Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
WEDNESDAY 24 MARCH 2004
MR GRAHAM
ALLEN MP, MR
MARK FISHER
MP, MR RICHARD
SHEPHERD MP, MR
PAUL TYLER
MP AND RT
HON SIR
GEORGE YOUNG
BT, MP
Q160 Mr McWalter: We have been giving
quite a lot of attention to the business of Standing Committees.
With respect to Mr Allen, who is about to leave us, we do not
accept we are going to treat them as ceremonial. That seems to
us to completely give up something that is of great value. If
it became the case that was either absolutely common place or
widely understood, it would bring Parliament into disrepute. One
of the issues which concerns us about Standing Committees is the
complaint there is insufficient time to deal with matters, but
considering the Chairman of Ways and Means pointed out that although
there were all these complaints there was also a marked reluctance
on the part of Members to sit beyond half past five in the evening,
and they could do that without even having to amend the relevant
programme order. I wonder whether you would give us your reasons
for that and whether you think that is potentially solvable. I
suppose there are two potential explanations. The first is the
Government Whips will tend to select people to sit on the Committee
who will, as it were, give them a fairly easy time in terms of
predictability of out-date and things, or perhaps it is that the
Opposition, although they might complain they want more time,
in a sense when they have the opportunity to have more time they
simply refuse to take it anyway. Is there something we could do
to make longer sittings to address this grievance more a practical
reality?
Sir George Young: Some of us have
a culture which goes back to sitting all night on Standing Committees.
My answer is in two parts. The point I made at the beginning was
you did not actually need to sit any longer than you were programmed
for, because you finished some sessions ahead of time. What I
was arguing for was more flexibility, so when you caught up time
you could then use it for the bits you had not had time to discuss.
So I think you can have the flexibility without sitting later.
Speaking personally, and I am sure this is true of many of my
colleagues in Opposition, we would be happy to sit slightly longer
in order to do our job properly to hold the Government to account.
Speaking personally, if I felt the only way I could get through
a Standing Committee was to sit after half past five, I would
be very happy to sit after half past five.
Q161 Mr McWalter: Would you be even
more willing to sit longer if you thought it was going to kibosh
the whole Bill because you would drag the whole thing down? It
is certainly one of the motivations people have for trying to
sit longer.
Sir George Young: Once a Bill
has reached Standing Committee the House has approved the principle
of the Bill, and I am not quite sure how you totally kibosh a
Bill at Standing Committee stage. All you can do is run out of
time. I am actually not in favour of the guerrilla tactics which
Mark Fisher referred to somewhat nostalgically—
Mr Fisher: No, not at all, with
horror.
Q162 Chairman: You could, of course,
Sir George, move to leave out all the clauses of the Bill. That
would kibosh it in Standing Committee, but it is not very often
done.
Sir George Young: One has difficulty
in persuading the majority of the Committee to do that.
Q163 Chairman: Indeed.
Sir George Young: If Mr McWalter
is making the case for more flexibility within a constrained out-date,
I would heartily agree. I would not rule out sitting slightly
longer.
Q164 Sir Robert Smith: To clarify,
in our view there is not a constraint. The Committee, having reached
a knife point, says, "We have not got round to tabling the
amendments. We had better go home." There is nothing to stop
them carrying on looking at the next section but they choose to
go home.
Sir George Young: But they may
have gone past the clauses which they did not have time to discuss.
Then they have some spare time but you cannot wind the clock back.
Q165 Chairman: So this is really
your plea for greater flexibility?
Sir George Young: Absolutely.
Mr Tyler: I agree very much with
that last point Sir George has made. I, too, remember all-night
sittings. Indeed, in the 1974 Parliament I was the swing vote
on Standing Committees and if I decided to go home at midnight,
which I did, the Committee had to stop because they knew they
could not get a majority. To go back to Mr McWalter's point: I
think there is a particular problem now and it relates back to
the issue of the very considerable legislative programme, both
the number of Bills, the complexity of Bills and the length of
Bills. Around the table on all sides now there are both existing
and past Whips, and we all know persuading a colleague to go on
a Committee on a Bill and be able to promise that is the last
one they will have to do this session, this year, is much easier
if there are not that many Bills and you know you are not going
to have to break that promise. It is a fact of life, I think,
that in recent Parliaments, particularly since 1997, the sheer
weight of the legislative programme has put very considerable
pressure on all Members.
Q166 Chairman: Can I put a question
to all our witnesses. Is it your view as experienced parliamentarians
in all the major political parties that successive governments
have sought a much too ambitious legislative programme, ie that
they are introducing too much legislation too quickly?
Mr Tyler: Yes.
Mr Shepherd: Yes.
Sir George Young: Yes.
Mr Fisher: Yes.
Chairman: That will read very well in
our evidence.
Rosemary McKenna: Could I make a comment.
If you remember, last year the Government were accused of having
to use devices to fill up parliamentary time. There was an accusation
there was very little legislation going through the House.
Sir Robert Smith: Are you sure it was
not that there was a lot of legislation going through but it was
so over-programmed—
Rosemary McKenna: I do not think that
was the case.
Chairman: Anyway, the questions you wished
to put?
Q167 Rosemary McKenna: There are
three questions here and I will contract them into one. They are
all about improving the Standing Committees and how the Standing
Committees operate. Would a limit of time on speeches help? How
would you improve the opportunities of the minority parties and
backbenchers in the Standing Committees? Is the power of the programming
sub-committee useful or would it be just as easily done through
the usual channels?
Mr Tyler: I think the chair should
be able to introduce a time limit on speeches if he or she begins
to feel it really is becoming necessary, but I hope it would not
be standard practice. As we all know, it can be you are dealing
with quite complex matters, actually more complex than on the
floor of the House, at either Second Reading or Report Stage,
and I think it would be unfortunate if it became the rule. On
the issue of minority parties, by which I do not mean any of the
three parties, the real minorities, they have a problem in that
very often they are not represented on the Committee and I think
there is an issue about the Report Stage. Chairman, I hope we
are going to come back to the Report Stage because it is an extremely
important separate issue and I will leave my comments to then.
I am desperately trying to remember the third question.
Q168 Rosemary McKenna: The powers
of the programming sub-committee. Are they useful?
Mr Tyler: I have not got a great
deal of experience of the programming sub-committees but such
experience I have had, and reported to me, and indeed the evidence
given by the Deputy Speaker, Chairman of Ways and Means to the
Modernisation Committee, and I think to this Committee too, is
that they are a mixed bag. Like so much in this building sometimes
they are incredibly successful if the right mood is there and
the right people are participating and the ethos of co-operation
is present—and sometimes I am afraid that is not the case—but
that is sometimes and sometimes not the case with the usual channels.
Mr Shepherd: On the length of
speeches, I absolutely agree with Paul Tyler. Often there are
complex issues and they cannot be reduced to two minutes. The
value of Parliament is actually through exposition and debate
to expose where the balance of argument lies and the justification
for that argument. One thing which slightly concerned me, and
it is in part answering it, part of our process is the Report
Stage of a Bill and we have not even discussed that. The third
stage is the final Third Reading and what we are watching is now
a contraction. I will take Graham Allen's point, if we are so
subservient to the authorities of the House, to the executive
that is, why would we ever then take to ourselves the allocation
of the business of the House? I think there is a fundamental contradiction
in that. The revival of this House comes through us as individual
Members saying, "This is not working." It is in that
context that I am very nervous about some Committee purporting
to represent the interests of individual Members, and there are
matters where we can see it on issues within parties. Often the
party speaks with the Whips' voice but in fact within a party
there are many, or sometimes, different voices of some urgency
and importance, and there is the exclusion of that whole range
of independently-minded backbenchers, and they are different at
different times and on different issues, who actually take a contrary
view. I do not know who speaks up for that in any of these contrived
committees.
Sir George Young: Just one comment.
The curse of life on a Standing Committee is the late tabling
of Government amendments the night before you reach the clause.
You have briefed yourself on what is in the Bill, you have your
own amendments down, and overnight you find the whole thing has
been transformed and re-jigged and all your preparation is just
out of date. I do not know what your Committee can do about that,
Sir Nicholas, but it is the most frustrating point serving on
a Standing Committee. I think, if I may say so, it has got slightly
worse over recent years.
Mr Fisher: I think we are all
in agreement on the point about time limit, though I entirely
take Richard Shepherd's and Paul Tyler's points, that it is at
Committee Stage when the process of debating, in an ideal committee,
teases things out. Crude time limits such as there are on the
floor of the House (and are appropriate on the floor of the House
on Second Reading where you ought to be able to make your generalised
comments on a Bill in a set number of minutes) really are not
appropriate in Committee, where it is examples from your constituents,
the anecdotes, examining how a clause might apply to a particular
person in your experience, which is that which actually teases
out, like a dentist, the weak spots, the ill-thought out spots,
of a particular provision of a Bill. A very wise and clever chair
of a Committee can both make sure there are time limits and say,
"I hope the Hon. Gentleman, or Lady, will conclude in the
next five minutes" and have the power to do that, while still
allowing that probing that can sometimes, as both Paul and Richard
have said, take time.
Mr Atkinson: This is a comment on what
Sir George said, and I hope you will forgive me. If you want an
example, look at the Pensions Bill where there has been a huge
raft of amendments put in. The Committee should not forget that
for Oppositions, Committees are hard work. There are no civil
servants behind the Opposition drawing up amendments. So when
people talk about Committees sitting beyond 5.30, there is quite
a lot of work required in going for a further 2, 2½ hours,
which puts a serious burden on Opposition spokesmen.
Chairman: Could I ask my colleague, Peter
Atkinson, to help me and the Committee? Am I right in the information
which has come to me, that the Government has tabled some very
large additional number of amendments to the Pensions Bill, but
that they are going to allow additional time as a result?
Mr Atkinson: That is correct.
Chairman: Can you indicate the sort of
time? I understand there is a tremendous number of amendments
which have been tabled.
Mr Atkinson: Forgive me, Chairman. A
lot of amendments have been tabled and they can be seen, but negotiations
are currently in place through the usual channels.
Chairman: I only mention it because it
does appear that on something which is critical to the people
of this country, namely pensions regulation and legislation, there
should be a certain amount of cross-party co-operation and consensus.
Mr Atkinson: In fairness to the Government,
some of these amendments were dependent on the Budget. I am not
blaming the Government entirely for this but the burden remains.
Chairman: I wanted to have that on the
record of this meeting.
Q169 Sir Robert Smith: On the Report
Stage, which has already been raised, there are issues we want
to tease out, and obviously there are other things people will
want to say as well. There is a vicious circle at the moment in
that amendments cannot be selected by the Speaker until they have
been tabled and the deadline passed, and if a programming committee
were trying to programme business it cannot do that until that
point has been reached, which is so close to the actual time of
the business it seems that the programming committees rarely meet
to programme the Report Stage. So with the short deadline, do
people suggest it would be more acceptable to have an earlier
deadline for tabling amendments at Report Stage which would then
allow a more programmed approach? There is a second question,
running the two together, is it ideal to programme the Report
Stage anyway, because you end up with one section being debated
at length and then you find the feeling of the House is that the
next section is more important but, because of the way the knives
fall and if people want to have votes, you end up with the bit
which is more likely to be teased out suffering and you cannot
get to the relevant section as they are grouped?
Mr Tyler: Horses for courses,
I think, on the latter point. Perhaps I can just illustrate that:
I recall negotiating, in fact on behalf of Government backbenchers,
with the then Chief Whip who was referred to earlier, Ann Taylor,
on the Report Stage of the Transport Bill which dealt with the
privatisation of Air Traffic Control. It was that part of the
Bill which the Government backbenchers were most concerned about
and it was vital it was not only properly debated but there was
a division on the appropriate amendment. In that case, I have
to say—and there were tributes paid to her earlier—she
was incredibly helpful, and though it was not in the interests
of the Government we did make sure that Parliament had a proper
opportunity to debate and divide on both issues. That was well
programmed. I would say in most cases the effective programming
of the Report Stage will ensure there is a proper opportunity
for all issues which are still controversial at that stage to
be properly debated. That would be the answer I would give to
the latter point. On the earlier point, yes, we certainly need
a wider and greater period for the consolidation of amendments
and their subsequent selection between the completion of the Committee
Stage and the Report Stage. In that process I would hope that
the chair, the independent chair of that Committee, could have
a bigger role in deciding the format of the Report Stage, even
to the extent of being able to make a recommendation in a report
to the House, as to whether it is necessary to have one day or
1½ days or two days at Report Stage. It seems to me an extraordinary
anomaly at the moment that there is no representation whatsoever—formally
at any rate, there may be some informal contact—between
those who worked on that Committee on that Bill and then its final
process on the floor of the House.
Mr Shepherd: I value Report Stage,
let's start with that proposition. If you look at last session's
Committee Stages, out of 27 Bills which were in Standing Committee
as of last 12 September, 24 of them did not complete the stages
within the Committee Stage. Therefore the Committee Stages are
a vital part of the consideration of the Bill.
Q170 Mr McWalter: Report Stage?
Mr Shepherd: The Report Stage;
the remaining stages, because it must take up that slack for a
start or have the ability to take up that slack. The second reason
why it is an incredibly important stage, is that it is the only
stage at which every Member of the House can participate in a
major matter going into public policy. What we are reducing Report
Stages to, which is the extraordinary feature, including Third
Reading, almost invariably now is what we grandly call "one
day" but is often little more than five hours. So we practise
a deceit on a wider public as to an understanding as to how we
are even considering these. The difficulty with all truncated
proceedings is that it gives the Government an initiative to effectively
talk out those parts it does not want discussed. Knives are a
most agreeable way of doing that, an open debate is even more
agreeable because there are whole sections we simply do not reach.
I will give an example, the Northern Ireland Peace Bill. The Secretary
of State, who was then Peter Mandelson, was unable to speak on
Third Reading because there was no time for Third Reading, so
it was a formal vote, yes or no. So we have so truncated our processes.
There is a wider point I wanted to make, Sir Nicholas, here. Historically,
this House used to give two or three days to Second Readings where
they were of high importance, where wide numbers of Members who
may not ever participate in the Committee Stage wanted to establish
their locus in terms of their constituency or a regional concern
or their own personal general concern. These remarks actually
are seemingly specific to the Report Stage but they apply actually
to the conduct of Bills. I have seen so often, when my party was
in Government, the requirement of eager backbenchers to stand
up and effectively block consideration of clauses they did not
want to be reached by talking out the preceding section of the
Bill. This is why—and I come perhaps with the least popular
view—I think it is the tragedy of this House and why we
are no longer relevant to a wider public, that we do not even
discharge the one fundamental piece of business of holding the
Government to account through the laws they make, which may even
have criminal implications.
Q171 Chairman: But could there not
be ways of ensuring at the Report Stage that those matters which
the Opposition—I say "Opposition", not just one
party but perhaps more than one party in Opposition—might
wish to have debated and voted on are debated? Is there not a
way in which Opposition parties should have the right to decide
the matters which they wish to have debated and to be voted on?
Would that overcome some of the concerns you have expressed?
Mr Shepherd: The culture of this
House has changed so much, as I guess it did right through its
history. There always was an opportunity, there was negotiation,
the usual channels discussed out-dates and by and large could
keep to them. There therefore was a tolerance by which Opposition
had that opportunity. I have been in this House, as you have,
when the Opposition withdrew co-operation with the Government,
it was a miserable period in the early 1990s, because they claimed
a Government Whip had breached pairing arrangements. As Sir George
has used in earlier reports, the terms of trade enabled negotiation,
and that is what has been excised, the necessity for trading or
dealing from both sides. I do not want to overstate it, but I
actually think the careful development of the old procedures gave
balance and now there is no balance. The argument which you are
addressing is, can there not be balance within some matrix of
construction, which would meet the requirements of the House?
I actually do not think so. This is a place of passion, we feel
strongly about many of the issues, and sometimes there are blocks,
and that is why the Government has always had as this last thing
through Standing Orders—they are still there—the ability
to impose the guillotine as long as it commands a majority.
Sir George Young: I think the
thinking behind your question, Sir Nicholas, was, instead of having
the knives by time and clauses, which is what happens at the moment,
you could have knives by subject?
Q172 Chairman: Yes.
Sir George Young: In other words,
the Opposition parties would say on Report Stage, "We want
to debate, for example, variable fees for tuition", and in
order to stop somebody putting down an amendment in the section
which was ahead of that and speaking at length and never reaching
it, you would have a guarantee there would be a debate. I see
no conceptual reason why that should not be done, so the Opposition
parties would know there would be three debates for 1½ hours
each on the issues they really minded about, and it would not
be left exposed, as can happen at the moment, that you are in
a group with other people and miraculously the controversial bit
is never reached because you spend all the time on the bit before.
Mr Fisher: We are probably all
in agreement but I hope your Committee, when you are looking at
this, will give a very stern look at how the Report Stage has
become virtually an appendix in the House; it has shrivelled so
it scarcely exists at all. We are going to see an example of that
next week on the Higher Education Bill because I think it is scheduled
for a Tuesday or Wednesday but we are going to finish at 7 o'clock
and there will be a very short amount of time to discuss something
which obviously the House was very uncertain of at Second Reading.
The House has an interest in knowing what happened in Committee
and whether the Bill has changed and to debate those changes,
and it will be shuffled through, and that is worrying for the
quality of scrutiny and debate. As Mr Shepherd has said, in the
past Report Stages have not been necessarily confined into one
day.
Q173 Chairman: No, they have not
been confined to just one day.
Mr Fisher: It brings me back to
my earlier point, that the only way to resolve this probably is
to have a more objective Business Committee which would apportion
time more reasonably.
Q174 Rosemary McKenna: A very quick
correction: finishing at 7 o'clock does not reduce the time for
debate because we start equivalently earlier.
Mr Fisher: A very, very good point!
Mr Shepherd: You know very well
it is called a day but it is only a few hours.
Q175 Sir Robert Smith: Does that
mean in terms of trying to get this Report Stage more effectively
used, if we are going down the road of the programming committee,
to follow this whole idea, that the whole process should be elongated,
tabling deadlines should be earlier, so you have a greater idea
of what amendments are there so the programming committee has
something to work with and there is time for it to meet, so there
is a gap between the end of the Committee and the Report Stage?
Is that part of the practical way of achieving the goal?
Sir George Young: I think that
is a separate point from the one I was making about having earmarked
subjects. I would be slightly worried if there was an early cut-off
which meant the Government put down some late amendments at Report
Stage and it was not then possible for the Opposition Parties
to table their amendments to the Government amendments. Subject
to that proviso, I have some sympathy with the point which was
made.
Mr McWalter: We actually have a mechanism
whereby it is clear next Wednesday that 80 Members want to speak,
but 73 of them are going to be disappointed, and the next day
we will probably debate bicycle helmets, important though those
are. There is a frustration in allowing Members, who have something
to say on issues of importance as a Member of Parliament, to come
here and for somebody to say, "Actually, there is absolutely
no prospect of you making your views felt on that at all because
of something called programming or timetabling or something".
One's first reaction is, "Can't we do anything about that
programming or timetabling", which is why we end up being
members of the Procedure Committee! Any help you can give us to
try and help those backbenchers, particularly those who are independently
minded, would be welcome. I once asked the Prime Minister what
weight he put on independent-mindedness and his response was,
"As much weight as any previous Prime Minister", to
which I said, "That is that much"! Whatever Mr Shepherd's
view of history is, the fact is that history serves us ill here.
We need to have a new dispensation in which really it is understood
that debate and rationality have a very important role to play,
and access by Members to make their contribution is secured. Any
help you can give us to get that would be most welcome.
Chairman: Can I say that I think our
witnesses have given us considerable help in the answers they
have given this afternoon, and I hope in due course the Leader
of the House will find time for an earlier report of this particular
Committee to be debated which recommends the provision of an hour
in a major debate when shorter speeches will be available which
in the course of an hour could get 20 additional Members called,
which I hope will be something to be welcomed.
Sir Robert Smith: We could bank some
of the time which was available for the Budget debate when there
was a lack of interest.
Rosemary McKenna: Absolutely.
Q176 David Hamilton: On outside groups,
interested organisations outside the House frequently submit draft
amendments. Within the present system, is there any way in which
consultation with those outside Parliament might be enhanced during
proceedings on a Bill, other than by means of a Special Standing
Committee? Is the present timetable hampering outside groups?
Mr Fisher: I am not sure I have
a qualified view on that but I would have thought certainly our
relations with outside groups generally and the ability for outside
groups to access this House is unnecessarily constrained. I am
not an expert to go further.
Q177 David Hamilton: I suspect I
know Graham's answer to that.
Mr Tyler: Pre-legislative scrutiny
gives huge opportunities, as your previous question, Mr Hamilton,
suggested. The other thing is, where you get Government amendments
at the very last minute, it is difficult enough for the Members
to deal with that, it is impossible for outside interests to deal
with that.
Mr Shepherd: There used to be
a rhythm and a season to the conduct of Bills: Second Reading,
principle discussed, but the Committee Stage did not take place
by convention until two weekends had passed. It gave members of
the Committee an opportunity to read the Bill, hopefully the Second
Reading had raised the issue with the wider public, it gave the
wider public an opportunity to make their views known. We are
now hurrying through legislation: Second Reading on a Wednesday
and it appears in Committee the following Tuesday, or Tuesday
to Tuesday, something like that. The present system has in many
instances, not all, reduced that period of time.
Q178 David Hamilton: Injury time
for divisions in the House is the next theme. Are you in favour
of "injury time" for Standing Committees when one or
more divisions in the House reduce the time for debate just before
a knife is due to fall?
Mr Fisher: Yes.
Sir George Young: Yes.
Mr Shepherd: I am opposed to the
guillotine, so my view is quite clear.
Q179 David Hamilton: I will call
you Mr Angry!
Mr Shepherd: Oh I am a believer!
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