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I strongly support the Government’s proposition that, to enable young people in particular to get on the housing ladder, they need affordable, fixed mortgages to give them some assurance over many years that they will not be faced with unaffordable rises in repayments. There is also great value in shared equity schemes. Of course, you do not end up owning the house, but there must be many low-earning young people who, if they had to borrow only the deposit, say, against the full purchase price, could get on the housing ladder, which they may not be able to do if they have to borrow anything like the whole of the purchase price.

I also welcome the Government’s emphasis on maximising the potential for brownfield development and the new homes agency. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, that I am sorry that it is a new quango, but it has the useful task of ensuring, among other things, a social objective of mixed tenure estates, which I think is a good thing. However, I am somewhat wary of the call in the Green Paper for streamlined planning procedures. That sounds good if it means cutting through red tape, but I trust that it does not mean making it too easy to concrete over further chunks of the countryside or invading conservation areas.

The other, quite unrelated, matter on which I wish to speak is the Government’s most impressive list of items for constitutional reform, which is in the paper on governance as well as in the draft legislative programme. It has amazed me over the years that, despite the growing democratic legitimacy of Parliament—the franchise was gradually extended in the 19th century and covered the whole of the adult population, male and female, in the 20th century—

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Parliament has had virtually no role in some of the most vital decisions that Governments have to make. Those include the making of war and peace and the ratification of treaties, which are prerogative powers, formerly exercised by the monarch alone and now by Ministers on behalf of the monarch, with only a slight bow in the direction of Parliament but not requiring parliamentary approval.

As the Green Paper proposes, Parliament should be involved in, among other things, many major public appointments. I will not bother to give the list, but it sounds very appealing to have some sort of parliamentary—by which I mean House of Lords as well as House of Commons—pre-appointment hearings by an appropriate committee. However, I do not agree with the suggestion on page 28 of the Green Paper that there could be,

“conceivably a role for Parliament”,

in judicial appointments. The Blair Government rightly took away judicial appointments from Ministers—namely, the Lord Chancellor of the day—and gave them to the Judicial Appointments Commission, which is a properly independent body. I am encouraged by the reported statement of my right honourable friend Jack Straw at the Lord Mayor’s annual banquet of judges last week that the independence of the judiciary is so essential that there should be no room for political interference in the appointment and selection of judges. I hope that the Minister can give me some reassurance on that.

2.13 pm

Lord Teverson: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Shutt, I welcome the draft legislative programme. This is one way in which the Government and Parliament can move towards the real world. Rather than having surprises sprung on us from the Throne every November in these important areas, we will be able logically and in advance to look at the legislative programme for the country. That seems an obvious way in which to do things and I thoroughly welcome it. Assuming that this process continues, we could also perhaps have in future years an indication of the White Papers and Green Papers that are likely to come along. In my younger days, the Budget was all surprises and secrecy until Budget day, but the change in that process has stuck and has enabled not just citizens but businesses to look ahead; the lack of surprise has allowed the country to be more successful.

I will mention a couple of the Bills that are proposed in the programme and a couple that are not. I have a particular interest in the Climate Change Bill and have had the privilege to be on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee. Our report is still to be published, so I will not say much about that. However, the Government will have to consider further a couple of areas that were included in the draft Bill, especially as the science has moved forward considerably even since the draft Bill’s publication. They must ensure that the Bill, which they see as pacesetting in the global community, is not just a trophy measure that is all about being seen to be first. Before the Bill is introduced into the legislative process in both Houses

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and we can see the details, the Government will need to catch up with the science, in particular on realistic targets for the required reduction in greenhouse gases. They will also need to ensure that the climate change committee that the draft Bill proposes has the strength, intellectual power and budget to deliver what they really want it to.

I am also interested in the Energy Bill that the legislative programme proposes. It follows on from two energy White Papers and is very much tied up with climate change. However, if you read through the bullet points in the programme, you see that the proposed Bill leaves out key areas that the Government identified in their White Papers as being of extreme importance. Energy savings are not mentioned in the list of areas to be covered by the Bill, which we expect in the autumn. Although that is one of the less interesting and publicity-attracting areas of energy and climate change, we know that it is one of the most important. We could get major savings in carbon emissions and energy usage with what is called negative expenditure—there could be a positive repayment to business, homes or government—but there is no reference to that at all.

I was rather sceptical about what the White Paper said about turning energy suppliers into energy management companies. That seemed one of the biggest challenges that the Government had set themselves; they wanted people who quite legitimately make money out of supplying energy suddenly to convince their shareholders that one of their big aims was to allow their consumers to save energy. In our debate on the White Paper, I asked how this miraculous turnaround would happen. I did not get a reply at the time and I see that there is no reference to it, or to energy savings, in the proposed Bill.

The other side of the issue is nuclear energy. I understand that the Government are still out to consultation on that, but I was interested by one sentence in the programme, which says:

“If we decide it is in the public interest to allow private sector investment in new nuclear power stations, the bill will create a framework that will help protect the taxpayer”.

I was never under the impression that energy companies were not now allowed by the Government to invest in nuclear power; in fact, the market is completely open to them to do that, so there is no change there. As that sentence highlights, the big question is about nuclear power, once established, not being a burden on the taxpayer in any way. I still do not understand how that is going to happen; as far as I can see, it is the only barrier at the moment. I wait with interest to hear about that.

As my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer said, the big missing area on the environmental side is a marine Bill. In many ways, I congratulate the Government on the publication and content of their White Paper on marine issues earlier this year. This country has some 12,000 miles of coastline. The marine area includes fishing, natural resources, energy—in particular renewable energy, with the increasing importance of wave energy, tidal energy and offshore wind power—transport and trade through shipping, exploration and, not least, marine ecology. The

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Government make a very strong case for the Bill in their White Paper. The Minister also said something about the marine area in his introduction to the debate, so I would be very interested to hear more assurance that something will come through very soon. The White Paper said in paragraph 1.20 on page 8:

“We want to implement each of our proposals swiftly”.

I suggest that if that urgency is real, it would be terribly useful to have a Bill that we could pass first.

I very much welcome the fact that we have a legislative programme for the year, and I very much hope that this will quickly become a tradition and one that we in Parliament can rely on.

2.20 pm

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, it was curious to me that nothing was said in the Statement, and almost nothing in the document, about the Government’s policies for culture. It has been justly said that the test of how civilised a country is lies in the way in which it treats its prisoners. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester spoke to us thoughtfully about that. It is also a test of civilisation how we treat our artists, so I look forward to the gracious Speech recognising that. I hope that the Government will not advance their primary justification for supporting our culture in utilitarian or instrumental terms, in terms of the benefits to our economy, real and important though they are, or to social inclusion, which is a precious by-product of shared aesthetic experience or in terms of education, although the arts are a wonderful resource for education. I hope that they will justify support for the arts frankly on the basis that they enrich the spirit and that, in developing our creativity and our responses to creativity, we develop ourselves as human beings. The arts are, quite simply, a great good in themselves. I am encouraged that James Purnell, in his first speech as Secretary of State, has affirmed that.

Without adequate public patronage, too many artists will not flourish, and too many people will not have the opportunity to experience new artistic work and work that may not be immediately popular but which, if persisted with, will prove profoundly rewarding. Among the enduring attainments of a nation are its cultural monuments, and it is not too soon to begin to think about the Brown legacy. Therefore I hope that we shall hear these words in the gracious Speech, “My Government consider that support for our best artists, painters, film makers, sculptors, poets, actors, dancers and musicians is quite simply a fundamental responsibility of government in a civilised society. My Government will be munificent in funding the arts and heritage, and will expect those who distribute the money that the Government make available to identify excellence and support it generously without ensnaring creative people in bureaucracy and accountability”.

I have some more particular proposals to make to the Government, which I hope will be secured in their cultural programme, perhaps among the other measures that will be laid before us. I hope that the Government will commit themselves to providing better support to enable museums and galleries to make acquisitions.

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Noble Lords debated the full case for this on 30 October last year, and I hope that the Government will look very carefully at what was said in that debate. The present situation is parlous and unworthy of a wealthy and mature country. By 2004-05, the public funds devoted to supporting acquisitions were worth only 13 per cent in real terms of what they were in 1980-81. If we are to seek an economic justification, for the benefit of our creative economy students of art and design need to see the best that is being created. Specifically, I hope that we shall hear in the gracious Speech that a statutory duty will be laid on local authorities to support museums and galleries, and that there will be funding to enable them to do that. I also hope that we shall learn of the Government’s plans for reform of the tax regime to enable donors to offset the gross value of their gifts of pre-eminent cultural objects against income tax.

It would be churlish of me not to welcome the reference in the document to the Government’s plan for draft legislation to implement their proposals in the heritage White Paper. However, this policy has been in gestation for a very long time indeed, and the fruits of it are urgently needed, as are more funds for our heritage. Too much of our heritage has been allowed to become shabby. I want to see more tax reform: the introduction of historic properties maintenance relief to enable private owners of important buildings that are accessible to the public to offset maintenance costs against tax.

It is particularly important that the settlement for English Heritage should be generous after so many years in which it has not been. It should provide headroom for English Heritage to be able to develop its strategy to secure the physical fabric of historic places of worship. More than 14,000 places of worship of all faiths in this country are listed buildings—indeed, 45 per cent of our grade I buildings are Church of England parish churches—but there are enormous problems for congregations to maintain the physical fabric. In its Inspired! campaign, English Heritage has made a modest request for funding of £2.5 million now and £8 million per annum in the next three years.

I also hope to see policies to enable us to retain authors’ manuscripts and archives in this country. Here, I declare an interest as chairman of the UK Literary Heritage Working Group. The experience of seeing and handling the manuscript of a great poem, for example, is a kind of laying on of hands; it is part of the apostolic succession of our literary and intellectual culture. The Select Committee in another place endorsed the recommendations of the working group. One was that the douceur arrangement for inheritance tax and capital gains tax should be extended to income tax for living authors selling their papers to a designated UK public institution by private treaty. We would also like to see owners of pre-eminent cultural items enabled to submit them during their lifetime for acceptance in lieu of tax on their future estates. That, of course, would be of benefit to museums and galleries much more widely.

My last wish is that the Government will pledge themselves to sustain the portable antiquities scheme. This is a voluntary scheme for recording archaeological

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finds that are made by non-archaeologists. The aim is to enable the information contained in these finds to be recorded and to illuminate our national history and local understanding. Noble Lords will have read recently of the extraordinary find by metal detectorists of a hoard of Viking treasure in north Yorkshire. Before we had the portable antiquities scheme, finds were largely not reported or recorded, and many simply disappeared. The scheme has been hugely successful. Sixty thousand reports of archaeological finds are made by members of the public every year, and a great many children and others attend educational events and workshops under the scheme. It is terrific value for money. The money needed in the next year is only £1.65 million. That is affordable, but it would be vulnerable if we were to have a less than generous spending outcome for the DCMS.

The rattle of begging bowls in another place last night and here today is reaching a cacophonous crescendo. The Treasury may be tempted to stop its ears, but I say only that the money that the Government spend on the arts and heritage is indiscernible in the national accounts, and still would be if they were to commit themselves to 10 per cent real-terms year-on-year increases through the period of the spending review. The policies that I have proposed would gladden the nation, and would foster pride of place, pride in our country, pride in our local communities, pride in our traditions and culture, and pride in our Britishness today.

2.28 pm

Lord Tyler: My Lords, I am tempted to ask the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, for an exact definition of a “portable antiquity”. I wonder whether Members of your Lordships’ House qualify. My colleagues and I warmly welcome not only the Statement and the way in which the Minister introduced it this afternoon, but the fact that we are having this debate today, which I think will become an annual event. I hope that that will be taken as read, given that no fewer than six of my noble friends have contributed to this debate, all welcoming the process. However, I sound a note of caution.

There is a sort of precedent for this approach. It occurred in the other place in 2002, when the then Modernisation Select Committee, under the leadership of the then Leader of the House, the late and very much lamented Robin Cook, introduced proposals which he hoped would take away what had become a tendency to what he described as parliamentary mud-wrestling. Our recommendation at that time—I served on the committee—was as follows:

“We recommend that there should be collective consultations with other parties in the House on the broad shape of the legislative year, those Bills intended to be published in draft, those Bills intended to be carried over and which Bills are expected to be introduced in the Commons”.

Obviously that had no implications for this House—quite rightly, that place did not presume to make a contribution on what should happen here.

Not only did all parties in the House agree to that, but there was a brief experiment to have just those consultations under Mr Cook. He convened a meeting,

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which I attended on behalf of my party as the shadow Leader and was attended by Eric Forth on behalf of the Conservatives. It is no secret that the “business managers”—the Chief Whip—were furious. It is also no secret that, on the whole, the Conservatives were ambivalent, because they did not want to be that constructive. That is not the atmosphere down at that end of the corridor; I am delighted to say that it is much more the atmosphere here. There were no further meetings. The experiment sadly died when Mr Cook resigned over the Iraq invasion the following March.

I mention that because I believe that the Prime Minister's Statement and the accompanying draft programme are a belated and very welcome attempt to build on that previous consensus; but we will have to work with it and work on it. We cannot just have a one-off and stop. If this is going to improve parliamentary scrutiny, we will need a number of assurances from the Minister today.

First, the process must be ongoing in both Houses—it does not just stop now—and has to involve all parties and the Cross Benches in this House. Secondly, it really must mean that we have less ill thought-out, excessively cumbersome legislation which gives us so overloaded a programme that we get legislative indigestion. Next, the Government Whips, particularly in the other place, should not seek unnecessary control over the detailed consideration of legislation. The use of programming and guillotining at the other end of the building is excessive, and we have to seek a way in which better agreement between the parties produces a better result so that the Bill committees can prioritise their own examination of Bills rather than have it imposed on them.

Next, the Cook reforms—this has already been referred to, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth—wanted to introduce a great deal more pre-legislative scrutiny to improve the quality of consideration in both Houses. I believe that we should not accept carry-over in either House unless there has been pre-legislative scrutiny. That was the basis of that agreement and was the trade-off: that there would be better consideration and therefore that it would be acceptable to the opposition parties.

Finally and most importantly, I truly believe that your Lordships' House should be given full opportunity and full responsibility, as the revising Chamber, to manage its own careful scrutiny of draft legislation, the Bills sent to us first at the beginning of the Session and in the subsequent dialogue between the two Houses. I hope that the noble Lord will again reassure us that the unanimously agreed resistance to government attempts to clip the wings of your Lordships' House—resistance which was absolutely conclusive in the Cunningham report, Conventions of the UK Parliament—will be underlined and not undermined by what happens next.

Quite rightly, the document contains a very considerable section on housing. Noble Lords who have spoken on this, led by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, have rightly given great emphasis to this section. Throughout the House we recognise its importance. I have had a connection with Shelter, the national campaign for the homeless,

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for nearly 40 years. It is a shame on successive Governments that the work of Shelter, after all this time, is as vital, viable and vigorous as ever. I do not want to get into great detail on the points that have already been made but I want to make two very straightforward additions to the discussions that have already taken place today.

I accept that much of the work that will have to be done is outwith the legislative programme—it will be financial, regulatory and organisational improvement—but I think that the total failure to grasp the nettle of second homes must be included in our discussions on the legislation. Some vulnerable communities, not least in my own area of Cornwall, are now devastated by excessive second homes. It not only removes any chance of working people finding an affordable home but causes ghost villages in winter, closing schools and other facilities and causing huge diseconomies for everyone else. We must have legislation to make the loss of premises into the second home category a matter for planning consent to change of use.

Although I endorse everything said about the Planning-gain Supplement Bill, it seems rather timid. The vast increase in house prices has very little to do with general inflation; indeed, figures out today show that, in the 10 years of the Blair Government, the general price rise has been about 50 per cent, but house prices meanwhile have increased by about 300 per cent in many parts of the country. The driver is not the additional cost of building materials but the additional cost of land. Unless we address this crucial fact we will not make any great improvements. Agricultural production is in the doldrums—farmland prices have hardly moved over that period—but when development hope values are taken into account, the result is simply explosive. Inflation is taking a large number of properties out of the reach of many of our fellow citizens either for rent or for purchase. We need a Government who have the guts to tax the increase in the value afforded by all development, not just housing development, so the community directly benefits from the additional value it has given to the developer by giving planning consent.

I turn to the section of the paper on wider constitutional reform, specifically the Constitutional Reform Bill. It is very welcome, as noble Lords have said today, that we are having this careful analysis of what must surely be one of the most important issues facing this Parliament. Reforming the legislative process, to which reference is made here, may seem quite esoteric—something for the anoraks of the Westminster village—but unless we strengthen the whole parliamentary scrutiny process right through this Bill, we will never improve the parliamentary product. Product and process hang together.

As we have already suggested on these Benches, these changes are of such wide significance throughout Parliament that they must surely be contained in a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee. That is the only way that we will have a totally integrated approach to these issues. If the Government think that they can simply divide and rule between the two Houses or between the different parties on this issue, I

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should warn them that that would be very damaging to the conclusion, the process and the product.

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