Constitution: Gracious Speech

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been engaged with constitutional issues for over 25 years. I was one of the initial signatories to Charter 88, a cross-party organisation, set up in the late 1980s, which was concerned that in our modern democracy institutions did not work in the best way and that we should look at ways in which our constitutional arrangements needed to be reformed. I became chair of that organisation and there developed a very clear set of intentions. The idea was that there should be reform of Parliament, particularly this House. It did indeed lead, when Labour came into government, to reform, so that there was a much reduced number of hereditary Peers, the hereditary principle clearly being so outmoded. There were discussions about a written constitution and the need for devolution—perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said, home rule is a better description. We talked also about a Bill of Rights, reform of the judiciary, the Freedom of Information Act and proportional representation.

When Labour came into government in 1997, it was because of my involvement in constitutional reform that I came to be in this House. Many of those issues were the platform upon which Labour had become the Government, and many of the reforms took place in the following years, though not all of them. I remind the current Government that when we talked about a British Bill of Rights, it was seen to be quite complicated. If we spoke about trial by jury being one of those rights, for example, it had to be circumscribed and it became difficult to work out who would be entitled to it and how to write that into a Bill. It could not be everybody, as in America, because that would be financially impossible. It became clear that incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights and bringing rights home was a more satisfactory way of doing things. That became our British Bill of Rights. In turn, that was incorporated into the Scotland Bill—Scotland, of course, has its own legal system—which too incorporated the European convention. In Northern Ireland it became part and parcel of the peace process. So, disentangling some of these things that become built into constitutions becomes rather difficult.

We did reform the judiciary but we should remember that, when you seek to reform, you should be careful what you wish for. The reform of the Lord Chancellor’s role was done in rather a back-of-an-envelope way. While I wanted to see reform of that role and, for example, the ways in which judges were appointed, the way it was done has led to a reduction in that great role and problems for us. We created a role that meant that people without legal training have become Lord Chancellor, which has reduced the greatness of that role. The reform had to be cobbled together because there had not been proper consideration of how it should take place. I say to this House: we are the guardians of the constitution. We have a wealth of experience and we should call upon the Government to look more carefully before they step into reform, because there can be unimagined consequences.

In 2006 I was invited by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to chair an inquiry into the failure of people to vote, as we were seeing a big reduction in voting numbers. We held what was then called the Power inquiry. We thought about how it should be titled and decided on “Power” because, precisely as my noble friend Lord Wills said, it is all about power. That is what constitutional reform and constitutions are about: who has power, how the checks and balances are created and so on. When we did that inquiry—I emphasise that it was not a great and grand inquiry—it was quite useful to have people who were not the same old faces involved. That inquiry went round the country. We spoke to people in community centres and so on and asked them why they did not vote. What we got were the answers that my noble friend Lord Wills has referred to: real disengagement because people felt they were not listened to and that wealthy and well-connected people had access to power in a way that they did not. That is still bubbling away under the discontent that I think there is in our nation.

I warn the House that constitutional change is a very interconnected issue. I say this particularly with a view to Scotland. We saw what happened in the referendum. In many ways, the Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, was outplayed by Alex Salmond in the preparation for that referendum: the question ended up being written by Mr Salmond; the timing was chosen by Mr Salmond; and votes for the young—which I support—was pressed for by Mr Salmond. Our Prime Minister is currently under the same kinds of pressures from the anti-European lobby in his own party, and he is being much too compliant over how to set up a referendum and how it should take place. I ask him to think carefully about how he does that. If we are not careful, a referendum on the European Union which does lead to our leaving Europe will have enormous consequences internally for the United Kingdom. It is almost inevitable that at that point, Scotland would say, “We want to have another referendum on whether we stay part of the United Kingdom”, and I would regret that enormously. I see all these things as being interconnected, and great risks are being taken with our unity.

I know that my time is running out but I want to speak about how Scots will read the business of English votes for English laws. If it is done on the cheap—the solution being that Scots leave the Chamber when England gets to deal with its own subject matter—that, too, creates a second-class citizen feeling for people in Scotland. This business of English votes, which I thought was a terrible thing to announce on the steps of Downing Street the day after the referendum had been won by the no campaign, has to be handled with great caution because of how the Scottish people feel. The Scots feel at the moment that they are discussed in derogatory, sidelining and insulting ways. So we have to be mindful of how this dialogue is conducted and how we speak about each other if we want to retain a United Kingdom.

Finally, on the Human Rights Act, it will not surprise your Lordships to learn that I feel most alarmed that we are talking about leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and the European court. We are part of a tapestry in which we have played a leading role, not just in Europe but throughout the world. Our place in this tapestry is so powerful and we have the high ground. We are a beacon for the way in which we protect human rights. We wrote this thing, so the idea that we are stepping away from it is a tragedy but it also has implications for our relationship with the European Union. Once we want to step outside the court, there are questions about whether we can remain part of the Council of Europe, and that in turn has implications for whether we can actually be in the European Union, which has embraced the European convention so wholeheartedly into its systems.

We have to bear in mind the risks in all of this and the interconnectedness. We are the place that can do this best, but we have to speak to the Government about the risks they are taking with the United Kingdom, never mind with our relationship with the rest of the world.