Procedure and Privileges Committee

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. This is quite extraordinary. I do not know that it has ever happened before in your Lordships’ House—that a member of a committee does not like the decision of that committee and then tables an amendment. In fact, the decision of the committee was a compromise. I could equally have tabled an amendment in the same terms as the noble Lord’s, because I did not think it was the best decision to wait until the end of January. The noble Lord, Lord Ashton, will recall that I proposed that we wait until we are not operating in a hybrid way. I will come back to something that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said on that. When we are operating normally and can function properly as a House, as he put it, that would be the time to have by-elections of hereditary Peers.

I have been clear throughout, whatever my views on the by-elections—I take the same line as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes: I do not think they are appropriate in this House; this is the next stage of reform, and I support the Grocott Bill—that is not what we are discussing today. I cannot speak for other noble Lords and I speak entirely for myself, but that did not play a part in my decision to support the suspension first proposed and that it should continue now.

This has been an extraordinary debate, but it would be wrong if we set a precedent that, when an individual does not agree with a committee’s decision, anyone can bring forward a Motion to disagree or to change it. I have no intention of doing that on this matter, which I did not fully support, but it was a compromise.

I will pick up some of the comments. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, because she addressed other parts of the report. I am not suggesting that we have a further debate on those points, but I think resetting Questions is a sensible move when parliamentary sittings are becoming uncertain. To go from January to December and have an annual allowance for Questions makes more sense. She will recall that I raised Written Questions and had discussions with the Government Chief Whip at the end of the previous Session, when we had a huge number of outstanding Questions that were not being answered.

Part of the problem is that many more Questions are being asked, partly because so many of the Answers are inadequate, so noble Lords go back two or three times to get to the bottom of what they are seeking. I propose that there should be a day’s debate when those who have Questions outstanding can hear Ministers’ Answers. The Department of Health has the greatest number of Questions and wrote to every Member to address their outstanding Questions. Unfortunately, as helpful as the letter was, it did not answer the Questions. We need to look at some way to address this, because there is a huge backlog of Written Questions and the Answers are not as adequate as they should be.

To come back to the matter at hand, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, raised several points that were just incorrect. First, he talked about the Conduct Committee debate on the report into the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, who has now been suspended from your Lordships’ House. There was no debate on that report. This House decided that reports could be received and voted on, but no debate took place. It was not that scores of Members were trying to speak who were unable to, because it would not have been allowed.

Secondly, there was a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and others, such as the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about breaking the law. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is absolutely right: the committee took legal advice and it was as one would assume—that it would be wrong to use the Covid emergency. It is worth noting that it is becoming more of an emergency, with the proposal that London, Essex and Kent will probably go into tier 3 even today, rather than the decision being taken later this week, as expected. That was reported as I was driving to your Lordships’ House earlier, so this is a serious situation, but it would be wrong to use that situation to take a political view on hereditary by-elections.

The legal advice said that you could continue to suspend them but that you would have to fix a date, or have a route map or a plan to say when they were coming back; it could not be indefinite. As long as a decision is taken to show they are going to be reinstated, that is within the law. I hope that allays noble Lords who feel that the law is being broken—the law is not being broken. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, saw the same legal advice as I did. The law has not been broken and is not being broken; it is acting within the law to say that a further period of suspension to deal with Covid is satisfactory.

The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, also said that there were no arguments. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, there were no arguments that he liked—he disagreed with the arguments. It would not be right for me to divulge who voted how, and the vote took place—

[Noble Lords]

It is public.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Oh, it is public—so noble Lords will see that it is not straight along party lines. The idea that a political decision is being taken is absolute nonsense. People made a decision on the information and the legal advice before them.

I would also like to take up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, who spoke of this House having a dislike of hereditary Peers—absolute tosh. I have never heard anything so shocking. I have never seen anybody in this House show any less respect to, or find any less credible, a hereditary Peer than an appointed Peer. All Peers once they are here are equal, and they are treated with equal respect. I am sorry she felt she had to make that point, but she is completely wrong on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, also said that the hybrid House is not functioning properly and talked about things being rushed through the House. I think I can look to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, for some agreement on this: the one thing that is not happening in this place at the moment is business being rushed through. Most business takes significantly longer than it did when the House was working normally. I think the one thing everybody in this House will agree on is that the sooner we are able to get back to a functioning House, and the way we normally do our business, the better.

One of the other decisions taken at this committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, fully knows, was that, in January, when we shall meet to consider hereditary Peer by-elections, we will also look at the route map and the stages towards this House returning to normal working. That does not mean we can say “On 1 April this will happen”, or “On 1 June that will happen”, but we can say that when social distancing reduces, and when people are vaccinated, that is all part of the route map to us getting back to our normal way of proceeding.

The amendment to the Motion is ill judged. I hope it does not set a precedent. I could have equally put down a Motion—which I think I would have had the House’s support for—to say that we park this issue while we operate in a hybrid way. It was never about the election; it was always about the hustings and how those who wanted to vote could hear the views of those who wished to stand in these elections. It would be nonsense to start them now. It is a far better decision to just hold fire and delay, wait until we are working normally and then restart those by-elections. My noble friend Lord Grocott will then have the opportunity to present his Bill again, and I will support it again. But that is not the issue before us today—it is the straightforward Procedure and Privileges Committee report and what is in the best interests of this House at this time.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I call the Senior Deputy Speaker to reply to the debate.