Liaison Committee

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, may I say how much I believe my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours was right to raise important details about resources? I hope that the future committee will indeed have some restraint on travel.

My noble friend also made points about the ad hoc committees, but his major point related to possible conflict with the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place. I had the honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, in chairing that committee. I chaired it for eight years—for two Parliaments. When the noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked for my opinions at that time on a point of consistency, I said that it is a big world and as long as there is a degree of good will and working together, I fully supported the creation in this House of the committee which is now proposed. Even then, one recognised that there was an enormous pool of relevant experience in this House. There still is but that did not alter my view that, given the turbulence and importance of matters around the world, and the limited agenda of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place, it was important that this reservoir of experience should be tapped.

The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, asked, “Well, why not Sub-Committee C?”. I served on that committee and it does some good work, but the Procrustean distortion of that committee is this: that everything has to be viewed through the prism of the European Union. As the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, said, important areas—be it the Commonwealth, the Far East, or other areas that are not directly relevant to the European Union—are excluded from its remit. Yes, there will have to be a degree of co-ordination, of good will and of working together, but this is appropriate and I personally congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on what has been a long and rather successful campaign.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in warmly supporting this proposal I suggest that an additional reason for it is that we have no formal structure for scrutinising our international obligations. We have an ample structure for scrutinising European legislation proposals—and one which is widely admired—but absolutely nothing to deal with our obligations under international treaties or proposals under them, such as international protocols. That is what this committee could provide. It is very important for Parliament to have a voice in these negotiations.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a simple factual question. Everybody has been talking as if there is clarity about when the committee will be established and when the review will take place. That seems to be based on a false premise, unless I missed something in an announcement. The reference is that the committee will be established in the next Session and the review will be in the following Session. I do not know when the next Session is going to start. I do not know whether the Chairman of Committees can tell me that. I have a rather nervous disposition, and I remember that in the last Parliament, the one beginning 2010, the first Session—much to the opposition of many of us—lasted for two years. The Leader and the Chief Whip are present, so I would like an instant response on this question: I simply want to know when the next Session will start, because until we get clarity on that a lot of this discussion is based on a false premise.