Strathclyde Review
Lord Elton Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, a few moments ago, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, suggested that anything we did now would be thought by everybody outside this Chamber to have been going since 1215. One of the things I find quite incredible about this country, and particularly the political class in it, is the ignorance about what did happen in 1215, which was the creation of a desperately needed organisation to control the Executive—not one to facilitate them. The Executive were not permitted to enter it until the reign of George I, who did not speak enough English to deliver the King’s Speech and had to have a Prime Minister in here to do it for him. Now we have more than 100 of his kin, as it were, in the two Houses.
That makes it increasingly important that we guard the power not just of this House but of Parliament to control the Executive. On occasion, the Government—the Executive—get control of the other place to the extent that it loses its ability to control the Government. I refer to the occasion when the Labour Party wanted to introduce 90-day detention without habeas corpus or any access to lawyers. That was only stopped because this House sat from 2.30 pm on a Thursday until 7.31 pm on a Friday evening. Your Lordships may think this is a long session, but it is nothing to what we did then. That actually stopped it. That was such a close demonstration of how difficult it is when we are really needed to restrain the excesses of an Executive that I, for one, am certainly not tempted by options 1 or 2. Option 3 is defective in two respects, to which I will return.
The other thing that amazes me about people in Parliament since 1973, when I joined it, is that I see endless processions of Oppositions clamouring for more restraint of government and coming on to the Front Bench, both here and in the other House, promising to do something about it. Within months—my noble friend Lord Higgins made this point rather well—they are saying it is not convenient or timely and actually find they like things as they are and that it makes business easier. The departments tell them that they should not build obstructions to the policies the department wants to put in, and the result is that nothing much happens in the right direction after the first six months or so in power. Incidentally, it was in her first six months that Lord St John of Fawsley got Margaret Thatcher to accept departmental Select Committees in the House of Commons, which has been tremendously important but is something she would never have done in the following years.
I come from the wrong camp: I am a Conservative, but a parliamentarian, and my view is that we should hang on to all the powers we have. The fat underbelly of legislation, as it was described a moment ago, exists in the huge amounts of legislation that go through in statutory instruments. How do we ever stop the excessive powers put into statutory instruments? If the Henry VIII clause has gone through, if the Minister has the power and if the department wants the legislation, how do we stop excessive powers and excessive expenditure—things that should not happen without proper and full parliamentary scrutiny—if we cannot say no? We can send them back for the House of Commons to think again, but if the Commons just nods them through, the same faults will be repeated.
There is much in option 3 that is desirable. I think it is necessary to have a specific time limit within which the House of Commons should make up its mind. There should be machinery to see that legislation is actually debated. My noble friend said that you could not do that because debate might go on—or there might be no debate—before the statutory instrument fell due to be implemented. The answer to that is to have a timetable for the tabling of statutory instruments by departments such that there is time for them to be scrutinised and discussed by both Houses in an interchange before the implementation date. Departments are sometimes pretty slack in getting these things out. What is now needed is a review of the whole SI process from drafting through to the instrument’s scope and the powers it confers, followed by the tabling and the procedures in Parliament. If those matters can be matched into a discussion of the wider question of the arrangements between the two Houses, all well and good. However, we need to get on with something.
If the commissioning of this report was a reaction to what was thought to be an unpopular exhibition, with the House of Lords being out of date and unpopular with the country, my response is that I think that in the country as a whole it was thought that we did rather a good job. If we want to do something to show that we, the House of Lords, wish to make ourselves more effective, easier to run and less expensive, we should address the question of the numbers in this House. I have a Private Member’s Bill on the stocks and am working on a Standing Order which, between them, would achieve that reduction without changing the balance between the parties.
I hope that your Lordships hang on to your powers for as long as you can.
Flooding: Cumbria
Lord Elton Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I will join the noble Lord in that. I am sure that Radio Cumbria, just like all the other members of the community, really pulled together over the last few days to help in quite a devastated area. Like every other person who could play their part, I am sure Radio Cumbria has added to mitigating some of the agony of the people who live there. We are looking at a potential scheme to reduce the risk of flooding in Kendal but it is at an early stage of planning. Within the six-year programme, the proposed Kendal scheme is scheduled for 2020-21. We are considering with other funding partners how we can bring this scheme forward to improve protection for 440 properties, at a predicted cost of £3.95 million.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, these flood events are becoming increasingly frequent and all differ in some respect. Can my noble friend tell your Lordships what arrangements exist for the emergency services and local authorities involved in each event to exchange information, so that guidance on best practice and the preparatory arrangements for these events can be made on a national scale?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend makes a very important point. The rescue and recovery operations that are in place can be effective only if all the agencies pull together.
Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report
Lord Elton Excerpts(8 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Forgive me if I was not clear, but the point I was trying to make is that the moderate opposition forces are the forces that are also fighting ISIL. They are fighting two fronts. When I say that, the point I am trying to make is that these are people who are in opposition to Assad. They are not his people; they are the moderates. They are the people who he has been trying to attack; he does not want them there because they are a threat to him continuing. ISIL is also attacking the moderates. The moderates are under attack on all fronts, but they are the only forces on the ground that are actively attacking ISIL.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, the quarrel with ISIL is different from the quarrel with Assad. I agree with my noble friend when he says that the two must be kept separate in the minds of those planning what is to happen. Those of us of a certain age remember when large western and British forces were advancing east across Germany to meet large military forces from Russia advancing west. We remember the tensions that evolved then, the ruin of that state and the need to replace it with something that worked. I suggest that, as a contingency plan, some department of the Government should be looking at what actually happened and how that difficulty was resolved.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Clearly, there are always lessons to be learned from history. However, what I have outlined today is a clear and comprehensive strategy and approach that the Government want to pursue to ultimately defeat ISIL and bring stability to the region, for all the reasons that I have already outlined.
G20 and the Paris Attacks
Lord Elton Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As the noble Lord has just acknowledged, we are not part of the Schengen agreement. We remain very committed to retaining our borders and to policing them strongly. As we have announced in the past few days, we are taking even more steps towards, and investing further in, protecting those borders. We also play a big part in protecting the outside borders of Schengen agreement countries. However, I agree with the noble Lord that this raises very serious issues that have to be considered by countries that are part of Schengen.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, we neglect the home front at our very great peril. The Statement rightly says that the terrorists’ aim is clear: it is to divide us and destroy our way of life. We therefore need to strengthen everything that holds our society together, and that lead must be given by the Government. We have to demonstrate that they are a Government for the whole people, not part of the people. Where things appear to bear down unfairly not only on members of ethnic minorities but on our indigenous community, such as we saw demonstrated a fortnight ago, it is essential that the Government put themselves in a position that shows that we are all on the same side in this and no longer fragmented.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My noble friend is right that good governance is about governing for all the people and about being clear about the principles and values to which a country expects its citizens to subscribe. That is an important part of what makes us British. I say to my noble friend that one of the problems in countries such as Syria that needs to be addressed as part of the overall approach towards civility in the region relates to good governance and to those in charge governing for all the people.
House of Lords Reform
Lord Elton Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, I start by declaring an interest. I am an excepted hereditary Peer, and the position of those such as me and my noble friend Lord Caithness is an issue when it comes to the size and composition of the House. I also declare a disinterest, given that, whatever happens, this is almost certainly my last Parliament and I think I shall do well to last until the end of it. I speak, therefore, with a certain amount of dispassion.
My noble friend the Leader of the House suggested that we were here to complement the House of Commons, and there has been a discussion about the meaning of that word. My view is that we are here to balance it as much as to complement it. One of the changes during my parliamentary life has been the change in character of the composition of the House of Commons. When I came in, it was largely composed of people who had long experience in either a trade or a profession, one to which they could count on returning. Therefore, they were independent, to a much greater extent, of government or party control—because Governments alternate between parties—than a House that is now composed much more largely of people without a trade or profession to return to and without the experience gained from that. In this House, we have a diminishing but still significant proportion of people who have professional lives outside the House—rather fewer have a trade—and who bring a relevance of experience that is sometimes lacking in the other place. The more it becomes professionalised, the less it will balance the House of Commons in that respect. I also agree with my noble friend that the more Peers are paid, the more that will happen.
That tempts me to go on to a review of the extent to which the Crown, which is now largely the Government, has retrieved from Parliament the powers that it lost when Parliament was invented. But that is another issue.
What we are facing now is a moment of both crisis and opportunity. Am I not speaking into the microphone or is there some other difficulty?
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My apologies. We were all slightly concerned because there was a buzz coming through the speakers. Everything is fine now.
Lord Elton
Thank goodness for that. There is a buzz in my hearing aid, so I know all about that. I understand that all is clear now and that I am owed another 30 seconds.
The need of the moment is to address public disquiet over Parliament as a whole. Latterly, because of the alleged conduct of a couple of Members, that disquiet has been focused on this House. We need to do something quickly. We cannot wait for a general fix of the constitution, such as my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth would advocate. We need something that does not stir up the five, six or seven hornets’ nests that were stirred up in the House of Commons when an attempt was made to fundamentally change the nature of this House in 1999.
The size of the House is one matter on which a sort of consensus is emerging. That is what the Leader of the House has, with great courtesy, picked as the focal point of this debate. A cull is obviously due, but how is it to be done and who is to do it? I agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt that it should be done by us, because we are the people who know what individuals and groupings in this House actually contribute. How it should be done was illustrated for us in 1999, by which method, as my noble friend again would advocate, the decisions on who should serve are taken within the party group. We need a method of getting that principle in place without disturbing the wasps’ nests. I suggest to your Lordships that the way is to arrive at the total we think should be the maximum for this House. It could be related to the size of the House of Commons before we know what that size is—you could either pick a number such as 500 or 600, or you could say that the number should not be greater than the number in the House of Commons at a particular date, which could change with each Parliament. The Prime Minister can then recommend as many people as he likes into the House, but periodically—every Parliament—there would be an election within the groups maintaining the proportion of their Members relative to the whole membership of the House at the end of the previous Parliament.
The electors in the groups would have to respect those proportions and, I suggest, the proportions within them of excepted hereditary Peers. To qualify, the electors would have to have served a full Parliament. You could put in a caveat of how much time they should have spent there. I remind your Lordships that it is an element of this House’s strength that we do not have to be here all the time, therefore I would not put it at a very high attendance rate. As to speaking, of course we should speak on occasion. We are called here for our judgment. Our judgment has to be expressed verbally on occasion, but it is also expressed in the voting Lobby. That is an important function, and the silent voter, provided they are not the mute voter, is not a bad thing.
I think I am into my extra 30 seconds. I am just warming to my theme, so I should give way to the next speaker.
Food Supply: Sustainability
Lord Elton Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservative Benches.
Lord Elton
My Lords, will my noble friend tell us what has actually gone wrong with the Rural Payments Agency system and what is being done to put it right?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I know that my ministerial colleagues are working with the RPA on this. We are seeking to ensure that all payments are made promptly and we are working to that effect.
European Council and Nuclear Security Summit
Lord Elton Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
On the second point, I am sure I can give that undertaking in the sense that clearly the Government want to make sure that whoever ends up being on their list of those proscribed under the travel bans or has their visa turned down, that is an appropriate list and we will consider all the people who might potentially be on it. I do not think that the last word on this subject has yet been spoken, so I take that point.
On my noble friend’s first point about the detail and progress the Bill has made in the Hague on nuclear matters, I will need to talk to brainier people than me to find out whether the specific point she raised was indeed covered and whether any progress was made there. As I understand it, the main focus of the discussions was on seeking to take further steps in tackling potential terrorism threats. I will follow up that point and perhaps we can have a word once I have written to the noble Baroness.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, the summit has rightly concentrated on containment at this stage, but clearly prevention would have been very much better. Should we not learn very quickly the lessons that have brought this to pass before Russia exploits the protection of new-citizen ethnic minorities in other neighbouring states? Can my noble friend therefore tell me and the House when Her Majesty’s Government were first aware of the threat that this takeover was going to take place? Secondly, what steps did Europe and this country take during the vigorous courtship of the Ukraine in trade and economic terms to discuss the terms of this with the Russians and reassure them as to the extent of our intentions? Finally, the whole of history shows that the only way to prevent the use of military force by an aggressor is to have an equivalent or nearly equivalent force oneself and to be seen to be ready to use it. The way to prevent a war—to not have to fight a war—is to be evidently ready to do so. Are these lessons being taken on board?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I can tell my noble friend that those lessons are being taken on board, which is why the range of measures that has been taken has been taken. The Government have sought a balanced and phased response to the situation as it has developed, ratcheting up the pressure over time as necessary. On the build-up to the current situation—what happened at which point—the truth is that it developed extremely quickly, and the EU and others have had to respond equally quickly as it has developed. However, I understand the burden of my noble friend’s points; that is why NATO and the security that it can offer are so important in this context.
Procedure of the House
Lord Elton Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
My Lords, I do not support the proposal for a Back-Bench committee for debates. There will inevitably be a tendency towards safer, more mainstream and more predictable debates and a decrease in the breadth of debate—of issues discussed in this House—something for which this House is known. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that having only a few people speak in the debate does not necessarily say anything about the quality of that debate, which may be very high. I certainly support staying with the balloting procedure.
Lord Elton
My Lords, I always regard things which are commended because they work well in the House of Commons with a certain degree of suspicion. I urge your Lordships to do the same for a very good reason. The pressures that Back-Benchers cope with in the other place are quite different from the pressures that we are coping with here. They do not have tenure, but we do. Their tenure is dependent in part on the power of the Whips to deselect, so the positions of the two Houses in the competition with the Crown for power, which is what this is all about, are quite different. A Back-Bench committee with command of some time in the House of Commons is a very large step forward. A Back-Bench committee here, for the reasons which have just been very adequately voiced by the noble Earl, is a step backwards, and I hope we do not take it.
Lord Grenfell
My Lords, I would like to be very brief. I have just three small points; or rather, they are not small, but I will try to put them briefly. Before I do so, I should say that I found the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, very strong and, certainly for me, very convincing.
First, I want to take up what the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, just said, which was reflected by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and a number of other noble Lords. It seems to suggest that a Back-Bench Committee would be devoid of all sympathy for the more esoteric topics that might need to be debated. I think it is rather insulting towards Back-Benchers to suggest that they might not be interested in topics which are rather unusual but personally important to the people proposing them.
The noble Lord the Leader of the House is wedded to the word “balloting”. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has once again said—as I have done before—that we should not be using the word ballot in relation to the present system. It is a lucky dip. If you want a ballot then you should be supporting a Back- Bench committee because such a democratically elected committee, working on democratic principles, would be deciding on what debates should take place by balloting within the committee. That is where you get the ballot. So let us not confuse balloting with lucky dips; that is the present system and I find it quite extraordinary.
Finally, I think the case the noble Lord the Leader of the House has made falls flat when we come to paragraph 14 in the report, when he says that all Back-Benchers must,
“have an equal chance of securing time to debate issues of concern to them, without having to secure the approval of their peers”.
Peer approval is one of the cornerstones of a self-regulating House and I strongly believe that there is a case for setting up a committee where democratically elected Back-Benchers can decide and make proposals as to what they think it is in the broad interests of the House as a whole to listen to when debate slots are available. I know we have a topical debate period but it is very important that a Back-Bench committee should be sensitive to both the more specialised issues that some would want to debate—and they would be taken into consideration—and also to the broader interests of the House. This is to make sure that highly important issues do not go by the board because a lucky dip has decided that they have no place in the debating Chamber.
House of Lords: Membership
Lord Elton Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Cormack
If that became the will of the House we would all have to accept it, wouldn’t we? My old and mischievous friend from another place makes his point with his customary tact. It is now 11 years since my noble friend Lord Norton and I formed a group called the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. My noble friend Lord Norton, who did that group great service as our convenor throughout those years, cannot be here today because of his teaching duties at his university. We miss him and the contribution he would have made. We formed that group, over which I have had the honour to preside, because we believe that this Chamber is effective but could be much more effective. We were always committed to an appointed House rather than an elected one, but we also recognise the fact that the House as it exists can and should be improved even though many people in this House—by no means the majority, but a number of very distinguished Members—would like to move towards election. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made that his position in the past. Nevertheless, surely we can all recognise that the House as it exists is not only capable of improvement but cries out for improvement, not only in its size but in the way in which we do business. We all owe a great deal to noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, who have been working hard in this regard over recent months and years. Whatever one’s ultimate view is, surely we should not stand in the way of what the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Hunt, have referred to as “housekeeping reforms”.
To the Deputy Prime Minister, who has shown an interesting flexibility of mind and memory in recent days, I say, “If you believe that the best is elected, then do not let the best be the enemy of the good”. We think that this House as it exists—and on Mr Clegg’s own admission it cannot be fundamentally changed for some years—should now be changed in the way proposed in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We all hold my noble friend the Leader of the House in the highest regard. I very much hope that he will take it upon himself as Leader of the House—leader of all of us—to convene a meeting to discuss ways and means of approaching the problems referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Hunt. He would be doing us all a very great service if he exercised his initiative in that regard and I very much hope that he will. Of course, our expertise and experience, notwithstanding the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, must be refreshed and revived, but if many more Peers are introduced into this House without addressing the current problems we will bring this House into disrepute.
Lord Elton
Like the rest of us, my noble friend sees the expected approach of large numbers as rather like a torpedo. He is now choosing one of two paths put before your Lordships and I would like to know his explanation of that. On the face of it, the admirable amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is actually hortatory—it advises and says that something may be done—whereas the principal Motion is prescriptive and states that it shall be done. The second is not in our gift; the first is. If you want to put out a net to catch the torpedo, surely it must be the first and not the second.
Lord Cormack
I understand and sympathise with the point made by my noble friend, but the fact is that there are issues like royal prerogative that have to be taken into account. We do not want to precipitate—this was implicit in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—a major constitutional crisis. What we want to do is address the housekeeping issues in this House. That is a simple and reasonable aim. This is declaratory, of course it is, but, if we have a vote at the end of this debate, I hope that the House will declare that it really is concerned about these matters. We are asking the Leader to do what he can to bring some common sense to bear.
Surely it is wrong that a particular person should be the stumbling block in the face of sensible reform. Mr Clegg has many admirable qualities, but he should not be allowed to be the arbiter of our constitution. That is wrong. He introduced a Bill, which failed. I am proud to wear this morning the tie made by the 91 stout Tory rebels who frustrated that Bill in July by saying, “You cannot get this through because we will not give you the time to do so”. Mr Clegg recognised that, and he should now recognise that if he believes in parliamentary democracy, and if he believes in this House as being a fundamental part of this democracy as it is the moment, it should be as effective as it possibly can be. If we continue to appoint new Peers without addressing the issues so eloquently talked about by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, we will run the risk of making this House fall in public repute and indeed become something of a laughing stock, which it should not be. That would fly in the face of history and of what has been achieved by so many, particularly over the years since 1958 when life Peers were introduced. If this comes to a vote, I urge Members to vote in significant numbers to show that there is indeed a consensus in this House on these modest proposals.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I understand that point. As is normally the case with the noble Baroness, it is sharp, perceptive and fair.
I am conscious that the House would like to move forward. I will say a brief word on the Motion that was moved by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood and about our powers of regulation in this area. The Leader’s Group got it right when it said that it could not recommend a moratorium on new appointments to the House. That must be correct. The Life Peerages Act 1958 gives the Queen the power to create peerages for life, with the right,
“to receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords and sit and vote therein accordingly”.
Therefore, I agree with the way that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and my noble friend Lord Cormack approached the issue. I cannot see that our right as an individual House to self-regulate includes the power to override that Act of Parliament.
I have set out why I believe that the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Steel calls for much action that has already been taken, and restraint that has been exercised. I have listened to the debate and recognise clearly that Members on all sides feel very strongly about the question of size. However, I hope that the figures that I shared with the House demonstrate that some beliefs about the issue of overall size are not quite borne out by the facts.
I believe very strongly that we must do more to accommodate rising attendance and the consequent increase in demand from Members, especially newer Members, for opportunities to take part in our work. I have strong sympathy with those who are uncomfortable about Members convicted of a serious prisonable offence returning to the House. Pending primary legislation to exclude Members on those grounds, I would certainly support steps to explore measures that we ourselves might take to discourage Members in that category from taking part in the work of our House.
Those are two areas in which we can help ourselves. On the remainder, noble Lords have set out their clear views forcefully. I have attempted to set out the Government’s position. I have no doubt that our discussions, both on the Floor and elsewhere, will continue. I will certainly play my part in those. In the mean time, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Elton
My noble friend asked for restraint. Perhaps I may suggest some restraint on the part of Her Majesty’s Government. I can think of no more appropriate opportunity to put this point. I have watched the House of Commons for a great many years. I have noticed how it changes during a Parliament. At the beginning of a Parliament, the wisdom and experience of those who have served is diluted by many who come in with their head full of theories but no understanding of what the effects would be. As we have been not promised but led to expect legislation in the next Parliament, perhaps I may ask my noble friend to exercise his greatest efforts to see that reform is not undertaken in the first two years, so that those who talk about it will know about it.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I am always in favour of people knowing about the things that they are talking about. I always listen with great care to what my noble friend Lord Elton says.
European Council
Lord Elton Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am not entirely certain where the noble Lord is coming from. I am very happy to write to him, but we are fully supportive of the EU growth agenda. We want the single market to work; we want to extend it to make it deeper with better enforcement and better implementation. We want to increase the scope for the digital single market and e-commerce, and we want a far more ambitious programme of deregulation, which we believe will help growth. We are fully in favour of the EU’s stance on free trade and trade with countries in the world, particularly with South Korea, Canada and Singapore. All this is in large part due to the influence and pressure that we in this country have exerted
We can get ourselves in a terrible pickle over what we mean by a real-terms freeze and which figures we are looking at, but we have been clear that we would like a cut and, at worst, a real freeze to actual payment levels—it is those levels that count; we want to protect the rebate; and we want no new taxes to finance the MFF. These are the key issues, but if I can clarify any of that in a letter to the noble Lord, I will certainly do so.
Lord Elton
My Lords, the Statement came across as though the Government regarded a real-terms freeze as the best possible option. Given that, across Europe, Governments are actually having to reduce expenditure, could one not expect something rather better than that: a real-terms reduction?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that would be very attractive and definitely worth going for. However, I expect that while we might go for, at best, a cut, we may need to settle for, at worst, a real freeze to actual payment levels.