Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 10 I will also speak to Amendment 13 and the others in the group. I would particularly like to say how helpful I thought the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, were in helping us to clarify these very broad terms: public bodies and public authorities. I have just been looking back at some of the debates on the Human Rights Act 1998, during which then Home Secretary Jack Straw said that this was an extremely difficult area on which to find an exact definition; he decided to leave it to the courts for further definition.

One of the things we have to consider while discussing this is how much we do want to leave it to the courts, or to ensure that what it says in the legislation is a little tighter than what we have so far. The drafting of the Bill in so many areas is extraordinarily and dangerously loose. I thank the Minister for the letter she has sent me and no doubt others on the question of individual responsibility and personal liability. I am not sure that I entirely understood it; I showed it to one or two legal acquaintances, and they are not sure that they are much clearer than they were before. That perhaps shows some of the difficulties in which we are engaged.

When I first read this Bill, I noticed that it declared in its title that it was about public bodies, and that in Clause 2 it says it is about public authorities. As it happens, I got into the lift with another Member of this House, with whom I worked when he was a Conservative Cabinet Minister during the coalition Government. I asked him casually: “Tell me, do you think that a public body and a public authority are the same thing?”. He said: “Oh no, of course not. The definition of a public body is far narrower than that of a public authority”.

A Bill that starts by having one of these terms in its title, and then goes on to use the other term in the text, raises a number of questions. This morning I reread the impact assessment, which uses the terms interchangeably, by and large preferring “public body” to “public authority”. I worry about how clear those who drafted the Bill are about what they are doing. We then go into “hybrid public bodies”, which the impact assessment talks about, or hybrid public authorities. When I began to read through Lexis and try to understand some of the case law—in which a number of noble and learned Members of this House emerge as those who have made judgments on this—I discovered that functional public authorities and hybrid public authorities raise many of the questions with which we would have to deal, if and when this became an Act. The line between public and private functions for public authorities that are partly public and partly private is a very delicate one, and one on which litigation leaves much room.

We all know what core public authorities are, but hybrid public authorities are a very loose and broad entity. The Minister said on a previous occasion, in another context, that there were well over 100,000 public authorities. No doubt the definition, after a while, becomes extremely unclear. After all, Section 6(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 talks about

“any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature”.

The question of how many functions need to be of a public nature, and how much that affects how they behave in other areas, has been contested in the courts on many occasions. Court cases have ruled that a privatised railway company, for example, is not a public authority, but that a privatised water company and, in a different case, a private provider of social housing are, for certain purposes, public authorities. Rulings have differed on whether private care providers to local authorities are public authorities.

The impact assessment and the ministerial letter refer to “cultural institutions” as coming within this. In the letter that came to us before Second Reading, the Minister talks about museums and galleries that receive significant amounts of public money. Amendment 13 is intended to probe what is meant by significant amounts of public money. I have suggested in that amendment that the bar should be put at 50%, as opposed to whether this was largely public or largely private with public aspects. A court case in 1999 found that the University of Cambridge—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The noble Lord mentioned at one stage whether railway companies are public bodies. A train operating company, for example, is clearly not a public body when it is a private company, but if it goes bankrupt or has difficulties it gets taken over by the Government. If the Government then get it right in due course, it goes back to the private sector. Can bodies oscillate between the two categories? Is that a further complication?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I defer to my noble friends on that. Part of my concern about this law is that there will be a great deal of employment for my learned friends to be found in it, if it were to go through.

Indeed, that is one of the things which appears in the delegated powers memorandum, which says at paragraph 4:

“It is intended that the measures will be widely construed”.


Paragraph 12 says:

“The prohibition will apply to ‘public authorities’ in accordance with section 6 HRA 1998; however, interpretations of section 6 HRA 1998 can create uncertainty which means that the Bill may, including as case law evolves, capture a range of bodies that it was not necessarily intended to apply to. It may be necessary to put beyond doubt that certain bodies (that are outside the scope of the intention to ban public bodies from boycotts and divestments) fall outside the definition of ‘public authority’ for the purpose of the Bill”.


I hope that the lack of clarity of that is clear.

The impact assessment does refer to hybrid public bodies and suggests that it is concerned to prevent them pursuing political and foreign policy agendas, “including with public money”. I interpret that as meaning that such hybrid public authorities may perhaps not be allowed to pursue such agendas, including when they are using private money. That is a question that will concern a great many people, in particular the university sector, from which we have received further correspondence on this precise area.

The Minister has not told us enough about the broad last category, cultural institutions, and whether this includes theatres and orchestras on foreign tours, as well as museums and galleries—and why on earth museums and galleries are in there. That is another area where I suspect that sector would prefer a little more certainty.

Universities have been particularly concerned about the impact on their international partnerships, which are, I am assured by my university friends, part of their private functions. Some of these are education partnerships, some are transnational research partnerships —I declare an interest, in that my son is actively engaged in this—and some are with foreign companies and donors. They can be very sensitive and can raise reputational problems, as some universities, including the one I used to work for, have learned to their cost. Again, it would be helpful if we had more detailed guidance on that.

At several points in the impact assessment, and in the memoranda to the Delegated Powers Committee and others, the Government emphasise the importance of ensuring the coherence of British foreign policy, and that it should not allow others to conduct their own foreign policy agendas. I notice the Express reported the other week that the Government have signed immensely valuable trade deals with Washington state and Texas. It seems an interesting contradiction for the British Government to insist that subordinate entities within the UK state should not be allowed to engage in any sort of deal with other countries while they actively attempt to get past Washington to deal with American states. I am not sure whether these are significant trade deals or not; I have the memorandum of understanding with the state of Washington and it seems rather less substantial than the Daily Express suggests.

The Minister may be thinking that precision does not matter so much in the Bill because it is intended to be largely performative and not to lead, in practice, to any serious enforcement. After all, the impact assessment notes how little boycott activity there has so far been beyond discussion, and the Bill is unlikely to be implemented before the coming election. However, we should not be in the business of permitting the Government to put badly drafted law on to the statute book for show. We need much greater clarity, and I look forward to what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will say about the need for clarity in this area. The Minister shares with the House the responsibility to ensure that the Bill does not become an Act without much greater clarity about its terminology and the extent of its reach over the UK’s public and private bodies. I beg to move.

House Of Lords: Appointments System

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Report stage
Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I simply say that I thought that that was a masterly exposition by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I would happily second all the questions that he is asking of the Minister on the absurd ramifications. The only thing that I would say by way of regret to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is that we do not need an inquiry or further consideration. The simple solution is invariably the best one, and it is not to extend the ability to vote from overseas beyond the 15 years very wisely and fairly established by the Labour Government. This acknowledged that people might quite legitimately be going abroad for a while, and it would be wrong to disenfranchise them, but, by the end of 15 years, it is pretty well established that someone is unlikely to return and their connection with the United Kingdom diminishes by the day—and they are living with the consequences. I will certainly not repeat the argument, but, when you have a problem, look for the simple solution. Let us all agree that this extension of the franchise for life, virtually irrespective of residence, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, has declared, is absurd.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest. I have two sisters, one of whom left Britain 60 years ago and the other 50 years ago. They would be entitled to vote under this provision. I also have a nephew and a niece who left in infancy. They too would be entitled to vote under this scheme.

I also declare an interest in that my party has been in favour of moving towards overseas voting and has thought some of it through. It has looked at practice in comparable countries such as France and Australia. It is clear that we need to involve embassies and consulates abroad if we are to make sure that votes are returned in time. It is also clear that we should be moving towards overseas constituencies, given the different requirements of those who vote from overseas. This happens in a number of other countries. It could be done here. The Minister seemed astonished when I first mentioned overseas constituencies, as if he had not heard of them before.

I have had hundreds of messages about this, from people in France in particular. First, the local MP where they are still registered tells them it is nothing to do with them and they are not going to take up their case because they do not live in the constituency. Secondly, they would like to have overseas constituencies with particular MPs, or Members of the second Chamber or whatever, who would take their interests into account. France has a small number of overseas constituencies, with a much larger number of voters per constituency, and their interests are taken into account.

I hope the Minister will not mind my saying that, when I first went to discuss with him and his team the way in which this extension might be implemented, I was staggered by the lack of detail and what seemed to me to be a lack of interest in the detail. We have very little information on its implementation. It is not quite as bad as the Government’s proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which appears to have had almost no thought as to how it might be implemented or costed.

There are a range of things that we need to consider. We know already that getting ballot papers out to foreign countries and back within the short time period is extremely difficult and very often fails. What do the Government propose to do about this if they are going to implement this expanded scheme? We have not yet heard anything on that. Will it involve embassies and consulates abroad? I asked a Question last summer and was told by the Foreign Office that it had not been consulted on this and did not expect to be involved to any degree. The Australians, the French and others clearly play a large role in managing and assisting with overseas voting. How therefore would this be carried out in practice when it comes? The Government also wish to shorten the campaigning period. At present, that proposal has been put off. If the campaigning period were any shorter, getting ballots out and back would be almost completely impossible.

This amendment says, “Tell us how you will do this. Demonstrate to Parliament that you have actually thought this through and that you have some way of identifying who are British citizens overseas, where they were residing in Britain beforehand and that, if they wish to vote, the means will be provided for them to receive ballot papers and to get them back—and do not implement it until you are able to answer those questions”. I have not yet heard the Minister or his officials be able to answer any of these questions, and therefore we have tabled this amendment.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Yes, and to create overseas constituencies. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, who was deeply shocked to be told by the noble Lord, Lord True, in a meeting a few weeks ago when he recommended the creation of overseas constituencies on the French model that that was Liberal Democrat policy. I hope he has now recovered from the shock.

There are tremendous problems with the Bill and the failure to connect all these dimensions. We will come in the sixth group to one of the other reasons why the Conservatives want to push ahead with extending the rights to overseas voting without thinking through the other dimensions of it, which the Liberal Democrats have thought through—the expectation that, once overseas voters are on register, they will be able to increase the systemic advantages—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for talking about people thinking through the consequences of legislation, and of amendments. I remain puzzled by the Liberal Democrat policy that these 2.5 million additional people, who have never lived in this country, other than maybe for a very short time when they were very young, and who do not pay taxes into or own property in this country—not that that should be a qualification to vote, of course—must now be given the right to vote, should they choose to do so, in British general elections. There are lots of ramifications that the noble Lord has not thought through.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

There are lots of ramifications that we have discussed extensively. I am happy to discuss them with the noble Lord off the Floor. What I am objecting to is dashing ahead with this without the creation of special constituencies and a number of other things that would begin to match the demand for them to come in.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, might be disappointed to hear me say that we do not disagree on very much. I strongly agree with his emphasis on citizenship. The badge of a liberal democracy is active citizenship. One of the things that most concerns me about the drift of politics and legislation in this country is that we are heading towards a much more passive model of citizenship and a much more populist model of democracy. That is another thing to which, in broader terms, we must at some point return.

For the moment, having recognised that the Government have not worked out what they want on all this, and that they have inherited a tangle of historical rights to vote and denials of the right to vote, I am happy to withdraw my amendment. I hope this might just possibly be one of the issues we will discuss between Committee and Report.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I remind him of the third link in this, which is that campaigning for overseas voters is going to be very expensive and the advantage will go to the party that has the most money, in terms of contacting them and soliciting their vote. So, in terms of a level playing field, the addition of another 2.5 million overseas voters tips the balance even further in favour of the richest party.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with that.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

These were exchanges on and off the Floor of the House of Commons.

That would have been a major set of changes to voting rights that might even have included some form of examination of our voting system. I draw attention to Amendment 140, which suggests that we need a citizens’ assembly on methods of voting for different elections in this country. That would be highly desirable, encouraging an intelligent approach and taking out of the control of parties the question of whose advantage is most looked to in this respect.

This Government have mucked about with local government over an extended period. I am not a great fan of metro mayors—certainly not metro mayors without the scrutiny of elected assemblies—but the Government have them. The Government have reduced the number of local councillors, and now they want to muck about with the system, partly because what Michael Gove and other enthusiasts thought they wanted—independently minded people like we saw in New York and Chicago—has not yet emerged very strongly. But some of those who emerged are rather good, or not so good, Labour candidates, who do not please the Government. Be that as it may, we have a current system for elected mayors.

The only argument, in effect, that the Government can make in defence of this change is that the voters of London and other cities are not as intelligent as their counterparts in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere and are not capable of understanding a complicated system such as the supplementary vote and therefore we have to go back to the first past the post. That is not a good argument, and I look forward to hearing what alternative argument the Minister may wish to produce.

One of the problems with the first past the post system is that it works really well only when there is a clear two-party system and the two-party system has broken down in almost all democratic countries in recent years, except for the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom and the United States, factionalism within both major parties has almost wrecked our politics, partly because the extremists —or less moderate—in both major parties have done their best to take over their party rather than going off and forming their own.

I was very struck by an argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, during our previous day in Committee, which was that you need to be very careful about how the selection process for candidates works because in most constituencies in Britain the selection process decides who will be the MP. The attraction of any form of alternative voting, supplementary voting or proportional representation is that it gives the voter some choice among candidates.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

In European elections, for example, if you are top of your party’s list, it is pretty close to being a safe seat.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

The noble Lord and I will have conversations about list systems and non-list systems off the Floor of the House.

On Amendment 144C on proportional representation in local elections, I recall very clearly many years ago that the borough of Rochdale had all-out local elections and thus required three candidates for each ward rather than one. What was most striking was that that was the point at which Rochdale ceased to have overwhelmingly white male councillors because if the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives each had to choose three candidates, they tended to choose one white man, one woman and one Asian. That gave people a choice and in some wards people voted for the woman or the Asian in greater numbers than they did for the Labour or Conservative candidate, which you might think is not a bad thing as a matter of choice in elections.

I remind the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is deeply committed to the idea of the constituency, that until the first five years of my life the tried-and-tested constituency system in the United Kingdom included a large number of multi-Member constituencies. The last double-Member constituencies were abolished in 1945. I know I am older than him and that was not in his lifetime. We had a number of three and four-Member constituencies in counties and large boroughs, so if we are talking about things that are un-English, English history—the tried-and-tested systems referred to by the noble Lord, Lord True—includes multi-Member constituencies and different forms of voting in return.

Now is not the time to have a full debate on methods of voting, but I commend to the Committee the idea that we should move towards a citizens’ assembly. I hope that whoever makes up the next Government will indeed move forward on this, but I also say as strongly as I can that now is not the time to introduce into a Bill at a late stage, as Clause 11 does, a proposal that the Government have introduced solely because they think it will advance the Conservative Party and disadvantage others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, arguing for consensual politics in a characteristically aggressive speech—and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, as well. There must be a misprint on the Marshalled List, because the noble Lord told us that he did not want to discuss proportional representation. But there is an amendment tabled here, with his as the lead name, proposing a new clause with the heading, “Proportional representation for elections to the House of Commons”. I do not know whether he wants to discuss that—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I said “at length”. I assure the noble Lord that I can discuss proportional representation at very great length, but I fear that might tire the Committee.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I shall certainly follow the injunction not to speak at length, but I cannot resist responding to arguments about proportional representation. Oddly enough, I think I am the first the noble Lord so far to speak passionately in favour of first past the post, which shows once again how unrepresentative this House can be of British public opinion. On two specific occasions, it has been the subject that dare not speak its name. There are two issues that have not been mentioned, either by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—and I do not blame him—or by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. One is the small matter of an opinion poll, and I shall call it that to be a little contentious, held in 2011, which consisted of 19.2 million voters, who the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has told us probably represent something that is dying out and departing. That opinion poll was in a referendum which the Liberal party made a condition of its membership of the coalition—and at any stage, if the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, wants to interrupt, of course he can. He was a Minister in that Government.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for the invitation. He will remember that this was the first occasion on which Dominic Cummings managed very successfully to make the argument that it would be much too costly to change the electoral system and that the money would be much better spent on the National Health Service instead—an argument that he also used in the Brexit referendum. In neither case was the money spent on the NHS.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Well, to bring Dominic Cummings into it sounds like a good argument to a point that I was not discussing and do not intend to discuss.

The referendum was a condition of the Liberal Democrats’ membership of the coalition Government; they said that there should be a referendum on the voting system in this country. Some 19.2 million votes were cast, 6 million in favour of the alternative vote system and 13 million for first past the post, as specifically referred to. There was a 2:1 majority for first past the post, and a widely held debate right across the country. I am pretty shocked that, having demanded that referendum and having rejected the result, which is not an unusual characteristic, the noble Lord wants, by means of an amendment to a Bill, to change the electoral system away from first past the post, not by another referendum—because referendums keep giving him the result that he does not want—but by an amendment to a Bill. I find that a very unsatisfactory way of proceeding, but I am afraid that it has become a behaviour pattern. I am sorry, because I agree with the Liberal Democrats on a lot of aspects of this Bill, but not on this. It is a very similar pattern to what was followed in relation to the European referendum, whereby they voted for the referendum, did not like the result but knew that it was too big a risk to put it back to the people—so, instead of having another referendum, they proposed to change it without one and back to the original situation.

I am afraid that this approach of no compromise with the electorate that seems to be being offered by one party to this discussion is really not a satisfactory way for democrats to proceed. Of course, people can change their mind; people might decide, at some future date, that they want to change the electoral system. But, again, I have noticed—and this is why I both enjoy but am frustrated by discussions about the voting system—that one thing that people who are in favour of changing from first past the post always manage to do, whenever you criticise them for anything that they are proposing, is to say, “Oh, that’s not the kind of proportional representation that I’m in favour of—it’s completely different.” In fact, of course, they will even argue, although it was more proportional, that the proposal in the 2011 referendum, which was for the alternative vote system, was not proper proportional representation. It is not, but it is much more proportional —and I am quite certain that they see the electoral systems for mayors, police commissioners and everything else just as a stepping-stone towards proportional representation.

I am the first noble Lord to mention the referendum. The other thing that proponents of proportional representation always avoid mentioning is the test bed that we had for quite a long time—thankfully, no longer —for elections to the European Parliament. They were done on the basis of proportional representation. I remind supporters of the system of the arguments that are tediously repeated about the great merits of proportional representation, the principal point of which is that it reaches parts of the electorate that are ignored at present. It is said that there are tens of thousands of Labour voters, say, in the south of England and tens of thousands of Conservative voters in the north of England who never have their voices represented, and that if you released all that potential by proportional representation, the public would be energised.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, a kind of fiction has prevailed over a very long period of election history that, somehow or other, the crucial electoral battleground is each individual constituency. It has long been recognised that there is a need for strict limits on expenditure by individual candidates in individual constituencies. On the other level, however, there is the national campaign, where limits on expenditure are so much looser.

I was very alarmed, as I had not heard it before, by the information from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—he is usually reliable on these issues—that there is possibly a huge increase planned in the maximum expenditure allowed at the national level. This may not be a popular thing to say to candidates—I may be talking to myself—but it is clear to me that, although both levels of campaigning expenditure are clearly important, if you had to label the one that is the most important in determining the overall outcome of modern elections, it would be the national expenditure and national campaign. All candidates believe profoundly that it is what they do in their individual constituencies that is of crucial importance.

I have also noticed that all candidates—I have been one of them—tend to think that, when they win their local campaign, it is down to a particular level of skill and expertise in their campaign, and when they lose, it is generally someone else’s fault. The truth at general elections is that, for all the variance you can get in 650 different constituencies, the broad truth prevails: when the tide is out for your party, the tide is likely to be out everywhere, and vice versa. This whole issue of the balance between control over national expenditure and control over local expenditure is fundamental.

Of course, the irony is that, for years and years, there was control over local expenditure. It has long been recognised that there must be limits locally. However, it is relatively recently in our parliamentary history that we have seen the need for national limits; as we have said, they are so loose now as to be barely limits at all—certainly for one party in particular. This is a crucial area of debate and discussion but, most of all, the one headline I want to get out of this—perhaps the Minister will address it when he replies because he is on the inside track and we are not—is whether there really is a proposal that there should be a colossal increase in the level of expenditure allowed at the national level by political parties. If the Minister has any inside information on this, I would love him to share it with the Committee.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, one of the things on which there was consensus from all the various reports that fed into this Bill was that what we need most of all is a simplification of electoral law. This clause is a classic example of making things more complicated. I think we all recognise that this is the Conservative response to the Thanet case. The case for having this in the clause is extremely weak.

I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Collins, talk about the 1970 election campaign. I am older than him. I worked at party headquarters during the 1966 campaign. Looking back, it was incredibly amateur. The Conservative campaign was not that much more professional than ours at the national level. Then, the largest department in the Conservative headquarters, as I remember it, was the research department. We did not have phone canvassing, of course. We did not use opinion polls much. At the time, I was otherwise working as a research assistant to Dr David Butler on the first major survey of electoral opinion in Britain. We were using punch cards to get at our data; it was such a slow process that you could not analyse during the campaign at speed. We did not have any digital campaigning, of course. In those days, the Conservative Party had a couple of million members and raised a lot of its money and did most of its activity at the local level.

We have shifted a long way since then, soo I want to talk about some of the principles; I hope that the Minister still recognises that they are important. They cover this clause and Part 4. The first principle is that we should retain a clear distinction between constituency campaigning and national campaigning. After all, it is one of the most tried and tested aspects of our democracy that Parliament consists of people who represent local communities in constituencies. They have not always been individual constituencies as there used to be multiple-member constituencies; the noble Lord will go back far enough, but never mind.

That is the principle. It has already been weakened by the tightening of limits between constituencies, which means that the new constituencies that are about to be redrawn will represent recognisable local communities much less than they have done so far. We hear people—Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example—say, “We have already moved from a parliamentary system to a presidential system. That is how our elections now go”. I regret that. As it happens, I am in favour of multiple-member constituencies and a much more open voting system, but that is part of the argument we should be having about the quality of our democracy. To erode the distinction between the constituency—that is, the election of an individual MP—and the national campaign would be a fundamental shift in our democracy larger than changing the nature of our voting system. I hope that the Minister recognises that.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I agree so much about the importance of the close connection between individual candidates and individual constituencies but I am sure that the noble Lord would agree with me that that is much weakened under a system of proportional representation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

We need not discuss the various alternative forms of voter registration. “Not necessarily” is the easy answer.

The second principle I want to focus on, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Stunell, is that there should as far as possible be a level playing field. We have seen what happened as that disappeared with the lifting of funding restrictions in the United States. The quality of American campaigning and the level of trust in American democracy have gone down, and that is partly because of the sheer weight of money that now deforms American politics. We have it here. I read in the Sunday Times the weekend before last that in the last three months of 2019, Ben Elliot, the chairman of the Conservative Party, raised just over £37 million for the Conservative Party, more than it was able to spend legally in the course of the campaign, and that it represented two-thirds of the money raised by all registered parties in that period. That takes the whole idea of a level playing field for democracy into deep and difficult trouble, and it strengthens the case for making sure that the regulation of expenditure, which is what Part 4 is about, is kept tight, clear and simple.

The third principle that I hope the Minister will agree on is that funding and expenditure should be as transparent as possible, both by registered parties and, as we shall come on to, by third parties, and that this clause does not help in that regard.

Clause 18 weakens regulation. It complicates and confuses it. I think we have seen from Second Reading and from our first day in Committee that noble Lords throughout the House generally agree on the need to strengthen regulation and the Electoral Commission. For these reasons, I suggest to the Minister that the clause as drafted and as intended does not match the Bill.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which the power of Dissolution would be used in the way that the power of Prorogation was used in 2019, so I do not think it likely that the case would arise. That is my instant opinion.

The radical dimension of this is that it disturbs the balance between the judiciary and the rule of law, and Parliament and the checks that Parliament has on executive power and the Government. The conclusion of The Independent Review of Administrative Law says, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, will remember:

“The Panel consider that the independence of our judiciary and the high reputation in which it is held internationally should cause the government to think long and hard before seeking to curtail its powers … It is inevitable that the relationship between the judiciary, the executive and Parliament will from time to time give rise to tensions … a degree of conflict shows that the checks and balances in our constitution are working well.”


I strongly agree with those sentiments. It is part of the proper process of constitutional democracy that each of those elements of our constitution should have a degree of tension with each other and hold each other in balance.

That is why I am in favour of amending this Bill to provide the simpler process of powers of Dissolution that Clause 2 provides—thus making Clause 3 unnecessary —and supplementing the desire for clarity of conventions by revising the Cabinet Manual to have a more fluent definition of Dissolution principles. If we do all three of those, we will substantially improve the constitutional value of this Bill.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to think that the Minister will find this argument conclusive. If he had accepted the amendment on Clause 2 that so many noble Lords thought was valuable—to have parliamentary resolution for a general election—we would not have needed this debate on the ouster clause and could have got home much earlier. But he has rejected it and that brings us to the debate about the ouster clause itself.

In normal circumstances, when eminent lawyers pronounce on issues of law and legality, those of us who are not lawyers intervene with some trepidation. I am relaxed on this issue, however, because the ghost in the room is the debate on Prorogation, not Dissolution, and that it went to the Supreme Court. We all know the debates surrounding that and those of us who are not lawyers are emboldened by the defence that the Divisional Court thought 100% in one direction and the Supreme Court thought 100% in the other. Whichever argument you pick, you will have a few top lawyers on your side.

In my view, that whole episode relates to that dreadful Parliament I keep referring to between 2017 and 2019. All that debate, which went to the Supreme Court, derived from the background of a dysfunctional Parliament—a bad case, if you like. So much of the debate we are having now is with that and the judgments that were made hanging over us. The list of dysfunctionalities of that Parliament knows no bounds. I mention one obvious point: there was a Speaker who, on the biggest debate of the day—the referendum result and its consequences—was highly partisan on one side of the argument. In those circumstances, all sorts of other undesirable things follow.

I, for one, very much regret that the Supreme Court decided to get involved in politics at the highest level. I know there are all sorts of disclaimers that it was not doing that, but that is precisely what happened. It is difficult to imagine a more dramatic, higher-profile political issue than that of leaving or not leaving the EU, and the Supreme Court came down decisively on one side of the argument, in practical terms. As soon as the courts are involved in these kinds of highly charged political areas, we are in trouble.

I can certainly see the need for this ouster clause, but I regret the need for it because we should have dealt with this in the simple way of a parliamentary majority. We keep hearing about the three pillars of the constitution: the judiciary, the Executive and the legislature. In my book, and perhaps I am biased, one of those is greater than the other two—a first among equals—and that is Parliament, which is answerable to the public in a way the other two are not.

Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Friday 11th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, it is very good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, reassert yet again how deeply conservative—I hesitate to use the word “reactionary”—he is on all matters constitutional. I had expected him to object to “reform” rather than “electoral system”.

Clearly, I appreciate that a Labour Party which pursued in this recent election a campaign based on the idea that it could win a majority with 35% of the vote and was then defeated by a Conservative Party which won a majority of the House of Commons on 37% of the vote should want to have a vested interest in our current electoral system. If we are talking about constitutional reform overall, we need to talk about the balance in different parts of the United Kingdom. Perhaps one might then talk about, as he says, the range of different electoral systems that we now have.

During the AV referendum a very effective no campaign was led by Matthew Elliott, who is now leading the campaign to leave the European Union—with good right-wing credentials and a lot of right-wing funding. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is happy about that. But if we are going to talk about the rapidly changing and moving relationship between the different parts of the United Kingdom—for example, what is happening in local government in England concerns many of us on these Benches and is another dimension of this—we need to look at the overall pattern. That clearly would need to include some question of which electoral systems are appropriate for which levels of elections. That is the only point that I am making.

[Lord Grocott]

I am very sorry that the noble Lord no longer speaks in an official capacity on the Liberal Front Bench. I do not know whether he has been demoted or has voluntarily moved to the Back Benches or is moonlighting; I am not quite sure what the position is. It is a novel concept from the Lib Dems—I can understand in the light of the recent general election why they may need the odd novel concept—to say that for them it is a reactionary position to respect the views of the British people as expressed in a referendum. I regard that as a very progressive position. Although I do not mind in the slightest being accused of being a reactionary on the constitution from time to time, it might be at least reassuring if we heard occasionally from the Liberal Democrat Benches, whether officially or unofficially, that they do respect the wishes of two-thirds of the British people in a nationwide referendum.

Electoral Register

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have just emphasised that nearly 3 million have applied to register since December. There is movement on and off the voting register all the time, as the noble Lord well knows. We are doing everything we can to make sure that movement in the next few weeks, as over the past three months, continues to be positive.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, since this is all about establishing the identity of people who are eligible to vote, at this stage in the Parliament, five years in, will the Minister acknowledge that one of the numerous mistakes this coalition Government have made—it would take too long to list them—was the early decision to get rid of national identity cards, which would have solved this and many other problems relating to migration and other matters about which this Government have made such a mess?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for his normally generous comments. The sheer heavy weight of the Labour Government’s ID proposals seemed to me and many of my colleagues to make it an unavoidable failure. There is a debate about the shift to a digital relationship between the citizen and the state, which we will have to have, and about convenience against privacy, which we need to have as we move forward. My right honourable friend Francis Maude and others working on the Government Digital Service have made a good deal of progress in that regard.

Ministerial Visits: Travel Costs

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Lord’s question. I recall a ministerial meeting in the Foreign Office when we all discussed which was the cheapest cheap airline that we had travelled on. As I recall, David Lidington, who had travelled on Wizz Air, was the winner.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

As this is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office, can the Minister update us on what is meant these days by “collective ministerial responsibility”, given that, as my noble friend Lady Hayter said, we hear that there are to be two separate Budget Statements this year? It seems to me and many others that, although there are fundamental irreconcilable differences between the two parties of the coalition, the Lib Dem members will not do the honest and genuine thing, which is to say that they cannot agree with this Government, resign from their portfolios and stop using ministerial cars, red boxes and so on.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are all well aware that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is deeply committed to the idea that a two-party system is the only way to have democratic government. I have just been reading the Spreckley report on the 1974-75 referendum and I simply remind him that the Labour Government suspended ministerial responsibility and collective responsibility because the Cabinet disagreed on it.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I suppose the point I was making was that there are only two possible things that you can do in relation to someone asking you whether you will sign a petition.

I hope this is not really arguable from the Government, but if you have two sides in a democratic contest and one side has got colossally more money than the other, then you simply cannot have a fair contest. You see a lot of discussions where, much as we spell out our arguments, in private we might acknowledge that the other side has a bit of a case. I frankly admit that a lot of decisions in the Bill have been grey rather than black and white: for example, whether you have eight weeks or two weeks to sign the petition and whether there are 10 petition-signing locations or two or three. These are all gradations and grey areas. However, I cannot see a grey area that enables us to have a different opinion as to whether two sides in a two-sided contest should have anything other than broadly similar amounts of money that they can spend, with a clear limit on how much. That is all that needs to be said. I just hope that anyone who cares about democracy and democratic choice—which includes all noble Lords I can see, scanning round this House—should be able to acknowledge that that is something that the Government really must concede on, because it is a matter of simple justice.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, again, this debate has ranged fairly widely. I am happy to discuss further with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, the level at which abortion law should be dealt with. I remember that some years ago the most obscure protocol to the treaty of Rome was added to a revision negotiation by the Irish Government, which said, “Nothing in this treaty shall countermand Article 39”—I think it was—“of the Irish Constitution”, which meant “Keep off”. About six months later, the Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow asked that this should be devolved. As soon as we are into multi-level government, the question of what level you do things at—at which level you decide that prisoners should have the vote, to take a hypothetical example—begins to be contested among the different levels. We now have several levels, and I am happy to talk about that further.

We discussed some of what we are discussing now, in not dissimilar terms, on the then Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, in which the Government were very much concerned in particular about the possibility of foreign money coming in through various umbrella groups and intervening in and influencing election campaigns. I recognise that there is a potential problem here, but we think it can be contained.

Here as elsewhere, in drafting the Bill, we employed the regulatory regime for campaign spending and donations drawn from existing electoral law. The proposed campaign rules for recall petitions follow those for referendums. In referendums, you have to report your spending at the £500 limit. In recall campaigns, £500 buys you a very small amount of activity. It does not seem to us that the image which the noble Baroness depicted almost, of a gentleman arriving from Switzerland with plastic bags with cash in them to distribute to various local householders, is a likely one; or, if it were to happen, that it would not appear in the Guardian or the Mail very quickly. We therefore think that £500 is the de minimis amount.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

The Minister may or may not be right about the proportion on either side. The principle is surely that there should not be a massive disparity and that the legislation should provide for that. That is the point.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am merely talking about the difficulty of having one accredited lead campaigner on either side. That takes us too far into the referendum campaign. The question of how one gets towards agreeing one accredited campaigner will need, I suspect, a good deal more than eight weeks to sort out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot give that assurance at the moment. Between now and Third Reading we have some time, as he well knows. Of course we continue to consider all matters, but at the moment I am not persuaded.

We do not see the question on Amendment 23 as entirely justified. The argument for an accredited campaigner in a referendum, as was said before, is that they are then rewarded with a substantial government grant to support the campaign. That will not take place in this area.

Perhaps I may finally stress that permissible donations for accredited campaigns will also follow the same rules as others. They will be reported and controlled. If I may refer to Amendment 24, which we will discuss next, I see value in ensuring that the Electoral Commission in particular has access to the information necessary to assess the appropriateness of the spending and donation rules. We will be debating this in the next amendment. The question of how far in we pull the Electoral Commission is one to which the Government are live and sympathetic.

[Lord Grocott]

Before he sits down, I really need to have it from the Government’s mouth that the Minister’s fairly lengthy response is basically saying that the Government are relaxed about the possibility of one side in a two-horse race having vastly more expenditure than the other, and that they are not prepared to make any rules to prevent that happening. I just want to hear it from the Minister because this is a very serious point. If that is the Government’s position, it is his responsibility to the House to say it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I understand that. It is a one-horse race, of course. The other does not have a horse at all, so to speak. The Government are not prepared to designate a single lead campaigner on either side. We are not persuaded that an overall limit is practical or measurable, but that is one of the things we will come to in Amendment 24. There are several issues in this, as I well understand, including the question of foreign non-permissible donations, which we will come to in Amendment 24.

Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on Parliament of the next general election date having been fixed as 7 May 2015 since the enactment of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, it is a little too soon to reach definite conclusions on fixed-term Parliaments. The Government believe that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act has a number of benefits. It curbs prime ministerial and, therefore, executive power by preventing the Prime Minister of the day from calling an election on his or her own schedule. It has also assisted with Parliament’s work planning. The Prime Minister of the day will be required to appoint a reviewer to evaluate the Act in 2020.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister shared the nation’s palpable sense of gloom this morning when the broadcasters and the newspapers united in reminding us that there are 100 days of campaigning left until the general election. Do fixed-term Parliaments not inevitably lead to inordinately long election campaigns, as many of us predicted, and, I am afraid, to the past its sell-by date House of Commons that we have at present, with very little to do in either House? Does the Minister at least acknowledge that there is a growing view, on both sides of this House and in the Commons, that the passing of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was a serious mistake?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord may perhaps have missed the report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee last year, which stated:

“Our evidence has overwhelmingly argued that the greater certainty about the length of a Parliament provided by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 is a positive development, and in particular has created opportunities for better planning by the Government and Civil Service”.

I cannot understand why he prefers the situation of 1964-66, which led to the putting off of decisions and the devaluation of 1967; the two elections of 1974, which led to a Labour Government entering into an IMF programme; the dithering by Mr Callaghan in 1978; or that wonderful experience in 2007 when Gordon Brown kept changing his mind as different opinion polls came out. That was not good Government.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

This debate has ranged a great deal wider than the two amendments before us. I again remind the Committee that a commitment to bring forward a recall Bill was in the manifestos of all three parties in 2010. The draft Bill was published for pre-legislative scrutiny in 2011. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee considered the proposed architecture and did not recommend changes, and it has also been approved by the other place.

I hear noble Lords around the Committee saying, “This is appalling. We have not thought of this before. This must be a last-minute proposal. Why has it not been thought through?”. This is not the case. We have consulted throughout, not with the Local Government Association, but with the society of chief executive officers and the Association of Electoral Administrators, the representative bodies for returning officers. They have not raised particularly difficult issues on this. I stress that the rationale for this measure was that the petition period would be parallel to, and part of, the process of discussion.

[Lord Grocott]

As the Minister is praying in aid the committee that gave the Bill pre-legislative scrutiny, he needs to put it on record that it recommended that the Bill should be dropped—I cannot remember another example of this happening—and that the Government should find alternative, sensible ways of using valuable parliamentary time. Can we have it on the record that that was the professional view of the specialist committee which looked at the Bill in its pre-legislative form? I cannot think of any other example of a Select Committee making a judgment of that sort.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am fully prepared to accept that, but I also note that this Bill passed through the other place in spite of that recommendation. We need to at least start from that assumption when looking at the Bill rather than suggest that it has not been properly considered and ought to be entirely rejected, which I think is the undertone of a number of the contributions being made to this Committee stage debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the Government obviously do not want any change to the Bill at all, if they can achieve that, other than the amendments that the Minister himself has put down. However, I urge them to look at Amendment 56, if no other. We cannot simply treat this in isolation from all the other normal electoral practices of our democracy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have said, I think three times now, that the Bill follows existing electoral law and regulation as closely as possible. We have not started off on something entirely new.

[Lord Grocott]

Can the Minister point to me anywhere in existing electoral law where, during a general election, for example, there is a running release of the state of the voting—after the postal vote had taken place, for example—and that is made known? Unless Amendment 56 is passed, that will be the likely situation in respect of these petitions. If the Minister disagrees, please intervene and tell me. I will stop speaking.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

But there are no limits to the number of organisations that are able to mount such campaigns. The Minister is rejecting the amendment that my noble friend has proposed, but he does not seem to have any other safeguards.

[Lord Grocott]

I put the question in a slightly different way. If the Minister is confirming what I think that he has been saying, it is really alarming. I was most interested in the earlier parts of the Bill. Whereas we all know that in a local election campaign for a particular Member in a particular constituency, there are controls over what each candidate can spend which have been there since about the 1870s, I think that that—not the figure, but the principle—is understandable, because a number of different choices are available: Labour, et cetera. In the case of whether there is or is not to be a recall, there are only two possible positions: you are for it or against it. You may be for it or against it for a variety of different reasons, but the decision to be made is binary, there are two choices.

It seems to me so fundamental as to be hardly worth stating that there must be a balance between the expenditure on the two sides of that simple argument. Is the Government’s position that there is no need to worry about that and that, on a range of different issues, one side in what I repeat is a binary decision can spend vastly greater sums of money than the other? Are the Government comfortable with that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am saying on behalf of the Government that there can be more than one registered campaign group on either side or on both sides of the recall petition.

[Lord Grocott]

I just wanted to hear from the Government Front Bench that in this choice there could be vastly bigger sums of money spent on whether there should be a recall—or on whether there should not. As the Minister knows, I am not at all keen on the Bill, but I am keen that if that decision is made, there must be some equality of expenditure between the two sides of the argument. I find it incomprehensible if that is not the Government’s position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have some experience of fighting elections in which I was fighting with an infinitely smaller budget than the other candidates. We are content that there should be more than one registered campaigner on either or both sides. In one recall petition, one side may have several groups and the other may not; in another, it may be the contrary side. That is the Government’s position.

[Lord Grocott]

So the answer to my question—the Minister can either confirm this or not—is that under the Bill, one side of the argument could spend vastly more than the other. Is the answer that yes, that is the Government’s position?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a precedent in electoral law for limiting the number of people who can be involved. Even at a referendum, where a lead campaigner is appointed, multiple campaigners can also separately campaign for one side or other, subject to the spending limits. So even in a referendum, others can come alongside for the game. We are not persuaded that the tighter limits and much tighter controls proposed are desirable or necessary on this occasion.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

As the Bill stands, it does say,

“as the result of a report from the Standards Committee”—

so suspension by the Speaker would not be included.

[Lord Grocott]

Surely I can at least persuade the Minister that that is a seriously anomalous situation that he really should go back to his advisers and sort out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Politics cannot be entirely dismissed from anything. Going back to that wonderful period in the 1970s, I recall seeing the excellent play “This House”, in which the noble Baroness is portrayed, about how the House of Commons behaved at the time. I suspect that politics was not entirely absent from the Privileges Committee then. The introduction of lay members to the Standards Committee was intended to make it less political and strengthen the safeguards against it being used for political reasons. That is part of the basis on which the Standards Committee is now reviewing its procedures.

[Lord Grocott]

Whatever the Minister’s reservations about the rights of this House to try and improve legislation that has come from the Commons when it relates largely to Commons matters, could he please agree that if there appears to be a bizarre anomaly in the Bill, it is our duty at least to look at it? To repeat myself, the anomaly is this: on one day, as the Bill stands, a Privileges Committee report giving a sentence of 10 days or longer could be endorsed, leading to a recall petition being triggered; on the same day, in relation to another Member, the Speaker of the House could—as I understand it—impose a suspension of longer than 10 days. Whatever his reservations about our right to amend the Bill, does he acknowledge that there appears to be an anomaly and that he will, at least, go away and look at it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not aware of what the Speaker did on the same day. I will certainly look at that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will start by answering the question on the role of the Speaker. I will take that away and make sure that we are absolutely correct on that. My understanding is that, unlike in a by-election where a writ is moved, the Bill provides for the Speaker to exercise certain administrative functions to enable the process to work efficiently. It is based on the Recess Elections Act 1975, which also places administrative duties on the Speaker. We will look at that carefully; it is clearly an important point.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, leaves me breathless, in a sense, because if we are talking about 13 months instead of three months, we are in an entirely different world of course. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, we had considered that on the existing basis that six months before the next anticipated election is the point at which local by-elections are not undertaken. I understand that in 1973 the Speaker’s Conference looked at the question of when by-elections should not be called and recommended:

“In the fifth year of a Parliament, some relaxation of these guidelines should be allowed, in order if possible to avoid by-elections being held immediately before a general election”.

We are therefore incorporating into the Bill previous accepted practice.

On the question of the Lord Speaker, perhaps we can have a discussion off the Floor. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, it has not been the practice to inform the Speaker of the other place formally when we take particular actions here. As to whether it should be introduced—it would clearly be appropriate for this to be on a reciprocal basis—I am not sure.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, raised a very interesting, wide question about four-year parliaments versus five-year parliaments—which, again, I would be very happy to talk to him about. I have been doing some quick calculations, which I hope I have got right. There have been, including the election we are about to face, some 19 general elections since 1945, seven of which have led to five-year parliaments. Had we had the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 1945, there would have been 15 general elections including the coming one—just four fewer. If we had had a four-year Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 1945, we would now be past the 17th general election and half way through to the 18th. So we are not talking about a vast difference.

I am sure that the noble Lord does not want to go down to the two-year, Congress style, where electioneering takes over everything and reasonable government has to stop, but let us discuss this further outside the Chamber. The noble Lord raises some very interesting, long-term questions about constitutional reform that we clearly need to discuss further.

[Lord Grocott]

The good news is that in five of the seven parliaments that lasted for the full five years, the Government in power were thrown out. Clearly, we hope that is a precedent that will be seen this time.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord is, as always, wonderfully optimistic. The interesting question of how many parties will lose the next election is one which we can return to at a later point.

Government Amendments 68, 69 and 70 deal with the role of the Speaker. The purpose here is to emphasise that we are talking about the Speaker as an institution rather than as a person. The Government were responding to an amendment tabled by the MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert, and proposed that this would be properly looked at in the Lords. In the absence of the Speaker, one of the Deputy Speakers—for example, the Chairman of Ways and Means—will deal with those functions that are appropriately held. I end by assuring the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that I look at the appropriateness of those functions and at the precedents that we always have to look back to. On this basis, I hope that the noble Lord can withdraw his amendment. I look forward to some interesting conversations in the corridors.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very impassioned debate in many ways. On the question of how many elections we should have had since the Second World War, I can remember very well the two indecisive elections of 1974, and the weakness of government which resulted from that, which led to a Labour Government first having to run to the IMF and then losing their majority and having to come to the Liberals, as we then were, for outside support. I do not in any sense go back on my support for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I think of the two elections in 1964 and 1966, when Labour was successful in getting a second majority, and the two attempts in 1974, when Labour was unsuccessful in getting a second majority. If there were to be a second election in 2015 if no party obtained a majority, I have no doubt that that would happen again because such a procedure is promoted to the public, so I do not resile from my support for fixed-term Parliaments.

[Lord Grocott]

What about the two Liberal elections in 1910? The noble Lord presumably now feels that there should have been five years between those two elections.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not involved in that election; perhaps the noble Lord was. However, I have to admit to the House that early one morning, when I was half awake, my mind turned to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I had an image of a debate in this Chamber in about 1831, in which an Earl Grocott denounced the proposals for major constitutional change as being unnecessary and disturbing the established traditions of party patronage. Perhaps the noble Lord and I might discuss off the Floor which proposals for constitutional reform over the past 150 years he might have supported at the time.

All three parties committed to a recall system in their manifestos, and this was included in the coalition’s programme for government. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, had some fun talking about parties that do not carry out all the pledges in their manifestos. All three parties were committed to this in principle in their last manifestos, which provides a certain basis for it. I remind her of something that I have said previously to other members of her party—namely, when one examines the 1997 Labour Party manifesto, the clearest pledge was to bring forward proposals for electoral reform. However, the Labour Party then entirely abandoned that pledge, as it did with a number of other things as well.

This Bill will introduce a system where MPs will be subject to a recall petition where they are found guilty of wrongdoing under a specific set of triggers, as set out in the Bill. Regulations have been mentioned. I assure noble Lords at the outset that before Committee we will put in the Libraries of both Houses an early draft of the regulations which will need to be made under the Bill, which will set out the areas that will need to be covered. The regulations will build upon the principles and precedents in electoral legislation. Noble Lords will have recognised already the extent to which the drafting of the Bill has followed as closely as possible the language in a number of previous Bills about electoral and political regulation.

Some large and detailed issues have been raised. Most of those who have spoken have said that they supported the principle of the Bill. I think I counted at least three, perhaps up to five, speakers who explicitly or implicitly opposed the principle of the Bill. Let me start with the detailed scrutiny issues that have been raised. I particularly welcome the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who raised a number of specific questions that we must address in Committee and on Report. There is the question of whether this is a secret and open process, and how far the process is in the hands of the constituents themselves or outside, wealthy groups. There are also questions on how many signing points there may be within the constituency and who will check on permissible campaigners and permissible donors. Those are very much the sort of point on which we, as a revising House, would wish to focus in our further consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I take that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott—the Earl of Grocott, as I shall always think of him now—and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, both said that we should leave this—

[Lord Grocott]

Perhaps I can nip this in the bud. If the noble Lord insists on referring to me as Earl Grocott, could he at least acknowledge that, contrary to his party and its supporters, when the views of Earl Grocott respecting the voting system were put to the Great British public, they supported the noble Earl by a majority of 2:1, rather than the Liberal Democrats?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord.

The noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Hughes, said that we should leave this to political parties. Part of our problem in current-day British politics is that the golden age, when political parties were mass parties and mass movements, has gone. When I first stood for Parliament the membership of my political party—the third political party, the Liberals—was larger than the membership of any of the three parties today. The Conservative Party had more than 1 million members; the Labour Party was a mass movement, with large trade unions and very large constituency membership. We all know that that is, sadly, not the case now.

We fail to engage the public. That is partly because there has been social transformation, and communications transformation, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. Globalisation has affected the way that the public look at politicians. We have lost that age. It is not only in Britain: we see it in the United States, Germany, France and elsewhere. In an age of instant communication—I think the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to the “online mob”, by which I think he means 38 Degrees; I am sure that 38 Degrees will quote him on that tomorrow, as it is likely to do—we have a problem that the public are irreverent about all elites, not just politicians, and see a Westminster bubble as much as they see a Brussels bubble. We need to do a whole host of things together, across the parties, to begin to re-establish public trust in our institutions. I think, very strongly, that decentralisation, devolution and the revival of local democracy is a very important part of that. However, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that political leadership and political persuasion is something we have failed to make towards a disillusioned electorate. Perhaps a little less partisan sniping as we go towards the general election and more common defence of reasoned debate is something that we all need to reflect on.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, talked about a slippery slope, but there are other slippery slopes. The slippery slope towards mass popular disengagement in politics is also one that we are on.

We have put forward the Bill believing not that it is the golden trigger that will somehow revive public trust alone, but that it is one element among many that we need to begin to re-establish public trust in democratic politics and in Westminster. I look forward to Committee, when we will discuss some of the detailed issues that have rightly been raised.

Hansard Society: Audit of Political Engagement

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all need to take account of the extent to which, in the course of the Scottish referendum campaign, people across Scotland, including young people, got re-engaged in politics in a way in which they are not engaged in politics in England. It is quite clear from the barracking that there was across the House just now that not everyone in this Chamber agrees with the wise words of my noble friend Lord Tyler on the voting system, but we need very much to focus on the problem of alienation. If we were to find ourselves on a less than 60% turnout in the next general election and the party that then took office got less than 35% of the vote, which is to say fewer than one-quarter of the total votes possible, there would be clear questions about the legitimacy of that Government. I saw in the Guardian, so it must be true, that Labour’s strategists had indeed been talking about the 35% point at which they might possibly have a majority Government on a less than 60% turnout. There are some real problems that we all have to face.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Hansard Society, which is a broad church including people as widely separated in view as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and myself. I put it to the Minister that one thing that really turns the public off is the inordinate length of current election campaigns, which was, I fear, an almost inevitable consequence of fixing parliamentary terms at five years, no matter what. Does he at least agree that there may be some merit in my Private Member’s Bill, which is due to get its Second Reading shortly, entitled the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord, as so often, demonstrates his wonderfully conservative approach to all matters of constitutional reform. I do not agree with him. I think part of the lesson of the Scottish referendum was that a remarkably long campaign produced enthusiasm and a real focus, my Scottish friends tell me, on some of the underlying issues, which is perhaps something we need to do in a national campaign.

Voting: Young People

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government have considered it, and have not accepted it.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that one of the factors that may lead to young people not registering—or, if they do register, not voting—would be if, prior to an election, a major political party were to promise to fight to reduce tuition fees but immediately after the election join with others to treble them?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord thinks he makes a very fair point. I might also point out that one of the reasons for people not being interested in elections is that so many seats are safe seats and they know who is going to be elected anyway so there is no point in voting. The noble Lord will remember that he actively opposed the alternative vote.

Leveson Report

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are well aware of the battle between the press and politicians, with deep and entrenched mistrust on both sides, which is not doing much good either for the reputation of the British press or that of British politics. I have to admit that the subtlety of the process whereby the Privy Council considers royal charters is something that I ought to have dug into much more deeply in preparing for this Question. I shall have to write to the noble Baroness on the timing of the consideration of both these royal charters.

[Lord Grocott]

May I gently suggest to the Minister that if he sees this as essentially a problem between the press and politicians, he misrepresents or misunderstands where the whole genesis of the Leveson inquiry came from? It came from a profound mistrust between the press and the public. Surely, the job of democratically elected politicians is to do their utmost, preferably on an all-party basis, to reflect the wishes and concerns of the public.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government well understand the strength of feeling among the public on the misuse of press freedom in recent years. We have not yet reached the end of the story—we are still moving and there are some hiccups on the way.

EU: UK Membership

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have certainly not forgotten about France or the other 25 members of the European Union. Bilateral discussions and multilateral negotiations are a constant process. We welcome the report from the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and I recommend it to Members of this House.

[Lord Grocott]

Given that these days we are regularly given the benefit of different members of the Government giving different opinions on government policy, will the Minister, with his academic and political background, give us the latest definition of what he understands by the term “collective responsibility”?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are a coalition Government. However, I remember that during the previous Government there were occasions when Ministers—and special advisers—actively briefed against one another.

Referendums

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am glad that the noble Lord is such a man of the people in all these respects. I recall that, three months before the 1975 referendum, opinion polls were overwhelmingly in favour of leaving, but that, in the course of the campaign, opinion was informed and thus altered.

[Lord Grocott]

While we are reflecting on the wisdom of the British people, would the Minister like to reflect on some very successful referendums that have been held in the past two or three years: first, on the good sense of the public in rejecting any notion of a fancy new electoral system for Westminster parliamentary elections; and secondly, on nine out of 10 British cities rejecting fancy directly elected mayors? On the basis of this, might it be a good idea to hold just one more referendum, on deciding whether the elections to the European Parliament next year should be on the basis of first past the post?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, as always, demonstrates what a splendid conservative he is on all matters of constitutional reform.

Ministerial Code

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Baroness will be aware that allegations of this sort arise from time to time. She will remember the case of Damian McBride in the previous Government. On the whole my experience in government is that special advisers work very well with their Ministers, but the Ministerial Code is quite clear that special advisers are appointed by Ministers, subject to the Prime Minister’s approval, and are accountable to their Ministers. If they behave outside their responsibilities, it is their Ministers who should hold them to account.

[Lord Grocott]

That does not seem to square with what happened in the case of Jeremy Hunt if, as the Minister has just said, Ministers are responsible for the activities of their special advisers. We had a Secretary of State acting in what was described as a quasi-judicial capacity who was clearly and demonstrably sympathetic to one side rather than the other in a very important ministerial decision. Surely it is an odd conclusion that the special adviser should lose his job and the Minister should not only remain in his job but be promoted.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not fully aware of exactly what happened in that case, and I am fully prepared to write to the noble Lord if I can get some further information. Of course, if special advisers operate beyond what the Minister has asked them to do, they must take responsibility as the Minister requires.

House of Lords: Appointments

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are not proposing to increase the size of this House. Sadly, we have lost 40 Members since May 2010; I dare say that, sadly, we may lose more over the next two years. The question of refreshing the House from time to time therefore arises.

[Lord Grocott]

The Minister’s Leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, has repeatedly said—and I agree with him, which surprises me—that the House of Lords, the Second Chamber, is too big. How can it be that I agree with the Minister’s Leader while he disagrees with him? Can he explain to us why he disagrees with the Deputy Prime Minister?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am very glad to hear that the noble Lord agrees with Nick. We in this House have to be very careful about saying, “We’re all very comfortable here and we all want to stay, and no one else should be allowed to come in until there has been a longer process”. Over a five-year period we need to consider the balance of the House and the question of the occasional refreshment of its Members, and we are certainly not going to close our minds to that in an interim House. We will certainly encourage some of the older Members to consider statutory retirement or a long-term leave of absence.