§ 2.50 p.m.
§ Viscount Hanworth asked Her Majesty's Government:
§ Whether they support the European Communities' Council resolution of 8th June 1993 on the quality of drafting of Community legislation; and if so, what steps they are taking to improve the drafting of United Kingdom legislation?
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey)My Lords, we strongly supported the Council resolution. It was our initiative at the Edinburgh European Council to make new Community legislation clearer and simpler. The Community initiative has no direct relevance to UK legislative drafting. However, we expect to produce guidance on the implementation of EC laws in the UK to avoid imposing unnecessary burdens on business.
§ Viscount HanworthMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, is it not now the time to do something about our own failure to produce better drafting of legislation within the many areas of the Civil Service? Surely, we now have an opportunity to do just that.
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyMy Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. I hope that the 10 guidelines which have been developed for European legislation will also apply to British legislation. It seems to me to be extremely sensible to have wording which is clear, simple, concise and unambiguous—for example, unnecessary abbreviations, Community jargon and excessively long sentences should be avoided; indeed, for Community, one could add government. It is also a very good lesson for us to learn.
§ Lord Peyton of YeovilMy Lords, I hope my noble friend the Minister will accept my warm congratulations on the wisdom that she has shown in avoiding becoming too involved in the murky subject of UK legislation. Further, will she accept the very simple proposition that increases in volume are likely to be followed and reflected by a definite degradation in quality?
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyMy Lords, bearing in mind some of the activities in the House during recent months, I fear that my noble friend may have set me a trap in his language. Nevertheless, I shall try to answer him honestly. Volume and quality do not always go together; but sometimes we have to have volume for sensible reasons, and then it must be our job to ensure that we also have maximum quality.
Lord Bruce of DoningtonMy Lords, while English legislation (or British legislation), as produced, tends to have its defects from time to time—indeed, they form the subject of many debates in the House—perhaps I may ask this question. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that she fully endorses the remarks of the Prime Minister on the subject when he described much of European legislation as a lot of "waffle"? Anyone in your Lordships' House can verify that fact by looking through the official journals of the European Community which reproduce the legislation and which, in every case, contain at least three preambles and about 20 recitals prior to the actual wording of the regulation.
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyMy Lords, I believe it is fair to say that waffle is not restricted to legislation; it sometimes happens in both this and another place.
§ Lord RichardMy Lords, is the Minister aware that the problem of drafting of legislation in this country is something which has, to my knowledge, been considered for at least 30 years and which, I assume, was considered for a long time before? Is she also aware that every government says that it wants to do something about it but that no government actually succeeds in doing so? Will the Minister recognise that, in some ways, one of the keys to the problem may be that in Britain we insist that our parliamentary draftsmen cover just about very eventuality that it is possible for the ingenuity of the human mind to encompass? However, on the whole, in continental systems of justice there is a tendency to legislate more in terms of principles and rather less in terms of detail. Will the Government move down that path or will they stay where they are?
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyMy Lords, it is a difficult matter. I can well remember some 12 years ago being involved in the presenting of a Bill in another place on social security legislation. Everything that we tried to do in general terms, the Opposition of the day wished to put in in specific terms. Therefore, we ended up with the specificity in the legislation which we had really sought to avoid. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Richard; but the scrutiny team that looked at the EC legislation found little evidence to support the allegation that we deliberately added to the requirements on EC law. However, we have existing national legislation with a far wider scope and tougher penalties than other member states. That is the essential problem that we must set about tackling if we are to simplify our own UK law as well as EC law.
§ Lord Stoddart of SwindonMy Lords, as regards the guidance that the Government are to give to officials about EC legislation, can the Minister say whether it will include an instruction not to add to and build upon the legislation which has come from the EC? Further, is the noble Baroness aware that because of the building upon EC legislation, many businessmen and farmers have been put out of business, while many other kinds of businesses have been very badly hurt?
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyMy Lords, having spent 14 years in business before I entered the political arena, I always reckoned that it was very easy to blame 427 the Government when things went wrong in business, in the same way as governments sometimes look for other scapegoats, and they should not do so. One has to make legislation clear in order to ensure that it covers the principles, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and to make sure that we do not pressurise business to accept unnecessary burdens. That is why in the overhaul of the whole approach we have had an advisory steering group looking at the scrutiny report which included businessmen. We want their needs to be reflected in the legislative drafting for the future.