Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
RT HON
LORD MACDONALD
OF TRADESTON,
MR NICK
MONTAGUE, RT
HON JOHN
SPELLAR AND
MR NIGEL
CAMPBELL
TUESDAY 2 JULY 2002
Chairman
1. Can I welcome you to the Committee. Perhaps
you could introduce your team and make a few brief comments to
open the session.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) I am Minister
for the Cabinet Office, and I have with me Nicholas Montague,
who leads the Regulatory Reform team at the Regulatory Impact
Unit, which is part of the Cabinet Office. We have too Nigel Campbell,
who was at DTLR but is at present amongst other things leading
the departmental regulatory impact unit both for the Department
for Transport and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. I am
hoping to be joined by the Minister of State for Transport. From
my previous incarnation, it gives me great pleasure to say that
the Minister of State for Transport is caught in the traffic.
He will be here shortly, and I am very pleased that he can join
me because at the DTLR he and Lord Falconer played a very significant
role in driving forward the whole agenda much harder there than
perhaps in any other ministry. I would like to take up your invitation
to introduce some of the issues. I should start by saying that
we value very highly the constructive and very open relationship
that the Government have enjoyed with you and your Committee.
It has allowed us to discuss issues and cases and emerging problems
in a very constructive fashion. I should say right from the start
that I very much regret the article that appeared in the press
which had little regard for the facts of the case or the views
of those involved. I wrote to you on that, Mr Chairman, and I
am sure that we have put that behind us, but let me just re-assert
that it certainly did not reflect the government's considered
views. The relations between the government and the Committee
are on the whole very successful. We do not agree on absolutely
everything but we are nonetheless working to improve the statute
book. We have been removing unnecessary burdens on business, on
people, on charities, on the wider public sector. A key feature
of this has been our willingness to engage constructively on the
issues, and I think that is witnessed by the Committee's Fourth
Report and its First Special Report and our memoranda in response
to these. I am sure you will agree that through these we have
managed to narrow down any outstanding issues of concern and for
the most part we have agreed on how to handle them. I think it
is safe to say that we have now reached a common understanding
on most RRO-related issues, and that is very much for the good.
As you know, the Government has also made good use of the Committee's
very helpful offer to give without-prejudice advice before the
formal scrutiny stages on particular issues relating to the use
of the RRO procedure. As the memorandum shows, this has been helpful
and I understand that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
has recently discussed informally ways in which they might expedite
four new but time-critical proposals, and we have also reached
an understanding on the issue of appropriateness, agreeing that
it is essentially self-policing. To help all concerned to plan
their workloads better, the Government has fulfilled the Committee's
request for a monthly forward look at our activity and we will
continue to do so. We have expressed some concerns about the potential
capacity of the Committee to handle thisand I stress it
is the potential peak workload that we envisage. At present the
Committee do not have a full workload and that is very much down
to us and to the departments, and we are doing all that we can
to encourage the departments to come forward with proposals, Mr
Chairman. We want to look creatively for ways around any real
or potential blockages. After all, the Committee's predecessor
handled a peak of 26 deregulation orders in the second year after
enactment of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act. We wanted
to do better if possible and not to bump against a limit of 18
orders per annum. As we suggest in the memorandum, we would prefer
to see a pragmatic effects based approach that would take account
of the difficulty and complexity of proposals rather than any
formal one-a-week rule, but I certainly do not want to dwell on
that issue to the exclusion of others. The Committee has expressed
its view, as has the Government, and it may be that we will not
make that much progress while it is still a potential problem
and remains in the abstract, but I am confident that when the
time comes, we will be able to work together to find ways round
any problem in a sensible and mutually acceptable fashion. While
the Government has been unable to give a commitment to allow a
free vote in the event of disagreement between itself and the
Committee on particular recommendations, I must emphasise17 July
2002 that it is the Government's intention to do all it can to
avoid any such disagreements. I do not envisage the Standing Order
procedures being used on anything other than the most exceptional
of cases, and I am very happy to repeat the Government's undertaking
not to proceed with a draft order in the event of a hostile report.
The Regulatory Reform Action Plan was a central initiative. It
had very strong support from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.
The responsibility for implementation of course rests with the
relevant policy departments, and that is the key; it is my job
in liaison with Cabinet colleagues and the regulatory reform ministers
to help ensure that departments do in fact deliver. We have a
variety of mechanisms in place to check progress. We have the
Better Regulation Task Force, which considers implementation;
the Panel for Regulatory Accountability will check progress too;
and the Prime Minister himself periodically pulls together the
regulatory reform ministers from each Department to check progress.
But there has been very little follow-up, I am sorry to say, from
businesses large or small. We had one recent inquiry from a member
of the Engineering Federation following a senior official level
meeting about support for an item on company share buy-back legislation.
We have put a web page up for suggestions, but again, there has
been quite a low level of interest, just requests for copies really.
Looking at the Regulatory Reform Action Plan, we see it as a success
and we have an open mind as to whether there should be a second
edition or a publication of some sort of follow-up, Mr Chairman.
2. Thank you. I welcome John Spellar, the Minister
for Transport. Your opening comments, Minister, have been very
good because you have touched on a number of important issues.
Most of them will be touched on during this session. The thing
I would like to emphasize is that this Committee would certainly
wish to work together with the Government in ensuring that regulatory
reform does proceed at a satisfactory pace. It is now over a year
since the General Election and the Act under which we are now
completely working was passed before the General Election. Are
you satisfied with progress so far in bringing forward proposals
and publishing consultation papers?
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) We have made steady
progress, Mr Chairman, but it could be better. There are five
RROs made, one to be shortly, one under scrutiny, one consultation
finished and three under way with eight more to go before recess.
There is certainly no blockage at present with the Committee.
As I said earlier, the workload is currently low. It is very much
down to the departments to come forward with more and better RRO
proposals, and there has been some slippage there, and I think
that is probably inevitable given that the RRO process is a demanding
one, where all the policy loose ends have to be tied up and then
justified in the light of the tests of the 2001 Act. So there
is quite a way to go but the burden of work for us is inside the
departments.
3. On the items where there has been consultation,
there seem to be some items where consultation was now some time
ago, yet we have not seen any proposals. I know there are two
shown in the Forward Looks expected very soon with regard to business
tenancies and credit unions but on gaming machines, method of
payment, and Landlord and Tenants Act, where in both cases the
consultation ended in June last year, we have not yet seen any
proposal forthcoming. Are we to expect proposals as a result of
the consultation, or have the ideas now been dropped?
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) Mr Montague would probably
be able to give you better detail on the individual proposals,
but what I should say is that it has become very clear to departments
that the RROs are not a quick fix in any way. They can be used
to deliver reform fairly quickly in the context of perhaps waiting
in a very long queue for primary legislation. They are more streamlined
routes than bills, but the legal and procedural requirements are
heavy, they are front-loaded and indeed, it has become clear to
departments that an RRO often requires broadly the same order
of resources as would be needed if the proposal were to be implemented
by a bill. So we are finding right across departments that there
have been capacity constraints, particularly in the legal areas,
and I know that my colleague Mr Spellar has given particular attention
to this in his Department and through his efforts has been most
successful in trying to align its resources and expertise with
the needs of this new route.
(Mr Campbell) Can I speak to the Landlord and Tenants
Act? There is a policy issue and a capacity issue here. The capacity
issue is that the same people are doing both the reform of section
57 of the Landlord and Tenants Act and the Business Tenancies.
The Business Tenancies was regarded as a better runner, for reasons
I will explain in a moment, and took priority. That is the first
reason.
Brian White
4. So you have not organised your workload properly?
(Mr Campbell) It is the same people responsible for
both reforms. The second reason was the policy reason, which is
that there have been two consultations, one by the Government
and one by the National Assembly for Wales, and it is fair to
say that they did not receive rapturous responses and therefore
people are considering the correct way to proceed. So the policy
issues may mean it comes back in a different form. That is the
second reason why there has been a delay.
(Mr Montague) None of the proposals that have been
consulted on will be dropped. I understand that we are aiming
to lay in about a fortnight's time the proposed RRO on credit
unions and shortly afterwards, we hope, on business tenancies.
As you know, DCMS have just recently finished consulting on the
RRO for relaxing licensing laws for all future New Year's Eves,
and they again hope to be in a position to lay that one very shortly,
certainly before the end of this session, before the recess. On
DCMS's proposals for a gaming machines RRO, I checked yesterday
with the officials, and that one is likely to slip through to
just after the recess. The reason there is work going ahead on
the Budd Report.
(Mr Spellar) Certainly this new procedure took some
time for officials of the departments to get up to speed on, and
there has been a move, and one which the management board at the
old Department, but reinforced by the new Department, of ensuring
that this work has priority. There has been a danger of officials
being diverted off on to other work. In some cases that was fully
understandable, for example, on some traffic work dealing with
the problems of the Jubilee, but beyond that, we do need to ensure
that there is that flow of work through. I do have regular meetings
with the individuals who are responsible for regulatory reform
precisely in order to track where the bottlenecks are, and as
we deal with the administrative ones, I am absolutely certain
that we will be coming up against bottlenecks on the legal side,
which is the next body of work which we are going to have to handle,
but you may want to deal with that later.
Chairman
5. Is not the advantage to the various departments
that whilst I would accept that the same amount of work and resources,
and indeed we would hope equal scrutiny is carried out, that this
process does provide departments with a second opportunity, where
they do not necessarily have to have a bill? We all know that
the Queen's Speech must be being prepared now for the next session
of parliament and that ministers will be bidding for slots within
that programme of legislation, and this does give the opportunity,
if a bill is not there, to be able on a second channel to get
something that is seen as a benefit.
(Mr Spellar) Very much so. It is not only that a bill
may not be there in the next session of parliament, but there
will be an indeterminate amount of time before a slot may become
available, and therefore there may be issues which are important
to departments, and indeed for the groups that they are dealing
with, but which are never of sufficiently high order to merit
priority and which are always therefore liable to fall back in
the queue. The RROs, precisely as you say, Chairman, are a mechanism
for dealing with these pressing matters. That then leads to the
need to focus and get a proper critical path. That is incumbent
on all parts of the process, at this end but also at our end.
Mr Steen
6. This really is a question for Lord Macdonald
but for John Spellar as well. Having been critical of the last
administration on deregulation, and being somewhat equally critical
of this administration on deregulation, would you agree with me
that the problem is not the intention or the bona fides of government
to deregulate, but the very machinery of parliament, which is
dedicated to passing new legislation? The problem of parliament
is that it is passing legislation the whole time, and good intentions
cannot defyrather like King Canutethe power of parliament
in passing new laws the whole time. Would you agree that the problem
could only be dealt with by not deregulation but by putting in
sunset clauses into new legislation, or finding a machinery whereby
you only pass a new law if you actually take one off the statute
book? Otherwise, it is bound to lose, because parliament is bigger
than a small unit which is trying to stop the course of the waves
and pushing forward new legislation.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) Obviously I would not
look for any solution which was overly bureaucratic in the sense
of insisting on sunset clauses where they were inappropriate.
I do accept that every administration is sincere and committed
to this. When I was in business before coming into politics I
remember Michael Heseltine summoning us in and it was quite clear
that his intentions and those of the Government were very sincere.
I should stress that there is a very powerful commitment from
the top to try and stop over-regulation and to clear out bad regulation,
and the combined effort which I described earlier that we are
involved in I hope will aid that process. For instance, the regulatory
impact assessment procedures are now built into every Department
through special units and through ministers who are responsible
for them, and indeed, all legislation must now go through that
filter. The way we have conducted our business in this country
is now seen as a model for the rest of Europe, and we have been
pressing the EC to try to take action to refine the legislation
coming out of Europe, and we have had some success in that recently,
and we are seen as one of the leaders in that field. So in general,
yes, I accept that this is in one sense a great factory for creating
laws, and therefore if you have a product going through your factory,
you had better make sure you have the key workers in at every
stage to handle the products going through. It may be that there
are bottlenecks, particularly in the legal areas, with the parliamentary
counsel or the legal support inside departments and those are
the kind of issues that my friend Mr Spellar was referring to.
Chairman
7. Can I move on to the Action Plan and the
things that you have listed in the Action Plan. Do you have any
idea how many more potential proposals you intend to add to that
list? Ae you reasonably confident when things are added to the
list over the next three years that these proposals will be translated
into Regulatory Reform Orders?
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) Mr Montague has mentioned
a few of the issues that are coming up. We believe that we have
got the credit unions due to be laid very shortly. The draft statutory
instrument is with the parliamentary counsel for checking, after
which it should be laid for scrutiny. We have the business tenancies
procedural reform, which needs further limited consultation.
8. I am sorry to cut across you, but I am more
interested in things that are not on the list now. Do you have
anything you are looking at which you think might go on to the
published list?
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) Yes, indeed. I think
that has been particularly true in the area of the DTLR. They
have been very busy in that way, but we believe that we will have
perhaps 30 RROs that come out of the regulatory reform Action
Plan scheduled for completion in 2003, and there are four recent
new entrants from what is now the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
on housing, delegated management; housing tenure; rent increases
for assured periodic tenancies; local government finance, forms
of return; and housing cash incentive schemes. So obviously in
the coming year we see great growth in the volume.
Mr Lazarowicz
9. I was interested in the comments from Lord
Macdonald and Mr Spellar, both pointing to the difficulties in
the departments in perhaps getting people to realise the opportunities
of the RROs. I wonder if you can tell us a bit more about what
the Cabinet Office has been doing to encourage the departments
to make use of the regulatory Reform Order procedure.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) As I say, we have been
trying to lead through the regulatory impact unit in explaining
to departments the opportunities that are available here. I think
in the end the best advertisement for the new process is the number
of successful orders that are made. There is no doubt at all that
as the word has gone out around departments there has been a shift
in mind-set, with departments previously of course often rather
fixated on the need for that contest for legislation in the Queen's
Speech but now beginning to see that there is another avenue opening
up here. Through the Regulatory Impact Unit and Mr Montague's
hard work in that field, we have got round the departments. We
have now got departmental regulatory impact units that we can
talk to directly about any problems in their areas. We have regulatory
reform ministers now called together periodically by the Prime
Minister, who again we can go to if we feel there is any problem
or tardiness in a departmental response. We also have a Cabinet
Committee which I chair and on which the Treasury and other ministers
are represented, and again, we have tried to highlight the importance
and the opportunities afforded by RROs. So it is building up.
I would not personally be too disconsolate about the performance
of the first year. We are a bit ahead of where we would have been
in 1995 in the number of deregulation orders, and I would look
to next year carrying that trend forward.
Mr Love
10. Recently I met representatives of my local
Chamber of Commerce, and almost the first subject that came up
for discussion was regulation, so I mentioned the plan, the 64
possible regulatory reform Orders, and this was pooh-poohed by
them. My response to them was, "If these are not what you
are looking for, what would you like to see in the form of deregulation?"
and they did not have any idea. I noticed, Lord Macdonald, that
you commented on the almighty silence from business in relation
to what sort of issues they would like to see regulatory reform
on. Have we thought about trying to more formalise those procedures
to try to draw business in to see whether we can get a useful
dialogue to lead to the sorts of things that they would like to
see deregulated?
(Mr Spellar) We are doing that, and it also needs
them to shift their internal focus in order to be able to undertake
that. Like you, with the road hauliers who I meet both locally
and nationally, there is a regular grievance from them regarding
regulation, and I put it very clearly back to them to point out
the regulations they think are particularly onerous with minimal
or marginal benefit to either other members of the public or the
environment or whatever, that we would examine that and see whether
a Regulatory Reform Order would be the appropriate mechanism for
dealing with these differences. In some cases you do not actually
have to go that far; it is about administrative implementation
of existing legislation. To be fair to them, a lot of businesses
have got into the mind-set of just generally complaining about
red tape and bureaucracy. I think this is quite a salutary and
useful exercise. I do think in a number of areas that they are
right, that there are areas of excessive regulation, certainly
compared with those businesses that operate in any international
environment, and certainly compared with their international competitors.
But I think this is going to be a useful exercise, not only for
our departments, but also for business in terms of focussing on
what their grievance really is and also on suggested mechanisms
for improving that. They are working their way slowly through
that, but I think they will get to that position and actually
give assistance to us in this process.
Brian Cotter
11. If we keep on the business area, I would
like to ask Lord Macdonald whether the Department of Trade &
Industry are being encouraged to lead in looking at business areas
which need to be addressed. I agree that when you go to business
organisations, as Mr Love said, you find that you often do not
get much in the way of feedback from them in terms of tangible
examples. There was a notable occasion on the floor of the House
just recently when a Member of the Conservative Party spent 55
minutes talking about regulation and attacking the Government,
but there was precious little substance to it, and I am sure you
have been looking at that speech carefully to see if there is
any detail there. It is a further example of people who talk an
awful lot on certain benches about regulation and have no solution
to put forward. I hope the Government are looking, particularly
Trade & Industry, to more tangibly addressing these issues.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) Indeed, the Minister
for Small Business, Nigel Griffiths, at the DTI, is a member of
our Cabinet Committee, and we stay in very close touch with the
small business service, whose Chairman is also on the same committee.
I was pleased that the Regulatory Reform Action Plan was so well
received by the CBI and by other business groupings. I do not
think they are in any doubt that the RROs can be a way forward.
I have tried to encourage them further because we have had generally
good relationships with them, by saying this is a very good opportunity
for trade associations to go there and take their concerns, particularly
to local MPs, if it is to do with local business concerns in any
way, and work with the MPs so that the MPs can run these issues
at ministers and try to get these adopted. It could be a very
important alternative to Private Members' Bills in that way, and
business has said that it understands that there is an opportunity
there. As far as Mr Love's point about the Chambers of Commerce,
I too was a little bit disappointed that their general approach
seemed to be demanding very sweeping reforms of fundamental issues
rather than looking at the particulars that might be addressed
through the RROs, but I do not think that response has been true
of the generality of business, and I do see a very important new
role for business, its trade associations and for MPs in particular
to use this route. I just have a feeling, seeing the way that
the interest is growing inside departments as people become more
aware of the opportunities, that there will indeed be an awakening
of awareness and interest from business.
Brian White
12. One of the things that civil servants are
criticised for is that they gold-plate regulations. When we have
had them here before us we have asked civil servants what experience
they have had of being on the receiving end of regulation, and
they have said they had no such experience. What are you doing
to provide training for people in the RRO framework? Do they have
the experience of being on the receiving end so that they are
not gold-plating the regulations, and what training are you giving
to the people in the departments and in the Cabinet Office?
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) We are certainly committed
to tackling what is seen as a problem of gold-plating. We want
to ensure that departments do not add any unnecessary measures
when, in particular, transposing EC legislation into UK domestic
law. We have introduced a number of initiatives and pieces of
guidance and we are ensuring that the objectives of any new European
law are achieved in a way that is most beneficial to business
and citizens. Where I would look to for the solution to the problem
that you identify is through the greater emphasis that we have
put in government in recent times on reform and delivery, and
you will have seen that the new Cabinet Secretary, Sir Andrew
Turnbull's remit did particularly focus on those areas. I would
argue that better regulation is an essential part of good delivery,
and plainly very important to the reform of public services in
particular. We have set up teams inside the Regulatory Impact
Unit both to deal with business and with the public sector and
to work with people in the front line to let them begin to act
increasingly as gate-keepers before any legislation goes through
in regulatory impact assessments or indeed in a policy effect
framework document that we are drawing up. Going back to your
question about training, you will find, I believe, in the new
structures being set up by Andrew Turnbull much greater emphasis
on training for the civil service on how to expedite delivery
and reform, and that again by definition would include better
regulation.
13. One of the criticisms that you often get
is if people come up with ideas, it goes into the Civil Service
black hole and disappears. One of your aims in the Plan is to
open up other routes for sponsoring RROs. How exactly are you
going about opening up those gateways?
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) At every opportunity,
Mr Chairman, myself and fellow ministers with a particular interest
try to remind our listeners in any speeches we are giving and
to remind parliament of this opportunity. I know that in talking
to MPs the response has generally been positive. I think there
is still clearly an unfamiliarity with the work that we are all
engaged in but I believe, as I said earlier, that once we see
a body of very useful RROs stacking up with all the precedents
attached to them, MPs, civil servants, ministers, people outside
in business and in the public sector will begin to see this as
a very promising new route to expedite change.
Mr Lazarowicz
14. You will be aware that there have been concerns
expressed within the Government about the Committee's wish to
have one order laid per week so as to ensure a regular flow of
orders. I think that has certainly been an issue which the Government
has had concerns about in the past. Is there still a concern within
Government about the wish to have that regular timetabling, or
is there perhaps now an acceptance that the Committee wants to
see full use of the RRO procedure? It is just that we are concerned
to have a regular flow rather than have a "feast and famine"
of orders coming to us.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) Indeed, Mr Chairman,
Mr Lazarowicz puts it very astutely there. We are clear, and let
me repeat, the Committee in no sense represents any kind of blockage.
The fact that the work flow is low is down to departments, and
we are doing what we can to stimulate that flow. Let me say that
your reports are always on time, they have always been clear and
they have always been helpful. Our concern is that if we get up
to running at full speed, if one were to be formalistic about
procedure, the maximum would be 18 orders made in any year, but
as our memorandum pointed out, we may be looking at 40 RROs completed
next year. That is therefore an area where we might look at the
opportunities. I know that in the House of Lords, for instance,
they have looked at refinements such as an interim report in the
middle of the 60-day period and inviting people to come back on
it.
Chairman
15. Can I interrupt you? It is this 18 a year
limit. You mentioned it in your opening comments. We sit for 38
weeks a year, and as far as I see, what we are talking about was
a potential for 38. We are not saying that there should only be
one issue before us at a time, but it is a question of how many
new ones are introduced a week.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) It may be a very simple
but fundamental problem of long division. What we have done is
taken 36 weeks and decided that you would have to introduce each
order twice, so we divided 36 by 2 and came up with 18.
Chairman: I understand the point, but in the
second stage, in most cases, if the Government has responded in
a positive way to what the Committee said, we do not see great
difficulty with that. So in the main, I would think we are talking
of new proposals. I cannot think of an instance when the second
stage procedure has been difficult.
Mr Murphy
16. From a personal point of view, one of the
frustrations of serving on this Committee is that we have for
six or seven weeks at a time a very interesting opportunity to
discuss and debate the issues in front of us. My concern also
is for the amount of business, but also for the staff requirements.
From the Member's point of view, we are very well served. We receive
not just some of the complex orders, but also a very comprehensive
briefing from the staff. So from our point of view it would be
quite simple to deal with many more orders. My concern is whether
we have sufficient staff to enable us to actually deal with those
orders.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) I know Mr Spellar has
taken a particular interest in a much more hands-on fashion than
I have been able to do. It might be useful for him to give his
view on this, Chairman.
(Mr Spellar) I suppose my underlying concern would
be that as both departments but also external bodies, as we were
discussing earlier, start to realise the potential for RROs and
that the work starts to come throughand I fully take on
board your point of the need for government to try and get that
into some orderly flow of work coming in to the Committee rather
than, as was described, feast and famine. Once there is a wider
understanding of the potential, it could well beand I am
already seeing greater interest within our Department in a number
of possible orders on road haulage, shipping, driving standards
and aviation just to name a few, and other departments are responding
similarlyit would be unfortunate if we then had a procedural
blockage. It would of course be attractive if we got there, because
it would mean that we were using the procedure to its full potentialnot
that we perceive one at the moment, not that we do not understand
the need to try and phase the work coming through, but at the
same time, if departments collectively then become seized of the
opportunities and start to put work through, that could provide
a considerable volume of work for the Committee.
Mr Lazarowicz
17. That is a problem that should be addressed
when we come to it. We appear to have doubled the capacity of
the flow in the last few minutes.
(Mr Spellar) From the discussions that I understand
have taken place with the Committee, it is showing a positive
and flexible approach. I just would not want inflexibilities of
procedure to mitigate against what I hope will be the good work
done between the Government and the Committee on this.
Chairman: I am reminded that the births and
deaths proposal did at the second stage take time. To us, if we
can see a problem with needing evidence and other sessions, then
I am sure we can highlight that we have a problem, because at
the end of the day, if we were having a number of proposals at
first stage and a number at second stage which might need evidence,
might need lot of work, that then becomes a problem. As you know,
we have a system when it has been necessary to have two laid in
a week, and I am sure that that type of discussion and liaison
with this Committee will always receive a positive response. I
hope that helps to clarify, and if it becomes impossiblenot
just for the Members but for those who service usthen we
would have to point out that there is a problem.
Brian Cotter
18. We have been talking about throughput and
timetabling, and these two points that I want to raise have an
impact. Could the ministers confirm that they accept the reform
of primary legislation should also receive parliamentary scrutiny
at the required level? The Minister has been quoted as saying,
"We must protect the rights of the legislature in the face
of increasing efforts of all executives to diminish those rights."
So we are talking about parliamentary scrutiny when required.
Secondly, following on the points made by other colleagues, Mr
Murphy in particular mentioned about staffing of the Committee
and the need to get through the required number in the year, but
also under the new procedure we are going to get possibly some
more complicated proposals involving wider range of reforms which
may need more specialised knowledge from the Committee or at least
better presentation to us. I am not saying we have not had good
presentations in the past, but good presentations of issues some
Members may not necessarily have the expertise to address.
(Mr Spellar) Staffing of committees is surely a matter
for the authorities of the House rather than for the Government
and is covered by the overall finances of the House, and the block
grant there. On the question of a broader issue, parliamentary
legislation, I think you will have to ask the Leader of the House
to come down to speak on behalf of the Government.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) I always defer to my
colleague.
Chairman
19. The recent report of the Modernisation Committee,
which followed the Liaison Committee report of the last parliament,
has addressed the need for additional resources for committees,
and indeed, I have met the Chairman of the Liaison Committee,
and whilst we do not see an immediate problem, I am sure if there
were a problem, the House would address it within reasonable limitations.
But as you rightly say, the resources with which we are provided
are not a matter for the Government, but a matter for the House,
and I am sure you would accept that.
(Lord Macdonald of Tradeston) If I may stress, Mr
Chairman, this is something you have reported in the past, but
this fact which takes so many people by surprise, and that includes
ministerial colleagues, that the RRO is a new and more accessible
track, but it is not a fast, easy track, which is I think what
the anticipation had sometimes been. It is worth emphasizing that
the RRO process sometimes needs more rigorous scrutiny at an earlier
stage and therefore more resources than would primary legislation
going through a Department. That is something that maybe Mr Campbell
could emphasize on the difficulties of trying to handle some of
these issues from the point of view of the DTLR, which as I said
earlier, has been the exemplary Department for us to date.
(Mr Campbell) We have certainly found that. For a
bill, you get a dedicated team of officials working on it, and
you have a particular scrutiny process. For secondary legislation,
it is regarded as part of your day job, and departmental lawyers
rather than parliamentary counsel draft it. RROs feel like a mixture
of the two. We have found with some of the more complex RROs,
de facto we have had something that looked like a bill team, a
dedicated resource. It did not always start out that way, but
suddenly the amount of work needed was realised to be larger,
and that is why that happened. The other difference between an
RRO and primary legislation is that an RRO needs much more work
up-front. So while the total is about the same, more work is needed
before parliamentary scrutiny.
Chairman: It is the extra track that I referred
to earlier. But if we are getting more efficient and better scrutiny
of legislation, that is what we should all want. We should not
want a quick track that misses problems that should have been
seen en route.
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