Select Committee on Procedure Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 187-199)

21 APRIL 2004

MR OLIVER HEALD MP

  Q187 Chairman: On behalf of the Procedure Committee, I welcome Oliver Heald, the Conservative Member of Parliament for North East Hertfordshire, who is Shadow Leader of the House, and thank him for coming to help us with our inquiry into programming. Mr Heald, we have had your paper, which we have read with interest. I congratulate you on its succinctness, which is certainly very helpful to members of this Committee. In your submission, you say: "Initial goodwill of all parts of the House" in relation to programming of Bills, was lost when the Government "refused sensible requests for flexibility and ended up by guillotining everything". Can you describe to the Committee how this situation arose and why it arose?

  Mr Heald: Mr Chairman, in 1997 I went to the Whips' Office as a whip, and the Chief Whip at that time, James Arbuthnot, was very prepared to look at new ideas such as programming, and in a sense we were learning opposition for the first time in a long time. The Shadow Leader of the House at the time, Sir George Young, was also very willing to look at programming. We thought it meant reaching agreements on certain bills, not all bills, where it would be helpful to Members to have a more structured programme for the legislation, and also to have a clear out-date for committee. We envisaged, a bit like pre-legislative scrutiny, that it would be something that would evolve over time and that we would find the measure of it and how it worked best. I was the whip on the Scotland Bill, which was the first bill that was programmed, with John McFall for the Labour Party, and we tried very hard to make it work. On reflection, I would say that the Scotland Bill, with the exception of one day where it all went horribly wrong, went okay. Then we got on to the Government of Wales Bill, where it really became very, very difficult to programme successfully. There were three or four different kinds of opposition to the Bill, so it was not just the Government and the Opposition. The Government found a lot of the opposition it was receiving extremely tiresome, including some of the opposition from its own side, so a certain rigidity developed. We ended up with quite a lot of arguments towards the Government of Wales Bill about the detail of the programme. In the first year, the Chief Whip and the Government Chief Whip were able to agree about eleven programmes, and we signed up to them with Sir George Young's name on the motions. It progressively got worse as the Parliament went on, with the Government increasingly wanting to get through more legislation, not necessarily more bills but sheer pages of legislation, and insisting on tighter and tighter programming; so it became more and more difficult. Frankly, we felt we were being oppressed because every time we could not reach agreement we got guillotined. There was really a state of hostility between the Government and the Opposition whips' offices, not on a personal level but on a professional level, from about 1998 onwards. I would say that when the Modernisation Committee introduced the new structure in 2001, we felt that was just beyond all, and were extremely unhappy with it. Of course, it proved to be disastrous.

  Q188 Sir Robert Smith: In the third paragraph of your memorandum you talk about the early stages being okay, and then you say: "The Government has so much power through the changes in procedure that discussions are inevitably one-sided." Is there anything that could be done to change Standing Orders now that would help this sort of thing?

  Mr Heald: I think we need to go back to the original idea that there are quite a lot of bills where the usual channels can agree an out-date easily. For three years I had no problem at all agreeing out-dates. The idea of programming should be a consensual thing. We should be aiming to look at some of the original questions like what kind of committee the bill goes to. We have not used a special standing committee for a long time. If it became a matter of consent, and it was not a mandatory structure of the sort we have now, then that would make a difference.

  Q189 Sir Robert Smith: Are there specific changes in standing orders that could facilitate that, or is it more a cultural operation?

  Mr Heald: I think what I call structure 2, what we have at the moment, the standard structure and framework which is in the temporary standing orders, is completely unacceptable; but if we went back to what preceded it, then we could, with goodwill, make it work.

  Q190 Sir Robert Smith: You do not think one of the challenges though in making anything work at the moment is such that when the Government has such a huge majority, in the end, whatever happens, it feels it can get its own way!

  Mr Heald: I do think that. The fact is the Government has got such a big majority that it has become arrogant, and it does not really take very seriously the Opposition's requirement to raise issues in bills. I have recently been spokesman on a bill where there were a lot of outside representations. As all Members will know, bodies want a point of view aired in committee. The present balance of arms is such that they do not get a fair crack of the whip. If you think of that dreadful bill on which I was the spokesman in 2000-01, the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, where Ann Widdecombe staged a sit-in at the end because we were so unhappy, that was an absolute disgrace and an example of the Government abusing its power.

  Q191 Mr McWalter: I wanted to say from the Labour Benches that, clearly, what you say in your memorandum is very serious. If you say consensual programming died, that is very serious, and this Committee feels to some extent that it is the custodian of the rights of Members, to be able to have a say and to have time apportioned to them for that, no matter where they are coming from. That is very much the view of the majority of Labour Members, and not just Labour Members of the Committee. Given that even if you lost some goodwill, say from the Government's Whips' Office, and assuming that I am right and there is a great deal of goodwill from Members of Parliament in general, would you be prepared to submit a paper based on that premise, on the assumption that it will have a reasonable chance of at least getting a fair hearing, leading to changes in procedure which might well address the very strong grievance that you feel?

  Mr Heald: We have an issue of principle about the Government simply imposing a programme on the Opposition, and the fact that that is the backcloth to discussions in the usual channels. I could state that, as I have in this paper, but that is an objection of principle. It is true that within the current structure there are changes you could make which would improve things. The Clerk has suggested overtime being made available to a chairman of the Standing Committee in circumstances where a debate has not concluded, and suggested that a chairman could give an extra 15 minutes. I think that is a good idea, and it is a good idea that there should be some overtime in circumstances where there is perhaps more than one division. Those are minor changes that would improve matters, but they would not go to the heart of our grievance, which is that we believe programming should be consensual and that we should have a right to say that this is not the sort of bill which we think requires a formal programme. I would not have thought that the majority of bills would ever need to be programmed.

  Q192 Mr McWalter: If you were able to make that representation, not to those who are clearly in opposition to some of that representation, but to some other party, for instance the joint chairs of a committee or whoever, would that not be a procedural improvement? That formal request could hopefully be negotiated more effectively and formally in the way that currently you are indicating those requests are not negotiated?

  Mr Heald: The difficulty with it is that on the one hand the Government is entitled to have its way. All our committees, with the exception of Standards and Privileges Committee, reflect that. It is part of the backcloth of what we do. I think it is an important principle that the Government should be able to have its way. However, at the same time, you do not want to compromise the chair or the Speaker by turning that role into something which is in any way political. It is a good thing that we have managed to have an independent chairman or chairmen of our proceedings in committee. Once you trespass beyond the minor change that the Clerk is suggesting, you have a difficulty. I cannot envisage what sort of committee you could set up in this place, understanding the Realpolitik of it, which would be able to get away from the political arithmetic.

  Q193 Chairman: Have you, Mr Heald, sought to go and discuss this matter with the Leader of the House, Peter Hain? Have you considered sending a paper to the Chairman of Ways and Means, who, as it were, presides over the panel of chairmen? To my mind, these sorts of approaches might well produce a move in the right direction. I am seeking, as it were, to explore matters along the lines that Tony McWalter is taking you down at the moment.

  Mr Heald: I do not think it is impossible that we could reach a better accommodation than we have at the moment. I have not been doing this very long, but I have had a preliminary discussion with the Leader of the House, and a very informal chat with Sir Alan. Having said that, it is something I would need to pursue quite carefully and discreetly.

  Q194 Mr McWalter: If that does not happen, what you were saying before the Chairman's question is that it is broke but you cannot think of any way of fixing it. If that is what happens, this comes over as a whinge, so we have to find a way of translating the very strong negative sentiments expressed in this paper into some kind of programme for positive action. We really need your help, and indeed of the Speaker or chairmen's panel, to do that; but there has to be a way in which we can get people signed up to addressing these matters. We cannot have the Opposition expressing these sentiments in this way and such a paper is simply allowed to lie on the table. We need to find a way of programming.

  Mr Heald: With respect, I do not think that it is controversial or mean-spirited to say we are prepared to do this in a consensual way, which is what we used to do and tried to do. Part of the problem after the 1997 general election was the nature of the legislation that we were trying to do this with. If you think about the Scotland Bill and the Government of Wales Bill, and some of these other bills, they were very hotly contested. There were difficulties which we did not necessarily appreciate at the outset. For example, on the Government of Wales Bill, there were four different kinds of opposition to that Bill, and they all wanted to have their say, and it was all on the floor of the House. We got to the position one day where we had half a dozen privy councillors wanting to speak and ten minutes left before a knife. Those sorts of problems did make it very difficult, but I would have thought that for most bills you do not need a programme motion at all. On the others, they fall into two categories. There is the sort of bill where it is quite helpful for all parties to have a programme, perhaps because it is a bill with two very clear halves to it. With the Civil Contingencies Bill we did not agree the programme, but that is a Bill where the Government has a knife between Part I and Part II. If that was the only provision in the programme motion, I would not be against it because I think it was sensible to divide off the local arrangements from the national, and to secure the time in two clear portions for the two halves of the discussion. I am not saying it cannot be done. There are also situations where the Government and the Opposition just flatly do not agree about how long it requires to debate a bill, and then the Government has in the end to guillotine. That is the way it should work.

  Chairman: We should get on record at this stage that when we refer to constitutional bills, they have historically always been taken on the floor of the House rather than in committee, and it is important for those that will read the minutes of this meeting to appreciate that fact.

  Q195 Mr Atkinson: Mr Heald, the Chairman of Ways and Means, in his paper, takes the view that there should be no knives, but that the Government would be entitled to have an out-date, and he thinks that is as far as the programming should go. You disagree with that.

  Mr Heald: I broadly agree with that for most bills. It is just that I think there is a small category where it is either complexity or just the particular nature of the bill where it is quite useful to have perhaps one knife. Where we tend to have gone wrong, though, over the past few years, is having a lot of knives. As you will see from table A of the Clerk's evidence, they are very often effective knives, in the sense that they do cut off debate. That shows the failure.

  Q196 Mr Luke: Interestingly, the Finance Bill, which is about to start its course, is completely unprogrammed. That is the first that has been unprogrammed for a considerable length of time, so it would be interesting to see if consensus lasts through the course on that.

  Mr Heald: I particularly welcome that because with the Finance Bill there are so many outside interests that want to make representations to members of the committee that unless you have some flexibility with the timing of the programme, so that as the representations come in they could be reflected in amendments, unless you have that sort of steady progress at the beginning of the Bill and then speed up at the end, as the Finance Bill has always done, it does not work.

  Q197 Chairman: Mr Luke has mentioned the Finance Bill. Can I ask how and why that situation has occurred? Why has this exception been made by the Government, that the Finance Bill, which as you have said is a critical bill, and perhaps the most important bill in the parliamentary year, is unprogrammed?

  Mr Heald: The history is that it has been less programmed than almost any other bill. It was programmed last year, but not the year before. It does not go down at all well in business and City circles if an important debate about something which affects billions of pounds is cut off half-way through. I think the Government recognises that; or I guess that is the reason. The other thing is that on the Finance Bill there are always traditionally very experienced whips and also very experienced teams on both sides, the spokesmen and the minister. That helps because the preparation is done very well, and a lot of the relationships are well established.

  Q198 Mr Atkinson: In the paper you talk about flexibility of hours, adding to a point that the Chairman of Ways and Means in his evidence said that committees seem to be unwilling to sit beyond five or five-thirty. What is your view on that? Are committees regularly sitting longer hours, or should that just be available to them if proceedings are getting too delayed?

  Mr Heald: I think a lot of Members have got rather sloppy and are not prepared to do the hours that they should. Say we did have a much more balanced Parliament in terms of the numbers, I think a lot of people would get quite a shock when they saw what this place is like, with the sort of electric atmosphere you get in a committee where the majority is one or two. We are sent here to do a job, and the whole place should not be run for our convenience. We should get on and do our job, and if it takes extra hours then we should make them available. I think Parliament should come first above some other activities.

  Q199 Mr Atkinson: Being in the position of a shadow spokesman on a bill on many occasions, asking a committee to sit for an extra two or three hours every now and then—does that not put a lot of pressure on opposition spokesmen who do not have any civil servants to brief them?

  Mr Heald: There is a balance to be struck. I think we should work the hours that we need to, but I do agree with the point that if you are the opposition you are often working with one researcher and outside bodies who are making representations to you, which you obviously want to look into carefully. To get a day's worth of committee's business prepared, where you have your speaking notes, your amendments properly flagged up and all the rest of it—just the technical side of it—is quite an objective. The other thing is that if you rush it too much, quite a lot of outside bodies do not catch on to what is going on with the bill until rather later than you would expect, funnily enough—as colleagues know. I remember on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, we had been doing it in committee for quite a while, and suddenly the whole world knew about the Bill. It suddenly hit the headlines and was on every website, and lots of public meetings were held. Issues that we had not realised were important became important. The banks suddenly realised that the Bill had implications for them. If you are rushing everything, you can get to the point where you have gone beyond a particular part of the bill before you realise it is a significant issue; so rushing it is not a good idea.


 
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