Government’s New Approach to Consultation: “Work in Progress” (SLSC Report)

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I congratulate the chairman on his appointment. I take particular pleasure in the fact that I think he is now the only Member of your Lordships’ House from the north-east to occupy such a position, and I am very glad on that account. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and the committee on the report.

Before I joined this House nearly three years ago, I spent 50 years in politics in one form or another, 43 of them as a local councillor. In my innocence, though, I was quite unaware of the degree to which the scrutiny conducted, particularly at the other end of the Palace of Westminster, was so inadequate. It is undoubtedly better in your Lordships’ House. Having said that, though, it is clear that the process of scrutiny is not as good as it should be, and that is partly a function of the consultation process. This first came to my attention when we discussed the changes that were to be made to the Public Bodies Bill. It was quite clear that decisions had in fact been made and that the consultation, to the extent that it did occur, was something of a sham.

I think that I coined the term “pre-legislative implementation” for some of what happened under the aegis of that Bill, and I am glad that the Constitution Committee is looking into that. I recall particularly the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach—I do not blame him personally for this—giving constant assurances that there would be consultation in connection with the regional development agencies, and that each would be considered on its merits. In the event, there was no consultation at all and they all went. I do not blame the noble Lord for that; the decision was clearly taken somewhat above his pay grade.

The noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, referred in his speech to contributions from Mars. I can reassure him about that; one item that has been subject to consultation is the reform of the Outer Space Act. On page 26 of the committee’s report it will be seen that 14 weeks were devoted to possible consultation on that, in contrast to four weeks for the statutory instruments concerning the delivery of structural funds—a matter of more immediate concern, it might be thought, to all save those particularly interested in astronomy and the like. Equally, when looking at the Department of Health, one sees some strange discrepancies. Page 32 of the report points out that making nursery milk schemes more effective had an 18-week consultation whereas consultation on the membership of Healthwatch England, a matter that itself particularly concerned scrutiny, took only five weeks. Clearly, something is amiss with all this.

I respectfully differ somewhat from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, on the assumption that we should deal only with secondary legislation. Experience of the Crime and Courts Bill in particular underlined that consultation took place very late; indeed, material was introduced into your Lordships’ House halfway through the passage of the Bill on the basis of consultation that had taken place after the Bill had been launched. In another context, on transforming bailiffs, months elapsed between the end of the consultation and a government response being provided, well into the course of the Bill. So while in many respects secondary legislation would be the prime area, it is not the only one about which we should be concerned.

The difficulty that many of us see is that there is an increasing reliance on secondary legislation to fill in the details not included in primary legislation nor debated during the passage of what, too often, is in effect becoming enabling legislation. I strongly support the committee’s recommendations and hope that they can be implemented in relation to consultation at whatever point it is initiated.