Bicameral Parliamentary Scrutiny of Government Bills: A Case
Study of the Identity Cards Bill
Paper presented to the Political Studies Association Conference
University of Bath, 11-13 April 2007
Meg Russell
The Constitution Unit
Department of Political Science
University College London
meg.russell@ucl.ac.uk
Jeffrey Johns
The Constitution Unit
Department of Political Science
University College London
jmjohns83@gmail.com
Abstract
In 1974 J.A.G. Griffith published his Parliamentary Scrutiny of Government Bills, a meticulous study of
the parliamentary impact on legislation. Since then little such detailed work has been done. Yet
Griffiths’ study interpreted ‘Parliament’ largely as the House of Commons. He included only
limited analysis on the legislative impact of the House of Lords, and no analysis of the interactions
between the chambers. Amongst policy makers talk is growing of the assertiveness of the House
of Lords and the likely effect of a stronger second chamber on the House of Commons. This
paper seeks to update Griffiths’ study for one major controversial bill, exploring the relative
impact of the two chambers and, particularly, the extent to which they worked together. By
analysing all 859 amendments proposed during the passage of the Identity Cards Bill it reveals
that the bill’s opponents in both chambers co-ordinated their efforts to a significant extent in
order to extract concessions. It therefore questions the assumptions both of weak parliamentary
influence, and of two chambers in conflict rather than united in order to bring about policy
change.
Please do not cite in other academic works without prior consultation with the authors
1
Introduction
As one of the more controversial Bills to pass through the UK parliament in recent years, the
Identity Cards Bill of 2005-06 faced substantial opposition in both Houses of Parliament.
Although it was ultimately passed, a total of 859 amendments were proposed in the House of
Commons and the House of Lords, and the bill was subject to both lengthy debates and ‘ping
pong’ between the chambers before final agreement was reached. This bill therefore provides a
good opportunity to investigate the dynamics between different actors in the legislative process,
and between the two chambers, in what is a changing parliamentary environment.
The classic text on the legislative process at Westminster is J. A. G. Griffiths’ Parliamentary Scrutiny
of Government Bills, which provided a detailed analysis of amendments moved to bills over three
parliamentary sessions. However this book was published in 1974, and there has been little such
detailed study since. The intervening period has seen major changes, in particular the decline of
party cohesion in the House of Commons (Cowley 2002, 2005; Norton 1985) and the partial
reform of the House of Lords (Norton 2004; Russell and Sciara 2006, 2007; Shell 2000). These
have altered the dynamics within and between the parties, between the two chambers, and
arguably between parliament and government as a whole. Our objective in this short paper is not,
of course, to attempt to replicate Griffiths’ major study. Rather it is to apply and extend his
methods by analysing the amendments to one case study bill, in order to test hypotheses about
the new parliamentary dynamics. In particular we seek to investigate how actors in the two
chambers work together, on which Griffiths’ study was largely silent, and to analyse where
amendments originated which were ultimately incorporated into the bill. We also assess the
dynamic between the opposition parties, government backbenchers and ‘Crossbenchers’, and ask
whether recent changes seem to have encouraged greater collaboration between the different
partisan actors in parliament.
To do this we have conducted a detailed analysis of all 859 amendments to he bill, and applied a
new approach of coding amendments into unique policy ‘strands’ in order to trace their origins
and their conclusion. The paper begins by providing a brief summary of the bill, and the most
visible aspects of parliamentary activity on it. It then proposes a series of hypotheses about the
contemporary legislative process. After a short section on methods we progress to examine these
hypotheses. This enables us to offer some tentative conclusions about the new dynamics of the
British parliament and some suggestions for future research. We do not claim that the Identity
Cards Bill is ‘typical’, and indeed in many ways it is not. A more complete picture would require
looking at several pieces of legislation. But there are some general conclusions that we can draw.
In summary we conclude that the legislative process is now relatively collaborative and pluralistic,
with a high degree of partnership both between the two chambers and between the opposition
parties. Government backbenchers and Crossbenchers may also have an impact, though this was
limited on the ID Cards Bill. The partnerships we see operating were effective at extracting
concessions from government and resulted in some important changes to the bill. Despite its
comfortable House of Commons majority, and common perceptions otherwise, the government
thus does not wholly dominate the legislative process. This was to some extent no doubt always
true, but the new political arithmetic resulting from House of Lords reform now makes it
particularly clear.
The Identity Cards Bill
Although the idea of Identity Cards arose periodically in the decades since the World War II-era
card scheme ended in 1952, no plans ever reached fruition. When Labour took office in 1997,
they showed little interest in the issue, but this began to change in the aftermath of the terrorist
2
attacks on New York on 11 September 2001, and a consultation paper was published in 2002
(Home Office 2002). This ultimately led to a 2004 Draft Identity Cards Bill that was examined by
the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee and, after some refinement based on the
Committee’s comments, a substantive bill was first introduced in autumn 2004. The bill passed
the Commons and reached Lords second reading, but was then interrupted by the 2005 general
election. It was later reintroduced, in slightly altered form, on 25 May 2005. It is this final version
of the bill whose passage we examine, and its parliamentary timetable is shown in Figure 1.1
Figure 1: Identity Cards Bill timeline
STAGE
House of Commons
Introduced
Second Reading
Committee Stage
Report Stage
House of Lords
First Reading
Second Reading
Committee Stage
Report Stage
Third Reading
Consideration of Amendments
House of Commons Consideration
House of Lords Consideration
Royal Assent
DATES
25 May 2005
28 June 2005
5, 6, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21 July 2005
18 October 2005
19 October 2005
31 October 2005
15, 16, 23 November; 12, 14, 19 December 2005
16, 23, 30 January 2006
6 February 2006
13 February; 13, 16, 21, 29 March 2006
6, 15, 20, 28 March 2006
30 March 2006
Although 11 September was a catalyst, the government’s initial arguments for ID cards were that
they were necessary to prevent illegal working and identity fraud. But by 2004 combating
terrorism and crime in general was clearly cited as a purpose of the programme (Perri 6 2005).
Although justifications for the scheme expanded as time went on, the government’s broad
intentions changed little. In the initial bill as introduced, British citizens aged over 16 applying for
or renewing passports would need to provide personal information, including place and date of
birth, past and present residential addresses, fingerprints and a photo, for entry in a National
Identity Register. Having done so, an Identity Card would be issued. Registration for others
would remain voluntary, but the bill allowed that when a large portion of the population already
possessed Identity Cards, registration could be made compulsory to all by secondary legislation.
The bill did not require cards to be carried at all times, though the government stated its intention
to make access to public services contingent on the production of an Identity Card once the
scheme was made compulsory. Although the register would initially hold only a small number of
details, the bill made it possible for the government to expand the details required.
The bill was highly controversial, with a loud campaign outside parliament calling for it to be
rejected, and there were several rebellions in the House of Commons.2 During the bill’s passage a
total of 331 amendments were proposed in the Commons and 528 in the House of Lords. The
outcome of these is shown in Table 1. A majority of the amendments proposed were not initially
formally moved; however this is not an indication that they were not discussed, as in both Houses
several amendments may be debated together. Further, ideas in amendments that were not initially
moved were frequently revived at later stages of the bill. A sizeable proportion of amendments
(19 percent) were withdrawn by their movers without being pressed to a division, in most cases
following debate, and no doubt often after ministerial promises to ‘think again’.3 A total of 19
3
amendments were defeated, either with or without a division. A further 111 were agreed, mostly
without a division taking place. However, there was protracted ‘ping pong’, when the bill shuttled
back and forth between the chambers five times, so some of these were later reversed. 4 The
government was defeated 12 times in divisions in the House of Lords – eight during the main
passage of the bill and four during ping pong. The final two Lords divisions marked the end of
ping pong and the final compromise on the bill.
Table 1: Amendments and their outcomes, by House
Not moved (etc.)
Withdrawn
Negatived without division
Negatived with division
Agreed without division
Agreed with division
Total
House of Commons
N
%
239
72.2
55
16.6
1
0.3
10
3.0
16
4.8
10
3.0
331
100.0
House of Lords
N
%
327
61.9
108
20.5
1
0.2
7
1.3
71
13.4
14
2.7
528
100.0
Total
N
%
566
65.9
163
19.0
2
0.2
17
2.0
87
10.1
24
2.8
859
100.0
The overall importance of changes made to the bill as it passed through parliament is difficult to
measure, as such judgements are necessarily subjective. While there were a large number of
substantive amendments passed, there were also numerous sections which remained mostly
unchanged. An examination of the bill that finally passed, compared with its initial version, would
find that the general tone, intent, and major provisions remained the same. Nevertheless, there
were a number of significant alterations.
Throughout the bill’s lengthy passage, MPs and peers discussed a wide array of issues, from the
trivial to the highly substantive. Among the many issues taken up in the amendments proposed,
there were four notable themes in particular. These were the extent of compulsion of the cards,
executive versus legislative power over the management and future development of the scheme,
the costs to both the government and to individuals, and the content and security of the database.
There were amendments made to the final bill in each of these areas, and in some cases changes
were quite significant.
Hypotheses
We do not attempt to quantify just how important these changes were. Instead what interests us
primarily is where in parliament the influence lay, and how the different actors in the legislative
process interacted. That is, why and how did legislative change happen?
Our investigation has three main themes. The first is the extent to which amendments to the bill
were a result of the government’s desire for changes, or were the result of non-government forces.
The second is the ways in which the two chambers of parliament interacted in achieving alteration
of the bill. The third is the dynamics within and between the party groups and backbenchers.
It is well known that a large majority of the amendments made to legislation at Westminster are
tabled by the government, many of which are approved without a vote. This reinforces the
impression that the executive dominates the legislative process. But as identified by Griffith
(1974), many government amendments actually respond to points made by non-government
actors at earlier stages of debate. 5 In order to provide a context for our analyses of the
intercameral and inter-party process we first investigate whether this was the case with the
Identity Cards Bill. We would expect it to be so, and our first hypothesis therefore is that:
4
H1: A high proportion of government amendments in fact responded to points made by backbenchers or opposition
members at earlier stages of the bill.
This first hypothesis primarily seeks to check that there is continuity in the parliamentary process
since Griffith’s time. Our other two themes, however, were not explored in his work and are
more connected to the possible impact of change. One of the most important changes has been
the 1999 reform of the House of Lords. This removed the great majority of hereditary peers,
leaving a chamber largely made up of life peers, which is far more politically balanced (as the
Conservative Party was dominant amongst the hereditaries) and where no party holds a majority.
It is increasingly noted that the Lords is, as a result, acting with greater confidence in seeking to
extract concessions from government (Cowley 2006; Joint Committee on Conventions 2006;
Russell and Sciara 2006, 2006a).
Already in the past much of the detailed revision of legislation took place in the Lords, which
benefits from a lack of media spotlight and the input of many expert peers (Shell 1992, Shell and
Beamish 1993). Griffith’s original study primarily focussed on the House of Commons, but
devoted a chapter to the Lords. He noted that over two sessions, 1,035 amendments were agreed
to government bills there (and 1,080 were agreed in the House of Commons). However, ‘in terms
of the quantity of amendment material inserted in bills in the Lords, by far the greatest part of this
revision [was] tidying up, that is, making … drafting and technical changes’ (Griffith 1974: 229).
In the post-1999 environment, we would expect the Lords’ leverage over legislation to have
increased, and to extend well beyond mere ‘tidying up’. Despite the chamber’s lack of an absolute
legislative veto, the opposition parties, together or in combination with Crossbench peers or
Labour rebels, can inflict defeats which may have a lasting policy effect. Overturning Lords
defeats takes up legislative time and may draw greater attention to controversial policy issues, so
these often result in government compromise (Russell and Sciara 2006c). In contrast in the House
of Commons government defeats are rare, and it is far more difficult to build an opposing
majority. We therefore propose our second hypothesis:
H2: The impact of the House of Lords on the Bill was greater than the impact of the House of Commons.
However, if the House of Lords is now the chamber where concessions can be extracted from
government, we would expect to see opposition parties using it to press amendments which were
unsuccessful in the House of Commons. Griffith did not explore this aspect more than
superficially. 6 Following reform it has been suggested that a growing sense of partnership is
developing between the chambers in order to extract concessions, with one willing to back the
other’s proposals (Russell and Sciara 2007). A major bill such as the Identity Cards Bill enables us
to test this assertion. If there is cooperation we would expect to see many unsuccessful Commons
amendments pursued in the House of Lords, and in particular each of the opposition parties
coordinating their efforts between the chambers. We might also expect that proposals originating
in the Commons, given the opportunity for support to build inside and outside parliament over
time, would have a greater chance of success than those originating in the House of Lords. This
provides our next hypotheses:
H3: Many of the amendments proposed in the House of Lords had previously been proposed in the House of
Commons.
H4: There is evidence of significant co-ordination and cooperation between party group members in the Commons
and the Lords.
H5: Amendments that started in the House of Commons and were taken up in the House of Lords were more
likely to succeed than those which began in the Lords.
5
As well as greater co-ordination between the chambers, the new dynamics of parliament should
also be expected to foster greater co-ordination between different non-government actors. In the
post-war period there has been little incentive for such co-operation in the House of Commons,
which is generally controlled by a single party majority. Meanwhile the Conservatives were
dominant in the House of Lords. But the new party balance in the Lords is such that neither
opposition party can easily inflict defeat on government on its own, whilst their combined
strength is enough to do so. This should encourage cooperation between the two parties in the
House of Lords in particular, which we would expect to be rewarded by legislative success:
H6: There was significant cooperation between opposition parties, which occurred more frequently in the House of
Lords than in the House of Commons.
H7: Amendments supported by both opposition parties had a greater chance of success than those supported by one
party alone.
Not only opposition parties but also backbench members are also potentially important in the
contemporary parliament. With looser party cohesion, we might expect to see significant numbers
of amendments tabled by backbench MPs. And we would expect even more of this activity in the
House of Lords, given its reputation for being less partisan and including independent-minded
experts. Backbench amendments could in general be expected to have only a small chance of
success, but there are two groups of backbenchers who might prove more influential. First,
government backbenchers are pivotal in the House of Commons, as it is normally only with their
support that the opposition has the opportunity to defeat the government (Cowley 2002, 2005;
King 1976). Second, in the House of Lords inclusion of a Crossbencher as sponsor of an
amendment might be expected to help attract support from across the whole of the chamber.7
These assumptions provide our final hypotheses:
H8: Amendments sponsored by Labour backbenchers were influential on the bill.
H9: Amendments sponsored by Crossbenchers in the Lords were influential on the bill.
Methods and definitions
The basic unit of analysis for this study is legislative amendments in the Commons and the Lords.
We gathered information on all 859 amendments, and stored this in an Access database.8 For each
we recorded the date, legislative stage, parliamentary chamber, sponsor(s) of the amendment, their
party (or parties), whether they were frontbenchers or backbenchers, and the outcome of the
particular amendment. All of this data can be extracted from documents freely available from the
parliamentary website.
All amendments were also classified based on how substantive they were in policy terms. Here we
used a classification scheme developed by Shephard and Cairney (2005) in their study of the
Scottish Parliament. This divides amendments into three categories: 1 being typographical and
consequential amendments (either correcting minor errors or ensuring consistency when other
amendments are added); 2 being amendments termed ‘detail/clarification’, which may change
meaning or emphasis, but don’t substantively change the aims or tone of the bill; category 3
amendments are ‘substantive’ and do shift the aim of parts or the entire bill.
A study of amendments alone, however, would not enable us to conduct the analyses that
interested us most. We sought to get behind who the immediate mover of the amendment was,
and its immediate success, to track the development of amendments across different legislative
stages and between the two chambers of parliament. In particular we wanted to identify situations
where the same or very similar amendments were repeatedly proposed by groups throughout
different legislative stages, in order to link their origins to their ultimate success. Consequently, a
6
major part of our coding work was to study each of the 859 amendments and to divide them
between unique policy ‘strands’.
A strand was defined as being made up of the same or similar amendments tabled at different
times. We were fairly strict when defining strands, so that amendments included had to concern
the same part of the bill and suggest either the same or a compromised version of a previous
proposal. Although this process was clearly somewhat subjective, a key factor was whether an
amendment could stand on its own. For example, many amendments used the same or nearly the
same wording to make the powers of the Secretary of State subject to parliamentary approval.
These were only put into the same strand when they regarded the same clause or part of a clause,
since the success of such an amendment in one clause would not necessarily influence the success
of one in a different part of the bill. Drafting amendments that were consequential to other
amendments, such as adding ‘and’ at the end of a subsection when an amendment proposed an
additional subsection below, were also considered part of the same strand.
This process resulted in a total of 525 unique policy strands being identified. A breakdown of
strands by length can be found in Table 2. Strand length simply indicates the number of stages in
which an amendment from the strand was proposed. Thus the one strand that passed through 14
stages was involved in two stages in the Commons, two in the Lords, and in all 10 Commons and
Lords Consideration (‘ping pong’) stages. The table shows that single amendment strands – that is,
amendments which were raised at one stage of the bill’s consideration and were not revived at
other stages – account for the majority of the total. But one third of the strands (176) passed
through more than one stage.
Table 2: Unique policy strands by length
Strand length
1
2
3
4
5
14
Total
N
349
117
48
8
2
1
525
%
66.5
22.3
9.1
1.5
0.4
0.2
100.0
Using our information about amendments, strands could similarly be classified according to the
party or parties of the proposers of the policy change, whether these included frontbenchers or
backbenchers, which House or Houses were involved, and the ultimate outcome. A strand was
classified as resulting in success if the final amendment contained in it was accepted, and not
subsequently overturned. So an amendment moved in the House of Commons and defeated, but
subsequently passed in the House of Lords would be classified as successful provided that it was
not ultimately removed from the bill on a future return to the Commons. In total, 61 strands
could be classified as successful by this definition (a complete list of these is given in the
Appendix). Defining the party or parties which were responsible for the start and end of a strand
was generally straightforward, and was the means by which we traced the origins of government
amendments. The exception was some strands that were subject to ‘ping pong’, as these were
finished by an inconsequential amendment that merely accepted the decision in the other House.
For example, in one case a Labour backbencher proposed a compromise amendment to a divisive
strand during Commons consideration of Lords amendments which was passed, with the
government in the Lords subsequently moving an amendment to implement this compromise.
Since the Lords amendment made no substantive change, the strand was coded as ending with a
Labour backbench amendment.
7
These basic categorisations and definitions enabled us to conduct our analysis, the results of
which are discussed by theme in the next three sections, before turning to some general
conclusions.
I. Origin of Government amendments
As shown in Table 3, of the 859 proposed amendments, the vast majority came from nongovernment sources. However, very few of these amendments were voted upon, and of those that
were, only a tiny number were agreed. Overall, only 26 non-government amendments were agreed
out of a total of 770 proposed (3.4 percent), and of these all but nine went on to be overturned at
a later stage. In comparison, the government proposed a relatively modest number of
amendments – no doubt in part because of the earlier draft bill, and the previous debates in the
Commons. But of the 89 government amendments proposed all but four were agreed (those four
were all proposed but not moved in the Lords during ping pong). .
Table 3: Amendments by sponsor and outcome
Government
Labour backbench
Conservative
Liberal Democrat
Other (including mixed
parties, Crossbenchers, etc)
Total
Agreed
(with or
without
division)
85
1
7
4
Negatived
(with or
without
division)
0
1
14
3
Not
moved,
withdrawn,
etc
4
22
456
158
Total
89
24
477
165
% agreed
95.5
4.2
1.5
2.4
14
111
2
20
88
728
104
859
13.5
12.9
Hypothesis 1: A high proportion of government amendments in fact responded to points
made by backbenchers or opposition members at earlier stages of the bill.
This data would suggest that non-government actors had virtually no impact on the final form of
the bill. However, an analysis of amendments alone is too crude to explain the influences on the
process, as it does not show the extent to which government amendments were actually inspired
by other political actors. Our creation of unique policy strands enables us to do this.
Of the 61 successful strands, 53 were concluded with a government amendment, and the
remaining eight by opposition or Labour backbench amendments. This alone demonstrates that
an analysis of amendments overstates the government’s influence, as 32 of the government
amendments in Table 3 were in fact minor consequential ones absorbed in other strands. But
once the origin of strands is considered an even more balanced picture emerges. Table 4 shows
that of the 53 government-ended strands, 28 were single amendment strands that did not respond
to any prior proposals. The remaining 25 responded to opposition amendments. Most of the nontypographical amendments originating with the government dealt with the question of exactly
when and how the Secretary of State of State could amend the scheme, as did several of the
successful non-government proposals. Most successful strands dealing with information and
security were opposition-inspired, such as a government amendment responding to a Liberal
Democrat proposal that the Data Commissioner should regularly review the security and
confidentiality of the register.
Table 4: End of successful strands showing origin of those ended by government
N
8
%
Government ended strand initiated by:
Government
Conservative
Liberal Democrat
Con and LibDem jointly
Conservative ended strand
Con and LibDem jointly ended strand
Labour backbench ended strand
Crossbench ended strand
Total
28
13
6
6
3
3
1
1
61
45.9
21.3
9.8
9.8
4.9
4.9
1.6
1.6
100.0
A supplementary question is whether government amendments responding to opposition
demands resulted in a ‘watering down’ in terms of policy substance. We found that only two of
the 25 relevant strands saw a reduction in substantiveness on the Shephard and Cairney scale. But
given that this is relatively crude, it does not necessarily imply that no compromise occurred.
Looking more closely at each of the 25 strands it was clear that compromise did take place in the
majority of cases. In particular, of the 14 strands which began with amendments coded
‘substantive’, 12 involved some compromise, mostly in a downwards direction. 9 Compromises
varied greatly, from rewording amendments on how long non-personal information could remain
on the register, to agreeing to record information disclosed without consent but eliminating the
need for published criteria for recording of these cases. Nonetheless, all but two of these
amendments remained ‘substantive’.
II. The bicameral parliament and inter-cameral cooperation
Hypothesis 2: The impact of the House of Lords on the Bill was greater than the impact
of the House of Commons.
Simply from examining the basic data on amendments and strands, it is clear that far more
changes were made to the Identity Cards Bill by the Lords than by the Commons. Table 1 showed
that 85 amendments were agreed in the House of Lords and only 26 in the House of Commons.
In fact this significantly understates the case, since 21 of the amendments passed in the Commons
were during ‘ping pong’ and therefore responded changes made in the Lords. Only five
amendments were actually passed by the Commons during its own Committee and Report stages.
In terms of unique policy strands, this represents only five strands that began and successfully
ended in the Commons. Three of these were single government amendments, of which only one,
an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to get parliamentary approval before imposing
specific fees for any stage of registration, was coded as substantive level 3. The other two
amendments, both given a substantive level of 2, responded to proposals made by the opposition
during the Committee Stage, to explicitly add the manufacture of false ID cards as an offence and
to limit sensitive data from the register. In all the other 56 cases of successful strands, there was
therefore some input from the House of Lords. This leads us to tentatively accept hypothesis 2.
However, two qualifications must be put on this. First, it must be remembered that an earlier
version of the bill had already completed its Commons passage before the 2005 election, and the
Commons may have had a more major impact at earlier stages. We cannot therefore generalise
easily from this result. Second, the extent to which the Lords was influential depends in part on
the origins of the amendments which were passed there. Just as government amendments could
originate with the opposition, Lords amendments could originate in the House of Commons. This
is the next question, therefore, that we turn to.
9
Hypothesis 3: Many of the amendments proposed in the House of Lords had previously
been proposed in the House of Commons.
An analysis of the origins and outcomes of unique policy strands by chamber is shown in Table 5.
This demonstrates that a large number of strands were initiated in both Houses, with 280
beginning in the House of Lords and 245 beginning in the House of Commons. Of those which
originated in the House of Commons, nearly half continued to be pursued in the Lords. Of the
397 unique policy strands considered in the House of Lords, 117 (29 percent) were based on
amendments which had already been proposed in the lower house. Hypothesis 3 is thus
supported.
Table 5: Strands by House of origin and success
Started and remained in Commons
Started in Lords
Started in Commons and moved to Lords
Total
Successful
5
46
10
61
Unsuccessful
123
234
107
464
Total
128
280
117
525
However it is also clear that a large number of new issues were introduced for discussion in the
Lords. In some cases these may have responded broadly to points raised at earlier stages – as our
strict definition of strands required them to refer to the same clause of the bill and some issues
may have been pursued in less obviously connected ways. But it is quite clear that many new
issues were introduced during the Lords’ consideration of the bill – and many of these went on to
be successful. There is therefore nothing here to cast doubt on hypothesis 2 above. Our results
demonstrate that the two chambers worked in partnership to a significant degree on this bill, but
that the Lords was influential as an independent actor as well. The extent to which this is a new
pattern is unknown, given the lack of detailed attention given to it in previous studies, though
anecdotal evidence clearly indicates that some such communication between the chambers
happened in the past (Miers and Brock 1993).
There were no clear differences between the types of amendments initiated in the House of Lords
and to those carried over from the House of Commons. Amongst the amendments that went
through both Houses a frequent topic was, unsurprisingly, the power of the Secretary of State.
One important amendment was supported by the Conservatives in the Commons Committee
Stage, the Liberal Democrats during Commons Report, and was passed during Lords Report
when both parties joined together. This removed an entire section that allowed the Secretary of
State alone to make orders requiring registration of people not already required to register – that is,
to effectively extend the compulsion of the scheme. It proved to be a major victory, as the
government chose not to ask the Commons to overturn the Lords defeat. A number of strands
beginning in the Lords also dealt with executive power over the scheme, such as requiring the
Secretary of State to gain Parliamentary approval before changing the procedure for individuals to
notify changes to their personal information.
Hypothesis 4: There is evidence of significant co-ordination and cooperation between
party group members in the Commons and the Lords.
The fact that 117 policy proposals taken up in the House of Commons went on to be pursued in
the House of Lords suggests that there may be significant co-ordination within parties between
the two Houses. Further corroborative evidence can be sought by looking at the breakdown of
strands by opposition party supporters, as shown in Table 6. (As some strands were supported in
one House or the other by both opposition parties, and other strands were supported in one
10
House by one party and the other House by the other party, these figures do not total to those in
Table 5.)
Table 6: Strands by party sponsor(s) and extent to which inter-cameral
Strand sponsored by
Liberal Democrats
N
In Commons only
In Lords only
In both Houses
Total
%
30.0
55.8
14.2
100.0
57
106
27
190
Conservatives
N
%
86
217
88
391
22.0
55.5
22.5
100.0
The Conservatives participated in 174 strands in the Commons, and of these 55 percent were
continued in the Lords with Conservative support. By comparison only 32 percent of the 84
strands supported by the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons were carried over by the
party into the Lords. Looking at it from the other direction, of the 305 strands supported by
Conservatives in the Lords, 29 percent repeated points made in Conservative Commons
amendments, whereas 20 percent of Liberal Democrat Lords amendments did the same.
Hypothesis 4 is therefore supported. The party groups in the Lords initiated many new issues that
had not been discussed in the House of Commons, but there also appears to be much intercameral co-ordination within the parties. This may indicate that Lords reform is changing the way
the parties operate, encouraging the front bench teams in the two Houses to collaborate over
amendments and use the Lords to pursue issues which cannot realistically be won in the House of
Commons. Again it is impossible to know without further research, since previous studies did not
address this question (Griffiths 1974; Drewry and Brock 1993; Miers and Brock 1993). It also
appears that there is a difference of approach in the two opposition parties, with more coordination on the Conservative side. This is somewhat surprising, given the smaller size of the
Liberal Democrat group, which could facilitate easier communication. It seems likely that the
Conservative groups in the two Houses have a longer history of co-operation, given that the
pivotal role of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords is a relatively new phenomenon.
Hypothesis 5: Amendments that started in the House of Commons and were taken up in
the House of Lords were more likely to succeed than those which began in the Lords.
Finally in terms of inter-cameral cooperation we might expect those issues which began in the
House of Commons to have a greater chance of success than those which began in the Lords.
Here again the impact of the House of Lords would be somewhat overstated if Commons
support at an early stage proved critical to the success of an amendment.
The figures in Table 5 above already suggest that this is not the case, showing that roughly one in
four strands initiated in the Lords were ultimately successful, compared to just one in ten which
began in the House of Commons and carried over to the Lords. However, this includes 25 single
government amendments passed in the Lords that did not fall into other strands. Including these
strands distorts the findings, since only three such ‘tidying up’ amendments were passed by the
government in the House of Commons. Excluding them (see Table 7) shows that House of origin
made no difference to the success rate of strands discussed in the Lords – this was 8.2 percent for
strands initiated in the Lords against 8.5 percent for those that passed over from the House of
Commons.10 Hypothesis 5 is therefore not supported.
The two strands that were probably most influential on the bill fell one into each category. The
longest strand (discussed more fully under Hypothesis 9), which dealt with compulsion and ended
up delaying compulsory application for cards until 2010, passed through both Houses. An
11
important strand dealing with costs and benefits, on the other hand, was initiated by the Lords.
Here opposition peers from both parties sought to make the establishment of the scheme
contingent on an analysis of costs and benefits. The amendment they passed was opposed by the
government during ping pong, but there was ultimately a compromise proposed by a Labour
backbencher. Rather than requiring an initial costs and benefits analysis, this required the
Secretary of State to regularly report to Parliament on the costs and benefits of the scheme.
Table 7: Strand success rate by House, excluding single amendment government strands
Started and remained in Commons
Started in Lords
Started in Commons and moved to Lords
Total
Successful
2
21
10
33
Unsuccessful
123
234
107
464
Total
125
255
117
497
% successful
1.6
8.2
8.5
6.6
Despite the similarity of success rate for different types of strands discussed in the Lords, the
large number of new strands initiated in the chamber means that Lords strands were more
influential overall. As the table shows, 21 non-government strands initiated in the Lords
succeeded, compared to 12 initiated in the Commons (10 of which passed to the Lords). This
adds further support to hypothesis 2. That is, despite many of the Lords amendments originating
in the House of Commons, and the evidence of intra-party cooperation between the chambers,
the Lords had a greater policy impact on the bill.
III. Parties and party cooperation
Hypothesis 6: There was significant cooperation between opposition parties, which
occurred more frequently in the House of Lords than in the House of Commons.
Moving from the question of inter-cameral cooperation to inter-party cooperation, we predicted
that the opportunities presented by the House of Lords would encourage the two main
opposition parties to work together, particularly in this chamber. Here we again looked at the
original sponsors of amendments, which in both chambers can be jointly proposed by several
parliamentarians. Table 8 shows figures for all amendments that were proposed by Conservative
and Liberal Democrat members in each House and how many of these were co-sponsored by at
least one member the other party.
Only 17 of the 285 opposition amendments in the House of Commons were supported by
members of both parties. These represent six percent of the total and a strikingly small amount of
cooperation in the lower house. The amendments where cooperation occurred varied across
topics, including attempts to limit the disclosure of individuals’ information, to allow individuals
to know the contents of their register records, and two strands specifying that people should not
be required to produce ID cards until registration was made compulsory. Five such strands also
dealt with the common theme of increasing parliamentary control over the scheme. Cooperation
came mostly on substantive amendments, with 15 of the 17 rated ‘substantive’ on the Shephard
and Cairney scale.
Table 8: Amendments with inter-party cooperation in each House
House of Commons
House of Lords
Total
No cooperation
Cooperation
Total
268
384
652
17
77
94
285
461
746
12
% with
cooperation
6.0
16.7
12.6
The number of co-sponsored opposition amendments in the Lords was significantly higher, both
in absolute terms and percentages – at 77 amendments (17 percent of the total). Thus one in six
Lords amendments involved cooperation across the parties. Again, most cooperation was over
substance, with more than half of these amendments ranked three on the Shephard and Cairney
scale (and several others being consequential to substantive amendments). These again covered a
variety of issues.
We therefore find that hypothesis 6 is supported. There is some cooperation between the
opposition parties in both chambers, but this is particularly significant in the House of Lords. As
predicted it may be that a more pluralistic form of politics may be developing as a result of Lords
reform. However, earlier studies have shown that in the 1980s co-sponsorship between Labour
and the other opposition parties was ‘not uncommon’ (Drewry and Brock 1993, p. 78).11 The new
pattern, if there is one, is that of cooperation on the part of the Conservatives, who previously did
not greatly need other supporters in the House of Lords. Over time more collaborative behaviour
could become increasingly common in the House of Commons, given the inter-cameral links that
we have identified within the party groups. But clearly the party balance in the two chambers
makes the Lords the key site for inter-party collaboration.
Hypothesis 7: Amendments supported by both opposition parties had a greater chance of
success than those supported by one party alone.
Where the opposition parties co-sponsor amendments in the House of Lords they have a good
chance of inflicting government defeat. We would therefore expect co-sponsored amendments to
have a greater chance of success, either because sufficient members supported them in a division
and the government was defeated, or because the threat of a division (including at a later stage)
led the government to accept the opposition’s proposals in whole or in part.
Table 9: Success rates of opposition strands
Co-sponsored
Not co-sponsored
Total
Successful
13
20
33
Not successful
71
379
450
Total
84
399
483
% successful
15.5
5.0
6.8
A total of 84 strands included at least one amendment co-sponsored by both Conservative and
Liberal Democrat members, as shown in Table 9. These compare with 399 strands where
amendments were sponsored by a single opposition party (and 42 strands formed of government,
Labour backbench, or other amendments). The table shows that 15.5 percent (13) of the cosponsored strands were ultimately successful, compared to only five percent (20) of the single
opposition party strands.12 Hypothesis 7 is therefore supported. This demonstrates that there is a
real incentive for the opposition parties to work together, reinforcing our conclusion about interparty cooperation.
Three of the successful co-sponsored strands ended with a co-sponsored amendment in the
Lords. One of these was a textual amendment but the other two dealt with major issues. One was
the strand mentioned earlier which ended the ability of the Secretary of State use delegated
legislation to extend the compulsion of the scheme. The other required the Secretary of State to
consult the public before issuing a code of practice for penalties related to the bill. Eight further
co-sponsored strands ended with government amendments. These included requiring greater
flexibility for individuals to update their records and requiring parliamentary approval for changes
to the fee regime. The final two successful co-sponsored strands were the two critical ones
13
mentioned above about compulsion and costs and benefits; the former ended with a Crossbench
amendment while the latter was finished by a Labour backbencher.
Of the 20 successful single opposition party strands, 15 came from the Conservatives and five
from the Liberal Democrats. These generally dealt with less substantive matters. Three were
coded as typographical/consequential and eight as category 2 at the stage they passed. These
addressed issues such as rewording what residences must be recorded in the register. Some did
deal with more substantive topics, such as requiring the Data Commissioner to set up a system for
dealing with complaints about the scheme.
Clearly the opposition parties greatly increase their influence over the government when they
work together. And when they are divided, they are far less likely to succeed. This is nicely
illustrated by one example where the two parties failed to agree. Here both attempted to reduce
the amount of the government’s proposed penalty of £2,500 for individuals failing to register
when required. The Liberal Democrats proposed to lower this to £50 during Commons
Committee, and then to £100 when the bill was in the Lords. In contrast the Conservatives
proposed penalties of £1000, and later £500. Both sets of amendments failed, but had the parties
worked together they might have had a better chance of success.13
Hypothesis 8: Amendments sponsored by Labour backbenchers were influential on the
bill.
Table 10: Success rate of backbench amendments
House of Commons
Labour
Labour/Liberal Democrat
House of Lords
Labour
Conservative
Conservative/Liberal Democrat
Total
Agreed
without
division
Total
Withdrawn
Negatived
with
division
16
1
3
0
1
0
1
0
21
1
1
25
5
48
2
18
1
24
0
5
0
6
0
0
0
1
3
48
6
79
Not moved
(etc)
As Table 10 shows, there were few amendments sponsored by backbenchers to this bill: only 22
such amendments came from MPs and 57 from peers. All the Commons backbench amendments
were from Labour, including one jointly sponsored with the Liberal Democrat frontbench. But
there were no Labour backbench amendments in the Lords – here all but three were sponsored
by Conservative peers. The table also shows that only one backbench amendment was directly
passed.
The creation of strands allows us to examine whether backbench MPs initiated ideas that later
succeeded by other actors. As Table 11 shows, backbenchers were involved in 64 strands, and
only five of these succeeded. Three involved Conservative backbenchers: two were of minor
significance and were taken up by the government at the next stage; the third was a proposal to
limit what documents the Secretary of State could designate for registration, which originated with
the Conservative frontbench in the Commons and was picked up by a backbencher in the Lords.
This was adopted as a government amendment, although the final amendment was greatly
compromised.
14
Table 11: Backbench involvement in strands
Agreed
without
division
Agreed
with
division
Not
agreed
Total
Backbencher/s sponsored initial amendment
Lab backbench
Con backbench
LD frontbench plus Con backbench
0
2
0
0
0
0
13
37
6
13
39
6
Backbencher joined in middle only
Started by LD frontbench, pursued by Lab backbench in Commons, ended by Crossbench
0
1
0
1
Backbencher joined at end
Started by Con frontbench, pursued by Con backbench
Started by Con frontbench, pursued by Con backbench*
Started by LD frontbench, pursued by LD frontbench and Lab backbench
Started by LD frontbench, pursued by Con backbench
Started by Con/LD frontbench, finished by Lab backbench
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
4
1
59
64
Total
*Conservative backbench amendment adopted and passed by the Government
Although Labour backbenchers had no success when they initiated strands, they did have some
success in bringing them to a conclusion. Indeed arguably the two most important strands that
succeeded did so in part because of Labour backbench support. The one backbench amendment
actually passed was the conclusion to the strand on costs and benefits (discussed with Hypothesis
5), where Labour MP Frank Dobson ultimately produced the compromise amendment during
ping pong. At an earlier stage there had been a Commons rebellion on this issue (Cowley and
Stuart 2005). In the 14-stage strand on compulsion the Labour backbench was also influential.
Here a group of 10 Labour backbenchers re-tabled an amendment first tabled by the Liberal
Democrats in the Commons Committee, during the Commons Report.14 This attracted 23 Labour
rebel votes (Cowley and Stuart 2005). The strand was subsequently kept alive by the opposition in
the Lords, before being concluded by a Crossbencher. So Labour backbenchers did play a crucial
role in some important cases, through backing up the opposition parties. This provides some,
albeit relatively weak, support for hypothesis 8.
Hypothesis 9: Amendments sponsored by Crossbenchers in the Lords were influential on
the bill.
While we would generally expect opposition frontbenchers or government backbenchers to be the
most influential figures in extracting concessions on government legislation, there is one other
group who might have a claim. The ‘Crossbenchers’ in the House of Lords take no party whip,
and the group includes many respected experts with national and international reputations
(Russell and Sciara 2006b; Shell 1992). Whilst party members in the Lords may be reluctant to
support each other’s policy proposals, a proposal made by a Crossbench expert has the potential
to attract support from across the House. It has previously been suggested, and seems
instinctively likely, hat amendments sponsored by Crossbenchers have a higher chance of success
(Miers and Brock 1993).
The most striking thing about Crossbench amendments to this bill was their rarity. Although the
group has almost 200 members, they sponsored only six of the 528 amendments in the House of
Lords. Three of these amendments, proposed by the hereditary peer the Earl of Erroll, and a
fourth by former Law Lord, Lord Ackner, were relatively minor and were neither successful nor
15
pursued at subsequent stages. The Earl of Errol also added his name to an amendment alongside
both the opposition parties, which was more influential. This was the successful strand (already
mentioned at Hypothesis 1) requiring records to be kept of cases where information was given
without consent. Although the government only responded after a Crossbencher had added his
name, this seems unlikely to have been the reason.
Thus far we find little support for hypothesis 9. If this exists it rests on the final two Crossbench
amendments, which were both made by Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, a former Cabinet Secretary.
These were both within the most contentious and longest strand of all, which concerned
compulsory registration for ID cards when applying for a passport. The strand began with a
Liberal Democrat amendment, defeated in Commons Committee, which simply changed ‘must’ to
‘may’ when stating that passport applicants should provide information for the register. Labour
backbenchers took up the amendment during Commons Report, but it was again defeated. It was
then sponsored by both opposition parties and passed during the Lords Report stage. The defeat
was overturned in the Commons, but during ping pong the Lords insisted on it twice. A Liberal
Democrat compromise amendment to delay compulsion until 2011 was then accepted by the
Lords but rejected by the Commons. Finally Lord Armstrong moved two compromise
amendments, the first of which was overturned in the Commons but the second of which,
proposing a voluntary scheme until 2010, was ultimately agreed. Under this agreement everyone
applying for a passport must still enter the register, but applying for an ID card remains optional
until 2010. As the Conservatives have made clear they intend to scrap the Identity Card scheme,
and the general election is likely to occur in 2009, this compromise could prove to be influential.
This strand makes clear that while the Crossbenchers may not appear important in quantitative
terms, they can play a key brokering role between the parties in the House of Lords.
Conclusion
As detailed fully in the Appendix, the 61 successful policy strands made some important changes
to this bill. As originally drafted it gave the executive significant freedom, and various
amendments were eventually passed that increased parliamentary oversight and limited the future
power of the Secretary of State. Similarly, a number of substantive amendments were agreed
concerning the operation of the National Identity Register. As we have shown, while most of
these passed ultimately as government amendments, the most substantial changes resulted from
opposition and backbench pressure in both chambers of parliament.
Each bill can be seen as unique, and this bill in particular had some unusual characteristics. The
prior publication of a draft bill, and the passage through the Commons of a similar bill in 2004-05,
meant that the issues had already been widely aired both in parliament and government. To assess
the parliamentary impact on this policy area would therefore require analysis also of these earlier
versions of the bill. But even despite this earlier consideration, some important changes were
made, and some generic conclusions can be drawn. We found that there was significant intercameral co-operation, that there were significant links within parties between the two chambers,
and that there was significant collaboration between the parties, particularly in the House of Lords.
In all this adds up to a more collaborative and pluralistic approach to policy making than we
might expect in the British parliament. The extent to which these dynamics are new is impossible
to say without further research, as previous studies gave these questions little attention. But it
seems likely that such patterns have been encouraged by recent Lords reform.
On this bill there was only weak evidence for Labour backbench influence, or influence by
Crossbench peers. Again this points to the need for further research, and the value of studying a
wider range of bills. This requires detailed and time-consuming work, but we hope that our
method of constructing policy strands, and the early conclusions we offer in this paper, provide a
useful basis for future investigations.
16
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17
Appendix: Complete list of successful strands
Supporter(s)
at origin
Stage of
origin
Support at
end
Length
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
LD
C
C/LD
C
C
C
C
CC
CC
CC
CC
CC
CC
CR
XB
G
G
C
G
G
G
14
4
4
3
3
3
3
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
LD
LD
LD
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
CC
CC
CC
CC
CC
LC
LC
LC
LC
LC
C/LD
C
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
C
C
LD
LD
LD
LD
LD
LC
LR
LC
LC
LC
LR
LR
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
C/LD
C/LD
C/LD
C/LD
C/LD
C/LD
C/LD
C
C/LD
G
G
G
G
LC
LC
LC
LC
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
CC
CR
CR
LR
G
G
G
G
C/LD
LB
G
C
C/LD
G
G
G
G
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
38
G
LR
G
1
39
40
G
G
LR
LR
G
G
1
1
41
G
LR
G
1
Topic
Strand
Supporters: G = Government, C = Conservative Party, LD = Liberal Democrats, C/LD = Coalition of
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, LB = Labour Backbench, XB = Crossbench
Stage: CC =Commons Committee, CR = Commons Report, LC = Lords Committee, LR = Lords Report, L3 =
Lords Third Reading
Delay compulsion to 2010
Record when information given without consent
Parliament can annul changes to clause on information in the Register
Limit who can demand Register information
Duration non-personal data remains in Register
Limit documents that can be designated for registration
Limit ability of Secretary of State to change what information can be
provided without consent
Limit ability of Secretary of State to force additional individuals to register
Limit ability of Secretary of State to force additional individuals to register
Limit ability of Secretary of State to add to Register information
Make manufacturing false ID card an offence
Limit which identification numbers can be recorded
Expand recorded residences
Emphasize individuals’ photo is of face
Parliament approval for changes to designated document requirements
Parliament approval for changes to facts on cards
Parliament approval for changes concerning who may demand an
individual’s information
Provision for public complaints
Reiterate that Parliament responsible for extending compulsion
Drafting amendment
Increase flexibility to change own information
Ensure security of register
Parliament approval for changes made to code of practice on penalties
Code of practice must be issued for when penalties assigned and amount of
penalty
Emphasize security of records and storage
Parliament approval for changes to fees
Increase flexibility to change own information
Increase flexibility to change own information
Public consultation before changes to penalties
Regularly report costs and benefits
Drafting amendment
Limit when application for ID cards required
Rest official appointment of Commissioner with the crown
Parliamentary approval before initial setting of Register-related fees
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Parliamentary approval before first regulations concerning changing or
updating an individual’s information
Parliamentary approval before regulations changing which documents must
include an application for entry to the Register
Parliament has power to annul orders concerning passports
Parliament has power to annul orders concerning code of practice on
penalties
Emphasize limits on provision of information to third parties
18
42
G
LR
G
1
43
G
LR
G
1
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
LR
L3
L3
L3
L3
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Emphasize limits on provision of information to third parties without
consent
Secretary of State cannot release an individual’s personal information to
check the accuracy of the Register or to add to personal information
Reword definition of ‘public service’
Reword definition of ‘prescribed’
Reword definition of ‘residence’
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
Expand conditions when unlawful to require production of ID card
Expand situations resulting in civil penalties
Drafting amendment
Drafting amendment
For a fuller description of the bill and the parliamentary debates see House of Commons Library 2005.
On the later see Cowley and Stuart (2005).
3 Griffith (1974, p. 119-21) noted that such a dynamic was common in the House of Commons. The same pattern has
also been noted in the House of Lords (Miers and Brock 1993, p. 133).
4 The normal means for a bill to be agreed when there is a dispute between the Houses is for it to shuttle back and
forth between them until both pass it in identical terms – requiring compromise by at least one of the chambers. Only
on rare occasions are the Parliament Acts (which allow the Commons to pass a bill without the Lords’ consent)
invoked. In this case the bill returned to the Lords five times after its initial defeats there.
5 Griffith (1974, p. 206) estimated that over three sessions there were 365 government amendments in the Commons
which responded to policy demands of non-government actors. Of these, 38 responded to government backbenchers,
294 to opposition parties, and 33 to a combination of the two. In total 125 of these amendments were judged to be
substantial.
6 His consideration of intercameral issues was limited to noting that few government amendments in the Lords
responded to issues previously raised in the House of Commons (1974, p. 225).
7 Those studying the Lords in the 1980s suggested that sponsorship by a government backbencher or a Crossbencher
made it more likely that government would be responsive to an amendment (Drewry and Brock 1993; Miers and
Brock 1993).
8 We would like to acknowledge the considerable work of Mark Wainwright and Sheung-Yuen Lee in the early stages
of this process.
9 In one final case the government amendment was actually more substantive than the opposition amendment from
which it was inspired. Here the opposition amendment had required parliamentary approval before the Secretary of
State could make regulations, but had limited it to three subsections in the clause. The government proposal applied
parliamentary oversight to the entire clause.
10 If we look at the breakdown in terms of substantiveness level, there is still little difference, with six of the 10
successful strands that passed through both Houses having a substantive ranking of three compared to 12 of the 21
successful strands that began in the Lords.
11 Miers and Brock (1993, pp. 104-5) find that 254 amendments in the Lords were co-sponsored by opposition parties,
as against 1,350, sponsored by a single opposition party. This makes co-sponsored amendments 19 percent of the
total. At this time there were two centre parties, however, and some of these co-sponsored amendments were
presumably between them.
12 Note that this figure incorporates strands that began with support by a single party and later became co-sponsored
and thus it is larger than the numbers found in Table 4 for original sponsors of government amendments.
13 The Conservative amendments were never moved, while one of the Liberal Democrat proposals was discussed but
withdrawn during Lords Committee.
14 Diane Abbott, Michael Clapham, Ann Cryer, Neil Gerrard, Lynne Jones, Mark Lasarowicz, Andrew Love, John
McDonnell, Austin Mitchell and Robert Wareing.
1
2
19