Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)]

My Lords, after 65 years of public service, I do not remember such an unholy mess as we are in now, except perhaps after the Suez affair. It is an existential as well as a political crisis. As a result of recent events, my enthusiasm for referenda, never very strong, has evaporated almost to nothing. I pass over the lies and half-truths, the threats and the promises, the commitments proposed and then abandoned as soon as the votes had been counted and the rancour of the recent campaign. The problem with a referendum is that the issue is presented as a simple binary choice: yes or no, leave or remain. The issue of membership of the European Union is not simple or binary; it is a choice of complex and often conflicting considerations and of deciding where the best interests of the nation lie. Such issues are better decided in our traditional system of representative democracy by Parliament.

In that system, a referendum is advisory, not mandatory. The result of a referendum deserves to be treated with the greatest respect, but it is for Parliament to decide, and in this time of tension a great responsibility falls on this Parliament. We in both Houses of Parliament have to rise to that responsibility at a time when the uncertainties that confront us are unprecedentedly extreme and very long-lasting. We are, as the noble Lord, Lord West, would say, in uncharted and turbulent waters.

We are told that the process of extracting ourselves from the European Union will take five years or more—five years of continuing economic, financial and political uncertainty with the risk of lower investment, less employment and higher inflation as businesses and people speculate over and try to anticipate the outcome.

I cannot rid myself of the fear that we are on the verge of a terrible mistake, for which our children and our children’s children will pay the price. We should be thinking about the effects of the uncertainty on the young going to Europe to work or to study, on the young people from European countries on whom the National Health Service and other public services in this country depend and on the hopes and prospects of those British citizens who have chosen to make their lives in Europe. We should be thinking about the benefits we derive from the EU’s contribution to scientific and technological research and development and, what is more and most of all, we should be thinking about our place in Europe and in the world.

The European Union—the European Community as it was—was created to be one of the institutional guarantors of peace and stability in Europe, and particularly of peace between France and Germany. In this respect, it has been astonishingly successful over the past 60 years, so successful that many of us seem to think—in my view wrongly—that any future European war is simply unimaginable. This is something to remember as we commemorate the Battle of the Somme. It was created also to give the countries of Europe together a degree of influence in a world of global superpowers that none could have on its own. Neither of those purposes has diminished in importance. This country is geographically, genetically, historically, culturally and inescapably part of Europe and we cannot in practice, and should not try to, become semi-detached from Europe. Our place and influence in the world will be weakened by leaving the Union.

For these reasons I hope that, even while the new Prime Minister and his or her colleagues—I must say it is strange to be using that expression “his or her”; it is quite like old times for some of us—develop a strategy for negotiating our departure from the EU a sense of their responsibilities at a time of great uncertainties should lead them to explore even now, at this late hour, whether there is any possibility of reaching an agreement with the EU and its other member countries, building on the changes agreed with the present Prime Minister in February, which would allow them to recommend to Parliament, and Parliament to recommend to the British people, that we have a new deal and do not trigger Article 50 but remain as members of the European Union.

That may not now be possible. If it is not, we shall continue on course to leave the EU, but as the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, and as the Leader of the House said this morning, we must seek the best deal we can for Britain. We should not exclude the possibility that the best deal for Britain might be achieved by staying in the EU. The situation has now profoundly changed since February, and even since a month ago. The new Government will have a responsibility to explore the possibility, even now, of such an outcome and they might find the European Union willing to discuss that.

Such an outcome would resolve, at a stroke, the uncertainties that will beset us as we continue on the course of leaving the EU. It would enable the new Government to concentrate on strengthening the economy and pursuing social reform. It would restore the strength of our nation. It would allow us to continue to contribute to the strength and effectiveness of the European Union and to take part in its reform, which is now necessary and inevitable, and it would enhance the confidence and respect in which we are held by our allies and friends in international affairs.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)]

My Lords, there are many issues about the future of this House that could well be reviewed. However, today, we are addressing the question of its size.

It is a truth universally agreed that the House is too large and should be smaller; how much smaller is a matter for debate. I suggest that we should be aiming at an average of about 450 Members as our eventual goal, with not more than 500 and not fewer than 400.

Out trouble is this: the intake resulting from the creation of new Peers persistently exceeds the outflow resulting from deaths and voluntary retirements. So the size of the House has been, and is, increasing remorselessly.

I listened with great respect to the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. However, I am afraid I do not believe it realistic to think that any Prime Minister would be willing to accept the imposition of any restriction on the number of peerages that he or she may recommend to be created. Any restraint on the part of the present or any other Prime Minister would be very welcome but purely voluntary.

We need, therefore, to look for means of increasing the rate at which Peers leave the House. In my view, we should not try to do this by setting a fixed age of compulsory retirement—attractive though the proposition by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is—because that would provide only temporary relief. Instead, we should look for a more rational, progressive and lasting way of dealing with the problem, and the way we deal with it should be a matter for the House of Lords itself to decide and operate.

My proposals would be as follows. The Life Peerages Act 1958 should be amended so as to provide that people shall be appointed as Peers for life but as Members of the House of Lords for fixed terms of five years. The House should have the power to renew the appointment of a Peer as a Member of the House of Lords for a further term or terms of five years. Decisions to renew should be taken on the recommendation of a reappointments committee of the House, chaired by the Lord Speaker.

That committee should be able to recommend, and the House to approve, repeat renewals without any statutory limits on age or length of service. In deciding whether to recommend a renewal, the committee would have regard to length of service, to age, to value of contribution to the work of the House, and to any other relevant considerations. No doubt the committee would be able, if it thought fit, to have regard to considerations of balance between the various party political and independent groups of Peers.

The presumption should be that at the first review of an appointment after the first five years of membership, the committee would recommend renewal for a second five-year term unless there was some positive reason, such as minimal contribution to the work of the House, to justify withholding such a recommendation. For second and subsequent renewals, the burden of proof should be reversed: the committee should look for positive reasons to recommend renewal for a further five-year term.

These provisions would apply to Peers created after the new legislation came into effect. There would need to be transitional arrangements to deal with those who are already Members of the House. My proposal here would be for the existing Members of the House to be brigaded in five groups according to length of service. Each group would be reviewed by the reappointments committee at the beginning of a parliamentary Session, and the committee would recommend which of the members of the group should be asked to take voluntary retirement under the 2014 Act not later than at the end of that Session.

Thus, those in the first group with the longest service would be reviewed in May 2016, with those recommended for voluntary retirement being asked to retire not later than April 2017. The process would then be repeated in 2017-18 for the second group, including those who had survived from the first review, and so on. Thus the last group would be reviewed in 2020-21.

These transitional arrangements could probably be given effect by Standing Orders if there was general agreement that they should be introduced. If the proposals were adopted, I suggest that noble Lords who are hereditary Peers be allowed to continue as Members of the House until death or retirement but should not be replaced.

I commend these proposals for the consideration of the House as offering a rational, progressive, lasting and workable means within the control of the House for reducing the size of the House of Lords to a more acceptable level.