House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) for introducing his new clauses and emphasising the importance of natural justice.
New clause 3 and amendment 18 link in with the theme already established in our discussion of new clauses 1 and 2. The Bill essentially concerns the conduct of Members in the other place—the noble Lady Baroness Hayman on Report called it a disciplinary Bill—and it was in that context that I tabled my new clause and amendment. At the moment, there is a lacuna in the drafting: there is no linkage between the provisions in clause 1 on conduct and the House of Lords’ code of conduct. Subsection (1) reads:
“Standing Orders of the House…may make provision”
to
“expel…or…suspend a member…for the period specified in the resolution”.
Subsection (4) reads:
“A resolution passed by virtue of subsection (1) must state that, in the opinion of the House of Lords, the conduct giving rise to the resolution…occurred after the coming into force of this Act, or…occurred before the coming into force of this Act and was not public knowledge before that time.”
The clause does not, however, spell out what that conduct should amount to, and that is why new clause 3 would link the provision to breaches of the code of conduct of the other place:
“Standing Orders of the House of Lords may provide for the adoption of a code of conduct… A resolution passed by virtue of section 1(4) must include a reference to the relevant provision of any code of conduct which the House of Lords may have adopted and which has not been superseded by a subsequent decision of the House.”
Amendment 18 would insert at the end of line 6, page 1, clause 1, the words
“on the ground of that member’s conduct as set out in the resolution”.
Under my proposals, it would not be possible to use the extensive powers in the Bill other than in respect of breaches of the code of conduct in the other place.
It is important to put that safeguard in the Bill, given comments bandied around by Members of the other House. On Report, when discussing clause 2, the noble Lord Wallace of Saltaire—
Mr Chope
I am delighted to hear that he is one of my hon. Friend’s constituents. I am sure it is just as well he does not have the chance to vote for my hon. Friend.
The noble Lord Wallace of Saltaire said:
“I read the latest Code of Conduct again this morning, thinking that we need to be sure what we are on about”—
I think that is always wise advice. He continued:
“One of the issues that perhaps we need to discuss informally off the Floor is how far this measure is intended to refer only to conduct that is mentioned in the Code of Conduct or to egregious conduct of other sorts conducted by Members of this House. However, that is a question that we need not have in the Bill itself, but it is certainly a question that the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and others will need to consider at a later stage”.
I think this issue should be considered in the Bill. If we are to enable expulsion or suspension from the other place on the basis of breaches of conduct, we need to know whether the conduct needs to be linked in with the code of conduct under the Standing Orders or whether the provisions apply, as the noble Lord put it, to
“egregious conduct of other sorts conducted by Members of this House”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2015; Vol. 757, c. 650-51.]
In discussing these issues, people sometimes bandy about expressions such as “bringing the House of Lords or Parliament into disrepute”. Judgments about areas of conduct or behaviour can be extremely subjective. I hope that the promoter and indeed the Government, who have hitherto been slightly underwhelmed by the contents of the Bill, will accept that the wording needs to be much more precise than it is at present.
When the ill-fated 2012 legislation came before this House, it was withdrawn by the Government because of the threat of it being properly considered; they did not want it to be properly considered, so they decided that rather than have it considered without a guillotine, they would not have it considered at all. That Bill was withdrawn, but it made reference to suspension and expulsion on grounds of conduct, and it was linked with breaches of the House of Lords code of conduct. However, in this Bill, that has been dropped.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) inquired earlier why the provisions of this Bill were not included in the private Member’s Bill proposed by our hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles). The answer is—it was given by our hon. Friend—that he did not want these provisions in his Bill because he thought they were far too controversial, and he wanted to get his Bill on the statute book, which he succeeded in achieving, before he retires from this House after one term in our Parliament. Rather than venture into an area of controversy, he decided to stick to the principles contained in his Bill, which enable expulsion on the ground that a person has been convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment in excess of one year, rather than go into this linkage with the code of conduct or conduct defined more widely, as it might be in due course by the noble Lord Wallace of Saltaire.
People are talking about bringing the House of Lords into disrepute, so in preparation for today’s debate I tried to establish how this could be viewed as analogous to the disciplinary processes in some firms where it is a disciplinary offence for an employee to bring the company for which the person works into disrepute. Case law in this area is fraught with difficulty. It is extremely difficult for an employer legally to control the actions of an employee outside their employment, and there is often little reason why an employer would wish to do so. However, the notion of an employee bringing the company into disrepute following actions in their personal life is one situation in which the parallel might occur.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Would tax avoidance also be relevant? It has been a topical issue of late, and it could be that Members in the other place engage in activities that are within the law, but which a majority of their lordships might find distasteful. Does my hon. Friend think that someone who was abiding by the law could fall foul of the Bill’s provisions? We could end up in a very difficult situation, with people not being sure what they are or are not allowed to do.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I fear that the sort of conduct to which he refers could be regarded as conduct that brought the House of Lords into disrepute and that the person accused of such conduct could be sanctioned under the terms of the Bill. The Bill refers to the Standing Orders of the other place—it does not even cover the code of conduct—and we know that their lordships are understandably jealous of their reputation and want to maintain it in the eyes of right-thinking members of the public. I suspect that a number of them would regard the sort of tax avoidance to which my hon. Friend referred as behaviour that redounded to the detriment of other Members of that place.
However, we are not talking about a firm of accountants. We are talking about a part of the legislature of our great nation, and if we are going to restrict people’s ability to participate in it, we need to do so on a clearly defined basis rather than resorting to the ad hoc pandering to public opinion of which I am afraid we have seen a great deal recently.
For example, a number of political parties—I shall not mention any cases that may have arisen quite recently—now take the view that the best thing for them to do is distance themselves from any Member who is accused of a certain type of conduct and whose membership of his party is taken away from him, because, although it may not have been established that that conduct is in any way illegal, it might be regarded as potentially embarrassing that the accusation has been made. Such Members are suspended, or the whip is withdrawn, which is exactly what happened to Lord Rennard.
It is clear that we are increasingly moving away from a system whereby we rely on the rule of law to a system whereby the dictates of public opinion determine the outcomes of cases. That is why I think that we need to be extremely careful before we introduce legislation that would give the other place significant scope to introduce its own house rules, which could deny those Members who have been appointed or are in the other House as a result of their election as hereditary peers the opportunity to participate in the legislative process and other proceedings of the other House.
Philip Davies
Would not Members of the other place be making decisions about who could or could not sit there while having no democratic legitimacy and, perhaps, having some dubious motives for making those decisions?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend has made another good point. When we look beyond the immediate subject of the debate, we see that there is pressure to reduce the numbers in the other place because the Government have been increasing the number of appointments to such an extent that I have complained. Indeed, my House of Lords (Maximum Membership) Bill is on the Order Paper today, although it is, of course, being blocked by the Government. It would restrict the Government’s ability to increase inexorably the membership of the other place.
At present, because of the pressure of numbers, the House of Lords is creating what is almost a culture, aided and abetted by the current Lord Speaker, who has said that she will retire at a particular time in an attempt to set an example to others. The implication is that when they reach a particular age, they too should choose to retire. That is entirely outwith our constitution. However, if the Bill were passed, any Standing Orders passed by their lordships requiring Members not to stay on beyond the age of, for instance, 70 or 75, could mean that a Member who refused to give up their seat would be the subject of the sanctions specified in the Bill, namely expulsion or suspension.
Sir Tony Baldry
There is an issue that the House of Lords will have to address in its Standing Orders. If a Member of that House were seriously threatened with suspension or, particularly, expulsion, would he be able to avoid that simply by retiring, under the new provisions for retirement, thus avoiding any quasi-judicial investigation into his conduct?
Mr Chope
We have had exactly that problem with senior police officers. As soon as they are brought to book or accused of anything, they run for cover. They retire or resign, and are then able to keep their pensions. When we deal with the next group of amendments, we shall discuss the question of whether the Bill should apply to both expulsion and suspension. I think that there should be a distinction between them, but I will not anticipate that later discussion.
As is already clear from the short debate that we have had so far, this is an extremely complex matter, and the idea that it could become law without being properly thought out fills me with horror. The fact that most members of the general public will not be writing letters saying how outraged they are by the potential consequences of the Bill does not mean that we should not pay great attention to its implications, not least because it impinges on our constitution. At one stage during the current Parliament, the Government were taking the line that they did not want any more piecemeal reform of the other place, but they seem to have shifted their position a bit. Perhaps the Minister will explain a little more about the Government’s policy in a moment, but I think that, unless it is amended, what we have before us could be very dangerous to our democracy.
The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Rob Wilson)
My hon. Friend is making an important speech, but may I return him to his earlier comments about Lord Rennard, and to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) about tax evasion? Is my hon. Friend suggesting that under those circumstances, if the legislation were enacted, it could lead to the expulsion of a peer? Surely the powers to suspend a peer already exist. This Bill focuses on expulsion, not suspension.
Mr Chope
Actually, having discussed the Bill with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), my understanding is that the most important part is the part that deals with suspension, which enables the House of Lords to suspend a Member for a longer period than until the end of the Parliament. There are all sorts of anomalies. If a Member of the Lords chooses to misbehave at a late stage in a Parliament, they can be suspended for only a few weeks, whereas if they misbehave at the beginning of the Parliament, they can be suspended for up to five years. That is the part of the Bill with which I have sympathy. I am much less sympathetic when it comes to the issue of expulsion.
At present, there are very circumscribed rules relating to the ability of the other place to expel. They are the rules that we have in the House of Commons, applying to Members who have been convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than a year in prison. However, whether we are talking about expulsion or suspension, it needs to be dependent on bad conduct, and that is where there is a big gap in the Bill. It obviously enables people such as Lord Wallace to hope that in due course they can bring within the ambit of the Bill all sorts of egregious behaviour, some examples of which we have been discussing this morning.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire will respond to the concerns that I have addressed. In our earlier debate, we discussed the balance between delay and getting things right. I think it is important for us to get this Bill absolutely right, even if that means it is delayed for a few hours or days.
Mr Wilson
It is a pleasure to be here on a Friday. This is not something that I have often been able to do in the past. It is also a pleasure to be able to listen to some of the older generation sallying forth, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) might have put it.
Mr Wilson
As my hon. Friend knows, this Bill is expressly limited to matters of conduct. That has been made clear in the Bill and throughout the debates in this House and the other place. The power of expulsion that the Bill confers on the other place is similar to the power that we already have in this House. This House has an inherent power to expel Members if it needs to, but the other place cannot do so because, without primary legislation, it cannot override the right of peers to receive a writ of summons. I hope that that deals with my hon. Friend’s point.
The Bill is also already explicitly limited to matters of conduct by subsection (4) of clause 1. It is certainly envisaged that a resolution to suspend or expel would only follow from a report from the Committee for Privileges and Conduct. Proceedings on the Bill in the Lords made it clear that any relevant breach would be linked to the existing code of conduct. The Government therefore do not support the new clauses or amendment 18.
Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)
I should like to begin by thanking all my hon. and right hon. Friends who have taken part in the debate for their interest in the Bill. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) for making it clear at the beginning of his remarks that he supported the principle behind the Bill, and I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the Bill conforms to the requirements of the European convention on human rights. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who, as always, has raised important issues that will need addressing as we go through the legislation.
I should like to put the new clauses and amendments, and indeed the Bill, into perspective. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, the Bill basically does two things. It enables a suspension to go beyond the lifetime of the current Parliament, and it enables the House of Lords to expel a Member. It does not change anything else. It does not change the code of conduct or the environment in which the code is administered, and it does not change the interface between the House of Lords and the courts in regard to issues such as exclusive cognisance. So, to some extent, the broader issues that he has raised have already been dealt with in the context of the original introduction of the code of conduct and of how the system works.
The Bill has no direct impact on this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said that clauses had been dropped because they were controversial, but there has been no sign so far—certainly in the upper House—of any controversy. Indeed, there was an absence of controversy as the Bill went through. The upper House sees it as an important building block in restoring the reputation of that House, by giving it clear powers to expel a Member whose behaviour is unacceptable. There will be an indirect benefit for this House, in that anything that restores confidence in Parliament is good for both Houses.
I turn now to the new clauses and the amendment. I understand exactly why my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury tabled new clause 1. I understand that in the House of Lords, technically, it is not the Lord Speaker who lays such documents. That is in fact done by the Committee for Privileges and Conduct, which lays on the Table the reports of any investigation into the conduct of a Member of the House of Lords. The Committee is already required to do that by Standing Order No. 68 of the House of Lords, which states:
“Reports from Select Committees shall be laid on the Table and ordered to be printed. Notice shall be given on the Order Paper of the day on which the report is to be considered .”
I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will agree that we do not need any changes to the legislation or to Standing Orders to enable such reports to be laid.
My right hon. Friend made an important point about natural justice. If he looks at the House of Lords code of conduct, he will see that paragraph 19 states:
“In investigating and adjudicating allegations of non-compliance with this Code, the Commissioner, the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct and the Committee for Privileges and Conduct shall act in accordance with the principles of natural justice and fairness.”
Also, if he looks at those who sit on the Committee, he will see that it is required, by Standing Order No. 77, to include two former holders of high judicial office. I therefore think that we can be confident that the fate that befell poor Lord Lovat will not befall any errant peer; no one will be subjected to a kangaroo court. We can be confident that the principles of natural justice will be upheld. The Standing Order also states:
“A Committee for Privileges and Conduct shall be appointed at the beginning of every session; sixteen Lords shall be named of the Committee, of whom two shall be former holders of high judicial office.”
My right hon. Friend went on to deal with the issues of privilege, and he referred to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 and an amendment inserted in the Bill that became that Act by the House of Lords. That Bill was a very different animal from this one. The Bill then being considered contained provisions that seriously risked breaching privilege. He may well remember the decisive intervention of the then Clerk of the House, Malcolm Jack, who produced a report during the passage of the Bill expressing the concerns in this House. That Bill explicitly required the production of a code of conduct relating to financial instruments and it set out that it must be laid before the House of Commons. The Bill detailed at some length the procedure of any investigation into a breach of that code and established a new offence of providing false or misleading information about allowance claims.
The short Bill before us is a very different animal and does none of those things. Unlike with the 2009 Act, the Bill has raised no concerns from the Clerks of the Parliaments, nor has anyone raised any concern about its current drafting risking parliamentary privilege. As the Minister has just said, matters of parliamentary privilege do not need to be expressly stated in legislation in order not to be justiciable.
Let me now address the measures proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch on the code of conduct. A code of conduct is already produced, and it is published by the Committee for Privileges and Conduct. That already takes place under Standing Order No. 77. All reports from that Committee that have recommended that a sanction should be applied have included a very clear reference to the relevant provision of the code that was breached in each instance—that is also what happens in this House. The most recent investigation gives us an example of how this is done. The Committee’s report summarises and includes the findings of the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct, all of which include specific reference to which paragraphs of the code of conduct the Member was alleged to have broken. The most recent report states:
“The complaint alleged that Lord Redesdale breached the Code of Conduct by not registering certain interests in the Register of Lords’ Interests (in breach of paragraph 10(a) of the Code) and by registering certain other interests more than one month after those interests came about (in breach of paragraph 13).”
Other reports on the conduct of noble peers, such as the one on the conduct of Lord Hanningfield, contain explicit reference to which particular breach of the code has taken place. My understanding is that the case of Lord Rennard was not referred because the code specifically says:
“Matters not falling within the Commissioner’s remit include…Members’ non-parliamentary activities.”
That is not wholly dissimilar to the rules that apply to us in this House and it explains why that case did not go before the relevant Committees.
Mr Chope
With the greatest respect, my right hon. Friend has not addressed the issue raised by Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who expressly contemplated that this Bill was going to go wider than the existing code of conduct. The purport of my new clause 3 is to ensure that it cannot do that. In so far as it is a belt and braces, why will my right hon. Friend not accept my new clause?
Sir George Young
If my hon. Friend looks at the Bill, he will see that clause 1(4) specifically refers to “conduct”. It talks about:
“A resolution passed by virtue of subsection (1) must state that, in the opinion of the House of Lords, the conduct giving rise to the resolution”.
I know that he wants us to be more specific about the sort of conduct, but if one goes down that road, there is a real risk of breaching parliamentary privilege. We may run the risk that if we are too specific in the legislation, the courts may then have reason to look behind the conduct and then the exclusive cognisance that we have at the moment might be prejudiced. That is why the Bill is specifically drafted in order to avoid prejudicing parliamentary privilege.
Mr Chope
I imagine that my right hon. Friend was much associated with the drafting of the 2012 Bill. It was a Government Bill and it made a specific link with breaches of the code of conduct. Why can we not make that link? Clause 1(4) currently refers only to the “conduct giving rise”; it does not say that that conduct has to be conduct that is in breach of the House of Lords code of conduct.
Sir George Young
Because the moment one puts the code of conduct into legislation, one runs the risk of the courts having another look at it. I am not sure, but the Joint Committee that looked at the Bill the Government published may have recommended that that specific provision be removed—I stand to be corrected on that. The key thing is that the Bill before us does not go beyond the general reference in clause 1(4) to “conduct”, for the very reasons that I have given. I am sure that my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Standards Committee and the Privileges Committee, would not want to run the risk of the courts second-guessing the decisions of the Select Committees on which he serves. Given those assurances, I hope that, on reflection, my colleagues will not press their proposals to a Division.
Sir Tony Baldry
I am very grateful to both the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) for their remarks. I had not realised that this was the Minister’s first outing on a Friday. He gave a clear explanation from the Dispatch Box of the true position, and if he had been given more Friday outings we would probably have got through business rather more quickly. In the next Parliament I hope he will have many more such outings at the Government Dispatch Box. I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for his lucid explanation, which met my concerns on both natural justice and cognisance. On the basis of the explanations given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The new clause will have to be moved formally.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 3
Code of conduct
“(1) Standing Orders of the House of Lords may provide for the adoption of a code of conduct.
(2) A resolution passed by virtue of section 1(4) must include a reference to the relevant provision of any code of conduct which the House of Lords may have adopted and which has not been superseded by a subsequent decision of the House.”— (Mr Chope.)
This Clause allows the House of Lords to adopt a code of conduct and also requires the application of penalties under this Bill to be linked to that code, if there is one.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 2, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment 7, page 1, line 17, at beginning insert
“in relation either to an expulsion or to a suspension”.
This is linked to the amendment below which prevents retrospective judgement of behaviour leading to a final expulsion of a member of the House of Lords.
Amendment 6, page 1, line 17, after “Act”, insert
“and any Standing Orders made under subsection (1)”.
Amendment 19, page 1, line 17, after “Act” insert
“and any Standing Orders made under this section”.
Amendment 8, page 1, line 18, leave out paragraph (b).
This removes all reference to previous conduct that was not public knowledge.
Amendment 9, page 1, line 18, at beginning insert
“in relation only to a suspension”.
This removes the power of expulsion in respect of previous conduct that was not public knowledge.
Amendment 10, page 1, line 18, leave out from “Act” to end of line 19 and insert
“but since 1 January 2015”.
This limits the application of the Bill’s sanctions to previous conduct that was not public knowledge to just the current year.
Amendment 11, page 1, line 18, leave out from “Act” to end of line 19 and insert
“but since 1 January 2000”.
This limits the application of the Bill’s sanctions to previous conduct that was not public knowledge in the past 15 years only.
Amendment 12, page 1, line 18, leave out from “Act” to end of line 19 and insert
“but since 1 January 1985”.
This limits the application of the Bill’s sanctions to previous conduct that was not public knowledge in the past 30 years only.
Amendment 13, page 1, line 19, after “knowledge”, insert “in the United Kingdom”.
This limits the scope of public knowledge of previous conduct to what was not known in this country.
Amendment 14, page 1, line 19, at end insert—
‘(4A) A resolution under subsection 4(b) may not relate to expulsion”.
This is an alternative approach to removing the power of expulsion in respect of previous conduct that was not public knowledge.
Amendment 15, page 1, line 19, at end insert—
“(4A) Standing Orders of the House of Lords set out guidance on what constitutes public knowledge under subsection 4(b)”.
This allows for some certainty as to what might constitute public knowledge of previous conduct.
Amendment 20, page 1, line 19, at end add—
‘(5) nothing in this section shall authorise the expulsion or suspension of members of the House of Lords on the grounds of age, health or length of service”
Amendment 3, in clause 2, page 2, line 2, leave out “Expulsion and”.
Amendment 4, page 2, line 4, leave out clause 3.
Amendment 5, in clause 4, page 2, line 9, leave out “Expulsion and”.
Amendment 16, in the title, line 1, leave out “expel or”.
Mr Chope
Effectively, amendment 1 seeks to remove from the Bill any reference to the expulsion of Members of the House of Lords, which means that the Bill would relate only to their suspension. The reason why I wish to circumscribe the Bill in that way is that the main point of the Bill is to make the House of Lords’ powers relating to Members’ suspension more consistent. On that, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young). Where I disagree with him is over the use of the expulsion power.
When this Bill was originally put forward, it was said to be very minor and technical, but as one of their lordships said, the expulsion power was certainly not about routine housekeeping. The power to expel Members from the other place is a fundamental interference in the constitutional arrangements of our country; people are appointed to the other House for life, or they are elected as part of the cohort of elected peers. To expel such a person is an extreme measure.
Following the House of Lords Reform (No.2) Bill, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) and passed into law, the House of Lords and this House effectively have the same powers of expulsion. That includes ensuring that anyone who is convicted of an offence that results in imprisonment for more than one year is expelled. In this House, we have not expelled anyone for a very long time. A number of people, following critical newspaper reports, have chosen not to stand again, or even in extremis to resign their seat, but expulsion is a draconian sanction. Introducing it in this Bill is unnecessary; it is over-egging the pudding. That is why I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire will accept my amendment. Essentially, all the amendments in the group deal with the same issue, which is the conduct that gives rise to potential expulsion from the House.
Amendments 2, 7, 6, 19, 8, 9 and the others are worth considering because they tighten up the Bill and bring it more into line with what would be regarded as fair and reasonable. Rather than spending a lot of time going through them, I would prefer to see whether we can persuade my right hon. Friend, the promoter of this Bill, to drop the expulsion power. As was said on Second Reading and Report in the other place, this is a power that the Lords hope that they will never have to use, but the danger is that if it is available and can be used in relation to a wide range of conduct, people might be expelled from the Lords in circumstances in which they would not be expelled from this House.
Let us consider the interaction between this Bill and the recall Bill. The recall Bill gives electors the power to vote when a Member’s conduct falls short of what is expected but would not give rise to a sentence of imprisonment of more than one year. If we are to link in with that, it would be best to do away with the expulsion provisions and rely on the suspension provisions instead. Under the suspension powers in this Bill, the other place would be able to suspend Members for five years or more. If a Member was suspended for that length of time and felt that justice had been done, they might well choose to resign. That is a different issue, but given the constitutional implications, it would be a step too far to give the other House the power to override our constitution by expelling somebody who has been appointed a peer of the realm for life, or an elected hereditary peer. If we want to go down that route, we should not do so on a Friday through a private Member’s Bill.
As with so many powers that have been taken, people say that they will never have to use these powers. We were told, when certain legislation was originally introduced, that it would be used only to proceed against terrorists, but as the years went by we found that the rules became rather different. People forget the basis on which the law was introduced. The lack of safeguards in this Bill about the conduct that would give rise to expulsion means that it would be much cleaner to remove references to expulsion from it. Some of my amendments would therefore ensure that the Bill was called not the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill, but the House of Lords (Suspension) Bill.
Sir Tony Baldry
I have a number of amendments in this group, but before I come to them, as they deal mostly with suspension, may I comment on the observations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) about expulsion? There is the question of consistency. The House has already agreed, through the previous group of amendments, that so far as is possible the House of Lords should have cognisance of its own matters. In other words, the House of Lords should control what happens in it. Unless there are compelling public policy reasons for doing so, it is difficult to argue, now that the House of Lords has agreed that it requires a power of expulsion, that this House should seek to frustrate the House of Lords’ having that power. As will have been clear to those of us who read the report of the Second Reading debate in Lords Hansard, there is cross-party support in that House for a power of expulsion.
Of course, it has always been possible to expel Members of the House of Lords; it is just that sometimes it has been done in slightly curious ways. I am a great supporter of some of the things done by Thomas Cromwell. I have always felt that what Ministers require is grip, and he certainly demonstrated grip. Poor Thomas Cromwell was arrested in June 1540, and a Bill of attainder passed in the House of Lords provided for his punishment without judicial trial. As we know, he was eventually put to death.
Lord Lovat, whom I mentioned earlier, was impeached for high treason in this House and found guilty by the House of Lords. Indeed, he suffered the ignominy of being hung, drawn and quartered—no one is suggesting, of course, that any Member of the House of Lords who might be expelled in future should suffer such a fate. In his judgment against Lord Lovat, the Lord High Steward said:
“The Commons found your Lordship to be one of the principal Conspirators, who contrived and carried on the late detestable Rebellion, to destroy our Religion and Liberties, and to subvert that Legal Settlement of the Crown in His Majesty, and His Royal Family, under which alone we can live Free and Happy.”
Other ways have been found of removing Members of the House of Lords. Impeachment was a procedure used by both Houses, under which all peers could be prosecuted and tried by the two Houses for any crime whatsoever. The House of Commons determined when an impeachment should be instituted. It related largely to high treason, but it could relate to other crimes and misdemeanours. There was a whole process involving the two Houses that could lead to the expulsion of a Member of the House of Lords.
Members of the House of Lords could also be expelled by a specific Act of Parliament. The last such Act was the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which deprived enemy peers and princes of their British dignities and titles. Section 1(1) states:
“His Majesty may appoint a committee of His Privy Council, of which two members at least shall be members of the Judicial Committee, to enquire into and report the names of any persons enjoying any dignity or title as a peer or British prince who have, during the present war, borne arms against His Majesty or His Allies, or who have adhered to His Majesty’s enemies.”
No fewer than five members of the House of Lords were expelled under that Act, including three Royal Highnesses—His Royal Highness Leopold Charles, Duke of Albany; His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland; and His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick—and Viscount Taaffe of Corren. Therefore, on numerous occasions in the past it has been perfectly possible to expel Members of the House of Lords when that has been found necessary. We in this House have that power, and it seems perfectly sensible that the House of Lords should have it too.
Philip Davies
I shall be characteristically brief in my comments on this group of amendments. There is a great deal of merit in the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) in this group and they deserve closer scrutiny.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch proposed amendment 1, and I have a great deal of sympathy for the points he made about expulsion. His amendment is made even more persuasive by the fact that his new clause 3 was defeated in the Division earlier. If the new clause had been accepted in the previous group of amendments, amendment 1 may not have been necessary. In the circumstances, I think it is necessary.
My hon. Friend has said that the punishment is draconian, which, of course, it is; it does not get much more draconian than expulsion from a House. I share his concern that the definitions of conduct that will lead to expulsion are not sufficiently tightly drawn. This is about whether we think that expulsion is an appropriate sanction and about the democratic accountability and legitimacy of Members of the House of Lords to make such decisions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury touched on that issue when he moved new clause 1 and it is also addressed by amendment 1.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has rightly said, the decisions about who is made a life peer are not made by Members of the House of Lords, because life peers are appointed. Given the circumstances, it should not necessarily be for the House of Lords to determine whether someone should continue to be a life peer. There may be some merit in asking the person who appointed them in the first place whether they would have appointed them had they known everything they know now and whether the appointment was justified at the time. I am not entirely sure that the House of Lords is the appropriate body to second-guess what the person who appointed them had in mind when making the appointment in the first place.
I fear that people who are appointed for good reason may find themselves on the wrong end of a decision, not because the person who appointed them or Members of this House, who have democratic legitimacy, think they should be expelled, but simply because their actions did not meet the taste of Members of the House of Lords at a particular moment in time.
I have always been a strong supporter of the House of Lords, as shown by my votes in this House. I have always shown myself to be a strong supporter of the status quo; as a Conservative, I rather like the status quo and enjoy voting for it. I have to accept that I shall never be subject to any of the decisions under discussion—there is no self-interest at play here. I am surrounded by people who are much more likely than me to be affected by future decisions in the House of Lords. However, my support for the House of Lords, and the good sense I always thought it previously exercised, has been tested somewhat by some of its recent decisions. I no longer have the same faith that Members of the other place will continue to make wise decisions.
One reason for that is that, instead of being composed of people of great experience and expertise, the other place seems to have become a haven for failed parliamentary candidates who could not get elected and have therefore been shoved into the other place. That has undermined not only its legitimacy but my confidence in its being able to make sensible decisions about the basis on which peers should be suspended or expelled. Therefore, it would be sensible to have as much rigour as possible so that peers cannot make decisions that we would find completely unacceptable. The Bill as drafted does not make the case that the House of Lords should have the power to expel a peer who was appointed by somebody else and without allowing anybody else to have any input into the decision. That is a dangerous game to play and I do not think that the House of Lords has the democratic legitimacy to be entrusted with that decision. That is why I think that amendment 1 is very sensible.
Largely for reasons of time, I do not intend to speak to all the amendments in this group, because that would be time-consuming, but I want briefly to touch on a few that have a great deal of merit. They are amendments 8, 14 and 15, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, who spoke in some detail about whether the behaviour that may lead to expulsion or suspension happened before or after the person involved became a Member of the House of Lords.
Clause 1(4)(b) introduces retrospective legislation—we should always be wary of doing so, although it may well be justified—and that demands at least that there should be a debate and that somebody should make the case for it. The clause states that people can be expelled or suspended if the action in question
“occurred before the coming into force of this Act and was not public knowledge before that time.”
I know, or I think I know, what my right hon. Friend has in mind. I guess that some people would call it the Jimmy Savile issue, although he was obviously not a Member of the House of Lords. He has in mind actions committed by someone before they got a title and that were not known at the time; once that person has a title and those actions become public knowledge, they are deemed so outrageous that the only possible course of action is for the person to be expelled. I suspect that that is what my right hon. Friend has in mind, and many people in the country would support that on the basis of such an extreme example.
My concern is that the provision is not limited simply to such extreme actions. There are shades of grey in all such areas, and I fear that its retrospective nature may come back to penalise people who did something that was not unlawful at the time. Clearly, the actions of Jimmy Savile were not only completely unacceptable but unlawful, but my concern is that the provision may be used against people who have done something that was not unlawful and may not even have been unacceptable at the time, but has become unacceptable with the passage of time. We all know that what the public will tolerate moves on over time: things that were seen as perfectly reasonable 100 years ago are now quite rightly seen as completely unacceptable. As things move on with time, it may well be that people get caught out by actions that were once seen as reasonable but are no longer seen as such.
Allowing the House of Lords to expel people on that basis is very dangerous territory to enter. In effect, it would lead not to the rule of law, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch quite rightly advocated, but to the law of the lynch mob. The Bill might give rise to the application of the law of the lynch mob in such circumstances.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury is quite right to seek to leave out any reference to conduct that happened before the Act comes into force and was not public knowledge before that time in relation to expulsion: people could not be expelled for such actions, although they could be suspended for them. That is probably a very happy compromise. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said that it would be draconian to expel somebody. I think it would be draconian to do so on the basis of actions that are no longer acceptable but were acceptable when they took place.
Mr Chope
We have yet to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) respond to the debate, but my amendment 20 provides that
“nothing in this section shall authorise the expulsion or suspension of members of the House of Lords on the grounds of age, health or length of service”.
Does my hon. Friend agree that that safeguard should be the bare minimum?
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is right. He anticipates my remarks, because amendment 20 is one I want to comment on, but I have not quite got to it yet. If he will show his customary patience, I will comment on it, but he is absolutely right.
I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury for amendment 15, which seeks to remove some of the uncertainty that will be introduced by the Bill. He is forensic when he looks through Bills and he has hit upon a good point. What constitutes public knowledge in relation to the Bill? All sorts of things are out there in the public domain somewhere, particularly in this day and age, with the internet and all the things one can find on Google. However, what is out there on some obscure blog or website might not be widespread knowledge.
When does something become public knowledge? Is it when it is out there somewhere and someone can point to a blog that was published somewhere or other? Could somebody use that as a defence and say, “Well, actually, it was public knowledge. It was on an obscure blog, which barely anybody reads, 25 years ago”? Alternatively, does it become public knowledge when it is much more widespread than that—perhaps when it is in the mainstream media? How can anybody be expected to know everything about everybody that may be out there in the public domain? Amendment 15 would be helpful because it would remove some of that uncertainty.
I do not know whether this is the intention of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), but I suspect that the phrase
“was not public knowledge before that time”
might well be used by people as an escape route. The purpose might be to deal with what might be called the Jimmy Savile issue, but people like Jimmy Savile might not even be captured by the Bill, because it could be argued that accusations and revelations were out there and were public knowledge beforehand, even though they might not have been acted on. It is therefore not entirely clear whether the Bill, as currently framed, will even catch out the people it seeks to catch out.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend refers to the Jimmy Savile precedent. Of course, if Jimmy Savile had been alive when the allegations came to light, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment in excess of one year. I am therefore not sure that thinking about Jimmy Savile is as appropriate as thinking about people who, historically, have committed much less serious forms of what might be regarded as bad behaviour.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is right. He shows why the Bill is unnecessary and perhaps dangerous. He returns me to my initial fear, which is that people will be expelled for doing things that do not warrant expulsion, just because the tide of public opinion has gone in a different direction.
In an intervention, I mentioned tax avoidance. Somebody might have taken part in activities that were perfectly legal at the time and, in fact, seen as acceptable behaviour. Their actions might not have attracted any controversy at all at the time but, as public opinion changes, they might subsequently be seen as unacceptable. The person will be judged on that basis and may well be suspended or expelled from the House of Lords not because they did anything illegal or anything that was seen as unacceptable at the time, but because they did something that had become unacceptable. I worry that that is the dangerous route we are going down with the Bill. I predict that we will be in that situation at some point if the Bill is passed in its current form, so amendments 8, 14 and 15 are important safeguards that I hope my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire will consider.
I promised to touch on amendment 20, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and I do not intend to break that promise. Because he was being even more brief than normal, he did not expand on it in any detail. It states that “nothing in this section”—clause 1—
“shall authorise the expulsion or suspension of members of the House of Lords on the grounds of age, health or length of service”.
I would like to think that all Members agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment that people should not be expelled or suspended on that basis. He is right to be alert to the fact that if we do not tightly define the rules under which people can be expelled or suspended, we will open up the possibility, whether or not it is intended or likely, of people using the Bill as a Trojan horse to pursue a different agenda from the one that Members currently envisage.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire is a very reasonable man, and I am sure that he would not countenance anybody being expelled or suspended on the grounds of age, health or length of service. I am absolutely sure that that is nowhere near his mind. However, the point is not what is in somebody’s mind now, even the mind of the promoter of the Bill; it is how the Bill could be used at some future date if we do not define the rules tightly.
It may well be that because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, the size of the House of Lords has become completely ridiculous, people will look for an easy way to reduce the numbers. Of course, one of the easiest ways of reducing the numbers at a stroke would be to say, “Anybody above a certain age—you’re out. We’re going to take a particular point in time, draw a line, and if you’re on the wrong side of it, you’re out. If necessary, we’ll use these powers we’ve now got to enforce that new rule, because the public mood is that the House of Lords has got too big, and we’ve got to do something about it. This is the easiest way.” I really do fear that that could well happen. I am not saying that it will happen in the short term, but I can certainly see it happening in the medium term. People may pooh-pooh my hon. Friend’s amendment at the moment, scoff and say, “It’s absolutely ridiculous—that would never happen.” Well, let’s see.
Sir George Young
I have listened carefully to the points made by my hon. Friends in this debate, and particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who in Committee made it clear that he had reservations about expulsion. I have gone back to the sponsors of the Bill and had discussions with the upper House. If anything, the power to expel is almost more important to them than the power to carry on suspension beyond a Parliament, and it would strike at the very heart of the Bill if that provision were removed.
We already have powers to expel if someone is sentenced to more than a year’s imprisonment, but during debates in the upper House it was made clear that many breaches of the code of conduct would not be a criminal offence but are of sufficient severity to justify a Member of the House being expelled. The House of Lords wants the powers that we have to expel a Member if their conduct is unacceptable. Expulsion is different to suspension, and it is important that the upper House should have the power to expel because its Members cannot be expelled by constituents in the way that we can be. We should therefore think hard before we deny the House of Lords a power that it wants and sees as essential in restoring confidence in the institution—a power that the House of Commons already has.
Sir George Young
My hon. Friend raised that point in Committee and I gave some examples that were used in the upper House such as repeated offences, for example, or a criminal sentence of less than a year. Members may take the view that that activity is unacceptable and that the Member should be expelled. Expulsion must be related to conduct, which is specifically mentioned in the Bill. Fears that someone might be expelled because they are a man or a woman simply do not arise because it must be related to their conduct.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said that he was unhappy with some of the decisions made by the upper House. I understand that, but wonder whether his criticism applies to the decisions it has made when it has come to censoring or suspending its Members. My view is that that has been done fairly and impartially. His suggestion that a life peer might be removed by the leader of their party who appointed them would strike at the heart of the independence of the upper House—I wonder whether, on reflection, he wishes to pursue that line of argument.
As for the arguments on public knowledge, the key phrase is in line 15:
“in the opinion of the House of Lords”.
There are real difficulties in defining public knowledge, and it makes sense to leave to the opinion of the House of Lords whether the conduct was public knowledge before. At the moment there is no time limit. In other words, anything that happened before the coming into force of the Bill is potentially within its scope. This is part of the process of rebuilding confidence. If a horrendous offence came to light that had happened before the commencement of the Act, is it right that the House of Lords should not be able to take any action? Far from bringing it into repute, it would bring it into disrepute.
Mr Chope
I am sure the Bill will get on the statute book before the end of this Parliament. In answer to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who was saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) had been speaking for 20 minutes or so, it is worth putting it on record that the Bill has got to this stage only because a number of us took the view that because it had been discussed properly in the other place it should be given Second Reading “on the nod”, as we say. The other side of that coin was that the Bill would be subject to proper scrutiny. This debate is part of that process of scrutiny.
It will not surprise my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) to hear I am disappointed with his response. I do not think he has addressed the specifics of the concerns that have been raised. It is all very well to say, “Let’s leave it to the discretion of their lordships”, but if the past is a guide to the future, when we leave people with power and enormous discretion quite often that power is abused. That is why it is very important to try to put proper safeguards in the Bill.
In a sense, my point was made for me very ably by my hon. Friend the Minister in his incredibly short response. It is notable that we have not had any response from the Opposition on either of the two groups of amendments. I do not know whether that means they do not have a view, or that they will be making up their policy later. The Minister said in his peroration that we must allow the Lords to take action against those who bring their House into disrepute. That expression is so easy to interpret in a very broad brush way. That is why I have been trying, so far in vain, to put something more specific in the Bill. In the circumstances, I hope we will be able to test the opinion of the House on amendment 1.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Maude
We have gone infinitely further than any previous Government ever did to ensure that payment is speeded up through the creation of project bank accounts and inserting into main suppliers’ contract terms a requirement that they pay quickly as well, because the concern is a very real one. Small businesses can end up being starved of cash and it is not acceptable, so we are driving much better practice through these legal obligations. The situation is better than it was, but there is much more still to do.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
T2. May I congratulate and thank my right hon. Friend on having secured a 4.3% increase in public service productivity in the first three years of his watch, by contrast with the zero growth over the previous 13 years? What further measures does he plan to take to increase public sector productivity?
Mr Maude
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. There is much more to do. According to the Office for National Statistics, public sector productivity remained flat throughout the Labour years and it has started to increase, but there is much more that we need to do. We have said further savings and reductions in the cost of delivering public services can be made while the quality of the service increases. We have shown over this period that we can do more for less, but we are going to need to continue with redoubled effort in the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Solicitor-General
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he asked his question. I can tell him that the total value of cost awards against the CPS was only 0.2% of its budget, and that, within that percentage, identifying specific errors of law was going to be very difficult. However, I can assure him that only 142 appeals against conviction were allowed last year, and that very few of those will have involved an error of law on the part of a CPS lawyer. An error might well have been made by the trial judge, or might have been made at some other point in the system, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the number of errors of law committed purely by CPS lawyers is very small indeed.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
8. When he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss the length of pre-charge bail.
The Attorney-General (Jeremy Wright)
I regularly meet the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss matters affecting the CPS, as my hon. Friend might expect. We discussed the Home Office’s consultation paper on limiting police pre-charge bail before it was published, and I expect the CPS to contribute to that consultation.
Mr Chope
How would my right hon. and learned Friend feel if, like one of my constituents, he was subjected to the ignominy of a highly publicised arrest, suspended from his job, and put on pre-charge bail for 11 months before being released without charge? How is such oppressive treatment of innocent people consistent with the spirit of Magna Carta?
The Attorney-General
I do not think that oppressive treatment is consistent with the spirit of Magna Carta. In this of all years, we should consider very carefully what my hon. Friend has said, and I think that that is why the Home Secretary initiated the consultation. We need to consider all aspects of this matter. It is right to balance against the important points that my hon. Friend has made the need to ensure that, in complex cases, investigation is given its proper time, and that victims and witnesses are protected, as they can be, by conditions attached to pre-charge bail. However, he is right in what he says, which is why we are considering the issue.
Business without Debate
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On my Order Paper, we have next the EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman’s point of order has been noted. The Clerk will now read Bill No. 8 on the Order Paper.
EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill
Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said earlier, any Government Committee can only put forward proposals for wider debate here and with the public. I strongly agree with the hon. Lady’s implication that we should be involving the public as actively as possible. That is why—as I also said earlier—my own view is that a constitutional convention needs to be established as all the different moving pieces evolve within the United Kingdom. My strong preference is for the first step in that convention to be a public one, and for what would effectively be a citizens jury to be created, as has happened in other countries. That could get the ball rolling.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is estimated that more than 5 million British citizens living abroad would be entitled, prima facie, to vote in next year’s general election. Why is it not one of the Government’s priorities to ensure that we increase the proportion of those who are registered? Their number is currently fewer than 16,000. Is that not shameful?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. Of course we should be making efforts to encourage all who are entitled to vote to do so, whether they live here or elsewhere in the world.
NATO Summit
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Let me try to find a little common ground with the hon. Gentleman. As well as believing in the importance of defence expenditure and keeping our defences strong, I also believe that international aid and development is an important tool not just for helping people out of poverty, but in demonstrating the compassion and generosity of the west in helping people who are less fortunate than we are. Where I think the hon. Gentleman is wrong is that we have to understand that a fundamental cause of the extremism and terrorism that we saw with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and that we see with ISIL in Syria and Iraq, is the poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism. We see people joining it who have not suffered poverty or deprivation, but they have bought into that perverted world view. Irrespective of what we might think of them, they are very clear that they want to kill us.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Is the Prime Minister satisfied that all our NATO allies are taking sanctions against Russia? In particular, is he concerned about the role of Turkey, which does not seem to be taking sanctions and is alleged to be undermining some of the sanctions that we are taking?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The EU has through its mechanisms decided and implemented sanctions, as has the US. There are a number of countries that have serious trading relationships with Russia, and which I believe ought to see the dangers to them of the approach that Russia is taking to the sovereign authority of another country. Yes, it is important that we have those conversations.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I commend the right hon. Gentleman on the work that the Home Affairs Committee has done on that issue. He is absolutely right that this is a brutal and appalling practice that should have no place in the world, and certainly no place here in Britain and it is appalling that people living in our country are being subjected to it. I will study the report closely. The whole aim of the conference, which I am keen on us holding, is to ensure that the two practices of early forced marriage and female genital mutilation are wiped out from our planet.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Q9. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it would be totally unacceptable to have a statutory limitation on overseas aid without having a similar statutory provision covering defence expenditure to guarantee our NATO commitments?
The Prime Minister
We are in the happy position in this country of meeting the 2% spending on defence that NATO members are meant to undertake. When we hold the NATO conference in Wales in September we should be encouraging other countries to do the same and, indeed, to meet some of the new targets for spending on new equipment that can be used in NATO operations, which we certainly meet in this country. As well as doing that, we can also be proud of the fact that we are meeting the promise that we made of spending 0.7% on overseas aid, which is saving lives all over the world. I would not divorce that from our defence spending, because the money that we spend in places such as Somalia, Mali, Nigeria or, indeed, Pakistan is about reducing the pressures of asylum, immigration and terrorism, making our world safer. That is what our defence budget should be about, and I would argue that it is what our aid budget is about, as well.
Local Growth Deals
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I wonder whether we could make slightly faster progress, because many Members wish to speak and this statement will run to about a quarter to 6 in order to make room for today’s business. Short questions and short answers would be very helpful.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
What is in this announcement for Dorset, and will the Minister answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) about how much money we could get if we abandoned HS2? If we did so, we would have a lot more money for these schemes.
Greg Clark
I will not be tempted to go in that direction, because I think that HS2 is very important for further boosting our regional economy. Dorset does very well from the scheme. As my hon. Friend will know, the package of improvements for unlocking transport around Bournemouth airport is very important, and the port of Poole is receiving a lot of investment. There has been particular investment in skills in Dorset to ensure that its growing businesses can attract the people they need to meet the demands of their growing order books.
European Council
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As Prime Minister I have secured a cut in the European budget, vetoed a European treaty, secured progress for the single market, and got us out of the euro bail-out schemes that the hon. Gentleman’s party signed up to in government. That is a track record of achievement in Europe, but there are times when you are making a stand on a principle when you are going to be outvoted. There are two reactions to that: you can either give up and go along with the majority, which is, I suspect, what the Leader of the Opposition would have done, or you stick to your principles, make your arguments and stick to your guns.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing such refreshing transparency to the negotiating process. Mrs Merkel has said that she is ready to listen and respond to the concerns of the United Kingdom. Does her willingness extend to revision, if not abolition, of the working time directive?
The Prime Minister
There are a number of things that we need to change in Europe. The working time directive has done great damage, including to our health service, and we never approved of it in the first place. That is very important. We will continue to have discussions with the Germans and others about all the things that we want to change as part of our renegotiation.
Conflict Decisions and Constitutional Reform
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Allen
I know these things may come back to haunt me later.
To be serious, though, many of us—even people sitting in Nottingham, as I do—feel that Whitehall telling us what to do and when to empty our bins, and not allowing us to get on and run our affairs, is an unacceptable imposition in a democracy. Many of us work away in our own way to make the case for rational devolution, wherever we are. If we do not have rational devolution, where do the rational devolvers go? Some of them become attracted to nationalism and see it as the way forward. It is ludicrous that we do not say to such people, and to people such as me in the east midlands, or whatever nation or English region we may live in, that we can run our own affairs.
How do we do that? I have some views of my own, but why do we not have a constitutional convention? Why do we not say that there has been a very serious schism? I hope that that schism starts to heal, but it will heal only if we take serious heed of how we can devolve power not just to Scotland, not because it is a reflex and not because it is a response but because we believe in it. The way to demonstrate that belief is seriously to consider devolution in England. That is one of the things that could come through in a constitutional convention.
There is no one in the House of Commons to whom the Minister takes second place on devolution. If there is one person in the House who has done more for devolution than any other, it is him. Long may he continue. Those Trojan, individual efforts of will and drive need a process. I hope he will be with us for many years, but just in case he is not, we need a structure that allows devolution to take place because, regardless of party, there is a means for it to do so.
Fundamentally, if the English get devolution, it then becomes believable not as an expedient for every other nation but because it is seen to be a principle and something that cannot be taken away. I wish that were not the case, but to prove that devolution is a principle we need to be clear and honest about English devolution. Creating a convention does not have to be a formal thing after an election; it could be an informal thing before an election and it could start to outline where we can go and how we take this process forward.
My Select Committee has been looking seriously at what that means for England and how it might shape things. We have not always come to complete unanimity on it; there are many different views and many different parties. However, we managed to get a sense of direction, if nothing else, and recently we produced our report on the codification of the relationship between local government and central Government. I hope that, as an individual Back Bencher, I can produce a Bill on that matter shortly, which will go a bit further and define independent local government of the sort that is commonplace in every other democracy. People are not like us. We are the weird one in the democratic family, in not having independent local government; in being unable to raise revenues locally to meet our budgets; and in being told what to do by a massively over-centralised Whitehall, in this case. That does not happen in many of our neighbours in north America, Europe and elsewhere in the democratic family.
We can get up to standard—up to modern democratic standards—by doing those things. If we do that; if it is written down and cannot just be thrown away on a whim by the next Government, or the one after that, or the one after that; and if it is part of what we are and what we believe in, which is union and devolution, it will be something that will see us through for a long, long time. That was the heart of what we were trying to say as a Select Committee—working together—when we put forward the paper on our proposal for a constitutional convention for the United Kingdom.
One of the key things that we opened up in our other report on codification of local government was how we finance things. We can have all the nice codes written in Brussels, which get shipped over here every so often and go straight into the waste bin in Whitehall, but if we are really to do this thing we need, of course, to have powers—they are relatively easy to define—but we also need to have finance.
At the moment, local government is financed. Where does that money come from? It comes largely from the income tax payments of every individual in this country. Maybe it is not possible to devise a system whereby we can link income tax to local government. Oh, yes—let us look up the road, and we see that they are doing it. Again, Scotland has led the way, winning over even the Treasury to the concept of assigned local income tax. Right now, it is only 10p of the income tax, but the foot is in the door; it is possible to go further and indeed the Scottish Conservatives have demonstrated how that can be done.
Such an offer—the current offer—has been made to our good friends in the Welsh Assembly. I hope that they will bank that, I hope that they will pick it up and I hope that they will be greedy and come back for more, because all they would be asking for would be to retain some of the income tax in their own nation and put it to work. It would not be income tax on a different rate; it would not be without equalisation; it would not be collected in a different way; and it would not involve setting up a local income tax bureaucracy. It would just be income tax the way that we do it now, but using the equalisation mechanism. If we wanted to use one in England, it would be the Department for Communities and Local Government, which would take that allocation—the amount of money currently spent on local government, paid for by income tax—and equalise it there, before distributing it to the local authorities.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present yesterday at the Margaret Thatcher conference on liberty, but if he had been he would have heard Dr Art Laffer explaining to those present that in the United States the nine states without local income taxes have grown faster and provide better public services than any of the states that have local income taxes.
Mr Allen
That is a very good argument to ensure that, under this new arrangement, we will make sure that there is an opt-out for Christchurch, so that it can carry on without any of the income tax that its residents pay going to its local government, but I suspect that most people would want to continue a system of equalised funding.
The beauty of tax assignment is that it changes nothing in terms of the money values and the collection, but it brings transparency and accountability to the line of account from someone’s pocket to their local government. One of the suggestions in our report is that everyone’s personal wage slip or salary slip should show not only national income tax as x pounds and national insurance as y pounds but local income tax—the element that goes to support their council—as c pounds.
People would look at that and soon start to become interested, once again, in their locality, in their issues, in a bond issue, in joining their local parties and in getting involved with the constituencies, councils and boroughs throughout the land, because they would own and pay for their own local government. That is happening in Scotland, it is soon to happen in Wales, so let it happen in England soon, and then we will be going back again to those two key principles of union and devolution, and of doing what is appropriate at the most appropriate level: at the Westminster level, or the federal level of central Government; at the national level in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and for us in England, that level or vehicle could be local government.
That issue just happens to be something I care about and feel I have thought through, but there may be dozens and dozens of other issues out there. Again, rather like being convened to discuss a major issue—such as whether the nation should go to war—let us convene on other issues. Perhaps our Parliament could be the convention, but let us convene what we may call a convention to hear the voices, and not pretend that something will go away if a vote goes our way in Scotland, or if Wales or England adopts a particular set of legislative expedients.
Let us hear the voices, and that is all my Committee has been doing. It is a thread right the way through four—nearly five—years of work. To have a fixed-term Parliament in which a Select Committee can set its stall out and start to do some thinking has been useful for us. Not everybody does it that way—that is okay, because people have different ways of running Select Committees—but we have taken advantage of that fixed term to craft some of those answers and some of those debates.
I will say why that is important, and then I will start to wind up. It is not just about whether our Select Committee comes up with a particular answer on a particularly nifty bit of procedure. Our politics has changed. I would say that it had not changed much for most of my life in the House of Commons, but it has changed in the last five or six years—big time. There are lots of reasons for that. But what we now have, and we are in the middle of a big inquiry into voter engagement, is serious voter disengagement. It may be that people are taught this cynicism about our politics, or perhaps they pick it up, or it may be that people in this House have a large share of responsibility for it, but whatever caused it, we are where we are. And we are, as conventional parties, disparaged and disrespected—often with good cause. However, the answer is not to go forward and build a new politics; the answer is currently seen as anti-politics, anti-democracy and anti-the parties in this place. That is the choice that the nation as a whole is considering at the moment and we need to supersede it, because it could be quite dangerous unless we come up with something that goes beyond it.
Looking at the big picture again, looking at the principles again, getting away from tomorrow’s headlines and looking at how we build that future is very important. It may be just about process in how we go to war; it may be about pulling together a constitutional convention; it may be about looking in the year that we commemorate Magna Carta at what the last 800 years have meant in terms of the conflicts that led to Magna Carta; and it may be time for a new Magna Carta. I do not think we should be telling people that. People should be deciding that for themselves. There should be a debate, which all parties should be encouraging, because some of those big principles need to be revisited.
I am worried that, unless we revisit those principles quickly, if we just continue to respond to events, not only will a Scottish referendum dictate our futures reactively but possibly even the next general election will do so. If a quarter of the population votes for a party that does not get any seats, what legitimacy will there be for a party that just manages to cobble together a coalition or manages even to get an outright majority in Parliament? Will that be a strong pillar of democracy?
We have to look at these issues before they happen. My Committee has made a serious contribution to the future of that debate on those issues, on the ones I have spoken about today and on many others. I hope that this House and the Government listen seriously and take us forward, so that we build a stronger democracy and put reactiveness and expediency behind us, because if we do not we may be threatening the very democracy that we say we love.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I had not intended to participate in this debate, but I have been stimulated into action by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). He and I have been on this Select Committee since the beginning of this Parliament. I pay tribute to him for the work he has done.
We do not agree on everything, as I think will be obvious. Even the Minister responding to our report on having a convention said:
“The Committee itself did not agree on the need for a constitutional convention. According to its report, ‘There is a range of very different opinions. This is true, not only among the witnesses but also among the members of our Committee, some of whom do not accept either the need for further review of constitutional arrangements or that a constitutional convention would be the right vehicle for any such review.’”
I count myself in the last category, as somebody who does not believe that a constitutional convention would be the right vehicle for any review. If we wish to review the constitutional arrangements for our country, that should be initiated by Parliament and by the Government. It is a matter of regret that, for example, we have not yet got a clear response to the McKay commission. These commissions are set up and the Government are often rather slow to respond to them.
The Government also said that they are
“grateful to the Committee…which has added to the broad-ranging conversation that is taking place on the UK’s constitutional arrangements, including the shape of the UK’s devolution settlements.”
It has been a great asset for the Committee to reflect and, in a sense, take part in this conversation. That is probably why the Government’s response to quite a thick report looks rather thin. Unlike most Government responses, it does not deal with our recommendations paragraph by paragraph, but puts all the responses together, forgetting some of the most important recommendations. Anyway, that is how it is.
The response is quite short, is it not, on issues to do with Scotland and the United Kingdom. Where did the Edinburgh agreement come from? The hon. Gentleman says that Parliament should be consulted on when we go war. Was Parliament consulted in advance of the Edinburgh agreement, which is potentially far-reaching? If the result of the referendum in Scotland is a vote for independence, that agreement, which effectively guaranteed that the Scots would be able to have their will, as reflected in their referendum, implemented without question by this UK Parliament, could be the makings of a constitutional crisis. If, say, there is a small turnout or a small margin of difference between one side and the other, people will ask, “Why wasn’t the House of Commons engaged in this?”
A couple of weeks back, I was told by a taxi driver in Catalonia how difficult it is in Spain because of the unemployment problems—this was before the results of the World cup. He wanted Catalonian independence. He said that this year is the 300th anniversary of Spain’s conquering Catalonia and that 1 million people are going to join hand in hand along the old boundary, to try to re-establish the case for a separate Catalonia. The difference between Catalonia and Scotland is that the Spanish will not allow the Catalans to have a referendum.
The hon. Gentleman talks about constitutional arrangements in other countries, but we should not rush off and say, “It’s always much better.” If an established part of a country, such as Catalonia, is not allowed to have its own referendum, one is riding an impossible horse. Spain could say that, before any action is taken, a two-thirds majority will be needed in support of that, but to say, effectively, “You can’t have a referendum”, is rather backward in terms of democratic principles.
Let us give credit where it is due: we have said that the Scots can have their referendum and they are going to have it. Effectively, the question has been chosen by the Scottish Government, rather than being imposed on them by the UK Government. We will have to see what happens in the aftermath of that referendum. Increased powers for a devolved Scottish Administration are being talked about by political leaders at the moment, albeit without their having discussed those powers with the House of Commons or with members of political parties represented in this House. However, people seem to be making ex cathedra statements such as, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do this”, or “We’re going to do that”. I do not know how much that will impress the electorate. However, if there is a vote against a separate Scotland, there will be significant pressure for even more devolved powers.
The hon. Gentleman talks about income tax, but that cannot be separated from the total amount of income that the country has. Scotland seems to have such good public services compared with England because the English are paying significant contributions towards the provision of those public services. One can conceive of a situation in which the English say, “We are not going to sustain that amount of subsidy for Scotland. We are going to reduce the subsidies,” and the Scottish Government say that they will have to increase their income tax. There is a balance between the yield of income tax in Scotland and the amount that comes direct in grant from British taxpayers.
Mr Allen
I shall be brief, because I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, as always. Of course, he should not forget that even if it is just England there will be equalisation. Poorer areas will benefit from the tax take of wealthier areas. That is an all-Union principle, but it could and should apply if we were able to have assigned income tax by nation within the UK.
Mr Chope
Equalisation is an inevitable consequence of having a single currency. If there is no equalisation, there will be the sort of problems that the eurozone has at the moment. Who will decide on the detail of that equalisation? In my view the UK Parliament should decide that, rather than ad hoc statements being made, suggesting that this has all been thought through. I fear that it has not been thought through. How a vote for a separate Scotland, if that happens, would impact on membership of this House and what would happen at the end of a fixed-term Parliament, and so on, have not been thought through either. It was significant that Government Members abstained when one of my hon. Friends brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill raising that particular issue.
That example is an indication that a constitutional convention would be an incredibly bureaucratic and time-consuming distraction. It is not what we need. We need to be much more fleet of foot and much more responsive to changing circumstances. It is a cause of immense frustration, particularly among Conservative Members, that an agreement that was incorporated into the coalition and passed into law—namely, that we should have a fairer distribution of constituencies, so that they are of a more equal size—was effectively vetoed by the Deputy Prime Minister and his party. Although the considerations of the coalition programme have been delivered in other respects, they reneged on that agreement. That was a constitutional outrage and we are now within months of a general election where there will be a significant and avoidable disparity between the size of the electorates in the largest and smallest constituencies. We have not even been able to respond adequately to that challenge. The conversation needs to continue, but I am rather with the Government in their response, which said that they do not see a convention as being justified.
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Minister was responsible for it, but some of the language in the Government response seems to be opaque in the extreme.
Mr Chope
I will quote just one example. Paragraph 3.9 of the Government response states:
“The Government is committed to constitutional reform driven from the ground up. Inevitably, as a result of this approach constitutional reform may not be neat or consistent across the UK. The Government is of the view that an approach which is built on public demand will reflect local circumstances and have a greater chance of success.”
Mr Chope
I am not even sure that the Government know what they are saying. As their response states, there is no public demand for a lot of these changes.
Briefly, on Syria and the other report, which is on how we should be engaged in decisions on going to war or entering conflict situations, we have to pay proper tribute to how the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have brought Parliament into the process in a way that it never was before. That happened most recently with the Syria vote, which not only caused an enormous earthquake in our country, but had a ripple effect on the United States and France. I have no doubt that, if our vote had been different, the United States would have engaged in the conflict, and the French would have gone in with them. We were setting a lead for the west in debating that openly. I do not hear anyone now say that we took the wrong decision. That gives those of us who did not support the Government on that occasion considerable satisfaction.
So far as Libya goes, we debated engagement in Libya. Everyone thought that it was the right thing to do, because it would avoid a massacre in Benghazi. That was avoided, but where we are now with Libya is not a pretty place. Next week, we will be debating in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe a report that references the fact that there might be as many as 800,000 people on the Libyan coast waiting to get into Europe, often risking their lives in ramshackle boats to get across the Mediterranean and make a new life. What they all have in common is that they are victims of armed militias, traffickers and so on. It is an unpleasant situation. Whether our military intervention there made the situation worse or not, history will be the judge. It again emphasises, however, that if parliamentarians are involved in the process, it is not so easy for us, having supported engagement in Libya, to turn around and say, “Well, it was an awful mistake.” At the time, with our eyes open, we thought it was for the best, although it might not have turned out that way.
The Committee’s reports are important, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will be able to add in value. In particular, we need to have an answer to the point that the hon. Member for Nottingham North started with: when will we get what the Foreign Secretary has said he wants us to have, which is an agreement in Parliament that is an effective guarantee for subsequent Parliaments?
Mr Chope
I have a question about Scotland. Perhaps the Minister’s constituents are not like mine, but mine are increasingly concerned about the fact that people living in England seem to have no say over the future relationships of the United Kingdom. There is a prospect that on a simple majority vote the Scots could become separate from the United Kingdom, so where does that leave ordinary people who live in England but want to stay in the Union?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend and I share a view, which you, Mr Weir, may not share but are constrained from commenting on, that that eventuality will not arise, and that the people of Scotland will commit themselves to being part of a United Kingdom that has proved an extraordinary success for all its nations. The McKay commission of course was set up to address those matters, and did so in a considered way, with a recommendation. My hon. Friend pointed out that the Government had not responded formally to the commission; we will do so, and it would be wrong to pre-empt that collective response to the advice we have been given.
We have had a useful and lively debate on the role of Parliament in conflict decisions. I must beg the Committee’s patience again, and say that we will respond to its report soon. It is right, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North said, to weigh things carefully, because the decision to deploy British troops in overseas conflicts is one of the most momentous that a Government can take. In 2011 the Government recognised that a convention had developed in Parliament that before troops were deployed overseas the House of Commons should have an opportunity to debate the matter except when there was an emergency and such action would not be appropriate. That convention has since been recorded in the Cabinet manual and the Government’s commitment to it was most recently demonstrated by the decision to request the recall of Parliament on 29 August 2013 to debate the role that the United Kingdom should play in relation to the conflict in Syria.
There have been suggestions that the convention should be formalised, either by parliamentary resolution or by statute, and both the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee have held inquiries to explore the matter. The hon. Member for Nottingham North will know that they reached different views. Their lordships concluded against formalisation in their report of 17 July, arguing that the existing convention was the most appropriate mechanism by which Parliament could be involved in conflict decisions. In our response to the Committee’s report, the Government communicated our continued support for the convention and advised that we would carefully reflect on the case for formalisation before informing Parliament of the position. Since then, of course, the Committee has put forward its case for formalisation.
The first recommendation from the Committee was that the Cabinet manual should be updated to include a reference to the events in the House of Commons on 29 August 2013. The current manual refers to the fact that
“In 2011, the Government acknowledged that a convention had developed in Parliament that before troops were committed the House of Commons should have an opportunity to debate the matter and said that it proposed to observe that convention except when there was an emergency and such action would not be appropriate.”
The Committee makes a reasonable point in suggesting that that should be updated to reinforce the importance and value of that convention by reference to the events of 29 August. The Government accept the recommendation. We will respond in due course to the other recommendations, but it seems reasonable to tell the House today that we will change the Cabinet manual at the time of the next major revision.
The Committee requested that the Prime Minister should give a specific Minister responsibility for making progress on formalising Parliament’s role in conflict decisions, and appoint a senior civil servant to support the Minister in that work. The Government already have a clear governance structure in place, and of necessity that is an area that cannot be devolved to a single individual. It must command the attention and involvement of very senior Ministers in different Departments and cannot be compartmentalised in a pure way. Overall responsibility for constitutional policy rests with the Cabinet Office and is overseen by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, but he works on those matters in close consultation with other relevant Cabinet Ministers, including the Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary and Attorney-General. Support to all Ministers is informed by advice from the national security secretariat. Decisions on the Government’s legislative programme are made collectively by the Cabinet.
The Committee ultimately recommends that the convention that Parliament be consulted before UK troops are committed overseas should be enshrined in law and that, as an interim and more immediate measure, a parliamentary resolution clarifying and formalising that convention should be adopted. The report contains a draft resolution.
It is worth noting the success of the existing arrangement, which has ensured that this Parliament has been consulted on both the major conflict decisions that have arisen since 2010: Libya and Syria. The Government believe that the Prime Minister’s decision to recall Parliament to debate involvement in Syria on 29 August 2013 further demonstrated the Government’s unwavering commitment to the existing convention.
The Government have been considering the complexities and risks associated with formalisation of the current convention, either by legislation or by resolution. As the Committee recognises, formalisation by statute risks rendering deployment decisions justiciable. The Government’s view is that either a statute or a resolution could increase the risk of challenges being brought in the courts to various aspects of Government deployment decisions or decision-making processes. They are concerned that, even when there would be good arguments against such challenges, the potential involvement of the courts could undermine the operational independence and effectiveness of the armed forces, as well as international reliability and credibility.
Furthermore, formalisation by legislation or resolution of the House presents significant definitional challenges, which would require the resolution of difficult questions on the type of action or deployment that would trigger parliamentary involvement, as well as the nature of the exemptions that would apply for reasons of urgency and secrecy. I readily acknowledge that the Committee not only reflected on and noted those issues but proposed some solutions.
If the nature of the military operation were to change, perhaps suddenly, the terms under which approval had been given might no longer apply, and there might be ambiguity about whether they did or did not apply. That could limit the ability of UK forces to conduct operations until the matter was clarified or Parliament had been consulted, or could require the Government to seek retrospective approval, which could undermine the authority and initiative of commanders in perilous situations in battle.
The nature of armed conflict is evolving, driven by the development of advanced military technology and the range of situations in which armed forces might be deployed. Any definition could quickly become redundant, which could constrain the activities of the armed forces when deployed on operations. In relation to any exemptions for urgency or secrecy, as well as presenting similar definitional problems, it would be necessary to accept certain important constraints on the information that could realistically be provided to the whole of Parliament—for example, if action were taken on the basis of sensitive intelligence information to which only certain Members of Parliament were authorised to have access.
There is no doubt that this is a particularly complex matter that presents challenges associated with effectively capturing the existing convention in statute or resolution. There has been much deliberation of the matter and the hon. Member for Nottingham North, who chairs the Committee, is aware that it has been and continues to be subject to serious reflection by the Government.
A range of views was expressed to the Committee and the two Houses of Parliament came to different views on the same subject. The Government continue to reflect carefully on those positions and to examine the available evidence, including the differing conclusions and recommendations of the two Houses of Parliament, and to reflect thoroughly on the experience of the current convention. We will provide the Committee with further details of our position in our formal response shortly.
The Government have demonstrated that they remain totally committed to the existing convention that, before UK troops are committed to conflict, the House of Commons should have the opportunity to debate and vote on the matter, except in an emergency when such action would not be appropriate. We expect future Governments to observe that convention, which is why it is outlined in the Cabinet manual and, as I noted earlier, we will certainly accept the Committee’s recommendation that the document is updated to include a reference to the debate on Syria next time a major revision is undertaken.
I am grateful to the Committee for its report on Parliament’s role in conflict decisions. The Committee, because of its character, makes an important, considered and thoughtful contribution to the debate on this important constitutional arrangement. I would like to thank others who have contributed to the discussion, not least those in their lordships’ House and the individuals who submitted evidence. I assure all contributors that the Government remain committed to ensuring that Parliament has the opportunity to scrutinise decisions to deploy our armed forces overseas. We have not rushed to a judgment, which is a reflection of the seriousness of the issue and our desire to ensure that the right decisions are made instead of peremptory and perhaps wrongly based ones.