Constitutional Renewal

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about our programme of constitutional renewal. With this statement are published a White Paper, the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, and an analysis of the responses to our consultations. Copies of these are available in the Vote Office and on my Ministry's website. The accountability of Government is fundamental to the health of our democracy. Arbitrary action and lack of transparency can undermine that. But for decades the royal prerogative has been used by successive Governments to sustain Executive power. Last July, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced his determination that the Government he leads would reverse this process and surrender significant Executive powers to Parliament, or otherwise limit them. Following my right hon. Friend's July statement and the accompanying ““The Governance of Britain”” Green Paper, five consultation papers were issued. I am grateful to all who responded to them. We have taken account of their views in the White Paper and in the draft Bill. The draft Bill is in five parts. The first relates to protest around Parliament. In July, the Prime Minister undertook to consult widely on managing protests around Parliament to ensure that the people's right to protest was not subject to unnecessary restrictions. Accordingly, in the light of the consultations, clause 1 of the draft Bill proposes the repeal of sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Our view is that Parliament itself is best placed to decide what needs to be secured to ensure that Members of both Houses are able freely to discharge their responsibilities. We invite the views of Parliament on whether additional provision is needed to keep open the passages leading to the Palace of Westminster and to ensure that, for example, excessive noise is not used to disrupt the working of Parliament. Part 2 of the Bill deals with the Attorney-General. It sets out major reforms to the role of the Attorney-General and to the management of prosecutions, to make the arrangements more transparent and to enhance public confidence. The proposals involve recasting the relationship between the Attorney-General and the prosecuting authorities. In particular, the Attorney-General will cease to have any power to give directions to prosecutors in individual cases, save in certain exceptional cases which give rise to issues of national security. The Attorney-General will have to report to Parliament on any exercise of that power. Under clause 3, a protocol will set out how the Attorney-General and the prosecuting authorities are to exercise their functions in relation to each other. This will be laid before Parliament, as will an annual report. We do not propose changing the Attorney-General's role as chief legal adviser to the Government, or his or her attendance at Cabinet. Part 3 builds on the significant reforms introduced by my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Falconer to reinforce the independence of the judiciary. The Bill proposes to remove the Prime Minister entirely from the making of judicial appointments, and the Lord Chancellor from making appointments below the High Court. Part 4 makes it a statutory requirement that treaties must be laid before both Houses of Parliament before ratification. If this House were then to vote against the ratification of a treaty, the Government could not proceed to ratify it. Although it is obviously a matter for Parliament, the White Paper suggests that a valuable role could be played by Committees of either or both Houses in the scrutiny of treaties prior to ratification. I should just say, Mr. Speaker, that none of these proposals affects the current arrangements for European Union or tax treaties, which are already the subject of elaborate statutory procedures. Part 5 will for the first time put the civil service on a statutory footing by enshrining the core values of the civil service—impartiality, integrity, honesty and objectivity—into law, as well as the historic principle of appointment on merit. The Bill makes provision for special advisers and the civil service commission. The Bill has benefited from detailed comments on the draft Civil Service Bill in 2004 and from the work of the Public Administration Committee, for whose help I am very grateful. I now turn to the other key proposals in the White Paper. The first is war powers. There was a widespread welcome in July for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's proposals that the Government should limit the Executive's powers to deploy Her Majesty's armed forces into conflict situations. As well as from those who responded to the consultation document, we have benefited from earlier Select Committee reports from both Houses. In the event, there was significant support for the recommendations from the House of Lords Constitution Committee. What we are proposing is that Parliament's role should be both enshrined and guaranteed by a resolution of this House. A detailed draft of that resolution is set out for consideration on pages 53 to 56 of the White Paper. It would require the Prime Minister of the day to seek this House's approval before deciding to commit forces to armed conflict abroad. It would also require him to lay a report before the House in advance of any decision, setting out the terms of approval sought and information about the objectives and legal matters relating to the proposed armed conflict. Exceptions are proposed in respect of emergencies and operational secrecy, with a requirement in such cases to inform, but not to seek retrospective approval. Special forces would be exempt from any of those provisions. Those changes, if agreed, would define for the first time a clear role for Parliament in the most critical of all decisions to face a nation, while ensuring that our nation's security was not compromised. Last July's ““The Governance of Britain”” Green Paper contained proposals on increasing parliamentary scrutiny of some key public appointments. Since then, that matter has been considered by the Liaison Committee and we will respond to its recommendations shortly. On the dissolution and recall of Parliament, proposals have already been made to the Modernisation Committee, and we look forward to hearing its views in due course. Last Wednesday, in his statement on the national security strategy, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said:"““We will…immediately go ahead to introduce a resolution of both Houses—in advance of any future legislation—that will ""enshrine an enhanced scrutiny and public role for the Intelligence and Security Committee.””—[Official Report, 19 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 926.]" The White Paper sets out the proposed arrangements. There are other matters relating to Executive prerogative powers, the first of which is passports. The Government are committed to reviewing the prerogative power with regard to issuing passports, and draft legislation will soon be published. We are also reviewing the remaining Executive prerogative powers—for example, the prerogative to grant mercy. The Government will consider the outcome of that work and how we plan to proceed, and obviously, we will inform the House. The Government remain profoundly committed to the establishment of the Church of England and greatly value the role played by the Church in our national life. Appointments to senior Church positions will continue to be made by Her Majesty the Queen, who should continue to be advised on the exercise of her powers by one of her Ministers, usually the Prime Minister. We are very grateful to the General Synod for its proposals at its February meeting on how new appointments procedures should work, and we are discussing future long-term arrangements with the Church. The Government received more than 300 responses to the consultation on the flying of the Union Flag— ... Not all of them were from the hon. Member for Romford, but as the House knows, I was extremely happy to join him in his campaign, and have made my own contribution to it. In line with the majority of responses, we have decided that the interim change made to the guidance to allow Government Departments to fly the Union flag from their buildings whenever they wish should now become permanent. There are no plans to change the arrangements for flag flying in Northern Ireland. Good law is imperative for accessible and modern constitutional arrangements. For 40 years the Law Commission has played a vital role in that respect, but I intend to strengthen its role by placing a statutory duty on the Lord Chancellor to report annually to Parliament on the Government's intentions regarding outstanding Law Commission recommendations, and providing a statutory backing for the arrangements underpinning the way in which Government should work with the Law Commission. Those changes sit alongside those announced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House last week, which will strengthen the scrutiny of laws after they have been enacted by Parliament. Discussions in the cross-party working group on reform of the House of Lords are proceeding well, and we are on track to publish a White Paper before the summer recess. In the coming months we will publish a Green Paper on a British Bill of Rights and responsibilities, and on the values that should bind us together as citizens. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland announced today, Professor Sir Kenneth Calman has agreed to serve as chair of a commission to review the Scotland Act 1998. Such a commission was proposed in, and approved by a majority of, the Scottish Parliament. The Government welcome their support for the aim of strengthening devolution and securing Scotland's place in the Union, and we are giving our full backing to the cross-border, cross-party review. The proposals in the White Paper and the draft Bill go to the heart of how power should be exercised in a modern democracy. They are not a final blueprint, but part of a much wider Government programme to secure a new constitutional settlement. They will strengthen the role of Parliament in our democracy, for it is Parliament, the seat of our democracy, that is central to this programme of constitutional renewal. I commend my statement to the House.