House of Lords Bill [HL]

Lord Goodlad Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodlad (Con)]

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in warmly congratulating my noble friend Lord Elton on bringing this Bill before the House. I offer both him and the Bill my warm support. My noble friend mentioned the surgeon who told a bewildered patient that they needed some form of surgery. My late father was a doctor. He told me that when faced with a particularly bewildering diagnosis, he occasionally fell back on the formula, “Have you had this before?”, to which the patient would usually say, “Yes, something like it, a few years ago”. My father would then say, “Well, I think you’ve got it again”. We have been round something similar to this course before.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde referred to the unpleasantness of the elections that took place following the passage of the Weatherill amendment. Those of us who have even more experience of elections than my two noble friends would say that that would have to be a matter for the opinion of noble Lords, but elections, unpleasant as they may be, are tolerable and sometimes necessary.

The Bill encapsulates a growing consensus in the House—consensus rather than unanimity—about how best to limit our numbers. That consensus has a long pedigree, for which my noble friend Lord Jopling—who I am happy to see in his place but who I know cannot stay until the end of the debate because of a charitable obligation and therefore cannot contribute—deserves a large amount of credit. He has blazed the trail for this particular format.

The Bill, is wisely narrow in scope. Important matters such as the functions and powers of the House are wisely left for another day. That narrowness in scope none the less does not entirely avoid the necessity of considering contentious issues during its further stages, if such there be. Is it wise to leave the Prime Minister’s present powers untrammelled? We are in the present position because they are effectively quite untrammelled.

The Bill does not solve the problems raised by the current definition of recognised affiliation groups. The UK Independence Party’s 4 million votes at the last election are not reflected in its representation here. The position of the Liberal Democrats here is similarly anomalous. A combination of votes cast in favour of and seats won by existing and—who knows?—as yet unthought-of political groupings, could produce a formula for a better definition of recognised affiliation groups. My noble friend Lord Jopling has done much work on this. As to the timing of elections within affiliation groups, perhaps it would be better for them to take place immediately after general elections rather than immediately before, to give a more up-to-date reflection of popular opinion.

My noble friend’s Bill is wholly in tune with the will of the Government, as expressed by my noble friend Lady Chisholm of Owlpen in our debate on 16 September, to work with noble Lords to support incremental reform that commands consensus across the House. I hope the Government will give effect to that will by providing as much time as is necessary to consider the remaining stages of the Bill, so that consensus may emerge from its chrysalis with wings fully and gloriously emblazoned. I remind those who, perish the thought, might seek to inhibit the passage of the Bill of William Blake’s warning in Auguries of Innocence:

“Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh”.

Electoral Fraud

Lord Goodlad Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

This is obviously one of the things that will be looked at following the report. We will report back further on better ways of making sure of people’s identity when they go to the polling station.

[Lord Goodlad (Con)]

My Lords, why do we not do what the Australians have happily done very successfully for 90 years and make voting compulsory as a civic duty?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

As I said in answer to my noble friend Lord Cormack, we have no plans for that. In fact, the Australian system has not been absolutely perfect. There are still quite a lot of people who do not vote. It is not failsafe.

Hong Kong

Lord Goodlad Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodlad (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Luce, on initiating this timely debate and on his wise speech, with all of which I concur. I speak with what I hope is the degree of diffidence appropriate to one who does not live in Hong Kong and who has viewed recent developments there from afar. I was one of the noble Lord’s successors as Minister of State at the FCO responsible for Hong Kong and our relations with China. No one who cares about China and Hong Kong can view recent developments with equanimity and pass by on the other side. It is deeply distressing to see people’s lives and businesses being disrupted as they have been and are being. The noble Lord has given a learned and completely accurate analysis of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, which I will not repeat.

The noble Lord referred to the Foreign Office report to Parliament. In his foreword to the six-monthly report on Hong Kong deposited this July by William Hague, the then Foreign Secretary, he wrote that it was his belief that the best way to preserve Hong Kong’s strengths is through a transition to universal suffrage which meets the aspirations of the people of Hong Kong within the parameters of the Basic Law, and that there is no perfect model. The important thing is that the people of Hong Kong have a genuine choice and feel that they have a real stake in the outcome.

I agree with the Government’s position on that. I share my right honourable friend’s welcome that a broad range of groups will be and have been engaged in consultations organised by the Hong Kong Government. What the constitutional package will eventually look like is for the Government of Hong Kong’s Special Administrative Region, China and the people of Hong Kong to decide. In my view, there can be no argument but that constructive dialogue and sincere co-operation towards the reconciliation of opposing views is a better option than personal and economic disruption. That seems to me to be the lesson of history in various parts of the world. Dissenting parties eventually have to talk, and the earlier they do so the better.

Those of us brought up in the democratic traditions of this country instinctively share the impatience of those in Hong Kong for faster progress to genuine universal suffrage and broader-based representational democracy, but Rome was not built in a day. Much progress has been made constitutionally in Hong Kong over recent decades, in no small part thanks to the efforts of some of your Lordships.

Over recent years, we in this country have engaged in substantial discussion about constitutional matters: Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh devolution, proportional representation, constituency boundaries, the role and composition of the House of Lords, our relationship with the European Union—I could go on. No doubt we shall continue such discussion. We have had violence on our streets but, by and large, most people believe as I do in early and continual dialogue.

Of course, that is easier said than achieved, but I hope that recent developments in Hong Kong will lead to progress rather than a hardening of attitudes and that the ingenuity and persistence of those in China and Hong Kong—not to mention here in this country—over recent decades, which have allowed different interpretations of the public interest to coexist to the huge benefit of the people of Hong Kong and others, including us, can be somehow resumed. Of course we stand ready to help, if we ever can. We wish them well.

Government’s New Approach to Consultation: “Work in Progress” (SLSC Report)

Lord Goodlad Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Goodlad]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on The Government’s New Approach to Consultation: “Work in Progress” (22nd Report, HL Paper 100).

[Lord Goodlad]

My Lords, I greatly welcome the opportunity to open this debate on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report. The committee was grateful to the many organisations and individuals who responded to our call for evidence; to the Minister for Government Policy, Oliver Letwin, who gave evidence to us; and to the clerks—Kate Lawrence, who is now on a well earned sabbatical, Jane White and Paul Bristow—for their invaluable work.

The main issues in our recommendations reflected the concerns expressed in the very large number of submissions that we received in response to our call for evidence. The Government did not ask for evidence, so I hope that the responses to our call for evidence will have been helpful. We urge the Government to ensure that the review of the consultation principles that were announced last July reflects the concerns expressed in the evidence, in particular a widely expressed preference for a 12-week standard duration of consultation. We ask the Government to recognise that six weeks is regarded as the minimum feasible consultation period, except in exceptional circumstances; to ensure that consultation periods do not clash with holidays or peak periods of activity for the target group of consultees; and to engage with key interest groups prior to launching consultations, so as to reach agreement with those groups on the broad outlines.

We recommended that the review should be started in January—we are now in March—and that its findings should be published by Easter. There are no plans to add to the evidence, which is already to hand. We recommended that the review should be carried out by a unit independent of government and that a stakeholder reference group should be convened, containing members from across civil society, to provide input for the review team. We also asked the Government to recognise that a “digital by default” approach to consultation was very likely to exclude a large proportion of our society, and in particular vulnerable groups. We asked the Government to demonstrate that wider engagement with vulnerable and so-called hard-to-reach groups was being delivered in practice.

In its evidence to us, the organisation Disability Rights UK voiced concern on behalf of the 42% of disabled people who live in households without internet access. The Disability Charities Consortium asked,

“How does the Government expect the proposed new approach to consultations to impact on its obligations to involve disabled people in policy development and decision-making under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?”.

A large number of the elderly, and indeed other people, who are not disabled will also be affected by the predisposition to digital communication. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who I am glad to see in his place, submitted evidence on this matter, and I hope that he will say more about that later in the debate.

We asked the Government to introduce as soon as possible a single website listing open consultations in the order in which they close, for the benefit of the many organisations that respond to invitations to give evidence to consultations. We further recommended that the new principles should explicitly commit departments to publicising timely responses to consultations and to strengthening the role of the Cabinet Office in the co-ordination of consultations. We also recommended that it should be clarified to stakeholders what redress is available to them if the consultation does not comply with the published principles.

The Government’s response to the report covered the format of the proposed review, its timing and its content. We were disappointed that a more leisurely timetable is proposed for the review than we had recommended, and that the proposed membership of the external advisory panel appears small in number. It is to be hoped that the disquiet and suspicion expressed in the responses to our call for evidence will be allayed by the findings of the review and by the Government’s subsequent actions.

Our recent history is littered with examples of government action where successful consultation could have averted enormous wastes of parliamentary time, government time and money, the time and money of other people, embarrassing government climbdowns, reversion to the drawing board and so on. Most recently, my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, in the debate last week on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on strengthening statutory procedures for the scrutiny of delegated legislation, cited the lack of consultation on a crucial part of the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations, which had to be changed by the DWP at the last minute and for which the Minister apologised. More or better consultation would have averted that.

A successful example of consultation, on the other hand, was the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s handling of the Nuclear Decommissioning and Waste Handling (Finance and Fees) Regulations 2013, where the consultation persuaded the Government that the regulations needed to be looked at again. In 2012, they invited views on a revision to the 2011 regulations, and the issue of workability in relation to reporting and verification requirements was thereby resolved in the most recent statutory instrument, thanks to proper consultation.

Over the past five years, an average of just over 900 statutory instruments per year have been scrutinised by your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, formerly the Merits Committee, each accompanied by an Explanatory Memorandum, including a section on the policy background of the instrument and a section on the consultation outcome.

The importance of effective consultation to the process of government appears before your Lordships’ Committee every week. It is clear that a willingness to listen to the views of interested parties sometimes gains support for a Government’s work, and that encouraging interested parties to comment on proposals before they are finalised and implemented usually means that the policy, which has been conceived within Whitehall, can be adjusted to the reality of the outside world.

Whitehall can never foresee all the detailed impacts of policy proposals. Those at the receiving end usually can, and may thereby contribute to the avoidance of mistakes. In our experience, some departments struggle to understand the use—the validity, even—of parliamentary scrutiny as a disinterested process rather than an unwelcome but necessary interference in the project management of an item of secondary legislation, far less the intrinsic value and necessity of consultation. As always, the extent of hoisting in this necessity depends on who you are dealing with. Some departments get it better than others; some learn it faster than others.

All who have worked in government have been impressed from time to time by feelings of profound frustration. Why can we not simply get on with the job when it is so obvious what needs to be done in the public interest? Why does the car not move forward when we press the accelerator? Why is the system so furred up, obstructed by endless consultations, reviews, inquiries, inquiries into inquiries, judicial review, human rights and so on? Conversely, we all, when at the receiving end of government activity that we do not like, sometimes feel that the world is being run by people in Whitehall who have descended from Mars, speaking only Martian, and have not the slightest knowledge of or interest in the concerns of ordinary people upon whom their whims and diktats are arbitrarily inflicted without a by-your-leave. To govern by consent in a modern democracy requires for success a resolution of those two conflicting states of mind. I hope that the committee’s report and this debate will make a small contribution to enhancing that success. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goodlad]

My Lords, this has been an exceptionally interesting debate. Your Lordships’ House, as the Minister has indicated, is a veritable revolving door for poachers and gamekeepers, who are well represented here today.

Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son on the subject of women, wrote:

“A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters”.

A bit later, when it was suggested to Arthur Balfour that he might consider the views of the Conservative Party conference on a particular matter, he said that he would rather consult his valet. However, times have moved on. There is now experience, custom, practice and indeed jurisprudence. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, who was in his place until some time ago, for reminding me that the jurisprudence is summed up in the statement of the basic requirements for consultation originally formulated by counsel and adopted by the judge in R v Brent London Borough Council, ex parte Gunning in 1986, which was accepted and approved in courts thereafter. It says, first, that consultation,

“must take place at a time when proposals are still at a formative stage”.

Secondly, it says that,

“the proposer must give sufficient reasons for any proposal to permit of intelligent consideration and response”.

Thirdly, it says that,

“adequate time must be given for consideration and response”,

and, lastly, it says that,

“the product of consultation must be conscientiously taken into account in finalising any statutory proposals”.

That is the building block in the jurisprudence that no Government can afford to ignore. There is experience, custom, practice, jurisprudence, the 2008 code and, now, the review.

I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate and to the Minister for what he has said and the assurances that he has given. I have to say that what he said about the digital revolution did not encourage me. I hope that it resonates with the Government that there are an enormous number of people in our society, however many more come on to the web, who are not joining up to the digital system and never will, and they are going to live for a very great deal longer. Unless the Government understand that, they are going to get into a tremendous muddle, and so is everybody with whom the Government deal. I really hope that they will look at that a little bit more carefully.

We wish the Government well in their aspiration to improve consultation. As the Minister said, people throughout the country will join us in scrutinising their efforts and the committee will certainly join them in doing so. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Motion agreed.