Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Howe of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

My Lords, it is curious for me to reflect on one body, listed in Schedule 5, which I played some part in creating some 37 years ago—that is, the Office of Fair Trading, of which the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, became the second chairman. He is no longer in his place. The extent of the attention paid to the creation of that body at that time, when we were moving in a deliberate and thoughtful way, is striking. It was the subject of an amazing television documentary, produced in three two-hour instalments and taking up 23 miles of film. There were fly-on-the-wall cameras at all our transactions in the department and everywhere else. That showed a certain degree of attention and respect being paid to this body, which now wonders what will happen to it under Schedule 5. Another striking feature is that a star emerged from that television programme—the young woman who was in charge of seeing that we all managed the thing properly. She was Elizabeth Llewellyn-Smith, who went on to become president of St Hilda’s College, Oxford. There are side-effects and by-products if you handle such things properly.

More seriously, I understand the broad purpose of the Bill, and I understand and respect my noble friend the Minister’s approach to it. He has already indicated that he is prepared to listen to what we say today in his handling of the Bill. It is of the utmost importance that that should be so. He must understand the anxiety of this House, which is serious and well founded, partly because of our experience under the previous Administration. There were some remarkable examples of ill considered legislation; I suppose the classic one was the destruction of the office of Lord Chancellor. The committees of this House, which have worked in proper study, as the Constitution Committee has done in this case, are made up of people to whom attention should be paid. I am sure the Minister will be careful to do so.

For example, after several years of that treatment, the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, called a debate in Grand Committee in 2008 on how a good Government should deal with bodies’ recommendations and the attention they should pay to preparing legislation. The summing up in that debate should be respected by the Government. It is striking that the most compact summary of the advice from that debate is offered to the Government in the representations made by the body that is listed first in Schedule 1—the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council. It says, quite sharply, “Right first time”. It has emphasised the importance of improving government decision-making in the first instance, thereby avoiding costly appeals and other procedures. It is important to note that some of the wisest advice given to the Government comes from one of their first candidates for ruthless examination. That is a serious point. I do not believe that advice has been followed, despite the efforts being made by my noble friend.

What is striking is the foundation of assumptions by the appearance of the different bodies in these several schedules. Four hundred and eighty one organisations are on trial and 192 of them are already condemned to death. That is a remarkable choice to make. I make no comparisons with any other country. All the others face trial and are at least under threat of being convicted of something just short of murder or manslaughter. It is a remarkable state of affairs. That is why I see the force of the recommendations of the Constitution Committee. As it is now designed, the Bill strikes at the very heart of our constitutional system.

I see that some bodies are already protesting about their prospects as they find themselves facing trial in the months ahead. The coroners’ representative body, for example, protests understandably at the jettisoning of key elements of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 by abolishing the office of chief coroner. It seems very hasty to put an organisation that was created in the past two years in that position. That is not the only example of what might be seen as such unduly hasty management of the decision-taking. One therefore asks quite how the general policy is shaped for taking these decisions. The objective in some cases is said to be to take away power from the quangos in question and hand it back to the Executive for managerial supervision. I think this is driven by the feeling that if it is under the control of an elected body, it is thereby better protected. An elected body sounds benign in that context, but a less benign description of an elected body is the Executive, which has to take account of the legislature and the judiciary. That is why one is again anxious about the decisions being taken and whether the precise steps of conviction but not execution are being properly taken. That is why I join the procession of former law officers—people can hardly remember me as a humble Solicitor-General, who last wore his wigs in 1972—my roommate, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, and applaud enthusiastically the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. His presence here, incidentally, illustrates the value we get from such senior judicial figures. Whatever we may find ourselves doing in relation to this House, the input of such people is enormously important. The noble and learned Lord’s representations should be taken fully into account by the Government.

That is the substance of my evidence save one forthcoming point on which I wish to close. The emphasis of what I say is that, yes, the Bill can be justified as a vehicle which we need to have on the ground moving forward, but it needs to have considerable treatment of a conscientious kind, taking account of the constitutional and substantive matters discussed in this House. I know that my noble friend will take serious account of that. The Bill is legitimate but needs a lot of improvement.

I give a warning of a different kind as I did at a different stage play a different role in relation to an operation of this kind when in 1979 I was Chancellor of the Exchequer and scraping around trying to save money. One of the decisions I took in that regard was to provide for the abolition of the Metrication Board. That board had been unwise enough to include in its latest report that it was near the completion of its task. I declare an interest here in that I am—and have been for a long time—the patron of the UK Metric Association. One starts from the premise that the Magna Carta, to which we should pay respect in this context, requires specifically that there should be only one set of measurements throughout the kingdom, whether of weight, distance or anything else, so that is a foundation which we ought to respect. When the House of Commons considered the question in 1862, the Select Committee unanimously recommended the completion of the metrication process. In 1904, this House passed a Bill proposing to achieve that and in 1965 a decision was taken to go ahead and finish the task in 10 years. That was supported and accepted by successive Governments under Messrs Wilson, Heath and Callaghan, but none of them—not even the Heath Government in which I was the Minister for Metrication—took the precaution of securing primary legislation in order to complete that task. We had all agreed that it would happen and that we would do it. Remarkably, the CBI and the Retail Consortium were urging us to finish it quickly. I was president of the Consumers’ Association until a few weeks ago but I think that senility justifies my departure. However, in 1978, the Consumers’ Association also said, “Metrication, get on with it”.

I am really pointing out that my noble friend might do terrible things. He might be destroying something as important and potentially valuable as the Metrication Board, so he should take care. Had we not destroyed it, we would not have fallen behind every English-speaking nation in the world, barring perhaps the United States although it is half metric. The Pentagon, NASA and most of the automobile industry are fully metric. NASA has lost one mission to Mars at the cost of $125 million because one imperial measurement was inserted into a machine at the wrong time. We are suffering hazards of that kind because of my folly in 1979. I confess that continuously in the hope that people will agree with me that we ought to put it right.

However, I hope that my noble friend will take this matter seriously. This is an important Bill but it requires to be examined in the light of the criticisms that have been made. It is a legitimate Bill but it is very important that that legitimacy should be firmly established. I leave open the question whether the Bill should be examined by a Select Committee or a Committee of the Whole House but it requires care and attention.