Parliamentary Proceedings: Statistics

Lord Judge Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, when I saw what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was asking the House to consider in the Question I realised that there must be some ulterior motive. I share his ulterior motive, which is why I wish to say a little.

Although we constantly assert that we are carrying out our scrutinising responsibilities, it is very rare that Parliament is scrutinising the legislation. We have heard about having 2,700 pages of primary legislation in every year for the last however many years—it is certainly four or five—for which the statistics are available. We have also allowed 11,000 to 12,000 pages of statutory instruments to go through and out into the public, telling them how they must live their lives. In the Digital Economy Bill, we have 46 clauses which include no fewer than 12 Henry VIII clauses. They will all come into force as statutory instruments. They will go through a process of not being really much scrutinised. When they come here, if in our scrutiny we say anything about any provision in it, the whole instrument goes. We then have a Strathclyde review telling us that we have interfered with the scrutinising process carried out in the other place and are somehow acting unconstitutionally.

I want all your Lordships to try to imagine my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead wondering what a statute meant. Is it a few words in a statute; a few words which appear in a number of places in the same statute and are nearly the same; or a few words that are nearly the same appearing in two, three, four or five statutes? He may put a wet towel around his head and wonder, “What on earth does this mean?”. He does not of course think, as I always did when I had a wet towel around my head, “What did Parliament think it meant?”, with the follow-up question, “Did Parliament think about it at all?”. Of course you cannot say that as a judge, because you are bound by the Bill of Rights and cannot question anything that has happened in the process of the parliamentary proceedings, so you struggle to find the answer.

This issue has to be addressed. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I take the view that this is a tiny step forward to consideration of how we legislate—how we in both Houses seek to control the Executive. That is what we are here for.