Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, the Minister referred to the OBR report, as will I. He was keen to show the areas of progress. I understand that, and indeed that is all welcome, but he glossed over the areas where the OBR has flagged concerns, on debt in particular. We know that debt is likely to increase considerably and there will be consequences that we will have to manage well into the future. The Chancellor has already said that the self-employed will need to pay more tax in future to pay for the support package, and that will be unfair if done disproportionately.
Setting aside the Minister’s slightly tone-deaf rhetoric at the start of his speech about sovereignty at a time of global pandemic, the reality is that our economic life, our trade and our people will continue to be inextricably linked with our closest geographic and trading economic partners in Europe. The Minister celebrated what he described as being able to act free from the constraints of EU rules, as he put it, but the Government themselves chose to take part in the PPE procurement scheme and to operate under the customs system, and they themselves operated under the EU repatriation scheme. Why? Because it is now, as it has been, good sense for the British economy and our people to work seamlessly with our closest partners and neighbours—although of course the words “seamless” and “frictionless” are no longer used.
The Minister also neglected to reference the report on the future levels of GDP and the impact of other trade agreements and our EU relationship on productivity. Taking the fact that the UK has left the EU and will have its own migration policy, in March the OBR said:
“In broad terms, these imply that potential productivity will eventually be around 4 per cent lower than it otherwise would have been, mainly due to extra costs resulting from higher trade barriers and greater impediments to the exploitation of comparative advantage.”
The Government try to suggest that this fall will be offset by new trade with the USA. The Government themselves stated in their negotiation briefing earlier this year that a good deal with the USA would represent about £1 billion extra a year for our economy over 15 years—that is, 0.07% to 0.16% of positive GDP. Not many in this debate, other than perhaps the Minister or the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, believe that a 0.16% increase will offset a 4% fall. So what is the Government’s assessment of the net impact on future trade of all possible EU and other-country arrangements?
We remain unsure about the imminence of a comprehensive deal with Japan and Canada—and that is simply to prevent massive disruption, not to grow. This is not about fighting old battles, but we need the Government to be open now and tell us what they estimate the net impact on all productivity and trade will be. We simply will not be able to enter the battles of the future wearing an armour of self-deception, which has been too prevalent in this debate so far.
Tax Avoidance
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
I think that most of us share the noble Baroness’s views on abusive tax measures by companies. Apart from all the measures that we have introduced over the past seven or eight years, we announced that we will legislate this year in a Finance Bill for 2021 to strengthen HMRC’s existing anti-avoidance powers to make it more difficult for promoters, in this case, to sidestep their obligations. We will continue to bear down wherever we can.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
One measure highlighted by the Minister was the new tax evasion offence for corporations and partnerships that do not act properly in their operations. Will the Minister consider expanding that offence to include enterprises that aggressively pursue individuals—mainly those who are potentially vulnerable or re-entering the workforce, such as NHS workers. Tax evasion is an act that morally subverts the law, especially for self-employed people who will have to pay extra tax at the end of this crisis.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I am sure that the noble Lord will contribute to the legislation when it comes through. I support his ideas. I assure noble Lords that we have closed the tax gap quite dramatically over the past 10 years. In 2005-06, it was £4.9 billion; in 2017-18, it was £1.8 billion. HMRC has won 90% of the avoidance cases that it has litigated on since 2018.
Covid-19: Self-employed
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we estimate that 95% of small businesses will benefit from the structure of the schemes we have been discussing. Beyond that, we have made enhancements to the universal credit system that will benefit small business proprietors who are caught and do not benefit from the broader measures. I can put into Hansard a detailed explanation of how those changes work, because they are quite complicated and I am conscious of the need for brevity.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
The self-employed will have to wait another month before they can start applying for support, and it will be six weeks from now until the first payments. The Canadian Government announced support packages for the self-employed and the employed on 15 March, and payments started to be processed last week for Canadian businesses. What is preventing the Government fast-tracking support for self-employed people, who have this huge uncertainty, especially women and mothers who have to look after children and on whose income this will have a real impact now?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, as I mentioned earlier, we have pushed out some £6 billion of grant payments already, and when HMRC opened its Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme on 20 April some 185,000 claims had already been made. So the money is going out, but I accept that it needs to go out more quickly.
G20 Summit
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who brings not only his experience but his refreshing objectivity and common sense to both the committee and many of these debates. I want to agree with him on a couple of points and will address them from my perspective in a short while.
On the structure of the G20, while it is welcome that South Africa is a member, I also wonder why Thailand, Nigeria, Taiwan, Iran or Colombia, which have bigger economies, are not participating. Ultimately, however the G20 is constituted, it is clearly better for leaders of nations to talk than not to. It is better to attend and participate actively, rather than following the approach of the leader of Mexico, for example, who chose not to attend, or President Bolsonaro, who cancelled a meeting with President Xi because the Chinese were late. It is clearly also better to seek consensus on the global challenges facing the biggest economies and the largest proportion of the world population.
While I greatly admire the diplomatic dexterity in the drafting of the communiqué on some of the key issues, it is becoming harder and harder to secure consensus in many respects, because of the symptoms the committee had already identified in its report on shifting global patterns. The USA, Russia and, in many ways, China look much more towards a transactional diplomacy than a multilateral one. We could see that in the Prime Minister’s reference to maintaining support for the JCPOA—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, or others may address that in this debate. Just this weekend, in referencing his regret about the coming apart of that, a former diplomat who worked for former Secretary Kerry in the United States said in very clear American terms that the US, all the P5 countries and all the EU agreed on this and it was the last time they agreed on anything. We can see this starting to unravel.
It is harder and harder to bring about consensus. That was seen on perhaps the biggest issue facing the planet. There was a distinct section on climate in the communiqué because the USA was distinct from the other 19 countries represented there. While other elements of the communiqué could well be warm, fine words, looking at those on cybersecurity or “Data Free Flow with Trust”, surely those in Putin’s circle would say that they are merely that—fine words. That said, the statement from the Prime Minister on the UK’s position is admirable, and the communiqué, and those from the Finance Ministers and others, covering women’s empowerment, tourism, innovation, digitisation, artificial intelligence, agriculture and development, are commendable. This is where I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. The question asked of the Prime Minister by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was: how will we ensure follow-up? There was an even more specific example in the communiqué on anti-corruption. It said:
“We will intensify our efforts to combat foreign bribery and to ensure that each G20 country has a national law in force for criminalising foreign bribery”.
How does the G20 ensure that? I would be grateful if the Government could respond to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Howell.
During our hearing in the committee, I pursued a question to the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, one of our excellent witnesses, on whether a grouping such as the G20 is as effective as coalitions of the willing, given the current global political climate and the likelihood that it will be with us for the next decade, or perhaps for the remainder of the period covered by sustainable development goals? We saw one example on the Global Fund. There are many other examples of countries large and small, developed and developing, that come together for specific objectives being more effective than a slightly more arbitrary group of large economies parcelling out, south to south, countries or developing countries to themselves. The UK will need to be a driving force in establishing many of these coalitions of the willing. It is going to be one of our major opportunities and a challenge for the world.
Finally, something that really concerned me about the communiqué’s otherwise commendable language was the between-the-lines interpretation I took from it that Africa is still seen purely within the development framework. Africa, the most dynamic continent, with a young and fast-growing population, was still seen almost entirely through the prism of development. It was jarring to see no reference to the world’s largest free trade area, which is currently being formed. It has taken 20 years to negotiate, but the African continental free trade area has enormous global potential, not just for the UK but for all its partners in the developed world. If we continue to see Africa only through the prism of development and not as an opportunity, the other warm elements of the G20 communiqué will not be implemented. That is the opportunity for the UK to take the lead going forward.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I agree with much of what he said, and I hope that his Front Bench will agree with him before the Bill has passed through this Chamber.
As referred to earlier in the debate, we received a delegation of Norwegian MPs in Parliament this week. I met them yesterday, and as they were leaving, one of the MPs, a member of the EFTA parliamentary group, took me aside and said, “We think in Norway that we have a closer relationship out of the EU than you have in, so what are you going to do now that you will be out of everything?”. The only thing I could think of, as a proud trustee of Sir Walter Scott’s home in Abbotsford, in my beloved Borders, was the quote from “Marmion”:
“O what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!”
This measure seeks to disentangle the tangled web of deception by some who put forward the arguments for Brexit in the referendum. It is preparing us for an unknown destination, as many Members, on all sides, have said.
This measure is not just a continuity Bill. It is not merely a technical measure, as some have argued. It establishes a new category of law in England and in Scotland. It alters the characteristics of our 20 year-old, settled approach to devolution. It is worth stressing for those who have made the point on devolution—from my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace, to my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, in her very measured contribution—that, between the referendum in 1975, the devolution referendum and today, we have had devolution for half of the period that we have been members of the European Union. These are norms and practices which have now been an established part of the British constitution for half the period of time that we have been members.
In the absence of a written, codified constitution, our constitution is based on norms and statutes. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and others have said, these norms are being up-ended and our constitution is being affected. As a direct consequence of the Bill, it will be necessary to form new common frameworks of governance within the United Kingdom over policy areas which had previously come under the auspices of the EU. There is some agreement at executive level on the areas that these will cover, but so far there has been nothing about scrutiny and how the legislation will apply to those.
The breaking of the norms is in many ways more significant than the breaking of the rules—norms based on trust, respect and the recognition, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, that those with power need oversight. That is the same when it comes to the relationship between certain component parts of the United Kingdom as it is for the citizen’s relationship with government. These norms have become even more important in the more complex world that we live in.
I have lived all my life in a country that is a member of the EU and its previous smaller Community. The world I was born into in 1974 had 3.9 billion people living in it; today, there are 7.5 billion of us. Then, the world economy was worth $5.5 trillion; last year, it was nearly $77 trillion. Then, there were only 34 democracies in the world; today, there are 87. The expectations of people of their rights and of their hopes of their democratic Governments are exponentially greater now than when we joined the European Union. The world is incredibly more complex than it was then.
It is no surprise, then, that while we hear much about tariffs and trade, the growth in non-tariff measures is now much more significant than the tariff measures. There were 1,500 in the mid-2000s; today, there are 2,500. Because these non-tariff measures are about standards—health and safety, and the environmental standards to which we have become accustomed—it is very troubling that we will see the Trump and country first approach.
To take one sector in particular, one vital for the British economy, aviation is worth £57 billion to the British economy. The UK, through our membership of the European Union, has led the debates on liberalisation. We have led, not followed, and the regulations that apply have in many respects been designed by the United Kingdom, using the European Union as a platform for the world. When I was born, there were 400 million air passengers in 1974; in 2016, there were 3.7 billion. To ensure safety and efficiency in this complex web of regulations, it is very worrying that the Government do not have today a clear position on the EU-US Air Transport Agreement.
We do not need to forecast or repeat assertions; we can simply look at the record of the Government since the referendum. There are the red lines which were set which are now being blurred. There was the comment from the Foreign Secretary that the European Union could go whistle rather than demand the £39 billion to which we have agreed. The UK said that we would start the talks only if we could negotiate the new relationship at the same time as the withdrawal agreement, which we have now gone back on. We have said that we will follow all the single market rules during the transition period, and that we will seek to adhere to European rules on medicines, aviation and financial regulation. Those strong Brexiteers have been critical of all those areas.
Our relationship with the European Union will not be healed by this process. Sometimes, the relationship between the UK and Europe has reflected what our former colleague, Earl Russell, described as the relationship between England and Scotland:
“England could brook no equal, and Scotland no superior”.
Our relationship with Europe is not the same as other countries’ relationship with Europe, but our process now will not heal the wounds in the Conservative Party.
However, I am more concerned about healing the wounds of those who were disfranchised in the referendum —the 16 and 17 year-olds who will have to live with the consequences longer than any other. They did not have their say. I hope that they will have their say. Those who will be living with the consequences need to have a voice.
I have quoted Scott before:
“Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest”.
That was present with many of the promises from those for Brexit. They said, “Let the people decide”. When it comes to whether the withdrawal agreement is in the best interests of those who will live with its consequences, I feel I have to say, “Let the people agree”.
House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
Let me finish. The new Leader looks forward to working with Peers to support incremental reform that commands consensus across the House. We feel that that is the way forward at the moment.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
I have just heard from a noble Lord that I have just arrived. I do not know whether he means in this House three years ago, before he did, or in this debate. I have sat through the debate from the start.
If, as the Minister said from the Dispatch Box, we will be talking about this problem, could that discussion be informed by the Government saying what areas they would not consider core to the composition of the House in order for us to decide where we could make some of these incremental reforms?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I think I have said all I am going to say on the matter in my speech. We are not taking forward reforms during this Parliament. However, as I said, the new Leader looks forward to working with Peers to support incremental reform that commands consensus across the House. Once again, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today.
Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, I will make just a few, short points. First, I again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, on this Bill. I always find it interesting to discuss these points. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for being here and heed what he and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said. I will not repeat all the points I made at Second Reading. All I will say, briefly, is that this very short interchange shows that we will probably need a convention about the convention because it is so clear that we cannot quite agree on any of the terms. My noble friend Lord Forsyth called it ambitious. I think that is mandarin-speak for “virtually impossible to agree” on all these points. He said he was looking for the kitchen sink. We have the kitchen sink and, in the next debate, I think we are about to discuss the wiring and plumbing.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
It is probably fair that I respond to some elements of this debate, and in so doing I thank, first, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. It is a pleasure to follow her and I also thank her for the throat pastilles that she gave me. It was a relief to see that this could be a relatively short Committee stage, so my voice can survive it. However, I can rely on the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Forsyth, to make sure that it is fully debated, in this “Second Reading in absence” debate that we have just had, in many respects.
I turn to the specifics raised by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, before turning to some of the wider aspects that the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Forsyth, raised. It is a fair observation to say that the Bill states the need for reform of the electoral system. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is always very welcome to attend the all-party group, which considered the intention behind this. He might attend it as a radical, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said. There will be political theorists studying Hansard, so if the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is describing the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, as a radical, I need to go back to my political study books. The all-party group considered the number of systems that we have, including the changes brought forward in the Scotland Bill, whereby the Scottish Parliament will be responsible for its own franchise and mandate—and, in addition, how they all interact.
The fundamental feeling was that it was right that a convention should consider the interaction of all the electoral systems from the point of view of the voter and not from that of the institutions. In many respects, some of the debates on the role of Parliament and the institutions have been from the perspectives of the institutions themselves and not from that of voters. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is itching to intervene, and I shall give way in just one moment. It is about that interaction, and how they operate; it is about how voters in my former area, for example, see two Parliaments, one elected on a proportional basis in Scotland and one here, where, as my noble friend Lord Wallace said, the Government were elected on 37% of the vote. The noble Lord asked me whether I referred to the electoral system of the United Kingdom Parliament, but that can only be a partial system, unless he is referring to the by-elections of hereditary Peers in this House.
Lord Grocott
Surely nothing in the noble Lord’s proposal is from the perspective of the voter rather than the institution. There is surely no more effective way in which to discover the perspective of the voter than to hold a referendum whereby the voter gives the clearest possible response.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
Clause 4 indicates strongly that the composition of the convention is to be citizen- led. If the thrust of the proposals is to consider how the systems that we operate interact, including the systems of this Parliament—and, if we are moving towards reviewing the functions of this House, how it is subsequently elected—it is legitimate that it is part of a constitutional convention that is citizen-led.
I widen this now to the overall aspect. The noble Lord Forsyth, asked if I had reflected on the Second Reading. I had reflected, first, about those who said that the remit was far too broad and therefore that it was impossible for it to be successful and those who said that it was far too specific and did not even address first principles. I reflected, and I think the broad areas of the terms of reference meet most of the areas where the debates that we have had over the last month have drawn real focus on the need for consideration of how all these reforms are being held together. So yes, for devolution and for legislative and fiscal competence, there is the Scotland Bill, although it needs to make its passage. There is the Wales Bill and there are changes within England—and then, of course, there are the legislative changes to taxation for Northern Ireland. None of the thinking behind this proposal would set any of that back. The whole fundamental reason that the convention is necessary is there is no thread holding everything together. That has been a consistent element of all the debates on the Scotland Bill, for devolution in England, for the Northern Ireland taxation Bill, which this House considered, and with the forthcoming Wales Bill. The fact that there have been considerable delays to the presentation of the Wales Bill shows that there is not that coherence across the whole of the piece.
When it comes to the devolution of legislative fiscal competence in England, it is the same point. Part of the difficulty has been looking at the fundamental principles of the areas to be reserved, what is the right tax balance et cetera. This is again rehearsing the Second Reading debate, but it is necessary—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
On the point about the scope of Clause 2, will the noble Lord tell the House how many hours and how many meetings he anticipates would be required to cover this ground within a year?
Lord Purvis of Tweed
I cannot set that. Legislation cannot set that. Legislation can set what is a reasonable time for these areas to be considered, the political imperative about why they should be considered within 12 months and that the Government should report on them. Fundamentally, we should be going into the next UK general election with more consensus about the constitutional future of our union rather than with it fractured into a piecemeal approach. My noble friend Lord Steel called it a guddle; we will be having five years of guddle. A convention can consider these aspects within 12 months, and it is reasonable that a Government should have a timeframe in which to respond.
Lord Skelmersdale (Con)
Before the noble Lord moves on to his next point—I am sure he has many more—does he agree that this convention, this conference, or whatever it is, can talk until the cows come home about one aspect of what we have in Clause 2, namely, the electoral regime for the European Parliament? Surely that is fixed by the European Parliament.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
We can follow two models. It can be very short, like the Smith commission, which perhaps on reflection has been too short and has not considered the wider view of the people, or it can be like the Airports Commission. I would not use the Airports Commission as the model for the constitutional convention. We can do better, and I hope the Government agree on that point.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, tabled an amendment to the Scotland Bill for a convention to review the Bill, but it was late in the day, so he did not move it. I am pleased to see that the wind is back in his sails today at an earlier hour. If we are to have a convention, and it is to be citizen-led, it is not in any way an impertinence, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, for the people of this country to consider what this second House does in Parliament. It is not an impertinence to involve the people of our country in considering a revising Chamber’s role and how its functions should be set.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I did not plan to interrupt again, but as the noble Lord referred to me, what I said would be an impertinence was for an outside body to tell us how our rules and procedures should operate. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made the correct point. The constitutional convention should look at the high level—at the role and function of the House. Procedures are a matter for this House.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
There is nothing in Clause 2 that would prevent that. On that point of broad consensus—
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
The trouble with overspecifying, as Clause 2 does, is that you require people, before they report, to have considered everything. The first report should be about principles. Perhaps that would be the only report and the convention would never meet again, or perhaps it would, but when it comes to things such as the House of Lords, it should be considering them on the basis of principles that have by that stage, one hopes, been debated across the country, in this place and the other place, and have achieved a degree of consensus. Then it would consider the role of the House of Lords in the union, how can it best discharge that role, and how can it best be composed to do so. If you put on your original shopping list that, before the convention tells us anything it must make sure that it includes proposals to reform the House of Lords, you are making a terrible mistake. You would do much better to stick to the high ground of principle.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
As a Liberal Democrat, I never want to move away from the high ground of principle. The noble Lord seeks to bring me down to lower land.
Fundamentally, I do not believe we are that far apart. Of course a convention will have to start with consideration of what the principles of this union are. I rehearsed that argument at Second Reading and I need not do so again. Equally, though, I know the Government are taking forward a programme of reform, much of it based on cross-party consensus, with legislation and proposals, and I would not wish to set those apart. As I said, the fundamental difficulty is over how all those are being held together under the principles that the noble Lord indicated. I believe that setting a framework of specific areas that the convention should cover, within the overall aim of trying to secure a holistic view of what the union is for, is captured within Clause 2.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I heed what the noble Lord so rightly draws out. My point would be that these are the foundation stones on parts of which we have been building over the centuries.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
My Lords, I enjoy the interactions with the Minister on this aspect, although we do not see eye to eye. I think he was referring to the previous constitutional history of England when he said “this country”. It is worth mentioning that. We often have to reflect on the previous errors of England in the constitutional history of these nations—plural.
I understood the amendment to require, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, indicated, a more codified relationship between the House of Commons and House of Lords, and that it was not a consideration of a wider British written constitution. But I respect the extensive experience of the noble Lord in the other place and in this House, and share many of his views about the need for a more codified relationship in respect of our governance. It is interesting that those who now seem to set their faces against that—primarily the Government—are happy to institute processes that do not necessarily have any end or focus at all.
One example was the debate we had on incremental and gradual change of the House of Lords. Any objective observer of that process would feel that what the Minister said was a criticism of my Bill, but it could be applied exactly, in fact more so, to the process of reform that his own party is putting forward. That is amplified by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has proposed that external people should interfere in the procedures of this House, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. It is probably more appropriate for the Government to adopt a slightly different tone, because there is now justification for moving towards a more codified system of relationships between the nations and our governance.
I shall go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. Incidentally, if the Minister thinks that a superhuman expert is required for the running of such a convention, the more the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, contributes to that debate, the better. Much as he may indicate that he is ruling that out, I cannot think of anyone more qualified or who could give me greater assurance in running this constitutional convention. He pointed out some of the difficulties we have been having without a more codified system that also ultimately seeks a degree of flexibility.
Turning to the amendment, if the conclusion of the convention’s deliberations was that our relationship with the legislation we consider needs to be dealt with through a written constitution, that would be one of the benefits of such a convention and a justifiable part of it. I take on board the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, but I ask him to withdraw his amendment on the basis that the convention should be empowered to consider this issue itself.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As is often the case in such debates, rather than introduce clarity, I seem only to have introduced more confusion. It is clear that I have not been able to persuade the Committee of the magnitude of the change that will happen if we have two elected Chambers. It is a recipe for clashes all the time, so in my view it is essential that that is taken on board. I appreciate the difficulties of time, but the noble Lord said that it would be a mechanism for changing the written constitution. I said in my opening remarks that there would have to be mechanisms for doing that. If there is no mechanism such as a written constitution, how would we adjudicate between two elected Houses? I suppose that there is only one other possibility. Each time there was a failure to agree, it would have to go to judicial review. However, it would be somewhat ironic to abolish a predominantly nominated, unelected House of Lords of whatever number, only to be governed by a small number of unelected, appointed judges. That needs to be considered more deeply than it has been in the past. I also take on board what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Empey
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that people can be on the register in a particular constituency, but that does not mean that they are not on the register in a different constituency. That is the point that I made in the student example. We found that people registered in their place of residence at home registered again when they came up to the university area. When they had to produce a national insurance number we could tell that people were registered in two different places and they got knocked off in one place but were still on the register in another. That practice is widespread and well known.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Does the noble Lord acknowledge that the Electoral Commission report which has been cited has taken all that into consideration? It did a very good and nuanced report that looked at the risks and benefits. It concluded, as my noble friend Lord Tyler indicated, that given the five weeks’ notice and potentially the 250,000 people affected by this in Scotland alone, it was not right to bring forward the closure of the transition period. The more targeted approach that he is asking for is best conducted over the normal timeframe which the Electoral Commission and the EROs have operated under existing processes.
Lord Empey
First, I do not accept that the scale of the problem is as large as the noble Lord suggests. As to the five weeks, our experience is that this process has been going on for quite some time—it is not as if it has come from nowhere. We are talking about the opportunity at least to bring it to a conclusion. However, the period after 1 December is not a period in which nothing can happen. People can continue to register. I hope the Minister has listened seriously to what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has said. It has been done before and it works if it is targeted. If we are drawing up new boundaries in parallel, the best thing to do is get on with it, draw the line, bring it to a head and provide the resources to target the groups that are traditionally underrepresented. If the effort is made we will end up with a very accurate register. However, the Government should go further. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, made a fair point when he mentioned ID. I do not understand why people should not be asked for their identity when they go to a polling station. It is a very basic thing to do. The postal voting system is mad. There is a lot of work to do and the problem with this process is that the Government are not going far enough.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me. A lot has been said this afternoon. It has been an excellent debate, and there have been very good contributions from all sides, although I profoundly disagree with some of what has been said, as I will come on to. It is always nice to be reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that I have not read my Aristotle. He firmly puts me in my place.
I shall start by taking a step back to make two fundamental points, on which I hope we can all agree. First, we all agree that we want more people to engage in the democratic process and register to vote, but those who are not on the register today will clearly not be affected by the measure we are discussing, which is the removal of ghost entries. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Lexden said in his excellent speech, nobody will lose their right to vote as a result of the government proposals that we are debating today.
Instead, the core of what we are debating comes down to the accuracy of the new electoral register. Do we keep on the new register ghost entries—entries of people who may have moved house or died or may never have existed in the first place? Are these ghost entries living, breathing voters, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, calls them, or hundreds of thousands of database errors which need to be removed ahead of the important elections next year? As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly pointed out—let us not disguise this fact—for the sake of completeness, the Electoral Commission wants to keep those entries on the register, even if this means that the accuracy of the register is undermined. It judges the risk of fraud to be acceptable, and the Government disagree.
First, we believe that after 18 months of transition and more than a decade of waiting, as we enter a year of elections and possibly a referendum on Europe—possibly—the time has come to move fully to the new system. Secondly, we see the risk of fraud as unacceptable. Thirdly, we believe that people have been given ample opportunity to register on the new system. That said, fourthly, we entirely agree with those who want more people to register to vote and participate in the elections, but we do not make the register more complete by stuffing it with inaccurate registrations.
I shall take those points in turn. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, we have been waiting for the full transition to individual electoral registration for more than a decade. As the current chair of the Electoral Commission said:
“This change is something we’ve been calling for since 2003 and is an important step towards a more modern and secure electoral system”.
To give the former Labour Government their due, they legislated to introduce individual electoral registration in 2009. The coalition Government further legislated in 2013 and, finally, in the summer of 2014, the new system was introduced. I remind your Lordships that at the general election, in its manifesto, the Conservative Party committed that:
“Building on our introduction of individual voter registration, we will continue to make our arrangements fair and effective by ensuring the Electoral Commission puts greater priority on tackling fraud”.
This Government believe that it is time to finish the process, and finish it now. This decision is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, rash.
Let us consider the progress that has been made. Back in May, 96% of the electorate was successfully registered under the new system. It is the remaining 4%—the so-called “carry forwards”—that the Government believe should be removed from the register at the end of December. It is not the entire register that we are questioning, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, seems to suggest; it is the 4%. Then we have to ask ourselves: what do these entries represent; who are they; do they exist? The reality is that neither we nor the Electoral Commission know who they are. They may be people who have moved or have died, or they may never have existed in the first place. However, we have gone the extra mile to find out whether these entries actually are people living at the registered address. Electoral registration officers have been working tirelessly to confirm whether the remaining entries are real people or whether they are merely ghosts.
These people will have first been sent three invitations to register. If they had not done so by last autumn, an electoral registration officer would have visited the address linked to the entry. If this failed to elicit a response, a further letter would have gone to the address earlier this year. Where carry-forward still exists, these addresses will receive three further letters and another visit from an electoral registration officer this autumn. That is the second fact that I would ask noble Lords to remember. These people, if they are people, will have been contacted at least nine times by December. I ask noble Lords to compare that with the number of times people are contacted about renewing their TV licence—four times. These people, if these entries do indeed represent people, have been contacted nine times. On top of this, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, the Government made available to councils up to £3 million of additional funding to support extra efforts targeted specifically at carry-forward entries, and £1.2 million of that was drawn down.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has always been very courteous when we have been debating issues of the constitution. He will be aware that the Electoral Commission has taken everything that he has said into consideration, yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has said, it has still given a very clear recommendation that the transition period should not come to an end early. One reason is the significant polls scheduled for May 2016. The Minister knows that I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament. On an issue of principle such as this, it is inconceivable to me that the Government would not have consulted the Scottish Parliament in bringing forward the transitional period, given the significance of the polls in May 2016. Can he confirm formally, at the Dispatch Box, whether the Government did or did not consult the Scottish Parliament? If they did, what was the view of the Parliament?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, the timetable for the start of IER was agreed with the Scottish Government and allowed the referendum to take place before IER got under way. There is no legal requirement to consult on this order, and electoral registration is at present within the competence of the UK Government. I will come back in a moment to the other points raised by the noble Lord.
I refer those who argue that we should wait for another year to the Electoral Commission itself. It said that such efforts are likely to see:
“Diminishing returns because a greater proportion of these electors are no longer resident at that address”.
On the point that the current canvass will address this issue, I agree entirely. The canvass going on at the moment means that we can be even more sure that the vast majority of these entries are ghost entries.
I come to the next point. Where are these ghost entries? Six of the local authorities with levels of carry-forwards above the national average have been identified as among the authorities more at risk of electoral fraud. As my noble friend Lord Hayward said, one of these boroughs is Tower Hamlets. There, the election judge slammed the “extremely lax” registration rules of the previous system as opening the door to electoral corruption. It is worth noting that the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was awarded top marks in the Electoral Commission’s performance standards for electoral integrity.
In Hackney, which is not even one of those six authorities, there were in May 43,000 carry-forwards. That is 23% of its electorate—I repeat: 23%. It is worth noting that in Hackney the register has increased by 10% since the introduction of individual electoral registration. The Electoral Commission states that the increment in the number of entries,
“may have therefore been inflated by a high volume of inaccurate entries”.
What might be the cause of those inaccuracies?
Hackney, and many other areas where there are large numbers of ghost entries, share a common characteristic: their population is, as has been mentioned, mobile—and in mobile populations many people rent their homes. Again, the Electoral Commission itself has suggested that those who rent private sector accommodation are more likely to have been carried forward. Why is that? One in three households in the private rented sector moves every year. It is therefore hardly surprising that we see a high percentage of carry-forwards in these areas given that the entries to the register are over a year old, dating from February 2014, which was before the introduction of the new system. As my noble friend Lord Hayward pointed out, these numbers are not just in Labour areas; the last time I looked, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth and Windsor were blue.
Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Relevant document: 5th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords for taking part and being here today, and for the strong support from many more who are unable to be here today. I see from the speakers list that my noble friend Lady Suttie and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will be taking part, so I know that this debate will not only concern our United Kingdom but will have an international perspective as well. I look forward to all the contributions from noble Lords today. I am grateful, too, to those outside this House, in the other place, in academia and in citizen organisations, who are supporting the Bill. These range from signatories to an open letter in the Times today, right through to the Local Government Association.
The questions we must all ask ourselves are: will our current approach to the constitution of our union be stable and sustainable for the long term; and has our piecemeal approach to reform in recent years been the best way to secure this—indeed, is it secure at all? In looking forward to the Minister’s response, I recall that he answered a question from his noble friend Lord Lexden, whom he said had marked his work when he hired him to the Conservative Research Department. In the debate on the office of the Lord Chancellor on 7 July, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, described a constitutional convention as an,
“obvious means by which coherence could be brought to sets of separate initiatives and the framework created for a new constitutional settlement that would stand the test of time”.—[Official Report, 7/7/15; col. 123.]
I agree with him. In fact, I will struggle to put it better today, so I am hoping that his protégé, the Minister, will do so too and gain good marks for a positive response to this debate.
One of the arguments against a convention is that it is simply the recourse of inaction when political parties cannot agree or do not know how to proceed on policy. Thus a convention may be a long-grass exercise with a veneer of activity. In response to a Question by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, said that Harold Wilson once remarked about royal commissions, “They take minutes and last years”. He is actually reported to have said, “They take minutes and waste years”. We all know that there have been occasions when royal commissions have met because conferences have been convened, but not all of them have secured the delivery of their proposals.
I am not discouraged by the fact that there have been attempts at bringing people together. Rather, I am encouraged by a degree of consistency that suggests that constitutional policy should try to be forged from as wide a consensus as possible. This could be described as “the British way”. The groundwork for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament was done because of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. There have been debates on the balance of powers and responsibility of that Parliament since—I have sought to lead some of them—but its founding was based on wide consensus. It also benefited from agreement at the outset on a clear outcome, and thus sought consensus on how to get here. I will return to this important point later.
First, I will consider where we are today. There is much constitutional activity by this Government, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. There will be much burning of constitutional calories, but the union will not be fitter as a result. In the recent Labour Party debate, I said that I feel our union is not at ease with itself. I believe that profoundly, and it concerns me. The referendum in Scotland was not just something I had to endure as a supporter of the union; it was a profound and challenging time with consequences that are still unknown. We have been too quick to assume that we know what they are, and we have not acted appropriately. It highlighted how many of us struggled to have a coherent and forward-looking definition of what our union is and what it means to young people and generations to come. We have seen nationalism coming to the fore in all parts of the union. I have spoken about this in the House before on a number of occasions, so I need not rehearse my view this afternoon, but I will return to it briefly before I conclude.
There is a real practical benefit to having a government-sponsored process with full technical assistance from the Treasury, DCLG, the national offices and Secretaries of State and the Cabinet Office to bring together the disparate changes proposed so that they are part of a coherent whole. It was rather telling that in the debate this week on the changes to universal credit, the Minister making the case for the change across the UK was unaware of the fact that the Government’s Scotland Bill, which is before Parliament, proposes the part devolution of that power. He was therefore unable to say how it would work and what a “concurrent” responsibility, which is in the Scotland Bill, means. The tensions over EVEL, the clumsy shorthand for English votes for English laws—or, as I suggest, EVET, English votes for English taxes—highlight the difficulty of a reform in isolation approach.
I am looking forward to my noble friend Lady Randerson’s speech. I suspect her strong Welsh experience and knowledge may form part of her contribution. The same could be said for the human rights agenda and for the proposals for the Welsh Assembly to become a parliament with full powers.
All these areas have recently seen Ministers at the Dispatch Box with the greatest confidence in their approach, only to be followed by pause, delay or retreat because the issues are complex and interrelated and require consideration as a whole. The list is even longer when we add the changes within England, where the approach that the cities Bill is taking has been challenged in this House and is asking more questions than it seems to answer.
We do not have a properly considered view on what powers should permanently be held within the union Government and what naturally should be the remit of the nations and of the regions within England. Neither do we have a properly considered view about the financial powers that could be balanced, and upon what principles across the union that could be done. Indeed, I see that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has a question on the Order Paper about the Government moving ahead in spite of there being no fiscal framework agreed between the Scottish Government and the UK Government.
Within England, the impressive paper on English devolution by the Local Government Association is useful to highlight this issue too. How will the new powers on tax and welfare for Scotland interact with each other, and what role does this place have within the union overall in this changed landscape? How are disputes resolved, and how will the Government work when in many areas it is an English and Welsh Executive who will become almost exclusively an English Executive? Its relationship with Parliament and the other Governments is not forming part of a holistic whole.
These are no longer theoretical questions for cerebral discussion in the academic seminar rooms or the Edinburgh salons. These are questions that we must resolve now, primarily as we are starting from a base of reform in recent years, but which need to be brought together as we are not resolving them satisfactorily by our piecemeal approach. The issue is how we resolve them, not whether they need to be resolved. Would a convention take minutes and waste years? I do not wish us to waste further years on discussing process.
I turn to the substance of the Bill and why I believe that it is a timely, focused and sensible measure that will produce a mechanism to gain wider consensus on a practical way forward for constitutional reform, and will not waste years but take only one. The Bill is already the result of a move to gain cross-party consensus. Its drafting reflects the legacy paper of the All-Party Parliamentary Party on Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK—yes, I confess that we could have come up with a better title for the all-party group. The group has been generously supported by the Wales Governance Centre and then more recently by the Local Government Association, and my co-chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I are grateful for the input across the parties. The draft terms of reference for a convention and its composition were agreed within this wider group, with considerable external academic support.
Clause 1 outlines the proposal on how the convention would be established. Clause 2 proposes the terms of reference—a narrow list but a broad one, with the issues necessary to be discussed. Clause 3 states that the convention must not take longer than a year—a tight timeframe for some, I know, but equally I believe that it needs to have a focused timeframe. Clause 4 proposes its composition and that it be inclusive, geographically and politically. It also means that the convention must have a majority citizen-led composition. This is because of my strong conviction that the convention will not work if it is simply a lowest-common-denominator agreement between political parties. It must have depth and, if we are defining what the union is and what it offers, we must take stock of the wider view of citizens. There are models for how the citizen component will be constituted, and this will be resolved before regulations in Clause 5 are brought forward. I am pretty convinced that work on how that could be brought about will have been done in government, both before and during the general election, so I look forward to hearing the Minister respond on that point.
So what might a conclusion of a convention be? There needs to be a balance of allowing the convention to take its own form and make its own conclusions but I offer my view that, as I said earlier, minds are focused when a proposed outcome is in mind; joint ownership of that outcome becomes stronger and is more sustainable.
I conclude by suggesting what an outcome could be for the convention. Some years ago I published a cross-party devo-plus paper, arguing for a statement of the new union, outlining in brief terms the necessity of a formal statement of union. I believe that the outcome of the convention should be a royal charter of new union, formed from the citizenry and in the name of the monarch. In many respects, the legacy of her own reign, with her own family, seems secure for generations to come. We cannot say that politicians are offering a similar legacy for the union for generations to come.
A charter of the new union can be a legacy from the head of state who has seen the union in peril from external foe but also from internal angst. Such a charter, perhaps ratified by plebiscite, would also be of a sufficient constitutional standing that it would stand the test of time. It also can act as a complementary statute of the United Kingdom that would be the machinery of government to resolve many of the questions I have raised today about how our multilevel and multisphere Government will operate in the union to come.
Again, I am grateful for the wide support already received, and I sincerely request that the Government retain an open mind, even though I am aware that this is not yet on their agenda: to allow this proposal to develop, to allow citizens’ groups, academics and those within all parties who believe that a process such as this is necessary to come together, and to allow the technical expertise of the Treasury and other departments to assist in that process. Our all-party group will make an exciting announcement next week to show that even wider support is emerging. I am grateful to those who are taking part today, and to those who share my view and that of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, that we seek coherence that will stand the test of time. I beg to move.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the debate, but for the convenience of noble Lords who might have missed the announcement made earlier by my noble friend the Chief Whip, I remind the House that the advisory time for Back-Bench speeches is six minutes.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
My Lords, I am most grateful to all those who have taken part. If nothing else, I have allowed the Minister to reflect on some contributions about how we may improve how we conduct our business in Parliament. I commend his research in advance of this debate, and I will read Hansard to see whether there is any living flesh on the skeleton that I can take as a positive from his speech. He was also most helpful by clarifying that an amendment proposing the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as chairman of any convention will not be forthcoming. Whether or not the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is or has ever been a member of the Grumpy Old Men Political Party is for the noble Lord alone—who signals his joy at such a proposition—to say.
There are a couple of aspects of the Minister’s comments on which I hope that he will reflect. He said that the Government have what I may describe as an absolute mandate for their agenda. He is going too far down the line when he defines the mandate for his party in government. The SNP says exactly the same thing about Scotland. Let us at least have some form of wider aspect that there are some other views. Indeed, that is what led the Strathclyde commission, from his own party, to propose the establishment of a committee of all the Parliaments and Assemblies of the UK to carry on such discussions. I think that that was a very constructive and positive proposal—some may argue that it is a better proposal than mine. Nevertheless, both the Strathclyde commission and I come from the position that this process simply cannot stand going forward.
I warmly welcome the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, who put this into the wider context. I am most grateful for that.
As the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said, in the absence of this being a public or government Bill, it is incumbent on those of us who believe in the proposition to put it forward and allow Members to scrutinise it, as we will be doing further.
My noble friend Lady Suttie highlighted that it is no longer a West Lothian or Scottish question—it is a union question. As a Liberal, I seem to have secured the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, which I appreciate causes him unease. However, his subsequent comments, in which he poured scorn on my proposals, restored the equilibrium and reassured us both that his head is not following his heart in this regard. He raised the point about a Joint Committee of Parliament. Although I make no comment on that proposal, I do not think it is any longer sufficient that we look only at the procedures in this Parliament. Noble Lords have indicated that this now impacts on other Parliaments in the United Kingdom and other regions.
I will reflect on the comments made by noble Lords. I have sought to address the dilemma—to try to bridge the gap between the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Norton—that we start either from grand principles or from where we are currently going and try to create a road map that we understand. That is a dilemma and I have put forward a proposal at least to put it on the agenda, so that we can perhaps refine and reflect on it in Committee.
I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that I will reflect on his idea that I have a “little red book” of constitutional reform that will be perpetual reform.
I will not only reflect on the comments of all noble Lords but am also happy to discuss any of their proposals as they seek to amend and improve on the remit, timeframe and composition of the Bill. In the light of that, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Constitution: Gracious Speech
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, to abuse an allusion from a former Prime Minister’s phrase, our union is one that is not at ease with itself. In his opening remarks the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said that our union is frayed, and I cannot disagree with that. I thank him for bringing this debate to the House. The absence of ease within our union was demonstrated in the general election when the political imperative in our nation became almost overpowering, with fear of government in one part of the United Kingdom being set against that in another. The last posters of the nature we saw being displayed in the United Kingdom were those of a century ago on the Irish question. The union is a remarkable and resilient creation, but I fear that its resilience will be tested if we have perpetual government in the same manner as the kind of election campaign we saw in May. Government of the United Kingdom cannot be sustainable in the long term if it is formed from only one nation within the union and a one-party state in another part of the country, always using opposition against that union Government to its electoral advantage.
Surely for all of us who believe in the union, there must be discomfort with the greater political incentive being identity rather than philosophy. We in the United Kingdom are not immune to the wave of nationalism in Europe that has been gaining ground either. In May, some 6 million people in these islands voted for overtly nationalist parties. However, there is nothing to be gained from criticising or blaming the people for doing that. Our role must be to consider carefully what our union means in all parts of it and what it offers for every citizen, from the northern islands to Cornwall and from Wales to the east coast or the south coast. With all their different political imperatives and pressures, and all their different economic situations, they are still part of the union, and it seems that it is indeed becoming more frayed.
Our task in this Parliament is therefore to work on how we can resolve our relationship within the union, and its relationship with the wider European Union. If the union is to be at ease with itself, surely it must be outward-looking rather than one where, even on reading all the party manifestos in the election, one gets the impression that we will be spending the next five years looking inwards at ourselves and not beyond. If there is any lesson to be learned from the Scottish referendum, I would caution the Minister that if he thinks the European referendum will be the resolution of many of these issues, that is perhaps a naive thought. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said, this debate is about the implications of constitutional change, but I wish to take a slightly different slant and consider what the implications are for the union as a whole. However, I cannot but draw the conclusion that if we continue with perpetual changes to one part of the constitution in isolation from consideration of their impact on the other parts, the pressure on the whole will become too great.
My noble friend Lord Steel highlighted the consistent view of Liberals and others for many generations that home rule or a federal arrangement is the most appropriate framework for government. Even in the constitutional crisis a century ago that led to the Parliament Act and others, there was no referendum in any one part of the union to secede from another. We have challenges ahead of us of a larger order than those which previous generations faced and we are not yet in a position to make a response in a commensurate way. We have not considered sufficiently what the referendum in Scotland tells us; we are still in the process of carrying out a sigh of relief rather than making a proper and rational assessment of what is required for the future. That is because for many years we have not been ahead of the debate on the constitution. We have debated it often, as has been indicated by other speakers, but we have done so almost in complaint about and in response to difficulties in one part of the United Kingdom, not to propose a new relationship for the country. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and others, I do not question for one moment the ability of our Civil Service to make a silver purse out of a constitutional sow’s ear; we can do remarkable things by attaching a crown to something and giving it a historical name—suddenly it becomes a convention or a constitutional practice. But such a piecemeal approach, even with a degree of finesse, is no longer sufficient and it cannot be the pattern of things to come.
As my noble friend Lord Rennard indicated, it does not need to be that way. There can be cross-party agreements and ways forward so that we can secure some form of agreement. But we must change our mindset so that constitutional reform is not the Government having to do something in response to a political pressure of the day, but wanting to do something to hold the whole together. I hope therefore that my Constitutional Convention Bill will receive a fair hearing. It is meant to be one way of trying to gather together as much consensus as possible, along with a specific remit which means that we can address what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, indicated was his concern; namely, that we delay one part in order to try to make what is perhaps a naive attempt at achieving the whole in the future. We need not delay the Government, which to be fair are seeking to honour their commitment to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the cities, but it is important that we should commence at the same time a process to consider how the whole brings this together in a holistic way.
My Bill is a vehicle through which the Government can address the human rights legislation issue and how it fits in with our constitutional arrangements; about how we can have fair financing, not only for the cities and regions of England, but also about the formula which holds the whole together across the nations. And, yes, it also means that from that, we can then work out what the appropriate role for this institution is under the electoral system for this Chamber. I hope that the outcome may well be a charter of new union. It may well be a document which, while not a written constitution, would certainly signal what this union is and what it is for.
Finally, I know that a constitutional convention was not in the Conservative manifesto; it did not propose a convention, but nor did it rule one out. I am of an optimistic disposition and I know that the Minister is greatly experienced and a shrewd adviser. Since he was an adviser to the former Prime Minister who was seeking a nation that was at ease with itself, I hope that he will see the merit in a process that will assist in having a union at ease with itself too.
Lord Purvis of Tweed
The Minister referred to the Smith commission, which was established by the Prime Minister and chaired so well by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin. Perhaps that indicates that commissions —which can be cross-party, consensual and result in clear conclusions that the Government then honour a commitment to deliver—need not be “long grass” and need not necessarily be in a party manifesto.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I argue instead that that commission was drawn up in response to a very specific point. It was brought about by the consequences of the referendum. What we have here is a much broader set of issues; as I argued, we do not have agreement on what a convention would do, its terms of reference or those who would sit on it. Furthermore, we have a mandate and a clear plan of action that we need to deliver. No doubt we will return to this in due course. I very much look forward to doing so.
Meanwhile, we are devolving more powers to cities and to communities. The local government Bill that is currently before your Lordships puts in place the legal framework enabling us to decentralise powers to cities and counties across the country. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for his support on that point. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, it would be for people to elect their local decision-makers and to hold them to account. I dispute the concept that they would be one-party states.
All this reflects the fact that the Government recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach to constitutional change will not work. The individual devolution settlements reflect the distinct histories and circumstances of the different parts of the United Kingdom. To make sure that those settlements function effectively, we must ensure that the Governments of the different nations of the United Kingdom work together. As such, all four of our Governments are working together to review the formal and informal processes that govern our relationships, and we will collectively agree the best way forward. As part of this, we will explore the recommendations of the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s report on intergovernmental relations.
I turn to English votes, another issue that a number of noble Lords have spoken about. Just as devolution has strengthened the voices of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within our union, the Government’s proposals for English votes will create fairer procedures to ensure that decisions affecting England, or England and Wales, can be taken only with the consent of the majority of Members of Parliament representing constituencies in those parts of United Kingdom.
Once again, I refute the argument made by a number of noble Lords that this approach is partisan. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, this issue and proposal is addressing something that was created by devolution. The West Lothian question is almost as old as I am. It sits there in the triptych of those other constitutional questions: the Schleswig-Holstein question and the Irish question. It deserves to be answered, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said.
What we need is a balanced and fair settlement which gives MPs from across the House a role in making legislation but ensures that English matters are approved by English MPs, just as Members of the Scottish Parliament have the final say on devolved matters. Importantly, every MP from every part of the UK will still be able to debate and vote on every piece of legislation in the Commons. English votes for English laws will therefore help safeguard the union by embedding fairness into Parliament’s law-making processes.
Several noble Lords referred to the Bill of Rights. As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, mentioned, this is obviously something a number of your Lordships have scrutinised in depth. This Government were elected with a clear mandate to reform and modernise the UK human rights framework. As such, we will bring forward proposals, as was set out, for a Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act.
The Government are currently developing proposals on which we will consult fully in due course. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, and others argued that the Bill of Rights could undermine human rights. Once again, I disagree. Our Bill of Rights will protect fundamental human rights but also prevent their abuse and restore common sense to the system. We want to remain part of the European Convention on Human Rights but the system must be reformed to ensure that British judges decide how to interpret the law. Our Bill of Rights will therefore be based on convention rights but will take into account our common law tradition and make clear where the balance should lie between Strasbourg and the British courts—a point I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, referred to. We believe that we can make progress as part of the ECHR. However, to repeat what has been said before, we do not rule out leaving it if that proves impossible.
We will of course reflect on the devolution implications of a Bill of Rights as we develop our proposals, and we will engage the devolved Administrations in that process and make the case for reform. I know that this matter, like all the topics we are covering today, is of keen interest to your Lordships. Therefore, I reassure noble Lords, especially the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, that there will be significantly more consultation on and scrutiny of the Bill of Rights than there was for the Human Rights Act, which was introduced without formal consultation and within just six months.
The boundary review is, once again, an issue of fairness in order to give votes more equal value. Individual electoral registration policy has cross-party support and has been consulted upon widely and debated extensively in Parliament. The new online application service has made registration easier and more accessible than ever before, and it now takes as little as three minutes to submit an application. Indeed, there were more voters on the register at the general election than when the new IER was introduced a year before. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, last week the Electoral Commission published its analysis of the registers used to administer the general election in May 2015. I can confirm that the Government will indeed respond to that report in due course.
Our constitutional history is one of change, some sudden, some gradual. Once again, Sir Walter Bagehot put this very well when he referred to,
“an ancient and ever-altering constitution”,
full of “hidden inner change”.
Our programme for this Session, as set out in the humble Address, aims to create a fair and balanced settlement which empowers people across the United Kingdom. As we proceed, obviously the proposals must be debated and scrutinised. I am sure that those points that have been raised today which I have failed to address will be debated further in full, but here the role of this House will be invaluable. John Stuart Mill was quite right, though: much remains to be said. I look forward to hearing more in the weeks and months ahead.