House of Lords Reform

Lord Filkin Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Filkin]

My Lords, follow that. When the Leader of the House spoke to us before multiple interruptions, he set out several points. He said that public confidence in Parliament had been damaged over recent years, and that the task of holding the Executive to account by this Chamber, while often done well, could have been done better. I agree with him. The point I wish to make in this short intervention is that addressing the composition of the House may make some contribution to those points but, by itself, will not rectify them. We need, within the terms of reference of the reform of the House of Lords, to consider how well we do our role, as well as who is doing that role. Over the past 15 years, we have given excessive attention to composition and insufficient attention to how we fulfil a role around which there is a broad consensus.

The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, acknowledged that there had been many ideas for improvement of how the House functions. She had the kindness to refer to three recent contributions to that debate from the reports of the cross-party working groups led by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and me. We would say no more than that these are stimuli to a wider debate, rather than seeking to set out a rigid template for change. Nevertheless, some of those ideas—and others on the same theme of how we improve how this House works—require debate. The process of changing the composition could well take 10 or 15 years. We must not neglect the importance of addressing our processes, procedures, systems and standards.

I will briefly touch on three or four points in those reports, which are no more than a taster. On legislation, perhaps the central recommendation was that there should be a process whereby this House tests whether legislation is fit and ready for introduction to Parliament. That is basically a technical function; it would do for primary legislation on a slightly bigger scale what is already done for secondary legislation by the Merits Committee. It would ensure that legislation had been thought through; it was clear what it sought to do; it had been properly consulted on; and there was a clear explanation of what it was for and how it would achieve its policy objectives.

Next, we recommended that there should be a public evidence process as part of any Lords starter. I am delighted that we need to say no more on that; it is already the coalition Government’s policy, as set out in their manifesto. Amen to that. Finally, because we thought it made sense, we said that the use of Grand Committee should become the default rather than the exception. I am sure that ought also to cheer the heart of the government Chief Whip. We also said that there ought to be more post-legislative scrutiny and we should get on with doing it. There is no threat to the Government of the day in any of those proposals. They ought to ensure that government legislation is better prepared by officials and goes through with more understanding of what it is for, rather than wasting time trying to unpack what it is for, which is often what we do.

On procedures, I will say nothing more because the noble Lord, Lord Butler, may wish to speak on those. However, we made a range of recommendations about Statements, Oral Questions, the topicality of debates and sitting times—the micro-issues, which are very important in making sure that the House operates efficiently.

In the report on governance, we argued that there is a need for a debate about the governance of this House. Some believe that governance is self-evidently good and sound. Others find it opaque and do not understand it. Irrespective of who is right on that, it is important that any self-governing institution is particularly careful to review periodically its governance and standards so that it can command public confidence that it has good governance, and that how it has good governance is transparent. We ought to be particularly mindful of that. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when we discussed these issues with him, had the grace—as one would expect—to recognise that perhaps every 10 years or so, a body such as ours ought to review how we work in these respects.

We were pleased to have the opportunity to discuss these issues with the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord McNally, as Leader and Deputy Leader. We were cordially received—I would expect no less from the Leader of the House—and had a good discussion. He agreed—I hope that he will correct me if I am wrong—that it would be desirable to have a debate on these and other issues before too long. I got the sense—I hope that I am not taking it too far—that he was minded to establish a Leaders’ Group after proper consultations. He has made a similar remark in other places. We told him that we see the benefit in such a process having wide terms of reference, being set up early rather than later—before the Summer Recess—getting on with it, and therefore reporting before the Christmas Recess, all of which we thought was perfectly possible without going at it too pell-mell. Therefore, when he responds, will the Deputy Leader say whether he agrees that we should make progress in these ways and when such a debate and such a process might start? I will say no more. I thank both the Leader and the Deputy Leader for the way they received our comments. I think that the House would generally welcome a process to look at these other issues in parallel with the debate on composition. There is more to life than composition.