Lord Bowness
Main Page: Lord Bowness (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Tebbit (Con)
I do not want to delay matters, but I want to mention briefly these facts. On becoming a commissioner, a man or woman is required to swear an oath of loyalty to the European Union, which, to my mind, is incompatible with, for example, the oath which one swears as a privy counsellor, and when one retires from the Commission and draws a pension, that pension is dependent on the continuing loyalty of the former commissioner, who is enjoined not to do or say anything which would be to the detriment of the European Union. That seems to present a man or woman with the problem of two masters. I think it unwise that we should exacerbate that conflict by placing such people on the European Union Committee.
Lord Bowness (Con)
My Lords, I will not enter into an argument with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, on the general points, but on the specific, as a former member of the European Union Committee, I think he has to be challenged on questioning whether there is a need for the number of sub-committees. Your Lordships ought to be reminded that one of the objectives of scrutiny is to hold our own Government to account. Rightly or wrongly, the amount of work involved covering the number of topics involved is such that to reduce the number of sub-committees, which have already been reduced from seven to six, would have a very adverse effect on that vital work of holding our own Government to account, never mind making our contribution and input into the policy of the European Union.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, as we have entered into a general debate on the Motion of the Chairman of Committees, I shall raise one other point. No one is more in awe than I am of the enormous workload of the Chairman of Committees, but as a comparatively new Member of your Lordships’ House—I think I have not yet achieved my 16th year —I remain in a state of some befuddlement about which of the various committees that the Chairman of Committees has put before us today is in charge of what, what their lines of accountability are, what decision-making powers they have and to whom they report. Would it be possible for the Chairman of Committees, not today, but on a future occasion, to lay before this House a statement which makes all that abundantly clear?