Government Response
Introduction
This Government believes in strengthening Parliament
and sustaining its position at the centre of national debate.
Indeed, it is only because the Government brought forward proposals
for the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee that—for
the first time—the House has, on its own initiative, referred
this matter to the Procedure Committee.
The Government notes that, in addition to the Leader
and Shadow Leader of the House, the Committee received evidence
from only 11 Members, together with a memorandum on the legislative
process from the Better Government Initiative. This suggests that,
while a few Members may have strong views on the subject, there
is little evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with the current
arrangements.
At all times, the Government has sought, and will
continue to seek, a consensual approach to the conduct of business
in Parliament. The transfer of a significant amount of parliamentary
time, amounting to one day each week, to the Backbench Business
Committee is evidence of that; as is a desire to provide adequate
time for the scrutiny of legislation. The Government is disappointed
that, against this background of willingness to work with Parliament,
the Committee was not able to give further consideration to some
of the proposals that were put forward in its evidence.
Ministers' obligations to Parliament are paramount,
but the Government also has a duty to communicate its policies
and programme effectively to the wider public, including through
the platform of a 24-hour news media. These dual pressures have
been a reality under all recent governments—a point made
by Members from both sides of the House during the original backbench
debate and in oral evidence to the Committee, but that was not
reflected in the Committee's Report.
The 9.30 am limit on Written Ministerial Statements
can be a source of frustration for Ministers and departments,
and there is no technical obstacle to the effective communication
of written statements to MPs—via the internet, e-mail or
SMS—at an earlier hour.
Where the content of a statement is market-sensitive,
it must be made when the markets open at 7 am. This practice is
an essential safeguard of the integrity of the markets and the
Government would strongly resist any proposals to change it, but
the House's rules prevent the Government from making the statement
to the House until some hours later. Since Members do not in any
case have an immediate opportunity to question Ministers on Written
Statements when they are issued, the House's scrutiny function
would not be undermined by releasing them earlier in the day.
Select committees have long recognised the presentational
advantages of early-morning publication and 00.01 hrs is now the
routine publication time for all but a few select committee reports.
This applies even when the Report is to be the subject of a Motion
to take note of the publication. The Committee has not made a
compelling argument as to why the House should be content to receive
reports from its own committees—the content of which will
be unknown to all but a very few Members in advance—in the
middle of the night and at weekends, but not to receive information
from the Government first thing in the morning when the Vote Office
is open.
The fact that the Committee suggests that the long-standing
practice of the House now needs to be backed by a new punitive
regime might in itself be seen as evidence that the procedures
of the House are becoming out-of-date.
A House protocol
Recommendation
1. We do not believe that it is practical or desirable
to produce a detailed protocol that would cover all possible situations
in which a Minister should make a statement. We recommend instead
that the House agrees a resolution in which it sets out in broad
terms the behaviour expected of Ministers. We propose the following:
That this House expects Ministers to make all important
announcements relating to government policy to Parliament before
they are made elsewhere on all occasions when Parliament is sitting,
and expects information which forms all or part of such announcements
not to be released to the press before such a statement is made
to Parliament. (Paragraph 17)
Response
The Government agrees entirely with the Committee's
conclusion that it is neither practical nor desirable to produce
a detailed protocol that would cover all possible situations in
which a Minister should make a statement. The Government believes
that the protocol set out in the Ministerial Code is fully effective.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly stressed the importance of the
Code in ensuring proper ministerial accountability to Parliament.
It is not clear, therefore, what purpose would be
served by the draft Motion proposed by the Committee. Although
it broadly reflects the terms of the Ministerial Code, its wording
creates significant scope for uncertainty. For example, the reference
to "information which forms all or part of [a policy] announcement"
could be difficult to interpret in a situation where the development
of a policy had gone through several stages, some in the public
domain. Nor is it clear how the Committee intends the scope of
the reference to "all important announcements relating to
government policy" to differ from the Ministerial Code's
reference to "the most important announcements of Government
policy".
The Government's view is that it will be necessary
in each case to reach a judgement on the best way in which to
make an announcement to the House, having regard to Ministers'
general duties to the House. This will invariably depend on a
subjective judgement about the importance of the announcement
(as well as other factors), a position which is simply re-stated
in the Committee's proposed protocol. It therefore provides no
basis for any objective assessment of which statements should
be made in the first instance to the House.
This Government has a strong record of making statements
to Parliament. The Government has so far made 91 oral statements
in the 138 sitting days since the day of the Queen's Speech. This
is a third more statements per sitting day than the previous Government
made in 2009-10 and more statements per sitting day than were
made in the previous two Sessions. The Prime Minister has so far
made 15 oral statements to the House, more than any of his predecessors
in their first year in office since at least 1979.
The number of urgent questions accepted has also
risen substantially since 2009, from an average of just four UQs
per year in 2007-08 to more than one a week in the current Session.
Against this background of growing Ministerial accountability
to Parliament, there is no case for the protocol that the Committee
proposes.
Enforcing the protocol
Recommendation
2. We recommend that allegations by Members that
the House protocol has been breached be made first to the Speaker
for his judgment. If he determined that the complaint was without
basis or trivial, it would be open to him to dismiss it. In cases
where it was clear that a minor breach had occurred, he could
take appropriate steps, such as allowing an Urgent Question on
the subject or making a statement on its findings. In more serious
or more complex cases, he would refer the matter to the Committee
on Standards and Privileges for further investigation. We would
hope that the Committee would choose to take evidence in public
as part of its inquiries into such cases. (Paragraph 30)
Response
The House already has a range of options at its disposal
where Members allege that a Minister has made details of a statement
available to the media before the House. They include the granting
of an urgent question, an investigation by the relevant departmental
select committee (or any other committee of the House with an
interest in the subject), questions to the Prime Minister or to
the Leader of the House at Business Questions, and points of order
to the Chair. In addition to these options, which have long been
at the House's disposal, there is now also the opportunity for
the Backbench Business Committee to schedule a debate on any matter
which it considers has not been adequately addressed in statements
or otherwise in Government time.
The Government considers that this range of sanctions
is adequate and is already used to great effect.
Extending the powers of the Standards and Privileges
Committee in the way the Committee proposes would risk the Committee
being dragged into what are often essentially party-political
disputes, undermining the integrity of its role. The Government
notes that the Procedure Committee did not receive formal evidence
from the Standards and Privileges Committee or from the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards in relation to this proposal.
Sanctions
Recommendation
3. We believe that a recommendation from a Committee
of the House that a Minister should make a formal apology on the
Floor of the House is a serious and effective penalty. It would,
of course, also be open to the Committee to recommend that such
an apology should be made at a time when the House would be well-attended;
for example, after Questions on a Wednesday. In particularly serious
cases, the moving of a motion of censure on the Floor of the House
would be an even more severe sanction. We feel that these options
are appropriate and likely to be sufficient by way of both penalty
and deterrent. (Paragraph 34)
Response
As the Committee notes, it is not uncommon for Ministers
to volunteer an apology where it is clear that a leak has occurred.
The Committee has produced no evidence to suggest that there
is a significant problem of Ministers refusing to apologise to
the House when it would be appropriate to do so.
Public apologies on the floor of the House at the
recommendation of the Standards and Privileges Committee have
hitherto only been used in the more serious cases where Members
have broken the rules of the House or the Code of Conduct for
MPs.
Even in the most serious cases, the Standards and
Privileges Committee has not hitherto sought to specify the time
at which an apology should be made by way of a personal statement
and the Procedure Committee's suggestion that it should begin
to do so is novel.
Changes to Urgent Questions
Recommendation
4. Urgent Questions clearly have a role to play in
encouraging Ministers to provide information to the House. We
believe that this role could be enhanced still further. We recommend
that, in certain limited circumstances, Members should have a
second opportunity during the sitting day to apply to ask an Urgent
Question, but only where information becomes known during the
day that was not available before the initial deadline. This deadline
should fall at 7 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, 4 pm on Wednesdays,
3 pm on Thursdays and 12 noon on sitting Fridays. The Urgent Question—if
granted—should be asked at the moment of interruption. In
cases where an Urgent Question to be asked at the moment of interruption
has been granted but the House rises early, the Question should
stand over until the following sitting day. We would expect this
measure to be used only in exceptional cases. (Paragraph 39)
Response
The adoption of this recommendation would be likely
to lead to Members dealing with important issues late at night,
at short notice, in a poorly-attended Chamber.
The Committee offers no evidence to support the contention
that taking an Urgent Question at the end of the sitting day would
have any benefit—except, perhaps, in certain exceptional
circumstances—over it being taken at the usual time at the
following day's sitting. On the few occasions when such exceptional
circumstances have applied, then Ministers have in the past demonstrated
their willingness to come to the Chamber to make a statement late
in the day. In many cases, a new situation which has arisen during
the course of a sitting can be fast-changing. Minsters themselves
may not have had time to evaluate it or to decide on the Government's
intended course of action. There may therefore be little of substance
to report to the House.
The recommendation could also create difficulties
in the House of Lords, where urgent questions taken in the Commons
are regularly repeated as statements. A decision to accept a UQ
late in the day could have a disruptive effect on the business
of the Lords, where it was considered necessary or desirable to
repeat it.
An alternative might be to allow notice of an urgent
question to be given the night before, for the following day's
sitting, if the Government had given no indication that it proposed
to make a statement.
Length of time spent on statements
Recommendation
5. It is our view that the Chair is best placed to
determine the appropriate length of time to be spent on a statement.
We therefore reject the Government's proposals for time limits
on almost all statements and for a category of time-limited statements
for "less significant issues". We do, however, reiterate
the proposal made by the Modernisation Committee and endorsed
by the House that the opening ministerial statement and subsequent
Opposition frontbench contribution should, in most cases, not
exceed ten and five minutes respectively. (Paragraph 50)
Response
The Government notes the Committee's recommendation.
In the absence of any process for agreeing a time-limit in advance,
Business Managers will continue to balance decisions about whether
to make a statement on any given day against other competing and
often equally important demands on the House's time. Members will
continue to be alert to the uncertainty over the timing of the
main business.
Notice of oral statements
Recommendation
6. We recognise that notice is routinely given on
the order paper of predictable statements, such as reports from
international conferences. We accept that some statements relate
to unpredictable events, and that little notice can be given in
such circumstances. In other cases, however, we believe that the
Government could greatly assist Members by giving much greater
notice of forthcoming statements than it does at present. We urge
the Government to make every effort to give notice as early as
possible of any oral statement it intends to make to Parliament.
(Paragraph 62)
Response
The Government notes the Committee's recommendation
and will continue to give advance notice of oral statements wherever
possible. The Government has so far given notice of oral statements
in around a third of cases this Session, but the proportion has
risen over the Session and notice has been given of a greater
proportion of statements since the summer recess than beforehand.
As the Government pointed out in its evidence to
the Committee, advance notice of an oral statement can intensify
media interest in the subject, increasing the risk that media
speculation might require a Government response before the statement
is made in the House.
Advance notice of a statement is contingent on a
range of factors, including the Government being ready to make
the relevant policy announcement, the business of the House on
the day in question and any other issues which might be the subject
of a statement on that day. It is therefore not always possible
to fix the date of announcements, even planned announcements of
Government policy, very far in advance.
Written ministerial statements
Recommendation
7. It is for the Government to decide whether a particular
announcement is to be made by means of a written or an oral statement,
but, in some cases, an announcement made by means of a written
ministerial statement is significant enough to deserve parliamentary
scrutiny. In such cases, there should be a mechanism for backbenchers
to question a Minister on the statement. We recommend that the
half hour between 11 am and 11.30 am on a Wednesday in Westminster
Hall should be available for oral questions without notice on
a written statement made in the previous week. We would not expect
the Minister to read out the text of the statement. Applications
for this time should be made to the Speaker in the same way as
applications for adjournment debates and, where the Speaker and
the Chairman of Ways and Means judge that a case has been made,
the Chairman of Ways and Means should appoint oral questions on
that statement as the business for the specified time. We recommend
that this procedure be introduced on a experimental basis until
the end of the Session. We will conduct a review of its effectiveness
at that time. (Paragraph 68)
Response
It is already open to Members to seek a debate in
Westminster Hall on any subject. Restricting the half-hour slot
on Wednesday morning to questions on a matter which was the subject
of a WMS in the previous week would significantly restrict Members'
discretion to seek a debate on any subject of their choosing.
There are also other mechanisms for backbenchers to question ministers
on the subject of Written Ministerial Statements, including urgent
questions and topical questions, backbench debates, select committee
evidence sessions and adjournment debates in the House.
The Committee's proposal would not work well in the
context of the current arrangements for determining the subjects
to be taken in Westminster Hall, nor in the context of the departmental
rota for responding to business in Westminster Hall.
The Government therefore does not agree with this
recommendation, which would add little or nothing to Ministerial
accountability to Parliament for the content of WMSs.
Recommendation
8. We believe that neither the removal of the requirement
to give notice of written ministerial statements nor the making
of such statements at 7 am would be in the interests of the House
and its backbenchers. We therefore recommend that the earliest
time at which written ministerial statements are released remain
9.30 am and that the requirement to give notice of such statements
be retained. We accept that there is a difficulty on non-sitting
Fridays and we recommend that the Government be able to give notice
on a non-sitting Friday, between the hours of 11 am and 3 pm,
of its intention to make a written statement on the following
sitting day. We urge the Government to make every effort to give
notice as early as possible of its intention to make a written
statement. (Paragraph 73)
Response
The Government welcomes the Committee's recommendation
in respect of notices given on non-sitting Fridays. This modest
improvement to the current arrangements will make it easier for
the Government to make predictable announcements to Parliament
on Mondays.
However, the Government would strongly urge the Committee
to reconsider the proposals which are dismissed in this recommendation.
Continuing to require notice to be given on the previous
day is an unnecessary restriction the Government's ability to
make statements to the House. The Government does not believe
that there is any good reason why ministers should not be allowed
to make written statements about events on the day on which they
happen, and the Government suggested in its evidence to the Committee
various ways in which Members could be alerted to the fact that
a statement had been made. The continuing requirement to give
notice does nothing to enhance ministers' accountability to the
House.
The Government is disappointed that the Committee
did not accept its proposals for making written ministerial statements
earlier in the day. Certain statements must be made when the markets
open at 7 am. It is not clear why the Committee does not believe
that it would be in the House's interests to receive these statements
when they are made, rather than two-and-a-half hours later. There
are various ways in which statements could be made available to
Members first thing in the morning, not only through the Vote
Office, but by e-mail and on-line publication. The Committee's
objection, that Members would face questioning from the media
and constituents on the content of a WMS before they had an opportunity
to read it, does not therefore seem to be very compelling.
The Government's view, as set out in its original
memorandum to the Committee, remains unchanged. The House's interests
would be better served, and its position at the heart of the national
debate strengthened, if the timetable for making ministerial statements
took account of the external constraints on the timing of Government
announcements.
Recommendation
9. It is sometimes difficult for Members to know
that a written ministerial statement has been made. We recommend
that written ministerial statements be published on the Parliamentary
website and that an RSS feed be provided so that Members who so
choose can be alerted to their publication. (Paragraph 77)
Response
The Government notes this recommendation, which is
for the House authorities to implement.
Rt Hon Sir George Young MP
Leader of the House
31 March 2011
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