Nuclear Test Veterans: Medals

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in 1992, I led a delegation of British parliamentarians to the Maralinga test site. While I very much welcome the award at long last—70 years on—of medals to British nuclear test veterans, I ask the Minister what the position is now on monetary compensation for them and their families. She will know that a study in 1999 found that an extraordinary 30% of these veterans had already died, mostly in their 50s, from cancers and other conditions. This is hardly surprising as air crew were required to fly through the mushroom cloud and servicemen were ordered to walk, run and crawl across the site to see how much nuclear fallout adhered to their uniform.

Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Coaker mentioned, a disproportionate incidence of birth deformities, cancers and infant mortalities has been found in the veterans’ children. Given the arguments that took place between the Governments of the UK and Australia about responsibility for compensation, and given the years of obfuscation by the MoD before it agreed in 1988 to compensate our own veterans, to what extent can the Minister assure the House that appropriate compensation has now been paid? Do the Government intend to take further steps to fulfil any legal and moral obligations to servicemen and their families, to civilian families and to the traditional owners of the lands where the tests took place?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am glad to have the further experience of the noble Lord. Although I was not aware of his visit, he brings great emotion to this subject, which is very helpful on a day when we have made a great deal of progress in this area. He will know that there is an established process for all veterans, including nuclear test veterans, to be able to claim compensation where they believe they have a service-related condition. Veterans UK has worked with the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association—whom I take this opportunity to congratulate—to develop enhanced guidance to support claimants belonging to the nuclear test veterans community, which is available on GOV.UK.

In addition to the medals, a wider package was announced—the oral history project, which is important in remembering the victims involved. I have taken part in oral history projects and they are extremely valuable, as this one will be for the veterans, their families and everyone else involved. Charities will also be able to bid for a separate £200,000 fund to support activities.

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, warmly for introducing the Bill. I thank, too, the Lord Speaker for reminding Downing Street, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, that it would be an abuse of the spirit of the constitution if the departed Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, were again to flood the House with new creations, possibly ignoring objections to individual nominations by the House of Lords Appointments Commission—a fortiori, outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss. I also thank the members of the existing Appointments Commission for their determination to maintain propriety in the appointments process.

This Bill is one more measure in a programme of incremental reform of the House of Lords, which has been discussed by many of us across the House over the years and has extensive support. Less than revolutionary though the Bill may be, the enigmatic provisions of Clause 7(3), on “additional criteria”, could point the way to significant and beneficial change. I believe strongly in an appointed House. Were we to have an elected second Chamber, the primacy of the House of Commons would be undermined, and the democratic accountability of the Executive muddied. The question remains, however, of how to achieve recognition by the public of the legitimacy of an appointed House.

The existing Appointments Commission has no statutory basis and is the creature of prime ministerial patronage. The authority that it has derives only from the wisdom and steadfastness of its members. It has minimal influence on the appointment of nominees put forward by party leaders. Rationing by Downing Street has significantly reduced its scope to put forward new Cross-Bench Peers. The size of the House has grown inordinately, with mass appointments of political Peers. Whatever the individual merits of new colleagues, the scale and partisanship of appointments has damaged both the reputation and the functioning of the Lords.

If a statutory appointments commission, an SAC, were to be created, it could do much to address the problem of legitimacy and provide over time a more rationally constituted and respected second Chamber. The way to this is indicated in Clause 7(3), which permits the SAC to propose additional criteria for appointments, and in Clause 7(4), which requires that in so doing it must have regard to the diversity of the UK population. It is essential that, as the Bill provides, such criteria are approved by both Houses of Parliament. My hope is that the SAC, in proposing further criteria, would be bold in its proposals. It should invite Parliament to task it to construct a second Chamber, the composition of which provides not only gender balance but a due representation of minorities, age groups and the regions and nations, as well as a spread of occupational and cultural backgrounds. A method should be determined for addressing the difficult issue of how to establish an appropriate balance of the parties in the House of Lords, within the overall requirement of this legislation that no one party may have an absolute majority. An appointed Chamber thus reconstituted, on a basis explicitly approved by the House of Commons, would have legitimacy while being no threat to the democratically elected House.

This reform may be difficult to reconcile with unfettered discretion for party leaders to appoint to the Lords whoever they and their parties wish. That freedom should be subordinated, in the interests of parliamentary democracy, to an overriding duty for the SAC to achieve a suitable balance of skills, backgrounds and party allegiance. It should be accepted, therefore, that the SAC will have a greater power than HOLAC to say no.

Then there is the question of the timescale of the transition, which the Bill does not address. The challenges we face are pressing, and there are other schemes afoot for replacing this House with an institution altogether different. If we are to preserve an appointed House, reform of it had better not be as glacial as Lords reform usually is. We should start by approving this Bill.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, critics complain that Brexit and the trade and co-operation agreement will somewhat reduce economic growth, but should maximising growth be paramount? They regret too that we will lose freedoms to study, to start a business, to live; even, the Observer laments, to fall in love in Europe. Those who foresee such a diminished life for us ignore that we will regain a fundamental freedom: the freedom to make our own laws, in our own Parliaments, accountable to our own citizens, with those laws applied in our own courts, subject to no foreign jurisdiction. That parliamentary sovereignty is the great prize.

There has been much misrepresentation of the concept of sovereignty. The term does not denote untrammelled freedom of action; all nations operate within constraints—of physical and economic reality, power politics, the need to negotiate and compromise. The point is obvious and banal. It is not a ground for deriding Britain’s reassertion of sovereignty, properly understood as the right to legislative autonomy and self-government. As democrats, we should treasure sovereignty. Some who oppose Brexit deplore invocation of sovereignty as populism, a fantasy of British exceptionalism, anachronistic, a slide into isolation and ugly nationalism. It should not be any of those things. To reclaim our sovereignty is to articulate anew the liberal constitutionalism that led us over centuries to develop parliamentary government. If British exceptionalism means a proud and tenacious attachment to parliamentary democracy, I embrace that exceptionalism now and for our future.

Why do politicians who applaud the assertion of democratic values in other countries regard it as retrograde in our own? Why do they assume that as a self-governing democracy we will not enter alliances with mutual obligations for mutual advantage, working with the European Union and across the globe on the great issues that require international co-operation, honourably observing international law?

Since the 1970s, we have witnessed, with sadness and foreboding, a growing disaffection from Westminster. It has been no coincidence that this has happened since the enactment of the European Communities Act 1972. There have been other sources of political disaffection for sure, but the fact that Westminster alienated sovereignty—abdicating to Brussels its responsibility to govern across a broad range of policies—has been a primary one. Westminster now has the opportunity to recover the respect of our people. This is Britain’s opportunity for democratic renewal. I say to my friends who are despondent: we only need faith in our democratic capacity, confidence that we can govern ourselves successfully and ambition to be a model to the world.

UK-EU Negotiations

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, consideration on security matters is obviously ongoing. The safety and security of our citizens is the Government’s top priority. We obviously hope for a negotiated outcome in every area and have had constructive exchanges with the EU on future co-operation in this area. I do not believe that there is a reason to think that such an agreement should be beyond us.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the fact that we are negotiating free trade agreements in parallel with the USA and Japan is serving to concentrate the minds of EU negotiators, who are beginning to show more pragmatism. Will not this process of parallel negotiations strengthen our ability to achieve satisfactory environmental and animal welfare standards in all our free trade agreements?

[Lord True]

My Lords, as he often does, the noble Lord has made a cogent and powerful point. The United Kingdom Government are obviously negotiating in good faith for a free trade agreement across the board on merit because we believe that free trade is of the greatest possible benefit in improving conditions for people across the world. Of course, if the different parties with whom we are negotiating wish to make cross-calculations, that is entirely a matter for them. However, I can certainly assure the noble Lord—the Prime Minister has been absolutely explicit on this—that our commitment to environmental standards and to standards generally will not be weakened by any of the negotiations that we are undertaking.

EU: Trade and Security Partnership

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness refers to some very important factors in our international relationships. Mr Frost is doing an excellent job for his country, in line with the decisions of Parliament and the people. As for wider foreign policy, I alluded to that in the previous answer.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as the EU grasps that we will not extend the transition period, will it not recognise that it is very much in its own economic interests to set aside ideology and make a free trade deal? In any case, is it not absolutely in our interest not to be tied into contributing billions to the Commission’s new budget and subsidising a eurozone economy that was in dire trouble even before the pandemic?

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, I try not to criticise any aspect of the European Union from this Dispatch Box but, that apart, I agree with that the noble Lord has just said.

Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made a powerful and deeply felt speech. In introducing his Bill, he calls in Wales to redress the balance of the United Kingdom. Rightly, he challenges us to be more responsible, more far-sighted, more cohesive and more altruistic in our policy-making. The prototype legislation in Wales has induced that approach. My noble friend Lady Wilcox described how that has been the case in Newport under her leadership.

These are dark times. We stumble around doubting the ability of democracy to address looming existential risks, such as the cumulative effects of austerity, child poverty and the cycle of deprivation. There is debt, global population increase and mass migration, artificial intelligence and the consequences of our technological ingenuity far exceeding our wisdom. There are nuclear weapons, biological warfare, terrorism, pandemics—natural or engineered—and systemic financial vulnerability. There is toxic waste, loss of biological diversity and climate change. We fear, if not the extinction of human life, the extinction of the human spirit in the dystopias of political malice created by the likes of Putin, Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro and Orbán, or in the spiritual deserts of addictive behaviours and mass consumerism.

The philosopher Toby Ord has noted in his book The Precipice that whereas in the past the prospect of apocalypse arose from divine wrath or natural cataclysm, the existential risks that we now foresee are man-made. We bring our woes upon ourselves but, with better policy-making, we can in principle save ourselves.

Why is it so difficult for enlightened policy—for preventive policy—to prevail? One difficulty is that even on a basis of research, evidence and rigorous thought, with the best of intentions, people do not agree about what an enlightened policy is. The cleverest plans are found wanting in the face of life’s complexity and unpredictability. There is also the problem of what Christian theology terms original sin—perhaps the one empirically verifiable Christian doctrine. Improvidence, greed, cruelty, fatalism, cynicism and despair are ineradicable from the human condition. Political leadership should appeal to the better part of human nature, as Jacinda Ardern seeks to do, but too often it does not. Politicians, and even officials, are no less fallible than those they seek to lead.

So long as we have elections, or until enough voters become more altruistic and far-sighted, the electoral cycle will induce short-term views. There are institutional factors that we could, however, ameliorate. One is the fragmentation of government across Whitehall and the border warfare between central, devolved and local government within the UK. The Bill would help us to do that. But then, if we co-ordinate better internally, what can one country on its own achieve without a transformation in international co-ordination?

The Bill also raises constitutional difficulties. It is highly centralising. Who will hold this powerful commissioner to account? It thrusts yet more greatness on the judges. Who will speak for future generations? Perhaps your Lordships’ House: we all love our grandchildren, but I am not sure Extinction Rebellion would accept that.

I do not want to fall into the sin of despair. This model of legislation has been beneficial in Wales and we should be thinking very seriously about how we can better serve the well-being of future generations. I hope the Government’s commission on the constitution will address itself to better enabling us to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, presents us with a very proper challenge.

EU: Future Relationship

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I thought I had said in the Statement and afterwards that they will be approached in terms of mutual respect. But mutual respect and friendship—as I think my noble friend will understand from our happy relations in this House—does not always mean absolute identity on everything.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to the Dispatch Box very warmly. May I tempt him to enter into the philosophical discussion? Was not the very point of Brexit that we should reclaim that part of our sovereignty that we lent to the European Union, and does not the sovereignty of a democratic state reside in its ability to make its own laws in its own Parliaments and Assemblies, accountable to its own people? The sovereignty of that people also resides in their ability to have those laws applied and interpreted in their own courts. To reclaim sovereignty is therefore not to advance propositions about power in international relationships or economic independence. It is simply about the right to national autonomy.

That being so, is it not inconceivable that the Government should accept the principle of dynamic alignment, thereby tying a democratically elected Government in this country in the future to accept whatever new regulations and laws might be promulgated by the institutions of the European Union? Should not the EU therefore, if its negotiators really care about the well-being and prosperity of its peoples, move quickly to agree a trade deal that involves no tariffs or quotas, and enables us to pursue the friendly, co-operative and mutually advantageous trading arrangements that surely we all should seek?

[Lord True]

Yes, I very much agree with the noble Lord’s analysis but I think that the House, when it has a Minister for a brief time, does not want a philosophical discussion. But I take his side in the discussion that he will no doubt have with the noble Lord afterwards, and agree with what he said. Our objective is to have a free trade agreement; that is what we have asked for and what the EU once offered. It is my hope that we will get there and have the other agreements that the Statement refers to as well. Our approach is based on a precedent that the EU has accepted with other nations. We see no reason why it should not be accepted. The EU has not asked for the kind of alignment that the noble Lord referred to in a number of other agreements that it has already accepted.

Constitutional Convention

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour tinged with much sadness for me to follow the noble Lord’s valedictory speech. He was heard today, as he has been throughout his years in Parliament, with interest, respect and affection. He has been valued in both Houses of Parliament for his good sense, his expertise, his courtesy and his evident passion for the good of the country. I have known the noble Lord since 1983 and I have always been in some awe of him. He was an Olympic athlete, a sprinter, but in politics he has been noted not only for his speed but for his stamina. As he told your Lordships, he represented and served his constituents in Worthing in the House of Commons for 33 years.

Then the noble Lord came to your Lordships’ House and, as he mentioned, for part of his period in this House he took the opposition brief for work and pensions. I was very touched by what he said about my noble friend Lady Hollis. I know that she relished such a worthy opponent across the Dispatch Box, how highly she rated him and how fond she was of him.

It has been my good fortune for the 13 years past to share an office with the noble Lord. He has been a kind friend and a wise counsellor to me during that time, and he takes no responsibility for the occasional extravagance of my views. I have noticed that he has experienced, as I have, some bafflement with the parliamentary IT system. I hope it is not the arrival of the new telephones that has finally driven him out. I imagine that he is really retiring for the natural and proper reason that at his age he wants to spend more time playing golf. Whatever the reason why he has chosen to retire, we wish him well and hope that he will still come and see us often.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes has said, constitutional challenges abound. He said that this was not to be a debate on Brexit, but Brexit is a giant constitutional issue. He would have his constitutional convention address issues of democratic accountability, but we Brexiters seek to escape the democratic deficit of the EU. My noble friend really should not be such an ardent remainer; I think he should reconsider his position and perhaps see the virtues of leaving after all.

In the process of leaving, facilitated—though that hardly seems the right word—by a referendum, we have seen the nations of the UK split asunder and we are seeing Parliament floundering as it seeks to acquit itself of its responsibilities, floundering perhaps particularly because there is a conflict between two democratic principles: the principle of direct democracy, as expressed in the referendum; and the principle of indirect democracy, which is the customary mode in our parliamentary government.

That is one colossal issue, but other great issues arise out of the disproportionate centralisation of power and economic strength in London. We have had the development of the move for Scottish independence and, as my noble friend described, the uncertain and fitful progress of devolution in England. Even more important is the atrophying of local government, which has long seemed a profoundly important problem because, unless we have vigorous local government, our democratic culture withers at its roots.

We see the crisis of our justice system brought about by wanton austerity. I also consider to be a constitutional issue the mismatch between the needs of the media and the needs of our democracy, the trivialisation of public debate, the decline of the local press and the disintegration and—arguably—subversion of our political culture by social media. These are hugely important and hugely difficult issues. Is the right way to address them by means of a UK-wide constitutional convention?

If it were to be a convention of academics and think tanks, perhaps with the participation of Select Committees in both Houses, that would be very valuable. They would articulate the issues and help to educate the politicians who have to take decisions.

The convention as proposed is really a variant of a royal commission. Of course, there was the Kilbrandon commission, which sat for four years between 1969 and 1973. It produced 16 volumes of evidence and 10 research papers. I read an article in the Liverpool Law Review of October 2017, which stated:

“Largely forgotten is the work of the Kilbrandon Commission, established to consider the allocation of executive and legislative power within the UK”.


I am not persuaded that a convention would necessarily be an improvement on a royal commission, and it is my hope that the Labour Party would not repeat its manifesto pledge to set up such a convention. It would be unwise for any Government to commit themselves to a blueprint for wholesale constitutional reform. The clever and enthusiastic members of the convention would certainly get it wrong. They would be unable to foresee the developments that lay ahead.

My noble friend takes the Scottish convention as an encouraging precedent, and undoubtedly it did useful work. It is a good thing that we have a Scottish Parliament but, as his national poet wrote, the best-laid plans “Gang aft agley”. It was forecast by an eminent Labour politician that devolution would kill nationalism stone dead, but nationalism is a long time petrifying. It was not supposed to work out like this, but the SNP secured a majority in the Scottish Parliament. The independence referendum took place in 2014, generating bitter emotions, and the possibility of a second independence referendum hangs like a sword of Damocles over Scottish politics and the union.

If it was difficult in Scotland, a small country where everybody knows everybody else and where the issues are relatively contained, how much more difficult would it be to get it right if we held a constitutional convention on a UK-wide basis? The scale and the complexity of the problems would be impossible to wrestle with.

Another fear that I have is that it would be almost inevitable that such a convention would propose a written constitution. If you have had a revolution or devastation by total war, it makes sense to start again in year zero, as it were. But I devoutly hope that that is not our case, and we see that written constitutions do not always produce the satisfaction that their authors hope. The European Union was ambitious to have a written constitution, but that was turned down by referendums in France and the Netherlands. None the less, a written constitution was sneaked back in in the treaty of Lisbon. I see no evidence that the existence of a written quasi-constitution has better enabled the European Union to address itself to the great intractable problems of immigration or the malfunctioning of the euro.

In this matter, I am a Burkeian. I believe that constitutional change should be organic. That wise Whig, Lord Holland, when asked by the Neapolitan revolutionaries whether he would be so good as to equip them with a draft constitution, responded, “You might as well ask me to build you a tree”. The way to approach constitutional change is incremental, by reform that is responsive to political events and pressures and that moves forward selectively and is expedient. We should develop our constitution by building on centuries of experience, by testing ideas and the structures of power, and by taking account of changes in public engagement, the varying perceptions of people across the country and their developing aspirations. Cumulatively, we should gain consent.

Preoccupation with constitutional reform is a displacement activity. Re-engineering the constitution is no substitute for good government, in which political leaders address the problems that people really care about and which produces shared prosperity and optimism about the future of the country.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, ownership and responsibility for Richmond House has now been transferred to the other place, where it forms part of its northern estate strategy. The other place is now looking at how Richmond House might be reconfigured to meet its needs. Any changes will require planning permission and listed building consent, and the other place is working very closely with Historic England in view of the importance of the building, which my noble friend has rightly pointed out.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

Does the Minister recall that when Richmond House was built 30 years ago, it was greatly admired; and as the noble Baroness has just said, it is only three years ago that it was listed grade 2*? The Minister talked delicately about reconfiguring, but would it not be an awful waste effectively to destroy the greater part of it to accommodate a temporary decant? Will he give the House an assurance that a full feasibility study of all other options will be carried out, including the suggestion that a temporary House of Commons Chamber be erected in the atrium of Portcullis House put forward by its architect, Sir Michael Hopkins?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That suggestion by Sir Michael Hopkins was looked at by the Joint Committee and discounted for the reasons it has set out. As I said in response to my noble friend, the responsibility for Richmond House now rests with the other place because it is the legal owner. It will take on board the heritage issues which have just been mentioned. The building was, of course, substantially reconfigured in the 1980s before it became the headquarters for the Department of Health.

Elections: Electoral Commission Recommendations

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a serious issue. I do not know whether he has had the time to read the Electoral Commission’s report on digital campaigning, subtitled Increasing Transparency for Voters, but it makes recommendations on the specific areas he raised. There are a series of recommendations about foreign involvement in the democratic process and recommendations about transparency on where money has come from, with particular injunctions on the social media to make it clear, when they put advertisements on their sites, who has paid for them. This is an important issue and to some extent it is embraced in the report I just referred to.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, have the Government considered what additional resources and capacities the Electoral Commission may need if it is to address effectively the difficult and complex question of abuses of digital campaigning?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Electoral Commission is not funded by the Government. As the noble Lord may know from his experience in another place, there is an Electoral Commission committee that sits under the Speaker. That committee in the other place is responsible for fixing the budget for the Electoral Commission. I am not aware that there has been a recent dispute between the Electoral Commission and the Speaker’s committee about resources, so as far as I am aware the Electoral Commission has the resources it believes it needs to do its job.