Palace of Westminster Committee

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Sewel

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I endorse what my noble friend has just said. A number of people raised this issue in the short debate we had last week, to which the Leader of the House replied. A number of people also raised the matter of equivalence of membership between the Commons and the Lords. My quite clear recollection is that the Leader of the House said that there would be two joint chairmen, but this Motion provides for the appointment of “a chairman”. We cannot have two joint chairmen, one from the Commons and one from the Lords, which is the ideal we wanted, if there is to be the appointment of a chairman. I hope that the Chairman of Committees will clarify that and give us an assurance that there will be a joint chairperson from the Commons and the Lords.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)]

My Lords, I should say first that I think we are fortunate that the two Back-Bench Members of the Joint Committee from this House will bring to its deliberations a very deep level of expertise and experience of the issues. I do not think that we could have selected two stronger candidates.

On the particular issues that the noble Lords raised, the basis of selection for the Joint Committee is party allocation. I understand that the usual channels in both Houses decided a party allocation to represent the relative strength and standing of the parties in the two Houses. Of course, in this House the three officeholders—the Lord Speaker, the Chairman of Committees and the Deputy Chairman of Committees—put aside all party affiliations during their terms of office, so clearly could not be considered in a scheme based on party allocations. I also point out that the individual who does my equivalent job in the House of Commons has not been nominated as a member of the Joint Committee.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The Leader—sorry, he is the Chairman of Committees. He would be better as Leader of the House, but that is another story. Will the Chairman of Committees clarify the position of the joint chairman? It was made absolutely clear by the Leader of the House in our debate last week that there would be equal chairs from both Houses.

[The Chairman of Committees]

I am sorry that I forgot the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—a sin of omission indeed. My understanding is that the committee will operate on the basis of Mr Grayling in the Commons chairing one session and the Leader of this House chairing the alternate session. I understand that that is how they will proceed.