Procedure of the House Committee Report: Private Members’ Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)]

My Lords, in moving this Motion, I will speak also to the fourth report of the committee.

The third report proposes the introduction of a ballot to determine the order in which Private Members’ Bills handed in on the day of State Opening receive their First Readings on subsequent days. At present, the Legislation Office organises the order of First Readings on a first come, first served basis. This proposal will establish a more formal and transparent mechanism for determining the order in which Private Members’ Bills receive their First Readings.

The fourth report is very short and simply proposes that speakers lists should close slightly earlier than at present in order to give Members greater notice of expected speaking times in debate. I beg to move.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I will say a few words about the fourth report—not the third one, but the one about speakers lists. I welcome the recognition by the Chairman of Committees and the Procedure Committee that there is a serious problem here, which is exacerbated by the increased number of Members of this House who quite reasonably and rightly wish to participate in its debates. The problem has reached critical proportions. As the Chairman of Committees knows, we do not bring much credit on ourselves when—for example, in the debate on the Middle East originated by my noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce—we give a couple of minutes to everyone to discuss a problem that is not, frankly, susceptible to being properly dealt with in that amount of time.

I fear that that is where the good news ends, because the change introduced by the Chairman of Committees, to which I have no objection at all, is simply tinkering and is unlikely to produce any major change to the problem that the Procedure Committee has identified. I hope that when the noble Lord replies to this point, and to any others that are made, he will assure the House that the door is not closed to a more radical look at this.

There are plenty of ways in which the problems associated with speakers lists and limited-duration debates could be ameliorated. You could have a system whereby the list was closed when the number of people down to speak reached the point where each of them would have a reasonable amount of time needed for that sort of debate. That could be agreed through the usual channels or in some other way. I am not asking for a debate about that now; I am merely asking whether the Chairman of Committees will say that the door is not closed. I fear that this will have to be looked at again when it turns out that this bit of tinkering does not make much difference.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)]

My Lords, I offer my support to the third report, which is the subject of the Motion moved by the Chairman. I fully support the idea that we should end the mad scramble for Private Members’ Bills after the State Opening of Parliament, which I was involved in at the start of this Session. I take the opportunity to inform the House that a particular Bill, in which noble Lords know I have an interest, has gone to the other place and has had a successful Second Reading. It is due to have its Committee stage as the Byles Bill on Wednesday and, with any luck, will be back here in time for us to turn it into law, four years later.