Bills have a long gestation – not uncommonly two years during which time a bill team from the relevant government department undertakes the drafting process. So when a bill reaches either House of Parliament it is already the product of much debate and discussion and legal wrangling.
In the Lords, the opposition parties have ‘frontbench spokesmen(people)’ for each bill and it is their task to put forward amendments and defend them. Amendments will generally be in line with overall party policies. These spokespeople then meet on a regular basis with the bill team and the Minister to negotiate amendments. The main objective of the bill team is to get the legislation through as quickly and as painlessly as possible. This is not necessarily the aim of the opposition!
The crossbenchers, as always, are different. We do not have a party line to pursue – nor can I, as Convenor, appoint anyone to take on a particular bill. This has meant that although there are more often than not vigorous contibutions from the crossbenches, the political parties look somewhat askance at us for not ‘doing the real business’ day in and day out on bills.
To ameliorate this we have recently agreed to get together so-called liaison groups; these are made up of those crossbench peers who have a particular interest and/or expertise in a given area touched on by the bill and they undertake to meet with the bill team and others and at the same time keep all other crossbenchers informed on the progress (or otherwise) of the bill at our weekly meetings. This has the double advantage of helping us in our main quest for updated information on legislation while at the same time involving the crossbenchers more intimately with the business of law making.
We will do this for a trial period only. The concern is that the liaison groups may be persuaded to compromise on amendments in the (government) interests of scheduling. However, I doubt that some of our more fierce crossbenchers will back down – even if offered inducements such as a letter of promise from a minister in lieu of insisting that an amendment be on the face of a bill!
This sounds like a good change but I wonder how it will work in practice. When the representatives of the other parties meet with the bill team they do so in quasi-plenipotentiary role. So when they argue in favour or against particular wording the carrot or threat is their voting strengths behind their words. It would seem the XB team would go into the process without a carrot or stick.
On your other point I’m somewhat reminded of a wag in the C19 who suggested that diplomats were moved from country to country regularly to ensure they remembered they were ambassador for Britain not to Britain! Perhaps liaison teams will naturally rotate as people’s time dictates but it’s probably a healthy thing for the reasons you suggest. As a serious point is it not possible to frame/establish a moral (not binding) convention within the XBs that no liaison peer accept a letter/promise to not move an amendment on a matter they deal with as part of that process?
I am surprised that the gestation period of bills is so long. My recent, and very limited experience, makes me wonder how on earth such clauses such as 152 in the Coroner’s bill and clauses in other bills could have escaped undetected prior to the bills surfacing in the Commons. It seems that long gestation doesn’t equate to lengthy scrutiny.
Again recent experience suggests to me that “inducements such as a letter of promise from a minister in lieu of insisting that an amendment be on the face of a bill!” are valueless and even dangerous. The cast iron principle of the last few years seems to be that if a law CAN be used for a purpose for which it was not designed, it WILL be used for that purpose despite all promises; ie The European Arrest Warrant that was only to be used for the rapid extradition of terrorist subjects etc etc.
For an organisation that is all about change – one of the major roles of Parliament is to decide on any changes to the way that the UK operates – it really is incredibly bad at it.
Two years to get a bill through! And even then:
– in most cases its requirements won’t have been tested to make sure that they work, e.g. with small trials;
– many people will disagree with some or all of the requirements; and
– based on past experience, the legislation will be of pretty poor quality.
Once a bill is passed, it then has to be implemented, meaning that there is a further delay to actually getting the change made.
Don’t we need bigger change than just to the way that the crossbenchers work in the House of Lords?
Why does Parliament continue with such an inefficient system?
Given the RIPA has been used and the way the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 is being used to stop people taking photographs in public places[1] (for example), I would not think a piece of paper stating that the Law would not be used in a specific way worth the paper it was written on!
[1] Some examples are given in Today in Parliament broadcast on 1st April 2009.
First of all, Paul, not ALL bills have such a long gestation – if the Government so wishes it a bill can be rushed through Parliament – usually with the agreement of the opposition.
Alfred, you touch on a long held belief here, that laws on the statute books can exist as hostages to fortune. It is for this reason that a small band of us will be trying to get rid of the Blasphemy Laws which have not been invoked for a hundred years or more. But they exist and since they only protects the Anglican religion they are not only ridiculously outdated but interfere with freedom of expression. Better, to my mind, to get rid of them altogether.
You’re right Croft, the XBs don’t have voting power (except in rare circumstances – the Government was very keen to get the XBs on board for the Lisbon Treaty bill) but since we are numerous and there is an increasing inclination to vote and given that votes are sometimes close it is certainly in the Government’s interests to keep us informed.
I also think that the Chief Government Whip genuinely wishes the XBs to become more involved in actual legislation.
Sometimes a letter from the Minister or a compromise is no bad thing – it is all about negotiation. Some issues just do not lend themselves to any kind of compromise – others do. It is all a question of judgement and balance?
I don’t see that that answers most of the points that I’ve made.
Let alone the fact that most legislation is solving yesterday’s problems rather than preparing us for the future.
Out of interest, what are the average and median times that it takes for a bill to become legislation?
baronessdsouza: I was under the impression that Blasphemy had been abolished under section 79 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. You are presumably referring to other old offences of a similar kind? There does on the face of it seem a problem; while I think it a good thing to remove these old laws they are not in practice being used so present more of an intellectual than real world harm. By contrast everything that was/is wrong about such laws have/are being reintroduced with the full ‘bells and whistles’, gold plating and plenty of buffing and polishing in the form of the various new and proposed ‘hate crime’ laws. More seriously the police and CPS seem very intent on applying them zealously no doubt suppressing much legitimate free speech in the process.
I’m still not quite clear how the liaison group can give the Government Chief Whip real guidance as to the likely voting of the XBs depending on the wording of any amendments unless you consider that some/many XBs vote in some measure on trust that if ‘Peer X agrees with the proposal and he/she knows their stuff then it must be something I can support’?
As a letter from the minister is not binding on him (legally – if perhaps it is morally) and even less so on any successor I don’t quite see how it can be of reassurance? I think we have all seen how legislation intended for one purpose have been used for another.