House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 12th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 2 and 3 in my name. I hope that I will not need to detain the House for very long.

At the outset, I will record my gratitude to the Minister and his officials—and I am delighted to see the Leader of the House in her place today. There have been a number of useful conversations—certainly useful from my point of view—which I hope have allowed us to end up with drafting in the Bill that meets the need for a more robust sanctions regime for the House but which also takes into account the necessity for this to be fair and balanced.

I also reiterate what I said about the Bill at Second Reading. This is an enabling Bill. The House will have the opportunity, when drafting standing orders under the Bill, to look very carefully at the processes that it wishes to put into place, were there to be, first, an investigations, then a report, and then a Motion in the House to bring sanctions against a Member under the terms of the Bill. So there are plenty of opportunities for ensuring that we get those processes absolutely right—but the original problem remains, unless we pass this Bill.

I turn to Amendment 1. In Committee, we debated and passed an amendment that dealt with the issue of retrospectivity in a blanket way. Many noble Lords would have been concerned that we could run the risk of double jeopardy and of reopening issues of conduct that had already been through the disciplinary processes of the House and been adjudicated on. However, there was a concern that, in so doing, we should not tie the hands of the House in circumstances where, for example, wrongdoing occurred today but did not come to public notice until after the passage of this Bill. We did not want to be left in the position of having no sanctions regime available at all to the House.

I have therefore taken the wording in the 2012 House of Lords Reform Bill, which had to consider exactly the same issues of retrospectivity. In this amendment, we would put those provisions into my Bill and ensure that any conduct that gave rise to proceedings under this Bill had either to take place after the Bill’s passage or to deal with issues that preceded the Bill’s coming into force but were not in any way in the public domain. That was considered to be an appropriate approach in the Bill on major House of Lords reform that did not proceed, and I hope that it will be considered appropriate in this Bill.

The other two amendments are of a technical nature. I am particularly grateful for the conversations that I had with officials, because I am not sure that I would have got there myself in understanding, in Amendment 2, the need to ensure that the interaction between the entitlement to receive the writ of summons, which is obviously a very important issue and one that stopped the House in the past being able to suspend Members beyond the lifetime of a single Parliament, and the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 should be made clear. Amendment 2, I am reliably informed, achieves that end and ensures that there is no lacuna between my Bill and the Act.

Equally, I attempted in my drafting to ensure that the effects of ceasing to be a Member in the case of expulsion should be the same under these provisions as they would be for expulsion under the provisions of the 2014 Act. I believe that the wording that we now have in Amendment 3 achieves that.

I hope that, if the House is minded to approve the amendments, we have now got the Bill into a form that is watertight and acceptable to the House and that achieves the ends for which there was so much support. I think that the Leader of the House recognised that in the strength of the contributions made from all over the House at Second Reading and in Committee.

As I said at the beginning, this is not a House of Lords reform Bill. It is not called that and it is not that in any way. It does not deal with composition. It deals with our internal disciplinary processes and, in that sense, may seem very minor. However, as I have said before, it also deals with a situation that those among the general public who are aware of it already find unacceptable and that, were it to come into the spotlight because a case arose, even more of them would find totally unacceptable. In my view, this issue concerns the reputation of this House and of Parliament more widely. That is why I hope very much that the Bill will make rapid progress not just today but in another place. I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for taking up the standard. I hope, as I know she does, that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will never be needed. However, if it does not become an Act of Parliament, that would be very difficult to explain to anyone outside Parliament.

I am greatly comforted by the presence of my noble friend the Leader of the House on the Front Bench. I sincerely hope that the Bill can go through its remaining stage in this House and through another place in good time for the Dissolution of this Parliament, so that it is fully operational when we come back. There is no reason why that should not happen from the point of view of parliamentary timetables. I made that point at Second Reading and again in Committee. We are enormously indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, as we are to the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. The Bill perfectly dovetails with, and in effect completes, what he and Mr Dan Byles sought to do. It has my total and complete support.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, until now we have had a regime that partly dealt with the problems that this Bill deals with. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, explained, the statutory framework under which this House has worked hitherto did not enable us to exercise the full powers that the House would have wished to exercise in some circumstances because of the need to curtail any sentence of suspension to the period of the next issue of writs of summons. I do not think that anybody thought that was an entirely satisfactory system. On the other hand, I thought—and I think this was generally agreed—that it was the best that we could achieve without statutory intervention.

Now we have the opportunity to introduce statutory intervention. It is extremely important that from now on we should have a system that completely replaces what was in place before without the impediment involved in the previous arrangements. This Bill does exactly that, covering in full the situation where someone, unfortunately, transgresses the Code of Conduct of the House, and allows it to be properly dealt with.

I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for taking this on. I am also grateful for the progress that has been made in the consideration of the Bill, which has made it, in my view, as perfect a statutory framework as we can have, while leaving the detail of what should happen to the decisions of this House through the making of Standing Orders, as the noble Baroness said. That has the important advantage that, if the initial Standing Orders prove to be somewhat in need of improvement, that improvement can be made. That is an important feature of the Bill in bringing in a completely new regime to replace the regime, with its unsatisfactory features, we hitherto have used. I hope that the Government feel—I imagine that they do—that this would be an improvement, and I hope that the Bill will speedily pass into law.

Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, not least because he talked about Bosnia. I well remember in the early 1990s he and I were allies. I was almost the sole voice in the Conservative Benches in the other place, and we persisted. A very notable historian, Brendan Simms, wrote about what he called Britain’s “unfinest hour”. I sincerely hope that will never be repeated.

We are all enormously in the debt of the most reverend Primate not only for choosing this subject but for the manner in which he introduced this debate with a degree of compassion and precision combined with elegance of thought and language. Like the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, and others, I am one of those who is slightly uncomfortable with the word “soft”. I think it is probably a generational thing because I grew up at a time when to be called soft was to have the most pejorative of adjectives attached to one, and to be a softie was the worst thing imaginable. What we are talking about is of course benign influence and enlightened authority, encapsulated in the words “soft power”; we all know what we mean by that.

A Member of your Lordships’ House wrote those famous words:

“Beneath the rule of men entirely great

The pen is mightier than the sword”.

The second of the lines of that couplet is frequently quoted, but the first is more important; in other words, it says that true enlightenment fosters peaceful development and benign rule.

A paradox runs through our history, does it not? All the great faiths are devoted to peace and harmony, yet every one of them has fallen short through the centuries by being divided and by having always within it—we see it today—a group of people who so passionately believe that theirs is the only interpretation that they will brutally suppress all others. Cromwell, who was himself not exactly a hero in the island of Ireland, wrote those famous words to the Scottish Covenanters:

“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken”.

We all need to direct that counsel at each other from time to time.

When I go home today I will go back to the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral. When I enter that glorious building, as I do so often, and will, God willing, tomorrow, I walk in—probably very appropriately for a politician—through the Judgment Porch and see two things. First, all around are marks on the pavement where once monumental brasses rested, and just beneath the great east window is the shrine of St Hugh, which was a centre of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. The brasses were ripped up and the shrine despoiled and defaced by those who believed that they were better Christians than those who had installed them. That says a lot.

When I was reflecting on this debate—what an interesting debate it has been—I recalled a sort of kaleidoscope of memories. I thought of a day in Bucharest shortly after the fall of those ghastly tyrants, the ceausescus, when I was privileged to be one of a small group that was asked to conduct some seminars in democracy. I well remember talking to a group of young people after one of those sessions, who talked to me in faultless English and with a burning desire to be part of a democratic structure. I said to them, “How did you keep the faith, and how do you speak this wonderful English when you’ve never left Romania?”. The answer came in two words, which have occurred often in this debate: “World Service”—the BBC World Service. They had listened to it at some peril, but it had been their line to civilisation and democracy and had inspired them. Perhaps things have not worked out in Romania as well as they might have done, but at least it is a democracy and part of international groupings to which we belong, and a country of rich history and real potential.

I also remember Epiphany of 1990, when I was a member of another small group that was staying in an hotel in Moscow—we had not been allowed to go previously—which had been reserved in the old, bad days for leaders of delegations from the Soviet bloc. The furniture was heavy and the décor was not inspiring; the food could have been better. However, there was something very miraculous—and I use that word deliberately in the presence of the most reverend Primate—because we were part of a group that was able to celebrate the mass and Epiphany. The celebrant was a somewhat unorthodox Roman Catholic priest, Father Ted Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame University in the United States and chairman of President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Commission. He gathered around him all of us who were there who were Christians. There was Rosalynn Carter, wife of President Jimmy Carter, Madame Giscard d’Estaing, a very notable Dutchman called Ernst van Eejhen, and me and one or two others. I helped to serve and read the epistle and Rosalynn Carter read something. As we celebrated that service, the sun came through over the Kremlin and, at the end of the service, we gave a symbolic Bible to one of our number, a man called Andrei Grachev, who was President Gorbachev’s chef de cabinet. It was an enormously moving and very symbolic occasion.

It is for that reason that I was so moved this morning, and taken by the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. If we wish to exercise a benign influence and soft power, it is by lending from the British Museum and by treating the Russians as a nation whose stability is as important to us as it is to them. It is not by echoing the rhetoric of the Cold War and refusing to recognise that a great nation, often invaded, has legitimate interests on its own doorstep, even if it has exercised its power recently in a rather crass and unfortunate manner. We have to think of all these things.

One or two noble Lords have talked about students. I happen to have the privilege of being a senior member of St Antony’s, Oxford, a great postgraduate institution. All around the world there are St Antony’s graduates in positions of high authority and influence in their countries. If there were ever a demonstration of the effective exercise of soft power, it is that—that through our universities these young men and women have gone back to attain positions of high influence in their own countries. We must do everything that we can to encourage foreign students to come here and to take on the responsibility of public service when they go back to their native countries. There is no better ambassador for the values that we like to think that we embrace than somebody who has embraced them here, in one of our educational institutions.

In less than three weeks’ time, it will be Christmas Day, and many of us who have been moved by the sea of poppies in the moat of the Tower will be thinking and reading of the Christmas truce. There is a very good book that has recently been republished on the Christmas truce—an excellent stocking filler—but I am terribly sorry that I cannot remember the name of the author, or authors. The book refers to those moments in 1914 when, for a very short time, those who had been engaged in a great and terrible conflict were briefly united by their Christian faith and one of the great Christian festivals. My noble friend Lord Wei talked very movingly about the importance of the Christian faith in what we are seeking to achieve. I am slightly surprised that no one has yet quoted the supreme text on soft power—the Sermon on the Mount.

As we look back and read about the Christmas truce and reflect on a century of appalling conflict, I suggest that we do two things. First, those of us who are privileged to live in the affluent West and who recognise that the engine of economic progress is capitalism also have to recognise that, if capitalism is to survive, it must be responsible capitalism. Only last night I attended a ceremony in the Locarno Suite, where Mr William Hague, the First Secretary of State, distributed awards for responsible capitalism. I was much involved in that scheme, which was arranged under the auspices of the FIRST organisation. Our first chairman of judges was Lord Dahrendorf and the present chairman is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf—our colleague and friend in this House. It is important that we do all we can to encourage, and recognise the crucial importance of, responsible capitalism.

I want to mention just one more thing very briefly that I mentioned last week. I hope that the most reverend Primate will forgive my doing so as he was not able to be present at our debate on religion and belief. I said that next year, when we commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, it would be marvellous if, under the leadership of the most reverend Primate, the Church of England—the established church of this realm—were to bring together leading representatives of all the faiths to define a new great charter for the 21st century, encapsulating what most would consider to be true values to which all faiths at their best subscribe. If that could be done, there could be no better conclusion or legacy for this debate, which was so splendidly and brilliantly introduced by the most reverend Primate just three hours ago.

Iran: Ghoncheh Ghavami

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are certainly acting delicately. We all understand the delicacy of raising human rights issues with other countries. However, the human rights situation in Iran is dire. The periodic universal review of the Iranian position on human rights by the Human Rights Council, which is now under way, has raised a number of serious issues. Her Majesty’s Government contributed to raising those issues and we look forward cautiously to Iran’s response at the next meeting of the Human Rights Council in March 2015.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, while I do not necessarily suggest that we emulate the Don Pacifico incident, there is a limit to delicacy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, of course there is a limit to delicacy. The Iranian political system is one of the most complex in the world. We are dealing with a democratically elected President, a judiciary that is partly responsible to the clergy and a Supreme Leader, not to mention the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. We are never quite sure, as we negotiate with the Iranian authorities, which authorities have the key ability to respond.

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

I very much support the amendment, and apologise that I was unable to be in the House for Second Reading, but I also support the Bill. As some of your Lordships may recall, I was chairman of the Privileges Committee during the saga of the first suspensions to take place in the modern era. They were not as simple as all that, because a number of people thought that we should not have been able to suspend noble Lords from the service of the House. We found that we were, but we also found that we were unable to suspend noble Lords beyond the length of a Parliament. In other words, if someone was suspended today, they could be suspended for only five or six months or so, whereas if someone was suspended on 1 June, they could be suspended for five years. The press and the public were rightly unable to understand why we did not have the power to suspend for longer or, indeed, to expel. The Bill appears to deal with that matter extremely well, and I very much support it and the amendment.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I want briefly to add my support. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is a leading member of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which includes Members from all parts of the House and of another place. We see the Bill as the logical extension of the Bill taken through the House of Commons last year by Mr Dan Byles and through this place by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, who has done so much in this field. During Second Reading, the word housekeeping was slightly disparaged. The Bill is extremely important, dealing with a vital subject, but it is quite literally about keeping the House in the best possible sense.

We are all grateful to the noble Baroness for, at this late stage in the Parliament, seeking to introduce a very short, precise and particular measure, which can certainly pass in the little time left available in this Parliament, given the good will and support of the Government. I was heartened, as was the noble Baroness, by what the Minister said at the end of Second Reading and by what I have heard since, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able not only to accept the spirit of the amendment but indicate that the Bill can have a fair wind. It is in the best interests of your Lordships’ House that this House should be kept in the best possible way, and the Bill enables us to move in that direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the Opposition fully support the noble Baroness in her endeavours. The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, raised an interesting point to which the noble Baroness will no doubt respond. There is time between now and Report if clarification is required. I take his point.

The Bill can be fairly assured of passage through your Lordships’ House. The question is, when it gets to the Commons, what help will the Government give it? Without government help, I suspect that it will be very difficult for the Bill to pass, so it is right for me to press the Minister on what the Government’s attitude will be. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, helpfully said, as the noble Baroness reminded the House, that the Government have no settled view on the Bill at present. He kindly said that he would take back the speeches and consider with colleagues what response the Government could make. I hope that today he will be able to tell us that the Government are prepared to give this a fair wind in the other place. The other place does not have much work to do; the Government have sent MPs home. They now do Mondays to Wednesdays, so there is plenty of time for the Commons to consider this if the Government so wish.

There is an appetite in this House for sensible change. Discussions are taking place about the noble Baroness’s Bill and other noble Lords are discussing the issue of retirements, which we are going to have to face up to. Yet more noble Lords are discussing improving the governance of the House. I hope that the Government will allow for these discussions to take place and that we can have some more general debates about the issue of retirement. I think that we could reach a consensus on retirements in your Lordships’ House. The Minister is looking at me but there is an overwhelming appetite among noble Lords all around the House to sort this out. We have had the remarkable example of the Lord Speaker making a statement some months ago, giving notice of her intent to leave the House at a certain time. That was a marvellous example. Why are the Government not allowing the House to come to a sensible view on these matters?

The Minister may say that it is because substantive reform is just around the corner, and he may quote me as having said that in the past. It is difficult to assume who is going to win the next election, but let us assume that we have a Government after the next election, after some time and of some sort. Let us assume that they set up some kind of review—a convention or whatever—to come forward with proposals on substantive reform. I would say that the first opportunity of that coming into practice would not be before 2020, if we are realistic.

[Lord Cormack]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, whom I am tempted to call my noble friend on this occasion, as on others, for giving way. Does he not agree that it would be entirely feasible for the Government to set up a Select Committee of this House, with a strict timetable to report back by the end of January or in early February on the issues to which he was referring? I am quite confident, from my experience in the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, that consensus could be reached, and reached amicably.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I very much agree with that. That is a very sensible approach and I am sure that consensus could be reached. The point I was making is on the argument that we should not do this because substantive reform is just around the corner. As I said, even if we agreed and a Bill went through and was approved by both Houses, it would be very unlikely to be implemented before 2020. So for at least five years ahead, we will be working under the current arrangements. The argument for sensible change—

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 24th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and entirely endorse what he has said. Much as I respect my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who will be responding to this brief debate, I wish that the Leader of the House were here to do so and to give her full authority to what is said from the Front Bench.

I hope that what will be said from the Front Bench is that the Bill will be supported. It meets all the criteria that the Government have laid down. House of Lords reform should come about as a result of consensus. Well, there is a real consensus. This Bill, like that introduced by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, came about as a result of a group of us who have now been meeting for 12 years, the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, convened by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. We founded it together all those years ago, and I have the honour of chairing it. We have discussed this matter many times, and there has been no disagreement on it among Members from all political parties and the Cross Benches, just as there was no disagreement over the measure that my noble friend Lord Steel introduced and Dan Byles took on last year. It is incremental and modest reform, designed to ensure that this House goes in for proper “housekeeping measures”, as my noble friend Lord Steel called them. It in no way prevents a future Government doing other things with this House. I hope that the House will remain appointed, but whether that is its ultimate destiny or not, there is no argument against the modest proposals made so forcefully and eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.

As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said a few moments ago, the fact that the Bill is being introduced with the enthusiastic support of the first Lord Speaker of this House ought of itself to commend it to all parts of the House. I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, spoke as she did. She introduced that debate in June and, again, there was an enormous degree of consensus, even though that report had been drawn up by Labour Peers.

We have only four or five months left of this Parliament. There is not time to get through sweeping measures, but there is ample time to get this measure through. There is no reason at all why it should not go through with acclamation this afternoon, without amendment in Committee, and be in another place well before Christmas. I hope that that will happen. If it does, we will collectively be giving all those who care for our constitution and our Parliament a good Christmas present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

If it is less of a wash-up, there is only a very tiny dish.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely understood. Unfortunately, some rather larger dishes may yet be introduced, which the Government may wish to try to push through.

We all hope that these powers would not be needed. We all recognise that we will need to look before the Bill is completed at the sort of things that will need to be in Standing Orders, because this Bill is quite a substantial extension to the power of the House, in spite of the wonderful phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, used—that it is intended to be merely an “amelioration”. However, I am very happy to talk further with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and certainly take this back to the Cabinet Office to see what is possible.

Before we depart, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that I look forward to her next proposals on accretion or amelioration. I am happy that I hear around the Corridors a number of noble Lords on all Benches discussing the possibility of retirement at the end of this Parliament. That is another useful way forward. We should encourage it. However, perhaps the noble Baroness will, at the beginning of the next Parliament, produce a Bill that will suggest a retirement age by consensus. I look forward to giving her my support, from wherever I am at that point, on that next stage in amelioration.

Scottish Referendum

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the enthusiasm, the high rate of turnout and, earlier, the high rate of registration in Scotland was a lesson for the rest of us. It is very much part of the Government’s response to consider the devolution of power not only in further devolution in Scotland, Wales and perhaps in Northern Ireland, but also within England.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, does not my noble friend accept that the biggest danger to the union would be to encourage rampant English nationalism?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely agree. I trust that my noble friend has not the slightest temptation to give way to that.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, gave us a splendid and comprehensive opening speech, for which we are all extremely grateful. It is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. I have unstinted admiration for her courage, tenacity, energy and all that she does to stand up for what is good, honest, holy and of good report.

A civilised country must have as its hallmark that it allows its citizens to believe in peace and to worship in public without any threat. In the admirable report produced by my noble friend Lady Berridge and others, it is shameful to read that in 139 countries between 2006 and 2010 Christians were harassed. Although I am proud to be a Christian and we live in what is still essentially a Christian country, we should all be concerned, whether the persecution is of Muslims in Burma, Hindus in Pakistan, Falun Gong in China or Baha’i in Iran.

In the brief time I have, I would like to make one or two concrete proposals to my noble friend who will respond to this debate. First, I would like to see a unit in No. 10 devoted to religious freedom around the world. Secondly, I would like to see a high-level ambassador appointed to travel the world and give this message. He may not thank me for the suggestion but who better than my right honourable friend William Hague, who will have time on his hands next year? As the author of a notable biography of William Wilberforce, who better to press these points home?

I would also like us to have another of these summits. Summits seem to be the flavour of the time. We had one recently on female genital mutilation—very important indeed. We have had others. But a summit in London summoned by and addressed by the Prime Minister and the other political leaders could do a great deal to focus world attention on this terrible problem. It is a terrible problem because the future of civilisation—no less—is at stake.

Progress can be made. I speak with some small personal knowledge here. When I entered another place in 1970, I helped to form, with the noble Lord, Lord Janner of Braunstone, the campaign for the release of Soviet Jewry. I spoke to persecuted Jews in Moscow as the KGB was knocking at their doors to arrest them. In 1990, 20 years later, as chairman of an international human rights organisation, I—who had been forbidden any visa to go into the Soviet Union, who had had the Soviet embassy door slammed in my face—was there in the heart of the Kremlin handing a Bible to the chef de cabinet of Mr Gorbachev, symbolic of a million that they were allowing in. During the course of that conversation, I was told that by the end of the year, no one in the Soviet Union would be in prison for their religious belief. We have all been reminded recently that what is going on in Russia at the moment is not all sweetness and light, and we are deeply exercised by what we have heard. But, nevertheless, the fact that such progress could be made in those 20 years, and that even now Christians in Russia are indeed allowed to worship in freedom, as are others, is the mark of real progress.

Last Sunday I attended a patronal festival in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. It was the feast of St Margaret of Antioch and the Dean of Westminster preached a moving and splendid sermon. He referred to the desecration of Mosul and spoke, with the degree of concern and embarrassment that we all feel, about some of the dictatorships that did allow Christians and others to worship in freedom. We must address what has happened, unequivocally declare war on extremism wherever it is to be found, and by doing the sort of things I proposed a moment ago, this Government could play a significant part in doing precisely that.

National Voter Registration Day

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, certainly. We trust that the churches will play their own role, and perhaps we will have mentions in sermons of civic duty and what one should render unto Caesar as well as unto God.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, why do we not require young people to register?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in this country, it has not been compulsory to vote or to register to vote. That would raise all sorts of questions about civil or criminal penalties, and some fundamental questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state. This country has not wanted to use compulsion where it can possibly avoid it.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

My natural sense of modesty, and because it is above my pay grade, prevents me from trying even to give a putative answer to that matter. It was just the way in which things are rushed into with badly drafted, inadequate and mediocre legislation in the House of Commons. More and more is churned out which has to be repaired two or three years later by another set of Bills to rectify the mistakes. That was in the early days of the Deputy Prime Minister being in the House of Commons for one term.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Is not that because the Deputy Prime Minister has never studied the British constitution?

[Lord Dykes]

It is for others to give their views. I am a great admirer of the Deputy Prime Minister but in this case he was just at the beginning of a learning curve. All that will come out again in the wash. This country takes a long time to make fundamental decisions about its modernisation. Irrespective of what happens in Scotland, which is a great complication, the sooner we have a written constitution and agree to be a modern, powerful, well paid, revising, unelected—that being my preference because if it is elected that would change matters completely—institution, the sooner it will have more powers, otherwise we will drift along with an inadequate system of which we are artificially proud for some bizarre, historical reason.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, this has been quite an interesting debate. I am sorely tempted to allow myself to be provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and I will return to him in a moment. However, I begin, as almost everyone has, by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, not only on her chairmanship of the group and therefore her part-authorship of the report but on the very measured, judicious and tactful way in which she introduced it. I would like her to pass on my thanks, as others have, to Lord Grenfell, who is indeed sorely missed. His valedictory address in this House a few weeks ago was a tour de force, and a memorable occasion for all of us privileged to hear it.

I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, that the Bishops are here because we have in this country an established church, and everyone who lives in this country—regardless of his race, colour or creed—is entitled to the ministrations of that church. There is a case, although it is one that I would strongly refute, for disestablishment. But while we have establishment, the Bishops are here. That is why the group that produced this excellent report was entirely right—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

I shall give way in a minute. It was entirely right to put that issue on one side, because it is another issue, and there are powerful arguments on both sides.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

When the noble Lord says “this country”, can he make it clear that he means England?

[Lord Cormack]

Yes, of course I do—and next week we shall be joining forces and talking about the United Kingdom.

Although I was driven to go and get a glass of water when the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, was talking about pulling down this very edifice—or at least vacating it—we have had some interesting and thoughtful contributions. My own position is fairly well known. I should probably declare an interest as chairman of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth convenes and which we together founded more than 12 years ago. Many of your Lordships are regular members and attenders of that group.

We have demonstrated, in the trust that we have shown in each other, that there is a degree of consensus in this House on a number of things. First, there is a strong consensus in this House that there should be primacy of the House of Commons within the United Kingdom Parliament. I believe that that primacy is best safeguarded by having an unambiguous democratic mandate, which they hold. We are here for a complementary but different purpose, which is touched on in the report and has been touched on in many speeches during the past few hours. We revise and bring to our debates a degree of experience and expertise, which is a valuable add-on for the general public. I would very much regret the ending of this appointed House and its replacement by something which would be either a clone of or a rival to the other place in constitutional terms.

I put that on one side, because the report makes it plain that some of its authors would favour an elected House, and others would not. The general majority in the Labour Party, it is assumed, would not—and I am sure that the general majority in this House would not. But there are things that we can do in the mean time. It is for that reason that the report is so valuable to us all.

We need to address the subject of size. I would not agree with a membership of 450, because I doubt that it would give enough for all our committees to be effectively manned. I say that particularly because I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who would like to see our committee system extended. Given the expertise in this House, to have a foreign affairs or a foreign affairs and defence committee could only add value to the whole constitutional process in our country. I would very much like to see that. But again the report makes it plain that it is not saying 450 and that is it; the group is merely putting it forward as a suggestion. I think that the House should not be larger than the House of Commons, and a figure of around 600 would probably be right.

The report talks about retirement. This is a very difficult and sensitive subject. I would tackle it in a rather different way. I am halfway through my eighth decade, and I probably will want to step down at the age of 80—but I do not know. But in future, when new Peers come to this House, it would be sensible for the Writ of Summons to be sent for a period of 20 or 25 years, or until the age of, say, 85, or whichever comes sooner. That would be a sensible way of bringing down the age gradually, over a period. But we have so many amazing contributions from people in their 80s—we have had some in this debate—that I think that to have an arbitrary age limit would not be the right way for us to go. I think that that would carry most colleagues.

I believe that those who are here as hereditary Peers should stay, but the by-election system, particularly when there are more candidates than electors for a particular party, as sometimes happens, does not exactly enhance the reputation of the House of Lords. I am very concerned about the reputation of the House of Lords; it is something that means a very great deal to me.

What has struck me most in the few years that I have been here is how we have been able to look at issues truly on their merits. I was told when I came here that in the House of Lords, unlike in the House of Commons, you have to win the argument. There is a degree of whipping, but many of us take it with a degree of discretion, and it is very good that the Government of the day are defeated from time to time. That is what we are here for. If the Government of the day were never defeated on the Floor of the House of Lords, there would be no point in having this House at all. However, it is right that, at the end of the day, we should give way to the elected Chamber.

I am also struck by the lack of party-political acerbity in this House, symbolised by our Long Table, where we sit and eat together regardless of our political, religious or any other affiliations. That brings us together as people and enables us to get to know each other as individuals, as is the case with the group which meets on a regular basis to campaign for an effective second Chamber, which is what we should all seek to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is one way of addressing the question of topping up after the election. We also have to grasp the question of retirement. It was intended, when the retirement proposals came in, that a larger number of Peers would take the option of retirement and follow the excellent example of Lord Grenfell in that respect, but that has not actually transpired so far.

There were a number of recommendations in the report about the appointments process. I note that the appointments process will remain centralised and largely agreed by party leaders, although that is itself a question. The Bill that the Government put forward proposed to make the House of Lords Appointments Commission a statutory commission and, in any comprehensive reform, that would happen. The question of political balance is one of the most difficult ones. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that if UKIP establishes itself as a significant party in British politics, it would of course be appropriate to have a number of UKIP Members in this House. He might have wished to add that given the level of attendance of the current UKIP Members, both here and in the European Parliament, we might not notice the difference. We already have a Green Member of the Lords, which recognises that British politics is shifting. That is also part of what is appropriate to reflect the changing political balance.

The need to reflect diversity across the UK is a tremendous problem, which election on a regional basis would resolve, as of course would indirect election. I am struck by the number of Peers who raised the question of indirect election in this debate, as it has not received very much attention until recently. The noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Trimble, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and other noble Lords mentioned it. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, talked about it having an occupational or functional basis—a sort of guild socialist approach. The Cross Benches, after all, are well organised: the academies, in particular the medics, always put forward their members. Incidentally, when it comes to lobbies, I have to say to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby that the biggest lobby in this House is the academic lobby—I hope he has noticed that I used to be part of it myself.

As to working Peers, part of the reason that attendance has risen in recent years is because one is asked, before one comes in, whether one is prepared to work hard. However, those of us who were appointed when we still needed to earn our pensions would like to go on working until we have finished earning them, so the Government do not intend to produce a high bar of the sort that is proposed here. It is a matter of judgment the extent to which Members should be full-time or part-time but, again, if we want Members under the age of 60 who still have children to bring up and careers to finish, we have to consider how much we insist on their attending all the time.

The House can decide to end the wearing of robes. I have much sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that it would be a little more radical to suggest that we might end the use of titles, but that would be a more deliberative step.

Do we need a referendum on Lords reform? The Government’s view is that, since each of the major parties had it in their manifesto last time, it was a clear consensual commitment and a referendum is therefore not necessary. A number of procedural reforms were proposed in the report which, as I have already said—

[Lord Cormack]

To be entirely fair, would my noble friend acknowledge that the Labour Party did have a commitment to a referendum in their manifesto?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have to admit that I do not recall whether the party had a commitment to a referendum on Lords reform. If it did, that is fine.

I will wind this multifaceted debate up as quickly as I can. The House of Lords has changed a great deal over the past 20 years. Certainly, since I came in, in 1996, we have become a much more effective revising Chamber and a much busier Chamber. We have become the area through which the lobbies outside know that they can get things. Figures were quoted about the number of government defeats, although my figures do not entirely agree with those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and we might perhaps exchange ideas outside the Chamber. As a Minister taking Bills through, I am conscious that we are always saying to Commons Ministers, “You won’t get that through the Lords unless …”. As we all know, a great deal of what happens in the Lords is about bargaining and about the Government bringing back proposals to meet criticisms that have been made.

Let us treat this as a final-year-of-Parliament debate. There is not time for legislation before the general election but ideas such as those produced can feed into the thinking of the next Government—whoever they may be—and perhaps even build a consensus across the parties on the way forward.

Voting: Young People

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. We all know that there is a broader and long-term problem, which did not arise simply with this Government, of popular alienation from politics, and a sense that national politics and Westminster have little to do with the lives of young people in particular. All of us here and in the other place have a shared interest in combating that, rebuilding trust in politics, and regaining a sense of shared citizenship and political values. The Government cannot do that on their own.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, bearing in mind that these are all citizens and subjects of this country, have the Government considered compulsory registration?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government have considered it, and have not accepted it.