Government and Parliament

Debate between Lord Wakeham and Lord Woolmer of Leeds

Thursday 9th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, it is one of the great strengths of the House of Lords that a considerable amount of thinking seems to go on between one debate on a subject and the next time that it comes up. That is a credit to everyone, but today I think credit is due particularly to the Leader of the Opposition. A great deal of what she had to say was very sensible, and I am very glad that she said it. This goes back to what I said in the Queen’s Speech debate: I wanted a proper discussion on these matters and I wanted it to be led by the Opposition. Governments have the chance to bring in legislation if they want, but Oppositions are the people who have the power and the opportunity to persuade people that we are not doing things the right way and that we ought to change them. So I am full of praise for the start of the debate. I am hesitant to say a lot of the things that I might otherwise have said, because I do not want in any way to prejudice a proper discussion of all these matters, which I think is not best done in the atmosphere of the House.

However, we are not quite as bad as some people have made out. If we look back to the debate on 24 March, we see that a lot of concerns were expressed but there were quite a lot of things on which most of the people who spoke more or less agreed. First, for example, there was a degree of unanimity that things were not satisfactory at present. Secondly, there were those of us who argued that what we were concerned with were clashes between the Lords and the Commons, while others argued that they were clashes between the Executive and Parliament. It was the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who pointed out that they are both the same thing in practice, and that we ought not to get too uptight about that. There was also, as there has been in this debate, a general feeling that a Government with a majority are entitled to get their business through. Lastly, while no one actually ruled out legislation, at least on the government side, there was a general feeling that if we could find a way of dealing with these matters without legislation it would be a great advantage to everyone. Of course there were things on which we disagreed, and we have encountered them again today, such as statutory instruments, Henry VIII clauses and so on.

It is roughly 44 years since I came into Parliament, and I have to say that these debates have been going on for all that time and probably will for another 44 years after I have long since disappeared. The evidence is not overwhelmingly on one side, which is why the matter needs to be looked at. There are people who argue that that is not what has actually been happening. It is argued—my noble friend Lord Norton said something like this a minute ago—that the Executive are becoming more powerful than Parliament. However, quite a lot of academic research demonstrates that Parliament has much more power over the Executive than was ever the case in the past. There is a considerable amount of academic information about things that Parliament has done to Bills brought in by Governments. I would like there to be a cool discussion of these issues in finding a better way forward.

Every now and again we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on this subject. He is quite right to raise the question of financial privilege—we have not yet had an answer on that. We need to know what goes on and whether it is properly controlled. It is not that we are worried about the House of Lords having the right to vote down secondary legislation; it is the fact that under the present system there is a complete veto. That is the problem. We need to find a way of getting over it, so of course we need to have a proper discussion. An absolute veto is not acceptable in this day and age.

I very much welcome the tone of a lot of the contributions to this debate. There are ways forward that will not necessarily require legislation, but this issue will require a certain amount of good will and co-operation on all sides of the House.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds]

The noble Lord mentioned an absolute veto. Is it not the case that a statutory instrument annulled by this House as a negative instrument can be brought back immediately with a change of title, and that an affirmative resolution instrument which is rejected can be brought back with minor amendments? So it is not an absolute veto. That is what happened in the case of the Rhodesian sanctions.

[Lord Wakeham]

Somebody who has spent as many years in business management as I have knows that there are ways around all sorts of things. However, the fact is that a statutory instrument which is rejected by this House is dead and another way has to be found of dealing with it. In my opinion, that is a nonsense. We have to find a way of giving this House more influence while recognising that, ultimately, the House of Commons has the final say.