Queen’s Speech
Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Norton of Louth(12 years, 4 months ago)
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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—
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Norton of Louth(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 15 and 17. These amendments remove the provision that enables the Prime Minister by statutory instrument to vary the date of the general election by two months either way. We discussed subsection (5) in some detail in Committee and, in the light of that discussion, I came to the conclusion that rather than trying to build in safeguards or qualifications, as I sought to do on that occasion and as my noble friend Lord Rennard seeks to do today, it would be best to remove the provision altogether.
The principal reason why subsection (5) is included is because it is in the devolution legislation. It appears to have been included without much thought. I have still not been able to find anyone who can think of a circumstance in which the provision to bring the election forward by two months could apply. What sort of emergency can one anticipate before it has happened? Is there really any prospect of the Prime Minister announcing that the election should be brought forward by two months because the Government anticipate that there may be a foot and mouth outbreak at the time of the election?
It is also not clear why the subsection is needed, given the provisions of Clause 2. If there is all-party agreement that the election should be brought forward by one or two months, one can introduce an early election motion under Clause 2(1). That would cover it. The only difference between this subsection and utilising a motion under Clause 2(1) would be that this subsection provides a role for this House, because both Houses have to approve the order, but I do not see why we should be empowered to block an election being held up to two months early when we cannot exercise a similar power over a motion to hold it some time in the preceding four years and 10 months. I also doubt that we would wish to challenge the will of the House of Commons on this matter. I thus favour the removal of the provision for the Prime Minister to bring forward a statutory instrument to bring forward the date of the election by up to two months. My noble friend Lord Rennard seeks to do likewise.
I also favour removing the other half of the subsection. Enabling the election to be delayed by two months is an arbitrary provision. Why two months and not three? A delay needs to be determined in relation to the particular crisis that prompts it. Given that, and the likelihood that any delay will be required only in the most exceptional circumstances, I suggest leaving it to the enactment of a specific Act tailored to the needs of the time, as happened with the foot and mouth crisis in 2001.
The requirement for an Act also emphasises that it is exceptional and does not, as this provision may do, tempt a Prime Minister to use his parliamentary majority to approve an order to delay the election for the purposes of political gain. Two months can make quite a difference. This House would be the only potential block on the provision being used in this way, but we may wish to avoid the potential for a major clash between the two Houses.
My noble friend Lord Rennard seeks to retain the provision but subject it to similar safeguards to those that apply under Clause 2(1) in relation to an early election. If one were to retain the provision to delay an election by two months, I would very much support his amendment. However, on balance, we may as well remove the whole subsection. There is no need for the “before” provision, and the “after” provision is likely to be so exceptional—and may require a delay of more than two months—that we should leave it to Parliament at the time to craft a measure appropriate to the nature of the crisis. I beg to move.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 12, 14 and 16 in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames. Amendments 12 and 14 reflect the position that I set out in Committee, when I made plain that I could not see any justification for a provision to bring forward polling day in a general election by two months, in the way that the Bill originally suggested. In all my consideration of the debates here and in another place, I have yet to hear advanced any argument for why it might be sensible to say that a Prime Minister might be able to foresee circumstances in which he needed to bring forward the election by two months.
As the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said, no Prime Minister could be so prescient as to foresee such events and decide to bring forward the election in anticipation of them. I simply do not see the justification for the provision. However, there will remain in the Bill and in the detail now in Amendment 20, which we will come to later, a power for Parliament to have elections early if MPs vote for it by a two-thirds majority and this House endorses that proposal. I have no doubt that if there is reasonable political consensus on the need to bring forward polling day and have an early election, that will happen.
Amendment 16 deals with a power for which, I accept, there is a rather stronger case. That is the power for delay by two months. The commonly cited example of how a general election planned for one day might be postponed for a short while is our experience in 2001, when the foot and mouth epidemic broke out. Everyone knew that we would probably have an election in May. We had planned to have local elections in May. Those local elections were postponed and the general election, expected to coincide with them in May, was also postponed. I am therefore content that some power remains in the Bill for a delay and am now fairly convinced that there is at least some provision in the Bill to safeguard against abuse. That safeguard is this House, which would be asked to approve such a delay.
I was seeking through Amendment 16 to have a further safeguard built in for that—also a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons—but I now look at the changes that the Government have made by accepting Amendment 20. That dispenses with the role of the Speaker’s certificate. On that basis, I am prepared to accept that Amendment 16 is no longer appropriate, and I will not press that case; but the case for Amendments 12 and 14 remains strong. They simply retain the principle that if polling day is to be brought forward, it is Parliament by reasonable consensus and not the Prime Minister who should decide to bring forward the election.
The whole purpose of the legislation is to fix parliamentary terms at five years, notwithstanding the amendment which this House narrowly approved some hours ago. We need to remove from the Prime Minister the privilege of being able to hold the starting pistol in a race where he is also one of the runners. Amendments in the same form as Amendments 12 and 14 received substantial support from across the House when they were tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth and Lord Rooker, in Committee. I therefore hope that the Minister will have had time since Committee to reflect on those amendments and to consider them favourably.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Norton of Louth(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, I added my name to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to remove the words “earlier or” in order to press the Government as to the circumstances they believed could possibly arise that would make it necessary to bring forward a general election by up to two months. I can understand delaying an election, for reasons that I shall come on to, but I am not sure to what extent one could anticipate a situation, presumably a crisis, that would justify an early election. There may be such circumstances and, if there are, it would be helpful to hear from the Minister as to what they are.
However, I wish to devote my principal comments to Amendment 24, to which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred, which stands in my name. The amendment deals with an important point of principle that distinguishes it from the rest of the Bill. Under the Parliament Act 1911, the maximum duration of a Parliament is set at five years. Within that period, the Prime Minister may exercise his discretion to advise the monarch to dissolve Parliament, or he may be forced to resign or request a Dissolution in the event of the House of Commons passing a vote of no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. The principal purpose of the Bill is to remove the Prime Minister’s discretion within that five-year period. As the law stands, it is not within the Prime Minister’s discretion to advise Her Majesty to extend the life of a Parliament beyond five years. An extension requires an Act of Parliament, and such an extension has been treated as exceptional. That is why this Bill is subject to the Parliament Act, and falls into that category because of the provisions of subsection (5). The only occasions on which extensions have been made by statute have been during wartime. During the Second World War, parliamentary elections were postponed on an annual basis by a Prolongation of Parliament Act.
Subsection (5) thus engages an important principle that is not engaged by the rest of the Bill. Whether or not we have a flexible or semi-fixed maximum term is not relevant to the issue raised here. The question is whether we should permit the term itself to be breached. The importance of the principle is in effect conceded by the Government in Amendment 26. That recognises that the Prime Minister must make clear the reasons for seeking to change the date of the election. My amendment seeks to define the reasons.
The Elections Act 2001 was enacted in order to delay the local elections of that year because of the foot and mouth crisis. During Second Reading of the Bill, I said that we needed to generate clear criteria that would justify the postponement of elections. I advanced four criteria that must be met in order for Parliament to postpone an election. First, there must be a clear and recognised national crisis. Secondly, there must be a situation that affects the capacity to conduct the election. Thirdly, there must be an agreement between the parties that there is a case for delay. Finally, there must be proper parliamentary debate. Although there may be a case for speed, it should not be at the expense of parliamentary scrutiny. All four conditions were met in wartime and in 2001.
Those criteria should apply to any attempt to postpone elections. I appreciate that in the context of this Bill, the period involved is short. It is not equivalent to what was undertaken in wartime, although it is on a par with the situation in 2001. In the war and the foot and mouth crisis, elections were postponed through primary legislation. Here, provision is made for a postponement through secondary legislation. That will be debated, but it is not on a par with what is possible with a Bill. If subsection (5) is to remain, any exercise of the power to postpone an election must be on the basis of the criteria that I detailed.
My amendment provides that:
“The Prime Minister shall only lay an order … when he … is satisfied that there is a situation that renders holding an election”,
within the set term,
“impractical or injurious to the economic, social or public health of the nation or a part thereof”.
The Government's Amendment 26 provides that the Prime Minister must state his reasons for proposing a change of polling day when laying a draft order before Parliament. However, it leaves open the possibility, alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, of the Prime Minister proffering a reason that is politically acceptable to a government majority but that does not meet what I regard as the necessary criteria for taking such a serious step.
I suspect that the Minister will remind us, as he did earlier, that at the moment there may be more than five years between general elections. I appreciate that two months may not seem an exceptional period of time; but eight weeks can make a significant difference to electoral fortunes, and a fundamental issue of principle is engaged by this provision. That is why I regard my amendment as necessary if subsection (5) is to remain in the Bill. I appreciate and support government Amendment 26, but I consider it necessary but not sufficient. More stringent constraints must be built in to the Bill. I believe that the choice is either to accept Amendment 24 or to omit subsection (5). The Bill cannot remain as presently worded.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I will speak first in support of the principle behind Amendments 22 and 23, tabled by my noble friend Lord Norton and by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is not with us this evening. The amendments deal exclusively with the power of the Prime Minister to bring forward the date of the general election by two months. I speak on the basis that I have yet to hear any substantive or convincing reason for giving this power to a Prime Minister in a context in which we are supposed to be taking away from the Prime Minister the power to determine the date of a general election.
I cannot see how one could anticipate unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances that will occur in two months’ time, and thereby justify bringing forward an election by two months in order to avoid the unforeseen and extraordinary event. It was said that Nancy Reagan used her knowledge of astrology to influence the timing of some of President Reagan's decisions; I do not believe that our constitutional principles should be based on star gazing and prophecies about future disasters. If we can foresee such an event and there are extraordinary reasons for bringing forward an election by two months, there are procedures in the Bill that will let Parliament decide to do that. I believe fundamentally that the power to bring forward an election by two months, if it is necessary, should lie with Parliament and not with the Prime Minister, and that a change to the five-year rule should be made only when there is a transparent and justifiable reason that can be properly debated and considered in Parliament.
I recognise that there is a much stronger case for saying that it may sometimes be necessary to postpone an election by two months, as effectively happened in 2001 with the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Therefore, I am not convinced that it is right to remove completely the flexibility for a two-month delay, as proposed in Amendment 18 by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth.
With my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Marks, I have suggested in Amendment 25 that a two-month delay, if necessary, should be subject to a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons and a majority in this place. We believe that that brings in sufficient safeguards to prevent a Prime Minister abusing his power, which is the principal intention in the Bill.
We note that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is attempting in Amendment 24, as he has just said, to put a legal restriction on the use of the Prime Minister’s power to vary polling day to situations where it would be impossible to hold an election because it would be,
“impractical or injurious to the economic, social or public health of the nation or a part thereof”.
However, it seems to me that we might get into a very lengthy and quite detailed legal argument about what constitutes such circumstances. In our opinion, it is better to leave to Parliament’s discretion the question of what circumstances are appropriate. I am confident that such support would have been forthcoming in the case of a big national crisis, such as the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001, and I hope that during the passage of this Bill the Government will be able to accept that principle.
To my mind, it is better to subject the power in Clause 1 to vary polling day to a political restriction, requiring political consensus, than to a potential legal argument that may leave polling day to be decided in the courts rather than in Parliament. I accept that the question of whether Amendment 24 or Amendment 25 provides the best safeguard against the misuse of power to vary polling day is a matter of debate, but I think that noble Lords will be very attracted to one option or the other. I also believe that many of us will agree that the potential prime ministerial power to bring forward an election by two months should simply not remain in the Bill.
In conclusion, it seems that there is a fundamental flaw in the logic of this part of the Bill in relation to varying the date of elections. I say that because it makes no provision for varying the fixed date of the local council elections. As we are legislating for general elections to be held in the first week of May, and as council elections every year in much of the country are held on the first Thursday in May, if it were necessary for whatever reason to vary the date of the general election, surely it would be equally necessary to vary the date of the local council elections. There are of course provisions to vary the date of the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly elections but only by one month. Therefore, why should the Westminster general election be varied by perhaps two months when elections in Scotland or Wales can be varied by only one month?