Queen’s Speech

Lord Lisvane Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lisvane (CB) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is an honour—although one laced with trepidation—to address your Lordships’ House for the first time. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds on displaying absolutely none of the trepidation which I now feel.

I am the third Clerk of the House of Commons to have the privilege of membership of your Lordships’ House. Last year, I followed my learned predecessors, Sir Thomas Erskine May in 1886 and Sir Gilbert Campion in 1950, so noble Lords of a mathematical turn of mind will see immediately that this is something which happens precisely every 64 years.

I had no difficulty in choosing Lisvane as my title. My parents and I were born in the parish or on its borders—it lies to the north of Cardiff. My grandparents are in the churchyard, and my great-uncle’s name is on the Lisvane war memorial. The centenary of his death on the Somme falls next year.

I may not sound Welsh but, time out of mind, all my forebears have come from the Welsh Marches—with the single exception of a Danish great-great-grandmother, who was no doubt brought in to provide what my farmer neighbours in Herefordshire would call “hybrid vigour”. My mother’s family trace their descent from Einion ap Collwyn, a rather flaky 11th-century chieftain who was known as Einion the Traitor because he is supposed to have let the Normans into Wales, no doubt for money. Clearly he was an early opponent of devolution.

I could not have been made more welcome and at home in your Lordships’ House. The warmth of the welcome from noble Lords on all sides and from staff in every department of the administration has been wonderful, and I am most grateful. I know a little bit about induction. The induction here for a new Member has been absolutely first class. My previous experience of induction was in 2010 after the general election, when, to let your Lordships’ blood run cold for a moment, the House took in 227 new Members.

One piece of advice which my grandfather treasured from his time as an infantry officer on the Western Front was, “If in danger, fear or doubt, run in circles, scream and shout”. Now I do not for a moment—not for a moment—charge Her Majesty’s Government with possessing those emotions just at the moment, but on constitutional issues that well-worn piece of advice argues for purposeful deliberation. The gracious Speech contains seven measures which one might describe as constitutional, but they are all separate items on the menu. The menu does not, unfortunately, contain a proposal to fix the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. In respect of devolution, we face the intractable problem of asymmetrical populations and resources combined with centrifugal aspirations, leaving us with what people are already calling “the English problem”.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, on his magisterial speech seeking to knit together all the issues, but there has never been a better time to ensure that changes are thought through, co-ordinated and integrated, because if they are not they will not stick, and if they do not stick they will not provide the abiding constitutional settlement that the United Kingdom needs. Whatever the process is called—“constitutional convention” it might be—surely this is the time for a comprehensive examination of the distribution of powers within the United Kingdom and, crucially, the processes for exercising those powers.

The gracious Speech is naturally a legislative agenda. This House has a very well-deserved reputation for the careful examination of primary legislation but might we not, more ambitiously, look for ways of legislating better, rather than making the best of what we have? Draft Bills, considered by Joint Committees of both Houses, are one option. Ministers have less political capital invested in a draft Bill and evidence-based change is more easily accepted. Of course, draft Bills are much more difficult in the first Session of a Parliament because of the other pressures on scarce drafting resources, but might we possibly hope for an assurance from the Government Front Bench of a record number of draft Bills over the course of this Parliament?

And we could think more innovatively. There was much to be said for the Victorian practice of Motions for leave to bring in Bills so that the necessity for legislating, and the broad intention, could be considered before getting involved in the scrutiny of a fully worked-out Bill. Why do we not use purposive clauses more extensively so that it is possible to debate an expressed intention as well as the means used to secure it? For those who are uneasy about the margin of judicial interpretation—I should say that I am emphatically not among them—purposive clauses have the added benefit of putting the intentions of Parliament on the face of a statute.

A constitutionally relevant matter which was not mentioned in the gracious Speech but which will be always in our minds in this Parliament is the condition of this wonderful building, known and loved throughout the world. I take some satisfaction from having initiated, with the Clerk of the Parliaments, the assessment of what needed to be done, because I felt very strongly that we could not be another generation of stewards who passed on our responsibilities to this building. But we will be faced with some agonising decisions. Whether we go for so-called super-aggressive maintenance, a “Cox and Box” decant or a full decant—and it is quite important that both Houses agree on the same solution—the outcome will be uncomfortable. Whatever decision is taken, we must see it in the wider context.

Work on this unique building will be a wonderful opportunity to nurture and develop heritage skills and crafts for which we have a national need. I declare an interest as a governor and former chairman of the Hereford Cathedral Perpetual Trust. I would like to see the foundation of a Westminster academy as an imaginative focus for those skills and a source of apprenticeships of all sorts, something about which I am passionate.

In considering the role of this House, I was glad to see no reference in the gracious Speech to any proposed change, although I hear the ghost of the late Mandy Rice-Davies at my elbow saying “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”. What is often forgotten is that when Executives are over-mighty—and Executives of all parties will always be over-mighty; it is the default setting—parliamentary power is not a zero-sum game. The powers of the Lords do not detract from those of the Commons, nor those of the Commons from the Lords. The strength of the institution of Parliament lies partly in the fact that the two Houses are complementary and are not competing. They do the same tasks but in a different way. A perfect example is that in this House our Select Committees work horizontally across a number of government departments and responsibilities. In the Commons, they work vertically, drilling down into departments, agencies and regulators. They are complementary and not competing.

We cannot be complacent. Parliament has constantly to earn acceptance and understanding. A challenge for us all in the 2015 Parliament must be to spread greater understanding of what Parliament does for our citizens. If we can do that, what we do will be valued; and if it is valued, we can hope that our citizens will come to feel ownership of the institution that serves them.

Many years ago, the advice to maiden speakers in the House of Commons was to stop when you saw the Speaker’s wig wreathed in flames. There is no such early warning device in your Lordships’ House, so if I have trespassed on your Lordships’ patience, I can only crave indulgence for one of the newest of new Members.