King’s Speech

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, on his maiden speech, and the noble Lords, Lord Booth and Lord Warner, on their speeches. I welcome the noble and learned Lord to the Front Bench as Attorney-General, as I do the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley. I hope that despite his heavy responsibilities the noble Lord, Lord Khan, will continue to spread good cheer across the House.

Today’s debate on the King’s Speech raises fundamental questions about Britain’s constitution, on the role of two of its three pillars—the Executive and the legislature —and on the arrangements for our democracy. Although the gracious Speech is made by the monarch, it expresses the wish of his Government. Executive power is no longer exercised by kings and queens, but by Governments elected by the people of this country. This illustrates the evolutionary nature of constitutional change in this country: without bloodshed, the guillotine or the reign of terror; without dictatorships or any of the horrors that have marked other countries’ moves to democratic government.

Political matters were central to the lives and discussions of British people long before they had the power to vote. Their involvement in debate preceded the 19th century laws on the great issues of the time. Home rule, the Corn Laws and extending the franchise were debated in coffee houses, pamphlets and leaflets, the assembly rooms, the hustings and Parliament. Likewise, the extension of the vote between 1832 and 1928 reflected changes across national life that pre-dated the law. What followed was not imposed by decree or by the ideological aim of modernising, which smacks more of the rhetoric of Stalin’s 1920s or Mao’s four modernisations than it does of our evolutionary tradition.

Just a century ago, the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the radical contender to take on the mantle of government. It won trust because it ruled in line with constitutional tradition. As a result, the country settled down effortlessly to acquiescing in the new two-party system. However, this Labour Government appear, in so far as we can judge from the gracious Speech, to intend modernisation by rupture, by diktat, by committee and commission; in fact, everything but evolutionary constitutional change.

Pursuing modernisation by decree to remove the bits of the constitutional jigsaw that a regime finds uncongenial overlooks the fundamental nature of the British constitution: an evolutionary process over time, reflecting longer developments and following national discussion. Rather than impose a symbolic victory for the forces of the left wing in the ways announced in the King’s Speech—to modernise the practices of the House of Commons by committee and those of this House by eliminating hereditary Peers, despite the composition, powers and, yes, practices of both being a testimony to their evolutionary nature—I ask the Government not to press their advantage. Will they think again before they embark on their piecemeal but aggressive modernisation?

In some places, what is needed is not modernisation but a return to the principles on which constitutional arrangements are based. The Government promise to

“strengthen the integrity of elections and encourage wide participation in the democratic process”.

I support this. One practical place to start would be restoring the secrecy of the ballot and the principle of universal suffrage, to ensure that those women—whom I have met—who are entitled to vote can do so privately, so their vote is not used by someone else. I have been told on the doorstep by women in some communities that they are not allowed out to vote. When I ask, I find that the general right to a postal vote does not help, because their husbands or fathers vote for them. I therefore support the wish to promote the integrity of the election system, and I suggest that one way to do it would be to end the automatic right to a postal vote and reserve it for those serving in an official capacity overseas, the elderly or the incapacitated.

In general, the best approach to the constitution, especially to Britain’s slowly evolved one, is caution. Professor Sir John Baker, the Downing Professor of the Laws of England at Cambridge, told the Constitution Committee of this House that

“a constitution … should stand above government and should define and limit what a government can do … If a government takes over the constitution and manages it by making piecemeal reforms at its own behest, … we no longer have a constitution, because it is doing precisely what a constitution is supposed to stop … There really is no case for pressing forward reforms simply because they happen to be government policy and there is a majority of one. A constitution ought to have a consensus of people generally”.

In this country, the lively political debate among people has, over many epochs, led Parliaments to reflect this in the laws they made. I will end with that reference to a very distinguished legal historian, and I hope the Government will listen.