Armed Forces: Redundancies

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I missed the Minister’s answer to the previous question.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is a range of reasons why some reductions, including in defence expenditure, are being made. As we withdraw our troops from Afghanistan in 2014, for the first time in a very long time we will not be, we hope, engaged in any active military operations; and, as we withdraw our troops from Germany, for the first time in over 200 years we will be within sight of our Armed Forces being mainly based in the United Kingdom. Some real and major adjustments to our Armed Forces will be under way in the next five to 10 years.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Friday 10th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

I said that. There is absolutely no undertaking from the Government as to what kind of scheme they would introduce. However, as the committee of the other noble Lord, Lord Hunt, made clear, we need a statutory provision in order that a scheme can be introduced. My discussions have simply been speculative about what kind of scheme might be introduced. It will be for the Government to come forward with a scheme, which the House can then approve, disapprove or amend in due course.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Steel, accept the gratitude of someone who served on the Leader’s Group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, which looked at the issue of retirement? There are—

[Baroness Trumpington]

I cannot hear.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington.

There are Members of your Lordships’ House—not many—who feel an onerous responsibility because they are not able to leave permanently and would prefer to do so. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for raising this issue and I am grateful that the financial aspects to which he referred are not part of our considerations today. I am sure that there are Members of the other place, who may not be in their places as we speak, who will look with interest at the number of amendments which may be brought forward to other parts of its Bill. This may be infectious in the future were another Bill to come before your Lordships’ House.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Steel and agree that common sense has broken out. I too would like to ask him a question about allowances: was any consideration given to allowances for the hereditary Peers who were removed in 1999?

My noble friend mentioned that no other amendment would be moved. The House knows that I have given him notice that I will move one amendment to seek clarification on what he has discussed with the Government since the Committee stage. In Committee he gave an assurance that he would discuss the matter of those who had been in prison. I shall not press the amendment; it is for elucidation and to get it on the official record

I am grateful, in particular, to my noble friends Lord Trefgarne and Lord Steel for working all hours last night and this morning to bring common sense to this legislation.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Friday 10th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am sure that when other Members of your Lordships’ House who have experience of Fridays in the other place looked at the Marshalled List today, they thought that we were in for a similar sort of experience. I know that my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood certainly had that tedious experience all too often of cloak-and-dagger assassins killing off Private Members’ Bills. I hope that that will not become a habit in your Lordships’ House because it is not only tedious but extremely frustrating.

Among the amendments today were a number of contradictory amendments—some from the same author. I thought that the expressions of good will in Committee indicated that we had consensus that the Bill in the form that my noble friend was pursuing had considerable support on all sides of the House. From the changes that have taken place today, in response to the wealth of amendments, it is clear that the Bill we thought we had dealt with in Committee did not have consensus across the House. Some 300 amendments would take out some very important provisions. We have been told on so many occasions in the past two or three years that my noble friend’s Bill would not only enjoy widespread support but would deal with all the major defects in the stature, authority and reputation of your Lordships’ House. The removal of Clause 10, as my noble friend said in his opening speech, emasculates the Bill. It would take out the most important provisions.

As so often at this end of the Building, the compromise that has been reached has been grabbed out of the jaws of chaos. We have to recognise that; it would be silly not to do so. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood would be the first to admit that nobody can be under any illusion that this exercise will result in even a modest step forward towards reform, hence his realistic assessment that this is no longer a House of Lords Reform Bill but simply a House of Lords amendment Bill, and we should recognise that.

The only logical conclusion must be that the sooner the government Bill comes forward—no doubt it will be improved by the very assiduous pre-legislative scrutiny that has been undertaken by the Joint Committee on which I served under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Richard—the better. When that Bill comes before Parliament I hope that we will not have another of these episodes when everyone says that they are in favour of doing something but, when it comes to the opportunity to do so, we have this sort of shambles that we would have faced today had all the amendments been moved. That does no good for the reputation of your Lordships’ House. I hope that, having had this experience today, we will take a lesson for the future. We should have a methodical, careful, meticulous process, but we should draw a very important conclusion from the way in which we might have been faced with a similar experience that Members of the other House have every time there is a Private Member’s Bill on a Friday.

Amendment 306, with Amendment 312A, makes the simple fact absolutely clear—piecemeal is not a way to approach the most important reforms to your Lordships’ House that we will have to consider in the months to come.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

One of the things that I learnt in my youth is the saying, which I am not sure is parliamentary language, “Quit while you’re winning”. I think that we should, and not debate it further. My experience in this House is that often when one of us speaks, intending to calm things down, somebody somewhere gets offended.

Amendment 306A agreed.

Big Society: Women’s Organisations

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, we are in discussions at all times with local authorities to ask them to prioritise the areas that the noble Baroness has mentioned. However, she will also be aware that the big society bank, which among other things will be able to fund the projects to which she referred, will be on stream soon.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Would the Minister care to comment on the fact that local authorities of all political persuasions are getting increasingly irritated by Ministers washing their hands of responsibility for cuts that the local authorities are being forced to make? Before the noble Baroness refers to the economic climate, let me say that the Government had two opportunities: first, to ensure that local authorities did not suffer more savage cuts than central government departments; and, secondly, to ensure the phasing that has been advised by local authorities of all political persuasions.