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Draft Legislative Programme

We now debate the Government’s draft legislative programme—the list of Bills that we are considering for the next Session. The Prime Minister has said that he wants to see, as part of his constitutional reform agenda, stronger accountability of the Government to Parliament and greater engagement between Parliament and the people. The change in the way that we plan to announce our legislative programme marks a step forward in those respects. Here in Parliament we spend most of our time legislating, so it is right that Parliament should have early sight of the Government’s thinking on what we will be asking it to consider. That will allow hon. Members to look at the overall shape of our programme before it is set in stone and will help members of the public and interested parties to give their views to hon. Members. This debate is to enable hon. Members to give their preliminary views on the draft legislative programme, which has been sent to all hon. Members and is on the Government’s websites. Officially, the contents of our legislative programme have always remained secret until the Queen’s Speech at the state opening of Parliament. However, because of the necessary discussion that has to go on between Government Departments and stakeholders, information does of course get into the public domain, but it does so in the worst way—unofficially and piecemeal. Lobbying firms and political consultancies get paid millions of pounds to guess for their clients what is likely to be in the Queen’s Speech. However, while bits and pieces are glimpsed unofficially, the work of the Government in putting together their legislative programme has hitherto gone on behind closed doors, with no one outside Government able to see the overview of the legislative programme as a whole until the whole thing is ready to steam ahead into Parliament. Those outside, because they have not been allowed to know before the Queen’s Speech what the Government are doing, cannot have sensible discussions with the Government. This time last year, I knew that the draft coroners Bill was not in the legislative programme. Those concerned—coroners, organisations of bereaved relatives, and lawyers who specialise in inquest work—were lobbying for changes to the Bill. They would have been better off lobbying for the Bill to be in the legislative programme, but I could not tell them that what mattered at that stage was not some amendments but the fact that it was not even in the programme. It makes sense for people to be able to see the work that is under way in Government before it is set in tablets of stone. This does not in any way change the state opening, the Queen’s Speech and the role of Her Majesty the Queen in setting out the Government’s concluded plans for the Session. The publication of our draft programme builds on a number of steps that we have taken to improve the ability of this House to scrutinise legislation. We already publish some Bills in draft. To date, we have published 58 Bills in draft since 1997. During this Session we published four bills in draft: the regulatory enforcement and sanctions Bill, the human tissue and embryos Bill, the climate change Bill and the local transport Bill. I recognise that we would all like to see more Bills published in draft. During the next Session, we intend to publish in draft an equalities Bill, a marine Bill, a heritage protection Bill and a cultural property and armed conflicts Bill. I can announce today that following the publication of the draft coroner’s Bill and its plain English translation, I have asked parliamentary counsel to produce alongside the draft marine Bill a plain language version in time for its introduction. It is my intention that in publishing our draft programme, we should work towards publishing at least one plain language version per Session. There has also been the Public Bill Committee procedure which, during the current Session, has meant that Government Bills starting in the Commons after Christmas have been subject to additional scrutiny. The UK Borders Bill and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill have been considered in this way. From the start of the next Session, all Government Bills starting in the Commons will be subject to this procedure, which, by the taking of oral and written evidence from Ministers and other interested parties, as with the Select Committee process, means that there is more extensive scrutiny.