Select Committee Effectiveness, Resources and Powers

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

That is certainly true and I think it is one of the issues that will have to be examined by the Joint Committee, which is about to embark on this work. The problems are difficult to solve and affect only a few inquiries. They certainly affected the work of my hon. Friend’s Committee, which was notably successful in getting some potentially unwilling witnesses to appear before it. I congratulate him on what the Committee achieved.

It should be stressed that, for the vast majority of the time, Committees deal with willing witnesses who are very happy to come and be examined by us, even if, sometimes, they are critically examined. Most of the time, we are gaining information from willing witnesses. I will come in a moment to what happens when we deal with Government. So far as all other bodies and persons are concerned, the instances in which a draconian power might be required are very few. My hon. Friend is right that such powers as the House has in this area are not very easy to use, and we will have to further consider that issue.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

What was the Liaison Committee’s thinking behind paragraph 133 of the report? It states that the Committee was

“persuaded that the disadvantages of enshrining parliamentary privilege in statute would outweigh the benefits”,

but that conclusion was reached ahead of all the work that is being done. It seems to pre-empt a lot of work that is ongoing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I welcome the report from the Liaison Committee. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and all right hon. and hon. Members of his Committee on their work. We have heard from some of them this afternoon: my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), and my hon. Friends the Members for Aberavon (Dr Francis) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley). All do excellent work in their Select Committees to hold Government and other organisations to account.

As the report says, looking back over the last year of activity, Select Committees have done an important and successful job. The role of Select Committees has been continually evolving ever since their creation by Norman St John Stevas, who sadly passed away last year. The election of Chairs and of Committee members has strengthened the independence of Committees. It is two years since that was implemented following the recommendation of the Wright report, and it has worked well.

As the report states, despite the many demands on Members’ time, attendance is high—approximately 75%—and very few Members have a low attendance rate. The Committee noted that there are often good reasons for low attendance, not least the need to be in several places at once—something Members know only too well. That rate reflects the importance the House attaches to the role of Committees, and, I suspect, the impact that membership of a Committee can have on job satisfaction.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She made reference to the difficulties that Committees face. Many Members are placed on Bill Committees and Statutory Instrument Committees, and many are lost to the increasing size of the Executive, including Parliamentary Private Secretaries, and the shadow Executive.

[Ms Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not know what the answer is, given that Members of Parliament often have ambitions to be in the shadow Government or the Government and like to get promoted. We have made progress in the past few years in setting up a career path for those who wish to specialise in Select Committees, particularly in the area of scrutiny.

The report rightly says that holding the Government to account is the main purpose of Committee work. However, our constituents expect more than that. Parliament is here to hold the powerful to account, as well as the Government. Major multinationals are one example of powerful organisations that our constituents expect us to hold to account.

In that context, I congratulate the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who is in his place, on their work. The PAC has exposed the shocking conduct of companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google in minimising the taxes they pay in this country. The work of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in its relentless pursuit and questioning of News International over phone hacking, often when the issue was ignored by many others, has already been commented on. I would like to add my congratulations to its members on playing such a major role in uncovering the scandal. It is only right that we use this debate to highlight the important work that our Select Committee system has done and to congratulate those involved on the work they do. The Liaison Committee’s report rightly praises the Transport Committee, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), for its inquiry into motor insurance, which brought to light a major scandal.

It is not only major companies, however, that Select Committees need to scrutinise. The Government’s programme of increasing the involvement of the private sector in public services and the breaking up of the health service means that lines of accountability are becoming more and more blurred. The House and Select Committees have the opportunity to scrutinise what these new organisations are up to with public money, and we have to ensure that the Select Committees maintain their ability to follow public money, even if that involves the accounts of private companies. That is an area to which we have to pay particular attention given some of the changes being made.

I agree with the Liaison Committee report that the primary function of Select Committees is to scrutinise the Government, but I do not want to minimise the important role they perform in holding others to account. We share the Committee’s disappointment that the Government have not published more Bills in draft. They only published 18 Bills in draft in the 2010-12 parliamentary Session. Pre-legislative scrutiny is beneficial to the legislative process and is an area where Committees made up of members with in-depth policy knowledge can add real value. Will the Leader of the House commit, therefore, to increasing the proportion of Bills that the Government publish in draft? Even when the Government have published bills in draft, however, they have allowed insufficient time in some cases for effective pre-legislative scrutiny.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Department for Education on conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of the special educational needs clauses of a forthcoming Bill. It was a tight timetable, but it gave us the chance to do the job. Ministers have been very open to meetings and to following up and taking onboard the advice of the Committee. It really can work.

[Ms Eagle]

As someone who gave evidence before entering the House to what were then known as Special Standing Committees, which evolved into pre-legislative scrutiny Committees, I think it is important to highlight best practice and carry on evolving positively the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny.

The Energy Bill and the Civil Aviation Bill are cited in the Committee’s report as examples of where the Government have not allowed enough time for Select Committees to do their work. The Committee is also right to highlight the shambles of the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill: the Select Committee members reorganised their work to enable scrutiny of the Bill at very short notice, only for the Government to pull the Bill and re-introduce it this Session. In retrospect, Committee Members could have spent many hours scrutinising it without the time constraint, which turned out not to be a time constraint. I hope that the Leader of the House will take note of the need for better organisation.

We note the Liaison Committee’s suggestion that Commons Select Committees should have first choice on whether to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny, rather than it being a decision of the Government. A Joint Committee could make a valuable contribution, but it is this House that is democratically elected and, as the Liaison Committee rights says in its report, it would make sense for a Committee of this House to consider whether a Bill should be referred to a Joint Committee. Will the Leader of the House comment on that suggestion?

[Sir Alan Beith]

There is a further strong argument, which is that once there is a Joint Committee, election will no longer be the process by which this House elects Committees. Instead, the Whips will perform the kind of function that they normally perform for Bill Committees, and that is not what we want.

[Ms Eagle]

I note that that is precisely the point the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee members made in their report. By highlighting that section, I am agreeing with him.

It is also worth considering whether we should go one step further. At the moment, it is for the Government to decide whether to use pre-legislative scrutiny at all. The Government are currently rushing ill-thought-out welfare legislation through the House that will hit people in work on low incomes the hardest. This is a piece of legislation that would have benefited from pre-legislative scrutiny, particularly evidence sessions. That was not allowed to happen, so could the Leader of the House consider whether, allowing for the Government to legislate immediately when there is an obvious need, we could have a Committee of this House deciding whether a Bill should receive pre-legislative scrutiny? These are not suggestions on which I have a settled view, but I am interested in hearing the views of right hon. and hon. Members about possible changes in that direction.

The Liaison Committee is right to comment on the role of Select Committees in scrutinising ministerial appointments. As it says in its report, the Committee previously commented on this in its 2011 report, “Select Committees and Public Appointments”, which made recommendations for reforming the process. The Government’s response prompted a further report from the Liaison Committee last September, which highlighted the

“inadequacy of the Government’s response to our proposals”.

There has been no response from the Government to date, which is clearly unsatisfactory. This has been left hanging in the air for far too long, so will the Leader of the House say when the Government will be responding?

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Governments tend to grow more and more grudging about ceding powers, whereas parties in opposition make free—they return to philosophical first principles and they tend to make promises. Let me push the hon. Lady on this point. What is the Labour party’s position on a few of these points? She should put it on the record. If there is ever a Labour Government in future, it may or may not be her that takes that position forward, but it would be useful to have on the record some promises that we can hold someone to account for in future.

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman is tempting me in all sorts of areas. I hope he realises from the tone of what I am saying that I am particularly interested in seeing what we can do to strengthen the role of the legislature in some of these areas. It is important to have a debate about the practicalities before we formulate an approach to this in the run-up to the next election. I am sure that he will be an avid reader of what comes out of that.

The Liaison Committee describes the main role of Select Committees as “influencing” Government. I understand the point the Committee is seeking to make. In outlining the role of Select Committees, the functions it describes are scrutinising and holding the Government to account. For me, however, the language of “scrutiny” is preferable to “influencing”. The measure of a Select Committee’s success should not be the sum total of its recommendations that the Government adopt. The core objectives of Select Committees, as first set out by the Modernisation Committee in 2002, have worked well, with an emphasis on their role in scrutinising the Government. However, the Liaison Committee was right to consider whether more streamlined objectives would be suitable. The proposed new guidance for Select Committees is sensible, although I note that it places a lot of weight on Select Committees in terms of their duties.

I agree with what the Liaison Committee says about how Select Committees can act as a public forum for ideas to be debated. I agree that this is an element of Select Committee work, but there are many routes for debates to take place in Parliament. It is not the primary purpose of Select Committee work to set off debates. I regret the fact that it has had to propose a compact between the Government and parliamentary Committees —again, a feature of the report we are debating—but sadly this appears necessary. The Government’s guidelines to Departments—the Osmotherly rules—state that

“departments should aim to respond to reports within two months”,

but as the Liaison Committee notes, responses frequently appear much later.

It says something about this Government that the Cabinet Office, which is supposed to be taking the lead on making government more efficient, took nine months to respond to the Liaison Committee’s report on “Select Committees and Public Appointments”, when we would have wanted it to lead a little more by example. When Government Departments finally get round to responding to Select Committee reports, the responses are often inadequate. In its evidence to the Liaison Committee, the Regulatory Policy Institute’s better government programme described the Government’s responses as “models of evasion”. Will the Leader of the House say something about what Ministers could do to respond to these criticisms from the Liaison Committee and perhaps to improve performance in the areas of timeliness and clarity of response?

There are many sensible recommendations in this report, and I do not intend to go through them all. I think that members of Select Committees will want to consider for themselves the many recommendations on how Committees can have a greater impact. I support the recommendation for Committees to experiment with different approaches, such as appointing rapporteurs to lead inquiries, commissioning external research and, perhaps more controversially, using special advisers to question witnesses on technical subjects. That can be seen in other Parliaments, and I certainly think that Committees could trial ideas in and around these areas.

I welcome the suggestion that Committees could make better use of the parliamentary website. Although, as right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned, this has improved, it is still difficult for members of the public to navigate and its existence is poorly communicated. As we place more and more emphasis on the work of Committees, we should work harder to communicate their activities and ensure our constituents can readily access information about them. I welcome, too, the suggestion for substantive motions for debates on Committee reports. In its report, the Liaison Committee said that, subject to further discussion, it would explore ways to implement that.

On privilege, I note what the Committee has said. As it says in its report, a Joint Committee is considering this currently—or will be. I said earlier that there were occasions when a Joint Committee might bring benefits, and I look forward to the recommendations. I am not as certain as the Liaison Committee appears to be that there is no argument for changes in the area of privilege.

As I said at the start of my remarks, I welcome this report and many of its recommendations. Select Committees are an important part of the work of this House. I conclude by paying tribute to the work of all right hon. and hon. Members who serve on them and to the sterling work of House staff and all those who help make our Committee system effective.