Queen’s Speech

Lord James of Blackheath Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

My Lords, at this hour of the evening, I am deeply concerned as to the propriety and responsibility of making the speech with which I have come prepared. I have no greater desire than to see the whole of this Brexit process end with a satisfactory completion and an unarguable vote, but I am deeply concerned that we have a serious error in the process by which this House counts votes, and it could have a significant effect on the outcome.

It would be irresponsible of me to share too much of my story in a way that could be copied by the press and perhaps acted upon to the detriment of what we are trying to achieve. So I will share a little of it and offer to sit down with the clerks to look at what I am saying—quietly, separately, outside this meeting—with a view to seeing whether it can be corrected or we can do something about it. But I do not want to be the trouble-maker I am likely otherwise to be.

All this started on the day when we finished and went home for the election. I went to the clerks’ office and asked a question that I should have asked long ago: “What does it take for this House to be quorate for a vote?”—a question that I used to ask all the time before any board meeting of any of my companies. The reply that I got was: three Peers present to ratify a Statement to be read into the record, and 30 Peers for any part of a Bill. I then asked, “But what do we do with regard to the disallowance of votes from Peers who have become disqualified for failing to live by the oath they took on being signed in?” “No, Peers are allowed to vote once they have taken the oath.” “Yes,” I said, “but a lot of Peers have broken their oath.” “No Peer ever breaks his oath.” I thought, “I know I have, and I’m not the only one.” I have broken the oath because I did not object to the Lisbon treaty when I was here. I am therefore in breach of that oath and have been ever since, and so has anyone else who has been here since that time. I said, “Then do you count my vote when I come in here to vote?” They said, “Yes, we do.” I said, “Then your votes must always be wrong.”

This is much more complicated than that because you then have to go back to the Maastricht treaty. Anyone who was here when that treaty began has Brownie points-plus, because the Maastricht treaty introduced the levy that effectively increased the omnipotence of Parliament, not reduced it. So anyone who voted thereafter and then went to the Lisbon treaty is probably cleared to vote again now, because the Lisbon treaty only took away what had been given by Maastricht in the first place so it is probably a Mexican stand-off.

After that, it is a question of just how many votes are excluded and included. As some of our votes are not that big, it would not take more than a variance of 10 or 20 to be significant in swinging a vote. I think that we ought now to have a new approach to voting in this House based upon the fact that everyone should have a voting code included on the register when we go through the Lobby saying whether we were valid or invalid according to the time when we took our oath and what has happened since. It could be easily fitted and done up in the next few days before we come to a vote, and it would give an accurate and realistic vote that could be unarguable in whatever took place afterwards.

I do not want to go into too much detail and give a hostage to the press to have fun with us, but I am seriously concerned that we have an error in our system. God help us, I hope that we get a right vote and a clear one, with no argument. I will help the clerks in any way that I can to understand my problem.

Extradition: UK Law and Practice (Extradition Law Committee Report)

Lord James of Blackheath Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

My Lords, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap; I know that I have only four minutes, so I will go rather quickly. Several issues are not addressed by the final conclusions of this committee, which carry risks for people in the future, and I would not want them to go down the same path and experience what I have suffered. This is my story.

On 31 December 2000 I completed the process for the recovery and survival of Lloyd’s of London, the insurance market. I had been chairman of the audit committee of Lloyd’s of London for eight years and chairman of the special committee created to rescue Lloyd’s, the Equitas committee. As such I signed all the audit certificates for Lloyd’s of London for the whole of those eight years. When we filed it, it depended on the collection of $3 billion from the American investors still to be achieved. We could not start that process until we had clearance in England. We got the clearance of the British courts on 31 December, and we were in business. Immediately, I was served with a writ by the Americans claiming that I had signed a false audit certificate for Lloyd’s of London, on the grounds that this should have been a Chapter 11 case —which of course does not exist in British law—that they were going to proceed against me, and that this, on proof, would involve me serving a 24-year sentence in the state pen. At the age of 63 that could have been difficult.

I started to look for help and assistance from the British Government and legal sources on this, and was told, “You can’t have any. It’s a civil action and we don’t do it—civil actions can’t be subject to extradition, they’re wasting their time, they can’t extradite you on this case, and you haven’t got any claim on us for support”. So I had to go back to the drawing board on this with the Americans to decide what to do. We finally agreed that we would have neutral ground—a meeting in Toronto to decide what to do, where I could not be arrested. So we went to Toronto, at my expense, and had a meeting on this. Eventually they told me that they would drop the charge of failing to go into Chapter 11 on the grounds that that was a civil case and there was no Chapter 11 in Britain, but that they would not drop the charge of signing a false audit certificate and would have a trial on that point alone. Then they said, “Look, we know you’re not going to stand trial here because we’ve come over here and we’ve given you safe conduct on the basis that you’ll come here for this. We’ll try you in London”. I said, “You’re an American Government—you can’t try me in London!”. “Yes, we can”, they said. “We’ll try you in the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square”. Indeed they did. They set me up with a trial in Grosvenor Square, and I seriously contest the legality of a British citizen being tried in Grosvenor Square by an American Government on any charge at all. That should be precluded in any circumstances.

The second thing was that we went on trial; it finally took place in May 2001. They set up a proper court, making the room look like a court, with the eagle and the American flag, and they got teams of lawyers and judges over, and I stood trial for nine days, during which I was the only witness, and I never came out of the witness box for nine whole days. At the end of that time, thank God, the judge decided that of course I had not signed a false audit certificate, because I had legitimately relied on Section 8(3)(c) of the Insolvency Act 1986, and that Lloyd’s of London was governed by British and not American law. I was not only clear of the prison sentence but clear to go and get my $3 billion from the American citizens, which I did.

Three points of principle are covered here. First, there must be no question of any extradition in a civil action. The action was brought by the American investors, not by the American department that investigates fraud, which should completely preclude any such proceedings. Secondly, no Brit should be tried, as an alternative to extradition, in a British kangaroo court set up in the American embassy, however good the sandwiches they serve. Thirdly, you simply cannot allow American citizens to initiate action which privately leads to extradition proceedings.