Parliamentary Proceedings: Statistics

Lord Ryder of Wensum Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ryder of Wensum (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for initiating this important debate. Our constitution has emerged over centuries without plans or planners, yet checks and balances to it have evolved all the while. The noble Lord has proposed a modest constitutional balance tonight and I wholeheartedly support it.

My support stems partly from the decision taken at the turn of the century by the then Administration of Mr Tony Blair to impose House of Commons guillotine Motions, euphemistically known as programme Motions, on government Bills. This has led to vast segments of Bills receiving no scrutiny at all in the other place. Even those parts of Bills examined by elected Members often confirm a lack of rigour and attention to the detail on their behalf. Here I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for whom I have great respect. I was the Chief Whip in the other place for six years before automatic guillotines came about and it simply was not the case that a huge number of Bills were guillotined. In my six years, very few Bills ever were, and had I been subjected, as I often was, to the attitude of stopping on Clause 1 and forcing the Government to guillotine a Bill, I rejected that attitude. Once it was clear that I rejected it, you did not have to try again.

I come to the point—I was unaware of it—raised by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about four and a half hours being allocated to a Finance Bill. This House, of course, is not allowed to go line by line through a Finance Bill. Again, if I may use some personal experience, 30 years ago when I was a Treasury Minister speaking on Finance Bills, I received the most difficult time that I have ever had as a politician in answering detailed questions for 60, 70 or 80 hours—line by line—on those Bills. I did not realise which example the noble Lord would raise, and I feel that it is deeply regrettable.

The Conservative Opposition promised to abolish the automatic guillotining of Bills before the 2010 general election, but they reneged on the pledge by caving into elected Members who confused, and still confuse, an efficient House of Commons with an effective House of Commons. Efficient it may be, effective it is not. I fear that the other place is becoming an arena assembly, and arguably only a part-time one at that, and that it no longer functions as an effective, transformative legislature.

Another consequence of the absence of rigorous scrutiny in the other place is an increase in the number of judicial reviews, leaving aside the implications of Pepper v Hart in 1993. The resurgence of judicial reviews has irritated Ministers and officials and it is small wonder that the Cabinet Office has published, and republished, a pamphlet for use by civil servants entitled The Judge over Your Shoulder. That pamphlet could also be distributed to Ministers and Members of Parliament and I think it would help them, too.

I also want to emphasise, as other noble Lords have, the importance of ensuring that statistics on hours spent in parliamentary proceedings on each part of what becomes an Act should include the time taken on Bills in their draft form as well as in pre-legislative scrutiny. In my experience, the procedure of pre-legislative scrutiny has enhanced the quality of Acts of Parliament. In particular, I recall in your Lordships’ House the Communications Bill of 2003 and the Civil Contingencies Bill of 2004, which were prime examples of the success of this procedure. In contrast, I also recollect the chaos caused by the Public Bodies Bill of 2010, which was not subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny and was deficient on almost every count.

I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Young is answering this debate from the Front Bench. Few people in either House have as much knowledge as he does about the subject under consideration and I share the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that he may answer this debate in a very positive fashion.

Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Ryder of Wensum Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ryder of Wensum]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, on bringing forward this Bill. I believe that I am the only former Member of the other place taking part in this debate, so I am delighted about the support—often courageous support—given to the Bill by honourable and right honourable Members. It is generally held that about 18% of adults in the UK suffer from at least one form of common mental disorder. This means that in any one Parliament, over 100 MPs fall within that category. Although I understand that just one Member of Parliament was removed for the reason of unsoundness of mind in the 20th century, this Bill has obliged elected Members to be far more conscious of the problems of mental health. Psychiatric disorders take many forms: depression, anxiety, bereavement, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias and adult ADHD.

More Members of Parliament recognise the human costs of these disorders as well as the costs to the economy in terms of welfare, sickness, absenteeism and the loss of productivity which sets the economy back by £41 billion a year, merely in England. Mental health consumes 14% of the NHS budget. That is why we should all welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, is setting up a new charity, seeded by a £20 million grant from the Wellcome Trust, to conduct,

“research that helps our understanding of the brain’s innate characteristics and responses to external influences in order to reduce the burden of psychiatric disorders”.

I hope that this charity is a great success, because a great deal of work still needs to be done on mental disorders. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, warrants our praise and gratitude for setting up this charity.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Ryder of Wensum Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, it is avoided precisely by the concept of the long mandate, which is non-renewable and with no right to go on to the House of Commons. That means that someone coming here would not be able to develop a political career and go forward to be a senior Minister of the Crown.

[Lord Ryder of Wensum]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. I have known him for many decades and I would never accuse him of naivety, but I have been following his speech carefully. If the other House continues to automatically guillotine every piece of legislation, what is to prevent this House from doing exactly the same and therefore being a mirror image of the other House by not revising legislation properly?

[Lord True]

My Lords, the procedures of this House are not currently in a state which would enable the Executive to impose the guillotine. Nor would that be the case in a House in which the political element would be smaller but selected in a different way. If I may, I would like to get on.

I accept that election would change the relations between the Houses, and of course the absurd Clause 2 of the draft Bill is froth, but the balance of power between the Houses is in my submission not a zero-sum game. Both Houses, acting more assertively, could claw back powers surrendered to the Executive, and perhaps other authorities too. However, and here I agree with others, there is no point in reform to include election if you also try to restrain the powers elected Members might exercise. Aside from the risk of letting in the courts, you simply secure all the confusion that follows radical change with none of the benefits that might follow from constructive and confident challenge. If that is the game, I want no part of it.

Elected Members with a mandate will not wish to be restrained. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was quite right yesterday to say that nothing is so transforming as seeing those pieces of paper with crosses by your name being tipped on to a trestle table. This House would be different and would behave differently. I agree that it is equally absurd to say that an elected Peer would not respond in a representative capacity; of course he would. My noble friend Lord Trimble described the realities in Australia. Is it really suggested that a Senator should write back to an elector saying, “I’m not able to help you because I’m not allowed an office and I might upset an MP”? The idea is a farce.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Forsyth that no one in either House, particularly in the House of Commons, should be blind to the uncomfortable effects for them of creating a stronger House here which, if we go through all the trauma of change and reform, would and should be ready to challenge aspects of Commons primacy. It so happens that I differ from my noble friend because I believe that, done correctly, the benefits of such challenge might outweigh the problems many have described.

To conclude, I am not going to be the first to proclaim the merits of the Bill. I cannot accept, for example, that in the form of election we should send back to the British people another version of the proportional voting systems that have only lately been rejected in a referendum. That may be okay overseas, but I expect rather better from my Government. The voting paper on page 123 of the Joint Committee’s excellent report reminds me of one of those hospital menus where you tick the box for roast beef and Yorkshire but end up with a vegetable omelette and mushy peas. If we are to have election, please let it be simple and first past the post. I also agree that introducing election here would be a major change to our Parliament and should be put to the people in a referendum. However, I cannot agree that faced with the manifest failings of our 21st-century Parliament and the crying need—the age-old need around which Parliament grew up—to control better the actions of the Executive, the Members of this House should sit back and say to the British people, “Leave us out of it. There is no remedy in changing the composition here”. There might be, and we should consider the Bill maturely when, or if, it arrives.