Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to add my name to my noble friend Lord Tyler’s amendments. It is obvious to us all that he has devoted much hard work to them. As he explained, the amendments arise in part as a response to an important issue in the report on this Bill by the Constitution Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member. He quoted a passage from the report that I will repeat. It is immensely important:

“The constitutional purpose of recall is to increase MPs’ direct accountability to their electorates: it is questionable whether that purpose is achieved when the trigger is put in the hands of MPs rather than constituents”.

This is a Recall of MPs Bill. My noble friend’s proposals, embodied in his amendments, represent a first attempt in this House to see if it is possible to find a way of enabling the electorate to be more fully involved in the arrangements that can trigger recall without breaching the famous Burkean principles that safeguard MPs’ independence of judgment. The amendments further develop ideas put forward in another place. They are probing amendments, as my noble friend emphasised. Of course we understand and accept that more work on these amendments would be necessary before Report.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, and others, I did not take part in the Second Reading debate on the Bill because I felt that Members of the House of Commons know best how to control themselves and the relationship they have with the electorate. However, having heard other speeches, I agree that it is incumbent on this House to consider legislation and to have in mind the view, in particular, of the House of Commons.

I believe that this amendment is very dangerous indeed, and I am pleased to have heard the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, state that, if passed, it would in fact be illegal. That is because of the Bill of Rights 1689. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has investigated this and we will hear from him later. This amendment is dangerous in respect of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons. Quite frankly, I am getting fed up with the attacks being made on the House of Commons and its Members. All these attacks which describe them as shysters and people who concerned only for themselves do extreme damage not only to the House of Commons but to parliamentary democracy itself. People should remember that Parliament is the protector of the people against unfair government. We and the House of Commons are the protectors of the people. It is therefore very important that we should not denigrate the position of MPs. I believe that this amendment does exactly that. It is unnecessary and it denigrates the position of the House of Commons.

In effect, the House of Commons will decide whether an issue about a Member of Parliament should go to the electorate in a referendum, and I believe that that is the correct way. The amendment suggests that the House of Commons itself is not fit to do that. I repeat: that will undermine the position of the House of Commons itself, of its Members and, indeed, of Parliament. I cannot accept a situation where 500 people who are completely unqualified and lack knowledge, for some reason that is not really injurious to Parliament and to the House of Commons—this has been explained by many speakers in the debate—can introduce a position where judges can interfere in the decisions of Parliament, which of course should be sovereign. If we take away decision-making from Parliament and the House of Commons, they really will cease to be sovereign. For that reason, if the amendment is put to a vote—although I am sure that it will not be—I will vote against it.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, in an hour of debate—

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I very much hope nearer. In the debate in the House of Commons last week, my colleague the Minister for Civil Society commented that they very much hoped to have this published before the end of February. We are all conscious that we do not want to have this published in the middle of an election campaign.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, could we have the report as a Christmas present?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There are many things that the noble Lord might like as a Christmas present. I am not sure that I would prefer to read this report, with all its appendices, rather than the novels that I hope my wife will give me for Christmas.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be taking part in this excellent and well informed debate and to listen to so many expert speeches. Perhaps by this time, the Government understand that there is no support for their policy—in this House, anyway.

The second thing I want to say is that there has been some criticism of the Opposition for their attitude to the Government’s original position. I do not believe that that is right. I think the Opposition should be praised for the action that they have taken to ensure that both Houses of Parliament are having a proper discussion of this very important matter, not only to this country but to the rest of the world, and, indeed, to prevent this country being bounced into military action, led by the United States, over this weekend.

The general public here are fed up to the teeth with the United Kingdom getting involved in wars in faraway countries that are not to protect our vital interests. They resent money being spent on these conflicts while their living standards and services are being squeezed. They also understand that military interventions increase the risk of retaliation by extremists on this country and, indeed, others. Why the rush to take military action even before the United Nations inspectors have reported? That has been remarked on by many noble Lords this afternoon, and perhaps the Government should explain in more detail why they are so anxious to rush to military action. I am completely opposed to military intervention in the Syrian conflict, especially since it is being rushed into being without having clear objectives and without considering the long-term implications of such action.

Why not try peace? Why are we not peacemongers rather than warmongers? Why do we want to rush into war every time something with which we do not agree goes wrong? Why not drop the absurd policy of refusing to allow President Assad to attend peace negotiations? Why do we allow rebels, including al-Qaeda, to dictate the terms of negotiation? Negotiations are the only way forward if the civil war is to end and a stable Government established. Any other way will lead to complete and utter disaster. Of course, like all other noble Lords, I deplore the use of chemical weapons in any circumstances, but I also deplored the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and the use of napalm on innocent civilians. Etched on my memory is the picture of that naked little girl running down the street flaming from being enveloped in napalm, so I am certainly opposed to weapons of that sort and to the use of depleted uranium in Fallujah. It also killed and maimed countless people and destroyed huge areas of property, but I am afraid that the British Government sat idly by when such atrocities were being carried out.

Finally, we now understand that the Chilcot report is to be delayed until 2014. That is a complete and utter disgrace. Indeed, the report should be published forthwith so that it can help us to understand how to deal with this crisis, which has so many implications and can lead to so many more lives being lost, people being maimed and property being destroyed.

Business of the House

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, 34 speakers have signed up for the European Union debate today. If Back-Bench contributions are kept to around seven minutes each, it would allow the Question for Short Debate to start at around 9 pm and for the House to rise at the target rising time of 10 pm.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I am most disappointed by that statement. We are discussing some very important matters. To expect Members to confine their remarks to seven minutes and to expect the House to finish by 10 pm, when, since we had a relevant debate, we have had two Bills and the developments in the EU over the past six months at least, is, quite frankly, a disgrace. I was minded to oppose these matters being discussed, but I know that I would be defeated and would therefore be wasting the time of all those speakers, including myself, who wish to speak in the debate. Having made my view known, I assure the House that I will not abide by the seven-minute suggestion when I speak third-to-last tonight.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recall many years ago interrupting the late Lord Shore as he got into his 26th minute in one debate. I trust the noble Lord will be more modest in his approach.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course, and I hope that the noble Lord will apologise in due course to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for describing him as moderate.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Before the noble and learned Lord either withdraws or presses his amendment, perhaps I may say a few words. I have held back to hear the noble Lord speak from the Front Bench. We have had a very interesting debate. We have covered all sorts of aspects, from the Scottish aspect to whether we should return to the debate about central register and identity cards. We have discussed the nuts and bolts and the administrative problems that arise from the Bill.

The noble Lord said something very interesting about the motivation to vote, which is what concerns me. In a real democracy, the motivation should come from the heart and the mind, and because people believe that it is worth getting on the register and worth going out to vote. I am of an age when the register was about 90% accurate of those who were entitled to be on it. However, that has fallen considerably. People were on the register then because they wanted to be on the register, and they insisted that they were on it—and God help the registration officer if his or her name was not on the register.

Something has gone wrong, because people now do not do that. I go back—because I have fought many elections in my life, as other Members of this House have done. I remember the election of 1955 when in Reading Ian Mikardo was under pressure. In that election, because people were motivated to go out to vote and to be on the register, we got an 85% turnout—and of course he won. He was not supposed to win, but he won because of the people’s motivation. That was a good word that the Minister used. It does not matter what we say about going around and getting people on to the register; what we really need is the motivation of the people themselves to go on to the register and to believe that it is worth going out to vote because it makes a difference. At the moment, they see no difference between the political parties. They believe that it does not matter what they say or what they do because the Westminster and Whitehall elite will do what they think. As well as being concerned in this Bill about the nuts and bolts, the administration and even Scotland, we should really be thinking about whether the political class is doing sufficient to make people enthusiastic about getting on the register and going out to vote.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, refers to a golden age when he himself sought office by election and when everybody was very keen to vote. Now we are in a different age, or so he identifies—maybe because he is no longer seeking election and, as a result, there is not that motivation on the part of people to vote.

It has been a very interesting and important debate. At its heart was the issue of what steps would be taken to ensure that the move from household to individual electoral registration would not lead to an undue reduction in the number of people registered. At the heart of our amendments was the idea that you have to have independent assessments made of that. What emerged in the debates was that the Government were so supremely confident that all would be well that they were removing the involvement of the Electoral Commission in giving independent advice, and there is no mechanism, other than a new Act of Parliament, to ensure—

Queen’s Speech

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, after I had listened to the Queen’s Speech I listened to the BBC interviewing a Scottish nationalist about it. The Scot nat referred to, “this awful conservative Queen’s Speech”. I thought, “He must have been listening to a different speech from the one I was listening to”, because I could not discern anything particularly conservative in the speech at all. Indeed the speech, if one is to be kind, can only be described as drab. It had no real content that would excite the people of this country.

I also thought, “Well, we have just had local elections where the ruling parties suffered very serious losses”. I thought that they would want to take notice of what the people were saying—that they were not satisfied with the progress of the coalition. I thought I would perhaps hear that the Government were considering the fact that an extra 1 million people—lower management sort of people—were to be put into the 40% income tax band. There was nothing about that. There was no move, as far as I could see, to restore child benefit to those same hard-working people. There was nothing about that in there at all, or about dropping the granny—or perhaps it should be grandfather—tax. There was something about paternity leave, but nothing about providing more work. I should have thought that the Government would want to provide work rather than persuade people not to go to work, which of course paternity leave is all about.

On Europe, I had expected that we would hear something from the Government that was going to prevent us being sucked further into the European construct and, in particular, into the eurozone. But what do we see? There is a Bill in the Queen’s Speech to ratify the European stability mechanism, and I understand that it is to be started in this House on 23 May. Perhaps I have not got things right, but I believe that there is going to be a referendum in Ireland—but not until 31 May. I also understand that the Germans have decided to defer the matter until the autumn. So why the rush to bring forward this Bill, and why on earth is it going to start in this House instead of the Commons? Again, I cannot see anything conservative about that proposal.

Not only that; we are also apparently to have a Bill to ratify the accession of Croatia to the European Union—yet another eastern European state to be added to the EU, all of whose people will of course have the right of admission to this country. That will lead on eventually to the admission of Turkey, with 90 million people all having admission to this country. As I say, I can see nothing conservative in this Speech.

The Government claim that their priority is getting the economy right, yet reform of the composition of the Lords is to be part of their centrepiece. They hope to get consensus for reform, although any hope of that has not only been dispatched in this House but been dashed in the other place as well. There is no sign of any consensus and, frankly, we are wasting our time in discussing it. I suppose that we have to, though, to show the Government just how opposed Parliament is as a whole to what they are proposing.

If the second Chamber is to be fully accountable, it has to be wholly elected. There is no way that you can get away from that; if it is to be fully accountable, any second Chamber has to be fully elected. You cannot have first-class and second-class Members; that will not work, as anyone knows who has sat on a local authority with an aldermanic bench. Furthermore, the idea that the primacy of the House of Commons can be maintained with an elected second Chamber is simply preposterous. Where are the people who say otherwise? Do they not realise that every body that becomes elected, and this includes the European Parliament, wants power? Not only do they want power, they want more power. Believe me, if this Chamber becomes elected, it will demand power and it will deserve it. If it does not get it then the people who elected it will have been cheated, and that is not what democracy is all about. In the long term, that would be completely unsustainable.

At present we have a unicameral system that is posing as a bicameral one. The House of Lords does not make laws and the House of Commons is thus sovereign. Anything that we do here can be overturned by the Commons, and the Government are responsible to the Commons alone. There is no doubt in anyone’s minds, either in this House or in the country, that the House of Commons is supreme under the present situation. We have an almost perfect system where one House is sovereign but the other—that is us—can give powerful advice and guidance, and that is exactly what we do.

The House of Lords is a cheap second Chamber, if I may put it that way. If it becomes elected, make no mistake: the costs will go up. I think that the Deputy Prime Minister imagines that Members of the new House of Lords would get a salary of £60,000 and no more. Believe me, though, elected Lords will demand expenses because they will have constituents and will want to do the job of holding the Government to account. It is not going to be a cheap alternative, and people should understand that when they talk about an elected second Chamber.

If we are going to have reform, let us have a proper reform in which one House shares power with the other. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and others have pointed out, however, that would require the powers to be written down and set in stone in a written constitution. Indeed, the four days of debate in this House and the erudite reports that we have received show that the question of reform is not the simple matter that the Deputy Prime Minister appears to think it is.

It is not only Parliament that makes laws. The judiciary makes laws—they make the common law, which are often serious laws indeed—so should they be elected? I very much doubt whether supporters of Lords reform would agree to that. Quangos also make laws. Do we elect the quango boards? People would get fed up with all these elections. You cannot say that the House of Lords must be elected because it has to be accountable but all these other people should not be accountable.

Does the present situation work? Yes, and it does so very well. Is there a demand out in the country for Lords reform? We know that there is not. It should not be a priority because there is no demand for it. It would be far better if the Government listened to all the voices, including that of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, who spoke before me, and scrapped this piece of legislation and got on with dealing with the desperate financial and economic crisis. Any House of Lords reform under these circumstances should be put off until the next Parliament and not dealt with in this one at all, and, when it arises, it should be subject to the will of the people.