Examination of Witness (Questions 460-479)
Lord Truscott
13 MARCH 2009
Q460 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Let us
not deal in abstracts but what you were actually saying there,
looking at it now, your words, was that you could talk to the
head of the Bill team who would not talk to a researcher. That
is what it means, is it not, and that was what you meant?
Lord Truscott: I think that is the reality,
yes. If I may finish. It is easier for me to pick up the phone,
ask the head of the Bill team, "What is the information on
this Bill? Where are we at with this Bill?" If a parliamentary
researcher does that he probably will not talk to him, will he?
Q461 Lord Irvine of Lairg: You can
find out what the state of progress of a Bill is simply by looking
at Hansard. The purpose of ringing the head of the Bill team presumably,
or saying you can do it, is to persuade the head of the Bill team
of the merit of a particular amendment, is that right?
Lord Truscott: No, that is absolute nonsense,
if I may say so. The thing is as a Bill goes through there will
be amendments moved, there will be concessions made, the timetable
may shift and you do not get a sense of all that by just looking
at Hansard and the debates in committee. The Government may move
its position, it may decide to take on board certain amendments,
it may decide that it wants to make certain concessions, the timetable
may be shortened or lengthened. The relevant person to talk to
to find the state of play at a given point in time, and it may
be between various stages of the Bill—That is the other
thing, you have the Bill being introduced and three to six months
later it progresses through the House, it may fall behind other
legislation.
Q462 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I am a
little bit puzzled by this because I would have thought the person
to ask would be the Minister really who is in political control
day-to-day of the Bill. The Bill team's function is a supportive
one to the Minister.
Lord Truscott: It is possible that you
could ask the Minister in a sort of normal briefing, because there
are regular briefings usually held with Ministers as the Bill
goes through.
Q463 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Or you
could ask to see the Minister. If it is a Minister in the Lords
there would be no difficulty about that. What I am trying to get
at is what you want out of the head of the Bill team.
Lord Truscott: I am only talking about
finding out information. You do not ring up the head of the Bill
team or talk to the Bill team and suggest an amendment, that is
not the way that amendments are made in this place or the Commons.
You do not propose amendments to civil servants. It is true that
you could discuss this with the Minister. Again, if you were a
consultant it would probably be inappropriate to fix up a special
meeting with the Minister, but I guess if it was for information
purposes that would be all right. There are regular briefings
that Ministers hold as a Bill is going through that any MP or
peer can attend to ascertain information on the progress of a
Bill. I think that would be appropriate. Similarly, contact with
the Bill team to ask what the situation with the Bill is. Like
yourself, I have been a Minister and I know other Members have
been in government. How the process works is that the Bill team
largely manages the process of a Bill going through Parliament.
The policy has already been formulated largely or the Ministers
or the House of Lords or the Commons will have input into the
process. The Bill team is purely responsible for the management
of the process. Contacting them to find out information on the
process and maybe changes to the Bill as it passes through both
Houses of Parliament or any changes in the view of the Government
is totally appropriate. The changes do not come through the Bill
team, the changes come through either the changes the Government
makes, the political masters, as it were, or amendments that have
been moved in the Commons or the Lords. To say that I would contact
the head of the Bill team to suggest moving an amendment is just
not, quite frankly, how the process of legislation works. It would
not be appropriate and it would not work. It is just totally inappropriate
and it is not how laws are made in this country.
Q464 Lord Dholakia: Can I pursue
that point as one who has moved a large number of amendments in
my time. What I still cannot understand is if you want to know
about the process, that is what you are talking about, it is perfectly
easy to find out the process in terms of going to the Printed
Paper Office, to find out what sort of amendments are coming through,
et cetera, but I would have thought it was most improper to approach
an official when the Minister is not there. At almost every meeting
that one has with the Minister, the officials are with him or
her. I have always believed that the correct approach is to approach
the Minister for the purposes of discussing issues. The Minister
could come around and say, "We will explain the process to
you", so why do you want to speak to the officials? I cannot
understand that.
Lord Truscott: Lord Dholakia, I think
you can do either or you can do both. In the case of the Energy
Bill, the Bill team actually said that they had a number of meetings
with Members of the House of Lords and MPs, either individually
or collectively, to brief them on the Bill. That was what the
Bill team said. I was one of those Members who had one meeting
with them and they briefed me on the Bill. It is not inappropriate,
it is perfectly appropriate. I understand in your case that is
not the way you go about things, and that is fine.
Q465 Lord Dholakia: I did say it
is perfectly proper for a Bill team to say, "These are the
issues we would like to brief you about", I have got no difficulty
with that, but I do not go around saying, "I would like to
find out about the process of that particular Bill, so can I come
and see you?"
Lord Truscott: What I was suggesting
was I would merely ask for a briefing, either at a meeting or—The
reality is that they would not give you the information over the
phone, they would ask for a meeting and you would have a meeting
and you would be briefed either as an individual Member of this
House or with your colleagues, or with a combination of MPs and
peers. That is perfectly appropriate and that was all I was talking
about. I was not talking about any private approach to have a
chat with an official to try to get them to change Government
policy, that was not what I was talking about. If you contact
the officials in the relevant departments during the course of
the Energy Bill they will tell you that everything that was done
was done appropriately.
Q466 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Can I
now ask you, Lord Truscott, to move to the transcript of the second
meeting, that was the meeting on Wednesday 21 January at the St
James' Club. If you have got the transcript of that to hand, and
I hope that we can take this comparatively quickly, if you go
to the top of page 7 you tell them that it would be sensible to
find out what the other lobbying groups are doing, perfectly correct,
and at the foot of the page, the very last couple of lines, "It
would be to, say, have a meeting with opposition MPs or individual
MPs and persuade them of the argument ..." That, I suppose
you would say, is to persuade these opposition MPs of the merit
of putting forward an amendment and that would be for them, the
lobbying company?
Lord Truscott: That is right.
Q467 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I do not
really understand this, so maybe you can help me. About two-thirds
of the way down you say, "And then—I mean really, on
that one, what you need to then do is, I'd invite private frontbenchers
who are taking it through the Commons and the Lords."
Lord Truscott: Which page are we on?
Chairman: Page 7 of the second meeting.
Q468 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Are you
with me?
Lord Truscott: Yes.
Q469 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I pointed
out to you at the bottom of the page that you were explaining
the merits of having meetings with opposition MPs or individual
MPs and then I was pointing out to you that further up the page
you said: "...I mean really, on that one, what you need to
then do is, I'd invite private frontbenchers who are taking it
through the Commons and the Lords. Caroline Spelman has just been
made the new shadow local government ..." Pausing there,
what did you mean by that? What were you offering to do?
Lord Truscott: This is about expressions
again. "What you need to do is ...", I am telling them
what they need to do. When I said, "I'd invite private frontbenchers
..." I meant if I were you.
Q470 Lord Irvine of Lairg: That means
"If I were you"—
Lord Truscott: "I'd invite private frontbenchers".
Q471 Lord Irvine of Lairg: That means
"If I were you"?
Lord Truscott: Yes.
Q472 Lord Irvine of Lairg: You did
not mean that you would do that for them?
Lord Truscott: No.
Q473 Lord Irvine of Lairg: If you
go on to page 9, you were asked, "How far are you able to
help us in all of this? PT: Well, as I said to you before, I mean,
I can work with you over it, and it is, it, you know, identifying
people and, obviously, following it and identifying people to
talk to talking with people to facilitate the amendments and make
sure that the thing is drafted. I mean, I think it's got to be
a sort of partnership as it were." As I read that it means
that you would be talking with people to facilitate the amendment,
but I dare say you are going to tell us that is not what it means.
Lord Truscott: No, my Lord, it is not.
"Well, as I said to you before, I mean, I can work with you
over it, and it is, it, you know, identifying people and, obviously,
following it and identifying people to talk to ..." That
would be my role. It is in the second half, "... to talking
with people to facilitate the amendments and make sure that the
thing is drafted." That is their role because earlier they
talked about drafting an amendment and having counsel to do that.
Then I go on to say, "I mean, I think it's got to be a sort
of partnership, as it were". So it is a division of roles.
Q474 Lord Irvine of Lairg: So it
is not, as it were, a partnership of equals in the sense that
you are both going to be doing the same thing, but it is you introducing
and then talking.
Lord Truscott: Identifying, not introducing.
Q475 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Forgive
me, identifying.
Lord Truscott: Yes, that is right, which
would be consistent with everything else that I was saying, including
at the first meeting.
Q476 Lord Irvine of Lairg: So when
you say, "talking with people" you meant to signify
to them that they would have to do the talking?
Lord Truscott: Well, I concede that I
would have to talk to people on occasions to identify people who
would be sympathetic to the sort of proposals they were suggesting.
Q477 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Pausing
there, when you did that, talk to people to see if they would
be sympathetic to an approach by the lobbying company, were you
going to follow a self-denying ordinance that you would abstain
from recommending the merit of the amendment whilst at the same
time finding out if they would be in favour of it?
Lord Truscott: I was talking about identifying
people that they, the public affairs company, could approach to
make their pitch and to lobby.
Q478 Lord Irvine of Lairg: You could
not do that without discovering whether the people whose names
you were to mention to the lobbying company were of a view in
favour of the amendment.
Lord Truscott: Not necessarily. I think,
Lord Irvine, you are putting it a bit crudely in favour of the
amendment. Probably an amendment would not be drafted or thought
about at this stage. What I was talking about, for example, was
identifying Members of the House of Lords, in this case who were
interested in, say, the Business Supplementary Rate Bill. Presumably
there would be some Members of the House who would be interested
in the issues and some who would not and then you could identify
Members who were interested in the Business Supplementary Rate
Bill, find out what their views were on it, some may be very keyed
up about it and know about the issues of whether there should
be a ballot on the supplementary rate or whether there should
be an exemption. So you talk to them, identify who has the interest
and then on the specific position that the public affairs company
wanted to lobby on, they would then have to talk to the Member
to present their case and push their case, which may or may not
be accepted or rejected.
Q479 Lord Irvine of Lairg: When you
get a little further into page 9 you ask, "Caroline Spelman?
No, no. I know, you know, some of the MPs and I know all the Tories
in the Lords, so I've got no problems with approaching them."
The purpose of approaching the Tories in the Lords would be?
Lord Truscott: To identify their views
on this issue.
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