The Chief Minister says he does not support many of the reforms proposed by Lord Lisvane.

Tynwald members will be given a free vote on the Lisvane reforms when they are debated at this month’s sitting.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle will bring the motion but said this did not mean he supported every recommendation. Far from it in fact, as he says he supports only four or five of the 11 proposed reforms.

He told the Examiner: ’This is a parliamentary rather than a government matter.

’Ministers and department members will have a free vote. I’m only bringing it to Tynwald because it was the government who established the review.’

Among the 11 recommendations that Mr Quayle said he would oppose is the idea that there should be only one political member per department.

monster

He said: ’Health and Social Care is a monster department and you cannot expect the Minister to do it on their own with only one political member.

’I think Lord Lisvane is wrong when he says that department member feels inclined to vote for every government motion. It just doesn’t happen.’

Mr Quayle said another area where he felt Lord Lisvane has got it wrong is the idea that the chairmen of the four scrutiny committees should be elected immediately after the chief minister is appointed.

He said: ’That’s fine when you’ve got 633 MPs to choose from.

’But when you’ve only got 24 MHKs - 22 without the Chief Minister and the Speaker - you want your best people to be Ministers, not voted onto scrutiny committees.’

He added: ’Lord Lisvane wants to scrutinise everything all the time. But government needs to get on with doing its job.

’I’m not saying government should not be scrutinised. But this just bogs down the government and nothing will get done.’

Another recommendation that Mr Quayle said he will not support is the idea that MHKs should not be eligible to be nominated for Legislative Council - a reform designed to address the criticism of LegCo as a ’retirement club’ for MHKs.

The Chief Minister said: ’This view might not be very popular but I personally don’t see why you should not have MHKs as MLCs.’

He said he agreed with Lisvane that MLCs should not be Ministers unless in exceptional circumstances but rejected the idea they should have no department role at all.

’They understand how departments work and that’s got to be a good thing.’

Among the recommendations he said he would support was the idea for a Programme for Government - already implemented - and suggestions for a code of conduct and continuous professional development training for members.