House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, on obtaining this important debate. I also thank Nicola Newson for her outstanding Library report.

I shall mention two experiences this year and draw observations from them. The first echoes what the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said about the fate of legislation that has gone from this House to the other. I refer to the poorly drafted Legal Aid, Sentencing and Rehabilitation of Offenders Bill, which left the Ministry of Justice under that title and emerged from No. 10 into this House as the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. We spent hours and hours improving that Act, using the skill and expertise of this House, including that of people such as my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf. We sent a string of amendments down to the other place, which almost invariably were rejected on the ground that money was involved. If the other House had paid proper attention and scrutinised the amendments, it would have discovered that they did not involve spending money but saving money. Because the other House did not give them proper consideration, I felt that the skills and experience of this House were being misused by Parliament. Therefore, my first hope is that some way will be found of putting that right, so that the skills and expertise really can be put to better use.

My second hope relates to an inquiry that I am currently conducting into the death, under restraint, of a deportee in an aircraft at Heathrow when he was under forced removal from this country. During the course of this inquiry, I have discovered a vast number of practices in the UK Border Agency that could be put right to prevent this sort of thing. Earlier this year the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place conducted an inquiry into the governance of enforced removals, and I discovered that none of the things that we have found that could have been put right were included in its report. I have been trying now to find some way of getting the committee to accept the recommendations of my inquiry that refer to the use of statutory bodies to help the UK Border Agency. It struck me that one of the most successful committees in this House is the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which was formed in 2000 by the Liaison Committee. I wonder whether, to make better use of the skills and expertise in this House, it is not worth examining whether joint committees on other subjects such as justice should be created, bearing in mind all the expertise that is here. I put that forward as a consideration for the Leader of the House to take on.