Public Bodies Bill [HL]
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(15 years, 1 month ago)
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Public Bodies Bill [HL]
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(15 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, in moving Amendment 31 on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bach, I intend also to speak to other amendments in the first group.
The Government have, during the Recess, had a little time to reflect on the Bill. The Minister will know of the evidence given by the Lord Chief Justice to the Constitution Committee, which, as he knows, was highly critical of the Bill. We have also very recently received the report of the Commons Select Committee on Public Administration, chaired by a Conservative MP, Mr Bernard Jenkin, which was also highly critical of the Bill. As the Select Committee report states, the review leading up to the Bill,
“was poorly managed. There was no meaningful consultation, the tests the review used were not clearly defined and the Cabinet Office failed to establish a proper procedure for departments to follow. It is important that the Government learn lessons from these mistakes as it has indicated that future reviews are likely to be run in broadly the same way. To ensure their effectiveness future reviews should not be conducted in a similar way”.
Amen to that. The Select Committee continues:
“The Bill giving the Government the power to bring about these changes was equally badly drafted. It is being significantly re-written by the House of Lords and we intend to issue a further detailed report on the Bill once the Lords have finished their scrutiny”.
It seems that, gradually, the Government are beginning to recognise that there is a need to make substantive changes to the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for his recent amendments, most of them made before the Recess, taking out most judicial organisations from Schedule 7. I think that that is a belated recognition of the Bill’s threats to judicial independence. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to do more in the coming weeks. I would like Schedule 7 to be removed in its entirety and the super-affirmative procedure to be used for every order pertaining to an organisation listed in the Bill.
I also hope that the noble Lord, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will listen sympathetically to the points made on this group of amendments. All of them, in one way or another, relate to the effective administration of justice. In moving Amendment 31, I shall speak also to my Amendments 32 and 45 and comment on Amendments 40 and 42.
Amendment 31 relates to the courts boards. The boards have not managed or administered the courts themselves but have given advice and made constructive recommendations to foster improvements in the administrative services provided. There is one courts board for each of the local management areas administered by area directors across England and Wales. Each courts board has members drawn from different communities and from a variety of backgrounds. The information from the Ministry of Justice states:
“Courts Boards were established because there was a fear that the voice of Magistrates would be lost within a unified HM Courts Service. These fears have dissipated because other structures—such as the Justices’ Issues Group and the Area Judicial Forums—are in place to ensure that Magistrates’ views are heard. There are also strong local relationships with Magistrates’ Benches Chairs”.
However, I have received a number of letters from chairs of local area courts boards expressing concerns. To summarise them, there are two. The first is that, at a time of a programme of court closures, no local independent review can take place. The chairs of the committees believe that the reduction in the number of local courts creates a greater need for mechanisms to keep in touch with communities and to identify local needs. The point is also made by the chairmen in the letters that I have received that boards can help to advise Her Majesty’s Courts Service on ways in which policies can be implemented at local level so as to help to ensure the most effective use of resources. I would be grateful for the response of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to the concerns raised by the chairs of those committees.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on that quick pass to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in relation to the memorandum. I can helpfully confirm that it was the practice of the previous Government to submit very lengthy memorandums to the Select Committee, and no doubt the Cabinet Office will be pleased to do so to the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in due course.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that it is a privilege to take part in a debate in which the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Lester and Lord Newton, have spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, went to the heart of the matter when he talked about the architecture of the Bill. We are going through the schedules, debating each organisation, without knowing the final outcome of the architecture. It would be helpful if, at an early stage, the Government could set out some of their thinking about whether they are prepared to make changes to the architecture.
I have added my name to Amendment 175. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, that it is very important. I certainly believe that it is consequential to Amendment 1 and would expect the House to accept it formally when we reach it. However, we have yet to hear whether the Government intend to seek to reverse it in the other place or to make substantial amendments to it. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, made some very promising comments in relation to the meeting that is to take place tomorrow between the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the officials of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. However, we will have to await the outcome of that. To a certain extent we are still working in the dark with regard to the final architecture. I believe that the architecture would be immeasurably improved, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has suggested, by removing Schedule 7 altogether. That would commend itself to many noble Lords in all parts of the House. I also believe that the super-affirmative procedure order should be used when it comes to the use of orders in the Bill. In the mean time, it is right to treat each body listed in the Bill on its merits. I was very happy with the response given by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to my Amendments 31, 32 and 42. I shall certainly not seek to press Amendment 31 this afternoon.
I also understand what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has said about the balance between the contribution of independent bodies and the role of departments and Ministers. There is a balance to be drawn. It is right that Ministers should be held to account for the major decisions that are made, albeit within individual government departments. Equally, I think we all agree that independent bodies have a role to play as well. It is a question of where you draw the line. My own party is not opposed to the abolition of a number of the bodies that are listed in this Bill. We support the general proposition that these kind of bodies need to be reviewed regularly and that no public body has a right to exist for ever. On the other hand, I listened with great interest to the powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration. He made a very good case. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, is right; this appeared in a Green Paper in 2009 as a candidate for abolition. None the less, when we come to Amendment 40, the House needs to listen very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said.
On the Public Guardian Board, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for his response and for his commitment to the Mental Capacity Act. He recognised the role that has been undertaken by Mrs Rosie Varley and her committee members. I take it from what he said that his department will wish to ensure that this work, albeit in a different form, will continue in the future.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, perhaps I may speak briefly to Amendment 40. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newton, that it would be churlish at this stage to press for a vote. I am enormously grateful for the explanation given by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, which frankly I and many other Members of the House would have welcomed before this stage. If all that information was available, why could it not have been put in the Explanatory Notes and given to us in another form? We are going to have the same sort of debate when other issues, such as the Youth Justice Board, come up for discussion. If alternative plans have already been made it would be enormously helpful to know those in advance so that we can weigh them against the bald statement in the Bill.
I listened with great care to noble Lords’ contributions, particularly that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, whose wisdom I respect hugely and whose advice I listen to. In that spirit, it would be sensible to withdraw Amendment 40 with, I hope, discussions to follow with the possibility of resuming it later. I have read the National Audit Office report—I worked for the National Audit Office in other respects. I am not sure that it completely fills the remit, although it fills some of it. Again, this is an issue it would be sensible to look at in detail before necessarily pressing it to a vote.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
We are, of course, on Amendment 31. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Thornton
I realise that putting down an amendment to add something to this hotchpotch Bill may seem perverse in the extreme but assure the Committee that there is method in my madness. This is a probing amendment, designed to achieve what we seem to have signally failed to achieve so far with this Bill: that is, to gain some understanding of the rationale, the explanation or the philosophy that lies behind (the arm’s-length institutions that are included in the Bill and those that are not). I use the Food Standards Agency as an example of a body that is not in the Bill but about which reform is being proposed.
The Food Standards Agency, is, as it says on its website,
“an independent Government department set up by an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect the public's health and consumer interests in relation to food”.
What has already been announced is that some of its functions will be taken away and given to Defra, and nutrition and dietary health will be moved back to the Department of Health. That is a very retrograde step in the view of many people concerned with diet and health. I think we can safely say that the Food Standards Agency was specifically formed after the BSE food scandals to try to re-establish public confidence in food advice by creating an arm’s-length body and an independent organisation. If the Government wish to change that fundamentally, they have to have some justification for addressing those issues specifically. Even if they wish to make the FSA a leaner and more cost-effective body, as they have done and to which the FSA has responded very well, cost-cutting is not the point here. It would seem that the FSA can be changed and its powers taken away without recourse to Parliament, without consultation and without this Bill.
Why is the FSA not included in this Bill? I was tempted to table an amendment for all the non-departmental government bodies that are not included in this Bill just to try to make sense of the Bill, and I have not ruled out that idea. For example, we will address later the other health bodies that are included in this Bill: the HFEA and the HTA. They were created with a similar motivation to that behind the Food Standards Agency—the need to have an arm’s-length body independent of government that could be trusted by the public to give good advice.
So far, the passage of this Bill has resembled a familiar song that we may all know, “The Hokey Cokey”. You put Channel 4 or Ofcom in the Bill, then you take them out of the Bill—or you think about it—and maybe shake them all about a bit. In the case of the recent government amendments on the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee, and a host of the other judicial-sounding bodies, they are out, but why? Perhaps we should rename this Bill the Hokey Cokey Bill.
Since tabling this amendment, the Public Administration Select Committee in another place has very obligingly published, Smaller Government: Shrinking the Quango State. I had intended to use the Treasury’s admirable publication, Reforming Arm's Length Bodies, and the Institute for Government’s document, Read Before Burning, as a theme for this discussion, because both contain a sensible description of the different kinds of arm’s-length bodies, what they do and how they might be reviewed and reformed. However, I think that they have been overtaken by the admirable report from the committee under Mr Bernard Jenkin MP about the dog’s breakfast that is not just this Bill but the whole process of reforming arm’s-length bodies.
To go back to basics, the coalition agreement merely said:
“We will reduce the number and cost of quangos”.
I have to say that my own Government’s policy was along the same lines. The Reforming Arm's Length Bodies document outlined how to do this in an orderly fashion over a period of time and save money in the course of doing that. So the Government started a cost-reduction exercise. Shortly after the election, they undertook to review public bodies sponsored by departments, including executive agencies. The stated aim of the review was primarily to increase the accountability of government. To achieve this, the review attempted to indentify functions that could be transferred from public bodies to central departments. The Government argued that Ministers could then be directly responsible for those activities and could be held to account by Parliament for the discharge of those activities. Indeed, Francis Maude, the Minister in the Cabinet Office—I particularly like this bit—said:
“I have led an intensive review into public bodies, subjecting each to four tests. The first test was existential and asked, does the body need to exist and do its functions need to be carried out at all?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/10/10; col. 505.]
I think that existential is a really good word to use in the process of these discussions. Those tests were whether,
“a precise technical operation needs to be performed to fulfil a ministerial mandate”.
The second area was,
“where it may be right to delegate power to an independent body … when there is a need for politically impartial decisions”.
The third area was,
“where there is likely to be a need for independent action … when facts need to be transparently determined”.
The fourth area, of course, was the existential test.
Added to that, we have another test, which appeared slightly late in the day: transparency. According to the report:
“The Ministry of Justice has retained bodies on the grounds of ‘transparency’”,
so we know now that we have at least four or five tests that the Government have said need to be applied to arm’s-length bodies.
The report goes on to say:
“It is also unclear whether all three of the tests the Government set were necessary in determining whether a function should remain at arm's length from Government”.
The report adds that the Institute for Government,
“during its research for its report, Read Before Burning, conducted its own evaluation of public bodies and the level of independence they need to discharge their functions properly. Their evidence states that: The key issue for deciding to put a function at arm's length is the degree of independence from day-to-day ministerial intervention needed to enable the body to command public confidence that it can perform its function in the public interest”.
That test applies completely to the FSA, and indeed to several bodies that are included in this Bill. We therefore have the importance of the independence test.
The additional test that is brought to bear is that of value for money. As well as the four or five tests that I have already outlined, the Select Committee says that the Government,
“are silent on a range of other issues, such as the implication of changes on the wider public policy framework, value for money, or current performance of organisations”.
The report concludes:
“The Government did not consult properly on these proposals. When undertaking such a fundamental review of the machinery of government it is desirable and sensible to do so”.
Our own Merits Committee did, as I recall, agree with that.
The report goes on to say that the Government do not apply the tests consistently and have declined, in some cases,
“to provide an explanation for why it intends to retain a body”.
It seems to me that asking for an explanation of why the Food Standards Agency is not included in this Bill is exactly the point of this Select Committee report. The Government have been inconsistent about what is in the Bill, what is out of the Bill, and what tests should be applied to the bodies that they intend to keep and to reform. The conclusion of this very critical report says:
“We are not convinced that the Government has applied its tests consistently. Neither can we find any evidence to suggest that it took any steps to ensure a uniform approach was taken. We recommend that the Cabinet Office publish details on how the tests have been applied to all public bodies that are still under review, so we can ensure that in future these tests are applied consistently.
The lack of consultation and inconsistent application of the tests, which are themselves confusing”—
I would agree with that—
“have led us to conclude that there was no coherent and consistent process for reviewing public bodies”.
I return to the Food Standards Agency, which I would not wish to include in this Bill. Whether or not I proceed to add a whole host of other bodies into the Bill in a desperate attempt to understand the rationale is dependent on the Minister’s explanation. I would really appreciate him addressing the very important issues that are raised in this report—and this is the first opportunity we have had to say this. I would like an explanation of the broader implications that this report has for the Bill. Obviously, it involves not just the Food Standards Agency but many, many bodies.
Finally, we on these Benches are not opposed to modernising arm’s-length bodies. Indeed, in March last year we published a document about the reform of arm’s-length bodies that said that we intended to reduce their number by 123 and to save money by doing so. However, we intended to do it in an orderly fashion with consistent and consistently applied criteria. This Government have not done that, and we need an explanation of what they intend to do next. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Thornton for raising three very substantive matters with this amendment: first, what is to happen to the FSA; secondly, the process by which the Government have undertaken this review; and, thirdly—coming back to the debate on the first group of amendments—the architecture of the Bill.
I was the Department of Health Minister who, with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, as the Defra Minister, took through the legislation that created the Food Standards Agency. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, and I are singing off the same hymn sheet here. I remind the noble Lord that the reason for this was that there was a great deal of public distrust, it would be fair to say, arising out of the BSE issue along with some concern about the advice that the relevant government departments had been giving to the public. Therefore, the decision was taken to create an independent agency sponsored not by Defra but by the Department of Health.
Overall, that agency has worked very well indeed. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and to Mr Geoffrey Podger, the first chair and chief executive of the FSA—and, indeed, to their successors—for doing what I think has been an outstanding job. It has certainly advanced the credibility of the advice that that body gives to the public and, importantly, has also enhanced the credibility of the British food industry. I therefore have some reservations about the changes that are now being proposed to the FSA. I understand that there will be a transfer of some of its responsibilities to the Department of Health. I must declare my interests in relation to the health service and to public health as they are recorded in the Register. The FSA has a tremendous reputation and, in the Government’s place, I would hesitate before making substantive changes.
However, the second point raised by my noble friend relates to the rationale for the Government’s approach both to those bodies that are contained in the Bill and those that are not. It is still not clear to many noble Lords what the rationale is. This is a good opportunity for the Minister, who, as noble Lords have already remarked, has been very helpful to the House, to explain some more about the rationale for the bodies contained in the Bill and those that are not, even where those that are not are actually to have substantive changes made to them.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will be a little tired of having Select Committee reports quoted back to him because it would be fair to say that all of the Select Committees that have so far looked at the Bill and at the review undertaken by the Government have been not exactly complimentary. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has to answer the central charge of the Public Administration Select Committee, chaired by Mr Bernard Jenkin, which said:
“This review was poorly managed … no meaningful consultation, the tests the review used were not clearly defined and the Cabinet Office failed to establish a proper procedure for departments to follow”.
Apart from rejecting the Select Committee’s report out of hand, the Government have been rather silent in responding so far. We are entitled to some comment on the review process itself.
My noble friend Lady Thornton referred to the Bill as being the “Hokey Cokey Bill”. I think it is more Gilbertian myself. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor has a little list. In fact it is a very big list that is gradually becoming smaller. I note that the Jonathan Miller production of “The Mikado” is back at the Coliseum yet again. The noble Lord might take care and reflect by going to see it.
It brings us back to the architecture of the Bill. In an earlier debate the noble Lord, Lord Lester, raised the question of Amendment 175, which is consequential on the paving Amendment 1 that the House passed. That is a very important amendment because it sets very clearly the restrictions on ministerial powers to be used in the Act. If, as a result of the discussions that I know that his officials are having with noble Lord, Lord Lester, tomorrow and other discussions, the Government were able to accept the principle of Amendment 175, while making it clear that they do not intend to reverse this in the other place, then we would make more progress.
There are other substantive issues in relation to the architecture. I have already mentioned the use of the supra-affirmative procedure and the deletion of Schedule 7. Some reassurance that public consultation will take place when it is proposed to deal with any of the bodies in this order would go some considerable way to reassuring noble Lords. In the absence of the House understanding what changes the Government are prepared to make to the architecture, we go inevitably through these bodies one by one and, in a sense, in a vacuum—a point made earlier by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. We are due a Committee day next week when, no doubt, we will hear when further Committee days are to take place. I hope that in a fairly short time the Government will be able to make a little clearer their sense of where they are on the Bill and whether they are prepared to make the kind of changes to its construct that would reassure noble Lords considerably.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for tabling this amendment. I know that she has done so with good intentions but we have enough on our plate without adding an extra dish to the menu. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for his recommendation to see “The Mikado”. I saw it when it was previously on at the Coliseum. In fact, I have tickets. Should time allow, I hope to see it in revival.
As your Lordships are aware, the Public Bodies Bill exists to take forward the review of public bodies undertaken across the Government in 2010 to enable changes to be made. I acknowledge the report of the Select Committee produced by another place and no doubt we will be replying to that report in due course. However tempting it might be, I do not want to use this debate as an opportunity for expanding on arguments that the Government will bring forward in their discussions with that committee. We are negotiating with the opposition Front Bench and the Select Committees of your Lordships’ House to try to improve the Bill. It is interesting that, as the noble Baroness said, there is a determination across the House to ensure that we have a public bodies sector that is fit for purpose.
Perhaps I may address the changes that have occurred within the Food Standards Agency in the context of the recent history of the department. The previous Government announced in their public health White Paper, published shortly before the election, that they would bring dietary health and nutrition away from the FSA into the Department of Health. That is the background against which, under the new Government on 20 July 2010, the Department of Health announced its decision to retain the Food Standards Agency as an independent regulator, while transferring some of its functions to the Department of Health and Defra. I shall shortly put those into the context of the size of the organisation. These changes are non-statutory in nature and do not therefore require the use of the Public Bodies Bill, or any another legislative vehicle, to bring them into effect.
The proposed changes to the role of the FSA are designed to contribute to the Government’s objectives to improve efficiency and are paramount to the key priority of improving the health of the nation by creating a public health service. To achieve this coherence, some policy-based functions are to be brought in-house to give a more co-ordinated approach on health and food issues. These changes affect approximately 5 per cent of the 2,000 staff employed by the Food Standards Agency. About 25 labelling policy posts will move to Defra and 85 nutrition policy posts will move to the Department of Health. These proposed changes reflect the Department of Health’s desire to bring together all the policy levers to enable it to deliver a coherent public health strategy. This will allow the FSA to focus on its key core remit of food safety underpinned by scientific expertise. It has been mentioned that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, in establishing the Food Standards Agency, provided a foundation of science which has greatly benefited that organisation. The proposed changes will enable government food policy to be communicated and delivered in a coherent and consistent manner. The Department of Health, Defra and the FSA—we must not forget that the Food Standards Agency is classified as a government department—will work together to ensure that this structure protects consumer interests, reinforces efforts to improve the public’s health and supports a competitive food industry.
I acknowledge that the last thing the noble Baroness seeks is the extinction of the Food Standards Agency. On the basis of the assurances I have given, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Standards in Public Life
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Lord McNally
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that he gives high priority to party funding in what he has described as the second wave of constitutional reform that we are planning. Therefore, it has high priority. People in all political parties with experience of this matter have given me the same advice—that is, to deal with this matter early in a Parliament. That is what we intend to do.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that, following the Hayden Phillips proposals, cross-party talks were proceeding well until the Conservative Party walked away from them? Now that he is in the comforting position of sitting with the Conservative Party, will he ensure that there is a future programme of cross-party talks to reach consensus?
Lord McNally
As I have said in answer to other questions, I think that what happened in the past is best left to the memoirs, and I can tell noble Lords that mine will be very readable. But in the mean time, I take encouragement from what my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister said at the City and Islington College on 19 May. He said,
“David Cameron and I are determined to reform party funding”.
That is good enough for me.
House of Lords: Reform
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Lord McNally
My noble friend makes some valid points, but I think that it is unfair to say that the ex-MPs who come in are against Lords reform. It usually takes them two or three weeks before they become enthusiastic supporters of the House. I see in his place the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, who has taken to the ermine like a duck to water.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has implied that the 300 Peers brought in by Mr Blair were Labour Peers, but can he tell me how many were not and took other Whips in the House? Does he endorse the remarks made yesterday by his noble friend Lord Tyler, who in the context of Lords reform effectively told the Cross Benches that, unless they supported the Government in votes, a 100 per cent elected House rather than an 80 per cent elected House would be proposed? Does he endorse that view?
Lord McNally
I do not read that into what my noble friend Lord Tyler said yesterday. I trust the Cross Benches to take decisions on votes in this House as individuals and not as a collective group. I know that they will continue to do that. Even more shaming than any threats real or imagined from my noble friend Lord Tyler are the blatant attempts made by the Labour Party to lure the Cross Benches into elephant traps when trying to delay government business.
House of Lords: Working Practices
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Lord Rooker
To be honest, there are quite a few women among the 57 Peers, but I do not want to go down that road, and I have reached the end of my time. I just think it puts people off.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Can I ask my noble friend where the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, comes in?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, we, too, very much welcome the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and I am happy to reiterate what my noble friend Lady Royall said many hours ago that we will play a constructive role in reviewing our working practices, under the auspices of a Leader’s Group. That will be valuable in itself, but could also lay a good foundation for the more fundamental reform of your Lordships’ House that we are promised. As the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said, it is likely that a fully elected House would need very different procedures; but as there is likely to be a transition period, we will need working practices that help us now, see us through at least the first part of the transition and perhaps make a substantial contribution to the more substantive reforms that we are promised. My noble friends Lord Brooke and Lady McIntosh put it well, so I ask the noble Lord, Lord McNally, how he sees discussions on working practices feeding into the wider reform process.
Any reforms of our working practices will command the general support of this House only if they are seen as improving its overall effectiveness as a revising Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has long championed the value of this House in acting as a check on government. Most commentators feel that we have become increasingly effective in that since the reforms of 1999. That has much to do with the quality of our debates and the undoubted calibre of noble Lords.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, pointed to the large number of amendments made in the previous Session. Of course, some of them were routine tidying up, but I suggest that the House’s reputation is not unconnected with the number of defeats suffered by the previous Government—more than 500 since 1997. Those defeats gave the House considerable leverage and caused the previous Administration to think again on many occasions. That is why the House became so effective. I suffered more than my share of those defeats and make no complaint: that is what the House is here to do.
We come now to the circumstances of the coalition Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, it is the job of Parliament to control the Executive. It is early days, but there is a genuine question about how the House will continue to control the Executive in the circumstances of the coalition. I would be very interested in the views of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. What role does he expect the House to perform if he and his colleagues on the Front Bench are determined to force through every clause of every piece of legislation that they put before us?
We are coming to the closing stages of the Academies Bill. If ever a piece of legislation fitted the description of “ill digested legislation” made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, this is it. It has been rushed through your Lordships' House at an unseemly pace because Mr Michael Gove, in one of a number of misjudgments for which he is becoming so well known, insisted that some academy schools had to be up and running by September. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was forced to stay so long last week. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, on Report three amendments were voted on. They were defeated by the Government, who had the votes to do so. Fair enough—but if the future pattern is that the Government will win every vote, the House will begin to lose some of its hard-won reputation. Again I ask the noble Lord, Lord McNally, how he sees the House acting as a check on the Executive in those circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, put his finger on it.
When it comes to working practices, we are not short of material. The Wright committee’s work in the other place is of equal significance. I agree with noble Lords who talked about the relationship between the two Houses being of great importance when it comes to changes in working practices. I should be interested in the Minister’s response on how he thinks the Houses might work together. I should also like him to respond to questions raised about the role of the Lord Speaker. Clearly, among some noble Lords, there is a sense of frustration about self-regulation and how it works. Self-regulation depends on Members observing the spirit of the Companion. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that I am not sure that it is new Members who do not observe the spirit of the Companion. I fear that it is often very experienced Members.
The problem is most clearly seen at Question Time. It is a very important occasion. The House is full, Ministers are on their mettle and it sets the tone for the day; but not all noble Lords are happy with the way in which it proceeds. Supplementary questions are often read, are long-winded and exceed the two points that are permitted, and some ministerial responses are equally lengthy. My noble friend Lady Jones identified that nearly half the supplementary questions were asked by only 8 per cent of our Members, and that the current shouting match may not create an encouraging environment for all Peers to take part. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, shared that view. There is a case for looking at whether the Lord Speaker should perform the role currently performed by the Leader at Question Time, perhaps for a trial period. I should say that I have no criticism of the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has conducted himself in that matter since he became Leader of the House.
Having performed that role myself for about 20 months, I am well aware of the pressures all round the House. Like my noble friend, I, too, have the statistics from my time discharging that awesome responsibility. During that time, the Government batted under its weight. The Conservatives were a little bit over, the Liberal Democrats were an awful lot over and the Cross-Benchers batted quite a lot under their weight. My current statistics show that the Government and the Opposition are getting roughly equal treatment in terms of the number of supplementary questions, with the Cross-Benchers again batting under their weight. As far as concerns the gender balance, so far about 28 per cent of supplementary questions have been asked by women, who make up less than 28 per cent of the House.
Question Time is a crucial part of what the House does. It is important that the spontaneity and liveliness of Question Time is not lost with any change that we might make. Many Members have mentioned Lord Williams of Mostyn and the reforms that he made. One of those reforms, to increase the number of Questions to six Questions, did not work; nor do I believe that the Questions to the Secretaries of State worked. We must be prepared to try these things, but it is important that the central focus of Question Time is not lost. I know that many Peers are reluctant to see the departure of self-regulation, but self-regulation will not survive an elected House. At the very least, the Leader’s Group will have to discuss these matters.
I want to comment briefly on a number of other matters which have been raised. My noble friend Lord Brett asked some searching questions about debates and particularly about how the Government should respond. That is a very relevant matter indeed. On the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that Statements might be made in Grand Committee, I am not at all convinced. I believe that major Statements of government policy ought to be made in this Chamber; for example, the announcement made today about the NHS, agree with it or not, was a very important Statement. Surely, such Statements ought to be heard in prime time in the Chamber. Frankly, the problem during the Statement was that experienced Members did not observe the spirit of the Companion. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that it might be useful to circulate to all noble Lords a pocket guide of the three or four essential points in the Companion.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, on that subject, under this so-called self-regulatory regime, it is extremely difficult for individual Members, who may feel embarrassed, to stand up, thereby asking others to sit down. That is why self-regulation does not work. Very few of us are prepared to get up and challenge others. There is a great onus on those on the Front Bench to do that, but very often they do not.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, that is a fair point. I would certainly encourage the Whips on the government Front Bench to intervene. They would certainly have the support of this side of the House if they sought to do so. Essentially, their role is to help the House to regulate itself.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, does the noble Lord acknowledge, even if he does not agree with Statements being taken in the Moses Room or in Grand Committee, that Back-Benchers do not get a fair crack of the whip? Even today when we had a major Statement on the National Health Service, there was very little scope for the House to express its views.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I have two points on that. The noble Lord is right that 20 minutes is a fairly limited time. Equally, a Statement is not an occasion for Back-Benchers to make general statements about what they have heard in a Statement; it is to elucidate answers from the Minister. An extension of time would be welcome but, equally, some self-discipline among Members would be appreciated.
On the legislative procedure, many interesting points have been made about how we can go into Grand Committee more often and how the process in Grand Committee can be improved. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made a very useful comment about Report stage and how we might change the procedures there. I also thought he was right about time intervals. Experiencing opposition for the first time, and the awesome task of having to write one's own speeches and amendments, a little time between stages is indeed welcome and very necessary.
In conclusion, I welcome the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. We shall support it; it is a constructive move. I would comment on what the noble Lord said in the debate on the Queen's Speech. He said that Peers in this House already enjoy rights not given to Back-Benchers in the other place to table amendments at three stages of a Bill and to have each one heard and replied to. Today, he said that he had no desire to move from that, no desire for compulsory grouping of amendments or for timetabling Motions or for preventing every amendment being considered. That is welcome. I detected a veiled warning perhaps that that depended on noble Lords not abusing the flexibilities that they have. I have seen no signs of that. I agree with him that we need to update our working practices. The Official Opposition will support only change which increases the effectiveness of the House. Ultimately, the Minister must recognise that that will not happen if the parties opposite simply railroad their legislation through this House.
Lord McNally
My Lords, first, I am grateful for those final words—“the parties opposite”—because, as was said earlier, there is an attempt by the Opposition to make a very harmonious coalition into a single party. We are a coalition. The other point that came from the debate is now a hardy annual from the Benches opposite, about the harsh treatment of the Labour Party during Question Time. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will not let the facts get in the way of a good grievance.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I do not think that I said that at all. I paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for the even-handed way in which he helped the House come to a view on who should ask questions.
Lord McNally
I am very grateful. I hope that, from now on, when some people—I will not name them, but we know who they are—start shouting and screaming from those Benches, we can mention that, in the first week in June, the Labour Party had 42 per cent of questions, as against 19 per cent for the Conservatives and 16 per cent for the Liberal Democrats. In the second week, it was 48 per cent for the Labour Party—well done—21 per cent for the Conservatives and 13 per cent for the Liberal Democrats. In the third week, it was 40 per cent for Labour, 19 per cent for the Conservatives and 16 per cent for the Liberal Democrats. In the fourth week, it was 44 per cent for the Labour Party, 18 per cent for the Conservatives and 18 per cent for the Liberal Democrats. I hope that, as this Parliament settles down, we can get away from that Millwall supporters’ attitude.
Lord McNally
No, I was just getting to the nice bit of my speech. I just thought that we could get something on the record, especially as there has been so much praise for the Library, which is busy producing statistics for both sides, as it should.
I welcome the assurance from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that the Opposition intend to play a constructive role. We share his approach that the test must be the overall effectiveness of this House. I will return to that. As to how the House will work in the circumstances of the coalition, again, we have to see how things go. It is a different circumstance, but there have been other times when this House has been effective before reform. If people go to the memoirs of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, they will find that she constantly complained about the defeats that the Government suffered in the House of Lords.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the noble Lord traded statistics with me. He has just to look at the scale of the defeats that the previous Government suffered. By my reckoning—again, I am grateful to the Library for these statistics—there were 526. During the Conservative Administration, the number of defeats was very much less.
Lord McNally
As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has just whispered in my ear, it is too early to tell what the pattern of this House will be. All that we know so far of the statistics is that the Labour Party has won 40 per cent of the votes and the Government have won 60 per cent.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the first vote was on a technical point on the Local Government Bill. The second vote that the Government lost was very late at night on an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, described as a meaningless vote.
Lord McNally
I know what the votes were. You know what the votes were. I am just giving you the statistics.
I close this debate as Deputy Leader of the House and a loyal No. 2 to my noble friend. I am pleased to say that we approach our task today with a complete unity of purpose. I am delighted that he has given such priority to the reform of working practices so early in this Parliament. I am also pleased that he has chosen to do so in a way which benefits from the groundwork prepared by his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. This debate and the announcement of the immediate setting-up of a Leader’s Group to look into the matter in the first few weeks of this Parliament means that the reform of working practices is more than a declaration of intent: it is work in progress. I am delighted to say that my noble friend has persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, a former chairman of the Constitution Committee, to be the chair of the Leader’s Group. He will lead it with the independence and rigour that it demands.
This has been a stimulating debate. Thanks to the customary enthusiasm that noble Lords have for this subject, nobody need fear that the Leader’s Group will be wanting for inspiration, advice or input. It is not my intention to set out the Government’s views on the suggestions that have been put forward by noble Lords—they are House matters for the Leader’s Group to reflect on—but I shall make brief mention of a few individual contributions. Many noble Lords paid tribute to the ad hoc working parties chaired by the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Filkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, which originated from the Lord Speaker’s work in this area. The Hansard report for this debate will provide an excellent first evidence paper to the Leader’s Group.
Looking back even over the past 18 months, we have made a number of advances in this House’s ability to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government to account. We have adopted an additional set of arrangements for scrutinising fast-track legislation, based on the recommendations of the Constitution Committee, which should ensure that the House has at its disposal the information it needs to give proper consideration to such Bills and to the case for fast-tracking legislation. We have introduced a new procedure for scrutinising national policy statements, an innovation intended to enhance the House’s ability to scrutinise government policy formulated under the Planning Act. We have put in place a panoply of procedures for exercising the new powers that the House now wields in respect of European Union policy and legislation as a result of the Lisbon treaty and the entry into force of the European Union (Amendment) Act. We have conducted successful experiments with Question Time for Secretaries of State. They were successful, and have not been abandoned. We just, at the moment, do not have any Secretaries of State in this House—hope springs eternal, as they say. We also have a new approach to scrutinising Law Commission Bills, which I very much welcome. I could go on. My point is simply that we have been steadily adding to the armoury of tools at our disposal, and I am confident that the Leader’s Group will both refine existing practices and propose new ones.
Lord McNally
This House is its own master. The Leader’s Group will report to it, and there will be full discussion and a full debate. I gave a list of procedures that have been put to—oh! I have been passed a note; I have always wondered what these notes said.
Lord McNally
It says here: “Did the House vote on these examples? Yes, it did”. It must have been when the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was not here. I could go on. My point is simply that we have been steadily adding to the armoury of tools and as we move forward we need to recognise that, although there is a considerable appetite for further reform to our practices and procedures in many parts of the House, notably among those who have contributed to today’s debate, others take a different view—and we have heard a few of those today.
There is little time left tonight, save to say that we will set up the Leader’s Group, which will have the widest of wide agendas. We will then see what it reports back to us. That will be a very exciting time. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, asked what we are here for. In my 15 years in this House, I have never had any doubt that I am a parliamentarian. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said that we are here as legislators. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that we are here to check the Executive. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, said that he used topical debates to influence government policy. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said that she goes about making a nuisance of herself. That combination is what we are here for, and we want the procedures to fulfil those roles. We do not need to agonise too much about this; the task is to find the working practices to facilitate that work.
Some themes have come through. It is interesting that about 10 speakers referred to a revised role of the Lord Speaker. I am sure that the Leader’s Group will look at that but, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and others have said, there are doubts about it. We have said before that powers to the Lord Speaker would be a slippery slope. Well, let the Leader’s Group look at that.
I have always been a great advocate of pre- and post-legislative scrutiny, and I hope that we can look at that very quickly.
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, talked about Questions being a bear pit. I am not too sure about that. This is a Parliament, and I worry about what people who are invited to join a Parliament expect it to be. I also listened to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh. I know a place where people come in, read their speeches and go out. Has anyone seen the American Congress being televised? It looks like a funeral parlour most of the time. One of the things that I like about this place is the courtesy of people staying and listening to speeches. I know that Members harbour suspicions about my intentions for this House. I am even a bit suspicious of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, wanting us to get rid of the ermine. We wear it only once a year, and I think that we should keep some of the old courtesies and perhaps some of the old clothing. I have said once before, and got into terrible trouble when I did so, that if we start to look like Croydon Council we will be treated like Croydon Council. I had forgotten that there is a complete mafia of Croydon councillors in this House, who stopped me the next day and said “Oi!”. One of the constructive things about this place is that it retains those courtesies, which are part of its power.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, asked what our approach would be to trial and pilots, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. That is a very good suggestion, but it is a matter for the Leader’s Group, which I hope it will take on board.
I turn to other points that I can cover in the time left. The noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Filkin, referred to whether the Leader’s Group remit would extend to the governance arrangements of the House. The terms of reference will be widely drawn. The group will need to set priorities and will take its own decisions on what it wants to cover, but it is setting itself a big agenda.
A large number of noble Lords pointed out that we cannot consider our practices and procedures in isolation from those of the House of Commons. The House of Lords and the House of Commons keep their separation up to a point. We should learn from what they have done. There have been several good references to the work of the Wright committee. I do not think that we have been standing still even while the Wright committee has been working, but the Leader’s Group gives an impetus to what has been going on here. As a first step, my noble friend might talk to Sir George Young, the Leader of the House of Commons. I cannot remember who mentioned this point, but striking up a dialogue with the House of Commons is not always as easy as colleagues might think. However, knowing the two men I have just mentioned, some soft soundings might help in meshing what is going on at both ends of the building.
Lord McNally
Again, that would be both impudent of me and unfair to my noble friend Lord Goodlad and his group. From what has been said today, this will not be a speedy process. There is a big agenda and a lot to be considered. As has been said, the group will look for advice not only from within this Chamber but from bodies outside which have studied these matters.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, while clearly one must not rush into this, the fact is that a draft Bill for reform of your Lordships' House is expected by the end of the year. I really think that it would be right to ask the Leader’s Group to report before that.
Lord McNally
I will not commit myself to that. At the end of the year there will be a draft Bill which will itself go to legislative scrutiny. There is no rushing of fences on this. There is some serious work to be done. A very good agenda has been set up. A standing committee to look at practices and procedures may come out of—
General Election: Voting Deadline
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(15 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord McNally
The matter of payment for returning officers in the last election is for the local authorities concerned. The Electoral Commission, in its report, called for it to be given greater control to make sure that returning officers do their jobs properly.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, is there not evidence that some local authorities are skimping on the funding that they are making available for the conduct of elections? In particular, polling officers in the individual stations are not being given sufficient training. That is causing real problems in the way that they then deal with issues that arise on election day.
Lord McNally
We will learn lessons from this and there are some hard lessons to learn. For example, some local authorities looked at the three previous elections for which they had responsibility, which all had much lower turnouts. As the Electoral Commission said, that was not proper contingency planning. There is no doubt that the photographs and television pictures that went round the world were very bad public relations for British democracy. We will do all in our power to make sure that it never happens again.
Queen's Speech
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(15 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for opening our debate and congratulate him on his appointment. He is highly regarded in this House and I look forward to our future debates. It is true that I have not yet sent him a letter, principally because I no longer have the well oiled machinery of the Civil Service to write it, but he has my very warm wishes. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, on joining the Government. What a fetching sight the noble Lord and the noble Baroness make, sitting on the Front Bench together. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, will make his maiden speech today. I pay tribute to him as an outstanding Permanent Secretary and chair of the Legal Services Commission. He has much to offer your Lordships’ House.
I shall focus most of my remarks on constitutional issues and local government, while my noble friend Lord Bach will concentrate on justice and home affairs. However, I first want to respond to what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, suggested about the previous Government. He mentioned authoritarian indifference to civil rights. I remind him that it was a Labour Government who brought in the Human Rights Act, which the Conservative Party opposite continues to snipe at whenever it is given the chance and whatever the coalition agreement. I am proud that we were responsible for the Race Relations Act 2000 and the Civil Partnership Act and that one of the final pieces of legislation that we took through your Lordships’ House was the Equality Act. All those actions were about expanding the rights of the British people. At the same time, a central concern for us was always the security and safety of the UK, which faced the worst terrorist threat that this nation has ever seen. Our aim was always to get the balance right between public protection and the need to maintain the rights of individuals.
The noble Lord has outlined the Government’s proposals on CCTV, ID cards and DNA. We will study those carefully, but we need to be wary of taking actions that might undermine our ability to fight crime. We should not, for instance, underestimate the impact of CCTV in reducing the fear of crime and antisocial behaviour. Talking to people who live in the communities most affected will leave you in little doubt as to the value of CCTV. With DNA, advances in technology have played a critical part in solving serious crimes. Last year alone, 832 positive matches were made in cases of rape, murder and manslaughter.
We will also look carefully at the Government’s policing policies. The programme that the coalition has agreed to has much to say about structural changes but is ominously silent on police resources, front-line policing numbers and crime reduction targets. We shall scrutinise these policing measures carefully to ensure that the safety of our citizens is the paramount consideration.
I turn to constitutional issues. We are promised a new politics, but I have to say that the signs so far are not entirely encouraging. Indeed, many of the Government’s proposals seem more suited to the need to shore up the coalition rather than to enhance our democracy. The Government hardly made a good start with the leaking of the Queen’s Speech over the weekend and then, on Monday, with the announcement of major cuts in government expenditure not to Parliament but to the media.
On local government, the coalition agreement proclaims radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to councils. The rhetoric is impressive, but let us look at the reality. The 12 largest authorities in England are to be forced to have a referendum on an elected mayor, whether they want to or not. In education, local authorities will lose powers, influence and budgetary flexibility. The first step towards giving financial autonomy to local authorities is to instruct them to freeze council tax. With the introduction of a democratic element to the NHS and to the police, local government is being bypassed in favour of direct elections. I suspect that the only real freedom given to local government is to decide where the cuts are going to be made.
Nowhere are the needs of the coalition put first more than in its proposals on fixed-term Parliaments. As my noble friend Lord Adonis asked, why is the interval between elections to be five years? Why not four? Of the 14 general elections that have been held in the past 50 years, nine have been in or before the fourth year. Why are the public being given fewer opportunities rather than more to choose their Government?
Then there is the 55 per cent proposal. Votes of confidence have had a critical role in our Parliament; a confidence defeat for a Government leads either to a request for Dissolution or to the resignation of the Government. As the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, put it so brilliantly on Tuesday, everyone understands that, so why mess around with the principle? The reasons are evolving and changing. Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander said in the Observer on 16 May that the aim was to guard against the suspicion that one or other of the parties could,
“pull the plug”,
on the coalition,
“and force an early election”.
So this is a quick fix on the constitution, essentially because neither party in the coalition trusts the other. However, the argument has moved on. We had a rather different explanation from David Heath, the Deputy Leader in the other place, who said on Tuesday night:
“If the Government lost a vote of confidence, they would no longer be the Government … Then another party or coalition of parties might be able to form a Government from within the existing House of Commons … If no one can form a Government that has the confidence of the House, Parliament will be dissolved”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/5/10; cols. 148-49.]
That still raises a number of questions about how it might happen and the logic of 55 per cent. I remain concerned that what looks like major constitutional change is being written on the back of an envelope with apparently no intention for pre-legislative scrutiny. I can assure the noble Lord—
Lord Lucas
Does the noble Lord remember the abolition of the Lord Chancellor? Was that not rather similar?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am sure that the House will learn lessons from that experience. It all looks different from this side of the House. I can assure the noble Lord that we shall certainly scrutinise the legislation carefully.
I now turn to the alternative vote. Will the noble Baroness tell us in her winding-up speech when we can expect legislation on the proposed referendum and when the referendum is intended to be held? Will a threshold be set in terms of the turnout and the size of the majority that is required for a yes vote in the referendum to succeed? Fifty-five per cent, perhaps?
Why is the coalition bent on reducing the number of Members of Parliament? I have yet to see any persuasive arguments for that. Are 70,000 electors really too small a number for an MP to represent? The intention for more equal constituency sizes will create some unnatural constituencies, as the Electoral Commission pointed out in February. Constituencies will change more frequently, destabilising the link between MPs and constituents. Again, I suggest that the answer is bound up with a narrow, partisan interest and the proposed speeding up of individual voter registration.
We passed legislation to provide for a carefully staged transition from household registration to individual voter registration in a way that would reduce the risk of people falling off the electoral register, as happened in Northern Ireland. If that careful process is ripped up and the rollout made prematurely, millions of people could fall off the register. I remind the House that that is extremely important because constituency boundaries are drawn on the basis of registered electors. We know from the Electoral Commission that 3.5 million eligible voters are missing from the register today. They are predominantly missing in areas of poorer, younger, mobile populations. It would be wholly unacceptable for seats to be cut and boundaries redrawn on the basis of an electoral register from which millions of our fellow citizens are missing.
I am pleased that the Government are supporting the implementations of the Wright committee’s proposals to make the House of Commons more effective, but what of your Lordships’ House? I noted with interest the remarks made on Tuesday by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who said:
“I also believe that we should look afresh at our working practices. I do not think we should lose sight of the remarkable privileges that Peers already enjoy, such as the right, not given to Back-Bench Members in another place, to table amendments at three stages of a Bill, and to have each one heard and replied to. We should always keep our working practices up to date”.—[Official Report, 25/5/10; col. 22.]
The noble Lord’s rather late conversion to procedural reform is, on the face of it, most welcome, but I say to him that any attempt to restrict the right of Back-Benchers to scrutinise legislation will be firmly resisted. I am happy to discuss the report of the Labour Peers’ working group, which was in the context of a wider debate about the conventions and the pressing against the boundaries of those conventions by the party opposite at the time.
Finally, I come to reform of your Lordships’ House. The coalition parties have agreed to establish a committee. That is progress indeed. The noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Strathclyde, and I have already spent many happy hours in such a committee. I must put a question to the Minister, as I am not sure what the committee is going to be asked to do. It seems that the outcome of its work is already known. He has already said it today: a mainly or wholly elected upper Chamber under PR and a system of grandfathering for the current Peers. So what is left for the committee to do? What will the composition of the committee be? Will its outcome be a White Paper and will a draft Bill be published for pre-legislative scrutiny?
Grandfathering is not really about the transition; it is a term used in the regulation of professions and essentially it means that existing practitioners go forward into the new qualified regulated profession. It is clear that grandfathering means that existing Members become Members of a reformed House. I ask the noble Baroness to confirm my interpretation.
In the mean time, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, confirmed, we are faced with the apparent intention of the coalition to appoint dozens, if not hundreds, of new Peers. Why is this being done, given that the Government already heavily outnumber the Opposition, with 258 Members compared to our 211? There has long been an understanding that there should be rough parity between the Government and the main Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has eloquently put the case for a strong second Chamber. In his Politeia article, he argued:
“The executive may not want a second opinion, but every country needs a Parliamentary system that provides one. Part of that must lie in a strong, independent House of Lords”.
Are those the words of a leading Member of a coalition that advocates swamping the Lords to give the Government an inbuilt and overwhelming majority?
Then there is the question of the conventions. I ask the noble Baroness to confirm that the committee will look at how the current conventions will be underpinned and the primacy of the Commons assured in an elected House. I remind her of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, on the conventions, which made it clear that firm proposals for changing the composition of the House would require a re-examination of those conventions.
The coalition professes that it wants to strengthen Parliament to create a new politics. I would have thought that this should have been grounded in promises that the parties made to the public in the recent election. However, when we look at the proposals to be brought before us, how many do we see that were in the manifestos of the two parties? The Conservatives were certainly silent on a referendum on the alternative vote. They were also silent on fixed-term Parliaments. The Conservatives were silent on the intervals between elections to be fixed at five years, as were, incidentally, the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives were silent on the 55 per cent super-majority required for the Dissolution of Parliament, as were the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives were silent on their intention to give the Executive a massive majority in the Lords, as were the Liberal Democrats. We see proposals for major constitutional change that were not put to the British people at the recent election. They were cobbled together behind closed doors. They amount to a lack of trust between the two parties and they will do little—
Lord Tyler
Does the noble Lord now resile from all the promises made by Mr Gordon Brown before, during and since the general election on AV, on fixed-term Parliaments and on implementing the White Paper produced by Mr Jack Straw? Is the Labour Party’s position now that it does not stand on any of its manifesto commitments?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Of course not, my Lords. Indeed, the White Paper on Lords reform, for example, could form the basis of the committee that is going to meet to discuss this further, although in that White Paper we did not embrace the concept of grandfathering. I have to say to the noble Lord that his intervention was irrelevant. The fact is that these proposals on their own will do little to restore public confidence in our democracy. They are clearly being brought together as a package to suit the convenience of a coalition agreement. Essentially, this is not so much a new politics as an old-fashioned stitch-up between the two oldest parties.