Liaison Committee: Third Report

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I was about to explain to your Lordships why that core function is pointless compared to the work that the other Select Committees do in this House—and we have heard of powerful examples from the Science and Technology Committee. All the other committees are taken very seriously in this country and worldwide, whereas the debates of the European Committee in your Lordships’ House are ill attended and do nothing to inform public opinion about how the European Union works—and its membership, as I have said again and again, is solidly Europhile. We have just had two interventions to prove that.

The noble Lord, Lord Roper, has told us that the committee scrutinises very effectively European legislation. It writes to Ministers. But your Lordships will be aware of the scrutiny reserve, an agreement whereby successive Governments have given an assurance, although it is not a legal assurance, to both Houses of Parliament that if a piece of legislation is under scrutiny the Government of the day will not sign up to it in Brussels unless that committee agrees. Written Answers from the Government show that that has been overridden hundreds of times in the past 10 years—I think it is 343 times in the past five years.

I mention all this only to show that we put all this effort into the European Union committees and get very little out of them. I am sorry to offend noble and Europhile Lords, and I hope that the House does not think that I am banging on again about Europe. But hearing the comments about the eminent scientists in this Room who have spoken only for the Science and Technology Committee, and looking at the other committees, which are full of expertise and widely respected in the country and internationally, I fear that we have the balance wrong. Two or three European committees, including the main one, would be quite enough. We should redirect those energies into committees that will serve the House and the country well.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I hear the debate that we have had this evening but I have to say that I support the recommendations from the Liaison Committee, which closely follow the proposals from the report of the Leader’s Group. I warmly welcome the recommendation that two new cross-cutting and ad hoc committees should be set up, although my preference would have been for an appointment of two and a half years to enable the committees themselves to deliberate on the subjects of the report and to enable the committees to follow up the conclusions of the report, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, suggested.

I also welcome the proposals on pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny, which I believe to be extremely important. If there is to be new draft legislation on adoption, as suggested by the Prime Minister, I would be grateful for an assurance from the Chairman of Committees that it will not be introduced until the post-legislative scrutiny has been concluded.

The decisions regarding the European Committee and the Science and Technology Committee were not easy. In fact, they were extremely difficult. There were hard choices, and it is never a good time to bring about change. Of course, many noble Lords are concerned that, by reducing the number of European sub-committees from seven to six, we are diminishing the importance that this House rightly gives to proper scrutiny of EU documents and proposals, and diminishes our standing as a House of expertise. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, I am confident that the excellent and much needed scrutiny will continue with six sub-committees and a slightly larger membership, if the committees wish to enlarge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

Would the noble Baroness not just sail over it? Would she care to comment on the override by the Government of hundreds of scrutiny reserves in the past few years?

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I would not care to comment on that at the moment, but I am grateful for the invitation from the noble Lord. I was going to say how much the House as a whole rightly regards the work of the Science and Technology Committee. Clearly, the breadth of knowledge inside that committee, along with the understanding and the influence of the reports, is phenomenal, and I am sure that that will continue. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, resources are scarce. Throughout our deliberations in the committee, I have argued for additional resources to be made available for an additional committee, and I will continue to make that argument in the coming year, so that when we have deliberations at this time next year, I may well be able to argue in favour of more work for the Science and Technology Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, made a very good speech here and in Committee, and I have supported him in his arguments throughout. However, I support the report from the committee that is before us today, and I urge the whole House to adopt it. Should there be a vote, I wish to make it clear that the people on my Benches will have a free vote.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I know that I am going to disappoint noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It is not my purpose, but I think it is the result of the report published by the Liaison Committee that I support. As the House knows, the report proposes that more of our resources should go to one-year inquiries set up by the House for a specific purpose and with a specific membership—what we call ad hoc committees. That is a change of direction from the way in which we have dealt with things before, and I believe that it is right that these proposals for ad hoc committees should come from Back-Benchers. If this report is agreed to, I look forward to a meeting of the Liaison Committee next December when we consider a really good range of proposals for new ad hoc committees proposed by Back-Benchers around the House.

The whole point of this report is that it provides more opportunities for a broader range of Members to take part in the committee work of this House, and for those committees to be timely and to engage us in debate. The committees are meant to inform the House on subjects that we consider important. That is not to take away anything that the Science and Technology Committee does and has done. After all, this report is a package of recommendations. If it is agreed to, new resources will be made available to the Committee Office.

The report is also clear that some trimming of existing committees is required if we are to set up the new committees as proposed, and we have limited the trimming to a single sub-committee of the European Union Committee. The reason was asked by my noble friend Lord Jopling and indeed by the noble Lords, Lord Roper, Lord Grenfell, and others. They asked why we pick on the EU Committee, and the answer is, not because we do not value its work but because it absorbs by far the largest proportion of the House’s Select Committee resources—eight committees in total—and so it is the obvious place to look when trying to release resources. This is also why, to answer the noble Lord, Lord Roper, the Liaison Committee was already minded to propose the change before hearing from the noble Lord. It was in no sense any disrespect to him as chairman or indeed to the quality of the work that he has done.

The second place was the Science and Technology Committee and its sub-committees. We felt that, in the future, the resources should be that of a single Select Committee. The reason why we suggest that is that it would put it on the same resource footing as the Constitution Committee, the Communications Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee, which itself appoints a sub-committee.

Of course, this House has a notable reputation in science and technology, but there are other fields of experience and interest in this House, and I suggest we should make use for them. However, I stress that there is no reason why Back-Benchers cannot propose technical and scientific subjects to the Liaison Committee as subjects for ad hoc committees. There is also no reason why, in future Sessions, we should not re-examine this decision. I am in favour of trying out pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and others. It may be that in a couple of Sessions’ time we find that it is not a good use of the House’s resources and that we should look again at the situation in the Science and Technology Committee.