House of Lords: Working Practices

Debate between Lord Filkin and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Filkin]

All that the report says is that in principle we should apply to primary legislation what already happens to secondary legislation. In the case of secondary legislation, a set of standards for good legislation is defined by the Cabinet Office and a check is then made as to whether they have been complied with. The Butler report is clear; most people say that those are good standards. All the House would do is say whether they had been complied with. It would not look at policy; that would not be its job. Nor would it have the power to say no. It is a decision for the House—it is most unlikely that it would use it—to deny a Second Reading.

[Lord Strathclyde]

Denying a government Bill that had already passed the House of Commons a Second Reading would be an extraordinary thing. There would be another problem. For Bills that started in the House of Lords, if this were not a Joint Committee—I think that there is much more merit it being a Joint Committee than a House of Lords Committee, which I know was the recommendation of the committee—the business managers would seek to avoid starting Bills in the House of Lords. As Leader of the Lords, I think that would be a very bad thing. There are issues here that need to be explored further. There are downsides too, but the basic aim is a good one.

House of Lords: Post-legislative Scrutiny

Debate between Lord Filkin and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I agree with everything that my noble friend has said about pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny. I have always been a supporter of post-legislative scrutiny, but I have discovered in recent days that there is a gap between desiring the idea and making it a reality. There are substantial issues involved in the practicalities of making post-legislative scrutiny work. I am delighted that there is a system of post-legislative memoranda being published by the Government, as a result of decisions taken by our predecessors some years ago. It remains to be seen how that works over the next few months.

[Lord Filkin]

Does the Leader of the House agree that it would be beneficial if this House at least initiated discussions with another place about whether a joint committee was beneficial, but that if it decided, for whatever reason, not to proceed with a joint committee we ourselves should start action on this, as we have been talking about it for 20 years now?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is no reason why any noble Lord should not make the case for post-legislative scrutiny on an Act of Parliament and put that forward to the Liaison Committee for discussion of whether an ad hoc committee should be set up.