Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it is after 10 o’clock; I am speaker number 57; I am on camera, as all of us have been; and the sky has not fallen in—as it has not over the many years of debates being broadcast from this and another Chamber. That may be enough for now on cameras in court save to say, in answer to the concern that counsel will play to the gallery—and this may be a risky observation—don’t they always?

In this House it is not just what you do but how you do it that matters. I am looking forward to seeing how the Government have responded to pre-legislative scrutiny —much mention has been made of the Defamation Bill—and how they have built on that sort of scrutiny. I am also pleased that we are starting on a new way of looking at how legislation that was passed a while ago is working.

The Queen’s Speech does not deal as much with the way Parliament does things as with what the Government plan to do, but I will mention one other aspect of the “how”. In no way is this aimed at our new Chairman of Committees, whom I welcome to his office. Indeed, I think that he may have sympathy with the point that the governance of our House is outdated. I use this opportunity to make the simple point that all our officeholders, not just the Lord Speaker, should be elected by their peers on the basis of a job description and a fixed term of office—instead of just emerging.

From the Government’s programme, on the issue of governance, the oversight of the security and intelligence agencies will present us with a challenge. How do we ensure good governance when access to the subject matter is restricted? It will be difficult to achieve public trust without complete transparency. I do not diminish the importance of the new National Crime Agency, but we will be debating it at Second Reading of the Crime and Courts Bill in less than two weeks.

To readers of Hansard looking for a mention of their own area of interest, I say that time constrains us. To those who say that reform of the House will crowd out everything else, I say that there will be a direct correlation with the number of times that we politicians feel the need to repeat the arguments. I understand, incidentally, that we have one day to cover so many subjects, compared with two days on constitutional issues, because the Opposition requested two days of debate on the constitution.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I have to set this canard straight—or whatever the expression is. Perhaps I have to shoot the canard and set the record straight. The Government came forward not just with a suggestion but saying that there would be two days of constitutional debate and that the other days would be apportioned as they are now. The Opposition said, “No, we do not think it is a good idea to have two days of debate on constitutional reform”. However, the Government chose to do that; it was not at the request of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

[Baroness Hamwee]

The House heard what the noble Baroness said. I was informed by somebody very close to the decisions. If it is a question of setting the canard straight, do I say “quack”?

The Government have a lot to deal with that will not be solved by legislation. That point was raised by a number of noble Lords; it was never going to be a panacea. Conversely, I congratulate the Government on the steps they have taken in the Ministry of Justice to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.

One matter that is more often the subject of secondary legislation and rules is that of immigration, and the huge issue of the values and attitudes that underlie it. However, legislation will not address the two issues that I now mention. One is the problem of delays by the UK Border Agency. Here I am talking not about queues but about the issuing of visas—something that businesses find immensely frustrating. Nor am I talking about what many of us regard as the inappropriate inclusion of students in immigration totals. The Government are concerned that to exclude them would be fiddling the figures; our concern is that their inclusion distorts the real picture.

Sometimes legislation is needed, and I am disappointed that there is no Bill on the presumption of death of people who are missing. It was not until I saw the work of the charity Missing People that I came to understand how many practical and financial—leaving aside emotional—problems there are for families. The Justice Committee made recommendations and the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has brought forward a Private Member’s Bill.

It is right that there is no Bill but that there will be pre-legislative scrutiny of provisions covering access to communications data. Scrutiny means testing the evidence, and parliamentarians need public debate between experts on both technology and security. We cannot turn back the clock. Perhaps I should be talking about technologies in the plural. Certainly we have moved on—not just from when we communicated by letter, but from when the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was passed. We must not miss this chance to re-examine what is in place now to ensure our freedoms under the rule of law, which includes revisiting RIPA. I might also revisit the issue of legal professional privilege. It does not take a crystal ball to predict that the use of closed proceedings will get a thorough scrutiny too, although I hope that when we see the Bill it will be less—I search for an adjective—extreme than what was, after all, only a Green Paper. I noticed, however, that last week the Home Secretary talked in the Commons about,

“proposals to deal with the limitations of the current court rules which do not allow sensitive intelligence evidence to be heard in civil proceedings, even where it is of central relevance to the case”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/12; col. 177.]

That is not so. It is not the rules of court, it is the security services which withhold the information. Parliament is—and should be—in the business of protecting our freedoms in the complicated society which is the 21st century. Society changes, challenges to freedoms may change, but the freedoms themselves are millennia old. At the start of the service on the first night of the Jewish festival of Passover, which is about freedom, the service describes it thus:

“Freedom from bondage and freedom from oppression, freedom from hunger and freedom from want, freedom from hatred and freedom from fear, freedom to think and freedom to speak, freedom to learn and freedom to love, freedom to hope and freedom to rejoice”.

That is still entirely relevant.