Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Lord True

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 17th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

The noble Lord also said other things, which the Hansard writers will record, including his saying that somehow a power was being conferred on Mr Johnson to do something that Mr Johnson has never said he would do, which is to advise the monarch to prorogue. That has been an inherent right of the Prime Minister and of the Crown for generations. It is an absurd statement, I am afraid, by my noble friend.

The first reason that these amendments should be resisted is, of course, one that I share but most of your Lordships will not: they are clearly designed to frustrate one route to Brexit on 31 October. That is freely admitted by all concerned. I can see that that is not a clinching argument with many of your Lordships, and, if we have learned anything in this House, it is that there is a dialogue of the deaf in this place between the remainer majority who wish to stop at nothing to prevent Brexit and those of us in the minority who believe that the vote of the public should be respected.

I fear that your Lordships’ House is getting itself into a worse and worse place in resisting Brexit. The very future of your Lordships’ House is now in play. That was made clear, not by me, but in the recent campaign for the European elections. I think these amendments take us to the outer fringe of where an unelected House should go.

The second strand of why I think they should be rejected is this canard of “constitutional outrage”, et cetera. This is an Aunt Sally. Mr Johnson—its target—has never said that he would use Prorogation to secure Brexit on 31 October. This danger, this threat, this crisis, this calamity, this catastrophe, this outrage—it is all got up by the remainers.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

What the noble Lord says is clearly true, and I do not dispute it. However, Mr Johnson has been invited on a number of occasions to say specifically, in terms, that he would not use that device, and he has declined to do so. Would the noble Lord agree that that is the case?

[Lord True]

I think in life it is never good to answer the question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”. The incoming Prime Minister—I will come to this point later.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Lord True

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I shall briefly echo the comments made by my noble friend Lady Hayter from the Front Bench. I respectfully say to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and those who support him that it is quite difficult for some of us to understand what we are doing here. This House agreed that this Bill should have a Second Reading and that it should be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and it has already had a substantial element of Committee scrutiny. It is really difficult to see what purpose is being served by the debate we are now having, in which the substantive issues from Second Reading are being reintroduced, other than to delay the progress of the Bill. I hope that we can bring this debate to a swift conclusion and move on with the Committee stage.

[Lord True (Con)]

Those strictures of course apply to the noble Baroness’s noble friend the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as well, who has perfectly legitimately laid a Motion before your Lordships. I am never popular on my side of the House when I say this, but I agree with the spirit of that Motion and express some sympathy. I agree with some of the sentiments expressed, and I think we should be dealing with amendments as much as we can. I reject the charge of filibuster, particularly when it comes from those Benches that we have had to listen to for day after day filibustering on the question of Brexit.

I agree in principle with what my noble friend Lord Cormack says about incremental reform, but where is the incremental reform on the Liberal Democrat Benches? We introduced provision for retirement, and when I looked at the figures today I noted that despite the retirement provisions being in place for months there are still 98 Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches. They are not stampeding for the exit. There is no incremental reform there. There is no increment at all. I think that those who do not partake in the spirit of reform should be the last to lecture the House on the subject.

There is the question of proportion, which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Cormack. The reality has been alluded to briefly and is that the effect of this measure, if your Lordships pass it, is over time substantially to change the proportions within the House. It has been argued by others that we need to do something because, otherwise, proportions would change. If this measure is passed—I have an amendment on this matter later so I will not develop it at great length—then 20% of the Conservative Benches, 16% of the Cross Benches, 4% of the Liberal Democrats and 2% of the Labour Party would be removed. So it has a profound effect over time.