Broadband and Mobile Coverage
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of their policy to increase the number of central government transactions carried out online, such as the filing of tax returns, what progress they are making with the rollout of broadband services and the provision of comprehensive mobile coverage.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, in January this year the programme was making superfast broadband available to 10,000 premises a week. The figure is now 20,000 a week, and by the summer it will be 40,000 a week. More than half a million premises have benefited so far and more than 4 million will benefit by the end of the programme. For mobile, the combination of commercial and government mobile rollout will improve mobile services for 98% of UK premises by 2015.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I am not sure things are quite as favourable as that reply suggests. Broadband and mobile coverage have become essential utilities, like water or power. Without coverage it is like living in the old world without a post box or hot water. Given the huge sums being expended on the rollout, will the Minister encourage the industry and the regulator to buck up and meet their obligations to citizens and businesses, all of whom now need to be able to operate online?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, there is always room to do better, but the programmes are on track. All that can be done is being done to increase the pace of delivery, which is a priority. I should say that the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries is holding an open surgery on superfast broadband in Committee Room 14 at 3.30 pm. Your Lordships are most welcome to attend as it is very important that issues of concern are put directly to the Minister and officials dealing with the matter.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that all local authorities involved in the rollout requiring match funding are co-operating, as there were reports last weekend in some rural areas—I cite Shropshire—of Tory-led councils saying that they were not prepared to put in their £11 million of match funding? It will be disastrous for rural areas if local authorities cannot match the funding that is required.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right that broadband is essential in rural and urban areas. I will look into the Shropshire issue, but it is very important that local authorities co-operate because in all areas this is part of our emphasis on growth.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is virtually impossible to function without broadband? Can he give me an example of how people are supposed to cope until this situation is corrected?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. Clearly, we are in part of the technological revolution and the Government wish to go digital, but it is certainly important that those who do not have the facility are still able to conduct business in a traditional way. As I say, it is important to improve delivery wherever we can.
Lord Mitchell (Lab)
The Government’s long-awaited digital inclusion strategy appears to have given up on nearly 10% of the population. Many vital services are now online, yet many of those who need to access them are precluded from doing so. What further action will be taken to make sure that no one is left behind?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I agree with the noble Lord that the whole quest of this is to ensure that as few as possible—and, in the end, none—are left behind. That is precisely why the Government, with their £10 million project, are seeking to fund alternative technology broadband opportunities. Twenty-six suppliers have submitted bids to deal with the hardest spots that are not yet connected. The bids are currently being evaluated, and I hope that the contracts will be awarded in June so that we can help precisely those businesses and people that the noble Lord refers to.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
Does the Minister agree that infrastructure and skills are equally important and that the 11 million adults who are currently unable to use the internet, 4 million of whom are in work, are as important as those 10% who are unable to get broadband?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, the noble Baroness absolutely hits the spot in saying that part of what we need to do is ensure that as many people as possible have the ability to go online—I gather that 82% of the population can do so. Virtually all schools have broadband connectivity and, in my experience, the elderly are becoming increasingly conversant in this area. We want to help as many people as possible.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend always tries to be helpful. Does he agree that many elderly people and many others have to pay high prices to receive paper bills because they do not have broadband available? They are sometimes charged up to £8 per paper bill. If the Government cannot help these people more quickly than at present, will they at least consider taking steps to make such charges illegal?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, as I said earlier, the Government wish there to be as many opportunities as possible for people to pay bills online, and that is increasingly the way that things will go. However, I will look into the matter of paper bills. I honestly think that those who are not in a position to pay online should not be expected to pay over and above.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I believe that the 98% that the Minister mentioned includes the county of Cornwall, and I congratulate him on that. However, the Isles of Scilly are not included and have probably the worst and most expensive transport links in the whole UK—and they are still on 2G. When does he see broadband going to the Isles of Scilly?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, what a great part of the United Kingdom that is. It is interesting—the noble Lord is absolutely right—that the superfast Cornwall project is doing extremely well, and I am pleased to say that consultation notices have been issued by the Marine Management Organisation to ensure that the cable goes under the sea. That will ensure, I hope by the last quarter of this year, that the Isles of Scilly will have superfast broadband.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, I take us from one end of the country to the other. While I warmly welcome the rollout of superfast broadband throughout the country, what words of comfort does my noble friend have for the inhabitants of Upper Coquetdale, running up to the Scottish border in Northumberland, particularly in the villages of Alnham, Alwinton, Hepple, Holystone, Netherton and Sharpeton, who have not only no broadband but no mobile coverage? They are in a “not spot” and there are no plans for them to get out of it yet.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, that is yet another wonderful part of the United Kingdom. I am very conscious of the important needs of rural areas, and the £150 million of funding for the mobile infrastructure project is precisely to deal with “not spots” in coverage. The rural broadband programme is also terribly important and the £10 million that I referred to is precisely to help rural “not spot” areas.
Tourism
Lord Lee of Trafford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their current assessment of the importance of tourism to the United Kingdom economy.
Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, the importance of tourism to the UK economy is clear. It contributed £58 billion directly to the economy last year and supported more than 1.75 million jobs. Those figures rise to £127 billion and 3.1 million jobs when the indirect impacts of tourism on the wider economy are included. That is why this Government have invested more than £165 million, including private sector matched funding, in the GREAT and other marketing campaigns.
Lord Lee of Trafford
Given that tourism is our fifth largest industry, that a third of the new jobs created in the past three years have been in tourism and that tourism is so important to many cities, towns and regions in this country, does my noble friend realise why those of us involved in the Campaign for Tourism are determined that tourism features in the manifestos of the major parties in the coming general election, unlike last time, when they did not feature at all? Is it not time that, given its importance, tourism was included in the title of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I emphasise that the Government recognise that tourism is a vital part of the future of the UK economy. Indeed, the Prime Minister met officials from the Campaign for Tourism only last month. The point that my noble friend makes about manifestos is obviously very potent. I know of at least four government departments that have an interest in tourism: the Treasury, the DCLG, BIS and of course the DCMS. There is a Minister with responsibility for tourism but this is a matter that has cross-departmental importance.
Lord Wigley (PC)
Will the Minister give attention to the disparity in the number of international tourists who came to various parts of these islands in the decade between 2002 and 2012? Is he aware that over that period, whereas there was an increase of some 30% in London and of more than 40% in Scotland, in Wales there was a marginal decrease and in north-east England a decrease of almost 20%? Will he consider laying down for VisitBritain not only targets for the overall number of international visitors but targets for the regions in England and for the other three nations?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I say to the noble Lord that I do not think we should have any ceiling for the targets. We have to take the opportunity in the United Kingdom to ensure that as many people as possible visit from abroad and indeed that there is as much domestic tourism as possible. I was interested to note that according to the recent Deloitte report there are currently 206,000 direct and indirect tourism jobs in Wales. Indeed, the Great Britain Tourism Survey for last year showed that British residents made nearly 10 million visits to Wales, which was 3.4% up in comparison with the previous year.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, there was a startling increase in the number of visitors from abroad last year. Does my noble friend accept that in no small part that was due to the enormous success of the Olympic Games? Should we hope for a similar bounce from the Commonwealth Games this year?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I am sure all noble Lords will agree that the Commonwealth Games give us an enormous opportunity to welcome many friends and visitors from the Commonwealth and well beyond. I was particularly interested in the Anholt Nation Brands Index, which is so important in terms of perception of the UK. The UK overall nation brand has held third place—the same as 2012—and in terms of welcome has moved up three places from 13th to 10th and for sport has moved up one place from sixth to fifth. These are encouraging figures and the whole nation should be proud of them.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lee, makes an excellent point about including tourism in the name of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Can the Minister name any other private sector industry that by 2025 will have created 630,000 new jobs? Can he also tell the House how remote areas of the United Kingdom will be supported by the Government in increasing tourism jobs, not least in those areas which do not have broadband and mobile coverage?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I hope that, by the time the programmes for broadband have finished, all parts of the country, particularly those remote areas which are such wonderful parts of rural Britain to visit, will have benefited. I suspect that I am in difficulties in looking at an alternative but, of course, tourism is made up of many small businesses. That is an area which we are very keen to support. Small and medium-sized enterprises are a key feature of tourism’s success.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
Is the Minister aware that the National Gallery is offering its audio guide for its current main exhibition in English only? Visitors from Italy, Spain and France have said that they cannot understand it and feel excluded. Should not all global institutions hoping to benefit from tourism provide their public information resources in several languages, as we do in this House?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a strong point. I know that as part of the China Ready programme, for instance, many of the major visitor centres now have their guides in Cantonese and Mandarin. I encourage the British Museum, a great institution which has the largest number of visitors in this country—many millions—and all museums to look at language opportunities.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be as aware as I am of the decline in traditional industries in Wales. The result has been an increase in the importance of the tourist trade, which today employs about 112,000 people directly and 56,000 others indirectly. Does the Minister not agree that this is an opportunity to encourage that growth? Nothing would do more to help that than a reduction in VAT on visitor and tourist facilities and hospitality from, say, 20% to 7%.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I have already referred to the robust figures for Wales in terms of employment. There is a great industrial heritage there and many visitors. However, on VAT relief, one should remember that the United Kingdom provides cultural attractions which have significant VAT relief, including national museums and galleries, and that other countries impose tourist taxes which we do not.
Crime: Domestic Violence
(10 years ago)
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Baroness Gale
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of prosecutions brought for domestic violence.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, the number of domestic violence cases referred to the Crown Prosecution Service by the police reduced in 2012-13. However, the conviction rate for such cases was 74.3%, its highest ever recorded level. The fall in referrals was considered in a report on the police response to domestic abuse published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in March 2014. The Home Secretary will be chairing a national oversight group to monitor delivery against HMIC’s recommendations, improve consistency in charging and ensure that the police make appropriate referrals to the CPS.
Baroness Gale (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. He mentioned that the number of referrals by the police had increased and the number of successful prosecutions had reduced. The recent report from HMIC shows that police forces are failing and that victims of domestic violence have been faced with a lottery. The report concluded that the overall police response to victims of domestic abuse is not good enough. Does the Minister agree that much more needs to be done to ensure that police forces are trained and fully aware of what they need to do to ensure that victims of domestic abuse and women who are murdered at the hands of their partners and ex-partners will receive the correct response from police forces so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Baroness, who has a long record of campaigning and taking an interest in this issue. Just to clarify, it is the number of successful prosecutions that was at the highest level ever recorded. However, I agree with what she said about the conclusions of the HMIC report—they are very disturbing. That is why the Home Secretary will chair a national oversight group to monitor delivery against the recommendations, which have been accepted. She has already written to the domestic abuse leads in each police force and to the chief constables to make clear the expectation that plans should be produced quickly and emphasise that urgent action should be taken to address HMIC’s concerns. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that domestic violence is wholly unacceptable and is very damaging to the victims. It is only right that we take every step possible to improve the prosecution of it.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that domestic violence is a gravely reprehensible offence which should normally be dealt with by way of condign punishment? Is that not so because of the greater vulnerability of women in terms of physical strength, economic security and particularly the protection of children? Is the Minister satisfied that the advisory sentencing bodies are sufficiently enthused to pass on this message to magistrates and judges and that this is essential if this disgraceful practice is to be effectively contested?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I echo what the noble Lord said about it being a wholly reprehensible crime. Among the many concerns, I am not aware of the particular question of sentencing. There may well be individual cases where individual sentences are not acceptable. The important challenge for us, particularly in the light of the HMIC report, is to improve policing. It is unfortunate that the report has discovered a cultural issue where:
“Domestic abuse is a priority on paper but, in the majority of forces, not in practice”.
We have to address that issue and tackle it in following up the recommendations of the HMIC report.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)
My Lords, as my noble and learned friend probably knows, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, is conducting a major inquiry into this general subject. Without being in any way complacent, would he agree, as I think he has already said, that it is a matter of some satisfaction that the former Director of Public Prosecutions, in his 2013 report, found that, for the first time, three out of four violence against women and girls prosecutions have resulted in a conviction; that domestic violence, rape and sexual offence prosecutions have reached their highest conviction rate to date; and that guilty pleas have led to most successful outcomes, avoiding the victims having to face the ordeal of a trial?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, my noble friend rightly points out that the number of guilty pleas has also increased, which is helpful in relieving victims from having to give evidence. Although prosecutions are at their highest level, it is also fair to say, in tribute to the previous Director of Public Prosecutions, that when he saw the reduction in the number of referrals in the reports and information which he was given and published, he immediately convened a round-table conference among the key stakeholders. Six action points were taken forward from that, which my honourable friend the Solicitor-General announced in the other place. I know that it is also the case that the present Director of Public Prosecutions takes this crime very seriously.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, as my noble friend has said, since 2010-11 there has been a 13% increase in reported incidents of domestic violence but fewer cases have been passed to the CPS. If we take that together with the fact that there has been a 31% reduction in funding for refuges for those who are subject to domestic violence, would the Minister agree with Women’s Aid that that means that women and children are more likely to remain in or return to abusive situations? Will the Government’s review make an assessment of how many more women and children are now at risk and will the Government bring forward plans to deal with it?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, an important recommendation from the HMIC report not only looked at the question of policing and the great variations within it across the country but noted that tackling domestic abuse requires organisations in both the statutory services and the voluntary community services to work together to give proper multiagency support to victims of domestic abuse. Again, that is a recommendation that the Home Secretary has accepted. I think it is common ground across the House that we need to be very active in giving effective support to victims of domestic abuse.
Climate Change
(10 years ago)
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Lord Dykes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the United States National Climate Assessment report about climate change impacts in the United States.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, the United States National Climate Assessment is a valuable addition to the growing body of scientific evidence demonstrating the current impacts and future risks of climate change. Like the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent assessment, it shows that climate change is already having a serious impact on many economic sectors and all regions of the United States. It strengthens the case for ambitious action to tackle climate change in the US and globally.
Lord Dykes (LD)
I thank my noble friend for that very helpful answer. Is not the ominous reality of this very detailed scientific examination, along with recent developments such as the alarming weaknesses in the Wilkes Basin ice banks in east Antarctica, that all countries need to accelerate and reinforce their carbon reduction programmes urgently? Does my noble friend feel that the UK Government are responding adequately?
Baroness Warsi
I can assure my noble friend that the United Kingdom Government—and the previous Government as well—have always been a leader on the issue of climate change and have sought to strengthen not just their own position but those of other countries. We are leading on legislation, we are leading on targets and we are leading in the international conversations to make sure that we take other countries with us.
Lord Barnett (Lab)
My Lords, if we in the UK doubled what we are now doing on climate change, what impact would it have in the United States?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord makes an important point, clearly referring to the fact that the United Kingdom is, thankfully, responsible only for 1.5% of global emissions, unlike the United States. However, it is of course important that we continue to work with friends and colleagues in the United States to make sure that they keep heading in the right direction. We can say that the current Administration in the US are making all the right moves.
Lord Lawson of Blaby
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Howell for his characteristic courtesy. Is my noble friend aware that her reference to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is wholly mistaken? Is she aware that the latest IPCC report explicitly states that estimates of the aggregate economic impact of climate change are relatively small and that moderate climate change, which is what it predicts for the rest of this century, may be beneficial?
Baroness Warsi
My Lords, I promised myself that I would try to not get into a discussion on science with my noble friend, but he tempts me. The scientist in the family is my husband, but I would come back to the noble Lord on this particular question by saying that the overwhelming evidence from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is supported by every country in the world, clearly shows that this is a real hazard, it is man-made and it is causing us huge concern.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness’s robust refutation of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, is extremely welcome, but is her view of climate change shared by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Baroness Warsi
I have never had a conversation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about climate change. We have had conversations on many other things, but certainly I will speak to him when I next get the opportunity.
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I will put a rather more moderate question. Is it not a bit regrettable that, whereas in the United States carbon emissions are falling as a result of the huge switch from coal to gas, the opposite seems to be happening here? Is the Minister aware that virtually no new gas turbines are now being built, despite government measures to encourage them? Indeed, some brand new and efficient gas stations are being closed down. Is there not something basically wrong with the policy?
Baroness Warsi
One of the great successes in the United States has been the development of shale gas. It is, of course, a policy of which the Government are hugely supportive. Diversifying our energy consumption and investing in green energy, as this Government have clearly done, will both help ensure that we meet our targets.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that if she is asked a quiz question, “What do the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, the noble Lord, Lord Bell, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, have in common?”, the answer is that we are all trustees of the Climate Parliament? In the Climate Parliament, Members of Parliament from all around the world agree with her and not with the noble Lord, Lord Lawson.
Baroness Warsi
I pay tribute to the Members of the Climate Parliament, which is clearly a noble group of people.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that one of the key findings of the United States climate change report is that the process of climate change is now much faster than we had expected it to be? The effects are predicted to fall within a matter of a decade or so, rather than 20 or 30 years from now. Given that, will she persuade her friendly Secretary of State for Education to ensure that children in school are made more aware of the absolute necessity of tackling climate change than they are at present?
Baroness Warsi
I will, of course, pass those comments on. It will take a whole generation to deal with one of the biggest challenges for our generation. As my noble friend said, it takes time between emissions going down and the real impact that that will then have in terms of keeping the global temperature down. The concerns at the moment are that the knock-on impact will be much greater than originally anticipated.
Ukraine
(10 years ago)
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The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on Ukraine made earlier today in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a Statement on recent events in Ukraine. I will update the House on the situation on the ground, the diplomatic work going on to reduce tensions, the decisions we made at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels yesterday, and the approach we will continue to pursue over the coming weeks.
Presidential elections will be held in Ukraine on 25 May. In the vast majority of the country, preparations are proceeding well under OSCE observation. The UK is contributing 100 observers to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Election Observation Mission—10% of the total number; £429,000 for the first round of elections. We have also given £1 million in funding so far to the Special Monitoring Mission. I met the heads of both of these vital missions in Ukraine last week, and I thanked them for the hard work of their teams in difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances.
But in two of Ukraine’s 25 regions—namely Donetsk and Luhansk in the south and east of the country—the situation has deteriorated markedly over the last two weeks. A constant barrage of propaganda by the Russian media, and a steadily mounting death toll, are contributing to an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and division. So-called pro-Russian separatists—led by people who, by their training, equipment and behaviour, give every appearance of being Russian special forces—have continued to seize and occupy government buildings in the south and east of Ukraine, using many of the same tactics that were deployed in Crimea. We have seen intimidation of journalists, abductions and murders. Missiles have been used to destroy at least four Ukrainian military helicopters, giving the lie to Russia’s claim that these are the actions of spontaneously organised local protestors, rather than of well trained, well equipped professionals. On 2 May more than 40 people died in Odessa, including many pro-Russian protesters trapped in a building that was set on fire, an act we condemn unreservedly.
This weekend, separatist groups staged sham referendums on self-rule in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk. The polls were marked by blatant fraud, including multiple voting, no proper voting lists, and threats and intimidation against Ukrainians standing up for the unity of the country. These referendums met none of the basic standards of objectivity, transparency and fairness, and they have no credibility whatever. We will not recognise these or any other attempts to undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. The Government believe that our national interest lies in a democratic Ukraine able to determine its own future, and in defending and protecting a rules-based international system. So our objectives remain to avoid any further escalation of the crisis, to support the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, and to uphold international law.
I visited Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia last week to show our support at a time when all three countries are feeling acute pressure. We look forward to the signing next month of Georgia and Moldova’s association agreements with the EU which will also establish deep and comprehensive free trade areas, which are currently under parliamentary scrutiny. I gave our strong support to the Moldovan Government’s plans to sign and implement the agreement, and encouraged them to make more progress on reform and in the fight against corruption. In Georgia I discussed and thanked the Government for their contribution to their partnership with NATO.
In Ukraine, I met the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and the head of the National Security and Defence Council, as well as the Governor of Donetsk and two of the presidential candidates. I encouraged all Ukraine’s leaders to communicate with people in the south and east of the country, and to counter Russian disinformation. I welcomed the steps the Government have taken to launch an inclusive dialogue on constitutional reform and decentralisation, and to offer an amnesty for those who peacefully leave occupied buildings in eastern Ukraine. I assured Ukrainians of our support for the presidential elections, which must be allowed to take place free from violence and intimidation. On top of our strong support for the work of the OSCE, the UK is providing technical assistance to support public financial management and other reform efforts in Ukraine. We have led the call for the urgent imposition of EU sanctions targeting individuals suspected of misappropriating funds from the Ukrainian state. We hosted the Ukraine Asset Recovery Forum two weeks ago in London, with the United States and Ukraine, in order to co-ordinate this work.
As I have always stressed, the doors of diplomacy remain open. We continue to discuss the situation with Russia, and the Prime Minister had a long conversation with President Putin on 1 May. We strongly supported the Geneva agreement of 17 April and deplore the failure of Russia to join in implementing it. It is right to try now to revive the diplomatic process, and I support and welcome the efforts being made by OSCE Chair-in-Office and President of Switzerland Burkhalter. Last week I met him in Vienna, and I have held further discussions with him over the weekend and yesterday in Brussels. Last Wednesday he met President Putin and put forward a four-point plan, including the immediate launch of a national dialogue by the Ukrainian authorities with OSCE support. We have encouraged Ukraine to respond positively and it is now doing so. The Government have announced that they will hold the first meeting tomorrow, and agreed that there will be both Ukrainian and international mediation in this process.
I strongly believe it is in the interests of all concerned to seize these opportunities to reduce tensions. It is manifestly in the interests of the people of Ukraine, including in Donetsk and Luhansk, where there is a danger of the violence growing even worse and many more lives being lost. It is in the interests of Russia, because some events have already moved beyond their control, and because the long-term economic and political costs to Russia of an escalating crisis will be very serious. It is also urgent, because the situation is deteriorating and the elections are only 12 days away. We look to Russia to exercise its influence and to take every opportunity to restrain those responsible for violence and disorder, consistent with President Putin’s remarks last Wednesday that the elections are a step forward.
Yesterday I attended the Foreign Affairs Council, where we made it clear that attitudes and behaviour towards the holding of the elections will have particular importance in deciding whether or not wider economic and trade sanctions will be applied. Preparations for these sanctions are at an advanced stage. There is no doubt that the Ukrainian authorities are making thorough preparations for the elections to be held, and therefore Russia’s willingness to exercise its influence over illegal armed groups in parts of eastern Ukraine will be the decisive factor in whether everyone in the eastern provinces will be able to exercise their right to vote. Since Russia has taken no practical steps to de-escalate the crisis so far, we agreed to add a new group of 13 individuals and two companies to the list of those persons sanctioned. This is the first time that such entities have been sanctioned by the EU in relation to Ukraine.
We agreed to expand the criteria for sanctions. These will now cover not just individuals directly responsible for undermining the security, territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, but also a broader range of individuals and entities linked to separatist and illegal activities. For the first time, the sanctions will also be applicable to entities in Crimea or Sevastopol whose ownership has been transferred contrary to Ukrainian law and to those who obstruct the work of international organisations in Ukraine.
At the Foreign Affairs Council, we also called on Russia to take effective steps to fulfil its Geneva commitments: to refrain from provocative actions and intimidation, to use its influence with separatist groups to compel them to disarm and to vacate illegally occupied buildings, and to cease its destabilising campaign.
We demanded that Russia move its troops away from the Ukrainian border. President Putin said last week that troops were returning to their regular training grounds. However we have seen no evidence that Russia has reduced the huge number of its troops stationed just miles from Ukraine, and in fact Moscow continues to encourage the actions of separatists, including through Russia’s state-controlled media.
In addition to these steps, we agreed as Foreign Ministers that the EU will prepare a possible civilian mission to Ukraine to support capacity building in the fields of rule of law and judicial and police reform, and we maintained our firm commitment to sign the remaining provisions of the association agreement with Ukraine, including the deep and comprehensive free trade area, as soon as possible after the presidential elections. It is clear that if Russia does not take the path of de-escalation, the long-term cost to it will grow, in an economy already shrinking and suffering massive capital flight. G7 energy Ministers met in Rome last week and committed themselves to reduce market power and political influence through energy supply. EU leaders will discuss further detailed measures when they meet in June.
The people of Ukraine deserve the right to choose their own Government in a free and fair election, just as we do. They also deserve to be free from external interference and duress and to have the chance to chart an independent future without the debilitating corruption and mismanagement of recent years. They should have every opportunity to be a bridge between east and west—not to have their country pulled apart by the fanning of hatred, the wilful sowing of violent disorder and the insertion of provocateurs and separatists from over their borders.
There is now a fresh opening for Russia and anyone else fostering violence and tension to turn back from the brink. The coming days will demonstrate whether they are going to take it, and the UK will do everything it can to encourage that and to support the holding of open and fair democratic elections.
The international community must continue to be prepared to act with resolve and determination to persuade the Russian Government to change their approach, to defend the rules-based international system, and to prevent a deterioration of the situation in the wider region”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement made in another place by her right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary earlier today. It is clear from the number of noble Lords in their places how important they feel that the Statement she has just repeated actually is. The Minister will know that Her Majesty’s Opposition continue to give our support to Her Majesty’s Government in their handling of this matter.
As far as Ukraine is concerned, the Foreign Secretary is of course right when he says that the situation today in eastern Ukraine is deeply troubling. The violence, as we have heard, continues, the death toll is rising and the situation remains very volatile. We, too, unreservedly condemn—as will all people of goodwill—the tragic events of 2 May in Odessa, in which more than 40 people died. We, too, condemn the sham referenda in Donetsk and Luhansk last Sunday, which were well described as both illegal and illegitimate. The priority must now be for calm to be restored and further violence to be prevented. However, recent events—particularly last week and over the weekend—have perhaps created a key moment, when the real resolve and intentions of Russia must now be tested.
Some commentators have seen some public comments by President Putin as a sign of possible progress. However, as history has constantly taught us, words are not enough, it is actions that count. That is why the international community has to judge President Putin not by his words alone but by his actions. He has said that the referendum should be postponed. Now that it has taken place, surely he must condemn it. He has said that presidential elections might be a step forward. Now, surely, he must help create the conditions for them to take place fairly, fully and peacefully across the whole country. He has said that he has withdrawn troops from the border. Surely he must allow NATO to verify that. He has signed up to the Geneva accord of 17 April. Now he must help to implement it.
If President Putin fails to take the minimum steps required to demonstrate that he is willing to change course, the West must be prepared to increase pressure in the days and weeks ahead. We therefore welcome the steps agreed at yesterday’s European Union Foreign Affairs Council to extend existing targeted measures, including those against two companies. On the measures agreed, can the Minister say whether she expects that the expanded criteria will result in the addition of further Russian entities—companies—to the list of companies targeted by such sanctions?
We warmly welcome the council’s conclusions on the work of the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine, and most particularly our country’s—the UK’s— contribution, both financial and in terms of personnel, to this particular mission. We also agree with the remarks made by the EU High Representative—our noble friend Lady Ashton—following the Foreign Affairs Council meeting yesterday, when she said:
“We are encouraging the efforts of the Government of Ukraine to reach out to all regions within the framework of the national dialogue, including on the constitutional reform process”.
She went on:
“It is vital to ensure the rights of national minorities”.
The Geneva accord of 17 April still serves as the most credible road map to a peaceful resolution of this crisis. It is a matter of regret that Russia has so far shown no willingness to implement its terms. Can the Minister, therefore, help us by confirming that efforts are under way to secure a further meeting between the signatories of that agreement to the deal, as a way of trying to make progress on its implementation? We note the Council’s conclusions yesterday in support of a further meeting, but in light of Russian statements that no such meeting is being planned, can she set out the likelihood of its taking place?
We also welcome her remarks on the preparatory work being done by the EU on possible wider trade and economic sanctions against Russia. Can the Minister provide the House with any further details about the kind of measures currently under consideration? Can she confirm, too, that any steps taken by Russia to seek to prevent the peaceful process of presidential elections later this month would be deemed a serious escalation and further evidence of its intention to further destabilise the situation in Ukraine? We also welcome the Government’s confirmation that an association agreement is due to be signed with Georgia and Moldova next month, alongside the free-trade area agreement.
Finally, the Government are of course aware that many countries in the region, especially those from the former Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, but also including our Nordic allies, have a deeper concern that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are not an isolated incident but part of a developing and worrying trend—particularly in light of recent claims by the Russian Government about their need to protect Russian speakers or ethnic Russians, irrespective of their nationality or the credibility of any real threat against them. It is little wonder that that has caused apprehension and even alarm, so can the Minister confirm what discussions the Government have had with our EU and NATO allies on our response to these developments?
We thank the noble Baroness for keeping Parliament informed about these very difficult and serious issues and we express again our support for the Government’s actions in dealing with them.
Baroness Warsi
My Lords, I thank the Benches opposite, and indeed the noble Lord, for the bipartisan approach that has been adopted in this matter and for their support for the Government’s approach.
The noble Lord is absolutely right that actions must follow words and of course some of those words have been positive, such as the reference to the elections as a step forward and the commitment to the Geneva agreement. It is because we must hope for the best but plan for the worst that, at an EU level and bilaterally with many of our partners, we continue to plan for further measures if there was to be an escalation. The kinds of situations to which the noble Lord referred are exactly the kind which would be seen as further escalation. Any sort of prevention of people being allowed to vote or a disruption of these presidential elections would be seen as the kind of areas which would lead to further measures.
The broader criteria will now mean that the people and entities now under consideration go much broader than the initial group of people that we were considering, but I think that the noble Lord will understand if I do not provide him with details of who they are or the kind of organisations that they may be. There are 28 nations at the EU level with which we try to get agreement on these matters, and it is important that we allow the process to take place to reach that agreement.
The noble Lord raised an important point about whether this is an isolated incident. I spent parts of my Recess in Central Asia, where it was interesting to hear from people from the ex-Soviet bloc states, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as to how this was being perceived by them and the impact that it could have on the potential customs unions that Russia wishes to take forward. The actions of Russia in relation to its neighbours—the lack of respect for the territorial integrity of its immediate neighbours—does not necessarily bode well for what is considered to be, I hope, an equal relationship when forming those customs unions.
The noble Lord also raised an important point in relation to the Geneva agreement. The signatories to that agreement were of course Russia, Ukraine, the EU and the US. That is the right format in which to take these matters forward, but there is a whole series of measures agreed back on 17 April in that Geneva committee which have not yet been implemented. Specific things were asked of Ukraine: for example, tabling an amnesty law, which has been done; a commitment to constitutional reform, aimed at decentralisation, which has been made; and guarantees on the protection and status of the Russian language, which have been given. There were certain very specific asks of Russia also, which, as the noble Lord said, have not been met. We want to see progress on the asks that have already been agreed and on the specific things agreed at the Geneva committee.
It is important to push back on some of the rhetoric we are hearing about what the people in south and east Ukraine want. Credible polls have been held by organisations that are very close to the ground, which said that something like 70% of people do not see a future for themselves within Russia and do not feel that the Russian language is under attack, for example. We have a responsibility to push back on what clearly is not an accurate account of the situation on the ground.
I thank the noble Lord and the Benches opposite for the huge support they have given to our approach.
Lord Soley (Lab)
This is a strong Statement and I welcome it very strongly. Can I ask the Minister to convey—
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, from these Benches I, too, wish to thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Foreign Secretary’s rather comprehensive Statement today updating us on the European Council. It is a happy coincidence that President Didier Burkhalter of Switzerland happens to chair the OSCE at this time, because the OSCE is the right body to defuse tensions. We were very heartened to see that he has suggested to the President of the European Council that he hold a series of round tables to try to mediate the situation. Can the noble Baroness tell us whether the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Poland—or, indeed, their representatives—will play a prominent role in the OSCE negotiations? That group of countries negotiated the first accord, which I think was acceptable to all sides in the conflict.
Will the noble Baroness also tell us about the position of Germany? I understand that the German Government are keen that Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference, should lead a separate round of mediation efforts. I am sure that the noble Baroness does not need me to remind her of this, but I put on the record that it is absolutely critical for the European Union to remain united on this issue through the OSCE. To have individual countries breaking off and setting up their own initiatives for their own geostrategic reasons can hardly be a welcome development from our side but would be welcomed by Mr Putin; it would be an opportunity for him to obfuscate further.
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend has always made very incisive and important points. President Didier Burkhalter is indeed leading the OSCE negotiations. Again, the parameters of those negotiations have been clear in relation to the cessation of violence, the facilitation of disarmament and the immediate establishment of a national dialogue. It is important that Ukraine delivers for the Ukrainian people and therefore allows stability within the nation to form the strength and backbone of its approach with Russia.
Our European partners and the Foreign Ministers to whom the noble Baroness refers support that process. It is important that there is a unified EU position. However, as I said earlier, there are 28 member states and Russia relies on the fact that the EU may have a difference of opinion within itself. I took great comfort from the Foreign Affairs Council meeting yesterday, given the fact that we managed to reach agreement on a much broader approach to sanctions. The agreement that, if there is a further escalation, there will be an escalation of sanctions shows that Europe is, thankfully, singing from the same song sheet.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, will the Leader of the House call for shorter questions from Members?
Lord Wright of Richmond
My Lords, I welcome the passage in the Statement that refers to the need for the doors of diplomacy to remain open. Although that clearly relates primarily to the difficulties we have with the Russians on Ukraine, does the Minister agree that there are other subjects that urgently need continued diplomacy with Russia, such as the situation in the Middle East, Syria and Egypt and the threat of Islamic extremism, let alone climate change and energy? It is very important that, however we react to Russian misbehaviour, we do not close those doors.
Baroness Warsi
I fully take those views on board. That is why we continue to sit with the Russians on the E3+3 negotiations with Iran. We want Russia to continue to play its role as an international partner, but it must abide by international norms and laws if it wants to continue to do so.
Lord Soley
Perhaps the Minister could take this opportunity to remind the House of the importance of a debate on Russia. I have been arguing for that for some time and the Chief Whip has written to me about it. We need to talk about Russia. The first thing that I would like to ask the Minister is whether we are raising with Russia the recognition that there is genuine concern about Russian speakers or people of Russian ethnicity, but they can be better protected by normal human rights legislation, not by moving in special forces to stir up local trouble. Exactly the same concerns arise about the minorities in Crimea, who will now feel very much at risk in view of the occupation by Russia. The way of dealing with minorities in east Europe and Crimea should be part of the agenda.
Baroness Warsi
The rights of minority communities, and indeed minority languages, are an issue that every country deals with and struggles with. Indeed, part of my role in the United Kingdom is about dealing with faith and communities and ensuring that all communities feel part of our nation. However, what part of international norms is about saying that you have to invade the territory of another country because you feel that somehow you have an affiliation to a language that may be spoken by some people in that country? Of course it is important for us to support the Ukrainians in their support for these minority communities and to speak out against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, but it is also important to set out what the international norms are.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Earlier I heard someone in another place say that this was now a matter for the whole of the Atlantic alliance, as of course it is. However, when it comes to the matter of illegal annexations, is it not also a matter for the entire global community, including the rising powers of Asia and including China? Have we had any contact with the Chinese authorities? Has the Minister noticed that Mr Putin is going to be in Beijing in a few days’ time, seeking to secure a major long-term sales contract with the Chinese for gas that he feels he may not be able to sell to Europe? Should we not be a bit cautious? Would it not be a pity if we ended up seeing Russia and China driven closer together as a result of our policies?
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend may be aware of the United Nations Security Council vote on 15 March, at which Russia found itself completely isolated, and indeed on that particular vote China abstained. In the General Assembly vote a couple of weeks after that on 27 March, the result was 100 to 11. That clearly shows not just a NATO/Russia or US/EU/Russia issue but actually a world issue where Russia is finding itself more and more isolated.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, yes, Russia must be made to pay a heavy price for its conduct, but does the Minister agree that, if there is to be a lasting settlement, the legitimate interests of Russia will have to be recognised and accommodated, and that those interests include, yes, the cultural and linguistic interests of the Russophone people but also the fact that full membership of NATO should not be extended to Ukraine, and that there should be substantial devolution to those areas of the east and the south of Ukraine that want it?
Baroness Warsi
I hear what the noble Lord has said, but the legitimate and natural interests of the Ukrainian people surely come before the legitimate interests of any other peoples. It must of course be right that the Ukrainian people are free to decide their future. I do not think that the European Union, or indeed the US, are forcing the Ukrainians to go down any path; I was at the Vilnius conference where these discussions in relation to the association agreement started. I refer the noble Lord right back to when these debates were being held at these Dispatch Boxes; we were incredibly careful with our language, constantly asked for matters to de-escalate and constantly spoke with the Ukrainians to ensure that the issues being raised by the Russians were being addressed.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, the outgoing Secretary-General of NATO has made clear his concerns about the trends in defence expenditure within the alliance, particularly in light of the international situation. The United Kingdom used to set an example in this regard and thus was able to speak from a position of moral authority. Given the fraught international situation and the issues that we are discussing today, does the Minister not believe that it is time that the United Kingdom resumed its rightful place in this regard?
Baroness Warsi
This question has arisen on a number of occasions when we have discussed Ukraine. The noble and gallant Lord will obviously always make a strong case for defence spending. I assure him that in relation to the resources required, certainly to step up the Baltic air-policing mission, the necessary Typhoons were deployed.
Baroness Rawlings (Con)
My Lords, the BBC World Service used to broadcast in both Russian and Ukrainian, but these services were cut back with the approval of the Foreign Office. This was based on the argument that the new Russia no longer needed such an effort and that funds should be redirected to the Middle East. Russian and Ukrainian now have only an online offer. In the light of the present situation, will the Foreign Office now allocate some resources for changing this situation fully to support broadcasting to this part of the world, particularly television?
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend makes an important point; she knows that this funding was cut back in 2011, and of course matters have changed since then. This matter should be kept under review. The decision made by the BBC will be editorially independent, but in light of how much of this conflict appears to be about a war of words and misinformation we should certainly consider the matter.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with the Minister’s assertion that the referendums that were held in the east of Ukraine were clearly deeply flawed, and would not pass any normal test of a free and fair election. But I am troubled by the implication of much of what she said, that somehow the feelings in eastern Ukraine and in Crimea are entirely an anxiety manufactured by Russian foreign policy, and that they bear no relation whatever to the real feelings of the people in the area. I put it to her that we are all democrats; we all respect the judgment of the people. Is it really the position of Her Majesty’s Government that whatever the views expressed by people in eastern Ukraine and in Crimea on separation, devolution or independence and whatever their judgment is, these people must remain within the present boundaries of Ukraine under the present constitutional arrangements there? I ask this, of course, with the background of a referendum shortly to take place in part of the United Kingdom about its future boundaries.
Baroness Warsi
I sincerely hope that that was not the impression that I gave. If I did, I apologise; it was not how I intended it. From the outset of this crisis, we spoke about making sure that the legitimate concerns of the Ukrainian people, who were raising concerns about minority rights and language, and about decentralisation and much more localised governance, were taken into consideration. This formed the basis of the Geneva agreement, and we have put money into making sure that that is the kind of work that the Ukrainians have started and put in place. Alongside that, the commitments made by Russia too need to be fulfilled and we see no progress on that.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)
My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. For five years I was an adviser to the Parliament of Ukraine, shortly after Ukraine became independent. I want to bear out what the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Anderson, said. There are very long historical stories between Ukraine and Russia that are not easy to follow for those of us outside. It is of the first importance that we recognise the need for minorities and their language and culture to be respected and do not involve NATO in any oversight or inspection of the outcome of all this. Does the Minister agree that the OSCE should indicate clearly its support for human rights for minorities? I know this has been said, but it needs to be said over and over again until the Ukrainian Parliament says it too—it is of great importance that we are recognised to be supporting the human rights of everybody in Ukraine, whether they are Russian speakers or Ukrainian speakers.
Baroness Warsi
I completely endorse the comments of my noble friend. That is why we continue to press parliamentarians in Ukraine to speak out against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, but we must also remember those minorities which are now in an annexed Crimea. Let us not forget, for example, the Tatar community, which now feels under siege because of what is happening in Crimea. I do not think we can have one rule for one part of Ukraine and not for the other. We must continue to make those demands and expectations of the Ukrainians and also of Russia.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
Without seeking in any way to undermine the principles very properly enunciated by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is it not the case that the attitude of President Putin has been that of unprincipled and utterly ruthless rapacity towards Ukraine, particularly bearing in mind that Russia was one of the signatories of the Budapest pact guaranteeing the very existence of that country and undertaking in the event of any disruption of that situation that the matter be immediately reported to the Security Council? If it be the case that there have to be further sanctions, will Her Majesty’s Government bear it in mind that President Putin has said on many occasions that the defining moment of success in his public life was the introduction of Russia into the G8? Without considering the expulsion of Russia from the G8, the situation could be bypassed by concentration upon the G7. Is that not something that might be demanded on account of not just the rapacity in relation to Ukraine but the possibilities of wider intentions towards many other countries that were part of the old Russian empire?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord is right that Russia’s actions contravene its obligations under the UN charter, the OSCE Helsinki Final Act and the 1997 partition treaty on the status and conditions of the Black Sea fleet and are in breach of its commitments under the Budapest memorandum signed in 1994. Russia is not following a plethora of its obligations.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I think we have had four questions from the Labour Benches and only two from this side.
Lord Higgins
Does my noble friend agree, first, that the combination of coalition government and fixed-term Parliaments seems to be resulting in longer and longer recesses and that there is a strong case for us having time to debate this issue in this House on a full-time basis? Secondly, is it not extraordinary that we have such elaborate arrangements on the military defence side of things yet very little thought seems to have been given to economic defence, with the result that we do not have the ability to reach agreement on short notice in the light of the present crisis on economic sanctions? What body is setting up the immediate procedure for dealing with the economic problems and the need to take economic measures in response to this crisis? Should we not have a permanent arrangement covering that?
Baroness Warsi
First, in relation to the point on recess, my understanding is that apparently the number of recess days does not exceed what has happened in previous years. As a Minister who is part of this coalition Government, I cannot remember the last time I had recess.
On the economic consequences, it is already clear, for example from the recent downgrade of growth for Russia’s economy from 2.3% to 0.2% this year, the $63 billion capital flight and the downgrading of Russian bonds, that this is having a real impact on Russia’s economy. The format for making sure that these sanctions are having an impact has been, among other things, the EU Foreign Affairs Committee. It is because there is constant planning happening that when there is an escalation in the situation there is an escalation in sanctions, and those sanctions are biting.
Lord Davies of Stamford
The Minister said a few moments ago that she was very careful about language. I put it to her that her right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary was most unfortunate in his language in one section of the Statement, when he said:
“We demanded that Russia move its troops away from the Ukrainian border”.
I do not need to remind the House and the Minister that Russia’s troops are, unfortunately, already within the Ukrainian border, in Crimea. It is most unfortunate, undesirable and dangerous to use language that implies that, even if we have not accepted that situation formally or legally, we have somehow psychologically acquiesced in the annexation by Russia of Ukraine.
Does the Minister agree with me that President Putin will naturally take whatever he thinks he can get away with? The sanctions that we imposed on him after the illegal annexation of Crimea were so footling—at the time I think that I described them as “derisory”—that it is hardly surprising that he has come back for a bigger bite. Does the Minister accept that, if we are going to need new sanctions, they had better this time be a great deal more powerful, because she has a very considerable credibility gap to cover?
Baroness Warsi
I have outlined the impact that the sanctions are already having. We are designing these sanctions in such a way as to have a maximum impact on Russia with the minimum impact on others—but, of course, there will be an impact on others, including on ourselves. HMG do not accept—the Foreign Secretary has said this on numerous occasions—the illegal annexation of Crimea. I do not think that anything in the Statement suggests that we do.
Procedure Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That the 5th Report from the Select Committee (Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee; Written Answers and Statements; Select Committee Membership; Maiden Speeches in Hansard) (HL Paper 167) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, I beg to move that the fifth report of the Procedure Committee be agreed to. The report covers a number of different areas which I will cover briefly in turn.
The first part of the report recommends a change to the terms of reference of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to add two new grounds on which that committee may draw the special attention of the House to a statutory instrument. This change is being made at the request of the committee. The two new grounds are: (e) that the explanatory material laid in support provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding about the instrument’s policy objective and intended implementation; and (f) that there appear to be inadequacies in the consultation process which relates to the instrument.
The second section sets out rules for government departments to follow when submitting Answers to Written Questions. The need for new rules arises from the introduction of a new system to allow electronic exchange of Questions for Written Answer and their associated Answers between both Houses and government departments. The new Question and Answer system will automatically publish all Questions and Answers on the parliamentary website and send e-mail alerts to Members, who will have a dedicated web page for viewing and organising all their Questions and Answers. Answers should be received more quickly, as Members will not have to wait for the postal delivery. Answering bodies will be able to include attachments with their answers, containing tabular, graphic or illustrative material which cannot be printed in Hansard. The digital copy of Answers will be the definitive record copy, but a printed version will continue to be published and, in addition, while recognising that we may be somewhat behind the curve of the digital age, the Leader of the House has asked Lords Ministers to continue sending printed and signed versions of Answers to all Lords Members.
The third section of the report arises from a proposal made by the usual channels to reform the rules relating to Select Committee membership with the aim of increasing the opportunities for Members to participate in Select Committee work.
The first recommendation is that from the end of the 2014 Session—I stress that is not from the end of this Session but from the end of the Session which ends with the general election—the rotation rule for all Select Committees other than the House Committee should be three Sessions instead of four. The House Committee presently has a five-Session rotation. That will be reduced to four and then eventually to three. In the longer term, we also propose that the House Committee should come down to a three-Session rotation. To avoid a sudden loss of many Members by reducing the length of service by two Sessions at once, we recommend that this change be implemented incrementally.
Other recommendations include a new rule that Members who leave a committee under the rotation rule should be eligible for reappointment to the same committee, or any of its sub-committees, only after the lapse of two full Sessions. We further recommend that it be set out in the Companion that it is desirable for a Member to serve on only one sessional investigative Select Committee at any one time.
The final section of the report recommends that from the start of the next Session maiden speeches should be marked in Hansard. I beg to move.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments in relation to the report. However, as we are discussing procedure, I should say that I find it ridiculous that comment and questions on the Ukraine Statement were restricted to 20 minutes. I know that has been extended from 10 minutes but in the other place such discussion is unrestricted. My noble friend Lady Liddell and a number of other noble Lords tried to get in and some of us did not even bother to try as we knew that discussion was limited to only 20 minutes and that a lot of noble Lords wanted to comment. However, we are going to finish early again tonight and then we are going away for three weeks. This is a matter of great importance and it is a great shame that we will not have another opportunity to comment on it at this point. I hope that the Chairman of Committees will have another—
Lord Elton (Con)
I hope the noble Lord will permit me to point out that he is not speaking to the Motion on the Order Paper. There is a lot of other pressing business that a lot of us want to get on with.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am speaking about procedure and this is a report on procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, will know that if he was in another place he could raise that issue on a point of order but, unfortunately, he cannot do so here, and he should not have. I have made my point and I know that the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip are listening very carefully.
However, to come to my substantive points, I warmly welcome the position in relation to Written Answers and Statements. It is about time that we had full and proper Answers, and the committee is to be commended for that. I also welcome the changes to Select Committee membership although, in view of the important matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred, it is a bit ironic that the recommendation wants us to work less rather than more. Nevertheless, it is a logical and sensible recommendation.
However, the main point I want to make to the Chairman of Committees is that the relevant measure refers to Select Committees but, as I understand it, it is being interpreted by the Administration to apply also to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, a Joint Committee with the House of Commons. That means we will lose seven Members from the House of Lords—this affects both sides—to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, whereas the Commons Members will continue until the end of the Parliament. That seems to be an anomaly. Whereas it is sensible that this measure should apply to our own Select Committees, it seems strange that it should apply to Joint Committees with the House of Commons given that their Members will continue to the end of the Parliament. I am no longer on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy but a number of Members of that Joint Committee from both sides of the House have asked me to raise that point.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to speak briefly about Written Answers—an issue that I have raised previously. I strongly welcome the idea of going fully electronic but the report, unless I have misread it, does not consider recesses. We have had four weeks at Easter, nearly three weeks are coming up and there will probably be 10 weeks in the summer. I do not see how we can put down Questions and get Answers. If it is going to be done electronically, it could happen every day in the recesses, but the Chairman of Committees may say that that would be too much work in the summer holidays. However, it could be done at least weekly in order for Members to have some chance of holding the Government to account during these lovely long breaks that we are having.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, the Chairman of Committees said that he hoped that Answers to Written Questions would come more quickly. Some years ago, I was on the Procedure Committee and it was at my instigation that there now appears a daily list of Questions for Written Answer that are outstanding beyond the target time of 10 working days. He said that Answers would come more quickly; I hope that he is right. I will believe it when I see it. One sometimes gets the impression that Answers to Written Questions are being smuggled away—away from the daily Hansard, for instance, in a separate document. Will the Chairman of Committees give me an undertaking that the daily list of overdue Answers will not, in this changed procedure, be done away with but will continue to appear?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)
I wish to comment on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, about the amount of time allocated to Statements. He is quite right to say that the time allocated today was clearly inadequate because many noble Lords were on their feet wishing to ask questions about a very important matter. We, the Government or the usual channels—I do not know who—have the power to extend the 20 minutes to 40 minutes. Who exercises that power, how do they do so, what consultations do they have and when did they last do it?
Lord Wills (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the proposals on Written Answers because they represent a considerable improvement on the current situation. However, given this new technology that we will have at our disposal, has the noble Lord given any consideration to grouping Questions together so that we can see any patterns in the Answers given by government departments, particularly with a view to spotting any systemic evasions and prevarications?
The Chairman of Committees
I shall deal with the last question first. Grouping Questions is an intriguing suggestion that is worth looking into. It would develop almost an internal commentary, would it not? It would be a worth while exercise to have a look at.
The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, made a point about late Answers. I can give him a full assurance that there will be no hiding place for departments that are late in answering Questions.
I did not quite follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, when he said that Select Committee rotation was somehow designed to make us work less. It is not. It is designed to make more people work more. That is generally a good thing.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that the issue of tabling Questions in recesses is on the agenda of the Procedure Committee for 24 June, and will therefore receive attention.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Chairman has not answered two vital questions—on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and on the length of Statements.
The Chairman of Committees
I apologise for not answering on national security. The national security committee is subject to a rotation rule. When it was established, Lords Members were put on a rotation basis. If we had not moved to a three-Session rotation but had kept a four-year rotation, which all our committees are on, we would have had six Members leaving the committee this year.
On the length of Statements, I am afraid that I am not in a position to give any answer.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I may help the Chairman of Committees on the question of Statements. My experience is that there are two reasons why we are occasionally allowed to extend the length of Statements. One is when it is a matter of life and death; the other is Lords reform. When you think of it, they are the same thing.
Privileges and Conduct Committee: 14th Report
The Chairman of Committees
That the 14th Report from the Select Committee (The conduct of Lord Hanningfield) (HL Paper 181) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, this is the second time that we have had to consider a Motion relating to the conduct of Lord Hanningfield. The House will recall agreeing to the ninth report of the Committee for Privileges and Conduct in the 2010-12 Session and suspending the noble Lord from the service of the House for nine months for wrongly claiming the old night subsistence allowance. Lord Hanningfield served a prison sentence for the same offence.
The report that we are now considering comes after Lord Hanningfield was investigated by the independent House of Lords Commissioner for Standards following newspaper articles alleging that in July 2013 he attended the House for very short periods of time, yet claimed the full daily allowance on each occasion. The commissioner found that Lord Hanningfield breached the Code of Conduct in claiming the daily allowance on 11 days in July 2013 when he had not undertaken any parliamentary work. The commissioner also found that, in doing so, Lord Hanningfield,
“failed to act on his personal honour”.
The Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct recommended that Lord Hanningfield be suspended until the end of the current Parliament and be required to repay the £3,300 that he wrongly claimed.
In his report, the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, on the basis of the words used in the Guide to Financial Support for Members and the certification made by Members on the claim form for the daily allowance and travel expenses, identifies two conditions that have to be met if a valid claim is to be made. These are that the Member has to be present in the Chamber or at a committee and that the Member has done parliamentary work on the day for which the claim is made. The establishment of a presence does not in itself fulfil the conditions for making a valid claim. The House of Lords Commissioner for Standards does not seek to define what constitutes parliamentary work but recognises that it might take place other than on the Parliamentary Estate.
Lord Hanningfield appealed to the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and appeared before us last week. Having considered the points that he put to us, we did not uphold his appeal and did uphold the recommendations of the commissioner and the sub-committee.
Suspension until the end of this Parliament is the maximum sanction available to the House. We cannot suspend a Member for longer without interfering with their Writ of Summons. We believe that the maximum sanction is justified in this case, not least because this is not Lord Hanningfield’s first offence.
In January, the House introduced two new sanctions for breaches of the Code of Conduct: denial of access for a specified period to the system of financial support for Members and denial of access for a specified period to the facilities of the House. These penalties cannot be applied to breaches of the code that occurred prior to their introduction, including those that Lord Hanningfield has been found to have committed.
I do not believe that I need to say any more. I sincerely hope that the case before the House today will be the last case of its type. I beg to move that the 14th report from the Committee for Privileges and Conduct be agreed to.
Privileges and Conduct Committee: 14th Report
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Hanningfield be suspended from the service of the House until the end of the current Parliament.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The effect of this Motion is to suspend Lord Hanningfield from the service of the House until the end of this Parliament.
Privileges and Conduct Committee: 15th Report
The Chairman of Committees
That the 15th Report from the Select Committee (Further amendments to the Code of Conduct and Guide to the Code of Conduct) (HL Paper 182) be agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, this is the second set of changes to the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Code of Conduct that we have considered in the past two months. This 15th Report makes three recommendations. The first section of the report establishes a stronger link between the requirements of the Code of Conduct and the system of financial support for Members. To this end, the Committee for Privileges and Conduct proposes that a sentence be added to the relevant claim form stating that, in making each claim, the Member concerned should have regard to the obligation in the Code of Conduct to act on their personal honour. It also proposes that the Guide to the Code of Conduct be amended to emphasise further the fact that Members should follow not only the letter of the rules but also the spirit of the rules and the sense of the House when claiming financial support.
The vast majority of Members make claims for financial support that are beyond reproach, but public concerns about isolated examples of abuse remain. The changes proposed should serve to highlight the importance of all Members acting on their personal honour, and they reinforce the need for the highest standards of propriety in this area.
The second section of the report proposes a code of conduct for Members’ staff. This follows a recommendation from the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption. The new code sets out the requirements imposed on Members’ staff, most of which already exist but have not previously been set out in one place. The new code for Members’ staff also lays down some general principles guiding the conduct of Members’ staff in their parliamentary work—for example, that Members’ staff should not use their access to the Parliamentary Estate to engage in lobbying.
The final section of the report relates to the imprisonment of Members. The House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill is expected to receive its Third Reading after this debate. That Bill provides that a Member who is sentenced to imprisonment for more than one year will cease to be a Member of the House. However, if the conviction is outside the United Kingdom, the Member will cease to be a Member only if the House resolves as such.
The Bill addresses the most serious cases where Members have breached the criminal law. However, we think that the House should make provision for the Code of Conduct to deal with cases of imprisonment that do not fall under the Bill. If the Bill becomes law in its current form, the Code of Conduct need cover only those situations where a Member is sentenced to, first, imprisonment for up to and including one year; secondly, a suspended term of imprisonment; or, thirdly, imprisonment for over a year outside the UK where the House has not resolved that the Member should cease to be a Member.
Accordingly, we consider that it should be deemed a breach of the Code of Conduct for a Member to be sentenced to imprisonment, whether in the UK or elsewhere, for any length of time, including suspended sentences. Where that is the case, the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct will recommend an appropriate sanction. We recognise that there is a need for safeguards in respect of convictions in foreign jurisdictions and we recommend a scheme that takes account of this. That is necessary because a situation could arise when someone could be convicted in a common court for an activity that is not a crime in this country, or, indeed, for something which would be praiseworthy in this country.
Together with the 13th Report of the committee, which the House agreed on 6 March, I believe that this 15th Report will make significant progress in strengthening our system governing conduct. I am, of course, happy to answer questions. I beg to move.
Lord Richard (Lab)
My Lords, I have listened with great interest to what the Chairman of Committees has said in relation to this report and, indeed, to the previous ones in relation to Lord Hanningfield. I am bound to say that the more I listened to it, the more disturbed I got. Are we not now in a somewhat strange position? For a person to be able to claim his allowances, first, he has to be seen by the House or the committee, and, secondly, he has to do parliamentary work. One can easily imagine a situation in which you will be doing parliamentary work for almost the whole of the day without setting foot inside the Chamber or appearing in front of a Select Committee. In those circumstances, noble Lords would presumably do what Lord Hanningfield did—although he did not do the parliamentary work—which is turn up and be seen by somebody here, and then, on your honour, you will have fulfilled both conditions.
I am not raising this point in defence of Lord Hanningfield at all. I am merely pointing out that the present situation almost invites a situation in which people turn up in the House just so that they can be seen in order to fulfil the legitimate requirements before they can get their allowances. I do not know whether anything can be done about this—I suspect that the answer is probably not. However, I would like the Chairman of Committees at least to give us an indication of whether they are thinking about it.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I very much welcome the proposal of the Chairman of Committees. It is the least that we can do regarding prison sentences. I am sure the noble Lord will agree that, among the general public, there is an absolute incomprehension that people who have been convicted of serious crimes, and have therefore served prison sentences, can go on being Members of this House. I have had that said to me time and again, and I am sure he will agree that it is a conundrum that we have to solve.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Committee for its work in producing these reports. Nothing can be more difficult, I think, than trying to put into words the circumstances in which we can claim our £300 or £150 a day tax free.
I hope the Chairman will forgive me if I raise one or two points on the Committee’s latest formulation. I am sorry that I did not raise these points with him in advance but, like many noble Lords, I only got round to looking in detail at the new proposals today. However, we know enough about the expenses scandal and the Lord Hanningfield case—and, I fear, others—to know that the language of our self-restraint, if one might call it that, is very important. It does not help to leave that language too rubbery and too open to different interpretation. For example, in the latest formulation, paragraph 4.1.3 of the Guide to Financial Support for Members talks about “appropriate parliamentary work”. However, the claim form simply talks about “parliamentary work”; there is no reference to “appropriate”. Paragraph 8 of the Guide to the Code of Conduct talks about Members in the discharge of our “parliamentary duties”—“duties” as opposed to “work”, and “work” as opposed to “appropriate parliamentary work”. Those three phrases are more than capable, and with some justification, of different interpretations. I urge the Chairman and his committee to consider that point with a view to further amendments, because we do not want any more of this.
I would also like to add, if I may, that there is constant reference to “honour” and to a “sense of the House”—a breach of honour according to the sense of the House. There is absolutely no guidance on what the sense of the House might be in any circumstances. I understand that you cannot find a form of words that will be clear in every circumstance, but I again put it to the Chairman that he might consider that the committee should have a number of scenarios in which it says that it would be contrary to our honour, in those circumstances, to claim or not to claim.
I am afraid that these are issues that the press are looking at closely. Lord Hanningfield himself, in the Daily Mirror article last July, talked of 50 other Peers clocking in and clocking out as he did. I really hope that we do not leave ourselves in the position where we are vulnerable to another wholesale attack on what is going on here, with us apparently doing nothing about it. If any of your Lordships claimed for the full 139 sitting days last year, that would have come to £41,700 tax free. If you gross that up, it is a lot of money, and I am afraid that we remain unduly vulnerable. This is something that we need to address, because the work of this House is of such crucial importance.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, I have read the report and listened most carefully to the Chairman of Committees. This is probably down to my gross mental inadequacy, but could the Chairman of Committees explain more fully to the House the difference between the sanction proposed for imprisonments of under one year and that for imprisonments of over one year?
The Chairman of Committees
I will make a general point first. This House has responded to individual abuses of the scheme in a way which has shown that it has not been prepared to duck the issue: it has tightened the regime, and tightened it quite significantly over a period of months and years. That is to the credit of this House as a self-regulating House in the full and proper sense of the word. I agree that many people, including some of your Lordships, are enormously frustrated that because of the Writ of Summons, it has not been possible to move to exclude individual Peers even in the most severe circumstances. However, that has now been tackled through the new legislation and through what we are putting in place here.
On the detailed point about the difference between imprisonments of over one year and those under one year, imprisonments of over one year mean that it is going to be expulsion while for those under one year the House will work out a sanction for itself. That is the difference: under one year it is not automatic expulsion while over one year it is.
I will deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. The commissioner has said that there are two conditions that your Lordships have to fulfil to make a valid claim. He has come to that on the basis of what we have agreed in the Guide to the Code of Conduct, the Guide to Financial Support for Members and the certificate that we sign when we make our claims. On the basis of those documents, two conditions have to be met. The first is that the Peer has to be present in the Chamber or at a committee meeting—presence has to be established. However, that in itself is not a complete fulfilment of the conditions.
The second condition is that parliamentary work has to be undertaken for every day that is claimed. That is not defined, and it would be very difficult to get into definitions, but it rests on the concept of personal honour. When this concept of personal honour started to be developed, I was one of those who thought that it was rather a woolly notion and could be easily evaded by someone saying, “Well, in my view, I did act on my personal honour and who are you to say that I did not?”. However, it has proved an enormously powerful concept, because we have got to the stage where it has been operationally developed and applied to cases where it was made abundantly clear that the individuals concerned had not acted in terms of personal honour. The definition is not a subjective definition: it is a more objective definition based on the meaning of personal honour in a particular case and how it would be interpreted by the House generally. That has proved to be the basis on which five people have been suspended, so it has had a very strong and robust application.
Local Government Pensions Scheme (Transitional Provisions, Savings and Amendment) Regulations 2014
Lord McKenzie of Luton
That this House regrets that the Local Government Pensions Scheme (Transitional Provisions, Savings and Amendment) Regulations 2014 will unfairly exclude elected councillors in England, directly elected mayors, the Mayor of London, and members of the London Assembly from active membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme. (SI 2014/525).
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, the new Local Government Pension Scheme came into effect on 1 April 2014. It is the first scheme to be introduced that follows the principles for reform of my noble friend Lord Hutton of Furness. The regulations before us set out transitional and savings provisions relating to members of the 2008 LGPS, which is to be replaced by the new scheme. They preserve benefits already accrued by members under the existing scheme and make provision to ensure that members within 10 years of their normal retirement age on 31 March 2012 do not suffer any detriment.
I will be clear: our Motion of Regret does not seek to comment on, revisit or revise what has gone before except in one respect. It regrets the inclusion of those transitional arrangements that deny the right of newly elected councillors to join the Local Government Pension Scheme and of existing council members to remain active after the end of their current term of office. Our Motion does not seek to influence the current consideration being given to a possible restructuring of the scheme or to involve a more collaborative approach. Nor does it purport to address the problems that arise as a consequence of the abolition of contracting out in April 2016, although the Minister might wish to update us on this issue.
Currently we are told that the scheme has assets of some £178 billion; annual employer contributions are in the region of £6 billion and there are some 4.68 million active, deferred and pensioner members. Councillors were given access to a special section of the LGPS where permitted by local authorities’ remuneration panels in 2003. Benefits include a pension based on an eightieth of career average earnings, together with a lump sum life cover and survival benefits. The councillor contribution rate is 6% of basic and special responsibility allowances, so the Government’s description of these arrangements as taxpayer-funded pensions for councillors is less than complete. The most recent data show some 5,000 councillors taking up the opportunity of membership, so while important for councillors, their membership is clearly a tiny part of the overall scheme and cannot in any serious way be said to affect its sustainability.
The proposal to deny access for councillors to the Local Government Pension Scheme was presaged in the Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament in December 2012. As justification for the proposition, the Minister, Brandon Lewis, described councillors as,
“volunteers undertaking public service; they are not and should not be employees of the council dependent on the municipal payroll. They are not professional, full-time politicians, nor should they be encouraged to become so”.
He complained about the allowance system being made worse—he said—by the pension arrangements,
“blurring the distinction between council staff and councillors”.
This was asserted as being,
“a corrosive influence on local democracy and independent thought”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/12/12; col. 105WS.]
I ask the Minister for the evidence for this insulting nonsense. How does this corrosive influence manifest itself? How are things different from the pre-2003 period?
Initially, individuals were to be excluded from the scheme because they were categorised as volunteers. The Written Ministerial Statement was followed by a consultation last year that suggested adding the Mayor of London and other elected mayors and London Assembly members to those denied access, notwithstanding that it recognised that such positions could be full time and that they carried a salary. This was apparently based on another principle: that the LGPS should extend only to paid employees. Could the Minister enunciate more clearly for us the basis for this principle? Also, in what way is it considered that the Mayor of London, for example, has been unable to withstand the corrosive influence of the pension arrangements thus far? Indeed, if this principle is sacrosanct, why are police and crime commissioners to be allowed continued access to the scheme when all other elected officeholders, including those paid a salary, are to be excluded? To the extent that they remain in the scheme, what is to happen to their contribution rate? What is it that inures Commons Ministers from the corrosive influences of their largely taxpayer-funded juicy pension schemes? In seeking to explain the distinction between pension entitlements for paid employees and paid elected officeholders, how would the noble Baroness rationalise the situation where an elected mayor subsumed the role of chief executive?
It is not only the consequences of the Government’s decision that we regret but the manner in which it is presented and argued. The Government acknowledge that they have no central information about participation in the scheme yet pluck from the air a figure of £7 million that might be saved from the changes. Can we please be provided with the basis for this calculation? If cost is the driver, why have the Government eschewed the prospect of change in the member contribution rate? What consideration have the Government given to the prospects of local authorities setting up alternative collective arrangements for elected members?
The Written Ministerial Statement holds to the notion that councillors receive allowances to compensate them for out-of-pocket expenses, yet notes that they are slowly becoming a form of salary and that, as I said, pension entitlements are making this blurring worse. Of course, this issue will not be unfamiliar to Members of your Lordships’ House but for taxation purposes elected officeholders are treated in the same way as any other officeholder or employee. Their allowances are subject to income tax and, where appropriate, national insurance—after deduction of allowable expenses on the same basis as employees. To the extent that there is a blurring of the payment arrangements, it is suggested that this is a consequence of the diversity of roles and commitment that elected members are today called to undertake. It is spurious to use that as a reason to change the pension arrangements.
People are living longer. Notwithstanding changes to the state pension age and single-tier pensions, we have long recognised that the state alone will not provide sufficient for us all in retirement to live a full life. We have political consensus on the need to encourage greater take-up of occupational and private pension provision, and we have recognised the benefit of auto-enrolment in reversing the impact of individual inertia in this area.
However, the consequences of the Government’s actions for elected local officeholders are not only to shut off access to the Local Government Pension Scheme but to continue to exclude them, as councillors, from the benefits of auto-enrolment. Only to the extent that they have employment income elsewhere will they have the prospect of an employer contribution and the specific impetus to save which is provided by auto-enrolment. Because the thresholds for auto-enrolment are being continually raised by the Government, those elected members who devote more time to council matters and less to remunerative employment will miss out the most. That is hardly an example of valuing those who take on responsibilities for our benefit.
We need politics to be open to people from all walks of life. Some will be able to devote most of their time to the task of being a councillor, some less. That is the strength of our system. To see leaders of our major cities, who oversee billion pound budgets, as just volunteers, is frankly talking down the role of councillor. As the LGA Labour group points out:
“If we want to live in a democracy, then we have to ensure that those that give up their time to deliver it for their local communities are treated respectfully and fairly. Many Councillors make significant salary sacrifices”,
and accept reduced career opportunities in order to serve in public office.
In the words of Sir Merrick Cockell, there is a risk that being a local councillor will become the,
“preserve of a privileged few”.
He called it,
“perplexing that ministers who have been busy adding to the workload of councillors by transferring functions from central to local government”,
should seek to class those councillors as volunteers. We can all point to an impressive array of individuals, not just leaders, in all parties, who do a first-rate job as councillors at a time when we need their talents like never before. As the LGA points out, ending access for councillors in England creates a,
“double standard, as councillors in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland retain their entitlement to participate in the scheme”.
It goes on to say that that does not reflect differences in the responsibilities of councillors in any of the home nations or the dedication needed to serve local communities.
Only yesterday, an LGA report set out just how difficult life is to become for local authorities. Being a councillor, a Member of the Assembly or an elected mayor is not for the fainthearted. They are on the front line in dealing with the budget crisis, of embracing innovation, providing local leadership and driving the growth and skills agenda. They are to be encouraged and valued. In the scheme of things, the Government’s denial of their participation in the Local Government Pension Scheme is very much to be regretted. I beg to move.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I rise to speak on this matter because, although other Members of this House have been Assembly members—and, obviously, councillors—before, I am the only remaining Assembly member in this House. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for tabling the Motion of Regret. I have also been a councillor, and I can tell your Lordships that I certainly did not feel like a volunteer. I felt like someone who worked extremely hard; it was way beyond anything that a volunteer has to put up with.
I think that it is deeply illogical, in particular, for Assembly members and the Mayor of London to be excluded from the scheme. It is true that we are full-time and we are salaried. We are, in effect, like MPs: we have the same sort of elected demands on our time. Of course, the Mayor of London is also a police and crime commissioner. It seems deeply illogical that other police and crime commissioners will stay in the pension scheme when the Mayor of London will be excluded, although he is a police and crime commissioner by law. I would like a bit of clarification on that: is he excluded as Mayor of London but included as police and crime commissioner? In its report of 2000, the Senior Salaries Review Body recognised the full-time roles of the mayor and the Assembly members, and it decided that they should be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme. The SSRB saw no reason to change these arrangements.
It is also deeply unfair for councillors to be excluded. It is a time when it is harder and harder to find people to stand for these posts: they are less and less rewarding, and to exclude councillors from a pension scheme is not just unfair but also rather cruel.
In addition, Assembly members and the Mayor of London will have to find alternative arrangements for their pensions. This will probably be much more expensive than the local government scheme but it will be funded by the taxpayer. We have heard about savings, but actually it will cost the taxpayer more if we go outside the scheme. Therefore, I deeply regret that this has happened.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, it is important to look at this in context. In opening, I say to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we have to be careful when we talk about volunteers. There are millions of volunteers in this country who do fantastic work, and we should not categorise them as “mere volunteers”. They do fantastic service for this nation. I recognise that councillors’ work is of a special nature, but we should not detract in any way from the marvellous work done by volunteers up and down all the nations of the United Kingdom.
The nature of councillors’ work is different from that of those people who have, historically, been protected by the Local Government Pension Scheme. I think we would all recognise that the first aim of the Local Government Pension Scheme should be to provide a decent, a good, pension for those who work for our local authorities. Historically, going back to the beginning of the century, councillors were not provided with a pension. It was introduced in the aftermath of 9/11, either on that day or on the next day. That is not to say that it was wrong, but it was perhaps not given the consideration that it should have had. This reverts to the historical position of recognising that councillors are somewhat different. They do—let us recognise it—fantastic service: unstinting, unsung, underappreciated and very often totally unappreciated. However, it is also worth saying—and, to be fair, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said this—that it is only a small minority of councillors, I think about 16%, who are signed up to this scheme. Again, we need to get that into perspective.
I also do not recognise the comments made by the noble Baroness in relation to the cost of the mayor and so on providing for their own pensions. I do not see that there is a tax-funded consequence of that, at least not in the same terms as the scheme that applies at the moment. Perhaps I misunderstood that, but I could not see the consequence there. If I have misunderstood, perhaps that will be elucidated later and, if so, I apologise for that.
The second point that is worth making is that there will be a saving in the scheme, and we have to recognise that resources are scarce. I am not sure whether the party opposite is committed to bringing this scheme back in; I have not heard that said. It is one thing to decry this and say it is a bad thing, but I have not heard any commitment to bring it back in. Perhaps there is such a commitment and perhaps that can be clarified, because there is a saving and all parties recognise that there is a deficit that has somehow to be dealt with. Every saving, no matter how small, contributes to dealing with that deficit. It is very easy to say that we approve of measures to tackle the deficit, but the party opposite often falls into the trap of saying it approves of measures to tackle the deficit and when anything specific is brought up to save money, it is always against them. We need to do that and put this into perspective.
My last word is to say again that we are in great danger of castigating volunteers up and down this country who do terrific work without any allowances or pension arrangements. We need to get that on the record.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I should perhaps declare an interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association and a serving councillor on Newcastle City Council, albeit one who has not been involved in any way with this provision of local authority member pensions.
I begin by extending congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, who as far as I am concerned is making her first appearance on the Front Bench on a DCLG matter. I may have missed her on a previous occasion, but in any case it is a pleasure to congratulate her on that, and on not having to answer this debate or accept responsibility for this particularly malign set of proposals.
These proposals were launched initially by Brandon Lewis MP, the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government, in October 2012. I think that his main claim to fame is that, on an organisation called Phoenix radio, he hosted a talk show called the “Eric and Brandon Show”, which I suppose had a fairly minimal audience in the Brentwood area, where Mr Lewis was at that time the leader of the council. Subsequently, he has of course become an MP elsewhere, while his colleague, who is now the Secretary of State, is the Member of Parliament for the same constituency. Quite whether that broadcast had the impact of the Nick Clegg broadcasts on London radio, I hesitate to think.
However, Mr Lewis must certainly be given the credit for a certain amount of ingenuity. He wrote a letter on 13 March 2014 to Conservatives MPs in England—not that there are many outside England—to explain and defend what the Government were doing. In that letter he said, as we of course understand, that,
“councillors do not receive a salary; rather, they receive allowances to compensate for their out-of-pocket expenses”.
That is an interesting formulation because the actual wording of the Government’s document about this was rather different. The wording in paragraph 1.20 of that document said:
“Councillors are volunteers, elected to their local council to represent their local community. Councillors are not paid a salary or wages, but they are entitled to allowances and expenses to cover their out-of-pocket costs of carrying out their public duties”.
Now, expenses are clearly designed to cover out-of-pocket costs but allowances are not the same thing. Mr Lewis has elided the two concepts in his letter, and quite deliberately so. In addition, he said that,
“following changes made by the Labour Government, allowances have slowly become a form of salary, a situation worsened by the state-funded pensions”,
as if the entire cost was paid by the taxpayer. Of course it is not, as it is a contributory scheme.
However, even that is not quite the full story because paragraph 1.9 of the Government’s document says:
“The provision allowing for councillors’ pensions in England is contained in Section 18(3A) of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989”—
when to the best of my recollection there was not a Labour Government in office—
“and the Local Authority (Members’ Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003 made under the powers contained in that section”.
We have one former Secretary of State present from a Conservative Government, although I do not think that the noble Lord was the Secretary of State at the time. But it was a Conservative Government who facilitated or indeed established the concept of making this scheme a possibility. Of course, Mr Lewis carefully avoids that reference but he then says:
“This blurs the distinction between council officers and councillors”.
In whose eyes, it has to be asked, is there a blurring of the distinction? Citizens can distinguish perfectly well between councillors and officers. What is the nature of this blurring that is alleged to be taking place?
I have been a councillor for what might seem an interminable time, particularly to some of my constituents, but I am not alone in having a long period of service. I anticipate that we will hear from other noble Lords today who have had very distinguished local government careers, such as the noble Lords, Lord True, Lord Shipley and Lord Tope, as well as my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who have already spoken. Looking around the Chamber, it is possible that there will be others such as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, and my noble friend Lord Harris—and there is of course the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. How could I forget her? Of the five noble Lords I anticipated would speak, between us we have served 165 years, 43 of those as leaders of our respective councils. It was not until the late 1980s that I was in receipt of a special responsibility allowance as leader of my council. I did not take the full amount until the last three years of my tenure. I was senior partner at a firm of solicitors and I felt, in the circumstances obtaining in the early 1990s, that I should claim the full £7,000 a year, which was the allowance paid by my authority at that time. We are not talking in general about very large sums.
Among my successors was the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who, no doubt, will tell us about his own experience. My recollection is that he also would have received a modest allowance as leader of the council when he served his term. The present leader of Newcastle City Council—with a budget which, as a result of government cuts, is alas declining from the £260 million a year it had originally reached—receives an allowance of £16,500 and a basic allowance of £8,500. The specialist allowance has been frozen and the standard allowance for members in Newcastle has been cut. That is likely to be the situation in many local authorities in this country. When I was leader of the city council, I was in receipt of a combined allowance that was significantly less than was paid to my secretary. Exactly the same position will apply to all my successors, including the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the current leader; and it may well apply in a number of other authorities.
However, there is another matter that Mr Lewis carefully avoided mentioning in his letter to his political colleagues, which is at paragraph 1.11 of the Government’s document. It says:
“Councillors are eligible for allowances to be pensionable if the local independent remuneration panel made a recommendation to that effect”.
In other words, this is not something dreamed up and decided upon by a local authority: it has to follow a recommendation of the independent remuneration panel. Why does Mr Lewis not refer to that? The answer is perfectly obvious: it would demolish the case he is making, which effectively is that greedy local authority members are determining for themselves whether they should be part of this scheme. It is a shabby and disgraceful way to mislead his colleagues, let alone members of the public.
I recall very well that in my early years as a councillor, before I became leader, I had a very good colleague who felt he had to give up his time at the council, because it was going to affect his own pension at work. Clearly, there are many members up and down the country who feel that they cannot continue. Turnover of members is a significant factor, particularly in London. London colleagues may agree, or may not be able to confirm that. There is a particularly high turnover of people who are in employment because it is very difficult to discharge one’s duties as an elected member—at any level, but particularly at a level which carries significant responsibilities—and be in gainful employment. We do not want to see local councils composed of the unemployed, the retired or the rich. A council composed in that fashion is not an adequate way of serving the public. We want people who are actually in a job, working in the community and bringing that experience and influence to bear upon the workings of their council. If their employment or their prospects of pension provision are going to be imperilled as a result of public service, that will diminish the pool of those willing and able to serve the public.
These proposals are another example of the Government’s—or more particularly, to be fair, the Secretary of State’s—aversion to local authority members. He has a rather Malvolian response to the criticism that he has brought upon himself over the past few years by his repeated attacks on local authorities and members generally. I recall that wonderful phrase in “Twelfth Night” when Malvolio, villainously cross-gartered—I cannot see the Secretary of State as cross-gartered, while “villainous” is an adjective that might be applied to other aspects but perhaps not his gartering —says in frustration and rage as a result of his treatment:
“I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you”.
This recommendation certainly seems to carry that sentiment into government policy, and it is deplorable.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for enabling this debate, although it gives me no pleasure to intervene in the spirit in which I shall. Given what I know of the many representations that have been made at the highest level in both coalition parties by local government representatives on this issue—representations that have been brushed aside, sometimes rather brusquely—it would be feeble if I lacked the integrity to speak up publicly from these Benches for hard-working colleagues of all parties, including my own, who serve the public as councillors and who, rightly or wrongly, feel targeted by this proposal.
I should declare an interest at the start lest some bright spark declares that I am—what is the phrase?—“on the gravy train”. I lead, nearly full-time, a local authority that, like 58% of councils, is a participant in the local government scheme for members. I am a scheme member, as are 26 others—just half our members. The scheme cost us £65,000 last year. The total cost of member remuneration in Richmond is £56,000 lower than in 2010. For the record, the leader’s allowance is £26,000, which I cut by 12.5% when I became leader.
Against that background, however, we judged cross-party in 2003 that a right of access to a pension scheme in a workplace was a reasonable part of total remuneration. That was a local decision and, like so many other things in local government where all central Governments tend to put their lead boots on, it should be for local determination and local accountability.
I spent half a lifetime judging and advising on public policy—some of it good, some of it bad. There are various tests for a good policy, and among them would be the following. It should not seek to regulate at national level what can reasonably be decided locally or privately. It should be consistent and coherent with other policy—what some call “joined-up”. It should be based on objective evidence. It should address a problem that needs to be solved. It should be proportionate to the issue concerned. It should not be designed, or felt, to discriminate against any group. It should be likely to lead to better public administration or significant savings in expenditure. It must respect, if not always follow, the outcome of consultation. Finally, failing all these, it must be urgent or necessary to respond to a clear public call for action.
In my submission, the policy spectacularly fails every one of those tests. On a clear public call for action, there was none. We have seen comments from the Taxpayers’ Alliance, which is an estimable group—I share its diagnosis that we are spending, borrowing and taxing too much—but it is not the public. The Taxpayers’ Alliance was quite right to note the generosity of the Local Government Pension Scheme, and in my view the Government were right to reform the scheme. Councillors up and down the country, including me, would have supported the reform of members’ rights, too. But why the removal, not reform, of the right of councillors to contribute to a scheme in the workplace? How does that stand up to the tests of good policy? Does member remuneration need to be decided nationally? I do not think so. Nor, in fact, do the Government; in this provision they are not addressing allowances or setting limits, just attacking pension rights. It does not add up.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak in favour of this regret Motion. I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for the opportunity to do so. I first held elected office as a parish councillor in the late 1980s. In 1993, I was elected to Somerset County Council. At the time, I was working full time. However, instead of having just one parish council meeting to attend a month, I now had 10, and all expected attendance and a report on what the county was doing. After 12 months, I realised that if I was going properly to serve the people I had been elected to represent, I would have to decrease my working week, and so I resigned from my job and did a number of part-time ad hoc jobs. All the council meetings were during the working day and week. Very few took place in the evenings and there were none at weekends. The time commitment was considerable.
When independent panels to assess members’ allowances were introduced, in Somerset we fared better than most in that they recommended councillors could have access to the Local Government Pension Scheme should they wish to. Councillors who had found that their employers were not sympathetic to their work as a councillor, or those who had no other means of support, joined. As has been mentioned, the Local Government Pension Scheme is contributory, and councillors, who pay national insurance and income tax on their allowances, contribute to their pension. The majority of those who join the scheme are in positions of responsibility and find that the time commitment prevents them having full-time jobs which would provide for their retirement.
Councils vary greatly in size, type and responsibility, and it is not uncommon for their budgets to be well over £500,000 million per annum, whereas councillors’ pension contributions will be in the thousands, a tiny proportion of the overall budget. These councillors will be providing services to the vulnerable and frail elderly, as well as scared and frightened children; repairing highways after appalling damage due to flooding; preparing plans to extract minerals at the same time as protecting sensitive rural locations; and ensuring that streets are securely and adequately lit and that there is a sufficient supply of appropriate housing for residents. So are these people not worthy of being allowed to enter the pension scheme? How many Scout leaders have these same responsibilities or oversee the same level of budget?
There have been many inquiries into local government and the need to encourage more able people to come forward to be councillors. Sir Michael Lyons’s report in March 2007 was followed by the councillor commission later that year, in which I, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, took part. The key thrust of that commission was to look at the barriers faced by councillors and how to ease the process. One of the main principles was that councillors are most effective as locally elected representatives when they have similar life experiences to those of their constituents. They are not all wealthy or retired. Key to effective local representation is the relationship and the connection between councillors and their constituents. Councillors need time to engage with and be seen by their constituents. It is therefore important that the Government are seen to be encouraging suitably able, qualified and representative people to be candidates to serve as councillors of local authorities.
One of the 60 recommendations of the commission—noble Lords will be pleased to know that I shall not go through all 60—was that, in order to ensure that as many people as possible can participate in local representative democracy, ideally the role of a councillor must be compatible with full-time employment and an executive councillor with full or part-time employment. The leader of a council should be able to work in addition to council duties. It is recognised that some leaders of larger authorities may wish to work full-time on council duties, but they should not be required to do so. However, this recommendation is extremely difficult to achieve.
The more rural the council, the less likely it is that cabinet/executive members will be able to work full-time. The drive to the council offices can often take anything from 50 to 90 minutes, and any employment that the councillor may have is very unlikely to be in the same location as the council offices. Why should those who give up their time, damage their career prospects and often do not spend as much time with their families as they would wish, be penalised by not having access to the Local Government Pension Scheme?
During my time on the commission, we travelled around the country, holding evidence sessions with local councillors and employers about their experiences and the difficulties that they faced in engaging with local democratic bodies. How can we encourage young people in rural areas, young mothers, or those in their 30s and 40s to come forward? They are representative of people in our communities, but they need to know that their contribution is going to be valued. They have as much to offer as the retired and the well off. Access to the Local Government Pension Scheme is one way they can be sure that they will have some protection should they take on the role. In rural areas, there is no queue around the corner of people wanting to be councillors.
This measure is a real slap in the face for councillors. The Government are giving the message that their contribution is insignificant and they are not valued. It would seem that in future councils are to be run by the wealthy and the retired. What a bleak prospect.
Lord Shipley (LD)
I should first declare my interest, as I have a small pension resulting from six years’ contributions to the Local Government Pension Scheme as a councillor. This has been a very helpful debate in identifying the key issues that this decision has thrown up, because it is a very bad decision.
I recognise the role of my party in the coalition in ameliorating some aspects of the proposals. However, the fact remains that the Government’s decision is still poorly thought through and is a bad one, as I say. We should be very surprised and concerned by it because it discriminates against elected councillors, many of whom have heavy workloads as councillors and may have to give up other careers to take on the role, as we have heard. The decision also discriminates against those who have several part-time jobs, of which being a councillor is one. Again, we have heard an example of that.
Recently, during the passage of the Pensions Bill, time was spent discussing how best to recognise that some people may have several part-time jobs in their working lifetime. Being a councillor is such an activity, and it is work. It is formally treated as work in respect of tax and national insurance. Councillors are not, of course, formally employees of a council but because they are remunerated and pay tax and national insurance they are the equivalent of council employees. Therefore, it is very hard to understand why councillors should be excluded from a pension scheme which is available to those who are formally employed by a council.
Council employees may work in full-time or part-time posts and may do so for a short period. Councillors and elected mayors are no different: they may also be full time or part time and may be in post for a short period, should they not stand for re-election or lose their seat at an election. Equality of treatment is missing here. In pension terms, the right of council officers to join a pension scheme should apply also to councillors.
It is sometimes alleged—we have heard this in your Lordships’ House this afternoon—that being a councillor is a voluntary activity. We have also heard it said that it does not take up much time. It is, of course, true that it is a voluntary activity because people are not compelled to stand for election. However, that is not really the issue. In terms of time, being a councillor may not take up much time in a very small council but that is not true in the vast majority of cases.
Full-time elected mayors will not in future be able to join their local government contributory scheme. They may have to give up a contributory scheme in their current employment to become elected mayors but will have no right to continue contributing to a pension through the local government scheme. This seems wrong. Council leaders and cabinet members who carry substantial workloads, often between half and full time, are in the same position. Why should they be denied the right to contribute to a pension?
It has been said that not all councils offer membership of a scheme. My response to that is that I have real doubts about the work of the independent remuneration panels. I do not understand why there is no statutory national scheme for the payment of councillors’ allowances and for a pension scheme. That does not exist yet; I hope that it may do so in future. However, it remains the case that 58% of councils do offer membership. The fact that 42% do not may reflect workloads and the size of those councils, but in total just 17% of all councillors are part of the scheme. My noble friend Lord True asked a critical question—namely, what is the problem that the Government are trying to solve and why do they not simply permit the current scheme to continue? Attention has been drawn to the double standard that will now apply, because in Wales, Scotland and, I understand, Northern Ireland pension rights will continue.
My noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth asked about the financial consequences and I think said that the proposal may save money. The problem is this: it is unlikely to save any money because an independent remuneration panel will have the power to allocate a sum of money for councillors to purchase pension contributions. If that is done, it will have to be done for every councillor in that council area. Therefore, if that happens, it could end up costing more. At the moment, only 30% of councillors, where there are schemes, have joined them. The right voluntarily to join the contributory scheme is therefore the best way to approach the issue.
At its heart, this is a major issue of principle. The consequence may be that fewer people will be prepared to stand for election and fewer will be prepared to take on leadership roles. The consequences could well be that leadership roles will be undertaken by those who are older, with independent incomes. It would be a great loss to local government if younger people were less willing to serve, and I hope that the Minister will explain what problem the Government are trying to solve, what analysis was done of the consequences of the decision that has been made, and what the future for local government will be if fewer people are willing to come forward to stand for election.
Baroness Hanham (Con)
My Lords, I will be slightly out of line with other speakers, all of whom have local government experience as well. I have been listening carefully to the debate. As a former leader of a council and a former Minister who did not take a pension—I declare that interest—I am very conscious of the work that is done by local councillors and the extra amount that they do as a result of the changes to their responsibilities that have been made over the years.
However, I part from a number of the speeches, for which I am sorry because I am very fond of my noble friend Lord True and everyone who has spoken. I want to draw back because the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and others have talked about the difficulty of recruiting people as councillors. I remember extremely well when allowances of any sort were first considered. The argument was that if we did not provide them, only the rich, the old and people who had time on their hands would be able to be councillors. We introduced allowances and some of them are very substantial indeed. I know that my noble friend Lord True says that they were reduced, but he is not necessarily in the majority. Over the years, council allowances have exponentially increased. I am not concerned about that but about the fact that we are beginning to use the same arguments that supported allowances for supporting the pension scheme. I have never understood why councillors were included in it, and I shall tell noble Lords why.
It is because local councillors are responsible for their position to their local electorate. They can be there, at elections, or they cannot—they can be taken away. They voluntarily stand for election. They do not know whether they are going to be councillors. They are totally reliant on the electorate to make sure that they are there and for how long. That underlines the voluntary nature of standing for a local council. The work that they do is, of course, immensely important. However, this work can be done alongside other jobs—and many people do that—and therefore I do not understand where the pension comes into it.
I understand why there are allowances. If I may say so, they were quite hard fought for at the time but the allowances are there. I do not think that my noble friend has a policy on which she is going to win very strongly but it is something where the Government have to grasp the nettle. If not, the argument will go on and on as people justify more and more expenditure for local councils.
Finally, I want to make a distinction between councillors and council officers. If councillors ever come to be seen as in any way doing officers’ work and running councils on the basis of officials, then we will have lost the plot. Councillors are there to represent people in the local community which they serve; they are not there to implement policy. There is a difference between employed people on the council and councillors, and I think that that is what drives the distinction between those who do and do not have a pension.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I, too, must declare an interest, having been a councillor for 28 years and being in receipt of a very modest council pension, to which I contributed. The point is that people like me have contributed to their pension and that seems to be forgotten when we talk about the largesse that is provided.
A councillor said to me that he runs a council with a budget of more than £500 million a year and he is paid £28,000 per annum. The noble Lord, Lord True, is probably a good example of someone in that position. It is a full-time job, and the councillor and the noble Lord are not alone in that. Many people have no income other than that provided with this job, and running a council is a job. Many councillors are not full time but they devote a large amount of time to their council. My noble friend Lady Hanham said that they may be here today and gone tomorrow, but what better reason for them to have some form of pension, however small? These people are giving their time when they are not able to contribute to a pension, and the fact that in many cases they are transitory adds to the argument for them having something of substance to fall on when they get older.
I make no apology for also referring to the insult and lack of understanding from the right honourable Grant Shapps when he said that the work that councillors do is the same as volunteering to run the local Scout troop. I do not want to undervalue the leaders of Scout troops but that comment shows complete ignorance. It is demeaning and insulting, and, quite honestly, it is idiotic to make that comparison. What do councillors of all parties and no parties do? They do a valuable job which takes a great deal of time, and the idea that one can take away or reduce pension rights seems quite unfair.
Various figures have been quoted for how much this is costing. I am not sure now what the correct figures are but one that I was given was that countrywide 18,000 councillors cost £3 million. Whether it is £3 million, £5 million or £8 million is irrelevant; it is fairly modest in terms of national expenditure. I should like to compare it to the cost of the 651 Members of Parliament of up to £10 million a year. It seems quite wrong that the other place can take away pension rights when they themselves will enjoy pension rights of much greater substance.
I said that I started work at Barnet Council 28 years ago. As the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said, that was a time when one received a tiny attendance allowance of £20 if one turned up at a meeting. Life has moved on in terms of how people are attracted to the scheme. The point was made that a percentage of people are not in the scheme. That is their choice because it is a contributory scheme. People can make the choice that they do not wish to contribute to a scheme albeit that the local authority will also contribute to the scheme. That is their choice. They make their choice because, in most cases, they have a pension from another source, they are affluent from another source or have inherited money from another source. However, that does not apply to all the people that we want to be councillors and running our local authorities, with expenditure of something like £500 million per annum.
Reference was also made to the concessions my Government have made. I look with amazement at how we regard such small droppings as concessions. We are told that rather than access to the scheme being withdrawn immediately—that was horrific on 1 April—we have a big concession that eligibility will be phased out as councillors are re-elected on 22 or 23 May. What a concession. It really is insulting. It has been agreed that local authority remuneration panels can agree to replace the pension provision with a cash allowance for councillors. My local Conservative council administration—I am chairman of its audit committee and am very involved—a little while ago decided to up the allowances by 54%. There was a public outcry and the allowances were very much reduced as a result. The public will not take cognisance of the fact that pensions have disappeared and that remuneration and allowances of councillors will be substantially reduced to take account of the fact that they are not contributing to a pension scheme. That will be regarded by the public in a very poor light and councillors should not be put into that position. The Government made a commitment that they would not criticise councils which decided to allow such payments. The Government may not criticise them but I am sure that many other people will.
This is devaluing the people who are running local government. As central government devolves so much more to local government, what message is going out to local councillors who do not have an outside income? Their efforts are being devalued by the Government, of which I am part, and I regret these regulations.
Lord Tope (LD)
My Lords, I do not want to give the impression that this is turning into a Liberal Democrat debate, but I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill for introducing a little passion into what has so far been a calm and rational debate that rather belies the feelings out there in the country. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue—an opportunity which, for some reason, was not afforded in the House of Commons. We are the first and only part of Parliament to debate an issue which is causing considerable concern in the country.
During my 13 years as leader of a council—as we are all making these declarations, let me say that it was not in the last century—the most that I ever received as leader was £4,500 a year, and I was not then able to join a pension scheme. Frankly, it would not have been worth very much if I had. One of the things that I learnt early on was that one should never try to defend the indefensible. My sympathies go to the Minister who will have to reply to this debate, which is not of her own choosing. We all have great sympathy with her for having the task of trying to defend the indefensible.
For the last time in your Lordships’ House I declare my interest as a serving councillor, for a few more days, and as someone who joined my council’s pension scheme at the age of 60—an age when most people would think of starting to draw a pension rather than joining a pension scheme. In two weeks’ time I shall start to receive the handsome pension that I have earned in the 10 years since joining the scheme.
Lord Vinson (Con)
I wonder whether the noble Lord would be kind enough to give way and clarify a point. If a councillor in the future does not wish to take part in a pension scheme, or is not allowed to, surely he could use the contributions that he would have made to buy a personal pension. Would that not alleviate the problem to some extent?
Lord Tope
I will come to that later, but yes, it has always been the case, and will remain the case, that a councillor, like any other individual, may join a private pension scheme and pay for it from such income as he or she may have. Of course that will remain the case. However, when these regulations are agreed, no councillor will have the choice of being able to join a local government pension scheme in future. That is the issue before us today.
In my 40 years as a councillor I have never known councillors of all parties to be so angry about a measure, and I use the word angry deliberately. There have been many occasions, perhaps too many, over those 40 years when councillors have been cross or angry with central government of all parties for political reasons—that is par for the course—but in this case it is personal because councillors feel personally about it. That struck me at a meeting which I attended not so long ago where the majority of councillors in the room—it was not my local authority; there were councillors from all over the country—were not in a local government scheme because many of their councils had decided not to admit councillors to it. They were, if anything, more angry—certainly they expressed more anger—than those who were in the scheme, perhaps because they did not feel inhibited by any personal interest. Let us therefore not underestimate the extent of the anger of councillors of all parties throughout the country, regardless of whether they have the opportunity to join a pension scheme or have availed themselves of that opportunity. It is real and profound.
We have had a good debate today even if it has been a little one-sided apart from the interventions by my noble friend Lady Hanham and, to some extent, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. I shall not take time to repeat the excellent points that have been made, but I certainly echo and agree with most of them. They have been well made.
Before this debate I inquired for the first time of my own authority how many of my colleagues are in my local council’s pension scheme and how much it costs the council as I had no idea. I learnt that 29 of 54 Sutton councillors are members of the pension scheme and that for the last full financial year it cost the London Borough of Sutton £90,000 in employer’s contributions towards its councillors’ pensions. Although £90,000 is a significant sum—I shall certainly not refer to it as peanuts—when you compare it to the £26 million of cuts which my council still has to find in the next two years it is of rather less significance.
I should like to make more strongly a point which has already been made—that it is comparatively easy to sit in government departments in Westminster and decide to cut budgets by so many millions or, in this case, to reduce grants to local authorities in total by so many billions. I say that it is comparatively easy because it is a lot easier than sitting in a crowded room with a hostile public gallery composed of people who are directly affected by the budget cuts you have to make and deciding how to implement those cuts which are not of your choosing—cuts that you were never elected to make or wanted to stand for election to make.
We are rewarding the people who have to make those decisions—thank goodness it will not be me in the years to come—by taking away their right to join a workplace pension. What spectacular timing for my Government to choose to make those cuts. I think that that is why councillors of all parties are so angry.
I should like to spend a little time returning to the first contribution after the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, from my former London Assembly colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I also want to talk about the position of the Mayor of London and London Assembly members. I again declare an interest. I was elected to the London Assembly, as was the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, when it started in 2000. Unlike her, I also had the pleasure of spending hour after hour on what is now the Greater London Authority Act. This is the crucial difference between London Assembly members and councillors. The GLA Act 1999 recognised that Assembly members were full-time, salaried people and gave them the entitlement to join a pension scheme. In 2000, the Senior Salaries Review Body decided that the appropriate and best-value scheme for them to join was the Local Government Pension Scheme. As a London Assembly member I joined a pension scheme three years before I was allowed to join the scheme run by my local council. I did that because Parliament gave me the right to do so. I think that that is a significantly different position from that of the councillors, much as I agree with it.
When the Government’s intention regarding this matter was originally announced, the GLA—the mayor and Assembly members—was not included. Incidentally, the announcement was tucked away at the same time as the announcement on the 2012 revenue support grant, on the last day of the 2012 Session. If we were burying bad news, that was the day to do it. The announcement did not refer to them, I think it was assumed, because of the GLA Act to which I have just referred. When the consultation came out, we were all astonished to see that it did refer to the London mayor and Assembly members. Most of us assumed—certainly I assumed—that it was a mistake in CLG and it would be recognised, corrected and would not persist.
However, it has persisted and we are now in the position that London Assembly members are to lose their right to join the Local Government Pension Scheme along with all councillors. However, they do not lose the entitlement to a pension scheme that they are granted under the GLA Act. We are now in the position that the Greater London Authority has to find an alternative pension arrangement for its Assembly members. It has to do that, regardless of these regulations. I have not been an Assembly member for some years and am not party to the detailed consideration that is being given to that point. However, I learnt that the GLA had inquired of the Prudential what it would cost for Assembly members and the mayor to join a scheme with similar benefits. The answer—certified, I gather, by the Government Actuary—was that it would cost more than double the current cost to the GLA. How on earth is that in the taxpayer’s interest? It is demonstrably not in the interests of the GLA, Assembly members or the Mayor of London. As this is supposed to be about taxpayer-funded pensions, I have to ask this question. I gave notice of this question and hope the Minister will explain how he believes that this measure is in the taxpayer’s interest.
The other point about the Mayor of London has already been made. It is always difficult to talk about the Mayor of London without immediately bringing to mind the two personalities that have so far held that office. Probably none of us is going to worry too much about their personal pensions and I suspect that they will not either. However, does anyone seriously equate the person who holds the office of Mayor of London with a volunteer? He is not obliged to be Mayor of London. He does not have to stand for election to become mayor—that is voluntary—but once he becomes mayor, is anyone seriously going to say that it is a volunteer activity? Of course it is not; that is nonsense. The man is paid a salary equivalent to that of a Cabinet Minister, and yet his pension rights are going to be changed—not taken away, because the law does not allow that, but changed to a much greater extent.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, I start by paying tribute to councillors and the work that they do. Unlike all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate, I have never been a councillor or worked in local government, but my granddad was a councillor in Beeston during the late 1940s and early 1950s. I never knew him but, when I was a little girl and out with my dad, older people in Beeston would often remark that they had known my granddad and tell me about some of the things that he had achieved for the people of Beeston. They never mentioned politics or his party, but they were very keen to reinforce that he had changed things for the better as a councillor.
Unlike me, other DCLG Ministers have direct experience of local government. All have been councillors and many of them have been leaders of councils; that includes my noble friend and respected predecessor Lady Hanham, who was leader of Kensington and Chelsea and also my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford, who was with me on the Front Bench earlier. She takes her title from the council that she led. They know what it is like to be a councillor. They understand what it means to represent people locally and the importance of that role. They know that it extends from being at the front line of a national crisis, such as the recent floods, to spending hours every week listening to local people and doing what they can to help on matters that may seem minor to outsiders but are of major importance to those affected.
I had the privilege—and I do underscore that word—to hear my right honourable friend the Secretary of State Eric Pickles pay tribute to councillors with real enthusiasm at the LGA’s annual reception in Parliament only the other week. I have heard him in private in ministerial meetings, particularly during the flooding crisis, stand up for councillors and all that they were doing at that time. I reiterate to noble Lords and to the House this afternoon that everyone in the Department for Communities and Local Government understands and respects the work of councillors. All of us understand that councillors do all this excellent work voluntarily as elected representatives of local people.
This debate relates to the provision in the Local Government Pension Scheme (Transitional Provisions, Savings and Amendment) Regulations, which, as we have heard, excludes councillors and other elected local officeholders from membership of the new Local Government Pension Scheme. It may be helpful to highlight to noble Lords that those regulations also serve a broader purpose. In June 2010, the Government invited the noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness, to chair the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission. The purpose of the commission was to carry out a fundamental structural review of public service pension provision and to make recommendations on pension arrangements that would be sustainable and affordable in the long term. Further to the commission’s recommendations, I am pleased to be able to tell noble Lords that the new scheme for local government workers came into operation, on time, on 1 April this year. Importantly, the design of the new scheme will ensure that the large number of low-paid workers in local government will continue to have access to good pension arrangements that are affordable for them.
The new Local Government Pension Scheme, like its predecessor, is an occupational pension scheme intended for employees, who make a contribution alongside the employer’s contribution, which is paid by taxpayers. This Government do not believe that councillors, as representatives elected locally to hold town halls to account and to serve local people, should be in a pension scheme designed for employees. It is on this point of principle that Ministers take a fundamentally different view to the previous Administration. We do not believe it is right to blur the line between council staff and elected councillors.
That point has been heard before and has been referred to by noble Lords during the debate this afternoon; indeed, my noble friend Lady Hanham reinforced the point in her contribution. Contrary to the contributions of noble Lords today, it seems that the vast majority of councillors agree with this Government, because only 16% of councillors in England are part of the Local Government Pension Scheme. To put it another way, only 30% of those eligible to join are members of the scheme. This Government want all councillors to have the full opportunity to demonstrate, as the vast majority already do, that they are independent and not reliant on the municipal payroll.
We made our position clear when we first announced the proposals in December 2012. I was not going to make this point, but as my noble friend Lord Tope said with tongue in cheek that this was a good day to bury bad news, it is worth reminding noble Lords that he said that because the previous Government announced their decision to provide access to the Local Government Pension Scheme on the day of 9/11. I hope that my noble friend is not seriously saying that the last working day before Christmas—a day when we were in any case publishing the local government financial settlement in documents which all people interested in local government activity were waiting for—is the same as 9/11. When we announced our intentions, Ministers indicated the Government’s view that councillors’ ongoing membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme was not appropriate. The Government’s direction of travel has been clear since then.
The Government have, of course, sought views on this change. Between April and June last year, we consulted with a wide range of interested parties. Although the consultation made clear the Government’s preferred position, it also invited respondents to offer evidence about the impact of the change and to suggest alternative proposals. It is fair to say, as noble Lords have made clear this afternoon, that a majority of respondents did not support the Government’s proposals. Many—particularly some councillors and those representing them—felt strongly that they should be able to continue to be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme. However, it is worth pointing out to noble Lords that only 472 individual councillors felt moved to write as part of the consultation to express their opposition, which is fewer than 3% of the around 18,000 councillors in England.
We have heard today some reasons why those who oppose these changes do so, but it is important to go back to the previous Labour Government’s decision to make it possible for councillors to access the scheme and the reason they outlined for making this change and creating this access. In his Written Ministerial Statement in 2003, Nick Raynsford talked about the change being brought in to address what he described as disincentives. This change was intended to incentivise more people to come forward to stand as councillors but, as I have already said, only 16% of all councillors in England have taken up the offer. If the previous Government decided to make this change to provide an incentive, it clearly has not succeeded. If it was about incentive, then why have more councils and councillors not decided to take up the opportunity?
The LGA and some noble Lords have argued that, if we withdraw access to the scheme, people will not put themselves forward to be councillors. We disagree with that and, indeed, are not aware of any strong evidence that offering access to the scheme has resulted in any change in the number of people putting themselves forward for public service. Similarly, we are not aware of any strong evidence that ending access to the scheme will limit the number of people standing for local election.
I note in particular the point raised by my noble friend Lord Shipley and other noble Lords about the upcoming local elections. I think it was one of my noble friends who suggested that this change was somehow an insult to those who were minded to put themselves forward and that we were doing something that would deter people. The facts do not bear that out. In the forthcoming local council elections in England, we see an extra 1,000 candidates standing compared to when those seats were last fought—an additional 1,000 people have decided it is worth their while to put themselves forward to represent local people even though they will no longer be able to access the Local Government Pension Scheme. People become councillors because they want to serve their communities, because they want to change things or because they may have clear, strong political beliefs.
The leader of the Opposition in the other place, Mr Miliband, has tabled an Early Day Motion calling not only for councillors to be reinstated in the scheme, as the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, does today, but for annulling the new pension arrangements in toto—the new arrangements that will benefit low-paid local government workers. My noble friend Lord Bourne made the point that these changes that the Government are introducing are providing some savings. I am happy to acknowledge that the savings are modest, but they are none the less savings. It is important for us to understand whether the Labour Opposition are now committing to reinstating councillors’ access to the Local Government Pension Scheme, were they to be elected. It would be interesting to know, when the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, comes to respond, whether that is something they will be campaigning on in the remaining few days before the local elections on 22 May.
This Government do not believe that people choose to enter local public life in order to have access to the Local Government Pension Scheme. I know that no one in this debate is suggesting otherwise. However, given the focus and energy that has been spent on this issue, I worry that there is a risk that we give the public the impression that this is the case. We need to be quite careful on this matter.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
Could the Minister clear up the point about whether the Mayor will stay in as a police and crime commissioner?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As Mayor of London, some of his functions are similar to those of police and crime commissioners. However, he is not regarded as a police and crime commissioner for the purposes of the Local Government Pension Scheme. His status is as mayor and not as a PCC.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The point about police and crime commissioners—this is an area which, in due course, we will want to examine—is that, since they were recently created, we felt that it was not appropriate to make this change at this time. I do not assume that it will be something that will be left unattended for ever.
My noble friend Lord True asked, when we were talking about savings, about the publicity budget for my department. He suggested that somebody in the Box would have the answer. Because I have a great bunch of officials with me, yes, indeed, I do have the answer, which is £2.5 million—which I would guess is a whole lot less than it was under the previous Government.
I can assure the House that the Government did not take this decision lightly. We certainly looked carefully at transitional arrangements for those councillors who are in the pension scheme. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, dismissed the concessions that we made following consultation that will see that existing members will leave the scheme only at the end of their existing fixed four-year term of office. That means that councillors’ membership of the scheme will be phased out between 2014 and 2017 and that no change to the reasonable expectations that councillors had when they ran for their fixed term will be made. I can also confirm to my noble friend Lord Vinson that he is right that nothing will stop councillors contributing to a personal private pension in future, but the key point is that they will not be able to join a scheme to which taxpayers contribute as their employers.
I firmly believe that the best thing we can do to encourage more people to take part in municipal public life is to decentralise power to local communities so that being a councillor is an even more meaningful and rewarding role. We need to attract and retain a wide range of enthusiastic councillors, and I agree with noble Lords who said that this is important. When we are talking about ensuring that we have a wide range of councillors—in fact my noble friend is back with me on the Front Bench—it is worth noting that one of her successors as leader of Trafford Council is 26 years old, comes from a modest background and put himself through university. It is simply not true to suggest that people do not want to put themselves forward to become councillors.
The reason we are starting to attract a wide range of people is that this Government have made many changes to local authorities that mean that councillors are in a greater position to deliver change. For example, we have abolished the Audit Commission and government offices. This means that councillors can rightly focus on meeting the needs of local people, rather than spending their time dancing to the tune of central government. We have introduced new rights for communities to lead and deliver change, including through neighbourhood planning. This gives exciting opportunities for councillors to support and encourage local people to help them deliver their own aspirations.
The noble Lord may laugh, but neighbourhood plans are seeing a fantastic turnout at referendums, when local people know that, as a result of getting engaged, they will see change and will be able to take control of decisions in their local area. We have introduced the general power of competence. This means that councillors now have greater scope to do things to meet local people’s needs. We have helped councillors better represent their constituents and better enrich local democratic debate by scrapping the Standards Board and clarifying the rules on predetermination. These are just a few examples of the steps this Government have taken to strengthen the contribution that councillors can make to their communities.
The LGA briefing note that was distributed to noble Lords prior to this afternoon’s debate said that,
“76% of people trust their local councillor the most to make decisions about how services are provided in their areas”.
That is great news, and the reason for that kind of result is that councillors have the power to lead their communities, to speak for their communities and to deliver for their communities. That is a very good thing.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for being remiss in not recognising her first appearance on the Front Bench on CLG matters. Despite the fact that this is an emotive subject, the debate has been fulsome, knowledgeable and very measured.
We recognise that the Minister today paid fulsome tribute to the role of councillors, but part of the problem with this whole issue is that some of her colleagues did not display the same attitude, and certainly not in presenting and developing the pensions issue that we are discussing today. Also, the concept that somehow people are rushing to stand for election because of the abolition of the Audit Commission is a little far-fetched. The issue about the numbers of people standing is not perhaps so much whether there are new people wanting to come forward but how many people are not standing who stood before because of the financial pressures and challenges of being in local government today. We have not heard anything new from the Minister—that is not to be expected, perhaps—in justification of the policy the Government are pursuing here.
On this issue of not being reliant on the municipal payroll, if there is not some basis for elected members to earn a living, will we not end up in a situation where only the rich, the retired and—less so these days—those with benevolent employers who are happy to give their employees lots of time off can serve in local government? There must be some form of remuneration. Is not the issue about pensions the general point that if we encourage people in all other spheres to save for a private pension because the state will not be able to produce enough for them to have a full retirement, why—in the words in particular of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who is not in his place—are councillors being discriminated against in that respect?
I will pick up on some comments from other noble Lords. I think all but two who spoke were in support of the proposition before us today. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised a very important point about the mayor and PCCs, although that has been clarified. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, reminded us that we should be careful about how we use the term “volunteer”, and I take that point. The problem is that the Government, in characterising what local councillors do as “volunteering” in the same category as some of the work done in the voluntary sector, undervalue, underestimate and do not recognise the role and responsibilities that councillors undertake in the modern era. That is the key point.
The noble Lord asked whether we would commit to bringing this back, and I think the Minister said that we were in favour of scrapping the 2014 revised scheme. Was that what she said?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The point I made was that that EDM that the Leader of the Opposition in the other place tabled goes beyond the narrow scope of the regret Motion that the noble Lord tabled today and prays against the regs completely.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Let me make it absolutely clear that it is my party’s position that we support the revised Local Government Pension Scheme. So far as these arrangements are concerned and whether we would reinstate this, I cannot give a blanket commitment that we would. No incoming Government would do that without looking across the piece at all the things that must be addressed. More particularly, the Local Government Pension Scheme is currently under consultation to restructure on a more effective, collaborative basis. That is part of the Government’s consultation. We do not yet know how and where that will lead. Also, the consequence of the Government’s position is that councillors will be driven into the private pensions market. How readily that can be unpicked would be a real issue as well, particularly because small pension pots stranded in private sector schemes cannot be transferred back into the local government scheme. A raft of issues would, quite properly, need to be considered.
My noble friend Lord Beecham, with his usual incisive approach, reminded us that Conservative legislation laid the groundwork for some of these proposals and that it depends upon independent panels enabling members to become part of the Local Government Pension Scheme at the moment.
Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure
(10 years ago)
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Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure, have consented to place their prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Measure, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Measure.
Motion
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
My Lords, every few years, the General Synod produces a miscellaneous provisions Measure in order to excite the general population. Its purpose is to sweep up all those small and uncontroversial legislative changes that would not in themselves justify stand-alone legislation, but which appear to be either necessary for the purposes of clarifying or simplifying the law or administratively or practically convenient. This is the 11th such Measure. It covers a wide range of topics, and I do not propose to cover them all, but only to highlight a few of the most important.
There are several provisions in the Measure relating to clergy. Clause 8 inserts new provisions in the Overseas and Other Clergy (Ministry and Ordination) Measure 1967, enabling the archbishop of the relevant province to revoke a permission granted to an overseas priest or deacon. The Measure also provides for the grant of general permissions in circumstances where large numbers of overseas clergy are visiting England at the same time—for example, the Lambeth Conference every 10 years. Clause 11 inserts a new appeal procedure into the Incumbents (Vacation of Benefices) Measure 1977 to ensure that the proceedings under the Measure are fair to incumbents. The amendment in Clause 12 to the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986 simplifies the procedure for appointing a priest in charge as the incumbent of a benefice where the patron does not object to the proposal to use the simplified procedure.
There are some practical changes in relation to the faculty jurisdiction. Clause 6 makes new provision for the qualifications necessary to become the chancellor of a diocese or the Dean of the Arches and Auditor, because the old provisions have simply become obsolete. Clause 7 makes new provision enabling the chancellor of a diocese to grant a faculty authorising works to a monument which has become dangerous, even if the owner of the monument withholds consent. That resolves the present unsatisfactory provision, which requires the court to choose between allowing the monument to be removed from a church by an owner who will not consent to works but indicates that he or she is willing to remove the monument and, on the other hand, allowing the monument to remain in the church in a dangerous state.
The Measure also includes a number of provisions relating to the Church Commissioners. Most of those are for administrative convenience in the management of their own affairs or small extensions to their existing powers, such as the amendment of Section 6 of the Endowments and Glebe Measure 1976, to enable them to pay the expenses of office of an archdeacon, in addition to their existing power to pay an archdeacon’s stipend.
However, one provision that perhaps requires additional comment is Clause 4, which inserts provisions into the Church Commissioners Measure 1947 and the Clergy Pensions Measure 1961 confirming that both the Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board have power to enter into derivative contracts. The need for this provision has arisen because in recent years both bodies have had increasing difficulty in persuading potential counterparties that they have the necessary powers to buy derivatives. It is important to say that neither body proposes to speculate in derivatives; they wish to use them purely as a way of managing risks arising in their investments—for example, by hedging against changes in interest rates. This does not represent a shift in investment strategy but an enabling of it.
Clause 16 makes some amendments to the powers of the Dioceses Commission to deal with some small lacunae that were discovered in the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007 when the scheme for the new diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales was prepared.
Finally, at Clause 14, the Measure makes provision amending the Cathedrals Measure 1999 to confer power on cathedrals to resolve to adopt a total return basis for the investment of their endowment funds. This provision brings cathedrals into line with charities regulated by the Charity Commission, which have power to make such resolutions in accordance with regulations made by the Charity Commission under the Trusts (Capital and Income) Act 2013. The power conferred on cathedrals is very similar to that conferred on other charities, save that cathedrals will not have the power that other charities have to borrow a portion of their permanent endowment and repay it into the investment fund at a later date, as there were concerns that that might be controversial.
As I intimated, the Measure may not be the highlight of your Lordships’ week, but I beg to move.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, I wonder whether I may briefly intervene to echo a word of caution that I uttered when this Measure was before the Ecclesiastical Committee. It concerns Clause 4, to which the right reverend Prelate alluded. I accept absolutely that the church has successfully and necessarily dealt in derivatives in the past without mishap. However, I noticed that provision is also made for the commissioners, in subsection (3) of new Section 6A of the Church Commissioners Measure 1947—and by similar means, in Clause 4(2) of this Measure, for the clergy pensions board—to empower the commissioners and the clergy pensions board to change the provisions that are now before your Lordships to widen the terms, the definition of derivatives that we have before us to approve, to embrace an undefined group of instruments which do not yet exist.
Your Lordships will remember that such an extension was made not so very long ago by very senior, highly respected and successful bankers in the international community about derivatives composing third-rate American unsecured mortgages. The result of that was catastrophic. It very nearly destroyed the whole world’s banking system and did a great deal of harm to a great many people. Those were wise, experienced, sensible people—at least, a large number of them must have been because there were so many. It is no reflection on the financial abilities of the board, the commission and their advisers to say that these things can be very dangerous. It is rather like going into a shop where there is a basket full of toys, but one or two of them are hand grenades. The great danger is that people do not spot the difference.
Although one is reassured by the undertaking given in the discussion of the Measure before the Ecclesiastical Committee that the church’s representatives will never deal in instruments that they do not understand, one must recognise that the bankers of the world could have said exactly the same thing a week before they actually caused the catastrophe. I am saying this because, if a measure is proposed within the Church of England to avail itself of that extension, I hope that this warning shall be read by those doing so, so that they will be reminded of what these things can do and treat them with very great care.
Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)
My Lords, I intervene only to refer to Section 19 of the Measure, which refers to the Lady Margaret Professorship at Oxford. I have to declare some sort of interest, in that my father was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Christ Church. It seems to me that we cannot let that go entirely without some sort of obituary. The professorship was set up by Lady Margaret Beaufort, who, your Lordships will no doubt recall, was the mother of Henry VII. It has been a distinguished post in the history of Oxford, of Christ Church and of divinity and theology. After my father, and before he became archbishop, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, who was the previous archbishop to my stepson, was Lady Margaret Professor.
It is, in a way, a sad obituary for something that was set up and operated so well in so many theological contexts. It allowed professors to deliberate and preach in the security of the residence of Christ Church. It is a pity that it should go. However, there it is. As they say, the caravan moves on. All I would ask of the right reverend Prelate is that he explains what will happen to that rather attractive priory house where my father lived and I was brought up. I would be interested in what Christ Church believes it should do with it. Other than that, I simply say, “Lady Margaret Beaufort, farewell”.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
My Lords, I am grateful for those two contributions. To my noble friend Lord Elton I say, yes, a concern has been expressed to me about what the impact of this would be. It is as well to be clear what we do at the moment—what the Church Commissioners, for instance, are using derivatives for. They use them for three things: the hedging of foreign currency, the hedging of interest rate risks and as a means of taking shares in particular companies—preparation for buying equities themselves. So they make very limited use of derivatives. They are certainly not in the business of speculation.
It is worth understanding that trying to draw up an adequate measure that would cover the variety of uses that might be needed in future meant that it was not possible to be too specific. If we had been very specific in drawing up legislation, it would have required a much more substantial measure to identify each of the financial instruments that might have had to be named. That would have taken us another two or three years: to go through the General Synod, through Parliament, et cetera. Therefore, we tried to give ourselves sufficient width, recognising that the Church Commissioners and the pensions board are not into speculation, and that they have pledged to enter only schemes that they understand. I think that was a significant problem in 2008. We therefore have reasonable safeguards here, recognising always that the Charity Commissioners require charities such as the Church Commissioners to act only in the best interests of the charity itself and not like individuals who might be entering speculative regions.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that I am very sorry about the Lady Margaret Professorship departing. He gave it a good obituary. It is a sign that good theology is now much more broadly spread across the population. It is not just an ordained preserve: lay and/or ordained theologians are excellent and serving the church and the world. So I agree that the caravan has moved on and will say only that this is where we have moved to and that lay theologians as well as ordained ones are entitled to live in the lovely house.
With those very few comments, I am happy simply to ask the House to approve the Motion.
Coalition Government: Constitution Committee Report
(10 years ago)
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Baroness Jay of Paddington
That this House takes note of the Report of the Constitution Committee on Constitutional implications of coalition government (5th Report, HL Paper 130).
Baroness Jay of Paddington (Lab)
My Lords, I am particularly pleased to open the debate on this important report in this, the last week of my chairmanship of the Select Committee on the Constitution. The debate gives me the opportunity not only to thank all the witnesses who gave us valuable evidence in our wide-ranging inquiry, but also to express my overall gratitude to everyone associated with the committee during my four years as chairman. It has been a great privilege to work with the senior members of the House who have served on the committee. They have been very assiduous in their activities and made consistently distinguished contributions to our work. I am delighted that several of them are taking part in this debate. As members of the committee we have been extremely well supported, too, by our officials and by our legal and specialist advisers, all of whom have given us first-class assistance and advice. I would like to congratulate them on their work, as well as thank them.
This report is the result of one of the most significant inquiries the Constitution Committee has conducted in this Parliament, and as the Parliament enters its final year its conclusions and recommendations are particularly timely. Today, as noble Lords are well aware, we are constantly told by the party leaders that no one is contemplating the possibility of another hung Parliament in 2015: all are fighting for single-party victory. This may well be the ambition, but is it the reality? The committee naturally understands that, following another unclear election result, much will be determined by the politics of the day. However, we think there should be greater clarity about a number of constitutional questions before the end of this Parliament, and certainly before polling day in 2015. The opportunities for so-called “muddling through” in a traditional British way should be much reduced. Of course, the date of the next election is so certain because the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is now in operation. That Act has been the backdrop to the present coalition Government and to our inquiry, and I will return to its effect on the issues we examined later in my speech.
We looked at other changes in constitutional practice, which, for better or worse, may become permanent changes even when a future majority Government are in power. The committee’s intention is for our report to offer analysis and conclusions which should provide valuable guidance on what could become a more regular feature of British politics. As your Lordships appreciate, with an unwritten constitution many of the rules and conventions of Parliament and government are based on precedent. It is worth reminding the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, reminded the committee, that this is the first peacetime coalition Administration since 1931, and the first ever coalition that has been the product of arithmetic following a general election. The last hung Parliament was in 1974 and that decade—the 1970s—experienced both minority Governments and arrangements on supply and confidence between parties in the House of Commons—arrangements which some have suggested sit more comfortably with our long-held conventions of Cabinet government.
The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, with his personal experience of 1970s government, was one of our witnesses who supported this position and I am pleased that he is going to make a contribution to the debate in the gap. It remains to be seen if contemporary experience encourages today’s politicians to look at other solutions for government after an inconclusive election.
Our report covers four main areas. First, we look at the process of government formation after a hung election. Secondly, we examine proposals which aim to enhance the legitimacy of future coalition agreements. Thirdly, we consider how government and Parliament have and should operate under a coalition. Finally we address certain issues that we think will arise in the next few months, towards the end of the Parliament.
I begin with government formation. The House is aware that a succession of one-party Governments elected with large majorities has produced a modern expectation that Administrations change very quickly. The brutal, if effective, so-called “removal van in Downing Street” approach has meant that Prime Ministers are usually in their new place in less than 24 hours after the polls close. Evidently that was not the case in 2010, when negotiations took five days to conclude. We were told in evidence that all the parties felt under great pressure, particularly from the financial markets and the media, to conclude negotiations as quickly as possible. There was pressure on the Prime Minister to resign swiftly, with press headlines such as “The squatter in No. 10”, yet a period of five days for negotiation was by international standards very short. We concluded that although a Government should be formed as promptly as possible, five days should certainly not be seen as a template period for government formation after future hung elections. We were concerned by the lack of public and media understanding about the time that it takes to form a Government in these circumstances.
In particular, our witnesses told us that it was not only perfectly constitutionally proper for an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until the identity of a new Government was clear but that there is in some sense an expectation that he will do so. The Constitution Committee felt that—if only, frankly, to protect themselves as well as improve public understanding—the party leaders and managers should try to get these points across, particularly to the media, before the next election in May 2015.
One notable senior figure who thought ahead about the possibility of an inconclusive election was the then Cabinet Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, who I am very pleased to see contributing to today’s debate. Several of our witnesses paid tribute to his foresight in starting to plan for the outcome of the election. Importantly, arrangements were put in place for Civil Service support to be made available to any parties that were involved in post-election negotiations. In the event, the Conservative and Liberal negotiators took up logistical support only; they did not take up the offer of advice or briefings. On the other hand, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, whose contribution I look forward to, about the experience in Scotland where the parties had fully taken up the offer of Civil Service support and found it very helpful indeed. Our report recommends that official advice should be automatically available after future hung Parliaments at Westminster. Clearly, it would be for the parties to decide what level of support they would take up but it should certainly not be up to the incumbent Prime Minister to grant this opportunity. We recommend that the current Government should commit in advance to make Civil Service support available, if necessary. I hope that the Minister will be able to give that commitment today.
Today’s coalition Government have often been questioned about their democratic legitimacy. No one voted for a coalition and it is argued that the coalition agreement of 2010 does not have the same status as the manifesto of a party that won a majority at the election. Some of our witnesses, albeit those from an academic rather than a political standpoint, suggested ways of closing a possible constitutional gap in legitimacy. One proposal was that after an election, the House of Commons should hold an investiture vote for a new Prime Minister; another that the Commons should vote formally to approve a coalition agreement. The committee did not accept these ideas. We thought that a prime ministerial investiture vote would risk making our system of government even more presidential and concluded that a traditional vote on the first Queen’s Speech is the appropriate test of whether the House of Commons has confidence in the Government and therefore approves a coalition programme.
I turn to those parts of the report which deal with the way in which the coalition Government have impacted on our constitutional understandings about how government and Parliament work in practice. Undoubtedly, the most dramatic departure from constitutional norms under this Government has been, as we heard, the frequent breaches of the convention of collective ministerial responsibility—a convention which is at the heart of Cabinet government. Noble Lords will recall that breaches have occurred on significant matters, such as the saga of the constituency boundary review where the Deputy Prime Minister unilaterally told Liberal Democrat parliamentarians to vote against a measure which, until then, had been seen as agreed government policy. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, whose involvement in this debate I am also grateful for, said in his evidence to us that that was “outrageous”.
However, on the Conservative side we have also seen the remarkable event of Ministers being allowed to abstain on a vote on the Queen’s Speech and therefore in effect not being required to defend the Government’s agreed legislative programme. Other witnesses spoke of the debate on the report by Lord Justice Leveson on the press, when the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister spoke successively from the same House of Commons Dispatch Box, but on different sides of the issue. Noble Lords will recall a similar situation in this House. There have been many more examples, yet in the current Parliament no Minister has resigned or been asked to resign because they have not been prepared to accept agreed government policy.
The committee considered whether this meant that collective responsibility should be explicitly set aside under a coalition Government. We also debated whether the principle should be generally downgraded in 21st-century politics, even when a majority Government are in power. We concluded that this would be a fundamental constitutional mistake. After all, the convention of collective responsibility is primarily important because it enables Parliament fully to hold the Government responsible for all their actions and policies. It means that Ministers cannot wriggle out of responsibility by saying that a certain decision was taken by another Minister and that they had nothing to do with it. Moreover, the committee agreed that the process of collective decision-making, which is an essential part of the convention, is more likely to lead to good government than making decisions in isolation.
I remind the House that when the coalition was formed, the agreement identified five issues on which the two parties would be permitted to express different views. Processes were set out whereby this could happen but, since then, divergence between the parties on other issues has clearly happened without any proper process being followed. I would say that the present row on education policy is probably a vivid example. The committee, of course, recognised that it is inevitable that two different parties will disagree on certain issues but we think that the convention is sufficiently important for collective responsibility to be set aside only as a last resort. We recommend that when one party wants to ignore the convention it should take the matter to Cabinet, so that it is the Cabinet as a whole that agrees to set aside the convention. This should happen only on specific issues, and preferably for a limited period. We think that a process along these lines should be set out in any future coalition agreement. Those who argue that the lack of collective responsibility we have seen in the present Parliament simply illustrates the unsuitability of coalition government in our system undoubtedly have a point. Certainly, given what has happened in the last four years there is a need to be more explicit and transparent about arrangements in future.
Turning to the effect of the coalition on your Lordships’ House, we found one perhaps unexpected side-effect: the relative lack of senior Ministers in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, told us he had hoped that the number of senior Ministers in the Lords would increase over the Parliament, but in fact the opposite has happened. He regretted that, and so do we. Perhaps the noble Lord will expand on this point in his speech this evening.
The committee examined how the Salisbury/Addison convention should apply during coalitions, and we conclude that a coalition agreement does not have the same mandate from the electorate as the manifesto of a majority party. Therefore, the Salisbury/Addison convention does not apply to measures in a coalition agreement. Again, however, the committee recognised the political reality that a practice has evolved whereby the Lords does not normally block government Bills, whether they are in a manifesto or not. We saw no reason to dilute this practice when there is a coalition but still thought it important to state that a coalition agreement does not constitutionally equal a manifesto commitment.
The last chapter of our report looks at the final months leading up to the general election. It is worth reminding ourselves that, in the next year, we will be dealing with two unprecedented factors. First, we know exactly when polling day will be and, secondly, we have a peacetime coalition Government who proclaim that they will stay together until 5 May next year. The committee’s immediate conclusion is that the certainty about dates should cancel the need for the often unsatisfactory period of frantic legislation at the end of a Parliament. The legislation in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech in June should be planned so that the so-called wash-up is washed out. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, as a previous Leader of the House, agreed with us. As I said, the prospect of two parties campaigning against each other while running the Government together is unprecedented and raises a number of political questions, which again the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, may shed light on from his experience in Scotland.
Once Parliament is dissolved and the formal campaign begins, the constitutional guidance on the purdah period is clear in the Cabinet manual. Our report emphasises that this guidance must be adhered to. When it comes to the different parties in government receiving advice from civil servants, we propose that a party with no Ministers in a particular department should be entitled to have contact with officials in that department in the same way as the Official Opposition would. This would prevent any party being disadvantaged in the run-up to the election.
As the committee’s report has demonstrated—although I have not covered every point—the constitutional effects of having a coalition Government have been profound. It should not of course be assumed that future hung Parliaments would automatically lead to a coalition Government; but, frankly, it would be naive for the political parties and others not to be taking that possibility into account.
I hope your Lordships appreciate that this inquiry by the Select Committee was extensive, and included evidence from a very wide range of authoritative witnesses. The report includes substantial analysis and practical recommendations on the basis both of our deliberations and the evidence we received. We published in mid-February and the report was designed to coincide with the conclusion of this parliamentary Session and the start of pre-election preparations. I am pleased that we have been able to debate it today, before Prorogation. However, I say to the Minister that I am extremely disappointed that the Government have failed to give any response to the report so far. It is a report of current interest and importance, yet the Government again have ignored the understood guidance, which asks for a response to Select Committee reports within two months of publication. Frankly, I regard that as not simply discourteous but, in this case, irresponsible.
During this Parliament the Constitution Committee has been disappointed by the Government in this way several times. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, can offer detailed comment on our recommendations when he replies tonight, but I am afraid that whatever is said will not be a substitute for a proper, written, official response.
I do not want to conclude on that disagreeable note; so I end by renewing my thanks to all who contributed to the report and to those who will speak in the debate today. It has been a great privilege for me to serve as chairman of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. It has also been enormously enjoyable, and I look forward to the debate. I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to be speaking immediately after the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. Perhaps I may be the first publicly to pay tribute to her time as chairman of such a distinguished committee as the House of Lords Constitution Committee. She has served with distinction, but she has also served at a most fascinating and interesting time. The noble Baroness reminded us that she has served for four years, which is a long time. In those four years we have seen constitutional innovation, to which the report alludes several times over.
As the noble Baroness explained, I gave evidence to the committee and read its report. One of the reasons I wanted to speak in this debate was to say how good I thought its conclusions were. It is extremely clear and well-written, and therefore effective. I am sorry to hear that the Government were unable to give a written response but I have great faith that my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire will be able to say that he, too, on behalf of the Government, thinks this a very positive report. There is much to take away, not just by politicians but by senior members of the Civil Service, particularly the Cabinet Office, if this thing—this coalition—ever happens again.
It was useful for the noble Baroness to remind us, as is written in the first paragraph of the report, what my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth said about this being the first coalition to come about because of the arithmetic calculation after a general election. That demonstrates just how rare a coalition is in the United Kingdom. We have no reason to believe that it will necessarily happen again in the near future. It probably will not happen again, but I dare say that we ought, like the boy scouts, to be ever ready and ever prepared for it to happen again.
In May 2010 I was one of those who were initially sceptical about the desirability of having a coalition. I felt that my right honourable friend David Cameron probably could have carried on a minority Government, but that was not the prevailing view. It was said that people generally liked the idea of politicians sorting out their differences in private before coming to Parliament with an agreed set of proposals. Whether that is true in practice remains to be seen, but it is true that people like that idea. What else is true is that this coalition has been remarkably successful, particularly in barring the noises off, and has had huge success in reform of some of the most important parts of the public sector—education, welfare and health. What Government, within 12 months of a general election, would not be delighted to hear that the United Kingdom now has the fastest-growing economy in the G7; that there are more people in work today in Britain than ever before; that unemployment is falling; that the twin scourges of inflation and interest rates, which most of us have lived with for most of our lives, are at rock bottom; and that month by month, year by year, the deficit is being cut and we can see, over the horizon, a time when it will be eradicated? That is a success for the coalition.
I have no idea whether there will be another coalition Government. If there is, the only point with which I took minor issue was on the formation of a Government. It is important for the nation to have a Prime Minister and to know who that Prime Minister is as quickly as possible. We should not create a system that allows for a Prime Minister to linger on in 10 Downing Street for too long. If there is no pressure to come to an agreement on who the new Prime Minister should be, it could drag on for a very long time indeed. I cannot imagine that it was a pleasant experience for Mr Brown as Prime Minister to be twiddling his thumbs among the packing cases, waiting for the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party to reach some sort of agreement. There is all the difference between the parties agreeing that there should be a coalition and that therefore there should be a Prime Minister, which should be announced as soon as possible, and for the Palace to do the all-important ceremony with which it needs to be involved, and the final troth being made on a coalition agreement and, most importantly, on what the terms of the first Queen’s Speech should be. I agree with the idea that there should be a longer time-lag between the general election and the Queen’s Speech. A period of 12 days was mentioned, which is perfectly sensible.
I want to make four observations on the report with regard to the House of Lords. The first relates to paragraph 145 and the Salisbury convention. The report admirably says and the noble Baroness repeated it:
“We recognise that a practice has evolved that the House of Lords does not normally block government bills, whether they are in a manifesto or not. There is no reason why this practice should not apply when there is a coalition government”.
I quite agree. In fact, that is my understanding of what the Salisbury convention has become and how it has developed over many years. There is a faint absurdity in this unelected Chamber denying ourselves the right to debate a Bill which has already been passed by the elected Chamber and we should not do it. One can imagine the truly appalling circumstances in which the House of Lords needs to reserve that right, but as a matter of course that should be part of the Salisbury convention. That is why I very much regret that in this Parliament it was the Official Opposition who supported the wrecking amendments on the Health and Social Care Bill. That was an extremely foolish and dangerous thing to do and should not have been done. When the Labour Party eventually gets back into government it should beware that an irresponsible group in the House of Lords does not hang that around its neck.
The second issue that I want to draw attention to is that of collective responsibility and the boundaries issue, which is eminently well described in paragraph 71. The paragraph refers to the evidence that I gave. I said that it was a “dirty trick”. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said that it was,
“a flagrant breach of an agreement”,
although he happily conceded that he was delighted that the Liberal Democrats had done so.
Either way—and I stand by what I said—what I dislike intensely in paragraph 71 is how David Laws MP prays in aid the collapse of the House of Lords Bill in the House of Commons. I just want to say that this is a desperate rewriting of history. The House of Lord Bill was passed in the Commons on a huge majority at Second Reading. Nearly 80% of MPs voted in favour of it. What happened thereafter was a failure of the Government and of the Minister who was responsible for it, the Deputy Prime Minister, to reach an agreement, particularly with the Opposition, on the programme motion. That was not the fault of a few dozen Conservative Members of Parliament. As we all know in this House, this issue was always going to be controversial and could never have been passed by one party acting on its own. It could have been passed only by agreement. If the Deputy Prime Minister had spent more time early on in the Parliament working with the shadow Cabinet and the Labour Party, he might have got that agreement.
I cannot help thinking that the issue of House of Lords reform became a convenient argument, and that is all, and that even if House of Lords reform had gone through, the Liberal Democrats would have found a different excuse for reneging on the deal that they had struck in the coalition agreement.
Baroness Grender (LD)
May I clarify something with the noble Lord? Is it not the case that the Prime Minister took the decision to withdraw from pushing ahead with the vote on the programme motion?
Lord Strathclyde
I am sure that is the case, but only on the basis that he knew it was going to be lost. He knew that the Minister responsible for the Bill could not guarantee that they had support from Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. That is why it collapsed.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Is not the point here that up until now it has been accepted that it is an almost sacred duty on the part of Governments to implement Boundary Commission reports? The moment that we have political parties fiddling around with them for their party advantage, all is lost. What happened was therefore quite reprehensible and disgraceful.
Lord Strathclyde
Even more than that, my Lords, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth will remember well, for years and years the Liberal Democrats would lecture us and the people of this country on the monstrous unfairness of the electoral system, but they themselves then ensured that we now have the most unfair system because, as my noble friend suggested, they blocked the entirely correct work of the Boundary Commission.
The third point that I want to make is about Lords Ministers. Again, I very much agree with the conclusions of the report. The point is that over the past 30 or 40 years we have had many eminent and senior Ministers coming from the House of Lords, most recently under the Labour Government. This is good not just for the House of Lords but for the Government; it is good for the process of government to have senior Peers with a lot of experience—outside politics sometimes—who play a part. I understand the pressures within a coalition to provide ministerial seats in the House of Commons, but I have to say that in May 2010 when I went to Downing Street and was invited by the Prime Minister to take on the burden of Leader of the House of Lords, which of course I was delighted to do, I asked how many Liberal Democrats I should expect and I was very surprised to be told: absolutely none, because there had been an agreement with the Deputy Prime Minister that all the Liberal Democrat Ministers would be made in the House of Commons. There was a terrible silence as I realised that it was impossible to come back and sit on the Front Bench without my noble friend Lord McNally and other Liberal Democrats who have served so ably. There was a quick discussion and I am delighted to say that on the Front Bench in the coalition we have had a very effective team of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives working together. My regret is that very few of the Liberal Democrats are actually paid for the work that they do, particularly not the Whips. I very much hope that, whether we have another coalition or return to single-party government, more senior Peers will be represented in government as Ministers. That will ultimately be to the benefit of the nation.
The last point that I want to make is about the wash-up. That is an ugly little phrase to explain something that is extremely necessary and, on the whole, works effectively. It was much abused, I am sorry to say, in 2010 by the outgoing Labour Government—with some collusion, I have to accept, from the then Opposition. The purpose of the wash-up is to tidy up Bills as quickly as possible with the agreement of the whole House. It should not be for shovelling through vast swathes of legislation unscrutinised, undebated and not even discussed or indeed improved, and I hope that we do not see those days again. They could be circumstances if there is some emergency legislation that needs to be passed quickly but, again, that should always be done with the agreement of the usual channels in both Houses.
I have spoken for far longer than I intended to. Perhaps I may just finish by saying that, notwithstanding what I think has generally been the success in government of this coalition, I hope that we will not need another one but, if we do, that it should work effectively and smoothly in the interests of the good governance of this country. I think that the reading of this report by the Government and the Civil Service will be an effective way of ensuring that that happens.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, for the presentation to your Lordships’ House today of this excellent report from the Constitution Committee. On behalf of perhaps all the devolved Administrations over recent years, I thank the committee for the opportunity to give evidence and to speak in this debate.
In addition to the experience over the past four years of coalition government in the United Kingdom, of course, the UK has also seen coalition government in different forms in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over recent years. I was very pleased that the committee was willing to take that experience and use it, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, did in preparing for and then executing the discussions after the 2010 general election.
The committee’s report is thoughtful and balanced. I, too, hope that the Government and the Opposition will respond to the recommendations that have been made. I do not think that any of them should leave it until closer to the general election to do so. I hope that as well as getting a response today from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, at some point we will also receive a proper written response from the Government and that the official Opposition will consider this report and make public their views on it, too; all the political parties here have to address the issues that have been raised.
When I gave evidence to the committee I was reminded of an article I had written that was published on 15 May 2010, entitled “Ten tips for making coalition work”, based on my experience in Scotland shortly after the coalition agreement had been reached by Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg. That experience came from being part of the first Cabinet in Scotland in 1999 and the coalition agreement that I like to describe as the “Add the Liberal Democrats on” coalition—because essentially Donald Dewar and colleagues had been in government and moved into the Scottish Parliament but did not have a majority there so they worked hard to secure the agreement of the Liberal Democrats, led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to form a coalition for the first four years, which managed to survive three different First Ministers and a whole series of crises. It saw out its four years and implemented a raft of legislation that perhaps would have been seen as very ambitious back in May 1999 but made a real difference to Scotland.
Then came a very different coalition. Because of the way in which it came together it was essentially stronger, based on two manifestos that had really been written for the Scottish Parliament and that were about what was happening in Scotland at the time. The politicians knew each other and the Parliament well, and what they could achieve. In 2003 that coalition made a huge difference over four years in building a more confident and successful, and a healthier, Scotland.
The 10 tips that I outlined in that article focused primarily on three issues. One was trust: not just personal trust between—in my case—the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, but also between the parties to ensure that there was a working relationship on the Back Benches as well as on the Front Benches. Secondly, there was the important issue of dealing with compromises and disputes: the flexibility required in government to respond to events and to seize opportunities as they arise if they have not been foreseen. Thirdly, there was the absolutely vital issue of direction and a sense of purpose. Within that there was the necessity for a one-for-all, all-for-one approach to collective responsibility and the work of Ministers.
Had those tips not been very real in our coalition when I was First Minister in Scotland, it would not have been possible to lead the UK on the ban on smoking in public places or deal with a controversial issue such as in-migration to help reverse Scotland’s population decline and improve our economic performance so that we were ahead of the UK in GDP growth rather than behind it. We also made huge changes to our justice system and a legislative programme between 2003 and 2007—changes that were long overdue. Having a strong coalition can be effective, but it needs to have those key elements of trust, flexibility and collective responsibility to make it work well. That is why I agree strongly with the report from the Constitution Committee. I readily endorse all but one of the recommendations, and I will draw attention to three issues in particular.
The first is the role of the Civil Service in advance of and after an election. This will be a very real issue next year as the preparations for the general election get closer, and then in the post-election scenario that could well lead to similar discussions taking place again. The recommendation in paragraph 40 has my full support based on the experience in Scotland, and in London in 2010.
The second issue is one to which my noble friend Lady Jay did not refer: access to papers in future Administrations. A recommendation in paragraph 131 sets out the procedure that could be used following these five years of coalition government in order to ensure that both parties are treated fairly in the issue of access to ministerial papers under future Governments. This arrangement has been broken by the Scottish National Party Government in Scotland during these past seven years—I think quite disgracefully. Therefore, I enthusiastically support the recommendation of the committee. This issue should be agreed in advance of the general election in 2015, and whatever agreement is reached should be adhered to by whatever party is in government afterwards. The situation in Scotland today, where Nationalist Ministers see the papers of previous Administrations in advance of the previous Administration being consulted about public access to those papers, is disgraceful and should not be repeated in Whitehall or at Westminster.
The third issue that I want to mention is that of collective responsibility. In paragraphs 77 to 79, the committee makes valuable recommendations about the operation of collective responsibility. Over the past four years, we have seen the difficulties that can arise when collective responsibility is not adhered to, either publicly or in many cases privately and off the record under this coalition Government. One of the strengths of our coalition in Scotland was an adherence to collective responsibility, not just in public but in private, too. There were almost no instances of individual Ministers briefing against each other off the record to newspapers during my time as First Minister. That should be the case in all coalition Governments, so I strongly support the committee’s recommendations.
However, I do not agree with the committee on the parliamentary endorsement of the coalition agreement. Collective responsibility would be strengthened if a coalition agreement was put to a vote in Parliament, in addition to the vote on the Queen’s Speech and the legislative programme. So there I depart from the committee’s recommendations in paragraph 60, where it does not support that approach. I think that a parliamentary endorsement of the coalition agreement would be a very good thing.
There are 12 months to go until the 2015 general election. I can say right now that being in a coalition Government will get more difficult over those 12 months. I may be stating the obvious, but the final 12 months will be a real challenge for all concerned. However, it is not impossible for a coalition to stick together to the very end. I predicted in May 2010 that this coalition would stick together and I believe that it will. If those involved are mature enough to be able to set out mechanisms for working behind the scenes as well as in public and to continue to prioritise their programme for government, this coalition will last the full five years.
I hope that it does not experience too many difficulties during the election period. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and I did have an experience in April 2003 when we had to deal with an important emergency issue and make a decision, breaking off from the campaign trail and abusing each other in public to make an agreement in private to ensure that school meals in Scotland were adequately provided for following a change in the UK Budget. There will be moments when people have to talk in private and in public, but they should also be perfectly capable of campaigning against each other publicly and at the same time putting a proper choice to the voters for the next Government.
Like everybody else, I presume, I would have preferred that Labour had had a majority in the Scottish Parliament when I was First Minister, and we could have implemented more of our programme and less of the programme of others; but we did not. We had to compromise. We had to work with the result from the electorate. Despite the fact that at the time we were working in unusual circumstances, bringing together coalitions for the first time in the UK in peacetime, the reality was that we made a huge difference by putting the interests of Scotland ahead of our parties and making that Government work.
There was at least one benefit aside from implementing the programme. In a coalition government, some of the extremes that you see in a single-party Government—legislation not being properly thought through, the instincts of Prime Ministers or First Ministers going ahead of common sense and due deliberation inside the party, never mind outside it—are not there because the challenge between two parties in a coalition can improve in decision-making. While it may be frustrating and difficult at times, there can be benefits from a coalition Government; we should not put ourselves in a situation where we would regret or feel too disappointed about losing an opportunity to govern alone after the next general election in the UK. The country should come first.
The UK has many proud traditions that help us govern successfully and set an example of governance around the world. The protocols and conventions—parliamentary accountability, the principle of collective government responsibility and all the other issues addressed in this report—are examples of the way in which coalition government can work for the people for the country, not just for the politicians who assume their positions in that Government. I readily endorse the recommendations of the report and hope that the Government and the Official Opposition will take them on board in advance of May 2015.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I cannot help but start by thanking our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, for the service that she has given to the House in chairing the Constitution Committee. Her seniority, her experience and, above all, her effortless charm in keeping us to the disciplines—there are quite strong personalities around the committee—were in play in almost every meeting. We will miss her. It will be very different to serve on the committee without the noble Baroness.
In 2010, I had the honour of being the first Liberal to speak from the government Benches in a new Parliament in the post-war period. The last time the Liberal Party had come into government was in the 1930s. Therefore, it has not been entirely surprising to me that Britain’s constitutional conventions over the past 80 years or so have been formed on the basis of single-party government. We had much material to work on in this inquiry but, as our report points out, the pluralism of party politics that the public have now embraced is a trend that may well continue for some time. Our inquiry therefore had not just to look carefully at the events of the past four years but to anticipate other permutations and formulations that might be thrown up in future.
In my coverage of the report, I want to highlight just a few points. The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, gave a comprehensive view of most of our findings but, particularly in the light of the peroration of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, it is important for me to illustrate and highlight some of the more dramatic moments in our deliberations on this report.
I was a member of the Constitution Committee at the time of its report on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. While I heard all the arguments, I continue to be slightly surprised that the idea of a fixed term continues to frustrate constitutionalists in some quarters. If it affects government formation negotiations by making parties look at alternatives to minority government, surely that is a good thing. Minority government is the antithesis of the stability in decision-making that is needed for the economy, business and policy planning; in my own area of work, it is seen as extremely damaging to the conduct of foreign affairs. That is not the reason why the public are opposed to it, but we also know that the public are opposed to repeat elections. I therefore agree with two of our witnesses, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and Oliver Letwin, who told us that having fixed-term Parliaments allowed Governments to plan for five years, thereby enabling them to think long term.
I also emphasise the importance that the committee placed on the right versus the duty of an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until a successor is identified, particularly as we come up to the 2015 general election. The one observation that I would make in that regard is that, given the language deployed in the media in referring to an incumbent Prime Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, gave us some of the colourful highlights relating to the previous Prime Minister—it would be extremely helpful if the Cabinet Office undertook to advise the media on the desirability of this expectation and its place in our constitutional framework.
Let me turn to the convention of collective ministerial responsibility. We had a lively discussion with experts, witnesses and among ourselves about this during the inquiry. The report mentions the departures from collective ministerial responsibility as seen in 2013 when the two parties of the coalition voted in opposite Lobbies on an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. That decision was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister some six or seven months earlier as a response to the collapse of the House of Lords Reform Bill, so it did not come entirely as a surprise. I would have thought that, given the self-interest of the Conservative Party in those proposed boundary changes, seven months of reflection on what might happen might have led to the Conservatives reappraising their position on House of Lords reform, but it was not to be and we had a good debate about it.
The committee felt strongly that collective responsibility has served our constitution well and therefore emphasised that breaches of it should be rare and only ever a last resort. Moreover, it went on to recommend that a proper process should be put in place to govern any setting aside of the responsibility, stating:
“Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.
While I entirely agree with the recommendations of the committee as set out in paragraphs 77 to 79 where there is single-party government—particularly as collective responsibility was breached in recent memory in quite significant terms by the Labour Government—I do not think that we have been entirely realistic in these recommendations where they apply to coalitions. For example, the duty of the Cabinet as a whole to resolve differences is somewhat difficult when five members of the Cabinet are from one party and nearly 20 are drawn from the other. It is self-evident that the majority can always outvote the minority. My preference would be for the pragmatism of David Laws MP, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, referred, who felt that when agreements are made and subsequently diverted from there are naturally consequences for other agreements.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has contested this version of history, so let me put to him that in my view the more fundamental breakdown of collective responsibility was witnessed in the House of Commons debate on the Queen’s Speech in 2013 when one side of the Government—the Conservatives—tabled an amendment on their own Government’s programme. The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, referred to this in her speech. The PM went on to give those Conservative rebels a free vote, although it was evidently not an issue of conscience, and we had the spectacle of junior Ministers voting against their own Government without any consequences. Our report states:
“Dr Stephen Barber … said, that ‘the acquiescence by the Prime Minister to allow ministers to vote “against” provisions in the Queen’s Speech ... is constitutionally more serious’ than the division between coalition partners over the boundary review amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. This is because of the role of the Queen’s Speech as a vote of confidence in the Government … previously any minister who declined to support the government on the Queen’s Speech would have been expected to resign”.
In the instance of the Conservative rebellion on the Queen’s Speech, I took the opportunity to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, when on 9 April he came to have his annual evidence session with the committee, how that had transpired. If I recall correctly—I have not seen the transcript yet—the Deputy Prime Minister told the committee that the issue had not been raised in a Cabinet committee and was not even discussed in the quad. Therefore, in terms of a rebellion where the Prime Minister gave the Conservative rebels a free vote, the committee’s recommendation that these sorts of things must be discussed and a resolution must be sought within Cabinet clearly could not have applied, because the issue was not raised in Cabinet.
The last point that I will make about collective responsibility again relates to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for whom I have the profoundest respect, as he well knows from my interactions with him. The anecdote that he just told on how, but for his intervention, there were not meant to be any Liberal Democrat Ministers in the House of Lords was an example of a little breach of collective responsibility. If that sort of evidence were to come out, I would have expected it to be in the noble Lord’s memoirs, which we would be rushing off to Waterstones to buy. Saying it first in giving evidence to our committee and repeating it in the Chamber of the House stretches collective responsibility, because that discussion clearly took place in Cabinet. I fear that the noble Lord wishes to come back on that.
Lord Strathclyde
I shall say two things in my defence. First, I had not been appointed, so there was no collective responsibility issue. Secondly, and perhaps more important—this is something that I did not say but should have said—this was born out of a misunderstanding by the Deputy Prime Minister about how Ministers are appointed in the House of Lords. Given that the Liberal Democrats are so deeply federalised, he assumed that it was an issue that would be solved in the House of Lords, which is perhaps rather a different slant from the one that I gave in the first place.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I am sure that we all appreciate that clarification. Nevertheless, I am not sure that any of us will not use it to give Mr Clegg a hard ride next time, if there is a next time.
Let me conclude by coming to the role of the Civil Service. I will touch on this issue merely to say that both we and the Institute for Government, in its more extensive study, heard about the difficulties encountered by a junior partner in government, represented by a junior Minister, when commissioning policy advice. I wholeheartedly agree with the committee’s recommendation that Ministers should be able to commission confidential briefings from officials within their departments for the purpose of developing policy for the next Parliament without those briefings being disclosed to Ministers from their coalition partners. If this practice were not formalised, we would be in the invidious position whereby, although the Opposition would have access to Civil Service advice, as would the party that hosted the Secretary of State in the department, the Lib Dems, where they had only a junior Minister, would not have access to policy advice. That cannot be right. I look forward to the Government’s response on that matter and join the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, in expressing disappointment that the Government have not been able to provide a response before the debate today. I can only assume that the Government have failed to come to a collective view on this.
To conclude, it was a fascinating inquiry. Our witnesses were extremely knowledgeable and, particularly the political ones, often passionately engaged with the issues. I hope that the Cabinet Office will take the opportunity to act on the recommendations of this report. In so doing, it will lend clarity in future scenarios, when the public may yet again choose coalition government. The report’s recommendations on collective responsibility stand for single-party government as well, so the report contributes overall to good and accountable government.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the Constitution Committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, on this excellent report. If it is to be her swan-song as chairman of the committee, it is a fitting culmination of a series of reports by the committee, which have been very valuable and, in this case, raise issues that need to be considered before the next general election—which I think it is more probable than some previous speakers have thought may result in another coalition.
As the noble Baroness said, the present coalition has changed our constitutional conventions—I was glad to hear her say constitutional conventions, not constitution—in some significant and surprising ways. The first example, to which reference has not been made tonight, was, of course, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I opposed this in your Lordships’ House. If the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats chose to make an agreement about the timing of the next general election, that was their choice, but a number of us felt that they had no need or right to bind future Governments. Now we are seeing the problems caused by the fixed term. Having exhausted the measures in the coalition agreement, the Government are finding it difficult to agree on new policies—and they will find it increasingly difficult to do so as they seek to demonstrate their separateness in the year leading up to the general election.
As a result, we are already seeing that Parliament has very thin gruel to work on. We await the programme in the Queen’s Speech for the next Session with no lively expectation that it will be substantial. Meanwhile the Government are looking divided and weak, more concerned with washing their dirty linen in public than with running the country. If I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, we have heard a certain amount of that sort of recrimination already in the speeches tonight—and that is nothing compared with what we will get over the course of the next year. I think a case could be made that the country would have been better served by bringing this Parliament to an end now so that a new Government could be elected with a fresh mandate.
I want to concentrate the remainder of my remarks on preparations for the next Government and the role of the Civil Service in the lead-up to the general elections, to which reference has been made. When the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and I gave evidence to the Constitution Committee in its preparation of this report, we emphasised two things. First, there should be a level playing field between all three main parties, with their being treated equally and having equal access to advice. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, referred to that. Secondly, we suggested that the scope of the confidential discussions between the main political parties and the Civil Service should be extended somewhat so that the Civil Service could give advice on the parties’ plans, particularly on the practicability of their implementation, and that the Civil Service should not just be in listening mode.
The Institute for Government has recently produced two very sensible reports on this subject, in which it makes similar points. It has drawn attention to the dilemma in which civil servants may find themselves when there are two main parties in government and one main party in opposition. The two parties in government will have diverging approaches to policy as the election draws near—and, as has been said, they may want to keep some of their ideas confidential from their partners in government. The Institute for Government rightly said that civil servants in this situation need clear guidance on how to deal with that problem. What should that guidance say?
During the period leading up to the general election, the Government must continue to govern and are entitled to full assistance from the Civil Service on any matter of government policy. So it seems to me that a clear distinction needs to be made between what the Government continue to do as government and what the political parties are preparing as parties. In other words, the Civil Service must continue to give full support to what is decided by the Government as matters of collective responsibility, and that requires making it quite clear what those matters are that have been decided by collective responsibility. But when the parties go their separate ways in preparing proposals for their manifestos, the Civil Service should act as it normally would in relation to political parties in pre-election mode. This should not mean that it can give no advice on party proposals; as I said, there would be advantage in their being given such advice, particularly on practicability. But all three political parties should be treated in this respect in the same way.
As far as the parties within the Government are concerned, this will put extra weight on distinguishing between what decisions are made by collective responsibility and what are not. Clear procedures need to be put in place to distinguish between the two. It has been reported that the Prime Minister has decided that confidential discussions between the Civil Service and the Opposition can start six months before polling day—namely, in the autumn. So there is plenty of time for this guidance to be put in place.
Before the last general election, as has been said, the Cabinet Office, under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, performed a very useful service in publishing a draft chapter for the Cabinet Office manual on the rules of the game in the event of no party gaining an overall majority in the election. That publication in draft provided an opportunity for outside observers, including Select Committees, to comment on those rules of the game. This achieved a much greater understanding and acceptance of the conventions than there would otherwise have been, and that was very valuable in the uncertain days immediately following the general election.
I hope that the Cabinet Office will similarly publish draft guidance for consultation on the role of the Civil Service in the lead-up to the general election. If that is to be done, and the discussions are to start in October, that cannot be long delayed now. Perhaps the Minister in replying will be able to give the House some information on what the Government intend in that respect—information that would have been included, no doubt, in the Government’s formal response to the committee’s report but which now needs to be made public.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, my first task is to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, for her admirable introduction and for the manner in which she has chaired the Constitution Committee during all the time that I have served on it. She has done so with great effectiveness, judicious fairness and sensitivity to the views of all members of the committee, whatever their political backgrounds. We are also fortunate to have been served by special advisers and policy analysts of outstanding quality and expertise and excellent clerks. I add my thanks to all of them.
I want to concentrate on collective ministerial responsibility and cabinet government, subjects on which we laid particular emphasis in our report. We did so partly because of the strength of the views expressed by our witnesses, academic and political. The Ministerial Code, Cabinet Manual and the coalition agreement all state that the principle of collective responsibility applies,
“save where it is explicitly set aside”.
The coalition Government’s programme for government specified five issues where the parties in the coalition might adopt different positions. They are set out in paragraph 68 of our report. The convention of collective responsibility is constitutionally important for two main reasons. First, the process of collective decision-making within government makes it more likely that better decisions are reached. The second is that it enables Parliament to hold the Government as a whole responsible for their policies, decisions and actions. Collective responsibility also imbues a Government and, indeed, Parliament, with authority. When the discipline it imposes is departed from, the authority is undermined.
We fully recognise, of course, that the parties in a coalition will not agree on everything and that from time to time they will differ. Any noble Lord who has attended this Parliament would find it very difficult to be blind to that fact. However, we say that,
“it is incumbent on ministers to seek to reach a collective view on issues wherever possible … Given its constitutional importance, the setting aside of the convention … should be rare, and only ever a last resort”.
We had hoped to discuss the issues with the Deputy Prime Minister before we concluded our deliberations but because of a family funeral that meeting could not take place. However, on 9 April, after the report had been published, the committee pursued the issue in the annual evidence session that we have with him. The Deputy Prime Minister said that one consequence of coalition government had been a,
“rejuvenation of collective decision-making and collective discussion within government, because you have to be open with each other if you are seeking to make decisions that bind two parties in a government”.
He spoke of,
“the rejuvenation of the Cabinet committee system”.
The committee did not seek to contest that view, although we had learnt in the evidence sessions that a great many potentially contentious matters are resolved in the so-called “quad”, a kind of inner Cabinet which seems to take a great many more decisions than the Cabinet itself. What we were concerned about was collective ministerial responsibility and the breaches of the convention as it had previously been understood.
In response to a question from my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton, the Deputy Prime Minister told us that it was important that when decisions are arrived at collectively they are defended collectively. My noble friend commented that that,
“seemed to imply that there is no collective responsibility unless specifically agreed. The agreement of 2010 says that there is collective responsibility unless it is specifically disagreed. You seem to think that those statements are compatible. It seems to me that they are not”.
Replying, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it was,
“an almost academic suggestion that collective responsibility can apply to decisions that have not been taken collectively”.
When I took up the argument, the Deputy Prime Minister agreed that some issues had been anticipated but said:
“There is a second category of issues: issues that you cannot anticipate on which the government cannot come to a collective agreement”.
He cited the Leveson inquiry and the decision that he should speak and offer a different point of view alongside the Prime Minister. He told us that that decision was “formally agreed”. He reiterated:
“Collective responsibility is how decisions are discussed, decided upon and then defended when collectively agreed within government. Collective responsibility is not a doctrine that says that coalition parties cannot disagree with each other in public”.
We were then told that where the convention of collective responsibility had been set aside explicitly, the decision had been taken,
“formally … within Whitehall by the Cabinet Secretary, in consultation with me and the Prime Minister”.
I do not believe that I was alone in being surprised—perhaps I should say astonished—by that revelation. The decision to set aside the convention was apparently being taken not by the Cabinet but by the Cabinet Secretary after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. That, we were told, is what happened in the case of the Leveson inquiry. The Deputy Prime Minister said that these decisions,
“are vetted and overseen by the Cabinet Secretary”.
Surely, it is a remarkable new constitutional practice that decisions of this kind about an important constitutional convention appear to depend upon a decision of the Cabinet Secretary. The guidance given in the Scottish Ministerial Code shows that it is possible to handle these matters differently. It states that,
“all decisions reached by the Scottish Ministers, individually or collectively, are binding on all members of the Government. It follows from this that every effort must normally be made to ensure that every Minister with an interest in an issue has a chance to have his or her say—in an appropriate forum or manner—before a decision is taken”.
Exactly the same principle should apply in the rest of the UK.
What happens in practice? Does the Cabinet Secretary say to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, “Have you circulated papers to every Minister with an interest or had a meeting of the Cabinet to see if agreement can be reached?”. No, he certainly does not say that because he will know that nothing of the kind will happen. Or does he say, “Well, I have listened to this discussion and it is all too obvious that you can’t agree, and so I certify that there is no collective agreement”? I do not consider that this is a proper role for the Cabinet Secretary or an appropriate way of explicitly setting aside the principle of collective responsibility.
In any event, as we have heard, some of the most extraordinary breaches of collective responsibility have taken place without the supervision of the Cabinet Secretary or as a result of any formal proceedings. We have been told about the decision of the Liberal Democrat Party to vote in 2013 on an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill delaying the review of parliamentary constituency boundaries in breach of a policy contained in the coalition agreement. It was taken personally by the Deputy Prime Minister who was angered by the withdrawal of the House of Lords Reform Bill.
My noble friend Lord Strathclyde, whose strong views have already been quoted, pointed out that the coalition agreement had been that the boundary review would take place in return for there being a referendum on the alternative vote. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who has also been quoted, said that the action,
“was wholly undermining of the process by which you should conduct yourself within government”.
He thought that departures from collective responsibility weakened the,
“authority of the Prime Minister and the Government”.
We also heard the strong criticisms made by Dr Stephen Barber about,
“the acquiescence by the Prime Minister to allow ministers to vote ‘against’ provisions in the Queen’s Speech”.
In paragraph 76, we give the reasons why so many of our witnesses believe that the abandonment of collective responsibility, other than in the most exceptional cases, is hugely damaging to good government. The unseemly row going on at present in and around the Department for Education is another example of behaviour damaging to good government. Is it really not possible to reach agreement on policy about the law concerning the carrying of knives without having a great public argument about it outside Cabinet committees? The committee strongly believes that,
“it is incumbent on ministers to seek to reach a collective view on issues wherever possible. Having reached a collective view, it is essential that they can be held to account for it … A proper process should be in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility. Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.
The process involving the Cabinet Secretary described to us by the Deputy Prime Minister after we had produced our report is not, in my view, a proper process. Whether the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments represent a collective decision taken by the Government, and for which they can be held accountable, is not known because, very regrettably, as we have heard and not for the first time, the House has been debating a report of a House of Lords committee to which the Government have failed to produce a response in the two months referred to in the Companion. I know that my noble friend who will respond to this debate will do his best to deal with the points that have been raised, but we should have been in the position where we could debate the Government’s response and not just our report. Perhaps, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, has observed, there is no collective ministerial view about the conclusions reached by the committee.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has taken pleasure not only from the credit that has been given to her for her stewardship of the committee and the very valuable report, but from how interesting this debate has been. That is also a considerable tribute to her and her committee. The temptation is, however, to pick up some of the interesting range of issues and stray a long way from one’s intended text—and, I fear, bore the House.
However, I want to take up just one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who knows I have great respect for his views. I do not take the view that the fifth year of this Parliament will be a complete waste of time just because we do not have a whole lot of new laws being put before us. Ministers too often think that it is of great importance and virility to have some great Bill put before Parliament and that otherwise they think that they will not really exist in the public mind or among their colleagues. If we spend some time in this next year on post-legislative scrutiny and look at how successful or not some of the previous laws have been, that would be a valuable lesson for us and, in that respect, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act could well prove to be a real success.
I am delighted that my noble friends Lady Falkner and Lady Grender, are contributing to this debate—my noble friend Lady Falkner because of her contribution to the committee, and my noble friend Lady Grender, as I am sure colleagues in your Lordships’ House will discover, because she will bring to the debate an interesting view about the way in which some of these matters have been happening in the recesses of a coalition Government.
I confess to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the House that I approached the report with some trepidation, because I thought that it might be narrow and cautious, and even take a rather conservative view. I thought that we might be looking at just the way in which we somehow deviated over the past four years from the great conventions of the past. That has not been so. As someone who has always been keen on having a written constitution, there are moments when I have said over the past four years, “Thank God we haven’t got one” because we have been able to evolve to meet the requirements of the situation.
Here in the committee’s report is an interesting recognition of the political facts of life. As paragraph 2 of the report rightly points out:
“Trends in voting behaviour, with fewer votes for the two largest parties and an increasing number of MPs representing smaller parties, make it increasingly possible that hung parliaments will recur”.
Ironically, the other place, which ought to be much more responsive to changes in the views of our fellow citizens, seems to be still stubbornly bipolar by comparison. With that in mind, it seems right to consider the constitutional implications in light of the essential job that a balanced Parliament has to do on behalf of the nation—that is, to give life to what the electorate have instructed, albeit with what most people would regard as an inconclusive result. This is the first peacetime majority Government since 1931. That is to say it is a Government whose MP supporters were elected by more than 50% of those who voted. Those who are in favour of minority Governments should think carefully about the example of the summer of 1974, when a Government who had no majority did nothing useful whatever, ended up with an early general election and there was then an unstable Government thereafter.
Those who voted in 2010 for the governing parties would probably disagree on many issues were they were to meet around a focus group table or a table in a pub. After all, if they had all felt the same, they would have voted for just one party. They did not. We should therefore be relaxed about the fact that their representatives in Parliament and in government sometimes disagree, too, sometimes openly. That may be better than the sort of divisions that were clearly behind the scenes in the previous Administration, as we now know from so many autobiographies and diaries.
Collective responsibility in all Governments—particularly in this one—is like the security services: you only find out about their failures but never hear about their successes. Despite all the inevitable journalistic craving for “coalition splits”, this Government have succeeded in upholding collective responsibility much more often than they have failed, with agreements reached more often than differences have been aired. By far the majority of the coalition agreement has stood the test of tensions between the parties. Where collective responsibility has been absent is where collective agreement has been absent, too. One is necessarily dependent on the other, and where a party has not signed up to a particular policy in a coalition agreement, its leadership within the Government cannot always be bound to a position preferred by the other coalition partner.
A generally successful Government would surely aspire to the committee’s recommendation in paragraph 78 that setting aside collective responsibility should be rare. I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Falkner on the example picked out in paragraph 73—in contrast to my other noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who made a meal of the other example given in an earlier paragraph. How rare will always be determined in future balanced Parliaments both by Harold Macmillan’s famous phrase “Events, dear boy” and by the depth and breadth of the agreements reached between the parties to a future coalition.
For that reason, the committee’s recommendation at paragraph 26 that there should be a full 12-day interval between the general election and the meeting of a new Parliament is really important. The coalition worked with extraordinary speed in agreeing a programme and an Administration at a time of grave economic risk for the whole country. Future coalitions should not have to work in such circumstances. Five days to determine the programme for five years of government is not necessarily sufficient. Indeed, international experience suggests that even 12 days might be a push. However, the idea that our country would grind to a halt if a change of government took even 28 days seems excessive. The wheels of Whitehall would keep on turning. It would just be a little longer before big changes in policy could be effected and big announcements could be made.
Incidentally, I believe that the one really serious omission in the committee’s report is what seems to be a failure to take account of other mature democracies’ experience. It is surely excessively insular—perhaps even xenophobic—not to take some notice of the extensive coalition experience of our continental neighbours and partners. Some of them may, as we all know, take excessive time to knit together coalition agreements, but other aspects of their arrangements may well give us useful insights. As with collective responsibility, I do not believe that the British people would be that worried about delay in the same way as the British 24-hour news media seem to be. Any repeat of the ludicrously overblown warnings of imminent Armageddon from Conservative newspapers in May 2010, with dire foreboding of a hung Parliament and parliamentarians being hung from the lampposts, will hardly seem credible in the future.
I believe that the committee has put its finger on the right way for the House of Commons to endorse a Government, once in place. I do not agree with those who, even this evening, have suggested that an investiture vote for a Prime Minister would be to endorse the person. I do not believe that is appropriate, so I am glad to see that it is rejected by the committee. Why should a junior coalition partner endorse a person of another party to be Prime Minister per se before the negotiations on programme and team have taken place and been concluded?
To my mind, in any case, a really important constitutional principle is that the House of Commons, newly elected by the nation, should be investing its confidence in the new Government—both their programme and their personnel—at the end of the Queen’s Speech. The committee is absolutely right on that point. Otherwise, taking the Prime Minister out of that equation would imply a further and, I think, entirely improper drift towards presidential governance. What makes a coalition fit together is a programme on which the parties can agree, even if the people—the characters—involved later prove to be important glue sticking it together through the ups and downs of political fortune.
As has already been referred to, the Institute for Government has done excellent work in recent months in this Parliament, studying how the political structures in Whitehall have responded to the coalition. It has found that by and large our constitutional arrangements, following the political circumstances of the time, have proved up to the job. That is the essence of the system. I understand that this very day Peter Riddell has been giving evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee at the other end on behalf of the Institute for Government. I pay tribute to him and his team for the work they have done.
Even if we did benefit from a written constitution, as almost every other mature country does, the day-to-day decision-making of a Government comprising two or more parties could not be constrained to pretend that they are one party. It is wrong and it should not be so. The political fortunes of both partners depend on their distinction from each other, while the fortunes of the country depend on the partners working together. Two or more parties working together make for better government and for better politics too, but inevitably that is the politics of disagreeing where you have to— that is what it is all about—and seeking agreement as best you can. At least it is done transparently in contrast to many of the single-party Governments of the past.
This Government, and the past four years, have shown that it is possible to secure both that disagreement, which is inevitable in politics, and also that measure of agreement to produce good governance. Even the Westminster Parliament, with all its pomp and flummery, has responded because it has needed to. The committee of your Lordships’ House has performed an extremely valuable function in demonstrating how that has been undertaken. Its analysis and advice will guide us to good effect, whatever the parliamentary arithmetic in May 2015 and in future general elections. I suggest to your Lordships that many of the lessons will stand equally well for single-party government as for coalitions in the future. I particularly endorse the view of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. I hope that the recommendations will be taken seriously not just by the present Government—and I hope that there will be collective responsibility in their response to this—but by the opposition party, because between now and May next year the lessons of this report will stand us in very good stead.
Lord O'Donnell (CB)
First, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and her committee on producing an important and timely report. I broadly support the conclusions and I very much hope that Ministers and—picking up on what was just said—the Opposition will implement the suggested changes. I should also note that I agree very strongly with my illustrious predecessor, my noble friend Lord Butler, on the points that he has made, with one exception: I am with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on the question of fixed-term Parliaments. I think they are a good thing.
I want to make one practical point. We have a very large number of Select Committees in this House and the other place. We have a period between now and the election. Would it not be great if all the Select Committees looked back on their reports and recommendations and produced a short note on what has been changed as a result and those things where nothing has happened? Not only might this tell us about the effectiveness of the committees but it might stimulate a bit of debate about whether the Government have responded in line with the recommendations or have decided not to take them up. In the run-up to manifestos being produced, it might generate some interesting material or policies. That is my first suggestion.
Tonight, I want to take the opportunity to look forward to the next election rather than backwards, and I will argue that the past is not necessarily a good guide to the future. We have already had a lot of discussion about different interpretations of the past and I look forward to them being elucidated further in the many memoirs to come—which will not include mine.
Many have commented on the committee’s suggestion that the principle of collective responsibility should be set aside only very rarely. I strongly endorse that principle, but I have to acknowledge that the coalition parties have agreed that they will fight the next election as separate parties. As the first parties came down the steps at Downing Street, I, for one, felt that we were at the high point of the coalition. I expected that, as we got to the point where the election was formally called, we would be at the low point and that there would be a curve in that direction. I got out at the top point. However, let us be clear that this was inevitable. To me, it was entirely predictable and that curve has gone entirely as I expected.
Ahead of the next general election, let us think about what the Civil Service will have to do. I believe in the Boy Scouts’ motto, “Be prepared”. It is very important that the Civil Service prepares itself for all possible outcomes. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, ask whether we will have another coalition, although he believes it is unlikely. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, the pollsters are very clear that the long-term decline in the share of the vote going to the two main parties is apparent in the data. It is a really interesting question and it is rather difficult to predict what is going to happen next time. I intend to spend a little time, in a very nerdy way, modelling that process but it will be very tricky. However, I think that the Civil Service will need to work not on the basis of those predictions but on the basis that it should prepare for all possible outcomes. I would certainly include more work on minority Governments than was done on previous occasions and—something that people have not picked up on—I would certainly think about contingency work, looking at scenarios following all possible results in the Scottish referendum. People may decide that they want to do this contingency work once they know the result of that referendum, but one thing that will help the Civil Service is having a complete Cabinet Manual and not just a draft of one of its chapters.
One thing that I will try to keep to in my comments, which not many other people have done, is that in the Civil Service preparations ahead of last time we decided we would use the term “unclear result”. People have referred to “inconclusive results” but the terms “hung” and “balanced” are rather unbalanced and therefore “unclear result” is the best way of thinking about it.
Picking up on what both the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord McConnell, have said, there were a number of myths about coalition. One of them was that you had the lowest common denominators and that they would not do very much. We have had ample evidence now that that is not true. Whether or not you think they have done the right things, they have made large changes.
On the points that were made about the kind of Government that we have got, on comparing coalition with single-party government it is certainly my experience that the Cabinet committees have done a great deal more of the heavy lifting during coalition than has been the case during single-party government by both parties. While people talk about the quad doing a lot, believe me, smaller groups of Ministers before did quite a lot. The quad is relatively formal compared to some of those other occasions.
On the point about the length of time it might take before finalising a Government if there were to be an unclear result next time, this is important because a number of people have made the point about the media clamouring “to get on with it” and castigating the Prime Minister for staying. The excellent report makes clear that it is the Prime Minister’s duty to stay around until it is clear who will succeed him or her. It is important that we talk about the length of time.
This time it will be different. Let me give you five quick reasons why. First, the macroeconomic background will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said, rather more favourable. I predict with a pretty high degree of confidence that the UK deficit will be much lower, growth will be higher and, with slightly less confidence, there will be no euro crisis going on. Secondly, the markets will have observed that coalition government is feasible in the United Kingdom—there were some rather silly remarks made last time—and that will make them more patient. Thirdly, it is likely that the two main parties might need to engage in more consultation with their MPs than they did last time. Fourthly, all parties in the negotiations might have made more commitments in advance, thereby restricting their room for manoeuvre. That will raise all kinds of complications. Finally, there may be all kinds of questions about the parameters of any negotiations with Scotland if there is a yes vote in the referendum.
For all those reasons, it will be important to allow the negotiators time to reach a durable agreement and for markets and the public to realise that such negotiations, judged by experience in continental Europe—I again think of what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said—will in general take much longer than five days. Indeed, it was a future Lib Dem Minister in the negotiations last time who pointed out to me that the average in Europe at that point, in 2010, was around 44 days. If we took the recent Belgian and German experiences into account, we might come up with a higher number.
None of what I have said should be seen as implying anything about the likelihood of an unclear result. It follows from the simple principle that civil servants need to be prepared for whatever emerges.
My overwhelming memory of the discussions in 2010—I hope I am not breaking any conventions here—is that all the key politicians behaved not only effectively but well and honourably. There were very few leaks during the talks and very little grandstanding to the media. I hope that that will be repeated. Many of the key civil servants are still in post and I know that they learnt a lot from their experience in 2010. I have no doubt that the Civil Service will do even better next time.
What can we, as parliamentarians, do to help? First, we have a duty to encourage increased participation in elections. The Hansard Society’s excellent audit of political engagement, of which we have all just received copies, makes particularly worrying reading. Eighteen months ahead of the general elections in 2005 and 2010, it found that the majority of respondents said that they were certain to vote. Now, for the same period, it is a minority. It concludes that,
“turnout may struggle to match 2010 levels next year”.
That is the society’s conclusion, not mine. It goes on to say that less than a quarter of the public believe that,
“Parliament encourages public involvement in politics”.
We need to consider how we can do something about that.
Television debates certainly encouraged and stimulated public interest last time. It is important that these debates are seen as having democratic legitimacy. I fear for this because, at the moment, negotiations are being conducted solely between a few parties and the broadcasters. That is not necessarily right.
I thank the committee. I threw a bit of a curve ball at it—as a witness you are supposed to answer questions, not pose them—when I said that I was worried about the question of access to papers, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. It has come up with a sensible suggestion. The absence of an answer in advance creates all kinds of problems and I hope that we can get a cross-party consensus around operating in that way.
Once again, I congratulate the Select Committee on an excellent report. It is very sad that there has not yet been a government response. I would love to be able to say that this would never have happened in my day but I fear that the evidence may not be entirely with me. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that a future committee, with as much wisdom and experience as this one has shown, will be able to tackle some of the issues I have raised today and come forth with another report which we can debate in this House.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, no one, I think, will seek to deny the importance of this report. I was very glad to be able to contribute in a small measure to the work on which it is based as a member of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been granted a place on this committee two years ago.
Reference has already been made more than once to the wise words of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth—always in my view the surest guide on constitutional matters—who on this occasion is being kept, like the best wine, until last. He pointed out in the committee’s first evidence session that,
“this is the first time that we have had a coalition that has been the product of the arithmetic of the general election … we have not been in that circumstance before; we have had coalitions, but where one party has been dominant and could have governed on its own”.
Our past coalitions, dominated by one party, operated reasonably contentedly according to procedures fashioned under single-party government that the smaller party or parties within them were in no position to alter in any marked degree. Now a new pattern has been set. I am less sanguine than my noble friend Lord Strathclyde that it will not be repeated. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord O’Donnell, that the likelihood is considerable. In any future coalitions, as in this one, a single party is unlikely to be in a dominant position. The electoral arithmetic will be decisive. It is as a result of the election of hung Parliaments—which, in the past, never ushered in a coalition Government at Westminster—that such Governments will almost certainly come into existence in future in peacetime.
The report is therefore significant and timely because it addresses the implications of this major change in our constitutional landscape. It puts forward clear answers to the chief questions that have been cast into such sharp relief by the experience of this first coalition Government of the new type. Like my colleague and noble friend Lady Falkner, I would like to touch on a few of them, returning for the most part—I hope I will be forgiven—to matters that have already been the subject of comment in this debate.
The report gives short shrift to ideas that have recently gained currency in some academic circles that would encumber the process of coalition-making with unnecessary votes of approval in the other place. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, I do not think that we should add new requirements when long-established procedures work just as well for coalition Governments as for single-party ones. Any Government’s first Queen’s Speech provides a time-honoured test of whether they command the confidence of the Commons—and that is enough. I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Tyler endorse that. Similarly, the committee concluded that no special arrangements are needed to provide sufficient time for coalitions to be assembled. Some 12 days are currently available, as the report points out. If a fortnight is sufficient to concentrate the mind of a condemned man, politicians—conscious, one hopes, of their duty to the nation and their sovereign—ought to be able to manage with two fewer days.
In its deliberations that led to this report, the committee devoted more time to the issue of cabinet collective responsibility than to any other. This has come up several times already in the debate. It aroused more concern than any other central constitutional question because of the cavalier manner in which it has been treated all too frequently in this first coalition Government of the new type.
There is the opposite danger that collective responsibility might come to be invested with an aura of sanctity. Undue veneration would be contrary to our traditions. Collective responsibility is a doctrine that has been set aside in the past, as the report notes, giving three 20th century examples. There are others. Even Mr Gladstone, the most unbending of constitutionalists, was capable of taking a highly pragmatic and flexible view. When one of his Cabinet colleagues voted against what became known as the Third Reform Act 1884, he reminded the offender of the elementary rule that Cabinet members should vote together, but added that,
“it would be most unfortunate were the minds of men at such a juncture to be disturbed by the resignation of a Cabinet Minister”.
As so often in constitutional affairs, it is surely all a matter of balance and degree. Frequent breaches of collective responsibility must be expected, as we have heard, to damage the reputation and diminish the authority of a Government, particularly if they come unexpectedly, out of the blue, and without being preceded by any collective Cabinet decision to set the doctrine aside. That danger has been amply illustrated in the past four years. It could be significantly reduced by following the recommendations in this report. The key passage has been quoted before, but it bears repetition:
“Where it is clear that no collective position can be reached on an issue, a proper process should be in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility. Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.
The report goes on to urge that such a process should be introduced now and operate for the rest of this Parliament. Recent events have perhaps added to the significance of that particular portion of the report, and perhaps at the end of the debate the Minister will tell us whether we can now look forward to an announcement that the necessary arrangements will be established. In my view, it is the most important contribution that this first new-style coalition could make to assist the provision of good government by coalitions that may follow in the future.
The report has attracted favourable attention not only in this House but outside it. George Jones, emeritus professor of government at the London School of Economics, has described it as “an historic document”. However, it has not yet, as we have heard, attracted comment from the Government, who have had it in their hands for three months. Their formal written response ought to have been delivered in April—but sadly, as we have heard from previous speakers in the debate, delay is far from unusual. I cannot recall a single government response to the report of a Constitution Committee inquiry that has been delivered within the prescribed period in the time that I have been on the committee. Last week, my noble friend the Leader of the House accepted that we need,
“prompt and accurate replies to … Questions for Written Answer”.—[Official Report, 8/5/14; col. 1574.]
I trust that he takes the same view for Select Committee reports.
No one connected with the Constitution Committee can fail to be struck by the consistently high quality of the service members receive from the committee’s staff and legal advisers. Sensible committees do not draft. The preparation of this report proceeded in the usual faultless manner under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to her at the end of her distinguished chairmanship.
Baroness Grender
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the committee on this report and the noble Baroness on leading this debate. It is a privilege to be speaking in a debate led by her.
There have been many predictions about the survival of this coalition Government. One of my personal favourites is from Peter Oborne, writing in March 2012, who said it would be finished by 2013. Last time a debate was held here, there were predictions that this place had a natural government majority and would become a rubber-stamping Chamber. I think if you spoke to any of the Whips today, they would strongly dispute that. Even at the start of this coalition, the civil servants game-planning the talks, as we have since learnt from the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, found that they could not reach agreement in their mock talks when they were preparing for the real ones—a prediction of failure before they even began.
For my own part, I was one of those rare creatures, a Liberal Democrat special adviser based in Downing Street, so I had a ring-side seat. You could even describe it as experiencing some white-knuckle rides that could be defined only as constitutional rollercoaster moments: the somewhat unexpected use of the veto by the PM at the EU summit in December 2011; the failure to reform the House of Lords in 2012; and the subsequent delay on boundary reforms that summer. All are examples of moments that shook the coalition. I must admit that, once or twice, I wondered how long it would take to clear my desk as the speculation mounted that the coalition would buckle under the strain.
However, in the end, because of the coalition, there have always been processes in place which ensured that the business of delivering government policies and plans prevails over disagreements between two political parties that are so different. It is the combination of both formality and transparency which has made this coalition work: from the Cabinet Secretary’s role to the daily meetings; from the return to cabinet government and the proper use of Cabinet sub-committees to the existence of the quad to resolve issues and plan major initiatives; and the back-stop of the coalition committee, which has met only twice. Of course, there have been disagreements, and on some issues they have been profound but, most of the time, the schedules and a business-like attitude have prevailed. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, for setting up some of the processes which have served the coalition so well.
I recall one of the first meetings I attended was such a robust exchange that I was quite surprised by it. However, I soon learnt that conversations at the heart of government should be robust, just as they should be in any senior management operation of any organisation. Certainly, the stories in the press over the past few days suggest that “robust” has been taken to a whole new level, but I would speculate that by the time we get to the next general election many of the disagreements—genuine policy disagreements—will have been more transparent as a result of coalition. I hope that ways are found to ensure this level of transparency about all future Governments and not just coalitions. For instance, anyone can now go on the Government’s website and see the coalition agreement and what progress has been made in each area in that agreement. That is not something that was provided under previous Administrations.
There is, of course, an ongoing narrative that this form of government is a disgrace and that rows dominate. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that majority governments can and do row, factionalise and fall out, and this is not a symptom of coalition. It is about people and getting things done. After all, coalition has been a regular post-war feature in both Germany and Italy, but with varying results. I personally will never forget the astonishment I experienced when a Liberal Democrat MP described to me how a Labour Cabinet Minister had invited him in and given him a list of questions to use to probe another member of the Labour Cabinet. A mere glimpse inside the unpleasant world created by Damian McBride would show rows that dragged everyone down in a majority Government, including decent civil servants caught in the crossfire. Falling out is a fact of life in government. Keeping it to policy and away from personality and having processes that are used to ensure that should always be the goal. If anything, the processes and formality that have been necessary to serve two parties in government can only be an improvement.
I would like to touch on the role of the Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretaries, because I believe that they are more and more crucial to resolving these issues. Under this coalition, the Cabinet Secretaries have provided a necessary and important link between the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Number 10 and the Cabinet Office. However, as the Institute for Government points out in its latest report about the final year of coalition, some in Whitehall prefer the ambiguity. It goes on to say:
“Many in Westminster and Whitehall still behave as if the Coalition does not exist, or as if its existence requires only informal and temporary adjustments”.
I am sure that other noble Lords have heard stories from their friends in the Civil Service of arriving at a meeting to discover that no Liberal Democrats are at the table, and wondering what on earth to do about it. This is where I believe that the role of the Permanent Secretary in each department is vital. Permanent Secretaries should have sufficient objectivity and seniority to ensure that their departments are run with an understanding of two political parties in power. Their role as an honest broker is something the IFG has recommended. I would love to see some follow-up on this.
Like the Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretaries have a duty to deliver government policy and to help to plan and prepare for the next Government. The committee’s conclusions on the need for confidential briefings in the run-up to an election provide a sensible guide, and I really welcome that. I also welcome the useful examples from both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, shared impressively with us by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. The success that he and my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness achieved at “conscious uncoupling” is an example to us all. The bromance is still there: we can see it in their eyes.
I would like to touch on one more specific area of constitutional change examined by the committee—that of the fixed-term Parliament. While it has been delivered by this coalition Government and it has provided a level of stability which was essential for economic recovery, I urge noble Lords to see this as a change which will enhance Government, whether it be majority, minority or coalition. Indeed, only this week the CBI expressed its concerns about political instability and the likely effect on business. A five-year fixed term provides all Governments with an opportunity to look before leaping. I cannot agree more with the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, that there is sometimes an obsession with driving through new pieces of legislation. I recall the opportunity that came up—if you can call it that—when Lords reform fell and there was time on the parliamentary agenda. That was an opportunity to use it in a much more creative and imaginative way than introducing more legislation.
As the recent Crewe and King book, The Blunders of our Governments, demonstrates, time and time again the speed and pace of policy change, without testing in advance, results in failure. I suggest that the well worn phrase, “hit the ground running” for a new government should drive fear into the heart of every elector. I remember watching Lord Callaghan—the father of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay—on a results programme at the start of the Government in 1997. When asked what they should do, he replied, “They should probably sit down and have a cup of tea”. At the time I thought—I assume so did the Blair Government—that he was completely wrong. I am now beginning to understand what he meant. A fixed term of five years no longer means you need to front-load every policy change into the first Parliament. A fixed-term Parliament provides the thinking and testing time to trial things and test out and research policy before it is introduced. It does not need that race at the beginning that we are all so used to culturally because we are used to having a scenario without fixed-term Parliaments.
Over the next year, there will be a need for greater clarity, particularly for civil servants. Again, the Institute for Government provides useful advice about the need to reach agreement at the top about the rules and that those rules should be published. I conclude with a useful lesson in fighting elections and working together: the example of the Eastleigh by-election. The battle was fierce, but at the same time the parties worked together in government with economic recovery as a core purpose. That is not only possible in a theoretical sense; this coalition, on all sides, has shown it can be delivered in a practical sense.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted that this important and timely report is being debated this evening. Like others, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the Constitution Committee on a valuable and prudent analysis of the constitutional implications of coalition Government. I was especially impressed by the committee’s analysis of the convention of collective responsibility. Its explanation of and justification for the convention are superb. I support strongly its recommendations in paragraphs 138 to 141. Indeed, there are no recommendations that I do not support, although—as I shall argue—there are some that I would wish to develop.
The report is measured and realistic. Its starting point is that there may again be coalition Governments following elections in which no one party wins an absolute majority of seats but it accepts that that is a case of if rather than when. The conditions of 2010 were exceptional in terms of the confluence of electoral arithmetic and economic crisis. In other circumstances, the outcome of a hung Parliament may be minority Government rather than a coalition. If there is an indecisive outcome and if negotiations take place for the formation of a coalition Government, it would be desirable to have in place some agreed framework for those negotiations. The report offers eminently reasonable recommendations for that framework.
The recommendations are essentially modest in that they cannot solve two basic problems associated with such negotiations, but they go some way to addressing one of them. The basic problem is that of a democratic deficit. Coalitions formed as the result of post-election bargaining lack the seal of electoral approval. Some argue that if party A gets 35% of the vote and party B gets 20%, then a coalition of the two parties enjoys the support of 55% of the electorate. It does not. It enjoys the definitive support of not one elector because nobody was given the opportunity to vote for A plus B. Its legitimacy comes from the support of the parties in Parliament. Its popular legitimacy is, in essence, indirect rather than direct.
The second problem is that of incomplete information. Whatever one thinks of party manifestos, each party has time to prepare its policy proposals to put before the electorate. There may be a lengthy process of internal discussion and, indeed, of external consultation, drawing in specialists to advise. There may even be an opportunity to anticipate one’s stance in the event of an indecisive election result, but one cannot utilise the same process of consultation and discussion. In coalition forming, as we have already heard, there is pressure to reach agreement quickly—at least, there is in the United Kingdom.
We are used to a quick and almost seamless transition from one Government to another, usually on the day following the general election. As has been mentioned, by our standards, the five days of negotiations in 2010 were a long time. The pressure on negotiators was to reach agreement quickly and in conditions of competition. The discussions took place in secrecy. Deals were agreed in a virtually sealed environment. There was no opportunity to consult on what was being agreed, in terms of not just political acceptability but feasibility. I am concerned here not with the partisan aspects but with the evidence base. Those involved with the negotiations may be very bright, but they may not be specialists in all the subjects under discussion.
Let me illustrate that with a couple of commitments embodied in the coalition agreement. The Conservatives conceded the case for a fixed-term Parliament. The coalition agreement stated:
“We will put a binding motion before the House of Commons stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015”.
No binding Motion was ever brought before the House of Commons, for one very good reason: there was no one to be bound by such a binding Motion. The prerogative cannot be bound by what is a declaratory Motion.
The agreement also said that the legislation would provide for an early dissolution if 55% or more of MPs voted for it. Did this figure derive from a study of practice in other legislatures? If one looks at the provisions of other legislatures, the answer is clearly no. It was the product of a quick calculation based on party strengths in the new Parliament. It was only later that a change was made to make the figure two-thirds of MPs, a figure employed by several other legislatures.
I take those as illustrative of the problem of incomplete information. The pressure to reach agreement quickly in conditions of secrecy may result in commitments that are difficult to undo. There is added pressure on Parliament, not least your Lordships’ House, but if the coalition partners mobilise a majority in the other place, we are limited in challenging the ends of the policy even if we have the scope to affect the means. It would be far better if the policies agreed were the product of considered and informed reflection. I therefore welcome the recommendation of the Constitution Committee at paragraph 22 that five days should not be taken as a complete period for forming a government. It recommends that no more or less time should be taken than is required to produce a government able to command the confidence of the House of Commons. I would be inclined to say there should be no more or less time than is required to generate informed policy commitments and to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
Does my noble friend agree that to seek to lay down a programme for government for five years in five days is in itself unachievable, that events will change things, and that it is therefore better to enunciate the principles, vision or goals rather than the precise methods of achieving them?
Lord Norton of Louth
I am not suggesting that it has to be detailed; I am referring to the feasibility and to quickly checking that what is being suggested at a high level of policy is at least grounded in what is feasible and correct.
There is one other problem to which I wish to draw attention. It complements the recommendations embodied in the report. The formation of a coalition may exacerbate a problem of experience in government. There are benefits in Ministers having some grounding in government by either experience or training. In recent decades, we have had people appointed to senior ministerial office with no prior experience of government. That is a consequence of a party being in opposition for a relatively long time. The problem is compounded by the formation of a coalition where it draws in a party which has not had expectation of being in office and has no Members with ministerial experience.
I have pursued for some time the need for ministerial training and, indeed, for training of senior civil servants when it comes to understanding our constitutional arrangements. If there is a significant churn in senior civil servants and Ministers are taking office with no prior experience or knowledge of the subject, we have serious problems.
We have generalist Ministers and generalist civil servants having responsibility for what may be important, and at times complex, areas of policy but with no grounding in the subject at all. A particular example is training. At the end of 2012 I tabled a Question asking how many Ministers in the Cabinet Office and the office of Lord President of the Council had received training from the National School of Government or Civil Service Learning in constitutional principles and practice. My noble friend Lady Northover provided a concise answer: “None”.
We need to think seriously about how we ensure that Ministers new to office get a grasp of how to undertake their responsibilities, as well as gain some knowledge of the area of their responsibility. Relying on officials may not be sufficient, especially if the officials are as new as the Minister. There may be a case for those on the Opposition Front Bench not only to have contact with officials, but also to be provided with sessions with specialists, not just in the subject area of their portfolios, but also in the running of government.
In the event of a coalition there may be a case for some briefing sessions to be incorporated into the period between reaching agreement and the meeting of the new Parliament. I strongly support the recommendations of the Constitution Committee at paragraph 40 for administrative support and factual briefings for those engaged in negotiations, but I think there is a case for further advice and training once a new Government are formed. For that reason I also support the recommendation at paragraph 26 for a 12-day gap between an election and the meeting of a new Parliament to be the preferred choice, while recognising that even longer may be required.
I raise the issue as an important one for the quality of government. It goes beyond the issue of coalition formation, but forming coalitions may, as I say, exacerbate the problem, especially if it involves third parties which have had no expectation of office.
I again congratulate the Constitution Committee on another excellent report. Its message is that we may not have a coalition government in the event of an indecisive election result, but if we do, we need to have the mechanisms in place to facilitate it. It is an eminently sensible report. I trust that the Government will embrace its recommendations. I say to my noble friend Lord Lexden that I am not sure whether or not that is fine wine, but then I am teetotal.
Lord Donoughue (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the House for allowing me to speak briefly in the gap. This is an excellent and timely report, beautifully introduced by my noble friend Lady Jay.
With the decline in support for the two main parties, hung Parliaments—despite the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that they should be rare—sadly may be more frequent in the United Kingdom. As the report says, I was the only witness to firmly oppose coalition as the best resolution to hung Parliaments. I will explain by saying that what I fear is that public and politicians may now assume that coalition is the natural, the automatic and perhaps the only response to hung Parliaments. The House should have on record that this is not the case.
Recent history, as I experienced in Downing Street in the 1970s, shows at least two alternative practical responses to a hung Parliament. One is minority government by the largest party. This can and did work reasonably well in terms of progressing and processing government. It may not have been wholly successful, but that was a political matter. A second alternative is a loose pact between a major and a minor party, as in 1977-78 between Labour and the old Liberal Party—sometimes called “supply and confidence”—whereby the minor party gave broad support to the Government while it was consulted sympathetically on all coming legislation. It had the advantage of being without all the formalities of coalition, especially in not having members of the minority party in the Cabinet—something which Conservatives opposite must now, I imagine, look back on with envy. It worked well and lasted almost five years, while opinion polls showed public support for this loose arrangement.
These alternatives are not perfect. They leave uncertainty about the Government’s long-term survival, whereas a coalition offers more assurance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, pointed out very well. However, they have the advantages of maintaining the coherent values of a single-party Government, recently exposed to the nation and voted on in a general election campaign. They do not have the clear disadvantages of a formal coalition, which we have witnessed with sadness and compassion over the past four years, such as those listed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. They include: the confusion over the operation of collective responsibility; the muddles over what the Government’s policies actually are; the mediocrity of having some people in government only because they are part of a minority quota; and the public bickering, as there was recently over free schools.
Fundamentally, I suppose that my reservations are primarily about one single party—in practice, the Liberal Democrats, who have insufficient public support but massive overrepresentation in this House—being perhaps permanently in government. I hope that the next majority party and the civil servants advising it immediately after a future election will follow the wise advice of this report. I hope that they will consider the two alternatives of minority government and a loose pact with an open mind, and will not assume that a coalition is always the best and only option. That will not always be the case.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, I start by congratulating the Constitution Committee on the production of this excellent report and, in particular, by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington. She has been an excellent chair of the committee and will be an extremely hard act to follow. This is one of a number of roles that my noble friend has undertaken as a member of your Lordships’ House with the usual calm, efficient and knowledgeable approach that she brings to all the tasks she undertakes. I know that she is highly respected and admired by Members on all Benches. I first got to know and work with my noble friend Lady Jay many years before I joined your Lordships’ House and it is a privilege to call her my noble friend.
As I said in my opening remarks, this is an excellent report and a very timely one. The first coalition in more than 70 years and the first peacetime coalition in 79 years was formed in 2010 between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. I have always been of the opinion that the coalition would serve out its full term. I never treated with any seriousness the reports that it was about to implode, collapse or disappear, so essentially I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender.
While it may be wrong to say that it was uncharted territory, it was certainly territory that had not been navigated for a very long time. All the players involved in earlier discussions had left the pitch. I have some sympathy for the Liberal Democrats and the position that they found themselves in. They have certainly paid a heavy price at the ballot box in the local elections following the general election of 2010, as voters have shown their displeasure at some of the policies they have pursued with their coalition partners. If we look abroad, it often is the junior partner in a coalition that pays a heavier price in subsequent elections. None of us has crystal balls or can see into the future but, as the report points out, the growth in votes and seats for parties that are neither Labour nor Conservative has increased from 10 seats and 10% of the vote in the 1950s to 86 seats and a third of the vote in 2010. The trend is clear; if it continues further coalitions are possible and perhaps even very likely. Our constitution and the way that government and Parliament react and adapt to change is a matter that needs to be kept under review. This report is an important part of that review. It has been interesting to hear from noble Lords who were involved to differing degrees in the discussions to form the coalition and, in the case of my noble friend Lord McConnell, on the formation of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament.
I will now address specific parts of the report. My opinion is that there should be no fixed time for agreement to be reached between coalition partners but discussion should be concluded as soon as possible. A rushed agreement that struggles will not produce good government and will set up the Administration to fail from the outset as the realities of government come into play. The noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, made important points in respect of that as did the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth.
On fixed-term Parliaments, I agree with the evidence given by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton when he suggested that five year fixed-term Parliaments were too long and that four years was more in tune with the natural rhythm of our electoral cycles. I agree also with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. The contribution on the last year of Parliaments by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was very interesting, as there is concern across the House that all the extra time off we have had recently affects the ability of the House to hold the Government properly to account. The Government need to respond to that point.
When I look back to the time of the formation of the coalition, I recall the press being camped outside Parliament on College Green and outside party headquarters—certainly outside the Conservative and Liberal Democrat headquarters. At that time I was working at the Labour Party headquarters and it was a bit quieter there. It was new for everyone in 2010. If the general election next year results in a hung Parliament I hope that more informed briefings are provided so that the media can report more accurately on what actually is going on rather than endlessly speculating on what might be going on. I accept fully that that is much easier to say than to deliver and that the media like speculation, but it is important to keep citizens informed as far as possible with accurate information and to give them reassurance that things are under control and procedures remain in place to ensure stability.
I very much agreed with the report when it looked at the duty of an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until a successor who can command a majority in the House of Commons is identified. That could be described as the final duty of an incumbent Prime Minister: ensuring stability, enabling discussions to take place and facilitating the transfer of power in an orderly fashion, as you would expect in a mature democracy. I very much agreed with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, in that respect.
The use of the Civil Service is also considered by the report. The previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced before the general election that in the event of a hung Parliament the Civil Service would be available to support negotiations between the parties. It may be that if coalitions become the norm in the United Kingdom their role in supporting the negotiations will increase over time. That could be very helpful in bringing greater clarity and resolution of issues in a more timely fashion. Perhaps that will occur over time and will be much more like the process described by my noble friend Lord McConnell.
I could not see a situation where an incumbent Prime Minister in the future would not follow what Gordon Brown did in making the announcement about the involvement of the Civil Service. However, for greater clarity, it may be wise for the Government to make an announcement many months in advance of the election about what will happen after a general election under various scenarios, as the report suggested and as my noble friend Lady Jay outlined. The autumn period, after the conference season, seems the ideal time for the Government to make such an announcement. That would be before any real campaigning gets under way and would provide everyone with the clarity they need.
I did not like at all the suggestion of having a prime ministerial investiture vote and am pleased that the committee did not adopt this proposal. That seems at odds with our parliamentary system of government. It may be said that things have become more presidential, with so much focus on our party leaders, but for me this is a step too far. Parliament has mechanisms that enable it to express the confidence or otherwise in the whole Government led by the Prime Minister of the day, starting with the vote on the Queen’s Speech. It is clear, effective and well understood. For that reason I am in agreement with the committee’s opinion that it is not desirable to have a separate vote on any coalition agreements between the parties.
One of the most interesting parts of the report is chapter 4, which looks at the operation of government and Parliament under coalition. The principle of collective ministerial responsibility has served us well in the UK, where decisions are reached collectively and, when made, are binding on all Ministers. The principle largely stands but it may be that, with the evolution of coalition Government, more emphasis on the agreements to differ needs to be allowed to avoid disputes between Ministers and parties in the same Administration. Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington, and the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Lexden, referred to that very matter.
The breakdown during this Parliament between the coalition partners over House of Lords reform, the ability of the Government to secure a majority for the programme motion in the House of Commons and the subsequent blocking of the boundary reviews highlighted a serious deficiency between the coalition partners that had either not been seen or not worked out sufficiently in advance. As we have seen, this issue came to the surface again today in contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner.
I again find myself in agreement with the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton in this part of the report. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it is important, as the report highlights, to have proper processes in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility on individual matters to ensure that collective responsibility remains in place for the vast majority of the Government’s programme.
The creation of what has been called “the quad” is an interesting development. It certainly puts the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner, at the heart of the decision-making process and makes clear that this body deals with and agrees the way forward on the thorniest issues that confront the Government. In fact, as many noble Lords have said, David Laws MP referred to this as “the inner Cabinet”. I am sure that more will be written about the workings of the quad in future. From my observation from outside, it is a very powerful part of the Government that has played its role in keeping the two coalition partners together on a very solid basis, with only one or two exceptions that I have referred to before.
In looking at the end of the Parliament, the committee has made important recommendations as to how contact and discussions with civil servants should take place. They are a development of the present practice and maintain the important principle that parties should have discussions with the Civil Service for the purposes of developing policy and understanding policy issues and that these discussions should be confidential. It is also important that, while few important decisions are taken during the purdah period, the business of government goes on and conventions are respected to ensure that this happens.
The most worrying thing I heard today was from my noble friend Lord McConnell about what is happening in Scotland with regard to the papers of the previous Administration. That is a very unfortunate development and one that I hope can be resisted in future.
In conclusion, I again thank the Constitution Committee and my noble friend Lady Jay for an excellent report and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this has been a serious and worthwhile debate. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, both for this report and for her chairmanship of the committee. I have had the nervous privilege of appearing before it on one or two occasions, and I have always been asked extremely sharp questions.
I must apologise to the House that the noble Baroness has not yet received a governmental response. We had hoped that it would be ready before this debate. I will take back to the Cabinet Office the strong views expressed in this debate, and I will do my utmost to ensure that we have it available for the next chance that the House will have to debate constitutional issues, which I think will be the last day of the Queen’s Speech debate. I may not be able to deliver on that—I am conscious that in government at present the number of people who have to agree something of this significance is rather larger than it would be in a single-party Government; that is of course part of the problem of coalition government—but I will do my best.
Since the committee published its report in February, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place and the Institute for Government have both published reports on the final year of a fixed-term Parliament, which I have also read, as no doubt have many others who have contributed to this debate. The reports also provide some very useful information—in the Institute for Government’s case, resting on extensive interviews with civil servants—about what we may need to think about over the next 12 months, and indeed over the next few months, in order to prepare for the final months of this fixed-term Parliament.
There have been some elements of knockabout politics in this debate and certainly some elements of nostalgia for a firm two-party system; I also felt that there was such nostalgia in a great deal of evidence given to the committee. The rose-tinted spectacles that the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, has for that classic golden age of British government of 1974-79 are fascinating. Some of us have seen that interesting play, “This House”, about the experience of the 1974-79 Government, and that is not quite the quality of government that I remember. Some of us will have our doubts on minority government reinforced by that experience and our commitment to stable coalition strengthened.
Much of the evidence to the committee—which I read with fascination on Sunday—suggested that coalition will prove to have been exceptional; that single-party government is purer and clearer than coalition; that voters can give only one Government a mandate; and that if no party gets a majority of seats, it will be cleaner and somehow more democratic for the largest party on its own to form a minority Government. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, got a little close to saying that in describing his attitude to mandate. Perhaps off the Floor of the House he and I might discuss the difference between the Burkean view of parliamentary democracy and the populist view of popular democracy in which a general election is in effect a referendum to choose among the manifestos of the parties. I am for a parliamentary democracy; and in the British constitution as conventionally understood, it is Parliament that chooses the Government, and the Government rest on maintaining a majority in Parliament.
As the noble Lords, Lord Lang and Lord Norton, said in the evidence, ours is an adversarial constitution based on the assumption that politics has to be based on the alternation in power of two mass parties contesting for power. As a number of noble Lords have also said, our constitution now has to adjust to the disappearance of mass parties and the splintering of popular loyalties. The latest public opinion polls, which your Lordships have all read in the past two or three days, show that the largest party is at 33.6% of the electorate. The second largest is at 31%, with two other parties at over 10%. There are some eight to nine different parties now represented in the House of Commons, depending on how one counts the Northern Ireland MPs. I note that the Prime Minister had a reception last week for the unionist MPs for Northern Ireland, which suggests that the potential for future government is being thought about in all sorts of ways. It is more likely that the diversity of parties will increase in the next Parliament, rather than decrease.
I note, from a discussion within the Labour Party and in the Guardian, the 35% strategy, and that Labour might perhaps hope to win a majority of seats on a third of the vote, or possibly even to form a minority Government on its own on the basis of 32% or 33% of the vote. There is a question of legitimacy here. I noted with great amusement in the 9 April evidence that the Deputy Prime Minister gave to the Constitution Committee that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, asked him what he thought was wrong with an appointed second Chamber. He said that there was a question of legitimacy, to which the noble and learned Lord said, “Only legitimacy?”. Legitimacy is a problem for government.
With this coalition Government we have had four years of remarkably stable government. I recall all the predictions from the Labour Benches in this House and the other place, to start with, that it would not last a year. It is highly likely at the next election that the people will fail or refuse to elect a majoritarian House of Commons for a single party. That will face us with the choice of changing the people, as the Leninists would like to say, or agreeing to adapt the constitution. I think that it is quite clear that we will have to adapt the constitution, and this report helpfully suggests a number of ways in which we should adapt.
From my experience of coalition Government, however, there are a number of coalition practices that ought to be practices of good government for any Government. We have returned to collective responsibility. We have had more formal meetings. Sometimes I feel that one of the problems with coalition Government is that it takes infinitely more time. There have to be more meetings—of our side and their side as well as of the two of us together. However, it means that government decisions are in most cases rather better considered. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said, coalition strengthens the careful consideration of policies and limits unconsidered ministerial initiatives.
I also read in some of the evidence given to the committee a suggestion that coalition weakens the Prime Minister and that what we want is a really strong, effective, executive Prime Minister. After the experience of Tony Blair as Prime Minister, I think that there is quite a strong case for saying that having an Executive who are more effectively constrained by Parliament and collective discussion among different parties are good things for good government.
The noble Lord, Lord Norton, made some odd remarks about inexperienced Ministers. My recollection is that after 13 years of a Labour Government, virtually no incoming Ministers in the current Government—Conservative or Liberal Democrat—had prior ministerial experience. The question of whether there should have been more training—the sort of work the Institute for Government is now offering—is one that we will all have to consider further.
The rose-tinted spectacles also touched on what the final years of single-party government were like. I remember the Major Government in 1996-97, with all the remarks about the “bastards” doing their best to stab the Prime Minister in the back. We all have memories of the last year of the Brown Government in 2009-10 and of the last year of the minority Labour Government in 1978-79. All demonstrated that each of our established major parties is itself a coalition—and sometimes an unstable and ill-tempered coalition at that.
A range of issues was raised in this excellent report. First, on the formation of a Government, I think we can all strongly agree that it may well need more than five days, that we would not wish to follow continental practice by allowing it to extend too far and that an agreement that it would be 12 days before Parliament meets probably sends the right signal for government formation. I think we also agree that we have moved some way towards the concept of a caretaker Government. That is also a good thing in the circumstances. The question was raised of how much information and advice would be given by civil servants. I can assure noble Lords that Civil Service support for government formation negotiations will again be offered.
I strongly agree—and I trust that my colleagues in government in the response will also strongly agree—that the Queen’s Speech offers the occasion for a vote to accept a coalition agreement, although the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, was quite correct to say that it is a good thing if both parties are seen to accept it. My party had a special conference, and I have heard a number of Conservatives quietly say that they wish they had done something like that to tie their party into what they were doing. That would also perhaps be good practice.
A lot of time in this debate and in the report was spent on the issue of collective responsibility. I have to say that I was surprised to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, refer to “frequent” breaches of the doctrine of collective responsibility in this Government. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell—if I heard him correctly—referred to the “abandonment” of collective responsibility. The Cabinet Manual says that collective responsibility should rest upon collective decision-making:
“Before a decision is made, ministers are given the opportunity to debate the issue, with a view to reaching an agreed position”.
That is quite clear: collective responsibility comes from collective decision-making.
There have been occasions in previous Governments when Prime Ministers have taken decisions without consulting their colleagues—occasionally even the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and I would argue that, with a limited number of exceptions, collective responsibility in this Government works extremely well. The write-round has become much more the ritual procedure, partly because one has to make sure that Liberal Democrat and Conservative Ministers agree on things. It even reaches down to my lowly level. My stress level rose considerably last week when I received four 100-page reports with requests for my views on them by the close of play the following day because they had to go up to separate Secretaries of State. However, that is collective decision-making which ties us all in.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and others remarked that a lot of this is to do with trust and a willingness to compromise, and we all know that in any Government there will be some with whom it is easy to work on a trustful basis and others with whom it will be difficult. I remember being told by officials that in the 1974 to 1979 Government there were papers marked, “Do not show to Tony Benn”. There was a lack of trust within the coalition that was the Labour Party. On the whole, in any Government one can write down the rules but one needs to have a degree of give and take and a willingness to make it work that keeps the Government together. From my own limited experience within this Government, I have to say that it works pretty well. There are, of course, exceptions from time to time—trust does break down—but we are still here, and we will be here until May next year.
I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, said that breaches of collective responsibility demonstrate the unsuitability of coalitions to the British system of government—although perhaps I misheard her on that. It seems to me that collective responsibility has had to adapt to coalition, and has adapted fairly well.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
What I said was that it lent some credibility to those who argue that the system of coalition Government was not as suited as others to our system of government.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
As it happens, I visited Hughenden two weeks ago and bought and have since read the biography of Disraeli by the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. I have now discovered the very odd conditions under which he made the great statement that coalitions are not suitable to the British constitution. I think that we all now agree that the British constitution can adapt to a stable coalition Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and others raised the question of the Lords. Much of the question of what we do with the Salisbury/Addison convention was discussed in the Joint Committee on Conventions in 2007. I agree strongly with what the noble Lord said in his evidence, and has said again tonight, that the conventions have adapted since then. The Lords conventionally does not vote against the Second Reading of any Bill, but we are willing to amend it. The idea of the mandate and the manifesto Bill was much easier in the 1940s and 1950s, when parties got 48% or 50% of the vote. When giving evidence to that Joint Committee, I went back to that 1945 Labour manifesto, which has a page that lists a series of Bills that the Labour Party wished to take through. I compared that with the 1997 Labour manifesto, in which I could find no single firm commitment of that sort. We have all changed our manifestos in that way.
I have some sympathy with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on the numbers of Ministers in the Lords and their degree of seniority—and I have, of course, intense sympathy with his remarks on those who are not paid, but perhaps we will save that for another time.
The question of fixed-term Parliaments has also been raised. The question of how we handle the final year of such a Parliament is clearly one that we all need to address fairly rapidly. Some interesting comments have been made about the opportunity that the final year provides to think longer term and to prepare. One area in which I have some responsibility is the national security strategy, which should be prepared in the fifth year of a Government for publication early in the new term of the new Government. That is something that we should think actively about for some other areas as well. For example, we could all consider long-term spending trends within government and how far we cope with the inexorable rise in health costs and pensions, which we all know are coming down to us. There is a great deal there to discuss further.
On access to civil servants, I confirm that there will be no change in the long-standing principles set out in the Cabinet Manual and that guidance on pre-election contacts will be issued to civil servants nearer the time when contacts are due to commence, at the beginning of October.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, raised the question of whether we have to have a wash-up. As we have just discovered at the end of this Session, one can never predict until the end of the Session whether we will have agreed all Bills by the time the Session comes to an end. We may hope that we will agree everything by then, but we will have to see what happens when it comes to it.
Lastly, we have not talked very much about the role of the Civil Service. The role of the Civil Service in holding a coalition together is vital. I hope that the Constitution Committee will return to the role of the Civil Service in further inquiries. From my own experience of the high quality of officials and their remarkable tact and patience in managing the coalition Government, I have to say that we have been extremely well served. I have found the work of the special advisers for both parties absolutely invaluable. The distinction between their role and that of officials is also something to which the Constitution Committee might return.
I again apologise to noble Lords that they have not yet had the Government’s response to the report. I thank the committee very much for this invaluable report. It is a subject which we all need to think about as we approach the next election. The opinion polls will no doubt go up and down in various directions, but after the election we will have to face the question of how we form the next Government, whatever shape that may be.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and my noble friend Lord Kennedy for his comments. I, of course, accept the Minister’s apology to the committee and to the House for the delay in the Government’s response. I hope very much that his aspiration that it will be available in time for the Queen’s Speech will be fulfilled.
I am very grateful to all those who have taken part in this debate. Even by the usual high standards of House of Lords debates on Constitution Committee reports it has been exceptional. It has been illuminated by a great deal of first-hand experience from a former Cabinet Secretary, a former Leader of the House and those who have taken part in the Liberal Democrat proceedings. As I say, that illuminated the debate.
We should all take note of what the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, said about looking to the future rather than the past. I have to say in parenthesis that, when we look at the past, my sympathies are not surprisingly with the view of the past held by the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue. However, taking up the specific point made by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, I think that we will face what has been described as a challenging 12 months in the fifth year of this Parliament and this Government. Whether we can hold our breath and do some work on the retrospective scrutiny of committee inquiries I rather doubt, but it is an extremely interesting idea.
As I said at the beginning of the debate, this is a very significant report by the committee. The debate tonight has illustrated again what we knew when we held the inquiry—namely, that the line between constitutional debate and raw politics is very fine indeed. This debate has reflected the findings of our inquiry in that even the most neutral and objective taking of evidence and deliberation, which we certainly seek in the Constitution Committee, can be translated into raw and tough politics. I hope that this subject will be mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I look forward to that.