King’s Speech

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, to their ministerial offices. It is for us all a great privilege to have again in the House an Attorney-General, particularly one with such a deep and obvious commitment not only to the rule of law domestically but, as important, internationally.

There are two aspects of the Minister’s wonderful maiden speech on which I would like to comment. They are both rather unglamorous points, because legislation such as new Bills is always thought, by a Minister, to be the most glamorous thing of all to be able to introduce.

I will begin by talking about legislation, particularly its quality. First, to put down a marker, I hope we have seen the end of skeleton Bills. We should never have seen them in the first place, and I hope we never see another. Secondly, there is the problem of secondary legislation. It would be too much to hope to see it disappear from the way we do things—it is impossible to conceive of that happening—so I want to say a word about the quality of secondary legislation. Much started to be done towards the end of the last Government, but I hope that a much more radical view will be taken: first, to look at the proposals of the Hansard Society; and secondly, to discuss seriously the way in which amendments can be made to statutory instruments. This is a much-needed reform.

As important, and totally unglamorous, are the nuts and bolts of doing the job: first, making certain that when policy is formulated, information is available and is published with the SI; and secondly, that the work of drafting has sufficient resources—that those who do it are properly trained. It is not easy, and mistakes occur because there are not enough resources. The work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, on which I had the privilege to serve, has shown what a wonderful job the staff can do; the clerks are expert. But there is no substitute for a commitment by the Government to improve; for the appointment of a Minister who will be accountable for the overall improvement; and for a real commitment to resourcing the job properly. It cannot be done on the cheap, but it is of vital importance.

I turn, secondly, to devolution to the home nations. There is not time to make a proper speech about it, so I will address one issue: the Government’s commitment to looking again at joint working. The way in which we have moved to our current constitution with the home nations requires joint working. There is nothing that sets out clearly the powers of the union or its purpose, but areas such as economic development, the way the internal market operates, and trade, clearly require the co-operation of the Westminster Government and the Governments of the devolved nations. In reality, there has been no proper machinery to make that work. There are lots of good ideas, such as common frameworks and the 2002 commitment to a joint intergovernmental working process, but none of this has ever been made to work.

Although much was done towards the end of the last Government, particularly by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, we need a radical rethink. Why this is so important is that if people work together and see that you cannot run a union without co-operation and the machinery of co-operation, things will not work. Solving problems such as the disappearance of the Sewel convention—it is not a convention any more—will ensure that, when we look at the more difficult problems of the union, if people are used to working together properly under a machinery, and, hopefully, with a Minister truly accountable for that, we will make a great deal of progress and improve the government of our nation. All of this is unglamorous, but most important.