Councils: Funding

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, given the Government’s advocacy and indeed imposition in many parts of the country of directly elected mayoral systems, and given the enormous pressure on local government finance, will the Minister tell us whether these new systems represent good value for money in comparison with more traditional methods of local government administration? If he does not have precise figures to hand, is it not worth at least examining the comparative costs of the two systems of local government?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government have not imposed mayors on parts of the country; they have elected to have mayors. There has been no imposition. In all the cases involving combined authorities and local mayors, local government has come to the Government and asked that these powers be given to them. I think the noble Lord will find that he is misinformed that we have imposed this structure on local government.

House of Lords: Gender Equality

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Thursday 6th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has had more time than any other Private Member’s Bill this Session, and many of us have spent enjoyable Fridays making progress on it. It is open to the noble Lord, if his appetite is unquenched, to ask my noble friend the Chief Whip for yet more time to progress with his Bill. I know that the current chair of HOLAC, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, takes this matter seriously. Since 2012, HOLAC has appointed seven women and five men.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, yesterday I read the recently published UK Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit 2018, which made the point that the noble Baroness has just made. The number of applications that HOLAC receives from men far exceeds the number from women. I agree that there is a role for all of us in driving up the number of applications from women. Perhaps I could write to her on her question about the percentage of senior appointments.

[Lord Grocott]

I am greatly encouraged by the Minister’s suggestion that I ask the Government Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for more time. I therefore ask him for more time.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I may be in some trouble with my noble friend but that was actually in my brief.

European Parliament Elections: Non-UK EU Citizens

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

At the beginning of his questions, my noble friend generously suggested that I might write to him. It is an offer which I accept with alacrity.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, could the Minister resist any temptation to spend too much time, energy and public money on dealing with all these questions? Of course, the simple way to avoid all the difficulties that Members have identified with these elections would have been to observe the decision of the British people in 2016 to hold no more of them. Can he help the House, at least in one respect, to avoid any further waste of money? There was a reference in his Statement to the fact that full funding was provided to returning officers for all their needs; I am sure that is the case. Can he tell us precisely what the cost to the taxpayer has been for holding these totally unnecessary elections; or, if he does not have the information available now, can he put it in the Library?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with the noble Lord that, had the other place agreed the withdrawal agreement that was put before it, we could have avoided these elections. It so happens that I have in front of me some information relating to his question. The cost of the last European elections was £109 million, but that was shared with local elections. The amount of money set aside this time, when they did not coincide with local elections, was £159 million.

Elections and Referendums: Foreign Interference

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend. We have invested £1.9 billion in the national cybersecurity strategy for precisely the reason that he has outlined: to resist interference in the electoral process. Estimates of the reach of the Russians suggest that 105 accounts reached 16,000 people during the referendum campaign, in many cases simply amplifying arguments in circulation. The majority was 1.3 million. I honestly do not think that one can attribute that majority to the activity of Russian spooks.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, of course it is essential that we have maximum transparency in all organisations involved in referendum campaigns, general election campaigns and the like, but does the Minister agree that we need maximum transparency also on the part of those well-financed organisations whose aim is to reverse the result of referendums? I refer of course to the People’s Vote campaign, which is a campaign to reverse the vote of the people in 2016. It is massively well financed, with opinion polling across the country in individual constituencies and with leafleting and campaigning—I have kept many of its documents because it kindly sends them to me as well. Will he ensure that, in any future investigation into transparency, organisations such as the so-called People’s Vote campaign are included?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Were there to be another referendum, there would need to be primary legislation, which would give an opportunity to the noble Lord and others to see whether the current legislation is adequate. Anybody taking part in any future referendum would have to register as a political party. There are maximum spending limits on such activity and there is the necessary transparency associated with it, but I take on board the warning from the noble Lord.

EU Referendum: Conduct

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. My noble friend Lord Foulkes spoke with passion and eloquence on behalf of the 700,000 people who marched. If I can say a word on behalf of the 17.4 million people who voted leave, it is this: ever since the referendum result was declared—this just another step along the way—there has been an unremitting campaign to try to discredit or, at best, reverse the result of the referendum on numerous different fronts, of which this is just the latest example. Can the Minister put this all in perspective and recognise that the 17.4 million people who voted leave were not all duped by the Russians and were not all ignorant about the issues which were before them? All they asked was this simple request, which we want the Government to get on with: to leave the European Union.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that after the referendum the relevant legislation was passed through both Houses. Legislation will shortly be introduced, following a successful negotiation with the European Union. I share his wish, as much as anybody else, that this whole matter be brought to a conclusion swiftly and cohesively, and we can then move on to other matters.

Infrastructure and Projects Authority

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that if any management techniques such as red, amber and green flags were available in the 1830s, the London to Birmingham railway would never have been built and there would have been red flags against pretty much everything? Will he ignore the Jeremiahs and get on with the project of building HS2, which is of huge importance to the West Midlands? It is a clear statement of confidence in the future.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I say to the noble Lord that I was around 20 years ago during the gestation of HS1 and precisely the same arguments were adduced against that: it was environmentally unsustainable; it was not value for money; there were other, greater priorities. I do not think that anyone in your Lordships’ House today would now argue that we should not have gone ahead with HS1. My own view is that in 20 years’ time, or whenever HS2 is complete, the same view will be taken of HS2.

Elections: Electoral Commission Recommendations

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend raises an interesting question. I think the honest answer is that all countries in the West have to wake up to a new form of conflict where military and non-military weapons are joined together in an integrated and dynamic way in order to achieve political aims. My noble friend is right: Russia is at the forefront of this so-called hybrid warfare, with a wide spectrum of capacity which has the potential to damage political and democratic institutions. That impacts on a wide range of government departments, and we have to make sure they are correctly aligned to see a proper response to this very real threat.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord, Lord Young, agree that it might be helpful for the Electoral Commission to direct its attention to an aspect of our elections in this country, namely the system of by-elections for replacement of hereditary Peers? Can he confirm that there is one taking place next Tuesday in which the statistics are as follows: 31 electors and 19 candidates? To make it even more absurd, the total number of people—that is, hereditary Peers—who can take part constitutes 0.004% of the electorate in Britain. Is there any electoral system anywhere in the world quite as ridiculous as this? Will the noble Lord please do the very simple thing, which is to acknowledge this and to support a Bill to scrap them?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I commend the noble Lord on his persistence and ingenuity in campaigning tirelessly for his Private Member’s Bill. He refers to an anomaly. This was introduced in 1998. If it was so absurd, why, for the next 12 years, when his party was in office—when he, indeed, was Chief Whip—did he allow this anomaly to remain on the statute book?

House of Lords: Size

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I gently suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Young, that he would not be answering 15 questions if he could give us one answer. The answer that I would like him to give us is the one that was presented by the Burns report, which has been largely accepted by the House, and indeed implicitly by the Government; that is, the completely anomalous position of having 92 protected places while trying to reduce the size of the House, so that, following last week’s vacancy caused by the retirement of Earl Baldwin, this House will be by law obliged—against its policy—to replace that exiting Peer with a new Peer. If the Minister will simply answer yes to my question of whether the Government will put an end to that anomaly, I guarantee that he will not get any more questions from me.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

There are, however, many others who might fill the gap. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was the first to admit that his Bill would have but a marginal impact on the size of the House, which is the subject of this debate, dependent as it is on the mortality of the hereditary Peers—none of us would wish to see that accelerated. So far as his Bill is concerned, as I said when he asked a question last week, unusually we have offered additional time to him. There will be another Friday when he can take the Bill forward and I have made it absolutely clear that the Government will not obstruct it. It is up to him and the House to make progress with the additional time that we will make available.

House of Lords: Membership

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Monday 21st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I do not have the mental capacity or the bandwidth to work that out. Fifty? Sixty? Any advance on sixty? [Laughter.] I notice some jostling for position on the Liberal Benches. I am sure that by the time the House rises someone will have worked out the exact proportion and how many Liberal Democrats ought to go.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, will find himself on pretty thin ice if he is suggesting that there has been some kind of fairness between the two major parties over the last couple of decades and the last few Prime Ministers. I remind him that when Labour came into office in 1997, with a majority of around 170 in the House of Commons, it had a deficit of around 250 to 300 in comparison with the Tory representation in this House, and it took nine years, until 2006, until Labour even became the biggest party in the Lords. They of course were the only nine years in the Lords’ history when the Labour Party has been the biggest party. It took the Tories just four years after 2010 to reassert their traditional position of being the biggest party in this House irrespective of the results of general elections. So the Minister needs to be a bit more cautious in talking about the peerage-awarding powers of Prime Ministers when Labour has been at such a massively consistent disadvantage.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I take the noble Lord’s point, but the base from which the two parties were starting in 1997 and 2010 were totally different. That is why it took the Labour Party longer to catch up.

Hereditary Peers: By-elections

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Lord Speaker’s announcement of the retirement of Earl Baldwin of Bewdley on 9 May, what is their policy on by-elections for hereditary Peers.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, we are committed to ensuring that the House continues to fulfil its constitutional role as a revising and scrutinising Chamber effectively, including by working with others in your Lordships’ House to address the question of its size. That policy extends, of course, to any questions on the composition of the House. We should of course also offer the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, the very best for his retirement.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Well, that was an amiable Answer —but in no sense an answer to the Question that I asked, which was about the policy of the Government on hereditary Peers’ by-elections. Will the Minister confirm that the retirement of the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, means that a by-election—we shall call it a parliamentary by-election—will be taking place, the electorate for which will be 31 hereditary Peers, and that the list of those eligible to stand as candidates in the election will consist of 198 hereditary Peers, 197 of whom are men?

The Minister is straightforward with this House and he has a sense of humour, so I hope that he shares the view of the overwhelming majority of this House that these by-elections are now beyond satire. They are ludicrous and indefensible. If he does think that—although he keeps his face very straight as he looks at me—I hope that he will be able to announce that the Government will do something popular and announce that these by-elections will be ended by supporting my Bill, and that this by-election, which we will be forced to go through, will be the very last of its kind.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s Bill had an unopposed Second Reading on 8 September and on 23 March useful progress was made in going through the amendments. The Government are prepared to allocate yet further time for the Committee stage of the Bill—a hospitality not normally extended to a Private Member’s Bill, as the noble Lord, himself a former Chief Whip and custodian of Fridays, will know. The use to which the House puts that extra time is a matter for him and for the House.

So far as the by-election is concerned, it will contain, I suspect, the most sophisticated and discerning electorate, comprising 31 Cross-Bench hereditary Peers.

House of Lords: Register of Hereditary Peers

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the legislative arrangements giving rise to the Register of Hereditary Peers who wish to stand for election to the House of Lords.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the House of Lords Act 1999 provides for Standing Orders of the House to make arrangements for the replacement, by elections, of hereditary Peers who are Members of this House. The Standing Orders provide for the register of hereditary Peers. Therefore, these arrangements are a matter for this House.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

That was not really an Answer to the Question. I just ask the Minister to confirm that, of the 198 names on the register of those who are eligible to stand for by-elections for vacancies among hereditary Peers, just one is a woman and none is from any of the ethnic minorities. Should not those two facts alone convince us all that this system is not just ludicrous but totally indefensible? I have a very simple question for the Minister and, if he could just answer with a yes, we could move on to the next Question. Will the Government do something that will hurt no one and cost nothing—that is, back my Bill, which would scrap this whole ludicrous system?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. Moving on to the next Question would not help me at all, as I have to answer that one as well. As he will know, when I replied to the Second Reading debate on his Bill, I said, referring to the specific anomaly that he referred to, that as a consequence of the current arrangements we have a system that is very difficult to defend in equality terms, and that reflected the views expressed. However, I went on to say that there is an exemption from the Equality Act for this arrangement. The Equality Act 2010 provides that neither a life peerage nor a hereditary peerage, as a dignity or honour conferred by the Crown, is a public or personal office for the purposes of the Act. So Parliament specifically exempted these provisions when it passed that piece of legislation.

Boundary Reviews 2018

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Grocott

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I heartily agree with my noble friend. His constituency was made unwinnable by the Boundary Commission; mine was actually abolished; I am not quite sure which of us came out of it best. So far as his question is concerned, it would be an affront to democracy if the proposals of the independent Boundary Commissions were obstructed.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Is it not also an affront to democracy that the strategy of this Government has been to plan a reduction of the number of MPs from 650 to 600, while in the same period increasing the size of this House by 240-plus life Peers? Could the Minister explain the thinking behind this situation?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that the coalition Government sought to reduce the number of noble Lords by a very substantial number, but because of the failure of his party in the Commons to support it, that Bill did not go through. He will also know that the Lord Speaker has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, which I understand may report in July. There is a consensus across the House that the numbers need to come down. We look forward to the noble Lord’s proposals, to see how that might be delivered.