Referendums

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the first duty of government is to safeguard the nation, and we treat the security and integrity of our democratic processes extremely seriously. We have no evidence to show that there was any successful interference in the EU referendum. However, as I said, we take any allegations of interference in our democratic processes extremely seriously. My understanding is that the report referred to by the noble Lord has been released by the Prime Minister.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

When we look at the last three referenda—on the voting system in 2011, on Scottish independence in 2014 and on EU membership in 2016—one of the bizarre characteristics is that, before the ink was dry on the results of those referenda, the losers were campaigning for a second referendum to reverse the first one. Therefore, should one characteristic of future referenda not be a minimum interval before the same question is asked again? Otherwise, you have an absurd situation where referenda designed to be for a generation are in danger of being reversed within six months.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. Of course, there was a very considerable interval between the first devolution referendums at the end of the 1970s and the second ones in the late 1990s.

Register of Hereditary Peers

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

To ask the Leader of the House whether she is satisfied that the requirements of the Register of Hereditary Peers are compatible with equalities legislation.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Equality Act 2010 provides that neither a life peerage nor a hereditary peerage, as a dignity or honour conferred by the Crown, is a public or personal office for the purposes of the Act. As such, the register of hereditary Peers is not subject to equalities legislation. As provided for in the House of Lords Act 1999, Standing Orders of the House make provision for the replacement by elections of hereditary Peers who are Members of this House. It is therefore a matter for this House, when regulating its own affairs.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am glad to hear the Deputy Leader confirm that this will ultimately be a matter for this House. I ask him also to confirm that the current register of hereditary Peers—containing as it does the names of all those people eligible to stand in by-elections—contains the names of 199 people, just one of whom is a woman. I would have thought that this statistic alone should bring into disrepute the whole by-election system for the replacement of hereditary Peers. I should be grateful if the noble Earl, Lord Howe, would do the House a favour by announcing that the Government will support my Bill, which costs nothing, hurts no one and has overwhelming support in this House. In so doing, we would be able to consign this whole by-election system to the dustbin, where it deserves to be.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I must declare an obvious personal interest in the context of this Question, as an elected hereditary Peer. But in the context of what the noble Lord seeks to achieve by his Bill, it would not in our view be an incremental reform. Reform of that kind would clearly change the means by which membership of this House is determined, as well as its composition, and would be a fundamental change to how it operates. The Government’s position is that comprehensive reform of the House of Lords is not a priority during this Parliament.

Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Of course, I do accept that. The amendment of the noble Baroness is expressly asking the Government to do something other than what is in the regulations. By definition, that means that if her amendment were carried, we could not bring back the same set of proposals. The implementation of these regulations would not be delayed, as the noble Baroness is suggesting; it would be thwarted entirely. So, she is asking the House to accept a false proposition. It is very interesting that the noble Baroness herself has recently given an interview which certainly implied that the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is a fatal one. In the interview she gave to the Huffington Post, she said that if the amendment of the noble Baroness is carried, the Government cannot go ahead with the cuts. Well, that, to me, is very fatal indeed. Therefore—

[Lord Grocott]

I am really quite surprised at the noble Earl, given all his experience and the respect in which he is held in this House. He seems to be suggesting that there is no significant difference between a fatal amendment and a non-fatal amendment. In the time I have been here, which is less than his, there has always been a clear distinction between the two—“binary” is the word he used in another context. Indeed, the Leader of the House seemed to be unclear in her opening remarks about the distinction between the Lib Dem amendment and the Labour amendment, but the difference is surely fundamental. If he does not accept my proposition, could he at least enlighten the House as to the professional advice from clerks to him and the Conservative Front Bench about which of these amendments are fatal and which are not.

[Earl Howe]

There is a clear difference in the wording—that is unarguable—but the effect is exactly the same. That is the point I am making.

Health and Social Care Act 2012: Risk Register

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm that one of the unarguable costs of the reorganisation has been the number of people previously employed by the health service as administrators who received their redundancy settlements and pay-offs but were subsequently re-employed by the health service? Will he tell the House how much this has cost—the initial redundancy settlements, the subsequent salaries that are being paid and the number of people involved? If he does not have that figure to hand, and as he will not publish the risk register, will he at least make available in the House the precise figures of the cost to the taxpayer of this aspect of the reorganisation?

[Earl Howe]

I am certainly happy to write to the noble Lord with whatever figures I have on that front but, of course, those who were made redundant as a result of the reorganisation received payments of no more and no less than they were entitled to under their contracts of employment. There are more than 19,300 fewer administrative staff in the NHS than there were when we came to office, but more than 16,300 more clinical staff, including 7,400 more doctors and 3,300 more nurses.

Health and Social Care Act 2012: Risk Register

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend of course speaks with enormous experience of life in government, and I welcome his endorsement of the Government’s policy.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Will the Minister, who is clearly not going to give the information from the risk register, perhaps give us a clue along the following lines? Given the experience of the reform in operation, have any of the risks that were identified in the private risk register come to pass, or is everything going wonderfully well?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the risk register, as the noble Lord knows, is simply a tool that records the risk assessment process and the actions that need to be taken to mitigate those risks. However, to be effective, the process has to be robust and consider all likely implications—and indeed some that are not so likely—of a proposed course of action. The candid recording of risks enables them to be effectively managed. However, as the noble Lord knows, we have gone as far as we can in publishing the areas of risk that are contained within the risk register. I remind the noble Lord that in 2012 we published an extensive document that set out quite a lot of detail. That document is still available on the department’s website.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

The point was not about any length of time that the process of appeal might take. This Motion specifically rules out any delay on that basis. It states that Third Reading should take place whichever is the sooner—when the decision is made or whenever is the final date for consideration of Third Reading before the end of the Session. I put it again to the noble Earl: what is his estimate of the last date that we could consider the Third Reading in time for the Bill to become law in this Session?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I take that to be the meaning of the Motion; in fact, it presents the House will an either/or decision, which if passed, would leave us in an uncertain situation. However, I take it that the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, means that, failing the first alternative, the second applies.

I have discussed the parliamentary timetable at length with my noble friends, as might be supposed. I am advised that in reality there is little time left in this Session, but there is a great deal of business left to complete: the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is on Report; the Scotland Bill is still in Committee; and we await our amendments to other Bills to come back from the other place, whose own schedule is complicated by the Budget, Easter and the Finance Bill. The clear advice that I have received from the business managers is that to delay Third Reading to await the tribunal’s reasons and a government response would put into serious jeopardy all the excellent work that this House has done to make this a better Bill.

I put it firmly to the House that we need to get on with the Bill. Today is the 25th full day on which we have been discussing it, and during that time it has been greatly improved. There is no major issue in it to which the House has not done justice. Delaying Third Reading would, in my submission, be wrong and wholly unwarranted. We need to get on with it, and the NHS needs certainty—the certainty of the Bill being on the statute book. I therefore urge your Lordships in the strongest terms to reject the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and allow Third Reading to proceed this afternoon.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl Howe

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I have personally seen to it that the tribunal has been made aware of the urgency of releasing its reasons, and it has acknowledged that urgency.

[Lord Grocott]

Presumably, part of the need for urgency is the Government’s scheduling of the Third Reading of the Bill. I know that we are close to the end of an unprecedentedly long Session of Parliament but it would be an intolerable situation if the information were finally published after the Bill had become an Act and the information were then judged to have been such that many Members who had voted in favour of Third Reading would regret it within weeks. Surely the very least that the Government could do is to postpone the Third Reading debate until the last possible date before the end of the Session.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am the first to acknowledge the concern among noble Lords to be fully and properly informed about the risks associated with the Health and Social Care Bill. As I say, we have done as much as we can to implement that intent without transgressing what we still see as a point of principle regarding risk registers. My answer to the noble Lord is that I do not believe it is necessary to postpone Third Reading but we clearly have to debate the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Owen. At that point, the House will decide whether it is content to give the Bill further consideration.