Trade Union Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

The House will know that no employer has sought this interference with its right to manage, and that many are concerned about the red tape and cost that it entails, which makes us think that the Bill’s real aim is to make union organisation harder. But if it is to happen, we urge the Government to have constructive debates with the charity sector, affected employers and trade unions, and to allow each of these enough time to construct and bed down the necessary form-filling processes. A lot of work will be involved, and it needs to be undertaken without ridiculous haste if it is to be effective, efficient and give value for money.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I want briefly to contribute on this set of amendments to welcome, on behalf of my colleagues, the way in which the Minister has responded to our request last week to ensure that we saw the draft regulations. In particular, he has addressed the issue of the affirmative and negative procedures, and I am delighted to see in Amendment 7 that he has opted for the affirmative procedure.

However, I have a similar concern to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on the issue of the cross-reference to the freedom of information legislation. As she and I are well aware, it is, we suppose, currently still under review. We therefore need to know whether the list of those organisations that are included in that legislation is as now or as it might be in the future. Would it not be a sensible compromise—perhaps the Minister could give us this assurance—that the cross-reference should be to those organisations that are included at the time of Royal Assent to this Bill and therefore relevant to this section of this Bill, in terms of facility time and indeed of check-off? It would be rather peculiar if, as it were, the Minister anchored himself into something that was on the move, and we therefore found ourselves in a period of less transparency, less credibility and less definition rather than, as I think was his intention, greater clarity.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for those very acute contributions. I apologise to them for not getting the letter to them sooner. However, I am grateful for the welcome that it has received. The noble Baroness, with her customary acuteness and accuracy, has shot seven Exocets across my bow on this. I shall attempt to answer them, and if I fail to do so then obviously I shall write to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord and put the letter in the House Library.

Have the 255 bodies been consulted? We will be discussing these with all these bodies as we proceed towards implementation. As regards specific bodies, the noble Baroness has clearly picked on a few here. I shall write to her as regards the Legal Services Board. We have been working very hard to try to make sure that the list is as accurate as possible—I stress that this is a draft—but I quite understand your Lordships when they say that that is not altogether satisfactory, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for drawing my attention to the Legal Services Board. As regards academies and housing associations, those bodies will be covered if they meet the provisions as set out. I shall write with complete accuracy to the noble Baroness on those two points—but, as regards academies, my understanding is that they would be covered if they met the provisions.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Baroness referred to the FOIA, and whether or not we might be looking at these issues. I stress that the FOIA was based as a starting point. Clearly, there is the double lock of not just being on the FOIA but being mainly funded. I shall look again at the words—I make no commitment about this, I am sorry to say—but I am unable to do so right now. The noble Baroness made some suggestions about wordings and the noble Lord made some suggestions about where we might be in future. I shall write to them both about those specific points, but I cannot make any commitments to change right now. However, I repeat that those are good points.

As regards the burdens, I heed what the noble Baroness has to say. As we saw in the previous exchange, when my noble friend discussed the previous amendment, this Government wish to ensure that we do not unnecessarily add to burdens. I stress that the information required for publication is a narrow and reasonable range, similar to that which, for example, English local authorities publish as part of the Local Government Transparency Code and which the Department for Education recommended that all schools publish in its 2014 guidance.

I shall end on that point. I commit to write to the noble Baroness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, as the Bill nears the end of its parliamentary journey, I want to take a moment to consider how far it has come since being introduced to this House last November. The Bill strikes a fair balance between the unions, whose work we all value, and their responsibility to society, especially to other working people—as patients, parents and passengers.

Noble Lords spoke eloquently about the case to change key aspects of the Bill, including on political funds, check-off and the Certification Officer. I am grateful for your Lordships’ active engagement and tireless commitment to finding an acceptable way forward on these matters. I want in particular to thank, on the opposition Front Benches, the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Collins, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith, Lady Wheeler and Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, for a very constructive approach. I have also valued the input from the Back-Benchers opposite and their advisers, and am pleased that the Government listened and responded and that the Bill is much better as a result.

I am also enormously grateful to many noble Lords across the Chamber for their passionate and intelligent contribution, especially to the noble Lord, Lord Burns—who sadly is not in his place—and the Select Committee on Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding for the additional scrutiny and common sense that their work brought to this Bill.

[Lord Tyler]

Is the Minister in a position to tell us when the Government will respond in full to the recommendations of that Select Committee on which I served? It would be extraordinary if your Lordships’ House did have not a response before the completion of the whole process on this Bill. That would include all the recommendations of the Select Committee. She has referred to it as a splendid Select Committee; I assume she thinks all its recommendations are splendid, which would include not just the revised Clauses 10 and 11 but the link to discussions on party political funding. When will we get a response on that issue?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Lord is, in his usual way, perhaps leaping to a conclusion I am not able to make, but I will take away what he said. The Bill will return to the other place and I will bear in mind the point that he has made, but I am certainly not in a position to respond today on the full panoply of the report. However, we have heard in this House how strongly people feel about all this, and the process, which was separate from the Bill, has been helpful in enabling us to edge forward on the Bill’s provisions.

I thank my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord Courtown for their assistance and my noble friends Lord Sherbourne, Lord Robathan, Lord Callanan, Lord De Mauley, Lord King and Lord Leigh for their support, and of course my noble friend Lord Balfe, particularly for arranging for me to meet the smaller unions to complement my experience with larger unions such as USDAW, which has been mentioned today. That was a very important meeting. I express my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for her support and expertise, and I thank the Bill team and my own private office for days and nights of hard work.

Once again, this House has demonstrated the huge value that its scrutiny adds to the legislative process and, as ever, I am pleased to have been a part of it. I look forward to returning this Bill to the Minister, Nick Boles, its main parent in the other place.

Trade Union Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I add my comments in support of what has been said. I had a feeling that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, and the other Ministers associated with this Bill would be in listening mode, bearing in mind the contents of the debates hitherto.

My shock and dismay at the original text of this Bill was enormous and I think that was shared by people in all parts of the House. The Bill did not look properly constructed nor did it utilise non-extreme ideology to deal with any modernisation necessities for trade unions—some of which one doubts. In January I received a very interesting briefing from the FDA, an association of professional managers and others, which is not in any way known for extremism. In relation to the reference of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, to trade union members dreaming about causing industrial action as they go to work in the morning, the FDA says:

“Much of the portrayed justification for change relates to an utterly refutable assumption that trade unions call for industrial action on a regular basis and without cause. FDA members only embark on industrial action as a last resort. As a union with an almost 100 year history we have held national industrial action only once, yet it is a fundamental right for all working people to have the option to take industrial action and we strongly oppose moves to deny workers this right”.

In a way the same rights intrinsically belong to check-off and I sincerely ask Ministers to be in listening mode for other parts of this Bill, so that it can be improved if they insist on it carrying on—people have quite rightly indicated that there is probably no need for this Bill but since the Government are perhaps psychologically committed to seeing it progress I ask that they do that. In the mean time, my sense of shock has diminished. I did not write a speech over the weekend because I thought there might be some progress and I warmly thank the Ministers for their reaction today.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, at the risk of contributing to this lordly love-in, I want to refer to an additional reason why I very much welcome the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, about the opportunity to think again between now and Third Reading. Clause 14 relies hugely on secondary legislation—on regulations—including new subsection (3), which would have been the subject of government Amendment 21A. As we all too often recognise in this House, the devil is in the detail, and that is particularly so in this Bill.

Trade Union Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I was very glad to add my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, because it seeks to translate into the Bill the substance of that admirable report that we debated in some detail a week ago. I said then that I had had my misgivings about whether it was right to establish a Select Committee with a very strict timetable; I also said that my initial reaction had been wrong, because the committee did an exceptionally diligent and thorough job and produced a very coherent and convincing report.

I have made plain all along my misgivings about these two clauses because of what I believed was their inherent—though, I am glad to accept, unintended—unfairness. I was gently chided last week by a colleague for wearing a red tie; I deliberately wear a blue one today because I believe that in what I say I am being entirely true to one-nation Conservatism and not in any way reneging on party commitments. I say to my noble friends on this side of the House, as I have before, that if our party and its philosophy stand for anything it is for fairness and choice. I believe that one should do to others as one would wish to be done by and I do not wish to be party to a move that would seriously disadvantage one of the great parties of this country, particularly at a time when it is going through its own special problems, which I hope will soon be over. But what the noble Lord, Lord Burns, is suggesting is fair and consistent with the recommendations of his report. There were two alternatives in paragraph 142 and, effectively, we are advancing paragraph 142(a), which was the majority choice of the committee. Clearly, paragraph 142(b), which advocates a long transitional period, is also worthy of consideration.

This is a sensible, modest proposal that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, is advancing and it deserves support in all parts of the House. It in no way invalidates the manifesto commitments of my party, which were somewhat loosely worded, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, has made plain, and I do not think it damages in any way what the Government are seeking to do. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, has made it plain that he believes, as I do, that opt-in is the better solution. But we do not have to advance on that at such a pace that we seriously disadvantage one of the great parties of the realm and unbalance our democracy in the process. I very much hope that this modest amendment can be accepted by my noble friend the Minister without a Division but if a Division is called, my name is on the amendment and my vote will be with my name.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am one of the signatories to this amendment and I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The amendment incorporates important improvements, unanimously agreed by the Select Committee, to ensure that Clause 10 will make certain not only that the political funds of the unions are dealt with more realistically and less expensively bureaucratically but that they are fairer, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said. I hope very much that the Minister has been listening to what has been said because she could be in quite a small minority, judging from our debate on this last week, if she seeks to resist these improvements.

The Select Committee said in paragraph 134:

“It is clear to us that clause 10 will have an impact on party funding and that it is very far from commanding the consensus which we have said is desirable in such situations”.

This was unanimously agreed by the Select Committee. Of the 20 or so Peers who took part in that debate last Wednesday, almost every one endorsed in terms that recommendation. Indeed, the Minister herself departed from the original ministerial pretence that there was nothing to do with party funding in this clause.

There is widespread acceptance that the Government should be assisted in their determination to deliver their whole 2015 manifesto in this respect. Perhaps I should remind colleagues that there were two parts to this commitment. The first was that,

“we will legislate to ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for subscriptions to political parties”,

and the second was:

“We will continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”—

two parts, but they stick firmly together. The recommendation of the Select Committee on Clause 10 has to be taken in that wider context. Indeed, it was agreed unanimously by the Select Committee, because we were broadly supportive on all sides, as we were last week, and this was incorporated into paragraph 138 of our report:

“Whether or not clause 10 is enacted, in whatever form, the political parties should live up to their manifesto commitments and make a renewed and urgent effort to seek a comprehensive agreement on party funding reform. We urge the Government to take a decisive lead and convene talks itself, rather than waiting for them to emerge”.

That was clearly the view right across the House in our debate last Wednesday and I hope that any colleagues who were not there have now read Hansard because it is critical to this discussion as well.

I cannot emphasise enough that whether or not Clause 10 is improved by this amendment, or indeed at further stages of the Bill, that is not the end of the matter. Unless and until the Government stop sitting on the fence and blaming the party leaders for taking no initiative on this issue, clearly these modest changes are still in contention. The logic of the whole report leads to the inescapable conclusion that the legislative proposals in Clause 10 should not proceed, even if improved, if that latter manifesto promise is not being actively pursued at the same time. In other words, as so many Members of your Lordships’ House have repeatedly urged, at several stages of the Bill, unilateral legislation in this area is simply not acceptable—a point just made so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, the Government are committed to greater transparency for union members in the use of political funds. Members can then make an informed decision as to whether they want to contribute.

I am pleased that the Select Committee has also endorsed the principle that the current level of reporting is insufficient and that union members are entitled to a reasonable amount of detail about political expenditure.

On the amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Tyler, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, the aim of Clause 11 is to make sure that all unions meet a minimum standard of transparency. The current provisions in Clause 11 ensure that where unions spend more than £2,000 per annum from their political fund, they provide a breakdown of expenditure.

I do not believe that we should start from the position proposed in this amendment, which is to place all the detail on the level of reporting in secondary legislation. Placing these requirements on the face of the Bill helps to reduce uncertainty about what is intended—a consideration which often appeals to noble Lords.

As I said in the Select Committee debate last week, we will reflect on the technical recommendations of the committee in relation to Clause 11. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, pointed out that the provision could mean that a union would have to declare the reimbursement of a bus fare to one of its members who attended a Labour Party conference. That was never our intention. We are not trying to trip people up, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, suggested.

On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, the Government have always been clear that the transparency requirements in Clause 11 are important so that members can exercise an informed choice. The proposal for a review would delay this transparency and I cannot see its rationale. However, I have said that I am open to continuing the conversation on how best to achieve improved reporting of political expenditure in the most proportionate way, and on making the requirements of the provision less onerous, with a view to coming back to this issue at Third Reading. As I said earlier, I am already planning to see the Certification Officer, which I am sure will be helpful.

Finally, I turn to the government amendment. I am grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its careful scrutiny of this clause. It has noted that the power to substitute the £2,000 threshold in Clause 11 can be used not only to raise the amount but also to lower it again to an amount not less than £2,000. Raising the threshold would reduce the reporting requirements on unions. However, if, in the future, a Government wished to reduce the threshold back again, the reverse would happen and the reporting requirements on unions could increase considerably. I have listened carefully to concerns voiced by the committee. Our amendment ensures that any decision in future to lower the threshold would be subject to the affirmative procedure, and therefore subject to full parliamentary scrutiny. I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Dean—if I have understood her correctly—that this would increase burdens. I hope that she agrees with me now that I have explained what is intended by this amendment.

[Lord Tyler]

As a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I acknowledge the point the Minister has just made. But would it not be rather extraordinary if she is effectively asking the proposers of the other two amendments that are relevant to this clause to wait to hear what she will do at a later stage of the Bill, while she pursues her own amendment? Would it not be better to take a comprehensive view on all these amendments and the whole of this clause at Third Reading? Otherwise, there is a real danger that they may not all be compatible. We may accept her amendment—if the House decides to do so—but may not be able to deal with the other points which she acknowledges still need further consideration. Would it not be appropriate for the Minister to withdraw her amendment?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I am just checking whether, if I withdraw my amendment, I can then retable it if, after consideration, that seems appropriate. I understand that if I make my intentions clear—which sounds like a good principle—I can bring it back. I will certainly withdraw it today and look at the provision in the way that I have suggested. But I give notice that I will return to it because it is an important provision that tries to respond to the concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, on which I know the noble Lord serves.

I have said that I will reflect further on the technical reporting requirements to ensure that they do what we intend. I have set out why I do not believe that a further review of reporting requirements on top of the excellent work done by the Select Committee is necessary and I have agreed to hold the government amendment over to Third Reading. In the circumstances, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.

Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tyler]

That a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Order, laid before the House on 16 July, be annulled (SI 2015/1520).

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, in moving this Motion I must make it clear that it is wholly different to those we debated in your Lordships’ House last night. In the first place, I remind noble Lords of the very special status of the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission was set up following the fifth report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in October 1998, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen. It concluded that there was a need for,

“a totally independent and authoritative Election Commission with widespread executive and investigative powers”.

The commission was then established by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. In the debate on that Bill, the prospect of a fiercely independent commission enjoyed substantial cross-party support. Speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, the then Sir George Young MP—I am very pleased to see him in his place here in a different capacity today—paid tribute to the Neill Committee, saying that,

“they have managed to build consensus out of the bricks of political contention. We accept the establishment of the Electoral Commission”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/2000; col. 46.]

In Committee, the Front Bench Conservative spokesperson in the other place, Mr Robert Walter MP, went further, saying:

“We have stated our belief that there should be a powerful and independent Commission”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/02/2000; col. 692.]

Also on the Conservative side, the then Mr John MacGregor MP—now also a very senior member of your Lordships’ House—endorsed it too, saying,

“I hope that the broad framework of the Neill report will stand the test of time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/01/2000; col. 63.]

The most supportive quote of all was as follows:

“We heard protestations earlier from the Under-Secretary about the absolute need for the commission to be wholly independent. That theme has been reiterated throughout our debates, and it is regarded as of great importance by Honourable Members on both sides of the House”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/02/2000; col 655.]

That was the then Sir Patrick Cormack MP. So, with that strong support from the then Conservative Opposition, Parliament legislated to create a totally independent, non-partisan and authoritative commission with its own unique Speaker’s Committee, answerable and accountable directly to both Houses of Parliament—not to the Government.

Thus, we must listen very closely to its careful, balanced, evidence-based recommendations. In that context, I very much welcome the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, which will strengthen my Motion. He and I both have past direct experience of working with the Electoral Commission, although of course none of us can speak on its behalf.

As Members of your Lordships’ House will have noted, the commission has now given clear advice on three occasions, most recently just yesterday. I will quote its advice briefly, but I remind your Lordships’ House just how important it is. It said back in June:

“Taking into account the data and evidence which is available to us at this point and the significant polls which are scheduled for May 2016, we recommend Ministers should not make an order to bring forward the end of the transition to IER. We recommend that the end date for the transition should remain, as currently provided for in law, December 2016”.

That was in June. It said the following when the Government issued their announcement:

“We are disappointed at the Government’s announcement and still recommend that the end of the transition should take place in December 2016 as set out in law. We therefore recommend that Parliament does not approve this order”.

I am now in the 25th year of service in Parliament, and have seldom heard the commission so crystal clear in its view. Indeed, I have not heard any statutory body expressing advice with such clarity to your Lordships’ House or the other place.

What will be the effect of the government order if it goes ahead unchallenged? The official estimate is that up to 1.9 million people who are currently on the register, and were on it at the general election in May, will be dropped off it. At a stroke, Ministers are prepared to disfranchise huge numbers of electors—for example 415,013 in London, 231,345 in Scotland and 68,042 in Wales. It is of course possible that these figures may be squeezed down as we approach the important elections in 2016, but it is still highly likely that people who think they are on the register will find themselves unable to vote when the time comes.

The Government, apparently, are prepared to risk legal challenges to the results of the London mayoral and Assembly elections as well as those for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. No doubt the Minister will be able to inform the House what answers were received from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and London Assemblies when they were consulted before this order—which is of such vital significance to those bodies—was tabled. However, I have to tell the House that so far the Parliamentary Answers on this issue to my noble friend Lord Rennard have been less than satisfactory; he will deal with that crucial issue of consultation during this debate. For an even fuller analysis of the effects in each of the nations and regions in the United Kingdom, I refer Members of your Lordships’ House to the excellent report prepared by the well-respected voluntary campaigning organisation HOPE not Hate, which we have all received.

There is yet further long-term significance to this decision. As the commission points out, the sleight of hand involved in this order impacts profoundly on the parliamentary boundary review which is due to commence next year. If this order is allowed to slip through, the register in December 2015, which will be used as the basis for the next round of constituency boundary changes, will be missing large numbers of voters. Although these people could re-register between December and April to vote in the elections next year, to which I have referred, these voters will be irrevocably wiped off the face of our democracy for the purposes of the constituency boundary review. They simply will not count when the new constituencies are drawn up. With those potential voters removed—up to one in five in some of the London boroughs—there will be a knock-on effect on the number of constituencies in each place. It is calculated that the number of constituencies in London might be reduced by up to 10.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Is the noble Lord not skating on rather thin ice, given that the boundary review and the Boundary Commission report were prevented from being implemented in the last Parliament because he and his colleagues voted, against the clerks’ advice, on an amendment which was out of order?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, if the noble Lord had actually read what the Electoral Commission has advised this House, I do not think he would be adopting that position. This means fewer seats in densely populated, highly mobile urban areas, and proportionately more seats in rural areas with more stable populations. Thus, without cross-party consultation or consent, Conservative Ministers have introduced a deliberately self-interested, partisan order in direct conflict with the recommendations of the independent commission which is appointed by Parliament to ensure fair play. No wonder they slipped this out shortly before the Summer Recess with the absolute minimum of publicity.

What reasons have they given for this demonstrably improper and unprecedented action? Two excuses have been given to me and others, and will presumably feature again today. First, it is said that the Association of Electoral Administrators is happy that the period of transition could be foreshortened by 12 months. Frankly, that is not persuasive. The association does good work but it is the shop steward of electoral registration officers. Crossing all these voters off the register at the stroke of a pen will reduce its workload. By contrast, the Electoral Commission is the shop steward, answerable to Parliament, for the voter—for the integrity of our democracy. It is abundantly clear that we have a duty to listen to it. Since when did Ministers think that they should attach more importance to the self-interested views of a trade union than to the careful assessment of the statutory body tasked by Parliament to provide independent advice?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

Is it not the case, for example, that the Council of Europe has made it very clear that household registration is an open door to corruption?

[Lord Tyler]

That is precisely why we are moving towards IER, which my party and I personally have warmly supported and, during the coalition Government, sought to make sure was being effectively implemented at the local level.

I turn to the propriety of this Motion. There was much talk yesterday of what this House can and cannot do and what it should and should not do. This Motion is our one chance to do our duty to the voters. There is no middle way of delay or prevarication.

In any case, this Motion is quite distinctly different from any of those we debated yesterday. First, both Houses agreed primary legislation in 2013 which insisted that any order made to end the transitional period early might be, must be or could be annulled by either House of Parliament. This specific protection was built into the legislation precisely to withhold from the Executive an unfettered right to tamper with the electoral register. Secondly, of course, there is a precedent for the Lords voting down secondary legislation on matters of election law. Indeed, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Peers voted together to defeat such an order in 2000 when the then Government attempted to deny candidates for the Greater London Authority the chance to mail electors. Thirdly, in opposition Conservative Peers moved several other Motions to kill off similar secondary legislation. As is also apparent, the Conservatives made absolutely no mention of this change in their manifesto.

Parliament has a special responsibility to listen to the Electoral Commission—by law. It reminds us that we have not just a right but a duty to oppose this order. Ministers should be ashamed of this unilateral attempt to undermine the IER transition process, to skew the boundary review and, in so doing, to challenge the authority and integrity of the statutory independent commission set up precisely to advise us all on these issues. They hoped they would get away with it unnoticed. But they have been found out and now we in this House must, on behalf of voters, do our duty. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

I am very sympathetic to the point that the noble Lord is making. However, that is not the timescale. It is just five weeks to 1 December. That is the vital date. All he is talking about, which could happen in five or six months, simply will not happen in five weeks. He also said that some people who are not on the register wish to be on the register. These are people who are on the existing register but are not being transferred on to the new register. They want to vote, they want to be registered and they want to be part of the electoral process.

[Lord Empey]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that people can be on the register in a particular constituency, but that does not mean that they are not on the register in a different constituency. That is the point that I made in the student example. We found that people registered in their place of residence at home registered again when they came up to the university area. When they had to produce a national insurance number we could tell that people were registered in two different places and they got knocked off in one place but were still on the register in another. That practice is widespread and well known.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

Yes, but I am not in charge of Government business. The other House has the opportunity to accept or reject. As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, perfectly rightly pointed out, so do we. All I am doing is saying that we should be particularly careful when exercising judgment on an issue that pertains wholly and entirely to the elected House. We need to bear that always in mind. I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, as has been made clear by a number of Members of your Lordships’ House this afternoon, the immediate concerns about the electorate are nothing to do with the other place. This is about the Scottish Parliament, the London Assembly, the Welsh Assembly—the other bodies that will be elected in 2016. They have not been consulted; they have not even been asked their views on this extremely important issue. The noble Lord is precisely wrong.

[Lord Cormack]

No, I am not precisely wrong at all. We are dealing with the electoral register for the United Kingdom as a whole, a country in which I believe. I have to say again, with great charity—difficult as it is to summon it up on occasions—that the party that prevented the boundary changes going through, in a fit of petulance and pique, has no right to talk to us on this.

Lobbyists: Register

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not share that view. From the last four years of dealing with how one implements greater transparency in lobbying, I have learnt that it is impossible to satisfy everyone—indeed, it is very difficult to satisfy anyone. The various associations of professional consultants, lobbyists and others have all in some ways campaigned against it. People have said that MPs and Peers should all be on the register; last week we were told that the Australian system is infinitely inferior to the current British system; et cetera. We are taking a step forward. We have resisted the idea that everyone who lobbies should be on the register, because that would produce a vast register. We are starting by trying to make consultant lobbyists much more transparent about on whose behalf they are lobbying. That is the purpose of the measure.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, this Government are of course the first to record all lobbying meetings with Ministers, but does my noble friend recall that if any organisation—say, Tesco—has meetings with government, it is very difficult to see how many meetings have taken place? Indeed, if one wanted to analyse that over a year, one would have to look at 108 separate spreadsheets. My noble friend will recall that I was given a specific assurance that that problem would be addressed during the passage of the Transparency and Lobbying Act. Do we now have a register of lobbying, so that we can see where those meetings are taking place? Can he confirm that the process will be improved before Dissolution, so that at least the next Government can have a transparent regime?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, all of us in the Government are well aware that each three months our meetings are pored over and officials ask us to specify who met us, and on whose behalf if that is not entirely clear. I recognise that that has not been pulled together for all members of the Government and we should perhaps look at finding a programme which will enable us to pull all that together more easily. However, we have made progress. Whoever forms the Government after the election will discover how immensely difficult this area is and will, I suspect, decide to let this legislation bed down for a period before they move on to the next step.

House of Commons Commission Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, during my years in the other place I did not serve on the commission but worked very closely with my party’s representative on the commission when I was Chief Whip and shadow leader of the House. I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope here, because he not only served with great distinction on the commission but also answered in the Chamber for the commission, which was not always an easy task. My current colleague in the other place, John Thurso, does that as well. He of course has the advantage of having been, I think uniquely, a Member of this place and then having moved downstairs; therefore he is in a very strong position to see how Parliament works as a whole. That will be a theme of my remarks.

I discussed this Bill with my right honourable friend John Thurso earlier this week. It is quite clear, as my noble friend said, that this is a relatively modest measure introducing very sensible improvements. It expands the external expertise available to both the commission and the management of that House, and it modestly increases the Back-Bench contribution. I note what my noble friend has just said, because that modest increase makes it less likely that there will be a majority of government-supporting MPs on the commission, and that, I think, is a healthy sign. It is important that the Bill clearly indicates and maintains the position in order to protect the day-to-day working of Parliament from overmighty interference from the Executive—the Government. The latter remains the servant of the former, not the other way round.

I welcome the proposals in the Bill. As my noble friend said, not only has it received unanimous support from all parties but it has gone through its various stages nem con in the Commons. That, if not unique, is unusual. However, I especially welcome the reasons for its introduction, which are set out in the report of the House of Commons Governance Committee, to which my noble friend referred. It is quite a formidable document but it is important and I hope that other noble Lords will have had the opportunity to read it. If they have not, they may wonder why we are spending even a few minutes on this Bill now. I suggest that it warrants careful reading because it is of considerable significance to this House and to Parliament as a whole. We may be a bicameral Parliament but we are one Parliament, and what happens in one House inevitably impacts on the other. Indeed, our customers or clients—our fellow citizens—constantly bemoan the fact that we do not work better in partnership to hold the Executive to account, and I shall return to that point later.

At a very practical level, the report of the Governance Committee—and therefore, the Bill—has implications for your Lordships’ House. For brevity, I quote from our Library briefing:

“The Committee reported that shared services (services provided to both Houses by one body) ‘already account for nearly half the annual resources spend of each House’ and that there was ‘wide support, in principle’ for extending these further, but what was included would need ‘careful consideration’ ... The Committee supports the ‘development of plans for a single services Department supporting both Houses’ but warned that one House cannot dictate to the other on what should happen”.

I suspect that other Members will share that view. The briefing continues:

“They recommended … Joint meetings of the House of Commons Commission and House Committee (the equivalent body in the House of Lords), at least every six months”.

It is interesting that the governance report goes further by suggesting, at paragraph 128, that maybe those meetings should take place quarterly. That would demonstrate the relevance of the proposal here to Members of your Lordships’ House.

I am a firm advocate of greater co-operation, and more effective integration where this would achieve efficiency savings or improved service. For example, I suspect that there is a long way to go in the catering departments, and it might well improve better understanding of our respective roles if Peers and MPs shared more Library facilities. Indeed, I would be interested to see where the existing shared services currently are. No doubt big sums are invested in the maintenance of the buildings and in obvious areas such as security. Perhaps my noble friend, at a later stage, can obtain a simple breakdown for us.

Meanwhile, the idea that very occasional joint meetings of the commission and our own House Committee are adequate to provide positive guidance and governance for both those existing combined services and for a proper examination of increased areas of joint provision of facilities is clearly laughable. We need a permanent mechanism. I hope that, in due course, those who are in a position to make a recommendation to both Houses will do so to that effect. I did not expect that to be provided in this Bill, which, as Members will know, has been brought forward at speed, as my noble friend said, to meet a particular, urgent need to resolve the challenges that arose last summer with the retirement of the then Clerk to the House of Commons. He is now a most welcome addition to our Benches.

As I look to the House authorities here to explain how this apparent lacuna is being solved, I hope that we will get some response today—if not, at later stages in the consideration of the Bill. I do not know whether other noble Lords have had this said to them, but I am told that there is to be a parallel examination of the governance of our House—presumably after the general election. That is fine, but when will there be a full, joint, cross-House, bicameral review of the way Parliament is run? This is not just a case of saving money. Many Members in both Houses believe that our combined processes and the eventual product of our work is overdue for review and reform.

In the Parliament First booklet, published this week with the encouragement of Mr Speaker, I argued that,

“If this was any other organisation … our product or service would not be rated very highly by our customers, and they would try to go elsewhere”.

The absence of any such alternative should not make us complacent. Again, in the report of the Governance Committee, there is an extremely important statement at paragraph 118:

“Bicameral Parliaments are based upon a belief that a constructive tension and dialogue between the two Houses should result in a better quality of legislation and of the other key functions of a Parliament than is possible in unicameral systems.”

The paragraph that follows explains and enlarges on that point. It is extremely important.

A few years ago there was much talk of joined-up government. I believe it is time that we had joined-up Parliament. The two Houses are not in competition. We need to be better, in co-operation, at holding the Government of the day to account. Our relationship is not one of rivals; the only beneficiaries of that would be an overmighty bureaucracy.

In a small but significant way this Bill and the forthcoming parallel exercise in your Lordships’ House offer an unusual opportunity to improve the quality of the service that we offer together to our fellow citizens. I wish the Bill a speedy passage.

Electoral Registration

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Tyler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to identify areas with underperforming electoral registration officers, and to issue directions to ensure the maximum possible number of eligible electors are registered.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the performance of electoral registration officers is monitored and reported on by the independent Electoral Commission. The commission’s most recent assessment, in June 2014, showed that the large majority of EROs are performing well against the performance standards set. Where problems are found, the Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission work closely with the EROs to ensure that they are implementing their public engagement and implementation plans for the transition to individual electoral registration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, did my noble friend see that, yesterday, the chair of the Electoral Commission reported to the Select Committee in the other place that 2 million applications to register have been received since 1 December? The position is improving. But I hope he agrees that the situation is very mixed locally. Given those circumstances, are the Government looking at the proposal from the Electoral Commission that it should be in a better position to monitor and instruct electoral registration officers locally? The commission recommended:

“Should any ERO decide not to undertake such activity, the Commission will make a recommendation to the Secretary of State to issue a direction to require them to do so”.

Is it not time for the Government to respond to that recommendation? Indeed, is it not time to name and shame those local authorities and those EROs who are simply not doing their job?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the evidence that a large number of EROs are not doing their job is not there. Five of the six EROs who were rated last year as not having achieved their performance standards were in Devon and Somerset, rather to my surprise, and not in Labour-held areas—in Devon and Somerset, it tends to be either Liberal Democrat or Conservative seats. The question of training is one that we are well aware of. The Electoral Commission works with the Association of Electoral Administrators and others to ensure that EROs are well trained and do their job as well as they can.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for persisting with this theme, and for bringing this issue back once again at Third Reading however forlorn the prospect of acceptance of his compromise amendment may seem to be—and it is. As other noble Lords have said, the issue that it deals with is one of very great importance for the House of Commons. I believe, in any case, that by introducing these provisions for the recall process, the House of Commons has demonstrated a catastrophic lack of self-confidence. Specifically, the means of policing its own affairs that the House of Commons has traditionally used is the operation of the Standards Committee. Through the provisions in the Bill, and particularly through the amendment brought in by the Labour Party to reduce the period of suspension from 20 days to 10 days, which would trigger the recall process, the effect will be greatly to reduce the practical capacity of the Standards Committee to perform its proper function.

If the House of Commons is to rehabilitate itself in the public esteem, it must be seen to be able to take responsibility, and to provide effective means to take responsibility, for matters of internal discipline and for disciplining Members of Parliament who transgress or commit serious wrongdoing. In so reducing the realistic scope for disciplinary sanctions that the Standards Committee can recommend to the full House, the House of Commons has portrayed a lack of self-confidence and done itself a deep disservice.

So I add to the plea from my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside that the Front Bench will accept the amendment simply to allow Members of the House of Commons to think again about this. Very few of them participated. Very few of them voted in the debates. Many of them did not realise the import of what was approved by the House. They ought to have that opportunity to think again, in their interests and in the interests of parliamentary democracy. I think that we in your Lordships’ House are fully entitled to offer our advice to them on this matter. As another House of Parliament, and as citizens, we have an interest in the integrity, good name and good functioning of the House of Commons.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am very sympathetic indeed to Amendments 1 and 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for the very specific reason that I have followed the progress of the Bill throughout its stages in both Houses and I can confirm to your Lordships that a whole number of implications which have arisen in this House were not addressed there—for one very simple reason: all the votes were on a free vote. I am very enthusiastic about free voting in both Houses, but of course when there is a free vote there is not the same guidance from the parties about the full implications of the measures in front of the House—whether it is this House or that House.

I can confirm absolutely the point made by the noble Lords, Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Howarth, that this issue of what could easily happen—in the terms that have been so forensically analysed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours—in the Standards Committee, simply were not addressed in the debate in the other place. I suggest to my noble friend Lord Forsyth that if the recall mechanism was in place, for example, I do not believe that party leaders would feel that it was appropriate to appear to prejudge the outcome of an inquiry by removing the party Whip. I think that they would be inclined to leave it to the commissioner, the committee and then to the recall process—and eventually, of course, to the electorate, as is the intention behind the Bill.

On those grounds, I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will be prepared to think very carefully about how we must give the House of Commons another opportunity to think through the implications of this part of the Bill.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I have felt all along that this is a very ill conceived, ill thought-out Bill, and one that does no credit to Parliament in general or to the House of Commons in particular. I have briefly made similar points to those made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, in previous debates.

I feel that this is such a bad Bill that it is, frankly, unimprovable and unamendable, but I salute the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. He is sometimes a controversial figure but nobody can deny that he is a parliamentarian of real status who is deeply concerned about the reputation of Parliament. He is trying very hard with this amendment and, in so far as anything could improve the Bill, it is probably this, if it were passed, because it would give that chance for another place to think again.

What concerns me more than anything else—I alluded to this a few seconds ago—is the status and standing of Parliament. This great and free country of ours depends above all on two things: the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament. In eroding the sovereignty of Parliament, we do no one any service. This Bill is in fact the erosion of the sovereignty of Parliament Bill. This House is clearly not going to stand in the way of the elected House, but it does behove us constantly to remind the Members of that elected House that by their lack of confidence in themselves they are doing no one any service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, this amendment was born from an undertaking given by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in winding up in the last debate on Report, at col. 1144 of the Official Report of 10 February 2015, when he said that he would consider my Amendment 6, which dealt with the issue of lay membership of the Standards Committee. My amendment draws on a report of the Procedure Committee on lay membership of the Committee on Standards and Privileges from November 2011. The report states that the Procedure Committee in the Commons concluded that,

“if lay members were to be given voting rights, legislation should set the matter beyond a doubt. The Committee believed that appointing lay members in the absence of such legislation would carry a ‘strong element of risk’, in that it could ‘lead to conflict between the House and the courts and might have a chilling effect on how the Committee conducts its work even before such a challenge emerged’”.

That comment in the report came in response to a Commons resolution of 2 December 2010 inviting the Procedure Committee to bring forward proposals from the Committee on Standards in Public Life for lay membership to be appointed to the Standards and Privileges Committee, which, indeed, is precisely what has happened.

However, the voting aspect is not a new issue for the House of Commons to consider. It was first considered in 1876, when Sir Thomas Erskine May, then Clerk of the House of Commons, argued that it was not an illegal act to appoint lay members with full voting rights to committees on Private Bills. However, since then, I understand that both the Clerk of the Commons —I think in the last Parliament, but perhaps even earlier in this Parliament—and the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege opposed lay members being given the right to vote. I have therefore tabled this amendment to give the Government the opportunity to clarify their position on that matter.

I consider that this is an important issue. That is why I am moving this amendment. On 10 February, at col. 1131 of the Official Report, I argued for a very different approach to the handling of complaints by the Commons Standards Committee based on a majority lay membership—which I support—with a right to recommend, but not vote, and with its recommendations being either accepted or rejected by a committee minority of elected Members of Parliament—as elected Members of Parliament, they would enjoy full parliamentary privilege—as against the majority lay membership. If the Minister has difficulty addressing all the points I am making on this matter, I will perfectly understand if he wishes to write to me after the debate. However, it is very important that at some stage in the near future—certainly in this Parliament—we establish the Government’s attitude to lay members of the Standards Committee being given that right to vote. I beg to move.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 5, which is linked with the amendment just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I am delighted to follow his forensic and forceful analysis of the very serious issues arising from this part of the Bill and have considerable sympathy with his views.

Ever since Second Reading, the noble Lord, and indeed noble Lords on all sides of the House, have rightly raised concerns about the effects of the Bill on the fragile, non-partisan nature of the Standards Committee in the Commons. I think that many Members of your Lordships’ House remain concerned about that. Indeed, it was a theme of the debate we have just had on previous amendments. I note that a number of prominent former Members of the Commons expressed those concerns, particularly those who, like me, have had to deal with the Standards Committee in a variety of official roles.

In the same vein, and right from the start of this Bill’s passage through Parliament, beginning in the other place, there have been cross-party endeavours to ensure that the process for triggering a recall petition is independent of MPs and is seen to be independent of MPs. My noble friend Lord Norton raised this issue in the early stages of the Bill’s consideration here, and it was the theme of the important report of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. In my view, and that of my colleagues across the House, it remains the one crucial weakness at the very heart of the Bill, and it has been the subject of widespread concern in both Houses.

Ministers have been open throughout to suggestions for improvements and I am extremely grateful, as are my colleagues, to them and officials for being so ready to discuss changes that might be made. The Minister in charge of the Bill, Greg Clark, made a promise at the end of the Commons stages that,

“the Government were clear on Second Reading that we are open to ways to improve the Bill and we stand by that commitment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/14; col. 681.]

He has been true to his promise, and there has indeed been constructive engagement in your Lordships’ House. However, I am sorry to report that attempts to find another route for triggering recall that would have obviated MPs and the Standards Committee altogether have failed. We tried but it has not been successful.

In the interim, the Standards Committee has produced an extremely thoughtful, positive and authoritative report on its own future and role. As Members who were here on Report will recall, the report was published that very morning. It is therefore not surprising that few of us were given the opportunity to read it in detail. For that reason, I hope that I will be forgiven for reading a critical paragraph of the report, paragraph 34 on page 40, in full:

“A number of criticisms are levelled at the House of Commons disciplinary system both by outside observers and parliamentary insiders: MPs sit in judgement on themselves; the Commissioner is not truly independent; there is incomplete separation of powers with the Commissioner acting as investigator, prosecutor and to some extent adjudicator; the system is disproportionate; the rules are not clear; MPs cannot get advice; the sanctions are insufficient. It is these criticisms which this Report considers and, where appropriate, makes recommendation for addressing”.

Every Member of your Lordships’ House who has been following the progress of the Bill must recognise that that paragraph and the whole report are critical to the way in which the recall Bill is supposed to proceed; they are vital. That is why we have tabled new amendments to make sure that there is a direct linkage between action that is taken to fulfil the recommendations of the Standards Committee and the implementation of this part of the Bill.

The Standards Committee also says in terms that it needs a more robust, more sizeable independent element. This is why it links so well with what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has just been saying about the lay members. The committee’s recommendation at paragraph 90 is:

“After considering various Committee sizes we recommend a marginal increase in Committee size from thirteen to fourteen, with seven lay and seven elected members”,

thereby building the independent role of those lay members in all matters that would be relevant to the recall Bill. The report, and that specific recommendation, is the inspiration for Amendment 5, for which I am grateful to have the support of my noble friends Lord Norton and Lord Lexden and the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

It is in that specific section of the Standards Committee report that we should be putting our faith, trust and confidence if we are to make sure that the Bill has any credibility in the outside world, let alone fulfils the full obligations of the committee and deals with the problems to which so many Members of your Lordships’ House have been referring. Our amendment would ensure that the committee’s key recommendation was implemented before the Committee on Standards was asked to get involved in this potentially invidious way in the recall process. Alongside the other committee recommendations, such as that,

“the body of any Report makes clear whether or not the lay members agreed with the Report”,

this change would at least be a start in showing that the recall process is reasonably independent from MPs, and is seen to be so.

I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will be able to respond positively to this amendment. Although the composition of the committee is of course a matter for the whole House of Commons, I understand that the Leader of the House and his colleagues are taking this matter of the relationship between these proposals and the Recall of MPs Bill extremely seriously. Surely we can now have a firm assurance from the Government that they would not want to see this recall mechanism operated by a committee with an insufficient number of independent lay members sitting on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Yes, we will make exceptions in some cases—particularly for the sons of Church of England clergymen.

Standards have developed and moved, and we are discussing how we would advise the House of Commons and how the Government should respond to the House of Commons on its proposals to move the Standards Committee further. The recent report calls for an increase in the number of lay members—we have had three lay members since 2013—and in their representation as a proportion of the committee. The Government already have a high regard for the lay members of the Standards Committee and appreciate the very important role they play in the work of the committee. The three lay members who currently serve have clearly made a valuable contribution and add an important level of independence to the process.

The Standards Committee report has only very recently been published and the Government have not found time to agree a formal response—the matter is, after all, in principle for the Commons itself. If I may say as clearly as I can, the Government can see no reason at all why there should not be an increase in the number of lay members of the committee, as proposed in the Standards Committee’s report. The disciplinary procedures of the House of Commons are, in principle, a matter for that House as a whole. It is for the Government to facilitate a debate in which the report of the Standards Committee can be considered in detail and consequent changes agreed.

I would urge this House to ponder carefully any course of action that might be interpreted as pressuring, influencing or leaning on the other place to make such a significant change to its disciplinary procedure. After all, we come up against issues of parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary privilege.

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to my noble friend and recognise that he is in a difficult position for the reasons he has just enunciated. We do not want to look as if we are telling the House of Commons when it should take its business, but can he at least, say, on behalf of the Government, that it would be the hope and intention of the business managers for the extremely important report from the Standards Committee to be addressed and, I hope, action taken before the Dissolution of this Parliament later this month? May I appeal to the Minister to ignore the pleas from the ultra-conservative tendency in this House, represented by the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Cormack, who I think have not read the report of the Standards Committee which addresses very carefully the issues of parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary privilege?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I also give way to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I think this is a sensible compromise. I, too, supported the view that the excessive period was unnecessary. Once we had in place the flexibility on places for signing to take account of geography and demography in areas such as the one I know and the one the noble Baroness knows, it was a very sensible thing to move. I do not accept that a further, more drastic reduction to three or four weeks would really have been very practical. After all, this is not going to be an anticipated event in the same way that a general election is. There will be an extension of postal involvement in the process, and therefore six weeks is a reasonable period. A further reduction would be wrong. This is a good compromise, and I am grateful to my noble friend.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I add my thanks to the Minister for tabling this amendment, to which we have added our names. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, who argued persuasively both on Report and today. Given the move from four to 10 signing places, we really did not need the lengthy period of eight weeks. I hope that, for costs and other reasons, there will now be less need for people to apply for postal votes, and it will be easier for people to arrange to meet one of the signing places. While we would not want to rush the petition, we think that both the MP and the constituents deserve to have as swift a result as possible so that the MP is not taken away from their normal parliamentary duties for an inordinate period, as has been outlined by my noble friend Lord Howarth. We see six weeks as being an improvement on eight and look forward to this amendment passing shortly.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and I have also put our names to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on the role of the Electoral Commission. As the Minister has described, the amendments have the effect of requiring the Electoral Commission to take a greater role in the scrutiny of recall proceedings, which is to be welcomed. As a general principle, the Electoral Commission needs to move on from its present position of offering advice and guidance to more specific areas that it is responsible for, and to be held account properly by Parliament for its work in those areas. That is my position, although it is a matter for another day.

The specific amendments address the points that I have argued were lacking throughout the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for mirroring the amendments that we on these Benches put forward in previous stages of the Bill. The first set of amendments to Schedule 5 ensures that all returns by campaigners are subject to checks by the Electoral Commission and delete the phrase “on request”, thereby requiring the petition officer to deliver a copy of all the recall petition returns when they have been received. We strongly disputed the Electoral Commission’s view that these would be little local events with a local feel. I took the view that that was a silly claim by the commission; we all know that these will be national events attracting enormous media attention. The commission is best equipped to look at the work being done with returns, as it has both the resources and the expertise at its disposal. I did not accept the commission’s note on this when it said that it may need additional resources to make this work. We all hope that these provisions will be enacted very rarely, and I am very confident, as a former commissioner, that this extra work can be done from existing resources.

We believe that these amendments are particularly important, given that the Government have not accepted our concerns about the potential loopholes that have been left open with regards to donations and expenditure received by both accredited and non-accredited campaigners. This at least goes some way towards ensuring that the financial circumstances of campaigns are subject to some level of scrutiny. Although we are disappointed that the Government have failed to address what we from these Benches regard as the inherent unfairness in the equality of arms of accredited campaigners, as well as the lack of safeguards on permissible donors, we are at least glad that we have managed to persuade Ministers that it is paramount that donation returns are checked.

It is hoped that this will go some way to providing confidence in the financial aspects of recall campaign procedures, which we on this side of the House believe could be open to abuse. The Government’s other amendment to Schedule 5 is a technical amendment, which clarifies the Bill, and we support it. The amendments to Schedule 6 require the Electoral Commission to produce a report on the recall petition proceedings once they have been completed. As I said previously, given that this is an entirely new facet of campaigning, I believe that an independent assessment of the process would be greatly welcomed, not only by constituents but by those affected or involved in the process, and by everyone else involved.

In conclusion, the amendments made in your Lordships’ House have been small but significant in making it more workable for all involved. Perhaps the most important inclusion in the forthcoming regulations will be the requirement on the petition notification card to inform electors of the fact that they are signing what could become a public petition. Given that the Government rejected our judgment that this was de facto a public petition, this is at least something to address the issue of secrecy and the availability of the marked register, the details of which still have to be worked out.

Regrettably, little attention has been given to such practicalities or even the principles of the recall process, which explains why so much has been left to regulations —fairly inexcusable, given that the Government have had an entire Parliament to draft a 25-clause Bill. Despite this, the help that we received from the noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Gardiner of Kimble, was much appreciated, and we welcomed it very much. They were willing to meet us to discuss the detail and the principle, so I record my thanks and those of my colleagues on these Benches for their hard work. Also, I join them in supporting and thanking the Bill team for their hard work; they have been courteous and helpful throughout the process.

I thank my noble friend Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town. We were friends for many years before we came into the House—we came in on the same list nearly five years ago. It is always a pleasure to work with her. Her leadership and hard work on this are much appreciated by everyone involved. I thank my colleague Helen Williams from the opposition office for her contribution; though it was behind the scenes, it was very much appreciated by me and my colleagues here. I also thank noble Lords on all sides of the House for their work. We have done our job as a revising Chamber, and I am grateful to everyone involved.

We have all expressed the wish that the Bill will never need to be used. However, it is right that it should be as fit as possible in case it is. The Minister knows that we remain concerned about the possible intrusion of big money into the consideration of whether an MP should continue in Parliament. I hope that he is right and we are wrong in worrying about this. That apart, we have made the Bill a bit better than when it arrived in your Lordships’ House. I hope that it can now be moved on so it is an Act of Parliament very soon.

[Lord Tyler]

I wish to comment briefly on these amendments. Since the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, signed them, I felt it was only right that he should be allowed to go first, but I endorse everything he said; these are useful improvements. When the Bill first came to your Lordships’ House there was a certain mood that somehow we should not be making improvements to it—not that it was incapable of improvement, but that somehow we should not be looking at such internal matters as those with which the Bill is concerned because they are so clearly matters that intimately affect the Commons collectively and individual MPs. I am delighted that through the whole of the debate, at all stages, that apparent lack of confidence in the role of your Lordships’ House has fallen away and we have had very serious, helpful and, I hope, positive discussions about how to improve this legislation.

It would be ironic if, simply because the Bill affected so intimately the self-interest of Members of the other place, somehow we felt we could not take any view on it, when as a Parliament we clearly have to take a view both about the reputation of Parliament as a whole and about the intricacy and effectiveness of individual proposed legislation. I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that it may well be that this turns out not to be entirely fit for purpose. Presumably, it will be tested when, or if, it is used, and that will be an obvious moment for us to review the situation, as my noble friend Lord Norton and I said in a previous debate. If we had accepted the view that because it was of such intricate, direct self-interest concern to Members of Parliament then somehow or other we had to withhold our views, that would surely have given credence to the idea that the form of your Lordships’ House could not be a matter of concern to the other House of Parliament, which would be patently ludicrous. I am pleased that in fact that situation fell by the wayside and no one has pressed that.

I share with the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, my thanks as an individual Member of your Lordships’ House to all those who have taken such trouble within the Government to try to make sure that we had the best possible opportunities to influence the way in which this legislation came before us. In particular, I thank my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Gardiner for the impeccable way in which they have treated us, giving us every appropriate opportunity to try to improve the Bill. It is slightly improved, but I suspect that some of the issues that we were dealing with earlier today will come back to haunt us before too long.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tyler]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 13, leave out from “offence” to “, and” in line 14

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 3 in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Lexden and Lord Norton and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Our purpose throughout as a cross-party group has been to try to answer the very powerful point made by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House about the second trigger in the Bill concerning suspensions by the Standards Committee. I will remind the House briefly of that very important comment:

“the provision that an MP should be subject to recall where he or she is suspended from the House for ten sittings days or more means that it will be MPs themselves, rather than voters, who under this scenario determine whether the recall process can be triggered. The constitutional purpose of recall is to increase MPs’ direct accountability to their electorates: it is questionable whether that purpose is achieved when the trigger is put in the hands of MPs rather than constituents. There is also a possibility that decisions taken either by the House of Commons Committee on Standards or by the House itself may become skewed by knowledge of the ten-day trigger”.

The Government have now responded to this criticism with two important contentions. First,

“The Government believes that it is important to be careful to respect the disciplinary arrangements of the House of Commons”.

I had some difficulty in squaring that view with the purpose of the Bill, which is to increase direct accountability of MPs to voters. Deference to MPs’ own preferences about the regulation of standards created in a quite different environment and for a quite different purpose cannot be squared with direct accountability to the public. The second of the Government’s contentions in relation to the Constitution Committee’s concerns is that:

“It will be for the standards committee and for the House of Commons to judge how they wish to respond to the introduction of a recall mechanism”.

No one can disagree with that; they will have to work out how to respond.

However, lo and behold, I discovered this very morning this report published by the Standards Committee. In over 100 pages it sets out in extreme detail and with great relevance to this part of the Bill a whole set of proposals for the future of that committee. It comes from a sub-committee chaired by one of the lay members but comprising six very respected Members of that House and that committee. The proposals have huge significance in terms of the committee’s composition, its role and the way in which it could operate in the future. Nothing could have more salience for this part of the Bill and, indeed, to our amendments. It beggars belief that the Government’s response to the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, sent to the committee just a few days ago by Mr Sam Gyimah, made no reference whatever to the imminence of this report. It is also, incidentally, very relevant to Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

I simply do not know Mr Gyimah, as he entered the Commons in 2010 and by that time I had retired. I cannot imagine that a Minister of the Crown actually intended to mislead either our Constitution Committee or your Lordships’ House, but he must surely have been very badly advised or informed not to make any reference to this extremely important report. What were his officials thinking? I can imagine only that he may have been persuaded to be disingenuous, since surely he would not wish to have been thought naive. Either way, these are very unsatisfactory circumstances.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will certainly take that back and see what the Government can do. I hope that I have provided constructive answers to a very constructive debate, and I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Tyler]

May I ask my noble friend, with his very important noble friends on the Front Bench, to give the House an assurance that there will be no accelerated process towards Third Reading until these matters are properly discussed and resolved both in this House and in the other place?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we intend to proceed to Third Reading with all deliberate speed. The House will, of course, be in recess next week.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am grateful to all Members who have contributed to this debate. I wish that we had had a general debate of this nature rather earlier in the process on this Bill. The central point is that my noble friend has just said that he does not agree with our solution. He does not appear to agree with that of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, either, but he seems to recognise that some solution is necessary. That leaves us in a most extraordinary situation. The Government agree that this is unfinished business, yet they have produced no solution. I am afraid that that is an unsatisfactory situation.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this amendment would increase the number of signing places that a petition officer can designate in their constituency from a maximum of four to a maximum of 10. Noble Lords may recall that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee recommended that there should be a maximum of four signing places, and it is for this reason that the Bill included it as a maximum. That said, the Government have listened to the concerns expressed both in the other place and in this House during debates about the potential difficulties that a cap of four signing places could pose in certain circumstances, such as in constituencies that have a large number of population centres or are far flung and where it could be difficult for some constituents to attend a signing place in person.

Indeed, during the debate in Committee on the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which sought to introduce a minimum of four signing places, we heard how some electors in the noble Baroness’s home constituency of Brecon and Radnor could face a round trip of an hour or more by car and up to half a day by public transport if they wished to sign the petition in person. These concerns were shared by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who reminded us that constituencies such as Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles are made up of a number of islands served by ferries, which makes the choice as to where to designate signing places particularly important to those who live there. Having listened carefully to these arguments, the Government accept that, in some circumstances, petition officers may wish to designate more than four signing places.

In reaching the decision to increase the maximum number from four to 10, the Government have consulted those returning officers whose constituencies could benefit most from raising the cap. I am particularly grateful to the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, which provided views on the subject, and, through them, the returning officers for the Western Isles and for Argyll and Bute. They were clear that a limit of four could pose particular challenges in large rural constituencies or those with a number of islands, and felt that a raised limit would afford them helpful flexibility.

We do not propose to make this an open-ended provision whereby petition officers can designate a considerably higher number of signing places, and nor do we propose to impose a minimum number of signing places that is greater than one. As we said in previous debates on the subject, the petition will be open for eight weeks and there will be an option to sign by post. In some constituencies, it may be that one or two signing places will be sufficient, as has been argued by the Association of Electoral Administrators and the Electoral Commission. I am of the view that we must ensure that petition officers can take a proportionate approach to the provision of signing places.

I recognise the need to ensure that there is enough flexibility to ensure reasonable access for constituents, especially in larger constituencies or those with particular geography. The Government believe that increasing the maximum number of signing places that can be designated to a maximum of 10 allows petition officers to designate the appropriate number of signing places based on the characteristics of their constituency. I also note that the Electoral Commission has stated in its briefing for this debate that it welcomes the change provided for by this amendment to allow greater flexibility for petition officers. I thank those noble Lords who participated in the earlier debates. We have reached a sound conclusion and I beg to move.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am delighted to see that my noble friends have been able to respond to the views expressed right across the House on this issue in Committee. Geography, scale and lack of public transport were certainly features in my former constituency of North Cornwall, as I referred to in Committee. But I am even more delighted to witness the fact that my noble friends on the Front Bench seem to be listening a little to what has been said in the House on this Bill—just a tiny little bit. I hope that between now and Third Reading we see some more evidence of flexibility from my noble friends.

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[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House for long, but would the Minister like to say exactly why eight weeks was chosen? In all our debates, I have never heard—I may have missed it—a precise definition of how that was arrived at. Why eight weeks? There must have been some reason for choosing eight weeks. Was some sort of scientific study done? Or was eight weeks simply plucked out of the air as a good idea? Of course, the shortest time would be one day, but that is clearly impracticable. We would not want it to be a sort of side-show to be done in one day.

I simply throw this into the ring. It may be that the eight weeks that is provided to give people the maximum amount of time to make up their minds and to vote actually has the opposite effect. By the end of these eight weeks, people may be so fed up with it that they will not bother going to sign the petition, which would be counterproductive. The other side of that is that when you ask people to sign the petition, they might ask, “When do we have to sign by?”. If you say, “Eight weeks from now—two months”, they will say “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Some of my noble friends will, like me, remember knocking on people’s doors asking them to go the poll and them saying, “Can we come and do it tomorrow?”. That is absolutely true. I imagine that people will say, “Well, we’ll put it off”.

Although I am one of those who is, if you like, a sort of prophet of doom in the sense of fearing that a huge frenzy will build up in the media, even the media cannot sustain things much beyond three weeks. Even the most lurid cases disappear after three weeks, because the media have moved on to something else. I am not sure that even the media would be prepared to commit the resources to get the petition signed for, in totality, beyond two or three days.

Apart from that, the timing is far too long. A decision must be arrived at, although whether three weeks is the right length of time or not, I really do not know. My noble friend has not said why it should be three weeks; he said that perhaps it could be three or four. We should be flexible on this, in the sense that neither the coalition Government nor we should say it has to be three weeks and nothing more or nothing less. The Government are wrong in thinking they have to stick by eight weeks. If the Minister cannot accept three weeks, I hope he will understand that this is not an attempt to wreck the Bill or anything like that. Whatever its faults, we have to try to make the Bill as sensible and workable as possible. Why eight weeks? Why not four weeks? Would that not be a much better way and a much better use of resources?

[Lord Tyler]

I was enormously impressed with the noble Lord’s very dramatic introduction of his amendment. Perhaps he has been over-Mantelled recently and has been watching too much “Wolf Hall”. However, in these circumstances, he has a perfectly valid point.

My questions follow on from the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. Who advised Ministers that it should be eight weeks? Most significantly, there is the very important cross-reference with the number of signing places, which my noble friend Lord Norton and I referred to in Committee. If there are only two signing places, perhaps you do need longer; but if there are 10, you should obviously review that situation. Has whoever gave advice to Ministers on the number of weeks, on the original basis of a maximum of four signing places, been asked to review that advice in the light of the Government’s now much more flexible attitude? That is something we need to be told now, otherwise it seems to me that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has huge merit, at least in making the Government think again about the very new circumstances that their own flexibility has now created.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment for the reasons we discussed in Committee. I argued then that the number of signing places should be expanded and the period of time in which you can sign reduced. The Government have got half way there, so I hope that they will now go the rest of the way as well, for the reasons that have been well advanced.

Like other noble Lords, I cannot understand the rationale for eight weeks. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, it is much longer than an election campaign. In the case of one election, the Prime Minister announced it and it took place four weeks to the day after that. However, here we are saying that twice as long should be available for people to reflect on whether they should sign a petition—eight weeks. Why on earth should anyone take eight weeks to think about whether they should sign a petition or not? The news about the Member being eligible will be out quickly. It will be in the news and, as has been touched on, it will then cease to be newsworthy after a matter of days, if that. Why are we going to linger for weeks with people sat at polling stations twiddling their thumbs waiting for people to turn up and sign? I can see no argument for that length of time. It is not even as if we are still in the period where it took days for news to reach people and they then had to rely on some slow means of transport to get somewhere to actually sign something. Even if we were in that period, they could do it in less than eight weeks. Why nowadays, with instant communication and the ability to get to one of potentially 10 places to sign fairly quickly, do we need as long as eight weeks? It may be an arbitrary figure, but why eight rather than, say, six?

The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that he is flexible and that it could be four or five weeks. I thought he was, if anything, generous in saying three weeks. Why on earth would you need three weeks to reflect? Are you going to call the family together to hold great deliberations about whether you should sign it or not? Once you know about it, you think about it and then you decide whether you are going to make the effort to go and sign the petition—you go and sign and that is it. That could be quite easily achieved within a period of three weeks and, to be honest, one could achieve it with a much shorter period.

As I said, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is being quite generous in putting down that figure. Had he not put down his amendment, I would have put one down to reduce the period and would probably have chosen an even shorter period. The argument for his amendment is eminently rational. It does not raise any serious issue of principle in terms of recall per se, so I see no reason why the Government, having moved on the number of places where signing can take place, could not be moved just as easily on this. It makes perfect sense. There is also the practical point that was touched on about people having to staff the places at which signing can take place. There is a cost to the public purse, and we should not lose sight of that.

Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, we have plenty of time. When two noble Lords stand up, perhaps one of them could be courteous to the other and decide to give way.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is something that we need to learn about five-year Parliaments. There are some very good proposals from the Institute for Government and from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee about how best to use the fifth year of a Parliament to discuss some of the issues that any Government will have to deal with—for example, Green Papers on the future of the National Health Service, et cetera. That is something which, in a future five-year Parliament, perhaps with another stable coalition Government, we might do. We have delivered stable government through difficult economic times for five years, unlike the Labour Governments of 1974 to 1979, and others. That is a very major advantage.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that there are 19 government Bills still in play in this Session and a further 14 government-backed Private Members’ Bills? There are a number of draft Bills and more than 90 statutory instruments, so this Parliament still has a lot of work to do. Does he agree that anyone who attended our very interesting debate yesterday on the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill or indeed the debate on the Infrastructure Bill in the other House can see that Parliament is working really hard at the moment? Any suggestion that this is a zombie Parliament is ridiculous. Has my noble friend also noted that the Labour Opposition in the other House constantly complain that they have not enough time whenever a programme Motion is recommended?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think that we stand a good chance this time of avoiding the dreadful experience of the wash-up which we have had when elections are called at short notice and the rushed election campaigns which follow.