesterday over the Wright committee’s very modest democratic reform proposals for Parliament is ominous. Question: what is the worst thing that has happened to Parliament in the last decade or two? Expenses scandal! No, not actually. Far less sensational, but more insidious, has been the steady and continuing decline in the raison d’etre of Parliament, the fundamental purpose for which Parliament exists in the first place – to hold the Executive to account. Over the last 30 years Parliament has become ever more subservient, more sycophantic, more tribalistically loyalist. It failed utterly to hold the Thatcher-Major governments to account over arms to Iraq, the Blair government over Iraq, and the Brown government over capitaulation to the City. Then at the nadir over expenses, it was agreed by all three parties that the rock-bottom reputation of Parliament could only be salvaged by regenerating a new forceful democratic role for it to become a properly effective scrutinising and decision-making chamber for the nation’s business. The Wright committee was appointed by the PM to put flesh on this aspiration. Now all that visionary rhetoric is in danger of dissipating as the forces of darkness (the whips of both parties) concert to block any change that challenges their own power.

The government delayed for 5 weeks before setting up the Wright committee in the summer, then gave the committee little more than 2 months to produce its report, and are now dithering again over how to handle its modest recommendations. Under pressure Harman has agreed a debate, but is vague about how decisions will be reached on it.. Yet the proposals are very limited and only a first step. The committee proposes that the chairs of select committees should be elected by all back-benchers in the House (i.e. not chosen by the Whips), that a Business Committee to timetable non-government business in the Commons be elected by the House, that a Petitions Committee be set up to ensure that organised demands from the electorate get traction within House procedures, and that the Executive’s blocking of amendments at the report stage of bills (when real change can be made by the House) should be minimised.
That still leaves other important areas untouched as yet – the right of the House to agree/disagree the chair, members and terms of reference of Committees of Inquiry set up by the PM, the right of the House to set up its own Parliamentary Commissions where appropriate, the right of Parliament to vet the PM’s nominations for Cabinet posts, and the right of the House to be served by its own legal Counsel. But first things first. A major reversal in the balance of power away from No.10 and in favour of the legislature is the essential ingredient in restoring parliamentary politics in Britain, and getting the Wright recommendations accepted before the election is the best (and only) chance in decades to secure that.

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