House of Lords: Reform

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree that an elected Chamber has problems, because there would inevitably be a clash with the Commons and indeed the devolved legislatures. An appointed Chamber allows the Commons to prevail constitutionally and serve constituents across the country. Reform is not ruled out in the longer term but we have been very clear, certainly ever since I joined the Front Bench, that we should not have piecemeal reform and that any reform should be very careful, considered and comprehensive.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of one of the greatest reforms of the House of Lords, which I am sure the vast majority of noble Lords agree with, brought in by a Conservative Government—the Life Peerages Act in the 1950s.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend, who always has good historical angles, that the Act was a great move forward. Many of us who are lucky enough to serve in this House benefit from that excellent constitutional change.

Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

There is an issue of balance between privacy and the need to know—the transparency. I have often engaged with the noble Lord on these tax issues and the Prime Minister himself has said that he will publish his tax return, but moving to a different system raises quite a lot of issues of balance. I come back to my point about personal responsibility and explaining where there are these issues or might be conflicts of interest when you are a Minister, or if circumstances change.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

Is it not the case that it is very important that any Prime Minister of the day has an independent ethics adviser and an independent Commissioner for Public Appointments? What is the point of having these officials doing those jobs unless they are allowed to get on with them—do the jobs they are paid and appointed to do—and avoid the speculation, which is completely unfounded until the facts are known?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Sir Laurie Magnus is doing just that. He was appointed in December and now has an important case to look into. We need to give him time to look at the issues that have been raised and come to the Prime Minister with a summary of his findings, so that we can move forward. But we need to establish the facts because, unfortunately, everything you read in the newspapers is not always spot on.

Peerages: Letters Patent

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As I said yesterday, I am not willing to speculate on what might or might not happen after a future general election. However, I repeat that the Conservative Party, despite winning a succession of elections, has still only 34% of the seats in the House of Lords. It is interesting that 408 Members were appointed over the 13 years from 2010, and 404 Members have been appointed over the 12 years between 2011 and 2022.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister confirm that, when the Prime Minister of the day is considering honours, one of his responsibilities is to maintain the integrity of the honours system?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point, which I am happy to endorse.

Civil Servants: Reduction of Numbers

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, could I ask the Minister if he will ask his right honourable friend Jacob Rees-Mogg to direct his efforts to the DVLA where, we read, people are not returning to their desks in sufficient numbers, with terrible economic effects in terms of people having to wait a long time for their driving licences? Being at their desks rather than watching Netflix or on bicycles would be a great contribution to the economy.

[Lord True (Con)]

I am delighted that I am not in a department where I have to defend the DVLA. I take note of what my noble friend says, and I think people will have heard the sentiment on that subject across the House.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to contribute to this debate. I signed Amendment 3 together with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and other noble Lords.

I do not come to this as a constitutional expert—far from it—but I think I bring to it two objectives. One is to think about it from the practical, political point of view. In this House we have encountered, and will continue to encounter, the prerogative power being increasingly clarified by statute. I start with that point, which I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, referred to. When we see the prerogative being clarified by statute, my view is that we should try to make it a watertight statute. We should try to make it absolutely clear. In this particular respect, we are looking at something that is clear only in so far as it reasserts that there is the status quo ante. However, the status quo ante itself is not necessarily clear. We have a set of principles which—as we have discovered, and I have discovered, by listening to the debates and reading them in the other place—are themselves debatable about how they would be applied and in what circumstances they would be applied. Even in the first debate this afternoon, we heard the assertion that it would be inconceivable for the monarch to refuse a request for a Dissolution but equally, there may be circumstances in which such a request may be refused, otherwise what is the point of calling it a request?

It is not certain. My view is that when we encounter prerogative whether we were debating the Trade Bill and looking at the prerogative to make treaties—I have a Private Member’s Bill which would clarify in statute the circumstances in which the Government could enter into a prolonged and substantial armed conflict or declare war—or here, I think we should be prepared to be more specific about the circumstances in which this prerogative is to be used.

I come back to the practical and political. First, there is a manifesto commitment. The Conservative manifesto said:

“We will get rid of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act”.


Amendment 3 also enables that to happen. That is not the issue.

Secondly, the Joint Committee put forward the proposition that constitutional change should secure

“as wide a degree of cross-party agreement as possible”.

My personal view is that Amendment 3 would enable that to happen. It is supported by parties in this House. Although it will not commend itself to my noble friends on these Benches, it would be supported by the Scottish nationalists, who are not represented here; they said so in the other place. However, I was rather disappointed that when the Government responded to the Joint Committee, they did not address that point; they did not say that they were looking to secure as wide a degree of cross-party support as possible.

What we have to do, which the Joint Committee asked for, is expose the Bill to the fullest possible scrutiny. Looking at the debate in the other place, I do not think that this issue, which seems central, received that, so I am pleased that we are giving it an opportunity to be thought about very carefully.

I recall that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and its implementation fell down on the two-thirds majority. We should remember that there were three occasions in 2019 on which a Motion was presented in the other place and secured a simple majority but not a two-thirds majority. That immediately begs the question: was that the extent of the problem? Certainly, a simple majority enables us to start to think about how crises should be resolved and by whom, but it is that fundamental point about “by whom” that I come back to. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, put it extremely well, but I shall put it in my own terms.

If a Prime Minister were requesting a Dissolution of Parliament and calling an election in circumstances where that would not be supported by a majority in the House of Commons, on what authority would he or she be doing that? If people cannot tell me what that authority is, we should put into the statute now that a Prime Minister should act with such authority. In all normal circumstances, based on our past experience, a Prime Minister will command a majority in the House of Commons and be able to secure a simple majority for such a Motion, and they would be able to have a Dissolution of Parliament at a time of his or her choosing.

However, I do not think that we can turn the clock back to past conventions and assume that they will be readily or easily applied to future circumstances. For example, coalitions have happened and may do so again, and they may be quite complicated. If we were in circumstances where a Prime Minister did not have a majority based on his or her own party and we were in the relatively early stages of a Parliament, by what authority would they circumvent the fact that an alternative Government was available?

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend about a situation where there was a hung Parliament, where the Prime Minister had no majority—we have had that experience very recently—where a pandemic was taking place and where the Opposition did not co-operate in passing laws. Surely then it would be right for the Prime Minister to seek the consent of the country.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

There are many circumstances in which crises can emerge. There are arguments that cut both ways. In the midst of a pandemic, does one want an election? In the midst of a war, does one want an election? We could go back to 1940 and say, “Surely, if the Prime Minister then, Neville Chamberlain, had sought a Dissolution, why would he not have been granted it? Would it have not been right for the electorate to say what the outcome should be?” My response to my noble friend would be to ask whether in those circumstances it would not be the responsibility of the House of Commons, and whether it did not have the authority to resolve that crisis. If the answer we come to is, “Oh, but, but, but…”, there are all sorts of circumstances and hypothetical scenarios that we can conjure up which would lead us to the assumption that the Prime Minister can go to Her Majesty or the monarch and request a Dissolution, but the House of Commons would not support it. I come back to the same question: by what authority does the Prime Minister make such a request? I support the amendment and have put my name to it because it brings us back, time and again, to precisely that point.

Professor Robert Hazell put it more elegantly when he gave evidence to the Joint Committee:

“The best way of protecting the monarchy is not to revive the prerogative power but to leave decisions about Dissolution where they belong—in Parliament, in the House of Commons.”


This amendment does that in the simplest and most effective way possible by making it certain that if a Prime Minister requested a Dissolution in future, he or she did so on the basis that a majority of the House of Commons had agreed. If not, by what authority would he or she do it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment for the reasons given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. Like the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I have been searching for credible arguments against it. I was therefore very grateful that the Minister circulated a letter, setting out the Government’s stance, in which I hoped I might find some credible arguments against it, even if I did not agree with them, but this is what the letter said. It said that it

“will not necessarily achieve the desired outcome”

and:

“Its long-term consequences … are untested.”


I may have got the logic wrong, but until something is implemented how can we know what its long-term consequences are? So I was not too troubled in my belief by that.

Then I read that it was a “novel element”. Anything that is change, by definition, has a degree of novelty to it, so that did not get us very far. It was then said that there could be “(unintended) consequences” without any suggestion of what they might be, so that did not get us much further. It then said it was a “constitutional innovation”. Well, yes—so? That did not get us any further. The letter then said that it had not been “fully considered” and constitutional change needed to be fully considered. Perhaps it had not been, but it has now, so that is not a credible argument. Finally, we had a typically empty threat from the noble Lord, Lord True:

“We are not doing a service to the elected chamber if we ask them to reconsider a question which they have squarely confronted and which they have decisively decided against.”


We might as well go home if we adopted that policy. We certainly would not have been voting against the police Bill at all if we accepted that. That is the sum total of the Government’s response on why we should oppose this amendment.

The further argument—which the Government did not use, incidentally—that I thought had some substance was advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. These are my words, not hers: MPs might refuse a Prime Minister an election because they feared for their own seats and so would act out of personal interest rather than the national interest. Against that theoretical possibility, surely there is the more likely possibility of a Prime Minister calling a premature election primarily to save his or her skin, rather than because they have considerations of the national interest uppermost in their mind.

In any event, surely, the constitutional position is that citizens vote for someone to represent them in Parliament, not for a Prime Minister. In my political lifetime, there have been five occasions on which the Prime Minister has changed during the lifetime of a Parliament without triggering a new election in any case. So voters have ended up with a Prime Minister who was not a prime ministerial candidate at the previous election and who has no personal, direct mandate from the electorate. MPs, by contrast, will be held to account by their electorates if they trigger an early election and so, in my view, the decision on whether to do so should rest with them.

I was going to respond to the noble Baroness in terms of what happened in 2019, but the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has done that extremely comprehensively. I would just say, going back to 1974, that the same arguments apply. Does anyone believe that in the autumn of 1974, if the House of Commons had been asked whether there should be an election, Harold Wilson would have been denied one? The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, gave the reasons. Oppositions are there to oppose, and they do not vote to keep their opponents in office—it is in the name. The key question which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised is by what authority does a Prime Minister decide, uniquely, when an election should be held, particularly, as I said earlier, if that Prime Minister was not the candidate for Prime Minister at the preceding general election? In my view, authority on when an election should be held should rest with the people who have been elected to run a Parliament. That is why I support this amendment.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I am very puzzled by this debate. There have been words used such as “inappropriate”, “exceptional” and “misuse of power” to suggest that the Prime Minister of the day, when he or she asks the electorate to choose the Government, and where he puts his or her own tenure in No. 10 at risk, is somehow abusing his or her position. I do not understand what those likely positions might be where the Prime Minister of the day can be accused of abusing his or her power to go to the electorate. Nobody has yet produced an example of that. We know when the Prime Minister might want to do that—because they have no majority and want a majority, because they have a very small majority or because they want a mandate for a new policy, possibly—but none of those is an abuse of their power.

If I had read the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and instead of reading “election” and “Dissolution” had read “Prorogation”, I would completely understand. Of course, it would be an abuse of power to give the Prime Minister of the day the power to extend the life of Parliament, but I do not understand in what situation a Prime Minister can be accused, in these words, of inappropriate or exceptional misuse, by asking the electorate to choose the Government they want, and to put his or her own tenure at No. 10 at risk. I would be grateful if somebody could provide me with some examples.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am glad to assist, but I would like to ask the noble Lord a question. I have already explained how a Prime Minister who wanted an election could get one, so the power remains with the Prime Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am sorry. God, I will be glad when we get rid of those for good.

The noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, said that, somehow or other, there is a suggestion that the argument on this side or around the House is that a Prime Minister calling for a general election is bad, undemocratic or inappropriate. We are not saying that at all. We are saying that a Prime Minister would not be a Prime Minister unless he had a majority in the House of Commons, and the Prime Minister would get what he wanted. I apologise for the length of the intervention, but the question I want to ask the noble Lord is: if he feels this passionately about, as I understood it, the Prime Minister alone being able to make that decision, how could it possibly be the case, in his argument, that a monarch—unelected—could say no to the Prime Minister making a request of that sort?

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

I am very pleased that the noble Lord asked that question, because the debates this evening have said that we do not think the monarch could conceivably refuse a request for a Dissolution, as the noble Lord has already said. Other speakers have said that the House of Commons would never refuse a Dissolution; that was the thrust of the noble Lord’s speech and the speeches of other noble Lords. We are being asked to put in a brake on the power of the Prime Minister, but we are told that the brake will never be exercised. What is the point of that? I come back to my question: what are the most inappropriate examples of a Prime Minister abusing their power by calling an election? I can think of only two. First, they might, for party-political reasons, seek the advantage of going early because they think they can get a bigger majority. We know that the electorate are not stupid. There are, throughout the whole country, Brendas from Bristol who will react to that—we found this in February 1974 and in 2017.

The other reason which I thought might be in the minds of noble Lords is if the Prime Minister of the day wanted to go to the country with what they thought would be a sole populist or undemocratic programme, and they were worried that the electorate might vote for it. That poses two problems. First, it is denying the public the right to choose the Government and policy they want. If you really want to exercise an effective brake for that sort of reason, you need a different Bill, because this Bill is designed to end the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and go back to the status quo ante. I believe, as my noble friend the Minister said, that this clause to give the House of Commons a veto—otherwise there is no point in giving the provision to it—drives a coach and horses through this Bill.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

I shall seek to answer the noble Lord’s question. I go back to February 1974. Imagine that Harold Wilson had said, “I’ve become the Prime Minister. I don’t have a majority. Mine is the largest party. I want to rerun the election straightaway.” Add into that mix—which was not the case at the time—that he is the leader of the party that has the most substantial resources and has been the least damaged financially by the conduct of the election. But that is not what happened. Maybe Harold Wilson was advised that he should not do that, but that is the sort of circumstance that might be thought inappropriate.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

I just think that if you gave the House of Commons the opportunity to veto it, and the Government of the day simply could not get on with their business, which is what would probably happen, then we would have a problem. I come back to the point I made with my noble friend Lord Lansley: if you have a Government with a minority, or without a working majority, that Prime Minister may not be able to get the support of Parliament; but he or she needs it to be able to have an effective working Government.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord asked for an example of where a Prime Minister might illegitimately ask for a general election. I will give an example not a million miles away from our present circumstances. Let us suppose that 54 Conservative Members of Parliament expressed no confidence in the present Prime Minister, and there was then an election in the Conservative Party for an alternative leader, and that leader emerged. At that moment, the present Prime Minister decided that, rather than give up power, he would ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament so that there could be a general election. I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, that, in those circumstances, a majority in Parliament, which the Conservatives would have, would reject the proposal for a general election. That might be an imaginable circumstance. I am not in favour of this amendment—I would rather not have it at all—but that is a situation where I would rather that the majority in Parliament rejected the idea of an election than the Queen having to do it.

Legislation: Skeleton Bills and Delegated Powers

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, as a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I have seen us comment on thousands and thousands of SIs, and we have been very fortunate to have a brilliant team of advisers and clerks to help us do our work, so I am not surprised that, recently, a House of Commons report praised the Lords for the scrutiny and expertise that they bring to SIs.

However, when it praised us for scrutinising SIs, I asked myself what they mean by scrutinising. Imagine I am doing a deal and my lawyer says to me, “I’d like you to scrutinise the draft contract.” I look at it and say, “I have now studied it very carefully, but I do not like certain parts of it.” The lawyer says, “By scrutiny, I simply meant comment on it—you can’t actually change it; you cannot reject it; it is a fait accompli.” That is our position with SIs in this place. Except on the rarest occasions, that is what we do in the House of Lords when we scrutinise SIs. We pass thousands and thousands of them unamended; we are not allowed to amend them and, by convention, we are duty bound to pass them.

As other noble Lords have said, these SIs can impose very detailed and onerous restrictions and burdens on the day-to-day life of individuals, businesses and organisations. They often come into force immediately, and Parliament just waves them through compliantly. This is why we called it Government by Diktat, and it is no wonder that the Government are trigger-happy with SIs.

You might ask, “Why doesn’t Parliament reject them from time to time?” A Government with a majority in the House of Commons will always get its way, and in this House, if we were to reject an SI, as we cannot amend it, we would kill it stone dead, and we are understandably very reluctant to defy the elected Chamber when we are unelected.

As the noble Lord, Lord German, said, we cannot expect the Government to change their ways. We will go on having an avalanche of SIs, skeleton Bills and Henry VIII powers. It is Parliament that has to look at how to change our ways. We will have to have a really serious look, either through a Joint Committee or through our procedure committees, but the only way we will change the way we deal with SIs is for Parliament to grasp this nettle.

Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 19th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Naseby, and I support the Bill. Before I come on to the main point that I want to make in my speech, I shall pick up one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. He made a very fundamental point about the privilege of voting in general elections. I have always been struck by the empowering way in which general elections happen. Millions of people go into their local library, village hall or church hall. They go into a booth, take the stub of a pencil on the end of a piece of string and put a cross on a scrap of paper. They put that scrap of paper into a tin box and, very often, the next day the entire Government leave office. That is the most empowering thing that we do in a democracy. I happen to like the fact that it happens the next day, because it reminds people that they themselves did it; it was not done in smoke-filled rooms. I remember how empowered I felt when I first voted, and I have voted in every single election, as I suspect most people in this House have. However, the one thing we are not allowed to do is vote in general elections. We are denied that empowering and unifying experience, which is so important to our country.

I support this Bill for one fundamental reason, which is taxation. Everybody in this House pays income tax, VAT and excise duties; they possibly pay capital gains tax; their families might pay inheritance tax. Quite rightly, we in this House do not decide taxation—I agree with that. Members of Parliament in the House of Commons decide that, but we cannot elect those Members. We cannot have any say at all on the levels of taxation imposed upon us. If we were talking about some third-world or newly independent country where they denied certain people the right to elect the people who impose taxes on them, we would be horrified.

I want to give the House two figures. At the last election, there were 46 million people on the electoral roll. Every one of them was entitled to vote for the Members of Parliament who decide taxation. There are 778 people who cannot do that—Members of this House. We are denied that right. This is more than just a minor anomaly; it is fundamentally wrong.

I want to pick up some of the arguments that I suspect—I may be wrong—my noble friend the Minister will deploy in arguing against this Bill, as I am sure he will. The first is that we should not do this via piecemeal reform. This is how House of Lords reform has been done for the last 100 years. There is no prospect of a coherent, comprehensive piece of legislation coming forward. We have changed the composition of the Lords, we have allowed retirement and we now have an attempt to reduce the size of the House. I looked back to see what excuses had been made against individual piecemeal reforms of this House in the past, and I was fascinated by the arguments used against the policy proposed in the 1960s by Viscount Stansgate, better known as Anthony Wedgwood Benn, who wanted to allow hereditary Peers to renounce their peerage. One of the arguments used against that was deployed by the Garter King of the day. He argued that allowing peers to renounce their peerage would subject their wives to what he called “social demolition”. Very weird arguments are used against piecemeal reform, but the only way this House will reform itself in the foreseeable future is precisely by piecemeal reform.

The other argument that will no doubt be used is that there are some technical flaws in the Bill. I do not know if there are or not, but if there are, they can be corrected. This week, we had the Northern Ireland Bill that went through the House in two days. There were technical flaws that had to be corrected, and they were corrected extremely efficiently and swiftly.

The third argument will no doubt be that this is not the right time. Of course, I fear that this Bill will not reach the statute book, because we will come to the end of this Session at some point.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Do not bank on it.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury]

I want to put this point to the Minister, and I would like him to answer it if he would. Does he at least accept the fundamental principle that there is something wrong when people who have taxes imposed upon them have no right to decide who imposes them?

Government Policy: Plain English

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all government papers and publications which set out government policy are written in plain English.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Consultation Principles published in 2012 by the Cabinet Office state that consultation should be clear and precise, using plain English and avoiding acronyms. These principles are actively promoted by the Civil Service Policy Profession but Ministers are ultimately responsible for the clarity of government publications.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased that my noble friend is answering this Question. He was first a Minister in 1979—and I am delighted that he is still a Minister today—so he will remember that in the past Governments used to set out government policy in plain English in short and succinct White Papers, whereas now you go into the Printed Paper Office and your heart sinks when you see a heavy and thick document because you know that, the thicker it is, the more impenetrable it will be. Therefore, I ask my noble friend to urge his ministerial colleagues to revert to the practice of publishing government policy in short White Papers written in clear and simple English.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend. There have been a number of discontinuities in my service as a Minister over the years. I share his alarm when one goes into the Printed Paper Office and picks up a huge tome, particularly if a Minister will have to answer a debate on it. When I was a civil servant, I was guided by Sir Ernest Gowers, whom many will remember. He wrote The Complete Plain Words and he had three principles: first, use no more words than are necessary; secondly, use words that are familiar; and, thirdly, avoid vague and abstract words and use words that are precise and concrete. I commend Sir Ernest Gowers to all Ministers and all civil servants when they produce White Papers, and I heartily endorse the exhortation from my noble friend.

Referendums: Parliamentary Democracy

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, it is a real and genuine pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Pickles. I have heard many maiden speeches in this House but I have never heard one quite like that. I learned a lot about his early years. Of course, he has had a most distinguished career in local government as leader of Bradford Council, a Member of Parliament —you could not wish for a more assiduous constituency MP than him—and a Cabinet Minister. Whatever job he has had, he is always refreshingly down to earth and direct, as we have heard. He has a clear and analytical mind. He is prepared to grasp nettles and bring about change when change is needed. He does all this with a twinkle in his eye. His great talent is his capacity to diffuse any political situation through his sheer presence. He brings great experience and expertise to this House and we warmly welcome him.

As others have said, today’s timely debate is thanks to my noble friend Lord Higgins. The Motion before the House tactfully talks about the impact of referendums on parliamentary democracy. “Tension” might be a more accurate word, because that is what we experience today. We know how it happened: after the 2015 general election, Members of Parliament exercised their judgment—as they should in a representative democracy—and voted to call a referendum. In a general election, voters delegate to politicians the responsibility for making complicated decisions; in many ways, the politicians delegate that responsibility to the voters in a referendum, at least up to a point. The question on the ballot paper was very simple: “Do you want to remain in the EU or do you want to leave?” The complicated question of how we leave the EU was not on the ballot paper, so it was left to the politicians to answer it.

The problem is that politicians cannot decide among themselves, which has resulted in Members of both Houses claiming that they have somehow been able to divine what people voted for: to take control, leave the customs union, not leave the customs union, not be worse off or whatever. Frankly, we do not know what they voted for, because people vote the way they do for hundreds and thousands of different reasons, many of them absolutely bizarre. The idea that everybody reads every line of every manifesto or piece of political literature is fanciful. Politicians are now grappling with what form Brexit should take and are beginning to call for a second referendum. “Let the people decide”, they say. “Do they want the form of Brexit that would be on offer or would they prefer, on second thoughts, to remain in the EU after all?” I am totally opposed to a second referendum. Let me explain why.

One of the great things about this country is that, every four or five years, millions of people go to their local village hall, library or school, take a pencil stub, put a cross on a scrap of paper and put it in a tin box. The next day, the most powerful and ruthlessly ambitious people in the land walk out of Downing Street and government without a drop of blood being shed. It is one of the glories of our democracy. It works by consent: people who do not like the result accept it, which is the foundation of our democracy. But if politicians say, “I know you voted to leave in the referendum, but don’t you think you might have made a mistake? Would you like to reconsider your decision?” then the political class undermines that referendum’s validity and the very foundation of our democracy.

Party Funding Reform

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bew, whom we had before our committee earlier this year and whose contributions are always extremely thoughtful and balanced.

We all agree that political parties are essential for the effective working of our democracy and that political parties need proper funding, but parties need more than money. They need popular consent, support and membership; otherwise they become the preserve of the political elite or, worse still, a part of the state. So the debate over party funding needs to take place in that wider context.

One of the great challenges facing western democracies today is that millions of people have on the whole tended to have less confidence in mainstream political parties. There is, as we all know, a growing disconnect between people and those whom they see as the political elite. It is happening in America and in parts of Europe and it is certainly happening here, so my starting point is that any reform of party funding should aim to halt that trend and, better still, to reverse it. I am therefore opposed to any change which would discourage and reduce voluntary donations to political parties to the extent that the state would then be called upon to step in to fill the gap. I accept the need for Short money and Cranborne money, but I am totally opposed to general state funding of political parties. If we were to go down that road, it would only confirm people’s suspicions that there is a self-appointed political elite running the show.

Political parties have a responsibility to go out and seek support, and they should not subcontract that job to the state. We know it can be done. Just look at recent developments. UKIP broke the oligopoly of the major parties in England, the SNP has broken the oligopoly in Scotland and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and appeal has swollen the membership and the coffers of the Labour Party. If we look at our democracy from that broad, non-partisan perspective, I see these as really interesting and in many ways encouraging developments. It is worth noting that both UKIP and the SNP have been the recipients of substantial donations from rich individuals. Would our democracy be better or worse off if those donations had been precluded by law, if those parties had never risen up and if their supporters had never been given a voice or representation?

We should not look at the question of party funding as if the party structure were permanent. A reformed system of funding should not freeze the status quo, it should not erect barriers against new entrants and it should not deter the rise of new parties where there is support for them. But if we are not careful, these could be the unintended consequences.

Let me paint a scenario which could perhaps occur. Donations are capped, the state then steps in to provide more funding from the taxpayer and as a quid pro quo there is felt to be a need for parties’ expenditure to be capped—all of this to be decided by an unelected Electoral Commission on which will be sitting members appointed by the leaders of the political parties. Meanwhile, local parties have less and less incentive to go out and raise money and recruit new members. The result? The political elite are further entrenched and the general population further alienated.

As the parties edge bit by bit along the road towards consensus on gradualist reform, as I hope they will, I also hope that they will keep all this in their minds.