Houses of Parliament: Co-location
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Balfe(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Norton for initiating this debate. In my nine years in this House, I have attended his group fairly regularly and benefited from his wisdom and that of my noble friend Lord Cormack. Unfortunately, we have not managed to achieve much in these years, although that is not for the want of trying, but one of the things that we seem to have achieved, which my noble friend Lord True is probably not too happy about, is that from time to time we have debates where not a single person supports what the Government want to do.
I must say that I am disappointed that our own Front Bench is not represented here today. I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and the Liberal representation, but I am sorry that our own Conservative Front Bench have not been here for any part of this debate.
Lord Balfe (Con)
Yes, but I am talking about our representative in the Cabinet, who I would like to think was out there defending us. I want to hear a statement from someone who supposedly represents us in No. 10 saying what their take is on all this and what they intend to do in order to carry out the wishes of this House.
I spent even longer than my noble friend Lord Inglewood in the European Parliament; I was there for 25 years. For 10 of them, I had a very obscure job that involved me going around Europe to all the member states looking at their administrative arrangements for liaison back to the Parliament. That meant that in the course of those 10 years, on a cycle, every two years I visited every Parliament in the EU, the number of which of course expanded slightly during my 10 years. I noticed that all of them saw the necessity, where they had a second Chamber—and not all of them did—for it to be collocated with the other Chamber, generally in a building where they were connected at some point to each other, not dissimilar to this building. In one case, Germany, there is a clear distinction between the roles of the lower and upper House, but even there they are in the same city.
Another point that always struck me was that the seat of government is exactly that. It is not just the Parliament; it normally contains the seat of the Supreme Court and the seat of most of the major public bodies—just as London has the Local Government Association, for instance. The capital is the place where policy is debated, discussed and made. That is why, in my view, it is important that all parts of the democratic machine are located within that capital complex. That is the common way in which things happen.
As my noble friend Lord Cormack has mentioned, that does not mean that committees cannot travel. To take another European Parliament example, most committees went twice a year to another city somewhere within the EU for a meeting. Part of the job of the rather boring committee that I sat on was to make sure that they did not both end up in the same place, or that you did not get two committees in the same town at the same time, but they did travel around so that is possible.
However, we found in Strasbourg, as my noble friend has already mentioned, that getting people together was extraordinarily difficult because everyone was travelling there. Getting meetings of the Commission, the Parliament and the lobbyists who came down was extremely difficult and it did not function properly, largely because it was not cohesive or in the same city. Indeed, in the early days the European Commission made very little attempt to get there at all, and that was one of the big early rows about the Commission reporting to the European Parliament. I mention that because the essence of a Parliament has to be that all the different constituent parts, not just the Chambers but the other parts of the democratic structure, have to be located largely within the same geographical area.
Turning to some very local matters, some of which have been mentioned, every week within this place we have debates on Bills, and sitting in the Box are the civil servants. Where are they going to be? Are they going to be shipped off to our new home? No, they are going to be working in Whitehall, but then presumably they are going to be asked to travel. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has mentioned a number of all-party parliamentary groups; I doubt that a week goes by without virtually every Member sitting in this House being in an all-party group somewhere or other with Members of the House of Commons. That is part of what makes this place work.
Although “lobbyist” is a dirty word in many voices, that function is also very useful. Instead of talking about lobbyists, I could talk about my useful relations with the TUC, which of course is based in London and can tell me about what is going on in the TU movement, or the various trade unions that I am in contact with and sometimes mention in this House. Most of their head offices are in London and their officers can pop in here for a cup of tea, or I can drop in and see them. I have my reservations about lobbyists, particularly some of them, but one of their jobs is to impart information. A few weeks ago, when I was moving an amendment with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on the Health and Care Bill, we both made extensive use of consultation with lobbyists who we could get hold of. They came to see us and, together with senior civil servants who were prepared to come to meetings, we were able to draft a very useful clause.
In conclusion, I have only one question for the Minister. Is money still being spent on looking at the QEII Centre or has that stopped, and was there a contract? Will that contract be published and, if it is, will we see who in Michael Gove’s department initiated it? It appears that the Levelling-Up Secretary has cancelled a contract which his department must have negotiated, and presumably there is some sort of paper trail. I ask the Minister to pass the buck and say “Look: my House of Parliament—the House of Lords—wants to know what the background is to this contract. How did it get let, who has been representing you on it, how much have you spent, is it still running and what are you up to?” I would like that one question to be reflected forward. I join everybody else in roundly condemning Michael Gove’s plan and wondering whether it will have any support at all.
Elections Bill
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord BalfeThursday 17th March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
I have followed the noble Lord’s career for all those 60 years in great detail; I remember when we worked together in the Co-operative Party. I think his recollection is just a little wrong. My recollection is that he left us; we did not kick him out.
Lord Balfe (Con)
I have a letter signed by none other than the great Mr Blair terminating my membership of the Labour Party for a disciplinary offence, which was running for an office that was not actually reserved for any political party but was supposedly open to all. Mr Blair decided that I was to be forbidden from running for that office. I had won the election fairly easily because it gave people an excuse; they were voting not for Balfe but against the Iraq war, which was a bit odd because the job I was standing for was administrator of the European Parliament pension fund.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Was the noble Lord not running for a well-paid lucrative post within the European Parliament?
Lord Balfe (Con)
I suggest to my friend the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that he stops making a fool of himself. This was not a paid post; it was an elected post within the European Parliament, known colloquially as “shop steward”—I see the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, nodding—that attracted no pay but you got some staff, a big office and the ability to actually get things done for the members. By definition, it was a non-political post. It had no politics attached to it, which made what happened even more odd. I will bring the noble Lord the letter; I will get it out of the LSE archives.
Brexit: Protection for Workers
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Balfe(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Statement. We need to remember that trade unionists do not all vote for the Labour Party. More than 30% of them vote for the Conservative Party. Furthermore, statements by the TUC are capable of selective quotation, so I shall selectively quote from Frances O’Grady’s statement:
“successive UK Governments have been exceptionally resistant to introducing improvements even when they are required to do so by the EU”.
Those of us who have been fortunate enough to serve in the European Parliament will remember the blizzard of letters that we received from such people as the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, imploring us to oppose the working time directive. I make the point that both parties have form in this matter and that when I asked a leading trade unionist a few ago to name me one significant advance that he had from 13 years of Labour government, he could not name one.
Lord Balfe
I will ask a question. In repeating the Statement, the Minister said:
“Parliament will be given the opportunity at least every six months to consider any changes to EU workers’ rights”,
and so on, and referred to,
“a document which has been subject to consultation with employers and trade unions, and which will be scrutinised by the relevant Select Committees of this House”—
meaning the House of Commons. Can he give us any more enlightenment on whether there will be any opportunity for this House also to scrutinise these documents? We are, after all, a bicameral legislature.
Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Balfe(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That is an even better peroration. The whole campaign of the leavers was to take back control—if I remember—to the British Parliament, not the British Government. It is not the Government or even the Cabinet, but one person who seems to be ramming it through with some kind of stubbornness and determination. That was not what it was supposed to be about. It was supposed to bring the power back to this Parliament.
I say to my noble friend Lord Adonis, if they try to push it through by emergency legislation that will be a real test of the mettle of every Member of this House, particularly the Cross-Benchers. Are they going to stand up for Parliament, or be subservient to our autocratic Government? That will be the test.
I think I have gone a little bit wider than the statutory instrument and I am grateful for the fact that the Lord Speaker does not have the same powers as the Speaker in another place; otherwise, I might have been ruled out of order by now. I am sorry to be slightly flippant; it is a very serious matter. Coming back to relevance, this one statutory instrument is illustrative of the kind of thing we face in this Parliament at the moment, and it is quite frightening.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry that I am going to destroy even more the statement from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, by being the third speaker from this side of the House to raise questions. I saw in the paper this morning that apparently, on 1 September 1939, between 6 pm and midnight Parliament passed six pieces of emergency legislation—all three Readings —and rose before midnight, so it is possible to put through emergency legislation. But I wonder whether this is the sort of parallel we would like to draw.
I have heard many justifications for leaving the EU but I have never yet heard job creation as being one of them. However, it seems that virtually every time we come here we are creating more jobs—59 extra jobs, I am told. That must be at least a couple of million pounds on public expenditure. How much of the vast amount of money we were going to save is going to be spent? I suppose that since the Government’s priority is to create jobs, this is a partly a way of doing that.
International Relations
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Balfe
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, allow me to fill in a little background. First, the Order Paper should not say,
“in place of Lord Balfe, resigned”.
Rather, it should say, “In place of Lord Balfe, sacked by the Whips’ Office despite his protests”.
Last year, I was asked by the Whips’ Office to serve on the International Relations Committee and was told that it was a three-year appointment. At that time I pointed out that, as a member of the Council of Europe, I could bring a different perspective to the committee but would have to miss a small number of meetings when the committee clashed with meetings of the Council of Europe. This was specifically accepted by the Whips.
On 14 May this year, I was asked to see the Whip and presented with some attendance figures which purported to show that my attendance was not very good. I challenged the figures and they were later proved woefully wrong by the committee secretariat. In fact, I was the joint second-best Conservative attender, and some way ahead of the lowest-attending Conservative. On 16 May, two days later, I saw the Deputy Chief Whip and asked him to review the decision in view of the new evidence. Not only did he refuse, but it was clear to me that the decision to sack me had been taken and the attendance figures were just an excuse.
It is true that I have voted against the Government on a handful of occasions and, rather like those removed from committees last year, it seems that I am now to be the subject of this sort of “punishment beating” for stepping out of line on just a few issues: namely, Leveson and a couple of times on the EU votes.
I put it to the House that this type of arbitrary behaviour by the Whips has to cease. As Members, we must have the right to exercise our judgment and not be under constant threat that if we stray a little out of line we will be victimised. This may play well with the Daily Mail and for the leader’s reputation in No. 10, but it is no way to get loyalty or run a happy ship.
Before this happened, I suggested to the Senior Deputy Speaker that the appointment of committees and their chairs should be settled by the House and not by the current method. The Whips’ behaviour is unacceptable and should not be allowed to continue. I was going to address the Leader of the House, but she is not here, so I invite the Deputy Leader to indicate that he would be happy for the Motion to be withdrawn while further consideration is given to the matter.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I wonder whether I can add something as a fellow rebel. The Order Paper is inaccurate. It is wrong to say that the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, resigned. We have just heard that he did not, so the Motion is not correct. I address the Senior Deputy Speaker because he is moving the Motion. As the House heard last week, I have the greatest respect for him, sitting with him as I do on the Liaison Committee, which he chairs impeccably. I have known him for years in both this place and the other place. In all seriousness, I ask him to take this back. It would be a travesty and look very bad if this House passed something that, from what we have heard, is manifestly inaccurate. The Senior Deputy Speaker would do this House a service if he took the matter back to the committee.
Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Balfe
Lord Balfe
I shall be brief. I begin where the noble Lord, Lord Hain, ended, which is with the leaked letter. The points put by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, were extremely well made. There are clearly a whole number of issues within the Bill. If we are to believe the leaked letter, which I probably do, and as we are not going to vote tonight, I hope that the Minister will look very carefully at all these amendments with a view to coming back and assuring the House that, if we asked to sustain our opposition to them, she has firm advice from the Attorney-General that that will stand up in court. I am not afraid of our occasionally going to the Supreme Court to clarify matters—I think it is probably necessary in a devolution settlement—but we should be on firm ground. If we do go to the Supreme Court, we should have a recommendation from the Attorney-General that he is quite satisfied that legally we are in the right in what we do.
When it comes to things such as deductions of contributions at source, about which at another opportunity I shall make some very clear points, if devolution means anything, surely it does not mean that we are going to ask Cardiff hospital, for example, to stop deducting the subscriptions of their union members if that is done at no cost to public funds and is seen as beneficial to industrial relations in Wales. What does devolution mean if simple things like that cannot happen? Maybe they cannot happen but, if that is the case, I hope that the Minister will be prepared to publish and share with us the views of our Attorney-General as to why this is a sound clause.