Inquiries Bill [HL]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 11:45 am on 7 April 2005.

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Photo of Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland Shadow Lord Chancellor, House of Lords 11:45, 7 April 2005

My Lords, the issues that underlie both amendments that we have tabled today have been thoroughly debated on three previous occasions, at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. Therefore, I need only indicate, briefly, to your Lordships the content of the amendments and rehearse, equally cursorily, the arguments in support of them.

The two amendments are, in one sense, linked because both of them seek to constrain the power of the Royal Prerogative with respect to inquiries. Amendment No. 1A deals with a special category of public inquiries—inquiries which involve ministerial misdemeanours. The amendment requires Parliament to determine the terms of reference and the composition of the inquiry committee and, in that way, constrains the independence of the Prime Minister to do so.

In circumstances where the Prime Minister is inclined to select a judge to chair a public inquiry, the second amendment, Amendment No. 2A, will require him to obtain the permission of the Lord Chief Justice. In other words, the two other arms of the constitution—Parliament with respect to ministerial demeanours and the judges with respect to a proposal that a judge should chair a committee—are both engaged, in my submission, in a constitutionally appropriate fashion.

The Government are opposed to both of those constraints. That does not surprise me in the least. It is wholly consistent with the approach of the Government to the balance of power between the executive arm of the constitution, on the one hand, and the judicial and parliamentary arm of the constitution, on the other, ever since they came to power in 1997. It is clear that the Government wish to make the executive arm the overwhelmingly predominant arm of the constitution.

With respect to both of the issues raised by the Commons amendments, I at least have to give the noble Baroness high marks for consistency. What the Government are seeking to do is wholly consistent with what they sought successfully to do the other day by removing the long-standing constitutional convention that the Lord Chancellor ought to be a lawyer and a Lord. Moreover, on more than one occasion I have heard from the government Benches certain straws in the wind that, in the extremely unlikely event that the Labour Party wins the next election, there may well be early initiatives to reduce, not only your Lordships' scrutiny powers, but also the delaying powers of your Lordships' House. Behind our two amendments, therefore, lie big constitutional issues.

Turning to Amendment No. 1A, the Bill is defective in that it says absolutely nothing whatever about the establishment and operation of inquiries where ministerial demeanours are concerned. I have been brought up to believe that when a Minister has potentially acted unconstitutionally, that Minister is responsible to Parliament. I was surprised to hear the noble Baroness tell your Lordships' House that, in fact, that doctrine no longer appears to be the case. The noble Baroness took us to the text of a particular government document and quoted it, saying that Ministers remain in office only for as long as the Prime Minister allows them to do so. My understanding is that Ministers remain in office as long as Parliament permits them to do so.

I can quite understand why the noble Baroness may have failed to observe that point. Underneath the pile of rubble that the Government have unloaded on our constitution since 1997, it is difficult to discern the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, but it is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility that is right behind our first amendment. At both Second Reading and in Committee we advanced the view that, where ministerial misconduct is concerned, the committee investigating that misconduct should, first, be established by Parliament and, secondly, be composed, either entirely or predominantly, of Members from another place and your Lordships' House.

In between the Committee and Report stages, as the noble Baroness quite rightly indicated, the Public Administration Select Committee of another place published a report entitled Government by Inquiry. Those of us who had been advancing those views from these Benches were delighted to read that our views were wholly endorsed by that committee's report. I refer your Lordships to the concluding passages. I quoted them on Report and I make no apologies for quoting them again. The committee said:

"We recommend that in future inquiries into the conduct and actions of government should exercise their authority through the legitimacy of Parliament in the form of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry composed of parliamentarians and others, rather than by the exercise of the prerogative power of the Executive".

What better endorsement could the views of the Opposition have; especially when the overwhelming membership of that committee comes from the noble Baroness's party?

The Public Administration Select Committee appended to its report the text of an amendment that we and the Liberal Democrats jointly supported on Report. Between Report and Third Reading, as a result of discussions that I had with the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, we amended the text of that document in order to be more kindly to the Government, and voted on the text at Third Reading.

The noble Baroness has expressed great concern about the amendment; but the fact is that as a result of the approach taken by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and myself, the provision is not mandatory on the Government, it is only directory. The word is "may", not "must". So I remain totally unconvinced that the arguments advanced against us this morning by the noble Baroness should carry any weight.

Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1, leave out "agree" and insert "disagree".—(Lord Kingsland.)