Open PDF 170KB

Procedure Committee Oral evidence: The procedure of the House of Commons and the territorial constitution, HC 838 Monday 19 April 2021 Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 19 April 2021. Watch the meeting Members present: Chris Elmore (Chair); Aaron Bell; Kirsty Blackman; Sir Christopher Chope; James Gray; Nigel Mills; Douglas Ross; Owen Thompson. Questions 48 - 73 Witnesses I: Sir Paul Silk KCB, former House of Commons Clerk, Clerk of the National Assembly for Wales 2001-07, and Chair of the Commission on Devolution to Wales 2011-14; and Paul Evans CBE, former Clerk of Committees in the House of Commons. Written evidence from witnesses: – Sir Paul Silk and Paul Evans Examination of witnesses In the absence of Karen Bradley, Chris Elmore took the Chair. Witnesses: Sir Paul Silk KCB and Paul Evans CBE. Q48 Chair: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this public hearing of the Procedure Committee. We are taking evidence this afternoon from Sir Paul Silk and Paul Evans, two distinguished former Clerks of this Parliament. Sir Paul Silk is also a former Clerk of what was the National Assembly for Wales and is now Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament. We have a series of questions this afternoon, as you would expect, gentlemen. We really appreciate your time. I pass on the apologies of Karen Bradley, the Chair of the Committee, who is unable to be here today. She sends her sincere apologies for not being with us. I would argue that you probably know this institution and this Committee better than most Members on it, to be frank. I am going to start off with a broad question and then move around the Committee and bring in colleagues as and when they wish. I am conscious that we have a little bit of time with you, but I would like us to try to cover as broad a spectrum of questions as possible in terms of the evidence that you submitted, for which we are very grateful. My first question is arguably more for an opening statement from both of you about how you feel Westminster procedure is supporting and building the territorial constitutions. Within that, from a procedural point of view, what are the limitations of that? Please feel free to go broader if you want. You are aware of the inquiry’s remit, and clearly you two have been at the forefront of much of this for many years. We would like to get your views as much as we can. Who wants to start? It is entirely up to you. Mr Evans has his mic on, so if he goes first, maybe that would work. Paul Evans: Thank you, Chair, and thank you for inviting both of us. It is very good to be here. I would start, in answering your question, with a slightly philosophical point. Things do not happen in politics without political will and political energy behind them. What procedures do is provide, if you like, the vessels into which that political energy and will can be poured. When you have a new configuration of the constitution, you probably need new procedures to make it happen. The problem about devolution is that, although there have been many individual committees and individuals who have worked in all the legislatures of the UK on the issue of interparliamentary relations and how devolution works, there has been no sustained examination of that. We have not had the kind of coherent procedural change that would enable the necessary aspects of working in a devolved system to work smoothly, and for Members to understand and learn about each other’s institutions. The key thing that is missing is a proper think about what the new situation—now over 20 years old—really requires. It has changed dramatically in the last five to 10 years as well, so it really is timely to have a look at whether the procedures in place facilitate good working relationships between the legislatures. That would be my main point. In summary, they do not do that, and because they don’t they do not satisfactorily discharge the legislative duty to provide scrutiny and accountability of Executive action in any of the four nations yet. Sir Paul Silk: In anticipation of this question, I went back to look at when I first went to the House of Commons in 1975. I remember that Michael Foot was the Leader of the House at the time, and I was quite sure that he had said something in a debate about procedure being the only constitution the British had and therefore being of vital importance. I could not actually find that quote, but what I did find was him saying, in 1976, that he anticipated that there would be a Scottish Assembly, as it was going to be then, and a Welsh Assembly. He said that procedures would need to change as a result of those. He was very prescient about that. I think perhaps that procedures have not changed as much as they could. Some of the things we recommended in our memorandum, which you kindly received, are about how those changes might happen in the future to reflect the existence of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Chair: Thank you both very much. Q49 Aaron Bell: I thank both witnesses for their time today and their service to this place and others in the past. I want to ask some questions about England before we let my colleagues from around the rest of the United Kingdom loose on the even hotter topics. When the 2015 Government introduced EVEL, they said that the procedures would “provide fairness for England in our constitutional arrangements.” How well would both of you say that EVEL has done the job it was intended to do? What alternatives are there to EVEL, or what would you potentially recommend in terms of how we can develop our procedures to make sure that England’s voice is heard, but is also not as dominant as perhaps it has been in the past? Paul Evans: If I may, I will take the lead on this, Chair. Chair: Of course. Paul Evans: Thank you, Mr Bell. The short answer to your question is that I do not think EVEL has worked, and I do not think many people do, observing it. Professor Henderson said to you in her evidence a couple of weeks ago that, when asked, English people were very keen on the idea of English votes for English laws but none of them knew it had happened. I think that is the real issue about EVEL. It is a very technocratic and very complicated process that has not given England a real voice and is invisible to the English people for whom it was supposed to provide some kind of constitutional balancing mechanism. I think Pete Wishart, also in evidence to you a couple of weeks ago, pointed out that it has been suspended since last March and nobody has actually noticed. That is also a very telling point about EVEL. EVEL is not wrong, although I have some issues with how it works. It is just too complicated, and it does not do what it was supposed to do. For a procedural change that lengthened at a stroke the Standing Orders of the House of Commons by some 18%—many, many pages—it is invisible. You used the words “giving a voice to the English”. I do not think it has given a voice to the English because, as you know, in the English legislature, the Grand Committee, in which EVEL was supposed most obviously to demonstrate itself, has barely met for more than a few minutes, if at all, over the whole course of time since 2015. I do not think it has worked, and I think the Committee could do well to have a good think about why. A procedure that was much more straightforward and comprehensible to everyone—Members of Parliament and people looking in on Parliament—would be a great improvement. In terms of its architecture, my main issue with it is that it is asymmetrical. What EVEL does is give English Members of Parliament an effective veto over laws relating to England if they do not like them, whereas the Sewel convention, which no doubt you will come on to later, gives the devolved legislatures an advisory role in legislation affecting them made by the UK Parliament. That does not look quite right, but I think it could be solved. Way back in 2013, the McKay commission recommended using the consent motion procedure for English votes for English laws. I think that would be a much more effective process. If you had an English Grand Committee of some kind, which would be very large and would probably have to meet in the Chamber, when legislation affecting England but to be made by the UK Parliament was brought forward, the English Grand Committee and the Members for England could consider it, debate it and give their broad consent to its principles, just as we do with the legislative consent motion in any of the devolved legislatures. I think that would encourage debate about principles rather than the very technical, difficult stuff. It would only be necessary to do it, and it would only become controversial, when an issue really mattered. The debate could be about principles, the things that really matter, rather than about technicalities. There needs to be a great deal more simplification, and a move to a parallel to the legislative consent process for England would be the right direction in which to travel.

Load more