English Votes for English Laws

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I always like to be helpful to the noble Baroness and give way when she asks, although it might have been better for her if I had not given her the opportunity on that occasion. Without being too unkind, she consistently refers to “we” and the Government. I understand that. But in this case—the proposal for the Joint Committee—the “we” in question is her role as Leader of this House. I say that in all sincerity. All I was asking was whether the Government were whipping their Members to vote against a Joint Committee, which would be very helpful to know. It was not a party-political issue when it was raised. It was raised by all parties and no parties.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

I wonder whether this is the right moment to remind the House and the Leader of the House that what happened after she made that Statement by the Government about their lack of support for this proposal, was that this House, of which she is a servant, voted by 320 votes to 139 votes to express clear support for that mechanism. Is she now saying that she is ignoring a vote of this House?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am not quite sure that that was an intervention on this speaker. The point I want to make to the noble Baroness is that, when a Motion is passed, it is the property of this body, of which she has the great opportunity to be Leader. I think she is probably not the only person in your Lordships’ House who aspires to that.

I want to go back to this. If there had been such a debate in the House of Commons, it would have given some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that it had been properly considered by Members of the House of Commons, even if it had been rejected. It would have given us some confidence that it had been considered and that it was their considered judgment that they did not think it necessary. If it had been rejected, the House of Lords would have been able to say, “Right, what should we do? What processes should we go through to reassure ourselves that we can properly investigate and assess whether those measures have any impact on how we operate?”. That is all that was being asked. It would have been preferable to work together, for both Houses to examine this, rather than just one House—your Lordships’ House—looking at it alone. A debate in the other place on this issue prior to today would have helped inform our deliberations and discussions this evening. Very important constitutional issues are being raised. If any constitutional issue is rushed when it is not essential or necessary to do so, every opportunity should be taken to consider it properly.

I ask the noble Baroness a very specific question: has she at any time raised the request from the House of Lords for a Joint Committee directly with the Leader of the House of Commons or the Prime Minister, either in Cabinet or in a Cabinet committee? I appreciate that it is not always straightforward and easy. As the noble Baroness indicated, she has a responsibility as a Cabinet member, as a member of the Government and as the Leader of the Government in your Lordships’ House. However, she also, as she has been reminded by noble Lords, has a role as Leader of your Lordships’ House across the parties. I appreciate that it can be difficult; every Leader has to navigate that. However, the point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that the majority in favour of a Joint Committee was 101.

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I can respond directly to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, because I served on the Cunningham committee on conventions. There is no such convention on secondary legislation. Indeed, I recall a number of occasions when the Conservatives moved fatal, wrecking amendments to SIs during a Labour Government. His point can be dealt with quite quickly.

Normally my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness would lead for these Benches, but as Members will know he took a leading part on the previous debate on the Energy Bill. Since he has unique experience in this House, the other House and Holyrood—and in government at both ends of the country—I have benefited from his wisdom in preparing my contribution.

I and my colleagues have long argued that we need proposals for devolution within a federal constitutional framework, so we accept that there is a question to answer. We are not people who think that the English question is best not asked. Indeed, we gave evidence to the McKay commission on that basis—I was involved in that myself. We also acknowledge that the Leader of the Commons and the Procedure Committee in the other place have attempted to meet some of the concerns expressed in debates both in this House and in the other place during July. However, a number of other, very fundamental concerns remain. I shall touch on them speedily. Whether this is the only or best way to resolve them is still a matter for debate. I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and I will return to this point later.

Meanwhile, we should dispel some of the myths that grew up during the summer and were expressed in your Lordships’ House. First, there was an illusion that somehow these proposals affect only the House of Commons, are entirely discrete to that House and are appropriately dealt with by a simple introduction of new Standing Orders. Frankly, that has been blown to smithereens, not least in your Lordships’ House but also in the other place. I illustrate that by the fact that the revised proposals from the Leader of the Commons have now expanded the consideration of certified Motions or amendments relating to Lords amendments and other messages from one page to two. The proposed Standing Order 83O—not 830—which the Commons will consider tomorrow, is now very extensive. Page 27 of the new Explanatory Memorandum contains this firm statement:

“Paragraphs (2) to (6) ensure that English, or English and Welsh, MPs have the opportunity to veto Lords amendments that may make changes to the bill or parts of the bill that relate to England or England and Wales”.

Colleagues will recall that we were told there was no veto. It is now very firmly there. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has already indicated, this could relate to some extremely important decisions of Parliament. But what this does is to provide for a veto by a subset of that House. For the first time, one House of Parliament is to be overruled by a devolved mechanism in the other. Members of your Lordships’ House will note that there is now no hesitation in using the word “veto”. Members of the Government are fond of quoting the core importance of the sovereignty of the full Westminster Parliament—that is, the full House of Lords and the full House of Commons. Here we have an example of where a subset has a veto over the full Westminster Parliament. If that does not raise important constitutional issues, what does? Indeed, perhaps we should reflect that, topically, Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont could ask: “What are the implications for us of this change?”. That brings me to my second major concern.

These proposals alter the delicate balance of power and responsibility between the two Houses of Parliament. Ministers have suggested—and it has been suggested again this evening—that in addition to monitoring and review undertaken by the Commons Procedure Committee at the end of this process, not in preparation for it, our own Constitution Committee might be involved in some way. I am the first to respect the work of the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, and his colleagues on our Constitution Committee. I just ask: what would happen if there were two quite separate investigations, monitoring and reviews of these processes, and they came to different conclusions? What do we expect will happen then? The Constitution Committee of our House reports to our House. The Procedure Committee reports to the House of Commons. What happens if they are not clearly in complete agreement? The noble Baroness has said that there will be a rigorous attempt to look at what has happened. I suggest that this is just a recipe for duplication, confusion and conflict between the two Houses.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Young, is present. I am not sure what his new title is. He and I have sat on a number of Joint Committees. I think that they are an extremely important vehicle for the two Houses to reach sensible conclusions on all sorts of matters. Here is a classic case for this. The case for a Joint Committee of Peers and MPs proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and endorsed by a huge majority of your Lordships on 21 July, to which I have already referred, is clearly the sensible parliamentary way to approach this issue, with the whole of Parliament in mind, and to avoid the confusions that could otherwise occur.

As has already been said, tomorrow MPs will be invited to respond positively to the Motion of 21 July in your Lordships’ House, which was carried by a large majority. Sadly, this will not take the form of a proper response from the Leader of the Commons on behalf of the Government. No doubt the Leader of this House will be able to explain in her response at the end of this debate why we have not had the courtesy of a proper response from the other House. Instead, as has again been referred to, there will be an amendment endorsed by, I gather, several Members of several parties. I have counted six who have signed up to this amendment in the name of Mr Graham Allen, which reads as follows,

“this House concurs with the Lords Message of 21 July, that it is expedient that a joint committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the constitutional implications of the Government’s revised proposals to change the Standing Orders of the House of Commons in order to give effect to English Votes for English Laws, and that the committee should report on the proposals by 30 March 2016”.

That is not kicking the issue into the long grass but is a very sensible approach, not least, of course, because the Government have already said that there is no huge urgency for this. They are not anticipating in the immediate future that there will be any Bill which raises these particular concerns and different issues for different parts of the United Kingdom. That brings me to my third point.

This is a classic case of the dangers of piecemeal, ad hoc attempts to deal with apparent anomalies in our only partially written and codified constitution. Remove one anomaly and you create a potential host of others. If any Member of your Lordships’ House still thinks, after listening today, that this can be resolved in isolation, I suggest they look back at the debates in your Lordships’ House and, indeed, the other place in July which contain a wealth of practical experience. I refer to just a few who contributed in your Lordships’ House—the noble Lords, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Lisvane, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan—I hope I have pronounced that name right—and my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace, all of whom have a right to be heard by the Government, given their past responsibilities in Parliament and in government. If any Member still has further doubts, they should read the contribution of the former Attorney-General, Mr Dominic Grieve, in the debate in the Commons on 15 July. That leads me to my fourth point.

There is such a head of steam now for a constitutional convention of some sort. I am not suggesting that there is any one model. It is supported on all sides of your Lordships’ House and is evidenced by the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed. Surely the Government must agree to see these proposals in their wider context. I confess that in the past I have been something of a sceptic of the sort of all-purpose constitutional convention—put it all in the pot, stir it around and hope consensus comes out at the other end—but the confusion over these proposals over the past few months surely adds strength to the argument heard regularly from the other side of the House that too many of these ad hoc piecemeal attempts to update our constitution are neither coherent or comprehensive. My noble friend Lord Purvis, whose service here and in Holyrood, and in the Scottish body politic generally, gives him special experience, will deal with this aspect in more detail later.

Therefore, I believe that there is some urgency now for agreeing to set up some form of constitutional dialogue which looks at the relationship between the different parts of the union and their various political institutions. I accept that to make it a success we should be clear about how that convention—whatever form it might take—should begin its work. There are all too often false parallels drawn between vague ideas about a constitutional convention for the United Kingdom and what happened in Scotland in 1996, but, as both my colleagues here will confirm, the Scottish convention was a process which started with some measure of agreement on the outcomes that the parties wanted. Indeed, the Conservative and Scottish National parties refused to take part precisely because neither would commit to that level of agreement, so we should seek some agreement on principles before setting up a convention. It is, of course, no coincidence that many Conservative Members are now ardent advocates of EVEL, when so much of their support comes from England, while, on the other hand, it is no particular coincidence that Labour Members are more prone to cavil about EVEL, when so much of their historic support was in Scotland. Therefore, a public element of any such discussion, or any other form of widespread consultation, must involve putting these political prejudices on a sort of jury trial. It could then be hoped that the outcome would command public confidence.

But if the Government are to achieve any consensus—indeed, any unanimity—in their own ranks, they cannot continue to adopt a narrow, partisan, piecemeal approach to these great issues. Today, I have reread Command Paper 8969, The Implications of Devolution for England, introduced by the now much regretted departed Leader of the Commons, William Hague, who claimed:

“Both the parties to the coalition wish to continue this major process towards decentralisation in England”.

The present proposals do not meet that challenge.

I note that my right honourable and honourable friends in the Commons have today tabled a further amendment to the Leader’s Motion as follows:

“This House believes that a constitutional convention should be established to report by the end of 2016 to ensure the legitimate demand for English voices to be heard on English matters is delivered within the context of a carefully considered settlement for the UK, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, England and the authorities participating in the Government’s devolution agenda”.

That should surely be the context for these discussions, not a little bit of ad hocery. It is certain that the proposals that will go before the other House tomorrow simply do not rise to the challenge of the White Paper of Mr Hague, as he then was. As a result, they will satisfy nobody. Those who favour an English Parliament—with the inevitable English Executive that would be required to implement its decisions—will attack them as a weak and weedy bureaucratic jungle. Incidentally, I do not know how many Members of your Lordships’ House have looked at the revised proposals but it is significant that the Leader of the Commons has not dared to produce a revised flow chart this time—I think it would look like somebody’s inadequate attempt at knitting. Those others, like many Members of your Lordships’ House, who identify constitutional hostages to fortune will plead for a more considered, comprehensive and consensual approach.

I think many Members of your Lordships’ House will join us in appealing to Ministers to listen to your House; to agree to a Joint Committee to examine these proposals more fully before experimenting with the current draft; to incorporate a sunset clause in the eventual changes to the Standing Orders; and, most important of all, to accept in principle the case for some form of convention to discuss the future of our part-written constitution in this era of post-devolution settlement.

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[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I will say that I understand the strategic objective of the Government, which is to enable a fairer system of sharing decision-making throughout the United Kingdom. Indeed, the statement that was made by the Prime Minister, with the support of the other leaders, the week before the referendum—which in my view had no purpose and no effect—made the discussion of these issues inevitable. That is my starting point, but I have grave concerns about the Government’s approach in addressing those objectives, especially the political implications. I will put my concerns as simply as I can.

The Government are rushing this issue when there is no need to do so. They have five years ahead of them—if you believe some of the more cynical commentators, perhaps an extended length of time in government even beyond that. As result of rushing, they are avoiding the reflection and consultation that are necessary, in absence of which they will inevitably produce a flawed solution. This in turn will lead to dispute and to grievances where none existed before. As the noble Lord, Lord Lang, said, grievance is the platform on which the Scottish nationalists produced almost every strategic objective they have. But if he believes that it is not possible for them to discover new grievances, I say to him that we should not help them in that task by mass-producing potential grievances out of a flawed scheme such as this. That is the politics of it. If I am right, in attempting to solve one political dilemma—the West Lothian question—the Government will introduce another more dangerous one, satisfying neither the English nor the Scottish, and further prising apart the union. In short, where they set out to establish a level playing field, they are actually laying a potential minefield, politically. That is my concern.

I will just deal with a couple of those issues. I cannot for the life of me understand the haste with which the Government are trying to rush this through. Indeed, if anything, they are increasingly dealing with the issues presented in an offhand fashion. Several other noble Lords have mentioned this as well. I welcome the involvement of the Constitution Committee but the reality is that, a few months ago, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, pointed out, this House voted by an overwhelming majority for the consideration by the Commons of a Joint Committee on these issues. That would have been a wise course in my view, yet the Government did not even deign to respond to that advice from this Chamber, as has been pointed out. I would like to believe that they were too busy. I would like to believe that it was delayed in the post. I would like to believe that there was some serious reason why they found it impossible over those few months to respond to us. I suspect, however, that their position was more influenced by the old adage that it is easier to seek forgiveness after the event than to ask permission before it.

Everything that the Government have done suggests to me that that is not only discourteous but extremely unwise, because consideration of this issue would benefit from the wisdom and experience of those of us who have for 40 to 50 years been through the question of the British constitution and the politics of nationalism —including English nationalism.

[Lord Tyler]

As the former Leader of the other place, will the noble Lord confirm that the Government could redeem themselves now if they ensured, as they are in a position to do, that Mr Graham Allen’s amendment, which is supported right across all other parts of the House, is not only tabled but accepted for debate in the House tomorrow and they persuade people to vote for it?

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

Indeed, that would be extremely helpful. It is no coincidence that the potential alibi has been presented tonight, but we may well discover tomorrow that it is a non-existent alibi.

I make no personal attacks on the Leader of the House. She assured us tonight that she would be ever vigilant in monitoring what was going on. I believe her. I recall that some 50 years ago, we had a Scottish goalkeeper called Frank Haffey who was ever vigilant. He carefully monitored the ball as it entered the Scottish net nine times in a game against England. There is a difference between monitoring and vigilance on the one hand and action on the other. The action is necessary to address the questions that arise.

I will raise only a couple of the questions on the current proposals tonight. The first is on stage 1, the certification procedure, which was mentioned by the Leader of the House. The new procedure is intended to apply to government Bills, individual provisions and secondary legislation which are certified by the Speaker as containing English and Welsh provisions only. Under the revised Standing Orders, the Speaker of the House will have an important role in certifying whether a Bill or part of a Bill relates exclusively to England or to England and Wales.

I have to say that that is an enormous, onerous responsibility. In the interests of good governance and public transparency, it would seem appropriate that the Speaker in that case should be obliged by Standing Orders to publish the criteria, the principles and the legal advice that he will apply in reaching such determinations. However, no such provision is presently made. Anyone who is experienced in deciding such issues from a Scottish point of view knows that they are extremely complicated and will be more complicated when it comes to deciding on this provision.

On the question of whether the Speaker has the necessary advisory resources to address such a task, I have grave doubts. I have to say that they are not dispelled by the most recent revisions to the proposals, which were mentioned by the Leader of the House. She mentioned the revised proposals after consultation on the question of certification: how the resources and expertise available to the Speaker would be enhanced. Let me just read from the briefing on what the proposals amount to. I will not go through all the clauses, but it states:

“These new additions enable the Speaker”—

it says here with authority—

“to consult two backbench MPs to assist him in the process of certifying bills, clauses and schedules as relating exclusively to England or England and Wales, should he wish to do so”.

So the action after the consultation on the vital issue of resources is to extend to the Speaker the facility of the advice of two Back-Bench MPs—should he wish to use it. Well, there you are. We can all expect that that will add definitive expertise to the Speaker to make such decisions. That does not hearten me that the Government have learned from anything that has been said.

Secondly, on the test, of course revised Standing Order 83J sets out the consideration and certification to be given by the Speaker but, as I said, it is not an easy task to determine that a Bill, clause or schedule relates exclusively to England or to England and Wales and is within devolved competence. Whether a Bill applies only to England is not determined simply by looking at the extent provisions. It requires a significant constitutional and legal assessment of the measure, how it may operate in practice and what its legal effect may be.

At present, the proposal contains two tests: a territorial test and a content test. A number of serious questions arise even before we consider the omission, which is the purpose test, because the purpose is a third area that ought to be an essential element in deciding whether or not the proposals apply. Let me ask the question simply: would it include an English Bill or clause analogous to a Bill, or a clause which concerns a reserved matter but which applies, whether exclusively or not, to Scotland? The example was already given by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, of the Partnerships (Prosecution)(Scotland) Act 2013. Would it exclude all Bills or clauses which, under the current definition of the Sewel convention, would require the consent of the Scottish Parliament, such as the Scotland Bill, which affects the competence of the Scottish Parliament or Government?

I confess that I am not a lawyer. I am not complaining about that, nor am I boasting about it, but as far as I can see the revised Standing Orders do not clarify those essential questions, nor do they set out the criteria and principles by reference to which the Speaker will determine whether a Bill or clause falls within the proposals. As I said, these are elementary questions which are outside the omission of the purpose test, which is essential, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, outlined in our July debate.

The Government have obviously decided that it is worth countenancing all those risks: that they will lay the minefield and then we will all walk through it for years to come. I hope that they will weigh those risks heavily, because it is at least questionable whether the game is worth the candle as regards these proposals.

A House of Commons Library standard note of 4 December entitled England, Scotland, Wales: MPs & Voting in the House of Commons observed the statistics on voting on Bills in the House of Commons. Of approximately 3,600 Divisions between June 2001 and September 2014, a total of 22—that is, 0.6%—would have concluded differently had the votes of Scottish MPs not been counted. It may be proper to address this question, as I said at the beginning, but to rush ahead with the present proposals and all the risks when there is no major practical problem to face on the basis of those statistics seems irresponsible for a Government who supposedly stand for the retention of the United Kingdom. You cannot discuss the constitutional aspects of this without the context of the politics. Do not wittingly mass-produce grievances which could otherwise be avoided.

I will not say much about scrutiny but, at the very least, the Government should provide for the utmost scrutiny of the operation of this through the Procedure Committee of the House of Commons. That should be done in a more formal fashion. Even before that the Government should be willing to embark on the widest possible consultation so that these proposals are placed within the wider constitutional objectives.

The Government may consider all these matters trifling details. They may consider them small mines in the minefield, but their potential number is so huge that it will produce the political basis for the grievance politics of the SNP and friction between England and Scotland over an extended period of years. If we are going to address the question of fairness to the English, no one in this House would object, but we need to do it in the context of the wider constitutional settlement and the political implications of what we are doing. I hope that even at this stage the Government may be persuaded to change their approach because the constitution of this country, the country itself—the United Kingdom—and its unity deserve better than we are being provided with at present.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The process that the Speaker has to follow in order to certify Bills will apply. As regards Bills being subject to the certification process, there is no separate arrangement for a separate kind of Bill. Each Bill that is introduced into the House of Commons will be subject to that certification process. If there are aspects of a Bill which concern only England or England and Wales, they will follow the respective process which will allow for the English, or English and Welsh, MPs to have a greater voice and say on the decisions that affect only their constituents. That is what the English votes for English laws arrangements mean.

This is probably a good time for me to move on to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and others about the veto of English MPs and other matters of that kind. The important thing to stress is that what these provisions do is give a stronger voice to English MPs. We are not removing power from any Members of the other place. It is about giving a greater voice to English MPs. As far as a veto is concerned, the point that I have made in previous debates, and I stress again, is that what English MPs will not be able to do is initiate something without the approval of the whole House. They cannot overrule the whole House but neither can the rest of the House overrule them. It is about a power to stop something which directly affects their constituents and nobody else’s. It is not about them having a power to introduce something which would be for the benefit of their constituents only, without the support of the rest of the House.

[Lord Tyler]

Dancing on the top of pins at this time of night is not a happy experience. What is the basic difference in principle between a veto that stops something happening and, in the terms that the Leader has been explaining, one that prevents something from being initiated by a group? It is playing with words. It is semantics. If there is a veto, there is a veto, and that veto is going to be exercised—for the first time ever in the Westminster Parliament—by a smaller group than the whole Westminster Parliament, including, as we discovered earlier today, matters that come from this House to the other place.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will come in a moment to ping-pong and how amendments made by this House are considered by the other place, but I disagree with the noble Lord about his interpretation of what I am saying. I am very clear that there is a difference between somebody having the power to stop something and somebody having the power to force something through that others are not in agreement with.

Moving on to this House, and to pick up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, as I have already said, our powers remain exactly the same and our procedures are not affected. We will be able to consider legislation in the future in exactly the same way as we do now. When we amend legislation and we send a Bill back to the other place, the Speaker will have to certify our amendments again. He will certify whether the amendments that have been made—

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I just do not accept that argument. The House of Commons will consider our amendments. If we have decided to make amendments that affect only a certain group of constituencies, the English MPs, it will be for them to be able to send them back to us. The key thing which addresses the sovereignty point is that, in the end, both Houses have to agree. We will keep ping-ponging until we reach agreement.

Please let me make some progress, because I think that noble Lords want me to move on. On the issue of a Joint Committee, I fully accept and understand that when this matter was debated earlier, in the summer, this House was absolutely clear in its view that it wanted a Joint Committee of both Houses to look at the constitutional implications of English votes for English laws. As has been highlighted, I am the Leader of the House as a whole as well as the leader of the party in government and a member of the Government. I assure noble Lords that of course I made it clear that that was a firm view, resoundingly expressed by your Lordships’ House but, as I said earlier, and as I said when we debated this matter a couple of months ago, the Government are clear in their view about not wanting to delay the implementation of English votes for English laws.

My right honourable friend Chris Grayling has replied by approaching the Constitution Committee, as was outlined. Several committees in another place have been looking at the Government’s proposals: the Procedure Committee, the Public Affairs and Constitution Committee, and the Scottish Affairs Committee. The Government do not feel it necessary to create yet another committee to examine the matter, but I am grateful that the chairman of the Constitution Committee in your Lordships’ House, my noble friend Lord Lang, and his colleagues, have agreed to consider what the constitutional implications of the proposals may be and to feed in to the review to which I referred. I am grateful to my noble friend for what he said this evening about that work.

[Lord Tyler]

I think that all Members of your Lordships’ House appreciate the difficulties with which the Leader of the House is faced on this issue. I have one very small suggestion. In my experience, if the Government were to say that they wish the particular amendment which responds to the Motion from your Lordships’ House, the Speaker would be bound to ensure that there was an opportunity to vote on it. That is surely the very minimum that we should be asking the Leader of the House in the other place to do: simply to make sure that there is a proper response by the whole House of Commons to the whole House of Lords.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That matter now sits in the House of Commons. I am the Leader of the House of Lords. I am not the Leader of the House of Commons, as is very clear. That is something that we will now have to leave with the House of Commons and see how it wishes to consider it.

I shall draw to a conclusion and make a couple of brief points. Several points were made this evening about noble Lords feeling that this House is being ignored by this Government and that we are not taking seriously the need for our legislation to be properly scrutinised and debated in your Lordships’ House. I absolutely reject that opinion. Although we are no longer in coalition and this is a new Government, it is worth remembering that in the previous Parliament 21,000 amendments to government legislation were tabled in this House and 6,000 of them were passed or accepted. That is a measure of how seriously this House is taken and of the importance of its work. In the past few weeks, acknowledging the need for greater time to be applied for debating government legislation, we recommitted parts of the Energy Bill when we wanted to bring forward government amendments to it. The Government responded to the Secondary Legislation Select Committee when it asked for more information on a piece of secondary legislation. So I can assure noble Lords that I take very seriously indeed the role of this House and the need for it properly to scrutinise government legislation, and I will continue to do that—and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for his remarks.

Points were made about the need for a constitutional convention for this and other matters to be considered. Noble Lords will have heard other members of the Government say from this Dispatch Box that we do not believe that a constitutional convention is the right way forward. We were very clear in our manifesto about the changes we want to make to provide greater devolution to all parts of the United Kingdom, and we made much of that during the general election campaign. Having been elected, we are seeking to deliver those commitments in our manifesto—and they include English votes for English laws.