Speeches by Campbell.

“First, I join the shadow Leader of the House in sending our condolences to the friends and family of Lance Corporal Hooley, who died while serving our country and in the cause of keeping the flame of freedom alive. As we approach Christmas, I want to recognise the contribution that charities make across our country. Ho…”

“The business for the week commencing 15 December will include: Monday 15 December—Consideration of a Lords message to the Employment Rights Bill, followed by Second Reading of the Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill. Tuesday 16 December—Second Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill. Wednesday 17 December—If n…”

“I am trying. Again, it is about making sure it is on the agenda of Secretaries of State. I emphasised to the permanent secretaries that this is a key thing that MPs are looking at. It is about having some empathy about the job that MPs actually do. What is it that they are looking for? They are not aways out to catch o…”

“They always do, Tom. There are more Liberals there than you can shake a stick at.”

“Going back to what you said before, I was going to be glib and say, “That’s politics, isn’t it? Your opponent is trying to unseat you and is looking at how you spend your time and what you answer questions about,” but there is a wider issue. I am certainly not offering to go away and come up with a solution to it, but …”

“It will be interesting to see what comes out of what happened in the Adjournment debate yesterday. I knew it was happening, but I did not see it; I will go away and have a look at it. I would gently say that, in my experience—for obvious reasons, I don’t put questions down in the way that I did—Departments might strugg…”

“Which is helpful.”

“I have said the same thing, but there is also something else that can be a bit of a magic wand here: get on your feet on a Thursday morning at business questions and ask why a Department has not answered your question. You would be surprised at how quick you get an answer—but please don’t take that as an invitation for…”

“I am putting pressure on them as far as I can, but there is another issue that we need to think about in this context. I am doing it by saying to Secretaries of State at Cabinet, “You need to check. If not, you’re going to be hauled up before the appropriate Committee—and a good thing, too—and held to account for that,…”

“Yes. I cannot give you a precise date, because I do not have one, but I think it is a fairly open secret that this is a long Session. It is not an unusually long Session; the first Session of the coalition Government in 2010 was of equal length, and we have done a great deal in this Session. There will be somewhere in …”

“The secretariat of the Modernisation Committee needs to keep a tally of what other Committees are doing to avoid duplication. If PACAC is doing an inquiry, Modernisation and Procedure don’t need to do the same inquiry. At the end of the day, Mary, it is about trusting colleagues who are off looking at something that ha…”

“Thanks, Mary—that is a good question. I said before that in my mind it is a hub and spoke model. The overall answer to your question is that we should work really closely. I meet Cat. I am happy to talk to anybody about the work of any Committee, but this Committee is very close to a lot of what we do. I want to work t…”

“It is really important to do that. I spend a great deal of time talking to the Opposition parties. I will talk to anybody, but particularly the Opposition parties and their representatives to try to get consensus. It is not always possible, but I like to work on a consensual basis if possible. From my fairly limited ex…”

“There needs to be balance in that. It is about getting it clear in our mind, from a Government perspective, what the role of Parliament is, and respecting the role of Parliament to talk about the things it wants to talk about. Getting that balance is a mutual understanding. The primary purpose of this place is the scru…”

“It is worth some thinking, and I will go away and think about it. However, one of the immovable things—and I am not just talking about dates—might be political parties. We have to be clear that if they make their mind up about when their conference is going to be, that is when it is going to be, whether they have booke…”

“I see. That is an interesting proposition. I am guessing that the one thing you cannot shift is the conferences, because they will be booked years ahead and we know when they will land. Are you saying, “What is the worth of the conference recess?””

“Thank you for the work that you have been doing. We need to be careful about the changes that we make. I will come back to the overarching reason why that is the case, but I understand that you will do a further inquiry into proxy voting at some point in the future. Is that the plan?”

“There are a number of things. This is not a criticism of Back-Bench business, but it will sound like it, so let me get that out there. Some of the things that were expected of them in the original reforms are not happening. That is partly due to the nature of how MPs—new MPs in particular—are seeking to use this place.…”

“I will start by saying how I see the Modernisation Committee fitting in. I know that there are some problems with this already, but I see it as a hub and spoke mechanism. We are busy refreshing Modernisation: we have changed our side, and I know that there are some changes coming on the Conservative side too, so there …”

“I suppose my answer is that this is a work in progress and we should continue to look at cases on their merit. I am not saying that proxy voting would not extend in future. However, as I have already said, I am cautious about that, partly because cases can be accounted for in different ways. They can be dealt with in d…”