Clause 40 - Payment of inquiry expenses by Minister
Inquiries Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Mr Paul Tyler (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons; North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
I am sympathetic to at least the intentions of the amendment. The Minister may recall that concerns were raised in the other place by my noble Friends and others about subsection (3), which originally used the phrase “reasonably incurred expenses”, and that seems to have been dealt with.
The amendment, which would remove subsections (4) and (5), is useful. I hope that it will at least enable the Minister to explain in more detail exactly how the channel of communication between the chair of an inquiry panel and the appropriate Minister will operate. I hope that there would never be a situation in which a panel was acting outside its terms of reference. I am sure that we all take that view, but in such circumstances it is important that the means of communication are absolutely clear to all concerned and I hope that that can be clarified now. Considering that the Government gave way on the issue of the Minister consulting the chair of the inquiry when setting up and amending the terms of reference, that matter becomes even more important.
The Committee may wish the Minister to explain how the chair of an inquiry could have some come-back on an issue of this sort. If, for example, the Minister notifies the chair that he has been acting outside his terms of reference, does that chair then have a right of appeal, as it were, and an opportunity to explain to the Minister why he acted as he did? We can all imagine circumstances in which an action was totally reasonable, but an explanation may be required. We may need to know precisely why the circumstances have arisen, but in addition we may need to specify in the Bill how that dialogue is to take place. After all, in other circumstances it would simply require the Minister’s belief that the chairman had acted outside the terms of reference, which would clearly be unsatisfactory. I hope that the Minister will clarify precisely how that relationship is intended to develop so that we can avoid any possible difficulties.