House of Commons Procedure Committee Programming of Legislation Fourth Report of Session 2003–04 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 7 July 2004 HC 325 Published on 14 July 2004 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £15.50 The Procedure Committee The Procedure Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to consider the practice and procedure of the House in the conduct of public business, and to make recommendations. Current membership Sir Nicholas Winterton MP (Conservative, Macclesfield) (Chairman) Mr Peter Atkinson MP (Conservative, Hexham) Mr John Burnett MP (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon) David Hamilton MP (Labour, Midlothian) Mr Eric Illsley MP (Labour, Barnsley Central) Huw Irranca-Davies MP (Labour, Ogmore) Eric Joyce MP (Labour, Falkirk West) Mr Iain Luke MP (Labour, Dundee East) Rosemary McKenna MP (Labour, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) Mr Tony McWalter MP (Labour, Hemel Hempstead) Sir Robert Smith MP (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) Mr Desmond Swayne MP (Conservative, New Forest West) David Wright MP (Labour, Telford) Powers The powers of the committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 147. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_ committees/procedure_committee.cfm. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Simon Patrick and Jenny McCullough (Clerks) and Susan Morrison (Committee Assistant). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerks of the Procedure Committee, Journal Office, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3318; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] Programming of Legislation 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 2 Programming: the general principles 8 Cross-party agreement 8 Programming too soon? 10 The role of standing committee chairmen 10 Dispensing with a programming sub-committee 11 Pre-legislative scrutiny 12 3 Programming: detailed issues 12 Committee stage 12 Number of “knives” 12 Delaying knives 13 Later sittings 14 Intervals between stages 14 Time limits on speeches 15 Technical amendments to sessional orders 15 Report stage 16 Third reading 17 4 The annual programme and carry-over 18 Conclusions and recommendations 19 Formal minutes 22 Witnesses 23 List of written evidence 23 Oral evidence Ev 1 Written evidence Ev 88 Reports from the Procedure Committee since 2001 Ev 89 Programming of Legislation 3 Summary A system of programming of bills by agreement between the parties was introduced in 1997, but had broken down by 2000, and has been replaced by the current system governed by a set of sessional orders which do not require any cross-party agreement (although such agreement was envisaged by the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons in its 2000 report). Since then, the great majority of Government bills have been programmed. The system is the subject of a good deal of controversy, and programme motions are often divided on. We recommend that programming motions should be decided without debate only where there is cross-party support; on other occasions the Government would, if necessary, have to justify such a motion in a one-hour debate. In exchange, we would expect parties to adopt a constructive approach to programming. The initial programme motion for a bill should be taken not less than 48 hours after second reading, to allow the proposed date for the end of committee stage (the “out-date”) to take account of the second reading debate and any representations made; there should also be the possibility of a vote (without debate) on an amendment to the programme motion before the vote on the motion itself. In standing committees, chairmen already have the power to intervene and suggest a meeting of a programming sub-committee to change the programme; we believe that this is a suitable activity to assist with orderly consideration of the bill. If no member objects, the standing committee should be able to dispense with a meeting of the sub-committee and itself make any arrangements which the sub-committee could have proposed. We believe that it is usually best for programmes in standing committee to specify as few intermediate deadlines (“internal knives”) as possible, and that chairmen should have discretion to postpone a deadline by up to 15 minutes when it would be for the general convenience of the committee (during which time amendments to a programme motion could be considered if necessary); and any deadline should be delayed by the length of any suspensions earlier in the same sitting caused by divisions in the House. If time is insufficient, longer afternoon sittings may sometimes be a reasonable alternative to a later out-date. We do not recommend speech limits in standing committee, but expect all concerned to use good sense in deciding the length of their speeches. For report stage and third reading, we recommend that the Government should table its amendments in good time and that the House should be provided with a factual statement of which clauses and schedules were not considered in committee because of the operation of the programme; and we believe that the House will usually want to spend most of the time available on report stage rather than third reading. As with programming, we believe that the introduction of carry-over of bills to the next session, which has the potential to lessen bottlenecks in the legislative process, should proceed with cross-party agreement. A full list of our conclusions and recommendations is on page 19. Programming of Legislation 5 1 Introduction 1. The introduction of programming is the most significant change made for some years in the way in which the House considers bills (another change is pre-legislative scrutiny, which we consider in paragraph 27 below). Until 1997, the length of a standing committee stage and the time allowed for report stage and third reading were not usually fixed by order of the House (although they were often the subject of informal agreements). Occasionally (on average, between 1979 and 1997, three times per session), the system would break down and the Government would table an allocation of time motion (often called a “guillotine”), laying down time limits and providing for the Speaker or chairman to put a limited number of questions to dispose of the business when those time limits were reached. Debate on a guillotine motion is limited to three hours.1 Normally, guillotines would be imposed after a standing committee had sat for many hours but made little progress, although they were sometimes used (and still are) before second reading when the Government wants to pass a bill through all its stages in one or two days. Standing Orders provide for the appointment of business committees to allocate the time (within the total laid down in the guillotine motion) for stages taken on the floor of the House, and for business sub-committees of standing committees to perform the same task in standing committee.2 2. Following many proposals for a more consensual system to apply to all (or most) Government legislation, the incoming Government in 1997 experimented with programmes agreed between the parties, which were implemented by allocation of time motions passed under the existing Standing Orders but generally simpler in form, signed by Members from more than one party, and often the subject of little or no debate.3 3. For reasons which we examine below (paragraph 13), this system had broken down by 1999–2000 and the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons recommended (in a Report on which the Committee divided on party lines) a series of sessional orders providing for programming of bills by means of a motion moved immediately after second reading.4 This recommendation was implemented on 7 November 2000 to take effect for 2000–01. The procedure specified was similar to that for allocation of time motions, except: a) the details of what questions were to be put when the time expired were to be set out in the sessional orders, allowing the programme motions to be shorter and simpler than allocation of time motions; 1 Standing Order No 83. The questions to be put when the time limit expires (apart from the question before the House or Committee at the time) are those on any amendments moved by a Minister (this can include non- Government amendments which the Government wishes to accept) and, for committee stage, that the relevant clauses and schedules should stand part of the bill. 2 Standing Orders Nos 82 and 120. The proposals of the Business Committee or Sub-Committee are subject to agreement (without debate) by the House or the Standing Committee, as the case may be. Sometimes a guillotine motion provides that a Business Committee is not to be appointed. 3 See the table appended to the Speaker’s letter, Modernisation Committee, Second Report, Session 1999–2000, Programming of Legislation and Timing of Votes, HC 589, Appendix 1, p 2. For further details of the background before 1997, see Modernisation Committee, First Report, Session 2002–03, HC 1222,