Afghanistan: Interpreters

Debate between Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon and Lord Trefgarne

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does my noble friend the Minister realise that when it comes to honouring the debt that we owe to these brave men, there is widespread disquiet that the Government’s policy, particularly in relation to those on the intimidation scheme, is discreditable and even Kafkaesque? Is it not true that few if any of those on the intimidation scheme have received a visit to their home or community to assess risk because it is too risky to do so? If our current staff cannot even visit them in their own community because it is too dangerous, is it not too dangerous for them to live there?

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon and Lord Trefgarne

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I will come on to my noble friend’s point in a moment, except to say this. The question is not what we do; the question is how we are created. We are created here with a balance in this place that reflects the balance that the Executive enjoy in the other. I will come on to my noble friend’s point, but time is relatively limited, as we were advised, so allow me to make a bit of progress.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me. We have been advised to speak for seven minutes; I am already at six.

[Lord Trefgarne]

The noble Lord made a highly offensive remark just now and I would like to challenge it. He said that some of us were here because our ancestors had slept with a queen. I am the second Lord Trefgarne; my father was the first Lord Trefgarne. He was a Liberal MP.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

He came here by an act of patronage, then, which is the point I was seeking to make.

Let me cite some statistics that may illustrate the point. Despite all the arguments made about primacy, et cetera, all the arguments made that we have to work out the new relationship, here are the figures. The House of Lords Library tells me that there are 71 bicameral legislatures around the world of which, leaving aside the micro-nations in the Caribbean whose constitutions were written by us to reflect ours, only seven are not elected second Chambers, seven have no connection with democracy, and seven are appointed, as we are—leaving aside Great Britain. One of them, for reasons that utterly perplex me, is Canada. But the other six may give us cause to pause for a moment. They do not include great democracies. They are Belarus, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Jordan and Lesotho. That is the company we keep. Those are not great defenders of democracy. How is it that in every other legislature, all of them with elected second Chambers, issues of primacy, the issues which hold up people’s agreement with democratic reform in this place, are not great problems?

Here is the reason why it is said that we do not have to observe the principles of democracy. My noble friend alluded to it a moment ago. It is because, apparently, it works—in that curious, untidy, rather British way, nevertheless, it works. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It does not work. There are two functions of a second Chamber. The first is to revise and the second is to hold the Executive to account. The first of those we do rather well. We are graciously permitted to follow along with a gilded poop-scoop, clearing up the mess behind the elephant at the other end of the Corridor, but when it comes to stopping the elephant doing things, when it comes to turning it round, when it comes to delaying it on the really big things that matter, we do not succeed. How can we challenge the Executive on big things when we are a creature of the Executive?

I do not believe that if we had had a reformed, democratic second Chamber, we would have had the poll tax, but we did. I do not believe that we would have gone to war in Iraq either, but we did. The last time that I said that, there was much twittering saying, good heavens, should a second Chamber have the right to say whether a nation goes to war? Yes it should. I see no problem with that. There is no problem with the Senate in America. That has not stopped America going to war. There is no problem with the Senate in France, one of our closest and immediate allies in Libya and which put more troops into Bosnia than any other nation and suffered greater casualties.