Extent of Duty to Fund Advice and Assistance

Part of Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 5:15 pm on 2 April 2001.

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Photo of Eric Forth Eric Forth Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst 5:15, 2 April 2001

I certainly will, Madam Deputy Speaker. My amendment refers to a draft of the regulations being laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House. You do not want me to give my modest analysis of the inadequacies of the scrutiny process in Standing Committee, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I shall have to deny that to myself and to the House. However, I want to emphasise the importance of proper scrutiny at the stage of introducing regulations—rather than in Standing Committee or in the introduction of primary legislation—to try to provide a safety net so that if, by some chance, proper scrutiny has not been possible in Standing Committee, we have the opportunity to pick up the pieces and provide the necessary degree of scrutiny.

That process would, nevertheless, be inadequate because—as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) would be the first to point out if I did not—no amendments would be allowed to be made at that stage, and I regret that. That is something we have to live with. The Procedure Committee has considered from time to time whether it should be possible to table amendments when introducing regulations, but has not yet seen fit to take the matter further. We must therefore accept that, in this case, scrutiny and accountability are available only on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

If my amendment were accepted, it would still be possible for the Government to lay the draft regulations before this House—and, I believe another place—and then say, "We, the Government, want you to approve this, and if you do not, it will fall." That is often used as a kind of blackmail, in which the Government say, "If you do not accept this, nothing will happen." I would often prefer nothing to happen. I often feel happier with nothing than with something flawed, bad or undesirable. Perhaps I have not yet been able to persuade my hon. Friends of that in a sufficient number of cases. However, in this case, I shall have to be satisfied with this degree of scrutiny and accountability, because, that is all that is procedurally available.

It is important to understand why I want both Houses to be involved in this process. I am very keen that we should always acknowledge the role of a bicameral Parliament, such as we have here. For those who argue for the so-called primacy or supremacy of the House of Commons over the House of Lords, my answer these days is that Members of the House of Commons show it increasingly less respect. They are prepared to turn up less and less often, so why we constantly talk about the supremacy of this place is increasingly beyond me.

For that and other reasons, I am more and more enthusiastic about ensuring that we involve the House of Lords in such processes as often as possible. If we undertook an analysis, which you would not want me to do at this stage, Madam Deputy Speaker, we would probably find that the attendance record of Members of the other place is better than that of Members of this place. Looking round the Chamber perhaps provides a good example of that.

More importantly, I want the regulations to be approved by both Houses because we have in the other place expertise and experience that is often not available in the House. That is an important factor. Notwithstanding the fact that there are distinguished legal experts sitting on all Front Benches, even they would perhaps admit in their different ways that scrutiny by another place might provide that extra bit of added value and quality in the parliamentary process which we, even on a good day, may not be able to provide.

Parliamentary scrutiny by both Houses provides that extra dimension, which is very valuable, and I leave it to my colleagues to make their own judgment about the value of scrutiny by the House of Commons when we have a Government with such a large majority. It is for another time for us to digress and debate the relative merits of majorities of various sizes, but size does matter in this example. I hope that all Members present agree that scrutiny by the House of Lords of a Bill covering territory and issues such as these would be extremely valuable and would greatly reassure people, particularly in relation to the Legal Services Commission and access to justice.