Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Dubs
My Lords, this is not a new issue. It has been going for several hundred years. But what surprises me—perhaps it should not—is how many members of the public are not aware that we cannot vote in general elections. They say, “I am surprised, I thought you could vote”. I know that the public are not generally excited by this issue and there are no demonstrations in Parliament Square supporting my Bill—or even opposing it. Nevertheless, it is a matter of some importance.
Many eminent people in history have argued that Members of this House should be able to vote in parliamentary elections. I will take just one: Benjamin Disraeli. In 1868, during the debate on the Electoral Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill, the Hansard record—which was not verbatim at the time—said:
“The Members of that House were now taxed by the Votes of the House of Commons, and therefore he could not understand why a Peer of the Realm should not have a right of voting for Members of Parliament and taking part just as another individual in the general business of a free country like this, with the view of protecting his property and guarding his own interests”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/07/1868; col. 1383.]
Perhaps there is not much more to be said. I am indebted to the House of Lords Library for its note on this issue, which saved me hours of research.
Let me say at the outset that this measure has nothing at all to do with Lords reform as we normally speak of it. It is an entirely separate matter and it is quite wrong to link the two. It is a single issue and does not represent the beginning of a slippery slope. I can assure your Lordships of that and I made sure that in the Long Title of the Bill that is the case.
Over my years in this House, I have often heard three arguments against change. One is, “We have always done it this way so why alter it? It has been good enough for the past 150 years so why change it?”. Secondly, there is the argument that this is the thin end of the wedge and dreadful things will inevitably follow if we take such a dangerous step. The third argument is that we should not make haste on an important issue. Of course, I reject all these arguments and I think that most of your Lordships will do so as well.
During the debates in October 2011 on the Steel Bill, one Member of this House—he is present today but I shall spare his blushes—urged caution in moving too quickly on a very important matter. I realise that 1868 is only yesterday but even so, we can be too cautious when it comes to change.
After talking informally to Members of this House, the argument against being able to vote at parliamentary elections appears to be that we are in such a privileged position in being able to amend and influence legislation that we have no need to vote at general elections. I find this a very strange argument. We are the only second Chamber in the world whose Members are not entitled to vote in elections for the first Chamber. About 190 countries have a second Chamber, according to the records. Even in Washington there is no problem: members of the Senate have the right to vote and it has caused no problems whatever.
In any case, logic ought to play some part in this. We try to argue logically. We can vote in local elections, in European elections and indeed in referenda. Surely it is only sensible and logical that we should be allowed to vote in parliamentary elections.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Is my noble friend aware that we are also able to vote in elections to the Scottish Parliament if we reside in Scotland?
Lord Dubs
I have said we can vote in referenda. Indeed, of course, Members of the House of Commons are entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Furthermore, the prohibition on voting in parliamentary elections does not even apply to all Members of this House—I think we all know who I am talking about. The Lords spiritual have the right to vote, though they sometimes do not avail themselves of it. It would not be compulsory to vote; all I am saying is that we should be on the same basis as the Lords spiritual. The present position lacks logic and is unsustainable.
I have heard a further argument against the change, which has been used in previous debates, that legislation concerning the House of Lords should not be introduced in small packages; in other words, do not change anything until you can change everything. Until recently that was the position of the Deputy Prime Minister but I think he has moved away from that. It is absurd to say that we can only change everything—a sort of big bang theory. In practice, and we know this, it is usually better to argue for changes on an incremental basis rather than adopt an all or nothing approach. In any case, the only change I am suggesting is a vote. I repeat that this is not linked to any other suggestions about reform of the House of Lords.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Is my noble friend not missing the main argument, that it is easy to distinguish the Scottish Parliament, local elections and so on because we in the House of Lords have no say in those, whereas we do have a say in this House in national decisions?
Lord Dubs
Of course, that would also apply to the Commons but the point is surely this: it is not a matter of influencing legislation, which we do and are very privileged to be able to do, but of being able to have some small voice in deciding who will be the next Government of this country.
Baroness O'Cathain
Surely the point the noble Lord made earlier about this not being the beginning of the slippery slope is counteracted by his other statement that it should be incremental, bit by bit. So is it a slippery slope or is it incremental?
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.
Lord Davies of Oldham
How solicitous does my noble friend think returning officers and clerks in polling stations are about enforcing this position? Every time I have gone to vote in a local election that has coincided with a parliamentary vote, the returning officer has seemed oblivious to the fact and I have had to tell them, “Please don’t give me a vote for the parliamentary election because it is illegal”.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
The other side of the story is that when I go to vote in local elections that are on the same day as a parliamentary election, I am frequently told that I cannot vote in either.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I did not realise that a debate about a simple matter was going to be quite so wide, but I welcome the contributions that have been made. No, it is not easy for returning officers. Sometimes, when we fill in our form to register to vote, it is not easy to indicate that one is a Member of this House and therefore one is limited. One can indicate that one is from a Commonwealth country, from Ireland or whatever it is, and one’s age, but one cannot indicate that one is a Member of this House. When I have been to vote either they have known somehow, or I have not tried to cheat the system, so I felt that the best way is to change the law rather than to put myself on the wrong side of it.
The issue is very simple, and I do not want to take up more time. Of course, it is an enormous privilege to serve in this House and to influence legislation—that is why I was very honoured when I became a Member of this House—but I still find it sad not to be able to influence, just in a small way, who will be our Government after the election. I believe that the change that I am arguing for is inevitable in the longer term, but I would like to see it happen now. I put this Bill forward not as an idle gesture or a bit of political rhetoric; I put it forward because I seriously believe that it has a chance of becoming law. Of course, there will be difficulties in the Commons about getting this Bill through, but I shall do some lobbying there if this House passes it. I believe that it has a chance of becoming law and I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will come back but, unfortunately, the Government resist this small, partial proposal for reform of the Lords.
Lord Dubs
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him one question. Given what he has said—and I will deal with that in more detail when I wind up—will he give one small undertaking? Assuming that the Bill gets through this House and goes to the Commons, will he undertake that the Government will not use their strength to block the Bill but will give it free passage and let the Commons decide on its merits?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I cannot give that commitment immediately. We would clearly have to consider that. Private Members’ Bills make their way, sometimes with the Government’s blessing and occasionally without, first through one House and then the other. Let us see how we go on this.
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.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Lord is not responding to my suggestion that if he perhaps linked the introduction of voting to a limitation of tenure and a retirement age, this might be more acceptable. He is not rising to that particular float.
Lord Dubs
Give me time. I have got it down here to comment on. If I had put forward a Bill saying the statutory retirement age from this House is 75 or 80, of course many Members of this House would have got incredibly excited about it, which would have diverted attention away from my purpose. It would have made it, as a Private Member’s Bill, totally unmanageable. The Minister knows that; I know that; we all know that. It just would not have got through. The point about a Private Member’s Bill is to keep it very simple if it is to have any chance of getting through. Once it gets complicated it has no chance. That is why I have brought it forward in this way.
Finally, the Minister disparaged the idea of logic. The position at the moment is inherently illogical. It is illogical by any standard, and I urge the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Civil Service: Permanent Secretaries
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Conservative Party.
Lobbyists: Register
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that is the narrowest definition and where the Government started. The replies to the consultation have taken us much wider than many of us originally intended to be taken. Certainly, the concern—and I am very struck by this in the documents that I am looking at—and perception that there is undue lobbying is very much about large sums of money being paid to professional companies, very often by foreign Governments.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, on the question of all-party groups, does the Minister agree that if professional lobbyists insinuate themselves into all-party groups, that is a breach of the standards that we ought to expect, both as regards this House and the wider public? Although we have had several goes at cleaning this up, there is a lot still to be done.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I agree that we have to be very careful about all-party groups. It is a matter for both Houses as much as anything else. However, one might not want to say that Universities UK for example, which happens to assist the All-Party Group for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, is a lobbying company and should not be allowed to support that group. There is a gradation here; one has to think about what is proper and what is not.
House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]
Lord Dubs Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, this is a matter of some importance and principle. For centuries it has been the case that Members of your Lordships’ House may not vote in parliamentary elections to the other place, and this provision in the Bill reverses that ancient principle. That is a mistake. We should retain the arrangement whereby we in this House do not vote for Members of the House of Commons, and I hope that your Lordships agree. I beg to move.
Lord Dubs
I am rather disappointed with this amendment, as we considered the provision in some detail in Committee and agreed to it. When the House makes a decision in Committee, I am not sure how appropriate it is simply to reverse it on Report. I am not even sure whether it is in accord with the way we normally do things to reverse a Committee decision just because you do not like it.
On the point of principle, I hate having to go over an argument which we used in Committee, but, as the noble Lord has used a counterargument, let me put it this way. It seems wrong in principle that we are virtually the only people in the country who are not allowed to vote in general elections to influence what is to be the future Government of our country. That is a clear statement, and to reverse it would be a retrograde step. I cannot think of any argument in principle—beyond the fact that we have always done it this way—that justifies our not being able to vote in parliamentary elections. We can vote in European elections, local elections and referenda. After quite a long discussion, the House decided quite properly that that was a good move forward. I very much hope that the House will not accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne.
Viscount Astor
The House debated the matter. It did not make any binding decision, therefore it is perfectly open to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne to move his amendment. All I have to say is that I took my seat in your Lordships' House shortly after my 21st birthday, so I have never voted in a general election, but it seems to me perfectly fair that in order to sit here, I should be disbarred from doing so. I am perfectly happy with the arrangements as they are.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Steel, will consider this point. Clearly it is an important principle whether Members of your Lordships' House should vote in general elections. In the context of wider reform, noble Lords need to consider very carefully what are the implications of your Lordships' House saying that Members of this House should have a vote for the other place. Members of the other place might take that as being an invitation, when the substantive Bill comes, to think about parity. That has wider implications.
Secondly, we surely agreed just now that if the Bill is to proceed in the other place, it has to be as simple as possible and to provoke as little debate there as possible. I worry that this issue might provoke a great deal of debate. The noble Lord might consider that between now and Third Reading.
Lord Dubs
I am rather disappointed by what my noble friend is saying. How many Members of the other place has he discussed this with? Every Member of the Commons I have talked to says that it is an anomaly that we do not have the right to vote; they do not object to that change at all.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, we speak of nothing else in Telford or in Kings Heath but this very important matter.
I caution the House that there are wider implications. It is all very well some MPs saying, “I don’t see why you don't have a vote”, but we need to see it in the context of wider reform. Secondly, if the House wants to get the Bill through the other place it needs to think whether this is likely to provoke wider debate in the other place. That is my fear. I entirely understand why my noble friend wants to pursue this, and of course he is open to do so, but we need to think about how we can get the Bill through in this Session.
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Lord Dubs Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Dubs
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, on initiating this debate. I know that it is normal to congratulate those who have initiated a debate, but in this case he really has broken important new ground. I very much agree with the thrust of what he said, although I find it hard to distinguish between the work of the OSCE as a whole and the work of the Parliamentary Assembly. I prefer to see them as part and parcel of a wider issue.
I have been on the Parliamentary Assembly since the previous election and I have attended two meetings in Vienna and Belgrade. In the next month or two, there will be another meeting in Vienna. In my discussions with colleagues, there is little awareness of the work of the OSCE. It might almost not exist. The first time I told people that I was off to the OSCE in Vienna or wherever it was, most people asked, “What is that?”. Even Members of this House and the Commons asked that and I had to explain. There is something the matter with an organisation, which involves a lot of good work, effort and money on the part of its member Governments, if its work is so little known and regarded.
At the first meeting in Vienna about a year ago, I was quite astonished. The OSCE local office in Belarus had just been closed by the regime and we were looking forward to hearing the OSCE official who had been in charge of Belarus. He was due to give us a report on the situation prior to his expulsion, but he did not turn up and we were unable to discover why. In terms of his own ability, there was certainly no reason for him not to come to the meeting, but something in the OSCE bureaucracy stopped him.
I very much appreciate a lot of the good work that has been done by the OSCE, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, referred in some detail and which I shall not repeat. The local offices do good work. Clearly, election monitoring is very important and involves a lot of the organisation’s time and energy. The OSCE produces regular bulletins and reports on the situation in many countries about which there are concerns that are invaluable for keeping members of the Parliamentary Assembly informed of what is going on.
I was also appointed to a group of four parliamentarians who looked at the situation in Moldova. We had one visit to Moldova and to the Transdniestrian part of Moldova, which was a useful approach. We are going to continue with that and do some follow-up work. Having said that, I am still aware that one has to explain very hard to people what we are doing and why we are doing it.
In terms of the effectiveness of the organisation, the OSCE operates from three centres—Vienna, Copenhagen and Warsaw—which seems a little excessive for an organisation of that size. I am not totally clear why it has to be done in that way. I have two main criticisms. First, there is a lack of connection between what the OSCE does and the Parliamentary Assembly. Very little of the work of the OSCE and its many facets come before the Parliamentary Assembly, which is the one body that can properly scrutinise what is going on. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we have got into this position. It seems to me that the Parliamentary Assembly really has one main function: to scrutinise, monitor and oversee the work of the OSCE, the local offices, election monitoring and so on. It is very hard to get feedback on that at the Assembly meetings. This disconnect does not seem proper. I very much hope that the Irish presidency will be able to do something about that.
Surely we need proper accountability by the OSCE to the Parliamentary Assembly. I cannot understand how it can work unless there is such accountability. After all, we and the Commons are here in order for the Government to be accountable to Parliament. I cannot see why we have a Parliamentary Assembly that does not have a similar form of accountability. After all, it happens in the European Parliament. Even the Council of Europe seems to have more accountability than there appears to be in the OSCE.
My key point is that every organisation needs to have within itself the ability to assess on an ongoing basis its efficiency and effectiveness. We do not do it as well as we might at Westminster but we certainly do it. I should like to feel that the OSCE had some form of mechanism that did the same thing, otherwise we have no sense that the money is being spent in the best possible way or that the work is being done as efficiently as possible. We should look at the outcomes to see whether our priorities are right. It is a general proposition that organisations should assess their efficiency and effectiveness, but it certainly applies to the OSCE.
I should say that I have enjoyed my attendance at the Parliamentary Assembly and learning about the OSCE. Despite my criticisms, it does a lot of good work. I should like to know more about it. It is an odd comment to make that I have learnt more about the OSCE from the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, than I did in many days of attending Parliamentary Assembly meetings, looking at my e-mails and so on. There is something the matter. Noble Lords might say that that is my fault, but I do not believe that it is. I believe that something is amiss when we have to have a debate such as this to learn about an organisation on whose Parliamentary Assembly I serve.
As I said, I believe that the OSCE does good work. It has the supreme advantage that it includes the United States and Canada, which the Council of Europe does not. We get a broad spectrum of countries that can bring their experience and strength to bear on the many difficult issues in some countries, such as breaches of human rights, problems with elections and so on. I congratulate the OSCE on its good work but I would like to see better scrutiny and more accountability.
Armed Forces: Housing
Lord Dubs Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the majority of service family accommodation is already of a very good standard. In the United Kingdom, some 96 per cent of homes—that is 46,000 out of 49,000 homes—are at the top two standards out of four standards for condition, with more due to be upgraded to the top standards in this financial year. The MoD continues to target funding on the most pressing accommodation issues.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I understand what the Minister says, but does he not agree that to bring all housing for families of servicemen up to the right standard is going to take about 20 years and that this is not good enough when families will come back from Germany and when our troops in Afghanistan are entitled to believe that all their families are adequately housed?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I do not agree with that. Under the previous Government’s programme, the target for 2020 was for all service families’ accommodation to be at standard 1 level. I think they were confident that they would hit that target. As the noble Lord knows, we have now had to put into the advance budget of the MoD a pause in major upgrades for three years from 2013, which may make the 2020 target hard to hit. Minor upgrades, however, will continue. The vast majority of service accommodation will continue to be of a very high level.