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House of Lords: Working Practices

My Lords, I am not sure that I can quite follow my noble friend in describing the excellent report as holistic. It seems to me that it has many different facets which do not all tie together. At this time in the debate, one throws one’s speech away and tries to cull some comments from what has already been said. Some people have concentrated on relatively minor matters—such as whether we should start at two o'clock—but others have taken a much more in-depth approach. I take as my theme what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said, which was that the standard of legislation had already deteriorated—not that it was in danger of doing so. In pursuing that theme, I introduce a note of caution. We have to be careful about what we can achieve and what it might be going a step too far to think that we could. The thrust of this debate, if I may be so bold, has been—along the lines of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell—about pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny, about the legislative standards committee and a slice about secondary legislation. I am sure that we will hear a bit more about the latter shortly. This House does not command any of those things. Chapter 2 of the report of my noble friend Lord Goodlad is entitled ““Keeping the Executive to account””—or something closely approaching that. I submit that the only time that the Executive is called to account in any meaningful way is at a general election. For the rest of it, we cannot really look at the accounts. Accounts, such as the European Union's accounts, are supposed to be an accurate record of what has happened. Accounts are not about what will happen next. That is much more difficult. You cannot measure it; you have to wait to see what actually happens. Except with pounds and pennies, the measurement of what has happened is extremely difficult to achieve. What was said about pre and post-legislative scrutiny, about standards and about secondary legislation is absolutely admirable, but I introduce a note of caution: can we deliver that in this House, or are we really looking for something that is different? I suggest that we are. First, we want half about as much legislation as is routinely put forward by Secretaries of State. It seems to be a badge of honour that you must have a Bill enacted. If we look at the number of criminal justice Acts, to take but one example, we are clearly submerged in the flood of legislation. Not only that, a lot of it is in secondary legislation. That is no doubt as advised by Permanent Secretaries—with the greatest of respect, again, to the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, who knows about Permanent Secretaries. They will say, ““Well, Minister, I think that I would put that into secondary legislation if I were you. If we have a framework Bill, an enabling Bill, you can retain the flexibility. You can either do this or not; you can do it in various different ways. Of course, their Lordships will never throw it out and, down the other end of the Corridor, they will not even consider it for more than about two minutes””. My note of caution is that I think the issues are much more complicated and lie at a much greater depth in our public life than has been illustrated, if I may be forgiven for saying so, by the debate or even the excellent report.