HL Deb 23 July 1996 vol 574 cc1271-87

3.16 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne)

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

I would submit that the terms of this Motion are narrow. We are addressing the draft contract for printing and publishing services between your Lordships' House and a privatised Stationery Office. Therefore, I do not propose to detain the House unduly by dwelling on other matters—for example, the principle of the privatisation of HMSO—as, in my submission, that would be outside the scope of the Motion.

Your Lordships will be well aware of the background to the contract. When the Offices Committee discussed the privatisation of HMSO last December, it listed certain contractual safeguards that it rightly believed to be essential to the needs of this House. Your Lordships' House then engaged lawyers specifically to draft the contract which met—and, indeed, exceeded—those criteria. It is that contract which I am now asking your Lordships to consider.

I note that not only does the Offices Committee believe that the safeguards have been met, but that, as the noble Lord observed this afternoon, such is also the opinion of counsel to the Chairman of Committees. The noble Lords, Lord Richard and Lord Weatherill, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, who I am sorry to see is not in his place, will I am sure allow me to refer to a letter that I sent to them on 18th July last. In that letter I reported a conversation that I had had with counsel to the Chairman of Committees in the wake of a notice, circulated to the Offices Committee last week, which invited any member of the Committee who had doubts about the draft contract between the House and HMSO to consult counsel to the Chairman of Committees.

However, apart from me, I understand that no one consulted counsel. Therefore, I thought it might be helpful to write to my opposite numbers to report on the advice that he gave me. I was able to assure them that that, in counsel's opinion, the draft contract has entirely achieved the requirements laid down by the Offices Committee and, of course, those proposals were agreed to by your Lordships' House. In his view—and I report this with his permission—it reproduces the substance of the existing supply and services agreement but is tighter as befits a commercial contract. Counsel tells me that he is entirely satisfied that the requirements have been adequately fulfilled and that it is as tightly drawn a contract as one could have.

Noble Lords may also be interested to know that a very similar set of safeguards was requested by the authorities in another place. They have recently agreed to a similar contract. Indeed, our draft contract covers nearly £2 million-worth of work annually, compared to some £12.5 million for another place.

I am sure that many noble Lords share the stated concerns of the Offices Committee and it might, therefore, be useful, if your Lordships allow me, to outline some of the salient features of the draft contract. In all respects, I am advised that it at least meets the committee's safeguards, and in many cases exceeds them. For instance, the committee stated that steps should be taken to ensure that services continued to be provided from within central London. The contract, in fact, as your Lordships will know, ensures that the privatised Stationery Office cannot vacate HMSO's current parliamentary press in Southwark without the consent of your Lordships' House.

I know that there are many in this House, in the other place and elsewhere who are concerned about the pricing of parliamentary publications. Indeed, I have been concerned about that and I was pleased to sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, when he most helpfully intervened to ask a question last year. I hope that the noble Lord will agree that he and I are wholly at one on the importance of making parliamentary publications, in the interests of our parliamentary government, as widely available as possible. For that reason I believe that continued low cover prices are essential if the public are to be aware in particular of the work of your Lordships' House as well as of that of another place.

I am pleased, therefore, to be able to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the contract not only constrains cover prices, as the Offices Committee rightly and, I believe, unanimously requested, but also provides for real-terms price cuts of at least 2.5 per cent. per annum over the life of the contract. This, so far as I know, is the first time in the history of parliamentary publishing that such a deal has been offered. Perhaps I may add that I do not believe it very likely that such a deal would have been offered by a public-sector HMSO, although that is a matter of personal judgment.

I should also draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the contract provides for the annual cuts in the charges that your Lordships' House pays to the Stationery Office. I am sure that we would all welcome that particular provision.

Furthermore, the contract addresses the criteria raised by the Offices Committee. It provides for a comprehensive framework of accountability whereby named senior managers of the Stationery Office will be responsible to this House for all matters connected with the contract. It also provides for the continuation of the current emergency printing arrangements and allows this House to reclaim from the Stationery Office any extra costs incurred in their operation. Those are good examples of why counsel to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees feels that the terms of the contract are both stringent and vigorous, and that there is a range of remedies up to and including termination of the contract in the event of unsatisfactory performance.

It might be worth noting that the short-listed bidders for HMSO recognised the strength of the contract. Indeed, one of them in particular wished to soften some of its provisions but has since been eliminated from the contest. The remainder have, however, stated their clear intention to agree and uphold the terms as drafted. That would clearly be in their interests because your Lordships would not be willing to modify those terms in any way, and I would certainly not suggest that your Lordships should contemplate such a step.

Your Lordships' House and, to a much greater extent as I have made clear, the other place represent arguably Her Majesty's Stationery Office's most important customers. Perhaps no sensible businessman would treat his most important customers and their wishes with anything other than the greatest respect. With respect, I would submit to your Lordships that we have here a proposal which meets and exceeds the safeguards requested by the Offices Committee. That is not my opinion, but it is a professional opinion which has hitherto been universally respected by your Lordships' House, and rightly so. The contract offers an unrivalled deal on pricing and costs and contains stringent terms in the highly unlikely event of unsatisfactory performance.

Perhaps I may add one other thing. I suggest that it would be somewhat perverse of this House not to agree to this contract, given the benefits on offer. Clearly, failure to agree would mean that we would still have to agree terms at a later date with someone, if we do not wish to set up in the publishing business ourselves, given that another place has accepted the terms of this contract. Any negotiations that we resumed with a privatised Stationery Office would be undertaken from a position of relatively greater weakness as compared with our present position. I would suggest that it is far better to secure the House's requirements in legally binding form now and share in the benefits of privatisation, which I know are not immediately apparent to all Members of your Lordships' House, but which I feel are clearly present. Therefore, I urge the House to endorse the contract.

Moved, That this House considers that the draft contract, which replaces the existing Supply and Services Agreement with HMSO, embodies the safeguards necessary to meet the requirements of the House for printing and publishing services.—(Viscount Cranborne.)

3.25 p.m.

Lord Richard

My Lords, perhaps I may say to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House that the benefits of privatisation of HMSO are not apparent to those on these Benches. I am not happy with the form of the contract. It is somewhat diffusely drafted, and there is far too much legislation almost by reference. You have to go from one clause to another clause to another clause to an appendix, and then from an appendix to a tender document to find out exactly what are the obligations. Having said that, I do not particularly like the form of the contract. Perhaps that is an aesthetic rather than a legal objection, but I have to say, looking at it as best I can, the obligations that the House was concerned to place on the prospective buyer of HMSO are sufficiently set out in the contract itself. I have no great dispute with the Government over the contract per se.

I wish to draw the attention of the House to what was said in the Offices Committee Report, which the noble Viscount the Leader of the House did not mention. That report said: Serious doubts were, however, expressed by some members of the Committee about the level of service which the House would receive under the contract". We have also been reminded that European Community law does not permit the House to enter into an open-ended contract. The contract expires on 31st March 2000, subject to the possibility of earlier termination, and it is renewable for a further two years. At the end of that period the contract would have to be put out to competitive tender. If that is right, and I apprehend that it is, what we are talking about here is not a contract in perpetuity, but a contract for four years with a possible renewal of another two years, at the end of which the House and another place will have to reconsider the terms of the contract between whoever at that stage is running the Stationery Office and this House. I would be grateful if at some stage the noble Viscount could say something about that.

Of course the noble Viscount was very careful to avoid any discussion of privatisation as such. This is a privatisation too far. For the life of me, and I am doing the best I can with it, I really cannot see the purpose of this exercise. I do not see why on earth in the dying days of a dying government we have to go through this exercise. It would have been far better to have left HMSO as it was. Frankly, the House was reasonably satisfied with what it had.

3.28 p.m.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill

My Lords, I do not propose to say anything about privatisation; I wish to speak only about the contract before the House. I am grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for what he has just said, and, for that matter, to the staff for their dedicated efforts in producing what I regard as a contract containing effective safeguards of the public interest, subject to one or two points which I would like to raise in a moment.

Speaking entirely for myself, I am grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for his support for efforts to make Hansard and other parliamentary material available at marginal cost, or thereabouts, as happens in so many other Commonwealth and European countries. That must be in the interests of a healthy parliamentary democracy and in the interests of having an informed citizenry who are able to read what we say and do. Therefore, I am extremely glad that with Hansard and other parliamentary material—as I read the contract—being delivered free of charge over the Internet, it is proposed to reduce the price of printed material to no more than the marginal cost of distribution and sale. If that is right, I am extremely glad that that is so.

I raise three or four points for clarification. The first concerns the creation of a level playing field for the commercial distribution of the House's material in added value electronic form. There will, of course, be commercial publishing companies competing with the Stationery Office Limited in disseminating to the public parliamentary material in added value form. That will happen in addition to the publication of the House's material through the Internet by the Stationery Office Limited. It is therefore important to ensure that the Stationery Office Limited has no commercial or operational advantage over other publishers in creating added value services because of its "preferred supplier" status, in the words of the contract.

I should be grateful if the noble Viscount could assure the House that the Stationery Office Limited's added value operations will receive the House's material on exactly the same terms, including time of access, as all other electronic publishers. Those points are covered briefly in Clause 28 of what I call the electronic form contract. But the situation is not wholly clear, at least to me, although unlike the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I happen to think that by the normal standards of commercial drafting the contract is elegant and even concise. However, I must confess that it is not wholly clear to me. There are examples in other countries of monopoly publishers of official material abusing their position to give preference to their own commercial activities. It would therefore be helpful if it could be made clear that the core service activities—in the language of the contract—of the Stationery Office Limited under Clause 2 will include an express reference to the provision of those documents to any holder of a licence issued by or on behalf of the House". Or, if that cannot be done because it is too late to amend the contractual language, can that point please be addressed in some other way?

My second point is about publication times for electronic material. Publication times are detailed in Schedule 1, Part 2 of the draft contract. I apologise to ordinary human beings in the House who do not have to read contractual language and construe it. As I am a lawyer I hope I shall be forgiven for what I am now doing. In the words of the contract, publication times assume normal timetables for supply of copy from the House for print production, thus allowing printer's text to be made available to meet electronic publishing schedules". That suggests to me that it is intended that the electronic version will be held up until printed copies are available. If that were right—I hope it is wrong—it would mean that new technology would be held back to the speed of the old technology. That would, with respect, be a timid and unsatisfactory approach which reminds me of the time when red flags went up before steam engines could advance along the railway track. It is inevitable that the full benefits of the speed of electronic publication will at some stage be permitted by your Lordships' House.

Lord Peston

My Lords, I hope I may interrupt the noble Lord because I am rather lost. Where in the contract does the electronic section appear?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill

My Lords, it appears in the electronic contract at Schedule 1, Part 2 of the contract entitled, Agreement for the electronic publication". It was made available in the Library.

Lord Peston

My Lords, I interrupt the noble Lord for a second time to ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House whether we are debating the electronic contract at all. I thought we were debating the other contract as it were. I am totally lost therefore as regards the electronic contract.

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, as this is my Motion I am extremely sorry that I also find myself somewhat lost. As always I am hugely impressed by the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I, too, thought we were debating what the noble Lord, Lord Peston, mentioned. However, I find the noble Lord's remarks of great interest to your Lordships' House. As always I am in the hands of the House but this is an important matter. I greatly sympathise as regards the parallel I believe the noble Lord drew of the red flag in front of an early motor car. Unless the House wishes to cut the noble Lord short, I think it would be worth while to listen to the conclusion of his remarks.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill

My Lords, I can be relied upon to get procedure wrong anywhere, especially in this House. However, I had thought that the draft contract which replaces the existing supply and services agreement with HMSO embodied two draft contracts which were made available to Members of the House. One deals with printed matter and the other deals with electronic matter. I have just one or two other points to make—

Lord Peston

My Lords, I interrupt the noble Lord a third time and apologise to him for doing so yet again. Like the noble Viscount the Leader of the House I am interested in what the noble Lord is saying. I think I am in agreement with him, but my problem is that I did not have the faintest idea that was what we were going to talk about. As someone quite obsessed with these electronic things I should like to have known about that so that I could debate the matter with the noble Lord.

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, I apologise for intervening again. I think I was less than clear in my intervention in the noble Lord's speech. I am grateful to him for his patience as regards this double act between the noble Lord, Lord Peston, and myself. The draft contract to which I refer in my Motion is the agreement for printing, publishing and other services. There is another contract which I think is referred to in the Offices Committee Report which is not the subject of my Motion; namely, an agreement for the electronic publication and distribution of parliamentary material. Strictly that is not within the scope of the Motion. The House was quite right to listen with patience to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, when he referred to the principle of privatisation of HMSO. I am in the hands of the House as regards how much latitude the House will want to give to the noble Lord, Lord Lester.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill

My Lords, I shall be brief because I had almost finished my second point. I said that as regards publication times for electronic material, the time will surely come soon when the full benefits of the speed of electronic publication will be permitted by the House. I believe that is the position in both Houses of the Australian Parliament. As the electronic version will in practice be ready but under embargo—as I read the contracts—for a period before the printed version is available, there is scope for leaks and privileged access which I do not favour. Perhaps I can say in my defence that it is difficult to look at the print contract and turn a blind eye to the electronic contract because the two impact upon each other and have repercussive implications.

I refer to a related point. In the report of the committee of another place on access to that House's information it was suggested that Members of that House would receive information before non-Members; that is, before members of the public and the media. Speaking of this House, it is surely essential that the general rule under both these contracts should be that Members of this House—and I dare say of another—should have access to parliamentary material at the same time as the public and the media. I realise that there may have to be specific occasions where that is inappropriate, but the general rule should surely be one of simultaneity. There are many reasons why that should be the case including those of investor protection. Parliamentary material will sometimes have implications for investors. Members of this House and members of the staff of this House may be investors. There would be clear dangers in Members of either House enjoying a timing benefit over other investors.

The best principles developed in the financial services industry require simultaneous disclosure of information to all. The draft agreement seems to be silent on that point. I should therefore be most grateful if the noble Viscount would clarify whether Members of this House—and for that matter the staff of this House—would enjoy a timing advantage, and, if so, how the dangers to which I have referred would be dealt with.

I can deal with the last point in a sentence. I refer to judgments of the Appellate Committee of this House. From the contracts I do not understand whether it is envisaged that the judgments will be disseminated electronically as soon as they are available. I deprecate the selling of the judgments of the Appellate Committee, as has happened in recent times. I very much hope that they can be put on the Internet and made freely available to the public, who are always agog to read the decisions of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, if possible without charge. I am most grateful to have been permitted to make these points on the other contract.

3.41 p.m.

Lord Monkswell

My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal for introducing the debate, even though it transpired that it is only half the introduction needed following the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill.

One of the first remarks that I noted from the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal was that advice from the counsel to the Chairman of Committees was important. That will be the theme of my contribution. The result of the contract will be that instead of the Clerk of the Parliaments being in control of the printing, publication and dissemination of our proceedings—making them available to Members of your Lordships' House—control will move from the Clerk of the Parliaments to the counsel to the Chairman of Committees. In effect we are surrendering control from ourselves to the Law Courts. I refer noble Lords to Clause 28.8 under the heading, "Governing Law and Jurisdiction". It states: This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and the parties hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts". One of the advantages of what might be described as a direct labour organisation is that in the main disputes do not end up in the courts. But it is worth considering some further remarks made by the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal. He reported to us that the financial value of the contract was something like £2.5 million for our proceedings and £12.5 million for the proceedings of another place. That gives a contract value of about £15 million. I suspect that the turnover of Her Majesty's Stationery Office is in excess of that to a quite large degree. From the point of view of contractual arrangements, the printing and publishing of our proceedings are a small part of the operations of the Stationery Office. The noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal reported that the printing and publication of our proceedings were the most important part of the Stationery Office's operations. Members of this House and another place would agree that that is currently the situation.

I was rather curious to hear the noble Viscount report that the price cuts offered under the contract would not be possible under the continued operation of the Stationery Office as a direct labour organisation. If price cuts can be achieved in the private sector which cannot be achieved if the body is run by this Government, it suggests to me that the Government are not good managers of business.

The noble Viscount also reported that while we were in a strong position now to write this contract—other noble Lords have suggested that it is a tight contract which provides all the safeguards needed—in future negotiations we shall be operating from a position of weakness. I believe that that is probably a quite realistic assessment of the situation. The current financial operations—the costs, if I may so put it—of producing the deliberations of this place and another place are a relatively small part, I suggest, of the Stationery Office's operations. Therefore in future we shall not be in a position of strength when negotiating with a commercial operation only a small part of whose business is connected directly with us.

I have referred to the fact that the very existence of the contract shifts control from the Clerk of the Parliaments to the lawyers. It is also worth noting—it was referred to by my noble friends Lord Richard and Lord Bruce of Donington—that once we go down this road of privatisation the situation will be taken out of our hands. Initially, control will be in the hands of the English courts, but within a relatively short space of time in the timescale of parliamentary proceedings it will end up in the jurisdiction of the European Union. The contract will have to be put out to competitive tender. In effect that means that the contract is offered to anyone within the European Union to fulfil.

It is one thing to allow our proceedings to be subject to the control of the English courts and English lawyers. It is quite another to allow the control of our proceedings to pass beyond that to a company which may not even be constituted within the English jurisdiction.

We have to ask two further questions. How far will privatisation go? During Starred Questions recently a noble Lord suggested that any direct labour organisation was fundamentally wrong. Does that extend to the Armed Forces of the Crown? That is the logic of the Government's position. They will continue to privatise until eventually nothing is left. Have they already had expressions of interest from rich Americans to buy the Palace of Westminster on a leaseback arrangement? That is the logic of the Government's position in continuing down the road of privatisation.

My final question for the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal is this. How difficult will it be to repatriate (if I may so put it) the printing and publishing of our proceedings to our direct control? How easy will it be to take back control of our own proceedings? I hope that the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal can answer that question. I suspect that he may not be able to do so.

Lord Ampthill

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down will he help us by explaining why he believes that the control of our affairs has passed from the Clerk of the Parliaments into the hands of, he says, "the lawyers", purely because the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has chosen to accept advice from the counsel to the Chairman of Committees, who happens to have been a servant of this House for 20 years or more and is one of the most brilliant lawyers whom we are extremely fortunate to have at our disposal? Why should that mean that we are presenting all our affairs into the hands of, he says, "the lawyers"? Can he answer that?

Lord Monkswell

My Lords, yes, I think I can. Before I do so, I preface my remarks by saying that I have the utmost regard for the counsel to the Chairman of Committees and his integrity not only as a lawyer but as a servant of this House. I hope that any of my remarks which may have given a different impression will be struck out.

I suggest that the control of the printing and publishing of our proceedings will be surrendered from the Clerk of the Parliaments to the lawyers and the Law Courts because of the paragraph in the contract that I read out. On page 28 of the report, Clause 28.8 headed "Governing Law and Jurisdiction" states: This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and the parties hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts". We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, that there are large question marks about how the electronic contract will be interpreted. I suspect that at the end of the day it will have to be interpreted by the courts. That is why I suggested that we are surrendering control of the publication and printing of our proceedings from ourselves and our servants to the jurisdiction of the courts. That is my interpretation of the draft contract. If the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal has a different interpretation and can argue that the contract cannot be tested in an English court but will be subject to variation and determination by the Clerk of the Parliaments at will, that is a rather curious situation.

I hope that I have not detained the House too long.

3.52 p.m.

Lord Renton

My Lords, I did not put my name down to speak in this debate because, owing to my attendance at a meeting upstairs, I did not think I should be able to do so. I find I am free to speak and I have listened to the whole of this debate except for the first few minutes of the speech of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal.

I am broadly in favour of what the Government propose but I should be glad of an assurance with regard to reports for which there is still a demand but which are no longer in print. I mention the report of the Committee on the Preparation of Legislation, which will be familiar to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, because he was a member of the committee. The report has twice been reprinted. My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham described it when he was Lord Chancellor as a best seller. It has been a best seller almost continuously and is still in demand, not only in this country but in the Commonwealth, and indeed in the European Community where it is sometimes used.

We were told last year that such reports, of which there is no longer a supply available, could be provided by photocopying and charged for at a flat rate which was then—and I hope still is—£5 per copy, whatever the original or current price of the report may be. That is a service of great value provided by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. One wonders whether that arrangement will continue when the service is run on a commercial basis. There are many other reports like the one I mentioned which were published a good many years ago to which we need to have access in order to perform our parliamentary duties. It would be a great pity if those reports were either made prohibitive in price in order to make them commercially viable or not produced at all.

I am afraid I have not given notice of this matter to my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. If he were able to give some indication of what is likely to happen, that would be a great help. If he cannot answer my question now, I should be grateful if the matter could be put on record, perhaps by a Question for Written Answer when we reassemble in October.

3.56 p.m.

Lord Bruce of Donington

My Lords, I rise with the indulgence of the House following the indication by the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal that he would give an answer to the question I asked during the earlier proceedings on the Offices Committee report relating to the role of the EC in this matter. Can he say whether, if the question of privatisation had not arisen at all and the arrangement had been left exactly as it is now, the European Community would have any right to insist on its rules being enforced in regard to competition. Is it only because of the privatisation that the Commission now has a right under the competition laws to insist that the next contract be put out to open tender?

I apologise to the House for rising in the interval.

3.57 p.m.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

My Lords, I am tempted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, in suggesting what one might do in selling off part of the services of this House to various private enterprises. I was thinking, as he spoke, of the contract we might let out for the Line of Route and whether Centerparcs would counter-bid against Walt Disney for it, but that is perhaps delving into the future of the role of privatisation.

Given the position we have reached, it seems to me that this is in many ways a very satisfactory contract. I congratulate those concerned on the fact that they have negotiated a lowering of prices. We all share the strongest interest in the widest possible public dissemination of Parliament in debate and report to British citizens at the lowest possible cost. If we achieve that, it will be a major step forward.

I support my noble friend Lord Lester in underlining that the speed at which the nature of publishing is changing suggests that in future the electronic dimension will become increasingly important. That is something which will clearly need to be looked at further as more and more of the younger generation automatically turn to the Internet to receive information. They will want access to parliamentary reports and parliamentary business.

My wider concerns are partly the question of conflicts of interest and partly the whole question of a private monopoly. The noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal underlined the point made in the report of the Offices Committee that the two Houses themselves are the Stationery Office's most important customers. We are moving from a public service to a licensed private monopoly, back to the world of the 18th century when a sovereign Parliament dealt with contractors of one sort or another, contracting to provide regiments in some cases, printing services in others. It seems sadly poetic that it was Edmund Burke who was responsible for the Act that set up Her Majesty's Stationery Office and that a party which has lost touch with the traditions of Edmund Burke should now be the one proposing to privatise it. As I listened to the noble Viscount I wondered what the great Lord Salisbury would have said about a proposal to privatise the Queen's printer or what Disraeli or indeed Churchill would have said. I have little doubt that they would have called it ludicrous.

There are questions about commercial enterprise and public interest which go further than my noble friend Lord Lester suggested. Ought we to have written into the contract that the commercial enterprise which operates this private monopoly should, as a condition of acceptance, not be allowed to contribute from its funds to any particular political party? There is a real conflict of interest. Given the current state of British law on publication of party accounts, it seems to me that we should consider strengthening controls. It is part of the morass one gets into when one loses sight of the difference between public enterprise, public service and private monopoly.

Having spoken those cautionary words, I believe that the contract as negotiated within those terms is a good one. It is also highly desirable—and here I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce—that it is a short-term contract. We will therefore have the opportunity to find out within a limited time whether it has lived up to our expectations.

4 p.m.

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, given how controversial the matter is, I am extremely grateful to noble Lords who have spoken for their moderate and constructive attitude. That is a heartfelt expression of my feelings. I shall try to answer questions as briefly as I can.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I shall return to what my great-great-grandfather might have said in a moment. The proposal to privatise the Queen's printer is not what is at stake here. As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, the Queen's printer will be retained in the public sector in the so-called residual HMSO. So technically that is not what we are doing and it is important that there should be a place for the copyright still to reside, and for there to be, in the jargon, an intelligent customer for it.

The whole House is well aware of the service which my noble friend Lord Renton and his colleagues provided not only to this House but to Parliament as a whole by the publication of his report. I believe that the report is under Crown copyright, but he will correct me if I am wrong. The privatised Stationery Office, like HMSO at present, will reprint documents when there is a continuing demand for them. Thereafter, I am advised that the photocopying service from the British Library will continue to be offered. If my noble friend Lord Renton has difficulty with the effectiveness of the service—and from the tone of his remarks I detect that he may—it might be worth considering the developing electronic services.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, drew our attention to those services, despite their being technically outside the scope of the debate. We can ascertain, as they develop, whether the benefits of the new technology can help us make more readily available not only future reports, existing reports and papers but also reports like that of my noble friend which are of continuing interest to your Lordships' House.

My right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it clear that he was sympathetic to the ideas expressed from all sides of your Lordships' House, particularly over the past two years, that we should try to improve the preparation and control of legislation. I hope that my noble friend Lord Renton will continue to keep a watching brief on this important question. Perhaps the Offices Committee, in its monitoring of the implementation of the electronic aspect of the subject that we are debating, might wish to return to find out whether we could build on our initial foray onto the Internet. We could try to ensure that the services we offer are not only as good as they are at the moment but are radically improved.

The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, asked a question and I should have been greatly disappointed if he had not managed to bring the European Union into our debate. Needless to say, I should not have worried. European Union law would apply, as it does in all cases in this country, to the extent that powers have been delegated by this sovereign Parliament to the European Union. But where services are provided within the same legal entity, I am advised that they would not have applied if we had not privatised HMSO. I am also advised that this House and HMSO, while it is in the public sector, would be considered to be one legal entity. That explains why the answer to the noble Lord's question is the one that I have just given.

The extent of EC procurement jurisdiction was the subsidiary point that the noble Lord made in an earlier intervention to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees. I am also advised that directives under the EC treaties set out a legal framework to which public authorities and utilities must adapt their contract award procedures. The directives have been implemented in the United Kingdom by four sets of regulations covering supplies, works, services and utilities. The contracts which are covered must be the subject of a call for competition in the official journal of the European Union. The directives do not apply to the award of service concession contracts. The noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, was also concerned—

Lord Richard

My Lords, before the noble Viscount leaves that point, does it mean that, as some of us apprehend, the contract is for four years, possibly another two, and thereafter it must be put out to competitive tender? Is that its effect?

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, legal advice on European Community law was that the contract should, so far as possible, reflect the existing supply and service agreement, including the term of the contract. As I understand it—and the noble Lord will be more aware of EC law than I—the law is clear that such contracts must have a term and must therefore be re-negotiated at the end of that term.

The noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, mentioned the impact of the European Union. The contract is for the House to offer. The only impact of European Union law is in terms of the need to tender competitively. That need will be subject to the precise terms of the contract and whether it falls within the regulations of public service contracts, which I have already tried to set out for your Lordships.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, asked a number of questions which I shall endeavour to answer as best I can. He mentioned a level playing field. I refer him to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster who discussed the matter earlier this year in another place. The Stationery Office will be required to be licensed to reproduce Crown and parliamentary copyright material in a value added format, in exactly the same way as any other publisher. It will have no inherent advantage at all in the field. I hope that that satisfies noble Lords. We have that on record in both Houses.

As we made clear in the course of exchanges during the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, I should emphasise that the electronic contract is a different contract. Apart from specifically requiring a level playing field, electronic publication will follow paper publication. As I understand it, it is a transitional arrangement designed to protect the rights of Peers; that is, of your Lordships. But it is assumed that the order of publication will be reversed in due course, as I believe it has been in Australia. The general rule about the time of publication is that parliamentary papers should not be available to the public before they are available to Members of your Lordships' House. I am sure that your Lordships would wish to maintain that situation and in that respect nothing has changed.

Therefore, the timing of release of the electronic version is a practical rather than a policy matter. At the moment, the assembly of data for electronic publication is a by-product of the printing process. We do not wish to introduce any delay into electronic publication.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, also mentioned judgments. My advice is that they are not at the moment printed by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, nor are they the subject of the contract. They are not parliamentary papers as such, but are circulated by the Judicial Office on the authority of the Lord Chancellor. They are therefore subsequently published in the All England Law Reports. I confess that I cannot speak nearly as authoritatively on that point as the noble Lord, but that is the advice that I have been given.

Lord Renton

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. Surely the judgments are also published in the official reports which, as I understand it, have always been published at public expense.

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, I am the last to want to enter into a jousting competition with two such distinguished barristers. May I take further advice on this point and write to both noble Lords? I will place my answer in the Library. I apologise that I am unable to give an authoritative answer.

The noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, talked about taking functions back into the control of this House. I submit that the House has never had such control, even under the present arrangements. Her Majesty's Stationery Office is a department of Her Majesty's Government, not of this House. In order to satisfy the criteria that the noble Lord seems to want this House to have, your Lordships would have to acquire and operate your own facilities.

The noble Lord also talked about control of the contract and referred to the last section, paragraph 28.8. The ability to go to law in a dispute is a backstop which offers additional protection to the current situation. The normal operation of the contract will be a partnership between the House and the Stationery Office, as it now is between the House and HMSO. My limited knowledge of legal matters tells me that it is usual to specify under which law of which country a contract is to operate. Therefore for us not to specify that, or to specify that it would operate under the law of another country, would be rather perverse.

Lord Monkswell

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal for giving way. I admit that I may not have expressed myself very well in my earlier intervention. The point I was trying to make was that, as I understand the situation at the moment, the Clerk of the Parliaments, presumably together with the Serjeant at Arms in the other place, could have direct discussions with the controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office to resolve any problems that might arise. Ultimately the outcome would be a government decision, given, as the noble Viscount said, it is a department of government. The difference between the situation that I understand currently pertains and the situation once we have entered into a contract with the private supplier, is that any disputes that might arise in future would not be amenable to discussion through what might be described as the usual channels and government decision ultimately answerable to Parliament; any disputes arising would have to go before a court of law for resolution.

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, I refer the noble Lord particularly to the third section of the contract, which sets out very clearly the relationship between an accountable manager and the authorised officer of this House who is charged by the House to maintain the very sort of contact which the noble Lord wishes us to maintain. I hope that if he takes another look at those provisions he will feel that they have been rather more fully set out than they are at present.

I would never dream of intervening in a technical discussion as to the elegance or otherwise of this contract. However, I was amused to note that so distinguished a barrister as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, felt that the contract was not couched in the most elegant form, while the noble Lord, Lord Lester, took a contrary view. I leave it to the House to make its own aesthetic judgment in matters of this kind.

Finally—I am well aware that I have taken rather a long time—I have endeavoured to answer, I hope reasonably adequately, the serious matters raised by a number of noble Lords. Fundamentally we are talking about something rather straightforward. As privatisation approaches, it is essential that this House should make satisfactory arrangements for the future provision of printing and publishing. It is important that those arrangements should safeguard the high standards of service that we have enjoyed from HMSO in recent years. As I said in opening, this draft contract does all that, and more.

The noble Lord, Lord Richard, tempted me just a little. We have already debated the merits or otherwise of privatisation. We did so at some length in January this year. I see little point in rehearsing the arguments now, particularly since there has been very strong interest on the part of bidders inquiring into the business. It is clear that the Stationery Office and its staff have a sound and prosperous future in the private sector. On those grounds alone it would be very unwise to seek to forestall this contract at a very late stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who is an infinitely more distinguished historian than I, was kind enough to refer to my great, great grandfather. He was a pragmatist. He was also an extremely successful businessman. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, with his knowledge of the commercial world, will also be aware of what happens to commercial companies which once enjoyed a monopoly, as HMSO did, when that monopoly disappears and they are not allowed to try to expand their markets into other fields. One of the penalties has been that the number employed by HMSO has declined distressingly. As government departments fish elsewhere in order to satisfy their requirements for stationery and other matters, HMSO, if it finds itself unable to compete, may preserve the virtues of public service but in the end will find itself declining ever more distressingly and more jobs will be lost. I suggest that the great Lord Salisbury would have been swayed by that argument rather more than by the ideological purity of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace.

Maintaining HMSO in government ownership can only lead to further decline as private sector competitors take an increasing share of that diminishing market. That also begins to answer the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, who asked whether it would have been possible to decrease the prices of printed papers published by HMSO if it remained in the public sector. A company in that kind of trouble would find it difficult to reduce prices and still remain viable.

This House should be under no illusions as to the consequences of failing to sign this contract. I have tried to make that perfectly clear. I hope that your Lordships will agree with me that the sensible course is to agree to the Motion standing in my name.

Lord Peston

My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down, can he clarify one point? I am very sorry; he used the word "finally", which I felt was the right word to use. It is not impossible that the privatisation will take place at some time during the summer, when the House is not sitting. Although he used the words "draft contract", I take it that he is saying that it will be this precise contract that will be signed, and were there to be any variation in it, the Government would not go ahead until the House had seen any changes. I take it that our debate has taken place exactly on that understanding. However, it may be useful to state that precisely.

Viscount Cranborne

My Lords, that is my clear understanding. I am also well aware that the noble Lord is a very reasonable man. If there are matters of wording which could be improved, I am sure that he would not let that stricture apply. If it is a matter of substance, I am sure that the whole House will agree that his caveat is a sensible one.

On Question, Motion agreed to.