Jeremy Corbyn

I am surprised that the Leader of the House did not speak to this motion. Obviously the House needs a Modernisation Committee, and obviously there is a great deal of work to be done by that Committee—there are many things we could modernise, including the voting and the hours, which the Committee will have to draw attention to. My question to the Leader of the House is this. There is a group of five colleagues who were elected independently to Parliament for the first time. I am not seeking a job, by the way—I am not seeking to be on the Committee. However, I do think that the knowledge and experience that is brought to bear in this House by people who have come here through an abnormal route—that is, not through party machinery—could bring a great deal of value to the work of the Committee and help to inform its work. Is the Leader of the House prepared to consider changing the format of the Committee to include representatives of all groupings in the House, so that they can all help to make it work in a more modern and efficient way, and so that our time is better used than—in my experience—by spending hours and hours going through the Division Lobby when we could quite easily vote electronically, for example?