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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government do not intend to conflate these matters although there is a degree of overlap between the two. The Government intend to look at the question of third-party funding of political activities, including the issue of campaign groups which are not affiliated with political parties spending money during election campaigns. The Electoral Commission has annotated that some £3 million was spent during the last election by a number of organisations with the intention to influence the election.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, the Minister has indicated that he sees a need, quite rightly so, for the ability to remove from this House people who have been convicted of serious criminal offences. Can we take it that he will now abandon his long-standing opposition to the Steel Bill, which this House has sought to introduce on several occasions and which would have provided for this very measure?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, discussions are under way on that question and it is likely that a Bill will be introduced in the next Session which will deal with a number of such issues to do with parliamentary behaviour and what is called parliamentary housekeeping.

Antarctic Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords, the Bill, which has come from the House of Commons and was ably piloted through there by the honourable Member for Stroud, Neil Carmichael, now comes to us for further consideration and, I hope, for its passing into law. My interest in the Bill has been compiled entirely from information received from the Polar Regions Department, a very impressive department within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It represents us at the consultative meetings of the Antarctic Treaty system, which take place regularly and regulate, as far as is possible, all activities in that great continent. It is the largest continent in the world and contains no less than 70% of all the fresh water available in it, so it is very important that we take everything connected with the Antarctic very seriously.

The Bill is designed to enhance the protection of the Antarctic environment. This is partly on account of the fact that Antarctic touring during the summer season, which is now—in January and February—has increased considerably, what with yachts, ships, cruise ships and other things all visiting in the very limited period when there are 24 hours of daylight, as opposed to the June/July period when there are 24 hours of darkness.

Part 1 of the Bill, headed “Environmental Emergencies”, would implement Annex VI to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty into UK legislation, which is headed, “Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies”, and is known as the liability annexe. This annexe obliges the consultative parties to require Antarctic operators, both governmental and non-governmental, first, to take preventive measures and to establish contingency plans in order to reduce environmental emergencies in Antarctica; secondly,

“to take prompt and effective response action to environmental emergencies arising from”,

their activities; and, thirdly, to obtain insurance or other financial guarantees to reimburse another party or pay into a special fund the costs of response action to an environmental emergency arising from their activities which the operators did not, or could not, undertake to organise themselves. This is a rather detailed and comprehensive arrangement and I have to make apologies for the fact that it seems intensely boring to some of your Lordships. It is in fact of considerable importance to the whole process.

The provisions of Part 1 set out the framework by which those who fail to make effective responses to an environmental emergency in Antarctica would be liable to reimburse the costs to those who take such action. Under the liability annexe, only a state may bring civil proceedings against an operator to recover the costs of response action undertaken. Following the successful passage of this Bill, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will establish an expert advisory group, consisting of UK Antarctic operators and others with appropriate expertise, to advise on what would have constituted “reasonable response action” in order to determine the level of payment which British operators should reasonably be expected to pay.

The intention would be to enable all financial liability matters to be resolved without the need for court proceedings. However, the Bill would provide the framework for such matters to be settled through the courts as a last resort. The Bill will provide protection for operators from double liability by making it clear that any liability under the Bill will be reduced if the operator is also liable for the same costs under Part IX of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which relates to salvage and wrecks.

The Bill will require all those who intend to undertake activities in Antarctica that are connected with the United Kingdom to take preventive measures to minimise the risk and potential impact of environmental emergencies, and to develop contingency plans for responding to any such emergency situation.

The Bill contains an indicative list of preventive measures which those planning to undertake activities would need to have considered prior to entering Antarctica. This list would not however be mandatory in every circumstance, nor is it exhaustive. The onus would be on the operator to demonstrate that they had taken measures to mitigate the environmental risk arising from an emergency. This requirement for contingency plans would cover both the handling of the response to an environmental emergency as well as the response to an incident that is not an environmental emergency but which may have a potential adverse effect on the Antarctic environment. These plans may include what action should be undertaken in response to potential emergencies or incidents, but it is not necessarily expected that every potential incident would be foreseen at the pre-planning stage.

It is proposed that it would be a criminal offence to fail to notify the Secretary of State of an environmental emergency in Antarctica that an organiser of activities becomes aware of as a result of them, their employees or their agents carrying out activities there. Organisers of activities will be required to ensure that mechanisms are in place to require their employees who become aware of an environmental emergency to ensure that the Secretary of State is notified as soon as practicable. The intention behind this requirement is to report all environmental emergencies that the activity organiser becomes aware of and not just those arising as a result of activities they have organised. This would ensure that the UK Government were in a position as soon as practicable to notify the other operators in the region, determine the likely cause of the environmental emergency, and consider what response action should be taken, in consultation with other treaty parties. This could result in some duplication of reporting but that would be better than no notification. The Government would use the criminal sanctions for failure to make such a notification only in extreme cases, and particularly where there was a specific intent not to make such a notification.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Viscount. What is the definition of an environmental emergency?

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

That is a very good question. I will refer it to the Minister to answer when he speaks later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, on bringing this Bill before the House, and to Neil Carmichael in the other place. It is a vital Bill. I apologise to the noble Viscount for interrupting his speech and asking about the definition of an environmental emergency. I hope that the Minister will turn his attention to that matter. It is set out in the Bill in Clause 13(3), which states:

“In this Part, ‘environmental emergency’ means an accidental event that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica”.

Why is it limited to an accidental event? Why is “accidental” included in the subsection? Why does the measure not apply to any event that threatens to have a significant harmful impact? I have no doubt there is a simple explanation for that but it was not obvious to me on reading the Bill.

My noble friend Lord Baker reminded me that my right honourable friend the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, first became enthusiastic about the environment when she was told that a British Antarctic Survey team had discovered the hole in the ozone layer as a result of its work in the Antarctic. That was the origin of her pursuing the environment with the vigour that she did when she was Prime Minister.

As my noble friend Lord Selborne pointed out, I had the pleasure of going to Antarctica at Christmas 2010 to climb the highest mountain there. Almost all noble Lords supported that venture in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care and we raised almost half a million pounds as a result of that visit. I have to say that it was one of the most expensive trips that I have ever taken anywhere. It is very difficult to get there and the costs and difficulties of operating there are immense.

Having been to Antarctica, I have to confess that I did not see any penguins or any animals at all because I went to the interior to climb a mountain and landed at the Union glacier, where it is so cold that no animals or even bacteria can exist. It is a completely lifeless place. For me, it was a quite astonishing, almost spiritual, experience. If you stand on a mountain in Antarctica on a calm day, which does not happen very often, the air is so clear and unpolluted that you can see for many more miles than we are used to doing in other parts of the globe. The thing that is most striking is the silence. There are no birds or airplanes. You look out on a completely unspoilt environment.

I am not noted as a great champion of rigorous regulation but the Antarctic Treaty has been an absolute triumph, as my noble friend Lord Selborne pointed out. Despite the injunctions of the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, I shall resist the temptation to compare it with European Union treaties. It has indeed been hugely successful. When I went to Antarctica, I was supported by an organisation run by former members of the British Antarctic Survey. We should be really proud of that body and what it has achieved—it has been immensely successful. The people involved are incredibly professional and understanding of what is required to operate in a very harsh and unforgiving environment. A simple mistake can mean the loss of fingers and toes or other vital parts of your body.

The treaty means that, for example, before you can leave Chile to get to Antarctica, you have to be briefed and you have to be aware of a set of rules. I do not wish to be indelicate but one thing that people always ask me about the expedition is: if the temperature is minus 35 degrees and you are in a tent, how do you manage with your ablutions? Under the rules, everything —and I mean everything—has to be carried back to Chile. It has to be put in a bag, frozen and carried back. Under the terms of the treaty, you are not allowed to take anything out of Antarctica and you are not allowed to leave anything behind. The only things that you can leave behind are your footprints, and the only things you can away are your memories and photographs. This is rigorously enforced.

I can hear my noble friend asking why that is. If people were to pee in the snow, there would be a series of yellow ice stacks up the mountain as the snow was blown away due to the katabatic winds. Therefore, strict control is applied right the way through. The result is that, when you go to Mount Vinson, it is as God left it—it is completely unspoilt. That is in stark contrast to other high mountains in the world such as Everest, Aconcagua or Kilimanjaro, which are completely strewn with rubbish and desperately polluted. The fact that Mount Vinson is unspoilt is entirely due to the operation of this treaty, and therefore I very much welcome the Bill, which takes it further forward.

The other point that I should like to make—this may seem a little hypocritical, having been there—is that when you go to Antarctica you fly from Punta Arenas and land on a natural ice runway in a Russian plane without windows, which is quite a scary experience. As you leave the plane, you immediately find yourself in Narnia: you are confronted with a blinding white light and a completely unspoilt environment. There is a camp there, which has to be set up every year, and it is amazingly well run and organised. Some of the best food and wine that I have eaten and drunk was at Union glacier. When I complained to the organisers that it seemed a bit extravagant to have such splendid claret, he said, “The cost of the claret is incidental. The real cost is getting it here and taking it out again”. Therefore, Union glacier is a very comfortable camp.

We were stuck at the camp for several days while waiting to get out and there were all kinds of people there. The most interesting people were of course the mountaineers. The next most interesting were the scientists. There are scientists involved in all kinds of work—from putting in GPS systems to working out the movements in the ice cap, measuring the effects of climate change and working out how many neutrinos are hitting the earth as part of deep space research. Others are involved in drilling into the ice core to try to establish the record of climate change. Several scientists pointed out to me that those who drill into the ice core occasionally find pockets of gas. That is the key thing: Antarctica is rich in natural resources—gas and rare metals—and therefore it is very important that the treaty protects it because it is indeed a very fragile environment.

Also at the camp were several Russian and one or two American billionaires in their seventies who had flown to the pole in a private aeroplane. The pole has now become a major tourist attraction for very wealthy people. I said to one lady, “Why are you here?”. She replied, “Well, I’ve been to the North Pole and I’ve booked my trip to space, so I thought I ought to come to the South Pole”. Good luck to her, but it seems to me that if this very fragile environment is subject to those kinds of pressures, it will be damaged, and damaged beyond repair.

Therefore, I congratulate the noble Viscount on this Bill. I believe that we have much to be proud of in the part that we have played as Brits in the preservation of this special part of the planet. It remains unspoilt and a natural laboratory from which we can do the necessary work in order to pass on to the next generation a world that is better than the one we inherited.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this has been an excellent and expert debate. It demonstrates that there is a complete consensus on the importance we attach to vigorously defending and protecting the environment of the Antarctic. The Bill allows us to ratify a further addition to the corpus of international law that governs the Antarctic continent. As noble Lords will know, Her Majesty’s Government regret—and have for several years—that we were not the first to ratify. However, if the Bill passes—as we very much hope it will—we will be the seventh country to ratify. That answers the question of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne.

So far, Finland, Peru, Poland, Spain and Sweden reported to the most recent Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in June 2012 that they had ratified. Since then, Australia has ratified. When the Bill has completed its passage through both Houses, subject to the will of this House, I know that my honourable friend Neil Carmichael MP is planning a reception to celebrate the Bill and our ratification, to which representatives of the other state parties will be invited. This will provide us with the first opportunity to encourage others to follow us as rapidly as possible in completing the ratification of the treaty. I have just been passed a note stating that Argentina has indicated its intention to ratify the liability annexe.

We maintain absolutely our commitment. It is not just a question of the British Antarctic Survey. We are all aware of how competent and expert the FCO team covering this is. It was a slight shock to me when I met them this morning, having corresponded with them for some time. I had assumed from their level of expertise that they were all about my age and had been studying the Antarctic for 40 or 50 years. To discover that they were about half my age and nevertheless very expert was even more impressive.

I will rapidly respond to a number of points made in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about the timescale for the appointment of a new director of the British Antarctic Survey. The Natural Environment Research Council has advertised for a new director. The closing date was 17 January. We understand that the NERC plans to interview candidates in March, so we are making good progress.

In an extremely interesting speech, the noble Lord raised a large number of interesting points. I am amazed and sometimes appalled by the level of his expertise on parts of the world that often I have to start researching by looking them up on a map. On the question of how we might charge for permits to cover clean-up costs, the Government’s consideration on this is that the limits on charges and maximum liability set out in the Bill are already significant. Liability for the smallest vessels is just under £1 million. For larger vessels we are talking about anywhere between £12 million and £30 million. These are generous limits for the potential emergencies that we could envisage. Once the liability annexe comes into force, the Antarctic Treaty parties will review the liability limits. Many consider that they will then need to be raised, for example to come into line with the new limits to be introduced under the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims.

The noble Lord raised the question of protecting Mawson’s huts. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, also talked with particular passion about the protection of historic sites and monuments across all Antarctica. The Government are aware of a very extensive Australian restoration programme for Mawson’s huts and so do not think that they will fall into disrepair without British involvement. However, if the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust was invited to contribute expertise to that restoration project, I am sure that it would seriously consider the opportunity, which the Government would encourage it to accept. The Bill’s provisions on historic sites and monuments apply across all Antarctica, and we are engaged with other signatories in co-operative work in their protection.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also raised the question of marine protected areas and fisheries. I confirm that Clause 9(3) specifically excludes the activity of fishing for profit from all requirements in Part 1 of the Bill. This is primarily because the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty does not cover fishing activities, which, as the noble Lord pointed out, are the subject of separate rules and regulations under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which I am told is pronounced “Camlar” as an acronym. As a result, they are specifically excluded from this liability annexe. However, they are covered by other existing international laws.

The British Government are committed to the protection of the Southern Ocean from excessive fishing. We note that fishing for Chilean sea bass has rapidly increased. When I am offered it, I will look at sea bass with an entirely different attitude, having read a number of things about it in the past few days. We have demonstrated our commitment to the designation of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean. Earlier this year, the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands announced one of the largest sustainable-use marine protected areas in the world, covering their entire maritime zone. This year we have developed a further proposal to designate marine protected areas in areas of the Antarctic peninsula that are currently covered by permanent ice.

The UK will also give its full support to the designation of marine protected areas in the east Antarctic and in the Ross Sea during the meeting of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The Ross Sea is one of the most biologically productive areas of the Southern Ocean. Therefore, as the noble Lord remarked, it is a potentially rich source of global protein. However, it must be fished responsibly and sustainably. That will require international collaboration in policing fishing activities—in which the British, of course, will play a full part.

A number of noble Lords raised the question of environmental emergency thresholds. There is no explicit threshold, either in the Bill or in the liability annexe, for what constitutes an environmental emergency. It is defined in Clause 13(3) as,

“an … event that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica”.

So ultimately it will be down to judgment as to what constitutes an environmental emergency. This is why Clause 8 is so important and is constructed to include a broader set of circumstances than simply environmental emergencies.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am sure that my noble friend did not mean to misquote the Bill but it does not actually say that. It does not say an event,

“that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica”.

It says, “an accidental event”. Could he deal with my point as to why the event is qualified by the word “accidental”?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Certainly. I will come to that briefly and I thank the noble Lord for his intervention.

A number of marine-based activities undertaken in Antarctica are currently covered by earlier, existing conventions such as the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. However, those not covered by such conventions, particularly yachts or land-based operations, are not currently liable for pollution costs. That explains why this extends to the liability set of issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked about non-accidental events. Sanctions can be brought under the Antarctic Act 1994 against those who are deliberately causing environmental damage in Antarctica and any person causing such damage will, by virtue of paragraph 1(5) of the schedule be subject to unlimited liability for costs incurred in responding to it. This reflects Article IX of the liability annexe. This is extending existing law to accidents where existing law already covers deliberate environmental degradation.

The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, asked about liability provisions. Paragraph 5 of the schedule ensures that no shipping operator can be held liable for the same cost twice. This means that liability cannot be sought for environmental clean-up under both the LMMC and the Antarctic Bill. If the environmental clean-up work includes vessel salvage, the operator cannot be liable twice under the salvage convention and the Antarctic Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, asked about UK engagement with the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I apologise to my noble friend. I expect that I am being a bit thick, but I still do not understand why this word “accidental” is included in the definition of what constitutes an environmental emergency. I understand the point that he makes about deliberate action which causes damage being covered by other legislation, but it is not clear to me why the definition within the Bill of an environmental emergency is qualified by this word “accidental”. There are events that could be an environmental emergency that would not arise from an accidental activity.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I know that the House has agreed to consider the Report stage and Third Reading on the same day, but could I ask my noble friend why it is assumed that no Peer will have anything to say which requires consideration by Ministers during the moving of these amendments? Could he tell us what is the urgency that has required both remaining stages to be carried out on the same day?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Electoral Commission is anxious to have sufficient time to make sure that the transition to the new electoral system takes place on the set date. We are all of us, on all Benches in this House and in the other place, I think, concerned to make sure that the transition to individual electoral registration results in as complete and accurate a register as possible. For that purpose, the sooner this Bill passes and becomes an Act, the better.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, so many noble Lords are leaving—this is a disappointing reaction to such an interesting Bill, which goes to the very heart of our democracy. And still people leave, in such numbers that there is a blockage at both doors.

We on these Benches support the principle of individual electoral registration, as we indicated at Second Reading. Indeed, as has been pointed out on a number of occasions, we legislated for it in the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, in the last Parliament. We believe that it is desirable to have a complete and accurate electoral register. We also believe that individual electoral registration is a system compatible with modern society, and we recognise that it is outdated to rely on the head of the household. In essence, the issue between us and the Government in this respect is how you introduce it, and the timing of how you introduce it. You have to make very sure that you are not losing too many people off the register before you introduce it.

Moving to individual electoral registration is a significant change; it is the right change, but it must be implemented correctly. The risks to British democracy if it is not are too great. So despite supporting the principle, as I have made clear, we have genuine concerns. Our amendments, to be debated over the coming three Committee days, have been tabled to reflect those concerns.

Data published by the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Reform Society and acknowledged in the Government’s impact assessment for this Bill show that anything between 3.5 million and 7 million people are missing from the electoral register. That is an unsatisfactory base to start from, but the Electoral Commission also predicts, and the Government have acknowledged, that the shift to individual electoral registration could see an initial further hit to the completeness of the register by up to 30%. Experience from Northern Ireland bears this out, although I accept that there may be special factors that apply in relation to Northern Ireland that may not apply on the mainland.

We need to do all that we can to address these issues and to ensure that the electoral register is as accurate and complete as possible. So the guidance provided for in Clause 1 is good, especially during the transition from one system to the other and in the early stages of the operation of individual electoral registration. We welcome the specific requirement on the face of the Bill, but our concern is over why the role of the Electoral Commission has been undermined. The Government’s Bill gives a very significant amount of decision-making power to the Minister while bypassing the Electoral Commission and Parliament. We feel that a five-year transitional period for issuing guidance may be too short; the Bill’s Explanatory Notes are no more certain than deeming it “likely” that the new system will have reached a “steady state” in five years. And how do the Government define “steady state”? Given the levels of uncertainty associated with the transition, we argue that at the very least the Minister should be advised by the Electoral Commission on whether the system is operating effectively before guidance is withdrawn.

The Electoral Commission is an independent statutory body operating outside the political system with responsibility for electoral matters. We feel that it has a proper role in reaching an objective decision on these issues and that this should be written into the Bill before us today. Amendment 36 calls for annual registration reports to be produced by the Electoral Commission, presented to the UK Government and laid before Parliament with time set aside for Parliament to debate each report. In keeping with the theme of this group of amendments, which is related to improving the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register, Amendment 36 also addresses our concerns about unchecked ministerial power and the bypassing of the Electoral Commission.

Finally, Amendment 59, which is the third amendment in this group, calls for the results of the ongoing data-matching pilots, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, referred in his opening speech at Second Reading, to be reported and evaluated before the full transition from the old to the new register takes place. According to the Government’s implementation plan for the Bill published in July, data-matching pilots have been running since August 2012, and data-mining pilots to identify potentially eligible voters who are currently missing from the register will begin in early 2013. I anticipate that the Minister will reject our call for a delay until the results of these pilots are known but will argue that a second set of data-matching pilots be commissioned. We accept that the second set of data-matching pilots should be commissioned but will the Minister acknowledge the concerns of the Electoral Commission about the findings from the first? In its evaluation report, the commission wrote:

“Our main conclusion is that these pilot schemes do not provide sufficient evidence to judge the effectiveness of data matching as a method for improving the accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers”.

We are serious about the status of the electoral register and believe that all action should be taken to ensure that it is kept as up to date, complete and accurate as possible. We are serious about the most appropriate bodies and individuals being given the power to advise and issue guidance. We are serious about proper parliamentary scrutiny of an exercise of ministerial power, particularly in an area that is absolutely crucial to the effective working of our electoral system, as everybody agrees. We look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say in response. I beg to move.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I did not have an opportunity to participate at an earlier stage in this Bill but these amendments, particularly Amendment 1, which relates to the role of the Electoral Commission, about which the noble and learned Lord has spoken so eloquently, is very important.

The Bill sets out the rules that would apply for Great Britain. In replying to these amendments, will my noble friend give us guidance on where the Government are in respect of the changes which are being promised by the Scottish Government in the conduct of the referendum on independence? This is important because at the Scottish National conference the First Minister of Scotland said that he would bring in a Bill which would provide for a new electoral register which would include 16 year-olds. It would not provide for 16 year-olds being able to vote in the referendum who were already on the electoral register: that is, the so-called attainers who reach the age of 18 at a subsequent election in respect of the existing roll. My understanding is that the publicly declared policy of the Scottish Government is to create a new register, which would be based presumably on individual registration by 16 year-olds, expressly for the purpose of the referendum on independence. This seems to me to drive a coach and horses through what this Bill is about, which is establishing a uniform system throughout Great Britain. I just wonder what the Government’s attitude is.

--- Later in debate ---

On the Scottish issue, I assure my noble friend Lord Forsyth that the agreement on 16 year-olds voting is limited entirely to the Scottish referendum. It does not apply to UK voting the following year. On the amount of consultation with the devolved Administrations, the Scottish Government have passed a legislative consent motion and the Welsh Assembly responded to the consultation on IER—so there has been consultation. Of course, there has been a great deal of consultation with local authorities within England as well.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I asked my noble friend a specific question. I fully appreciate that the agreement reached by the Prime Minister in Edinburgh allowed for the Scottish Government to extend the franchise to 16 year-olds, but I think that my noble friend’s namesake, our noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, told the House that the Scottish Government would not be able to have a new electoral register: they would have to use the existing register. So I asked what the Government’s view is of the declaration by the First Minister that he intends to bring forward a Bill to create a new register for all 16 year-olds who would be able to vote on the referendum. For the first time in this country, we would have a devolved register that applied to the referendum and a register that applied to general elections. That is a constitutional nonsense. Are the Government content for that to happen?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I said that registers are compiled and kept locally. We do not have a single, central national register—to the deep regret of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. There is some room for at what stage one puts what we call the attainers—those 16 and 17 year-olds—on the register. There are some differences already between local registers. I am struck by the strength of the difference between the electoral registration forms that I have seen from different local authorities. We do not have in the United Kingdom a single centralised approach to electoral registration.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not follow the Scottish media as closely as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and it is very difficult for the Government to ask to be consulted on reports in the Scottish media. I will have to write to him on the detail of something which may or may not be what the Scottish Government are proposing if it has so far appeared only in the Scottish media.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, let us forget about the Scottish Government for a moment and think about this Government. I was given an assurance by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, that the extension of the franchise to 16 year-olds would apply only to attainers—that is, to people on the existing register. Is that correct or not?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To be absolutely sure that I am entirely consistent with my namesake, I will write to the noble Lord when I have checked as thoroughly as I can to ensure that I am entirely accurate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I recognise that we shall come back to some of the issues that have been raised when we come to debate the noble Lord’s Amendment 58, which we have almost been debating. The question of a further carryover at that point will unavoidably involve carrying over a large number of names about which we will all have less and less confidence because they will be people with whom electoral administrators have had no contact for the previous two years, in spite of considerable efforts—letters and attempts to canvass—to check their data. The Government would be very reluctant to carry over further than that, but I take the degree of concern that we hear around the Chamber seriously, and we will consider that further. Having offered these responses to a very wide-ranging debate, which has touched on almost everything from Scottish devolution to central registration and the authoritarian system of identity cards that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, loves so much and a little on the computer revolution, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment. We will continue to discuss many of these very important issues as we go through Committee and into Report.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend has offered to write to me, which I appreciate, and I do not want to detain the Committee with too many matters Scottish. However, Amendment 36 suggests that a report should be brought by the Electoral Commission,

“on the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register in each part of the United Kingdom, which will detail variations in registration rates within and between the different parts of the United Kingdom”.

I have no idea what the First Minister of Scotland is proposing but it sounds to me like he is going to bring a Bill before the Scottish Parliament that will allow for individual registration by 16 year-olds on a voluntary basis. That would result in the political parties campaigning. No doubt he thinks that the Scottish nationalists will be able to get more 16 year-olds to be on the electoral register than otherwise. If, as my noble friend was suggesting in his earlier remarks, he sees that as being akin to the present situation where you have Peers on the electoral register who are allowed to vote in some elections but not others, I am deeply shocked by that. The reason why Peers do not vote for elections to the House of Commons is that we are our own representatives in Parliament, which is entirely consistent.

Are we not in danger here of ending up with a complete dog’s breakfast of an electoral register in Scotland which is not consistent with England because the Government appear to have washed their hands of responsibility for the electoral register and the conduct of elections? I thought that that was a reserved matter. It has nothing to do with devolution but everything to do with the Minister’s responsibilities.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise the importance of that issue, which has grown up, so to speak, since we began the parliamentary discussion of this Bill. I think it is fair to ask that I might take that back and check very completely, including the accuracy of these stories in the Scottish media, and that we should return to this issue later.

House of Lords: Appointments

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the idea that we are packing the House with coalition Peers is a little idiotic. Of the 122 appointments made since May 2010, nearly one-third, 39, have been Labour Peers. That is not packing the House on one side. The largest group in the House remains the Labour Benches.

One of the ways in which we wish to maintain a vibrant House is to refresh the House from time to time. The committee on retirement has proposed that the statutory retirement scheme is now available. We regret that only two Peers have so far availed themselves of it. However, 20% of this House is now over 80 and, as we know that life expectancy in this House is very good, we encourage others to consider that scheme.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, how will my noble friend explain to the voters of this country the Government’s policy to reduce the size of the House of Commons in order to save public money when they are now proposing to increase the size of the House of Lords at public expense, having previously brought forward a Bill arguing the importance of reducing it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are not proposing to increase the size of this House. Sadly, we have lost 40 Members since May 2010; I dare say that, sadly, we may lose more over the next two years. The question of refreshing the House from time to time therefore arises.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I am grateful to my noble friend, but I do not want to talk about 1911—I want to talk about today. Democracy is on the march across the world, and you cannot keep it outside that door. In the end, you will be dragged there. Let me make this proposition to noble Lords: the longer they delay it, the more ridiculous they will look. That is where we are in the eyes of many of the public, 69% of whom want to see a directly elected Chamber. [Interruption.] I am grateful for any support I can get.

I want to answer a few of the arguments that have so far been put forward to prevent this happening, to delay it, and to make sure that we hang on to our seductive comforts for as long as we may. The first is the most ridiculous, but it featured in our previous debates and there were echoes of it on Thursday—that we are not a House of Parliament but a committee. Some committee! We are told that we are a monocameral Parliament, that all we do is advise and that this is just a committee. We are invited to believe, therefore, that when we met King John on the banks of the Thames nearly 1,000 years ago we were not beginning with a Magna Carta and Parliament but creating a committee—and that when we invite Her Majesty to come here all dressed up in her finery, accompanied by a company of the guards and a clatter of the Household Cavalry, to sit on the Throne and read the parliamentary programme for the future to your Lordships, who are dressed in red dressing gowns while the other Chamber has to come and parade before us, we are no more than a committee. That is a preposterous suggestion, and those who make it, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said in a previous debate, simply do not understand our history or function.

The argument that is made to bolster this claim is that we do not contribute to the making of laws. You cannot make that argument on the one hand and then claim, as my noble friend Lord Phillips did, that we have done our function because we have changed and passed so many laws. The truth of the matter is that we contribute to the making of the laws in this country. In a democracy, those who do the people’s business should be the people’s representatives. We are the daily affront to that basic principle. How can we be satisfied with that? It is a desperate and ludicrous argument that gives little comfort or respect to those who continue to seek to make it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I notice that his wording has now changed to, “contribute to the making of the laws”. The Deputy Prime Minister said that those who make the law should be elected. Should we take this as an acknowledgment that the House of Commons has the final say on all laws that are made in this country?

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

Of course we should. The draft legislation that was put before us made it perfectly clear that the House of Commons should have primacy. That is not a contentious item. By the way, I said that we participated in the making of the laws. We contribute to the making of the laws. That should be done only by the power that is derived not from the Prime Minister or from patronage but through the ballot box.

My noble friends in the Conservative Party often ask, “Why should we address this constitutional issue at a time of crisis—is this not a distraction?”. Those noble friends should have a care as they, too, are interested in constitutional reform. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has just said, they introduced mayoral elections. Now we must vote for police chiefs across the country, whether we like it or not. It seems to me that my noble friends are interested in every constitutional reform except the reform of this place. They want to see the election of mayors and chief constables but not of anybody in this place. I say to noble Lords who love to make that point that it is a dangerous one to make.

It is also dangerous to make that point as we are facing not just an economic crisis but a democratic crisis. We should look at what is happening on the streets of Egypt and at what has happened here. Our economy is in crisis but so is our democracy. We should look at the turnouts in the local elections last week. You cannot solve the democratic crisis unless you can create more respect for, cognisance of and at least trust in the democratic process. We need a process of democratic renewal in this country. I do not claim that the House of Lords represents all of that programme but it is certainly a crucial part of it. You cannot resolve the deep economic crisis of this country if you do not also address the democratic crisis, and that is what we seek to do.

Another point that is often made is that famously there is no public call for reform of this place—we have heard it in the Chamber today—and that campaigners have knocked on many doors but not one person has called for democratic reform of the House of Lords. But they never do. This is not the people’s business; it is our business. There was no great public call for the Great Reform Act 1832. There was a campaign up and down the country, but in the Dog and Duck and other pubs around Britain in the 1830s there was no great public call in support of that or, later, the suffragette cause. The campaigners believed deeply in that cause and they fought for it, but the public did not, being largely uninterested in it, if not opposed to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Luce, said the other day that there have been four reforms of this place—in 1911, 1949, 1963 and 1999. None of those reforms was called for by the public. We initiated them to put our House in order. This has nothing to do with the public calling for reform. It is entirely to do with the fact that we should recognise that we have grown out of touch with democracy and that we have to put our House in order—no more and no less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, who has had such a distinguished career, mostly in another place. I remember it very well. Listening to his powerful and eloquent speech today reminded me of the dilemma that I faced over the weekend. I was standing in the shower—not a pretty sight, I know—having heard many of the speeches in the debate before the Recess on the future of the Lords and having sat through a lot of last Thursday’s debate. I thought, what is there left for those of us at the tail-end of the debate to add? It is a dilemma and it will be worse for the people who follow us, as my noble friend Lord Anderson points out. It is a difficult question.

I thought in the shower of the traveller in Ireland who got lost and asked one of the locals the way to Dublin. After the local had contemplated all the options, he stroked his beard and said, “You know, if I was going to Dublin I wouldn’t start from here”. If we were setting up a legislature, we would not necessarily start from where we are now, but we do not have a clean sheet. Even those of us who like a lot of the aspects of the House would not sit down and come up with a composition such as we have at the moment, with only English Bishops, 90-odd hereditaries and those strange by-elections that take place. I do not think that we would do that or that any of us accepts that it is an ideal option.

We are not like the founding fathers in the United States who were able to start with a clean sheet. They could have the separation of powers and a bicameral legislature but with clearly different kinds of elections and powers. As we have seen, there are those who advised post-war Germany in setting up its constitution with a federal system and the Bundestag and direct elections, and the Bundesrat representing the states of Germany. In each case, they have different powers and a written constitution to deal with any problems that arise. Like the traveller in Ireland, we are where we are and we have to start from the status quo.

What are the options? One perfectly valid option that we need to consider—I think that it was one of the options proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—is abolition. For a while, I thought that that was the best option, but I will explain why I do not think that now. Why do we need a second Chamber? Some countries work pretty well with unicameral legislatures; for example, New Zealand and, I am advised by my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale who knows Scandinavia very well, all the Scandinavian countries. It has many attractions. There is no question that it would save a lot of money. The issue of primacy would not arise and there certainly would not be any gridlock.

Abolition has a superficial attraction but I have been put off by the most recent experience—the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will know why—at Holyrood, which reminds us of the dangers of one-party control of the Executive and the legislature without any checks and balances whatever. The electoral system in the Scottish Parliament was supposed to make sure that no party had overall control of the legislature but that has not worked. We have a unicameral system in Scotland which is becoming more and more authoritarian and creates problems. On balance, we need to look at a bicameral system, which would be better.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Is the noble Lord suggesting that the Scottish Parliament should have this Chamber as a second Chamber?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It has been suggested that we should set up what could be described as a “House of Lairds”, which one might consider. I am not necessarily in favour of that and I will come to what I am in favour of in a moment. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is wont to lead me down the track of an interesting diversion. In relation to the second Chamber, we first need to consider its roles and functions. To have in the Queen’s Speech the wording that it is only the “composition” that will be included in a Bill is to put the cart before the horse. We need to know what it is for before we know how it should be constituted. A second Chamber elected on the same basis as the first would be a nonsense. It would be duplication. However, if its function is to act as a check on the overbearing and increasing power of the Executive, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and with the House of Commons forming the Executive, we have got that responsibility. If it is to be elected, there is an argument for the second Chamber to be elected by a different system in order to give those checks and balances. There is an argument for that.

Another argument is for a different kind of second Chamber to represent the diversity of the United Kingdom. We have devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Perhaps we should have it to England. I would prefer devolution to England as a whole whereas some others would prefer it to the regions of England. But increasingly, as was said earlier, there will be more pressure to have devolution within England. We need to think ahead because, as so many people have said, our constitutional revision has been tinkering and piecemeal, and we have not thought ahead. An indirectly elected second Chamber might counterbalance the centralisation which can come from a unitary system. None of those options has been looked at by the Government or the Joint Committee. I absolve the Joint Committee of any blame because it was given a limited remit to do its work and therefore cannot be blamed.

My preference—I have said this on other occasions in previous debates and keep saying to the Liberal Democrats that they should think more about it—is for a federal United Kingdom. It is one of only three stable constitutional options for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We used to have one of the stable options—a centralised, unitary state whereby London controlled everywhere in the United Kingdom. That has been abandoned but it was stable. The other stable option would be to let Scotland, then inevitably Wales and then inevitably Northern Ireland secede. That is not a preferred option. It is a frightening thought. The United Kingdom has been one of the most successful economic unions anywhere in the world and we should fight hard to preserve it. But separation is a stable option.

The type of devolution that we have, which is unbalanced at the moment, is not as yet a stable option, which is why it should be seen as a stepping stone towards a federal United Kingdom.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard]

That this House takes note of the report from the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. (HL Paper 284)

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, having listened to many of the speeches yesterday—I confess that I missed some of them because I went to the theatre to see a play appropriately called “The Collaborators”—and having read the others, it is difficult to know what to say about this debate that is different. But I wonder whether your Lordships remember the Austin Allegro. The Austin Allegro was probably the worst car ever built. It was completely unreliable, it had a totally underpowered engine, and its big selling feature was that it had a square steering wheel. This car was designed by the management for political reasons. They ignored the people who knew about cars and design and it was meant to save British Leyland. It was the management’s answer. In fact, they were so convinced that it would save the company that it was nicknamed the “flying pig”.

I do not know whether noble Lords can see the parallel that I am drawing here, but it seems to me that this Bill, which has been so comprehensively filleted by the Joint Committee, has many similarities to the Austin Allegro in so far as the Deputy Prime Minister believes it will save the Liberal Party at the next election. It was conceived for political reasons and without any recognition of the needs of the consumer and the customer—in this case the wider electorate.

The case is being made for “reform”. However, I think “reform” is the wrong word here because actually it is the abolition of this House that we are talking about and we are talking as well about the destruction of the House of Commons as we know it. So “reform” is the wrong word to use. It is the right word to use in the context of the Bill of my noble friend Lord Steel, which for too long has been ignored by the Government for reasons that are incomprehensible to me. The Government could perfectly well bring about some reform that would deal with most of the issues and avoid all the difficulties that the Joint Committee has so comprehensively illustrated.

I want to deal with two of the fibs which have been repeated during the course of our debate. The first is that this was a Conservative manifesto commitment. It was not a manifesto commitment. Our commitment was to seek a consensus on Lords reform. One has only to listen to the chiding given by the chairman of the Joint Committee to the excellently produced alternative report to realise that there is no consensus. A casual reading of the committee’s report will show that we have failed to reach consensus. So as far as I am concerned, as a Conservative, we have discharged our manifesto commitment.

The second fib which is told is that it was part of the coalition agreement. The agreement was that the Deputy Prime Minister would convene a hand-picked committee to look at this issue with a view to producing a Motion by December 2010. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out as a member of that committee, it failed to do so. In fact, it failed to reach any agreement at all, to the point where the committee stopped having meetings because it was impossible to make progress. So on both of these counts, the obligations of the coalition agreement and the obligations of the Conservative manifesto have been discharged.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has come up with a new definition of consensus. “Consensus” is what the House of Commons votes for on a three-line Whip on a constitutional Bill. The play I saw last night was about Stalin, but not even he would have used that argument. I have to say, listening on the radio this morning to a beleaguered Minister trying to persuade the chief executive of British Airways, or whatever it calls itself nowadays—the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, may be able to help me with that—who had explained that there are queues at Heathrow, that they are not really as long as he said they were, made me wonder this: what does the country think? Do people think that it is better for us to spend money on 450 superannuated politicians rather than on immigration officers at Heathrow to deal with these problems? As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out, this is not an issue that is central to the problems facing our country.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to intervene. I am most grateful to him.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, I knew that an intervention would be popular.

Can the noble Lord address the central question? Can he explain why it is that this Chamber cannot follow the same principle as the vast majority of second Chambers elsewhere in the world, which is by being democratically based? Is it because our democracy is so weak? Is it because we are totally unique in the world? Or is it because the House of Lords is, as it always has been, opposed to democratic reform?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I have to say to my noble friend that I read his speech with interest. In it he made that point repeatedly, along with the point that this House should have the right to decide whether we go to war. He did not actually explain what would happen if this House, elected by PR, voted against going to war and the other place, elected by first past the post, voted in favour. How would we resolve that? The point about this House—what makes it effective—is that it is completely different from the House of Commons.

In his speech, the noble Lord—my noble friend—said that this place ought to be able to decide things, which is a perfectly respectable point of view, but it is one that I do not agree with. That is because, like him, I served in the House of Commons. I love the House of Commons. It is the central feature of our democratic system. It is the body which guarantees our liberty and its sovereignty is crucial. By creating a competing House here, we will undermine it. Another noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in her speech that she was sick of hearing about people talking about turkeys voting for Christmas. The turkeys will be in the House of Commons, not in this House, if they vote for this legislation, for it will undermine the power of the House of Commons. It will turn this into a competing Chamber, and that will be a disaster for the House of Commons. So I do not agree with my noble friend that we should become a kind of House of Commons.

At the same time as we had the Austin Allegro there was a very popular programme on television which I used to enjoy—watching with my children, of course—called “The A-Team”. If we have an elected House here, it will be very much the B-team. Who in the A-team is going to want to be part of a Chamber that is perceived to be secondary? Who will put up with that? But if I had been elected on a 15-year term with a popular mandate, I have to say with regard to the Scotland Bill—on which I think I spoke for quite a long time—that under the powers which already exist in this House it would have been perfectly possible for me to kill that Bill. That is one of the things to consider when people talk about the existing powers. This House has enormous powers, but we do not use them because we respect the fact that the House of Commons is the elected Chamber. I could easily have killed the Bill, but I did not do so. Although I hate the Bill, I did not do so because I am not elected and I do not have a popular mandate. If I had a 15-year term, so that even if it was unpopular in my constituency I would never be held to account, I tell you what— I would certainly have done it.

That is the problem with this whole Bill: it will change behaviour. I can tell noble Lords something else. There are not too many Conservatives in Scotland. If I was elected as a Conservative Member of this House on a 15-year term, I would make it my business to secure in every constituency the election of other Conservatives to the House of Commons. I would be there for 15 years while the average term of a Member of the House of Commons is, I think, eight years. I would be there for 15 years, so I would know all the issues. I would be interfering in constituency business. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that, by not giving them secretarial services, they would not interfere. The noble Lord himself was a Member of Parliament— I do not know what his constituency was.

[Noble Lords]

Baron’s Court.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Well, if the noble Lord casts his mind back, he will know that, just as today, constituents would not allow that to happen.

For the Government to say that the House is too large and to continue to make additional appointments to it will bewilder the electorate as it bewilders me. Sometimes, I think that the Government are behaving like Caligula, who appointed his horse as a consul. Everyone said, “He’s mad”. But he was not mad: he appointed his horse as a consul because he wanted to discredit the institution. By making more and more appointments while doing nothing about the size of this place, the Government are trying to have it both ways and are undermining its integrity and effectiveness.

The House of Commons should look out for this Bill. It will be decided in the House of Commons, not here. It is right that it should be decided in the House of Commons, because the House of Commons is sovereign. However, as it sees its powers being taken away by Europe, by assemblies, by Parliaments, by external courts and others, it should look at this Bill and realise what it is: it is a Trojan horse at the centre of our democracy and it should be rejected, and rejected comprehensively, by every Member of Parliament who cares about that great institution, the House of Commons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, who adorns this House, and will continue to adorn the House even if the composition of the political Benches in the House is decided by the people rather than by patronage.

Many would say it is unenviable to be the 73rd speaker to address your Lordships in the last debate of a 293-day session, but I can conceive no more enviable privilege than to be able to address your Lordships’ House. However, I suspect I may have caught the selector’s eye this morning, since I do not share the certainty of many who have spoken in this debate that election of Peers to this House is unthinkable. Given the reaction of Peers to speeches yesterday and the witty speech of my noble friend Lord Forsyth this morning, perhaps as last man in I should have prayed for rain and stayed in the pavilion.

I would like to consider one of the refrains running through this debate—the primacy of the Commons. I suggest that we fret over that too much. Yes, the Commons has primacy, but the question is how well it uses it. I agree with the noble Lord, Norton of Louth, that we need to begin from the functioning of Parliament as a whole. Frankly, you would not begin constructing a strong and free Parliament by putting it under the primacy of one House shackled by executive-dominated procedures and telling the other House, however constituted, that it must not say boo to that over-mighty place.

The main case for introducing election to this place is—as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said the other day—that it would enable this House to hold by what it believes to be right, rather than knuckling under whenever the other House shouts “unelected”, “primacy”, “privilege” or what have you. Parliament is a trinity of the Crown, Lords and Commons, and in modern times one part of that trinity has, because it is elected, usurped effective power within it. It was not always so, and need not always be so. Indeed, for many centuries your Lordships were the dominant House, though after the 1670s generally accepting Commons privilege in finance. That did not stop your Lordships occasionally rejecting money Bills—for example in 1860, when you rejected paper duties as a tax on knowledge, then being circumvented by Mr Gladstone’s invention of what has become the modern curse of a multi-decker Finance Bill, which your Lordships could not touch, and still cannot, without bringing the whole House down, as happened in 1911. One consequence of an elected House—and the other place has to realise this, just as much as us—could be that if the Parliament Act is to be amended, as some propose, we might look again at the way that money Bills are defined and consider the Joint Committee of both Houses, which was offered by Mr Asquith and Lloyd George to the unionists in 1910, but was not ultimately accepted.

Our acceptance of Commons primacy on finance was rooted in the fact that, even then, the Commons was elected but it was mirrored, after the great privilege battles which raged between the two Houses back in the 1670s, by Commons acceptance of this House’s primacy in justice. Here, at that Bar and in the Benches before it, was embodied the supreme court in the High Court of Parliament and almost all of us will recall the noble and learned Lords who came here, or will have heard of the mighty Lord Chancellors who sat there in olden times, centuries ago. That was the historic, if largely unspoken, deal about primacy between the two Houses: primacy of the Commons on finance, primacy of your Lordships in justice.

I did not hear the other place troubling too much about your Lordships’ primacy on justice when they drove through the expulsion of the Law Lords and dismembered the Lord Chancellorship in the past few years. For my own part, if we are invited to embark on a reform which involves election I do not feel that your Lordships, if elected, need be too squeamish about the other side of the bargain, the Commons primacy on finance, and still less other, all-embracing claims to primacy that have quite recently been laid upon it on the basis that it is elected and we are not. When Parliament is functioning so badly in its prime role of checking the Executive and protecting the citizen against bad counsel—as they used to be called right back to the 13th century—and unjust and incompetent law, why must we always meekly be expected to say: “Oh, but the Commons has primacy and must not be challenged”?

As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the case for election is that challenge might become more confident in that case and stimulate another place to do its job better. A stronger House here, armed with the authority that comes from election, could deliver that refreshing and, to my mind, necessary challenge to an imperfectly functioning sister House. Yes, there would be a need for resolution procedures, as the noble Lord said, but in the history of these Houses, when they were roughly co-equal in power, there were perfectly good systems for addressing those problems and others could be devised.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Can my noble friend help me and perhaps explain how it would be that if we had this elected second Chamber, it would not suffer from the same problems of the other place in the domination of the Whips and the power of the Executive, given that it was elected? How would we avoid that?

[Lord True]

My Lords, it is avoided precisely by the concept of the long mandate, which is non-renewable and with no right to go on to the House of Commons. That means that someone coming here would not be able to develop a political career and go forward to be a senior Minister of the Crown.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am talking about a wider and longer-term sense of public disillusionment with all political parties and all politicians, of which we need to be aware. The test for our House is how we handle ourselves on the question of further change in the unfriendly light of media attention and public cynicism. I respectfully suggest that we should not be too pleased with ourselves as we are. We have not entirely escaped popular disillusionment with the metropolitan elite. A run of hostile articles in the press would easily puncture our sense of how high our public standing is.

There is almost a consensus in the House on our self-image as a repository of wisdom and experience that stands above grubby party politics. There is even a hint that people like us would not stoop to stand for election—that, as the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, argued, an elected House would never attract candidates of comparable quality. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, stated sharply that an elected Chamber would bring in,

“a whole new gang of second-rate … politicians”.—[Official Report, 30/4/12; col. 1983.]

Not all elected politicians are second rate and, if I may suggest, not all appointed officeholders are first rate. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, declared that an elected House would consist of 450 superannuated politicians. As a superannuated politician, I am not sure that he should regard that as necessarily a bad thing. What does he think this House consists of now? Seventy per cent of us in this Chamber are political appointees—here by patronage—and half of us have held elected office within the Commons, the European Parliament, the devolved Assemblies and local authorities. Indeed, when I first entered this House, I observed that much of the detailed work of scrutiny was carried out by former chairs of city and county councils. They had the most relevant experience and expertise and the strongest commitment to holding the Government to account.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My reference to “superannuated” related to paying salaries and pensions in a reformed House—something which we do not have now. However, on the point about the standing of Parliament as seen by the public, how does the Minister think the public will feel about constitutional change which results from a deal between two political parties, where the Conservatives get extra Members in the House of Commons and the Liberal Democrats get to control the balance of power in the House of Lords? Does he really think—and some of his noble friends have made this point—that that kind of deal will enhance the reputation of Parliament?

Scotland: Director General for External Affairs

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Asked By

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration was given by the Cabinet Secretary to the appointment of a new civil service post of director general for external affairs by the First Minister of Scotland, and the salary of more than £200,000; and whether it is correct that the duties of the post will include preparing for the break-up of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Cabinet Office’s Senior Leadership Committee, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, approved the appointment of a director-general of strategy and external affairs in the Scottish Government and that the post would be advertised at a starting salary of between £115,000 and £125,000 per annum. The figure of £200,000 appears nowhere in the particulars of the post, although I saw it floated in the Scottish edition of the Daily Telegraph.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I am most grateful for that Answer, but if the Cabinet Secretary believes that it is okay to spend public money on recruiting officials to work on reserved matters such as the constitution, is it okay for the nationalist Administration to use officials to work out policy on, for example, withdrawal from NATO or removing nuclear weapons from Scottish soil? Will my noble friend consider amending the Scotland Bill to put officials, Ministers and Members of the Scottish Parliament in exactly the same position as members in local government, whereby they will be liable to surcharge where they incur illegal expenditure?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As a former Secretary of State for Scotland, the noble Lord is treading on slightly sensitive ground by comparing the Scottish Government to an English local authority. There is no statutory basis in the Scotland Act for such surcharges, but I think I hear the shape of an amendment that might be tabled to the current Scotland Bill when it reaches Committee.

Scotland: Civil Service

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree with that. It is important that the Civil Service working for the Scottish Government commands the confidence of Scottish Ministers of the day, regardless of their political complexion, just as it is for civil servants in Whitehall working for the UK Government.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I recall being given a wigging by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, when he was Cabinet Secretary and I was Secretary of State for Scotland, for issuing an official press release from the Scottish Office in which I used the term “tartan tax”. Although my Permanent Secretary approved it, the then Cabinet Secretary told me that it was inappropriate for a Scottish Office press release to contain something that might be politically contentious. I accepted that advice: he was quite right and I was in the wrong. So what on earth is going on when the Permanent Secretary for the Scottish Executive circulates what is described as an internal blog—a newsletter—to civil servants in the Scottish Office, which, among other things, advised going to see a play about an army of occupation in 11th-century Scotland which he said,

“does genuinely speak to our present condition as a nation”?

What on earth are this Government doing in standing aside? Surely it is the absolute duty of the Cabinet Secretary to maintain the impartiality of the Civil Service, which is a centrepiece of our constitution.