House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I spent part of the weekend reading last week’s two-day debate in which I was unable to take part. One thing that struck me was the number of noble Lords who referred to the fact that many outside organisations—voluntary bodies, NGOs, trade associations and so on—find it much easier to make their points to noble Lords in this House than they do at the other end of the Palace. That applies particularly to legislation. Therefore, in my few minutes I shall reinforce what has already been said by other noble Lords.

There is the question of how we could deal better with legislation. The first proposal, which has already been discussed and I can deal with briefly, is that we should have a more settled process for pre-legislative scrutiny. I was intrigued by what my noble friend the Leader of the House said in opening the debate: more draft Bills have been introduced in the past year than for some time. I welcome that, although I am not sure that I welcome the House of Lords Reform Bill. However, the fact remains that this is a very important process.

I say this with the experience of having served on what was not technically a pre-legislative committee but a committee on a Bill in draft. That Bill was originally called the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill. Anyone who served on that committee will recognise the enormous value of hearing expert evidence from a variety of sources, which enabled us to make some very important recommendations on the Bill—not least those that persuaded the Government to abandon one part of it. It was brilliantly chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough—Phil Willis MP, as he then was—and was an extremely effective process.

That is the way to do it. The other place might find hearing evidence for a day or so just before Second Reading useful; I found this pre-legislative or draft Bill process to be much the most effective process and I hope that we might do it. I am moved to suspect that, had we done that on the Public Bodies Bill, a very different Bill would have finally been presented to Parliament by my noble friends.

Secondly, on legislative standards, I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was a member of the group and will be speaking later. I suspect that he might have had a good deal to do with the proposal as it has found its way into the report because he and I were both involved with Sir Christopher Foster’s Better Government Initiative, of which this was a very important part, which tried to make sure that legislation that comes before Parliament is much more fit for purpose than it so often is. The main purpose of having parliamentary scrutiny on the lines spelled out is that it will sharpen the minds of those who prepare Bills in government departments when they realise that this is what they are going to have to put before Parliament. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, has to say about that later. I wholly agree with my noble friend Lord Maclennan that it should of course be considered by a Joint Committee, as indeed was the Bill that I referred to a few moments ago.

Finally, it has become apparent, and there is very wide acceptance, that post-legislative scrutiny is now essential. It is not just “motherhood and apple pie”, as the report quoted; it has become absolutely essential to see not only whether legislation has achieved its purpose but, almost more importantly, that no unintended consequences have flowed from the Bill, which so often do the damage. Again, I agree with my noble friend Lord MacGregor that this activity must be a joint one. This House must be involved; it cannot be left to the departmental Select Committees at the other end, because we look at these things. This point has been made by a number of noble Lords. We are complementary. We have a different perspective, often a longer-term one that is not so immediately pressured by the immediate political pressures that one is under in the other place. This will be hugely important.

To finish, I have tabled an amendment to the Localism Bill that will provide a measure of post-legislative scrutiny.