From the Hansard archives: Christmas tree bills

Approximate read time: 10 minutes

1. Christmas tree bills: Origins

The term ‘Christmas tree bill’ is American in origin. It became part of the US political vocabulary after being coined in the 1950s. The ‘Congress A to Z’ describes the “traditional Christmas tree bill” as “a minor measure passed by the House, on which the Senate hung a variety of unrelated amendments providing benefits for special interests. The amendments most often involved tax or trade treatment”.^[1] ‘Brewer’s Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable’ explains “the term was originally applied to a tax bill affecting foreign investors that was passed in 1966 and signed ‘with reservations’ by President Lyndon B Johnson, who noted that it would ‘confer special tax windfalls and benefits [like Christmas presents] upon certain groups’”.^[2]

It was this meaning Time magazine applied in 1969 in an article that helped popularise the term.^[3] Time lamented that the Senate had passed a tax-cutting bill that contained several tax reforms it described as “Christmas tree ornaments”. The Times, writing for a UK audience about the same bill, called upon the same imagery, noting the term Christmas tree bill was adopted pejoratively “by those critical of inflationary Senate amendments”.^[4]

The phrase has since developed further in the United States. ‘The Oxford Guide to the United States Government’ refers to Christmas tree bills in its entry for “pork barrel politics”.^[5] It concerns occasions “[wh]en members of Congress try to gain federal funds for projects in their district or state”. The article adds that “when members seize upon a bill that the president is likely to sign into law and then add pork barrel amendments, it is called a ‘Christmas tree’ bill”. Consequently, “special projects are hung upon the bill the way ornaments adorn a Christmas tree”.^[6]

2. How has the term been used in the UK Parliament?

The first mention in the UK Parliament of ‘Christmas tree bill’ came in the House of Commons in 1971. Roy Mason, who later sat in the House of Lords as Lord Mason of Barnsley, described the Oil in Navigable Waters Bill in such terms. He was critical of the amount of government amendments to the bill as it progressed through Parliament. He said:

In committee four new clauses were added to the bill—it was virtually a new bill—and now we have the major Lords amendment and the amendment to it. It reminds me of the Christmas tree bills passing through the various stages in Congress and the Senate. It is not the best way of introducing legislation. Because of the protracted progress of the bill everyone seems to be hanging on to it all sorts of amendments en route.^[7]

Later the same decade, David Howell, now Lord Howell of Guildford, used the phrase. In 1976, he cited a newspaper article about the Finance Bill. He too suggested the government was the culprit through how it amended the bill:

There was another description of this practice in the Guardian, which warned against the dangers of using the Finance Bill as a Christmas tree on which to hang any little “goodie”—or “baddie” is probably a better description—which the government wish to push through. This is a thoroughly unhealthy development, and I am glad to see that their lordships have been looking at it very much askance. There is no doubt that it is an abuse of the Finance Bill procedure as we have known it over the years.^[8]

From the early to mid-1980s, the term remained rarely used. In 1985, David Mellor, parliamentary under secretary of state for the Home Department, responding to a debate on a private member’s bill concerning sexual offences introduced by Janet (now Baroness) Fookes, warned MPs not to amend the bill. He said: “The worst thing that we can do is to think that we are closing a gap in the law, and instead festoon the Christmas tree with so many baubles that the bill does not do the job that we want it to do”.^[9]

The term Christmas tree bill gained its first mention in the House of Lords in 1988. Baroness Hooper, parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department of Energy, described the Atomic Energy Bill as an example of one. She adopted the term because the bill was “largely technical and contains a number of unrelated proposals concerning the nuclear industry. I understand that in the US it would be known as a Christmas tree bill, which seems very appropriate”.^[10]

It was in the 1990s that the concept began to take hold. Members of both Houses applied it in at least two ways. The first usage was to suggest a bill was trying to achieve too much in too many policy areas. For example, William Waldegrave, now Lord Waldegrave of North Hill, used the metaphor in 1993 to explain why the government did not support a private member’s bill. He said: “The bill is large. I have been unable to find out whether it is the biggest private member’s bill, but it must be among the largest. It is a Christmas tree of a bill because it is equivalent to four or five bills put together”.^[11]

The second usage was to suggest a bill was drafted in such a way that it would encourage a wide range of unrelated amendments. For example, Lord McIntosh of Haringey described the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill in 1994 as such. He said his party objected to the bill because “it is, in the jargon phrase, a Christmas tree”.^[12] He said “everyone can add what they want to the bill, and indeed many people have already done so. I fear that your lordships will not be immune from that failing”. At committee, Lord McIntosh blamed the long title of the bill. He said: “The purpose of a precise long title is to discourage people from hanging amendments on different subjects on the bill as though it were a Christmas tree. It has not worked this time—perhaps the long title is not precise enough—but a long title of the kind which the noble and learned lord proposes would make it even easier”.^[13] At report stage, members disagreed about whether this precision was good or bad practice. For example, Lord Glenarthur  disapproved because he felt inappropriate issues were being added to the bill.^[14] In contrast, Baroness Seear welcomed the opportunity to make such amendments. Responding to Lord Glenarthur, she commented:

I agree that it is a Christmas tree bill and many things are included in it. But he did not object to any of the others, so why does he pick on this issue? It is only one part of a Christmas tree bill and it seems to me to be extremely sensible to take the opportunity to introduce this amendment to achieve something that we feel urgently needs to be done.^[15]

Lord Wilberforce reflected on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill in response to the Queen’s Speech later that year. He said:

Taking advantage of the very wide terms of the long title, a considerable number of amendments for changes to the law having little or no relation to the objectives of the bill, which were law and order, were nevertheless brought forward by various noble lords and members in another place. It was called the ‘Christmas tree procedure’ of hanging packages on the tree but was criticised as being an abuse and for its effect of placing a burden on ministers. However, it reflected the great pressure brought about by the genuine need for reform.^[16]

He noted the prospects for such practices in similar future legislation. He said: “Apparently we are not to have a criminal justice bill this session. We are not to be given our Christmas tree”.^[17]

3. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

By the early 2000s, members of both Houses were referring to Christmas tree bills more regularly. The first to do so in the new century was Lord McIntosh of Haringey, this time from the government frontbench. Introducing the Culture and Recreation Bill, he said:

I cannot claim that the bill has a single consistent theme. It is fair to say that it is what is politely called a portfolio bill; in other words, it is a bill which seeks to enact all of the matters requiring primary legislation which the Department for Culture, Media and Sport considers have arisen over a number of years. To that extent it is none the worse for that. I hope, however, that it will not be treated by noble lords or by Parliament as, to use another hallowed phrase, ‘a Christmas tree bill’; in other words, that no one will seek to add to it other matters which are not covered in its admittedly rather extensive long title.^[18]

Members mentioned Christmas 20 times in total during that debate, despite it being January. Baroness Anelay of St Johns used it to explain her approach to scrutiny of the bill: “The noble lord mentioned Christmas trees. Some people take Christmas trees seriously; I take amendments seriously if they are to deliver a better bill to the public”.^[19] Lord Redesdale did likewise. He told the minister that “at a later stage, by way of amendments, I hope quite happily to lay the fairy lights and even the star on the top of the tree of this bill!”.^[20] Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn said he “welcome[d] most of the provisions in the bill” adding that “but for all the talk of Christmas trees, Christmas is not yet here, nor indeed is the new year because little thought has gone into the drafting of the bill”.^[21] Baroness Hooper used the phrase to point out something she thought was missing from the bill.^[22] Lord Roper mentioned it in response to what he called the minister’s usage, which he thought was said “somewhat sarcastically”.^[23] Defending himself, Lord McIntosh intervened to explain that “on the contrary, I expressed the hope that no one else would treat it as a Christmas tree and hang extra decorations on it”.^[24] Lord Roper replied: “After it completes its passage through the House, I hope that at least this particular bill will look rather more like a Christmas tree on Christmas Day rather than one of those sad orphans which one sees on January 7th or 8th”.^[25]

Between the start of 2010 and the end of 2019, the exact phrase “Christmas tree bill” found its way into Hansard 73 times, compared to 11 times the previous decade and just three times in the 1990s. In the first four years of this decade to date, parliamentarians have decked the halls of Hansard with those words 28 times.

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Cover image by UK Parliament on Flickr (copyright House of Commons).