This document contains written evidence submitted to the Procedure Committee for the inquiry into explanatory statements on amendments.

Contents

Evidence list Date reported for publication Written evidence submitted by the Leader of the 30 January 2013 House, The Rt Hon Andrew Lansley MP (P 96, 2012-13)

Written evidence submitted by the Clerk of Legislation, House of Commons (P 97, 2012-13)

Written evidence submitted by The Rt Hon Andrew Lansley MP, Leader of the House of Commons (P 96, 2012-13)

As you will be aware, I wrote to the Clerk of Legislation on 29 November 2012, seeking a factual evaluation of the pilots of explanatory statements to amendments to legislation. I enclose the Clerk of Legislation's response of 8 January.

I am pleased that the House Authorities have found that anecdotal evidence shows feedback from Members and their staff to be positive and that explanatory statements are felt to be helpful. The statistics provided by the Clerks also highlight the high level of participation in the pilot, with the notable exception of the opposition in the case of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill.

Our respective predecessors agreed in May 2012 that the Procedure Committee would report on the outcome of the pilots. I hope that the Committee will be able to undertake this as part of its work programme in the near future. I remain strongly of the view that for explanatory statements to be a useful part of the legislative process, it is necessary for there to be full participation across the House, from Government, the Opposition front bench and from backbench members. As I set out in my letter to the Clerk of Legislation, I am particularly interested in the proposal that explanatory statements could be voluntary in Public Bill Commit1ees but mandatory for all amending stages taken on the floor of the House. I hope that the Committee will, therefore, consider whether there is a case for explanatory statements being a mandatory part of the scrutiny process.

There are a number of questions, some of which have been posed by the Clerk of Legislation, which will require thorough consideration before any moves towards making Explanatory Statements part of the legislative process. I am particularly interested in: • Whether amendments without explanatory statements should be accepted for tabling and selected for debate. The latter is ultimately a matter for the Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means; • Whether explanatory statements which are defective should be accepted for tabling; • Whether self-explanatory or repeated minor, technical amendments could be exempt from requiring explanatory statements with the consent of the Public Bill Office; • The costs and overall value for money of any permanent solution.

I look forward to setting out my views to the Committee in detail in due course.

24 January 2013

Written evidence received from the Clerk of Legislation (House of Commons) on Explanatory Statements on Amendments (P 97, 2012-13)

1. The Leader of the House has asked the Public Bill Office to evaluate a pilot scheme for allowing explanatory statements to be tabled alongside amendments to two Bills recently before the House1. We have been asked to evaluate the pilot on the basis of the following criteria, along with any anecdotal evidence: • The extent to which explanatory statements are tabled by (a) backbenchers and (b) the Official Opposition; • The extent to which explanatory statements require editorial or other intervention by the House authorities to ensure compliance with the guidelines; • The extent to which explanatory statements or information uniquely available from those statements is referred to in debate or otherwise used in discussion about the Bill; • The costs and resource implications, including indirect costs.

2. We have also been asked to provide a breakdown of the use of explanatory statements at Committee stage and Report stage; and to comment on the proposal that explanatory statements might be made mandatory for amendments tabled on Report stage of Bills, and optional for Committee stage.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

3. The pilot in respect of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill covered both Committee of the whole House stage and any proceedings on consideration: in the event there were no proceedings on consideration, as no amendments were made to the Bill in Committee of the whole House. The Bill spent three days in Committee, on 18, 25 and 27 June 2012.

4. Forty-eight amendments (including 5 New Clauses) were tabled, none of them government amendments. 37 were from the Official Opposition and the remaining 11 from backbenchers.2 Explanatory statements were tabled to all but one of the backbench amendments. No explanatory statements were tabled to the Official Opposition amendments.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill Committee of the whole House Stage Government Amendments (with statements) 0 (N/A) Official Opposition Amendments (with statements) 37 (0) Other amendments (with statements) 11 (10) Total No. of Amendments tabled (with 48 (10) statements)

1 Letter from the Leader attached. 2 There were eight different lead names to the 11 amendments, representing the three largest parties in the House.

5. Explanatory statements to amendments were mentioned in debate on two occasions:

On 18 June 2012, the Minister (Mr Mark Harper) said

They [backbench Members] have participated very well in the experiment that the Procedure Committee has asked us to undertake. This Bill is an example of it, because all hon. Members tabling amendments were asked to include explanatory statements to enable hon. Members to better understand the nature of the amendments. I am pleased that they have done so, as it is very helpful to the House. It is just a shame that the official Opposition appear to have ignored the fact that we are conducting that experiment and have not taken that opportunity. I am sure that the Procedure Committee will draw the appropriate conclusion.

The Shadow Minister (Mr Wayne David) replied:

I am more than happy to provide an explanation. Resources are extremely limited for Opposition Members and the Minister will have noticed how many amendments we have tabled. That shows our concern about the fine detail of the Bill. However, we thought it was far better to follow the time-honoured practice of tabling amendments and using the facility of being at the Dispatch Box to explain our points and that is precisely what we are doing.3

On 25 June 2012, there was a slight misunderstanding as to the purpose of an Opposition amendment. The Minister (Mr David Heath) noted that “we would have understood her [Angela Smith’s] amendments more clearly had she produced an explanatory memorandum”.4

Small Charitable Donations Bill

6. The pilot in respect of the Small Charitable Donations Bill covered both Public Bill Committee Stage and Report stage.

7. At Committee stage (16 to 30 October 2012), 42 amendments (including 5 New Clauses) were tabled. 15 amendments were tabled by the Government: all had explanatory statements. Of the non-Government amendments, 26 (including two amendments to Government amendments) were from the Official Opposition, and one was from a spokesman for a smaller party5. All of the non-Government amendments had explanatory statements, other than two (fairly self-explanatory) New Clauses. 8. At Report stage (26 November 2012), 40 amendments (including 3 New Clauses) were tabled. 9 of the amendments were Government, 22 were Official Opposition and 9 were from other Members (one Government backbencher, and two spokespersons for smaller parties). Three of the Official Opposition amendments (again fairly self- explanatory) were tabled without explanatory statements.

3 HC Deb, 18 June 2012, col 633 4 HC Deb, 25 June 2012, col 669 5 Mark Durkan, SDLP

Small Charitable Donations Bill Committee Stage Report Stage Government Amendments (with statements) 15 (15) 9 (9) Official Opposition Amendments (with statements) 26 (24) 22 (19) Other amendments (with statements) 1 (1) 9 (9) Total No. of Amendments tabled (with 42 (40) 40 (37) statements)

9. There were two references to explanatory statements in debate at Committee stage and none at Report stage:

On 25 October 2012, Mr George Mudie sought clarification from the Minister on the meaning of Government amendment 6, with specific reference to the explanatory statement.6 On the same date, Cathy Jamieson quoted from the explanatory statement to Government amendment 11.7

The role of the House service: editorial intervention, and cost and resource implications

10. Most of the explanatory statements were drafted by Members, with no or minimal intervention from the Public Bill Office. Where Public Bill Office staff helped to draft amendments, they also helped to draft explanatory statements, but they report that this took little time (no more than five minutes per amendment), and usually saved time elsewhere by establishing a verifiable shared understanding of what amendments were intended to achieve. Typesetting costs cannot be disaggregated but are minimal.

11. Printing costs: Estimated at £12.30 per explanatory statement.8

Anecdotal evidence

12. Staff in the Public Bill Office have informally approached Members and their staff (but not Ministers or civil servants) who were involved in proceedings on the two Bills. Feedback has been positive. Members and their staff generally found the process of drafting explanatory statements to amendments helpful, both for clarifying the arguments and intention behind amendments when drafting, and in confirming their understanding of amendments tabled by other Members. Those who did not provide explanatory statements with their amendments did so for lack of time, and have said that they would want to provide such statements if offered the opportunity to do so in future, resources permitting.

Conclusions

6 Public Bill Committee Hansard, 25 October 2012, col 251-252 (attached) 7 Public Bill Committee Hansard, 25 October 2012, col 266 8 Based on an actual cost per page of £100, an estimate that 22.75 explanatory statements would fill a page, and the fact that each explanatory statement relating to the two bills in the pilot was re-printed on average 2.8 times. The cost is subject to any future reduction in the frequency with which the texts of amendments are printed in hard copy.

13. Our impressions are that Members are generally willing, even keen, to provide explanatory statements with their amendments. It is also not uncommon for us to be approached by individual Members before a debate on a Bill, particularly for a debate in the Chamber where Members who were not on the Public Bill Committee have an interest, asking why there are no documents available that would help to explain the purpose of amendments that have been tabled.

14. The barriers to tabling explanatory statements seem mainly to be time- and resource- related. This is less likely to be a problem for a Bill taken in Public Bill Committee, where the dates are known well in advance, and where there are often several weeks of sittings, than for Committee of the Whole House or Report stage, where at the extreme, a debate on a Monday might be confirmed only the previous Thursday, with the deadline for the tabling of amendments being the rise of the House that same day. The later deadline for tabling amendments for the floor of the House also provides less of an opportunity (although still some opportunity) for an explanatory statement to be added to an amendment after it has been tabled.

15. The Leader has asked for our views on the option of making explanatory statements voluntary at Committee stage and mandatory at Report stage. There is a logic to the idea in respect of Public Bill Committees. Members might be more likely to produce explanatory statements of their own accord in Public Bill Committee, while Members of the Public Bill Committee are at an advantage in having time to understand the Bill they are considering, and to seek explanation in person, if Members do table amendments without explanatory statements.

16. Members may find it more of a burden to have to produce explanatory statements at Report stage but I think it is unlikely that a requirement to do so would prevent many amendments from reaching the House. It is not that difficult to draft a brief explanatory statement, and a Member seeking to table an amendment might want to think again about doing so if they were unable to explain briefly what it would achieve. At Report stage, there are also more Members than in Public Bill Committee who will potentially participate in debate, and who will therefore benefit from a well- drafted explanatory statement.

17. If explanatory statements are to be mandatory at Report stage, it is hard to see why they should not also be mandatory for Bills considered in Committee of the Whole House. The same arguments (short notice period and general interest) apply, and for some Bills (such as the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill), this will be the only Commons stage at which amendments can be tabled.

Issues to be resolved if explanatory statements become mandatory

18. There is a risk that Members might bring in orderly amendments for tabling just minutes before the deadline, but with a disorderly explanatory statement or no

explanatory statement at all. Refusing to allow such amendments to be tabled would place the Members involved and the Public Bill Office in a difficult position. An alternative would be to allow orderly explanatory statements to be tabled on the day after the deadline for tabling the amendments themselves. It would, of course, be for the Speaker or Chairman of Ways and Means to decide whether to select an amendment where no explanatory statement had been tabled with at least one day’s notice.

19. Consideration would also need to be given to what constitutes adequacy and accuracy. For example, what should happen (if anything) if an explanatory statement, tabled in time, stated merely : • “This is a probing amendment.” (without setting out what it would achieve), or • “This amendment is self-explanatory.” (It might or might not be), or • “This amendment is consequential on amendment x.” coupled with “This is a paving amendment for amendment y.”, or • “This amendment would achieve x.” (when in fact it wouldn’t)?

20. The Public Bill Office would of course be happy to look further at these questions if that would be helpful.

7 January 2013

Letter from the Leader of the House to the Clerk of Legislation

As you will be aware, pilots of allowing explanatory statements to amendments to bills were undertaken for the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill and the Small Charitable Donations Bill. At the start of this session, the then Leader of the House and the then Chairman of the Procedure Committee agreed that a formal evaluation of the pilots would take place, with an initial evaluation conducted by the House Service. This commitment, and the criteria for evaluation, is set out in the Written Ministerial Statement made by my predecessor on 23 May 2012, which I attach.

As both bills have now cleared the House of Commons, the Government is keen that early progress is made in evaluating the pilots. As part of this, I would be grateful if the House Service would examine the following criteria, along with any anecdotal evidence:

• The extent to which explanatory statements are tabled by (a) backbenchers and (b) the Official Opposition; • The extent to which explanatory statements require editorial or other intervention by the House authorities to ensure compliance with the guidelines; • The extent to which explanatory statements or information uniquely availble from those statements is referred to in debate or otherwise used in discussion about the bill; • The costs and resource implications, including indirect costs.

In addition to these criteria, which were contained in the Written Ministerial Statement, I would also be grateful for a breakdown to the use of explanatory statement at (a) Committee Stage and (b) Report

Stage and would welcome your views on the option of making explanatory statements voluntary in committee stage and mandatory for all at report stage, for all public bills.

It would be useful to have a response from you early in the new year to allow the Procedure Committee and Government to consider your evidence as the basis for further evaluation.

29 November 2012

Small Charitable Donations Bill, Public Bill Committee Hansard, 25 October 2012

Column number: 251

Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab): In layman’s terms, so that small charities actually understand the ground rules, the community building arrangements have been introduced in the Bill to suit, for example, churches that are at a disadvantage because of their different structures. It is not aimed at helping smaller charities. The processes in this part of the Bill are designed to prevent small charities from taking advantage of the second £5,000. It is a fraud in terms of holding out the chance to a small charity of actually ever attaining that £1,250 by raising the additional£5,000.

Sajid Javid: The hon. Gentleman has said a lot in our sittings with which I agree, but if he will allow me, I will have to disagree with him wholeheartedly on this occasion. He is right in one respect, in that Churches are one of the groups most affected by community building rules, so if the rules did not exist, it is fair to say that the Church of England, for example, would have a huge issue with that. In trying to answer his question, it is best to explain why the Church of England would have such an issue. The Church of England, by contrast with the Roman Catholic Church, is often structured as a small number of registered charities in each parish, for example; the Roman Catholic Church is structured differently, as what we might call a branch network. To correct myself, therefore, in the context of Churches the Roman Catholic Church would be the one to benefit most from the community buildings rule. However, one should not think of each of those branches of the Roman Catholic Church as not being small charities, because in their own village or community the local parishioners would view them as—

Mr Mudie: I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene because it might save the Committee some time. I totally accept the basis for the changes in terms of the Churches. That is not an issue; I think they do the job well. In the same part of the Bill, however, there is an allusion to small charities being able to gain, but that is an illusion. The Minister may drop the Church part of the explanation, but can he tell the Committee who is actually able to contribute a donation that counts as part of the sum for getting the community building£5,000?

The Member’s explanatory statement for amendment 6 suggests that the donations have to be

“collected from persons with whom the charity is carrying out the charitable activity.”

In other words, if 10 Alzheimer’s patients were in a room being looked after and encouraged, they would be the only people in the room who could contribute to the charity. In the

explanatory notes for the Bill, that point is made exactly with reference to a medical charity, the phrase being:

“from attendees during the meetings.”

Can the Minister clarify that?

Sajid Javid: Yes, I happily will. The hon. Gentleman asked who can benefit from the collections in community buildings—

Column number: 252

Mr Mudie: No, who can contribute.

Sajid Javid: Okay. I will answer that question now. The contributions made by any group member carrying on the charitable activity will count towards the £5,000 limit. A group must include at least 10 people who are beneficiaries of the charity when carrying out the activity, as discussed, but donations from any other people present will count as small donations under the scheme.

Mr Mudie: The Minister will agree that, according to the Bill documents, if other than the recipients of the charitable activity make a donation it is not counted for the community building part of the scheme, it is used as the other part—the other£5,000.

Sajid Javid: To clarify, if a charity is using this part of the Bill—the community building rules—and assuming it meets the other criteria of at least 10 people being present in the community building when the charitable activity and the collection are taking place, then there will be 10 people who are beneficiaries, but the donations of anyone else who is present and making contributions count towards the £5,000 limit.

Mr Mudie: Can the Minister tie that up to the penultimate and last lines in his explanatory statement on amendment 6? He stated:

“for the purposes of clause 6 unless they are collected from persons with whom the charity is carrying out the charitable activity.”

In other words, the poor gentleman or lady with Alzheimer’s who is the recipient of the charitable activity is the only person who can make a donation.

Sajid Javid: The position is as follows. When the donations are collected there must be at least 10 qualifying people there—these are beneficiaries of the charity. If there are another five, six, 10 people who are making donations—who are not the people, to use the hon. Gentleman’s example, suffering from Alzheimer’s—those donations will count. The 10 people rule concerns the beneficiaries who must be present in that community building.