King’s Speech

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble and learned Lord our Attorney-General on his very thought-provoking maiden speech, and I welcome him to this House on behalf of these Benches. I am also very much looking forward to the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, whose distinguished career has had so many facets; I am very fortunate to be speaking in the debate where he will be making that speech.

As noble Lords know, we had a debate in my name in this Chamber in January on intergovernmental relations within the UK, pretty well on the second anniversary of the surfacing of the new system that emerged from the lengthy review process. Among the points I made was that one could see from the quarterly activity reports produced by DLUHC, now MHCLG, that Whitehall ministries seem to vary widely in the amount of engagement they undertake. I was therefore delighted to hear in the gracious Speech of the Government’s commitment to strengthening their work with the devolved Governments. Indeed, the further words from the Attorney-General just now heartened me additionally.

As I said in January, the output of the review was good but we were not using the structures and forums well enough, as can be seen from the quarterly reports I just referred to. I also pointed to Canada, which, following its 1995 referendum, when Quebec nearly voted “out”, has put in place a robust system of meetings and communications with its many devolved entities. I hope the Government will take a careful look at the Canadian model, which would also reward the proposed English devolution. I also asked in January whether DLUHC was really the natural home for co-ordinating this; it would seem to me to be the Cabinet Office, which would have greater ability and authority to encourage back-marker ministries to engage. Will MHCLG continue in this role?

I turn to reform of our House. The British constitution is a three-legged stool, with its legs of the Executive, Parliament and the judiciary. Major change by the Executive to the legs of the stool needs to be undertaken with great care, especially if the net effect is to accrue more power to one or other of the legs. Taken together, the proposals to remove hereditaries and restrict the age of Members of this House would see around half the peers present at the start of this Parliament depart by the end of it—by any measure, a major change. The figure for the Cross Benches, with our slightly older average age, is closer to 60%.

In giving evidence to the Commons PACAC committee in May, I commented that there were “three unfairnesses” in the make-up of the membership of our House: the hereditaries, the bishops, and the unlimited and unfettered power the Prime Minister has to make appointments to this House. I continue to feel that the greatest unfairness is this last one, which is both very powerful and vested in one person. The changes proposed in the Government’s manifesto would add power to the Prime Minister, so that an already very large power without precedent in any other liberal democracy would be increased. History shows that vesting great power in one person can cause problems, and however comfortable we might feel about our freshly elected Government today, this is not a satisfactory state of affairs going forward for a major liberal democracy.

In 2017, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his committee produced a very measured report about the size of the House and, by implication, some sort of conventional cap on the Prime Minister’s prerogative powers. We in this Chamber unanimously agreed this outstanding contribution to the thinking about these difficult issues. Many of those who were a part of that unanimous agreement are on the Front Benches of the major groupings present today. I look forward to hearing later on from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who I am sure will pick up that theme.

As we seek to navigate the difficult waters and balance constitutional security, the proper relationship between Parliament and the Executive and the words of the Government’s manifesto, all these factors will need to play a part and be taken account of.