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Lord Lucas: I am grateful for what the noble and learned Lord has said. I am happy to take his advice and seek to pursue the matter through discussions. The key is information. I never know what committees exist, what is proposed and when vacancies arise. Some way of making that information available would be helpful. It would also be helpful to know how my interests should be registered if I am to get on to such committees. If that could be formalised so that I knew how to do it, that would be helpful. However, within that, I am happy to wait and see what ways might suit best the ordinary working of the House.
Having said that, I now turn to a moment of flattery. My noble friend Lord Geddes raised the question of paragraph 12. The answers which the noble and learned Lord gave to the Statement were an admirable example of how to be concise and informative at the same time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux): I must advise the Committee that if Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 are agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 7 and 8.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 5:
- Page 4, line 7, leave out "We recommend that the House should now take this endorsement a stage further and agree to Group recommendation (b)," and insert "We reject Group recommendation (b) and recommend that no changes be made to the present practice on carry-over."
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 5 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 6 and 9. I believe that the question of carry-over is one of the most important issues which the Procedure Committee considered following the deliberations of the Leader's Group. I recognise at once that there are differing and respectable points of view on the matter. I know that others do not agree with me. I am sorry about that but my view is as follows and I hope that I can persuade some of your Lordships to the same view.
For centuries—at least for generations—it has been the position that any Bill brought before Parliament must be enacted during the course of that Session or else fall. As recently as the previous Session or the one before that, the position was breached with a particular Public Bill which it was decided should be agreed could be carried over.
That may not be quite correct, because that facility has been available to Private Bills for long time. But for a long time Public Bills have carried a restriction that they must be enacted during the Session in which they are introduced. I suppose that that is why, generally, Bills start their passage in another place and then come to your Lordships' House. If they have not passed through all stages in both Houses by the end of the Session, they fall.
I believe that that has always been an important constraint on governments. It is important for governments to be able to persuade Parliament of the merits of their legislation within a reasonable period and one Session has been taken to be that period. That is the basis upon which Back-Benchers are able to contest Public Bills if they disagree with them. They can table amendments; they can argue the merits of different parts of the Bill; and they can insist that the Bill is subjected to proper intervals between stages, as has long been the case in your Lordships' House and the other place.
If we are now to breach that principle fundamentally—and I believe that these proposals do so—that is a retrograde step. I have no doubt whatever that the need to get Bills through a particular Session is an important constraint upon governments and Ministers. It is a way in which Parliament can keep Ministers to account. They have to explain and justify the merits of their legislation within the required period. If that means that they have to stay up late at night, or that they have to delay having their dinner or going to bed, I am sorry about that, but that is the way it has been and the way it should be.
I recognise that a couple of years ago we agreed that a particular Bill could be carried over. That was a departure from the principle to which I have referred, but it would be a great mistake to widen the arrangements for the carry-over of Bills, as I proposed by the Leader's Group and endorsed by the Procedure
Committee in its report before the House. I know that other noble Lords want to express views similar and no doubt dissimilar to mine, but in the mean time I beg to move.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: Before turning to the question of carry-over, I want to say a word or two about pre-legislative scrutiny, which is dealt with in this group of amendments. Many noble Lords have already spoken on the subject.
The real problem is that we have too much legislation. If we did not have so much legislation we should manage perfectly well—as we have done in the past—without pre-legislative scrutiny. I have many misgivings about it and I have a nasty suspicion. It is all right if we decide to have pre-legislative scrutiny. We shall start with pre-legislative scrutiny and then have the other stages of the Bills—just as we have always had. But I have a nasty feeling that one day someone will have the bright idea that because we have pre-legislative scrutiny it is not necessary to have both a Committee and a Report stage.
We shall end up with one stage less in which the whole House takes part in the scrutiny of a Bill. That stage will be replaced by pre-legislative scrutiny. It will be done by a Select Committee and will not be open to all Members of the House. That is something that I do not like.
I have misgivings also because when the Scotland Bill was passing through the House, some noble Lords were concerned that the Parliament would not have a second chamber. We were told that that would not matter because there would be pre-legislative scrutiny and that the Executive would take account of that scrutiny. I think that they did for quite a while, but when the pre-legislative scrutiny committee recommended something that they did not like, the Executive paid not a blind bit of attention to it. If that has happened once, it could happen again. If it can happen there, it could happen here. That is why I am just a little worried about this issue.
I turn to carry-over. I do not like carry-over for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. To my mind it is an attempt to neutralise—and I would almost say sterilise—the opposition. As such, it is nothing more nor less than an affront to democracy. I also cannot help wondering whether any implications of carry-over on the Parliament Act have been carefully looked at.
Lord Dean of Harptree: I rise to support Amendment No. 5 moved by my noble friend, standing also in the name of the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, and to which I have added my name.
It is true that the Procedure Committee has suggested certain safeguards, notably that the carry-over procedure should apply only to Bills that have had pre-legislative scrutiny. I do not believe that that safeguard would survive the rough and tumble of parliamentary life. It would quickly be extended and probably moved entirely. Once carry-over were extended we should be on a dangerous and slippery
slope. That would be bad for Parliament. It would also be bad for the government of the day because a government needs a strong Parliament.How far would this safeguard operate? What would happen in the first Session of a Parliament, particularly when we have a new government? Do we really expect that a new government, fresh from the electorate, would sit on their hands for the whole of the first Session while they put their Bills to pre-legislative scrutiny? Of course not; they would be anxious to carry out their mandate. They would say that they had already had pre-legislative scrutiny by the electorate who elected them. I suggest that it would be difficult for the opposition of the day to withstand that argument.
A normal Session of Parliament is four years. Do we really expect that for a quarter of that period—namely, the first Session—there would be no effective legislation because there had been no pre-legislative scrutiny? Of course not; it would not work in that way in the real world.
Also, what about emergency Bills? Most Sessions these days have emergency legislation. Almost by the nature of things emergency Bills are not subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. But the Government of the day will say, "This is an emergency Bill. It should go through irrespective of the safeguards built in". Often, as we have discovered already in this Parliament, governments have the tendency to tack on to emergency Bills provisions which are not emergencies at all. Therefore, I suggest that the proposed safeguards are unlikely to stand the test of parliamentary time.
We should not abandon the principle which is hallowed by time, namely that if a government cannot persuade both Houses of Parliament by the end of the Session to agree a Bill, that Bill falls. It is a good discipline on the Government of the day. It may help them to resist the temptation to introduce more legislation than they can comfortably carry. Once we remove that discipline, the chances are that we shall get more and probably worse Bills. What we really need is fewer and better Bills.
Furthermore, it deprives the Opposition of one of its most powerful weapons. Often the Opposition can only talk. It has many voices and a long time to try to persuade the Government that their policy is wrong and should be amended. Once the opposition of the day is deprived of that weapon, it weakens the whole process of parliamentary procedure.
In conclusion, all noble Lords want to improve the working practices of this House. Many of the recommendations by the Leader's Group are welcome. But there is strong opposition from Back-Benchers on all sides of the House—which has been evident from the debates so far—to some of the recommendations. I hope therefore that with a little more time it will be possible to proceed by consensus.
I hope that the Procedure Committee report will not be agreed to today, but that more time will be given, so that there can be more adequate consultation with Back-Benchers on all sides of the House who are
unhappy about some of the proposals. I believe that with more time and consultation, and given good will on all sides, it should be possible to reach a consensus.
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