Law Commission

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham]

I have no idea, but I am not bound by every decision, right or wrong, made by the previous Government. I hope that they did. I might equally ask, did the noble Lord’s party ask for such a facility? I assume he does not know that either. Let us start from a clean sheet, and suggest that it is an innovation that would be worth pursuing, whatever the Government of the day. It is not a political issue: there is nothing between us politically in this agenda.

The second thing sits rather oddly with the following paragraph of the triennial review report:

“The continuing pressures on public finances will add to these challenges”.

I wonder why that should be the case, unless the commission’s manpower has been reduced, or the capacity within Government departments to deal with it has been reduced. For the most part, these are not expenditure-related Bills. The report goes on:

“This has brought to the fore the need to clarify the Commission’s funding model so that clear principles are established. To live within its means the Commission will need to be flexible and agile and will have to make difficult choices about the projects it takes on”.

Yes, but I repeat: is the financing a real issue? I have spoken for 13 minutes; I shall be very quick now.

My last point is that the Lord Chancellor currently produces a report on behalf of the Government as a whole. There does not seem to be a proper connection between the relevant departments and the Ministry of Justice in the course of the consideration of implementing these programmes. It seems to me to be necessary for there to be a single body, and it may well be the MoJ, to oversee the whole process from the government side. That is where the delays seem to occur. There may or may not be good reasons for them but no one on the government side seems to be taking responsibility for the overall programme. If they did that, we might not have the disappointment that has been voiced by other noble Lords today, and we might have a better realisation of the commission’s objectives, which the Government certainly share, in principle.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

If the Lord Chairman will allow me, may I ask a question before the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, sits down? It looks as though he would be prepared to answer one. I volunteered in the Chamber when the new arrangements came in—I think the noble Lord was by then in your Lordships’ House. When my brother was chairman of the Law Commission, he made considerable progress by the conversations he had with the shadow Law Officers in what was then the Labour Government. I am not in any way seeking inside information, but I would be interested to know whether that route was being pursued today in the same way that it successfully was in those days.

[Lord Beecham]

That is really the point that I was making about the commission. I confess that I cannot say what approaches my colleagues in the other place have made as shadow Law Officers, and I do not think that the Minister would know either. I will certainly look at that from my party’s perspective.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I shall be exceptionally brief. Like my namesake, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, I congratulate everybody who has made possible what has happened in the course of the last three or four months. I was a roughrider in the column of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, when she originally raised the South Dakota project. I have no intention of repeating anything that I said on the police Bill, except that I am extremely grateful to her for letting me know, after I remarked in the police Bill proceedings that the South Dakota legislation had been transferred into California, that although the Californian legislation is permissive, the Sacramento experiment is going forward. I am wholly delighted by this turn of events. Having had a very minor part at an earlier stage, I find it very satisfying to see the momentum that has gathered.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am not sure what the correct collective noun is for a group of persuasive Baronesses, but whatever it is, we—the House, and indeed society—are greatly indebted to this particular group of persuasive Baronesses, supported as they have been by the occasional male Member of this House.

I would like to join other noble Lords in congratulating the Government on responding so positively and readily to the proposals to carry forward the pilot scheme and to come forward with a legislative framework to adopt the proposals. These have been pushed very hard by the Mayor of London and, indeed, by London Councils as an organisation. There has been complete unanimity politically in London, and in this House too, about the merits of this scheme.

Coming as I do from a city where, unfortunately, alcohol consumption is particularly high—leading generally to low-level crime and a low level of violence which is nevertheless a disturbing social phenomenon—I am very glad that we are beginning to see an approach here that we hope will make a difference. As has been pointed out, however, an alcohol strategy is still awaited. This is perhaps only a first instalment in what may need to be a major review of how we deal with these problems.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—who has been so much the moving spirit, if I can be forgiven the use of that term, in these matters—mentioned one particular matter: domestic violence. There has been consultation about this, as the noble Baroness rightly said. At a meeting held in May 2011, all the violence-against-women agencies present expressed,

“high levels of concern about this scheme operating in relation to domestic violence”.

They gave as reasons that tackling alcohol in itself,

“does not tackle domestic violence … implies that domestic violence behaviour is driven by alcohol, which is not the case … domestic violence can occur when men are sober”—

or when women are sober, as it is not always one-sided—and,

“implies that physical assault (which is linked with alcohol) is the main/only form of domestic violence”,

as that is not correct either. There was,

“general consensus that the additional elements which would need to be considered for DV”—

domestic violence—

“cases, including risk assessment and support”,

would make the matter very complex.

That is not in any way to derogate from the proposals being made, but it does emphasise the need to look carefully, in the context of the pilot, at what will be run as part of the experiment, and to look very sensitively at the concerns of the organisations that work most closely with women as the principal victims of domestic violence, to see whether this is necessarily the most appropriate way of dealing with those problems.

I certainly have an open mind about that, and I assume that the Government would as well. I am therefore just uttering a word of caution. It should not necessarily be assumed that domestic violence is an appropriate topic for inclusion in a scheme of this kind. It is a matter that needs to be tested. The American experience might be helpful in that respect, of course, but the culture is not necessarily the same here as it is in South Dakota or other parts of the United States. I think that we have to be a little careful about jumping to conclusions.

With that single reservation—it is only a note of caution—I very much endorse the principle and the Government’s amendments. I would also like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said about costs. I assume that the Government would cover the cost of pilots as they take place in localities. In local government parlance, this would be a new burden, and the convention is that such new burdens are funded by government. As it is a pilot, it should not be too expensive to run—and ultimately, we hope, the public purse will benefit significantly from any savings that accrue, not least in the health service, where such savings would be extremely desirable. I mean savings not only in financial resources but in the time and skills of staff.

The Opposition strongly support this principle. With that note of caution, we congratulate the Government and look forward to taking matters further. Perhaps I may also ask whether the Minister or her colleagues would be prepared to meet before the pilots are instituted with representatives of the organisations concerned with violence against women to explore their concerns and to see whether, perhaps together, a joint approach might be worked out to test the scheme in practice or to see how it might be modified to reflect the real concerns they have expressed. We certainly support the Government and these amendments.

Crime: Homeowners’ Liability

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I will not be drawn into this. My noble friend was suggesting that a little common sense in these matters would be beneficial to the police and the public in general.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

Does my noble friend recall that the Criminal Justice Bill 2003 was amended by your Lordships' House twice as often as any other Bill in the Government’s programme that year?

[Lord McNally]

I was not aware of that but I have never been, certainly in the last 10 years, averse to sensible amendments being carried in this House.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

22E: Clause 11, page 10, line 37, at end insert—
“Special authorities(1) The geographical area of a special authority shall, so far as is practicable having regard to the rules of this Schedule as they apply to England, form part of not more than one constituency at any time.
(2) Where the geographical area of a special authority forms part of not more than one constituency, the name by which that constituency is known shall refer to that area.
(3) In this rule, “special authority” has the same meaning as in section 144(6) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988.”

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I last moved this amendment, prior to withdrawal, in Committee last month in the small hours of 19 to 20 January. My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, who eloquently supported the amendment on that occasion, has drawn my attention to the House of Lords newsletter entitled Red Benches, No. 23 dated 7 February 2011, and its column “Procedural Corner”, where we are reminded that the Companion states:

“Arguments fully deployed either in Committee of the whole House or in Grand Committee should not be repeated at length on report”.

My observation of this rule may reassure your Lordships’ House today, but I must explain the more cryptic aspects of the amendment.

The amendment relates to the City of London, where I served for 24 years as Member of Parliament in the other place, making me the City’s third longest-serving Member since 1283. I commented in Committee that the definition of a “special authority”, referred to in paragraph (3) in the amendment, is,

“an authority covering an area with a population of less than 10,000 whose gross rateable value divided by its population is more than £10,000”.—[Official Report, 19/1/11; col. 481.]

In other words, it is an area that is primarily commercial and not residential, and that applies uniquely in the United Kingdom to the City of London. The fact that this anonymous description uniquely applies to the City avoids any suggestion of potential hybridity. I will add to this arid language only the verdict of the Duke of Wellington’s ally at Waterloo, Field-Marshal Prince Blücher, who, on being taken up to the dome of St Paul’s to survey the City from on high, simply opined: “What a splendid city to sack”.

The words,

“so far as is practicable”,

in paragraph (1) in the amendment, while establishing a presumption, avoid adding any rigorous straitjacket to the Bill, and paragraph (2) in the amendment lays down:

“Where the geographical area of a special authority forms part of not more than one constituency, the name by which that constituency is known shall refer to that area”.

This mirrors the present statutory status of the City.

In Committee, I set out the long history of the City of London constituency, which merged with Westminster as recently as 1950, and described how it led up to its precise present status. In Committee, the Minister kindly agreed to a meeting with us between Committee and Report, and I thank him both for that and for his open-mindedness. I thanked in Committee those who universally spoke in favour of the amendment on that occasion, and I single out in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on the Benches opposite, who moved a similar supportive amendment of her own that evening. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment, as I did on the previous occasion. The City of London is the very heart of the community of London and of the country. It is bounded on one side by the Thames and on the other by very different areas. It is worth keeping as a discrete area. It has been laid down in law that it should be a single constituency ever since it lost its own unique representation. I support the amendment because the City has an unusual local electorate, with many businesses voting. I think it is right that the City, which is so important as a financial centre, should have a single Member in the other place to which it can relate and who will speak on its behalf. Therefore, it should be kept whole, rather than risk being moved into two or even three other constituencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Brooke for tabling the amendment and the other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, who have spoken to it. As my noble friend said, Amendment 22E requires that the area of a special authority, as defined by the Local Government Finance Act 1988, should form part of only one constituency, and the constituency name should refer to that special authority. As he said, in practice, only one authority area satisfies the definition of a special authority, and that is the City of London. As has been explained many times, the number of exceptions in the Bill has deliberately been kept as low as possible. In introducing the Bill, the Government accepted only two seats where there is genuine extreme geography precluding them from being readily combined with other constituencies.

As has been said, we debated an equivalent amendment in Committee moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. That made clear the expert knowledge of many noble Lords of the past and present of the City of London, and their connections with it. I certainly would not wish in any way to diminish the rich history of the City, nor the importance which the City has played and continues to play in the life and economy of our nation.

From a practical point of view, I hope that I can offer some reassurance by reminding the House that in the 25 wards in total, the City has approximately 7,000 electors, which is smaller than some individual wards. Although it would be for the Boundary Commission to decide, I suspect that it is unlikely that the City would be split between two constituencies. Nevertheless, I recall the argument made that it is desirable from an economic point of view to have one MP who can say unequivocally that he or she represents the City of London’s interests in Parliament. I certainly valued the opportunity to meet my noble friends Lord Brooke and Lord Jenkin and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. They elaborated on the potent arguments that they made in their speeches in Committee, which they have made again today.

I have clearly heard the case that they make. The Government understand the strength of that concern. Although I cannot commit myself to the wording of the amendment, I am happy to tell your Lordships' House that we will take this away and that I fully expect to be able to address the issue when we return to this at Third Reading. I hope that, on that basis, my noble friend will be prepared to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I thank those who have spoken in the debate; I am grateful to them for what they said. Everyone who has the welfare of the City of London at heart will be grateful for what the Minister said. In the light of his response, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 22E withdrawn.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

66C: Clause 11, page 9, line 25, leave out “598” and insert “600”

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Maples, I beg to move Amendment 66C.My noble friend has not vouchsafed to me the precise rationale behind his deceptively attractively simple amendment but I shall draw to his attention any answer in Hansard which my noble friend the Minister gives to him, if such a reply is given.

Now that Amendment 66C has been moved, I shall speak to Amendment 78B, which stands in my name and the names of my noble friends Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Newby. In introducing the amendment I should refer to my personal association with the City as the parliamentary constituency which I had the privilege to represent as Member for the City of London and Westminster South, as it then was, between 1977 and 1997, and then for the Cities of London and Westminster between 1997 and 2001.

The amendment aims to recognise the position of special authorities. It is aimed at the City of London, which has failed to make it into a very short list of constituencies subject to special provision on account of their particular characteristics even though the City’s individuality has been recognised throughout history. The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which currently governs boundary reviews, continued that recognition. This Bill does not. The effect of the amendment is to require the whole of the City of London to be contained within one parliamentary constituency, as provided for by the current legislation.

As your Lordships will not need reminding, the City of London has existed as a discrete community for a very long time. It had evolved a legal personality by 1189 which, as noble Lords may recall, is the beginning of legal memory. Accordingly, the City Corporation which administers the square mile does not owe its existence to Parliament. Parliament has, however, underwritten the City’s rights and privileges. One of the very few remaining statutory provisions confirming the Magna Carta still in force is Chapter 9 of an Act of 1297 confirming the City’s liberties and customs under the charter.

The current legislation on parliamentary constituencies affecting the City is largely the product of the past 75 years. It is particularly relevant because the Bill marks a substantial departure in the electoral treatment of the City of London.

Permanent Boundary Commissions were established by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944. At that time the City of London had no less than two Members of Parliament, and that situation was preserved by the 1944 Act. There was then a business vote in parliamentary elections, as well as a voting entitlement of husbands or wives of occupiers of business premises, entitlements which were removed by the Representation of the People Act 1948. In consequence of those changes, the City of London’s electorate diminished to 4,542. The City was then linked up with the former seat of Westminster Abbey and called the Cities of London and Westminster constituency. To complete the picture, during the period of my incumbency between the February 1974 and 1997 general elections it was named the City of London and Westminster South constituency. Noble Lords will note that the one constant throughout has been its reference to the City of London.

When the changes were made in 1948, it was never suggested that splitting up the City’s relatively tiny parliamentary electorate between different constituencies would be an appropriate option. More than that, there was a specific provision in that Act and the further one which followed soon afterwards, the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949, which required the whole of the City to be contained in one constituency. That is echoed by the supportive Amendment 85C in this group tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. Although that amendment goes further than our amendment, the concept is therefore potentially bipartisan. That provision has been repeated in the legislation since and is included in Rule 3 set out in Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986.

The effect of this Bill through the replacement of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act by a new schedule is to remove the provision requiring the City to be contained within one parliamentary constituency. It is perhaps a little surprising that the provision has been removed without a specific repeal. Magna Carta is without doubt a constitutional measure, and so therefore is the Act of 1297 which preserves the City’s liberties and customs. The Bill your Lordships are considering is also a constitutional measure. There is modern legal authority which has been much referred to by academic lawyers giving evidence to the EU Scrutiny Committee in the other place on the European Union Bill suggesting that a constitutional provision requires specific statutory repeal.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Will the noble Lord give way? We are having trouble hearing him, but that might just be the audio arrangements in the Chamber. Can he explain in one sentence what he is actually trying to do? We think that his amendment is a nimby amendment, but we are not quite sure.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, with whom I have duelled on a number of occasions. I shall try to move closer to some form of microphone. I hope that that is better. By the time that I have concluded my remarks, he will recognise exactly what I am seeking to do and why I am doing it in so discreet a manner.

Schedule 11 to the Bill includes in Part 2 the provisions to be repealed, but the 1297 Act does not feature there or in Parts 2 and 3 of Schedule 10, which deal with amendments to existing legislation. I do not wish to make too much of this because a great deal, not least interpretation, is uncertain when dealing with statutes of such antiquity. In the City of London context, significant elements of the franchise are, however, covered by the law of custom, which the 1297 Act protects. This prompts me to query whether the existing very specific provision relating to the City of London, which has been included in the legislation governing parliamentary constituencies until the appearance of this Bill, was inserted in deference to the Act of 1297. Perhaps the Minister might be prepared to offer an observation on the provenance of the existing provision when he replies.

I do not think that I need to exercise any great powers of persuasion to convince your Lordships that the City is demographically atypical. Its administration is quite different from that of the London boroughs. It has a local business franchise as well as a residential one, and business dominates. It currently has 5,939 parliamentary electors, which is slightly more than in 1948 but still very small in comparative terms. For example, a typical ward in the City of Westminster—the other half of my former constituency—has between 7,000 and 8,000 voters.

Having said all this about the constituency and the manner of representing it, I recognise that the Bill before your Lordships’ House lays down precise rules for the conduct of future boundary reviews. I also appreciate that there is a strong desire on the part of the Government to avoid special cases other than those which the Bill itself identifies. Recognising the constraints, I believe that the amendment does not simply seek to reimpose the requirements in the current Act that the City should be part of a single constituency. Rather, it proposes such an outcome where “practicable” —to quote from the amendment—with wording that has been specifically devised to avoid special pleading and to rely on uniqueness.

The amendment would create a strong presumption that this will be the result without making it an absolute. That is the effect of paragraph (1) in the amendment, which also relates the requirement to a “special authority”, a term defined in paragraph (3) in the amendment. In the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which is referred to there, the term “special authority” is defined as an authority covering an area with a population of less than 10,000 whose gross rateable value divided by its population is more than £10,000. In other words, the reference is to an area that is primarily commercial and not residential. The only geographical location to satisfy that definition is the City of London, which simply goes to reinforce how exceptional it is; hence my claim for uniqueness.

Avoiding specific reference to the City of London in the amendment avoids any suggestion of potential hybridity and, therefore, any need for me to discuss it. Paragraph (2) in the amendment is modelled on Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which requires the City of London to appear in the name of the constituency that includes the City. As noble Lords would expect, I believe the continuation of this practice to be entirely appropriate. I hope that the Minister feels that I have given enough to provide him with the encouragement to look favourably on the City's treatment under future boundary reviews. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The amendment in my name is, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has said, slightly firmer in that it leaves out the words “where practicable”, and asks that a constituency shall exist,

“which shall include the whole of the City of London”.

It does not mean only that, but it should certainly include the City of London. I have to confess that when I read the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Brooke, Lord Jenkin and Lord Newby. I did not understand it, which is why I tabled this amendment. I wondered at that time, “Dick Whittington, where are you when we need you? What is happening to the City of London?”. I was then taken to one side and it was explained that the amendment that has just been spoken to is in effect the same and is to preserve the City of London.

As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has said, the City of London has been a special case for longer than anyone’s memory, even in this sage House. Its rights and privileges, including its entitlement to parliamentary representation, were provided for in the Magna Carta, a copy of which I believe hangs behind where the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, is sitting—or not quite; I have just been corrected on the geography. The Magna Carta specifically allowed for the City of London’s privileges, which were preserved by an Act in the thirteenth century.

The present Bill removes the current bit of legislation that is set out in the 1986 Act, which requires there to be a constituency that includes the whole of the City of London and the name of which shall refer to the City of London. It has continued for centuries, not just more recently, as a constituency. Recently, however, the words “City of London” have to form part of the name of a parliamentary constituency. Even these words were inserted into the name of the GLA division, which is now, I think, City and East London. More recently, as has been mentioned, in 2000 the rules for redistribution of seats again preserved the constituency.

There is also the interesting constitutional point, which has been touched on, that the current Bill has been characterised as a constitutional measure and accepted as such by being taken on the Floor of the House in the other place. The early 1297 Act is also a constitutional measure, as has been mentioned, but there has been no provision to amend that.

There are, as has been referred to, many legal arguments. I will spare the House the details that I have here. What is interesting, as far as it affects this House, this Committee and the Bill in front of us, is that the existing provision for a constituency that will include the whole of the City of London, as well as the name, will cease to exist if the Bill is passed. It will not automatically mean that the City as we know it will be split, but it allows for that as an outcome, because there will be no preservation of the boundaries around that. It is important for this House to consider some of the same comments that were made earlier, in the case of the Isle of Wight, of an island surrounded by water.

Referendums: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. We owe the existence of the Lords spiritual as a valuable element in your Lordships’ House to their medieval predecessors’ reluctance to serve in a court to try their fellow Peers. It is good to know that referendums can honourably enter the purview of the Lords spiritual.

On a personal note, I mourn the recent death of Lord Bingham. His maiden speech in your Lordships' House as Lord Chief Justice was on the then constitutional settlement. On principle he never spoke in this Chamber as a Law Lord, save to give judgments; but one had hoped that in retirement he might have come back to speak in this Chamber, not least on constitutional subjects—so he is already missed.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, not only on securing the chairmanship of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House but on having celebrated it so admirably today. I congratulate her, too, on the compliment paid her by the Electoral Commission at lunchtime today in providing briefing in room 13 on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and its referendum implications, which I like to think was a deliberate act.

I have myself never been a member of the Constitution Committee, so what qualifications do I have to speak? Perhaps I should declare one interest in that the local polls in Wales on the Sunday opening of pubs during the 1960s, referred to in paragraph 2 of this report, was the product of a suggestion by my noble and leaned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon—as he then was not—and was implemented by my late noble kinsman as Minister for Welsh Affairs. I have a miniature qualification in having lived in Switzerland for a year 50 years ago, and thus breathed the referendum air.

I spoke in Marlow on the yes platform on the 1975 referendum and was told engagingly afterwards by my fellow speaker, a Wing Commander Martin, that I had developed arguments he believed no one else in the hall had ever thought of before. Wing Commander Martin was, I think, the first British officer into Sarawak after the Japanese surrender and remarked to me that he thought the people of Sarawak might well have voted for the return of the Brookes as white rajas if the opportunity had been afforded them.

I lived through the 1977-79 debates on Welsh and Scottish devolution as a participant opposition Back-Bencher, and 20 years later in the 1997-1999 period I felt unease about the referendum arrangements regarding Scotland, Wales, the Greater London Authority and the Belfast agreement, which seemed to be made up as the Government went along and were regulated and finally corralled only by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 after all four of these referendums had been done and dusted. The more’s the pity given the international praise that that Act has since received. Perhaps that Act may let us draw a line under the past.

In relation to the Belfast agreement referendum, the Prime Minister—whose name had already been deployed in the Welsh referendum by a plane drawing a banner across south Wales, saying, “Vote yes, vote Blair”—was pressed to campaign on the Belfast agreement referendum by Labour MPs who had been campaigning for the yes vote, which they feared they might lose without his participation, which gave rise to one pledge or promise of his which he, of course, was later unable to fulfil. That brings me, as a new reader, to the excellent report that we are debating today. The gallimaufry of quotations assembled from relevant academics is a rich quarry even if it occasions the same discipline one has to observe in the splendid, comparatively recent biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, of constantly needing to look up the dramatis personae in the index. The cut and thrust of observations and apothegms is worthy of a Platonic dialogue, though they are, of course, to some degree taken out of context, and it leads to suspense in the process to see on which side of the argument the committee will eventually come down, which it summarises by assessing the balance of evidence. Out of context, surprise sometimes occurs.

On the issue of choice of subjects for referendums, I have on a prior occasion cited one of my late noble kinsman’s constituents, a very competent photographer named Miss Compton Collier. She lived in a flat in West Hampstead, possessed neither radio nor television and never read newspapers. She told her bank manager that it was his obligation to let her know if anything of real significance occurred. He prudently inquired what her standards of “real significance” were. She said that that was a very easy question to answer: they were the death of the sovereign or the outbreak of war. That procedure has much to recommend it, but as a resolution for the choice of subjects by one’s bank manager, it is as unpredictable and impenetrable a method as the Duckworth Lewis one is to the average spectator at a limited-overs cricket match.

Knowing, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, will have both the right and opportunity of reply, I shall follow the principle of getting your retaliation in first which is pursued by the British Lions on rugby football tours, and say that, on his point on the composition of the House of Lords being irrelevant because the people of this country have had decades to consider this change—a view which the coalition seems to share, as other speakers have said—as the right reverend Prelate said, the same might likewise have been said about regional government in the north-east, when the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was driven back to that far-off fastness because he believed that he knew the answer for sure, as in the example given by Professor David Butler to the committee that a referendum on 4 November some years back proved otherwise and earned the experiment the title of 4/11 throughout Whitehall. If I had a preference for elections to your Lordships' House, I would not bet my own house on such a result if a national referendum on the composition of your Lordships' House were held.

My own interpretation of the overall tenor of this report is that the referendum is a device not without worth but that it should not be abused by overuse. That seems to me a very British conclusion to which I have no difficulty subscribing.

Prisons: Muslim Prisoners

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

First, in parallel, I pay tribute to the role that Anglican and other Christian pastors play in our Prison Service, which is greatly appreciated. On the dangers of radicalisation in prison, in many ways prison staff reflect the fears of our wider society. Therefore, it is worth reminding people that only 80 of those in prison are there for terrorist offences and that the vast majority of convictions are not terrorist-related. What we must not do—and we have some hard lessons to learn from drug regimes—is think that people go to prison as Muslims or having converted to Islam and are then radicalised. There are dangers that prison could provide this kind of background. I was, in fact, talking with my noble friend Lord Dholakia about the idea of perhaps encouraging more young and successful Muslim entrepreneurs from society in general to become prison visitors or mentors, make contact with these young people and demonstrate to them that there is a positive role. I said at the beginning that there is an impressive training programme which is trying to educate the staff to deal with this problem.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, given the chief inspector’s recent report, can the Minister find out what proportion of prisoners are Muslim by conversion and let those who have asked questions today know the answer, given that it would affect the statistical discrepancy?

[Lord McNally]

I will find out, write to the noble Lord and put a copy of the letter in the Library. It is clear that the statistical discrepancy is not explained by mass conversions in prison. There is a suspicion by old hands that some people may convert because they think that it will give them a more privileged regime. However, I suspect that sometimes people—well, I will go no further. We are looking at conversion as an old soldier’s way of missing out some of the more onerous parts of the prison regime, but the main discrepancy lies far deeper. I will get the exact figures and put them in the Library.