Cut the Crap!
Recently, the MP for Harwich, Douglas Carswell, made an interesting proposal. Writing in a blog during a Commons debate in which he wasn’t able to speak, he called for a 3-minute time limit on speeches in parliament. This would be to cut waffling, encourage sponteneity and make debates more useful.
At first, it’s easy to sympathise. I’ve watched ordinary debates in the House of Commons. With a few, notable exceptions (PMQs, major bills and some ministerial questions), they are deathly dull. Imposing a time limit on speeches would make debates far more entertaining. At the very least, they might stop a few MPs from indulging in their usual (very poor) oratorical masturbation and ask some decent questions.
He also raises the entirely valid point that, because most debates are so duly pointless, very few MPs turn up to them. This means that, often, apparently minor legislation can pass through parliament without the scrutiny it perhaps deserves. Would the government have been able to introduce quite so many new, small, questionable offences if people had actually been paying attention? I do wonder.
However, Carswell’s proposals are deeply flawed. He describes his logic as such: “They have done it for cricket with the 20/20 rules. They should now do it for Parliament.” Much of his phrasing revolves around long speeches being bad because they’re boring for spectators in the galleries. In this, he misses one crucial matter…
Parliamentary debating isn’t a spectator sport.
Parliamentary debating is many things - most prominently the drafting of legislation. The public can watch from the galleries, and on television. But this is because the electorate has a right to know what its representatives are saying, not because it’s some form of sport. It should be full and useful before it’s gripping.
Of course, Carswell’s suggestion is meant to make debates more useful. His point that dull debating reduces the effectiveness of scrutiny but cutting down the number of questions asked is fair. But wouldn’t his proposals have the same effect? Instead of not asking enough questions because they’re not paying attention, MPs might not have enough time to ask enough questions in their 3 minutes. The debate could be just as impaired.
The issue undoubtedly needs attention. But reducing speeches to 3 minutes isn’t the way to do it. That’s just not enough time. A more generous limit, or multiple (spread out) speeches, I could perhaps support - or perhaps something at the Speaker’s discretion. Either that, or assigning all scrutiny of the details of a bill to committees (even more so than now) and reserving chamber debates for principle alone.
But I’m not sure that would work either.
On first thought, three-minute speeches would appear to favour debating club-type MPs. You know the people I mean - the Oxford Union-esque clique.
Upon reflection, however, I reason that these people would, as a rule, struggle to contain themselves in such a short period of time. I would want six minutes at least.
I suspect that the first opponant to such a reform of the Commons would be John Prescott, who would struggle to complete a sentence in that time.