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Review of House of Lords investigative and scrutiny committee activity in 2023–24 Contents

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Chapter 3: Special Inquiry Committees

Introduction

76.Special inquiry committees are a distinctive feature of House of Lords select committee work. Any member of the House is entitled to propose a special inquiry, with recommendations made by the Liaison Committee. They allow the House to direct committee work to areas of current interest and concern; and broaden the range of Members who are able to contribute to committee work. This Chapter summarises the four inquiries conducted during 2023, and then outlines the work of the Liaison Committee in following up the recommendations of earlier special inquiries.

AI in Weapon Systems Committee

77.The Committee began by holding a series of private scoping seminars with academics, practitioners and officials, to help inform the focus for its inquiry. The Committee received over 40 written submissions. It heard public evidence from 33 witnesses, initially focusing on high-level questions around the challenges and risks of AI in weapon systems, any necessary safeguards required, and the sufficiency of UK policy, before tackling more specific, technical areas. The Committee heard from a wide variety of witnesses to ensure that the ethical, legal and technical aspects of the topic were covered. The Committee also visited the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, Cambridge, Glasgow and Edinburgh, including hearing from PhD students and post-doctoral researchers from the University of Strathclyde who presented in response to a task to redesign an autonomous weapon. The Committee published its report Proceed with Caution: Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems on 1 December 2023.143

78.Key recommendations included: the UK should lead on international engagement to agree an effective international instrument on lethal autonomous weapons and to lead on engagement to prohibit the use of AI in nuclear command, control and communications; the UK should adopt an operational definition of autonomous weapons; and the UK should ensure meaningful human control at all stage of autonomous weapons. The Committee also made recommendations in relation to data sharing and security, testing of AI, retention of skilled civil servants, and procurement of AI.

79.Alongside publication of the report, the Committee published a series of short interviews between the Chair and a member of the committee144 and an animation on social media,145 and a shorthand version of the report.146 The report received good press coverage.147 The Government responded on 21 February 2024, accepting most recommendations.148

Education of 11–16 year olds Committee

80.The Education for 11–16 Year Olds Committee published its report Requires improvement: urgent change for 11–16 education149 on 12 December 2023. The Committee’s scrutiny focused on the curriculum for key stages 3 and 4, GCSE assessment and the metrics used to measure secondary schools’ performance, particularly the English Baccalaureate (EBacc).

81.During its inquiry, the Committee received over 100 pieces of written evidence and heard from more than 40 witnesses, including the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Rt. Hon. Andy Burnham, Ofsted’s then Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, and the then Minister of State for Schools, Rt. Hon. Nick Gibb MP. Committee members also took part in two online roundtable events, during which they discussed topics covered by the inquiry with teachers and pupils from schools across England.

82.The Committee concluded that the secondary education system is not adequately equipping young people to progress to the full range of post-16 options, including apprenticeships, or to flourish in the future. Among other recommendations, the Committee’s report called for the EBacc to be withdrawn and for the Government to move towards a slimmed-down model of assessment at the end of year 11. A response from the Government was published on 19 February 2024.150 This set out the Government’s view that while changes to the curriculum and school performance measures for key stages 3 and 4 are not currently necessary, there is a need to consider the burden of assessment at 16 and possibilities for streamlining this.

83.The report received considerable press coverage, including in national newspapers such as the Guardian and the Independent,151 and a wide range of industry publications, with an opinion piece by the Chair featuring in Tes.152 The Chair was also interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.153

Horticultural Sector Committee

84.The Committee published its report Sowing the seeds: a blooming English horticultural sector in November 2023.154 The Committee heard from 63 witnesses during its inquiry and accepted 94 pieces of written evidence.

85.The Committee undertook four visits during its inquiry. In May 2023, the Committee visited the Chelsea Flower Show. After a breakfast reception to hear speeches from experts on environmental horticulture, Members received a tour of the showground. During the visit, Baroness Fookes, who proposed the Committee, was presented with the Royal Horticultural Society’s inaugural Elizabeth Medal of Honour by HM The King for her services to horticulture.155 The Committee conducted two visits to horticultural firms in Kent, including a “vertical farm”. The Committee also visited the Netherlands, where Members toured the World Horti Centre, met officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and visited horticultural research institutions.

86.In September 2023, the Committee hosted a recording of BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time in the Palace of Westminster. Four expert panellists and over 100 guests joined the Committee for the recording. The programme included interviews with the Chair, Lord Redesdale, and Baroness Fookes and was broadcast nationally in November 2023.156

87.The Committee made 93 recommendations to HM Government. The Committee’s report received considerable press coverage across a diverse range of publications. This included industry publications, like The Grocer and Farmers’ Weekly, as well as national newspapers.157 The Bureau of Investigative Journalism covered the Committee’s work on the treatment of seasonal agricultural workers.158 The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) responded to the Committee’s report in February 2023.159 While the Government did not accept several of the Committee’s key recommendations, during the report debate on 19 April 2024 Lord Douglas-Miller, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary at DEFRA, reported that “Earlier this year, we announced a range of measures to boost resilience and innovation in the sector, including the largest-ever grant offer, expected to total £427 million … Many of those new initiatives were the result of the committee’s report”.160

Integration of Primary and Community Care Committee

88.The Committee published its report Patients at the centre: integrating primary and community care in December 2023.161 The purpose of its inquiry was to investigate how local health services can work together more effectively with the rest of the NHS and social care. The Committee heard oral evidence from 74 witnesses and received 76 submissions of written evidence. This included international experts on integration, who told the Committee about the approach taken by health services in other countries.

89.The Committee visited a GP surgery–Pimlico Health at The Marven–which hosts innovative integration projects. Members learnt about how charities, local authorities, medical professionals, patients, carers and volunteers can work together to provide preventative health care in the community, which can reduce the likelihood of people needing more serious hospital care. The Committee also visited Coventry City Council to meet with leaders of local health organisations. The Committee hosted a private roundtable event at the Palace of Westminster where over 20 healthcare workers and patients from across the UK were able to tell Members about their experience of providing and receiving joined-up care in the NHS.

90.The Committee concluded their evidence gathering with scrutiny of the then Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) Ministers and officials at two public hearings. The Committee’s final report made 16 recommendations to HM Government, receiving press coverage from specialist sector publications.162 DHSC published their response to the report in March 2024.163 The report was debated in the House of Lords in May 2024. The then DHSC Minister, Lord Markham, acknowledged Committee Members’ disappointment with the earlier written response, but stated that “we agree with the whole emphasis of the report and its recommendations, the analysis of the problems and the need to focus resources on primary care and prevention. We also agree with the substance of most of the recommendations.”164

Liaison Committee special inquiry follow-up

91.The Liaison Committee concluded its follow-up inquiry into the Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities, which reported in April 2019. The Committee published its report on 21 July 2023165 and the Government response was received on 3 November 2023.166 The Government accepted the recommendation that it should allocate responsibility for seaside towns and communities to a Ministerial portfolio in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and coastal communities was added to the portfolio of the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Levelling Up. The Government also accepted the Committee’s recommendation to keep Education Investment Areas and Priority Education Investment Areas under review to ensure these are targeting the areas that need it the most and that best practice from these Areas should be collated and shared.

92.The Committee wrote follow-up letters on the former special inquiry committees on the Bribery Act 2010, Intergenerational Fairness and Provision, Democracy and Digital Technologies, Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, Risk Assessment and Risk Planning and Youth Unemployment.167 The Government has provided detailed responses to the letters in providing an update since the committees made their recommendations.168

Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee

93.The Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee was initially appointed in September 2020 to “scrutinise and consider matters relating to common frameworks” until the end of the 2019–21 parliamentary session.169 Common frameworks are agreements under which the UK Government and the devolved administrations seek to coordinate the regulation of the UK’s post-Brexit internal market.

94.As the Government’s timetable for agreeing common frameworks slipped, the Liaison Committee agreed to extend the work of the Committee. On 28 November 2022, a final extension was agreed until the end of 2023, during which any outstanding frameworks published by the Government in that period would be scrutinised by the Committee.170 However, in the absence during that period of functioning Northern Ireland political institutions, common frameworks published in provisional form could not be finalised and further progress could not be made on the four outstanding unpublished frameworks. The Committee was therefore not able to undertake any further scrutiny within the terms of its remit.

95.On 24 October 2023, the Committee’s Chair, Baroness Andrews, wrote a final letter to the then Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, summarising the conclusions of the Committee drawn from its detailed scrutiny of the 28 published frameworks, 22 oral evidence sessions and publication of two reports.171 The letter congratulated the UK and devolved governments on the progress made in agreeing the majority of the frameworks in provisional form, while reiterating a number of concerns about the delivery and coordination of the common frameworks programme.172 The then Minister responded on 8 November 2023 and the Committee’s remit formally expired on 31 December 2023.173

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