House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I shall briefly echo the comments made by my noble friend Lady Hayter from the Front Bench. I respectfully say to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and those who support him that it is quite difficult for some of us to understand what we are doing here. This House agreed that this Bill should have a Second Reading and that it should be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and it has already had a substantial element of Committee scrutiny. It is really difficult to see what purpose is being served by the debate we are now having, in which the substantive issues from Second Reading are being reintroduced, other than to delay the progress of the Bill. I hope that we can bring this debate to a swift conclusion and move on with the Committee stage.

[Lord True (Con)]

Those strictures of course apply to the noble Baroness’s noble friend the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as well, who has perfectly legitimately laid a Motion before your Lordships. I am never popular on my side of the House when I say this, but I agree with the spirit of that Motion and express some sympathy. I agree with some of the sentiments expressed, and I think we should be dealing with amendments as much as we can. I reject the charge of filibuster, particularly when it comes from those Benches that we have had to listen to for day after day filibustering on the question of Brexit.

I agree in principle with what my noble friend Lord Cormack says about incremental reform, but where is the incremental reform on the Liberal Democrat Benches? We introduced provision for retirement, and when I looked at the figures today I noted that despite the retirement provisions being in place for months there are still 98 Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches. They are not stampeding for the exit. There is no incremental reform there. There is no increment at all. I think that those who do not partake in the spirit of reform should be the last to lecture the House on the subject.

There is the question of proportion, which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Cormack. The reality has been alluded to briefly and is that the effect of this measure, if your Lordships pass it, is over time substantially to change the proportions within the House. It has been argued by others that we need to do something because, otherwise, proportions would change. If this measure is passed—I have an amendment on this matter later so I will not develop it at great length—then 20% of the Conservative Benches, 16% of the Cross Benches, 4% of the Liberal Democrats and 2% of the Labour Party would be removed. So it has a profound effect over time.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I can see where the noble Lord’s argument is going, but could he tell me at what point we would reach those figures? How many years will it take before those reductions took place?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am not an actuary, but I know that at least 20 of the hereditary Peers on the Conservative Benches are already over 75 and a considerable number of them are over 80. I do not wish the Grim Reaper to visit any of my noble friends or indeed the noble Lords opposite, but the noble Lord knows very well that that is the position. It will happen. This would be statute, and over time that proportion will change. I have an amendment later that I hope will address that question; I hope we will get on and get to it, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will accept it.

I ask your Lordships not to accept strictures from the Opposition Benches but to guard the point of proportion. I agree that this should be a matter for the Government. I think we should also be looking at the issue of more comprehensive reform, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, if I may add to what my noble friend has just said on the issue of proportion, in a smaller House of, say, 600 Members, if Burns is implemented, the proportions of the hereditaries and of the Bishops would simply revert to what they were immediately after the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999. So in a sense one could argue that the proportion of hereditaries and of Bishops has declined gradually beyond what was agreed at the time of the reform in 1999.

I also support the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. I believe it would be wrong of your Lordships’ House to agree to remove the hereditary by-elections, for the very simple reason that it was made very clear in 1999 that the hereditary element would remain until and unless the House was substantially reformed into some kind of more democratically elected Chamber. I have heard it said on many occasions that the retention of 92 hereditary Peers and the system of by-elections to replace them was only ever intended to be a temporary measure. That is not my recollection of what happened at the time. I remember my noble friend Lord Salisbury, as he now is, explaining to a meeting of Conservative Peers that it was quite likely that the by-elections would remain for a very long time because he thought it likely that the House would not agree to substantive reform. My noble friend’s characteristically astute judgment has proved correct. It was on this basis that a large majority of Peers decided to support the passage of the Act. It would be quite wrong to change the terms of the agreement then reached without once again seeking the opinion of all those who were disenfranchised by the House of Lords Act.

I also take issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said in the debate on 11 July on the Procedure Committee report. I understand that the committee considered the proposal that Standing Orders should be amended to provide that the whole House should take part in hereditary by-elections. That is different from the change that I think the Procedure Committee should consider, which is that the three party blocs and the Cross-Bench bloc should be retained for all by-elections other than those in the list of 15 Peers who originally held office as Deputy Speakers, but that those four blocs should be opened up to life Peers of the same party. This would get rid of the charge that the Liberal Democrat and Labour Party by-elections, with as few as three electors, are absurd. I think the House should make this change.

It is also right that the Conservative and Cross-Bench life Peers should have a vote in the selection of a new hereditary colleague equivalent to what their hereditary colleagues have, even though the existing electorates of 30 or 40 are not so ridiculous and have provided for some quite competitive and interesting elections. Indeed, I do not think there is any logical reason for the difference in the Standing Orders adopted in 1999 between the ability of the life Peers to vote in the Deputy Speaker elections but not in the single-party bloc elections.

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[Lord True]

My Lords, for the record, I am not a hereditary Peer, nor do I favour the outcome that would follow the passage of this legislation in time, of an all-appointed House. We have many Bills in this House that are opposed, and we have seen a number of them attract far more public attention in recent weeks, where Bills have gone on for day after day in Committee. I do not think it is appropriate or reasonable to call fellow Peers who have a point of principle to put forward a “disgrace” or to say that one is “ashamed”. I am ashamed when I see in the House other people stand up and say that Members of this House have no right to put forward a point in principle. I raised reasonable objections to this Bill at Second Reading. There are strong objections to the Bill—in my view, it should be a government Bill and in terms of the proportionality effect, which I have described, and of the binding commitment in honour. All those arguments are reasonable, and there are others. I will not be silenced by people saying that I am a disgrace or that I bring disrepute on the House. What is our Parliament for if not to allow those who have a minority view to put it before this House?

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, if I may continue speaking to Amendment 15 about Scottish and Northern Irish Peers, let us consider the position in 1999 when, according to Dod’s Parliamentary Companion, the House had 785 Members in total. Of these, Dod’s labelled 85 as Scottish and no fewer than 67 as Northern Irish. The regional numbers of the current House of Commons show that, at the last election, there were 59 Scottish MPs elected and 18 Northern Irish MPs. On the same basis, there should be nine elected Northern Irish hereditary Peers and 11 Scottish ones. Current figures for the composition of the 90 hereditary Peers in the House show Scotland adequately represented but that Northern Irish Peers, on the above alternative comparisons, should number between three and eight, rather than the one Peer at present. I will give a brief historical background to support my argument—

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, to save the time of the House, and perhaps to protect its reputation, can the noble Lord confirm that, if his argument on this amendment has merit, he will seek to test the opinion of the House and put in Tellers so that we can show our opinion? If, on the other hand, he is not going to test of the opinion of the House, or not put in Tellers and waste our time, surely he is accepting that his argument does not have real merit and he is simply trying to filibuster and defeat the Bill.

[Lord True]

Is the noble Lord’s view that no amendment should be put before this House unless it is put to a Division?

[Lord Northbrook]

I confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that I wish to test the opinion of the House on this amendment.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the best way to respond to the spirit of the Burns report would be to pass this Bill and turn it into an Act, because, for as long as it remains on the statute book, for every one hereditary Peer who leaves for whatever reason, he or she—well, it is “he”, actually—will always be replaced by another hereditary Peer. Everyone else would be under a system whereby it is two out and one in, with the exception of the hereditary Peers. I suggest that if the noble Lord is concerned about the Burns report, he should withdraw his amendment.

[Lord True]

My Lords, surely this is a matter than can be addressed when we reach the Burns report. I understand the fervour of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is a good old Labour man, to end the procedure that his party agreed on. However, every time he puts his point before the House, I feel that I must repeatedly say, so that the public realise, that the result of this legislation would be the creation in time of an all-appointed House of Lords. That is the effect of this legislation, but the noble Lord never refers to the effect. One of my fundamental objections is that we would, through passing this legislation, create over time an all-appointed House of Lords without the consent of the British people to a manifesto commitment or a Bill brought before Parliament by a Government. That is the proper way to proceed. This House should not, by a hole-in-the-wall procedure masquerading as modernisation, pass legislation that will have the effect in time of creating an all-appointed House for which there is no current democratic consent. Every time the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, makes his point, I will put that point before the public.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this is an all-appointed House; it is just that some people are here because their fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers were appointed by the King or the Queen at the time. It is an all-appointed House.

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I agree very much with the sentiments of the noble Lord who has just spoken. The trouble is that some of us see this as a party political strike against the Conservative Party, given the disproportionate number of Conservative Peers who would be removed. This was not a move that has been made by the Conservative Party—rather, it has been made by the Labour Benches. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, with support from his Front Bench, was rejoicing in the fact that he had universal approbation. Underneath this Bill is a political strike and a poison. It upsets many people who have given long service to this House. It upsets the traditional balance of the House without, as I have said before, broader democratic consent.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[Lord True]

No, at this stage I will not give way to my noble friend. He has had plenty to say, so I will give way to him later.

It is very unfortunate that the Bill is being pressed in this way and at this time which, notwithstanding my noble friend’s agreement with it, is in my judgment party political. Of course I agree with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I was grateful to have the fifth cavalry arrive to give support to the point I have been trying to make; namely, that the effect of this Bill is to create what the majority of people here want but do not proclaim, which is a permanent nominated House. That is what they want and that is why they support this allegedly incremental step.

Perhaps, as my noble friend on the Front Bench has just said, we could come back to the amendment. While I cannot speak for my noble friend Lord Northbrook, the Bill as I read it excludes all 92 peerages in the sense that there will be no succession. It therefore would do what my noble friend Lord Cormack has said he does not want to see happen: it would exclude the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal.

I will give way to my noble friend.

[Lord Cormack]

I am most grateful. I will make one brief point. If my noble friend had been in the Lobby, he would have seen plenty of Conservative colleagues, including some very prominent ones, in it. The point is this: the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has said repeatedly, is to abolish by-elections. It does not touch on the Lord Great Chamberlain or the Earl Marshal because they are not subject to by-elections. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has got this wrong and he has acknowledged that he has done so. He has made his personal observation that he does not see why these two people need to be Members of the House of Lords. That is his point of view—it is not mine—but it is not affected by his Bill because it deals with by-elections, and only with by-elections.

[Lord True]

As always I thank my noble friend for his agile clarification for the House. I agree that I would not want to see him upset by the removal of the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal. By the way, the previous Earl Marshal was a very assiduous attender of this place.

If the House is going to be asked to vote, we need to know what we are voting on. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has put this Bill before the House. My noble friend Lord Northbrook has tried to clarify the point which my noble friend Lord Cormack supports, which is that the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal should stay. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, thinks that they should go. It is a rather minor point, but actually this is a legislative House. Given that, before we vote, can we be told by the mover of the Bill what he is proposing? He wishes to remove all 92; that is the effect of his Bill and that is his intent. We have heard what my noble friend Lord Cormack says, but what is the mover of the Bill telling the House?

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the Bill is quite clear. It says:

“No more than 92 people at any one time shall be excepted from section 1”.


That means that the 92, including the two referred to by the noble Lord, would no longer be Members of the House of Lords—or rather that their membership would not pass to their successors. It does not affect in the slightest their capacity to perform ceremonial duties. I have tried to follow this but I simply do not understand the method of succession for the Lord Great Chamberlain; it is beyond me. Do not try to explain it. I want to protect the Bill in its present form and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord True]

The effect of the Bill is not as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said—that the two Peers or their successors would remain. They would all go. That is a perfectly clear position and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for clarifying it. It is not what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, wished for but I am thankful for the clarification.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, one or two people in the House for whom I have great respect have suggested that we could solve the issue of absurd by-elections on a party basis—because in the case of Labour and the Lib Dems, we have only four hereditary Peers, so we get these idiotic procedures—where the whole House votes. I have two problems with that, one of which is insurmountable. The first is the turnout, as referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. He rightly said that turnout figures can be very high in party by-elections: in the Lib Dem by-election, I think that the turnout was 100%. There were three electors, all of whom voted, so that is a high percentage.

However, turnout figures are consistently very low—often less than 50%—when a turnout of the whole House is required. That is lower than the lowest turnout in any constituency in the country at the last general election, by way of a useless fact, mainly because I am sure that people like me think that the system is idiotic so do not bother. Certainly, the whole-House elections have a low turnout so the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, would be proposing a system with a low turnout.

The far more fundamental issue, which is why I hope that the House will reject this proposal, is that this does not nothing whatsoever about the spectacularly unrepresentative nature of the register of hereditary Peers. The question of who can vote is one thing—by all means, you can put forward a proposal for the whole House if you want to—but we would still face a choice restricted to the 211 people on the register, 210 of whom are men and among whom there are no members of ethnic minorities, for example. It is utterly absurd to proceed with by-elections, whatever the mechanism of election or the electorate, if the eligibility of the people to stand is so totally unrepresentative. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord True]

I can see entirely the logic of the position of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Obviously, it is an argument more broadly for reform of peerage law, not just through the Bill.

It is not for me to speak on behalf of the Procedure Committee, although I am a member of it. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said that this matter was put to the committee on his request, as well as that of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, I believe, speaking from memory. That is true. The Procedure Committee considered it but felt—as I believe is the mood of the House generally, beyond your Lordships’ committee—that with the Burns report’s proposals before the House and a stage of incremental change approaching, this was perhaps not the moment to address the perfectly understandable and reasonable point put forward by the noble Lord. That is my personal position; I do not speak on behalf of committee members. I understand that the House can take a different view from the committee. My noble friend Lord Caithness sees his proposal as an improvement to our system. It is a genuine attempt to improve the Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has given the reasons why he opposes it. As far as the Procedure Committee is concerned, with this Bill and the Burns Committee before the House, this might be best addressed at a later stage.

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Tabled by

[Lord True]

33: Clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert “, if that person is, or has been, a member of a political party group within the House of Lords which has at the time of the vacancy a higher proportion of the total membership of the House than the proportion that political party secured of the total votes cast at the preceding General Election”

[Lord True]

My Lords, I must tell the House that I do not recall having put the case for Amendment 33. I will not detain the House with it at this time. I believe that it is a profoundly important question. It relates to the fact that there is a grotesque overrepresentation of Liberal Democrats in this Chamber—a far more glaring problem in terms of the management of democracy than the presence of the by-elections for hereditary Peers. Since I discovered this morning that it had been listed as “already debated”, although I remember degrouping the matter, I will not detain the House because it would be discourteous, given that it affects the Liberal Democrats’ interests for me to pursue it. I accept that I will not move it, but I give notice to the House that if we reach Report on this Bill I will take that opportunity to raise the question of Liberal Democrat overrepresentation, because I do not think that this minor matter in the Bill should go forward before that glaring democratic anomaly has been addressed. I am afraid that it is a matter we will have to return to.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

I apologise that the great reaper has not taken me away yet, but does the noble Lord not think that there is an overrepresentation of white, privileged, well-off, middle-class men—or even more privileged men—in this House compared with the population as a whole? Does he not think that there is an imbalance in this House in people who represent ordinary people in this country?

[Lord True]

My Lords, that would be an argument for reform and change of the House. I do not do identity politics, I am afraid. I regard every member of our society, whatever race or gender, as equal and deserving equal respect. This House is a deposit of historical tradition. It is as it is. The composition of this House—it has become largely a nominated House—is the result of the choice of party-political leaders in this country. Let us not have all this flim-flam about representation. If we want representation, let us have election. So far as the composition of this House is concerned, with primary life Peers, nominated people who get attention, lucky folk who get a selector of one—the Prime Minister or the party leader of the day—who says, “Go there”, the noble Baroness’s strictures should be addressed not to this House, but to the leaders of the political parties, including the Liberal Democrats, who have sent here the people who are here. That is a matter we can debate further when we come back to it, but it is entirely irrelevant to this Bill, which will do nothing—

[Lord Tyler]

It is also totally irrelevant to the amendment to which the noble Lord is supposed to be speaking.

[Lord True]

I gave notice out of courtesy. I came here to speak to this amendment; out of courtesy to the Liberal Democrats, when I discovered that it was listed as “already debated”—I have explained my position—I said that I would not speak to the amendment but that I would bring it back on Report. Out of courtesy to the Liberal Democrats, having been asked a question from the noble Lord’s noble friend, I gave an answer. I would like to proceed to the amendment before the House, but we will return to this matter.

Amendment 33 not moved.

Moved by

[Lord True]

33A: Clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert “, if, within a month of the vacancy arising, the Prime Minister has recommended to Her Majesty the conferment of a peerage under the Life Peerages Act 1958 on a person who has the same party affiliation as that of the group to which the deceased excepted peer was originally elected”

[Lord True]

My Lords, I shall now address Amendment 33A, which, alongside Amendment 33, which addresses the Liberal Democrat question, addresses a glaring defect in this legislation. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is no longer in his place. I have tried to persuade him before now, outside of this House, to address the point that Amendment 33A seeks to address. I do not wish to see this Bill proceed for wider reasons, but if it does, it will lead not only to the creation of a wholly nominated House—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and one that I have made—but, as alluded to earlier in our discussions, to a rebalancing over time of political strength in the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is returning. I apologise for having said that he was not in his place. I do not wish to repeat to the House, but I made the point that the noble Lord and I have discussed outside the House the Bill’s impact on the political balance in the House over time. The position is that, because of the way the colleges came into being—I was involved in the negotiations in 1999—the hereditary peerage currently constitutes I think 48, at the moment, although 49 is the normal number and maybe that has just changed, of the total Conservative strength. Some 20% of the Conservative Party’s strength in this House—the party of government—is provided for by hereditary Peers as a result of a historical, or I might call it incremental, evolution of the nature of the House.

[Lord Snape]

On that point, would the noble Lord reflect that back in 1945, when the Attlee Government were elected by a very substantial majority, there were I think six hereditary Labour Peers in this place? The vast majority of the Liberal Democrats, who he complains about, were created by a Conservative Prime Minister during the coalition. It seems that his main source of complaint about political imbalance in this place is based on the fact that there would be a dilution of the centuries-old Conservative majority.

[Lord Snape]

I am not quite sure who is intervening on who here, but I was one of Tony Blair’s Peers. I remind the noble Lord that when Tony Blair was elected in 1997, with a very substantial majority indeed, much of the legislation in the early part of that first Parliament was blocked by the Tory majority in this House. “Tony’s cronies”, as they were known, pale into insignificance compared with the number of Peers created by David Cameron during his period. He said openly that this House should reflect the majority of the Government of the day in the House of Commons and behaved accordingly. We should have a bit less of this point from the noble Lord, Lord True. He should come back to reality and stick to his amendment.

[Lord True]

The noble Lord might hear a bit less if he did not provoke me by making an intervention.

[Lord Snape]

That is what Parliament is for, though the noble Lord might not agree with it. He might not have conducted himself in the same way when he ran that local council—but that is the way this place works and he should get used to the fact.

[Lord True]

The noble Lord imputes to me things that I do not agree with. I have given way to him twice and enjoy his interventions. It is only that if he makes an intervention, it requires a courteous answer from me. That is the point that I was trying to make—not that he was not right to intervene.

I shall come back to my fundamental point, but I have to address the point that the noble Lord made. The historical position in 1945 was entirely different. There were no life Peers; there was a historic House, with, yes, a huge preponderance of Conservatives, partly as a result of the Irish home rule debate and partly as a result of the rise of the Labour Party, which gave great service, and still gives great service, to this country. There was an imbalance. That was addressed within that House by convention and by mutual respect—the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham, spoke about earlier that enables the House to work: fairness. The great reforming Labour Government of 1945 changed Britain with the acquiescence of the House of Lords, notwithstanding the numbers. That is the historical reality.

I do not think that it is really relevant to the present position, which, to return to the argument that I was trying to make, is that 20% of the Conservative Party’s strength in this House is made up of hereditary Peers. We have heard distinguished contributions from the Cross Benches today. Sixteen per cent of their strength in this House, because of the way the colleges were agreed in the negotiations with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, is made up of hereditary Peers. In the case of the Liberal Democrats, it is 4% or perhaps 5%, and in the case of the Labour Party it is 2%. The raw numbers are different. We would lose over time on our side 49; the Labour Party would lose four—a difference of 45 net votes. That would obviously have an effect on the composition of the House. Meanwhile, the majority of the House is saying perfectly reasonably—I do not happen to agree with the argument—that the numbers of the House should be limited. I agree with the Prime Minister’s restraint in creating new peerages; David Cameron created far too many—perhaps including this one.

[A noble Lord]

Hear, hear.

[Lord True]

Tony Blair went much further. He went up to 354.

[Lord Snape]

He did no such thing.

[Lord True]

He created 354 Peers, my Lords. Again, we do not want to get sidetracked, but I will send the noble Lord the figures.

If this Bill goes through, there would a disproportionate attrition in the numbers of Conservative Peers and Cross-Bench Peers at a time when the call from everybody in the House is not to create new Peers and to limit the number to 600. The effect of the Bill would be noticeably to reduce over time the proportion of Conservative and Cross-Bench Peers in the House. That is a perfectly reasonable aspiration of the parties opposite, but it is not a proper effect of a Private Member’s Bill. I have therefore suggested an amendment which, in this transitional period when we are told that great new incremental reform is coming after the Burns report, provides that, so long as the reforms proceed and if this Bill goes through, there should be an understanding—just as there was an understanding in 1999 that if a Labour Peer died, the Conservatives would vote for a Labour Peer under the Carter convention.

To avoid that disproportionate effect, whereby the Conservatives would lose nearly 50 out of 250 Peers whereas Labour would lose four out of nearly 200, there should be provision for a life peerage to be created, rather than election to take place, so that there would be a steady state in political strength in this House. That would ameliorate the political impact of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, the effect of which I and many others believe—I am not entering into the question of the hereditary peerage, although, as noble Lords will know, I have my views on it—would be to create a disproportionate political strike over time at two parts of the House: the Conservatives and the Cross Benches.

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[Lord Adonis]

I think that the Conservatives currently have 60 more Peers than the Labour Party. Does the noble Lord regard that as fair? Surely, we should get to parity—which I believe was the convention established when the House of Lords Act was passed in 1999—before his amendment takes effect.

[Lord True]

There is an argument there. As I understand it, the convention is that the governing party should not have a majority over the opposition parties—and we certainly do not have that on this side. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was present during the debates on leaving the European Union, but he may well have noticed, in the course of those debates, that the Conservative Party did not command an overwhelming majority in your Lordships’ Chamber.

[Lord Adonis]

My noble friend Lord Grocott knows these things because he was Chief Whip, but I do not believe that the Labour Party was the largest party in this House until a few years before it left office. Even after the passage of the 1999 Act, for some years the Conservative Party was still larger. Is the noble Lord seriously suggesting that the Conservative Party needs a buffer of 50 or 60 seats in order to deal with the disunity in its own ranks?

[Lord True]

The noble Lord is suggesting that, and of course it is utter nonsense. I will not follow on with what I am tempted to say, because it is very rare that the noble Lord speaks nonsense. The reality is, of course, that in time there will be attrition. I believe that anybody who has the honour of being Prime Minister should have regard to balance. I had the honour of working in the Administration in No. 10 under Sir John Major, and it was put to Sir John frequently at that time that it would be good to have more Labour creations. I think that the failure to have more Labour creations at that time led, probably indirectly, to the anger that caused the 1999 Act. Of course, there should be fairness as well as restraint in creation, and I think that the Prime Minister is trying to have that.

My point is that I do not think that there is a principle of friendship and comity across the House for a majority in the House which is not the Conservative Party—although many might agree with it. I am sorry if they do; I try to persuade them. But I do not think that we should pass legislation—and I could not support legislation—the back door of which would be to strike heavily at the political strength of the Conservative Party, the governing party. It would cut the number from 250 to 200—which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said he would welcome. Yes, it would be over time, but I remind the House that, I think, 20 Conservative hereditary Peers are already over 75 and a number are over 85, and the effect will take place.

I have prolonged my remarks because of interventions. I think that the principle is clear: I believe that, if the House wants to proceed with legislation, an element of fairness towards the Conservative Benches and the Cross Benches could be achieved by including an amendment of this type. I beg to move.

[Lord Grocott]

Perhaps I could clear this up with a couple of facts. On the question of the party strengths in the House of Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord True, need worry too much about a Conservative leader ensuring that their party strength in the House of Lords remains strong. By way of illustration, the Labour Party was elected with a huge majority of 157 in 1997, at which time there was a colossal majority of some 200 or 300 Conservative Peers in the House of Lords. Many of them—90% of them—went in the 1999 Act and we have only the cream left: the 10% who were elected, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, among them. However, it was in 2006, nine years after the Labour Government were elected, that Labour became the biggest party, although obviously not the majority party. So the Tories were the biggest party for the first nine years of a Labour Government with a majority of 157 in the House of Commons. The noble Lord need not worry: the Tories are much better at making sure that they have friends in this House. Does he know how long it was after the 2010 election before normal service was resumed and the Tories were the biggest party again? It was just two years: by 2012 the Tories were the biggest party. So if the noble Lord, Lord True, is having sleepless nights about Tory leaders not appointing enough Tory Peers, I think that he can sleep well.

On the other crucial fact, with respect, talk about making a mountain out of a molehill over the disproportionate effect of my Bill on the future composition of parties in the House of Lords! I have been doing calculations on a sheet of paper while the noble Lord has been talking and just for the record, since the 1999 Act there have been, I make it, 34 hereditary Peer by-elections, roughly one third of the total. Of those, nine were Conservatives. So over a period of 19 years, although he used the phrase “striking heavily” about the effect on party representation in the House of Lords, the Conservative membership would be down nine if my Bill had been in operation. Just for the record, the Labour Party would have been down two, so the net benefit to the Labour Party in opposition over the Government would have been seven Peers over 19 years. Once again, I suggest to the noble Lord that he can sleep well still, even with that anxiety hanging over him about the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

My Lords, having heard my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, down that road, but the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is not alone in not adhering to the Labour manifesto policy on that matter. I am disappointed by the reaction. I do not believe this Bill is the right construction, and I oppose it in principle because it has the effect, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, rightly said, of entrenching a nominated House. It is true that in the interests of fairness my amendment would, for a temporary period until reform, lead to a life Peer replacing a hereditary Peer, and he or she would be a nominated Peer. However, that is not the purpose of my amendment in the long term. I have every sympathy.

It is interesting that whenever a noble Lord stands up in your Lordships’ House and even entertains the idea of an elected House of Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is familiar with this, as am I—a sort of posse, often led by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, rises with a mugging party and says, “It shall not be”. The reality is that almost everyone here who is a life Peer wants to stay and believes the House is absolutely perfect as it is and that we should not have any reform. Yes, we can talk about little bits of increment but never reform. That is the reality of the position. I am sorry to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that I do not accept her comments. She is right to a point to say that it is an atavistic and understandable wish of the Labour Party and socialist movement more generally to eliminate the hereditary Peerage in Parliament. It is a perfectly respectable wish that can, and I am sure will, be accomplished one day by a Labour Government because that is the way our democracy works. My basic submission, however, is that it should not be accomplished by stealth in a Private Member’s Bill that entrenches an all-appointed House. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did not address that point. She returned to the evasion which the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has continually used, saying that this is just about ending by-elections. It is not just about ending by-elections; it is about, over time, creating an all-nominated House. For those who wish to achieve something, there is a piece of Virgil—I shall not quote him because it is not right—that states that often those who wish to achieve something weave a different pretext for it.

My noble friend is rising to tell me that it is all about incremental reform and I will hear it again.

[Lord Cormack]

His noble friend is rising to say that if everyone is trying to come clean on things, will he please come clean and say that his policy is for the abolition of this House and its replacement by something totally different? That is a valid and respectable point of view, but that is his point of view. Mine is the opposite.

[Lord True]

I definitely respect that, but since I do not share his opinion that all will necessarily be hunky-dory once hereditary Peers go, it is perfectly legitimate for me to point out my point of view, and I will do it as often as I am invited to by my noble friend, who frequently reminds us of his own position. I do not necessarily think this Chamber would be made more effective by the removal of the hereditary Peerage, but that is not what I am arguing.

I am disappointed by the reaction to the amendment. The fact is that the effect of the Bill over time, whatever the noble Lord says, will be disproportionate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judd, said the Cross Benches could look after themselves, and of course they can. I am sure the hereditary Peers on the Cross Benches may well disagree with me when I say it is a pity that they are going. I will speak only from my point of view as a Conservative: I believe a Bill that would result in 20% of the Conservative strength in this House being removed over time is a political Bill and an unfair one.

I believe the Bill could be improved by the amendment; I think equity would be restored. The amendment would not stop the noble Lord’s Bill to abolish hereditary by-elections. It would permit him and the Labour Party to achieve their objective; it just asks for temporary political equity. I think it is mean-minded to reject it out of hand, and on these political grounds I wish to test the opinion of the House.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I was not going to go down that track but the noble Lord is an old friend and I am delighted to dispose of that myth too. My noble friends in this House did not support the deal that was referred to. We were not in that particular discussion. We do not support the deal that was done but we have been unique in being consistent in supporting the case for reform. We supported the case for the 2012 Bill, which gained a majority in the House of Commons of 338—the biggest majority of that type for a big Bill. There was a majority on the Conservative Benches, a majority on the Labour Benches, and unanimity among the Liberal Democrats. I stand four-square behind the reform of your Lordships’ House but until that happens, just as we have to live with these unfortunate facts of life, we have to live with those facts of life too.

[Lord True (Con)]

I was a member of the official group that was tasked to negotiate the details of the arrangement entered into by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, and Lord Cranborne, and there were Liberal Democrat representatives. I remember it well, so it is not actually true that the Liberal Democrats did not assent. The college system that noble Lords should be elected only by members of their party was insisted on by both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, for the understandable reason at the time that they did not trust that the whole House would preserve the balance between the parties. As has happened since, because of the Carter convention, that has been respected. But it is simply not true that the Liberal Democrats were not there at the table.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness]

In deference to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I am not giving way to him but I declare my interest as a hereditary Peer and declare my interest that I know why I am here. Some people in this House are, I guess, still wondering why they are here.

What the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has said is absolutely right. I want to pick up three brief points on what has been said. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, talked about 15-minute speeches in Committee. I hope that he will pass the Standing Orders on to his noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, who spoke for 40 minutes at 10 o’clock at night in moving an amendment, and various others who have prevaricated in that Bill.

I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, on what she said on one Parliament not binding another, but actually, what her noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg proposed was personal on each of us who came to vote. It was not one Parliament binding another; it was for each of us who turned up to vote. Therefore, it is up to us to decide whether that is a principle that should be maintained, as I do, or that it is not a principle worth supporting anymore.

On the point about succession, I would be only too happy to support a Bill that gave the first child the right of succession to a hereditary peerage. That would be an extremely good move but, unfortunately, that is not the Bill that we are discussing. I have supported that before, and I would support it again.

[Lord True]

My Lords, perhaps I could briefly intervene and declare an interest as not being a hereditary Peer. I doubt that I would ever catch the eye of the selectors, even if there were such a provision.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, referred to the late Ivor Richard. Having been present at those times, I add my appreciation to the great service that Lord Richard did to his country, his party and this House. It was an honour to deal with him, albeit briefly. The misunderstanding in what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said was that the late noble Lord did not support an all-appointed House, which this Bill would produce. I heard many times in those days and since that Lord Richard supported the principle of a two-thirds elected House—believing that the public should be entitled to elect their politicians to both Chambers of this Parliament—and a one-third appointed House. That was his provision, and he was summarily dismissed in 1998 and further and different arrangements were made. My view on the future of this House, to follow on from the noble Earl who spoke, is rather akin to that of the late Lord Richard. I do not see in the longer term why the public should not elect the politicians to both Chambers of this House.

Apart from the point of honour, which is a personal point, and which, having been involved, I do hold, I accept that that will not count for other Peers, and I respect that and do not expect to bind them to that—but that is something that moves me in this respect, as well as my feeling that it is an objective fact and truth, however much we may protest otherwise, that the longer-term effect of this Bill would be to create an all-appointed House by stealth, bit by bit and stage by stage. That is the inevitable result of your Lordships agreeing to this legislation and, if it went down there, the other place agreeing to it.

I personally believe that such a proposition of the creation of an all-appointed Chamber permanently as part of our legislature in the 21st century should be brought before Parliament in a serious and major Bill by a Government in future. Yes, if the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats or even our party succeeds in winning an election, and it is our view that we wish to present a Bill for the abolition of the hereditary peerage and creation of an all-appointed Chamber, that is the proper way in which to proceed in a democracy: to secure a mandate from the public before the election for such a great proposition, and to go forward. In my submission, we should not, in a hole-in-the-wall piece of legislation, move bit by bit towards that end. I detect a certain eagerness, exemplified on the Benches on my side, to push this Bill forward. It has not escaped my notice that some of the most eager are those who wish to create an all-appointed House in the longer term.

I have sympathy with those hereditary Peers who have spoken. I do not believe that we should start challenging the right by which one sits here. As has been said, that would be a difficult and uncomfortable place for some of us to go to. While we are all here, we are all equal. We are all Peers and should be allowed to be heard. I would not follow my noble friend Lord Hamilton entirely, but having sat through many hours on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, the minority sometimes feels it has to hear a lot from the majority. I do not particularly care for majorities ganging up on minorities. I support Amendment 59, and if it is pressed I will vote for it.

I will make some other brief points. As my noble friend Lord Caithness said, the argument about gender within the peerage is strong and valid, but that matter needs to be addressed by wider legislation on the peerage. If the noble Baroness wishes to attempt that, she can bring legislation forward.

So far as binding the Parliament’s successor is concerned, the original deal had two parts. The first was that, until the end of that Parliament, hereditary Peers who departed—the proper English word is died—would be replaced by ones on the list of those who had been put forward at the election. It was not conceived at the time that this arrangement would continue, but provision was made by Parliament for it to continue in successive Parliaments. That is the process we have now, which came into effect after the 2001 election. So provision was made specifically for this to last until such time as your Lordships’ House is finally reformed.

The noble Lord, Lord Steel, who is no longer in his place, referred to his Bill. A serious mistake was made in that Bill—which I did not support—requiring that a hereditary Peer who retires should be replaced. Under the original arrangements, when there was no retirement system, a hereditary Peer who took leave of absence would not be replaced. In the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, it was your Lordships, in your wisdom, who made the deliberate decision to extend to retired Peers the privilege of being replaced.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord, Lord Steel, included that provision in order to avoid the kind of exercise we are seeing from some hereditaries today.

[Lord True]

I do not know about that but, having heard what other hereditary Members of the House have said today, I doubt that would have been the case. At the time, I thought it was a very odd decision, but there it is. That is why retirement is there, and if an amendment comes forward to remove it I will support it, irrespective of the wider provisions.

The proportion of hereditary Peers is now lower now than it was in 1999, when there were 666 of us. I do not believe that that is a conclusive argument either way: I simply note the fact. I found unattractive the appeal to self-interest of my noble friend Lord Cormack, who said: “You will not be affected, so do not worry, you can come along with us”. That exemplified the eagerness to beguile noble Lords into accepting a long-term result. No one in this House, including my noble friend, should feel they have to act upon self-interest, even if that were the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I have listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord True. His speech was probably the most substantial criticism so far of the Bill—which I support. Does he notice the apparent contradiction at the centre of his arguments? Up until now, the main argument against the Bill is the independence and independent authority of the hereditaries. In his closing remarks, the noble Lord made the opposite argument: the reduction in hereditaries was important because it affected the party-political balance, as the hereditaries had an overwhelming party-political role in the numbers of the Conservative Party. Does he see the apparent conflict in those two arguments?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I do not see any distinction at all, though I am always grateful for a compliment from the noble Lord, whom I esteem highly. I do not particularly follow the argument about independence. It is true that hereditary Peers come here by a different route, but I have never made that argument. As was said in a challenge to the noble Viscount, it is an objective fact. They come here through election by a political college and they take a political place. I therefore have some doubt about the argument. There are nuances in all these things.

[Lord Balfe]

Does the noble Lord accept that his point about the disproportionate effect on these Benches is exactly why such a reform might appeal to certain elements in the Labour Party when they become the Government of this country, as they inevitably will?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

I never like to challenge or take issue with my noble friend, but his argument is—to put it politely—feeble in the extreme. If the Labour Party wished to achieve its historic objective of getting rid of the hereditary peerage and was armed with a popular mandate, I very much doubt it would wait until the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, died in 2060 to do so. The noble Lord’s argument is immaterial to that.

[A noble Lord]

My Lords—

[Lord True]

I will not take further interventions. There are serious points to be made against the Bill and some of those that I have addressed remain unresolved.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, very briefly, I am wholly opposed to this whole group of amendments for the very important reason given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern: these are wrecking amendments. If they were going to be pursued appropriately in your Lordships’ House, they should have been raised at Second Reading as an opportunity to vote against the Bill then. I am particularly opposed to Amendment 59, which has been given so much emphasis in the last few minutes and reads:

“Whereas it is no longer intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular basis”.


That is a subjective supposition. It may be true; I do not know whether it is true. What sort of timescale is envisaged? It is not a fact and, therefore, for us to put it into the Bill would be absurd.

If I may take this opportunity, the first person who I think would have reacted to that particular suggestion would be our former colleague Lord Richard. I served with him in a number of capacities but, in particular, through a whole year on the Joint Committee on the then draft Bill brought forward by the coalition. He would not have accepted that as a statement of fact, because it is not a statement of fact. It is a supposition. I therefore hope we will dispose of this whole group of amendments and, in particular, dispose absolutely clearly and without any doubt of Amendment 59, if only to make sure that Lord Richard’s view on this issue remains with us. He was always clear and consistent and argued his case with such conviction; we should at least respect that in this case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

I am afraid the noble Lord needs to attend rather more frequently before he makes interventions on what happened when. The Bill was passed. There were long discussions and long debates; I do not object to that. However, what is happening here is a deliberate attempt to do in Committee what should have been done at Second Reading. These are age-old procedures and I respect them enormously: First Reading, Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading. To do what is being done now in Committee is an abuse and it should stop.

[Lord True]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, he has spoken of abuse—we are in Committee, so I may come back—I believe that I tried to make a reasonable speech and I asked the noble Lord a specific question on Amendment 33A. He has not had the courtesy to respond. I am disappointed by that; it was meant as a constructive amendment to enable progress to be made, I do not accept widespread, scatter-gun accusations of abuse against those of us who seek to make a contribution on this matter.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord, of all people, should know that we will debate Amendment 33A when we reach it. If I start responding to amendments we have not even reached, we will go on even longer.

Democratic Political Activity (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, here we are again: the same magnificent Victorian theatre; the same Bill, in effect, as I shall show; and the same dramatis personae, with the welcome addition of the right reverend Prelate and sadly, I agree entirely, the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Bew. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said about that, but that is about as far as I will go with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. He ended, as Liberal Democrats so often do, with a call for consensus. But the preceding 15 minutes of his speech were partisan and often acid. Indeed, he repeated allegations which he made in March in relation to incidents which have been investigated by the legal authorities, and in respect of which no charges have been made—with no apology whatever.

I note 15 Members present on the Liberal Democrat Benches for this debate. In the previous debate, introduced by my noble friend Lord Holmes on the incredibly important issue of the scandal of the abuse of young people through unpaid internships, the Liberal Democrats could not even put up a Front-Bench spokesman on that matter. But they flock in—15 of them—for this debate. I wonder whether there is a political interest at stake here. Of course I welcome some of them, and it is particularly good to see the noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, here again. In the proceedings on 10 March, which I too have read, he declared at col. 1608 that he and Ms Sarah Olney would, as he put it, “see” me “at the ballot box” in Richmond in May. Well, he and Ms Olney did come—I saw them—and Zac Goldsmith defeated them. It is great to have my honourable friend back in Parliament.

I have carefully examined the Bill and compared it with the Bill we discussed only a few months ago. There is an extra word in the Short Title—it is “Democratic Political Activity” rather than “Political Parties”. It has Latin numerals instead of Arabic ones for reference to parts of the 2000 Act—a change which, as a classicist, I cannot but welcome and think is correct, although I note one has been missed, on page 3, line 27. Dates are updated by a year to set them in the future, which is wise, and a useful explanatory parenthesis relating to your Lordships has been added to Clause 11(4)(c).

There is minor redrafting in Clause 12, relating to gift aid—a proposal I actually support. Last Session’s new condition G in Section 416 of the Income Tax Act 2007 has now become condition H. No doubt the noble Lord will explain in Committee if there is any significance in that. Another change is that the provision in Clause 17 of last year’s Bill requiring a valid candidate for European elections to have 1,000 signatures in his or her support is omitted. Is the noble Lord anticipating Brexit and not wasting time on reform of European elections? Or is it perhaps that the previous version was written before his party’s campaign for a second referendum—which the noble Lord called for again today—tanked and the party lost vote share in this year’s general election?

The very few narrow changes in Clause 20, relating to candidate expenditure, to which the noble Lord spoke, and the changes in Clause 19 relating to control of non-election expenses, reducing the limit further, present severe difficulties. They are technical, controversial and not so far the subject of consensus. I make no detailed comment, as this is outside my skill base, but I believe that assigning national expenditure to constituencies would be exceptionally difficult. Funnily enough, I instinctively welcome the idea of some limit on the tiresome bore of unsolicited digital messages based on postal codes. I am pretty sure that on this I am pretty off-message with both my Front Bench and Jeremy Corbyn’s friends in Momentum, but I will say no more in case I get an unsolicited message from Mr Jared O’Mara on the subject.

All in all, it is the same Bill as last Session, with a small addition that could have been a one-clause Bill, not a repeat of what we had before—a comprehensive attempt to rewrite the rules. I am sure that my noble friend on the Front Bench will probably say again, in my view rightly and fairly, and perhaps the noble Lord on the opposition Front Bench will agree, that these changes have to be agreed between the major parties so far as possible and made, as in the past, normally by government legislation with agreement, not a Private Member’s Bill in your Lordships’ House. Certainly any increase in taxpayer funding for political parties would be unthinkable at this or any other time, in my view. No taxpayer should have to pay more to support politicians than they do now.

Perhaps it is time to reflect on the ballot for Private Members’ Bills. This would not prevent any noble Lord bringing forward substantially the same Bill in successive Sessions, as we have here, although actually I think both Front Benches, both government and official opposition, who work so hard for us—we have two of the best of the bunch here in the shape of my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—might be spared repetitive stress syndrome on a Friday by having to deal with the same Bill after a few months. Perhaps the Procedure Committee might consider whether a second or certainly a third attempt at the same fence might not go lower in the ballot than a Bill that brought a new issue before Parliament.

I spoke on two important matters in March that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has completely ignored in his Bill. I will not repeat at length what I said; it is all in Hansard for 10 March 2017 at cols. 1602-04. I stand by every word, like he does. The issue is the inability of the Electoral Commission to order the repayment to victims of crime of political donations derived from the proceeds of crime, such as Maxwell, Asil Nadir or, more recently, the £2.5 million taken and, deplorably, kept by the Liberal Democrats from a shameless fraudster, Michael Brown, who ruined many people. All the parties that have criminal money, including my own, should repay it, but the case of the Liberal Democrats’ £2.5 million is particularly fragrant. I am sorry, I mean the opposite: flagrant. That gives me the opportunity to emphasise the point: flagrant. Shameless.

In March, my noble friend on the Front Bench encouraged me by saying this was something the Government would look at in the context of any review of Electoral Commission powers. If the noble Lord presses the Bill forward, I give notice that I will seek to amend Clause 24 to give the commission such powers and will expect the full support of the Liberal Democrats for that, with a pledge to repay the £2.5 million that Brown took. Then never again will victims of villains like Brown be turned away with impunity by a political party.

The second issue that I raised concerned a lacuna in the Representation of the People Act, which provides that a person who corruptly induces any other person to withdraw from being a candidate at an election by payment or offer of payment is committing an offence. I described the murky events surrounding the Richmond Park by-election in 2016, just before which it is admitted by the Green Party that an offer of £250,000 was made to promote a so-called progressive alliance between Greens and Liberal Democrats. In making this offer—self-evidently, given the fact that the Richmond Park by-election was impending—the willingness of the Green Party to withdraw its candidate and leave the field free for the Liberal Democrats, as indeed happened, would be a very material matter to the person or company waving this fat wad of money. If that were not obvious, a leaked email sent to a Kingston Green the day before its prospective candidate withdrew, reads,

“just reiterating that what I mentioned, about the party benefiting from us not standing, is confidential—please don’t circulate”.

That is the smoking gun that confirms that Kingston Greens were told that there was a direct connection between standing or not standing in Richmond Park against Mr Goldsmith and their party bosses having the chance of getting some dosh.

On the same day, there was a further illuminating exchange between two Greens. The first Green writes, in an email: “Do you know how much the amount is?”. “No, is it important?” “£250,000”. I will paraphrase the next bit because there is a right reverend Prelate present. “Just heard from Nick. Effing ‘ell”. It was rather more correctly expressed than that, but your Lordships know what I mean. Nick is widely believed to be Mr Nick Martin, chief executive of the Green Party, who clearly knows all that the public needs to know about the person or company involved. This attempted inducement was reported to the police, but prosecutors apparently decided that, as the prospective Green candidate had not yet been formally nominated, no offence was committed in her withdrawing. Furthermore, Section 107 of the Representation of the People Act has a lacuna, in that it applies to a person, not a party. I submit that it is a corruption of politics for big money to seek to procure the withdrawal of a candidate or of a party from a local or national election in any seat, and it is a corruption of politics for big money to seek to induce a prospective candidate not to seek adoption or be adopted. That needs to be exposed and stopped, and I hope that it will be addressed in law.

In conclusion, it is a stain on the high moral tone of the Green Party that it has not been prepared to disclose the identity of the person, company or party behind this offer. It is called an attempted offer; I say that it is really an attempted bribe. Caroline Lucas, the party leader, told the BBC in May that people in the Green Party knew who had made the offer but that she, very conveniently—this was on live television—had forgotten the name. There is no record of whether she sent a text message to Andrew Neil afterwards to tell him who it was when she remembered. Nick, Mr Nick Martin, is clearly one of those people in the Green Party who Caroline Lucas has said publicly knows the identity, and I call him out today in Parliament, in the name of the integrity and transparency of political party funding, to publish the identity of that attempted donor. As it is claimed that the donation was refused by the Green Party’s ethics committee, which we are told ensures that no donations are accepted, inter alia, from foreign sources, tobacco companies or other industries such as aviation, what could the Greens possibly have to hide? Surely it would put them in a good light if they saw this person off for good. Let Mr Martin also publish the minutes of the meeting of that ethics committee. Otherwise, I will seek to amend the Bill to enable the Electoral Commission to require him to do so.

Intergenerational Fairness in Government Policy

Lord True Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness on introducing the debate. It has been diverting to hear about intergenerational fairness from the Benches opposite who have just elected a new leader aged 75. Could they not find anyone younger?

I agree with so much that has been said by so many but, like my noble friend Lady Altmann, I must take a different tack, because I dislike this rhetoric of intergenerational fairness. Others may respond that it is not about division but all about fairness, but calling for fairness implies that some unprincipled people are in clover at the expense of others. What increasingly echoes back from the wall of social media are the cries “unfair”, “older people are to blame” and “let’s take it back”.

My noble friend Lord Willetts, who spoke so brilliantly, as always, today, marred his important and thoughtful book with a deliberately provocative title. In it, he likened our generation, so-called baby boomers, to a “selfish giant” and said that we had, “taken our children’s future”, a phrase rehashed very swiftly by the Guardian as “stolen”.

We should be careful to avoid political rhetoric, as my noble friend lately said, that sets group against group. In particular, I deplore anything that, wittingly or unwittingly, provokes the old people of the future against the young people of the past. The excellent report of the Work and Pensions Committee in another place rightly ended with a strong warning on adversarial language. I know that is not my noble friend’s intention or that of anyone else who has spoken—quite the reverse: what an intelligent and interesting debate we have had—but what we need is not the sledgehammer of a potentially divisive soundbite or the stereotyping of groups but the scalpel of intelligent and targeted policy, at which my noble friend and so many others who have spoken excel.

“Fairness” can be measured in many varied ways and cannot be analysed in arid economic statistics alone. Young people today, and how good that is, have opportunities and advantages that young baby boomers, or indeed the silent, never had. I give a small example. For some reason, my noble friend’s Intergenerational Commission’s latest interesting publication has guacamole on its cover, coming from a continent, South America, that none of us at school ever dreamed of being able to see. In fact, I find that avocados were first sold at Sainsbury’s in 1962 and at Marks & Spencer in 1968. It goes to illustrate that the cornucopia of food choices that we have today was simply not available.

Thank God that this generation has not—yet—had to contend with 9%, 10% and far higher mortgage rates that we selfish ones did. Today, too, we have all the benefits of an information and technological revolution unknown to those of us who waited months for our first landline from the kind of state monopoly that the party opposite wants to bring back. Frankly, how infuriating it has been for so many older people to watch on while Governments led by those who are now our juniors ravaged the pensions system, stoked a housing asset bubble—as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, said, through quantitative easing, pummelling savers along the way—and piled unimaginable quantities of debt on future generations. There are two recent Chancellors whom I will not name who bear a heavy responsibility for that.

Let us not fall for a lump of prosperity fallacy to be addressed by taxing Doris to pay Dan. High tax is part of the problem for us all. Most older people want to see what they have built going to help their children and grandchildren, but inheritance tax take is projected to rise by 30% in the next five years, with the state destroying £27.7 billion of potential family support by 2022.

Housing is an issue. I agree with many of the things said by the noble Lord, Lord Best. By the way, I would look at allowing councils to give themselves planning permission to build on unused public sector brown land where the owners are unwilling or require execution of planning permissions given. High stamp duty, as others have said, has been a disaster. In many areas, starter homes have disappeared as people have extended up and out rather than move out and pay the tax. Indeed, the small, two-bedroom house where I started a family with my wife is now a 4.5-bedroom house, inaccessible to a young family for this very reason. The take from this distorting tax is planned to rise by over 60% by 2022, with the Treasury grabbing £74 billion in the next five years from the aspiration to own a new home.

I would not have introduced or sustained the triple lock. I would have ended the extension of the welfare state to the well off through universal winter fuel payments, universal free school meals and so-called free 30 hours of childcare. I would look at a capital contribution to the cost of care at home. Parties opposite, as well as the incompetence of my own party, bear a heavy blame for the shameful role they had in stifling discussion on such options. There is much, as so many in the debate have wisely said, that we can and should do, but let it not be couched in the language of “we woz robbed”.

As I face sitting down again with an attack of sciatica, I recall the end of Compton Mackenzie’s Sinister Street, where the main character is overheard musing on the tragedies of youth. A passer-by comments, “There is only one tragedy for youth”. “And that is”? “Age”, said the stranger. Youth and age are concepts experienced by all who are fortunate enough to live long in the same mind and the same body. We are all one. Each generation and each age group faces its own varied and diverse challenges, measured against diverse attitudes and aspirations, as does each person. For all its indignities, even old age today is enriched and eased today by things we never had in the past. How bitter a gall it would be if, by provoking fear of so-called intergenerational unfairness, we set the youth of the present against the youth of the past. That would indeed be a tragedy, for youth and age alike.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am too polite to return the noble Lord’s words to him, but his entertaining speech rather reminded me of why I joined the Conservative Party. I do have a beef, which is that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, came first in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills and I came 60th out of 61. Therefore I am a little vexed that he has used this privilege of coming out top to rehash last year’s mashed potatoes—the Bill that failed. The garnish is different but the effect is the same. I am a member of the Procedure Committee of your Lordships’ House but I do not speak as a member. However, we might, in looking at the ballot system, see that it does not privilege someone who had a Bill the previous Session to bring it back in the following Session. Perhaps, as we have been told by many noble Lords in this debate, opportunity should be spread a little wider.

The noble Lord’s Bill has several defects. First, in my judgment—many have spoken on this—it removes the incentive for agreement on final reform that was deliberately left in the statutes of this land in 1999. The 1999 agreement secured the programme of the Labour Government, in which the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was PPS to the Prime Minister. Perhaps he knew something about it. Under that agreement, hundreds of our Members left. However, the basis of it was that they would remain and be replaced, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, as “a guarantee” that a final reform of the House would be agreed. That agreement was, as the noble and learned Lord said,

“binding in honour on all those”,—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]

who came to subscribe to it. As one who played a part in negotiating the details of it, I feel so bound and I oppose the Bill.

I am always interested to listen to my noble friend Lady D’Souza when she speaks on matters that affect the reputation of the House. However, I strongly reject her statement that this sense of honour is any sense contrived. It is not contrived, and many people hold it firmly. I also disagree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, which was a typical lawyer’s point—a correct point—that of course Parliament is not bound: the law can be changed by Parliament. But there is a world beyond the square mile around the Inns of Court, and in politics it is sometimes not what you can do but what you should do. This agreement should not be repudiated.

I agreed with the speech made by my noble friend Lord Cope of Berkeley, which I thought was extremely interesting, as did many others in the House, and a matter that might be looked at. The original reason for the strange colleges is because, I recall, it was pressed for by the Government. The Labour Party was concerned that Labour Peers would not be elected. That would not be the case, and it could be re-examined.

My second objection to the Bill is that it would create an all-appointed House by stealth. That has never been put before the British people at any general election this century and it should not be accomplished by a Private Member’s Bill in the Lords. Others have spoken on that. The third matter is that the Bill is partisan in its effect. It would strike disproportionately at the Conservative Party, and quite fast. Some 26 Conservative elected hereditary Peers are over 70, nine are over 75, five over 80, and five over 85. They would no longer be replaced. When I raised this with the noble Lord last year, he said that that could be dealt with by appointing another couple of dozen Conservative life Peers. That is not a tune we hear so very much from the Benches opposite, nor would it be welcomed by the House. Will the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench say whether that would happen—would Labour support Conservative life Peers to replace hereditaries that went?

The final defect of the Bill is a glaring one, which is that it attacks the speck of dust—the by-election system—but spectacularly fails to tackle the most glaring defect in numbers in this House: the massive overrepresentation of Liberal Democrat Peers, who are sworn to use their unelected position to foil the will of the British people in the referendum. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, agrees with me on that. If only he had used his luck in the ballot to introduce a Bill to deal with that, they might have cheered him on in Tory Telford, where the candidate wearing the rosette of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, lost her deposit with a reasonable 900 votes. The threat of obstructionism by those Benches over there is a major and present constitutional danger to what the people of Telford voted for by a majority of 24,000. Hereditary by-elections are not. I oppose the Bill.

Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 10th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on bringing forward this Bill. I congratulate him particularly on talking about the need to control big money donations in the week that his party leader has been exalting in press releases a £1 million donation and surpassing the money received by the Labour Party. Anyone who heard the brilliant speech by the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition on the notification of withdrawal Bill will not be surprised to learn that it is possible for the Liberal party leadership to be exalting a £1 million donation at one end of Parliament while here they are being attacked. Despite all that, I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, because he is always very assiduous on these matters and important to listen to, and a number of the ideas in the Bill—he did not speak about it very much—deserve careful consideration. In particular, there is a good case for extending gift aid to personal political donations, particularly at the local level, where political service in local communities is objectively little different from other forms of voluntary service for the public good.

Before I go any further, I must restrain myself. The cynic in me, which sadly occasionally gnaws its way through my customary civility to the Liberal Democrats, tempts me to say that some might see Part 1 of Schedule 2, entitled “Limits on campaign expenditure”, and the noble Lord’s condemnation of busloads of activists being taken to elections as perhaps a little rich in a Bill that is commended by the party opposite. However, this being Lent, I will restrain myself. As the Bishops’ Benches are empty, I say that I think we should all reflect on verse 7, chapter 8 of the gospel according to St John. To paraphrase, let the party that is without sin cast the first stone.

The noble Lord referred to things that are not in the Bill, and I would like to refer to two potential lacunae in the law that I think are important: first, the reception of donations that are later found to be the direct proceeds of crime; and secondly, the risk of corrupt attempts to induce a political party not to put up a candidate in an election. On the first point, I take as my test case that of Michael Brown, convicted in 2008 for theft, furnishing false information and seeking to pervert the course of justice. As is well known, he later broke bail as a fugitive from justice.

In 2005, Brown donated £2.4 million to the Liberal Democrats in just seven weeks. Before anyone says that I have just forgotten John chapter 8 verse 7, I would point out that the Maxwell and the Asil Nadir cases show that all parties have encountered this problem, so let the party that is without sin cast the first stone. But three wrongs do not make a right, and I am focusing on the Brown case because it took place after the establishment of the Electoral Commission and it clearly shows the inability of the commission to secure the return of donations that are the proceeds of criminal enterprise. An impermissible donation may be required to be returned, with a sanction in some cases, while a donation made that is later found to be from the proceeds of crime may not.

The only issue in law that the Electoral Commission can pursue is whether the donation appeared reasonably to be permissible at the time it was given, and that broadly, in the case of a company—in this case Brown’s company, 5th Avenue Partners—is whether it is incorporated in the UK and trading. That is something we are told in the entertaining memoirs of the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. I am always pleased to plug the works of a former fellow Richmond councillor. He says that the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Liberal Democrats at the time that 5th Avenue Partners was trading legitimately. It is therefore immaterial that it was later proved in the courts that the donating company was operating as the front for a massive fraud. Paragraph 3.7 of the Electoral Commission’s later report on the case implied that three donations to the Liberal Democrats, one of £100,000, another of £151,000 and a third of £632,000, were made up of money put into the company by defrauded would-be investors which was flipped by Brown into political donations.

The court found that Brown had fleeced at least £36 million from people who thought they were investing in a successful hedge fund that was being run by the son of a Peer. I never understand why people find it so beguiling, when they are approached by someone who claims to be the son of a Peer, that they hand over their money. One person gave more than £8 million, a very unfortunate individual whose name is well known. But no action could be taken to recover the funds that later were found to be the proceeds of criminal enterprise.

One of Brown’s victims, Mr. P., took the case to the parliamentary ombudsman, who found against the Electoral Commission on certain grounds of negligence, as he saw it, but the commission did not accept all those findings and the matter was effectively closed. The party kept the money, as in the past the Maxwell and the Nadir had been kept, and the victims lived with the loss. There is a clear inequity here and a divergence between the treatment of what is found, albeit in good faith on the part of a party, to be an impermissible donation at the time and one which is later found to come from criminal fraud. If this Bill goes forward to Committee the issue should be addressed.

The second matter I wish to raise relates to the murky affair of a £250,000 donation offered by a still anonymous individual or company to the Green Party in the context of a discussion about whether the Greens should put up a candidate in the Richmond Park by-election and give a free run to the Liberal Democrats. That this attempted donation was made is not denied; quite the reverse. A report from the Kingston Green Party declares that:

“Party staff added pressure to—


Kingston Green Party—

“activists, saying in confidence, that the party staff were keen for us to agree to stand down. This was because there would be serious, but confidential, implications for the national party—so serious that they could even affect the jobs of party staff—in the event that we did not do so. Later ... it was clarified by Party staff (ostensibly on the instructions of the Chief Executive) that this related to a donation of some £250,000 that was conditional on the party showing its seriousness about the ‘progressive alliance’ initiative”—

between the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

Prima facie, on the evidence of those most actively involved, there was an inducement of around a quarter of a million pounds on offer for the Greens not to oppose the Liberal Democrats, either here or more widely. This was not denied by the Green Party. Indeed it has been reported, first, that a central staff member did discuss the proposed donation with local Green Party members, but that that was “an error”. That is the usual excuse of overzealous officials that comes up in so many cover-ups. Furthermore, the Green Party has subsequently said that the donation was considered but rejected by the party’s own ethics committee, which we are told ensures that no donations are accepted, inter alia, from foreign sources, tobacco companies or other industries such as aviation. In other words, the offer was made and considered by the Green Party. It was used in argument within the party to seek to induce people not to come forward or wish to come forward to be candidates, but was eventually rejected.

It is true that the Green Party has denied that the attempted donation was contingent on this one specific seat being vacated for the Liberal Democrats, but that does not rule out its being part of an inducement to a wider “progressive alliance” in which the two parties involved would agree not to contest a number of agreed seats. Emails are available in which the leader of the Liberal party on Kingston Council, Councillor Liz Green, is seeking to reach such arrangements with local Greens, and it is noteworthy that Caroline Lucas, the Green MP who is facing boundary changes, showed an uncommon interest in this matter.

I asked the Electoral Commission if it was minded to investigate this attempted donation, but it said that “corrupt withdrawal from candidacy” was a matter not for the commission but for the police. It was the commission’s understanding that the matter might have been reported to the police, but a police spokesman, who I cordially thank and who was perhaps unable to establish the position in the time available, said after making inquiries that he was unaware of such an investigation. I think there should be an investigation, and if no one else has done so, I would consider writing to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner myself.

Section 107 of the Representation of the People Act reads as follows, after the side heading, “Corrupt Withdrawal from candidature”:

“Any person who corruptly induces or procures any other person to withdraw from being a candidate at an election, in consideration of any payment or promise of payment, and any person withdrawing in pursuance of the inducement or procurement, shall be guilty of an illegal payment”.


What is not clear to me from this is that if a corrupt inducement to a party not to put forward a candidate, which can result as in this case in subsequent pressure on activists not to stand, is equally a criminal offence under the Act. Of course, in the circumstances in which parties have absolute control of the party badge—and rightly so—at elections, if the party does not lend its support, no one can stand as a candidate using the Green Party name.

In my judgment it should be a criminal offence to seek to induce a party not to put up a candidate by the offer of money. A police investigation in this case could readily establish the identity of the persons involved, including the would-be offerer of the donation, something on which the Green Party should come clean. I challenge the party to do so. What possible reason can there be for a political party to hide the identity of a would-be donor which the party itself has now admitted is unethical? The party could release that information at a stroke and we might then be better able to establish the real truth behind this murky affair.

I submit that if Section 107 does not cover inducements to parties not to permit candidates to go forward in certain seats, it should be revised to do so. I hope that some of the other matters raised in the Bill will be proceeded with and that the two issues I have highlighted in my remarks will also be considered.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I have Amendments 122, 125 and 126 in this group. I will speak to them very briefly and look forward to the noble Lord’s response to the points I raise. Amendments 122 and 125 seek to make the situation clearer and to avoid the suggestion that a beneficial interest may exist, by removing the words,

“on behalf of the other”.

We do not think those words are necessary, and I propose to remove them in Amendments 122 and 125.

Amendment 126 would insert a new subsection into Clause 32, which would ensure that the GLA, TfL or a mayoral development corporation has the power to acquire land compulsorily for purposes under the Housing and Planning Act if it was previously able to do that under Sections 403A and 403B of the Greater London Authority Act 1999. I hope that we again get a positive response from the Minister accepting that I have highlighted an important issue to which, if nothing else, the Government will respond on Report.

[Lord True (Con)]

I see the wisdom of what is proposed in these amendments, reinforced by government Amendment 124, where an MDC is involved. I take it that it means only one compulsory order so that TfL is able to acquire land to advance housing projects, et cetera.

This may be my ignorance or otiose, but it appears that the way that this is drafted, based on the Greater London Act, TfL could exercise this new authority only in concert with the GLA or an MDC. However, there are other development authorities and planning authorities in Greater London: the London boroughs. I can envisage circumstances where there is neglected land alongside on a red route where TfL is the highways authority and a borough has an interest, but it may be too small to attract the interest of the Mayor of London. I simply raise the question to seek elucidation. It may not be necessary. Will it be possible when this is liberalised for TfL to use this power in concert with a borough without needing to go via the GLA or to set up a mayoral development corporation?

TfL gets cross when I say this in your Lordships’ House, but it is not always the most nimble authority when it comes to development. Some boroughs might be able to encourage it a little. I do not expect an answer now, but perhaps my noble friend will consider the need for such flexibility if TfL is to be given this new partnership power to acquire.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend Lord True invites me to go way beyond my negotiating remit by extending to London boroughs the powers under the clause, which is intended to remove an existing duplication. However, I will of course consider his suggestion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I wholly support everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, just said, and what the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said in introducing this debate. The matter that concerns the Delegated and Regulatory Reform Committee is on page 9 of its report, at paragraph 54. Not only is the power “very wide” in scope, but it,

“is to make whatever provisions—including ones amending and repealing Acts of Parliament … We note that it has become standard practice for provisions of this type to be included near the end of a Bill”.

This is appearing all the time. It is really an insurance policy: “We might make a mistake, and if we make a mistake we do not want to have the trouble of admitting it; we will just get some secondary instrument through Parliament, and that will be all that we have to do”. That is not a sufficient justification for such a wide power.

The committee suggested that at the very least, the power could be restricted by some type of objective test of necessity: to where it is necessary—to “where we have made a mistake” if you like—or to where something important has been omitted. We need something that gives substantive limitation to such a widely expressed power.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will speak briefly, although I feel rather rash in doing so after the compelling interventions we have heard. As I understand it, this power applies to any enactment, not just, as the noble and learned Lord said—I am sure misspeaking—to what is in this enactment. My position is as a lay person, but also someone who was for a long time in the usual channels, interested in the drafting of legislation and how that was done by a Government whom I opposed for 13 years. I have to say that we would have looked a little askance at this sort of thing in those years in opposition. I understand the innocent intent and perfect integrity of the present Ministers involved, but the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, rather anticipated my thought: if clear drafting instructions are given on what is required to be enacted and a Bill is properly drafted by expert draftsmen, there should be no need for the sweeping brush to be around afterwards. That is really how legislation should be presented to Parliament.

This is the second piece of planning legislation we have had in a year. I submit that there has been time to think through these things, but it is the wider point that concerns me. This is not an ad hominem, or a criticism of Ministers here, but this will become a practice—I was struck by that paragraph in the Delegated Powers Committee report. It will become part of the constitution if Parliament continues to accept, in Act after Act, that Ministers of the day can be given power to change any other enactment as a result of something that arises out of their further ruminations or representations on it. I hope that my noble friend will consider this carefully.

The other thing I would say, in the broader context of planning and the challenge of getting more housing and more things done, is that there is immense distrust out there—anyone who lives with the planning system knows the distrust and fear that people have that the system is loaded against them. The system is actually fair, and bends over backwards to try to be fair, but if government arms itself with powers to change the rules if something does not quite work out as might have been intended in the first place—instead of building that consent for new planning and new development that I want, and which I know the Government want—it may add to the sense, so eloquently expressed by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, that the system is loaded. That must be something to avoid. Although my main objection is on the wider constitutional principle, as a practitioner—a local authority leader who has to stand between the forces of government and popular feeling—and as a layman, I argue that we should be particularly cautious in the context of this legislation.

House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 9th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I support the two previous interjections. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for many years of toil, with others, in the modernisation and reform group which he has led. I came into this House in 2004. I have always regarded myself as a friend of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and he of me—we know each other well. I regard the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, as a man of great wisdom and as a hard-working and diligent Peer—in fact, we are all effectively full-time working Peers nowadays, which counts for a lot. However, I beg the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, as a friend, to reconsider pressing these amendments, with the damage that they will do to the reputation of this House. I ask him to think again and to bear in mind the suggestions that have been made already by people with more authority than me in these matters, hoping that he and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, will have the courage and wisdom to respond.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening, but I had a small walk-on part—not as distinguished as that of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—in 1999 and remember well the statesmanlike endeavour undertaken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, and the then Lord Cranborne, now the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. They effected an extremely difficult compromise, which did not give satisfaction on all sides, to enable an important piece of constitutional reform to go forward. It was a distinguished piece of statesmanship, a compromise was made and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said at the time in this House that it would remain “binding in honour” on all those who had taken any part in it. When I first came to this House, I was told that the one thing that a Member of your Lordships’ House had to do was to stand on his or her honour. I would therefore find it extremely difficult, short of the final reform of this House, to accept the removal and breaking of that compromise which enabled a great piece of legislation to be passed by the party opposite.

It is disappointing that a mugging party has arisen attacking my noble friend even before we have entered fully into the debate on this subject. It is not much of a filibuster by my noble friend, who spoke for just two minutes. I have heard more effective filibusters in my time.

I would hope that a sensible spirit of compromise could emerge. I discussed these matters with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I understand that people opposed to the hereditary principle want to see it removed from the House. Most hereditary Peers I speak to—I should make it clear to those who are not aware that I am certainly not a hereditary Peer— do not object to the principle being removed from the House. The question is how, when and in what circumstances.

I concede that another reason why you might wish to remove hereditary Peers—I know that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, does not have this purpose—is to secure some party advantage. Clearly, these Benches and the Cross-Benches have more to lose from the removal of the hereditary Peers than the Labour Party or the Liberals. There is a party political issue that needs to be discussed. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would consider that, but it is another matter to be considered.

I am pleased that the Government said—if it is what they said—that this Bill should not go forward. This chip needs to remain on the table. Of course, the ultimate intention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, and my noble friend Lord Salisbury at the time was that we would get to a place where the House would be reformed.

My noble friend Lord Cormack is a rather more regular speaker than I am, so perhaps he will allow me some comment on this subject. He said what a scandal it is that some Peers are here on only three votes but I am here on the vote of one person, by patronage. We should be a bit more cautious in being high and mighty about the methods by which certain noble Lords get here, when each one of us was happy enough to catch the eye of a selector, be it Tony Blair, Mr Ashdown, Mr Cameron or whoever it might have been.

The hereditary system we have now is a funny one but I have only one amendment tabled and that is to draw attention to the disproportionate representation of the very Benches that said, “Hear, hear”, when my noble friend Lord Cormack said that it was pretty odd that the hereditary Peers are here. I think it is pretty odd that there are a hundred of those chaps over there.

[Lord Cormack]

I said no such thing. I did not say that it was odd that they were here. I paid particular tribute to what they do. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, does not make any of them leave. I am concerned about the reputation of the House and the method by which they are selected. Also, I made it quite plain that the Government said the Bill would not pass, so why the worry?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am responding to three speeches that said it was quite unnecessary for my noble friend Lord Trefgarne to do what he is doing. I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. I will leave the point of honour before the House. I will leave the point of selection by patronage before the House. I will leave the point that by pushing hereditary Peers out of the House, you will not end the House of Lords question. All that will happen is that we lose the successors of some very effective people in this House.

I just add one other thing. I have here before me what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said on 30 March 1999. I agreed strongly with it then and agree with it now. One of the things we discussed in the official group was how the hereditary Peers should be replaced while this compromise continued. The noble and learned Lord, and the Government, said they were not prepared to accept a system whereby Members of this House would choose who stayed and who came in, in what he described as “rather invidious” club rules. In fact, he spoke of,

“The rather invidious proposition that life Peers should have a vote in these elections and pass judgment on the comparative merits of their … colleagues”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]

Many of those who wish to end the election of hereditary Peers under the system we have now are the very same people who want a system where life Peers in this place pass judgment on who should stay—where the awkward squad and those who are independent minded might be pushed out. As this debate goes forward, that proposition deserves every bit as much scrutiny as the role and place of hereditary Peers in this House.

To conclude, I will stand on the point of honour. I have only one amendment and have not made a filibuster but made points that I believe are of great importance and which remain as valid today as they did in 1999.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

The noble Lord referred to my speech. He said that we have to prevent top-ups. A few sentences before, he said that of course the Prime Minister could appoint others to replace those who go. By his own words, the question of size is not relevant. He also said that no Parliament can bind its successors. Perhaps that is why the Liberal Democrats have been so quick to remember their policy that numbers here should reflect votes cast in the previous general election.

[Lord Rennard]

If the noble Lord accepts the principle that representation here should be reflective of votes cast in the past election, I would welcome his support for that principle in the House of Commons also.

House of Lords Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with most of the wise words of the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Elton on the way in which he has introduced the Bill; he is a great ornament to the House and his wisdom is respected by us all. However, I confess to a mild dulling of the senses when another Bill comes forward to reform your Lordships’ House: three Bills up and more than six months still to go in this Session—perhaps we are trying for the record in the number of discussions of ways to reform ourselves. I sometimes think that there are greater priorities to discuss.

Of the schemes advanced, that of my noble friend may in many ways be the least bad; indeed, if we are to accept the proposition, which I do not, that there should be a cull of the numbers in the House which did not pretend to be reform—and this is certainly not real reform—then a proposition that imitated for the life Peers what happened to the hereditary Peers in 1999 is clearly one logical way to proceed.

However, I am afraid that I share the view of those who have said that limiting the numbers in the House is not a tearing need. I do not often feel that I need sharp elbows here, nor do I think it a disaster if a great Chamber of a great Parliament is sometimes crowded on a great occasion. What is so wrong with that? Nobody outside here has ever tugged me angrily by the sleeve and said, “By God, we need to reduce the number of Lords by a hundred or two”.

The problem that some noble Lords do not wish to face is that if there are people out there who want real reform of the Lords, their beef is not that we have more than enough life Peers to ride into the Valley of Death at Balaclava but that we have any appointed Peers at all in the 21st century. I have never hidden the fact, uncongenial though I know it is to many of your Lordships, that I would have no objection to standing for election to the political Benches—after all, I face the electorate daily in my day job—but if we are to have election, the daringly modern part of me would rather that the electorate of the political Peers were the British people and not the Bishops’ Bar.

I do not follow my noble friend with this Bill, however well intentioned it is; but if we are to proceed, I agree with what has been said: that much of the material in the Standing Orders will have to be discussed in detail. Let me give just a couple of examples.

First, there is the problem of even a periodic limit on the size of the House, alluded to by my noble friend Lord Bridgeman. The five-year cull, as I understand it, would cut the size of the House to 600. Then—and I must make it clear that I make no objection to this, for with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act preventing Dissolution, a cap on the size of the House that does not allow a Government to swamp this House in the case of a constitutional crisis is unacceptable—my noble friend’s Bill rightly allows for creations after every cull. However, as my noble friend Lord Bridgeman said, the effect of that could be that a Prime Minister could pump the numbers back up from 600 to 800 and those new loyalist Peers would then weigh the percentage size of the various party colleges in the next Parliament. There could be a ratchet towards a party in office that did not show the restraint in creations that Prime Ministers should show. We all know that the real root of the matter is the rash of creations by Prime Ministers, excepting Gordon Brown and Ted Heath—there have been a few who have shown restraint. We should not appoint more Peers than, frankly and bluntly, die. So the ratchet would be a problem.

The second potential objection—which was alluded to by my noble friend Lord Caithness, although I fear I have to be a little blunter than he was—is why on earth should the proportion of Liberal Democrat Peers in this House be frozen by paragraph (6) of my noble friend’s draft Standing Order? The Lib Dems won 7.9% of the vote at the last election. They now have 13.2% of the whole House and 17.9% of the political House. Under that party’s policy, until the 2015 election made it rather inconvenient and awkward for them, the number of Lib Dem Peers reflecting the votes cast at the election would not be 104 but 62 on the eligible House basis and 46 on the narrower political base. I could not support any propositions, such as those of my noble friend, which entrenched such a gross over-representation in this House of a party represented by eight in the other place. I calculate that the effect of the Standing Order as drafted would be 79 Lib Dem Peers in a House of 600 if we used the 13.2% number or 107 in a political House-only calculation.

My third point, alluded to by the right reverend Prelate in some telling remarks, relates to the treatment of newer Peers. I have always found very distasteful the underlying messages of those who say that because there are too many of us, either at the long-serving end, “Bring in an age limit; you are 75 and past your sell-by date, you must go”; or, at the newer end, “There are too many like you coming in, not of the right calibre and we have to stop it”. I do not care for either of those messages, but I read in my noble friend’s draft Standing Order that anyone who has been appointed to the House after the first Session of the preceding Parliament—in other words, less than five years before each cull—would have no vote in the quinquennial balloon debate about who should be chucked out, in that they are not deemed to have served for a whole Parliament. I understand the idea, though I do not agree with it, that new bugs don’t know enough to be allowed a say, but surely by the time they have worked their way up to C or even B block they might actually have enough knowledge to cast a vote. I appreciate that my noble friend’s intention may be to deny a voice to nominations made after each cull, but we cannot presume that every new Peer is a party hack incompetent to judge fairly. As I read this provision, it is fairly demeaning and we will need to look at it as it goes forward.

As I have taken a little time, I shall stray no further into what I think is an absolute mare’s nest of probing amendments, bringing into the Bill some of the Standing Orders that we will have to have if the Bill goes forward. However, I will speak about the process involved, following on from the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, but in a slightly different guise. People have said that the process of choice is difficult. Of course it is. I have been rejected at the ballot box and I have won at the ballot box, but the problem with this proposition as it is emerging is that in my judgment it risks empowering a club mentality. One can imagine the grey suits of the “Campaign for Effective Peers”, or whatever it is called, chewing over who might stay. The people who would stay might be the product of a consensus into which some are either not privileged to be invited or not inclined to join. Had I not known my noble friend Lord Goodlad better, I might have thought that the conclusion of his speech was a veiled threat to the inconvenient and those who do not fit the consensus, that if they do not pipe down they may not be chosen. I do not wish to go down that road; perhaps I misinterpreted my noble friend, but with his Whips’ Office experience, I doubt it.

I fear that it would be divisive, alter behaviour, have the perverse effect of raising attendance levels in every pre-election Session, as Peers try to catch the eyes of the selector or to join the consensus, and would inevitably prove hurtful to the losers, many of whom make a good, if occasional, contribution but might not make it, perhaps for lack of knowledge through the straitened gates of a cull. On balance, therefore, I would prefer it if my noble friend were to leave what is reasonably well alone.

Housing and Planning Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I will intervene because, technically, my Amendment 123E would be pre-empted if Amendment 123D were agreed. I would be very happy if Amendment 123D were agreed and I support it. I am very grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for what she said. Unfortunately, I was away from the internet over the weekend and was in the town hall until the House sat. Otherwise, I would have made it clear that I would have been happy for a number of my amendments to be in this group. It would have been more helpful to the House to have one debate. Indeed, we just have, because the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, spoke with great passion to his Amendment 123, which would leave out the whole thing but which is not, technically, before the House. The noble Lord does not need to repeat that speech on the next group, if such a debate happens.

In Committee, I raised a point which I believe to be fundamental, as does the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss it with the Minister and her officials. The planning system must not be seen by the public to be bought. The Minister has said absolutely clearly that the decision must be independent and taken by the local authority, not taken by or influenced by a paid advocate bought and working for one of the parties to an application. As I always say, good policy has to reflect what happens in real life. In real life, a developer will seek a planning application; many people will object to it. We may not agree with those objections but they will be made, so it will come before a planning committee for determination.

I spoke in favour of an experiment with the private sector, as did my noble friend Lord Porter of Spalding. I do not agree with the comminations from the other side, but my noble friend needs to go just one step further. That is reflected in my Amendment 121E, which comes in the next group. As I said in Committee, a report is tabled at a planning committee with a statement recommending permission or rejection. If members of the public, particularly those who are objecting to an application, come to the meeting and see that the recommendation is being made or spoken to by somebody who is paid to do a job by one of the parties to the application, that will be seen as unfair and corrupt, even if it is not.

I do not intend to press my amendments; I am quite happy not to move Amendment 121E if the Minister can say that the assurance she has given will also apply to advice to planning committees—that it should be perceived as independent and not given by a paid advocate who tables a report to members saying they should give permission. If she can, a lot of the objections would potentially fall away. Amendment 122A would be otiose, because it is designed only to ensure that if someone is paid to give advice, they should be made to declare that they are a paid advocate, rather than independent. We could then part happily. I might be interested in taking part in these experiments. I hope the Minister will also take heed of what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said: there should be variety. My own authority, for example, is going into a shared management arrangement with another local authority. Inventive local authorities should be given the opportunity to suggest forms of experiment. That was an interesting proposal and I hope the Minister will be ready to listen to it.

Having been led to speak on the basis that one of my amendments would be pre-empted, I am essentially asking my noble friend to go one step further and say that the public who turn up will not hear or see a report saying “recommend” from somebody who is paid. If she can, much of the need for the amendments I have tabled would fall away.

If the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is going to lead a frontal assault, I certainly would not want my Amendment 124A to be grouped with his because I shall be voting against his proposal. However, how the fee arrangements would actually work needs further clarification; we have heard little from the Front Bench. My noble friend Lady Williams said that there would be no two-tier system. That needs clarification, but provided there could be assurance of further consideration of that point, when the time comes I would be prepared not to move my Amendment 124A.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 120A and 121. I was going to try to stick to the proper script but, given that everybody before me has left the running order and spoken about the things they are really interested in, I am going to do the same. First, I thank my noble friend the Minister for listening to what was said last week and to what local government has been saying for a number of weeks, and for clarifying how some of this pilot stuff will work.

Since I am on my feet, I am going to speak to fees. I am in favour of private sector competition on the basis that I honestly believe it will drive fees up. It is the first time I can recall having private sector competition to drive up the cost of a service, but I think this will do it. At the moment, we are spending about £150 million a year as taxpayers subsidising the planning system, and we have spent £450 million over the past three years doing it. Clearly, the fee structure does not recoup the full costs. If the private sector is going to come in and compete against us, it is going to want at least to cover its costs. Even if it is doing it for a few years as a loss leader, it is not going to want to lose a lot of money, so local government should be able to get its fees set at a much higher rate. That will allow us to staff our planning departments to a much more suitable level, given the demand that will be coming through, and that will allow local government to win the competition hands down because the public will trust what we are delivering and any sensible developer will want to go through an established route rather than risk competition in the private sector.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said that an impact assessment had said that competition reduced the cost of refuse collection by about 20%. Ours has been brought back in-house since I have been leader and that has saved 20%. While private sector competition should be encouraged, it is not always the route that the final decision should go down.

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Moved by

[Lord True]

121E: Clause 145, page 75, line 4, at end insert “except for—
(i) the compilation of a report for a meeting of the planning, planning sub-committee, development control committee or other committee of the local planning authority convened to determine the application concerned, unless that report has been approved by a planning officer independent of the applicant, and(ii) the provision of a recommendation to the determining committee as to how to determine the application, which must always be made by an officer independent of the applicant or of objectors,”

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am moving this amendment because my noble friend has said she wishes to reply to it. I would have been quite happy to waive it, have it subsumed and not move the amendment. However, the point remains absolutely fundamental, and with great respect to my noble friend she has not answered it. I hope she will in her response.

What actually happens at a planning committee is that people, many of them objectors, file into the room, papers are laid, a determination is made on the basis of advice, which is public advice, a public document, and an officer advises the committee on what is the appropriate and right thing to do. All that I am asking—surely, in equity, it is not a difficult thing to ask, nor difficult for the Government to concede—is that everything to do with the final recommendation and determination is independent of the paid advocacy of one of the parties involved. That is what this lengthy amendment is intended to ensure. It is totally unnecessary if the Government will give an assurance that they will deliver that in the regulations, so that the determination can be independent, and seen to be independent by those who may not be happy with the advocate’s case. It will normally be the advocate of the person seeking permission who will have paid for the independent advice. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I will not repeat the detail of what we have already done to strengthen Clauses 145 to 148 but turn straight to the amendments.

Although I cannot accept Amendment 121E from my noble friend Lord True, I agree with its intent and commit to take the issue away and address it in the design of the pilots and regulations. Authorities have said clearly to us that it will be very inefficient if designated persons do all the background work but they are required to review it all and then pull together their own recommendation in a report that they write. They are not saying to us that they must make the recommendation or write their own report. Instead, they are saying that simple and efficient mechanisms are needed to ensure that quality and impartiality are maintained. This amendment could lead to inefficient behaviour.

Authorities have also said that designated persons must share some of the risk and cost of defending appeals. I am concerned that the amendment could make it harder to argue that designated persons should share any risks which will concern authorities. There is a complex set of interrelated issues which we need to explore in detail with authorities to avoid perverse behaviours and outcomes. We will explore a range of safeguards. I ask noble Lords to let us explore them with authorities and bring them forward in regulations. We would be very happy to have further discussions with my noble friend and others about how we can best do that. I hope that reassures him that we will take this away.

I am afraid I cannot accept Amendment 122 from the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham, limiting ‘designated persons’ to local authorities and public bodies and ruling out private sector companies and individuals. This amendment says, “It is the public sector way and there is no other way”. In contrast to noble Lords, the dozen or so local authorities considering being a pilot area are not arguing for the exclusion of the private sector. They believe that they can compete with it and, indeed, beat it. If that is the case, what have local authorities got to fear? If they provide the best service, they will hold on to the business. We believe that the concerns at the heart of this amendment are about any potential for the private sector to have undue influence on planning decisions, and we believe these can be managed.

We have strengthened planning authorities’ retention of decision-making during the pilots following concerns expressed in Committee. Our amendments mean that regulations cannot contain anything that allows an authority to delegate decision-making to designated persons and make clear that advice from designated persons will not be binding on authorities. However, other safeguards will also exist. We will set out high professional standards, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, outlined, drawing on codes of conduct such as that of the Royal Town Planning Institute, which requires competence, honesty, integrity and independent professional judgment from its members. We will remove someone’s designation where they fail continually to meet these high standards. We expect to prevent designated persons processing applications in which they, their company or its subsidiaries have any interest. I have committed to explore how we can maintain high-quality, independent advice being presented to decision-makers and having designated persons list their interest with authorities, as suggested by my noble friend Lord True. Section 327A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides that where the necessary procedures have not been followed appropriately an application can be declared null and void. We believe that enabling the private sector to compete with local planning authorities is likely to drive greater reform.

Some in local government have said that it may not be possible to process some applications, such as householder applications, for a price even close to the fee. Our initial dialogue with the private sector indicates that it might indeed be possible to process such applications, and we want to test this belief.

Finally, I cannot accept Amendments 123 to 126 from the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham. We all want a planning system fit for the 21st century, so we believe that, in order to achieve it, it would be wrong not to explore alternative delivery models for handling planning applications. Currently, local planning authorities have a monopoly which denies the user choice and does not incentivise service innovation and the provision of the most efficient and effective service. Alongside this, reform of planning departments lags behind most other local authority services. Local authorities can do a lot more to transform their planning departments. Indeed, many have introduced new ways of operating and have shown that performance can be improved and costs reduced, but we believe that more should follow their lead.

We have heard concerns about the undue potential influence of the private sector in the pilots. My noble friend Lady Williams has laid amendments to strengthen local authorities’ decision-making function, and I have set out other safeguards we intend to put in place. I have also committed to explore proposals raised by my noble friend Lord True. Your Lordships’ House has been concerned about the lack of detail about how the pilots will operate. Our amendments mean that we will debate the regulations in this House following a consultation before pilot schemes can come into force. Noble Lords have queried whether we intend to evaluate the pilot, and we have laid an amendment committing us to sharing our assessment of the pilots in the House. The RTPI and the LGA rightly highlight areas where we need carefully to consider the design of the pilots, and we will work with them to explore their ideas, but they have not opposed the principle of the pilots. Local authorities are telling us that we are right to challenge the current delivery model and, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Porter, some want to be pilot areas. Despite this, the noble Lords opposite want to say that they cannot.

We listened very carefully to the debate in Committee and today, and I believe we have taken significant steps to ensure that the pilots are workable and to address many of the concerns that noble Lords have raised. I hope that, with these reassurance and the commitments I have made in these remarks, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. She is right to say that on this subject the Government have listened, and are listening, carefully. That is entirely welcome and I am grateful for it. Not only will I shortly withdraw Amendment 121E but, as I indicated previously, I will not be pressing Amendment 122A on the basis of the assurance that we have been given.

On Amendment 124A, which I have degrouped here, there are questions about fees, on which my noble friend Lord Porter and I and others have spoken, that might bear further clarification in discussion. I welcome the assurances that my noble friend has given. I was interested when she said that the fees currently allowed would be adequate to enable the private sector to operate. So with the assurances that she has given, for which I thank her, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 121E withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord True]

128YE: After Clause 184, insert the following new Clause—
“Local planning authority right to develop in the local interest
(1) Where a local planning authority has compiled a register under section 137 or has seen a report under section 184 and considers that a government department, Mayor of London or other public authority, transport undertaking or other statutory undertaking has not prepared, or declines to prepare, a plan for development of previously developed unused or underused land on the register in its possession within the local authority area, it may challenge the owner of the land to present planning proposals to the local planning authority within 6 months in conformity with the adopted plan or plans for the area concerned, unless the Secretary of State has certified such development as against the national interest.(2) Where the owner declines to present such a plan in accordance with subsection (1) it must publish within the same 6-month period a response showing good reason why such previously used land in its ownership should not be developed in the local public interest.(3) If the local planning authority considers the response not to show good reason why the land should not be developed, it may proceed to present its own proposals for development, to compulsorily purchase the land concerned and to exercise itself any planning consent that is then granted.(4) The costs to the local planning authority of any compulsory purchase of the land and the net cost of its development will be remitted by the local planning authority without any profit element to the owner who has declined to develop, in arrears after the land is sold.(5) This section does not apply to land within National Parks or the Royal Parks or designated as a site of special scientific interest.”

[Lord True]

My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the tour de force of my noble friend Lord Younger. In 100 years’ time, historians will read Hansard and marvel at his command of the law of compulsory purchase. I can say to those future historians that I am absolutely amazed by what he has told us.

Because of time, I will be very brief. I seem to be unfortunate in addressing noble Lords at this late hour every day. I have tried to put forward a creative idea in response to the intolerable position whereby public authorities fail to develop land when they should. I declare an interest as a non-executive member of the Royal Parks Board. The Royal Parks are referred to in this amendment, but that is technical.

I spoke to this in Committee at a different point in the Bill. I do not want to detain your Lordships long, but the issue is simple. To give one example, which actually would not be addressed but it is the spirit of the thing, a planning permission that has been granted in my borough, over intense opposition, to build 110 homes has not yet been proceeded with by a public authority after five years. Another example would be an official from a health service body who said, when pressed in discussion with my planning officers recently to proceed with a development on a site brief to develop new homes, a small primary school and medical facilities, “Well, if you keep going on like that, we could leave this lying fallow for years”. That is the sort of mentality that exists too often. I congratulate the Government on trying to get to grips in the Bill with brown land that is held by government departments, public bodies and other statutory and transport undertakings. I will not venture to mention Network Rail.

My amendment is defective in many ways. I am not suggesting that it could operate in this way. But I am encouraged to press forward in the hope that, instead of always criticising local authorities, my noble friend on the Front Bench may be able to say that, over the weeks and months to come, he is prepared to consider giving local authorities the opportunity to do something to get these buildings and developments done. At the moment we are taking incoming fire but are not able to press those who are failing in their public duty, in my estimation. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord True. It is an excellent idea. I hope the Minister will come back, as the noble Lord suggested, with some suggestions for what could be done in the next few months with local authorities.

When I go to Lewisham Town Hall, I get off at Catford Bridge station and walk past a scruffy bit of land clearly owned by the railway that you could easily get six or seven houses on. It just sits there and irritates me every day. The railways have bits of land near them. On a number of sites in Lewisham you could build some houses. We are in the midst of a housing crisis and there is no good reason that this land just sits there. I hope the Minister will respond favourably to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord True.

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[Lord True]

I apologise—I had intended to de-group that, so I did not speak to it. I could speak to it in its place.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

Amendment 129A, to which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has added his name, would remove Clause 186 from the Bill. This clause mirrors Section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008, which requires the Minister for the Cabinet Office to publish an annual State of the Estate report setting out progress in improving the efficiency of the civil estate.

Local authorities are already subject to a number of efficiency and sustainability requirements, such as producing energy efficiency certificates for their buildings. The new duty draws on these and requires authorities to publish reports to enable local people to hold them to account for the use of their assets. I reassure noble Lords that any additional costs to local authorities will be met by central government. DCLG is currently undertaking a new burdens assessment of Clauses 183 to 187 to determine which of the provisions create new burdens, and their extent.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 129ZA, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham, which would remove Clause 185 from the Bill. The power to order disposals was brought into effect through the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. The power underpins the community right to reclaim land, which enables people to hold public authorities to account for their use of land. Under this right, communities can drive improvements in their local area by asking the Secretary of State to direct that underused or unused land owned by public bodies is brought back into beneficial use.

Since 1 April 2011, when the National Planning Casework Unit was tasked with considering requests under the right, we have received 106 requests. Only one of these resulted in the power being exercised, over a piece of land of 0.26 hectares in Tiddington, near Stratford-upon-Avon—no doubt a blessed plot. A great deal of effort has been expended by those making requests, and by the casework unit in considering them, for very little gain. This is why the Government wish to strengthen the existing legislation—to enable people to challenge their local authorities to release land, even where it is used, if it could be put to better use. Far from being centralising, Clause 185 gives more power to local communities.

The 1980 Act already provides important safeguards which will continue to apply to the new provisions. Public bodies must be notified of the Secretary of State’s proposal to exercise the power and are given 42 days in which to make representations. If a representation is made, the Secretary of State may not give a direction unless he is satisfied that the disposal can be made without serious detriment to the performance of the body’s functions.

All this shows that we are determined to ensure that public land is used as efficiently as possible, and that where it can be made surplus and put to better use, especially in building more homes, this happens as quickly as possible. These clauses are essential to that agenda, and I hope that noble Lords will be fully reassured by the explanations I have given.

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[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry to say that I disagree with the noble Lord on his final point. We are indeed looking at the land that the Government hold at national level very carefully indeed. As the noble Lord will have seen, Table 1.12 in the Autumn Statement catalogues what each department is being expected to provide in land for housing and land surplus to requirements, which we will be looking to dispose of.

[Lord True]

My Lords, obviously, I am slightly disappointed by my noble friend’s reply. I am gratified he recognises the problem and thinks that local authorities might be useful, but he thinks that it is too risky to allow them to do anything. That is the disappointing part of his reply. I want to take the spirit of my noble friend’s answer, rather than the letter. I like to think that further thought will be given to this problem, because it will remain and I will not cease to put the case for local authorities to be able to take the initiative.

I had intended to speak to my other amendment in its place but, as my noble friend has already spoken to it, it will perhaps be for the convenience of the House if I respond now, and then we can move on. My reason for criticising Clause 186 is that, as my noble friend acknowledged, it is potentially a major new burden on local authorities. He did not address that; he said that money would be provided. I question whether it is necessary for money to be provided. One of the achievements of the Government after 2010 was to sweep away the nonsense of a process called asset management strategies and asset management plans, where every local authority was required regularly to submit to the Government what they were doing with their land. This is simply officials in Whitehall reviving that process under another name. It was one of Gordon Brown’s most disliked operations, and local authorities were very glad to see it go.

It is absurd to expect the Cabinet Office to monitor all the bodies in Schedule 22 to check whether authorities are reducing the size of their estate. Ministers in the Cabinet Office are going to check, every time that a local authority changes building, that it is in the top quartile of energy performance. This will be an interference with local authorities’ ability to use their land efficiently. We must explain. Let us say that we wanted to take leasehold space in a building to use our estate more profitably, but it was less energy-efficient. My officers have to file a report with the Cabinet Office explaining why we have taken three rooms in a block of flats to put some officers there briefly.

I will not press the amendment, because I read in the commencement clause that it does not come into force on the day on which the Bill comes into force. For that reason, I will withdraw the amendment, but I urge my noble friend to think about the bureaucracy being recreated here. Section 7 is in any case defective because a building can be part of an authority’s estate where two authorities are working together. An authority may well have a building in a partner authority’s area and may have an interest. Say if Richmond were partnered with Wandsworth and using a building in Wandsworth, according to the amendment as drafted by the Government, that building would not be classed as part of Richmond’s estate. That is absurd, and officials need to look again at the drafting of this legislation.

I am disappointed by seeing this bureaucracy returning, albeit under the guise of climate change, but I hope that before this comes into force my noble friend will give more consideration to it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 128YE withdrawn.