§ 2.54 p.m.
§ Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Fifth Report from the Committee.
§ The Committee's Report was as follows:
§ 1. UNSTARRED QUESTIONS
§ The Committee recommend that in future unstarred questions should be recorded in the Minutes of Proceedings, e.g. "[Subject]. Question asked by the Lord A; and [after debate] answered by the Lord B."
§ 2. ADVANCEMENT OF STARRED QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
§ The Committee considered whether the provisions of Standing Order 37 (Postponement and advancement of motions) should continue to apply to starred questions. They recommend that the Standing Order be amended so as to exclude starred questions from its provisions. This will enable them to be advanced without a Business of the House motion being agreed to, subject to a vacancy existing on the Order Paper.
§ 3. THE ORDER PAPER
§ (i) Italic Notes
§ The Committee considered the subject of the italic notes which give advance notice of business not yet ripe to be put down on the Order Paper.
§ The Committee do not recommend any change in the form in which these notes at present appear. The Committee are of opinion that these notes are the responsibility of the Peer who puts them down, that is, normally, the Peer in charge of the business to which they refer.
§ (ii) "Orders of the Day"
§ The Committee considered the question whether it was necessary to preserve any longer the distinction between "Orders of the Day" and Notices. At present, Public Bills can only be set down by Order of the Day, whereas most other business can be set down by simple notice. Orders of the Day are less flexible than Notices (for example they cannot be altered during a recess) and the distinction no longer has, in the opinion of the Committee, sufficient reality to balance its inconvenience. The Committee therefore recommend that, in general, the House should no longer use Orders of the Day, and that in future all legislative business should be set down by Notice. There may still be occasions on which a genuine decision of the House is taken about a particular item of business; on such occasions Orders of the Day would still be used.
§ (iii) Interpretation of Standing Order 35(5) "Convenience of the House"
§ Standing Order 35(5) provides that "On all sitting days except Wednesdays … the precedence of notices and orders relating to 1168 Public Bills and Measures may, if the convenience of the House so requires, be varied by order of the House".
§ The Committee considered the interpretation of the phrase "convenience of the House" and recommend that in the application of Standing Order 35(5) the "Private Bill" procedure set out on pp. 40–41 of the Companion may be extended to Public Bills and Measures; that is to say, that such Bills and Measures may be advanced in the Order Paper without consultation provide that they are not likely to be debated; but that if a debate arises on any such Bill or Measure so advanced, it shall be open to any Lord to move without notice that the debate be adjourned till later in the day or to another day.
§ 4. LEAVE OF ABSENCE
§ The Committee considered the provisions of Standing Order No. 21, which require the Lord Chancellor at the beginning of a new Parliament to send letters about leave of absence to all Lords in receipt of a Writ of Summons, irrespective of their record of attendance in the preceding session. The Committee recommend that the procedure at the beginning of a Parliament should be the same as that followed at the beginning of subsequent sessions, namely that letters should only be sent to those Lords who have not attended any sitting of the House (other than for the purpose of taking the Oath of Allegiance) in the previous session.
§ The Committee recommend that the Standing Order be amended accordingly.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, in moving that this Report be agreed to, perhaps I may be allowed to make one or two brief comments on the Report of the Procedure Committee. First of all, I would mention item 2 in the Report, "Advancement of Starred Questions on the Order Paper". If this recommendation is agreed to by the House it will require an amendment of Standing Order 37, which will exclude Starred Questions from its provisions. This amendment will be moved as soon as possible. Item 3 in the Report relates to the Order Paper. If the Committee's recommendation in sub-paragraph (ii), "Order of the Day", is accepted, a few amendments will have to be made to Standing Orders and a large number of changes will have to be made in the form of Minute entries. I therefore suggest to your Lordships that it would be convenient if this change were not made immediately but were to come into effect at the beginning of the next Session.
The Committee also considered a suggestion made by a number of Peers to install some form of timing clock in the Chamber to enable Peers to see for themselves for how long they were speaking. 1169 The Committee were of opinion that this suggestion should not be accepted as it runs counter to a recent decision of the House when it agreed in May, 1966, to the recommendation of the Procedure Committee against the employment of mechanical devices as a means of limiting the length of speeches. Perhaps I might remind the House that this recommendation went on to say that the Committee saw no practicable way of shortening speeches except by constant exhortation and reminders of the advantages of brevity.
Item 4 of the Report relates to leave of absence. The effect of this amendment, if approved by your Lordships, will be to bring procedure at the beginning of a new Parliament into line with that followed at the beginning of a new Session. Leave of absence letters at the beginning of a new Parliament will therefore be sent only to those Lords who have not attended any sitting of the House, except to take the oath, in the last Session of the old Parliament. I think it will be of interest to your Lordships to know that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, who was a Chairman of the 1955 Select Committee on the Powers of the House in relation to attendance of its Members attended the last meeting of the Procedure Committee and expressed his agreement to this change in our present practice. My Lords, I beg to move that the Report be agreed to.
§ Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
§ LORD MITCHISONMy Lords, we have just added four youthful, intelligent, and apparently immortal members to the Procedure Committee, and we are now receiving its Report, which indicates a great deal of work. Is it not rather a waste of time for the Committee to go on dealing with procedure when we do not yet know whether the Government are going to carry out their Election pledge of reforming this House as regards its powers, and possibly as regards its functions? I am not suggesting that the Committee should be dissolved. I may be a revolutionary, but I am not as revolutionary as that. I am, however, suggesting that instead of going on like this, vivace or allegro, whatever the right word is in musical notation, it might be as well to go piano for a bit.
LORD REAMy Lords, might I take objection to the noble Lord's remarks and say that I do not agree? It is fifty years since we were told that reform of this House "brooks no delay". We are told that there is to be no mechanical device for the shortening of speeches, from which I take it that the noble Earl the Leader of the House is not to be regarded as a mechanical device. In the meantime, may I suggest that we should proceed as we are until somebody makes some suggestion about what ought to be done?
§ THE EARL OF LONGFORDI do not think I have anything to add to the very long, almost interminable, speech I made when, not so long ago, we last debated the whole future of this House. I am sure the House will not want to hear from me again on that subject for quite a long while.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, in reply to what has been said, may I say that perhaps there is one point on which the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, will forgive my commenting, as it is on a matter of fact. The Members of the Procedure Committee, like all the other members of the Sessional Committees of your Lordships' House, are appointed for one Session only. Therefore they are not in any sense immortal, because their appointment has to be renewed by your Lordships at the beginning of every Session of this House.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.