Liaison Committee

Lord Sewel Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[The Chairman of Committees]

That the first Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 135) be agreed to.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)]

My Lords, the Liaison Committee’s report this time last year reviewed existing Select Committee activity and recommended an additional unit of committee activity, and a reduction in the resources available to the European Union Committee and the Science and Technology Committee to enable the redeployment of resources to support two new ad hoc committees and the appointment of an ad hoc post-legislative scrutiny committee. Over the past two months, the Liaison Committee has reviewed existing Select Committee activity in the light of these changes. Both this year and last, we discussed the work of the Communications Committee with its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and concluded that the Communications Committee should be appointed as a sessional committee at the start of the 2013-14 Session. I have to point out that there is no resource impact arising from this recommendation.

We also considered a proposal to extend the orders of reference of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy to enable it to appoint a sub-committee. The Joint Committee already meets more than the three to four times a year which was originally envisaged and is well supported by Members of your Lordships’ House. The House of Commons Liaison Committee considered the Joint Committee’s proposal for a power to establish a sub-committee at its meeting on 27 February, and declined to support it. The House of Lords Liaison Committee did not support an increase in the Joint Committee’s resources and instead suggested that further thought should be given to the size and composition of the Joint Committee’s membership.

Last year, we recommended that, from the start of the 2012-13 Session, the number of sub-committees of the European Union Committee should be reduced from seven to six. We also recommended that the Science and Technology Committee should be allocated the resource of a single Select Committee. As we acknowledged in our report, this decision caused considerable unhappiness. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, chairman of the Science and Technology Committee explained, previously, the committee had the resources to conduct two units of activity at once. The reduction in resource to three staff members had required the committee to undertake one unit of activity rather than two, and the committee no longer had a sub-committee. In the past, the committee has typically alternated a long inquiry with a short one. The committee has been severely constrained in the present Session by having to drop the second simultaneous inquiry.

We recognise the important contribution of the European Union Committee and Science and Technology Committee to the committee work of the House. We believe, however, that the restructuring of committee activity which took effect at the start of the present Session needs further time to bed down. The reduction in resources for the EU and Science and Technology Committee in the present Session enabled an expansion of ad hoc committee activity. This has been a step change for the House of Lords, and has included the first ever House of Lords post-legislative scrutiny committee. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, chairman of the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, chairman of the Select Committee on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and Exports, and the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, chairman of the Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change, were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the work of their committees, the commitment of the members and the support provided by the committee staff. We consider that the three new ad hoc committees have worked very well during this Session.

I encouraged Members from all sides of the House to put forward ideas for new committee activity for the next Session, and was delighted by the response. We considered the proposals received against the criteria set out in the original Leader’s Group report on the matter. I am delighted to report that the House Committee has agreed in principle that funds can be made available to support the work of a further additional unit of committee activity in 2013-14. This is at a cost of approximately £225,000.

This increase in activity can be managed without affecting the House’s overall aim not to increase our resource costs in real terms, partly as a result of savings that have been made in other areas. As an example, Members will be aware of savings being made through reducing the number of days on which mail is forwarded and removing linen hand towels, and of significant savings being made by making more documents available online, thereby leading to the reduction in printing costs. I am fully aware that not all of these savings initiatives met with universal acclaim at the time, but it is true that the savings that we have made in these areas have enabled resource to be redirected to support the core activities of the House. That is something to recognise and support.

The new Select Committees that are going to be set up are in addition to the extra unit of committee activity agreed to by the House Committee and the House this time last year. The Liaison Committee also decided to recommend two shorter, ad hoc committee inquiries to run consecutively. This means that we have been able to recommend ad hoc committees on five subjects, as follows: first, a committee on the use of soft power in promoting the UK’s interests abroad; secondly, a committee on the strategic issues for regeneration and sporting legacy from the Olympics and Paralympic Games, to report by late 2013; thirdly, a committee on the consequences of the use of personal service companies for tax collection, following the completion of the work of the committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy; fourthly, a post-legislative scrutiny committee to examine the Mental Capacity Act 2005; and, fifthly, a post-legislative scrutiny committee to examine the Inquiries Act 2005. This is in addition to the important pre-legislative and other scrutiny committee activities.

As Chairman of Committees, I am all too well aware of the fact that it is impossible to please all your Lordships all the time. However, I know that the Liaison Committee has put in hard work in recent months to produce a report which, I hope, may please some of your Lordships for some of the time. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

As the Liaison Committee is a committee of your Lordships’ House, could the noble Lord give a little more of the reasoning behind its failure to approve an ad hoc committee requested by my noble friend Lady Cox, who cannot be here today? The request was for an ad hoc committee into religiously sanctioned gender discrimination against women. I ask this question as one of the 70 Peers who supported that request. It is therefore surprising that the report that we are considering says that only two Peers supported the request, whereas in the letter from my noble friend Lady Cox to the committee of 22 November, she named three eminent Peers who supported her committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Dholakia, and said that 67 other Peers supported it. As far as I can see, of the committees that have been selected, not one was supported by a single other Peer. Therefore, I wonder whether the Liaison Committee has got this right.

Finally, I am sure that your Lordships would be disappointed if I did not bring the European Union into this somehow. Therefore, I once again must ask whether your Lordships really need seven European Union committees, whose suggestions and considerations are largely ignored in Brussels, whereas the House of Commons makes do with one European Scrutiny Committee. I have to ask the Liaison Committee to think again on this one—or, if not, to consider a request for this very widely supported and important committee at the earliest opportunity.

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[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, it is sometimes a very lonely job being the Chairman of Committees. I just want to say that I and other members of the Liaison Committee are here and, as I know the Chairman will say, we will certainly take all these things into consideration when we next discuss these issues. I did not wish the Chairman to feel that he was alone in these matters.

[The Chairman of Committees]

I thank the noble Baroness very much. First, perhaps I may deal with the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mainly because of the ringing endorsement he gave me for the way in which I have carried out the job. Knowing his interest in football and a far from gloriously successful football side, it felt a little bit like being the club manager whose team is languishing somewhere in the relegation zone, as soon as he started to make those comments.

It is true that the chairmen of virtually all our Select Committees have written asking that time be made available for the debate on their reports, that time has not properly and fully been made available at the moment and that there is a delay. To a very large extent, that is true. It will be discussed by, I think, the Procedure Committee at its next meeting. That is under way and being considered. The precise timing of when reports are debated on the Floor of your Lordships’ House is a matter for the usual channels and is not within the scope of any of our domestic committees. I am sure the usual channels would recognise the points that were made, particularly in relation to the additional week’s recess.

As regards the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, I will not go into details on the EU Committee, save only to say that if he is saying that the views of our EU Committee are not considered fully in Brussels, he should look at the proposals for the reform of a very difficult area of policy: the common fisheries policy. He will see that the Commission’s proposals follow almost word for word the recommendations made by this House’s EU Committee when it looked at the reform of the common fisheries policy some years ago. Therefore, at least in one highly controversial area of policy, the EU Committee’s voice is not only being heard but is being effective and carried out through implementation.

The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, also made various points about one particular topic not being selected. I am afraid that the quality of the submissions was such that there are bound to be a number of people who feel disappointed. We had 27 submissions for Select Committees, the vast majority of which one could have said yes to quite easily. It was a very high quality list of submissions, and it is inevitable that people will be disappointed. I have to say that the committee had previously set its face against being swayed by the number of people who had just signed up to support a topic. It really wanted to look at the quality of the topic, the importance and relevance of the topic and how it could bring forward a mix of topics that covered a broad and comprehensive range of subject areas.

Several noble Lords referred to foreign affairs. I hear and I welcome the comments that have been made and the argument to have a foreign affairs Select Committee. The established position of the House, which was repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is that we do not duplicate the work of the House of Commons. In fact, we very rarely duplicate its work in the work of our Select Committees. We tend to bring a different perspective, a different set of skills and a different set of experiences to the consideration of what might seem to be the same topic or the same policy area, and a very different product is produced.

We have moved, let us say cautiously if not slowly, in establishing an ad hoc Select Committee in the foreign affairs area by looking at the use of soft power in supporting Britain’s influence in the world. That is something of an experiment. Let us see how that goes, see if it produces a distinctive value-added piece of work, and perhaps build from there out to have a more universal coverage of the foreign affairs policy agenda. That is something that I think we can judge perhaps better this time next year.

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[The Chairman of Committees]

The argument there is that the ad hoc committee can be a focused committee, and can change perhaps its area of focus in the general area of foreign policy from year to year, with a different composition of people who had an interest in that area. That is the type of thinking the Liaison Committee is developing, rather than increasing the number of sessional committees. That is an argument that we can have and develop during the year, but I would be loath to set up a new sessional committee at the cost of losing the flexibility that you get with an ad hoc committee.

[Lord Hurd of Westwell]

Can we pinpoint this a little? We cannot hold the noble Lord to the exact figures, but it would be very helpful to have an illustrative declaration statement of what a foreign affairs committee would probably cost. We have gone around the subject, but we have to tackle that basic point, as it is crucial. Of course, as my noble friend has pointed out, if one abandoned the idea of a soft power committee, a saving would be set against the cost of the foreign affairs committee. We need to pursue this. The noble Lord will have heard the views expressed in this House, and I think one would find them reflected outside this House. I therefore hope that this will be given very serious consideration.

[The Chairman of Committees]

I have tried to indicate that Members who have an interest in the foreign affairs area are pushing at a door that might not be open but is more than slightly ajar. Certainly the committee will want to look at and address the points that have been made in that area at its next meeting on 11 June. It will see what it can come forward with, perhaps not immediately but during the year, when it looks again at the range of committees and topics that it will bring forward for the following year.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Will the Chairman of Committees bear in mind, before the meeting in June that he has just mentioned, that the outside views to which my noble friend Lord Hurd has referred are growing and very urgent? They come from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where some of us have served and which, I understand, is very willing and anxious to have this kind of opening, and the House of Commons problem is always there. Certainly there is a valid view that the House of Lords can reinforce and follow up some of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee reports in a constructive way, to the great benefit of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Quite aside from that, there is an enormous volume of views that the destiny, prosperity and interests of this nation lie increasingly in the world network—Asia, Africa, Latin America—and the Commonwealth network, and that is where your Lordships’ skill and expertise should be focused.

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[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, before the noble Lord answers the question on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, of which I am member, I have to say that this House would benefit more from an effective foreign affairs committee than it does from what I regard as an ineffective Joint Committee on Security. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that unless that committee can be made effective—it does require the ability to set up sub-committees in order to do its work, but I shall not labour that point at the moment—we would be better off concentrating our efforts on a committee that is supported and will work, rather than taking part in a Joint Committee which, at the moment, does not have a particularly good future.

[The Chairman of Committees]

I shall try to deal with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, yet again. The committee’s view was that the Joint Committee should revisit and constrain itself to working with its original remit, which was to meet, I think the term was, frequently but irregularly three or four times a year. That was the Joint Committee’s understanding. There are, in effect, two committees to deal with security issues. There is the Intelligence and Security Committee, which looks at the security services, and there is the Joint Committee on Security, a totally different creature that tends to look at a broader concept of security and deals with energy security, food security and so on.

The Joint Committee on Security is disappointing because, perhaps as a function of its composition and size, it has had recurring difficulty in sustaining interest from Members of the other place. This is largely because, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, the other place has appointed the chairs of highly demanding Select Committees, and perhaps being on that committee is relatively low down on the order of priorities of its Members. It might be more helpful if the committee itself started a discussion on whether it could make itself more effective by addressing size and composition. Until then, it is clear that the view of the House of Commons committee and our committee is that there should be no expansion of its powers to appoint sub-committees.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I agree entirely with what the noble Lord has just said about the unsatisfactory nature of both the size of the committee and the levels of attendance, particularly by Members of the House of Commons. It has to be said, however, that the chairmen of the various committees—home affairs, defence, foreign affairs and so on—themselves insisted on being members of this committee in order partly to ensure that it did not actually step on to their patch. That creates real difficulties for the effective work of the committee, which is precisely why it is difficult to find the interstices where we might be permitted to do something. There are some fundamentally unsatisfactory aspects to the existence of this committee that go to its mandate. I do not think that we will make a satisfactory committee out of conforming to the mandate: rather, the mandate has to change in order to make a satisfactory committee.

[The Chairman of Committees]

That might very well be the case, and I suggest that the starting-off point is to look at composition, size and mandate rather than giving the committee powers to appoint a sub-committee. The issue is much more fundamental than giving it the power to appoint a sub-committee. The remaining important and recurring point is that of a foreign affairs Select Committee. I acknowledge fully everything that has been said, and I am sure there will be proper and full discussion at the earliest opportunity.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I want to raise a final point with which the noble Lord may agree, because we have discussed it. When reports, particularly from domestic committees, are put on to the Minute, would it not be helpful if there was some description of what they are about? We have had a full debate today, but all that is recorded on the Order Paper is that it concerns the first report of the Liaison Committee. Perhaps we could have some description of what is involved, and a period of notice for any debate. I would suggest possibly a week. Some of these committee reports are put on overnight, I would not dare to suggest, in the hope that they may just be nodded through. A brief description and a period of notice for these reports, most of which are extremely valuable, would help the House to debate them.

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, the noble Lord has tabled two Questions for Written Answer for me on this very issue. In the spirit of openness, transparency, accountability, motherhood and apple pie, I hope that we can end this debate with a degree of agreement. However, the noble Lord has made a good point. It is right that rather than having a sort of sexy title such as, “That the First Report of the Liaison Committee be agreed to”, we should put on to the Order Paper a brief description of the main issues dealt with in the report. I hope that that is the essence of the reply I will make to the noble Lord when his Questions are answered, and I am sure that he will be at least partly satisfied today.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven for this, but I have to take this opportunity to correct a misapprehension that was mentioned earlier in this short debate. It was that the usual channels had agreed to the extra week’s recess that was announced a couple of weeks ago. The decision was not reached by the usual channels; it was the result of a discussion by Her Majesty’s Government.

[The Chairman of Committees]

I would hate to mislead the House. I think that all the issues have now been ventilated, and I beg to move.

Motion agreed.