Strathclyde Review

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am conscious of time; everybody is tired. I am going to come on to that; I have just said that that is what I am going to come on to, and I will.

Some noble Lords thought that it would be best to proceed without legislation and instead to codify the convention; certainly there is an argument to be made in respect of that, but that approach would require us to restore a shared understanding about the convention underpinning our power of veto. Most noble Lords focused their comments on the third option put forward by my noble friend, the one that he recommends—as he described it, the ping without a pong. He suggests that that would replace this House’s power of veto with a new power to ask the other place to think again, with the House of Commons having the final say.

What he is recommending there is what noble Lords are arguing for. However, some thought that it would be necessary to retain the veto available to us now. I stress again that all these things are under consideration, but it is important for me to point out that we do not have an absolute veto when it comes to primary legislation. The new power that my noble friend suggests would be more in keeping with the role of this House, and the desire it has to ask the other House to think again.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor and Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others asked me from the Labour side of the House to consider what was possible that would have some longevity and was not about just advancement for any particular party in government. Again, I found it very helpful to revisit what the Labour Party said to the Joint Committee on Conventions about the veto when they were in power. Forgive me for singling out the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, again but it was he who made this point to the Joint Committee. He said that,

“the House of Lords can veto secondary legislation … the very legitimate question arises … whether it would be sensible to consider the proposition that the Lords in respect of secondary legislation should do what it does with primary legislation, and see its function as being a delaying, revising chamber but not a vetoing chamber. That is really the question that is being put”.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will acknowledge that a lot of evidence went to the Joint Committee, which was set up by the Labour Government precisely to look at all these issues. That all-party Joint Committee, although a committee with a Labour majority on it, looked at it and the conclusions that it reached were agreed unanimously and adopted by both Houses. That is the way the process worked and it is the way any new process should work.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I say to the noble Lord that the Joint Committee on Conventions of 2006 was clearly highly respected. It was a very significant committee, and its findings and work have really stood the test of time. The problem we have is that the convention that was set out there and reinforced by the Joint Committee—I am afraid that this is the problem, because we disagree and this is what we are having to address—is no longer operating in the way that it was agreed it should operate.

House of Lords: Strathclyde Review

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his remarks, and I very much take on board his advice about my approach over the next few weeks.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

As something of an expert—if I may modestly say so—on government defeats in the House of Lords, can I put it to the Leader of the House that this is no way to effect a substantial constitutional change that would strengthen Government in relation to Parliament, and fundamentally affect the relationship between the two Houses?

The Leader of the House refers constantly to the events in October. They were bizarre. A Government propose a reduction in the income of people in the lowest-paid families. The House of Lords says, “We think you should think again about this”. The Government say—amazingly—“We are thinking again, and we’ve decided that we agree with the House of Lords”. Yet the Government persist in what can be seen only as a malevolent way to set up a committee like this to cut the wings of the House of Lords.

This is a significant suggestion to the Government, I hope: if you want to effect change of this sort, do it in the proper, conventional way. That is by proper scrutiny—for which we have the 2006 example readily to hand; it came to conclusions not helpful to the Government, I may say—putting to both Houses the proposal of the Joint Committee of senior Members of both Houses, and then for the Houses themselves to decide whether they want to go ahead with this substantial change. A government-inspired report with no witnesses listed, no evidence taken in public, no calls for evidence in a way that we can understand—this is no way to effect constitutional change.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I have huge respect for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I listen carefully to what he says. The key thing that I am trying to identify in my remarks today is that we are in disagreement about what happened in October. That is what I find regrettable. It means that the important convention, which stood the test of time for so long, has been broken. He refers to the Joint Committee of 2006, which predates my time in the House but I understand from all my reading and research how important and respected it was. That committee reinforced the convention, but the convention that it reinforced has now broken. So what we have done is come forward with something which offers that clarity and simplicity. It draws heavily on previous work that has been done by other groups, such as my noble friend Lord Wakeham’s distinguished royal commission. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has come forward with a proposal and all I ask at the moment is that the House considers it—as indeed we in government are considering it.

G20 and the Paris Attacks

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is right in saying that there is widespread support for the measures that we have already committed to taking, and I am very grateful for that. The Prime Minister said very clearly today that he knows that he and the Government have a responsibility to come forward and make their case for the additional steps that we believe are right, and that is what he is going to do. He hopes very much that by doing that in a very clear way, he will attract strong support for the additional action that is necessary to keep this country and its people safe.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Is it not perhaps an unpalatable truth that the progressive removal of border controls—and, indeed, the virtual elimination of boundaries between many countries of Europe—while very good news for law-abiding people, can have pretty serious consequences so far as the movement of terrorists across Europe is concerned? Has the Leader of the House seen reports that it is now a deliberate strategy of the terrorists to make plans for terrorist attacks in one country and implement them in another? Given the dangers facing Europe at the moment, is not the progressive removal of border controls—not, of course, applicable to the UK—an aspect that heads of Governments need to look at?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Lord has just acknowledged, we are not part of the Schengen agreement. We remain very committed to retaining our borders and to policing them strongly. As we have announced in the past few days, we are taking even more steps towards, and investing further in, protecting those borders. We also play a big part in protecting the outside borders of Schengen agreement countries. However, I agree with the noble Lord that this raises very serious issues that have to be considered by countries that are part of Schengen.

House of Lords: Government Review

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The piece of secondary legislation that we debated on Monday was very clearly and exclusively about a financial matter, to the tune of £4.4 billion in terms of the savings it would deliver in the first year of its implementation. It was a decision arising from the Budget in July. What happened on Monday is something that has never happened before.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Leader of the House reassure us that the work of the committee will be evidence-based and, in particular, will take note of the following piece of evidence? It is that, during the five years of the Cameron premiership, on average there have been 20 government defeats per year. In the five years from 2002 to 2007—a period with which I am very familiar—under the Blair and Brown Governments, there were on average 59 defeats a year. I remind the House that that was at a time when the Labour Government had a majority of around 170 in the Commons and Labour was not even the biggest party in this House, let alone a majority party. The Prime Ministers of the time did not work themselves up into a synthetic lather about government defeats. If the Prime Minister is anxious to find evidence about Governments being defeated on a regular basis, I am at the end of the phone to give him that information.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I cannot imagine that when the noble Lord was Government Chief Whip in this House, if he and his Government had experienced the events of Monday in the same way that this Government did, they would not have defined the result in the same way as we have done. The noble Lord talks about the rate of defeats. This was not about the rate of defeats under this Government compared with those under previous Governments; this was about a specific event on Monday that was unprecedented. But if he wants to talk about how often this Government are being defeated, since the general election this Government have been defeated in 75% of all the Divisions that have taken place in your Lordships’ House.

European Council

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend makes some important points. As I have already said, we have applied our effort where we think we should help people—at the point of need—in a way that means that the countries they are fleeing to are able to sustain that support. We very much support what is happening in terms of a plan with Turkey. It is also worth adding that in November there will be the Valletta summit between European and African countries to look at what more can be done to prevent more people fleeing from that part of the world. We have to try to ensure that we support people where they are most in need of that support—that is, before they make these dreadful and treacherous crossings.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, on the renegotiation, there was one line in the Statement that was close to being amusing, which must be a first for a Statement on Europe from any leader. It said:

“I will be writing to the President of the European Council in early November to set out the changes we want to see”.

It is about two years since a referendum was promised and still, if we are to believe what we read, the heads of government of the other 27 member states are not at all clear about the terms that the Prime Minister is trying to achieve; certainly, the people in this country are not clear about them. I want to register my astonishment at that. He will answer in general terms, of course—indeed, there are general terms in the Statement itself—but negotiations are not about general terms: they are about quite specific matters, about which we still do not know.

I put it to the Leader of the House, in her role as Leader, that if the Prime Minister is saying that he is going to spell out these terms by November, and the mechanism by which he is going to do so is a letter to the President of the European Council, copied to member states and presumably to Members of both Houses of Parliament—for which we thank him very much—and of course for the British public to see, at the very least this House, and I can ask her only about this House, ought to see at long last the precise terms that are the bottom line for the Prime Minister’s negotiations, so that we can examine this crucial aspect of the Government’s European policy and question the Prime Minister precisely on the efficacy of the demands that he is making.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I consider it my aim every day to bring amusement to the noble Lord, so I am glad that I achieved that today.

The Prime Minister has been consistent throughout this process. In his Bloomberg speech he set out his vision for Europe. He has been clear about the need to make the case for reform in all the discussions he has had with his various European partners. As I have already explained, detailed technical talks have been going on about the legal implications for change in these four areas. He will set out the detail of the changes that he wants to see in November and will then proceed with his negotiations and he will achieve his best for Britain. I have every faith that he will secure an outcome that will ensure we end up with a better relationship for the UK with the European Union. We will then put that to a referendum; I am pleased that the noble Lord is now supportive of the opportunity that we are providing to the people of this country.

House of Lords: Membership

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is using me as a channel to ask questions to the Liberal Democrat Benches. He is quite right that we are all responsible for the effectiveness of this House and making sure that that happens.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Leader of the House to act as a channel to the Prime Minister from this House, initially to tell us whether he was accurately reported when it was implied, at least, that he felt that the political majority in the Commons should in one way or another be reflected as a political majority in the Lords. If that is the case, will she ask him to reflect on the fact that in 1997 when the Labour Party had a majority of some 170 in the House of Commons, it was in a significant minority in the Lords; ditto in 2001 after the 2001 election; and ditto after the 2005 election? It was not until 2006 that the Labour Party became the biggest single group in the House of Lords, which was quickly reversed of course by the coalition after 2010? Will she at least make sure that the Prime Minister is aware of those facts?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I can certainly reassure the House that the Prime Minister is not seeking in any way to make a government majority in this House. We recognise that the importance of this House is that it holds the Government to account and that the party in government should not be in a majority. The House should also understand that, even after the introduction of the new Peers announced the week before last, the Government still face a combined opposition of 80 Peers, which is twice the size faced by the last Labour Government when they were in power.

Devolution

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

This is a classic example of where the House is calling for the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy.

House of Lords: Appointments

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Thursday 25th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

No, I do not agree with the noble Lord. The proposals that my party made in our manifesto at the election for constitutional change and greater powers for all parts of the United Kingdom are the mandate on which we are governing and are what we are getting on with delivering.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, the question is whether the Prime Minister stands by the document he signed, which said that appointments to this House should be,

“reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election”.

If the Leader of the House is saying that that system no longer applies, will she explain what principle the Prime Minister now intends to abide by in making recommendations for appointments to this House?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

This Prime Minister will follow the same principles he followed in the previous Parliament and the principles that his predecessors followed in making appointments to this House. There is always an acknowledgement of the results of general elections but, historically, this House has never reflected party balance. This House has an important role and all Peers are doing the country good service if we focus on that role.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, if we follow the convention that it is important that all groups get a turn in each Question, we have not heard from the Cross-Benchers, so I suggest that we hear from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.

Select Committee Reports: Government Responses

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I certainly understand the frustration expressed by my noble friend with the Government’s response on this occasion. I am pleased that the Minister for the Constitution apologised, quite rightly, to the committee for the prolonged delay. On that particular report, because it covered and inquired into the inner workings of coalition government, I do not think it is that surprising that the Government wanted to give it careful consideration before responding. However, I disagree with my noble friend’s description of the Government’s response. I know that the committee was disappointed with some specific aspects and has written further to the Minister concerned, but I think that the report, as a whole, was adequate. Certainly the delay that was experienced in the context of this report is not systemic in the Government’s responses to Select Committee reports.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, is not any response to a coalition government fairly simple: that we do not want another one?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I think we are all going to fight the election to win.

Palestine: Recognition

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt from the Dispatch Box again. If noble Lords are very brief, we can hear from the noble Lord on the Labour Benches and then from my noble friend.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, various references to the problem of recognising a Palestinian state indicated that it would somehow inhibit the peace process. I ask: what peace process? What achievements can be chalked up to this alleged peace process? All we have seen from the process over the past 50 years is a continued diminution of the prospect of a Palestinian state because of the constant settlement activity in violation of all international law which the Israeli Government seem to be able to pursue with impunity.

Housing: Affordable Housing

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Thursday 12th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I can assure the noble Lord that we support all communities that are building new homes. I have met a range of different people leading development in their areas. I certainly agree with everything the noble Lord said.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Will the Minister join me in celebrating the achievement of Harold Macmillan, who, in the 1950s, promised and delivered the building of 300,000 houses per year? Can she explain why the achievement of that Conservative Government was so much better than that of this Conservative-led coalition?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I can certainly tell the noble Lord that this Conservative-led coalition has built more council housing in the last year alone in London than was built in the 13 years combined of the last Labour Government.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I want to repeat a point I made on Second Reading, which does not seem to have been raised so far today. I do not bring any preconceived ideological support for fixed-term Parliaments. The Bill is a positive step to address the lack of public confidence in the political system. One of the points I made on Second Reading, which is the most powerful reason to support the Bill, is that it would ensure that the Government and the Opposition had to face the electorate on a predetermined date, whatever the political conditions are at that time. That is the most compelling thing about fixed-term Parliaments. As to the length of the term and whether it should be four or five years, I was struck by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster. He made the point about Governments being distracted by preparing for elections and said that if there were to be a fixed-term Parliament, in his view as a former Cabinet Secretary, it should be five years.

[Lord Grocott]

We need to address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, which as ever was entirely valid, about the extent to which we all tend to cover our party advantage with the cloak of great constitutional principle. That is obviously a criticism that we need to take seriously. The way in which to leaven that a little is to ask ourselves, whichever side of the argument we are on, whether we would take the same position of “principle” if we were on the other side of the House. I readily ask that question of myself, having spent a fair chunk of my parliamentary life in government—not as a Minister but in supporting the Government—and a fair chunk in opposition. If I find, as we all do from time to time, that I am in danger of adopting different positions in government and in opposition—which I must say I have seen to be spectacularly the case with one or two who are now in government—we ought to ask whether it was a great constitutional principle or party advantage. I try to test that myself and I have no doubt that I frequently fail, as I freely admit that I do not readily support a constitutional principle that I know would damage the Labour Party. That is where I am.

However, I ask the Government whether, if there were a Labour majority of one after the next general election, which they want to be in 2015, would they with the same passionate, principled enthusiasm say that it is essential that that Government remained in power for five years? That is the question the Government need to ask themselves. If they can say with certainty and conviction that the answer is yes, then obviously I will accept their argument and their integrity on that basis and will live with it, but I think they will find that a pretty tricky question to answer.