Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

5. What assessment he has made of the pilots of public reading stages for Bills.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

We have conducted pilot public reading stages for the Protection of Freedoms Bill and the Small Charitable Donations Bill, and an online consultation was conducted on the draft Care and Support Bill.

Following evaluation, I have today informed the House in a written ministerial statement that public reading stages will form part of a tool kit to consider legislation on a case-by-case basis. I hope we will continue to improve public engagement in the legislative process—for example, through pre-legislative scrutiny and evidence sessions in Public Bill Committees rather than by adopting a uniform approach to legislation.

[Sarah Newton]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s response and congratulate him and his predecessor on the great innovations in this Parliament to make this place more relevant to the people who sent us here. I urge that we use the new tool in our tool kit as often as we can.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with whom I share an appreciation of my predecessor. Over the past two and a half years, the House has made considerable progress in engaging the public directly with legislation. We can do that through a number of routes. Sometimes, pre-legislative scrutiny on draft legislation or evidence sessions before Public Bill Committees are very effective, and public reading stages are a further option. We do not want to specify in relation to any particular legislation that all those things must be applied, but we have the mechanisms to engage the public more fully.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

9. What recent discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues on the requirements of the ministerial code relating to making policy announcements to the House before the media.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The ministerial code is clear:

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament.”

I regularly remind my colleagues of this.

[Diana Johnson]

We know from the Government’s relaunch that they are planning to make 12 policy announcements over the next 12 weeks. Will the Leader of the House assure us that those announcements will be made first to the House of Commons, and that there will penalties if that does not happen?

[Mr Lansley]

I reiterate to the House and to the hon. Lady that the ministerial code is clear and that I regularly remind my colleagues of it. It is our intention and our practice that the most important announcements of Government policy be made in the first instance to Parliament. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is saying from a sedentary position that I am inaccurate. I have quoted directly the ministerial code to him and to the House.