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House of Lords: Working Practices

There could be a separate committee; the Merits Committee is quite busy enough already and its focus is different. The process that I am talking about would logically apply only to legislation that started in the Lords, because it would be slightly strange for this House to say, "We have looked at this Bill. It does not seem to us to be ready for legislation", when another place had spent a lot of time on it. That may be slightly self-denying, but it is almost common sense. We could hardly argue for reversing a process that was already under way. Therefore, the process would not apply to a lot of legislation, but it ought to apply to all Lords starters. Let me say a few words about governance—the principle, not the detail. I hope that the argument that the House should review its own governance does not need making. I assume—and I hope that I am right, given the warm tones with which the Leader spoke—that the governance review will be part of the working group that he announced would be set up as a Leader’s Group. Why we need to review our governance does not need labouring. We have not had a happy year or two and we do not have the confidence of the public. I will not provide statistics; there are plenty of statistics as to how this House is seen, and they are a disappointment and a point of regret for this House, because most of us believe that we generally do a good job. The challenge for the House is to ensure that we meet the high standards expected of a public body. That goes beyond whether we think that generally we are good chaps and do a good job, to whether the wider public think and understand that our governance is: transparent; comprehensible to them and us; instils confidence in them, or at least in the informed public; and is well able to prevent—or, if not, address— crises, because crises will occur in the future as they have done in the past. Noble Lords can tell by my tone that I am not taking a view that all our governance is self-evidently flawed, but it needs to be reviewed and needs to be seen to be reviewed thoroughly and thoughtfully. That is even more important because, as has been mentioned by many speakers, we are a self-governing House. Self-governing institutions start with a problem, because most of the public believe that it is difficult to be judge and jury in your own court. It is difficult to convince the public that we keep separate our personal interests and the wider public-policy interests that the institution serves. I will not labour the point, but noble Lords can see why we might feel that we have a case to prove. I shall not go into grisly detail on that, but it is a fact that self-governing institutions have a harder case to make that they actually act in the public interest than have that public interest tinged at times by the interests of players. I make no sweeping accusation about the House, but that perception increases the challenge for us to be seen to carry out a proper review. While we have had many reviews, I cannot see any evidence in recent times of a proper review of the governance arrangements of the House. Therefore, such a review would look at the governance of finance—because as a House we will be challenged on that—and at performance. Finally, to have confidence that a review process was well done, it would be desirable for the Leader’s Group to ask someone independent from the House to cast an eye over what we have learnt about good governance standards from Cadbury, the Audit Commission and elsewhere, and bring back, without making it a long business, a short report to the Leader’s Group on what the process looked like from the point of view of an outsider of eminence and authority by comparing our governance standards against the standards that can be found in other public bodies and public companies. That would accelerate the discussions about governance and give confidence to those outside who had an open mind that we were treating this process seriously. I thank the Leader again for his clear statement and thank all those on my group and others who worked to advance a little of the agenda that I am delighted we are now discussing seriously.