Legislation: Skeleton Bills and Delegated Powers

Lord Bridges of Headley Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, on securing this debate and her masterful speech, as well as the two committees on their excellent, hard-hitting reports.

I am conscious that, unlike many speaking today, I am not a constitutional expert, nor am I a lawyer. That said, what I do know is that although much of what we are talking about may sound abstract, this debate —about the power of Parliament versus the Executive and the processes that underpin our democracy—has a direct impact on all our lives. If those processes that underpin scrutiny and accountability are not cherished and nurtured, and the Executive are allowed to chip away at them, the freedoms that we all take for granted risk being eroded. My concern is that this is happening thanks to a subtle but profound shift in the culture of government over the last 30 years—a shift that is having a big impact on process and, therefore, on democracy itself.

Politicians’ lax approach to Cabinet government has led to sofa government and the rise in the power of unaccountable special advisers. The 24-hour media cycle, turbocharged by social media, fuels hysterical calls that something must be done to tackle a problem or Ministers’ demands for an eye-catching initiative. Process, precedent, accountability and scrutiny are all seen as mere irritants that get in the way of action.

Having worked in No. 10—many moons ago with my noble friend the Minister and more recently as a Minister—I know only too well what happens. To manage a crisis on the evening news or a Twitter storm, a press release is cobbled together, which spawns a piece of legislation barely longer than the press release itself, which then gives rise to a skeleton Bill full of delegated powers. This creates the issues that these excellent reports touched on and which the First Parliamentary Counsel delicately mentioned in her evidence when she talked about the

“practical or political drivers to bringing forward the legislation at a particular time”

and the “great demand for legislation”.

As has just been said, delegated powers are necessary. But we now have a culture in which Ministers either push for, or allow, half-baked legislation—not, as the Prime Minister might call it, “oven-ready” legislation—to be brought to Parliament. The fact that Mr Rees-Mogg could find, in the mountain of Acts passed, only one example of legislation—the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act—to justify skeleton Bills makes me conclude that we must act to stop this culture of creating more skeleton bills and turning Parliament into a graveyard of democracy.

Cultural change take years, but processes can be changed quickly. Let me ask my noble friend—he is an old friend who I know is a steadfast defender of parliamentary democracy—a simple question: does he agree that it should be made explicitly clear to Ministers and the Civil Service that skeleton Bills are, in the words of the report, “rarely justifiable” and, if so, that this is written explicitly into the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Making Legislation? That would begin to put the genie back in the bottle.