Legislation and Public Policy — Debate

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:40 pm on 25 February 2010.

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Photo of Lord McNally Lord McNally Leader in the House of Lords, Spokesperson for Constitutional Affairs , Liberal Democrat Leader in the House of Lords 1:40, 25 February 2010

My Lords, I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on obtaining this debate, but the greatest tribute paid to him is the quality of the speakers who he has attracted. I fully endorse the campaign waged by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and I should give him a belated apology. A few weeks ago, he had a Question, and I promised my full support. As the Question unfolded, I had the choice between giving him statesmanlike support and making a cheap political point. I am afraid noble Lords know the outcome.

I am rather shocked by a number of noble Lords, not least the noble Lord, Lord Butler, posing questions to the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition about what happens after the general election. I commend to all Members of the House the poem that ends:

"But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet".

Neither have the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and, until they do, those Benches would be wise not to count any chickens.

We know that in 31 years Labour and the Conservatives have missed opportunities to give impetus to parliamentary reform. It is no use ignoring the elephant in the room, which is reform of this House. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, and the noble Lords, Lord Higgins and Lord Grenfell, that that matter will be taken to the hustings where all three parties will make clear their attitudes to reform of this House. In the mean time, I can say very clearly that a vote for the Liberal Democrats in the general election will be a vote for Lords reform and voting reform. I give the noble Lord, Lord Butler, the assurance that he did not ask for: these Benches will press forward with the procedural reforms that he spoke about.

It has already been demonstrated that there are many good ideas about. I praise the initiative of the Lord Speaker in initiating a seminar last October, which spun off three committees that have been looking at various matters. The noble Lords, Lord Brooke and Lord Roper, are right that progress can be made now. We will all be back after the general election-that is one of the things that makes this place so attractive in looking dispassionately at the general election to come-so why can we not establish a Leader's Group now, either by the usual channels or, as was suggested during a Question by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, by election by the whole House? It could sit in public and take external evidence. There is an opportunity to do this. I say to the Leader of the House that she should not let the dead hand of Strathclyde stop her taking action. I like the idea of the dead hand of Strathclyde. It is like a 1930s black-and-white thriller, but make no mistake, it is present, and the House should not allow it to stop us moving ahead.

Neither do I think we should stop looking at the situation of the Lord Speaker. It is time that some noble Lords, particularly on the Conservative Benches, stopped being like Jacobites dreaming of the king across the water and assuming that somehow, at some stage, they can restore the Lord Chancellor to the Woolsack. That time has gone, and whatever happens in this House, they will not find a majority for that course of action. It is time to look at the role of the Lord Speaker in the light of experience. Much as I love the Chairman of Committees as he sits on the Woolsack, we must look at the overlap in the roles of the Lord Speaker, the Chairman of Committees and other key committee chairmen.

Taking up the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Filkin and Lord Puttnam, we have to look at how we can involve the public better. I welcome the BBC's new website on Parliament, which was launched last September. It should be given wider publicity. It is a gateway into a lot of the activities, often live, of the committees and the Chambers, not only of this Parliament, but of the devolved Assemblies. I am a long-time fan of BBC Parliament. It is still too much of a hidden gem. I would like to see much clearer scheduling, so that people know what to find and where to find it, and more cross-promotion, which would draw people into the Parliament channel. The excellent "The Record", the television equivalent of "Today in Parliament", could quite easily be shown on BBC2 after "Newsnight". That would be a way of messing in to what we have been talking about today to get a better understanding and awareness of what is going on in Parliament because, apart from the sketch writers, the print media have now abandoned the field completely in terms of trying to report accurately what goes on in Parliament, and that is a disgrace.

I, too, am in favour of post-legislative scrutiny. I had the honour of serving on the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on the Communications Bill, and I still count it as one of the best parliamentary experiences that I have had-that was pre-legislative scrutiny. On post-legislative scrutiny, the Gambling Act and the Licensing Act are worth having a look at in the light of experience of how they have impacted on our society.

Like my noble friend Lord Alderdice, I deplore the lack of communication and links between the two Houses. An idea off the top of my head is that as well as the joint meeting of both Houses presided over by Her Majesty at the State Opening, what about a joint meeting of both Houses at the beginning of a Parliament, perhaps held in the Royal Gallery or Westminster Hall, and jointly chaired by the Speaker and the Lord Speaker? It would at least be a symbolic gesture that we are in the same business and are complementary in the work that we do. That is just a passing thought.

I pay tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Filkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, who have been doing this ad hoc work following the Lord Speaker's seminar. The fact that those ad hoc committees have worked and produced some interesting thoughts that they will publish shortly means that a lot of the groundwork has been done.

I hope that the lesson that we take from this debate is that there are lots of good ideas about, there is certainly enough of an agenda-if that is what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is worrying about-to get a Joint Committee, however it is formed or elected, to work now. I ask the Leader of the House to send this debate to the Prime Minister in the hope that he will send back a famous directive from a non-bullying Prime Minister: action this day.