Liaison Committee

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I supported the noble Lord in his application, both this year and last, for a committee to look at the issue of—I never like the phrase “identity cards”—entitlement cards or something that would use the new technology. We have just had Liberal Question Time for the past half hour, where many of these issues came up, so it is important.

The reason I get up to speak is to hope that perhaps the noble Lord’s application next year will be successful but also to defend against his somewhat robust attack on my noble friend the Chief Whip. It is true that the Chief Whip told me to sit down last Thursday, but in his defence he has apologised to me and also I had not appreciated that at noon there was a memorial service for the policeman who gave his life for our security. I am sure that what was in the Chief Whip’s mind was that the business was going to run out of control and that he would not be able to attend. So it was not an attempt to muzzle me: the Chief Whip has never attempted to muzzle me, as Members of this House must be fully aware.

I hope that the arguments in principle for discussing this matter will be taken on board and there will be an opportunity for us to take it forward. It seems to me that having some form of identification, for access to services such as the health service or to get into the country or to show when you have left the country, will be an important component of the post-Brexit world, which I look forward to with great enthusiasm.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that being mugged by a Chief Whip is a badge of honour, not something to resile from. First, in what will be a very brief intervention, I pay tribute to the Senior Deputy Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord McFall, who is doing a first-class job in modernising and seeking to reform the system. My remarks are in no way critical, therefore, of his work.

We saw from the Questions this morning, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has just indicated, a real need to be able to prepare for future debates and legislation in a timely manner. The issue of verification of identity will be vital in any new immigration system, not least given what the Minister said in answer to the final Question, that there will be an end to free movement of labour. As a consequence, all kinds of issues will arise in respect of verification of identity and authentication of those measures or pieces of paper that are required to verify that, as underlined by the intervention on the final Question—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, of the Liberal Democrats who rightly said that there would be both red tape and problems for business. If there has ever been a moment when this issue should have been investigated thoroughly by a committee of this House, it should have been now. As it cannot be now, I hope very much that it will coincide with the legislation that the Government are going to bring forward next year in relation to the changes to immigration policy required by and arising from the decision to remove Britain from the European Union.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

My Lords, when I put my feet on the bedroom floor this morning, I felt that it was going to be a topsy-turvy day and so it has proved so far. I am reminded of my primary school teacher when she did the 12 times table, from one to 12, and then went on to division. She would say, “McFall, 35 into three?” and I would say, “Won’t go”. What do you do? You bring down the nothings: 35 into 30 will not go and that is what we face today, with 35 submissions from which to pick three at the end of the day. Am I sympathetic to the comments that have been made this morning? Absolutely, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, I see my role as serving Members’ interests in this matter. The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours—he also made them last year—are very relevant. Indeed, they were articulated in the EU debates by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and by the noble Lord, Lord Reid, in today’s Questions. They resonate with noble Lords, but sadly they were not chosen.

The noble Lord said that the meeting was ugly and that the Chief Whip was in the committee. As the chairman of the committee, I do not recognise that as having been an issue. All members of the Liaison Committee participated—if you speak to them, I think you will get the same response as you have had from me. Substitutes for all the usual channels are allowed in the committee, and there were substitutes there that day. But, in terms of transparency and rigour, I would like to reassure Members that all the proposals are published in the report before the House; the criteria used to decide what proposals to recommend have been published throughout the process, including when inviting submissions from Members; and decision documents from each Liaison Committee meeting are published on the website as soon as practical following the meeting. Those Members whose proposals were not selected for further scoping—that selection took 35 proposals down to 10—were informed shortly after the first meeting of the Liaison Committee on this subject.

In terms of rigour, the committee initially considered the full list of proposals, and from these selected eight themes and two post-legislative scrutiny options to be scoped further by committee staff. I pay tribute to the work of the committee staff, because there is a difference between policy and process here, and the committee staff went to speak to Members to see if they could modify their proposals so they could be included in the scoping work. Following that extensive work, the committee met again to consider which proposals ought to be recommended to the House. The results of that discussion are detailed in the report before the House.

The noble Lord made a point about the review of committees. That is an extremely important issue. I have already been to the meeting of the usual channels and will be going back again. I am open to individual Members or a collective coming to talk to me about this, because this is the first review for 25 years and we have to get it right for the long term.