House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for introducing this Bill which, as always in this House, has provoked an interesting and engaging debate with speeches from many of your Lordships. He has a long association with the arguments surrounding further reform of your Lordships’ House, and the whole House recognises his particular expertise.

Before the noble Lord sums up the debate, I will endeavour to respond from the Government’s perspective to as many as possible of the points and questions raised. Before I start, I shall answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Norton. He suggested that the Government should put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory footing. Importantly, we feel that the Appointments Commission is rightly independent of government and vets all appointments made to this House.

I say from the outset that the Government recognise greatly the value of this House. Your Lordships play a vital role in the workings of the House and the scrutiny of legislation. We are committed to ensuring that the House continues to work well, and I therefore welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. As mentioned by several noble Lords today, in the previous Parliament the Government introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012, which sought wide-scale reform. Like the Bill introduced today by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, the Bill made provision to remove hereditary Peers and introduce an elected element into the upper House. As we all remember, that Bill was withdrawn when it became clear that its timetabling Motions could not be agreed to in the other place, not, I emphasise, from a lack of commitment from the Government, but from a lack of overall agreement as to what shape reform should take. It is with that experience in mind that we have focused our efforts on looking for incremental steps for change, and have made clear that comprehensive reform of this House is not a priority in this Parliament.

Turning back to the Bill, the role of hereditary Peers goes to the heart of questions about our composition. Any change to their status would fundamentally change the nature of your Lordships’ House, and so as a Government we would consider any change to be bound up in those broader discussions about comprehensive reform. As my noble friend Lord Bowness mentioned, at this juncture, with the Government’s focus on delivering prosperity across the UK, I submit that there are therefore other, more pressing constitutional reforms currently under way on which we should focus our attention. These include delivering on the promise to devolve more powers to Wales and, importantly, implementing the result of the EU referendum on 23 June.

However, that does not mean we should not continue to work to make sure your Lordships’ House continues to work well, or to look for ways in which we might do our work more effectively. As our manifesto makes clear, we agree that we cannot grow indefinitely. So where there are ideas for incremental change that can improve how we work, and which can command consensus, we would welcome working with noble Lords to take them forward.

As a House, we have a good story to tell in this regard. With government support, as has been mentioned, Bills were taken through by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to enable Peers to retire for the first time and to enable the House to expel Members where their conduct falls well below the standards that the public have a right to expect. While I am glad to say we have not had to use the latter power, we have seen a remarkable cultural change on retirement, with 52 Peers having permanently retired from this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned, this has enabled life Peers not to go on into their dotage.

The House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill before the House today makes provision to remove the by-election system that currently allows hereditary Peers to be elected to this place. While those existing hereditary Peers would remain Members of this House, the Bill makes provision to prevent any future hereditary Peers taking a seat, though it makes no provision to exclude from its scope holders of two of the great offices of state, who currently sit as Members of this House: the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain.

The nub of the debate today is that by removing hereditaries from this House over time, many of whom play an important role in our work, we would become de facto an appointed Chamber. That would be a very significant step and would clearly need to form part of a broader consideration of the role of the House, as was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne, Lord Elton, Lord Norton and Lord Mancroft. As I have noted, I do not feel that now is the time to embark on that particular journey, given the many challenges that we presently face.

In summing up my remarks, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for pursuing this important constitutional matter, and to those here today for their insightful contributions to this debate. While we see a strong case for introducing an elected element into our second Chamber, it is not a priority for this Parliament. As he may have gathered from my remarks, I must express reservations about the Bill. As I have mentioned, and perhaps this answers the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, the Government do not believe that now is the time for comprehensive reform, given the priorities elsewhere—not least, implementing the result of the EU referendum.

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, I have been listening to the whole of this debate with interest. My noble friend talks about incremental changes but then says, “Oh gosh, we’ve got a lot of other important things to deal with, such as Brexit”. I cannot understand why this modest Bill, which would take very little of Parliament’s time, should in any way compromise the other major changes. I do not understand why the Government should resist this tiny but important and sensible Bill.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was probably wrong to suggest that such a small number of constituencies—perhaps a couple of dozen—would find it impossible to cope if there were only one to four signing places. The constituency that I had the honour to represent for a number of years—Stratford-upon-Avon—was some 450 square miles in size and had 116 parishes. It is simply unimaginable that people would have been able to use the public transport available to get to one, two, three or four signing places. It is a very scattered constituency, so that is unrealistic.

I strongly echo the point just made by my noble friend Lady Quin. If the Government’s proposals in this regard are to have any credibility, they owe it to us to say what premises would be used. Clearly, public libraries, which are disappearing as we speak, will not provide the solution, nor can it be acceptable for schools to be disrupted for a period of eight weeks. That is one good factor to bear in mind when we come to the next amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes.

Finally, it would be helpful to the Committee if the Minister would give us a fairly detailed breakdown of costs. The impact assessment tells us that the best estimate the Government have made for the total cost of conducting a recall petition process in a constituency would be of the order of £55,000. I do not think that figure is remotely credible. It would therefore be very helpful if the Minister could give us his analysis of the costs of operating this aspect of the process.

I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter, although I think there is also much wisdom in simply leaving it to the discretion of the petition officers to determine what is appropriate.

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, I have not spoken previously on the Bill although I followed the proceedings closely. Like my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I have read the debates, and listened to them this afternoon, with a sense of incredulity that such an extraordinarily ill prepared and ill considered Bill should have come from the elected Chamber. I find that bizarre.

I agreed with almost every single word that was said by the noble Baroness who moved this amendment, not least because until comparatively recently my home was in Powys. It was literally at the very edge of Powys, yards from its border. I can vouch for everything that she said about the distances involved and the impossibility of complying with this measure. Similar difficulties would have applied in my former constituency of Pembroke, which in those days covered the entire county of Pembroke. It would have been perfectly impossible to implement this measure there. Indeed, I am impressed by what my noble friend Lord Forsyth said about getting round all the polling stations to thank the people involved. I divided my constituency in two and my wife undertook to go round half of it and I did the other half, as it was an impossible task for me to cover the whole constituency adequately.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend did have a rather larger majority than I had and, of course, I had an easy task compared to, say, the Member of Argyll, who would have had to get to several different islands in order to do the same task.

[Lord Crickhowell]

There was one election at which my majority was only 700 and something. It was therefore all the more necessary to cover every polling station and get to know the constituency. It was only by doing so that I increased my majority to a much more secure one.

Putting history to one side, the simple fact I wish to emphasise is that everything that the two noble Baronesses have said, particularly on the other side of the House, seems to be absolutely unchallengeable. If the Bill is not amended in the kind of way that they have suggested, the whole thing will be a total disaster.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, I referred briefly to this issue at Second Reading. I confirm my support for the amendment in the name of my noble friends and I agree with my noble friend Lady Quin, who is drawing on her considerable experience as a Member of the other place. I said at Second Reading that four signing places in my former constituency of Bristol East, an inner-city constituency, would have given many people a challenge, because of its geography. It is banana shaped, to the east of the city, and many people would have needed at least two bus rides to get to a signing place. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why the Bill, which is going to cost a huge amount of money, cannot provide for discretion to be given to returning officers—who, after all, know far more about their constituencies than any of us on these Benches—as to how many signing places there should be in order for the Bill, dismal as it is, to have any effect at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Finkelstein]

If it is genuinely the case that nobody has questioned the need for the Bill then I have not been paying proper attention. I think that it has been questioned several times. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is not among those who question it, but I am afraid that many of his colleagues—not the Front Bench of the Labour Party—do question it.

This provision gives a limited power to voters in certain, very limited circumstances. I hope that those circumstances will not arise very often. If they were to do so, it would certainly be worth all the money that the Bill is supposed to cost to deal with the problem. If we in fact had large numbers of Members of Parliament who were being suspended for long periods, going to jail or fiddling their expenses, the cost of recall would be worth while. If it is small numbers, the cost will not be very large. This amendment is designed—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, knows this—to make it impractical for people to collect the signatures, and to make it more difficult. There is a reason why, I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Snape: the noble Lords who are not in favour of the Bill are all former Members of Parliament. Obviously they will feel that a power to remove Members of Parliament ought to be resisted. I am simply arguing that that power is being given in extremely limited circumstances.

[Lord Crickhowell]

My noble friend has just commented on ad hominem remarks and so on, but I regard that as rather an offensive remark from him. Just because one is a former Member of Parliament and is critical of the Bill, it does not suggest that we are criticising it simply because we think it is wrong that Members of Parliament should ever be removed. I do not believe that for a moment.

[Lord Finkelstein]

The last thing that I would want to do is to offend my noble friend. However, the point was made directly, and by more than one noble Lord, that Members of Parliament understood why this Bill was impractical whereas others did not. Therefore, I am simply arguing that there is a reason why Members of Parliament should feel that way.

Coalition Government: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, my first task is to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, for her admirable introduction and for the manner in which she has chaired the Constitution Committee during all the time that I have served on it. She has done so with great effectiveness, judicious fairness and sensitivity to the views of all members of the committee, whatever their political backgrounds. We are also fortunate to have been served by special advisers and policy analysts of outstanding quality and expertise and excellent clerks. I add my thanks to all of them.

I want to concentrate on collective ministerial responsibility and cabinet government, subjects on which we laid particular emphasis in our report. We did so partly because of the strength of the views expressed by our witnesses, academic and political. The Ministerial Code, Cabinet Manual and the coalition agreement all state that the principle of collective responsibility applies,

“save where it is explicitly set aside”.

The coalition Government’s programme for government specified five issues where the parties in the coalition might adopt different positions. They are set out in paragraph 68 of our report. The convention of collective responsibility is constitutionally important for two main reasons. First, the process of collective decision-making within government makes it more likely that better decisions are reached. The second is that it enables Parliament to hold the Government as a whole responsible for their policies, decisions and actions. Collective responsibility also imbues a Government and, indeed, Parliament, with authority. When the discipline it imposes is departed from, the authority is undermined.

We fully recognise, of course, that the parties in a coalition will not agree on everything and that from time to time they will differ. Any noble Lord who has attended this Parliament would find it very difficult to be blind to that fact. However, we say that,

“it is incumbent on ministers to seek to reach a collective view on issues wherever possible … Given its constitutional importance, the setting aside of the convention … should be rare, and only ever a last resort”.

We had hoped to discuss the issues with the Deputy Prime Minister before we concluded our deliberations but because of a family funeral that meeting could not take place. However, on 9 April, after the report had been published, the committee pursued the issue in the annual evidence session that we have with him. The Deputy Prime Minister said that one consequence of coalition government had been a,

“rejuvenation of collective decision-making and collective discussion within government, because you have to be open with each other if you are seeking to make decisions that bind two parties in a government”.

He spoke of,

“the rejuvenation of the Cabinet committee system”.

The committee did not seek to contest that view, although we had learnt in the evidence sessions that a great many potentially contentious matters are resolved in the so-called “quad”, a kind of inner Cabinet which seems to take a great many more decisions than the Cabinet itself. What we were concerned about was collective ministerial responsibility and the breaches of the convention as it had previously been understood.

In response to a question from my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton, the Deputy Prime Minister told us that it was important that when decisions are arrived at collectively they are defended collectively. My noble friend commented that that,

“seemed to imply that there is no collective responsibility unless specifically agreed. The agreement of 2010 says that there is collective responsibility unless it is specifically disagreed. You seem to think that those statements are compatible. It seems to me that they are not”.

Replying, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it was,

“an almost academic suggestion that collective responsibility can apply to decisions that have not been taken collectively”.

When I took up the argument, the Deputy Prime Minister agreed that some issues had been anticipated but said:

“There is a second category of issues: issues that you cannot anticipate on which the government cannot come to a collective agreement”.

He cited the Leveson inquiry and the decision that he should speak and offer a different point of view alongside the Prime Minister. He told us that that decision was “formally agreed”. He reiterated:

“Collective responsibility is how decisions are discussed, decided upon and then defended when collectively agreed within government. Collective responsibility is not a doctrine that says that coalition parties cannot disagree with each other in public”.

We were then told that where the convention of collective responsibility had been set aside explicitly, the decision had been taken,

“formally … within Whitehall by the Cabinet Secretary, in consultation with me and the Prime Minister”.

I do not believe that I was alone in being surprised—perhaps I should say astonished—by that revelation. The decision to set aside the convention was apparently being taken not by the Cabinet but by the Cabinet Secretary after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. That, we were told, is what happened in the case of the Leveson inquiry. The Deputy Prime Minister said that these decisions,

“are vetted and overseen by the Cabinet Secretary”.

Surely, it is a remarkable new constitutional practice that decisions of this kind about an important constitutional convention appear to depend upon a decision of the Cabinet Secretary. The guidance given in the Scottish Ministerial Code shows that it is possible to handle these matters differently. It states that,

“all decisions reached by the Scottish Ministers, individually or collectively, are binding on all members of the Government. It follows from this that every effort must normally be made to ensure that every Minister with an interest in an issue has a chance to have his or her say—in an appropriate forum or manner—before a decision is taken”.

Exactly the same principle should apply in the rest of the UK.

What happens in practice? Does the Cabinet Secretary say to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, “Have you circulated papers to every Minister with an interest or had a meeting of the Cabinet to see if agreement can be reached?”. No, he certainly does not say that because he will know that nothing of the kind will happen. Or does he say, “Well, I have listened to this discussion and it is all too obvious that you can’t agree, and so I certify that there is no collective agreement”? I do not consider that this is a proper role for the Cabinet Secretary or an appropriate way of explicitly setting aside the principle of collective responsibility.

In any event, as we have heard, some of the most extraordinary breaches of collective responsibility have taken place without the supervision of the Cabinet Secretary or as a result of any formal proceedings. We have been told about the decision of the Liberal Democrat Party to vote in 2013 on an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill delaying the review of parliamentary constituency boundaries in breach of a policy contained in the coalition agreement. It was taken personally by the Deputy Prime Minister who was angered by the withdrawal of the House of Lords Reform Bill.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde, whose strong views have already been quoted, pointed out that the coalition agreement had been that the boundary review would take place in return for there being a referendum on the alternative vote. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who has also been quoted, said that the action,

“was wholly undermining of the process by which you should conduct yourself within government”.

He thought that departures from collective responsibility weakened the,

“authority of the Prime Minister and the Government”.

We also heard the strong criticisms made by Dr Stephen Barber about,

“the acquiescence by the Prime Minister to allow ministers to vote ‘against’ provisions in the Queen’s Speech”.

In paragraph 76, we give the reasons why so many of our witnesses believe that the abandonment of collective responsibility, other than in the most exceptional cases, is hugely damaging to good government. The unseemly row going on at present in and around the Department for Education is another example of behaviour damaging to good government. Is it really not possible to reach agreement on policy about the law concerning the carrying of knives without having a great public argument about it outside Cabinet committees? The committee strongly believes that,

“it is incumbent on ministers to seek to reach a collective view on issues wherever possible. Having reached a collective view, it is essential that they can be held to account for it … A proper process should be in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility. Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.

The process involving the Cabinet Secretary described to us by the Deputy Prime Minister after we had produced our report is not, in my view, a proper process. Whether the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments represent a collective decision taken by the Government, and for which they can be held accountable, is not known because, very regrettably, as we have heard and not for the first time, the House has been debating a report of a House of Lords committee to which the Government have failed to produce a response in the two months referred to in the Companion. I know that my noble friend who will respond to this debate will do his best to deal with the points that have been raised, but we should have been in the position where we could debate the Government’s response and not just our report. Perhaps, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, has observed, there is no collective ministerial view about the conclusions reached by the committee.

Constitutional Change: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Crickhowell]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to our excellent chairman and to our very able legal advisers. Almost every week the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, examines a Bill which is about to have its Second Reading in the House of Lords. All too often, it is not a happy experience. Our job is to draw to the attention of the House matters of constitutional importance. Again and again, we find the important and frequently repeated recommendations of the committee made in past reports, and similar recommendations made by committees of the House of Commons about such matters as the use of Henry VIII clauses, have been ignored.

All too often, it is also apparent that, quite apart from the constitutional issues, the legislation has been badly drafted or brought forward in a form likely to ensure that its progress will be disruptive and time-consuming. I used to serve on the legislation committee of the Cabinet chaired by Lord Whitelaw. He would never have allowed much of this badly prepared legislation to go forward and I am surprised that the Government's business managers are not equally firm. It would save them much trouble. Unfortunately, the shortcomings have been particularly apparent in some of the most important constitutional Bills, of which the Public Bodies Bill was a particularly bad example.

Against that background, I found the Government's response to our report so disappointing, unlike my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry, who I felt for a moment was being over-influenced by his previous experience as government Chief Whip. Ministers in a new Administration, many without previous ministerial experience and anxious to proceed with measures that they considered important, may perhaps be forgiven for initial mistakes, even if mistakes caused the Government serious legislative difficulties, but I would have hoped that they would have learnt lessons and been anxious to avoid repeating their misjudgments.

In their response to the committee’s report, the Government start by attempting to undermine our main conclusions by a serious misrepresentation of its contents. The introduction section of the response states,

“The Government notes that the Committee does not offer a definition of ‘constitutional’”.

Yet describing current practice on the very next page we are told that:

“It is recognised practice for government bills of ‘first-class’ constitutional importance to be committed to a Committee of the Whole House in the House of Commons”.

Definition then clearly is possible in such a manner as to be the basis for recognised practice.

In our report, after addressing in paragraph 10 the difficulties of definition and quoting from the definition offered in the committee’s first report of 10 years ago, which has provided the solid foundation for our work ever since, we offered pretty clear guidance including a list provided by Sir John Baker which,

“provides, in our view, a useful guide to the principal measures which would fall under the rubric of significant constitutional change”.

We suggested that the desire to act quickly as a new Government is not an adequate justification for bypassing a proper constitutional process. The Government's response is that the proper constitutional process is the legislative process and that there was a genuine need for early action. But a great deal of evidence that we received as a committee—and we base our reports on evidence received—showed just why the normal legislative process is not adequate for important constitutional measures. The whole purpose of our proposals was to place some constraints on any Government introducing significant changes, particularly if they are doing so in a hurry.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, observed, there is at present very little to restrain a Government with a substantial majority in the House of Commons. In the case of the measures introduced so urgently by the present Government, they were not underwritten by manifesto commitments endorsed by the verdict of the electorate; they were the outcome of the deal cobbled together over the few days needed to create the coalition. In such a situation, a Government are fully entitled to come forward with measures, but the requirement for proper process to be followed is particularly important. As part of that process, the recommendation in paragraph 9 of our report about ministerial statements to accompany a Bill on its introduction into each House is of fundamental importance. I welcome the fact that the Government will consider whether to accept the principle of that recommendation, together with a similar recommendation made by the Leader of the House on working practice. However, I must say that the Explanatory Notes that accompany a Bill are not an adequate substitute and will not have the effect that we are seeking.

The Deputy Prime Minister in evidence to the committee quoted in paragraph 54 gave cogent reasons for the Government placing an emphasis on,

“greater accountability in the manner in which we conduct ourselves and the way in which politics is conducted, greater legitimacy in the political institutions that seek to represent people; and breaking up excessive concentrations of power and secrecy”.

It is curious in light of that statement that considering the way in which the Cabinet committee system works when dealing with important constitutional change, we are told that the process by which such agreements are reached,

“is a matter for the Government, not for Parliament”.

After a period during which the Cabinet committee system that I knew in government largely lapsed, and during which, to take one example, the Prime Minister set out to abolish the historic office of Lord Chancellor without Cabinet discussion; and when we now have the proper conduct of business set out in the Cabinet manual, it is not just a matter for the Government. Parliament has a very legitimate interest, particularly in the case of constitutional legislation.

The Government say that the fact that a Bill could be considered constitutional in nature does not of itself mean that it should be a priority for pre-legislative scrutiny. I say that it should indeed be a priority, but that if there are justifiable reasons for not undertaking such scrutiny, that needs to be explained and justified.

Under the heading “The role of the Constitution Committee”, in paragraph 108, for very good reasons, we recommended that when introducing a Bill for significant constitutional change into the House of Lords, there should be a minimum of three weekends between First and Second Reading. The Government reject our recommendation, completely ignoring the important role of the Constitution Committee and its ability to perform effectively the duties that it has been given by the House. If the committee’s advisers are expected to give Bills proper scrutiny and the committee is to carry out its work within an interval of two weeks, not three, surely the Government should be capable of responding between the Second Reading and the beginning of the Committee stage. The two months they demand and often take at present is far too long.

The final conclusion of the response seems to me negative, superficial and inadequate, like so much of the work done by the present Administration in the preparation of their legislative programme. Constitutional change is far too important in its consequences to everyone for Parliament to allow it to be hurried through on the whim of Ministers and without proper consideration and procedural rules. I would add as a supporter of this Government that it would be enormously to their advantage if Ministers were to try to learn from experience and past mistakes, and to consider with much greater care than they have done so far the recommendations of important parliamentary committees and the advice of their friends about the better handling of parliamentary business generally.