Has the Lisvane Report morphed into the Watterson Report?

That was the claim made in Tynwald as members debated a raft of proposals to reform parliament.

They were voting on a series of 13 recommendations, with one incorporating five alternatives, suggested by the Tynwald select committee tasked with taking forward the report by Lord Lisvane.

That committee, headed by Speaker Juan Watterson, has looked at what changes are needed to implement certain Lisvane reforms while giving further consideration to other of the peer’s more controversial proposals such as banning MLCs from being department members.

It was complicated enough, without a further eight amendments tabled during last week’s near-three hour debate.

Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan described it as ’fairly muddied’ with a ’lack of clarity about the outcome we are seeking’.

And he said: ’It appears we have shifted attention away from the Lisvane report and recommendations and what we are now effectively debating is what I, perhaps slightly unfairly, would term the Watterson report.

’A report that appears to have lost the clear and reasonable conclusions of Lord Lisvane and instead, I would argue, strikes its own conclusions in some areas based not on evidence but potentially on the own personal views of the committee.’

Mr Cannan cited as an example the committee’s conclusion that: ’Contrary to Lord Lisvane’s conclusions, we do not think the present system of departmental membership is unsustainable. We believe he was wrong in his assessment.’

Instead, the report recommends every member of Tynwald should have a role, but not necessarily in government. Mr Cannan suggested that was meaningless without reducing the number of members per department, as recommended by Lisvane, who proposed all departments should have no more than one member.

In his response, Mr Watterson said: ’There are only two thing that the Manx people don’t like - change and the way we are now. That kind of sums up the debate.’

He suggested the committee had been set a near-impossible task. Mr Watterson explained the committee was concerned that there should not be an automatic majority of government in Tynwald.

Tynwald approved a series of recommendations, a number as amended, including that the practice of using MLCs as department members should continue unchanged. This was voted through as amended by Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer that MLCs should only be a member of one department, a practice which has been in place for a year now.