HL Deb 05 May 1981 vol 420 cc10-7

3.6 p.m.

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare) rose to move that the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.

The report is as follows:

1. HOUSE OF LORDS JOURNALS

The Committee have considered the future form of the House of Lords Journals and their relationship to the other principal records of the proceedings of the House: the Minutes of Proceedings and the Official Report (Hansard). They are of the opinion that there is considerable duplication involved in the present arrangements and that the Journals could be simplified and their bulk greatly reduced if—

  1. (a) documents in common form were no longer set out at length but summarised giving the details of all variable particulars. The original documents would continue to be available for inspection in the House of Lords Record Office or the Public Record Office.
  2. (b) amendments to Bills and the proceedings upon them were no longer set out in full but briefly summarised as they are at present in the Minutes. The account of such proceedings given in the Official Report, checked for accuracy by the Journal Office, could be regarded as authoritative for most purposes. In cases of dispute or uncertainty, appeal could be made to the manuscript record kept by the Clerks at the Table.

On this basis the entries in the Minutes could be so framed as to serve both for the Minutes and for the Journals. As a consequence there would be a significant reduction in the amount of staff time involved in preparing these records and also a considerable saving in printing costs.

The Committee are satisfied that the adoption of this proposal would result in substantial and worthwhile economies without doing violence to the essential purpose of the Journals which is to provide an authoritative record of the proceedings of the House. They recommend that the change to the new form should be introduced at the beginning of the next session.

In the context of this change the Committee's attention was drawn to the fact that Latin is still used in respect of certain matters in the Minutes and the Journals. They recommend no alteration in the present practice.

2. COMMITTEE OF SELECTION

The Committee have considered the Standing Orders governing the appointment of the Committee of Selection and also the arrangements for appointing the members of select committees generally.

The original function of the Committee of Selection was to select members to serve on committees on private bills and related matters For many years this function has, as a matter of practice, been exercised by the Chairman of Committees acting alone, except in cases of special sensitivity when he has called the Committee of Selection together for the purpose.

In 1973 the Committee of Selection was given the additional task of selecting members of select committees on public matters. It meets regularly for the purpose of selecting such members.

In spite of this difference of practice, appointments to committees of both types are described in the records of the House as having been made by the Committee of Selection. The Committee do not consider this state of affairs to be satisfactory and recommend that the Standing Orders should be amended to reflect the actual practice of the House by providing that members of select committees on private business should be appointed by the Chairman of Committees unless, in any particular case, he is of the opinion that they should be selected by the Committee of Selection or unless two or more members of that Committee request a meeting of the Committee for that purpose.

3. THE TEST ROLL

The Committee have considered the future form of the Test Roll, the document which members of the House sign after they have taken the Oath or made the Affirmation at the Table of the House. For a Parliament of normal length the Roll consists of some 30 vellum membranes and extends to about 120 feet.

In its present form the Roll is expensive to produce, unwieldy to handle and difficult to consult. The Committee are therefore of the opinion that it should be replaced by a book made of good quality paper. They recommend that this change should be introduced at the beginning of the next Parliament.

4. RECORD COPY OF THE ROLL OF THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL

When in 1966 the House authorised the discontinuation of Garter's Roll of the Lords it was provided that a suitably printed and bound record copy of the Clerk of the Parliaments' Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should be produced in its place. At present the record copy takes the form of the Clerk of the Parliaments' Roll reprinted on special paper, embellished with an illuminated coat of arms and bound in vellum. The production of this document involves very considerable cost.

The Committee are of the opinion that the requirements of the case could be satisfactorily met by the substitution of an ordinary copy of the Clerk of the Parliaments' Roll bound in buckram and they recommend accordingly.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, perhaps I might say a few words about the four items in the report, particularly in view of the fact that there is an amendment to one of them in the name of the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn. First, I should like to refer to Item 2 which is concerned with the appointment of Select Committees on Private Bills. This represents a tidying up of Standing Orders to bring them into line with what is, in fact, the present practice and with what has been the practice for many years now. Items 1, 3 and 4 result from recommendations made to the committee by the Clerk of the Parliaments as a result of his review of our various recording procedures, in order to achieve economy and to promote efficiency.

Item No. 1 was designed to avoid duplication between the Journals, the Minutes and the Hansard record. It appeared to the committee that these were very sensible suggestions, and it accepted them without much debate, although making one concession to tradition in continuing the use of Latin in certain parts of the Journals and the Minutes.

Item 4 equally aroused little interest and was agreed by the committee without argument. However, Item 3 led to some debate and is the subject of the noble Earl's amendment. This refers to the Test Roll which is the Roll that sits in that Box on the Opposition Front Bench, which is signed by your Lordships when you take the oath or make affirmation and is, therefore, familiar to us all.

The arguments put to us by the Clerk of the Parliaments were that the sequence of these Rolls dates back to 1675. The present practice is for a fresh vellum Roll to be started for each Parliament. The first membrane begins with the texts of the oath and the affirmation, and that is followed by the signatures of Peers taking the oath or affirming. As the number of signatures increases, so further membranes are stitched on to the Roll with the aid of what is called a red ferret. I imagine that the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, is worried that this red ferret is in danger of extinction. A Parliament of normal length has some 30 membranes, and a complete Roll may extend to something like 120 feet. The cost of the Roll is about £325. In its present form this Roll is expensive to produce, unwieldy to handle and difficult to consult. All these difficulties could be overcome if a book were substituted for the Roll.

It is true to say that the Roll is not all that often consulted, but if your Lordships agree to this report then, as a result of Item I, when the Minutes of the House and the Journal entries are assimilated it will be essential at the beginning of a Parliament, when your Lordships are taking the oath, to compile a list of those who have done so. If the Roll took the form of a book, of course this would be relatively easy, but as a Roll it would involve a considerable amount of work and difficulty. A book of this sort containing good quality paper would be much less expensive. It would cost about £60 or £70.

Over the years a number of different types of record have undergone this reform, notably Acts of Parliament which, until 1849, were in the form of a roll but which have been in book form ever since. In 1966 the House authorised the discontinuance of Garter's Roll of the Lords, and the substitution of a record copy of the printed Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in book form. About 10 years ago the House of Commons abandoned their Test Roll in favour of a book. These were the arguments that were before the committee, and certainly the committee were not unanimous in their decision; but in their report they arrived at the conclusion that they should recommend the substitution of a book for the Roll. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(Lord Aberdare.)

3.13 p.m.

Earl St. Aldwyn rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion that the Report be now agreed to, to insert at the end ("with the exception of item 3 (Test Roll)").

The noble Earl said: My Lords, my reason for putting down this Motion is that so many times the reports of the committees of your Lordships' House, such as the Offices, Procedure, and Privileges Committees, really go through almost on the nod. I, and I think a number of other Peers, were rather worried that this ancient custom of ours should be done away with without the House being fully aware of what was involved. The history of the taking of oaths came into being a long time ago, in the 16th century, and I shall not weary you with the history of why, or what form they took. But I would draw your Lordships' attention to what has occurred in another place.

All their early Test Rolls were destroyed in the lire of 1834, and for the year following, 1835–1836, they had one Test Roll and then thereafter the vellum sheets, or membranes, were put together and bound at the end of the Parliament. In 1970 they agreed to have, as the Lord Chairman has said, a book form. What the Lord Chairman failed to point out is that their book form is a book with sheets of vellum. The suggestion here is that the sheets should be of paper, which reminds me rather more of the visitors' book in one of your Lordships' larger houses than is suitable for this place.

As the Lord Chairman of Committees has said, we have an unbroken record of these Test Rolls from 1675, and I do not see why we should abandon a custom of this sort after 300 years for very little benefit. It is said that it is expensive to produce. Well, as I have said, I do not see why we should have a book of a lower quality than another place, and I doubt if a book in vellum form would be any cheaper than the present Roll. I notice that I am shown to have spoken for 38 minutes, but I can assure your Lordships that I have not.

The second point is that the Roll is unwieldy to handle and the third point is that it is difficult to consult. The Lord Chairman has covered the question of cost, so I shall not go into that again. On the question of the Roll being unwieldy to handle, I accept that in the first few weeks of a new Parliament the clerks have no idea how many of your Lordships are going to come and take the oath. Therefore, a number of extra membranes are sewn on which are usually tucked under the Table, but this is for only a few weeks, and after that it is only just one at a time.

As to the difficulty of consulting, I must tell your Lordships that I have no verification whatever that this story is correct, but nevertheless I have heard it and I hope you will bear with me while I repeat it. It is said that on certain occasions at an early hour before many of your Lordships are present the three clerks are to be seen proceeding to one of the Division Lobbies, which, oddly enough, are 40 yards long. One clerk kneels on the last sheet of the Roll, the second clerk unrolls the Roll to the full length of the 120 feet, and the third clerk then crawls from one end of the Division Lobby to the other, trying to find and verify one or two names.

Obviously, this is not the sort of undignified action that we should like our clerks to take, but I feel it is well within the ingenuity of those who serve us to make two stands, which I suggest should be not of Pugin design but of practical lightweight metal with adjustable height, with a pin going through which can be removed and clipped on to the two ends of the Roll, and a handle with a little adjustable brake, so that the Roll does not run away with itself. This could be adjusted at a suitable height so that the clerk sitting at the table could read through it and find what he wanted, then roll it up again with the minimum amount of effort, and all by himself. It also seems to me that it might be possible to xerox the Roll in this way. If the two stands that I am suggesting were made of an adjustable height so that they could go across the xerox machine, then the sheets could be copied without any more difficulty than copying a book.

I feel that this is slightly a case of change for change's sake. It is an old tradition of this House that these Rolls are kept in this form. They are the last in any Parliament, so far as I can discover, in the world; the only other instance I know of Rolls being kept is by the Venerable Order of St. John of Jersualem, so I hope your Lordships will support me in opposing this change. I beg to move.

Moved, As an amendment to the Motion that the report be now agreed to, to insert at the end ("with the exception of item 3 (Test Roll)").—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)

3.21 p.m.

Lord Hale

My Lords, I have no desire to intervene before noble Lords with much greater historical knowledge and experience of this matter, but I am anxious to thank the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, for giving us an opportunity to comment on an aspect of history that is passing and may have to pass. The argument of the committee is one of reason; it is difficult now to suggest that there is any overwhelming advantage in interfering half way through a procedure of reform which has already made considerable progress here and elsewhere.

The Journals of the Lords, which are not involved in this proposal, are an imperishable source of history of immense importance, recording not a great deal of the events but somehow seeming at various times to have been a method of relating that history of this House which is an essential part, and by no means a wholly discreditable part, of the history of Parliament and the nation. Gilbert and Sullivan were sometimes a little unkind in these matters—I think it was Hilaire Belloc who said we were ruled by the Ponsonbys—and perhaps it is fair to say that Gilbert and Sullivan were unkind, ungenerous or at any rate foolish about the family of one of our distinguished Members, because the Ponsonbys throughout the war did as much as any family; they opened Waterloo and saw it through and left that immortal diary which, I believe, has been edited by the present Earl, if not by his father, and which contains a history of the times which is full of beauty and nobility.

When I started in the law, every big solicitor's office had its full-time engrosser, and for small offices there was the profession of trade engrossers, with its laborious workers that Dickens so attractively and interestingly described, and not a very healthy occupation it was. When I started it was still possible to see deeds being produced, recording the ordinary transactions of the transfer of property throughout the land. I am sorry to say that it was just about the time I started—I had nothing to do with it—when the practice began of typing on parchment paper, along with a series of other reforms of methods which left the deed far from a permanent document. I now very much regret that change, though I imagine economic arguments would establish that there were not enough skins available for the work that was then needing to be done.

As I heard of this amendment only today, I am not quite sure what should be one's judgment of the value of preserving the Test Roll. It must be preserved in some form in any event, and I should have thought that if events took the course of which Members have been talking in another place, the last 1,000 signatures might be of immense historic value. Indeed, the Test Roll will always be of value as an historic document alone, and that should justify its being treated with some dignity.

As I have not had enough information to appreciate the precise difference, and as I realise that this may be causing extra work—and it seems that it does—I do not know that I should like to support a Division on the matter. I hope someone else will speak on the subject which the noble Earl has raised so ably and importantly, and I hope the matter might be concluded with a single sentence saying that our efforts to continue to preserve the presentation of our ancient documents will be borne in mind. I am thinking of the more modern ones of which we have begun to take custody. Contemporaries of my own have left documents and already there seems to be talk about the premises not being suitable for that purpose. But that is a little wide of the subject document we are discussing, although it is extremely relevant to the general proposition. I am grateful to your Lordships for allowing me to say that I regret the passing of a good deal of the majesty of the law and of Parliament.

Lord Robbins

My Lords, I would humbly ask the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees two brief questions. First, has he ascertained that the paper of which the proposed book would be composed is indestructible? Secondly, did the committee estimate the contribution per head which the average number of noble Lords who sign the Roll would have to make to perpetuate this noble antique custom?

3.30 p..m.

Lord Mowbray and Stourton

My Lords, I wish as a member of the Select Committee to point out that by some awful mischance I was not informed that it would sit that day. It was my own fault, for not having read the Green Paper. I must confess that I did not read the Green Paper very fully on that occasion and I was not otherwise informed about the procedures which the committee was going to set. I must confess that had I been there my vote on that particular matter would have been cast in the way of the third paragraph, as the noble Earl, Lord Aldwyn, has said. I find the third paragraph rather conclusive about the present House; like the House the Roll is expensive to produce, unwieldy to handle, and difficult to consult!

My Lords, that applies to us all! We should not overlook these difficulties. I look at the three clerks sitting there; they are well known and good friends to us all, but like most of us they are no longer in their twenties! However I do not believe it is beyond their physical capacity to do this. I believe the historic things which go on in this House—while it goes on in its present form—are something worth while preserving. As the noble Earl said, there is possibly only one other body in this country using a Roll, and I would ask your Lordships to think carefully before destroying this small but quite nice link with the past.

Viscount Eccles

My Lords, I am in sympathy with my noble friend beside me in what he wants to do, but if we do have a vellum book it will cost a good deal more than a roll. Vellum sheets will have to be stitched and then bound—I hope in full morocco leather.

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Viscount Eccles

My Lords, I think it would be very nice to have a vellum book. On the question of paper, unfortunately we can no longer get absolutely first-class paper made in this country. One has either to go to Italy, to Verona, or to Japan. One can get paper in both those places which I would think would be cheaper than vellum—which comes from abroad too, of course—but not all that much cheaper. I have just had occasion to look into this matter with the Oxford University Press and although I did not compare the prices of vellum and paper, first-class paper such as that which will last hundreds of years is now very difficult to get. I have just one question: for what purpose is the Roll consulted? Is it used to check the signature on a cheque, or what?

Lord Drumalbyn

My Lords, may I just add to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn. Only this morning I was listening to a BBC programme which referred to some perhaps humbler arrangements—parish records. It is a fact that pages are taken out of them from time to time and I cannot see how this can be avoided. I do not believe this is something worth risking when, for a comparatively small cost, we can maintain a tradition going back 300 years. There is something peculiarly appealing about a list of signatures, whether it is one made at the time of King Charles's death or whatever. I think this is something peculiarly associated with our history and I believe we should support the amendment.

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Lord Morris

My Lords, very briefly I should like to support the amendment, for the simple reason that I believe this whole point is one worthy of further consideration. In so doing I will attempt to draw your Lordships' attention to an invention by a British leather chemist, who has produced a material which is a mixture of leather and carbon fibre. This material has all the qualities of paper and an atomic life that is some 1,000 times longer than that of ordinary paper. This material has been considered very carefully by the Library of Congress but, so far as I know, this leather chemist's approaches to the Parliament of the United Kingdom were ignored. I believe this material would answer a number of technical problems with regard to the Roll. In order to give your Lordships' committee an opportunity to consider this, I believe a delay in making a decision would do no harm whatsoever.

Lord Beswick

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Earl for raising this matter and I would like to support it, for two or three reasons: First, because I believe there are other ways in which one can save £350; secondly, I feel that we made a mistake in changing the format of Hansard. We were told how good it was going to be, what savings were going to be made, and that the new format was going to be so acceptable. That has not proved to be the case. We made a mistake in the change we made to the format of Hansard and I rather fear that the advice that is being tendered by the Select Committee with regard to this item is probably also ill-founded.

There is another reason why I should like to support the noble Earl. For many years we were in opposing camps. I was a member of the same union as the noble Earl but we never found ourselves in the same Lobby. If he will press this amendment of his today, I should like to establish a new alliance and join with him.

Lord Aberdare

My Lords, we have a great deal of business before us and if I judge right from the discussion we have had so far, the general feeling of the House is in favour of the noble Earl's amendment. Certainly the Select Committee is not dogmatic on the subject. There was a certain amount of discussion in the committee and this was not done on the grounds of economy, which are minimal in this case, but there did seem to be reasons of convenience. I would judge that probably the best thing to do is to accept the noble Earl's amendment.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

On Question, Motion, as amended, agreed to.

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