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From
House of Commons Hansard Westminster Hall Debate 31st January 2005
Mr. Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab): I
congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) on
introducing such an important debate. During the past eight
months, I have been troubled as a new Member of Parliament
by the number of times I have agreed with him. I have not
had the benefit of reading the pamphlet to which he
referred, but how many other countries with upper Houses
have a disputes resolution committee?
John Bercow : That is a question of
the quality to which we have become accustomed from the hon.
Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan). It is one of those questions
that is asked ordinarily by someone who knows the answer to
it, although now might be an exception. I must admit that I
do not know. I think that there are about 69 second Chambers
throughout the world, 47 of which have a mixed membership.
However, that is a different point, and I admit that it is
somewhat irrelevant to his question. Perhaps one of the
authors of the report can answer him.
Almost irrespective of that which applies elsewhere, there
is an argument for trying to break the log jam and to ensure
that there is a mechanism whereby people of good will can
abandon megaphone diplomacy, sit round a table and try to
resolve issues in a civilised way, perhaps in a fashion that
members of the public engaged in a continuing argument would
employ.
Mr. Khan
: To be fair to those on the side of the angels, one reason
why the review of powers is taking place is that we have a
thing called a manifesto, and one of the things guaranteed
in that manifesto was the review that the hon. Gentleman has
talked about. I would also suggest that his party was
slightly busy between July and December, which meant that
Conservative Members were not as robust as they could have
been as far as this matter was concerned.
John Bercow: T he hon. Gentleman
is partly right on both counts. There was a manifesto
commitment, but I would argue that it is not necessary for a
Joint Committee to take very long about the matter. He makes
a fair point about the intervention of the Conservative
leadership election and the inevitable delay that that
caused. If the Minister is prepared to give an explicit
commitment today that the Government will press ahead with
all due speed in the matter, I will be greatly reassured.
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