Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, there are 15 speakers signed up for the first debate and nine speakers for the second debate this afternoon. If all contributions other than those of the openers and winders are kept to seven minutes, the Grand Committee should adjourn at 7.45 pm.
Constitutional Change: Constitution Committee Report
(13 years ago)
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Baroness Jay of Paddington
That the Grand Committee do consider the Report of the Constitution Committee on The Process of Constitutional Change (15th Report, HL Paper 177).
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I am very pleased to open this debate on the Constitution Committee’s report, The Process of Constitutional Change, which we published last July. The purpose of the inquiry was to explore the way in which changes to the UK constitution are brought about, and whether we could recommend improvements. The timing of the inquiry was prompted by the coalition Government’s action in introducing several substantial constitutional Bills in their first year in office. As noble Lords will be aware, the Government have also announced further plans for constitutional change, notably reform of your Lordships’ House.
Our report was based on written submissions that we received and on oral evidence from a number of eminent experts. These experts were mostly academics but we also heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, the author of many of the coalition proposals, and from two former MPs, Tony Wright and David Howarth, who have wide knowledge and experience in this field. I should like to place on record my thanks to all who gave evidence and, in particular, to the committee’s two legal advisers, Professor Adam Tompkins and Professor Rick Rawlings, who acted as specialist advisers for this inquiry, and to our Clerk, Emily Baldock.
The committee’s overall recommendation is that, in contrast with existing practice, the United Kingdom needs to adopt a clear and consistent process to make Governments accountable for the constitutional changes that they introduce. As your Lordships will appreciate, the process of constitutional change matters because the constitution, even when it is unwritten, is the foundation on which our laws and government are built. Currently there is little to prevent Governments with a majority in the other place changing the UK’s constitutional arrangements as they please. The constitution is therefore vulnerable to the political agendas of successive Governments but any Government should be subject to the constitution, not the other way around.
In the Select Committee’s opinion, all proposed changes should be tested against an agreed and rigorous process, which would prevent Ministers picking and choosing which processes to apply in different political circumstances. We argue that constitutional legislation is qualitatively different from other legislation and should therefore be treated differently.
It should be noted that, although our inquiry was, as I said, prompted by our response to several contemporary Bills, our criticisms of existing process are certainly not exclusively directed at the current Government. The record of the past will show that the Constitution Committee has been concerned about constitutional legislation since it was first established a decade ago. As the Grand Committee will remember, the Constitution Committee was often robustly critical of changes made by the previous Administration. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who is a very long-serving member of the committee, will speak about its persistent and consistent efforts in this direction since 2001.
This year, as a first step, we set about trying to define those pieces of legislation that could legitimately be called constitutional and should therefore be subject to a special process. However, we were not tempted to consider that this could be done in a watertight way only if the UK moved towards a written constitution. Equally, we did not accept the suggestions, which came from several academic witnesses, that Parliament should outsource constitutional matters to an independent commission, which could then decide whether any constitutional proposals were acceptable.
However, the committee found it useful to try to identify positively those areas where any change was properly described as both constitutional and substantial. Professor Sir John Baker of the University of Cambridge offered us a list, which the committee found useful. The list included: any alteration to structure and composition of Parliament; any alteration to powers of Parliament or any transfer of power, as by devolution or international treaty, which would in practice be difficult to reverse; any alternation to the succession to the Crown, or the functions of the monarch; any substantial alteration to the balance of power between Parliament and government; any substantial alteration to the balance of power between central government and local authorities; and any substantial alteration to the liberties of the subject, including the right to habeas corpus and trial by jury.
Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list, but the Committee thought that it certainly included those significant constitutional matters, where a clear and consistent process should be adopted by all Governments. In essence, our main recommendation was quite limited. We asked that the Government, before introducing such a new Bill into Parliament, should set out in a Written Ministerial Statement whether that Bill provides for significant constitutional change and, if so, whether it has been subject to certain prelegislative processes, both of consultation and prelegislative scrutiny.
In our view, any constitutional Bill should be preceded first by some form of public engagement. There should be rigorous scrutiny in Cabinet committees, particularly considering the impact of proposals on the existing constitutional arrangements, which in our opinion are sometimes not taken into consideration. The Government should publish both Green and White Papers to be followed by a formal public consultation and prelegislative scrutiny. At the end of such a process, there is no doubt that there may well still be disagreement with the policy of a particular Bill, and we did not recommend, as has sometimes been suggested, that a consensus must be reached before a Bill could be introduced. But at least, if the process that we described had been followed, everyone would have been afforded an opportunity to have their say and genuinely influence the outcome. The only mandatory element of these proposals would be the production of the Written Ministerial Statement.
The Government’s response to our report was published in September and, in parliamentary language, I have to describe it as disappointing. The Government do not appear to accept that constitutional Bills can be readily identified and should have particular treatment. The Committee thought that even on the basis that “you know one when you see one”, it is perfectly possible to single out a constitutional Bill for a special process. The Government’s response to the main recommendation was that they,
“will consider whether to accept the principle of it”.
This afternoon, I urge the Minister to go further than consideration and accept that principle and thus agree to introduce Written Ministerial Statements, one hopes from the beginning of the next Session. This in itself would go a long way to remove the practice of ad hoc decision-making in this fundamental area.
The recommendations that we made for a specific prelegislative process were queried in the Government’s response and are obviously the subject for debate and refinement. The question of what the committee’s report calls public engagement is always difficult in a representative democracy. In this instance, we use the phrase to cover forms of engagement that take place at an early stage in policy-making. We distinguished it from referendums on specific policy questions and from public consultation on individual detailed proposals. We heard, for example, about a fascinating model for engagement used in British Columbia, in Canada, where citizens from all over the province were randomly selected and then met over the course of a year to determine which type of electoral system should be put to the people in a referendum. The committee found this model attractive and were clear that it was important to try to actively engage citizens and involve them in significant constitutional change. But we did not find that any one form of such engagement could, or should, be mandatory. For example, a model that worked for consideration of the electoral system might not be appropriate to determine how best to protect habeas corpus. But this did not mean that the committee wanted the Government to ignore the possibility of public engagement in consultation, and if our proposal for a mandatory ministerial statement on constitutional Bills were to be adopted, the Government would have to justify explicitly the reasons why they did not undertake such procedures.
Some noble Lords have already told me that they felt that the committee’s report was somewhat unimaginative and downplayed the value of consultation. This was certainly not our intention, but we were concerned to learn from several witnesses that too often, today, public consultations are seen merely as box ticking. We wanted to find a way in which we could agree that some form of sensible consultation could be undertaken. It would be obviously of enormous value if noble Lords who are concerned could today offer solutions which might have wide application.
Finally, I want to say a brief word about the Cabinet committee system, which we considered imperative in this process. We felt it imperative that proposals for significant constitutional change be subjected to rigorous scrutiny in Cabinet committees, partly because of their potential impact across all government departments and partly because the committee system is an essential part of ministerial responsibility. Again, somewhat disappointingly, the Government responded that collective responsibility meant that internal Cabinet discussions could not be publicly revealed. Yet the committee was not asking for publication, simply that the ministerial statement formally record that proper Cabinet committees had taken place. Surely, that could not be considered a breach of official security.
In conclusion, I once again draw your Lordships’ attention to our inquiry’s most important finding: that there is no accepted current process for constitutional change. It simply does not exist. We therefore recommend the future adoption of a clear and consistent process, intended to form a comprehensive package from which the Government could depart only in exceptional circumstances and where there are clearly justifiable reasons for doing so. We did not think that this needed cumbersome or inhibiting legislation, as only the proposal for a Written Ministerial Statement on constitutional Bills would be a statutory requirement. We thought our recommendations were practical and achievable, and I hope that the Minister is able to provide your Lordships today with a more positive response than the Government’s formal response in the autumn. I look forward to the debate and I beg to move.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
My Lords, it is my privilege to follow our chairman in this debate. First, we had a very efficient chairman who made us all work hard—no sleeping at all. In the end, she produced a very interesting report. I also thank the legal advisers and the clerk for all the work that they did. I am rather sorry that I am speaking number two, because I am going to be a bit difficult on this issue. I have obviously read the reply from the Government. I think that our ideas were certainly well thought out and sensible, but there were moments when they were perhaps a little over the top. Paragraph 104 says:
“We consider that comprehensive post-legislative scrutiny should be a requirement for all significant constitutional legislation. Each minister should set out the government’s plans for such scrutiny in their written statement”.
The actual chances of getting any such word from a Minister are very small, because they are generally far too busy and will stay that way. However, it was well thought out, even if a bit over the top.
I am impressed by the Government’s response, which is sensible and has made me think again. I would particularly like to quote the beginning of paragraph 4, on page 5 of that response:
“The Committee suggests that although Governments should continue to have the right to initiate constitutional change, this needs to be tempered by a realisation that constitutional legislation is qualitatively different from other legislation”.
The Government then say, absolutely plainly:
“The Government does not accept this. Constitutional legislation, like all legislation, varies in its importance, complexity and impact”.
The response then goes on to expand on that. That point by the Government needs a certain amount of serious consideration. Paragraph 101 of our report is about referendums. It states:
“This Committee recently examined the use of referendums in the United Kingdom and concluded that whilst there were ‘significant drawbacks’ to their use ‘they are most appropriately used in relation to fundamental constitutional issues’”.
That is an important point, because obviously one sees at the moment the likelihood of the Government going more and more to referendums in order to get a decision about a different matter.
Let us think for a moment about what is happening in the eurozone. We have Merkel and Sarkozy, as the newspapers say, out to save the euro. They are saying quite definitely that that will require a new treaty that will “recast Europe”. Those are some of the big words used. As we all know, there are pivotal talks tomorrow. Let us assume that there is a new treaty. If we then decide that we can accept this treaty, is that constitutional legislation? It would certainly have the effect of constitutional legislation. The Government would obviously put the matter before Parliament.
If Parliament were to reject what the Government were putting before it, there is no chance then that the treaty would be changed. It would go ahead. The Government would probably have a referendum and, as with the referendums on voting, it would be on the question, “Do we accept the treaty or not?”. Again, if that is decided against where would we go? We would then withdraw from the treaty and many people would think that that was a great mistake. We now have to consider the possibility of joining in what is obviously an important subject like a new treaty and how we would deal with that in this country.
I will take this one step further before I stop talking. No doubt the internet will become more and more popular and government will sooner or later use the internet to get answers to referendums. They could ask for an answer on the internet, to be sent by post or whatever. Again, one sees a change in the constitutional legislation in that Members of Parliament voting in Westminster will become less and less important. Does that mean that there is no longer a legislative process in Westminster to which we would all feel bound?
This issue is complicated, but it is looking ahead and it is well worth thinking about that in the committee this afternoon and in what we do in the future. We need to think about whether constitutional legislation requires a legislative process in Westminster or whether we would have at times to see a move towards constitutional decisions that had not gone through the Westminster Parliament. That is serious question for the future.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Jay and the committee on yet another very interesting report that the whole House would do well to read. I was not surprised that the noble Lord described my noble friend as an efficient chairman. Having worked with her in government, I am sure that she was. I hope she takes that as a compliment.
The fact that so many people want to speak in this very short debate today shows just how important constitutional change is at this time. There is a great deal happening that we have not always fully taken on board. Certainly, we have not always taken on board the potential interrelationships between some of the changes that are being proposed. We have had mention of the Bills that have become Acts of Parliament; there is promise of more reform in the future; and we have the potential for what might happen so far as devolution and a referendum on independence are concerned. If we are going to have such significant changes, perhaps both Houses in this Parliament need to spend a little more time thinking carefully about their consequences. That is assuming that the Government intend to go ahead with further constitutional change at a time when there does not seem to be great public appetite for it given all the other problems of economic challenge that we are facing.
There are many interesting features in the report—the noble Lord, Lord Renton, mentioned some. He drew attention to paragraph 104, which advocates post-legislative scrutiny for constitutional matters. I am very much in favour of post-legislative scrutiny. When I established the Modernisation Committee in another place in 1997, we wanted to get more momentum on prelegislative scrutiny, but I was always disappointed that we were not able to do more on post-legislative scrutiny. When it comes to constitutional change, post-legislative scrutiny might be necessary, but it is a bit late by then. My great concern is that enough thought does not go into the early stages, which is what this report focuses on.
There is, as my noble friend Lady Jay, said, one fundamental difference around the nature and significance of constitutional change. Is legislation on the constitution fundamentally different from other types of legislation? The Government indicate that that is not the case; I for my part believe that it very much is. I can recall from my time as a constituency MP—others will have had this experience—many occasions when legislation being passed through both Houses proved difficult or not up to the mark. The Child Support Agency is a very obvious example. Members of Parliament knew from constituency casework that it was going wrong from day 1. After lots of attempts and changes, we were able to put it right. It was not perfect, but we made it workable. But if constitutional change goes wrong, and if it has unintended consequences, which can very often be the case, how do we fix our democracy and how do we get it back when the damage is done? That emphasises the need for proper preparation.
I think that we could all agree that we are at a time when trust in politicians and political parties, which are essential to choice in a political democracy, is low, and that is for a variety of reasons. My fear is that the nature of the constitutional change that has gone through this Parliament already, and some that is proposed, will militate against improving the situation. For example, fixed-term Parliaments could lead to a crisis if the public felt that a Government should be voted down but, for technical reasons and the way in which that Bill was passed, that could not happen. I believe that problems will arise from the constant turmoil of boundary reviews if these are going to take place every five years—it is difficult enough for many people to know who their Member of Parliament is and identify with them at the moment. I think that many Members at the other end have realised rather late in the day some of the internal consequences of constant boundary reviews. If electoral wards are going to be changed every five years, that will not help the level of trust but, more important and perhaps more obvious than that, it will impact on the work of MPs. If the day after you are elected you have to concentrate on getting reselected for a potential new boundary constituency, you may be spending too much time looking over your shoulder at party or local matters rather than spending your time at Westminster, and it will turn Members of Parliament into constant rivals. It is bad enough when it happens once every 15 years, but if it is going to happen every Parliament, it will be extremely difficult. I speak as someone who has gone through boundary reviews and some of those difficulties. If we are going to have senators with a 15-year mandate, I am not sure where public trust comes in there, especially as we see that at the moment there is very little identification of individual constituents with Members of the European Parliament. You are going to have PR and party establishments are going to decide who is a senator without an Appointments Commission, and I do not think that is going to improve trust.
I think the Government need to learn from this committee’s report, otherwise we will be in danger of constitutional turmoil. I think there are real difficulties and real dangers that people will turn off from politics even further. We have seen an alarming situation develop in some European countries recently where being an elected politician disqualifies you from being part of the Government. That is because of a lack of trust between politicians and the electorate. I think that the Government need to look at this report more carefully. I noted how polite my noble friend was in her description. I was going to say that the ministerial response was complacency with a touch of arrogance, but I hope there is still time, and I urge Ministers not to put this report on the shelf but to be aware of the problems of unintended consequences and the potential turmoil of all the changes being talked about at the present time.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
I begin by expressing my admiration for the report of the Constitution Committee. I believe that, in quite a short compass, it defines many of the current problems of our legislative process for dealing with constitutional issues and suggests a system that I think has a great deal of merit. I really hope that the Government will reconsider because, to put it as kindly as I can, I regard their response to this committee’s report as deeply disappointing.
In the past, I, with Robin Cook, engaged in a process of consultation with parties, government and the public about how to implement constitutional reform, and what I drew from that experience was the importance of proper deliberation and of seeking agreement across as broad a spectrum of politics as possible. The committee was right to say that constitutional reform could not possibly be based on consensus, but the widest agreement is very desirable. I thought that the Government’s suggestion in their response that legislation for constitutional reform is no different from other legislation was misconceived. In the first place, it is not a measure of relative importance in the eyes of the public that distinguishes, say, the health Bill currently before Parliament from a Bill to determine how frequently parliamentary boundaries will be changed. Different people will have very different views about that. It is important to recognise that public trust in our democracy depends upon our constitutional arrangements, and we should not take them as a lesser matter. When countries are suffering economic difficulties—and there are very acute difficulties at the moment—the tendency is not to feel confidence in the political system that has brought them to that place. It is very important that people have confidence in the decision-making process, the checks and balances, how leaders emerge, how they represent the public and how they can be got at by the public. Consequently, I very much agreed with the general evidence given by Professor Sir Jeffrey Jowell to the committee that,
“the constitution provides the rules of the game, the framework for all official decisions. If these decisions are to be accepted as legitimate, even though you may not agree with them, then the framework of decision-making must command respect and general acquiescence”.
The process that has been described by the committee is one that would make it more likely that acquiescence and respect are obtained for these measures of constitutional change.
I would contrast the measures that were introduced at the beginning of the Labour Government in 1997—including freedom of information; an initial step towards reform of this House; devolution—with the measures that were brought before Parliament at the very end of the last Labour Government, which had not been subject, with the exception of the Civil Service proposals, to any kind of extensive reform and were causing quite a considerable degree of difference between different groups which are interested in the subject.
It does appear to me that the committee has given us serious suggestions as to how the prelegislative process should be conducted. All the steps—seven steps are recommended in this process, including a post-legislative review—are indispensable if we are to evoke the trust of the public. I am concerned that this short and dismissive response will confine this report to the archives. I do not believe that that would be a satisfactory outcome. I hope that the Constitution Committee will consider whether some of these matters might be put, with the agreement of the House, to the various committees that consider procedure, including the Liaison Committee. The incoherence of our constitutional reform is beginning to become not just a sign of flexibility, but something that baffles the public; it does not operate to bring about more sensible changes in the way we reach our governmental decisions.
I hope that this will not be end of the debate and that there will be a systematic series of suggestions put forward for the House to deliberate upon.
Lord Crickhowell
My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to our excellent chairman and to our very able legal advisers. Almost every week the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, examines a Bill which is about to have its Second Reading in the House of Lords. All too often, it is not a happy experience. Our job is to draw to the attention of the House matters of constitutional importance. Again and again, we find the important and frequently repeated recommendations of the committee made in past reports, and similar recommendations made by committees of the House of Commons about such matters as the use of Henry VIII clauses, have been ignored.
All too often, it is also apparent that, quite apart from the constitutional issues, the legislation has been badly drafted or brought forward in a form likely to ensure that its progress will be disruptive and time-consuming. I used to serve on the legislation committee of the Cabinet chaired by Lord Whitelaw. He would never have allowed much of this badly prepared legislation to go forward and I am surprised that the Government's business managers are not equally firm. It would save them much trouble. Unfortunately, the shortcomings have been particularly apparent in some of the most important constitutional Bills, of which the Public Bodies Bill was a particularly bad example.
Against that background, I found the Government's response to our report so disappointing, unlike my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry, who I felt for a moment was being over-influenced by his previous experience as government Chief Whip. Ministers in a new Administration, many without previous ministerial experience and anxious to proceed with measures that they considered important, may perhaps be forgiven for initial mistakes, even if mistakes caused the Government serious legislative difficulties, but I would have hoped that they would have learnt lessons and been anxious to avoid repeating their misjudgments.
In their response to the committee’s report, the Government start by attempting to undermine our main conclusions by a serious misrepresentation of its contents. The introduction section of the response states,
“The Government notes that the Committee does not offer a definition of ‘constitutional’”.
Yet describing current practice on the very next page we are told that:
“It is recognised practice for government bills of ‘first-class’ constitutional importance to be committed to a Committee of the Whole House in the House of Commons”.
Definition then clearly is possible in such a manner as to be the basis for recognised practice.
In our report, after addressing in paragraph 10 the difficulties of definition and quoting from the definition offered in the committee’s first report of 10 years ago, which has provided the solid foundation for our work ever since, we offered pretty clear guidance including a list provided by Sir John Baker which,
“provides, in our view, a useful guide to the principal measures which would fall under the rubric of significant constitutional change”.
We suggested that the desire to act quickly as a new Government is not an adequate justification for bypassing a proper constitutional process. The Government's response is that the proper constitutional process is the legislative process and that there was a genuine need for early action. But a great deal of evidence that we received as a committee—and we base our reports on evidence received—showed just why the normal legislative process is not adequate for important constitutional measures. The whole purpose of our proposals was to place some constraints on any Government introducing significant changes, particularly if they are doing so in a hurry.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, observed, there is at present very little to restrain a Government with a substantial majority in the House of Commons. In the case of the measures introduced so urgently by the present Government, they were not underwritten by manifesto commitments endorsed by the verdict of the electorate; they were the outcome of the deal cobbled together over the few days needed to create the coalition. In such a situation, a Government are fully entitled to come forward with measures, but the requirement for proper process to be followed is particularly important. As part of that process, the recommendation in paragraph 9 of our report about ministerial statements to accompany a Bill on its introduction into each House is of fundamental importance. I welcome the fact that the Government will consider whether to accept the principle of that recommendation, together with a similar recommendation made by the Leader of the House on working practice. However, I must say that the Explanatory Notes that accompany a Bill are not an adequate substitute and will not have the effect that we are seeking.
The Deputy Prime Minister in evidence to the committee quoted in paragraph 54 gave cogent reasons for the Government placing an emphasis on,
“greater accountability in the manner in which we conduct ourselves and the way in which politics is conducted, greater legitimacy in the political institutions that seek to represent people; and breaking up excessive concentrations of power and secrecy”.
It is curious in light of that statement that considering the way in which the Cabinet committee system works when dealing with important constitutional change, we are told that the process by which such agreements are reached,
“is a matter for the Government, not for Parliament”.
After a period during which the Cabinet committee system that I knew in government largely lapsed, and during which, to take one example, the Prime Minister set out to abolish the historic office of Lord Chancellor without Cabinet discussion; and when we now have the proper conduct of business set out in the Cabinet manual, it is not just a matter for the Government. Parliament has a very legitimate interest, particularly in the case of constitutional legislation.
The Government say that the fact that a Bill could be considered constitutional in nature does not of itself mean that it should be a priority for pre-legislative scrutiny. I say that it should indeed be a priority, but that if there are justifiable reasons for not undertaking such scrutiny, that needs to be explained and justified.
Under the heading “The role of the Constitution Committee”, in paragraph 108, for very good reasons, we recommended that when introducing a Bill for significant constitutional change into the House of Lords, there should be a minimum of three weekends between First and Second Reading. The Government reject our recommendation, completely ignoring the important role of the Constitution Committee and its ability to perform effectively the duties that it has been given by the House. If the committee’s advisers are expected to give Bills proper scrutiny and the committee is to carry out its work within an interval of two weeks, not three, surely the Government should be capable of responding between the Second Reading and the beginning of the Committee stage. The two months they demand and often take at present is far too long.
The final conclusion of the response seems to me negative, superficial and inadequate, like so much of the work done by the present Administration in the preparation of their legislative programme. Constitutional change is far too important in its consequences to everyone for Parliament to allow it to be hurried through on the whim of Ministers and without proper consideration and procedural rules. I would add as a supporter of this Government that it would be enormously to their advantage if Ministers were to try to learn from experience and past mistakes, and to consider with much greater care than they have done so far the recommendations of important parliamentary committees and the advice of their friends about the better handling of parliamentary business generally.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I agree with almost everything that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has said. I follow other noble Lords in welcoming this report. Once again, this committee has performed an invaluable service by producing a report that is thorough, wise and timely, too, in view of the energetic way in which this Government have been pursuing constitutional reform, though not always fruitfully. I share the hope expressed by other noble Lords today that the Government will rethink their response. I speak as someone who was a Minister in the last Government responsible for constitutional reform. The Government are in grave danger of repeating the mistakes that we made in government.
In light of the general welcome given to this report and to all the committee’s reports, I hope that it will not be considered sacrilegious if I spend a few minutes taking issue with it. I want to take issue with only a limited section of the report, but it is precisely because it is so limited that I take issue. Only six paragraphs out of 105 in the report are devoted to public engagement. The committee rightly stresses the importance of process in constitutional change, but one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, that it is so important, is that proper process is most likely to secure the public consent to change that in turn is most likely to ensure that it endures. That is crucial with constitutional change. Surely in the light of this, the issue of public engagement deserves a little more scrutiny than the 6 per cent of this report that is devoted to it. The committee spends rather longer on the question of consultation, although its focus seems to be primarily on the established institutions of power, primarily in Westminster rather than the general public. It offers sensible and balanced views, in my view, on Green Papers and White Papers and prelegislative scrutiny, but is more or less silent on how consultation with the public should be carried out more widely, with whom exactly and for how long, and how that should influence public policy, and where such consultation fits in our system of representative democracy. Yet these are all crucial questions, in my view. It is not as if there are no other models available for the committee to scrutinise, but it mentions only one—from Canada—and that is almost in passing.
There is an uncharacteristic lack of rigour in the perfunctory conclusion that the committee reaches that,
“no one model … should be adopted for all proposed changes. Nor is public engagement at this stage of the process always a necessary requirement. However, if not undertaken, the government should be able to justify their decision not to conduct a public engagement exercise”.
It would have been helpful to future Governments embarking on constitutional change if the committee could have given a few more reasons for this conclusion. It would have been even more helpful if they had attempted to explore different models and when it might be appropriate to use them.
Of course, it is difficult to reach definitive conclusions about the best mechanisms, and I agree with what my noble friend Lady Jay rightly said on this. As she also pointed out, there is a risk of public engagement degenerating into little more than a box-ticking exercise. But those difficulties and risks should not be used as an excuse for not exploring further this important issue. For more than a decade, every Minister bringing forward constitutional legislation—and I was one among many—has remarked on the state of our democracy. My noble friend Lady Taylor made some very important points about this today. There has been a well documented decline of trust in politicians, increasing disengagement from the formal democratic process, with disadvantaged groups and younger people increasingly unlikely to vote at elections. We have seen the weakening of old, collectivist structures and historic social identities and the rise of a professional political class. It has all served to undermine engagement with the party politics on which our system of representative democracy depends. How to re-engage the public in democratic politics is a huge challenge facing everyone, both Houses of Parliament. Nowhere is that more important than in the process of constitutional change that addresses the wiring of our democracy, which is why, as other noble Lords have pointed out, it is not like other legislation.
As my noble friend Lady Jay pointed out, it is not easy to see how best to do this without compromising our system of representative democracy, which we should continue to cherish. The difficulties can be seen, for example, in the entanglements that the other place is getting itself into in dealing with petitions. Representative democracy is precious, and we should never cease reminding ourselves if that, in the current climate, because it allows for the fairest distribution of power among all citizens, offers space for scrutiny and deliberation on complex issues and does so continually as such issues arise, which makes for better policy. It fosters the articulation of the needs and aspirations of the inarticulate and protects the interests of minorities, all of which are hallmarks of a decent and civilised society. Representative democracy should not be replaced or threatened, but that does not mean that it cannot be adapted to new circumstances.
Referendums can have their place in this. The arguments for and against their use have been well set out in an excellent previous report by this committee, but referendums are not the only way of increasing democratic engagement. As I have said, I would have hoped that the committee would have spent a bit more time exploring this issue in its report. It had a starting point in a policy paper called A National Framework for Greater Citizen Engagement, which was published over two years ago by the then Government and which explored the use of mechanisms such as citizens summits as well as referendums. That paper set out proposals for when national policy formulation could benefit from greater public participation and, in the view of that paper, those circumstances included significant constitutional change.
I have set out previously my view that any new mechanisms to re-engage people with democratic processes and improve policy formulation will succeed only if they fulfil five conditions. Briefly, they are: first, they must register with the public, which means that they must be regular and pervasive; secondly, they must be credible and people must believe that they matter— I will cease there.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is acting as Teller, we will resume when he comes back.
Lord Wills
My Lords, before more important things interrupted, I was just reaching my conclusion. I hope that the Committee will look at ways to engage the public on this very important issue. I set out, as a starting point, five crucial criteria which, in my view, any new mechanism for engaging with the public must fulfil.
First, the mechanisms must register with the public. In other words, they must be regular and pervasive. Secondly, the mechanisms must be credible. People have got to believe that they matter and are not a box-ticking exercise. They should be open and transparent; participants must be aware in advance of the status of the consultation and what it can achieve; there must be a shared understanding of when and how these mechanisms will be used—the committee is absolutely right to have drawn attention to that in this report; and government must not engage consultation just for the sake of it, with no discernible outcome.
Thirdly, engagement mechanisms must be systemic; otherwise people could all too easily regard them as a version of a tactical device. Deliberative assemblies such as citizens’ senates should represent, in my view, a permanent change to the process of policy development. Fourthly, they should be as representative and accessible as possible, involving a broad spread of the population, not just the usual suspects. Finally, such new mechanisms must also, and always, be consistent with the primacy of representative democracy. They should never replace parliamentary consideration of issues. They should always feed into them.
These propositions are just one starting point for what I hope will be a new and characteristically magisterial report by this committee on how best to engage the public in the process of constitutional change. The issue deserves nothing less than such a report to follow the one in front of us today—a report which, despite my criticisms, has made an important contribution to the debate over the future of our constitution, for which we all owe the committee our thanks.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, as a relatively new member of this Select Committee, I found it to be an interesting inquiry. We produced a useful report and I greatly admire the skill with which the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, steered us through our deliberations. For some people, the report would make entertaining reading about some of the key features of our uncodified constitution—of which some, perhaps, are unaware. The report highlights what some would consider to be significant flaws in our constitution. The committee itself did not favour that which I have always favoured: a written constitution. When I asked the Deputy Prime Minister giving evidence to the committee about this long-standing Liberal Democrat policy, he made it plain that the coalition Government have no intention of introducing one. One of the many benefits of a written constitution would be that it would contain within it a prescribed mechanism for constitutional change. I therefore listened to members of the committee and found it somewhat ironic that so many were genuinely keen to see significant procedures followed if there was to be any constitutional change, but not keen to see what the constitution actually is, or how to change it, written down in a codified manner.
The report elucidates what I think is a key problem with our constitutional arrangements at paragraph 23, stating:
“Aside from the limited power of the House of Lords under the Parliament Acts to delay or reject legislation, there is no formal system of checks and balances by which the integrity of the UK constitution can be safeguarded and protected. Thus there is little to constrain the ability of a government which commands a majority in the House of Commons to get its way”.
That is the fundamental problem with which we were concerned in this inquiry. Attention was drawn to this problem by the astute political commentator Andrew Rawnsley, in Servants of the People, his study of Labour’s first term after 1997. In that book he said:
“Within his own universe, no democratic leader is potentially more powerful than a British Prime Minister with a reliable parliamentary majority and an obedient Cabinet”.
On re-reading our committee’s report, I felt even more strongly than I did at the time that its central recommendation—that a clear process be followed when constitutional change is proposed—would have a much more limited effect on executive power than proper, codified constitutional arrangements would. However, short of such a constitution, it is welcome that a written ministerial statement of this kind should be proposed.
In the mean time, I will of course continue to argue for more far-reaching changes than such a statement to address the problems of excessive power that the committee outlined in paragraph 23. First, I would still argue that the most effective curb on excessive executive power is for the Executive not to have a majority, as is the case in the House of Lords and as would normally be the case if we had a more representative system for elections to the House of Commons. Secondly, I would point out that the introduction of a stronger check and balance on the dominance of the Executive would come from a democratic second Chamber, which would be emboldened more regularly to say no to the Executive.
At the outset of our deliberations on all these issues, the committee benefited greatly from the membership of some of the former Ministers responsible for a very good period of constitutional change—or constitutional reform as you may wish to define it—between 1997 and 1999. As my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart said earlier, this period’s success could be demonstrated by the way in which we were able, relatively rapidly, to reach agreement through both Houses of Parliament on devolution to Scotland and Wales, the introduction of proportional representation for the European elections, freedom of information legislation and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. However, the basis of achieving such rapid progress in the first two years of a Government was that two parties were able to co-operate in opposition over a significant period, and with independent academic expertise advising us.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart and say how much we miss the late Robin Cook. Between the two of them, they successfully chaired that committee in the autumn of 1996 and early 1997. I was privileged to be its joint secretary and it did a great deal of good in advancing the process of constitutional change.
The committee also had a concern, set out in paragraphs 27 to 29, about the lack of an overarching programme of reform with coherent values running through it. The committee was generally more critical of the first year or two of this Government than it was of that period in 1997 and 1998. I share the committee’s concern about some of the process of constitutional change since the general election and was happy to endorse the report’s criticism. However, I also fear that in some senses there could have been more of a public backlash against a very overarching programme. The problem is that if you had a more clearly explained overarching programme, which belonged simply to one party, some people might consider it to be an overreaching programme. If a Government then tried to act more rapidly than has perhaps been the case—in a big-bang, too-big-too-fast way—there would be public opposition to such a programme of change. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about public engagement but, following his remarks, a safeguard against any one party in a future Government making changes too rapidly and in an ill thought-out way would be to have more consistent public engagement.
Reformers of the constitution have long talked about different forms of constitutional convention that could be established, involving different parts of civic society—perhaps a cross-section of Parliament and randomly selected members of the public. Indeed, the Scottish Constitutional Convention gave us a very good model of how different parties, people not involved with parties at all, the church and religious organisations et cetera could get involved in suggesting a way forward so that, when a Government are minded to act, there is a blueprint for how to proceed. If we are to have an overarching programme, it may well be that such a convention would have to be its genesis to prevent the same sort of controversy attaching to it as has perhaps been attached to the opening years of this Government’s constitutional reform programme.
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the committee but, in addition, as its first chair. In that capacity, I was responsible for the committee’s fourth report of 2001-02, entitled Changing the Constitution: the Process of Constitutional Change.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has detailed the committee's report and I do not propose to repeat what she has said. Like others, I shall focus on the Government's response. If the response had been submitted by a student, I would have failed it. It is built on a false premise and appears to have been written by someone who has not read the report, nor for that matter read the committee’s earlier report.
The constitution creates the framework within which we are governed. As such, it stands above, rather than alongside, public policy that is enacted within the process created by it. It should be recognised as creating the framework within which government governs rather than as a tool of government. The point was well made in evidence to the committee by Sir John Baker, professor of law at Cambridge University, who wrote:
“One of my main concerns is that it seems to have become assumed over the last few years that constitutional change is a never-ending continuous process, and even more alarmingly that it is a process which (for want of any other system) belongs to the government of the day to manage. This has never been the case in the past, and it is not the case in any other civilised country which comes to mind … A constitution should be thought about as a whole, it should command general support, and it should be more or less fixed, with the possibility of alteration only rarely and by special procedures”.
The Government’s response fails completely to grasp the position of the constitution as being above government, but rather views measures designed to change our constitution as being on a par with other legislation. The legislative process may be the same for every Act—that is the starting point of the response—but to state that is to miss completely the significance and indeed status of the constitution.
Indeed, the Government’s response marks something of a reversal of the position taken by the previous Government. That Government had no intellectually coherent approach to constitutional change—a point I argued frequently—and, as we contended in our report in 2002, they needed to develop not only a culture of constitutional appreciation but also a more integrated approach to change. However, having said that, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, as Lord Chancellor, recognised the significance of legislation affecting our constitutional arrangements. This he demonstrated in a clear flowchart that he submitted to the Constitution Committee as part of its initial inquiry. The Government’s response to this report appears to mark a step back even from that.
Paragraph 2 of the Government's response states that,
“constitutional change is no different from any other public policy”.
This takes us beyond process to substance and reflects the failure to understand the unique position of the constitution. Measures designed to change the basic framework of our constitution are of a qualitatively different kind from ordinary legislation. It is imperative that the Government grasp this essential point.
The response goes on—my noble friend Lord Crickhowell has already quoted this—to assert:
“The Government notes that the Committee does not offer a definition of ‘constitutional’”.
Yes, it does. We provide, as we did in our very first report in 2001, a working definition of a constitution—it is in paragraph 10 of the present report—and we go on, at paragraph 11, to identify what constitutes significant “constitutional” legislation.
At paragraph 20, the Government’s response takes the committee's observation that there is no watertight definition of significant constitutional legislation as a reason for their reluctance to see special processes for handling such legislation. That does not follow at all. There may not be a precise dividing line, but it is usually fairly clear from the evidence presented to the committee what is and what is not significant constitutional legislation. The very fact that one can discern the difference underpins the very existence of the Constitution Committee. The committee adopts the two Ps test in assessing legislation—does it affect a principal part of the constitution and does it raise an issue of principle which has not given rise to difficulties?
Indeed, the Government must have their own test for deciding what is constitutionally significant in order to fulfil their statutory responsibilities. Section 3 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 prohibits Ministers from making a provision removing or reducing regulatory burdens unless the provision,
“is not of constitutional significance”.
Perhaps my noble friend in reply can tell us what definition the Government employ in determining what is constitutionally significant and how that relates to the Government's response.
For reasons of time, I will not go into detail on the remaining paragraphs of the Government's response. In any event, I do not need to, because what follows derives from the unforgivable failure to grasp the overarching position of the constitution and the consequences for the process of lawmaking that is derived from that status. I suggest that my noble friend considers withdrawing the response and producing a considered reply that is actually grounded in an understanding of our constitutional arrangements.
Lord Desai
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. I welcome the report so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington.
I start with what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill 2006. I recall that when the Bill was before your Lordships' House, it introduced a schedule of constitutionally significant Acts by way of saying that these are the Acts that shall not be amended lightly. I have always thought that that was a good device. The committee has difficulty in saying what the content of our constitution is. I offer Members of this Committee the following mental experiment. Suppose a country wanted to join the United Kingdom. What is the acquis britannique that it would have to abide by? That is in the constitution.
Suppose that Ireland, for obvious reasons, wanted to come back into the United Kingdom. What would we say that Ireland had to abide by? What would be the corpus of legislation? That is in the constitution. It is not unwritten at all. It is written down and available. The only sense that it is unwritten is that it is easy to amend.
We are now engaged in an exercise that says an unwritten constitution may be easy to amend. We may have a Crown in Parliament as sovereign and by that we now mean the House of Commons is sovereign and the Executive are even more sovereign than before. So it would be very easy for the Executive to do whatever they like. How can we introduce speed breakers in certain pieces of legislation to stop the Executive from getting away with whatever they get away with?
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has already referred to this great experiment in which my Government, because it could not sack the Lord Chancellor, tried to abolish the office itself in the course of an afternoon. Not only did they not consult anybody but nobody told the Government that it could not be done without proper legislation. I remember being in the Chamber and the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, was beside himself with rage at what had happened. He had the House adjourned and insisted that the Leader of the House come to explain what had happened. Of course, the Government had to find a new pair of tights to fit my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer because they did not realise that if he had not presided over the next day’s proceedings the House of Lords would not have been able to function.
This is the degree to which the Executive have got so above themselves—the executives of all parties. They do not even bother to find out what the constitution is and whether it can be amended. We have to welcome this report because it says you can and should make a distinction between legislation that is of constitutional significance and that which is not. Although none of this is watertight—that is the nature of the case—it is still a distinction worth making for two reasons. First, let us be quite sure that there is a corpus of legislation that should not lightly be amended, and secondly, if you are going to introduce something new, you want to know whether it is going to be of constitutional significance. Right now, we have not got a watertight criterion for judging a priori before a Bill arrives so that we can say to the Government that we consider it to be of constitutional significance. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was an interesting example. It is probably one of the most profound changes we have made to the way the House of Commons is elected, but it was not thought to be a constitutional Bill. Obviously, the Government care only about timetabling legislation in the House of Commons and very little else, so they are reluctant to call a Bill a constitutional Bill because the Committee stage would have to be taken on the Floor of the House of Commons, and that is expensive in terms of time. However, that should not be the only reason why Governments decide that things are not of constitutional significance. The PVSC Bill was a very important Bill, and in the House of Lords we tried, much to the annoyance of the Government, to prolong the discussion through various amendments, and I think we were right to do so. It was a pity that it was not given the importance it should have been given. That is definitely worth saying.
The Government might think of having a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, perhaps a Joint Select Committee on the constitution, for Bills that they think are of constitutional significance or of having a standing committee that receives all Bills. If the committee declares beforehand that it thinks a Bill is of constitutional significance, it is up to the Executive to give cogent reasons why they disagree with the committee and then face the music. I think that sooner or later we will need a much more organised system for making constitutional change than we have at present.
Finally, I am looking forward to a reformed House of Lords. If the House of Lords is elected, that will be another speed break on the Executive, whatever majority they have in the House of Commons. I hope that the House of Lords increases its legitimacy and puts a stop to the way Executives carry on. It is about time we had properly behaved Executives in this country.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, this is a most interesting report and the debate has lived up to its billing as one to watch, but let me start with a note of regret that the committee considered naming its inquiry “The Process of Constitutional Reform” and then, overcautiously in my view, abandoned the noun “reform” for the noun “change”. It says that “reform” was somehow inappropriate as it implied a subjective position—to change things for the better—and therefore it stuck to more neutral language, “change” being merely to make or become different. This is far too timid an aspiration for a committee of such distinction and influence, and my vote would certainly have been for reform.
On the substance of the report, there is a desire to place some constraints on the flexibility of the constitutional arrangements currently available. The danger of partisanship, whereby the Government of the day may wish to change constitutional aspects to their own advantage, is recognised, and the report recommends, rightly in my view, that constitutional legislation needs to be treated differently from other public policy. I agree wholeheartedly that there should be no surprises in the introduction of constitutional legislation, but this does not automatically take me down the committee’s preferred route of pre-legislative scrutiny as norm. I shall take an example from recent practice to illustrate my point.
On the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, it was very well known that both parties in the coalition considered the size of the Commons to be too large and had said so in their election manifestos—in the case of the Liberal Democrats, in several election manifestos. The public were aware of these positions, so it was not entirely unexpected as a proposal. Moreover, if it were to be implemented for the next election, its timescale was tight due to the re-drawing of boundaries, hence not allowing for pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was unexpected in so far as it had not been a longstanding Conservative ambition to fix parliamentary terms, as had been the case for my party. However, the exigencies of coalition government led to a situation whereby, to provide certainty in a more fluid situation than previously experienced, the Government decided to bring in this legislation.
Now, ideally, a Government moving to this kind of change—less unusual in reality than we might think, as several Governments in recent history have gone to a full five years—should have gone through consultation with a Green Paper, a White Paper, a draft Bill and then the actual Bill. The process would undoubtedly have taken at least an additional year and, in my view, as this was a political decision, was better settled sooner to lend predictability to public policy.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I note that what I am saying is controversial. If noble Lords want to intervene, I wonder whether they might do so and I would be prepared to deal with that.
Lord Norton of Louth
It was indeed political and there was no constitutional reason for it to be introduced. It would be quite sufficient for the Prime Minister to say that he would not advise the Sovereign to dissolve until May 2015. You only need the Bill if you do not trust the Prime Minister.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
That is a well rehearsed point, I know, from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. My rebuttal to him at the time that we had this discussion in Committee was that all public policy can be construed as political; we nevertheless go through a process of giving it substance through law and deliberation prior to it becoming law. That was why it was quite right for it to go through Parliament. There is a philosophical imperative in respect of this public policy measure not just to have it for a single Parliament but to have it as good practice enshrined as a constitutional convention. That was the basis on which we introduced it.
Lord Wills
I could not resist the noble Baroness’s invitation to intervene on her. I want to make two points. First, on the point of the parliamentary Bill and the boundaries, it is of course quite right that both partners in the coalition had expressed their intention to reduce the size of the House of Commons. However, they had very different numbers, which have crucial implications for the outcome. Therefore, it is completely proper, as the committee said, that this should have been open to all sorts of prelegislative scrutiny. Secondly, the point the noble Baroness made about the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill proves the point that the committee was arguing: that Bill was precisely in the interests of the Executive, and it is the need to fetter the Executive that a lot of the measures put forward by this report are aimed at.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
If the noble Lord were to read what the report says on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, he will see that there were contested opinions as to whether it amounted to better governance or merely the Executive overriding to their advantage.
The important examples of the need for proper constitutional process do not necessarily lie in this Parliament but in previous Parliaments; for example, the change to the role of the Lord Chancellor in 2008—noble Lords have referred to it already—or, as the committee mentions, the handling of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill in the closing stages of the previous Parliament, which ran a full five-year term, and where the previous Government, with eight years of power till 2005, should have introduced their Bills in the early part of the previous Parliament rather than leaving it to the wash-up. The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which had significant implications for habeas corpus, was not subject to prelegislative scrutiny and, in my view, it should have been. There are some Bills that require flexibility and, as long as justifications are provided for deviation from good practice, we should take each Bill as it comes.
Let me turn to public engagement, which is emphasised in the report. It is, of course, right that in constitutional matters, more than in any other area, there should be at least a minimum awareness in the country of what is proposed and, preferably, meaningful consultation on the merits of the proposals. The nub of the problem lies in what threshold we apply. Noble Lords will be aware of the new e-petition system whereby 100,000 votes on a Downing Street petition can trigger a discussion in Parliament on public policy. As we have seen from the anti-European Union debate recently, a mere debate publicises an issue but does not lead to changes and therefore can disappoint. Consultation that leads people to think that they have a say without it being reflected in substance just makes the electorate more cynical. Another factor is the appropriateness of public engagement. The e-petition system calls forth rather esoteric and special interest issues, and I will give the Committee a flavour of them. Recent petitions include: Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits; Fight for BAE Systems Jobs; and Protect Police Pensions. Some of these may be areas where a debate might be sufficient to deal with them, but the people who have signed the petitions would wish the Government to take action. So, yes, there should be public consultation, but it should be meaningful.
Let me go to the most controversial recommendation. I beg the indulgence of the Committee in going on for a minute or two extra since I have lost some time. The report proposes that legislation should be accompanied by a ministerial statement and provides a comprehensive list of what should be covered in that statement. It further asks the Minister to justify why the Government might agree or disagree with the responses given. The Minister would also be required to set out the extent to which rigour was applied in Cabinet committee. It stops short of asking for a justification of Cabinet decisions, but that is not far off. This perhaps goes too far, and the Government’s response—that they will consider these matters further—is the right one. In today's age of spin, we cannot expect that the internal deliberations of policy within government would not be subject to speculation about who said what, when and for what motive. That would not increase confidence in the Government but would, in fact, decrease it. Having read the multitude of diaries that appeared within months of the previous Government's departure, I come from the perspective that those of us outside are better off not knowing how carelessly or, indeed, controversially serious decisions are made. I suspect that there is at least one member of the committee who would rather that his advice to Cabinet had not been the matter of such intense speculation in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
There are several good things in the report, which have been mentioned by noble Lords, on First Reading and Second Reading timescales and so on. I wholeheartedly agree with them. On the whole, the report is excellent, and while I share some disappointment about the Government’s response, I look forward to the summing up by the Minister. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, I look forward to hearing him face the music.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield
My Lords, just over 51 years ago in the other place, the constitutional historian turned politician, Sir Kenneth Pickthorn, declared that,
“procedure is all the Constitution the poor Briton has”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/2/60; col. 70.]
Sir Kenneth would have been wiser to have said “almost all the Constitution the poor Briton has”, but there was none the less a profound truth in his words. Over the ensuing half-century, Pickthorn’s constitutional dictum has been substantially and cumulatively modified by a steady flow of statutes and codes, especially over the past 25 years, yet the value and specialness of this report from your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution is the way it bridges Pickthorn’s time and our own, for it reminds us in a powerful and timely fashion of just how vital good and consistently applied procedure is to the health of our everyday constitutional practices and the methods and timetables we use or should use when fashioning new constitutional instruments for the country.
Such questions, I regret to say, rarely excite the electorate. For most people, the workings of the constitution are far from compelling as a spectator sport when lawyer speaks unto academic and footnotes duel between historians and political scientists, but procedure matters, whatever the political weathermakers that drive such considerations away from the electorate’s immediate preoccupations.
In the 1870s, the best ever observer of our national governing ways, Walter Bagehot, declared that,
“our system, though curious and peculiar, may be worked safely; but if we wish so to work it, we must study it”.
Walter Bagehot was writing there of the money markets in his classic work, Lombard Street. How true it remains for the money markets—but it also happens to apply to the workings of the British constitution.
I particularly welcome the committee’s recommendation that Ministers henceforth should prepare what one might call “constitutional impact statements” whenever Parliament is presented with a measure containing a stiff dose of constitutional change lurking in its clauses. The norm ought to be that such Bills should nestle between prelegislative and post-legislative scrutiny, although I noted what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said about the implicit futility of post-legislative scrutiny when a huge Bill has gone through.
Parliament must be the central player, in all its variable geometries on the Floors and in the committees. It should be its own permanent Royal Commission on the constitution. If Parliament is not to be the thinker about as well as the prime arbiter of constitutional measures, it will suffer from what the great Ernest Bevin called a “poverty of aspiration”.
I am not a written constitution man. Part of the constitutional flexibility that we prize comes from our possessing a Gilbert and Sullivan, wandering minstrel-style constitution, a thing of shreds and patches—a mix of custom and practice, precedent, code and statute. I declare an interest as a historian by profession. I naturally prefer what is known in the trade as a historic constitution. But the force of the report before us today is that it cuts with a historical grain. It also has the lesser, if noteworthy, benefit of not having any public expenditure implications that I can see. Virtue is rarely cost free, and we should seize it, cherish it and implement it when we find it.
There may be a problem—indeed, there is—in determining which measures deserve the appellation of a substantial constitutional Bill. Could they be certified as such, like money Bills, and who would so certify them? Governments cannot be the agents for this, because of the extra parliamentary time involved. There is always a certain meanness of spirit within a Cabinet’s future legislation committee and among the business managers on that front. Might the Select Committees have a role here, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, suggested? But those difficulties are dwarfed by the duty of care that Parliament has when it comes to altering our constitutional practices or designing new ones. The duty of care is especially demanding in the United Kingdom, because of the degree to which our constitution is still unwritten. It has never been better put than by Mr Gladstone when he said that the British constitution,
“presumes more boldly than any other the good sense and good faith of those who work it”.
Notice that verb “work”, again. Far be it from me to sub-edit the grand old man, but he might with benefit have added, “and good procedure, too”.
This report is both Bagehotian and Gladstonian in its philosophy, and I congratulate its framers. I really wish that I could congratulate the Government on their response. I am glad that in their reply to the report they undertook to consider the desirability of a special ministerial statement on the impact of constitutional Bills, but as a whole the coalition’s reply was jaded and underwhelming. It was as if the bumping and grinding of all those huge constitutional Bills that they have sent us has depressed their appetite for still more constitutional change, even of the sensible and procedural kind proposed by the Select Committee. The Government’s response to the report that we have before us was as dreary as it was weary; its mood music was a long, withdrawing sigh. I hope that the Minister will bring a touch of pep and a dash of optimism when he replies to our debate today.
Lord Parekh
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield. I begin by thanking and congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, on the quality of the excellent report and on the wonderful and very articulate way in which she introduced it. I do not want to talk about the details of the report, most of which I welcome. But those of us who are sympathetic to the report find the Government's response deeply disappointing—something which, if submitted by an undergraduate, my good and noble friend Lord Norton would fail. If one looks at the Government’s response very closely, one gets the same feeling: that if this report were submitted by an undergraduate, the Government would fail it. The question to ask is, therefore: why is it that two sets of highly intelligent people disagree so profoundly on a matter of such great importance? Whenever that happens, it is always good to step back and ask oneself the following question: what is the deep disagreement about?
In this case, the deep disagreement is about the nature of the constitution and the constitutional change. The committee takes a particular view of the centrality of the constitution to the life of a political community, and believes that the constitution occupies an autonomous space and is “qualitatively different” from issues relating to policy and ordinary legislation. The Government make the opposite presumption that the constitution, certainly in a country such as ours, is not terribly different from ordinary forms of legislation and policy, and that the division between Bills should be made on the basis not of whether they are constitutional, but rather on how controversial they are and what kind of impact they will have upon society.
As somebody who has spent his life teaching the philosophy of constitutions, I thought I would step back a little and look at the nature of the role that the constitution plays in the life of a society and why, in our country, for the past 200 years there has always been a deep tension between two different views about the nature of the constitution. Those two views are articulated and reflected in the debate in which we are engaged.
The constitution does three things. First, it is obviously concerned with procedures, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said, but not just with them. It is also concerned with fundamental rights and liberties which are not just matters of procedures. The constitution constitutes a community. In other words, it is concerned with the procedures, principles and institutions which make it the kind of community it is and define its political identity. Secondly, these principles and procedures enjoy broad-based consensus and command the allegiance of ordinary citizens. Citizens may disagree deeply about a lot of things, but they are agreed on one thing: “These are the fundamentals to which we are committed, and therefore however much we disagree on partisan lines on other things, this country belongs to us because it is based on principles to which we subscribe”.
Thirdly, these principles and procedures enjoy a privileged status and may not be altered in the same way that other arrangements might be. Their alteration is reflected in some constitutions by requiring a supermajority—in other words, numerical majority is not enough—but that is not necessary. The privileged status of constitutional principles and conventions is recognised in the fact that they should be changed self-consciously, in full recognition of their importance, and after most careful parliamentary scrutiny and public debate. This is very easy to see when a constitution is written, because the constitution is clearly marked off from the rest of society. It occupies an autonomous space of its own; people know when the constitution is being debated and when something else is being debated.
When a constitution is unwritten, such as is the case with ours, there are several dangers. Constitutional changes are not clearly marked off from other changes and there is therefore always a temptation to make changes stealthily and not to bring them out into the open in debate, or to make them unself-consciously. In the same way that we seem to have acquired the empire absent-mindedly, we seem to be doing lots of things absent-mindedly in this country. In other words, in the case of an unwritten constitution, there is always a danger of blurring the most central qualitative distinction between constitutional matters and ordinary matters. Because this distinction is not recognised in an unwritten constitution, it fails to perform the function of a constitution and, therefore, virtually ceases to be a constitution.
At the heart of the unwritten constitution is a paradox. Precisely because it is unwritten, it is in danger of blurring the distinction between constitutional and non-constitutional changes, and therefore of undermining the constitution itself. I suggest that this is what has tended to happen in Britain over the past few years, particularly under the coalition Government: it is not right in principle and it creates practical problems. The Select Committee is absolutely right to highlight this central fact. Once we recognise that, all the changes that it proposes automatically follow, bar the practical consequences of a referendum and other things, with which one might disagree. However, by and large, all the Select Committee’s recommendations are underpinned by this central assumption.
It is precisely this that the Government’s response fails to recognise. They do not see the specificity and the distinctive nature of the constitution. While the Select Committee stresses the vital distinction between constitutionally significant changes and ordinary changes, the Government want to divide legislation according to—I could quote half a dozen phrases here—the scale of social impact, the effect on the daily lives of citizens or whether the changes are controversial and arouse considerable political concern. When the committee says that for constitutional Bills there should be a minimum of three weekends between First and Second Reading, the Government say, “Yes, you can have three weekends but not for constitutional Bills. It all depends on the Bill’s impact, complexity and how controversial it is”. In other words, they both recognise the importance of the recommendations but concentrate on different things.
The same difference is evident at almost every level. When the committee says that post-legislative scrutiny is necessary for constitutional Bills, the Government say, “Yes, but not for constitutional Bills—only for those that have a high social impact or are controversial”. That is the crux. In other words, the Select Committee wants to push our unwritten constitution in the direction of having the status of a properly written constitution. You can have an unwritten constitution but it must have the status of a written constitution. On the other hand, the Government want to move in the opposite direction. They do not want the constitution to have the status and sanctity of a constitution, and they therefore reduce important constitutional considerations to ordinary matters.
I suggest that the difference between the two views is profound. It is not just limited to the Select Committee on the one hand and the Government on the other. It lies right at the heart of contemporary British political discourse and the history of British political tradition over the past 200 years. Therefore, if the Select Committee wants to carry the country with it—I hope it will, since it has certainly carried me with it—it needs to do one very important thing. It needs to explain why the qualitative distinction between constitutional and non-constitutional changes is so crucial; and why, if you blur it, you risk, as the noble Lords, Lord Hennessy and Lord Desai, and others have pointed out, politicising fundamentals of our lives and creating a situation where we may have no solid ground on which different political parties can be united.
I very much hope that the Committee will consider something along these lines. Once we do, the next question becomes easily manageable—namely, what is a constitutional change? Many of us who have thought about this can give half a dozen different answers. In the case of our system, it is not very easy but here the committee is not entirely sure of its ground. It uses all kinds of phrases, such as “constitutional change”, “significant constitutional change”, “less significant” and “more significant”. This is not the appropriate vocabulary when talking about a constitution. Either something is constitutional or it is not. If it is constitutional, it is by definition significant. We need to take the next step and show that a constitutional practice can be defined in a straightforward way.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington for chairing this committee and producing this report and the members of the committee who took part in the study. Normally, that is a formality, but this report is unusual because it is so profound and important. I have listened to the debate and I will not waste the Committee's time by detailed comment on individual contributions, but by my count, nine or 10 of the 12 noble Lords who have spoken have been broadly sympathetic to the report and not sympathetic to the Government’s point of view.
I place myself clearly in the majority. We are sympathetic to the report and note that there are some caveats—the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Rennard, had ways that they would like to develop the report into a procedure—but the clear concern about constitutional change and how it is managed is something that we share. In saying that, we accept the implicit criticism of some of the things that we did during our Administration in the constitutional field.
This House has an important role in our constitution. In terms of the legislative process and scrutiny of the Government of the day, this House is one of the key operational checks and balances on the constitution, but the House of Lords has a further role,
“a proper role in safeguarding the constitution”.
That last point is a quotation from Professor David Feldman, Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge, from the evidence that he gave to the House of Lords Constitution Committee in preparing this excellent report.
Not only do I agree with that view, I suggest that in the content of the report and in putting it forward as a comprehensive package of proposals for an agreed process of constitutional change, this House’s Constitution Committee is precisely carrying out the role of constitutional long-stop in safeguarding the constitution of our country.
Professor Feldman argues for constitutional change not being introduced for partisan reasons. That is a noble aim, but I fear that in the context of modern politics and modern political discourse it is an impractical one. Constitutional change is not high on the list of people's priorities, perhaps especially at times of great economic difficulties. Unlike inflation, jobs, health, crime and education, it is not usually a matter of high public or party-political interest.
However, political parties from time to time seek to change the UK constitution. After a long period of very little constitutional change, when we came in as a Labour Government in 1997—and I thank all noble Lords who referred to this period favourably—we did so with a clear mandate for constitutional change, which we enacted with a programme of constitutional change that Vernon Bogdanor, former professor of government at the University of Oxford, described as a formidable series of measures. That programme included a directly elected Scottish Parliament, a directly elected National Assembly in Wales, a directly elected Assembly in Northern Ireland, directly elected mayors in London and elsewhere, legislation on human rights, freedom of information, the regulation of political parties, reform of the House of Lords and the formation of the Supreme Court—a formidable list indeed. After such a constitutional desert, the country wanted and needed constitutional change, and that is what we as a Labour Government delivered. It was a change led by us as a political party, but it was constitutional change for the whole country.
The current Government are in a very different position. As a coalition formed after a general election and with no specific coalition mandate at all from the electorate, the coalition has tried to proceed with constitutional change very much on a partisan basis. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill earlier this year was a wholly partisan piece of legislation. Labour vigorously opposed it in this House, and we were right to do so.
One part of the Bill on boundary changes was designed to damage the Labour Party, although it is interesting and significant how many Conservative MPs whose seats are threatened by the now published proposed boundary changes are worried and are complaining to their party that, in seeking to hurt Labour, the Act may be a major piece of Tory self-harm. The other part, providing for this year’s referendum on an alternative voting system for the Commons, was again an entirely partisan measure designed to help the other half of the coalition, the Liberal Democrats, for whom a changed voting system had long been a holy grail. A shift to AV would also have greatly benefit benefited them electorally.
Constitutional change brought forward for such partisan reasons may indeed, as that piece of legislation is showing, have unforeseen consequences. However, while the principal purpose of this report is not particularly to limit the partisan nature of some attempts at constitutional reform, it might well have exactly that effect. The principal purpose of the report is to provide an agreed method by which constitutional change is brought about based on the notion that constitutional legislation is indeed, as the report puts it, qualitatively different from other forms of legislation and that the process leading to its introduction should recognise that difference. We on this side of the Committee agree with that view. We are sorry to see that the Government do not, as is indicated by the response to the committee’s report from the Deputy Prime Minister.
That response is a poor piece of work. Essentially, it does no more than say that because no precise definition of constitutional change is offered in the committee’s report, a separate process to deal with constitutional change is inappropriate. The Deputy Prime Minister may not be able to distinguish constitutional measures from other pieces of legislation, but the law certainly can and does. Constitutional law and the study of constitutional law is a long-established and distinguished branch of the law and the legal profession.
AV Dicey, the great constitutional theorist and founding father of constitutional law, in his seminal work on the constitution, An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, defined the term “constitutional law”, which he saw as including,
“all rules which directly or indirectly affect the distribution or the exercise of the sovereign power in the state”.
In defining constitutional law, Dicey managed as long ago as 1885 to do something that, apparently, is beyond the Deputy Prime Minister now. A series of distinguished constitutional lawyers have also done so and the merest glance at the groaning shelves of the constitutional law section of a good legal bookshop show that a good few others have managed it too.
We on these Benches urge the Government to think again on this report and rethink their response. They must come up with something better, even just a little better than this wholly inadequate little shard from the Deputy Prime Minister. That the response from the Government is inadequate is particularly unfortunate because the report it is responding to is particularly good.
These Benches agree that a situation whereby the Government are effectively able to change the constitution at will should be avoided. We agree that the desire of a new Government to act quickly is no justification for bypassing proper constitutional process. We agree that the Government should not seek to pass significant constitutional legislation during the wash-up. We tried it with the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, and this House made it clear that we were wrong, and we accept that.
We agree that a number of weaknesses in our current constitution arise from the fact that the UK has no agreed process for significant constitutional change. We need a clear and consistent process for significant constitutional change. When a government Bill proposing significant constitutional change is introduced into either House of Parliament, the Minister responsible for the Bill should make a Written Ministerial Statement meeting the terms proposed by the Constitution Committee in its report before us today. Governments should depart from this comprehensive approach only in exceptional circumstances and where there are clearly justifiable reasons for doing so.
This is a good report from a highly regarded and well respected committee of your Lordships’ House. Rather than denigrating it, as the Government’s response seeks to do, the Government should instead accept it, adopt it and implement it. Constitutional change is important in Britain, and it is important that we get it right. So far this coalition Government have not got it right. We as a Government did not get all our constitutional change right, we acknowledge that, but as I believe is also acknowledged, we put in place a series of constitutional changes which are important, which will last and which were, in a large part, right.
Putting in place a new process for constitutional change, as this report proposes, is a valuable and helpful notion. I urge the Minister in replying to put aside the Government’s sad little formal response and take the opportunity of responding in kind to the excellent proposals made by the House of Lords Constitution Committee.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government value enormously the work of this Committee in focusing greater attention on the intricacies of our constitutional protections and of the process of constitutional change. We look forward to a continuing dialogue, spilling over, we would hope, into a more informed public debate.
On this occasion, as we have heard, the Committee has found our response disappointing. I am sorry for that. The Government are not persuaded that the recommendations represent an appropriate way of proceeding.
At the heart of our disagreement, as the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, in effect suggested in his speech, is a fundamental difference of view about our current constitutional arrangements in their current unwritten form. As it stands, constitutional legislation has no special status. To provide a special process for deliberating on constitutional legislation, therefore, runs up against the problem of definition, which the committee itself acknowledges, as well as the question of what is significant and not significant.
The Government’s argument, therefore, is that constitutional legislation has to go through an effective, proper, constitutional process. We have parliamentary sovereignty. The legislative process is, therefore, the way to proceed.
I have been sitting here trying to remember what it was that I taught, as a very young university teacher, when I tried to teach the British Constitution. Things have changed a great deal since then, but the question as to what is constitutional has in many ways become a great deal more complicated. I moved on to teach international relations and the European and International dimension is in many ways the most difficult; confusions over British sovereignty and constitutional sovereignty hit us very regularly.
We have had the debate on the EU Bill, which I helped to take through this House—the question of what happens when British sovereignty is infringed. On the other hand, the IMF programme of 1976 fairly clearly infringed British sovereignty. I recall one of the Cross-Benchers some months ago arguing that the placing of British troops under foreign command would be a fundamental invasion of British sovereignty, which would have clear and significant constitutional importance. The Secretary of State for Defence remarked to me the following day that British troops had just been serving under Turkish command in ISAF in Afghanistan and that indeed British troops had first served under foreign command in the First World War. So the question of what we think is of constitutional significance—indeed what we think constitutional sovereignty is as such—is itself deeply contentious.
I got myself into deep trouble two years ago in Jersey for suggesting that the relationship with the Crown Dependencies was a matter of constitutional significance which was open to constitutional change. I was denounced for a week as a French spy and various other things in the Channel Islands press.
The domestic issue of what is constitutional—the relationship between the Executive and the legislature, and between the Government and Parliament—is clearly fundamental, but the question of whether the courts are part of this is something that we rather skirt around. When we said goodbye to the Law Lords, I was fascinated to discover that the move to a Supreme Court had indeed been taken by legislation on a partisan basis by a Gladstonian Government that was in office for only a short time more than a hundred years ago; and that the collapse of that Government and the return of the Conservative Government led to this reform being pushed back for a mere 130 years.
The relationship between central government and local government is not, it seems, a matter of constitutional significance, although we make it so on a regular basis. The relationship between central government and the devolved Administrations has clearly become part of our constitution now. The relationship between the political elite in government and Parliament and the wider public—the disillusioned, even alienated, citizens—is one that, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, rightly pointed out, we all need to take much more into account. The question of the interrelationship between different changes is, again, one that we stumble over. I have heard several people over the past few weeks suggest that a future referendum on the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU might provide a result in which those in England had a clear majority in one direction and those in Scotland had a clear majority in the other. That would absolutely have constitutional significance.
The process of constitutional change cannot be apolitical or consensual. It is essentially political; it defines the rules of politics. The idea of non-partisan constitutional reform, which one or two contributions suggested, seems to me to be a chimera. Alfred Venn Dicey, much cited as a neutral constitutional authority, was also rabidly anti-Irish and wrote pamphlets against home rule. Professor Philip Norton, whom I have long regarded as one of the greatest living authorities on the British constitution after only Professor Peter Hennessy—and therefore as authoritative and neutral—is also the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who has very strong and partisan views on House of Lords reform and a number of other constitutional issues. We cannot criticise government proposals as political; of course constitutional reform is political. The question is: how do we handle them and do we need different procedures?
One of the defining principles of the British constitution is its flexibility and that it is based on parliamentary sovereignty. Therefore, constitutional change is made through legislation. The core of the committee’s recommendations was for a special statement to accompany any constitutional Bill to set out the expected overall impact of the legislation. What consideration had been given to the measure before publication? What public engagement had there been? Had there been formal pre-legislative scrutiny? What post-legislative scrutiny was envisaged? The Government’s response indicated that most of the information suggested for publication is already available in the Explanatory Notes that accompany each Bill on publication. It may be that we need to consider further whether the Explanatory Notes might be accompanied by a written ministerial statement, which would be different in form but perhaps not in substance.
There are a number of other comments that one needs to make. I do not think we would wish to go into the details of internal government deliberations. I can assure noble Lords that the Cabinet committee system works extremely well at the moment, partly because this is a coalition Government and we have to negotiate through Cabinet committees. Some of our discussions are extremely sharp. The Cabinet committee system now works much more fully than it did under the previous Government for obvious reasons.
The additional hurdles—parliamentary or wider—that are suggested, will be the subjects of continuing discussion. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, suggested, these would be part of a major process of constitutional change. The House of Lords itself is perhaps now the largest backstop to ill-considered or overpartisan constitutional reform being pushed through the Commons. But for the Government to spell out exactly what it means by constitutional change would itself be a change in the fundamental constitutional arrangements. When the Public Bodies Bill is quoted as a constitutional Bill, we are exploring what is the outer fringes of what we regard as constitutional.
The process of post-legislative scrutiny is a matter for Parliament and the Government to determine, and I hope that noble Lords would accept that is a useful piece on which the Government should leave post-legislative scrutiny for Parliament to decide.
A number of noble Lords have quoted the Cook-Maclennan model. I remind noble Lords that I was myself a little involved in that, and so was the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, as a neutral adviser on all this. Part of the basis for the Cook-Maclennan discussions was the expectation that Labour might not get an overall majority in 1997, so it was in effect part of a necessary preparation for what might have to be a coalition Government. Perhaps that is something that political parties should think about for the future, but it was on that occasion a preparation for something that did not happen. On this occasion, perhaps none of us prepared for something as fully as we should have done, which we had not expected to happen.
There were particular reasons of urgency underlying the decision to introduce the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill without publishing them first in draft. I hope that I have done my best to explain that. In contrast, the process of House of Lords reform has been one on which we have gone through all the stages of consultation—Green Papers, White Papers, committees—that noble Lords could ask for, and I am not sure that it has necessarily built consensus yet or will ensure easy passage for the Bill when it is published. That is, again, of the nature of constitutional change. Building a consensus for a non-partisan constitutional change is something that academics may hope for but politicians may think is perhaps beyond what is acceptable.
The UK is facing a period of continuing constitutional change, because it is going through a period of significant social and economic change and coming to terms with highly significant changes in its international environment and in the relationship between domestic arrangements and its international obligations and constraints. We will therefore continue to need and value the work of this committee and we look forward to a continuing dialogue with the committee.
Lord Norton of Louth
The Minister referred to facing constitutional change, which rather implies that the Government know what “constitutional” means. As far as I interpret his speech, he seems to be confirming that the Government do not know what a constitution is and that the “two Ps” test, which worked quite well for the Constitution Committee, appears to be beyond the Government.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the question of constitutional change is one that we will continue to argue over, and the definition of what is constitutional and is not constitutional is something that evolves through debate and argument in Parliament as well as in academic seminars. Most of us think that we know what is constitutional when we see it, but sometimes we disagree with each other.
Lord Desai
The Minister describes how exemplary the Government have been about the House of Lords Reform Bill, although they were was in a great hurry to do the other Bills. Would it be right to conclude that the Government will abide by the rules when that does not bother people in the recent past, but that if it was the past they will not call it constitutional?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government, as I hear the Leader of this House say frequently, are strongly committed to the process of House of Lords reform. We will bring a Bill before the House and we look forward to the welcome that it will receive from the House’s resident constitutional experts.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate and I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken for their high-class critique of the Select Committee’s report and their general welcome for our conclusions. I must also thank the Minister who, in his reply, was neither dreary nor weary, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—that was the noble Lord’s description of the Government’s written response—but equally not particularly encouraging. If I look at the two fundamental points that the Select Committee wanted to make in our report, that constitutional legislation was clearly qualitatively different from other legislation and that it should be accompanied by a Written Ministerial Statement, which was in no way to be equated with Explanatory Notes—I think we made that explicit— I would have to say that the Minister was disappointing, in very much the same way as most noble Lords described the written response.
I would not agree with the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, about some of our proposals being over the top. I would describe them more as being practical, very measured and—I think this was the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills—magisterial. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for his development of our comments about public consultation. I think he has suggested a further inquiry for the committee, which was very helpful. I was also particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, with his very distinguished background and record in this area of constitutional change, was so enthusiastic about our proposals. He suggested that there must be ways found for the House to take these proposals forward, perhaps through other methods of the Procedure Committee, et cetera. I look forward to some further work being done and this report not sitting on a dusty shelf. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)
In fact, we should move that the Motion be agreed.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
I apologise. It shows how rusty my procedure is.
EU and Sudan: EUC Report
(13 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Teverson
To move that the Grand Committee do consider the report of the European Union Committee on The EU and Sudan: on the Brink of Change (18th Report, HL Paper 160).
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, speaks, I am told that an earlier person who sat in this chair said that there were 15 speakers signed up for the first debate and nine signed up for the second debate this afternoon. If all contributions, other than those of the openers and the winders, are kept to seven minutes, it should allow the Grand Committee to adjourn at 7.45 pm.
Lord Teverson
I thank the noble Lord for his contribution. I would say to him that of all the committees I have ever chaired, this is one that does not do what it is told the most, but it may be that on this occasion it might actually listen.
The story of South Sudan could, in many ways, be described as the best of fairy tales. We had the independence of Sudan back in 1956 and civil war started almost immediately and lasted up until 1972. Then we had a few years of peace and resolution, followed from 1983 right the way through to 2005 by a second civil war in this very sad, war-torn nation—the largest of the African nations. Yet, with 2 million people having perished and some 5 million having been displaced, and despite all that grief and pain which afflicted that nation during those 40 or so years, we had through the hard work, mostly of the United States, a comprehensive peace agreement. A very plain agenda was set out in 2005 and peace broke out. Most importantly, at the beginning of this year, there was a referendum of the people of South Sudan. Perhaps unexpectedly for those who feel pessimistic about Africa as a continent that in the past has not always been able to deliver democracy, the referendum went ahead very effectively. It was praised for the way in which it was handled and declared, with 98 per cent saying yes to independence. That result was respected by the Sudanese Government in Khartoum. Earlier this year, on 9 July, independence was declared with the blessing of Khartoum and the Sudanese Government—in fact, President al-Bashir was there and was respectfully received. We had in that moment the only instance in Africa of a constitutionally arranged division of a state and of a new state being born. That is quite something when we think about the history of that nation and those peoples.
Already at that time, there were great challenges. One of the things that I remember most about this inquiry, as I am sure will my fellow members of the sub-committee, is taking evidence from what were effectively two ambassadors, the head of mission of South Sudan, yet to be an independent state at that time, and the ambassador of Sudan. I meet them in Peers’ Entrance. They were chums. They were slapping each other’s backs, and it was excellent to see them together. They came up to the committee and there was great bonhomie as they started, but as we asked them questions, there was greater division and disagreement on key issues. I remember, as an example of an issue still to be resolved, the ambassador of Sudan saying to the head of mission of South Sudan, “Well, you’ve had $9.5 billion of oil revenues since the CPA in 2005. What has happened to that money?”. I am afraid that there was little answer. That was one of the problems and hazards mentioned in the report. It was a matter not so much of corruption, although that clearly exists, as of the use and disbursement of public and state funds in South Sudan. As is so often the case where there has been a liberation army, there is an army that still has to be paid and takes up a huge amount of the public exchequer. Security sector reform, therefore, is still a major area of concern.
Demarcation is another. There is no proper demarcation of boundaries between north and South Sudan. There are issues of citizenship. Neither South Sudan nor Sudan will allow dual citizenship of both states, so people have to decide. Once they have decided, there is great pressure for them to migrate back to the state where they have citizenship. That leads to a severe mismatch of skills and job opportunities throughout those two nations. There is a challenge of development. South Sudan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. It has no tarmaced roads outside Juba, its capital, and it has decided even now to move that capital from Juba to a more central location. It has hardly any schools and an illiteracy rate of some 75 per cent.
There is, of course, the continuing problem of oil. The only way that South Sudanese oil—80 per cent of the old country’s oil—can be exported, used and turned into revenue for the Government is through Port Sudan. There has to be an arrangement between the two countries. There was no agreement about the cost of transporting that oil or any such fiscal arrangements. Both countries depend absolutely on that revenue. For South Sudan, it accounts for some 98 per cent of government income.
The other challenge is the province of Abyei. I should explain that under the comprehensive peace agreement, Abyei was not allocated between the two states. How that should happen was to be agreed by the time of independence through consultation with its citizens or by referendum. That did not happen. At around the time of independence, more Sudanese forces occupied Abyei, and there was a very difficult military situation. All those challenges have reached the great situation of a new member state of the world community.
What has happened since then? We have an agreement that Ethiopian troops should come in and be peacekeepers and that the north Sudanese and South Sudanese militias should withdraw. The Ethiopian troops are there; that is the good side. However, neither of the Sudanese nations have withdrawn their own troops. In Sudan itself there are continuing problems in North Kordofan and the Blue Nile province. Unfortunately, there has been no Arab spring in Sudan, and there is little sign of it as yet.
South Sudan, too, suffers from internal violence to do with the unity of the state. There is also a situation with provincial governors, particularly Mr George Athor, one of the generals not appointed to be the governor of a state, who has taken on resistance within South Sudan. Violence in South Sudan is of great importance as well. Oil production in the south has gone down by 25 per cent, and there have been continuing disputes, many difficulties and no prices agreed. Most recently, there have been interruptions of supply. Trade between the two countries has declined in other ways and has sometimes been severed.
One of the other big problems, particularly at the Sudanese level, is a lack of trust in the world community to help deliver the solution that maybe Khartoum was looking for. One thing has not happened for good reasons, as those of us who see the violence, difficulties and human rights record of north Sudan will know. Part of the deal was that Sudan would be let back into the international community and would no longer be listed as a terrorist state by the United States. That has not happened.
However, there has been some good news. There is no war at the moment. The United Nations high-level implementation panel continues to do its good work. The transitional Government of Salva Kiir in South Sudan has some diversity in terms of gender balance and of bringing in members of other tribes. It is not completely dominated by the Dinka. Ironically, because oil reserves in South Sudan are not infinite and plans for pipelines through Uganda or Kenya to the coast are not feasible, the two nations are locked together and, in a way, have to resolve the dispute on oil for them both to survive fiscally. So there is good news out there and there is still, at the moment, world attention.
Those are the challenges within Sudan and South Sudan. I very much welcomed the government response, mainly because it almost completely agreed with our report. It is very difficult to see how we should move forward. We found the response from the European Union high representative more difficult. One of the key areas dealt with the European Union, particularly the External Action Service, having been very slow in setting up a delegation in Juba and in delivering what we would expect the European Union to be able to do. We did not receive a proper response from the high representative on that. We still look forward to it, and I am sure it will come in due course.
I was asked before this debate what I wanted to get out of it. I always saw that what we want to avoid is South Sudan, the world’s newest state, becoming one of its failed states. I want this debate to be a part of that. However, we need a stable north Sudan as well. It also has its challenges; it has lost 50 per cent of its oil revenue. We need stability in north Sudan for this part of the world to succeed. The other thing that I want to come from this debate is for South Sudan not to decline into obscurity and be forgotten as we deal with other issues in the world. If this part of Africa does not succeed and does not manage to turn around and deliver the promises of the comprehensive agreement, the world will come to regret it. What should the EU do? It is quite clear to me. The EU will not be a lead player but it is important in delivering justice, security reform, education and health structures—everything that makes a society work and gives optimism that a society can be successful.
Lastly, it is very important that other players play their full part as well. I should love to see a way for the United States to re-engage in this. We understand that it is very difficult for the US because of the situation with Sudan and the al-Bashir Government. However, the US has real leverage in this area. The other country that has leverage is the customer for that oil: China. China intervened in the disputes over oil when it stopped being delivered. I hope it will use its leverage further with the troika of the UK, the United States and Norway. Both Europe and the United Kingdom should work closely with China to make sure that South Sudan becomes the success that we always hoped it would be. I beg to move.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas
My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has said. I should mention that we are naturally very anxious to publish this report as quickly as possible, before there is any possibility of it being overtaken by events. None the less, we must recognise that a great deal has happened since June, most notably the emergence of South Sudan not only as the newest state in Africa but as the 193rd country recognised by the United Nations.
I submit that the principles in the report remain entirely valid and have been adopted by the High Representative of the European Commission—the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton—and by the Government. The most important principle that we set out, and on which the EU should base its actions, is:
“A priority must be to join with the United Nations, African Union and United States to press the parties to resolve the outstanding disputes”.
There are at least five subjects that can give rise to significant disputes. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has touched on these and I shall deal with each in turn. First, perhaps the most worrying of the potential causes of dispute is the absence as yet of a detailed agreement between north and South Sudan on the future distribution of revenues from oil. That is still the position and within the past few days the BBC reported that South Sudan had accused Khartoum of stealing its oil. It is interesting that China, a major recipient of Sudanese oil, exhorted both countries to resolve their dispute, but so far they have failed to strike a deal. This is far from satisfactory.
Paragraph 64 of the report makes the position very clear. The bulk of the oil of the Sudan lies in the south. Furthermore, while there may be a case in the longer term for the new country of South Sudan to export some of its oil through Uganda and Kenya to the sea, in the immediate future it is extremely likely that South Sudan will export its oil through the pipeline running through north Sudan.
This means that it is extremely important that Governments of both south and the north will have to agree on having transitional arrangements which take into account the possibility that South Sudan may eventually wish to build pipelines from South Sudan to the sea. We are aware that the Norwegians have put forward proposals for transitional arrangements for the sharing of the oil wealth and recommend that the EU should support the Norwegians in the search for a solution which will meet the aspirations of both countries. In recommendation 236, we assert that,
“An agreement on the sharing of future oil revenues is needed urgently”.
Secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, pointed out, another possible flashpoint for disagreement is Abyei, just to the north of South Sudan's border, where the prospect of armed conflict is ever present. We suggested that unauthorised troops should be withdrawn with a view to finding a permanent solution. We floated the idea of having a referendum. We made it clear the EU should be ready to support and help implement a peacekeeping operation, if required.
Thirdly, there are problems with demarcation of the border and in this connection we recommended that the EU should play a role in assisting with border demarcation and finding solutions on border management, which we believe would be of assistance. The EU should be ready to help in providing arrangements which would remove possible sources of dispute.
Fourthly, there is the very vexed question of armed militias and the proliferation of arms. Our proposals include the recommendation that the EU and its member states,
“should take stronger measures than at present to monitor and enforce the EU arms embargo on Sudan”.
In paragraph 199, we mention the threat posed by the Lord's Resistance Army and recommend blocking the financing of this organisation. Also, we have expressed a concern in paragraph 268 that the possible withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the Democratic Republic of Congo could make it difficult to eliminate the presence of the Lord's Resistance Army. This could have a destabilising effect on neighbouring South Sudan. I do, incidentally, note that US troops have just been sent to Uganda to advise that other neighbouring country on how best to deal with the threat from the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Finally, we have welcomed the EU's support for South Sudan in the field of governance. Here we said that,
“Without an effective and independent judiciary free from corruption and based on a stronger legislature, there will be no rule of law in South Sudan”.
The elimination of corruption must be a very important aim and principle if the South Sudan Government are to receive the support they wish to have. Indeed, we have the conviction that there is a potential leadership role for the EU in the justice sector, as stated in paragraph 278.
I can only touch very briefly on the issue of aid, but I will just mention that the EU, in continuing its extensive aid programmes in co-ordination with other donors, can make a considerable difference if it is prepared to invest time, finance and practical resources in South Sudan for the foreseeable future.
To sum up, we welcome very strongly the commitment of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to upgrade the EU office in South Sudan into an EU delegation with a new head of delegation and also plan development support in the areas of justice and the rule of law, education, health, water management, urban planning and food security and rural development. We do very anxiously want to see peaceful relations between north and south.
I would echo what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said. The average life expectancy of men in Sudan is only 58, and 1.5 million people died during the decades of warfare between north and south. I suggest that, while the EU can be of only limited assistance, if all the EU countries combine with a common policy to assist, as has happened, a real difference can and should be made. We wish South Sudan well, whatever the challenges ahead, and hope that the deliberations of the new Government will meet with success. We intend that the EU should play an effective and committed role in helping the people who have endured so very much suffering and upheaval at last to find a framework for peace, security and stability.
Lord Sewel
My Lords, this has all the features of a red-line debate, in which you sit and look at your notes and put a red line through the points made by earlier speakers. In that case, even by the time you get to the third speaker, you are left with a rather short speech. The alternative formulation is that if a point has been made and is a good point, it bears repeating. There is likely to be a number of points that will be repeated over the next three-quarters of an hour or so—or perhaps more.
The report was published in June and we are debating it in December. Normally, a delay of that length would be a matter of regret, if not criticism. In this instance, it has actually created an opportunity, because it has given us five months to see how the new state of South Sudan has emerged and how some of the issues are moving towards resolution or not. It gives the Government the opportunity to give us their assessment of where progress is being made and where it has either not been made or the agenda has slipped back. I very much look forward to hearing the Government’s assessment.
The challenges facing South Sudan are many, and so overwhelming that, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has said, we had a very real fear that what we were seeing was a state almost born to fail—that it would quickly join the growing list of failed states. There must be a real, co-ordinated international effort to try to prevent that happening, but there remains a probability. Our underlying doubt was whether the state of South Sudan had, from its inception, sufficiently developed state institutions to enable the state to operate in anything approaching what one would expect of a properly functioning and effective organisation. At paragraph 263, we observed:
“Their prime need is for administrative capacity building, not least so that they can absorb the assistance which they need from the international community to enable them to fulfil fully the functions of a sovereign state. The EU should use the existing instruments at its disposal to assist in the task of strengthening weak institutions, building an effective police force and judicial and dispute resolution institutions, and addressing powerful ethnic and political grievances and intense competition over land and natural resources”.
That paragraph really sums up the scale of the problem facing the world’s newest state—newest and perhaps most vulnerable.
Another series of fundamental concerns relate to the area of external and internal security. Externally, the threat of destabilisation originating from the north centred around outstanding boundary disputes and failure to reach agreement on future oil revenues. Internally, the threat arises from local armed militias and the horrific activities of the Lord's Resistance Army. It would be useful to know from the Government if they see any glimmer of hope in that area at all.
Internal causes of concern focus around the problem of endemic corruption and especially how it impinges on the distribution and proper use of oil revenues within South Sudan and on the effects that it has on donor confidence. That is of major importance. People are not going to go into South Sudan—NGOs or states—if they think that they are at such a level of corruption that it will basically nullify their efforts.
A further set of internal concerns relate, as has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, to the areas of the rule of law, independent judiciary and human rights. I have to say that sitting on an EU Sub-Committee these concerns are not just limited to African states; there are some that are trying to knock at the door at the EU where the same sort of issue arises. So let us not compartmentalise this and say that it is purely a developing world issue; it is not.
We are an EU Sub-Committee, and throughout our report we make a number of observations on the role and contribution of the EU. In paragraph 250, we observed:
“We are very concerned that the EU has not built up its presence in Juba sufficiently or quickly enough. Given the size of the task ahead this must be acted upon immediately. The EU's performance in South Sudan will be a test for the effectiveness of its new External Action Service. We strongly urge the EU to expedite the administrative procedures for appointing a new Head of Delegation and setting up a fully functioning and expanded office with adequate accommodation”.
Could the Government give us an up-to-date account of where that has reached and what sort of capacity the EU is now able to bring to the problem?
There is another international organisation of perhaps growing importance in this part of Africa, the African Union, which historically has not been an interventionist organisation—and, quite honestly, I think that Africa has suffered from that. In the lead-up to the referendum, it asserted itself and helped to resolve problems. The critical question is whether that has been capable of being sustained and is the African Union now helping to resolve the outstanding problems to which noble Lords have referred. Again, it would be useful if the Government could give us an up-to-date assessment of the situation.
I have drawn attention to the African Union because, although the EU and individual member states of the EU and the United States—and the UN, to an extent—can help through aid and expertise, the problems that South Sudan faces are essentially African problems. That is so not least because how far developments in South Sudan go will have inevitable consequences on its neighbours, inhabiting one of the most sensitive and difficult regions of Africa.
Lord Chidgey
My Lords, I express my congratulations to the committee for the work it has done in preparing this report. I also acknowledge the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, has just made, particularly on the African Union—something that was not particularly well covered in the earlier statements, but which is very important for the future.
I speak in this debate as the vice-chair of the Associate All-Party Parliamentary Group for Sudan—and South Sudan, of course, now. In that guise, I had the opportunity to visit Juba and Khartoum with the group shortly after the referendum and before the independence of South Sudan earlier this year. We quickly discovered a stark, even macabre, contrast between the two. Khartoum is all towering office blocks and shiny five-star hotels, with modern motorways snaking between them, while Juba had some 30 kilometres of surfaced road around a collection of crumbling buildings that served as the city centre. The best hotel in town was easily recognisable as a former army barracks—nevertheless, charging room rates well into the oil state category, with payment required in US dollars in cash.
Juba had no banks. Carrying around plastic bags stuffed with dollars was not for the faint-hearted, given the frequent warnings not to stray into town day or night for fear of being robbed or shot or kidnapped—or all three.
Juba had few paved roads; little in the way of basic services; failing schools, where teachers had not been paid for months; and hospitals that hardly functioned. Added to this mix was the mass inward migration of indigenous southern Sudanese returning from the north by bus and Nile barge at the rate, we believe, of several thousand a day. By the time this exodus from the north is complete, some 2 million southern Sudanese are expected to have come home to the south.
Some six months after our visit, the Government's response to the recommendations in the sub-committee report allows us to compare and contrast the circumstances in Sudan, particularly South Sudan, then and now. In this context, I ask the Minister to respond to further questions arising from some of these key passages—if not during this debate, then perhaps later in writing.
In paragraph 230 in the recommendations, and also referred to in paragraph 257, the Government stress the importance of creating a prosperous economy to the future of Sudan and that there are no trade sanctions on Sudan from the UK or the EU and no legal obstacles to trade. Do the Government agree that the major obstacles to trade are in fact the lack of a credible banking and financial system, and to investment, the endemic corruption throughout the state and business sectors? What interventions is the UK making to address these crucial obstacles, to protect British interests and to create conditions for greater investment confidence?
In response to paragraph 233, the Government rightly acknowledge that proper accounting for oil revenue is a high priority for the Government of South Sudan. Can the Minister provide an updated assessment of progress since independence in July of this year—some while ago now—in improving financial management of public sector finances in South Sudan and reducing loss of funds through corruption?
While the report calls for South Sudan to enhance its accounting ability by building up structures for budgeting expenditure and auditing, this should be seen against the severe capacity shortfall that is a legacy of the historic inadequate education system in the south, a result of which is that some 60 per cent of civil servants have not progressed beyond primary school education and most, if not all, Ministers in the Government have been drawn from the officer corps of the SPLA, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.
In response to paragraphs 250 and 251, the Government have noted that the UK continues to play a leading role in diplomatic presence and interests, with the EU, to maintain a high level of engagement. In February, when we visited, we noted that in Juba most of the western donor countries, together with the EU mission, shared a diplomatic compound which provided secure, effective and efficient accommodation. Could the Minister tell the House what the current and planned arrangements are now?
In response to paragraph 259, the Government recognise the need for humanitarian aid to reach the most vulnerable according to need. Do the Government agree that one of the most vulnerable groups is that of the orphaned or displaced children shipped down from the north by bus or Nile barge, often unaccompanied?
In February, we discovered during our visit dozens of small children, some no more than four years old, who were found wandering in the Juba markets by volunteers who fed and clothed them, and placed them in a one-room playschool funded mainly by ad hoc contributions from expatriates. At night, however, they had to return to the markets. We were told that by the time the girls reached nine or 10, they left to work in the market brothels. There they stayed until their premature death, usually in their early teens. No one seemed to know what happened to the boys.
With the numbers of children being shipped south thought to run into thousands, what intervention are the Government making with the Governments of the south and the north to curb this appalling abuse? While the Government agree with the recommendations in paragraph 263 on the need for capacity-building, can they confirm that in the absence of state capacity the Sudanese community has become more and more dependent on international NGOs to deliver essential services, creating a dependency culture, particularly in the urban areas? What plans do the Government have, with other donor agencies, for tackling this development?
The Government also agree with the recommendations in paragraph 264, calling for support for agricultural investment. The urgency of this can be measured by the huge reduction in land under cultivation in Sudan as a result of some 20 years of civil war. Some donor-supported agriculture projects we visited frankly proved clearly inept or inadequate. In addition, relocating urban dwellers returning from northern Sudan's towns and cities to rural areas in the south, while equipping them with farming tools and settling them on smallholdings with ill-defined land titles, hardly seemed to be a recipe for agricultural progress.
In response to paragraph 266, concerning the high levels of corruption in South Sudan, the Government state that this area is one of DfID's high priorities. What evidence is there that the Government of South Sudan are responding to this programme of support and engagement? After some six months, does the evidence show that corruption is declining or increasing? Finally, on the Government's response to paragraph 273, they note that the EU is currently drafting a joint strategy paper on the effective co-ordination of aid and the priorities of South Sudan. How does this strategy fit with the responsibilities assumed by the troika of nations that witnessed the comprehensive peace agreement: the United States, Norway and the United Kingdom?
Lord Jay of Ewelme
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, last year was a positive year for Sudan and, I would say, a positive year, too, for conflict resolution and peaceful change in Africa. The referendum was held, its result was clear and respected and President al-Bashir's presence in Juba was wise and right. Yet there are huge and unpredictable problems still in Darfur, which I will not say more about this evening, and in the disputed areas of Abyei, south Kordofan and Blue Nile. Abyei is now, I suppose, in a sort of semi-stable limbo but I find the prospects for south Kordofan and Blue Nile pretty worrying. There was a rather chilling remark in the recent EIU report that those conflicts have the potential to become as entrenched and protracted as the Darfur conflict, which is a very worrying thought indeed.
There is a huge responsibility on both the north and South Sudan, and on the African Union, which has been commendably involved in Sudan’s difficulties, as the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, said, to ensure that the descent into conflict is avoided. As others have said, it is hugely important, too, that the issue of oil is resolved. That can be hugely divisive but it can also be a unifying factor in the future of Sudan. If either the north or the south uses oil as a weapon against the other, then both will suffer because both need the revenues. If they work out an agreed formula for sharing it, both will benefit. Let us hope that they do.
I want to focus mostly on the south and I must declare an interest as chairman of the medical NGO Merlin, which has health programmes which I have visited in Juba, Torit and Nimule in South Sudan. The south is shockingly poor. One in eight children dies before the age of five, maternal mortality is one of the highest in the world, and when I was there two years ago—the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, says that it is the same now—there were no paved roads outside Juba and the legacy of civil war is evident, with mines in the roads and fields, people getting injured and killed by those mines and populations disturbed by the legacy of civil war. Yet, with the oil, the south is potentially wealthy. Per capita income in the south is 25 per cent higher than in the north, except that the vast majority of people in the south do not see anything of it. The need to diversify the economy away from oil dependency is huge, as it the need to develop a proper agricultural sector, to start an industrial sector and to build the human capacity necessary for both and to manage and govern a country of some 8 million people. These are huge tasks, and they will require well focused long-term aid from international and national donors, including DfID, which is commendably involved in Sudan. I also echo what others have said about how important and encouraging it is that China is involved in the development of both north and South Sudan. It clearly has a big role to play as part of the international development effort. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that there is good and constructive conflict between China and other major donors, including the UK, in Juba and the south.
Lord Radice
The noble Lord said “conflict”. I think he meant “co-operation”.
Lord Jay of Ewelme
I meant contact.
Aid needs to be well directed and focused on those who need it most. In September this year, the 38 NGOs working on peace-building, development and humanitarian assistance in South Sudan published an excellent paper called, rather cleverly, I thought, Getting it Right from the Start: Priorities for Action in the New Republic of South Sudan. It is good to see NGOs working together like that rather than working against each other. The recommendations in that report make a great deal of sense. I would like to mention three of them.
The first is the need to balance longer-term development assistance with continued support for emergency humanitarian needs because in South Sudan there is no neat continuum from conflict through the need for emergency aid to the need for development aid. For some years, South Sudan will need both emergency aid and development assistance to build capacity and, at the same time, to provide direct emergency help for those who need it most, including those displaced by conflict and those now returning to South Sudan. I hope DfID can take the lead in getting aid administrations to recognise the importance of that. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that too.
Secondly, there is a real need to focus on building capacity in Juba and the different counties across key sectors. That is an absolute precondition for successful longer-term development. Thirdly, there is ensuring that that aid, whether emergency aid or development aid, is provided on time and without interruption, and that has not always been the case in South Sudan. There have been delays, gaps, overlaps and short-termism. It is impossible for the still embryonic South Sudan Administration to govern effectively unless the continuity of aid, including an assurance of long-term aid, is made absolutely clear to them now.
Two million people were killed in Sudan’s 20-year civil war. I believe that the referendum this year and the creation of South Sudan provide a real chance to build a better future. That is not, as all who have spoken tonight have made clear, by any means assured, as conflict in the regions at risk remains a real possibility. I was pessimistic before the referendum about whether it would be accepted by both sides, and I am delighted that I was wrong. The job now is to convert that achievement into longer-term and sustainable growth and development that will benefit all in the south. That will require the constant engagement of the international community, and economic, political development. I hope that the Minister can give an assurance that Her Majesty’s Government and DfID will continue to be closely involved and indeed to take a lead in that.
Lord Trimble
My Lords, in thinking about this debate, I am conscious of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, about the tendency to repetition. As the report and the speeches so far have, understandably, concentrated on South Sudan, I will address a few remarks to Sudan itself.
I was struck by the comment that appears in paragraph 12 of our report from Gill Lusk, giving her description of the Sudanese Government. She said that,
“the Sudanese government was a civilian one, but run by the security services”.
She described their immediate aim as survival. She said that their long-term policy was to establish their version of Islamic rule. Rather than using the term Islamic she might have been more accurate to use the term Islamist, because that gets you into the right context. We must remember that Sudan was the country that Bin Laden went to as a matter of choice until American pressure drove him out. That is partly why the Americans took such an interest in Sudan. We should bear that in mind.
I note also that the International Crisis Group report dated 26 September says:
“The loss of South Sudan has had a profound effect on the NCP, and senior generals led a soft-coup within the party. They have outflanked more pragmatic elements in the NCP who seek a negotiated strategy”.
We can see the effect of that soft coup by looking at what has been happening in the troubled peripheral regions of Sudan. Abyei has been mentioned.
On the point of the publication of our report on 20 June, Presidents al-Bashir and Salva Kiir, from Sudan and South Sudan, signed an agreement in Addis Ababa under which all northern troops would be withdrawn, as would the southern Sudanese, and be replaced by an Ethiopian-led UN interim security force. As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the Ethiopian force is there, but the northern troops have not withdrawn and neither have the southern troops. There is a stand-off taking place and limbo there as well. The hopes that were there on 20 June have disappeared.
Similarly, on 28 June, a framework agreement was entered into, which includes political and security agreement for Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and which was facilitated by Thabo Mbeki and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and signed by the co-deputy NCP chairman and presidential adviser, Nafie Ali Nafie. The generals who had conducted the soft coup objected to this and a few days later President al-Bashir publicly disavowed the agreement. Since then, Kordofan and Blue Nile have descended into considerable violence. In view of the time, I will not go into dealing with the large forces that are there and the atrocities that have been committed, but they are unfortunately familiar with what has gone on.
There have been some encouraging matters. The visit by al-Bashir to South Sudan at the time of independence was encouraging, likewise, the journey in early October by Salva Kiir to Khartoum, where he was received with full ceremony and protocol appropriate to a visiting foreign head of state. Both parties committed themselves to resolving disagreements peacefully through dialogue and to avoid a return to war, but the Economist country report published in Nov 2011 concludes:
“In reality, evidence of progress is scarce and deadlines announced … look certain to be missed”.
Although with an eye to oil production and exports, the report says it is unlikely that either party will drive things to the point of open conflict.
One can see a similar pattern in Darfur. In July, the National Congress Party came to an agreement with one Darfuri faction—it is referred to as the Doha document; the faction was the Liberation and Justice Movement from Darfur. There, problems are on both sides. The larger Justice and Equality Movement was outside the Doha process, although it indicated at one stage a willingness to engage in discussions if the Doha document could be reopened. The Government have refused to do that and there has been no progress.
Latterly, we have seen a degree of coalescence between the Justice and Equality Movement and the SPLM-North, which are the forces active in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, and a link-up with other political groups within Sudan which have the general objective of regime change within Sudan. I would be very interested to know the Government’s assessment of those matters. We keep forgetting the huge size of these countries. The Khartoum Administration probably do not have the logistic capability to project their force to their borders. Consequently, these forces dealing with the borders have the potential to last for a considerable period unless there are interventions and initiatives elsewhere.
I confess to being a little disappointed by the Government’s response on these points. It refers to the Abyei interim agreement and states:
“We, the EU and the rest of the International Community will be monitoring the situation closely to ensure both sides comply with the terms of the agreements”.
Well, neither side has complied with the terms of the agreement. Many months have passed since then. I would be interested to see what the Government are considering doing.
I notice that the Government say in other responses that they will continue to support Thabo Mbeki and the African Union initiative. We may be polite about the African Union, but the reality is that it is not effective. Indeed, we saw in the Libyan situation that some of the things that the African Union does are most unhelpful. Thabo Mbeki may be a former President, but I bear in mind his ineffectiveness with regard to problems in Zimbabwe, which may be a greater indication for the future.
There is in these matters and reports of this nature a certain polite fiction that governs them. They are all notionally addressed to the EU and its involvement, but the truth is that the EU is not a major player in this. The comprehensive peace agreement was produced by the troika, Norway, the United Kingdom and the US, and the major player there was the US. I treasure the comment made in the margins of our meetings at one stage, where someone who shall remain anonymous plaintively inquired, “Why is it that Norway carries more weight in this matter than the EU?” That is just one of the pleasures of our discussions.
Unfortunately, while the comprehensive peace agreement was produced largely by American pressure, that pressure is unlikely to be renewed in the near future because the current President does not believe in exerting it. Speeches will not change the Administration in Khartoum. When people referred to the Administration, I thought, “Now, if I want to think about what they are likely to do, I just have to ask myself, ‘What would Gerry do?’”. That refers to my talks partner in Northern Ireland. I know what he would do in this situation if he was in Khartoum: he would hunker down until attention drifted elsewhere and then return to following his agenda. That agenda is set out by Gill Lusk. We have to take account of that. I cannot see the EU being effective on this; I cannot see the AU being effective on this; but we need to be effective. Concern was expressed earlier in this debate about South Sudan being a failed state. We have to bear in mind that north Sudan is not much better.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, I am an officer of the All-Party Associate Parliamentary Group for Sudan, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the sub-committee for accepting written evidence from the All-Party Group and for welcoming its members during its proceedings. Inevitably, the sub-committee’s report has a considerable focus on the European Union, and I echo some of what the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has just said. I hope that when the Minister replies she will make some reference to the very first action of Salva Kiir’s incoming Government, which was to apply for membership of the Commonwealth. It seems to me that this is an opportunity for the United Kingdom, particularly in the role that we play in the Commonwealth, to build a deep and lasting relationship with the world’s newest nation.
As the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, said, it is in some ways sad when reports are delayed, but there is real topicality and edge to this debate because of events that are going on even while we meet. There was a report in today’s newspaper, which I have shared with the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, that from a launch pad in the town of Kadugli, the towns of Kauda and Alburam and surrounding villages were targeted in the past 24 hours by Iranian rocket missiles fired against civilians. In my remarks, I want to talk about the situation in South Kordofan, Abyei and Blue Nile, as others have done.
It is very unusual for there to be a debate on Sudan in which we will not hear the voice of my noble friend Lady Cox. At present, she is in Westminster Abbey giving one of the readings at a carol service during which a collection is being taken up for her small charity, HART, which does such admirable work in Sudan and in many other parts of the world, so I would like to place on record the reason why she is not here to speak today. I also want to pay tribute to her work in that part of the world, where she has been so many times over the years, and to the work of HART’s Lydia Turner, who has prepared such an excellent briefing in advance of today’s debate.
Previous speakers have referred to the comment in the summary of the sub-committee’s report:
“We assess the risk that the new country of South Sudan will fail as a state as high, even if the international community maintains the current levels of assistance and support”.
There is a danger in making statements of this kind, not least because they can become self-fulfilling prophecies. I also rather disliked the statement because it is what Khartoum has always insisted will happen. I am surprised that at this point in the report’s summary no mention is made of the hostile role of the Republic of Sudan—northern Sudan—whose behaviour is the principal reason why the south is battling against such daunting odds.
We know what constitutes a state that fails, but what name do you give to a state such as north Sudan, whose bombing campaign against the south led, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jay, a few moments ago, to the deaths of 2 million people during the civil war and whose decision in 1983 to impose Sharia law in that religiously diverse nation led to the civil war which ensued? What do you call a state which declared war on its own people in Darfur, seeking the forced Arabisation of African peoples and lands, their enslavement and the imposition of its extremist form of Islam, leading to the deaths of around 400,000 mainly Muslim people and the displacement of 2 million others?
Lord Radice
Does the noble Lord consider that in fact South Sudan will not succeed unless there is regime change in Sudan proper? Is that part of his argument? It seems to be leading to that.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, others have commented on the possibility of the Arab spring having some effect in the Republic of Sudan in due course. We will see, but in the past 24 hours 1,000 people in Khartoum were chanting their support for the Syrian opposition and then started to demand a change in the Khartoum regime led by Field-Marshal Omar al-Bashir. I think it is too early to say but, rather like the noble Lord, I hope that there will be change in Sudan as there will, we hope, be positive change in many other places in that part of the world.
During the civil war that I referred to, I travelled with the SPLA into southern Sudan and saw the situation first hand. Four years later, I went to Darfur where I took first-hand accounts from some of the Darfuri victims of what clearly constituted the first genocide of the 21st century. Those accounts of rape and murder and the depredations of the Janjaweed militia will always be with me. What do you call a state whose leaders permit such atrocities to occur? The International Criminal Court has given it a name; it is an indicted state. In July 2008, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor of the ICC, indicted Omar al-Bashir and in 2009, the ICC judges in The Hague issued a warrant for his arrest for crimes against humanity, the first against a sitting head of state. Only last week, the Defence Minister, Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, was similarly indicted. Egregious crimes have been committed by the highest levels of government, and the killing continues while we meet.
Northern Sudan has become a pariah state and fails every test of how a civilised or humane Government should behave. Even as those independence celebrations were taking place last July, a chain of political and military developments, initiated by Khartoum, have once again placed the region on the brink of outright civil war. It is worth mentioning in this context that some 70 per cent of Sudan’s income, the oil income that has been referred to, is being used for military expenditure to fuel this killing.
Although the post-independence violence came as no surprise, the sheer ferocity of the attacks in southern Kordofan, Abyei and Blue Nile, areas located along the new international border, has been truly shocking. In southern Kordofan heavy fighting continues between SPLA-North and Sudan’s armed forces. On 1 December, the SAF claimed to have taken the town of Taruje, a claim refuted by the SPLM-North who said that fighting is ongoing. Earlier today, I met with representatives of the SPLM-North and they particularly raised with me the failure to investigate the apparent collaboration of peacekeepers in the massacre of escaping refugees in Kadugli, an issue that I raised on the Floor of the House earlier this year. They described the humanitarian situation as disastrous, with 2 million people across the border region now threatened with starvation.
Aid agencies suggest that at least 305,000 people are displaced in southern Kordofan. Aerial bombardment continues and the humanitarian conditions for the displaced are deteriorating with many hiding in caves in the mountains at great risk.
In Blue Nile, reports from numerous sources consistently describe offences and atrocities perpetrated there by the Government of Sudan similar to those that I have just referred to. They, too, involve aerial bombardment resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, denial of access for humanitarian aid, extra-judicial killings, detention and torture of civilians and looting of civilian properties. It is estimated that up to 400,000 people have now been displaced from southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and 30,000 to 40,000 of them have fled into Ethiopia.
In Abyei, more than 120,000 of the indigenous Ngok Dinka population have fled to South Sudan. Many aid organisations, including Oxfam, have pulled out of the region. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly reminded us earlier on, Abyei is mistakenly being identified as part of the Republic of Sudan, when no settlement of that matter, as the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, said earlier, has been made.
There are reliable reports that Khartoum has issued death sentences to 19 SPLM civilians. As a result, some of those are now being held at Kober prison, among them the renowned writer and poet, Mr Abdel-Monim Rahma. Meanwhile, while those tragic events have been unfolding, the flow of oil from the south, as we have heard, has been halted. Here is an opportunity with China which has been referred to in this debate. The economics of Sudan will influence China. Her Majesty’s Government need to have serious bilateral discussions with China about how together we might be able to make some sense of this appalling situation.
The United Nations Security Council and the international community must urgently respond to the following questions and issues, such as the Government of Sudan’s continuing military offences, including these aerial bombardments. We must revisit the issue of the no-fly zone. On 11 August, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, told me that:
“A no-fly zone in Darfur and Southern Kordofan would be a major logistical challenge”.—[Official Report, 11/8/11; col. WA 444.]
Are we seriously saying that if the political will were there the logistical challenges could not be overcome? As the dry season approaches, there is acute fear of an intensification of military activities, with grave consequences for the civilian population. We must demand access by humanitarian agencies that are denied access at this present time.
On 9 November, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, told me that,
“we continue to work closely with United Nations agencies and international partners to seek urgent access to those most affected by the conflict”.—[Official Report, 9/11/11; col. WA 66.]
What have those urgent endeavours achieved? We need an international independent committee of inquiry to be sent to southern Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei to investigate and report on these recent developments.
On 21 June, the noble Lord said:
“Reports of such atrocities will have to be investigated and, if they prove to be true, those responsible will need to be brought to account”.—[Official Report, 21/6/11; col. WA 294.]
More than five months have now elapsed. What results have the investigations yielded, and who has been held to account?
On 11 August, the Minister said:
“We are deeply concerned by reports of this attack on the hospital north of Kauda Valley and other attacks. We continue to urge for a ceasefire, and for access so that these claims can be fully investigated. We will, if necessary, consider action to refer the situation in Southern Kordofan to the International Criminal Court”.—[Official Report, 11/8/11; col. WA 444.]
Have we now done that?
On 11 August, the Minister also told me that he found the UNMIS report, The Human Rights Situation During the Recent Violence in Southern Kordofan Sudan, “deeply concerning”. He went on to say:
“We will, if necessary, consider action to refer the situation in Southern Kordofan to the International Criminal Court”.—[Official Report, 11/8/11; col. WA 446.]
Have we done that?
There are two things that the UK should do immediately. First, the British Government should seriously consider implementing targeted sanctions to try to halt Khartoum’s continuing policies, which are inflicting widespread death and destruction. These could include a UK trade embargo and diplomatic sanctions imposed on senior politicians in Khartoum’s ruling party responsible for the humanitarian crisis and human rights offences. On 10 November, the Minister told me:
“We judge that further targeted travel sanctions would not help at this stage in achieving our objectives, but will keep this under review in consultation with European Union and United Nations partners”.—[Official Report, 10/11/11; col. WA 95.]
What has to happen for us to do that?
The Sudanese bishop, Macram Max Gassis, one of the most courageous and wise men in Africa, once said:
“Peace without justice is like building a house without foundations; it is a pseudo-peace doomed to collapse at the very first storm”.
If north and South Sudan are to have any kind of future, the north will have to learn to coexist with the south, and there will have to be justice as well as peace. Britain and China, I re-emphasise, should work with one another to try to facilitate this. Following Rwanda, we said that we would never countenance another genocide—“Never again”, we said. But it is “Never again” all over again in south Kordofan and this part of Sudan, unless we act.
Lord Elton
I did not come here with the intention of speaking. I came here with the intention of learning, and I have learnt some very uncomfortable facts and am left with some uncomfortable questions. I suspect that the very illuminating speeches, the last two in this debate, will cause some untidiness in the language in which we describe what is going on in that part of Africa.
The question that we all ask is what we can do to bring this tragic story to a happy conclusion. The question that I am left with is a much smaller one which I would like the Minister to answer after she has answered all the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked so eloquently a moment ago. I look forward to those answers with great interest. How many of the members of the Government of Khartoum are welcomed into our capital city and elsewhere? Do they have property here? Do they enjoy the rights of civilians here? If a British citizen kills one person the least he gets is a mandatory life sentence. What do generals who have arranged the murder of thousands get in return if they come to this city of ours?
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the committee for taking the initiative in writing and preparing this excellent report. Indeed, we welcome the opportunity to take stock this evening of where we are now in the wake of the excellent assessment made by the committee on the challenges faced by Sudan and the role of the European Union in efforts to build peace, security, governance and developments. These objectives, as many noble Lords have said, apply to both Sudan and South Sudan, which both face uncertainty and potentially increasing tension and conflict created by a raft of unresolved contentious issues.
While the focus this evening has been mostly on South Sudan, we should urge the European Union and all donors to be vigilant and be careful not to neglect the need to respond to the destabilising effect of South Sudan’s independence on the north, where the economy is in serious trouble after two decades of mismanagement in Khartoum by the NIF—with huge military expenditure, corruption and cronyism. Add to this a potential 37 per cent decline in oil revenues and inflation at 15 per cent and rising. Foreign exchange reserves are at an extremely low level and very painful cuts are hurting the people of Sudan. Behind all this is a gigantic $38 billion of external debt.
There are clear reasons for remaining engaged with the Republic of Sudan and for the EU to persevere with what is described as a “comprehensive approach” approved by Foreign Ministers at the Council in Brussels in June.
The EU has had and does have a central and important role to play. EU funding has for many years been crucial in Sudan, especially in South Sudan, in terms of the support given to grassroots human rights organisations—the programme in Khartoum has been and is excellent—and work on food security issues in the south and east. ECHO, the humanitarian office of the EU, continues to provide a critical lifeline to Darfur and to the south. The EU provides a balanced set of incentives to both Sudan and South Sudan to settle their differences peacefully and focus on development. So far, as noble Lords have intimated, those incentives have not persuaded either country to settle their differences. However, it is important that they know and understand that these incentives are there, and there should be intensified efforts to support the urgent need to encourage dialogue and co-operation.
The place to do this is clearly through African Union’s Thabo Mbeki panel. I know that a number of noble Lords have referred to this and made disparaging comments about it. It is a difficult situation, but it is the only show in town. There is no prospect of dialogue and discussion other than through the African Union. It is the only place where the two sides are likely to go for that dialogue. Thabo Mbeki, in my judgment, has been doing a very good job of ensuring that discussions take place. He has done that in very difficult circumstances. It is not ideal, but it is the best hope that we have of brokering agreements between the north and the south on, for instance, oil revenue, citizenship, borders and Abyei. Another option is the joint Africa-EU strategy, which has the potential to provide the space for some political dialogue.
In just a few weeks, the people of South Sudan will mark the anniversary of their vote last year to secede from the north. As two members of the APG who are here today have said, when we went to South Sudan, we met with enormous hope and expectation. We have memories of people who could not even say “referendum” without breaking out into a huge grin of happiness and satisfaction. They believed; the expectations were high. They told us that there would be new roads, clinics, jobs, food and schools for their kids. Most of all, they looked forward to peace and security at last.
It is therefore unthinkable that donors, including the EU, cannot now effectively respond to support a Government who need to tackle chronic poverty and make some progress to reaching the millennium development goals, which are currently way out of reach. The scale of the challenge is daunting and the statistics truly shocking. Save the Children has highlighted that South Sudan, as other noble Lords have said, has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world.
Access to services is rare. The women die of haemorrhage, infection, obstructed labour and, indeed, of unsafe abortion. There is widespread malnutrition among children, which leads to stunting and lifelong underdevelopment. South Sudan has one of the lowest routine immunisation coverage rates on earth; only about 10 per cent of children are fully vaccinated. The women of South Sudan are among the poorest and most marginalised of the world; 92 per cent of them are illiterate. This is deplorable. In human development terms, it is as bad as you can get and it demands a focus on human, social and economic capacity to develop infrastructure, social services and public services.
Last month, the EU held a workshop in Juba where the discussion was about how to streamline effective measures designed to ensure that EU assistance can be effective. The workshop was organised by the EU special representative, Dame Rosalind Marsden, who, as I understand it, was somewhat criticised by the committee for not actually living in Sudan.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
No? Good. This was not in the report but I was told that in an exchange she was made to feel that there was some criticism of her on that score. Clearly, if that was not the case—
Lord Teverson
Perhaps I can make it clear that that was absolutely not the case.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
Thank you very much for clarifying that, because it would be extremely unusual for any country representative or envoy to live in the country which they follow. I would say that Dame Rosalind Marsden is doing a very good job as a special representative and has enormous respect among the Sudanese and, indeed, others in the European Union.
All the EU member states’ missions in Juba attended that workshop, as did representatives from the Government of South Sudan, the UN and the World Bank. This is part of a concerted effort by the EU and by other players to encourage joint programming by member states of the European Union and by other donors who need to co-ordinate, certainly better than has been the case. One thing we know, for instance, is that the education ministry is currently dealing with 17 different bilateral donors, as well as countless NGOs. This takes time and is extremely difficult when you do not have the computers, the staff or the capacity to manage being inundated in this way by requests and pressure from so many donors. That workshop was the first time that partners had come together in this way—in this Room, we would say “And about time too”.
The strategic plan is now to join EU donor teams together, which will assist with efforts to tackle humanitarian needs. Several areas will of course need to be prioritised; as noble Lords have said, there is justice, the rule of law, education and urban development. One area which I think was not mentioned is the rural economy, which has become a major priority for the European Union. The EU will participate in the pledging conference due to be held in Washington DC later this month and play a lead role on the agricultural sector in that meeting.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, mentioned the NGO report; I, too, certainly recommend Getting it Right from the Start as very interesting reading. It recommends substantial support for small-scale agriculture and pastoral production, which is extremely important in Sudan, and called for targeted support for access to areas of the country where large numbers of returnees are settling, making huge demands on the population living there. The report also calls on the EU and others to provide long-term, predictable funding, as noble Lords have said, for the Government and for NGOs as well, which are of course heavily involved in the current provision of basic services in South Sudan. Another key issue is the need for all systems to promote equitable social and economic development.
Currently, Jonglei gets roughly a third as much per capita as Western Bahr El Gazal, while grappling with a food-insecure population nearly six times as large. These discrepancies need to be tackled. Adjustments to redress inequalities should be encouraged in order to respond to references in the comprehensive peace agreement and the transitional constitution to,
“historical injustices and inequality between different regions of Sudan”.
They called for wealth to be shared without discrimination on any grounds.
A very important EU contribution will be to develop trade opportunities with South Sudan and to continue free access to EU markets under the “Everything But Arms” arrangement with the least developed countries. That is already under way. South Sudan is a litmus test of how donors manage to get development right. However, it is important that we understand the right of the Government to own the whole process. We tend to talk as though donors own the process of managing a Government who may face difficult issues of capacity. Nevertheless, there is a particular tendency to feel this pressure from donors. I have certainly seen this in many years of following international development in fragile states. President Salva Kiir said recently:
“How we spend money as a government, and how our development partners spend money in our countries, is critically important to our success, given the scale of need across our nation”.
Another critical issue that deserves more than lip service is the need to support South Sudan civil society in its efforts to participate in the decisions. I also strongly emphasise the need for much more investment in the South Sudan Parliament. Last week, MPs were here as guests of the CPA. I met two MPs from South Sudan, who told me that they do not have offices, a library or any computers. They have no access at all to information, yet they are supposed to manage these complex and challenging issues. It is critical that this newly elected Parliament is given the means to work efficiently so that it can hold the Government to account, particularly when the Parliament scrutinises budgets, for example.
Currently, the increased flow of funds into the economy in South Sudan, as a result of taking all the oil revenue from the southern oil fields, is not being properly accounted for, as others have remarked on. This could be put down to corruption; we are very quick to do that. However, surely the sheer lack of functioning institutions is a major factor. Anyone who has been to a developing country without such institutions understands that there is corruption but there is also an inability to manage very complex fiscal and budgetary issues.
I believe very strongly that the collective importance of the EU will be critical at this time. As it says in the report, the issue of the ICC arrest warrant resulted in Sudan refusing to ratify the Cotonou partnership agreement in 2010. The legal framework for co-operation with the EU was therefore denied to South Sudan. The agreement is the only legally binding instrument that includes an ICC clause. The EU Council and the ACP council should be commended for their efforts to ensure that South Sudan can access that funding. In July the EU Council agreed to give €190 million of uncommitted funds from the ninth and previous European development funds to meet the needs of the most vulnerable populations in both the north and the south. Additional funds amounting to €200 million have already been allocated in the context of the 2011-13 development plan drawn up by the Government in Juba. A decision has been taken with the ACP. It is very good to see the combined efforts of the council—of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific—and the EU to adopt what they are calling a flexible approach, which will allow South Sudan to become a party to the Cotonou agreement and the 10th EDF funds. I know that this was an issue that particularly exercised the committee during the discussions that took place.
South Sudan has lost a lot of time because of the donor-pooled funds by the World Bank. They have lost a lot of time when strategic planning was difficult for them. Of the £800 million allocated at the time of the CPA agreement, only one-third had been spent by July this year. It is terrible that the money has been there and has not been spent. It was mainly because of the over-rigorous and ridiculously stringent conditions imposed on the disbursements of the funding.
I visited Sudan a number of times over many years, and I cannot but help feel and share the joy and anticipation felt by the people who have known decades of such terrible war and suffering. What we know now is that countless thousands have been displaced and the conflicts for decades have caused such misery. The two countries now face seemingly intractable problems, but the opportunities for supporting positive progress towards peace, development and accountable governance are also significant and we should not be so pessimistic as to rule that out. The call now has to be for the two Governments to change their approach and for civil society and Parliaments to hold their Governments to account. I know that the EU is seen as central to those efforts, and to support it, UNMIS and the AU High-Level Implementation Panel. We should support the EU premise that the provision of basic services can help reduce the risk of conflicts driven by competition over resources. Similarly, the EU believes that providing services in areas under pressure from large numbers of returnees will reduce further potential for conflict.
Finally, the new and excellent UN representative, Hilde Johnson, based in Juba, has said:
“If there is one important lesson to learn from the negotiations that ended Africa's longest civil war, it is the need for international engagement—continuous, coordinated and forceful”.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Teverson for tabling today’s debate, and all noble Lords for their valuable contribution to this very important topic. I hope that I will reassure noble Lords through my remarks and responses to questions raised that the Government very much take on board noble Lords’ concerns that progress in Sudan and South Sudan is slow. If I cannot answer questions today, I will write to noble Lords, but I would like to start by paying tribute to the Associate Parliamentary Group for Sudan, some of whose members have participated today. Its continued interest and commitment to the people of both Sudans is crucial and vital, and is rightly welcomed by all those who care about the welfare of the peoples of these two countries. As with the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, if it is repetition on a good point, repetition it will be.
We very much welcomed the report produced in June this year by EU Sub-Committee C, which accurately predicted many of the challenges that would be faced by the two countries after South Sudan’s secession. It made some very sensible recommendations, and made clear what can be achieved by working with our EU partners in Sudan and South Sudan. We very much value the role of the EU in Sudan, and particularly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, just said, of EU special representative, Rosalind Marsden. We look forward to continuing to work with them and her.
At this stage, it would be most useful if perhaps I set out the current UK policy towards Sudan and South Sudan. Since the committee’s report was issued in June, we have seen the birth of the world’s newest nation, South Sudan. The independence of South Sudan on 9 July was a great success, passing peacefully and with the consent of both nations. Our own Foreign Secretary was there to represent the UK and made clear our ongoing commitment to both countries.
We continue to make clear that we would like to see two prosperous states peacefully coexisting with each other. We want to see a swift resolution to the many conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan, which are affecting stability in both countries, and we want to see full humanitarian access granted to all conflict areas. We can work closely with our international partners, particularly the EU, in pursuit of these goals.
The UK continues with its extensive development programme, co-ordinated through DfID, in both countries. Humanitarian needs play a big part of our programming, but we also provide significant development assistance to both countries. We should also be clear that no money goes directly to the Governments in Sudan or South Sudan.
In South Sudan, the UK is providing over £90 million a year for the next four years to help the people of South Sudan. This funding will support international efforts to promote peace and stability in South Sudan. Specifically, our assistance will help to build more accountable, inclusive and transparent government; deliver basic services, such as education, clean water and healthcare; support economic growth; provide humanitarian relief; and improve security and access to justice.
In Sudan, we are providing £50 million per year for the next four years. Sudan has undergone massive upheaval this year. As such, we are looking at our programme to make sure it meets the needs of the Sudanese people in these changing times. Whatever happens, our programmes will contribute to the provision of humanitarian aid to those most in need. They will help deliver clean water, sanitation and better education. Our programmes will also aim to deliver better access to justice, particularly for women, and improved governance in Sudan.
On a recent visit in November, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Stephen O’Brien announced additional support for the World Food Programme that will enable it to meet the humanitarian food needs of approximately 315,000 people who have been particularly affected by conflict in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei. This will cost around £4.8 million.
The British Council is increasingly engaged in Sudan. While there in July, Henry Bellingham, Foreign Office Minister for Africa, witnessed the signing of a statement of intent between the British Council and the Sudanese Ministry of Education confirming the commitment of both parties to an English-teacher training programme. It will lead to the development of a cadre of 40 ministry teacher trainers and result in 900 more teachers at basic and secondary school level in Khartoum state receiving professional development training.
However, it is unfortunate that, despite the efforts of the UK and the international community, progress remains slow in many areas and we have seen deterioration in others. The violence in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state continues. It is estimated that, in total, 200,000 people have been displaced from Southern Kordofan and 130,000 from Blue Nile state. There is little humanitarian access to either area. We are working closely with our international partners to push for an immediate cessation of hostilities and to encourage the establishment of an agreed process to address the root causes of violence in both states. We urge the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in the north to allow immediate humanitarian access to the area.
More recently, there have been worrying developments, with the Sudanese Air Force bombing Yida in South Sudan and Quffa in the border area on 10 November, and further violent altercations on 3 December. The Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, made a statement in November condemning any action that puts civilian lives at risk and called on both parties to exercise restraint. These latest events make it all the more important that both sides allow a border monitoring mission to deploy quickly.
We also continue to urge both Sudan and South Sudan to find a way to resolve their remaining areas of difference. It is particularly concerning that the parties could not come to an agreement on oil revenue sharing during the talks in Addis Ababa last week. We encourage both parties to make every effort to come to an agreement in the next rounds of talks that will take place throughout December.
We also urge both parties to come to an agreement on citizenship, border demarcation and the status of the disputed region of Abyei. As the Foreign Secretary said in a joint statement yesterday with his Norwegian and US colleagues, it is vital that the two parties return to the table as soon as possible to find equitable solutions. The situation on both security and humanitarian difficulties in Darfur remains an area of grave concern. The UK is actively supporting the development of the UN-AU road map for the peace process in Darfur, which is due to be presented to the UN Security Council in January 2012.
We hope that this will push for the early implementation of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur; continue with negotiations with those movements not yet signed up to the agreement; include consultations with the people of Darfur; and set out a clear process by which the international community can support the process.
I will now respond to some of the points raised by noble Lords. I know that a number of noble Lords have raised the failure of the two countries to reach an agreement on equitable sharing of oil revenues between the two countries. We welcome the constructive role being played by the AU high-level implementation panel which is mediating between the parties on this question. The troika of the UK, US and Norway is playing an important role by supporting mediation politically and with technical advice. And, of course, we welcome the recent actions by China, raised by noble Lords to support a negotiated solution between the two countries on the question of oil. The EU also has a valuable part to play alongside the troika in supporting the AU’s mediation.
Talks facilitated by the AU, the African Union, in Addis Ababa on 25 to 30 November unfortunately came to no agreement, but constructive proposals were placed on the table. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, has noted that this included an offer by South Sudan on the level of compensation it could pay to Sudan for its loss of oil revenue with a headline figure of $4.5 billion. That proposal needs to be looked at in a broader context, including the outstanding debts that are to be offset, but it is a proposal that we hope the Sudanese Government will consider seriously and to which it will respond constructively.
Noble Lords have raised the unwelcome statements by the Sudanese Government that they are intending to withhold payments for South Sudanese oil. Such threats are clearly not helpful in reaching an agreement which is needed for the economic welfare of both countries. My noble friend Lord Selkirk has mentioned the proposal that a new pipeline should be built to take South Sudan’s oil to the sea without crossing Sudan as a longer-term solution. We believe that if such a proposal were viable or affordable for Sudan, it would not take away the need to urgently seek a solution for the near term.
As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said in a joint statement yesterday with his Norwegian and US colleagues it is vital that the two parties should return to the table as soon as possible to find equitable solutions for the economic benefit of both countries.
It is also vital that South Sudan, whose oil reserves are finite, should seek to diversity its economy rapidly, as noble Lords have mentioned today, to ensure longer term growth.
Noble Lords have rightly mentioned the importance of tackling corruption in South Sudan and of ensuring that the new Government have the right measures in place to deal with this. We welcome the renewed emphasis that President Kiir has placed on stamping out corruption in recent public statements. It will be important that this is followed up by implementing the various actions that have been agreed with expert international assistance. Dealing with corruption and improving the management of public finances will be considered at the international engagement conference for South Sudan that is to be held in Washington on 14 and 15 December. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary at DfID, Stephen O’Brien, will be chairing the session on improving transparency and accountability in government. We hope that this will be an opportunity for the Government of South Sudan to announce further specific measures in this area.
Noble Lords have asked about the progress in establishing EU representation in Juba. An EU delegation is in place sharing a compound with a number of other EU member states, as has been mentioned in the course of this debate. The UK too has been increasing its presence with more than 30 staff from the Foreign Office and DfID now in place. We are currently sharing the same compound although we are exploring the option of more permanent accommodation. We recognise that the EU delegation has been understaffed in Sudan so far. I know that the External Action Service has action in hand to remedy that and we look forward to the arrival soon of a senior head of delegation.
My noble friend Lord Chidgey and other noble Lords asked whether South Sudan could benefit from Sudan's original allocation under the European Development Fund, which has not been used due to Sudan's failure to ratify the Cotonou agreement. I can assure him that the EU is drawing on a number of sources, including unspent EDF money, to fund significant development and humanitarian programmes in the medium term. South Sudan will itself need to join the agreement in order to benefit from the EDF in future rounds.
My noble friend was also right to stress the importance of ensuring that aid money is not misappropriated given the difficult environment for delivering aid in South Sudan and the wider problems of corruption that I have already mentioned. The EU has long experience of providing assistance in difficult circumstances and has the procedures and safeguards available to ensure that best practice is followed. But that is not a reason to be complacent. This will be an area in which we will pay close attention in considering how effectively the EU is spending its resources in South Sudan.
I am being handed a paper to say that I must wind up, so I will go through some quick points. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and other noble Lords are concerned that the Sudanese armed forces and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army have not yet withdrawn from Abyei despite the presence of the UN interim security force. We are urging of both sides immediate redeployment and the granting of full humanitarian access to the area.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, also commented on support to South Sudan. I will undertake to write to the noble Lord about that support. There is a comprehensive plan and that would be helpful rather than skipping over some points now. However, I will say that one of the first actions South Sudan on becoming an independent state was to apply for membership of the Commonwealth, which is a positive sign. To join the Commonwealth you have to undertake all the criteria and it is welcome to all of us to see that it is willing to undertake the core values of democracy, human rights and law. It is a welcome move.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, asked about DfID. It is piloting a new approach to aid partnerships with fragile countries such as South Sudan which was the focus of discussion at the summit last week it will continue to play a leading role in ensuring that the aid community in South Sudan follows best practice.
It is clear that there is still a long way to go before the people of South Sudan and Sudan can live their lives in a peaceful and prosperous environment. For our part, we will not be afraid to deliver tough messages to both Governments when we need to. We will have to continue to make it clear that both countries must refrain from military action in each other's territories either directly or through support to other armed groups. We will keep urging both countries to negotiate seriously to settle issues outstanding from the comprehensive peace agreement and from the secession of South Sudan.
The UK remains fully committed to helping the people of both countries through humanitarian and development projects. We will continue to provide assistance to respond to the humanitarian needs of conflict-affected populations, to support security and access to justice, to build basic services and encourage more transparent and accountable government in both countries. Through all of this, we will work as closely as closely as possible with our key international partners including the EU. Through a united international effort, perhaps we can begin to make strong progress in Sudan and South Sudan and it is important that we note that since the secession, we have seen some positive developments in both countries. Sudan has also shown some welcome signs of becoming a more constructive voice in regional issues. For example, it is playing a leading role in the Arab League’s recent action against the Syrian regime and its support for the new Government in Libya.
I know that noble Lords will not be satisfied with the responses today because all noble Lords who have taken part today know that we have a very long journey of challenges ahead. I hope that noble Lords will take on board that the Government take this issue incredibly seriously. Where I have failed to respond directly to noble Lords’ questions, I will undertake to write to noble Lords.
However, I hope that when we next have a debate on Sudan we will be able to talk about more progress and better governance in both countries. I thank all noble Lords, particularly my noble friend, for raising this very important topic today.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister should not be quite so downbeat about her contribution. There can be very few debates where she is asked so many questions about so many issues, some of which I had not come across previously. I am sure that, for the areas that have not been completely covered, there will be an opportunity to write to noble Lords.
I conclude by thanking all noble Lords for their contributions. A broad range of issues have been brought up that were not necessarily covered by the report. I thank particularly the noble Lords, Lord Chidgey and Lord Alton, for their insights and their practical experience. I thank also the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for her giving us much of her experience and an in-depth view of the European Union side of this issue—we are a European Union Committee at the end of the day. I am slightly less pessimistic about Europe’s role than some of my noble friends.
We were very pleased indeed to have Dame Rosalind Marsden as a witness. We welcomed her appointment and we hope that she will be part of making sure that the EU’s role is delivered.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for sitting through the debate. His brief contribution did not get an answer, but I was pleased to read that the Kenyan Government have made it quite clear recently that if President al-Bashir landed on Kenyan soil, he would be whisked away to the International Criminal Court. The Kenyan ambassador was banished from Khartoum as a result, but that is the right way forward.
I thank lastly the clerk of the Committee, Kathryn Colvin, and our secretary, Bina Sudra. If the Grand Committee would indulge me, I would like to thank also our policy analyst, Oliver Fox, who has provided excellent service to this sub-committee during the number of years that he has worked in that role for us. He has now left to join the External Action Service. Although he is dealing only with Switzerland at the moment, he will hopefully have an opportunity to fix South Sudan in the future as well.