Select Committee Reports: Government Responses

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am glad for my noble friend’s clarification that the committee had produced a report that did not require a response from the Government, and I look forward to discussing further his request for a debate.

[Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)]

My Lords, would the Minister accept that the Select Committee structure is one of the great strengths of this House? I served for many years on the Science and Technology Select Committee and had the privilege of chairing several sub-committee inquiries. One of those, relating to research in the NHS, led to the Culyer report, then to the establishment of the National Institute for Health Research and now has led on to the development of the massive Crick centre for research in the centre of London. Can the Minister give us any inkling as to the extent to which Select Committee reports in this House have led to major changes in government policy over the last few years?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Lord knows from the exchange he and I had last week in the debate about the effectiveness of this House, I acknowledged then his strong point that the work of Select Committees in this House is an incredibly important part of our work here. On the Science and Technology Committee, during this Parliament there has been some action by the Government in response to implementing long-term science capital investment, which was a recommendation that came out of that committee.