Liaison Committee

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kilclooney]

My Lords, for almost 50 years I have served in five different types of parliamentary institution: the House of Commons, the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Stormont and, now, your Lordships’ House. Out of those five, without doubt the best parliamentary assembly for the quality of debate is your Lordships’ House. The worst, I am sorry to say, is the European Parliament because nearly all its work is done through committees. It meets in full session on only about four days in each of 10 months a year. Therefore, I caution against overloading this House with committees and reducing the time that your Lordships’ House sits in full session.

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, I believe that someone has to answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, in making a comparison between the European Union Select Committee in this House—I declare an interest as a member of that committee—and the European Scrutiny Committee of the House of Commons. I will not take up too much of your Lordships’ time but the procedure is entirely different. The European Scrutiny Committee does not undertake individual inquiries and scrutiny of individual matters in the same way that your Lordships’ committee does. Therefore, the comparison is not a true one, and I believe that that should be made clear if we are discussing this matter.

Secondly, it is not just a question of whether or not notice is taken in Brussels. Our business is also to hold Her Majesty’s Government to account in regard to the attitude that they take to proposed legislation, to raise questions about that legislation, to get the Government’s answers and know the position they are taking, and perhaps to make recommendations. Therefore, the position of the European Union Select Committee and its sub-committees is very different from that of the House of Commons committee, and its work could not be done by reducing it to one simple committee, as is the case with the European Scrutiny Committee in the other place.

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is important that adequate time should be available to debate the reports of these committees? Can he say what mechanism exists for ensuring that, if a gap suddenly appears in the House’s programme, that space is filled if reports are waiting to be debated? I raise this because we suddenly find that we have an extra week’s recess in a few days’ time. Were there any reports which could have been debated at that point?