Localism Bill

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

In fully supporting what my noble friend said, my point may seem trivial, but I hope that the House will not think that. There is a pretty good tradition in this House that when there is a major Statement, a really significant Statement, 40 minutes, not 20 minutes, will be allowed for Back Bench contributions. I understand that a request was made on that basis but refused today.

It would be very difficult to think of a more significant Statement than the one we have had today. I cannot think of one. The Leader of the House has been around a lot longer than I have, and perhaps he can draw on one. It was a Statement by the Prime Minister for which he had specifically come back from his tour of Africa and, in the other place, it is being followed by a debate. They will have about six hours to discuss these major issues. We have had about 40 or 45 minutes.

It is no use saying that we had a debate last Friday. We did. I was not here, but I have read it, and it was an outstanding debate. There is no reason not to think that this House could make a substantial contribution to these hugely important issues. I should like an explanation from the Leader of the House why the tradition of major Statements having 40 minutes for Back Bench contributions has been ignored on this occasion.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is right to say that there have been such occasions. I do not know whether it is a tradition, but if it is, it is overwhelmingly on issues where this House has a particular expertise, which is why the past few occasions that I can remember have been on the future of this House. This is an important Statement, but it was no more important than many Statements that we take every week. The purpose of a Statement is to bring to the House at the earliest possible opportunity a change of policy or a statement by the Government, and that is what we have done. I can absolutely promise the noble Lord that this is not the last time that we shall be discussing this issue. Over the next few months—indeed, years—we will have plenty of opportunity to debate it, as we have done recently, not only last Friday but on another Statement only a week ago. It was on that basis that I did not see the need to detain your Lordships any longer.

It might interest the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to know that we offered the opportunity to the Opposition that we could sit tomorrow—Thursday—to have a debate, but that was rejected. It is a pity, because not only could we have had a debate on the press, but we could have risen earlier this afternoon and finished off the Localism Bill tomorrow.

I have heard these little complaints from noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite that we are working them too hard on the Localism Bill. But this is day 10 in Committee and it is 3.15 pm, so we have plenty of time to continue work on the Bill. It has long been known that the Government’s aim is to finish the Committee stage of the legislation today. That may prove to be impossible but, with a fair wind and the co-operation of the opposition Chief Whip, there is no reason why we should not finish. My sense is that those who have been sitting in Committee for the last nine and a half days would rather like to get on with it and to be heard. We are about to be off for six weeks. I share with the opposition Chief Whip the concerns that he has rightly for the staff of this House, who work incredibly hard for us. The good news is that from tomorrow they, too, like noble Lords, will be able to have a long lie-in and a rest. They do not need to come back and be bothered about this until September.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for sharing my concern. It is not just the staff of this House who will be affected, it is also our own staff. When the Order of Business has been well advertised and well known for some time, it is unreasonable to expect people to be here well past our normal finishing time. This is not wasting time; it is making a perfectly proper point. The House needs to be treated with the respect it deserves, and this Bill needs to be treated with the respect it deserves. It deserves good scrutiny. Driving us on to late hours at night on the last day I think is quite wrong.

I am sure the Minister has the votes in his pocket. That is why the Government are here and that is how they operate in this House, but it is quite wrong to do this. I urge him to at least encourage some reasonable discussions this afternoon about how we can draw this to a close. We are a co-operative Opposition, but it is our job also to act properly in opposition and do a proper job of scrutiny on Bills in the correct hours. I believe in that very strongly and I am sure the whole House does.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am very happy to have further discussions off the Floor of the House, and I am very keen that the House should behave and continue in a proper way. However, to me, the noble Lord’s protestations sound a little hollow given that we are about to take six weeks off.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

That is just not true. The noble Lord has not answered the point. How does he expect us realistically to deal with 36 groups of amendments, some of them very long, in less than four hours? That just does not seem to me to be the right way to set about business.