Scotland

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the Section 30 order will be published next week, and both Houses of Parliament will debate and, it is hoped, pass it in due course. I cannot see that there is any great advantage in seeing Mr Salmond’s Bill before we pass the Section 30 order. After all, it can be amended in the Scottish Parliament. However, we understand that we will get the publication of the Scottish Government’s consultation, which will include their view of what the question should be, and that should be available in the next few weeks.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I understand perfectly that this issue has to be handled sensitively without there appearing to be any attempts at bullying or cajoling the Scottish Parliament in deciding what to do. If the draft Section 30 order is published next week, it will be left entirely up to the Scottish Parliament to decide what to do. That is really going too far. Does the noble Lord agree that there ought to be a period of reflection before the Section 30 order is laid before us so that we have at least some idea of what the Scottish Parliament has in mind?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there will be a period of reflection but it will not be very long because we want the Scottish Parliament to get on with it and to set the date and pass the necessary legislation so that we can clear the air in Scotland and get a decisive result at the referendum.

HSBC: Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 23rd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, from memory, I do not think that there has been a single Question put to me in my capacity as Leader of the House in the past 12 months. That rather leads me to believe that there is no great demand for a monthly Question Time session for the Leader. There are perfectly good methods for asking me questions and noble Lords should use them if they wish to.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, from a rather different view, perhaps, I query what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Surely accountability and responsibility cannot simply be divided one from the other—it is not as sharp as that. Accountability and responsibility go hand in hand and no one should doubt it.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Cormack said that no one should challenge the integrity of my noble friend Lord Green, and I agree with him. But if it comes to a choice between the noble Lord’s view of what is responsibility and accountability and that of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, I will go with the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell.

G20 Summit

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the Government are continually bringing forward all sorts of plans and prospects—not least the speech my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made at the Bank of England only 10 days ago, where he made a specific commitment to try to improve liquidity of the banks, so as to increase lending, which will also lead to growth.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, in the Statement, there was a repetition of the conviction that only the Annan plan will lead to peace in Syria. Is the Leader of the House aware that since it was first announced, the situation has not got better? It has got worse and worse. There is a dreadful parallel here with what happened in Libya. Will he assure us that we are not interested primarily in regime change, and that there have to be intense discussions at a very high level to bring this slaughter to an end?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy for what the noble Lord said about Syria. I said earlier that the situation was extremely difficult and complicated, and continues to be appalling. Syria is descending rapidly into a bloody and tragic civil war, with potentially irreparable consequences for its people and for the future.

We are continuing to discuss with key partners, including in the UN, exactly what the best way forward will be. We still believe that the essential framework of the Annan plan is the best way forward, and that is what we will continue to discuss. We have put forward a strong EU arms embargo, which we are currently tracking, and we will maintain that. The EU has announced further sanctions against the Syrian regime today. The UK is at the forefront of imposing the 16 rounds of EU sanctions against 129 individuals and 49 entities.

I cannot be sure that those things in themselves will work. As the noble Lord said, the international community at the highest level is aware of what is going on. There is a lot of activity and pressure is being applied to the Syrian regime. We have to hope and believe that in due course we will reach the end of this appalling conflict.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am rapidly becoming an expert on privilege, which I was not expecting a few moments ago. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, because he explained with his experience the process of deciding privilege in another place, which I repeat is not a matter for me as a member of the Government. Nor is it a matter for the Government or a Member of this House. It is something that has been jealously guarded by the House of Commons for many years.

My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, raise the same question, which is how we could be pre-warned. I am not sure how that process could take place because we do not know what the Government will lose or what amendments the House of Lords will press to a Division. I dare say that we could. I am thinking as I am speaking, which is always a dangerous thing to do from the Dispatch Box, about a system where amendments might be deemed to be likely to invoke privilege by the House of Commons. But I suspect we can probably do that ourselves. Maybe my noble friend Lord Elton was correct in saying that amendments that mean a substantial increase in expenditure of public spending are more likely to invoke privilege than those that do not. Perhaps that is the way to go.

I wonder if we are profiting in continuing this debate now. Would it not be better to wait until the Welfare Reform Bill returns from the House of Commons with its amendments to see if privilege has been invoked? There is then a well trodden process in this House. I do not think that the House wastes its time by debating the issues. We do not insist on all the amendments that we pass in this House. We sent them back to the House of Commons to get the Government and the House of Commons to think again. If they have thought again and invoked financial privilege, we should let the matter rest.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I have listened to the noble Lords, Lord Martin of Springburn and the Leader of the House. They both claim, each in their different way, that this is a wholly independent procedure. Are we really to believe that one morning the Speaker gets up and says, “Eureka, I’m going to decide whether this is financial privilege or not”? Who initiates the process? It is hard to believe there was not a nudge and a wink from the Government to try to save their own blushes.

House of Lords: Reform

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is no doubt that this is an effective House and a very good value House and therefore I hold to a view that I have made public in the past: that a reformed House, directly elected and with fully salaried Members, would cost more than the current House. However, it would have a legitimacy, and a power and authority, which this House does not have. I remind the House, as I have done many times, that at the last general election all three main parties carried a commitment in their manifestos to reform this House.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

House of Lords: Reform

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, no, I am not. I have not read Mr Benn’s no doubt splendid article, but given that the Recess starts later on today, perhaps it should be required reading for all noble Lords.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, why is the Leader of the House so reticent about telling us how many representations he has actually had? He said many—is that 10, 20, 100, 500, 1,000? Will he take this opportunity to correct his Freudian slip when he said that House of Lords reform was not important?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that was well spotted by the noble Lord. Of course the issue is extremely important and something that this Government are very committed to dealing with. Since the general election, we have received over 180 letters from members of the public. Since the publication of the White Paper, we have received over 30 pieces of correspondence. The key point is that the vast majority of these letters call for a change in the way that this House is run.

Japan and the Middle East

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 14th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, while I welcome the statement from the Arab League and do not in any sense diminish its importance, does the Leader of the House think that there is any real prospect of countries which are part of the Arab League and which have the military capacity taking part in the no-fly zone operation? Does he think that seeking such support would be a help or a hindrance to getting a resolution through the Security Council?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there are members of the Arab League that would have the capability to involve themselves in policing a no-fly zone, but I sense that we are a long way from that at this stage. There is still a diplomatic process to be completed of resolutions in the United Nations, but there is certainly no bar to making the co-operation across nations and alliances as wide and as deep as possible.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, my point still stands. The Government made an announcement soon after the general election that there would be a referendum on 5 May. I really wonder whether it is right for this House to stand up and suddenly say that should not be the case, when there was plenty of time for the Bill to be properly scrutinised.

I move on to reply to the other points that were made. The noble and learned Lord said that we are trying now to rush the Bill through and that there has not been enough consultation with the Opposition. Ever since the Bill arrived in the House, the usual channels—government and opposition—have been trying to come to an agreement, but there was an absolute refusal by the Labour Party, right from the start, to engage in trying to decide the number of days in Committee.

It is said that we have been planning an all-night sitting. I have no desire to have an all-night sitting, or a very late sitting. It is entirely in the hands of the Opposition how long we stay here this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, for whom, as a former distinguished Leader of this House, I have the utmost respect, said that the trouble with all-night sittings is that it encourages the Opposition—he did not quite say to behave even more badly, but it was sort of what he meant. We could not go any slower than we have done over the course of the past eight days.

Let us deal with the substantive point, the issue of splitting the Bill. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, was right in one part of her memory—we did debate splitting the Bill in a Motion put at the very start of the legislative process. That Motion was withdrawn after a debate, but I think that the noble Countess’s point stands. Both the issues that we are dealing with in the Bill are about how MPs are elected to the House of Commons. The Bill will give voters, for the first time, a say in the way in which they elect their MPs and will mean that fairer boundaries and more equal constituencies can be put in place for the general election in 2013.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, may I just finish this important point? Noble Lords opposite have said that we should split the Bill and that we should not have included these two issues in one Bill. Yet the last Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, introduced to this House last year, included provision on 13 different areas ranging from a referendum on the alternative vote to freedom of information, ratification of treaties and so on. It seems odd to me that, in opposition, noble Lords opposite have so quickly become concerned about these two reforms with a common theme comprising the same Bill. Even worse, we have the noble Lords, Lord Touhig, Lord McAvoy and Lord Browne of Ladyton, who voted entirely happily, without interruption, in proceedings in another place when an amendment was brought forward on Report and yet, as soon as the Bill comes here and they have been translated into Members of the House of Lords, they take an entirely different view. I now give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I thank the Leader of the House. He speaks about urgency in choosing 5 May of this year. That might have been reasonable in previous times, when an election could be called at any time by the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister has said that there will be no election for five years, so what is the urgency about having the referendum on 5 May of this year?

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Strathclyde

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have no desire to irritate the noble Lord or, indeed, his noble friends, but the point is that the three main political parties each had a manifesto at the last general election which was broadly in agreement. The Deputy Prime Minister took the view that it was important to bring those political parties together in drafting the Bill. When we get to the creation of the Joint Committee of both Houses, the noble Lord and others of his views—not just on the Cross Benches, but elsewhere—will quite rightly be fully consulted and represented on that committee.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

Does the noble Lord agree that the path that he has now undertaken means that the House will be presented with the choice of the three political parties? It is a bit like Henry Ford: “You can have any choice you like, so long as it’s mine”.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in a way that is how it works in Parliament. Governments propose legislation and then Parliament disposes of it in whichever way it wants—and that will happen. I am sure that what the Government publish and what comes out of this committee at the end of the year is not where we will be at the end of the day. This is the start of the process. It will be up to the two Houses to set up the Joint Committee; it is not the job of government. My noble friend Lord McNally, the Deputy Leader, and I will make the case for the inclusion of all strands in this matter.