Office of Fair Trading

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords—

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I think that we should hear from the Liberal Democrats first.

[Baroness Wilcox]

Change is always difficult, but it does give us the opportunity to listen to things like my noble friend has just brought up, such as access to information. My noble friend knows, of course, that we are trying to streamline these things and bring them forward as fast as we can, but her point is well made.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

May I ask a very simple question? Is it not rather curious to rely on a decision of a first court on argument in this House until it has been accepted by the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court? The whole of my life has been dependent on decisions that have been rejected by both of them.

Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharples]

My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for 38 years and I should just like to say that I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. I think that the Leader of the House should be on his feet rather more quickly when two people are trying to ask a question.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, I want to make a very short intervention because everything I have on my notes has been said by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, so really there is little more to say but this. The question is: are we to retain a self-regulating Chamber? If so, why dabble with the concept of opening a gateway that can never be closed? To what end and where is the justification for it?

Last night I read the official reports on this. There is not a shred of evidence to support proposal 1. Whatever was said about the Leader of the House and the Convenor of the Cross Benches, it forgot to mention the interests of the spiritual Benches. They are all the people who will decide what to do; they have the authority. You cannot land this job on a Speaker who does not have the authority and should never have it. I am not criticising any person or Speaker; I am talking about how the House should be run. It should be run by the arrangement of consultation that was referred to by my noble friend Lord Wakeham.

The last thing is that this is a question of crucial importance which also relates to other outside concepts that would have to be considered in legislation. It is quite wrong that we should now, without justification or evidence simply to please some concepts, do away with the maintenance of self-regulation of the House. It is the same sort of problem that we will have later on with retention of the ethos of the House.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I know the concerns that are being expressed principally, although not exclusively, on the other side of the House. They basically imply that we are in danger of ending up with a situation like that of the Commons Speaker. I sympathise with those concerns. We do not want a Speaker in the sense of someone who has to adjudicate constantly on points of order and decide on balance whether difficult issues should be debated and so on. We do not want to go in that direction for all sorts of reasons which I think are well understood. However, I strongly support the proposal because I do not think there is any risk whatever of that happening under this change.

Indeed, I would offer as a kind of reassurance to those opposite that all these kinds of anxieties were expressed five years ago when the Speakership in its present form was established in this House. It was pretty vehemently opposed in all sorts of ways, while all sorts of forebodings were expressed as to what it would result in. I put it to the House that those forebodings have simply not been fulfilled. The Speakership has worked extremely well. I think that should be of some reassurance to those who feel that something serious, even cataclysmic, will happen if we support this proposal.

My main concern for wanting to be assured that this proposal will go through, and why I support it, is the issue that has not been mentioned. We are here to serve the public and part of that is for our procedures to be intelligible. Let us leave aside the term “self-regulation” at the moment—if there is regulation in any debate or at Question Time, it comes spasmodically from the government Front Bench. That is totally unsatisfactory for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and for the practical reasons given by my good and noble friend Lord Rooker that you physically cannot see. In no Chamber anywhere on this planet or at any time in this planet’s history has the person responsible for order had half the audience sitting behind them. We are an absolute one-off on that, which is the position that we are in at the moment.

I simply put it to the House that we should do as every other representative organisation that I, or I guess anyone else in this Chamber, have ever had any experience of by having the person with a kind of responsibility for easing things along sitting in the centre and at the front—so far as there is a front here—of the audience, which would make it immediately intelligible to people watching in this Chamber or on television. It is such a minimal change. It does not advocate any new powers; it simply says that the power should be transferred from somewhere that—let us be blunt—does not operate that wonderfully at present. I defy anyone to say that it is a model in how it operates at present that others should follow. It is a small change in the right direction without any fear that has been expressed or any likelihood of being justified in the exercise. I urge the House to support this unanimous proposal from a committee on which I was very proud to serve. It was a very diligent committee that took evidence from everywhere across the House, and we should let this proposal go forward.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak after the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, Lord Norton and Lord Grenfell. The analysis put forward this morning is really all that is required to support the argument for maintaining the appointed House. Like everyone who spoke yesterday in favour of an appointed Chamber, the noble Lords have far greater authority and experience than me. I therefore need expend no effort on repeating support for the principle.

However, I should like to say a word about yesterday’s discussion on democracy. Democracy is almost undefinable but, if you want to use the term, you must try to define it and that was not done. This Bill was drafted without a constitutional Bill, without new legislation and with deviant disregard for established conventional usage. That was so that it could be presented to Parliament by the right honourable gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister. That is a very strange conception of democracy because it has the taste of a ministerial diktat.

It is right that what happened should be said. A committee was set up by the right honourable gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister to report on implementation of an elected second Chamber. The report was served by way of an instruction to parliamentary counsel to draft the Bill. In those circumstances, the Deputy Prime Minister was enabled to do what he wished to do, which was to present the Bill. This was all very well but it was considered to be an abuse of due process, and not only by those noble Lords who took the point. Long before the Joint Committee was set up, a series of Oral Questions was taken and spoken to by Conservative, Labour and Cross-Bench Peers. This was to challenge this abuse of process, but it was in vain. The challenge was rejected out of hand on each occasion without discussion. Discussion and pre-legislative scrutiny were perhaps trashed by the twitter in the Rose Garden. There was to be no delay, and no delay there was.

The questions arise of whether it is in the interests of the people and Parliament for an unelected Government, without any consultation, to present a constitutional Bill, and whether the ethos and revised role of the appointed House could remain with an elected Chamber, as asserted by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who, I am afraid, is not in his place but who agreed that it should remain. I shall say no more about that. However, why should the challenge on the abuse of process have been made and why was it rejected? These are matters for consideration.

In conclusion, the Joint Committee will take note of this debate and of the questions on the Statement. In particular, it will take note of the truly remarkable, reasoned speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, which, in the interests of the people and Parliament, sought to safeguard the primacy of another place from elected authority in this House. Is it within the remit of the acknowledged function of your Lordships’ House to delay this Bill to seek to safeguard the constitution for further consideration in another place? The Bill should be withdrawn until the next general election.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, over the weekend I completed 20 years in your Lordships’ House, so I am, by the Goodhart criterion, five years past redundancy and I shall await the chop falling on my head when the Bill is passed.

Over those 20 years I have never been persuaded of my own perfection as a legislator or of the perfection of your Lordships’ House as a Chamber. We are, as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said, a weak second Chamber. As the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, reminded us, if we were democratically more legitimate, we could provide a stronger check on the Executive than we do at present. The British Executive do not receive a sufficient check from the House of Commons alone; we need the House of Lords.

I recall how the reputation of your Lordships’ House went up when, during the many years of Mrs Thatcher’s prime ministership, petitioners for halting some of the changes had to come to the House of Lords. I particularly remember the abolition of the ILEA and arriving here in those days to lobby Bishops to do something about that. I think that the reputation of this House has grown in more recent times because the Executive have become more powerful as the Whips at the other end have become more powerful. Therefore, we should see our strength more as a reflection of the imperfection in the system rather than as an example of its perfection.

I have always supported reform of your Lordships’ House. I believe in a 100 per cent-elected House. However, I quite agree with all the noble Lords who have said that this Bill is an abolition of the House of Lords as it is at present. I do not see why the Government or the Liberal Democrat party are being so shy about their radicalism. We are about to replace the House of Lords with a senate. If that is the programme, let us say so openly.

Such a replacement cannot be done piecemeal by saying, “We shall retain the primacy of the House of Commons”. It is obvious that we shall not. During the debates on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill we passed an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that said that since no Parliament can bind any future Parliament, each Parliament should reaffirm the fixed-term decision. Would we like each Parliament to reaffirm the primacy of the Commons in the future? That is what would be required once we had replaced the House of Lords. As a reformer, I do not want to soften the blow; doing so would get us not good reform but muddled reform. After all, we have been discussing this for 20 years, and I have been speaking about Lords reform for about 15 years non-stop. There is a great continuity of ideas in the royal commission’s report. The draft Bill and White Paper have not come out of nowhere; they come from the royal commission under Jack Straw and should not have surprised anyone.

If we want to retain the primacy of the Commons, we should follow what the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said yesterday: there should be a statutory provision, in a separate Bill that is somehow in a form that future Parliaments cannot easily amend, affirming the primacy of the Commons, not just in Clause 2 of this Bill.

We are going to have elections but the various reports have been timid about the basis for them. I agree that if you make constituencies—whether large or small—the basis for electing a second Chamber, you are repeating what already exists in the Commons. Here is an opportunity to do something completely different and not rely on, for example, European Parliament constituencies. I would take up the idea that the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, has suggested, but I would make electoral constituencies the basis. He has suggested—as I think did the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, in a previous debate—that we should have constituencies other than territorial constituencies as the basis for electing people to this House. It could be the Royal Society, the British Academy, the CBI or the TUC.

Over the 12 years since we passed the previous House of Lords reform Bill, British politics has become much less unitary than used to be the case; we now have three devolved Assemblies. This trend towards quasi-federalism ought to be given a further push. We ought to make Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales constituencies from which, senate-style, 20 Members can be elected to your Lordships’ House—directly or indirectly; it does not matter. We now have many elected mayors in English cities. Perhaps every city with an elected mayor should be asked to send a representative—again, it would not matter if they were directly elected by PR or not. Why do we not use some imagination and fancy, and create a different type of representation? It has already been remarked—I think that my noble friend Lady Quin said this yesterday—that the Midlands and the north of England are underrepresented here. We should look at how we can achieve regional representation indirectly by means of representatives from local authorities or cities. We should aim to have a much richer mix of representatives here who will be elected but will not be able to challenge the House of Commons on the basis of territorial representation. Members of the House of Commons will remain accountable to constituents as defined on a territorial basis whereas the new senate that is to replace your Lordships’ House could have another kind of representation based on regional, commercial, industrial or cultural factors. The Joint Committee, which will be chaired by my noble friend Lord Richard, will have plenty of time to think about these alternatives. There are ways of achieving an elected House of Lords which are not enshrined in stone in the draft Bill. We may yet be able to fashion a better bicameral system that is more accountable than the present one. I predict that that will not happen in this Parliament but it may happen in the next.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

I am very confused. I am not being wicked about this, but I did not understand what the noble Lord was saying. Is he suggesting that we should abolish this House?

[Lord Desai]

I am saying that any proposal to have an elected House involves abolishing this House and replacing it with a senate. Whether or not you call that reform does not really matter; it is de facto abolition and we should say so.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, what happens about any referendum in Scotland is a matter for the future. I have no doubt that the noble Lord will be taking a great part in the argument in relation to Scotland. However, the Parliament Acts are statutes passed by Parliament and they set a clear limit to the power of this House. It is within that framework that this draft Bill will need to be considered.

It is not only statute that would continue to guarantee the primacy of the House of Commons. The structure of the two Houses envisaged in the Bill will do much to reinforce that guarantee. First, the new House would be elected—or elected and appointed—in thirds, which would ensure that only the House of Commons represented the will of the people most recently expressed in a general election. That is because only one-third of the House, or slightly less, would be subject to election or appointment at the time of each general election.

Secondly, following a general election, the new Government would take office on the basis of results of elections to the House of Commons. It follows that Ministers in the Commons and in the Lords would be appointed on the strength of those results. The House of Commons will therefore control the composition of the Executive. Furthermore, the legislative programme will be the Government’s legislative programme and, therefore, dependent on the elections to the House of Commons.

Thirdly—this is particularly the case on the basis of the continuing presence of the Cross-Benchers, if we were to go for an 80 per cent elected House—it is most unlikely, although not impossible, that any Government would have an overall majority in the House of Lords. The likelihood of such a majority is further reduced by a proportional system for the election of Members. A number of noble Lords, often those strongly opposed to proportional representation—the question asked by my noble friend Lord Cormack is perhaps apposite to this point—have argued that election by proportional representation will give this House a democratic legitimacy that the House of Commons lacks. However, as a democrat, I accept the people’s verdict. It appears that the AV referendum result—

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me, but this is the 20th time that he has referred to his concept of democracy. Quite frankly, does he not realise that the people do not understand the Lib Dem concept of democracy?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, if I believed that the people did not understand the Liberal Democrat concept of democracy, or our national concept of democracy, I would not be here or arguing here at all. I believe that democracy is about elections and the expression of the popular will; it is about determining the composition of Parliament in a representative democracy on the basis of the popular will. It is as simple as that.

I accept the people’s verdict on the AV referendum, which has ensured that first past the post elections to the House of Commons will be a feature of our democracy for a while yet. I also accept that the electorate regard that as a legitimate system for electing MPs. It is therefore likely that we will have two different systems for election to the two Houses. Of itself, that will not undermine the primacy of the Commons; rather, it is likely to safeguard it. It is also significant, I suggest, that the link between individual Members of Parliament and their constituencies, which lies so much at the heart of our unique representative system, is a factor that will tend to sustain that primacy, because the link between elected Members of this House and their multi-Member constituencies, will, inevitably, be that much weaker.

The final point in this area is that MPs will be able to point to the fact that they are accountable to their personal electorates in having to face re-election. Elected Members of this House, elected for a 15-year single term, will have no such direct, personal accountability. They will still have, as the Leader of the House pointed out, the independence inherent in that system; it is not the same independence that they enjoy on appointment for life, but it is substantial independence none the less. I suggest that that independence is a good thing for the job that this House does.

House of Lords: Membership

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend’s first point. It is a matter of record that the coalition—the combined forces of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats—is no more than 40 per cent of this House, which means that it is a minority. The Labour Party does not like to be reminded of the fact that it is the largest group in the House of Lords, but that, too, is a fact. I am sure that my noble friend’s statistics on the male-female ratio are correct. We are also a substantially older House than many other assemblies and parliaments in the world, which of course is not such a bad thing. It is a good opportunity to let the House know that it is my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway’s 94th birthday today.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

I thank my noble friend very much. I was wondering whether noble Lords in this House were more interested in retaining its ethos than in diversity. Does my noble friend agree?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am a great believer in the ethos of this House, which has served the interests of the nation over a long period of time. I very much hope that if we do get to an elected House its essential ethos will not change.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak but, having listened to this debate, I want to say that this is not an artificial exercise. It appears to be artificial to the noble Lord only because he gives an example of where something went adrift, but I can certainly give an example of where things went adrift with first past the post, which I support. I refer to the UKIP vote, which would have gone to the Conservatives and put them in power. It did not happen, but these things do occur. There is no perfect system, and the argument of the noble Lord, whom I usually greatly respect, seems to have gone adrift.

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I share the concerns that have been raised about the thresholds but with this amendment my noble friend has raised some very important underlying concerns about the nature of the union which have not been fully explored. These are not simple issues; they are complex and they take in the changing shape of devolution in our country. These are very important issues for all of us who care about the maintenance of the union in this country. With this amendment, my noble friend has isolated the folly of rushing ahead with a referendum in this way. These complex issues relating to the nature of our union should be debated and decided by Parliament on the basis of the results of the referendum. It is folly to have a post-legislative referendum. I know that we have debated these matters already but I very much hope that the Government will consider them again. They are profoundly important and they should be debated by Parliament after the referendum—that is inherent in the nature of our representative democracy. I very much hope that the Government will think again and this House will be able to return to the matter on Report.

Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for giving us this opportunity to debate a vital subject, and I should like to spend a few moments explaining why it is important. Like my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, I and the other members of the Leader’s Group, all of whom are now present in the Chamber, are here primarily to listen. We shall meet tomorrow morning to go through each and every contribution that is made to the debate to ensure that we learn all the lessons that can be learnt from the points made.

First, I am acutely aware of how sensitive an issue this is for all noble Lords. When my noble friend the Leader of the House first asked me if I would chair the Leader’s Group and showed me the mission statement—to identify options for allowing Members to leave the House of Lords permanently—I was reminded of an impossible task I was once set by a previous Prime Minister, who said, “But, David, as a lawyer you can always explain the inexplicable”; I should have added, “and defend the indefensible”. I am grateful to all of your Lordships for the confidence and support you have been good enough to show me and my colleagues on the Leader’s Group in our taking on of this difficult task. I am also grateful for your willingness to share with us your experience and understanding of this House. I thank also the other members of the group for the wisdom, humour and openness which they have brought to our discussions.

In approaching our task of identifying the options for allowing Members to leave the House permanently, I have been unsure about whether we are being asked to find a short-term solution to a long-term problem or a long-term solution to a short-term problem—an issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has already referred—and, until the Deputy Prime Minister’s cross-party committee publishes its draft Bill, that will remain the case.

However, it is clear that there is an immediate issue which has to be resolved. We are all conscious of the increasing difficulty at times of finding a seat in the Chamber; of the increasing difficulty of finding a slot for an Oral Question; and of the occasions when the length of a list of speakers means that the time available for individual speeches is inconveniently short. Put simply, to quote a very great person, we need to consider how to manage our increasing numbers,

“because we are too menny”.

The written submissions received by the group are as diverse and wide-ranging as I thought possible. I should have expected that from a collection of independent-minded parliamentarians. The common thread I detect is a sincere concern for the effective functioning of the second Chamber of the United Kingdom’s Parliament and for our reputation. It is that common thread which emboldens me to hope that we might be able to establish a consensus view. I think it is possible and, after listening to the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, I sense that we are on the threshold of finding a range of solutions which might meet the approval of the House and enable us to take the initiative in reshaping the House for the better, whether fundamental reform should be achieved sooner or later.

Inevitably, as evidenced by the right reverend Prelate, the options proposed are influenced by our different experiences of the House and of life outside. Inevitably, some options are more realistic than others in terms of public policy. One objective of the Leader’s Group in giving in our interim report the range of options proposed was to remind everyone of the wide range of views on a single issue which it is possible for thoughtful and principled people to hold.

My noble friend Lady Scott and the noble Baroness the Convenor have just outlined the concept of the associate membership. A number of other Members have already raised it. We look forward to hearing any further views on that.

The objective of today's debate is to hear the views of your Lordships on the range of options which have so far been proposed and perhaps to identify any other possible solutions. I am grateful to my noble friend the Leader of the House for facilitating today's debate. There will be an opportunity for everyone to consider submitting further written comments to the group—we have put a deadline of 23 November on that.

Today’s debate is a further consultative exercise. The Convenor spoke of an immediate moratorium on new appointments to the House. I recognise that that may seem like a sensible move to some because of the need to manage our numbers, but it is not an idea which has very much attraction because the expertise and currency of your Lordships’ House have to be refreshed from time to time. To say to our political leaders that they will no longer have the opportunity to reinforce their troops, particularly when the political landscape changes substantially as it has done this year, would be a significant step which I would not want this House to take. I should mention to the Convenor that there is a view that we should separate the honour of a life peerage from the role of a Member of the upper House.

Let us all bring our collective wisdom and expertise to finding a solution to an intractable, but certainly not insoluble, problem.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend two very short questions. Whatever may be the option, is it not wholly essential that the due process by which any Member of this House has imposed a leave of absence should first be accepted by the House? Secondly, in respect of all our peerages, whether life peerages or hereditary peerages, ought not the approval of Her Majesty the Queen be sought as a matter of courtesy?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

Again, I point out to the House that yes, we are proud to be the biggest party at this moment in this House, but the coalition Benches have a greater majority than we have as a single party. I just wanted the House to be aware of that.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

Is the noble Baroness aware that the Examiners to whom this Bill is to be sent are the Clerk of the Parliaments here and the Clerk of the other place?

[Noble Lords]

Order!

European Council

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I think I can give the noble Lord that assurance. He knows that the Government have given an absolute priority to meeting the target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid by 2013. We remain committed to that. We wish to work closely with our European partners so that they also achieve that target. Therefore, I see no reason why there should be any slippage in that aim.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, this is a very short question. The House will be aware that the EU budget has not been approved by the Court of Auditors for 14 years. With the help of the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, who knows more about this than I, we raised this matter with the Government in May. I have not, alas, seen the paperwork. That is not the fault of the Government; they have to negotiate with other powers. I have tabled a Question for Short Debate on whether the grounds on which the Court of Auditors has not approved the budget for 14 years should be examined. That will be a matter for the House in due course.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, my noble friend said he had a short question, but it is a huge subject. I look forward to his debate. It is completely unacceptable that the European Court of Auditors has not been able to sign off the EU accounts. I understand that the majority of the errors are not due to fraud but to the sheer complexity of the rules and regulations. We need to address the root cause and press for simplification of EU financial management alongside reform of the budget itself.

Legislation: Pre-legislative Scrutiny

Lord Campbell of Alloway Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether drafts of all their Bills should be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

No, my Lords. Although we are committed to bringing forward as many draft Bills as possible, it is not always possible to do so—for instance, where Bills have deadlines for Royal Assent. This Session, the Government will publish in draft at least four Bills.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for having taken this Question, which has constitutional effect. May I, by leave, ask two questions for clarification? What consideration have the Government given to the three group reports that favoured mandatory reforms of pre-legislative scrutiny of draft government Bills, as was spoken to—I see the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, looking at me—on three occasions: 25 January, 28 February and 12 July? The other question is very short: to ask whether and, if so, when a new formal, wholly effective structure shall be set up?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, my noble friend is entirely correct that this is an important issue. For some years now there has been good practice from the former Government and this Government in attempting to publish Bills in draft and apply a process of pre-legislative scrutiny. The reason why there is not a mandatory structure for this is in part that it is not possible to have formal pre-legislative scrutiny early on in the Parliament. Some departments, through the process of consultation and the publication of Green Papers and White Papers, already allow for a certain element of pre-legislative scrutiny, although not necessarily the one preferred by my noble friend.