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of the Bill, they say that clause 43 and the concept of fining a woman for refusing to name the father, probably for good reasons, is not the way to proceed. I urge the Government, even at this stage, to listen to those people. I suspect that their answer will be no. We return to the origins of the Bill. The off-the-cuff remark by the right hon. Member for Finchley that we must pursue absent fathers was stimulated by the failure of the Department to maintain its complement of people who were pursuing maintenance. The rundown of staff in the Department, particularly of liable relative officers, was deplorable. It resulted in a problem being created to which the right hon. Member for Finchley invented a solution. Good and faithful servants are still labouring to drag that solution through the Palace of Westminster.The Opposition will adhere to the principle that the responsibility for children rests with the parents, and their welfare will always be paramount in our consideration of these issues. The Bill accepts that principle, and in that sense we accept its main planks. But the practice through which clause 43 will operate makes a mockery of the principle that the child comes first.
In Government, we shall review the way in which the measure is working, will substitute incentives for punitive measures and will ensure that this legislation becomes what we all thought it meant when we first considered it and that the child's welfare will come first and foremost.
7.38 pm
Mr. Hardy : I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) about the Bill, which has many odious aspects. It seems to be another horse from the Finchley stable, similar to the one about which we heard a year or so ago when we were told of the merits in the Government's approach to sending investigators round to investigate social security fraud. I pointed out that the cost of that exercise would not be much exceeded by the benefits that it secured. I said that the same resources devoted to the Inland Revenue to detect widespread tax evasion would yield an enormously greater harvest. I was told that there was a big difference : those who defraud social security are taking taxpayers' money, whereas tax dodgers merely try to keep their own.
The Government should understand that the Bill will involve substantial administrative costs, which could be better directed at securing a healthier and more substantial return to the taxpayer. However, I am less interested in the economics of the Bill than in its effect on children. Have the Government estimated the number of mothers, made even more desperate by this measure, who will decide to wash their hands of their children and leave them with the local authority social services department or the voluntary services? Has the Minister considered the matter in consultation with those who know about it in order to assess the additional burden that already hard-pressed local authority social services departments have to bear?
Whatever financial arrangements the Government make, children are sensitive and in thousands of cases their sensitivity willl be trampled upon by the arrangements in the clause. The Minister deliberately chose to misunderstand the point that I made during the last debate before Third Reading. I said that, in a substantial number of cases, the additional income that a woman takes in the form of maintenance from the father of her child may equal income support. She would then forfeit income
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support and, in so doing, would forfeit the additonal benefits--my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North used the term "passported" benefits--that accompany income support. Her child would then lose benefits such as free meals and would run the risk of lower standards of living and nutrition.This country is supposed to be more affluent than ever before, although many of us doubt that. Yet we tolerate people awarding themselves £300,000 or £400,000 a year, with increases of 50 per cent. or 100 per cent. over a 12-month period. It would be a disgrace to accept that it is necessary, in this year of grace, to plunge many children deeper into malnutrition. I hope that there will be a general election in October, because the values enshrined in the Bill should have no place in a civilised society.
7.45 pm
Dr. Godman : I hope that the general election will be not in October but in November, because I am going on holiday in September.
I was the only Scottish Member who actively participated in scrutinising the Bill in Committee. If hon. Members will forgive my conceit, I had a 100 per cent. attendance record. I cannot say the same for the other Scottish Member of the Committee who chose not to speak on these important matters. Whether the Opposition like it or not, the Bill will receive Royal Assent and will then form part of the growing body of legislation, on both sides of the border, which, aims to protect the interests of children. As a Back Bencher who is not a lawyer, I have sought as best as I can to protect the interests of children in Scotland. In some respects, there are growing divergences in the body of legislation to which I referred. An example is the Criminal Justice Bill which, once enacted, will give remarkable protection to children caught up in sexual abuse cases. I bitterly regret that we have no identitical legislation in Scotland. Last year, I attempted to bring Scottish law into line with the Criminal Justice Bill, but the Scottish Office Minister refused to accept my suggestions.
Scotland is drifting away in terms of people's perceptions of the union, but that is another story. It is also drifting away with regard to the Children Act 1989. In several of the Committee's sittings, reference was made to that Act as though it applied to the United Kingdom, but it is confined to the children of England and Wales. The Children Act 1975, which deals also with Scotland, is nowhere near as comprehensive as the Children Act 1989.
The Bill will affect the lives of children in Scotland. Despite my 100 per cent. attendance record and the work that I put into the Bill, I have had little effect on it. Nevertheless, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), has reassured me today about the need to protect children when they are caught up in those appallingly distressing and difficult circumstances. I spoke earlier about the need for a safeguarder and the Under-Secretary assured me that, in Scotland, specialist training would be given to those involved in the Child Support Agency, the headquarters of which will be located in Falkirk. On behalf of the children and mothers caught up in those circumstances, I want an assurance that the officials employed in that agency throughout the United Kingdom will be chosen extremely carefully. They must be given adequate training so that they can interview
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comprehensively children, and mothers who may be deeply afraid of physical retribution from estranged partners.In Committee I gave three examples of young mothers, each with two children, who were caught up in those dreadful circumstances. They had appalling personal histories as victims of domestic violence. Because of what had happened to them in the past, the small number of women who are caught up in those tragic circumstances would hestitate long before they gave the names and addresses of their erstwhile partners. Given the fact that the Bill will be enacted very shortly, may I make a plea that those women, who number between 40 and 50 in my constituency, be treated with the utmost compassion within the framework of this disgraceful element of the Bill. I hope that when child support officers look for reasonable evidence of fear, threats and violence, they will not necessarily expect to find physical evidence of what has taken place. Instead, they should look for evidence of what may take place if they give the evidence required by the child support officer. That is why it is essential that, when selecting and training child support officers, we find the best. In some respects, we already have them in Scotland in some local Department of Social Security offices, despite my occasional complaints relating to incidents involving my constituents. It is of paramount importance that, when the agency is set up, from top to bottom its staff are committed to the welfare of children-- nothing less will do. That is what we are concerned about. The staff must also have a deep understanding of the domestic circumstances of these women caught up in dealings with the Child Support Agency and officers.
There is a growing body of law which I call child care law. Despite my earlier criticisms, we have some superb examples of that in Scotland. There is the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, which was steered through the House by the late Willie Ross and Bruce Millan, and other Acts that almost match that superb piece of child care law. The 1968 Act contains other provisions, but I am talking about its child care sections.
In some respects, the Child Support Bill is something of an aberration. It is right and proper that absent parents match and honour their obligations. I have one last plea, which I have made twice before : if a small number of men are to be imprisoned for more than six weeks, we should consider placing such miscreants in prison at the weekends. They should turn up at Barlinnie, Saughton or Perth on Friday evening after they have clocked off work or whatever they do these days, and be let out on Monday morning or Sunday evening, so that if they are in work they do not lose their employment. The small number of men who go to prison should be treated sensibly and realistically. If they go to prison, they should be put in the nick for the weekend. That is an important consideration and should be borne in mind when the Minister introduces regulations.
7.55 pm
Mr. Jack : It is always a relief to come to the end of a piece of parliamentary legislation, but this is the end of only one part of what I think will be a star-studded show, because the second part will deal with the introduction of the regulations. I hope that in the debates in Standing Committee and in the House this evening I have reassured
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right hon. and hon. Members that the Government will continue to listen, consult and think hard about the information that we receive about such a deeply sensitive but important matter. We have acknowledged, and continue to acknowledge, that there is no monopoly of wisdom on the subject, and we are certainly always pleased to learn.It would be churlish of me not to give one or two words of tribute, and I shall start with those involved in introducing the start of the legislation --the White Paper, "Children Come First". Sometimes, it is with trepidation that we mention the people whom we should not mention, but they know who I mean--the Department officials who have worked not only on the White Paper but on the Bill. I know that they have the profound appreciation and thanks of all the Ministers involved for the way in which they have worked, sometimes under considerable pressure, to produce what was a good Bill when it started and is now immeasurably improved as a result of our deliberations in Standing Committee and in the House. Much of this would not have happened had it not been for the fundamental belief in the policy of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security, who I am delighted to see on the Front Bench this evening. In Standing Committee, we considered in detail many parts of the Bill. I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Eccles (Miss Lestor) and for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) for their contribution and their probing of our policy, which was important and made us think. We have shown, by the way that we have responded, that we listened. We have also listened to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman), who, in a short time, has taught me more about Scotland than I thought possible. He was right to advert to his attendance record in Standing Committee. Other Opposition Members would envy the number of times that he was able to join his few other hon. Friends on the Committee.
We have heard Opposition Members comment on points of detail. If I misunderstood the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy), I apologise. I now understand the point that he was making, but it is important that he realises that, if maintenance boosts the income of a parent with care by providing additional resources--taking them from benefit--in essence, that merely restores the position that that person might formerly have enjoyed within his or her relationship. Clearly, the expenses related to the child would have been borne by the couple involved in the former relationship. If someone no longer receives income support or benefit, he or she may no longer receive some social security benefits, but the position will have returned to the status quo.
Part of the Bill's package includes amendments to family credit to assist women who wish to return to the labour market. Those benefits include many means of assisting lone parents, who will receive the same rate as two- parent families in terms of the family premium. In addition, school meals were included at the inception of the benefit. Those two examples show that the measures are not as draconian as the hon. Member for Wentworth said.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, North talked about benefit deduction. I shall seek to reassure him, if that is possible, that any reduction of benefit--I think that he was
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referring specifically to income support-- falls within the overall limit of 15 per cent. I spent some time in Committee talking in detail about the order in which deductions would take place, and I refer the hon. Gentleman to those detailed remarks.In his somewhat grudging concluding remarks, the hon. Member for Nottingham, North suggested that we might be on the defensive. The Government can be positive about what they genuinely believe is an extremely good, well-thought-out package. He did not mention the Bill's provisions in relation to providing maintenance for children. Only at the end of his remarks did he refer to the quintessence of the Bill--putting children first.
In terms of maintenance, the Bill has replaced uncertainty with certainty. It has a clear objective to gain maintenance for children, which is to be followed up by the Child Support Agency. We have replaced the inconsistency of the old system--I am sure that Opposition Members could not support its retention--with an element of consistency. For the first time, we shall have a stated formula and process for the recovery of maintenance for the benefit of children. I believe that we have replaced irresponsibility with responsibility.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, North failed to say that, 10 years ago, only 50 per cent. of maintenance orders were honoured. That figure has now dropped to 30 per cent. and, for those on income support, to only 23 per cent. That shows how responsibility has been shuffled away to the taxpayer, who has had to pick up the bill to the tune of £400 million. The Bill seeks to redress that imbalance. Opposition Members continually chide the Government to improve the social security system. I am delighted to be standing at the Dispatch Box talking about increases in child benefit, as I also did some days ago. The money to pay for those provisions does not, as Opposition Members often imagine, grow on trees. It comes from the sensible allocation of resources available within the social security budget. The Bill will result in rebalancing £400 million of taxpayers' money. That is a good thing. It will assist the further development of the social security system.
The Bill brings into being a fine agency that is dedicated to the sensitive task that it must undertake. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North chided us for not listening, but a little recess reading of the White Paper will demonstrate to him how far the Government have moved to meet the representations of many highly respected voluntary bodies. We said initially that people would be allowed not to co-operate in cases of rape and incest only. However, we quickly moved to take into account domestic violence. We then went further and recognised harm and undue distress as reasons for non co-operation.
In many ways the agency is a buffer between the parent with care and the difficult world in which she lived before her relationship broke up. The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow talked about evidence. It might be difficult to produce the kind of evidence that a court of law requires, but there is a presumption on someone to be believed. That is the greatest defence available to any individual before they face the possibility of a benefit sanction. The exercise of that sanction is meant to signal that seeking to secure maintenance and benefit for one's child--exercising that responsibility--is not an optional extra. A parent with care has a responsibility to her child to secure the necessary resources so that, should that
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parent return to work, those resources would represent a genuine addition to the family budget, to the benefit of the child. The receipt of maintenance is possible through co-operation. If someone chooses not to co-operate--she may have good reason--we will have given them every option to co-operate and every chance to reconsider their position. If someone chooses that action, it means that a benefit sanction is applied, but that sanction can be stopped immediately through co- operation.It appeared from the speech of the hon. Member for Eccles that the Opposition wanted us to have a strong association with the Australian system of social security. Under that system all benefits are removed in the event of non co-operation, yet the Opposition strongly favour the Australian system. I am sure that that has not gone unnoticed in the House and outside.
I hope that we have demonstrated our good intentions under the Bill. We shall finance the agency with the appropriate resources to do its work. It will draw on the best of information technology and on a resource structure unparalleled in terms of information to seek out the absent parent with care. Above all, the Bill will have as its motto putting children first in all that it does.
Question put and agreed to .
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed .
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Standing Orders (Amendments)
[Relevant documents : Second Report from the Select Committee on Procedure of Session 1989-90, on The Working of the Select Committee System, House of Commons Paper No. 19-I, and the Government's response, Cm. 1532.]
8.3 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor) : I beg to move
That Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) be amended by inserting at the end of line 38 the words--
(e) proceedings on a Motion such as is referred to in paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 104 (Nomination of select committees) for the nomination or discharge of members of select committees appointed under Standing Order No. 130 (Select committees related to government departments) which has been opposed at or after the interruption of business on a preceding day :
Provided that any questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings on such a Motion shall be put at Eleven o'clock or one hour after the commencement of those proceedings, whichever is the later.' Mr. Speaker : I understand that it will be for the convenience of the House if we also discuss motion No. 3
That--
Standing Order No. 122 (Committee of Public Accounts) be amended by adding at the end of the words--
(3) The Committee shall have power to communicate to any committee appointed under Standing Order No. 130 (Select committees related to government departments) such evidence as it may have received from the National Audit Office (having been agreed between that Office and the government department or departments concerned) but which has not been reported to the House' ; and
Standing Order No. 130 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended by inserting in line 33, after the word committee', the words and to the Committee of Public Accounts.'-- and motion No. 4--
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E
|July 1990 |July 1991 |Net change
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Lords Justices of Appeal |1 |1 |-
High Court Judges |1 |2 |+1
Circuit Judges |19 |20 |+1
District Judges |7 |9 |+2
Metropolitan Stipendary
Magistrates |8 |8 |-
Provincial Stipendary
Magistrates |- |1 |+1
I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux).
Mr. Macgregor : I welcome the opportunity to lay the amendments before the House. The Select Committee on Procedure carried out a valuable and comprehensive review of the Select Committee system, which was the first parliamentary inquiry into the present system that was established in 1979.
The Government are pleased to note the general response of the Procedure Committee, which is that the system has stood up to scrutiny and is basically sound and that there is no need for major reform. There will, of course, always be a need for minor adjustments to reflect changing circumstances. We welcome and accept most of the recommendations addressed to the Government. I shall not concern myself in this speech with those recommendations addressed to Committees or to the House generally.
The Government have already acted on two recommendations. The new Health and Social Services Select Committees are up and running and we had a debate on 1 May on the parliamentary and health service commissioners.
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Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for showing his characteristic courtesy in giving way. Has any concern been expressed about the failure of the Government to create or recreate in the House the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs?
Mr. MacGregor : I have been asked about that from time to time by hon. Members with a particular interest in the matter. I have already said that I see no prospect of making any progress on the matter in the House during the current Session for the reasons that have been well advanced in earlier debates. It is not intended that that matter should be addressed on the motions before us tonight.
I propose to act on the recommendations that the Government have accepted. I shall deal briefly with each of the motions, which the House will have already seen referred to in detail in the Select Committee report and the Government's response to it. You said, Mr. Speaker, that it would be convenient to take the three motions together, and I shall deal with them as they appear on the Order Paper.
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The first motion relates to an amendment to Standing Order No. 14 concerned with the replacement of members. The Committee recommended :"Where a motion discharging one member and/or appointing another is opposed, any subsequent proceedings on that motion at a later date should be dealt with within one hour."
The Government support that recommendation and the amendment provides for that.
The second motion relates to amendments to Standing Order No. 122 and to Standing Order No. 130. The amendments deal with the role of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. I should like to deal with those amendments in greater detail. The proposed amendments will enable the PAC to pass to departmental Select Committees unpublished memoranda submitted to it by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office which have been agreed by Departments.
It is appropriate for the PAC to control the passing of such information. The amendments will also allow the departmental Committees to pass papers to the PAC. It is not appropriate to set out every detail of the way in which that will work under the Standing Orders. The Government's response pointed out that it was essentially for the House to decide how it should deal with any NAO report. The Government agree with the Procedure Committee's view that only a few carefully chosen cases should be handled by the departmental Select Committees following agreement with the NAO and the PAC. I am glad to note that the Chairman of the PAC, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), is in his place as he and I have discussed this proposal in some detail.
The Government agree completely that the PAC should not scrutinise policy matters. The PAC, as recognised in Standing Order No. 122, has a unique role in examining Departments on their accounts and value for money. I pay tribute to the work of the PAC in that respect and to its current Chairman.
The departmental Select Committees can look more widely at policy, but, insofar as much of their work relates to administration and expenditure, they would be assisted by NAO reports. They already have the right to take up published material.
The Procedure Committee was careful to state the caveats under which it saw assistance being given to Select Committees by the NAO. I have discussed that matter with my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Procedure Committee and, as I have said on a number of occasions, I am grateful to him and his Committee for the work that they have done.
The Government's response has set out understandings that would prevent NAO reports from being discussed in an uncontrolled way or the NAO being drawn into policy. That is an important point with which I know the Chairman of the PAC is concerned. Our response makes it clear that the NAO would not give substantive oral evidence beyond any necessary explanation of its reports.
The Procedure Committee proposed, and the Government accepted, subject to the procedures mentioned, that there should be liaison between the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, the Chairman of the PAC and the Comptroller and Auditor General to see how NAO
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resources could help the departmental Committees without prejudicing the main thrust of the work of the NAO for the PAC. The arrangements should not be interpreted as giving the departmental Select Committees any powers over the NAO. As the Procedure Committee recognised, under the National Audit Act 1983, the Comptroller and Auditor General has complete discretion in carrying out his functions. He is not under any obligation to take account of suggestions from departmental Select Committees when determining his programme of studies as he is with suggestions from the PAC. I hope and believe that, with the good will of all sides, these arrangements can be made to work.As for Standing Order No. 130 and the third group of amendments, this contains tidying-up arrangements for Departments, covered in the table in Standing Order No. 130(2). There are two aspects to which I wish to draw particular attention. The first is the scrutiny of the Law Officers' Departments. The suggestion that there should be some form of scrutiny of these Departments is not new. It was put forward by the Procedure Committee in 1977-78, but it was not accepted on the ground that it could threaten the independence of the judiciary. The current Procedure Committee proposed that all matters that lay within the responsibilities of the various Law Officers, but excluding consideration of the merits of individual cases, should come under the scrutiny of the Home Affairs or Scottish Affairs Committees, as appropriate. The Government were sympathetic to the thought behind the proposal but were unable to go as far as the Procedure Committee would have liked, for several reasons. I shall refer only to a few of them.
Although the Lord Chancellor's Department provides the staff and the administration for the courts service, the courts themselves are not part of the Department. The wording of the amendment is identical to the extension of the Public Accounts Committee's jurisdiction in the same area under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. I hope that that will be acceptable.
Also, the exclusion of individual judicial appointments reflects the personal responsibility of the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Advocate for these matters, but the Committees will be free to examine the appointments system as a whole. It is important, too, that the independence of the various prosecuting authorities from political influence should be reflected. The Committees will be excluded, therefore, from examining prosecution policy. I believe however, that what we are proposing in the amendments represents a considerable step forward. It means that a significant area of government hitherto unavailable for Committee scrutiny can now be examined. I hope, therefore, that the House will accept the proposal.
Dr. Godman : The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Scottish Select Committee. What is the point of amending Standing Order No. 130 to make changes to the Scottish Select Committee if the Government, with their Back Benchers, refuse to set up such a Committee?
Mr. MacGregor : If eventually we are able to make progress on that matter, we shall be able to accept the Procedure Committee's recommendation.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) : Am I to take it, therefore, that the exclusion in line 6--
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" (excluding the expenditure, administration and policy of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Northern Ireland),'"-- is because that will be referred to the Home Affairs Committee? Alternatively, is there to be no scrutiny? If a Northern Ireland Select Committee is to be set up, am I to take it that that matter could be referred to the Committee or, due to the fact that the courts service is part of the Lord Chancellor's Department, would it still be dealt with in the Home Affairs Committee?Mr. MacGregor : To answer the hon. Gentleman's second point first, that would not be the case. As for his main point--why the Director of Public Prosecutions is excluded--there are a number of considerations, one of which is that no request was made for Select Committee scrutiny of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland. That is why the terms of reference do not include him. There is no Crown prosecution service as such in Northern Ireland. That is an important point in relation to scrutiny because, unlike his counterpart in England and Wales who heads a staff of some 5,500 in the Crown prosecution service, the responsibilities of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland in relation to administration and expenditure, which is what we are talking about, are very small. That is the reason for his exclusion.
Another aspect of this group of amendments to Standing Order No. 130 relates to the Science and Technology Sub-Committee. The Procedure Committee recommended either a Joint Committee with the House of Lords, or reconsideration of an earlier request by the Education Committee for two additional members and the power to appoint a Sub-Committee. The Government were prepared to accept the second recommendation. The Standing Order now provides for it. I hope that I have adequately explained the Standing Orders changes. To a large extent, they implement the Procedure Committee's recommendations. Accordingly, I recommend them to the House. 8.14 pm
Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, East) : The Opposition accept the proposed amendments. We know that a great deal of discussion took place, not least with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. My right hon. Friend was as concerned as we were that the Comptroller and Auditor General should not become involved in political matters as the Comptroller's job is to report to the Public Accounts Committee in an unfettered way about Government expenditure and he ought not to be involved in the political hurly-burly in which Members of Parliament obviously and rightly are involved. We feel, therefore, that the Procedure Committee's recommendations are sensible. They tighten and strengthen the position. We therefore welcome this development.
I understand the anxiety of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) about the Scottish Select Committee, and we are extremely disappointed that it has not been set up. The Leader of the
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House is aware that we shall continue to press that issue. My hon. Friends north of the border have strong feelings about it. That point has been made again this evening.The Leader of the House has carefully explained these sensible proposals to the House, and I therefore ask my hon. Friends to accept them.
8.16 pm
Mr. James Molyneaux (Lagan Valley) : The Leader of the House paid tribute at the beginning of his speech to the efficiency of the Chairman of the Procedure Committee and to its members. He suggested how easy it is to establish yet another Select Committee. Those of us who watched the smooth division of the old Health and Social Services Select Committee give the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure full marks for the efficient way in which that operation was carried out, in co-operation with the Leader of the House and his predecessor.
In my reply to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure dated 8 February 1990 I expressed satisfaction with the existing coverage of Northern Ireland by the various Select Committees, such as Agriculture, Health, Social Security, Energy and Trade and Industry--just as happens for Scotland. In the second paragraph of my letter I said :
"There ought to be a Northern Ireland Select Committee dealing with those matters for which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is responsible, but for which there is no counterpart in Great Britain, e.g. implementation of the Anglo-Irish Agreement 1985, and the political direction of security."
That alone is a very heavy responsibility.
In another letter to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure, dated 22 May 1990, I said :
"Thank you for your letter of 15 May about the proposal for a Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. Such a body would be a great asset to the people of Northern Ireland, extending as it would to their affairs the same scrutiny as is provided for the rest of the United Kingdom. In our view, the establishment of a Northern Ireland Select Committee should not be delayed for the invalid reason that some day a structure of Government may be invented for Northern Ireland."
My case was powerfully supported by the Select Committee in its second report, particularly in paragraphs 272 to 278 :
"Accordingly, whilst we do not believe that the uncertainties over the future administration of the Province can be allowed to preclude indefinitely the establishment of proper arrangements for the scrutiny by the House of the Northern Ireland Department, we accept that this would not be a sensible moment to recommend the establishment of a Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. Nevertheless, we consider that the Government cannot postpone dealing with this matter for very much longer and we will keep the position under review."
Then there is the key sentence :
"We may well wish to return to it once the outcome of the current talks is clear."
We have now reached that point. That obstacle was removed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in his statement to the House on 3 July, when he said :
"I concluded that the talks should therefore be brought to an end. I have also been in touch with the Irish Government to recount my conclusion."-- [ Official Report, 3 July 1991 ; Vol. 194, c. 319.] It is therefore not a matter of opinion, or of what this or that newspaper says. We respect the Secretary of State's decision, which was made for reasons best known to him and which he announced to the four party leaders in private.
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Regardless of the fact that the talks have been brought to an end by Her Majesty's Government, it must be recognised that, even if the talks had succeeded, there would still have been an unanswerable case for a Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs because there would remain a wide range of responsibilities which would never, in any circumstances, be devolved to any Northern Ireland Assembly or Government. The responsibilities that will remain with any Secretary of State for Northern Ireland bite deeply into the financial subvention voted by Parliament. As the House will be aware, and as you wisely remind us, Mr. Speaker, those vast sums are not debatable in the debates on Northern Ireland appropriation. However, Parliament has a duty to scrutinise that expenditure and the policies that govern it. That is a reason why there must be a Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. So long as there is not, the Northern Ireland Office is the only major Department of State not required to give an account of its stewardship.I notice that in some of the submissions to the Select Committee on Procedure there were vague hints that the agreement of all parties in Northern Ireland would be desirable before any such step could be taken. A curious feature of the governance of Northern Ireland is that, although all -party agreement seems to be a pre-requisite for some policies, on the many occasions when the Northern Ireland parties in the House are united in opposition to important policies and proposals, the Northern Ireland Office employs a three-line Whip to crush the opposition of all 16 Northern Ireland Members of Parliament speaking with one voice and voting in the same Lobby. On the issue of a Select Committee to provide effective scrutiny, how can any party or any individual Member of Parliament justify opposing such a reasonable step? Such a step could not possibly disadvantage any Northern Ireland citizen, but could do only good.
The sensitive subject of a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs has already been touched upon. The Select Committee on Scottish Affairs was first set up in 1979 and the then Leader of the House, now Lord St. John of Fawsley, referred to talks that he had arranged with the political parties in Scotland to discuss improvements in the government of Scotland, unrelated to the Select Committee. On 31 October 1979 he said :
"I was further pressed in June to agree that the establishment of a Committee on Scottish affairs should not await the outcome of these talks. The motions are intended to meet what I believe to be the wishes of the House in the meantime. They therefore provide for a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs with similar membership and orders of reference to those of the other Committees which the House has already agreed should be established."--[ Official Report , 31 October 1979 ; Vol. 972, c. 1282.]
I note that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been consulted by the Select Committee on Procedure. He conceded in principle that Northern Ireland should have a Select Committee, but he was not exactly enthusiastic, and I do not blame him. What head of Department would be joyful at being told that he is to have a Select Committee imposed upon him? Did not all the heads of Department in 1979 fight like tigers against the St. John-Stevas plan? I am not suggesting that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is any different from the other heads of Department. What Department in its right mind would embrace the prospect of being sent for? The Secretary of State for Wales told the House yesterday,
uncomplainingly, of his experience early yesterday when,
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to use his words, he had to endure a three- hour interrogation by the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. He seemed to enjoy it. It would be doing an injustice to the present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his ministerial colleagues if I were to imply that for merely personal reasons they would seek to obstruct what is now the widely held view of the Procedure Committee and the widely-recognised view on both sides of the House that there is a need for such a Select Committee. I think that Ministers at the Northern Ireland Office would share the view expressed by a former distinguished Member of this House, Sir David Renton, who said, in February 1979 :"Any Minister or future Minister who is worth his salt should welcome the chance to co-operate with a small group of hon. Members who are taking a critical but constructive interest in the work of his Department."--[ Official Report, 19 February 1979 ; Vol. 963, c. 51.]
I have sufficient faith in the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his fellow Ministers to rest my case on Sir David's words.
8.28 pm
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