Queen’s Speech

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, the trouble with these debates is that you hear about so many issues that you would like to pursue. You have five minutes and a speech in your hand, and you wonder whether you should throw it away to pursue the issues you have been listening to or deliver the speech. I am going to say only two or three things about the issues I have been listening to. I note with great interest from the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that we are not going to have a Bill on repealing the Human Rights Act; rather, we will have proposals that no doubt will have to be consulted on and that no doubt the Government will have to consider after the consultation, and then eventually at some stage in the indefinite future they will tell us what they have in mind.

I was also tempted to pursue the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. He said that it is important that Governments should get their way on delegated legislation. That is obviously true, but on the other hand it is also obviously true that Governments should not use delegated legislation where they ought to use primary legislation. If the Government continue to produce skeleton Bills, they should not be too surprised about the vigour with which this House then approaches the regulations made under them.

I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for pricking my curiosity about the issue around the assertion of financial privilege by the House of Commons in response to an amendment by the House of Lords to a Bill which on the face of the amendment does not directly raise an issue of finance. It seems that too often in recent years financial privilege has been claimed by the Commons in respect of matters which are not particularly financial but, rather, are matters of general policy. It is time that we had a joint and open discussion on this procedure.

Financial privilege seems to go back to a resolution of 1671 which stated,

“that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the Lords”,

and was followed by a further resolution of 1678 which restated,

“the undoubted and sole right of the Commons”,

to deal with all Bills of “aids and supplies”. That is fairly clear. Erskine May has now elevated these strange little principles to this:

“The Commons’ claim to sole rights in respect of financial legislation applies indivisibly to public expenditure and to the raising of revenue to meet that expenditure ... The Commons treat as a breach of privilege by the Lords not merely the imposition or increase of such a charge but also any alteration, whether by increase or reduction, of its amount or of its duration, mode of assessment, levy, collection, appropriation or management”—

in other words, just about everything, except in relation to money Bills, where the issue is perfectly clear because they are covered by the Parliament Act 1911. It is when the Commons uses financial privilege to reject a Lords amendment on policy grounds that the difficulties arise.

Prima facie, almost every Bill that comes to the Lords and therefore almost every amendment made by the Lords is capable of attracting a claim for financial privilege. I was interested in the procedures for this down at the other end. As the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said recently, it is important to realise that financial privilege operates on something of a hair trigger; we do not need very much to engage it. As I understand it, it is for the Clerk of Legislation in the Commons to take the decision as to whether an amendment coming from the Lords has a financial effect. This is normally fairly straightforward. The Speaker is not directly involved at that stage, and nor indeed are the Government of the day, but where they do become involved is in deciding whether the Commons should waive that financial privilege. In many cases it does, and the Lords amendment is then considered on its merits. What worries me about this is that it is very much a matter for the Government to decide whether an amendment should be stifled or allowed to breathe.

Two considerations flow from this. The first is whether the Clerk of Legislation is the appropriate authority to decide whether financial privilege is involved and, if so, by what criteria he should act. Secondly, surely there is too much power in the hands of Governments to decide which amendments they will permit to go forward for further consideration. It means that a Government can pick and choose which amendments they wish to strangle and which will be allowed to live. I really do not think that this is satisfactory. It is time that both Houses got together to try to decide the scope of financial privilege and whether the existing procedures of claiming and waiving it are the best that can be devised. I urge the Government to consider setting up some kind of joint mechanism of both Houses to consider this matter. The present position is beginning to create irritation and frustration in the Lords and, dare one say it, a tinge of arrogance on the part of the Government in the House of Commons. We should be doing something to put this right lest it get really out of hand.

Trade Union Bill

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I make it clear straightaway that I had the greatest respect for Lord Murray—Len Murray, as he was—and had extremely good relations with him. But I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lea, for making the point that this should be honoured. If there is evidence that it has not been honoured, it will obviously be a concern for responsible people in the TUC to see that it is. As I understand it, the noble Lord is saying that in no sense has it been repudiated or has the TUC withdrawn that undertaking. My point today is simply about the giving of that undertaking. I agree with the noble Lord that the observance of it and the checking as to whether it was being followed seem to have been pretty slack. It is helpful this has been brought to the attention of us all and I hope that it can now be followed through.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord King, for his history lesson but, with great respect to him, I do not think it very relevant or apposite in considering this amendment. I really do not know where the House is going to on this. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, says that he agrees with it but then complains about the way in which it was done. I think that the noble Lord, Lord King, agrees with it but because of something that happened in 1984 he is not very happy with it. The Conservative Members who were actually on the committee disagreed with it—understandably, perhaps—because their view, which they expressed vigorously on the committee, was not upheld by this House and has not been upheld by the House of Commons. There is a certain amount of dispute on both sides but this really is a sensible compromise.

As an old Fabian, when I looked at this amendment and the difficulties that it is designed to deal with, the phrase which came to my mind was that of Beatrice Webb. She talked about the inevitability of gradualness. It seems to me that once you have established the principle that opting in is right for new members, the “inevitability of gradualness” principle will take over and, in due course, you will have a comprehensive opt-in. I suspect that it will be much sooner than a lot of people think. This is a sensible compromise and, for heaven’s sake, let us accept it.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

The point that has been left out is the second half of what the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, which was about opting in for new members but attention to right and proper communication with existing members.

[Lord Richard]

That is in the amendment. Of course there should be proper respect. Trade unions are being placed under an obligation to tell their members once a year. What more does the noble Lord want?

[Noble Lords]

Come on, get on with it.

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Richard Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, on the first point, I draw my noble friend’s attention to what Sir John Chilcot told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the other place. He said he had seen,

“no evidence … that anyone is trying to delay the publication of the report by holding out from responding or entering into argument about the Maxwellisation process”.

As regards the lessons we need to draw from this process, I am sure there will be very many indeed, but I humbly suggest that we do so once the report is completed.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, is not the real problem here that, under the present rules for inquiries, the Maxwellisation process is mandatory? It is not discretionary or left to the chairman of the inquiry to decide who ought to be given the opportunity to respond; it is mandatory and it takes an awfully long time. A committee of this House recently considered the operation of the Inquiries Act and one of its main recommendations was that a Maxwellisation process should cease to be mandatory and should be left to the discretion of the chairman. So far, the Government have refused to take that on board. In the light of what we now know about Chilcot, will the Minister undertake that the Government will look again at whether the rules of procedure for inquiries are up to it and, indeed, whether or not the Maxwellisation process should cease to be mandatory?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, but I have to refer him to the answer I have just given, which is that we will need to take account of this process and the lessons we might learn once the inquiry concludes. I note that he shakes his head, but this inquiry is independent and it needs to remain independent.

Lobbyists: Register

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question I was considering was whether or not certain newspapers whose reporters spend a great deal of their time impersonating lobbyists should also be required to register.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to what has happened so far in this area as being a step. He also referred to the next step. What is the next step?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I suggest that the next step after two or three years’ operation of this measure will be for the next Government to review how effective this process has been and how many professional lobbyists have registered. There is active resistance to this measure. I have been reading PRNews and various other publications and they all say that the measure is inadequate or unclear. We will see how well the excellent woman who has been appointed to the statutory regulator fulfils her duties. After that, we will consider what we might do to expand our activities in this area. If we were to register every single lobbyist of every single company that lobbies directly for its interests, we would have a vast bureaucracy. That is not something that we should undertake lightly.

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Richard Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure about backstairs manoeuvring. I would say that the members of the Chilcot inquiry would not pass the necessary test as all being members of the establishment. Indeed, one of the members of the Chilcot inquiry disrupted the first lecture I gave as a university teacher when he was himself a rebellious student. The inquiry does have to consult those whom it will criticise and allow them to provide a defence. That is the process that now remains to be completed before we publish. We all have to accept that in natural justice that has to be allowed to go ahead even if there are lawyers involved.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, the process referred to by the noble Lord could take months. It could take a very long time. If criticisms are made in the report they then have to go to the people who have been criticised. They have the right to comment. It then comes back to Sir John Chilcot. He has to consider those representations and then, if necessary, reflect them by amending the report. That is a recipe for a delay that will go on and on and on.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hope that will not be the case, but I am sure the noble Lord will accept that this is a necessary part of the process. There will be criticisms of people who served in the previous Labour Government and they are entitled to see them before publication.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as the former chairman of the Joint Committee. Secondly, I very much regret the absence of my friend Lord Grenfell from this debate. He is a person of vigorous views—on this we do not agree—but I would like to have heard his voice today.

The Labour Peers’ report, The Future of the House of Lords and its Place in a Wider Constitution, is a useful contribution to the debate. We have been round and round this course many times. There is not a great deal new that can be said about it but at least the report gives us a new focus for the discussion and recognises that some reform has to take place and that it should take place now.

I am grateful to the authors of the report, particularly for paragraph 1.8, which says:

“Labour peers as a group do not necessarily agree on every issue relating to the future of the House of Lords”—

how true. The report continues:

“Such a spectrum of views, with many points in between, often crystallises around the issue of whether the House of Lords should be elected”.

The report then says:

“We know that opinions on this issue are very often passionately held”—

that is certainly true—

“and that those holding such strong opinions are unlikely to be moved from them”.

That seems true as well. The report continues:

“Our judgement is that a majority of Labour peers do not support an elected House of Lords. However, we know too that a substantial number of Labour peers do support an elected Lords. We respect both views, and we recognise that on this issue, and no doubt others, there is unlikely to be clear agreement across the board”.

Those are rather wise words, if I may say so. I certainly commend that lot to the House.

Noble Lords will know which side of the argument I am on.

[A noble Lord]

Both!

[Lord Richard]

I stand where I was and nothing has caused me to modify my views. I believe in an elected House. I believe that in the long term it will be seen as not only right but inevitable. There is a fairly obvious lacuna in the report that I should point out, which is that it calls for progress and reform as part of the process—progress towards what? What is the end of the process? The answer can be only an elected and reformed second Chamber. If that is the ultimate aim, viewed in that context the report is indeed useful. If viewed as an end in itself, the report is not.

Since we are talking about Labour Party views, we should be clear about what the Labour Party commitment was at the previous election—and indeed, I hope, remains. We set it out very clearly in our manifesto. With the leave of the House, I will quote it:

“We will ensure that the hereditary principle is removed from the House of Lords. Further democratic reform”—

the House will note these words—

“to create a fully elected Second Chamber will then be achieved in stages. At the end of the next Parliament one third of the House of Lords will be elected; a further one third of members will be elected at the general election after that. Until the final stage, the representation of all groups should be maintained in equal proportions to now. We will consult widely on these proposals, and on an open-list proportional representation electoral system for the Second Chamber, before putting them to the people in a referendum”.

That seems perfectly clear. I would be very disappointed indeed if at the next general election we were not equally forthright.

Moreover, in considering the whole issue yet again, one should not forget that when the House of Lords Reform Bill was debated in the House of Commons, it was passed by a majority of no less than 338, which in anyone’s figures is a pretty hefty majority.

The Labour Party voted very firmly in favour of giving the Bill a Second Reading. Again, we should look at the arithmetic. Of Conservative MPs, 193 voted in favour of a Second Reading, 89 voted against. As far as the Labour Party was concerned, 202 were in favour, 26 against. The Liberal Democrats scored 53 in favour and zero against. I hope that there is no suggestion that as a party we should resile from the principles of the position that we took in the House of Commons. One of the dangers in this whole argument is that the House of Lords will come to the conclusion that it is in favour of a non-elected House and the House of Commons will come to the conclusion that it is in favour of an elected House. That is an unhealthy result to look forward to.

Having said all that, however, I want to look at the common ground between us on the report. The report says that the House of Lords should have 450 Members and be smaller than the House of Commons. I totally agree with that. It says that the hereditary principle should be ended and that all remaining hereditary peerages should be abolished. I totally agree with that. It says that no political party or coalition of parties should seek a Lords majority. I agree. All Peers should be working Peers. I certainly agree with that. The House of Lords Appointments Commission should be established in statute. I agree with that. Attendance should be set at an average of three-fifths of Lords sitting days. That seems to me to be unexceptionable. Disqualification from the Lords should be in line with such arrangements as apply in the Commons. All legislation should start in the Commons. The ceremonial wearing of robes should end. The role of the Lord Speaker should be reviewed. With all of that, I think I could agree. I am bound to say that that is a substantial measure of agreement on any view of this issue. I am sure that it goes rather too far for many people on the other side of the House.

Finally, the report calls for a constitutional commission to consider Britain's evolving constitutional settlement as a whole. This will apparently include devolution, the outcome of the Scottish referendum and questions concerning English governance—whatever that may mean—including regional government. It says that all those provide the context within which wider questions of the place of the second Chamber within the constitution will fall to be determined. These questions are apparently to include the functions and composition of the House, including the question of election, the relationship with the House of Commons, the implications for the formation of Governments, legislative activity, scrutiny of the Executive and representation of the people.

I have to say that is one of the longest and least mowable pieces of grass that I have seen cultivated into which a political football can be successfully kicked. The agenda is enormous and the idea that you could produce results on that in 24 months is, with great respect to the authors of the report, somewhat fanciful.

I see no reason why the reform of this House should have to wait for the resolution of all the problems related to the British constitution. I am very strongly in favour of a long look at the relationship between the devolved Administrations and the centre. I am strongly in favour of taking a long look at the possibilities of regionalisation for England, but I am very much against using the constitutional commission as the excuse for continued inaction on the central issue of the reform of this House.

I am conscious of the time, but I have two other points that I want to make. I will do so very briefly. Looking at the history of this country, we see that many of the great constitutional advances that have been made have been made not by consensus but very much in its absence. If we go back to the 17th century—let alone Magna Carta, that was hardly consensual—and the disputes between Parliament and the Crown, to the Great Reform Bill, or to the Parliament Act 1911, none of them was consensual. They all took place because the Government decided that that is what was right and that was what they were going to do. I would wish future Governments to do that too.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that we are in a time-limited debate. When the clock reaches eight, noble Lords have had eight minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Haskel]

Secondly, I add my thanks to my noble friends who wrote this report. As they say, the House needs reform.

The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, reminded us that reform of this House has been debated for more than 100 years. Until 1949 the debate was about the powers of the House. From 1950 onwards the debate was about membership, and in 1999 this was settled to some extent. The reform debate should again turn to powers. Surely the question is: what are we for? Are we here to make the law or to check it over, to revise it? Are we here to hold the Government and perhaps the House of Commons to account? What is our relationship with the House of Commons and does it need to change, as other noble Lords have suggested? This decision is central to whether we have an elected House of Lords or not. As the paper points out, it is important to carry out these reforms while maintaining the primacy of the House of Commons.

Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Richard that those of us who have been visitors to the United States over the past 20 years will have witnessed Congress, with two elected Houses, slowly disintegrating into pointless partisanship. It is where political debate has been marginalised in favour of last-minute deals—even on important matters such as the budget. That is no way to run a country and I join my noble friend Lord Howarth in thinking that there is a warning for us there.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, my noble friend was kind enough to refer to me. Perhaps he would answer a question from me? He has observed the United States, as I have done. Does he really think that it would have been better governed in the past 20 years if the Senate had been nominated by political parties?

[Lord Haskel]

The answer is: that is beside the point.

We have been struggling with reform since the hereditary Peers left. We have had a royal commission, four White Papers, two Bills at attempted reform of the House and reports from several Select Committees, academics and think tanks. One must also not forget the very sensible proposals made by the Clerk of the Parliaments in December 2012. Little progress has been made because there has been very little consensus. That is why the working group’s paper is valuable. It makes sensible proposals for full reforms, around which it is possible to build consensus. My noble friend Lady Taylor told us how, the more the committee debated, the more consensus emerged. I agree with the proposed constitutional committee to look at the wider constitutional picture and say where we are, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, put it. I also agree with most of the recommendations regarding composition, size, membership, appointment, political balance, and rules for attendance, retirement and procedure. These are all sensible suggestions, but the question is the practical one: how do we put them into effect?

In view of the lack of consensus, I see absolutely nothing wrong with slow and careful incremental reform, taking one thing at a time. One follows logically from the other: each reform will lead to a further reform—the “inevitability of gradualism”, as Fabians would say. The Steel Act is one such step. We need further steps. For instance, the Government could announce, without legislation, a numbers cap and a timetable for reduction of Members. We cannot go on just growing like this. Reduction could then be achieved perhaps by using the same procedure as when the hereditaries left: each group deciding on who would stay and who would go. That would lead to a formula for sharing new appointments between the parties and the Cross-Benchers. The formula would be managed by a strengthened Lords Appointments Commission and in this way the political balance of the House would be maintained.

All this touches on the funding of political parties. A reform of House of Lords membership may even help precipitate a reform of funding. Procedural reforms lie in our own hands and there are very sensible recommendations before us to consider.

This step-by-step reform has to be brought together in a narrative that explains what we are trying to do and why this has become important. It has to be part of our outreach. My noble friends Lady McIntosh and Lady Bakewell both referred to the importance of this, and they are right. In fact, we are quite progressive on outreach in this House: we were the first House to let TV in; we have a Chamber event for non-Members each year; and Parliament Week leads to public engagement and events where people learn about Parliament. We have an excellent website and we are active in all the social media.

As unelected legislators, I have always felt it is part of our duty to explain who we are and what we do, through not only the excellent work of the Information Office staff through their website and social media, but personal contact. People like to meet Peers. Some of us speak at regional meetings of organisations, such as the WI or Rotary. Peers in Schools is flourishing—my noble friend Lady Bakewell spoke of this and she is right. The 150 of us who do visits get the impression that there is little appetite for increasing the number of elected politicians in Westminster after we explain what we do. Indeed, I find that people welcome this House giving Government the opportunity to bring people into government from outside Parliament. However, we have to be a lot more effective in holding the Prime Minister to account for his choice, be it good or bad.

If we are effective in harnessing all this work to explain the narrative of our reform and how we are doing it step by step, it will help lead to consensus in the House and a better informed and more supportive public outside the House. Most importantly, we have to persuade our political leaders to get away from the adrenalin of big reform Bills and be satisfied with a narrative of small reform Bills, which in the end will achieve the same objective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, when I first heard that we were to have another five-hour debate on Lords reform, my heart sank. After the long series of debates that we had on Lords reform in 2011-12, I had a nightmare that I had been condemned to wind up a Lords debate once a week. The person sitting opposite me was rather fuzzy in my nightmare but I fear that it was probably the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, whom I was responding to on each occasion.

However, this is a constructive, useful and modest report, which makes a number of, on the whole, rather conservative proposals. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said that it is a report to, and not from, the Labour Party. Yesterday, I looked at the speech that Stephen Twigg had made to the Electoral Reform Society last month. On Lords reform, he said:

“What I can say is this: Labour is committed to a democratic second-chamber. Ed Miliband has shown that he is a leader with a radical zeal—and this will be true for Lords reform”.

I think that this report is a little bit like Talleyrand’s remark, “Pas trop de zèle”.

Stephen Twigg also said in his interesting speech that one problem with the Lords as currently constructed is that more than 40% of the Peers who regularly attend the House are based in London or the south-east, compared with some 2% in the West Midlands and some 4% in Yorkshire. We all recognise that the Lords, as currently constituted, has a range of problems and that it does not, as the report says, reflect in very many ways the diversity of the United Kingdom. We also recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, remarked, that that is partly because it is so much cheaper and more convenient if one is based in London. Therefore, there is an incentive to move to London once appointed.

I had the great advantage of having been offered a post in the London School of Economics three months before my party leader suggested that he might nominate me for the Lords. It was therefore possible to combine a career with membership of the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, was appointed on the same day as me. He was vice-principal of the University of Aberdeen and found arranging his life to fit in with Lords business a little more difficult than I did.

The report states that,

“reform of the Lords is not an issue that can be tackled in isolation from other constitutional issues”.

I strongly agree with that, and a number of noble Lords said it in this debate. Before commenting on the specific proposals, I shall address some of the broader contexts of constitutional change within the United Kingdom. The other day, a number of us had a useful debate in the Moses Room on exactly that issue. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, if I tell him that my opinion of his expertise on constitutional issues continues to rise every time I hear him speak. That will do him no good at all with his colleagues, but never mind.

A new all-party group chaired by my noble friend Lord Purvis, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is looking at the implications of devolution for the overall constitution. That is exactly the sort of thing we all need to address and will have to address after the Scottish referendum when, as we hope, the Scots vote against independence but expect further devolution, as the Silk commission promises the Welsh—and indeed, there are questions on Northern Ireland.

The English question has come up a number of times in this House. I regard the English question as partly the London question and a question for the whole of the United Kingdom. How do we counterbalance the economic, political and social dominance of London? If you do your politics in Yorkshire, you are acutely aware that the north of England loses out very heavily from the extent to which the devolved Parliaments have begun to establish their independent voice. I go to meetings inside government in which I hear the Scottish dimension, the Northern Irish dimension and the Welsh dimension, but no one mentions the Yorkshire, north-western or south-western dimensions. That is a problem which we all face and which we all have to address.

I hope that all noble Lords will have noted the Government’s various proposals on city deals and the attempts being made, starting with Manchester and following on with Leeds and others, to devolve and decentralise to the major city regions within England financial powers and powers over economic growth. If that is carried through, that would begin to resolve some parts of the English question. Furthermore, it would carry further implications for the governance of the United Kingdom. If the centralisation of England is reduced, we will need fewer departments and fewer civil servants in London. We may then perhaps need fewer Ministers in Parliament. Therefore, perhaps there would be a House of Commons that sees its job less as preparing for service in government and perhaps a little more as checking and controlling the Executive.

We are now engaged on a whole set of questions. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act also has implications. There have been some rather interesting reports from parliamentary committees and from the Institute for Government on how we might use the last year of government to prepare for the next Session. It could be along the lines already adopted on national security strategy where we have agreed—the previous Labour Government set this out—that each new Government should define a national security strategy on the basis of work conducted in the last year of the previous Parliament.

The Institute for Government’s report suggests that in the last year of a Parliament, we should not rush through great masses of additional legislation, as I recall the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, demanding that we do, but that we should discuss some of the dilemmas that whoever is elected will have to face—for example, the rising costs of the National Health Service and how it is funded and some of the other huge questions that will face any Government—and look therefore at a scrutinising role.

Public disengagement was mentioned in the report and by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, in her opening speech, as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. When I read the Hansard Society’s recent Audit of Political Engagement I was shocked that only 24% of 18 to 25 year-olds think that politics has any relevance to them.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord is describing a constitutional process that clearly will be lengthy. The agenda he has given to the Constitution Committee is long. It will take a lot of examination and discussion. There will be a lot of evidence and thinking. Does he really think that House of Lords reform should wait until all that is done?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have in my notes that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that further progress in Lords reform does not have to wait for the conclusions of any constitutional convention. However, I would just make the point that we are moving into a situation where various dimensions of British politics are changing, and we need to discuss how they relate to each other.

Public engagement very much concerns us. The decline in the reputation of the House of Commons should also concern us. I love listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He is a romantic for the House of Commons as it should be, and he was one of the best House of Commons men that we had. I fear that the new generation does not produce as many House of Commons men who are as good as he was.

We have the decline of the two-party system and of parties as such. All political parties now are small compared with where we were some 20 years ago. It is quite possible that the outcome of this coming election, as has been suggested, will not be a two or three-party system but a four or five-party system. With the Northern Irish and Scottish parties, there are already multiple parties in the House of Commons. We could have an awkward situation after the next election in which Labour emerges with the most seats and the Conservatives emerge with the most votes, and no two parties alone would be able to form a majority. That is getting into very uncharted territory as to how we would then proceed. I read the New Statesman and listen to Labour people talking about a Labour mandate and how Labour could form a minority Government with a clear mandate. A mandate on, say, 33% of a 60% turnout is not exactly clear.

The case for a commission or convention is out there. There was an excellent report by the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee last year which suggested that the Government have no view on this issue at present. However, personally and as a Minister, this is a question that we ought to be debating in the last year of this Parliament. I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others are doing. It is one that we all need to consider because we need to look at how all of this runs together.

Recommendation 1 of this proposal is that we need to think about a constitutional commission or convention. There is not time within the next three months or even nine months to define exactly what we want, but it is precisely the sort of thing to which we might return in future debates between now and the election.

On Lords reform, we have been here for a long time. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, after all, chaired the Joint Committee and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, reminded us that he was on the Wakeham commission. The Government remain committed to comprehensive reform, as indeed does the Labour Party officially. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, remarked that the 2012 Bill, criticised sharply from the Labour Benches, closely followed Jack Straw’s White Paper.

The Byles/Steel Act has now introduced some useful interim reforms, and if we accept the proposals in this report as interim and not intended to avoid more comprehensive reform, there are a number of useful and constructive proposals for the interim, some of which are familiar and some of which are relatively new. Quite a number of them can be agreed by this House without requiring further legislation through the normal procedures and usual channels. We are of course open to further discussion on that. On the proposals in the report—

Intelligence and Security Committee

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Justice and Security Act is less than a year old and was a useful step forward. I am conscious that the Snowden leaks, so to speak, and all the other questions about just how wide the collection of information by intelligence agencies across the world is, have stimulated a further debate. I have no doubt that that debate will continue, including within this House.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Foulkes asked what changes the Government propose. Do they propose any changes in relation to this matter or are they still waiting?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have only just commenced and set into effect the Justice and Security Act. The first public meeting of the Intelligence and Security Committee under the Act took place some three months ago, so we are still discussing the next stage. That is not particularly dilatory, given that we are moving in the right direction. We are looking at the current revelations about the sheer scale of internet surveillance, which perhaps raise further issues for discussion.

Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Lord Richard Excerpts

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, during the course of our discussion in this Committee stage so far, I have made a number of light-hearted interventions that I dare say have irritated your Lordships, and I apologise for that. May I now make a serious intervention and give a serious response to the Bill proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas? Like my noble friends Lord Jopling and Lord Caithness, I was not able to be here at Second Reading although I was aware of what was happening. Like my noble friend, I read the Hansard and wished that I had been here.

I very much support the principle that the succession of hereditary peerages should go to the eldest child, not the eldest son, and I would support a change in the law that achieved that. Like my noble friend Lord Jopling, though, I also believe that it is something that cannot be arranged to take place immediately because it would upset all sorts of family arrangements of a very complicated and legal kind, which would be highly undesirable. A number of noble Lords—indeed, my hereditary colleagues—have spoken to me about that, although obviously I will not mention their names. They have family trusts that have been arranged to take account of the fact that their second child, for example, is going to succeed to the peerage. Indeed, I do not mind saying that in my own father’s will he made special provision for the peerage and made it clear that certain things in his estate were to go to the holder of it. As it happened, his eldest son was me so that was fine.

I support the principles of what the Bill proposes. However, I fear there are a number of real difficulties, which have been suggested. I genuinely fear that the Bill is hybrid in one way or another, and I regret that very much. Hybrid Bills cause all sorts of difficulties; my noble friend Lord Jopling will remember that only too well from the distant past. Indeed, when the House of Lords Act 1999 came before Parliament all those years ago, it was thought at some point to be hybrid, although we did not in fact press that argument—other considerations were thought to be more relevant. Whether the amendments now being considered improve matters is a matter of open debate, and I look forward to hearing the further views of noble Lords.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, when he says that the chances of this Bill actually reaching the statute book are extremely slim—indeed, virtually non-existent. In that case, this House, if it is going to consider this subject, must consider very carefully what it is trying to achieve. It is very useful that this House said in an almost declamatory way that it favours the eldest child succeeding to the title whether that child be male or female. I am not sure whether this House can go further than that on this issue.

What I would like to see emerge from the attempts of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is a relatively short statement in the form, I suppose, of a draft statute in which we say, first, to which titles the Bill applies and, secondly, the terms of the amendment put down by the noble Lords, Lord Jopling, Lord Pannick and Lord—I have forgotten who was the third noble Lord was. That encapsulates in a very precise and legally sensitive way exactly what the Bill is trying to achieve.

I have been listening to this debate, particularly the debate on the earlier amendments, and I have found them almost incomprehensible. Anybody who has listened to the debate or who tries to read it in Hansard will find it almost impervious. Whether it should apply to people who hold coats of arms seems almost totally irrelevant. Whether it applies to that strange beast which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, raised, the name of which I cannot remember, but which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will use in pub quizzes in future, again seems totally irrelevant. We all know what we are actually talking about; we are talking about peerages in this House and possibility baronetcies. It should possibly be extended to Ireland—I have no particularly strong views about that. As far as the Scottish peerage is concerned, of course it should be extended to it.

In relation to Amendment 13, there is not a word in the Bill about legitimacy. There is a definition of an heir. It says that a title should go to an heir. There may be different definitions of an heir in England and Scotland, but it seems to me that both would come under the terms of the proposal in Amendment 10. Why on earth the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, wants to amend it in that way when all he is in fact doing is declaring what Scottish law already is does not seem to take the argument or the Bill any further.

If we could have a short statement from this House stating clearly to which titles we wish the Bill to apply, and that succession should apply irrespective of the gender of the eldest child, that would be useful. It would not get into law, but it would be a statement by this House about what it wants to see. It might even—who knows?—provoke the Government into trying to do something about it.

[The Earl of Caithness]

If “living heir” is accepted, does the noble Lord, Lord Richard, accept that it would be irrelevant whether that child was legitimate or illegitimate?

[Lord Richard]

Of course I accept that the definition of an heir may be different in England and Scotland. It is a matter of Scottish law. All I am saying is that if it applies to a Scottish title, then Scottish law will apply to the definition of an heir. Whatever the definition of an heir is, that heir in future, according to this proposal, will be either male or female depending upon which is the eldest. That is the Scottish position. So be it. The English position may be different. I do not see the difficulty that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, sees in this. The proposal talks about an “heir”. What is an heir? It is one thing in England and one thing in Scotland. You cannot marry the two together in a Bill; of course not. The noble Earl’s amendment is frankly irrelevant and unnecessary, because Scottish law will apply to Scottish peerages and English law will apply to English peerages. I do not see the difficulty.

Profumo Inquiry

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have not yet decided whether they will remain closed for 83 years. It is fairly clear who all the individuals in the files are: they are those who were interviewed by Lord Denning.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, I confess that I am slightly baffled by this. Did Lord Denning have the authority to give those assurances? I thought that the release of public documents was governed by various rules and regulations—there may even be an Act—that there was a 30-year rule and a 50-year rule, and that that was, so to speak, part of the governmental fabric. Is the chairman of an inquiry that has been set up by the Government in those circumstances to inquire into a matter like this entitled to give an assurance which, in effect, eats into or may even destroy the purposes of the various rules and regulations about release?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this decision has been reviewed several times. As I remarked, the review has considered whether the files should be destroyed, maintained or released. As the noble Lord is well aware, there are a number of cases, particularly those with security and defence issues, where papers are retained for more than 50, 30 or 20 years. That has to have the approval of what is called a Lord Chancellor’s Instrument. It would now be appropriate to consider whether a formal Lord Chancellor’s Instrument needs to be applied to these files. I will add that at the time, Lord Denning refused to allow the head of the security services access to the papers.

Leveson Report

Lord Richard Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I suspect that it was the result of some very fast footwork by the press board.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, is the noble Lord seriously telling the House that the order in which the Privy Council considers these matters is that in which they are submitted to that body? If that is so, it is the most incredible position. Anybody could submit an application sharpish, which would then hold up consideration of all the major issues which might be submitted by other people. Is there no way in which the Privy Council can draw up a list of priorities of what it wishes to consider first, or is it solely bound by the fact that whoever gets his head through the door first is considered first? That is ludicrous.