Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-46)
11 FEBRUARY 2004
MR ROGER
SANDS, MR
DOUGLAS MILLAR
AND MR
ALAN SANDALL
Q40 Chairman: Can I say to you, Mr Sands,
that you have, I think quite rightly—and that is what I
wanted you to do—said you cannot put guidance in any form
of Standing Orders; it is either a rule or it is not a rule. Do
you believe that debates and scrutiny would improve if in fact
front bench spokesmen did have limits on their speeches? Such
a limit would clearly reduce their willingness to allow an intervention
on any occasion. You and I know Members of governments and oppositions
who have made brilliant speeches from the front benches without
any prepared notes, surviving and feeding merely on interventions.
Mr Sands: It would undoubtedly
reduce the liveliness of the initial stages of a debate. The corresponding
advantage would be that it would provide a fairer structure for
the debate overall. That is a balance which I think only politicians
can make, but I do myself begin to think that the length of front
bench speeches has become a serious problem in the context of
ever tighter limits on back bench speeches.
Mr Millar: Can I just make one
very small point? One of the difficulties with programming, timetabling
and so on is that most Members only sit in for a very small proportion
of the debates, so they do not benefit from the accumulated experience
that the experienced Chair of a Committee or the experienced Deputy
Speaker has in the Chair of the House. They can see what is happening.
But most Members are focusing only on the debate in which they
are participating, and that is why sometimes they do not understand
it if they do not get as much time as they wish to make their
point, because that is the most important subject to them.
Mr Burnett: I would endorse the first
part of what I think the Clerk has just said. You can get more
out of an intervention—I think this is roughly what you
are saying. There are pluses and minuses. The plus of allowing
a longer front bench speech is that back benchers get the opportunity
to intervene, and often you can get more out of a sensible, sane
intervention than you can listening to a whole lot of back benchers
droning on for hours on end, repeating themselves.
Chairman: I am not sure that everything
you have just said, Mr Burnett, will be too happily received by
colleagues in the House.
David Hamilton: Interventions can also
alter the statement the Minister is making. They also change the
debate that they takes forward. I sat through the whole day on
Monday on the Scotland Bill, and the interventions and the hostility
that the Minister met with changed the whole way the debate went
through that full session, and I think it is really quite an important
aspect of interventions where people (a) do get their point across,
(b) challenge what is being said by the statement, and that allows
the long speeches to be organised as they come forward. I think
that is a good indication of how interventions can work very well.
Q41 Chairman: Do you think—and
this is perhaps drawing you into something you might not want
to be drawn into—that guidance from the House to Ministers
that they should come with much shorter prepared speeches, which
would then allow sufficient time for a number of interventions,
would be a good piece of guidance—not in Standing Orders,
but in other ways?
Mr Sandall: Could I perhaps remind
you that one element of the Jopling settlement agreed between
the then Government and the then Opposition in about 1995 was
that both sides would use their best endeavours to restrict the
length of front bench speeches. It is there as a written answer.
It may well have been a dead letter all the time, but you may
wish to remind both sides of it.
Chairman: Words of wisdom! Do not worry;
that will feature in very heavy type in our report.
Sir Robert Smith: It is already in our
report.
Chairman: It is already in a report on
procedure for debates, private members' bills and the powers of
the Speaker, which only earlier this week I asked the Leader of
the House when he was going to reply to and find time for a debate.
Q42 Mr McWalter: This is about the Annual
Programme and how things go. The Hansard Society Report Making
the Law in 1992 called for a committee to oversee the annual
legislative programme, but those recommendations in the end were
not implemented. Is there any evidence of discussions between
the parties of the distribution of the legislative programme during
the year?
Mr Sands: I am not aware of any
such evidence, Mr McWalter.
Q43 Mr McWalter: Has carry-over of bills
helped at all?
Mr Sands: It has been used so
little that it has not yet made a great difference. Personally,
I am a supporter of carry-over of bills, because I think if it
were used more systematically it could help the rational spread
of business over the lifetime of a parliament. But it is still
regarded with great suspicion by even the government whips, who
you would have thought would find it useful, because they think
it would destroy the discipline that now exists with the sessional
cut-off.
Q44 Mr McWalter: They are used to doing
things one way and will carry on doing it that way, but the effect
of carry-over again ought to be to allow more rational consideration
of legislation and more opportunity for those with some contribution
to make to make that contribution. Is there some way in which
we can procedurally try and tilt the balance rather more in favour
of carry-over when matters are contentious or when there are a
large number of would-be contributing parties?
Mr Sands: I do not think carry-over
was ever intended to extend the overall time that any one bill
would take. What it was intended to enable was the government
bringing in bills rather later in the session than they would
now contemplate doing. Of course, we have reached the stage in
the Parliament when perhaps that is not something they would be
looking to do in any case; but carry-over is one of those things
which I think might just get into the bloodstream gradually. It
is going to be a gradual process.
Mr Millar: There is a limit to
the impact that carry-over can have while there is not agreement
between the Houses on it. At the moment all carry-over of bills
is first house carry-over from this House.
Q45 Sir Robert Smith: On the smoothing
out of the year, the fact is that Parliament has got into the
papers these last few weeks for being unable to keep going until
the moment of interruption on several days, and the idea was that
bills which started late in the last session would be able to
use that time, because the new legislative programme is not fully
up to speed.
Mr Sands: Indeed. At present we
are in the part of the year where when I go up to the Public Bill
Office it is like the Marie Celeste; there is no-one there
for most of the day because they are all in Standing Committee,
and there must be large numbers of Members there, which then affects
attendance in the Chamber. That is just the pattern of the session
as we have got used to it.
Q46 Chairman: Mr Sands, Douglas Millar,
Alan Sandall, is there anything that you would like to add to
the evidence that you have given to us or to the questions which
you have been asked to respond to?
Mr Sands: Not as far as I am concerned,
Chairman, no.
Chairman: Then on behalf of the Procedure
Committee, can I thank you very much indeed for the very valuable
and positive evidence that you have given to us. I am confident
that a lot of it will form important parts of our report. Thank
you very much indeed.
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