Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

We were told earlier by the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) that this was a Budget for Telford. Well, it is certainly not a Budget for disabled people, young people or low-income families. It is not a Budget for businesses either. A Budget that projects a systematic reduction in funding for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills cannot be good for businesses.

I am aware that I have a very short time, but I want to briefly mention city deals. The Aberdeen city deal, with £125 million from the UK Government, was announced earlier this year. That is roughly a third of what Manchester got per head, so I suggest that the UK Treasury is not particularly for Aberdeen either.

It has been suggested that the lifetime ISA, which was mentioned earlier, will be helpful for families, but the technicalities mean that it will not be helpful for anybody not looking either to buy a home or to support themselves in their retirement. For example, the money could not be withdrawn to support a couple who have just started having children.

As a Member for Aberdeen, I might be expected to talk about oil and gas, and we welcome the changes made, such as the effective abolition of the petroleum revenue tax and the halving of the supplementary charge, but there are still major issues for the oil and gas sector in relation to banking. It is difficult for companies to find finance at the moment. I am talking not about large infrastructure projects, for which there is the opportunity for loan guarantees, but about day-to-day business. Given the oil price just now, it is really tough for companies, and they are struggling to find finance. Some of the banks, although they are saying nice words to parliamentarians, are not actually lending to oil companies. They are pretty much saying, “Nah,” to supply chain companies, for example, which are the companies we need to be supporting just now.

I welcome the measures on decommissioning, but the UK Government will have to shell out about 62% of the cost of decommissioning oil rigs, so the longer it can be pushed out, the better for the UK Treasury, and this would be a benefit. It is very important that the UK, as one of the first fields to reach maturity, learns fast and becomes good at exporting that expertise. We need to support that.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend commented on the lack of time available. Does that not speak to the wider concerns expressed several times, not just about the budgetary process but about the estimates process in the House? Does she agree that this is an urgent matter for the Procedure Committee to consider?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Procedure Committee, for bringing that up, because it plays nicely into my next point, which is about how the Budget process works. We have had very little time for speeches today.

The Budget and the documentation we are provided with contain a total lack of clarity about Barnett consequentials in relation to the budget lines. For example, there are budget lines around cathedrals and cultural investment but no clarity, even in the statement of funding policy, about whether those things will generate Barnett consequentials and, if so, what the percentage of comparability is. It is very difficult for MPs to scrutinise these matters. The Tax Law Review Committee said:

“the House of Commons has neither the time nor the expertise nor, apparently, the inclination to undertake any systematic or effective examination of whatever tax rules the government of the day places before it for its approval”.

That is partly because of the complexity of the tax rules. Obviously, tax is levied on individuals personally, and then tax reliefs and benefits are provided to families, so it is quite a complex thing to work out. MPs lack the time—we have hardly any time to discuss it today—and the information to scrutinise the Budget effectively. This process needs to be improved as a matter of urgency.

House of Lords Reform

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I am delighted to speak on behalf of the SNP in this Backbench Business debate on the House of Lords. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) secured the debate, although I am rather glad that he spoke some time ago, so that everyone could forget how brilliant his speech was by the time it came round to mine.

As has been mentioned, this issue is not something that gets people exercised. However, I would suggest that, in Scotland, membership of the SNP is not insubstantial. There are quite a few members of the SNP, and at the SNP conference in Aberdeen, at which there were 3,500 delegates, there was a huge cheer when it was suggested that the House of Lords should be abolished. This is something that gets members of the SNP excited. It is something that genuinely gets mentioned on the doorsteps when we knock on doors. It is perhaps not the first thing that comes up—absolutely not—but parliamentary and constitutional reform come up a lot on the doorsteps in Scotland.

I am particularly pleased that this debate follows the one on space policy, because this place—these Houses of Parliament—is in another world from the one I normally inhabit. I have spoken to people previously about why they should dislike the House of Lords. Within the SNP and among people I have spoken to, there is a visceral, immediate dislike of the House of Lords, but people should not dislike it because the Lords swan along in ermine robes; they should dislike it because of the level of power that the House of Lords has.

This is not a way to run a democracy. Nobody creating a democratic system afresh would come up with the undemocratic, unwieldy and unaccountable second Chamber that we have. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) mentioned that the UK muddles along, and that is what has happened. It has happened with parliamentary reform and, as I will mention a little later, with reform of the Standing Orders in this place as well.

This is bicameralism at its worst. Of the 192 parliaments recognised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, 77 are bicameral and only the UK, Belgium, Zimbabwe and Lesotho have hereditary legislators. Belgium does not really count, though, because its hereditary legislators are related to the monarch and do not vote on anything, so the wonderful United Kingdom—proud defender of democracy; the mother of parliaments—is a member of a very select group that allows landed gentry to make law for our countries. Zimbabwe and Lesotho and us—there is nothing good about this situation.

I would like to take Members back to 1997. It is some time ago now, and things have changed a fair bit since then: I was still in primary school, Hanson were topping the charts with “MMMBop” and the Labour party was popular in Scotland. The Labour manifesto in 1997 said:

“The House of Lords must be reformed…the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute.”

Despite a massive majority for the Labour party in 1997 and a clear manifesto commitment to rid our democratic system of hereditary peers, nearly 20 years on we still have 92 of them—92 Lords who are allowed to make legislation because their family owned land.

I was talking to a peer recently about hereditary peerages. The defence mentioned was that there was a hereditary peer who could trace her family back 400 years. The nature of humankind is that all our families can be traced back 400 years; otherwise, we would not be here. It is ridiculous, patronising and wrong to argue that a tithe paid to a monarch hundreds of years ago should qualify any individual to make legislation. The Conservative Government make all sorts of claims about working hard being the best way to get on in life and achieve a high-salary job, for example. There is a wilful downplaying of the inbuilt advantage accorded to those whose families owned large country estates. Many of those estates were won by force and held by oppression. There is not a meritocracy in these islands. Working hard does not necessarily get anyone anywhere; where they are born and who their family are does.

Having said that and made clear my absolute disagreement with any system that accords a higher level of importance to anyone simply because of an accident of birth, I want to make clear my absolute lack of regard for the appointments system for life peers. Cross-Bench peers tell me how rigorous the process is for appointing them. I agree that it is thorough and they have to make major commitments to how much time they are going to spend in the House of Lords. However, there is no compulsion on the Prime Minister to ensure that non-Cross-Bench peers—or even Cross-Bench peers, for that matter—are appointed in that way. There is also no limit on the size of the Chamber, and one of the best ways to receive an excellent salary for life is to donate money to either the Conservative or Labour parties and be appointed to the House of Lords.

I want to expand on what my hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) have said about former parliamentarians. Since 1997, 152 former parliamentarians have been ennobled. Twenty of them were given peerages within five years of losing an election to the House of Commons. So within five years of being rejected by the electorate, they were given a seat in the other House to make legislation for the people who had rejected them. It is a ridiculous situation.

The reforms enacted in 1999—which I admit were good and took us a step along the way, but nowhere near far enough—did have an effect on the behaviour of the House of Lords, including on the turnout figures. However, they also made the House of Lords more powerful, because peers felt that they had more of a right to be there and to make decisions about legislation, but that is not the case. The House of Lords is still an unelected legislature and it should not be making laws for this country. There is no accountability. Members of the public cannot access the Lords—they do not know who they are. Peers are out of touch. There is no compulsion on them to listen to people in the general community. What they learn about the general community is often garnered from newspapers, and we all know that they are not a true reflection of society.

The House of Lords is also massively lacking in diversity, which has been mentioned by various Members. Only 26% of peers are female, which is even worse than the figure for this place. The record in the House of Commons is deplorable, but the record in the House of Lords is much worse. In June 2015 there were more people who had been peers for more than 30 years than there were peers under the age of 50, and there were only two peers under 40 among the entire 800-odd Members of the House of Lords. That compares hugely unfavourably with elected politics in the UK. It does not constitute representative democracy.

The youngest age at which a current Member of the House of Lords received a life peerage was 32. Although I fundamentally disagree with appointments for life, it is bizarre that half of our legislature should exclude anyone who I would class as young. It is no wonder that, as a result, young people do not trust the democratic system. They look at this place and they see a bunch of old people who they cannot relate to. If we look at elected Members as a whole, we will see that we are still woefully unrepresentative.

As has been said, some peers, particularly Cross Benchers, work very hard, but that cannot be used to legitimise the existence of the second Chamber, which is incredibly expensive. Some Cross Benchers have been, and continue to be, very active in their areas of work and fields of expertise, but there is no check on that. As the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) has said, people become ex-experts—their expertise goes away—very quickly.

The House of Commons has utterly failed to amend or rewrite the Parliament Acts to make any meaningful change to the House of Lords, which has not happened for the best part of 20 years. Actually, we have not made much change to the powers of the House of Lords since the Parliament Act 1911 and, subsequently, the Parliament Act 1949, which just tinkered with it. As I have said on previous occasions, I do not believe that the procedures of the House of Commons are fit for purpose. Given the opportunity, I would tear up the Standing Orders and start again, dramatically reducing the Executive privilege accorded to the Government of the day, thus requiring them to use their majority far more often.

The situation in the House of Lords is even worse. It is all done on the basis of convention. The Government got into such a pickle over tax credits because there is a convention—there is nothing in legislation—that the House of Lords does not vote on such things. On paper, the House of Lords is an incredibly powerful institution, and that is something we need to change.

The House of Lords is not a revising second Chamber. Nobody who makes the case for a revising second Chamber can hold up the House of Lords as the place that can revise legislation. It can still introduce primary legislation. It is not elected, but it can introduce legislation on behalf of the people of this country. It should not do so.

[Martin Vickers]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. As she knows from mine, I share her ambition to do away with an unelected second Chamber. However, can she explain her party’s support for membership of the European Union, where real power lies with the unelected European Commission? The European Parliament is really a sideshow.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, which I am sure will be discussed at length during European debates. Today, however, we are discussing the House of Lords, which is something that we have the power to change. Members of this place could pass a new Parliament Act. Elected Members have the ability to make mass changes to the House of Lords, and we should make big changes to it.

[Peter Grant]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be beneficial to introduce some of the European Parliament and European Commission’s ways of working to this place? For example, the European Parliament has the power to sack the entire European Commission. Does she support giving the House of Commons the right to sack the entire House of Lords? I think that is what the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) was referring to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

I would be delighted if the House of Commons had the ability to sack the entire House of Lords. In fact, I think the Conservative Government would have been quite keen to sack the entire House of Lords earlier in the Session.

[Martin Vickers]

I just remind the hon. Lady and her colleagues that this Chamber has the power to sack the Government.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am coming to the end of my speech, so I will now wrap up. The power of the House of Lords is dramatically greater than it should be. It has the ability to appoint people who have been rejected at the ballot box. People troop into that House rubbing their hands with glee at the untaxed £45,000 a year they can now earn. The expenses system and the payments system for the House of Lords—getting £300 day, which is classed as an allowance, and is not taxed—are abominable. That should not be happening.

The composition of the House of Lords is ridiculous. It is unrepresentative, and in no circumstances should it include hereditary peers and those appointed by religious organisations, whether from the Church of England or of any other religious organisation. I do not think there is any place for religious appointments in a legislative system. Lifetime appointments to any legislature are undemocratic. There are peers sitting there who have been peers for 70 years, which is an incredible length of time. Some of them are no longer active, but they still have the right to troop into the House and vote. How good is a peer at voting if they have been a peer for 70 years? They have a length of experience behind them—fair enough—but most people want to sit with their feet up and watch TV by the time they get to such an age. Appointments for high heijins and party donors are wrong and should not be happening.

The House of Lords is beyond reform. People have tried to reform it in the past, but it is still not an elected, accountable second Chamber. We need to abolish it.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

That is one of the principles that underlie the support of the many people who are in favour of an increase in democratic legitimacy. With a democratically elected second Chamber, it is much, much harder for the forces of reaction and special interests to win through, because the antidote to most of those things is normally greater democratic involvement. So I think the hon. Lady’s question enclosed its own answer, if I can put it that way; I certainly support her point.

Our problem therefore is choosing—not if, but how. There are currently too many different forms of possible election that could be looked at. There is the alternative vote, for example, and dozens of different forms of proportional representation. I regularly get letters from people who are cleaving to one or more of dozens of different kinds of electoral system. I am not sure what the democratic consensus would be on which one would be right, but I know that without a democratic consensus on choosing one, we will not be able to win the argument and get it done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) interestingly suggested something based on occupation rather than on geographical constituencies, and all these ideas are possible. They would all create alternative franchises that would not clash directly with the one used for this Chamber. Finding a non-clashing democratic mandate would be an advantage, but until such a thing can be done, we are inevitably on the back foot.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I hope the Minister is not saying that because it is so difficult, we should not do it. As the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) suggested, now might be a good time for this Conservative Government to think about taking this forward. If hardly any Members keen to maintain the House of Lords in its current form are willing to pitch up, it clearly means that there is an appetite for reform. Now is the time.

[John Penrose]

The hon. Lady made a series of powerful points, many of which I agreed with, but on that particular one I am respectfully going to disagree with her for a couple of reasons. We have heard from a number of different sides that the level of unprompted interest in the Dog and Duck in reform of the House of Lords is remarkably low. It might be quite high if we went along to the Bishops Bar, but that is probably the only bar in the entire country where that topic of conversation would come up naturally. Members of all parties are right to say that, when prompted, many people will agree that it is important to reform the Lords in some way. Without that prompt, however, it ranks a long way down people’s lists of priorities.

We need to form and forge a democratic consensus, but it is difficult for all of us to do so when the issue is low down the list of priorities because other things are more urgent, more immediate or loom larger. It would be wrong to overstate the appetite for reform and wrong to ignore the practical difficulties of achieving it. I do not want to assume that because something is desirable but not simple, it can therefore be wished for and produced with a wave of a magic wand. We all understand, as elected politicians, how hard this is, and we can all see the trail of failed attempts to make big reform changes. We have seen how difficult equally talented politicians, some of them extremely talented politicians, have found it.

That said, there is a possibility for smaller steps to be made. In the last Parliament, there was a series of small reforms. I do not want to let anyone get the impression that we think that small reforms are a substitute for more thoroughgoing things, but in many cases they represent progress in the right direction. It would wrong to let the best be the enemy of the good. When in the last Parliament, the House of Lords chose to change the rules on the retirement of its Members, this House agreed with it and it was a step in the right direction.

Many other issues are currently being discussed in the House of Lords, led by senior parliamentarians at that end of the building, including further reduction of the size of the House of Lords, looking at retirement ages and doing all sorts of other things. Those might not be to everybody’s taste as a complete answer—many certainly do not deal with the point about democratic legitimacy—but they are steps in the right direction, and I think we should encourage their Lordships to proceed with them. We must not be guilty of saying that just because it does not fulfil our perfect world scenario, we should not give it at least the time of day.

I encourage House of Lords Members as well as hon. Members here present and others elsewhere—anybody who is interested—to try to address the question of how to achieve greater democratic legitimacy. What kind of franchise can be chosen that will not clash with the franchise of this Chamber? What levels of powers do we think should be approved for the upper Chamber?

Incidentally, there has been some criticism of the Strathclyde review today. Let me gently suggest to those who are critical that, while they may wish that the review had a broader mandate, at its heart is the aim of making the primacy of the elected House apply. I hope that Members can at least agree that that is desirable. The outcome will of course depend on which of the options are followed, but the current formulation would move us towards a much more regularised and clearly defined system of powers between this House and the upper House. A series of options are being considered in respect of the length of stay of those who are currently in the upper House, under the existing system, along with such matters as retirement ages. All those things are vital, but if we are to have reform, I urge all Members who are present today to try to create a democratic debate, and perhaps form a democratic consensus, with the aim of reaching a conclusion.

I want to give the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire a chance to sum up the debate for a couple of minutes—and perhaps to give us a little bit more Robbie Burns; I do not know—so I shall do something unusual for a politician, and sit down and keep quiet. I thank everyone who took part in the debate for their useful and thoughtful contributions. I should also respond to some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), because he asked me particularly to do so. He made a number of specific suggestions about people who might or might not be appointed to the House of Lords. I will take that as a submission, and will relay it to those in the House of Lords so that they can consider it as part of their current deliberations.

I look forward to hearing the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire sum up the debate.

Finance Bill

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

So be it; the House will understand. It is not a matter for the Chair; I am simply playing fair. It is a matter for the Government, and the Minister could speak now if he wished, but he is not under any obligation to do so. The point of order has been heard. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) will be in his place tomorrow—and so will the Chancellor be—and we will await the development of events.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the result of the vote in the other place tonight, I would appreciate it if, in addition to Treasury questions tomorrow, the Prime Minister could assure the House that he will not flood the other place with more cronies and donors.

[Mr Speaker]

Perhaps I can just say to the hon. Lady and the House that, while I hear what she has to say, the late Lord Whitelaw was the author of a vintage phrase in British politics. As he put it, “I tend to prefer to cross bridges only when I come to them.” It seemed to be a very sagacious utterance by Lord Whitelaw. All I will say to the House now—as much for the benefit of those outside this place as of Members—is this. Two sentences: first, the parent Act specifies that the Government cannot make the regulations unless a draft has been approved by both Houses. I think we can all agree upon that. Secondly, it is up to the Government to decide how to proceed. We will leave it there for now.

Third Reading

House of Lords Reform

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I must apologise, Mr Hollobone—I have not spoken in a Westminster Hall debate before and so am not quite sure what I am doing.

I am the SNP spokesperson on the House of Lords. Our policy is no longer to have a second Chamber, but I understand that this debate is about finding a way forward by reforming the House of Lords rather than getting rid of it. The way forward that has been suggested is really interesting and would reduce the number of Lords. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) mentioned that some Lords are active and effective over the age of 75; that was an interesting point and should be taken into account.

One concern I have with the proposal of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) is that in the interim period of 20 years he suggested there is a risk that the House of Lords as a whole will continue to get older. If we are aiming to reduce the number of Lords, presumably we will not be appointing many more in that interim period, which will push the average age up, even with a cut-off point of 75.

[David Morris]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I have looked into this, and if we do the maths, as I said earlier, the average age in the Lords is around 70, and the average active Lord is 65 years of age. She is correct that there is a mathematical schism, in that not appointing new Lords would push up the average age. However, over a period of 20 years it would come down to how many Lords were appointed in the initial stages. We could have a calculated assessment that kept in mind the ages of the Lords and how many might be around in 20 years, which would allow us to work out a taper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

Absolutely. If the youngest Lords at the moment are in their 30s and we do not appoint any more, in 20 years the youngest will be in their 50s, which is a concern.

There could be a degree of election for the pool of life peers, as well as for the hereditary peers. The SNP policy is to abolish the House of Lords entirely, but if that is not going to happen, we want something that is closer to representative democracy. That would mean some form of election, and a House that represented the breadth of the population. A mean age of 70 is nowhere near doing that—I am not in any way being ageist, but simply suggesting that there is a lack of representativeness. If there were a system whereby a group of the current life peers was chosen democratically to continue in the House, we would be more likely to have a swathe of peers who were more representative of the population.

[David Morris]

I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from and share some of her sentiments. However, we looked at that in the previous Parliament and could not get the proposals through the House. I think the House of Lords should be kept as it is now; the issue is how we get the numbers down. I do not have a panacea and am hoping that this debate will be the start of a process. I share her sentiments, which could be looked at in future.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Absolutely.

I do not have much more to say. I appreciate the chance to contribute to the debate and hope that we can find a constructive way forward that includes reform of the House of Lords and, in particular, reduces the number of its Members.