Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)
My Lords, after nearly 30 months since the referendum of June 2016, out of the mists of uncertainty there now loom the withdrawal agreement and political declaration agreed by the Prime Minister with the EU. I greatly respect the Prime Minister’s concentration on reaching an agreement and her steadfastness under fire. There has been nothing like it since the charge of the Light Brigade.
If the House of Commons approves the agreement, the way will be clear for the UK to leave the EU on 29 March next, though there will follow a period of uncertainty and discussion about the outcome that will continue to dominate and distort public debate. If the other place does not approve the agreement, there is hardly time before 29 March for a renegotiation even if the EU were willing to co-operate in such a process. We should probably have to seek agreement to defer the date of withdrawal while further negotiations were carried on.
The Prime Minister has told us—she has done so again this morning on the radio—that the choice we now have to make is between her deal, no deal and no Brexit. If her deal is rejected, we are left with a choice between no deal and no Brexit. Leaving the EU on 29 March with no deal would, I think we all agree, be an economic, social and political catastrophe in the short and medium term, and would probably have lasting consequences for the longer term. It would bring closer the prospect of the break-up of the United Kingdom. The economic consequences of withdrawing on the terms now negotiated by the Prime Minister would be much less adverse than those of coming out with no deal but still more adverse than the economic consequences of remaining in the EU.
The forecasts and scenarios which point to these conclusions are of course no better than the assumptions on which they are based. But they are reasoned predictions by responsible authorities. All the Brexiteers can do is to scream “Project Fear”. They do not have reasoned counterpredictions of their own to support the case for leaving the EU. As one commentator put it recently, the Brexiteers encourage us to charge over the top, with no idea about what is on the other side.
The Prime Minister’s agreement seeks to reconcile three logically irreconcilable objectives: to take us out of the European Union; to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom; and to preserve the Belfast agreement and the frictionless, soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The means by which it seeks to do so is a fudge. Like most fudges, it would come unstuck under pressure. If maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom and preserving the Good Friday agreement are objectives of the highest priority, which we are not prepared in any circumstances to compromise, as they should be, then we have to consider the implications of that on the objective of leaving the EU. The Prime Minister’s deal fails both on the economic ground and on the ground of its implications for the integrity of the UK.
A long time ago when I was young, I was advised that when you do not know what to do, the best thing to do is probably nothing. The option of remaining in the EU is not just the least worst option open to us; it would be the right choice for us. If the choice must be between no deal and no Brexit, how should such a decision be made? Can it be made, as it should, in the traditional constitutional way by a vote in the House of Commons? Or does there need to be a second referendum, either to confirm the result of the first or to provide a mandate for reversing it?
The Prime Minister has said that there will be no second referendum. Referenda are alien to our system of representative democracy and are an unsatisfactory way of resolving complex issues. But we had one in June 2016, and I do not think that it is undemocratic to believe that the British people are entitled to be given the opportunity of changing their minds, if they wish to do so, in the light of all that has happened and become known since June 2016.
I also suspect that most of the British public are bored stone cold with Brexit, and would like to see it go away altogether. A second referendum may be the best way— perhaps the only way—of achieving that. At least it would establish a greater degree of certainty about the direction in which we should be going.
Outcome of the European Union Referendum
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)
My Lords, after 65 years of public service, I do not remember such an unholy mess as we are in now, except perhaps after the Suez affair. It is an existential as well as a political crisis. As a result of recent events, my enthusiasm for referenda, never very strong, has evaporated almost to nothing. I pass over the lies and half-truths, the threats and the promises, the commitments proposed and then abandoned as soon as the votes had been counted and the rancour of the recent campaign. The problem with a referendum is that the issue is presented as a simple binary choice: yes or no, leave or remain. The issue of membership of the European Union is not simple or binary; it is a choice of complex and often conflicting considerations and of deciding where the best interests of the nation lie. Such issues are better decided in our traditional system of representative democracy by Parliament.
In that system, a referendum is advisory, not mandatory. The result of a referendum deserves to be treated with the greatest respect, but it is for Parliament to decide, and in this time of tension a great responsibility falls on this Parliament. We in both Houses of Parliament have to rise to that responsibility at a time when the uncertainties that confront us are unprecedentedly extreme and very long-lasting. We are, as the noble Lord, Lord West, would say, in uncharted and turbulent waters.
We are told that the process of extracting ourselves from the European Union will take five years or more—five years of continuing economic, financial and political uncertainty with the risk of lower investment, less employment and higher inflation as businesses and people speculate over and try to anticipate the outcome.
I cannot rid myself of the fear that we are on the verge of a terrible mistake, for which our children and our children’s children will pay the price. We should be thinking about the effects of the uncertainty on the young going to Europe to work or to study, on the young people from European countries on whom the National Health Service and other public services in this country depend and on the hopes and prospects of those British citizens who have chosen to make their lives in Europe. We should be thinking about the benefits we derive from the EU’s contribution to scientific and technological research and development and, what is more and most of all, we should be thinking about our place in Europe and in the world.
The European Union—the European Community as it was—was created to be one of the institutional guarantors of peace and stability in Europe, and particularly of peace between France and Germany. In this respect, it has been astonishingly successful over the past 60 years, so successful that many of us seem to think—in my view wrongly—that any future European war is simply unimaginable. This is something to remember as we commemorate the Battle of the Somme. It was created also to give the countries of Europe together a degree of influence in a world of global superpowers that none could have on its own. Neither of those purposes has diminished in importance. This country is geographically, genetically, historically, culturally and inescapably part of Europe and we cannot in practice, and should not try to, become semi-detached from Europe. Our place and influence in the world will be weakened by leaving the Union.
For these reasons I hope that, even while the new Prime Minister and his or her colleagues—I must say it is strange to be using that expression “his or her”; it is quite like old times for some of us—develop a strategy for negotiating our departure from the EU a sense of their responsibilities at a time of great uncertainties should lead them to explore even now, at this late hour, whether there is any possibility of reaching an agreement with the EU and its other member countries, building on the changes agreed with the present Prime Minister in February, which would allow them to recommend to Parliament, and Parliament to recommend to the British people, that we have a new deal and do not trigger Article 50 but remain as members of the European Union.
That may not now be possible. If it is not, we shall continue on course to leave the EU, but as the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, and as the Leader of the House said this morning, we must seek the best deal we can for Britain. We should not exclude the possibility that the best deal for Britain might be achieved by staying in the EU. The situation has now profoundly changed since February, and even since a month ago. The new Government will have a responsibility to explore the possibility, even now, of such an outcome and they might find the European Union willing to discuss that.
Such an outcome would resolve, at a stroke, the uncertainties that will beset us as we continue on the course of leaving the EU. It would enable the new Government to concentrate on strengthening the economy and pursuing social reform. It would restore the strength of our nation. It would allow us to continue to contribute to the strength and effectiveness of the European Union and to take part in its reform, which is now necessary and inevitable, and it would enhance the confidence and respect in which we are held by our allies and friends in international affairs.
House of Lords Reform
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)
My Lords, there are many issues about the future of this House that could well be reviewed. However, today, we are addressing the question of its size.
It is a truth universally agreed that the House is too large and should be smaller; how much smaller is a matter for debate. I suggest that we should be aiming at an average of about 450 Members as our eventual goal, with not more than 500 and not fewer than 400.
Out trouble is this: the intake resulting from the creation of new Peers persistently exceeds the outflow resulting from deaths and voluntary retirements. So the size of the House has been, and is, increasing remorselessly.
I listened with great respect to the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. However, I am afraid I do not believe it realistic to think that any Prime Minister would be willing to accept the imposition of any restriction on the number of peerages that he or she may recommend to be created. Any restraint on the part of the present or any other Prime Minister would be very welcome but purely voluntary.
We need, therefore, to look for means of increasing the rate at which Peers leave the House. In my view, we should not try to do this by setting a fixed age of compulsory retirement—attractive though the proposition by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is—because that would provide only temporary relief. Instead, we should look for a more rational, progressive and lasting way of dealing with the problem, and the way we deal with it should be a matter for the House of Lords itself to decide and operate.
My proposals would be as follows. The Life Peerages Act 1958 should be amended so as to provide that people shall be appointed as Peers for life but as Members of the House of Lords for fixed terms of five years. The House should have the power to renew the appointment of a Peer as a Member of the House of Lords for a further term or terms of five years. Decisions to renew should be taken on the recommendation of a reappointments committee of the House, chaired by the Lord Speaker.
That committee should be able to recommend, and the House to approve, repeat renewals without any statutory limits on age or length of service. In deciding whether to recommend a renewal, the committee would have regard to length of service, to age, to value of contribution to the work of the House, and to any other relevant considerations. No doubt the committee would be able, if it thought fit, to have regard to considerations of balance between the various party political and independent groups of Peers.
The presumption should be that at the first review of an appointment after the first five years of membership, the committee would recommend renewal for a second five-year term unless there was some positive reason, such as minimal contribution to the work of the House, to justify withholding such a recommendation. For second and subsequent renewals, the burden of proof should be reversed: the committee should look for positive reasons to recommend renewal for a further five-year term.
These provisions would apply to Peers created after the new legislation came into effect. There would need to be transitional arrangements to deal with those who are already Members of the House. My proposal here would be for the existing Members of the House to be brigaded in five groups according to length of service. Each group would be reviewed by the reappointments committee at the beginning of a parliamentary Session, and the committee would recommend which of the members of the group should be asked to take voluntary retirement under the 2014 Act not later than at the end of that Session.
Thus, those in the first group with the longest service would be reviewed in May 2016, with those recommended for voluntary retirement being asked to retire not later than April 2017. The process would then be repeated in 2017-18 for the second group, including those who had survived from the first review, and so on. Thus the last group would be reviewed in 2020-21.
These transitional arrangements could probably be given effect by Standing Orders if there was general agreement that they should be introduced. If the proposals were adopted, I suggest that noble Lords who are hereditary Peers be allowed to continue as Members of the House until death or retirement but should not be replaced.
I commend these proposals for the consideration of the House as offering a rational, progressive, lasting and workable means within the control of the House for reducing the size of the House of Lords to a more acceptable level.
Leader of the House of Lords
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may clarify the situation. When I invited the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, to open this debate, I made it clear that we expected to hear, first, from speakers from each of the four groups. Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, is absolutely correct that my anticipation was that he would speak at this point, which is why he rose to his feet, as I think the rest of the House expected. After him, if a right reverend Prelate wishes to speak, we might hear from him next, and then we will return to the Conservative Benches.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
My Lords, I am grateful to the Chief Whip for her intervention.
Despite the Ministerial and other Salaries Act, the present Cabinet consists of 22 members: the quad—the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary and the Lord President of the Council— and 18 Secretaries of State, but fortunately one of them is also Lord Chancellor, who is covered by a separate section of the Act. The Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Paymaster-General and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, all of whom are allowed to qualify as Cabinet members under the Act, are not members of the present Cabinet and so are not entitled to be remunerated as Cabinet Ministers; they are remunerated only as second-tier Ministers, along with Ministers in charge of departments who are not in the Cabinet, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Ministers of State. These four Ministers are, however, invited regularly to attend meetings of the Cabinet, along with seven other Ministers who are not members of the Cabinet. I think that makes 33 people sitting round the Cabinet table, which is a large number for a discussion at that level.
I turn to the case of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. She is, as many of her predecessors have been, the Lord Privy Seal. Unlike any of her predecessors for the past 100 years or more, she is not a member of the Cabinet. We have a situation where there is no Member of the House of Lords in the Cabinet at all. During the whole of my time as a civil servant in the Government, there were at least two Members of the House of Lords in the Cabinet—the Leader of the House of Lords and the Lord Chancellor—and often more. We are told that the noble Baroness will attend all Cabinet meetings and will be able to represent the interests of the House as effectively as, or no less effectively than, her predecessor. She is not, however, a member of the Cabinet.
There seems to be no difference of view as to what the level of her remuneration should be. The Prime Minister generously intended that she should receive the same total remuneration as a Cabinet member but that was, in effect, to be in two parts: the salary of a second-tier Minister, paid out of public funds, and a top-up from Conservative Party funds to bring the total up to the equivalent of a Cabinet member’s salary.
Much has been said this evening about the need to recognise the importance of the House of Lords in the Cabinet by having a representative there. The Leader of the House has responsibilities beyond and separate from those she has as leader of the Conservative Party in this House. She has responsibilities to and for Members of the Liberal Democrat party, the Labour Party and, indeed, other parties, as well as independent Cross-Bench Members, who are Members of no party. She has responsibilities for the whole House, irrespective of parties. She also has responsibilities for the conduct and good order of the House of Lords, which are discharged in another place by the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is accepted as being above party.
The Leader of this House is the holder of a parliamentary public office which should be remunerated wholly out of public funds and ought not to receive any part of his or her remuneration out of party funds. We all respect and admire the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and I regret that this dispute and difference of opinion should circulate around her; she has done nothing to deserve it. She has accepted the force of the argument and has decided, extremely honourably in my view, to forgo the top-up from Conservative Party funds and to be paid as a second-tier Minister—a Minister of State—out of public funds alone.
The Prime Minister has written a letter to the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, in which he recognises that the Leader of the House ought to be in the Cabinet. He expresses regret about the present situation and promises to put it right at the earliest possible opportunity and certainly after the forthcoming general election, if he is still the Prime Minister. This is a profoundly unsatisfactory situation not just for the Leader of the House but for all of us in this House, for all who care about the place of the House of Lords in our constitutional arrangements and, seemingly, for the Prime Minister himself. The Leader of the House is now not only specifically declared by the Prime Minister not to be a member of the Cabinet but, by her own honourable self-sacrifice, she is also deprived of the level of remuneration that everyone, apparently including the Prime Minister, thinks she ought to receive. Not only is the House of Lords being treated with disdain, the noble Baroness is being treated shabbily and she ought not to have been put in this invidious position.
Your Lordships may agree that this simply is not good enough. The noble Baroness should be a member of the Cabinet and should receive a salary at the top tier as defined in a schedule to the Ministerial and other Salaries Act. If necessary, the Prime Minister should find another Minister now in the Cabinet who can be asked less inappropriately than the noble Baroness, to give up his or her membership of the Cabinet but be one of those who attends, to ensure that the Lord Privy Seal is able to take her rightful position as a member of the Cabinet. I do not say a full member of the Cabinet because I do not believe that that means anything very much.
It was wrong not to have the Lord Privy Seal in the Cabinet and it was wrong, and unmistakably an indication of an uneasy conscience, to try to make it up to the Lord Privy Seal by offering to top up her remuneration to the equivalent of a Cabinet salary by means of a supplement from Conservative Party funds. Two wrongs do not make a right. The Prime Minister should do the right thing without further ado by appointing the Lord Privy Seal to be a member of the Cabinet. That may mean asking someone else to stand down, but I believe that that would be less inappropriate.
The noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, referred to the possibility of amending the Act. I am not sufficiently expert to know whether that can be done for this purpose by delegated legislation or whether it would need new primary legislation. I remember, because I was around at the time, that the limits were introduced in the Act in order to reduce, or to keep a limit on, public expenditure. I suppose that that consideration is still relevant. If that course is not open to him, the Prime Minister should take the other course of making it possible for the Lord Privy Seal to be in the Cabinet. To paraphrase the old song: if you have a right thing, do it; do not dream it, do it now.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, I want to associate these Benches fully with both sides of the Motion; first, the welcome to the noble Baroness in her role as Leader of the House and, secondly, the regrets that have been expressed already in our debate. Rather than focus on the details, I shall make a few comments about the wider symbolic significance of these events. A healthy society distributes power. The banking crisis arose partly because power got too concentrated in certain institutions and in a certain section of the financial community. Government, if it is about nothing else, is about the exercise of power. We have to accept and acknowledge that, and not try to deny it. The exercise of power calls for clear leadership, which is right, too.
Today, I sense that leaders of political parties—this is not a party-political point—feel so oppressed into the exercise of power and the clear profile of their leadership that they can be drawn into decisions that are sometimes unwise, and which would have been much better had there been more consultation and more time to think about it. Am I the only one who has a certain regret that our party leaders all seem so young these days? Is there not a certain wisdom of age, which perhaps is something we should think about?
In our society, we tend to have power exercised by the Government and the rights of the individual. That is the dialectic which is played out in our society. It tends to squeeze out intermediate institutions, but democracy depends on institutions that are not themselves creatures of government. The House of Lords is one such institution in a bicameral system. It is very important that the proper authority—the proper place—of the House is maintained, because of that vital place in our democracy.
I say in parenthesis—and perhaps it is not a welcome thing this evening—that our failure to engage in a proper evolutionary process of reform of the House has encouraged some people to look down on the role of the House. However, as has been said, the actual role of the House, for example in scrutinising legislation, is more significant now than it has ever been, because so much legislation simply is not scrutinised in the primary Chamber. That makes the demotion of the Leader of the House from the Cabinet a very significant event, in my view, because of our role in scrutinising that which the Commons has not the time, energy or will to scrutinise.
European Union (Referendum) Bill
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)
My Lords, I shall be brief. The core purposes of this Bill are that there should be an “in or out” referendum. It is not about what the result of that referendum should be; it is about whether there should be a referendum and that it should be before the end of 2017. This amendment has no bearing on those purposes. It leaves them unaffected. It requires the Government in certain circumstances to do something which any self-respecting Government would or should do in those circumstances. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that he and his colleagues in the House of Commons have the best chance of this Bill passing if he decides to accept this amendment.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I will not detain the House for long. I think that there is pretty strong support all around the House for this amendment. It certainly has the support of the Opposition, who will vote for the proposition in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, if he chooses to test the opinion of the House. What is needed in any “in or out” choice is an authoritative assessment of Britain’s intended relationship with the European Union should the people decide to withdraw from it. That does not have to be just a wish list of hoping that we can have our cake and eat it outside the Union. It has to be a hard, realistic assessment.
I am a great lover of history. I like reading books about Britain’s post-war relationship with the European Union. The Macmillan Diaries is one of the books I have read. Harold Macmillan tried to establish a free trade relationship with the Common Market when the treaty of Rome was signed. He explored that and failed because, even in 1958, he was not able to achieve what was necessary for the national interest, and he decided we had no alternative but to join the Common Market. So we have to be realistic and this assessment has to be realistic.
Many Members on our side of the House have pointed out that the proposed referendum is not a popularity poll, it is a fundamental choice. It is not a choice you take once every five or 10 years. You cannot say that it would be a choice made for ever but you can certainly say that it would be made for generations. It is important that this choice is taken not on the basis of wish lists or hypothetical speculations—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said—but on the basis of what is a realistic alternative. The truth is that those who want to take us out of the European Union rarely state what they think the alternative is for Britain, which is why this amendment is crucial. There is a huge range of possibilities. At one end of the spectrum, there is membership of the European Economic Area, probably as a consequence of rejoining EFTA; but at the other end, we would have to rely on our WTO status in terms of our trading relationship with the European Union.
Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
My Lords, I have hesitated to venture to add to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of words which have been spoken and written about the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, these past three days but perhaps something should be said from the perspective of one who, as a civil servant and Secretary to the Cabinet, worked closely for and with her for eight of the 11 and a half years for which she was Prime Minister. Statistically speaking, the turnover of Prime Ministers has been higher than that of Cabinet Secretaries. Most Cabinet Secretaries have served more than one Prime Minister and sometimes three, such as my noble friend Lord Butler of Brockwell, or even four, as my predecessor Lord Hunt of Tanworth did. I am a relatively rare bird in that I served only one Prime Minister.
I was summoned one morning in July 1979 to a meeting with the Prime Minister at No. 10, which I hoped—but did not know—would result in an appointment as Secretary to the Cabinet. I was taken upstairs to her room and shown in at the door of the study. As I went through the door, she looked up at me and said, “Robert, you’re looking very tired”. It was not the most promising opening to an interview in which I was hoping to be offered one of the most onerous jobs in the public service, so I stammered out something about having been up rather late the previous night. Then she said, “Robert, I have asked you to come in order that I can tell you that I want to appoint you as Cabinet Secretary to succeed John Hunt in October”. Of course, I was delighted and accepted the offer. I went downstairs and told the private secretary that the Prime Minister had offered me the job and that I had accepted it. But I said, “It was a little bit odd that she started by saying, ‘Robert, you look very tired’”. That private secretary said, “Oh, don’t worry about that—she’s saying that to everybody this morning”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke about Lady Thatcher’s lack of aspiration to be a feminist, if I may sum it up in that way. That may have been fair but she was nothing if not feminine and many of her colleagues, and many of those who were her civil servants, will recognise that. My recollection goes back to the first visit that we had from President Mitterrand of France to Downing Street, in 1981. We were all dreading it because he had no English, or claimed not to, so that everything had to be interpreted—and, of course, he was French.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
Lady Thatcher had greatly disliked his predecessor and Mitterrand was said to be a socialist, but the meetings went rather well. Despite the interpretation, they went smoothly and there were good speeches by both parties at a dinner. When the President finally came to leave the next afternoon, I went with the Prime Minister to see him off at the front door of No. 10 Downing Street. As we walked back, I said to the Prime Minister in what I suppose was a tone of some surprise, “That visit went rather well, didn’t it, Prime Minister?”. She said, “Yes, I suppose it did”. Then there was a pause and she said, “Of course he likes women, you know”.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
Looking back, I recognised that the President had been—how shall I put it?—flattering her femininity throughout the meeting, and that she had recognised that and enjoyed every minute of it.
More than once during the time that I was with her, she told me that her role as Prime Minister was to be the guardian of the strategy. She had a clear vision of what that strategy should be and of the policies required to carry it out. She displayed great courage and determination in pursuing this strategy and in introducing and sustaining the policies which it required, and she could exercise great firmness and all the strength of her personality in making sure of the active support of her colleagues and her civil servants in putting the policies into effect.
She respected the Civil Service as an institution and valued the traditional virtues of integrity and impartiality. She liked and respected many but not all of the individual civil servants whom she had to deal with, and she went out of her way to be considerate and kind to those who worked in her office. But I think that she thought that civil servants in general were too set in their ways and had become too accustomed to the management of decline.
In discussing appointments with her, she never once asked, “Is he one of us?”. She wanted to know whether someone was a doer as well as a thinker, and whether he or she had what it took not just to advise cleverly on policy but to manage a department or division effectively.
As many have remarked, she expected her colleagues and those who worked with her to work very hard, and she set us all an example in that respect. She was a glutton for work and took an infinity of trouble to master the detail of every subject that she was called on to consider, often to the discomfiture of those with whom she was going to discuss it.
That was all made easier for her and more challenging for the rest of us by her capacity to manage on three or four hours of sleep a night, not just for a night or two but seemingly indefinitely. For her, the working day was two or three hours longer than it was for any of the rest of us weaker vessels. There was no cat-napping during the day. There were times when it seemed like a very unfair advantage. She kept up the pace throughout my time, although I believe that there were some slight signs of weakening towards the end of her time in office.
One of my duties was to advise her on issues about the organisation of the machinery of government. I do not think that she was ever much interested in those issues: she thought that they were of secondary importance. What mattered to her was having the right policy and having the right person in place to put the policies into effect. Tinkering with organisations diverted energy from what really mattered and was a waste of time, energy, and money.
As has been said, she was a conviction politician with skill and determination in expressing her convictions. But she was also, as I very often saw, a shrewd, cautious and pragmatic political operator in government and adept at adopting and presenting pragmatic outcomes in a framework of principled conviction.
In 1982, the Government committed themselves to a policy of “rolling devolution” in Northern Ireland. The policy made little progress and after the election of June 1983 the Prime Minister was persuaded to explore the possibility of an agreement with the Government of the Republic of Ireland, which might give that Government, as a surrogate for the minority community in Northern Ireland, the opportunity to have a say in aspects of the governance in Northern Ireland without compromising—and this was very important for Mrs Thatcher—the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Government in Northern Ireland.
After nearly two years of negotiation, closely supervised and monitored by the Prime Minister and her colleagues, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, will remember, we achieved a draft agreement. The draft was never going to set the Thames on fire—or the Liffey for that matter—and it could not be expected to go down well with the unionist community in Northern Ireland. It cannot be claimed that Mrs Thatcher was enthusiastic about it even at the time, but she clearly preferred an outcome that she could proclaim as a success, and which would certainly be welcomed in Washington, to a breakdown of negotiations and a failure of the policy that it expressed and represented. So she signed the agreement and so long as she remained Prime Minister she unwaveringly defended and adhered to it. After her retirement she was apt to say that she wished it had not been made. I believe that she was mistaken in that. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, I think that the agreement, which has certainly been of lasting benefit to relations with the Irish Republic, was one of the foundations for the subsequent developments in Northern Ireland’s affairs brought about by Sir John Major and Mr Blair.
This is not the time or place for reminiscing about the good and not so good times during the years when I worked with Lady Thatcher. However, I am glad to have this opportunity to put on record not only my sadness at her passing and my condolences to her family, which we all share, but my gratitude for her unwavering confidence and support and for her many kindnesses during those years, my respect and admiration for her qualities and achievements as Prime Minister, and my lasting affection for her as a friend.
News Corporation: Conduct of Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that is clearly set out in the Ministerial Code. In this instance, one would expect a special adviser to stick to the agreements and instructions they had been given by their Secretary of State.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
My Lords, as the Leader of the Opposition has referred to what I said about this matter, I should like to clarify that if I may, and ask the Leader of the House whether he agrees with it. I have said that the Prime Minister is responsible for decisions about ministerial conduct and for deciding whether a Minister has or has not breached the code. If he has, or thinks he has, sufficient evidence to justify a decision not to refer the matter to Sir Alex Allan, or to confirm the Minister in his position, he is entitled to do that. If he has doubt, he can ask Sir Alex Allan for advice. He is not obliged to take that advice, but clearly the advice will be very important.
In this case, as I understand it, the Prime Minister takes the view that the evidence that comes before Lord Justice Leveson will be more pervasive, extensive and comprehensive than anything that Sir Alex Allan could get. Lord Justice Leveson is not being asked to take the decision about the Ministerial Code. As I understand it, it is being suggested that the evidence given to his inquiry, elicited by questions from counsel and by all the other procedures, is likely to be more comprehensive and more reliable, since it will be evidence taken on oath, than anything that Sir Alex could achieve. However, Lord Justice Leveson is quite right in saying that he cannot take the decision or give advice about the Ministerial Code. The only person who can take a decision is the Prime Minister, and if he wants advice, he will have to ask Sir Alex Allan.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, put his question, and the tone in which he did so will no doubt calm the atmosphere of the House. He described the situation entirely correctly. This is a decision for the Prime Minister. When it comes to disciplining Ministers, the Prime Minister is entitled to make that decision in any way that he wants. Equally, the decision that he has taken, as the noble Lord has laid out, is that the evidence laid before Leveson—in the manner and way in which it will be laid—will be more authoritative and ultimately gain more public acceptance if it is done publicly at the Leveson inquiry rather than secretly by Sir Alex Allan, although I have no doubt that he would do it extremely well. Finally, I agree that Lord Justice Leveson himself cannot make the decision under the Ministerial Code; he has no locus to do so. The Prime Minister will no doubt be able to make a decision once the evidence has been given, and that decision is entirely up to him.
House of Lords: Reform
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
My Lords, I was gratified and flattered to hear the noble Lord the Leader of the House, speaking on the radio recently, put first among the categories of experts whose contribution to the House he would like to retain the former Cabinet Secretaries. I am tempted to say to the noble Lord, “Flattery will get you nowhere, my Lord, but please go on trying”.
We argue endlessly about the composition of the House and the way in which its Members are chosen, but we ought first to discuss the powers and functions of the House. How can we come to a good decision about who we should be and how we should be chosen without first deciding what we should be doing? As it is, we seem just generally to assume without much question or debate that the powers and functions of the House should remain just as they are. Perhaps that assumption flows from our tradition and our assumption of subordination to the House of Commons.
Then we are told that an assembly that makes laws for the governance of the people ought to be elected by the democratic suffrage of the people. In this country we have an assembly that makes laws for the governance of the people and which is elected by the democratic suffrage of the people. It is the House of Commons. The House of Lords can and does suggest revisions of draft legislation, but it cannot in the end enforce those revisions against the will of the House of Commons. We are a revising Chamber and a debating Chamber, and valuable in both functions, but we cannot prevail against the House of Commons if it wishes to insist. The House of Commons is sovereign in the matter of law-making. Therefore, we do not need to make the second Chamber electable by popular suffrage to give it representative legitimacy.
I shall not dwell, because many others have done so, on the dangers of elected Members of the second Chamber competing with Members of the House of Commons in their constituencies as well as at Westminster. I pass over, as Cicero might have said, the probability that an elected House of Lords would not for long be content to accept its subordination to the House of Commons. Under the Government’s proposals, as far as I can see, the Government of the day would find getting their business through a good deal more difficult and tiresome. We have seen recently how trying Ministers find our well meant attempts to improve their legislative proposals. That would be like a vicarage tea party in comparison with the frustrations that the Government of the day would undergo if the House of Lords were to be reformed—perhaps “destroyed” is a better word—as Ministers are now proposing. I foresee serious breakdowns in the relationship between the Commons and the Lords, and the River Thames running under Westminster Bridge with much blood.
Where is the pretence of democratic legitimacy in a Chamber whose Members would have security of tenure for 15 years and no risk of being regularly called to account by their electorate? Does it make sense for both Houses of Parliament to spend endless days, weeks, months and perhaps even years discussing what has been stigmatised in this debate as a bad—and, as my noble friend Lord Grenfell said, miserable—Bill?
I suppose that no one starting with a blank sheet of paper would invent the House of Lords as it is today. It is as it has grown up to be as a result of successive piecemeal changes over the centuries. As it is, it functions reasonably well. If we are going to change it, we can afford to take the time needed to devise incremental or evolutionary changes that make sense and that provide constructive reform. We need a second Chamber that complements the House of Commons and enriches the work of Parliament, not something that competes with the House of Commons, in the constituencies as well as at Westminster, and that is a pale and ineffectual carbon copy of the House of Commons, unlikely to command respect in the country or to be attractive to the people of the quality and distinction whom we should want to have as Members.
Over the centuries, the role of the House of Lords has been to represent in Parliament the principal economic and social interests and activities of the country. As at present constituted, we have to admit that we do that rather haphazardly. In an earlier debate I suggested how we might create a House—or reform the House—to reflect and represent the economic, industrial, social and cultural interests and activities of the country in an up-to-date way, with Members chosen to represent the various strands of our contemporary society: industry, commerce, the trade unions, the health professions, the legal professions, the academic and educational professions, the cultural professions, the Church of England and other churches and faiths, and so on. Members to represent those interests could, where possible, be chosen by processes of indirect election. We need to have a system that ensures that the nations and regions of the United Kingdom and the political parties are represented in a balanced way. We could even gladden the heart of the noble Lord the Leader of the House by leaving room for the appointment of experts such as former Cabinet Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces. A House so constituted would have representative legitimacy, even without popular suffrage.
Having taken note this evening of the pipe dreams of the Deputy Prime Minister and his colleagues, let us give them a respectful and honourable quietus. Let us take a little time to work out a scheme of reform that will offer the prospect of a second Chamber that would represent the various strands that constitute the fabric of our society and complement rather than compete with the House of Commons, and whose contribution would enrich the work of Parliament and make a useful and significant contribution to the work of improving legislation and debating great issues.
We need to work up these ideas into specific and detailed recommendations. We need a body, not necessarily but possibly a royal commission, that should include, of course, representatives of the main political parties and people with a sense of history and an understanding of the strengths and subtleties of our constitutional system. With a good supporting staff, such a body would be able to produce within two years a blueprint for significant and constructive reform for an effective House of Lords that could command a wider extent of consensus than the proposals of which we are being invited to take note in this debate.