Examination of Witnesses (Questions 230-239)
19 MAY 2004
RT HON
PETER HAIN
AND MR
PHIL WOOLAS
Q230 Chairman: Can I welcome the Leader
of the House, the Rt Hon Peter Hain, and the Deputy Leader, Mr
Phil Woolas, to the meeting of the Procedure Committee this afternoon
to give us evidence into our inquiry into the programming of legislation,
which is a matter of very considerable importance to all Members
of the House of Commons. Leader, can I thank you for coming, and
your Deputy too. It has been a busy, an interesting and an exciting
day. Your Deputy was put through the hoop to an extent this morning
in Westminster Hall in a debate that arose through the application
of Sir George Young into our report into sessional orders and
resolutions, and I hope that you and your Deputy will consider
the matters that were raised, particularly in relation to the
response which you have kindly given to that report. Perhaps it
would be appropriate, bearing in mind what happened in the Chamber
today at approximately 12.20, for you to say something to the
Committee about that event.
Mr Hain: First of all, thank you
very much for inviting me along and for you also accepting that
it would be sensible for Phil Woolas, my Deputy, to come as well
because, with his experience in the Whips' Office, I thought it
might be helpful to the Committee. I very much welcome this inquiry
and also any advice you have as a result of it. On this morning's
debate, as I indicated in my letter to you, I am sorry that the
response from the Government took so long. You, quite properly,
pressed me on this regularly in business questions and it may
well be that the pressure, including this morning's adjournment
debate, helped hasten a response! I am sorry that it took so long
to come. I regard the incident that took place today as very serious.
The decision to erect a security screen was taken on the advice
of the Security Service who came to me in summer last year and,
immediately I was aware of the threat to the Chamber based on
intelligence they had received. I was of the firm view that there
needed to be a security screen and had to persuade many others
of that point of view, but thankfully that was done. There clearly
now needs to be a proper review, including advice by the Security
Service, on the circumstances in which visitors can come into
the side gallery. The side galleries are normally occupied by
visitors who are there as a result of a request from a Member
of this House, but it seems now also a Member of the House of
Lords, and we want to be clear that there are additional procedures
in place whereby Members have to take responsibility for those
visitors, sign in on that responsibility and take the consequences
including apologising to the House if there were an equivalent
incident. We want to look at whether those procedures need to
be tightened up and whether additional information should be sought
on visitors who are signed in by Members of the House in that
way.
Q231 Chairman: Can I say on behalf of
my Committee that we are very grateful for that comment and I
think that we all take what occurred this morning during Prime
Minister's Questions very seriously and, as you have indicated,
clearly a review of procedures will be carried out and no doubt
in due course appropriately reported to the House. Thank you,
both to yourself and to your deputy, for coming this afternoon
and can I put the first question. What is your current assessment
of how well programming of legislation is working and is it improving
at all following its initial introduction?
Mr Hain: I think it is working,
I think it is working well and I think it is being improved, not
least as a result of the Modernisation Committee's report which
recommended a series of changes and I will perhaps explain the
progress on those. That does not mean that there is not always
room for improvement and I think it is valuable to monitor it.
When it works well, it is of benefit to the Government in terms
of getting their business through, of benefit to the Opposition
because it can focus on the key issues that concern members of
the Opposition and it is of benefit to the public because they
know which particular parts of the bill will be discussed on a
particular day or at a particular time of the day and therefore
can make arrangements in their diaries accordingly. As you will
recall, in the report last year, the Modernisation Committee firmly
endorsed the principle of programming, believing that some measures
could be taken to improve the operation of the system, and of
course programming came in as a result of a long history of independent
reports which indicated that the House's business ought to be
managed in a more systematic fashion. I think we made some considerable
progress in this session to remedy some of the problems that the
Modernisation Committee identified. We, for example, made renewed
efforts to engage with the Opposition as a Government to try and
achieve a consensual approach. One third of the programme motions
moved this session have been approved without division, which
indicates a greater consensus than there was before. The great
majority of detailed programmes have been agreed consensually.
Of the 22 programming sub-committees so far this session, only
three have had divisions and we made much less use of internal
knives. Of the 17 bills programmed in standing committees this
session, eight have had or are expected to have no knives and
the others have had only a few. I think we have shown great flexibility
in varying programmes both in terms of internal knives and out-dates
when circumstances have merited it. We have offered more days
on report where there have been significant numbers of Government
amendments, for example on the Pensions Bill, in order to make
time to consider amendments. We also responded to suggestions
by facilitating later start times for standing committees if this
was desired.
Q232 Chairman: I thank you for that reply
but you will accept that, following initial cooperation when programming
was introduced, there was a breakdown in the relationship between
Government and Opposition which has caused serious problems and
I put to you that, when proposals for the programming of legislation
were first made, it was suggested that a committee should decide
when and how the procedures should apply. Could the operation
of such a committee go some way towards restoring the initial
consensus on the programming of bills? This, I say from the chair,
is important because obviously in debating legislation, the Opposition—and
that includes all Opposition Parties—should have a major
say because it is Government legislation and obviously the opposition
in the main, although occasionally on the Government side itself,
is going to come from the Opposition Parties and they therefore
must have some meaningful say in the programme motion and do you
think a committee could help to that end?
Mr Hain: Are you referring to
the proposition for a business committee?
Q233 Chairman: However you put it.
Mr Hain: If it is the formal idea
of a business committee which has been suggested by some, I am
not convinced by the arguments for that. I think the present usual
channels procedures have stood us very well for many years and
I think that, if we did have a business committee, it would in
reality and practice rubberstamp the decisions made elsewhere;
I do not think it would really add any transparency or shift control
from the existing legislature.
Q234 Chairman: If there is a breakdown
in communication between the Government's usual channels and Opposition
usual channels, does that not create a serious problem?
Mr Hain: I might bring Phil Woolas
in on his experience of programming. If there is a breakdown,
then that is serious but in fact this does not happen very often
and, where there has been, as for example occurred in the planning
of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, as the Modernisation
Committee made clear, that has often been to do with perhaps inexperience
by the Whips in dealing with bills of that kind in the programming
context or a breakdown of trust in relations between the whips
on either side. I think where the usual channels work well, as
they do in the main as the figures I have given you show, then
I think it is a satisfactory procedure, but perhaps Phil Woolas
could speak from his own experience.
Q235 Chairman: Before he does, can I
just, in respect of the use of programming, quote the Clerk of
the House who said, "initial advocates of programming, as
it has come to be called . . . [suggested] that this procedure
should be mediated through a committee with a degree of independence
in its chairmanship. That at the very least would have guaranteed
that there had been genuine consultation before a programme motion
was tabled." Perhaps you might care to reply to that but,
if your Deputy would like to bear that in mind now, as it were,
in dealing with this question.
Mr Hain: I do not agree with that
proposition. I think that as we already show in this session,
programming is working much better than it did on previous occasions
and it has been a learning curve for everybody. Some of the recommendations
of the Modernisation Committee have in practice been adopted,
as both Opposition and Government Whips and Members have been
more experienced with programming, and the figures I gave you
show that it has worked on a more consensual basis, but perhaps
Phil Woolas could add to that.
Mr Woolas: My view is that, whatever
structure one sets up, whatever the formal channels are, committees
or business committee or programming sub-committees or the full
programming committee, because of the nature of our system, if
you formalise things in that way, if relationships have broken
down between the two main Whips, then it does not matter what
the structure is, it has just broken down and all that we are
doing, I would argue, is delaying. To shed some light on this—and
I think I have seven standing committees under this procedure—what
became clear to me was that the relationship with my opposite
number was as important to me, if not more important, in achieving
my aim of delivering the business as my relationship with the
minister on my side was. The minister on my side, in practical
logistical terms, would often cause me more problems than the
Opposition Whip, as indeed, as I subsequently learned, the relationship
between him—it always was a him—and his Shadow front
bench caused him greater problems than his relationship with me,
unless it broke down and, when it broke down, one then has to
take a decision as to whether you put it back together again or
whether you do not. If it has broken down for real reasons as
in the case where we had problems with working on the Finance
Bill where the timetabling motion clearly was not going to satisfy
anyone, so we decided to change it mutually, but if there were
a political fight over a point of principle, for example there
was one point on the Transport Bill, then it did not matter what
the formal relationship was. I have read the Clerk's comment and
my fear about that is that it would diminish that ability to get
that good relationship going.
Q236 Chairman: Albeit that I think the
Chairmen's Panel in the House has a very fine reputation for its
impartiality, whether a chairman is of the Opposition Party or
the Government Party, they can and have displayed on many occasions
the impartiality that I think the political parties appreciate
and certainly people outside this place appreciate. Would you
accept that?
Mr Woolas: Very, very much so
and I would also say that if a chairman wanted to suggest to the
usual channels that the timetabling motion was not working, they
do so.
Q237 Chairman: I am glad to have that
on record!
Mr Woolas: They do so and my experience
is that they do so out of a motive of commonsense. There were
some bad examples of timetabling. The Leader has referred to the
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill. To be fair to the Government,
they did recommit that Bill for further scrutiny. I believe that
people learn from their experiences and there are no courses on
how to do it for the people involved.
Chairman: Mr Woolas, I hope that the
smile that appeared on the Leader of the House's face indicated
his support for the comment that you have made because, if one
can proceed by consensus, I am one of those who does have an understanding
of and support for responsible programming. I think it is to the
advantage of all concerned.
Q238 Mr McWalter: This is the Procedure
Committee and, in part, it is right that we are looking not only
at getting reports on whether a particular way of doing things
is going quite well but also looking at the extent to which they
have a propensity to go badly and ask whether the procedures that
we have in place will deal with things when they go badly. So,
when the Leader of the House tells us that it is all going quite
well, what crosses my mind is that he is the man who has the lever
and he pulls it and the people who would like it to be a different
lever that they pulled might differ with him about the efficacy
of that particular mechanism. I do wonder whether if we had not
only the capacity for Whips of opposite sides getting on well
and sorting things out, but a Programming Committee and therefore
this extra valuable resource, which the Chairman has talked about,
of people within the Chairmen's Panel who can actually mediate
when things go badly and tell someone that they are being unreasonable
and that would actually be a sounder procedure and would cover
us for the cases when things went badly. Would you not agree with
that?
Mr Hain: Obviously, yes, and I
think the Chairman's role—
Q239 Mr McWalter: That is good! We run
them, that is fine, and that is all we need to know!
Mr Hain: The Chairman's role is
important, very important. As a member of the Programming Sub-Committee,
he or she can get things together if he or she thinks things are
not going as they should be and, as I understand it from the advice
I have taken, Whips on both sides take strong advice from the
Chairman in those circumstances. That is a different matter from
putting the Chairman into an overtly partisan role which has been
a suggestion. I do not think that would be the right way to proceed.
The other point I would make or rather that I hinted at earlier
is, where things have broken down, which is not very often, it
often is due to inexperience of Whips involved on both sides.
As I think Phil Woolas will confirm from his own experience, it
is a complicated business. People are sometimes on a very steep
learning curve.
Chairman: While I think we can sort out
the problems at standing committee stage, we have had concerns
expressed to us about the fact that there has been little or no
consultation apparently between the usual channels over the programme
motion that is put immediately after the second reading of the
Bill. It may have improved in the more recent times but, at some
stage, we did get quite a lot of concern expressed—and not
just from Opposition Parties—about the fact that the programme
motion was basically tabled by the Government and had to be voted
on without debate immediately after the second reading debate
and division and that too little consultation had occurred at
that stage. Is that still the position or is there now a meaningful
consultation between Government and Opposition? I know that my
colleague Peter Atkinson would want to come in on this, so perhaps,
Peter, you would like to come in on this before the Leader of
the House responds.
Mr Atkinson: Really just to pick up on
that point. I think that there are—and I talk as a member
of the Opposition Whips' Office—discussions between the
usual channels about the programme motion prior to post second
reading. The problem arises because the whole shape of the bill
changes enormously in the course of its proceedings and a number
of Government amendments may be added at the time. The bill that
eventually goes into Committee or comes out of Committee into
Report stage is a very different thing and, to actually predict
how much time we want at the later stages would be very difficult
indeed and I think that has often been the cause for some problems.
Forgive me, it is not a question, it is more of an explanation.
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