Public Health England (Dissolution) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2021

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to take the opportunity of this debate, arising from the dissolution of Public Health England, to pay tribute to PHE and its chief executive, Duncan Selbie. I also want to ask the Minister to tell us more about the Government’s intentions regarding public health, a matter that certainly deserves consultation, as my noble friend Lady Merron has insisted, and more than the perfunctory scrutiny—or non-scrutiny—normally given to a statutory instrument.

With other parliamentary colleagues—including a good number from your Lordships’ House—in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing, I worked for some years with Mr Selbie and others in his team at PHE. At a time when the Department of Health, NHS England and clinical orthodoxy were far from recognising the significance of the well-being agenda, social prescribing and the potential of the arts to support health and well-being, PHE was positive and far-sighted. During the three-year period of the inquiry which led to the publication of the APPG’s report, Creative Health, in 2017, PHE worked constructively and thoughtfully with us.

The three key messages in Creative Health, underpinned by evidence, were that the arts can help keep us well, aid our recovery and support longer lives better lived; help to meet major challenges facing health and social care, including ageing, long-term conditions, loneliness and mental health; and help to save money in the health service and social care. Duncan was one of a number of distinguished people, including Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who publicly endorsed the findings of Creative Health. He said:

“This is an impressive collection of evidence and practice for culture and health”.


The publication of Creative Health was, I think it is fair to say, a turning point in the recognition by the health establishment of the importance of social prescribing and the engagement of individual creativity in promoting health and well-being.

In a speech at the King’s Fund in November 2018, the then Health Secretary, the right honourable Matt Hancock, explicitly acknowledging the significance of the Creative Health report, said that from now on prevention must be fundamental to NHS strategy and social prescribing must be fundamental to prevention. He stressed the value of the arts and culture in social prescribing, and the NHS Long Term Plan of 2019 reaffirmed the centrality of prevention. Mr Hancock established the National Academy for Social Prescribing later in 2019.

Much has happened since then. While I can well understand that the new Secretary of State is preoccupied with Covid-19, the clinical backlog that Covid has so much worsened and the pressures on the NHS workforce, I would ask the Minister to reaffirm that the Government’s commitment to their prevention strategy is not diminished and that they continue to recognise the importance of personalised health and of the arts and culture in contributing to health and well-being.

I hope the Minister will also pay tribute to Duncan Selbie and PHE. When it was announced that PHE was to be abolished, I was shocked. It was hard not to believe that PHE institutionally and Duncan Selbie personally were being scapegoated for the Government’s own failures in the early stages of the pandemic. Of course, I wish the successor institutions well and look forward to working with them through the APPG and the National Centre for Creative Health. It is a shame, however, that Mr Selbie was cast aside.

I am concerned that the “build back better” plan envisages shifting the NHS towards prevention only as a long-term priority. However, integrated care systems surely offer an early opportunity for the NHS to work better with local authorities and the voluntary and community sector, including arts providers, on prevention. Will the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities be working with other government departments responsible for education, housing and employment in addressing the social determinants of health?

I hope we can be reassured this evening that the Government recognise their error in having reduced the public health grant by no less than 24% per head over the last six years, with terribly damaging consequences, and that the restructuring that has now occurred is intended to provide more, rather than less, support for public health.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. I very much look forward to the day when he will be able to rejoin us here on the Floor of the House. He has made an immense contribution during his parliamentary life, both in the other place and here, and I associate myself with and endorse all his comments about the arts and health. But I wanted to make another, more parliamentary point.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords & Ping Pong (Hansard)
Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we should take an example from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who replied with great graciousness this afternoon, and move forward, jettisoning wherever we can the words “Brexit”, “remain” and “leave”. Wherever we stood in the past, we are now moving forward. I am very glad that there has been no contesting of the will of the elected House, which represents the will of the people. Let us now try to have some unity and some real healing across both Houses.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to express my personal appreciation for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has handled his responsibilities at the Dispatch Box. Although I am somewhat anomalous on this side of the House in being—if the noble Lord Cormack, will allow me to say—in favour of leaving the European Union, none the less, I am sure that many of my colleagues have also respected the hard work and the gracious spirit in which the Minister has presented the case on behalf of the Government.

However, I cannot agree with his commendation of these so-called Commons reasons. It is disappointing for this House that the Commons has dismissed the amendments that your Lordships’ House sent to them, with no serious consideration whatever. That represents a failure to recognise and respect the proper constitutional role of this House. In the proceedings on this Bill, this House has not sought to obstruct the Government’s purpose in passing the withdrawal legislation. Everybody in this House accepts that the Government have a mandate to do so, and everybody understands the time constraints. None the less, this House sought to improve the legislation in important respects.

My noble friend Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, have made the case very well indeed in respect of the issue raised in the Dubs amendment, but there were also important constitutional issues that arose from the Bill, and they are not negligible. They concern, for example, the formal processes and the spirit in which the Government seek to relate to the devolved institutions as we withdraw from the European Union and develop the new relationship. They concern the excessive Henry VIII powers that the Government have chosen to take in this Bill—one of them, very importantly, providing for the Government to take powers, by regulation, to intervene in the realm of the judges in determining how they should handle European retained law.

There are other areas, including Clause 41, which has provided a very large, very extravagant opportunity for the Government, by regulations, to abolish or amend, in substantial respects, primary legislation. It is not just legitimate but our duty to have considered these matters, and it is disappointing that in the other place, the Government, Ministers and Members of Parliament have not thought it worthwhile to give any significant consideration to these issues. Taking back control of our laws should represent a full restoration of parliamentary government, and a full restoration of parliamentary government should mean a proper working relationship between your Lordships’ House and the other place. It should not mean a new excrescence of, to use that memorable term coined by a very distinguished Conservative, Lord Hailsham, the “elective dictatorship.”

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I was very glad to add my name to the amendment and the others in this group. I am sure that I speak on behalf of many Members of your Lordships’ House in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for moving the amendment so concisely and convincingly.

I suggest that is it necessary that we pass the amendment. Whichever side of the Brexit argument one is on—the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has already touched on this point—one can still believe that it is of fundamental importance that the powers of Ministers should be contained in a sensible and democratic manner by Parliament. Ministers are answerable to Parliament for all that they do, and they should not be able capriciously to decide what is appropriate and what is not.

The word “appropriate” is itself extremely unsatisfactory. It may well be that no one in your Lordships’ House has any doubt about the way in which Ministers in the present Government would behave—that we can trust them implicitly to exercise judgment and discernment in all issues, just as my noble friend Lord Hailsham did when he was a Minister—and by Jove he needed containing from time to time, as he readily admits.

Seriously, this amendment places no real obstacle in the way of any self-respecting Minister. We were reminded in Committee that we are dealing with well over 100 individuals. It means that he or she will act with regard to what is necessary and not to a subjective analysis, as far as the Minister is concerned, of what is appropriate. If agreed by your Lordships’ House, the amendment will not in any way inhibit the overall desires of those who are passionate for Brexit. Nor will it particularly advance the cause of those, like me, who are very sceptical about the benefits of Brexit. What it will do is make every Minister—all 100-plus of them—if given the opportunity to make an executive decision, examine with precision and be able to justify that his or her decision is governed by that word, “necessary”. I hope that we will have a brief debate and a conclusive outcome—unless my noble friend rescinds his nodding of a few minutes ago and accepts, as he should, the impeccable logic of the amendment.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, suggested in his admirable speech, taking back control should not be a licence for the Executive to arrogate to themselves new arbitrary powers, and Parliament should not permit them to do so. It is entirely appropriate that your Lordships’ House offers this advice to the other place. No self-respecting MP would think otherwise. I very much hope that the other place will agree with us.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I argued in the previous debate that surely the way for the House of Commons to re-establish its good reputation is for it to take responsibility for its own self-government and its own self-discipline. I am therefore opposed to the propositions put forward in these amendments, and indeed by the House of Commons Committee on Standards, not only that there should be lay members of the committee but that there should be equal numbers of lay members and Members of Parliament and that the lay members should have votes. It seems to me that those arrangements would not be consistent with the House of Commons taking the responsibilities that I believe that it should.

I also suggest that what we are being invited to approve is inconsistent, first with Magna Carta, which established the principle of trial by peers, and secondly with the Bill of Rights, which asserts parliamentary privilege and insists that the proceedings of Parliament should not be questioned or impeached by those who are not Members of Parliament. It may indeed be the case that Parliament has power to set aside Magna Carta—even in its 800th anniversary year—and that it has power to discard elements of the Bill of Rights. I would suggest only that parliamentarians should draw a very deep breath and think very carefully indeed before they do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is always Jacobinical—he has a splendid fury in his reforming drive—but the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has a profound knowledge of parliamentary history. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who is not able to be in his place today, is deeply knowledgeable about parliamentary privilege. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, another of the sponsors of Amendment 5, is a very experienced former Member of the House of Commons. I am startled that some of those noble Lords should associate themselves with this kind of drastic change, which, in the present circumstances, when all of us are intensely concerned to see how the good reputation of Parliament can be better upheld, would surely be in effect an abdication of the central responsibility that Parliament has for itself and for its own good conduct. I am deeply opposed to these amendments.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, not for the first time this afternoon I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. This amendment, well intended as I am sure it is—I have the highest regard for those who have put their names to it—is damaging to Parliament. It is inimical to the spirit of Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Frankly, like the noble Lord, I am astonished that people whom I regard so highly as doughty defenders of Parliament should in fact be complicit in an amendment that, if passed, could have the effect only of further emasculating Parliament. I also agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, when he expresses concern that the committee in another place should have recommended this lay participation. That is inimical to the whole doctrine of parliamentary privilege, which is of incalculable importance and, when used correctly, is a bulwark of our liberties in this country.

There was no prouder day for me than when I was elected to another place. A number of your Lordships who were there are present this afternoon. It is interesting that those who are expressing particularly acute concerns about the Bill are mostly those who have served in another place. When I entered that place, I felt, in the words of, I think, Admiral Rodney in the 18th century, that there was no higher honour that any Englishman— of course in those days there were no women in Parliament—could aspire to than being a member of a sovereign parliament in a sovereign nation. That we should be whittling away at the very foundations of our parliamentary and civil liberties makes me profoundly sad. I could not support this amendment; I cannot support the Bill in any way, shape or form.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

They are relevant to the Bill but the fact that the Bill deals with referendums does not make referendums any more desirable. On the question of gerunds and gerundives, I hope that there is perhaps a noble Lord in the House who can resolve this issue between the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and myself, and tell us whether they should be referred to as referenda or referendums.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am not rising to resolve that particular problem. Though I am by nature and inclination a referenda man, do not let us go too far down that line. I frequently agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who is a friend of long standing, but I cannot go along with him on much of what he said, although I agree with him emphatically that—I hope—the Welsh people will not wish to vote on independence. At the moment, the polls indicate that only 4% of them are inclined to move that way. Somebody interjects to say it is 3%; the proportion is going down by the minute.

I come at this from a slightly different angle: I believe that among the things that should be common to the United Kingdom as a whole is the franchise. That is why I was critical of the Prime Minister and others, who conceded to Mr Salmond votes at 16 for the referendum in Scotland. I have mentioned my highly articulate and intelligent 16 year-old granddaughter in this Chamber before. Of course, because 16 year-olds were going to have the vote, I engaged with her, and through her with others, on the subject, because it was of such significance. That was far more important than any single vote I have cast in over 50 years of having the franchise; when I was able to vote for the first time it was at the age of 21.

We did concede to Mr Salmond that 16 year-olds should have the vote—and I entered into the spirit of it within family and so on—but I regretted that we had done so. We must consider carefully the wisdom of giving the vote to 16 year-olds. After all, there are so many other areas of life we could talk about in terms of what people can do at 16; some will work and pay taxes and some will not.

Only yesterday in this House the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, introduced an amendment that the Government accepted. He made an exceptionally moving speech, and the Minister gave an extraordinarily generous reply. The substance of that amendment was that 17 year-olds apprehended by the police should be treated in a similar way to 16 year-olds. He advanced an extremely convincing argument, which the Minister accepted.

A 16 year-old cannot drive a car, and is not legally allowed to take a drink. There are, and I think there should be, rites of passage. I believe that there is a danger in giving votes to those who are in full-time school education—I distinguish clearly between school education, and university and further education. We ought to treat this matter extremely carefully. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell made a generous speech in which he said that he was not necessarily against the idea, but that it should not be dealt with as yet another piecemeal reform. We heard quite a lot about those in our earlier debate on this Bill today.

There I entirely agree with my noble friend. This issue has not been dealt with on a UK-wide basis; it has just grown, like Topsy. If we are to move in this direction, with all the implications for the age of majority and everything else involved with it, we should do so only as a result of comprehensive debate and discussion within both Houses of this Parliament. It should also be part of the remit of the constitutional convention or royal commission. A royal commission is the option that I personally would favour, and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who is not now in his place, also came down on that side. Any such move should be part of the remit of any such convention or commission. We would not be serving the people of Wales, or any other part of the United Kingdom, well if we continued with this piecemeal approach.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I would very much like to be comforted by the noble Lord’s suggestion, but we are in an evolving state of affairs. I am not as confident as he is that the traditional formulations and conventions will necessarily be the only ones that the public will find acceptable in the future.

We have to think of what the role of the Speaker will be when it is contentious whether a particular vote may have this status. Let us imagine what would have happened if the Speaker had been required to issue a certificate as to whether, on 18 March 2003, the House of Commons had passed a motion of no confidence in Mr Blair’s Government, had that Government been defeated in the vote on the Iraq war. Mr Blair said later that he regarded that vote as a confidence vote, and that had he been defeated he would have resigned. How could the Speaker have certified in advance in those circumstances when the Prime Minister himself had not made it clear in advance that that was to be a confidence motion?

However, that is what the Minister, Mr Harper, confidently expects would happen. He said to the Constitution Committee:

“Our view is that the Speaker would make it very clear before such a vote took place whether it was a vote on which he would issue his certificate”.

[Lord Cormack]

The noble Lord is repeating the earlier debate because in this new clause the Speaker does not have that discretion. He may say that what I have put in is superfluous to requirements, but nevertheless it is not a question of putting the Speaker in the invidious position of having to determine the matter because, if one of those conditions is fulfilled, the Speaker has no option.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord is assuming that all the circumstances that he has specified in the four categories that he has set out in his subsection (2) would be the only circumstances that would be regarded as a vote of confidence. Subsection (2) states:

“A vote of no confidence will have been deemed to have been passed if the House of Commons”,

passes amendments in the various terms set out. I am suggesting that, in political reality, there may be other votes which are not included in his survey of the possibilities but which would be regarded as votes of confidence.

The situation in March 2003, had the Government been defeated, illustrates the point quite well. I do not see how, as the Government expect, the Speaker could have certified that in advance, nor am I sure that the Prime Minister would have said in plain terms there and then when the result was announced that he treated it as a confidence matter. If he had not, was the Speaker to make a judgment there and then and certify that the Government had lost the confidence of the House, or perhaps some time later was he to issue a certificate that would have had the effect of bringing down the Government? It seems that the Bill as drafted leaves open these possibilities. I am not entirely confident that that would be avoided if it were amended by the noble Lord’s proposed new clause.

[Lord Cormack]

However, the amendment removes the existing Clause 2. I agree with the noble Lord that that should be removed and that the Speaker should not be put in that position. However, my new clause, imperfect as it may be in other respects, would not put him in that position.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

If the provisions of subsection (2) in the noble Lord’s new clause are met, the Speaker is required to issue a certificate to certify that. Therefore, it seems that the certification requirements in the new clause are closely similar to, if not the same as, those already in the Bill. The merit of the noble Lord’s new clause is that it makes a brave attempt to define what would be motions of no confidence.

Let us take the case of Libya. The House of Commons voted with a very large majority to support military intervention in Libya. However, let us suppose that the intervention drags on, that the mood of the country turns sour, that sentiment in the country becomes as hostile to our military engagement with Libya as it has in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan, and that in due course the Government are defeated on a motion relating to the continuation of military engagement with Libya. Mr Cameron insists that it is not a confidence motion and Mr Miliband insists that it is. Is the Speaker to be required to adjudicate between the two of them? Is he to be required to umpire? In another circumstance, which the Committee has certainly recognised could occur under the legislation as the Government have produced it, what is the Speaker to do if the Government engineer a vote of no confidence? Is he to collude with the Government in that process?

Speakers of the House of Commons have to be sturdy people—they are always being shot at—but is it reasonable or realistic to expect such preternatural wisdom, courage and authority on the part of the Speaker if he is placed in what will inevitably be this very invidious position? That was certainly the view of the former Speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, who spoke in our previous debate. I have not only great respect but personal affection for Mr Speaker Bercow, but can we assume that every future Speaker will have this wisdom, courage and authority? I think that laws and institutions are best not predicated on an assumption of individual perfection. Even if the Speaker is such a paragon of all the relevant virtues, I think that the burden that certification places on him is excessive. A decision taken by the Speaker in the best of conscience could still be so contentious that it would damage the authority of the office of the Speaker. How would an individual Speaker who issued a certificate that was contested by the defeated party and resented by that party and its supporters in the country ever recover his personal authority?

I suggest that another consideration is that, if a certificate is issued in advance, as the Government advocate and foresee, that process will in effect pressurise Back-Benchers to rally to their party Whip. The Speaker, contrary to the role that we expect of him, would in effect be suppressing Back-Bench discontent. He would be suppressing the honest expression of individual views on great issues that the House was considering. He would be acting as a recruiting sergeant for the Whips. The Constitution Committee went some way towards recognising that. It foresaw a temptation for a Government in a position of political weakness to press the Speaker to certify that minor issues, or issues that were controversial within the party that came to the vote, were votes of confidence.

The Government assert that there is nothing new in the provisions. In their response to the Select Committee in the other place they talked of the traditional mechanism of no confidence motions and foresaw it as being straightforward. But creating legal consequences of no-confidence motions is new and potentially very important. As to the position of the Speaker, as we have noted, the Parliament Act requires certificates to be issued in quite different circumstances, as does the freedom of information legislation.

This Bill, as presented by the Government, places the Speaker in a new constitutional role which risks being highly politicised and which I believe will have disastrous implications. This all arises out of the Government’s desire to create escape hatches from the trap that fixed-term Parliaments create. It is one more instance of the dangers of making constitutional legislation in a hurry. If we damage the Speaker, who personifies Parliament, more than ever in an age of broadcasting, to the people and the world, we damage Parliament, and the reputation of Parliament is fragile. I do not think that we need this legislation. The evolving conventions have worked well, as they did in 1979. The House of Commons knows an issue of confidence when it faces it and knows how to deal with it, but an issue of confidence depends on the political context; it cannot be defined in advance. At least let us not put the Speaker in an impossible and damaging position.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

On the contrary, I myself went to sleep, but not during my own speeches—although I might have done, and indeed the noble Lord might have supposed that I had done. I concede that at certain points.

We are about to resume a proper practice of scrutiny in the best traditions of your Lordships’ House. It is particularly important given that there was no Green Paper heralding this legislation, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny, yet this Bill is of very great constitutional importance in itself and its provisions interact with other constitutional measures. For example, they interact with the provisions for boundary reviews that we just legislated in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. They interact with provisions that we can anticipate in a draft measure for reform of your Lordships’ House. They interact with the contents that we can anticipate of a draft parliamentary privileges Bill, which we are led to expect. I think that it would have been better if the Government’s proposals in all these respects had been laid out and available for pre-legislative scrutiny rather than that Parliament was required, effectively, to legislate on aspects of the constitution without having the ability to consider the interplay between different reforming measures. However, I am encouraged by what the Deputy Prime Minister said in the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House on 13 October last year in responding to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick:

“Of course, what matters now is the degree of scrutiny that”,

the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill,

“is subject to as the legislation passes through both Houses. On that we are very clear. We want to make sure that it is subject to the greatest possible scrutiny, which it rightly deserves”.

In that spirit, I beg to move Amendment 1 in my name.

The Bill, as drafted, prescribes polling at general elections on a Thursday. It ignores the debate about the case for polling at weekends or other ways in which polling can be facilitated for our citizens. It effectively closes down that debate, which has been proceeding somewhat desultorily for a number of years. However, it is a proper debate and I do not think that it should be instantly closed down. We all have a major concern about how to improve participation in elections in this country. I am indebted to the Library of the House of Commons for a chart that it has provided in one of its notes, which shows a tendency for turnout at general elections to have declined significantly between 1950 and 2010. The bar chart indicates that in 1950 turnout in the general election of that year was of the order of 83 per cent. It fell a little bit at subsequent elections, but in February 1974 it was at or very close to 80 per cent, which is remarkable. Of course, the country was in crisis at that time and it was perceived to be an exceptionally important election. Nevertheless, looking back from where we are now, we would regard it as quite remarkable that turnout was 80 per cent in February weather conditions in 1974.

[Lord Cormack]

Would the noble Lord recollect that in the election of 1974 there were very few postal votes cast? People actually made their way in inclement weather to the polls because they felt strongly about the issues. Have we not made voting too easy with too many postal votes allowed, and does that not relate to the falling off in the percentage poll that we have seen in recent years?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raises an important point. It was the more remarkable that there should have been an 80 per cent turnout in February 1974, given that it was not an easy thing to secure a postal vote in those days. I wonder whether the ready availability of postal votes in more recent elections has contributed to a decline in participation. It is not immediately obvious to me why that should be so but the noble Lord may have something to say about this a little later. Whatever may be the truth there, what we have seen in elections subsequent to that of February 1974 has been a pretty dismal trend of declining participation in general elections, reaching a low point in the 2001 election, where I think it was probably under 60 per cent, and rising slightly since then so that in the 2010 general election the turnout was 65.1 per cent. All of us must worry about the implications of that.

All sorts of explanations are offered for declining participation: dissolving class structures, since people in this country do not so completely identify themselves with the two major political parties; more fluid communities, in a whole variety of senses; rising affluence over the post-war period, so that people perhaps feel a less burning need to secure what they can from politics; the privatisation of economic and social responsibility; the dousing of politics in contempt by the media; the rise of celebrity culture; and the perception on the part of very many people that casting their vote will make no difference. General elections are seen to be determined in a relatively small number of marginal seats. There is the view, which a number of us have perhaps heard on the doorstep: “They’re all as bad as each other”—a poor opinion of politicians and politics. There is perhaps also a view that compared to what may have been the case in the past, British Governments are now rather powerless, whether at home or abroad. I do not know but those are among the explanations that have been offered.

There is one explanation which is germane to this Bill and which the Government ought to take seriously: that voting arrangements are inconvenient. There is the requirement to turn up to vote—you can get a postal vote, as the noble Lord reminded us but the normal practice is still for people to turn up and vote in person—on a Thursday within certain hours. There have been experiments in trying to facilitate participation in elections. There has been an extension of postal voting and there have been trial schemes for advance voting in supervised polling stations, so that people could cast their vote ahead of the formal polling day. Thought has been given to whether people should be able to vote in supermarkets and so forth. Most significantly, it has been proposed that polling should be shifted from the conventional, traditional Thursday to weekends when it can be supposed that it would be much easier for more people to make it to the polling booth.

We had a note from the Electoral Commission, which came in only late this morning. Admittedly, it had not had very long to prepare its briefing but it is always helpful if people who want to advise us can get their briefing in to us a little earlier than that. It comments on Amendment 1:

“While the Commission is not in principle opposed to polling day being moved to the weekend, we have stressed that any such change should only be made if there is clear evidence that it would be of significant benefit to electors. At present, we do not believe that there is sufficient evidence on which to reach a definitive conclusion”.

That must be an entirely sensible point of view. In the absence of sufficient evidence, it would not be sensible to make that change but the question is whether more evidence might be obtainable and whether it should be considered by the Government before they legislate, as proposed in the Bill, to establish definitively and for ever and a day that polling will take place on Thursdays.

The note from the Electoral Commission goes on:

“The Commission has … evaluated a number of local pilot schemes involving advance voting—where electors would be able to vote in a supervised polling station within their local electoral area between one and seven days before the principal polling day—and has concluded that such facilities could help to enhance the accessibility and convenience of the electoral process. We have called on the Government to consider introducing advance voting as part of a comprehensive electoral modernisation strategy”.

Have the Government considered the experience of this pilot scheme and are they thinking, as the Electoral Commission would have them do, about a comprehensive electoral modernisation strategy? Did Ministers consider whether it would be appropriate to allow voters the opportunity to vote at weekends instead of on a Thursday before they wrote Thursdays into the Bill? If they did not do so before they published the Bill, will they now consider it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Rennard, have performed a very real service to the Committee in enabling us to debate this issue. When the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to the Electoral Commission and those dreadful words “modernisation” and “strategy”, I began to have my doubts but, seriously, it is important that we look at this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, raised an extremely important point when he talked about Orthodox Jews and many Christians.

I also think that there is a great deal to be said for having “a” polling day. I have always felt that having one day for elections and encouraging people to go to the polls is what it is all about. That is why I have viewed with a degree of concern, as well as scepticism, the increase in the incidence of postal votes. I referred to this briefly in my intervention during the noble Lord’s speech. Of course, it is right that people who are incapacitated in any way or whose jobs regularly take them away from home should have postal votes. I was also very much in favour of people who had booked a holiday being allowed to have a postal vote.

I fought every general election from 1964 to 2005— 12 in all, in 10 of which I am glad to say I was successful. I campaigned in many other elections beginning in 1959. Therefore, I think that I have some experience. I remember vividly the election on 28 February 1974, to which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred, when almost 80 per cent of the electorate went to the polls. People were exceptionally concerned about the gravity of the economic crisis. Many of them felt, as I did, that Edward Heath had abdicated in asking “Who governs the country?”. The answer of course is that the Government govern the country and it is the Prime Minister’s job to lead that Government. I felt—and said at the time—that he was wrong to go to the country. Indeed, he discovered that that was not the best decision of his life.

However, people turned out. I think that people will turn out as long as there is a proper incentive for them to do so and as long as it is not made too easy. That may sound paradoxical, but I think that the introduction of postal votes on demand, which in effect is what exists at the moment, does not encourage people or focus their minds or attention on a specific day.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Since we had our earlier exchange on this subject, I have been reminded that participation is actually higher among people with postal votes. It is over 70 per cent at general elections and not much lower at local elections. That suggests that the ease with which people can have a postal vote and thereby cast their vote is not quite as debilitating as the noble Lord fears.

[Lord Cormack]

I obviously listened carefully to what the noble Lord said, but there have been some disturbing accounts of the way in which postal voting has been conducted, and he knows that as well as I do. The security of the postal vote does not begin to compare with the security of the personally cast ballot. I am glad to see him nodding assent at that.

When it comes to the day, for the reasons that I indicated earlier, I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and I see no need to depart from Thursday. It is good that we should discuss it and maybe consider experiments with more local elections. I would not be averse to that. However, I believe that Thursday is tried and tested for general elections, and I hope that the Government will stick to that, certainly for the foreseeable future as foreseen in the Bill. I very much hope that they will consider the issue of postal votes and how postal voting is conducted and made more secure. It is important for the House to look at this and for another place to have another chance to look at it. Obviously, it would be quite wrong to press any of the amendments to a Division today, but I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that the Government have taken on board the points that have been made and will truly reflect on them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his speech, rather than his intervention. This is very much an issue that your Lordships’ House should consider, and the Government should give us a very considered response.

There is of course an additional by-product of my amendment. Bringing forward the election by virtually a couple of months would prevent the Prime Minister having the opportunity to prolong the life of the Parliament. That might have the incidental benefit or disbenefit of robbing your Lordships’ House of the ability to reject this legislation, because as it is currently drawn it cannot be subject to the Parliament Act, as we have heard again today. However, that is another point.

I urge the Minister to think very carefully about this. We value our devolved Administrations. Having created them, we have to nurture them, and we have to make sure that the powers they exercise are complementary to the powers exercised by the United Kingdom Parliament and that we do not create unnecessary tension between the devolved Administrations, the United Kingdom Parliament and the United Kingdom Government. Again, I think this is an example of not thinking through sufficiently carefully the consequences of the Bill. More damage has been done by the law of unintended consequences than by any other statute. We are in danger of having another law of unintended consequences. I beg to move.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, Amendments 6 and 7 in this group, which are in my name, are also intended to try to avert this unhappy clash between elections to the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the general election. Mr Mark Harper, the Parliamentary Secretary, giving evidence to the Constitution Select Committee, noted that this clash could have happened anyway under existing legislation. However, the Bill makes it inevitable that the clash will occur in 2015 and every 20 years thereafter, all things being equal. It adds injury to insult. The insult has already been in the Government’s insistence that the AV referendum should be held this year on the same day as the elections to the devolved institutions. They ignored the complaints about that from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and they ignored the pleas from both Houses of Parliament not to bring about that situation. It is contemptuous of the devolved institutions and those nations.

The Government of the United Kingdom should show better respect towards them. They appear to treat elections to the devolved Parliament and Assemblies as being of no real importance. Yet, the Liberal Democrats, before the general election, proposed that there should be regionally elected assemblies in England, and a number of Conservatives have argued seriously that there should be an English Parliament. Do they believe in devolution? Do they believe that there should be a mutually respectful relationship between the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the devolved Parliament and Assemblies or not? I fear that having the elections on the same day in 2015 and periods thereafter will wreck the devolved elections. Candidates in those elections ought to be judged on their own record and promise in the important fields of government that are devolved and the important political service that they give. They should not be caught up in the backwash of the general election.

Professor Padgett, giving evidence to the Constitution Select Committee, observed that in Germany, where elections take place on the same day, federal issues and campaigns have, as he put it,

“totally engulfed the regional campaigns”.

Dr Milner, also giving evidence at the same session, noted that in Sweden, where national, regional and local elections coincide on the same day, there is high turnout—that is a merit—but that people gave very little attention to the issues in the regional and local elections. On the other hand, in Norway, where regional and local elections take place at mid term of the four-year cycle of national elections, the focus is truly on the regional and local elections when they happen. He also made the worthwhile point that more frequent elections are good for democratic engagement and democratic education.

There will, inevitably, be great confusion if all these elections are held on the same day, fought on different boundaries, possibly on different voting systems and with different campaigns for the different elections. On the administrative side, returning officers have complained that it will be very difficult for them to acquit themselves of their responsibility. Mr Harper said to the Select Committee that the question of coincidence of the dates of the elections for the devolved Assemblies and the general election was a bigger question than the clash with the AV referendum. As of early last November, when he gave that evidence, he said that he was considering what the appropriate solutions might be. He said that,

“we then intend to have a proper consultation process”.

Of course the consultation process should have taken place before the Bill was published. He said that he hoped that an agreed way forward would be implemented in the Bill.

I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord would give us a report on what has transpired in these consultations and what the Government intend. Is it, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, suggested, correct that the Government have been tempting Members of the Scottish Parliament to have their term in office extended to five years, or do the Government envisage that the dates of the elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Assemblies might be shifted to a lesser degree? How can it be that a Government who believe in fixed-term Parliaments are mucking about with the fixed terms that have already been legislated for the Scottish Parliament and the other Assemblies? Will we see government amendments on this? If so, will that be at Committee stage or on Report?

The amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is preferable in the sense that it would shift the proposed date of the Westminster elections and does not incommode the devolved elections. My own amendments equally involve some shifting of the dates of the Westminster election and my Amendment 6 would bring it forward to October 2014. If we are to have fixed-term Parliaments there is no reason why we should not have elections in October rather than in May. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

House of Lords: Membership

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 14th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—