Elections Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to pick up on a couple of comments. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, spoke about the objection to grouping all BAME communities together and believing that they will not be in favour of an ID card. I have spent weeks talking to people from all communities, including BAME and poor communities, in my own city of Leicester, which is one of the most diverse cities in the country. When I asked them whether they would object to a voter ID card with a photograph, not one person said that they would. I do not understand where this evidence keeps coming from that BAME communities or people on the lowest incomes are going to be disfranchised.

I have spent my whole life in Leicester. I understand the worries that there are in Leicester. One case has been pointed to, but I have had people coming to me, over several elections, worried about the integrity of the elections being held in Leicester. I am speaking about Leicester because it is my home city and I want it to be a city that believes voting in this country is fair for everyone.

When people in this Chamber say that eight or nine out of 10 people are happy with the system as it is today, I do not know who has been consulted or how far that has reached out into communities such as mine, because I would love each and every one of your Lordships to come and speak to people in my home city and get a real reflection of why I am so passionate about making sure that voter ID is part and parcel of the way we take our elections forward. So many people tell me that they do not feel safe or happy with the current system.

Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Desai, I say: please stop talking on BAME communities’ behalf as if all of us are grouped as one lump and we all think and do things in the same way. We do not. We actually are consistent in our duty as citizens to try to partake in elections in the UK, but part of the problem, which I have seen, has been demonstrated to me. At the last local election I was involved with, people showed me two cases where people came with proxy votes: five proxy votes in one case, four in another, and the only registered proxy was one vote in the council.

I really want there to be a genuinely good system for all of us. This is not about the BAME community. It is about the integrity of voting, which is all I am interested in. Not one of the people I spoke to has objected to voter ID. The only clarification I should like from my noble friend on the Front Bench is: will the ID card be for everyone, or for those people who do not hold a photo ID of any kind? Will this £180 million be spent on ID cards for everyone, or is it particularly for those who have no photo ID of any sort? I was not sure about this.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

Can the noble Baroness tell me exactly what “photo” means? Looking at the list produced by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, it could all be contained on one identity card or, as I prefer to call it, a smart card for all.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I am only saying that I have had no objection to it being a photo ID. The implication seems to be that we, as communities, would object and become disenfranchised but I have not found that. This is the only point I am trying to raise.

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Overall, having heard the arguments, having read my noble friend the Minister’s letter of 4 April in response to the Committee debate, particularly the paragraph on turnout, and having heard my noble friend Lady Noakes explain the ways in which our society is changing and the ever-increasing use, in the digital age, of other ways to ensure we have a system that people feel is worth while and want to participate in, and in which their vote is weighed fairly, I think that this is extremely difficult. The Government have the balance about right in what they propose.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise very reluctantly to speak in this debate because I participated only very briefly in Committee. However, it seems to me that ID cards for all—or smart cards, as I tend to describe them —is the future. It is time to move the electoral system on, not backwards, as the Minister is trying to do by describing photo ID or whatever it might be as the way forward.

The way forward is one card. I have gone through the list in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and believe that they could all be on one card: an ID card. In fact, an ID card or smart card could be in the back of your hand, which you carry with you all the time, and not one that you carry in your wallet. A driving licence, a birth certificate, a marriage or civil partnership certificate, or an adoption certificate could all be on a smart card for all and used as an ID card. It could all be contained within one card. You would then use your thumb or finger, or your eye, wherever you need to use your ID card, certificate or whatever it might be.

This policy needs to be withdrawn at this stage of the Bill in favour of the introduction of an ID card or smart card for all that contains many of the things listed. I would object to a bank or building society chequebook, for instance—when did the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, last use a chequebook? I do not even know where mine is, let alone use it. I want to see all those things put on to one card or in the back of the hand.

Elections Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

You need to do both. We are trying to make sure that people in the communities that my noble friend Lady Verma has stood up and very bravely spoken about have the opportunity, as well as others, to take up their democratic right to vote. She rightly pointed out that many people may feel more empowered to participate if they feel more secure in the system—that has come out in research done by the Electoral Commission. In 2021, 66% said they would have more confidence in the system if there was voter ID at polling stations.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

I am very reluctant to speak, because I have sat through most of this and I did not take part in Second Reading, but if an ID card is presented at the polling station, is that taken as proof that you have voted or are voting? There is a photographic ID card.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

If you have the necessary photo ID and your name is on that electoral register—

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

But surely most countries that the noble Baroness has already said are part and parcel of the extension of this scheme have an ID card.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I think that is a different discussion.

Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, as I have said, I am afraid that I cannot respond in detail prior to the announcements of the scope, composition and focus of the commission. However, the noble Lord makes a vital point about our union, the preservation of which is fundamental to the objectives of the Government.

[Lord Maxton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the commission will cover all aspects of the constitution, including that most basic of all: how we vote in both local and general elections? If, as I hope it will, the commission advises that it will go for electronic voting with an ID card which has built into it either a fingerprint or facial recognition so that there can be no cheating, will the Government implement the commission’s proposal?

[Lord True]

My Lords, again, I cannot anticipate the composition and focus of the commission. However, I can say to the noble Lord that the Government have already presented legislation on boundaries, which is before the other place at the moment, and we have also signified that we will look at matters relating to the conduct of elections.

Electoral Fraud

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Postal voting is incredibly useful for many people. It would be disastrous to get rid of it.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

We are pleased that Sir Eric Pickles has produced this report. It is now up to us to look at it and decide the way forward. We will be reporting back on it soon.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, is it not the case that the most obvious way to reduce electoral fraud across the board is the compulsory introduction of an ID card with smart card technology and an identity built in—either fingertip, eye or, preferably, genetic material at birth—and then that card has to be used before you can vote? Eventually, that will lead to electronic voting as well.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

This is obviously one of the things that will be looked at following the report. We will report back further on better ways of making sure of people’s identity when they go to the polling station.

European Union Referendum (Voter Registration) Regulations 2016

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief, although I am tempted to go into a long diatribe about compulsory registration, which I think ought to be the case, as people would automatically be registered and would have to take themselves off the register rather than the other way round. That would be the best way of doing it.

What I am concerned about now, however, is registration for the postal vote. We ought to be extending it in the same way, to the end of tomorrow, because the original deadline to ask for a postal vote was 24 hours after closure of the registration process. Now there will be at least a full 24 hours—that is, today—when no one will be able to apply for a postal vote. I think that that is wrong and I hope that the Government will look at it again and consider whether we might have postal voting for those who apply for registration today.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the Motion proposed by my noble friend. As your Lordships may be aware, although this is not set out in the Standing Orders, it is normal practice for your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I have the honour to be chairman, to report on incidents such as this before they are considered by your Lordships. Clearly that was not possible on this occasion, but I have taken the opportunity to consult as many of the members of my committee as possible. None has raised any objection. I am therefore happy to say to my noble friend that I approve of what he proposes and that my committee has given its informal approval for that process. These are what, in other contexts, we have come to call exceptional circumstances. They clearly apply in this case, and I approve of my noble friend’s proposal.

Electoral Registration

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the evidence that a large number of EROs are not doing their job is not there. Five of the six EROs who were rated last year as not having achieved their performance standards were in Devon and Somerset, rather to my surprise, and not in Labour-held areas—in Devon and Somerset, it tends to be either Liberal Democrat or Conservative seats. The question of training is one that we are well aware of. The Electoral Commission works with the Association of Electoral Administrators and others to ensure that EROs are well trained and do their job as well as they can.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the best way of ensuring that we have full registration is a compulsory ID card with a biological identifier, which would then allow all people to be registered from the word go and to then vote electronically as well with that card? That would ensure the fullest participation in registration and in the election.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I agree with the noble Lord that there are some very large questions about how much data the Government already have about people who are or are not registered and how much they are allowed by current law to pull those data together. I very much hope that, in the new Parliament, we shall debate actively what changes in the law we need for that. Moves towards compulsory registration and the sort of unique individual identifier that he suggests—a lighter form of ID card—may be coming, but that is something that we all need to discuss very carefully.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

You know more than most.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

As ever, my noble friend Lord Maxton is complimentary to me. But, immediately recall becomes a remote possibility, the influence of the press and the media will be enormous. I really do not think that removing any sort of mitigating intermediary between the offence of an MP and a recall petition is the right way to go about it.

We speak lovingly about the need to restore the reputation of Parliament. We speak lovingly and meaningfully about how it is necessary for the highest standards to prevail. If we say constantly that the House of Commons is not fit to control itself, and that it needs people from outside looking in on it to put it right, that does nothing whatever to produce the effect we desire.

I will say just one other thing in passing. When the expenses scandal started—and it was a scandal—it was said that the administration of expenses should be taken out of the control of Parliament itself. So we got IPSA—is it called?—to do that. Has that done anything whatever to improve the issue? All that happened was the press turned on IPSA and said, “You’re worse than the MPs were”. There is no easy answer to this. To imagine that this sort of Bill, especially in its dreadful form, will do anything whatever to improve the standards of Parliament and how it is viewed by people outside is totally mistaken. The only way for that to happen is for MPs to stop the nonsense of accepting that when they get petitions they must say yes to them. They are afraid, apparently, to have any independent views. I accept that as a former Member of Parliament I was subject to the Whips and I would never have been a Member of Parliament without being a member of the Labour Party. I understand the constrictions there are in that. Nevertheless, if we remove entirely any possibility of MPs speaking out for themselves about what may be unpopular causes, that may damage democracy irrevocably.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the issue raised by the whole Bill and by this amendment in particular is whether the House of Commons still has the self-confidence and the self-respect to take responsibility for its own self-regulation. If you introduce the principle of recall, it is a very strong signal that it does not. If you then amend the original Bill so that you emasculate the powers and the capacity for useful action of the Privileges Committee, you demonstrate that the process is even more far gone. If you create a state of affairs in which the Privileges Committee has such greatly reduced scope and discretion to exercise its own judgment in relation to the particular circumstances of the cases before it, it becomes well nigh useless.

It is deeply sad—and, more than that, as other noble Lords have said, it is deeply damaging to representative democracy. I hope that even at this late stage it is not too late for the House of Commons to reconsider the matter. After all, there has been great public anxiety about the conduct of certain Members of Parliament and there was a crisis, but the rational and proper response to that is not to give up on the principle of self-discipline and self-regulation; it is to reform it and strengthen it and make it work effectively, and, that way, rebuild the public’s confidence in their House of Commons.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree entirely. Perhaps I may make one very important point—I had a conversation in the corridor not that long ago with a very distinguished Member of this House, whose name I shall not mention, to this effect: we must always remember that denigration of politics is a denigration of democracy. Democracy and politics are hand in hand; they are opposite sides of the same coin perhaps, but they are the same coin and we should never forget that.

My second point is on the Standards Committee. There is a sense being expressed tonight that it is Back-Bench Members of Parliament who take decisions—they are often the right decisions—but the committee always works on the basis of a report and investigation done by the commissioner. Yes, the commissioner works for the committee, but it does not take a decision just on the basis of some wild allegations that have been made.

As I know to my own cost, the commissioner makes a thorough investigation, perhaps lasting several weeks if not months, and then reports to the committee. In most cases—not all of them—the committee goes along with that report. We should bear in mind that this is not just some ad hoc committee taking decisions on the basis of allegations; it is a serious committee receiving reports from the commissioner and making decisions based on a very thorough investigation.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

But does the noble Lord not accept that, if the recommendation of the report is that the Member should be found guilty, the sentence is in the hands of the committee? This is what we are really arguing about, because it is when it comes to the sentence that party politics come into play. Therefore, because there is a party balance in one direction, you shove it over the 10 days, and because it is a party balance in the other direction, you put it at nine days. It is the sentence that is the critical thing, not the verdict.

[Lord Maxton]

I agree with the most of that, but the commissioner’s report makes a recommendation on sentence as well. In most cases—not all of them—the committee will agree with that report. However, I accept that, given the circumstances that we are now in—which is why I support the amendments—that might change and the commissioner’s report would not necessarily be upheld in the circumstances that the noble Lord outlined. At the moment, the commissioner gives a recommendation as to what sentence should be given. In quite a lot of cases, that recommendation is that the Member should appear before the House of Commons and apologise for their behaviour; it is often no more than that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments contains amendments for which I am able to offer the support of the Opposition Front Bench and amendments for which I am not.

Although the non-government amendments are, I believe, only probing, enabling us to debate issues around this important Bill and the provisions concerning recall that it contains, the Labour Party manifesto at the last general election gave a commitment to introduce a system of recall of MPs for wrongdoing. We support the Bill on that basis.

Amendment 5, tabled by my noble friends Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Hughes of Woodside, would delete the second condition of recall, as spoken to in detail by my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton. The conditions of recall were debated during the Bill’s passage through the other place. It is right to have a condition of recall that responds to the report from the Standards Committee into the behaviour of a Member of Parliament, where the House of Commons on receiving the report suspends the Member for the requisite period. While I have the greatest respect for my noble friends who have spoken in this debate, I am unable to support the amendment today, as I do not think that it would be right, when the other place has taken a view on a matter of such a serious nature as to suspend a Member, for us to change that.

Amendment 7, which was also supported in addition by my noble friends Lord Campbell-Savours and Lady Taylor of Bolton, increases the period of suspension before the recall provisions are triggered from 10 to 20 sitting days. Amendment 8, again in the names of my noble friends Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Hughes of Woodside, is consequential and takes the period in any other case up to 28 days. These amendments, in effect, reverse the positions agreed in the Commons on an amendment proposed by the Opposition Front Bench. When these issues were debated in the Commons my honourable friend Mr Thomas Docherty made clear from the Dispatch Box the reasoning for the amendment: that, despite concerns raised inside and outside Parliament and the reputation of Parliament being damaged with Members doing wrong that resulted in a suspension, with this threshold in place over the past 20 years on only two occasions would it have been met, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said. Those Members who were suspended in the 1990s for taking cash for questions, which was hugely damaging to Parliament, would have escaped the recall provisions. My colleagues in the other place thought that was unacceptable and brought forward the amendment that was agreed to reduce this trigger to 10 days’ suspension.

Amendments 12 and 36 in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock remove the words “or otherwise” in both cases from the Bill. Looking at these amendments I am not sure whether they will have unintended consequences and that is why I am unable to support them. I can see a situation, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said in a previous debate tonight, where an MP finds that they have triggered the recall provisions, maybe by serving a term of imprisonment for one day for demonstrating in support of or with some of their constituents, as other noble Lords have referred to. Rather than waiting for the recall to be triggered, the MP may in fact just resign their seat and fight a by-election immediately. They would certainly in those circumstances have avoided lots of campaigns against them, all spending money to have them recalled, and the by-election would be held with strict election expense limits. It seems to me that by deleting these words in the two amendments we could be denying the Member of the other place that option, and that would be regrettable.

Government Amendments 6, 9 and 10, which have the full support of the Opposition Front Bench and have also been signed by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, in effect seek to future-proof these provisions as far as possible. We are aware that the Commons is or will be looking at these issues in respect of the processes to deal with Members who have done wrong, and these amendments seek to ensure that, whatever the process, the provisions of this recall Bill apply.

The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said—and I agree with him—that the House of Commons is an honourable institution. Members of Parliament from all sides act honourably, work hard on behalf of their constituents and serve people well. Dishonourable Members are very rare and we are all very well served by Members of Parliament. I also agree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Maxton about the denigration of democracy. I also regret that my noble friend—

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We understand that we are dealing with some fairly fundamental principles. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, made an extremely important point about the denigration of democracy, and the depths of public disillusionment which we now face and how we come to terms with that. The defence of democracy is not necessarily the defence of Westminster as it is now, let alone as it was 40 years ago.

[Lord Maxton]

It is the link between politics and the public—the media—which is the cause of the problem, not the public itself. People can only go with what they receive from the media.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I wish I could entirely agree with the noble Lord. There are many good aspects of the end of deference. People question the elite and the establishment much more than they did. We have to be very careful not to think that the preservation of Westminster in aspic is the way to regain or rebuild public trust in politics. I see that I have provoked a few noble Lords. I call upon the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to withdraw his amendment.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

We now have fixed-term Parliaments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I hope that that will not be the case for much longer. After a maximum of five years, if re-election is being sought, the Member of Parliament has to go back to the constituents and seek that re-election. It is for the constituents to come to a decision.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

Within my own party, the Member of Parliament would have to go through a process before he stood before the constituency: he would have to be reselected by his own party as the candidate.

[Lord Cormack]

Oh yes, I know all about that, because they tried to get rid of me on two or three occasions. I know all about reselection. But that, in a sense, is not the point. It is for the electors, at the end of the day, to make the decision, and they have to take into account the record, and the assiduity, of the Member of Parliament.

When I was canvassing I used to say, “No Member of Parliament is ever a mirror of all your beliefs and prejudices—and everybody has both. You have to decide which candidate is better able—or best able, if there are more than two candidates—to represent you. You have to decide which is the one with whom you can identify on more fronts than not”. Constituents will take into account not only the record of the Member, but his attendance record.

In one sense I sympathise with the motive behind the six-month provision. But if a Member has not attended for six months, why is that the case? Somebody has already cited the Sinn Fein Members of the other place. They have been legitimately elected, and they should not be illegitimately ejected because they have done neither more nor less than they promised to do.

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[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I am reluctant to speak in this debate. I did not take part in the Second Reading debate and I have not even read it, unlike the noble Lord.

I am not clear about this amendment. There are two types of misconduct in the House of Commons. There is a very small number MPs who, for whatever reason, fiddle their expenses and who quite rightly should be done for that. Equally, there are Members of Parliament who carry out acts of misconduct in the Chamber of the House of Commons itself, who for whatever reason refuse to obey the Speaker’s rulings, who refuse to sit down, and who will not give way. I have been in the Chamber when, in the end, the Speaker has sometimes been forced to call the Serjeant at Arms to remove the person. The person can then be given a suspension from the House of Commons which is longer than the 10 days. It would trigger these amendments and trigger this Bill, as far as I understand it.

I recall that my uncle, for instance, accused a junior Tory Health Minister at the time—the man was called Banbury—of being a murderer. He was asked by the Speaker to apologise and withdraw the remark, and he refused to do so. He believed that the matter was one of taking milk away from nursing mothers. His wife had just died, after childbirth, as a result of that. He believed that he was right, to the point that he was suspended from the House. It was almost a sine die suspension, in Glasgow football terms. The suspension was in effect until he came to the House and apologised.

I am not sure that these amendments would cover those sorts of offence. If they do, then it is totally wrong that they do. Such offences are a matter of misconduct within the House of Commons Chamber. They break the rules of the House of Commons. It is therefore for the Speaker and Members of the House of Commons to decide that, not for some outside organisation, such as a couple of judges sitting—who, as others have said, would not be prepared to undertake this task.

Lastly, that same uncle of mine did not object to the First World War. It so happens that he was not a Member of Parliament at the time. He went to prison, not because he was a conscientious objector; he went to prison because he committed an act of sedition under the law. He urged munitions workers in Glasgow to go on strike when the war was on. As a result he was sentenced to a year in prison. If he had been a Member of Parliament, would it have been right that he should therefore have been forced into a position in which he could not be one thereafter? Some people would say that it would have been. In my view, he should not have been forced into this position. He would not have been re-elected in 1918 if he had been a Member of Parliament, because Ramsay MacDonald, who was equally opposed to the war, was not re-elected.

[Lord Grocott]

He soon got back.

[Lord Maxton]

He soon got back: I accept that. My uncle would have been elected. It was he who coined the phrase: “Why should we bother counting my votes? Let’s just weigh them, because I know I am going to win”.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend has talked about an important case, arising from his family history and the history of this country. He has just exposed in the Bill that we are examining the inconsistency and confusion between the powers of the Speaker to suspend and the provisions for recall. Do not these demonstrate the regrettable failure of the House of Commons to examine and amend, thoroughly and satisfactorily, legislation of fundamental constitutional importance, and of fundamental importance to its functioning and future? Is that not a good reason why we in this House should feel entitled, with genuine respect, to offer our advice by way of amendments, so that the damage that the House of Commons is inflicting on itself through this measure may be lessened?

[Lord Maxton]

I shall finish by saying that I thoroughly agree with that.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to add my name to my noble friend Lord Tyler’s amendments. It is obvious to us all that he has devoted much hard work to them. As he explained, the amendments arise in part as a response to an important issue in the report on this Bill by the Constitution Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member. He quoted a passage from the report that I will repeat. It is immensely important:

“The constitutional purpose of recall is to increase MPs’ direct accountability to their electorates: it is questionable whether that purpose is achieved when the trigger is put in the hands of MPs rather than constituents”.

This is a Recall of MPs Bill. My noble friend’s proposals, embodied in his amendments, represent a first attempt in this House to see if it is possible to find a way of enabling the electorate to be more fully involved in the arrangements that can trigger recall without breaching the famous Burkean principles that safeguard MPs’ independence of judgment. The amendments further develop ideas put forward in another place. They are probing amendments, as my noble friend emphasised. Of course we understand and accept that more work on these amendments would be necessary before Report.

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[Lord Finkelstein]

I think that this is a misunderstanding. The leader of the party has to sign to allow them to use the party logo in an election, and they may not be permitted to stand for a political party, but that does not prevent them standing in a by-election. I suspect that if Jimmy Maxton had run in that election, he might well have received the signature of the leader of the Labour Party, but in other circumstances it might have been withheld. It does not prevent someone running again in the election; they are not denied this chance; and the electorate are not denied the opportunity to support them. It just means that they will not be allowed under their party act to run as a party candidate.

[Lord Maxton]

The fact is that Jimmy Maxton would not have required, and would not have got, Ramsay MacDonald’s signature on any candidature; he was selected by the ILP in Bridgeton to be the candidate.

[Lord Finkelstein]

And he could run as a candidate, if he wished, in an election, and could receive or not receive his party’s support; I am arguing just that the electorate should have the opportunity to decide, in circumstances in which someone has decided to defy the law, whether to continue to support them as a Member of Parliament. This power will not be imposed on Members of Parliament against the wishes of the electorate; it is a power granted to the electorate. What we have to decide as a House is whether it is reasonable that the electorate be given a limited power in certain circumstances that they can use to enforce standards. I believe that that power is reasonable and limited.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The noble Lord is preoccupied with the past. I am talking about the future. That is all we should be talking about. I am not talking in general terms: I am talking in specific terms about what happens in France. We could also look at Germany where the Bundesrat, the second Chamber, represents the Länder. It has a different role and is elected in a different way. There are different models. We could look at Ireland and different models around the world. We can learn from other countries. We should be learning. We do not have a monopoly of knowledge here in the United Kingdom, so we should be doing that.

I would explain to my noble friend Lord Richard if he were here why I am enthusiastic about a constitutional commission. The issue will not be kicked into the long grass. We are saying that the commission should have a period of two years in which to report. I am enthusiastic for two reasons. The first is because we have piecemeal devolution and centralisation—I think that the Liberal Democrats agree with me on that. That needs to be structured, reformed and looked at. But also, looking at how devolution and decentralisation fit in with this Westminster Parliament will help to bind the United Kingdom, which is in danger of fracturing at the moment. The second Chamber can perform a valuable role, not just as a revising Chamber, but by bringing together the various parts of the nation of the United Kingdom and the regions of England. It is worthwhile doing that kind of exercise.

I welcome the contribution of my noble friend Lady Bakewell because it was not one of those reread, pre-prepared contributions. It was commenting on the debate. I hope that during the rest of the debate—and I hope it is a genuine debate in spite of the Front Bench opposite trying to stifle proper debate—we do not just go back into the old tram lines of whether the second Chamber should be directly elected or appointed. There are different ways of looking at it.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

Will my noble friend include a third option, which is not elected, nor appointed, but abolished?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is an option, absolutely. It is possible to look at a unicameral option. I was in favour of that. When I was in the other place, I voted for abolition. We have heard about the examples of New Zealand and Israel, and all the Scandinavian countries operate unicameral systems. My only doubt is because of what has happened in Scotland. In Scotland, there is one Chamber which is controlled by one party, which is controlled by one man who decides who the Presiding Officer should be and who members of the committees should be. The committees do what they are told and they do not challenge the Parliament or the Executive. There is no House of Lairds to question, challenge or revise. I am beginning to doubt unicameralism because of that. I have made the main point about the future.

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[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, first, I thank my genuinely noble friend Lady Taylor for the way in which she introduced the report, and for the report itself. It is also a great pity that we do not have her joint chairman, Lord Grenfell, with us. I might not have agreed with his contribution, but it would have been well worth hearing—and as my noble friend says, extremely eloquent.

I have a slightly different point of view from the rest of the speakers so far. I do not believe that we can go on tinkering around with Lords reform without having, as the report quite rightly says, a constitutional commission that looks at the way in which our whole country is governed, how those people who are part and parcel of the elected Houses—I emphasise the plural—are elected, and finally, whether we should be in this building at all.

I will address those three points. First, being in the modern world, we have to have a written constitution. We have to lay down exactly what powers this place has and how much power we devolve to other parts of the United Kingdom—not just to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or to Northern Ireland, but to other parts of the United Kingdom as well. To me, devolution was always about devolving power to the people, not necessarily to the institutions that represent those people. First, therefore, we ought to have that part of our constitution in the Bill.

Equally, the changes that have taken place in our society in the past 100 years since we first reformed the House of Lords have been quite remarkable—so much so that we do not appreciate just how much change there has been. In this place there were no women, but there were also no motor cars or aeroplanes, you could not travel the world, there was no internet, telephones, television or radio—none of those things existed 100 years ago. We have achieved all that in part because of democracy: because we are a democratic, free society that allows people to develop new ideas, new thoughts, and new ways of doing things. However, our democracy is now in danger of failing to keep up with that rate and pace of change.

In particular, our younger people do not understand why they should go to a ballot box in some strange school down the road, pick up a pencil and put a cross on a piece of paper to vote, when they could do it with their iPads, mobile phones, or whatever. I suggest that we reintroduce compulsory ID cards, which would form the register and then be part and parcel of electronic voting. That would allow people to vote wherever they want, using some form of encryption to make sure that they are the right people, and would ensure that we had a system which at least our younger people and those who are more adept, shall we say, with the new technologies, could understand and use.

[A noble Lord]

Hear, hear.

[Lord Maxton]

My noble friend says “Hear, hear”, but he is younger than me, and I know how to use those things. We have to keep pace with our younger people in society, moving our constitution forward in a way that allows our young people to say, “That is how we ought to be operating. It’s part and parcel of our life—why isn’t it part of parcel of their lives?”.

That is also to do with the policies in our society. We debate education both down the Corridor, in here, in the Scottish Parliament or wherever it might be. However, no one seems to be aware that the whole of the world’s knowledge is available to me on this tablet—not just the facts, but the ideas as well. Our young people understand that and want to use it, but other people do not.

We are moving to an age when the first person to live to 150 almost certainly is now in their mid-30s or mid-40s. That will become the norm. As politicians we need to be aware of those things and think about them.

My next point is that part of that written constitution has to be to move out of this old building. It is falling apart at the seams and we will have to be shipped out anyway. Why do we not just take the much bolder step of moving out completely? This Chamber and this whole building—certainly for those of us on this side of the House—is riddled with the class system. It is part and parcel of a system of class. It was built for an age when the things I have already mentioned did not exist. We ought to be thinking of building a brand new Parliament somewhere else, which is relevant to the modern age, built for the modern age, in which people can genuinely use the new technologies that have already been developed and will continue to be developed.

I fully support the minor tinkering in the report which can be done without legislation. However, the real part of the report is the establishment of a constitutional commission. That will look at our constitution and draw up a written constitution, which will enable us to relate to the new democracies and the new technologies that are part of democracy. That will make sure that we live in the modern world, that we have policies that are adapted to the modern world, and that we are—if you like—moving forward. The tinkering can no longer take place. The gradual change of our constitution in a world that is changing so rapidly is no longer relevant. We have to ensure that we are part of that change and that change takes place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Labour Party for having brought its group together and congratulate it on the outcome of its deliberations. Like every other speaker, I cannot resist mentioning the affection in which I held Lord Grenfell. I am sure that he will read this debate and note how many noble Lords thanked him for his part in all this.

I would like to draw to the attention of the House the broad political context in which we are holding this debate and looking at these issues, which has not been much mentioned. That context is one of considerable crisis in this country, not just in the political sense. By all the yardsticks, at no time since the last war has politics been held in such confused and, I am afraid, low repute, and it behoves us to look at the issues we are discussing in the light of that. I share the concern about young citizens expressed by a number of noble Lords. The society that we have constructed is of such barbaric complexity that it is almost impossible to get to grips with it, particularly as our schools do not have a compulsory citizenship programme; in fact, it is being cut back as we speak.

I do not know about other noble Lords but, time without number, when friends and acquaintances discover that I am a Member of the House of Lords, they say, “Thank God for the House of Lords; it at least shows a bit of independence”. Much as I am naturally inclined to support an elected House—it seems on every conceivable, theoretical basis to be the obvious thing—as things stand in this country, and as the Commons is now, an elected House is not an option.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, gave some statistics about the occasions when we in the Lords have defeated the Government in the Lobbies. I obtained some statistics a couple of years back from the Commons research department, and they are even more striking than his. In the 11 years up to 2012, we defeated the Government 503 times. In the same period in the Commons, the Government were defeated six times—once in every two years. That allows production-line legislation, which in turn has led to us having the fattest statute book in the whole of the free world, which in turn leads to citizen perplexity, which in turn leads to the impossibility of normal, interested citizens being able to engage with what we do here, because the legislation flashes past in droves so fast that many of us sometimes think, “My gosh, has that already come before the House?”.

Preservation of our independence here is, therefore, the first and foremost priority. That is closely related to what many noble Lords have mentioned—most recently the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—the flight path of Peers getting into this place. Let me emphasise that I do not wish to denigrate the House of Commons or MPs in any way; they are a fine lot of people. I am talking about a system. The fact is, however, that if you come into this place having been a businessman, a doctor, a judge, a vet, a teacher or whatever, you have a complete experiential wisdom that, I am afraid, is not available to young men and women, however able, who have led their entire lives in the House of Commons.

[Lord Maxton]

Very few MPs spend their whole lives as Members of Parliament. I was a teacher before I became an MP. Others I knew were doctors, lawyers, miners et cetera. The range of experience in the House of Commons is wider than the noble Lord suggested.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The noble Lord would have to agree that the trend—statistics have been published in the press in the past three days—is very much towards full-time politics, I am afraid. The number of MPs who have been in politics before they came into the Commons is increasing all the time.

As I say, independence is inconsistent with being a full-time Member of this House. I am anxious about the numbers game because if you are going to have only 450 Members, let alone the 312 suggested by my party, that is not consistent with people having a duty and presence here while continuing their careers in whatever walk of life. Those people are infinitely valuable to this place. Again and again, every day, we are beneficiaries of that experience which is brought into our arena, and is bang up to date.

I therefore hope that we will resist the temptation to have a specific number of Peers. I absolutely agree that we have to reduce numbers. For that reason, I am in favour of a cut-off at 80 years of age—which does not leave me with many years—and although I fear that all age limits are to some extent arbitrary, this proposal is a reasonable compromise and avoids any possibility of judging retirement on any other basis.

I should like to say a word about secondary legislation, which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to and is important. We should do more to make our oversight of secondary legislation, which is much greater in volume than primary legislation, more effective. Our inability to amend secondary legislation is weird. Is there another legislature in the world that prevents such amendments? It was only dreamt up to prevent the House of Lords being an obstruction to the smooth passage of Commons legislation, but that is not good enough. In fact, some noble Lords may not know that it is possible to put in primary legislation a provision that allows amendment of secondary legislation to be built on the back of that primary legislation. It has happened in only six or 10 statutes—I remember the India Act of the 1920s, for example. We should put in all major legislation, under which huge powers are left to secondary legislation, a power for Parliament to amend it. I also agree with the proposal for a three-month delay, which need not be at the expense of rejecting a piece of secondary legislation altogether. We have done that only half a dozen times in our history.

As a low and doubting Anglican, I cannot resist mentioning the reverberating debate about the Bishops. I do not see why—indeed, I see every reason to the contrary—the Bishops cannot be paralleled by the leaders of other faiths. I would like to see a leading Hindu or Muslim or two and so on. That would add to the richness of our debates. Finally, I cannot resist taking up the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who, I think, wanted to abolish titles altogether. That might never see the light of day, but why on earth can we not have an option to choose whether we take a title when we come in here? That at least would ease the feelings that some of us have.