House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market]

My Lords, there is a great deal in this report, some of which is comparatively minor and much of great importance. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Goodlad and his committee on giving us this menu. I want to concentrate on those points which recognise the experience and expertise of this House, and which strengthen our ability to make use of them in a way which is certainly complementary to the other place—soon I hope that I can say “the House of Commons”—and perhaps add a dimension appropriate for us to make but which is in no sense confrontational with the other place.

I shall be broadly supportive of the report and its recommendations but I begin with two comparatively minor points with which I disagree; that is, starting in this Chamber at 2 pm and morning sittings on often important matters in the Moses Room. Many of us have outside jobs or other commitments of a voluntary nature—indeed, it is those which strengthen our experience and expertise—so as much as possible we plan our diaries on this basis. Many of us attend working lunches close perhaps to the Houses of Parliament but to have to leave at 1.30 pm in order to attend proceedings in this House would defeat the object of the exercise. Although I would not go to the wall on this, I would urge caution.

On the major recommendations, a thread is running through much of the report, which I suspect partly reflects the fact that four former Members of the other place were on the committee. The report continues to recognise the expertise and experience of this place, and the time that we can give to matters. In the other place, Members of Parliament often have much to do every day. The report refers to their constituency work, but it is a lot more than that. Particularly in this internet age, the workload on Members of Parliament is very much greater than when I was in the other place. In Select Committee work, there is not the same party political, confrontational or partisan aspect that inevitably occurs in the Commons.

What is interesting about many aspects of this report is that this House can have the time, the expertise and the non-confrontational approach to produce excellent work, which is in no sense to detract from what goes on in the House of Commons but adds to it. I turn therefore to pre-legislative scrutiny, of which I have long been an advocate. Recently, I had an interesting example on the Economic Affairs Finance Bill Sub-Committee, which has just reported on this year’s Finance Bill. We looked, to quite a large extent, at the new budgetary approach of the Government in producing draft Finance Bill legislation.

This year was a mixed experience. We had evidence from a large number of expert bodies outside Parliament in this area. A common thread running through their remarks was that this House often has the expertise and experience to look not at the policy or the rates of tax and so on but at the technical details of legislation, which so often go badly wrong and went badly wrong this year on the Finance Bill. Many of them recommended that this House should look at draft financial legislation in detail, not after the Bill has been published but beforehand, and bring that experience to bear. That is a very good example of pre-legislative scrutiny. It was not for our committee to make a recommendation that we should do this, but we have put the suggestion forward and hope it will be considered by the House Committee.

Post-legislative scrutiny is also extremely important. It is disappointing that the Government’s initial reaction was that departmental Select Committees should do this. I strongly believe that it can be done in this House. The key question that the committee raises is on the role of the Lords in that regard.

We all know the arguments about the defects in parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. There have been various attempts by Governments, through primary legislation, to extend the use of delegated legislation, often substantially. We have seen recent evidence of it, to which this House has rightly and successfully objected. In paragraphs 155 and 156, the committee puts forward a well thought out and far from revolutionary set of proposals to make good progress on this matter. As the committee says in paragraph 152:

“We also consider that such an approach would be more consistent with the House’s role as a revising chamber ultimately respecting the primacy of the House of Commons”.

That is extremely well argued and takes forward some of the objections that so many of us have raised as to the inability of either House to deal with delegated legislation.

On a separate point to do with scrutiny, I also welcome the recommendation in paragraph 128 concerning clauses or parts of a Bill that were not debated in the other place. We see that happening rather more often these days. I say to my noble friend the Leader of the House that this recommendation would hardly add to the costs of this House. Because of guillotines in the other place and the other pressures to which I have referred, we now see that much legislation is not properly looked at in the other House. That is becoming much more common. It is also further justification for the complementary work of this House, which is increasingly recognised in the world outside as being where we can add value. I hope, therefore, that that small but important recommendation can be taken forward quickly.

I have always felt that Select Committees are one of the great strengths of this House. They are also read or listened to by outside bodies. A very good recent example was our Select Committee on Economic Affairs, which produced a report on the oligopoly of auditors today—a subject that has not advanced far, despite many good intentions in recent years. The committee’s main recommendation has now been taken up by the OFT, when many thought that it would not be. I hope that many of our other recommendations will be pursued in the relevant quarters. In the section on Select Committees, the report is admirable for highlighting some of the contrasts between the ways in which the two Houses deal with Select Committee work. Therefore, I also hope that the recommendation to have two further Select Committees can be agreed to fairly soon.

In short, the report has produced practical recommendations for how this House can add value in several very important areas, but these in no way threaten the primacy of the other place.