Examination of Witnesses (Questions 334
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL 2009
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Chris Bryant MP
Q334 Chairman:
Lord President, Mr Bryant, may I welcome you most warmly on behalf
of the Committee and thank you very much indeed for joining us
this morning. We are being audio recorded. Could I ask you, please,
to formally identify yourselves simply for the record and then
thereafter to make a brief opening statement if you so wish.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: Baroness Royall
of Blaisdon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of
the Council.
Chris Bryant: I am Chris Bryant. I am Deputy
Leader of the House of Commons and MP for the Rhondda.
Q335 Chairman:
Lord President, did you want to say a few words by way of introduction?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lord Chairman,
My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief opening statement putting
into context the written submission that the Leader of the House
of Commons and I have already provided you with. It is a great
pleasure, of course, to appear before this Committee and we are
both grateful for the opportunity to contribute evidence to your
timely inquiry on emergency legislation. Our view is that it is
difficult to apply precise categories for emergency legislation.
It is a term generally applied to bills which have an expedited
passage through Parliament. The extent of the expedition has varied
greatly, depending on the need, but in all cases it is done through
cross-party agreement and all such bills have been subject to
the same stages as other bills in both Houses. Bills are expedited
in this way only because there is cross-party agreement on a deadline
for Royal Assent. Reasons for such a deadline can vary, as can
the amount of time available for the stages of parliamentary scrutiny
depending on real world circumstances. Historically these reasons
have included the need to respond quickly to court judgments,
real world crises or the discovery of gaps in existing statute
law, but this is not a prescriptive list. In all cases, ensuring
the maximum possible degree of parliamentary scrutiny is paramount
in such circumstances. Both Chris and I regard it as being a key
facet of our roles as business managers within government to uphold
the rights and legitimate expectations of both Houses in the legislative
process and this will continue to be the case. We of course look
forward to your questions.
Q336 Chairman:
Lord President, thank you very much indeed. Perhaps I could kick
off by asking you to expand more specifically on what you have
said in your very, very helpful opening statement. In the written
submission which you kindly sent to the Committee you said that
"the range of circumstances in which it might be necessary
to expedite the passage of a bill is so great that it is not possible
to come up with a rigid set of criteria." Could you say what
you think the circumstances are that make it justifiable for the
Government to seek to fast-track bills through Parliament? What
constitutional principles or conventions (if any) ought to inform
parliamentary consideration of whether to give a bill an accelerated
passage?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: Constitutionally
I do not think that an expedited bill is any different from any
other bill which is passing through Parliament. An expedited bill
merely means that the timing is different, but it still has to
go through the same legislative process as any other bill, therefore
I do not think that constitutionally there is any difference.
In what circumstances? I think it is extremely difficult to define
the circumstances because who knows what the circumstances might
be. I have mentioned already that sometimes we have to respond
to court judgments, as, indeed, we did with the Criminal Evidence
(Witness Anonymity) Act 2008. Sometimes it might be to respond
to world economic crises, as with the Banking (Special Provisions)
Act 2008; and sometimes it might be in relation to the discovery
of gaps in existing statute law. I think it is very difficult—and
not only difficult but I think it would be wrong—to define
circumstances because expeditious legislation or emergency legislation
is there precisely to react to certain circumstances which by
their very nature are indefinable.
Q337 Chairman:
Thank you, Lord President. Do you have anything further?
Chris Bryant: The only thing I would add is
that in the House of Commons we have to have an allocation of
time motion for us to be able to proceed in the first place, and
during that debate, inevitably, the whole nature of the discussion
is whether or not we should be expediting this particular piece
of legislation and the Government has to defend its argument.
I think we also rely very heavily on the fact that in your House
you have to work by cross-party consensus, so that is a very important
sort of stricture on us. We have our process through the allocation
of time motion and you have your process through the cross-party
consensus that you have to achieve that makes sure there is a
constitutional certainty about the way we proceed with expedited
legislation.
Q338 Lord Woolf:
Over the past 20 years, we understand, there have been about 34
bills that have been fast-tracked. Obviously that is a very small
percentage, which does suggest that it is being properly used,
but what are your views about the number of bills? When you are
deciding a question of whether it is to be expedited or not, is
it the bill as a whole which you consider or is it sometimes just
put on a particular provision?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: You are absolutely
right, My Lord, that in fact it is only a very small percentage.
As I understand it, there have been over 900 Acts of Parliament
passed in the last 20 years, so 34 is a relatively small amount.
I cannot remember the exact number, but about 11 of those relate
to Northern Ireland, and of course, with the Northern Ireland
Peace Process, that has meant that there have had to be a lot
more emergency Northern Ireland bills than one would necessarily
have expected. Is this the right number? Is this the right percentage?
Only time will tell. It is very difficult to know what would have
happened if those bills had not been expedited; therefore it is
very difficult to judge whether or not that was the right percentage.
Q339 Lord Morris of Aberavon:
Lord President, I have read with very great interest the most
helpful memorandum from the Leaders of both Houses. If I may say
so, it is an excellent document. Lord Goodlad has put to you the
relevant paragraph, paragraph 15 of the memorandum, which we have
also put to other witnesses, and it seems to me, and I would like
your observations on it, that it is an open-ended criterion: anything
the Government thinks with the agreement of the other parties
is good for the course. There are no limitations. Would that be
right?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: Yes. I think I
would agree, My Lord, that it is by necessity open-ended, because
if one were to put strictures on it that might be very dangerous
because a situation might arise in which expedited legislation
was necessary and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to
put forward that legislation precisely because limits had been
set.
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