Procedure of the House

Lord Brabazon of Tara Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[The Chairman of Committees]

That the 11th Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 253) be agreed to.

Relevant document: 3rd Report from the House Committee.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)]

My Lords, in moving this Motion, I would first like to apologise for the fact that the debate has been brought forward by a day. The date was rearranged at the request of the usual channels, in order to avoid disrupting business tomorrow, when I know the House will be keen to make progress on the legal aid Bill. However, the Procedure Committee report has been available for almost two months now, and the Liaison Committee report was published last Wednesday, so I hope that noble Lords will have had ample opportunity to consider them.

I have waited until now to move the Motion on the Procedure Committee report because I felt that it would be useful for the House to be able to debate it alongside any report from the Liaison Committee. The proposals in both reports require extra resources and I am sure that noble Lords will wish to consider their implications in the round. In order to assist the House in considering these proposals, the House Committee agreed to publish its Third Report, which sets out the potential costs of the proposals contained within the Procedure Committee and Liaison Committee reports. The House is not being invited to come to a decision on the House Committee report; it is purely for information. However, I hope that noble Lords will find its contents useful during the course of today’s debates.

I should make it clear at the outset that, although the Procedure Committee and Liaison Committee reports are linked by the common issue of costs, we will debate them separately, as they cover very different areas of the work of the House. After I have introduced the Procedure Committee report, I expect the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to move her amendment. I would then expect that the majority of the debate on the Procedure Committee report would take place on that amendment. After the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness has been disposed of, the House can then take each of the other amendments in turn—without, I hope, further debate. Only once a final decision on the Procedure Committee report has been taken will we turn to the Liaison Committee report.

I now turn to the Procedure Committee report itself, to which four amendments were tabled. The report covers two issues: Grand Committees and Questions for Written Answer. I shall first address Grand Committees, and the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The committee’s recommendations on Grand Committees derive from recommendations made by the Leader’s Group on Working Practices, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad. The Leader’s Group recommended, first, that,

“the sitting hours of the Grand Committee should in future be more predictable and longer”,

and, secondly,

“that a rule be established, and included in the Companion, that all Government Bills introduced in the Commons should be considered in Grand Committee, apart from major constitutional Bills and emergency legislation and other exceptionally controversial Bills”.

Finally, the group recommended that some new types of business, including Oral Statements, could be taken in Grand Committee.

The Procedure Committee considered these recommendations along with proposals by the Leader of the House, which varied from them in certain important respects. First, on longer sitting hours, the Leader’s Group recommended, in broad terms, that Grand Committees sit every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 10.30 am until 12.30 pm, and from 2.30 pm until 6.30 pm. The Leader of the House, as our report states in paragraph 3, proposed instead that Grand Committees on Monday to Wednesday should continue to start at their present times, but that Grand Committees on primary legislation on these days should sit until 10 pm, with a one-hour break for dinner. Sitting times on Thursdays would also be varied, with Grand Committees on primary legislation sitting from noon until 7 pm, with a one-hour break.

It is not for me to comment on the merits of longer Grand Committee hours. Longer hours will involve additional costs, and the House Committee has examined them and set out its commitment to deliver savings to offset any additional expenditure, so that the overall effect is cost-neutral. It is for the House as a whole, in light of the House Committee’s report, to decide whether the benefits of increased Grand Committee scrutiny of primary legislation justify any additional expenditure. Nor is it for me to comment on the relative merits of morning as against evening sittings. The Leader took the view that morning sittings would be unlikely to find favour with the House as a whole, and the committee, on balance, agreed. The committee also agreed with the Leader’s proposal that, on days when more than one Oral Statement is to be made or repeated, the option should be available to take one of the Statements in Grand Committee, during the dinner break.

I now turn to the committee’s recommendation on the committal of Bills to the Grand Committee. As I have already said, the Leader’s Group recommended that there be a rule, enshrined in the Companion, that government Bills sent from the Commons be committed to Grand Committee, subject to certain exceptions. The Leader argued that the proposed exceptions, constitutional or emergency Bills, or other “exceptionally controversial Bills”, were both too rigid and impossible to define. He proposed instead that there should be general presumption that government Bills introduced in the Commons should be committed to Grand Committee, except where the usual channels agree otherwise. My understanding is that this approach would allow the usual channels to consider a range of factors, such as the level of interest across the House in a particular Bill, in deciding whether it would be in the interests of Members that that Bill should be considered in Grand Committee or in a Committee of the Whole House. However, as now, the final decision would rest with the House as a formal committal Motion would need to be agreed in the usual way.

Finally, I wish to draw noble Lords’ attention to the final bullet point in paragraph 10, which states that the new arrangements, if agreed by the House, would be adopted on a trial basis, for the 2012-13 Session only. It would require a further decision of the House, following a review by the Procedure Committee, to extend them beyond spring 2013.

As the report makes clear, the committee was not unanimous in agreeing its recommendations on Grand Committees. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, both made clear their preference for the approach recommended by the Leader’s Group, and this is reflected in the noble Baroness’s amendment. This amendment will be called next, and I shall leave it to the noble Baroness and others to debate the merits of the two alternative approaches on offer. My position on this amendment is entirely neutral.

The second amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is more far-reaching in that it would return the entire issue of Grand Committees to the Procedure Committee. No doubt the noble Lord, when he speaks, will clarify what he hopes to achieve by means of his amendment and what he thinks the Procedure Committee should consider further. Again, my position on the amendment is entirely neutral.

I now turn to the second part of the report, which concerns Questions for Written Answer. The committee proposes a new weekly limit of 12 on the number of Written Questions that Members are entitled to table. The committee unanimously supported this recommendation. The background is covered briefly in the report. The number of Questions for Written Answer has risen inexorably in the past 10 years, from an average of 29 on each sitting day in 2003-04 to 60 per day in the current Session.

None of us doubts that the tabling of Questions for Written Answer is a vital part of parliamentary scrutiny of government. However, these Questions come at a cost. The report quotes the average cost to the Government of £159 per Written Question. We did not put a figure on the cost to this House—for instance, in staff time and printing—but a recent report by the House of Commons Procedure Committee suggested that the cost to the House of Commons was around £80 per Written Question, giving a total cost to the public purse of just under £240 per Written Question. Putting these figures into the context of the House of Lords, Written Questions cost the public around £14,300 in respect of each sitting day, rather than the £9,500 quoted in the report.

The committee also bore in mind the huge discrepancy between Members of the House in the rate at which they table Written Questions. The Clerk of the Parliaments provided analysis of all Written Questions tabled from October to December 2011, which showed that just 10 Members of your Lordships’ House tabled 45 per cent of all Questions for Written Answer. Just three noble Lords tabled 27 per cent of all Questions in that period.

Taking these factors into account, the committee agreed unanimously that a weekly limit of 12 Questions per Member was proportionate and reasonable, and would enable noble Lords to continue their essential work of scrutinising the Government, while reducing the scope for what some might regard as abuse of the Order Paper. I therefore oppose the amendment in the name of noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, intends to move. The committee has considered the matter in considerable detail on the basis of a very thorough analysis of the evidence supplied. We have made a recommendation. The House may agree to it or not, but I see no point in referring the matter back at this stage.

Finally, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, would create a new rule that, in weeks when the House was not sitting, Members would be entitled to table up to six Questions for Written Answer. Of course I understand what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve. However, I hope that the House will agree that this would be a significant change, which would have cost implications both for the House and for government departments. It could also have a major impact on the staff of the House, particularly the Table Office. I certainly do not reject the noble Lord’s amendment out of hand, but I suggest that we need to give more detailed consideration to the practicalities of his proposal. If he is willing not to move his amendment when his turn comes, I will undertake to put the proposal before the Procedure Committee when it next meets, which is likely to be early in the new Session.

I trust that I have said enough on the report and the amendments. As I have already indicated, my position on the issue of Grand Committees is neutral, given that, as the report states, the committee was not unanimous in reaching its recommendations. On Questions for Written Answer, the committee was unanimous, and I commend the recommendation set out in paragraph 15 of the report to the House. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief because, fortunately, none of the points made in the debate on the report require an answer from me. As I said in the first place, the committee was not unanimous on this subject and therefore my position is completely neutral. On the question of Questions for Written Answer, there was not a voice against the proposal in the Procedure Committee’s report.

I must apologise to the House, and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I was misinformed that he was going to move the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves: he is not going to do so. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for agreeing that we could take his matter back to the committee. I now leave it to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to decide what to do with her amendment, and after that we shall move on to those of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to this excellent short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made a cogent case and has been strongly supported by noble Lords from all sides of the House. He is right that we must not put ourselves in danger of becoming a regulated House with timetabling. I also note that the noble Lord the Leader said that he hoped we would never lose our freedom not to be timetabled, and I am sure that all noble Lords will wish to keep him to that hope.

Parliament must be able to hold the Executive to account, and time must always be allowed for proper scrutiny of legislation. To do otherwise is to shift the balance of power in favour of the Executive. I note that the noble Lord said that, before a Bill is committed to Grand Committee, there might well be a vote in this Chamber to decide whether it should be so committed or debated here on the Floor of the House. I simply point out that the noble Lord and his Benches have a political majority in this House, and I imagine that on such an occasion there would be a whipped vote. I believe therefore that this would hand power to the Executive.

Presumption is clearly dangerous, as we have all agreed in the debate. I understand the concern expressed around the Chamber about the prescription of the Goodlad committee’s proposals—and, indeed, of my own amendment—and the difficulty of defining “controversial”. Defining “constitutional” is a lot more straightforward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made an important contribution—I wish her a happy birthday—and I concur with her comments and those of the noble Lord the Leader about our joint admiration for the bravery and principles of Lord Newton of Braintree, who I believe we are all proud to call our noble friend.

I also agree with the noble Baroness that to deal in isolation with the issue of the hours that the Grand Committee should sit and the Bills that should be referred to it sets back both the process and the progress of reform. On the basis that I believe the House will vote in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I am happy to withdraw my own amendment. I hope that his amendment will be passed and that when the matter is referred back to the Procedure Committee—of which I am proud to be a member—it will listen to representations from around the House, so that when a proposal is brought forward in future it truly will be reflective of the views of the House as a whole. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.