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Procedure Committee: Second Report of Session 2008–09

My Lords, two reports are listed on the Order Paper and I hope that it will be for the convenience of the House if I speak to both of them, since they are in many respects linked. The two reports deal largely with the procedural consequences of the establishment of the Supreme Court, the ending of the House’s judicial responsibilities and the disqualification of those Members of the House who serve as senior judges from taking any part in our proceedings. These changes in the composition and role of the House necessitate corresponding changes in our procedures and Standing Orders. Most of these are straightforward and self-explanatory; they are covered in the second report of the last Session, which was published at the end of October. Some of the changes, however, were less straightforward. In particular, we had to consider carefully the future role and composition of the Committee for Privileges, specifically in respect of peerage claims. Our conclusions are set out in the second report on today’s Order Paper, which was agreed and published last week. I would like to put on record my thanks to the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls for agreeing to provide judges to assist the Committee for Privileges in considering any future peerage claims. I can also inform the House that, since the report was published, I have had an equally positive and helpful response from Lord Hamilton, the Lord President of the Court of Session, indicating the willingness of the senior Scottish judiciary to help if called upon. I hope that the House will recognise our proposals in this area, embodied in our proposed revision of Standing Order 78, as a constructive and workable solution to a potentially difficult problem. I turn now to the other issues covered in these two reports. I trust that our recommendations on the abolition of the Personal Bills Committee and the use of the Welsh language by committees meeting in Wales will be uncontroversial. With regard to national policy statements, we propose that they should normally be debated in Grand Committee on a neutral Motion—in other words, a Motion to consider the statement. It is of course not possible to debate substantive Motions in Grand Committee, as there is no possibility of a Division in the Moses Room. However, the use of Grand Committees for general debates on national policy statements would be in addition to those statutory procedures described in the Planning Act 2008. In other words, noble Lords would be able to table substantive Motions that would require a decision on the Floor of the House. It would also be open to Members to seek to establish an ad hoc committee to examine a national policy statement or, indeed, for one of our existing Select Committees to inquire into and make recommendations on a statement that happened to fall within its remit. Finally, I turn to the recommendation that may be of greater interest to noble Lords, namely our recommendation in our first report of the present Session that from the start of the new year each Secretary of State sitting in this House should once a month answer Oral Questions that would be addressed to them as Secretary of State. We propose that for the initial trial period there should be three Questions, taking 15 minutes in total, asked on a Thursday immediately following Oral Questions. The procedure will be as for Oral Questions—for instance, there will be an opportunity for supplementaries from around the House. With two Secretaries of State sitting in the House at present, this additional opportunity for scrutiny will be a fortnightly event. I emphasise that we see this as additional scrutiny. It will not impact on other existing forms of scrutiny, such as normal Oral Questions or Private Notice Questions. I hope that these proposals will enjoy support across the House, as they did across the committee. If they are agreed, the Leader of the House and I will tomorrow move the consequential amendments to Standing Orders. I therefore beg to move the first Motion in my name—that is to say, that the committee’s second report of the Session 2008-09 be agreed to.