House of Lords: Working Practices

Debate between Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lord Tyler

Monday 12th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, referred in her powerful speech to the denigration of newcomers to certain areas of the country. In Cornwall, unless you were born there or have lived there for 25 years, you are referred to as an “emmet”, which is certainly a denigratory word. I have been in your Lordships’ House for only five years, but I have been impressed by the way in which, today and on previous occasions, Members with longer experience and Members who are newly arrived have agreed on a whole number of issues.

I do not propose to go over all the issues on which I agree with other Members of your Lordships’ House; instead, I want to reiterate and reinforce one or two of the major themes. In so doing, I congratulate my noble friend the Leader of the House on bringing forward this issue so early in the Parliament, as I think that that will be to the benefit of careful consideration of these issues. I also thank him and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, for referring to the need to see how the Wright committee proposals in the other place interrelate with what we are doing here, a point that I shall come back to.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who has just spoken, I had a minor role in the discussion on the strengthening of Parliament and I pay tribute to the chairs of the three groups that brought forward those papers. Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I think that it is important that we do not just have those papers on the agenda for the Leader’s Group. The Better Government Initiative, the Hansard Society and the Institute for Government have also produced important raw material for consideration of these issues. I very much welcome what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said about the wide remit for the Leader’s Group.

The main theme that I shall pick up is the holistic approach to the whole work of Parliament—the whole building—which I think is extremely important. For the reasons that have just been elucidated, it tends to fall between two stools—the two ends of the building. Therefore, I am encouraged that there has been a strong emphasis on the total outcome of the work of Parliament rather than just on the two different bits. I refer in particular to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart.

We have to be careful to avoid the silo mentality that is explicit in the way in which the two Houses work. We are so careful not to tread on the toes of the other place that sometimes we do not do justice to the whole of the work of this building. This is not just a question of the Wright committee proposals versus the strengthening of Parliament proposals in your Lordships’ House. We need to ensure that they marry together to improve the total outcome of Parliament.

It is true that we can now work on specifics. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in the debate on the gracious Speech, referred to the way in which the other place—the whole of the House of Commons—is trying to own more of the process of legislation. One of the Wright committee’s proposals was that there should be more of a guarantee that Report stage of all Bills in the other place reflected a total acceptance and understanding of the Bill by the House rather than simply being entirely dominated and managed by the business managers of the Government of the day. As I understand it, what came out of that suggestion was that the business committee or whatever mechanism the House of Commons decides to create should certificate to your Lordships’ House which areas of a Bill had not, in its view, received the full attention of the other place. That would be a useful self-discipline, quite apart from being informative to this House. It is one example of where the two Houses have to find mechanisms for making the process work better.

I spent eight years on the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons. During the 2001-02 Session, I saw one area of reform under the then Leader of the House, Mr Robin Cook, that I think is an important consideration for your Lordships’ House. It is referred to in the committee’s second report of that Session, which states:

“We recommend that there should be collective consultations with other parties in the House on the broad shape of the legislative year, those Bills intended to be published in draft, those Bills intended to be carried over and which Bills are expected to be introduced in the Commons, including discussion on the likely dates of recesses and related matters such as Friday sittings and Opposition days”.

It will be immediately apparent to noble Lords that, if the House of Commons is going to discuss which Bills should start there, that has huge implications for your Lordships’ House, because presumably all the other Bills will begin their process in this House.

I bring to your Lordships’ attention, as I do not think that it has been noted, the fact that that process took place, albeit only once. After the Queen’s Speech in 2002, there was a meeting chaired by Robin Cook and including the representatives of the other two parties—Eric Forth and me—at which we discussed precisely the most appropriate Bills to come to the Commons and to your Lordships’ House, although, of course, there was no representative from your Lordships’ House. We should build on that recommendation, which has been accepted by the other place, to say that in future this should not just be decided by the government business managers of either House. One of the major problems of indigestion is the London bus syndrome—five, six, seven or eight Second Readings in quick succession in the Commons or coming on to the Lords.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

I think that what my noble friend is talking about is political consensus. Let us hope that in such circumstances there can be consensus. However, if there is not, you cannot have these committees dominating the wish of the Government.

[Lord Tyler]

I understand what my noble friend says: of course, at the end of the day, it is the Government’s business. However, I believe that the Government would benefit—this has very much been a theme today—if there was such informal discussion. The group that I mentioned was informal; it was not an official committee. Informal discussion about the processing of legislation through the whole of Parliament—not just one House and not just in the Government’s interest—would also allow for agreement about which Bills were most appropriate for pre-legislative scrutiny and for carryover into the following Session. At the moment, that tends to be a take-it-or-leave-it proposal from the Government.

In addition to the lack of Lords representatives at that meeting, the other problem was that, as soon as Robin Cook, sadly, resigned, as a result of the decision to invade Iraq, the government Whips took back control. There was no cross-party discussion of any other Queen’s Speech. I strongly urge my noble friends on the Front Bench to look carefully at whether they can find some mechanism by which both Houses can find a better way of processing legislation, not just to avoid the London bus syndrome, which is bad enough in both Houses, but to get more consensus about which Bills are most appropriate for pre-legislative scrutiny and carryover.

The other issue which has been given a great deal of attention today and which deserves more examination is the way in which this House self-regulates, self-disciplines and self-governs. When I came to your Lordships’ House, I was amazed. I accept that the occupants of the government Front Bench—of all parties—do their very best and are scrupulous during Questions and Statements. Indeed, we had another example of this during the Statement today, when the self-discipline of the House was, frankly, not very effective; it looked more as though the business was being directed by a representative of the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who has patiently listened to so much of this debate without contributing, has over the months proved the case for thinking very carefully about the role of the occupant of the chair. It is asking too much of the government Front Bench to have eyes in the backs of their heads. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who was here earlier—I am sorry he is not here now—asking, as someone who had to perform that role so often, “What other assembly or legislature in the world would ask somebody who has their back to half the potential participants to decide who should contribute next?”. Both at Questions and during the Statement today, there was, I thought, a very undignified process. I used to enjoy Question Time in the other place but the last thing we want to do is go down that route, though we are in danger of doing so at the moment. It looks to Members of your Lordships’ House and to those watching as though, somehow, it is a politician or party appointment who is deciding who should speak. However scrupulously and with whatever integrity they try to look at the issue, it is impossible for Members on the government Front Bench to do what is required.

I agree, therefore, that we must think a little about the role of the Lord Speaker. We should not leave that until the end of the five-year term of office, which is only 12 months hence now. The Lord Speaker has, both in person and in how she has allowed the role to develop, been a triumphant success. However, that does not mean that we should leave it at that and hope that all will be well forever. I take issue with my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. Yes, the Leader of the House at the time has personal authority, but that is because he or she is appointed. The Lord Speaker is elected by the whole of your Lordships’ House. She or he has absolute personal authority from the way in which we ensure that person is appropriate for that role. We should, therefore, in the next 12 months as part of the general role of this new Lords Leader’s Group, look at that issue. We should not take it as a separate issue, but see it as part of the general concern.

There have been some notable contributions today. I was struck by something that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said. This should not be an ad hoc operation that we come to every so often, perhaps when there has been some sort of minor crisis. We should have a continuing renewal and review role in the way in which we operate. It does not mean that we will always make changes. It may be that part of the outcome of that renewal and review will be to say that we have got things roughly right. It should not mean that we start from scratch, right at the beginning again. We need to build on what we already have.

I hope that my noble friends on all sides of the House will agree that it is important to make some progress. However, this will not be something that we complete in a matter of months. There will be a need for continuity in this role. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said about some of his new colleagues in your Lordships’ House. As far as I am concerned, all Members of your Lordships’ House are my noble bedfellows. I am proud to be in this House, looking as we are at trying to improve our game. Again, as Robin Cook said so many years ago, this is not a zero-sum exercise. Improving how the other place operates and improving how we operate are not in contradiction or conflict. We need to be better together at holding the Executive to account. We can do that if we make complementary changes to how we operate here.