Letter from Lord Howe of Aberavon
Rather belatedly—but you told me that
it was not impossible—I offered to give you my thoughts
in response to your circular of 2 April.
My first point is already being reflected, in, for
example, The Work of The House of Lords, 2007-08, on page
14, which lists all the contributors to the economic debate. I
believe this can be taken very much further—and by way of
illustration, I enclose (in a modest bundle) [submitted but not
printed] half a dozen pages extracted from two earlier publications
of mine. You will see that they give much more detail about the
nature of expertise, which is available and being regularly deployed.
This suggests to me that it might be desirable
for the conclusion, (either of the complete passage of a bill
or of one of its stages) to be accompanied by some kind of press
release, identifying not only the quality of the participants
but also the impact of the work of the House on that particular
bill—identifying not the negative sounding "defeats"
of HMG but the quality and number of changes made in a bill after
they have been commended to and accepted by the Commons (and HMG)
as a result of decisions taken in our House. I can, of course,
enlarge my case by giving other examples, if requested.
My second point is much simpler—and has
often been made before: namely the tendency of almost all the
guides, who conduct visitors round the House, to stress history,
architecture, pictures and so on—at the expense of saying
relatively little about the substantial impact of our contemporary
activity. This view is, of course, based upon my own eavesdropping—as
the location of my room requires me to travel frequently to and
fro through the Royal Gallery—when visitors are being briefed.
14 May 2009
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