Procedure of the House: Select Committee Report (Hansard, 24 July 2002)

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

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who first proposed this method of proceeding. I hope that it allows the flexibility that your Lordships would wish so that all views may reasonably be heard. It does give us the advantage of flexibility. If I may, I shall trespass on your Lordships' time for just a moment or two.

On 21st May, we debated the package of recommendations of the group that I chaired on the working practices of this House. On that day, the House agreed without a vote that the report should be remitted to the Procedure Committee with the instruction to that committee to make recommendations on how to implement each proposal. I am very grateful to those who served on the Procedure Committee. Our debates were lengthy and full. I am grateful to support the report which has been produced.

I should like, if I may, to mention one or two other matters. I would suggest to your Lordships that this is a very appropriate time for us to be putting our minds to these questions. In the past year, we have agreed to and introduced a code of conduct which is more transparent and more rigorous than that to be discovered at the other end of the building. We have agreed that it is critically important that the Opposition and Cross-Benchers should be properly resourced in this House. The Chancellor has been extremely generous in agreeing that the Conservative Front-Bench allocation should increase from about £227,000 per year to rather more than £390,000 per year; the Liberal Democrat allocation from about £68,000 to £195,000; and the Cross-Bencher allocation from £21,000 to £35,000—the latter, and the latter alone, to be backdated to April 2001. That is 372 important because, as I have said in this Chamber before, I believe that we do need properly resourced and funded opposition. We lacked it when we were in opposition, but we have not held that against anyone. I hope that your Lordships think that that is a proper and indeed a generous approach.

We have acquired Millbank House and Fielden House. Consequently, we are in sight of being able to provide proper accommodation and desk space for all Members. Of course, we have now also introduced the free first-class postage.

Our fundamental work, I would suggest, is to scrutinise the executive as effectively as we can and to revise legislation as scrupulously as we can. I repeat, if I may, what I offered to the House when we discussed the group report on 21st May. It is intended to be a package. Some of the amendments today will undoubtedly, if carried, destroy the balance of the package and its fundamental integrity. I beg to move.