Government: Draft Legislative Programme

My Lords, I strongly approve of the principle of publication in advance of draft legislative programmes. Secrecy about the contents of the Queen’s Speech is unnecessary and undesirable. It is right that Parliament, which will have to consider the Government’s legislative programme, should be told well before the end of one Session what the programme is likely to be for the following Session. Having said that, let me move on to comment on some of the contents of the programme. Not very surprisingly, the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill has not yet been mentioned. The Bill contains in its present draft form a number of powers for Ministers by statutory instrument to confer powers on regulators to impose sanctions on the organisations being regulated. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I chair, will have to consider that carefully. I will not express my views today, as it would be wrong for me to try to pre-empt the views that the committee may wish to express at a later date. I declare an interest as chairman of the council of JUSTICE, which has interests in a number of these Bills. On the Constitutional Reform Bill, I greatly welcomed the proposals in the Ministry of Justice paper The Governance of Britain for parliamentary votes on important treaties, for changes in the role of the Attorney-General—my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford has explained our party’s views on that—and particularly for putting the Civil Service on a statutory basis. The draft programme says only that the Constitutional Reform Bill ““could include”” those matters. That is too vague. There is clearly an argument about the proper role of the Attorney-General, and that argument has some time to run. It might not be ready for action in the next Session, although I very much hope that it will be. The Government should at least indicate a clear intention to legislate on those matters as soon as possible, and definitely in the next Session, at least on the question of treaties and on the Civil Service. On the Counter Terrorism Bill, for the first time since the Terrorism Act 2000, we have the chance to consider a terrorism Bill that has not been introduced at short notice and hurried through Parliament. That is all to the good. Some provisions are welcome. For instance, we would accept that there should be continued questioning after charge, within bounds. There is a good deal of sense in the requirement for convicted terrorists to provide information after their release, provided that the information required is reasonable in nature and extent. The programme does not expressly mention the use of intercept evidence in court. This has been pressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and strongly supported by my party. It has also been supported in a very persuasive paper published by JUSTICE. Will the Government therefore undertake to include the use of intercept evidence in the Bill if the use of such evidence is approved by the review group that the Government have set up? What is meant by the reference to, "““making full use of DNA””?" Does that involve any extension to the current powers to obtain and retain DNA information? If so, what are they? The Government have also suggested the possibility of extending the period of detention, and on that I agree with what my noble friend has already said. On the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, there is a small but possibly significant change in the use of words. The Queen’s Speech last November contained the words: "““My Government will put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system””.—[Official Report, 15/11/06; col. 1.]" I criticised those words in the debate on the Gracious Speech because, as I said, it could be understood as making retribution not only an important element in sentencing but the primary one. Later in the same debate, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said more graphically that, "““one of the phrases used by the Government that worries me is that they are going to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of victims. To me that smacks of lynch law””.—[Official Report, 23/11/06; col. 520.]" The paper refers not specifically to victims but to the Government’s work to, "““rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of the law abiding citizen””." Plainly that is a better formulation, but are the Government here consciously standing back from emotional populism in the Queen’s Speech and even more strikingly in the Home Office paper of July 2006? Do the Government accept that sentencing should be dispassionate, consistent, fair and proportionate? Do they further accept that any balancing process must not prejudice the right of the defendant to a fair trial, a right that was established not only by Article 6 of the European convention but by centuries of decisions in our own courts? Finally, is there anything that is not in the paper that I would like to see? As a lawyer and law reformer, I would like to see some Law Commission Bills. There are currently eight Law Commission Bills, some of minor importance but several that would make major improvements to English law and which have been accepted by the Government where the implementation process has not yet started. I would also like to see an electoral reform Bill, although I am not referring on this occasion to the voting system—because I strongly support proportional representation—which it is unrealistic to expect to be in the next Queen’s Speech. What could and should be done is reform of the electoral system, first by reforming the system for funding of political parties and, in particular, to put a cap on donations and to extend the cap on spending to periods outside elections and by introducing individual registration for all voters. Although the election in May this year seems to have been relatively scandal-free, serious problems have arisen in the past and the system introduced by the recent electoral reform Act is only an interim solution. These reforms should be introduced before the next general election, assuming it is not held before this time next year, and should be in the next Queen’s Speech.