House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I think we can all agree that the other place, for all that it is seemingly undemocratic, works quite well. The Lords actually listen to debates, and they vote according to their conscience. They regularly defeat the Government, and they improve Bills again and again. If it works, why change it?

Will the Paymaster General please think about the idea that I have suggested? We could get some sort of compromise by which all parties in the House of Lords are reduced by the same amount. We could reduce the Lords to around 600 Members, give more power to the House of Lords Appointments Commission and, in future, keep the number at about 600.

[Dr Murrison]

I am very much attracted to the argument laid out by the Father of the House. He is right to say that consensus in these sorts of matters is nigh on impossible, as poor Jack Straw found out in 2007. The Father of the House is also right to aim for a reductionist strategy in trying to decide what we can do to improve the situation. That will get a majority consensus in this House, difficult though census most certainly is in these matters.

This debate has been characterised by some levity, which is okay—it is positive. It probably reflects the fact that most of our constituents are not usually seized by constitutional matters, which is not to say that such matters are not important, because plainly they are. The attendance here today is not what one might expect for a matter of this importance. That probably reflects the fact that when we are all knocking on doors a few months ago, this kind of thing really was not No. 1 among people’s concerns, but it remains important nevertheless.

I confess that I have been on something of a journey since 2007, at which time I was persuaded that the upper House ought to be elected. I am not any more, because I have seen in the workings of this place how it is possible for this place ultimately to be challenged by a subordinate secondary Chamber that is itself elected. Try as I might, I cannot work out how it is possible to avoid that kind of situation. This is the primary part of our legislature, and that must remain the case. We must be unchallenged, but we need checks and balances, which is precisely what the upper House aims to provide.

Many have spoken today about who we might remove from the upper House. I have no objection in principle to the things that the Government are trying to do, but I am persuaded that matters of this sort should be part of a wider package, which is why I will be supporting the Opposition amendment today. However, my view is that we have probably got this round the wrong way, which is why I very much support the amendments being brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) in relation to the bishops.

I remember when I was pontificating in another country—a majority Muslim country that was a nascent democracy—on democracy. At the end of my spiel, a lady put up her hand and, to her great credit, said, “I have listened very carefully to what you have said, but with the greatest of respect, who are you to come here and lecture us, given that you have within your legislature people who are there by dint of hereditary right and people who are there because they are part of a particular religious persuasion?”

We have heard some quotes today, including from G. K. Chesterton. I am not sure whether I can match that, but I think I probably can. Robert Burns said:

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!”

I like that. He is saying that it is important to note how we appear to other people, other countries and other legislatures, and it seems to me that that lady, all those years ago, had the measure of it. We may not think we are a theocracy in the same way as Iran is, or that we retain the hereditary principle in the same way as Lesotho or Swaziland do, but we are and we do. We need to remedy that, because appearances matter and that lady was absolutely right. That is why I support my right hon. Friend’s amendment, and I hope that the Government will reflect on that.

I also agree with the assertion of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) that this is it, and that it is no good hoping for another Bill. That Bill is not going to come. If it does, there is no guarantee that it will not end up in the same place as poor Jack Straw’s measures ended up in 2007. Given the difficulty with consensus, I suspect that that is exactly where such a measure would land. So this is it.

I do not particularly want to see our legislature populated by people who are there because they are representative of one particular faith community in this country. I am an Anglican, just like my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge. I am a practising Anglican and I value the views of bishops —of course I do—but it is simply not right to have them being politicians in dog collars generally propagating a left liberal world view. I would much rather that they were in their dioceses engaged in the cure of souls. That is where I, as an Anglican, want to see them.

I will certainly support my Front Bench’s measured amendments this evening. I very much hope that the Government have been listening carefully to what has been said. These grave, serious matters need to be debated in a careful and measured way. I see virtue not in ploughing ahead with the Bill as an emergency but in incorporating it into a wider set of proposals at a later stage, although hopefully not too late, so that we can consider these things in the round. I hope we will be able to see those proposals before too long. I live in hope.

The Labour party has had 14 years to consider all of this. My view is that this Bill will be it. That is disappointing and a missed opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady is referring to the quinquennial review, which has published its interim findings and will publish its definitive report in the spring. She is right to highlight some of the findings of that report in its interim form, and of course we will take into account all of those—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady will allow me, we will take into account all of those in the spring, when the report is published. One of those things is to ensure that the system is less adversarial than it has previously been, but we have to understand that a lot of the delay is baked in because of the need to obtain proper, full, comprehensive medical reports.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

10. What progress his Department has made on the development of the Type 32 class frigate.

Afghanistan: Independent Inquiry

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I pay tribute to his brother for his service. Justice Haddon-Cave is no ordinary judge; he is one of the most senior members of our judiciary, and he has been selected by the Lord Chief Justice for this task because of that. It therefore follows that he is perfectly capable of appreciating the complexity of this issue. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman the reassurance he seeks.

As for the further conduct of the inquiry, that will now be a matter for Lord Justice Haddon-Cave; it certainly will not be a matter for me. I underscore that this is an independent inquiry, and it would be entirely improper for me, from this point, to comment further on its conduct. As I understand it, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave intends to issue a statement of his own shortly.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This Minister, of all Ministers, will be aware that our armed forces veterans are acutely depressed and angry about the fact that their political masters sent them into this impossible war, where they faced an enemy who was utterly merciless, who had no regard to any conventions—Geneva or otherwise—and who was unspeakably cruel. Of course, the Taliban Government will never have any such inquiry into their own forces. I know that we have the overseas operations Act, and the Minister rightly said that it creates a presumption against vexatious claims, but I would like to tease out from him how the inquiry will have a carefully calibrated investigation, and also that the bar for prosecutions will indeed be high. Otherwise, we will inflict a severe blow on the morale of the veterans of our brave armed forces. None of them wanted to go to Afghanistan—we put them there.

[Dr Murrison]

I very much appreciate my right hon. Friend’s point. We have focused on individuals in the questioning so far, and I would like to point out that our principal concern is elucidating any systemic factors that have not been investigated fully as a result of the investigations we have had up to this point.

In particular, I would expect Lord Justice Haddon-Cave to be mindful of ensuring that we are compliant with our obligations under article 2 specifically, and articles 2 and 3 more generally, as we are required to be under our treaty obligations, and to learn things more generally about what went on that may help us to improve what we do. That is the reason for the investigation. It most certainly is not to pillory individuals or to seek to repeat the service investigations by the service police that have already been done, which have been externally and independently validated, if that brings any comfort to my right hon. Friend.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I rise to speak to my amendment 1, which is, in clause 24, page 19, line 8, at the end to insert that where the subject of the snooping, frankly, is a Member of the House of Commons, that snooping must also involve a consultation with the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Member’s explanatory statement helpfully says:

“This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult the Speaker before deciding to issue a warrant that applied to an MP’s communications.”

This is a small, but I believe important amendment. It is of course perfectly proper and pertinent that, as we all agree, the Secretary of State consults the Prime Minister before deciding to issue a targeted interception or examination warrant regarding an MP’s communication with a constituent or somebody else. We all understand that, and it is not controversial. However, the Prime Minister is the Queen’s chief Minister of Government and is, by its very nature, a political office holder. It goes without saying that we have complete confidence in the present Prime Minister that no such thing would happen, but we must not make permanent laws based on impermanent situations. Our conscientious Prime Minister, who I am sure is both aware of and respectful of parliamentary privilege, may be succeeded, somewhere down the line, by a man or woman who does not esteem the dearly won privileges of this House. They are not our privileges: they are not for us; they are for the protection of our democracy and of our constituents.

It may be that a future Prime Minister would be under intolerable pressure during a time of national crisis. It is not difficult to imagine that circumstances may come into play in which a future Prime Minister authorises a politically sensitive or even a politically motivated interception against an Opposition Member, or indeed against a Government Member if that Member of Parliament is opposed to the Prime Minister’s policies. We need only think of the intense debates that took place during the Vietnam war and the Iraq war. We remember that the present Leader of the Opposition had strong views about the importance of communicating with Sinn Féin at a time when that was considered intensely controversial—indeed, some at the time would have argued that it was a threat to national security. I am not defending the actions of the present Leader of the Opposition, or making any comment on them one way or another, but one can surely imagine that there may be future situations when there is intense debate on a matter of national security and a Prime Minister may be politically motivated to intercept communications between a constituent and a Member of Parliament.

I believe that it is important to uphold the exclusive cognisance of this House to regulate its own internal affairs, apart from the Government. This House is not the Government but the scrutineer of Government. To reply directly to the point the Solicitor General made, the amendment does not put MPs above the law—far from it. Our conduct is completely within the jurisdiction of normal criminal courts, and the criminal law applies to us as to anyone else. But it is vital that communications relating to our role—only to our role and to no other part of our life—as democratically elected representatives of the people, in a free country, under the Crown, be protected from Government observation and interference, just as it is vital to remove any temptation to politicise the work of the police.

Amendment 1 would solve that problem, by invoking the importance of the Speaker, an impartial office holder not beholden to any political party or indeed to the Government. You will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the office of Speaker is among the most important in the land. It ranks above all non-royal people in this realm, excepting the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and the Lord President of the Council. The Speaker is endowed with his or her office by the trust placed in him by fellow Members of Parliament, and his impartiality is central to the proper functioning of Parliament. Once he has held the office of Speaker, never again can he re-enter politics—that is a clear convention of this House. He is utterly and completely impartial.

[Dr Murrison]

I have a great deal of sympathy for what my hon. Friend has to say, but does he share my concern that the Speaker might be seen as a rather in-house arbiter in these matters? In recent times we have seen where that leads us. Does my hon. Friend not have more confidence in the double-lock arrangement that the Front-Bench team has rightly instituted?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am perfectly happy—I think everyone in this House is—with the proposal that if the Secretary of State for the Home Department wishes to investigate communications with a Member of Parliament, the Prime Minister should always also be consulted. No one objects to that. But who appoints the Home Secretary? The Prime Minister does. They are both politicians—by their very nature, they are political animals—and members of the Executive. I have to ask my hon. Friends to look beyond the present situation; they may indeed have the utmost confidence in the present Secretary of State for the Home Department and the present Prime Minister, but they should always separate their view of those currently on the Front Bench from what might happen in the future.

All I am asking is that if the Government are taking the extreme step of intercepting communications between constituents and Members of Parliament, someone entirely non-political, namely the Speaker, should also be consulted. This is the point: he is no mere presiding officer. We do not call him “the presiding officer”, as is the case in other Assemblies and Parliaments. He is the upholder of order and the defender of the House’s privileges and immunities. I am absolutely not suggesting that he should be dragged into politics. But there is already a precedent. Have we not involved the Speaker very recently in consideration of whether amendments should be separately considered under English votes for English laws? Nobody—certainly not the Government—has suggested that that is dragging the Speaker into politics.

I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and we examined this issue in great detail. The system—I am not defending EVEL as that is not the subject of today’s debate—seems to be working fairly well. Nobody is calling the Speaker to order or complaining about his decision, but there is in a sense a double lock that seems to work quite well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern that we should mark the 70th anniversary appropriately and, indeed, that we should learn the lessons of the past in this respect. I know that considerable work is under way to make sure that the 70th anniversary in France is a huge success, and that veterans and their carers who want to go are supported in returning to the beaches to commemorate this huge anniversary. On anything more than that, we will have to wait and see, but the important thing is to make sure that veterans and carers who want to go can do so in the manner they wish.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T2. An attack on one NATO country is an attack on all of them. Can we therefore thank God that Ukraine never did join NATO, because otherwise we might now be involved in a European war?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Assuming that Ministers feel that their job is to protect not only the sacrifices made by the present generation of armed forces personnel but that of previous generations, will they take the opportunity of the debates in the coming months to argue that the sacrifices made by the millions of people who served in the first world war was not part of some European power play, and that it served to defeat militarism and stand up for the freedom of smaller countries?

[Dr Murrison]

I refer my hon. Friend to the debate we had here on 7 November, in which the Government and the Opposition made it clear that there was complete consensus on this matter. It has also subsequently become clear that the majority of people believe that this country went to war in 1914 for good reasons, given the situation that we faced at the time. I am afraid that none of us has a crystal ball, and no one can ever tell how events will unfold, but I believe that our predecessors did the right thing at that time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. Given that for four centuries, Scotland and the Scottish people have played such a glorious part in the defence of our United Kingdom, and that from the battles of Malplaquet and Blenheim to the sands of north Africa and the mud of Flanders we have shed blood together, would it not be a good idea if Armed Forces day 2014 was held in Scotland?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, Armed Forces day was held in Scotland in 2011. He will remember that it was held in Edinburgh. I am delighted to tell him that on 28 June 2014, Armed Forces day will be held in the great city of Stirling. I spoke to the Provost, Councillor Mike Robbins, about that and he was absolutely delighted. The Ministry of Defence and the city of Stirling will work together to ensure that it is a first-rate event.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Edward Leigh and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leigh]

That is precisely the point that I was going to make next. If there were a war with Iran or Argentina, we would not be fighting it in the channel. In the case of Argentina, we would be fighting it thousands of miles from any shore-based defence systems. I therefore do not believe that the figures alone give an accurate basis from which we can draw comfort.

[Dr Murrison]

It is important to get this matter right in the context of the Falklands, given the activity in Buenos Aires. I accept entirely my hon. Friend’s point about the number of platforms. However, does he accept that the capability of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force is immense compared with that of Argentina? In many respects, our potential ability to project force is much greater than it was in 1982 for that reason.

[Mr Leigh]

I accept some of what my hon. Friend says. However, I pray in aid the recent United Kingdom National Defence Association report, “Inconvenient Truths”, which was written by former defence chiefs. It said:

“Our assessment is that current force levels are inadequate to hold off even a small-size invasion”.

Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward wrote in the Daily Mail:

“The truth is we couldn't defend anything further than the other side of the Channel”.

Air Commodore Andrew Lambert was quoted in The Guardian as saying that the

“British public is not aware how thin the ice is…or how bad things could get”

and that the Falkland Islands are

“ripe for the picking.”

I am not saying that I want this to happen or that it will happen, but I am afraid that we in this House must occasionally sound warnings—that is our duty.