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Legislation and Public Policy

My Lords, I, too, express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for securing this debate. It eases the task of those who follow him that he made such practical and concise suggestions. I hope that the Government will act upon them and indicate today how they propose to proceed on those precise points. Perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not focus on the legislative part of his Motion but rather turn to the scrutiny of policy. It is, in some ways, more difficult to come up with practical recommendations there, but the importance of this House’s oversight of policy is made no less by the complexity of what we have to face. I was very struck by the reference that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made to obesity as something that might be appropriate for this House to focus on. In 2006, as it happens, the House of Commons itself drew attention to the fact that there were 26 different public agencies involved in dealing with the delivery of a national policy for obesity. No single Select Committee, pursuing the issues of one department alone, is going to be able to tackle such an issue. It seems to me that the matrix of accountability is now so complex in this country—an inevitable aspect of modern living and the expectations of government—that it will not do simply to set up bodies individually to take account of the work of each individual non-departmental body. We have many. Probably the only body in Parliament that attempts to deal with the full matrix is the Public Accounts Committee, on which I served for 17 years. That is backed by the National Audit Office, which spends about £80 million a year on scrutiny. One could not hope to replicate that, or even to contemplate replicating it. However, that does result in what one commentator, Mr Koppell, in his interesting piece on the pathologies of accountability, has called the "multiple accountabilities disorder". I believe that this House is capable of bringing order where the public may, perhaps, perceive disorder. If we are to do that we definitely ought to have something in the nature of a mission statement or vision statement that indicates the role of this House in scrutinising, in an overarching way, the policies of government. The great advantage of this House, as it stands, is that it is less dependent on the Executive. It has some independence of mind and brings to its deliberations and scrutiny the resources of experience and, I dare say, wisdom in some cases, which ought to give it a reputation. When one considers—and in other debates we shall—how the composition of the House needs to be altered to give it greater legitimacy, we must not overlook those qualities, such as objectivity, which it has and that we would wish to build in to any second Chamber. In parenthesis, to achieve at least some of that, I would definitely wish to see, in a reformed Chamber, the removal of all Ministers from the House, but with the understanding that all Ministers are to be called before the House when there is a matter for which they are responsible, be that legislation or a general area of policy. The trouble at the moment in this country is that in shying away from overregulation and relying, as the Conservative Party did to some extent in the 1980s, on output-based accountability, we do not satisfy the broader sectoral interests in these problems. Setting up new bodies with specific responsibility does not necessarily meet the public perception that governance is not as it should be. We are within 24 hours of the publicity attached to the Stafford hospital report. There too multiple agencies are involved, which have clearly been derelict in their duty. The task of oversight will not necessarily be handled altogether effectively by departmental committee. I hope it will be recognised that this House, with its very broad basis, can do the job not just of fire-fighting but of raising policy issues as a response to the public’s concerns. The other place has made great strides in the last few years. If the recommendations of the Wright committee are implemented, they will go even further towards enhancing its role, and its role independent of government. However, the Commons employs 15 people in its scrutiny unit. That is an extraordinarily small number to cover all the Select Committees. In itself this would be reason enough to fear that the resources are not adequate. I have not suggested that we should take the route of the Public Accounts Committee, but let no one believe that we can do an effective job without strong support in this place.