Exiting the EU

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid not. The UK’s current position implies two models of relationship: a standard free trade agreement for Great Britain with Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union and single market or membership of the EEA and a customs union. The Prime Minister has made clear that neither of these is acceptable or delivers on the referendum result. That is why we have put forward a comprehensive detailed plan, which we are now looking forward to discussing with our EU partners, to ensure that we can move these negotiations on at pace and deliver the best deal for the UK and the EU which all Members of this House, across this House, want to achieve.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s first duty is to protect the public, so we should be reassured that this Statement and, indeed, the Chequers agreement, apparently agreed that we would be seeking a far-reaching security partnership with the EU. Indeed, the Prime Minister has been seeking that since the Munich security conference, with a united Cabinet behind her. Since then, we have discovered from Federica Mogherini that we can have such a relationship in security but as a third party not as a partner. Secondly, we have discovered that when the EU is contracting it has put in a break clause that means that it can get out of contracts of the nature we would be seeking if the contractor is not an EU member, which effectively freezes British companies out of contracting for security contracts, and then we have the Galileo row. So we have an example of a Prime Minister with a united Cabinet behind her negotiating. What progress have we made in negotiating a deep and meaningful security agreement with the EU since the Munich security conference?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that we currently enjoy a high level of co-operation with EU member states. There is a challenge in finding a way through and our ability is currently being put at risk because, as he rightly says, the existing legal frameworks for third countries do not allow us to realise the ambitious future security partnership we are seeking. We are making these points with the EU. We are working very constructively with our EU partners. For instance, since the Salisbury incident we have led work with them to propose a package of measures to step up our communications against online disinformation, strengthen our capabilities against cybersecurity threats and further reduce the threat from hostile intelligence agencies. We have an excellent relationship in this area. The noble Lord is right that there are challenges, but we believe it is in both our interests to have a strong security partnership. We will continue to say that, and we believe that our EU partners agree. We will work through these current issues in order to make sure we achieve that end.

G7: Charlevoix, Quebec

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for the repetition of the Prime Minister’s Statement, which contained a report that the G7 agreed to strengthen the power of the OPCW to attribute chemical attacks. The OPCW does not have such a power—another UN body did, but it was closed when the Russians exercised their veto to stop its mandate being renewed. So how does the G7 without Russia intend to give this power to any body in the United Nations? Is there any explanation? What did the Prime Minister actually agree to?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The communiqué agreed that we must maintain the global norms against the use of chemical weapons and there was agreement among leaders on the need to strengthen the ability—as the noble Lord pointed out, it is not there at the moment—of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to attribute responsibility for chemical weapons attacks. As he will be aware, there is a special conference of state parties later this month, which will be an important moment to demonstrate our determination to reinforce the Chemical Weapons Convention. We will, of course, be an active participant.

Salisbury Incident

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to highlight the seriousness of the situation facing us. We obviously comply fully with all our obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and we will be working very closely with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to ensure that we try to prevent this happening again.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. I support entirely the Government’s robust response in these dreadful circumstances. On 29 September last year, President Putin declared that the Russian Federation had destroyed all its chemical stocks and chemical production facilities. It was congratulated by the then director-general of the OPCW on having done so. The logical conclusion that Russia has a production facility in contravention of international law exposes a serious flaw in the inspection and verification system of the international prohibition and nuclear weapons regime. This may not be an immediate priority, but soon will we not need to convene with our allies—at the very least a conference of experts—to look at how this international regime can be improved and, in particular, whether modern technology, of which there is much, can significantly improve our ability to inspect and verify countries that claim to be free of these dreadful weapons, when perhaps they are not?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that the international community, including ourselves, welcomed the OPCW statement in September 2017 on the complete destruction of Russia’s declared chemical weapons stockpile. It is important to clarify that these were declared weapons of the Russian state, which is exactly why the Prime Minister asked for an explanation of how the Novichok nerve agent came to be used in Salisbury last week. The noble Lord is absolutely right, as I said in a previous answer, that we made a national statement to the OPCW executive council and we will be talking to it about further actions we can take in the future.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. When I saw where I was placed in the order, I was confident that I would be following a speech that contained a robust defence of parliamentary democracy. My noble friend Lord Foulkes reminded me that he once described the noble Lord as being a man who was made for this place. Having watched the noble Lord here and in the other place and having been privileged to hear him speak, my observation is that he thinks that this place was made for him.

Only yesterday, we witnessed another indefensible and probably ultimately futile attempt by the Government to deny Parliament access to the information that it needs to hold them properly to account and simply to do its job. We all already know what the economic analyses of the consequences of the only feasible Brexit deals say and few of us are at all surprised. The Government will not be able to defend their position against the will of the majority in the other place for long. Eventually these documents will be published—although they already are.

For months now, every time that they have been faced with a reasonable request for explanation or clarification of the Government’s Brexit objectives, Ministers or government spokespeople have refused to give an answer, because apparently that would somehow undermine the Government’s negotiating position. I have been bemused and questioning of my own substantial negotiating experience and instinctive belief that there is no such negotiating advantage to be had. I feared that I might be alone in thinking this, because it never seemed to be challenged. That was until yesterday, when the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, in a few sentences exposed that the emperor has no clothes—the fallacy of that argument—to the amusement of many Members.

Throughout the negotiations, the EU 27 have clearly shown their collective hand—we are told that a decision was made in two minutes the other day—and because of that have maintained a position of dominance over the UK in the negotiations. As has become obvious, the truth is—there are many ways of explaining this—that a deeply divided party in government simply cannot answer these important questions because they have been unable to formulate a clear, common position. If you want specific evidence of that, Mrs Merkel revealed in a recent informal press conference, to the amusement of everyone, that every time she meets the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister asks her to formulate that position for us, saying, “Make me an offer”. No wonder we are in such a desperate state.

I am content to adopt the opening words of many noble Lords that this Bill is necessary. While it is complex, difficult to interpret and lacking in clarity, it is necessary that we have a Bill of this nature for exactly the reasons set out in the opening speech from the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. The Bill should never have come to this House in this state, but it is clear from the debate so far that the problems with it cannot be addressed other than by the most detailed and robust scrutiny and significant amendment and, to get to that point, the Bill requires a Second Reading.

I also agree that, when we see the terms of the final agreement, a concluding democratic process is required. My noble friend Lord Adonis argues that that should be a further referendum. I, too, should like to see a further referendum but, for reasons others have expanded on, I am able, and I thank the noble Lord for this, to adopt the position of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who, in agreeing with my noble friends Lady Smith and Lord Mandelson, accepted that this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle to require a further referendum—by the way, I fear the interpretation of any failed vote that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, described—while undertaking to support any amendments that propose a further referendum among the options if Parliament is given a meaningful vote after the conclusion of the negotiations.

As a relevant aside, what is “a meaningful vote”? The proposed withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill may provide a vote on the agreement but, given Article 50, can it be meaningful? If Parliament likes the deal and votes for it, the deal is implemented and the UK leaves. If Parliament does not like the deal and votes against it, Article 50 operates and on 29 March, two years after the notification of our intention to leave, unless there is an agreed extension, the treaties cease to apply and the UK leaves. Does a meaningful vote depend on the flexibility or the reversibility of Article 50? Perhaps the Minister will address that point in winding up. If that is the Government’s position, we should know.

I am sure that by now the Minister is clear about the issues that will be demanding his attention in the later stages of our deliberations. Paramount among them is the imperative that there must never, ever be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To achieve that, Northern Ireland and the Republic must be in the same customs union. The stakes could not be higher. I trust that the Minister will address this issue and make clear that that will never happen.

In the limited time available, I want to engage just one aspect of an issue that has already been discussed at some length: the devolution provisions. The political deficiencies of these provisions were accurately highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, who said that they would be a recruiting sergeant for those in Scotland who seek to advance their independence agenda by blaming London for everything. At a time when the Scottish electorate are minded to make the nationalists accountable for their failures, this is an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound. The constitutional and legal deficiencies were exposed forensically in an important contribution by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. In her opening speech, the Leader of the House promised that the Government would publish an analysis shortly to show the specific policy areas where EU law intersects with devolved competence and where the Government will require a UK-wide legislative framework. In addition, she reiterated the Government’s commitment to bring forward amendments to Clause 11.

In an earlier debate in this House on these issues, my noble friend Lord McConnell proposed a practical solution to this problem based on good faith negotiations. Negotiations are apparently ongoing, but the poker game continues. Yesterday, in a meeting with Michael Clancy, the Law Society of Scotland’s law reform director, he told me that he had analysed, over three months, the 111 powers in the list prepared by the Government to inform discussion between the Scottish and UK Governments about where it may be necessary to agree common frameworks. This list must exist. If it does, will the Minister undertake to let us see it before we debate these issues? It is the secret to a practical solution to this problem.

Iraq

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord whom I have the privilege of following, I, too, support the Motion that the Government have placed before Parliament, but I do so very much with my eyes wide open, as we have been encouraged to do. Last month in Istanbul, I was present when Hadi al-Bahra, the president of the Syrian opposition coalition, tried to persuade members of the US Congress to supply heavy weapons and equipment to the Free Syrian Army and to support US air strikes there. The humanitarian case was compelling, as indeed it is today, but the war-weary US politicians could see no vital US interests and were not persuaded by his answers to the famous question: what then? Today, there is a humanitarian imperative justifying intervention against the threat that ISIL poses to Iraq, and there is a sound legal basis, as we have heard, for intervention in Iraq.

However, the least persuasive argument is that if we do not deal with ISIL in the streets of Iraq, we will have to deal with it in the streets of the UK. The Prime Minister told the United Nations that the United Kingdom has exported 500 jihadists to fight in Syria and Iraq. This problem is already on our streets and, indeed, in our homes. Already we have a serious problem that cannot be dealt by with air strikes anywhere in the Middle East.

I am not given to counsels of despair, but air strikes in Iraq will play into the narrative of ISIL’s propaganda. It will use it to recruit more of our young people to its cause, and air strikes will increase the risk of retaliatory action here. Civilian casualties are inevitable. There are significant downsides to air strikes, and we should agree to them only if we are convinced that they will be effective in achieving the strategic objectives of degrading and eventually destroying ISIL. Recent history of bombing does not suggest that such an objective can be achieved by military means alone, far less by air strikes. They must be part of a coherent political strategy. We must be able to answer the question: what then?

At the root of this problem is a challenge of political legitimacy in both Iraq and Syria. To all intents and purposes, these are two failed states. If we see this challenge otherwise—for example, as only a counterterrorism operation—we will be at it indefinitely. Without legitimate Governments in both states, even if ISIL is killed and buried, it will not stay dead but will rise again. If Nouri al-Maliki was still Prime Minister in Iraq, we would not be having this debate today. It is only the prospect of an inclusive, legitimate Iraqi Government that permits consideration of any military intervention there at all. As long as the Assad regime exists, it will spawn jihadists and other criminals capable of the barbarism that ISIL perpetrates daily. If we have learnt anything from the past, it is surely that we cannot deal with an enemy on one side of a porous border while leaving a safe haven on the other.

As my noble friend Lord Reid said so eloquently, there must be a viable political, military and diplomatic coalition with sufficient traction on the ground to take advantage of any opportunities that we create. The necessary complementary element requires partners who are able and willing to put boots on the ground and who are given all the assistance they need—lethal, non-lethal and humanitarian—as necessary. If we really believe that we have a dog in this fight, we must ensure that that dog is on the winning side. We need to appreciate the long-term nature of our commitment and the requirement to ensure that the new Iraqi Government deliver, and that we have no prospect of success if Syria continues in a state of partition, with the Islamic State on one side and the Assad regime and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies dominating the other, and if we do not effectively lean on the funders of ISIL to cut off their financial support.

We should learn from the mistakes of the past, including the mistake of our intervention in Libya, which suggested that we had no responsibility for the consequences. We will own the consequences of our actions then and this time in Iraq, as we own the consequences of our previous interventions. This is my definition of keeping my eyes wide open.

G8 and NATO Summits

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am always in favour of as much consultation as possible on these matters. One important but less well recognised aspect of the G8 was the discussion between the EU and the United States about a long-term trade arrangement. We are all disappointed that the Doha trade round is going nowhere, and I think there is general recognition that we need more energy on trade around the international system to push back the rising tide of protectionism. We want to see further trade liberalisation where groups of countries forge ahead with ambitious deals of their own. Therefore, we are keen to launch negotiations with other countries, including Japan, and are preparing to negotiate with the US. It is a tough challenge, and I cannot offer my noble friend a road map of exactly how it is going to take place, but given that together the EU and the USA make up a third of global trade and nearly half the world’s GDP, the prize is extremely substantial and worth while.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, in the Statement that we have just heard, the noble Lord the Leader of the House reported that the Secretary-General of NATO took advantage of the NATO summit to declare that the interim ballistic missile defence capability was operational. Is the noble Lord able to explain in more detail what that phrase means and, much more importantly, how much that capability cost, what the next stage of development will cost, how much the United Kingdom has committed to paying for the next stage of development and whether it will come out of the core defence budget? Perhaps when he answers this question he may tell your Lordships’ House when we may get an opportunity to debate ballistic missile defence.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is not often that I get asked a question that I am comprehensively unable to answer, but this is one of those times. I am afraid that I cannot go beyond the sentence that I read out in the Statement. Perhaps I could reply to the noble Lord by letter. More importantly, he suggested that there should be a debate. There are opportunities for debate over the next few weeks and the missile defence system may well be one of those areas that the usual channels should discuss whether or not to bring forward.

Public Disorder

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, having listened to the Prime Minister's Statement, it is hard for me not to reflect on the young men in these gangs. Many of them have grown up without fathers, or with fathers who have set them the worst example, in families where the hard-pressed mother has to do all the work of rearing of children. The young men may not be properly socialised in that early setting. They move on to schools, fail there and finally find a home and a new father in the gangs, with their charismatic leaders who become their new father figures.

Does the Minister agree that we need to look very carefully at early intervention, at very good, high-quality childcare, and at mentoring for young men and boys by father figures such as people in business who can take them to their work and show them what they do? Will the Minister look at how children’s centres are being funded? Will the Government look again at the lowering of the requirement for children's centres to have a graduate manager and question whether that is the right thing to do, given the importance of giving good opportunities to children from disadvantaged families?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, the Government are right to have recognised that gangs and gang culture lay at the heart of some of the worst violence that we have seen on the streets of our cities over the last few days. They are also right to appreciate that lessons can be learned from the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence, the gangs initiative in the east end of Glasgow that has been running since 2008, led by Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan and his deputy Karyn McCluskey. Both of them could be here in London much quicker than Bill Bratton could be—unless, of course, he is here for another purpose.

However, the Minister should recognise that that initiative, successful as it has been, is part of a wider initiative in Scotland known as the Violence Reduction Unit. It was born in Strathclyde Police and grew into a national unit between 2005 and 2006, and addresses many of the issues that noble Lords have raised in their interventions already, particularly the last one about early intervention with young people in our communities. I ask the Minister to not just take part of that broader package south, or across the United Kingdom, but to look at the whole package and see what can be learned from the Violence Reduction Unit.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, all the circumstantial evidence is that these riots did not just appear spontaneously. What evidence is there to date, if any, that there was a fair degree of central organisation, if not orchestration, even down to the use of Sun Tzu tactics in riots? This required people to understand what those were about and how to use them. So my question simply is: what, if any, evidence is there of central organisation?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

It is obviously true that if the elector chooses not to vote tactically, they do not have to. But it is also perfectly true—as the noble Lord’s colleague, Mr Ben Bradshaw, has acknowledged on behalf of all those members in the Labour Party who are supporting AV, including the leader of the party of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who has come out very strongly in favour of AV—that it reduces the need for tactical voting. Ben Bradshaw said yesterday that AV gives more power to the people—nobody can deny that—freeing them from the pressure to vote tactically. They do not have to vote tactically. They can do their first preference and their second preference. But the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is quite right. It does not necessarily abolish tactical voting. It makes it much less effective and much less necessary. Mr Bradshaw, his colleague in the other place, is right on that.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I want to take him back to a point which I heard him make a moment or two ago to confirm that I understood him correctly. His criticism of the first past the post system—he seemed to be building up to this criticism because he made it so vehemently—was that there was not one Member of the House of Commons who could claim to be elected by 50 per cent of the registered voters in his or her constituency. Do I understand that the noble Lord is now setting that as the bar for a credible voting system? If he is, can he point me, an ingénue in these matters and not in any sense an anorak or a wonk, to one example of the operation of this alternative vote system that meets that challenge that he has now set?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am not saying that AV would automatically mean that every Member of the other House would have 50 per cent but first past the post clearly goes nowhere near to achieving that result. AV can make that more possible. More people can have more influence on the outcome of their constituency election and as a result there will be many more seats in the country—not all of them, there will still be safe seats—where it will be possible for people to have more confidence that their vote will make a difference.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I move Amendment 31, standing in my name and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke. I understand that my noble friend Lord McAvoy has put his name to it as well. I am pleased to see so many noble Lords with Scottish titles in the Chamber today. I presume that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will be replying to it. No? Well, another Scot will be replying to it—that is, the Leader of the House.

When I looked through the Bill and saw that the question was to be posed in Welsh for voting in Wales, I thought, what a very good idea. I immediately assumed that it would also be posed in Gaelic in Scotland. Going further through the Bill, I was disappointed to discover that that was not the case. I presume that the reason why it is being put in Welsh in Wales is that people who are native Welsh speakers will understand better the nuances of the question, the implications of voting one way or another will become clearer to them, when they read it in their native language, their first language. That is a very good argument and a very good reason for having the question in Welsh.

There is exactly the same reason for having the question in Gaelic in Scotland. There are a number of native Gaelic speakers in parts of Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, and most particularly in the Western Isles, whose first language is Gaelic. These people will understand the question better, understand the nuances and implications of it, in the same way that Welsh speakers will in Wales.

Then I thought that maybe the argument for having it in Welsh in Wales and not in Gaelic in Scotland was that in Wales there are people who speak only Welsh, whereas in Scotland there are no people who speak only Gaelic. In fact, the situation in Scotland is that in the last few years it has become the case that all native Gaelic speakers now speak English as their second language. However, the situation in Wales is almost exactly the same. I quote from Wikipedia—I am not sure if that is the best source, but it is correct on this occasion:

“monoglot Welsh speakers are now virtually non-existent … Almost without exception, Welsh speakers in Wales also speak English … Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English”—

but that is true also of Gaelic speakers. So the situation in both countries is effectively the same.

I also thought that there might be an argument that there were more Polish and German speakers and speakers of other European languages in Scotland. This would complicate things and mean that we ought to have the question in those languages as well. At present, though, citizens of the European Union resident in the United Kingdom will not be eligible to vote in the referendum. As it happens, I also tabled Amendment 36A, which, if accepted, would allow them to vote and to have the same franchise for both the referendum and the election, which would be helpful. At the moment, though, Polish, German, French and other European citizens will not have the right to vote. So that argument does not arise.

Like Welsh, Gaelic is increasingly being used alongside English in Scotland. I took a journey by rail recently from Edinburgh to Ayr—it is not always easy to make any journeys in Scotland at the moment—and Scotrail now has all the names of the railway stations in Gaelic as well as in English. That is happening throughout Scotland. That is just one example of many.

The argument might be put—perhaps by the Leader of the House, if he is replying—that Welsh is an official language. Since 2005, however, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will attest to because he was Deputy First Minister of Scotland at the time, under the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, Gaelic is now an official language in Scotland.

The argument might be that the question is being put in Welsh in Wales because there are more Welsh speakers—in fact, there are 611,000. In Scotland there are 58,652 Gaelic speakers. However, I would argue that the issue is not the number of speakers; rather, it is an issue of principle. Even if there were only a handful of Gaelic speakers, the argument would be the same. Still, there are 58,652 native Gaelic speakers.

There have been a number of considerations regarding this at the European level. In fact, it was pointed out recently, in relation not to Scottish Gaelic but to Northern Irish Gaelic, that the United Nations committee looking at the European Convention on Human Rights recommended that the Administration in Northern Ireland adopt an Irish language Act with a view to preserving and promoting minority languages and cultural heritage in the same way as the Welsh Language Act and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act. So there was a recognition there, and there is increasing recognition generally that Gaelic is an official language in Scotland.

Given the setting up of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, if we put the Bill through in its present form there would be a case for Gaelic speakers in Scotland to take a case to it on the basis that they were not being dealt with in the same way as native Welsh speakers. We are all in the same United Kingdom but they are not being dealt with in the same way.

This is a very serious matter. Some people thought that some of the comments I made on previous matters were debating points. This is not a debating point or issue. It has become known among some people who speak Gaelic that I had planned to move this amendment, for which I have had expressions of support. Gaelic speakers think that this amendment would be a great advantage to the Bill.

The Leader of the House—or I think the noble Lord, Lord McNally—has put down some amendments to the Bill. We passed a change to the Bill on Monday, so the Bill has to go back to the other place anyway. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept this amendment and that it will go back to the House with a clear instruction or expression of review from the House of Lords that the speakers of Scottish Gaelic should be treated in exactly the same way as Welsh speakers in Wales.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, not for the first time I rise in Committee to support my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. On this occasion my noble friend has identified a very important issue of support for minority language rights and identities. He has afforded your Lordships’ House an opportunity to make a statement about such support in supporting his amendment. As I have said before, I have made a point of reviewing everything that has been said in these Houses in relation to this Bill. I have to say that I was surprised, given the makeup of the other place, that this issue was not raised in Committee or in any other part of the debate that they had about this legislation. This fact and the issue that my noble friend identified have indicated how important it is that we look at this legislation as carefully as we have been doing in Committee because I am sure that we will find many other opportunities to improve it quite significantly and improve the appreciation that the electorate have of the body politic in this country—a point that I made earlier.

In researching my contribution to this short debate—and I am sure that it will be a short but valuable one—I came across the writings of a man, who I had previously not read, called Robert Dunbar, who was, at least in 2006, at the school of law in the University of Aberdeen. I will share his words with your Lordships’ House because they make the holistic case for my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s argument very well. In the Journal of Law and Society in 2006 in volume 33, number one, in an article entitled, “Is there a duty to legislate for linguistic minorities?”, he wrote:

“All three Celtic languages are … threatened minority languages. Gaelic particularly so, and Welsh and Gaelic are only spoken as community languages—and will therefore only survive—in the United Kingdom. These demographic and sociolinguistic facts are a product, to a very significant degree, of state language policy, which until fairly recently has been directed at promoting the acquisition of English, with little or no regard to the impact of this policy on minority languages”.

He goes on:

“Frequently, minority languages such as the Celtic languages have been viewed by the majority as not merely ‘less widely spoken’, but also as ‘inferior’, ‘backward’, ‘parochial’, and these value judgments have too often coloured attitudes to the speakers of such languages. When such attitudes guide the implementation of an integrationist policy, the effect changes from one of equipping the minority with skills in the majority languages to one of removing the minority language and identity altogether”.

I apologise to your Lordships’ House for reading that at length. However, in those few sentences, Mr Dunbar made the argument for respecting the minority language of Gaelic, the Scottish people and the identity of those who speak that language in a very good way. I could have adopted his argument and changed the words, which, as a consequence of my researches, I have to say I have done in the past. However, I thought that I should attribute those arguments to him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

Can the noble Lord tell us what role he played in this when he was Secretary of State for Scotland?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I do not recollect that this legislation was before any House of Parliament when I was the Secretary of State for Scotland. The point the noble Lord wishes to make is that somehow we should not do the right thing now, because perhaps I or others did not do the right thing before. However, if this is the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do at the point at which we identify it is the right thing to do. I am sure that the noble Lord is not going to make that argument because it would be disrespectful to the House and disrespectful to himself. We have an opportunity to send a very strong message back to the people of Scotland and to Gaelic speakers, a message that I think all the Members of the House would want to send back. If the Front Bench rejects this amendment, I would ask my noble friend to insist upon it.

[Lord Palmer]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, really could not have made a better case for the constitution of this House in its present form. The noble Lord mentioned that the House of Commons did not look at this aspect of the Bill at all. This is exactly what this House has the time and the experience to look at. With the greatest possible respect, I think the noble Lord defused quite a lot of the arguments in favour of his noble friend’s amendment. When I was at school the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was one of my childhood heroes. He was a wonderfully bombastic loose cannon in the House of Commons when I was still wet behind the ears. However, I do feel incredibly strongly that this amendment would be a total and utter waste of parliamentary time, let alone a waste of money, if it was to be carried. The noble Lord and I obviously have exactly the same figures—58,652 Gaelic speakers north of the border, and it is thought not a single one of them is incapable of understanding fully, speaking and reading English. I would therefore appeal to your Lordships to reject this amendment with the strongest possible feeling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House, and do not rise to defend myself. I do not feel that my record in the Scottish Office requires defending. However, reflecting on the point that he made, I say that there was no obvious opportunity when I was Secretary of State, for a comparatively short time, to deal with the issue. I admit honestly that it did not occur to me until my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock brought it to my attention with the amendment. He has done the House a service.

The point that I will make to the noble Lord is that his party, our party and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland—indeed, all parties—publish their manifesto in Gaelic and distribute leaflets in Gaelic. Why do we conduct only part of the electoral process in Gaelic and not give the Gaelic speakers of Scotland the right to cast their vote against a question that is put in Gaelic?

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am not saying that the idea that underlies this amendment is without merit: simply that it is the wrong amendment to the wrong Bill at the wrong time. In the long term, after due investigation, there may be those who believe that there should be that change in Scotland at all levels of elections.

There is a clear difference between Wales and Scotland, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, pointed out. Under the Welsh Language Act 1993, it is common for Ministers to prescribe by order Welsh versions of statements that appear on ballot papers, in postal voting documents and so on. In Scotland, Gaelic versions of electoral material have not previously been included in legislation, on ballot papers or on other official materials for elections, even when the elections have related only to Scotland. Therein lies the next issue; I am not aware that this has caused any administrative problems on the ground. That should be a test for whether in this referendum we depart from the parliamentary elections approach.

I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was raising a general point that has received some support from around the House. However, my noble and learned friend, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, pointed out a serious flaw in the amendment that I hope the noble Lord will consider. I also hope that, if he wishes to continue his campaign, he will do so not just in this House but in the Scottish Parliament, of which I believe he is still a distinguished Member.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I would suggest that you have the threshold debate on Clause 8. The threshold debate that I have just quoted, however, was in fact a device of an opponent of devolution to delay devolution. Let us not pretend that a threshold does not turn every abstention into a no vote. We will have that debate under Clause 8, and an interesting debate it will be. These three amendments seek to turn it into—

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I am sorry if I exasperate him by intervening. Perhaps I may return to the point that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours put to him. I do so because I have experience of campaigning in referendum campaigns both in Scotland and in Wales and it is helpful to be equipped with the arguments on the doorstep. I have read every single word that has been said in these Houses of Parliament on this issue. I cannot find one explanation of why this form of voting is the best of the alternative forms of voting available. Will the Minister please point me to where I can find that qualitative assessment of this form of voting?

[Lord McNally]

That is for the voters to judge. If you want this reform to fail, you do all the kind of things that the Opposition are putting forward. The coalition, on the basis of the coalition agreement, has put forward a simple proposition that we believe provides for fairer voting.

I can go on like this: we have all been in the House of Commons and seen the wind-up speeches. The last time there were 23 interventions, but I am okay—we’ve got many a long time. Of course you don’t like it, but the coalition agreement is for a fairer voting system based on fairer constituencies. We are willing to take our case to the country, and we have already had the approval of the House of Commons for that.

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[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendments in this group and my noble friends Lord Foulkes and Lord Lipsey in their attempts to improve this legislation. I genuinely believe that and I will explain why. I am glad to adopt the arguments put by my noble friends Lord O’Neill and Lord Liddle, and indeed from the Cross Benches by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. I am also grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, because he cleared the decks for my contribution. I will not adopt any of those straw man arguments he set up and knocked down. I am speaking on the basis of my experience of campaigning in a number of elections in Scotland using a number of different systems, because that is what we have to do now in Scottish politics, and on the basis of my experience of campaigning in referenda.

I predict that what will happen in Scotland is that holding the Scottish Parliament elections on the same day as the referendum will do further damage to the reputation of politics in Scotland and to the relationship between politicians and the electorate. I say so for this reason. There is an argument for holding elections for different purposes on the same day if there is an analogy between them. That was partly why I and others both in this House and the other place supported attempts in 2007 to do just that. We thought that, despite the complexity of the ballot papers, we would not confuse the people of Scotland about what we were seeking to do. Essentially, we were asking them to vote for political parties that had analogous arguments to put forward in the elections to both the Scottish Parliament and local government seats. There is a clear synergy between what is done by local government in Scotland and what the Scottish Parliament does, so it was easy to do.

We embarked on that course. None of us had any doubt about the intellectual ability of the people we were asking to vote in that election, and we were confident in the infrastructure of the electoral system. All the way along the line we were assured that they could carry it off, just as they are assuring the coalition Government. I have to say, though, that there were some significant volte-faces, particularly in the case of the Electoral Commission, which I shall come back to in a moment. But we were assured that it could be done, and in turn we assured the people that it could be done. So we set out to hold local government elections and Scottish Parliament elections, and by the end of the process we had 147,000 spoiled ballot papers. I repeat: 147,000 spoiled ballot papers. That was not because the people of Scotland were inherently unable to understand what they were being asked to do, but because the infrastructure and the environment—the process—were incapable of delivering a way to guide them through it. The failures happened inside the process, in the polling stations and in how the ballot papers were handled thereafter. We failed.

As a consequence of that failure, as a nation we agreed that we would not do it again. There is now a universal view across the parties that we should not try to do it again because we failed to do it properly last time. Another set of elections in which the electorate is disfranchised, allowing the media to run amok with stories of how the political classes have let the people down, could have a destructive and perhaps terminal effect on the relationship between politics and the people of Scotland. Not only did we decide not to do it again, we also set up an independent inquiry to try to identify what we had done. That inquiry came back saying, “Don’t try to run two separate polls on the same day ever again”. We accepted that advice. All of us in all the parties have conditioned the people of Scotland to the view that it was a bad thing to do.

Not only have we conditioned the people of Scotland to that view, we have also encouraged our media to think that to do it at all is of itself the wrong thing. And now what are we about to do? It would appear that we are about to transgress that collective apologia and reconditioning by trying to do it again. Not only that, we will be trying to do it again using two electoral processes that are not analogous with each other. In fact, as my noble friend described it, they contradict each other. We will be giving the people of Scotland mixed messages. We will be saying, “For the purpose of the referendum, the four of us who represent these parties all agree with each other and are right, so you should support us. But for the purpose of the other thing being done that day, we entirely disagree with each other. This man’s judgment is not to be trusted. This woman’s judgment is not to be trusted. She is not to be trusted with making important decisions in your life—except, of course, for the way in which we decide to elect the House of Commons”.

The confusion does not lie in the electorate, because the electorate will respond to us in the way in which we deserve. The confusion lies in us, in seeking to do this when we still have clear in our memory the history of our ineptitude in doing it before. If we have not learned from that, I can tell you now that the media in Scotland and the people of Scotland will, throughout the whole course of this campaign, remind us every single day. The fact that we are trying to do this will dominate the early part of the elections in Scotland. That is my first point.

The second point is that we are a comparatively small part of the United Kingdom. The debate that will dominate in the United Kingdom in the period up to the election—to the extent that it can, and I will come back to that in a moment—will be about the referendum. We will relegate the issues of Scottish politics in a determination of who governs Scotland, for a substantial part of the things that matter to people, to an also-ran category. Politicians, of course, are above doing that, and we will not do that, but the media will; and the UK media, the London-centric media, dominates our media. Consequently, try as our politicians will, with their meagre resources, to fight against this and get some reasonable debate going about the issues that matter to the people of Scotland and about who should make decisions about health and education and other related issues that have been devolved, they will not be able to do it.

The great debates that will take place—and there will be televised debates about this that will be beamed into all of our houses—will be about the referendum. That is what those of us who argue about respect for the people of Scotland mean. We have no right, in my view, to do this to the people of Scotland, given our own experience of giving them a complicated choice before which we failed to manage properly.

I will make one further point. We will be doing this in an environment where, the fortnight before the date of the election, there will be four public holidays. That is where my experience of campaigning comes in. I know, as does everyone else in this House who has knocked on doors, that you cannot touch these issues over a holiday weekend—and we are going to have two of them. My noble friend says “and a royal wedding”. We will have two of these weekends now because of the royal wedding. Therefore, we are going to deny ourselves the opportunity, in campaigning terms, to find a space to get these issues up for the consideration of the electorate because of the date that has been chosen. We are going to do, in my view, significant and terminal damage to the relationship between the political parties and the people of Scotland, and we have an opportunity in these amendments not to do that. Never mind the arguments for the rest of the United Kingdom. Never mind the arguments about differential turnouts because we do not have concurrent elections in all parts of the United Kingdom. Never mind the fact that, when these issues were debated in the other place, the debate took four hours. There were, in those four hours, one and a half contributions in support of the Government’s position. In the Minister’s response, there was no answer to the comprehensive arguments that were put forward from academic sources, from political sources, from the Electoral Commission and from other sources as to why this was the wrong thing to do.

I warn the Liberal Democrats that, if this happens, and if the consequences that I predict ensue, then other political parties, including the coalition partners, will be very quick to tell the people of Scotland where the blame lies for us.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I want to say briefly why I oppose this group of amendments suggesting that a date other than 6 May should be the date for the referendum. I will speak also to the next group of amendments suggesting other possible dates. Let me say first that I do so on the basis that, in all these discussions of electoral reform and electoral matters, I have always argued consistently from the position that what we should be considering is what is the maximum benefit for the voters, what gives most power to the voters and what most helps them, and not from the position of the politicians or the parties. It seems to me that 6 May for the referendum is actually the day that is of the greatest benefit to the voters for a number of reasons.

[Lord Rennard]

I believe it is 6 May. The first argument, which has been made several times, is by no means the strongest. In my mind it is a relatively weak argument. However, I think the arguments made about cost are relevant. I have seen figures suggesting that the cost between holding the referendum on the same day as the elections next May and on another day might be £15 million. I have also seen figures suggesting £30 million. Whether that is a big sum of money to pay for democracy is a relevant argument, but it is used very frequently by the opponents of reform. I regret the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is not in his place at the moment, because almost his main weapon for arguing against any measure of reform, moving our electoral system on from where it was nearly 140 years ago, is that it would cost too much to ask the people to have a vote on this issue. Since it would be used as an argument in the referendum, I believe that holding it on a day when it would be more cost-effective to do so is at least a relevant argument. Above all, I believe 6 May is a good day for the convenience of the voters—I should have said 5 May. I beg your pardon. The voters would be voting in 84 per cent of the country in elections on the same day—in local elections for most of England, and in all of Scotland and Wales. Being expected to turn out on this issue on another day would not, I think, be welcome. The next opportunity in the United Kingdom when there would be so many elections would not be until 2014, when we would be voting in the European Parliament elections. I believe that it would be less satisfactory to hold this referendum in 2014, a year before the general election. The voters should know, and we should know, for a longer period than that what voting system we will have.

As I said at Second Reading, having the referendum on the same day as a lot of other elections will, I think, strengthen the legitimacy of the vote. Legitimacy of the vote is argued by a number of people. I do notice that some noble Lords argue with inconsistency. They say that there needs to be a big turnout for these elections in order for there to be legitimacy but at the same time they argue that there should not be any other elections on the same day. I honestly wonder how many people would go along to the polling station if there were no other elections on the same day.

We have had arguments about confusion. Let us turn again to the Scottish Parliament elections of 2007. One of the most notable things about them was that when people had a complicated ballot paper for choosing their MSP for their constituency and their regional list MSPs they also had the opportunity to vote in a preference voting system—with choices one, two and three—in the local elections. In those local elections in Scotland in 2007, on the same day as the Scottish Parliament elections, virtually none of the local election ballot papers was spoilt. People easily understood one, two and three on a ballot paper on the same day as they were also electing list MSPs and constituency MSPs. Therefore I believe that we are respecting the Scottish voters. I will give way briefly, although the noble Lord has spoken at some length already.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Can he explain to other noble Lords why, if it was as simple as he suggests, his party in the Scottish Parliament argued for and voted for the movement of those local government elections from the same date as the Scottish Parliament elections?

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, the beauty of devolution, which this party has long supported more than any other party, is that different parliaments and assemblies in different parts of the country can have their own priorities. I am simply arguing now that we should be respecting Scottish voters and crediting them with intelligence, which they showed in 2007 by voting in the Scottish Parliament elections and in the local elections—and in the local elections, there were very few spoilt ballot papers. I do not believe that the voters in Scotland are any less intelligent than, for example, the voters in London in 2000 when they elected the borough councillors in London and they voted for the London Mayor and the London Assembly. I do not believe that they, or voters in any other part of the United Kingdom, are less intelligent, for example, than voters in the United States who, in many states, elect their senators, their congressmen and their president and vote on numerous initiatives on the same day.

Finally, while some people say that it is contrived for that day in May to induce the right result, I cannot understand how it could be seen that fewer than 4 million Scots and fewer than 2 million people in Wales would outvote more than 38 million people in England. On all these technical issues, the argument I have made since 2000, when we discussed the setting up of the Electoral Commission, is that when there is a dispute between parties as to what is and is not practical we should have an arbiter, independent of government and of any party, who could give guidance to Parliament. The Electoral Commission, in briefing Parliament on these issues, has been clear and specific. It is satisfied that it is possible successfully to deliver these different polls in May at the same time.

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[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, if the figures can be produced, they will be produced for the noble Lord to see.

Furthermore on this question of confusion, the Electoral Commission—as my noble friend Lord Rennard pointed out—has advised that it is possible to successfully deliver these different polls on 5 May. The commission has issued briefing throughout the passage of this Bill in another place. It concluded that the Bill contains the necessary provisions for the combination of the referendum poll with the scheduled election, and says that it is satisfied that the technical issues it has identified with these provisions to date have been addressed by the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, went on to explain that the system failed in the Scottish elections in 2007. I say, slightly tangentially to this when it comes to confusion, that I now live in the former constituency of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for one election, I live in the former constituency of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for another and I am in a third constituency for the European elections. We get used to this. It may not be ideal but, if there has ever been any confusion about different elections being voted on at different times with different systems, they are entirely decisions made by noble Lords opposite. We are not adding to the confusion.

As the noble Lord knows, there was an inquiry by Ron Gould, who at the time said that the problem in 2007 was that there were two votes on the same ballot paper. That is what confused so many people. That is not going to be the case here. Gould has, furthermore, said:

“I do not believe that the same factors which led to voter confusion and the large number of rejected ballots at the last Scottish … elections would arise if both the Parliamentary Election and the Referendum were held on the same date”.

That is an authoritative statement.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

In the interests of fully reporting Mr Gould’s position, can the Leader of the House confirm that Gould confirmed his position in evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee that he would not recommend the conduct of two ballots on the one date, given his experience in his investigation into what happened in Scotland? He has not changed his position from the recommendation. I accept that the noble Lord has quoted him but he should give the full context of what he said.