Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Reid of Cardowan and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Monday 19th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The noble Lord would not expect me to agree with him, and I do not. However, in our forthcoming discussion on Report, both today and on Wednesday, he will have the opportunity to consider further whether it is not now high time that we accept a greater degree of accountability—one that has to carry with it an ability to limit, in extreme cases, people who would be wholly unsuitable as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

Perhaps I might respond to those two very rational and articulate contributions promoting the idea of a popular vote, as it were, in the House of Commons. I can see the benefits of that and those of ownership. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned stakeholding in the House of Commons. However, it seems that at least four problems need to be thought through.

First, the amendment would explicitly exclude anyone from the House of Lords ever chairing this committee. In the previous debate, while not seeking it for this House, we envisaged the possibility that at some stage there might be someone appropriate in this House to chair it. As I read it, the amendment would effectively preclude anyone from the House of Lords—unless it is envisaged that there be a nomination process for this House but that nobody in this House has a vote; only the House of Commons has a vote. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, may have been about to suggest that that was possible. It would be a peculiarly quaint electoral procedure for those who were nominating candidates to be precluded from voting on them.

Secondly, it would almost inevitably undermine the possibility of another envisaged benefit of convention: of the place going to the Opposition. It would not preclude it but would make it much less likely that the tradition of the position going to a member of the Opposition would be carried through, if for no other reason than the Opposition being, by definition, a minority in the House of Commons. Anyone from the majority party would therefore have an enhanced ability to achieve the post.

Thirdly, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert. As someone who has held relatively recent ministerial experience, I can tell your Lordships that there is no way that the Prime Minister could veto a nomination for the chairmanship of this committee without it becoming a major issue—not least because the person thus vetoed would make it a major issue. Once that was out, there would be all sorts of demands, in terms of natural justice and fairness, to put into the public domain the reasons why a Prime Minister should think them so serious that he or she should veto a Member of Parliament—an honourable Member—who was considered unworthy or somehow deficient in integrity or in other skills from being chairman of this committee.

The fourth reason is that, having known the House of Commons relatively recently, I am not sure that this is a position on which we should envisage political campaigning, but I assure noble Lords that that is what we will get if this position is put up for a 100% franchise in the Commons. Therefore, having listened to what has been said, and appreciating what lies beneath the suggestion that there be an electoral college for this composed of the whole House of Commons, I think that before going down this road we would have to think very carefully about the consequences that would arise in the dynamism of real politics from such a decision.