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House of Lords: Working Practices

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the Leader of the House for this debate and in thanking him and the Leader of the Opposition for the positive and open-minded way in which they introduced it. As has been mentioned, following the Lord Speaker’s speech to the Hansard Society on strengthening Parliament, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and I agreed to lead three cross-party groups in which we divided up various aspects of the working processes of your Lordships’ House. I did not involve myself in that work as a critical or—certainly not—as a disgruntled Member of your Lordships’ House. On the contrary, I hugely admire the work that this House does and my purpose in taking part in it was to contribute to suggesting ways in which we could do it even more effectively. As other noble Lords have said, we ought to start this debate by asking: what is our role? I believe in strengthening Parliament because I believe that an effective Parliament is not the enemy of the Executive but is essential to their success. Having spent my career in the Executive, I think I am in a position to say that a strong Parliament is essential to keeping the Executive up to the mark because absolute power does corrupt, and the Executive becomes weak and inefficient if there is not a strong Parliament to call it to account. In that belief, I am encouraged to find that I am now in good company. The Prime Minister, the Leader of another place, the Deputy Leader of another place, the Speakers of both Houses and the Front-Bench spokesmen in this House have all expressed themselves similarly. That was a theme of the Better Government initiative, in which I served on the executive committee and of the report Good Government, which it produced. That report has frequently been quoted in this House and elsewhere. It is very welcome that the reforms proposed in another place by the Select Committee chaired by Dr Tony Wright are being very largely implemented, so things are moving in an encouraging direction. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and the other Members who served on our groups would agree that the ideas in our various papers are not intended to be a comprehensive or even, perhaps, a coherent prescription for further changes. They are an à la carte menu of ideas which the participants thought worth bringing to the attention of your Lordships, and I hope they will be worth considering by the Leader’s Group that the Leader of the House announced today. In my remarks, I shall concentrate on some of the ideas in the group that I chaired on the non-legislative aspects of the House’s procedure but, first, I shall comment on the suggestion made by the group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, on which I also served, and say how striking it is how many speakers today have picked up this idea. The noble Lords, Lord Luce, Lord Kakkar, Lord Maclennan and Lord Norton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady McIntosh, have all referred to the idea of a committee similar to the Merits Committee, which looks at statutory instruments, that would look at the merits of legislation brought before Parliament. Since other speakers have so eloquently dealt with it, I shall not go into the details, but shall say just two things about it. First, since the quality of legislation is of crucial interest to Parliament as a whole, this committee would be most effective if it were a Joint Committee of the two Houses. I agree that it if were a committee of this House only, it ought to look only at legislation being introduced here, but a combined committee would be a way of avoiding duplication and increasing co-operation between the two Houses. Secondly, speaking from my experience in the Executive, if there were ever a prospect that, on the basis of a report by such a committee, a House of Parliament might refuse to give a Second Reading to a Bill and might refer it back to the Executive for better preparation, that would hugely improve the care with which legislation is prepared within the Executive. That might be a nuclear weapon but, as we know, nuclear weapons are there not to be used, and it would be very effective in dealing with some of the problems of excessive and poorly prepared legislation, of which we are all conscious. As regards the suggestions of the group I chaired on non-legislative procedures, the theme underlying our suggestions is making best use of the time available to the House. We started with the three principles of our procedures to which the Leader of the House referred: the House being committed to self-regulation and the role of that in encouraging a spirit of courteous compromise; the characteristic that any Member of this House can raise and explore amendments to legislation without being prevented by formal timetables or guillotines; and the informal convention that allows all sections of this House to be fairly represented in debate. Our group felt that these were crucial characteristics that we ought to bear in mind in any considerations of our processes in the future. In that context, let me have my two penny-worth on the role of Madam Speaker during Question Time, which I know divides opinion in this House. I would not be in favour of Madam Speaker being given a role calling individual speakers. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Luce, I take the view that it would not be inconsistent if Madam Speaker took over from those on the government Front Bench the role of indicating which section of the House should have the next question—a role that has become even more controversial since the creation of the coalition. Apart from what I think many of us feel is the unseemliness of present procedures, there is clearly a danger of those on the Front Bench becoming open in this matter to accusations of political partiality. The rest of my group’s suggestions concentrate on ways of using to best advantage the crucial period between Question Time and the dinner hour when attendance is at its highest and the opinion of the House can most conveniently be tested. We suggest that more Statements and more Committee stages of Bills should be considered in Grand Committee, where any Member can take part in the business. The time available for the very important Statement that we had today on the National Health Service would not be as constrained as it was today, and the business of the House would not be interrupted. This debate today has been interrupted. Perhaps that does not matter, but it matters more when important debates on Bills are interrupted on Report. We also suggest, and other speakers have referred to, more opportunities for topical debates and Questions—and, yes, we suggest shorter supplementary questions and answers. We suggest that, to increase the transparency of the House’s arrangements, the Leader of the House should submit himself to a weekly Question Time of 20 or 30 minutes. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, had a bit of fun with this, but he has been one of the usual channels in another place. As one or two noble Lords have said, the arrangements by which the House is administered are not as clear to some Members of the House, even those who have been here for a long time, as they are to others. I very much remember intervening in a debate and asking the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, whether he could tell me the difference between the usual channels and the House authorities. With all his ministerial experience, he said in the most charming way that he could not.