Procedure of the House

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Laming

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Procedure Committee that has presented this report to your Lordships, and congratulate, if I may, the Chairman of the Committees on the very thoughtful way in which he presented it. The way in which he handled this left no doubt that the committee gave a great deal of detailed thought to this matter over a number of meetings and received advice on various possibilities at each one.

It is important to recognise that the committee did not come upon this matter by chance or in any way to be mischievous. In fact, it was responding to concerns of your Lordships. It came on to the agenda because concern was expressed to the committee about how the current arrangements work.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I should just like to ask the noble Lord a question. At any time during the committee’s considerations, was any thought given to consulting Members of the House before the Procedure Committee came to a conclusion?

[Lord Laming]

Yes, my Lords. There was consideration of consulting Members of the House. I urge your Lordships to look at the front sheet of the report and at the membership of the committee that considered this matter. Leaving me aside, if noble Lords wish, the membership represents a remarkable degree of experience in this House. The committee considered a number of issues and not only of the kind mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Therefore, this matter was taken—

Queen’s Speech

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Laming

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, it is entirely appropriate that the debate on the humble Address should begin on constitutional affairs. I will try to step aside from the party political flavour that has just occasionally crept into the earlier contributions. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will excuse me if I make just one comment on something he said—I hope that I heard him right and apologise if I got it wrong. He said that to build a consensus on the future of this House, it is necessary to seek agreement with the three political parties. Well, there are some others of us in this House. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that those of us who do not belong to a political party might have a contribution to make on matters of this kind.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am delighted to respond. The noble Lord will recall that in the cross-party talks which my own Government instituted, we had strong representation from the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Benches. However, it is an inescapable fact that, in the wider scheme of things, if consensus is to be reached, we need the Deputy Prime Minister first of all to recognise that there has to be discussion on issues other than composition and membership. Essentially, that was the point that I was trying to make.

[Lord Laming]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Therefore, before we go, perhaps we may just make a contribution to this debate.

Constitutional affairs might seem dry to some people but, as has already been demonstrated across the House, they are immensely important to the well-being of our society. During the past decade, which is what I have been particularly interested in, there have been many changes. Even during the previous Session of Parliament legislation was passed that might have a marked effect on our arrangements for the governance of the United Kingdom. Some commentators seem to believe that for more than 1,000 years there has been little change, especially in your Lordships' House. That is manifestly not so. Every Member of this House will have direct experience of substantial changes in both local and central government. Even last week some of these changes were experienced for the first time, in the form of referendums for mayors, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned.

Time does not allow for—nor does there need to be—a rehearsal of the many changes that Parliament has enacted, both centrally and locally. However, whatever view we take of the merits of those changes, we can at least agree that the catalogue of change has been substantial. Of course, that is the way it should be. If our legislative institutions are to keep pace with the changes in society and remain relevant to the needs and aspirations of our fellow citizens—and, indeed, if they are to understand the concerns that have just been referred to—then of course change must be a constant in all our arrangements for government.

I recognise that there are many in this House who are better qualified than I to speak on these matters, so I will be brief. I shall therefore just pose three questions for consideration, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. First, does he agree that during the Session that finished only last week, the Bills that came to this House, having previously completed every stage of consideration in the other place, were without exception, once again, greatly improved during their passage through this House? Thanks to the conscientiousness, skill and hard work of Peers across the whole of the House, the quality of scrutiny resulted not only in many sound amendments being made to those Bills but in the Government, having listened to your Lordships, very wisely bringing forward many amendments to their own legislation.

I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, responds to this debate, he will begin by agreeing that this House conscientiously fulfils its responsibility to scrutinise and improve legislation. It is dangerous to raise that point, as there will be those who think that it is just another piece of self-congratulation; but I do not raise it in that spirit, nor do I do so with any notion of complacency. On the contrary, I have in mind something that I regard as much more important: the fact that many of us have a real concern about the effectiveness of the other place in scrutinising legislation and holding the Executive to account. Our society depends on a very strong House of Commons that fulfils its unique role in holding the Executive to account. I hope that when the noble Lord responds he will recognise that it behoves us all to ensure that Parliament is as strong as possible, and that our endeavours should be directed to the whole of Parliament and its standing in the community. It is vital to the well-being of our society that Parliament as a whole commands the confidence of our fellow citizens.

House Committee

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Laming

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees for introducing the report from the House Committee this afternoon. It is with regret that we have to revisit an issue that has done great damage to the reputation of your Lordships’ House in relation to money wrongly claimed under the system of financial support for Members.

The public interest and reputation of Parliament require that these matters are dealt with in as rigorous a way as possible. A number of Members of your Lordships’ House have found themselves subject to investigations—in some cases by the authorities and in some cases by the relevant mechanisms of your Lordships’ House. In a small number of cases Members of this House have been suspended. In two cases, investigation by the authorities has led to prosecution and custodial sentences. The House has had, through a very, very difficult period, to consider the adequacy of its mechanisms. Changes have subsequently been made, both to the system of financial support for Members and to the code of conduct governing membership of your Lordships’ House. I pay tribute to the work of those involved in dealing with these matters. I believe the rules produced and decisions reached were sensible. They are worthwhile provisions and have been of benefit to the House during a very difficult period for Parliament as a whole, including this House.

My noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, with her customary eloquence, has put forward a number of very serious points this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made the point that suspension of a Member of Parliament from this House under any such Motion would be for the lifetime of the Parliament, and a further Motion would have to be brought at the beginning of the next Parliament. I understand the point my noble friend has made in relation to retrospective provision. Noble Lords will always be very wary of retrospective legislation and rightfully so, but there is, in effect, a different interpretation in the report before us today from the House Committee. That has identified a gap that needs to be filled. The sixth report from the Committee for Privileges and Conduct in October 2010 stated that the recovery of money wrongly claimed was not a disciplinary matter and not a matter for the committee. However, as the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees stated in his opening statement in that report:

“We therefore recommend that it is for the Clerk of the Parliaments, as Accounting Officer, consulting the House Committee as necessary, to consider what arrangements with Lady Uddin may be necessary to secure repayment of this sum to the House”.

In essence, the House Committee has now brought forward its advice in the form of an invitation to this House to agree a clear principle that a Member should not return to the House while still owing money. In the end, that principle is in the public interest. I cannot disagree with it and I will be supporting the recommendation of the House Committee.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes because I support the Motion that is before it. The House will know that I have been a member of the relevant committees for only a relatively short time, but I bring to them many years, sadly, of experience of dealing with disciplinary matters in the public services. Sad to say, that experience has taught me that these matters often involve conflict and sometimes considerable distress, which is made more serious when the people involved may be known to us personally.

However, I have an overriding impression of the way in which the House Committee has dealt with this matter and I support entirely the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in saying that the committee has approached this matter from the point of view of principle, not from that of personality. It has gone out of its way to try and be fair, but every Member of this House will know that being fair in these circumstances is not a simple matter. Of course, one wants to be fair to the individuals involved but there is also an issue of being fair to your Lordships’ House and, more than that, of being fair to the taxpayer. The money does not belong to your Lordships’ House; it belongs to the taxpayer and it should be returned to the taxpayer.

Over the years, sad to say, I have dealt with many instances when taxpayers’ money has been wrongly claimed. The first responsibility of any organisation dealing with matters of this kind, particularly a public organisation, is to seek to recover the money—and to seek to do that recognising that it has to make a decision in the circumstances in which it now finds itself. I believe that the House Committee has both been reasonable in these matters and adopted a stance which tries to be fair and to reflect the seriousness with which the public would view this situation if we did not endeavour to recover the money. This does not imply permanent suspension from the House. I commend the Motion to the House because I believe that it is a reasonable, fair and sensible course of action to take.