General Elections: Peers’ Exclusion from Voting

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have to review the exclusion of life Peers from voting at general elections.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have no plans to review in this Parliament the long-established legal incapacity that prevents Peers who are Members of the House of Lords voting in a general election.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Is this not extraordinary when society is calling for votes at 16 and for felons; when every single Member who is a life Peer in your Lordships’ House has already voted in a general election; and when not one of the 189 upper Houses in the IPU precludes Members from voting? Has not the time come for my noble friend to recognise that it is time for a change? The claim that a Member of the House of Lords already has a voice in Parliament, and that therefore it is right to deprive him or her of having that voice heard through an elected representative in the Commons, no longer has validity as we do not have a voice on money Bills—the very central feature of our democracy, epitomised by “no taxation without representation”.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is a Conservative and has taken very Conservative views on the reform of this House. I would have hoped that he would therefore agree with the statement of Lord Campbell, as Lord Chief Justice in 1858, that by,

“an ancient, immemorial law of England … Peers sat in their own right in their own House, and had no privilege whatsoever to vote for Members to sit in the other House of Parliament”.—[Official Report, 5/7/1858; col. 928.]

Ministerial Visits: Travel Costs

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think ministerial visits that include some party-political role have taken place in all the years of any Parliament. Every time I drive past the Humber Bridge, I am reminded that previous Labour Governments have on occasions used quite substantial gifts of public expenditure to influence the outcome of elections in particular constituencies.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, is it not a fact that if this was a genuine Question, my noble friend’s department should have been informed of it so that he could give a proper Answer? This is just party-political.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are proprieties and the propriety and ethics team within the Cabinet Office monitors them. Labour Members of this House may be interested to know that there have been a number of complaints by Liberal Democrat MPs about Conservative Ministers visiting their constituencies without prior notice, and at least one from a Conservative MP about a Liberal Democrat Minister visiting her constituency. I am glad to see that some Conservatives are nervous about things like that.

Sri Lanka: Presidential Elections

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Group on Sri Lanka.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we commend Sri Lanka’s electoral commission for its conduct of the election and all Sri Lanka’s political parties and people for accepting the final result and committing to the peaceful transfer of power. However, we also note the view of Commonwealth observers that the election contest fell short of key benchmarks for democratic elections. We welcome President Sirisena’s early commitment to good governance and to working with all international partners. We stand ready to help the new Government implement their commitments.

[Lord Naseby]

Does my noble friend agree that it is greatly to be welcomed for any democracy to have an 80% turnout and, as he says, to have carried out an election so well? Is he also aware that, on the back of that election result, the new President Sirisena—supported by all the minorities, including the Tamils—has pledged to have a revitalised domestic human rights inquiry into alleged war crimes, possibly using the missing persons commission, with two highly respected Britons in Desmond de Silva and Geoffrey Nice? On top of that, he has stated clearly that there will be independence of the law and the judiciary, and media freedom. Against that background, will Her Majesty’s Government give a commitment to give forth the hand of friendship and to give this new all-party Government time to implement the pledges that they have made?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are entirely ready to give that commitment. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have already sent messages. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will be aware that the new Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is known to many people within his own party, as his party is associated with the Conservatives on an international basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that has been the position of our Government for the past year. Of course, there are some sensitive issues of national sovereignty. The noble Lord may be aware that there are even some people in the United Kingdom who take objection to international organisations looking at human rights issues within this country.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that, on that last point, both India and Australia stand foursquare with the sovereign Government of Sri Lanka; that, yes, they do need an enhanced domestic enquiry; and that perhaps they can work in tandem with Europe, but that both the former Government and the present Government have made it quite clear that they are not willing to take part with Europe?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am well aware of the previous Government’s resistance to the UN inquiry. I hope that the new Government, as they get under way, will take a more generous approach to the UN investigations.

Sri Lanka

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we are studying the implications of the ECJ judgment and considering appropriate next steps. The UK is committed to maintaining an EU listing. The court’s decision was based on fundamental procedural grounds, but the court rejected the LTTE’s argument that it could not be listed as a terrorist organisation because of its involvement in an internal armed conflict. The UK condemns the Tamil Tigers as a brutal terror organisation, and it remains proscribed under UK law.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his Answer will be greeted with a great sigh of relief by nearly all the Sri Lankans who live in the United Kingdom and, indeed, virtually all the citizens of Sri Lanka? However, is he also aware that this coming Thursday there is to be a rally at ExCel to celebrate the life of the leader of the Tamil Tigers, Mr Prabhakaran, and the other Tamil Tigers, and to raise money for Eelam? Will my noble friend bring this to the attention of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police? It seems to me that this is covered by the proscription. Frankly, if the terrorism Acts mean anything, this particular rally should be stopped.

Census 2021

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in relation to the next census due to take place in 2021, whether they have now rejected the possibility of replacing the traditional census format.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government recognise the value of the census but believe that it is outdated in its current form and could be more effectively and more cheaply delivered. Decisions about its future after 2021 will be announced in the usual way but the Government agree with the conclusion of the Public Affairs Select Committee that the census needs to change.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Has my noble friend read the Economist of 5 April? It said:

“Britain’s decennial population count has been saved. Now make it work better”.

The Office for National Statistics also stated in March that it,

“recognises that special care would need to be taken to support those who are unable to complete the census online”.

In the light of both those statements, can my noble friend tell the House what safeguards there are to ensure that the roughly 20 million who are not literate online, and the half a million who were left out from the last census, will be able to take part in this new census?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are of course keen to encourage people to respond online. The paper-based census takes a great deal of time to analyse and transpose. It was some 16 months from the last census in 2011 until the first data became publicly available. If more people do it online, that could all be done a great deal more quickly but in 2021, although we already understand that 80% of households now use the internet daily, there will of course be support from the usual recruited field force to assist those who do not use online materials.

Voting: Young People

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are conscious that this is a long-term problem. The number of young people voting in elections has been going down for the past 25 years. When I was drafting my party’s manifesto for the 1997 election, I remember being told by a number of people in my party that we had to recognise that fewer young people voted than older people. That problem has been growing and it is still growing. With schools, students forums, funding a number of organisations, and working with Bite the Ballot and others, we are doing our utmost to mitigate that. From June this year we are also introducing online registration, which we hope will help young people find it easier to register.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Bearing in mind the Electoral Commission’s recent report on voter registration fraud, what safeguards are there to ensure that only those students at university who are eligible to vote in our national elections are the ones who register? In particular, what care is being taken to ensure that postgraduates on a one-year course, who may be eligible to register, do so but are taken off the register when they leave?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I suspect that a number of us in this Chamber are registered in two different places and have been for many years. Many students are registered in two different places, at their home and at their university. In all matters of electoral registration we have a balance to consider between keeping fraud to a minimum and doing everything that we can to encourage all British citizens to register.

Electoral Fraud

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recommendations of the recent Electoral Commission report Electoral Fraud in the UK, what action they propose to take to tackle electoral fraud.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we are carefully considering the Electoral Commission’s report and recommendations and will respond in due course. We are clear that any changes to the electoral system should be proportionate and not impose unnecessary barriers to participation by legitimate voters.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome that Answer, as far as it goes, and pay tribute to the work of the Electoral Commission. However, are there not three key dimensions to its report: first, the integrity of the registration; secondly, ensuring that the person voting is the person who is on the register; and, thirdly and lastly, the accuracy of the count? I have had the privilege to win elections by 179 and 141 votes. Against that sort of background, can my noble friend give a commitment that there will, in the next Session of Parliament, be legislation on at least all these three dimensions of electoral law?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure how one would legislate on the accuracy of the count. We have a whole system of poll watching, which noble Lords are all well aware of and which most of us, I am sure, have taken part in many times, to check the accuracy of the count. On the question of moving towards individual registration, the introduction of the national insurance number as a verifier is intended as a check on who is being registered. On the question of personation and checking on those who turn up, we are watching that very carefully and are now checking with police officers on reports. All the evidence we have is that the level of personation is extremely low.

Public Services: Private Sector Companies

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hope you will accept that there is, to some extent, a difference between the relationship that the Government have with water companies and energy suppliers, which have regulators, and the direct contracts that the Government have with particular suppliers such as Serco and G4S. The concerns that we have at present over Serco and G4S are widely known. The Government are conducting a review of contracts with Serco and G4S across the board.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Does my noble friend recall that, prior to 1979, hundreds of local authorities had direct labour departments building council homes and carrying out maintenance at a massive loss of billions of pounds to the local ratepayers and the taxpayer in general? In 1979, very early on, those councils were prevented from doing that and the private sector construction industry was brought in to build those flats. Is that not a better way forward, and has that not been proven over the years?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think we have discovered yet again that there is no perfect way of providing goods and services and that each model has its own advantages and disadvantages. The Government are currently doing their best to encourage the development of mutuals. Some weeks ago I went round the mutual housing association operating in Bradford, and it was doing a superb job, in particular in training apprentices. But of course there are good examples and bad examples in almost every sector.

Retail Prices Index

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the UK Statistics Authority overruled the recommendation and decision of the Office for National Statistics, following public consultation, to keep the Retail Prices Index as an official national statistic and whether they intend to challenge its downgrading.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the board of the UK Statistics Authority accepted the recommendations of the National Statistician both to produce a new index, to be known as RPIJ, and to retain the RPI as it is currently constructed. RPIJ is constructed in a way that meets current international standards whereas RPI was judged not to meet those standards. Because of this, the designation of the RPI as a national statistic was removed by the UK Statistics Authority, following a statutory reassessment which confirmed the finding of the National Statistician’s consultation that its formulation failed to meet current international standards.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that this is a UK statistic and that international standards on statistics are, frankly, a little irrelevant? After all, is it not the case that the Office for National Statistics changed its mind from the original proposition, based on strong representations from finance, commerce, industry and savers? In the light of that, will my noble friend make further suggestions to the UK Statistics Authority that it thinks again and puts that badge of quality back on the RPI?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware that either mathematics or statistics differed according to national boundaries. The only statistics course I took was in the United States. I should have thought that international standards—those of Eurostat, the International Labour Organisation and the IMF—are standards that the UK should follow without wishing to bring the defence of national sovereignty or hatred of the European Community into account.

Sri Lanka

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, first, I thank colleagues who wish to say something about Sri Lanka this afternoon. I appreciate that very much indeed. I would like to place on record the fact that the noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Sheikh, are in the sub-continent and send their apologies to the Committee for being unable to be here this afternoon.

As I think the Committee well knows, I have no interests to declare other than the fact that I have been interested in Sri Lanka for 50 years, since I first worked there for the Reckitt and Colman group in 1963. I had absolutely no political interests at all at that time. I have paid two key visits among many. One was in January 2009 at the height of the war, which seemed to me an appropriate time to go, if I may use that phrase, to see exactly what was happening. The second was earlier this year when the peace was firmly established.

This debate is about the LLRC, as I will call it in shorthand. It is not about the Supreme Court and what has happened there, although I will allude to that later in my contribution. A war lasting 30 years or thereabouts is a very long war. A number of colleagues in the House came through the Second World War, which lasted only five years. Change is inevitable when a war ends and Sri Lanka is no different from anywhere else in that respect. However, one thing was different in Sri Lanka. I remember the sheer joy of VE Day, as I am sure do others. Initially, there was a sense of sheer joy in Sri Lanka but it was very quickly clouded by allegations of war crimes and allegations that Sri Lanka had abused certain other international laws. My analysis leads me to the conclusion that one of the key reasons why this happened was that although the Tamil Tigers were defeated on the ground in Sri Lanka, the network that they had set up across the world was still intact, many of the senior operatives were still in place, certainly vast funding was still available, and the propaganda machine was alive and well in the sense that the propaganda was still being pumped out. That affected particularly the million or so members of the Tamil diaspora who had left because of the conflict. They were clearly leant on—we know this from the evidence gathered in many countries—and as a result western Governments understandably felt that they had to listen. Whether or not they felt that they had to act is another matter.

In my view, if today’s debate is to do any good, we need to look impartially at what has happened. The LLRC was set up on 15 May 2010, one year after the defeat of the Tigers and the end of the war. The very fact that it was set up deserves a tick as that was a good action. The more than 1,000 oral and more than 5,000 written submissions indicate that an awful lot of people responded to it. The key point is that the report was published in full, is extremely thorough and is based on the key principles of restorative justice rather than retributive justice. Those of us who know south and south-east Asia well will appreciate that it very much reflects the philosophy of the five principles of Buddhism and indeed the principles of Hinduism. People of real eminence in that society were appointed to the relevant body. Sri Lanka has been criticised for doing that and for not inviting international observers to participate. However, we chose to have “good eminent people” from our own Civil Service, and people from that sort of background, on our Chilcot commission. The report we are discussing was produced just over a year ago, whereas three years on we still do not have the Chilcot report and none of us really knows when it will come out.

The other people who were making noises at that time were the human rights groups, the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. Sadly, each refused to give any evidence at all on the grounds that they did not like the make-up and, in their view, the independence of the eminent persons. I think that that is a great pity and shows non-objectivity on the behalf of those groups. I am astonished that Amnesty in Canada has now accepted funds from the LTTE. I find it quite extraordinary that a human rights group should receive funds from the LTTE. That is its right, I suppose, but it somewhat undermines its moral standing. Now those same three groups are chasing up the Sri Lankan Government and saying that they are acting far too slowly to implement the recommendations. And yet—I have done a little bit of research on this—all over the world there are quite a lot of investigations going on into former wars and dictatorships, and some of them are taking an extraordinary length of time. Some of them are taking 11, 12, or 15 years. To take two that we might know a bit more about, one is in Bangladesh, which is again in south Asia, which set up in 2011 an inquiry into what happened in the 1971 war of independence. That has not reported. And, dare I mention it having been PPS in Northern Ireland, the inquiry into Bloody Sunday has now gone on for 40 years and still remains totally unresolved.

So what has happened on the ground? That is by far and away the most important thing. First, when I got there in the end of March, all the way through to the middle of April, there was peace on the ground. There were no bombs; you can travel wherever you like in Sri Lanka, by day and by night, with no security checks. I spoke to a Tamil cook of a friend of mine—my friend is also Tamil—just outside Bentota. He had come down from Jaffna overnight, not requiring any special pass or anything; he booked a ticket in a bus station, got off at Colombo, changed buses, and came along the corridor through to Bentota. Asked by me whether he had had any problems, he said that he had no problems at all and that it was as easy as anything. So life for ordinary people in Sri Lanka is good at the moment. Plus, one has to say, British tourists have responded en masse—in fact, almost too readily in the sense that there is obviously a shortage of hotel accommodation, particularly in the east, where people want to go, and in the north, although they are trying hard to get on and build more hotels. So that is real positive benefit on the ground.

I went to Menik farm, where the 297,000 rescued from the war fled. First, I put on record that I saw the head of ICRC with no one else present and asked him whether ICRC was restricted from going into Menik farm. The answer was no. It is true that certain other UN bodies were restricted but, in my book—as one that has done a number of these types of events—ICRC, or the Red Cross, are the key people. Secondly, my wife is a qualified retired doctor and we looked at the reports on malnutrition to see whether there was malnutrition in those coming into the camp, and there was hardly any at all. I shall not go into the food dimension but I do have data on that. That place is now closed and those 297,000 are now all rehoused, which is pretty good in that time span: near enough 300,000 rehoused in a relatively short period. On top of that, a number of the Muslims, who were ethnically cleansed out of Jaffna by the Tamil Tigers, have also been rehoused.

Demining is happening and I say a big thank you to the UK Government, both the former Labour Government and the coalition Government, for the money given to Halo, which is doing a good job on the ground. I spent a whole day with Halo: the team is very good and I thank DfID and, in particular, the Government. I make a plea that when that work is completed somebody does an analysis on Jaffna’s needs and, in particular, the hospital, which I went to look at in some depth. I would be very happy to prepare a draft paper if that was found to be helpful.

The rehabilitation of combatants has been excellent and there is a good case history. Eleven thousand of them have been rehabilitated, with 260 judicially mandated. Child soldiers, of whom there were 595, are all now back with their families. Land issues are being taken very seriously but are proving very difficult to resolve after 30 years. The situation is not unlike that in England, where if you own a bit of land for 12 years you have legal rights to it; I think that it is 10 years in Sri Lanka. The high-security zone, which I visited, is down to 40% of what it was. It has to remain because of the problems in Tamil Nadu. The country’s massive infrastructure, housing and official language policy are all working well. A great issue has been made of abductions. I have looked at the figures: in 2011 there were 239, with 226 now traced; in 2012 there were 225, with 207 now traced.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is 11 minutes on the clock.

[Lord Naseby]

No, I have been speaking for 10 minutes. I am taking injury time. I am taking my time from the annunciator.

[Lord Naseby]

With great respect, Lord Deputy Chairman, if a time is up there, it is the time that I am speaking from. I cannot look down here.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is the time for the Chamber. I am sorry, but that is what that is showing.

[Lord Naseby]

With the permission of the Committee, I should like two minutes to wind up.

On the numbers killed, four reports have come out recently. One was produced by the UN Country Team, which was never published. My plea to Her Majesty's Government is to ask for that to be published. That indicated that 7,000 were killed. A satellite analysis by the Americans indicates that fewer than 2,000 were killed within the graves that can be found. The recent census by Tamil teachers, again, indicates that just over 7,000 were killed. There were not 40,000 killed.

The second problem that the Government of Sri Lanka face is the ever-present threat of the LTTE overseas and the propaganda that is put out. However, Sri Lanka is an excellent member of the Commonwealth. It helped the UK in its hour of need at the time of the Falklands. There are those who, I know, want to downgrade the conference, but what greater stimulus can there be to Sri Lanka today to move forward on the areas that still have to be dealt with than to hold this conference? After all, the CPA held its conference back in September, attended by 700 parliamentarians from 54 countries. That went extremely well, as are preparations for the forthcoming conference.

Here we are in the Moses Room. I suggest that we need the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job, and let us not forget Kipling’s remarks that,

“A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East”.

Electoral Register

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Naseby

Monday 16th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, will the Minister look at the situation in Australia, where there is compulsory voting and the register is highly accurate?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure how highly accurate the Australia system is. People move in Australia, too, particularly in cities, and young people tend to avoid these things. I am not sure that there would be sentiment for compulsory voting as a basis in Britain, but perhaps we will test that as we take the Bill through the House.