Ministerial Code

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Ministerial Code now makes it clear that Ministers should report their meetings with all interested parties—which clearly includes those covered in this part of the Leveson report concerning media proprietors, newspaper editors and senior executives—so such meetings should be covered by the Ministerial Code.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Ministerial Code in Scotland is so narrow and lax that the First Minister gets away regularly with lying to Parliament—and other transgressions?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I will tell noble Lords about the transgressions later. Seriously, do we have any reserved powers to look at the Ministerial Code in Scotland and tighten it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sighted on that supplementary question, but I look forward to the enjoyable evening on which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, tells me about the transgressions that he feels have happened in the Scottish Executive.

EU: Scottish Independence

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It opens up all sorts of questions about the future of Gretna Green. There would also be a number of questions about Scotland having to negotiate for fishery quotas and for the financial contributions that Scotland would wish to make. Those who argue that it is Scotland’s oil would recognise, perhaps, that it would also be Scotland’s financial contribution.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the corollary of his first answer—that the rest of the United Kingdom would inherit the current UK membership of the European Union and that Scotland would have to apply separately for new membership—is that Scotland would then go to the back of the queue behind Croatia, Turkey and all the other countries that are seeking membership? It would have to satisfy, in its own right, all the acquis and conditions of membership. It could take many, many years and that is yet one more really good reason why Scotland is better off as part of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is not an orderly queue for EU membership. There is a list of criteria for EU membership which applicant countries have to fulfil. Turkey applied during the 1980s, rather ahead of some of those countries that have since joined. Of course, Scotland would have to meet a whole range of criteria and there would be, no doubt, some careful and detailed negotiations. Whether or not Scotland would be allowed—as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has already posed—to opt out of Schengen or to opt out of the euro and keep the pound is something we would have to consider.

European Union Committee Report

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and indeed to precede the noble Lord, Lord Roper, the present and past chairs of the committee. As a member of the committee, I have seen how much work it does. It is a Trojan amount of work. As noble Lords have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, it sees and sifts hundreds of documents before we see them on the sub-committees. I pay tribute to each of the members, because they have done—and are doing—a fantastic job. Well deserved praise should be showered on them.

I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. I find it strange that on a subject that is so important and so central, particularly to politics in the United Kingdom at the moment, we are discussing this report in Grand Committee and not on the Floor of the House. It is even more ridiculous when we have a Statement on the European Council on the Floor of the House that no doubt all of us would like to be in on. It is really quite astonishing.

I am proud and pleased to serve on the committee. I find it fascinating to be a member of the European Union Committee of this House. I have been on committees elsewhere and I find this one of the most interesting jobs that I have undertaken—particularly Sub-Committee C, which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, chairs with great skill. We are carrying out a huge volume of work.

The work of committees is central to this House and this part of the legislature, and sometimes it is undervalued. I was dismayed when the House agreed to cut the number of sub-committees and make the work of this committee and its sub-committees much more difficult. I am even more dismayed to have read in the Guardian on Saturday that we will have to put up with 80, or maybe 100, more Peers at a time when we are cash-limited. I do not know where the money is going to come from; we are going to be squeezed again, and no doubt the committees will be squeezed again. What committees will they serve on? It really is quite outrageous that this should be forced upon us. There seems to be an unlimited amount of money for ceremonial purposes or new security measures, but not for the central work of the legislature—the committee work that we are undertaking. Well, noble Lords did not expect me to be non-controversial!

I move on to the very valuable reports. As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, they are very well thought of. I have heard some really great comments about them. However, there are two things to express some regret about, one being that they do not get enough coverage in the media, as the noble Lord said. We need the resources and skills to enable that to be done, and we need opportunities to get more coverage. Thankfully, the situation has improved in the past 12 months but more needs to be done. We also need to push the Commission to get more responses from it more quickly. The Commission says that it likes our reports, but it is not responding to them as quickly as I and the committee would like.

I shall mention some of the reports that are worth further publicity and further noting. One is the report on Operation Atalanta, which was fantastically interesting work. We went up to Northwood and heard some very valuable evidence about what is being done to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean. That is absolutely vital work and it is life-saving—it is a life or death operation that is being undertaken. Much more attention should have been paid to that. Then there was the very important report on the multiannual financial framework. What is central and what is happening in the Chamber is the Statement on the European Council. This is central to the discussions that the Prime Minister has in Brussels—and we have been working on that.

Two other reports have been particularly valuable. One is on the equivalence of medical professional qualifications, on which the former Sub-Committee G, under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, produced a report—and then they abolished her committee to save money, in the strange way that they have here. This was a vital report. We know that there was one example where someone purported to be a medical doctor and a death resulted because he was not qualified. In the report we suggested putting the safety of patients before the free movement of labour. The ability of people to move from one jurisdiction to the other with qualifications being automatically accepted is a vital matter.

The last of the reports that I want to mention—I am conscious that a lot of noble Lords want to speak—is the one on credit rating agencies. That was a prescient report. To be honest, it did not go as far as I would have liked because I see them as a problem as far as the economy of the world is concerned. Nevertheless, we were ahead of the game in relation to that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, there are two fascinating reports under way: one by the committee itself on enlargement—again, a central issue—and one by Sub-Committee C, on which I serve, on the External Action Service. We have already started work on that with a seminar that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, mentioned and with the evidence that we have had. Each report will prove very useful.

Finally—I am watching my time—I come to a wider issue. It is really quite depressing that for short-term, party-political gain, some people, not just in the government parties but in my own party, are starting to think or even talk about a further referendum on being in or out of Europe. It is about time that those of us who believe in Europe stood up and said so, and said that we think Europe is important not just for trade in the United Kingdom and a free trade area but for the security and prosperity of the United Kingdom. Therefore, we want to make sure that that is spoken of loudly. Of course we can be sceptical about Europe. We can challenge it, rightly, but we should be right in the centre of Europe to do that challenging and questioning. I hope that Members of this Committee, who know the work of the European Union better than anyone, will join me during this debate in echoing the fact that our membership of the European Union is absolutely vital for the future prosperity of this United Kingdom.

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[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, I will focus on the work of the sub-committee formerly known as G on social policies and consumer protection, which I chaired before it was wound up. I take the opportunity to thank the sub-committee’s clerk, admin assistant and analyst, and all the sub-committee members, for their contributions to the work outlined in the report. Many noble Lords this afternoon acknowledged the effectiveness of the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Boswell, as chairmen of the EU Select Committee, and I, too, express my admiration for their hard work.

During the 2010-12 Session, EU Sub-Committee G undertook the varied work that is set out in the report. As many noble Lords will be aware, EU legislation and issues are such that they invariably take several years to sort out. In the 2009-10 Session, we undertook an inquiry into the European Social Fund, identifying the types of changes that might be helpful for the period, both in the short term and in the longer term for the 2013-20 period. The proposal for the new European Social Fund, published in October 2011, was an important item of scrutiny for the sub-committee. We decided to reconvene some of the witnesses to our original inquiry, along with other stakeholders, the Government, the European Commission and the devolved Administrations, at a public seminar in December 2011 to share views on the new European Social Fund. In addition to committee members and staff, around 50 stakeholders attended. Feedback on this seminar was very positive and it gave us helpful input into our scrutiny of the European Social Fund proposals. Notable issues we pursued were simplification, local flexibility and strategic alignment with other structural funds. The latter point is one that Sub-Committee A is still following in its continued scrutiny of the structural funds proposals.

It was most encouraging to see so many stakeholders coming together and debating key issues at the invitation of the EU committee and on the basis of an EU committee report. Building on this work, we organised a more general stakeholder engagement seminar, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Roper. That was some months later. In fact, this was originally his brainchild. It was correctly identified that a great many stakeholders from across the range of subjects with which Sub-Committee G dealt simply do not understand the work of the EU Committee and its sub-committees. This is something that a number of noble Lords have raised this afternoon. How can they engage with what we do if they do not understand what we do? Why should they engage? What is it that we do that is important to them? Calling it a stakeholder engagement seminar makes it sound a bit more formal than it actually was. It was a very informal event. Part of its value was simply mingling with colleagues from across the range of subjects which we dealt with. We also had a very good discussion and some of those groups certainly have had more of a dialogue with the committee since then. It has also led to work improving the website to ensure that it is more accessible to those wanting to find out more about our work, although I appreciate that there is an awful lot more work to be done on that score.

During the 2010-12 Session, Sub-Committee G undertook three substantial inquiries. The first was a subject which at first glance does not sound like the kind of thing that we would be discussing in an EU committee. This was grass-roots sport and there were members of the sub-committee and elsewhere who took the view, at least initially, that it was not a suitable subject for us to look into. However, the Lisbon treaty had introduced sport as a policy area in which the European Commission could encourage member states to work more closely and we wanted to find out what this would mean for grass-roots sport in this country. This was pre-Olympics and before all of that euphoria. Above all we heard that grass-roots sport should be mainstreamed into other policy areas, such as health, education and social inclusion. We met with some previously excluded individuals who had developed core social and leadership skills through sport. One of our specific recommendations was that there should be a distinct budget to support grass-roots sport-related actions. We were therefore pleased to see the inclusion of such a budget within the new Erasmus for All programme. The budget will support actions which include exploitation of the potential of sport to foster social inclusion. An interesting benefit of pursuing this issue was that we were able to communicate with a wider range of individuals and organisations, both as witnesses and during visits, who would not normally consider themselves to have an interest in the work of the House of Lords in scrutinising EU issues.

Our second inquiry concerned the mobility of healthcare professionals in the context of the review of the professional qualifications directive published in October 2011. We considered that the current directive failed to command the confidence of patients and professionals, striking the wrong balance between encouraging mobility and ensuring patient safety, and therefore needed to be revised. We hoped that our recommended improvements to the directive would enhance rather than undermine free movement by rebuilding confidence among patients, employers and professionals.

The report was very well received among stakeholders, including the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The Government also credited it with influencing their response to the Commission’s Green Paper consultation on the revision of the directive. After the Commission’s proposal for a revised directive was published in December 2011, I met with senior representatives of all the UK professionals covered by it at the beginning of this year and their views helped to inform the sub-committee’s subsequent scrutiny of that proposal. I am glad that Sub-Committee F has continued to scrutinise this important matter, most recently in its oral evidence session with the Health Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on 21 November.

Sub-Committee G’s third and last inquiry was into the modernisation of higher education in Europe, which was published last March. We considered not only the EU’s role in this area but also the ongoing Bologna process, which has seen the creation of a European higher education area, including 47 European countries. We concluded that while the EU can continue to make a positive contribution to European higher education, it must nevertheless be pragmatic and concentrate only on the areas where it can add value. In addition, we considered that the Government should place higher education at the centre of their growth agenda, domestically and across Europe, by maximising the potential of both the EU and the Bologna process. The report also considered the Erasmus programme, which we considered to be an important activity in terms of increasing students’ employability. However, the UK’s participation has been historically low compared with other large member states, and we decided that making language learning compulsory in both primary and secondary school would be one way of increasing the UK’s participation, alongside taking steps to encourage a more diverse range of participants. In this vein, we also called on the Government to support the allocation of a greater proportion of the next multiannual financial framework budget to research, innovation and education.

The day after the report was published, I also participated in an LSE workshop, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and attended by a range of academics which discussed some of the same themes as our report. Like other noble Lords, I think that we could be much more effective in obtaining press and media coverage. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, points to the need for a media strategy and I would concur with that. We should also embrace more fully the opportunities afforded by social media. Chairs of sub-committees have appeared on YouTube—to great acclaim, I understand—and written blogs. But there is more we could do with Twitter, for example, in spreading the word to a wider public about the work we do.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I know that it is very seldom that we intervene, but this is brilliant as I have just tweeted with regard to this Committee on the excellent contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel. I am now about to tweet about the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Young.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

I have to tell the noble Lord that I tweeted before him. We should embrace all social media and spread the word about the work we do to a wider public. I concur absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, on engaging much more widely, whether we call it outreach, engagement, stakeholder engagement, or whatever. There are structures such as those named by the noble Lord—the Peers in Schools programme, Parliament Week and so on—which all represent opportunities for us to do so.

I now have the privilege of sitting on Sub-Committee C on External Affairs—a very different set of challenges to those posed by social policies and consumer protection. I am pleased to state that there, too, our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is also keen on new ways of communicating with different sets of stakeholders. As has already been said by the noble Lords, Lord Boswell and Lord Roper, we held a seminar last week, attended by a wide range of stakeholders with an interest in our current inquiry on the European External Action Service. I look forward to further discussions on this matter on how to make more progress in outreach, engagement, et cetera. I know that that is something that both the present chairman and the previous chairman hold close to their hearts.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, will forgive me if I briefly return to this group of amendments.

I was looking forward today to a tour d’horizon by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, with historical analogies, assessments and context, because, as it happens, I am celebrating my birthday today and I thought this would be highlight of the day. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, is not in her place because she shares my birthday but is not sharing the wonderful experience that we usually have.

The history is important because the discussion on this group of amendments is all about monitoring success and measuring progress rather than the principle of IER. There is unanimous support and—dare I use the word?—consensus in this House that we have to move. The previous Government said so and this Government say so. It is a question of timing and getting it right, a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I am therefore disappointed that he did not refer to the past history and how we got to where we are. It was in 2003 that the Electoral Commission advised Parliament that it was necessary to move in this direction to improve the accuracy and completeness of the register and it took five years, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, will know only too well, for the previous Government to take this issue seriously. We would not be having the suggested problems if it was not for the fact that that delay took place under the previous Administration. It is disappointing that the Labour Benches have not been able to recognise that that delay has made it more difficult to achieve success.

That is not least, of course, because during the nine years since 2003, the existing register based on household head registration has dropped dramatically. It is less complete and less accurate than it was when the Electoral Commission first made its recommendation. Until a matter of months ago we had all assumed that the existing register was something like 90% accurate; it is somewhere around 80% accurate. As I pointed out during the Second Reading debate and as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has said, in some areas it is much lower than that for the reasons she so eloquently expressed. The delay has made the situation more difficult, and in assessing the progress we must now make, your Lordships have to take that into account.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Do the experiments in Glasgow and elsewhere not show that if the local authority is given the necessary resources to go around and canvass to make sure that there are returns, the percentage is much higher? Is it not because of the cuts in local authorities’ expenditure that they are not able to do that as effectively as they used to?

[Lord Tyler]

That is for a later part of the Committee stage, but I have sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord. Indeed, I pointed out at Second Reading that the London Borough of Hounslow has done incredibly well over recent years, despite the difficulties that most local authorities have been facing. Hounslow has used a whole number of positive and negative ways to encourage people to register. It is not just where these things happen; it is the degree of attention that the local authority is able and willing to give to these matters.

As my noble friend Lord Rennard has indicated, we have a later amendment which we think would bring back to Parliament the last word in pressing the go button, particularly for 2016. I think that that is more appropriate than asking the Electoral Commission to be, as it were, judge and jury in its own case.

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[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 Foulkes of Cumnock]

I do not think the Minister quite understands what is happening in Scotland. It may be that, whereas the UK Government are consulting with the devolved Administrations, perhaps a devolved Administration are not consulting with the UK Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, our understanding from the media is that the Scottish Government are publishing a Bill that will allow people who are 16 years old on the date of the referendum—that is, some time in October 2014—to vote. That means an entirely new cohort of people on the register. It means going round to find out where people who are now 14 and 15 year-olds are, getting them on to a register, publishing the register—locally, as the Minister said. How is that to be done? Has he been consulted about that? Has he made any comments about it? Does he know what is going on in Scotland?

[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.

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[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.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is being rather unusually moderate in what he is saying. As the referendum is not until October 2014, it will be the current 14 and 15 year-olds whom they will be trying to get on the register. The significance of this is very substantial. I am grateful that the Minister has given an assurance that he will write to us about this. I hope that it will be after consultation with the Scottish Executive and that it will be a detailed response.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course, and I hope that the noble Lord will apologise in due course to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for describing him as moderate.

Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries: Review

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will be returning to the question of why people resist registering to vote during the Committee stage of the individual electoral registration Bill, and I commend to Members of the House the Electoral Commission study on it, which was published in June.

On how much has been spent, the previous boundaries review cost £13 million. This review was estimated to cost £11.5 million and it is now expected to cost £9 million. Much of the remaining £3.8 million has already been committed, so even if we said “stop” now, the possibility of saving very much money would be small.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, the Deputy Prime Minister has said that Liberal MPs and Liberal Peers are going to vote against the boundary changes. Is it not crazy to continue with it? Surely, we are going to waste nearly £4 million which could be better used. Why are we going ahead with it? I understood that the new chairman of the Conservative Party said that the plan is to withdraw these proposals. Can the Minister make it clear? Are they really pressing ahead with these proposals, given that the Deputy Prime Minister has said that they are effectively dead in the water?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am glad to see that the noble Lord reads the Daily Mail which, I think, was where the report came from. Primary legislation requires the commissions to report to Parliament before October 2013, and it would require primary legislation to stop that. It would then be for Parliament to consider the recommendations. There is precedent for Parliament voting against the acceptance of a Boundary Commission review; it was done by the Labour Government in 1969.

Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Corston who served for some years, with great distinction, as chairman of our parliamentary Labour Party and is now doing sterling work in this Chamber. As she knows only too well, I have not—unlike our noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours—eschewed party political discussions and debate since I came in here. In fact I quite enjoy them: relish them even, perhaps. I hope that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours and others will forgive me if I stray a little into party politics.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and to anyone else from the other side, that I am getting a little fed up with people on the other side lecturing us and saying that we need boundary reviews to try and get an equal number of electors in each constituency. Of course we do. That has happened again and again under Labour Governments and Tory Governments. There have been little problems at the edges and arguments at Boundary Commissions where, incidentally, we were properly heard, with appeals procedures which have now gone. The problems were relatively mild compared with what is being proposed now because then the number of seats stayed roughly the same at about 650. The Boundary Commissions were also given flexibility. They were not given the straitjacket of being obliged to have exactly 600 seats. If they wanted 655 or 652 or more or less, they could use that degree of flexibility to try to take account of geographical communities and natural boundaries and so on.

What we have now is a totally arbitrary figure. What is magical about 600? If they want to save money—although I am not sure that the Liberal Democrats necessarily do—and if money is everything, why not 500, 400 or 300 or any other figure? Why 600 and why no flexibility as we had in the past?

I see the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, on the Benches opposite. He will know that, for many years, I represented a constituency in Ayrshire. I had a very good, co-operative relationship with the neighbouring Member of Parliament, George Younger, for whom I had the greatest respect. We had Boundary Commission reviews and we put our views to them. During the reviews I got a little bit of Ayr sometimes and Annbank and Mossblown moved backwards and forwards. There were two boundary reviews while I was Member of Parliament from 1979 to 2005 and I survived them. In fact, my majority went up from just over 1,000 to just over 22,000, so perhaps more than survived, although not as a result of the boundary changes.

I say to people opposite—although there are not many Tories here—that there is now no such thing as a safe Tory seat in Scotland. There used to be many of them—or at least they thought they were safe—but Labour took a large number of them and the SNP took others. That is a lesson to our colleagues in England. Do not assume that every Tory seat is safe. We can win it by fighting the right kind of fight. Do not assume that if there was, for example, a devolved English Parliament, it would always be dominated by the Conservatives, because that is not necessarily the case.

Returning to the boundary issues, why were those reviews less acrimonious? It was because we always knew that there were about 72 seats in Scotland. The number went up or down, but it was about 72. There was not the reduction that has created the problems here. However, in 2005, the number of seats in Scotland was reduced from 72 to 59. That created the problems. In Ayrshire, the number of seats was reduced from five to four. That is when I took the opportunity of retiring. It seemed right to do so because I was the longest-serving and oldest Member of Parliament in the county, and the other four MPs were younger and elected more recently. That process was therefore relatively painless, but in other parts of Scotland, as the Chairman of Committees and others know, there were acrimonious fights and divisions because of the reduction.

Now the number of seats in Scotland is being reduced to 52 and we will have even more acrimony and concern. That is nothing when compared with Wales, which is being really hard done by because there are effectively two reductions in the number of seats—first to take account of devolution, and now to take account of the arbitrary reduction to 600 in the number of seats at Westminster. Wales will suffer and it will be very difficult for Members of Parliament in Wales. I endorse what has been said by others on that.

I want to use Scotland to illustrate why the whole situation is a mess. The development of the electoral and boundary structure has created problems for us. Let us take our electoral systems, where there has been a piecemeal approach. Our Government, I am afraid, was to some extent responsible for a number of the problems. A piecemeal reorganisation and reconsideration of our constitution have taken place.

We have four completely different electoral systems. We have the list system for elections to the European Parliament. Earlier, we heard about lack of participation. When we had Members of the European Parliament representing constituencies, we had a relatively high turnout. Now that they are on a list, people do not know who they are, there is not the same kind of enthusiasm and the turnout reflects that.

For elections to Westminster, we still have first past the post, thank goodness. A number of us here have been fighting to ensure that, because we believe that democracy is not just about—as the Liberal Democrats think—a simple arithmetic relationship between the number of votes cast and the number of seats. It is also about accountability, which is an essential part of democracy. The great thing about the first past the post system is that the Members of Parliament are accountable. I knew that when I went back to the electorate I was the one who had to convince them to vote for me again, which, thankfully, I was able to do.

In the Scottish Parliament, we also have the additional member system, which has become discredited. As I have said to the House before, I was elected to the Scottish Parliament by mistake. It was an astonishing situation. I did not spend a penny on the election campaign. I did not seek people’s votes, but because I was top of the list and was campaigning for the constituency candidates—sadly, some of them did not get elected, not necessarily because I was campaigning for them—I was elected automatically. This absolutely crazy system must be reviewed.

For local government in Scotland we also have the single transferable vote, which was the result of a deal made when we had a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Labour. Sadly, the Labour Party conceded the single transferable vote for local government. As a result, we do not have councillors who are accountable to their wards and are well respected there. We have three or four councillors in much larger wards, which creates huge problems.

That is an illustration of the problems of the electoral systems but there has also been piecemeal constitutional reform. I supported devolution but it has thrown up the West Lothian question, and we now have Sir William McKay—I call him Bill McKay and get told off—looking into the issue of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs voting on English-only matters. We still await the results of that. We still await the referendum on Scottish independence. In England, we now have elected mayors and police commissioners. We have had a fixed-term Parliament forced upon us. We of course have Lords reform—in inverted commas. All of those are outstanding issues that have to be dealt with. At the same time, we have what my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has put on the agenda today causing further problems.

The Clock has been very helpful to me for some unknown reason. I did not realise that time was on my side. I think I am using my noble friend Lady Corston’s extra time. I wanted to make three final points. In relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others have said about the electoral register, I hope that the Minister and others will look at what was done in Glasgow about canvassing by sending people to knock on doors—“chap on doors”, as we say in Scotland—and getting the register filled in there and then on the doorstep. If people are not in, the canvassers go back to make sure that people are registering. There needs to be active participation by the Government to ensure that people register.

Returning to the mess that I was talking about, the minority report, or alternative report, that came out on Lords reform recommended setting up a constitutional convention. Day by day, issue by issue, it becomes more and more attractive, logical and sensible to look at our constitution in a coherent way that will pick up all these loose ends and do something about them.

Finally, I want to ask the Minister another question. I hope, by the way, he answers the questions he was asked today a bit better than he answered my Written Question, in which I asked what the ministerial responsibilities of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, were. Rather than answering the Question, the noble Lord sent me a document with a list of all ministerial responsibilities. However, I looked through the list and it is astonishing that she has no ministerial responsibilities. When I received a phone call the other day from Conservative Central Office inviting me to tea with the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, I had to say, “I think you have got the wrong Peer. Will you try Lord Faulks? This is Lord Foulkes”. She is spending our money inviting Tory Peers to tea, and I know that only because I have a similar name.

I hope that the Minister will answer a question that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, in his erudite and splendid contribution to the debate. The order for the boundary changes has to be approved by both Houses. Let us suppose that it was pushed through because of the coalition majority in the House of Commons but we were able here to persuade the Cross-Benchers and maybe some others of the unwisdom of the proposals in the order—that the boundary changes were wrong—and we voted it down. Will the Minister confirm that that will be the end of it? I hope that he will. That would show that even—I was going to say “in our dying days”, but I think we will be here a little longer than some people would like—in these next few months we have some power. Let us hope that we might seriously consider wielding it.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord and all those on the other side for their sympathy for the position of the Liberal Democrats. We are a coalition Government and bargain every single day on a whole host of things. I have no knowledge whether what Mr Richard Reeves said as he left for the United States—very unwisely, and without any authorisation or standing, I thought—relates to anything that is being discussed between the two parties.

I hope that I have covered most of the points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, asked about the application form, which again we will return to when we discuss the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. I understand that the application form that will be designed by the Electoral Commission must include a statement about the possibility of a fine and the size of that potential fine. We were discussing that in the debate in the Moses Room yesterday on the question of behaviour change and how one designs forms best so as to influence people to do the right thing.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

One question that the Minister has not addressed was raised first by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, and to which I have often referred, about the order when it comes to both Houses and that if it is approved by one House but not the other, it will fall. Will the Minister confirm that that is the position?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am trying to answer all the questions. It is not the first time that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has jumped up to ask why I have not answered a question just as I am about to come to it. It is, of course, the rule that statutory orders have to go through both Houses. What would happen if one House said yes and the other said no is a matter that would have to be negotiated between the two Houses. I know that some Members on the Labour Benches sometimes want to suggest that we are not part of the legislature, but for these purposes we are, and we will take part in that decision.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, talked about current changes threatening to undermine the very foundations of our democracy. I have to say that from many of the debates we have had in recent months, there are large questions about the future of our democracy and the characteristics of our representation. I was slightly shocked the other day to listen to the greatest parliamentarian among us, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, promoting the idea of referendums, which are not entirely compatible with the idea of parliamentary democracy. The balance between representative, deliberative democracy and direct democracy, as we slide towards more calls for more referendums, is one of the fundamental issues that we need to address.

I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clark, when he calls for a wider debate on the crisis of British democracy, the role of the state and the balance between state, society and market. I would also add the balance between the central state and the local state where the coalition Government believe that we have slipped far too far towards overcentralisation. Our system of democracy is not working very well; our public are increasingly disengaged and disillusioned; and we need to think about a whole series of changes in how we behave towards and relate with the public and about the best way in which to engage them again in local and national politics. That goes far beyond the issues raised in discussing representation and democracy in this Motion.

House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord on bringing forward this Bill, and I want to support it. It is in the nature of these things that the legislation is seeking to tidy up some anomalies. My only concern is to ensure that we are not laying down future anomalies that successive Parliaments will have to deal with. My noble friend Lord Fowler has highlighted one that relates to the definition of non-attendance. The notion that someone might attend once during a Session and therefore be deemed to have reached the threshold might need to be looked at a little more carefully, lest we find that the 72 Members who were quoted as not having attended during the last Session may have been substantially reduced in number because they came in once in order to keep their membership alive, as it were.

The proposal on retirement is long overdue: people ought not only to be able to leave the House through retirement but to seek election to another place. The Inter-Parliamentary Union database indicated that, as of 28 May 2012 in a survey of 190 countries, the UK is the only country where Members of the second Chamber are disqualified from voting in elections to the lower Chamber. As my noble friend Lord Norton has pointed out, since the 1999 Act there has been a break in the link so that hereditary Peers who no longer sit in this House are now able to vote and, one presumes, to stand for election to the other place as well.

There are other anomalies that relate to the role of the Lords Spiritual because they are not Peers of the Realm, a point already made by the right reverend Prelate in his contribution—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

What the noble Lord said just a few moments ago has already happened. My good friend Viscount Thurso, who is still a hereditary Peer, is now the Member of Parliament for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. I think he owns most of it as well.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That understanding is entirely correct. The common understanding is that many of us here do a number of activities outside the House that might be considered constituency work. It is not constituency casework, although since becoming a Member of this House I have often received letters and e-mails that would be regarded as constituency casework, to which I have, by and large, said, “Not me”. However, in Bradford, York and Leeds, I frequently see Labour Members of this House, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, at meetings to discuss regional issues. Many of us will rightly continue to discuss regional issues. I meet the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and others who come from my part of the world. I wish there were more Members of this House who, like the noble Baroness, come from outside the south-east of England and naturally spend their weekends going around areas other than the south-east of England, picking up what is going on and feeding back what they have learnt—as part of their relevant and continuing expertise—into the House. If that is regarded as constituency work, it is perhaps something that we will naturally continue to do. However, constituency casework does not seem to us to be a necessary part of this House.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wonder whether the Minister would take the opportunity of answering the point by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that whatever one’s view of reform, it is not helpful to the discussion for there to be disparagement of current Members of the House of Lords, not just by the Deputy Prime Minister but by Simon Hughes, Tim Farron and, I regret to say, also by a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. Can he give us an assurance that he will make his best effort to make sure that this kind of slurring of current Members of this House ceases forthwith?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am tempted to say that I would like to give the House an absolute assurance that I will speak severely to the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, immediately after the end of this debate. It would give me immense pleasure so to do. I will make sure that in his next speech he refers to the immense experience and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

Businesses: Regulation

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. Yes, that is exactly the sort of thing that the Better Regulation Delivery Office is concerned about. Eighty per cent of regulatory inspection and enforcement is carried out by local authorities, so that the experiment being conducted with these authorities is intended to feed very much into improving the quality of local regulation.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the lack of regulation of certain businesses in relation to cooling towers in Edinburgh has resulted in a fatal outbreak of legionella, in which two people have died and many others have been seriously injured? Surely the Health and Safety Executive should be doing more to find out the cause of this, and to make sure that it does not happen again. Will the Minister undertake to raise this with the prosecuting authorities in Scotland, to ask why there is no fatal accident inquiry or other kind of inquiry into something that has killed two people and caused so much injury, and why we do not yet know what the cause of it is?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not know how far that aspect of health and safety is devolved or not devolved. However, I will certainly feed that back and will write to the noble Lord if necessary.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, I will not claim to know what Lloyd George might or might not have said. He was a radical. It seems depressingly clear that there are very few radicals for reform on the other side of the House. I find that very sad for a Labour Party that has always stood for constitutional reform in favour of democracy and the people in this country, but its members must examine their own consciences on this.

I should begin by making an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. On Thursday, I was here for most of his speech. I regret that I had unavoidably to leave for the last couple or three sentences. I offer my apologies to him. Obviously, I read what he had to say in Hansard.

Well, so here we go again. Over the weekend, I was speaking with a friend in Somerset. I do not think that he votes Liberal Democrat—I think he is probably a Tory—but he watches these things rather carefully. He had looked at our debate on the parliament channel or had read it in Hansard and certainly knew what had gone on. I was expressing to him how depressed I was. He said, “Paddy, you may be depressed but you should not be surprised. The House of Lords is performing exactly its traditional function down the years of opposing every democratic reform”.

This is the Chamber that opposed the Great Reform Act 1832, women being elected and so many fundamental reforms. It did so à l’outrance but was finally dragged kicking and screaming to the democratic reforms that have made this a democracy to be proud of. So it shall be again. In 1911, this House opposed democratic reform—perhaps we can understand that. We were somewhat ahead of our time then but we are depressingly, disastrously behind the times now. I asked the House of Lords Library to tell me about the new constitution for Egypt, which was proposed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—no lovers of democracy there—and supported by the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood. It proposed a bicameral system—a shura will be the upper House. It will be two-thirds elected and one-third appointed by the President. We are behind them.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I will happily give way in a moment. Are noble Lords really content that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt will create a constitution with better contact with democracy than we have in this place, and that most Members of this place wish to see here? It is an untenable position and sooner or later this House, in the future as in the past, will be dragged to democracy, even against its will.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The weekend before last I was in Egypt and sat in the gallery of the lower House of the Egyptian Parliament. It was a lively debate, with over 400 members all present. Does the noble Lord know how many women there were? There were half a dozen. That is all. He should look around him now and see how many women we have.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I do not pretend that Egypt is a perfect democracy—of course I do not. But if it is prepared to elect its second Chamber, on that matter and in this instance is it not a better democracy than we are in this place, who resist that?

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[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.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I regret very much intervening but I am not sure that separation is a stable option for the country. That is the point.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I think that that argument will come with the referendum debate. Along with my noble friend I will be strongly against it but it could be argued that there is some stability in it. The federal option has the best of all worlds and the second Chamber of a federal Parliament representing the different parts of the United Kingdom should be part of that federal solution.

However, we cannot achieve that quickly, which is why I think that now there are two ways forward—a long-term way and a short-term way. As regards the long-term way forward, the alternative report shows the way. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, finished his peroration strongly supporting a constitutional convention, as have many others. It would look at the Lords and the Commons—the other place needs looking at as well in terms of its functions, powers and responsibilities—in the context of devolution and in the context of the committee set up under Bill McKay to look at the West Lothian question. When I intervened in the debate the other day, the Ministers were rather taken aback. But in replying I hope that the Minister might have a more coherent answer to how that fits into the Government’s constitutional thinking. All that needs to be looked at in a constitutional convention.

Meanwhile, in the short term, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and others, let us move forward on those reforms on which we can agree, including arrangements for retirement, more transparent appointments and—this might be more controversial—getting rid of the remaining hereditary Peers but making those who are making a really good contribution life Peers. Who are they? Clearly, they are all those who are here, and those who attend regularly and contribute. In other words, in the short-term we should have a beefed up Steel Bill. While the constitutional convention looks at the longer term and all its implications, the beefed up Steel Bill will deal with the immediate arrangements.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

The noble Lord has mentioned the forthcoming referendum that we are going to have in Scotland. Does he agree with me that there should be one question and one question alone?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Absolutely. There is no sense to having two questions. There is a suggestion that there should be for or against separation or something devo-max. Devolution, even if it is devo-max, is an entirely different concept from separation. Whatever the level of devolution, Scotland would still be part of the United Kingdom, whereas separation is irreversible. It is a completely different concept. As someone said, you cannot be partly pregnant, and you cannot be partly independent—you have to be totally independent. My noble friend is absolutely right.

The worst of all options—I have mentioned a few of them and some people will agree on some aspects and disagree with me on others—is the Clegg Bill, with the list system proposed. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, pulled it apart brilliantly. If the closed list is selected by the leadership of the party, what difference does that make from appointment to the House of Lords? It is exactly the same thing. Then if you are elected for 15 years and not subject to re-election, that is very similar to where we are now. So it is not really democracy at all.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I hear what the noble Lord says and have some sympathy with it, but is not the system that he described exactly the system brought in by the previous Government for the European election?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Indeed, and I am not very comfortable with that. One thing that we ought to do is to learn from our mistakes in the past, look at the problems that have arisen from things that we have done and not do it again. That is what I am arguing very strongly. It would be an entirely nonsensical system, just as it is nonsensical to suggest that an elected Chamber would not demand extra powers. That goes against every principle of politics. Look at the devolved Parliaments—they are asking for extra powers, saying, “We are elected and we want more powers”. That is just so obvious that it should be accepted by all politicians. A hybrid House would have real problems in terms of having two classes of Members.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I wonder whether the noble Lord has given some thought to this question, which could be part of his constitutional convention’s considerations. Given that in this country, unlike many other countries in the world, the Executive are not elected separately—the Government are the Government because they command a majority in the elected House—if there were two elected Houses, which one would determine the Government?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very good question, and there is no answer that I can give to it and no answer given by the proponents of the Clegg Bill. What the noble Lord, Lord Reid, says is yet another argument. Day by day, week by week and month by month, the arguments accrue in favour of a constitutional convention to look at all these things to get some coherence into our constitutional changes instead of the piecemeal changes that we have had in the past.

My fourth point about the Clegg Bill is that no account is taken of the possibility of Scottish independence or indeed of the West Lothian question and the McKay commission. So let us abandon the Clegg Bill and find another way forward—in the short term, as I have suggested, with the beefed-up Steel Bill, and the constitutional convention in the long term. It is not just the extra problems of the economy and others that are facing the Government. We could do with a little less legislation considered a little more carefully and we could spend more time dealing with legislation that really matters to our people. We could also continue to fulfil the other important role of this House, which we share with the other House, of keeping a check on the Executive—and my goodness that is needed more and more each day.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not want to keep the House too long or too late this evening, but the relationship between the two Houses is not a zero-sum game. A stronger legislature which is able to hold the Executive more clearly to account, between the two Houses and within both Houses, will provide more effective pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny. It will be a positive gain. If we do not wish to make the radical move to a written constitution, I am confident, and the Government are confident, that the conventions between the Houses will evolve. We are not an American Congress; we have not been created and an elected House would not be created to stand in opposition to the Commons. We would continue to be the second Chamber.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Is the Minister now able to answer my question that the Leader of the House was unable to answer on Thursday? It was about the commission chaired by Bill McKay, looking at the West Lothian question and whether Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Members should be permitted in the House of Commons to vote on matters that are designated as purely English. This issue relates directly to the legislation that might be brought forward, yet there is no indication as to whether any consideration has been given to whether the commission’s recommendations will be taken account of in it. The Minister had notice of this question when I raised it last Thursday. What is the answer?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is referring to Sir William McKay—I noted that because my choirmaster when I was a small child was Sir William McKay, so the name sticks in my mind strongly. We are following the work of that commission and discussing what the implications of his recommendations might be.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

With respect, if the Members of the House of Commons are to be divided into sheep and goats—those who can vote on some legislation and those who can vote on all legislation—what will happen to the elected Members of the House of Lords? Are they to be divided in the same sort of way?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, looking across at the noble Lord, I hesitate to say whether I regard him as a sheep or a goat. We are waiting for the McKay commission. When it reports, we will all consider that. We have to operate. We cannot stop all constitutional change to wait for the outcome of the Scottish referendum.

I cannot touch at the moment on the interesting, broader points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Elton, Lord Giddens and Lord Owen, which I suggest will be considered further in Thursday’s Queen’s Speech debate, when we move on to international events. I am happy to talk to the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and others about this important issue which of course overlaps on to the British constitution.

The composition of this House is not sustainable in the long run in its current form. The Government recognise that there is a widespread sentiment in this House that we like things as they are and that most Members resist change but this is a transitional House under an interim reform carefully crafted in 1999. Our numbers have risen since then and continue to grow. There has been a long series of studies, reports, debates and manifesto commitments since then. There has been a long period of careful deliberation, much of it neither quiet nor calm. The issues have been well set out by Wakeham, Straw and now by Richard. The time is ripe, not, as many noble Lords would wish to argue, still unripe. The Government will continue to work to build consensus but they will press forward with legislative proposals for further reform.

Spencer Perceval

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it might be beyond the capacity of government in an open society completely to eradicate all forms of prejudice. The Government are actively aware of the problems of the trafficking of women and children. Going around Yorkshire, I am aware that one of the things that the police come across, for example, is Vietnamese children trafficked into Britain to tend illegal cannabis factories. The trafficking of Nigerian children is also a problem. We are working closely with the authorities in a number of other countries. The Government and the relevant agencies have close liaison with their Chinese opposite numbers to combat Chinese people-smuggling. We are working as actively as we can.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

As far as I know, I am not descended either from Spencer Perceval or, thankfully, his assassin. On the more serious matter of anniversaries, I congratulate the Government on agreeing to support the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta in 2015. Will they seriously also consider supporting the centenary of the start of the Great War in 2014 rather than the Battle of Bannockburn, which some people north of the border want to celebrate? I believe that it would be better to celebrate what Scots soldiers did to bring freedom to the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question of which anniversaries we celebrate, particularly battles, is very sensitive. If any Members of this House find themselves in the Palace of Versailles, I recommend that they visit the Galerie des Batailles. It is a wonderful wing above the Congress room in which the two Chambers of the French Parliament met that celebrates French victories between, I think, the seventh century and 1813. It contains information on a large number of battles about which we were never told and on a very few battles about which we were told.