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Legislative Process

I shall start by referring to the two motions relating to sub judice, but before I get on to the meat of my argument, I wish to thank all members of the Procedure Committee for their support and hard work. It does not involve trips to exotic places overseas, and often there is no media coverage, but, nevertheless, it is very important. I also join the Leader of the House in paying tribute to my predecessor as Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), whom I am pleased to see is in his place. Parliament’s sub judice rule effectively prevents debate on individual cases while they are active before the courts. The rule is set out in a resolution that was agreed to by each House in 2001. Our predecessor Committee reported on the resolution as a whole in March 2005 and, while recognising that it has sometimes created difficulties for Members, particularly in terms of delaying debates, that report did not recommend any change to the rule itself. We decided to return to the subject mainly because of representations that we received from Members that the implementation of the rule was preventing them from debating issues that deserved to be raised in Parliament. There was particular concern about coroners’ courts, where an inquest could be opened that then adjourned for months, and even years. One case that was drawn to our attention was adjourned for more than two years while police inquiries and other investigations were carried out. I shall return to the issue of delay. It was put to us that the House authorities were repeatedly over-cautious in the advice that they gave, and that as a consequence, Members were finding that any hint of active court proceedings was enough to prevent debate or questioning not only on the case itself, but also on related issues of general policy. That is not the purpose of the rule, and Members should not be given the impression that it is. As we pursued our inquiry, we discovered a number of reasons why that impression had been created. First, the rule is, in its entirety, subject to the discretion of the Chair. Mr. Speaker has the power to set it aside if it is his opinion that a particular case is of sufficient importance that debate, or questions relating to it, should be allowed. Our predecessor Committee recommended in its report that where Members believe the rule to be unreasonably impeding the work of Parliament, they should refer the matter to Mr. Speaker and ask him to exercise his discretion. However, many Members have not always understood how they should go about asking Mr. Speaker to exercise his discretion. In particular, some Members did not appreciate that the discretion can be exercised only by Mr. Speaker himself. It cannot be negotiated with Clerks in the Table Office. We have therefore recommended that the Table Office should produce a short printed guide to the rule, which I hope will provide a clear explanation of that, and of other aspects of the rule. Secondly, the House authorities have, perhaps, been somewhat over-cautious in their advice on the implementation of the rule. That is because—to be fair to them, and to borrow the frank words of the former Clerk of the House, Sir Roger Sands—"““we have quite often been let down by Members in this matter.””" This is how he explains what he meant by that: for example, some Members have, in the past, applied for an Adjournment debate on a general matter of public policy, but have then, without any warning, produced"““a string of details about a very specific case, referring to individuals by name and generally looking to the Minister to do the job which the judge or the coroner should properly do””." I hope that the House will agree that Mr. Speaker cannot be expected to exercise his discretion to allow debate if he cannot rely on the Member concerned to keep to the agreed terms of that debate. For that reason, we have recommended that there should be a new Standing Order that explicitly gives Mr. Speaker power to direct a Member to resume his or her seat if he or she oversteps the agreed mark in relation to sub judice matters. It is proposed that that power also be extended to those who chair Westminster Hall debates and non-legislative Standing Committees—or ““General Committees””, as we are soon likely to call them. It is my Committee’s belief that, armed with the specific powers in the new Standing Order, Mr. Speaker will be much better placed to exercise his discretion in a greater number of cases, and in more sensitive cases he will, we hope, be able to agree to allow a Member to have a debate, its scope having been agreed beforehand by the Member concerned.