House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, the title of the debate includes the words, “the case for reviewing”. I think that the case was made before we started. Therefore, we can limit the evidence we have to give because the Leader’s Group will look at it in some detail. I do not think that we can escape the fact that questions will have to be asked about what we are here for. It will get inexorably linked with the other debate that we are going to have. I have been here eight years. Some of us on the informal groups—last year, I had the privilege of being on one of them—asked: how do you get any change in this place? That was the starting point. Who do you go to? What do you do? What is the infrastructure to get some change? We discovered that it was not there. In the other place, there is more of a structure. I was told about the Procedure Committee, but others advised me that that was not the proper route.

I have two words at the top and the bottom of my notes, which I would ask the Leader’s Group to think about. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours knows what I am going to say. The words are “trial” and “pilot”. Do not come back with anything that looks like it will last for ever because the House will not buy it. To be honest, that is my experience. Offer every suggestion that comes to the House on a trial basis, perhaps until the next Parliament, for the whole of a Parliament or for a Session, depending on the menu. I do not think that the Members of this place, who are by and large more experienced than me, if I may put it that way, and slightly more conservative with a small “c”, want to buy a lot of change. But trial and pilot should be offered and we can see how we go. The way to get change is quietly.

I am very pleased that the third report on governance is encompassed in this. To be honest, I had no involvement in that whatever. Like everyone else, I read the report when it was produced and it worried me more than the other two. I say that because people in this House who have experience on outside bodies that are governed by codes of practices and procedures for appointment and governance and finance do not recognise what they have read in that report. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and her team were right to bring those matters to the House and I hope that they will find some favour with the Leader’s Group. But at the least they should be put to the House because, in the end, Peers have to decide these things.

I think it would be whistling in the wind to think that, if we ever get elected Peers—I do not want to get into that debate—they will arrive here and not use the powers. The restraints we put on ourselves will go out of the window, a point touched on by the Leader of the House in his opening gambit. If we are going to have some rules, we have to codify them, otherwise it will be absolute chaos.

I am not going to speak for long so I shall make just a couple of points. The issue I raised last year in the debate on the Queen’s Speech was about having flagged up the bits of Bills that have not been looked at before arriving here from the Commons. That idea came to me while I was driving home one day when the House was not even sitting. I would have had a job explaining that to Bill Cockburn and his committee, who asked us what we did as Peers—how we clock on and clock off and so on. I was thinking about how we could make Bills better. I realise that someone has had a look at this suggestion and I know that it is not as simple as it appears, although it has a seductive appeal. I realise that sometimes a clause of two lines can bring in a schedule that might be 50 pages long. Which bits would you say were not debated? Generally speaking, if there is an elephant at the door, we recognise it, and therefore I think we can recognise the parts of the Bill that have not been debated or scrutinised, and then we can choose whether to look at them. We may decide that it does not need to be done, but those parts need to be flagged up in a systematic way. I cannot believe that there is not a way of doing that, and it is important.

For Bills that start in this place—personally, I do not think that they should, although that argument is not going to carry the day—certainly we need different procedures. Some major Bills have started in this place. The Climate Change Bill started here because I brought it to the House, as did the 2002 police reform legislation. It is true that politically contentious Bills generally do not start over here, but some major ones do, and we need to take a serious look at that.

The idea of a pre-legislative committee is also important. I do not want to criticise parliamentary counsel, but there is some slipshod work being done in Whitehall—under pressure from Ministers to get Bills before Parliament. Sometimes they say, “Slip it into the Lords first”. I have been there when these discussions have taken place. Parliamentary counsel say, “We’re not quite ready”, and they are told, “That’s all right. Put it in the Lords. They can sort it out because they have got more time and are more flexible than we are”. That is not an effective way to produce good legislation for our fellow citizens. It would be a power to parliamentary counsel if we had that kind of committee.

I would not have raised the next issue if it were not for what happened today—and I have sat through all the debates today, including on the Statement. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, might say that we all failed, but no one was brave enough to stand up at the beginning of the Statement and say something when one of our Members took 25 per cent of the time available to the whole House.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I stood up.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we, too, very much welcome the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and I am happy to reiterate what my noble friend Lady Royall said many hours ago that we will play a constructive role in reviewing our working practices, under the auspices of a Leader’s Group. That will be valuable in itself, but could also lay a good foundation for the more fundamental reform of your Lordships’ House that we are promised. As the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said, it is likely that a fully elected House would need very different procedures; but as there is likely to be a transition period, we will need working practices that help us now, see us through at least the first part of the transition and perhaps make a substantial contribution to the more substantive reforms that we are promised. My noble friends Lord Brooke and Lady McIntosh put it well, so I ask the noble Lord, Lord McNally, how he sees discussions on working practices feeding into the wider reform process.

Any reforms of our working practices will command the general support of this House only if they are seen as improving its overall effectiveness as a revising Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has long championed the value of this House in acting as a check on government. Most commentators feel that we have become increasingly effective in that since the reforms of 1999. That has much to do with the quality of our debates and the undoubted calibre of noble Lords.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, pointed to the large number of amendments made in the previous Session. Of course, some of them were routine tidying up, but I suggest that the House’s reputation is not unconnected with the number of defeats suffered by the previous Government—more than 500 since 1997. Those defeats gave the House considerable leverage and caused the previous Administration to think again on many occasions. That is why the House became so effective. I suffered more than my share of those defeats and make no complaint: that is what the House is here to do.

We come now to the circumstances of the coalition Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, it is the job of Parliament to control the Executive. It is early days, but there is a genuine question about how the House will continue to control the Executive in the circumstances of the coalition. I would be very interested in the views of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. What role does he expect the House to perform if he and his colleagues on the Front Bench are determined to force through every clause of every piece of legislation that they put before us?

We are coming to the closing stages of the Academies Bill. If ever a piece of legislation fitted the description of “ill digested legislation” made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, this is it. It has been rushed through your Lordships' House at an unseemly pace because Mr Michael Gove, in one of a number of misjudgments for which he is becoming so well known, insisted that some academy schools had to be up and running by September. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was forced to stay so long last week. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, on Report three amendments were voted on. They were defeated by the Government, who had the votes to do so. Fair enough—but if the future pattern is that the Government will win every vote, the House will begin to lose some of its hard-won reputation. Again I ask the noble Lord, Lord McNally, how he sees the House acting as a check on the Executive in those circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, put his finger on it.

When it comes to working practices, we are not short of material. The Wright committee’s work in the other place is of equal significance. I agree with noble Lords who talked about the relationship between the two Houses being of great importance when it comes to changes in working practices. I should be interested in the Minister’s response on how he thinks the Houses might work together. I should also like him to respond to questions raised about the role of the Lord Speaker. Clearly, among some noble Lords, there is a sense of frustration about self-regulation and how it works. Self-regulation depends on Members observing the spirit of the Companion. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that I am not sure that it is new Members who do not observe the spirit of the Companion. I fear that it is often very experienced Members.

The problem is most clearly seen at Question Time. It is a very important occasion. The House is full, Ministers are on their mettle and it sets the tone for the day; but not all noble Lords are happy with the way in which it proceeds. Supplementary questions are often read, are long-winded and exceed the two points that are permitted, and some ministerial responses are equally lengthy. My noble friend Lady Jones identified that nearly half the supplementary questions were asked by only 8 per cent of our Members, and that the current shouting match may not create an encouraging environment for all Peers to take part. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, shared that view. There is a case for looking at whether the Lord Speaker should perform the role currently performed by the Leader at Question Time, perhaps for a trial period. I should say that I have no criticism of the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has conducted himself in that matter since he became Leader of the House.

Having performed that role myself for about 20 months, I am well aware of the pressures all round the House. Like my noble friend, I, too, have the statistics from my time discharging that awesome responsibility. During that time, the Government batted under its weight. The Conservatives were a little bit over, the Liberal Democrats were an awful lot over and the Cross-Benchers batted quite a lot under their weight. My current statistics show that the Government and the Opposition are getting roughly equal treatment in terms of the number of supplementary questions, with the Cross-Benchers again batting under their weight. As far as concerns the gender balance, so far about 28 per cent of supplementary questions have been asked by women, who make up less than 28 per cent of the House.

Question Time is a crucial part of what the House does. It is important that the spontaneity and liveliness of Question Time is not lost with any change that we might make. Many Members have mentioned Lord Williams of Mostyn and the reforms that he made. One of those reforms, to increase the number of Questions to six Questions, did not work; nor do I believe that the Questions to the Secretaries of State worked. We must be prepared to try these things, but it is important that the central focus of Question Time is not lost. I know that many Peers are reluctant to see the departure of self-regulation, but self-regulation will not survive an elected House. At the very least, the Leader’s Group will have to discuss these matters.

I want to comment briefly on a number of other matters which have been raised. My noble friend Lord Brett asked some searching questions about debates and particularly about how the Government should respond. That is a very relevant matter indeed. On the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that Statements might be made in Grand Committee, I am not at all convinced. I believe that major Statements of government policy ought to be made in this Chamber; for example, the announcement made today about the NHS, agree with it or not, was a very important Statement. Surely, such Statements ought to be heard in prime time in the Chamber. Frankly, the problem during the Statement was that experienced Members did not observe the spirit of the Companion. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that it might be useful to circulate to all noble Lords a pocket guide of the three or four essential points in the Companion.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, on that subject, under this so-called self-regulatory regime, it is extremely difficult for individual Members, who may feel embarrassed, to stand up, thereby asking others to sit down. That is why self-regulation does not work. Very few of us are prepared to get up and challenge others. There is a great onus on those on the Front Bench to do that, but very often they do not.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that is a fair point. I would certainly encourage the Whips on the government Front Bench to intervene. They would certainly have the support of this side of the House if they sought to do so. Essentially, their role is to help the House to regulate itself.

Political and Constitutional Reform

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I said that a Labour Back-Bencher should speak next. Then we will hear from my noble friend Lord Dholakia.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I ask a question that will be on the minds of elected Members of the House of Commons. The noble Lord referred to 5 per cent of the target quota of registered electors. What is that number per constituency on the basis of calculations which have already been done in the Minister’s department?

[Lord McNally]

I think the figure is about 80,000. I am not sure whether I am going beyond my brief in telling the noble Lord that, but it does not take a great deal of high mathematics to work out that 600 into the electorate is about 80,000.

Political Parties: Funding

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I sometimes think that all old copies of Hansard should be pulped on change of Government. Nevertheless, I stand by the thrust of that question. For the good of all parties and politics, we should move quickly to see whether we can get all-party agreement on this. It is good that the Deputy Prime Minister has taken responsibility and has indicated that he will make progress on this issue a high priority at a very early stage in this Parliament.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, why cannot tax relief be applied to small individual contributions to political parties, perhaps to a capped contribution sum of £50 per annum? Will the noble Lord refer the matter to Treasury Ministers, because the proposition has support on all sides of the House?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, as on many other subjects, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I have supported that idea for a long time. I can assure him that I shall report our exchange to the Deputy Prime Minister and suggest that he raises the matter with the Treasury.

Elections: Fraudulent Registration

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that, during the period the coalition is in government, local authorities will have ring-fenced budgets for electoral registration offices and that the budgets will not be cut?

[Lord McNally]

Such questions are always extremely difficult to answer because we never know what is going on at No. 11 Downing Street, as the noble Lord knows well. One of the commitments of successive Governments has always been that they supply sufficient budget to enable our democracy to function properly. I cannot imagine that we will move from that situation.

Queen's Speech

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

We have had many debates about fixed-term Parliaments, and this is the first example. The noble Lord may recall the dithering and doubts caused by the recent Prime Minister and the harm that that did to good governance, and that many colleagues, including those on his Benches, have for a long time argued the benefits of fixed-term Parliaments. I would have thought that as he is a reformer he would welcome it, but I must move on. The legislation will provide for the possibility that a dissolution of Parliament may be needed outside the five-year timetable. Our proposal is that it should happen if more than 55 per cent of the other place votes for it. Parliament would still be able to dismiss a Government, but the Government would not be able to dismiss Parliament.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I have a question of which I have given the noble Lord notice. Confusion surrounds the words in the coalition document which state:

“This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour”.

Is that 55 per cent of the total membership of the House of Commons or is it 55 per cent of those voting on a dissolution Motion?

[Lord McNally]

With customary courtesy, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, gave me notice of that question. I wish he had not told noble Lords that because it would have then looked like I was incredibly on top of this job. Even better, I am now able to respond to him by quoting official government policy as expounded by my noble friend the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, David Heath. He said:

“That will be a matter for further discussion”.

[Laughter.] I do not think that I will read the rest out. Noble Lords should look at Hansard where they will see again the smack of firm government.

Seriously, the proposal has excited a good deal of comment and I anticipate a very full debate when legislation comes before the House. I know that the proposal has frightened the horses in various parts of the House. But the truth is that many respectable and longstanding democracies have different mechanisms for triggering a dissolution when a Government cannot command a majority, but prevent a Government manipulating the rules for their own advantage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rennard]

Actually, I have not argued that case; I have argued the case for a fixed-term parliament. I think that the argument that those in favour of five years would make is that this is the first time in British history that a Prime Minister has surrendered that supreme partisan advantage of being able to pick and choose polling day according to opinion poll ratings rather than the national interest. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, effectively pointed out earlier, this has often been deeply damaging for the long-term British economic interest.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I hope that the House will provide some additional injury time for the noble Lord due to the interventions that he is accepting. This is a question that I wanted to ask him on the Floor: was he involved in the decision to proceed with the 55 per cent? Does he know where that idea came from within the coalition? Was it a Liberal Democrat proposition, or did it come from the other end of the coalition?

[Lord Rennard]

The answer is no, I was not involved, and I do not know how it came out of the negotiations, but the 55 per cent is logical for this Parliament. As I have argued before with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on “Newsnight”, it is relevant and effective for this Parliament because it is the first time that this has been done. I think that the case is made.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I wish to address two issues: first, the 55 per cent dissolution trigger; and, secondly, electoral reform, which I support.

I have spent the past week arguing with colleagues the possible merits of the 55 per cent proposal: that is, 55 per cent of the vote in a dissolution Division, not 55 per cent of the House of Commons—an issue that we may have to settle in the Division Lobbies in either the Commons or the House of Lords. That was until I saw live on BBC Parliament the speech of David Heath, which I can only describe as very interesting. He confirmed my view that a Motion of no confidence in the coalition that was carried by less than 55 per cent of the House would trigger the resignation of the Government but not the dissolution of a five-year Parliament.

Following the carrying of the no confidence Motion, attempts could be made to form an alternative coalition, and dissolution would arise only where it had proved impossible to create an alternative viable Government. In these circumstances, dissolution would, as he said to the Commons, be automatic. Therefore, I add, there would be no need to use the 55 per cent trigger. I have been arguing the possible merits of the 55 per cent trigger, but in the light of what David Heath has said I no longer believe that it is necessary. It is the combination of the attempt to create the alternative coalition within the five-year term, and the automatic dissolution if that attempt fails, that has changed the argument. I should make it clear that by alternative coalition I mean a new configuration of political parties in government.

I support electoral reform, and will set out the reasons why I support it. I find it hard to justify the election of a Government on a minority vote that is as low as 35 or 36 per cent, as happened with the previous Government. The stacking up of votes in safe seats does not serve the public interest. There is a tendency in first-past-the-post safe seats for some MPs to take life easy. Levels of service by MPs in marginal seats where results are less predictable can be far higher, and party structures in first-past-the-post safe seats are often flimsier and there is less political debate. Huge first-past-the-post majorities can dilute the incentive for MPs to reflect electoral concerns. That may suit the Whips and the Executive and make party discipline far easier, but the strong Government for which the public yearn is too often built only on Parliaments that lack adequate debate and accountability and often end up out of touch.

I now believe, after 13 years of a Labour Government, that if you want courageous and radical decision taking that addresses public anxieties you need to have far more volatility within the system and dynamic tension within political institutions, which means more marginal Parliaments. For all those reasons and others, I initiated a project 21 years ago in 1989 to invent, or so we thought, a new electoral system. From a blank piece of paper we devised and named the system of the supplementary vote, only to find years later that variations on it had previously been designed in Sri Lanka and the United States of America two centuries ago. In the UK, following evidence I gave to the Plant commission—my noble friend Lord Plant unfortunately is not with us today—the commission recommended it to the Labour Party. Since 1998, it has been used in all the mayoral elections nationally. If you look at the academic work, of which there is a lot, the supplementary vote system is often confused with the alternative vote.

The benefits of SV are too often attributed to AV, the effect of which is to obscure the defects in AV. It was seeking to avoid some of those defects which led us to design the new system of SV. The idea that under AV candidates can be elected only with at least 50 per cent of the vote is a myth. Under AV, it is perfectly possible to be elected with less than 40 per cent of the vote. It all depends on the number of additional preference votes cast. We have learnt from the mayoral elections under SV that it is often a minority of electors who cast additional preferences. Under the SV system, candidates have only a first and second preference, which is marked for simplicity with just an X. AV is far more complicated and difficult for the public to understand.

The second defect in AV is that third place candidates on the first count can win seats after the transfer of additional member preferences. They can simply leapfrog into pole position, again often with less than 40 per cent of all the votes or preferences cast during that election. I think that we will have trouble selling that to the electorate in a referendum, which worries me.

That is the joy of SV. All candidates after the first count are eliminated, apart from the top two. SV concentrates the mind of the electorate on who is likely to be in the run-off. It provides an incentive for people to use their second preferences as they can really influence a credible result. It blocks the extremes who can sometimes pick up large numbers of additional preferences under AV.

As I have already said, AV is often confused by academics all over the world. A lot of material is available, much of which is in our Library. That being the case, why not have an SV question in the referendum? Such a question could be justified on the basis that it is a variation on AV. The public need a system that is simple to interpret and understand.

Finally on SV, I believe that we should build an element of greater proportionality—not full PR. I would argue that if 10 per cent of all seats were list seats, with built-in safeguards against excesses by list members—there has been some experience of that in Scotland—we could create a healthy electoral system that is fairer. We should work on devising a credible list system. Perhaps some of us should get together and do that.

In finishing my contribution, I should like to say to the Liberal Democrat Benches that they have to make the coalition work. If they fail, they threaten the whole programme for electoral reform. For the public to support electoral reform, they will have to be convinced that coalition government is not weak government, but that it is strong government which works. The route they have taken is very high risk. I wish them luck.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I ask a question about the operation of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is an independent committee of Parliament. Is the noble Baroness prepared to initiate work in her department on whether that could now be transformed into a full committee of both Houses?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government intend to give the committee greater status, more powers and greater separation from the Executive. Exactly how that is to be done is being considered at the moment, but I think that a proposal will come forward shortly. We are certainly moving in the direction that the noble Lord wants.

The time has come to wind up. We will do considerable work in the area of police reform. The election of an individual to whom the police will report and be accountable will not manage or interfere with operational independence. There will be checks and balances accompanying such an individual. Perhaps I can go into more detail in due course; we will consult with the necessary bodies which have an interest.

Many other points were raised by noble Lords, including matters concerning the forthcoming legislation from the Department for Communities and Local Government, where we will push forward our agenda of localism. I will write to noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on the various points that they raised.

In conclusion, I hope very much that the reforms that we have outlined in the Government’s legislative programme for this first Session will secure the ambition, which I am sure is shared in this House, of Britain being not just a safe and secure society but a free one. I commend the programme to your Lordships.