Procedure of the House

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the Chairman of Committees for his clear exposition. To my noble friend Lord Foulkes I would say that the Procedure Committee is not just a rubber-stamping committee. We do debate things long and hard, but clearly in the end we reach a consensus and abide by it.

I do agree with him on two points. One relates to recesses and prorogation. The Leader and the Chief Whip know my views extremely well, sadly for them. These decisions are taken unilaterally by the Government, understandably in some cases but not in others. I agree with my noble friend that it would be a good thing to have an opportunity to question the Leader of the House from time to time and perhaps to have points of order as they have in the other place. That is not to say that we should do everything that they do in the other place, but it is important for noble Lords to be able to question decisions from time to time when appropriate.

I also say to my noble friend that it has already been agreed that the Procedure Committee should consider issues pertaining to the amount of time available for noble Lords to speak in debates, especially when they are of the utmost importance. I think that that is already before the Procedure Committee, but if it is not I will certainly ask my colleagues on the committee to look at the issue.

On Oral Questions, it has been a long haul, but we have reached the right outcome. As the Lord Chairman said, the House made clear its views on the issue and he listened. He has now come forward with proposals that I find entirely acceptable. Like him, I commend to the House the paragraph about brevity in Questions. I also hope that we will all make an effort to be more inclusive and accommodating when it comes to noble Lords wishing to ask supplementary questions.

On Private Notice Questions to the Lord Speaker, I have reservations and fear that the House does not have the correct mechanisms for Questions to be asked on issues that fall between the criteria for Urgent Questions and PNQs, especially in recesses when the other place is not sitting. However, that is not the issue before us today. I am entirely content with the proposal from the Procedure Committee and, with respect, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne.

Finally, on the repetition of Urgent Questions, on behalf of my Front Bench I undertake to keep supplementary questions short and not to abuse our position. My noble friend Lord Grocott was right to point that out in the report. The Lord Chairman has said that we must and will keep that under review, and I will support him in that.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Will the noble Baroness clarify what she means by points of order? Who are they for? Does she not accept that in the other place points of order are a complete abuse and are used to raise a mass of issues on which somebody cannot otherwise make their voice heard?

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I would think these things through carefully before putting a proposal to the Procedure Committee. I am not looking for points of order in the way they have them in the other place. However, it would be useful from time to time to have a mechanism whereby one can raise issues on the Floor of the House. Sometimes I feel very frustrated because there are issues that I wish to raise, which is my duty as Leader of the Opposition, but unless there is something on the Order Paper that enables me to raise a point, I cannot do so. This is an issue that I wish to look at and I wish the Procedure Committee to look at.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Monday 18th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I have been on a pretty steep learning curve about the procedures of the House since last Monday. When the Motion to put the whole Committee stage of the Financial Services Bill into Grand Committee was withdrawn I imagined that the will of the House would be respected, that that would be the last we heard of it and that there would be no question of our now having to talk about some compromise on all this—namely that the Bill should be split, with some of it debated in Grand Committee and some on the Floor of the House.

Therefore, I talked to the Clerk of the Parliaments about it, realising that perhaps I did not totally understand. He explained that when the Government withdrew the Motion, it did not mean that they could not bring back another. I said, “What should I have done about the Motion that was put down originally?”. The Clerk said that that Motion should have been amended; it could have been amended at the last minute by a manuscript amendment, but he said that that was not much approved of in this House. However, I am afraid that that is what I have been forced to do today for the simple reason that the Motion was tabled on Friday, when the House was not even sitting. There has been no opportunity to table a proper amendment to it; it has to be a manuscript amendment. I apologise to the House for that but I did not see that I had an alternative.

I reiterate: we are talking about the Financial Services Bill. It is a major piece of legislation which has been drafted to reorganise our financial institutions completely and regulate them properly. I do not think that the people of this country would understand it if we were to put any part of this Bill in Grand Committee. This extremely important legislation needs very serious consideration by your Lordships. As well as that, this Bill brings out the best of your Lordships’ House. There is a tremendous amount of expertise here which needs to be brought to the fore. That can be done much better if the whole of Committee stage is debated on the Floor of the House.

I ask the House to consider seriously whether any of this Bill should be committed to a Grand Committee. As a noble friend said to me earlier, if we do not discuss the Committee stage of the Bill on the Floor of the House, which other Bills will we consider on the Floor of the House? It seems that the Government have a desire to put everything into Grand Committee. It is for us to stand up against that and say, “No, we want the whole of this very important Bill to be considered on the Floor of the House”. I hope that the House will support my amendment.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, we have before us a very important matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has said, how we regulate our financial services and the financial services sector is vital to economic and financial stability. What our banks do and how they do it is important for the prospects for growth and employment in this country.

We on these Benches had not seen the terms of these Motions before today and we certainly had not agreed to them in the usual channels. I had a private meeting with the Leader of the House on Wednesday morning at which we discussed this matter and I told him in all honesty that I could not agree to the terms of the Motion, that I needed to have further consultations and discussions with my colleagues and that I would come back to him and the usual channels in due course. That I did first thing on Thursday morning, since when we have heard nothing about the Motion before us today. As for the Opposition’s role on this Bill within the usual channels, I wrote to the Leader of the House this morning, once we had seen the terms of the Motion before us. I would be happy to provide noble Lords with a copy of that letter.

My concern, much more than accusations from the Leader and the ins-and-outs of the usual channels, is what Members of this House want. When the Government tried to put the whole of the Bill in Grand Committee a week ago today I thought that the statements made by Members from across the whole of this House made clear what the majority of them wanted. At a very late hour, during that debate on the Floor of this Chamber, Members made it abundantly clear that they wanted the whole of the Bill to be considered by a Committee of the whole House. What Members of the House were telling the Government was clear.

Last Tuesday I had discussions with the Government about splitting the Bill and taking some parts on the Floor of the House and some in Grand Committee. I could see some merit in that approach, which is why we were prepared to consider it constructively in discussions within the usual channels. Yes we discussed it, but no we did not agree on it—precisely because I had to have discussions with my colleagues on the Benches behind me, which is the right and proper thing to do. In any case, we would not have agreed to the split that the Government now propose. Neither would we have agreed to only three days in a Committee of the whole House. We do not think that that split works. We also think that it was wrong not to include Part 4, on the mechanisms to deal with current issues, for consideration by a Committee of the whole House.

This House is self-regulating and on matters such as this it is for this House, and this House alone, to decide what it wishes to do. From our soundings, most Members on the Benches behind me want the Bill to be considered by a Committee of the whole House, which is what I believe many Members from all across the House want to see. That is precisely what the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, proposes.

I therefore look forward to this House, not the Government, deciding what it wants to do. From these Benches, we do not believe that the Government’s proposal is the right approach. We believe that the House should reject it and accept the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I hope that the Government will listen to the House when it makes its decision today.