Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
317-319)
MR MARK
HARPER
16 SEPTEMBER 2010
Q317 Chair: We will try to cover
the whole field, so various colleagues will ask questions on particular
things. Catherine will start with one question to warm us up.
Ever the optimist, I got the impression that there was a strong
feeling that pre-legislative scrutiny is something that the Government
are taking seriously; but due to circumstances, they felt that
it has been rather difficult to get our first two Bills as thoroughly
pre-legislatively scrutinised as we would all have liked. We will
come to some of the holes that we have discovered because of that
problem. Would I be getting it right if I were to say that the
Government, now that we have slightly more breathing space, would
wish to have proper pre-legislative scrutiny on future Bills,
possibly even to the extent of the 12-week pre-leg that the Leader
of the House suggested to the Liaison Committee was about the
mark to do it properly?
Mr Harper: Yes, you would be,
Chairman. In the statement I made yesterday on individual electoral
registration, I emphasised that we plan to bring the proposals
forward in a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny before we
bring the Bill to Parliament. The basic reason that the Leader
of the House set out for why we were not able to have pre-legislative
scrutiny for the first two Bills is the fact that, in the first
Session of Parliament following a general election, there is the
necessity just to get on with things. For future Bills, and certainly
the third Bill that you have indicated, it is the Government's
intention to have pre-legislative scrutiny in Parliament. Once
the cycle is started, it is much easier to do that, and with the
announcement about the more predictable sitting pattern and some
of the things that we can do when we have fixed-term Parliaments,
we can make that a lot more planned and well organised for the
benefit of both the Government and Parliament.
Q318 Chair: As someone who was
very involved in the original concept of pre-legislative scrutiny,
I probably need to reassure Whitehall that there does not need
to be a draft Bill. A draft Bill is always very helpful, as are
White Papers, Green Papers and ministerial statements, but so
long as we know that the process has kicked off, it is possible,
if we have the right amount of time, to do much more general evidence
taking and to scrutinise the concepts of the Bill. It does not
necessarily have to be the nitty-gritty of a line-by-line draft.
It would be very useful if you, in your position at the centre
of the web in Whitehall, got the word out that, technically, from
a parliamentary and political perspective—I do not know
what the rules and regulations are in Whitehall—being able
to discuss the Bill early is more valuable than discussing it
later on a compressed timetable. Does that make sense?
Mr Harper: Sure. What you are
basically saying is that even if we publish the actual Bill, you
want a bigger gap for colleagues to consider it. I suppose the
only argument then comes down to semantics. If proposals are still
open to quite a lot of change, the Bill is, in effect, a draft
Bill, even if you do not call it that. Yes, that is very helpful,
and I will feed it back.
Q319 Chair: Obviously, from a
parliamentary point of view, the greater the flexibility and the
greater the slack, the more influence and value for money the
Government will get from Parliament in terms of testing concepts.
Mr Harper: I suspect that, presentationally,
publishing a draft Bill and calling it that probably gives the
Government maximum flexibility to make changes in response to
what people say, rather than publishing a final Bill and then
having to change it. I heard what you said, and will pass that
back into the web.
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