House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, this is an excellent report and my comments are essentially tinkering. I particularly welcome the proposals for transferring the monitoring of self-regulation in Question Time from the Government to the Lord Speaker. The report sets out the new role in principle, although in application we need more detail. An implementation recommendation should make it clear that when the Speaker rises to guide the House on which Bench—and, if necessary, occasionally, which individual—should be heard, Members should immediately take their seats. Furthermore, the Lord Speaker should be able to guide the House towards Members who are unused to the rough and tumble of political debate and rarely rise to ask supplementaries due to the intimidating nature of Question Time.

I turn to the issue of supplementary questions, both in Question Time and on Statements. I support the 40-word limit proposed in paragraph 48. It will help those outside understand the background to Questions asked. However, the report fails to establish a procedure for the enforcement of a more disciplined approach. I am afraid that some Members, out of ignorance or inflated ego, hog Question Time and abuse our procedures with long, rambling supplementaries. We need clearer guidance, which should be based on no more than two questions during the course of a single supplementary. The Lord Speaker should be empowered to write to Members, either collectively or, if necessary, individually, drawing attention to abuse.

As for Statements, I support the proposal for curtailing the repeating of Oral Statements in the House. However, I have a reservation about the use of the terms in the report. It states:

“To avoid speech-making, and with a view to increasing the number of Members who can intervene on statements, we recommend that backbench contributions should be limited to questions to the minister”.

In theory, that means curtailing long preambles. In practice, it will not. This all needs tightening up. Prolonged preambles are an abuse. On two occasions to date, in conditions of some embarrassment, I have personally intervened to seek enforcement of the Companion. One Member once took nearly five minutes to ask a question. Such selfishness denies others the right to speak. I suggest a one-minute limit on questions on Statements. That is not as restrictive as during Question Time. It is generous and would put an end to the abuse.

On draft Bills, greater pre-legislative scrutiny is welcome. However, I am much opposed to reliance on Commons Select Committees doing this work. Commons Select Committees often include Members who have no interest in Bill scrutiny. MPs may be bright, but it does not necessarily follow that they are good at questioning on areas where they have little interest. A Member who is first class on criminal justice may be completely uninterested in areas of constitutional reform—both MoJ functions. The best forum for pre-legislative scrutiny is in Joint Committees, where interested people apply to join.

On the handling of legislation prior to prorogation, in paragraph 90, the report states:

“In the last Parliament the Government tended to avoid confrontation in the spill-over, preferring to accept Lords amendments rather than risking loss of an entire bill”.

That is an aspect of the Lords’ role that has worried me over the years. It provides conclusive proof of the fact that Commons primacy can on occasion be a myth. The report fails to deal with this problem. It almost suggests that such a problem arises out of deficiencies in legislation. That is not my view. The problem arises because opposition parties have realised that time is a weapon in the Lords and wash-up can be used to amend Commons decisions irrespective of the merits of argument. That happened under the previous Parliament.

I welcome the delay mechanisms in the handling of SIs. They deal with the concerns I raised with Labour Whips over the use of fatal amendments.

Finally, I turn to paragraph 258 on self-regulation. The report states:

“The House is self-regulating: the Lord Speaker has no power to rule on matters of order. In practice this means that the preservation of order and the maintenance of the rules of debate are the responsibility of the House itself, that is, of all the members who are present, and any member may draw attention to breaches of order or failures to observe customs,”

to which I referred before. The facts are that the House does not carry out this function. It is just too embarrassing. The principal occasions when attempts are made to enforce the Companion are when we are dealing with controversial legislation—most recently the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. Those enforcement interventions are invariably for political partisan advantage.

The abuse of our procedures and the Companion are far more widespread. They are routine and there is a need for proper enforcement mechanisms. The House needs seriously to consider whether the person in the Chair should be given the same powers as that enjoyed by persons in the Chair in the Commons, particularly in the handling of legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, first, I think that we should invite the clerks to come forward with a proposal. The proposal should be put to the Procedure Committee and of course within this we need to decide whether it should be a Joint Committee or a House Committee. If it is a Joint Committee, there need to be discussions with another place and we would have to find out about how it felt about such things. I have no idea about a timescale, but we could get an initial view relatively quickly, and I think that that is what we should do.

The role of the usual channels got a bit of a battering; I think the usual channels and how it operates needs clarifying. Perhaps the most interesting part of the debate concerned the role of the Lord Speaker. The report has trod carefully between self-regulation, Leader’s powers and Speaker’s powers, and has come to the conclusion of an experimental period, simply to shift the Leader’s power to the chair. I am not entirely convinced that that is a solution to the problem. What has happened is that more and more people try to get in at Question Time. It is an immensely important part of the day. The House is full. The leaders, Chief Whips, Convenor—everybody is here. The Lord Speaker is in the chair. It is a focal point for the start of our day. It is Peers wanting to get in and ask their question that creates the problem.

I increasingly think that we do have to make a choice on this, and I think we ought to have an early vote and make a decision. Part of that is that you cannot have both a firm chair and self-regulation. We have to choose between one and the other. Noble Lords have said, “Well, you can have a little bit of direction from the chair and that doesn’t affect self regulation”, but I think that it does. I do not think that that is a bad thing. One noble Lord said that this House is the only legislative Chamber that does not have a firm chair. It may be that that era of self-regulation—of politeness and giving way—has moved on, for a whole variety of reasons. It is that the nature of the House and the nature of the way we do legislation have simply changed. That is the decision that I think will face us. If we move the Leader’s powers to the chair we will very quickly get into names being called. Some noble Lords are concerned about behaviour in this House. I always remind people to go a couple of hundred yards down the corridor and see a House where there is very firm authority from the chair and to really take a view. Is there better behaviour in another place? It is worth doing.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The noble Lord is not offering an alternative solution.

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is why the House has to decide, and I am not sure that there is an alternative solution. You either push power to the chair or you do not. Perhaps more assertiveness from me and the government Dispatch Box may help and encourage. Noble Lords might like a firm smack of authority from the Dispatch Box. I accept that there is a difficulty and a problem. When I first came to the House, Members would regularly give way.