Legislative Scrutiny: Digitalisation

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask the Leader of the House what assessment she has made of the impact on the effectiveness of the scrutiny of legislation of the introduction of further digitalisation.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I have not made any formal assessment of the impact of digitalisation on scrutiny, but I welcome initiatives from the House of Lords administration that take advantage of digital developments, and the Government’s good law project continues to look to improve the process of scrutiny using new technologies.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

May I explain for the sake of clarity that by digitalisation I mean the use of computers? Would it not be a great advantage to the House that instead of being presented with amendments on paper that read something like, “delete ‘the’ and insert ‘a’”, we saw what they meant by their being placed and tracked in the draft Bill, that Explanatory Notes should be accessible alongside the clauses by clicking through, that each day the successful amendments should be shown incorporated into the draft Bill, that Bills should be in words that we can amend and exchange with each other—I could go on for a long time, but I will not—and that the use of annunciators could be better if they showed the Question being asked rather than just saying, “1st Oral Question”?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Baroness is right that we should use new technologies where they are relevant to our work and will help us to do it better. We have made quite a bit of progress during this Parliament. Last night I downloaded the House of Lords app on my iPad, which allows us to look at the relevant papers associated with today’s business. On the noble Baroness’s specific proposals for tracking changes, I can inform your Lordships that that facility will be available not in quite the detail that she would like but starting down that track from the beginning of the next Parliament.