House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I begin by thanking Nicola Newson in the Library for her excellent paper and the Labour group of Peers for giving up without dissent its political debating slot in favour of a debate on House business. In taking that decision, the group reflected opinion across the House on the need for a carefully introduced programme of modernisation. I also take heart from the minutes of the Procedure Committee of 2 July, where in reply to a question from me, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that, given the House’s current uncertainty around Lords reform, he would not seek to take forward any recommendations until there was greater clarity about the future of the House. We now have that greater clarity.

I concentrate my remarks on recommendation 3, which deals with Leader of the House Questions and those paragraphs which relate to what is described as the Back-Bench business committee. Recommendation 3 expresses a real problem: we have no mechanism for raising concerns over House business during sittings of the House. During exchanges between the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, and the Leader of the House on 19 July on the use of Written Ministerial Statements, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, knows that the House,

“does not have points of order and that if he needs to raise a question, it has to be on a relevant Motion. It is a gross discourtesy to the Lord Speaker for the noble Lord not to have put down a PNQ … It is also a discourtesy to the House for him to break the rules in this way”.—[Official Report, 19/7/12; col. 344.]

Well, we do not want points of order; we do not want another Commons chamber; we do not have sitting time to allow for debates on procedural wrangles. We need a procedure that allows the House to vent its concerns on House matters. That is the background to recommendation 3.

I turn now to the Goodlad proposals for a Back-Bench business committee, which should be more appropriately described as the Back-Bench debates committee. The problem with these recommendations, of which there are seven, are the words “Back-Bench business committee”, which suggests a Commons-type model for control over Back-Bench business. Not so; the Goodlad proposals would be confined to selecting subjects that are important, timely and of interest to Members and the public. Members would have to make their case for a debate to an open committee comprising 12 members but the committee would not follow closely the Commons model.

For example, where in the Commons there was originally a requirement that the committee’s members be elected without reference to party group proportions, the Goodlad proposals do not even require elections at all. Whereas in the Commons it was proposed that any enhanced committee would ultimately secure greater control over government business, Goodlad refused to go down that route. Whereas the business determined by the Commons committee has precedence over government business, apart from in exceptional circumstances, Goodlad again refused that approach. Finally, the hours of the House given over to Back-Bench business in the Lords are far fewer than in the Commons. It therefore follows that the proposed committee’s influence would be commensurately less.

I have concentrated my remarks on a very narrow but important part of the Goodlad agenda. My concern is to secure for Members greater influence over what we discuss. While recognising the need for the Government to secure their business, we would be a more democratic House if we were to make these small changes proposed in the Goodlad report. I appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to move by stealth through a piloted process of reform.