Business of the House

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Blunkett

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, on the Motion, will the Chief Whip comment on the story on the front page of the Times today that the House, and indeed Parliament as a whole, might be suspended for six months because of the coronavirus? Is he aware that this would be regarded as a very bad move by almost all Members of the House and would send a terrible signal to the country about the way in which we are treating the crisis that we face? He will be aware that Parliament sat all the way through the war, and indeed through the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19. Surely the best advice that we can give ourselves is to keep calm and carry on.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lord Adonis has just said. From my experience of almost 20 years ago, following the attacks of 11 September 2001, I know that the one thing that we have to avoid is alarming people. I cannot think of anything that would alarm the nation more, and damage both individuals and our economy, than Parliament failing to sit because of the coronavirus. I hope that, united as we appear to be, we can send a message to the other place that we want a sensible, rational and balanced approach, which so far the Government have been achieving.

Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Blunkett

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Friday 7th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot quite believe that we are having this debate and wasting Parliament’s time on such a monumentally inconsequential reform. However, I at least congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, on producing what I think, in my 15 years in this House, is the most minor change to the statute book of any that I have yet been a party to. By my calculation, there are 794 Members of the House of Lords and the total electorate of the nation is 45,775,800. That means that the noble Lord’s Bill would add 0.00173% to the electorate. If we were able to give an hour or two of debate to every issue in the country that could make a 0.00173% improvement to the relevant public policy of the country, we would sit continuously. Maybe we would do some good but we certainly would not give so much scrutiny to this issue.

Indeed, I was trying to work out whether it would make any difference at all to any constituency. It is just possible that it might have done, although I fear perhaps not in Northamptonshire. However, I note that in Kensington, where many noble Lords live, there was a majority in the 2017 election of only 20. So maybe, if the Bill had become law, in one constituency in the nation in one election in history, it might have made a difference. Perhaps all those who are residents of Kensington should be allowed to cast their vote retrospectively in the 2017 election and we might have a different Member of Parliament. Otherwise, it will not make any difference. As Ernest Bevin famously said on another occasion:

“If you open that Pandora’s Box, you never know what Trojan horses will jump out”.


This Bill is not of any great consequence—I could not really care whether it passes. Maybe in Northamptonshire people stop the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, in the street and ask why this great scandal of him not having the vote is allowed to perpetuate. However, I admit to your Lordships that no one has ever said that to me. Far more often, they have said, “Why are you there at all?” What on earth is the argument for the noble Lord, for the noble Earl, Lord Howe—

[Lord Blunkett]

Who forced my noble friend to come here?

[Lord Adonis]

Who forced my noble friend Lord Blunkett not to have a vote in a general election? He accepted the peerage and, by virtue of that, he does not have a vote. The reason that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, does not have a vote is not that some great constitutional outrage is taking place but because he chose to become Lord Naseby. None of us is forced to be here, because we no longer have hereditary succession without the right not to accept the peerage. Everyone is here by choice. The argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, whom we hold in great respect, and an argument that I assume the noble Earl will make again from the Front Bench—that in our democracy everyone should have a voice, which I argue noble Lords have by virtue of participation in this Chamber—is completely correct. If people want to vote for the other House, they should not come here. The idea that somehow there is a parallel with other Chambers in other countries is completely false, because this is the only second Chamber in the world, apart from China, in which people are here simply by virtue of who they are rather than by virtue of any representative credentials whatever.

As I said, I do not think that the Bill would make any difference one way or the other, apart from to the 794 of us here, but it raises principles. The noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, said that incremental reform is a good thing. I am in favour of incremental reform that improves things. The reforms that he mentioned—the introduction of life Peers, for example—improved the working of this House significantly, but this Bill will not of itself improve anything at all. It deals with what is arguably an anomaly or arguably not an anomaly—it depends how you look at it—but it would do nothing whatever to improve the operation of the constitution. Indeed, it would do nothing to address any of the issues that were very well put by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, concerning the working of our democracy. He raised very timely issues such as the right to vote at the age of 16. We should spend the time of this House debating issues such as that, not minor issues of this kind.

As we are being forced to have this debate, perhaps I may make two points.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Blunkett

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett]

For the record, Mr Gladstone came on to the scene for this particular building a bit late, did he not?

[Lord Adonis]

Actually, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer when a large part of the work was being carried out. I assure my noble friend that Gladstone took a keen interest in the allocation of the public finances; my noble friend and I can correspond on this matter afterwards.

The amendment moved by my noble friend seems at one level to be a statement of the obvious but, on another level, the fact that it needs to be stated is of some importance in itself. The two changes that he essentially wishes to make are: to enlarge the sponsor body’s duties to include promoting to the public the work of R&R; and to add to the sponsor body’s duties consulting not only Members of each House but members of the public. That should not need to be said; it ought to be obvious that that should happen. However, there are two reasons why this is important. First, I do not think that the Government are racing to accept the amendments; I am looking at the noble Earl. If so, there must be some reason why. It is precisely because the actual duties will be expanded in a way that the Government think will be distracting to the sponsor body. Why would the Government regard them in that way? They impose additional duties.

However, those duties—the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, was completely right about this—are exactly what we would and should expect of the sponsor body in two respects. First, it is a matter of self-interest: the body is going to spend a lot of money—the figure of £4 billion has been touted before but, from my intimate knowledge of how infrastructure projects go, I think that we can safely assume that it will be significantly larger. When the inevitable controversy comes, as it will, about the cost, overruns, delays and everything else, the sponsor body, your Lordships and the other House of Parliament need the ultimate protection possible, which must surely come from having engaged with the public and having proper public promotion and displays. Westminster Hall needs to be full of displays about the work that will be undertaken and we need the visitor centre to do the same. That is important. Secondly, part of the justification for the spending on this work is that it will enhance public access significantly.

To extend the point about what happens at the end of restoration and renewal, not having proper citizenship education is part of the problem. My noble friend Lord Blunkett has done more than any other Minister—in history, I would venture to suggest—to put citizenship at the core of what we teach in schools. It is hugely important. However, we still do not pay nearly enough attention to it. In particular, we do not make visiting Parliament, engaging with parliamentary institutions and meeting parliamentarians a systematic part of secondary school education, as it should be. Since the Germans’ massive renovation of the Bundestag’s beautiful old buildings in Berlin—at the behest of British architects, as it happens—they have had comprehensive programmes for schools and schoolchildren proactively to visit Berlin, tour the German parliament and meet their parliamentarians. We do not do that here. Even with all the expansion we are talking about, the creation of a visitor centre and all that, it all depends on people wanting to come here, whereas we should be proactively engaging. This problem goes to the wider issue: the further one goes from London, the more disengaged people feel from their parliamentary institutions, not least because they hardly have any contact with what goes on here. Their schools are much less likely to come here.

I am struck when I meet school parties—some I show around; many I just meet when I am walking around the Palace—and ask where they come from. They disproportionately come from London and the area immediately around. Why? Because if you have to proactively seek to come here and cover expenses and things of that kind, it will particularly be private schools—we come back to this issue—who will come here. We have to end this. We are now in a massive Brexit crisis because of the massive alienation between a large part of our people and our parliamentary institutions.