Liaison Committee Report

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

That the Report from the Committee New special inquiry committees 2019-20 (4th Report, HL Paper 309) be agreed to.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the ad hoc committees that the House set up last spring have now started to report. In anticipation, last autumn I invited Members of the House to put forward proposals for what we are now calling special inquiry committees.

I am once again very grateful to all the Members of the House who put forward proposals for special inquiry committees in the next Session. The Liaison Committee has had an excellent range of topics to choose from, and the proposals underline the range and breadth of expertise that is in your Lordships’ House. The committee always has a difficult task in choosing which committees to recommend and, with 27 proposals to choose from, this year was no exception. I hope noble Lords will all agree that the committee’s recommendations cover a wide range of subjects that will make excellent use of Members’ talents and contribute to debate and policy-making in a range of topical and cross-cutting areas.

We agreed the following proposals for special inquiry committees: democracy and digital technologies, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve; food, poverty, health and the environment, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott; and the social and economic consequences of the gambling industry, proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans.

As the report states, food, poverty, health and the environment all intersect. That inquiry would examine key issues, including how food can be made both sustainable and affordable. The gambling inquiry would be a wide-ranging study of both the social and economic consequences of this industry, bearing in mind that, with the rise of the internet, gambling is much more accessible than was the case 20 or so years ago.

On the proposed inquiry into democracy and digital technologies, the Political Polling and Digital Media Committee, which reported in April 2018, recommended that a further committee be established to scrutinise issues around digital media and politics that it had not had the opportunity to undertake in detail. Establishing this special inquiry is a response to that recommendation, as well as to the growing prominence of debates around democracy and digital technologies.

Since the appointment of the first House of Lords post-legislative scrutiny committee in May 2012, the House has established a strong reputation for this relatively new aspect of its work. Therefore, we agreed to recommend a post-legislative scrutiny committee to consider the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013.

We considered all the proposals we received against our published set of four criteria, namely: making best use of the knowledge and experience of Members of the House; complementing the work of Commons departmental Select Committees; addressing areas of policy that cross departmental boundaries; and, lastly, whether the inquiry proposed could be confined to one Session. The committee took care and time in coming to its conclusions. I hope the House will agree that our recommendations will provide a timely and manageable set of inquiries for the coming year.

I end on a note of gratitude for the work of all our committees. The enthusiasm with which Members from all sides of the House approach this aspect of our work is exemplary. We should all be proud of the work. I beg to move.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, Members might recall that this time a year ago anxieties were aired in this House, not so much about the subjects chosen, which seemed interesting, but about too much government control over membership and a lack of input from Members of the House over the subjects chosen. Indeed, I believe reform of the method of selection of members and subjects was aired; I think I gave evidence. Could the Senior Deputy Speaker tell us whether any reforms have taken place?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, am a member of the Liaison Committee and want to echo what other noble Lords have said in tribute to the work of the members of staff who support the committee. They do so in an extraordinarily professional way. The scoping reports that they produce on the various suggestions that have been made are of an exemplarily objective character. I get no sense of any attempt to lead the committee. If one gets any sense from reading the briefing papers in advance of the committee that their reports tend in a particular direction, I can only say that it is not uncommon to be disabused of any initial impressions one might have gathered from reading the papers as soon as one turns up to the committee. There is very lively debate on the proposals made and the supporting reports produced by the members of staff, which often leads to a change of view. We should not worry on any account that the staff have any undue influence over the conclusions that the committee reaches.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today. If any Member is exercised by this, it is me, because I am always conscious that from however many submissions there are—be it 27, 35 or whatever—I can select only three, so I leave the vast majority of people disappointed as a result.

The points made have been very constructive. I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others that politics did not come into this in any remote way—I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, on that. Indeed, at the end of it, Members may recall that I specifically asked whether everyone had been content with the process, and everyone agreed that they were. The staff do a fantastic job of engaging on this and the members take it very seriously. We are unanimous in our approach.

Reform is important—the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, made that point. I am exercised by that as well. Other members of the committee will be able to tell you of my desire to increase Member engagement. At the moment, we are undertaking a review of committees. It has been extensive to date, but I am happy for it to be more so. I would like there to be not just more Member engagement but more Member submissions. We could achieve that with the review of committees. It is the first review for 25 years. Therefore, we have an obligation not only to understand the environment we are in but to ensure that the reputation of the House of Lords is enhanced. There is no better way of doing that than through the work of our committees. We are at one on that. If the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, or any noble Lord wishes to engage with me on that point, I am happy to do so at any time; my door is open.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Does the noble Lord the Deputy Speaker really believe that 11 people, some of whom are taking political positions—that is certainly the case with the Liberal Democrats and the government representatives on the committee, which I have always objected to—should take decisions on their own which command so much of the resource of this place? Why does the committee resist seeing lists of people in support of particular recommendations when it knows that those lists reflect views right across the House? Those views will surely influence decisions taken by the committee on the subjects that they pick.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

The noble Lord and I are at variance on this. He is, in fact, at variance with every other member of the committee too. I will go over the noble Lord’s case because it is an important aspect. The committee and I were very mindful of the proposal for national identity cards and we were careful in our consideration of it. As the noble Lord knows, his proposal did not make it on to the shortlist, but it was considered for post-legislative scrutiny as part of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. I know that when that was conveyed to the noble Lord he was almost immediately not content with it and expressed his lack of support for it in subsequent discussions with officials.

The scoping note was prepared for the committee and therefore focused principally on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. As an alternative, the noble Lord proposed post-legislative scrutiny of the Identity Cards Act 2006, which is no longer in force. The committee considered that alternative proposal and agreed not to recommend it, on the basis that the Act itself was no longer on the statute book and that, in this instance, scrutiny would be further hampered by the fact that some records had been destroyed shortly after the repeal of the Act.

The Identity Documents Act 2010 introduced a range of measures which provided for the repeal of the Identity Cards Act 2006, the cancellation of all existing ID cards and prohibition of issuing any further ones on or after the date on which the Act was passed, and the destruction of information contained within the national identity register within two months from the date on which the Act was passed. So a lot of that information was no longer available. The Act was repealed and the committee said it was not worth pursuing the matter. When I conveyed that decision to the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked me whether, in these circumstances, we would consider the identity card proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. We had 27 submissions and eliminated all but eight. However, the entire committee and I accepted the request from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. So, rather than a short leet of eight, we had a short leet of nine. The submission from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, went to the final hurdle as one of the nine, but it failed at that point because the majority of the committee was not in favour of that inquiry.

I agree that we need to reform. The review of committees is there; I am happy to take things forward. With the will of the House, we can change this; we can have more submissions. That is for the longer term; I appreciate the constructive comments that have been made today and am willing to listen to more Members’ comments so that we have greater engagement.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

May I press the noble Lord on the point I put to him? If Brexit ever happens we really will not go on needing seven EU committees: much resource is available there. Will he address the fact that Brussels has never paid the slightest attention to any of our suggestions, because the EU is designed precisely to ignore the views of national Parliaments? Is there not a resource waiting to be used if we ever get Brexit?

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

I have to say that all my problems are concerned with this House and my vision does not extend to Brussels. With that, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.