CAPÍTULO V CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES
GRAFICO 12 COMPARATIVO DEL CONSUMO DE ENERGIA
Firstly, the seating arrangement of the Committee rooms in Parliament heavily influenced the options that the banking participants had to alter their orientation with the parliamentary participants whilst in TSC meetings or to influence the flow of the discussion. Even the more modern Select Committee Rooms in Portcullis House shown in figure seven on the follow page are deliberately formal and their design is purposely to ensure the Committee can scrutinise evidence with an appropriate degree of control. As one can see from the picture below, there is a formality to the arrangement of the room. TSC members sit in a horseshoe seating arrangement around the participant who has been invited to give evidence. Officials are taking notes to the left-hand side and a public gallery of up to 150 people sit behind the individual giving evidence to the Committee. The witness is the focal point in the room.
In figure eight on the following page there are two individuals giving evidence. The microphones in the picture in front of each participant records everything that is
71
said for the official record and creates further distance between the participants, despite the fact they are relatively close together in this room. The ornate wooden panels towards the back of the room and the green leather desks and green leather studded chairs create a formality that serves to remind the witness that they are in the meeting to give evidence not debate with the Members of the Committee. The scene is constructed in a way that appears more like an interview rather than a debate.
Figure (7): Photograph showing the physical layout of a Select Committee room
This atmosphere of interview and evidence gathering is further consolidated by the fact that the Committee sits in a closed session before the meeting and, with the help of the Committee Clerks, they prepare questions and agree who will ask which question and in what order. There is therefore minimal scope for any Committee member to dominate the discussion because of this planning and control of the discussion is carefully maintained. There are also two doors to the Committee rooms. One is for the Committee Members to enter and the other is for witnesses and members of the public to enter. This creates further physical distance between the Committee Members and the banking participants and makes it clear that boundaries are being marked, that it is a meeting to examine facts, not to debate opinions or views on how legislation should be developed.
During the course of study, The House of Commons issued each Member with a tablet PC. These were regularly used in Committee meetings as a tool to emphasise the fact the meetings were business meetings. Notice in figure nine below how the
72
Member to the right of the picture has his tablet PC propped up on the table. Often the tablet PCs were propped up in such a way, but they were rarely used for the purpose of discussion. In fact, quite the opposite was true. The members used them to glance at emails or, as it appears in figure nine, as another physical barrier between the banking participants as witnesses and the Committee members as in control of the evidence gathering.
Figure (8): Photograph II showing a Select Committee Room
Figure (9): Select Committee Example in the Palace of Westminster
The TSC is a formal instrument of Parliament and the language used in the meetings by the parliamentary participants in the meetings is deliberately formal since
73
its purpose is focused on control and establishing a legalistic environment for politicians to scrutinise evidence. For example, the way that members of the TSC referred to each other follows a highly formalised pattern. A Member of the Committee is meant to be addressed by their colleagues as “the honourable member of [constituency]”. However, if the Member has ever previously held a Ministerial office they are addressed by their colleagues as “the right honourable member from [constituency]. However, this does not apply to the most junior of the three tiers of ministerial office: Parliamentary Undersecretary of State. If the Member has held this position they are to be referred to as simply “the honourable member of [constituency]”. The language is deliberately formalised to curate a legalistic atmosphere.
The language reinforced the message of the physical arrangement and helped the TSC maintain control of the conversations. This did not mean the Parliamentary participants did not adopt a more conversational style on occasion, but rather that they made sure that the focus was on the legislation they were scrutinising. The exchange below is taken from a TSC meeting and eloquently demonstrates how the formality kept the control with the TSC Members and what happened when the banking participant attempts to adopt the same conversational tone:
Parliamentary participant (4): It is good to be back in Committee. It has been an eventful Easter recess, not least for the honourable member for [constituency], who got married. I am sure that the Committee will want to congratulate him on that.
Banking participant: What a honeymoon! Indeed, I hope that this does not qualify as his honeymoon, and that he enjoyed a more
companionable honeymoon with his wife. And Thank you very much Andrew for the comments in your letter, let me say my wife is signed up to what you’ve said, she never ceases to remind me of my public duty to spend more.
Parliamentary participant (4): And we should get down to business as we have a good deal to get through today and I know two of our
colleagues need to leave promptly at 11am this morning. At the moment, we have the most rigorous jurisdiction for pay in the world, but we want to go further and make it tougher.
74
In this example, the witness was called before the Committee to discuss remuneration in the banks. However, the banking individual has attempted to enter into a more conversational tone before the business of the Committee begins. This is quickly closed down by the parliamentary participant who does not acknowledge the bankers attempt to lighten the mood with his joke. The banking participant attempts to build alignment through the focus of the honeymoon rather than the business of the Committee and that the Parliamentary participant is swift to ensure that the focus returns directly to the debate about executive pay.
Therefore, despite attempts by the banking participants to change the tone in the TSC meetings, the Parliamentary participants use the TSC meetings as a space to gather information, finding agreement through clarification of specific pieces of legislation and use the formality of the environment to ensure that they maintained control over the focus of the discussion. The conversation above continues in a much more scripted manner afterwards. The Parliamentary participants ask the questions they have prepared before the meeting and the banking participants ensure that they share the “right” information that they have agreed with the “blue suits” in their organisation before the meeting. It is an elaborate scene played out in a theatre that controls the language, the tone of the language and even the opportunity to speak freely