Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I make this application more in sorrow than in anger, but actually in both. The reason that I beg to move that the House do now resume is that it is the Committee’s only way of showing our distaste and anger at the use of the procedure of closure that has been moved this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. This precious procedure of the House has strength because it is extremely rarely employed. Indeed, apart from the other night, as I understand it, the closure procedure had not been employed for 20 years, but it has now been used twice in less than 48 hours.

Closure may sometimes be justified—although it is hard to think when—but how it could be justified in a debate on an important amendment on the question of the underregistration of 3.5 million of our fellow citizens in the voting registers is hard to understand. The debate had lasted for 93 minutes and was coming to a conclusion. It is true that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, of whom I make no criticism at all, had spoken quite early in the debate. However, this is Committee stage, not Report. In Committee, even if the Minister speaks early, other Members of your Lordships’ House are entitled to be heard and to make their speeches in due course. The noble and learned Lord made his speech and then there were speeches from other noble Lords around the Committee. However, for a debate of this seriousness to be effectively guillotined—because that is what it was—after that period of time and when, as I said, it was coming to a close is, in our view, an abuse of the House. For that reason, I beg to move.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

My Lords, as your Lordships will know, I have not spoken so far in this debate so I rise now with a great deal of sadness. When the closure Motion was first moved by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, towards the early hours of Tuesday morning, the noble Baroness, our Lord Speaker, refreshed the Committee’s memory about the circumstances in which such Motions can be moved. I am going to trespass upon your Lordships’ time a little by doing so again because it is important that we remind ourselves when such Motions are proper. The paragraph reads as follows:

“I am instructed by order of the House to say that the motion ‘That the Question be now put’ is considered to be a most exceptional procedure and the House will not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House; further, if a member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Question on the motion is put without debate”.

I repeat that closure is “an exceptional procedure”. I ask the House: what is exceptional about a 90-minute debate about anything in your Lordships' House? If there is nothing exceptional, we tread on very dangerous ground. This House—not the other place—demands good conduct from us all.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

As such, it is incumbent on all of us to make sure that we conduct ourselves with propriety. There will be times when emotions will be high, but we must hang on to judgment. I fear for this House if such a practice becomes no longer exceptional but the norm. That would not be proper or right. I hear what is said from the Benches opposite, but noble Lords know well what they do. This is a moment when we should draw breath and understand the constitutional significance of behaving in such a way that we are tacitly allowing the guillotine to enter our House. I hope that that will never happen.

I hear noble Lords opposite saying that I am facing the wrong way. I am facing the right way. The noble Lord who moved the Motion for closure knows that it was undeserved after a 90-minute debate.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

Of course it was deserved, because the proceedings on Monday and into Tuesday morning were an organised filibuster.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Nonsense—withdraw.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

I was not talking about whatever happened on Monday night. Then, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, raised his objection, which was put. A number of us thought that it should not have been. That situation was exceptional and was the first time that such a thing had happened for 20 years. To move such a Motion again today, after a 90-minute debate, was not right. The noble Lord knows that very well.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, we must do some simple and clear talking among ourselves. The situation that we have arrived at, with the double use of the closure Motion, is edging us towards a guillotine. If this House introduces a guillotine, scrutiny will be impossible. I think that scrutiny has become impossible in the course of the debate on this Bill, in part because of the repetitive and irrelevant comments, whether co-ordinated or not, made in many speeches by noble Lords on the opposition Benches. That, too, is an abuse of the procedures of the House. However, I also believe that the resort to the Motion for closure, with its implicit guillotine, is an abuse of the process of the House. As a Cross-Bencher, I beg the leaders of the Opposition and of the coalition to remember that their loyalty to this House stands above their partisan loyalty.

At the moment, I and some other noble Lords do not vote on the substance of this legislation only to prevent closure and the move towards the guillotine. I know that many noble Lords opposite care greatly about the House. I hope that they will discuss with their colleagues why the repeated use of the Motion for closure will prove destructive. It will end up as an argument not for an elected or a non-elected House, or for a hybrid House, but for unicameralism.

At the other end of this palace there is a guillotine. We know how much legislation reaches us undiscussed, undigested and unscrutinised. The function that we try to carry out is important. It is not the grandest function, but it is essential. Until things are changed, we have a duty to preserve that function. We will lose it if collectively we adopt tactics that either amount to a filibuster, even if they were not co-ordinated as such, or that amount to a guillotine, even if they are not so labelled.