Covid-19: Road Map

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure that my colleagues will have heard my noble friend’s question. I will certainly pass it on to relevant colleagues in DCMS.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has accepted that we are not going to get rid of Covid and that it is going to be present at some level and endemic at least for quite a long time. Will it not be the case that, when we get the virus down to a level that we think is acceptable, outbreaks will be sporadic and localised? Is that not even more reason for putting testing, tracing, tracking back, stamping out and imposing lockdowns on individuals—self-isolating, if you like—in the hands of people who know what they are doing and who have the local knowledge and the professional expertise; that is, the environmental and public health officers of local authorities and the local health staff connected with GP surgeries?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord, and I hope that I gave some indication of that in my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. As the Prime Minister said, we will take a highly precautionary approach, acting hard and fast to suppress worrying local outbreaks—the noble Lord is absolutely right: there will be local outbreaks. I referred to Middlesbrough and Walsall, where local action of exactly the sort described by the noble Lord has been taken. As I said, we will publish the updated Covid contain framework next month to bring all this together. That will be another way in which an enhanced toolkit of measures to address various concerns at a local level will be set out.

Covid 19: Winter Plan

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Regardless of faith, Christmas is a time when family and friends come together. It has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone, and time with loved ones is very important. We have been very clear about the rules and we have also been clear that it is for people and families to make judgments about how comfortable they feel in terms of the importance of seeing loved ones with regard to their vulnerability. However, I personally would say no to stopping people seeing family for Christmas. I would prefer to see my family, but obviously I will have to make judgments with them about how comfortable we feel, and I think that that is quite important.

[Lord Greaves (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am reminded of the line from the poem,

“If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

It seems that this is the Government’s last chance to get things right on a lot more testing and distribution of the vaccines. The Royal Blackburn Hospital reports that despite the fact that the number of infections in east Lancashire has started to go down at last, it has twice as many Covid cases in hospital as it had in the spring. That is putting huge pressure on all its services.

I asked about the Nightingale hospitals in a recent Question and was told that each Nightingale team has been developing a clinical model that can be scaled up as and when additional capacity is required. Why are we not using the Nightingale facilities in places like Manchester and Harrogate to relieve the pressure on hospitals like Blackburn?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The NHS Medical Director has made it clear that the NHS has carefully planned to make sure that we can deal with additional demand using, as the noble Lord has rightly said, the mobilisation of the Nightingale hospitals and through partnerships with the independent sector. They will ensure that this is rolled out as and when it is needed. I am sure that they will be cognisant of the situation in Blackburn and will be monitoring it very carefully.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I can certainly assure the noble Baroness that discussions are ongoing across government, including through the Treasury and the Business Secretary, with local leaders, local business leaders, unions and workers’ representatives. Of course, she will be aware that, as part of the announcements we have made, we have extended the job support scheme. She will also be aware that, since the beginning of the crisis, we have provided more than £200 billion of support to business. We completely understand, and by using these figures I am not trying to diminish the issues that people are facing in their daily lives, but I can reassure her that this is top of our agenda. I hope she will recognise that the Chancellor has been working fleet of foot so that he is able to bring forward support packages to help individuals and businesses through this difficult time.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I spent quite a lot of time yesterday afternoon looking at the detailed infection figures for Covid for each Lancashire district on a daily basis over the last 10 weeks. It is absolutely clear that the first main surge of infections occurred during September, particularly around the middle of September. On 1 September the schools went back, and this seems to be the topic that we are not allowed to talk about. The Government have said they are not going to close schools under any circumstances. I am not saying that the statistical correlation—which is clearly there—is a causal one; I am saying it needs to be looked at hard and investigated. I notice that Northern Ireland is closing its schools for a fortnight. Will the Minister forecast how long it will be before schools in the most affected areas in England are closed?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Within the very high tier—the top level of the new interventions—non-essential retail, schools and universities will remain open. They remain open at all levels. As the noble Lord rightly said, we have prioritised keeping schools open as one of the key things we wish to do because, as we have heard in previous debates in your Lordships’ House, the disadvantage to young people when schools close is something that we really do not want to repeat, having seen what happened earlier in the year. I am afraid I will not make any apology for the fact that we have put that at the top of our priority list.

Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I have nothing to add on the substantive issues to the excellent speech made by my noble friend Lady Grender. I just want to say one or two things on affirmative Motions. I have been a Member of this House for 20 years. During that time, there have been a handful of occasions when the Conservatives have moved or supported fatal Motions on affirmative instruments. Their view seems to change according to whether they are in government or not.

Whenever there has been an investigation into the powers of the Lords on affirmative instruments—there have been two major investigations in that time—on each occasion, the conclusion was that the Lords have the power and ought to keep it but it ought to be used extremely sparingly. Therefore, it is wrong to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, that this was contrary to the practices and conventions of this House. Rather, it would be contrary to the practices and conventions for such powers to be proposed and used frequently.

There are some occasions when fatal Motions are justified. One is when there is a very unusual situation and the Government have got themselves in a mess over what they are doing procedurally. That is the case at the moment, when all the statutory instruments that we are getting are not being dealt with properly, so we are in an exceptional situation. Another occasion when they are justified is when the fatality is technical. If this were to be voted down today, it would be a fatal Motion but not in practice. For example, 20 years ago, the House rejected a statutory instrument on GLA elections, but that did not stop those elections because it was possible for the Government of the day to turn around and sort it out.

Why have affirmative instruments in the first place? If we can never vote them down, there is no point in having them. The fact that we can, and occasionally do, vote them down actually gives all affirmative instruments a great deal more importance and means that the Government have to pay attention to them, so we should vote for this Motion.

Update to Parliament

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said repeatedly to noble Lords, we did act in good faith. The Supreme Court has found against the case that we put forward and we accept that. We will reflect on that judgment and we will abide by it. The Prime Minister has spoken to the Queen—I have no idea what that conversation involved—and, as I have said, I will reflect back the views of this House and its reaction to the Statement today.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, in my lifetime, from Mr Attlee to Mrs May, there have been, I think, 13 Prime Ministers before the present one. Would the Leader of the House like to hazard a guess as to how many of them would not have thought it necessary to tender their resignation in the face of such a shattering and astonishing decision against them by the Supreme Court? Secondly, I think she said that the Supreme Court had changed the law. I am not a lawyer but I watched a lot of the Supreme Court proceedings with fascination, as no doubt many other noble Lords did. The very clear impression I got was that the Supreme Court was not trying to change the law; it spent a lot of time trying to establish exactly what the law is and, having decided that, then had the decision to make as to whether or not it had been broken.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

In the other place, the Attorney-General said:

“The Supreme Court has made new law … from now on, the prerogative power”,


can be a justiciable subject and the implications,

“for the future of our constitutional arrangements will have to be reflected upon”.

Business of the House

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

I very strongly disagree with my noble friend, and I will discuss my heart when he discusses his soul on this matter. The question of Prorogation is not before us now. I will stick to the central point, which is the guillotine. Perhaps I should not have used the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about the dagger—but it was his phrase and that of Lord Hart of Chilton before that.

Setting that phrase aside, I suggest that very few noble Lords who were involved in the pre-cooking of this plot—because it is a plot—who were not shocked when they saw that Motion. Someone said that I should be ashamed of myself for putting the case that this House should never, never accept a guillotine.

I remember that, when I first came into the House, by chance the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, had a very memorable debate on the implications of coalitions. It was around the time that all this stuff was going on—the threat from David Cameron and what was said by the former Lord Chancellor. Her question was whether the House has to acquiesce—or acquiesce immediately—if a coalition brings something forward. Does it have the authority of the Salisbury doctrine? When the noble Baroness replies, it would be interesting to know whether she thinks that everything that comes from the Commons has the authority of the Salisbury doctrine.

In this case, we do not even have a formal coalition but an ad-hoc group of folk who have come together in the other place, cobbled together some sort of Bill, plan to send it up here and have got their minions here to put down something that will change the whole character of how your Lordships’ House does business. I will give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

Does the noble Lord agree that the question of the primacy of the House of Commons is nothing to do with the Salisbury doctrine; it is to do with the fact that it is elected and we are not?

[Lord True]

The Salisbury doctrine is very important for relations between the two Houses. It allows this House freedom to challenge and dissent on things that are not covered by the doctrine. If it is a manifesto measure or something that has been put before the people, this House must certainly defer, sometimes quickly.

Who put this proposition that we are told is coming up the Corridor to the people? Who actually published it? It was written by Sir Oliver Letwin and a few clever lawyers—perhaps some of them in this place—and put forward. What is the authority by which those people claim that this House should not only defer but defer to a guillotine to force it through? We will shortly come on to the amendment—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greaves]

I do not mind being called a mob, if that is what the noble Lord wants to call me, but we have rules for debate in this House, one of which is that speeches should be kept to 15 minutes, as at paragraph 4.36 in the Companion, if the noble Lord would like to consider it. He has now been speaking for 23 minutes, according to the annunciator. Does he think it is time to move on?

[Lord True]

The Companion actually says that anybody who is introducing an amendment is entitled to speak for 20 minutes. I was not proposing to speak for as long as that but I have taken a whole series of interventions which has consumed far more time than that. I therefore do not accept the criticism from the noble Lord. I have to say that, when I first came into the House, I did not find that he had the reputation of being one of the least loquacious Members of your Lordships’ House.

Happily, having heard the point made by my noble friend, one could consider removing the words “and should that Committee recommend its use”, if it is not possible to have that. But the principle that we should have a report from the Constitution Committee is so important that I hope we can least agree that we have a report later this month or next month on the matter. I beg to move.

Brexit: Trade

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the announcement by the Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment that Australia will not commence negotiations on a trade deal with the United Kingdom, and of the implications for all future post-Brexit trade negotiations whilst the United Kingdom remains a member of the European Union.

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, the Australian Trade Minister was clear that both Governments have agreed to start work on scoping out a future ambitious and comprehensive Australia-UK free trade agreement. The UK and Australia have agreed that this joint working will help us move as quickly as possible formally to conclude negotiations on a free trade agreement once the UK has left the EU.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. The Australian Trade Minister may or may not be right in saying that formal negotiations cannot start until such time as this country leaves the European Union, but in practical terms, and given the number of countries in the rest of the world—more than 50 in the Commonwealth and everybody else—does she believe that the process of undertaking negotiations for trading arrangements with all the other countries in the world will take place quickly after this country leaves the European Union? Is there not a real risk of a very unsatisfactory and dangerous limbo arising in most cases? What will the Government do about that?

[Baroness Mobarik]

My Lords, we are doing absolutely everything we can to achieve a smooth transition with no gap. The Australian Trade Minister has said that he would want to conclude a free trade agreement as quickly as possible after Brexit. This is the UK Government’s position, too. We are in the position of scoping discussions to move as quickly as possible.

Strathclyde Review

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, at this stage of the debate I do not want to do what so many noble Lords so far have done. I have listened with great admiration and have been bowled over by so many cameo presentations from noble Lords that summed up the position from their point of view based on so much distinction, experience and wisdom. I was particularly fascinated by the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and his explanation of the difference between conventions and usages. I shall dine out on that for quite a long time.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, asked, “Is there a crisis?” and said that there was not. I agree with him. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, pointed out that a fit of pique by the Prime Minister and an outbreak of anger at the top of the Government does not amount to a constitutional crisis. However, this whole process, if it is handled well, could lead to better procedures in Parliament as a whole. I will therefore just chuck one or two little pebbles into the pond.

First, in the foreword of the report—that shows that at least I read the first page, if nothing else—the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, calls for “more certainty and clarity” to be brought to the process of bringing statutory instruments and their passage through Parliament. I thought about this. Yes, we want clarity of process and procedures and quality of scrutiny, which is very important. On certainty, clearly we do not want chaos, where everything is being thrown to the winds all the time, but absolute certainty makes a mockery of proper scrutiny. The Government ought not to be in a position where they are 100% certain to get their statutory instrument through every time, otherwise the ability to make changes when things go wrong is taken away.

My second point leads on from that. This House has very good procedures for dealing with statutory instruments, particularly the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and others, which, as many noble Lords have pointed out, do better than the House of Commons. However, that all depends on the willingness of the Government to take seriously the concerns and representations that are made. A veto used five times in 60 years is hardly a threat to any Government or to the constitution, but it is important as a backstop. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence one can cite of civil servants writing statutory instruments and Ministers putting them forward, having to think hard and to rewrite drafts and so on because they know that that power is ultimately there and that scrutiny will take place to find out if the legislation is necessary. If that veto goes, there could be far more objections by noble Lords, as has been suggested by various Members in the debate. It will be easier to reject because it will not be fatal, and that could diminish the process; the process that we have could have less effect than it does at the moment. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, said that it could lead to greater abuse, and I agree with her. That is one of the unintended consequences.

My third pebble is that we must be very careful to ensure that this process does not lead to unintended consequences. One could be that when we are discussing primary legislation, there is greater pressure to refuse to accept a ministerial power to make orders and regulations in the Bill because the process of scrutinising those when they are made may be less useful, which could cause more unnecessary and irrelevant debate at the Bill-making stage. The Government ought to be careful about what they wish for.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, also said that his third proposal gives us what we do not have now—an ability for a conversation between the two Houses. It does not; all it provides is the ability for this House to reject and for the House of Commons perhaps to reject the rejection within days—certainly it would not come back and there would not be ping-pong. However, if we look at ping-pong on Bills, very little conversation takes place between the Houses. Conversation takes place informally, outside the formal structures, among politicians within the Government and between the parties, but there is very little conversation between the Houses. I suggest that the exchange of brief, inadequate messages is not a conversation. If we need conversation between the Houses, let us think hard about that issue and think of ways to set up some kind of mediation committee or negotiating system between the Houses to do a much better job than coming here occasionally in our pyjamas at 4 o’clock in the morning and traipsing through the Division Lobbies on the fifth ping-pong on some Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, in a superb introductory speech from her side, pointed out that at the moment statutory instruments are in a direct relationship between the Government—in the form of their Ministers—and each House of Parliament. That is the formal system; I accept that political discussions also take place informally. However, if we want to introduce a new formal system in which there is a relationship between the two Houses on statutory instruments as there is on Bills, we need to think of better ways of doing it than ping-pong, as I have just said. That at least is a constitutional issue that needs thinking about carefully and not just rushing through because the Prime Minister was piqued.

My final pebble is this: everybody thinks that House of Lords procedures have been here for 700 or 300 years, or whatever it is, and that they are historic and traditional, but of course it is completely untrue. They evolve all the time in a sensible, pragmatic way so that this self-regulating House can do what it wants to do. Therefore, let us not do anything which stops us doing what we might want to do on some occasion in the future. Let us do it in a careful, evolutionary way, and when we do that, three weeks later everybody will think that it has been here since 1215, probably.

Syria: UK Military Action

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, if we had the Motion in front of us to vote on tonight I would vote against it. In doing so, I would be voting for the views of the majority of members of my party. Last night, when the Liberal Democrat MPs said they were going to support the Government, with various caveats, a ripple of surprise and shock went through the party. Some of us spent a great deal of time last night talking to people who were angry and felt they had been let down by our MPs.

British bombing will have little effect in practice. On its own it will not make any real difference. In that and many other respects I associate myself with the remarks that have just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. The danger of mission creep is a real problem.

The main impact of the Government’s Motion, this debate and the debate in the past few days has not been on international politics but on British politics. I have tried to understand why the Government have brought this forward at this time but I find it difficult to do so. My noble friend Lord Taverne may have some ideas.

Last week, the Liberal Democrats and Tim Farron, as leader, stated five conditions for supporting the Government today. He wrote to members of the party and said:

“We are writing to outline the criteria against which we will judge our response”.

He referred to five conditions. I emphasise the word “conditions”. The first was legal and I do not want to say anything more than my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford has said because he is an expert on these matters and I am not. The second was a wider diplomatic framework,

“including efforts towards a no-bomb zone to protect civilians.

I see no evidence that there has been any progress on that. The third was the United Kingdom to lead—I underline the word “lead”—a concerted international effort to put pressure on Gulf states, specifically Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, to stop the funding of jihadi groups and to do much more to assist in the effort to defeat ISIL, establish peace in Syria and help with the refugee situation. It was added:

“They are currently doing very little”.

I think that was a reference to the Government. I see no progress whatever on that or any commitments given. The fifth was domestic. Among other things he said:

“We call on the Government to step up its acceptance of Syrian refugees, and opt in to Save the Children’s proposal to rehome 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children from within Europe”.

The chances of this Government agreeing to that are close to zero. If I am wrong, I will hold my hand up and praise them to the heavens.

We are also told that things have changed because the Vienna talks are taking place and that this means there will be co-ordinated international action, a plan for the future, plans for the regeneration of Syria, rebuilding and so on. That seems to be an argument for waiting until that is in place before taking the kind of action now being proposed.

I do not believe that what is being put forward by the Government will work. In three or four or six months’ time we will be debating this issue again and people will want to do more. There is an old maxim: if you are in doubt about things and not completely convinced, first do no harm. Bombing at this time in Syria and Raqqa will do more harm than good.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the Leader of the House, the Lord Privy Seal, in introducing this important debate said that the House “cannot grow indefinitely”. The problem is that, at the moment, it is growing indefinitely. Therefore, unless somebody somewhere changes the way in which things are happening, it will continue to grow and at some stage its membership will be over 1,000, which clearly would be a tipping point that would indeed make us look ridiculous, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

The Leader also said that we should concentrate on our purpose, and the leader of my party, the Liberal Democrats, my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, asked: what is the House of Lords for? I think that most of us who are here have a pretty good idea of what it is for, because it is what we do. By and large, we do it fairly well. We can argue as to what we ought to do and whether we should do more or less of it, and we can argue about the ways in which we do it, but those things are relatively marginal. We know what it is for. The problem is that, increasingly, people out there—the rest of the country and the rest of the world—do not know what we do. They do not understand it, and those journalists who do have given up trying to tell those who do not.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that we are looking ridiculous. I think that he said that we are wallowing in a sea of ridicule, or something like that. We have to understand what the tipping point was in the media that caused that to happen. It was nothing to do with the size of the House. It was not to do with the Prime Minister appointing new Peers; it was not anything to do with what we do. It was the stupid behaviour, caught by the media, of one particular senior Member of this House. In the way that the British media operate, that is the event which put the House of Lords into a sea of ridicule—if that is where we are.

After what has been a dreadful summer for this House from a publicity point of view, the first thing that we have to do is to avoid any more ridicule in the short run. People who have the ear of the Prime Minister really have to tell him in words of one syllable that there must be no more significant appointments, no more large lists—there may be individuals, but that is different—of new Peers for the foreseeable future, certainly for 12 months. Then we can see how it goes beyond that.

Of course, the Prime Minister is accused of trying to boost the government numbers in the new circumstances of a Conservative Government, but he has not actually done that. He has boosted the government numbers on a net balance between the opposition parties and the government party by seven. Why appoint 45 Peers, and get all the opprobrium for doing that, when all it does is boost the government numbers by seven? The 10 defeats of the Government before the Summer Recess were all by majorities larger than that—some by very significantly larger majorities. The idea, which some people in the Conservative Party were telling me was going to happen, that we were going to get a lot of new Conservative Peers to make sure that the Government had something like a majority in this House is nonsense. It cannot be done without a huge number of appointments.

One thing that can be done to avoid a degree of ridicule is the immediate abolition of hereditary Peers’ by-elections, which are amusing and fun, but if anybody out there really knew about them and what was going on, they would be a matter of derision. There must be a moratorium on lists. The idea of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, of one out and one in is a good one, although it does not actually reduce the numbers. Combined with a self-denying ordinance of no more lists for the foreseeable future, numbers would start to fall.

We must remember that one of the principles underlying the halfway reform of the House of Lords in 1999, when most of the hereditaries were invited to leave, was that never again would the Government have a majority in the House of Lords. Therefore, the House of Lords would be different; it would be a body with no overall political control. That was tested to its limits in the last five years under the coalition, and it was something that a lot of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches were well aware of. To some extent, some groups—I had better be careful how I phrase this—of people on the Cross Benches stepped in and filled the gap. They were very largely responsible for those occasions on which the Government were defeated, and they did a very good job with that. We are clearly the pivotal group again in the House, and that is the situation that was expected after the 1999 settlement. I therefore say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours—and I agree with a lot of what he said—that he has to stop his obsession with the Liberal Democrats and the numbers we have here.

Finally, in the whole of my political life, I have been an observer of and a member of bodies, including this House until recently, where the Liberal Democrats were disgracefully underrepresented. Now, suddenly, we are overrepresented; suddenly, we find that people such as the noble Lord are new devotees of proportional representation, but only in so far as it does us down. Let us work together on these things, rather than making those kind of remarks. I believe that there are ways forward and we should look for them constructively.