HL Deb 03 March 1982 vol 427 cc1289-90

3.11 p.m.

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare)

My Lords, I beg to move that the Second Report of the Select Committee on Procedure of the House be agreed to.

On the instructions of the House the Procedure Committee considered the proceedings in this House on 22nd December last, and this report makes a number of recommendations, most of them a restatement of existing practice. If I may, I should like particularly to emphasise the last two paragraphs of this report. The first urges your Lordships to consult the Leader of the House whenever her ruling may be required; and the second urges your Lordships to seek advice from the Clerk of the Parliaments in any case of difficulty. I feel sure that if these two pieces of advice are heeded we shall not run up against these sort of procedural difficulties in the future. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Second Report of the Select Committee on Procedure of the House be agreed to—(Lord Aberdare.)

The Report was as follows:

1. Private Notice Questions

The decision whether a Private Notice Question is of sufficient urgency to justify an immediate reply rests in the first place with the Leader of the House. If a Lord proposes to challenge the preliminary decision of the Leader, it is essential that he should, as indicated in the Companion to the Standing Orders on page 70, both give notice of his intention to do so and make clear to the House when he rises to ask his question that he is appealing to the House to support him against the preliminary decision of the Leader. Whenever a Lord proposes to challenge the Leader's preliminary decision, he should give as much notice as possible to the Leader of his intention to do so. He should not seek to raise the issue of his Private Notice Question on any motion on the day of that question if only because, if he were to do so, he would be in breach of Standing Order 25 which states that "… debate must be relevant to the question before the House …".

2. First Reading

The House should reaffirm the convention that the First Reading of a Bill is almost always accorded without dissent or debate both as a matter of courtesy and because the House has no knowledge of the Bill until it is printed (Companion to the Standing Orders, page 107).

3. Consolidated Fund Bills

While it is clear that it is neither unconstitutional nor contrary to the privileges of the Commons for the Lords to discuss and even to divide upon Consolidated Fund Bills, the House has as a matter of fact passed such Bills without such discussion or dissent for over seventy years and there is a general, though unwritten, convention that proceedings upon them are taken formally. This convention should be described in the Companion to the Standing Orders.

4. Putting the Question and Collecting the Voices

The House should affirm the following propositions—

  1. (i) The Lord on the Woolsack or in the Chair does not complete the question until after any Lord who wishes to speak has spoken.
  2. (ii) The Lord on the Woolsack or in the Chair, when collecting the voices, has to clear the Bar if any Lord continues to challenge his expression of opinion so that a division may take place.
    3. 1290
  3. (iii) The practice of the House in regard to the collection of voices on judicial business has no application to any other business of the House.

5. General

The House should endorse the words of the Companion to tire Standing Orders on page 23 that—

"Since the Speaker has no effective powers the Leader … advises the House on matters of procedure and order, though he is endowed with no formal authority. The maintenance of order in the House is the responsibility of the House as a whole, and therefore of every Lord present as well as of the Leader; nevertheless the Leader frequently acts as the voice of the House in this respect … He, and his private office are available to assist all Lords irrespective of party".

Lords would greatly assist the effective conduct of the business of the House if, whenever they proposed to raise any matter on which the Leader of the House's guidance might be required, they gave as much notice as possible of their intention to the Leader or her Private Office.

If any Lord is in doubt or difficulty about a point of order or of procedure, the Clerk of the Parliaments and other Clerks are available to give advice and Lords arc recommended to consult them.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, I should like to raise one point with the Chairman of Committees, not on the two paragraphs which he has mentioned but on paragraph 3 on page 2. Did the committee consider whether there might be a case for this House using the Consolidated Fund Bill in the same way as another place uses it, particularly in view of the fact that there are many issues of local and of national and international importance which Back-Benchers would have an opportunity of airing, as is done in another place, if the precedent of the last 70 years were changed now?

Lord Aberdare

Certainly, my Lords, this matter was considered but it was not considered to be appropriate. It was felt that Back-Benchers have plenty of opportunities as it is for raising all sorts of questions in this House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.