Industrial Strategy

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for having secured this debate and in welcoming the opportunity to listen to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rosenfield. I will confine my comments to the life sciences sector and in so doing draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests, in particular the fact that I am chairman of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research and King’s Health Partners and actively engaged, outside this House, in biomedical research.

It is often argued that it is difficult to find a true position for an industrial strategy, as we have heard, that does not define a top-down impact by government and the state on what ultimately needs to be entrepreneurial activity to drive opportunity, growth and innovation in many sectors. But in a sector as complicated as the life sciences, where we need to bring together the universities, our health service, the commercial sector, big pharma, biotech, health tech and medtech, commercial sectors, entrepreneurs, financiers and legal and other professionals, it is essential that a framework exists so that government intervention can facilitate the creation, for instance, of a highly skilled workforce, the environment in which science can be delivered at scale and pace, a health service that can make an appropriate contribution to the delivery of life sciences and, indeed, the appropriate data infrastructure to ensure that a life sciences strategy and its broader contribution to our economy can be delivered.

Is the Minister content that His Majesty’s Government’s strategies, over many iterations, such as Life Sciences Vision and other commitments over the last 10 to 12 years, are actually delivering what has been anticipated? This sector is vital to our economy. It is estimated that some 250,000 highly skilled jobs attend the life sciences sector currently, contributing over £80 billion to our economy and sustaining some 63,000 organisations. It is anticipated that if the life sciences vision can be fully implemented over the next 30 years, there will be a further £68 billion contributing to our GDP, and there will be a 40% reduction in attributable burden of disease—not only wealth creation but health gain.

Regrettably, many of the indicators suggest that we are not sustaining our position. Is the Minister content that we are doing enough to ensure that we remain globally competitive?

Climate Change

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Krebs for the very thoughtful way in which he introduced the debate. I declare my interests as chairman of the King’s Fund and chairman of King’s Health Partners.

I will focus, over the next three minutes or so, on the question of adaptation to climate change and the potential impact on the delivery of healthcare in our country and the health of our fellow citizens. It is quite right to be thoughtful and measured in considering these matters, but there is no doubt that we saw a substantial impact in Europe during the last heatwave of 2022, with the reported excess deaths associated with heat. Indeed, last year we saw in our own country some 2,500 reported excess deaths associated with heat-related conditions.

The impact of climate change can be seen very much as having a multiplying effect on underlying predispositions to poor health outcomes. For instance, a predisposition to heart disease or respiratory conditions can be exacerbated by the impact of alterations in climate. We also know that the nature of the diseases that we will experience as the climate changes in our own country will need to be carefully planned for. For instance, in the future we will see more vector-related diseases, mosquito-related diseases—such as Zika virus and West Nile fever—and, potentially, malaria, if the predictions are correct. Tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease, will be seen more frequently. There is an important need to ensure that, with the potential for flooding, other waterborne diseases are properly recognised and can be treated early, and that appropriate public health measures can be employed to mitigate against them.

There is also the question of how the public health system more broadly is to prepare itself. It is clearly important that we have appropriate surveillance mechanisms in place through the Health Protection Agency to identify and to characterise the changing frequency, occurrence and regional distribution of such diseases. With the risk, more broadly, of global climate change comes the establishment of newer zoonotic diseases, as animals and humans are forced to live in much closer proximity. Much of what we learned during the Covid pandemic needs to be retained and applied in a thoughtful and appropriate fashion to ensure that those surveillance mechanisms are in place, so that when diseases occur and when individuals develop those conditions, there can be appropriate measures in place—for instance, establishing the sequence of novel viruses and so on which might occur as a result of those climate impacts.

There is also a very important opportunity for us to start adapting the built environment of our hospitals. His Majesty’s Government are rightly committed to a major hospital-building programme. That provides the opportunity to start designing our hospitals so that they can provide services to our fellow citizens in the future that may be much more like services associated with the management of acute infectious diseases. That includes the management of patients who have underlying chronic conditions; they may see acute exasperations, such as exasperated respiratory illnesses, in periods of a substantial climate change and climate variation.

I will ask the Minister two questions. First, are His Majesty’s Government content that the Health Protection Agency is now properly mobilised and constructed in such a way to be able to provide the kind of surveillance and acute interventions that are required to protect us? Secondly, is the Minister content that the hospital-building programme is building in such a way as to deal with the potential consequences of climate change?

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for the very thoughtful way in which he introduced his Private Member’s Bill and declare my interest as a former chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission between 2013 and 2018 and as the current chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission, which is a statutory body. It has already been recognised by many noble Lords in the debate that there is growing anxiety about appointments to your Lordships’ House, both about the number of appointments being made and the nature of those appointments.

HOLAC, as we have heard, is an advisory body to the Prime Minister but makes a determination of nominations it receives, either from the public or from the political party leaders in the case of political nominations, in two ways: through the assessment of individual propriety; and through a determination of suitability. Propriety tends to be the easier of the two, because it is more objective. The determination of suitability is more subjective. In the case of independent Cross-Bench Peer nominations, that determination of suitability is made using publicly published criteria, available on the commission’s website, used at the time both of sifting nominations and then, for those candidates who are called for interview, through the interview process. For nominations received for political Peers, that determination of suitability is not made by a single individual or body but by the individual political party leaders, and there is an inconsistency in the way the determination of suitability has been made.

My commission suggested to Prime Ministers and party leaders that the assessment of suitability should be made using the criteria that HOLAC uses for the determination of suitability of Cross-Bench nominations. The current commission has suggested that the application of the Nolan principles and their assessment be the basis for determination of suitability. If no consensus can be achieved on that, it is only right to consider the provisions in this Bill for the establishment of a statutory commission that will be able then to apply the criteria and the determination of suitability consistently across all nominations for appointment to your Lordships’ House, be it those received by the general public or those received by political party leaders, and put to the Prime Minister, who ultimately has the responsibility to advise the sovereign on these matters.

However, I think that in Committee we must consider a particular problem with putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis; that is, the potential risk that decisions that HOLAC makes will then be subject to judicial review. There is an increased risk that they become justiciable—this is in fact our experience at the Judicial Appointments Commission. That would potentially leave the House of Lords Appointments Commission in a position where nominations are made and, indeed, accepted, and then challenged by judicial review. If that process turned out to be successful, we would have a very difficult situation where someone might have already been appointed and that appointment is found wanting through our legal system.

Beyond that, we would have a system where the judiciary became potentially much more deeply involved in appointments to your Lordships’ House. That would run contrary to the principle that has been established where we have a separation of powers, and it could become a regular matter that judges had a role in appointments to your Lordships’ House. That is not to say that these matters cannot be addressed in some way in Committee, but they are important issues that need to be addressed because, ultimately, the current appointments process is doing the best that it can protect the reputation of your Lordships’ House and, in so doing, protect the reputation of Parliament more generally. Of course, in providing advice to a Prime Minister, it also helps to protect the Prime Minister himself or herself and, indeed, protect the sovereign, who is ultimately responsible for accepting and making appointments to your Lordships’ House.

House of Lords: Appointments

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for drawing those points to the attention of the House. In respect of today’s Question, I say that the commission’s role was to provide advice, and this was duly provided in the usual way. However, we have heard what my noble friend had to say.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my previous role as a past chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It is the responsibility of the individual party leaders to assess the suitability of their individual nominations to serve in your Lordships’ House. Does the Minister believe that the adoption of common criteria to make that assessment of suitability might achieve a greater degree of consistency and confidence in those nominations?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, the commission is an independent advisory committee, and the Government consider its advice carefully in whatever form it is given. The Prime Minister is democratically accountable and must have the final say on appointments. Of course, we are all due to debate my noble friend Lord Norton’s Private Member’s Bill, and while the Government have reservations about it, we welcome that opportunity.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the thoughtful way in which he introduced this debate I declare my interests as professor of surgery at UCL and chairman of UCLPartners. As my noble friend Lord Patel indicated, there was real anxiety among the science community in the United Kingdom about no agreement being reached, so the co-operation and trade agreement as it pertains to science has been broadly welcomed. I shall focus my comments in two areas: first, our participation in Horizon Europe; and secondly, the question of clinical trials regulatory alignment.

It is envisaged that we will participate in Horizon Europe through an association agreement, but that agreement has yet to be negotiated. It is possible that applications for funding to the new Horizon Europe scheme will commence this spring: what arrangements do Her Majesty’s Government propose to make in case the agreement has not been fully negotiated with regard to our provisional participation and, indeed, interim funding to ensure our science base is not undermined? The current co-operation agreement also states that withdrawals from Horizon Europe can be initiated by either party with 45 days’ notice. This risks undermining confidence in the programme and, indeed, our global science base. How do Her Majesty’s Government propose to ensure that the science base is secured, and funding secured, for the entirety of the period to 2027 in case of early departure?

It has been recognised throughout discussions on the withdrawal agreement that alignment of the regulation of clinical trials is critical. What arrangements do Her Majesty’s Government propose to make now to secure that vital alignment of regulation? How do they propose to prioritise that within the context of the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill currently being considered by your Lordships’ House?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for the thoughtful way in which she introduced the debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for having achieved an important degree of consensus on some important principles. They are that it is of course absolutely essential, and the duty of the your Lordships’ House, to scrutinise very thoroughly the legislation before us, which will have an ongoing and fundamental impact on the rights and lives of our fellow citizens for many generations to come, but at the same time that your Lordships’ House should not, and probably will not, use the Bill to in any way undermine the authority and primacy of the House of Commons. We have the right of course to revise and to ask the other place to think again, both about issues that it has already considered and about the many issues in the Bill that it has not properly scrutinised, but it would be completely wrong ultimately to frustrate the will of the other place in any way.

In the context of those simple principles, I will touch on two areas, although there are of course many that will require important scrutiny. The first deals with regulations that are important to our national interest—in this regard, regulations that relate to the question of clinical trials. In so doing, I declare my interests as a professor of surgery at University College London, director of the Thrombosis Research Institute and an active biomedical researcher.

The current clinical trials directive, which has been transposed into domestic legislation, has been much criticised because it is considered to have thwarted and undermined in many ways the ability of our country to perform clinical research at the most efficient level. As a result, quite rightly, new clinical trials regulation has been considered and developed. Our own research community made substantial contributions to the development of that regulation, and it is a much better piece of legislation. That is recognised to be a good thing. It was due to be adopted across the European Union in October 2018, but there has been a delay to its adoption and it will now not be applied until later, in 2019.

As a result, the legislation that deals with the conduct of clinical trials, which is vital to delivering healthcare in our country and to our life sciences industry, will be retained legislation with the current directive. As far as I can see, there is no mechanism for a regulation that has been agreed but not yet applied across the European Union on the day of exit to be dealt with under the Bill.

I therefore ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will deal with that question, which is of considerable importance. There may be other areas where we, in our national interest, have agreed or will in the coming months agree regulations that will not be applied by the Union by the time of our exit from the European Union. As far as I can see, the Bill does not deal with that.

Clause 6(2) deals with the regard that courts and tribunals should give to the development of European law which, at the time of exit, has become retained European law but which is further developed thereafter by the European Court of Justice. Here I declare my interest as chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission. The Bill proposes that the courts and tribunals do not have to take account of the further development of law beyond the time of exit, but they may do so if they think it appropriate. That seems a confusing and dangerous proposition.

Inevitably, and quite rightly, the European Court of Justice will continue to develop its law with the interests of the European Union, both political and economic, firmly in mind. Those issues may be quite different to our national interest, but the Bill proposes to leave the judiciary to make the decision about whether they should pay attention to this matter and what weight they should give to it—that is, the development of law beyond the time of exit from the European Union. As your Lordships’ Constitution Committee identified, that risks drawing the judiciary into areas of political controversy. Parliament has rightly taken the view that there should be a separation of powers, that Parliament is sovereign, that Parliament is responsible for matters of political policy and for the establishment of statute and that it is for the courts thereafter to interpret the law and apply it.

It therefore seems wholly counterintuitive for this Parliament to take the judiciary—an important part of our constitution—to a place where it may be drawn into political controversy, as a result of which there may be a loss of confidence in our independent judiciary and a loss of morale. That would be a terrible consequence of departure from the European Union and, as the Constitution Committee rightly identified, it is a matter that needs to be carefully scrutinised. The committee identified a potential solution—there may be others—but clearly it is a matter that your Lordships’ House will need to consider in detail and potentially ask the other place to consider once again its position on this matter.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the thoughtful way in which he introduced this debate and, in so doing, declare my interest as chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. I was very reassured by the statement in the gracious Speech confirming that Her Majesty’s Ministers would,

“uphold the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons”.

That statement goes to the heart of our constitutional settlement for this bicameral Parliament, and provides the constitutional understanding of the conventions that give legitimacy to the work of the unelected second Chamber and the context in which all noble Lords undertake their hugely important responsibilities in scrutinising and revising legislation and, of course, holding the Executive to account.

Reference has been made to the report undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Her Majesty’s Government are still considering the implications of that report and the other Select Committee reports from your Lordships’ House and the other place. The principal discussion of the recommendations in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has focused on the procedure and process by which your Lordships’ House should dispose of secondary legislation. However, the conclusion of that report contained a very important statement. The noble Lord said that,

“delegated powers need to be used appropriately”.

He recommended that attention be paid to those powers being used appropriately, and that the Government,

“take steps to ensure that Bills contain an appropriate level of detail and that too much is not left for implementation by statutory instrument”.

Those issues having been raised, they must be addressed, because they go to the very heart of the understanding of the responsibilities of your Lordships’ House and our relationship to the other place, as well as to our ability to address our responsibility to hold the Executive to account. How much work is taking place on the second statement, towards the end of the report from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, regarding a better understanding of the broader approach that Governments take towards the legislative pathways available to them in determining how and when to use primary or secondary legislation?

I turn to the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, on the question of the size of your Lordships’ House. That is an important question, which was rehearsed at some length in the debate on incremental reform of your Lordships’ House that took place on 15 September in the last Session of Parliament. In that debate, I was fortunate enough to make a contribution. At col. 1823, I made a proposal that has been echoed by many other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Elton—and which has been further consolidated by the work of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. Such proposals address the issue by restricting the size of your Lordships’ House to around 500 to 600 Members, and by providing an opportunity for all noble Lords to remain eligible to sit in any Parliament in any Session, but restricting the number of sitting Peers and distributing them across the different groupings and Benches according to a predefined formula.

There is reluctance to pursue formal reform of your Lordships’ House that requires primary legislation, as we have heard. Would rehearsing and reviewing the Writ of Summons provide an opportunity to take forward some of the proposals? At the moment, the Writ summons noble Lords to come and sit in the Parliament. Could a Writ, which I understand is a matter not for primary legislation but for the Crown Office, invite noble Lords at the beginning of every Parliament to attend and make themselves available for election or selection, to sit in that Parliament? Might the question of the size of the House, and therefore the distribution among the different groupings, be attended to through Standing Orders rather than primary legislation? Perhaps not, but it is fundamentally important that we continue to address that question. If we do not, the credibility of your Lordships’ House risks being further undermined and, in so doing, the sovereignty of this Parliament and the standing and respect in which our fellow citizens hold it will also be undermined.

Soft Power and the UK’s Influence (Select Committee Report)

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, and his Select Committee on producing a marvellous report and on having secured this important debate. I also join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lady Wolf of Dulwich on her very impressive maiden speech. In so doing I remind noble Lords of my declarations of interest as the UK Business Ambassador for Healthcare and Life Sciences, chair of University College London Partners and treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health.

It is quite right that this impressive report should touch on health and healthcare because there is no doubt in my mind or in the mind of my noble friend Lord Crisp that it represents an important area of soft power for our country. The reasons for this are clear. Every country in the world, whether it represents a developed or a developing economy, faces similar challenges when it comes to meeting the healthcare needs of its citizens. Those challenges are reflected most clearly by changing demographics in terms of ageing populations, more people living with chronic disease, higher expectations among citizens throughout the world that they should be delivered a reasonable standard of healthcare and that they should have access to it, and that it should be delivered fairly, effectively and safely.

There are also important political consequences with regard to delivering healthcare and, indeed, not delivering it. In our own country, we saw during the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum that when the question of healthcare in terms of the future of the National Health Service was introduced into the debate, particular anxieties were generated and, as a result, there was an impact potentially on the thinking of voters with regard to whether or not they felt confident about the Union separating. This, of course, is also the case in many other countries around the world.

The report of the Select Committee tends to look at health in terms of providing healthcare opportunities through DfID overseas aid funding, and that is an important element. But as we heard from my noble friend Lord Crisp, it is not the only way in which we are able to contribute to healthcare more broadly and, through that global contribution, increase our influence and the respect that other nations around the world have for our country and therefore for our soft power. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health has commissioned some work to look at this question. As my noble friend Lord Crisp set out, the group has identified the need to look at the question of influence in healthcare not only in terms of state overseas aid funding to other countries, but across a number of domains and sectors.

When we look at the contribution made by the state, while we have heard an awful lot about the BBC in this debate, one of the most important institutions in this country that commands global respect is the National Health Service. Of course, the health service is open to criticism at times around perceptions about its delivery in our own country, but globally the concept and the philosophy of the National Health Service—providing a healthcare system that is free at the point of delivery; that is, universal access to healthcare—is a very powerful principle that is deeply appreciated and respected throughout the world. As we have heard, the NHS ranks number one in terms of the efficacy and efficiency of its delivery when compared with 10 other healthcare systems, including that of the United States and some of our European partners.

Beyond the National Health Service and the important work that the Department for International Development does in the area of healthcare, being the second largest funder of bilateral healthcare engagements around the world, at £1.2 billion in the most recently reported financial year, we have the important contribution that is made by our university sector. This is sometimes under-recognised not only broadly, but also by the sectors in healthcare themselves, and I think that it is one of the reasons why so few healthcare organisations, universities and others contributed evidence for the Select Committee to consider. However, we have four of the top 10 universities in the world in biomedicine. We have heard about our academic output. We have 1% of the world’s population, but some 12% of all citations for biomedical research. We have many thousands of students from overseas who are studying medicine and dentistry in our 33 universities delivering medical and dental degrees, and of course we have a large number of postgraduate courses not only in medical subjects but also in nursing and in the professions allied to healthcare. These provide important training opportunities for people throughout the world.

Our commercial sector is also vitally important. Two of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world are based in this country, but they operate in at least 200 countries around the globe. Between the two, they employ something close to 200,000 people and they play a vitally important role in our economy, contributing a net surplus of some £21 billion a year. They also, by and large, are providing interventions, therapies and innovations across the world, many of which were discovered here, that are affecting the lives of millions of other human beings day in and day out. That brings great credit to our nation. Then we have the charity and NGO sector which comprises many thousands of organisations. It contributes an investment of around £7 billion of investment abroad in healthcare projects.

I would now like to build on some of the comments made by my noble friend Lord Luce. There is an ideal opportunity and outlet for us to take forward all of this knowledge, expertise and ability to improve the lives of so many people around the world through the network of the Commonwealth. I should like to declare a further interest here because I have been working with the Commonwealth Secretariat in the establishment of a potential new initiative in healthcare—something that might become known as common health. It seeks to build upon the opportunities provided by modern technology platforms and thus create the world’s largest community of healthcare professionals—doctors, nurses and others—who have the responsibility and the privilege of looking after a third of the world’s population. Through modern mechanisms of communication and sharing, we seek to ensure that advances in knowledge and the most appropriate ways of providing clinical care are promulgated to isolated communities and to practitioners working single-handedly with few opportunities easily to learn from each other and thus develop themselves professionally over their careers. That problem might be overcome through such a network created within the Commonwealth and supported through the recently relaunched Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. It will allow all opportunities for funding to be brought to bear in order to create the largest opportunity for communication and education among Commonwealth healthcare professionals. This will be strongly supported by UK institutions and therefore is a further representation of our potential soft power in this area.

I will finish with two important examples of where a focus on health has had a profound impact on our country’s global standing. The first is in the area of dementia, where the Prime Minister, using the opportunity of the presidency of the then G8, decided to put an international dementia strategy at the heart of G8 thinking. Dr Dennis Gillings was appointed to the position of World Dementia Envoy, and he has been able to move throughout the world, bringing parties together and helping other Governments to focus on dementia and the devastating impact that it will have in the coming years. Some 35 million people around the world are suffering from dementia at the moment; it is estimated that by 2050, the number will be more than 115 million. The appointment of an envoy will ensure that a global research effort to find new therapies to prevent and treat dementia could—and will—be established.

The second example is in the area of antimicrobial resistance. Increasingly, antibiotics, which have played such an important role in improving human health in recent decades, will become useless and ineffective. Through another initiative launched by Her Majesty’s Government, there is now a global task force, led by Mr Jim O’Neill, looking at the problem of antimicrobial resistance, trying to focus global healthcare research attention to this important problem that, if not addressed, will cost some 10 million lives by 2050 and will have had an accumulative cost of some $100 trillion to the global economy. These are very important representations of our country’s global contribution and a manifestation, therefore, of our soft power.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, for introducing the report, which makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on the future of your Lordships’ House. I declare my interest as chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and take this opportunity to thank for the first time my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, for his tremendous contribution to the work of the commission in his five years as its chairman.

Noble Lords have discussed the content of the report and previous attempts to reform your Lordships’ House in this Parliament, particularly the Bill proposed by the Deputy Prime Minister which fell in the other place. Important lessons can be learnt from that experience with regard to reform of your Lordships’ House. The fundamental problem with that proposition was that it did not deal with the important question of defining the powers of elected Chambers in this Parliament. That remains a fundamental question. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said, no bicameral Parliament with two elected Chambers exists which does not have a written constitution defining the powers between the two elected Chambers. It is wrong to suggest that your Lordships’ House would have opposed as a matter of principle a Bill that had been fully debated in the other place; rather it might have taken the opportunity to consider this important constitutional question and ensure that, in changing fundamentally the nature of this Parliament by having two elected Chambers, the other place was cognisant of the fact that, as was stated in the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911, Parliament would need to address the question of limiting and defining the powers of the House of Lords. That remains a fundamental issue that should be addressed by a constitutional commission. It will eventually have to be addressed if this Parliament moves from having an elected Chamber with primacy and an absolute clarity of mandate democratically delivered by our fellow citizens, and a second Chamber made up of appointed Members revising and scrutinising legislation, to having two elected Chambers.

I would like to deal with some of the issues in the report relating to appointment to your Lordships’ House and the work of the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission. Noble Lords will be aware that this independent commission was established at the time of the previous major reform of your Lordships’ House around 1999 and 2000 and discharges two important constitutional responsibilities—to nominate individuals without allegiance to party to sit on the Cross Benches and to vet all nominations to the party Benches, the Cross Benches and those of Peers who are nominated through the other available mechanisms. That vetting function is a vital, clear, but sometimes not altogether recognised, purpose of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

In this important report, it is suggested that criteria are published that might in some way match those adopted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, so that our fellow citizens can understand the basis upon which individuals are appointed to either the independent Cross Benches or the party-political Benches. The criteria that the House of Lords Appointments Commission uses have been refined over time since its inception and provide an important basis of clarity in terms of the qualities that the commission looks for in making appointments to the Cross Benches, and might usefully be adopted by the political parties for that purpose.

In terms of the vetting function for independent Cross-Bench Peers, the commission looks both at the criteria that define suitability to serve in your Lordships’ House and at the criteria and vetting with regard to propriety. It may be—and it has been suggested—that an independent commission might take on an assessment of suitability criteria for party-political Peers. That matter has not been discussed by the commission at this stage, and it has never been put to the commission by any Government or by either Chamber of this Parliament.

With regard to the question of participation and commitment, the House of Lords Appointments Commission has always been of the view that those wishing to serve in your Lordships’ House are able to make a substantial time commitment and are prepared to recognise that they should serve by participation in the Chamber and in the work of the Select Committees, as well as by being prepared not only to provide their expertise but make general contributions to the effective discharge of the responsibilities of this second Chamber. There is an increasing expectation by our fellow citizens outside Parliament that individuals who offer themselves to your Lordships’ House, and are prepared to accept the privilege of serving in it, do so on the basis that they make a regular and active contribution—an important point made in the report.

There is also the important question of whether the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be put on a statutory basis. This has not been considered by the new commission, which consists of an independent chairman, three independent commissioners and three commissioners appointed as a result of party-political nomination. There is no question that there could be justification for a statutory appointments commission, but the issue should be addressed once we understand what the final function of your Lordships’ House is going to be in this bicameral Parliament; once we better understand whether that function will be delivered as part of a fully elected—in which case, there would be no need for an appointments commission—fully appointed or hybrid Chamber; and, on that basis, once we understand the responsibilities that we have to discharge, how Parliament sees us going about those responsibilities, and the balance between elected and appointed Peers. The question could then be put about how a statutory appointments commission could be formed and on what basis the statutes should be delivered.

EU: Subsidiarity Scrutiny

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kakkar]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the working of the European Union subsidiarity test procedure under the Lisbon treaty in view of the two recent reasoned opinions submitted by this House to the European Union institutions.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the power of national Parliaments to issue a reasoned opinion that an EU proposal does not uphold subsidiarity has been exercised many times since 2010, including five times by your Lordships’ House. Only once, on the Monti II proposals on the right to collective action across borders, have enough Parliaments done so to trigger what is called a yellow card. However, the views of national Parliaments have been influential on a wide range of issues and the continuing use of this procedure should give them an increasing role.

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of your Lordships’ European Union Committee, Sub-Committee B. Under the current test procedure, this Parliament can only challenge the Commission on the basis of subsidiarity, as the Minister has said, if at least eight other Parliaments also raise concerns. What obligations does the Lisbon treaty place on national Parliaments to participate actively in the scrutiny of directives, because without such scrutiny and participation, the subsidiarity test cannot possibly work? Under what circumstances would the Government consider using the red card in the test procedure, to seek judicial review by the European Court of Justice, where this Parliament, through its scrutiny, has raised substantial concerns about subsidiarity and where other Parliaments may not have participated in the process?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in the nature of events, red cards are to be used in an emergency situation, not as part of the normal procedure. Perhaps it would help the House if I point out that last year, the Swedish Parliament issued 20 reasoned opinions; the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies issued seven in 2011 and a larger number in 2012; the French Senate issued seven last year; and the House of Lords issued five. It is not the case that we are the only Parliament to be active in this regard.