Procedure of the House

Lord Brabazon of Tara Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Filkin]

My Lords, I will speak briefly, because I am sure that the House wishes to come to a conclusion on this quite rapidly. I was slightly troubled by the last thing that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said in his excellent speech, as it is almost guaranteed to ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, will not now vote in support of the Motion. But you cannot have everything, can you?

The points are as follows. If we adopt the proposal on the Order Paper, we are much more likely to be able to have timely debates on issues that the public think are important and we will be seen to be relevant. That is important; it was one of the fundamental issues that the Goodlad report affirmed. Secondly, unlike in the Commons, these issues are not divisible. That is important for our traditions. The Government do not have to fear what they fear in the Commons—that you have a debate on some contentious issue leading to a headline story that the Lords voted X or Y. That would not happen and it is in keeping with our traditions that it should not. That ought to allow the Government and the coalition parties who are signatories to the letter to relax a little bit on this issue. Thirdly, the proposal makes no change to the existing procedure for QSDs. Those who are beloved of ballots will still be able to go in for ballots for a number of QSDs; that is going to continue. Finally, we all know that the Government can ensure that there is a debate on any issue that they judge to be topical and important whenever they wish to do so. Back-Benchers ought to be able to do the same.

[Lord Brabazon of Tara]

I welcome parts of this report, particularly paragraph 6, which gives us extra time for QSDs, but I am not so keen on this idea of a Back-Bench business committee. I know that it was proposed in the Goodlad report, but not everything in the Goodlad report was gospel. I well remember bringing the first half dozen proposals from the Goodlad report to the Floor of the House when I occupied the position of Chairman of Committees; three of them were voted straight out. So I am not certain one should use that as an argument for the goodness of this suggestion.

I make the point, as have other noble Lords, that balloted debates are the only chance that some noble Lords have of getting their subjects debated. Will this new committee have to give reasons for its decisions? Would it deliberate in public? How does it intend to fulfil its remit, in paragraph 10, to “add transparency and accountability”? I assume that the committee would be set up in much the same way as are most of the other committees in this House. Whether it is elected or appointed, it would still have party balance. Like, I am sure, all committees in this House with party balance, it would tend to rotate the debate subjects around the various parties. I am not quite sure why it would operate in a different way from the existing party debate days, which will continue.

I welcome the proposals in the Leader’s section—option 2 in the report. I welcome the idea of not rolling over debates from one to another, so that you hopefully get a slightly lower number of two-and-a-half-hour balloted debates on the Order Paper at any one time. I agree that there should be an element of cross-party support for the particular subject. I make one further suggestion, which is that the present two and a half hours for each balloted debate—five hours in total—should not rigidly be divided at two and a half hours each. If we were to have a situation where there were more speakers in one debate than in the other, the list might have to close slightly earlier but one debate might get, say, three hours and the other only two. I wonder if the Procedure Committee might look at that proposal.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, my naive noble friend Lord Peston and the Leader of the House may inadvertently have been misleading us in talking about this Back-Bench committee. Like the noble Baroness, I have my doubts about it, but let us be clear that we are talking about experiment here, not an established Select Committee. If anybody reads this report, they will see that we are talking about a temporary committee. I support this strongly, to see how it will work. I am by no means certain. I am as uncertain as I am about economic forecasts; as the Office for Budget Responsibility says, they are usually uncertain.

I am pleased to hear how much the Leader of the House wishes to see more time available for Back-Benchers to hold the Government to account. We still do not know when we are ceasing to sit for Prorogation, or why we had an extra week off for Easter. We could have had a lot of Back-Bench time in that week. We could have more next week. Perhaps the Leader of the House, if he eventually gets up again, might tell us why we were prevented from having some time available then, if he so wishes to hold the Government to account.

If we are talking about the establishment and holding it to account, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is probably more a member of the old establishment than anybody else in your Lordships’ House. I make it clear that when I was part of that establishment, during my five years as Chief Secretary, I very much welcomed the views of the noble Lord, which were always good to hear even if I did not agree with them. The noble Lord was well worth listening to. Perhaps I should also make it clear, as others have done, that I certainly have no wish to be a member of this special committee, although I do not rule out making representations to it—that is for sure.

I hope that the House will agree to set this committee up on a temporary basis to see how it works. That is all that we are being asked to do. I hope that the House will agree even to take it on the nod. Let us have this settled once and for all. That is all that we are asking.