King’s Speech
Debate between Viscount Thurso and Lord Hacking(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I much welcome our new Attorney-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer. He walks in the steps not only of Lord Williams of Mostyn, whom we all remember with great affection, but of my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, who was Attorney-General from 2001 to 2007 and of my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, who was Attorney-General from 2007 to 2010. It is most welcome to have the Attorney-General back in our House.
From these Benches, I pledge support for our new Government. I do not agree with all the proposals in the manifesto but I am confident that my Government will listen with willing ears to my concerns and, better still, may abide by them.
This brings me to my confession. For that purpose, I have to take your Lordships to last Wednesday afternoon for the first round of speeches following the gracious Speech. Your Lordships who were present would have heard the most excellent speeches from my noble friends Lord Reid and Lady Hazarika. Your Lordships would also have heard in the middle of the speech of our new Lord Privy Seal a loud, “Hear, hear!” This was also clearly recorded at col. 23 of Hansard, which reads: “A noble Lord: Hear, hear!” That was me.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
Thank you for a further, “Hear, hear!”
I made this noisy intervention because our new Lord Privy Seal had said:
“Ministers in our Government will not accept all changes but, when the House expresses a constructive view, the Government should treat that with respect”.—[Official Report, 17/7/24; col. 23.]
This will not always be easy. Under the last Government, the power of government—the power of the Executive against the legislature—became most powerful. Your Lordships will perhaps remember Report on the Illegal Migration Bill, when we passed no fewer than nine constructive amendments and they were all chucked out without even consideration by the Government of the day.
It is not only in this House that we suffered. I read from a report by my friend Jess Phillips in the New Statesman:
“Round and round and round we walked, voting on the House of Lords’ amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill. The first session took three and a half hours, the second two hours. It really is something to spend so much time losing votes … It feels to me like the very definition of madness that this is how our democracy works: hours wasted on a foregone conclusion that in the end will amount to no change … during these past few weeks … parliament”,
has felt to be a “farce”. On any view, that is most concerning.
It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition, when he spoke in that debate—he spoke, as always, very well indeed—referred to the 409 government defeats in the last Parliament. I think his point was that there were too many Divisions, but it can also be said that on each of these 409 occasions the Government of the day were not listening to your Lordships’ House.
I finish by mentioning my own departure. I have always been under threat of expulsion from the moment I arrived in this House over 50 years ago. The first Wilson Government had proposed serious reforms of the House of Lords, which were defeated by an unholy alliance between Enoch Powell on the right and Michael Foot on the left. I have been under your sufferance for all these years, but it has been a great honour and an enriching experience to be here. Thank you. I am ready to be expelled for the second time.