At the end of May I blogged about the three working groups which emerged from a seminar given by the Lord Speaker last year on how we might strengthen the way we do business in this House; our procedures, processes of scrutiny and internal governance arrangements. The three groups, (all included volunteers from all sides of the House) were chaired by Lords Filkin and Butler of Brockwell and me. Several commenters asked to read the reports. These reports have now been published to encourage wide debate. The reports can be accessed here: http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/files/folders/2597/download.aspx
Baroness,
I humbly submit that my other comments and replies, to a range of Posts, may contain material of relevance to ‘Strengthening Parliament’; and may also show some ideas for strengthening other parts of (our) Nation and Democracy.
This is what the public get fed up about, seems they get jumped on straight away but anything concerning politicians such as expenses takes years.
We`ve had papers, committees etc., before most of which say the right things in places and then what ? A big fat zero.
JSDM: Yes I agree and I read them all eagerly!
Noble Baroness;
What a relief;
that two-way comunication is also alive and well via The Lords…Of The Blog !
(May one say “…and the Ladies…” ?)
I have had time but to glance through the document, but it clearly appears very constructive, and thank you for the good work. The idea that policy should be evidence-based, however, will surely come as something of a shock to the Home Office.
I wonder if I could table an idea I had sometime ago that the House might devote a little time each week to the consideration of No 10 e-Petitions that have closed over the preceeding period (assuming the petition process is aroused from its current state of suspension)? Also to back Lord Norton’s idea sometime ago that the Lords might have evidence taking committees on public bills, rather than a Committee of the Whole House?
BM: One of the snags with an evidence based approach to scrutiny is that there may be no evidence. What you have instead is power exercised irrationally. For instance a government might have been elected not to stop something but to give or provide something that is essentially silly.
When the HoL had its power to stop a bill it would have been killed off in committee or even earlier. Now silly unenforceable laws go to statute. Not withstanding the Parliament Acts, should an elected HoL have such a power restored?
The forum note describes objectives in the absence of an aim. If the aim is silly then its understandable why you have omitted mention of it. If the aim is plausible and before evidence is presented then it should lead the discovery process.
Post legislative scrutiny or validation in quality assurance terms should be independent and done by the HoL, period. However, as the Act by this time is in the public domain and as an option, the work could be given over to an external agency that is prepared to do the work for free before it came back to the house for formalisation.
In the days of BS5750 an enterprise had a quality manual that described its internal procedures. When a new employee came along they were obliged to read the manual in its entirety and then sign that they had done so. Each stage of manufacture would have a paper trail to assist with retrospective audit of where something had gone wrong to feed back into the process to improve its quality. An external British Standards auditor could revoke the BS5750 license for non compliance.
Parliament needs it own quality manual and members of Parliament need to read those parts that pertain to them and then sign that they have done so. The National Audit Office could then periodically audit Parliaments internal procedures and report accordingly. However, as both houses have a large contingent of legal professionals they would see no benefit to improvements in the quality of laws that would ultimately cause their profession to suffer a loss of income.
My thanks, Baroness Murphy. It’s a very interesting and thought-provoking read, and I look forward to watching any debates, and indeed any action, that result from these reports.
I do think, however, that getting the government to give up the appointment of the Leader of the House is perhaps a little ambitious. You never know though, I suppose…
BM: One could say that the House of Lords as a chamber combines both the US ‘Congressional Research Service’ and the Senate. The principal difference being that in the HoL the ‘boffins’ form part of the bill making process and do so at a fraction of the cost of their US counterparts; the headcount however is about the same.
There was a piece of US pre legislative scrutiny by the CRS in 1987 that ended up in a report entitled “Glass-Steagall Act: Commercial vs. Investment Banking” or IB87061. It would become an historic document in its own right.
The report appears to have played its part in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. Its not clear whether the act underwent its own pre legislative scrutiny because no CRS reports are apparent from the time.
Another tantalising prospect is had this act undergone 5 year post legislative scrutiny it might have alerted Congress to the fact that the banking sector was reverting to previous historic form. Its almost as though a huge momentum of new business opportunity had been held back by the Banking Act of 1933 only to breach the dam walls when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act finally appeared; lemmings wanting to throw themselves off a cliff when the barrier came down.
Both the pro and cons discussed in IB87061 would play out to create the 2007 banking crisis. Politically the central issue remains one of globalisation. If any country enacts its own form of Glass-Steagall it may loose market share and tax revenues to other players that still operate free market oversight on banks. On that basis its all going to happen again.
Ref: CRS: Overview of Services
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Research_Service
IB87061: Glass-Steagall Act: Commercial vs. Investment Banking
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs9065/
GLBA: Legislative History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm–Leach–Bliley_Act
Strengthening Parliament.
We need to be subjective as well as objective, sometimes, my noble lady.
The Seven Wise Holistic Human Energies 0803F020710, by JSDMyallsEsquire.
(Please note, the ten syllables including the ‘stop’ or ‘dot’ in the foregoing ‘concocted’ name will be seen to be appropriate to these Reform Matters).
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From where I am standing in my neck of the woods, watching, hearing and later reading the matters the Lords and (non-ampersand) Commons are bent upon manipulating and manoeuvring , I see both minor and major issues, some surfacing, some remaining and very likely being deliberately kept submerged, out of sight and out of mind just below the surface.
I spend long hours going through parliamentary speeches, and sadly so because as well as the enthymemes and little faults occurring, at least one in every speech, question and answer, the main content of these speeches is deeply-serious and often crucifixually-impassioned; and I lapse deathly-tired.
When I awake, at whatever hour of the 24 hour watch some of us feel we now need to be taking some kind of voluntary share in, my two paused TV sets one of a Commons’ session the other of a Lords’, welcome me “Ah, at least we still have note-writing contact”; but down in the deeper gut “God, this feels like a Huge Tragedy, inexorably being marched forward, like an Inquisition trial of old such as the innocent Joan of Arc’s frog-march into the cruel flames around The Stake.
I kid myself, that since both the current Commons leadership and the Lords have called upon us all to submit ideas to help in the Rescuing of ourselves from the complex and existence-threatening array of Difficulties we are bowed-down under, that I am once more “On Her Majesty’s National Service” and must write-in all the critical and constructive knowledge I have come across in my 82 years of British citizenship, and in the several years of life lived in other countries too.
It seems as if the Lords have helped me to make the major part of this knowledge already visible through their Lords of the Blog site, at least to some of their number; and that there is still a very good chance that what still remains buried in my mind can also be communicated; and this time it feels as if our Ship-of-State is searching waters where one crucially-valuable modern galleon of goodness lies submerged just under the surface, still healthily breathing, but out of sight and out of mind, containing Goodnesses, some ancient ,some from within our present life’s last few years, but lost even ‘though only just below the Great Sea’s surface.
The goodness I know to be locked in the hold of this submerged ‘galleon’ has inscribed upon one face of its heavy old carefully carved oak casket the words “The Seven Christian Sacraments and their Living Origins”, and certain reference-library books have shown me that Other origins and possibly “The Spirit of Life Itself” may be inscribed upon the other faces of the casket, and therefore may ultimately be found within it.
[To be concluded a propos Parliamentary Reform, Health , Religion, Secularism, Education, and Other great-governance topic; and to show the real or notional Ten functions of the Human Spirit].
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(JohnSydneyDentonMyallsEsquire. 1111St0320710)