Parliamentary Privilege (Defamation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Friday 27th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Before the Minister sits down, I will make just two points. First, does he agree that one can never take anything for granted? In other words, we cannot know at this stage what the fate of Schedule 20 will be: therefore, this is a belt and braces approach. Secondly—I think I gave notice of this—can he clarify the Sewel amendment? My Bill says that it applies to the whole of the United Kingdom. The Explanatory Notes to the Deregulation Bill go into the Sewel amendment in various ways. Can he confirm that if the Deregulation Bill goes through in its present form, because this is about parliamentary privilege it will apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as to England and Wales? It is not absolutely clear from the language that that is so; obviously it should be so, but I would be grateful if my noble friend could clarify that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, on the first point, I entirely take the noble Lord’s belt and braces approach—nothing is certain in life apart from death and taxes, and some people are quite good at getting around taxes, too.

On page 146 of the Explanatory Notes, it states very clearly:

“This repeal forms part of the law of England and Wales and Scotland”,

and Northern Ireland, and,

“will come into force at the end of the period of 2 months beginning with the day on which the Bill becomes an Act”.

I hope that that provides the reassurance that the noble Lord looks for.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I am very grateful to the Minister and to all noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who have spoken. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, I thought that what he was saying sounded like Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies. It certainly reminded me of a great deal that I had forgotten about those events. It would not be conducive to an entirely harmonious situation were I to add to the noble Lord’s description as I could. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said at the time that the Government were neutral about the amendment; those were his words. All I can say is that it was a strange form of neutrality, and seemed so to me at the time. I thought that it was inappropriate for a serving senior judge to have moved the amendment—and I have said so in the past. However, having said all that, I do not think that there is any point now in doing much about what happened then.

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has criticised me for my lack of arithmetic, because that happened not 14 years but 18 years ago—and he said that I would be hopeless in the Treasury, which is probably true.

I thank everybody. I hope that the Bill will be read a second time.

Poland: Restitution of Property

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure how far back the noble Lord wishes to take that. I remember being taken around Prague Castle in 1993 and shown the empty spaces on the walls where the pictures that the Swedish army had taken away in 1643 had been. As we know, the issue of cultural property, particularly that of the 20th century, is actively being pursued. A number of museums are extremely hesitant about this, and there was an interesting article in one of last weekend’s supplements about this. We are engaged in the whole issue of cultural property and restitution but, as the noble Lord knows from a number of current cases in New York, this can sometimes raise immensely complicated questions.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Is the Minister aware that at least one case on this very issue is already pending before the European Court of Human Rights, and it would therefore be completely inappropriate for the United Kingdom, during its presidency, to take up this issue? Is it right that British Government received £5.4 million under the indemnity agreement made after the Second World War to cover the international legal aspect; that under the Polish law of 1997 Jewish religious communities in Poland can file applications before a regulatory commission on Jewish religious communities; and that 5,500-odd applications have been received?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am aware that the issues of restitution of communal property are in some ways rather different from restitution of individual property. I stand to be informed by the noble Lord on the case before the European Court of Human Rights, and he is of course correct to say that we are, in a sense, in the second round on the issue of restitution. There was a first round in the years immediately after the Second World War. The second round began with the end of the Cold War and the whole set of issues that then opened up regarding restitution from post-Communist Governments.