House of Lords: Future Location

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I know the noble Lord to be a powerful advocate for the idea referred to in his Question. On the one hand, it is the case that some years ago, the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster looked at the option of Parliament moving outside of London and decided against it, principally on grounds of cost and the absence of proximity between Parliament and government. On the other hand, there is no reason why these matters should not receive renewed scrutiny and, as I have said, the options are being looked at.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, is it an indication of the depth of research undertaken by the Government on this that the briefing to the Sunday Times said that one advantage of York is that it is now only three hours by train from London? When I came back directly from York to London last weekend, it took me just under two hours. Does this suggest that the Government have not thought this through?

The Government are now mulling over two suggestions. One is whether to devolve power to the north of England, which they have not yet fully addressed, particularly in refusing the One Yorkshire proposals. The other is reform of the House of Lords, regarding which regional representation for a substantial part of the House is already on the table—something that, again, the Government have not addressed.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree that those are two important issues. The Government have an aspiration that all parts of the United Kingdom should feel connected to politics and indeed to politicians, including unelected politicians. On his first point about whether the idea of relocating of the House of Lords should be taken forward, I am sure that all logistical aspects would be examined.

Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission: Civil Society

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate, and that idea is certainly in the mix.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister quotes from the briefing on the Queen’s Speech on careful consideration being needed, which seems to suggest that very little thought has yet been given to this. Will the careful consideration on the composition and focus of this commission take place within government or in co-operation with other parties, or with interested groups outside government and politics altogether? Is that the wider consideration that is intended?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I wish that I could help the noble Lord, but it is simply too soon for me to be able to comment on that. As we heard in the debate in your Lordships’ House last Wednesday, the subject matter under the umbrella heading of the constitution is potentially very broad, so decisions are needed on exactly how broad the commission’s remit should sensibly be.

Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. As I said, the precise scope of the review has yet to be determined, but I have no doubt that cyber will feature large in the subjects to be addressed.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, it is clear that this will be a long-term review and will take a considerable amount of time. Meanwhile, our policy towards the Middle East, which has been made very much in close relation with France and Germany, will be left as we leave the European Union at the end of this month without the framework through which we have operated. Are there plans to make some interim arrangements until we come to the end of the review, for example by responding to the proposals floated by the French and German Governments for a European security council, which would keep Britain in the loop?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we aim to keep pace with whatever happens in Europe after we leave the EU. However, we have made clear that, while we are leaving the EU, we have committed to strengthen our co-operation with Europe on security, our intelligence services have highly effective co-operation to build on, and, of course, the foundation of European security since 1949 has been the NATO alliance, which will not change.

Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament: Special Report

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

In due course, the Government will release the report for publication, but the processes must be gone through first.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that there have been press reports in the past two or three days on this. There have been what look to be official select leaks saying that actually, the report exonerates everyone regarding Russian money. However, the Guardian this morning states that the report deals with allegations that,

“Russian money has flowed into British politics in general and the Conservative party”.

Edward Lucas in the Times this morning reports that he understood clearly that the report was on track towards imminent publication last Thursday and has since been blocked by No. 10. Given those reports, which are damaging for the Conservative Party at the start of an election campaign, does the Minister not think it extremely wise to ensure that the report is published as soon as possible, before it becomes more of a campaign issue?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I note the noble Lord’s comments. The governing Act—the Justice and Security Act 2013—makes it clear that the impact of releasing potentially sensitive or sensitive information needs to be considered carefully by the Prime Minister on the advice of civil servants. That process cannot be rushed; I say that with some emphasis.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, there has been a remarkable consensus around the House in this debate. My party would prefer a confirmatory referendum. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats in the Commons put down 17 amendments for a people’s vote and voted seven times on amendments to promote it. As my noble friend Lord Newby said earlier, we have come to the conclusion that the Commons lacks a majority for that. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said that the Labour Party is moving towards a confirmatory referendum, but there is a deadline—the third deadline. After two extensions, now to the end of next January, the member Governments of the European Union are beginning to lose patience with us and the question of whether we should have a further extension has been raised by several of them. Sadly, we cannot wait for the Labour Party’s position gradually and slowly to evolve further.

We would also have preferred the extension of the franchise to 16 year-olds and to EU citizens who are settled in this country, but we recognise that our electoral law is a collection of imperial and historical anomalies. Irish and Commonwealth citizens resident in this country have the vote, while American and EU citizens who are long-term residents do not. These are important issues that we need to address, but in the next Parliament.

There has also been some discussion about the extent to which we are facing a constitutional crisis. A number of noble Lords do not like the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but underneath that there are some large questions about the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. I note that our current Prime Minister, that wonderful democrat who was vigorously campaigning three years ago to restore parliamentary sovereignty from subjection, as he put it, to the European Union, was last week quoted as calling for the people—by which I think he meant himself as the proclaimed representative of the people —to be freed from their subjection to Parliament. That sort of language is part of our problem, as he follows the path of Cromwell from great parliamentarian to great authoritarian.

We have an unwritten constitution, which depended on honourable men accepting its conventions. I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, when answering a Question on the resignation of the then Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, on his ability to ignore the Ministerial Code in three different places by announcing, two days after resigning, that he was to become once again a highly paid columnist with the Daily Telegraph, said that, “There are no penalties for breaking the Ministerial Code. It depends upon honour”. Unfortunately, that is of course part of what we have been losing in our political life.

We have a crisis of our political system. We are supposed to have a two-party system in which, when the Government weaken, the Opposition are in a fit state to take over and become the Government instead. But what we now have are two entrenched parties, both deeply divided. We have suffered a long crisis of conservatism in the last 20 years, between one-nation conservatism and the libertarian free market right, with a Prime Minister now who pretends that he can somehow straddle the gap, as he uses inflammatory nationalist language at one point and then talks about the need for one-nation conservatism at another. The Labour Party is similarly split, between the centre left and radical socialism. We now know that single-party government does not provide strong and stable government. We perhaps need to begin adjust to a much more diverse electorate—in attitude and origin—and to multi-party politics and a stronger Parliament.

We need also to talk about the language and practice of politics. I ask the noble Earl, Lord Howe, when replying, to give us some assurances on this. The extent to which violent language has come into our politics in recent years is deeply damaging and one explanation why so many Members of Parliament are not standing again at the end of this Parliament. We know that our Prime Minister himself and the right-wing media have used inflammatory language. I find the demonisation of Dominic Grieve and Philip Hammond, for example, by senior official sources in No. 10 as well as by the right-wing media, to be deeply shocking. Here are senior members of the governing party being demonised by the person some now call “Demonic Cummings”. I hope the noble Earl will say that there are those within the Government who are very concerned to make sure that, in an election campaign, dialogue and respect for alternative opinions are maintained. What the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, called the “ethos of Parliament” also needs to be the ethos of democratic debate.

A number of noble Lords talked about digital campaigning and spending. We know that our electoral law is in much need of reform, but we are not going to get it. I therefore hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something about the care with which the Government will encourage the Electoral Commission to monitor behaviour throughout the coming campaign.

Responsible politicians are needed on all sides if we are to regain popular trust. I remind noble Lords that, if we come to a result in this election in which a number of parties are elected to Parliament and none has an overall majority, that will also require responsible behaviour after the election—co-operation among parties and politicians, and respect for those of different opinions.

Prorogation Recall

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Does the Minister agree with the following statement in the Commons Library briefing:

“Long prorogations … can give rise to fundamental questions about whether the Government of the day still commands the confidence of the House of Commons and therefore whether it can legitimately continue to govern”?


Has he had access to the paper on the impact of a no-deal Brexit which the Daily Mail tells us the Government have now decided not to publish and which says that we are heading towards an entirely foreseeable, major national crisis in our economy and society within the next eight weeks if we crash out with a no-deal Brexit? Would he regard that as the sort of depth of crisis which required Parliament to be recalled?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I have not had access to that paper. My noble friend Lord Callanan will give an update on Brexit preparations and take questions on those matters this afternoon, so I suggest that the noble Lord puts his question to my noble friend.

Priorities for the Government

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend. I am happy to reaffirm our absolute commitment to and focus on attempting to get devolved government back up and running in Northern Ireland. As we discussed at length last week, it is not an acceptable situation for the people of Northern Ireland. We will do all that we can to bring the parties back together because we need to get devolved government back up so that the people of Northern Ireland can move forward and have the proper, good governance of their region and their country that they deserve.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, how does the Leader of the House understand the concept of positive thinking? I am not entirely sure where the Government have got the concept from. I spent three and a half years in the United States and I well remember the extent to which the Pentecostal movement there uses the power of positive thinking as a faith-based good-news gospel. Indeed, President Trump was taken as a boy by his father to the church in Manhattan where the author of The Power of Positive Thinking was the minister. Do the Government link up with that movement in the US? Are we going to find Ministers in our Government promoting this sort of good-news gospel in Britain, or is the concept of positive thinking—a rather Trumpian concept, I have to say—going to hang there without the Protestant fundamentalism around which it was built?

European Council

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord will know that the Council’s conclusions are available for all to read. I am sure everyone interested will do so.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, in view of the very positive remarks in the Council’s report about foreign policy co-operation and its usefulness to Britain, is it not time that the Government said something positive about how they intend to continue that co-operation after we leave—if we leave? Very little has been said about that. The current Foreign Secretary and his predecessor, who are now the two candidates for the Conservative Party leadership, have made hostile remarks about European co-operation on occasion when in office. What we need to educate our public is a clear statement from the Government about the sort of institutionalised foreign policy co-operation which they hope to continue after we leave.

European Council

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, we hope to work towards bringing the deal back this week. Under the terms of the EU conclusions, the agreement was that the deal had to pass this week for us to get the extension to 22 May. Our hope is that we get the deal through this week. Obviously, if we do not, the next crunch point will be 12 April. I suppose we could ask the EU if we could bring the deal back next week but, under the current terms, we need to bring it back this week. That is why we will be working hard to ensure that we can get a majority for it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, may I clarify the business for this week? I have spent my career in international relations, although I am not a lawyer. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is entirely correct in saying that we need to carry an international agreement into domestic law for it to happen; this House and the other House will be doing so this week. Then, at some very urgent point within the next 10 days at the latest, the withdrawal agreement, however modified, again must be put before both Houses. If it is not, we will still be stuck with the date of 12 April.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We have laid the statutory instrument to which the noble Lord refers, and our intention is to debate it on Wednesday.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We are extremely clear about the seriousness of the situation, which is why we are continuing to work for a deal that can be passed in a vote on 12 March. The Statement sets out a very clear set of steps that will happen after that in order that the voice of the House of Commons can be heard if we do not win the vote on 12 March, but we are committed to trying to do that, and that is what we are all focused on.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, it is clear that we need the good will of the other members of the European Union to negotiate any sort of positive deal about the future relationship. The Prime Minister must be using all the good will we have accumulated over the past 50 years in the patience she requires from the other people she spends all her time talking to. Meanwhile, the officers of the European Research Group continue to insult the Germans, the European Commission and others—as do some of the right-wing media—suggesting that we must escape from the European Union and leave the enemies of Britain in Brussels, Berlin, et cetera, behind. The Prime Minister has said nothing to discourage these right-wing Brexiteers from antagonising our future European partners. Surely if the Government want to reunite the country, they should also say that even if we are leaving we need the positive and active co-operation of our neighbours and allies across the channel.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Of course we need good relationships. In fact, those relationships are bearing fruit in the constructive discussions at the moment. The Prime Minister and all of us are very clear that we want a positive, strong, close relationship with the EU. That is what we want to achieve. That is the work that we want to get on with once we move past the withdrawal phase, and that is what we are all aiming to do.