Government and Parliament

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, this is an excellent Motion to debate and I am delighted that the noble Baroness has brought it forward. It is also an excellent time to have the debate. A year on into a Conservative Government and a new Parliament, with four years to go, it is an opportunity for us to consider and reflect on how Parliament and the Executive operate and on the quality of legislation. In raising these important issues, the Leader of the Opposition has fulfilled her constitutional duty. During the course of her speech, I could not help thinking how much I agreed with her and how I could have made a similar speech from where she is sitting and from where my noble friend the Leader of the House is sitting, too, because these are universal ideals.

I do not detect a concerted or co-ordinated attempt by this Government to circumvent scrutiny by either House of Parliament and there is no evidence to say that there is. However, we should take seriously the natural instincts of all Governments to make their lives a little easier. You do not have to look back far in history to know that the Government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, under the guise of modernisation, brought in deferred Divisions, sofa government to avoid Cabinet government, and guillotines as a matter of course. This was all in order to make the life of the Government a little easier.

Of course we should have more thought-through policy before it comes to Parliament and we should demand better drafted and more understandable Bills. I have still not got to the bottom of why Bills drafted today are so much more complicated than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

Of course Governments can ask for—and should be given—order-making powers for all the reasons that we understand, but they should be clearly expressed and, where possible, published in draft. I would be in favour, if one were proposed, of a committee to look at the drafting of legislation and perhaps take evidence from the First Parliamentary Counsel on the department in question’s resources, its drafting guidelines and so on. I hope the Government would support that.

The noble Baroness raised the issue of what happened towards the end of the last Session of Parliament. At one point, with a few weeks to go, it looked as if we were heading for a great legislative car crash. However, the reverse happened—there was wisdom. This not only requires sensible Ministers but a sensible Opposition to reach a compromise. If, however, we have to agree to disagree, we should do so and not push it any further. That is a proper constitutional role for the House of Lords which is well understood. Yet, in the last Session of Parliament the Government were defeated in more than half the votes—53%—in this House. That just sounds like too many, and I hope the noble Baroness will take her Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip to one side and suggest to them that that was overkill. With that sort of record it is hardly surprising that, as the noble Baroness asserts, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is thinking of stacking our Benches with more Conservative Peers. I suggest that they focus a little more on their votes rather than the broad-brush approach which they have tried so far.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He will remember from the position he then held and I remember from the position I then held that during the whole of the period of the Labour Government from 1997 onwards, not only did we never have a majority in this House, but for most of that time we were not even the largest single party here; his party was. The voting records of those Parliaments show that the average number of defeats of Labour Governments was somewhere between 40% and 50%, which is not very different from what he is complaining about now. I did not hear him complaining about the position then.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord made that last point because when he looks back at the figures, I think he will find that the average during that period when we were in opposition was around a third. No doubt the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will be able to put me right if I am wrong on that.

The other argument that is made by many is that we have been faced with a tsunami of secondary legislation, and yet the figures which have just been published demonstrate that in the last Session of Parliament we had the fewest statutory instruments since the 1996-97 Session. Last October I was invited to conduct a review. Some thought that I was reforming the whole of the House of Lords—I hasten to add that I was not. Some thought that I was recasting all secondary legislation, but I was not. I was dealing with a small point about how we agree statutory instruments in this House, and seeing if there is a better way. Since then there have been four parliamentary committees, three in this House and one in another place, all pretty much castigating my humble suggestion but none of them coming up with an alternative. That said to me that they had misunderstood the fundamental problem we face in how to agree statutory instruments in this House, and that they had misunderstood the uncertainty of the status quo.

As practically every child knows, the House of Lords is here to revise and to scrutinise, but it does not block legislation. If it does, there are the Parliament Acts which give the House of Commons the power to overrule this House. This does not apply to statutory instruments. Why not? The first question is this: should we retain our veto? I answered no.

As far back as 1968, my noble friend Lord Carrington asserted that we should not defeat statutory instruments. In his royal commission my noble friend Lord Wakeham built on that theme, and again, I believe that he did so by giving us a little more flesh on the bones of my Motion. What I took into account were those who said that the regret Motions we now have are not enough. Far from clipping the wings of the House of Lords, my suggestion was for a new power and a new ability for this House to demand that a Minister in the House of Commons come to the Dispatch Box, explain why the House of Lords is wrong, and if the House of Commons then reaffirms the original order, we should step back. I still think that that is the right way forward.

I hope the Government will respond shortly not just to my report but to the others. There may be room for an agreement with the Leader of the Opposition, but if there cannot be an agreement, I can see that in order to clarify the situation, there will have to be legislation. I am sure that I am not alone in regretting that.