As Lord Norton points out below the government experienced another defeat on Tuesday. There are very real concerns across the floor of the House about the way the Government is giving Ministers power to wind up, change or even sell off QUANGOS without going through a proper Parliamentary process. It is a classic case of a Government versus Parliament.
I am a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee (DPRRC) which along with the Constitutional Committee had issued very strong reports about excessive Ministerial power. You can read the general background here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2010/11/public-bodies-bill-2nd-reading-lords/
The Committee was unanimous. It is cross party and chaired by a Liberal Democrat member. If you are interested in the detail of the amendment which was voted through against the wishes of the Government you can read the debate here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101123-0001.htm#10112323000871
I have seen many governments in my time in politics and all of them do get to a stage where they become ‘over mighty’. Parliament very often pulls them back and the whips can’t always (contrary to popular belief) control the situation. There were more rebellions by Labour back benchers in the Commons against the last Labour Government then in any government since 1945. This government might well experience the same.
What is unusual about the present situation is that the ‘over mighty’ problem seems to have set in much, more quickly then it usually does. Could this be a consequence of coalition?
I am troubled by this because the Public Bodies (the QUANGOS) Bill contains truly excessive powers. At the same time the Government is trying to rush through the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill which reduces the number of MP’s to 600. Leave aside the question of whether this favours the Government and just ask the question ‘Should a government decide the size of Parliament without cross Party support?’ I would argue that it should not. With the additional government members coming into the Lords you can see a trend towards increasing government powers.
To the credit of government back benchers and cross benchers many of them also found themselves unable to support the government on Tuesday.
Complex politics but important.
Question: Did the noble Lord Soley support the call from the last Government to give extraordinary powers to Lord Mandelson the then Secretary of State and the person who actually introduced the Bill ?
Your points are valid but as they used to say in old Cowboy films ” White man speaks with forked tongue”.
“I am troubled by this because the Public Bodies (the QUANGOS) Bill contains truly excessive powers.”
I don’t follow the principle that is guiding you here. Your were perfectly prepared to support the transfer of financial powers to the EU whereby we are now compelled to fund, without being able to veto in the CouncilofM or having a vote in parliament, any bailout and thereby burden our taxpayers at a time of huge financial pressure with massive new debts. That didn’t cause you ‘very real concerns’ but abolishing the potato council does?
Is the ‘over mighty’ problem something only oppositions notice because there is a consistent theme that MPs and peers voting records show a remarkable about-face the moment their party goes into or out of office.
Clive suggests that it is the coalition causing the over high and mightiness of the government, usually taking longer to set in, but it would be no different with a Labour/Lab coalition.
We always have the FDR example of coalitions to go by, and I suspect that the high and mighty government aspect may be accompanied by falls from popular grace,
in a graphical way, which a single party government may not experience.
The FDR governments seem to swing from high to low in popularity in a way that UK govt does not.
In the last 30 years, since the beginning of Thatcher, it has just been sweeping in and then a genteel and corrupting decline to little or nothing indeed!
Will it be 10 to 15 years before a different pair or trio of parties will form a new coalition?
I am radical and never particularly Labour, so my own view is that the graph of un/popularity may rise and fall a number of times before it finally unwinds completely.
Give it ten years Lord Soley, and then think again!
We may by then have found a new and capable labour leader.
None of the three party leaders is particularly competent, although Cable’s back seat driving takes some beating!
Parliament needs to be satisfied that the raison d’être of each body-its objective, as set down in statute-will be protected and continued under whichever body takes over from the abolished, reformed or merged organisation.
There is no difficulty with that if the work of a costly committee can be done by a member of staff in the govt department, from which the Quango was spun off in the first place.
If it is perfectly obvious that one man at a desk in the DTI can do it, then Mr Maude will have been perfectly capable in weighing up that best outcome, without parliament being involved.
Whether one man at a dept. desk, or one Chairman in his quango, ought to be allowed
to make regulatory law on the spot, is another matter altogether.
Thatcher’s “privatisations” took on various hues and one of them was to create agencies
out of things which could not be sold off in their entirety (even if they did not belong to the state).
25 years is long enough for a particular method of organising to be shown up as faulty and it is now high time to take them in to Department control.
Regrettably all the businesses sold off at the time of privatisation, some now in the hands of the citizens of Utah, can not be repossessed.
The Late Gwynneth Dunwoody campaigned in vain for the re-acquisition of all the train companies. Their time may come again.
It is interesting that it is a Tory (coalition) government doing the taking in, which would be more the proper task of a Labour one.
Agency is of course the one thing that distinguished Marxist economies from capitalist ones, in the days of soviet communism, but that is another matter.
In that sense “agency” should be a highly desirable facet of Tory policy, not the demolition of it!
“There were more rebellions by Labour back benchers in the Commons against the last Labour Government then in any government since 1945. This government might well experience the same.”
Already has – see http://www.revolts.co.uk/Wobbly%20Wings.pdf
Lord Norton is quite right and the information he refers to is fascinating. Labour under Tony Blair was relatively relaxed about rebellions but then we could afford to be with such a large majority. I think rebellions are going to be far more frequent in the future because the whips in all the political parties are less powerful then they were. Not a bad thing you might think.
CarlH. Peter Mandelson did not introduce this Bill. It is a new Bill
Gareth. before you decide that the Quangos don’t matter too much please look at the list. Follow this link and go to the 7 schedules at the end to see just what and who is covered.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldbills/025/11025.i-ii.html
It is not that the content or business of the Quangoes don’t matter but that the ease of taking them in to government department control
entirely should not be something to worry about unduly.
Handing from a Quango chairman to an official in the department, who may already have had liaising contact with the Organisation, should present no difficulties in most cases.
25 years after Thatcher’s initiative is time
to rearrange to prevent our old enemy corruption setting in. It may not be high time, but it is time enough.
Good health to you Clive.
I apologise Lord Soley I wasn`t clear, I was infact refering to the Digital Economy Bill (now Act) of the last Government. Introduced by Lord Mandelson which if Labour had won the day completely would have led to the same having enormous amounts of power.
I simply want to understand what looks like total hypocrisy and one of the reasons the public does not trust politics or politicians.
Carl the interesting comparison is the voting records of peers on this bill compared to for example the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act. It’s faintly surreal in that you can almost reverse their speeches and argument word for word.
I`m not sure I`d call it interesting, shocking, appalling, a disgrace or something the electorate have come to know represents our honourable and noble friends. The mere words honourable and noble really do not belong to British Politics, infact I`m not sure they belong in any political sphere.
We were talking recently about children learning about politics and it has dawned on me they actually learn a lot……From Facebook. The lying, multifaceted, manipulative conversations on FB are really not that far from what occurs in Westminster. The group policies that turn and turn again is so close to British politics it`s unbelievable.
Is it any wonder the electorate get apathetic or just plain angry.
I am a resident of the Royal Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. This is an area that is currently awash with anger at the Public Bodies Bill’s potential to allow the sale and consequent destruction of our beloved ancient forest. Our MP seems to have deserted us. We are a community that have been embedded within and have lived alongside the forest since time immemorial. We have enjoyed privileges for over a thousand years, privileges which are not protected by law. I am sure that I speak for the vast majority of foresters when I say that we value her ABOVE money and politics. I would like to urge all members of the House of Lords to amend the bill exempting the Forest of Dean from its powers. We want to keep the forest as it is – managed as one entity by the Forestry Commission – please save our people of all ages from the heartache, worry and struggle of prolonged and escalating further battles to protect her, as we have done for hundreds of years; by amending the bill.