Liaison Committee
Debate between Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Jopling
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, as a Member of the Liaison Committee at the present time, I endorse the carefully chosen and wise words of the Chairman of Committees and I join him in commending this report. There is, unquestionably, wide knowledge and expertise in the field of international relations in your Lordships’ House. There is of course, too, no shortage of deep knowledge and expertise in other major topics. The Chairman of Committee’s review of all sessional Select Committees in 2017 will give the House the opportunity to consider this wider field and to reach judgments, in the light of available resources, on how best to embrace the expertise available on a variety of topics.
As a previous member of the Liaison Committee during my time as Convenor from 1999 to 2004, I remember similar and protracted pressures on the Liaison Committee then to set up a variety of committees. Voices were raised in favour of sessional committees to consider a variety of topics. In particular, I recall one of those related to the media and creative industries, and this subsequently emerged as the Communications Committee. So the Liaison Committee has in-depth experience of handling such problems. As now, there were many noble Lords with great knowledge and expertise in a variety of other topics, and the Liaison Committee had to reach difficult judgments about both the topics and the resources available for the work.
The then committee had been reluctant to endorse additional Select Committee work on two practical grounds. First, there was no additional funding nor expert staff available to support a full-scale committee. This was ultimately resolved to set up the Communications Committee. Secondly—this is an important point—the number of active Peers who were available to fill the whole range of Select and other committees had to be considered. It was much less than it is now.
Indeed, as Convenor, with fewer available Cross-Benchers than now, and with fewer as active as those who sit following selection by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, I found that it could be quite difficult to find the appropriate numbers and skills to fill the Cross-Bench membership quotas after taking account of rotational requirements. Today, there are more Cross-Benchers ever more fully engaged in the many aspects of the work of the House, and there are many more noble Lords overall from whom to draw committee membership. So I feel that those two practical issues are now properly dealt with.
As an aside, were the membership of your Lordships’ House to be significantly reduced at some future date, this could impact on the number and range of topics that could be dealt with by sessional committees. However, that is a bridge yet to be crossed. I join the Chairman of Committees in commending this report to the House.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, I add to the good wishes which have already been expressed to the noble Lord for presenting the committee’s report to us. I speak as one who spent many years on Sub-Committee C dealing with foreign affairs and defence. I was chairman of that committee for a number of years and remember very well the frustrations we had in not being able to deal with crucial areas of international affairs around the world, including the issue of the Commonwealth, in which my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford has been involved and enthusiastic about for many years. We were precluded from looking into the problems of the Far East, India, China and South America, and I am enormously pleased that this proposal has been put before the House today.