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A giant leap for select committees today, and a modest skip towards greater powers as well. Francis Maude, the minister for the Cabinet Office, has agreed in principle to give the Public Administration Committee a role in approving the creation of new quangos. It would mean that any proposals to create new quangos or reorganise existing ones would have to be approved by the committee.

Details of the new role, which was originally recommended by the in its recent report on quangos, are to be worked out between the government and PASC.

Meanwhile Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, is promising the Education Committee a role in approving key education appointments - although he hasn't followed the Chancellor's lead in conceding a veto power to them. (George Osborne, you'll remember, has said the Treasury Committee should have a veto over the appointment and removal of the head of the new watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility.)

Education Secretary and committee will now discuss what power they should have over which appointments. But a door has now been opened. How long, I wonder, before committees start going after the biggest prizes of all - approving ministerial appointments and departmental budgets. If they ever get to do either of those, the revolution will truly have arrived.

* Parliament's disappearing for the summer, and so am I. Blogging will resume in September, when the Commons returns for a two week session, before the party conferences. But one interesting question remains for the new parliament. Who will be the first MP to demand an emergency recall? It always used to be Tam Dalyell...

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There's a huge row coming up the tracks over the centrepiece of the Coalition's political reform agenda - and one at least as likely to derail it as the better known gripes about the proposed referendum on changing the electoral system.

As its rather cumbersome name suggests, the covers holding a referendum on switching to the Alternative Vote system, and redrawing the boundaries of Commons seats, so that there are 50 fewer constituencies, with a much more uniform size.

And because the Coalition wants the new boundaries in place before the next election, that redrawing of the political map has to be rushed through - without the normal consultation procedures. So there it is in the bill, , "a Boundary Commission may not cause a public inquiry to be held for the purposes of a report under this Act". The whole system of public inquiries, which previously allowed the alternatives for changing the layout of parliamentary seats to be weighed in public, is scrapped. Interested (political) parties can send in submissions until they are blue (or red, or orange) in the face - but they will not get to see the thought processes by which a decision is made.

And that matters because the bill also lays out detailed new rules for redrawing the constituency map, which could lead to some dramatic changes in the pattern of constituencies. For example, the four boundary commissions (one each, for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) are instructed to start with the largest constituency in their patch - so does that mean that, in England, they go to the Isle of Wight (with 109,902 registered voters, the largest constituency by a distance) note that it has for more voters than the electoral quota, (around 75,000 at a guestimate) and hive off 30,000 of them to be part of a new constituency straddling the Solent? That won't go down very well on the island...and just watch the ripple effect in constituencies across the south east. That's what the language of the bill seems to imply. And you can expect some similarly exotic results elsewhere.

Except in Scotland, where some specific rules about the maximum size of constituencies will kick in. First of all, the bill specifies that there will be separate constituencies for Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar (formerly Western Isles). Then it caps the maximum geographical extent of a constituency at 13,000 square kilometres - about the size of Charles Kennedy's vast domain of Ross, Skye and Lochaber...Labour are already charging that, spookily enough, the interplay of these rules and exemptions make it very difficult to create seats with about 75,000 voters and an area less than 13,000 square kilometres out of any of the surrounding constituencies....like Lib Dem Argyll and Bute and Lib Dem Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey and Lib Dem Caithness and Sutherland. We shall see. It is also possible that redistribution would result in incumbent Lib Dems and incumbent SNP MPs battling it out in a couple of places for seats formed from their former fiefdoms. (There's also some very complicated stuff about Northern Ireland which I have not puzzled out yet.)

But it may never get that far. This is a classic "Lords issue". Peers are sticklers for proper procedure and the Upper House may decide to take on the government over the public inquiries. It they decide to dig in their heels the whole delicately balanced scheme could dissolve into chaos.

Firstly, because a redrawing process which includes inquiries might well not be completed before the next election, which would mean fighting it on the current constituencies. And secondly, because they need to get the bill through fast, if they are going to get the promised referendum next May. The Electoral Commission likes to have a good six months notice of referendums, which implies passing the bill well before Christmas - and since the bill won't even start being debated in the Commons till September, that would require an improbably fast and smooth processing in both Lords and Commons.

If the bill hits real trouble, with Lords and Commons deadlocked over the inquiries, the referendum may have to wait till May 2012 or even later. Nick Clegg would be forced to wait to deliver one of the key prizes he promised his party when he signed up to the Coalition.

And if the referendum is fought out when spending cuts are biting hardest that prize could turn to ashes in his mouth.

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MPs will start the week with a bitter pill: their pensions are about to be trimmed.

Recommendations to IPSA, which determines MPs' pay and allowances, by the pay advisory body, the Senior Salaries Review Board, have just been published. They would scrape a little of the famed "gold-plating" from the MPs' scheme - but the government could yet go further, to bring the deal for MPs into line with whatever fate is decreed by the Public Service Pensions Commission, headed by Lord Hutton, the former Labour cabinet minister.

The proposals include:

• Changing the basis of pension accrual from "final-salary" to career average;
• Increasing the normal pension age for MPs from 65 to 68;
• Restricting the rate of indexation to the lesser of the Retail Price Index (RPI) or 2.5%;
• Standardising the accrual rate at 1/60th of salary per year of service and the member contribution rate at 5.5% of pay; and
• Freezing benefits already accrued on a final salary basis, and uprating in line with RPI.

Describing the current pension scheme as "not sustainable", the Leader of the Commons, Sir George Young, added: "Taken together, the SSRB estimates that this package would reduce the underlying rate of Exchequer contribution to 10.5% of payroll."

But ultimately, the cuts to the scheme may be even deeper. I'm off to gauge reactions...

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Alas, this weekend sees the last ever edition of Straight Talk with Andrew Neil, over on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ News Channel - but the final guest, Lord Patten of Barnes, the artist formerly known as Chris Patten, has an interesting take on the Coalition.

ANDREW NEIL: It's your kind of government isn't it, it's a centrist, kind of one nation Tory, government?

CHRIS PATTEN: Yes it is. One of the things that amazes me with this endless sort of Mills and Boon literature which rains down on us from Lord Mandelson and from Andrew Rawnsley and others which tells us about how the previous united Labour government got on, I'm surprised that people make such a fuss about the difficulties of a coalition government between the Lib Dems and Conservatives, because I suspect that there's a lot more unity of purpose here than there was with Blair-Brown. It is difficult because, for years, Conservatives and Lib Dems have fought one another tooth and nail in constituencies, so expecting people to get on at Westminster is a bit of a challenge. But yeah, I think they're doing pretty well.

AN: Let's look a little bit about what's been happening - I think we all know that Mr Blair regrets squandering the early years that we had in office after '97 whereas David Cameron seems to be a prime minister in a hurry - we've had, look, welfare reform being announced, reform of the NHS, schools, constitution - all pretty radical, but the Times said that the real lesson of New Labour was: "Reform requires rigour and time rather than mere political capital and enthusiasm." Who's right?

CP: Well, I think that there is a slight danger of the government looking a little breathless. There's a rather sort of frenzied rate of activity which is understandable as the government attempts to demonstrate that it has an agenda of reform quite beyond dealing with the public finances. I think political reality is going to bite pretty hard this autumn when the government has to announce how it's going to deal with the deficit over the next few years, and I think that's going to determine the politics of the period ahead. But what I think is admirable is that some ministers - Kenneth Clarke for example, Vince Cable for example - have made it plain that they don't just see public spending contraction, necessary as it is, determining the priorities for the next few years. They think this is a time when we have to reorganise public services and in the process probably spend less money, and concentrate much more on outputs than inputs, and I think Vince Cable - I didn't agree with everything he'd said - but I thought he made an extremely interesting speech on higher education about that, and I totally agreed with what Ken Clarke said about the prison population.

Lord Patten also discusses the planned spending cuts, the referendum on voting reform, higher education and a graduate tax, and Europe, and you can see the whole thing on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ News channel, on Saturday 24 July at 4.30am and 11.30pm, on Sunday 25 July at 1.30am and 11.30pm - and on Tuesday 27 July at 3.30am.

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Two more days of the Commons next week, and three more days of the Lords, before Parliament shuts up shop for the summer - but they're cramming in lots of promising-looking select committee action before they go. Here are the highlights.....

On Monday, the takes evidence on the £10.5bn Private Finance Initiative contract to deliver a military tanker aircraft capability. says progress is now being made. And the Transport Secretary Philip Hammond MP will be come the latest Cabinet minister to debut before their departmental committee, when he meets the - expect plenty of questions about the future of key infrastructure projects.

The committee rooms will positively hum with activity on Tuesday - and there should be a pretty lively session when the examines the controversial plans to cap redundancy payments for civil servants.

With major redundancies on the cards, the committee plans to explore the implications and the prospects for a negotiated deal. The witnesses include the Civil Service unions: and Cabinet Office ministers Francis Maude and Oliver Letwin. The ministers will also be quizzed on the government's plans for reform of the public sector - including civil service reform, the "Big Society" and the abolition of quangos.

The newly-created will continue probing the government's proposals for voting and parliamentary reform - looking first at plans for bigger constituencies and fewer MPs - with expert witnesses Ron Johnston, professor of geography, University of Bristol and Robin Gray, former Boundary Commissioner for England. They'll then turn to examining the proposed referendum on the Alternative Vote and the merits of the system itself with Patrick Dunleavy, professor of political science and public policy at the LSE and Justin Fisher, professor of political science, Brunel University.

Ed Balls, the former schools secretary and champion of the previous government's schools renewal project, Building Schools for the Future (BSF) goes into bat in defence of the programme at the - after the government's decision to axe it.

The is back again, taking evidence on the Customer First Programme - DBIS's system for administering student finance in England. on the problems in 2009, when many students found their cash delayed and some had to start university without knowing the outcome of their application for finance. The key witness is Simon Fraser, the permanent secretary.

Launching its new inquiry into policing, the will take evidence from Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers and Sir Paul Stephenson; chief commissioner of the Met.

And Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, gives evidence to the as it continues its 'scene setting' hearings. The committee will probe on key science issues, including the challenges ahead as the sector faces likely cuts.

Over in the Upper House the will launch a new inquiry into the EU single market by holding an evidence session with former EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti. The single market has been criticised in Europe since the financial crisis over alleged bias towards the "Anglo-Saxon market model".

Chairman Baroness O'Cathain, says he's "the perfect witness to kick off our inquiry. Not only is he a former Competition Commissioner, he has massive influence on the European Commission as was shown by his being asked to write a report on re-launching the single market. His proposals for reconciling different market models across the EU are likely to provide an important contribution to the debate in the EU."

And even though the Commons is not sitting on Wednesday some of its select committees are. Michael Gove, the education secretary, makes his debut appearance before the and will doubtless respond to Tuesday's session with Ed Balls on the BSF programme. Other hot topics include the Academies Bill, free schools, Ofsted and qualifications.

The holds its first session this Parliament examining the Channel 4's latest annual report with C4 executives. Among other issues, the committee are likely to discuss the implications of the Digital Economy Act for Channel 4.

And the new continues its flying start with its first session with Bank of England Governor Mervyn King. They'll cover the bank's May inflation report and the new arrangements to ensure financial stability. Other likely topics include the possibility of a double-dip recession, rising inflation and unemployment and how the new powers given to the bank by the Chancellor will work.

And then they're all off until 6 September, when the Commons, but not the Lords, reconvenes for a fortnight before the party conference season.

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The ambush takes place next Monday. The two big Clegg bills - the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill, covering the Alternative Vote referendum and cutting the number of MPs in the Commons; and the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, which does what it says on the tin - were published today. On Monday, backbench Tory opponents of the bills will fire their first warning shot.

I understand the senior Conservative backbencher Bernard Jenkin has already amassed 40 plus signatures on an Early Day Motion demanding that 40% of the total electorate (as well as a simple majority of those who vote) would have to approve a change in the voting system in the proposed referendum - the same hurdle that floored Scottish devolution in the 1978 referendum held by the Callaghan government. EDMs don't get debated, but ministers do take notice if they get a decent number of supporters.

The EDM's backers include some Tory heavy hitters - prominent backbenchers and former cabinet ministers - but the key question is whether Labour MPs will make common cause on this issue. And there are a couple of problems for Labour with the idea of a threshold. First, there was no threshold in the referenda which approved the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh National Assembly or indeed the Greater London Authority. So why bring one in for this particular issue?

Second, why apply the principle only in referenda? It would be interesting, murmur Mr Clegg's supporters, to know how many MPs won the votes of 40% of their total electorate back in May, not just of those who actually voted but of all those on the electoral register. But will they worry about that, if there's a chance of bringing down the Coalition by forcing some poison pill amendment down Mr Clegg's throat?

Meanwhile there's criticism from another direction - Labour's Graham Allen, Chair of the new Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee, complained that the government decision to take the second reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill on the first day Parliament returns after the recess (6 September) shows that "despite all of the talk about new politics, the old politics is still alive and well in many parts of Whitehall".

Mr Allen says Parliament should have the chance to undertake serious pre-legislative scrutiny through his select committee. The timing announced today effectively allowed only two brief sessions of evidence-taking to inform MPs before second reading.
That, he says, "plays into the hands of the anti-reform faction who may rightly claim that Parliament is being bounced into accepting this fundamental change to our democracy".

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I thought he might get mauled, but Nick Clegg emerged pretty well unscathed from his first outing deputising for David Cameron at PMQs. He rather revelled in being the first Liberal for almost a century to answer Commons questions for the prime minister. I know, I know, prime minister's questions only began in, I think 1961, but they did answer on the floor of the House before that, and Mr Clegg needs all the kudos he can drum up, at the moment.

What was interesting about today's PMQs was the way his Conservative colleagues rallied around, starting with a convivial tete-a-tete with International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, behind the Speaker's Chair, before he took his seat. Chancellor George Osborne was whispering into his ear with helpful suggestions throughout.

And Foreign Secretary William Hague could be heard murmuring "well done" as Mr Clegg left. But he, at least, might have some post-PMQs tidying up to do. I wonder if Mr Clegg's parting shot to his Labour interrogator, Shadow Justice Secretary Jack Straw, might cause some ripples in Washington? He jabbed a finger at Mr Straw - Tony Blair's Foreign Secretary during the Iraq war - and warned he'd have to account for his role in the "illegal invasion". It looked like a pre-prepared and calculated set piece and his Lib Dem colleagues liked it. But some Tory MPs seemed a bit less keen - although George Osborne seemed to relish the gibe.

I'm sure Mr Cameron can shrug the issue off if some enterprising American journalist asks him if his government's official view is now that the invasion was illegal, but I bet he'd rather not have to address that question at all.

And maybe Mr Clegg was also a shade more definite about withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan by 2015 than his colleagues. Both of those are lines which his party will like more than his Conservative colleagues do. Maybe Mr Clegg won't mind a few visible dividing lines, to demonstrate that he's not in thrall to his partners in Coalition. Maybe that's the point.

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I'm told that Nick Clegg's AV Referendum Bill will be published this week - but there can't be a second reading debate until September, at the earliest. The technical issues I blogged about on Tuesday may be part of the reason, but it is clear that the hostility of Tory backbenchers has not abated - and that must be a worry for the government, because this bill is the jugular vein of the Coalition. There are several points of vulnerability - the timing to coincide with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland elections has upset the nationalist parties and Conservative backbencher Eleanor Laing said it undermined the devolution settlement at Scottish Questions today.

So a smart Labour amendment on the timing of the referendum could cause trouble. Then there's the possibility of inserting a minimum vote requirement - for example that the "Yes vote" must be equivalent to 40% of the total electorate - not just a majority of those who actually vote in the referendum - the manoeuvre which spiked the 1978 Scottish Devolution referendum.

That could be a dangerous road to go down. I doubt we would have had devolution at all, if such a clause had been included in the referenda which set up the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Come to that, I wonder how many MPs would have been allowed to take their seats if they'd had to pass a similar threshold in a general election. Tory MPs were told a while ago that the government would not accept an amendment on this point, and would apply a three line whip to enforce the Coalition agreement - but some who favour administering some kind of poison pill to the Referendum Bill may not be deterred. In some corners of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, the idea of bringing down the Coalition only adds to the attraction of making mischief.

* The new assertiveness of select committees is taking a dangerous turn. In the Defence Committee's first session with Secretary of State Liam Fox, the Chair, James Arbuthnot, has just warned that witnesses who pepper the committee with MoD acronyms will be shot by firing squad! No wimpy confirmation hearings for this lot!

* Last night MPs debated letting the UK Youth Parliament https://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/ debate in the Commons chamber every year. Last October, Speaker Bercow presided over their first use of the chamber, now it will become an annual event. There was some resistance to the idea last year, but it was eventually voted through on March 16th. The Conservative awkward squaddie Philip Davies kept the debate going till after midnight to make his objections felt - and a substantive vote was deferred till today.

* The first debate on a subject chosen by the Backbench Business Committee was last (Tuesday) night - when MPs agreed a suggestion that the Commons Procedure Committee should devise a suitable punishment for ministers who make important announcements to the media, rather than to them. Many merry quips about suspension (where they seemed to have something fairly literal in mind), birching or lynching flew across the Chamber. The proposal was voted through, and the only snag was when Backbench Business Committee Chair Natascha Engel nearly choked on some chewing gum - so ministers beware, MPs won't take it any more.

* The Commons is rising for the summer next Tuesday, but not all MPs are downing tools for the summer. The Education Committee, the Culture Committee and the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Affairs Committee are all holding evidence sessions on Wednesday - and their lordships will be sitting too. So Westminster will stagger on for an extra day, even without Commons business.

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I'm going to be listening very carefully at the close of proceedings in the Commons on Friday 22 October. That's when the Conservative MP Adam Afriyie's Presentation Bill, which was laid before the Commons yesterday, is set down for its Second Reading.

There were no speeches or debates around it and the chances are, when that Friday comes, it will be so far down the agenda, that it won't get debated. But it will be worth tuning into the roundup of unreached business which takes place when the Commons moves to the adjournment debate, at about 2.30pm. A clerk reads out a list of the business which has not been dealt with, and normally a government whip shouts out the word "object!".

At that point, the bill in question is pushed back to another day.

But if, by chance, or more likely by design, no objections are made, the bill is considered to have received a second reading - and goes forward for detailed consideration in committee. I learned this the hard way. A couple of years back the former Tory Chief Whip David MacLean's bill to exempt MPs' expenses from publication under the Freedom of Information Act was slipped through by this almost invisible means. I was watching the Commons at the time, and missed the lack of objection. In fairness to me, it was pretty easy to miss - a couple of seconds in which something is not said.

The experience, though, has left me wondering if the MacLean gambit might be applied to the Afriyie Bill. He wants to amend the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, the legislation which created the MPs' expenses overlord, IPSA, to cut its costs and "change the schemes of payment for Members of the House of Commons". In effect, to delete the word Independent from IPSA's title, and rewrite the rules on MPs' expenses.

The MacLean gambit didn't work, because no peer could be found to take his bill through the Lords - although it was approved by the Commons. But such is the quiet fury in the Commons over IPSA's handling of the new expenses system that there are plenty of MPs who're prepared to brave the inevitable storm of press criticism to change the system. "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," they reason. Take the hit now, and it will be ancient history by the next election, assuming it's in five years time. Get the bill into committee, and there would be a quick third reading on a Friday, when most of Her Majesty's Press are not looking. A couple of furious op-eds and it would all be over, bar the better payments they could then hope for.

It's one scenario. But what Conservative MPs would really, really like is for their leader to take up their cause. The complaints are furious, and I'm told the PM was sympathetic when they were recounted at a recent meeting of the 1922 Committee - the convocation of all Tory backbenchers. Some suspect his sympathy was a sweetener for the less welcome proposals on AV, but it was music to their ears all the same.

I've spoken to MPs who say they've run up thousands of pounds in debt, paying their office staff and costs. One told me he'd just settled an office phone bill of several hundred pounds on his personal credit card, and despairs of getting the money back any time soon. The new intake, blameless in the expenses abuse of the past, are particularly annoyed that the system does not allow basic bills to be paid directly, but requires them to pay up and claim back - there's even a certain class animus about the sprinkling of very rich MPs who don't find this a strain, compared to others who may have given up their jobs months before the election, had no income until they got elected, and most emphatically do find it a strain now.

Those MPs also know they can expect scant press and public sympathy - especially after yesterday's debate on reforms to the Lords expenses system, in which certain noble Lords seemed to be channelling Marie Antoinette as they bemoaned the horrors of standard class rail travel, with its ever-present danger of meeting the hoi polloi.

But it has been conveyed to the prime minister that he would win his backbenchers' eternal devotion (well, for a while, at least) if he promised real action on IPSA and replaced the current system with simple allowances that paid flat per-day rates for those representing seats in London, those in the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Counties, and those beyond. The argument put to Mr Cameron is that his troops are seriously unhappy, and he could win them over by going in to bat on this issue. But would he be prepared to face the inevitable wrath of the expenses hawks in the Telegraph and the Mail?

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Has Nick Clegg run into trouble with his hyper-ambitious constitutional agenda? The strong steer, even a few days ago, was that his bill for a referendum on switching the electoral system to the Alternative Vote (AV) and to cut the number of parliamentary constituencies would have its second reading in the Commons before the summer recess.

But time is running out and the bill has yet to appear. The original timetable was for a second reading before the summer, followed by detailed debate by a committee of the whole House of Commons in September, and then on into the Lords, with a view to getting the Royal Assent early next year. Any slippage puts at risk the prospect of holding the referendum in tandem with the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly and English local elections in May 2011.

So what is going on? One theory is that the part of the bill dealing with reducing the number of MPs by 50 is proving fiendishly complicated. I blogged on the complexities of this a while ago, and the chances are that the normal process of public inquiries would have to be suspended in order to deliver a new set of constituencies in good time for the next election. That, in turn, raises the prospect of legal challenges, judicial reviews and even an appeal to the - which might ultimately derail the whole process anyway. Clearly, under those circumstances, watertight drafting is essential.

And there may be a second problem. The implications of a comprehensive redrawing of boundaries and a reduction in the number of MPs are now sinking in. It is one factor behind the surprisingly low spirits of Conservative backbenchers, some of whom fear their long-coveted seat in the Commons might prove to be a fairly fleeting experience. Bigger constituencies will mean a bigger caseload, with the added complication that the MP may have to work with many more local councils, police forces, and so on, if they stretch across county boundaries, as they well might. Then there's the unstated threat that those who fail to toe the party line might be the ones left standing when the music stops in the game of re-selection musical chairs.

Also failing to appear is the bill to enshrine fixed term parliaments - and require a Commons supermajority of 66% of MPs before Parliament can be dissolved and an election called. The whisper is that there are real problems with this, around the issue of parliamentary privilege. Can this House of Commons bind itself to new rules about dissolution, let alone future Houses? To be sure, MPs could pass a bill, but if 50% plus 1 (but not 66%) of them later wanted to repeal it and then call an election, surely they could do so? So is there any real guarantee beyond the embarrassment of breaking a self-denying ordinance?

Nick Clegg is deputising at PMQs tomorrow, as David Cameron enjoys the hospitality of the White House - and I imagine this subject might come up, not least because the Labour questioning will be led by the shadow justice secretary Jack Straw. And also tomorrow, - constitution nerds should tune in.

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The more I think of it, the more significant George Osborne's big concession to the seems to be. The Chancellor gave the committee the right of veto over the successor to Sir Alan Budd, who was briefly the boss of the new Office of Budget Responsibility.

The OBR is supposed to be an independent watchdog, validating the assumptions which will underlie future budgets - in opposition the Tories accused Labour of getting their budget figures to add up only by making ludicrously over-optimistic assumptions about future economic growth, which magically brought projected government borrowing down to non-toxic levels. The OBR is the mechanism by which they foreswear such tricks. Its job, if you will forgive the furious mixing of metaphors, will be to blow the whistle on cooked books. But already there has been some criticism about alleged political interference. So the new boss needs an indisputable hallmark proving their political independence - and Mr Osborne has asked the Treasury Committee, under the flintily independent Andrew Tyrie to provide it.

All very nice for the Treasury Committee, and a neat solution to Mr Osborne's political problem. But I wonder how enthused his cabinet colleagues are? Because the upper reaches of the state are thronged with quangos and regulators and inspectors-general of this or that. And all the other select committees would dearly love to hold a veto over appointments in their patch. Wouldn't the Justice Committee just love to be able to accept or reject a new candidate for Chief Inspector of Prisons? Wouldn't the Transport Committee fancy grilling some would-be rail regulator? Maybe the Culture Committee would like to give the next chairman of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Trust the once-over. Maybe the Treasury Committee has had its appetite whetted for similar powers to veto the next governor of the Bank of England? And don't get anyone in the Commons started on the Electoral Commission.....

There must be scores of inspectors, regulators and quangocrats out there, whom the politicians would like to get their hands on. Industry regulators can redirect billions at the stroke of a pen. The Chief Inspector of Schools' verdict on education policies can tie a secretary of state into knots. So these people have real power.

And there's a remembered grudge in select committee land. In the last parliament the Schools Secretary Ed Balls (this was before his successor, Michael Gove, changed the title back to Education Secretary) defied his departmental select committee over the appointment of Maggie Atkinson as Childrens' Commissioner. The then-committee decided she had failed to show sufficient "determination to assert the independence of the role, to challenge the status quo on children's behalf, and to stretch the remit of the post, in particular by championing children's rights". And when Mr Balls failed to heed their views the then chairman, Labour's Barry Sheerman, called him "a bit of a bully". The bruises from that particular test of strength still irk many select committee stalwarts - and now they hope the Chancellor has allowed them to move towards assuming US Congress style "advise and consent" powers.

Of course the danger is that with US-style powers might come US-style partisanship....with endless inquests into what might have been smoked during distant university days, who's had an abortion, what's the nanny's immigration status and so forth. A lot of congressional confirmation hearings have become shakedowns by the character cops, rather than investigations into policy...and while MPs shudder at the thought, it might one day become quite tempting to go down the Washington road.

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With only a week and a bit to go, before Parliament shuts up shop for the summer, the select committees are rushing to launch new inquiries and summon witnesses.

The has announced a new inquiry into firearms control, to look at whether or not there is a need for changes to the way in which firearms and shotgun certificates are issued and monitored, to prevent gun violence. Labour's Keith Vaz, Chair of the Committee, said it would seek to learn any lessons from the recent tragic shootings in Cumbria and in Northumberland.

The wants to look into the permanent arrangements for the Office for Budget Responsibility, which was set up by the Coalition as an interim body. One of its first tasks was to provide advice on the arrangements for the permanent OBR -

With legislation expected in autumn, the Committee plans a swift inquiry to assess the arrangements proposed by the interim OBR and consider alternatives. It's particularly interested in evidence on means of ensuring the OBR's independence and accountability.

There are also a series of hearings already timetabled for next week:

On Tuesday, the has its first encounter with the new Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. And with his sweeping plans for NHS reforms and the controversy over the possible scrapping of the two week guarantee for an appointment with a cancer specialist - this is bound to be a high-profile session.

The new will meet David Willetts, the minister for universities and science, and the will meet the Secretary of State for Wales Cheryl Gillan.

And the will speak to Damien Green, minister for immigration on the new government's immigration policy, especially the new proposed cap on immigration.

On Wednesday, the will have its first meeting with the new Justice Secretary Ken Clarke - and likely topics will include his suggestion that far fewer people should be sent to prison, and possible changes to the mandatory life sentence for murder.

The will meet Michael Moore, the secretary of state for Scotland, David Mundell, his junior minister and Alisdair McIntosh, director, Scotland Office.

The will have its first session with the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox. They'll discuss the Strategic Defence Review, operations in Afghanistan and Defence procurement.

And the first session of the new Parliament will look into the Pathways to Work system - which is supposed to move people on incapacity benefit back into employment. A found this system to be poor value for money and 60% ineffective. The witnesses are led by Leigh Lewis, permanent secretary, at the Department of Work and Pensions.

On Thursday the newly created will hold its first hearing, into the government's proposal to hold a referendum on changing the way in which MPs are elected to the alternative vote system, AV. The session is also likely to touch on the government's plans to have fewer MPs representing more equal numbers of electors, and to have fixed-term parliaments of five years. The witnesses will include: Peter Facey, from Unlock Democracy, Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky and Dr Martin Steven, from the Electoral Reform Society.

Similar ground will already have been explored by the Lords Constitution Committee which will hear evidence from Peter Riddell, senior fellow at the Institute for Government, Professor Robert Hazell, director of the Constitution Unit at University College London, and Professor Robert Blackburn, professor of constitutional law at Kings College London.

They will be asked for their views on the government's proposals for Lords reform and electoral reform and on the changing responsibilities of the Deputy Prime Minster for the Coalition's constitutional reform programme.

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After the first clutch of select committee hearings - this morning , , Â鶹ԼÅÄ Secretary Theresa May and International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell were all in action before their committees - how much evidence is there that the new model elected committees under the guidance of elected Chairs is doing a better job of holding our rulers' feet to the fire?

The initial verdict seems to be "mostly yes". The Treasury Committee's hearings into the Budget have, unsurprisingly, been pretty technical affairs - but George Osborne and a variety of other worthies were, by all accounts, made to sweat a bit. The home secretary faced robust questioning on the Raoul Moat and Derrick Bird incidents and on impending cuts to police funding in England and Wales.

Marks for artistic impression and technical merit were a bit lower for the new Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, set up to monitor Nick Clegg's plans for sweeping reform to the voting system, and to Parliament. Some interesting lines emerged, not least the DPM's rejection of the idea that his party would pull out of the Coalition if voters rejected a new voting system in the referendum proposed for next May, but the session seemed to meander a bit, with members a touch too keen on long rambling statements which sometimes lacked an actual question.

Still the(and they are now "chairs" not "chairmen" in Commons Standing Orders) talk a good game - promising fewer wide-focus inquiries of the kind that produce 150 recommendations and a broadside of platitudes, and more short sharp interventions which are aimed to influence policy while issues are still "live".

And that may be the challenge for ministers; the committees want to play, rather that watch from the stands. Margaret Hodge, Chair of the powerful financial watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, wants inquiries focused on current issues like the cost and efficacy of means-testing public services, and the scope for more efficient management of IT, land and buildings and the like. She hopes to spend less time berating civil servants over some fiasco which happened five years earlier. And she plans to hold follow-up inquiries to see if the lessons her committee reveals have been learned, and recommendations put into effect.

Similar language is coming from most of the other Chairs as well. So ministers hoping that some committee's endorsement will provide political cover for painful cuts can expect to have to work for it.

Next week more committees are having "getting to know you" sessions with their secretary of state. The Scottish and Welsh secretaries are before their committees and Transport supremo Philip Hammond is before the Transport Committee a week on Monday. Foreign Affairs won't get William Hague until September, because he's touring the Far East. I'll have a more complete digest for your delectation tomorrow.

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After months of silence, it's going to be an action-packed Thursday morning on the - as the newly-constituted select committees spring into action.

At 9.30am, the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Secretary Theresa May makes her debut before - where the subject matter is expected to include policing, immigration, crime and counter-terrorism. Mr Vaz says he's particularly interested to discuss the intended cap on migration, the election of police commissioners, proposals for reducing police bureaucracy, and the impact of 25% to 40% budget cuts on crime and policing; as well as recent events in Whitehaven and Northumberland.

At 10.30am the , led by its new Chair, Andrew Tyrie will be quizzing Chancellor George Osborne and his officials about the Budget and his overall judgement of the state of the economy. Normally the committee would already have reported on the Budget, before the Finance Bill was put before the Commons - but the delays in setting it up have made that impossible.

Also at 10.30am the , chaired by Malcolm Bruce, has its first meeting with DFID Secretary Andrew Mitchell about the role he plans for his department and the "ring-fenced" status of the aid budget.

Most of the other committees will be kicking off their activities with a "getting to know you" session with the relevant secretary of state, and some will also launch specific inquiries in the days to come. The Treasury Committee has already announced that it will be looking into "Competition and Choice in the Banking Sector", to address concerns that the rash of mergers and absorptions of crisis-hit banks and building societies will disadvantage the consumer. Expect plenty more inquiries in the next few days.

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It looks as if the Coalition is set to move pretty fast on reform of the libel laws. There was much concern in the last Parliament about super injunctions, libel tourism and the "chilling effect" of m'learned friends on freedom of speech in Britain.

The general complaint - which is not accepted by everyone, by any means - is that the simple threat of having to spend vast quantities of money defending a court action is enough to force commentators into self-censorship. This includes not just the big media groups, who have the resources to fight when they choose to, but also smaller newspapers, learned journals, charities, pressure groups and citizen commentators.

There is even an issue about encroachment on Parliamentary privilege, the ancient right of peers and MPs to speak without threat of the courts.

Last week in the Lords, the Lib Dem superlawyer Anthony Lester won a second reading for his Defamation Bill, which aims to reform and update the law, and provide proper a defence of fair comment and of publication in the public interest. (The debate was on Friday - and I'm afraid I've only just go round to blogging about it....)

One of his most interesting critics was Labour's Lord Triesman, who, you'll recall, resigned as chairman of the FA after a newspaper story. He argued that some sections of the media abused their power and victimised individuals, who often lacked the resources to challenge allegations made against them, and he warned against changing the law in ways that weakened their ability to defend themselves.

Lord Lester's bill should prompt some interesting debates about how the balance of the law should change - should the presumption now be that these cases are heard without juries, as he suggests - but it won't get into law, at least directly. He has a long track record of helping to shape legislation on a whole series of important issues, and since the government is now promising to publish its own proposals he will doubtless pounce on them when they appear.

In the debate last week, the Lib Dem Justice Minister, Lord McNally, stuck his neck out and suggested that government proposals would be subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny by a committee of MPs and peers, and that a full-dress bill would, perhaps, then be included in the Queen's Speech for the 2011-2012 Parliamentary session. Given the complexity and the delicate balance of the issues involved, ministers appear to be planning to move very fast.

And incidentally there'll be chance for MPs to give their views in a Westminster Hall debate on the reform of the law on defamation on Thursday afternoon.

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The first ever Commons debate chosen by the Backbench Business Committee could leave some ministerial toes badly crushed.

They've put down a motion instructing the Commons Procedure Committee to come up with a suitable punishment for ministers who make big announcements to the media, rather than to MPs. This is a long-standing gripe, dating back at least a couple of governments. MPs hate to hear announcements being made on the Today programme rather than in the Chamber. And if this motion is passed, they may be able to do more than splutter their breakfast egg all over their morning Hansard.

The debate is scheduled for next Tuesday - after day four of the Finance Bill Committee Stage - and I understand this subject was the unanimous choice of the committee. What is not yet clear is how it will be conducted. Will a committee member, perhaps the Chair, Labour's Natascha Engel, move the motion? Will a minister have to respond? Nobody's decided yet.

The Backbench Committee is still writing the rules as it goes along. They're a little bashful about the fact that this first debate had to be chosen without much consultation beyond their own ranks - the hope is that they will normally take the voices more widely before allocating a debate. They don't want to be reduced to sticking a pin in a list of possible subjects - and in due course, when the select committees start producing reports on contentious issues, they will be eager to have those debated, with ministers responding.

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Commons hostilities look set to continue next week, when fortune has awarded the Education Secretary Michael Gove departmental questions on Monday.

He can expect a further duffing-up from Labour's Vernon Coaker, who says he has identified more errors in the list of school rebuilding projects which have been axed. There was more fun at Business Questions this morning, when Shadow Leader of the House Rosie Winterton enjoyed herself by revealing that one of the projects listed for cancellation had, in fact, already been completed, and had been visited by David Cameron. Cue gales of near hysterical mirth from the Labour benches.

The hunting of the Gove will continue for some time, I suspect, not least because the sight of a key Cameroon minister having to self flagellate at the dispatch box, is doing wonders for the shadow Education Secretary Ed Balls' leadership campaign. On Wednesday evening, Mr Gove had to offer no less than 13 apologies to MPs in a 25 minute long statement. They won't, I suspect, be his last. Tory MPs say this is the sort of thing that happens when you're a "big picture man" and the storm may have little long-term effect - but it does provide a salutary warning of the consequences of getting a cuts announcement wrong. Others will have taken note. A white paper on NHS reform is due soon - I wonder if fellow leadership contender and shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham will be able to make as much of that as Mr Balls has made of Mr Gove's announcement?

Also next week, Monday and Tuesday and Thursday's main business will be detailed consideration of the Finance Bill - the measure that puts the detailed tax changes from the Budget into effect. Westminster's abuzz with rumours that Labour MPs will force another late night sitting. New MPs are already learning the tricks of the trade about keeping hydrated and having a good supply of chocolate to hand to maintain blood sugar levels.

And with the two Clegg constitutional reform bills on the AV referendum and fixed term parliaments still to come before the House rises for the holidays, it's going to be a long, hot July....

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"You can't really blame them," a bleary-eyed Tory backbencher told me, as he ordered a three-shot latte at the Portcullis House Coffee bar this morning.

The second reading of the Finance Bill, the bill which puts the Budget tax changes into effect, was kept going till 2.07 this morning, as Labour backbenchers exacted some small revenge on Treasury ministers for George Osborne's tax rises and spending cuts.

"There are very few ways an Opposition can hurt a government, and in their place, we'd have done the same..."

There are a few glassy-eyed MPs with thousand-yard states tottering around Westminster today - and they may have to get used to a few more late nights.

Labour MPs are angry about the Budget, the school building programme cuts and much, much more. And at least a few will be looking to make sure ministers lose more sleep on future occasions. There were long speeches from the likes of Clive Efford and Kevan Jones, who, in particular, seems to have taken to the delights of opposition with visible relish. He spoke for more than an hour - with the help of easy questions and helpful interventions from Labour colleagues (so called "in-flight refuelling") - which allowed him a brief respite before continuing his speech.

And several new MPs piled in too. Historian Gregg McClymont weighed in with a 16 minute Keynsian analysis, Rushanara Ali and Gavin Shuker, to name but a few, took their turn to denounce the Budget. More experienced Labour members were clearly having fun.

Stephen Pound, one of the funniest speakers in the House, bobbed up repeatedly with interventions, culminating in a complaint about "well-refreshed ejaculations" from opposition members... a turn of phrase that clearly disconcerted Labour shadow Treasury minister Angela Eagle. Lubrication was a bit of an issue - there were several, er, lively parties under way on the Westminster terrace last night, which added a little to the jollity of proceedings. Perhaps the rather retro practice of boozy late night legislating is also about to make a comeback.

On the Labour side, there's clearly an appetite for more guerrilla warfare, not least because a lots of them seem to be relishing opposition and look glad to have shrugged off the cares of office. So Tory MPs had better get used to countering the after-effects of late sittings with a high caffeine intake. It calls to mind the tactics employed by the late lamented Eric Forth - a master of parliamentary mischief - in the first Blair term. He kept ministers up night after night when the official Conservative leadership seemed to have despaired of the fight. It pepped up backbench morale and made ministers miserable - although it seldom stopped them getting their policies through.

But they should be careful - such tactics can backfire. I understand the Conservative side briefly considered keeping the debate going for a couple of hours more, which would have had the effect of "losing the business" for Wednesday - where the main debate was on an Opposition motion on jobs and the unemployed. That would have been a pretty nasty counterstroke and could have escalated hostilities. We can expect more of the same on other bills Labour loathes - including the AV Referendum Bill (see below). How long before the Coalition is forced to start guillotining debates?

• Meanwhile Labour bruiser Vernon Coaker appears to have scored a direct hit on the Education Secretary Michael Gove. Mr Coaker has been pursuing him with a series of points of order around his failure to furnish MPs with full details of the impact of the axing of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) - the multi-billion pound schools rebuilding programme.

There was much fury that MPs were not provided with details of which proposed school rebuilding projects in their constituencies were facing the axe, in time to respond to Mr Gove's statement to the House on Monday. It deepened when it became apparent that the information was available to the media - documents were going up on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ News website even as Mr Gove was speaking. Then some of the list eventually provided to Parliament turned out to be inaccurate. The imbroglio culminated in the media being told he had proffered a written apology, apparently before it had been received by the Speaker. Several points of order later, Mr Coaker has succeeded in getting Mr Speaker Bercow to effectively demand Mr Gove's presence in the Chamber at 7pm tonight, to do penance before MPs. Some Coalition minister was bound to slip up in this way - the surprise is that it's Michael Gove, who has always tried to be "a good House of Commons man". This will smart.

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• - What's this?

The rough ride ahead for Nick Clegg's constitutional reform agenda was illustrated rather painfully when he delivered his statement to the Commons yesterday.

The Coalition partners had agreed on a referendum even if their parties planned to take opposing sides on the actual question, and even if David Cameron's made it clear that he "will not give up the day job" to campaign against voting reform.

But the moment of crisis in the Coalition may well come before any referendum campaign - when the Commons gets to debate the Referendum Bill. On the face of it, getting a referendum through when it is supported by the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition and was promised in Labour's election manifesto should be simple. But switching the voting system to the Alternative Vote (AV) is a political game changer.

, to try to come up with an educated guess as to how it might affect them. Anyone with more than 50% of the vote should feel fairly secure, but anyone with much less will need to consider where the second preference votes of those constituents who didn't vote for them might go. A lot of Conservatives would expect to mop up most of the second preferences of UKIP voters - but in the era of coalition it's no longer so clear where Labour and Lib Dem second preferences might end up. It's all very imponderable.

Careers on the line

Which may explain why there was so much hostility to the idea when Mr Clegg formally unveiled proposals to hold the referendum alongside the Scottish, Welsh and English local elections next May. MPs' careers are on the line over this. Even the bill's supposed sweetener for the Conservatives - cutting the number of MPs - leaves a sour aftertaste. Creating fewer, larger constituencies, with a mostly uniform size (Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles are exempted, and no constituency will be larger than Charles Kennedy's vast 13,000 sq km seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber) implies an extensive redrawing of constituency boundaries, and, by definition, some MPs will be left without a seat when the music stops.

Backbenchers already suspect that the whips will cheerfully exploit that fact and that "unhelpful" MPs will get no helping hand if they find themselves pushed out in the resulting scramble. And in any event Labour - whose MPs tend to come from smaller inner city and Scottish seats - regard the whole exercise as naked gerrymandering.

Then there is the point that while the House of Commons will shrink, the number of ministers sitting in it will not. So the proportion of MPs bound to the government as part of the "payroll vote" will rise. A promise to cut the number of ministers was not forthcoming from Mr Clegg.

And he, himself, is an issue. His performance in the general election debates arguably saved the Lib Dems from a worse electoral drubbing than they received. He played a canny hand in negotiating the Coalition agreement. But Nick Clegg is still a relative newcomer to the political stage....he only reached the Commons in 2005 - and is now dealing with legislative tasks that would daunt a far more seasoned parliamentarian.

And critics are starting to accuse him of inept, even callow, tactics; and of sounding far too confrontational in his exchanges with Labour MPs. Perhaps Mr Clegg is feeling the heat: with Tory backbenchers, led by the formidable David Davis, lining up poison pill amendments to the AV Referendum Bill even before it's published, with nationalists in Scotland and Wales unhappy that the referendum would take place on the same day as their elections, and with Labour poised to reject the bill because of the constituency reorganisation proposals within it, formidable obstacles lurk in his path.

He has promised the second reading of an AV Referendum Bill - including those plans for larger and uniform-sized constituencies - before the summer break. And there should also be a second reading of another major constitutional measure, on fixed-term parliaments, which would include the controversial plans to require a "supermajority" - now two-thirds of MPs - to vote through a dissolution of Parliament and call a new election.

Incidentally, a dissolution is not the same as a vote of no confidence in a government. A government could be thrown out on a simple majority vote - but triggering a new election is what would need that two-thirds majority. The bill includes a major concession - that if a government loses a vote of confidence and no new government is formed within two weeks, a new election would automatically be triggered - but this seemed to please very few MPs.

All these arguments will be fought out in detail on the floor of the House. Both bills are major constitutional measures, and so they are not sent off to a committee to be debated in detail by a handful of MPs. Instead the detailed debate will be held by a committee of the whole House - probably in the two weeks when the Commons returns in September - that would give ample opportunity for hostile amendments cooked up between the wily shadow justice secretary Jack Straw, and hardline Tory backbenchers. Those with very long memories may recall the Tam Dalyell/George Cunningham amendment to the Scottish Devolution Bill, during the Callaghan government. They wrote in a requirement that the creation of a Scottish Parliament had to be supported by 40% of the total Scottish electorate regardless of the turnout in the referendum in setting it up. It proved an impossible hurdle; devolution was defeated for a generation, and the Scottish National Party turned on Callaghan, and voted to throw out his minority administration.

If the Coalition could not deliver a referendum acceptable to its Lib Dem ministers, they might simply walk. Maybe some of the more rebellious Tory backbenchers have that scenario in mind. Perhaps they calculate that if the Coalition disintegrated, their party would be able to rout the wounded Lib Dems and a still-leaderless Labour party in a snap autumn election, and then govern as a majority - perhaps even with a prime minister more to their liking.

Not long ago, Westminster was speculating that there would be very little happening in the September pre-conference interlude. Now it looks as if the fate of the Coalition itself could be determined.

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• - What's this?

My colleagues on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ News channel's Straight Talk have been talking to David Davis, the former Tory leadership contender, now on the backbenches.

He gave presenter Andrew Neil an interesting - at times ominous - taste of the state of mind of many of those sitting with him on the Commons benches behind Coalition ministers.

Andrew Neil: Was the Chancellor's decision to increase the limit in capital gains tax to 28% - it went up from 18, there had been talk it may be 40, 50 - was that a victory for you and the Tory backbenches over the Liberal Democrats?

David Davis: I don't think a victory over them, I mean, it's quite interesting, we tried to design this, whatever you want to call it, I don't know whether it's a rebellion or a difference of view, to really be a precursor to what's going to happen over the next couple of years, you know. The coalition has got a way of negotiating with the Liberal Democrats, it's got most of them in government, it hasn't really got a way of negotiating with the Conservative Party so we tried to have a rational debate, talk not in ad hominem terms about Liberal Democrat or Tory interests but try and say, why is this wrong, because it won't raise enough money, if you went to 50% it will actually lose money in truth, because it'll punish people just retiring with their nest eggs. All those arguments, and we tried to make these arguments in ways that would appeal both to Liberals and to Tories, and I think broadly, we did which is why we got, I guess, two thirds of what we wanted.

AN: Do you agree with what one Conservative backbencher said to me, which is that the Coalition, and Mr Cameron in particular, they need to realise that the Tory backbenches are the third arm of this coalition. You've got the Tory government ministers, you've got the Lib Dems, we want to be regarded as the third leg of this coalition.

DD: Yeah, I think that's fair and I think what we're going to see over the coming four or five years is a lot more of this public debate. Interestingly, you see, I think the new politics is not going to be about doing away with spin, we're always going to have spin, governments do. It's not going to be doing away with the sort of controversial politics, it'll be about the way we conduct the public debate, and there's going to be a long running set of public debates over everything, from healthcare through tax policy to industrial policy in as much as there is one, through to Afghanistan and Europe. Those are going to have to be conducted in the public domain. We're going to have to learn to have a debate without having an argument, and that's going to be quite interesting.

AN: So there has to be a Tory backbench voice that Mr Cameron has to take account of, as much as he does the Liberal Democrat voice?

DD: Well, there are hundreds of Tory backbench voices, and yes, he will have to pay attention, and he's got to deliver, to deliver his programme. He's going to have to pay attention to those, and actually, that's no bad thing. It'll actually improve government. I mean, you can't just make all your government ideas and manifesto up over a weekend of high stress negotiation which is what the Coalition agreement was. It's got to be subject to sensible amendment as you go along, and I think that's what I think will happen.

AN: Well, he made an agreement with the Liberal Democrats, does he de facto need to make an agreement with the Conservative backbenches as events unfold?

DD: Well, he started with our manifesto so hopefully he had them with that. I think it's a question of being modified as we go along.

You can see the whole thing on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ NEWS Channel on Saturday 3 July at 4.30am, 2.30pm and 11.30pm; and on Sunday 4 July at 1.30am and 11.30pm; and on Tuesday 9 July at 3.30am.

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• - What's this?

For those Tory MPs who crave the red meat of populist right wing legislation, relief is at hand.

An alternative Queen's Speech crafted by , and - the Three Thatcherite Musketeers of the Conservative backbenchers - will emerge on Monday's order paper.

Now the , the Private Bill Office is now open to receive - bills which have no debating time allocated, but which can get discussed if a suitable opening in the Commons agenda appears.

The three quietly occupied the office in relay overnight to ensure they were first in the queue when it opened this morning - and the fruits of their endeavour are 28 presentation bills to gladden the heart of true-blue Tories...

The list includes:

* The EU Membership (Referendum) Bill.
* The Â鶹ԼÅÄ Licence Fee (Abolition) Bill
* The National Service Bill
* The Asylum Seekers (Repatriation to Safe Countries) Bill
* The Apprehension of Burglars (Protection from Prosecution) Bill
* The Taxation Freedom Day (Celebration) Bill
* The EU Bill of Rights (Repeal) Bill
* The Snow Clearance (Protection from Prosecution) Bill

...and much, much more, mostly on subjects that won't delight Coalition ministers and Cameroon Tory reformers.

But as the former Labour MP Andrew Dismore demonstrated in the last Parliament, a smart backbencher can get debates and even actual legislation through Parliament if they are fast on their feet and understand the rules of the Commons.

The Three Musketeers are attempting to slip a whole phalanx of unwelcome subjects onto the agenda, and they may well succeed in goading both the forces of socialism and the Coalition whips offices into near apoplexy in the process.

Phillip Hollobone (who also has a private member's bill on banning face-covering garments - eg burkas - in public places) says insouciantly that he and the other Musketeers are simply trying to advance debate on important subjects and he would be disappointed if at least some of these bills are not debated in the Commons. And on sheer entertainment grounds, it would be fun if some of them made it onto the floor of the Commons.

It's also worth remembering how the late lamented Eric Forth led a backbench guerrilla operation against New Labour in the 1997-2001 Parliament. Maybe a new guerrilla army is about to raise a backbench insurgency....The original Musketeers were not much more bellicose that this lot.

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• - What's this?