Recall of MPs Bill
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Elystan-Morgan(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have been sitting quietly—unusually for me—listening carefully to what has been a fascinating debate and waiting patiently for the Minister to explain why he is not able to accept the amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lady Taylor, which was the line the Government took in the House of Commons. I can understand that my noble friend on the Opposition Front Bench is constrained, and I respect his position, but I do not understand the position of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. I would have thought he would have accepted it with open arms. It is a Labour amendment putting forward what the Conservatives did in the House of Commons. He has not explained. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and my noble friend Lady Taylor pointed out, not one word addressed the issue of why it should be 10 or 20 days. He can interrupt me if he wants to try to explain that.
Wales: National Assembly Elections
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Elystan-Morgan(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, perhaps I may say two fairly generous things to start with. The first is how much I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, whom I congratulate on her Front-Bench status. This is the first time that I have had the opportunity of listening to her, and it is clear that she speaks with great authority and immense lucidity. The other not ungenerous thing that I should like to say is that I am delighted that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is leading for the Opposition.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
The coalition Government. Old habits die hard. I remember when I was a student, a very long time ago, reading something to the effect that the surname Wallace derives from “Wallish”. Wallish, in Scots Gaelic, meant “Welsh”—so it may well be that some millennium and a half ago we had common ancestors.
Having spoken, I hope not ungenerously, on those two matters, perhaps I may say that the Green Paper has come about because of a massive blunder by Her Majesty’s Government 18 months ago. I refer to the fact that a decision was made without any empirical evidence or research to the effect that the number of Members in the House of Commons should be reduced from 650 to 600—a perfectly arbitrary judgment. It may very well be that there were elements of self-interest in that decision, but I am prepared to accept that that was probably not the case.
It was a slavish pandering to vulgar populism. It you were to put this to an audience in the front bar of most public houses in the United Kingdom, many people would say, “Yes, certainly. Do away with half the so and sos”. It was that motivation that brought about one of the most massive errors of judgment in relation to parliamentary democracy of the past 100 years. The effect was that ancient constituencies—representing very old communities that had been hammered out on the anvil of time—disappeared. Natural boundaries—rivers, mountains, bridges, old county boundaries—melted away. All this was done, according to the Government, to bring greater fairness, greater cohesion and greater certitude. I do not believe that one could have been more destructive of those elements if one had really tried.
Tacitus speaks of generals who laid waste huge areas of land, saying that where they create a desert they call it peace. Here, the Government create chaos and they call it electoral reform. That is what has brought this Green Paper into existence and the necessity of making judgments in relation to these matters.
The Government speak as if they are now stepping in nobly to deal with some sort of crisis created by some utterly external and independent agency—something that has come about without any responsibility on the part of the Government. I remember a report of a case in the assizes about 100 years ago. A person had been found guilty of murdering his mother and father. The allocutor asked him, “Have you anything to say on why judgment according to law should not be passed upon you?”. He said, “My Lord, I throw myself on the mercy of the court. I am an orphan now”. The crisis is entirely of the Government’s own making.
I do not apologise for my short preamble, but I now turn to the Green Paper. I will confine myself to whether there should be 30 or 40 constituencies for the purposes of election to the Welsh Assembly. I agree with my noble friend Lord Wigley and others that there is an overwhelming case for concentrating on 30. It comes about for all the wrong reasons, but I believe it is a fait accompli that one should accept. All the alternatives would be infinitely worse. There would be a lack of cohesion, nightmarish conflicts, unnecessary cost and hassle. One should build on the 30 in any event, but one should go much further than that. The real issue today is not the number of constituencies or any of the other questions raised by the Green Paper; it is the question that is dismissed in one sentence in paragraph 1.1, where the Government state that the number of Members of the Welsh Assembly should remain at 60. That is a massive and utterly existential question.
I believe in my very bones that 60 was a ludicrously small number to begin with and made it impossible for the Assembly to have any real future or viability and promise. That was the situation when the Assembly was created and it is now infinitely more acute since the referendum in March of last year. What we have now, whether or not we call it an Assembly, is a Parliament—a legislature with responsibility for substantial areas of primary legislation. If that Assembly is to be shackled and emasculated to the degree of having only 60 Members, we will deny it the real prospect of life and growth. It does not give me any pleasure to make that point because people in many parties have been saying all along, “For goodness’ sake, don’t talk about adding to the number of Members in the Assembly”. It is about the most unpopular subject that you could raise. To some extent all of us, including Assembly Members, are guilty of that mentality, but leadership must be conducted in an honest and statesmanlike way.
I do not know exactly how many of the 60 will be left to deal with scrutiny, something which has come about in the Assembly for the first time so far as primary legislation is concerned. Unless the Assembly can scrutinise in a detailed, honest and comprehensive way, it might as well not be there. This House and the other place have exercised that privilege and responsibility for centuries, and they earned it the hard way. But at all times they have had an adequate number of people to allow them to do it. By my rough calculation, having taken into account the Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Chairmen of Committees and one or two other functionaries who would be exempt from the exercise of scrutiny, only around 30 Members would be left. Indeed, from what I have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, who I think will deal with the exact numbers, that is a gross underestimate. What noble Lords hear from me is advocacy, but what they will hear from him is testimony.
The situation is this. If we want the Assembly to be a real legislature, it has to move away from the shackle of 60 Members. The Richard commission said eight years ago, before the referendum last year, that 60 Members were too few. Noble Lords will remember that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, recommended 80. In my view, 90 would be a perfectly reasonable and adequate figure, and of course it has the blessing of being able to be divided by three. I suggest that 60 should be elected by first past the post, but I would not go to the stake if it were the other way around, with 30 elected by first past the post and 60 under the additional member system. I think it would be wrong, but rather than see the Assembly emasculated and turned into a little puppet government, I would prefer to see that.
On that basis, therefore, I appeal to the speakers in this debate and to all who are concerned about politics in Wales to see to it that that reform is brought about. The Government have made a great error and committed a massive blunder, but the situation is not irredeemable. They can use that blunder to bring about an utterly necessary reform—that of increasing the number to a viable level of 90 or thereabouts. We have been told that Scotland has 129 Members, which is one Member for each 39,000 of its population. Northern Ireland has 108 Members, one for each 15,700 of its population. Wales has 60 Members, which is one for every 48,000 of its population. I hope that those who cry for equality, equity and justice will accept the case.
Crime: Self-defence Homicide
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Elystan-Morgan(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, will the Minister make clear to the viewers and listeners from north of the border that all the answers he has given so far apply only to England, and perhaps also to Wales?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Yes, including Wales, thank you. Will the Minister consider having some discussion with his counterpart in Scotland about lessons learnt from Scots law, which very often—and, I think, in this case—is superior to English and Welsh law?