West Lothian Question

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, some dilemmas never go away. We have an asymmetrical system of devolution in this country and we have to make it work. As someone who has spent most of his political career in the north of England, I have doubts about the imbalance of advantage within England itself, but that is another issue which we will debate another time.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I do not have the advantage of my noble friend in remembering personally what happened in 1886, but I keep in close touch with Mr Tam Dalyell. I suggest that it would be very wise to take advice from Mr Dalyell on this issue. He still has the same vigorous intellect we all remember fondly and I am sure that he could bring some wise counsel to bear.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sure that we all wish to send him our best wishes.

Credit Unions

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will take that back and see what we can do about a cost-benefit analysis. I should mention that, apart from the Houses of Parliament, the other department of government that already has an employer-based credit union arrangement in place is the National Offender Management Service. Members will consider whether they think that is a good parallel to our work or not.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, while I am entirely in favour of the “nudging” to which my noble friend Lord Deben referred, what we really want is explicit, enthusiastic public encouragement by government Ministers of this very important movement.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is exactly the purpose of the credit union expansion plan.

The Future of the Civil Service

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the last words of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, who has just addressed us. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, feels that he has been present at the creation, but he has certainly been present at a very splendid debate, marred only by the time constraints under which we all have to speak. I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, on the splendid and spirited way in which he introduced the debate. All those who have spoken with vast experience of the higher reaches of the Civil Service demonstrate the value of this House, because they are all wonderful examples of good parliamentarians, even if they are not politicians.

The one thing that troubles me about the Civil Service is its increased politicisation. I believe that that is due, mainly, to the enormous growth in the number of so-called special advisers. When I first became a Member of Parliament in 1970, I had the good fortune to be asked in the July of that year to become a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department of Health and Social Security. It was one department covering all those areas, with only four Ministers: a Secretary of State, a Minister of State in this House and two Under-Secretaries. I saw at first hand how the effective working—and it was an effective working—of a splendid department, under Sir Keith Joseph, depended so much on the trust that existed between the civil servants and the Ministers. Trust is the essential hallmark of a good Civil Service and a good Civil Service is the bulwark of a true, free democracy.

We talk a lot in this place about free speech, a free Parliament, and we are right to do so. However, at the base of it all, if we are to have a properly functioning democracy, we need those who are imbued by an ideal of public service, who are themselves following a vocation to public service and who are bringing their integrity and their ability to making sure that our country works properly. What has happened over recent years was illustrated for me in 1995, when I called on a colleague who was a Secretary of State to discuss some matters. I was met by a young man who was excessively polite and extremely welcoming. The Secretary of State came in and said “Have you been talking to …” and mentioned his name. I said yes and asked him, “What exactly is his job?”. “Oh, he’s my special adviser”. I said “Oh yes, how old is he?”. “He is 23”. I said “What on earth can he specially advise you on?”. “Oh, he does the party stuff”.

The party stuff may be important, but it should never get in the way of the proper stuff. Over the past 30 years, there has been such an increase in the number of special advisers that it really has got in the way of the proper stuff. I have seen a breakdown of trust and confidence between Ministers and those who serve them because of that.

The time constraint means that I cannot go on longer, I wish I could. But I end as I began by echoing the need for either a parliamentary or a royal commission to look at the role and position of the Civil Service in a modern democracy.

Rights of the Sovereign and the Duchy of Cornwall Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I suppose you could call that a Duchy original. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is a very genial man outside this Chamber, but I have to say this morning he reminded me of that wonderful character from ITMA, Mona Lott, in that it is being so cheerful as keeps him going. What we have had this morning is an extraordinary series of disconnected accusations and observations. He referred to Clause 3 of his Bill and said that legislation was not needed. I would say that legislation was not needed on this particular subject, full stop. While I yield to no one in my admiration for the noble Lord and recognise that he is the last person that anyone would dare to call obsequious, nevertheless I think that today he has got it wrong.

The noble Lord has a reputation for being a fine engineer. I am sure that he is. As a fine engineer, though, he knows that precision is very important. He knows that if you are called out to repair something, you do not go along to repair modern machinery with a bag of wooden tools. That is in fact what he has been doing today.

I would just make a few points to your Lordships in opposing the Bill, which I am delighted to do. Yesterday we were debating Magna Carta and the importance of the rule of law. Earlier, my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth had an interesting debate in the Moses Room on commencement orders, to which my noble friend Lord Gardiner, sitting on the Front Bench, gave a most excellent reply. The theme of that debate was that legislation must be demonstrated to be necessary and designed to solve a specific problem or provide a proper remedy, and then it must be properly enforced. One of the underlying themes of that debate, particularly emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, was that pre-legislative scrutiny was really a necessary precondition wherever possible—one accepts terrorism legislation sometimes, and things like that—for all legislation. If ever there was a need for pre-legislative scrutiny, it is here.

I do not believe that legislation is necessary, and I certainly do not think it should be embarked upon without the most careful examination. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that what we should be doing is referring some of the matters that give him concern to the Constitution Committee of this House and there should be a proper, thorough and objective examination. Merely to base one’s case on a number of isolated examples, as happened towards the end of the noble Lord’s speech, is no way to proceed to legislation in this House, particularly on a very sensitive matter.

I refer again to the noble Lord’s career as an engineer—a very illustrious and successful one. He knows as an engineer that a delicate mechanism can be thrown completely out of gear by the removal of one apparently insignificant part. One often finds this quoted particularly in the case of clocks and watches. If there was ever anything that was delicate and needed the most careful handling, it is our British constitution. It is not a written constitution. Some may wish that we had one, as some did in last night’s debate, but we do not. We therefore have to look very carefully at what we are doing when we come to constitutional reform.

This Bill is, in a sense, the son of the Succession to the Crown Bill, because during the passage of that Bill the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, moved amendments, referred to his concerns about the Duchy of Cornwall and advised the House that, at some stage in the future, he would seek to introduce legislation. On 14 May, he was as good as his word when he produced a Bill which had its First Reading on that day.

Many of us were concerned about the Succession to the Crown Bill because we believed it had not been sufficiently thought through. There were implications for the Church of England—the established church—which concerned the Bench of Bishops. Indeed, the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who had charge of that Bill in this House and handled it with great skill and sensitivity, was at pains to ensure that, in answer to a Parliamentary Question, certain correspondence with the Roman Catholic church was published.

Those of us who felt that that Bill had perhaps been a little rushed were not against the essential principle about the succession of a woman—of course not—but we were concerned about some of the implications. It was suggested that because the Duchess of Cambridge was with child, it would be as well to get this Bill through quickly. Of course, the child arrived, the child was a boy, there was great rejoicing, and the sense of urgency—if ever there was one—disappeared, so there is no urgency about this. That underlines the point I made a few moments ago, that if these subjects are to be looked at, they need to be looked at carefully and deliberately, and if there is to be legislation of any sort, it needs the most careful pre-legislative scrutiny. The whole issue would benefit very much from the considered observations of the Constitution Committee of this House.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I have been thinking about my noble friend’s watch analogy. Does he not think there is something of an irony about a hereditary Peer given a life peerage attending a House which is not subject to democratic accountability and in which we are given tax-free allowances complaining about tax privileges and a lack of accountability?

[Lord Cormack]

My noble friend Lord Forsyth, not for the first time, puts his finger on a number of interesting issues upon which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, might reflect. When he is contemplating the illustrious past of his family, and its contribution to the Kit-Cat Club, the portraits of whose members hang in Brooks’s Club to this day, he might just wonder whether, in fact, he has not been guilty of a little inconsistency.

There is one part of the Bill that I find particularly niggardly. It is the part dealing with travel. The noble Lord wants to restrict those who can have official travel to six members. He bases this on the fact that the Succession to the Crown Bill specifically mentions the six next in line who have to seek the permission of the sovereign to marry. We had debates on this and amendments were moved, including, if I recall correctly, by my noble friend Lord Lang, to extend the number to 12, but the Bill went through with six in it. However, there is no analogy. One has to realise that there are many members of the Royal Family who give unstinting public service and whose presence at public events is greatly welcomed. I do not want to be invidious and give a long list, but I single out particularly the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester is punctilious in fulfilling a range of engagements. I have attended a number of engagements which he has attended. The pleasure that he gives by going and the interest that he takes in the people he meets are of enormous value and worth. I believe that it would be niggardly in the extreme to say that only six members of the Royal Family should be allowed to travel to fulfil their official duties at the taxpayer’s expense.

In his concluding remarks, the noble Lord referred with what seemed a less than enthusiastic endorsement to constitutional monarchy. I believe very passionately in our constitutional monarchy. For well over 60 years now, Her Majesty the Queen has served this country absolutely impeccably. I believe that we are all enormously in her debt and that of members of the Royal Family, and I do not believe that now is the time to be nitpicking about the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy of Cornwall goes back 600 years. That, in itself, may be a reason to say we should have a look at things, but it is no reason to embark with a rather blunt instrument on an attack on an institution that has served us very well.

It is good to have debate in this House, and it is important that when issues such as this are raised, there is an opportunity to comment on them from both sides of the argument. I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has this morning made a case for this legislation. I believe it would be hasty and ill considered and that, if we are to look at these subjects, they need to be looked at in detail and in depth, dispassionately, objectively and carefully. All those qualities can be brought to bear by your Lordships’ House. They should be brought to bear. There should be no question of letting this Bill proceed anywhere near the statute book. I am confident that it will not.

Voting Age (Comprehensive Reduction) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, speaking in the gap, I should like briefly to turn this into a debate. We have had a series of speeches extolling the virtues of my noble friend Lord Tyler’s measure. We heard half a speech expressing some equivocation from my noble friend Lord Lexden—eloquently expressed, but certainly not opposed to the Bill. I am surprised that no one has mentioned Malala Yousafzai, that extraordinary young woman—

[Noble Lords]

Young of Hornsey!

[Lord Cormack]

If someone mentioned her, I apologise for missing the reference. She is an extraordinary young woman of great courage. I was born in Grimsby, where one of the great heroes of the First World War died. He was Jack Cornwell, who was awarded a posthumous VC at the age of 16 for his incredible bravery at the Battle of Jutland. And yet I believe that the case is not as simple as has been suggested. It is not a question of wisdom or maturity, although it is a question of some degree of experience. I believe that to have a cohort of voters who are still under the influence of their schoolteachers is perhaps something that one ought to question a little more than some colleagues have today.

I also believe in the rites of passage. There are certain things that one should be aspiring towards. Yesterday I had the great privilege of taking a group of Members of your Lordships’ House from the two major parties and the Cross Benches to discuss with my noble friend Lord Nash the desirability of better citizenship education, in particular a ceremony when young people become citizens, based on the ceremony that those who obtain British nationality now go through. There is a great deal to be said for that, but I strongly suggest to noble Lords that it is not as simple as my noble friend Lord Tyler has been seeking to suggest.

My noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Lexden both referred to the decision that young people of 16 will be able to vote in the Scottish referendum next year. I have a granddaughter who will be among them. That was, as my noble friend Lord Lexden said, a bit of shameless expediency on the part of the leader of the Scottish National Party. When it was raised in this House, I made the point that a precedent would have been created that it would be difficult to argue against. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made that point in his speech. However, I believe that it is incumbent on those of us who have real reservations to argue at least for caution.

I do not speak as somebody who has no contact with the young: I was a schoolmaster for 10 years before I entered the other place and have maintained my contacts with schools and universities throughout those years. I conduct seminars in this place for young people from America who come over. I have a passionate belief in the young. But to argue that because the referendum on Europe will affect 16 year-olds more than others is a false—a specious—argument. It will affect 14 year-olds and 12 year-olds more than others. There has to be a right age and I believe that 18 is the time. Although many are, of course, going on to universities and colleges, full-time education is over and they are outside the confines of the school. It is the time when they are allowed to buy alcohol and cigarettes. It would be a pretty odd situation if 16 year-olds could vote but could not smoke or drink.

It is wrong to exploit the gap, but I believe that there are issues here that noble Lords ought to consider.

House of Lords: Membership

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I agree with everything that she said. I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Higgins for initiating this very useful and helpful debate. However, I gently take him to task on one thing: that is, these are not proposals from the Clerk. The Clerk cannot make proposals; he merely set out some alternatives which Members of the House can consider. We ought to put that on the record to defend the total impartiality of the Clerk. In fact, this paper came about as a result of an approach from the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which was formed by my noble friend Lord Norton and I more than 11 years ago. I went to see the Clerk in the wake of the timely defeat of the very ridiculous Clegg Bill and asked him whether he could produce a paper which we could consider. He agreed but on the condition that it must be made available to all Members of the House. Naturally, we readily agreed to that, and that is why it is before us.

This is a debate in which we are rightly limited to a very short speaking time and I want to make just one or two very brief points. The Byles Bill is the filleted version of the large Steel Bill on which my noble friends Lord Steel of Aikwood and Lord Norton of Louth and I worked something like eight years ago. It is a modest proposal but it will help, above all by providing a statutory framework for retirement. However, that is not the end of the matter. Of course, many of these things would have been dealt with had that large section of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, attached as an appendix to this paper, not been dropped in the wash-up prior to the 2010 election. Therefore, we should gently remind the leaders of both parties that they were, indeed, more or less signed up to that three years ago. What they must now do is to exercise restraint. This is crucial for the reputation of the House, which stands high in the public esteem. There was a very good leader in the Times the day after our latest colleagues’ appointments were announced way back in late July or August, which said that this was a great institution but was in danger of being overinflated, or words to that effect. It is crucial that we heed that warning. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was so right to say that party balance should not matter here.

The one disappointment I have had since I came to this House—I greatly cherish my membership of it—is that I think on occasion the whipping is too severe. I say that in the presence of at least one Whip.

We should be here to exercise our judgment because, at the end of the day, we cannot overthrow what the elected House has decided upon, but we can, and we should, say, “Think again”. That is the point and purpose of this place. This is not the overriding legislative assembly. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Norton has argued on many occasions, we are merely contributing to the legislative process.

I very much hope that following this brief debate the Government will look at the various alternatives proposed in the Clerk’s paper and consider that there is real concern in this House. We welcome our new colleagues and hope that they will be as happy here as we are, but we cannot go on increasing in this way. There has to be provision for reducing over a period the size of the House. We have to look at all sorts of retirement schemes and other things. There is not time to expand now, but I hope there will be in the near future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this debate raises a large number of questions. Let me try to answer as many as I can. I start by saying that the Government remain committed to thorough reform and the creation of an elected House. This is part of the reason why we resist proposals to end by-elections of hereditary Peers. I was here when that particular concession was made by the then leader of the Conservative Peers, now the Marquess of Salisbury, on the basis that it would remain until thorough reform took place.

The Government are committed to thorough reform. However, we now have a number of proposals which I have heard described as housekeeping proposals, which are on an interim basis. We recognise that there will not be another attempt at House of Lords reform until well after the next election, when I look forward to seeing a commitment to an elected second Chamber appearing once again in all of the party manifestos. Having said that, we have to recognise that there are some real problems in the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, disappointed me enormously in his speech. I looked forward to him saying that we must tackle the question of retirement age, a topic on which I thought he was intervening the other day. I recognise that at the core of much of this are the difficulty of a retirement age or of encouraging retirement, and the balance of the groups within the House.

When I joined the House, now some 17 years ago, I was told that by entering the House of Lords I was raising my life expectancy by a further two years. It is such an interesting place and it keeps us lively and fit. As I sat listening today I reflected that, if I decide that I really ought to take permanent leave of absence when I am 95, I have only 23 more years of service to go. I will then have served in the House for 40 years. We recognise the problem of keeping the House lively and renewing membership.

Incidentally, there is also the problem of different age balances among the different party groups. The Conservatives are the oldest group in terms of appointments, because many of them were appointed in the Thatcher years. Particularly when I talk to some of the older Labour Peers, I am conscious that the reluctance to retire of those on both the Labour and the Conservative Benches is sometimes expressed in terms of, “I would be letting my side down if I retired but some of them didn’t. We would alter the age balance against us”. Anything we talk about in relation to retirements feeds back into the question of party balance. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that it is not just the party groups who vote in this House. We have a very active group of Cross- Benchers. I will check on the incidence of votes lost in this Parliament compared to votes lost in the last Parliament. I was not aware that there was a substantial difference in the number of votes lost. In the Bills that I have dealt with, the concessions which one must make in order to avoid votes being lost, and the number of votes lost, are certainly important matters. I give way.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, but does my noble friend really believe that the House of Lords should have a significant majority on the government Benches?

Church of England: Appointment of Bishops

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did not take the other path appropriate to the Question, which is that the Bench of Bishops is the only section of this Chamber that has an upper age limit, which is 70.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, after that hilarious question from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, does my noble friend agree with me that it is somewhat unfortunate that Episcopal vacancies are now advertised? Is there not an anti-vocationary element there?

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am of the gas mask generation. I remember the gas mask I had as a little boy in the war. My horror of chemical warfare was brought home when I read for the first time that extraordinary poem by Wilfred Owen, which will be familiar to many of your Lordships, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, which tells in the most graphic language of a gas attack in the First World War. So I completely understand the revulsion and horror of the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and others. Of course, they have seen this and they want to do something about it.

However, let us remember that before the 350 who died last week—terrible as that incident was—100,000 had been slain in Syria. Was not each one of those deaths as much a blot upon the escutcheon of those responsible as the others? As I have listened to this remarkable debate, and thought of the inexact prescription of Ministers for what should be done, I could not help but think of “King Lear”:

I will do such things—

What they are yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth.

We have to be more exact and prescriptive than that. A theme that has run through this debate is the need for a proper diplomatic offensive.

In a couple of years’ time we shall be marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The United Nations is far too toothless. We should be using all our best endeavours to bring together Russia and China. China will increasingly dominate the world as this century progresses. As has been pointed out by a number of contributors to this debate, we should also be looking at Iran and opening up dialogue there. In doing these things, we should of course be seeking to put pressure on Syria and other rogue regimes and doing it in a way that can have them tested at the bar of world opinion.

International law has to be internationally enforced. The concept of a shield, that there should be a United Nations force permanently established, would not be realisable in the immediate future. But there is no reason why we should not seek to work towards it. I very much hope that we would. Our own nation is not able to play a full and vibrant part in any military, naval or air bombardment of Syria—nor should it. Someone quoted Bismarck and the Pomeranian soldier and it is right.

It is truly vital that this country’s endeavours should be on the diplomatic front. That does not mean that we should never intervene anywhere. As colleagues who were in the other place with me will know, I was almost alone on the Tory Benches arguing for intervention in Bosnia. I am glad I did and I am glad that eventually we did, although sadly it was after Srebrenica. But that was a very different, European conflict. We do not have specific interests in Syria, save the interest that the Middle East should cease to be a powder cauldron. The noble Lord, Lord Reid, in a remarkable speech, said that we were talking about a regional war. He likened it to the Thirty Years’ War, and it could last for 30 years. Even the Foreign Secretary talked in terms of decades.

In the past two or three weeks while we have been off, I have been reading a very remarkable book about July 1914. What comes across is that nobody in Vienna, London, Petrograd or Berlin wanted a world conflict. However, because of diplomatic bungling and ineptitude, and an unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes, the world moved forward inexorably over a six-week period into a conflict that transformed it for ever.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, talked about Pandora’s box. I will leave your Lordships with a quotation from one of the greatest Foreign Secretaries of the second half of the 20th century, Ernie Bevin, who said, “If you open that there Pandora’s box, you don’t know how many Trojan horses will come out”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

For very obvious reasons, I am not able to say that. I am privy only to some of the discussions that have taken place on this, but I can assure him that the intervention would not be aimed at command structures. Someone suggested that we want to take out the President himself or, indeed, that it would be aimed at chemical weapons stocks. For very obvious reasons—

[Lord Cormack]

How does my noble friend square the statement that we are not bent on regime change when the Government do not recognise the regime?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in a limited operation you do not attempt to go for regime change. Perhaps I may go on to my next point. We are of course all concerned to learn the lessons of Iraq. Disastrously, our American allies dismantled the entire structure of the state and the armed forces when they went into Iraq. The reason why we are all attempting to achieve transition in Syria is that we maintain as much as we can of the current state and social structure. We are all aware that to allow the Assad regime to collapse altogether would be to risk chaos following. That is why we have been pursuing, through Geneva I and, we hope, the Geneva II conference, proposals for some form of agreed transition in which—with, we hope, the help of Russia and others—some members of the regime would be removed but which some of the officials within the current regime would help to manage. We are not, therefore, attempting to promote that sort of disastrous regime change.

Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

I understand what the noble Baroness is saying, but my point is not illogical. People have argued in this House that we should not make this change without changing a lot of other things. I have argued that that is not right; I have argued that we need to change only this one thing in order to achieve the aim that I am talking about. I should repeat that this proposal is not linked to any other reforms of the House. A single change should not be conditional on changing everything else.

I admit that I feel emotional about the issue; perhaps that is an unusual sentiment to express here. To me, the right to vote is an enormous privilege, but it is also a crucial aspect of democracy. People have died for the right to vote in our history—the Suffragettes. This is not on a level with the right to vote for women, but it is still a point of principle.

In most general elections, I have campaigned actively in a number of constituencies. It is quite frustrating that, having spent my days knocking on doors and trying to get Labour colleagues elected to the House of Commons, when it comes to vote, I cannot take part. Sometimes, if the general election coincides with local elections, I can get one ballot paper but not the other.

[Lord Cormack]

Was the noble Lord not aware of this when he accepted his peerage?

[Lord Dubs]

Yes, my Lords, I was aware of it, but one has to arrive at a balance. Should I have said, “No, I am not prepared to accept the privilege of being here because I cannot vote in general elections”? My feeling is that it is better to get here and try to achieve the changes by using the arguments. I think that that applies to many of us. Even the noble Lord, I am sure, is not ecstatically happy about every aspect of our procedures here, but that did not stop him coming here and he is a very welcome Member of this House, even though I occasionally disagree with him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am speaking in the gap, with permission. My noble friend made a significant point: we in this House are indeed all Members of Parliament. We are Members of the second Chamber and we have our own particular role and responsibilities. If we are allowed to vote, should we be allowed to stand for election to another place? I do not believe that we should. While I have the greatest possible personal admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and while I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for whom of course I also have admiration, I agree with him on this point. This measure should not commend itself to your Lordships’ House. We are an undying House—the current situation is that we are here for life—so we are part of Parliament. Although the next general election will be the first in my adult lifetime that I have not voted in, or indeed voted for myself in, I will still accept the privilege, look with reluctance at those going to the polling booths and with little reluctance at those who are knocking at doors, and know full well that, God willing, I will come back at the beginning of the new Parliament.

I understand the motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I also understand the frustration of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, although I must say that I was moved by his touching faith that a team of lawyers could come to a speedy conclusion on anything, but I find myself in disagreement with someone else for whom I have great regard. The essence of debate is that one can disagree, and I disagree profoundly with this minor measure. I will certainly seek to move amendments at future stages if the Bill is given a Second Reading today.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, has the noble Lord taken on board the very strong argument that has been put before the House today that we are clearly not Members of Parliament pari passu with the other place? To take the most obvious point, at the next general election a great deal will revolve around the conduct and direction of the economy, the comprehensive spending review and the proposals that affect our citizens so grievously in this time of great austerity, and yet this House has no power to affect that position. We will have influence, perhaps, and will debate the issue to a limited extent, but power we do not have. Yet that is the most cardinal of election decisions on which the nation will vote. That inequality is why there is a strong argument that we should have the right to vote in general elections.

[Lord Cormack]

There might be, according to the noble Lord, but I just do not agree with him. I could argue that Members of Parliament in the other place also have very little power. We need a rebalancing of the powers within our parliamentary system so that we do not have an overweening Executive. To paraphrase Dunning’s Motion, “The power of the Executive has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished”. We can play our part in that by the influence that we wield in this place. Influence can be tantamount to power when we have the sort of people that we have in this place, with their great knowledge of economic affairs. I rest my case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, it has been an interesting Friday morning. The debate has been good tempered, but has extended well beyond the very narrow purpose of the Bill. I suppose, if one says anything about the future of the House, one can get into a debate about everything to do with the future of this House, which is something I have tried to resist.

I will comment briefly on one or two of the contributions. My noble friend Lord Wills argued that this change should be part of a wider package of changes, and that I should add it to another Bill. That is, of course, exactly what I did when the Steel Bill went through. I did precisely what he said before I had the benefit of his advice and it was rejected on the grounds that it would make the passage of the Steel Bill too difficult and my proposal should stand on its own. I am getting conflicting advice on that. I did what he suggested some time ago and it did not work, which is why I am doing it this way.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, rightly put forward an argument of which I was not aware, about members of the Supreme Court. It is yet another instance of where we are in an entirely illogical position. In arguing for a little bit of logic, I do not think that I am being out of order. My noble friend Lord Parekh gave us a good historical sweep and was the first—apart from Disraeli—to talk about money Bills.

I have very high regard indeed for the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—I have known him for a long time—but I am not sure that the slippery-slope argument is a good one. It has been used by opponents of change since the beginning of time.

[Lord Cormack]

I just point out that if that argument has been used, it was not used by me.

[Lord Dubs]

In that case, I misunderstood; I thought that the noble Lord was using the argument himself. However, I very much agree about the power of the Executive and that it is up to both Houses to contain the power of the Executive—so I am with him on that, even if we have a difference of opinion about the Bill itself.

I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Hayter was supportive of the Bill. I pay tribute to her long political experience, with the Fabian Society and elsewhere. She said something about the 5 July anniversary of the start of the National Health Service. If I may trespass on the time of the House, I was in hospital on that day, in Stockport Royal Infirmary. I was quite ill, and I was the only child in the ward. In those days, when the consultant came around, one had either to stand or lie to attention because that was the discipline. A consultant and his big team came along and looked at me, and I asked, “Are we having a party?”. He looked at me as if to say, “How dare you speak before I have spoken to you?”, and then said, “Why?”. I said, “Well the hospital is ours today. We should have a party”. He gave me a dirty look and walked on. I felt that I had made my contribution to the health service at that time. I apologise for digressing a little but, but other noble Lords have digressed as well.

Finally, I did not think that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, would disappoint me quite as much as he did. Without wishing to be impertinent in any way, I feel that his heart was not in it. I think that, in his heart, he knows that I am right and he is wrong. It showed. I know what it is like being a government Minister. One has to defend things that are sometimes difficult; I have done it myself, although never quite to the extent that the noble Lord has done it today.

On the cherry-picking argument, and this is nothing to do with the Bill, I understand that if we were to move to an elected second Chamber, of course we would have to deal with issues like the primacy of the Commons, methods of election and so on. It would be a whole package of measures, as was evidenced in the Government’s Bill that did not get anywhere. However, if we had the vote in parliamentary elections, nothing would change in this House except that we would have the right to vote. It would not affect the way in which we operate, it would not affect our legitimacy and it would not affect our debates or anything else. It stands entirely on its own, so as to the argument that I was cherry-picking: if there are only cherries on the tree, that is all that one can do. That is not a valid argument.

This issue stands entirely on its own. It need not, should not and does not have any connection with any other aspects of Lords reform. We might throw it into a wider Bill on Lords reform, as I have tried to do, but I would argue that we should get on with it. Let us make this change. I believe that there is overwhelming support in this House and in the Commons for this. Of course, the difficulty is that it only takes one government whip to say, “Object” on a Friday, and that has killed the Bill. That is the problem in the Commons. If the Commons was allowed by the Government to have a go at this, I believe it would overwhelmingly support it, as I believe that this House would overwhelmingly support it. However, the difficulty with Private Members’ Bills is that they can be too easily blocked in an undemocratic manner.

Ministerial Code

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that question is currently under discussion, although of course the doctrine of collective responsibility prevents my telling the House exactly where those discussions are at present.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, did the Liberal Democrat Ministers change their minds as well as their votes, bearing in mind the Deputy Prime Minister’s earlier firm agreement to boundary changes?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, coalition government is a matter of constant negotiation and discussion. Unfortunately, we have not managed to deliver much of the political reform agenda that we agreed to in the coalition agreement. All three parties bear some responsibility for failing to deliver that agenda.