Parliamentary Proceedings: Statistics

Lord Ryder of Wensum Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ryder of Wensum (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for initiating this important debate. Our constitution has emerged over centuries without plans or planners, yet checks and balances to it have evolved all the while. The noble Lord has proposed a modest constitutional balance tonight and I wholeheartedly support it.

My support stems partly from the decision taken at the turn of the century by the then Administration of Mr Tony Blair to impose House of Commons guillotine Motions, euphemistically known as programme Motions, on government Bills. This has led to vast segments of Bills receiving no scrutiny at all in the other place. Even those parts of Bills examined by elected Members often confirm a lack of rigour and attention to the detail on their behalf. Here I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for whom I have great respect. I was the Chief Whip in the other place for six years before automatic guillotines came about and it simply was not the case that a huge number of Bills were guillotined. In my six years, very few Bills ever were, and had I been subjected, as I often was, to the attitude of stopping on Clause 1 and forcing the Government to guillotine a Bill, I rejected that attitude. Once it was clear that I rejected it, you did not have to try again.

I come to the point—I was unaware of it—raised by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about four and a half hours being allocated to a Finance Bill. This House, of course, is not allowed to go line by line through a Finance Bill. Again, if I may use some personal experience, 30 years ago when I was a Treasury Minister speaking on Finance Bills, I received the most difficult time that I have ever had as a politician in answering detailed questions for 60, 70 or 80 hours—line by line—on those Bills. I did not realise which example the noble Lord would raise, and I feel that it is deeply regrettable.

The Conservative Opposition promised to abolish the automatic guillotining of Bills before the 2010 general election, but they reneged on the pledge by caving into elected Members who confused, and still confuse, an efficient House of Commons with an effective House of Commons. Efficient it may be, effective it is not. I fear that the other place is becoming an arena assembly, and arguably only a part-time one at that, and that it no longer functions as an effective, transformative legislature.

Another consequence of the absence of rigorous scrutiny in the other place is an increase in the number of judicial reviews, leaving aside the implications of Pepper v Hart in 1993. The resurgence of judicial reviews has irritated Ministers and officials and it is small wonder that the Cabinet Office has published, and republished, a pamphlet for use by civil servants entitled The Judge over Your Shoulder. That pamphlet could also be distributed to Ministers and Members of Parliament and I think it would help them, too.

I also want to emphasise, as other noble Lords have, the importance of ensuring that statistics on hours spent in parliamentary proceedings on each part of what becomes an Act should include the time taken on Bills in their draft form as well as in pre-legislative scrutiny. In my experience, the procedure of pre-legislative scrutiny has enhanced the quality of Acts of Parliament. In particular, I recall in your Lordships’ House the Communications Bill of 2003 and the Civil Contingencies Bill of 2004, which were prime examples of the success of this procedure. In contrast, I also recollect the chaos caused by the Public Bodies Bill of 2010, which was not subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny and was deficient on almost every count.

I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Young is answering this debate from the Front Bench. Few people in either House have as much knowledge as he does about the subject under consideration and I share the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that he may answer this debate in a very positive fashion.