The Growth of Parliamentary Scrutiny by Committee. A Symposium

144 Pages·1970·3.769 MB·English

by  Alfred Morris (Auth.)

'Select Committee' by H. STACEY MARKS. (By kind permission of the City of Liverpool
Walker Art Gallery.)
The Growth of
Parliamentary Scrutiny
by Committee
a symposium by
ALFRED MORRIS, MA,
Member of Parliament for Manchester, Wythenshawe
with essays by seven other MPs of the 1966-70 Parliament
and a Foreword by
The Right Honourable Fred Peart PC, MP,
Lord President of the Council
and Leader of the House of Commons, 1968-70
PERGAMON PRESS
OXFORD · NEW YORK
TORONTO · SYDNEY · BRAUNSCHWEIG
Pergamon Press Ltd., Headington Hill Hall, Oxford
Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford,
New York 10523
Pergamon of Canada Ltd., 207 Queen's Quay West, Toronto 1
Pergamon Press (Aust.) Pty. Ltd., 19a Boundary Street,
Rushcutters Bay, N.S.W. 2011, Australia
Vie weg & Sohn GmbH, Burgplatz 1, Braunschweig
Copyright © 1970 Pergamon Press Ltd.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Pergamon Press Ltd.
First edition 1970
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 74-140087
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co., Exeter
This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed
of without the publisher's consent,
in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which
it is published.
08 016500 1 (flexicover
08 016499 4 (hard cover)
List of Contributors
with Brief Qualifications
ALFRED MORRIS is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Manchester,
Wythenshawe. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from October, 1964,
to May, 1967, and to the Leader of the House of Commons from
April, 1968, to June, 1970.
ARTHUR PALMER is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Bristol,
Central and was earlier the MP for Wimbledon (1945-50). An
electrical engineer by profession, and formerly a front bench
spokesman on Fuel and Power, he has been chairman of the
Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and of the Select
Committee on Science and Technology since its inception.
JAMES JOHNSON is the Labour MP for Kingston-upon-Hull, West and
was formerly the MP for Rugby (1950-9). He has served on the
Select Committee on Procedure as well as the Select Committee
on Agriculture and many other parliamentary committees.
SIR GEORGE SINCLAIR CMG, OBE, is the Conservative MP for
Dorking. A former civil servant in the Colonial Office, he was
the deputy governor of Cyprus from 1955 to 1960 and is now
joint secretary of the Conservative Party's Commonwealth
Affairs Committee. He has served on the Select Committee on
Procedure as well as the Select Committee on Overseas Aid and
the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration.
vii
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
IAN MIKARDO is the Labour MP for Poplar. He was formerly the MP
for Reading (1945-50 and 1955-9) and for Reading, South
(1950-5). He was the chairman of the Select Committee on
Nationalised Industries from 1966 to 1970.
DR. MICHAEL WINSTANLEY was the Liberal MP for Cheadle from
1966 to 1970. A medical practitioner, he has served on the
Liberal Party Council since 1961 and was a Member of the
Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for
Administration from its inception.
RT. HON. ARTHUR BOTTOMLEY PC, OBE, is the Labour MP for
Middlesbrough, East and was earlier the MP for Rochester and
Chatham (1945-59). A former Secretary of State for Common
wealth Relations, he has been the chairman of the Select
Committee on Race Relations and Immigration since its
inception.
JOHN MENDELSON is the Labour MP for Penistone. He was formerly
a lecturer in Political Science and has served on the Public
Accounts Committee.
viii
Foreword
THE RT. HON. FRED PEART PC, MP
Lord President of the Council and Leader of
the House of Commons 1968-70
IT IS a contemporary platitude that the power of executive govern
ment constantly increases, while the power and influence of Parliament
constantly diminishes. I think this argument is greatly exaggerated.
It generally overstates the independent power of past legislatures and
it underrates the extent to which any government has to adapt its
policies to the views of Parliament—and indeed to the views of the
general public.
Nevertheless, the last thirty years have seen a considerable expan
sion in the range and complexity of governmental activities. It has
become increasingly difficult for Parliament to exercise its historic rôle
of being an informed and effective critic of the actions of the execu
tive. If it is to continue to perform this vital rôle in our constitution,
Parliament must adapt its procedures to take account of these changes.
It must have access to the facts of contemporary government in a
way which will enable its Members to be properly informed ; and it
must have institutions which will enable the informed views of
Members to be given their due weight.
The last government fully recognised this need. Over the past few
years it introduced a number of changes to make more informa
tion available in time for Members to influence the government's
decisions—and to give back-benchers increased opportunities for the
effective scrutiny of the executive.
The amount of factual and statistical material published has been
extended, as has the practice of publishing the forecasts involved in
IX
FOREWORD
policy decisions. One important new feature has been the introduction
of "Green Papers"—publications which set out for discussion, by
Members and the public in general, major Ministerial proposals
while they are still at the formative stage. Examples of such Green
Papers are the economic survey covering the period 1968-72 (The
Task Ahead) and the proposals for re-organising the National Health
Service.
One of these Green Papers—entitled Public Expenditure: A New
Presentation—put forward an innovation of the greatest importance
in the field of parliamentary scrutiny. It proposed that the govern
ment should publish each autumn information on public expenditure
programmes for the current and ensuing two years, together with
outline projections of public expenditure for two further years. This
was designed to give Members a more informed and realistic view of
the pattern of future expenditure and to provide them with the basis
for constructive criticism of the executive's plans at a stage when
decisions could still be influenced. The first of these annual public
expenditure White Papers was published in November, 1968, and was
the subject of a two-day debate in the House of Commons in January,
1969.
The last government also introduced procedural changes on the
floor of the House designed to give Members increased opportunities
of taking the initiative in raising matters of urgent concern. The pro
cedure whereby the Speaker can allow the interruption of the business
of the House for emergency debates has been made more flexible ; a
change in rules enables Private Members' motions to be more topical ;
and a procedure has been introduced whereby the opposition can
take at short notice a number of half-days from their Supply Days for
debates on urgent matters. These procedural reforms, together with
the rationalisation of the use made of parliamentary time and the
removal of some archaic procedures, have given more opportunities
to Members to debate issues while they are highly topical.
The specialist select committee system forms part of this pattern
of providing greater scope for Members to inform themselves more
fully on, and to influence, government policy. Indeed, the advocates
of specialist select committees see them as one of the principal
instruments for the revival of the power and influence of the legislature
x
FOREWORD
m the contemporary constitutional scene. They look upon these
committees as the ground where the balance of power and influence
between the executive and the legislature is likely to be determined
in the coming years.
I have personally for many years believed that a more important
rôle should be played by select committees. As Leaders of the House
of Commons, Richard Crossman and I introduced a wide-ranging
experiment, beginning in 1966, in "specialist'' select committees,
covering a number of major topics and departments of state. The
House of Commons will soon have to assess the results of this experi
ment to see what it has achieved, how far it has increased the oppor
tunities for Members to acquire information, and how far that has
contributed towards a constructive and informed criticism of the
policies of the executive. On the basis of this examination, and taking
into account other proposals for increased opportunities for parlia
mentary scrutiny, the House will have to decide what form of select
committee structure it wants for the future.
Mr. Morris's symposium comes, therefore, at a most opportune
time. It contains a series of essays both for and against select commit
tees. Above all, the contributors base their comments on a great deal
of first-hand experience. This book represents an important body of
evidence, and I welcome it as a valuable contribution to the debate.
xi
Introduction
ALFRED MORRIS MP
IN MAY, 1965, three highly distinguished university representatives of
the Study of Parliament Group, all of them professors of politics or of
government, visited the House of Commons to give evidence to the
Select Committee on Procedure, which is a committee composed of
back-benchers of all parties who specialise in parliamentary pro
cedure.1 The two sides to this confrontation were extremely well
met.
The three professors came to present the case for procedural
changes which they felt would make parliamentary control more
effective and so help to maintain the power and repute of the elected
House. Parliamentary control, they argued, means influence, not
direct power; advice, not command; criticism, not obstruction;
scrutiny, not initiative ; and publicity, not secrecy. This dictum was
advanced in a memorandum in which the Study of Parliament
Group's university members argued that parliamentary scrutiny of
the executive is fundamental to the whole question of parliamentary
reform.2 As the study group saw it, the machinery of Parliament had
failed to keep pace with the increase in the scope of governmental
activity and now had only a "limited ability to obtain the background
facts and understanding essential to any detailed criticism of adminis
tration or any informed discussion of policy".
The Study of Parliament Group drew attention in particular to the
extent to which government departments had come to rely on the
advice of committees set up by Ministers outside Parliament. This
meant that MPs now had to take "filtered" advice from these high-
powered committees. The study group's principal suggested remedy
1
THE GROWTH OF PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY BY COMMITTEE
was the formation of specialist select committees. The group's
representatives pressed for a wide range of these committees, through
which Members could scrutinise the work of departments of state and
so enable the House of Commons to perform more efficiently its
traditional rôle of influencing the executive and informing the
electorate. As an initial experiment, they wanted specialist committees
of back-benchers on Scientific Development, the Social Services and
three other branches of governmental activity.3
The specialist committees would scrutinise the actions of govern
ment in their own fields and collect, discuss and report evidence
relevant to all proceedings in Parliament. In the long term, the Study
of Parliament Group saw specialist committees covering the whole
field of administration. As they developed, the Estimates Committee
would devolve to them its relevant functions. The outline order of
reference which they suggested for the new committees was: "To
examine the assumptions on which policy decisions have been made,
and to report on the implementation of policy in the field of.... "4
The specialist select committees would mainly concern themselves
with administration and would normally seek to avoid matters of
policy which were controversial between the major political parties.
It was argued that this would not infringe the principle of ministerial
responsibility and that it would certainly not involve the "weaknesses
and defects" of the French and American systems, in that the pro
posed new specialist committees would be operating in quite different
constitutional circumstances.
When the Select Committee on Procedure eventually published its
recommendations, the Study of Parliament Group's only possible
consolation was that even a crust is better than no bread. Instead of a
wide range of new specialist committees, the Select Committee on
Procedure recommended that there should be only one. It was to be a
development of the Estimates Committee and would function through
specialising sub-committees. Far from the Study of Parliament
Group's aim of having up to one hundred and forty back-bench MPs
probing departments of state as Members of the new committees, it
was now unlikely that anything like that number of legislators would
be so employed. The select committee did in fact make it pikestaff
plain that it was not recommending any "large increase" in the mem-
2