IF I was to stand up for one of my meetings in Blackburn town centre and announce that I was going to spend the next hour discussing whether we should all go home, people would think I had lost the plot.

Even my most loyal supporters would leave me to it after about five minutes.

Yet proposing a motion to go home is exactly what often happens in the House of Commons.

First, a member of that closely knit group charged with ensuring party discipline (the whips) stands up and moves a motion proposing that we all go home (the exact words are "that this House do now adjourn").

What then happens is that we don't go home, or even debate whether to go home, but instead spend the next few hours discussing anything but that - from foreign policy to the health service to schools.

But it doesn't end there. Once we've finished that debate, the same whip gets up and withdraws the motion about going home.

Then the Speaker says something, followed by - you've guessed it - the whip standing up once more and proposing for a second time that we go home.

But only after another half hour debate, do we indeed go home. Confused? I don't blame you.

Plainly this quaint tradition doesn't do a great deal to help understanding of Parliament and how it works.

Indeed, it seems to me that it simply adds to the impression that Westminster life is out of step with the modern world.

The danger of that is that it can serve to alienate the very people whom MPs are there to serve - you.

So this is one of a number of things we are proposing to change as part of the ongoing modernisation of the House of Commons.

The recommendation is contained in the latest report, out yesterday, from the well-named Modernisation Committee (it does what it says on the tin!), of which I am the chairman.

The idea of the report is to revitalise the House of Commons, and make it more relevant and in tune with the modern world.

Part of that means making sure that what goes on in the chamber of the Commons is up to date with the national issues of the day.

In a world where the media is a 24/7 phenomenon and can often dominate debate, we want to try to put more focus back on the Commons.

In particular the interest and demand from constituents has grown enormously.

People rightly have higher expectations and are less deferential.

In the 1950s and 60s, Members could expect to receive around 12-15 letters a week.

Today the average is over 300, and then there are the emails, faxes and phone calls.

Coverage of Parliament has fallen in recent years in the mainstream press and on television (although there is also the excellent BBC Parliament channel).

But instead of simply moaning about that, what Parliament should do, we believe, is up its game and force itself on to the news pages and television by being more up to date.

We want more topical Commons debates on the big issues of the day, and more "open" questions to ministers - in other words questions where they haven't had an early warning of the subject.