Fitting the Bill: Bringing Commons Legislation Committees Into Line with Best Practice
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE FITTING THE BILL BRINGING COMMONS LEGISLATION COMMITTEES INTO LINE WITH BEST PRACTICE MEG RUSSELL, BOB MORRIS AND PHIL LARKIN Fitting the Bill: Bringing Commons legislation committees into line with best practice Meg Russell, Bob Morris and Phil Larkin Constitution Unit June 2013 ISBN: 978-1-903903-64-3 Published by The Constitution Unit School of Public Policy UCL (University College London) 29/30 Tavistock Square London WC1H 9QU Tel: 020 7679 4977 Fax: 020 7679 4978 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/ ©The Constitution Unit, UCL 2013 This report is sold subject to the condition that is shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. First Published June 2013 2 Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 4 Executive summary ............................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 7 Part I: The current system .................................................................................................... 9 The Westminster legislative process in brief .......................................................................................... 9 The public bill committee system .......................................................................................................... 10 A stark contrast: the departmental select committees ........................................................................ 14 The history of the committee system in the Commons ..................................................................... 18 Proposals for reform of Commons legislation committees since 1992 ........................................... 19 Assessing the performance of public bill committees ........................................................................ 26 Commons legislation committees now – conclusions ........................................................................ 28 Part II: Legislation committees in other parliaments ........................................................ 30 Comparative studies of legislation committees ................................................................................... 30 Legislation committees in 20 established democracies ....................................................................... 31 Permanence ............................................................................................................................................... 32 Policy specialism ....................................................................................................................................... 33 Timing of committee stage .......................................................................................................................... 35 Evidence taking and hearings .................................................................................................................... 35 Investigations and dual purpose committees ................................................................................................ 35 Case studies of legislation committees .................................................................................................. 35 US congressional committees ..................................................................................................................... 36 Committees in the German parliament ...................................................................................................... 37 Scottish Parliament committees .................................................................................................................. 38 Australian parliamentary committees ........................................................................................................ 39 Comparative lessons for legislation committees – conclusions ........................................................ 40 Part III: Recommendations for change .............................................................................. 42 What are the problems to be addressed? .............................................................................................. 42 Permanence ............................................................................................................................................... 42 Policy specialism ....................................................................................................................................... 42 Timing ..................................................................................................................................................... 43 Selection of committee members .................................................................................................................. 43 Adversarialism ......................................................................................................................................... 44 Some practical issues ............................................................................................................................... 44 Combined legislation and investigative committees? ..................................................................................... 44 Departmental loadings .............................................................................................................................. 45 Human resources ...................................................................................................................................... 46 Political reality ......................................................................................................................................... 47 Reform options ........................................................................................................................................ 47 Central principle ....................................................................................................................................... 48 Three models of legislation committee ......................................................................................................... 48 Committee membership ............................................................................................................................. 49 Chairing legislation committees .................................................................................................................. 51 Staffing .................................................................................................................................................... 53 Timing ..................................................................................................................................................... 54 The business of legislation committees......................................................................................................... 55 Setup and piloting ..................................................................................................................................... 56 The future of Commons legislation committees – conclusions ........................................................ 56 List of recommendations .................................................................................................... 58 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 61 3 Acknowledgements This study was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Our first thanks are to them for their financial support, and for their tolerance when this report was delivered somewhat later than originally planned. We have received a huge amount of help in terms of background research for the report from Eimear O’Casey at the Constitution Unit. We are very grateful to her for all of her work and useful ideas. Others at the Unit who helped to bring this project to completion include Robert Hazell, Simon Kaye, Vicki Spence, Tom Semlyen and Ben Webb. We have also tried the patience of various parliamentarians and parliamentary officials in researching and drafting the report. Numerous officials in other parliaments helped with the provision and verification of information provided in Part II. Various people at Westminster also provided input, in the form of ideas, comments and feedback on drafts. We are immensely grateful to them for this help, and for their continued commitment to building a more effective parliament. We do not name them here, both to protect their modesty and also to avoid any risk of them being blamed for things that we have got wrong. Any remaining errors in the report are of course our own. 4 Executive summary Parliamentary scrutiny of bills is arguably where the House of Commons is at its weakest – and the committee stage is central to that weakness. Commons legislation committees have long been criticised for failing to deliver adequate scrutiny of government bills. Despite the introduction of new evidence gathering powers in 2007, many long-standing problems remain. Crucially,