Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I apologise for taking us back by two or three speeches, but the Committee really should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Eccles for making his observation about the assumption that the Official Opposition’s spokesman was making, when there is in fact nothing in the Bill to confirm it one way or the other. I am extremely grateful myself for his doing that. Earlier this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that the arguments in our debate at the end of the evening last week were metaphysical, but the speeches which my noble friend Lord Eccles picked up on were being hypothetical in that there was no definitive reference to this in the Bill.

I go back to my own experience on the Greater London Authority Bill, a not dissimilar Bill to the one that we are discussing, when the Minister in charge of that Bill kept saying again and again that it was a breakthrough in local government legislation because, for the first time, the Mayor of London would have advice from advisers that would remain totally confidential and would not be available to anyone else in the authority. It was a novel development in local government affairs, but again and again I asked the Minister—no names, no pack drill—“Where is your legislative cover in the Bill for what you are continuously reiterating to the Committee?”. Eventually, he broke down and said, “The right honourable gentleman is quite right. We haven't yet put the amendments down”.

Given the particular circumstances in which we are debating this Bill, with which one is familiar because of the action of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, last week, we will inevitably find ourselves debating a number of hypotheses throughout. It is extremely difficult for some of us to follow exactly what is happening, not least that we are now going backwards in the Bill in an Alice in Wonderland way to a group of amendments that were put down earlier. All I seek to plead is that if people are going to be hypothetical, they should say that they are being hypothetical so that the rest of us know where we are.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I do not quite know what the noble Lord means about going back. Amendment 15 was not moved. We therefore moved on to the group starting with Amendment 15A. We are now debating the group starting with Amendment 16.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

I totally understand what we are doing, but the fact remains that it can be difficult to follow. There are a lot of people taking part in these debates—that is a tribute to the Bill—and the easier that those taking a lead on it can make this for the rest of us to understand, the more progress we should make.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief but I told myself that if anybody else brought Mr Asquith into the debate yet again I would take advantage of his reappearance to make a single point. In the Earl of Oxford and Asquith’s memoirs, he describes the debate within the Liberal Cabinet in the period leading up to the First World War in relation to the Marconi scandal in which the then Attorney-General was somewhat embarrassed by his behaviour. I think that it was on the issue of shares. I am astonished that the Prime Minister put this into his memoirs, but the outcome of the Cabinet discussion was that they were at no real parliamentary risk because it was absolutely clear that the Conservatives would be too stupid to take advantage of it. There was one dissenting voice, which was Winston, who had of course once been a Tory.

The Opposition say, again and again, that the purpose of the Bill is to provide glue in the coalition relationship. In responding to that, remembering what had happened in Asquith’s Cabinet, I asked myself, “Is it really because they want to be helpful to the coalition that they go on repeating this?”. I recall in the process C S Lewis’s happy remark that if you hear about someone going around doing good to others, you can always tell the others by their hunted look. It occurred to me that there was some degree of overlap between the argument that we need a Parliament shorter than a five-year one and the Opposition’s view, set out during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, that it would be helpful if the country had the opportunity of expressing its opinion at the earliest possible opportunity, when it so happened that there might have been some degree of parliamentary advantage to the Opposition in that happening. I hope, diffidently, that as the Bill progresses we will not have suggestions made in either direction that we are all engaged in this for short-term parliamentary advantage or that we are all concentrating totally on the good of the nation and the constitution.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that was an interesting and helpful intervention. Anyone who has read David Laws’s book on the negotiations between the coalition parties will find that the coalition parties did not meet the test that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has set. On page 98 of that highly readable tome, Andrew Stunell pointed out to the negotiating team that,

“trust and confidence was very important to us, and that we wouldn’t want to find the PM calling an election at a time that did not suit us. ‘That works both ways!’ said William Hague. We mentioned that our own policy was for four-year, fixed-term parliaments. George Osborne made the point that five-year parliaments were better, as they allowed governments to get into implementing their plans before having to start worrying about the timing of the electoral cycle. We made no objection to this, and Britain was on its way to five-year, fixed-term parliaments for the first time in its history”.

So much for principle.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

I was not making any comment on the course of events. I was simply saying that interventions periodically from the Opposition Benches on this subject might have had a degree of self-interest.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I do not recognise that at all. It is tempting to mention Mr Asquith, if only to encourage the noble Lord to make further enjoyable interventions.

There are two issues here. We are changing our system and we believe that the change from four to five years will be damaging to our constitutional arrangements. Extending the elections by, in practice, around one year will distance people from the politicians. The debate before the dinner break on the issue of the devolved Administrations was very interesting because it highlighted the principle of unintended consequences of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. It is likely that, as a result of this legislation, the term of office in Scotland and Wales, and possibly Northern Ireland, will be extended to five years. That must be the clear implication of what the noble Lord said. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is in his place. He argued that we should not have a referendum on this Bill because, although under the Bill the term of the Parliament will be fixed at five years, that will not be outwith the limit in the current legislation. However, in relation to the devolved Administrations, moving to five years will go outwith the current primary legislation. I hope that there will be a referendum on that proposal if it comes before Parliament.

My noble friend has raised the very interesting and ingenious proposition that four years should be the norm while respecting the principle of a five-year limit. He deserves a comprehensive response from the Minister.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I realise that I regard the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, as an agreeable ally on constitutional matters, but I was sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, felt it necessary to precede her in this short debate. Of course I understand the protocol that he was pursuing, but we always know that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, will have spoken before the Minister rises—he is indeed a pillar of the constitution. However, I think that chivalry has a role. At Second Reading, I alluded to the French Revolution. In Burke’s memorable sentences:

“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France … the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever”.

I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke but a little variety in our experience might bring the government Benches back into the Chamber on constitutional matters, as he was wishing earlier, just as everyone who speaks in these debates has their own personal and individual subjective view on how we could increase voter turnout.

An aspect of variety in this speech is that, most unusually, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, whose constitutional views I respect just this side of idolatry. However, I have a reservation on this occasion. He prayed in aid the statistical fact that there would have been four fewer elections since the war under this Bill than factual history produced. I have profound admiration for the maturity of the British electorate. On only one occasion among those 17 post-war elections did they possibly make a mistake, as they themselves may have conceded, by giving more votes to one party and more seats to the other, but that does not mean that we may want more opportunities as an electorate to exercise our maturity or indeed our wisdom.

The reductio ad absurdum to which the argument from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, could be made subject is that we should hold a referendum on whether the electorate wanted more elections or fewer. There is some polling evidence that they would vote for fewer but that would accelerate the number of referendums we felt it necessary to think that we need.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that is an interesting contribution to follow. Like the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, I am pleased to make rather a late entry into your Lordships’ deliberations on this Bill. I am glad that it is on such an interesting matter and I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Grocott and Lord Howarth for their amendments.

As a number of noble Lords have suggested, this is part of what was promised to be a comprehensive package of reforms on the constitution by the Government. We have already had the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. We now have this Bill and before too long, although it seems to be a somewhat lengthy time in coming, we are promised the draft House of Lords reform Bill. Like other noble Lords, what I find so puzzling is the piecemeal approach and lack of consistency on the part of the Government to how these different measures are brought before Parliament, then in some cases put to the electorate and in others not so.

We are to have a referendum on AV. We are also promised, in the coalition agreement, a referendum on any changes or amendments to the European Communities Act 1972 where there is a proposal under a treaty to transfer areas of power or competencies. Yet there is to be no referendum on the principle of a fixed-term Parliament, on whether it should be for four or five years, or on reform of your Lordships’ House. I agree with other noble Lords that, arguably, this Bill and the one to come are constitutionally much more significant than changing a voting system from first past the post to AV.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said—it is worth reflecting on this—the view of the Lords Select Committee on the Constitution is that this Bill owes,

“more to short-term considerations than to a mature assessment of enduring constitutional principles”.

I agree with that. My noble friends Lord Grocott and Lord Howarth are surely right that the period of five years must mean that the voters will find themselves less able to hold the Executive to account. That is therefore of significance. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, may be right in suggesting that the public might welcome being inconvenienced on fewer occasions. But should that not be put to the public in a referendum? Surely it is the same when it comes to Lords reform. Like the noble Lord, Lord Marks, I think that the issue of Lords reform is highly significant to the debate that we are having.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Monday 1st November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

That is an entirely fair point, which I am happy to take. The fact remains, though, that even under the provisions that the noble Lord issues, I still stand by my statement: the figure of 12,000 does not indicate overwhelming popularity for the scheme. People were not fighting in order to get their own cards.

On the fact that compensation is available for contracts but not in different languages with regard to ID cards, presumably that occurred because the original contracts allowed for what would happen in the event of the scheme in any way being interrupted. That is the way in which contracts are usually written. I have heard everything that has been said about what this Government have not done but I notice that the previous Government, in selling the ID cards, did not appear to have built in a provision in relation to compensation calculations, perhaps for the good reason that they did not want the thought to enter the public mind that they might not be returned at the next general election and that therefore the ID scheme would be interrupted.

On the same point, I have to say quietly that although, in their rush towards modernisation, the Government were keen to remove Latin entirely from public life in this country, the phrase “caveat emptor” is presumably one that still rested in their mind when they brought in the scheme in the way that they did.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. There is some risk that we will return to debating the broad principle of ID cards. I will desist from doing so, save to say to the noble Baroness that, on the question of popularity, my noble friend Lord Brett was right when he spoke about rollout and the expectation that the number of people purchasing ID cards would increase over time. Secondly, there is no doubt that opinion polls have shown consistently that the public support ID cards. However, we are not here to debate that. The Opposition have accepted that this policy was contained in the manifestos of both coalition parties. That is why we do not seek to obstruct the progress of the Bill. However, as the noble Countess, Lady Mar, suggested, it is important that due process is observed before statements are issued by the Government, and the noble Baroness has graciously accepted that point.

The second point about manifestos concerns their relation to Salisbury-Addison and the Salisbury Convention. We are not quite into that territory. However, I am certain, from my reading, that no statement was made by either party that no compensation would be given to cardholders who will lose many years’ use of their ID cards. The noble Baroness is resisting coming back to the point of principle here. As far as concerns the reputation of any government, to say to the public, “It is your fault, you were silly enough to buy an ID card when some opposition parties said that they would scrap them if they got into power”, is to expect the public to take a punt on the election result. Who could have forecast that we would now have a coalition Government? It is treating ordinary people with a lack of respect.

I say to the noble Baroness, whom all noble Lords respect enormously, that she is digging a hole for herself here. If my party were still in government, the possibility of us getting some proposal like this through the House of Lords would be nil. Obviously, the circumstances of the coalition are different, but I suggest that the Minister should think very seriously between Committee and Report, because the view of the House of Lords will be that this is not the right approach, and that compensation should be offered.

I will not bore away at the issue of the impact assessment. I hope that, between Committee and Report, there will be a clarification of which option we are talking about. Secondly, the preferred option set out in the impact assessment says that the £22 million includes the cost of the refund process. I would be grateful if the Minister will write to me to confirm whether the £22 million includes the cost of refunds. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.