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.

Scotland

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, those are very welcome words from the noble Lord, speaking on behalf of the Labour Party. I think it is well understood in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom that while political parties may have many differences on many different issues, we are completely united in our belief that the United Kingdom is the best way to preserve peace and prosperity for all the people of these islands. The noble Lord is also entirely correct when he says that this campaign needs to be a positive one. It should be. There is a very positive case for keeping the United Kingdom together in terms of our position in the world, the protection of our citizens and the economic benefits to all the people of the UK.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, at the risk of repeating myself, I have a deep concern about whether the Electoral Commission, which will play a big part in this forthcoming referendum, will be up to the job. Will the noble Lord ensure that the appropriate Ministers meet the Electoral Commission to ensure that it is capable of dealing with the problems that this referendum will throw up?

Scotland: Referendum

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the referendum process is now legally watertight. The draft Section 30 order will provide the Scottish Parliament with the confidence to legislate for an independence referendum if it is passed by both Houses of Parliament.

As to the question of the Bill, there is no Bill before us. We have not seen a draft Bill. We wait to see what the Scottish Government publish. They have not yet published the answers to their consultation process. We would hope to see that soon. The noble Lord started by saying that two years is a long time to wait. We cannot force the Scottish Parliament to publish their draft Bill. We have had this negotiation, we have a time limit and I think that the months will pass by very quickly.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I put on the record that I welcome the fact that there is one question and one question alone. That is right and fitting and it saves confusion. However, in the Statement a lot has been made of faith being put in the Electoral Commission. It should be borne in mind that only five years ago, in 2007, at the parliamentary elections the Electoral Commission had to step aside and the taxpayers of this country had to invite a Canadian expert, Mr Ron Gould, to investigate why 85,000 electors had their ballot paper rejected. That is the equivalent of one and a half constituencies in the Scottish Parliament. Because the Electoral Commission had played a part in preparing the electronic machines and making up the ballot paper, it could not get involved. That was a big mistake. I ask the Minister to pay close attention to the internal workings of the Electoral Commission to make sure that no one in this election has their ballot paper rejected.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I join with the noble Lord in saying that we have come to the right conclusion that there should be only one question. The most important thing in this debate is that we have absolute clarity of result and the only way of doing that is by having a single question with a yes/no answer.

I very much welcome what the noble Lord has said about the Electoral Commission. It is true, as he knows very well, that there was a problem in 2007 and I am sure that the Electoral Commission has learnt many lessons as a result of it. However, his main point was that Ministers should pay close attention to the workings of the Electoral Commission to make sure that this does not happen in this all-important referendum, and on that I completely agree with him.

Parliament Square (Management) Bill [HL]

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I have no intention of seeking to delay this piece of legislation, but I would like some assurances from the Minister. This is obviously a beautiful square, which was greatly enhanced by the cleaning up of the stonework at Westminster Abbey, and of the stonework and the creation of the visitors’ centre here at the Palace of Westminster. However, approximately 10 years ago, the Home Office promised and delivered a Bill through both Houses which stated that it would stop the permanent encampment of people like the late Mr Brian Haw in the square. He turned the square into an absolute eyesore and indeed a health hazard. All sorts of strange things happened at that place because of his permanent encampment. Every time that the police acted on the legislation that was introduced by the Home Office, a judge—and I make no criticism of the judges—duly instructed them to put Mr Haw’s dirty and unsightly equipment back on to the square, facing the House of Commons, where visitors from all over the world would turn up. It was a disgraceful situation.

Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2012

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, apart from the question of the rights and conventions, there may also be a question of communication. The Reasons Committee of the House of Commons could perhaps be a little more forthcoming as to precisely why it feels that it is important to exercise privilege. It is not an absolute requirement. Perhaps it might be possible—without in any way encroaching on the rights of the other place—to explore whether a little more full communication might be possible, particularly in these areas of contention.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I had no intention to come in yesterday and I had no intention to come in today. I rise only to try and be helpful, if that is possible. I took the bother to find out in Hansard what the Speaker said. He said:

“I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in a substantial number of Lords amendments”.

He did not say “all” the Lords amendments, but a “substantial number”.

“If the House agrees to these amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/2/12; col. 826.]

He was not saying any more than that it would be put in the Journal—in other words, it would be put in the minutes of the meeting. I think we are making heavy weather of this matter, if you do not mind me saying so. The House down the other end rejected the amendments. Those amendments then come back to us for consideration; and when they do, each and every one of us can go and seek advice from the Clerk of the Parliament and we can also get a Statement from the Leader of the House—it is a tall order.

It has been hinted again that there might have been influence from the Government on what the Speaker had to say. Let me say that it was like penance every week having to listen to both the opposition and government Chief Whips because they were always complaining and moaning. However, the one thing when it comes to privilege is that it is the Speaker and his advisers alone who decide. The worst thing that a government Whip—or an opposition Whip, if he feels it is to his advantage—can do is to come to the Speaker and seek to influence matters like this. It would be counterproductive. I ask noble Lords to wait until the amendments come. I hope I have not given the Clerk of the Parliaments too onerous a task.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister will agree that the letter of the law has been absolutely clear for three centuries—any money element can give rise to a situation where privilege can be successfully claimed. However, it is not entirely clear, from looking at Erskine May, whether it turns on some discretion vested in the Speaker or in interpretation, although it may very well be that the same result is achieved in the end. One either has a liberal view of the situation or a much narrower one. Looking at it legalistically, there is a world of difference between a range of interpretation and a range of discretion. Might I respectfully suggest that this can be settled only by discussion at the highest level and in the most statesmanlike way with the other place; otherwise, a great deal of the function of this House as a revising Chamber will be totally emasculated?

Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I wish to question the timing of such a decision on the part of the Speaker. It seems somewhat of a waste of time if your Lordships debate provisions which turn out to be completely sacrosanct because of the decision on privilege made at the other end. The expense involved in your Lordships coming here and taking part seems a waste of taxpayers’ money at a time of considerable austerity if the whole procedure is useless. I suggest that the timing of such decisions needs to be looked at.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

Perhaps it would help the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, if I were to say to her that no Speaker takes these decisions lightly. It is not done with representation from the Government, in the sense that they come in and say, “We want to do it this way and you’ll give us a hand, Mr Speaker”. Perhaps I can give an insight into what happens in the Speaker’s study: the Speaker takes advice from the clerks—I stress that is clerks in the plural. You have clerks there who act like the devil’s advocate and put a contrary view. They end up giving strong advice to the Speaker. Therefore, the Speaker is independent in this matter of Government and Opposition—let us not kid ourselves that the opposition Whips are not often in there pounding the ear of the Speaker. If the Speaker’s signature goes on that piece of paper, it is done very sparingly and with considerable advice from those who are experts in this matter.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, that being so, and referring to the Motion that we are debating at the moment, would it not be for the convenience of everybody concerned with the Health and Social Care Bill if, for every amendment tabled, we knew before we debated it on Report in this House that it was subject to financial privilege? We would then know that we were wasting our time, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said. The problem is the lack of knowledge. If we know beforehand and we have a certificate for a money Bill, we know that it is a money Bill. We do not know that with domestic policy Bills. If particular amendments are a cause for concern among the authorities of the other place, that should be signalled before we debate the issue in this House.

Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, the House of Lords has a reputation for courtesy and good manners, as the noble Lord, Lord Wright, has already said. The basic system is very simple: speakers at Question Time and in debates rotate around the various political groups. I believe it is the responsibility of every Member of your Lordships’ House to understand this simple principle and to give way gracefully, as appropriate. That is what self-regulation means. It is also what good manners mean. I hope very much that your Lordships’ House will continue to operate in an effective and efficient manner without having to make this change.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, when I came here two years ago, I looked forward to asking questions, because as a Speaker I was not able to. Of course, in politics, many of us do not go and read a big book as to how things are done—we watch and we listen. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, mentioned the bully boys and those who get in more than others. I watched and listened, and the person that seemed to get in a great deal more than others was the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner; and she could not be described as a bully boy. I said to myself that I would take a good example as a good thing and listened to the noble Baroness and how brief her questions were. I would be delighted if a Speaker or the Leader of the House was able to help an individual by saying that a particular individual should be called. However, the proposal is not to call an individual; it is to say which section of the House should have their turn, which is very different. To me, that is not going to help the person who is quiet-voiced and quiet-minded. If the proposal did say that an individual would be picked, I might have a different point of view.

It seems shambolic, but, in a way, this place seems to work at Question Time. There is a fairness about it, such that the quiet person often does get called. We talk about the Leader of the House being a Minister of the Crown, but the Leader of the House in the other place is a Minister of the Crown. The Leader of the House, although a Minister of the Crown and a member of a majority party, still has an obligation to look after the needs of the House and to be fair. I have seen that fairness demonstrated by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he has said whose turn he thinks it is. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the term that is used: “I think it is the turn of the Cross-Benchers”; “I think it is the turn of the Labour Party”. That narrows things down such that when it gets to the stage of two Labour Members arguing with one another, they should have the good sense to allow someone else to get in; or to say to themselves, “Last week, I got in and perhaps I will let a colleague do it this week”.

I very much enjoy being able to ask questions, including about apprentices. I remind the House that I came out of engineering. One of the loveliest things that my old foreman used to say was, “Michael, if it works, don’t fix it”. I would leave things as they are.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I very much enjoyed listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson—she was very interesting. I congratulate the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and the committee. It is a first-class report.

The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, made a good point. She is quite right. When someone uses the term “you”—the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, is here and was the Deputy Speaker, and I wish I had a penny for every time she stood, as the occupant of the Chair, and told people to be careful of using the term “you”. Using “you” puts some heat into the situation. The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, also makes another good point. We should go carefully about throwing some of our old traditions away. These traditions are valued not only by us but by the public who come here and are made very welcome indeed.

It is right because of the bad-tempered and perhaps shambolic nature of our Question Time that we should have a trial of putting the burden on the Lord Speaker. I use the term “burden” carefully because it will be a burden for the Lord Speaker to pick who shall be called on a supplementary. We should be careful because we keep talking about an overly powerful Executive; if there is anyone with power to call someone, an Executive will try to make approaches—“Call Lord such a one before the other Lord”. The Lord Speaker has got to resist that. No Member of the House of Lords should approach the Lord Speaker before Question Time to say they would like to get in Question 4 or Question 3 or fall out with the occupant of the Chair because they do not get called. That happened down the Corridor and I would not like it to happen here.

I would welcome the monthly business of the Lords because our Government, for good reason, have said we will have to cut back. As we speak, some of our dedicated staff, cleaners and ancillary workers, are being faced with redundancies. Why should we not have a monthly Question Time to find out how our staff, who look after us so well, are getting on? I have expressed an interest in apprenticeships and training and I want to know more about it. Also, about three years ago this House jointly with the other House invested £8 million in refurbishing the Press Gallery. I would like to know whether that money was well spent because I said when I opened the gallery that we had had not one bit of bad publicity about this matter. In fact, we have had no publicity at all. We could ask whether the £8 million has been money well spent.

On Oral Questions, once again I go back to what the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, said: it is time-wasting to read out the Question verbatim. Visitors to the building, watching the proceedings, can have the Order Paper we have and online. The organisation we have broadcasting is, I think, called PARBUL—at least, that is what it used to be called, and it was chaired by the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons. PARBUL can make arrangements when our Questions are being televised to include the words of the Question. There is no need for the Questions to be read out. It is sufficient to say Question 2 or Question 4.

Also, it is a bad practice for noble Lords to read supplementaries into the record. How do they know what the Minister is going to say before they read the supplementary? In other words, they are indicating that they are not interested in what the Minister has to say—they are reading into the record and it makes it look good in Hansard. It is not good, it is artificial.

The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, initiated a wonderful debate. I sat here and listened and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was about the female agents who went into occupied France. It was excellent. Each speaker had only three minutes. That debate was a tribute to those wonderful women who sacrificed so much—some of them their lives—for us so that we could have this democracy we enjoy today. Had it been any less than three minutes there would have been no proper tribute at all. Thank you for listening to me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition for her speech. As I made clear at the outset, my intention in leading this debate was to provide an opportunity for noble Lords of all sides of the House to comment on the recommendations that the Leader’s Group has made. Forty-three speakers have taken that opportunity. It is now my job to try and respond to them. There have been a lot of speeches and a lot of points made in each speech, so this may not be as neat a wind-up as noble Lords might like. Because I do not mention a recommendation, it does not mean that I am either against it or for it. However, there needs to be a process for moving them on from here.

The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, said that there was a broad measure of support for these recommendations, and I agree with him. It is a testament to the committee that that is the case. My noble friend Lord Tyler said that the report was pragmatic and not doctrinal. He was right about that; it crosses party lines. Even in this debate, different Members have taken different views on some of the details, but the broad thrust has been basically supportive.

Even the Leader’s Group recognised at paragraph 9 of its report that only a subset of its recommendations could be implemented with immediate effect but, as I made clear, I believe that a good number of the group’s recommendations fall into that category. That is why I intend to ensure that the House has the chance to approve or reject proposals for implementing a range of the group’s recommendations on the basis of reports from the relevant committees of the House at the earliest available opportunity.

There are of course other recommendations from the Leader’s Group that could not be put into practice without further detailed consideration being given to their practical ramifications, including costs and possible unintended consequences. The noble Baroness herself just mentioned one or two of those. While I am on the question of costs, I was impressed by what my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, said about that issue. That is what I mean: around the House, the clerks, the House Committee and the other committees can look at our priorities. If we want two new Select Committees, we should look at how we can shave some costs elsewhere. It may be only 1 per cent off the total cost of the House but that does not mean that we should not search for efficiencies. I would not want cost to stand in the way of doing some of the very good things that have come out of the report and which the House clearly wants.

I was amused by my noble friend Lord Lucas’s suggestions on hereditary Peers. However, I am thrilled that as from today my noble friend will be able to write to the Clerk of the Parliaments, taking permanent retirement. That would save us some money, and he would be leading by example. Others may be following in his footsteps, although he would not know that when he wrote his letter.

It is only right that the House should not be invited to take a definitive view of all the recommendations in one go until they can each be presented in their full context. That is not about delay; it is about practicality.

What has changed in the House? There has been change over a long period of time. I do not think that anything immediate has happened, apart from some things that are obvious—the general election, for instance, and Labour going into opposition. I think that some 75 per cent of the Labour Party in the House of Lords had never known opposition in this House, so inevitably that is a bit strange. Coalition has thrust up a whole bunch of challenges, such as how we deal with Questions. In fact the greatest benefactors of that have been members of the Labour Party; they get between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of Questions at Question Time. I do not mind that because one of the features of good scrutiny is that the main party of opposition should be in the vanguard of that scrutiny.

There are many more former Members of Parliament who are now Members of this House. What I have found about former Members of Parliament is that they are so used to the firm smack of discipline from the Speaker that they find it quite odd coming here—but more of that in a moment.

There has been a substantial increase in the number of Peers, more than 100 in the past 12 months. There have been issues of assimilation. There is a great deal of expertise. A lot of people have high expectations when they come into this House and there are a lot of high expectations of them among outside groups, but of course when they get here it is all a lot more difficult. We have also had a more substantial and far more active Cross-Bench group. These are all good things, and of course Peers want to justify why they come here so they want more activity. One of the best things that has come out of the report is that we are going to give Peers more opportunities to get involved, to speak in committees and to take part in pre-legislative scrutiny and post-legislative scrutiny and a whole bunch of other things. That is one of the reasons why I think that we have to change.

The noble Baroness the Convenor of the Cross Benches said something good at the start of her speech: if only half the recommendations were implemented, that would transform the House. I am sure that we will do far better than half, but that is a sign of what can be achieved.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, asked about statistics. My understanding is that the really wonderful annual report of the House of Lords, which has clearly not been required reading by the noble Lord, has an enormous amount of statistics on all the kinds of questions that he asked.

I was surprised that the issue of the Leader’s Question Time did not come up more often. I think the House knows how much I enjoy being at the Dispatch Box. It is only because I do not want to hog it selfishly that I am not here far more often.

The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, raised a question about redundancy. I am glad to be able to tell him that no member of the House of Lords staff has been made redundant due to savings cuts. However, those are not really matters for the Leader. They are quite properly matters for the Chairman of Committees—

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I was referring to the whole Palace of Westminster, and my understanding is that there is a 60:40 split. There are staff in this Palace who have been made redundant, but I am glad that, so far, no one in the House of Lords has been made redundant.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I hope they will not be, but it would be for the Chairman of Committees to answer those kinds of questions. I am not sure that I would answer in terms of my own responsibilities, as business management is done by the Chief Whips, but that is another idea that could be looked at.

Some noble Lords have welcomed the idea of getting rid of the second Statement and putting it into a Moses Room. There is some merit in that.

On the question of Grand Committees, morning sittings have not found a great deal of favour—they are quite controversial. The noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, made the suggestion of having them at night. I think that is a rather good idea. If we are going to have Grand Committees, there is no reason why they should not sit until 9 or 10 pm. The Procedure Committee can look at that suggestion, which is something that is very good that has come out of the debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said that I had been opposed to Grand Committees when they were much extended by my very eminent predecessor, Lord Williams of Mostyn. He was right about that, but I conceded the point when we introduced the 10 pm cut-off because I realised that you could not have both: you could not have no Grand Committees and a 10 pm cut-off—the one forces the other. Prior to that change, we regularly sat in Committee at midnight or 1 am, and Lord Williams of Mostyn rightly made the point that we should not make legislation at that time, as 10 pm is late enough. I agree that, if we are going to have the 10 pm cut-off, then we have to have business off the Floor of the House. As more Peers wish to play a part in the business of the House, it means more Bills have to go off the Floor of the House. The House of Lords cannot pride itself on revision and then not actually get enough done to maintain its very excellent reputation.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, highlighted the issue—I wrote “Shameless!” on my piece of paper—of the 10 pm closing time. Having been a government Chief Whip, which is a very eminent post in this House, he knows as well as I do that the Opposition decide the times of Bills. There is a recommendation in the report that the government Chief Whip should stand up at the beginning of business to explain why we are going to sit beyond 10 pm, but it should, of course, be the opposition Chief Whip who should stand up at 10 pm to explain to the House why they have spent so much time on an amendment. However, we shall fight that one out on the Procedure Committee.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith]

I am absolutely sticking to the rules of the House because what both of these amendments propose is an assessment rationally based on evidence as to what the numbers should be. It is impossible, in my view, to answer that question without knowing what the relationship between the Executive and the legislature is going to be. Let me remind the noble Lord and members of the party opposite of what was said by the Deputy Prime Minister in explaining the rationale of the constitutional reform being put forward. One of the things he said was this:

“It is an unambiguous judgment on our part that reducing the power of the executive, seeking to boost the power of the legislature, making the legislature more accountable to the people … collectively introduces the mechanisms by which people can exercise greater control over politicians”.

These are good and fine thoughts, but how do you unambiguously reduce the power of the Executive or seek to boost the power of the legislature if you reduce the number of Back-Bench MPs and do not proportionately or in some other way reduce the membership of the Executive?

It may be that it is not right, as the later amendment proposes, to do that simply on a proportionate basis, but in the Constitution Committee we asked both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, Mr Mark Harper, about the relationship between the Executive and Back Benchers after these reforms. I remind noble Lords what they both said—it is in paragraph 32 of the seventh report of the Select Committee on the Constitution:

“The Deputy Prime Minister recognised that ‘There is a strong argument that says that you must look at this and adapt the number of people who are on the government payroll so that you do not get a lopsided imbalance between those on the payroll and those holding them to account’”.

He is quite right. When is that going to happen? He said: “I totally accept that”, but it is not happening in the Bill. Unless the Leader of the House is going to surprise us by accepting the amendment later—I strongly suspect that he is not going to do anything of the sort—it is not going to happen in the Bill.

The Minister was asked the same question. He also accepted that,

“there is a problem that needs to be dealt with”,

but argued that the Bill is not the right vehicle to do it. What I say, and I care about constitutional reform—sadly, lawyers do—is that this House is being asked to accept, and indeed the country is being asked to accept, a change in the balance between the Executive and Back-Benchers, purportedly in the context of a programme which argues for a reduction in the power of the Executive in circumstances where we do not know what the end result will be.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

On the power of the Executive, I accept the noble and learned Lord’s case that we have to reduce the Executive, but will he accept that when that reduction takes place those who are left should respect the constitution of this country and that the first people to be informed of any ministerial change should be the Members on the Floor of the House of Commons? I am not putting him, as a former Minister of the Crown, in this category, but there were Cabinet Ministers and junior Ministers who could not wait to get into a television studio, but would not come to the Floor of the House. That is why Urgent Questions were accepted. Complaints would come from the then Opposition about this practice, and now I see that the roles are reversed. We are back to square one and there are Ministers who love going to the media, but are not prepared to come to the Floor of the House. The Executive should always be prepared to get on to the Floor of the House.

[Lord Goldsmith]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord and I apologise for not realising that he wanted to intervene. The point that he makes is that part of the point of the relationship between the Executive and the legislature—the Executive and Back-Benchers—is precisely that Back-Benchers and Parliament as a whole can keep Ministers to account. If you get an imbalance, where the Executive stays the same but the number of Back-Benchers reduces by 10 per cent or thereabouts, that ability for accountability disappears.

I come back to the question raised by the Leader of the House—why is this relevant to this amendment? It is relevant to this amendment—to both amendments—because both talk about the need for assessing on a rational basis what the right position should be. I do not see, given how important is the relationship between the Executive and the rest of the legislature, how we can address the issue without dealing with the number of Back-Benchers compared to the size of the Executive. An independent commission could look at the question and make recommendation; so, indeed, no doubt, could a Speaker’s Conference. Either of the amendments has the benefit of that assessment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

My Lords, of course I agree.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, perhaps I may speak briefly. The reason that this Bill should go to the Examiners is that we have heard one former Lord Chancellor say one thing and another former Lord Chancellor say another. We have heard advice from eminent QCs. When I was Speaker, I got advice from eminent QCs and sometimes it was not too good. Quotations have been made about previous Speakers giving rulings on hybridity. However, a Speaker would most certainly have taken advice from his Clerks, and Speaker’s counsel would also have been present. Therefore, a procedural expert and legal expert would have been present before the Speaker went to the House.

I do not really want to get into arguments about special cases around the country, although I support the case for the Orkneys, the Shetlands and the Western Isles being special. Anyone who knows Members of Parliament who have represented those constituencies—as some here previously did, the law officer being one of them—will know that sometimes the distance that MPs have to travel in doing their duty is such that they have to stay overnight in Glasgow before going on to their constituencies. This is not just an argument about people being allowed to vote; we are going beyond that—the electorate should also have access to their Members of Parliament. There are other constituencies with difficulties similar to those of the Western Isles and the Orkneys. I know the geography of Scotland but this is not just about Scotland. I also understand the argument that has been put forward about the Isle of Wight and I sympathise with that case. However, it is also true that, on leaving Glasgow airport, I could be in my constituency within half an hour, whereas the MP for Argyll and Bute would take a two-hour journey to get to his constituency. Getting to the famous island of Islay would involve taking a ferry, which would also take hours, and two ferries are required to get to Mull and Iona.

Although I did not intend to do so, I am beginning to put cases for special consideration because there are very difficult circumstances in which MPs have to operate because of the location of their constituencies. It would do no harm for the Examiners to look at the matter. I remember that when I was a lay magistrate, I was told not to worry about an appeal because it was a safety net. We could get the Examiners to look at this matter and it would be clear for everyone to understand.