House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, is to be congratulated on this timely debate, since it is very much the right time to talk about pragmatic improvement to the quality and work of this House. I want to focus on just one proposal, produced by the Leader’s Group, which the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, mentioned—the proposal for a Back-Bench committee, which I think could be appropriately described as a Back-Bench debates committee, to select topics for debate.

We all agree that there is a major priority in this House to play the role of a revising Chamber. The case has been made time and again. However, we are also a forum for debate and inquiry. Opportunities are there to challenge the Executive and debate issues of importance. I was lucky enough to have one on the Government’s policy towards Indian Ocean piracy last week. I am very glad that in the debate last year on working practices, on 11 June, the Leader of the House demonstrated a very open mind on this proposal, saying that it might be possible for Back-Bench Members to pick debates that are sufficiently topical, varied and of general interest, with a possibility of providing a sifting mechanism for that purpose. The choice that we have is between what has been described as “intelligent selection”—a rather Darwinian way in which to express it—as opposed to a lottery system. We are covering balloted debates for Back-Benchers, which take place once every month for 2.5 hours, Questions for Short Debate, which could be on the Floor of the House for up to 90 minutes maximum, or in Grand Committee, taking three or four at a time.

Although our practices are very different, we can learn something from the Commons’ procedures. Its new procedure of a Back-Bench Committee, established in 2010, seems to have worked well in deciding debates for up to 35 full debating days in every Session of Parliament. I think we can learn from that. The proposal is that we should have a committee of something like 12 Peers picked by the different parties and groups, including Cross-Benchers. The committee in this House could be of a smaller number, but whatever number it is, Members would be able to apply to that committee in open procedures. Then the committee would decide in private whether that topic should go forward for debate. This debates committee should obviously develop its own criteria but it is fairly obvious that debates in these circumstances would have to be limited in scope and either topical or long term. The level of importance would have to be decided, perhaps taking into account, for example, the representations of NGOs and voluntary bodies of one kind or another. The committee should be non-partisan.

It is interesting to note that in the House of Lords Business and Minutes of Proceedings of last Monday, 29 October, there were 57 Questions for Short Debate and 35 Motions for the next day for balloted debate. That shows the level of demand for this kind of procedure. The details can of course be refined but we would see improvements in our procedures by doing this. We would make better use of scarce time in the House and it would not necessarily involve substantial expenditure. It would be a good, pragmatic, transparent and coherent way of managing Back-Bench debates. I hope it will be taken seriously.