Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, Baroness Harris of Richmond, Lord Hunt of Wirral, Baroness Lea of Lymm, Baroness Randerson, Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd be appointed members of the Select Committee, in place of Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, Lord German, Viscount Hanworth, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, the Earl of Lindsay, Lord Lisvane and Baroness Watkins of Tavistock; and that Lord Hunt of Wirral be appointed chair of the Select Committee.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee conducts excellent scrutiny of secondary legislation. Indeed, the committee makes one of the most valuable contributions that the House makes to scrutiny and public policy discourse.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, raised his concerns with me and the Committee of Selection that seven members of the committee are rotating off this month. He requested that a different course of action be adopted. The noble Lord’s proposal to address the issue was that three of the seven members of the committee should be permitted to serve a further year, resulting in those members serving on the committee for four and a half years in total.

For many years, your Lordships have recognised the need to ensure that as many Members of the House as possible can sit on committees through a rotation rule. To give greater certainty, the House agreed in October 2020 to have a rotation rule based on three consecutive calendar years or parts of years. As all noble Lords know, Select Committee places are highly sought after. Members of your Lordships’ House have a wealth of experience that contributes to the high-quality output of committees and the scrutiny that they undertake.

I shared the proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, with the usual channels. I then took his request to the Committee of Selection at its meeting earlier this month. I can assure noble Lords that the usual channels and the committee considered this request carefully. The Committee of Selection agreed unanimously to proceed with the Members nominated to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It was deemed important that we maintain the same process across all committees; indeed, it is not uncommon for there to be the proportion of change on Select Committees that there has been in this year’s rotations.

The noble Lord’s amendment states that the rotation

“will undermine the quality of service the Committee gives to the House”.

I take this charge very seriously indeed. Respectfully, I take a different view. First, I emphasise the qualities of the proposed new members of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. These noble Lords are of considerable standing. I am confident that, alongside the four excellent members who remain, they will serve the committee with distinction. As all of us who have been privileged to serve on committees know, there are also officials who ensure their smooth running. Five officials support this committee’s work and will, I know, help to ensure the continuity of what we all deem to be exemplary service.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, calls for the Committee of Selection to produce a plan to ensure that, in future, rotations are

“as close as possible to one third of the total membership of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee”.

The problem is that the amendment presumes knowledge of when casual vacancies may occur. The Committee of Selection cannot guarantee the number of future rotations in any given year. Casual vacancies will impact on any prediction of future vacancies.

There is one further point I wish to emphasise. I take myself back to when I was a Minister at Defra. Six noble Lord were appointed to this committee in July 2019. As I say, I was a Minister then, and I am afraid that that committee caused the department a very considerable amount of work—I am looking at one or two noble Baronesses here who were involved in that as Opposition Front Bench Defra. At no point, and I say this honestly and candidly, did I reflect in the months afterwards that the committee did anything other than provide consistently strong scrutiny of secondary legislation. Indeed, I took the opportunity to discuss this with one or two Defra colleagues last night, because I was so fussed about the matter, and they said, “No, the scrutiny committee was consistently strong and robust—and of course, it kept the department on its toes”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, in moving his Motion so ably, has spoken for all of us on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and I hope for many other Members of this House. As the noble Lord said, we all support the premise behind the rules on rotation of membership of our Select Committees. It is a good and sensible procedure for all the reasons he set out, as did the Chairman of the Committee of Selection. However, it is perfectly right and proper that this House must and should continually remind itself of the basic premise and purpose behind this three-year rotation rule. If we find—as in fact I think we do—that it is working in a way not envisaged when it was formulated, we should be prepared to revisit it and correct any perverse impacts.

I am sorry to say that this is what is happening today. The rule is not promoting sensible rotation; it is promoting upheaval, which is a different thing altogether. If we do nothing today, we are locking ourselves into an unhealthy pattern of future appointments to our Select Committees. I do not think we should do that, and nor do I think this is what lay behind the original purpose of the three-year limit on committee membership. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has pointed out in relation to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, this locks us into a pattern of “seven, one, three” which would repeat itself indefinitely.

We have today appointed people for three years. There is the possibility of casual vacancies—we all understand that—but we cannot plan on that basis. That is not the basis on which we should decide committee membership. With the greatest of respect to the Chairman of the Committee of Selection and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, whom I hold in the very highest regard, nor can we say that this is a problem for the committees themselves to sort out.

The House is appointing people today for three-year terms, so we are locking ourselves into a pattern of seven, one, three for this committee. I defy anyone listening to this debate to justify that pattern of rotation—but that is what we are contemplating. It might turn slightly differently, but as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, himself pointed out, it is entirely reasonable to remind ourselves of the fourth report of the Procedure and Privileges Committee, which spotted this as a potential problem years ago.

All the noble Lord’s amendment asks the House to do is invite the Committee of Selection to have another look at this pattern of rotational movement of members off our Select Committees. This is not how the rule was intended to operate. As the noble Lord said, this is not a revolutionary moment for your Lordships’ House. It just invites people to think again about the practical impact of this rule and see if there is a better way of avoiding disruption to the work of the Select Committees, because that is what we are talking about.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, I sense the mood of the House that we ought to move forward. There may be other noble Lords from the committee who endorse this, but I want to say that I have listened and, obviously, I take on board the comments made by people I respect. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has said something that I think the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, found difficult, but the truth is that there is precedent for committees to consider these matters. The Conduct Committee, for instance, decided of its own volition that it needed to establish a rotation. Therefore, lots were drawn and some members served two years and others served three.

On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, transitions are where difficulties arise regarding how long a member may stay. For instance, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, will have served a gallant three and a half years; others, including I think the noble Lord, Lord German, will have served less, but that is what was agreed by the House in moving from three Sessions to three calendar years. It was only in October 2020 that the House took this view.

The guiding principle is that we all have a lot to contribute to the work of the committees of the House, and we wanted to ensure that as many noble Lords as possible have that opportunity. As we know, there are many applications to serve on the committees. I, the Chief Whip, the Convenor and others can confirm that often, there are more applications than vacancies, so we do need to find a way forward.

I sincerely hope I am being helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, in saying that in my view, it is open for chairs and committees to decide the best way forward, as it always has been. There are other examples of staggered rotations precisely to accommodate these matters, and there is no difficult with that. The Committee of Selection always keeps these matters under consideration, but it has been helpful to hear a number of points being made.

I was really quite stung by the idea that somehow in 2019 the six new members placed that committee in jeopardy and difficulties by their lack of experience. My experience of 2019-20 was of a very strong and robust committee. I am confident because of the names that have been put forward, which the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, referred to. Those seven Members are of very strong standing and are worthy of your Lordships’ support.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. I have been listening to the debate with ever-increasing bemusement. Why on earth do we not appoint by thirds? That would deal with the whole problem. We might have to start with some members serving for just one year, some for two and some for three, but at a stroke it would deal with the issue. I do not see why we have this convoluted system of seven, one and then two. It seems bizarre.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The noble Lord makes an important point, but with regard to this committee I am saying that there is a solution, which is that the committee and its chair, as has been done with other committees, decide that some will serve for three years while some remaining members may serve for two years rather than three. It is in the hands of the committees that feel very strongly about this. I have to say that I communicated with some other committees where there was going to be a considerable change, and it was the view that that would not be taken forward. I think we should have confidence in the fact that we have seven excellent members to replace seven excellent members.

To conclude, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that I think there is a remedy and a solution. By the summer, I simply do not know who may be the casual vacancies. Casual vacancies have a bearing on the issue of the rotation; we see all the time that there are casual vacancies. I understand the points that have been made, and I am happy for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and his committee to bear in mind what has happened today and that there can be solutions to the key points.

Obviously I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, will feel that what I have said, and the solution that I believe there is, will enable him not to press his amendment. I could not support it because I cannot identify with the suggestion that the quality of service would be put in jeopardy, particularly given the seven members who we have put forward to take on the great work of those who are rotating off. I am in the hands of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, but that is why I sincerely could not support his amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I am grateful to everyone who has participated and made their views known. I am grateful to the members of the committee who have spoken out, to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, from another committee, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, for his powerful analysis of the situation that we now find ourselves in.

I have to say to my noble friend Lord Forsyth—he was combative as ever and I would expect no less—that, with great respect, the treadmill nature of the work of the SLSC actually puts it in a different category from many of the committees that he was talking about. He talked about finding ways to fill casual vacancies but we are not trying to find a few; we are having seven out of 11 every third year. This is not a casual exercise but a complete bouleversement every third year, including the chairman. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, pointed out, there is a perfectly sensible way forward, which we have tried to explain in our amendment.

Again, if I may shoot this fox, we are saying nothing about the people who are coming forward. I do not want the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, or the Senior Deputy Speaker, to get away with the idea that we are trying to undermine the quality of the people who are coming in. I want to be clear about that.

Before I close, I want to ask the Senior Deputy Speaker a question. Next week, my noble friend Lord Hunt could come along and say, “We have sorted it out; two people who will be appointed today are going to leave in a year from now”. Could he do that, and could we be certain that the Committee of Selection would allow it? It seems to be a cockeyed system, but it would provide a partial answer to the point we are making.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

If members of the committee decided they wished to retire early, that would be entirely a matter for them. That is how casual vacancies occur. Picking up the noble Lord’s point, I would have hoped and thought that this is exactly what I and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, were alluding to. There is a way forward. It is not as if this is static. The chair and the committee, perhaps hearing what has been raised today, can draw some conclusions.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I am grateful for that comment. We either have a system where we do one-third, one-third and one-third, or a system organised by the committee chairman—maybe now or maybe not—and different committees then have different amounts. That is a much less clear system for dealing with the rotation on committees than having a one-third rotation each time, which is what our amendment proposed.

We have hacked this issue to death. Clearly the usual channels and the Committee of Selection have made their decision. I do not believe in gesture Divisions. Therefore, although I greatly regret the position we find ourselves in, for the effective operation of the House I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.