House of Lords Reform
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, from the perspective of being at the tail-end on the Back Benches, I can truly say that this has been a far more interesting debate than I thought it would be when I saw the speakers’ list this morning. This debate is about a great House of Parliament—one that has, I would argue, held its reputation for seriousness, scrutiny and revision. Today’s debate has proven that. As my noble friend Lord Wakeham said earlier this afternoon, the House of Lords does what it is supposed to do; we have done that today in debating this issue.
As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said earlier, we are here today only because of the Bill before another place, but what he sees as a virtue I see as a dismal failure—namely, the failure of the Government to keep their word to the House, made 25 years ago, that the remaining hereditary Peers would leave when a proper reform was enacted. I clearly remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, happily agreeing to the by-elections because, as he said then, they would never happen because the Government would bring forward a proper reform Bill early in the new Parliament; that is why the by-elections would not take place until the second Session of the subsequent Parliament. Of course, as we all now know, there was no second reform Bill.
Here we are, 25 years later, with Labour’s tired old ideological song about removing the right of the hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords, yet there is still no proper reform, and no thought, and Labour seeks to blame us for its failure.
What is the way forward? I am one of the few people in Parliament who was part of a process that successfully brought a full reform Bill before another place. In 2012, the House of Lords Reform Bill passed its Second Reading on an overwhelming vote, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, reminded us, but fell because Labour would not co-operate on a timetable Motion. I sat on two Joint Committees, one chaired by Jack Straw and one successfully by Nick Clegg, building on straw. It was cross-party, both Houses were represented, it was focused, and it came ultimately to an agreement that was reflected in the Bill that was presented.
I believe that the only credible motivator for reform is the existence of hereditary Peers. I urge the Government to reconvene a Joint Committee of both Houses—we have seen how it worked in the past—to sit and come up with a proper plan that reflects well on democracy and our democratic traditions, and maintains the House’s reputation for excellence. So much has changed since 1999 that we can take account of—the new devolved Administrations in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the new metro mayors in England and the GLA. We should look at the case for direct or indirect elections from these bodies and see how representation in the Lords can be improved.
I sense a dilemma at the heart of the speech by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. She said that the Lords is complementary and an asset to the Commons—and I agree—and that it has deep historical roots. But she was afraid of being seen to do nothing. Surely doing nothing is better than deeply damaging the Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, warned. Of course, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House promised further reform—participation, age limits, tighter appointment systems and so on—but I have no faith whatever that any of that will happen once the Bill has passed. I am with my noble friend Lord Forsyth on that.
Surely there are better ways of going forward, such as the example set in 1922 when the new Irish Peers were stopped from coming here but the old ones could stay on until they died.
On that note, from time to time we hear that there will be life peerages for some hereditary Peers, such as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, the Convenor of the Cross Benches, and my noble friend Lord Howe, but why is all this secret? Why can the Minister not tell us, in this quiet of the night, exactly what the Labour Party has planned and remove the threat of immediate execution from these Peers?
The Bill has passed in another place this evening without any serious debate. We shall have to wait for the Bill to come to our House to give it proper and full scrutiny. I finish with a plea to the noble Baroness. If we have 50-plus speakers at Second Reading, can we please have a two-day debate and not be limited to five minutes?
House of Lords: Composition
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
To ask His Majesty’s Government (1) what plans they have for the removal of excepted hereditary peers from the House of Lords and (2) whether they plan to keep the House informed on any proposed changes to its composition before the publication of relevant legislation.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, and I declare my interest. The question is as follows: to ask His Majesty’s Government, first, what plans they have for the removal of excepted Peers from the House of Lords and, secondly, whether they plan to keep the House informed on any proposed changes to its composition before the publication of relevant legislation.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, I think the noble Lord’s Question referred to excepted hereditary Peers. Today, probably as we speak, the Government are introducing a Bill in the other place to deliver on our clear manifesto commitment to bring about immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The Bill was included in the King’s Speech, which was debated at length in your Lordships’ House. It will complete the process started a quarter of a century ago to remove hereditary Peers from Parliament. The Government are keen to maintain an ongoing dialogue with your Lordships about this legislation and our other manifesto commitments on reforming this House.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for that Answer, but is it not a bit shoddy that she was prepared to speak to the press yesterday and had to be summoned to the Dispatch Box today rather than make a Statement to the House about one of the most important issues facing this House—namely, its composition? This is a high-handed, shoddy political act, removing some of our most senior and experienced Peers, such as the Convenor of the Cross Benches, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and many others who have held some of the most senior positions in government and commerce.
Why have the Government and the noble Baroness not sought any discussions or consultation among the parties? Twenty-five years ago, countless debates and questions took place in the House and, ultimately, we finished up with a consensual way forward agreed among the parties. Why are there no proposals to remove those Peers from the House who very rarely come, rather than those who have shown an active commitment over many years? I hope that the noble Baroness will now engage with the usual channels to find a suitable day for a debate on the Floor of the House to discuss proper reform of the House of Lords.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I have always admired the noble Lord’s ingenuity, and never more so than today. It is a bit of a reach to say that a Statement should have been made to this House first. This was first debated around the hereditary Peers by-elections, it was debated following the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment, and I have had numerous conversations since the election and will continue to do so. A Bill has been introduced in the other place today; it will come to your Lordships’ House and we will have our discussions in the normal way. The noble Lord says that there was agreement previously. It was because there was no agreement during the passage of that Bill that further discussions took place and temporary arrangements were made on a transitional basis to exempt some hereditary Peers from the legislation. This will complete that process. I remind the noble Lord that my comment to the press about the Bill’s introduction—made in the normal way—started by recognising the valuable contributions that many hereditary Peers have made to Parliament.
Business of the House
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that hereditary by-elections are probably now coming to an end. That does not stop this move being illegal; it is against the set-down rules, which is rather strange from a party whose leader was Director of Public Prosecutions and was dedicated to obeying the rule of law. The problem, of course, is that none of us in this House is legitimate; we are all appointed by one body or individual or another, and the only people who are elected by anybody are the hereditaries—so, in many ways, they have a superior right to be here than we do.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, this is obviously a very notable victory for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and for the Labour Party. I pay tribute to all those who have been elected in the by-elections over the past few years. There are an excellent number on our party Benches, on the Cross Benches and right across the House, and I think these by-elections will be much missed. But I support my noble friend Lord Howe and I think he has done the right thing. It will be for history to decide in the future on the contribution of these by-elections—but I think history will note that perhaps it was better to have the Peers voting for one of their own rather than just being ticked in the box by the Prime Minister.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I wish to offer a small correction to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, about people being elected to this House. Plaid Cymru and the Green Party elect the people who are to be their nominees. That does not mean that we do not want a fully democratically elected House with a full public franchise.
House of Lords: Governance
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, looking round the Moses Room this afternoon, I see a galaxy of stars of Members—and not Members—who have a great history in this House. Therefore, while my notes say that I am very pleased to have this opportunity to open the debate, my expression should be rather stronger than that.
At the outset, I thought it would be helpful and useful to set out some of the details about this conundrum of the governance of the House—the beginning of an answer to the question that was asked several times during our debate on 25 October: who runs the House? I shall start with the officeholders in the House.
The Lord Speaker presides over proceedings in the Chamber, chairs the senior domestic committee—the House of Lords Commission—is the primary ambassador for the work of the House, has formal responsibility for the security of the Lords’ part of the Parliamentary Estate and is one of the three “key holders” of Westminster Hall. The Leader of the House, in addition to her ministerial responsibilities, has a wider task of upholding the rights and interests of the House as a whole. This gives her a particular role in the governance of the House, in addition to her membership of the commission.
I recognise the roles of noble Lords who make up the usual channels: the Leaders and Chief Whips of the main party groups and the Convenor of the Cross Benches. They all play a crucial role in the governance of the House through their various memberships of the House’s domestic committees and the arrangement of business. Finally, as Senior Deputy Speaker, I am deputy chair of the commission and chair of a number of the House’s domestic committees, and I exercise general supervision and control over private Bills and hybrid instruments. I also speak on and answer any Oral and Written Questions concerning the administration of the House, the work of the House of Lords Commission and the work of the committees I chair.
Moving on to those domestic committees, in July 2016, the House agreed to the implementation of proposals that were developed through an extensive governance review undertaken by the Leader’s Group on Governance, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard of Northwold. This included the creation of a new senior committee, the House of Lords Commission, to provide high-level strategic and political direction for the House of Lords administration on behalf of the House and to monitor the performance of the administration. The commission engages on strategic matters such as restoration and renewal, the financial and business plans provided by the administration, security, allowances and the ongoing response to Covid-19. The commission is supported by three other committees: the Services Committee, the Finance Committee and the Audit Committee.
The Services Committee agrees day-to-day policy on Member-facing services, such as catering, digital, property and office services, and on the use of facilities. It provides advice to the commission on strategic policy decisions in relation to such services. For example, the Services Committee has been reviewing the House’s fire evacuation policy, our health and well-being policies, and the new travel office contract. The Finance Committee considers expenditure on services provided from the estimate for the House of Lords, and reports to the commission about forecast outturn and estimate and financial plans submitted by the management board, and monitors the financial performance of the House administration. The Audit Committee considers internal and external audit reports and the management responses to such reports, and provides advice to the Clerk of the Parliaments. The chairs of each of these committees sit on the commission.
Taken together, 31 noble Lords serve on these committees: officeholders, the usual channels and Back-Bench Members. We work together across the committees with the best intent to enable the House to flourish. That is the structure the House agreed following the governance review recommendation for what might be termed Member-led corporate governance.
I now turn to the official-led administration, which supports our work as Members. The House administration is led by the Clerk of the Parliaments. By statute, the Clerk of the Parliaments is appointed by Her Majesty by letters patent. He is the chief executive of the House of Lords and the chief procedural adviser to the House. The Clerk of the Parliaments is also specified in statute as the accounting officer and the corporate officer for the House, and the statutory employer of House of Lords staff. He is responsible for all aspects of the services provided by the administration for Members, the public and other interested parties. In discharging his duties, he is supported by a wide range of staff; in particular by the management board, which he chairs. The management board takes strategic and corporate decisions for the House administration within the policy framework set by the commission. The Clerk of the Parliaments and the management board lead the House administration with the objective to support and strengthen the work of the House of Lords. In this, they are guided by four values: inclusivity, professionalism, respect and responsibility.
While this is, to some extent, an answer to the question of who runs the House of Lords, I readily recognise that it hides a wealth of detail, not least the constant interactions between committee members, officeholders and Members from all around the House. But, as I have found in coming back to the House, in a sense, since May, it is not simple, sometimes, to put one’s finger on where decisions are to be made. It was, in part, in recognition of the complexity of our work, the importance of ensuring we meet the highest standards of good governance, and ensuring that the Member-led and official-led elements of our governance system worked in close partnership with one another for the benefit of the House, that the commission asked for an independent external management review to be carried out.
The report of the external management review, published earlier this year, made a broad range of recommendations. The majority focused on the internal management of the House administration. There are three recommendations that it would be particularly useful to cover here.
First, the report proposed that the commission be put on a statutory footing, with a separate legal entity to act as the employer of House staff. Essentially, this would remove from the Clerk of the Parliaments his current statutory responsibilities and place them with the commission. It would allow for clear lines of direction and delegation from the commission to the administration. It would be a radical and complex shift away from the current situation. The commission has treated this recommendation with caution; noble Lords may also have views on this matter.
Secondly, the EMR, as I will describe the review, recommended that the governance arrangements of the House, particularly the relationship between the commission and the Clerk of the Parliaments, be set out clearly in a governance statement to bring clarity to questions of who is accountable and responsible for what. The report of the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, made similar recommendations. Work on putting this recommendation into effect is under way, and I anticipate the commission being able to make a statement in the spring.
Thirdly, the report recommended the appointment of a Chief Operating Officer. It is important not to underestimate the complexity, scope and range of services that are provided by the House of Lords administration. Much of it goes on behind the scenes, often in partnership with the House of Commons, and is visible to us only when something directly affects us. It is quite distinct from the procedural work that we see every day to support our proceedings.
The responsibility for overseeing and managing this work falls to the Clerk of the Parliaments as accounting officer and corporate officer of the House. With this in mind, the review highlighted a need for additional senior-level capacity in the administration’s management structure specifically to enhance the administration’s performance in relation to the work outside the Chamber and committees—broadly speaking, to support the Clerk of the Parliaments in his role as chief executive of the administration. A recruitment process for this post was undertaken earlier this year and an appointment made. Mr Andy Helliwell will join the administration on 3 January.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister; I hope that it is in order.
I have here a briefing from the House of Lords Library on the organisation of the House of Lords administration, which is of course excellent. Nowhere does it mention Members, who ought not so much to be represented but to whom the administration needs to be accountable. Secondly, the appointment of the new—what is he?
Lord Strathclyde
Yes, him. Would the Minister say that he feels that, in the past few years, the clerks have been unable to fulfil the function that this new person will do? I think that the clerks have been admirable in the way they have carried out their duties. I did not mean to interrupt, and of course I will speak to this later, but I wanted to make that point before the Minister got any further.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
It is fair to say that a considerable proportion of my speech opened with the Member-led governance of this House and its huge importance. My remarks relate to my understanding, which is about Member-led governance; I have then referred to the administration, which we rely on very closely.
All I can say is that we have identified that extra support is needed for the Clerk of the Parliaments. We have excellent people working for us, as I shall say with greater emphasis shortly, but the truth is that it is a very demanding job, as I outlined. The Clerk of the Parliaments’ responsibilities are extremely great. Therefore, the endorsed view was that there should be extra support, outside the Chamber and committee work, to help the Clerk of the Parliaments with the very considerable responsibilities that we have placed in one person.
This has been a brisk gallop around the essential aspects of our governance structure. It would be remiss of me, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said, not to highlight the excellent work of the administration and of Members, both individually and collectively, for the good of the House. The work of our committees, communications, outreach, digital, heritage and conservation, maintenance, catering, security and more is all supported and enabled by good governance.
While I may not be able to answer in detail the many points that will be made in today’s consideration, or debate—whatever we wish to call it—I assure your Lordships that I shall listen carefully. If I am permitted to say so, I know that a number of other people are listening carefully, both here and outside the Moses Room. I very much look forward to hearing what noble Lords have to say. It is the case that my door is proverbially always open, as is that of the Clerk of the Parliaments. The Lord Speaker intends to hold a series of townhall meetings, at which I will be present with the Clerk of the Parliaments, the chair of the Services Committee and those of other committees, as appropriate, to ensure that all noble Lords feel that their voice is heard.
We all accept that the effective, responsible and professional governance of our House is essential, as is noble Lords having confidence in it. To me, in my role, that is of huge importance and significance. The whole purpose of good governance is to support and strengthen the House in the delivery of its vital constitutional role. All of us with a position in the governance structures I have described take our roles very seriously, and at all times we seek to work as a team to discharge our responsibilities for the benefit of the House, its Members, its staff and, importantly, the public we all serve. I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, it will be very difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mann. I do not think he and I have been in a debate before and I have to say that I agree with much of what he said and I disagree with much of what he said. But I think that, very early in his career in your Lordships’ House, he is in danger of slipping into his own anecdotage; I hope he will be rescued from that.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to have the Senior Deputy Speaker speaking to us and replying on behalf of the administration. It is very early in his career, and therefore I hope he recognises the tremendous interest in this subject, signalled by the number of people who have bothered to come along on a Wednesday afternoon to share with him, in the privacy of this Room—and perhaps a bit wider—their views on the state of this House and particularly its governance.
First, let me give a bit of philosophy about this House. What are we? As a House of Parliament, we are a unique institution. We have unique rhythms, responsibilities and needs. The House cannot be run by those people who are insensitive to its nature, nor by those who invoke any new fashionable strand from some management school—that way madness lies.
In a way, the long list in the Library briefing of all the reviews that have taken place over the last 20 years leads me to believe that there has been a collective loss of confidence by the administration itself. So I want to say something very positive about the clerks of this House, who do a magnificent job and have done for as long as I have been in this House. It is that combination of intelligence, expertise and hard work that makes it so good, and they have learned about us as we have learned about him. It is no accident that the Clerk of the Parliaments himself was once my private secretary—I regard that as being a very good thing. Before he was my private secretary, he was private secretary to the Chief Whip of the then Labour Government. That shows how you need to have people steeped in the culture of the House of Lords, rather than bringing people in from outside who will never be able to learn or understand what we are all about. We are different from a local authority or a cricket club, or practically any other organisation in this country, apart, perhaps, from the House of Commons.
I am sorry that I interrupted the Senior Deputy Speaker in his opening remarks, but it struck me that at no point was he talking about the Members, and I wanted to say a little something about service. We are here to try to serve the needs of the nation and legislation and the great debates of today. We come here and expect a service to be provided, so that we can go about our business as effectively as possible. We have wonderful staff in this House, from the doorkeepers who greet us to the catering staff who provide us with food—it is absolutely magnificent. But there is a sense, over the course of the last few years, of an increased bureaucracy that makes everything much more leaden than it once was. My noble friend Lady Noakes talked about the chairs that have suddenly been changed: they are cheap and nasty chairs, rather than the magnificent chairs we had in the past. None of this is done with any consultation or any feel for the fabric and fibre of how this House actually operates.
I wholly understand that Covid has been the biggest challenge that this House has had to face for very many years. It has come through it admirably, and we have been able to continue our work, so everything I say about the organisation needs to be seen through that prism. I hope that, one day, we will be over all that has happened and can get back to the kind of House that we had before.
I mentioned the organisational chart earlier. It is a very pretty picture with lots of little boxes and beautiful arrows that go all over the place, and at the bottom there is a sign that says “represents”. I thought “Aha! Here we are. We’re going to talk about the Members of the House”, but it does not. It talks about another range of sub-committees. At no point does it reflect the people in this House whom it is here to serve.
On the apparition of lay members on some of our most senior committees, you have to spend so much time trying to explain to them why things are done in a particular way and getting them to understand the workings of the House that I see no merit in having lay members of the House for a short amount of time to try to learn about us and give us some sort of non-executive expertise. This House just does not need non-executive expertise; if anything, we are a House of non-executives. We all bring so much experience from other aspects of our lives.
I shall take up the point made very well by my noble friend Lady Noakes about the political direction of the House. It is in the terms of reference of the commission. I thought that political direction was rather directed by other people, not by the House of Lords Commission. It certainly should not be.
There are small and trivial points to make about the catering department which I will not bother to do at the moment, except to say that there used to be an excellent system where many of us who asked for it were billed monthly by direct debit. It was an extremely good system. It has been done away with, for no reason that anybody can understand, including the poor old staff, who shrug their shoulders and say that the decision was not made there. Who made the decision? We do not know. That is one example.
We are a special House. We need to be treated specially. I am not looking for great answers today from the Senior Deputy Speaker, but I hope that in his deliberations over the festive season he will think carefully about the representations made today.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, for whom I did a sort of job some 15 years ago. I do not think I did much of any use, did I?
Lord Robathan (Con)
How sweet of you to say so. My noble friend said this is a special place. I would describe this House as an unusual place—in fact, I usually describe it as rather weird to friends of mine. In that, I much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mann. It is extremely unusual. However, it also does some rather good work, and I mention that because the noble Lord, Lord Mann, was rather hard on the House. For instance, the recent amendment tabled by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, about sewage in rivers has changed the way the Government are dealing with sewage in rivers. Similarly, my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment on hate crimes may yet change the way the police deal with them.
Who runs the House? The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said that the commission is the ambassador for the work of the House and one or two other things. That left me slightly confused. It does not seem that it runs the House. However, I shall focus on the Ellenbogen inquiry report. Paragraph 24 states:
“the House of Lords is a self-regulating house; power ultimately resting with its members”.
You could have slightly fooled me. It is a very thorough report. It goes on for 131 pages with appendices. It is an inquiry into bullying and harassment in the House of Lords. Those who have been here longer than me may disagree, but I am not entirely clear what the problem was that she was trying to identify. I will look at the evidence in the report. Of course we would like to hope that all of us, every Member of this House and, indeed, every member of society behaves properly. Sadly, we also know that they do not, some, as described in this report at para 167, because of “declining health”, which is a bit of a euphemism, frankly. We all know what she means and, short of a medical order, it is difficult to instruct people in declining health to retire. Perhaps we could look at that, but it is another matter.
The report deals with misbehaviour. I say to the clerks listening to this that a lot of the junior staff complain about their line managers telling them what to do and not listening to their ideas when, the report assumes, the junior staff must know better than those who are more experienced. However, I want to focus on the Peers who misbehave. Largely, we talk about discourtesy and some sexual harassment; again, declining health may come in, particularly for the latter. The report talks about elderly offenders; usual suspects are also discussed. It is sad and an embarrassment to us all. They are described as “creepy”, which they are, but that is hardly unique to Parliament and it applies to a very small number of people.
Of course this should be addressed—it has been, up to a point, and I think we would all strive to help with that—but, on Members’ conduct towards staff, I quote paragraph 159:
“With depressing predictability, the same members of the House were named by contributor after contributor”.
Paragraph 160 says that another person told Naomi Ellenbogen:
“‘It makes my skin crawl when people say “M’Lord”’.”
If that is the case, that person is possibly working in the wrong place. When I was in the Army on the streets of Belfast, I used to call all the people in west Belfast, many of whom might have wanted to kill me, “Sir” and “Madam” because that is the easy way to do it. When I talked to constituents in the other place I would also call them “Sir” and “Madam”, largely because I could never remember their names. If you went to a decent shop, such as Waitrose—or, dare I say, Lidl—you would expect people to be polite to you and probably still call you “Sir” or “Madam”.
I suggest that we need to read the comments on which the Ellenbogen report is based because out of it came the Valuing Everyone training, which is mandatory and for which several people have left the House. The venerable 90 year-old Baroness, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, was threatened with discipline. I did it—I am sure that we all did—and found it surprisingly entertaining, funnily enough. With me were a former Prime Minister and a man who is a friend but whom I knew for his behaviour from when I was a Whip in the other place. On at least one occasion he was complained about for being incredibly rude to a police officer, but there was also a pattern so it did not happen just once. I fear that he is the sort of person to which this sort of training is directed, but he got every answer to every question absolutely right. Do you think it worked? Do you think it will change his behaviour? I very much doubt it.
Frankly, I fear that the training was a complete waste of time. A nice person was doing it—she told me that she had been in equality training for 20 years—but what good did it do? I ask the Senior Deputy Speaker: how much did it cost? Was it properly put out to tender? What specific qualifications did Naomi Ellenbogen have when she was selected? Finally, on the Valuing Everyone training, are we going to have to do “appropriate refresher training” every three years, as the report says? I really think that it is nonsense.
Above all, I come back to this point: who is responsible for all this? It is rather embarrassing and demeaning, not to individuals like me but to the House, not to know who is running and responsible for things. In paragraph 221, the report recommends appointing a director-general—we now have the Chief Operating Officer—but this is just bureaucratic job creation, as was mentioned by—
Lord Robathan (Con)
Well, by my noble friend Lord Howard, but yes, by everybody else. Lead administration is better than top-heavy administration. I have seen that throughout my life. You need a streamlined administration so that you have fewer chiefs, fewer expensive staff and offices supporting them, less duplication and fewer meetings. Frankly, you also have less cost and quicker decisions. I fear that the way this House is going is the wrong way, as my noble friend Lord Howard said. It is a sign of a declining institution when you start having burgeoning bureaucracy. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, we need to have confidence in this House and sort out who runs it and who is accountable.
Procedure and Privileges
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I join all those, especially the Leader of the House, who gave fulsome congratulations to the House authorities, IT department and the leadership of the House itself, who effectively put in all the changes to this House since March 2020.
Having said that, and nothing I say takes away from it, the hybrid House we have at the moment is considerably worse than the House we had before. There is a matter of process and essential principle in this, which the committee report we are now discussing has avoided; namely, that when emergency measures were introduced with minimum debate, for reasons we all understand, the first job of the Procedure Committee should have been to say that, when the House returns in September, all the emergency measures will be dumped and we will go back to where we were.
That does not mean that there is no case for, for instance, tabling Questions or amendments electronically —of course there is—but it would be better if the committee were to start the process of change, which many Peers have discussed, by making the individual case and therefore having a debate. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has a perfect example of that: sitting times is a very good question, but he forgot to mention the role of Ministers. We rely on Government Ministers being well briefed and understanding the questions they are dealing with. The fact is that, if we sat very much sooner than we do, they would not have the opportunity to be briefed or carry out their job. The noble Lord was a distinguished Secretary of State in the House of Lords, which is something we all support. I hope he agrees that Ministers play an important role in this House and that we need to give them time.
The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, used to talk about the “emotional geography” of the House. It is hard to define, but we know it when we feel it: that sense that we have gone on for too long, a sense that we should not be talking or a desire to have one speaker rather than another. These are important matters and we should not lose sight of what we are all here to do: to hold the Government to account, to provide scrutiny and revision of legislation in detail, and to hold general debates on which Members of this House are particularly expert.
The main issue with this report is on Oral Questions. Here, I have to agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack. First, there is the question of timing: 40 minutes. It is not so long ago that Lord Williams of Mostyn, a very distinguished Leader of this House—I think he may have been noble and learned—introduced in a Leader’s Group the idea of having five Questions in 40 minutes. It seemed like a good idea at the time but was an unmitigated disaster. We dropped it after a bit because the House does not, or did not then, have the patience to continue Questions much beyond 30 minutes. The House that I joined originally had only 20 minutes for Questions, which was far better. This is an example of where less is more.
Secondly, there is the question of lists. Imagine a situation where we all come back in September, the House is full and the Back-Benchers suddenly realise that they are here not as participants but as spectators because the list had been decided days ago. I take nothing away from what my noble friend Lord Cormack said but I really hope that the Senior Deputy Speaker will reflect on it again.
Thirdly, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke extremely effectively about those in wheelchairs. More thought needs to be given to that process. At Question Time, the House is very good at picking up Lord Bishops and making sure that they speak; it is perhaps true that people in wheelchairs do not catch the eye of the Front-Benchers or the Back-Benchers as much as they should.
My final point is on PNQs. I understand why the Lord Speaker and his predecessor wanted to have more PNQs but, now that the emergency has gone, when we come back in September, please can we go back to the normal practice of having very few PNQs? After all, what is the difference between a PNQ and an Urgent Question? We already have provision for Urgent Questions. PNQs should be reserved for rare and special occasions, often affecting your Lordships’ House, rather than on general matters.
House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, what this House and its staff achieved in March and April 2020 was truly remarkable and utterly brilliant in that this House in essence was able to continue its work, although it missed out a lot of what we had before. My noble friend Lord Howe said in his opening address that these were temporary measures. I very much support that view and the one that has been expressed throughout the House during this debate: that we should go back to where we were as soon as possible.
It is especially remarkable that the Government should take the view that they have because noble Lords have also commented on how many of these measures have actually suited the Government extremely well by reducing the level of scrutiny that we give them and letting them introduce all sorts of measures that have not been properly debated. So I very much thank and congratulate my noble friend—and, no doubt, the Leader of the House later on—when they say they want to get back to normal as quickly as possible.
There are some key issues that need to be considered. First, the time allowed for Questions should go back to half an hour, and we should scrap lists for Questions. Secondly, PNQs have become a sort of ungovernable monster every afternoon. We have starred questions, Topical Questions, Urgent Questions and PNQs, and we have to leave the Chamber between most of them. That really is not what this House is for, which is to look at legislation in detail. If we return to sitting at 2.30 pm, which I hope we do, then the House will sit later and later. PNQs really are very precious things. In the hands of the Lord Speaker to decide, they should be the most urgent type of questions, largely to do with this House rather than more generally. I understand why they have been put to such use during this emergency period, but as we come out of it I hope we can go back to where we were.
There is another reason why we need spontaneity. I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said earlier, but it is about not just spontaneity but intervention. It is about cross-examining and making whoever has said whatever they have said more accountable.
There is another reason, which is ministerial time. Ministers have been able to devote time to this House at a level that they were unable to do so prior to the emergency. When we go back, they will be undertaking visits and real meetings, which they have been unable to do. It would be quite wrong to expect Ministers to turn up to your Lordships’ House the whole time.
My last point is about voting, particularly remote voting. Similarly to some who have spoken, including the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, I live in the south-west of Scotland, and on many occasions it has been extremely convenient to whip out my phone and support the Government in the way that I so loyally do. However, Parliament should not exist for my convenience or for anyone else’s. We need to come here to listen to the debate and be part of the collective argument that takes place. I understand that there may be some special cases where voting off-site, virtually or remotely, is required, and I hope that those are fully debated in the committees before they are brought to this House for its decision. However, for the overwhelming generality you need to be in the House to vote in order for it to count.
I very much hope my noble friend Lord Cormack will not push his Motion to a vote, but I think this has been an extremely valuable debate that shows just how many noble Lords care very deeply about how this House is managed.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]
Lord Strathclyde ExcerptsFriday 13th March 2020
(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I return the compliments of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and welcome so many life Peers to this debate. Many of them were not here in 1998 when we discussed the amendments which introduced the by-elections at that time, which have lasted for so long. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, suggested that I might have an interest. I assure him that if there is a by-election upon my death, I will have no interest in it whatever.
I oppose the Bill for three main reasons. The first is the implication of the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did not mention. If this Bill is passed, it creates a wholly appointed House, with no checks or balances on who comes here. It is against the policy of all the main parties, and has been over the course of the past 20 years, to have a wholly appointed House. As a result of that, the second reason that I oppose the Bill is that the House of Lords Appointment Commission, excellent and extremely well run though it might be, is not a creature of statute—quite the opposite. It was created on the whim of a past Prime Minister. It can be removed tomorrow or next week. It has very few powers—in fact I think that it has no powers at all—and can judge applications to the House of Lords only on the basis of propriety.
The noble Lord simply did not mention what would happen and the way that new people would become Members of the House. I very much hope that he will accept an amendment to create an independent and statutory House of Lords appointments commission that can vet Members of this House properly, if, as he and many of his colleagues would like to see, we are to have a wholly appointed House. Having spent a lifetime on elections, I would have thought that they had had enough of them. Those of us who have been elected here rather like them.
The third reason is that it does not tackle some of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned. There is nothing on the size of the House and there is nothing on age; there is nothing on so many of the real issues that are alive in the public mind. Just over 20 years ago, we reduced the size of this House by nearly 50%. There is no reason why, by the end of this year, we could not reduce this House down to 600 Members, as at the beginning of this century. It could be done relatively quickly using exactly the same method. This Bill could be a very effective vehicle for providing that.
I also think that a serious constitutional Bill which amends how people arrive in this House should not be a Private Member’s Bill; it should be a government Bill. I do not know, but I expect it is extremely unlikely that the Government will support the Bill, and therefore it has no prospect of becoming law in this Session. I hope the noble Lord will think again, or accept some of the amendments that are put down.
Lord Grocott
I just say amen to my noble friend. I thank him for his earlier contribution and his steadfast support for the Bill. It is not long before we reach levels of absurdity in trying to defend the continuation of the present system. I thought my noble friend Lord Snape was pretty effective.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, having sat through this entire debate, I am not sure that anybody has made a case for the continuation of the hereditary peerage. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, is going on about: the only people who have been talking about DNA or the so-called superiority of hereditary Peers over life Peers have been members of the Labour Party. This is all utter nonsense. Nobody has tried to make that case. The hereditary peerage came to an effective end after the general election of 1997. We are talking about a by-product, as some of my colleagues said, of the failure of the Government to then come forward with stage 2 reform. That is what this debate is about; it is not about the continuation of the hereditary peerage.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, I have to say that I do not think the second speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was an improvement on his first. He should read the speech—he could not have been listening very carefully—of his noble friend Lord Mancroft, who made precisely the point about the particular skills and insights of hereditary Peers that are denied to the rest of us.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, at this stage it is the job of the proposer of the Bill to move that it be committed to a Committee of the whole House, and I do indeed wish to do so. But, in fairness to the House and in the tradition of openness and transparency, I will say that the last two Bills were filibustered and destroyed in Committee, in a way that was embarrassing and out of any kind of tradition of the norms of behaviour in Parliament. The result was that after the previous Bill’s second full day in Committee on the precious Floor of the House, we had not got through even the amendments to Clause 1 of a two-clause Bill, whereupon even my tolerance ran out and I put down a Motion that further consideration of the Bill should not be on the Floor of the House but in Grand Committee. That Motion carried without dissent because no one could argue seriously against it. It went into Grand Committee, and went through in a smooth and orderly way.
I say, not as a threat but a promise, that if Committee on the Bill is announced, when we go into Committee that if the Bill does not complete that stage—it has had four days in Committee already, over two years—in ample time on a Friday for a two-clause Bill, then at the earliest opportunity thereafter, in prime time in the House, will put down a Motion to ensure that it is completed in Grand Committee. With that proviso and explanation, I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde
A Motion has been put forward by the noble Lord. I would like some clarification on the rather odd statement that he made.
This is a constitutional Bill; I do not think that anybody can disagree with that. It is a convention in both Houses that such Bills go to the Floor of the House for Committee stage unless there is agreement that they should not. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, explained that, last time, there was agreement across the House that this Bill should go to a Grand Committee, having had one or two days on the Floor of the House. After that, I was slightly confused as to what the noble Lord said. Did he say that he would insist and ask the House for it to go to a Grand Committee, even though it is a constitutional Bill and even if there is not a consensus for it so to do? If that is what he said, does he not feel that that would create a dangerous precedent for constitutional Bills? If I am right in understanding what he said, does he then accept that other constitutional Bills that the Government may or may not bring forward during this Parliament should also go to a Grand Committee?
Lord Grocott
My concern is with my Bill, not with any Bills that may or may not be introduced by the Government. This House is the master of its own procedure. If the noble Lord wishes to continue filibustering in Committee, which he was openly involved in last time, he has the perfect right to do so. But the decision on whether—
Lord Strathclyde
I must object in the strongest possible terms. If the noble Lord looks at the number of times that I have spoken on this Bill over the past few years, he will see that it is considerably less than he has, if I may say so. At no point have I chosen to filibuster or even be part of a filibuster; I have moved only one amendment on a statutory and independent appointments commission, which I note the noble Lord did not mention at all in his winding-up speech.
Lord Grocott
I do not know who is doing the winding up at the moment, my Lords. We have all heard enough.
Business of the House
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The point of my amendment is that these are very serious matters. We are making a dangerous and unprecedented assault on the part of this House, to quote the former Lord Chancellor, and this should not be nodded through as part of a business Motion. We should be in Committee and consider all the implications. The implications are enormous. The noble Baroness laughs, but this is a revising Chamber. What do we do? We take huge quantities of legislation from the other place which has not been discussed or even debated because it has a guillotine procedure. When I left the House of Commons in 1997, we did not have any of that. One had to go through numerous hoops to get a guillotine. Now everything is guillotined and everyone in this House knows how legislation comes here in a completely unscrutinised way. That is the purpose of this House. If we are to have a guillotine procedure in this House, Governments will absolutely love that. It is extraordinary that Opposition Members, of all people, should be proposing it.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, is not the position even worse than that? The noble Baroness is currently Leader of the Opposition. She must have considered the possibility that in the next few weeks she could be Leader of the House—that is, if the Labour Party concedes to a general election. If the noble Baroness is willing to push forward a guillotine when in opposition, just imagine what she would do if she had the full powers of government behind her.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My noble friend makes a very important point. Of course, we all know that Labour Party Members are busy making speeches around the country saying that they are standing up for democracy, when the very last thing they are prepared to do is give my right honourable friend the Prime Minister the opportunity to have a general election where they can put their views to the people.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I am extremely glad to hear that, because I made that suggestion earlier today to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. My understanding, which I hope was a misunderstanding, was that there could not be such discussions. What the noble Earl has said is extremely encouraging. I would be happy at the conclusion of this debate to talk outside the Chamber to progress those discussions.
Lord Strathclyde
I just want to say that we have got ourselves into the most appalling political mess. We are getting ourselves into a constitutional mess and anyone looking in on this House must be completely bemused as to what we are debating. We have had these ludicrous closure Motions, which should be used extremely sparingly. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, has reappeared. I was rather hoping that he would feel that he should absent himself from the House, given his truly deplorable behaviour earlier of closing down the debate not on a political person but on a member of the Cross-Benches, who had scarcely finished her words before that debate was closed down. I very much hope that he will send her an apology that the House was unable to debate her amendment, the first amendment due to be considered.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. None of us wants the temperature to rise any higher. I say to the noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House: would it be helpful for the House to adjourn for pleasure at this point so that some discussion can take place? I hear that from around the House and see nods opposite. I therefore propose that the House adjourn for pleasure to return no later than 7.15. Would that be possible?
Lord Strathclyde
I would like to make a suggestion to my noble friends on the Front Bench which might work for the House. I do not know whether it would be acceptable at this stage. I understand why the Government might want to see what actually happens in another place in the course of debate both on the Bill and whether it is passed but, secondly, on a Motion as to whether there should be a general election. That means that we could perhaps usefully fill our time with a debate due to take place in any case, probably in the middle of the night, on HS2, which is a rather interesting debate with a whole bunch of speakers. I wonder whether, if the Government were to consider bringing forward that debate, we could adjourn the debate on the noble Baroness’s Motion, take a view later on and, with the discussion that could take place with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and others, take a better way forward.
I suspect that my noble friend Lord Howe is unable to accept this useful suggestion, but he might want to consider it and, if not, perhaps we could adjourn the House for half an hour or so for the other discussions to take place.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I suggest to the noble Lord that the first debate in the other place is of more interest to this House—the legislation which concerns us. If we are honest, I think we are probably less concerned about general elections, which do not affect us in the same way. Perhaps a good time to conclude discussion and return would be when we have a decision from the House of Commons on passing the Bill. I am sure that, in the normal traditions of your Lordships’ House, a commitment from the Government that they would ensure that any legislation passed from the House of Commons would be completed in the time available, which is before Prorogation, would be welcome.
Lord Strathclyde
I intervene on my noble friend now, because if he moves his amendment the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will move the closure and I will not be able to—
Lord Strathclyde
The noble Lord is not going to move the closure; he has given up. That would be a marvellous thing, would it not? It would be interesting to know whether my noble friend envisages, under his amendment, that a vexatious litigant could indefinitely stop a Bill by raising legal issues in different courts—for instance, in the English courts and/or the Scottish courts at the same time. Would that make it impossible for any kind of legislation to ever get through? I just wondered if he has thought through the implications, or perhaps he expects the Front Bench to have an answer to that question.
Lord True
Here is a reversal of roles. I spent about 13 years—I hesitate to say it—drafting the odd amendment for the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Here is the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, suggesting there might be a flaw. I was really seeking a prop to inquire how the Opposition see all these legal actions—I believe some of them are not too far away—impacting on these proceedings and whether they think it is prudent to put the House of Lords through all this before awaiting an outcome of what is before the courts.
Lord Strathclyde
My noble friend has moved his amendment. It would be normal, when discussing an amendment to a major Motion, for somebody from one of the Front Benches to reply to him. In this case, the Motion was moved by the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition, so one would assume that someone from the Front Bench would wish to intervene. They do not have to but it is entirely normal practice. It adds to the flavour that something ugly is happening in this House when the Opposition refuse to interact in the debate. I put this to them: suppose that, on another occasion, there is a Bill before the House sponsored by the Government and noble Lords opposite make impassioned speeches and my noble friends on the Front Bench simply sit there, happily. Would that be okay? I assume that it would. For those reading this in Hansard, Members of the Opposition are nodding their assent.
Lord Goldsmith
I am surprised. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who I admire enormously, heard the intervention I made on the noble Lord, Lord True, which made it very clear what the position is on this amendment. It is a filibustering amendment, which is shown by the fact that the same amendment is proposed to be made three times.
Lord Goldsmith
My Lords, it is hard to resist an invitation put by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, but the position is quite straightforward: legislation is one thing, litigation is another. At the moment, Prorogation is going to take place; no court has said that it will not. In those circumstances we are faced with the ultimate guillotine, if your Lordships like, of seeing the business in this House stopped. That is why we want to agree the Motion moved by my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon: to make sure this House has a full opportunity to deal with the Bill, which has now arrived from the other place. It arrived during the debate and we will, we hope, be taking it. As it stands at the moment, as I said, Prorogation will take place.
Lord Strathclyde
The noble and learned Lord helpfully mentioned the Bill that has just arrived from the House of Commons. Can he or a member of the Front Bench tell us when it will be published in the form in which it was passed by the House of Commons, so that we will be able to look at it, table amendments to it and see whether indeed any amendments were made to it in the House of Commons?
While I am on my feet, I will share an interesting thing that has happened. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, who adorns the Back Benches on the other side, used to be my Member of Parliament. I remark that this is the first time I can ever remember that the noble Lord has not spoken on a matter to do with Scotland. I hope this is the shape of things to come.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
It is a very strange phenomenon that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not said anything. It suggests that perhaps he has been muzzled by his Front Bench who have leaned on him in such a way that he feels he cannot contribute, which is very unusual because we enjoy his contributions.
Business of the House
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I do not intend to detain the House. However, having read the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report, the wisdom of us having an opportunity to consider it is reinforced. It makes some serious recommendations, which no doubt we will be able to deal with later this afternoon.
I very much agree with my noble friend the Leader of the House in her assertion that she hopes that the treatment of the Bill will not act as any kind of precedent. It arrived here as an orphan, it was being supported by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, it is now being supported by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who is acting on his behalf, and the whole thing has been done at a great pace. The very fact that the Opposition are moving a business Motion is undesirable. I hope that in the future, the House will consider whether what we all thought was the position in line with our constitution—that only a Minister should move a business Motion—will be the position going forward. However, I hope that we can now proceed.
I put on record my gratitude to the Chief Whip for the way in which he dealt with business on Thursday, which enabled us to carry out our duties speedily—or relatively speedily, compared to what might have happened.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I too will reflect briefly on what happened on Thursday, when the House did not serve the interests of the people we serve, Parliament, or indeed this House and ourselves. I hope that my noble friend the Leader of the House might consider asking the Procedure Committee to examine what happened on Thursday, either to make sure that it is not repeated or so that we manage ourselves in a better way. In addition, the usual channels should acknowledge that the House operates considerably better when the usual channels are aligned, as they are today, rather than when they are not, as was the case on Thursday.
The Duke of Montrose (Con)
My Lords, I also express gratitude to those who worked out the business to allow us time to consider the Bill before it goes into Committee. My interest stems from the fact that I had an ancestor in Lord Townshend’s Administration at the time that this order was introduced. It is easy to think that we are in difficult and dangerous times but at that point people had seen real constitutional crisis: the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Act of Settlement 1701, the Act of Union, and a European monarch installed in a situation where there was an incipient civil war, which broke out about three months later. If we think we have a crisis now, we need to think about what other people have faced.
Business of the House
Lord Strathclyde Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, unconventional times call for unconventional measures. What are these times? The country faces the possibility of an exit from the EU without a deal; a disorderly exit that nobody wants. The Prime Minister does not want it, business and the CBI do not want it, the TUC does not want it, the House of Commons does not want it, and your Lordships’ House voted against a no-deal exit by a majority of 169. But the eventuality remains a risk, as we are constantly reminded, because that is the default legal outcome unless something else happens. That legal default—a crash-out no deal—would mean no transition period, the immediate introduction of tariffs, complete uncertainty for British citizens living in the EU 27, no European arrest warrants, security concerns and dire consequences for industry, to say nothing of the implications for Gibraltar or the island of Ireland.
We have received a Bill from the House of Commons that makes something else happen, and we are about to give it a First Reading. It would ensure that there is a legal requirement on the Prime Minister to seek an extension to the Article 50 period to prevent that default legal outcome coming to pass. However, the Bill, passed by the elected House, can have effect only if we deal with it today, so that it can receive Royal Assent in time for the EU Council to consider the application for an extension. To fulfil our duty to deal with a Bill sent by the Commons, we have to handle it today.
This is in compliance with the view of your Lordships’ House on 28 January, when we called on Her Majesty’s Government to take all appropriate steps to ensure that sufficient time be provided for this House to ensure the timely passage of legislation necessary to implement any proposition that had commanded the support of the majority of the House of Commons. That Motion was passed with a majority of 152.
The Commons has passed this Bill. It has expressed a clear view that no deal is unacceptable and that the situation is urgent. Regrettably, the Government failed to honour that Motion published by your Lordships. They should have tabled the Motion I am about to move, to facilitate and expedite the will of the elected House. Today, the Government still will not listen to the Commons—or to this House, which has voted to facilitate any Bill from the Commons. That is not leadership. The Government have lost the support of the Commons, and now refuse to follow your Lordships’ Motion.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that this House resolves itself into a Committee on the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, pursuant to Standing Order 62.
This has nothing to do with Brexit. It has to do with the procedures of this House and of our constitution. I am very disappointed. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is held in very high regard in this House, and we have—I will not say “enjoyed” but we have had good-humoured discussion over and over again on issues arising from Brexit. But this is about how the House operates and how our constitution is carried out.
As I listened to the noble Baroness, I had a look at her CV. I see that she contributed to a book entitled Prime Minister Portillo and Other Things That Never Happened. Obviously she is doing one on Brexit at the moment, judging by the contribution she has just made. I am very surprised indeed that she of all people, and the Opposition, should be joining the insurgents in the House of Commons who have sought to undermine the process and procedures of the House of Commons.
If that sounds an exaggerated point, I will quote from what the putative Prime Minister in the House of Commons, my friend and former colleague Oliver Letwin, had to say—I do not know whether he had a word with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. He said in response to a colleague in the other place:
“My hon. Friend can rest assured—although this may not be of any comfort to him—that those of us who are promoting this course of action have taken the trouble to identify Members of the House of Lords who are well able to carry the Bill forward in the House of Lords.
My hon. Friend may also wish to know, although I fear that it will also be of no comfort to him, that there is overwhelming support in the House of Lords for this measure, and that we therefore anticipate that it will, in all probability … pass through the House of Lords very rapidly. To that end, the House of Lords has in fact already passed a motion that provides for the expeditious consideration of exactly this form of Bill … My sense, for what it is worth, is that although the House of Lords procedures are arcane and it is impossible to determine from the outside the time that will be taken, there is very substantial support for the Bill there, and it is therefore very unlikely that anything other than technical amendments, which might be wholly welcome, would come back, and they would therefore be accepted. I do not think that is an issue we … face”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; cols. 1067-71.]
To describe our role as a House in protecting the constitution and reforming our legislation as “arcane procedures” shows an extraordinary arrogance, which is matched only by the way in which he and others have sought to turn the House of Commons into the Executive and to prevent the House of Commons and indeed the Government carrying out their proper duties.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am sorry for intervening on my noble friend, but I find it utterly extraordinary that we have just listened to a Motion being moved by a leading Member on the Opposition Front Bench who simply would not take an intervention. This debate can be solved so easily. Over the last two or three decades, the House has developed an extremely successful practice for dealing with urgent Bills. We do Second Reading on one day and we take Committee and the remaining stages either the next day or the day after that. I understand that the Bill is urgent, but there is absolutely no reason to have all stages taken on one day.
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord is not making an intervention, which means a short question—he is making a speech. I wonder whether he would look at the Companion and see what it has to say.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has spoken with a good deal of sense. My understanding is that the usual channels had formally agreed to finish this Bill on Monday, and that that arrangement was withdrawn yesterday. The noble Baroness is shaking her head. I have 19 years’ experience of dealing with process and procedure in this House. One abiding rule is that once you do not involve the usual channels, it all goes wrong. That is exactly what has happened today.
I know the noble Baroness is about to speak. Can she explain why it is so urgent that we sit virtually all night to pass this Bill? We could do what all the precedents set have done, and have the Second Reading today and finish the remaining stages at the beginning of next week, asking the usual channels—the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, and my noble friend the Government Chief Whip—to organise it. That would get rid of the nastiness that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, referred to. It would make for a far more rational debate, and the Bill would be completed—I recognise there is a majority for the Bill in this House—in plenty of time for whatever else happens next week.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, we are actually dealing with the amendment on whether we should have a committee report. I draw the attention of the House to the speech Mr Steve Baker gave late last night in the Commons. I do not know why I should pick on him at this particular moment—