Procedure of the House

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I agree with much of what she said, but not all of it. I would not dissent from her on the issue of hours. I have no quarrel with my noble friend the Leader of the House on that, but the noble Baroness’s suggestion of an 8.30 pm finish has much to commend it without in any way reducing the hours that my noble friend would have. That is not the real issue that I want to address.

I am very proud to be a Member of this House. When I came from another place I looked upon this House as one where legislation was properly scrutinised, time was taken and “we do things differently here”. In the context of legislation we do things better here. This is something that we do not wish to lose. We are a self-regulating House. I never want us to be in danger of becoming a government-regulated House. That is why I put down this amendment. I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in stating that, as a rule, all Bills should go to Grand Committee except for her three exceptions.

I do not agree with the noble Baroness for two reasons. One is that it is always difficult to define an exception. What is a highly controversial Bill to some Members of the House may be a matter of simple common sense to others. What is a constitutional Bill to some Members of the House may not be to others. I instance the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. That was, as far as I am concerned, a major constitutional Bill. There were those who argued during our deliberations that it was not. Who is to determine? At the moment it is entirely up to your Lordships’ House to decide whether a Bill goes to Grand Committee or not.

As this Session grinds to a halt we have had a good example in the Welfare Reform Bill. It was suggested that it would be better dealt with in Grand Committee and it went there. It had the consequence, to which the noble Baroness has referred, that Report took much longer because there was no opportunity for voting in Grand Committee. When we are contemplating a move of this nature, we have to bear it in mind that votes do not take place in Grand Committee. My noble friend interjects, “Yet”, and that is one of the points behind my amendment, and one of the reasons why I would like to see this matter looked at again by the Procedure Committee.

In another place a few years ago, the Executive decided that they wanted to take a greater grip of Parliament and to have every Bill programmed. Of course, having sat for almost equal lengths of time on the government and opposition sides of the House, I know that perspective changes according to where you sit. It was wonderful to behold some of the Rottweiler Ministers of 1979 to 1997 suddenly becoming gamekeepers turned poacher when they were in opposition. I make no complaint about that, but I look with fond nostalgia on the memory of the great, late Eric Forth, than whom there was no more draconian Minister and than whom there was no more belligerent opposition Member.

We look at things from different points of view, but Parliament should never be the creature of the Executive. It is difficult enough for Parliament to hold the Executive to account when the Executive are drawn from Parliament. I am not suggesting that we should alter our system. I do not want us to go to an American-style separation of powers, but I recognise that if we are going to get the balance right, the Executive must not trammel, crib, cabin and confine the legislature.

This is exactly what happened in another place shortly after the coming to power of the Blair Administration, when we moved inexorably—partly because Eric Forth and his friends were using the weapon of time somewhat indiscriminately—to the situation where every Bill became timetabled. How often in my brief period here have I heard Members lament the fact that in spite of a change of Government, the timetabling procedures remain? More and more responsibility falls upon your Lordships’ House because of that.

It would be very unfortunate if we allowed ourselves to lose the flexibility that true self-regulation provides. During those 18 years in opposition in the other place, I often came out of the Division Lobby feeling depressed—we could not win, the Government’s majority was so enormous—but my colleagues and I would suddenly see a glimmer of hope and the cry would go up, “Our hope is in the Lords”. Indeed it was, and not infrequently it was realised. The Labour Governments of Mr Blair and Mr Brown suffered a number of significant defeats in this place and sometimes as a consequence they thought again.

As we have seen recently in the long saga of the Health and Social Care Bill, legislation that is—I want to be kind—not exactly perfect can be significantly improved by expertise, time and the fact that Members here have no constituency responsibilities, and no need to answer to an electorate every five years. Things can be improved in here, and we are going to have plenty of opportunity, I suspect, in the forthcoming Session of Parliament to debate that very point. Anything that detracts from self-regulation is to the detriment of this House in particular and Parliament in general.

I say to my noble friend the Leader of the House that he should please beware of that word “presumption”. Just think how much trouble has been caused in recent months by the insertion of that word “presumption” in the context of planning. I do not like documents which presume and I do not like measures which presume. I have nothing against Bills going to Grand Committee but they must go on their individual merits because the House approves of the suggestion that that is where they should go. I urge my noble friend the Leader of the House, when he speaks, to recognise that fact.

That is why I am suggesting that the committee should have the chance to look again and to answer whether we are inadvertently handing over an important aspect of self-regulation. Consider, in the light of the debates that will take place on a possible Lords reform Bill, whether we need this sort of change. We certainly do not need it now because we know from all the leaks that we are going to have a legislation-light Queen’s Speech. If that is the case, why do we need to have this presumption now?

There is another issue—the elephant in the room that is the Bill that dare not speak its name. We all know that it is likely that the Deputy Prime Minister will have his way with us and will produce in the Queen’s Speech some measure of reform affecting your Lordships’ House. I blame not the Leader of the House nor anyone else but in the somewhat febrile atmosphere that has existed in this place for some months there is a teeny suspicion that one of the reasons we are doing this today is to clear the decks for House of Lords reform. That may not be the case. I know not.

In conclusion, I say to my noble friend, than whom there is no more consummate politician in the whole of Parliament, please do not bother with this because you can have your way on individual Bills. They can go to Grand Committee with the House’s approval and blessing and there they can be scrutinised. But do not have this presumption.

Another thing we should bear in mind is not to follow the other place down another steep, slippery slope where so many things are being considered simultaneously in Westminster Hall, in the Chamber and in Committee that it is difficult for an honourable Member adequately to discharge his or her duties. I rest my case.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord has just said. If there is to be a presumption then the presumption should be that legislation should be taken here. There is only one alternative that is worse than the committee’s suggestion and that is the recommendation of the noble Baroness, which institutes a rule.

Many will agree that one of the prevailing sins of the British Parliament is that we legislate a great deal too much. A great deal of excessive complication has begotten in our society a high level of bureaucracy in all parts of society—in the private sector as well as the public. This is a serious and malignant failing of our present political culture. What would be the effect if, having cleared much of the business from this Chamber into Grand Committee, there were weeks when there was nothing to be done here? Would that not be an encouragement for the other place to send even more torrents of ill considered law to this place? I am sorry if it is offensive to some who served in the other place but the whipping system that has developed there is now so ruthless, and the guillotine system operated with such consistency and a strong hand, that they deprive the other place of giving the thought to crucial legislation that it not only should but would be well equipped to do if the Members were let off the leash.

The proposal would surely create a vacuum for yet more legislation. The average output of Parliament has been 13,000 pages of legislation a year over the past few years. This year it might exceed even that. It is more than is produced by any comparable democracy in the western world by a long way. Therefore, on that ground if no other, I urge us to reject the committee’s proposal for this presumption and to reject absolutely the recommendation of the noble Baroness, which is in line with the Leader’s Group, that we have a rule that only three types of legislation can be retained in this place without agreement.