Contribution
My Lords, I do not want to put myself in the doghouse, so I will only be a few minutes. This form of amendment was the only way I could raise the issue that I want to raise, which is, of course, to call on the Government to give us a list of the issues the Commons did not have time to consider. I want to talk about why it did not have time to consider them.
I listened to every speech today, and it is absolutely clear to me that there will be lots of amendments from this House going to the Commons. The purpose of raising the issue in this way is to strengthen the role of the elected Members of the Commons at the expense of the Government. I will make two or three general points, and then I will relate these points to the Bill.
In the Commons on Second Reading, every Bill is guillotined. It calls it a programme Motion. It covers up, and all the Bills are dealt with that way. We started that in 1997, and I freely admit that, on reflection, it was one of the mistakes we made. Governments always want to boast about the number of Bills they pass, which is done at the expense of scrutiny, because they make the programme Motion so tight. It is so tight that areas of Bills are left unscrutinised. So, the Bills arrive in our House with inadequate scrutiny. We end up sending more amendments back to the Commons than would otherwise be the case. Then, when they get to the Commons, the Government in the Commons—not here, of course—blame the Lords for MPs having to do more work on what we have sent back, leading them to call for reform of this House. When we return amendments to the elected Members, they are limited by the programme Motion on the time they can spend on what we send back. By the way, the programme Motion has been changed for the Bill; it is now back to January.
Elected Members need more time for scrutiny. The Government have to return to Parliament some of the power they have taken away with programme Motions designed to fit in more Bills, rather than better Bills. All I am asking for is a list from the Government of what they have not allowed to be scrutinised, and to put back the buck where it belongs: with the Government. I am not complaining about the Commons here.
I first raised this issue about a decade ago, but I accepted, on the information I got, that it was too complicated. On 16 July, I attended the Lord Speaker’s lecture in the River Room and I raised again the fact that we should have a note of what has not been discussed when a Bill arrives in this House that was in the previous House. There was support on that evening, so I decided I had better do something about this. This Bill is the first opportunity, but it can be done on every Bill, as I have informed my noble friend.
On 5 August, the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who regrets he cannot be here today, made exactly the same point in a letter to the Times, based on his former experience as the clerk to the Commons. On 14 July, right towards the end of the Session, when the Commons got to Report, which it had been waiting for from November last year, it was allowed a four-hour debate. There were three Divisions during that debate on issues that the time allowed. Then at 6.10 pm, Hansard records:
“Proceedings interrupted (Programme Order, 3 November 2025).
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/7/26; col. 872.]
What was that business after four hours? That programme Motion, forthwith, meant that 10 new clauses, six schedules and over 70 amendments went into this Bill on the nod. We are not talking about how the Commons did not have time to do the odd clause; 10 new clauses, six schedules and over 70 amendments were approved on the nod because of the guillotine Motion. Now it is over to us.
All I am saying is we should have a list. The buck stops with the Government; it is the Government, not the Members. It is quite simple to have, so that we know what has not been debated, because the incentive, therefore, down the other end is to demand more time on the Bills so that there is less work to come back to after we have done our job. I beg to move.