Democracy Denied (DPRRC Report)
Lord Judge Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, I welcome these reports, as I have welcomed reports produced by these two committees and the Constitution Committee before 2021-22. I particularly welcome the unequivocal language in which these reports are expressed; there is no way that anybody can misunderstand their meaning. I also welcome the support on all sides of the House for what the reports have said, and in particular for the two speeches by the leading protagonists.
But at this stage of the afternoon, I want to ask myself a different question: what is the total sum? I do regret that the total sum seems to add up to the very distinct possibility, though it is not particularly underlined in the reports, that increasingly we are being governed by proclamation. Of course, we wiped out government by proclamation when the Stuarts were here, and there are many proclamations which are fine—there is a proclamation every time you drive past a speed limit sign, which tells you “That is the limit, that is the law”. When we are told to wash our hands more than three times a day for 20 seconds or more, that is advice, and there is nothing wrong with proclamations that set out the law or government advice.
The problem is where the Government of the day set out the sort of issue that arose during the Covid pandemic, “How do we deal with it?” I am not going to enter into the argument about it, but it undoubtedly was government by proclamation. The real question is, “What sort of proclamation rule do we have?” I am taking a word which has been used quite a number of times this afternoon; we have proclamations in disguise. The disguise is the parliamentary process. The parliamentary process, if you take every word down to its last theory, provides a perfect controlling system by which secondary legislation—statutory instruments—is controlled.
We all know that it does not work like that, and the reason we know that it does not work like that is twofold. First, when was the last time the House of Commons, which after all produces this material for us, actually rejected a statutory instrument? Gazillions of thousands of pages have been produced, but the last time was in 1979—is that a form of control being exercised? Then you have the other side of the same coin, which is, “Why do the Executive continue to do it this way?” The short answer is, “Because it’s very friendly to do it that way, and because the controls that are supposed to be available are not being deployed.”
I want to draw the House’s attention, really by way of summary, to the latest piece of legislation coming our way, the Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill. It is a skeleton Bill with a supercharged Henry VIII clause, and it illustrates my point. The first clause is on “Minimum service levels for transport strikes”. It is actually declaratory and does not make any law at all. It is misleading, because in paragraph 4 of new Schedule A2A, you will find that there are relevant matters relating to health, national security, social care, education, the economy and the environment, and that:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations amend this paragraph to change the matters that are relevant matters”,
so they can just add to this list.
I should interrupt myself to say that I am not making any comment on the value or otherwise of this proposal; I am looking at it as a piece of legislation. Clause 3 tells us its extent, Clause 4 tells us its commencement and transitional provision, and Clause 5 tells us its Short Title—that is it. There is one real clause in it: Clause 2, about the “Power to make consequential provision”. Hang on a minute: about what? The Secretary of State
“may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision that is consequential on this Act”,
and:
“Regulations under this section may amend, repeal or revoke provision made by or under”
an Act passed
“before this Act, or … later in the same session … as this Act.”
This is an important piece of legislation. We have all read the Government’s response to the two reports we are discussing this afternoon, but I do not see any link whatever between those responses and this legislation. We cannot go on like this.
Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Lord Judge Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, it is only a matter of weeks since your Lordships’ House met to pay tribute to the Queen on the occasion of her Platinum Jubilee. On that occasion, we knew that the Queen was already in frail health, but nobody contemplated that her reign had such a short period ahead of it. Because the Queen is the only monarch most people have known and was a permanent, reassuring presence in a challenging and rapidly changing world, her death has clearly come to millions as a great shock. For all but the oldest among us, a hitherto ever-present feature of British life has been removed and a deep sense of loss is felt not just by my generation, but by many of our children and grandchildren, for whom one might have thought that the Queen was a distant and possibly irrelevant figure.
What was the basis of this universal appeal? I suggest that it is because she demonstrated qualities that appeal across and down the ages. She was constant. As the world changed, as Prime Ministers and Presidents came and went, she exuded a sense of serenity and calm and, in times of national trauma and tragedy, a sense that these difficulties were surmountable, that they should be met with fortitude and that they would pass. She was unwavering in her commitment to the service of the nation and to her duty to represent its traditions and values, but she was sensitive to changing times, realising that the monarchy too had to change—had to be more open, more accessible and more accountable for everything it did. She was empathetic. For someone whose daily life was as different as it is possible to be from that of the vast majority of her subjects, she had an ability to communicate with them as individuals, to put them at ease and to make them feel truly special.
She had a great sense of humour. This no doubt helped her deal with the vagaries of her own life, but she used it effortlessly to defuse potentially difficult situations and to put the thousands of people she met at ease. She had a zest for life and for the role she had been allotted. Just look at the picture taken earlier this week as she met the new Prime Minister. That smile was genuine and heartwarming. Finally, she appealed to people’s better natures. Every year in her Christmas broadcast, she championed the values of community, generosity, kindness and service to others. We politicians share these values, but the nature of political debate means that we rarely articulate them. The country also shares them and looked to the Queen to champion them, which she unfailingly did.
These qualities were underpinned by two constants in her own life. The first, as we heard, was her marriage to Prince Philip, whom she repeatedly called her rock. For anyone who saw them together, there was no doubting that this was indeed the case. The second was her religious faith. This not only provided a source of strength and comfort for her but underpinned her approach to being the monarch. There is, in the Book of Common Prayer, the evocative concept of an individual’s “bounden duty”. The Queen applied this concept not only to her spiritual life but to her public role. She understood the importance of that duty for a monarch and she fulfilled her duties, one might say, religiously—literally to the end of her life.
As we remember the Queen, we also have in our thoughts, His Majesty King Charles—how strange it is to be using those words—Prince William and all other members of the Royal Family. We send them our condolences and good wishes for the difficult days ahead. We have lived our lives in the Elizabethan age, and how fortunate we have been to do so.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross Benches, I want to associate myself which each of the three very moving speeches that the House has listened to. In a sense, there is nothing more to be added; yet, we do need to reflect and think about the things we have heard and perhaps you will allow me to just add a little to it.
Government: Ministerial Changes
Lord Judge Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross Benches, I associate myself with both tributes that have been paid. We have had a Leader who has led us in very tumultuous times. I will give noble Lords a roll call of these: ignoring the most recent appointments, in her time as our Leader we have had no less than five Lord Chancellors, four Foreign Secretaries, four Chancellors of the Exchequer, three Home Secretaries and two Prime Ministers—and we believe that we live in a very stable system.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, touched on, the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, has had to cope with the Brexit debate, in which there was a huge amount of emotion and passion, including very contradictory emotion and passion. She had to lead the House at a time when, in my view—although I will probably be shouted down by the Brexiteers for saying this—the majority of the House was against her Government’s view and against her.
In the course of the Covid problems and lockdown, there were a number of noble Lords—a significant proportion of this House—who took the view that the draconian powers that were being taken by the Government were unacceptable. It is fair to say, from my own assessment of when I was here, that the majority of those came from her own party—
Lord Judge (CB)
I will not comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has just said, because if I did, I would tell him that he was wrong.
We are obviously indebted to the noble Baroness. I will take up what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has just said, but in a broader context because, as the Convenor of the Cross Benches, I do not have a party-political affiliation. I have been an observer for three years of the way in which the then Leader of the House, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Lib Dems—alongside the Government Chief Whip, the Labour Chief Whip and the Lib Dem Chief Whip—have worked together, notwithstanding huge political differences, to ensure that the interests of the House were well served or, at any rate, to the best that they could possibly manage. It is very salutary to be in that corridor and to realise how much work is being done by them personally, and by their offices, to ensure that the oils of this engine are efficient and quiet. Very rarely did I hear voices raised, and when I did that was fine too—it is part of a working relationship.
We obviously should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Evans—and we are. Beyond that, the whole House must recognise that being the Leader, as the noble Lord, Lord True, will be, of this particular bunch of individuals—all of whom are opinionated, sometimes rightly and other times wrongly; all with views about everything, some of which are very strong indeed—is a terrific job to have to do. Unfortunately, when things do not work out, the blame falls on the Leader. So I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, on behalf on the Cross Benches.
I will add a word of welcome to the noble Lord, Lord True. On behalf of the Cross Benches, I say that it is wonderful to have someone now in this important appointment who actually understands the constitution. I ask the noble Lord to forgive me for giving him a patronising lecture in advance of starting, but from our point of view the important thing that the Leader of the House must do, today and for next two years, or for however long he is the Leader, is to ensure that his colleagues in the Cabinet understand that the sovereignty of Parliament includes not ignoring the views of the House of Lords and recognising that it is subject to the sensible limitations called the conventions, which have been hallowed over the years. We wish him all the very best of luck—not merely in office but as he tries to explain this to his Cabinet colleagues.
Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Lord Judge Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross-Benchers, I have no doubt about one thing. It is the first time—well, the first in my time—that the Cross-Benchers have been absolutely united and of the same voice. On the whole, we tend to disagree; we are rather a disparate bunch.
We heard from the Leader about the promise the young Princess Elizabeth made in August 1947. It is a moving declaration to us, her future subjects. I was alive at the time, and I hope I can weary your Lordships by reading it out:
“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
I find that moving. She was 21 years old. How many of us thought we were making promises at the age of 21 which, perhaps memory will teach us, we have forgotten to keep? This was a solemn, unequivocal promise; a living, lifetime promise for her “whole life”, made by a young woman who could not have known that the call to the burdens of duty and the assumption of responsibility, not as a princess but as the Queen—as we now say, the head of the Commonwealth—would come so early or last so long.
During her long reign, as the Lord Speaker touched on, the momentum for change has been irresistible. The speed of change has been explosive. There has never been a reign in which so much has changed more rapidly for so many people in the history of the nation—indeed, as has been touched on by those who spoke ahead of me, the history of mankind—than this reign. During all those years and decades of change, the Queen has been on duty as our Head of State, devoted to our service. I say “on duty” because she could never know, and nobody could ever know, when she might be called on to exercise her responsibilities.
In our celebration—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, touched on this—we should remember not just ourselves, our children, grandchildren and families, but the generations of her subjects who have been overtaken by time and who would have been so enthusiastic in support of these proposals. I am talking about my parents’ generation—most of our parents’ generation, but for some of us perhaps our grandparents’ generation—who endured the casualties, hardships and lamentations of the Second World War and its bleak aftermath with such fortitude and resilience. In 1952, their lovely young Queen was a promise of a brighter future for them. The trumpets no longer sound for that rather remarkable quality of fortitude. It is very self-effacing; people do not highlight their own fortitude, do they? They do not blow their own trumpets.
However, during all the years since 1952, the royal responsibilities have not lightened and the difficulties have not disappeared; they have remained. When we think about it and try to imagine—and we can only imagine—the specific and special demands which rest on the shoulders of the monarch, we can be sure that fulfilling her youthful promise has not always been easy. There must have been times—I am sorry to say so, but we all do it—“Really, do I have to stand up in the House and speak now?” is one such moment. We all have moments when we think, “If only”, and that has never happened here.
It is with fortitude and resilience that, decade after decade, that lifetime promise of service has been and is still being fulfilled. The speakers before me have highlighted individual moments, and no doubt those after me will do so. I shall not do that, but I do adopt everything that has been said. We share on these Benches the national outpouring of affection, admiration, respect and, dare I say it, joy in the fact that we have Her Majesty as our monarch. These moments are a fulfilment of her promises to us, and they have made her an inestimable blessing on this nation. The humble Address is our unemotional but truly heartfelt way of saying thank you.
Coronavirus Grants: Fraud
Lord Judge Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
No, he should not resign. I go back to the most fundamental point, which is that we had to act particularly quickly back in lockdown 1 to support businesses. As a result, we put in the £400 billion package of economic support that I referred to earlier. That protected more than 14.5 million jobs and thousands of businesses. It is a great credit to the Chancellor that he took those bold steps.
Lord Judge (CB)
Has a police investigation into these frauds started? Has the Serious Fraud Office been involved?
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP
Lord Judge Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I begin by joining the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition in expressing my condolences and those of my colleagues to the family and personal friends of Sir David, and to his wider family, the constituents of Southend West.
For Liberal Democrats of my generation, the point at which Sir David first made an impression on us was general election polling day in 1992. I was with Paddy Ashdown in his cottage near Yeovil on polling night. Michael Buerk had a BBC camera in the street outside. The opinion polls were suggesting a hung Parliament and we were, naturally, extremely excited at this prospect—until the first result of the evening came in from a Conservative seat, namely Basildon, when the smiling features of Sir David confounded the predictions of the exit polls and our hopes. Michael Buerk folded up his equipment and slunk away. Sir David’s delight counterpoised our disappointment.
In the years since, I have had little personal contact with Sir David, but a surprising number of my colleagues in your Lordships’ House have—in work ranging from the Industry and Parliament Trust and the Iran Freedom Movement to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Safety and Rescue. They share the common reflection that he was a lovely person: courteous, entertaining and completely devoted to serving the public good and his constituents. In short, he had exactly the qualities that people wish to see in their elected representatives. He will certainly be greatly missed equally in Westminster and Southend.
Today, as we remember Sir David, our minds inevitably turn to the murder of Jo Cox, the deadly attack involving my colleague and noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham and the attack on Stephen Timms. After each of these terrible incidents, there was understandable soul searching on why the attack happened and how similar attacks might be avoided in future; and the same thoughts are in our minds today. It is obviously appropriate that there will be a review of the security of MPs to see what additional measures might be taken that are consistent with MPs being able to continue to meet their constituents and hear their concerns.
We in your Lordships’ House are in a somewhat more fortunate position than our MP colleagues. Although, like them, we may receive abusive emails—or at least I do, every time I make a speech about Brexit—threats to our physical safety are, I believe, pretty rare. We will therefore largely be bystanders in the formal security review. But, for anybody involved in politics at any level, this tragedy should give us pause to consider how we conduct ourselves and the contribution we make to the heat generated by public debate. As we do, we might start by heeding the words of the Amess family and thinking about how to embody them in the way we go about our business. The family have said that they want people to
“set aside their differences and show kindness and love to all … be tolerant and try to understand.”
In politics it is not always possible to set aside differences altogether—but it is always possible to show kindness and consideration to all. There could be no better way of respecting the memory of Sir David than to make tolerance and kindness our watchwords as we face the challenges of the months ahead.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, so many noble Lords know Sir David—or knew Sir David—that I shall be brief. On behalf of the Cross Benches, we respectfully and mournfully join in and associate ourselves with the expressions of condolence and sympathy to Lady Amess and her family on what is, obviously, a calamitous loss— made, I suspect, much more poignant by the time when it happened, the occasion when it happened and the cruel circumstances in which it happened.
An MP for 40 years was cut down while doing his job—an MP who, by all accounts, had that wonderful additional attribute, beyond serving the needs of every one of his constituents, of having an independent mind. Everything I have read about him tells me that he did. He was his own person, and we need Members of Parliament like that.
As I say, I did not know him. I know that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York will be speaking soon, and he was a personal friend, so noble Lords will want to hear from him and not me, but I must add something. Can we think about the way in which we deal with these issues ourselves? Can we reflect on the impact on the House of Commons, rather than on this place? Can we reflect—and I do, with sympathy and concern for the other place—on the troublesome paradox that it seems to require a catastrophic disaster, such as this murder or the murder of Jo Cox, to bring back to mind, and highlight before the public, the societal contribution and the contribution to the welfare of the nation that is going on with 650 elected Members of Parliament sitting in the other place? We owe them rather more, do we not, than a fleeting acknowledgement on an emotionally induced occasion? If we could retain, recover or find a way for the public to appreciate what our Members of Parliament do, we would be living in a much happier society. You do not have to agree with your MP, but you do have to respect him or her.
For today, though, noble Lords have heard enough from me. Our thoughts from these Benches are with Sir David’s family, his wife and his friends, many of whom are in this Chamber; and let us not overlook the unhappy people who were there, very close to the scene at the time.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, on behalf of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of the Church of England and, I am sure, all Christian people and all people of good will, I am here to offer the family of Sir David Amess and the constituents of Southend West my condolences and the assurance of the prayers of the Church. I am very grateful for all that has been said thus far, and, certainly, we on these Benches wish to associate ourselves with those comments.
As was said, I considered David Amess a friend. Leigh-on-Sea is my home town. Southend—now the city of Southend—is where I grew up. This appalling murder happened in streets I know well, just around the corner from where my mum lives. It was characteristic of David, whom I got to know during my time as Bishop of Chelmsford, that, when I was appointed, he was one of the first people to congratulate me. When I was translated to York, it was the same. He thought this was another way of putting Southend on the map: a boy who went to a secondary modern school in Southend was now the 98th Archbishop of York. He was so pleased. Last time I saw him, he asked to have his photograph taken with me.
I reckon that, now Southend has been declared a city today, forget about a statue of Vera Lynn at Dover; we are going to put a statue of David Amess at the end of Southend pier. He was—and I know this from the work I did with him—a deeply committed constituency MP. He exemplified what that means. He knew the people he served, and in the constituency he was completely colour blind to political difference. He just served the people he had been elected to serve.
Afghanistan
Lord Judge Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB) [V]
My Lords, for me, the recriminations can wait: the urgent question is the humanitarian crisis. I want to take just one example of aspirations which have turned out to be based on paper-strong foundations which we in the western world have laid down.
A few years ago, when I was Lord Chief Justice, an international meeting was held in London for women judges from all over the world. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, was presiding over it. When five judges from Afghanistan answered the roll call, the entire meeting acclaimed their pioneering courage.
Today, we truly appreciate how much courage was indeed needed. There are just under 300 female judges and magistrates in Afghanistan. Today, you can forget about security of tenure, whether for women or for men: the rule of law has been shattered. My particular concern today is for the personal safety of every one of those women judges. To establish decent foundations in Afghanistan, on the basis of our support, each one of them had the temerity—from the point of view of the Taliban, the sinful effrontery—to sit in open public courts; contrary to sharia law, to sit in judgment over men, to give judgments against men, to pass sentence on men; and to imprison Taliban terrorists, murderers and rapists. All those men are now free and will dress up their revenge as a debt they owe to their God.
The peril those brave women are in is terrifying. They were our allies in the war against barbarism. We went into Afghanistan and have left Afghanistan because we act in accordance with our loyalty to our allies; we do not desert them. We must not desert those women—these allies who we have left behind.
Procedure and Privileges
Lord Judge Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, I will try not to. Just about everything that can be said in this debate has been said, so I am going to say a bit more. I ask noble Lords to notice that I am speaking just before the wind-up speeches from the leaders of the two main opposition parties. I underline that the Cross-Benchers are not a party or group. I see the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is not in his place, but could somebody remind him that I have said that? I am speaking on behalf of myself and nobody else.
I support the Senior Deputy Speaker’s report, but then I would, would I not? I am a member of the commission and of the Procedure and Privileges Committee. There are so many committees that I am a member of, I can probably speak for every single committee in this House.
I think we are envisaging a return to a pre-pandemic normal but one that is enlightened by some of what we have learned in dealing with the pandemic. There are a number of matters I could draw to noble Lords’ attention. We have discussed disability. I am so glad about that; the Cross-Benchers raised it almost at the very outset. There was an absolute unanimity of view that we had to use our new technological skills to ensure that disabled people could continue to play their part in the House. I am absolutely delighted that that is going to happen.
I do not support the amendments but I respect them. I am one of those larks: I love getting up in the morning and there was a time when I actually used to enjoy getting up for work in the morning. I am not an owl, so I am attracted to earlier starts—though 1 pm is not that early. But before we agree to that amendment, could we check that we would not be reducing the contribution made to this House by experts who continue to use their expertise outside this House?
Some noble Lords referred to the grand people, the doctors and the lawyers, but what about the engineers, teachers, university professors and—if I may say so to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—the environmentalists, who are still at work? They have a contribution to make and we need to be very careful that we do not adjust the times and lose their contributions. I am not saying that it will happen, but it is not something that we should plunge into.
I am also a little concerned about the work of Select Committees. We now have many more Select Committees. We do not have the proper facilities for all of them: a facilities room with audio, broadcasting facilities, facilities to work in a hybrid fashion. We need to check that, if we have an earlier time, we will not make it more difficult for members of committees to attend the Chamber. They have an invaluable contribution to make and should not be disqualified because they are simply following their duties as members of a committee.
I have great sympathy with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack; I was one of those in the minority when the ballot took place. I believe—and continue to believe notwithstanding the result of the ballot—that speakers’ lists for Oral Questions have been disadvantageous to everybody except Ministers. Ministers have got away with obfuscation for 18 months now. We are not doing anything about it if we have a speakers’ list. However, the House took a different view: a view which I respect and do not share. We have to abide by it, at any rate for the time being.
We have to be careful not to get carried away about how discourteous everybody is during Oral Questions. Yes, there are some people who behave badly; most of us do not. I think it is also very bad behaviour for people to go on asking questions at great length so that numbers eight, nine and 10 on the list do not get reached. It is a different form of discourtesy, but it is discourtesy nevertheless.
As for the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, there is a very important principle involved. We need to consider whether we rewrite the way in which the House conducts its business in relation to the principle of self-regulation. It is a principle; chapter 4 of the Companion to the Standing Orders is absolutely clear about it, and there is a lot of chapter 4. The Lord Speaker
“observes the same formalities as any other member of the House, addressing the House as a whole, and not an individual member”.
There is much to be discussed in the noble Lord’s amendment but it is appropriate for examination in a single-issue debate, not as an add-on to this debate, because it has some very fundamental questions to answer about the way the House does its business. Let us return to the enlightened normality.
I will add one word recognising one speech in particular: did not the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, speak a great deal of sense about government control of the way we do our work?
House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings
Lord Judge Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Government for making time, in government time, for this debate, which is obviously a very important one. I also personally say thank you to those who have made it possible for us to work during this pandemic. However, I cannot help reflecting that that means that, after six hours, everything has already been said, and I cannot think of anything very new to say. I shall therefore ask myself this question. Have I detected during the course of the hybrid House that too many of us—I had better be careful how I put this—are speaking for far too long and that too many of us are being far too repetitious? I am afraid that the answer to my question is yes. I will give your Lordships this trivial example; it is not meant to be a discourtesy to those who have made maiden speeches in the House in the last few months.
When I was introduced and I made my maiden speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, made a lovely, charming, welcoming response and said it was terrific and that the House wanted to hear me for ever and ever—but nobody else did. I was very hurt. At least, I was not hurt until recently. We have suddenly developed the habit that just about everybody who follows a maiden speech congratulates the maiden speaker on his or her speech. We have even reached the stage where people anticipate a maiden speech and say how good it is going to be. That is a misuse of our time, and we have had a misuse of time.
All that said, being present in the House rather than speaking remotely undoubtedly has its own disciplinary impact. We are aware of the mood of the House, as it has been described hundreds of times. I am not worried about Ministers; I am now talking about us. I know when your Lordships have had enough of me—I am sorry; I will not sit down yet. I am a member of the commission and a member of the Procedure Committee. If your Lordships want to know, I am a member of the Liaison Committee; name the committee, I am on it. But the reason I am here and put my name down is that I came to listen, to learn and to reflect, because there are significant opposing views throughout the House.
I want to make two points. One is a commendation of something that I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hain, mention. He was a member of our Covid-19 Committee. We should all read the report produced by that committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. It introduces me and, I suspect, most of us to a future world with which we are totally unfamiliar. If your Lordships have read the report, you will see the arguments for and against this or that possible proposal in a much better perspective.
My second point is—I will use words very carefully—that we must return to a fully functioning House. How do we best perform our function? Not, “It was all wonderful before and we must return to it”; there are aspects of the way things ran before that could also usefully be attended to. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, mentioned Second Readings—do we need them? That question needs to be answered. Do we have to allow speeches to go on for ever if somebody has their name down on an amendment, somebody supports it, somebody else supports it, or four people support it? Do numbers 5, 6, 7 and 8 have to be able to speak for as long as they like? Questions arise from the House as it ran. We have to look at voting, and at committees. I cannot imagine we will ever go back to the possibility that a witness from the United States of America has to fly here. Even in the law courts we had actual meetings on digital machines that enabled us to get expert evidence 20 years ago.
All these need to be subject to something that I feel very strongly about, and it is the only thing I feel very strongly about in my responsibility as a member of the commission. I do not believe that technology is not available that would meet the needs of those who have spoken in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, spoke. I simply do not believe that the technology is not there for it to work, not as it does now to create a hybrid House, but to enable her and those like her, with her problems, to be able to make a contribution to the House. I add as a PS that that is not for those of us as we get old. I am on the threshold of my old age. I do not want to be able to use that—that is, the disability problem—as a way of staying on in the House. When we get too old, we should go. Let us look at all this as a whole and think about it.
Tributes: Lord Fowler
Lord Judge Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross- Benchers I welcome the Lord Speaker to his new responsibilities. As the fourth speaker following three Members of this House who have agreed wholeheartedly about everything they had to say, I do not think I can say very much, except that I agree. I particularly welcome the recognition of the stalwart loyal service that the former Lord Speaker has given to the House. I whole- heartedly agree, but I am going to repeat something—which I hate doing when everything has already been said.
But listen to this list: efficient, calm, resilient, patient, brave, ambitious, proactive, wise, empathetic, persuasive. That sounds to me like a combination of attributes that every single Cross-Bencher in this House enjoys. Therefore, as a job description for a new applicant for the Cross Benches, I think I am persuaded that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, should become a Cross-Bencher.
Actually, I did not need persuasion. The moment I heard the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was about to retire from his high office, I wrote to him immediately, inviting him to join us. I was delighted that he agreed to do so and, as a result, we the Cross-Benchers will bask in reflected glory from the presence in our midst of a Member of the House who has brought such distinction to it and to the high office. If I may say so, provided that it is in a balanced, Cross-Bencher sort of way, he can have a platform from which to continue his contribution to the diminution of deadly disease and the alleviation of suffering worldwide. He is very welcome, and I thank him for his services.