 Hello there. Thank you very much. That's very kind of you and thank you for taking time to come here to Parliament to listen to me and to be with us as part of that process of engagement and outreach and in particular to reach out to those of you who are studying politics, not least at colleges across the country. If I might say it, I was a graduate in politics myself, I might just say, are there any politics teachers here? No, all students are politics. For your benefit, way back in the mid 1970s when I was at school, politics A level was unusual in those days but I studied politics A level. You might be interested to know and your students might be equally interested in the character of education to remember that when I came here in 1999 after I'd been here two years, we had a tea on the terrace for my teacher of politics, Godfrey Thomas, who was retiring at that point and four members of Parliament came to that little celebration for him. Myself, Fabian Hamilton, who is a Member of Parliament still in Leeds North East, Howard Flight, who was a Member of Parliament for Arundel in Sussex, now a Member of the House of Lords, and Jack Straw, who at the time from memory I think was Home Secretary. All four of us, two Labour and two Conservative, had been taught politics at the same school by the same politics teacher. So it is perfectly possible to inspire but not to prejudice. Well done, well done the teaching profession. It was after that I was a graduate in politics that this was unusual in itself that somebody who studied politics went into politics but I did and it is 34 years, makes me feel old, 34 years since I was appointed back in 1979 as an administration trainee in the civil service. I thought I would have a career in the civil service but in fact my career in politics has taken me in many different directions since then. I've been a private secretary to a cabinet minister now I'm assuming that many of you know what yes minister is. It is those of us who are a bit older and saw it particularly the first time round realize that it is a documentary program about British government. So but if you ever do see that program you will recall that the private secretary to the cabinet minister is one Bernard in the program so I was a Bernard. I was after being in the civil service I was Deputy Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce so representing the business community to government. I ran party research and campaigns. The campaigns I suppose I am particularly responsible for were the 1992 and 2001 Conservative General Election campaigns and the 1999 European Parliamentary Election campaign. I've been a constituency backbench member of parliament having entered the house in 1997. I've been a member of the shadow cabinet and of course after the election I was for two and a half years a departmental secretary of state. So to that extent again recalling yes minister a Jim Hacker. What I have to tell you I may have been a Bernard I may have been a Jim Hacker but I have neither ambition nor expectation that I would ever aspire to be a Sir Humphrey in the yes minister program. But I am privileged at the end of that process now to have become leader of the House of Commons. Now I remember Margaret Thatcher saying and indeed I was her last director of research in 1990. I remember her saying that the closer she got to where people regarded the centre of power as being in 10 Downing Street the more she realised that there wasn't such a centre of power. Indeed I remember she said to me that the only time she actually felt she had the power that people imagined she had was actually during the period of the Falklands war when prime ministers make decisions and the armed forces go and do what the prime minister said. Almost all the rest of the time people engage in a they have a debate before the decision then the prime minister makes a decision then they try to have another debate after the decision and power is more distributed. But in truth what that I think even Margaret Thatcher under those circumstances completely understood is that politics is not a single system. It is a number of interconnected systems. Imagine a Venn diagram if you would and to make it simple imagine three circles. Now you might think those three circles when they intersect at that point in the middle that number 10 10 Downing Street is at the centre of that diagram. Number 10 is actually at the centre of where politics and government intersect that part of the diagram is number 10. But there are as I say in essence there are three of those circles. There's politics, there's government and there's parliament. And parliament and in particular I would argue the chamber of the House of Commons is in the middle of those three circles it is that centre of that Venn diagram. Why? Because it's the cockpit of politics is where the parties and political debate is at its most acute. But it's also the place where government secures supply and its legislation and it is the place from which parliament bestows authority. And when parliament gets together and asserts itself as the as the centre for debate for the nation you can see how that authority really is bestowed. Those of us who've been in the chamber for some time have seen those sort of occasions. I was in the house during the debate on the prior to the invasion of Iraq very recently I think you would have seen something similar in terms of the character of that debate in the chamber. Shaping the politics, government and society in the debate on second reading of the marriage same sex couples bill. Having impact far beyond the reach of the executive alone. People imagine that party politics dominates all decisions in parliament but they fail to see the work of select committees of all party groups and debates which just aren't about party politics. There's much to parliament that is in truth neither of party politics nor of government and politics and government often in any case diverge. It is a mistake to believe that politics and government always travel in the same direction. Sometimes what is good government can be bad politics and sometimes what is good politics can be bad government. It is easy and common for these interconnected systems that I've been describing to become confused. Too often in particular parliament and government are seen as the synonymous and as leader of the house I know they're not. I know this not least because I am the personal manifestation of this confusion. I'm the manifestation as it were of this constitutional connection as well. It is my job to represent government to the legislature in this in particular instance in the House of Commons. But it is also my job to represent the legislature to the executive to the government. It's a role which Jack Straw described in his autobiography as being consigned to but which he also said he relished. The late Robin Cook also a similar consignee said of the job there is no post which puts you more at the heart of parliament than leader of the house. And Richard Crossman who was leader of the house from 1966 to 1968 faced huge opposition just at the thought of the House of Commons sitting in the morning. And he wrote at the time I draw the conclusion that I must stop playing the role of the great parliamentary reformer and try to save the situation by just quietly running the business of the house in a wholly uncharacteristic self-effacing style. Happily Richard Crossman failed to follow his own advice. Although it is telling that writing at the start of 1967 1967 he identified reform of the House of Lords and rebuilding the palace of Westminster as priorities, priorities which the house is still discussing 43 years later. The pace of change as you can see at Westminster can sometimes be tectonic long periods with little movement and then a big shift. I have to say as a conservative in this instance with a small C to secure progressive change which responds to the underlying pressures is probably the better route. The entwine nature of the legislature and the executive is at the heart of our democracy and this Westminster model is seen in states across the globe. What I want to do is focus today on looking at how this relationship between the legislature and the executive government and parliament has developed and set out my views on what more can be done to improve that relationship. Before doing that it's important to understand how our current system developed. While it is dangerous to suggest any single moment as a turning point in history, the 1689 Bill of Rights seen as a revolution or more prosaicly as insurance against unconstrained power of the monarch is a useful starting point for considering the developing role of parliament. The Bill of Rights established the freedom of members in debate in elections and to petition the monarch and established the principle that it was for parliament and not the monarch to raise taxation. As parliament grew in strength the privy council which acted as the executive became too large. To wield power effectively a council of the most senior ministers to the crown emerged as the cabinet and from that cabinet emerged the minister who could best manage the monarch, the prime minister. In its early years the cabinet was mostly made up of peers and while prime ministers and others were on occasion drawn from the commons it was only in 1902 upon the resignation of the marquis of Salisbury that it became the norm that the prime minister be selected from the commons. Amid the first world war modern cabinet government became established in the form that we see it more closely today. With the creation of the cabinet office the appointment of a cabinet secretariat in order to better coordinate the work of government from Whitehall. Throughout this period governments increasingly dominated the parliamentary agenda and modern political parties became more established as parliament moved away from less formal groupings and factions of the previous centuries. Now in contrast to the Lockean philosophy of government which we see for example in the United States which demands a clear separation of powers to assert the primacy of the legislature over the executive. Britain's modern constitutional settlement is one of what water budget described as the fusion of powers. Our unwritten constitution has developed and enshrined the independence of the judiciary noting that in 2005 really quite recently was the last point at which the Lord Chancellor held a role fusing the executive legislature and judiciary. But the sovereign now the sovereign as head of state is the only part of our constitution which strictly speaking fuses the role as head of the judiciary of the executive and of the legislature in the sense in which royal assent is required for legislation. But the British system therefore relies on the executive being in the heart of the legislature that to that extent power is fused in the legislature. And in the absence of any constitutional constraint on the sovereign power of parliament it is necessary therefore to secure accountability of the executive within the legislature which in theory it could control through a majority. That is the essence of the constitutional test we have to meet. At the same time the government of the day in commanding majority has the right to take its legislative program through parliament in reasonable time. So we have to balance the accountability and the constraint with the rights that a majority and the sovereign power of an elected parliament has. Some may like to present an image of the executive and the legislature engage in a pitch battle drawing on the gladatorial spectacle of Prime Minister's questions treating that as typical. The reality is more prosaic. Each week as leader of the house I announce the business of the following week I respond to requests for statements and debates although I am not able to grant all the debates requested of me perhaps most of them. The weekly session is very far from that kind of combat but it is an opportunity for back bench members to raise key issues with government whether of a matter of policy or indeed individual constituency cases. Often unseen by the public there are excellent debates which take place in committees, through the examination of witnesses, through the clause by clause scrutiny of legislation in public bill committees and the detailed work of select committees undertaking complex inquiries or examining current issues of importance. Some commentators nonetheless heart back to a golden age of parliament when back benches and the house somehow had a life and a control of their own. They think maybe this was it this time of all night sittings when back benches could prolong the business and prevent the government getting its bills. Well I was here in 1997 that was a time of all night sittings. I do remember we took our pound of flesh but the government still got its bills. So I think there may be somewhat romanticised and misremembered past. There are still tensions. The balance of power can swing too far in one direction or the other. I think our starting point is to remember that in the latter part of the last century in the House of Commons we probably saw the development of power accruing to the executive to the detriment of the house as a whole. But reforms that took shape between the 1960s and the 1990s did support an improved role for back bench members in some respects. Most notably the move away from the role of the member of parliament being a part time role. The establishment of departmental select committees under Margaret Thatcher's government after she came in 1979. Norman Steeves as my predecessor as leader then. And that reflected of course when a government came in after a period in opposition who understood the need for government to be subject to scrutiny and safeguards. But I think we have to be aware many of the changes that took place were made with the convenience of the executive in mind. In 1997 when I first entered the House the incoming Tony Blair government established the modernisation select committee in order to increase the pace at which reforms of the House of Commons could be made. Along with the procedure select committee and the liaison committee who had been of long standing the modernisation committee made progress on reforming the House. So increasing the volume of bills which received pre-legislative scrutiny and defining the processes for that. The introduction of carryover for some public bills so they could transfer from one session to a subsequent session. The introduction of written ministerial statements so you didn't have to have planted questions and it was completely opaque a more transparent process for ministers making announcements. Establishing the chamber in Westminster Hall parallel to the chamber of the House of Commons but of course not having a decision making ability. And changing the sitting hours of the Commons to allow the House to rise earlier on some days so called family friendly hours. Now the membership of the modernisation committee included the shadow leader of the House and the Liberal Democrat spokesman and was chaired by the leader of the House. That unusual membership for a select committee encouraged consensus from the front benches of the major parties. But also meant being led by the business managers it could be argued much of the modernisation was focused on efficiency for the executive and the official opposition rather than reflecting the back bench interests of members themselves. By late 2008 the modernisation committee had declined its program ground to a halt and because there was no more work to be done the spirit of consensus was lost. The then government for example tried to fall through proposals on regional select committees but without support and engagement of the opposition and the impetus to work together at that point had gone. In the meantime in my party in the Conservative party the democracy task force led by Ken Clark including Sir George Young my predecessor as leader of the House and Andrew Tyree were working on proposals for a Commons that was more visibly independent that controlled its own procedures enhanced its scrutiny and led rather than followed public debate. On the principles of greater autonomy more independence more timeliness greater scrutiny and greater accessibility that work along with that of the Liberal Democrats has formed the basis of the parliamentary and political reform priorities of this coalition government. You'll remember of course at the same time in 2009 the expenses scandal exposed parliament and its practices and the closed and self serving character of the institution. It was an immensely difficult time for many members of parliament but it did lead to a sea change in the nature of and reaction to parliamentary reform. It contributed to empowering the legislature rather than the executive in three areas in transparency, in accountability and in engagement. The most obvious reaction to the expenses scandal was a call for greater transparency. This call began to be heard at the end of the last parliament with the establishment of the independent parliamentary standards authority in order independently to monitor MPs allowances to provide a clear picture to the public of what members can claim and what members do claim. Not only is hipster provided clarity but it has also taken responsibility for the setting of MPs pay pensions and allowances removing the right of MPs to set their own remuneration and support replacing it with a more open and transparent system. Parliament can no longer be self serving in respect of its pay or expenses and I think that removes what previously had been a very big barrier to the engagement between MPs and the public. I think that it is very important to the public collectively as a result of that. On accountability through transparency we are able to increase that accountability and since 2009 we have given the House many more tools to make the most of it. The clamour for a new politics is regularly heard but the situation in 2009 made this a necessity. The establishment of a select committee on the reform of the House of Commons better known as the right committee after its chair Tony Wright provided the means for that reform to take shape. That committee made a range of recommendations almost all of which have now been taken forward. These right reforms have empowered the legislature by strengthening the role of the backbencher and reinvigorating select committees. The select committee system as you'll recall established as I said after 1979 open new avenues for backbench members to scrutinise the work of government. But membership was in the gift of party business managers. Notwithstanding that of course the Blair government understood the character of the backbenchers fight against this when they tried to prevent Gwyneth Dunwoody and Donald Anderson rejoining the committees. In their view they had chaired unhelpfully and they were defeated. The Blair government suffered a defeat on that. But the right committee proposals which the Commons accepted now ensures and implemented in this parliament ensures that the chair of select committees are elected by secret ballot across the House at the beginning of each parliament. And has enshrined the principle that members should be elected not selected by their party. The result has been greatly empowered committees who can hold the executive and on occasion bodies outside government to account and whose work is now regularly the subject of a higher level of media and public attention than we've seen in previous parliaments. I want to draw attention to one select committee however the backbench business committee which is I think has changed the character of this part is changing the character of this parliament perhaps even more than others. It was established following the recommendations of the right committee and it was taken through by my predecessor as leader that is George Young who recognised the impetus of this change having drawn on our time in opposition for the need for the House to have more immediate, more relevant, more effective means to consider the issues of the moment. So each week when the House is sitting the committee meets to hear representations the backbench business committee meets to hear representations from members of parliament about issues they wish to debate and to assign the time allocated to them which has been typically for all but three of the sitting weeks of this session has been a day a week virtually a day a week. Where previously the government would schedule such general debates now backbench members have direct access to dedicated time on the floor of the house and the ability to allocate that time with debatable and voteable motions and members haven't been afraid to use it. We've seen debates result for example on the Hillsborough disaster on membership of the European Union on wild animals in circuses on mental health on the badger cull some interesting really challenging and some in fact some of the most watched debates in parliament have been the product of the backbench business committees work. It's also important to recognize that John Burco elected a speaker in 2009 also accelerated that shift towards more immediate and relevant debate and scrutiny in the chamber of the House of Commons itself by by virtue in that particular instance of more urgent questions which permit any member of parliament to bring a government minister to the dispatch box to respond to a pressing issue. That can be portrayed as dragging ministers to the dispatch box but actually more appropriately should be seen as just allowing opposition and backbenchers to shape the agenda themselves more in response to events. But as part of that same process we in government have been responding to we're making more statements than our predecessors we've made 284 oral statements since May 2010 which pretty much works out I'll save you the maths is about three statements a week including the Prime Minister himself making 40 statements since the general election. On this theme of accountability I think also it would be wrong to ignore that through a combination of the fall out of the expenses scandal and changes in political landscape there were a vast intake of new members in 2010. They have been amongst the most regular bidders at the backbench business committee active and forensic members of select committees and very regular speakers and attenders in the chamber. So all of those in all of those areas we've seen a reinvigoration of the role of backbenchers through the 2010 intake. Now increased transparency of the executive and a hunger from the legislature for relevant and effective activity can only really be successful if it's also matched with improved public engagement with politics helping people to understand and participate in the political process. Government and Parliament must learn from the cynicism and contempt of the past and recognize the imperative for better public understanding leading to engagement and I hope in time to a renewal of the trust between Parliament and people. In that respect I like to pay tribute to the Parliament's outreach service who as well as organizing today's events do much to engage the public ensuring people outside Westminster have access to training to workshops to help them to understand not only how Parliament works and affects them but how they can influence the legislature and policy making process. It's in the interest both of government and Parliament that people are engaged with politics and I think we're making great strides on that. For example the government's e-petition site established in the summer of 2011 has seen millions of people signing petitions on a huge range of subjects. Unlike the site established by the Blair government which offered a dead end for campaigns this new site allows e-petitions which receive 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate and so far all petitions have either been the subject of a Commons debate or have been scheduled to take place soon. In some cases there are subjects which are direct challenges to the government's programme such as those on changes to pensions or taxation but in others the public have been able to raise issues which command huge support but may otherwise have struggled to reach the parliamentary agenda such as on the sudden adult death syndrome or on improving financial education in schools. Of the roughly 150 sitting days of the Commons in each session if it's an annual session or one year session of Parliament there are typically about 150 sitting days. Fewer than half of those are now given over to the government's legislative programme. The law making process in Parliament which begins with the Ritual of the State opening and ends with the declaration for a bill, LaRen LeVilt. That process which we think of as dominating the activity of the House of Commons is actually technically now only a fraction, albeit a large fraction but a fraction of what we do. But there too much has been done to help members of the public and members of Parliament to understand and engage with that process of legislation. A sign of the pace at change at which this works may be that only in 2004 were visitors to this place no longer referred to as strangers but became members of the public but there is more we can do to make our processes clear. In the current session of Parliament for example we have piloted the use of what's called interweaving that is where putting where we put explanatory notes presented alongside the text of legislation on the internet. So that as bills are presented and debated the public as well as members of Parliament can more readily understand the intent of the legislation of the changes being proposed. And I'm working with others across the House to try and stimulate the use of not only of that but also of explanatory statements alongside amendments to bills so that we can see at each stage what are members trying to achieve, what are the government trying to achieve in the legislation they put forward. Robin Cook did important work in increasing the amount of legislation which was published in draft and subject to consultation. When you look at the number of bills published in draft per session there was clearly an impetus for that in the period of the Blair government which rose to about nine or ten such bills being published in draft in a year back in about 2003, 2004. In this session just we're coming to the end of an annual session we will have published an unprecedented number of bills in draft. We will have published 15 measures during the course of the last year. Now neither the government nor Parliament has a monopoly on good ideas by seeking the views of interested parties whether they be people in a campaign mode or just having interest or experience. We can benefit from that range of views on how to improve legislation before it becomes subject to the stricter parliamentary rules which govern the making of legislation as such. Now in this parliament we've added to that engagement providing the tool of a public reading stage for legislation to allow the public to comment online on the detail of bills before they go through the commons. I remember similar work being done forging the way on by the Hansard Society in a public engagement with the communications bill. I was a member of the Putnam Commission and the Standing Committee for the communications bill back in 2002, 2003. Now that public reading stage doesn't suit every piece of legislation but what I think we are developing is a toolkit of ways in which we can ensure that different bills, some with very short timetables for consideration, others with much longer time scales can be, we can engage people with the content of that legislation and give them real opportunities to influence it. Those reforms of the past few years that I've now, I hope, been able to take you on a bit of a tour through, they've done much to see that the balance of power in Parliament has swung back towards the legislature. However, I think there are areas in which we can do more. We've done quite a lot as this coalition government in those areas that I hope I've described but we don't plan to stop there. Past experience has suggested that in opposition parties recognise the case for reform that leads to action at the start of a new government but the dark forces then take over and progress stops. That will not be so today. This is a reforming government which recognises, and I might say not least, because the coalition requires even the government continuously to recognise that we must carry a majority in the house. In a sense we are more engaged with that thought in coalition than many majority governments have been in the past. I think what that has made us understand is that authority comes from Parliament. We may have been frustrated in House of Lords reform but we are therefore not deterred from practical positive progress where we can carry the House with us. Now the success of the Backbench Business Committee since 2010 has been a testament to cross party co-operation and how the House can agree on what should be debated. The approach taken by the committee members has been that debates should be timely, well supported and have the backing of members from across the house, across party backing. The committee had regularly rejected bids for debates which have only support from a narrow group of members, whether based on geography or party affiliation. That does not mean that only uncontentious or anodyne subjects have in fact been debated. Members bidding for Backbench Time have quickly learned. They can agree on the need for debate. They can present a united front to the committee that a debate should take place but they then can go in different directions in the debate and on the votes when it comes. And it's in that spirit I'm currently considering the merits of implementing proposals originating in the right recommendations to bring forward a House Business Committee to consider House Business as a whole. What I think it might be useful for me to draw attention to though, I recently in our recess I visited the Scottish Parliament. I saw there the work of the Parliamentary Bureau which is to all intents and purposes their House Business Committee. Now the Scottish experience there that I saw of a formal fixed committee which mostly rubber stamps the usual channels and in the context of a majority control by the Scottish Government in that Parliament has had the effect of bestowing a greater control on what can be debated and even who is called to speak in debates, a greater degree of control in that Parliament to Government Business Managers than is exercised in this Parliament by Government Business Managers here. So as a member of the executive I can see now that kind of approach might be attractive to Government Business Managers. But from our point of view that would not offer the space we have created in this Parliament for the House and back benches to share the agenda of the House. Let me just take you back for a moment to that those 150 sitting days I was talking about on the floor of the chamber itself. We allocate practically a day a week to the Back Bench Business Committee for debates. The Government does not control that at all. We allocate a substantial period of time for the opposition to choose those debates. We have time available at the Queen's Speech debates and Budget debates when effectively they are not controlled by the Government. They are open in particular where the Queen's Speech debate is concerned. Subjects for debate can be nominated by the official opposition. The Liaison Committee on behalf of the Select Committees, they have time when they can choose the subjects for debates, both arising from Select Committee reports and on estimates. So in reality in this House we have a wide range of sources of decision making about what the content of debate in the House looks like. So what I don't want to do, recognising the way in which the Scottish Parliamentary Bureau works, is I don't want to take one step forward and two back. So it's not about creating a thing, it's not about establishing a committee, giving it a title and believing that the commitment has been met. We've made progress in empowering the House and I don't propose to put that at risk. I think I have to emphasise it's vital any proposals would have to meet key tests, holding the executive to account whilst ensuring that the Government has the opportunity to secure its legislative programme. Any such committee would need to add value to our existing processes and respect the place and influence of the Backbench Business Committee and the effectiveness of the usual channels in enabling business to respond rapidly and effectively. Second, looking to the future, the success of the Government e-petitions site has established it as a popular widely used campaign tool. Since September last year in addition, e-petitions which received at least 10,000 signatures now receive a considered response from Government departments. The innovative and popular nature of the site has drawn attention from other local and national governments who want to emulate this. But this innovation, it is an innovation but it's actually so much part of our history. If you think back long way, in 1275 Edward I opened up Parliament to the public by the means of petitions. Such was their success that John Field in his history, the story of Parliament said, so popular was this initiative that Parliament began to be held in widespread esteem, a rare moment in parliamentary history. In the present day the parliamentary system of petitions has become really a rather minor part of the state's proceedings. Remember the parliamentary petitions system is still a traditional one. We have a Government e-petition system and a Parliamentary petitions system which is in that sense anachronistic. So in the last Parliament there were proposals for a Parliamentary e-petition system, not dissimilar from the one this Government established, but those proposals suffered from being expensive and complex. And I think there is now a real case for bringing the Legislature and the Executive Government of Parliament close together on this. The public expect to petition their Parliament and in doing so they also expect to be able to seek action from Government. They do not see their concerns as being directed either to Government or Parliament. They have a concern, they have an issue, they have an objective, they want both to be engaged with it. We must have a single petitions procedure which captures both. For a collaborative system to work there are key features I would want to see continued and improved. The right of the public to petition on any matters which are the responsibility of Parliament. The right of the Legislature to decide which petitions to consider and debate. And thirdly the responsibility on the Executive to consider and respond to the substance of petitions. All those things should be improved. In addition the knowledge and expertise of the Government digital service in establishing and maintaining the site and of officials in Government departments who moderate, monitor and respond to hundreds, literally hundreds of petitions received each week would be difficult and potentially costly now to replace. Now in this respect the system which I saw in the Scottish Parliament who have a petitions system of their own is a model from which we can draw some lessons, we can benefit from that, including particularly in the operation of the Scottish Parliament petitions committee. So I want to work now with colleagues across the House of Commons who have shown an interest in petitions to consider how best we can develop the petitions process with the aim of introducing a collaborative e-petitions site and process in this House by the end of this Parliament. Third, I want to see greater engagement with the legislative process by making laws easier to understand and more transparent and the law making process more accessible. The use of pre and post legislative scrutiny, public reading stages, the mainstreaming of Government opposition and backbenchers providing explanatory statements which I referred to, the use of plain English in bills, the use of explanatory notes to genuinely to explain and expand on what is in legislation, they will all help to bring clarity. We think there's more we can do. The office of the Parliamentary Council who are the Government lawyers responsible for drafting legislation have been working on the good law project to identify what makes legislation so complex and how we can simplify it. Richard Heaton, the first Parliamentary Council has been leading on this project and we've identified the key aspects of good law. To be good law it should be necessary, effective, clear, coherent and accessible. Not all legislation has met those criteria in the past. This is not a challenge or a legacy of any one Government or Parliament. It is a problem that has accumulated over decades. But now at least we can do something more about all this building on much that we've done in recent years. We need both to impact on legislation as it has made and we need to impact on the statute book that we have inherited. It's not just about what we do inside Government. It is a floor I think to think good law is about perfecting the legislation that is introduced to Parliament. It's actually about improving lawmaking through the process of improving what happens in Government, what happens in Parliament and what happens in the courts, since all of these constitute part of the lawmaking process. All three have a role to play. The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the House of Commons is considering many of these issues as well in parallel with this and their inquiry into legislative standards I think will enable us Government and Parliament again to work together on their recommendations too as part of our desire to see better law. Finally, fourthly, I want to consider and seek to improve how the legislature scrutinises Government expenditure. The control of supply as we call it supply term for resources, the control of supply by Parliament is an essential role and whilst here we vote on supply we often do not vigorously consider and challenge as we might the question of what Government spends and in particular what Government spends on itself. It's something which successive Parliaments have looked at and although improvements have been made I think there is more that can be done. Every year Parliament authorises around £500 billion of Government spending, monitored and approved through a range of different cycles. The planning cycle as Government departments agree which is then reported to Parliament as the spending review typically prior to Christmas. The budget cycle as Government sets out the state of the economy which then leads on to the finance bill typically following the budget in the spring. The estimate cycle as Government departments set out their annual resources and cash reported to and approved by the Commons and what's known as the reporting cycle. As Government departments present their annual reports and accounts for the previous year and committees, select committees can choose to examine them in detail. Now much of that is done well, the budget statement, the autumn statement are parliamentary occasions, the scrutiny of the finance bill on the floor of the House and Committee is generally a very much adhered to process for looking in detail at the Government's economic proposals. Where I think we can make the most improvement however is in the estimate cycle. Each year three days in the House of Commons are set aside for debates on departmental estimates. The debates which result are allocated by the liaison committee and focus generally on specific select committee reports on the work of Government departments. Now what often happens of course is that the focus is on the policy relating to the programme expenditure, much less is it likely to be an examination of the value for money of that expenditure itself. Now it can take a long time for Parliament to shift in terms of reform. It's a sign of the rate that parliamentary reform can sometimes proceed that again Richard Crossman speaking in a debate in 1966 as leader of the House said recently we decided that the reports of the PAC, the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee should be regularly debated by the whole House and we allocated three days a year to the process and note what he then said but only a microcosm of the House turned up. Although the reports have regularly provided first rate material for debate the sittings were attended by only a handful of members. We have to have scrutiny led by the back benches selecting areas of importance to consider but I do want to see those debates focus more closely on the departmental estimates linking well to the timing for parliamentary approval of Government expenditure and ensuring that the legislature as a whole takes responsibility for financial scrutiny more seriously. This will not be concerned just with programme spending but I hope will also consider actively administration spending what Government spends on itself. Of course it will not be appropriate for us to change back bench scrutiny ourselves but I do want to work with the liaison committee and the procedure committee and interested members to bring forward new proposals which will help to meet the needs of the legislature to scrutinise expenditure more effectively and I think that will help us in Government to deliver more value for money as well. So I have set out I hope a number of areas where in addition to the history of reform and the relationship between Government and Parliament in this place I hope we can now make more practical positive progress. It's been the case that in the past reform has often been slow or often brought about by the executive not necessarily with the consent of the legislature. I am confident now that as this reforming Government works together with Parliament which is increasingly empowered we can continue to renew and rebuild our politics in a spirit of engagement, of accountability and of transparency. Richard Crossman again if I may borrow from him once more almost 50 years ago said reform would be good for the prestige of Parliament good for the morale of back benches and I believe very good for the Government as well because a strong and healthy executive is all the stronger and healthier if it is stimulated by responsible investigation and criticism. I share his view and I relish what my predecessor Jack Straw did the opportunity in this privileged role as leader of the House to help to make Parliament and Government stronger by those means. Thank you very much.