Procedure and Privileges

Motion to Agree

Moved by

That the Report from the Select Committee Questions for Short Debate; Select Committee Report Debate Time Limits; Speakers’ List Deadlines; Explanatory Statements for Amendments; Resignation and Powers of Attorney (3rd Report, HL Paper 144) be agreed to.

My Lords, the genesis of the changes proposed in the report was a letter from the Leader of the House containing various suggestions to make business clearer and easier for Members to navigate. The changes fall into three broad areas—Questions for Short Debate, time limits and deadlines for speakers’ lists, and explanatory statements for amendments. The committee gave these proposals full and detailed consideration and recommends the following changes to your Lordships.

The five proposals relating to Questions for Short Debate are intended to provide clarity and certainty for Members and to provide greater opportunities, particularly for Back-Bench Members, to ask QSDs. The first recommends increasing the flexibility for scheduling QSDs to allow them to be taken between other items of business and not just as lunch break, dinner break or last business.

The second proposal is that for a trial period, balloted topical QSDs should no longer be scheduled on a Thursday and instead a QSD from the reserve list of QSDs which is drawn from a ballot every five weeks should be tabled. This reflects that the number of entries into the topical QSD ballot has generally been low and on more than a quarter of occasions there has been no valid entry. To ensure that topicality is not lost, the usual channels will be able to select a debate from the reserve list which is particularly topical. If agreed by the House, the impact of this change will be reviewed by the committee by the end of the next Session.

The third proposal clarifies that only the final QSD on the Order Paper should be treated as last business, with the resulting hour and a half time limit. The fourth proposal aims to rebalance the allocation of time so that Back-Bench and Opposition Front-Bench speakers have a greater proportion of the time available. The final proposal on QSDs would add emphasis to the existing Companion guidance that QSDs should be limited in scope to ensure that the Member in whose name the QSD stands can articulate the issues clearly and comprehensively in the time permitted.

The next set of proposals relate to debates. The committee proposes that when Select Committee reports are scheduled for Thursdays, they should automatically be time limited to a total of five hours in the same way as party and balloted debates, thus giving greater predictability to timings on Thursdays. These time limits will not apply to Select Committee reports debated on other days.

The committee also proposes that speakers’ lists for debates should close at 5 pm rather than 6 pm from Monday to Thursday so that Peers participating are informed of the length of time for their contribution as early as possible. This has been happening on a trial basis since January and has received positive feedback.

The final proposal for your Lordships’ consideration relates to explanatory statements for amendments, on which the committee recommends that the guidance in the Companion

My Lords, I welcome all the provisions in the report, but could the committee turn its attention to the time we are given to consider important subjects at Second Readings and elsewhere? The most egregious example, where the Chief Whip has been excellent in his response, is the Bill currently before the House, tomorrow’s Private Member’s Bill, where our speaking time is reduced to four minutes to talk on what is a highly complex issue. The four minutes has arisen only because of the action of the Chief Whip in ignoring the rule that we finish at 3 pm on a Friday and by providing two days for discussion, which was a sensible way forward and which I very much welcome. However, increasingly, we find at Second Readings of Bills that our speaking time is reduced to two minutes or less. That is because people put their names down to speak. Can the committee not look at this issue? There are a number of possible alternatives.

The great thing about this House is that it has people who know what they are talking about. It also has people such as me who do not always know what they are talking about. To squeeze out people engaging seriously because of the way in which the system operates is a great disappointment.

Given that the Government have a manifesto commitment to deal with ensuring that people participate in this House, I can see this becoming a bigger problem, because people will put their names down to speak and the result will be that our debates are less informed and less able. Surely, this is a matter the committee should turn its attention to.

I add to that the fact that I remember listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had one minute to speak.

My Lords, I understand both contributions and the feeling of the House that has been made known by the noble and learned Baroness. Clearly, the procedure committee, if referred to, can look at these things, but the business of the House is obviously conducted within usual channels for the planning of debates. This is the way we have always conducted our affairs. I am sure the usual channels, who are present, understand some of the points that have been made.

If I may refer back to the report, it is one of the reasons why we reflected that we needed to have QSDs that could be managed in that time. Candidly, we thought it inappropriate to have a QSD where the subject of the debate invited so many noble Lords, because it was such a broad or big issue. Therefore, our suggestion is that we want to have QSDs that are manageable, so that the proposer can articulate properly in the time allocated, so that Back-Benchers have time and so that the Minister in turn is properly questioned.

One thing I will say on this, because it is a dilemma, is that my experience is that the House generally likes brevity if the points are well made. I have heard some brilliant speeches of three or four minutes. I have heard some of 10 minutes where I thought we could have had six minutes less. I think it is about the subject, and I well understand the noble Lord when he said that, last Friday—and tomorrow—there were deeply held opinions. But what I picked up a bit—because I am not allowed to speak—is that everyone thought those debates were conducted, even within that short time, with enormous courtesy and mutual respect. As someone said to me, in a way it was an example of the House of Lords at its best—dealing with issues of this intensity thoroughly and well, and often in a short time. But I take away what the noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness have said.