MPs should stop being so macho and start working normal hours

With my best speech, made at 3am for two hours, I managed to sink the whole of Government business for the next day

As an observer of the political scene, I wholly support the proposals which Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, brought forward yesterday to reform the hours of the Lower House. It is totally bizarre, in a sophisticated media age, for the main chamber to commence its session at 2.30pm and not finish until after 10pm. Ministerial statements are not made until late in the afternoon, and decisions on votes are invariably too late to be covered by the media until the next day. It is frustrating that the outcome of last night's decisions on MPs' hours may not even be reported on in depth until tomorrow. Those MPs who voted for an earlier start, at 11.30am, were recognising the need for the Commons to be dragged into the modern age. The principal benefit – apart from that to women MPs with children – would be better reporting of crucial debates and question times.

Yet I have a sneaking suspicion that, were I still an MP, I might have fallen prey to the arguments of the traditionalists who believe in maintaining the status quo. As one who arrived in the Commons nearly a quarter of a century ago, when most of my senior colleagues were still part-timers elected in the 1950s and 1960s, I was brought up on the old-fashioned view that being an MP was more than a nine-to-five job. My northern constituency made it impossible, anyway, to return home at night, and on the rare occasions that the House rose before dinner I went back to my dingy Pimlico flat where there was nothing but a week-old half pint of mouldy milk.

For my first eight years I had no Labour "pair", meaning that there was never an occasion when I could bunk off to the theatre or cinema. So the Commons provided me with a ready-made social life. After question time, nearly everyone stayed for the opening speeches of the main debate, even if they were not participating.

Office accommodation was so awful – a classroom with about six others to which I only went to sign letters. Most written work was done in the superb, comfortable Commons' Library, where the staff were better trained than any research assistant. But the real fun and games did not begin until about 6.30pm when most of us would gather in the holy of holies, the Members' Smoking Room. The late Ian Gow, or the fabulously named, and rich, Sir Spencer le Marchant, would dispense lethal White Lady cocktails, or pewter pint tankards of champagne, over which we chewed the fat of the day's events, before moving on to a crowded Members' Dining Room for standard nursery fare and copious quantities of claret. Club rules required us to join a table if there were empty seats, so there was a good chance of sitting with a cabinet minister or grandee such as Julian Amery, Alan Clark or Edward Heath.

But since there was usually Commons business until at least midnight, the 10pm vote was merely an interlude before the after-dinner brandies and port, or bridge and chess, back in the Smoking Room and its annexe. And for many years, I often watched the sun rise over the Thames because of endless all-night sittings.

My best speech (I was, admittedly, the only one who thought this) was a brief affair made at 3am, for two hours, opposing the Tory government's plan to compulsorily fluoridate the public water supply. With fellow filibusterer, Sir Ivan Lawrence, who followed up with a modest five hours, I managed to sink the whole of the Government business for the next day. That it was possible for a backbench MP to indulge in fun and games may, at first sight, seem utterly puerile. But I was opposing a proposal to dump the nation's nuclear waste in my constituency. I was getting nowhere in the courteous meetings with ministers, so I did the old trick – perfected by the Irish Nationalists in the 19th century – of bogging up business until somebody started taking me seriously. Eventually, Nicholas Ridley, the Environment Secretary, got so fed up with it that I was summoned in the early hours for a severe ticking off in his office. With no officials present, we did the deal I wanted. Filibustering won the day.

Opposition Labour MPs used the same tactics, sometimes with official backing from the frontbench, while on other occasions freelance backbenchers such as Dennis Skinner would take it upon themselves to keep the Government up all night. Most of us had no objection to this. We would cheerfully troop through the lobbies all night – moving on to the tearoom for bacon sandwiches and Horlicks.

But on losing my seat, in 1997, I was forced to see the Commons as the rest of us see it. Watching the Parliament channel in the post-trauma of defeat, I realised just how loopy much of it appears to outsiders. As MPs we were brought up on the idea that Parliament's routine was for our own convenience. The needs of the media and the public were not regarded as good enough reasons for reform. Even last week, one of the best parliamentarians on the Tory side, Sir Patrick Cormack, was making the same point: the needs of constituency correspondence and committees take up most of the morning, and MPs cannot be in two places at the same time.

He is right to suggest that anything that might make parliamentary life more convenient for ministers and threaten the already thin attendances in the chamber should be viewed with suspicion. But given that no one can accuse Robin Cook of not also being in love with parliamentary debate, I really do think that Mr Cook's arguments had considerable force. There is no proposal to reduce the total amount of parliamentary sittings, and it is bizarre that the Commons (unlike the Lords) has hitherto been shut for three months in the summer. Events this September surrounding the Iraq issue have finally made the argument for Parliament to return early before adjourning for the party conferences. And because MPs will be able to table questions of a more topical nature, oral question times could become less sterile than they are at present.

The argument boiled down last night to those, mostly on the Tory side, joined by an awkward squad of senior male northern Labour MPs with nowhere to go after 7pm, who see the reform package as a plot to stifle opportunities to make the life of the Government more difficult. To that extent, they may have a point. I would not have voted to allow bills to be carried over if they have not completed their passage within the session – unless given clear assurances that the quid pro quo would be more time for pre-legislative scrutiny.

If these housekeeping measures were put direct to the British people (it is after all their, rather than MPs', Parliament), there would be an overwhelming majority in support of Mr Cook's proposals. On their own, they will not restore faith in our parliamentary institutions. The public also needs to see some sign that the Government regards the institution as more than a rubber stamp. Ministers need to loosen up on their machismo and regard re-thinks, in response to parliamentary protests, as a sign of strength rather than weakness.

mrbrown@pimlico.freeserve.co.uk