Arrangement of Business

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, with all his experience and good judgment, my noble friend makes an extremely good point, which is on the substantive issue of the amendment. I agree with him that we are getting on to very treacherous ground, not least because—look around this House—none of us is elected to anything. Surely it would be better to let the House of Commons, which is elected and is impacted by this, to look at this first of all.

Perhaps I might correct something I said a moment ago to the noble Baroness on what will happen when we debate this issue. I will do my duty as Leader of the House and draw the attention of the House to the advice of the Public Bill Office and ask the House to endorse that advice. The previous occasion this happened was during the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill on 4 July 2011, when the mood of the House was to support the advice of the clerks, and good order, and the noble Lord concerned chose not to move his amendment. There is, however, no mechanism to prevent the noble Lord, Lord Hart—if it is he—from moving his amendment and, if he insists, the amendment will still be put before the House.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, the Leader of the House has given all of us an opportunity to look at this matter in a reasoned way, because of the delay. As someone who has spoken on this legislation, and who intended to speak on it today, I would have been very concerned to see a brand new amendment talking about delaying the boundary changes for several years. More senior Members than I can remember that there was a great dispute around 1980 because there was a delay in the boundary changes and it was felt that that was undemocratic. A knock-on effect of that delay was that when a Member of Parliament in Glasgow died—my good friend the late Tom McMillan—his constituency consisted of an electorate of 20,000, which was just slightly bigger than a regional ward in the Strathclyde region, because of those delays.

The time factor given to us by the Leader of the House has given us all a chance to reflect on this amendment, which I have not had the opportunity to examine. I would be very concerned about any amendment where the advice of the Clerk of the Parliaments has been rejected. I understand that it is advice that the officials give and it does not necessarily need to be taken, but it is sound advice that the Clerk gives. I am not taking sides with the Labour Party or the Conservative Party or indeed the Liberal party, but at least with this delay people like me, who have taken an interest in this legislation, can go to the Clerk and make him an even busier man than he is at the moment and get advice, and ask him why he feels that this matter is out of the scope of the business before us. I do not see any harm in a delay. In fact, often it is better to have a delay so that we can come to a reasoned decision.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, following on from the point that has just been made, as I understand the position in the House of Commons, if this were to happen there, the clerks would advise the Speaker. The Speaker would then consider the advice and would decide whether or not he wanted to accept it. If he decided that he wanted to accept it, he would rule the amendment inadmissible and therefore it would not be taken. If, on the other hand, he decided to overrule the clerks’ advice, which he is perfectly entitled to do, he could decide that the amendment was admissible and it would then be taken.

This House is self-governing; we do not have a Speaker. Who plays the role of the Speaker to decide that issue in this House? The answer is: the House as a whole. Therefore, we are in the same position as the Speaker of the House of Commons. We have been presented with advice from the Clerk, which I have not yet seen, as to a certain course that should be pursued. Just as the Speaker in the House of Commons can accept or reject that advice, so this House can accept or reject this advice.