House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, as the noble Lord said, this has been a very good debate indeed. I thank my noble friend Lord Filkin, and, indeed, I thank the Labour Back-Benchers for agreeing to give up their own debate to allow us to have this fascinating discussion.

It seems that there is a general consensus that, whatever one’s views on the Government’s attempt to achieve substantive reform, any real progress in that direction is some years ahead. We could sit here and wait for the next Bill to come in a few years’ time, or we could take up the opportunity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, says, to take fate into our own hands and really get down to making improvements in the way that we do our business. I appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to take note of the sentiments expressed in this debate this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, suggested a reconvening of the Leader’s Group. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will listen to that very seriously indeed. I can assure him that the Opposition will co-operate with him if he is able to allow us to take this step forward.

There is sufficient consensus around your Lordships’ House on a number of the important issues raised regarding working practices and procedures to suggest that there could be a successful outcome which would, as noble Lords reminded us, enhance the role of this House in the scrutiny of the Executive and of legislation, thereby serving the public interest as effectively as possible.

In the past decade we have, of course, seen various changes and improvements to the way in which we do our business. These include new Select Committees such as the Constitution Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee. Perhaps the most successful innovation, I say with all due modesty, has been the creation of the Merits Committee, now known as the Scrutiny Committee, which has considerably enhanced the way that we deal with secondary legislation. In some ways, we have made decisions and changed others. We agreed some years ago to increase the number of Oral Questions to six, and then decided that that was not a very good idea and came back to four. We have also tried out pilots. We are making greater use of Grand Committee for Committee stages of Bills. In place of the Lord Chancellor we now elect our own Lord Speaker, although, of course, the role of the Speaker in the Chamber is somewhat limited because the House remains self-regulating. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, implied, “self-regulation” can often mean that which the noble Lord the Leader of the House suggests the House ought to do. There is remaining business to be done regarding the role of the Speaker, particularly during Oral Questions. We have seen two revised procedures for Questions for Short Debate, although I think that noble Lords feel that we need to make further progress there, too.

We have made some improvements, which shows that we can incrementally enhance our effectiveness. Many other proposals have, however, bitten the dust. That is why it is right to ask the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to seriously consider reconvening a Leader’s Group in the light of the fact that substantive reform will not take place for some time.

Noble Lords have discussed legislation in the context of a sense that the other place is not as effective as it might be in the scrutiny of legislation. One of the main complaints about the way in which the Commons does its business is that whole chunks of Bills are often not considered in Committee. This means that when the legislation comes to your Lordships’ House, that is the first time that the detail of many of the clauses is put to the test.

I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that we need to look at a bicameral approach to the way in which Parliament does its business, and more liaison between Members of both Houses would be very helpful as well. In the end, however, we can do much more ourselves to improve the way that we deal with legislation. The argument for pre-legislative scrutiny, or a business standards committee, is persuasive. In the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny, I have always favoured public evidence hearings before Bills go into Committee in your Lordships’ House. I hope that that might also be given further consideration.

We have debated post-legislative scrutiny on many occasions. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is unable to be here today. He would press us, I think, to include that with any package of measures of reforms.

I also share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, about the length of speeches when we debate amendments to Bills. I have to say that Ministers, too, could be advised to speak in rather a less lengthy time than they often do. I remember the late Lord Carter as Chief Whip advising me when I first became a Minister to read out every other page of my wind-up because, he said, no one would ever notice. If Ministers responded to the points raised in debate rather than felt they had to read out page after page of script written for them by officials, they would find the House much more sympathetic to the arguments they put forward.

If we had less legislation, there would be more time for debates on Select Committee reports. I have to confess as a former serial offender, having introduced many Bills to your Lordships' House, that I am a sinner who now repenteth. Indeed, I remember that the fourth NHS reform Bill that I brought to your Lordships’ House seemed to do away with lots of the clauses that I brought in with the first NHS reform Bill. However, I think that I am not the only offender there.

On secondary legislation, my noble friend Lord Filkin suggested that this House could have more influence if, instead of having the veto option, which it always hesitates to use, it could delay legislation. I hope that that will again be considered in any discussion on how we can improve legislation. At the moment, the situation is unsatisfactory; the House is not able to pursue the issues in secondary legislation that it would wish to; and there is a strong case for the delaying powers.

My noble friend Lord Filkin wanted to know how the usual channels worked. I am not sure that he would find it entirely illuminating if we tried to describe that to him, but I think that behind that was a plea for more explanation about why decisions are sometimes made in relation to business management. I look to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to comment on that.

Finally, I come to the size of the House—“the elephant in this Chamber”, as my noble friend Lord Filkin put it. We are a large House in terms of numbers and we threaten to become larger still if the Leader is determined to flood the House with yet more of his own supporters. I look forward to him saying in his wind-up that he recognises that it would not be right to increase the numbers in your Lordships' House until we have resolved issues around its size, the length of terms and retirement.

I hope that the Leader will also say that the Government have given further consideration to whether they will support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, in the other place. The significance of that Bill is in Clause 1, which says:

“A peer may retire … Retirement may not be rescinded”.

I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that enacting that legislation would provide the foundation for your Lordships’ House to start talking about a scheme of retirement. I detect a growing consensus among Members of your Lordships’ House about the need to work together to see whether we can come up with a sensible approach to the size of the House, the representation of the different parties and the Cross Benches, and schemes of retirement. It would be all too easy for the Government to say, “We are not going to do that in the absence of substantive reform”—and I acknowledge that Governments of different colours have said that in the past—but the fact is that, realistically, substantive reform is now some years away. The argument for looking at issues to do with size and the way we proceed, therefore, becomes ever more persuasive. If the Leader were able to respond constructively to the comments made by noble Lords today, he would find enormous support for the work that he could do. I strongly urge him to consider setting up a Leader’s Group to take any work forward.