Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. That is exactly the point that we repeatedly make to Departments: it is in everyone’s interests including theirs that we have proper scrutiny, because better legislation has an easier passage through the House. Increasingly, we have dealt with measures rather than whole Bills, because when a measure is ready for publication it makes sense for the House to have an opportunity to scrutinise and improve it prior to the publication of a Bill.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Can the Deputy Leader of the House therefore give a guarantee that in future all Bills will have had pre-legislative scrutiny before they get on to the Floor of the House, so that we do not have the debacle that we had over the Health and Social Care Bill?

[Mr Heath]

I cannot give that guarantee any more than the previous Government, of whom the hon. Lady was a supporter, could give it. There will, for instance, be Bills that start in the Lords, where there is a different procedure, which means that they would not be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny in this House. However, it is our intention, wherever possible, to ensure that it happens. Inevitably, there is a slightly different position with an incoming Administration, when it is in no one’s interests for the House to do absolutely nothing for six months while we await Bills for pre-legislative scrutiny.