Queen’s Speech

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, it is very easy to dismiss a legislative programme as too light, as Members of both Houses have done recently, but I have sat through a good many debates on gracious Speeches in which the accusation has been precisely the opposite. For my part, I remain consistent in arguing that less can be more, as I said to your Lordships on 13 May. Indeed, there are 11 Bills. That is more than one a month over the present Session.

One such Bill will give effect to the Liberal Democrat and Conservative promise to introduce a power of recall for MPs who have committed “serious wrongdoing”. There has never been any intention or promise from any party to introduce a broader power to dismiss MPs whose views someone dislikes. This is not watered down. It is much more likely that what will be in the Bill will be exactly what has been promised by all three parties.

The vital balance to strike, as has been very well put by Michael White in the Guardian, is to retain the Burkean responsibility of an MP to promote unfashionable or unpopular causes while at the same time ensuring that those who break the rules can be evicted by the constituents whose trust they have broken. I understand that Mr Zac Goldsmith prefers the Californian model of recall, but we should note that that would have enabled constituents to petition, perhaps successfully, for the recall of all MPs who had voted for the invasion of Iraq. I was very strongly against the invasion but all those who took the opposite view—the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, might agree with me on this—should certainly not have been evicted on a minority petition because of the action they took as responsible Members of Parliament. Like so much of this territory, getting a recall power right is more complex than it sounds. As ever, this House will have a big role to play in getting the detail right.

Meanwhile, if your Lordships’ House really does feel short of work to do in this Session, I will propose a way in which we can make good use of the newly available time. We regularly lament the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny—something which has improved under this Government but is still not regular enough—but what about post-legislative scrutiny? I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who has campaigned on this issue. There are plenty of examples of recently enacted legislation that urgently needs review by Joint Committees.

For example, the Academies Act 2010: surely now in the light of recent events there are big questions to ask about how accountability works in academies and free schools. Secondly, the Localism Act 2011: many of us feel that this was potentially one of the biggest successes of this Government, with support right across the House, but it is still criticised as inadequate by the local government community. Thirdly, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011: how well are those police and crime commissioners working with the communities that elected them, even if it was in very small numbers? We need to know.

Those are just a few examples. Others around the House will remember debates on other Bills where it would be beneficial to go back and look again at whose arguments were best supported by the practical effects of the legislation. On two big, controversial Bills—the Health and Social Care Act and the transparency Act—this House has inserted review clauses. Perhaps now is the time to consider whether all Bills should have a review clause, or even a cessation clause, just as all Bills have a commencement clause.

Parliament is not just about legislating. It is about scrutiny, and in this House we take particular pride in the quality of our scrutiny. We have plenty of legislation for the coming months but we could also find plenty more recent legislation to scrutinise for its adequacy or inadequacy, to make sure that it works and is fit for purpose. There is a real opportunity in this Session to do some extremely important work to check the quality of the work we have done previously in this Parliament and I hope that your Lordships’ House will address that issue.