Brexit: Court of Justice of the European Union

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords—

Lobbyists: Register

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question I was considering was whether or not certain newspapers whose reporters spend a great deal of their time impersonating lobbyists should also be required to register.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to what has happened so far in this area as being a step. He also referred to the next step. What is the next step?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I suggest that the next step after two or three years’ operation of this measure will be for the next Government to review how effective this process has been and how many professional lobbyists have registered. There is active resistance to this measure. I have been reading PRNews and various other publications and they all say that the measure is inadequate or unclear. We will see how well the excellent woman who has been appointed to the statutory regulator fulfils her duties. After that, we will consider what we might do to expand our activities in this area. If we were to register every single lobbyist of every single company that lobbies directly for its interests, we would have a vast bureaucracy. That is not something that we should undertake lightly.

Implications of Devolution for England

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, it might be appropriate to hear from a Welsh Peer and then we will come back to England.

Chilcot Inquiry

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure about backstairs manoeuvring. I would say that the members of the Chilcot inquiry would not pass the necessary test as all being members of the establishment. Indeed, one of the members of the Chilcot inquiry disrupted the first lecture I gave as a university teacher when he was himself a rebellious student. The inquiry does have to consult those whom it will criticise and allow them to provide a defence. That is the process that now remains to be completed before we publish. We all have to accept that in natural justice that has to be allowed to go ahead even if there are lawyers involved.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, the process referred to by the noble Lord could take months. It could take a very long time. If criticisms are made in the report they then have to go to the people who have been criticised. They have the right to comment. It then comes back to Sir John Chilcot. He has to consider those representations and then, if necessary, reflect them by amending the report. That is a recipe for a delay that will go on and on and on.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hope that will not be the case, but I am sure the noble Lord will accept that this is a necessary part of the process. There will be criticisms of people who served in the previous Labour Government and they are entitled to see them before publication.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, when I first heard that we were to have another five-hour debate on Lords reform, my heart sank. After the long series of debates that we had on Lords reform in 2011-12, I had a nightmare that I had been condemned to wind up a Lords debate once a week. The person sitting opposite me was rather fuzzy in my nightmare but I fear that it was probably the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, whom I was responding to on each occasion.

However, this is a constructive, useful and modest report, which makes a number of, on the whole, rather conservative proposals. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said that it is a report to, and not from, the Labour Party. Yesterday, I looked at the speech that Stephen Twigg had made to the Electoral Reform Society last month. On Lords reform, he said:

“What I can say is this: Labour is committed to a democratic second-chamber. Ed Miliband has shown that he is a leader with a radical zeal—and this will be true for Lords reform”.

I think that this report is a little bit like Talleyrand’s remark, “Pas trop de zèle”.

Stephen Twigg also said in his interesting speech that one problem with the Lords as currently constructed is that more than 40% of the Peers who regularly attend the House are based in London or the south-east, compared with some 2% in the West Midlands and some 4% in Yorkshire. We all recognise that the Lords, as currently constituted, has a range of problems and that it does not, as the report says, reflect in very many ways the diversity of the United Kingdom. We also recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, remarked, that that is partly because it is so much cheaper and more convenient if one is based in London. Therefore, there is an incentive to move to London once appointed.

I had the great advantage of having been offered a post in the London School of Economics three months before my party leader suggested that he might nominate me for the Lords. It was therefore possible to combine a career with membership of the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, was appointed on the same day as me. He was vice-principal of the University of Aberdeen and found arranging his life to fit in with Lords business a little more difficult than I did.

The report states that,

“reform of the Lords is not an issue that can be tackled in isolation from other constitutional issues”.

I strongly agree with that, and a number of noble Lords said it in this debate. Before commenting on the specific proposals, I shall address some of the broader contexts of constitutional change within the United Kingdom. The other day, a number of us had a useful debate in the Moses Room on exactly that issue. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, if I tell him that my opinion of his expertise on constitutional issues continues to rise every time I hear him speak. That will do him no good at all with his colleagues, but never mind.

A new all-party group chaired by my noble friend Lord Purvis, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is looking at the implications of devolution for the overall constitution. That is exactly the sort of thing we all need to address and will have to address after the Scottish referendum when, as we hope, the Scots vote against independence but expect further devolution, as the Silk commission promises the Welsh—and indeed, there are questions on Northern Ireland.

The English question has come up a number of times in this House. I regard the English question as partly the London question and a question for the whole of the United Kingdom. How do we counterbalance the economic, political and social dominance of London? If you do your politics in Yorkshire, you are acutely aware that the north of England loses out very heavily from the extent to which the devolved Parliaments have begun to establish their independent voice. I go to meetings inside government in which I hear the Scottish dimension, the Northern Irish dimension and the Welsh dimension, but no one mentions the Yorkshire, north-western or south-western dimensions. That is a problem which we all face and which we all have to address.

I hope that all noble Lords will have noted the Government’s various proposals on city deals and the attempts being made, starting with Manchester and following on with Leeds and others, to devolve and decentralise to the major city regions within England financial powers and powers over economic growth. If that is carried through, that would begin to resolve some parts of the English question. Furthermore, it would carry further implications for the governance of the United Kingdom. If the centralisation of England is reduced, we will need fewer departments and fewer civil servants in London. We may then perhaps need fewer Ministers in Parliament. Therefore, perhaps there would be a House of Commons that sees its job less as preparing for service in government and perhaps a little more as checking and controlling the Executive.

We are now engaged on a whole set of questions. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act also has implications. There have been some rather interesting reports from parliamentary committees and from the Institute for Government on how we might use the last year of government to prepare for the next Session. It could be along the lines already adopted on national security strategy where we have agreed—the previous Labour Government set this out—that each new Government should define a national security strategy on the basis of work conducted in the last year of the previous Parliament.

The Institute for Government’s report suggests that in the last year of a Parliament, we should not rush through great masses of additional legislation, as I recall the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, demanding that we do, but that we should discuss some of the dilemmas that whoever is elected will have to face—for example, the rising costs of the National Health Service and how it is funded and some of the other huge questions that will face any Government—and look therefore at a scrutinising role.

Public disengagement was mentioned in the report and by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, in her opening speech, as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. When I read the Hansard Society’s recent Audit of Political Engagement I was shocked that only 24% of 18 to 25 year-olds think that politics has any relevance to them.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord is describing a constitutional process that clearly will be lengthy. The agenda he has given to the Constitution Committee is long. It will take a lot of examination and discussion. There will be a lot of evidence and thinking. Does he really think that House of Lords reform should wait until all that is done?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have in my notes that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that further progress in Lords reform does not have to wait for the conclusions of any constitutional convention. However, I would just make the point that we are moving into a situation where various dimensions of British politics are changing, and we need to discuss how they relate to each other.

Public engagement very much concerns us. The decline in the reputation of the House of Commons should also concern us. I love listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He is a romantic for the House of Commons as it should be, and he was one of the best House of Commons men that we had. I fear that the new generation does not produce as many House of Commons men who are as good as he was.

We have the decline of the two-party system and of parties as such. All political parties now are small compared with where we were some 20 years ago. It is quite possible that the outcome of this coming election, as has been suggested, will not be a two or three-party system but a four or five-party system. With the Northern Irish and Scottish parties, there are already multiple parties in the House of Commons. We could have an awkward situation after the next election in which Labour emerges with the most seats and the Conservatives emerge with the most votes, and no two parties alone would be able to form a majority. That is getting into very uncharted territory as to how we would then proceed. I read the New Statesman and listen to Labour people talking about a Labour mandate and how Labour could form a minority Government with a clear mandate. A mandate on, say, 33% of a 60% turnout is not exactly clear.

The case for a commission or convention is out there. There was an excellent report by the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee last year which suggested that the Government have no view on this issue at present. However, personally and as a Minister, this is a question that we ought to be debating in the last year of this Parliament. I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others are doing. It is one that we all need to consider because we need to look at how all of this runs together.

Recommendation 1 of this proposal is that we need to think about a constitutional commission or convention. There is not time within the next three months or even nine months to define exactly what we want, but it is precisely the sort of thing to which we might return in future debates between now and the election.

On Lords reform, we have been here for a long time. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, after all, chaired the Joint Committee and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, reminded us that he was on the Wakeham commission. The Government remain committed to comprehensive reform, as indeed does the Labour Party officially. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, remarked that the 2012 Bill, criticised sharply from the Labour Benches, closely followed Jack Straw’s White Paper.

The Byles/Steel Act has now introduced some useful interim reforms, and if we accept the proposals in this report as interim and not intended to avoid more comprehensive reform, there are a number of useful and constructive proposals for the interim, some of which are familiar and some of which are relatively new. Quite a number of them can be agreed by this House without requiring further legislation through the normal procedures and usual channels. We are of course open to further discussion on that. On the proposals in the report—

Intelligence and Security Committee

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Justice and Security Act is less than a year old and was a useful step forward. I am conscious that the Snowden leaks, so to speak, and all the other questions about just how wide the collection of information by intelligence agencies across the world is, have stimulated a further debate. I have no doubt that that debate will continue, including within this House.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Foulkes asked what changes the Government propose. Do they propose any changes in relation to this matter or are they still waiting?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have only just commenced and set into effect the Justice and Security Act. The first public meeting of the Intelligence and Security Committee under the Act took place some three months ago, so we are still discussing the next stage. That is not particularly dilatory, given that we are moving in the right direction. We are looking at the current revelations about the sheer scale of internet surveillance, which perhaps raise further issues for discussion.

Profumo Inquiry

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have not yet decided whether they will remain closed for 83 years. It is fairly clear who all the individuals in the files are: they are those who were interviewed by Lord Denning.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, I confess that I am slightly baffled by this. Did Lord Denning have the authority to give those assurances? I thought that the release of public documents was governed by various rules and regulations—there may even be an Act—that there was a 30-year rule and a 50-year rule, and that that was, so to speak, part of the governmental fabric. Is the chairman of an inquiry that has been set up by the Government in those circumstances to inquire into a matter like this entitled to give an assurance which, in effect, eats into or may even destroy the purposes of the various rules and regulations about release?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this decision has been reviewed several times. As I remarked, the review has considered whether the files should be destroyed, maintained or released. As the noble Lord is well aware, there are a number of cases, particularly those with security and defence issues, where papers are retained for more than 50, 30 or 20 years. That has to have the approval of what is called a Lord Chancellor’s Instrument. It would now be appropriate to consider whether a formal Lord Chancellor’s Instrument needs to be applied to these files. I will add that at the time, Lord Denning refused to allow the head of the security services access to the papers.

Leveson Report

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I suspect that it was the result of some very fast footwork by the press board.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, is the noble Lord seriously telling the House that the order in which the Privy Council considers these matters is that in which they are submitted to that body? If that is so, it is the most incredible position. Anybody could submit an application sharpish, which would then hold up consideration of all the major issues which might be submitted by other people. Is there no way in which the Privy Council can draw up a list of priorities of what it wishes to consider first, or is it solely bound by the fact that whoever gets his head through the door first is considered first? That is ludicrous.

House of Lords: Appointments

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the consensus in this House is not the only factor which has to be taken into consideration. The House of Commons voted by a substantial majority in favour of the principle of an elected second chamber. All three parties had the principle of an elected second chamber in their manifestos in the last election and the coalition programme stated that we will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. We want to achieve a consensus. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who has laboured very hard to achieve a consensus on reforms. That is clearly the only long-term way forward.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, the noble Lord said that I tried very hard to get this House and everybody to agree that it should be an elected second chamber. Of course I did. But if the Government have decided that they are not going to go for an elected second chamber, they really must look at the size of this House. You cannot just leave it on the basis that it is going to creep up to nearly 1,000 and then pretend that somehow or other the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, will rectify it. It will not. If the Government have any sense—I am not sure that they do on this issue—they should now commit themselves actively to pursuing policies whereby the size of this House can be reduced.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I would welcome proposals from noble Lords as to how we achieve that. I have mentioned already the voluntary retirement scheme. Let us discuss off the Floor of the House the possible acceptability of a maximum age.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, my congratulations go to all those who have sat through most of this debate and who were here at a quarter to one this morning. I remind your Lordships that this has been a take note debate on the report of the Joint Committee. I therefore hope that the House will excuse me if I do not answer all of the points made in the more than 70 speeches. There has been remarkable passion across all the Benches. I suggest that as we continue to discuss this, we will need to be as dispassionate as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, with whom we have debated these issues so often and will no doubt continue to do so, talked about the need to seek consensus, but made it clear that the Labour Party is unwilling to compromise on a 100 per cent elected House. I suggest that if we are to seek consensus, compromise is part of the way that may lead to a consensus. I answer just two of his specific questions. The Attorney-General has made his position clear to the Joint Committee in volume 3, page 8, and elsewhere. The Government will set out their legal reasoning on the application of the Parliament Acts if a Bill is included in the Queen’s Speech.

The Government have not produced an estimate of costs with the draft Bill because a final decision has to be made on issues such as how many Members the reformed House of Lords will have, how much they will be paid and what support they will receive.

[Lord Richard]

Did I hear the noble Lord right? Did he say that the Attorney-General has made his position clear on the Parliament Act point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith? If so, it has passed me by. The Attorney-General was very specific in a letter to me and said that he would not do that for the Select Committee. Where has he done that so specifically?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the reference in volume 3 is indeed not to whether the Parliament Acts would be used, it is merely to the relevance of the Parliament Acts, but if the Government produce a Bill, we will of course return to the issue.

There is a wider context here, and I want to start with that. Many Peers have referred to the constitution as a whole. We need to be conscious of the mood beyond Westminster and the attitudes of the public to our democratic institutions. One newspaper last week, I forget whether it was the Times or the Guardian, talked about a crisis of confidence in public elites—that is to say, in politicians, journalists, media proprietors, bankers, hedge funders and the like. The Audit of Political Engagement, which has just been published, talks about our public as disillusioned, disgruntled and disengaged. Less than one-quarter of those polled think that our current system of government works well. Disillusion and disengagement are strongest among the young. I have just read Peter Kellner’s long piece on a large YouGov survey held in January this year in which he says:

“What emerges is a picture of massive discontent that goes far beyond a dislike of particular politicians, parties and policies ... Unless action is taken to restore the reputation of our political system, its very legitimacy may be at risk”.

The survey asked respondents what they liked or disliked among a list of political groups and institutions. Dislike of the way that Peers are selected to be Members of the House of Lords comes second equal in terms of hostility with,

“the quality of our political parties”,

and behind only,

“the quality of our politicians”.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We shall continue to do so.

I am grateful for the depth of concern for the purity of the Liberal Democrats. It is most touching to hear so much from the Labour Benches. Indeed, it reminded me of the years in which I used to worry about the purity of the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, to the Labour Party as it became Eurosceptic, and how on earth he could manage to stay in the Labour Party through all of its twists and turns on Europe. But we worry about each other.

[Lord Richard]

Is the noble Lord saying that I became a Eurosceptic? If he is, he knows nothing about me.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I know very well that the noble Lord did not, but I also understand that he made various compromises to stay in his own party.

Houses of Parliament: Access during Demonstrations

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Richard

Thursday 9th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we could spend a long time discussing the British constitution. I remind the House that the sessional order that has been agreed by this House since the 18th century does not, in effect, apply beyond the boundaries of the Palace of Westminster and, in some ways, it may indeed arouse unreasonable expectations. There have been occasions when people have been unable to access the Houses of Parliament by car during recent demonstrations. There was one occasion, I am informed, when a number of additional police from outer boroughs who were reinforcing our local policemen did not recognise the parliamentary passes of Members of either House. That has now been corrected. The police have to balance the democratic right to protest with maintaining access to Parliament. On the whole, I think that all around the House we would accept that the police maintain that balance very well.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, when talking about the sessional order, the Minister said that it aroused “unreasonable expectations”. Is he really saying that it is an unreasonable expectation that Members of Parliament and Peers should get to this House?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise. I should perhaps have said “unrealistic expectations”. There are circumstances in which it may be difficult to maintain access by car. We cherish the right to demonstrate. It is part of an open society. We would not like to have the same circumstances for maintaining order around this House as the Chinese Government maintain on occasion in Tiananmen Square. These are delicate issues. We ask the police to maintain order and to maintain access. As Members will know, when there are large demonstrations, the authorities provide us with information about which entrances will be kept open and where there may be difficulty, and I am sure that Members of this House follow their orders as well as they can.