Procedure and Privileges

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I join all those, especially the Leader of the House, who gave fulsome congratulations to the House authorities, IT department and the leadership of the House itself, who effectively put in all the changes to this House since March 2020.

Having said that, and nothing I say takes away from it, the hybrid House we have at the moment is considerably worse than the House we had before. There is a matter of process and essential principle in this, which the committee report we are now discussing has avoided; namely, that when emergency measures were introduced with minimum debate, for reasons we all understand, the first job of the Procedure Committee should have been to say that, when the House returns in September, all the emergency measures will be dumped and we will go back to where we were.

That does not mean that there is no case for, for instance, tabling Questions or amendments electronically —of course there is—but it would be better if the committee were to start the process of change, which many Peers have discussed, by making the individual case and therefore having a debate. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has a perfect example of that: sitting times is a very good question, but he forgot to mention the role of Ministers. We rely on Government Ministers being well briefed and understanding the questions they are dealing with. The fact is that, if we sat very much sooner than we do, they would not have the opportunity to be briefed or carry out their job. The noble Lord was a distinguished Secretary of State in the House of Lords, which is something we all support. I hope he agrees that Ministers play an important role in this House and that we need to give them time.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, used to talk about the “emotional geography” of the House. It is hard to define, but we know it when we feel it: that sense that we have gone on for too long, a sense that we should not be talking or a desire to have one speaker rather than another. These are important matters and we should not lose sight of what we are all here to do: to hold the Government to account, to provide scrutiny and revision of legislation in detail, and to hold general debates on which Members of this House are particularly expert.

The main issue with this report is on Oral Questions. Here, I have to agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack. First, there is the question of timing: 40 minutes. It is not so long ago that Lord Williams of Mostyn, a very distinguished Leader of this House—I think he may have been noble and learned—introduced in a Leader’s Group the idea of having five Questions in 40 minutes. It seemed like a good idea at the time but was an unmitigated disaster. We dropped it after a bit because the House does not, or did not then, have the patience to continue Questions much beyond 30 minutes. The House that I joined originally had only 20 minutes for Questions, which was far better. This is an example of where less is more.

Secondly, there is the question of lists. Imagine a situation where we all come back in September, the House is full and the Back-Benchers suddenly realise that they are here not as participants but as spectators because the list had been decided days ago. I take nothing away from what my noble friend Lord Cormack said but I really hope that the Senior Deputy Speaker will reflect on it again.

Thirdly, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke extremely effectively about those in wheelchairs. More thought needs to be given to that process. At Question Time, the House is very good at picking up Lord Bishops and making sure that they speak; it is perhaps true that people in wheelchairs do not catch the eye of the Front-Benchers or the Back-Benchers as much as they should.

My final point is on PNQs. I understand why the Lord Speaker and his predecessor wanted to have more PNQs but, now that the emergency has gone, when we come back in September, please can we go back to the normal practice of having very few PNQs? After all, what is the difference between a PNQ and an Urgent Question? We already have provision for Urgent Questions. PNQs should be reserved for rare and special occasions, often affecting your Lordships’ House, rather than on general matters.