House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Anderson of Ipswich Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Without betraying any confidences, and certainly without wishing to imply that the noble and learned Baroness is anything other than an excellent addition to your Lordships’ House, I can say that the process of taking soundings about potential candidates reflected the difficulties inherent in giving discretionary rather than automatic peerages. It reminded me that, just as the law is too important to be left to lawyers alone, the dark arts of politics are not practised only by politicians. So I welcome my noble friends’ efforts to set out a more formalised process in this area, but some of the valuable points they have raised through their amendments apply more widely than just to judges.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, although I am also a lawyer, I will be brief because the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has a point. I am rather against rules that require people to be appointed to this House by virtue of offices that they have held. As a former holder of the least distinguished of the offices listed in the generous Amendments 58 and 59 of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, I certainly did not feel entitled to such elevation, although the work I did in that office emboldened me to try my chances with HOLAC.

The glory of the Cross Benches—if that is not too strong a word—lies in the very diverse backgrounds of those who are here. I fear that a mandatory inflow of establishment figures, rigidly predefined and appointed irrespective of any scandals that may have attended their time in office, would tend to reduce that variety, in particular by inhibiting the appointment of people’s Peers, about which I have spoken in a previous debate.

With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, I would make an exception for the very senior judges named in the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for the reason that he gave: judges at that level often have impartially to determine cases to which the Government are, and sometimes even the Prime Minister is, party. That is what distinguishes them from Chiefs of the Defence Staff, Cabinet Secretaries and so on. They have to choose, in any case, on the basis of the law, whether they are on the Government’s side or not. That is why, between judges of equal rank, the state has to be scrupulously even-handed about conferring honours or preferment.

I am sure that every Government see the priceless benefit that former Supreme Court judges bring to our deliberations, but such judges should not be appointed to this House, any more than they should be given knighthoods or damehoods, simply because the Government of the day like the cut of their jib. Something less arbitrary is required. Either all should be appointed, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Banner, in Amendment 68—which would be my own preference, I hope not only because, like him, I am awaiting a judgment from the Supreme Court—or, if that is thought to be too rich a diet, the honour should be rationed, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, on the basis of rank. I hope Ministers might agree; I hope they might even be prepared to say so.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I am very attracted to what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has just said. I find what my noble friend Lord Banner had to say extremely attractive, and I hope that the Government will find it their—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s intervention. I can well anticipate that, if this is an issue that arises on consultation, there may be a distinction—to my mind, it is potentially a constitutionally important distinction—between the appropriateness or otherwise of the appointment of senior judges on their appointment to judicial office, which gives rise to the constitutional tensions that I alluded to a moment ago, and appointment upon retirement. I hope that that answers his question, at least in part.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

The noble and learned Lord draws a distinction between appointment to the Lords on taking office and appointment at the end of office being served, but we have heard already that the current President of the Supreme Court was appointed to this House on assuming the office—of course, on the understanding that he would not participate in the debates of the House. Is the noble and learned Lord saying that that is unconstitutional?

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

The constitutional tension is between judges who sit on cases that may often concern government legislation also sitting in the legislature. The distinction I seek to draw simply seeks to exemplify the merits and demerits of a debate that may well take place during consultation. It is not meant to reflect any firm view of the Government as to where that may ultimately land.

I make one final point on the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, drawing on the wider point that I made a moment ago about the merits of looking at this in the round. It is worth reflecting that, if this were to come into effect today, it would create a significant number of new Members of your Lordships’ House. Putting aside judicial Members, of that large number, only five would be women. It is also right to remind ourselves that, in the long history of the Appellate Committee of your Lordships’ House and then the creation of the Supreme Court in 2010, there have been only four women judges or members of that committee.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Anderson of Ipswich Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, with regret, I cannot support any of the amendments in this group. I say “with regret” because there are aspects of them that I like very much. I like the proposal to extend the scope of HOLAC to consider competence as well as integrity. I am also tempted, like my noble friend the Convenor, by wishing to put HOLAC on a statutory basis. But the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, are powerful. So, I would go as far in agreeing with my noble friend as to say that I would favour HOLAC being put on a more permanent basis if a way could be found for dealing with the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howard.

One thing that runs in common through these amendments is that HOLAC’s power being extended runs up against a fatal flaw—that in one case HOLAC is given a veto on nominations to your Lordships’ House and in another it is given the sole right to make recommendations. Those aspects are constitutionally wrong. The sovereign, the King, creates Members of your Lordships’ House. There must be somebody to advise him. It must be a democratically elected person and that has to be the Prime Minister. It cannot be the role of a body such as HOLAC, however admirable its work and however admirably it is composed, to give that advice. The advice to the sovereign must come from the Prime Minister.

So HOLAC’s advisory role is very important but, although we may not like it, in the end the Prime Minister has to take the responsibility. That means the Prime Minister can, if he wishes, reject the advice of HOLAC. The right channel is that HOLAC advises, the Prime Minister advises the King and the King appoints.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments that would put HOLAC into statute, for the reasons given by the Convenor of the Cross Benches, which I shall not weary your Lordships by repeating. To the noble Lord, Lord Howard, I would say that, if HOLAC’s procedures are fair and if the courts are wise, which I believe they are, they will steer well clear.

Amendment 51, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to which I have put my name, is an amendment that is not for the long term but for the here and now. Although the Cross Benches notoriously still lack a hairdresser, we owe to the People’s Peers scheme a decent share of the expertise that so distinguishes your Lordships’ House. Without it, we would not have the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Watkins and Lady Kidron, or the noble Lords, Lord Krebs, Lord Pannick and Lord Hennessy. None of them, incidentally, are what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, described as “public sector experts”, although we have some of those, too. We would not have had Lord Ramsbotham, whose former desk in this place I proudly occupy and whose detailed knowledge of the prison system no current Back-Bencher in any part of this House can equal.

None of those people—and they are only illustrative examples from a short but distinguished list—was active in politics or would have thought of standing for election. None qualified automatically by virtue of a previous job. None was proposed for membership by a political leader. But each has brought qualities of the very highest order to public life. Whether future political Peers arrive here by appointment or by some process of election, I hope they will continue to be joined by a modest stream of independent experts—ideally for a fixed term, as counselled by the noble Lord, Lord Burns—who owe nothing to party affiliation or prime ministerial patronage.

How modest is the stream? The noble Earl has given some figures. Let me give some more. Between the start of the scheme in 2001 and the 2010 general election, HOLAC’s website records that 55 People’s Peers were appointed—around six a year. But, more recently, the stream has slowed to a trickle. In the past 15 years, only 21 People’s Peers have been appointed, balanced between 11 women and 10 men.

I would be wary of any suggestion that might tend to increase either the numbers in this House or the proportion of peers who sit on the Cross Benches—but we do have a problem. The removal of 34 hereditaries will not only leave a large gap on the Cross Benches; it will leave gaps in the collective expertise of the House. How would we have navigated the cladding issue without the noble Earl, Lord Lytton? How could we provide a substitute for the remarkable energies of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden? Such gaps will not all be filled by the current trickle of People’s Peers.

That is where Amendment 51 comes in. It would operate independently of any special arrangement for which there might be support, in favour of the Convenor of the Cross Benches and perhaps others. It would increase the flow of People’s Peers—at least for five years—but the increase would be modest and well within the bounds of precedent. Four a year is somewhere between the current rate and the rate as it was under the last Labour Government.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, has honourably made it clear that the purpose of his amendment is not to provide a route back to the House for hereditary Members who have been expelled—but, equally, there is no reason why such Members could not apply. I cannot speak for HOLAC, but surely a track record of superlative contribution to the work of the House could only be of assistance to Cross-Bench hereditaries who wish to try their luck again by a route that is open to all.

That leads to my last point. We are right to focus in these debates on the qualities of those who are already here, including the hereditary Peers who contribute so greatly to our work. But let us not neglect the qualities and the potential contributions of those candidates who have already applied to HOLAC or might be encouraged to do so. Though the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as chair of HOLAC, cannot speak on this issue, I suspect she would agree that among those applicants are some of our very brightest and best—their expertise valuable and current. Let us give them a real chance, however small, to join this House.

The People’s Peers scheme has shown that the reputation and effectiveness of this place is capable of being enhanced by those who do not come from noble families, who do not benefit from political patronage and who are not members of a political party. I hope the Minister will agree that a modest but immediate revival of the People’s Peers, to which she could commit without accepting this amendment, could help to replace the Cross-Bench wisdom that will sadly be lost when the hereditary Peers leave us.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group raise some very serious questions—perhaps the most obvious being the opaqueness of HOLAC and how it will work and conduct its business under these proposals. Why on earth would the public be happy for Peers who are their legislators to be appointed by a group of people most of whom they will never have heard of and who are, frankly, regarded just as members of the same elite club?

This is a political Chamber where the Prime Minister of the day needs his ideas turned into law and the Opposition need champions to challenge them respectfully. The PM and the leader of the Opposition must be allowed to choose their own team. The team need not be political people or people with political experience, but they must be people who the PM and the leader of the Opposition will regard as being helpful to what they want to achieve. A while ago, the Labour Party, I think—forgive me if it was another party—went down the route of their Cabinet being selected by someone other than their leader. It was an absolute disaster, as indeed it would be here.

As my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising said—I do not agree with him that HOLAC should be got rid of; I think it has a very useful role—one can see that, under these proposals, it could overreach itself and decide for itself who to appoint on grounds that might be a mystery to the rest of us but feel good to it. The very minimum is, of course, that such people who are appointed are fit and proper, but that is not enough by any stretch of the imagination. Under these proposals, we do not know on what grounds people would be selected in the future.

In previous Bills that have tried to address this issue, there has been discussion of conspicuous merit. I think the Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with whom I agreed on everything he said this afternoon—talked about “conspicuous merit”. How does define one that? I am not sure that I could say I have any conspicuous merit. I would ask each of your Lordships to ask yourselves whether you really do have conspicuous merit. Is long service conspicuous merit? We see that some sports people are put in here on conspicuous merit. I do not think that has gone particularly well. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has quite rightly reminded us, what this Bill has got to focus on is hereditary Peers. I was taken by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Moore, about the point being that people should be in this House to contribute—to make it more effective, to deliver—which is not a function of what they have done in the past but a function of what they will do in the future. Personally, one reason why I was very keen on hereditary Peers is that they do not come here to get a title, as many people do; they come here knowing, with their eyes wide open, that there is a job of work to do, and, by and large, they do the job of work.

An argument is also made that every person coming here must, in effect, be vetted by HOLAC, and that vetting is to be binding. I note that proposed new subsection (1B) in Amendment 47 would allow representations to be made, but, as ever, my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne addressed the problem of those representations leading to further judicial review. However, there is no right of appeal—as far as I can see in this legislation—so that cannot be right. Of course, if we go down the route of judicial review—which, as my noble friend Lord Howard pointed out and the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, suggested in the previous debate, would happen—I suggest that very few people would want to sit on a committee knowing that they were going to be subject to the awful process of a judicial review.

If HOLAC were to be made all-powerful—much more powerful—that committee would need to be investigated very carefully. Is it going to be balanced in ethnicity, gender, age, geography, politics, religion or diversity? We can see a real mess developing. Why would that committee be given so much power when it seems to me that we appoint a PM as we trust his—or, hopefully soon, her—judgment and we must let them get on with it? We elect our MPs to select their leader and, like it or not—obviously I do not at the moment, but I have in the past and I respect the will of the people—we must allow them to get on with their job.

If HOLAC is to be on a statutory basis, or if its recommendations are to be binding, surely we will need much greater access to its deliberations. Does HOLAC now work fully effectively? No, clearly it does not. In my case, I was told on 12 December that I was going to be elevated to the House, but it did not happen until the following December, so there was a huge gap, and I was told that part of the reason for that was HOLAC deliberations. Therefore, the idea of giving HOLAC more power, just when government has said that it wants to reduce the number of quangos, seems to me inappropriate.

House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Anderson of Ipswich Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I have been lucky enough to serve on two Select Committees, one in the year before April 2020 and one in the year afterwards. Entirely to my surprise, the virtual committee worked better than the physical one. Witnesses could be selected and called without a thought for where they were based. Ministers could be questioned if anything more effectively, their reactions more revealing in close-up than they used to be at the far end of a horseshoe. A Teams chat running in the background allowed supplementary questions to be proposed, refined and allocated by the chair. Peers who had never physically met developed a real esprit de corps; and when we reported in March, we most certainly held the Government to account. So I welcome the Constitution Committee’s recommendation on the future functioning of committees, and I share the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead that a wholly virtual committee works much better than a hybrid one.

How effective have we been as a revising Chamber? Judging from the changes made recently to Bills on subjects as diverse as the internal market, overseas operations and domestic abuse, I would say that we have done pretty well. New ways have been found of making Ministers available to us—credit to them for that—and of making possible the “innumerable interactions” that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, rightly said are required for the work of the House behind the scenes. What we have not found are ways to replicate the more subtle pleasures of human contact; and here, I turn to the future.

I have heard nobody suggest that our debates, as opposed to our committees, should become wholly virtual. The issue here is whether the possibility of virtual participation should remain once the pandemic is over, whenever that might be. The Minister said that this would cost £90,000 a month but when the impact of reduced or nil allowances for those not physically present is factored in, I suspect that the net figure may be rather different. Having heard the compelling speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Brinton, I can only say that this facility at that cost, or anything like it, is surely a reasonable adjustment for those experiencing chronic ill health or disability. If the same facility enables, at no materially greater cost, the useful participation of people with current work that is relevant to the business of the House, people with caring responsibilities or people who live a long way from London—points powerfully made by the noble Lords, Lord Inglewood and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and others—then surely that is a good thing.

From what we have heard so far, it seems unlikely that in normal times the numbers choosing to attend virtually will be anything like as large as they are now. For most of us, the Chamber will remain the place to be if you possibly can. So I doubt that the option of virtual participation will much affect the traditional mood of the Chamber, which some have described as spontaneous, save in desirable respects such as, I hope, the end of the open outcry system at Oral Questions.

However, we can weigh up the pros and cons—this is my key point—only by giving ourselves experience of hybrid proceedings in non-pandemic conditions. For that reason, I agree with those who suggest that we give it to the end of the year, and I will oppose the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, if he puts it to a vote—which I rather hope he does not, because it simplifies and rushes a decision which this debate has shown to have many complex components and because I think that, given time, we may well find that something of a consensus develops.

Being awarded a peerage—and I have this in common with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—was the honour of my life. This has been the year in which I have been able to contribute most intensively to our work, for which I am grateful to our hybrid proceedings and the staff who devised and implemented them. But I love the work of the House, feel a duty to participate in it and will continue to do so to the best of my ability under whatever arrangements this House may decide upon.

Coronavirus Bill

Lord Anderson of Ipswich Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the Bill introduces across a whole range of public policy areas significant powers, some of them quite draconian. The noble Lord just said that the proposal in respect of abortion was unacceptable because it would have made a fundamental change. The truth is that we are making fundamental changes across the board. The proposed changes on mental health are, in my view, at least as fundamental as that on abortion proposed by the noble Baroness. Although the Minister might have reasons for not wanting to make that change, he cannot pray in aid that it was a fundamental change. This is happening across the whole of what we are doing and, frankly, that was not his best moment.

Because the changes being made in the Bill are so powerful, we believe that they need to be in place for as short a period as possible and that they need regular and effective review and renewal. Therefore, the amendments in my name raise two related issues. The first is how often that review should happen. Obviously, we welcome the fact that the Government have moved from a position where there was to be no review for two years to one where there will be a review after six months. However, we believe that the period should be shorter. The Civil Contingencies Act has a renewal date of 30 days. Some of the measures in the Bill could probably have been exercised under that Act and they would have been subject to that 30 days. We are not going as far as that, but the end of September is simply too late for Parliament to have its first chance formally to decide whether this very wide-ranging legislation should continue.

As to the form, we have several concerns. As the Bill stands, there is no role whatever for your Lordships’ House in respect of the legislation’s continuation and renewal. That is certainly unprecedented and completely unacceptable. The normal way of dealing with legislation that is time-limited and needs renewal is via the statutory instrument route, which obviously applies to both Houses equally. That was the case with the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 and the Terrorism Act 2006. The House of Lords and the House of Commons had exactly the same powers and they worked perfectly well. Your Lordships’ House is an extremely responsible body.

An exception to the principle of the two Houses having the same powers in respect of legislation was the EU withdrawal Bill—subsequently the EU withdrawal Act. It was agreed that, although there would be a meaningful vote in the House of Commons, there would be a meaningless vote in the House of Lords. That was on the basis of the circumstances being exceptional, as we were following the democratic mandate of a referendum. I opposed it at the time on the basis that it set a doleful precedent, but that view did not prevail.

Now, a second set of exceptional circumstances is being brought before your Lordships’ House in a very short period. I believe that the more often we see exceptional circumstances occurring, the less acceptable it is, if your Lordships’ House is to perform the function that it has done until now in respect of the renewal of legislation. We therefore propose that the former precedent of renewing a Bill by statutory instrument should be followed in this case.

However, in Amendment 12 we also suggest an alternative method of achieving the same involvement of your Lordships’ House by proposing that it mirrors what is proposed in the Commons. Personally, I would prefer us to go back to the traditional SI route but, in a spirit of generosity, if the Government would prefer to do it the other way, we are, reluctantly, prepared to accept that.

The other amendments in this group have been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. They have our full support, and no doubt they will be spoken to more eloquently than I could, so I will not attempt that.

I would like to ask the Minister about a practical point, which I hope he will be able to accept. At Second Reading yesterday, my noble friend Lady Barker suggested that the Government should produce a grid to explain which clauses of the Bill have been implemented, and exactly how. That is a very good idea and I hope the Government can accept it, but could they go slightly further by having, as part of that grid, a list of all the other provisions introduced to deal with the coronavirus, but not necessarily under this Bill? I cite, for example, the power to close restaurants and all other places where people congregate, which was introduced under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. That would be helpful not only for specialists, as it were, like us, but for those who want to find and then look at the legislative basis for decisions. For others, who just want to see where a particular provision that might affect them comes from, if the Government have a single source saying, “Here’s the whole raft of provisions that have been made and this is exactly where you can find them”, that would be extremely helpful for public information. Obviously, I hope the Government will agree to our more substantive amendments but, at the very least, I hope they can do this. I beg to move.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

.My Lords, I support Amendments 11 and 12, which I think means that I support the idea of six-monthly reviews with debates in both the Commons and in the Lords. However, I rise to speak in particular to Amendment 10, tabled in my name. Regardless of how often the reviews take place or precisely who conducts them, surely one needs a degree of information from the Government. Clause 97 provides for that, but in an absolutely minimalist form. As I read it, all that is required is that the Government should explain which provisions have been switched on or switched off in the previous two-month period and that they should certify that they are content with the switching on and the switching off.

I have two points to make. The first concerns effective review in Parliament. As I said yesterday, my experience of reviewing exceptional counterterrorism powers suggests that one really needs at least some basic information from government on how the powers are being applied and how effective they are judged to be. There is also a point for the Government in this. Reports of this kind will provide them with an excellent opportunity to communicate to Parliament and to the wider public what they have done, why they have done what they have done, whether they believe that the measures are having some effect on the disease and, if so, why. I was encouraged to hear the Minister say yesterday in introducing the Bill that the Government would update Parliament regularly on how these powers have been used across the UK, but I suggest that that does not go far enough. In the Bill as written, things are not provided which go even that far.

My Amendment 10 is very modest, and deliberately so. I have sought not to invite the riposte that I am requiring some new power to collate or put forward statistics or that I would overburden an already burdened Civil Service. The Government will of course make their own assessments of whether these powers should be switched on or off and how effective they are. All I ask is that that assessment should be shared with Parliament in an appropriate way. It is a document that the Government will control, so it is very much up to them to decide in what form that communication should be made. If the amendment cannot be accepted, I ask the Minister at the very least to give an undertaking today that these reports will provide information about how the powers have been used across the United Kingdom, what measures may have been necessary to ensure compliance, and whether and why the various powers have been judged effective.

I have saved perhaps my best point until the end. Yesterday, the Minister raised by proxy the comments of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge, who sits beside me in spirit, if not physically. He contacted me this morning and has authorised me to say that if he had disregarded his own advice not to attend today, he would have supported my amendment. If I have not persuaded the Minister, I hope that the spirit of my noble and learned friend will have done so.

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in great detail. In the debate yesterday, we spoke about the seriousness of the situation that the country faces. We are all deeply conscious of it; despite that, we must not be lulled into simply abiding by the pressure of the moment and not consistently thinking our way through the detail of what we are now putting into law. In his statement to the nation the other night, the Prime Minister referred to three weeks. Whether that stands or not is to be debated, but to go from three weeks to six months, as the Bill now provides, is a very long gap. It would be wise to agree to this amendment for three months, which on their return allows this House and the other place to consider the nature of what has been applied, whether it is appropriate and whether it should be retained or removed. That would be a sensible time to allow for national consideration; let us hope we have gone through it by then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, my amendment is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and I believe that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is also in favour. It is pretty self-explanatory and should not cause the Government any problems in accepting it. Indeed, the Minister, in replying just now, talked about getting advice from scientists on what was necessary.

The Minister has made a declaration that the Bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but the amendment would provide further reassurance. According to the long title, the Bill is to:

“Make provision in connection with coronavirus; and for connected purposes.”


That is quite wide. There are references to a test of necessity—or, variously, necessity and proportionality—in some provisions in the Bill but not in others. There is no consistency, for instance, even between Schedules 21 and 22.

Our Constitution Committee, which I thank for its report, says at paragraph 16 that

“there may be a need to resolve difficult legal questions concerning the proportionality and necessity of restrictions and directions, and of their compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998”,

and by “resolve” it means in the courts. It would obviously be preferable to front-load those tests by requiring the Government to observe them in exercising all their powers under the Bill, which is what this umbrella amendment would provide, rather than load up the courts.

In parallel with these tests, the Delegated Powers Committee report, which I thank the committee for, drew attention to the absence in some clauses of a reference to the coronavirus crisis as justification. That mainly concerns postponement of elections, but not exclusively. I am therefore doing precisely what the committee suggests in paragraph 9 of its report—I have given the Minister notice of these requests: I

“seek an explanation from the Minister about why these powers are not, on the face of each individual clause, explicitly linked to coronavirus”,

and

“look to the Minister to provide an ironclad assurance that the powers contained in the Bill will be exercisable in relation to the coronavirus outbreak only and in no other circumstances.”

Lastly, will the Minister clarify the situation with regulations? The ones issued last Saturday under the Public Health Act, on premises, are not abolished by the Bill, but the February ones, on persons, are. In a reply during Second Reading yesterday, the Minister said that the powers to enforce the Prime Minister’s instructions regarding essential travel and gatherings

“will be introduced by regulations under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984.”—[Official Report, 24/3/20; col. 1733.]

But I have learned from tweets by journalists that those will be introduced tomorrow, when we are not here. As I asked at Second Reading yesterday, how will these regulations mesh with the Bill and with regulations to be made under it? I beg to move.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich]

My Lords, I signed Amendment 13 and I offer two sentences on it. The amendment will have no legal effect because, admirably, nothing in the Bill seeks to oust or modify provisions of the Human Rights Act or the Equality Act. But if the Minister can confirm that there is no intention of departing from those important statutes, that would be a powerful signal to the sceptics and conspiracy theorists, both here and abroad, who might otherwise wrongly suggest that in enacting this unfortunately necessary legislation, we are abandoning some of the fundamental legal and moral principles that bind us together.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, rightly said, we on these Benches support these provisions. I thoroughly endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, just said and it would be of enormous importance if the Minister gave the assurances that the noble Lord seeks.

Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament: Special Report

Lord Anderson of Ipswich Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Prime Minister has not provided confirmation within the usual 10 days that the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament’s Special Report on Russia may be published, and whether that confirmation will be provided today so that the report can be laid before Parliament in advance of Dissolution.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, and declare an interest as an occasional reviewer of national security matters.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, reports from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament must go through a number of processes before publication. Those processes apply to the report to which the noble Lord refers in his Question. The Prime Minister will respond to the committee’s request to publish this report in due course, once the usual processes have been completed.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich]

The Minister’s response echoes two unsatisfactory explanations aired in recent days for this irregular state of affairs. The first is that redaction remains to be completed. This report has already been through the full redaction process with the agencies and the Cabinet Office. In the ISC’s experience, prime ministerial confirmation has always been a formality. The second explanation is that time is needed for the Government to respond, but the Government’s aim and usual practice, as set out in a 2014 memorandum of understanding, is to respond not when a report is published but within 60 days. This unjustified delay undermines the ISC and, I am afraid, invites suspicion of the Government and their motives. Will the Minister advise No. 10 to think again?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I must correct the noble Lord in several respects. The length of time for which this report has been with the Government is not at all unusual. It is one of a number of ISC reports which the Government are currently considering. In this instance, the Government are following the standard process which applies before every publication. A memorandum of understanding with the committee sets out the relationship between it and the Government. This does not include a timetable for the Government to clear such a report for publication and there is no set timeline for a response. Nor is such a deadline set in governing legislation.

Having said all that, I realise that the subject of this report is a matter of particular public interest and have no doubt that noble Lords’ comments will not be lost on those in No. 10.