House of Lords: Allowances

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, there are two issues here: allowances and the wider issue of the conduct of the House during the lockdown, as was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Alderdice and Lord Newby.

The Leader of the House concentrated her remarks on allowances. On that specific issue, I agree with the commission’s proposal for the reasons that the Leader gave. In a time of great crisis when people are making great sacrifices, it is absolutely right that we follow suit. The right compromise on this is a halved allowance, for the reasons given by the noble Baroness. That should continue for as long as we are meeting virtually because the actual costs that most noble Lords—I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that it is not true of all noble Lords—need to meet are lower.

However, I agree entirely with the thrust of the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Alderdice, about the conduct of the House in lockdown, including that our arrangements should be considered emergency arrangements—because they are, or at least I hope that they are, unless the Government make further changes—to deal with an emergency situation. I say this directly to the Leader: the great concern among many Members is that the emergency changes we are all willingly making to meet the exigencies of this crisis may become permanent. As all of us who have dealt with these situations in other contexts know, precedent always becomes the justification for further changes, particularly in dealing with the proceedings of Parliament. Some key aspects of the arrangements for the House in lockdown are causing acute concern; the noble Lords who just spoke were absolutely right to raise them.

Very significant departures from established practice have been taking place. From time immemorial, it has been a principle that noble Lords who wish to participate in our debates can do so. For the first time, as far as I am aware, in the eight centuries of the history of the House of Lords, under changes that are not even the subject of specific resolutions of the House but are the consequence of going online, noble Lords are being told that they cannot participate in the proceedings of the House. The Motion in the name of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, which we will debate this afternoon, goes to the heart of the crisis facing the country: the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the poor and disadvantaged. Many noble Lords have been told that they cannot participate in this debate because of the arbitrary three-hour time limit that has been imposed and because of the exigencies of the Virtual Proceedings.

The answer is obvious: the proceedings should be longer. There is no reason why we should sit for only three hours. We could sit for five hours. We are sitting only on a limited number of days anyway. Many of us think that we should sit for longer. The noble Baroness can correct me but my understanding is that the Government have been the motive force in restricting our sittings and not holding more debates or longer ones. It is absolutely within our control to fix this.

The second issue is that of a wholly virtual House. It is obvious now to anybody who considers what has happened that the Procedure Committee and the House of Lords Commission made a major error in the arrangements that they put in place for our proceedings after 21 April. They should have moved immediately to a hybrid House, as the House of Commons did. Indeed, it has made a great success of it. I just came into your Lordships’ House from watching Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister was doing a perfectly good job of answering questions and dealing with points made by both the leader of the Opposition in the House and MPs joining via Zoom. That has kept the House of Commons at the centre of the public debate; it has not become invisible. We went wholly virtual, which was a huge mistake —the Procedure Committee needs to get a grip on this when it meets next Monday—and which made us wholly invisible. For the first week of our Sitting, proceedings were not even broadcast, which is a major departure from established parliamentary practice. They are now being broadcast but, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, rightly said, they are not getting a fraction of the attention they get when they take place in this Chamber.

We need to speak bluntly at this point. The Procedure Committee has been very seriously remiss in meeting its duties to the House and to the public, and I hope that it will get a grip and that the Senior Deputy Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord McFall, will fulfil his duties to the House as a whole and not simply implement the wishes of the Government regarding the arrangements for the lockdown.

I hope also that three issues can be addressed immediately. The first is the move towards a hybrid House, so that we can fulfil our duties to the public and do not become invisible. The second is that noble Lords who wish to speak in debates can continue to do so, because that is absolutely central to the performance of their parliamentary duties. If that means longer debates, we should have longer debates—we are here to serve the public, not to serve ourselves. The third aspect, which is vital, is the proceedings on legislation. Your Lordships’ House is a legislature. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, said that we are tempted to exaggerate our importance, but we should not underplay in any way our importance as a legislature. We make the law and there is no more important function in the country than making the law.

Under the arrangements that we are going to debate in a moment, the rights of noble Lords to participate in the Committee stages of Bills and to fulfil their constitutional functions are being severely circumscribed, and for no good reason. If we had a hybrid House, people would be able to participate in Committee proceedings as normal. We have an absolutely unprecedented situation whereby noble Lords who want to engage in the Committee stages of Bills next week have to give advance notice. This has never happened in the history of the House of Lords: that for Members to participate in consideration of a Bill, they have to give advance notice. The whole point of debate is that there is give and take and people come in as they see how debates continue. I have tabled an amendment that would ensure the automatic recommittal of Bills which have been considered only virtually in Committee, so amendments could be moved thereafter.

We have grave responsibilities to the public during this crisis: to debate the challenges facing the country and to bring to Ministers’ attention the severe tribulations being suffered by millions of people up and down the country. We can do that only if we can make our voices heard, and if we can sit properly. I do not believe that the Procedure Committee has enabled us to do that, so it needs to take immediate radical, remedial action before our constitutional duties are severely undermined.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and a pleasant novelty to agree with every word that he has said. I speak in support of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice.

When I entered your Lordships’ House four and a half years ago, I spoke of the deep sense of privilege. But I was also very aware that that was underscored by the knowledge that I am not in any way, shape or form a member of a privileged elite. My fear is that the decision we are discussing today perpetuates the dangerous myth that that is all the House of Lords is about, visible or invisible: that people assume that we are simply part—that we are the epicentre—of the privileged elite.

Business of the House

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

I thank our distinguished counsel, clerk and committee colleagues who have pulled out all the stops today to write and agree that report. It has been circulated round our committee and has received majority support. No one has opposed it. About 20 minutes ago, I was handed a draft copy—

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the failure to consult his committee provides further evidence, if any were needed, that those who most protest their allegiance to parliamentary democracy are actually doing the most to undermine it by ramming this Bill through your Lordships’ House in one day?

[Lord Blencathra]

My noble friend makes a fair point; I will leave him to make his own point in his own way later in today’s proceedings.

I do not wish to read the whole report, although it is very short and I will cut out the introductory paragraphs. The House might be interested if I cut to the chase. If I can do that, then I propose to not press my amendment to a vote.

We say in our report:

“In the Government’s original European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which became the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 … exit day was wholly a matter for regulations without any named date on the face of the Bill. The regulations were subject to no parliamentary procedure at all, whether of the negative or affirmative type. The Bill allowed Ministers to decide on exit day and set it out in law without recourse to Parliament. We objected to this, arguing for the affirmative procedure, meaning that both Houses were required to debate the regulations before they could be made. The principal reasons were the political and legal significance of the date that the UK left the EU, and the allied public interest in the matter. The Government accepted our recommendation.


The principal justification for clause 2 of this Bill is that it might be necessary to legislate at speed next week to change exit day. The affirmative procedure might cause delays, with the risk that exit day in domestic law might not be aligned with exit day agreed under EU law.


There is some force in this argument, but we are not convinced by it on grounds either of principle or pragmatism. The date of the UK’s exit from the EU remains a matter of the greatest political and legal significance. It is right that the matter be debated in Parliament before the current date of 12 April is changed in our domestic law. The Government have previously changed exit day from 29 March to 12 April, and they did so by a statutory instrument subject to the affirmative procedure. The Government have the time to do the same again, having afforded Parliament the scrutiny required by the 2018 Act. Negative resolution scrutiny is necessarily scrutiny after the event (that is, after exit day has already been changed in law). Scrutiny after the event is best avoided in a matter as significant as this, not least because the consequences of a successful prayer against the instrument would lead to the new exit day being legally invalidated (albeit with prospective effect only) perhaps some weeks after it has taken effect.


Clause 1 of the Bill would, in certain circumstances, give the House of Commons a vote on a proposed exit day at EU level, making it perhaps less pressing for them to have one on the consequential change to UK domestic law made by the relevant statutory instrument. But clause 1 does not apply to the House of Lords, meaning that the House of Lords would be prevented from participating in the process of approving a new exit day at EU level. It is correspondingly more important, therefore, that the House of Lords can scrutinise the relevant statutory instrument before it is made, rather than after the event, again arguing for the affirmative procedure (which is the current position). For the reasons set out above, we recommend that clause 2 should be removed from the Bill, thereby restoring the affirmative procedure to statutory instruments amending exit day”.


There you have it. I therefore urge the House to have Second Reading today, let us all—those in favour of it and those who disagree—study my committee’s report and come back to Committee, or a later stage, no later than Monday. That will give us a chance to table amendments implementing, if the House wishes, what my committee recommends. There is nothing in the Bill that justifies us casting aside the procedures we have followed for 27 years and ignoring the Delegated Powers Committee, which every Member of this House says does an excellent job.

I inherited a committee with an outstanding reputation and, not through any skill of mine, it still has an outstanding reputation. We are on a slippery slope if we decide to cast aside our procedures when we do not have to. Whenever we use the excuse of national emergency or crisis, we inevitably get bad legislation. The Bill may be perfectly okay or it could have unexpected consequences. It gives considerable power to the Prime Minister—in view of her work and behaviour over the last few weeks and months, is the House willing to give her that unfettered power? That is a decision only the House can make. Again, it is not what the Prime Minister says she will do but what the law would permit her to do that worries me and my committee.

Last night in another place, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU said of the Bill:

“There are problems with the speed of its passage, the constitutional principle of it and the way it will interact with any decision reached by the Council that differs from the earlier decision taken by the House. I hope that the constitutional experts in the other place will address some of the Bill’s flaws”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1146.]


I leave it to others to address the Bill’s flaws, whatever they may or may not be. My concern today is that we follow our normal procedures and give due consideration to my committee’s report and meet tomorrow if necessary, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, says. Give us time to study the report; let us table amendments, if that is what we wish to do, to correct the serious flaws in the Bill. I urge the House: let us do our job; let us report in ample time so that the Bill can get Royal Assent next week in ample time for the Prime Minister to go to Brussels on Wednesday.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The political declaration sets out a clear vision and framework for a future relationship. Once we leave the EU, we will begin negotiating the detail of that. It is set out. We all want an ambitious economic and security partnership and that is what we will be working towards. Of course any final agreements with the EU will be put forward to Parliament in the usual way.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend referred to “best endeavours”, which appears to be a crucial phrase in the agreement. Given that we have already seen what “best endeavours” actually means—the EU 27 doing their best to do us over, to be competitively advantageous compared to the UK—why should we suddenly trust that it means completely the opposite: that the EU starts to play fair and that, crucially, it avoids using the backstop or allowing it to come into force?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, the withdrawal agreement contains a legally binding commitment to use best endeavours and to ensure that we negotiate in good faith. There will be a mechanism for resolving disputes, first through consultation at the joint committee, with the aim of reaching a mutually acceptable resolution. If that does not work, after three months either party can refer a dispute to independent arbitration. It is there in legally binding text, and that is how we believe both sides will go into the negotiation.