Business of the House

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger]

I think we have heard enough, have we not? I move that the Question be now put.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, you are now familiar with these words but I must read them again in accordance with the procedures of the House. I am instructed by order of the House to say that the Motion that the Question be now put is considered to be a most exceptional procedure and the House will not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House. Further, if a Member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Question on the Motion is put without debate. Does the noble Lord still wish to move the closure?

[Lord Strasburger]

Yes.

Salisbury Update

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

What I can say is the evidence found has pointed to the fact that the same chemical nerve agent in Salisbury was found in the hotel and that the bottle found was modified to allow smuggling into the country. The analysis by experts at DSTL has confirmed that the same chemical nerve agent was used in both cases. Yesterday, the OPCW provided independent verification of this after its own analysis of samples taken following the Amesbury poisoning. I am afraid that is all I can say on that issue.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Reference has been made to the economic help that the Government are giving to the people and city of Salisbury. Is there any indication so far of the results of that assistance? Is the decline in the number of local businesses in the centre of Salisbury being arrested? Are there signs of revival in the number of visitors to Salisbury?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Certainly we are working closely with the local authority and local businesses. A number of Ministers have visited, and I know the local MP is doing a lot of work to make sure that support is provided to the local area. With the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents—and this again today—I am afraid that I do not have the figures for visitor numbers to Salisbury. However, we remain committed to doing all that we can to help that area to revitalise and make sure the people enjoy the delights of Salisbury.

Women: Representation

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I will not speak for the suffragettes—I would not presume to do so—but it is extremely important that women have a voice in all public debates, because often they are the voice of rationality.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, is it not worthy of note that two out of the three devolved Governments in our country are now led by women?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

The wrong women.

Strathclyde Review

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I shall hope to avoid having a disturbing and dramatic dream of the kind that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has experienced but it helped to inspire a truly excellent speech. I follow in more mundane fashion.

Whatever the background circumstances, a defeat in this House on secondary legislation relating to a major political issue is bound to incur the wrath of a Government, regardless of their party complexion.

“Practically every newspaper confidently anticipated that the Prime Minister would announce in the House this afternoon a Bill to limit the Lords’ powers”.

That, in the words of Richard Crossman’s diary entry for 20 June 1968, is what followed the narrow defeat of the order on sanctions against Rhodesia, nearly 50 years ago. The fury died away, of course, and no legislation was brought forward. Calm was restored and sustained by conventions agreed between the parties.

The Strathclyde review is designed to provide the basis for the start of a new era. I am with those attracted by the third option for change that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde commended to us with his customary vigour. Indeed, I would always hesitate to challenge him in any way, having entered this House five years ago now with his kindly tutelage. But I am also with those who believe that any changes here need to be accompanied by changes in the other place. They need to proceed hand in hand; one should be conditional on the other.

The entire system by which secondary legislation is dealt with is the subject of an authoritative report, The Devil is in the Detail, to which my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth referred, from the Hansard Society, of which I am proud to be a trustee. It enjoyed until recently the wonderfully benign and gentle chairmanship of my personal friend the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. This detailed Hansard Society study confirms what many have readily acknowledged for years. It states:

“The scrutiny process for delegated legislation has become unnecessarily complex … most MPs simply don’t understand it … Many of the MPs we interviewed simply weren’t aware of the practicalities relating to the scrutiny of statutory instruments”.

It is that state of affairs which has made the existence of our power of veto extremely important.

The Hansard Society’s report also stated:

“The existence of a veto power gives purpose and leverage to the Lords’ scrutiny committees … Remove it, and the influence of the House of Lords will be neutered to the government’s advantage unless steps are also taken to improve scrutiny … by the House of Commons”.

That is surely the nub of the matter. Without improved scrutiny arrangements in the Commons, it is very hard to see how the third, preferred option in the Strathclyde review will really advance the interests of Parliament. If the procedures of the other place do not provide adequately for substantive consideration of the Lords view on a rejected statutory instrument then, instead of underpinning the primacy of the elected Chamber, the process will serve the interests of the Executive by granting an override power for MPs without requiring anything of them as regards actively engaging with or making an informed decision about the concerns raised by this House—a danger underlined by my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester.

I now serve on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. We meet week by week in the presence of an array of legal luminaries. The work is extremely important but the contribution that members of the committee can usefully make is severely circumscribed. Our terms of reference limit us to checking whether a statutory instrument is technically sound and properly drafted. We are explicitly precluded from considering its merits or the policy behind it. It is not difficult to see how better arrangements could be made.

Do we not need to see the Strathclyde review, so judiciously conducted by my noble friend, in a wider context? Do we not need a reform process within which it would take a most useful place? For without such a process, the loss of our veto is likely to strengthen the Executive at Parliament’s expense.

Select Committee Reports: Government Responses

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to improve the quality and timeliness of their responses to reports from Select Committees of this House.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, departments aim to provide considered responses to Select Committee reports within two months of their publication, as set out in the Osmotherly rules. Where delays occur or where a committee is dissatisfied with the quality of the response it has received, I stand ready to assist in taking up individual cases with my colleagues in government.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Would my noble friend accept that, in the interests of the House as a whole, the Government might strengthen their commitment to their own undertaking, included in the handbook,

“to respond in writing to the reports of select committees, if possible, within two months of publication”?

Is she aware that, when responses arrive late, they are not always accompanied by the serious explanation of the delay that politeness demands? Finally, as regards the variable quality of the responses, may I invite my noble friend to read the short, rather perfunctory response to the Constitution Committee’s very substantial report on the constitutional implications of coalition government, for which the committee waited nearly 10 months?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I certainly understand the frustration expressed by my noble friend with the Government’s response on this occasion. I am pleased that the Minister for the Constitution apologised, quite rightly, to the committee for the prolonged delay. On that particular report, because it covered and inquired into the inner workings of coalition government, I do not think it is that surprising that the Government wanted to give it careful consideration before responding. However, I disagree with my noble friend’s description of the Government’s response. I know that the committee was disappointed with some specific aspects and has written further to the Minister concerned, but I think that the report, as a whole, was adequate. Certainly the delay that was experienced in the context of this report is not systemic in the Government’s responses to Select Committee reports.