I seriously dislike the word governance. Okay, it has some reasonable uses: in the phrase corporate governance, for instance, in which it has a useful sense of oversight from on high. Otherwise, it’s unbearably pompous. I also suspect politicians who use it have reached the “statesman” stage in which they’re more interested in their international contacts and memoirs than in achieving anything in government. So this Bill annoys me before I even look inside it.
It’s pretty harmless on the whole. Part 1 makes some fairly unobjectionable provision about the civil service. But why on earth has the opportunity not been taken to pick up the provisions of Andrew Dismore’s Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill? Those provisions are much needed, are uncontroversial (the opposition have promoted a very similar if not identical bill in the past) and should wait no longer. And clause 9, giving civil servants a right to complain about being ordered to breach the civil service code, will only be of use to civil servants who are being sacked or forced to resign. The idea that a civil servant could make such a complaint and retain any career hopes is just laughable.
Part 2 will give Parliament a chance to object to the ratification of new treaties – which sounds fine, and is unobjectionable, except that clause 23 gives ministers a second bite at persuading the Commons and the power to override the Lords; and clause 24 creates exceptions.
And in Part 3, clauses 29 and 30 will in effect allow peers to resign from the Lords, disclaim their peerages and, under clause 30(6) and (7), be free to stand for election to the Commons. This is the one seriously objectionable proposal in the Bill. It sounds nice, fair and modern, but when we eventually get an elected or mainly elected House of Lords, one of the worst things that could happen is if it is filled with party hacks trying to work their way up to the more glamorous and powerful Commons. We have enough elected institutions filled with those people – all councils, and the European Parliament, are examples. One valuable thing about the Lords at the moment is that the bar on members standing for the Commons means the House is made up of people who are not planning any significant future political career, and who are therefore more independent. To throw away that huge advantage is a mistake: you might as well abolish the Lords altogether if it’s going to be a House of whipped wannabes.
I don’t think the Bill does anything else of note. The government’s original consitutional reform plans were insufficiently radical to justify their billing two years ago. With this Bill, we can see they’ve been watered down almost to a homeopathic degree. I’m pleased: this government all too often proposes instant constitutional change as the answer to all manner of passing policy problems, and I’m glad the urge to remodel has been replaced with masterly inactivity. But it does show what a fuss and nonsense they’ve made about the consitution.
I agree with Steve Richards.
I dislike this tinkering with constitutional matters.
I disliked Dismore's Bill because it handed Ministers too much power through the making of "rules" which are only rarely examined properly by Parliament.
With regard to Treaties, there should be a simple rule that they must all be approved by Parliament. Yet again, we see Ministers seeking to give themselves more powers.
Further House of Lords reform ought to be introduced as a result of a well considered piece of legislation which makes all the necessary reforms in one go. This Bill will enable people to be made peers, then resign, go back to the Commons, maybe get a second peerage and so on. It would, for example, permit Lord Mandelson to resign his peerage – (if his vanity does not prevent him doing so) – and stand for the Commons in a safe seat. He could then become P.M. whereas, at the moment, constitutional convention prevents a P.M. being in the Lords.
Other important reforms have been dropped. In particular, the need for Parliamentary approval for "wars-of-choice" and much needed reforms of the hopelessly comrpomised office of Attorney-General. Also, the P.M. retains his power to advise dissolution of Parliament. Now that is one trump card which no P.M. is going to willingly surrender.
It is high time that a halt was called to Labour's constitutional fiddling. Reforms of this nature ought to be introduced as a result of a cross political party convention which has undertaken extensive public consultation before proposing changes.