Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I was interested to hear that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, thinks that we will be able to demolish the Conservative Party in future. We might demolish the Labour Party as well—who knows?—and then we will have achieved our goal in life. However, at the moment we are in coalition and we shall be loyal members of the coalition.

This has indeed been a very interesting debate. The one thing that has united everybody who has taken part is the importance of the Bill. It is a slim but important Bill. I am strongly in favour of the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, which forms the basis of the Bill. I believe that the power of a Prime Minister to seek a Dissolution is a democratic outrage and should have been abolished long ago. As noble Lords will know, I am also strongly in favour of this House doing its job properly and of the practicalities of this legislation being properly scrutinised and discussed in this House. I hope that that will happen and that we will not again witness the fairly deplorable events that occurred during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I am not at this stage pointing the finger at anybody. The House got itself into a huge tangle on that and, as they always say, it takes two to tangle. I do not believe that the Government were blameless although my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness played a blinder during that Bill.

The principle of this legislation has been Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat policy for decades. If anybody suggests that we have just invented it for party political advantage, that is complete nonsense. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who is not in his place, said that the Liberal Democrats have an obsession with constitutional reform. Constitutional reform has certainly formed a very important part of our party policy and our party election manifestos for as long as I can remember. If we are now in a position to try to do something about that, we shall do so. It has been pointed out that it is also a Labour manifesto commitment—I assume that it is still Labour Party policy—that the principle we are discussing is correct. At some stage we want a very clear statement of what the Labour Party now stands for as regards fixed-term Parliaments.

I listened with great interest to the fluent, eloquent and interesting speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and to those of other speakers. I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is not in his place, and to that of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, who said that he was not persuaded by the Bill. I think that is his normal way of saying that he is completely against it but we will find that out. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that he was against all change. He thought that our constitution was wonderful and marvellous and that it should not be messed about with at all. Having listened to the speeches of a number of Labour Members, I got the impression that they could not imagine that anything different from what happens now was remotely desirable. We have seen on the part of quite a lot of Members the deep well of conservatism which exists within the Labour Party on constitutional matters. It was not always thus. Robin Cook was a pioneer in constitutional reform and the Cook-Maclennan agreement formed the basis of a lot of what the Labour Government did in the years after 1997 in setting up the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, changing the role of the Lord Chancellor, introducing changes in this House and, indeed, in phase 1 reform of your Lordships' House.

So there was an agenda there—it was a radical agenda but in latter years the Labour Government ran out of steam. We need to know what Labour policy is now and specifically what its policy on a fixed-term Parliament is. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that the proposal had a high-minded aim. I agree with that but he then went on to say it is damaging and at the end of his speech he said it is an utter disaster and it is messing up the British constitution. Well, let us put on one side the way in which the legislation has been brought in. We have a job to do here—

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I did not say, I am afraid, it had “a high-minded aim”. I said there is very little to be said for this Bill and that it seeks to dress up as a piece of high-minded constitutional reform the chronic mistrust that the two parties, in my view correctly, have for each other. It is my fault for not expressing it clearly but I certainly was not intending to say it had a high-minded aim.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful for that correction but the noble and learned Lord allowed me to use the words. I believe it has a high-minded aim and it is something with which we agree. However, we still need to know, as a basis for our discussions in Committee and at following stages, what the Labour Party would like to do. What policies would the Labour Party be putting forward on this if it was still the Government? We have been told that we have to operate on the basis of what Mr Asquith said 100 years ago. Well, no one has greater admiration than me for the achievements of the great Liberal Governments in the eight years before the Great War. Really, things have changed a little bit in the past 100 years and if we are to argue on the basis of conditions 100 years ago we are not going to get very far, although the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did say that what he said was for reasons of nostalgia and it would not have allowed Mr Callaghan to make his wonderful speech in 1979. I think we have got to start looking into the situation in the second decade of the present millennium.

Does the right of the Prime Minister to call an election give the Prime Minister a great advantage? We are being asked to believe that it does not. Whether or not it does it certainly dominates politics in the months and sometimes years leading up to a general election. It dominates politics, in my view, in a very undesirable way. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that Mr Blair and Mrs Thatcher were evidence that it did not work. They between them fought five elections, I think, and won them all as Prime Ministers. That is a very strange argument.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, in a very thoughtful speech from her position as chairman of the Constitution Committee, said that what we need is more accountable Government. I agree that Governments need to be much more accountable than they are now and have been for as long as I have known—and I think that the position has probably got worse over the years—but I believe that that accountability is far more to do with the relationship between government and Parliament; both Houses, but particularly the House of Commons. We have a convention here. One cannot be too acerbic in one’s criticism of the House of Commons so I am not going to be. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, is encouraging me to be critical. I am very critical of the way the House of Commons works. I do not think it holds the Government to account properly. There have been some recent changes which are beneficial but I believe that that whole area is far more important than whether it is elected for four or five years. I am disappointed at the way in which the coalition Government have related to Parliament. I understand why—the enthusiasm of new brooms wanting to sweep clean and wanting to get things done but I believe that they have been careless. In some areas they have been too bullying and I believe that is probably coming to an end now. I hope it is; we will see. It is up to Members of Parliament in both Houses to stand firm and say this must not continue. I believe that slowly that is beginning to happen.

We have a system in this country where people elect Parliaments. I know that a lot of people think that they are voting for the Prime Minister. At the previous election, the single most common telephone call made to the election department in my own area of Pendle was from people who had postal votes and were ringing up to find out why they could not find the names Cameron, Clegg and Brown on the ballot paper.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Greaves

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Noble Lords might laugh but it is appropriate that we do things in the right and proper way. This House exists properly to scrutinise business. The prospect of there being proper scrutiny of legislation deep into the night, then again tomorrow, then again on Wednesday and then again on Monday, in my submission, significantly undermines the standing of the House. I therefore invite the House to resume. It would be the sensible thing to do and would avoid the sense that we are no longer concerned about the constitution but are properly concerned instead about the change in the circumstances in the House. Given that there is a Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition, unlike in my previous time in the House it is now possible to ram things through without proper debate. Indeed, the coalition has just done so. That would never have happened when there was not—

[Lord Greaves]

There is a certain amount of this that I can listen to, but after a while I find that I cannot listen to it any longer without intervening. The Committee started at three o’clock. It is now 11 minutes past midnight. That means that the Committee has spent the best part of eight hours considering two amendments. If the noble and learned Lord believes that that is ramming things through, his brain does not work in the same way that mine does.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I have always suspected that my brain does not work in the same way as that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I have always regarded it as being to my credit that that is the position. We have debated two amendments over eight hours—four hours each. The first concerned whether we should reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600. I regard that as an important constitutional issue. The second amendment that we debated before the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, brought the debate to an end was whether the size of the House of Commons should be fixed by an independent commission or a Speaker’s Conference. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, whose brain does not work like mine, or, I suspect, like anyone else’s in the House either, might not think that those are important things to debate but I do.

[Lord Greaves]

The point I am attempting to make is not that the time that has been used up on these two amendments is excessive, although many Members around the House believe that it constitutes an abuse of the conventions of this House. The point I am making is that this is not a case of ramming things through.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, thinks that the time involved is not excessive. I do not know how he voted just now. I assume that he voted on our side in that respect if he did not think that the time was excessive. It is time for the House to stop this, resume and go back to considering this measure in the normal way. That is what has made the House so successful over the past 13 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Of course, I apologise immediately to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I did not mean to cause him any upset. I agree completely with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. I was teasing and mocking him and I went too far. I unreservedly apologise.

[Lord Greaves]

I suppose that I ought to thank the noble and learned Lord for that apology. I can say to him and to the House that it takes a great deal to worry me. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, having a good laugh. If noble Lords, in addition to the noble Baroness, and other former members of Lancashire County Council knew the abuse I got there, your Lordships cannot touch it.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

That is what I thought, but I was obviously wrong.

Amendment 61

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

What a rip-roaringly good debate it has been. Only the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who keeps putting words into my mouth, slightly spoils it.

These are the questions that need to be addressed as a result of the debate. First, there is a strand in the debate from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and my noble friend Lord Grocott, who said there should not be a referendum at all. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said it would lead to a worse system; the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that there is no case made out adequately for AV. One of the purposes of us debating it in Committee is for the case to be looked at. The first question that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, should deal with, is why should there be a referendum with AV as the only alternative in it? He should answer the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Grocott, because for people voting in the referendum, there needs to be a credible case for it made by the Government, which goes beyond saying, “I agreed it with my coalition partners, therefore it must happen”. That carries no weight with the electorate.

The second question that has been raised is: why choose this sort of AV? That was the debate between the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Greaves, which is beyond most of our abilities to comprehend. I say seriously that it is important because the Government are saying, “A detailed proposal for an alternative vote system is set out in Clause 9 and if you vote “yes”, that is the one you will get”. The noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Campbell-Savours, are at each other’s throats about whether that is the right system of alternative vote, and in voting yes, the individual members of the electorate in the referendum have to decide whether they think it is the best.

I say in parenthesis how glad I was to see the Deputy Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, going to speak to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—I think, to encourage him to continue to participate in the debate. The moment that the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, instead of keeping to his seat, he immediately got up to intervene in the debate. I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on that.

[Lord Greaves]

I reveal that my noble friend was actually passing on a piece of scurrilous gossip which I would never reveal to the House.