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More generally, the experiment has worked except for one other little bit: starting business at three o’clock is a waste of half an hour. I had the appalling experience a few weeks ago of forgetting that we started at three o'clock, wandering in and finding myself locked in Prayers. As you can imagine, that was the most horrifying experience for me. I would never have made that mistake if we had started at 2.30. I would like us all to reflect on the three o'clock start to protect some of us.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, perhaps it would be a good idea to bring this short debate to a close. I have heard a number of voices reflect the more traditional view on arrangements for Wednesdays and Thursdays. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, recognised that the tide had turned against the old Wednesday and Thursday arrangement; I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and others will also recognise that. I can see them not nodding but shaking their heads, but I am afraid that I have to tell them and the House that that is the way things seem to have gone.
I mentioned some statistics that the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, did not like, but they showed that attendance and, more importantly, participation in debates are, little changed from Wednesdays to Thursdays—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
The three o'clock start, which the noble Lord, Lord Peston, raised, is an integral part of the Wednesday and Thursday experiment. It was called for because parties wished to arrange their party meetings on Wednesday afternoons between lunch time and the House sitting. The change, which was made in January, has been popular.
The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, and others asked why the report was not more detailed. Again, it is the custom for Procedure Committee reports to concentrate on the recommendations made rather than on the discussions that took place. The minutes of the Procedure Committee have yet to be put on the website but they are available for all to see in the Library, where noble Lords will be able to see the arguments deployed.
The noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Peston, mentioned the balloting of Unstarred Questions. As the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will know, because he was there, the Procedure Committee considered this but did not favour it. There are difficulties with having a ballot for an Unstarred Question, in that there is no fixed time for them.
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The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, asked about Questions that are at the top of the list when the person who has tabled them does not want to ask them, or where it is inconvenient to take up an available slot. The current situation is that a noble Lord in that position can turn down a slot but still be offered the next available one. There are those noble Lords who do not wish their Questions to be taken that quickly and who therefore do not press for a slot.
I may have missed one or two questions, but I hope that that summarises the questions that I have been asked.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Parliamentary Costs Bill [HL]
3.40 pm
The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee (on Recommitment). Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Falconer of Thoroton.)
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I asked the noble and learned Lord this question once before and got a pretty dusty answer. I expect that I shall get a dusty one today, too. When he has Motions down on the Order Paper, they appear under the name of the Lord Falconer of Thoroton, but it has always been the practice to put them down under the name of the Lord Chancellor, which is a very glorious name. The report that we have just been discussing refers to the noble and learned Lord as the Lord Chancellor.
The Lord Chancellor happens to occupy a very special place. The noble and learned Lord is not just any old noble and learned Lord—he is the Lord Chancellor. His name ought to appear on the Order Paper and not the name of the Lord Falconer of Thoroton. I do not expect the noble and learned Lord to give me an answer on this today, but perhaps he will be good enough to think about it and put the name of the Lord Chancellor down in future cases.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I have always thought that the noble Lord is not any old noble Lord—I quite agree with that. I need to think very carefully about what the noble Earl has said.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
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National Health Service Bill [HL]
National Health Service (Wales) Bill [HL]
National Health Service (Consequential Provisions) Bill [HL]
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to these Bills and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee (on Recommitment). Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the orders of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the orders of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Falconer of Thoroton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.
Constitutional Reform (Prerogative Powers and Civil Service etc.) Bill [HL]
Read a third time; an amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Order 2006
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 29 June be approved [32nd Report from the Joint Committee] [Considered in Grand Committee on 18 July].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Government of Wales Bill
3.45 pm
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendments and reasons be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The page and line references are to HL Bill 81 as first printed for the Lords.]
(a) who is included on any other list submitted for the Assembly electoral region or any list submitted for another Assembly electoral region,(b) who is an individual candidate to be an Assembly member for the Assembly electoral region or another Assembly electoral region,(c) who is a candidate to be the Assembly member for an Assembly constituency which is not included in the Assembly electoral region, or24 July 2006 : Column 1552
(6) A person may not be an individual candidate to be an Assembly member for the Assembly electoral region if he is-
3A: Because it is not desirable that, at any election of Assembly members, a person should be both a candidate to be an Assembly constituency member and a candidate to be an Assembly regional member
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 3, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason 3A.
Since your Lordships’ House last debated this Bill, the Government have come forward with a package of amendments that I hope will form the basis of a cross-party consensus to achieve Royal Assent before the Recess. The package of amendments addresses a number of concerns quite properly raised by noble Lords during previous debates on the Bill. The arrangements for the composition of committees have been changed to make it clearer that the d’Hondt formula will be used only as a fallback if cross-party agreement cannot be reached. Concessions have also been agreed on the membership of the Assembly commission and the name of the Audit Committee. The debates on the details of the Bill have now been had. I hope that we can all join together to make the new powers work, rather than continuing to pursue old arguments.
The Bill’s passage and the success of the Assembly’s new powers rest in your Lordships’ hands today. If the Bill is delayed until the autumn, it will have to compete for scarce parliamentary time with other major legislation in the spillover. A delay would also condense into a dangerously short timescale a number of interdependent preparations that need to be made to implement the Bill; for example, the preparation of the new standing orders and a number of major pieces of secondary legislation, including the elections order, the disqualifications order, and the Schedule 7 amendment order. Unless the Assembly is able to start these preparations now, the success of the Assembly’s transition to the new powers could well be put in jeopardy. That is a view held not only by the Government but by the Assembly’s Presiding Officer, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, and a former leader of Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Wigley. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, in his place as—I hope—we complete this Bill.
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It is in that context that we consider the proposal in the Bill to put the voters back in charge by banning dual candidacy. The dual candidacy ban was an explicit manifesto commitment. Our 2005 general election manifesto stated that we would prevent candidates standing both on the list and in a constituency, in order to make all candidates genuinely accountable to the electorate, and to end Assembly Members being elected via the back door even when they have already been rejected by voters. That is a clear commitment from a manifesto that we took to the country last May and on the basis of which we won a resounding victory, both in Wales and in the rest of the country. Both Houses have considered the matter at length and the proposal was supported by considerable majorities in the other place.
There can be no question at all of the Government giving way on this issue. The ban on dual candidacy will strengthen the integrity of the Assembly’s electoral system and the legitimacy of regional Assembly Members. It will put voters in charge by enabling them to reject a candidate who can currently get in through the back door despite being rejected by the voters. I appreciate that the issue has aroused strong feelings, but we have a convention in this House that we do not stand in the way of a manifesto commitment of a democratically elected Government. To insist on this amendment would not only be a clear breach of that convention; it would put at risk everything else that the Bill seeks to achieve.
As the Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Peter Black has said, opposition to the proposed ban on dual candidacy is a,
Mr Black is no fan of the proposed ban, but on that point I believe that he is entirely correct.
The Government have accepted a number of improvements proposed by noble Lords, and are seeking to move forward on the basis of consensus. The ban on dual candidacy is a manifesto commitment, and I hope that noble Lords will recognise that so that we can all join together in the interests of Wales.
Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendment No 3, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason numbered 3A.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I begin by thanking the Government for accepting the thrust of our amendments on the composition and membership of the Assembly commission, Assembly committees and the title of the Audit Committee. These amendments were supported in the Division Lobby by substantial majorities of your Lordships and were clearly worthy of further consideration by the Government. We also had a new Welsh language clause, thanks mainly to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
I am happy to acknowledge the Secretary of State’s rather negative but nevertheless welcome appreciation of our efforts when he said in the other place last Tuesday that he was,
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- “not seeking to deny that there have been real improvements to the Bill as a result of debates and arguments in the Lords and the amendments that have been moved there”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/06; col. 192.]
That is in contrast to the very tetchy, almost hysterical remarks about the Bill’s prospects by the Secretary of State, which were surprisingly rather echoed in the Minister’s opening speech.
We can safely claim to have thrown some light on a few of the darker corners of the Bill and to have properly done our job of scrutinising it. Of course, we regret that the Government did not accept more of the amendments that your Lordships supported. One of them, which the noble Lord mentioned, preserved the dual candidacy system introduced by the Government in the Government of Wales Act 1998. That system has served Wales reasonably well in two Assembly elections. The prohibition of such candidacies under the present Bill has been roundly criticised by a string of authoritative bodies from the Electoral Commission to the Arbuthnott commission. Robert Hazell, the authoritative director of the constitution unit of University College, London, described it as,
The change is undoubtedly partisan in that it is an attempt to protect the interests of the sitting constituency Members against the rivalry of regional list members. It is not irrelevant that all Labour members of the Assembly are constituency members and none are regional list members. Whether the prohibition will succeed in improperly protecting sitting constituency Members remains to be seen. What it will do, as Arbuthnott pointed out, is,
Political parties will have to find more candidates and this increase may affect quality.
Nevertheless, the fact has to be faced that the political parties in Wales have already reconciled themselves to the requirements of this legislation even before its passage into law and are already appointing candidates to contest the Assembly election next May. There is therefore not much practical point in pursuing our amendment. However, we remain of the view that the Government were wrong to make the change that they have done for the reasons that they made it. It was not justified, except in terms of very dubious party political advantage. I do not propose to suggest to my colleagues on these Benches that we support the Government; I suggest that they abstain.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I apologise for not being here when the debate started, but it started 25 minutes early, which is very good. At this moment, I should be a steward in the Royal Welsh Show, taking around overseas judges to judge educational stands—20 in all—but government business managers have decided that I must be here today. Of course, this is very important legislation for Wales, and I could not possibly be anywhere else on this occasion.
Motion A, resisting Amendment No. 3, is one of the key issues that we have debated in the Bill. We find
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As the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, said, the Electoral Commission is among those who have criticised this most vociferously. In its submission to the Welsh Affairs Committee, which was looking at this system, it was not convinced at all of the need for a change. Also, the Electoral Reform Society has condemned it as not appropriate for the situation in Wales. None the less, the clock is ticking, and there are matters in the Bill, particularly the possibility of getting primary legislative powers in due course, that are too important to ignore. We have to look at this overall, but we can say that we are most unsatisfied with the electoral system. In the other place, our Members voted against it, and that is the elected House. Here, we must come to some kind of agreement.
It is with a heavy heart that I look at this modification. The Minister will know that we proposed the single transferable vote as our preferred system, which was also the recommended, preferred system of the Richard commission. The Government will not accept that, one might suggest, because there are divisions of opinion in the Labour Party about one or two of the aspects. I do not want to go on for a long time about that; we have had that debate. We will look at this as a final act that may come back to haunt the Labour Party in due course.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, I declare an interest as the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales. I apologise for my absences, which were in pursuit of that function, at a time when the political situation in the Assembly is of some interest to noble Lords. I apologise that I was not able to take part in the early debates. I thank all noble Lords who have participated, especially those who kindly referred to some of my remarks in my absence. I have been very well represented on earth by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Livsey. I, too, should have been at the Royal Welsh, but we look forward to being there tomorrow.
I also thank the Government for the way in which they have compromised on the package of issues. I may say something later, on Motion C, about committee structure. However, as regards this issue, I am still of the view philosophically that it is wrong. I have concerns about its implications, but I am prepared to vote for it because it is more important that we get on with the Bill, for the reasons that the Minister indicated.
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4 pm
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I shall make a few brief points; if it is of any comfort to the Minister, I do not intend to say anything on the later Motions.
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