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Pre-legislative Scrutiny

asked Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the report of the Constitution Committee on Pre-Legislative Scrutiny in the 2006–07 Session. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am grateful to the Government for providing time for the House to ask for its response to your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution’s report on pre-legislative scrutiny in the 2006-07 Session and to the Minister for being in his place to provide that response during an exceptionally busy time in the parliamentary year. I had suspected that he might be a crypto-Stakhanovite; that suspicion is deepening a little. I shall not rehearse at length the case for pre-legislative scrutiny. Suffice it to say that it enhances Parliament’s capacity to influence legislation at a formative stage and gives an opportunity to individuals and interested parties to contribute to the deliberations of committees. From the Government’s point of view, it should lead to better legislation and save precious time during the later legislative stages of Bills. In your Lordships’ committee’s 2004 report, it welcomed the use of pre-legislative scrutiny but wished to see it improved and extended. This enthusiasm is shared by others. Jack Straw told the committee in evidence on 23 October 2007: "““Business managers are always anxious to see bills go into pre-legislative scrutiny because it makes them on the whole better bills and it improves their chances of going through””." The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, recently introduced the Climate Change Bill by saying: "““I must take this opportunity to say how helpful the pre-legislative scrutiny has been in developing the Bill. It was incredibly helpful to civil servants and parliamentary draftsmen in Whitehall””.—[Official Report, 27/11/08; col. 1124.]" The noble Lord also said that the Bill had benefited greatly from the Joint Committee’s careful examination. During the Second Reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Crosby, noted that the Bill, as introduced, was a, "““remarkable example of how the legislature should be brought into the drafting and scrutiny of Bills to a much greater extent than is generally true””.—[Official Report, 19/11/07; col. 685.]" So we have the three distinguished scrutineers, and there are many d’Artagnans ready to join them, not least the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who is in his place and is a member of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. In the years since the publication of the committee’s 2004 report, the amount of pre-legislative scrutiny markedly declined. In response to that decline, my predecessor, the late Lord Holme of Cheltenham, wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, then Leader of the House, in January 2007, to ask whether she would agree to write a letter at the end of each Session enumerating the Bills published, wholly or partially in draft, and giving an explanation of the figures and any relevant trends. The noble Baroness rejected that request on the grounds that she was not convinced that it would add any real benefit. The committee, accordingly, announced that it would produce and publish statistics on the volume of draft Bills at the end of each Session, together with comment. This is the first such report, and sorry reading it makes. The figures showing the decline are in the report before the House. They show that the ratio of draft Bills to government Bills fell from one in three in 2003-04 to one in nine in 2006-07. In the long 2005-06 Session, it was one in 15. The number of draft Bills dropped by two-thirds during that period, contrary to the Government’s 2005 commitment at least to maintain the proportion of Bills published in draft. In response to the strictures of the House of Commons Liaison Committee in its 2005-06 annual report, the Government stated that they were aware that the number of draft Bills published in recent years had not reached the same total as those published in one or two earlier years, but that they hoped that the number of draft Bills published each year would be above the number achieved in the 2005-06 Session. Yet, they introduced just four draft Bills in the 2006-07 Session, the same number as in 2005-06. Your Lordships’ committee, therefore, resolved to call on the Government to increase the number of draft Bills published per Session to at least the 2003-04 level, to ensure that all draft Bills were published in good time, allowing 12 weeks for scrutiny at the very minimum and, if possible, considerably more, and, where possible, to spread their release throughout the parliamentary year. We also resolved to urge the Government not to undermine the parliamentary scrutiny process by launching additional consultations once pre-legislative scrutiny is in process or, indeed, after it has been completed. No one appreciates the exigencies of parliamentary business management more than I do; I appreciate that we occasionally have emergency Bills—three, recently—but most are not emergency Bills. It would be comforting to know who in the Government is in charge of the pre-legislative scrutiny procedure. The Minister may also wish to revisit the decision of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, not to write to the committee on this matter at the end of every Session. I know that noble Lords look forward to the Minister’s response to the report, as to all his contributions, with eager anticipation.