The Chairman of Committees
That the 5th Report from the Select Committee (Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee; Written Answers and Statements; Select Committee Membership; Maiden Speeches in Hansard) (HL Paper 167) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, I beg to move that the fifth report of the Procedure Committee be agreed to. The report covers a number of different areas which I will cover briefly in turn.
The first part of the report recommends a change to the terms of reference of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to add two new grounds on which that committee may draw the special attention of the House to a statutory instrument. This change is being made at the request of the committee. The two new grounds are: (e) that the explanatory material laid in support provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding about the instrument’s policy objective and intended implementation; and (f) that there appear to be inadequacies in the consultation process which relates to the instrument.
The second section sets out rules for government departments to follow when submitting Answers to Written Questions. The need for new rules arises from the introduction of a new system to allow electronic exchange of Questions for Written Answer and their associated Answers between both Houses and government departments. The new Question and Answer system will automatically publish all Questions and Answers on the parliamentary website and send e-mail alerts to Members, who will have a dedicated web page for viewing and organising all their Questions and Answers. Answers should be received more quickly, as Members will not have to wait for the postal delivery. Answering bodies will be able to include attachments with their answers, containing tabular, graphic or illustrative material which cannot be printed in Hansard. The digital copy of Answers will be the definitive record copy, but a printed version will continue to be published and, in addition, while recognising that we may be somewhat behind the curve of the digital age, the Leader of the House has asked Lords Ministers to continue sending printed and signed versions of Answers to all Lords Members.
The third section of the report arises from a proposal made by the usual channels to reform the rules relating to Select Committee membership with the aim of increasing the opportunities for Members to participate in Select Committee work.
The first recommendation is that from the end of the 2014 Session—I stress that is not from the end of this Session but from the end of the Session which ends with the general election—the rotation rule for all Select Committees other than the House Committee should be three Sessions instead of four. The House Committee presently has a five-Session rotation. That will be reduced to four and then eventually to three. In the longer term, we also propose that the House Committee should come down to a three-Session rotation. To avoid a sudden loss of many Members by reducing the length of service by two Sessions at once, we recommend that this change be implemented incrementally.
Other recommendations include a new rule that Members who leave a committee under the rotation rule should be eligible for reappointment to the same committee, or any of its sub-committees, only after the lapse of two full Sessions. We further recommend that it be set out in the Companion that it is desirable for a Member to serve on only one sessional investigative Select Committee at any one time.
The final section of the report recommends that from the start of the next Session maiden speeches should be marked in Hansard. I beg to move.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments in relation to the report. However, as we are discussing procedure, I should say that I find it ridiculous that comment and questions on the Ukraine Statement were restricted to 20 minutes. I know that has been extended from 10 minutes but in the other place such discussion is unrestricted. My noble friend Lady Liddell and a number of other noble Lords tried to get in and some of us did not even bother to try as we knew that discussion was limited to only 20 minutes and that a lot of noble Lords wanted to comment. However, we are going to finish early again tonight and then we are going away for three weeks. This is a matter of great importance and it is a great shame that we will not have another opportunity to comment on it at this point. I hope that the Chairman of Committees will have another—
Lord Elton (Con)
I hope the noble Lord will permit me to point out that he is not speaking to the Motion on the Order Paper. There is a lot of other pressing business that a lot of us want to get on with.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am speaking about procedure and this is a report on procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, will know that if he was in another place he could raise that issue on a point of order but, unfortunately, he cannot do so here, and he should not have. I have made my point and I know that the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip are listening very carefully.
However, to come to my substantive points, I warmly welcome the position in relation to Written Answers and Statements. It is about time that we had full and proper Answers, and the committee is to be commended for that. I also welcome the changes to Select Committee membership although, in view of the important matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred, it is a bit ironic that the recommendation wants us to work less rather than more. Nevertheless, it is a logical and sensible recommendation.
However, the main point I want to make to the Chairman of Committees is that the relevant measure refers to Select Committees but, as I understand it, it is being interpreted by the Administration to apply also to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, a Joint Committee with the House of Commons. That means we will lose seven Members from the House of Lords—this affects both sides—to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, whereas the Commons Members will continue until the end of the Parliament. That seems to be an anomaly. Whereas it is sensible that this measure should apply to our own Select Committees, it seems strange that it should apply to Joint Committees with the House of Commons given that their Members will continue to the end of the Parliament. I am no longer on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy but a number of Members of that Joint Committee from both sides of the House have asked me to raise that point.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to speak briefly about Written Answers—an issue that I have raised previously. I strongly welcome the idea of going fully electronic but the report, unless I have misread it, does not consider recesses. We have had four weeks at Easter, nearly three weeks are coming up and there will probably be 10 weeks in the summer. I do not see how we can put down Questions and get Answers. If it is going to be done electronically, it could happen every day in the recesses, but the Chairman of Committees may say that that would be too much work in the summer holidays. However, it could be done at least weekly in order for Members to have some chance of holding the Government to account during these lovely long breaks that we are having.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, the Chairman of Committees said that he hoped that Answers to Written Questions would come more quickly. Some years ago, I was on the Procedure Committee and it was at my instigation that there now appears a daily list of Questions for Written Answer that are outstanding beyond the target time of 10 working days. He said that Answers would come more quickly; I hope that he is right. I will believe it when I see it. One sometimes gets the impression that Answers to Written Questions are being smuggled away—away from the daily Hansard, for instance, in a separate document. Will the Chairman of Committees give me an undertaking that the daily list of overdue Answers will not, in this changed procedure, be done away with but will continue to appear?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)
I wish to comment on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, about the amount of time allocated to Statements. He is quite right to say that the time allocated today was clearly inadequate because many noble Lords were on their feet wishing to ask questions about a very important matter. We, the Government or the usual channels—I do not know who—have the power to extend the 20 minutes to 40 minutes. Who exercises that power, how do they do so, what consultations do they have and when did they last do it?
Lord Wills (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the proposals on Written Answers because they represent a considerable improvement on the current situation. However, given this new technology that we will have at our disposal, has the noble Lord given any consideration to grouping Questions together so that we can see any patterns in the Answers given by government departments, particularly with a view to spotting any systemic evasions and prevarications?
The Chairman of Committees
I shall deal with the last question first. Grouping Questions is an intriguing suggestion that is worth looking into. It would develop almost an internal commentary, would it not? It would be a worth while exercise to have a look at.
The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, made a point about late Answers. I can give him a full assurance that there will be no hiding place for departments that are late in answering Questions.
I did not quite follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, when he said that Select Committee rotation was somehow designed to make us work less. It is not. It is designed to make more people work more. That is generally a good thing.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that the issue of tabling Questions in recesses is on the agenda of the Procedure Committee for 24 June, and will therefore receive attention.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Chairman has not answered two vital questions—on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and on the length of Statements.
The Chairman of Committees
I apologise for not answering on national security. The national security committee is subject to a rotation rule. When it was established, Lords Members were put on a rotation basis. If we had not moved to a three-Session rotation but had kept a four-year rotation, which all our committees are on, we would have had six Members leaving the committee this year.
On the length of Statements, I am afraid that I am not in a position to give any answer.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I may help the Chairman of Committees on the question of Statements. My experience is that there are two reasons why we are occasionally allowed to extend the length of Statements. One is when it is a matter of life and death; the other is Lords reform. When you think of it, they are the same thing.