Select Committee Reports: Dissenting Opinions (Hansard, 17 June 1982)

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

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Young)
My Lords, as I explained in my reply to my noble friend yesterday, minority reports are contrary to the practice of either House.

§ Lord Vaizey
My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that somewhat dusty Answer, may I ask her three further questions? Is she aware that judgments of this House in its judicial capacity often contain notes of dissent? Why is this right not extended to Back-Benchers whose interests the Leader of the House is traditionally supposed to protect? Secondly, is she aware that in recent years Select Committees in another place have contained many notes of dissent and that Erskine May is therefore out of date and almost certainly wrong?

Several noble Lords
Reading!

§ Lord Vaizey
Thirdly, is she further aware that the Ecclesiastical Committee report, both to the other place and to this House on the 25th March, contains the following passage which indicates that notes of dissent are permissible: 10 members of the committee say such-and-such, 11 members however consider the other case? In other words, could the Minister please explain why she is giving us out-of-date and not very helpful information?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I much regret the tone of the observations of my noble friend, because I have given a reply to his questions. I have given him a factual Answer as Leader of the House, having taken advice upon the points that he has raised. He has asked me three questions. May I make it quite clear that judgments from the Law Lords contain the speeches of the Law Lords and they are not a report from the committee. Therefore, it is not the same point at all.
So far as the Select Committee is concerned in this House, the minutes of the proceedings will be published 710 on 7th July, and I understand from the minutes of the proceedings that there was in fact only one Division on a clause by my noble friend, and that was in fact disagreed to. I will in fact take advice on the matter of the Ecclesiastical Committee and write to him on that point.

§ Lord Elwyn-Jones
My Lords, is it not the case that when the House sets up a Select Committee on a particular problem, what the House hopes for is the opinion and considered conclusion of the committee as a whole, even though that conclusion may disappoint members whose individual views have been overruled by the Select Committee?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, has of course set out the position on Select Committees in this House. As I have tried to indicate, there is an opportunity for individual members to express a view in the minutes of the committee's proceedings, and that is the right way to do so in those particular circumstances.

§ Lord Shinwell
My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she is aware that the term that she used, "the practice of the House", is becoming a bit outmoded? Is she aware that over the years, certainly since I have been a Member of your Lordships' House, I have observed how what are called the practices of the House, the ritual, pass through almost on the nod because really no notice is taken of these matters? But in the course of time people's minds change and new practices are required, so that we must have regard to the inevitability of change. Surely the time has arrived when, if the report of a Select Committee has been considered by a committee of the House and a Member decides to record his dissent, that dissent should be recorded immediately in the report and not have to wait for subsequent evidence, for when it comes—

Several noble Lords
Question!

§ Lord Shinwell
—to a matter of subsequent evidence, it is usually in small print and nobody pays attention to it.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, as Leader of the House I have followed what has been the practice of the House based on the advice I have received on matters to do with Select Committees. This report will be published in three volumes; the other two volumes will be published on 7th July. I personally think it is a matter for regret that the three volumes were not published at the same time, but the decision about publication was a decision of the committee and I am content to abide by their decision. There are opportunities, if the question is not to do with Select Committees. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is worried about the practice of the House. Other practices of the House can of course be raised and debated in the appropriate committees of the House, and I hope I am always available to noble Lords who wish to raise points that should be discussed for the better working of the House.

§ Lord Melchett
My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness to confirm, regarding this particular Select Committee's report, that not one Member of the Select Committee, including the noble Lord who asked Questions yesterday and today, voted against a paragraph or even a single word contained in the Select Committee's final report?

§ Baroness Young
My understanding of the position, my Lords—of course, the minutes of the proceedings have not yet been published—is that there was one Division on a new clause which was moved by my noble friend but was disagreed to.

§ Lord Melchett
My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House to confirm—I am anxious that this should be on the record—that there was a Division only on a new clause, meaning that there was no Division and no dissent expressed about any of the contents of the report itself?

§ Baroness Young
The answer to that point, my Lords, is, yes.

§ Lord Boardman
My Lords, while of course accepting what my noble friend has said on the practice and constitution, may I ask her to agree that it is perhaps not widely understood outside this House, and is there not a danger of Members of this House on such committees who strongly dissent and who are associated with parties—who, again, have dissented from the findings of the Select Committee—being in the press and having views attributed to them which perhaps would not be truly representative of the result of their impression of the committee and would lead to a distortion and a misunderstanding in the country?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I should regret it if any Member's views had been distorted in any way. As I have indicated, and as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, made clear earlier, when there is a Select Committee, what the House asks for are the opinions of the committee, which are published in the form of a report. It is always open to any Member of your Lordships' House to write to the press, explaining his views, if that is what he wishes to do; but that is a separate matter from the proceedings of the committee.

Lord Oram
My Lords, while I do not dissent in any way from the advice which the noble Leader has given to the House on the matter, may I ask whether it is not understandable that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, should be disappointed that his apparently negative views on the question of unemployment should not have received the attention he hoped? However, is there not another way by which the House could meet the noble Lord's point? Could we debate the report? That would give us an opportunity of hearing Lord Vaizey, but we should also be able to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, from the Liberal Benches, who chaired the committee, and indeed the views of distinguished Conservative Members of the committee with considerably longer service to the Conservative Party than Lord Vaizey, such as the 712 noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, who apparently has not dissented from the report.

§ Baroness Young
I am sure there will be a debate on the report, my Lords, and the arrangements for that will be made through the usual channels in the usual way. I should like to say that I have made my remarks as Leader of the House and that my noble friend Lord Vaizey is of course perfectly entitled to his point of view, and he has a long and distinguished career as an academic.