Queen’s Speech

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I had planned this afternoon to speak about the union, as so many noble Lords have already. But when I heard my noble friend Lord Forsyth speak so eloquently, as he normally does, and the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, I changed my mind. I am also looking forward to the speech of my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton, who was such a distinguished Secretary of State, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, on a very fine and eloquent maiden speech.

All this led me to decide to speak on your Lordships’ House, and to make two particular points. I should also add, regarding the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—I am sorry that he is no longer in his place, but I shall make the point again when we debate his Bill—that those of us who stand in this House as elected hereditary Peers are waiting for stage 2 of reform when of course by-elections, and indeed hereditary Peers, will all go. So there is no need for him to have so much urgency on his Bill.

I first want to discuss the purpose of this House, which I believe is to revise and scrutinise, to debate great matters of the day and to be informed through our very good committee structure. Indeed, our role is best when we are complementing the House of Commons, rather than simply opposing it. Yet in recent years you can tell that we are increasingly becoming a House of opposition—a House that simply opposes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said something with which I completely agree: a good Opposition should hold a Government to account. I am enormously in favour of that, and I am also in favour of the Government listening carefully to what your Lordships have to say. I am also very much in favour of Ministers being brought to the Dispatch Box and being obliged to answer questions. But it is now a cause for some celebration when the Government win a vote in the House of Lords.

There is a complaint that the Government too rarely listen to your Lordships, but I contend that more amendments are accepted in Committee and by negotiation than by the blunt instrument of a vote to defeat the Government. In the last Session, which was the first of this Parliament, just after a winning general election and manifesto, the Government were defeated in over 55% of all votes. That is an average—on some Bills, they were defeated considerably more. It was some 96 occasions, which is a record, probably, since the 1970s. On this, you can hardly blame the Government wanting to add to the size of the Conservative Benches.

To those who complain about the size of the House, since January 2020, there have been 110 Divisions in which over 500 Peers have voted—we have never seen as many as 600 voting during that period. Apart from one, these votes were all done remotely. In the 20 years from 1999 to 2019, there were only 30 Divisions with over 500 Peers voting, and 18 of those were on Brexit. I cannot see that leading to a conclusion that the House is overcrowded.

Another interesting factor at play—this is my second point—is the role of the Cross Benches, who consistently vote against the Government. Take last month, April 2021: in only one vote out of 17 did the Cross Benches support the Government, and even then only just, by 38 to 30. Overall, the Cross Benches cast 1,016 votes against the Government and only 242 in favour.

I have to echo the late Lord Richard, who was Leader of the Opposition in the 1990s. At that time, he complained that the independent Cross-Benchers continually voted, independently, in favour of the Conservative Government. I think we can all agree that the exact opposite is true today. After such a consistent time of losing votes like this, the Government, it will surprise nobody to hear, will lose patience.

These are not problems of legislation; they are issues for your Lordships to consider about why we are all here, losing sight of what I believe the House is for. We should, of course, be confident in our role and our constitutional position as laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, but as we carry out our voting duties I ask noble Lords to carefully remember that, often, less is more.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I so enjoyed the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and I know that there will be many other times to debate some of the issues raised in his analysis. What I want to discuss today is what an extraordinary few years it has been in Parliament: a seemingly never-ending Session, a Government brought before the courts, imaginative judicial judgments, breakdown of conventions and an unpleasant and unruly mood surrounding all our work, even here in your Lordships’ House—the worst atmosphere that many can remember. My wish for this decade is that we can put all that behind us and rediscover our more co-operative nature, which is absolutely necessary for this House to function in the way it should. We have been through an enormously acrimonious period in our national history. We appear to be more intolerant and judgmental as a society, but we in this House should act as an example of how we can accept difference but maintain a level of cordiality in debate.

Of course, the Government are not entirely without blame. Please, can we get back to proper annual Sessions of Parliament? There is a very good business management reason to do so. Annual Sessions provide a framework discipline for Parliament, for departments, for Government and for Opposition. It forces departments to have their Bills ready at the start of a Session, is a disincentive to their adding endless clauses halfway through the Session and provides an element of predictability for Government and Opposition alike. I hope that this Session will run until around Easter 2021 and that we will then have annual Sessions until the next election, whenever that might be.

The role of opposition is, of course, vital in this House. In so many respects Oppositions have more power than Governments, but they must use that power responsibly and sparingly. I should know a thing or two, having been Leader of the Opposition for 12 years. Most of us agree that this House is best when we revise, scrutinise and act as a forum for general, often expert, debate. Governments listen rarely to your Lordships, but are more likely to do so when we do not continually defeat the Government on endless issues but use our powers of persuasion on issues the Government might actually accept. In the 2016-17 Session of Parliament, the Government were defeated in the House of Lords in almost 50% of Divisions, an absurdly high figure. That is already far too much. In the last proper Session of Parliament, 2017-19, the Government won only 22.5% of all Divisions; they lost more than three-quarters. At this level of Peer activism, we cease to be a revising and scrutinising Chamber and become a House of opposition that Governments can happily ignore. This is not the way forward for us in the future.

The Government are always a minority in this House. That is why the responsibility for how legislation is handled falls so importantly to the Opposition. Remarkably, the Opposition have been very successful in being regularly able to sway even independent Cross-Benchers to come their way and vote against the Government. I know that we have been through a very unusual period over Brexit, but let us not retain the bad habits we have grown used to. The Queen’s business must be carried on and the Government have a right to believe that their legislation should not be needlessly held up in the Lords. It is time for us to return to normal practice. One part of normal practice, as other noble Lords have mentioned, is the welcome proposal in the gracious Speech that the time has come to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. It was an experiment, it has not worked, and it is time to return to the ancient workings of the British constitution.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, kindly referred to me in her opening speech in this debate, before Christmas. She referred to my belief that the Lords needs to be more directly accountable to people. I stand by that. I also accept that this is a more Europhile House, but the people have spoken very clearly—again—on Brexit and we must listen to them, particularly as we are not elected. On the constitution, democracy and rights commission, I simply say “Good luck” to the Government. When the commission starts looking at this House, that will be the proper time to re-examine the role of the electorate, age, the size of the House and who should sit here, including hereditary Peers. This is a well-trodden path but there are new ideas around and we should all examine them constructively and with great care.