Select Committee on Procedure Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-279)

19 MAY 2004

RT HON PETER HAIN AND MR PHIL WOOLAS

  Q260 Chairman: I think in other evidence we have had, it has been established that the clerks do have a very difficult but very important job to do and, if they are working the previous evening late getting in from where they live sometimes before 8.55 is extremely difficult and puts them under, I think, unnecessary pressure.

  Mr Hain: I very much agree with you, Chairman. Indeed, if you recall, that was one of the early points you made forcibly to me in your usual moderate fashion when we met very soon after I took up the job.

  Q261 David Hamilton: Do you think there is any advantage in giving chairmen powers to limit the length of speeches in standing committees?

  Mr Hain: I understand the reason for the suggestion because Members find it a little irritating when one or two can speak at great length, whether it is a deliberate filibuster or just verbosity, but I am not sure that speech limits of the kind that operate in the House would work in standing committees and I would be interested in your views on this because Members are not limited to speaking only once on a question. I would be more inclined to apply persuasion and your Committee might encourage short speeches and the Chairmen's Panel might find ways of encouraging good practice, but I would be very reluctant as a government to make that an issue for us, but it is an issue for the Chairmen's Panel and an issue for perhaps your Committee to look at in the round.

  Q262 David Hamilton: I am sure we will look at that. My second point is, are the interests of minority parties—the Liberal member is not here, he has had to go to a meeting—and back benchers sufficiently recognised in the current procedures and, if not, do you think it should change?

  Mr Hain: The minority parties do have a number of concerns, which they represented to me, about the extent of representation they have between them and as a collective whole, but I do not know that I have any words of wisdom to add to where we are on that.

  Q263 David Hamilton: Let us explore the case that the Liberals used to represent the minority parties but that has ceased, as I understand it. Is there any mechanism to change that?

  Mr Hain: It has created a bit of difficulty from our point of view. That has broken down. I have not heard of any good solutions to that problem.

  Mr Woolas: Our attitude, Chairman, is that we would prefer it if the parties could agree an arrangement.

  Q264 Chairman: But, inevitably, the Selection Committee, in choosing people to go on to Standing Committees will clearly pretty accurately reflect the minority parties I referred to—Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, the Ulster Unionists and other Northern Ireland parties—where legislation is specific to those parts of the United Kingdom.

  Mr Hain: Indeed.

  Q265 Chairman: So that, in fact, they are not treated that unfairly, it is whether or not they are always going to get representation on all Standing Committees.

  Mr Hain: I think that is a very fair point, Chairman.

  Mr Woolas: What annoys the Whips in Opposition of Government is when a lot of time has been spent debating the numbers of the minority parties and then, in fact, in practice there is an absence on the Standing Committee.

  Q266 David Hamilton: What mechanisms could be devised to extend the time available if the Government tables substantial amendments during the course of Committee stage?

  Mr Hain: We have already shown on, for example, the Pensions Bill that we have been prepared to extend the time, and I think it would be unreasonable if the Government was just reining down amendments, as I am afraid has happened far more often than it should in recent times. We stand ready to make more time available when it is asked for.

  Q267 Chairman: Thank you. We now pass to someone where still wisdom abides—

  Mr Hain: Chairman, there is one other thing, if I may? I apologise. We have been willing, on an exceptional basis, to recommit bills to Standing Committee. That happened, of course, with the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill.

  Chairman: Thank you for that information.

  Q268 Mr McWalter: We are back with knives again, really. Before asking my question, I just do think that if the reference class is all bills then, in a sense, it looks like having a knife is quite a rare event, but if the reference class is, as I believe it should be, Chair, those bills that either the Opposition or some of the Government's own backbenchers believe to be controversial, then I suspect that knives apply nearly all the time. If that is the case, then I think maybe that should be the reference class that we go on. If that is the case, since a knife, in fact, is a block of a bill which has actually not been debated, that is a hugely important thing to happen—to have something that is going to pass into legislation and nobody has worked out its implications, its consequences, and whether the wording is to the satisfaction of those who represent the communities that are going to be affected by that legislation. Is that not a huge thing to impose on anybody?

  Mr Hain: We are not talking about a cut-off point to stop debate, we are talking about a way of arranging business to actually enable progress to be made instead of debate, perhaps, to be bogged down on only one area.

  Q269 Mr McWalter: I can understand that. In the end, what happens when a knife falls is that clauses and schedules, and so on, do get ditched. I sat on a Northern Ireland Bill, very sensitive stuff, and it actually looked as though, if we had had more time, the conflicting sides of the Northern Ireland dispute might actually have been able to have made their way through it, but the knife fell, bitterness ensued and they all just went into separate lobbies and we lost the opportunity. I do think it is a hugely serious matter, and that, perhaps, sitting back and saying "We only had one Bill that had 7" is actually a little bit laid back in terms of the gravity of what happens when a knife falls.

  Mr Hain: I understand the point that you are making. May I just offer these observations? First of all, that always happened anyway, before programming. I remember it myself in Opposition. I make no particular complaint about the then Conservative Government; that was the way things went.

  Q270 Chairman: Are you saying there, Leader of the House, that it happened on every bill or it only happened where the government of the day introduced what was then a guillotine motion? Clearly, if there was not a guillotine motion everything was debated. It was only when a guillotine motion was introduced that there could be a number of clauses and schedules or even new clauses which were not debated, because without a guillotine motion the bill would go through in Standing Committee from one clause to the next, one clause to schedule, schedule to clause and so on, through to the end of the bill.

  Mr Hain: As I recall, and I will ask Mr Woolas to come in, if I may, you would sometimes just go shooting past a whole series of clauses. I remember it well on Standing Committees; you may not actually have had a knife, as it were, to stop you debating because of the management of the business which created the circumstances that are being described, but you actually did, for the usual channels reasons, make progress. Can I make another point, which I think also answers the point that has been raised. Knives can be reviewed, and are. The Programming Sub-Committee can meet and change knives, if that is desired, and they do. The Programming Sub-Committee do that, often prodded by the Chairman, and that is good—that is the very flexibility we are talking about. The obverse of knives is having chaotic business where outsiders cannot be there to see the things that really matter to them, on the one hand, and actually sometimes Members find that they do not reach the business that really matters to them.

  Q271 Mr McWalter: You are emphasising, and this is very welcome, the powers of the Chair. My experience is that very often the Chair will say "Sorry, this is it; the finished clauses 22-79 are not going to be further taken". If, in fact, what you are saying is that the Chair does have those powers, would you support formal provision in the calling of a knife, possibly, for instance, because a division in the House causes a Committee to be suspended (which currently does not happen, at the moment) or, again, if the Chair thinks that a short extension will be desirable for some other reason, those reasons possibly to be articulated more closely?

  Mr Hain: It is quite a complex matter, on which I would welcome the views of the Committee. I am aware of injury time for divisions and that suspensions for divisions in the House can cause difficulties. I have experienced that, myself, on Select Committees, for example, particularly when they occur shortly before knives fall, although the reduction in the number of internal knives that we have seen over this past session should significantly ease those difficulties. I know that some Members of the Chairmen's Panel have argued we should allow injury time in the same way as we allow for Westminster Hall. I have got some concern that that would lead to uncertain timetables in the Standing Committee and, perhaps, to perverse incentives to press multiple divisions in the House. So I think that we have got to look at this extremely carefully. Perhaps, when you do—or if you do—you might consider all those points as well.

  Q272 Chairman: Would you look at it seriously, Leader of the House? I think Mr McWalter has raised a very important matter. I am not sure that it would be easy for the Opposition to stage multi-votes in the House. It is possible and it is feasible but I think it is unlikely. However, if there is a loss of time due to divisions, and it has come at a critical time for a bill in Standing Committee, does it not seem rational and reasonable to you, Leader of the House that extra time should be provided for, particularly, divisions in the House?

  Mr Hain: I am certainly willing to consider these options. I think it is a case that has been made and I am willing to look at it. I would be very open-minded about any recommendation that you make. The only thing I would be a little worried about—and you may have a view on this—is that any changes are added to the pressure on Standing Committee Chairmen to take a particular role as between Government and Opposition or any other Members involved. I do think there are great advantages to Members to having clear end-points to Committees, so Chairmen can plan their diaries. I think your own observations on all the complexities on this would be valuable.

  Chairman: I will only comment from the Chair, and as a Member of the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen, that we take our role as Chairman of a Standing Committee very seriously and if that, from time to time, means that there will be a clash with other engagements and commitments, I have to say to you, as a long-standing Member of the Speaker's Panel, that the role and responsibilities of the Speaker's Panel come first, and a dinner or other things would come second. I do not envisage it happening very often because I think the number of times there would be divisions in the House—for which I think, personally, extra time should be provided—would be relatively limited.

  Q273 Mr McWalter: Chair, I was about to welcome the general way in which the Leader of the House was responding to my observations and I am grateful for that because I think it should be on the record that the business of having knives is something you view with concern and you want to do everything you can to limit them. I think that that is very welcome. The last remark you made about asking the Chair of a Committee to take what you call "a particular role" worries me a little bit, because in the end the Chair is in a situation where, for instance, if somebody is filibustering, if they are repeating themselves or if they are otherwise behaving unreasonably, it is the job of the Chair to pull the person up and to try and expedite the business appropriately. There are certainly quite a lot of occasions when Chairs do not do that because they are worrying—if it is a Conservative Chair and a Labour Member blathering on, or vice-versa—because they do not want to be seen to be political, but I think the House should have greater confidence in the capacity of its Members to take that fair-minded, impartial approach when they are asked to perform these roles. I think that is a great strength of the House and I would hope that we would be willing to put greater weight on that expertise and that capacity than, perhaps, we currently do. In that connection, I wonder whether (I think I know what you are going to say but I have to ask it formally anyway) the Chair sometimes could take the initiative in representing the interests of backbenchers or others in calling meetings of Programming Sub-Committees; whether actually, in the end, it would be a sensible thing to have Chairs that are sometimes proactive when it looks like the train is coming off the rails?

  Mr Hain: First of all, I agree with you about the political and, in a sense, constitutional importance of the Chairs of Committees in this context, but I do not see any reason, if that is what is being suggested, to give Chairmen an express power to do this, as, say, in Standing Orders. I do not see any case for that. In my experience, Chairmen are not usually very nervous about making their views on these matters clear to the Government's Whips. I think it would be unlikely that anybody would ignore the Chairman, but perhaps Phil Woolas could give his own experience on it. I also think that Standing Committee Chairmen could play an invaluable role in encouraging a consensual role in the Standing Committee. Of course, since the Government can count on the majority of the Programming Sub-Committee it is hardly necessary for us to resist calls for it to meet in a way which would incur the wrath of a Member of the Chairmen's Panel.

  Mr McWalter: Is your answer saying that the Chair does have the capacity to call a meeting? Suppose a knife has fallen really inappropriately. Would a Chair regard themselves as having the power to convene a Programming Sub-Committee after that knife had fallen in order to deal with some of the clauses which had been victims of the knife?

  Q274 Chairman: Can I come in, perhaps, quickly from the Chair? I appreciate the point that Tony McWalter is making but I have to say—and my Clerk has whispered in my ear something I was going to say anyway—it is a bit late to do it after the knife has fallen. It could be that the Chairman might intervene in the debate anticipating that the knife was going to fall to suggest that there is a short suspension of the Committee to enable the business Sub-Committee to meet to reallocate the time at which a knife should fall.

  Mr Hain: Of course, that can happen. I will ask Phil Woolas to give some examples that help us in this respect. Can I just distinguish between the Chairman being given a formal power and the present reality where a suggestion by the Chairman is never ignored—at least in my experience—and counts for a great deal? Perhaps you could confirm this.

  Mr Woolas: My experience is that the Chairmen of the Standing Committees are extremely good at doing their jobs. If they believe that a knife is going to cause a problem they do approach both sides informally. Sometimes they do it with a raised eyebrow and sometimes they do it with a note—although they rarely write it down because they are very wise in that regard. Sometimes if the relationship has broken down between the two front benches the Chairmen do act as ACAS, and they have lots of devices they can do that with: long coffee breaks, ruling people in and out of order. If the Chairmen thinks that one side or the other is not behaving reasonably vis-a"-vis a knife they can impose their will. It happened to me once where I was crashing against a knife at 5 o'clock, my Minister wanted to get to it because he needed to get away, the Chairman was not happy with that because, in fact, a Conservative backbencher had an amendment down and the Chairman made it clear that when we came back from the vote downstairs he was going to have several coffee breaks, which he had the power to do, unless we reached a new agreement to put the knife back to Thursday lunchtime. So I did because I had no choice. I am not going to say which Chairman it was, but it was on my side of the House and she has a strong interest in railways!

  Mr McWalter: You met your Waterloo there then?

  Chairman: It was not Agincourt, it was Waterloo. We now pass to, again, north of Hadrian's Wall. Rosemary McKenna.

  Q275 Rosemary McKenna: Can I move on to Report Stage and Third Reading. There has been very little programming in recent years on Report Stage. What is the reason for this? Is it a lack of time? Would it help to establish an earlier deadline for tabling amendments so that a selection could be available earlier?

  Mr Hain: We have tended not to use Programming Committees for Report Stage because we have been able to get agreement through the usual channels. It is open to Programming Sub-Committees to make recommendations in respect of the remaining stages, including Report, but they do not often do so. I understand that in the current session Programming Sub-Committees have not made recommendations concerning Report. Examples from the last session were that the Programming Sub-Committee recommended that, for the Criminal Justice Bill on 4 March 2003, "the proceedings on consideration of the report should be concluded within three days", but that was a specific recommendation. This resolution was subsequently put to the House as a further Programme motion and agreed the next day. So that is an example where—

  Q276 Rosemary McKenna: It was by consent?

  Mr Hain: It was by consent, yes. On the Communications Bill, which had its own problems, as you recall, the Programming Sub-Committee recommended that on 6 February last year "the proceedings on consideration of report should be concluded within two days". Again, that resolution was subsequently put to the House as a further Programme Motion and agreed. So what I am saying is when you need to do it you can.

  Q277 Rosemary McKenna: But if you can do it without it, then—

  Mr Hain: Then there is an advantage in doing that.

  Rosemary McKenna: You would not refuse, if someone asked?

  Q278 Chairman: Again, as an evergreen backbencher, it is a fact that the Report Stage of a bill is the only stage of a bill in which some Members can participate, because if they are not selected to speak in the Second Reading and they are not selected to serve on the Standing Committee, the Report or remaining stage of a bill is the only occasion in which, historically, they have an opportunity of participating. It could be that they have an important constituency interest or there may only be a personal interest in a bill. Therefore, would you accept that the programming of Report Stages is an undesirable development and should be avoided whenever possible?

  Mr Hain: I think that is a very fair point, but perhaps Phil Woolas could give his own experience of this.

  Mr Woolas: There are two issues to bear in mind, in answer to your question. One is that the advantage that that gives to external bodies at Committee stage does not apply at Report Stage because they are here anyway. The second point is that, of course, it is the selection of amendments that, in practice, determines the structure of a debate. When we put knives in on Report Stage—I would say the main criteria for the selection of a knife is not its controversy because, by and large, force majeure means one has to provide a reasonable time (the Opposition will never be satisfied, in public)—it is actually where the subject area is different. Because the selection of amendments determines the structure of the debate in practice, and because one cannot give certainty to Members as to when one will reach that amendment, if you have got a group of amendments, you will notice sometimes there will be a knife at 5.00 and you vote at 4.45, so the knife does not actually help the Members in the way it does in Standing Committee. That also bears upon the Chairman's point, which is, as the Leader says, extremely important; if one plays politics with the knives of a Report Stage one can squeeze out Members who have got a legitimate point of view and, of course, that Member can be squeezed out by the political use of amendments, which happens not just between the two front benches but on the back benches as well. So for those reasons the main advantages of knives, which are for external bodies, are the ability to plan and do not apply, on the whole, at Report Stage.

  Q279 Rosemary McKenna: One of the witnesses suggested that the Standing Committee should make a report about which parts of the bill had not been discussed in order to help the House apportion its time during the remaining stages. What would you think about that?

  Mr Woolas: I think it is a good idea but I think it would not work. I think the road to hell is paved with good intentions. What would happen is that that document would become a politicised document and it would inevitably be picked up. We would do it if we were in Opposition and the Opposition do it now. The Liberal Democrats would do it under all circumstances because they always make those points at the beginning of debates. That would force the Government to use its majority at the Programming Sub-Committee to change the nature of the Report. What I would say is very important is that the usual channels pay a lot of attention to the way in which the Standing Committee has gone, and you will normally find that under both governments (and I believe this has happened for 40 or 50 years) the Whip on the Report Stage will be the same Whip as at Standing Committee. That is the normal convention and that is the reason why. So I think it is superficially a good idea but I fear it would not work.

  Rosemary McKenna: I think that is a very good answer. I remember sitting on the Finance and Pensions Bill before programming came in, when the Opposition made great play about issues that had not been debated during the Committee stage, but in actual fact they had prevented them being debated, or they had chosen to debate an issue which was really insignificant over a great length of time, so that they could not debate that very important issue and then raise it at that stage. So I think you are right, Mr Woolas, that it would become politicised.

  Chairman: As the Deputy Leader did make a direct reference to the Liberal Democrats I will allow a Liberal Democrat Member of my Committee to intervene.

  Sir Robert Smith: I would just like to understand Rosemary's experience, because if there was not programming how could any length of time talk anything out, because if there is no programming—

  Rosemary McKenna: There was not programming, they chose the amendments that they put forward to debate another issue rather than—

  Chairman: We are supposed to be questioning our witnesses, not each other!

  Sir Robert Smith: It would not be a politicised report, though, would it, because the report is a factual record of what had happened in the Committee?


 
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