European Council

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Richard

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will say what I have said already—which I believe is very clear, although I understand that my noble friend is seeking from me something which goes beyond what I am able to do at this time—which is that, as things stand, nothing has changed. However, I understand and very much appreciate why he and others are raising these questions. These are things which we will have to return to, and I recognise that we will have to return to them as quickly as we can.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has heard me say already today that anybody who is at this time telling anybody that they should go home is completely and utterly wrong, and that is not something which this Government are in any doubt about whatever. What I cannot say to the noble Lord or to the House, I fear, is—at the point at which we exit the European Union—what our relationship will be with France, in order to determine what kind of citizenship rights we want to offer.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Baroness said earlier that we should all now concentrate our energies on the negotiations, if I understood what she said. Can she help me a little bit? How can I concentrate my energies on negotiations when, first, I do not know when they will be negotiating; secondly, I do not know who is going to be doing the negotiating; thirdly, I do not know precisely what they are going to negotiate about; and fourthly, I do not know what our negotiators are trying to achieve?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am not sure that there was a question in there, my Lords.

[Lord Richard]

Could the noble Baroness explain to me how I can do all that?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Lord knows and the House understands—we all understand—the people of the United Kingdom were offered an opportunity to decide whether we should remain in the European Union or not. They have made their decision; we are now in a period of having to transition between that decision having been made and the next steps being taken. At the moment, what the Prime Minister is doing, and what I am doing, is setting out the information that we have—recognising of course that there is much more that needs to be established. That is something that the next Prime Minister will have to take forward but, in the meantime, the Government are doing quite a bit in order to prepare for that stage.

House of Lords: Strathclyde Review

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Richard

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend may not have had an opportunity to study my noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s report, he might not yet have spotted that it includes a reference to the other place and its role in secondary legislation. My right honourable friend the Leader of the House of Commons is also making a Statement today in the other place about this same topic.

As for when we will schedule the debate in January, clearly we will have to consider the timetabling of it alongside other matters when we return. However, my main commitment to this House is that there will be a substantial debate; it will be in government time; and we will do so early in the new year.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, will the Government kindly recognise, if they have not already, that a balance has to be struck between the existing powers of this House and the way in which government carries out its business? There is a good case for this House giving up its veto—I accept that—but there is an undoubted quid pro quo that has to be demanded for it, which is that the Government stop playing games with statutory legislation. The reason why we got into this mess in October was because, on a major issue of government policy, not just a minor financial issue, they chose to do it by statutory instrument rather than by primary legislation. There has to be a recognition on both sides in this argument that, if this House is asked to give up a power that it has got but very rarely exercises, the Government and the other place must recognise that in matters that are proper for primary legislation that is how they should do it. I am fortified in that by remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, when this matter was last raised in this House. If the Government can give that sort of assurance that they will not have these wheezes and play the silly games that they have been playing, I am sure we can make progress.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord, Lord Richard, makes an important point about the use of the proper legislative vehicle. I agree with him on that, and it is referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in his report as a recommendation as well—and that is why I refer to it in my Statement, because it is important that we acknowledge that as well as his other proposals on the powers of this House. I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord’s description of what is happening in the use of secondary legislation by this Government or, indeed, other Governments, but I accept the argument that he makes, and I accept that we have to be constant and vigilant to make sure that we always choose the right vehicle when we bring our measures to Parliament.

House of Lords: Strathclyde Review

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Richard

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde is focusing only on secondary legislation, as I have already described. The other groups to which my noble friend refers are looking at other, separate, matters.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, does the Leader of the House recognise that it is all very well to say that there is a convention that we should let statutory instruments through without too much difficulty in this House, but that there is a quid pro quo for that—which is that matters which should be considered in primary legislation at the other end of this building should not be introduced by statutory instrument? If the result of the deliberations of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is, “All right, this House loses the right to throw out statutory instruments”, the other side of that equation is that at the other end of the building the Government undertake that major financial issues should not be introduced by statutory instrument but by primary legislation.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

In October the Government used the vehicle set out for them to use in the original Act. That is what the Government did and they were at liberty to do so.

Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Richard

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, let me be absolutely clear. Any of the amendments that have been put down today, with the exception of that in the name of the right reverend Prelate, would mean that this House has not approved a statutory instrument which the House of Commons has approved and voted on three times. As I have already said, we would be challenging the primacy of the House of Commons on financial matters.

The right reverend Prelate’s amendment gives this House the opportunity to express its view in a way that accords with our conventions. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made various specific references. I say to him and to the House as a whole that the parent Act from which this statutory instrument is derived, which was brought forward by the Labour Government, made clear that amendments to tax credits should be introduced via secondary legislation. We are following that procedure. Indeed, after the Tax Credits Act was passed, other amendments to it were brought forward in the last Parliament, while we were in coalition government, exactly in the way that was expected.

The key fact is that there are conventions that apply to secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right to refer to the Joint Committee’s report. But in addition to what he quotes, that report also made it clear that,

“opposition parties should not use their numbers in the House of Lords to defeat an SI simply because they disagree with it”.

The key point I make to the noble Lord is that we are in an unprecedented situation, because the kind of primary legislation conventions that he refers to that allow the other House to enter into a dialogue with us just do not occur in secondary legislation.

We have a choice. We must choose whether to accept or reject this statutory instrument. Right now, it is absolutely clear that if we withhold our approval for this statutory instrument, we will be in direct conflict with the House of Commons.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

With respect to the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lady Hollis and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, does the Leader accept that neither of them is fatal to the resolution? Does she accept that?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

No, I do not accept what the noble Lord says. As I have already said, those amendments withhold this House’s agreement—its approval—from a statutory instrument that has already been approved by the House of Commons. They withhold this House’s approval from something that has already been approved by the other place. The noble Lord makes the perfectly fair point that this House has the power to defeat secondary legislation, but it does so very rarely. It has done so only five times since the Second World War, and it has never done so on financial secondary legislation. Although noble Lords have been able to table today’s amendments, it is up to us as a House to consider whether we regard the financial primacy of the House of Commons as vital to the continuing constitution of this country and the way in which Parliament operates. That is the important point here.

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[Lord Richard]

The Act gave the Government the power to do it. It did not compel them to do it. If they wanted to do it by way of an Act of Parliament it could have been done that way. They could have added it to the Finance Bill and it would have come up here and in the normal way financial privilege would have applied and none of this nonsense would have been created. Perhaps the reason the Government chose to legislate in this way was because it was bound to create political controversy. Perhaps that was the object of the exercise.

I want to say a word about the debate in 2008. It was when this House limited the power of a Labour Government to raise the national insurance upper threshold so that it could be done only through primary legislation. The two cases are almost identical. In each case, the Government were trying to alter tax provisions by a statutory regulation. In each case, this House was standing in their way. The only real difference is that in 2008—

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am so sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but he is referring to a previous case in a way which I do not believe is accurate. The example he is citing relates to primary legislation, not to a statutory instrument. An amendment was properly tabled in this House to that primary legislation, and this House voted on it. This House sent the Bill back to the other place in the normal way. The House of Commons decided that it would invoke financial privilege, and that was the end of the matter, so it is wrong for the noble Lord to draw direct comparisons in the way that he is doing.

The reason why the 1911 Act is relevant is that is quite clear that secondary legislation is not covered by some of the conventions that have been raised in debate in this House. What is at risk here is the financial primacy of the Commons.

[Lord Richard]

I hear what the noble Baroness says but, as far as the financial privilege of the House of Commons is concerned, if this House decides to vote for my noble friend Lady Hollis’s amendment—as I hope it will—it would not kill the statutory instrument. It would not mean that it was dead. It would mean that its implementation was delayed. According to the clerks—and I understand it is broadly accepted by most people—that is not a fatal attack upon these regulations. If the House were to do that, we would get the best of both worlds. I am not in favour of voting for the Liberal Democrat amendment because I do not, on the whole, think that voting for fatal amendments on statutory instruments is a good thing for this House to do, and I do not think I have ever done it. However, an amendment to postpone the statutory instrument until the other House has a chance to look at the evidence that has now arisen makes a great deal of sense. I hope that, when it comes to a vote, that is what will happen.

Palace of Westminster Committee

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Richard

Thursday 9th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That it is expedient that a joint committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster in the light of the Independent Options Appraisal commissioned by the House Committee and the House of Commons Commission.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the House would feel that it is terribly important that there should be equality of representation on this committee between both Houses. That is true not only in terms of the number of people who are involved on both sides but in the offices that some of them will represent. I have heard it said that the Chairman of Committees will not be represented in the Lords representation on this Joint Committee. As I understand it, he performs in this House functions similar to those performed by an official in the other place who will be on the committee. In those circumstances, there seems to be a disparity between the representation of the two Houses. If that is so, will the Leader of the House undertake to make sure that something is done about it?