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10.36 am
Mrs. Ann Taylor (Dewsbury): I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) on securing the debate, which has been useful. I also welcome the Minister to what I understand is his first debate in his new post. I ought also to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) on making what is often a very dry subject somewhat more interesting and stimulating than it might otherwise have been. The amount of interest shown in the issue today is cause for regret, because we are discussing something that is fundamental to our role in the House.
Much of the House's reputation is dependent on us getting legislation correct--leaving aside the political controversy surrounding it--yet, too often, that is simply not the case.
The issues raised have been the subject of many reports, and over the years many people have recommended changes. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who could not be here this morning, sent me a well-thumbed and well-marked copy of the Renton report of 1975, to which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland referred. On looking through it, it is alarming to find how many of the concerns that were expressed then remain concerns because nothing been done to tackle the problems. Indeed, in some very important areas, the problems have worsened in recent years.
Although I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland said and the stress that he placed on the need for Parliament to be more efficient, he must also emphasise that we must be effective. Despite very slightly improving our system of working with the Jopling proposals, we have not made any fundamental difference to the effectiveness of the House in either of the jobs mentioned by the right hon. Member for Northavon (Sir J. Cope): scrutinising legislation properly and monitoring the Executive. We must do more to improve the methods by which we fulfil those tasks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby ended by mentioning that we were having a somewhat unusual parliamentary year. It is not really typical of what has been happening over the past 10 or 15 years. Certainly, in recent years, the volume of legislation has been growing and intensifying. This year, that is clearly not the case, and although there is some discussion about the reasons for that, there are only two possibilities, neither of which reflects much credit on the Government.
The first possibility is that we have so little legislation because the Government have introduced so much enabling legislation in the past. Perhaps Governments no longer need to come to the House so often to bring about the changes that they want, because so much can be done without reference to the House. That in itself has significant implications for the role of Parliament.
The second factor is that the Government have run out of steam, and there is little that they want to do. The Minister will tell us, as the Leader of the House did during the Queen's Speech debate, that the number of Bills anticipated is even greater than last year. However, we should think about the significance of those Bills. How many of them are fundamental or controversial? Most Bills proposed for this year are relatively low-key.
I could ask what has happened to some of the other Bills that we were promised, such as that on nursery vouchers. I do not want to see that Bill, because I want not vouchers but places for children in nursery education. However, the Bill is a case in point, with rumours now surrounding what is happening to it, such as the rumour that Back Benchers are concerned because the voucher system threatens nursery provision in their areas. We also hear rumours that the Government have not yet been able to draft the Bill to take full account of all the technical problems that can arise from a voucher system.
Whatever concerns there may be, and leaving aside the parliamentary controversy surrounding the issue itself, even if there are outstanding questions such as the technical ones that I mentioned, at this stage in the process
we are expecting legislation in the current parliamentary year, and it will go through scrutiny in Standing Committee, along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby.
As my hon. Friend rightly said, it is now more frustrating to be a member of a Standing Committee. There was a time when Governments of both parties would take on board many of the criticisms and suggested amendments from Standing Committees. They would not necessarily accept them there and then, but they would listen, then go away and redraft the Bill to improve it as it passed through Parliament. That activity seems to have diminished over recent years, which has led to the sense of frustration that my hon. Friend mentioned when he was talking about the role of Back Benchers.
That is not good for Back Benchers; even worse, it is not good for legislation. It is one of the reasons why we get into difficulties such as those that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland mentioned in connection with the Child Support Agency. Originally there was agreement in principle across all parties on the issue, yet because of the way that the legislation was forced through with insufficient consultation and discussion, it was clearly flawed and has brought about all the problems of which hon. Members are only too well aware from their constituency cases.
I am sure that the Minister will also tell us that there has been consultation on some of the proposed legislative measures in the Queen's Speech. That must be welcomed by Members on both sides of the House. Yesterday, we debated the Armed Forces Bill, which was shown to, and discussed with, a wide range of people. The fact that the debate finished early yesterday does not imply criticism of anybody; it may reflect the fact that, if one discusses things in the proper way, there can be agreement about the direction in which things are going, and we can make progress and get better legislation in the end.
However, in some areas there has been frustration when co-operation has been attempted. During the previous Session of Parliament, there was agreement about how we should treat some of the Law Commission Bills, but at the end of that process, after agreement had been secured in both Houses about the way to deal with the Family Homes and Domestic Violence Bill, right at the last minute, internal opposition from Conservative Members scuppered all that good work. I suppose that the moral there is that, if the Government have consultation, they had better have it with their own side as well as with everybody else. All Governments, both the present Government and any Government anticipated in the future, must bear that fact in mind.
There is not time to talk about all the issues that we should mention in a debate of this kind. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby was right to say that we could do with more time for such debates, not least because the House is so slow to move towards change. I simply say that this year will be an extremely good year to experiment with new ways of dealing with legislation.
We should not underestimate the existing problems in scrutinising delegated legislation, or the problems with the Deregulation Committee. My hon. Friend mentioned the Hansard Society commission, one of whose suggestions was that we should be able to amend delegated legislation.
Such issues should be given full consideration, because the quality of our legislation is threatened if we do not get our procedures right.
We need to improve our procedures not only for the preparation and drafting of Bills but for scrutinising legislation as it passes through the House. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland emphasised the fact that there must be complete agreement that proper consultation on legislation is the right way forward. He recommended that we look for institutional processes, so that consultation can become automatic.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service (Mr. David Willetts):
May I begin, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by explaining that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is attending a Cabinet meeting this morning, and much regrets that he cannot be present?
I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) on securing the debate, and on selecting such an interesting and important subject. I am pleased to have the opportunity to draw attention to the Government's achievements in improving the quality of legislation, in which my right hon. Friend and my noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal have taken a close and productive interest.
The debate reflects a growing interest not only in what legislation contains but in the quality of its preparation and drafting, and of the scrutiny that it receives in Parliament and elsewhere. At the beginning of 1993, the Hansard Society published an important report by a commission chaired by Lord Rippon of Hexham, which has already been mentioned several times in the debate.
The Government genuinely welcome that interest in improving our procedures. The quality of legislation is not an arcane technical matter of concern only to insiders. It affects everyone directly or indirectly. In particular, it has important implications for business, in which, as the deregulation Minister, I have a close departmental interest. In the second competitiveness White Paper, we clearly set out our view that
Over-complex or unclear legislation can be a burden on business and a brake on competitiveness.
Our aim is to produce legislation that is clear and coherent. On that, we have no difference with the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland or with the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor).
Many of the hon. Members who have spoken this morning do not appear to recognise how much has been done. I do not accept the remarks of the hon. Member for
Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who was thrashing around what, I must say, was a copy in a suspiciously mint condition of the Hansard Society commission report. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government have done nothing. The truth is that many of the ideas contained in the report have been acted on, although--in a typically British way--without any bravura announcements. It is simply a case of practical improvements in the legislative process gradually being introduced. Perhaps I can give some examples of that.
Many hon. Members have spoken about the subject of consultation. The White Paper on open government which we published in July 1993 said that the Government believed in the value of consultation. In recent years, the practice of consulting on the basis of drafts of Bills or parts of Bills has become more common. For example, important parts of last Session's Environment Bill were published in draft.
Of the Bills in the most recent Gracious Speech, the Armed Forces Bill was published in draft and was the subject of widespread consultation--so much consultation, in fact, that the hon. Member for Dewsbury thinks that we have debated the Bill already. That is, of course, a pleasure to which we look forward today, rather than yesterday.
In the second competitiveness White Paper, which was published in May and from which I have already quoted, the Government said:
"good clear legislation is an essential part of the infrastructure for a competitive business environment".
"Publication of draft Bills, in advance of introduction in Parliament, allows consultation to take place on clarity of structure and presentation, and on drafting detail, as well as on policy".
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