English Votes for English Laws

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about the effect that EVEL will have on the Barnett formula.

Let me explain, and I am most grateful to John Kay for pointing this out. If English MPs decide that English schools will receive an additional service paid for by an additional charge on English taxpayers, this rise will be reflected in the Barnett formula, irrespective of whether Scottish MPs want this additional service or not. That is how the formula works on devolved matters. Equally, if English MPs decide to cut a service, this, too, will be reflected in the Barnett formula, and if Scottish MPs want to maintain that service they will have to find the money from elsewhere. This is because the Barnett formula is based on United Kingdom-wide expenditure throughout the country.

I understand that when this was raised in the devolution discussions it was agreed that it would be settled on the “no detriment” principle. This means that compensation would be agreed on the basis of mutual good will. Bearing in mind the debate yesterday in the House of Commons, and the Scottish nationalists’ attitude towards the Government’s proposals on fox hunting, are the Government confident that this good will exists? If not what will they do? Will they leave the Barnett formula alone? Will they rewrite it? Will they go in for hypothecation? In the absence of good will, any of those would be very difficult. This is just one more example of the difficulties that we have over these territorial matters. They are best settled with a constitution or a proper Bill that goes through both Houses.

Iraq

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I am reluctant that we should join the air strikes over Iraq because history tells us that it is pointless in the medium term. It is pointless because, as one terrorist organisation is weakened or destroyed in the Middle East, another takes its place, often more radical than the last. After the PLO left Lebanon we got Hezbollah, al-Qaeda spawned ISIS, Gaddafi was replaced by a failed state. Perhaps it is better to try containment and not have ISIS replaced by something worse.

Promoting religion through violence is a terrifying and terrible phenomenon—and yes, we helped create the anarchy that enabled ISIS to commit its atrocities. Ignoring this would also be an atrocity. Perhaps that is the human reason why we should help. I agree with the Prime Minister that we should not be frozen by fear, but neither should we ignore recent history. Will bombing work? Recent history says it will not. Will the limited and clear objective of degrading ISIS, as laid out by the Leader of the House in her speech, prevent it from becoming something even more terrible? Recent history says that it will not. Only a few weeks ago we were tempted to put so-called moderate rebels in power in Syria.

Is it worth while putting our Armed Forces at risk? The threat is real, but it is coming not only from Iraq. ISIS has supporters throughout the Middle East, supporters who are shadowy and mobile. Some are our fellow citizens. It is no use bombing its communication centres; it shares ours. Its equipment is not stored in army camps; it is in civilian homes and institutions. Will bombing stop its funding and trading in oil? With its main bases outside Iraq, probably not, so it is easy to imagine another successor organisation taking over where ISIS leaves off. Thanks to its social and economic efforts, supplying food and medical care, paying salaries and generous pay to fighters, ISIS has dependent supporters. They are reluctant perhaps, but saying that we are coming to their rescue makes us sound a little like President Putin, and all this aid will have to be replaced when ISIS goes, as other noble Lords have said.

Again, as many noble Lords have said, success is not just military destruction; success is also creating the political will on the ground to confront ISIS—to dismantle it and to ensure that there is no successor by having a better story, as the most reverend Primate put it. Despite the Leader’s assurances, I am not convinced that our mission can achieve this. Recent history tells us that, until now, it has been impossible to separate the military and the political objectives without being dragged in further and without creating an even worse successor. This is why I remain sceptical but resigned.

Living Wage

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to ensure that all those in work receive a living wage.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

We support businesses that choose to pay the living wage when it is affordable, and not at the expense of jobs. The Government are committed to improving living standards. We have cut taxes for the lowest paid, allowing them to take home more of what they earn, and we have introduced tougher penalties and naming for employers who have failed to comply with the national minimum wage, which maximises wages without damaging employment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

But the Minister’s words are not carried out in practice. The reality is entirely different. Is the Minister aware that during the last three years, two-thirds of the increase in social security payments to people of working age has gone to people in work? So while the Government are cutting public services, the taxpayer is supporting low pay. Given that support, does the Minister agree that the taxpayer would be better served if instead the Government were more rigorous in getting employers to become more productive, so that they could pay a minimum wage on their own?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord that we are encouraging more employers to be productive. Much work has been done to that effect but I point out to him that the minimum wage is now increasing faster than earnings. The rise of 3% in the adult rate will mean that low-paid workers will enjoy the biggest cash increase in their pay packets since 2008. A rigid formula does not allow for changing economic circumstances, for example imposing a target set by politicians. That would result in job losses if it is set too high and lower earnings if it is set too low.

House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and others for their tenacity, their hard work and their efforts in bringing this before us. I, too, am sorry to see my noble friend Lord Grenfell go. He is of course great value as well as being good company, because in him we get two for the price of one: both a hereditary and an appointed Peer. He is also an old Etonian, so the one person who may be pleased to see him go is the right honourable Michael Gove.

I entered your Lordships’ House in 1993, when the House was dominated by hereditary Peers. They also dominated the House in 1912, when Asquith famously said that reform of the House of Lords “brooks no delay”. That reform was achieved in 1999, when most of the hereditary Peers left and more reform was promised. Since then, we have had a royal commission, four White Papers, two Bills reforming the House and reports from Select Committees and elsewhere. In addition, we have had the Steel Bill, the sixth version of which is now before your Lordships.

So what has held up this reform? It is lack of consensus, as my noble friend Lord Grenfell said. Yes, there was consensus that the hereditary Peers were an anachronism and that was reformed, but there is little agreement on the role and duties of the House. There is little agreement on the powers of the House, the membership of the House and the legitimacy of the House, and absolutely no consensus on how these reforms will be achieved while maintaining the primacy of the House of Commons. Unless there is agreement on those matters, there will be little reform. That is why we must pursue small, incremental reforms as they come along—reforms such as are in this Bill—all the while maintaining the quality and standard of our work.

During the same 20 years in which I have been a Member of this House, I have been a regular visitor to the United States. There, I have witnessed a once-powerful Congress gradually disintegrate into a kind of distrustful partisanship. Political debate there has become marginalised and, instead, last-minute deals are done on such important constitutional matters as the budget. Do I see a red light flashing? This is why I find absolutely nothing wrong with slow and careful incremental reform.

In the time that I have been in your Lordships’ House, it too has changed. Wealth and privilege have been replaced with experience and expertise. Dogmatic debate has been replaced with more reasoned argument—well, generally. As a result, the House has become more confident and more assertive, and I think that Parliament has become stronger as a whole. That is why I support this Bill in spite of some shortcomings. I am most grateful to Dr Meg Russell and the Constitution Unit for pointing them out, and I hope that the Minister and other noble Lords will agree on the importance of having independent academic commentary and research on such critical and complex matters as our constitution and the House of Lords. Their independent academic commentary is invaluable in considering this Bill. Perhaps I may add that their running commentary and observations on what we do and how we do it here are also very valuable.

Dr Russell is not the first person to point out the loopholes that were described by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor. The royal commission of 2000 recommended that Members of the second Chamber should not be eligible for election to the House of Commons for 10 years following their departure from the House of Lords. This was repeated in the 2005 report from the cross-party group of MPs. The 2007 White Paper on Lords reform dealt with this, as did the proposals published by the coalition in 2011.

Could it be that this omission is just an error? Ministerial assurances were given in the other place that the Lords would not become, as they put it, a training ground. Will the Minister repeat those assurances here, perhaps more strongly? As there is no parliamentary time for amendments, will the Government acknowledge the possibility of such a loophole and give assurances that this will be dealt with in the future, perhaps in the next Session? Of course, the real way to deal with this and other matters is for the power of the Prime Minister to create Peers through patronage to be regulated by the Appointments Commission—but, of course, this is for another day.

For today, as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, told us, the Bill provides two further reforms as well as retirement. Those who do not attend will cease to be Members and those who cannot attend because they are in prison for a year or more will also cease to be Members. These long overdue, common-sense reforms are important because they add to the reputation of the House—and reputation is central to the authority of an unelected House like ours. The attendance required—unless there are exceptional circumstances—is reasonable in view of the undertakings given on accepting nomination to the House.

This is not a perfect Bill. It is not helpful that it is a Private Member’s Bill; it is not helpful that it comes before us at this very late stage. However, it is an incremental step in the reform of your Lordships’ House and, for those reasons, it should go forward as it is. I hope it is supported by undertakings from the Government on the record. For these reasons, I hope the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, I agree entirely with my noble friend’s opening remarks about how we can do better. Indeed, I also think that we must look beyond our own internal arrangements. Fortunately, the constitution unit at University College has turned its mind to this, and I am grateful to it for its briefing.

I agree with other noble Lords that the key to this is to get a grip on our numbers. We have to cap the size of the House and to have a timetable for a gradual reduction in size. How do we do that? We do it in two parts, one requiring legislation and one not. Without legislation, the Government could announce a numbers cap and a reduction timetable, reduction being achieved using the same procedure as we used when the hereditaries left. At the same time the Government would introduce a formula for sharing out new appointments between the parties and the Cross-Benchers, all of this to be managed by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It would call on parties for nominees as and when vacancies arose. Yes, that would mean that the Prime Minister and party leaders had to give up some of their powers of patronage. The Appointments Commission would be responsible for ensuring not only political balance in the House but that there was regional, gender, professional and minority balance too.

All that could be done without legislation. However, legislation would be required to end the hereditary by-elections and to limit future appointments to the House to, say, 15 years with a possible additional five. Legislation would confirm the right of Peers to retire. Legislation would also be required to remove those convicted of serious offences—a reform long overdue.

Controlling our numbers would not only help to inform the other changes that noble Lords have been discussing but would refresh the House in an orderly way. All this, though, is not enough because it looks inwards and serves ourselves. We are not here to serve ourselves; as my noble friend Lord Filkin pointed out, we are here to serve the public, and surely a crucial part of doing that, especially for an unelected House, is to inform, to explain and to be transparent, as the Government are trying to be.

Who knows that the third week in November is Parliament Week? How many of us are going to participate? Yes, 40 of us are going to visit schools on that Friday, but is that enough? Surely, in a modern unelected House, every noble Lord has to be involved in explaining and informing.

My noble friend is right to ask how we can do better. The answer lies not only in internal change but also in external change. For your Lordships’ House, the two must go hand in hand.

Liaison Committee: Third Report

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, we started off from a slightly different position. We wanted to do more different things, such as pre-leg, post-leg and two new stand-alone ad hoc committees, and they had to be paid for by some trimming elsewhere. We took the view that there could be a reduction in the EU sub-committees, and I am afraid that the Science and Technology Committee was next in line. We suggested this in the report that we published right at the beginning of this Session nearly two years ago, when we said:

“So far as the Science and Technology Committee is concerned, we note that the Committee has recently worked through two units of activity … Given that the House of Commons committee on this subject is now permanently established, we consider these two units of activity should be regarded as an absolute maximum; and in the event of further demands for committee work arising which require redeployment of committee resources we would in the first instance look towards retrenchment of the Science and Technology Committee”.

So all this was forecast a long time ago. I think there is a mood in the House to try to look at other ways in which we can work on our committee structure.

The Science and Technology Committee will continue. It will no doubt continue to work through a sub-committee, and I hope that it will continue to do its work extremely effectively.

[Lord Haskel]

Will the noble Lord respond to the point made by several scientists when speaking about the Science and Technology Committee: that it also serves the public and that the Liaison Committee has looked at it purely from the point of view of serving the convenience of the House? Will he respond to the point that we are also here to serve the public, as well as serving our own interests?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is going to be a new committee on post-legislative scrutiny of adoption and family services; more pre-legislative scrutiny; and two new committees, one on SMEs and exports and the other on public services and demography. All of these are designed to serve the interests of the public using much more of the expertise that exists around the House. This decision was not taken easily or capriciously; its implications were well understood. As I have said, in the longer term there is no reason why we should not revisit it.

Legislation

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Haskel.

[Lord Haskel]

The Leader of the House says there are fewer pages enacted. Is this because the legislation is poorly drafted and requires a lot of work by your Lordships?

[Lord Strathclyde]

No, my Lords, of course not. What is true, however, is that certainly in this Parliament there are more and more amendments being put down by your Lordships. Your Lordships are incredibly active in wishing to see changes or even putting down probing amendments, and that means that we have spent far longer on legislation than we have done in previous Sessions, particularly on Committees of the whole House. That is not necessarily a bad thing but it is also true that your Lordships need to have a little bit of self-denying ordinance so that we do more than just delay the programme of government.

Lord Speaker: Baroness Hayman

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brougham and Vaux]

My Lords, as the longest-serving Deputy Speaker, may I say, on behalf of all Deputy Speakers, that we would like to be associated with the tributes paid to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, from all sides of the House? It was a great pleasure working with her and we look forward to working with the new Lord Speaker.

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, I have had the honour and privilege of working as one of the noble Baroness’s deputies for five years. During that time, she was genuinely concerned about her deputies. She worried about whether we got home on time or had had something to eat if the House sat late. Never since I was a teenager has somebody worried about that on my behalf. I am most thankful to her and look forward to working with the new Lord Speaker.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness D'Souza)]

My Lords, I am extremely happy that my first task in the Chamber today is to add to the tributes already paid to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. The noble Baroness has, as we have already heard, fashioned a role over the last five years into which I can now step with great gratitude. No one should underestimate what hard work it has taken to build such a successful programme, one that I would now like to continue—and even, perhaps in some areas, expand. It is clear from today’s tributes how much we owe the former Lord Speaker and how much she is now welcomed as a Back-Bencher and, particularly, as a Cross-Bencher.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has given us perhaps the only argument in favour of this Bill—that those who make the laws should be answerable to the public and, in the public’s view, we do make laws in this House. That is why I have always spoken in favour of an elected House. I have also pointed out, however, that this is an ideal, an objective. It is an objective to be achieved not in one huge leap but by a series of steps. It is a series of steps because of the complex constitutional issues that have to be resolved and which we have been debating here.

In 1999, together with my noble friend Lord Stone, I wrote a submission along these lines to the royal commission of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. In our paper we spoke of stages of reform, of mixed composition with full and part-time Members, and of how the House would have to perform additional functions. The Labour Government took this route of incremental change. They removed 90 per cent of the hereditary Peers; they created the post of an elected Speaker; and they separated the judiciary and the House of Lords. I still think that we should continue in this careful way—dealing with the issues one at a time and, most importantly, carrying the public with us.

I agree with other noble Lords that the main issue is the primacy of the House of Commons. The Government say that this is secured because of its privilege over financial matters and because of the Parliament Act. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, sternly told us that this is the law. The reality is that the House of Commons has primacy because it is elected and we are not. We have conventions that respect this. If this House were to change, the conventions would change, and it is ridiculous to say otherwise.

I find the proposed method of election a big obstacle to reform because it presents a contradiction which other noble Lords have pointed out. The Government’s argument for reform is legitimacy, but election also means accountability. A 15-year single term destroys any accountability and, as other noble Lords have said, it encourages the opposite. I think that it rather demeans the electorate.

In addition, the proposed system of election will not produce people with the knowledge, the experience, the talents and the will to scrutinise the work of the Government—tasks that the Government say should be the main function of this House. I agree with others that the election system proposed would just produce a political clone of the other place.

There are further dilemmas, and in its paper, Eight Key Obstacles on the Road to Lords Reform, the Constitution Unit of University College London lists some of them. For instance, why are the Bishops here? Is it to add spirituality to our deliberations, as the right reverend Prelate suggested? The transition to 300 senators will be tricky, but is 300 the right number? Will they fill all the committee places and do all the other work on and off the Floor of the House, which the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, described as “outreach”? Like her, I do not think so.

The Government’s Bill does not come anywhere near to dealing with those issues; nor does it deal with the checks and balances necessary when there are two elected Chambers. This Bill is just another example of the coalition’s unthinking and reckless “big bang” approach to constitutional legislation. As my noble friend Lady Royall said, it is a bad Bill and we deserve better.

The Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, points the way forward. Indeed, for one moment I thought that the Government might withdraw their Bill after she effectively demolished it in eight minutes flat. As she said, part of this reform process is getting our own House in order. My noble friend Lord Grocott said that another part of the process is for the House of Commons to reform itself so that it, too, can work with an elected second Chamber. The Steel Bill deals with some of these issues, so the Government should accept the noble Lord’s offer and take over his Bill.

We have sensible proposals to improve our working practices, so let us get on with those. There are proposals to allow for retirement. Let us strengthen them and make them a bit more imaginative, using them as a way of starting to deal with reducing the number of Peers. There is polling to find out what we think, but what do the public think? Probably not much, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, suggested, but let us find out. Meanwhile, let us see whether the Joint Committee can produce a consensus on solving some of these dilemmas.

An elected House is an honourable and democratic objective. Let us work towards it issue by issue, but not by this bad and unworkable Bill.

Regional Development Agencies

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords—

[Lord Rowe-Beddoe]

My Lords—