Home Affairs: Report of Select Committee (Hansard, 5 March 1981)

§ Lord Gardiner
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead)
My Lords, Her Majesty's Government will shortly be publishing their reply to the Select Committee's report.

§ Lord Gardiner
My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him first whether he accepts the facts stated in the opening of the report; namely, that during the past 10 years more than 40 reports by Royal Commissions or other committees appointed by the Government, and some 17 reports by Select Committees of the House of Commons, have 1505 been published on a variety of subjects falling wholly or partly within the responsibility of the Home Office? Secondly, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees with the statement made in paragraph 20 of the report, in which, referring to certain reports, they say that a great deal of time and effort as well as public money was devoted to the inquiries on which they were based and to their preparation?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I certainly accept the first part of the noble and learned Lord's supplementary, so far as it goes. But none of the reports quoted by the noble and learned Lord was commissioned by or reported to the present Government. None the less, the action taken on these reports has received the close attention of my right honourable friend. All these reports raise matters of major public policy, of concern to Parliament. As the House will know, pressure on parliamentary time is one of the main determinants of the speed at which action on reports can be taken. So far as the second part of the noble and learned Lord's supplementary is concerned, of course the Government appreciate the very great deal of time which is taken on preparing reports of committees which are set up, but I do not think we should forget that in appointing committees of inquiry Governments do not commit themselves to implementing those committees' proposals. Still less can one Government commit their successor.

§ Lord Gardiner
My Lords, would the noble Lord care to comment on the statement in paragraph 3? After referring to four particular groups of reports they say: The evidence we received"— which I take it was from the Home Office— gave us a disturbing impression of the character of the department's response to the work of committees, which we can only describe as dilatory and complacent".

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I think that part of the report is based on a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that the report appears to criticise the Home Office as though it were in some way separate from the Government of the day. The present Government have accepted full responsibility for the handling of these matters since May 1979.

§ Baroness Wootton of Abinger
My Lords, can the Minister explain why, in addition to overlooking the advice they have received in the numerous reports referred to by the Select Committee, they are also cutting themselves off from future supplies of advice—as, for instance, by not reactivating the Advisory Council on the Penal System?

§ Lord Belstead
That is another question, my Lords.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, does not the Minister's reply to the original supplementary of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, confirm the impression given by this report from the Select Committee, that the Home Office suffers from the "not invented here" syndrome: that any proposals which are made from outside for reforms within the department's area of 1506 competence are virtually ignored or rejected? In particular, if we take the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, would not the Minister agree that going back as far as 1974, before the original Select Committee inquiry, there were representations from practically every major organisation in the voluntary field that this law needed to be reformed because the boundaries were so totally arbitrary and that many organisations had to devote substantial intellectual resources simply to making sure that they kept within the narrow boundaries, which were laid down, of the definition of a charity?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, if I may pick from the fairly long supplementary which the noble Lord has asked me what in fact he is saying, as I understand it, it is that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is inactive in these matters. There have been two recent reports which have very much affected the Home Office—that is to say, Ministers in the Home Office—under the present Government. The first was the Committee on Police Pay under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies. Within a few days of its going to the Home Office, my right honourable friend implemented in full all the recommendations of that report and put them into effect. The second report which I have in mind is the report of Mr. Justice May on the future of the prison service. On the very day that that report was published, my right honourable friend accepted many of the recommendations and accepted in full and without question all the recommendations on pay and allowances for the prison service.
The noble Lord, however, mentioned one report which is referred to in this report of the Select Committee; namely, the report of the Goodman Committee—not, incidentally, a report made to the Government but a report made to the National Council of Voluntary Service. That report made certain recommendations on fiscal matters relating to charities which were, as many noble Lords know, put into effect by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Finance Bill of 1980.