Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Purvis of Tweed

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Clearly, there are always lessons to be learned from history. However, what I have outlined today is a clear and comprehensive strategy and approach that the Government want to pursue to ultimately defeat ISIL and bring stability to the region, for all the reasons that I have already outlined.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I make one final further attempt for a greater degree of clarification in response to the noble Lord’s question about any potential use of British military forces, their targeting and the rules of engagement that they may well operate under. Can the Leader of the House be quite clear on whether they will rule out British military forces being used to target Assad-regime assets?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Our plan is to target ISIL. This is a strategy to target ISIL and that is what we are going to do. This is not about military action against Assad; it is about military action against ISIL. ISIL is our target and that is who we are going to go after.

English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Purvis of Tweed

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord is not being unfair when he says that we are now going beyond my level of knowledge of the way in which the Barnett formula works. While I am on my feet, I will see whether I get any additional information to assist me in responding to the noble Lord on this matter. For the moment, it is probably best for me to move on from that rather than try to guess at an answer to the specific point.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

I am conscious of the time, but before the Leader moves on from tax, perhaps I may ask whether the consequence of what she has just said is that, going forward, all taxes will have to be certified. If there are to be separate votes for English MPs on taxes—which are equivalent to those to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, on the rates of income tax and all the other taxes within the Smith agreement that the Scotland Act is delivering—the consequence is that every single tax will have to be certified by the Speaker as to its competence; otherwise the system cannot work. Will that be the position?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The process that the Speaker has to follow in order to certify Bills will apply. As regards Bills being subject to the certification process, there is no separate arrangement for a separate kind of Bill. Each Bill that is introduced into the House of Commons will be subject to that certification process. If there are aspects of a Bill which concern only England or England and Wales, they will follow the respective process which will allow for the English, or English and Welsh, MPs to have a greater voice and say on the decisions that affect only their constituents. That is what the English votes for English laws arrangements mean.

This is probably a good time for me to move on to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and others about the veto of English MPs and other matters of that kind. The important thing to stress is that what these provisions do is give a stronger voice to English MPs. We are not removing power from any Members of the other place. It is about giving a greater voice to English MPs. As far as a veto is concerned, the point that I have made in previous debates, and I stress again, is that what English MPs will not be able to do is initiate something without the approval of the whole House. They cannot overrule the whole House but neither can the rest of the House overrule them. It is about a power to stop something which directly affects their constituents and nobody else’s. It is not about them having a power to introduce something which would be for the benefit of their constituents only, without the support of the rest of the House.

Renewable Energy

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Purvis of Tweed

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

Order. This is one of these occasions when it is necessary for the House to recognise that there are a range of conventions. One is that each party in the House gets at least one go in a Question. There is also the respect that we pay to former Leaders of the House who are also trying to get in and ask a question. So I am going to sit down—bearing in mind that we have two minutes left and there is a former Leader trying to ask a question, and a Member of the Lib Dem Benches, and the Lib Dems have not yet asked a question—and leave it to the House to decide.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

My Lords, I am grateful to the former Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Richard. The Committee on Climate Change report on the cost-effective path to 2050 indicated that nuclear and onshore wind are likely to have broadly comparable costs to new, unabated gas. Given the fact that the predominance of the situation in Scotland has been affected by the recent government decision, should not the Government be open to amendments to the energy Bill that could be coming forward to make sure that there is a distinct case for Scotland, so that support for Scottish jobs and the Scottish economy is put on a comparable level as support for Chinese investors and the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom?