Annex B-Draft instructions on amendment
of the 1978 Act
1. Counsel is invited to prepare a Bill to give effect
to the recommendations of the Committee. It is suggested that
this might usefully be done by means of a short Bill to make a
number of amendments to the House of Commons (Administration)
Act 1978 ('the 1978 Act').
2. The desired amendments concern the membership
and functions of the House of Commons Commission. Subject to Counsel's
view, it is not thought that the recommendations relating to the
Management Board require any change in the 1978 Act or elsewhere.
Unlike the House of Commons Commission, the Management Board is
not a creature of statute and it is thought that no change in
the law is required before it may be renamed or its duties and
responsibilities altered.
Membership of the House of Commons Commission
3. The first desired amendment concerns the membership
of the Commission. The present membership of the Commission is
determined by section 1(2) of the 1978 Act. No change is sought
in respect of section 1(2)(a)(b) or (c). An amendment is sought
to increase from three to four the number of other members of
the House of Commons referred to in section 1(2)(d). The members,
so referred to, are to consist one from each of the three largest
parties represented in the House and one from the remaining membership,
in each case elected for a Parliament by the whole House. In the
event of any issue arising as to which are the largest parties
in question, some provision along the lines of section 3A(7) Political
Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 may be necessary.
As under the existing section 1(2)(d) of the 1978 Act, none of
the members referred to is to be a Minister of the Crown.
4. A further amendment is required in order to make
provision for the appointment of two external members and the
appointment of two additional members, who may be the Clerk of
the House, any Clerk Assistant or members of staff in the House
Departments. The two external members are to be selected for appointment
on merit on the basis of fair and open competition (along the
lines of s.10(2) Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010)
and are to appointed by resolution of the House of Commons (a
possible model being paragraph 1(e) of Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary
Standards Act 2009). The appointment is to be for a fixed term
not exceeding 4 years. The external member so appointed may be
re-appointed, again by resolution of the House, provided the selection
for appointment (or rather re-appointment) has been made on merit
on the basis of fair and open competition.
5. The two additional members referred to in paragraph
4 above are likely to be the Clerk of the House and the Director
General of the House of Commons but it is not thought necessary
to provide for this on the face of the Bill, save to ensure that
the description of persons who may be appointed is wide enough
to include them. Those members who already form part of the staff
of the House Departments will (most probably) have been selected
for appointment on the basis of fair and open competition. The
intention is that they be appointed by the Commission, no resolution
of the House being required.
Functions of the House of Commons Commission
6. The present functions of the House of Commons
Commission are enumerated in sections 2 and 3 of the 1978 Act
and relate, essentially, to employment (in the case of section
2) and to the laying of estimates of the expenses of House Departments
and other expenses incurred for the service of the House of Commons
(section 3). It is desired to provide for the additional function
of setting the framework for the provision of services to Members,
staff and the public but without calling into question the right
of the House to control its own proceedings or procedures. It
should therefore be a function of the Commission to set a framework
containing strategic priorities and objectives for the provision
of such services. A possible analogy is suggested by section 4
Crime and Courts Act 2013 under which the Secretary of State is
required to determine strategic priorities for an agency, or section
21 Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 under which the Secretary
of State is to set out a framework for fire and rescue services.
Procedure of the House of Commons Commission
7. Paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the 1978 Act provides
for the Speaker to be chairman of the Commission. It is proposed
that the Speaker should be entitled to propose to the Commission
that another member take the chair, either in his or her absence
or for a period of time or number of meetings, with the proviso
that any such chairman should not be the member referred to in
section 1(2)(b) (the Leader of the House of Commons) or section
1(2)(c) (the Shadow Leader) or either of the staff members of
the House Departments. It is not thought that any legislative
change is necessary to achieve this since the Commission is already
empowered to determine its own procedure under paragraph 6(2).
A consequential amendment may be necessary to paragraph 6(3) of
Schedule 1, but so as to preserve the power of the Commission
to appoint one of the Commissioners (not being the Leader, Shadow
Leader or staff member) to act in the absence of the Chairman
and to ensure that the Commission is empowered to appoint a Commissioner
in circumstances other than the Speaker's absence.
8. No other amendment to Schedule 1 to the 1978 Act
is required.
Further issues not requiring legislative amendment
9. It is intended that members of the Commission
should assume particular portfolio responsibilities but it is
not thought that this level of detail is desirable on the face
of the statute.
10. It is also proposed that the existing Management
Board should be re-constituted as an Executive Committee. Its
core membership would be the official members of the Commission
plus the Director of Finance. The official members would be the
Director General of the House of Commons and the Clerk of the
House. But as noted above the Management Board is not a creature
of statute. There is no intention that its successor should be.
11. No amendment to the Commission's powers to reorganise
House departments is proposed.
12. Currently the Members' Estimate Committee (MEC)
has the same membership as the Commission and generally meets
at the same time. Indeed meetings can move between Commission
and MEC business almost seamlessly. No change in this arrangement
is proposed, but there may be a need to ensure that there are
no consequences on the MEC of the above Commission changes.
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