Are Standards Slipping in the Lords?

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein asked the Leader of the House this week "what assessment he has made of the importance of behavioural and procedural conventions in the Chamber."

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, self-regulation works only when Members act to support it. It puts the responsibility on us all as individual Members, in our political groups and on the Cross Benches, to ensure that the rules set out in the Companion and the conventions of the House are adhered to in spirit as well as in letter.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, that is a very helpful reply, but does the noble Lord not agree that too many bad habits have been brought from the other place and are causing a problem, such as interrupting in timed debates and not giving way at Question Time? In a self-regulating House, these are extremely important and valuable parts of our procedure.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Viscount is the living embodiment of courtesy and good practice in this House and many of us would do well to emulate his behaviour. He is quite right that refusing to give way at Question Time is at odds with the usual courtesies extended in this House and that repeated interruptions are an aspect of behaviour that some argue have infiltrated from another place, which we should not be seeking to emulate. However, I think that there is general good will across the House to maintain some of the very good behaviour in the House when it is at its best. The best way of doing that is to follow the example of those who emulate that practice.

Lord Barnett: Is not the bigger problem ministerial behaviour? Is the noble Lord aware that some Ministers do not seem to understand government policy on transparency? I give one small example. I asked a very simple Question recently on whether the Treasury would supply information on what its representative on the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England had said about interest rates and quantitative easing. The Answer that I got was that it was a matter for the Monetary Policy Committee to publish, but Ministers know that it never does. Will the noble Lord perhaps issue guidance to Ministers-some of them, not all-on government policy on transparency?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not agree that that is a bigger problem than concerns about the conventions and rules of this House. Ministers in the House of Lords have standing instructions to treat Back-Benchers from all sides of the House with utmost courtesy and to be as transparent as possible. If the noble Lord received an Answer from one of our Ministers that he did not like, that was still the right Answer to give.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the noble Viscount makes the important point that since the introduction of a number of colleagues from the other place the behaviour pattern of this House has changed. In light of that, will the noble Lord consider the role of the Lord Speaker to ensure that such rules and regulations are not flouted?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I know that some in this House would wish to see a greater role for the Chair, notably at Question Time, and no doubt they will have made representations to the Leader's Group, chaired by my noble friend Lord Goodlad. My view is that our existing practice, whereby it is the responsibility of the whole House and all Members present to draw attention to breaches of order and failures to observe custom, continues to serve us well, as the Question asked by the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, today illustrates.

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, does the noble Lord the Leader of the House remember that about 30 years ago, when he and I first became Members of this House, Baroness Hylton-Foster was Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. If any new boy or girl in her flock transgressed, she took them aside later and came down on them like a ton of bricks. Would it not be a good idea if the leaders of the various parties were to do that today?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lady. I am sure that the current Convenor is as firm with her flock as was the noble Baroness 20 or 30 years ago. I point out that in 1998 the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton of Eggardon, wrote a report that is worth rereading. I have suggested to the Clerk of the Parliaments that he should consider whether aspects of it should be republished and given to all noble Lords in an as easy-to-follow format as possible.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, like all noble Lords, I recognise the importance of behavioural and procedural conventions and, like the noble Lord, I believe that there is good will on all sides of the House. If any noble Lords sitting on my Benches have occasionally not adhered to behavioural conventions in the Chamber, the responsibility must lie with me as leader of the Labour group. Mea culpa-I will try to do better. Does the noble Lord the Leader of the House agree that one reason why we adhere to certain behavioural and procedural conventions is precisely to maintain the difference between this House and the other place? We are one Parliament with two Houses and we celebrate the distinctive characteristics of this House.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I very much welcome what the Leader of the Opposition has said. The whole House should recognise what she has said and the support that she has given to the current conventions and the rules as laid out in the Companion.

Parliamentary Accountability

Asked by Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that Parliament is able effectively to hold them to account.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, it is primarily for Parliament itself to determine how it can best hold the Government to account. However, I have sought to help that process in this House by setting up a Leader's Group to consider our working practices.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I warmly welcome the establishment of the Leader's Group, and I am sure that it will have some fruitful deliberations. Do the Government view the Cabinet manual, which we understand that they will be publishing later this week-possibly even tomorrow-as a first step towards a written constitution for this country, as was postulated in today's Daily Telegraph? How will the Cabinet manual improve government accountability in Parliament?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the Cabinet manual has yet to be published, so I will not comment on it. As to whether or not it is a precursor to a written constitution, no, I do not think so.

Lord Boston of Faversham: While I normally find myself in accord with what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, says, is it not a rather strange concept that Her Majesty's Government would wish to be called to account?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I always admire the noble Lord for his questions. However, I think that the Government have an interest in the generality of being held to account by Parliament; that is part of our support for the parliamentary process as a whole. I have to say that in this Parliament, I think that noble Lords opposite-the Official Opposition-are doing a very good job.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I welcome this Question. In the previous Administration, the Executive were far too powerful and the legislature so weak. Had it been the other way round, perhaps there would have been better scrutiny of war with Iraq. That said, does the Leader's Group intend to look not only at the composition in terms of reform of the House but at the functions of both Houses and how they relate to each other, bearing in mind that in a fully elected House the Salisbury convention would no longer apply?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, a Leader's Group led by my noble friend Lord Goodlad is looking at the working practices of the House. There is another committee led by the Deputy Prime Minister looking at reform of the House of Lords; that will report early in the new year. As for the previous Government, I think that after 1997 there was a move away from good parliamentary governance, and the relationship between the House of Commons-another place-and the Government changed. We have sought to put that back.

Lord Morgan: My Lords, is not parliamentary governance and accountability a total fiction at present? To have parliamentary accountability, you need, first, a Government with a clear mandate. This Government do not have a mandate. They were not elected by the people; they were elected by six people in a closed room without consultation of the electorate. Nor do they have an agreed programme. There is no constitutional coalition manifesto; we have a mysterious document called the coalition agreement. Is that not a reinvention of the constitution much to our damage?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I completely disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, in almost everything he said. He does not have a long enough memory. There have not been many coalitions, but the whole point about the Government is that they are made up of whoever controls the majority in another place, and the coalition clearly does that.

Lord Sutherland of Houndwood: My Lords, in the interests of accountability, would the Government consider attaching where appropriate measurable numerical targets to legislation-for example, numeracy and literacy targets to legislation affecting primary schools?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we in this Government have been trying to get away from targets. I am not entirely certain what point the noble Lord was trying to make, but perhaps I could look again at his question and, if I can think of a better answer, I will write to him.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, the Leader of the House was telling us how much he appreciated the Opposition being very good in this Parliament. Does he not realise that the Opposition could be much better if we had a Speaker with power who could call Members to speak?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the reason I thought the Opposition were doing so well is that out of 24 Divisions, the Government have lost six. We have been defeated in 25 per cent. That is why I think they are doing a very good job. I remember the Opposition of the 1980s and 1990s, when the Labour Party here was considerably smaller. They did a very good job then, which leads me to believe that Labour really is very good in opposition and is probably better in opposition than in government.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, is there much point in Parliament trying to hold the Government to account when the Government themselves are largely controlled from Brussels?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I had a feeling that the noble Lord was heading that way. Whatever the realities of the relationship between this Parliament and Europe, what is of primary importance to this Government is that Parliament itself is in a fit state to scrutinise the Government.

Lord Elton: My Lords, my noble friend was very welcoming and supportive of the idea of parliamentary control of government, which I am sure we all welcome. Will he bear in mind that this enthusiasm is common in every incoming Opposition and cools in the first 18 months, so can he get on with it?

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend, with his long experience, is almost certainly right. The basic principle of parliamentary accountability of the Executive is an important one that we should never let go lightly.

Growing Concerns

The house of lords will spend around Seven and a half minutes on the question that Baroness Royall of Blaisdon will put on Monday, asking "Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that Parliament is able effectively to hold them to account"

Baroness Royall is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lords - having previously served as the Leader of the Lords and a Cabinet Member  in the previous Labour Government.

The question might focus on a number of current concerns -

It might focus on the way that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government is seeking to ensure that it has a working majority in the House of Lords. Until the election there had been an apparent consensus that no Government should have sufficient members in the Lords to enable it to get its way alone. The Labour Government could be, and was frequently, defeated by the main opposition parties voting together. This, it was argued, enhanced the House's ability to require the Government to think again. It might be able to force its will on the Commons - but it could not rely on bulldozing the Lords. Now the coalition wants a working majority - proportionate to its support in the country.

Or the concern highlighted might be about the speed at which substantial, and Constitutional, legislation is being pushed through the House - allowing limited time for both reflection and debate. The breaks between stages (the various Readings and Committee/Report Stages) is as important as the debates themselves. Some of their Lordships feel that there has been constant bulldozing of the House since May.

The designation of the Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grants Bill as a Money Bill has many of their Lordships smarting - because it limits the role the House of Lords can play in the legislative process.

We will see on Monday which of these issues - or other concerns - are raised during Question Time. One thing is certain - the value of the House of Lords as a scrutinising body is coming under challenge - and many of their Lordships are deeply concerned about it.