Dan Byles
Main Page: Dan Byles (Conservative - North Warwickshire)Department Debates - View all Dan Byles's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) for the way he expressed his concerns about the Bill, and for tabling the amendments, because that has given us the opportunity to discuss some very important issues. It is crucial to get such a Bill right, and I am pleased that we can discuss the amendments, but I urge the House to resist supporting them for the reasons that I shall give.
Amendments 2 and 3 would require peers to serve a minimum of 10 years before they can retire or resign, and amendment 3 would also impose an age restriction of 65. We all hope that Members of the House of Lords will want to undertake an active and lengthy role in the House, but my Bill introduces a straightforward, honourable statutory provision that allows those who no longer feel able to serve in the House to resign.
Other hon. Members have already mentioned the reasons why Members may think that they are unable to serve in the House. I do not want to go over the subject again, but on Second Reading we discussed at length the very real distress that some noble Members feel when, because of personal circumstances, they are unable to give the full service that they themselves think membership of the Lords deserves. It would be unfair to remove for non-attendance a Member who had been in the House for less than 10 years, but suffered a terrible health problem or had become a full-time carer for a family member. Such a Member would seem to have been naughty, rather than to have been allowed to make a dignified and honourable resignation. It is not therefore appropriate to prevent somebody from resigning if they make the difficult decision to do so, even though they have not served for a minimum period. Peers may wish to resign for a variety of very personal reasons, and I believe that it would be arbitrary and unfair to put in place such a limitation.
Amendment 4 would require two fellow peers to witness a resigning peer’s notice. The normal legal practice is for most documents to be witnessed by one person, and I do not see how a fellow peer is better equipped to witness a notice than any responsible individual. I note that the disclaimer of an hereditary peerage under the Peerage Act 1963 requires only one signature, which I am sure my hon. Friend pondered at length before he tabled his amendment.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend refers to the witness being any responsible person. With the greatest respect, the Bill does not say that; it simply says “a witness”.
Dan Byles
My understanding of the Bill is that the witness would be a responsible person in the same manner as for other legal documents, which usually means a Member of Parliament, a doctor and so on. I do not believe that the Bill needs additional safeguards to ensure the effectiveness of resignation notices. Many very important legal documents and other matters involving this House take such an approach, and there is no reason for a stricter requirement on this matter.
Amendment 6 would confirm that once resignation has taken effect, it cannot be rescinded. I am a little hazy, but that implies that peers could change their mind until the resignation takes effect. Submitting a signed and properly witnessed notice is a significant step, and peers would be fully aware of the effect of doing so. It would not be right to enable peers to submit such a notice lightly, safe in the knowledge that they could withdraw it up until it takes effect. My Bill aims to be straightforward and simple, and adding such a nuance would over-complicate it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Bill simply states that the notice must
“specify a date from which the resignation is to take effect”.
That could be any date in the future. There is no requirement that it be no more than a month or six months from the date of the notice being issued. That leaves a period in which it is perfectly reasonable to think that circumstances could change such that the notice might be withdrawn.
Dan Byles
I now understand my hon. Friend’s concern better, but I still disagree. For the reasons that he has given, I believe it is a serious step for a Member to take the decision to leave. One change that we made in Committee was to say that a Member who decides to retire or resign may not subsequently be reappointed to the House of Lords. We did that for the very reasons that he has given. Sitting in the House of Lords is a lifetime commitment and it should not be the norm to leave. One should not leave with the expectation that one may simply waltz back in later. When a Member decides to submit a notice stating that they wish to leave, it would not be helpful if they could think, “I can always change my mind before it comes into effect.” Perhaps my hon. Friend and I must agree to disagree on that issue.
Amendment 7 would exempt unelected hereditary peers from disqualification under the Bill. The two peers who would be exempted from disqualification, the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Marshal, undertake various ceremonial duties in the House of Lords. I do not believe that either officer should retain their seat in the House of Lords if they wish to resign or if they are convicted of a criminal offence. I am of the view that it would not be possible for those officers to undertake their duties in the House and elsewhere if they were in custody for more than a year. I am confident that if that situation arose, the Government, in conjunction with the Palace, would put in place appropriate and effective measures to ensure that the functions of the officer were executed properly while they were in custody. I do not believe that Members of the House of Lords should be able to retain their seats if they are safely convicted of a serious criminal offence. I certainly do not believe that peers should enjoy the privilege of being exempt from that. I therefore do not support amendment 7, although I understand why my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset felt the need to raise and discuss the issue.
Amendments 8 and 9 would allow the heir of a retiring hereditary peer to take part in the by-election caused by their parent’s retirement and elevate the retiring peer to the status of viscount. It would be entirely wrong for this Bill to change the current position whereby heirs are not given an automatic right to enter the House of Lords. I would not want to support such a controversial amendment, because the Bill seeks to make straightforward and sensible changes to the membership of the House of Lords. However, this is a fascinating debate that might take place in other circumstances. Under the Bill, departing peers will retain their peerage. I therefore do not agree that those who retire should be elevated automatically to viscount status, nor that they should be entitled to any additional honour simply because they have been a Member of the House of Lords, so I do not support amendments 8 and 9.
Dan Byles
The idea that there would be an illegible squiggle and that nobody would know whose it was is a bit fanciful. There are not many other legal documents for which we set out in primary legislation a requirement to include a name, address, social security number and so on. It needs to be properly witnessed, but I am not convinced that a big problem with the Bill will be that we will end up with false witnesses and people trying to squeeze out other peers. I accept the spirit in which my hon. Friend makes his point, but it is not likely to be a particularly major problem.
On whether a peer might be of sound mind when making the statement, we are talking about people who at the moment are entitled to vote on legislation for this country. I do not think we should call into question whether they might be able to indicate legitimately that they wish to resign or retire.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, but the Bill’s draftsmen included a requirement for a witness so they must have intended that witness to have a purpose, so what is that purpose? Surely the purpose of the witness, if there is a purpose, must be to give evidence to a court as to the identity of the person who executed the document, and about their state of mind and their position when they signed it. I accept that it may be the will of the House that such evidence can be given properly by someone without their having a special qualification. However, given the importance of such a document in the constitutional affairs of this country, I would have thought it reasonable to require witnesses at the very least to have some form of legal training in order to assess these matters and properly give evidence in court.
Leaving that aside, the amendment would go some way to dealing with the matter. Two peers would indeed be able to give good evidence to a court about the identity of the person who signed the document, and state that the person was who they purported to be, but whenever a witness is required to sign a document, there should be a requirement—as an absolute minimum—not just to sign it but to state legibly their full name and present address. They can then be found if necessary, and contacted to give evidence to a court about the circumstances in which that document was signed.
Amendment 7 demonstrates the great dangers in tinkering with the unwritten British constitution. I often describe the constitution as a delicate flower, and when we start to unpick it and tinker with one aspect of it, unintended consequences inevitably flow from the proposed changes. We saw that some years ago when it was proposed that the office of Lord Chancellor be abolished. It suddenly became apparent, after a relatively short time, that it was not quite that simple, and the office remains to this day. For that reason, I support the remaining amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, and I commend them to the House.
Thomas Docherty
I was referring to the previous look at the issue in the Committee’s recall report.
Sometimes in our debates on a Friday Members say “We haven’t had many letters about this,” but I can truly say that I have had a large amount of correspondence on the issue of what is an appropriate disqualification period. On this occasion, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Committee Chairman. I think there is genuine public disquiet at the idea that someone can receive what is frankly quite a lengthy jail sentence yet continue to serve in Parliament, creating laws.
There is an obvious question which I am sure will be posed to me: why do I propose to make the situation for the House of Lords different from that for the House of Commons? If a Member of the House of Commons receives a jail sentence—of nine months, let us say—and tries to tough it out, the electorate still has an opportunity at the next general election to remove them from office. As things currently stand, however, in the House of Lords there is no term limit and therefore no other mechanism for recall. I believe there is merit in exploring whether the period set should be shorter, because the people of Britain do not have an opportunity to remove a Member of the House of Lords who tries to tough it out.
Regrettably, a small number of Members of the House of Lords, on both sides of the political divide, have gone to prison in recent years, and each time it happened there was genuine anger and people said, “Why is there nothing we can do to remove them?” I hope that today we will tease out the Government’s thinking on whether these rules are appropriate and whether there is merit in asking, “Due to the unique nature of the House of Lords—there is no democratic mechanism—should there be the same procedure?”
Turning to the broader issue, it appears that the hon. Members for North Warwickshire and for North East Somerset take slightly different approaches. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire has, I think, managed to achieve all that the hon. Member for North East Somerset wants, but does it in a single amendment. Far be it for me to get in the middle of an argument in the workers party about what is the correct approach, but it seems to me that this is a debate about whether it is appropriate to have to take a positive step following a conviction in a foreign court or whether our starting point should be that we regard foreign courts as having sensible judicial processes and only in exceptional circumstances would we seek not to abide by their recommendations. I hope that this is a rare technical argument.
I have to say that I have more sympathy with the original view of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. I would find it slightly disconcerting if our starting point were, “We don’t believe a court in Germany, or in Canada or Australia, has due legal process.” Of course there are countries around the world that do not have the same legal history as us, but I have more sympathy with the view put forward originally by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire than I do with the view proposed by the hon. Member for North East Somerset. I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for North Warwickshire shortly, and I am sure the Minister will set out the Government’s thinking.
May I again congratulate the hon. Member for North Warwickshire on introducing this Bill? There appears to be some noble interest in our debate today, and it is perhaps worth placing on the record the fact that the Bill is supported on both sides of the House. Lord Steel deserves a great deal of credit for championing the issue in recent years. It is possibly not as contentious as legislation he previously introduced when he was a Member of this House, but it is certainly an important Bill and I hope it makes it through both Houses and becomes law.
Dan Byles
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for introducing his amendment, because we should regularly revisit and discuss what the correct length of time should be. I took the trouble to look up in Hansard what was said in 1981 when the Representation of the People Act was debated. Lord Belstead made it clear that it was a pretty arbitrary decision to pick 12 months. He said that the Government did not
“rely exclusively on the precedent of 12 months in the 1870 Act. We felt—I admit this quite openly—that it would be more likely than not that persons in the category of those who had received sentences of more than 12 months had committed graver offences and that no injustice would be done by imposing a disqualification.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 30 June 1981; Vol. 422, c. 143.]
However, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the idea that we should have different limits for the House of Lords, the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament and so on. He has certainly made an eloquent case that we should perhaps routinely reassess the level across the board, but I do not think that at present more stringent rules should be imposed on the House of Lords than we have in this place. For that reason, I am afraid I will not be supporting the hon. Gentleman’s amendment.
Turning to some of the other amendments in the group, Amendments 12 to 14 are drafting amendments that remove the words “it is irrelevant” from the start of the subsection in question, but then include them twice within the body of the subsection. They are, in my view, unnecessary.
Amendments 15 and 16 deal with convictions in the United Kingdom and abroad. This has been a controversial issue. Amendment 15 would make disqualification on the ground of a conviction of a serious offence in the United Kingdom or Ireland automatic. Amendment 16 would make disqualification on the ground of a conviction of a serious offence in any Commonwealth realm subject to a resolution of the House of Lords, and in any Commonwealth country subject to a unanimous resolution of the House. It would prevent peers from being removed from the House if they were convicted of a serious offence outside the United Kingdom, Ireland or any Commonwealth realm or country. I believe that I have interpreted that correctly.
The purpose of my Bill is to make straightforward, small-scale changes to the membership of the House of Lords, and I purposely avoided over-complicating the clauses. To make such small distinctions between countries is unnecessary and not something that I believe many of our colleagues would support.
Thomas Docherty
Does the hon. Gentleman share my disquiet that we could be creating an artificial divide by saying that Commonwealth countries have a more robust judicial system than, say, European countries or the United States? I believe that the Foreign Office is troubled by the judicial process in some Commonwealth countries.
Dan Byles
I would agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. My heart entirely understands the distinction in the amendments between the Commonwealth and elsewhere, but my head says that it is difficult to justify the suggestion that countries such as Germany and France, for example, should be put into a different category from some members of the Commonwealth.
I presume that the amendment that would make the application of the provision automatic in the case of convictions in the Republic of Ireland is designed to emulate more closely the Representation of the People Act 1981. However, we all know that that legislation was enacted during the troubles in order to deal with the unique circumstances of that time, and incorporating the same provision in my Bill is therefore unnecessary.
In addition, I object to the assertion that it is permissible for a peer to commit a serious crime anywhere other than in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and the Commonwealth, and not to face sanction here for it. Allowing peers to do so and to retain their seats would damage the reputation of the House of Lords, and my Bill seeks to achieve the opposite. I believe that peers who are fairly convicted of offences that are regarded as serious within the United Kingdom should be disqualified if the House so resolves, which is why I am tabling my own amendment to that effect. I will speak to that amendment in a moment.
Amendment 17 would put a duty on the Lord Speaker to issue an additional certificate if a peer were pardoned following conviction for a serious offence to confirm that fact. The impact of a free pardon is that the person is cleared from all consequences of the offence and from all statutory or other disqualifications following conviction. If a peer who has been disqualified on the ground of a conviction for a serious offence is then pardoned, the effect of that would be to remove the disqualification. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.
Amendment 23 has been tabled in my name, and I have given a great deal of thought to this matter. I believe that anyone convicted of murder or any serious offence, whether in Bolton, Belgium or Brunei, should be subject to disqualification from the House of Lords. However, we all agree that criminal justice systems in different countries vary, and of course other jurisdictions sometimes try people in very different circumstances from those in which they would be tried in the United Kingdom. In addition, some countries impose lengthy sentences on individuals for actions that might be deemed to be minor offences, or not offences at all, in this country.
I have listened carefully to those who spoke on this issue on Second Reading and I have given the matter a great deal of consideration. I have also looked carefully at what happens in this House, where only sentencing and imprisonment that takes place in the UK and Ireland result in automatic disqualification. Of course, this House has the inherent power to disqualify whomsoever it chooses and can therefore choose to consider foreign convictions on a case-by-case basis and subsequently disqualify a Member. It seems to me that the House of Lords should be given the same opportunity.
My amendment 23 would make disqualification on the ground of a conviction for a serious offence abroad non-automatic. Instead, the House of Lords would need to resolve that the penalty should apply in each case. This would provide a sensible mechanism by which noble Lords could assure themselves that the conviction and sentencing were safe and met British perceptions of justice before disqualifying Members. I will therefore be pressing this amendment and I urge the House to support it.
Stephen Twigg
I rise to speak to the amendment, but, on reflection, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wonder whether it might be more appropriate for the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) to speak first, followed by the two Front-Bench speakers. I am happy to do it in that order.
Dan Byles
Let me clarify this. That was a flaw in the original drafting of the Bill, but in Committee we introduced a provision whereby the House of Lords has the right to vote to disregard the clause removing peers through being absent in certain circumstances, to deal with exactly the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Indeed, on Second Reading we discussed what would happen to a prisoner of war and whether they would automatically be disqualified—the answer is, obviously, no. It would almost certainly be possible for somebody held in a prison of a vaguely civilised nation to apply to take leave of absence. So, on both counts—either in the special circumstances or on the leave of absence issue—the peer would not be forced to resign.
We should protect our own constitutional rights zealously. We should not allow other places to interfere in how we run our business. The right way to go about it is set out in amendment 23, which achieves what I was aiming to achieve and is pithier. It does not give any special status to the Commonwealth realms, which I was giving not particularly out of a sentimental attachment to them, but more because of the ability to appeal to the Privy Council and the safeguards that builds in. It ought to be the right of the House of Lords to expel people—this House has that right and it is unfortunate that the House of Lords does not. It would be a good power for it to have as part of regulating its own affairs. It has the power to imprison peers but it does not have the power to expel them. However, it should use that expulsion power only if it wants to do so; it should not be forced to do it because a foreign court has told it that it has to.
I was discussing the systems in America and Italy, great nations with which we have the friendliest relations. However, we do not understand—we are not party to—their legal systems. A British person accused in a foreign country is often at a disadvantage to a national accused in that country because they are not in sympathy with the systems that will be used against them. Therefore, having this protection whereby it must be an active decision of the Lords to expel somebody convicted in a foreign country will protect the peer arrested in Kiribati for waving a flag or in Uganda for being homosexual or in Singapore for using the internet unlawfully. It is absolutely right that a judgment can be made as to whether in our terms, under our law and under our rules a peer has done something so serious and manifestly wrong that that right of peerage to sit in the House of Lords should be removed or curtailed. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire has introduced amendment 23, which has saved me from speaking at much greater length on this important subject.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this door has been opened by the Bill, and I recognise that he is trying to shut it. That was my point in talking about putting in an artificial bar. I hope that the Minister will clearly set out how the Government intend to respond to this issue. I think that the hon. Gentleman is seeing a mischief where there is not one. I hope that when he responds he will reflect on what the two Front Benchers have said.
Dan Byles
Amendments 19 and 21 would prevent a peer who resigns or is disqualified through non-attendance from being elected to the House of Commons during the course of the next two Parliaments, thereby making provision for a cooling-off period. I think we all agree that we would not want the House of Lords to become a training ground for a seat in the House of Commons and thereafter provide an opportunity to ping-pong between the Houses. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, my Bill does not allow departing peers to return to the House of Lords, so the ponging is gone, and perhaps we are now just discussing the pinging.
I am conscious of my hon. Friend’s concerns, but the likelihood of many of them becoming reality are quite slim. On the first group of amendments, he spoke with great eloquence about how desperate many people are to get into the House of Lords. In my experience and, I think, that of most people in the House, people are very keen to go in that direction but there is not necessarily quite such a large queue waiting to come in this direction. When I have discussed this with colleagues, they have looked at me and said, “Why on earth would somebody want to go from the Lords to the Commons? Most of our colleagues seem to be trying to go the other way.”
On the potential power given to party leaderships, I am not convinced that the party leadership—in our party, anyway—has quite as much control over the candidate selection process as my hon. Friend seems to give them credit for. Whenever the party leadership tries to impose a favoured candidate on a safe seat, the fact that they are known to be the Conservative central office-favoured candidate can at times be the kiss of death with regard to the local association, which usually likes to exert its independence when it come to selecting candidates.
My hon. Friend’s argument needs to be weighed strongly against the very serious issue of barring a British citizen from seeking election to the House of Commons. I take his point when he says that someone will have made this decision when they chose to go into the House of Lords, but it is very large step to say to them, “You, as a British citizen, are one of a small group of people who, through dint of your previous job, are not permitted to seek election to the House of Commons.” We have traditionally prevented people from seeking election to the House of Commons only for very narrow reasons, and I am wary of the amendment for that reason. I am not aware of any widespread desire among parliamentarians to ping-pong backwards and forwards—or ping, at least—and I very much doubt that the party leaderships of all three parties would seek to use that as a method of grooming candidates in future.
Amendment 21 says that any peer who resigned or was disqualified would retain their peerage. That principle is already inherent in the Bill, which does not provide for peerages to be lost, and the amendment is therefore unnecessary. I urge the House not to support the amendments.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I oppose the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), although I recognise the sentiments he expresses about undue campaigning and not allowing political advantage to be conferred on people who try to get selected to this place by virtue of their being a parliamentarian already.
I disagree with the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on the grounds that we already know of many Members of the European Parliament who have sought to come to this place having been very proactive in parts of their constituencies. I am thinking of a particular gentleman who is no longer a Member of this House but was very assiduous in parts of his region where he ultimately got selected as the candidate and was then elected to this House. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset is right to highlight the issue, but I am concerned that he may have given the idea to our political parties, rather than dissuaded them. I do not think it is necessary to put it into legislation. If there is ever a case of the procedure being abused, that would be the appropriate point at which to revisit the issue, in another Parliament.
Dan Byles
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I thank the hon. Members, some of whom are in the Chamber, who participated in Committee for their careful consideration of and full support for each clause. I do not intend to repeat the very full debate we have just had on Report. The advantage of discussing a wide range of amendments is that we have already explored several of the clauses, so I need not go over them again. I thank colleagues for their considered and thoughtful interventions, and for agreeing to my amendment 23, which will make the Bill a better one.
I am delighted that Members of all political parties have come together to consider the provisions of the Bill carefully and to lend their support throughout its parliamentary stages. The Bill seeks to implement the urgent, housekeeping reforms that the upper Chamber welcomed during the passage of Lord Steel’s Bill. Those include a statutory resignation provision, so that peers may leave the House if they no longer feel able to serve or if they wish to retire; a mechanism for the removal of persistent non-attendees who fail to fulfil their important duties to the House; and a system to remove peers who commit serious criminal offences, thereby safeguarding the reputation of the House of Lords.
It is plain that both Houses embrace those sensible reforms, which Members have long agreed the House of Lords requires. The debate over how reform of the upper Chamber should be achieved has thwarted earlier attempts at reform and has led to these essential and highly reasonable reforms not being implemented. I appreciate that the wider debate about reform will continue and that colleagues hold different views on the need or otherwise for longer-term, substantial reform of the membership of the upper Chamber. I remind Members that the Bill does not prevent those debates from continuing, but focuses on the extremely overdue reforms that we all agree are crucial.
I am confident that, following its considered examination by colleagues, the Bill is in excellent shape to be progressed to the upper Chamber. I therefore urge Members to continue to assist in its safe passage today and to give those in the upper Chamber this vital opportunity to reform themselves.