Lords Chamber
Friday 23rd October 2026
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10:06
10:06
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (Plaid Cymru)
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Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (Plaid Cymru)
At its heart, this is a simple and modest bill. It asks the government to do something that they have to do something that they have already promised to do. Consult on proposals for replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second of Lords with an alternative second chamber, and then report transparently on what they have heard. But it does something else heard. But it does something else that is just as important. It requires the government to not just requires the government to not just consult, but to respond. It requires Ministers to tell Parliament and the public what they intend to do next, because the purpose of this bill is not to produce another report destined for a shelf in Whitehall.
We've got plenty of those already. The purpose is to make sure a process begins and, crucially, that it keeps going. The ball must keep moving. The future of this House has been debated for longer than most of us can remember. Every political party has at one point or another, argued that the House of Lords should be reformed, replaced or abolished altogether. We've never been short of ideas, and we've never been short of debate, but we have been short of action. That is why this bill matters. The government was elected on a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that better represents the nations and regions of the UK, and to consult on proposals for achieving that aim.
This Bill simply seeks to give effect to that commitment. Yet one promise remains outstanding and no clear plan has been put out for delivering it. The commitment to consult on the future of the second chamber itself. If the government remain committed to that pledge, why should consultation be delayed indefinitely? And if it wasn't important enough to place in the manifesto to the electorate, why should Parliament hesitate to begin delivering it? My Lords, I come to this debate from a rather different perspective than many who have spoken on these issues over the years. I'm the youngest member of your Lordships House, and I come from a working class background in Wales, which is not traditionally the route by which people arrive here.
And this is also my first private member's bill. My own views on the constitutional future of Wales are no secret. Some may find it curious that someone who supports Welsh independence has chosen to bring forward a Bill about reforming a chamber within the UK Parliament, but I see no contradiction. Whatever constitutional future we each believe in. We should all want the institutions that exist today to command public confidence. Like many people from communities across Wales and beyond, my route into public life was anything but conventional. A lot of my politics is shaped by my experience of growing up as an unpaid carer for my father, and my focus was and continues to be, how we improve people's lives.
The way decisions are made and who makes them plays a big part in that. Westminster was not part of my everyday conversations growing up. It felt distant, something that happened somewhere else. And I suspect many people still feel exactly the same today. Experience like that is the shapes, the way that you see public institutions. They make you ask who is represented? Whose voices are heard and who feels left out altogether. For me, that is what this bill is really about. Growing up on Ernest Morgan, this place could not have felt further away. In fact, my noble friend Lord Wigley was the first member of your Lordships house I'd ever met.
And what a formidable advocate he is for Cumbrae. Having now spent more than two years here, I have far greater appreciation of the work the House does and the contributions made by members from all sides, and none. But I still think many members of the public have perfectly reasonable questions about how this House is put together. Being appointed by former prime Ministers is not a process that most people would immediately recognise as a modern form of democratic accountability, nor bishops, specifically from the Church of England. Having 26 reserved spaces in a place that scrutinises new laws for us all to live under, and we should not be surprised when people ask questions about an institution with more than 800 members carrying titles such as Lords and Baroness, we can explain the work that we do here and rightly point to its value.
But we should also understand why some people look at this place and think it belongs to another age. I suspect for some people that only Lords and Baroness that they have encountered are the ones that they've seen in Bridgerton. Public institutions are strongest when people feel they have helped shape them. They are weakest when people feel decisions are being made for them rather than with them. As a Welsh member of this House, I'm conscious that debates such as this can sometimes sound like Westminster talking to itself. But they're not. These questions matter. In Holyhead and in the Highlands, in Cardiff and Carlisle, in Belfast and Birmingham, because they're ultimately questions about who has a voice, who feels represented and who feels heard.
The Wales I grew up in is the Wales that voted for devolution. A previous Secretary of State for Wales, Ron Davies, famously described evolution as a process and not an event. I think that is a helpful quote to consider when we look to make change here to our communities have changed. Expectations have changed. Yet when it comes to the second chamber, the debate often feels stuck in the same place. Whether one supports independence, federalism, further devolution or the union in its present form, there's a legitimate question about whether Parliament's institutions properly reflect the nations and regions they're intended to serve.
And that is not a question that should be answered exclusively within the walls of Westminster here. Now, some may reasonably ask why we need another consultation when this issue has already been examined by countless commissions, committees and reviews. That is a fair challenge. But the answer is simple. Too often Lords reform follows a familiar pattern, which we are all quite familiar with. A report is written, conclusions are reached, and then everything quietly grinds to a halt. This bill seeks to break this cycle. It requires government not only to listen, but to come back and explain what happens next.
In short, it seeks to keep the ball moving. We saw evidence of how strongly people feel about these questions. When this bill received its first reading earlier this year. Some noble Lords took the unusual step of voicing opposition during to what is normally a procedural stage. I mention that not as a criticism, but as an illustration. People care deeply about the future of this House and where there is disagreement. My instinct is not to narrow the conversation. It is to widen it. Noble Lords will hold very different views about the future of this House, and those disagreements are fair.
But this bill does not ask anybody to abandon their convictions. It asks a much simpler question should the public have a voice in determining the future shape of Parliament? If we cannot agree on the answer, surely we can agree on that as a question. That is why the Bill provides for wider public engagement, including citizens, assemblies and other deliberative approaches. Because change should not be something done to people. It should be something done with them. Before I conclude, I would like to thank those who have helped inform my thinking as I've brought forward my first private member's bill.
In particular, I'm grateful to the Electoral Reform Society for their continued advocacy and campaigning on people's democratic rights. I'm also grateful to my fellow officers on the APPG on Lords reform, who are members in the other place, representing Labour conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Greens. I also wish to thank the students of the Politics lab at Edge Hill University, some of whom are here today. Their involvement is a reminder that conversations about the future of our democracy should not belong exclusively to politicians and constitutional experts. They should belong to the people who will inherit that future, too.
My Lords, I do not stand here today claiming to have all the answers, but I do have my own views about the future and other noble Lords will have theirs. But surely the future shape of Parliament is not a question that Parliament should answer alone. The government promised to consult on that future. This bill simply asks them to honour that commitment, but it also asks for something more. It asks that consultation be followed by actual action. The people we serve deserve a voice in that conversation, and they deserve to know that once they have been heard, something will happen as a result.
As someone who grew up on a council estate in Anisman who never imagined I would one day be standing here introducing a private member's bill in this House, I find it very difficult to argue against giving people a greater say in decisions about the institutions that govern them. This bill asks for no more than that. Not a conclusion, not a blueprint, just a conversation and a commitment that once this conversation has taken place, it will be followed by a clear statement of what comes next. If we cannot agree on the answer, surely we can agree on the question.
After decades of debate, that hardly seems too much to ask for. I beg to move. Yeah.
We've got plenty of those already. The purpose is to make sure a process begins and, crucially, that it keeps going. The ball must keep moving. The future of this House has been debated for longer than most of us can remember. Every political party has at one point or another, argued that the House of Lords should be reformed, replaced or abolished altogether. We've never been short of ideas, and we've never been short of debate, but we have been short of action. That is why this bill matters. The government was elected on a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that better represents the nations and regions of the UK, and to consult on proposals for achieving that aim.
This Bill simply seeks to give effect to that commitment. Yet one promise remains outstanding and no clear plan has been put out for delivering it. The commitment to consult on the future of the second chamber itself. If the government remain committed to that pledge, why should consultation be delayed indefinitely? And if it wasn't important enough to place in the manifesto to the electorate, why should Parliament hesitate to begin delivering it? My Lords, I come to this debate from a rather different perspective than many who have spoken on these issues over the years. I'm the youngest member of your Lordships House, and I come from a working class background in Wales, which is not traditionally the route by which people arrive here.
And this is also my first private member's bill. My own views on the constitutional future of Wales are no secret. Some may find it curious that someone who supports Welsh independence has chosen to bring forward a Bill about reforming a chamber within the UK Parliament, but I see no contradiction. Whatever constitutional future we each believe in. We should all want the institutions that exist today to command public confidence. Like many people from communities across Wales and beyond, my route into public life was anything but conventional. A lot of my politics is shaped by my experience of growing up as an unpaid carer for my father, and my focus was and continues to be, how we improve people's lives.
The way decisions are made and who makes them plays a big part in that. Westminster was not part of my everyday conversations growing up. It felt distant, something that happened somewhere else. And I suspect many people still feel exactly the same today. Experience like that is the shapes, the way that you see public institutions. They make you ask who is represented? Whose voices are heard and who feels left out altogether. For me, that is what this bill is really about. Growing up on Ernest Morgan, this place could not have felt further away. In fact, my noble friend Lord Wigley was the first member of your Lordships house I'd ever met.
And what a formidable advocate he is for Cumbrae. Having now spent more than two years here, I have far greater appreciation of the work the House does and the contributions made by members from all sides, and none. But I still think many members of the public have perfectly reasonable questions about how this House is put together. Being appointed by former prime Ministers is not a process that most people would immediately recognise as a modern form of democratic accountability, nor bishops, specifically from the Church of England. Having 26 reserved spaces in a place that scrutinises new laws for us all to live under, and we should not be surprised when people ask questions about an institution with more than 800 members carrying titles such as Lords and Baroness, we can explain the work that we do here and rightly point to its value.
But we should also understand why some people look at this place and think it belongs to another age. I suspect for some people that only Lords and Baroness that they have encountered are the ones that they've seen in Bridgerton. Public institutions are strongest when people feel they have helped shape them. They are weakest when people feel decisions are being made for them rather than with them. As a Welsh member of this House, I'm conscious that debates such as this can sometimes sound like Westminster talking to itself. But they're not. These questions matter. In Holyhead and in the Highlands, in Cardiff and Carlisle, in Belfast and Birmingham, because they're ultimately questions about who has a voice, who feels represented and who feels heard.
The Wales I grew up in is the Wales that voted for devolution. A previous Secretary of State for Wales, Ron Davies, famously described evolution as a process and not an event. I think that is a helpful quote to consider when we look to make change here to our communities have changed. Expectations have changed. Yet when it comes to the second chamber, the debate often feels stuck in the same place. Whether one supports independence, federalism, further devolution or the union in its present form, there's a legitimate question about whether Parliament's institutions properly reflect the nations and regions they're intended to serve.
And that is not a question that should be answered exclusively within the walls of Westminster here. Now, some may reasonably ask why we need another consultation when this issue has already been examined by countless commissions, committees and reviews. That is a fair challenge. But the answer is simple. Too often Lords reform follows a familiar pattern, which we are all quite familiar with. A report is written, conclusions are reached, and then everything quietly grinds to a halt. This bill seeks to break this cycle. It requires government not only to listen, but to come back and explain what happens next.
In short, it seeks to keep the ball moving. We saw evidence of how strongly people feel about these questions. When this bill received its first reading earlier this year. Some noble Lords took the unusual step of voicing opposition during to what is normally a procedural stage. I mention that not as a criticism, but as an illustration. People care deeply about the future of this House and where there is disagreement. My instinct is not to narrow the conversation. It is to widen it. Noble Lords will hold very different views about the future of this House, and those disagreements are fair.
But this bill does not ask anybody to abandon their convictions. It asks a much simpler question should the public have a voice in determining the future shape of Parliament? If we cannot agree on the answer, surely we can agree on that as a question. That is why the Bill provides for wider public engagement, including citizens, assemblies and other deliberative approaches. Because change should not be something done to people. It should be something done with them. Before I conclude, I would like to thank those who have helped inform my thinking as I've brought forward my first private member's bill.
In particular, I'm grateful to the Electoral Reform Society for their continued advocacy and campaigning on people's democratic rights. I'm also grateful to my fellow officers on the APPG on Lords reform, who are members in the other place, representing Labour conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Greens. I also wish to thank the students of the Politics lab at Edge Hill University, some of whom are here today. Their involvement is a reminder that conversations about the future of our democracy should not belong exclusively to politicians and constitutional experts. They should belong to the people who will inherit that future, too.
My Lords, I do not stand here today claiming to have all the answers, but I do have my own views about the future and other noble Lords will have theirs. But surely the future shape of Parliament is not a question that Parliament should answer alone. The government promised to consult on that future. This bill simply asks them to honour that commitment, but it also asks for something more. It asks that consultation be followed by actual action. The people we serve deserve a voice in that conversation, and they deserve to know that once they have been heard, something will happen as a result.
As someone who grew up on a council estate in Anisman who never imagined I would one day be standing here introducing a private member's bill in this House, I find it very difficult to argue against giving people a greater say in decisions about the institutions that govern them. This bill asks for no more than that. Not a conclusion, not a blueprint, just a conversation and a commitment that once this conversation has taken place, it will be followed by a clear statement of what comes next. If we cannot agree on the answer, surely we can agree on the question.
After decades of debate, that hardly seems too much to ask for. I beg to move. Yeah.
10:17
Lord Blunkett (Labour)
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Lord Blunkett (Labour)
The question is that this bill >> The question is that this bill be now read a second time. Firstly, I'd like to congratulate the noble I'd like to congratulate the noble Baroness on the draw and for presenting her first ever private presenting her first ever private member's bill. In the 37 years I've been in Parliament, I've never actually presented a private member's bill. So I particularly congratulate you both on this opportunity and on the, as ever, passionate and articulate speech that she's just delivered. It doesn't mean I think she's right. But I think she's correct in bringing this forward, which is why I suspect those of us who are here to debate it this morning have foregone the dangers of not being able to reach the regions and nations of Britain because of the weather, in order to be able to contribute to an important debate.
And like her, I'm very pleased that students are with us in the gallery. When I presented the ideas on reform of the upper chamber to students at the University of Sheffield. We've always started off with the presumption that they wanted democracy in the form of election of some sort or another. By the time we've concluded the debate, they're not so sure and they're not so sure, because this is a very complex and difficult issue. If it wasn't, then of course, what the noble Baroness has described as the equivocation over a century would not have taken place.
It's precisely because no one could actually come to a conclusion on what the legitimate alternative might be, that we are actually sitting here and standing here today. Like her, I'm from a deeply working class community. We have to say it, don't we? From a council estate, in my case in the north of Sheffield. And yes, people used to look bewildered at the ermine. By the way, in those days there were no. There were no life peers. Because I'm old, I'm getting older. Like the rest of us. So looking at the hereditary situation in the House of Lords, no wonder I was bewildered and thinking, God, I'll never get there.
And if I do, I'll probably want to abolish it. Well, I'm here and I don't want to abolish it, but I do want to reform it. And my noble friend Baroness Taylor of Bolton, who's speaking later, and I. She was the chair, and I served under her on the Committee on Retirement and Participation, looked at some of these broader issues and found that right across the groupings in this House, we we didn't, did we? We didn't have a a bishop on our committee. I have no intention of, as a Methodist, of going into the issue of the abolition of the of the the hereditary principle of the Church of England having representatives here.
Apart from that particular grouping, we were well represented across the House, and it was interesting to have that debate, and I'd like to say to the noble Baroness, by all means, let's set up a constitutional Commission. Let. Let's have the open debate about just what we would replace this House with. If, as my my friend, the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, proposed in his. The commission he led four years ago. It was about the regions and nations which the Baroness mentioned, and therefore it would be much more a constitutional chamber. I have a very simple message.
There is a house that is entirely representative, minutely representative of the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. It's called the House of Commons. It represents in relation to geography and population, the nations and regions, and it speaks for them. Now, it is true that we could be more representative in this House. It is true that Prime Ministers of all persuasions could be mindful when they say they're going to widen the scope of the representation of English regions of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland that they. They do it. I'm relieved that despite the fact that we've moved in the opposite direction in the last two years, those who have entered this house from London and the south east of the highest possible quality.
Good job. Otherwise, I'd be deeply offended by the way in which we've ignored the Labour manifesto of 2024. But there we go. There are other bits of it I don't agree with as well. So this morning, let us agree, perhaps, that there is a dialogue to be had that we could, through a Constitutional Commission, examine the impact of changing fundamentally the representation of this House on the workings of the House of Commons and on devolved regional strategic authorities in England, and on our relationship with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That would be a sensible thing, not least because the House of Commons would have to change dramatically in the last session before the general election, 2400 amendments were moved by the government.
The government, in terms of improving and altering bills that had been partly scrutinised but mostly nodded through the House of Commons. Having spent 28 years there. I know its strengths and I know its weaknesses, and from the council estate I never made a pledge then, or when I was in the House of Commons, that I wouldn't enter this place. So I feel fairly secure in saying, let's try and get it right for the future, not simply in saying, let's have a list system, which it would be, of course, if we had direct democracy, direct election, a list system in which the political parties would determine who was at the top of the list and who arrived here.
They.
And like her, I'm very pleased that students are with us in the gallery. When I presented the ideas on reform of the upper chamber to students at the University of Sheffield. We've always started off with the presumption that they wanted democracy in the form of election of some sort or another. By the time we've concluded the debate, they're not so sure and they're not so sure, because this is a very complex and difficult issue. If it wasn't, then of course, what the noble Baroness has described as the equivocation over a century would not have taken place.
It's precisely because no one could actually come to a conclusion on what the legitimate alternative might be, that we are actually sitting here and standing here today. Like her, I'm from a deeply working class community. We have to say it, don't we? From a council estate, in my case in the north of Sheffield. And yes, people used to look bewildered at the ermine. By the way, in those days there were no. There were no life peers. Because I'm old, I'm getting older. Like the rest of us. So looking at the hereditary situation in the House of Lords, no wonder I was bewildered and thinking, God, I'll never get there.
And if I do, I'll probably want to abolish it. Well, I'm here and I don't want to abolish it, but I do want to reform it. And my noble friend Baroness Taylor of Bolton, who's speaking later, and I. She was the chair, and I served under her on the Committee on Retirement and Participation, looked at some of these broader issues and found that right across the groupings in this House, we we didn't, did we? We didn't have a a bishop on our committee. I have no intention of, as a Methodist, of going into the issue of the abolition of the of the the hereditary principle of the Church of England having representatives here.
Apart from that particular grouping, we were well represented across the House, and it was interesting to have that debate, and I'd like to say to the noble Baroness, by all means, let's set up a constitutional Commission. Let. Let's have the open debate about just what we would replace this House with. If, as my my friend, the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, proposed in his. The commission he led four years ago. It was about the regions and nations which the Baroness mentioned, and therefore it would be much more a constitutional chamber. I have a very simple message.
There is a house that is entirely representative, minutely representative of the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. It's called the House of Commons. It represents in relation to geography and population, the nations and regions, and it speaks for them. Now, it is true that we could be more representative in this House. It is true that Prime Ministers of all persuasions could be mindful when they say they're going to widen the scope of the representation of English regions of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland that they. They do it. I'm relieved that despite the fact that we've moved in the opposite direction in the last two years, those who have entered this house from London and the south east of the highest possible quality.
Good job. Otherwise, I'd be deeply offended by the way in which we've ignored the Labour manifesto of 2024. But there we go. There are other bits of it I don't agree with as well. So this morning, let us agree, perhaps, that there is a dialogue to be had that we could, through a Constitutional Commission, examine the impact of changing fundamentally the representation of this House on the workings of the House of Commons and on devolved regional strategic authorities in England, and on our relationship with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That would be a sensible thing, not least because the House of Commons would have to change dramatically in the last session before the general election, 2400 amendments were moved by the government.
The government, in terms of improving and altering bills that had been partly scrutinised but mostly nodded through the House of Commons. Having spent 28 years there. I know its strengths and I know its weaknesses, and from the council estate I never made a pledge then, or when I was in the House of Commons, that I wouldn't enter this place. So I feel fairly secure in saying, let's try and get it right for the future, not simply in saying, let's have a list system, which it would be, of course, if we had direct democracy, direct election, a list system in which the political parties would determine who was at the top of the list and who arrived here.
They.
10:23
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative)
My Lords, it's a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, and, if I may say so, a living embodiment of. Why it's a good idea that we reform the House of Lords and move forward rather than abolish the House of Lords. My Lord. Similarly, it's a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness who's introduced this legislation. I do applaud her courage massively, and I recognise the passion and the articulation with which she spoke and presented her case. But her case does involve, and I've looked at the draft legislation, the piece of legislation she's proposed very closely.
It does propose the abolition of the House of Lords. It doesn't propose the reform of the House of Lords. And this is where I part company from the noble Baroness most materially. She presented her case, as I say, with articulation. She spoke of reform as being a process and not an event. I agree very much with that. I think that is true, and that is why I cannot go along with the the thesis that it's a good idea to abolish the House of Lords and to present a blank sheet of paper and say, what do we do next?
Which is essentially what she is proposing. I do agree with the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, in saying that reform is necessary, and if the noble Baroness is to be congratulated, perhaps in presenting us with a precipice as to what happens if we don't reform, there will grow a clamour for abolition, and I think that would be a mistake. There are people in the public who think we're here every day in our ermine. I meet them and they say, have you been in your ermine today? I think I've been in my home in three times. Once on being here once for one.
Presentation of as it was then the Queen's Speech. And once when another noble friend was introduced to the Lords. No more than that. There is a misunderstanding of what we do. But if you look at the evidence, and I've looked at the evidence closely, and recently attended a talk by a constitutional expert, Ian Dunt, who's very much on the left of politics, not the right. And I anticipated that he would lambast the Lords and say, scrap it. He didn't. He said that if there is one part of the Constitution that should be reformed and essentially left a more or less.
As it is, it's the House of Lords. He did that because successively we act as a bastion for opinion when the House of Commons is getting it wrong, and we've done that over a succession of issues student fees, Brexit, Rwanda, where opinion runs high. This House gives a chance to represent a different view from the elected chamber, and that's important. It's also important the work that we do, my Lords, in, not just in the House, although that is important, as the noble Lord Blunkett has said, the thousands of practical amendments that improve legislation and that role of scrutiny is vital in everything that is done in this House, but also in tackling the great growth of subordinate legislation.
That's something that we do too. So these things are worth retaining. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be reforming the House of Lords. And if I may say so, I'll come on to say a bit about some of the strands that that represents and recognise the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, has done on this in a very. The total opposite of self-serving. That was not to her advantage, or those people on the Committee. They were doing that very much in terms of what is best moving, moving forward for this House, and I personally will support very strongly what the work that they've been doing.
I think it's to be applauded. I think it should be joined with something on appointments. I recognise that that was not part of the brief that the committee had on attendance and on retirement, but on appointment. We do need to look very closely at what is happening. More people have joined the Lords than have left the Lords in this present session, although we've lost the remaining hereditary peers, there have been more more appointments made, and I think we need to look at the role of Holac in that that that regard and put it on a statutory footing.
I think we should alter the way that appointments are made, and I agree that probably the way forward on this is a commission to look at appointment, and I think that comes with some urgency. This House has totally changed over 80 years. The noble Lord mentioned the Life Peerages Act of 1958. Until then, all appointments to this house were hereditary. That's only 80 years ago. Now all appointments to this house are life peerages, effectively, the hereditary principle actually was abolished in 1999. Effectively, although we retained what I think was a mistake, the hereditary by elections.
With due respect, I know the noble Lord Viscount Stansgate is speaking later. So there's nothing, nothing personal in this. I recognise that many of those many of those who've joined that through that route are worthy of their appointments. But it was very much a Gilbert and Sullivan not to not not not to say Heath Robinson sort of construct in a very British way. And I think had we not had the hereditary by elections, we would have seen the remaining hereditaries wither on the vine, and that would have been a way forward anyway, that that's that's history.
But what is important is to look at the principle of appointment to see, yes, whether we should do something for the nations and regions in terms of appointments. They are underrepresented in this House. That's quite true. And that it would be a way of putting putting it right. I personally agree with the the bishops and archbishops, but I think we could extend that to other religious leaders. I think that would strengthen our house. It would strengthen our Constitution, it would strengthen our country. So I think that is something that's worth looking at. My Lords, I I've struggled with the principle of an elected House of Lords.
It's difficult to deny the importance of of elections though we have elections to the other place. But what I do recognise, and that's strengthened by my participation in this House, that there are loads of peers. Many of them are here today who would not dream of standing in elections. They probably wouldn't be returned if they did, I have to say. But my Lords, they strengthen this House immeasurably and I think we risk losing that very valuable element of not just the crossbenchers, but obviously the crossbenchers and many, many lawyers, many, many retired diplomats, trade union leaders and so on.
People who would probably not stand in election. Do we do we want to risk that? That's something that needs to be looked at in balance as to whether we have an elected element, but retain appointments so that we are able to play to the strength of a of a House of Lords with all the expertise that that conjures up. So, my Lords, I'm grateful for the noble to the noble Baroness for bringing forward this legislation. I think it's an important piece of legislation, at least to focus our mind. I don't think the way forward is abolishing the House of Lords and saying, what do we do next, which is essentially this is throwing all the pieces up in the air.
That isn't the way to to go about it. We don't need revolution, but we certainly need evolution and we need it very quickly. In my humble opinion, yes. My Lords.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
It's always a pleasure to follow Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. He's a Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. He's a calm, measured tones are always difficult to follow, and I difficult to follow, and I particularly welcome the. The introduction of the bill by the introduction of the bill by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in a very clear way, and a very powerful very clear way, and a very powerful argument for why the consultation is needed. My Lord, you will notice I am slightly croaky today. I'm not the noble Lord Croker, but I will endeavour to get through this.
And it's also to hear the interjection of the noble Lord Lord Blunkett. Now the noble Lord Lord Blunkett and myself have known each other through Sheffield politics for well over 20 years, and I've been rather worried recently because we've agreed more than we've disagreed. But I'm now going back to our normal knocking ten bells out of each other as we do in Sheffield politically. So I should own up. I am on the traditional liberal wing of the Liberal Democrats, and we have been waiting rather a long time for this kind of debate and for reform of the House of Lords.
In fact, it was the Parliament Act of 1911 that promised a second chamber on a popular rather than hereditary basis. That was 115 years ago. And I would guess it's probably the longest running temporary arrangement in British public life. So I do welcome the progress so far in this Parliament. The Hereditaries have gone, but some have returned, quite rightly on their own merit, and the noble Viscount Stansgate will be speaking later. But, my Lords, that is tinkering. We've swapped the accident of birth for the accident of who? You know, and left the Prime Minister's patronage exactly where it was.
And a promise to
It does propose the abolition of the House of Lords. It doesn't propose the reform of the House of Lords. And this is where I part company from the noble Baroness most materially. She presented her case, as I say, with articulation. She spoke of reform as being a process and not an event. I agree very much with that. I think that is true, and that is why I cannot go along with the the thesis that it's a good idea to abolish the House of Lords and to present a blank sheet of paper and say, what do we do next?
Which is essentially what she is proposing. I do agree with the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, in saying that reform is necessary, and if the noble Baroness is to be congratulated, perhaps in presenting us with a precipice as to what happens if we don't reform, there will grow a clamour for abolition, and I think that would be a mistake. There are people in the public who think we're here every day in our ermine. I meet them and they say, have you been in your ermine today? I think I've been in my home in three times. Once on being here once for one.
Presentation of as it was then the Queen's Speech. And once when another noble friend was introduced to the Lords. No more than that. There is a misunderstanding of what we do. But if you look at the evidence, and I've looked at the evidence closely, and recently attended a talk by a constitutional expert, Ian Dunt, who's very much on the left of politics, not the right. And I anticipated that he would lambast the Lords and say, scrap it. He didn't. He said that if there is one part of the Constitution that should be reformed and essentially left a more or less.
As it is, it's the House of Lords. He did that because successively we act as a bastion for opinion when the House of Commons is getting it wrong, and we've done that over a succession of issues student fees, Brexit, Rwanda, where opinion runs high. This House gives a chance to represent a different view from the elected chamber, and that's important. It's also important the work that we do, my Lords, in, not just in the House, although that is important, as the noble Lord Blunkett has said, the thousands of practical amendments that improve legislation and that role of scrutiny is vital in everything that is done in this House, but also in tackling the great growth of subordinate legislation.
That's something that we do too. So these things are worth retaining. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be reforming the House of Lords. And if I may say so, I'll come on to say a bit about some of the strands that that represents and recognise the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, has done on this in a very. The total opposite of self-serving. That was not to her advantage, or those people on the Committee. They were doing that very much in terms of what is best moving, moving forward for this House, and I personally will support very strongly what the work that they've been doing.
I think it's to be applauded. I think it should be joined with something on appointments. I recognise that that was not part of the brief that the committee had on attendance and on retirement, but on appointment. We do need to look very closely at what is happening. More people have joined the Lords than have left the Lords in this present session, although we've lost the remaining hereditary peers, there have been more more appointments made, and I think we need to look at the role of Holac in that that that regard and put it on a statutory footing.
I think we should alter the way that appointments are made, and I agree that probably the way forward on this is a commission to look at appointment, and I think that comes with some urgency. This House has totally changed over 80 years. The noble Lord mentioned the Life Peerages Act of 1958. Until then, all appointments to this house were hereditary. That's only 80 years ago. Now all appointments to this house are life peerages, effectively, the hereditary principle actually was abolished in 1999. Effectively, although we retained what I think was a mistake, the hereditary by elections.
With due respect, I know the noble Lord Viscount Stansgate is speaking later. So there's nothing, nothing personal in this. I recognise that many of those many of those who've joined that through that route are worthy of their appointments. But it was very much a Gilbert and Sullivan not to not not not to say Heath Robinson sort of construct in a very British way. And I think had we not had the hereditary by elections, we would have seen the remaining hereditaries wither on the vine, and that would have been a way forward anyway, that that's that's history.
But what is important is to look at the principle of appointment to see, yes, whether we should do something for the nations and regions in terms of appointments. They are underrepresented in this House. That's quite true. And that it would be a way of putting putting it right. I personally agree with the the bishops and archbishops, but I think we could extend that to other religious leaders. I think that would strengthen our house. It would strengthen our Constitution, it would strengthen our country. So I think that is something that's worth looking at. My Lords, I I've struggled with the principle of an elected House of Lords.
It's difficult to deny the importance of of elections though we have elections to the other place. But what I do recognise, and that's strengthened by my participation in this House, that there are loads of peers. Many of them are here today who would not dream of standing in elections. They probably wouldn't be returned if they did, I have to say. But my Lords, they strengthen this House immeasurably and I think we risk losing that very valuable element of not just the crossbenchers, but obviously the crossbenchers and many, many lawyers, many, many retired diplomats, trade union leaders and so on.
People who would probably not stand in election. Do we do we want to risk that? That's something that needs to be looked at in balance as to whether we have an elected element, but retain appointments so that we are able to play to the strength of a of a House of Lords with all the expertise that that conjures up. So, my Lords, I'm grateful for the noble to the noble Baroness for bringing forward this legislation. I think it's an important piece of legislation, at least to focus our mind. I don't think the way forward is abolishing the House of Lords and saying, what do we do next, which is essentially this is throwing all the pieces up in the air.
That isn't the way to to go about it. We don't need revolution, but we certainly need evolution and we need it very quickly. In my humble opinion, yes. My Lords.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
It's always a pleasure to follow Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. He's a Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. He's a calm, measured tones are always difficult to follow, and I difficult to follow, and I particularly welcome the. The introduction of the bill by the introduction of the bill by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in a very clear way, and a very powerful very clear way, and a very powerful argument for why the consultation is needed. My Lord, you will notice I am slightly croaky today. I'm not the noble Lord Croker, but I will endeavour to get through this.
And it's also to hear the interjection of the noble Lord Lord Blunkett. Now the noble Lord Lord Blunkett and myself have known each other through Sheffield politics for well over 20 years, and I've been rather worried recently because we've agreed more than we've disagreed. But I'm now going back to our normal knocking ten bells out of each other as we do in Sheffield politically. So I should own up. I am on the traditional liberal wing of the Liberal Democrats, and we have been waiting rather a long time for this kind of debate and for reform of the House of Lords.
In fact, it was the Parliament Act of 1911 that promised a second chamber on a popular rather than hereditary basis. That was 115 years ago. And I would guess it's probably the longest running temporary arrangement in British public life. So I do welcome the progress so far in this Parliament. The Hereditaries have gone, but some have returned, quite rightly on their own merit, and the noble Viscount Stansgate will be speaking later. But, my Lords, that is tinkering. We've swapped the accident of birth for the accident of who? You know, and left the Prime Minister's patronage exactly where it was.
And a promise to
10:33
Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)
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Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)
consult without no date attached is the constitutional equivalent of the constitutional equivalent of the check is in the post. And so the Liberal Democrat position is long standing. A fully elected long standing. A fully elected second chamber chosen by proportional representation. Speaking for the nations and Speaking for the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, the primacy of the commons will be primacy of the commons will be preserved. But this bill only asks for consultation after 115 years. That is hardly a leap in the dark. So why an elected chamber? Well, as a matter of principle, in a democracy, I believe the right to make law comes from the people, not one of the members of this House, no matter how eminent or detailed we are in legislation, has been chosen by the public to sit here and not one of us can be held to account or remove by them.
That is why this House defers to the elected Commons. It knows it has no mandate. An elected second chamber would be stronger, not weaker. It would scrutinise with authority and not, as sometimes we do with an apology. Now I am from Sheffield, like the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, and when the Electoral Reform Society last analysed this House by region, just under 6% of peers lived in the Yorkshire and Humber, 24% in London, 21% in the South east and the poor North East was 3%. Wales was 4%, Scotland 7% and Northern Ireland 2.5%. A chamber meant to speak for the whole country looks more like a London dinner party, and Yorkshire were very rarely gets invited.
So I want to be fair though, to the crossbenchers, their members are recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission through an open merit based process, and many are people of real distinction who add to your Lordships House. But look how thin this safeguard is. The Commission is asked to find just two non-party peers a year. It has no veto and no say over numbers, and the Prime Minister can still nominate crossbenchers directly. And in 2020, the Prime Minister overruled the Commission's advice. And in other democracies, my Lords expertise advisors, it does not hold a lifelong right to legislate.
And on the party benches, it's starker. The Commission checks propriety, not merit. Suitability is left to the party. In July, the last Prime Minister preparing to leave 26 new life peers were announced in one of his final acts. Five of these places went to my own party, so we claim no clean hands. But while this system exists, every party uses it. And that's exactly why it must go. A panel that can improve patronage, my Lords, is not one that can supply a mandate. And we elect our councillors, our mayors, our devolved parliaments. As a matter of principle, it's only at the top of the system do we hand out seats by appointment, which is unusual in any other bicameral system in the world.
Bar one. And I have to come like the Lord Lord Moore the Lord Lord Blunkett. I will skip along now to the Bishop's bench. People would be very surprised if I didn't. And in 26 cases, some of our members are here by job title. Again, they do contribute to the work of the House, but a matter of principle. Nobody voted for these 26 bishops. They're here because of the post they hold the only institution in the whole country that is guaranteed places in Parliament in the 2021 census found that 46% of people in England and Wales described themselves as Christian, and 30% saying they had no religion at all.
The church's own figures put average Sunday attendance in 2024 at just under 1% of the population of England. 1% attend a church, but 26 seats guaranteed automatically in the UK Parliament. And we are told that the bishops speak for the nation and they do speak on many important issues, and not just for the church, but the record shows they also speak for the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury or the previous Archbishop of Canterbury during the equal rights, sorry, equal Marriage. The Bill welcomed and argued to protect the Church of England's quadruple lock on marriage in 2023.
Eight bishops, including one who then sat in this House, signed a submission asking for the government to exempt the confessional from mandatory reporting. And again, that issue has been raised recently. We've seen a number of occasions where the bishops have stood up and asked for special privilege for VAT concessions on reform, on on reforming and doing up churches. And when the hereditary bill's peers came before us, the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Sheffield, who I admire, greatly spoke against those amendments that they would to reduce the number of Lords. Spiritual turkeys, I'm told, do not.
For Christmas. And it seems bishops do not vote for fewer bishops. But it's no criticism of faith or the individual. But nobody should sit in our legislative by virtue of a job in one church. So, my Lords, I support the Bill and I urge the government to give us a firm date for consulting, rather than a vague nod to do so.
That is why this House defers to the elected Commons. It knows it has no mandate. An elected second chamber would be stronger, not weaker. It would scrutinise with authority and not, as sometimes we do with an apology. Now I am from Sheffield, like the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, and when the Electoral Reform Society last analysed this House by region, just under 6% of peers lived in the Yorkshire and Humber, 24% in London, 21% in the South east and the poor North East was 3%. Wales was 4%, Scotland 7% and Northern Ireland 2.5%. A chamber meant to speak for the whole country looks more like a London dinner party, and Yorkshire were very rarely gets invited.
So I want to be fair though, to the crossbenchers, their members are recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission through an open merit based process, and many are people of real distinction who add to your Lordships House. But look how thin this safeguard is. The Commission is asked to find just two non-party peers a year. It has no veto and no say over numbers, and the Prime Minister can still nominate crossbenchers directly. And in 2020, the Prime Minister overruled the Commission's advice. And in other democracies, my Lords expertise advisors, it does not hold a lifelong right to legislate.
And on the party benches, it's starker. The Commission checks propriety, not merit. Suitability is left to the party. In July, the last Prime Minister preparing to leave 26 new life peers were announced in one of his final acts. Five of these places went to my own party, so we claim no clean hands. But while this system exists, every party uses it. And that's exactly why it must go. A panel that can improve patronage, my Lords, is not one that can supply a mandate. And we elect our councillors, our mayors, our devolved parliaments. As a matter of principle, it's only at the top of the system do we hand out seats by appointment, which is unusual in any other bicameral system in the world.
Bar one. And I have to come like the Lord Lord Moore the Lord Lord Blunkett. I will skip along now to the Bishop's bench. People would be very surprised if I didn't. And in 26 cases, some of our members are here by job title. Again, they do contribute to the work of the House, but a matter of principle. Nobody voted for these 26 bishops. They're here because of the post they hold the only institution in the whole country that is guaranteed places in Parliament in the 2021 census found that 46% of people in England and Wales described themselves as Christian, and 30% saying they had no religion at all.
The church's own figures put average Sunday attendance in 2024 at just under 1% of the population of England. 1% attend a church, but 26 seats guaranteed automatically in the UK Parliament. And we are told that the bishops speak for the nation and they do speak on many important issues, and not just for the church, but the record shows they also speak for the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury or the previous Archbishop of Canterbury during the equal rights, sorry, equal Marriage. The Bill welcomed and argued to protect the Church of England's quadruple lock on marriage in 2023.
Eight bishops, including one who then sat in this House, signed a submission asking for the government to exempt the confessional from mandatory reporting. And again, that issue has been raised recently. We've seen a number of occasions where the bishops have stood up and asked for special privilege for VAT concessions on reform, on on reforming and doing up churches. And when the hereditary bill's peers came before us, the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Sheffield, who I admire, greatly spoke against those amendments that they would to reduce the number of Lords. Spiritual turkeys, I'm told, do not.
For Christmas. And it seems bishops do not vote for fewer bishops. But it's no criticism of faith or the individual. But nobody should sit in our legislative by virtue of a job in one church. So, my Lords, I support the Bill and I urge the government to give us a firm date for consulting, rather than a vague nod to do so.
10:39
Lord Burns (Crossbench)
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Lord Burns (Crossbench)
OK. >> My Lord, I thank the hon. Lady Baroness Smith of Llanfaes for her for the opportunity to discuss House of Lords reform. Again, I enjoyed her introductory remarks, and I agree that this is a very and I agree that this is a very good opportunity to begin to discuss some of the issues that go beyond the particulars that some of the committees have looked at over the past decade. I have consistently made the case for reform. I've argued for a limit on the size of the House, a balance of new party appointments, which reflect the most recent general elections and 15 year term limits for new peers.
Sadly, we have seen no progress on these proposals. As Baroness May said, there has been a shortage of action despite the removal of the hereditary peers. The house is roughly the same size as it was ten years ago when we started work on the Lord speaker's committee. The Prime Minister of the day continues to determine the total number of appointments and their allocation by party. New peers are being appointed in May that could see them being members of this House for 40 years. Even with a retirement age of 80, no one outside Westminster can begin to understand how these arrangements make sense for a legislative chamber.
I understand the complexity of the of the issue, but I am disappointed the successive Prime Ministers have shown little interest in reform of these elements of our system. Instead, the government has a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions. They have said they will consult on proposals and rather cleverly today, Baroness May has taken on that job for them and brought forward with this commitment to a consultation in her bill. Personally, I remain committed to the proposals from the Lord speaker's committee and hope they will be considered, amongst other options, the requirement that the House should be more representative of the regions and nations could be added fairly simply.
I always feel the responsibility for meeting them should be placed upon each of the party groups and on Holac on its own, this doesn't require major reform, although when we looked at this, I was astonished to discover how difficult it is to determine where people come from. Is it where they were born? Is it where they now live? Is it where they were educated? Is it somewhere between all of those those areas? But it doesn't require a major reform. It doesn't seem to me on its own to be an argument for fundamental reform compared to some of the other issues that we have discussed in any consultation with the public about reform, despite what Lord Blunkett said about his interaction with with students, I'm confident that the most popular option would be some form of appointment by election.
There might be debate about the details, but my reading of public opinion is that it clearly favours the legitimacy of election based appointments. Under the terms of the manifesto commitment and this bill, the government must publish a document setting out alternatives for consultation, and in my remaining remarks, I would like to suggest some factors that I hope the government will consider, if it ever does get round to setting out these alternatives first, in any consultation, I think it is hugely important that the government should be cautious about any change to the powers and purposes of this House.
Experience shows that the Commons is very wary that increased legitimacy for this House could undermine its own primacy. The safest approach is to accept that the present powers and purposes of this House are appropriate, and place emphasis on the experience and independence of members, and any consultation should clearly state that the primary role of the second chamber is legislative scrutiny and encouraging government to think again on certain issues. I noticed last week a earlier this week, a debate in the House of Lords in the House of Commons about House of Lords reform and this whole issue about the primacy of the House of Commons, of course, suffers from a number of the contributors.
My second point is that if elections for members are included, the system should be as different as possible from the common system. Therefore a second chamber. My view is that a proportional representation would be most suitable, and I say this in tribute to Baroness Smith. The recent Welsh Senate system offers such a model for a limited proportional representation system. It involves regional constituencies with multiple members, where voters choose between the parties and determine the number of seats each party wins, and these seats are then allocated by the parties from a closed list of candidates. Now, like Lord Blunkett, I am not a fan of closed lists, but essentially this seems to me to be a hybrid system of election and appointment, which may be suitable for this House.
The overall numbers would be determined by election rather than by the Prime Minister, but leaves the selection of individuals in the hands effectively of the parties. This would also address the government's concern about underrepresented regions and nations in the second chamber. The next question is whether separate elections for the two houses are necessary, or if they should be held together. I favour simultaneous elections for both houses, because I think it would be very difficult to generate much interest amongst the electorate to have separate elections for a chamber with relatively limited powers. The third major issue, which cropping up for me, is the mechanism for members leaving.
And in an elected system, of course, this would involve term lengths, and the straightforward approach would be to have the same term length as the Commons. During general election, all party members would leave and stand for re-election or retire. However, as the scrutiny roll emphasises, experienced options could also include longer terms for members of the second chamber. Members could serve for two parliaments, say, with half of the House standing for re-election at each general election. And a third option would be to serve for three parliaments, with one third of the House standing for re-election. The third option is, broadly speaking, my own choice and would, and this is no coincidence, over time deliver a result which is actually very close to the proposals of the Lords Speakers Committee for the political parties, but with a democratic element.
The fourth major issue was the role and handling of the crossbench members. I will leave the detail of this for another day, but noble Lords will not be surprised that. I hope that the members will remain a significant proportion of the House under any option, with appointments generally being made by policy, and I agree with the criticism of what has happened in recent years in the way that Prime Ministers have limited the role of holac and the number of appointments that they are allowed to make, and indeed have taken on the job of making appointments to the crossbenchers themselves.
Again, the focus of my conclusion on Lords reform over the past decade has been to make try to make the existing arrangements work more effectively, avoiding the relentless underlying increase in the size of the House. And I have not given up hope that we could see significant changes yet. However, if there is no change to the Prime Minister's power to make appointments and there are no term limits, it will become, it seems to me increasingly likely that more fundamental reform is going to take place.
Sadly, we have seen no progress on these proposals. As Baroness May said, there has been a shortage of action despite the removal of the hereditary peers. The house is roughly the same size as it was ten years ago when we started work on the Lord speaker's committee. The Prime Minister of the day continues to determine the total number of appointments and their allocation by party. New peers are being appointed in May that could see them being members of this House for 40 years. Even with a retirement age of 80, no one outside Westminster can begin to understand how these arrangements make sense for a legislative chamber.
I understand the complexity of the of the issue, but I am disappointed the successive Prime Ministers have shown little interest in reform of these elements of our system. Instead, the government has a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions. They have said they will consult on proposals and rather cleverly today, Baroness May has taken on that job for them and brought forward with this commitment to a consultation in her bill. Personally, I remain committed to the proposals from the Lord speaker's committee and hope they will be considered, amongst other options, the requirement that the House should be more representative of the regions and nations could be added fairly simply.
I always feel the responsibility for meeting them should be placed upon each of the party groups and on Holac on its own, this doesn't require major reform, although when we looked at this, I was astonished to discover how difficult it is to determine where people come from. Is it where they were born? Is it where they now live? Is it where they were educated? Is it somewhere between all of those those areas? But it doesn't require a major reform. It doesn't seem to me on its own to be an argument for fundamental reform compared to some of the other issues that we have discussed in any consultation with the public about reform, despite what Lord Blunkett said about his interaction with with students, I'm confident that the most popular option would be some form of appointment by election.
There might be debate about the details, but my reading of public opinion is that it clearly favours the legitimacy of election based appointments. Under the terms of the manifesto commitment and this bill, the government must publish a document setting out alternatives for consultation, and in my remaining remarks, I would like to suggest some factors that I hope the government will consider, if it ever does get round to setting out these alternatives first, in any consultation, I think it is hugely important that the government should be cautious about any change to the powers and purposes of this House.
Experience shows that the Commons is very wary that increased legitimacy for this House could undermine its own primacy. The safest approach is to accept that the present powers and purposes of this House are appropriate, and place emphasis on the experience and independence of members, and any consultation should clearly state that the primary role of the second chamber is legislative scrutiny and encouraging government to think again on certain issues. I noticed last week a earlier this week, a debate in the House of Lords in the House of Commons about House of Lords reform and this whole issue about the primacy of the House of Commons, of course, suffers from a number of the contributors.
My second point is that if elections for members are included, the system should be as different as possible from the common system. Therefore a second chamber. My view is that a proportional representation would be most suitable, and I say this in tribute to Baroness Smith. The recent Welsh Senate system offers such a model for a limited proportional representation system. It involves regional constituencies with multiple members, where voters choose between the parties and determine the number of seats each party wins, and these seats are then allocated by the parties from a closed list of candidates. Now, like Lord Blunkett, I am not a fan of closed lists, but essentially this seems to me to be a hybrid system of election and appointment, which may be suitable for this House.
The overall numbers would be determined by election rather than by the Prime Minister, but leaves the selection of individuals in the hands effectively of the parties. This would also address the government's concern about underrepresented regions and nations in the second chamber. The next question is whether separate elections for the two houses are necessary, or if they should be held together. I favour simultaneous elections for both houses, because I think it would be very difficult to generate much interest amongst the electorate to have separate elections for a chamber with relatively limited powers. The third major issue, which cropping up for me, is the mechanism for members leaving.
And in an elected system, of course, this would involve term lengths, and the straightforward approach would be to have the same term length as the Commons. During general election, all party members would leave and stand for re-election or retire. However, as the scrutiny roll emphasises, experienced options could also include longer terms for members of the second chamber. Members could serve for two parliaments, say, with half of the House standing for re-election at each general election. And a third option would be to serve for three parliaments, with one third of the House standing for re-election. The third option is, broadly speaking, my own choice and would, and this is no coincidence, over time deliver a result which is actually very close to the proposals of the Lords Speakers Committee for the political parties, but with a democratic element.
The fourth major issue was the role and handling of the crossbench members. I will leave the detail of this for another day, but noble Lords will not be surprised that. I hope that the members will remain a significant proportion of the House under any option, with appointments generally being made by policy, and I agree with the criticism of what has happened in recent years in the way that Prime Ministers have limited the role of holac and the number of appointments that they are allowed to make, and indeed have taken on the job of making appointments to the crossbenchers themselves.
Again, the focus of my conclusion on Lords reform over the past decade has been to make try to make the existing arrangements work more effectively, avoiding the relentless underlying increase in the size of the House. And I have not given up hope that we could see significant changes yet. However, if there is no change to the Prime Minister's power to make appointments and there are no term limits, it will become, it seems to me increasingly likely that more fundamental reform is going to take place.
10:47
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Labour)
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Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Labour)
My Lords, it's a pleasure to follow the very thoughtful contribution of the noble Lord, contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I commend the noble Lady, Baroness Smith, for bringing forward this private member's bill. I should say that I am the first to acknowledge that governments are. More to the point, the public face challenges which may feel a good deal more pressing than constitutional reform, not least the cost of living. But it would be wrong to assume that there is no popular interest in our constitutional arrangements. On the contrary, people hold clear views on Lords reform, and it's fair to say that the majority believe there is some room for improvement.
The gap between how the public perceives this House and how the House sometimes regards itself is striking. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows staunch support for change. Labour's manifesto reflected this imperative. It set out commitments first for incremental reforms, including the removal of seats for hereditary peers and mandatory retirement age participation requirements, and ways to make it quicker and easier to remove disgraced peers. The public believes that such changes are long overdue, but progress still feels painfully slow. Labour's manifesto reflected mainstream public opinion when it asserted that the right to inherit a seat in the Lords was, I quote, indefensible.
Yet we spent many, many long, late hours in this place, while some tried to do just that. Labour's manifesto also committed to substantive reform. It commits to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions, and to consult the public on proposals. This is not about changing this House's core function. A reformed second chamber would continue to play its vital role in scrutinising the government and improving the quality of legislation. Nor is it about undermining the primacy of the House of Commons. However, to protect that primacy, it does not automatically follow that this House should remain wholly unelected.
Rather, in my view, we need to ask the question why the UK is alone in in having the only second chamber in Europe that has no part democratically elected, whether directly or indirectly, opinion polls show strong opposition across the board to a House of Lords selected primarily through patronage. There is roughly equal support in the polls. I've seen for some form of elected membership and the appointment of members who are genuinely independent. And of course, it is perfectly possible to design a system that provides for both. In his first major speech on the workings of the House of Lords in July, the Lord speaker, Lord Forsyth, counselled caution, saying that Labour's case for substantive reform should be considered carefully.
That is good advice, but the Lord speaker went on to warn that rewiring the system risked blowing a constitutional fuse. However, as any decent fire officer will tell you, the consequences of not upgrading an ageing, outdated system are far more serious than just blowing a fuse. In fact, that is true for the Lords, both both metaphorically and quite literally. This week I attended the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, where we heard the long view from Professor Alvin Jackson of Christ's College, Cambridge. Drawing on examples from across Europe, he presented a historical analysis of why some union states endure while others fall apart.
Key factors include whether there is a willingness to engage with modernisation and constitutional reform, whether bigger partners are ready and generous enough to share power across the union, whether there are sustained efforts to build a shared vision and identity that can bind diverse populations together and critically, whether institutions are fit for purpose. To support that shared endeavour. Now, no doubt there are different views on the future of the union, and there are different views about whether Gordon Brown's specific proposal to replace the Lords with the Senate is the right one, but Labour is committed to better representation of the nations and regions.
And if I could just add, perhaps we could take the opportunity to consult on how to deliver much fairer representation of women and black and ethnic minority communities to. This bill proposes a framework and timetable for consultation, including with devolved governments, constitutional experts and potentially through citizens assemblies. Of course, not all expertise, wisdom and practical experience resides in this place, and it would be quite wrong for an unelected peers to mark our own homework or effectively wield a veto. It is not the job of the Lords to obstruct, delay or dodge its own reform. We cannot be sure what conclusions the proposed consultation would reach, but we do know that the public wants parliamentary institutions that better represent their interests and that are more accountable to them, because at the heart of this debate is the need to rebuild trust in democracy, the definition of democracy is that authority rests with the people.
So it is high time to ask the British public how
**** Possible New Speaker ****
politics can best serve them. Yeah, my Lords, I'm delighted to follow the noble Lady, Baroness O'Grady. I and agree very much with most of the points she made. I'm most of the points she made. I'm very grateful to her for her forthright views. I am also grateful to Lord Blunkett, Bourne, Scriven and Burns for their constructive contribution and look
The gap between how the public perceives this House and how the House sometimes regards itself is striking. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows staunch support for change. Labour's manifesto reflected this imperative. It set out commitments first for incremental reforms, including the removal of seats for hereditary peers and mandatory retirement age participation requirements, and ways to make it quicker and easier to remove disgraced peers. The public believes that such changes are long overdue, but progress still feels painfully slow. Labour's manifesto reflected mainstream public opinion when it asserted that the right to inherit a seat in the Lords was, I quote, indefensible.
Yet we spent many, many long, late hours in this place, while some tried to do just that. Labour's manifesto also committed to substantive reform. It commits to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions, and to consult the public on proposals. This is not about changing this House's core function. A reformed second chamber would continue to play its vital role in scrutinising the government and improving the quality of legislation. Nor is it about undermining the primacy of the House of Commons. However, to protect that primacy, it does not automatically follow that this House should remain wholly unelected.
Rather, in my view, we need to ask the question why the UK is alone in in having the only second chamber in Europe that has no part democratically elected, whether directly or indirectly, opinion polls show strong opposition across the board to a House of Lords selected primarily through patronage. There is roughly equal support in the polls. I've seen for some form of elected membership and the appointment of members who are genuinely independent. And of course, it is perfectly possible to design a system that provides for both. In his first major speech on the workings of the House of Lords in July, the Lord speaker, Lord Forsyth, counselled caution, saying that Labour's case for substantive reform should be considered carefully.
That is good advice, but the Lord speaker went on to warn that rewiring the system risked blowing a constitutional fuse. However, as any decent fire officer will tell you, the consequences of not upgrading an ageing, outdated system are far more serious than just blowing a fuse. In fact, that is true for the Lords, both both metaphorically and quite literally. This week I attended the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, where we heard the long view from Professor Alvin Jackson of Christ's College, Cambridge. Drawing on examples from across Europe, he presented a historical analysis of why some union states endure while others fall apart.
Key factors include whether there is a willingness to engage with modernisation and constitutional reform, whether bigger partners are ready and generous enough to share power across the union, whether there are sustained efforts to build a shared vision and identity that can bind diverse populations together and critically, whether institutions are fit for purpose. To support that shared endeavour. Now, no doubt there are different views on the future of the union, and there are different views about whether Gordon Brown's specific proposal to replace the Lords with the Senate is the right one, but Labour is committed to better representation of the nations and regions.
And if I could just add, perhaps we could take the opportunity to consult on how to deliver much fairer representation of women and black and ethnic minority communities to. This bill proposes a framework and timetable for consultation, including with devolved governments, constitutional experts and potentially through citizens assemblies. Of course, not all expertise, wisdom and practical experience resides in this place, and it would be quite wrong for an unelected peers to mark our own homework or effectively wield a veto. It is not the job of the Lords to obstruct, delay or dodge its own reform. We cannot be sure what conclusions the proposed consultation would reach, but we do know that the public wants parliamentary institutions that better represent their interests and that are more accountable to them, because at the heart of this debate is the need to rebuild trust in democracy, the definition of democracy is that authority rests with the people.
So it is high time to ask the British public how
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politics can best serve them. Yeah, my Lords, I'm delighted to follow the noble Lady, Baroness O'Grady. I and agree very much with most of the points she made. I'm most of the points she made. I'm very grateful to her for her forthright views. I am also grateful to Lord Blunkett, Bourne, Scriven and Burns for their constructive contribution and look
10:55
Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru)
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Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru)
forward to other colleagues addressing this House. My Lords, I'm glad to speak in support of this Bill and congratulate my colleague Baroness Smith of Llanfaes on her good fortune in coming out of the ballot for her choice of topic on which to introduce a bill, and on her excellent, truly excellent Second Reading speech this morning in proposing what some noble Lords may regard as a radical step, Baroness Miller has presented an opportunity for the chamber to consider a matter which should be of concern to all of us as Democrats. She has done so in a modest and reasonable manner, to which no one might take offence, and she has avoided being overtly party political.
So it probably remains for me to clarify some of my comrades views on these matters. Clearly, for those who believe that our second chamber is perfect beyond question, then this bill may not be one that appeals very much to them. But I suspect that in their hearts, an overwhelming majority of peers and of the general public accept that in a modern democracy, it is impossible to justify a chamber which is composed of members who have been chosen by the Prime Minister of the day, when they took their seats with a complete absence of geographic balance.
The fact that we have finally done away with the hereditary principle in no way validates the composition of this chamber. I know that the usual justification of the present system is that it brings to the legislative process individuals of great and wide ranging experience who would not put themselves forward for election, and I wholly accept that there are members here with immense experience in the world of academia, the law, science, industry, agriculture, the arts, armed forces, diplomacy, government, and much more. But my Lords, many of these highly respected cohorts of experts will admit, if pressed, that their expertise may indeed have been substantial at the height of their careers.
But that may have been a decade or 2 or 3 ago. It would not have passed unnoticed. That it is the youngest member of this House that has brought forward this bill today. There is also a geographic imbalance which must cause concern to those who believe that Westminster system of government should be acceptable to all parts of the United Kingdom. There aren't any comprehensive figures available for the geographic part Of the UK in which members of this chamber regard US home. But on limited data. The library's brief suggests that about half of all peers live in London and south east England, making it grossly geographically distorted.
And this brings me to the party political dimension. My party played is the governing party in Wales, the Senedd. Up until 2006, Clyde refused to nominate representatives for consideration to this chamber because of the non-democratic nature of the House of Lords, the party changed its mind when the Government of Wales Act 2006, in granting primary law making powers to the then National Assembly, wrote in a proviso that every single application for the use of those powers on devolved subjects such as education or housing, would have to be approved by order by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
In other words, the undemocratic second chamber at Westminster could veto the wishes of our democratically elected National Assembly on devolved matters which were solely and exclusively relating to Wales. We were told by the then Labour chief Whip that if we agree to nominate suitable people for the second chamber, we could expect to be allocated three members on that basis of assurance. The party offer a lot of heart searching, agreed to make nominations and held an internal party election in which three members, former council leader Janet Davies, an industrialist doctor. Gwilym and I myself were duly nominated.
We were led to believe that we would be ratified quickly and that the three of us would take our seats here. But lo and behold, by then there had been a change in Labour's leadership. Tony Blair had stepped down, Gordon Brown had replaced him, and no way was he going to appoint any nationalist to this chamber. He was, my Lords, as good as his word, and none of us were appointed. It was only after David Cameron became Prime Minister that I was offered a place here. My two colleagues were left in suspended animation. It was March 2024 before we were allowed a second member and Baroness Smith of Llanfaes was elected by Lord Camoys National Council to join me here.
So we now have a government in Wales with 44 members of our Senate elected last May, but I still denied reasonable representation in this chamber. Let me make it clear. Pride as a party, while its ultimate objective, is an independent Wales, which at that point would cease sending members to either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Clyde accepts that in the interim, Wales should have the strongest possible voice in any chamber whose decisions affect the wellbeing of the people of Wales. We believe that this chamber, while it has a legislative function over government portfolios relevant to Wales, should have a statutory number of seats from Wales, with members democratically elected from within Wales to occupy those seats.
And while we believe that Wales itself does not need a second chamber, small countries like New Zealand or Denmark do perfectly well with unicameral system, as do almost half the countries of the world. We accept that the workload at Westminster does indeed require two chambers of Parliament. However, we believe that they should both have democratic answerability. This chamber should be directly elected on a regional system of proportional representation. And while any part of the Government of Wales is undertaken at Westminster, Wales should have a full voice in both chambers. A reconstructed second chamber could still be seen as a revising chamber, albeit one with greater legitimacy, and the other place would still have primacy or an appropriate system of resolving conflict between the two chambers established, as happens in other bicameral parliaments.
That, my Lords, Lords, is where we stand, but we are totally prepared to participate here for as long as any public policy or legislation affecting Wales is decided here, and we would be, and we would take a positive stance towards the reconstruction reconstruction of the House of Lords into a democratic second chamber and play a constructive role ourselves in that legislative process. My Lords, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes has emphasised in moving the Second Reading of this bill that all she is doing is facilitating the Labour Government to fulfil their election commitment to replace the present chamber by, and I quote, an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions.
If Prime Minister Burnham takes steps to fulfil that election pledge, we will engage positively with him and his government in that process. My Lords, today's bill tries to secure a more democratic system of government at Westminster. The bill is modest but potentially far reaching in its consequences. As such, I congratulate Baroness Smith of Llanfaes on presenting it. I commend it to the House, and I urge my colleagues to give it a Second Reading today.
So it probably remains for me to clarify some of my comrades views on these matters. Clearly, for those who believe that our second chamber is perfect beyond question, then this bill may not be one that appeals very much to them. But I suspect that in their hearts, an overwhelming majority of peers and of the general public accept that in a modern democracy, it is impossible to justify a chamber which is composed of members who have been chosen by the Prime Minister of the day, when they took their seats with a complete absence of geographic balance.
The fact that we have finally done away with the hereditary principle in no way validates the composition of this chamber. I know that the usual justification of the present system is that it brings to the legislative process individuals of great and wide ranging experience who would not put themselves forward for election, and I wholly accept that there are members here with immense experience in the world of academia, the law, science, industry, agriculture, the arts, armed forces, diplomacy, government, and much more. But my Lords, many of these highly respected cohorts of experts will admit, if pressed, that their expertise may indeed have been substantial at the height of their careers.
But that may have been a decade or 2 or 3 ago. It would not have passed unnoticed. That it is the youngest member of this House that has brought forward this bill today. There is also a geographic imbalance which must cause concern to those who believe that Westminster system of government should be acceptable to all parts of the United Kingdom. There aren't any comprehensive figures available for the geographic part Of the UK in which members of this chamber regard US home. But on limited data. The library's brief suggests that about half of all peers live in London and south east England, making it grossly geographically distorted.
And this brings me to the party political dimension. My party played is the governing party in Wales, the Senedd. Up until 2006, Clyde refused to nominate representatives for consideration to this chamber because of the non-democratic nature of the House of Lords, the party changed its mind when the Government of Wales Act 2006, in granting primary law making powers to the then National Assembly, wrote in a proviso that every single application for the use of those powers on devolved subjects such as education or housing, would have to be approved by order by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
In other words, the undemocratic second chamber at Westminster could veto the wishes of our democratically elected National Assembly on devolved matters which were solely and exclusively relating to Wales. We were told by the then Labour chief Whip that if we agree to nominate suitable people for the second chamber, we could expect to be allocated three members on that basis of assurance. The party offer a lot of heart searching, agreed to make nominations and held an internal party election in which three members, former council leader Janet Davies, an industrialist doctor. Gwilym and I myself were duly nominated.
We were led to believe that we would be ratified quickly and that the three of us would take our seats here. But lo and behold, by then there had been a change in Labour's leadership. Tony Blair had stepped down, Gordon Brown had replaced him, and no way was he going to appoint any nationalist to this chamber. He was, my Lords, as good as his word, and none of us were appointed. It was only after David Cameron became Prime Minister that I was offered a place here. My two colleagues were left in suspended animation. It was March 2024 before we were allowed a second member and Baroness Smith of Llanfaes was elected by Lord Camoys National Council to join me here.
So we now have a government in Wales with 44 members of our Senate elected last May, but I still denied reasonable representation in this chamber. Let me make it clear. Pride as a party, while its ultimate objective, is an independent Wales, which at that point would cease sending members to either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Clyde accepts that in the interim, Wales should have the strongest possible voice in any chamber whose decisions affect the wellbeing of the people of Wales. We believe that this chamber, while it has a legislative function over government portfolios relevant to Wales, should have a statutory number of seats from Wales, with members democratically elected from within Wales to occupy those seats.
And while we believe that Wales itself does not need a second chamber, small countries like New Zealand or Denmark do perfectly well with unicameral system, as do almost half the countries of the world. We accept that the workload at Westminster does indeed require two chambers of Parliament. However, we believe that they should both have democratic answerability. This chamber should be directly elected on a regional system of proportional representation. And while any part of the Government of Wales is undertaken at Westminster, Wales should have a full voice in both chambers. A reconstructed second chamber could still be seen as a revising chamber, albeit one with greater legitimacy, and the other place would still have primacy or an appropriate system of resolving conflict between the two chambers established, as happens in other bicameral parliaments.
That, my Lords, Lords, is where we stand, but we are totally prepared to participate here for as long as any public policy or legislation affecting Wales is decided here, and we would be, and we would take a positive stance towards the reconstruction reconstruction of the House of Lords into a democratic second chamber and play a constructive role ourselves in that legislative process. My Lords, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes has emphasised in moving the Second Reading of this bill that all she is doing is facilitating the Labour Government to fulfil their election commitment to replace the present chamber by, and I quote, an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions.
If Prime Minister Burnham takes steps to fulfil that election pledge, we will engage positively with him and his government in that process. My Lords, today's bill tries to secure a more democratic system of government at Westminster. The bill is modest but potentially far reaching in its consequences. As such, I congratulate Baroness Smith of Llanfaes on presenting it. I commend it to the House, and I urge my colleagues to give it a Second Reading today.
11:03
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative)
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Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative)
Here. pleasure to follow the mellifluous contribution of Lord Wigley, although invariably we disagree.
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although invariably we disagree. I would like to begin by congratulating the noble Lady Smith of Clan Voice for bringing this bill forward. She is above all, consistent and principled. She came into this House pledging to work for the abolition of the House of Lords, and she's as good as her word, and it takes some principle to support something that is against your own financial fiduciary interests. So I commend her for that. But I have to say, I think this bill is a missed opportunity. It's a legislative vacuum because it really doesn't address the key issues in the half of our bicameral legislature.
We could be debating many other important issues for reform NHS, social care, the prison system, welfare, not constitutional reform. Notwithstanding the remarks of lady O'Grady, the Bill presupposes the idea that the answer, from the outset and the outset answer being abolition. And it gives powers to Ministers quite wide ranging, sweeping powers to set up a process with little detail or vision. One only has to look at clause two E and clause three A to see that, and as, as others have said, including the typically astute Lord Blunkett, we already have a people's assembly and it is called the House of Commons.
Yeah, we all know that the same old people would be mounting their hobby horses in this campaign. The Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society, the Fawcett Society, and of course, the Guardian. Exactly. The House of Lords is way down the list of voter salience and voter concerns. We've already experienced the unedifying chaos of piecemeal reform, the removal of the hereditary peers which would make a Central American banana republic blush as dozens of New Labour peers have been ennobled, whilst long standing experienced hereditary peers, mainly conservative, have been kicked out. In fact, sometimes I think there isn't a member of the constituency Labour Party in Islington or Camden who isn't a member of your Lordships' House.
This bill fails to address the case for meaningful incremental reform on attendance, on the abuse potential of leave of absence, on the role of the Lords spiritual. On improving the role of this House in. For instance, confirming a confirmation hearings for senior civil servants and quango leaders, the scrutiny and oversight of international agreements and treaties analogous with foreign jurisdictions and senates such as the United States. These are all areas which could be enhanced without producing the proper, predominant constitutional role of the elected House of Commons. This Bill is silent on powers, composition, on election method or relationship with the other place.
And I have to say, I think it's virtue signalling in legislative form. We only need to see the. Or look back to 2012 and Nick Clegg's proposals for a 15 year, one off, non-negotiable term in a de facto Senate. And this didn't work. There was no consensus, which is why it fell. And of course, the rest is history. My Lords, the public doesn't really care about this issue. There's no real definitive empirical evidence that this is a matter that the public are significantly concerned about, and it would be a bonfire and a race to the bottom.
Amongst the perennially angry and activist class, and an elected House of Senate of the regions will result in a house of compliant placemen from party lists, donors, careerists, cranks and the unemployable, and fewer on meretricious achievement, skills, knowledge and lived experience. And my Lords, the dirty secret is this the Commons will never allow the Lords to impinge on its authority via a competing mandate, even if the Lords aspired to be elected. And I speak as a sinner who's repenting, and I look at the bishops bench as I say, that someone who has had a pretty jaundiced view of the Lords as a member of Parliament, but genuinely now appreciates and understands its integral role of making the Commons better.
A Commons which fails to poorly and infrequently and inadequately to scrutinise drafted primary and secondary legislation. We only need to think. Earlier this week, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. Dozens of amendments were put forward and because of the guillotine they weren't considered and the other place did not have the time to do that. In this Parliament, the Lords has challenged the overmighty and arrogant executive, where the Commons has had to acquiesce on, say, Chagossians. The Employment Rights Bill under 16, social media ban and the Financial Services and Markets Bill 208 defeats in the period I.
I noticed that the whips will probably be wincing about this in the 2020 426 session, and my Lords, the alternative is a house of apparatchiks with. With some kind of a mandate which will set it at permanent war with the Commons and a recipe for gridlock and a constitutional impasse. Yes, we wouldn't invent the present chamber as it now is, but it works to meet its constitutional obligations. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the Blairite Settlement of 1999, the Peerages Act of 1958 all have acted to establish the proper and well understood conventions and constitutional proprieties.
And one only has to look at the superb work that was undertaken in the last two years. Only terminally ill adults. Bill, whatever your view on that, the Lords came into its own as the finest example of a proper scrutiny and oversight chamber in pointing out the very evident, egregious flaws in that bill. And we know what happened thereafter. My Lords, the Puritan zealots once abolished your Lordship house during the Cromwellian interregnum, but even they brought it back with Charles the Second, a legislature which was at the heart of the Glorious Revolution and the publication of the Bill of rights, the abolition of the slave trade, and more recently, the blocking of 42 day detention for Pre-charge terror suspects.
Such a body should not be slowly killed off by a consultation portal. People by angry misfits and anarchists in their parents bedroom. This bill could have been a catalyst for a really interesting and important national debate. Regrettably, it feels like a tick box exercise, hiding the blushes of an already overpowerful government
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and yet another of their broken manifesto promises. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my Lords, may
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, my Lords, may I add my own voice to the swelling pain of praise to the noble Lady, Baroness Smith of Clan Vice. A lot Baroness Smith of Clan Vice. A lot of peers on all sides have commended her for her courage. Which is true, but also very Which is true, but also very telling telling, because it presupposes that she knew that her bill would be unpopular here, which
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although invariably we disagree. I would like to begin by congratulating the noble Lady Smith of Clan Voice for bringing this bill forward. She is above all, consistent and principled. She came into this House pledging to work for the abolition of the House of Lords, and she's as good as her word, and it takes some principle to support something that is against your own financial fiduciary interests. So I commend her for that. But I have to say, I think this bill is a missed opportunity. It's a legislative vacuum because it really doesn't address the key issues in the half of our bicameral legislature.
We could be debating many other important issues for reform NHS, social care, the prison system, welfare, not constitutional reform. Notwithstanding the remarks of lady O'Grady, the Bill presupposes the idea that the answer, from the outset and the outset answer being abolition. And it gives powers to Ministers quite wide ranging, sweeping powers to set up a process with little detail or vision. One only has to look at clause two E and clause three A to see that, and as, as others have said, including the typically astute Lord Blunkett, we already have a people's assembly and it is called the House of Commons.
Yeah, we all know that the same old people would be mounting their hobby horses in this campaign. The Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society, the Fawcett Society, and of course, the Guardian. Exactly. The House of Lords is way down the list of voter salience and voter concerns. We've already experienced the unedifying chaos of piecemeal reform, the removal of the hereditary peers which would make a Central American banana republic blush as dozens of New Labour peers have been ennobled, whilst long standing experienced hereditary peers, mainly conservative, have been kicked out. In fact, sometimes I think there isn't a member of the constituency Labour Party in Islington or Camden who isn't a member of your Lordships' House.
This bill fails to address the case for meaningful incremental reform on attendance, on the abuse potential of leave of absence, on the role of the Lords spiritual. On improving the role of this House in. For instance, confirming a confirmation hearings for senior civil servants and quango leaders, the scrutiny and oversight of international agreements and treaties analogous with foreign jurisdictions and senates such as the United States. These are all areas which could be enhanced without producing the proper, predominant constitutional role of the elected House of Commons. This Bill is silent on powers, composition, on election method or relationship with the other place.
And I have to say, I think it's virtue signalling in legislative form. We only need to see the. Or look back to 2012 and Nick Clegg's proposals for a 15 year, one off, non-negotiable term in a de facto Senate. And this didn't work. There was no consensus, which is why it fell. And of course, the rest is history. My Lords, the public doesn't really care about this issue. There's no real definitive empirical evidence that this is a matter that the public are significantly concerned about, and it would be a bonfire and a race to the bottom.
Amongst the perennially angry and activist class, and an elected House of Senate of the regions will result in a house of compliant placemen from party lists, donors, careerists, cranks and the unemployable, and fewer on meretricious achievement, skills, knowledge and lived experience. And my Lords, the dirty secret is this the Commons will never allow the Lords to impinge on its authority via a competing mandate, even if the Lords aspired to be elected. And I speak as a sinner who's repenting, and I look at the bishops bench as I say, that someone who has had a pretty jaundiced view of the Lords as a member of Parliament, but genuinely now appreciates and understands its integral role of making the Commons better.
A Commons which fails to poorly and infrequently and inadequately to scrutinise drafted primary and secondary legislation. We only need to think. Earlier this week, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. Dozens of amendments were put forward and because of the guillotine they weren't considered and the other place did not have the time to do that. In this Parliament, the Lords has challenged the overmighty and arrogant executive, where the Commons has had to acquiesce on, say, Chagossians. The Employment Rights Bill under 16, social media ban and the Financial Services and Markets Bill 208 defeats in the period I.
I noticed that the whips will probably be wincing about this in the 2020 426 session, and my Lords, the alternative is a house of apparatchiks with. With some kind of a mandate which will set it at permanent war with the Commons and a recipe for gridlock and a constitutional impasse. Yes, we wouldn't invent the present chamber as it now is, but it works to meet its constitutional obligations. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the Blairite Settlement of 1999, the Peerages Act of 1958 all have acted to establish the proper and well understood conventions and constitutional proprieties.
And one only has to look at the superb work that was undertaken in the last two years. Only terminally ill adults. Bill, whatever your view on that, the Lords came into its own as the finest example of a proper scrutiny and oversight chamber in pointing out the very evident, egregious flaws in that bill. And we know what happened thereafter. My Lords, the Puritan zealots once abolished your Lordship house during the Cromwellian interregnum, but even they brought it back with Charles the Second, a legislature which was at the heart of the Glorious Revolution and the publication of the Bill of rights, the abolition of the slave trade, and more recently, the blocking of 42 day detention for Pre-charge terror suspects.
Such a body should not be slowly killed off by a consultation portal. People by angry misfits and anarchists in their parents bedroom. This bill could have been a catalyst for a really interesting and important national debate. Regrettably, it feels like a tick box exercise, hiding the blushes of an already overpowerful government
**** Possible New Speaker ****
and yet another of their broken manifesto promises. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my Lords, may
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my Lords, may I add my own voice to the swelling pain of praise to the noble Lady, Baroness Smith of Clan Vice. A lot Baroness Smith of Clan Vice. A lot of peers on all sides have commended her for her courage. Which is true, but also very Which is true, but also very telling telling, because it presupposes that she knew that her bill would be unpopular here, which
11:11
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-affiliated)
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Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-affiliated)
bill would be unpopular here, which indeed the debate has borne out. And yet it's worth reminding ourselves that almost all the political parties are in favour of changing the existing composition of the upper house. It's one of the paradoxes of our system that everyone is in favour of it on paper, and somehow it never becomes a proposal. I remember when I was still a conservative asking the then party leader, David Cameron, whether he would get around to his technical manifesto commitment to a different upper house. He said yes, that'll be a fourth term issue for us when he was still in opposition.
And I think that has been the approach of of all parties, and I understand it. I'm, you know, enough of a small C conservative to get the argument about if you don't need to change, you don't change. Nonetheless, I think it is based on shaky foundations. The the basic argument against reform of this place. We heard it very eloquently expressed just now by the noble Lord Lord Jackson of Peterborough. It was flagged up by the noble Lord Lord Blunkett is about the primacy of the House of Commons, and we're told that if there were any elected element in this House, that would be intolerable, and it would create constitutional gridlock.
Well, the noble Lady, Baroness O'Grady, points out that every other country in Europe has an elected element in its upper chamber, and that does not lead to constant constitutional gridlock, other than partly in Belgium, where I live for a bit, but in other places it works remarkably well because you can define the function of an upper house and you can let you can set out its powers and then consider its composition. Form follows function. And so it is perfectly possible that you could set out for this house to have strong powers of delay and block and veto, but weak powers, for example, of initiation and whatever it was you then decided on, you could then draw up a plan for composition accordingly.
I have to say, on the form follows function basis that it is of all the systems we could have one where the executive appoints one of the two legislative chambers seems to me the weakest. I'm not going to get into what kind of alternatives there are. There are. We've heard loads of them. You could have a single long, non-renewable term. You could have it elected through a different voting system. You could have the kind of Bundesrat or regional system that Gordon Brown's proposal was getting towards. You can have it chosen by lot like a jury.
Almost any of them would be better than having the executive appointing half of the legislature. And I think it's worth just reminding ourselves of what these parliaments are for. If you look between the windows up there, you see these rather hunky medieval figures in chainmail. They represent the bishops and Barons who forced King John to agree to the Great Charter. And I think they are put there for a reason. And that reason is to remind us of the primary purpose of this chamber, which is not to legislate. It's not to sit on committees, it's not to make speeches.
It's not even to represent people. It is to prevent the executive from exceeding its powers, the kind of conciliar government form of government, of bishops and Barons that we started having in this country from 1215 onwards was primarily about ensuring that even the king had to obey the law like everybody else. We are here. Everything else is secondary. Everything else is a nice bonus. We are here to stop the government breaking the rules or exceeding its powers. And therefore you'd have to say, is there any stranger way of composing the the upper House than allowing that government to nominate its members?
Now, of course, I realise it's going to be unpopular here because we're all beneficiaries of that system. I am, and all of you are. Nonetheless, would anyone from first principles try to argue that system? Now? I'm sure people are bursting to tell me that if we went down the road of defining the functions of this house, then we'd be opening the door to a written constitution and that all of these other chambers that Baroness O'Grady alluded to do indeed have some kind of Supreme Court and some kind of division of powers laid out on paper.
Well, as we were reminded by Lord Anderson of Ipswich at the very end of the debate yesterday, we have been talking about whether there should be some codification of our Constitution for at least 400 years in this country. Nice to see the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft, who was responding at the very end yesterday and back in her place so early this morning. It's a very old debate. So I think there are actually a number of anomalies that have crept in, of which this chamber is not the foremost. There are there are real questions over how the devolution settlement is working.
I think if we if we'd seen if we'd been able to foresee where we are now in 1998, I wonder whether we'd have done it in the way we have. I think there are real issues about the way our voting system, designed and extremely effective when there were two parties, is creaking under the weight of effectively a five party system. I think there are issues above all about the growth of judicial review and the power of the Supreme Court that I do not think were ever foreseen at the time. I think there is a case for looking at all of these things in the round, through the tried and tested form of a royal commission.
I don't want to anticipate where it would go. All I'm saying is that it is not viable anymore to say that there should be no change, no reform. Perhaps the greatest statement of Toryism spoken in Parliament was from the second Viscount Falkland, when he said famously that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. It's often forgotten that he was actually talking about the composition of Parliament, specifically about whether bishops should sit in the House of Lords, of course. Very inspiring, very inspiring, Conservative and Tory sentiment. But it led to ruin.
It was followed by a civil war and then a military dictatorship. I prefer Edmund Burke's approach when he said that a state without the means of some
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change is a state without the means of its own conservation. Yeah. Very good. Thank you very much.
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much. My Lords. It's a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. Although whether the noble Lord would say whether the noble Lord would say the same about me, if our positions in the list had been reversed, I in the list had been reversed, I cannot say. I'm also sorry to say cannot say. I'm also sorry to say that I wasn't in the chamber when the noble Lady first introduced her bill, and I congratulate her on it being her first. As it happened, I double checked the date this. The 3rd of June was the day that I returned to the house after a few days absence.
I suppose after five years serving in your Lordships House in many capacities, including as a Deputy Speaker, I suppose I'd pass the audition, but I was sorry to learn from the library briefing that some noble Lords apparently indicated that they didn't want it even to receive a first reading, and the House will know that that's against the spirit and the custom and practice of this House, not to mention what is set out in the companion. And just because I do not agree with every aspect of this bill, I nevertheless hope it gets its Second Reading and is
And I think that has been the approach of of all parties, and I understand it. I'm, you know, enough of a small C conservative to get the argument about if you don't need to change, you don't change. Nonetheless, I think it is based on shaky foundations. The the basic argument against reform of this place. We heard it very eloquently expressed just now by the noble Lord Lord Jackson of Peterborough. It was flagged up by the noble Lord Lord Blunkett is about the primacy of the House of Commons, and we're told that if there were any elected element in this House, that would be intolerable, and it would create constitutional gridlock.
Well, the noble Lady, Baroness O'Grady, points out that every other country in Europe has an elected element in its upper chamber, and that does not lead to constant constitutional gridlock, other than partly in Belgium, where I live for a bit, but in other places it works remarkably well because you can define the function of an upper house and you can let you can set out its powers and then consider its composition. Form follows function. And so it is perfectly possible that you could set out for this house to have strong powers of delay and block and veto, but weak powers, for example, of initiation and whatever it was you then decided on, you could then draw up a plan for composition accordingly.
I have to say, on the form follows function basis that it is of all the systems we could have one where the executive appoints one of the two legislative chambers seems to me the weakest. I'm not going to get into what kind of alternatives there are. There are. We've heard loads of them. You could have a single long, non-renewable term. You could have it elected through a different voting system. You could have the kind of Bundesrat or regional system that Gordon Brown's proposal was getting towards. You can have it chosen by lot like a jury.
Almost any of them would be better than having the executive appointing half of the legislature. And I think it's worth just reminding ourselves of what these parliaments are for. If you look between the windows up there, you see these rather hunky medieval figures in chainmail. They represent the bishops and Barons who forced King John to agree to the Great Charter. And I think they are put there for a reason. And that reason is to remind us of the primary purpose of this chamber, which is not to legislate. It's not to sit on committees, it's not to make speeches.
It's not even to represent people. It is to prevent the executive from exceeding its powers, the kind of conciliar government form of government, of bishops and Barons that we started having in this country from 1215 onwards was primarily about ensuring that even the king had to obey the law like everybody else. We are here. Everything else is secondary. Everything else is a nice bonus. We are here to stop the government breaking the rules or exceeding its powers. And therefore you'd have to say, is there any stranger way of composing the the upper House than allowing that government to nominate its members?
Now, of course, I realise it's going to be unpopular here because we're all beneficiaries of that system. I am, and all of you are. Nonetheless, would anyone from first principles try to argue that system? Now? I'm sure people are bursting to tell me that if we went down the road of defining the functions of this house, then we'd be opening the door to a written constitution and that all of these other chambers that Baroness O'Grady alluded to do indeed have some kind of Supreme Court and some kind of division of powers laid out on paper.
Well, as we were reminded by Lord Anderson of Ipswich at the very end of the debate yesterday, we have been talking about whether there should be some codification of our Constitution for at least 400 years in this country. Nice to see the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft, who was responding at the very end yesterday and back in her place so early this morning. It's a very old debate. So I think there are actually a number of anomalies that have crept in, of which this chamber is not the foremost. There are there are real questions over how the devolution settlement is working.
I think if we if we'd seen if we'd been able to foresee where we are now in 1998, I wonder whether we'd have done it in the way we have. I think there are real issues about the way our voting system, designed and extremely effective when there were two parties, is creaking under the weight of effectively a five party system. I think there are issues above all about the growth of judicial review and the power of the Supreme Court that I do not think were ever foreseen at the time. I think there is a case for looking at all of these things in the round, through the tried and tested form of a royal commission.
I don't want to anticipate where it would go. All I'm saying is that it is not viable anymore to say that there should be no change, no reform. Perhaps the greatest statement of Toryism spoken in Parliament was from the second Viscount Falkland, when he said famously that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. It's often forgotten that he was actually talking about the composition of Parliament, specifically about whether bishops should sit in the House of Lords, of course. Very inspiring, very inspiring, Conservative and Tory sentiment. But it led to ruin.
It was followed by a civil war and then a military dictatorship. I prefer Edmund Burke's approach when he said that a state without the means of some
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change is a state without the means of its own conservation. Yeah. Very good. Thank you very much.
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much. My Lords. It's a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. Although whether the noble Lord would say whether the noble Lord would say the same about me, if our positions in the list had been reversed, I in the list had been reversed, I cannot say. I'm also sorry to say cannot say. I'm also sorry to say that I wasn't in the chamber when the noble Lady first introduced her bill, and I congratulate her on it being her first. As it happened, I double checked the date this. The 3rd of June was the day that I returned to the house after a few days absence.
I suppose after five years serving in your Lordships House in many capacities, including as a Deputy Speaker, I suppose I'd pass the audition, but I was sorry to learn from the library briefing that some noble Lords apparently indicated that they didn't want it even to receive a first reading, and the House will know that that's against the spirit and the custom and practice of this House, not to mention what is set out in the companion. And just because I do not agree with every aspect of this bill, I nevertheless hope it gets its Second Reading and is
11:18
Viscount Stansgate (Labour)
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Viscount Stansgate (Labour)
considered further in committee. And I'm very grateful to the noble Lady Baroness Smith of Llanfaes. And my apologies if the pronunciation is wrong for having brought it forward. We should not be afraid to discuss the future of be afraid to discuss the future of this chamber and the possible alternatives that lie before us. Now, this bill advocates a consultation. Incidentally, I notice I think it's in clause one, section three B, that provision section three B, that provision should be made for contributions from members of the public to appear on a website and after the news this week of the corruption of the NTP software that governs so many websites around the world, it's just a reminder that you cannot always take websites for granted anyway.
I'm for one. I'm grateful for the chance she gives the house today to talk about the future. And of course, this is the second Constitution related debate in two days. A point already made, the other being the debate yesterday initiated by the Lord Anderson of Ipswich. So this House has had the luxury of considering the constitution of this country twice in a week. Now, the first point I would like to make is to argue the need for the second chamber of whatever kind. I do not think that a unicameral legislature would be a step forward, given our political history as a country, nor would it represent a democratic step forward.
I am in favour of a bicameral legislature, despite the criticisms which the noble Baroness have made of the chamber as presently constituted. And whatever the demerits of our House, I think it is far preferable that we are here than that we are not, or far preferable that something is here as a second chamber, rather than not. One reason I have for saying this is that our current two House Parliament is so at the moment, struggling to do its job of scrutinising legislation as it is now, I pay tribute to the work of members of the other place.
They work hard, they're dedicated to their constituents and they have enormous pressures upon them, not least in this social media age. But it is also true, partly as a result, that they are failing properly to scrutinise legislation with results that we can see here. Noble Lords might have been present on the recent evenings when my noble friend Lord Rooker, has moved a motion on the committal stage of public bills, I mean government bills. He has argued that because he wants to draw the attention of the House to the extent to which some bills have had negligible scrutiny in another place, i.e.
the House of Commons, and as a result, this House has an even greater job of work to do, and the Commons may have the mistaken impression that we're making their lives harder by returning bills to their chamber, with so many amendments when it is in fact the reverse. Now, my noble friend has made some good points. Government of all kinds, and I do not mean just the current one. Have found it convenient and expedient to use the House as a way of inserting sometimes substantial amendments to its own legislation, and during this debate, my noble friend Lord Blunkett, the noble Lord Lord Burns, have alluded to this very point, and the essence of this bill is to consult stakeholders on the replacement of the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber.
Now, my Lords, when it comes to possible alternatives to this House, as has been said already, there are no shortage of possible suggestions. The form of your Lordships' House was an issue that first arose after the rejection of Lloyd George's budget in 1909. Indeed, for many years and maybe still at Labour Party conferences, you could pick up postcards that from that era, depicting a battering ram against the doors of the House of Lords, designed to foster support for the abolition of this House, and proposals for reform has arisen since. I almost hesitate to draw your Lordships attention to some of them, but perhaps I may refer to a Fabian pamphlet published in 1957, nearly 70 years ago, entitled The Privy Council as a second chamber by the then Member of Parliament for Bristol South East.
It argued that because the Privy Council membership relied heavily on public service and political appointments, rather than the then existing series system of inherited peerages, shifting second chamber duties to the Privy Council would eliminate almost all hereditary peers while retaining experienced public servants. Now, such an approach did not find favour at the time, although I think in constitutional terminology, I believe I'm right in saying that the Cabinet remains, in formal terms a committee of the Privy Council now in the late 1960s, further reform proposals for the second chamber were defeated by what was then called an alliance, or an unholy alliance between Michael Foot and Enoch Powell.
There was a House of Lords Act of 1999 which took the first decisive step towards removing hereditary peers and the House of Lords hereditary Peers Act earlier this year completed their removal. But meanwhile, further reform of the House itself arose in the coalition government of 2010, and the detailed proposals put forward for reform, including different options about the proportion of the second chamber that might be elected. They were debated and considered at length, but in the end no single option found favour and the proposed reforms lapsed. Now, one lesson that can be learned, which some of us explained when we take part in the excellent activities of the learned with the Lords programme, is that debates about an alternative second chamber have been going on for so long, and I'm afraid they will continue to do so.
One problem that will never go away is how do you reconcile the differences between an elected House of Commons and a more legitimate alternative chamber, and possibly elected House of Lords? Now the Bill is silent on that matter. And yet that question lies at the very heart of any case for any alternative second chamber. And if you want to know why this is such an important issue, you only have to look at some countries, such as the United States and the difficulties that arise when two chambers on Capitol Hill disagree with each other. We will have to wait and see if that reappears.
Now, I know this bill is only what you might call a paving bill to consult on possible future alternatives. I am, however, struck by the fact that while Ministers in all the devolved bodies are to be consulted under the terms of the Bill, unless I've got this wrong, it doesn't extend to the actual parliaments and assemblies themselves. And perhaps the noble Lady when she comes to wind up, might just tell the House why it was that the consultation was only for Ministers rather than the actual assemblies. But all the same would be unrealistic to debate this bill in committee without considering the crucial issue of how differences would be reconciled between the two houses.
Now, I would just briefly, I don't want to go anywhere near the time limit, but I'd like to take the opportunity to insert in this debate some of the ideas that are being discussed among noble Lords about ways in which the House might be reformed, which would not need legislation to take effect. These arise from the work of the campaign for an effective second chamber, so ably led by my noble friend Baroness Hayter, who's left her place in the noble Lord Lord Norton of Louth, and indeed one of the regular members. Lord Burns has already addressed us.
These are changes we could make that would require not legislation, but only debate an agreement by this House for this House to put it into effect. In what ways could we act to make us more effective? I'll just take an example. One suggestion that arose yesterday was that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be put on a statutory basis. Now. The noble Lord Lord Kakkar, speaking yesterday, who chaired it in the past, said he was nervous of such a proposal because it might trigger judicial review as to the basis upon which peers were appointed.
Well, of course this is a major problem with the House as it is and its size, and we have no control over the powers of the Prime Minister to create peerages. Indeed, no one has any control over that. However, there are some other ways in which we could reform, and perhaps I'd better curtail the examples I was going to give. I mean, we could indeed establish a mechanism to identify and assist those members for whom retirement might be appropriate using the 2014 act. And we are, of course, officially awaiting proposals from the government for the removal of peerages, which is a separate issue and hasn't been done by Parliament since 1917.
We could improve the way we scrutinise bills. I'm in favour of not just of more pre-legislative scrutiny, but more post-legislative scrutiny, which would be a very good thing, very detailed, rather technical amendments that could be made. We could tighten the rules on what we call de grouping, which occasionally has been used as a tactic to prolong debate. And there are a range of other things. But I think in view of the time, I will pass over the next 6 or 7 wonderful pages of my notes. And in conclusion, I entirely appreciate that the noble Baroness Smith wants to use this bill to trigger a debate about alternatives, and the Prime Minister himself has already indicated he would like to embed the concept of devolution more strongly in our Constitution.
And it may be that proposals to this effect will be brought forward in time will tell, but the House should not be afraid of this. Bill and I, for one, look forward to the Committee stage of this bill, and I very much hope the House will give it a Second Reading.
I'm for one. I'm grateful for the chance she gives the house today to talk about the future. And of course, this is the second Constitution related debate in two days. A point already made, the other being the debate yesterday initiated by the Lord Anderson of Ipswich. So this House has had the luxury of considering the constitution of this country twice in a week. Now, the first point I would like to make is to argue the need for the second chamber of whatever kind. I do not think that a unicameral legislature would be a step forward, given our political history as a country, nor would it represent a democratic step forward.
I am in favour of a bicameral legislature, despite the criticisms which the noble Baroness have made of the chamber as presently constituted. And whatever the demerits of our House, I think it is far preferable that we are here than that we are not, or far preferable that something is here as a second chamber, rather than not. One reason I have for saying this is that our current two House Parliament is so at the moment, struggling to do its job of scrutinising legislation as it is now, I pay tribute to the work of members of the other place.
They work hard, they're dedicated to their constituents and they have enormous pressures upon them, not least in this social media age. But it is also true, partly as a result, that they are failing properly to scrutinise legislation with results that we can see here. Noble Lords might have been present on the recent evenings when my noble friend Lord Rooker, has moved a motion on the committal stage of public bills, I mean government bills. He has argued that because he wants to draw the attention of the House to the extent to which some bills have had negligible scrutiny in another place, i.e.
the House of Commons, and as a result, this House has an even greater job of work to do, and the Commons may have the mistaken impression that we're making their lives harder by returning bills to their chamber, with so many amendments when it is in fact the reverse. Now, my noble friend has made some good points. Government of all kinds, and I do not mean just the current one. Have found it convenient and expedient to use the House as a way of inserting sometimes substantial amendments to its own legislation, and during this debate, my noble friend Lord Blunkett, the noble Lord Lord Burns, have alluded to this very point, and the essence of this bill is to consult stakeholders on the replacement of the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber.
Now, my Lords, when it comes to possible alternatives to this House, as has been said already, there are no shortage of possible suggestions. The form of your Lordships' House was an issue that first arose after the rejection of Lloyd George's budget in 1909. Indeed, for many years and maybe still at Labour Party conferences, you could pick up postcards that from that era, depicting a battering ram against the doors of the House of Lords, designed to foster support for the abolition of this House, and proposals for reform has arisen since. I almost hesitate to draw your Lordships attention to some of them, but perhaps I may refer to a Fabian pamphlet published in 1957, nearly 70 years ago, entitled The Privy Council as a second chamber by the then Member of Parliament for Bristol South East.
It argued that because the Privy Council membership relied heavily on public service and political appointments, rather than the then existing series system of inherited peerages, shifting second chamber duties to the Privy Council would eliminate almost all hereditary peers while retaining experienced public servants. Now, such an approach did not find favour at the time, although I think in constitutional terminology, I believe I'm right in saying that the Cabinet remains, in formal terms a committee of the Privy Council now in the late 1960s, further reform proposals for the second chamber were defeated by what was then called an alliance, or an unholy alliance between Michael Foot and Enoch Powell.
There was a House of Lords Act of 1999 which took the first decisive step towards removing hereditary peers and the House of Lords hereditary Peers Act earlier this year completed their removal. But meanwhile, further reform of the House itself arose in the coalition government of 2010, and the detailed proposals put forward for reform, including different options about the proportion of the second chamber that might be elected. They were debated and considered at length, but in the end no single option found favour and the proposed reforms lapsed. Now, one lesson that can be learned, which some of us explained when we take part in the excellent activities of the learned with the Lords programme, is that debates about an alternative second chamber have been going on for so long, and I'm afraid they will continue to do so.
One problem that will never go away is how do you reconcile the differences between an elected House of Commons and a more legitimate alternative chamber, and possibly elected House of Lords? Now the Bill is silent on that matter. And yet that question lies at the very heart of any case for any alternative second chamber. And if you want to know why this is such an important issue, you only have to look at some countries, such as the United States and the difficulties that arise when two chambers on Capitol Hill disagree with each other. We will have to wait and see if that reappears.
Now, I know this bill is only what you might call a paving bill to consult on possible future alternatives. I am, however, struck by the fact that while Ministers in all the devolved bodies are to be consulted under the terms of the Bill, unless I've got this wrong, it doesn't extend to the actual parliaments and assemblies themselves. And perhaps the noble Lady when she comes to wind up, might just tell the House why it was that the consultation was only for Ministers rather than the actual assemblies. But all the same would be unrealistic to debate this bill in committee without considering the crucial issue of how differences would be reconciled between the two houses.
Now, I would just briefly, I don't want to go anywhere near the time limit, but I'd like to take the opportunity to insert in this debate some of the ideas that are being discussed among noble Lords about ways in which the House might be reformed, which would not need legislation to take effect. These arise from the work of the campaign for an effective second chamber, so ably led by my noble friend Baroness Hayter, who's left her place in the noble Lord Lord Norton of Louth, and indeed one of the regular members. Lord Burns has already addressed us.
These are changes we could make that would require not legislation, but only debate an agreement by this House for this House to put it into effect. In what ways could we act to make us more effective? I'll just take an example. One suggestion that arose yesterday was that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be put on a statutory basis. Now. The noble Lord Lord Kakkar, speaking yesterday, who chaired it in the past, said he was nervous of such a proposal because it might trigger judicial review as to the basis upon which peers were appointed.
Well, of course this is a major problem with the House as it is and its size, and we have no control over the powers of the Prime Minister to create peerages. Indeed, no one has any control over that. However, there are some other ways in which we could reform, and perhaps I'd better curtail the examples I was going to give. I mean, we could indeed establish a mechanism to identify and assist those members for whom retirement might be appropriate using the 2014 act. And we are, of course, officially awaiting proposals from the government for the removal of peerages, which is a separate issue and hasn't been done by Parliament since 1917.
We could improve the way we scrutinise bills. I'm in favour of not just of more pre-legislative scrutiny, but more post-legislative scrutiny, which would be a very good thing, very detailed, rather technical amendments that could be made. We could tighten the rules on what we call de grouping, which occasionally has been used as a tactic to prolong debate. And there are a range of other things. But I think in view of the time, I will pass over the next 6 or 7 wonderful pages of my notes. And in conclusion, I entirely appreciate that the noble Baroness Smith wants to use this bill to trigger a debate about alternatives, and the Prime Minister himself has already indicated he would like to embed the concept of devolution more strongly in our Constitution.
And it may be that proposals to this effect will be brought forward in time will tell, but the House should not be afraid of this. Bill and I, for one, look forward to the Committee stage of this bill, and I very much hope the House will give it a Second Reading.
11:28
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (Crossbench)
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Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (Crossbench)
It is. >> A great pleasure to follow Viscount Stansgate and to express my entire agreement with him that we have to take this bill forward. we have to take this bill forward. But first, may I add to what everyone has already said so I can everyone has already said so I can be brief to the excellent way in which Baroness Smith of Llanfaes introduced the bill and the ingenuity of the approach that has been taken. I have, therefore, because it's a very narrow bill, only eight points I want to raise and don't say it's a lawyer speaking.
They're bound to be long. And the first point are lawyers. Point the bill. As Lord Sherbourne of Aberystwyth ably pointed out, is a bill for the replacement. Should we therefore consider that the consultation should include reform? There was a debate about the difference between replacement and reform when, in 2003, the then government announced their. Desire to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, they found that too difficult and thought reform was better. So I very much hope that we will look on this as a bill about both a completely different alternative, but also reform. And when this bill comes to its Second Reading and to its Committee stage, and I very much agree with Viscount Stansgate, it will need one.
We must realise the dangers of using a manifesto term, which is replacement rather than a more elegant parliamentary term, which can enable a wider consultation and debate. Because a reform the House of Lords could actually very be very similar to a replaced second chamber. But it would get rid of the arguments that have been made as to the scope of the Bill. That is the only lawyers point I want to make. Secondly, I too, feel that the position that we are in is one of this House is untenable. We must remember what Western democracies face.
If you engage in debate across Europe or North America about the need to safeguard our democracies, we have to engage in that. And it seems to me that we can, by dealing with an untenable position in our democracy, demonstrate two things. One, we are resilient, and two, we have the will and the ability to bring about change. And by getting this debate underway, we will show and demonstrate that we are interested, and particularly to the younger generation, in showing that a democracy can, in a major respect, reform itself. Thirdly, that's the argument of self-interest, as was demonstrated with the way in which we managed to fail to deal with hereditary peers.
If we don't do something, someone will do it for us, which we won't like. Fourth, I have an enormous respect for the view of Lord Blunkett. He is right. This would ordinarily be something one would expect a royal commission or some other commission to come up with, something that was broadly acceptable. We have failed for over a hundred years. Why don't we ask the people what they think, where experts have not been able to come up with a viable solution? Fifth thing, it does seem to me that, as appears from the very impressive paper produced by the library, that there are real practical difficulties.
Everyone knows Viscount Stansgate has spoken of the problems in trying to come up with a way of reform. So we do need the broadest possible input. There are real difficulties and there is always the prospect. If you consult widely, you might conclude that actually our present chamber is the least worst form of second chamber you can have. I hold that out as a hope to Lord Jackson of Peterborough in particular, because it may be on an examination that there is no better solution than we have. I'm sure that I think that won't be the case, but it's always possible.
But it's no excuse for denying a proper examination. And next. And sixthly the formal consultation. What is at stake is not us, not our generation, but the younger generation. And we must find a means of consultation which will get to them. I leave that to the experts. I know nothing about how you communicate effectively in that way, but I do believe when one speaks to the younger generation, at universities and at schools, they are interested. It is not. It is absurd to say that they don't care. We must make them care. They do care because the future of our democracy depends on it.
So I look forward to the ingenuity of those experts in this area as to how they can ensure there is proper consultation with the youth. And then there's a point which you might think odd coming from me. There is a manifesto commitment. It is very odd for a democracy that we actually don't take what is a very simple manifesto commitment, namely consultation, and take it forward. What faith can you have in a government that says it is going to do something which is which is vitally important to democracy but doesn't do it? So I think the bill ought to be taken forward for that reason.
And lastly, I have said absolutely nothing about the alternatives. There are many here more expert to be able to come up with those. I believe we should trust the people. Politicians always tell me that that's what we should do. Why don't we do so?
They're bound to be long. And the first point are lawyers. Point the bill. As Lord Sherbourne of Aberystwyth ably pointed out, is a bill for the replacement. Should we therefore consider that the consultation should include reform? There was a debate about the difference between replacement and reform when, in 2003, the then government announced their. Desire to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, they found that too difficult and thought reform was better. So I very much hope that we will look on this as a bill about both a completely different alternative, but also reform. And when this bill comes to its Second Reading and to its Committee stage, and I very much agree with Viscount Stansgate, it will need one.
We must realise the dangers of using a manifesto term, which is replacement rather than a more elegant parliamentary term, which can enable a wider consultation and debate. Because a reform the House of Lords could actually very be very similar to a replaced second chamber. But it would get rid of the arguments that have been made as to the scope of the Bill. That is the only lawyers point I want to make. Secondly, I too, feel that the position that we are in is one of this House is untenable. We must remember what Western democracies face.
If you engage in debate across Europe or North America about the need to safeguard our democracies, we have to engage in that. And it seems to me that we can, by dealing with an untenable position in our democracy, demonstrate two things. One, we are resilient, and two, we have the will and the ability to bring about change. And by getting this debate underway, we will show and demonstrate that we are interested, and particularly to the younger generation, in showing that a democracy can, in a major respect, reform itself. Thirdly, that's the argument of self-interest, as was demonstrated with the way in which we managed to fail to deal with hereditary peers.
If we don't do something, someone will do it for us, which we won't like. Fourth, I have an enormous respect for the view of Lord Blunkett. He is right. This would ordinarily be something one would expect a royal commission or some other commission to come up with, something that was broadly acceptable. We have failed for over a hundred years. Why don't we ask the people what they think, where experts have not been able to come up with a viable solution? Fifth thing, it does seem to me that, as appears from the very impressive paper produced by the library, that there are real practical difficulties.
Everyone knows Viscount Stansgate has spoken of the problems in trying to come up with a way of reform. So we do need the broadest possible input. There are real difficulties and there is always the prospect. If you consult widely, you might conclude that actually our present chamber is the least worst form of second chamber you can have. I hold that out as a hope to Lord Jackson of Peterborough in particular, because it may be on an examination that there is no better solution than we have. I'm sure that I think that won't be the case, but it's always possible.
But it's no excuse for denying a proper examination. And next. And sixthly the formal consultation. What is at stake is not us, not our generation, but the younger generation. And we must find a means of consultation which will get to them. I leave that to the experts. I know nothing about how you communicate effectively in that way, but I do believe when one speaks to the younger generation, at universities and at schools, they are interested. It is not. It is absurd to say that they don't care. We must make them care. They do care because the future of our democracy depends on it.
So I look forward to the ingenuity of those experts in this area as to how they can ensure there is proper consultation with the youth. And then there's a point which you might think odd coming from me. There is a manifesto commitment. It is very odd for a democracy that we actually don't take what is a very simple manifesto commitment, namely consultation, and take it forward. What faith can you have in a government that says it is going to do something which is which is vitally important to democracy but doesn't do it? So I think the bill ought to be taken forward for that reason.
And lastly, I have said absolutely nothing about the alternatives. There are many here more expert to be able to come up with those. I believe we should trust the people. Politicians always tell me that that's what we should do. Why don't we do so?
11:35
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour)
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Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour)
My Lords, I must start by >> My Lords, I must start by congratulating Baroness Miller not only on her good fortune in the private members ballot, but also because of the care that she has taken in framing this bill and taken in framing this bill and choosing very wisely the wording. And I think that I must express solidarity with her, not just because I, too, grew up on a council estate on the north of an industrial town. But because I actually agreed with many of the things that she said, not least about the bishops, but I think that's probably for another day.
One of the advantages in speaking late in the debate is that you can comment on what other people have said. One of the disadvantages is that much of it's already been said, so there's really no point in going over everything again. But I hope that Baroness Miller takes some satisfaction from the fact that most of the speakers, with the exception of the odd one, have actually been very supportive of the idea that she has put forward. And I think that that pays tribute to the fact that she did not come up with a simple solution.
She did not come up with the answer to the question. She simply raised it and took the wording from the Labour manifesto. My Lords, I think that the starting point should really be that we cannot defend the House of Lords in its present form by any constitutional principles. We are not put here on the basis of anything that could vaguely be called a democratic process. And that is our vulnerability. That is the great weakness. And although we can't defend the way in which we are put here, I think very often we do quite rightly say, but somehow this system works.
Somehow we are able to do the job that we are sent here to do in being a second chamber, being a revising chamber. This House is by no means perfect. Parliamentary systems are by no means perfect. There are many flaws. There are many changes that are needed. But we do, at least to a certain extent, we do have a functioning parliament, and I think that that is what we should bear in mind when we are looking to change in the future. Whatever changes we introduce, we have to have what changes which present, at the end of the day, a functioning parliament, because there is always the real danger of unintended consequences.
With all of the ideas that have been put forward. And now the noble Lady mentioned that she had had help from students and some students were here. She actually reminded me that when I was a student, I did write an essay at university about reform of the House of Lords. A few years ago. I still had it. I've moved house, so probably I don't. But I do recall that I suggested a regional structure with either indirect or direct elections, and that that would actually enhance the impact of the regions. And I still think that's one of the biggest problems we're facing in this House.
And I still believe that there is some scope there. There are challenges, and there are still going to be unresolved issues. But I don't think we should dismiss that possibility totally out of hand. One of the problems is that we don't have the regional infrastructure to sustain that kind of approach at the moment. That's not to say that things couldn't be done in the future, but more important, the most important point is that if we are ever to give greater legitimacy, greater democratic legitimacy to a second chamber, then we have to consider how we that we may create a situation where we challenge the primacy of the House of Commons.
And that is the basic problem that is faced so often. Mention has been made that there have been lots of reviews, lots of commissions, lots of committees. People have come up with ideas and they do actually fall, not because of a lack of ideas, but because we need a comprehensive approach, which actually, at the end of the day produces a functioning parliament. And mention was made of dispute resolution procedures. And they do exist in different places. But our legal system is different as well. And mention has already been made, I think, by Lord Hannan, that he doesn't want the Supreme Court to get involved in all of this.
So all of these issues have to be taken extremely carefully. So I would say that we do need to look at the issues that have been raised by the noble Lady. But I do hope and I think Lord, born of Aberystwyth made this this point because while we're waiting for a big change, it doesn't mean that we ourselves shouldn't undertake significant changes. And perhaps I would say that because I did chair the Retirement and Participation Committee, and I do welcome the comments that were made there. There is a lot that Parliament can do to improve its workings.
There is a lot that this House can do to improve its working. We do have a consultation on the hours of sitting, which are significant, and sometimes even more significant for those members who don't live in London and who need to balance being in this House with other commitments. And I do have to say that I don't think that most members of the House realise the difficulties that Non-london members actually do face in this way. So I think that we should be looking at the changes, making legitimate changes to the other House as to how we can work together.
We do need to look at the need for more draft legislation. We do need to look at the need for more post-legislative scrutiny. I think one of the things we very much need to do is to look at the way we deal with Statutory Instruments, because many hours, many, many hours are spent looking at sources which are never changed. And actually, if we had a proper sifting system, we could have a much more efficient system which would benefit Ministers and benefit the House. So I would say good luck to Baroness May. I think we've got to be realistic about what can be achieved and the time scale.
And above all, we've got to make sure that what we end up with does
**** Possible New Speaker ****
provide proper accountability, and a properly functioning Parliament. Well done.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Well done. I thank your Lordships' House for allowing me to speak in the gap, and it's a pleasure to follow the and it's a pleasure to follow the noble Lady, Baroness Taylor, and to congratulate Baroness Smith, both on her Bill and on her powerful introductory speech, and to very much agree with the noble Lord Lord Wigley. What he said, as I represent another party severely underrepresented in your Lordships House. But I. This, as many have noted, this debate neatly follows on from yesterday's. Secured by Lord Anderson of Ipswich, on the question of a written constitution in which Lord Pack and I were isolated in speaking in favour.
I said then I would put on hold the debate about the Lords. But I start today by noting a kind of personal
One of the advantages in speaking late in the debate is that you can comment on what other people have said. One of the disadvantages is that much of it's already been said, so there's really no point in going over everything again. But I hope that Baroness Miller takes some satisfaction from the fact that most of the speakers, with the exception of the odd one, have actually been very supportive of the idea that she has put forward. And I think that that pays tribute to the fact that she did not come up with a simple solution.
She did not come up with the answer to the question. She simply raised it and took the wording from the Labour manifesto. My Lords, I think that the starting point should really be that we cannot defend the House of Lords in its present form by any constitutional principles. We are not put here on the basis of anything that could vaguely be called a democratic process. And that is our vulnerability. That is the great weakness. And although we can't defend the way in which we are put here, I think very often we do quite rightly say, but somehow this system works.
Somehow we are able to do the job that we are sent here to do in being a second chamber, being a revising chamber. This House is by no means perfect. Parliamentary systems are by no means perfect. There are many flaws. There are many changes that are needed. But we do, at least to a certain extent, we do have a functioning parliament, and I think that that is what we should bear in mind when we are looking to change in the future. Whatever changes we introduce, we have to have what changes which present, at the end of the day, a functioning parliament, because there is always the real danger of unintended consequences.
With all of the ideas that have been put forward. And now the noble Lady mentioned that she had had help from students and some students were here. She actually reminded me that when I was a student, I did write an essay at university about reform of the House of Lords. A few years ago. I still had it. I've moved house, so probably I don't. But I do recall that I suggested a regional structure with either indirect or direct elections, and that that would actually enhance the impact of the regions. And I still think that's one of the biggest problems we're facing in this House.
And I still believe that there is some scope there. There are challenges, and there are still going to be unresolved issues. But I don't think we should dismiss that possibility totally out of hand. One of the problems is that we don't have the regional infrastructure to sustain that kind of approach at the moment. That's not to say that things couldn't be done in the future, but more important, the most important point is that if we are ever to give greater legitimacy, greater democratic legitimacy to a second chamber, then we have to consider how we that we may create a situation where we challenge the primacy of the House of Commons.
And that is the basic problem that is faced so often. Mention has been made that there have been lots of reviews, lots of commissions, lots of committees. People have come up with ideas and they do actually fall, not because of a lack of ideas, but because we need a comprehensive approach, which actually, at the end of the day produces a functioning parliament. And mention was made of dispute resolution procedures. And they do exist in different places. But our legal system is different as well. And mention has already been made, I think, by Lord Hannan, that he doesn't want the Supreme Court to get involved in all of this.
So all of these issues have to be taken extremely carefully. So I would say that we do need to look at the issues that have been raised by the noble Lady. But I do hope and I think Lord, born of Aberystwyth made this this point because while we're waiting for a big change, it doesn't mean that we ourselves shouldn't undertake significant changes. And perhaps I would say that because I did chair the Retirement and Participation Committee, and I do welcome the comments that were made there. There is a lot that Parliament can do to improve its workings.
There is a lot that this House can do to improve its working. We do have a consultation on the hours of sitting, which are significant, and sometimes even more significant for those members who don't live in London and who need to balance being in this House with other commitments. And I do have to say that I don't think that most members of the House realise the difficulties that Non-london members actually do face in this way. So I think that we should be looking at the changes, making legitimate changes to the other House as to how we can work together.
We do need to look at the need for more draft legislation. We do need to look at the need for more post-legislative scrutiny. I think one of the things we very much need to do is to look at the way we deal with Statutory Instruments, because many hours, many, many hours are spent looking at sources which are never changed. And actually, if we had a proper sifting system, we could have a much more efficient system which would benefit Ministers and benefit the House. So I would say good luck to Baroness May. I think we've got to be realistic about what can be achieved and the time scale.
And above all, we've got to make sure that what we end up with does
**** Possible New Speaker ****
provide proper accountability, and a properly functioning Parliament. Well done.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Well done. I thank your Lordships' House for allowing me to speak in the gap, and it's a pleasure to follow the and it's a pleasure to follow the noble Lady, Baroness Taylor, and to congratulate Baroness Smith, both on her Bill and on her powerful introductory speech, and to very much agree with the noble Lord Lord Wigley. What he said, as I represent another party severely underrepresented in your Lordships House. But I. This, as many have noted, this debate neatly follows on from yesterday's. Secured by Lord Anderson of Ipswich, on the question of a written constitution in which Lord Pack and I were isolated in speaking in favour.
I said then I would put on hold the debate about the Lords. But I start today by noting a kind of personal
11:43
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
interest. In 2021, my private member's bill was the House of Lords brackets, elections and Lords brackets, elections and reform bill. I had been in your Lordships House about as long as Baroness Smith when I brought that bill through, although I can't take personal credit for it because it had previously been brought forward had previously been brought forward by my noble friend Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb. Now that went much of Moulsecoomb. Now that went much further in setting out a prescription for a replacement house. But of course, being a PM, it was really another way of starting the debate.
Now, I entirely agree with Baroness Meyer that public confidence is crucial to political legitimacy, and there is not public confidence in this House. That's not necessarily a comment on a lot of what we do. We do do good work, but who makes the decision matters? Now, I want to correct the noble Lord Lord Scriven here that the noble Lady Baroness Miller and my parties do make selection as democratic as possible. They are. We are not appointed by patronage. We are democratically selected within our own parties. That's the best that we can do under the current system.
Now, I'm often of the view and be heard say that we need a world where everyone makes politics what they do not have done to them. And with that in mind, I particularly welcome the students from Edge Hill University who are here today and worked with the noble Lady, Baroness Smith. And I note that as we speak in Serbia, the student movement may on Sunday be about to win a general election and take over from a regime that's been in power for 12 years. That's a student led movement taking over a country that's a reflection of a world in which we are seeing political change happening very fast.
Now, I want to pick up disagree with some unusual points of agreement between the noble Lord Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, both of whom suggested that the other house is representative. That is, a house that has a massive majority for the Labour Party that received the backing of 33% of people who voted. That's about 25% of eligible voters. We do not have a representative house. And one of the arguments often put for saying that we can't have an elected House of Lords, is that it would be a problem of contesting with the Commons.
Well, I think it would be a huge advantage if we brought in an elected House of Lords. The Commons would have to be reformed in terms of its voting system to make it truly representative. Now both those noble Lords, Blunkett and Jackson, said what would be we would get was inevitably be a lift system. Of course that's not true. There are many countries in Europe that have open list systems in which voters can choose individuals, rather than just the party list. Now, Lord Byrne said that what we do now is appropriate, but I would say that's not true.
The House ultimately gets to a point where it says, we are the unelected House, so we can't do something we think we should do. I've only seen the House stand up against that once, which was in the Internal Market Bill, which was a commercial issue. It didn't stand up on the rights of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. It didn't stand up on the Rwanda Act. So, my Lords, this is an important bill and I urge your Lordships House to give it a Second Reading.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The. Lords. I, too, would like to thank Baroness May and express my envy of her luck in coming out in the ballot. I hope you might perhaps be ballot. I hope you might perhaps be tempted to buy me some lottery tickets this weekend, but this is an important issue. And indeed, as an important issue. And indeed, as both Viscount Stansgate and Baroness Bennett have noted, this debate today forms a fortuitous pair with yesterday's debate about
Now, I entirely agree with Baroness Meyer that public confidence is crucial to political legitimacy, and there is not public confidence in this House. That's not necessarily a comment on a lot of what we do. We do do good work, but who makes the decision matters? Now, I want to correct the noble Lord Lord Scriven here that the noble Lady Baroness Miller and my parties do make selection as democratic as possible. They are. We are not appointed by patronage. We are democratically selected within our own parties. That's the best that we can do under the current system.
Now, I'm often of the view and be heard say that we need a world where everyone makes politics what they do not have done to them. And with that in mind, I particularly welcome the students from Edge Hill University who are here today and worked with the noble Lady, Baroness Smith. And I note that as we speak in Serbia, the student movement may on Sunday be about to win a general election and take over from a regime that's been in power for 12 years. That's a student led movement taking over a country that's a reflection of a world in which we are seeing political change happening very fast.
Now, I want to pick up disagree with some unusual points of agreement between the noble Lord Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, both of whom suggested that the other house is representative. That is, a house that has a massive majority for the Labour Party that received the backing of 33% of people who voted. That's about 25% of eligible voters. We do not have a representative house. And one of the arguments often put for saying that we can't have an elected House of Lords, is that it would be a problem of contesting with the Commons.
Well, I think it would be a huge advantage if we brought in an elected House of Lords. The Commons would have to be reformed in terms of its voting system to make it truly representative. Now both those noble Lords, Blunkett and Jackson, said what would be we would get was inevitably be a lift system. Of course that's not true. There are many countries in Europe that have open list systems in which voters can choose individuals, rather than just the party list. Now, Lord Byrne said that what we do now is appropriate, but I would say that's not true.
The House ultimately gets to a point where it says, we are the unelected House, so we can't do something we think we should do. I've only seen the House stand up against that once, which was in the Internal Market Bill, which was a commercial issue. It didn't stand up on the rights of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. It didn't stand up on the Rwanda Act. So, my Lords, this is an important bill and I urge your Lordships House to give it a Second Reading.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The. Lords. I, too, would like to thank Baroness May and express my envy of her luck in coming out in the ballot. I hope you might perhaps be ballot. I hope you might perhaps be tempted to buy me some lottery tickets this weekend, but this is an important issue. And indeed, as an important issue. And indeed, as both Viscount Stansgate and Baroness Bennett have noted, this debate today forms a fortuitous pair with yesterday's debate about
11:47
Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)
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Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)
pair with yesterday's debate about written constitutions a particularly enjoyable pair for those of US enthusiasts who are speaking in both debates. But there is an important commonality there about how we best ensure our constitutional arrangements are well suited for the challenges our country faces. Yesterday, we heard from many noble Lords the virtues of flexibility and the ability to evolve our constitutional arrangements, and that's something that this bill is very much in tune with, as it proposes a route to a different, better second chamber rather than its simple abolition, and therefore, in a way, picking up on the points of Lord Thomas and Lord Jackson and others, I think it is fair to describe this bill as setting out a route that will lead, would lead potentially to an improved and different chamber, rather than its simple abolition.
And I'm not sure how many of Lord Jackson's categories I fall into, but I should perhaps at least plead guilty to having a bedroom and occasionally dwelling in it. But I often think, and this may make the noble Lord feel, I definitely fit some of his other categories. I often think about reform of this place on a Sunday morning, because that's when I usually do my work for preparing for a meeting of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny committee. When I go through the paperwork. And I think it's fair to say that committees work is a good example of the sort of scrutiny that we often rightly pride ourselves on this House having a key part in, and I often reflect that I'm only able to spend the time working through the paperwork on a Sunday morning, in part because I'm not an MP, because if I was an MP, I would either be rushing around various fetes and other community events and acquiring many raffle tickets on the way.
No doubt. Or I would be spending some precious time with my family ahead of in the afternoon doing exactly that. So I think it is important to acknowledge there are some benefits of the difference in structures that we have, but there's also a very significant downside, because if I was to choose to stop doing that work diligently, don't worry, I reassure noble Lords, I have no intention to do so. But if I were to stop doing that work diligently, what could anyone do about it? Well, as a member of a political party, I guess I could be sacked from, you know, sacked from my current role.
I could maybe even be threatened with a withdrawal of the party whip. But of course, for anyone who is, you know, being less diligent, threatening them with those things is threatening them with what? Having less work to do, having fewer WhatsApp groups to be in it is even in the hands of the most persuasive leaders or whips, not the most effective of threats. And I think that is a real problem, because there are undoubtedly some changes to how this House operates. Indeed, changes that we will be debating in due course about participation rates and retirement ages that can get a little bit at the edges of that fundamental lack of accountability for anyone who doesn't do their job properly.
And likewise, standards, codes, members, code of conduct and related documents can address that a little bit. But for all that, it's important that we have a say, a members code of conduct that properly protects staff in this place from from bullying. I don't think even the most enthusiastic supporter of such processes is going to argue that. How well or not you read page 32 of a PDF document is going to be subject to such processes. And of course, we should always be cautious about any process that allows a member of a, a this House or indeed of House of Commons to be removed in some way.
It's why, you know, we have such a complicated, one might even say, torturous process in the House of Commons by which somebody can be removed for misbehaviour and. But one of the key safeguards, one of the reasons, in the end, you know, it has now become a well established system that there can be a ruling against an MP, there can be a recall petition, there can be a by election. Subsequently, one of the reasons that process is acceptable is because in the end, it places power with the public. It allows voters to decide, not party bosses.
And as a former party boss, I very much am keen on it being the public that has the power in those cases, but we don't have the equivalent in the House of Lords. We don't have the accountability to the public. That should be at the heart of a democracy. And of course, there are many important details to work out. As, for example, Lord Scriven touched on around the roles of of the bishops in this place. But this bill, I think, wisely sets out a route by which we can address some of those issues. And of course, another area, as quite rightly, several noble Lords have mentioned in this debate, including Lord Burns and Baroness Taylor and Baroness Bennett, are the relations between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
If it is a reformed House of Lords, and I mentioned yesterday this risk sometimes in debates outside this place of a certain myopic insularity, as if problems like that are somehow insuperable, and we forget to look. As Lord Hannan wisely pointed out, at the many other countries which face have faced such an equivalent problem and found solutions to it. And we should have self confidence that if other people can find solutions to it, those should not be beyond us. And of course, there are already ways in which the different roles of the House of Commons and of this House are embedded in our approaches.
There are the Parliament acts, there are the rules about money, bills, and there are many ways that those sorts of differences could be further embedded, such as making it much more than just a constitutional convention, but embedding it further. Perhaps the requirement of the Prime Minister to be in the House of Commons, and one can be pretty sure that wherever it is that the Prime Minister is, is certainly going to be a place that will get more attention than the other. So many other countries managed to sort out those problems, and we should not put ourselves off the thought that we could.
We would struggle to find solutions ourselves. But there is also one issue which, in fact, Baroness Taylor touched on, where, in fact, I think the solution that we need to reach is perhaps a little bit more power for this place, a little bit less subservience, if one might put it like that, to the House of Commons. And that is to do with secondary legislation, because Statutory Instruments get precious little scrutiny. Sadly, very often in the House of Commons. And for all that we have these different processes of negative and affirmative and super affirmative processes, even the super affirmative process for secondary legislation is not really that super, because fundamentally, in the end, for reasons that I politely disagree with, but I acknowledge for key points of principle that both Labour and Conservative peers have consistently expressed neither, when in opposition, will vote down a piece of secondary legislation except in the most exceptional and unusual of circumstances, and therefore, however good our scrutiny of a piece of secondary legislation, however pertinent criticisms of its drafting by, say, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, is, however, pertinent questions have been raised about whether the Statutory Instrument is really right.
Statutory Instruments will all but always go through unamended exactly as the government wished and therefore, in a way, having some more democratic legitimacy for our House that might make us feel a little bit more empowered to be a little bit difficult now and again on secondary legislation would actually be a good thing, and it would end up enhancing the House of Commons work rather than undermining it. And so I think the the issue is, as several noble Lords have touched on, obviously a very long running one. I do, of course, as a good liberal Democrat, have the preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act engraved on my heart, whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords, as it is, as it is at present exists a second chamber, constituted on a popular.
Instead of a hereditary basis, I think it's fair to say. Parliament agreeing that in 1911, not yet having managed to act on. It is fairly slow moving, even by the standards of restoration and renewal, and, as I know, colleagues on the conservative benches often like historical historical precedents and historical quotes to bolster arguments, I cannot help but observe that the manifesto on which conservative MPs fought the December 1918 general election included, quote, it will be one of the objects of the government to create a second chamber, which will be based upon direct contact with the people.
I hope perhaps Baroness Finn and others may be tempted to rediscover the spirit of December 1918, but also, more fundamentally, as several Nobel peers have touched on, form should follow function, and there is an important function for a second chamber, but it's a function that requires legitimacy and legitimacy in a democracy fundamentally comes from the public. And so I commend this bill because it sets out a route to applying that. It rightly acknowledges that there are many areas of detail to be worked out, but it gives us a chance of finally moving on from that commitment in 1911 to actually taking effective action.
And I'm not sure how many of Lord Jackson's categories I fall into, but I should perhaps at least plead guilty to having a bedroom and occasionally dwelling in it. But I often think, and this may make the noble Lord feel, I definitely fit some of his other categories. I often think about reform of this place on a Sunday morning, because that's when I usually do my work for preparing for a meeting of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny committee. When I go through the paperwork. And I think it's fair to say that committees work is a good example of the sort of scrutiny that we often rightly pride ourselves on this House having a key part in, and I often reflect that I'm only able to spend the time working through the paperwork on a Sunday morning, in part because I'm not an MP, because if I was an MP, I would either be rushing around various fetes and other community events and acquiring many raffle tickets on the way.
No doubt. Or I would be spending some precious time with my family ahead of in the afternoon doing exactly that. So I think it is important to acknowledge there are some benefits of the difference in structures that we have, but there's also a very significant downside, because if I was to choose to stop doing that work diligently, don't worry, I reassure noble Lords, I have no intention to do so. But if I were to stop doing that work diligently, what could anyone do about it? Well, as a member of a political party, I guess I could be sacked from, you know, sacked from my current role.
I could maybe even be threatened with a withdrawal of the party whip. But of course, for anyone who is, you know, being less diligent, threatening them with those things is threatening them with what? Having less work to do, having fewer WhatsApp groups to be in it is even in the hands of the most persuasive leaders or whips, not the most effective of threats. And I think that is a real problem, because there are undoubtedly some changes to how this House operates. Indeed, changes that we will be debating in due course about participation rates and retirement ages that can get a little bit at the edges of that fundamental lack of accountability for anyone who doesn't do their job properly.
And likewise, standards, codes, members, code of conduct and related documents can address that a little bit. But for all that, it's important that we have a say, a members code of conduct that properly protects staff in this place from from bullying. I don't think even the most enthusiastic supporter of such processes is going to argue that. How well or not you read page 32 of a PDF document is going to be subject to such processes. And of course, we should always be cautious about any process that allows a member of a, a this House or indeed of House of Commons to be removed in some way.
It's why, you know, we have such a complicated, one might even say, torturous process in the House of Commons by which somebody can be removed for misbehaviour and. But one of the key safeguards, one of the reasons, in the end, you know, it has now become a well established system that there can be a ruling against an MP, there can be a recall petition, there can be a by election. Subsequently, one of the reasons that process is acceptable is because in the end, it places power with the public. It allows voters to decide, not party bosses.
And as a former party boss, I very much am keen on it being the public that has the power in those cases, but we don't have the equivalent in the House of Lords. We don't have the accountability to the public. That should be at the heart of a democracy. And of course, there are many important details to work out. As, for example, Lord Scriven touched on around the roles of of the bishops in this place. But this bill, I think, wisely sets out a route by which we can address some of those issues. And of course, another area, as quite rightly, several noble Lords have mentioned in this debate, including Lord Burns and Baroness Taylor and Baroness Bennett, are the relations between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
If it is a reformed House of Lords, and I mentioned yesterday this risk sometimes in debates outside this place of a certain myopic insularity, as if problems like that are somehow insuperable, and we forget to look. As Lord Hannan wisely pointed out, at the many other countries which face have faced such an equivalent problem and found solutions to it. And we should have self confidence that if other people can find solutions to it, those should not be beyond us. And of course, there are already ways in which the different roles of the House of Commons and of this House are embedded in our approaches.
There are the Parliament acts, there are the rules about money, bills, and there are many ways that those sorts of differences could be further embedded, such as making it much more than just a constitutional convention, but embedding it further. Perhaps the requirement of the Prime Minister to be in the House of Commons, and one can be pretty sure that wherever it is that the Prime Minister is, is certainly going to be a place that will get more attention than the other. So many other countries managed to sort out those problems, and we should not put ourselves off the thought that we could.
We would struggle to find solutions ourselves. But there is also one issue which, in fact, Baroness Taylor touched on, where, in fact, I think the solution that we need to reach is perhaps a little bit more power for this place, a little bit less subservience, if one might put it like that, to the House of Commons. And that is to do with secondary legislation, because Statutory Instruments get precious little scrutiny. Sadly, very often in the House of Commons. And for all that we have these different processes of negative and affirmative and super affirmative processes, even the super affirmative process for secondary legislation is not really that super, because fundamentally, in the end, for reasons that I politely disagree with, but I acknowledge for key points of principle that both Labour and Conservative peers have consistently expressed neither, when in opposition, will vote down a piece of secondary legislation except in the most exceptional and unusual of circumstances, and therefore, however good our scrutiny of a piece of secondary legislation, however pertinent criticisms of its drafting by, say, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, is, however, pertinent questions have been raised about whether the Statutory Instrument is really right.
Statutory Instruments will all but always go through unamended exactly as the government wished and therefore, in a way, having some more democratic legitimacy for our House that might make us feel a little bit more empowered to be a little bit difficult now and again on secondary legislation would actually be a good thing, and it would end up enhancing the House of Commons work rather than undermining it. And so I think the the issue is, as several noble Lords have touched on, obviously a very long running one. I do, of course, as a good liberal Democrat, have the preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act engraved on my heart, whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords, as it is, as it is at present exists a second chamber, constituted on a popular.
Instead of a hereditary basis, I think it's fair to say. Parliament agreeing that in 1911, not yet having managed to act on. It is fairly slow moving, even by the standards of restoration and renewal, and, as I know, colleagues on the conservative benches often like historical historical precedents and historical quotes to bolster arguments, I cannot help but observe that the manifesto on which conservative MPs fought the December 1918 general election included, quote, it will be one of the objects of the government to create a second chamber, which will be based upon direct contact with the people.
I hope perhaps Baroness Finn and others may be tempted to rediscover the spirit of December 1918, but also, more fundamentally, as several Nobel peers have touched on, form should follow function, and there is an important function for a second chamber, but it's a function that requires legitimacy and legitimacy in a democracy fundamentally comes from the public. And so I commend this bill because it sets out a route to applying that. It rightly acknowledges that there are many areas of detail to be worked out, but it gives us a chance of finally moving on from that commitment in 1911 to actually taking effective action.
11:56
Baroness Finn (Conservative)
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Baroness Finn (Conservative)
Yeah. to speak to this bill, which has invited a broad debate on the future of your Lordships House. Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Clan Faith, has a principled opposition to the House of Lords, and it is that principled of Lords, and it is that principled conviction which underpins this Bill. My Lords, we know how hard it is to make a case for reform in your Lordships House, as many noble Lords today have made clear, and I respect the noble Baroness sincerely for bringing this Bill forward today. She will understand that we on these benches cannot support the Bill, but today we have had an opportunity to reflect on what the House does well and where improvements may be made, and I welcome that opportunity.
I will speak first to the Bill before reflecting on those broader questions. We are concerned that this bill does not set a clear direction. It requires a broad consultation that would set us on a magical mystery tour. Of all the options available as a replacement to the House of Lords as it is currently constituted. So our mystery tour. On our Mystery tour, we will hear from the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Northern Irish Ministers, but not the assemblies, as the noble Lord, Lord Viscount Stansgate made clear, we will hear from local government. We will hear from constitutional experts whose theories are always illuminating.
But, my Lords, is all that a truly a good use of the precious time and resources of his Majesty's Government, especially given the number of previous reviews and commissions, a point made by the noble Baroness Ladysmith of Clubface herself, I think not. And as my friend, as my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough so presciently pointed out, there are many more pressing and urgent issues which concern the public. Indeed, it is rather strange that the devolved governments would be consulted. But members of this House or the other place would not be. There is certainly scope for an amendment there.
When we proceed to Committee stage. The noble Baroness Bill. In essence the noble Baroness Lady Smith's Bill asks us for a vote of no confidence in the current House of Lords without saying what an alternative chamber should look like. As noble as noble Lords such as the noble Lord Blunkett. And my noble friend Lord Jackson pointed out, the noble Baroness might believe the House of Lords is not fit for purpose. But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. My Lords, it is rare that I invoke the former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Keir Starmer, in support of an argument.
But he illustrated the vitally important role of your Lordships House at Prime Minister's Questions on the 11th of March this year. In an answer about the terminally ill adults Bill, he said scrutiny is a matter for the other place. For this place, your Lordships House, when members of the other place are denied the opportunity to scrutinise legislation full, whether that be a result of the guillotine or unacceptably late amendments tabled by the government at Report stage. The work of your Lordships House becomes all the more important. Again, an argument advanced by the noble Viscount Stansgate on employment on the Employment Rights Bill.
Noble Lords from across the House, united in common cause to hold the government to account on the most damaging aspects of the Bill. Securing a U-turn on day one rights that has saved businesses from an unmanageable burden. And I am very proud of my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral for bringing the government to its senses by force of argument. I know they were grateful for the support of noble Lords on the benches to my left, and from so many noble Lords on. With extensive business expertise on the Crossbenches. When we work together in this place, we really can hold
**** Possible New Speaker ****
the government to account. That is our role within the constitutional settlement which we constitutional settlement which we have inherited. I understand the noble Baroness Smith of Llanfaes might find it dissatisfying that might find it dissatisfying that your Lordships House is not constituted in a way that one would constituted in a way that one would design today. Nobody designing a modern constitution from scratch would conceive of such a chamber would conceive of such a chamber playing this role. But, and I've said this before, and I'll say it again through historic evolution, it is no exaggeration to say that this House has become the best policy revising chamber in the world.
In short, my Lords, as the noble Baroness Lady Taylor so presciently said, it works. We benefit from the expertise of doctors and nurses, businessmen and women, field marshals, generals and reservists, journalists, barristers, solicitors and judges, trade unionists, charity executives, permanent secretaries, bishops and farmers, ballerinas, a composer and an ornithologist. The house brings together some of the most accomplished and dedicated individuals who apply their skills, insights and expertise to scrutinising legislation and holding the executive to account. The membership of your Lordships House is drawn from all backgrounds and walks of life. I grew up in Swansea.
In Wales is quite well represented, I would say, in today's debate and my own background, like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, and indeed the noble Baroness Sater Taylor, all of whom proudly talked about growing up on council estates, was also far from this house. The legitimacy of this house does not derive from democratic consent, but from its ability to act as a positive constitutional force in lawmaking and government accountability. This legitimacy is grounded in the capabilities and dedication of its members. All constitutional reforms have profound and far reaching consequences, whether intended or not.
As a conservative, I believe in continuity and change. But I am not naive. Of course, noble Lords should always seek to improve the way we work. Of course, we cannot stand still. During the Covid pandemic, we adapted to the challenges we faced equally. Today we are trialling longer hours and earlier citizen Grand Committee not entirely welcomed unanimously, but it is right that we look to improve our practices where we can. The noble Viscount Stansgate gave a number of examples. As the noble Baroness Taylor of Bolton. So I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for leading today's debate so ably, and I look forward to further discussion when we proceed to Committee stage.
I will speak first to the Bill before reflecting on those broader questions. We are concerned that this bill does not set a clear direction. It requires a broad consultation that would set us on a magical mystery tour. Of all the options available as a replacement to the House of Lords as it is currently constituted. So our mystery tour. On our Mystery tour, we will hear from the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Northern Irish Ministers, but not the assemblies, as the noble Lord, Lord Viscount Stansgate made clear, we will hear from local government. We will hear from constitutional experts whose theories are always illuminating.
But, my Lords, is all that a truly a good use of the precious time and resources of his Majesty's Government, especially given the number of previous reviews and commissions, a point made by the noble Baroness Ladysmith of Clubface herself, I think not. And as my friend, as my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough so presciently pointed out, there are many more pressing and urgent issues which concern the public. Indeed, it is rather strange that the devolved governments would be consulted. But members of this House or the other place would not be. There is certainly scope for an amendment there.
When we proceed to Committee stage. The noble Baroness Bill. In essence the noble Baroness Lady Smith's Bill asks us for a vote of no confidence in the current House of Lords without saying what an alternative chamber should look like. As noble as noble Lords such as the noble Lord Blunkett. And my noble friend Lord Jackson pointed out, the noble Baroness might believe the House of Lords is not fit for purpose. But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. My Lords, it is rare that I invoke the former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Keir Starmer, in support of an argument.
But he illustrated the vitally important role of your Lordships House at Prime Minister's Questions on the 11th of March this year. In an answer about the terminally ill adults Bill, he said scrutiny is a matter for the other place. For this place, your Lordships House, when members of the other place are denied the opportunity to scrutinise legislation full, whether that be a result of the guillotine or unacceptably late amendments tabled by the government at Report stage. The work of your Lordships House becomes all the more important. Again, an argument advanced by the noble Viscount Stansgate on employment on the Employment Rights Bill.
Noble Lords from across the House, united in common cause to hold the government to account on the most damaging aspects of the Bill. Securing a U-turn on day one rights that has saved businesses from an unmanageable burden. And I am very proud of my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral for bringing the government to its senses by force of argument. I know they were grateful for the support of noble Lords on the benches to my left, and from so many noble Lords on. With extensive business expertise on the Crossbenches. When we work together in this place, we really can hold
**** Possible New Speaker ****
the government to account. That is our role within the constitutional settlement which we constitutional settlement which we have inherited. I understand the noble Baroness Smith of Llanfaes might find it dissatisfying that might find it dissatisfying that your Lordships House is not constituted in a way that one would constituted in a way that one would design today. Nobody designing a modern constitution from scratch would conceive of such a chamber would conceive of such a chamber playing this role. But, and I've said this before, and I'll say it again through historic evolution, it is no exaggeration to say that this House has become the best policy revising chamber in the world.
In short, my Lords, as the noble Baroness Lady Taylor so presciently said, it works. We benefit from the expertise of doctors and nurses, businessmen and women, field marshals, generals and reservists, journalists, barristers, solicitors and judges, trade unionists, charity executives, permanent secretaries, bishops and farmers, ballerinas, a composer and an ornithologist. The house brings together some of the most accomplished and dedicated individuals who apply their skills, insights and expertise to scrutinising legislation and holding the executive to account. The membership of your Lordships House is drawn from all backgrounds and walks of life. I grew up in Swansea.
In Wales is quite well represented, I would say, in today's debate and my own background, like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, and indeed the noble Baroness Sater Taylor, all of whom proudly talked about growing up on council estates, was also far from this house. The legitimacy of this house does not derive from democratic consent, but from its ability to act as a positive constitutional force in lawmaking and government accountability. This legitimacy is grounded in the capabilities and dedication of its members. All constitutional reforms have profound and far reaching consequences, whether intended or not.
As a conservative, I believe in continuity and change. But I am not naive. Of course, noble Lords should always seek to improve the way we work. Of course, we cannot stand still. During the Covid pandemic, we adapted to the challenges we faced equally. Today we are trialling longer hours and earlier citizen Grand Committee not entirely welcomed unanimously, but it is right that we look to improve our practices where we can. The noble Viscount Stansgate gave a number of examples. As the noble Baroness Taylor of Bolton. So I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for leading today's debate so ably, and I look forward to further discussion when we proceed to Committee stage.
12:03
Baroness Twycross, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)
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Baroness Twycross, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)
Yes. >> I'd like to congratulate the noble Baroness Ladies Place on securing the Second Reading of her Bill. The noble Baroness has spoken passionately and eloquently in previous debates about reforming your Lordships' House, and today is no different. As a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lady Baroness Bennett and the noble Lord Lord Pack pointed out, it is the second debate in two days on constitutional reform. It's been fascinating in both debates and today there has been a considerable range of views about the way forward in reform. But with a couple of exceptions, significant agreement on the need for reform.
As the noble Lord Lord Hannan of Kingsclere made clear in his speech, we recognise the many calls for reform across parties, including in the Labour Party speakers, including the noble Lady Baroness Finn, my noble friend Baroness Taylor of Bolton and my noble friend Viscount Stansgate, have also highlighted the many strengths of your Lordships' House, not least in holding the executive to account in relation to scrutiny of legislation. The strengths do not negate the need for reform. However, the relationship between your Lordships' House and the Other place has also been highlighted, including in particularly thought provoking way by the noble Lord Lord Pack in his winding up remarks in relation to the bill before us today, as we've heard.
This bill would require the government to consult on an alternative second chamber, with the consultation period beginning within six months of the act being passed. If passed, the consultation would run for at least 12 weeks. The Secretary of State would be required to publish a summary of responses and a statement detailing the government's response. Within six months of the consultation closing. The government has significant sympathy with the central principle behind this bill. As my noble friend Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway made clear in her remarks. Government has made clear commitments in our manifesto on the reform of the House of Lords.
This includes a manifesto commitment to consult on proposals to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative representative of the regions and nations. Whilst we understand the motivation of the noble Baroness in putting this bill forward, the government wishes to express its reservations. Reservations on the legislation. The Bill would, in our view, constrain the government's ability in how it approaches the delivery of our manifesto commitment by prematurely imposing a duty on the government to consult. As noble Lords will know, the government has taken a staged approach to a form of your Lordships' House.
I would dispute the noble Ladies Baroness Morris view that we have not acted or that we are hesitant. We have already made a significant change to your Lordships' House. As the noble Lord Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth said, we have removed the hereditary rights of peers to sit in the House of Lords, most recently through the House of Lords Hereditary Peers Act. We removed the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in this House on the basis of hereditary right. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, might call that piecemeal. We think this fulfils a long haul commitment on the part of the Labour Party to do so.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Blunkett and my noble friend Baroness Taylor of Bolton, spoke to the work of the Retirement and Participation Committee, which undertook work under my noble friend Baroness Taylor's leadership on reform, and we're really grateful for the work of the Committee and the report published in July. The government is carefully considering the committee's recommendations, alongside thoughtful and considerate remarks from across the House. During the debate on the report in September, the government will respond to the committee's recommendations substantively later this year. The Lord noble, Lord Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, spoke about the proposals for Holac gaining a statutory footing.
This proposal was also referred to by my noble friend Viscount Stansgate. We have strengthened transparency in the appointment system by introducing a requirement for nominating parties to provide a public citation for appointments. Putting Holac on a statutory footing as a matter of. This House has considered many times and of. The Leader of the House of Lords has said this is not the right path to take at this time. Returning to the Bill before the House today, whilst we agree with the broad sentiment behind the Bill, the government's view is that passing this legislation would require the government to prematurely consult on an alternative second chamber.
My Lords, a meaningful consultation on such an important issue demands a careful and thought through plan. The noble Lord Lord Burns, the noble Lord Lord Wigley, my noble friend Baroness Taylor, the noble Lord Lord Scriven, among others, raised the important points around regional and national representation. This government also wants to see a second chamber that better represents the regions and nations. And I'm pleased to note that this was a manifesto commitment. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, shares that vision. There are many ways of achieving this goal, and we owe it to the public to get any consultation and any changes right.
The noble Lady Baroness Finn noted the number of previous pieces of work undertaken on the House on House of Lords reform, for example, the Royal Commission and a number of white papers have been produced, including during the previous Labour government. The coalition government also attempted unsuccessfully to bring about substantial reform despite the introduction of a Bill and, of course, the noble and learned Lord Lord Burns chaired the speakers Committee, which made a number an important contribution to the ongoing debate to reform of the House of Lords. In response to the noble and learned Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd contribution.
We do recognise that the manner in context in how the government engages the public on these issues is almost as important as the content of the proposals themselves. The government is open to different methods of getting input from the public. My Lords, to conclude once more, I'd like to thank the noble Lady for leading a very thought provoking discussion on an alternative second chamber, and how we we get there. The government remains committed to fundamental reform of your Lordships' House. The government's priority is a politics that works, politics that works for all people in all places, not some people in some places.
My noble friend Baroness O'Grady stressed how vital it is that we restore trust in politics. The Prime Minister set out in his first speech the importance of putting the right values and right standards at the heart of government in order to do so. To achieve this, we have begun the biggest redistribution of power this country has seen. The government welcomes feedback and continued discussion on the next steps on constitutional reform, and we will consider a range of views and evidence. It is right that the government decides how to deliver our manifesto commitment to consult on proposals for an alternative second chamber.
So whilst the Bill is well intentioned, in our view, it would pre-empt that process. The government's ultimate focus is on outcomes rather than process, and our overarching objective is to see a house that is more representative, including of the nations and regions. I believe this goal is broadly shared across the House, but there are, of course, many different ways of achieving this. Rushing into a consultation for its own sake will not bring us any closer to fulfilling our objectives. Ultimately, my Lords, the government does have reservations about this bill, so unfortunately, I can't support it.
On behalf of the government. However, we do look forward to the ongoing conversation both inside and outside this chamber, about how we may bring about lasting reform to your
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lordships. House. Lady sits down. She said that
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lady sits down. She said that this bill would restrict the right of the government when and how to consult, as it's a manifesto consult, as it's a manifesto commitment. What she didn't give a commitment from the Dispatch Box that the government is committed to that the government is committed to start the consultation, or even end the consultation before the general election, is that the aim of the.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Is that the aim of the government. It was a manifesto commitment. I can't say exactly when it would start now. What we don't want to be is bounced into a 12 week consultation from the point at which this bill would become law.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lord Oates. First of all, I would like to thank all members who have participated in the debate have participated in the debate this morning for just over over two hours. I think that we had a really hours. I think that we had a really good debate, hearing lots of interesting viewpoints. But what I would say is that I was would say is that I was surprisingly pleased to hear that the majority of members, bar 1 or 2 the majority of members, bar 1 or 2 that spoke today, do support reforming this chamber. Of course, in different degrees, I do, I do understand, but I think that that is a positive reflection, and I think that is a step forward.
So I'm grateful for all those that have participated. And actually, the noble Lord Lord Hannan reminded us that all political parties here have made a position quite well known that they support reform of the House of Lords as well. So that is actually what the position is of of all of our political parties here. It's just about us getting on with it and, and making progress in relation to that. And so, first of all, I would like to just rebut and clarify a few points in relation to the bill from some of the comments raised by fellow noble Lords, the noble Lord Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth suggested that the Bill abolishes the House of Lords.
I would like to clarify that, as you. From reading of the Bill in the. In the first sentence, actually it does state that it's about the replacement of the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber. So it's not about having one chamber in Parliament, it is about the replacement. But on that on the on the word of replacement, I know that the noble Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd raised an interesting point about whether we want to perhaps change that term in terms of replacement. The reason why I chose the term replacement in this bill is because that is what was in the Labour manifesto.
That is what they were elected on. So I think it's important that that terminology is used because there is a mandate publicly for that position. But I am I do understand that perhaps that could be perceived in other ways. But just to clarify, that is what is in relation to and maybe we would discuss that at committee. And then just in terms of I know that some Lords raised around gridlock, and I know that's come up often when we talk about Lords reform on on gridlock of that type. I believe that in the reforms that we would bring forward any arrangement that mirrored the current balance of powers which could be written into reform, as it was previously in the House of Lords reform Bill, could avoid those types of scenarios.
So disagreement over legislation is a is a type of of conflict, one which can delay but not terminate a government. So we can write that in in our reforms. So I don't think we can use that as a, a reason why not to, to reform this chamber. And then just to clarify as well, on the point raised by Viscount Stansgate and and I think Baroness Finn as well, in terms of who would be consulted, they both raised that. I haven't included both the this chamber and the other place and and some other stakeholders in this bill.
But I think you can see under two e of my bill that that isn't limiting. So it would be up for the Secretary of State to, to, to consult others to. But if members feel particularly strongly that a a group hasn't been represented in this bill, they could bring forward an amendment at committee to add that group in. But I would hesitate in relation to that, because I. I'm pretty sure that is covered under under two E so in relation to also and the noble Baroness O'Grady on the on the point of the who, she also raised around the diversity of the House.
So looking ahead to an
As the noble Lord Lord Hannan of Kingsclere made clear in his speech, we recognise the many calls for reform across parties, including in the Labour Party speakers, including the noble Lady Baroness Finn, my noble friend Baroness Taylor of Bolton and my noble friend Viscount Stansgate, have also highlighted the many strengths of your Lordships' House, not least in holding the executive to account in relation to scrutiny of legislation. The strengths do not negate the need for reform. However, the relationship between your Lordships' House and the Other place has also been highlighted, including in particularly thought provoking way by the noble Lord Lord Pack in his winding up remarks in relation to the bill before us today, as we've heard.
This bill would require the government to consult on an alternative second chamber, with the consultation period beginning within six months of the act being passed. If passed, the consultation would run for at least 12 weeks. The Secretary of State would be required to publish a summary of responses and a statement detailing the government's response. Within six months of the consultation closing. The government has significant sympathy with the central principle behind this bill. As my noble friend Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway made clear in her remarks. Government has made clear commitments in our manifesto on the reform of the House of Lords.
This includes a manifesto commitment to consult on proposals to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative representative of the regions and nations. Whilst we understand the motivation of the noble Baroness in putting this bill forward, the government wishes to express its reservations. Reservations on the legislation. The Bill would, in our view, constrain the government's ability in how it approaches the delivery of our manifesto commitment by prematurely imposing a duty on the government to consult. As noble Lords will know, the government has taken a staged approach to a form of your Lordships' House.
I would dispute the noble Ladies Baroness Morris view that we have not acted or that we are hesitant. We have already made a significant change to your Lordships' House. As the noble Lord Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth said, we have removed the hereditary rights of peers to sit in the House of Lords, most recently through the House of Lords Hereditary Peers Act. We removed the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in this House on the basis of hereditary right. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, might call that piecemeal. We think this fulfils a long haul commitment on the part of the Labour Party to do so.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Blunkett and my noble friend Baroness Taylor of Bolton, spoke to the work of the Retirement and Participation Committee, which undertook work under my noble friend Baroness Taylor's leadership on reform, and we're really grateful for the work of the Committee and the report published in July. The government is carefully considering the committee's recommendations, alongside thoughtful and considerate remarks from across the House. During the debate on the report in September, the government will respond to the committee's recommendations substantively later this year. The Lord noble, Lord Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, spoke about the proposals for Holac gaining a statutory footing.
This proposal was also referred to by my noble friend Viscount Stansgate. We have strengthened transparency in the appointment system by introducing a requirement for nominating parties to provide a public citation for appointments. Putting Holac on a statutory footing as a matter of. This House has considered many times and of. The Leader of the House of Lords has said this is not the right path to take at this time. Returning to the Bill before the House today, whilst we agree with the broad sentiment behind the Bill, the government's view is that passing this legislation would require the government to prematurely consult on an alternative second chamber.
My Lords, a meaningful consultation on such an important issue demands a careful and thought through plan. The noble Lord Lord Burns, the noble Lord Lord Wigley, my noble friend Baroness Taylor, the noble Lord Lord Scriven, among others, raised the important points around regional and national representation. This government also wants to see a second chamber that better represents the regions and nations. And I'm pleased to note that this was a manifesto commitment. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, shares that vision. There are many ways of achieving this goal, and we owe it to the public to get any consultation and any changes right.
The noble Lady Baroness Finn noted the number of previous pieces of work undertaken on the House on House of Lords reform, for example, the Royal Commission and a number of white papers have been produced, including during the previous Labour government. The coalition government also attempted unsuccessfully to bring about substantial reform despite the introduction of a Bill and, of course, the noble and learned Lord Lord Burns chaired the speakers Committee, which made a number an important contribution to the ongoing debate to reform of the House of Lords. In response to the noble and learned Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd contribution.
We do recognise that the manner in context in how the government engages the public on these issues is almost as important as the content of the proposals themselves. The government is open to different methods of getting input from the public. My Lords, to conclude once more, I'd like to thank the noble Lady for leading a very thought provoking discussion on an alternative second chamber, and how we we get there. The government remains committed to fundamental reform of your Lordships' House. The government's priority is a politics that works, politics that works for all people in all places, not some people in some places.
My noble friend Baroness O'Grady stressed how vital it is that we restore trust in politics. The Prime Minister set out in his first speech the importance of putting the right values and right standards at the heart of government in order to do so. To achieve this, we have begun the biggest redistribution of power this country has seen. The government welcomes feedback and continued discussion on the next steps on constitutional reform, and we will consider a range of views and evidence. It is right that the government decides how to deliver our manifesto commitment to consult on proposals for an alternative second chamber.
So whilst the Bill is well intentioned, in our view, it would pre-empt that process. The government's ultimate focus is on outcomes rather than process, and our overarching objective is to see a house that is more representative, including of the nations and regions. I believe this goal is broadly shared across the House, but there are, of course, many different ways of achieving this. Rushing into a consultation for its own sake will not bring us any closer to fulfilling our objectives. Ultimately, my Lords, the government does have reservations about this bill, so unfortunately, I can't support it.
On behalf of the government. However, we do look forward to the ongoing conversation both inside and outside this chamber, about how we may bring about lasting reform to your
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lordships. House. Lady sits down. She said that
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lady sits down. She said that this bill would restrict the right of the government when and how to consult, as it's a manifesto consult, as it's a manifesto commitment. What she didn't give a commitment from the Dispatch Box that the government is committed to that the government is committed to start the consultation, or even end the consultation before the general election, is that the aim of the.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Is that the aim of the government. It was a manifesto commitment. I can't say exactly when it would start now. What we don't want to be is bounced into a 12 week consultation from the point at which this bill would become law.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lord Oates. First of all, I would like to thank all members who have participated in the debate have participated in the debate this morning for just over over two hours. I think that we had a really hours. I think that we had a really good debate, hearing lots of interesting viewpoints. But what I would say is that I was would say is that I was surprisingly pleased to hear that the majority of members, bar 1 or 2 the majority of members, bar 1 or 2 that spoke today, do support reforming this chamber. Of course, in different degrees, I do, I do understand, but I think that that is a positive reflection, and I think that is a step forward.
So I'm grateful for all those that have participated. And actually, the noble Lord Lord Hannan reminded us that all political parties here have made a position quite well known that they support reform of the House of Lords as well. So that is actually what the position is of of all of our political parties here. It's just about us getting on with it and, and making progress in relation to that. And so, first of all, I would like to just rebut and clarify a few points in relation to the bill from some of the comments raised by fellow noble Lords, the noble Lord Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth suggested that the Bill abolishes the House of Lords.
I would like to clarify that, as you. From reading of the Bill in the. In the first sentence, actually it does state that it's about the replacement of the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber. So it's not about having one chamber in Parliament, it is about the replacement. But on that on the on the word of replacement, I know that the noble Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd raised an interesting point about whether we want to perhaps change that term in terms of replacement. The reason why I chose the term replacement in this bill is because that is what was in the Labour manifesto.
That is what they were elected on. So I think it's important that that terminology is used because there is a mandate publicly for that position. But I am I do understand that perhaps that could be perceived in other ways. But just to clarify, that is what is in relation to and maybe we would discuss that at committee. And then just in terms of I know that some Lords raised around gridlock, and I know that's come up often when we talk about Lords reform on on gridlock of that type. I believe that in the reforms that we would bring forward any arrangement that mirrored the current balance of powers which could be written into reform, as it was previously in the House of Lords reform Bill, could avoid those types of scenarios.
So disagreement over legislation is a is a type of of conflict, one which can delay but not terminate a government. So we can write that in in our reforms. So I don't think we can use that as a, a reason why not to, to reform this chamber. And then just to clarify as well, on the point raised by Viscount Stansgate and and I think Baroness Finn as well, in terms of who would be consulted, they both raised that. I haven't included both the this chamber and the other place and and some other stakeholders in this bill.
But I think you can see under two e of my bill that that isn't limiting. So it would be up for the Secretary of State to, to, to consult others to. But if members feel particularly strongly that a a group hasn't been represented in this bill, they could bring forward an amendment at committee to add that group in. But I would hesitate in relation to that, because I. I'm pretty sure that is covered under under two E so in relation to also and the noble Baroness O'Grady on the on the point of the who, she also raised around the diversity of the House.
So looking ahead to an
12:16
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (Plaid Cymru)
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Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (Plaid Cymru)
alternative second chamber about how we look at diversity and that reflection in terms of a future chamber. That is why I've included chamber. That is why I've included the E as a consultee as part of the bill, because that should be taken into consideration as well. And so into consideration as well. And so many Lords have made a range of reasonable suggestions that I hope the government are listening to for the proposals to be put forward to a public consultation, particularly the comments raised by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, particularly through the Commission that he carried out previously as well.
I think we already do have lots of good suggestions in terms of what those proposals could be, but the thing is, is this was in the Labour manifesto, so we're waiting to see what those proposals are from from the government, because there is a a mandate for it. And then finally, just to rebut the point that the public don't care about Lords reform. So I know a lot of noble Lords also raised how they have gone into schools and universities to, you know, to discuss what we do here, but also to hear their views about what our future Parliament should look like.
And actually, they're pretty engaged on the topic. If you ask them the questions, they will give you answers. So I really just dispute that that point. And there was a YouGov poll released last night that shows yet again, that only 12% of the public support the status quo, as in keeping the chamber as as it is. So I think that's a clear mandate for us to get on with it and to respond to the public in terms of what there's a mandate for. And just to finally respond to the Minister, I must admit I was thoroughly disappointed with the response because the way that this bill has been drafted is very much what was written in the Labour manifesto, and the intervention beforehand.
Actually, when the before the Minister sat down. And the response to that shows that perhaps there isn't an intention to bring this forward before the next general election. And in my view, when the public go to the polls and when they're when they're voting on a manifesto that's been presented to them, that is what a political party is saying that they're going to deliver in that term. So if there isn't a consultation before the next general election, I don't see that the government has actually carried out their manifesto. So unless there's proposals starting to be discovered now and and investigated further, it'd be very disappointing if before the general election, that pledge hasn't even been started.
And so I don't object that this House doesn't have a job to do. But I ask for transparency. Government promise, this consultation. That is why I've drafted the bill this way. So it's unfortunate that they have made an argument against their own pledge. All I ask is that we need action. We need to have a timeline. The bill I presented is very modest in terms of what it proposes, in terms of having a consultation, having a timeline. It doesn't go as far as I would personally do if I was in charge. But this is the manifesto that the government were were elected to deliver.
So on that note, I just want to say that I believe we should trust the people and give the people a say. Finally, in relation to the future of the Parliament that represents them, I
**** Possible New Speaker ****
beg to move. Yeah. The question is.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
That this bill be now read a second time. As many as that opinion will say content, the opinion will say content, the contrary, not content. The contents
**** Possible New Speaker ****
have it. To move that this bill be committed to a Committee of the
**** Possible New Speaker ****
whole House. The question is that this bill be committed to a Committee of the
I think we already do have lots of good suggestions in terms of what those proposals could be, but the thing is, is this was in the Labour manifesto, so we're waiting to see what those proposals are from from the government, because there is a a mandate for it. And then finally, just to rebut the point that the public don't care about Lords reform. So I know a lot of noble Lords also raised how they have gone into schools and universities to, you know, to discuss what we do here, but also to hear their views about what our future Parliament should look like.
And actually, they're pretty engaged on the topic. If you ask them the questions, they will give you answers. So I really just dispute that that point. And there was a YouGov poll released last night that shows yet again, that only 12% of the public support the status quo, as in keeping the chamber as as it is. So I think that's a clear mandate for us to get on with it and to respond to the public in terms of what there's a mandate for. And just to finally respond to the Minister, I must admit I was thoroughly disappointed with the response because the way that this bill has been drafted is very much what was written in the Labour manifesto, and the intervention beforehand.
Actually, when the before the Minister sat down. And the response to that shows that perhaps there isn't an intention to bring this forward before the next general election. And in my view, when the public go to the polls and when they're when they're voting on a manifesto that's been presented to them, that is what a political party is saying that they're going to deliver in that term. So if there isn't a consultation before the next general election, I don't see that the government has actually carried out their manifesto. So unless there's proposals starting to be discovered now and and investigated further, it'd be very disappointing if before the general election, that pledge hasn't even been started.
And so I don't object that this House doesn't have a job to do. But I ask for transparency. Government promise, this consultation. That is why I've drafted the bill this way. So it's unfortunate that they have made an argument against their own pledge. All I ask is that we need action. We need to have a timeline. The bill I presented is very modest in terms of what it proposes, in terms of having a consultation, having a timeline. It doesn't go as far as I would personally do if I was in charge. But this is the manifesto that the government were were elected to deliver.
So on that note, I just want to say that I believe we should trust the people and give the people a say. Finally, in relation to the future of the Parliament that represents them, I
**** Possible New Speaker ****
beg to move. Yeah. The question is.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
That this bill be now read a second time. As many as that opinion will say content, the opinion will say content, the contrary, not content. The contents
**** Possible New Speaker ****
have it. To move that this bill be committed to a Committee of the
**** Possible New Speaker ****
whole House. The question is that this bill be committed to a Committee of the
12:20
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whole House, as near as that opinion will say, content. The contrary, not content. The contents contrary, not content. The contents have it. We will pause for a moment Clause. Clause. We Clause. We now Clause. We now come Clause. We now come to Clause. We now come to the Clause. We now come to the Second Reading of the British Sovereignty Protection Chagos Islands Bill Lord
12:21
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
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Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
Second time. >> Second time. >> My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to cut through the fog of uncertainty which now hangs over the Chagos Islands to provide a fairer, clearer and more principled fairer, clearer and more principled way forward, not simply for the Chagos Islands themselves, but perhaps more importantly for the Chagossians. And I'm delighted that many of them were able to join us here today. As with many in this chamber, I was highly critical and remain highly critical of the previous government bill on the issue. Without rehearsing all the arguments that were used in connection with that bill, which sought to implement the government's deal with with Mauritius.
I believe that that bill effectively would have handed over British sovereign territory, which had been British for over 200 years, to a government which had never held control or ownership of the islands and indeed simply did not give away the Chagos Islands, but presented them with a large dowry of a very handsome reward for Mauritius for taking them effectively off our hands without. Even for the Chagossians, the compensatory automatic right of resettlement, and indeed the Bill really gave no agency at all to the Chagossian people themselves. And that, I think, is for many Chagossians all too familiar at times in our most benign interpretations as a Parliament and as government, we have perhaps pretended that we are doing things for the Chagossian people.
Far too often we have done things to the Chagossian people, most notably, I think in the 1960s, when they were forcibly removed from the islands. What we have not done and what we need to change is doing things with the Chagossian people and respecting their choice and their control over their their destiny. The criticism that has been made of the previous bill is not simply confined to this House, but as we've seen recently, even the new defence secretary, Wes Streeting, has questioned whether the bill previously is good enough, given the position of the Americans and the current Prime Minister, who, to be fair to him, had no played no part in the previous arrangements, has indicated that there needs to be a review of the overall bill.
Now we know that the progress of the previous bill was stopped by the position of the American administration, and I appreciate that many of us in this chamber, at times would look at a level of volatility within the American administration in terms of their foreign policy. However, they have been consistent over the last period of time in their concern that this is not the right way forward. And indeed, given the direct interest that the American administration has through the military base at Diego Garcia, this is something which is not simply an opinion from across the Atlantic, but something that is critical to the way forward for the Chagos Islands.
As a result, I believe the issue has been left in a form of limbo. The government, it would appear, has not resiled from its previous position and potentially remains committed to the bill itself despite the review. But by the same token, they were not able then to bring forward that bill to progress it whenever it was going through the Lords. And indeed, in the last King's speech there was no mention of the situation as regards the Chagos Islands, and I think in particular it has left the Chagossians in a form of political purgatory, and they have been left with a level of uncertainty.
And I think that the one thing above all else we owe to the people is to give them certainty and control for the future. And that is what the purpose of my my bill is to outline the the contents of the bill, although it's a relatively short bill, there are five main components of it. First of all, and crucially, it provides what might be described as a triple lock on sovereignty, either for the transfer of sovereignty or indeed the leasing out of the islands before that can happen. On any deal. There are three hurdles that have to be overcome.
First of all, it would have to be done by way of Act of Parliament. Secondly, if there is a representative government of the Chagossian people, it would have to have their approval. And most crucially of all, in enshrining the principle of self-determination of the Chagossian people, it would have to be approved by a referendum of the Chagossian people, with the electorate clearly defined in clause four of the Bill, which highlights that British Indian Ocean Territory citizens would have the right to vote in that referendum, thus putting the destiny of the Chagos Islands and the Chagossian people in their own hands.
And that is the right thing to do. Secondly, one of the major concerns in relation to the Chagos Islands has been clearly the military base at Diego Garcia, which is the overriding concern of the Americans and also strategically very important to ourselves. The bill clearly, explicitly indicates that whatever rulings may happen in the future, that the base itself remains sovereign British territory. It gives a clear sign of certainty as to the position of Parliament and indeed the sovereign position. Thirdly, it enshrines transparency in any future arrangements, and indeed, clause two deals with the fact that that if there is any proposal to hand over to Mauritius or indeed anyone else, that it is clear that any financial arrangements both to the Mauritian government but also agencies or any companies connected up with them, are clearly outlined to Parliament.
And we know that there was a there has been a level of, shall we say, disagreement over the extent of the financial aid that was being given over to Mauritius within that. Fourthly, and I think also importantly, is the role of the Chagossian people, because while I think it is critical that we enshrine the rights of self-determination, simply giving the Chagossians a yes or no on any final package is not in and of itself sufficient. And so the bill looks at what other rights, pertinent rights we can give to the Chagossian people. It does deal with permits to work on the Diego Garcia base, and in particular, I think, an issue which is critical to Chagossians.
It deals with the issue of resettlement. They were torn from their country in 19 in the 1960s. The bill explicitly gives a right to resettle permanently on IL DEFRA and ill, and I apologise to the Chagossians if my pronunciation is not up to scratch in relation to that, and if at any stage the base on Diego Garcia is in some way abandoned. Also the Diego Garcia itself, and also allied to that as part of that resettlement, a range of issues in which the government would then be compelled to discuss and consult with the Chagossian people, from an economic partnership to a partnership on skills, health and education, to the marine Conservation and biodiversity, and also the protection of Chagossian culture.
So we'll be part of putting the Chagossian people at the heart of any levels of discussions, because too often in the past, the Chagossian people have been regarded as an afterthought, brought in at best to be told what has happened after it has happened. I don't believe that is is acceptable way forward. And fifthly, within the Bill are specific requirements protections on the economic position of the Chagos Islands on security arrangements for the Chagossian Islands, and also the protection of the natural environment and biodiversity, with a range of steps in clause five and six that the government will have to bring forward in relation to those.
Can I say I think that package of measures offers. I think the best way forward for the Chagos Islands and the Chagossian people themselves, I would say it is rarely in politics or indeed in life, that we get a second opportunity to start again. I believe this is the second opportunity. I believe that Parliament needs to grasp it. I look forward to the debates that
**** Possible New Speaker ****
lies ahead, and I beg to move. Question is that this bill be now read a second time.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
now read a second time. My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord Weir of Ballyholme on noble Lord Weir of Ballyholme on introducing on securing this, putting forward this bill and on his brilliant introduction of it. his brilliant introduction of it. It's a very good, comprehensive and comprehensible bill. And in my comprehensible bill. And in my experience, bills which are lucid are sure it's a. When bills are lucid, it's a symptom of the clarity and sensibility of the objectives enshrined in that bill. But this bill should not be necessary. But it is it is because the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has, to put it mildly, failed to appreciate our obligations to the Chagossian people, the rights of the people and the strength of our legal right to the Chagos.
Not just that possession is 9/10 of the law, but the remaining 10th of international law puts us in a rock solid position, and it shouldn't be necessary to repeat that legal position. But it is. First, the ICJ ruling was advisory, not binding. Second, it was based on a General Assembly resolution which is not binding. Third, when we signed up to the ICJ, we excluded the disputes between ourselves and the Commonwealth from their jurisdiction. Fourth, this hasn't often been mentioned. In 2012, the Cameron government extended that exclusion to include disputes with former member states of the Commonwealth specifically, so that should Mauritius tried to get round it by leaving the Commonwealth, that could not happen.
So the Foreign Office then believed that that exclusion was strong and valuable, and they made it more solid still. Fifth, the FCO subsequently invoked Unclose, the UN convention on the law of the sea and its tribunal. But that tribunal can't rule on sovereignty and it can't rule on military matters. And nothing could be more military than the Diego Garcia base six. The FCO nonetheless said that if we fail to ratify the agreement with Mauritius, we could find a binding face a binding verdict within weeks. Well, quite a lot of weeks have happened. And seventh, they then said that just waiting for a binding verdict would weaken our negotiating position.
But their case, well, indeed, the ultimate verdict might weaken our negotiating position. But since their case was based on the assertion that we have no sovereignty, it's hard to see how any verdict ratified that would weaken our negotiating position at all. And eighth, the government's final claim is that a verdict might prompt other states to withhold supplies and services, which would render the base inoperable. When I've asked what supplies, what services from what countries, they've refused to answer, and they've refused to acknowledge that if the base could be rendered inoperable by countries withholding supplies and services, that would be equally true.
If we, after any transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius, if these unidentified other countries objected to the use being made of the base by ourselves or the Americans, they could presumably render it inoperable by withholding these unidentified supplies and services. Nor were they indicate whether they've pointed this out to the Americans. But their final weakness of the position of the Foreign Office was they'd overlooked our binding legal obligation to the Americans to secure their agreement to any transfer of sovereignty before signing the deal. And they'd gone ahead and signed the deal with Mauritius without getting a rock solid agreement from the Americans.
Now, all this ignores the crucial issue, which should not be ignored of the Chagossians themselves. The General Assembly resolution on which the decision, the advisory ruling of the ICJ was based and the government position is based, says that in the process of decolonisation, territories can't be split up. It's a moot point whether Chagos was ever part of the same territory as Mauritius. But in any case, the UN allows for for inhabitants to choose to separate if they're given a vote on the subject, as we did to the inhabitants of what were then the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, now Kiribati and Tuvalu, and the inhabitants of Ellice Islands.
Tuvalu voted overwhelmingly to separate. There were just 4000 votes cast at. 92% of them were for separation. And so that separation was affected. Now. More recently, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has ruled not binding, but a UN ruling. We should delay the agreement with Mauritius to consult the Chagossians. The government argues that there is no chagossian population or. Certainly there wasn't until recently. But we give expatriates from the UK a vote in our elections, even though they voluntarily removed themselves from a period from residence in this country. Should we not all the more, as this bill does, give the Chagossian people who were forcibly removed from their country a vote on the same of the future of that on the same of the future of that country.
And. The only reason, until recently they've all been abroad is because they were deported, and because it was made very difficult for them to return. But now some have done so despite all the obstacles put in their way, and they've been there for some months. And this bill will allow permits to visit and reside in the islands of the Chagos, except in Diego Garcia itself, though hopefully the Americans would give priority to working in that base to Chagossians living in the islands or from elsewhere. Resettlement was considered by the previous government and thought to be practical, but at a cost.
However, that cost is a fraction of what is proposed. What it's proposed we hand over annually to the Mauritians, so resettlement is feasible. It's less costly than the agreement with Mauritius and it is happening and change that changes the whole legal, moral and economic position on which the government's approach to this problem is based. So I'll end with some questions for the government. First of all, does the government accept that the proposed agreement with Mauritius
I believe that that bill effectively would have handed over British sovereign territory, which had been British for over 200 years, to a government which had never held control or ownership of the islands and indeed simply did not give away the Chagos Islands, but presented them with a large dowry of a very handsome reward for Mauritius for taking them effectively off our hands without. Even for the Chagossians, the compensatory automatic right of resettlement, and indeed the Bill really gave no agency at all to the Chagossian people themselves. And that, I think, is for many Chagossians all too familiar at times in our most benign interpretations as a Parliament and as government, we have perhaps pretended that we are doing things for the Chagossian people.
Far too often we have done things to the Chagossian people, most notably, I think in the 1960s, when they were forcibly removed from the islands. What we have not done and what we need to change is doing things with the Chagossian people and respecting their choice and their control over their their destiny. The criticism that has been made of the previous bill is not simply confined to this House, but as we've seen recently, even the new defence secretary, Wes Streeting, has questioned whether the bill previously is good enough, given the position of the Americans and the current Prime Minister, who, to be fair to him, had no played no part in the previous arrangements, has indicated that there needs to be a review of the overall bill.
Now we know that the progress of the previous bill was stopped by the position of the American administration, and I appreciate that many of us in this chamber, at times would look at a level of volatility within the American administration in terms of their foreign policy. However, they have been consistent over the last period of time in their concern that this is not the right way forward. And indeed, given the direct interest that the American administration has through the military base at Diego Garcia, this is something which is not simply an opinion from across the Atlantic, but something that is critical to the way forward for the Chagos Islands.
As a result, I believe the issue has been left in a form of limbo. The government, it would appear, has not resiled from its previous position and potentially remains committed to the bill itself despite the review. But by the same token, they were not able then to bring forward that bill to progress it whenever it was going through the Lords. And indeed, in the last King's speech there was no mention of the situation as regards the Chagos Islands, and I think in particular it has left the Chagossians in a form of political purgatory, and they have been left with a level of uncertainty.
And I think that the one thing above all else we owe to the people is to give them certainty and control for the future. And that is what the purpose of my my bill is to outline the the contents of the bill, although it's a relatively short bill, there are five main components of it. First of all, and crucially, it provides what might be described as a triple lock on sovereignty, either for the transfer of sovereignty or indeed the leasing out of the islands before that can happen. On any deal. There are three hurdles that have to be overcome.
First of all, it would have to be done by way of Act of Parliament. Secondly, if there is a representative government of the Chagossian people, it would have to have their approval. And most crucially of all, in enshrining the principle of self-determination of the Chagossian people, it would have to be approved by a referendum of the Chagossian people, with the electorate clearly defined in clause four of the Bill, which highlights that British Indian Ocean Territory citizens would have the right to vote in that referendum, thus putting the destiny of the Chagos Islands and the Chagossian people in their own hands.
And that is the right thing to do. Secondly, one of the major concerns in relation to the Chagos Islands has been clearly the military base at Diego Garcia, which is the overriding concern of the Americans and also strategically very important to ourselves. The bill clearly, explicitly indicates that whatever rulings may happen in the future, that the base itself remains sovereign British territory. It gives a clear sign of certainty as to the position of Parliament and indeed the sovereign position. Thirdly, it enshrines transparency in any future arrangements, and indeed, clause two deals with the fact that that if there is any proposal to hand over to Mauritius or indeed anyone else, that it is clear that any financial arrangements both to the Mauritian government but also agencies or any companies connected up with them, are clearly outlined to Parliament.
And we know that there was a there has been a level of, shall we say, disagreement over the extent of the financial aid that was being given over to Mauritius within that. Fourthly, and I think also importantly, is the role of the Chagossian people, because while I think it is critical that we enshrine the rights of self-determination, simply giving the Chagossians a yes or no on any final package is not in and of itself sufficient. And so the bill looks at what other rights, pertinent rights we can give to the Chagossian people. It does deal with permits to work on the Diego Garcia base, and in particular, I think, an issue which is critical to Chagossians.
It deals with the issue of resettlement. They were torn from their country in 19 in the 1960s. The bill explicitly gives a right to resettle permanently on IL DEFRA and ill, and I apologise to the Chagossians if my pronunciation is not up to scratch in relation to that, and if at any stage the base on Diego Garcia is in some way abandoned. Also the Diego Garcia itself, and also allied to that as part of that resettlement, a range of issues in which the government would then be compelled to discuss and consult with the Chagossian people, from an economic partnership to a partnership on skills, health and education, to the marine Conservation and biodiversity, and also the protection of Chagossian culture.
So we'll be part of putting the Chagossian people at the heart of any levels of discussions, because too often in the past, the Chagossian people have been regarded as an afterthought, brought in at best to be told what has happened after it has happened. I don't believe that is is acceptable way forward. And fifthly, within the Bill are specific requirements protections on the economic position of the Chagos Islands on security arrangements for the Chagossian Islands, and also the protection of the natural environment and biodiversity, with a range of steps in clause five and six that the government will have to bring forward in relation to those.
Can I say I think that package of measures offers. I think the best way forward for the Chagos Islands and the Chagossian people themselves, I would say it is rarely in politics or indeed in life, that we get a second opportunity to start again. I believe this is the second opportunity. I believe that Parliament needs to grasp it. I look forward to the debates that
**** Possible New Speaker ****
lies ahead, and I beg to move. Question is that this bill be now read a second time.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
now read a second time. My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord Weir of Ballyholme on noble Lord Weir of Ballyholme on introducing on securing this, putting forward this bill and on his brilliant introduction of it. his brilliant introduction of it. It's a very good, comprehensive and comprehensible bill. And in my comprehensible bill. And in my experience, bills which are lucid are sure it's a. When bills are lucid, it's a symptom of the clarity and sensibility of the objectives enshrined in that bill. But this bill should not be necessary. But it is it is because the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has, to put it mildly, failed to appreciate our obligations to the Chagossian people, the rights of the people and the strength of our legal right to the Chagos.
Not just that possession is 9/10 of the law, but the remaining 10th of international law puts us in a rock solid position, and it shouldn't be necessary to repeat that legal position. But it is. First, the ICJ ruling was advisory, not binding. Second, it was based on a General Assembly resolution which is not binding. Third, when we signed up to the ICJ, we excluded the disputes between ourselves and the Commonwealth from their jurisdiction. Fourth, this hasn't often been mentioned. In 2012, the Cameron government extended that exclusion to include disputes with former member states of the Commonwealth specifically, so that should Mauritius tried to get round it by leaving the Commonwealth, that could not happen.
So the Foreign Office then believed that that exclusion was strong and valuable, and they made it more solid still. Fifth, the FCO subsequently invoked Unclose, the UN convention on the law of the sea and its tribunal. But that tribunal can't rule on sovereignty and it can't rule on military matters. And nothing could be more military than the Diego Garcia base six. The FCO nonetheless said that if we fail to ratify the agreement with Mauritius, we could find a binding face a binding verdict within weeks. Well, quite a lot of weeks have happened. And seventh, they then said that just waiting for a binding verdict would weaken our negotiating position.
But their case, well, indeed, the ultimate verdict might weaken our negotiating position. But since their case was based on the assertion that we have no sovereignty, it's hard to see how any verdict ratified that would weaken our negotiating position at all. And eighth, the government's final claim is that a verdict might prompt other states to withhold supplies and services, which would render the base inoperable. When I've asked what supplies, what services from what countries, they've refused to answer, and they've refused to acknowledge that if the base could be rendered inoperable by countries withholding supplies and services, that would be equally true.
If we, after any transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius, if these unidentified other countries objected to the use being made of the base by ourselves or the Americans, they could presumably render it inoperable by withholding these unidentified supplies and services. Nor were they indicate whether they've pointed this out to the Americans. But their final weakness of the position of the Foreign Office was they'd overlooked our binding legal obligation to the Americans to secure their agreement to any transfer of sovereignty before signing the deal. And they'd gone ahead and signed the deal with Mauritius without getting a rock solid agreement from the Americans.
Now, all this ignores the crucial issue, which should not be ignored of the Chagossians themselves. The General Assembly resolution on which the decision, the advisory ruling of the ICJ was based and the government position is based, says that in the process of decolonisation, territories can't be split up. It's a moot point whether Chagos was ever part of the same territory as Mauritius. But in any case, the UN allows for for inhabitants to choose to separate if they're given a vote on the subject, as we did to the inhabitants of what were then the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, now Kiribati and Tuvalu, and the inhabitants of Ellice Islands.
Tuvalu voted overwhelmingly to separate. There were just 4000 votes cast at. 92% of them were for separation. And so that separation was affected. Now. More recently, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has ruled not binding, but a UN ruling. We should delay the agreement with Mauritius to consult the Chagossians. The government argues that there is no chagossian population or. Certainly there wasn't until recently. But we give expatriates from the UK a vote in our elections, even though they voluntarily removed themselves from a period from residence in this country. Should we not all the more, as this bill does, give the Chagossian people who were forcibly removed from their country a vote on the same of the future of that on the same of the future of that country.
And. The only reason, until recently they've all been abroad is because they were deported, and because it was made very difficult for them to return. But now some have done so despite all the obstacles put in their way, and they've been there for some months. And this bill will allow permits to visit and reside in the islands of the Chagos, except in Diego Garcia itself, though hopefully the Americans would give priority to working in that base to Chagossians living in the islands or from elsewhere. Resettlement was considered by the previous government and thought to be practical, but at a cost.
However, that cost is a fraction of what is proposed. What it's proposed we hand over annually to the Mauritians, so resettlement is feasible. It's less costly than the agreement with Mauritius and it is happening and change that changes the whole legal, moral and economic position on which the government's approach to this problem is based. So I'll end with some questions for the government. First of all, does the government accept that the proposed agreement with Mauritius
12:38
Lord Lilley (Conservative)
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Lord Lilley (Conservative)
does not give Chagossians a right of return, despite the fact that of return, despite the fact that Lord Coaker, who I'm sure was speaking in all good faith? I have utmost respect for Lord Coaker and utmost respect for Lord Coaker and he's a man of integrity. But on the 16th of April he said in this House, in reply to a question. Me what is in reply to a question. Me what is proposed in the Treaty of Mauritius allows a right of return for Chagossians to the islands other Chagossians to the islands other than Diego Garcia.
Will the Minister confirm that is not the case? It gives the Mauritians the power to allow return or settlement by Chagossians or others, but no obligation to do so, or to ensure that it's for Chagossians. Second question if the Chagossians do return in any number, will they automatically have the right of self-determination, as is normally the case under UN rulings? And third, do they accept that the rights of Chagossians, both resident and forcibly removed, override the basis the the government originally gave for reaching this agreement that they've concluded with Mauritius? And if not, why not?
If not, we can only conclude that either they're concluding, they're continuing with a negotiation begun through sheer ignorance of the whole legal position of the British state. In the spirit of university challenge I've started. So I'll finish. Or because the anti-colonial ideologues on their own benches, combined with the Fco's traditional determination to rid itself of all of our overseas territories, is dominant in their thinking.
Will the Minister confirm that is not the case? It gives the Mauritians the power to allow return or settlement by Chagossians or others, but no obligation to do so, or to ensure that it's for Chagossians. Second question if the Chagossians do return in any number, will they automatically have the right of self-determination, as is normally the case under UN rulings? And third, do they accept that the rights of Chagossians, both resident and forcibly removed, override the basis the the government originally gave for reaching this agreement that they've concluded with Mauritius? And if not, why not?
If not, we can only conclude that either they're concluding, they're continuing with a negotiation begun through sheer ignorance of the whole legal position of the British state. In the spirit of university challenge I've started. So I'll finish. Or because the anti-colonial ideologues on their own benches, combined with the Fco's traditional determination to rid itself of all of our overseas territories, is dominant in their thinking.
12:40
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative)
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Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative)
My Lords, I to congratulate. very eminently sensible and timely bill before the House today. It's also a great privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Lily, and to inform the House that I'm glad to say that he's given most of my speech, which means that I can greatly accelerate the remarks that I'm going to make to the House today. The first point is that it is regrettable that we need to bring this bill at all, and it's perhaps a statement of the approach taken by the government towards the support for the overseas territories that that we have, sadly, to present this bill in order to put a brake upon the surrender of our own sovereign territory.
But that is what it's come to. My noble friend Lord Lily addressed the various legal shibboleths that the treaty was premised upon, and in particular, he dealt carefully with the fact that the advisory judgement of the ICJ and the powers of un Clos mean that there cannot be any international court which can rule upon our sovereignty over those islands. There's one other legal issue that my noble friend did not touch upon, and it's that which I ask directly to the noble Lady, the Minister, to answer in the. Debates about the bill which were brought during the last session, it was accepted by the government that the State of Mauritius is a signatory to the Treaty of Lord Barber, which forbids the positioning of nuclear weapons on African soil.
If the Chagos Islands become part of Mauritius, they will be covered by the operation of that treaty, and we know from many sources, but not least the speech given by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Haughton, during the debates on the bill, that the Americans routinely position nuclear weapons in the Chagos Islands. And indeed, there's some media reporting that they're stored there. So on that basis, we have never had a satisfactory explanation from the government or indeed any explanation as to how it is said that Mauritius, under this agreement, would agree to the continuance of the use of the base for the storage or transit of nuclear weapons.
Accordingly, it seems to me our American allies are going to be very hostile to this surrender of sovereignty, and the government have so far just ignored this point. So my question today to the noble Lady, the Minister, is, what do the government say about Mauritius? Mauritius, membership of the Treaty of Lord Barber in relation to the agreement that was reached? I very much hope that the noble Lady, the Minister, being part of Mr. Burnham's administration, have agreed to review the deal, will say, well, hopefully it doesn't matter because we're going to revise our view on this deal.
But that is what it's come to. My noble friend Lord Lily addressed the various legal shibboleths that the treaty was premised upon, and in particular, he dealt carefully with the fact that the advisory judgement of the ICJ and the powers of un Clos mean that there cannot be any international court which can rule upon our sovereignty over those islands. There's one other legal issue that my noble friend did not touch upon, and it's that which I ask directly to the noble Lady, the Minister, to answer in the. Debates about the bill which were brought during the last session, it was accepted by the government that the State of Mauritius is a signatory to the Treaty of Lord Barber, which forbids the positioning of nuclear weapons on African soil.
If the Chagos Islands become part of Mauritius, they will be covered by the operation of that treaty, and we know from many sources, but not least the speech given by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Haughton, during the debates on the bill, that the Americans routinely position nuclear weapons in the Chagos Islands. And indeed, there's some media reporting that they're stored there. So on that basis, we have never had a satisfactory explanation from the government or indeed any explanation as to how it is said that Mauritius, under this agreement, would agree to the continuance of the use of the base for the storage or transit of nuclear weapons.
Accordingly, it seems to me our American allies are going to be very hostile to this surrender of sovereignty, and the government have so far just ignored this point. So my question today to the noble Lady, the Minister, is, what do the government say about Mauritius? Mauritius, membership of the Treaty of Lord Barber in relation to the agreement that was reached? I very much hope that the noble Lady, the Minister, being part of Mr. Burnham's administration, have agreed to review the deal, will say, well, hopefully it doesn't matter because we're going to revise our view on this deal.
12:43
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-affiliated)
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Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-affiliated)
Yeah. >> Yeah yeah, yeah. >> My Lords. >> I'd like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Weir of Ballyholme for introducing this Ballyholme for introducing this motion and the manner in which he introduced it. It is very rare that introduced it. It is very rare that we get second chances. Providence has provided with one here, and I really hope that Ministers will look impartially at the opportunity before them. I am going to canter over very briefly some of the history of how we got here. The islands were uninhabited until 1783, when they were taken by France. France populated them with an enslaved population brought mainly from East Africa.
They were then taken from the French in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1810, an episode fictionalised in the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian, Jack Aubrey is given the wonderful line that it strikes him as absurd and unnatural that islands should not be British. In 1814, they were then seated as part of the general movement of territories around the Congress of Vienna, and there things stayed. Britain manumitted, the slave population and the. The territory, yes, was administered from Mauritius only in the sense that it was too small to maintain an administrative seat, and therefore had its administration in Mauritius in the same way that Aden had its administration in India.
It would be a very strange and bizarre thing if that became the basis of sovereignty claims around the world. Now, fast forward to 1965. Britain is decolonising. There is some dispute within Mauritius about not wanting to be decolonised. One of the Mauritian political parties is arguing that Mauritius should instead have representation in another place and be an integral part of the UK in the same manner as the Dom Toms of France. But Britain pushes ahead with the decolonisation, maintaining sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean territory. To put the issue beyond doubt, Mauritius trousers a very.
In those days, very large sum of money permanently. To renounce any claim it might have to the sovereignty of the archipelago. The then Prime Minister is later asked in a Mauritian parliamentary committee whether he was pressured. He said no. He were very happy to take the money. He said this is a portion of our territory which is very far from here and which we had never visited. You might have added that it was historically and ethnically different. Its population, as it were, broadly having come from the West rather than from the East. There was very little sense of awareness, let alone of claim of this being a similar population.
And there we there we can leave things until perhaps with an approximation to China going on in the early 20th century until Mauritius gets together a posse of third worldist judges and rules on the basis of a non-binding resolution of the UN General Assembly, making another non-binding ruling that somehow this territory belongs in defiance of the wishes of its people to a country that has never owned it and had until then shown no interest beyond the pecuniary interests that it has. So once again, I'm going to say to, to to the noble Lady, the Minister and to other Ministers, take the off ramp.
There is no good in pursuing this process. It's senseless. Militarily. We're imperilling a key base that commands four of the seven naval choke points. We're inviting unfriendly powers to take up positions in the surrounding archipelago. It makes no sense. Ecologically, we're giving away the most pristine maritime conservation zone in the world to a nation with a very poor record on biodiversity. It makes no sense democratically, because the overwhelming majority of Chagossians people, either born on the islands or their descendants, are clear that they do not want to be mauritians that they want, as they've made clear over and over again, to return to their islands as British overseas subjects.
And of course, it makes no sense financially. Good luck to any political party going into an election saying we are raising your taxes here so that they can cut their taxes in Mauritius, which is indeed the boast being made by some Mauritian politicians. How have we ended up in this place? I can best describe it as something one sees often with the Foreign Office. I can best describe it as bridge on the River Kwai syndrome. If you take as your starting assumption, the absolute supremacy of any international tribunal, even when it issues non-binding resolutions, and even when, for all the reasons that we just heard from the noble Lord Lord Lilley, its jurisdiction in this case is expressly excluded, both because of the military nature of the facility and because disputes between Commonwealth or Commonwealth members are excluded from its jurisdiction.
If you nonetheless are tearing around the world in your matrix Chambers Doughty Street way, looking for international tribunals to which to surrender, and that this is your priority, then within those terms, the leaseback agreement had a certain ingenuity. It had a certain a certain neatness, and it could be justified. When there was pressure from the US, then the US administration to do it. And when there was this pressure internally because of the the obsession of the previous Prime Minister and the previous attorney General with international law. But as with the bridge on the River Kwai, the bridge was never primarily in the British national interest.
It was only a response to a very specific circumstance. And that circumstance has now changed. The US government has made very clear that it doesn't want to go ahead with this treaty, and rather in the manner of Alec Guinness in the movie, we still have officials trying to stick to the thing in which they had invested so much of their time and ingenuity. I hope that even now, one of them will come and fall on the plunger and undo the folly, because in doing so, we would restore our relations with our closest ally. We would save ourselves a great deal of money, I have to say, not that it's any of my business that the party opposite would be doing itself a great favour electorally.
I can't help noticing that at every stage, including today, the Labour benches have been completely empty when we've been discussing this issue, because Labour politicians, whether in this place or in another place, did not generally go into politics again to betray a poor, black, dispossessed population and hand a pristine maritime conservation zone to a country with a terrible record. Ecologically so, there is every reason to pull out while there is still time. Let me urge the noble Lady, the Minister, and let me urge all Ministers to take the win.
Take the off ramp.
They were then taken from the French in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1810, an episode fictionalised in the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian, Jack Aubrey is given the wonderful line that it strikes him as absurd and unnatural that islands should not be British. In 1814, they were then seated as part of the general movement of territories around the Congress of Vienna, and there things stayed. Britain manumitted, the slave population and the. The territory, yes, was administered from Mauritius only in the sense that it was too small to maintain an administrative seat, and therefore had its administration in Mauritius in the same way that Aden had its administration in India.
It would be a very strange and bizarre thing if that became the basis of sovereignty claims around the world. Now, fast forward to 1965. Britain is decolonising. There is some dispute within Mauritius about not wanting to be decolonised. One of the Mauritian political parties is arguing that Mauritius should instead have representation in another place and be an integral part of the UK in the same manner as the Dom Toms of France. But Britain pushes ahead with the decolonisation, maintaining sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean territory. To put the issue beyond doubt, Mauritius trousers a very.
In those days, very large sum of money permanently. To renounce any claim it might have to the sovereignty of the archipelago. The then Prime Minister is later asked in a Mauritian parliamentary committee whether he was pressured. He said no. He were very happy to take the money. He said this is a portion of our territory which is very far from here and which we had never visited. You might have added that it was historically and ethnically different. Its population, as it were, broadly having come from the West rather than from the East. There was very little sense of awareness, let alone of claim of this being a similar population.
And there we there we can leave things until perhaps with an approximation to China going on in the early 20th century until Mauritius gets together a posse of third worldist judges and rules on the basis of a non-binding resolution of the UN General Assembly, making another non-binding ruling that somehow this territory belongs in defiance of the wishes of its people to a country that has never owned it and had until then shown no interest beyond the pecuniary interests that it has. So once again, I'm going to say to, to to the noble Lady, the Minister and to other Ministers, take the off ramp.
There is no good in pursuing this process. It's senseless. Militarily. We're imperilling a key base that commands four of the seven naval choke points. We're inviting unfriendly powers to take up positions in the surrounding archipelago. It makes no sense. Ecologically, we're giving away the most pristine maritime conservation zone in the world to a nation with a very poor record on biodiversity. It makes no sense democratically, because the overwhelming majority of Chagossians people, either born on the islands or their descendants, are clear that they do not want to be mauritians that they want, as they've made clear over and over again, to return to their islands as British overseas subjects.
And of course, it makes no sense financially. Good luck to any political party going into an election saying we are raising your taxes here so that they can cut their taxes in Mauritius, which is indeed the boast being made by some Mauritian politicians. How have we ended up in this place? I can best describe it as something one sees often with the Foreign Office. I can best describe it as bridge on the River Kwai syndrome. If you take as your starting assumption, the absolute supremacy of any international tribunal, even when it issues non-binding resolutions, and even when, for all the reasons that we just heard from the noble Lord Lord Lilley, its jurisdiction in this case is expressly excluded, both because of the military nature of the facility and because disputes between Commonwealth or Commonwealth members are excluded from its jurisdiction.
If you nonetheless are tearing around the world in your matrix Chambers Doughty Street way, looking for international tribunals to which to surrender, and that this is your priority, then within those terms, the leaseback agreement had a certain ingenuity. It had a certain a certain neatness, and it could be justified. When there was pressure from the US, then the US administration to do it. And when there was this pressure internally because of the the obsession of the previous Prime Minister and the previous attorney General with international law. But as with the bridge on the River Kwai, the bridge was never primarily in the British national interest.
It was only a response to a very specific circumstance. And that circumstance has now changed. The US government has made very clear that it doesn't want to go ahead with this treaty, and rather in the manner of Alec Guinness in the movie, we still have officials trying to stick to the thing in which they had invested so much of their time and ingenuity. I hope that even now, one of them will come and fall on the plunger and undo the folly, because in doing so, we would restore our relations with our closest ally. We would save ourselves a great deal of money, I have to say, not that it's any of my business that the party opposite would be doing itself a great favour electorally.
I can't help noticing that at every stage, including today, the Labour benches have been completely empty when we've been discussing this issue, because Labour politicians, whether in this place or in another place, did not generally go into politics again to betray a poor, black, dispossessed population and hand a pristine maritime conservation zone to a country with a terrible record. Ecologically so, there is every reason to pull out while there is still time. Let me urge the noble Lady, the Minister, and let me urge all Ministers to take the win.
Take the off ramp.
12:50
Baroness Meyer (Conservative)
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Baroness Meyer (Conservative)
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. >> My Lords, I too would like to thank Lord Weir of Ballyholme for introducing this very important bill, which I to support. At the heart of this bill lies the fundamental question by what right can the British government transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius without first obtaining the consent of this Chagossian people? We must remember that the Chagossians were forcibly removed from their homeland by Britain in the 1960s and 70s to make way for the military base of Diego Garcia. It was a shameful chapter in our history, and now, more than half a century later, we propose to decide their future once again without even asking for their consent.
Have we not learned anything from the past? The treaty provides no guarantee of return to Diego Garcia, no binding resettlement plan for the Chagossian people as a whole, and no requirement for their consent to transfer sovereignty. That is an extraordinary double standard. If an international court suggested that Britain should surrender the Falkland Islands or Gibraltar, would we simply disregard the wishes of their inhabitants? Of course not. We would insist that their right to self-determination was paramount. So why, then, are the Chagossian treated differently? The government appears to treat the absence of a resident chagossian population as a reason for their consent not being required, but the only reason they no longer inhabit their homeland is that we forcibly removed them to use their absence as a reason to deny them a voice in their future would compound the original injustice.
The principle of self-determination cannot be something we invoke selectively. Article one of the United Nations Charter recognises the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. The Chagossian have their own language, their own culture, traditions and distinct identity which have endured despite their expulsion. A survey organised by the Chagossian campaigners, involving more than 3500 respondents, reported that 99.22% favoured remaining under British sovereignty. Although this is not a formal referendum, it still demonstrates the strength of feeling amongst those who participated to transfer their homeland to another country without obtaining their consent would be nothing short of a scandal, my Lords.
They are also serious legal, financial and strategic objections to this treaty, as pointed out by noble Lords who spoke before me, the just. The government originally justified this agreement, warning that without an agreement, Britain faced an imminent legal decision that could render the Diego Garcia military base inoperable. But where is the evidence? On 25th February 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion, not a binding judgement, as Lord Lilley also pointed out. Moreover, the court's jurisdiction over disputes written between Britain and Mauritius is restricted while tribunals under the law of the Sea convention cannot simply determine questions of territorial sovereignty, there undoubtedly, undoubtedly legal and diplomatic difficulties.
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But these do not establish that surrendering sovereignty was the surrendering sovereignty was the only possible solution. The decision to transfer sovereignty was a political choice, not a was a political choice, not a direct consequence of a binding direct consequence of a binding court order. And that was an choice. We now propose to surrender British We now propose to surrender British territory, only to pay billions back to lease a military base. We already control. The government estimated the cost at $3.4 billion in present value terms. But the Taxpayer Alliance, taking into account inflation, has suggested that the payments over 99 years would reach 47 billion.
At a time when our public finances and defence budgets are under such pressure. How can this expenditure be justified? And what about our national security? Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important military bases in the world. Yet we propose to surrender sovereignty over it, leaving it to Mauritius. The government argues that the treaty secures the base for 99 years. But what happens after that? What if Mauritius decides not to renew the lease? What if China outbid us? And what about safeguarding the marine marine protected area? And why should Britain surrender sovereignty over a facility so vital to our own security, and that our ally, the United States, does not agree with.
Indeed, the treaty has been paused following renewed American opposition, and the government has acknowledged that it does. It cannot proceed without US support. So, my Lords, this is surely an opportunity to reconsider the entire agreement. For a government that champions human rights, denying Chagossian a meaningful say in the future of their homeland is an extraordinary moral contradiction. The Chagossian has already suffered grave injustice at British hands. We must not compound it with yet another injustice. This is why I support the bill. And does the Minister not agree that the government owes the Chagossian people more than an
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apology for the past? We owe them a voice for the future. And I'm pleased to.
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And I'm pleased to. See that many of them are here to listen to our debate. And I'm to listen to our debate. And I'm sure that they, too, would support this bill. Or, as Lord Lilley pointed out, do we even need such a bill? Does the Minister not agree bill? Does the Minister not agree that the best solution would be to
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bin this agreement, as the United States has suggested? Yes. My Lords, it's a pleasure to
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follow the. Melbourne as. Baroness Meyer and. As having been married. To a.
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To a. Former UK ambassador to Washington, she understands what goes on in Washington and what she said about the American administration. I think we should administration. I think we should all listen to carefully. My Lords, I support this bill wholeheartedly, I support this bill wholeheartedly, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ware, on not just drafting
Have we not learned anything from the past? The treaty provides no guarantee of return to Diego Garcia, no binding resettlement plan for the Chagossian people as a whole, and no requirement for their consent to transfer sovereignty. That is an extraordinary double standard. If an international court suggested that Britain should surrender the Falkland Islands or Gibraltar, would we simply disregard the wishes of their inhabitants? Of course not. We would insist that their right to self-determination was paramount. So why, then, are the Chagossian treated differently? The government appears to treat the absence of a resident chagossian population as a reason for their consent not being required, but the only reason they no longer inhabit their homeland is that we forcibly removed them to use their absence as a reason to deny them a voice in their future would compound the original injustice.
The principle of self-determination cannot be something we invoke selectively. Article one of the United Nations Charter recognises the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. The Chagossian have their own language, their own culture, traditions and distinct identity which have endured despite their expulsion. A survey organised by the Chagossian campaigners, involving more than 3500 respondents, reported that 99.22% favoured remaining under British sovereignty. Although this is not a formal referendum, it still demonstrates the strength of feeling amongst those who participated to transfer their homeland to another country without obtaining their consent would be nothing short of a scandal, my Lords.
They are also serious legal, financial and strategic objections to this treaty, as pointed out by noble Lords who spoke before me, the just. The government originally justified this agreement, warning that without an agreement, Britain faced an imminent legal decision that could render the Diego Garcia military base inoperable. But where is the evidence? On 25th February 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion, not a binding judgement, as Lord Lilley also pointed out. Moreover, the court's jurisdiction over disputes written between Britain and Mauritius is restricted while tribunals under the law of the Sea convention cannot simply determine questions of territorial sovereignty, there undoubtedly, undoubtedly legal and diplomatic difficulties.
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But these do not establish that surrendering sovereignty was the surrendering sovereignty was the only possible solution. The decision to transfer sovereignty was a political choice, not a was a political choice, not a direct consequence of a binding direct consequence of a binding court order. And that was an choice. We now propose to surrender British We now propose to surrender British territory, only to pay billions back to lease a military base. We already control. The government estimated the cost at $3.4 billion in present value terms. But the Taxpayer Alliance, taking into account inflation, has suggested that the payments over 99 years would reach 47 billion.
At a time when our public finances and defence budgets are under such pressure. How can this expenditure be justified? And what about our national security? Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important military bases in the world. Yet we propose to surrender sovereignty over it, leaving it to Mauritius. The government argues that the treaty secures the base for 99 years. But what happens after that? What if Mauritius decides not to renew the lease? What if China outbid us? And what about safeguarding the marine marine protected area? And why should Britain surrender sovereignty over a facility so vital to our own security, and that our ally, the United States, does not agree with.
Indeed, the treaty has been paused following renewed American opposition, and the government has acknowledged that it does. It cannot proceed without US support. So, my Lords, this is surely an opportunity to reconsider the entire agreement. For a government that champions human rights, denying Chagossian a meaningful say in the future of their homeland is an extraordinary moral contradiction. The Chagossian has already suffered grave injustice at British hands. We must not compound it with yet another injustice. This is why I support the bill. And does the Minister not agree that the government owes the Chagossian people more than an
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apology for the past? We owe them a voice for the future. And I'm pleased to.
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And I'm pleased to. See that many of them are here to listen to our debate. And I'm to listen to our debate. And I'm sure that they, too, would support this bill. Or, as Lord Lilley pointed out, do we even need such a bill? Does the Minister not agree bill? Does the Minister not agree that the best solution would be to
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bin this agreement, as the United States has suggested? Yes. My Lords, it's a pleasure to
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follow the. Melbourne as. Baroness Meyer and. As having been married. To a.
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To a. Former UK ambassador to Washington, she understands what goes on in Washington and what she said about the American administration. I think we should administration. I think we should all listen to carefully. My Lords, I support this bill wholeheartedly, I support this bill wholeheartedly, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ware, on not just drafting
12:58
Lord Bellingham (Conservative)
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Lord Bellingham (Conservative)
this bill in a very precise and accurate and impressive way, but accurate and impressive way, but also for his speech this morning. It actually encapsulates in very clear legal terms all of those clear legal terms all of those issues that we have been talking about and are so concerned about. And I won't go through all of them, And I won't go through all of them, but I think that what the bill says about sovereignty, about the protection of the rights of the Chagossians and the right to a Chagossians and the right to a referendum, and, of course, for guarantees for the marine protected area.
All of that is incredibly important. But, my Lords, as are the other noble Lords, particularly noble Lord Lord Lilley and Lord Hannan pointed out this bill, important though it is, should not be necessary because the background obviously is this wholly discredited treaty. The Chagos surrender Bill and I had a question down in the House recently on the 14th of October, and I put it to the Minister. First of all, that the opinion that was given by the ICJ was indeed an advisory opinion. And I also pointed out to her that under article 29, two of the 36.
Two of the statute of the ICJ, which we helped to draft her own officials will give her background on that. There was that specific initial exclusion for sovereignty disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries, and as Lord Walney pointed out, that was reinforced at a later date. And under the other case, the unclosed case, the then defence secretary, John Healey, said in the House last year in the first statement, in fact, on the treaty, that there was an imminent and immediate threat to the UK under the UN tribunal. Well, we've already established very clearly that Unclass cannot rule on issues regarding a military basis.
And so I ask the Minister on the 14th of October to explain to the House, why does she think why does the government believe that there is a credible and viable threat to the UK in terms of a binding legal judgement? And I'll give way to her now? She thinks there is a threat, but it'd be very helpful when she winds up if she can actually say to the House, there is no threat, legal threat to the UK whatsoever. And let's be very clear on that, because I don't think anyone now believes that there's any form of threat whatsoever.
She, in her reply, repeated what she said many times before, but for the last conservative administration went through 11 rounds of negotiations, or was it 12 rounds of negotiations? I can't remember. And somehow that makes it all the more. Indeed justifiable that the new government coming in immediately signed along the the treaty terms. I would point out to the Minister the very fact that there were 11 rounds of negotiations. It leads me to believe that the last government, and Lord Cameron in particular, believed that they could not sign the terms of a treaty that was on the table, but signs the terms of that treaty, which just were not acceptable.
So we didn't sign it. And that's why negotiations went on. And that's why the negotiations actually my Lords, were opposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, before the last election. And then we've had Ministers go on about the the UK's reputation in the global South. I've been privileged enough to have two separate stints at the FCO, and I've never heard the word Global South mentioned. I think it's a concoction of a number of NGOs. Presumably it refers to those countries in sub-Saharan Africa, south of the equator. But the idea that somehow, if the Minister and her colleagues may be doing a trade negotiation with Mozambique or Malawi or Madagascar, they arrive in Maputo or Lilongwe or Antonovo and meet their counterparts to sign a treaty.
Somehow those counterparts are going to say, well, well done, Britain. You've actually signed this treaty with Mauritius. We're really impressed, actually. I know those countries pretty well and they don't respect signs of weakness. They respect strength. So frankly, that argument about the global South that was rehearsed many times by the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and by Lord hammer, I don't think stacks up at all, my Lords. And of course, one of the very important parts of. And I hope the Minister, when she does wind up, makes it very clear and reinforces to everyone that there is no legal or credible viable threat.
Now, a very important part of this bill is around the whole issue of resettlement. And, of course, what has happened fairly recently this year is that on the 16th of February for Chagossians under Mandarin landed on the Isle de Croix in the Paris Banos archipelago, and two days later two more Chagossians joined them. Now, as we know, that Commissioner launched a case to evict them, which was turned. He failed. In that case, it's now gone to appeal. The Court of Appeal has has actually reserved its judgement and we're awaiting that judgement. But something very interesting has happened, my Lords, because in the meantime, the Biot Commission, based in Diego Garcia, has actually been supplying the six Chagossians on the Ile de qua.
They set aside. I gather the Minister can confirm this. £6 million to go on supplying the Chagossians on that island. Now, it would seem to me that this is the. Started by saying this was an irresponsible, illegal act, and they deplored it. Well, now. And I find this commendable, actually supplying them with key provisions to reinforce the supplies that those six Chagossians have. And of course, they have access to to plentiful numbers of fish and, and local crops and for example, breadfruit. But it is good news that the government, in the form of Biot Lord Bach commission, are supplying them formally.
And that is something I applaud. I understand that there are 42 more Chagossians immediately ready to go to to the turquoise, and there are another 300 have expressed interest in going. So, my Lords, we're actually moving, you know, pretty quickly towards having a viable population in those islands that could form a British overseas territory. And that's something that I think many of us would be extremely pleased to see. My Lords, when I was appointed the Minister in 2010, I asked the FCO to commission a feasibility study to look at the resettlement of the of the outer islands, and so they commissioned KPMG to do a full report, and it came out in 2015, by which stage I'd been sacked from the department.
But the report came out and the report actually was a very comprehensive report. KPMG looked at different scenarios, looked at first of all, a settlement of of 1500 settlers. They then looked at another option of 500 or 150, and they concluded that it certainly was possible and viable for a settlement to take place in a number of those outer islands. They did flag the cost, and the cost was going to come in at around about anywhere between 10 and £20 million a year. But as the noble Lord Lord Hannan pointed out, that is a tiny amount of money compared to the amount of money that we have committed in principle to give to Mauritius.
It's a small sum of money by comparison, and so therefore, I think the cost argument does actually go out of the window. The other point that they made in that report, and I would certainly urge the Minister to ask her officials, maybe it's in her her folder. I appreciate that report, but I'd certainly urge her to find a copy of it, because the other point it made very clearly is that if the government puts up this money in terms of of supporting this resettlement, then there may well be a flow of private sector money coming after it.
And I think that if there was a sensible programme of restructuring the settlement and and making sure that we had a really viable, interesting commercial offer to the private sector, but I would suggest, my noble Lords, but a lot of private sector money would flow after that money put in by the government. The other point raised by KPMG, and this is actually it touches on some strategic points that have been made already around defence. The report said that settlement on the outer islands could compromise the security security of Diego Garcia. Now, what has happened since then?
This was 15 or 16 years ago. I think it was been a major reappraisal of the security of the base, because that base now is in range of certainly supersonic and certainly hypersonic missiles. Indeed, there was one fired from Iran at Diego Garcia. It fell short. But that base is under threat of missile attack from the north. And so the obvious place to put counter systems, which will counter potential missile strikes, is actually in those northern islands to the north of Diego Garcia Emile de qua and those other islands. And what better way to secure those islands than to have than part of a settled British overseas territory?
Can I just suggest to your Lordships, but if those. China is. Has launched a phase of activism in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius, I certainly would not trust not to allow Chinese presence on those islands. And certainly if there was any intrusion by a third party in terms of settlements on those islands, then that would do far more damage to the base than anything else that might happen in terms of its future and its its security and safety. So, my Lords, just to look at two other very final points that have cropped up during our discussions this afternoon.
One is around sovereignty, which obviously is incredibly important. And the the right of those Chagossians to have a referendum to decide their future, that is incredibly important. And the other point was around environmental. Environmental protection, one of our most important marine protected areas, launched by the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in 2009. But this marine protected area is actually securing an incredibly important part of the UK's biodiversity. In fact, I think David Miliband said at the time that 40% of the UK's total biodiversity is outside those islands and around those islands. So there's also a chance now for this government to right the wrongs of 671967.
When they were evicted, they were taken off those islands. Their pets and dogs were gassed under a Labour government. 60 years forward in 2027. I hope the government will do two things accept this bill and then tear up this totally discredited treaty.
All of that is incredibly important. But, my Lords, as are the other noble Lords, particularly noble Lord Lord Lilley and Lord Hannan pointed out this bill, important though it is, should not be necessary because the background obviously is this wholly discredited treaty. The Chagos surrender Bill and I had a question down in the House recently on the 14th of October, and I put it to the Minister. First of all, that the opinion that was given by the ICJ was indeed an advisory opinion. And I also pointed out to her that under article 29, two of the 36.
Two of the statute of the ICJ, which we helped to draft her own officials will give her background on that. There was that specific initial exclusion for sovereignty disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries, and as Lord Walney pointed out, that was reinforced at a later date. And under the other case, the unclosed case, the then defence secretary, John Healey, said in the House last year in the first statement, in fact, on the treaty, that there was an imminent and immediate threat to the UK under the UN tribunal. Well, we've already established very clearly that Unclass cannot rule on issues regarding a military basis.
And so I ask the Minister on the 14th of October to explain to the House, why does she think why does the government believe that there is a credible and viable threat to the UK in terms of a binding legal judgement? And I'll give way to her now? She thinks there is a threat, but it'd be very helpful when she winds up if she can actually say to the House, there is no threat, legal threat to the UK whatsoever. And let's be very clear on that, because I don't think anyone now believes that there's any form of threat whatsoever.
She, in her reply, repeated what she said many times before, but for the last conservative administration went through 11 rounds of negotiations, or was it 12 rounds of negotiations? I can't remember. And somehow that makes it all the more. Indeed justifiable that the new government coming in immediately signed along the the treaty terms. I would point out to the Minister the very fact that there were 11 rounds of negotiations. It leads me to believe that the last government, and Lord Cameron in particular, believed that they could not sign the terms of a treaty that was on the table, but signs the terms of that treaty, which just were not acceptable.
So we didn't sign it. And that's why negotiations went on. And that's why the negotiations actually my Lords, were opposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, before the last election. And then we've had Ministers go on about the the UK's reputation in the global South. I've been privileged enough to have two separate stints at the FCO, and I've never heard the word Global South mentioned. I think it's a concoction of a number of NGOs. Presumably it refers to those countries in sub-Saharan Africa, south of the equator. But the idea that somehow, if the Minister and her colleagues may be doing a trade negotiation with Mozambique or Malawi or Madagascar, they arrive in Maputo or Lilongwe or Antonovo and meet their counterparts to sign a treaty.
Somehow those counterparts are going to say, well, well done, Britain. You've actually signed this treaty with Mauritius. We're really impressed, actually. I know those countries pretty well and they don't respect signs of weakness. They respect strength. So frankly, that argument about the global South that was rehearsed many times by the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and by Lord hammer, I don't think stacks up at all, my Lords. And of course, one of the very important parts of. And I hope the Minister, when she does wind up, makes it very clear and reinforces to everyone that there is no legal or credible viable threat.
Now, a very important part of this bill is around the whole issue of resettlement. And, of course, what has happened fairly recently this year is that on the 16th of February for Chagossians under Mandarin landed on the Isle de Croix in the Paris Banos archipelago, and two days later two more Chagossians joined them. Now, as we know, that Commissioner launched a case to evict them, which was turned. He failed. In that case, it's now gone to appeal. The Court of Appeal has has actually reserved its judgement and we're awaiting that judgement. But something very interesting has happened, my Lords, because in the meantime, the Biot Commission, based in Diego Garcia, has actually been supplying the six Chagossians on the Ile de qua.
They set aside. I gather the Minister can confirm this. £6 million to go on supplying the Chagossians on that island. Now, it would seem to me that this is the. Started by saying this was an irresponsible, illegal act, and they deplored it. Well, now. And I find this commendable, actually supplying them with key provisions to reinforce the supplies that those six Chagossians have. And of course, they have access to to plentiful numbers of fish and, and local crops and for example, breadfruit. But it is good news that the government, in the form of Biot Lord Bach commission, are supplying them formally.
And that is something I applaud. I understand that there are 42 more Chagossians immediately ready to go to to the turquoise, and there are another 300 have expressed interest in going. So, my Lords, we're actually moving, you know, pretty quickly towards having a viable population in those islands that could form a British overseas territory. And that's something that I think many of us would be extremely pleased to see. My Lords, when I was appointed the Minister in 2010, I asked the FCO to commission a feasibility study to look at the resettlement of the of the outer islands, and so they commissioned KPMG to do a full report, and it came out in 2015, by which stage I'd been sacked from the department.
But the report came out and the report actually was a very comprehensive report. KPMG looked at different scenarios, looked at first of all, a settlement of of 1500 settlers. They then looked at another option of 500 or 150, and they concluded that it certainly was possible and viable for a settlement to take place in a number of those outer islands. They did flag the cost, and the cost was going to come in at around about anywhere between 10 and £20 million a year. But as the noble Lord Lord Hannan pointed out, that is a tiny amount of money compared to the amount of money that we have committed in principle to give to Mauritius.
It's a small sum of money by comparison, and so therefore, I think the cost argument does actually go out of the window. The other point that they made in that report, and I would certainly urge the Minister to ask her officials, maybe it's in her her folder. I appreciate that report, but I'd certainly urge her to find a copy of it, because the other point it made very clearly is that if the government puts up this money in terms of of supporting this resettlement, then there may well be a flow of private sector money coming after it.
And I think that if there was a sensible programme of restructuring the settlement and and making sure that we had a really viable, interesting commercial offer to the private sector, but I would suggest, my noble Lords, but a lot of private sector money would flow after that money put in by the government. The other point raised by KPMG, and this is actually it touches on some strategic points that have been made already around defence. The report said that settlement on the outer islands could compromise the security security of Diego Garcia. Now, what has happened since then?
This was 15 or 16 years ago. I think it was been a major reappraisal of the security of the base, because that base now is in range of certainly supersonic and certainly hypersonic missiles. Indeed, there was one fired from Iran at Diego Garcia. It fell short. But that base is under threat of missile attack from the north. And so the obvious place to put counter systems, which will counter potential missile strikes, is actually in those northern islands to the north of Diego Garcia Emile de qua and those other islands. And what better way to secure those islands than to have than part of a settled British overseas territory?
Can I just suggest to your Lordships, but if those. China is. Has launched a phase of activism in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius, I certainly would not trust not to allow Chinese presence on those islands. And certainly if there was any intrusion by a third party in terms of settlements on those islands, then that would do far more damage to the base than anything else that might happen in terms of its future and its its security and safety. So, my Lords, just to look at two other very final points that have cropped up during our discussions this afternoon.
One is around sovereignty, which obviously is incredibly important. And the the right of those Chagossians to have a referendum to decide their future, that is incredibly important. And the other point was around environmental. Environmental protection, one of our most important marine protected areas, launched by the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in 2009. But this marine protected area is actually securing an incredibly important part of the UK's biodiversity. In fact, I think David Miliband said at the time that 40% of the UK's total biodiversity is outside those islands and around those islands. So there's also a chance now for this government to right the wrongs of 671967.
When they were evicted, they were taken off those islands. Their pets and dogs were gassed under a Labour government. 60 years forward in 2027. I hope the government will do two things accept this bill and then tear up this totally discredited treaty.
13:09
Lord Callanan (Conservative)
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Lord Callanan (Conservative)
Yeah. >> Yeah. >> My Lord, this has been a a great, if somewhat one sided debate. And I think it's actually quite sad that nobody from the Labour benches, nobody from the Labour benches, nobody from the Liberal Democrat benches, not even their frontbench spokesmen have have bothered to turn up and give us their opinion on this bill. But nevertheless, we have benefited from some great speeches from from, of course, Lord Weir in introducing it from from my own benches and from the non-aligned members. And I do pay tribute to the noble Lord Lord Weir of Ballyholme for introducing this bill.
He has been a constant presence in our debates about the future of the Biot territory and his work on the catastrophic Diego Garcia military base and British Indian Ocean Territory. Bill in the last session contributed in large part to the failure of the government's Chagos surrender. He is to be lauded for his commitment to our common cause, the continuation of British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, and the writing of historic wrongs perpetrated against the Chagossian people by the British state. It is a true pleasure to speak in support of his excellent Bill today, as the noble Lord Weir has explained, this bill would protect British sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory and give the Chagossian people.
The voice that they deserve. If this bill were to become law, the UK would be prevented from transferring the sovereignty of the islands or leasing them to another state. Unless three tests have been met. These tests are that, firstly, the approval of any lawful Biot government has been signified. Secondly, a referendum of the Chagossian people approving the transfer has been held. And thirdly, an Act of Parliament has been passed. All of those steps seem eminently sensible and would give future governments pause for thought before proceeding to agree. Another surrender treaty, like the one signed by Keir Starmer's failed government.
I have no doubt that over Baroness Carr the Minister will oppose this. It is, after all, a triple lock, and we know how the Prime Minister feels about triple locks. We on these benches are much more open to the triple lock to the Chagos Islands. In light of the persistent efforts by the Mauritian government to undermine British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. The noble Lords Bill also puts Parliament in the driving seat when it comes to any planned expenditure connected with the transfer of sovereignty. For months we were in dispute over the government's previous plans to spend £35 billion on their hopelessly unpopular treaty with Mauritius.
Ministers denied that figure until the government's own response to an FOI request, in fact, confirmed that that figure was correct. Giving away islands that are British by right and then paying for the privilege was always an unacceptable position, and there was widespread opposition to it in this House during our debates on the government's bill. It is clear that this government cannot be trusted to negotiate a good deal for the British people, and it is no wonder that the EU is so keen to talk about closer ties when they see such negotiating weakness. When the UK.
From the United Kingdom. It is only right that Parliament should have the final say on any Chagos related expenditure. Perhaps that way we will prevent Ministers from signing off on treaties that are tantamount to total capitulation. And that brings me to the legal status of the islands. Ministers have constantly parroted the line that the islands are subject to legal uncertainty as a result of judgements in the international courts, but they have been strangely reluctant to tell us which judgements. My noble friends Lord Lilley Lord Bellingham, Lord Murray and others have roundly discredited that position, and we will see if the noble Lady can do better when she responds than her colleagues did when we were considering the bill.
My own friends are right. This bill explicitly reaffirms Britain's unquestionable sovereignty over the islands in clause one two, and we support that. We are clear that the islands are British, and I see no problem with Parliament making that plain in primary legislation. Indeed, my Lords, as many of my noble friends have pointed out, particularly Lord Lilley, the United Kingdom is already subject to the obligation to remain sovereign, maintain sovereignty over the Chagos Islands under the famous 1967 exchange of notes with the United States. This bill merely confirms in domestic law something that is already set out in international law, that the government keeps telling us they are so obedient to.
And finally, my Lords, I want to say a word on the Chagossians who have been so appallingly treated by successive governments. As my noble friend Lord Hannan has pointed out many times, their quiet dignity in the light of the great injustice done to them is truly humbling, and I am delighted to see so many of them again sitting in our public gallery today. It is high time that the government really put their mind to the views and the future of the Chagossians, who were so cruelly removed from those islands. Now the government have confirmed their review of the UK Mauritius Chagos Agreement.
Will the noble Baroness, the Minister, commit to a proper consultation of Chagossian people before confirming any future policy in this area? They have plenty of time to do that now. Their previous argument that there wasn't enough time falls falls apart. The government previously resisted a formal consultation for fear that a judicial review might be brought, delaying their planned transfer of the islands to Mauritius. Now there is no such urgency. So can we please put the Chagossian people back in the picture on the future of their own homeland? Now I know the noble Baroness Minister will tell us that the government has established the Chagossian contact Group.
That's a good thing. She will. She knows that. We feel that that is not enough. But since I imagine she will mention the group, then will she at least tell the house when this contact group actually last met? But I wish the noble Lord Lord Weir of Ballyholme every success as he takes this bill forward. I hope the government will listen to his heartfelt calls for us to draw a line under this sorry saga and say once and for all, the Chagos Islands are British and British.
They shall remain.
He has been a constant presence in our debates about the future of the Biot territory and his work on the catastrophic Diego Garcia military base and British Indian Ocean Territory. Bill in the last session contributed in large part to the failure of the government's Chagos surrender. He is to be lauded for his commitment to our common cause, the continuation of British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, and the writing of historic wrongs perpetrated against the Chagossian people by the British state. It is a true pleasure to speak in support of his excellent Bill today, as the noble Lord Weir has explained, this bill would protect British sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory and give the Chagossian people.
The voice that they deserve. If this bill were to become law, the UK would be prevented from transferring the sovereignty of the islands or leasing them to another state. Unless three tests have been met. These tests are that, firstly, the approval of any lawful Biot government has been signified. Secondly, a referendum of the Chagossian people approving the transfer has been held. And thirdly, an Act of Parliament has been passed. All of those steps seem eminently sensible and would give future governments pause for thought before proceeding to agree. Another surrender treaty, like the one signed by Keir Starmer's failed government.
I have no doubt that over Baroness Carr the Minister will oppose this. It is, after all, a triple lock, and we know how the Prime Minister feels about triple locks. We on these benches are much more open to the triple lock to the Chagos Islands. In light of the persistent efforts by the Mauritian government to undermine British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. The noble Lords Bill also puts Parliament in the driving seat when it comes to any planned expenditure connected with the transfer of sovereignty. For months we were in dispute over the government's previous plans to spend £35 billion on their hopelessly unpopular treaty with Mauritius.
Ministers denied that figure until the government's own response to an FOI request, in fact, confirmed that that figure was correct. Giving away islands that are British by right and then paying for the privilege was always an unacceptable position, and there was widespread opposition to it in this House during our debates on the government's bill. It is clear that this government cannot be trusted to negotiate a good deal for the British people, and it is no wonder that the EU is so keen to talk about closer ties when they see such negotiating weakness. When the UK.
From the United Kingdom. It is only right that Parliament should have the final say on any Chagos related expenditure. Perhaps that way we will prevent Ministers from signing off on treaties that are tantamount to total capitulation. And that brings me to the legal status of the islands. Ministers have constantly parroted the line that the islands are subject to legal uncertainty as a result of judgements in the international courts, but they have been strangely reluctant to tell us which judgements. My noble friends Lord Lilley Lord Bellingham, Lord Murray and others have roundly discredited that position, and we will see if the noble Lady can do better when she responds than her colleagues did when we were considering the bill.
My own friends are right. This bill explicitly reaffirms Britain's unquestionable sovereignty over the islands in clause one two, and we support that. We are clear that the islands are British, and I see no problem with Parliament making that plain in primary legislation. Indeed, my Lords, as many of my noble friends have pointed out, particularly Lord Lilley, the United Kingdom is already subject to the obligation to remain sovereign, maintain sovereignty over the Chagos Islands under the famous 1967 exchange of notes with the United States. This bill merely confirms in domestic law something that is already set out in international law, that the government keeps telling us they are so obedient to.
And finally, my Lords, I want to say a word on the Chagossians who have been so appallingly treated by successive governments. As my noble friend Lord Hannan has pointed out many times, their quiet dignity in the light of the great injustice done to them is truly humbling, and I am delighted to see so many of them again sitting in our public gallery today. It is high time that the government really put their mind to the views and the future of the Chagossians, who were so cruelly removed from those islands. Now the government have confirmed their review of the UK Mauritius Chagos Agreement.
Will the noble Baroness, the Minister, commit to a proper consultation of Chagossian people before confirming any future policy in this area? They have plenty of time to do that now. Their previous argument that there wasn't enough time falls falls apart. The government previously resisted a formal consultation for fear that a judicial review might be brought, delaying their planned transfer of the islands to Mauritius. Now there is no such urgency. So can we please put the Chagossian people back in the picture on the future of their own homeland? Now I know the noble Baroness Minister will tell us that the government has established the Chagossian contact Group.
That's a good thing. She will. She knows that. We feel that that is not enough. But since I imagine she will mention the group, then will she at least tell the house when this contact group actually last met? But I wish the noble Lord Lord Weir of Ballyholme every success as he takes this bill forward. I hope the government will listen to his heartfelt calls for us to draw a line under this sorry saga and say once and for all, the Chagos Islands are British and British.
They shall remain.
13:16
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Labour)
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Baroness Winterton of Doncaster, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Labour)
Yeah, yeah yeah. >> My Lords. >> I congratulate the noble Lord. Lord, we're on securing the this Second Reading debate and bringing forward his bill. And thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate for their contributions, which certainly reflect the deeply held views about this issue amongst noble Lords. And I will try to address as many of the points raised as I can in my response. But before I do that, I do want what once again to set out the vital importance of the base on Diego Garcia. As noble Lords have heard on many occasions.
Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US, which has protected our shared security for nearly 60 years. The base enables the rapid deployment of operations and forces across the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia, helping the UK to combat some of the most challenging threats we face, including from terrorism and hostile states. Diego Garcia's unique strategic location grants us real military advantage across the Indo Pacific. And put quite simply, the base makes an essential and irreplaceable contribution to keeping the British people safe and protecting our global interests.
And many noble Lords have raised the issue of the legal rationale and arguments behind that. And I'm sure that noble, noble Lords will accept that the base has been operating at increasing risk for decades. UK sovereignty has been challenged and international courts have already made decisions which undermine our position. And that is.
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How can an advisory opinion by a court which can under no circumstances, lead to a binding circumstances, lead to a binding judgement by a court, undermine the security of a base? I don't
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understand that. I will come on to address that issue. But let me first return to the. To what I was setting out, the. To what I was setting out, which is because of the legal position. As I say, I will come back to it. That is why negotiations were started by the previous conservative government. There were 11 rounds of talks conceding the principle of UK sovereignty and establishing the model of direct payment to Mauritius to lease back Diego Garcia. And when it came to power in 2024, the Labour government inherited a draft treaty that was close to completion and a political context in which the risk to base operations had never been greater.
Nevertheless, the government was able to secure much stronger provisions in the treaty to protect the base well into the next century. And I should say that in drawing this up, the UK and the US worked hand in glove in developing the treaty, and we continue to work together. But and when the Diego Garcia Treaty was signed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, we had us support. But as the noble Lord Weir said, it is clear that the US, through President Trump, has taken a different view. So we will continue to work together, as has been made by.
Made clear by both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister, because we need the support of both Mauritius and the US to find a solution that works for everyone. So the question has been asked by Lord Callanan Lord Lilley Lord Bellingham Lord Hannan, why are we handing sovereignty on the basis of a non-binding legal opinion? But I should say to noble Lords, this is not just about a legal judgement, it is about long term safety and security of the UK and the only way to maintain the base safely in the long term is through this agreement.
There is no alternative to where we just hang on to the base without an agreement. The previous conservative government tried to do that under Boris Johnson and when that failed, they started the negotiations. I. I accept that the. There are those who argue ignore the legal challenges, but there is no question that we can do that. Doing nothing is simply not an option and threatens the UK safety. There are. Some argue that there are carve outs and exemptions that the government has missed. But we've heard these arguments before and I'm afraid we have to reject them.
As I say, with regard to the ICJ exemption, although the 2017 amendment does indeed mean that the International Court of Justice cannot rule on disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries, this is not the only viable route to a binding judgement, and not the one
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we consider most likely with regard to. Plus, of course. I'm very grateful to the noble
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I'm very grateful to the noble Lady. Minister, could you could you identify what those other potential sources of judgements are, rather
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than just alluding to them? Well, with regard to the article
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Well, with regard to the article 298, there's a misunderstanding of the legal position on that. This the legal position on that. This does not create an exemption in respect of military bases, but in respect of disputes concerning military activities. And as I say, there are other routes through international legal judgements that could be quickly as well translated into UK domestic proceedings. If I could move on to the issue of the Chagossians, which were raised by Baroness Meyer, Baroness Lord Hannan Lord Weir and Lord Callanan, I know and I join with noble Lords, we do feel strongly about the Chagossian community and the injustice they have experienced, and we've heard some very powerful contribution during today's debate.
Let me say again, the government deeply regrets the way Chagossians were removed from the islands, and we are committed to building a relationship with the Chagossian community that is based on respect and acknowledgement of past wrongdoings. However, we have to also accept and respect the fact that there is a diversity of opinion within the community. We do continue to engage with Chagossian groups and Lord Callanan. Asked when the contact group last met, it met last week and we will continue that process of consultation. However, with regard to the bill itself and the call for a referendum which again Lord Bellingham and others raised, I'm afraid we reject the bill's call for a referendum.
The decision to enter into a treaty is a matter of national security, and therefore, we have to be very careful about how we approach that. And that's why, whilst rejecting a referendum, as I say, we have taken concrete steps to help the Chagossians, including protecting British citizenship rights, increasing UK support and negotiating a treaty which would enable Mauritius to develop a program of resettlement, which I think Baroness Meyer referred to on islands other than Diego Garcia. When it comes to the environment which Lord Bellingham raised. Although national security was paramount in negotiating the treaty, we also secured a deal that would continue to protect the unique environment of the Chagos Archipelago.
We agreed to work with Mauritius in establishing a new marine protected area, with clear and credible commitments to ensure the Chagos Marine environment will be effectively protected for generations. This includes a full ban on commercial fishing, high level IUCN aligned protection for the Great Chagos Bank, and only tightly controlled artisanal fishing to support any future Chagossian resettlement. My Lords, with regard to the financial package, I know there is a great interest in the financial side, and the Bill itself proposes that Parliament assumes a formal approval function for any future payments related to the Chagos Archipelago, and this is not new ground.
We have discussed many similar suggestions previously, as explained very clearly by both my noble friend Baroness Chapman and the Minister for the Overseas Territories. In the other place, a requirement for a vote before payment is not only contrary to the principle that treaty payments can be made under the Royal prerogative, it would also create an unacceptable risk for the long term sustainability of the base without certainty, the UK and US military would not be able to invest in viable capabilities, which would have major operational implications for the base. Let me finally turn to the Pelindaba treaty, which Lord Murray raised.
He asked the question whether the US could be prevented from having nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. Garcia this is completely untrue, and we are confident that nothing in this treaty conflicts with our abilities to uphold international law and to continue to operate the base as we do today. I fully respect the strong views, as I've said, that noble Lords have with regard to Diego Garcia and the future of the base, I hope I've been able to answer most of the questions set out today. And I have to say, which I think will not be unexpected, that the government cannot support this bill because it seeks to tie the government's hands in protecting the base.
It would subcontract the exercise of prerogative powers which would set which would not only set a dangerous precedent, it would be manifestly, my Lords, contrary to the national interest and to the security of the United Kingdom. So I'm afraid we are not able to support the bill going forward. But I do thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today, and I'm sure we will continue to discuss this issue in the future.
Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US, which has protected our shared security for nearly 60 years. The base enables the rapid deployment of operations and forces across the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia, helping the UK to combat some of the most challenging threats we face, including from terrorism and hostile states. Diego Garcia's unique strategic location grants us real military advantage across the Indo Pacific. And put quite simply, the base makes an essential and irreplaceable contribution to keeping the British people safe and protecting our global interests.
And many noble Lords have raised the issue of the legal rationale and arguments behind that. And I'm sure that noble, noble Lords will accept that the base has been operating at increasing risk for decades. UK sovereignty has been challenged and international courts have already made decisions which undermine our position. And that is.
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How can an advisory opinion by a court which can under no circumstances, lead to a binding circumstances, lead to a binding judgement by a court, undermine the security of a base? I don't
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understand that. I will come on to address that issue. But let me first return to the. To what I was setting out, the. To what I was setting out, which is because of the legal position. As I say, I will come back to it. That is why negotiations were started by the previous conservative government. There were 11 rounds of talks conceding the principle of UK sovereignty and establishing the model of direct payment to Mauritius to lease back Diego Garcia. And when it came to power in 2024, the Labour government inherited a draft treaty that was close to completion and a political context in which the risk to base operations had never been greater.
Nevertheless, the government was able to secure much stronger provisions in the treaty to protect the base well into the next century. And I should say that in drawing this up, the UK and the US worked hand in glove in developing the treaty, and we continue to work together. But and when the Diego Garcia Treaty was signed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, we had us support. But as the noble Lord Weir said, it is clear that the US, through President Trump, has taken a different view. So we will continue to work together, as has been made by.
Made clear by both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister, because we need the support of both Mauritius and the US to find a solution that works for everyone. So the question has been asked by Lord Callanan Lord Lilley Lord Bellingham Lord Hannan, why are we handing sovereignty on the basis of a non-binding legal opinion? But I should say to noble Lords, this is not just about a legal judgement, it is about long term safety and security of the UK and the only way to maintain the base safely in the long term is through this agreement.
There is no alternative to where we just hang on to the base without an agreement. The previous conservative government tried to do that under Boris Johnson and when that failed, they started the negotiations. I. I accept that the. There are those who argue ignore the legal challenges, but there is no question that we can do that. Doing nothing is simply not an option and threatens the UK safety. There are. Some argue that there are carve outs and exemptions that the government has missed. But we've heard these arguments before and I'm afraid we have to reject them.
As I say, with regard to the ICJ exemption, although the 2017 amendment does indeed mean that the International Court of Justice cannot rule on disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries, this is not the only viable route to a binding judgement, and not the one
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we consider most likely with regard to. Plus, of course. I'm very grateful to the noble
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I'm very grateful to the noble Lady. Minister, could you could you identify what those other potential sources of judgements are, rather
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than just alluding to them? Well, with regard to the article
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Well, with regard to the article 298, there's a misunderstanding of the legal position on that. This the legal position on that. This does not create an exemption in respect of military bases, but in respect of disputes concerning military activities. And as I say, there are other routes through international legal judgements that could be quickly as well translated into UK domestic proceedings. If I could move on to the issue of the Chagossians, which were raised by Baroness Meyer, Baroness Lord Hannan Lord Weir and Lord Callanan, I know and I join with noble Lords, we do feel strongly about the Chagossian community and the injustice they have experienced, and we've heard some very powerful contribution during today's debate.
Let me say again, the government deeply regrets the way Chagossians were removed from the islands, and we are committed to building a relationship with the Chagossian community that is based on respect and acknowledgement of past wrongdoings. However, we have to also accept and respect the fact that there is a diversity of opinion within the community. We do continue to engage with Chagossian groups and Lord Callanan. Asked when the contact group last met, it met last week and we will continue that process of consultation. However, with regard to the bill itself and the call for a referendum which again Lord Bellingham and others raised, I'm afraid we reject the bill's call for a referendum.
The decision to enter into a treaty is a matter of national security, and therefore, we have to be very careful about how we approach that. And that's why, whilst rejecting a referendum, as I say, we have taken concrete steps to help the Chagossians, including protecting British citizenship rights, increasing UK support and negotiating a treaty which would enable Mauritius to develop a program of resettlement, which I think Baroness Meyer referred to on islands other than Diego Garcia. When it comes to the environment which Lord Bellingham raised. Although national security was paramount in negotiating the treaty, we also secured a deal that would continue to protect the unique environment of the Chagos Archipelago.
We agreed to work with Mauritius in establishing a new marine protected area, with clear and credible commitments to ensure the Chagos Marine environment will be effectively protected for generations. This includes a full ban on commercial fishing, high level IUCN aligned protection for the Great Chagos Bank, and only tightly controlled artisanal fishing to support any future Chagossian resettlement. My Lords, with regard to the financial package, I know there is a great interest in the financial side, and the Bill itself proposes that Parliament assumes a formal approval function for any future payments related to the Chagos Archipelago, and this is not new ground.
We have discussed many similar suggestions previously, as explained very clearly by both my noble friend Baroness Chapman and the Minister for the Overseas Territories. In the other place, a requirement for a vote before payment is not only contrary to the principle that treaty payments can be made under the Royal prerogative, it would also create an unacceptable risk for the long term sustainability of the base without certainty, the UK and US military would not be able to invest in viable capabilities, which would have major operational implications for the base. Let me finally turn to the Pelindaba treaty, which Lord Murray raised.
He asked the question whether the US could be prevented from having nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. Garcia this is completely untrue, and we are confident that nothing in this treaty conflicts with our abilities to uphold international law and to continue to operate the base as we do today. I fully respect the strong views, as I've said, that noble Lords have with regard to Diego Garcia and the future of the base, I hope I've been able to answer most of the questions set out today. And I have to say, which I think will not be unexpected, that the government cannot support this bill because it seeks to tie the government's hands in protecting the base.
It would subcontract the exercise of prerogative powers which would set which would not only set a dangerous precedent, it would be manifestly, my Lords, contrary to the national interest and to the security of the United Kingdom. So I'm afraid we are not able to support the bill going forward. But I do thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today, and I'm sure we will continue to discuss this issue in the future.
13:29
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
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Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
My Lords, first of all, I want to place on record my thanks to everyone who has spoken in this debate, including the Minister, I think was given on an enviable position. Perhaps she produced not altogether surprising position. And, you know, the reality is it's perhaps was not only not surprising but almost inevitable that the bill before us today is contrasted in terms of juxtaposition with what has gone before by way of the previous government bill. So I want to pick out, I think, a few points that came up in the debate. Lord Lilley is absolutely right.
I think we would all prefer to be in a position where this was not needed in the first place. The reality is that, as has been highlighted by the number of the speakers, we were not facing something which was going to be internationally compelling against us to hand over the islands ICJ. And as has been mentioned in the exemptions that are there within that. And therefore, I think a lot of the actions which were taken were utterly unnecessary. Now, like I suspect most, if not all members of this House, I will have a range of opinions.
There will be some I will offer advice to the government. Those are advisable opinions, but I would be astonished if they agree with some of my opinions, let alone feel themselves to be bound by them. And so the reality is we are being, I think, brought forward to this position on a degree of false premise. Secondly, I think that it's been mentioned by a number of speakers that some sort of almost benignly believe that the actions in handing over this territory to Mauritius are in some way inspired by some noble concept of decolonisation. I said exactly the reverse.
The approach that was previously taken with Mauritius was to treat Chagos as almost sort of some prize that could be handed over by a medieval monarch at the end of some some war. One side gets an additional county, the other loses it. And indeed beyond that also to treat the Chagossian people as some form of chattels. As part of that overall position, I would say that if the inspiration is to decolonise, is there anything more anti-colonial than saying a country which is sovereign control of a territory? We are going to give complete self-determination to the indigenous people.
That is, to my mind, the definition of anti-colonialism. And that is something which is ultimately embraced within the bill. Thirdly, we are in a position and mention has been made effectively by the government that almost the route that they have taken, there is no alternative. Well, actually, we're in a position where in terms of moving forward on the deal that they had put forward, it may be, I think, as some speakers have indicated, legally questionable that without given the binding commitment with the US government as to whether it can move forward in their absence, it is certainly effectively, you know, implementable without the support of the US government, and that is the position that we are in.
And I think it's time the government faced up to reality, stopped flogging a dead horse and actually pursued a positive alternative course of action. And that is what is outlined by this bill. Fourthly, I think it's maybe only been slightly alluded to within this. I think we should realise while there is high level significance within the Chagos Islands also of wider world implications as well, if we take the opportunity to enshrine the right of self-determination and indeed, under any level of international pressure, simply hand over territory, what sort of message does that send out to other territories?
And we have seen, for example, in recent days with President Mil in Argentina, yet again, sabre rattling as regards the Falkland Islands. And if we as a country send out the signal that we are not strong in these issues and not prepared to embrace self-determination, then I think that it is inevitable that others will misinterpret our position. Fifthly, the point I think it was Baroness Mayer, or perhaps Lord Bellingham, raised in relation to resettlement. And again, there's a contrast between what was contained in the previous bill and this one in the previous bill. There was no automatic right of resettlement.
Indeed, the only opportunity at all for resettlement was that the grace and favour of the Mauritian government. If you were somebody who behaved yourself and made the right noises towards the Mauritian government, there may be some possibility of of resettlement otherwise, whatever your strong links with with the Chagos Islands, you would not be able to resettle. This bill explicitly guarantees that right of resettlement on two of the main islands within the Chagos Islands. And last night I had the opportunity at a meeting to converse directly via satellite link with miss Lee and has been indicated.
This is not simply some theoretical or moot point. There are Chagossians now back on the Chagos Islands. They have taken those steps to resettle, and again, it's time that we actually faced up to the reality of this. And can I say one other point the Minister has spoken about a diversity of opinion within the Chagossian community. That may well be true, but she speaks of of diversity of opinion, but will not allow a referendum. She speaks about discussions with them on a range of issues, but will not grant them the power on the most important thing, the right of self-determination.
And it is time that we actually give the Chagossians their place. Now can I say on a positive note, I was encouraged by the number of speakers who placed at the heart of this the rights of the Chagossian people themselves. I think that was encouraging and also, I think, an acceptance of a need for greater protection in terms of biodiversity. And I think that is also something that is contained within the bill. Now, I mentioned in my introductory remarks that this is a a second chance we do have, and whatever disagreements I will have with this government or any other government, I suspect that all governments come in with the intention of a desire to do the right thing, and indeed possibly also understand with one eye on legacy.
We do have a situation in which the Prime Minister, unlike the previous Prime Minister, does not have his fingerprints over the previous deal. So I would ask him to actually look at this with a fresh pair of eyes and embrace the opportunity for that second chance and to do the right things for the Chagossian people. Can I say finally, again, it was unsurprising that in both this debate and previous debates, there is inevitably going to be, as is the case within Parliament, a level of ping pong between different sides and where blame lies on that basis.
But can I say the one thing that struck me very much from previous debates on the Chagos Islands was probably a spirit and an acknowledgement around the entire chamber that our treatment of the Chagossian people over many decades and many governments has been shameful. The most shameful aspect being the forced removal in 1967. But we cannot do anything about the past. I'm always slightly dubious when governments make a performative apology for something that happened many years ago, to which they were not directly involved. We can't do anything about the past, but we can do something about the present and the future, which is to put the rights and needs of the Chagossian people, which do not infringe the military security of the base.
Let us get rid of that misunderstanding or misappropriation of the of the legislation in the context as well. It is time that we, as a Parliament, took forward a fresh approach which put the Chagossians first and do the right things for the Chagossian people. My Lords, I beg to move.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be now read a second time, as many be now read a second time, as many of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The contrary, not content. The contents have it. I beg to move that the Bill be
**** Possible New Speaker ****
I beg to move that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House. The question is that this bill
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House. As many as of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents
**** Possible New Speaker ****
have it. My Lords, I beg to move the House. Do now adjourn. House. Do now adjourn.
I think we would all prefer to be in a position where this was not needed in the first place. The reality is that, as has been highlighted by the number of the speakers, we were not facing something which was going to be internationally compelling against us to hand over the islands ICJ. And as has been mentioned in the exemptions that are there within that. And therefore, I think a lot of the actions which were taken were utterly unnecessary. Now, like I suspect most, if not all members of this House, I will have a range of opinions.
There will be some I will offer advice to the government. Those are advisable opinions, but I would be astonished if they agree with some of my opinions, let alone feel themselves to be bound by them. And so the reality is we are being, I think, brought forward to this position on a degree of false premise. Secondly, I think that it's been mentioned by a number of speakers that some sort of almost benignly believe that the actions in handing over this territory to Mauritius are in some way inspired by some noble concept of decolonisation. I said exactly the reverse.
The approach that was previously taken with Mauritius was to treat Chagos as almost sort of some prize that could be handed over by a medieval monarch at the end of some some war. One side gets an additional county, the other loses it. And indeed beyond that also to treat the Chagossian people as some form of chattels. As part of that overall position, I would say that if the inspiration is to decolonise, is there anything more anti-colonial than saying a country which is sovereign control of a territory? We are going to give complete self-determination to the indigenous people.
That is, to my mind, the definition of anti-colonialism. And that is something which is ultimately embraced within the bill. Thirdly, we are in a position and mention has been made effectively by the government that almost the route that they have taken, there is no alternative. Well, actually, we're in a position where in terms of moving forward on the deal that they had put forward, it may be, I think, as some speakers have indicated, legally questionable that without given the binding commitment with the US government as to whether it can move forward in their absence, it is certainly effectively, you know, implementable without the support of the US government, and that is the position that we are in.
And I think it's time the government faced up to reality, stopped flogging a dead horse and actually pursued a positive alternative course of action. And that is what is outlined by this bill. Fourthly, I think it's maybe only been slightly alluded to within this. I think we should realise while there is high level significance within the Chagos Islands also of wider world implications as well, if we take the opportunity to enshrine the right of self-determination and indeed, under any level of international pressure, simply hand over territory, what sort of message does that send out to other territories?
And we have seen, for example, in recent days with President Mil in Argentina, yet again, sabre rattling as regards the Falkland Islands. And if we as a country send out the signal that we are not strong in these issues and not prepared to embrace self-determination, then I think that it is inevitable that others will misinterpret our position. Fifthly, the point I think it was Baroness Mayer, or perhaps Lord Bellingham, raised in relation to resettlement. And again, there's a contrast between what was contained in the previous bill and this one in the previous bill. There was no automatic right of resettlement.
Indeed, the only opportunity at all for resettlement was that the grace and favour of the Mauritian government. If you were somebody who behaved yourself and made the right noises towards the Mauritian government, there may be some possibility of of resettlement otherwise, whatever your strong links with with the Chagos Islands, you would not be able to resettle. This bill explicitly guarantees that right of resettlement on two of the main islands within the Chagos Islands. And last night I had the opportunity at a meeting to converse directly via satellite link with miss Lee and has been indicated.
This is not simply some theoretical or moot point. There are Chagossians now back on the Chagos Islands. They have taken those steps to resettle, and again, it's time that we actually faced up to the reality of this. And can I say one other point the Minister has spoken about a diversity of opinion within the Chagossian community. That may well be true, but she speaks of of diversity of opinion, but will not allow a referendum. She speaks about discussions with them on a range of issues, but will not grant them the power on the most important thing, the right of self-determination.
And it is time that we actually give the Chagossians their place. Now can I say on a positive note, I was encouraged by the number of speakers who placed at the heart of this the rights of the Chagossian people themselves. I think that was encouraging and also, I think, an acceptance of a need for greater protection in terms of biodiversity. And I think that is also something that is contained within the bill. Now, I mentioned in my introductory remarks that this is a a second chance we do have, and whatever disagreements I will have with this government or any other government, I suspect that all governments come in with the intention of a desire to do the right thing, and indeed possibly also understand with one eye on legacy.
We do have a situation in which the Prime Minister, unlike the previous Prime Minister, does not have his fingerprints over the previous deal. So I would ask him to actually look at this with a fresh pair of eyes and embrace the opportunity for that second chance and to do the right things for the Chagossian people. Can I say finally, again, it was unsurprising that in both this debate and previous debates, there is inevitably going to be, as is the case within Parliament, a level of ping pong between different sides and where blame lies on that basis.
But can I say the one thing that struck me very much from previous debates on the Chagos Islands was probably a spirit and an acknowledgement around the entire chamber that our treatment of the Chagossian people over many decades and many governments has been shameful. The most shameful aspect being the forced removal in 1967. But we cannot do anything about the past. I'm always slightly dubious when governments make a performative apology for something that happened many years ago, to which they were not directly involved. We can't do anything about the past, but we can do something about the present and the future, which is to put the rights and needs of the Chagossian people, which do not infringe the military security of the base.
Let us get rid of that misunderstanding or misappropriation of the of the legislation in the context as well. It is time that we, as a Parliament, took forward a fresh approach which put the Chagossians first and do the right things for the Chagossian people. My Lords, I beg to move.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be now read a second time, as many be now read a second time, as many of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The contrary, not content. The contents have it. I beg to move that the Bill be
**** Possible New Speaker ****
I beg to move that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House. The question is that this bill
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House. As many as of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents
**** Possible New Speaker ****
have it. My Lords, I beg to move the House. Do now adjourn. House. Do now adjourn.