Review of Investigative and Scrutiny Committees (Liaison Committee Report)

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, the whole House owes the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and his colleagues a vote of thanks for this report, because it moves us into a new era. In particular, I strongly support the move to a more comprehensive system of thematic policy committees. I will, however, suggest a few modifications, some of which overlap points made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell.

The work of the investigative and policy committees of the House of Lords is widely respected, recognised and appreciated. But it is not clear how influential all that work is in society and among decision-makers outside this Palace. Authoritative reports and in-depth analysis that appear on the bookshelves of the movers and shakers of Britain and Europe in the form of House of Lords reports are all very well, but we need to make sure that a wider influence is exerted on minds throughout the kingdom and beyond. That means a broader engagement, as is recognised by this report. The House needs to catch up with changes in society, technology and communications to enable us to engage with, and act for, a wider range of organisations and individuals. In that regard, we require reform of process and the form of the final product.

With regard to process, our established mode of operating involves contacting organisations—most of which are on a pre-existing list—and others and bringing them to Westminster or asking them to write to us, with occasional excursions outside London, usually to the regional manifestations of the same organisations we have invited here.

Those responses are then analysed, debated within the committee and eventually in the Chamber, and written up by highly competent and effective staff who have recourse to external research facilities. This ends up in a standard format, having gone through a pretty standard process. We need to increase the use of open meetings at the beginning, at the end, and in later follow-ups, in the form of round tables and focus groups that are less well controlled and happen much more outside London—possibly using social media, telephone conferencing and so on—involving the citizens of this country as well as a wide range of organisations and individuals, who often have very fixed and particular views. For that final product I am old-fashioned enough to need a written copy of almost everything that I can hold in my hand. However, we also need to produce it in a form that is accessible to social media, is interactive and can act as a two-way channel of communication and education—the educational dimension of this, as I mentioned, also being very important.

To this end, at the beginning of any inquiry the committee undertaking it needs to establish the means of engagement, communication and follow-through to meet that wider remit. The report recognises that, but we need to push it much further and faster, which will mean significant changes in the administration of this House. My key point, however, is the need for comprehensive coverage by policy committees in this House.

I have been in this House for more than 20 years. When I first arrived I was a radical, and wanted this House to change into an elected Chamber. I have not changed my basic views on that: when the Labour Government and the coalition Government attempted it, I was strongly in support. Nevertheless, I also recognise that the strength of argument for an appointed Chamber—appointed to any degree—is that it brings to the legislative process an expertise that is not normally available. By coincidence—I was going to say by mistake —it sometimes delivers extremely competent, well-informed and well-qualified individuals. However, that is not their main reason for being here, whereas many appointed Members of this House are here by reason of a distinguished career behind them in all sorts of specialist areas and a life experience which is not necessarily reflected in the political process. That is the strongest argument for having an appointed element within a legislature.

When I first came here, I was astonished that the areas of policy in which I was most interested were not covered by a single committee of this House. Of course, that has changed a bit in the past few years. We have a Constitution Committee and a Communications Committee using the expertise of people in this House and others who reflect a more general view. More recently, we have established an International Relations Committee, which has used the skills of retired Permanent Secretaries, retired heads of service and so forth—the kinds of people whose expertise was being underused. I am not saying that we should have committees of experts—we need not only the experts from this House but also its lay Members, including in that context the odd Bishop—but the expertise and life experience of the Members of this House are needed in delivering areas of policy. Some of that has fallen by default to the European affairs committee and its whole structure. For the past seven years, I have been in the sub-committee structure of the EU Select Committee. We heard yesterday from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, that its expertise will continue to be needed—although that is being made more difficult by the Government at this point—but it will be a diminishing requirement. There will therefore be a run-down of the call on Members, staff and resources from the EU end post Brexit, however much I may regret that.

It would have been delightful had the new structure conceived by this committee and proposed to the House today coincided with the winding-up of the EU Committee substructure—we will need a European Select Committee, but we will not eventually, post Brexit, need a full substructure. Regrettably, they will not coincide, but we ought to plan the phasing of a move across from the substructure of the EU Select Committee to the more comprehensive structure of thematic committees. That could start now, but it will need to be well managed and well planned in advance.

In my view, there are some serious and immediate gaps in the list of thematic committees today proposed. I welcome the proposal for a public services committee—that was a huge gap—but there are other gaps and everybody will have their own wish list, some of which may be mentioned in the debate. Clearly, industrial policy is now subsumed by economic affairs—if my noble friend Lord Hollick were here, he would be arguing strongly for a separate industrial policy committee. There is also the issue of trade, although I think that the trade committee needs to be a Joint Committee of the two Houses in a post-Brexit era—I shall refer to that in a subsequent debate today.

There is one area not included in the list which is of great salience and importance to us and which is partly covered by the EU Select Committees but will rapidly not be approached solely as an EU matter; that is, climate change. This House and the other House and the Government having declared a climate crisis, it is somewhat bizarre that in a new list of thematic committees the House of Lords does not have a committee which covers climate change. I therefore hope that the House will soon recommend the addition of a climate change committee to the list of thematic committees.

In the last resort, the quality and effectiveness of our committees depend not only on the quality and engagement of their members but on the quality of their staff. Therefore, if we are proposing a phased move across to a new structure, it is important that it is managed effectively as well. We are blessed with an extremely diligent, informed, intelligent and adaptable staff, but adaptability has its limits and it has to be managed. I am still after 20 years a little unclear as to how the management processes for staff in this House operate, but if we are to provide for the substructure of staffing of these committees, it is clear that we need a properly managed, effective and holistic approach to the management of the staff and the other resources which go into them. Without a staff, none of our present format of committees would work, and certainly the more complex processes and products that I am envisaging and that the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and his committee have envisaged, could not be delivered. Therefore, the staff are key.