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Viscount Bledisloe: I am not sure that the Committee fully understands the full import of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. As I understand it, it is not only applicable to Bills which are subject to pre-legislative scrutiny but suggests that all Bills should have a fixed 12 months in which to pass or to fall whether or not they have been subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny. It is a very much wider idea.
I do not believe we can possibly agree it today because it will need agreement with the House of Commons, but I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House will take the idea away and set up a Joint Committee with the Commons to discuss it. In my view, it has enormous advantages. It provides all the discipline that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, rightly said we needed, and it also spreads the workload. It would mean that this House could work fairly evenly throughout the year instead of spending the first three months in idle debate and the final three months in hectic ping-pong. That is not only tedious and tiresome but it brings politics very much into disrepute.
If every Bill had 12 months and no more to live, that would be very much better and would provide much more discipline. After all, if the Government wanted to get a Bill through they could extend Sessions. It would mean that our business could be very much more programmed. One would know that a Session would end on a certain date and the programme could be fixed. The amendment has enormous advantages. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will say that he will put in hand steps to consider it.
I entirely agree with the sentiments behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, some of which are in the report of the Procedure Committee. It states in paragraph 6:
- "We support group recommendation (a)"—
- "provided that the quality of pre-legislative scrutiny is maintained at a high level and also that pre-legislative scrutiny committees are not required to work to unreasonably tight timetables or to consider draft Bills that are incomplete".
I very much hope that we will stick to that principle and refuse carry-over for any Bill which does not comply with it. The horror story told by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, about the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill he is considering—of a half-baked Bill, half of which is missing; of witnesses kept waiting—is a disgrace to those who sat on the committee, to the witnesses who were kept waiting and to the parliamentary process. If that kind of thing happens, I hope that we will not give a Bill carry over because it would bring the pre-legislative scrutiny procedure into contempt. Properly done it should produce better Bills and enable witnesses to feel that they had had time to express their views.
It would be much easier if the Government could be persuaded to change a Bill before it was printed, rather than their standard response of the Minister at the Dispatch Box being told to defend it come what may because that is what the parliamentary draftsman has put there. It would be a great improvement on that kind of situation.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: Perhaps I may speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. Members of the Committee have talked about discipline and balance, and his amendment seems to introduce both those qualities. It proposes a fixed period of a rolling 12 months, as opposed to an artificial date set only by the ending of the parliamentary year.
I also want to say a few words in support of my noble friend Lord Lucas, and in particular in support of his request that draft secondary legislation should be available to members of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee. I had the opportunity to take part in the Committee stage of the State Pension Credit Bill. It was a complex, technical Bill, not necessarily highly party-political except in its incidence. Absolutely central to the Bill, forming the guts of the Bill, was the secondary legislation—the regulations that would be drawn up to give effect to its provisions. To be honest, most of those pieces of legislation were not available either until very late on during the passage of the Bill through this House, or indeed they were not available at all. Such pieces of legislation might well be suitable for pre-legislative scrutiny. If pre-legislative scrutiny is to have any effect at all, my noble friend's requirement that secondary legislation be available is essential.
Lord Carter: I am intrigued by the amendment. As I understand the proposal, this would apply to all Bills, whether or not they were eligible for carry-over. Is that
correct? The amendment states that any Bill that has not received Royal Assent at more or less the same time—12 months after its introduction—shall be deemed to have fallen. I should be interested—
Lord Elton: I have before me the anticipatory agreement of my noble friend in whose name the amendment stands. It states:
- "We recommend that government Bills should be eligible for carry-over but subject to the provision".
Lord Carter: I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, nodded when the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, asked whether it would apply to all Bills.
Lord Norton of Louth: My understanding of what the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, was saying was that the proposal was not confined solely to those Bills that received pre-legislative scrutiny. That was my point. I was merely aggregating the two things. I was referring to Bills that were subject to carry-over, which would be a much broader category than simply those that were subject to pre-legislative scrutiny.
Lord Sheldon: I am very concerned about the parliamentary year. It is a most distorted one. At the very beginning, we have a large number of Second Reading speeches and virtually no Committee stages. The committee rooms are empty. At the end of it, we have very few Second Reading debates, but the Committee stages continue through the night and so on. This is clearly a nonsense. There is a very strong argument now for having this 12 month period. I should like a 12 month period from the date of the Second Reading speeches to the final Third Reading stage and the passage of the Bill—within that 12 months, whenever it may be. In that way, we could have a more ordered year. That would be more convenient in terms of the quality of the legislation and it would be for the convenience of both Houses.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, as I understand it—I shall be corrected by my noble friends if I am wrong—the proposal relates to the extant regime. All it is doing is providing a discipline under the extant regime. It is not related to whether there has been pre-legislative scrutiny.
Lord Carter: Would it apply to Bills that are carried over or to those that are eligible for carry-over?
Lord Norton of Louth: It would apply to Bills that are carried over.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I have not so far taken part in this debate, but I should like to add my voice to those urging the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the
House to examine this idea again. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth has made a very strong case. I have been impressed by the way in which it has attracted support on all sides of the Committee. I instance the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, who has addressed the problem and found the attractions of this case.There was no logic in connecting the question of pre-legislative scrutiny to the issue of carry-over other than simply saying that this provided an extra trip-wire; namely, that there could be no carry-over if there had been no pre-legislative scrutiny. With the greatest respect to the Procedure Committee, that is illogical.
What one is looking for is an opportunity to spread the parliamentary year in a more balanced way while leaving the discipline of a time limit, imposed on both Houses and on the Government, which nevertheless would allow a Bill to be introduced in the middle or towards the end of a Session which would not automatically fall if it had not been passed by the end of the Session. That seems an extraordinarily sensible proposal. It is an improvement on what is in the Procedure Committee's report. I urge the noble and learned Lord not to dismiss this idea out of hand.
Viscount Bledisloe: Perhaps I may defend the Procedure Committee and explain one point. The committee did not consider the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and decide on this one instead. The committee had decided on what is in the report, and the report of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, came before it only at a stage when it was too late to consider it. There is no question of the Procedure Committee having rejected the proposal and having made a mistake. The idea of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is a new one, and—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin—a better one.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may add to the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. I raised the question of the Norton report at the final meeting of the Procedure Committee. Unfortunately, I was told that I was out of order for considering the noble Lord's report because he had not submitted an amendment for the Procedure Committee to consider. It was said to me physically across the table in the committee that, if only the noble Lord had presented an amendment, it could have been considered. As I recorded at the time, I had enormous sympathy with the proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and I hope that the Committee will consider it.
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