European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, compared with when we started nearly seven hours ago, we are a bit thin on the ground. However, we make up for it in quality, tenacity and, of course, fortitude. Let me put my cards on the table: I remain totally opposed to Brexit. I am not going to throw in the towel: if we go ahead, it will be a total disaster economically, socially and in every other way, and it was sold on a false prospectus. I will oppose it by any legal and constitutional means. As my noble friend Lady Crawley said, we have a long, long way to go. I say to the Ministers on the Front Bench in particular—and I am not threatening them in any way because all six of them are good friends of mine; I hope that does not do them any harm—you ain’t seen nothing yet.

We are just at the beginning of the beginning. We still have the Committee stage, the Report stage and the Third Reading, and then, of course, we have the great repeal Bill and, I am told, at least 7,500 statutory instruments to be dealt with as a result of that. That is going to keep this House busy with a lot of scrutiny, and I am sure that we will do it properly. Of course, there are a lot of hurdles ahead: we have heard about Northern Ireland; no one has mentioned in detail the problems relating to Scotland. I know there are one or two members of the Front Bench who know some of the problems there. We have heard about the need for approval by 27 national parliaments and the European Parliament. It is a long, long way to go, and there is many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.

Today, however, I just want to concentrate on one thing very seriously, and that is our form of parliamentary democracy. I was in the other place for 26 years, so I am very sensitive about our parliamentary democracy. Winston Churchill said:

“We believe Members of Parliament are representatives, and not delegates”.


He also said:

“We believe that Governments are the guides as well as the servants of the nation”.


Therefore, Governments should give the lead. I liked a quotation from Edmund Burke, to the effect that,

“a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and … most seriously to consider”,

the opinion of his constituents. But,

“authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,—these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land”.

That was Edmund Burke. That is our parliamentary democracy. We do not have a direct democracy here in the United Kingdom; we have a parliamentary democracy. That is why I was disappointed in the debate in the House of Commons, where they ought to know better.

I was going to mention that someone said, “This Brexit is going to be a total disaster, but I’m going to vote for it”. Incidentally, I have the greatest of respect for them. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, outed that person earlier on, so I cannot be blamed for doing that. However, when these Members of the House of Commons took the decision, did they think about their judgment and their conscience, or did they just feel that they had to do what they believed the referendum told them to do?

Let us look at that referendum. First, as others have said, it was advisory. All pre-legislative referenda are advisory. The only one that has not been advisory is the AV referendum, post-legislation, where we knew exactly what we were voting for, and thankfully, we voted it down. In addition, 16 and 17 year-olds were not allowed to vote, as they were in Scotland. Some of them are 18 now, and all of them will be 18 if we finish these negotiations. Some of the old cod—oh! I am chair of Age Scotland, so I had better be careful. I should say some of the elderly people who voted against remaining are, sadly, no longer with us. That is one of the ironies. EU citizens, who work in this country in the health service and the financial sector, were not allowed to vote. They are taxpayers. Whatever happened to “no taxation without representation”? They are being taxed, but they were not able to say anything.

On the threshold, which my noble friend Lord Rooker, and the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Norton, raised on earlier occasions when we discussed this, it was 40% in the first Scottish referendum, yet this referendum was supported by only 37% of the electorate. It would not have got through if we had had the Cunningham amendment. Even—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, will know this very well—for Muirfield golf club to admit women, it has to have a two-thirds majority. We are making a major change to the United Kingdom constitution, not just a question of admitting women.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

However important that is.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am sorry—that was of course implicit in what I said. Finally, there were the lies on which Brexit was sold, not just different interpretations of the facts which we get at general elections, but manifest lies. I will not go into that in more detail.

I will finish with a little story, which goes back to my original point about parliamentary sovereignty. Many years ago, when I was an MP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, we were having a vote in the House of Commons to change the law on abortion. I am not a religious person and I did not feel strongly about it one way or another. I therefore went to my constituency party—we had a large turnout, with more than 100 people—and I told them that I did not feel strongly about it and asked them for their advice. We had a fantastic debate, which lasted over two hours, and it was about 50:50. However, they resolved unanimously to leave it to me, their elected representative, to listen to the arguments and decide how to vote. That is parliamentary democracy for you. If we do not stick to that, not just the House of Lords will be redundant but the House of Commons as well.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

With respect, we are considering the business of the House, and when my noble friend Lord Barnett raised the matter previously, he was abused by the Leader of the House for doing so. My noble friend was told by the Leader of the House that consideration of the business of the House—currently relating to consideration of the Justice and Security Bill—was the point at which to raise these matters. Surely the Deputy Leader of the House can give us an answer. Will we get an answer to a PNQ if it is tabled later this week?

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, perhaps I may explain to my noble friend and other noble Lords that to date we do not have business questions in this House. It is very difficult to raise them and we must ask the Procedure Committee to look at the matter. I agree that there should be space to ask business questions. I should also explain that PNQs are a matter for the Lord Speaker of this House, but I advise the Government that tomorrow I will certainly table a PNQ on the west coast main line for consideration by the Lord Speaker, because it is imperative that we receive answers to these questions.

Procedure of the House

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I congratulate the Chairman of Committees on an excellent and sympathetic report. However, could he arrange for the Procedure Committee to look at another matter: namely, the accountability of Ministers to this House, particularly the accountability of the noble Lord, Lord Green? I have here a table that shows that his attendance in the current Session was less than 10%; whereas, just to take a random example, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was here nearly 100% of the time. The noble Lord, Lord Green, was absent yesterday when there was a PNQ, which he knew was coming up, about his attendance. He is absent again today. I do not know where he is, but he is certainly not here. However, he is going to make a statement today, not to this House but to Jeff Randall on Sky television.

It is appalling and a discourtesy to this House and to Parliament as a whole when the noble Lord considers that it is appropriate for him to make a statement on television and not to this House. Since we have the noble Lord the Leader of the House here—I shall wait for a reply to the Committee—he will say that at a time when the Prime Minister is under tremendous pressure with his former press adviser and good friend having been charged with very serious offences and when his judgment is in question, it would add to that for his adviser on banking, a senior Minister of State, not to come before this House and be accountable to the place where he ought to be.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

I apologise for intervening on this issue, but I wish to say something. I address my remarks to the noble Lord the Leader of the House rather than to the Lord Chairman. In view of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Green, is going to be on television this evening and that he has written a letter to Mr Chris Leslie in the House of Commons, I thought it pertinent to raise this matter on the Floor of the House.

As a matter of procedure, the noble Lord the Leader of the House yesterday told your Lordships’ House in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint:

“No Minister needs to be accountable to Parliament for their previous career”.—[Official Report, 23/7/2012; col. 482.]

However, in a letter to my honourable friend the shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the noble Lord, Lord Green, does precisely that in giving, as a government Minister in an official letter from a government department, his views on HSBC and what he described as the “failures” of the bank, about which he says, “I share that regret”. If the noble Lord, Lord Green, can make that kind of point in a government letter—let alone what he might say in an interview on Sky television at 7 pm this evening—he should come to this House and make those points here. I therefore invite the Leader of the House, in the light of the actions today of the noble Lord, Lord Green, to make arrangements for the noble Lord, as a Minister and a Member of this House, to take the opportunity to come to this House tomorrow to dispel the questions that are being posed about his ministerial role.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I think that it is worth replying to this. The noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition was kind enough to give me notice that she would raise this issue. There are two accusations against my noble friend Lord Green. The first is that he has written to Mr Chris Leslie, who is a Member of the House of Commons. The only reason why my noble friend Lord Green has written to Mr Leslie is because Mr Leslie wrote to him and he has simply replied. That strikes me as being entirely the right and correct thing to do.

The second accusation is that my noble friend has not come to this House to answer questions. The reason why my noble friend has not come to this House to answer questions is because none has been put to him on this subject.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, made much of the table of attendance and referred to my noble friend Lady Anelay. However, she happens to be the government Chief Whip, and if she was not here practically every day, I would want to know why. Incidentally, I also want to know why the Minister for Trade should spend all his time in here when his job is to do his best, banging the drum for British business—as the noble Lord, Lord Jones, used to remind us—rather than coming here. How many questions has the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, put down in the past 12 months to my noble friend Lord Green on matters of trade? I shall check the record later.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, perhaps I might ask one question on Scotland. Before anyone jumps up and says that this legislation does not affect the forests in Scotland, I acknowledge that it does not. However, as the headquarters of the UK Forestry Commission are in Scotland, the legislation could, as I understand it, have a significant effect on Scotland. The original proposals involved a substantial loss of jobs at Silvan House in Corstorphine. Now that there has been a U-turn and the Forestry Commission is to continue with its responsibilities for forests in England, will all the jobs held by people who are administering and dealing with the English forests be retained at Corstorphine in Edinburgh? As I understand it, no announcement has been made about a U-turn on the jobs. It was announced that 150 jobs would be lost at Corstorphine in Edinburgh, but that would seem a strange thing to do in the light of the announcement of a policy U-turn. It seems that the jobs in Edinburgh will still be necessary to carry out the tasks that have been done very well for many years.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

I, too, am very grateful to the Minister for the information that he provided at the beginning of this debate and for the gracious apology from the Secretary of State in the other place a couple of weeks ago. I, of course, welcome the statement and the fact that all references to “forestry” and the Forestry Commission are being deleted from the Bill. Can the Minister confirm that the Forestry Commission will not appear in any other schedule if Schedule 7 is disappearing? Can he also provide clarification on Wales? I am not entirely certain what the position is now on Wales because the Forestry Commission is mentioned in Clauses 13 to 16.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and others, I pay tribute to the wonderful campaigns up and down the country. I, of course, pay special tribute to the people of the Forest of Dean in the Hands off our Forest campaign. It was the first campaign off the blocks and led the way for campaigns that drew widespread support, and eventually the Government listened, as they should do, and changed their mind. The sort of consultation the Government embarked on after they had produced the Bill, which said that they were going to enable forests to be sold, is not the right way of going about things. We should always have a consultation and a White Paper first.

I realise that the independent panel will listen to people’s views but, as many noble Lords have said, we need to be assured that the independent panel is going to work in a transparent and public way, and we need to know who is going to be on that panel and what their remit is. If the Minister does not have answers to those questions today, I trust that he will have answers when we debate this issue again on Thursday. While I realise that the independent panel has been tasked by the Secretary of State and Defra, we on these Benches and in the Forest of Dean strongly believe that the small percentage of forests that remain in public hands—I think it is only about 15 per cent of the country’s forests and woodlands—should remain in public ownership and continue to be managed by the Forestry Commission, which does an excellent job.

I am therefore delighted that Clauses 17, 18 and 19 are being deleted and that all the other amendments will fall. The reason why I and so many others from the Forest of Dean felt passionately about these things is because, as the right reverend Prelate said, the forest is not just the woods but a community, and we felt that our community as a whole was under threat. We enjoy customary privileges rather than established rights and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, we felt that those customary privileges were under threat.

I also added my name to amendments relating to public access, consultation, management and so much more. These issues are all of the utmost importance and I hope that they will be dealt with by the independent panel. Rights of access under the CROW Act are simply not enough when it comes to forests. We are all deeply grateful to the Forestry Commission for enabling cyclists, those who ride horses and those who practise motor sports to enjoy our forests. They simply could not do that under the CROW Act.

Likewise, I hope that the panel will consider Forestry Stewardship Council certification. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool tabled an amendment on this together with my noble friend Lady Quin. In 1999, the whole of the public forest estate received FSC certification, which recognises that these forests are responsibly managed according to environmental, social and economic criteria. We believe that that must continue. We want to ensure that this rigorous management standard is maintained for the future.

We should pay tribute to the way in which the Forestry Commission manages and protects our forests, ensuring maximum biodiversity and a strong ecosystem, as well as producing timber and making a huge contribution to meeting our targets under Section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008. That is another issue that is mentioned in an amendment by my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon.