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Procedure Committee: Second Report of Session 2008–09

My Lords, we, too, share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. In view of the important business to come through your Lordships’ House, I relate my queries to the final issue with which the Chairman of Committees was concerned, which is that of Oral Questions to Secretaries of State. Most of the other proposals are relatively uncontroversial. I wonder whether the Chairman of Committees can say something about the context for that recommendation. I note that Mr Speaker Bercow has recently suggested that Secretaries of State who sit in your Lordships’ House should respond to Questions from MPs not just in sittings in Westminster Hall but in the Chamber itself at the other end of the Corridor. There are well established conventions about such a summons from one House to another. The two individuals concerned may not need the protection of your Lordships’ House—no doubt they can stand up for themselves—but there is a precedent here. What discussions have taken place with Mr Speaker Bercow on that matter? In particular, can the Chairman of Committees assure us that negotiations are in hand to secure reciprocal rights? Can we be told when Secretaries of State from the other place will answer Questions in this Chamber? It has been difficult enough, as I know from my own experience, to get Secretaries of State to come to sub-committees of our European Union Committee; they usually prefer to send underlings. What steps can be taken to ensure that we can have that reciprocal right? On a different matter, I wonder whether we can be sure that the circumstances and terms in which one of the current Ministers referred to, who is also First Secretary of State, comes to your Lordships’ House are quite as clear as the Chairman of Committees has implied. Can he confirm that all the oral questions to the First Secretary of State, whether tabled or supplementary, must relate purely and simply to his departmental responsibilities? In exchanges in your Lordships’ House on 16 October 1995, the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, was anxious to establish the exact role and accountability to Parliament of the then First Secretary of State, the then Mr Michael Heseltine, who was also Deputy Prime Minister. If the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, is also de facto Deputy Prime Minister, can the Chairman of Committees explain what mechanism there is in this Parliament, at either end of the building, to question him on his role? Surely it is unprecedented that Ministers should take responsibility and not be accountable to Parliament.