Elections Bill

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a couple of amendments to Clause 28 in this group, and then further amendments, all looking at disqualification from elected office. My Amendments 160A and 161 to Clause 28 are really just to probe different government decisions as to why the Bill is laid out as it is. Amendment 160A is to probe the circumstances of elected candidates being found guilty of terrorism offences; that is pretty self-explanatory. Amendment 161 was tabled because the Government have put in the Bill that someone could be disqualified for five years from standing for elected office, and it probes the reasoning behind the period of five years. If the Minister could give the Committee some understanding of where the figure came from, that would be very useful.

Amendment 168 to Clause 32 would add fundraising as an activity undertaken for election purposes, because I think pretty much every political party does it as an election activity. Amendment 170 to Clause 33 is tabled so that we can see clearly the details of any disqualification orders given to ensure transparency. I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has an amendment in this group, so I will be interested to hear his introduction to it. Amendment 172 to Clause 34 probes the Government’s intention to vary the offences. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister some more detail on that and how it came to be in its current form.

I shall not give a long speech, as we have a long way still to go on the Bill and it is pretty clear what the Government are looking to achieve by this section of it. There is one issue I will raise, which was raised in Committee in the other place as well, and it concerns the five-year period. Many of the people who go on to intimidate candidates, agents or campaigners—unfortunately, I have been a victim of that, as have many people who stand for elected office—and who commit such crimes and acts, are not really interested in standing themselves to become elected representatives. Some of them are just opposed to the whole idea of how we run our democracies. But is that five-year period going to stop anything? Do the Government think that anything further could be done to manage the problem? Intimidation is becoming an increasingly difficult issue which, sadly, anyone putting themselves forward for public life at any level has to deal with.

We support the Government in their really important effort to do something about intimidation of candidates, be it physically or through social media. The Opposition are happy to work with the Government if there are ways in which we can continue to improve the situation, support people who put themselves forward for public office and protect them from this kind of behaviour. I beg to move.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, referred to my Amendment 171 in this group, to which I would like to speak. Before I do, and with the indulgence of the House, I refer to some comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in Committee last week:

“However, given the important concerns that have been raised on the secrecy of voting, Minister Badenoch will be writing to the Electoral Commission and the Metropolitan Police to confirm our common understanding of the position set out in legislation—that the only people who should provide assistance at a polling booth are polling station staff and companions who are doing so only for the purpose of supporting an elector with health and/or accessibility issues that need such support. We are confident that the Electoral Commission will be able to respond promptly”.—[Official Report, 21/3/22; cols. 750-1.]


I raise that because the Minister wrote to the Electoral Commission and the police last week in very clear terms, covering the points made by, I think, every Member in the debate, and emphasising that there should be no element of doubt. Noble Lords will note that the Minister said that it was hoped that the Electoral Commission and the police would respond promptly. I quote from the letter the Minister wrote to those two organisations. In the penultimate paragraph, she says:

“I would be grateful for a quick response … to reassure Parliament that the secrecy of the ballot is upheld at those polls”—


that is, in May—or the Government may be minded to

“strengthen the law in this area, given the constitutional importance”.

I hope that the Electoral Commission and the Metropolitan Police will respond promptly, so that this matter does not have to come back at Report, as it may well have to do. I thank the Committee for its indulgence while I dealt with that, but it is important, given the general view that was expressed.

I move on to my Amendment 171. I am sorry here to possibly be raking over bad memories for the noble Lord, Lord Collins, who has said on a number of previous occasions that he was involved in the Tower Hamlets affair several years ago—and this is driven by the issue of Tower Hamlets and Lutfur Rahman. Lutfur Rahman was banned for five years, which may be where the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about five years comes from. That was the maximum penalty available to the election court.

--- Later in debate ---

The fixed five-year disqualification period provided in Clause 28 is consistent with the existing incapacity arising from a corrupt or illegal practice as provided by Section 160 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. I think that that answers the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. The period of disqualification for the proposed disqualification order is designed to strike the right balance between ensuring a sufficient deterrent while remaining proportionate, given the potential interference with the right to participate in free and fair elections, most recently protected under Article 3 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights. I therefore urge the noble Baroness and my noble friend not to press these amendments.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Before my noble friend moves off that point, and picking up a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, although I have referred on a number of occasions to Tower Hamlets, I have done so because that is the most extreme example. Does my noble friend agree that there are other examples of election offences around the country which may be considered minor, but are indications of the sort of problems we are facing in a number of areas?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Issues from around the country that we need to take note of have been brought forward in this Committee.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said in a previous answer, we have bought more than 1 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged people, which are being distributed. By the end of the week we will have delivered 750,000 devices. We are also working with all the UK’s leading mobile network operators to provide free data for educational sites and have been delivering 4G routers to families who need access to the internet. Of course, the BBC has also announced that it will deliver 14 weeks of educational programmes and lessons to every household, which is also very welcome.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I remind my noble friend and this House that major elections involving millions of people have actually successfully taken place in Georgia this week, and by-elections have taken place in Scotland. Given the rollout of the vaccine, could my noble friend please reconfirm that elections will take place here on 6 May? As with other aspects of government, will that be reviewed in mid-February and stuck to? At the same time, could the request be made to all parties that they desist from delivering literature until the end of March?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As my noble friend will know, primary legislation provides that local elections take place in May. The Cabinet Office is working with election administrators and public health bodies to make sure that everyone can cast their vote safety and securely. I am sure that the whole House would like to thank those authorities for the work they are undertaking to make sure that elections can go ahead in a Covid-secure way.

Covid-19

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure that the department will take soundings and work with as many experts as possible as we look to develop this. It is a future aim to start testing people to identify those who do not have coronavirus and are not infectious with a quick, simple, scalable test but we are not near that yet, so we will certainly work with experts and companies to develop it. We will draw as much expertise as we can because, along with the development of vaccines, this will be critical hopefully to moving back to some kind of normal life.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the announcement yesterday hit sport very hard at all levels—not just those levels that are seen on television but community sport in whatever form. I believe that Ian Botham is to be introduced into this House on 6 October. Will my noble friend guarantee that sports will receive the same proportion of grants as have been given to the arts by the time that he arrives in this Chamber?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Like him and many others, I am extremely disappointed that we have had to pause these events. I was able to get one of 1,000 tickets to see Norwich play football on Saturday as one of the pilot events and, in terms of the way that was held, I thought that it worked very well.

We absolutely understand the economic consequences, as he rightly says, particularly for community and grass-roots sports, which so depend on spectators. I know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is working at pace with representatives from a variety of sports to ensure that we can come up with some kind of package to help them.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Hayward Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I should declare that for 10 years I was the chief executive of the Beer & Pub Association, so I have had some experience in dealing with the Licensing Act 2003, when many of the points raised today were raised then. I will just touch on one or two points made previously and will come back to Soho in a second. Bournemouth, Broad- stairs, the assaults on police in parts of London and Manchester, et cetera, happened before pubs were reopened, so there are other factors at play. We have to address those as well as the issues genuinely raised today.

I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, about clarity, but it is clearly difficult to get it right when you are dealing with so many varieties of hospitality industry. I am pleased with some of the variations from one sector to another made recently in guidance—for example, in the use of toilet facilities and the like. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said, there are clearly still inherent contradictions that have to be addressed, but it is worth noting that the Government are making steps along that route.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, made reference to the arcane or archaic—I am using my words, not hers—Licensing Act. In fact, the Licensing Act was passed in 2003 and local authorities have policies between seven and 41 pages long that give guidance from which pubs, pub companies and restaurant companies need to operate.

However, I have serious sympathy for the problems relating to the blind, the partially sighted, the physically disabled who need wheelchairs, and the like. Again, I declare an interest in that I suffer from an MS-related illness and on Friday I was partially sighted for a period. I said earlier that we should look at what happened before licensed premises were open. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, knows Urlwin Street and Grosvenor Terrace only too well; they are roads close to where he grew up. It is not just the licensed industry that causes these problems. You cannot get a wheelchair down either of those streets, because of the street furniture placed there by the local council. So let us not address all the problems to at the hospitality industry. We need to be honest enough to look more widely.

I will comment on one or two aspects when we debate the Bill next week, but I draw Members’ attention to Clause 4, headed “Duration”. We are talking about introducing not rights that will last for a long period but powers for a specific period in these circumstances for the coronavirus crisis.

I have two small issues—or perhaps not so small. One is TENs, which we will return to and is a matter of intense detail and concern for small brewers. The other is the definition of “groups” in relation to hostels and the hospitality industry. People are allowed to go as two groups, but the definition we have in this country does not apply anywhere else in Europe. If four people turn up in a car or come by train together, they have travelled together. Therefore, they ought to be able to stay in a hostel. I will address these issues in greater detail when we debate the Bill, but I hope that I have raised a few small points for the Government to consider.

Special Adviser Appointments

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the terms of employment for any special adviser, as I have said, are set in their model contract. They are bound by the Code of Conduct. The process will depend on the terms of that contract. Dominic Cummings is ultimately accountable to the Prime Minister for his conduct, as is the case for all special advisers.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, is it not acutely embarrassing to this Government that they have put Parliament in a position whereby it is granting a pass to somebody who is deemed to be in contempt of it? I hope that any compensation to Sonia Khan comes not from the pocket of the taxpayer, but from Dominic Cummings.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, that is clearly not a matter for me.

Business of the House

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

I do not want to get into the issue of Prorogation, simply because of the time. But I spoke about Prorogation the last time we discussed these things. We all know that Prorogation is perfectly normal. There is always a Queen’s Speech. There has been one every year and the next Government will introduce a Queen’s Speech after the general election. In response to the noble Baroness, I will make the point that, if there were an election and a new Session, there would be more time to have such a Bill after that than there is in the next two days. There would be several days in which we could discuss it, not two days. It is not necessary to do it now. Indeed, after an election, if the party opposite won, we would not need a Bill because it would ask for an extension anyway—and if our side won, the Bill would not go forward. So the whole thing is entirely unnecessary, and this House is being asked to sign away hundreds of years of tradition on a pretext.

I support my noble friend. There are questions that the noble Baroness should answer. What does the Salisbury doctrine apply to? In her doctrine, we must defer to the Commons. Does self-regulation always mean a Motion from the Leader of the Opposition? Her guillotine says that if it passes, no one else may put any proposition to the House in the time that we are discussing this Bill, except the Leader of the Opposition. There are questions that need to be answered. I strongly support the view of my noble friend that we should take the Committee opportunity to get some answers from the Leader of the Opposition.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Will my noble friend include on the list of questions that he is putting to the Leader of the Opposition that of whether this Motion would be necessary if we did not have Prorogation?

[Lord True]

The Motion is not at all necessary, irrespective of Prorogation. I just made that point. There will be more time in a new Parliament to deal with this Bill than in these two days.

Motion

Grenfell Tower

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, we want to leave no stone unturned, and therefore this will be a full, independent, judge-led inquiry.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Perhaps I may follow on from the questions in relation to the public inquiry and the reference that has just been made to the legislation. Can we please ensure that when people give evidence, they do so in full and do not hide behind the fact that, if they answer certain questions, they might incriminate themselves, which could result in a criminal prosecution? People expect a public inquiry to be full and public, not partially full and partially in public.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I hope I have made clear to noble Lords, we want a judge-led inquiry. It will be for the person appointed to lead the inquiry and to determine how it works. However, as we have said, we want to make sure that all voices are heard, and I am sure that whoever leads the inquiry will refer to this debate with interest and take account of noble Lords’ comments.

House of Lords: Size

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I echo comments made on many previous occasions in relation to this debate. I do not intend to duplicate them—at least I hope not to—and shall instead pick on two or three points made during this debate, particularly about the numbers. I ask my noble friend Lady Hooper and others who have made such comments to consider how they would react, from a Tory point of view, if the RMT said, “Oh, we’ve got 800 people, but we actually only need 450”, or the Labour side to consider how they would react if a bunch of bosses said, “Well, we’ve got a board of 800, but we only need 450”. It would be laughed out of court. We have to recognise that we are too big to undertake the role that we do. We are not representative. A lot of change could be undertaken in those fields, but we must, as per the British constitution, do things by stages. If we try to do everything at once, we will achieve absolutely nothing.

I welcome the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth and others concerning the Appointments Commission. There is no doubt that there is a need for a change and it has to be made very clear from this House. Associated with that, everybody has talked about taking people out at the top end. The noble Lords, Lord Morris, Lord Whitty, and others are not here today, but they might give consideration to the suggestion of last in, first out. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I acknowledge that that affects me—like my noble friend Lord Balfe, I am one of the most recent appointments to the House, but that idea should certainly be given serious consideration. I say that because of one fact in particular: this House serves a great purpose in improving ever worse legislation from the other end by virtue of the expertise that it can offer. If everybody concentrates on taking people out at the top, one loses that expertise from all parts of society.

I welcome the idea of a Select Committee. Like the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I would want it to be time-limited. As the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, said just now, it may not come to agreement. We should give consideration to how one overcomes a lack of agreement on certain elements at the end of a time-limited Select Committee. I proffer—it is merely one idea and I am an inexperienced Member of this House—the suggestion that if the Select Committee fails to come to a conclusion on certain elements, such elements might be put to a group of the leaders of the different groups in this House, chaired by the Speaker, again with a time limit, at which point it would have to respond. The thought of the leaders of each group being locked in a room for four or five days and being obliged to reach a conclusion may not be greeted by them with great pleasure, but it is one solution that I would offer to finding an end to this whole process, because an end to it is absolutely necessary.

I do not believe that an election process is the right route for us to follow. As I said earlier, we are experts in this House in some field or another. We should recognise that and build on it. I must admit that if the Lib Dems wanted to subject themselves to some form of election, I would welcome the almost Macbethian solution proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit:

“If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly”.

That view was echoed by a number of other people. I wonder whether we might in modern parlance go down an “X Factor” route, with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, competing with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, or others in a vote-off every Saturday night on some channel, but I leave it for them to decide.

We are too big; we have to find a solution. We cannot tackle every constitutional problem all at once, so let us tackle the question of size and send a clear message, very quickly, from this House to the other House, to government, to the leaders of parties and therefore to the public that there is need for change. By doing that, we would no doubt enhance the reputation of this House and of government in general.

European Council

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am afraid that I can only say what I have already said, which is that the rights of all people from the European Union living in this country are unchanged at this time. As frustrating as it may be for the noble Baroness to hear me say it again, their rights are completely unchanged. It is of course something that we will need to clarify, but it is not something that I am able to do today.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My noble friend made reference to the growth figures and the projected growth of not only Britain but the European Community. Pending the referendum, a large number of decisions seem to have been deferred. To boost economic growth, I ask that some of them are now taken and implemented. I cite two examples, one slightly less contentious than the other: there is a planning application pending in relation to City Airport, which would be a good indicator of future economic growth; and there have been requests from all sides of this Chamber that a decision on runway capacity in the south-east is announced before the Summer Recess. I hope that that is stuck to.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Clearly there is a range of different decisions that we will have to continue to reflect on. I am not in a position to give my noble friend any new information about the timings of those decisions.