Business of the House

Debate between Lord True and Earl Attlee

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True)]

My Lords, although I agree with all that we have just heard, it had a rather valedictory tone. I must tell the House that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, may well be back—like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I understand that noble Lords wish me to move the Motions I had set down separately. In moving the first Motion in my name on the Order Paper, it will be useful for the House if I set out how we expect business in your Lordships’ House to work over the next two days.

Following agreement between the Government and the Official Opposition in both Houses, we expect to focus proceedings today on four Bills: consideration of the Commons amendments on the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill; Committee and remaining stages of the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill; Third Reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill; and the remaining stages of the Media Bill.

The tabling deadline for amendments to the first three Bills has already passed. The deadline for tabling amendments to the Media Bill is noon. Tomorrow we will sit to consider the finance Bill, some Private Members’ Bills and statutory instruments. Members can now sign up to speak at the Second Reading of the finance Bill, and the list for that will close at 4 pm today. If any of the Bills I have listed above are returned from the Commons, we will also consider their amendments or reasons.

We expect the House to be prorogued on Friday—tomorrow—and we will announce any changes to business and the associated deadlines in the usual ways. I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords for their forbearance and understanding in this unusual process, and we will endeavour to keep all Peers fully informed at every stage. I beg to move.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend the Leader of the House for explaining what will be happening. I oppose my noble friend’s Motion, but in respect only of Clause 50 of the Media Bill, which seeks to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act.

Section 40 is crucial to the system of press regulation proposed by Sir Brian Leveson and has largely been implemented already by a royal charter. This is a highly controversial and important piece of legislation. We know it is important because Owen Meredith, the chief executive of the News Media Association, has been writing about it in the national newspapers. We know it is important because, when I won a Division on a similar amendment to the Data Protection Act a few years ago, national newspapers devoted several whole pages of detailed and unhelpful coverage to noble Lords who had the moral courage to support me in the Lobbies.

The House should not get confused about how few noble Lords are prepared to debate the subject of press regulation. I have had to draw on huge amounts of moral courage to pursue these amendments. Unfortunately, this, combined with the proposed changes to our Code of Conduct, made me simply run out of moral courage on Tuesday. I am sorry to say that I left the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, largely on her own yesterday. I stress that nobody, inside or outside this House, has applied improper pressure to me.

There is simply not the time available to plan and draft a proper Report speech when the Committee amendments were debated only yesterday. For instance, I understand that my noble friend Lord Black made a very interesting speech, but I have not been able to read it. The Government should either drop the relevant clause completely or, better still, accept Amendment 84 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. If they did the latter, they would still meet their manifesto commitments in full. Relaxing the Standing Orders against the wishes of several Members of the House to suit the needs of the usual channels, and some frantic horse-trading down the other end of the Corridor, is not acceptable to me.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord True and Earl Attlee

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I declare an interest as leader of a London borough. I thank my noble friend the Minister for the moves that have been made to address some of the legitimate concerns put forward at the previous stage. Having said that, my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding eloquently put the case for further consideration of some of the minor details—some of which are not so minor—in clarifying how this will work. Rightly or wrongly, there is suspicion among leaders of London boroughs about the risk of the mayor imposing policies on areas of London. Further safeguards and assurances would be desirable in that respect.

The other brief point I wish to make is that, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, recourse to the London Assembly, with all great respect to that body, is not a fully local response. In the Bill we already have to contend with the fact that regional government is continuing in London and that the local element of the Bill is somewhat deficient in London. Geographically elected members of the London Assembly represent quite large areas—less local than London boroughs—and are less urgently concerned through wards with local affairs. The London Assembly Members who are elected under proportional systems do not have that kind of local connection.

I hope that my noble friend, in considering the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, will tell us that he will be able to consider further the noble Lord’s points before the next stage.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses concerns raised about borough councils’ representation on an MDC’s board and committees. I am grateful for all noble Lord’s contributions. We have thought carefully about this and have tabled government amendments.

Amendment 97 would ensure that a borough council, including for this purpose the Common Council of the City of London, whose area forms part of an MDC, will have an automatic seat on the board by requiring that the mayor must exercise his power to appoint members to the MDC so as to secure that the members of an MDC include at least one elected member of each relevant council. Such appointments will still be subject to the same safeguards as other appointments. Amendment 99 would allow the mayor to remove a borough council member from an MDC’s board if that member ceases to be a borough member and the mayor wishes to appoint another member of that borough in the original member’s place. Amendment 102 is a consequential amendment to rules about the validity of proceedings and simply ensures that the absence of at least one elected member of each affected borough council will not affect the validity of an MDC’s proceedings.

Amendment 100 removes the stipulation that the majority of members of a committee or sub-committee of an MDC must be members of the MDC. These are significant concessions. My noble friends have suggested in Amendment 98 that one-sixth of the members must be from the boroughs, but that is not necessary. For example, with the proposed Olympic Park Legacy Corporation the four borough members would be likely to constitute rather more than one-sixth of the board. On that basis I ask my noble friends to withdraw their amendment. The House may recall the amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, tabled for Committee, which was not debated. That sought to provide that an MDC’s committees and sub-committees should not, as is currently the case, require a majority of MDC members. I am delighted to say that we have brought forward Amendment 100, which secures the aims of the noble Baroness.

Amendment 101, tabled by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also relates to membership of committees and sub-committees but seeks to prescribe membership. It states that there should be at least one elected borough representative on both committees and sub-committees from those boroughs whose areas are affected by a designated mayoral development area, and, where those committees are concerned with planning, that at least half of the membership should comprise representatives from affected boroughs. I hope the House will agree that the existing provisions regarding committees and sub-committees, bolstered by Amendment 100, will give an MDC maximum flexibility over the make-up of its committees and sub-committees. I hope that deals with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. For example, an MDC will be able to appoint one or more relevant borough council members to its planning committee and, should it wish to do so, have a majority of non-MDC members on that committee.

I turn now to Amendments 96 and 103 which address a borough’s comments on, first, the proposed designation of a mayoral development area and, secondly, designation of an MPC as the local planning authority. It is clearly right that an affected borough council must be consulted on both these issues, just as it is right to offer the opportunity to the London Assembly, relevant Members of the other place and other statutory consultees as the Bill provides. It is also the case that the mayor will be obliged to consult affected borough councils and other statutory consultees were he to propose that an MDC should offer business rate discounts. The Bill provides that, should comments be made by the London Assembly and the mayor not accept those comments, he is obliged to publish a statement giving reasons for that non-acceptance. Amendments 96 and 103 would extend that requirement to comments of the borough councils. However, there is no need to do this. As I have said, an affected borough council must be consulted by the mayor, so it could make its views known to him by that route. But a borough council could also make representations to its London Assembly constituency member who, in turn, could feed those views to the Assembly as a whole, as a result of which the Assembly could, if it wished, relay those representations and any of its own to the mayor. I suggest that this is a sufficient level of scrutiny.

I would ask noble Lords to withdraw their amendments and accept Amendments 97, 99, 100 and 102 in their place.