The Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP
Andrew Lansley CBE MP was elected as Member of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire in May 1997. He was appointed as Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Privy Seal in September 2012. Prior to taking up this role, he served as Secretary of State for Health following the General Election in 2010.
The Leader of the House of Commons is a government minister whose main role is organising government business in the Commons. The Leader of the House does this by working closely with the government's Chief Whip.
The Legislature and the Executive lecture transcript
Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP, Leader of the House of Commons: Thank you for taking the time to come to Parliament to listen to me and to be with us as part of the process of engagement and outreach - in particular to those of you who are studying politics, at colleges across the country.
If I might say it, I was a graduate in politics myself. Are there any politics teachers here?
For your benefit, way back in the mid 1970s when I was at school, politics A Level was unusual in those days, but I studied politics at A level.
You might be interested to know, and your students might be equally interested in the character of education to hear, that when I came here - in 1999 after I'd been here 2 years - we had a tea on the terrace for my teacher of politics, Godfrey Thomas, who was retiring at that point.
And four Members of Parliament came to that little celebration for him: myself, Fabian Hamilton who is an MP still in Leeds North East; Howard Flight who was an MP for Arundel in Sussex and is now a member of the House of Lords; and Jack Straw who at the time, from memory, I think was Home Secretary.
All four of us - two Labour and two Conservative - had been taught politics at the same school by the same politics teacher. So it is perfectly possible to inspire, but not to prejudice. Well done, the teaching profession!
It was after I was a graduate in oolitics - this was unusual in itself - that somebody who studied politics went into politics. But I did and it is 34 years since I was appointed, back in 1979, as an administration trainee in the Civil Service. I thought I would have a career in the civil service but in fact my career in politics has taken me in many different directions since then.
I've been a Private Secretary to a Cabinet Minister. Now I'm assuming that many of you know what 'Yes Minister' is?
Those of us who are a bit older and saw it the first time round realise that is a documentary programme about British Government. But if you ever do see that programme you will recall that the Private Secretary to the Cabinet Minister is one 'Bernard'. - So I was a 'Bernard'.
After being in the Civil Service I was Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce – so, representing the Business Community to Government.
I ran party research and campaigns. The campaigns I suppose I was particularly responsible for were the 1992 and 2001 Conservative Election campaigns, and the 1999 European Parliamentary election campaign.
I've been a constituency backbench member of parliament, having entered the House in 1997. I've been a member of the Shadow Cabinet. And, of course, after the election I was for two and a half years a departmental Secretary of State. So – again, recalling 'Yes Minister' - a 'Jim Hacker'.
I have to tell you - I may have been a 'Bernard', I may have been a 'Jim Hacker', but I have neither the ambition nor the expectation that I would ever aspire to being a 'Sir Humphrey' in the 'Yes Minister' programme.
But I am privileged at the end of that process to have become Leader of the House of Commons.
I remember Margaret Thatcher saying - indeed I was her last Director of Research in 1990 - that the closer she got to where people regarded the 'centre of power' as being, in 10 Downing Street, the more she realised that there wasn't such a 'centre of power'.
Indeed I remember she said to me that the only time she actually felt that she had the power that people imagined she had, was actually during the period of the Falklands War, when Prime Ministers make decisions and the armed forces go and do what the Prime Minister says. Almost all the rest of time, people have a debate before you make a decision, then the PM makes a decision, then they try to have another debate after the decision: power is more distributed.
But in truth, what I think even Margaret Thatcher under those circumstances completely understood is that politics is not a single system. It is a number of inter-connected systems.
Imagine a venn diagram if you would. To keep it simple, imagine a diagram of three circles. Now you might think that where those three circles intersect, at that point in the middle, that No 10 Downing St is at the centre of that diagram.
Number 10 is actually at the centre of where politics and Government intersect - that part of the diagram is Number 10. But there are in essence three circles - there's politics, there's Government, and there's Parliament.
And Parliament - in particular I would argue the Chamber of the House of Commons - is the middle of those three circles - the centre of that venn diagram.
Why? Because it's the cockpit of politics - it's where the parties and political debate is at its most acute. But it's also a place where the Government secures supply and its legislation and it is the place from which Parliament bestows authority.
When Parliament gets together and asserts itself as the centre for debate for the nation you can see how that authority really is bestowed.
Those of us who've been in the chamber for some time have seen those sorts of occasions.
I was in the House during the debate prior to the invasion of Iraq. Very recently, I think you would have seen something similar - in terms of the character of that debate in the Chamber, shaping the politics of government and society - in the debate on the second reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, having impact far beyond the reach of the executive alone.
People imagine that party politics dominate all decisions in Parliament. But they fail to see the work of select committees, of All-Party Groups, and debates which just aren't about party politics. There’s much to Parliament that is, in truth, not of party politics nor of government. And politics and government in any case often diverge; it is a mistake to believe that politics and government always travel in the same direction. Sometimes what is 'good government' can be 'bad politics'. Sometimes what is good politics can be bad government.
It is easy and common for these inter-connected systems I've been describing to become confused.
Too often, in particular, Parliament and Government are seen as synonymous. I know this not least because I am the personal manifestation of this confusion; I am the manifestation of this constitutional connection as well. It is my job to represent Government to the legislature - in this particular instance, the House of Commons - but it is also my job to represent the legislature to the executive - to the Government.
It's a role which Jack Straw describes in his autobiography as being 'consigned to' - but which he also said he relished. The late Robin Cook, also a similar consignee, said of the job:
"There is no post which puts you more at the heart of Parliament than Leader of the House."
And Richard Crossman, who was Leader of the House from 1966 to 1968, faced huge opposition just at the thought of the House of Commons sitting in the morning. He wrote at the time:
"I draw the conclusion that I must stop playing the role of the Great Reformer and try to save the situation by just quietly running the business of the House in a wholly uncharacteristic, self-effacing style."
Happily, Richard Crossman failed to follow his own advice, though it is telling that right at the start of 1967 he identified reform of the House of Lords and rebuilding the Palace of Westminster as priorities: priorities which the House is still discussing 43 years later.
The pace of change, as you can see, at Westminster can sometimes be tectonic: long periods of little movement and then a big shift. I have to say, as a Conservative - on this instance with a small 'c' to secure progressive change which responds to underlying pressures is probably the better route.
History
The entwined nature of the legislature and the executive is at the heart of our democracy and this 'Westminster model' is seen in states across the globe. I want to focus today on looking at how this relationship between legislature and executive, between Government and Parliament, has developed and set out my views on what more can be done to improve this relationship.
Before doing this, it is important to understand how our current system developed.While it is dangerous to suggest any single moment or action as a turning point in history, the 1689 Bill of Rights, seen as a revolution, or more prosaically as insurance, against the unconstrained power of the monarch is a useful starting point for considering the developing role of Parliament.
The Bill of Rights established the freedom of Members in debate, in elections and to petition the monarch, and established the principle that it was for Parliament and not the monarch to raise taxation.
As Parliament grew in strength, the Privy Council, which acted as the executive, became too large. To wield power effectively, a council of the most senior ministers to the crown emerged as the Cabinet and from this Cabinet emerged the Minister who could best manage the monarch, the Prime Minister.
In its early years, the Cabinet was most mostly made up of peers, and while Prime Ministers and others were occasionally drawn from the Commons, it was only in 1902, upon the resignation of the Marquess of Salisbury, that it became the norm that the Prime Minister be selected from the Commons.
Amid the First World War, modern Cabinet Government became established in the form it is known today, with the creation of the Cabinet Office and the appointment of a Cabinet secretariat, in order to better coordinate the work of Government across Whitehall.
Throughout this period, Governments increasingly dominated the Parliamentary agenda and modern political parties became established as Parliament moved away from the less formal groupings and factions of the previous centuries.
Recent Developments
In contrast to the 'Lockean' philosophy of Government, seen for example, in the United States, which demands a clear separation of powers that asserts the primacy of the legislature over the executive, Britain’s modern constitutional settlement is one of, what Walter Bagehot described as 'the fusion of powers'.
Our unwritten constitution has gradually developed and enshrined the independence of the judiciary (although it was only in 2005 that the role of the Lord Chancellor no longer held a role ‘fusing’ the executive, legislative and judiciary). However, the Sovereign, as Head of State, continues to occupy a role as the head of the judiciary, of the executive (both the Government and Civil Service) and in the tripartite system of the legislature, in which Royal Assent is required for legislation.
The British system, therefore, relies on the executive being in the heart of the legislature and, in the absence of a Constitutional constraint on the sovereign power of Parliament, it is necessary to secure accountability of the executive within the legislature, which, in theory it can control. That is the essence of the test.
At the same time, the Government of the day, in commanding a majority of the House of Commons, has the right to take its legislative programme through Parliament in reasonable time.
Some may like to present an image of the executive and the legislature engaged in pitched battle, drawing on the perceived gladiatorial arena of PMQs and the tension of controversial votes.
The reality is rather more prosaic.
Each week, as Leader of the House, I announce the business for the following week, and then respond to requests for statements and debates from across the House. Although I may not be able to grant the debates requested of me, the weekly session is far removed from combat, but a valued opportunity for backbench members to raise key issues with Government, whether that be on a fundamental matter of policy or an individual constituent’s case, and for them to receive a considered reply.
Often unseen by the public, there are excellent debates which take place in Committees, through the examination of witnesses and clause-by-clause scrutiny of legislation in Public Bill Committees, and the detailed work of Departmental Select Committees undertaking important, complex inquiries on Government policy and issues of importance.
Some commentators hark back to a 'golden age of Parliament' where backbenchers had much more influence. Memories of all-night sittings of the Commons and a time before legislation was routinely programmed have given a false impression of unlimited backbench power.
I remember it. We took our pound of flesh, but the Government still got its Bills.
Although I think there is a romanticised, misremembered past, there are still tensions, and the balance of power can swing too far in one direction or the other. Indeed, it is clear that as the House of Commons developed in the post-war period, power was accrued by the executive and drained away from the House.
Reforms that took shape between the 1960s and the 1990s did support an improved role for backbench members. This was most notably the move away from the role of Member of Parliament being a 'part time' office, and the establishment of the Departmental Select Committee system under Norman St John Stevas, Margaret Thatcher’s first Leader of the House who, in 1979, after a period in opposition understood the need for Government to be subject to scrutiny and safeguards. However, many changes were also made more with the convenience of the executive in mind.
In 1997, when I first entered the House, the incoming Blair Government established the Modernisation Select Committee in order to increase the pace at which reforms of the House could be made. Along with the longstanding Procedure Select Committee and the Liaison Committee, made up of chairs of all Commons Select Committees, the Modernisation Committee made much progress on reforming the House:
- Increasing the volume of Bills which received pre-legislative scrutiny, and clearly defining the processes for it.
- The introduction of carry-over for some public bills, allowing for more flexibility in the legislative programme.
- The introduction of Written Ministerial Statements, improving the clarity of Government announcements, as opposed to the planted questions which preceded them.
- Establishing the parallel debating Chamber in Westminster Hall to enable more general, backbench debates to take place.
- Changing the sitting hours of the Commons to allow the House to rise earlier on some days.
The membership of the Modernisation Committee included the Shadow Leader of the House and the Liberal Democrat spokesman, and was chaired by the Leader of the House. This unusual membership for a Select Committee encouraged consensus from the frontbenches of the major parties, but also meant that, being led by Business Managers, it could be argued much of the modernisation was focused on efficiency for the executive and official opposition, rather than reflecting the backbench interest.
By late 2008, the Modernisation Committee had declined, and its programme ground to a halt, not because there was no more work to be done, but because the spirit of consensus was lost. The then Government forced through its proposals for Regional Select Committees, without the support and engagement of the opposition, and found that from then on, the impetus to work together to improve the House had gone.
In the meantime, my party’s Democracy Taskforce, led by Ken Clarke and including Sir George Young and Andrew Tyrie, were working on proposals for a Commons that was visibly independent of the executive, controlling its own procedures, enhancing its scrutiny of government and leading rather than following public debate. On the principles of greater autonomy, greater independence, greater timeliness, greater scrutiny and greater accessibility, this work, along with that of the Liberal Democrats has formed the basis of the parliamentary and political reform priorities of the Coalition.
Present Day
In 2009, the expenses scandal exposed Parliament and its practices and the closed, self-serving character of this institution. It was an immensely difficult time for many Members of Parliament, but it led to a sea change in the nature of and reaction to Parliamentary reform and contributed to empowering the legislature rather than the executive in three areas: transparency, accountability and engagement.
Transparency
The most obvious reaction to the expenses scandal was a call for greater transparency across Parliament and Government.
This call began to be heard at the end of the last Parliament, with the establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in order to independently monitor MPs’ allowances, and to provide a clear picture to the public on what Members can claim and what Members do claim.
Not only has IPSA provided clarity, but also it has taken responsibility for the setting of MPs’ pay, pensions and allowances, removing the right of MPs to set their own remuneration and support, and replacing it with an open, transparent system. Parliament cannot be self-serving in respect of its pay or expenses.
Accountability
It is in a substantial part through transparency that we are able to increase accountability, and it has been vital that since 2009 the legislature has been given the tools it needs to make the most of this transparency.
The clamour for a 'new politics' is regularly heard but the situation in 2009 made it a necessity.
The establishment of the Select Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons, better known as the 'Wright Committee', after its Chair, the then Member for Cannock Chase, Professor Tony Wright, provided the means for reform to take shape.
The Committee made a range of recommendations, almost all of which have now been enacted. These 'Wright reforms' have empowered the legislature by strengthening the role of the backbencher and reinvigorating Select Committees.
The Departmental Select Committee system, established in the early years of the Thatcher Government, undoubtedly opened new avenues for backbench Members to scrutinise the work of Government, yet for all the excellent work undertaken by the Committees, membership was in the gift of the party business managers.
On occasion the House would assert itself. In 2001, the Blair Government suffered its first defeats when it attempted to block Gwyneth Dunwoody and Donald Anderson from rejoining the Committees they had chaired in the previous Parliament.
The Wright Committee proposals, which the Commons accepted, now ensures that the Chairs of Select Committees are elected by secret ballot across the House at the beginning of each Parliament, and has enshrined the principle that Members should be elected, not selected by their party.
The result has been greatly empowered Committees who can hold the executive (and on occasion external bodies) to account, and whose work are now regularly the subject of a higher level of media and public attention than we have seen in previous Parliaments.
One Select Committee, the Backbench Business Committee in particular has changed the character of this Parliament. The Committee was established following the recommendations of the Wright Committee, as taken through by my predecessor as Leader of the House, Sir George Young, who recognised the impetus of this change, having drawn on our time in opposition, seeing the need for the House to be more immediate, relevant and effective.
Each week when the House is sitting, the Committee meets to hear representations from Members of Parliament for issues that they wish to debate and to assign the time allocated to them, which has been a day on the floor of the House in all but three of the sitting weeks this session.
Where previously the Government would schedule general debates, albeit usually on issues of national importance, now backbench members have direct access to dedicated time on the floor of the House.
And Members have not been afraid to use this to challenge the Government on issues which it is difficult to imagine would otherwise have been scheduled.
The debates which have resulted, on the Hillsborough disaster or membership of the European Union, on Wild Animals in circuses, on mental health, or on the proposed Badger Cull, have been some of the most interesting, most challenging and crucially the most watched debates of this Parliament.
The election of John Bercow as Speaker in 2009 also led to a shift in the way in which successive Governments have been held to account, by regularly allowing Urgent Questions, which permit any Member of Parliament to seek to bring a Government Minister to the despatch box to respond to a pressing issue.
Inevitably, this innovation is often portrayed as 'dragging' the Government to the despatch box, but often, it can be more appropriately seen as allowing the opposition and backbenchers to shape the agenda of the Commons in response to short-term events.
As part of the same imperative, to ensure that the House is at the forefront of major events and announcements, this Government has also been more proactive than its predecessor in coming to the House to make statements, with 284 Oral Statements since May 2010 (3 a week) and with the Prime Minister himself coming to the House to make 40 Statements since 2010.
Finally, on the theme of accountability, it would be wrong to ignore that, through a combination of the fallout of the expenses scandal and the changing political landscape, there was a vast new intake of Members in May 2010.
They have been among the most regular bidders at the Backbench Business Committee, the active, forensic members of Select Committees and regular speakers in the Chamber, holding the Government to account and representing their constituents.
Engagement
Increased transparency of the executive and a renewed hunger for transparency from the legislature can only truly be successful if they are matched with improved public engagement with politics, helping people understand and participate in the political process.
Government and Parliament must learn from the cynicism and contempt of the past and recognise the imperative for better public understanding, leading to engagement, and in time, to a renewed trust in Parliament.
I’d like to pay tribute to the Parliament’s Outreach service, who, as well as organising today’s event are doing much to engage the public, ensuring that people outside of Westminster have access to training and workshops to help them understand not only how Parliament works and affects their day-to-day lives, but also how they can better influence the legislative and policy making process.
It is in the interest of both the legislature and the executive that people are engaged with politics, and both branches have made great strides on this.
The Government’s e-petition site, established in the summer of 2011 has seen millions of people signing petitions on a huge range of subjects. Unlike the site established by the Blair Government, which offered a dead-end for campaigns, the new site allows e-petitions which receive 100 000 signatures to be considered for debate, and so far all petitions have either been the subject of a Commons debate or have been scheduled to take place soon.
In some cases, these are subjects which are direct challenges to the Government’s programme, such as those on changes to pensions or taxation but in others, the public have been able to raise issues which command huge support but may otherwise have struggled to reach the Parliamentary agenda, such as on Sudden Adult Death syndrome, or on improving financial education in schools.
Of the roughly 150 sitting days of the Commons in each session of Parliament, fewer than half are given over the Government’s legislative programme. The law making process in Parliament begins with the grand ritual of the State Opening and the Queen’s speech, and ends with a Norman French declaration: "La Reine le veult".
However, in between these moments of tradition, much has been done to help members of the public (and Members of Parliament) to understand and engage with the legislative process and Parliament more generally.
A sign of the pace of change at which this place sometimes works may be that it was only in 2004 that visitors to this place were no longer referred to as 'Strangers' but became Members of the Public.
There is still further work to be done to make our processes clearer. In this current session of Parliament we have piloted the use of 'interweaving', where explanatory notes are presented alongside the text of legislation on the internet, and trialled the printing of explanatory statements to amendments, allow Members and the public to easily understand the intent of the changes Government, opposition and backbenchers are seeking to make to legislation as it is being scrutinised.
I will be working both in Government and in the House to make these a mainstream part of our procedures.
The work of Robin Cook to increase the amount of legislation which was published in draft and subject to consultation and scrutiny had somewhat diminished in the years following his resignation as Leader of the House; however under this Government we have published an unprecedented number of measures in draft in this session, with 15 published during the course of the last year.
Neither the Government nor Parliament has a monopoly on good ideas. By seeking the views of interested parties, whether that be established campaigns or anyone with interest or experience, both the executive and legislature can benefit from considering a range of views on how to improve legislation before it is subject to the stricter Parliamentary rules of the legislative process.
In this Parliament, we have added to this engagement by providing the tool of a ‘public reading stage’ for legislation to allow the public to comment online on the fine detail of bills while they are going through the Commons.
I remember the similar work of the Hansard Society for the scrutiny of the Communications Bill, and of the Puttnam Commission of which I was a Member in 2002-3.
Although this public reading stage approach does not suit every piece of legislation, it is part of a growing toolkit of ways in which both the legislature and the executive can engage people with the laws which will affect them.
These reforms of the past few years, on transparency, on accountability and on engagement have, in my view, done much to see that the balance of power in Parliament has swung back towards the legislature, from the executive; however there are areas in which I think that more can be done.
Future
Past experience has suggested that in opposition, parties recognise the case for reform; that leads to action at the start of a new Government, but the "dark forces" then take over and progress stops.
That will not be so today.
This is a reforming Government, which recognises (not least because of the Coalition circumstances, which requires us continuously to recognise the requirement in this House for a Government majority!) that authority comes from Parliament. Frustrated in House of Lords reform, we are not deterred from practical, positive progress where we can carry the House with us.
House Business Committee
The success of the Backbench Business Committee since 2010 has been a testament to the cross-party cooperation on the Committee and across the House to agree on what should be debated. The approach taken by the Committee members has been that debates should be timely, well supported and, crucially, have the backing of members across the House.
The Committee has regularly rejected bids for debates which have only support from a narrow group of Members, whether that is based on a geographical area or a party affiliation. This does not mean that only un-contentious, anodyne subjects have been debated. Members bidding for backbench time have quickly learned that they can agree on the need for debate, and present a united front at the Committee, while still dividing in different directions once a vote has been called in the debate.
It is in this spirit that I am currently considering the merits of implementing proposals, originating in the Wright recommendations, to bring forward a ‘House Business Committee’ to consider House Business as a whole.
Having recently visited the Scottish Parliament, I have seen the work of the Parliamentary Bureau, their House Business Committee, and of the political parties in managing the business of the House.
The Scottish experience of a formal, fixed committee which mostly rubber-stamps the “usual channels” in the context of majority control by the Scottish Government in that Parliament has the effect of bestowing a greater control of what can be debated and even who is called to speak in debates, to Government business managers.
As a member of the executive, it’s easy to see how such a proposition appeals.
But it does not offer the space we have created in this Parliament for the House and backbenchers to share the agenda of the House, not under direct control of Parliamentary Business Managers.
Let me take you back for a moment to those 150 sitting days on the floor of the Chamber itself:
- we allocate practically a day a week to the Backbench Business committee for debates;
- we offer a substantial allocation of time for the Opposition to choose those debates;
- we have time available at the Queen’s Speech debates and the Budget debates when effectively they are not controlled by the government, they are open debates; particularly where the Queen’s Speech debates are concerned, subjects for the debate can be nominated by the official opposition;
- the Liaison Committee on behalf of the Select Committees – they have time when they can choose the subjects for debates, both arising from Select Committee reports and on Estimates.
So in reality in this House we have a wide range of sources of decision-making about what the content of debate in the House looks like.
I do not propose to take one step forward and two back.
This is not about creating a ‘thing’, simply establishing a committee and believing that a commitment has been met. We have made progress in empowering the House and we should not put this at risk.
I must emphasise that it is vital that any proposals would have to meet those two key roles of the legislature – holding the executive to account, but also ensuring that the Government has the opportunity to secure its legislative programme. Any such Committee would need to add value to our existing processes, whilst respecting the place and influence of the Backbench Business Committee and the effectiveness of the "usual channels".
e-Petitions
Second, the success of the Government’s e-petitions site has established it as a popular, widely-used campaign tool which is regularly triggering debates in the Commons for petitions with 100,000 signatures.
Since September last year, e-petitions which receive at least 10,000 signatures now receive a considered response from Government departments.
The innovative and popular nature of the site has drawn attention from local and national Governments who want to emulate our success with their own site.
But this innovation is closely linked with the ancient constitutional right to petition. In 1275, Edward I opened up Parliament to the public by the means of petitions. Such was their success, John Field in his history, 'The Story of Parliament' claims:
"So popular was this initiative that Parliament began to be held in widespread esteem"
(A rare moment in Parliamentary history!)
In the present day, the Parliamentary system of petitions has become a useful, but minor part of the day’s proceedings, where Members are able to briefly raise an issue, receiving a printed response from the Government some weeks later.
In the last Parliament, there were proposals for a Parliamentary e-petitions system, not dissimilar from the site which this Government subsequently established.
The proposals suffered from being expensive and complex, but I think there is a real case for bringing the legislature and the executive closer together on this.
The public expect to petition their Parliament and in doing so, to seek action from the Government. They do not see their concerns as being directed either to Government or Parliament. And neither should we. We must have a single petitions procedure which captures both.
For a collaborative system to work, there are key features that I would want to see continued and improved:
- The right of the public to petition on any matters which are the responsibility of Parliament.
- The right of the legislature to decide which petitions to consider and debate.
- The responsibility of the executive to consider and respond to the substance of petitions.
In addition, the knowledge and expertise of the Government Digital Service in establishing and maintaining the site, and of officials in each Government department to moderate, monitor and respond to the hundreds of e-petitions received each week, would be difficult and potentially costly to replace.
In this respect, the system which I saw in the Scottish Parliament is a model from which we can draw some lessons, including perhaps in the operation of a Petitions Committee.
I therefore want to work with colleagues across the House of Commons who have shown an interest in petitions to consider how best we can develop the petitioning process, with the aim of introducing a collaborative e-petitions site by the end of this Parliament.
Good Law
Third, I want to see a greater engagement with the legislative process, primarily by making it easier to understand and more transparent, and to see the law-making process continue to improve.
The use of pre and post-legislative scrutiny, public reading stages, the mainstreaming of Government, opposition and backbenchers providing explanatory statements to their amendments and the use of plain English in Bills and Explanatory Notes are all helping to provide clarity to laws, but there is more that can be done.
The Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Government lawyers responsible for drafting laws have been working on the ‘Good Law’ project to identify what makes legislation so complex, and how we can simplify it.
Richard Heaton, who holds the office of First Parliamentary Counsel has been leading on this project, and has identified the key aspects of Good Law. To be 'good', laws must be:
- Necessary
- Effective
- Clear
- Coherent, and
- Accessible.
The fact that not all legislation meets these criteria is not a challenge or a legacy of any one Government or Parliament, or of any other individual part of the system, but of at least the last half century.
Government sees this work as part of a continuing project to help ensure our legislation, both as it is made and in the Statue Book as a whole, is increasingly fit for purpose.
But this is not just about what we do inside Government.
It is a pitfall to assume good law is just about perfecting legislation within the executive and prior to introduction (although I and my colleagues strive to do so). It is about Government, Parliament and the Courts. All three have a role to play but we must make sure the emphasis is on the final product; the quality of laws that are made, and how those laws sit in the existing legislative framework.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the House of Commons is considering many of these issues at the moment, in their inquiry into legislative standards, and the Government and Parliament will want again to work together on the recommendations which stem from this, as part of our collective desire to see better law.
Financial Scrutiny
Finally, I want to consider and seek to improve how the legislature scrutinises Government expenditure. This control of supply is an essential Parliamentary role. Whilst we vote on supply, we do not vigorously consider and challenge as we might, especially the question of what Government spends on itself. This is something which successive Parliaments have looked at, and although improvements have been made, I think there is more that can be done.
Every year, Parliament authorises around £500 billion of Government spending, monitored and approved through a number of different cycles
- The planning cycle, as Government departments agree multi-year spending agreements with the Treasury, which is then reported to Parliament as the Spending Review
- The budget cycle, as Government sets out the state of the economy and its economic plans, which are then voted on and enacted in the Finance Bill
- The estimates cycle, as Government departments set out their annual resources and cash, which are then reported to and spending approved by the Commons
- The reporting cycle, as Government departments present their annual reports and accounts for the previous year, and Committees can choose to scrutinise them in further detail.
Much of this is done well. The Budget Statement and Autumn Statement are major Parliamentary occasions, and the scrutiny of the annual Finance Bill on the floor of the House and in Committee gives a chance to look in detail at the Government’s economic proposals. But, where I think improvements could be made are on the estimates cycle.
Each year, three days in the House of Commons are set aside for debates on departmental estimates. The debates which result are allocated by the Liaison Committee and focus on specific Select Committee reports on the work of Government departments.
It is a sign of the rate that Parliamentary reform can sometimes take place, or not take place, that in a debate in 1966, Richard Crossman as Leader of the House was saying a similar thing:
"Recently, we decided that the Reports of the P.A.C. and the Estimates Committee should be regularly debated by the whole House and we allocated three days a year to the process, but only a microcosm of the House turned up. Although the Reports have regularly provided first-rate material for debate, the sittings were attended by only a handful of Members." (HC Deb 14 December 1966 vol 738 c486)
It is vital that this scrutiny remains led by the backbenches, selecting areas of importance to consider, but I would like to see these debates being focused much more closely on the departmental estimates themselves, linking well to the timing and processes for Parliamentary approval for Government expenditure, ensuring the legislature is taking its responsibility for financial scrutiny seriously. And I hope this will not solely be concerned with programme spending on the policy reflected in those, but also include administration costs.
Of course, it would not be appropriate for the Government to change backbench scrutiny ourselves, but I want to work with the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, and any interested Members to bring forward innovative proposals which meet the needs of the legislature and the executive.
Conclusion
These are, I believe, vital areas for further reform. It has been the case that in the past reform has been slow, or it has been brought about from the will of the executive contrary to the legislature. But, I am confident now that as this reforming Government works together with a legislature which is increasingly empowered, we can continue to renew and rebuild our politics in the spirit of engagement, accountability and transparency.
As Richard Crossman set out early in his own tenure, almost 50 years ago:
"Reform would be good for the prestige of Parliament, good for the morale of back benchers, and, I believe, very good for the Government as well, because a strong and healthy Executive is all the stronger and healthier if it is stimulated by responsible investigation and criticism."
I share his view and I relish, as Jack Straw did, the chance in the privileged role, as Leader of the House, to help make it happen.
Thank you.
END
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