House of Lords: Working Practices

Baroness O'Cathain Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, it is very gratifying to have had support, so far, for this report. All of it is due to the able and excellent chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Goodlad and his 11 soldiers. I thank the Leader of the House because in setting up this group we have been able to face some challenging, demanding and quite intellectually robust issues and it was very enjoyable. My observations about the running of the committee are twofold: first, I miss the weekly Wednesday mornings and, secondly, there are an awful lot of human beings off the Floor of the House.

The introduction to our report gives the reasons the Leader deemed it right to have this inquiry, and all are valid. However, the big elephant in the room is not actually listed, and I appreciate why not. There has been a marked deterioration in the general behaviour of the House, in the Chamber—not in Select Committees or the constant ongoing discourse in the corridors, the Peers’ Guest Room or at the Long Table. However, the only chance for the general public to see the House of Lords at work is on TV or visiting the Chamber. Radio broadcasts do extend the reach, and the amusing, trenchant and somewhat biased political commentators in the press supposedly extend information of the workings of this House to the general public. The elephant in the room is that the reputation of this House has suffered severely during the last couple of years, both by the extension of the opprobrium resulting from the expenses scandal in the other place and by some decidedly less than acceptable behaviour here. Whether we acknowledge or deny it, our reputation among the general public has suffered a knock. All of us are mired in it and feel diminished by it. Now is the opportunity to restore that confidence, built up over so many years. The Leader’s Group quite rightly decided to eliminate this factor from our deliberations because it was viewed as a one-off or something that would right itself. I hope so.

Now that we are some months removed from the publication of the report, I have looked again at all the recommendations in chapter 6. All are pertinent; all were subjected to both evidence and forensic scrutiny. Inevitably, some are more urgent than others. Some, of course, have been greeted by some fairly negative comments from Members of the House away from the Chamber. As a member of the group, I am not going to push hard for all of the recommendations, although I agree with all of them. I guess we will not get them all. However, I will push very hard for those that I think are more important and in particular will resonate with all Members of the House.

The recommendations that truly—and rapidly—need to be implemented fall into six categories. The first concerns recommendations 1 to 3, on Oral Questions. The current situation gives very little credence to our claim of being a Chamber full of people with experience and expertise. Sadly, too often the session is hijacked by Members with good basic general knowledge on many issues and/or the ability to digest press comments on topical issues rather than giving space to those who are all recognised as having great experience and detailed expertise in certain fields. A bit of self-denying ordinance is called for and the three recommendations would probably do the trick. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has already spoken forcibly on this point.

Secondly, recommendations 14 and 15 concern pre-legislative scrutiny. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, who is not in her place, has already given all the reasons why these could be so valuable.

My third recommendation concerns post-legislative scrutiny. This recommendation would be so useful in improving the overall business of legislation. It would grow in importance and impact, in that those who drew up the original legislation would have to think very carefully of how it could look a few years hence. Of course things change and even with all the pre-legislative scrutiny and threats of post-legislative scrutiny in the world, mistakes will be made. However, the likelihood of mistakes would be lessened substantially if they did go through proper post-legislative scrutiny. My experience in post-investment scrutiny leads me to believe that implementing this recommendation could be very worthwhile indeed.

My fourth category has not been mentioned so far tonight: simple language, which is covered by recommendations 39 to 41. Oh, for a lucid, easy-to-read successor to the Companion—I am averting my gaze from the clerks at the Table.

Fifthly, recommendations 45 to 48 deal with committees, committee chairmen, the mode of appointment and the Chairman of Committees and Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees. All these recommendations are so important and should be implemented as soon as possible. They are of fundamental importance to Members of the House who want to feel included and that they have a say.

Sixthly and finally, business management and self-regulation are covered by recommendations 51 to 55. Again, these are all very important, but if I had to choose the one that I would go to the stake for it would be recommendation 52, on making the work of the usual channels more accessible to the House as a whole. The oldest trick in the book is to ensure that management knowledge remains in the hands of the favoured few, and here there is a feeling that there are some who are very favoured and very few. We have to encourage every Member of this House to give of their best. If they feel excluded they will probably exclude themselves physically. We must not give up on our task of holding the Government to account, scrutinising all legislation and giving advice based on our experience and expertise—not that of just the loudest people. I hope that this report will be accepted in full.