Liaison Committee
Debate between Lord Sewel and Lord Higgins
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, the present Parliament has seen House of Lords Select Committee activity at a higher level than ever before, including two additional units of committee activity. This increase, including in particular the growth of ad hoc committees and the introduction of post-legislative scrutiny committees, has been popular with Members and has added to the work of your Lordships’ House and its standing in the country. So, too, has been the practice of inviting Members of the House to suggest their own proposals for ad hoc committees. This year, we had 42 proposals by the time of the deadline.
As usual, the Liaison Committee discussed the work of this Session’s ad hoc committees with their respective chairmen. We concluded that the three new ad hoc committees and the post-legislative scrutiny committee on extradition law worked well. The committee recommended maintaining the current high level of committee activity in the first Session of the new Parliament.
We have also made provision to support the work of pre-legislative scrutiny committees in the new Parliament, recognising that the production of draft Bills in the first Session after a general election can—shall we say?—be somewhat unpredictable. There has been one such committee this Session—the Joint Committee on the Draft Protection of Charities Bill, which has recently reported.
Turning to our recommendations for ad hoc committees in the next Session, we bore in mind our previous agreement in principle that one of the committees chosen each Session should be on an international relations subject. The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, proposed a Select Committee on sexual violence in conflict: the UK and global response. As she highlighted in her proposal, there is a growing recognition that war-zone sexual violence is a key foreign policy and security issue. There is cross-party consensus on the importance of this issue but there has never been a parliamentary committee of either House exploring it in depth. An ad hoc committee on sexual violence in conflict would therefore be breaking new ground, and we recommend the appointment of such a committee in the new Session.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Whitaker, proposed a Select Committee on policy for the built environment—another area where a cross-cutting inquiry is overdue. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, proposed a Select Committee on social mobility, focusing on the transition from school to work. The Liaison Committee thought that such an inquiry would be timely in the light of increasing recognition of social mobility as a key social policy issue. The Liaison Committee recommended the appointment of an ad hoc committee on each of those subjects.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, proposed a post-legislative scrutiny committee on the disability provisions of the Equality Act 2010. This Act is wide-ranging, and the committee agreed with the noble Baroness that limiting the review to disability would help ensure a focused inquiry, allowing it to examine the issues in greater detail within the one Session.
With 42 proposals, inevitably it is not possible to please all Members of the House. However, I am confident that these new committees will deliver as high a quality of report as those which have just reported. In the present Parliament, the House of Lords Select Committee system has gone from strength to strength. Long may this continue. I beg to move.
Lord Higgins (Con)
My Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate the Liaison Committee and those who have been involved in the negotiations on ensuring that in future Treasury officials and Ministers will appear in front of the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House. Until now, that has not been the case, with the one exception of an economic committee. It is plainly wrong that Ministers and officials should not have appeared before your Lordships’ committee on matters in which the Treasury is clearly involved. Therefore, ensuring that in future we will have the benefit of evidence from Treasury officials and Ministers is a considerable step forward.
Administration and Works Committee
Debate between Lord Sewel and Lord Higgins(11 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Chairman of Committees
If I could clarify, I am prepared to take back the report purely on the limited area of the use of Millbank House. If, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, persists in his amendment, I will maintain the report and the Millbank House option will not be considered.
Lord Higgins
In that case, the situation is rather clearer and I had misunderstood. Would it not be more sensible for the noble Lord to take it back to the committee without any restraint on what it can discuss? If we go ahead and, as I think is likely, carry the noble Lord’s amendment, then we are tying the hands of the committee when it needs to take into account the wider issues, including the use of Room G. I should have thought we could proceed on that basis.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, perhaps I might offer a bit of advice. We did think that the Chairman of Committees had said that he would agree to a reference back to consider Millbank House. However, he said it on the basis of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, not pursuing a vote on his amendment. I sense the feeling of the House would be that, even if the noble Lord were to pursue the amendment to a vote—and he were to lose—the committee might still consider the Millbank House option. Might he not just reflect on that?
Administration and Works Committee
Debate between Lord Sewel and Lord Higgins
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, this is a short and straightforward report. On 10 March 2011, the House agreed the committee’s first report, which recommended new rules to clarify where electronic devices can and cannot be used in the House. In that report, the committee recommended that Members should be able to use hand-held electronic devices when addressing the Chamber or Grand Committee. That report also recommended that,
“for a one-year trial period in the first instance, Members taking part in proceedings should be able to use electronic devices to access Parliamentary papers and other documents which are clearly and closely relevant to the business before the House or Grand Committee”.
This subsequent report recommends that Members should be able to use hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and Grand Committee,
“for any purpose, provided that they are silent and are used with discretion”.
This is in line with the rules adopted by the House of Commons. It also recognises the current reality and the impossibility of policing the purpose for which a device is being used. I see that the opposition Chief Whip is taking a close interest in this.
While reviewing the rules for Members, the committee also considered that the rules should be applied to officials advising Members in the Chamber and Grand Committee. The committee felt that it would be sensible to apply the same rules to officials as for Members, and therefore recommended that officials should be able to use hand-held electronic devices for any purpose, provided that they are silent and, again, used with discretion. Furthermore, the committee specifically recommended that officials should be able to use such devices to access information for use in debate and communicate directly with Members in the Chamber or Grand Committee. Nevertheless, these proposals would deprive the House of the innocent pleasure of observing the cavalry, in the form of the government Whip, riding to the rescue of a besieged Minister grasping a vital note from the Box. Similarly, Ministers would be spared the task—and I speak with some experience—of desperately trying to decipher an illegible note. I hope that both these factors will be of benefit to the House.
The recommendations contained in this report recognise and reflect the evolving use of electronic devices by Members in this House. I believe that the recommendations are a sensible and logical way in which to simplify the current rules and allow Members to use electronic devices in a way that supports them in their parliamentary duties, should they wish to do so. I beg to move.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the convention in this House, and indeed in the House of Commons, is that speeches should not be read and therefore that it would be inappropriate to read a speech off an iPad or similar device?
Lord Sewel
I thank the noble Lord for that question because it gives me the opportunity to make an important clarification. The use of electronic devices should be used in the same way that notes are used. They should not be used as a means of presenting an entire speech.