Procedure of the House
Debate between Lord Trefgarne and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I will be brief and may no doubt be very easily persuaded to withdraw my amendment. I accept the principal conclusion of the Procedure Committee, which is that there should not be, in present circumstances in any event, an appeal against the decisions of the Lord Speaker. However, it is important that it is understood—I have to confess it was not well understood by me—that representations can be made to the Lord Speaker when permission to ask the Question is sought and should normally be made in writing. It would be nice if the Lord Speaker was willing, in principle if not in detail, to receive verbal representations for this matter because, as the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees has said, time is often very short and it simply might not be possible to write a suitable letter in the short time available. If he was able say that in principle the Lord Speaker would be willing to receive verbal representations, provided her diary was suitably free, that would be of great assistance to me. I beg to move.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I hope that this House will not pass this without substantial discussion. It really is quite an outrageous series of suggestions. I go from time to time to schools, under the guidance of the Lord Speaker and her predecessor, as part of the Peers in Schools programme to talk about this House and how effective it is in scrutinising legislation, challenging the Government and in debates. Over the past year in particular, I have begun to doubt whether I am actually telling them the truth when I say that. We are cutting down the time in which we can debate and challenge.
To give one or two examples before I touch on the precise issues of this report, the Leader of the House gave us an extra week of Easter Recess without any consultation, when we were not able to discuss, challenge, raise Questions or take up Statements that were made in the other place. We will be proroguing a lot earlier than ever: tomorrow, as I understand it. Important debates on membership of the European Union and nuclear energy were held the day before yesterday in Grand Committee. In a major debate on nuclear energy, Members were told that they had three minutes to talk. This is ridiculous. We are not debating things properly. Those two debates in the Grand Committee should have been on the Floor of the House and there should have been time to discuss them properly.
My friend the noble Lord, Lord Martin, and I have raised the issue of PNQs on the Floor of the House. There is 10 minutes for supplementary questions when Urgent Questions are repeated here. This is not just a question of the Front Bench. Both the Minister and the Opposition took up minute after minute, but then other Members spoke at length so there was insufficient time to ask questions. All that the committee is suggesting is that we remind Members of what is in the Companion. We can do that until we are blue, or red, in the face; we will still not get the message over to people. Why do we have to limit it to 10 minutes? Do people want to rush home at five o’clock for their tea? I just do not understand. We should be here to ask questions, to challenge, to discuss and debate. That is what we are here for. To limit it to 10 minutes seems totally arbitrary and ridiculous.
The Chairman of Committees said that the committee looked at but rejected giving Oral Questions 40 minutes instead of 30 to allow more time, which would have let more people come in. They say instead that they should limit such Questions to seven per Member in a year. Why limit it arbitrarily to seven? That seems totally gratuitous. Then, in order to persuade us, the Chairman of Committees says that it does not matter very much because it affects only seven Members, and the maximum number of Questions they ask is 10. If that is the number of Members and Questions, it will make no substantial difference. It is an unnecessary restriction.
I am afraid that this is typical of what comes from the Procedure Committee. It does not want debate and discussion. It does not want the Executive and their control challenged. We know that it is controlled by the Leader of the House and the government Chief Whip. It is about time that people admitted this and said so: that they control what is happening. They do not want the Government to be questioned and challenged. After the next election we will be changing sides. We will be the Government. I ask the people opposite to think of that.