Public Bodies

David Heath Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I beg to move,

That the following new Standing Order be made—

‘(1) Subject to paragraph (2), the select committee charged with reporting on a draft order for the purposes of section 11(5) and (6) of the Public Bodies Act 2011 shall be—

(a) the select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to Government departments) appointed to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department of the Minister who has laid the draft order; or

(b) in respect of a draft order laid by a Minister in the Cabinet Office, the Select Committee on Public Administration.

(2) The Liaison Committee may report that it has designated a select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to Government departments) or the Select Committee on Public Administration as the select committee charged with reporting on a specified draft order for the purposes of section 11(5) and (6) of the Public Bodies Act 2011 in place of the select committee to which paragraph (1) applies.’.

Let me start by apologising to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House, because what remains of my voice may be barely adequate to the task this afternoon. However, I shall do my best.

The Public Bodies Act 2011 received Royal Assent shortly before Christmas. The Act represents a central part of the Government’s strategy for the reform of public bodies, which will lead to a cumulative reduction in administrative spending of £2.6 billion over the spending review period. The bodies to be reformed under the Act are listed in its schedules and the detail of the reforms is to be set out in secondary legislation. The motion will enable that secondary legislation to be subject to proper scrutiny in the House, when it is in draft form, before it is approved by the House. The relevant provisions of the Act are described in the explanatory memorandum to the Act and the proposals in the motion are described in an explanatory memorandum that is available in the Vote Office. The motion has been the subject of consultation with the Liaison Committee and the Select Committee on Procedure, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friends the Members for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) for their contributions to the consultation and for agreeing to add their names to the motion.

The proposal relates to the specific question of which Committee should be able to examine a draft order with a view to the possible use of the extended period for scrutiny, and then making recommendations on the substantive provisions of that draft order. We propose that that role should fall to the relevant departmental Select Committee or, in the case of draft orders laid by Cabinet Office Ministers, to the Select Committee on Public Administration. In addition, we propose to give the Liaison Committee a power to designate an alternative Committee. We do not expect that to be used frequently, but it could be helpful if there were machinery of government changes in the future.

We believe that departmental Select Committees represent the right option in this case. They are most likely to have a prior knowledge of, and interest in, the subject matter of the draft orders. The Liaison Committee has agreed that the proposal in the motion

“seems sensible and complements the arrangements in the Lords”.

The Liaison Committee sought a number of assurances, and it was particularly valuable to have the short delay from before Christmas until now in which to have a dialogue with the Liaison Committee. I have responded in detail, in correspondence which is available in the Vote Office and which I will place, in due course, in the Library. In particular, steps have been taken to ensure that relevant Select Committees are informed about the earlier draft orders to be laid before the House, and that discussions can take place between Departments and Select Committees about the operation of the procedure and the timetable in particular cases.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Although I strongly endorse and very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about Select Committees examining these orders, does he not agree that Select Committees are already heavily overburdened, given the amount of work that they are doing? I wonder when he thinks we shall find time to look into the orders in the way that he describes.

[Mr Heath]

Obviously, that was one consideration. Against that should be set the question of who is best placed to know the operations of bodies within the remit of an individual Select Committee, and what the Department’s objectives are in bringing forward an order. It would be very difficult for any other body in the House to have the same level of expertise. In the initial stages it is a matter of determining whether further scrutiny is required. That is the trigger that we are asking the Select Committees to pull, and they are very well positioned to do so. There is also a finite number of bodies for any one Select Committee in the Public Bodies Act 2011. It is not an open-ended Act, as I know full well, having assisted with the Bill’s Committee and Report stages. There is therefore a reasonable expectation that the task will not be too onerous for Select Committees. I certainly discussed that consideration with the Liaison Committee and others, and we felt that at the end of the day no other body was as well suited as the departmental Select Committee.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

What procedure, if any, might a Back Bencher be able to use to propose further scrutiny by a Select Committee over and above what it is tasked with doing? For example, if we wanted the Treasury Committee to scrutinise some of the EU financial services legislation that passes through the House, which is normally, rightly, in the hands of the European Scrutiny Committee, would there be a way in which one could put that forward?

[Mr Heath]

That takes me away a little from the matter of orders relating to the Public Bodies Act, but it is always open for Select Committees to consider their work programmes and to put forward proposals, and it is equally open to hon. Members to make suggestions to Select Committees. Part of the Liaison Committee’s role is to try to prevent any undue overlapping of work among Committees and, where there is a potential trespass, to police it, adjudicate and find a successful way forward. There is probably no obstacle to my hon. Friend's suggesting that the Committee look at something, but equally the Officers, Clerks and Chair of that Committee have a responsibility to ensure that they do not inappropriately usurp the work of another Committee.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I commiserate with my hon. Friend, who sounds like a cross between Barry White and Louis Armstrong. Is he aware that the Procedure Committee has looked at this matter and is satisfied with what he proposes? Despite the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who is a valued Committee member, I do not think that the proposal will place too great an additional burden on Select Committees. It is right and proper that the Select Committees undertake such scrutiny.

[Mr Heath]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for supporting the view I have expressed. I think that only the departmental Select Committees could do the job appropriately.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House say a little more about how he proposes to deal with cross-cutting Select Committees, particularly the Environmental Audit Committee, which does not follow one Department but has an obvious interest in some cross-cutting issues and the need for the Government to join up policy?

[Mr Heath]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but let us remember that the proposal is for a trigger mechanism to enable the House to consider matters further; it is not an end in itself. The process as set out in the 2011 Act enables the House to say, “Hang on. We want a little longer to be able to discuss this matter”, or for the Minister to put forward proposals in a debate, normally on the Floor of the House if that is requested. Therefore, if one of the cross-cutting Committees has an interest, I am sure that it would rapidly communicate it to the relevant Departmental Select Committee, and that in itself might pull the trigger. I do not think that there is a difficulty. This is not an exclusionary procedure, but simply one suggesting that someone can say, “Stop. We want this extra time so that the House can consider this on its merits”, and the decision will probably be that the departmental Select Committee is best placed to do that.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I very much welcome what my hon. Friend is putting forward. May I ask him about joint working by Select Committees? As he knows from the passage of the 2011 Act, I have an interest in the position of S4C. There have been times in the work we have undertaken on S4C when there has been joint working between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Welsh Affairs Committee. Does he envisage such joint working continuing under this approach?

[Mr Heath]

I was beginning to think that we would have a short debate relating to the Act without any mention of Sianel Pedwar Cymru, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for rectifying that omission. I reiterate that I do not think that the proposed procedure creates any obstacle to a Select Committee going about its work in the way it feels is appropriate. This is a trigger mechanism for the House. Where more than one Committee feels that they might have a role, the Liaison Committee would be able to help and ensure that there were no hurt feelings. The case of S4C might be an obvious example of where two departmental Select Committees have a legitimate interest and, I am sure, would want to express a view at some point in the procedure.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I hope to make a speech later, but, on the discussions between Departments and Select Committees, what procedures will be followed when a Department is not keen to give the most desirable outcome of 30 days’ advance notice in all cases?

[Mr Heath]

It is clear, from the exchanges that we have already had with the Procedure and Liaison Committees, that we expect Departments to provide that level of notice, and they will normally do so, but there is an exceptional position in the very first instance. We have some bodies on which consultations took place prior to Royal Assent, as was allowed under the legislation, and a dialogue between the Department and the Select Committee might be necessary to ensure that we achieve an acceptable result.

I know that the hon. Lady, on behalf of the Committee that she chairs, has been having such a dialogue with the Department that her Committee shadows, and I am more than happy to assist in any way that I can to ensure that we have a satisfactory outcome. I have given that assurance in correspondence with the Chair of the Liaison Committee, and I am very happy to repeat it today. The guidance to Departments will be very clear about what is expected of them in the execution of their duties under that part of the 2011 Act, and on that basis I hope my assurance is helpful to the hon. Lady. This is a new procedure, and we need to watch all new procedures very carefully to ensure that they achieve the results that the House expects of them.

In conclusion, I assure the House that I will monitor the procedure’s operation carefully to ensure that the concerns of Committees about matters on which they have sought assurances are fully responded to. I have reiterated today that the Government are very happy for the operation of the new arrangements to be reviewed about a year after they come into operation. This is an opportunity to enhance the House's scrutiny of secondary legislation, and on that basis Members should welcome it. I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

With the leave of the House, I should like to thank Members for that short debate.

I shall deal with the points made in reverse order, and turn first to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). He will be aware that the Committee discussed the Welsh aspects of these bodies an awful lot—I remember detailed discussions of the merits, or otherwise, of Pobol y Cwm and so on. I absolutely understand the locus that regionality has in some of the bodies. The suggestion is that the departmental Select Committees have that trigger—I think that he understands that—but he made a perfectly valid point: where there is a strong territorial element in the body in question, the trigger should be exercised in the knowledge of the effect it would have in an area.

I would expect the Welsh Affairs Committee to play a part in matters relating directly to Wales and to make early representations to the relevant Select Committee, encouraging it to pull the trigger for the 60-day process. Once that process was in place and the scrutiny period under way, however, I would expect the Committee to produce a short report, particularly on matters relating to Sianel Pedwar Cymru but also on other things in which it has an interest. The report would be treated as a representation under section 11(6)(a) of the Public Bodies Act, and the Minister would have to have regard to it.

I think I can assure the hon. Gentleman, therefore, that the Welsh Affairs Committee would have a direct locus in intervening to make the House aware of its concerns. Although the Public Bodies Act stipulates that there may be a delegated powers Committee, we have made it abundantly clear that if a request was made for the matter to be dealt with on the Floor of the House it would normally be acceded to. In that case, all Members with an interest would have an opportunity to participate and make their views known before the House finally reached a decision. I hope that that goes some way to assuaging his concerns and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who is an utterly reasonable chap. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman agrees with him so often.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) expressed a number of concerns on behalf of her Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which, again, I well understand. It so happens that her Committee has an early rush, as it were, on the provisions in the legislation, because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs plans to make early proposals, as she said, on British Waterways, the Inland Waterways Advisory Council and the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances.

Let me say first that, yes, if the House accepts this Standing Order today, the hon. Lady’s Committee will be the relevant Committee. Therefore, she has that trigger in her hands—or the hands of her Committee—for extended scrutiny. I understand that that will involve a reasonable work load for her Committee. I sympathise with her about that, but I believe it is better for her Committee to do that work rather than somebody else, elsewhere in the House, who knows nothing about the subject. There is no limitation on what Committees can scrutinise in their role as departmental Select Committees. That extends not just to bodies that are listed in schedules, but to those where there are no changes. If there are no changes, she will not be acting under this procedure, but her Committee will still have the capacity to consider the matter.

I understand the hon. Lady’s point about the House of Lords having its arrangements in place earlier than the House of Commons. I would have liked to introduce things earlier, but it was important to have the conversation and dialogue with the Select Committees of this House, through the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, to ensure that we got it right. This House has a much more complex Committee structure than the Lords—we have departmental Committees—so a slight asymmetry in the way we did that was inevitable. However, I hope that I can persuade her that what we are doing in this case is probably the best way forward.

As far as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stockbridge (Angela Smith) is concerned—

[Angela Smith]

Stocksbridge.

[Mr Heath]

Is that not what I said? I do apologise: Stocksbridge. Speaking as someone whose constituency name is almost always mispronounced, I have the greatest sympathy if the hon. Lady has the same problem.

I was disappointed by what the hon. Lady said. She seems to be taking up the concerns of the Liaison Committee, even though I have satisfied the Liaison Committee. The fact that it is content with my proposals is not good enough for her. She still thinks that the Liaison Committee ought to be more upset than it is. Well it is not: the Liaison Committee is satisfied with our proposals. She adduced the “mystery” of why the matter was not put before the House in December, but I made it perfectly plain that the reason was a problem with the motion, which was down to an administrative error. However, given that we could not propose the motion on that day, I aimed to derive what I hoped would be some benefit from the delay by saying that it gave us more time to explore and satisfy the concerns of the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, and that is exactly what we did.

I have given clear indications about the procedures that we will adopt to ensure that Committees are not disadvantaged, but have the opportunity to make their cases properly. However, at the end of the day, I cannot go against the legislation. I cannot rip up legislation that this House and the other House passed so recently and say, “Right, we’ll now have a completely different procedure.” However, I can work within the legislation to maximise scrutiny by the Committees of this House and the wider House and ensure that every Member has the opportunity to have their say. I believe that that is what we have put before the House today, after consultation with the Committees, and I urge the House to support the motion.

Question put.