Lord Bassam of Brighton
Main Page: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we have reached 30 minutes, but I know that that Question was one in which many noble Lords wished to take part.
I should like to make a Statement on two matters. First, it may be for the convenience of the House to know that the usual channels have agreed that the speakers’ list for the debate on House of Lords reform next Tuesday and Wednesday will close at 6 pm on Monday evening, which is a little earlier than usual. In addition, the House will meet early on Wednesday, at 11 o’clock, in order to help accommodate the number of speakers currently on the list. However, Oral Questions on Wednesday will be taken at the usual time of 3 o’clock. We will start the day by resuming the debate, then break for Oral Questions, and return to the debate afterwards.
Perhaps it would be helpful if I remind noble Lords that paragraph 4.32 of the Companion provides that Members speaking in a debate should be present for the opening speeches and the winding speeches at the very end, as well as for the greater part of the debate. That does mean, of course, on both days.
I turn now to the Recess. I hear calls of “Hear, hear”, but we shall see how long that lasts. When I announced the long-term Recess dates on 21 October last year, I made it clear at that stage that the dates were subject to the progress of business. We have not made as much progress as is necessary, and I know that noble Lords around the House are well aware of that. I am now in a position to inform the House that we will return one week earlier in October. The House will return from the Summer Recess on Monday 3 October, not on Monday 10 October. That is a limited adjustment and I look to all sides of the House to achieve reasonable progress both before and after the summer to enable us to hold to the other dates already announced. Subject to the progress of business, we will still rise for the Summer Recess at the end of business on Wednesday, 20 July.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the two Statements she has made, in particular the first one, which has been agreed through the usual channels and will, I think, be convenient to your Lordships’ House. I am grateful to her for confirming the arrangements.
I also thank the noble Baroness for telling the House about the Government’s plan to bring noble Lords back early for an additional week during the Conservative Party conference, which no doubt will be a relief to many, to deal with what I consider to be a chaotic logjam of government Bills. This is almost entirely without precedent. When we were in Government, it is true that we brought in September sittings, but that was done by agreement across the parties. Indeed, when we introduced the change back in 2002, we tabled a Motion on the matter for the House to discuss and determine. We have not been consulted about this and there is no Motion for the House to debate. When I advised Labour Members yesterday evening of the likely announcement, there was genuine anger. It disrupts long-planned appointments and arrangements, and treats the House with contempt. It says that the House is the plaything of the Government—a Government who have lost control of their legislative programme.
The truth is—in saying this I apportion no blame to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—that the Government are trying to force through a programme that is overlong, overprogrammed and overblown. In short, it is too long and they know it, and the House and the process of scrutiny are the sufferers. This is a crisis of timetabling, caused not by your Lordships’ rightful desire to scrutinise Bills but by political mismanagement, emanating from No. 10. This House has already had the farce of badly drafted Bills, such as the Public Bodies Bill, and still to come are the Armed Forces Bill, the Scotland Bill and the Office for Budget Responsibility Bill. We have been waiting for a health Bill that was promised to the House in May but will not be here until October or November at the earliest. We also have such complex Bills as the Welfare Reform Bill and the Protection of Freedoms Bill to come.
What assurances can the House have that, even with this extra week, we will complete our work without further incursions into Recess dates, longer nights and earlier starts? I also ask the noble Baroness to reconfirm all existing Recess dates, including those in February, and to do so with certainty. Will she also tell the House when it is intended that we shall have another Queen’s Speech, and when this Session—the longest any of us can remember—will end? How many more Bills do the Government expect to force through this House before the Session concludes? At my last count, we still had 16 in progress and another 12 or 13 to come, and had done only 16 so far. Just how many more Bills do the Government expect to bring?
May I perhaps give the Government a little advice before they embark on their next political programme? Will they ensure that, next time around, they have coherent, well worked-out Bills, and do not have more Bills in their programme than both Houses of Parliament can realistically manage and effectively scrutinise?
This a programme of legislation that has been poorly thought through, badly managed from the centre and forced on an increasingly reluctant Parliament in a timeframe that is wholly unrealistic. I urge the Government to think again about their programme, and to consult the House properly about their timetable and what they put in for the rest of the Session.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Well, my Lords, as my dear old Aunt Rose would say, the noble Lord has a bit of a brass neck. However, I will of course address each of those points. Perhaps noble Lords should not read everything on politicshome.com before they bring information to the House. For example, the noble Lord referred to my having apparently announced the dates of the February half-term. The noble Lord will know that I never have. I know that politicshome.com has said so and that it has been tweeted, but it has never been the case in this House. I do not refer to any Recess dates after we return in January; I never have. Like the noble Lord, I do not refer to the date of the end of the Session. That is not something that happens; it is up to noble Lords to make their own calculations. When we know the progress of business, we will make a Statement, as the noble Lord did when the Labour Party was in government.
This is a self-regulating House, with the implication that scrutiny of legislation cannot be curtailed except by the House itself. That is only right; it is one of the aspects of our work of which we have every reason to be proud. The corollary is that when the House chooses to dwell on a particular Bill, as it did on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—on which we spent 17 days in Committee, which is more than double the usual maximum for the largest Bills—more time must then be found elsewhere if the scrutiny of the other Bills in a Government’s legislative programme is not to suffer as a consequence.
I should also make it clear that we have been used, over the past decade, to agreements by the usual channels to take a good number of the Committee stages of Bills in Grand Committee, off the Floor of the House. That kind of agreement has not been achievable this Session. This Session will have the lowest percentage of Bills in Grand Committee for nearly 10 years—since the Session of 2001-02. I know that because I was on the other side taking part in it all. As a result, pressure for time on the Floor of the House is acute and something has to give.
The Opposition Chief Whip will recall that the Opposition refused to put into Grand Committee a Bill that was eminently suitable for that place. I refer to the Postal Services Bill on which the Opposition spokesperson performed a very valuable role. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, steered the Opposition through that Bill with great skill and Labour Party Back-Benchers also acted with great skill and scrutinised it carefully. But it was not an appropriate Bill for the Floor of the House. The Opposition insisted that it should take time on the Floor away from other Bills.
There was consultation about business. Over the past five weeks, there has been consultation with the Opposition Chief Whip to seek certainty about how the Government could deliver their business without extending the sitting period and taking away a week from the summer Session. It is not normal process in this House to consult formally more widely, but I made sure that soundings were taken around the House. It was made very clear to me that, while noble Lords would not wish to extend the period beyond July, for some reason that I find quite difficult to understand, noble Lords on all sides of the House felt that it was quite appropriate for this place to be sitting during the Conservative Party conference, when my colleagues might wish to be elsewhere. That is indeed the final decision that was taken. The decision is not taken lightly. It is one to deal with ordinary business in an ordinary way. Scrutiny in this House, when it is done well, is a model for the world to follow.