Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Tyler
My Lords, I will not detain the House long as I made our position clear in Committee and it has not changed. As I said then, we believe that my noble friend Lord Lexden has hit on a very interesting and important issue about nationality and representation. There is clearly a strong case for some rationalisation and, indeed, for a careful look at the way in which our EU partners handle this issue, as was again said today. At the same time, we must note that the majority of them have a very different electoral system from our own. Here in the UK, we have a system of single-Member constituencies with a special link between an MP and his or her constituents. It is irrational to have people who used to live in my old constituency in north Cornwall, for example, still on the electoral roll 15 years or more after they have left for possibly sunnier climes.
Let me clear up any misunderstanding: every UK election, with the notable exception of European parliamentary elections, is in a sense a local election. Voters in a particular locality decide which local representative would in their judgment best represent their interests and those of that specific locality. It is also true that many local issues, from development threats in that locality to the level of council tax more generally, can be major factors even in a UK parliamentary election. For those who have left that locality 15 or more years ago to have a potentially decisive voice in such an election is illogical. I still remember the occasion when I was elected with a majority of nine. For all I know, that majority of nine came from many thousands of miles away and had no direct interest in that locality and that local parliamentary election.
Last week my noble friend Lord Deben, who is not in his usual place this afternoon, attacked me on this issue in a splendidly enjoyable diatribe. I make it clear: I do not defend or, indeed, reject the single-Member constituency that we have at present in the UK, but it is a fact of political life. Therefore, anything we do on this issue has to take that into the reckoning. If he or anybody else is now expecting a change to a multi-Member or list electoral system for the House of Commons, I am as surprised as I am delighted. However, I do not think that he is.
In the absence of any such reform, we urge my noble friend Lord Lexden to think again about his strategy. If he is to address the anomalies that he has rightly identified, he must take up the issue of an additional constituency for overseas voters. Several contributors to last week’s debate in Committee, including my noble friend Lord Lexden, referred to the French arrangement for overseas voters. Indeed, again, he made very important reference to the experience of French overseas voters. However, the significant point is that they have a separate constituency; they do not interfere with the individual constituencies in mainland France. In those circumstances, we believe that this amendment puts the cart before the horse. We believe that the creation of a separate constituency on the French model—or, indeed, constituencies, if the numbers justify something beyond one constituency—would be a much more appropriate way to make this injustice less of a problem in future. Surely that is the right and only way for the interests of former UK residents to be represented without diluting those of the people who still live in this country.
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I support the amendment moved so ably by my noble friend Lord Lexden. It is a novel amendment but a modest one. In Committee, there were essentially two objections to the proposal to extend the 15-year limit on British nationals who live abroad having the vote. A third objection was to the mechanism proposed by my noble friend, which is again before us today.
One objection to extending the 15-year limit was that citizens who have retired to live abroad and enjoy the sunshine of foreign climes had effectively fled the United Kingdom and therefore should not be able to vote—certainly not for any great length of time. My noble friend Lord Tyler referred in Committee to the fact that some people may deem them to have deserted these shores. That is to misunderstand the situation of British nationals living abroad. Most emigrants from this country live abroad for work-related purposes. Some will be moving around the globe for their companies, which may well be UK companies. The fact of living abroad for some years is no proof of leaving the UK on a permanent basis.
My noble friend Lord Tyler raised a second objection, to which he referred again today. He argued that citizens living abroad do not have a clear constituency link, and he queried how an MP could represent,
“people who live perhaps thousands of miles away in a very different economic and social context”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 481.]
Well, I presume that they can do it in the same way in which they currently represent those who live abroad but have not yet done so for 15 years and are registered to vote. It is perhaps also worth reminding ourselves that the MEPs for the south-west of England also represent Gibraltar, where people live some way away in a different economic and social context.
The other objection was raised by my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble in respect of this particular amendment, on the grounds that it would be unusual to make such a change in secondary legislation. I note that he said “unusual” and not “unique”. In any event, what is involved here is not a new right but an extension of an existing right. Far greater changes affecting individuals are made through secondary legislation than is being envisaged here. What the amendment does is provide some flexibility. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Gardiner said that the question of extending the time limit,
“remains under consideration within government”.
The amendment provides the means to move forward, should that consideration result in recognition that the time limit should be extended.
The grounds for extending the time limit were made in Committee by my noble friend Lord Lexden. As I stressed in that debate, we need to recognise the contribution made to the United Kingdom by citizens living abroad. They are a major source of soft power for the United Kingdom. My noble friend Lord Gardiner acknowledged,
“the continuing loyalty to the United Kingdom of so many who have lived and worked overseas for many years”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 489.]
We should look upon our citizens around the globe as a continuing asset and not as a body of people to be cast aside and treated as having deserted these shores. If they wish to demonstrate a continuing commitment to the United Kingdom, they should be enabled to do so.
My noble friend’s amendment provides the means for doing so but, at this stage, without commitment. It enables the Government to complete their consideration of the issue. I therefore commend the amendment to the House.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I intervene only briefly to ask a question, because the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, quite rightly drew the House’s attention to the sensitivity in very marginal seats to votes coming in from abroad. I want to know what happens in conditions of fraud. We have an individual registration system and the suggestion is that we should extend the right to vote to those who have been overseas for more than 15 years. What happens if a fraud takes place? Where are those involved to be prosecuted? Can they be prosecuted? Are they to be extradited? Does this not raise all kinds of problems in terms of prosecution? Perhaps the Minister can give the answer.
Lord Norton of Louth
“Opt-in to the edited version of the electoral register
(1) From 1 December 2013, the inclusion of the name of an elector on the edited version of the electoral register shall only take place when the elector has given permission for his name to be included.
(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), permission shall be deemed to have been given when the elector ticks a box on the electoral registration form indicating that he wishes to be so included.”
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, in Committee I raised the issue of the edited version of the electoral register. I return to it in this amendment because of the Government’s unsatisfactory response. The edited version of the electoral register engages important principles regarding personal data. The edited version is generated as a by-product—essentially a commercial by-product—of a citizen’s duty to supply personal data in order to be registered to vote.
I made the case in Committee for the edited register to be abolished. I had argued the case before and, in making the case in Committee, I was able to pray in aid the Electoral Commission, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons and the Association of Electoral Administrators. Each has argued the case for abolition. In Committee, I quoted an editorial of the Guardian in December 2011, which argued that the edited register,
“lingers on, a travesty of the democratic process that sullies the relationship between voters and state, and illustrates just how casually politicians think about democracy”.
In its briefing for Committee stage, the Electoral Commission contended that prohibiting the publishing of the edited version was,
“particularly important, given the need to maintain people’s confidence in the security of their personal details”.
In responding, my noble friend the Minister said that, on balance, the Government had decided to retain the edited register because of what was seen as a greater principle—that of commercial gain. There was no engagement with the argument beyond that. The Government’s stance would presumably justify reverting to the sale of the full register to any organisation that wished to purchase it.
However, given that the Government have decided in favour of retaining the edited register—and we will doubtless return to that issue in the future—I have decided to pursue the issue of the opt-out. In Committee, I argued the case for electors to opt in to the edited version of the register, rather than—as now—opt out. This is, to my mind, crucial in the use of personal data. If electors are to have their personal data sold to third parties, then they should have to give their consent to it being sold in this way. As I said in Committee, consent must be given rather than assumed. That need for consent is reinforced by the Minister’s reminder in Committee that under individual electoral registration, an individual’s choice—or rather, in many cases, assumptions made about an individual’s choice—will automatically be carried forward.
The Electoral Commission, in its briefing on today’s amendments, has made clear that it supports this amendment. It states:
“We believe that, if individuals are required by law to provide personal information for the purpose of electoral administration, they should be asked clearly if they also want their personal information to be sold. Their personal information should only be sold if they have explicitly given their consent”.
In Committee, the Minister’s line of argument was essentially that the situation had improved since the days when the full register could be sold—rather ignoring the circumstances leading to the creation of an edited register—and that the existing situation provided appropriate protection and control. That was asserted rather than justified. Where personal data are concerned, we need to apply a higher threshold than that which is being applied. The present arrangements rest on assumptions about electors’ wishes rather than their explicit consent and what appears to be implicitly the view that changing to an opt-in provision would be too much trouble. Perhaps in reply my noble friend will explain what precisely the obstacle is to moving to an opt-in provision. Surely the principle of consent must outweigh the claim of convenience.
I will raise a general point deriving from this amendment and from others moved in Committee, not only by me but by other noble Lords. The Government appeared unwilling to engage with points of principle relating to the franchise and to the protection of personal data. Their response was couched essentially in terms of convenience and practicality. This bears out the concern expressed by the Constitution Committee in its report of the previous Session on the process of constitutional change. More than a decade ago, when I chaired it, the committee expressed concern at the lack of a culture within government of dealing with constitutional issues. As the committee noted in its report of last Session:
“The evidence we have received points to this lack of coherence remaining a serious problem”.
The Government need to demonstrate that they are able to engage in debate about the principles underpinning our constitution and the way in which we conduct elections. My amendment raises important questions that take us beyond matters of administrative convenience. If the Government are not willing to accept the amendment, they must give a compelling argument for their stance. We need to do whatever is necessary to protect personal data and the integrity of the registration process. I beg to move.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, as always, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, made a compelling case. However, it would be wrong to suggest that the current situation is in place not because of a very long, very careful, very extensive and very thoughtful process. The edited register is the result not just of some quick legal judgment but of a long political process, started by the previous Labour Administration.
The electoral register has been available for sale in one form or another since 1832. In 1999, Labour rightly recognised—before the register was challenged in the courts—that there was a case for changing the Victorian arrangements. In 1999 a Home Office working group recommended, first, that electors should be allowed to decide whether their personal details should be included in a register that was made commercially available and, secondly, that the full register should continue to be available to electoral users, while a licensing arrangement should be agreed to ensure that its use was restricted to electoral purposes only.
As far as I am aware, that recommendation was by broad agreement across the parties. The situation resulted in Section 9 of the Representation of the People Act 2000, which created the so-called “edited register”. It was only when the Government consulted on how to implement the new principle that they were challenged in court about the old system. In 2001, Brian Robertson from Pontefract won his case when the judge concluded that the compulsory disclosure to commercial organisations of data given for electoral purposes was in breach of the Data Protection Act and of the newly passed Human Rights Act. He won the legal point in court, but it appears that the political and moral point had already been acknowledged by the Labour Government in 1999, and here in Parliament in 2000. The edited register was finally implemented in regulations in 2002. The problem that the amendment before your Lordships seeks to solve is one that has already been dealt with in the 2000 Act and the 2002 regulations.
Your Lordships’ House is always rightly concerned about the unintended consequences of legislation that we scrutinise. We should be particularly alert to the unintended consequences of this amendment. The edited register does not just have a commercial purpose; it is also used by a great many charitable organisations. The suggestion from my noble friend that it was only commercial reasons that the government Front Bench advanced last week may or may not be true, but those reasons certainly are not my concern. My concern is that a large number of highly reputable, very public-spirited actions by very public-spirited organisations could be impeded by the removal of the edited register, or by it becoming ineffective. For example, the Salvation Army is a particular advocate for its retention. Each year it finds and reunites some 3,000 families by using the edited register. That is as much an issue of principle as of practice. The edited register underpins efforts to locate and connect organ donors—which, again, is very important—and even bone marrow donors.
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I am grateful to those who have contributed, and especially to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for his support on this amendment. I do not regard the responses that I have heard as particularly satisfactory. The Minister’s objection appears to be that electors are not bright enough to understand the difference between an opt-in and an opt-out. However, we do not know whether citizens are making an informed decision because they are not making that opt-in choice. It is notable, as happened in Committee, that neither my noble friend Lord Tyler nor the Minister addressed the core issue of principle that I raised. The objection was really practical—who benefits from the edited register—rather than on the core point about the use of personal data, how they are protected and whether people make an informed choice. In many respects, the points made by my noble friend Lord Tyler bore out the point I was making.
The fundamental point is that we place stress on the protection of personal data. As my noble friend Lord Tyler said, we had long discussions leading up to the Act in 2000. I took part in those discussions and made the case that what we did then did not go far enough in terms of the protection of personal data. It is definitely something we need to pursue and return to. As far as I am concerned, the Government need to think again. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, have said, the Government need to engage in serious research on this. It is not something that is going to go away. It is something we will doubtless come back to; indeed, we will come back to it.
On this occasion, we are clearly not making much progress but at least we have put down a marker. We will return to it because the protection of personal data is extraordinarily important. There is a core principle: people must give their consent. If the edited version is going to collapse because they do not give their consent, then I am sorry, but they must give it. In my view, electors are sufficiently intelligent to understand clear instructions on the point of an opt-in and opt-out. If the benefits are clearly explained then at least they can make an informed choice. However, it really must be up to electors rather than the Government making assumptions on their behalf. As I say, we will return to this, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, there is a problem of trust in the process of registering and voting. I believe we should privilege the integrity of the ballot over convenience. We have leaned a little too far in recent years towards convenience. I therefore welcome the Bill—it is a step in the right direction. However, I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Rennard that we should aim for a full as well as an accurate register. They should be seen as compatible goals. We need to ensure that the resources are made available to deliver on those goals; it is a question of resources as well as rules.
I had intended to devote the first part of my speech to discussing individual electoral registration, but most of the points I wanted to make have already been made. I will therefore discard that part of the speech and not repeat what has already been said. Instead, I will focus on concerns not yet expressed by others. I have a concern about one particular provision of the Bill and then I wish to address what I see as two omissions—both were touched on in debate in the other place.
The first concern relates to Clause 21, repealing the provisions of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 for the creation of a,
“co-ordinated on-line record of electors”.
I recall the debates we had when the 2006 Bill was in Committee. The Government do not wish to pursue having such a database because, as the Minister, Mark Harper, said last year in a Written Ministerial Statement, establishing such a system would not be,
“proportionate, cost-effective or consistent with the Government’s policy on databases and reducing the number of non-departmental public bodies”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/11; col. 70WS.]
I understand all that. It may be an expensive way of getting rid of redundant entries as well as ensuring that people who are registered at more than one address do not vote more than once. Given that the Bill is designed to enhance the integrity of the register, it is incumbent on the Government to explain what they propose in place of the provisions for an online record of electors. I do not think that Clause 21, by itself, is sufficient. Therefore, I ask the Minister, what is the Government’s alternative? What plans do they have to take to prevent fraud in this respect? The introduction of individual electoral registration is necessary for that purpose, but it is not sufficient.
My other concerns cover what is not in the Bill. There are two omissions. First, the Bill does not address the 15-year rule for those British nationals who live overseas. In the last Parliament, I raised the issue of British nationals working for international organisations. Here my concern is more general. It is an issue that was raised in the other place during the passage of the Bill by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown. As he noted, although there are 4.4 million British citizens of voting age living abroad, only just over 23,000 are registered as overseas voters. In response the Minister, David Heath, said that the Government would give the issue “serious consideration”. I appreciate the reasons for not wishing to rush to judgement. There are practical issues as well as the issue of principle raised by the Minister—the two come together in terms of ensuring the integrity of the ballot. However, there is a countervailing principle in respect of the rights of those who, while they may live abroad, retain British citizenship. It will be helpful if my noble friend gives some indication of the Government’s thinking in the light of the discussions in the other place.
The other omission is a provision dealing with the edited electoral register. This is something that I have raised on a number of occasions. An edited register is produced as a by-product of citizens fulfilling a statutory obligation. There is the option not to be included in the edited version, but it is an opt-out process and one exercised at the moment by the head of the household. The move to IER will at least ensure that individuals are exercising their right to opt out. None the less, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons as well as the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators have argued that the edited register should be abolished. A survey by the Local Government Association and the AEA found that almost 90% of electoral officers surveyed believed that the practice of selling the register discouraged people from registering to vote.
There are thus significant problems arising from the generation and publication of an edited register. I am familiar with the arguments for its retention. The magazine Parliamentary Brief has regularly rehearsed them, albeit ignoring the fundamental objection of principle adumbrated by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and one that I have previously advanced. The arguments for the edited version were also repeated at Second Reading of the Bill in the other place by Dan Rogerson.
The Government are seized of the issue and have undertaken a consultation on the future of the register. In response to the report of the Constitutional and Political Reform Committee, they said the arguments were “finely balanced”. During the Committee stage of the Bill in the Commons, Mark Harper reiterated the point in saying that the Government had decided to retain the register. That decision is one that we need to explore in some detail. There is the argument of principle. If the edited register is to be retained, then we need to address a number of changes that may be necessary. At present, the edited register can be sold to anyone. Direct marketing companies—generators of junk mail—are on a par with charities and other bodies pursuing functions that may be as meritorious as those of some of the bodies that are entitled to copies of the full register.
Inclusion in the edited version is automatic unless one makes the conscious decision to opt out. The information provided to electors as to the nature of the register and their right to opt out is not as clear as it could be—I gather practice varies. If the edited register is to be retained, then these are all points that need to be addressed. Again, it would be helpful if my noble friend could indicate the Government’s thinking.
I welcome the Bill. As we have heard, the principle of IER is compelling, but it is essential that its implementation is sound. We cannot afford to skimp in ensuring that a fundamental civil right is delivered.
House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]
Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, this is a timely Bill which has been brought forward by a parliamentarian and colleague for whom we all have the highest regard. I think I am right in saying that the noble Lord has served in three legislatures, over one of which he has presided. On a memorable occasion he sought election to a fourth, the European Parliament. He has enormous experience and, most important, he is a man of great wisdom, integrity and, if I may say so, of humanity. I therefore come to any Bill drafted and presented by him with the greatest respect. But I hope he will forgive me for saying that, though I certainly hope the Bill makes rapid progress, I do not share the noble Lord’s hope that it will go through without any amendment and therefore without the need for a Committee or Report stage.
I will take the clauses of the Bill in turn. I entirely agree with Clause 1 on retirement. That is a necessary measure to introduce—no doubt it should have been brought in years ago—and I have no difficulty in supporting it. I also agree with Clause 2 on non-attendance. I take it that the reference there to our Standing Orders fully provides for the possibility that someone might need to take absence on medical grounds for a year or more but would then be able to come back and resume his or her responsibilities. On that basis, I am extremely happy with Clause 2.
My problems arise under Clause 3. Let me explain: first, I am mystified by the reference to “one year” as being the defining point beyond which a sentence of imprisonment would result in the automatic exclusion or expulsion of a Member. I heard a rumour or suggestion—I do not believe that it is true—that the reason the noble Lord had thought of one year was because it would have caught one individual and excluded another who he had in mind. I cannot believe that that is correct because that would of course be an ad hominem form of legislation. The law should be based on universal principles universally applied. The attempt to simply target one individual rather than another would amount to a Motion of impeachment, or non-declared impeachment. We would not even be able to consider the merits of an individual case or look at the evidence. That would involve the breach of a whole range of the rules of natural justice. I am sure that the noble Lord had not got that in mind. It may be the case, though I am not aware of it, that in sentencing people convicted of criminal offences courts distinguish very specially between sentences of, say, 12 and 15 months and there is generally regarded to be a great qualitative step between those two points. But I have never heard that to be the case and I do not know that it is. If it were, there would not be any assurance that it would remain so, so that would not be good grounds for making that distinction.
I am very worried about the 12 months. I would like to know the rationale for it. I totally understand that the noble Lord wanted to distinguish between a criminal offence and a serious criminal offence. After all, to drive at 65 miles an hour in a 60 mile-an-hour zone is a criminal offence. Even if you did not notice that there was a sign saying that the speed limit was going down from 70 to 60, it is still a criminal offence if you are driving at 65. If traffic violations of that kind were grounds for automatic expulsion, I think quite a lot of us might have an individual problem. So I quite see the need to find some particular criterion but this is not a very satisfactory approach, for the reasons I have mentioned. There is a better way, which I will come on to in a second.
My second problem is much more serious. I do not believe in the idea of automatic expulsion. Here I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Wills, who made exactly the point that I had in mind to make. He said that he could not think of any particular examples but that there could well be some anomalies and injustices involved in having an automatic mechanism of that kind. I can think of some notable examples, not going back to the Middle Ages or the 16th or 17th centuries but to the last 100 or 150 years, when parliamentarians—Members of the House of Commons, at least—have been sentenced to prison. Fortunately, they were not as a result excluded from Parliament or from standing again. Had they been so, in retrospect all of us would have regarded that as a national scandal.
Let me mention a few names that will be familiar to noble Lords. Jimmy Maxton was imprisoned for a speech he made in Glasgow in the middle of the First World War. Arthur Jenkins was imprisoned at the beginning of the 1920s for aiding and abetting an illegal strike. George Lansbury—I put it to noble Lords that there has been no finer human being or man of greater integrity in British politics over the centuries—went to jail in 1913, just before the First World War, for a speech in which he supported the suffragette movement. Look at the large number—I think dozens in all—of members of the Irish Parliamentary Party who went to jail under the Coercion Acts that we passed here in the 19th century, including Parnell and Redmond who are two enormous figures of Irish history. Indeed, Parnell is a dominating giant of Irish history. They were also two very great parliamentarians. I think there have been no greater in Westminster and the House of Commons than Parnell and Redmond—fine men who dominated that Chamber for decades. They went to jail under the Coercion Acts and would automatically have been excluded from Parliament for all time if we had had the automatic mechanism contained in the Bill, so I do not believe that it is the right way forward.
What is the right way forward? I think it is the one that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has resorted to in Clause 3(5). There he has reserved it for Members of the House of Lords who might be convicted in a foreign court with a sentence of more than one year. Of course, I totally see the logic of his making that particular provision in the light of the other provisions of his Bill. Clearly, in some foreign courts, it would be an offence, perhaps imprisonable for 12 months or more, just to criticise the current dictator or the ruling party in a one-party state. It is quite natural that he has decided to make provision for that eventuality in Clause 3(5). By doing so, he has recognised that there might be circumstances in which we need to consider the merits of an individual case. If we can consider those merits when someone has been imprisoned for a criminal offence—or supposed criminal offence—in a foreign court, why can we not consider them when he or she might have been convicted and sentenced to prison in a court in the United Kingdom? The noble Lord has admitted the principle of this alternative approach. I put it to him that he has solved the two problems that I have set out. That particular approach would be the right one to adopt in all circumstances. We should use the opportunity of the Committee stage of the Bill to remove the automatic mechanism and replace it with one along the lines of that he anticipates in Clause 3(5).
I have one final point. I am not clear that the Bill as currently justified would not contain an element of retrospectivity. I am sure that it would not be the noble Lord’s intent that it could be retrospectively applied but it does not explicitly say that it should not be. I see from the gestures of the noble Lord that he totally agrees with me on that. It would therefore be desirable to introduce a new clause or provision into the Bill in the course of the Committee discussions making it absolutely clear that there is no retrospectivity. There may be many of us on both sides of the House—I put that in the subjunctive for obvious reasons—who regret that we did not have in place a provision for expulsion when one or two egregious breaches of the criminal law, and what we might all think of as rules of personal honour and morality, were breached by Members of this House recently. Yet we did not have that mechanism in place at the time and we cannot retrospectively apply a penalty that did not exist at the time that those actions were committed. Therefore, we must make it absolutely clear that we stand by that fundamental principle that the law must not be retrospective.
With those few comments and suggestions, and looking forward to the future stages of the Bill—which I hope will proceed as rapidly as possible—I congratulate the noble Lord on the initiative that he has taken. The whole House will be grateful for it.
Lord Norton of Louth
Is the noble Lord aware that the purpose of Clause 3 is simply to bring this House into line with the House of Commons in terms of the triggering mechanism for expulsion? While I am on my feet I will just mention that the wording of subsection (5) is taken from the previous Government’s drafting of the original Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill in 2010.
Lord Davies of Stamford
When we consider legislation, we really must consider it on its merits and look at the general principles to which we in this House are attached and which we believe should guide and inspire legislation. It is not a good excuse—if I may say so—for bringing in bad or inadequate legislation or legislation that conflicts with those general principles that one was at some point in the past a member of a Government who in one particular, peculiar situation may have done something that creates a precedent for the bad proposal that is before us. I stick by the comments I made just now, and I do not believe that, whatever may be the case in relation to precedent that the noble Lord cites, we should do other than look at the merits of the case.
Lord Norton of Louth
Is the noble Lord therefore saying that the House of Commons is wrong in its provisions for expulsion?
Lord Davies of Stamford
I do not wish to repeat the speech that I have just made, but I have explained that I think that the Bill as currently drafted is not correct and could be improved. I hope it will be improved along the lines that I have suggested.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon
I am sorry; noble Lords may not like this—
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I have the figures in front of me. There are 15 wholly appointed second Chambers in the world—16 if you include the United Kingdom—but they do not include the legislatures just referred to by the noble Lord.
Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon
I am happy to put the advice provided to me by the Library into the public domain if noble Lords wish, but I have the advice here and it is very clear. The other seven appointed bicameral Chambers include the nations that I have just talked about. If the noble Lord wishes to contend that, I shall be happy to exchange with him following the debate the Library research paper on which I base what I say.
This situation cannot be sustained. Noble Lords know that. Some people are using every argument to delay or obstruct reform and are coming forward with arguments that, frankly, do not hold water. Sooner or later, in some way, this House will have to become connected to the democracy of our country. Democracy cannot be kept out of this Chamber; it cannot be kept on the other side of those great brass doors. Sooner or later it will come here, and the longer noble Lords sustain this opposition to it, the more ridiculous this House will look. We now have an opportunity to put that right. Let us take it.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
There are always too many lawyers, but I maintain that we could do with fewer former MPs and perhaps more elected Peers in the way that the royal commission suggested.
I accept that the Wakeham proposals, which I support, rested on a compromise—of course they did—but you will never, ever reach consensus on a disputed issue unless there is compromise on both sides. Therefore, I beg the Government to think again about the Wakeham proposals before introducing a further Bill, as I hope they will do. A 20% elected House would of course fall far short of what the Deputy Prime Minister wants but it would at least represent a step in the right direction and as such should, I suggest, be accepted by the Labour Party in the House of Commons. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned, it would make the House of Lords more representative but without challenging the primacy of the House of Commons.
If a Bill along those lines were introduced in the House of Commons, I would expect it to get through and, if it did, I hope that it would be accepted by your Lordships in this House. Surely that would be far better than forcing the present Bill down our throats by having resort to the Parliament Acts. Let us do something now and something more than what is contained in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. Above all, let us not defer the decision by appointing another royal commission under a different name.
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords was precisely that—the clue is in the title. Since then, there have been significant changes to the constitution of the United Kingdom. A constitutional convention would address the constitution holistically and not one particular part looking outwards.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
I should be grateful if the noble Lord would indicate what changes there have been since 2012. The only one that I can think of is the progress of devolution. The fundamental questions relating to primacy which we have been discussing are still exactly the same as they were.
Lord Norton of Louth
In addition to devolution, we have had the implementation of the Human Rights Act and significant changes in relation to the European Union, to name but three.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
I am entirely unable to see how the Human Rights Act could affect the position. Surely, if anything, it favours an elected House rather than an appointed one.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, in the debate on the gracious Speech two years ago, I made the mistake of beginning by discussing the fixed-term Parliaments proposals, only to find to my great surprise that a principle that had been in the Labour Party manifesto had suddenly become the subject of such passionate opposition from the Labour Front Bench that I was intervened on some six or seven times in as many minutes. I may be about to repeat that mistake by attempting to respond to some of the points made in this debate about the future of your Lordships’ House. I hope then to make a few remarks about electoral registration.
There has been much debate about the future of this House since the much quoted Parliament Act 1911, which followed the controversy over this House blocking what became known as the “People’s Budget” when a Liberal Government, with Lloyd George as Chancellor, first introduced the old-age pension in the face of great opposition from the largely Conservative hereditary Peers who were of course Members of the House at that time. It has been said many times in this House that the House of Lords merely revises legislation and invites the other place to think again. Many of those most opposed to reform frequently say that this House does not block the will of the elected House. However, in many ways, the current controversy about the future of this House goes back all that time to the attempts to block the introduction of national insurance and the old-age pension. These came not long after Gladstone’s attempts to introduce home rule for Ireland.
Lord Rennard
I defer to the perhaps greater knowledge in this respect of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. However, I recall seeing the paintings of the debates in 1893 that hang outside the Bishops’ Bar. I thought that it was at that point that the House of Lords was blocking home rule for Ireland.
Lord Norton of Louth
The first home rule Bill was blocked in the House of Commons, not the House of Lords. The House of Lords under the Liberal Government had let through such matters as old-age pensions. Those matters which were clearly popular outside, it let through.
Lord Rennard
I think that Lloyd George in his many arguments against the hereditary basis of the House of Lords felt otherwise as he tried to introduce radical legislation.
Turning to more recent times, I would dare to suggest that opposition to the Government’s legislative programme in the past two years has often gone well beyond polite exhortations to the Commons to reconsider. This House has real purpose and real power, even if limited today to the significant power to delay non-financial matters. The power to delay can in practice often be the power to prevent.
The issue of legitimacy for this House to exercise its powers has been debated for more than 100 years. It is frequently suggested that we may now be moving too rapidly to conclude that debate. As I have said previously, it is probably only in this place that a Government intent on proceeding with a principle contained in all major party manifestos and introducing a phased programme of democratic reform over about 15 years could be accused of acting with “undue haste” with only a mere century of deliberation so far.
Proposals for reform appear to have shocked many noble friends to my left in this Chamber—I do not mean to my political left, of course—as well as a few around me. Some of those around me should recall that we have two words in our party title. The first word is “Liberal”, which takes us back to the party of Lloyd George and Asquith and that fight to end the hereditary principle and, at least in Asquith’s case, to replace it with the popular principle for membership of the House.
Lord Rennard
With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, there was absolutely no promise of a referendum on the issue of Lords reform in the Liberal Democrat manifesto in 2010. I believe in representative democracy. I think there are many problems with referendums, as I shall elaborate. The Liberal Democrats did not promise any such thing in 2010.
In answer to the noble Lord’s basic premise that the Liberal Democrats are acting out of pure self-interest in this matter, I point out the major flaw in his argument. In common consensus around the Chamber tonight, we have talked about there being perhaps 400 or 450 Members of this House who are particularly active. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that there are now 90 Liberal Democrat Peers. That is not far off some 23% of the active membership of this House. I also point out to noble Lords that many people who talk about the effectiveness and work of this House have said that it is effective because no one party has an overall majority. No one party has an overall majority if you have a system of proportional representation.
Lord Rennard
I will give way to the noble Lord in a moment. It is not inconsistent for the Liberal Democrats to argue that there should be a system of proportional representation for electing Members of your Lordships’ House to prevent there being a majority for one party in both Houses at any one time.
Lord Norton of Louth
I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend again but, on a point of detail, there is a system of proportional representation in Scotland and Scotland now has a majority Government.
Lord Rennard
Indeed it has. That is because the Scottish National Party secured almost a majority of the votes. My noble friend serves also to remind me of the other flaw in the argument advanced by some noble Lords during this debate that proportional representation would mean that the Liberal Democrats were permanently in government. That was suggested a few moments ago. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said, we have PR in Scotland and Wales and the Liberal Democrats are not in government there. That does not follow.
Lord Norton of Louth
It does if you look at the proportion of votes that the party gets in the whole of the United Kingdom, focusing on England.
Lord Rennard
I simply think that PR is a matter of democracy and we need democracy within this House.
Given the Labour Party’s recent history on House of Lords reform, I am surprised by this new-found enthusiasm for a referendum on the issue. I note that that was in the Labour Party’s manifesto in 2010 but not previously. In the 1996-97 period, leading Liberal Democrats such as my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart, together with the late Robin Cook and other noble Lords and Baronesses—some of them present in the House tonight—agreed a fundamental reform of the House of Lords in the event of the Conservatives losing the 1997 general election. There was no suggestion that there should be a referendum on the proposals. It seems that if there is to be a referendum on the issue it would be because parliamentarians in the other place have failed to do the job that they were elected to do.
I would like to refer briefly back to the report on referendums—
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, there is room for a discussion and a concordat between the two Houses. We have also seen in the evidence that there is some resistance to putting into statute a further codification of the relationship between the two Houses because, as I have heard many noble Lords say, the jurisdiction of the courts and litigation would not necessarily be desirable. The Government did notice and will consider the recommendations of the Joint Committee with regard to initiating preliminary work on a concordat between the two Houses, but such work ultimately would be the responsibility of the two Houses rather than of the Government, as it would be concerned with constitutional conventions.
I want to make one other brief point. I was puzzled to hear a number of noble Lords say that this Chamber is not part of the legislature. Erskine May has been quoted on several occasions. On the first page, chapter 1, page 1, paragraph 1 states:
“Parliament is composed of the Sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Collectively they form the legislature”.
Lord Norton of Louth
I think that my noble friend is confusing a point. People are not saying that the House of Lords is not a part of the legislature; they are saying that it is not a legislature.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I will return to those speeches that I have read. I admit that I have never taken the MA in legislative studies at the University of Hull, but I referred back to my views. This House is clearly part of the legislature; this is a two-Chamber legislature.
House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]
Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I wonder whether it might not be better if I withdrew this amendment, talked to my noble friend and came back at Third Reading—I see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, nodding—with amendments that were more tightly drawn. I think that everyone understands the point I am making.
Lord Norton of Louth
If I can help my noble friend, my recollection is that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, most of which was lost in the wash-up at the end of the previous Parliament, had a provision to meet the very point that he is making. I suspect that if we look at that, we can find the actual drafting that would meet that point.
The Earl of Caithness
I am grateful to my noble friend. I am even more inclined to withdraw the amendment and we can discuss this between now and Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Constitutional Change: Constitution Committee Report
Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the committee but, in addition, as its first chair. In that capacity, I was responsible for the committee’s fourth report of 2001-02, entitled Changing the Constitution: the Process of Constitutional Change.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has detailed the committee's report and I do not propose to repeat what she has said. Like others, I shall focus on the Government's response. If the response had been submitted by a student, I would have failed it. It is built on a false premise and appears to have been written by someone who has not read the report, nor for that matter read the committee’s earlier report.
The constitution creates the framework within which we are governed. As such, it stands above, rather than alongside, public policy that is enacted within the process created by it. It should be recognised as creating the framework within which government governs rather than as a tool of government. The point was well made in evidence to the committee by Sir John Baker, professor of law at Cambridge University, who wrote:
“One of my main concerns is that it seems to have become assumed over the last few years that constitutional change is a never-ending continuous process, and even more alarmingly that it is a process which (for want of any other system) belongs to the government of the day to manage. This has never been the case in the past, and it is not the case in any other civilised country which comes to mind … A constitution should be thought about as a whole, it should command general support, and it should be more or less fixed, with the possibility of alteration only rarely and by special procedures”.
The Government’s response fails completely to grasp the position of the constitution as being above government, but rather views measures designed to change our constitution as being on a par with other legislation. The legislative process may be the same for every Act—that is the starting point of the response—but to state that is to miss completely the significance and indeed status of the constitution.
Indeed, the Government’s response marks something of a reversal of the position taken by the previous Government. That Government had no intellectually coherent approach to constitutional change—a point I argued frequently—and, as we contended in our report in 2002, they needed to develop not only a culture of constitutional appreciation but also a more integrated approach to change. However, having said that, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, as Lord Chancellor, recognised the significance of legislation affecting our constitutional arrangements. This he demonstrated in a clear flowchart that he submitted to the Constitution Committee as part of its initial inquiry. The Government’s response to this report appears to mark a step back even from that.
Paragraph 2 of the Government's response states that,
“constitutional change is no different from any other public policy”.
This takes us beyond process to substance and reflects the failure to understand the unique position of the constitution. Measures designed to change the basic framework of our constitution are of a qualitatively different kind from ordinary legislation. It is imperative that the Government grasp this essential point.
The response goes on—my noble friend Lord Crickhowell has already quoted this—to assert:
“The Government notes that the Committee does not offer a definition of ‘constitutional’”.
Yes, it does. We provide, as we did in our very first report in 2001, a working definition of a constitution—it is in paragraph 10 of the present report—and we go on, at paragraph 11, to identify what constitutes significant “constitutional” legislation.
At paragraph 20, the Government’s response takes the committee's observation that there is no watertight definition of significant constitutional legislation as a reason for their reluctance to see special processes for handling such legislation. That does not follow at all. There may not be a precise dividing line, but it is usually fairly clear from the evidence presented to the committee what is and what is not significant constitutional legislation. The very fact that one can discern the difference underpins the very existence of the Constitution Committee. The committee adopts the two Ps test in assessing legislation—does it affect a principal part of the constitution and does it raise an issue of principle which has not given rise to difficulties?
Indeed, the Government must have their own test for deciding what is constitutionally significant in order to fulfil their statutory responsibilities. Section 3 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 prohibits Ministers from making a provision removing or reducing regulatory burdens unless the provision,
“is not of constitutional significance”.
Perhaps my noble friend in reply can tell us what definition the Government employ in determining what is constitutionally significant and how that relates to the Government's response.
For reasons of time, I will not go into detail on the remaining paragraphs of the Government's response. In any event, I do not need to, because what follows derives from the unforgivable failure to grasp the overarching position of the constitution and the consequences for the process of lawmaking that is derived from that status. I suggest that my noble friend considers withdrawing the response and producing a considered reply that is actually grounded in an understanding of our constitutional arrangements.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, this is a most interesting report and the debate has lived up to its billing as one to watch, but let me start with a note of regret that the committee considered naming its inquiry “The Process of Constitutional Reform” and then, overcautiously in my view, abandoned the noun “reform” for the noun “change”. It says that “reform” was somehow inappropriate as it implied a subjective position—to change things for the better—and therefore it stuck to more neutral language, “change” being merely to make or become different. This is far too timid an aspiration for a committee of such distinction and influence, and my vote would certainly have been for reform.
On the substance of the report, there is a desire to place some constraints on the flexibility of the constitutional arrangements currently available. The danger of partisanship, whereby the Government of the day may wish to change constitutional aspects to their own advantage, is recognised, and the report recommends, rightly in my view, that constitutional legislation needs to be treated differently from other public policy. I agree wholeheartedly that there should be no surprises in the introduction of constitutional legislation, but this does not automatically take me down the committee’s preferred route of pre-legislative scrutiny as norm. I shall take an example from recent practice to illustrate my point.
On the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, it was very well known that both parties in the coalition considered the size of the Commons to be too large and had said so in their election manifestos—in the case of the Liberal Democrats, in several election manifestos. The public were aware of these positions, so it was not entirely unexpected as a proposal. Moreover, if it were to be implemented for the next election, its timescale was tight due to the re-drawing of boundaries, hence not allowing for pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was unexpected in so far as it had not been a longstanding Conservative ambition to fix parliamentary terms, as had been the case for my party. However, the exigencies of coalition government led to a situation whereby, to provide certainty in a more fluid situation than previously experienced, the Government decided to bring in this legislation.
Now, ideally, a Government moving to this kind of change—less unusual in reality than we might think, as several Governments in recent history have gone to a full five years—should have gone through consultation with a Green Paper, a White Paper, a draft Bill and then the actual Bill. The process would undoubtedly have taken at least an additional year and, in my view, as this was a political decision, was better settled sooner to lend predictability to public policy.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I note that what I am saying is controversial. If noble Lords want to intervene, I wonder whether they might do so and I would be prepared to deal with that.
Lord Norton of Louth
It was indeed political and there was no constitutional reason for it to be introduced. It would be quite sufficient for the Prime Minister to say that he would not advise the Sovereign to dissolve until May 2015. You only need the Bill if you do not trust the Prime Minister.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
That is a well rehearsed point, I know, from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. My rebuttal to him at the time that we had this discussion in Committee was that all public policy can be construed as political; we nevertheless go through a process of giving it substance through law and deliberation prior to it becoming law. That was why it was quite right for it to go through Parliament. There is a philosophical imperative in respect of this public policy measure not just to have it for a single Parliament but to have it as good practice enshrined as a constitutional convention. That was the basis on which we introduced it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government value enormously the work of this Committee in focusing greater attention on the intricacies of our constitutional protections and of the process of constitutional change. We look forward to a continuing dialogue, spilling over, we would hope, into a more informed public debate.
On this occasion, as we have heard, the Committee has found our response disappointing. I am sorry for that. The Government are not persuaded that the recommendations represent an appropriate way of proceeding.
At the heart of our disagreement, as the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, in effect suggested in his speech, is a fundamental difference of view about our current constitutional arrangements in their current unwritten form. As it stands, constitutional legislation has no special status. To provide a special process for deliberating on constitutional legislation, therefore, runs up against the problem of definition, which the committee itself acknowledges, as well as the question of what is significant and not significant.
The Government’s argument, therefore, is that constitutional legislation has to go through an effective, proper, constitutional process. We have parliamentary sovereignty. The legislative process is, therefore, the way to proceed.
I have been sitting here trying to remember what it was that I taught, as a very young university teacher, when I tried to teach the British Constitution. Things have changed a great deal since then, but the question as to what is constitutional has in many ways become a great deal more complicated. I moved on to teach international relations and the European and International dimension is in many ways the most difficult; confusions over British sovereignty and constitutional sovereignty hit us very regularly.
We have had the debate on the EU Bill, which I helped to take through this House—the question of what happens when British sovereignty is infringed. On the other hand, the IMF programme of 1976 fairly clearly infringed British sovereignty. I recall one of the Cross-Benchers some months ago arguing that the placing of British troops under foreign command would be a fundamental invasion of British sovereignty, which would have clear and significant constitutional importance. The Secretary of State for Defence remarked to me the following day that British troops had just been serving under Turkish command in ISAF in Afghanistan and that indeed British troops had first served under foreign command in the First World War. So the question of what we think is of constitutional significance—indeed what we think constitutional sovereignty is as such—is itself deeply contentious.
I got myself into deep trouble two years ago in Jersey for suggesting that the relationship with the Crown Dependencies was a matter of constitutional significance which was open to constitutional change. I was denounced for a week as a French spy and various other things in the Channel Islands press.
The domestic issue of what is constitutional—the relationship between the Executive and the legislature, and between the Government and Parliament—is clearly fundamental, but the question of whether the courts are part of this is something that we rather skirt around. When we said goodbye to the Law Lords, I was fascinated to discover that the move to a Supreme Court had indeed been taken by legislation on a partisan basis by a Gladstonian Government that was in office for only a short time more than a hundred years ago; and that the collapse of that Government and the return of the Conservative Government led to this reform being pushed back for a mere 130 years.
The relationship between central government and local government is not, it seems, a matter of constitutional significance, although we make it so on a regular basis. The relationship between central government and the devolved Administrations has clearly become part of our constitution now. The relationship between the political elite in government and Parliament and the wider public—the disillusioned, even alienated, citizens—is one that, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, rightly pointed out, we all need to take much more into account. The question of the interrelationship between different changes is, again, one that we stumble over. I have heard several people over the past few weeks suggest that a future referendum on the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU might provide a result in which those in England had a clear majority in one direction and those in Scotland had a clear majority in the other. That would absolutely have constitutional significance.
The process of constitutional change cannot be apolitical or consensual. It is essentially political; it defines the rules of politics. The idea of non-partisan constitutional reform, which one or two contributions suggested, seems to me to be a chimera. Alfred Venn Dicey, much cited as a neutral constitutional authority, was also rabidly anti-Irish and wrote pamphlets against home rule. Professor Philip Norton, whom I have long regarded as one of the greatest living authorities on the British constitution after only Professor Peter Hennessy—and therefore as authoritative and neutral—is also the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who has very strong and partisan views on House of Lords reform and a number of other constitutional issues. We cannot criticise government proposals as political; of course constitutional reform is political. The question is: how do we handle them and do we need different procedures?
One of the defining principles of the British constitution is its flexibility and that it is based on parliamentary sovereignty. Therefore, constitutional change is made through legislation. The core of the committee’s recommendations was for a special statement to accompany any constitutional Bill to set out the expected overall impact of the legislation. What consideration had been given to the measure before publication? What public engagement had there been? Had there been formal pre-legislative scrutiny? What post-legislative scrutiny was envisaged? The Government’s response indicated that most of the information suggested for publication is already available in the Explanatory Notes that accompany each Bill on publication. It may be that we need to consider further whether the Explanatory Notes might be accompanied by a written ministerial statement, which would be different in form but perhaps not in substance.
There are a number of other comments that one needs to make. I do not think we would wish to go into the details of internal government deliberations. I can assure noble Lords that the Cabinet committee system works extremely well at the moment, partly because this is a coalition Government and we have to negotiate through Cabinet committees. Some of our discussions are extremely sharp. The Cabinet committee system now works much more fully than it did under the previous Government for obvious reasons.
The additional hurdles—parliamentary or wider—that are suggested, will be the subjects of continuing discussion. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, suggested, these would be part of a major process of constitutional change. The House of Lords itself is perhaps now the largest backstop to ill-considered or overpartisan constitutional reform being pushed through the Commons. But for the Government to spell out exactly what it means by constitutional change would itself be a change in the fundamental constitutional arrangements. When the Public Bodies Bill is quoted as a constitutional Bill, we are exploring what is the outer fringes of what we regard as constitutional.
The process of post-legislative scrutiny is a matter for Parliament and the Government to determine, and I hope that noble Lords would accept that is a useful piece on which the Government should leave post-legislative scrutiny for Parliament to decide.
A number of noble Lords have quoted the Cook-Maclennan model. I remind noble Lords that I was myself a little involved in that, and so was the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, as a neutral adviser on all this. Part of the basis for the Cook-Maclennan discussions was the expectation that Labour might not get an overall majority in 1997, so it was in effect part of a necessary preparation for what might have to be a coalition Government. Perhaps that is something that political parties should think about for the future, but it was on that occasion a preparation for something that did not happen. On this occasion, perhaps none of us prepared for something as fully as we should have done, which we had not expected to happen.
There were particular reasons of urgency underlying the decision to introduce the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill without publishing them first in draft. I hope that I have done my best to explain that. In contrast, the process of House of Lords reform has been one on which we have gone through all the stages of consultation—Green Papers, White Papers, committees—that noble Lords could ask for, and I am not sure that it has necessarily built consensus yet or will ensure easy passage for the Bill when it is published. That is, again, of the nature of constitutional change. Building a consensus for a non-partisan constitutional change is something that academics may hope for but politicians may think is perhaps beyond what is acceptable.
The UK is facing a period of continuing constitutional change, because it is going through a period of significant social and economic change and coming to terms with highly significant changes in its international environment and in the relationship between domestic arrangements and its international obligations and constraints. We will therefore continue to need and value the work of this committee and we look forward to a continuing dialogue with the committee.
Lord Norton of Louth
The Minister referred to facing constitutional change, which rather implies that the Government know what “constitutional” means. As far as I interpret his speech, he seems to be confirming that the Government do not know what a constitution is and that the “two Ps” test, which worked quite well for the Constitution Committee, appears to be beyond the Government.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the question of constitutional change is one that we will continue to argue over, and the definition of what is constitutional and is not constitutional is something that evolves through debate and argument in Parliament as well as in academic seminars. Most of us think that we know what is constitutional when we see it, but sometimes we disagree with each other.