Arrangement of Business

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that we will consult the Opposition in the usual way to schedule business that is to the greatest convenience to the House but that, of course, takes into account the availability of the opposition Front Bench. We will make every best effort to achieve an amicable resolution.

[Lord Grocott]

All Oppositions always accuse all Governments of introducing too many Bills, and too many bad Bills, so let us take that as read and as common ground between the Government and the Opposition. What is fundamentally different about the present situation in at least two respects is, first, that the Government have legislated to provide for a five-year Parliament. They did so, as anyone can see if they care to read the Committee and Report proceedings, to enable them to plan their programme over a five-year predictable period. Therefore, they can know exactly how many Bills they need to introduce in each of the five years.

The second thing that has changed as a result of a decision by this Government, despite strong opposition, is that this will be a two-year Session. I would think that is unique; it certainly has not happened for 40 years, and I doubt very much that it has happened since the Second World War, but perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us whether the period is any longer than that. In other words, were this a normal one-year Session, we would only just have had the Queen’s Speech; it would have been in May, and we would be starting the new Session now that would complete next April or May. Those are unique advantages that the Government have had.

I make no criticism of the noble Baroness, as she has a phenomenally difficult job—I know that very well indeed—so I offer her some very simple solutions to this problem. The Government know that they have five years, so why does not the Leader of the House and the noble Baroness, the Government Chief Whip, go to one of their friends in the Cabinet and do what she knows has to be done to explain the situation to one of the Secretaries of State who has a Bill about to be brought to this or to the other place—a Bill that will no doubt solve, as they all profess to, many of the problems facing mankind. She might suggest that it would not really be a disaster if that Bill, instead of being introduced in November or December this year, were introduced in May next year. That would not be a huge delay. The world will wait, and it would give her space in her programme. Alternatively, she can ask this House to carry over one or two Bills if the programme is in the kind of condition that she has described. I am sure the House would agree.

I suggest one very simple way in which the noble Baroness could save us quite a lot of time. We are about to embark on a two-day debate on the abolition of the House of Lords. I advise her that my judgment of public opinion is that should she announce that the Government have decided not to proceed with this in the immediate future, the nation would remain calm.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is always something that I listen to even if I do not agree with it. He always delivers it in a very urbane manner. As a government Chief Whip, he was always one to be highly respected and indeed it was he who helped the House by starting to give notice of government business way in advance. On the other side, when we got into a position when the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, wanted to come back a week early, we then made sure that we curtailed business so that we did not have to. We assisted the then Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, refers to unique circumstances. At the beginning of this Session the Government planned their business on the expectation of two things: first, that this House would carry out its normal procedure of scrutiny and would not take the 17 days in Committee that the Opposition decided were necessary on one Bill; and, secondly, that this House would accept the normal split of Bills between the Chamber and the Grand Committee in the usual way, which simply has not happened. That is why we have to return at the beginning of October. I am afraid that the House is going to have to observe the results of those two matters. We have tried for over five weeks now to reach an agreement with the Opposition. I have said three times that they have failed to come to that agreement and therefore we are in this position, which is regrettable for all of us.

I know that this debate has now gone on for some time and that the Benches behind me were emptying. I ought to say in defence of my noble friends, since I have noticed some comments opposite about this, sotto voce, that they are interested in business but it is, at this very minute, the memorial service for Lord Pilkington across the road. That is where they are.