Covid-19 and the Courts (Constitution Committee Report)
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate and thank my noble friend Lady Taylor for her fine chairmanship of the committee and for the way she introduced our report. The committee notes that Covid hit a justice system that was already in trouble. We also noted that the courts rallied impressively to meet the huge challenge of Covid by adapting at speed as best they could to provide remote hearings, operate in improvised premises and keep court users safe.
Access to justice was gravely compromised before the Covid crisis made it worse. The Treasury had been gunning for legal aid since the 1990s, and criminal legal aid fees for solicitors, I understand, had not been increased since 1998. An egregious example of the injustices resulting from Treasury niggardliness was what became known as the “innocence tax”, whereby a defendant refused legal aid after means testing was not reimbursed their legal costs if acquitted. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 was, however, the biggest assault on access to justice, hitting especially those least able to assert their rights. LASPO largely removed from the scope of legal aid family, employment, welfare benefits, housing, debt, clinical negligence and immigration law.
The Government claimed that austerity necessitated a reduction of legal aid spending by £350 million—an indiscernible fraction of public expenditure but a significant proportion of the legal aid budget. In the event, the cut to legal aid spending between 2010-11 and 2018-19 was worse than that: £1 billion, or 36%. Political hostility to legal aid was part of a wider narrative about scroungers, shirkers and the undeserving poor. The Ministry of Justice said that its aim was to target legal aid on those who needed it most. What actually happened was that those left without essential advice and representation included disabled people, people with impaired mental capacity, carers, victims of sexual exploitation, trafficking and slavery, victims of domestic abuse, people who were homeless or living in substandard accommodation, people in detention and people fleeing persecution.
With this drastic reduction in legal aid, by 2019, more than half of law centres and not-for-profit legal advice services had closed. I declare with pride an interest as a patron of Norfolk Community Law Service. It has defiantly kept going, raising enough funding to provide advice and support to many people—though only a fraction of those who need it.
The MoJ said that another of its intentions in LASPO was to deliver better value for money for the taxpayer, yet it removed funding for early legal advice, which is crucial to prevent problems escalating. In housing law, legal aid for advice on disrepair issues became unavailable until the situation had become serious enough for people’s health to suffer. In family law, legal aid became unavailable until a dispute about a child had escalated to a complex legal battle with even more damaging effects on all concerned. The long-term cost in mental health can only be great. The health—or otherwise—of the justice system is reflected in the health of society. Cuts to the MoJ budget of 27% in 10 years were a false economy, with MoJ costs exported and multiplied in the health service, social security, education, the police and local government.
Between 2010 and 2019, 295 court facilities—a third of the courts estate—were closed, including more than half of magistrates’ courts. A huge backlog of maintenance also developed. When Covid came, posters in courts instructed people to wash their hands but barristers reported that there were no soap or towels. Decent, well-maintained court buildings were once a mark of respect for the law and society. In 2018-19, the Government cut 15,100 court sitting days; they then reinstated just 4,700. At the end of 2019, before the pandemic hit, the backlog in the Crown Court was 37,500 cases.
Plenty of money was found for digitisation, however. In 2016, the Government proclaimed that they would spend £1 billion
“to modernise and upgrade our justice system so that it works even better for everyone.”
Not a lot then happened. There was no public consultation on the principles that should apply in regard to the rule of law and access to justice in the digital realm, although there was the obvious risk that significant numbers of people who were not computer literate would be seriously disadvantaged. This was found to be so in the pandemic. Progress was dilatory in equipping the courts with new technology and training court users. In 2020, when, with Covid, the courts suddenly needed to hold virtual hearings, they were unprepared to do so.
There has developed an unhappy lack of comity between senior Conservatives and the judiciary. As Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss appeared unwilling to defend judges when the Daily Mail attacked them as “enemies of the people”. In January 2020, Suella Braverman launched a remarkable attack in Conservative Home:
“The political has been captured by the legal. Decisions of an executive, legislative and democratic nature have been assumed by our courts … if a small number of unelected, unaccountable judges continue to determine wider public policy, putting them at odds with elected decision-makers, our democracy cannot be said to be representative.”
Shortly afterwards, the Prime Minister appointed her Attorney-General.
Smarting at the decisions of the Supreme Court in the two Miller cases and on the legality of the Prorogation of Parliament, the Government have been meditating on how to clip the wings of the judiciary. Access to justice will not be improved by further limitations on the right of citizens to seek redress by way of judicial review for the improper use of powers by government and its agencies.
What is the Government’s vision for the justice system? The backlog in the Crown Courts is now around 60,000 cases and it is taking up to five years for cases to come to court. In his letter to Peers of 15 March, Dominic Raab expressed some appropriate aspirations, but not since Michael Gove was Lord Chancellor have we heard a fully considered statement of principle or strategy. From time to time, in the face of disaster, small mitigations of LASPO and small additional doses of money have been forthcoming. I recognise that there was a more substantial development last week in the Government’s response to the Bellamy review of criminal legal aid. In the view of the Criminal Bar Association, the additional funding will not be enough to prevent a continuing haemorrhage of criminal advocates. I hope it is wrong.
The MoJ’s post-implementation review of LASPO in 2019 was belated and timid, failing to address the issues of the scope of civil legal aid, means tests, bureaucracy and the supply of services. Its so-called action plan amounted to little more than promises of further research and consultation, and some narrow pilot schemes. The recently approved order for a two-year pilot scheme in Manchester and Middlesbrough to examine whether early advice can produce savings for the public purse is unnecessary: the evidence that it does was set out compellingly in the Pragmatix report. It smacks of Treasury-driven foot-dragging.
We need to look systemically at the whole ecology of justice. The Government need to ensure that proper data are available to enable informed understanding of what is happening. Everything interacts. All parts of the system need to be resourced properly or else deficiency in one area produces damaging pressures elsewhere. The Government can reduce the burden on tribunals and courts by making better administrative decisions in social security and immigration cases—and, of course, by addressing the roots of poverty and crime.
The chronic underfunding of the justice system disrupts society, wreaks misery across the country and violates the principle that, where citizens have a reasonable case but cannot afford justice from their own resources, they should be supported by the state to have their case heard. That was once common ground across the political parties; for decades, we moved towards its fulfilment. It should still be seen as a bedrock principle of the welfare state, our constitution and a liberal society. The Justice Secretary, who is also Lord Chancellor, bound by his oath of office to respect and defend the rule of law, should not tolerate continuing dereliction of this principle. I look forward to the Minister telling us how the Government plan to restore and renew the justice system.
Prisons: Releasing Women into Safe and Secure Housing
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, we have a virtual contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I wanted to ask my question on the next Question.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, it is very clear that many women end up in circumstances where perpetrators of abuse exploit and take advantage of them if they are not in safe and secure housing. One recent study has shown that, overwhelmingly, a number of those women in prison have previously been subjected to abuse and, therefore, suffer trauma. Is not the priority, therefore, to ensure that there is more trauma-informed work available to work with women, so that they do not enter the criminal justice system?
Barristers Leaving Criminal Practice
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to bring forward measures aimed at reducing the number of barristers leaving criminal practice.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, our plan is more work for criminal barristers at higher fees. We have made radical proposals for wholesale reform of legal aid, provided £150 million more on fees and £20 million more for longer-term reform, and increased sitting days so that the Crown Court can get through more trials. The combined effect of our plans will take expected criminal legal aid spending to £1.2 billion per year.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
Does the Minister accept that before this week’s announcement, a decade of underfunding by the Government brought the criminal Bar to near collapse? Criminal advocates, having suffered a 40% real-terms cut in their earnings, were exiting criminal work in droves—a quarter of junior barristers and half of all QCs. Criminal trials were being adjourned for lack of available counsel and it was taking up to five years for cases to come to trial. Therefore, I welcome the Government’s acceptance this week of the Bellamy review recommendations, but why did it take the third threat in eight years by criminal barristers to go on strike before the Government acted? Also, does the Minister understand that it is far from clear that the Government have provided enough money for the remuneration of criminal law barristers to keep them in the system?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, it did not take the threat of a strike from the Criminal Bar Association for us to respond to Sir Christopher Bellamy’s report, but I hope that our responding in a way which has drawn broad welcome from the Bar Council, the Law Society and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives will mean that the Criminal Bar Association will withdraw its utterly ill-thought-out and unfounded strike proposal.
Assisted Dying Bill [HL]
Lord Howarth of Newport ExcerptsFriday 22nd October 2021
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I know that my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is motivated by nothing but kind-heartedness. However, I cannot support the legalisation of assisted suicide. This is not just because of practical difficulties in her scheme. I believe that, if we legislate to make it legal to dispose of a particular class of human being, there will be consequences that none of us would wish. In thus devaluing human life, we will reinforce existing tendencies towards a desensitisation and coarsening of our society. The paradox, I fear, is that, in seeking to extend self-determination, and with an intention to mitigate suffering, we would jeopardise the liberal and humane values that we must uphold.
A majority of the public in fact has serious concerns about legalising assisted suicide. A ComRes poll has shown that, when the issues were properly understood, support dropped from 73% to 43%.
Consider recent history in some western democracies. In Belgium and Canada, as well as in Oregon, the original safeguards limiting the availability of assisted dying have been significantly loosened in subsequent legislation and court judgments. Consider the history of the last century and the slide into barbarism of countries in Europe where, as democracy decayed, it became official ideology that certain groups of people were disposable. I do not want enthusiastic legislators unwittingly to bundle us along that road.
Our democracy is precarious. A large-scale survey by the Centre for the Future of Democracy found last year that younger generations in the UK have become increasingly dissatisfied with our democracy. There is a smell of the 1930s in the air. We have again seen the allure of populism. Anti-Semitism and violence against women have been on the rise. Social media algorithms intensify anger and curate hatred. Online abuse, intimidation and a discourse of hate have become normalised. Death threats against MPs are now routine; two MPs have been murdered. We are witnessing a new intolerance, with virulent assaults on academic freedom, licensed by cowardly academic leadership. Our public life is perceived as corrupt. Our Government are widely considered to be equivocal about the rule of law and illiberal in their reforming intent. Giant digital corporations ruthlessly manipulate government and citizens alike. Young people despair of the efficacy of democratic politics to address existential threats and are frightened about the future.
Amid these pathologies—in this hideous melee—now to legalise the killing of a class of people seems deeply misguided.
Court Proceedings: Written Transcripts
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Faulks
There has been some televising of proceedings. The Supreme Court, for example, even has its own website. I do not think it is doing very well in the ratings war, but it provides accessible opportunities to see what goes on the courts. The Court of Appeal Criminal Division is also now available to the public, and a pilot is proceeding on the Crown Court and sentencing remarks. While of course the Government are very much in favour of open justice, we have to proceed carefully in this area, perhaps because of the risk of people being diverted in the way they perform in court, whether they be witnesses or even—dare I say?—lawyers thinking about how they will be perceived.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, if Hansard can be made available online free to the public, why cannot court proceedings?
Lord Faulks
An accurate transcript involves expense, and expense is incurred by those who provide an accurate—and it must be absolutely accurate—transcript. A transcript is available, but it is not automatically available. It requires transcription from a recording. Depending on how quickly you need it and how much you need, it will be more expensive.
EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I add my thanks to noble Lords for the sober analysis of the processes of change provided in these reports. Tragically, however, the European Union is not capable of the reforms that could justify Britain remaining. The dreams of the Prime Minister in his Bloomberg speech have been all too comprehensively dashed. The EU is failing both economically and politically and its member states are incapable of achieving agreement on the reforms that might save it. There is very little willingness even to contemplate the radical redesign that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, called for in his thoughtful speech. The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, deprecated the failure of the Government to explain—as I think he put it—what, if anything, is wrong with the European Union. Perhaps I might therefore venture to assist.
Britain joined the EEC in the early 1970s at a low point in our national self-confidence, and just when the economic miracle that had brought the original six to new heights of prosperity was faltering. Self-inflicted wounds followed: the Maastricht criteria condemned Europe to weak growth, and the ultimate hubris, the disastrous turning point, was the formation of the eurozone. Without political consent to create a federal “United States of Europe”, the single currency project could not work. The Germans have enjoyed an undervalued currency but even in Germany wages have stagnated. The Mediterranean countries have suffered grievously from an overvalued currency. There has been little redistributive fiscal relief across the EU. Membership of the euro encouraged reckless borrowing and creditors have ruthlessly ensured that there is no debt relief. Across swathes of the eurozone, unemployment, particularly among young people, has been running at catastrophic levels.
The eurozone countries are incapable of extricating themselves from their predicament, either by advancing or by retreating. Britain is infected by Europe’s economic stagnation and chronic financial instability. The UK should continue to reorientate its exports and strategically disengage itself from our debilitating entanglement with the European economy.
Of course I acknowledge the ideal of peace, about which the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, spoke so feelingly. I do not belittle that at all but it is not our membership of the European Union that prevents the French and the Germans going to war in 2016. Europe’s economic failure now begets political division and crisis. For all the invocation of ever-closer union, the gulf between Europe’s haves and have-nots has grown ever wider. Market forces, to which EU orthodoxy is dogmatically committed, have concentrated wealth in certain regions of the north and west of Europe: Baden-Württemberg, the Rhône-Alpes and Lombardy. Your Lordships should note that these areas of prosperity are regions, not countries, and that one of the effects of the EU is to fracture the old nation states. Meanwhile, the south and the periphery struggle and everywhere the less-educated and less-skilled, the industrial helots, the culturally alien and the urban underclass are frustrated and angry. Migration, both into Europe and across Europe, intensifies resentment and generates extremism.
The democratic deficit and the governing structures of the EU threaten to be as disastrous as the euro. The system is an aggregation of democracies but it is not itself democratic. It was never intended to be so by its authors, rational public servants who were horrified at what they had seen weak democracies and populist fascism do. Policy initiative continues to rest with the unelected Commission. The Council of Ministers as such has no accountability. The inner eurogroup—of which, of course, we are not members but which commands the majority and has no regard for our interests—takes the major economic decisions. It has no status in European law and its proceedings are opaque. The European Parliament and national parliaments remain marginal. This is not a system of government that should be acceptable to the British people, who take pride still in a unique history of parliamentary democracy.
Baroness Smith of Newnham
Does the noble Lord not agree, however, that there is a directly elected European Parliament and that it has the right of co-legislation in EU decision-making?
Lord Howarth of Newport
It has indeed gained some powers but I would still contend that its influence is marginal. I certainly do not see that the European Parliament has any worthwhile accountability to the peoples of Europe.
Yanis Varoufakis has described how, equipped with a democratic mandate from the Greek people, he sought to renegotiate the terms of Greek debt and, Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, told him:
“Elections cannot be allowed to change an economic programme of a member state”.
With rule by technocrats, troikas and creditors, the gulf between governors and the governed is increasingly offensive to the peoples of Europe.
Across the European Union, parties of the far right are gaining support: PEGIDA, Law and Justice, Jobbik, the Front National and Golden Dawn. There is the SNS and its rival, People’s Party—Our Slovakia, whose leader Marian Kotleba takes to the stage wearing the uniform of the wartime Slovak fascists. The two neofascist Slovak parties already have almost 20% of the seats in parliament. The Freedom Party of Austria came within an ace of winning the Austrian presidency.
It is complacent to suppose that we are immune from this pathology. If in Britain our metropolitan political elite continues to display contempt for people who do not share its enthusiasm for membership of the EU and for globalisation, the disturbing problem we already have of disaffection from mainstream politics will grow worse. People who loathe the EU will seek recourse in the nation and if their nationalism is not to turn ugly, they must be listened to and treated with respect. If reputable politicians will not stand up for the losers, disreputable ones will. Remain campaigners, I suggest, would be wise to stop giving the impression that they regard supporters of leave, who decline to be instructed by experts as to what they should believe or how they should vote, as ignorant, stupid and bigoted. Remain MPs who threaten to use a majority in the House of Commons to thwart the will of the people in the referendum seem bent on destroying our citizens’ trust in politics.
I hope that the British people will have the confidence to leave the EU. We should not doubt that we have the enterprise, skills and resilience to cope with the transition. Our businessmen will know how to seize their opportunities across the world. Our excellent scientists will flourish in the global academic community—the free trade of the mind of which the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, just spoke. We will forge new relationships with the peoples of Europe, with whom we have always engaged and always will. It will be open to us to become more, not less, internationalist. We will be able to handle the issue of migration decently on our own authority.
The process of withdrawal should open exhilarating vistas. After reclaiming rights to take our own decisions and before activating Article 50, we should engage our people in an extensive national debate of new quality—and we will find that the people of Britain do not want workers to be stripped of their rights, or science to be stripped of its funding. We should seek to reach national consensus on our objectives in negotiations, tough as they will be, with the EU and other global institutions and powers. There will indeed be a great programme of legislation. In all this lies the opportunity to renew our parliamentary democracy.
European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I do not like to dismay so many of my friends but I believe that Britain should withdraw from the European Union. My friends who disagree with me insist that it is essential that we remain for our security and our prosperity. It is absurd to suggest that the countries of the European Union will cease to co-operate with us on security matters if we leave: their own security will require it. As to prosperity, the truth is that no one knows whether we will be a little richer or a little poorer in the next few years—whether we are in or out of the European Union. Respected and dispassionate economic commentators such as Roger Bootle judge that the economic arguments are inconclusive.
Britain joined the EEC late and in 1975, when the establishment instructed an electorate that was more deferential than it is now, voters accepted its advice. It is true that in our history and culture Britain is and always will be European. Those of us who are sceptical about the European Union can honour the ideal of peace that animated its founders but the reality is that Britain has never been at home within the political structures of the European Union.
Of course, the European Union now is not the same as the European Economic Community that we joined in 1975. The most important change has been the creation of the eurozone. That has been a disaster. The well-intentioned architects of the eurozone inflicted the torment of mass unemployment, particularly on young people, in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. If the countries of the eurozone proceed towards political union we shall be marginalised; if they do not, the eurozone will remain an economic disaster zone. We opted out of the eurozone but we cannot escape its effects, which include depressed demand in export markets that are important to us, the contagion of financial instability and the relative decline of the European Union in relation to the global economy.
The other area where the EU is palpably failing is migration. The incapacity of the European Union to deal with the challenge of mass immigration has grievous human consequences and is setting alight dangerous nationalisms and atavisms. I do not want the debate in Britain about the referendum to be an unpleasant one over immigration. It is entirely consistent with wanting Britain to leave the European Union that one should want Britain also to be a liberal and outward-looking society.
The European Union has no means of democratic remedy for these failures. No European demos has emerged. The European Parliament fails convincingly to express the will of the people of Europe across national boundaries. The institutions of the European Union were created not to be truly democratic but to permit the exercise of enlightened officialdom. The fundamental reform that the Prime Minister pledged to seek has been unobtainable. The democratic deficit of the European Union provokes deep discontent and not only in Britain. In the 21st century, citizens want their institutions of government to be transparent and accountable. The current system of bureaucratic condescension and elite wrangling might have been acceptable in 1957 but should not be in 2016.
Those who want to remain say that none of this really matters and that what is important is that we will have more power if we stay inside. But for all his efforts on the inside, the Prime Minister has been able to achieve only marginal changes in policy. To be subject in so many decisions to qualified majority voting does not feel like power. To suffer the all too often abysmal policy-making and administration of the Commission feels like a poor substitute for self-government.
We would not be powerless outside. We are the fifth largest economy in the world. We have businesses that can conquer world markets. The City of London is a major financial centre. We still have a Civil Service well able to support Ministers to negotiate the new relationships that we will need. We have the best universities in Europe. We have an envied culture. We have numerous other treaties and alliances, and businesses in the European Union will continue to wish to trade with us. The alternative to membership of the EU will not be isolation. Of course, no one can predict the precise nature of the arrangements that will be negotiated—but, if I may say so, it is a silly and disingenuous tactic to scare people with that uncertainty. What is certain is that we will have a strong hand to play.
The Prime Minister and, indeed, my noble friend Lord Mandelson rightly made the distinction between power and sovereignty, but they were too dismissive of sovereignty. Historically, Britain has defined itself in terms of the institutions of the monarchy and parliamentary government. It should be a matter of national and democratic self-respect for Britain that we make our own laws in our own Parliaments accountable to our own people who will be able to dismiss those who govern them if they disapprove of them. We should resume the sovereignty that we lent to the EEC in 1972. When Parliament passed the European Communities Act, it undermined itself and our parliamentary democracy. That has been a major cause of the disaffection with politics that has grown so worryingly since that time.
Government in the modern world will be intensely difficult, whether we are in the European Union or out of it. But if we have the courage to take responsibility in our own democracy, we will find a new clarity, purpose, maturity and confidence. Even the Scots may prefer it. We should not be fearful of this responsibility. The remain campaign should elevate its tactics above the politics of fear. I say to my own party, the Labour Party, that it should not fear that it cannot win a general election and govern decently and generously in the interests of working people and all our people. In the words of Franklin D Roosevelt, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)
My Lords, this has been a historic debate. The House has well and truly put its stamp on this very important issue. Many have spoken with personal experience. Sometimes there has been an acknowledgement that there is a visceral element to the reaction that many people have to this issue, as there will be throughout the country. So many points have been made that I hope noble Lords will not be too disappointed if I confine my remarks to rather few of the issues raised during the debate.
Unfortunately, being a late arrival to the debate, I was unable to be here during the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Gilbert of Panteg. My late inclusion was because of the acute discomfort that my noble friend Lady Anelay was in. I salute her tenacity throughout the whole business of the European Union Referendum Bill and her dedication to bringing matters to the House’s attention. But I have it on the highest authority that he made an excellent maiden speech, and we very much welcome him to the House and look forward to his future contributions.
My task in winding up this debate has been made easier by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made many of the points that I might have made in winding up, and rather better than I would have done. I can deal with the date quite briefly, in view of the widespread acceptance of the SI. The Prime Minister has announced his intention to hold the referendum on 23 June, and my noble friend Lady Anelay explained why the Government believe that that date strikes the right balance between giving enough time for a proper debate and not making voters wait too long to have their say. There will be four months from the announcement of the date until polling day, six weeks for campaigners to apply to be designated, and a 10-week regulated referendum period. We believe that that is ample time. Traditionally, general elections have only six weeks’ notice; this referendum will have had much more. The intention to hold a referendum before the end of 2017 was announced in the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech of 2013; it was affirmed at the election last year and reaffirmed by the passing of the referendum Act in December. No one can claim that they were not given sufficient notice.
Most importantly, the Electoral Commission has confirmed that it is content with the Government’s proposals and that, in its view, arrangements for a well-run referendum are “well advanced” and that the date does not pose a “significant risk”. It was only the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, who suggested a different date; he suggested that the Government should wait until after the Tory Party conference, an invitation that the Government have no difficulty in refusing. The approval of the procedure has been echoed by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee; both have considered the instrument and both are content with the proposals.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The noble Lord has suggested that the Electoral Commission is content—maybe it is—but has it offered a view on the character, integrity and neutrality of the various so-called information documents that the Government have been pouring forth? It might be that it would consider that those documents are not in fact as neutral as they ought to be.
Lord Faulks
I am unaware of any view having been expressed about those documents but, since the noble Lord asks about those documents, which have been variously described as “propaganda”, they are the Government’s attempt to make their case and to make it clearly—The Best of Both Worlds, as the Government see it. We look forward to those who wish to leave the European Union putting forward their views in writing so that they can be scrutinised and dismissed as propaganda if they must be. But rather, I would suggest, a proper analysis of views on one side and another should be undertaken.
I turn to the deal—the EU renegotiation. I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Ridley that this is a question of a relationship not with Europe but with the EU. There have been a range of opinions. The special status that the renegotiation has delivered means that Britain can, as the pamphlet suggests, have the best of both worlds. We will be in the parts of Europe that work for us, influence the decisions that affect our economy and help to keep our people safe. We will be in the driving seat of the world’s biggest single market, but we will be out of the parts of Europe that do not work for us—the euro, the eurozone bailouts and the passport-free, no-borders Schengen area—and we will be permanently and legally protected from being drawn into ever-closer union.
The deal has achieved agreements in each of the four areas that were set out by the Prime Minister in his letter to Council President Tusk in November last year. On sovereignty, the deal ensures that the UK is out of ever-closer union, will never be part of a superstate, and has achieved new powers to block unwanted European laws. On competitiveness, the deal secures new commitments from the EU to cut red tape, complete the single market and sign new trade deals. On economic governance, we have made sure we will never join the euro, that British taxpayers will never be required to bail out the eurozone and that British businesses cannot be discriminated against for not being in the eurozone. On welfare and migration, we have made sure that new arrivals from the EU will not be able to get access to full benefits for four years and that child benefit will no longer be sent home at UK rates.
The noble Lord, Lord Green, suggested that this might not reduce the flow of EU migrants. The new relationship means that EU migrants can no longer claim full benefits for some time, and this ends what has been characterised as something-for-nothing welfare arrangements. The Government are not making a forecast of numbers, but we know that around 40% of EU migrants are supported by the benefits system, so reducing this artificial draw will, the Government believe, help us control and reduce immigration from Europe.
The legal nature of this deal has been called into doubt by some, but let me be clear: this deal is legally binding for all EU member states and the decision of the heads of state or government has now been registered with the United Nations as an international treaty. The conclusions of the February European Council as well as the text of the deal itself clearly set out the legally binding nature of the deal, and the European Court of Justice has held that decisions of this sort must be taken into consideration as being an instrument for the interpretation of the EU treaties.
Council President Tusk was clear that:
“The 28 Heads of State or Government unanimously agreed and adopted a legally binding and irreversible settlement for the United Kingdom in the EU. The decision concerning a new settlement is in conformity with the Treaties and cannot be annulled by the European Court of Justice.”
The legal opinions of both the Council Legal Service and Sir Alan Dashwood QC further confirm the legally binding nature of the deal. All those documents are footnoted in the document described as propaganda by those who oppose this process.
My noble friend Lord Astor asked whether the European Parliament could veto elements of the deal after a remain vote. Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, has said that he absolutely rejects the notion that MEPs have a veto and has given a guarantee that the European Parliament will, immediately after the referendum to stay in Europe, legislate on the proposal of the Commission. Manfred Weber, the leader of the centre-right EPP, the biggest block in the European Parliament, has said that with strong backing from EU member states and parliamentary leaders a UK package,
“could go through very quickly after the referendum. One or two or three months is possible”.
So we are confident that we can get the changes we need written into EU law.
Legal Aid
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I am not the noble Lord, Lord Bach. Unlike my noble friend, I am not a lawyer, merely a citizen. As a citizen, what should I reasonably be able to expect of our system of legal aid? It is a good subject for debate on Human Rights Day.
To know what we should do in the future about legal aid we should first consider the values that have been violated and the damage that has been done in recent years. In his book The Rule of Law Lord Bingham proposed as the core principle:
“All persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made … and publicly administered in the courts”.
He traced the genesis of the rule of law to the coronation oath and to Magna Carta, which declared,
“to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice”.
It is insufficient, however, if legal rights are merely declaratory; they must be enforceable by all to whom they apply. With the development of legal aid in the 20th century, publicly funded legal advice and legal representation became available, if not to all citizens, to a vastly greater proportion of them. The institution of legal aid, enacted by a Labour Government, despite post-war austerity, in the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949, marked one of the great constitutional advances in our history. Over the next 40 years, the scope of legal aid was extended to more of the courts and to more classes of case.
Then, in 1987, the Conservative Government commenced a long attrition of public spending on legal aid. The Labour Government more or less carried on the policy after 1997. But it was the coalition Government that really took the axe to legal aid. The coalition parties had no mandate for this; their manifestos had not hinted at it. They claimed that the global financial crisis obliged them to make drastic cuts to the legal aid budget. Kenneth Clarke’s Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—LASPO—excluded all but the very poorest from eligibility for civil legal aid and took out of scope, with only very limited exceptions, clinical negligence, employment, private family law, housing, debt, immigration, education and even social security.
At the very same time, the Ministry of Justice was wasting very large sums elsewhere. The department was being ripped off by contractors claiming money for tagging non-existent prisoners and was duplicating an internal IT system in ignorance of a parallel project being run by the Cabinet Office.
Mr Clarke’s successor, Chris Grayling, placed a novel interpretation on the Lord Chancellor’s oath of office, to,
“respect the rule of law, defend the independence of the judiciary and discharge my duty to ensure the provision of resources for the efficiency and effective support of the courts for which I am responsible”.
He set about an extensive and extraordinary assault on the rule of law, including a further attack on legal aid. In 2013, he announced his intention to cut another £200 million per annum. In a consultation paper with the Orwellian title Transforming Legal Aid: Delivering a More Credible and Efficient System, he proposed further narrowing of the scope of matters covered by civil legal aid, for example prison law and judicial review; further reductions in payment rates for areas of civil legal aid that remained within scope, such as childcare cases; restructuring of the criminal legal aid market with cuts in legal aid rates for solicitors and barristers; and further restrictions on eligibility, for example a residence test.
In response to the consultation, writing in the Solicitors Journal, John Halford and Mike Schwarz said:
“Legal aid is not a welfare benefit; it is an equalising measure. Its aim is to ensure that everyone subject to UK jurisdiction can enjoy their rights in a meaningful way through access to legal advice when it would otherwise be unaffordable and representation funded to the extent necessary to ensure that the merits of any court case will determine the outcome, rather than the relative wealth or power of the opposing parties”.
They went on:
“These fundamental principles remain shamelessly compromised by the Government’s proposals … The crime proposals perpetuate a dangerous trend; those for civil work will create a silenced minority whose cases will never be heard by our courts, regardless of their merits or what is at stake”.
As the President of the Supreme Court, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, has said, when a case is dropped for lack of legal aid, it is,
“a blot on the rule of law”.
A YouGov poll in April this year found that 84% of the public rated access to justice a fundamental right. Without access to justice, inequality becomes more dangerous. Yet net expenditure on legal aid fell from £2.2 billion in 2011-12 to £1.6 billion in 2014-15. A letter to the Guardian on 1 May this year, signed by more than 100 senior lawyers, said:
“The effect of the cuts is reflected in eye-watering statistics. From 2012-13 to 2013-14, debt cases fell from 81,792 to 2,423 and in clinical negligence from 2,859 to 114. In employment law, legally aided cases fell from 16,154 to six in the same period”.
It is to the credit of Mr Grayling’s successor, Michael Gove, that he has spent his first six months in office seeking to clear up the mess left by his predecessor. His speech to the Legatum Institute, on a one-nation justice policy, showed his grasp of the principles that should guide him in his office. He acknowledged:
“While those with money can secure the finest legal provision in the world, the reality in our courts for many of our citizens is that the justice system is failing them. Badly”.
I hope that the attitude of the new Lord Chancellor will reopen the possibility of a consensus—a positive consensus—between the political parties on legal aid. He has, however, given no commitment to restore any state-funded legal aid. No crumbs were forthcoming from the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s table when it was found to be laden with an extra £27 billion.
The consequences of the reductions in legal aid have been fourfold: denial of access to justice, human suffering, failure to achieve the intended savings, and damage to the legal profession.
Problems that could have been addressed quickly and cheaply through early advice have become costly social, mental health or welfare issues. The commission of the noble Lord, Lord Low, has described these ravages. I also commend to noble Lords Shelter’s analysis of the effects on housing and homelessness. The LASPO cuts in legal aid have reduced funding for its legal services by 50%. It has been forced to close nine services around the country.
An article in the Guardian on 7 November reported from another devastated zone. Sitting in on family law cases in court, the author, Louise Tickle, witnesses “the extreme stress” that litigants in person, in states of heightened emotion, find themselves under. A barrister tells her of,
“dads who think the court process is inherently biased against fathers, who feel disempowered and unable to pursue their case without help—so they don’t try, and the result is that they don’t have any contact with their children at all. That’s disastrous”.
Alistair MacDonald QC, chairman of the Bar Council, told readers of the Times on 26 March 2015:
“Recently the legal aid agency denied support to a mother with learning difficulties as she fought for custody of her child, claiming their decision did not breach her right to a fair trial. The woman could not read or write. We have seen cases where children and partners have faced being cross-examined by fathers who have been accused of abusing them”.
The LASPO assault on legal aid coincided with the Treasury’s assault on social security funding in a pincer movement against the poor. The president of the Law Society, Jonathan Smithers, has said that, following the exclusion of 600,000 people a year from legal aid:
“The lack of access to justice in this country for a significant proportion of our population undermines society itself”.
The National Audit Office reported a 30% increase in cases starting in family courts in 2013-14 in which neither party had legal representation. The huge increase in litigants in person points to a deterioration in the quality of justice. This is not the fault of judges, who attempt patiently to guide litigants in person through bewildering court procedures and maintain a fair balance between contesting parties. There has been a significant increase in the costs of running courts in the Family Division as cases take longer.
The Public Accounts Committee on 19 January 2015 stated:
“The Ministry of Justice … is on track to make a significant and rapid reduction to the amount that it spends on civil legal aid. However, it introduced major changes on the basis of no evidence in many areas, and without making good use of the evidence that it did have in other areas. It has been slow to fill the considerable gaps in its understanding, and has not properly assessed the full impact of the reforms. Almost two years after the reforms, the Ministry is still playing catch up: it does not know if those still eligible are able to access legal aid; and it does not understand the link between the price it pays for legal aid and the quality of advice being given. Perhaps most worryingly of all, it does not understand, and has shown little interest in, the knock-on costs of its reforms across the public sector. It therefore does not know whether the projected £300 million spending reduction in its own budget is outweighed by additional costs elsewhere”.
What an abysmal way to govern. The Government consider justice too expensive. They need to grasp that injustice is even more expensive. The rule of law underpins not only a just and humane society, but the health of our economy.
LASPO has also ended the careers of many legal aid lawyers and advisers who had dedicated their working lives to enabling disadvantaged people to have access to justice. The Government have squandered this resource. Organisations such as the Norfolk Community Law Service are fighting back, for example by providing work experience for law students in their free legal advice services. But voluntary and pro bono work is no substitute for legal aid.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has said in this House that,
“it would be difficult today for any responsible person to advise a youngster coming into the profession to take up a criminal practice”,
noting:
“The quality of our judges is dependent on the quality of the legal profession from which they are drawn”.—[Official Report, 10/7/14; col. 332.]
Last year, the Government reduced litigators’ fees by 8.75%. This year, they have published regulations for a second draconian cut of 8.75%. Meanwhile, the Law Society reported that 120 providers were facing bankruptcy as a result of the previous cuts. We have seen boycotts by solicitors and barristers of new cases paid at the lower rates of legal aid. With the reduction in funding for legal aid work and in the volume of legal business, as my noble friend Lord Beecham has warned, firms are not recruiting trainee solicitors.
In opening this debate I have attempted to sketch the problems that surround legal aid. My noble friend Lord Bach will be chairing a review of the future of legal aid. The president of the Law Society has said of reform:
“You need to start by asking, ‘What do we want to achieve, what does good justice look like, and how are we going to get that?’”.
My noble friend will also need to establish the full facts. The Government should provide a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the impact of LASPO and other cost-cutting measures. If the Government will not bring forward their review of LASPO, he should do it for them.
My noble friend’s review may wish to examine the factors that have driven the demand for legal aid, because they all continue to apply. These include the huge increase in the volume of law and the creation of many more criminal offences. There has been the increase in family breakdown. Affluence and the greater availability of credit have increased demand for consumer redress. With technological change, data protection issues have become more important. With better education and more information, more people have become aware of their legal rights and sought to assert them. There has been a growing insistence that the Government and other public agencies should be accountable and be made to provide redress when they are at fault. All these are legitimate reasons for the growth of legal aid.
The decent way to constrain legal aid spending will be to deal with underlying causes that are not acceptable: bad landlords, bad employers, reckless moneylending, non-payment of debts and chaotic immigration. Limiting the growth in legal aid requires a responsible, activist state.
While accepting, of course, the need for financial discipline, for the elimination of abuse where it exists and for efficiency within the legal aid system, my noble friend should accept that, as economic growth is achieved, some of its fruits should be used to restore funding to legal aid, bringing back into scope categories that were so wrongly excluded, easing the severity of the means tests, and paying rates that are viable for the legal profession. The rule of law, after all, is beyond price. He may also want to look at the option of an indemnity or insurance fund, and he may wish to consider whether less adversarial processes are appropriate in some areas, perhaps in the family courts.
My noble friend’s review will be about more than damage limitation. It will set out what the desirable dispensation for legal aid should be in the future. I know that my noble friend will make a clarion call for equal access to justice. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I add my thanks to the thanks just now expressed by the Minister to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. Without exception, noble Lords have spoken with deep feeling about the problems of access to justice that have been intensified in consequence of the LASPO legislation. Some strong language has been used but, I think in these circumstances, very justifiably.
The debate has been informed by deep experience. My noble friend Lady Mallalieu spoke of her 40 years’ experience as a legal aid lawyer; my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis capped that by referring to his 60 years of experience; and then the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said that he, too, had come into the law at about that same time. Of course, that was an exceptional vintage.
We also had the very important and eloquent contribution of a former Law Lord, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. As my noble friend said, we miss the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but he finds his ways to share that with us. Many noble Lords spoke of the pride that historically we have had in our system of justice. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, and my noble friend Lady Dean were eloquent on that. Amidst all this wealth of expertise and profound experience, I was glad to be joined by at least a handful of amateurs, to use the term used by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, to characterise those of us who have the misfortune—or possibly the fortune—not to be lawyers.
My noble friend Lord Judd reminded us that justice is at the heart of so many different policy issues, and other noble Lords were specific about areas of present injustice about which they are deeply concerned, such as domestic violence and the predicament of disabled people. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, spoke of the plight of asylum seekers, trafficked people and Syrian refugees to come, who will need to be able to obtain justice. My noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith spoke about the disproportionate effect of many of the changes that have taken place on the predicament of women. My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth spoke with particular eloquence and passion about some cases that he has studied. I wish him well—and his friend Emily very well indeed—in the work that they are doing in their part of the country. He spoke, quite rightly, of the human cost of doing justice on the cheap.
A number of suggestions for reform were made. The noble Lords, Lord Cotter and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, discussed procurement. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, also drew attention to the Leveson reforms, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, referred to the recommendations of Sir Bill Jeffrey. The noble Lord, Lord Low, was able to draw from the depth of his experience in chairing the commission that he has chaired in successive instances, and his ideas for a better network to enable the availability of justice are important and should be heeded. I think that after 50 years, the noble Lord, Lord Low, is entitled to submit the three volumes that his commission has published, plus the text of his speech today, for his PhD. It is time he gained it.
Many noble Lords spoke of their admiration for the legal profession. My noble friend Lord Judd made that point strongly. My noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith spoke with pride about the Bar Pro Bono Unit, which he founded. We should all take this opportunity to thank so many members of the legal profession—indeed all of them, I would like to think—who, whether paid or unpaid, are dedicated to ensuring that justice is in truth and in reality available.
There was considerable discussion about the current state of the legal profession and of the courts. There was pretty well a consensus that there are very serious problems at the criminal Bar. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, talked of a brain drain happening at present, as people leave the criminal Bar. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, underscored that point in this most crucial area of legal practice. There is a crisis. My noble friend Lady Mallalieu told us of lawyers who earn less for their brief than the cost of the train fare to court. Clearly, if that is the case, the system is not sustainable.
The noble Lord, Lord Lester, helpfully introduced into the debate the issues of exceptional case funding and the fall in the incidence of mediation. The Minister, in his reply, accepted that those were indeed issues. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said that it was a critical time for the administration of justice, and it would be no easy task to undo the damage that has been done. There was also some valuable discussion of the case of LIPs—litigants in person.
I want to add my personal tribute to my noble friend Lord Bach, because the scrutiny he led of the LASPO legislation and its subsequent emanations has been wholly admirable, and I have found him persuasive—at every point, I think. I wish him well in the work of the review that the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has asked him to undertake, and I indeed hope that we can move towards a consensus.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, the Minister, for the generosity of his remarks, the tone of his speech, and his willingness to acknowledge that there are lessons to be learned from LASPO, and that all is indeed not well. He spoke about various issues on which he and his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice are at present working. He also wished my noble friend well in his work on the commission. I hope that he and the Government will be assisted by my noble friend’s work, and that we shall achieve the consensus that we all desire.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Faulks
My Lords, the LASPO Act has not been a disaster. It was necessary to make some sensible and well-directed changes to legal aid. In social welfare, the most important cases concerning people’s housing and their ability to stay in their house are still within scope, but some of the lesser matters are not. Of course we keep the matter under review, but the noble Lord will know that the legal aid reforms did not take place until April 2013, there having been a spike before then. It is important to see how they are affecting people over the longer term, which is why this Government repeat what the previous coalition Government agreed, which is that we will look at the whole system in much more detail, but only within five years and not before.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, given that the Ministry of Justice is one of the departments vulnerable to further depredations by the Chancellor in his drive for economy and to scale down the state, will the Lord Chancellor and his ministerial colleagues in the department this time round stand up to the Treasury and insist that equality before the law and equal access to justice are beyond price in our constitutional heritage and indispensible to a liberal society, and that they will defend them to the hilt?
Lord Faulks
I can assure the noble Lord and the House that all the Ministers in the Ministry of Justice are wedded to the rule of law and to access to justice. But the question that arises out of social welfare law is whether it is always necessary for everybody who has quite real problems to have a lawyer at £200-odd an hour, or whether there are better and more effective ways of giving advice.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, our democracy is ailing. The unity of our United Kingdom is in peril. It is entirely possible that by the end of this Parliament, we shall be heading towards a fragmented United Kingdom and a greatly diminished Britain. The responsibility on legislators is enormous, and the responsibility on Ministers in particular is enormous. The responsibilities that fall on the shoulders of the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, are peculiarly difficult and sensitive. I congratulate him on his appointment and I wish him success in his work. As I listened to his speech, which I found to be of great interest—I look forward to listening to him on many future occasions— I was, however, made none the wiser as to the means by which the Government will go about achieving their strategic objectives of keeping Britain within the European Union and maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom. I can anticipate that by the end of this Parliament, it is quite possible that the worst will have occurred. The English will have voted to come out of the European Union, the Scots and the Welsh will have voted to stay in; the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, will be alongside his right honourable friend the Prime Minister and they will be both be scratching their heads, saying, “What on earth do we do next?”.
Many noble Lords have advocated a convention, commission, conference, conversation, convocation or whatever to review the clutch of interlocking, complex, difficult, sensitive and important constitutional issues with which we are faced. I favour such a discussion taking place. In fact, I favour a series of such discussions. It is a free country and no one needs to wait for the permission of the Government to set up a constitutional convocation. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and my noble friend Lord Foulkes have already set up their own convocation. Important academic work is being pursued at Kings College London and University College London to examine this range of interlocking constitutional issues. I think it would be of immense help to us all, when the reports are forthcoming, for a public debate to be precipitated. We must hope that the media let us have a public debate of really high quality to match the seriousness and importance of the issues. But I would recommend that the political parties should keep their powder dry. They should be very cautious about commissioning such work other than within their own inward counsels and taking part in such work. Certainly there will be wise and experienced political elders who might wish to take part, but the formal position of the political parties ought to be reserved because it is extraordinarily difficult to get this right. All sorts of people will be able to produce grand notions about how we should reform the constitution, but one of the great features of constitutional reform is unintended consequences, as we saw in the case of Scottish devolution. My own view is that the parties would be wise to hold back, reserve their position and see what is needed.
In a gracious Speech that is heavily overloaded, I counted eight constitutional measures. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, whose witty, elegant and wise speech I, like everybody else, enormously enjoyed, counted only seven. The noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, seems to have counted a number more. At all events, it is unbecoming and foolish of the Government, I think, to introduce gratuitous constitutional measures. Given the number and range of unavoidable difficulties, why do they add to them? A Government with a majority of only 12, if they follow the convention that constitutional measures are taken on the Floor of the House of Commons, are going to be in immense difficulty. Your Lordships’ House will of course wish to play a constructive and positive part in scrutinising these various measures that are proposed for constitutional reform, and no doubt the Government will be wise enough to heed our advice. Indeed, I hope that the Government will be wise enough to help us to perform our duties even better by following the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and taking steps to at least legislate to set a sensible limit on the size of your Lordships’ House on a rational basis.
Some of the measures that have been proposed are unwittingly constitutional. There is at least one, which may be the one that I noticed and the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, did not count in his tally. I refer to the proposal that tenants of housing associations should have the right to buy their properties. Housing associations are charities, and it seems an extraordinary thing that a Conservative Government should take it upon themselves to distrain the assets, of charities—great historic foundations such as the Guinness and Peabody trusts. I cannot recall anything to compare with the pillage of the housing associations since the pillage by Henry VIII of the monasteries. Where will the Prime Minister turn his grasping hands next—to the endowment of Eton College, to the endowment of the University of Oxford, which has just raised an extra £2 billion to increase their charitable assets, or even, possibly, to the Hereford Cathedral Perpetual Trust? We all know that this would be outrageous. I think that we all recognise that charities are independent and are respected as such, and that it is entirely inappropriate that the Government of the day should help themselves to their assets for reasons of political expediency. Charities are a very important part of the fabric of our national life and, as such, are part of our informal and unwritten constitution.
A great deal has been said about the Bill of Rights and the intractable issues associated with that. The right honourable Dominic Grieve MP has posed to Ministers some questions that I think they will have great difficulty in answering. The noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Woolf, today similarly raised very serious and important questions. Mr Gove and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, would not have been faced with this headache had not the Government foolishly, for populist reasons, sought to play fast and loose with the constitution. By the way, I very much welcome the return of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, to his responsibilities on the Front Bench. There is nobody who can more charmingly and persuasively argue the unarguable: he is quite invaluable to the Government.
Among the issues that will fall to be considered in that context is the question of what citizens’ rights should be in the digital age—the updating of the panoply of human rights. Of course, the Government have promised us legislation on surveillance. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, whose maiden speech was also a joy to hear, will be particularly well qualified, as a former staff member of GCHQ, to enable us to understand better the ethical and practical issues associated with surveillance and how to strike the right balance between security and civil liberties.
I want to make one final point, if I may detain the House for a moment longer. Most of us would agree that constitutional change is better made on the basis of mature consideration and consensus, but there is one constitutional proposal in the gracious Speech that is crudely confrontational: the requirement that members of trade unions should have to opt in to the political levy. That specific policy was not in the Conservative Party’s manifesto and this House is fully entitled to oppose it.
So much work has been done on the funding of political parties: the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000; the Hayden Phillips commission in 2006; a Ministry of Justice report in 2008; and the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, which came out in 2011. It is a disgrace that since all the issues have been articulated, and all the options are understood, the political parties have not managed to reach a concordat on this very important issue because they fear to lose some element of political advantage.
Reform is needed. Had the Government introduced comprehensive reform of the funding of political parties, and done so on a neutral basis which was not biased in favour of any political party, it would have been extremely welcome, but what is outrageous is that the party of government should legislate crudely to disadvantage the principal party of opposition. My noble friend Lady Hayter spoke about this and the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, made a very useful practical proposal. Other parties are at least equally entitled to complain. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, spoke of the disadvantages that the Liberal Democrats face not only under the electoral system but in terms of funding.
Hitherto I have been opposed to the state funding of political parties. I have always taken the view that political parties are great voluntary associations and that members of political parties are citizens and democrats and it is right that they should raise their own money. But I now believe, regrettably, that it is necessary to have state funding of political parties. The old days of mass membership of political parties have gone, notwithstanding what may be happening in Scotland, and this is one of the reasons why a new politics is unable to break through. It is also one of the reasons for the cynicism that prevails so widely about politics and government.
There is a belief that money will buy political influence, influence on policy and, indeed, peerages. There is a perception of corruption that is widely pervasive at a high level among Britain’s power elites. That is something new. It is something very dangerous. It is something that we need to deal with. The Government missed a very important opportunity to address this in the legislation on lobbying in the previous Parliament. We have a position in which the parties are excessively dependent for advice on think tanks which themselves are funded by wealthy individuals with agendas of their own, and because of what the coalition did to the Civil Service in the previous Parliament we have an eviscerated Civil Service that is unable to provide the experience and expertise that government needs.
There is a clutch of issues here that needs addressing if we are to rehabilitate our democracy. It would be better, contrary to what Mr Cameron says, to increase the cost of politics, at least in this regard. To run our democracy on the cheap turns out to be exceedingly expensive in terms both of trust and of quality of government.