Commons Scrutiny of Secretaries of State in the House of Lords

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me, but that is definitely above my pay grade.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

The Chair of the Committee has, in the view of the Liberal Democrats, done great work on trying to bring the noble Lord Cameron to the Bar of the House. She is right to say that the last time one of the four great offices of state was occupied by a Member of the other place was 1982. Lord Carrington resigned from the role of Foreign Secretary after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. He did so partly because Back Benchers in the House of Commons had been warning about that possibility, and there was a feeling that the Foreign Office had not heeded their warnings under Lord Carrington. Given that the UK’s relations with some of it adversaries are as tense as they have been since the early 1980s, does the right hon. Lady think that the noble Lord Cameron might want to avert such an outcome by answering questions at the Bar of the House?

[Dame Karen Bradley]

The Committee considered all the points carefully, and looked at the evidence and at precedent. That is why we came to the conclusion that the Bar of the House was the right place for scrutiny of Secretaries of State in the House of Lords. We were keen to ensure that proper scrutiny could be done by this place, because we as elected representatives will often reflect what our constituents are telling us and what we are seeing on the ground in a way that no other body in this place can do. Members of the other place do extremely good work in scrutinising the Government, but without constituents they are perhaps not able to reflect what we hear from people on the ground. Likewise, members of Select Committees do not generally ask constituency-based questions in their work; they tend to ask questions on a theme or on the overall topics of the day. We have that unique role in this place, and that is why we were keen to ensure that there could be some form of scrutiny. We are disappointed that the Government have rejected that.