European Court of Human Rights
Lord Morgan Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I have stated the Government’s position, which is that we are members of the convention, and that is also reflected in the Good Friday agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU. There is no change in that position, and the statements to which the noble Lord refers do not reflect the position of the Government.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords—amazing! There were no interruptions. I very strongly support the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Foulkes, who is in effect asking the British Government to obey the law made by Conservative Governments of which the Prime Minister was Sir Winston Churchill. Is not it extraordinary that Cabinet Ministers are flouting the law and, in effect, forcing their own Government to break their word?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, respectfully I do not accept that the Government are flouting the law. The United Kingdom has the lowest per capita number of cases in front of the court of human rights. We represent 0.1% of the court’s caseload. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said a moment ago, it is very important to encourage other countries to obey the law. We continue to play a very large part in the convention and in the Council of Europe, and we support its work across the board. I just add that the situation has changed very significantly since the aftermath of the Second World War, when Sir Winston led that particular initiative. One has to bear in mind that institutions must respond to international changes and developments.
Domestic Abuse: Defence for Victims who Commit an Offence
Lord Morgan Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
The Government are well aware of the effects of alcohol on the whole problem of domestic abuse, but I am afraid I cannot comment on the forthcoming Budget.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
It is a privilege for a Back-Bencher to be allowed to speak. One of the important bodies that takes a keen interest in this area and gathers a great deal of evidence is Victim Support. Can the Minister kindly tell us what kind of relationship or connection the Government have with that body?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
As far as I know, the Government work as closely as they can with all organisations, including the one that the noble Lord mentions.
Human Rights Act 1998
Lord Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, like I think every previous speaker in the debate, I regard the repeal of our Human Rights Act as a backward and indeed reactionary step which would greatly harm this country. Only one other country in Europe, Belarus, has hitherto repealed human rights legislation, and I do not think we particularly want to keep company like that.
It is worth pointing out, as have various other speakers, that it is a concept with a great deal of all-party consensual agreement. The initial pressure for the European Convention on Human Rights came from no less a figure than Winston Churchill, although I do not think that it figures too prominently in the current Prime Minister’s work on that great man. The charter was written largely by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, with the assistance of Sir Samuel Hoare, and much valuable work was done by the Society of Conservative Lawyers—I gather that the noble Lord opposite is a member, and I congratulate him—which pressed for the European convention to be enforced and incorporated into domestic law. The original movement towards having a European charter was of course under the aegis of Ernest Bevin, Labour’s Foreign Secretary. The Liberals were always very enthusiastic for this, as were the nationalist parties of Scotland and Wales. It would be extraordinary and tragic if Britain were the first country to withdraw its signature from this Act.
Many noble Lords have pointed out how minorities, people with very little power or authority of their own, have required the assistance of the Human Rights Act. In what is left of my five minutes, I would like to point out, as my noble friend Lord Murphy did, the damage this policy will do to the unity of the United Kingdom. If we continue with it, we will be a very disunited kingdom. The Scottish Parliament and Scottish legal system are deeply intertwined with the human rights charter and the general concept of human rights. The Scottish Human Rights Commission is very active and, as my noble friend Lord Murphy pointed out, drawing on his own matchless experience, this policy is extraordinarily damaging in Northern Ireland at a time when, with its Sinn Féin Government, it is on the cusp of a very perilous period in its history. In Scotland there is now a serious proposal for a referendum on independence. This is a gratuitous and quite unnecessary way of juxtaposing different visions of justice and therefore throwing relationships within these islands back into conflict. Wales is less closely involved because Welsh jurisdiction is not devolved, which I regret. The report by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, argues strongly for that; even so, human rights legislation has, for example, has been involved in the advancing of the Welsh language.
This is not a serious proposal. There are grounds for looking at the British constitution, but this is not one of them. It is taken out of a spirit of revenge. It is trying to deal with opponents, institutions and individuals who have opposed this Government and it is a policy taken for the wrong reasons. We have a Government who are close to the point of collapse, and a Prime Minister who has already passed that point. It is tragic that the result of these confusions and misunderstandings is that humane freedom, a staple of British culture—I am tempted to say of British civilisation—is now threatened. I hope very much that your Lordships’ House will reject this.
European Union Referendum Bill
Lord Morgan Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Faulks
It is of course the Speaker who decides, advised by the Clerks.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
That is only half true at best. In 2012, we were told by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the Speaker, as the Minister says, is advised by the Clerks, but the Clerks are not expert in the financial details of legislation. Therefore, they consult the Government and so the Government have an input.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I thank the noble Lord for enlightening us on that point. We need transparency in all of this. We need to know who is making the rules and under what criteria they are being made. If the Clerks are going to cite financial privilege in a case such as this, it can be cited for almost every policy change that we suggest which will incur a minimal cost.
It could be argued that the powers of this Chamber, the role of which is to make the Government think again on policy issues, are severely restricted, particularly in relation to electoral issues, where the other Chamber has a very clear vested interest. It is a shame that this issue has now become involved in a wider constitutional debate on financial privilege, but we hope Peers will still assess the merits of this case on the substance of the amendment. We believe that 16 and 17 year-olds are and can be responsible participants in our democracy. We believe that this is their one-off opportunity—a once-in-a-generation vote on the profoundly important issue of whether we should remain a member of the EU. I urge fellow Peers to support us on this issue, and to give these young people the respect and the voice that they deserve. I beg to move.
European Union Referendum Bill
Lord Morgan Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I am very concerned about the public image of the Conservative Party in Scotland after the tartan obscurantism of two or three noble Lords sitting close to me. It is important to remember the official position of the Conservative Party in Scotland. Ms Ruth Davidson, the leader of that Conservative Party, is strongly in favour of this amendment. She argues:
“We deem 16 year olds adult enough to join the army … get married, leave home and work full-time. The evidence of the referendum suggests that, clearly, they are old enough to vote too”.
That was the deduction I drew from the Scottish referendum. It had lots of very unpleasant aspects but the one really good thing was the engagement of so many young people in politics. They got interested and involved. That is a strong argument for this amendment. There is a small Scottish argument for it as well. The question that flummoxed the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which I thought also sort of flummoxed the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is: how do you explain to the Scots young people that Holyrood was prepared to give them a vote but Westminster is not? I think we all know what deduction Scots young people would draw from that, and it is unhelpful to those of us like me who favour the union.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, I had not intended to participate in this debate but the arguments I have heard are interesting and in some cases bizarre. I have just come back from Paris and the reaction of people, including young people, to the terrible atrocities there has in my view a bearing on what I want to say. The arguments we have heard are quite interesting to a historian—namely, that some people in our society need protection, perhaps because of their immaturity or lack of public awareness. To my mind, many of them had a strong ring of the arguments presented strongly in this House against giving the franchise to women a long time ago, and many of the same patronising and ill-informed observations about categories of our society have re-emerged.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, would extend the referendum franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds in the United Kingdom. As I think a number of noble Lords will appreciate, the amendment is incomplete, because it would not enfranchise 16 and 17 year-olds in Gibraltar and does not make provision for the technical legislation and time-consuming operational work that would be required to register these young electors. The question of principle, however, has been roundly debated in Committee and here today. There has not been a great deal of agreement, but I hope that there may be some agreement about the House that it is essential that this referendum should be seen to be fair—and that it should be fair. We should avoid any action that could be seen as some attempt to push towards a particular outcome. That is a significant reason why, with the small changes to enfranchise Gibraltar electors and Peers, both of whom are already entitled to vote in certain elections, the Bill adopts the parliamentary franchise. We want to avoid any allegations of interference and we fear that changing the franchise, including this particular change, could be seen as doing exactly that and could seriously undermine the legitimacy of the referendum.
Much mention has been made of the Scottish independence referendum: how that came about, whether it was opportunism by the SNP, or whether the Conservative Government were somewhat asleep on the job. It took place, and noble Lords have pointed to it and suggested that we should learn a great deal from it. However, just as the franchise used in Scotland was a matter for the Scottish Parliament to determine, I suggest that the franchise for elections and referendums that affect the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a matter for this Parliament to decide. As I am sure noble Lords would accept, a decision of the Scottish Parliament does not and should not prevent this Parliament taking a different approach; the example of Scottish guardians is a particularly vivid illustration.
During the course of this debate there was an interesting use of the concept of a precedent. It is said that this referendum is exceptional, and in one sense it is. However, at the same time the argument seems to be that the decisions of the Scottish Parliament after a referendum involving 16 and 17 year-olds provide a clear precedent and indicate that the franchise should be lowered for this referendum. Yet apparently, as I understand it, the Labour Party will not argue that this will therefore lead to any proposed change in the franchise for a general election. This sits rather uneasily with the argument in Committee, which was, essentially, that the genie was out of the bottle and that once you had allowed 16 year-olds to vote in the Scottish Parliament, the argument was all over. I suggest that we need to look at the argument carefully to consider whether it is right for this country.
Noble Lords have pointed to the difference, but surely, devolution by its very nature gives rise to the possibility of difference. It does not mean that we should necessarily harmonise. The fact that people may do certain things in Scotland aged 16—get married without parental consent, formally change their name, access their birth records if adopted—does not mean that the same rules must or should apply across the United Kingdom.
It is said, correctly, that the poll is exceptional and will affect 16 and 17 year-olds for longer. Noble Lords have suggested that, because the vote will—or should, in view of what the Prime Minister has said—affect everybody in this country for the rest of their lives, that means that 16 and 17 year-olds ought to have a say. But of course, without being frivolous in any way, it follows that 14 and 15 year-olds will have to live with the outcome for longer, and no one is seriously suggesting, except in order to illustrate the argument, that they should be allowed to vote.
We heard about the response of most democracies to the voting age. It is 18 in all the countries in the European Union except Austria. I leave aside Cuba and other interesting examples of democracies. It is also the voting age that has been applied in other exceptional circumstances. In 2011, when the public voted in a referendum with similarly lasting constitutional significance—namely, the voting system used to elect Members of the other place—where was the cry for 16 year-olds then?
Does the decision that we will make with this referendum outweigh in importance all other decisions that Parliament comes to? I suggest that the answer is: not necessarily. For example, there is the decision that in England all those under 18 must be in education or training, yet we do not allow individuals under 18 years of age to participate in parliamentary elections. We have to draw a line somewhere where the voting age is concerned, and I accept that there is always an element of arbitrariness about it. However, arbitrary though it is, it is one that hitherto has generally received approval.
It is said that young people have shown signs of engagement and political activity—for example, in the Scottish referendum—and that this indicates their readiness to vote. However, recent YouGov polling suggested that only 56% of 16 year-olds said that they would like to be able to vote, and that figure decreased to 42% of 17 year-olds and 36% of 18 year-olds. Using democratic engagement and the burst of enthusiasm that there seems to have been, or the lack of it, as the basis for giving or denying the vote would set a very odd precedent. There are of course many 50 year-olds who are not politically engaged, but that does not mean that we are going to disfranchise them. Simply lowering the voting age will not necessarily increase levels of democratic engagement among all young people.
I turn now to the complexity associated with the age of majority and the need to draw a line. Scientific study of the adolescent brain has yet to identify an obvious point at which we can distinguish between adolescents and adults. There is a considerably held view that it is not until the age of 25 that the adult brain reaches its ultimate state of maturity, so we look at the broader framework. A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Blencathra, did not think that at 16 young people were ready to vote. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel—few have more concern about and knowledge of 16 and 17 year-olds—also took that view.
We should not underestimate the gravity of voting. One can say that it is all great fun, we can join in and it is good to enthuse, but it is a huge responsibility. It is a momentous occasion for every individual, and of course a 16 year-old, given the chance to vote, will and should take it very seriously. However, we have to ask ourselves whether, in our desire to enthuse 16 and 17 year-olds, we may be in danger of placing too great a responsibility on them.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, is it not extraordinarily patronising to young people to suggest that they will somehow regard voting as being like a university rag and not a serious intellectual and civil responsibility?
Lord Faulks
That is precisely the point that I am not making. The point I am making is that they will not, and should not, regard it trivially. The question is whether it is appropriate for us to burden them with a responsibility which they will no doubt take seriously. It is not a question of simply saying, “This is a good thing for them to do. Therefore, we should grant them that right”.
Human Rights: Vinter and Others v United Kingdom
Lord Morgan Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord McNally
Let us be clear: the judgment gave an opinion about our law as it stands; there was no case that the outcome of such a decision should make the three prisoners concerned, or indeed any other prisoners, automatically allowable for parole or release. It was a judgment on our law and I think that we have every right to give due consideration to what we should do when we receive such a judgment. I do not think that there has been a delay. As I said in my reply, we will come forward with our response in due course.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, this judgment was supported by, among others, the English representative on the European court. Does it not show, first, that we are virtually unique in Europe, since every other European country has either no life imprisonment or the possibility of revising or reducing it? Secondly, does it not show that the United Kingdom has a far more punitive penal philosophy in these matters? This philosophy ignores the possibility of review or, perhaps, of release. It ignores the basic principle of rehabilitation and denies, in the words of the court, “the right to hope”. The Minister is a humane and progressive man. Is he not anxious about presiding over such a policy?
Lord McNally
I am anxious about living in a time when both major parties advocate a more punitive approach to crime and punishment. I hope that the leaders of both parties will ponder a trend over the past 40 years in our society which looks more to punishment and less to rehabilitation. I should also mention the chutzpah of the Opposition because it was under their watch that this right was taken away in 2003. Whether that happened by mistake or by intention, I do not know, but it was under the previous Government that the provision covered by the ruling just made against us in Strasbourg was passed. We have had to pick up a lot of debris about human rights. The previous Government sat on the prisoner decision for five years and did nothing, so I will not take any kind of lectures from that side of the House.
Whole-life Sentences
Lord Morgan Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My Lords, I am not sure whether in an international court one would take cognisance of one judge over another—I am not sure of the protocol of such courts. I do know that it was a considered judgment that merits careful study by the Government, which is exactly what we are doing.
Lord Morgan
My Lords, does not this judgment raise the very important legal principle of rehabilitation? It does not say that whole-life prisoners should be released or that the British Government should take any action, but it does suggest that they retain what the court called the right to hope, the possibility of atonement and the possibility of a review, as in many other countries. Is this not a very serious issue of penal philosophy that should be considered as such?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I fully agree with the noble Lord, and I think that both interventions have helped to clarify something that is not necessarily clear in coverage by the media. This judgment did not say that anybody should be released immediately or that whole-life tariffs may not be imposed, but it did say that we should look at such sentences in the light of what was described as penological purpose—punishment, rehabilitation and prevention. The court held that the system in England and Wales, which provides only for compassionate release, was not sufficient.
Transforming Rehabilitation
Lord Morgan Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord McNally
Yes, I hope so. I hope that one thing that is seen as a real breakthrough in these proposals is that we will be extending support services to those sentenced to less than 12 months. As many studies have shown, those short sentences have often been the source of most reoffending. Again, to make the point that there is a more holistic approach than that, in the Crime and Courts Bill we are trying to make community sentencing more acceptable to the public by putting a kind of punishment element into them so that they are not seen as the soft option to prison. That is another part of what we are trying to do, as is involving other departments such as the DWP and those dealing with health and social services. It is clear that a more holistic approach to rehabilitation is going to get the most results.
Lord Morgan
The statement very properly deals with some very important issues in our society, such as the high rate of reoffending. The great bulk of offences are committed by people who have already offended and this is adding to the pressure in our prisons; there is also the absence of an integrated system to deal with offenders who, as the noble Lord has said, are immediately thrust back into the community with £46 and no other help and very often no hope. The proposals have important merits which we should recognise right across the House. There is a programme for the rehabilitation of prisoners when they are released; they are not just thrown into the community. There is also an integrated proposal for mentoring them in relation to their problems and particular needs; for example, dealing with drugs or alcohol. There are already examples of this kind of approach, notably the Parc prison in Bridgend, south Wales, and this is very welcome.
I would like to ask the Minister two general questions. The policy of payments by results by private institutions is not one, as my noble friend said, that has been universally successful or indeed effective. Perhaps we could be told a bit more about these geographical regions which will be used to assess whether or not the policy of rehabilitation has been successful. Will there be any uniformity of definition about these regions? What will be deemed a successful result? If someone committing a very serious crime is then back in prison for committing a somewhat lesser crime, is that a successful result or not? I would also ask for reassurance for the probation service at a time when it is experiencing great dislocation and demoralisation. Thank you.
Lord McNally
I thank the noble Lord for those questions. He is quite right: of the three parts of this initiative that attract me most, one is the idea of a proper mentoring programme; another is a real acceptance of “through the gate” as a concept of dealing with prisoners; and the other relates to how to deal with prisoners with less than one year’s sentence. This is a consultation; the actual size and shape of the geographic regions have still to be determined, and will be determined in part by the outcome of the consultation. I suspect that my right honourable friend has in mind some fairly large regions to ensure that we get the kind of benefits of scale that large regions can provide. I cannot be firmer on that but we already have some experience of commissioning in London, where a community services contract has recently been signed that is over a four-year period and £20 million less than the existing contract. I think that they will be largish regions but we are open to consultation.
What is success? This is partly a testing of the market to see what kind of organisations are interested and what problems they foresee. It is not easy; is it one year free from reoffending, is it never reoffending and how do you prove that? It is not so simple but that is part of what the consultation process is about.
Human Rights Act 1998
Lord Morgan Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, referred to the Guardian article by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, in which the noble and learned Lord says that,
“the main proponents of the European convention were Conservatives, including Churchill and Macmillan. The convention was substantially the work of British jurists in a tradition going back to the Petition of Right of 1628 and our own Bill of Rights of 1689”.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Morgan Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Morris of Aberavon
I support the speech made by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. I also spoke on 26 January and I do not intend to rehearse again the points that I made then and others made even better. We are not against a reduction in seats, but it should take place over a longer period of time. It is utterly disproportionate that the seats in Wales are reduced in one go by 25 per cent. That is 20 per cent of the whole of the reduction in the United Kingdom. I support my noble and learned friend.
Lord Morgan
I add my support to both amendments because of the extreme unfairness and inequity with which Wales has been treated. I begin with a reflection of what the United Kingdom is. It is a very special kind of polity. It is not a federal state. It is a union state in which different nations are brought together and, through the mediation of all political parties over 100 years, a union state in which all the nations have equality. They do not seek separatism: they seek equality. Wales in this instance is being treated most unequally.
From time to time, I reflect on a famous Liberal, whose successors do not appear to be very close to his traditions—David Lloyd George. On one occasion, Lloyd George pointed out the sheer hypocrisy of a Tory Government before 1914 who claimed to be Unionists and yet somehow implied that the Irish nationalists were lesser members. He said that they were hypocrites: they were either equal members of the union or not. It seems to me that something of the same attitude is being shown towards Wales on this occasion: that Wales can somehow be dismissed in this casual way without debate as we have heard.
In the status of Wales in a union state, Parliament is absolutely crucial. The representation of Wales in numbers is crucial. We had an intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who is not in his place at the moment, in which he pointed out the quality of people such as Aneurin Bevan, David Lloyd George and my noble and distinguished friend Lord Kinnock sitting behind me. That was an argument for saying that if you had a group of geniuses, Wales could be represented by 10 people or even one person. There is no limit. It is the kind of argument that the noble Lord himself applied when we were discussing the amendment about the threshold for the referendum. There seemed to be no minimum: if only 5 per cent of the electorate voted in a referendum that was absolutely fine. If 40 per cent voted that was fine. Any percentage was fine.
Wales has, as I said in a previous speech, created and won recognition for its status through its power in Parliament, not just the ability of people who have represented Wales in Parliament, but the fact that collectively they are able to make a major contribution and to fulfil the wider role that parliamentary representation can have.
There is a point about the Assembly. The Scottish Parliament has greater powers, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Touhig, than the Welsh Assembly. That has been taken into account in relation to the representation of Scotland in Westminster. We do not know what will happen in the Assembly. We are therefore just second-guessing what the result might be and the sensitive relationship between the Assembly and Parliament is therefore being put at risk. The potential way in which a lesser number of MPs and a greater number of Assembly Members might be able to collaborate is also being put at risk.
This is an unfair distortion of the political process. It is unfair on the Welsh people and on Wales as a nation. When we discussed this previously, the Minister produced an argument that I hope we will not hear from him this time. He said that because Wales is being organised by the same rules as other parts of the country, the unfairness would somehow be accepted by the people of Wales as simply a part of accepting the rules. That is rather like looking ahead to next Saturday when Wales play Scotland at Murrayfield. It is like saying that Wales will be playing by the same rules as Scotland; Wales will be the same pitch but will be playing three men short. That is therefore a fair way of looking at it.
Wales is manifestly been treated far more seriously and severely than any other part of the country. It is at variance with our history and particularly at variance with the history of the previous proponents of the views of the Liberal Democrats who are supposed to be heirs of that liberal tradition. This is treating Wales with contempt. It is putting the union at risk and is likely to cause enormous anguish and a feeling that the tradition to which all parties have contributed has been wantonly betrayed.
Lord Morgan
I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but may I point out that every single argument that he has used is simply mathematical? He has considered no other aspect of Wales at all, culturally, politically or socially, and he has based that on a very selective reading of the British Academy report.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I do not believe that it is simply mathematical. It relates to the principle of equal value, and one value for one vote. That is not a mathematical concept but a matter of fairness. It is equally wrong to suggest that the provision does not have regard to the cultural and historical matters in Wales. I indicated that to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, in the previous debate. I recognise Wales as a constituent nation of our United Kingdom, but other parts of the United Kingdom have their own historical and cultural importance and ties, as indeed do parts of England as well as England as a whole. What I have not yet heard answered by anyone who has argued the case is why a vote in Swansea should carry more value than a vote in Newcastle, Coleraine or Aberdeen. Each of those other cities have their own importance and distinctiveness, and I have not yet heard an answer to why the citizens of Swansea should have a vote to the United Kingdom Parliament that is worth more than the vote of a citizen in Newcastle, Aberdeen or Coleraine.