Unemployment: Support

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

With regard to the hospitality sector, I assure the noble Baroness and the whole House that the Department for Work and Pensions is looking at what can be done to support people in it. With regard to a second wave, we will continue to respond in the way that we have done up to now.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I regret that the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. I sincerely thank noble Lords and Ministers today. That concludes the Virtual Proceedings on Oral Questions. The Virtual Proceedings will resume at a convenient point after 12.45 pm for the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, but for the time being proceedings are adjourned.

Universal Credit

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I think that I have answered the questions about the benefit cap and reviewing benefits quite adequately during the course of the Question. I agree that these are very challenging times. We have launched a job help website and an employer help website. We will turn every stone to ensure that we help people back to work as quickly as possible.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has, regrettably, elapsed.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 11th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 49 I shall speak also to Amendments 54 and 55 in this group. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for adding her name to the first of those amendments.

The amendments continue the debate we have had about standards and seek to draw out a response. In that sense they are probing amendments and I do not expect them to be accepted as they stand. They are probing in the sense that they are trying to draw out more clearly what standard setting will involve. As has been mentioned, Clause 6 states simply:

“The single financial guidance body must from time to time set standards to be complied with”,


but does not specify what the standards are. Are they about dress codes or eating habits? Presumably they relate to the more detailed work of how it deals with its customers. I would hope that it is the latter but that does not exclude the former. A word of comfort from the Dispatch Box might ease troubled concerns outside.

The underlying problem is that for many of the bodies to which the standard setting will apply there is an existing regulatory framework operated by the FCA and therefore we are in danger of seeing dual regulatory powers. This is not just a trivial point about bureaucracy. In a recent report from the StepChange Debt Charity, in which I have already declared my interest, the chairman points out that the arrangement under which it receives its regulatory authority from the FCA has added 7% to the charity’s costs. This is a body with a £20 million turnover so it is a significant sum for getting itself ready, and rightly so, to be regulated by a body. To think that more of the money that StepChange raises for charitable purposes will have to be spent on satisfying another regulatory body would seem to be unusually onerous.

To be clear on what we would like the Government to say on this point, there is a case for something to be said at the Dispatch Box which makes it clear that the SFGB’s currently broad and largely unconstrained regulatory powers should be moderated by some sort of framework. We propose in our amendment that the regulation should be specifically addressed to a commissioning framework, because certainly in the debt space the intention is that the bodies concerned will be commissioned to provide particular services which the single body thinks should be available. We have taken wording from other legislation which suggests that the commissioning framework should be based on the competencies of the provider against which it will satisfy itself when it commissions and procures services. That would give a route in towards the thinking here.

When we are talking about charities, we are also talking about those that are regulated separately by the charities regulator on certain aspects of their work. Again it is important to recognise that additional and triple regulation would be unnecessary.

The powers will come mainly from the FCA. Once more, it would be helpful if the Minister could respond to the likelihood of that. There is only one comparable situation at the moment where the FCA regulates bodies operating in the debt space, and indeed it has just completed a full review of a number of them. At the same time it has been asked to look at the current rules as they affect the Money Advice Service. When the authority did that, it said that it would not review or comment on the particular requirements of MAS—here I give a sense of its comments—because it felt that its standards were sufficiently high to encompass anything that would be involved in MAS and relating to the bodies that it funded. Again, what that would mean in practice is a little uncertain and perhaps the Minister will think about whether it will be necessary to get a better specification from the FCA, which perhaps could be done through correspondence, of the type of regulatory framework it thought it would be looking for from the SFGB, at which levels there would be any overlap, and in what sense any additional work would be needed. In short, we are looking for legislation that is concise and focused along with a broader statement of practice prior to the passing of the Bill which would give us more detail on how the body will operate in practice and the impact and burdens on those bodies it commissions. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I should inform the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 50 by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I point the House to my declaration of interests. I want to underline something that the noble Lord has just said about the danger of having conflicting areas of advice.

I am sure that my noble friend will be able to explain this, but it is already true in the financial services industry, and elsewhere, that often there are serious conflicts between the decisions being handed down, for example by the Financial Services Authority, the way that such decisions are interpreted by the ombudsman and the way that things come together. That is now a major incubus on the best companies in the field; therefore it is crucial for us to know in advance that what is being done here will not be yet another different series of things that people have to bring together. That is not to defend anybody who is doing wrong or to excuse people who have not bothered, but merely to say that the better the firm, the more important it is for it to be clear what governance it should be concerned with, what guidance means, and ensure that the opportunities for contradictions are eliminated before we start.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Lords Chamber

20A: Clause 11, page 7, line 19, leave out “must” and insert “may”

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, there is an error in the Marshalled List. Amendment 20A should read: “page 7, line 19, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘must’”.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Lord Speaker for putting the House right on that; the error was pointed out to me this morning. I shall speak briefly to the amendment.

All the information requirements relating to scheme processes as set out in Clause 11(4) are integral to a thorough assessment of a master trust’s capacity to run a scheme effectively. Therefore, it should be mandatory for regulations to include provision about the regulations. Master trusts must be effectively run so that members can be sure that their money and futures are secure. Security around master trusts is key to their success. It is much too important to be left to possible regulation; it needs to be enshrined in the Bill. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the amendment, and I support all the other amendments in the group.

Welfare

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome entirely what my noble friend said about disabled people and the one-nation ambition. However, in looking at the challenge for the new Secretary of State, surely we should remember that there has always been tension between any social security Secretary and any Chancellor of the Exchequer. There have been rougher Chancellors than Mr Osborne. In future, it might be better to sort out the differences, as we did, without the intervention of spin doctors and anonymous briefers.

As to the substance and the issue of raising money, surely the time has come, with the new Secretary of State, to look again at payments such as the winter fuel allowance which, all too often, go to people who by no stretch of the imagination should be receiving social security benefits.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, in some humility, I say that I disagree with both my fellow Conservatives who have just spoken, and in particular with the last speech. I do that in the context of paying tribute to the very high standard of the debate that has taken place. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and his colleagues for the way it has been conducted.

It is never ever been our case—those of us who want reform—that opposition is homophobic. That is not remotely the case that we have been putting. There is a central division between us. When opponents of the Government’s legislation have said, “Remember what people outside are saying”, that goes two ways. We might remember also what many tens of thousands of gay and lesbian people outside are saying. It is important to them, as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, so movingly said, in personal terms. I am struck and touched by the numbers of people who have been in touch with me to say what an important decision this is. It is, of course, after years and years of discrimination. That is what makes their support so moving.

The second point is that it is important in another way. During the passage of the Bill, I have been, as it happens, to a range of countries where discrimination against gay and lesbian people is not only an underlying feeling, but it is set out either in legislation or in official attitudes of those countries. I think in particular of a country I am recently back from—Russia. I think of Ukraine and Uganda. Personally, I hope that the message of this House of Lords is that there is a better way of doing these things than the way that those countries are doing them. It is a plea for equality and for non-discrimination. That is the hope and the message that I hope goes out from this House. I believe that, very shortly, the Government will have done a great thing here and I congratulate them on it.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I start my brief but sincere comments by thanking very much the Minister for the compliments she just paid me. I am grateful to her. I also thank all of those who have spoken on all sides of the House in the numerous debates that have taken place about the Bill, and especially those who supported me in the passage of the Bill through your Lordships’ House. All of us from my side were more than a little surprised at the level of support that the Bill has attracted within the House. If one looks at the opinion polls taken outside among the general public, it runs at about 57% in favour of the Bill. The votes in your Lordships’ House ran 20% or so ahead of that. I make no comment about that except that it surprises, and others will take considerable pleasure from that.

All I say, very sincerely, is that despite the serious doubts that some parts of our society harbour about the wisdom of the Bill, I—and I am sure I can speak on behalf of my supporters—fully recognise the parliamentary process and willingly accede to it. We all hope very sincerely that if passed by the House of Commons, the Bill will prove to be a success.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I have not spoken before this evening, mainly because I have very much wanted to listen to what other people had to say. However, I really feel rather annoyed about this amendment. Why on this particular Bill? In the past year or so, we have sat through legislation from this Government on an enormous range of issues: welfare, employment law, foreign policy intervention and so on. Has there been any pressure for a referendum on these issues? No, there has not. However, we now have the opportunity, at long last, of producing legislation to try to and put right the discrimination which gays and lesbians have suffered for many years. We are aiming to do that, and we are doing it. We have voted in favour of the Bill, in this House and in the other place, with an overwhelming majority. The law is now absolutely clear: it says that the marriage of same-sex couples is lawful—I repeat, is lawful. Yet this amendment suggests that a referendum be held on 24 October 2013 and that there should be a statement on the ballot paper which says:

“At present, the law in England and Wales defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Should the law be changed”,

et cetera. By the time we reach October, the law will quite clearly not be the same as indicated in this proposed new clause. It will have changed because we will have voted to change the law to make the marriage of same-sex couples lawful.

I listened with amazement as the noble Lord who moved the amendment suggested that somehow or other that was not popular. In my view, this legislation is very popular, particularly with younger people. Perhaps much older people have some doubts about it but, generally speaking, younger people are all in favour of it. I was pleased that after the Second Reading debate, when I looked at my computer, I had messages from all sorts of people, including younger people, saying, “Well done, well done”, about my speech. We do not need a referendum. We should throw this amendment out. It is not worthy at all. Why should it be in the Bill? The amendment is entirely discriminatory, and I urge your Lordships to oppose it.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, I note, with respect, that the noble Lord who introduced the amendment says that the arguments were not considered in the Commons. What I think he actually means is that they were considered; it is just that he does not agree with the conclusion that both Houses came to. That tends to happen in a democracy. We make our decisions on the basis of the arguments. I do not think that one can argue for a referendum on the basis that one disagrees with a decision. There is not a great deal of difference, frankly, between what we are debating now and what we debated in Committee.

I leave aside the wording of the question that would be put, which seems to say, “The present law is excellent, or are you one of that band of eccentrics who thinks that it should be changed?”. I am not sure that the Electoral Reform Society would totally agree with such a question being asked in a referendum. However, my objection is much broader than that.

I am not opposed to referenda on constitutional issues. My Government made a mistake back in 1972; we should have had a referendum before we went into the Common Market. I am glad that Mr Cameron is promising a referendum after his negotiations on Europe and before the matter comes to the Commons after the next election. What I cannot support is holding a referendum after a Bill has gone through both Houses of Parliament and after our extensive discussions in both Houses. The Bill has been approved by massive majorities. There is no question about that. It is not on the margins; there have been massive majorities for the Bill. That is particularly the case for Members of Parliament because it is they who, at the next election, have to answer to their constituents. That is what parliamentary democracy is about.

You cannot have a situation whereby legislation in Parliament goes through the Commons and the Lords and then we have a referendum on it. It makes complete nonsense of the role of Parliament and of parliamentary democracy. One of my underlying concerns about some of the opposition to this legislation is that we are going against our fundamental beliefs in parliamentary democracy and the role of this House. This House, at this stage, should not be considering an amendment of this kind. Its only purpose can be to wreck the Bill as a last chance to ditch it, and we should not have any part in it. Therefore, with respect to the noble Lord, to whom I have listened previously, and again now, I am totally unconvinced by his argument.

[Lord Waddington]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Fowler is making rather a meal of it. I can think of only one justification for having a referendum, and that is to allow the Prime Minister to get off the hook on which he has impaled himself by bringing forward this Bill in the first place. Everybody knows that the Bill came forward to Parliament in a most disreputable fashion. We have gone over this many times, so I will say it in a sentence or two. Three days before the election, the Prime Minister said that he had no plans to bring forward such a Bill; there was no reference to it in any party manifesto; there was nothing about it in the coalition agreement; and there was no proper consultation. The result is that UKIP is having a field day—

[Lord Fowler]

My noble friend accuses me of making a meal of it, but he is making a massive feast of the whole thing. Surely, every argument he has just produced has been debated and debated again, at Second Reading in both the Commons and the Lords.

[Lord Waddington]

The trouble is that my noble friend has not listened to the end of my argument, which is that as a result of the Prime Minister’s behaviour, UKIP has been gleaning Tory votes throughout the country. If we do not do anything about it, at the next general election UKIP will no doubt be making hay as a result. I suggest to my noble friend that the only real justification for having a referendum is to help the Prime Minister by removing the whole issue from the public arena well before the next general election.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, I will be brief. First, I congratulate the most reverend Primate on his speech. It was, as we might have guessed, impressive, well argued and, above all, compassionate. I thank him for that, but fear that I disagree with his conclusion.

Before I get to that, perhaps I could deal first with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dear. I have a deep respect for this House. I do not share the dismissive and, frankly, offensive views of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, on the “Today” programme, which was the first interview I heard on flying in from Washington just in time for this debate. I accept and recognise that this is an appointed House, and it is an enormous privilege to be appointed to it. However, with that privilege come limitations on what we can do. Of course we can question legislation and seek to improve it. However, in my view, we cannot defeat at Second Reading the declared will of the House of Commons when, on a free vote, it has voted by over two to one to pass this legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Dear, expressed doubts about the voting. I was in the Commons for 31 years and the allegations he repeated sound very much like the consistent complaint made by those who have been defeated in a free vote. No party and no set of Whips would respect someone who could be persuaded by pressure to change his view on a free vote. That part of the noble Lord’s speech is frankly nonsense. I believe MPs have the authority that comes from their election and which they retain as long as they are MPs. Much is said about public opinion, and we have heard it already, but we should recognise that they and they alone are answerable to the public on this issue and not us in this House. We cannot take over that role; that is not our position. I thought that this was exactly the case some of us were putting a few months ago to avoid the prospect of two elected Houses standing side by side.

We would be profoundly wrong, if not politically suicidal, to vote against a Second Reading. However, I do not argue the case purely on those grounds—I also strongly believe in the Bill itself. Parliament should value people equally in the law and enabling same-sex marriage removes a current inequity. I believe that there are many gay and lesbian couples who want more than civil partnership, although it is something of a wonder to me to see how civil partnerships have suddenly become so popular among those I do not remember supporting them up until now. We should recognise that there are many deeply religious gay and lesbian couples, including people in the church, who want the commitment that marriage offers. This Bill, rather than weakening the institution of marriage, strengthens it, and our purpose as a Parliament should be to encourage the stability it can bring.

Just before I left Washington I had a meeting with a senior doctor who happens to be gay. Washington DC already has a law enabling equal marriage, as do other American states and they appear to have managed perfectly well. As it happens, he had not pushed for the change but he said that, quite apart from the rights of the individual, it sent out a much wider message for gays and lesbians that, in his words: “We are like everyone else”. That was the point and the message that was being put out. An obvious fact, you might say, but one that is denied by many countries around the world. It is denied by their Governments and their people and sometimes, I regret to say, by their churches. Over the past few months I have travelled to some of those countries and have seen the prejudice. I acknowledge freely the profound impact that that has had on me, which very much affects my attitude this afternoon.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, that this is my argument regarding the foreign experience and not the travesty of it which he sought to set out. I have seen equality fiercely denied in eastern Europe; in a country such as Ukraine, which he mentioned, too often politicians show their contempt for gay people and violence against them is the result. I have particularly seen equality denied in countries in sub-Saharan Africa such as Uganda. For several years there was a popular paper there whose sole purpose was to expose gay people, photograph them, give their addresses and invite the violence against them that followed. Homosexuality is a criminal offence there and of course the British first made it one, as we have in other African countries.

I am not optimistic enough to believe that our decision here tomorrow will break down the persecution, hostility and discrimination. However, it will show decisively how this country has changed, and the value we place on gay and lesbian people in our society. I believe that it will show support for the persecuted minorities around the world—and make no mistake, they exist. At home, I believe it will show the gay and lesbian community our belief in equality—I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, was a little complacent about the position on that—and, above all, their right to expect what we all expect; nothing more, but certainly nothing less. For some of us, that is a fundamental moral issue.

Leveson Inquiry

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, may I first congratulate the noble Lord on his maiden speech, which was quite excellent? No one has had to wait longer to make it, given that he was sitting patiently in his place just before Christmas and, if I may say so, it was very much worth the wait. I agree with what he said about statutory underpinning safeguarding the public. I think we will all want to study the words that he uttered; it was an important speech.

The noble Lord is a very distinguished scientist. He spent most of the past 20 years at Liverpool University. His achievements take up a significant chunk in Who’s Who, but what also interested me were his recreations. Recreation one is mountaineering, recreation two is “living life while I’m alive”. As a non-mountaineer, I would judge the two recreations are very closely connected. The whole House will wish to congratulate the noble Lord and I hope that “living life while I’m alive” will include making many more speeches in this House.

Perhaps I may say to my noble friend the Whip on the Front Bench, as is customary, my seven minutes start now. When I originally raised the issue of phone hacking, I remember being assured by a senior Cabinet member that it was just an issue for the media village. I think we can say that with more than 50 speakers in this debate it has gone way beyond that and has been revealed as the worst press scandal since the Second World War.

I started life as a journalist for almost 10 years in the swinging 1960s. I worked just off Fleet Street with the Times under the editorship of William Haley, and then of William Rees-Mogg, who we all remember with great affection. Indeed, if Lord Rees-Mogg’s high journalistic standards had been generally followed, we would not be having this debate today.

As a result of my journalistic past I was always regarded in government as something of an apologist and a defender of the press and the media. My noble friend Lady Thatcher never forgot my journalistic past. I remember at a reception for the Prime Minister of Finland she spied me, “Ah, Norman”, she said, “come and have a word. You know all about paper”. She added, “The Manchester Guardian”. This lady knew how to wound. As for her successor, John Major, he also simply regarded me as a hopeless case when it came to putting into action his not very temperate views on the British press.

Let me be quite clear: the journalists and editors I have worked with over the years in the national and regional press were and are predominantly men of honesty and integrity and sometimes of substantial courage, such as the war correspondents now at work in Syria.

Frankly, I am much more accustomed to defending the press and much more comfortable in that role, so why is it that in the past two years I have campaigned for change? Basically it is because I have seen the values that I and most journalists hold high trampled into the dirt; it is because I have seen so-called journalists attacking the public rather than carrying out their essential duty of standing up for their rights; and it is because I have seen a newspaper industry unable and unwilling to take action against palpable wrong-doing. One may say that actions such as phone hacking are criminal offences, and so they are, but what they also pointed to was a deeply rotten culture which had grown up in some parts of the press. It was so rotten that one mass-circulation newspaper had to be closed; so rotten that 1,000 people, and probably more, have been the likely victims of phone hacking; and so rotten that the Press Complaints Commission, which is there to protect the public, has been deemed by Leveson and virtually everybody else to be unfit for purpose.

What has confirmed me in my view is the dishonest campaign that over the past few months has been mounted against change by some of the most powerful figures in the industry. Rather than admit that there has been abuse of power, they seem to feel that they have been unfairly put upon. The result is that, even before the Leveson report appeared, there were adverts such as the one that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 26 November saying:

“These people believe in state control of the press. Do you?”.

This was followed by pictures of Mugabe, Assad, Castro and Putin, and the injunction:

“Say no to state regulation of the press”.

There cannot be any serious figure in this country who believes that a comparison between Lord Justice Leveson and Mugabe and Assad is anything other than the crudest and most dishonest form of abuse.

Furthermore, anyone who believes that because of the revelations of the past two years and the Leveson inquiry everything has already changed needs only to look at Andrew Mitchell’s account of his experiences with the press. They laid siege outside his home for more than a month, they followed his children and his wife in cars and on foot, and they even tried to find his 92 year-old mother-in-law but fortunately managed to get the wrong address. It is not exactly the strongest case for allowing the industry alone to protect the public interest in this country.

My view is that Lord Justice Leveson has done this country a great service. He has demolished once and for all the excuse that phone hacking was the work of one rogue reporter, and he has revealed the almost total inactivity of many proprietors and editors when undoubted evidence of wrong-doing was produced. Most of all, I support Leveson because he has put forward a system that would protect the public from abuse of power but would not be state regulation. In effect, he would allow the industry to come together and set up a complaints and investigation body that would be given certain rights provided it exercised its powers responsibly and independently. I accept that one does not have to follow every one of his proposals—for example, in relation to Ofcom—but the decision that cannot be avoided is whether we have a modest degree of statutory underpinning. It is statutory underpinning that Lord Justice Leveson proposes. We should be clear about how modest that is, for what we are talking about is basically a body that will periodically validate the independent arrangements that have been decided.

Personally, I think it is utterly ludicrous to describe that as state regulation, but it is important because it gives the public the assurance that their complaints will be investigated properly and independently and, above all, will continue to be so. That, it seems to me, is an assurance that they are entitled to have after decades of false starts and failures. Nor do I accept that the legislation need be long or complex. No less than four draft Bills have now been prepared, each one shorter than any of the Bills that I introduced as the Minister in charge of transport, health, social security and employment. It is a nonsensical argument.

As for the Government’s apparently favoured solution of setting up a new body under a royal charter, I cannot decide whether that is intended as a reward for the press for past conduct or as a punishment for what they have done. I say punishment because a royal charter hands over control to the Privy Council and, as the Privy Council’s own guidance says:

“This effectively means a significant degree of Government regulation of the affairs of the body”.

Why the press should want that is entirely beyond me. I repeat:

“a significant degree of Government regulation”,

resulting from a charter which, in its workings, will certainly require legislation—legislation otherwise known by some as statutory intervention.

The truth of the matter is this. If this were any other industry, it would be the press themselves clamouring for reform, and it would be the press themselves telling Parliament to ignore the claims of special interest groups. I believe that our concern should above all be the public interest. What we need is a short Bill which underlines and safeguards the freedom of the press while at the same time recognising that with that freedom comes the duty to respect the truth, to obey the law and, above all, to uphold the rights and liberties of individuals. That is what the Leveson report proposes. We will never have a better opportunity to act.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 14th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boothroyd]

My Lords, it is obvious that the Leader of the House recognises the disquiet in many parts of this House about recent operations of the financial privilege. I welcome that, and the explanation he has given today.

I certainly do not challenge the primacy of the elected Chamber and its control over financial policy. Neither do I intend the role of this House to be neglected as the revising Chamber with special responsibilities for the scrutiny of the legislation that comes to us.

The constitution of our country operates by convention. The Leader of the House talked about relationships on this special day, but I remind him that this is a bicameral Parliament; it operates by negotiation, by the ways and means of getting things done. Where were the usual channels during all this? The usual channels assist good relations not only between political parties but between the two Houses. By goodwill and by negotiation, they might have arrived at some compromise on the amendments to this Bill rather than have the Government behave in what I regard as the very heavy-handed manner that we witnessed the other week.

In an effort to resolve this matter, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, made the point that, in future, to avoid wasting scarce legislative time on the Floor of this House, amendments to which the Government might object should be flagged up in advance. I have huge respect for the noble and learned Lord; we worked in tandem for many years. However, I fear that predicting the future in that way would be nearly impossible and even if it were not so, would it not mean asking Lords authorities to interpret Commons privilege, or asking Commons officials to advise your Lordships? That does not seem a very practical way forward.

My concern is about the near future, about the Bills that will come before this House in the remainder of this Session and in the next Session. I ask the Leader of the House to state in his response, unequivocally, that the Government have no intention of threatening the role of this House in its responsibilities of scrutiny and revision by the increased use of financial privilege. Further, I ask him to speak frankly with some of his colleagues in the other House about how the relationship between the two Houses is currently practised and how it might be improved upon. We have the need to know what the future holds for this House for the remainder of this Session and the Bills that we are dealing with, and for the coming Session.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, perhaps I might make a brief intervention as a former Secretary of State for Social Security.

This is not the first time that a Government have been defeated in the Lords on a social security Bill. My 1986 Social Security Bill was defeated three times. The question arose what to do about it, so I went to see the late Lord Whitelaw and he in very typical form said, “We’ll put two of them back but you’ll have to give them the third”.

I actually thought that the fact that the present Government were riding roughshod showed a weakness in their position, but then I went back to the debate itself and saw that my noble friend Lady Trumpington—who I do not think is here, which is probably just as well because she might make some sort of gesture at me—

[Noble Lords]

Ha!

[Lord Fowler]

She introduced the Lords amendment that justified the disagreement thus:

“Because it would alter the financial arrangements for housing benefit made by the Commons, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient”.—[Official Report, 24/7/86; col. 416.]

Therefore, this is not a new position. Obviously we can argue about all the amendments that have been negatived in that particular way. However, given the financial position, and the amount of money that is at stake here, it is justified.

However, I would like to add two further points. The noble Baroness, or perhaps it was my noble friend, said that we do not want to get into a debate about procedures in the other place. We would have a great deal more confidence in the parliamentary process if everything in the other place was not guillotined and timetabled. The trouble is that so much comes here that is half digested, and some of it has never been considered at all. If we are to have consideration, that should be it.

The second point—and I realise that I am slightly chancing my arm here—is about the future. Does my noble friend think that things are going to be quite as easy with an elected House of Lords as they are with us? Does he not think perhaps that elected Peers might say, “My vote is as good as yours in the House of Commons”, and that the result will be exactly the kind of situation that my noble friend is trying to prevent?

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, as the 58th Chairman of Ways and Means, I have to say to the noble Lord opposite, who is a great historian, that the point of being appointed Chairman of Ways and Means was created by that Act in the 17th century, because the then Members of Parliament did not trust the then Speaker with ways and means—in other words, with money. That is why, even today, the budget of this nation is taken by the Chairman of Ways and Means. Therefore the historical analysis that the Leader of the House gave us is absolutely correct, and that is the situation as of this moment. I would just say that the points made by my noble friend Lord Fowler are two additional points that the House may well wish to reflect on as we move forward in the future.