House of Lords: Post-legislative Scrutiny

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is really rich coming from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. He supported a Government who, over the past 13 years, gave rise to an outpouring of legislation quite unlike anything that we have ever seen in our history. Constitutional changes were dreamt up on the back of an envelope and introduced to Parliament with minimal thought and discussion and with no pre-announcement.

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is certainly my intention to have discussions with the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition and with the Convenor of the Cross Benches as to how we should progress this and whether, before doing so, we should perhaps have a more general debate on the working practices of the House.

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords, would the noble Lord be prepared to consider introducing sunset clauses to all legislation as a means of reducing the volume of legislation from recent levels? If not, what about introducing the repeal of legislation to reduce some of the legislation that we have had?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is certainly our intention shortly to bring before Parliament a Bill that will repeal some of the highly authoritarian legislation that was passed under the previous Government. As far as sunset clauses are concerned, in many instances they are extremely desirable.