Cabinet Manual

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Stansgate]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when the revised version of the Cabinet Manual will be published.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, in 2022 the Government committed to updating the Cabinet Manual and continue to consider the approach and timescales. We will provide a full update to the Constitution Committee, which recommended that an update should be made, in due course.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, that is a disappointing reply, because the Government are not living up to their word. The Leader of the House described the Cabinet Manual as

“a document of fundamental importance … that sets out the rules, conventions and practices that affect the operation of government”.—[Official Report, 16/12/22; cols. 935-36.]

Since the last manual was published, major changes have taken place: the referendum in 2016 and our departure from the EU; developments in devolution; and the Prorogation of 2019 that was overturned unanimously by the Supreme Court. Does an updated draft exist? Has the Prime Minister seen and approved it? When will it be made available to not just the Constitution Committee in this House but PACAC in another place? Above all, will the Minister make a solemn promise to the House that the revised edition of the Cabinet Manual will be published before the launch of the coming general election?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, previous debates in this House on the Cabinet Manual, and indeed on other issues, have demonstrated the importance of the manual, as the noble Viscount suggests, both for those working in government and those outside seeking to get a better understanding. As I said in good faith the last time he asked me this Question, the Government are considering options on timing and content in the light of these debates, but ultimately, this is a matter for the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister of the day.

UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate and I am pleased to take part in it. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who speaks with a lot of European experience, as do so many other noble Lords taking part. I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on a really interesting report; the committee took a lot of interesting evidence and, like others, I am very pleased that we are having this debate sooner rather than later.

It is not often that I have to declare an interest when speaking in this Chamber, but on this occasion I refer to the register of interests. In the last 20 years or so, I have spent a lot of time in Europe, especially France, where the personal experience I have gained is relevant to this debate. I will return to this later. Speaking of France, the King is making his state visit there today— I hope the weather in Paris is better than here.

I begin by saying one fairly simple thing: the next Government will need to take UK-EU relations seriously, no matter what Government they are. They will also need to improve them. If the present Government are re-elected, they will need to improve them; if, as I hope, a Labour Government are elected, the important difference is that they will want to improve them. I was heartened to read in a recent interview in the Financial Times that the leader of my party said he would attempt to secure a “much better” relationship with the EU than the existing TCA. He said:

“I do think we can have a closer trading relationship as well. That’s subject to further discussion”,


and

“As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK”.


I have no time to go into the trade issues, but Europe remains our biggest and nearest export market.

However, trying to negotiate a better deal is a lot easier said than done. I have heard it said that the European Commission will take a limited approach to any renegotiation, as reflected in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and there may be a limit to what can be achieved. However, if there is a change of government, a new Prime Minister can do some things that would signal from the top that there is a new, more constructive and more stable Government with which the EU can do business. There would be a diplomatic dividend, which would take them so far but would need a lot of work.

In the short time available, I will highlight two areas in which I hope improvements can be made. First, there is the political, diplomatic and institutional relationship. We can make more progress by talking more. I am in favour of more UK-EU summits at prime ministerial and ministerial level. I am in favour of giving more UK momentum to the joint UK-EU partnership councils and the various specialised committees set up under the TCA. I am in favour of the UK-EU parliamentary partnerships set up to exchange views on the implementation and operation of the TCA— I very much endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, now on the Woolsack, said a moment ago on this. I am also in favour of the UK playing an active part in the European Political Community.

I welcome the Government’s decision to re-join Horizon Europe. I have campaigned for it since I joined the House and I am sorry about the damage that has been done by the delay, but it is essential. We cannot hope to be a science superpower unless we take part, and I am glad that we will do so. Now that we have re-joined it and Copernicus, why cannot we re-join the Erasmus scheme also? Perhaps the Minister can say something about that.

This brings me to the second major area I want to mention: the cultural relationship. It is no good talking about the UK’s “soft power” if we do not deploy it, or if we cannot deploy it. It is not just in the professional world of the creative industries where damage has been done; it is the amateur world as well. The committee rightly talks about school visits and there has been a staggering drop in the numbers of those taking place, in both directions. This is utterly self-defeating for the UK. Apart from the professional world of music and creative arts, there is also the amateur world. I want to emphasise the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and, in advance, those that may be made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. One of the tragedies of leaving Europe has been that visits to Europe by youth orchestras have been rendered well-nigh impossible, and here I speak from personal experience. For years, I have travelled round Europe in support of my own children, a violinist and a cellist, who were members of the Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra. They were invited to play all over Europe in the summer: in Austria, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Slovenia, Poland and other countries. It was a deeply enriching musical experience for the orchestra and audiences alike, and in many cases, it was the first time those young people had been abroad at all. One litmus test of better UK relations in the future will be the restoration of this kind of important cultural link, and I hope the Minister will be able to say something positive about a youth visa that may make this possible.

In conclusion, I welcome the fact that we are now talking about a new and different relationship with the EU; accepting the committee’s report and everything in it would be a very good basis for approaching the task ahead.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete: Public Buildings

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Stansgate]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent of the problem of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in public buildings other than schools.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have acted decisively to tackle the issue, taking a proportionate approach informed by experts. The Office of Government Property, which is part of the Cabinet Office, wrote to all government property leaders in 2019 and again in September 2022, highlighting safety notices on RAAC and signposting Institution of Structural Engineers guidance on identification and remediation. It is the responsibility of individual organisations such as departments, arm’s-length bodies or wider organisations such as NHS trusts, to manage their own buildings.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Answer, but there is something of a metaphor for the Government in this issue of RAAC—time expired and liable to collapse with little or no notice. Is the Chancellor going to agree to “spend whatever it takes” to fix the problems in housing, hospitals and other public buildings? The Minister just mentioned the Cabinet Office review, but what about the Ministry of Defence review into its buildings that I understood had to be completed by July? How many hospitals are going to be partially closed as a result of work on RAAC and will the Government list them in the way they have done for schools? Does the Minister agree with the head of the National Audit Office that getting value for money depends on doing the “unflashy but essential” things such as maintenance, in addition to what you might call a sticking-plaster approach that ends up costing more money? In short, can the Minister understand why some people think that this is an autoclaved aerated crumbling Government in need of replacement?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

That was a huge array of questions more suitable for debate, but perhaps I can make clear that the Government have agreed to fund extensive RAAC mitigation works across the NHS and the education estate by capital funding allocations. We will consider the approach to any RAAC funding in other public sector estates on a case-by-case basis. As regards the MoD, the programme of surveys is ongoing, given the size of the estate, and I know that my right honourable friend the new Defence Secretary takes this matter very seriously.

Parliamentary Democracy in the United Kingdom

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

Well, that ruined my opening line, which was going to be to congratulate the Member who had just spoken before me with “It’s a pleasure to disagree”, but never mind. It is customary to congratulate the Member who secured the debate, but I really want to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who has performed a very useful service to the House as a whole.

I look forward to the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate. This is an interesting debate in which to give a maiden speech. When I saw this debate on the Order Paper, I thought three things. First, I thought, “What a good debate to have”. I think the House should have debates like this, from time to time, to take the temperature of things and assess where we are.

Secondly, I thought that this debate would attract so many speakers that we would have hardly any time to say anything, which has proved to be the case. I am afraid that this is what might be called a soundbite debate and I am sorry about that; we need more time.

Thirdly, I thought about how we are having this debate in the run-up to the Coronation, which is a rare event when attention naturally falls upon the monarch. It is a timely moment to remind ourselves that we are indeed supposed to be a parliamentary democracy. But what does that mean? Historically, it means that powers that have for centuries been exercised by the monarch are now exercised by the Prime Minister, but how accountable is she or he for that? I hope I will be forgiven if I upset any Members opposite but we have seen, for example, the exercise of what one might call the normal power of Prorogation as a highly political act of some consequence.

Then there are defects in the legislative process: there are too many skeleton Bills, which can reduce Parliament to a rubber stamp, and too many mega-Bills, such as the enormous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Everyone knows that this House deals with legislation more successfully than the other place. There are balance of power Bills, which, I would argue, restrict and change the individual right of citizens. Of course, we sit far longer than the other place. There is also the question of the future of the Chamber. The light is already flashing. It is no secret that the Opposition have a plan for this House after the next election, but we will have to see what that is.

I end by saying that I know what the Minister is going to say. I rather wish that we could have a debate when she speaks first and then we comment on what the Government have said. Although this is a very short debate and I am about to sit down, I venture to suggest that today’s Hansard may be a slim volume, but it would be worth having.

Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has laid great emphasis on due process, which we understand, and there is an inquiry going on, which we understand. Will she agree voluntarily to bring to the House a Statement once the outcome of this investigation is known?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Statements to the House are a matter for the usual channels. However, given the interest in this matter it is quite possible for noble Lords to raise Questions, and Statements are often made on important matters of the day. I cannot make a specific promise, of course, but I understand where the noble Viscount is coming from, and that the House wishes to know and to be kept informed.

Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I can only repeat the point that the Prime Minister has been in office for only 31 days; he has had a hugely demanding agenda to deal with, not least on the economic side. He has made clear that he is appointing an independent adviser. That process is in hand; noble Lords need to give us some rope.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has told the House that the delay in appointing an independent adviser has not interfered with the existing ongoing investigations. Nevertheless, do the Government not understand the damage being done to the credibility of government and the democratic process by not having an independent adviser?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, the machinery of government goes on. As I explained in my Statement, managing ministerial interests, including the management of those on the appointment of new Ministers, is continuing with the Permanent Secretaries in the Cabinet Office and with the head of the Civil Service. I do not think there is a lot more that we can do than appoint an independent adviser of the right kind. As somebody who has worked in many different parts of the British state and business, I know that it is important to take time to make appointments of this sort. We need somebody experienced and credible who wins the trust of the Prime Minister, who is ultimately responsible.

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in the gap. It is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on his Bill and the way he introduced it. Of course, consideration of the Bill was due to be held some months ago but was delayed by the death of Her late Majesty. Strangely, I think events since then have, if anything, strengthened the case for the Bill.

We seem to be living through a time when the House’s membership is expanding. We have at least two Resignation Honours Lists pending. As other noble Lords have indicated, this is a problem for the House that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and others have addressed over many years.

In a way, I do not blame Prime Ministers. I do not know that any Member of this House who became Prime Minister would be immune from the temptation to appoint people to this House. Of course, for every Member you appoint you can keep 10 other people hovering about in the hope of preferment; it is part of the power of patronage that you have.

One of the great merits of the Bill is to put the Appointments Commission on a statutory basis, and I welcome that. As other noble Lords have said, it has been an objective across the House for many years. I make one suggestion to the noble Lord, which occurred to me when I read the Bill. It seems to me that there is no reason why the powers of the commission should not be exercised as much over Peers who arrive by election, at least for the time being, as over those who arrive by appointment. Perhaps that is something we could consider in Committee.

Finally, I know a little about House of Lords reform and know that it is very difficult to do. I have heard many people, including the Leader of the House, say that it is best done only in incremental ways. This is a very modest and incremental measure and fits the bill very well. It helps to rebalance the power of the legislature over the Executive. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, wonderfully recalled, as a country we have fought kings for centuries to reclaim powers for Parliament—now we just have to do the same with Prime Ministers. This is a very good Bill and it should pass.

Heatwave Response

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, we have all seen the dramatic pictures of this week’s extreme heatwave, and I pay tribute to all those involved in trying to deal with it, but perhaps I might bring to the House’s attention other aspects that have not been seen. For example, I do not know whether your Lordships know this but a major London hospital this week lost all its computing power, and all the back-up servers went down. By any standards, that is a failure of real importance. It is not just the dramatic television pictures that we need to worry about. As a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, I can say that we are examining the issues of resilience in great detail, and I dare say that the House will have other opportunities to debate it, but will the Minister take back from this exchange the fact that some really important things can go wrong that you do not see?

[Lord True (Con)]

As ever, the noble Viscount speaks wise words. I shall take back what he said. The reality is that, despite the pressures that there were in various places, the NHS emergency call handlers dealt with record numbers of calls to 999. All those public servants involved have done an outstanding job. One thing that helped was that the advance warning process worked very well, and people were able to prepare. Indeed, the weather forecasters take a bit of a pasting in this country—it is a favourite pub conversation—but I think that they did pretty well on this occasion, enabling everyone to be put on the right footing. However, I agree with the noble Viscount that there are issues that do not necessarily always come to the forefront, and all of them must be swept in and considered as we prepare for future similar events. I have no doubt about that.

EU Retained Law

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, my colleagues in another department will have to answer on the specifics, but my noble friend is absolutely right to highlight that the area of financial services broadly is something of fundamental importance to the national economy, and indeed the Scottish economy. I assure him that my colleagues will continue to examine the areas of regulation to which he has referred, with a view to keeping our financial services sector dynamic and effective and a place where people from all over the world would wish to come and work.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. In the light of the remarks he has just made about consultation, and in advance of the Bill, can he tell the House what proportion of the measures that the Government hope to introduce will be promulgated by secondary, or indeed tertiary, legislation?

Standards of Behaviour and Honesty in Political Life

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, whom I congratulate on his 52 years last Saturday. He made many good points with which I agree. The basic ground rules to which he referred remind me that we miss in this debate the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield. I much regret that he is not here, because a debate such as this is one in which he would play a very constructive part.

It is also a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Anderson, who has served with such distinction here and in another place. It was also a pleasure to hear the first Back-Bench speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, because, in the short time I have been here, I have seen him only at the Dispatch Box. There is someone who, in my view, speaks with great authority, because he gave up office, rather than continuing to represent the Government in the capacity he had, on principle. It made me think that resignations are a sort of miner’s lamp, warning of the health of the democracy at any one time.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Morse, on securing this debate and those Cross-Bench Peers who apparently voted for it. It is of course extremely timely. I shall make a brief contribution from these Benches. When the noble Lord, in reference to the Covid pandemic, referred to the distinction between political figures and other figures, such as the Chief Scientific Adviser, it reminded me of something that took place at the height of the Covid lockdown when a gas engineer had to come to my home. In the course of him undertaking the work, I happened to ask him what he thought of the government press conferences that were being held daily. He said, “I don’t believe a word of what they say. Not a word of it.” I pressed him further and he said, “The Prime Minister? I wouldn’t believe him.” I did not want to get into a discussion about that, but I said, “So what about Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser?” His view suddenly changed: “Oh, I believe him.” There is a problem here. This debate is about political life; the public support figures such as Sir Patrick Vallance, Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Jonathan Van-Tam—I am very glad to see that they do—but we have a problem in the political sphere.

We know what the standards should be because they are set out in the Nolan principles: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that things are falling short. The British Social Attitudes survey reported that, in the space of about 35 years, between 1986 and 2020, the proportion of people who trust the Government had fallen by half. Understandably, at the time of the expenses scandal in 2009, the greatest number of people ever was recorded as distrusting the Government. I cannot say I am surprised.

These circumstances and this lack of trust degrade a healthy parliamentary democracy and have the following effects. They corrode public trust in political processes and encourage public cynicism—the idea that they are all the same, which is in the interests of some powerful people. This plays into the hands of those—I include elements of the mainstream media, as well as key social media platforms—who want to sow confusion and are content to weaken public participation in the democratic process. The House discussed the Elections Bill. A lot of concern was expressed that the effect of the measures in that Bill might depress the public’s enthusiasm for voting. We will have to wait and see, but I hope the Minister will at least acknowledge that those concerns were deeply felt. It would be more than a shame if declining trust in the political process, plus the provisions of that Bill, lead to an even lower turnout. Of course, this also weakens the UK’s position in the world at large.

It is not my job to stand here and do the work of the Standards Committee in another place, but the House knows the seriousness of the issue with which it is dealing: whether or not the Prime Minister misled the House. I will not prejudge the outcome, but I notice that the vote of confidence carried out by the MPs in the Prime Minister’s own party and its outcome show a degree of great unease about the position of trust at the top. In relation to that, I found the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, including his reference to fish, of great interest. As I said earlier, it made me think about some of the resignations in political life. I shall take a couple.

As the House will know, Hugh Dalton resigned in 1947 because a throwaway remark made to a journalist in the Lobby before he went in to give his Chancellor’s speech was enough to have him instantly dismissed, with alacrity. It is unthinkable that that would happen today. I am sorry to say this, but the only person at risk of being sacked in a similar situation today would be the Chancellor’s spin doctor, who the Chancellor might feel had not sufficiently briefed the press in advance about what was in the Budget—the idea that nobody knows what is in the Budget until the Chancellor gets up at the Dispatch Box is a fiction. Hugh Dalton returned to public life; he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and served in one other capacity, but I choose him as an example because that really would not happen today, which is a pity in some ways.

Mention was made of the resignation of John Profumo. Whatever one may think about the personal circumstances, we must remember that he resigned because he misled Parliament. That was the key touchstone on which he was judged. Then you have other resignations on principle, such as that of Peter Carington. Again, I do not think that type of resignation happens any more. We all know the circumstances, but he took responsibility for things which some may say he knew nothing about at the time. Nevertheless, he took the decisions that he did.

Time prevents me going on to talk about a range of other resignations of Labour Members of Parliament and others, but I will mention just two more. One is the resignation of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. I was sitting here as a relatively new Member, listening to him answer a Question at the Dispatch Box, when it became clear to me and others that there was something in the way he was answering it that made it clear that he did not agree with the argument he was putting forward officially on behalf of the Government. Then, before you knew it, he expressed his own dissatisfaction with the Government and resigned on the spot. He took out an envelope and gave it to the Whip on his right, then proceeded to walk out of the Chamber. It was a very dramatic episode.

In a way, I find that a resignation like that rather helps restore trust that not everyone’s removal from office is as a result of a dragged-out process, which we have seen in many cases. Then there is the resignation of the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, which brings me, very quickly, to the final point I want to make.

The committee proposed that the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests should be on a statutory basis, as should COBRA, but I am afraid that we are a very long way away from that ever happening in the case of the present Government. I notice that the Government dismissed the idea that it should be legislated for because it would “undermine the constitutional settlement”. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply he might explain a bit more about what it is thought that means.

In conclusion, I feel that, looking back, many Members on all sides of the House, and maybe especially on the Benches opposite, will look back and later on express their unease about what they know has been happening recently. We must not wait too long, because the democratic process—to use the words of the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morse—is fragile, and in every generation democracy has to be fought for. It is our turn now.