Shadow leader of the Commons Sir George Young gave the final speech in the Hansard Society lecture series on parliamentary reform last night.

Young’s speech took a somewhat contradictory position towards Labour’s Commons reforms to date. He began by praising the prime minister’s appearance before the liaison committee twice a year, the addition of public bill committees and the more sensible sitting hours in the Commons.

But he continued by criticising the government’s apparent habit of initiating reforms designed to benefit itself, rather than the Commons, effectively arguing that the greatest barrier to reform was the government itself.

Young was quick to criticise Labour initiatives, such as the referendum on electoral reform — which he derided as a “pre-election stunt”. Yet he offered few counter proposals of his own. Young only conceded that the Tories would support FPTP (First Past The Post) after being questioned on it afterwards.

Some of what he does suggest is sensible — such as reducing the number of bills debated by Parliament, and abolishing the guillotine on public bill committees. But by phrasing the issue of reform around the battles between Conservative attempts at modernisation, and Labour’s opposition to change, his address sounded closer to an attack speech than a sincere discussion of parliamentary reform.

Liberal Democrat David Howarth’s speech on Parliamentary reform featured a heavy focus on electoral and legal reform. Howarth strongly favoured multi-party seats, a repeal of standing order 14 and an elected Lords. However, his attitude of scepticism towards the media seemed dated.

Justice secretary Jack Straw’s parliamentary reform speech contrasted the others, by commenting: “A strong executive is not necessarily a bad thing.” Instead, he argued for a more powerful Parliament to match it. He followed the traditional Labour rhetoric of an elected Lords and a need for a new electoral system, while championing Labour’s work to date on Commons reform.