Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend raises a very important issue, which has been well broadcast and covered in the media in the past couple of days. That is why we are carrying out an asbestos review going through all schools. We will publish it in due course, and action will have to be taken.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Q11. I was thinking of raising with the Prime Minister the Conservatives’ so-called long-term economic plan—like Pinocchio’s nose, it grows longer and less attractive by the day—but with just two Prime Minister’s questions to go, I thought that I would ask the Prime Minister whether he shared my imminent relief that neither he nor I will have to pencil in 12 noon on a Wednesday any longer.
The Prime Minister
May I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman, as he will shortly be leaving the House? As a new Back Bencher, I will never forget coming to this place in 2001 and, in the light of the appalling terrorist attacks that had taken place across the world, seeing the strong leadership he gave on the importance of keeping our country safe. He is a remarkable politician, a remarkable man. I remember once in the Home Affairs Committee that, even though he could not see who we all were, he knew exactly who was concentrating and who was not. I do not know how—he has this extraordinary gift—but he is an extraordinary politician. I pay tribute to him, and I know the rest of the House will join me in doing so.
House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
With hindsight, how fortunate it is that we are not sitting in private to discuss these important matters, which will be of interest to the nation at large, concerning retirement or resignation from the House of Lords.
Amendment 2 would simply add a line to clause 1 to the effect that a peer may not resign until they have been a peer for a minimum of 10 years. If somebody accepts a great honour from the Crown, it seems to me that they have an obligation to live up to that honour. Circumstances might change and require a different lifestyle that makes it impossible for them to attend the House, but to enter lightly into the receipt of a peerage—that great honour bestowed by our sovereign of being a legislator in the second House of Parliament—and then to give it up after a day or two or, conceivably, even after a minute, seems improper.
People enter into a life peerage, and understand that they have done so for life, hence the name. It is amazing how often an obvious point about something is made in its title. There is no obfuscation in the title “life peer”. It is not a temporary peerage, a Parliament peerage or a dated peerage, but a life peerage. One of the glories of the House of Lords is that it represents age. It is not full of scribbling youths, but has people of mature years, of wisdom, of grey beards, and even of grey flowing locks, which shows how much they have learnt and experienced over the years.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I was here for Second Reading, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and must recommend him to the BBC as a panellist on “Just a Minute”—he would be absolutely superb. In the light of his speech on Second Reading and his contribution this morning, which clearly will be enlightening, may I ask whether he opposes any kind of reform of the House of Lords?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The return of the hereditary peerage is the sort of reform that would improve the quality of the House considerably. I do think that there are opportunities for reform but, as I said on Second Reading—I had better not go through this all again, Mr Speaker—I have concerns about this process for reforming the second Chamber. I think that reform ought to have been proposed in a Government Bill and considered in a Committee of the whole House.
Although the Bill is simple, it would fundamentally change the nature of the House of Lords. Removing the absolute certainty that a peerage is for life would allow people appointed to the House to remain there for a term. That change in structure would allow Governments that are not necessarily as benign as this one—I will talk about this further in relation to some of my other amendments—to ensure that peers are in the House for only a certain period, and possibly to get them post-dated cheques for when they might resign. I think that that reform should have been handled differently, but there are certainly reforms that could be made to the House of Lords.
Amendment 2 ties in with amendment 3. The point of amendment 3 is to insert a minimum age for retirement, whereby no peer under 65 could retire. Being a peer—a legislator in the upper House—should not be a marker in somebody’s career. It should not be a point on their CV so that when they apply for jobs in merchant banks, or wherever, they can say “I was a peer for 10 years.” People who take it on should commit to do so for an extended period, so that if a peer is raised to that rank, style and dignity at the age of 40, there will be an expectation that the major part of their future life and career will be a commitment to serve the House—this country—in the second Chamber.
These two amendments, in essence, offer the House the choice of saying that there ought to be a minimum period and that it ought to be longer than a single Parliament. Ten years obviously equates to two Parliaments under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. That gets away from the risk that people might use the House of Lords as a means of advancing their political career in relation to the Commons, a point to which we will return in a subsequent group of amendments. The amendments are about expecting people to follow through on the commitment they have given, so that when their letters patent are issued they will be doing this for life.
House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Blunkett
I will not hold up the hon. Gentleman. I just want to say: stick to your guns, as I believe you are right.
Dan Byles
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I will certainly take great interest in that scheme at Committee stage and I will be happy to look closely at it, but I have been assured by those who have far greater knowledge of these matters than I do that whatever the scheme is that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is referring to, it is not a permanent method of retiring or leaving the House of Lords, because no such system exists. It may be a form of extended leave of absence; I am not sure. The Minister might receive some inspiration before he speaks.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and to Members on both sides of the House, for the fact that I will not be able to be here for the whole debate due to a long-standing and immovable commitment.
I commend the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) for using his successful bid in the private Members’ Bills ballot for what he has described as, and clearly is, a modest Bill that is none the less necessary. The interventions this morning have reinforced in my mind how lucky I have been never to have been drawn high up in the ballot. The difficulty of getting anything through, no matter how limited it is, has been shown by the number of Members who have danced on the head of a pin this morning.
I ask the hon. Gentleman to stick to his guns and make this limited but necessary improvement. This could have been called a House of Lords Improvement Bill, if some people are upset by the word “reform” in the title and others are upset by any kind of move, no matter how limited, thinking that it might undermine substantial reform such as an elected House of Lords. It is strange that those who are so strongly in favour of compromise and of always being here to compromise that they want proportional representation—so that there is permanent compromise—do not want to compromise when it comes to the House of Lords. They say, “If we can’t get what we want, we don’t want anything”. That has bedevilled attempts at improvements to the House of Lords—its operation, its relationship with the House of Commons, its make-up and membership, and its reflection of society as a whole—since 1911, through the post-war changes, the 1958 debates that have been referred to today and the great combination of Michael Foot and Enoch Powell, all the way up to the magnificent efforts of the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), which seem like a lifetime ago—was it last year? Thank goodness, he was successful in stopping a constitutional outrage.
Not even those Government Members who are worried about the particulars of the Bill could view it as a constitutional outrage. It is a modest effort to be encouraged and supported. If hon. Members believe that there are too many Members of the House of Lords for the place to function properly, and there clearly are, they will back the Bill, even if it achieves only a modest improvement in that regard; if they believe that the Bill is too modest to effect any substantial change, they will not oppose it, because it is so modest that it could not possibly upset anybody. Either way, we should support the hon. Member for North Warwickshire.
It is appropriate that the Bill should have its Second Reading in the week in which the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform reported. The Committee highlighted just how much progress we could make if people on all sides were of good will, and if the hon. Gentleman’s optimism about us all being grown up were realised. I have been here 26 and a half years, and that was one of the most optimistic statements that I have heard.
When we sit down with and talk to people across the parties in this House, we find a whole range of feelings and views. Setting apart those who are absolutely dedicated to the belief that the House of Lords cannot perform an acceptable role unless its Members are voted for—even though the voting would be done on a list system, on a regional, proportional basis, so it would just affirm the party list and delude the electorate—when we come down to basics, there is consensus across the House. There is consensus on sensible reform; on building on the recommendations of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee; on whether we are able to develop the steps that are being advocated this morning; and on building on the Steel Bill of six years ago, and on Baroness Hayman’s modest proposals. There is actually consensus across the House on making sensible, logical changes.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee rightly identified the fact that consensus on the make-up and balance of the House of Lords is controversial and difficult, though not impossible, to achieve, but everybody accepts that if we move to more than 1,000 peers in the House of Lords, it will implode. Those who want to keep the House of Lords should be in favour of substantial, sensible, non-elected reform; those who want reform because they believe in reforming the House of Lords and its nature should be in favour of reform per se; and those who could not give a damn should leave the rest of us to try to get on and make some sense of the situation. Then we might have a House of Lords that has a new relationship with the Commons.
In future, we should not simply be debating make-up, or even the balance between parties; we should be debating how we can improve and reform this House, and then its relationship with the House of Lords as part of the broader constitutional changes taking place around us almost daily. There are the changes in the power of the Mayor of London and the Greater London authority; the change to the powers of the Assembly in Wales; the vote next September in Scotland and its aftermath—let us pray that the Scots vote to retain the Union—and our changed relationship, whatever happens, with the European Union after the referendum in 2017. All those changes, and many other major economic, social, political and cultural changes, are happening around us, but we are struggling to make any sense of the relationship between this House and the House of Lords, or of the Lords’ make-up, function, and purpose. I hope that the measures outlined by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire will enable us to do that.
I also hope that those who are concerned that the Bill does not go far enough in slimming down the House of Lords, or are more generally concerned that the House of Lords is becoming dysfunctional, will do their utmost to persuade the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister that stuffing even more people in there, on this side of the general election, is not a very sensible idea. As I said, if people believe that the House of Lords should continue, they must believe that it should continue on a functioning and acceptable basis.
Mark Tami
Does my right hon. Friend agree—in some ways, the Bill is an example of this fact—that we are looking for ways of tinkering, whether we are talking about election, the different types of election, or appointment, when what we should be talking about is what the House of Lords is there for?
Mr Blunkett
Yes, I do believe that, and I put forward a paper to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on how the House of Lords could have a different function, building on what it already achieves and is good at, if we took away, very carefully, the element of it being a legislature. That does not mean that it could not debate and put forward legislative propositions; I am talking about the constitutional role that it plays, which is what upsets people so much—people not being elected to it— even if, under the proposal of the Deputy Prime Minister, those people would not be responsible or accountable to the people who elected them, because they would never have to stand for election again; nor would they have held offices, or have had to report back to their multiple constituencies in any meaningful sense. It would be good to start with the question of what we want the House of Lords to do, and then go on to how it should be made up, and how we could make it function better.
Unfortunately, as the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, who opened this Second Reading debate, is always ready to acknowledge, the pressure on him was to minimise any suggestion of any proposition whatever. He cannot be blamed for bringing forward a Bill that moves—I was going to use the term “goalposts”, but I think that has been overdone in the past fortnight.
Mr Blunkett
I was thinking of pitches. Let me put it this way: it is a Bill that moves the sods very little at all. We should commend the Bill, ask ourselves whether we are serious in wanting reform, and put it to our respective parties that it would be quite useful to put in the manifestos commitments to finding solutions, rather than putting up propositions that we all know will meet their demise once the practicalities, sensitivities and realities are examined and voted on in this place. Then we might get commendation from the electorate for acting like grown-ups and adults, and for being prepared to move our constitution on a little bit, while the rest of world moves the constitution around us.
I give my support to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. Whatever heads of pins people may stand on, and while they might make sensible points in amendments to the Bill, it would be a great shame if so modest a measure was scuppered by people who wanted the perfect as an alternative to it.
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend will be aware that the coalition agreement makes it clear that the Government, pending further reform of the House of Lords, will continue to take steps to make it reflective of the result of the general election, in terms of the representation of parties. On the measures that have been proposed, there has been a degree of concern that the provisions, for example, on the consequences of criminal convictions, are out of line in the other place with those in this place.
The Select Committee, on which my hon. Friend serves, has reflected on the leave of absence provisions and has noted that they have not been very effective in providing a mechanism for Members to retire. So the support that the Government are willing to give specifically reflects concerns that have been expressed beyond this House, but also by Committees of this House, and this is a way to facilitate the correction of those aspects, if not the wider aspects that we have debated from time to time.
Mr Blunkett
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be good enough to reflect to the Prime Minister that it is a bit odd for a Conservative-led Government, irrespective of what is in the coalition agreement, with only 18 months to go till a general election, to allow the minor party to press a point that would undermine the stability and functioning of a Chamber that the majority party in the Government supports and wants to work. Is that not perverse?
Greg Clark
The creation of the coalition was based on a coalition agreement. That was discharged. The Bill was put to the House and the House took a view on it. My hon. Friend’s Bill does not relate to those matters. It relates to some specific reforms that have come from a variety of sources, endorsed by one of the Select Committees of this House, and on that basis I am happy to confirm the Government’s support for it to proceed into Committee, if that is the wish of the House.
Debate on the Address
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
I hope the test will come when we vote on those measures. In the past, of course, we have heard that the Opposition will support welfare measures, then they do not; we have heard that they will support deficit reduction measures, then they do not. Every time the Opposition are tested, they fail.
The immigration Bill is a centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech. Let me be clear: this is not just—
The Prime Minister
I will give way to both right hon. Gentlemen in a minute. Let me just make one point. The Bill goes across government, because for the first time we will look to ensure that everyone’s immigration status is checked before they get access to a private rented home; for the first time, we will make sure that anyone not eligible for free health care foots the bill, either themselves or through their Government; and for the first time, foreign nationals who commit serious crimes will be deported, wherever possible, and will then have to appeal from their home country. That will be the effect of the Bill.
Mr Blunkett
Perhaps it would be easier for Labour to vote for the Bill if there was a verifiable way of ensuring that it could be implemented. Will the Prime Minister take a suggestion from an old hand that might square the circle between the Home Secretary and the Business Secretary on the immigration proposals and the deregulation Bill? We could go back to the idea of a verifiable identity register, and a little card, such as the one I am holding, to ensure that doctors, landlords and employers can easily and sensibly know whether someone is entitled to be in the country and draw down services.
The Prime Minister
At last we have had a concrete policy from the Labour party, but I am afraid to say that it is one with which I completely disagree. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but is it not extraordinary that the previous Government spent so much time and effort on a compulsory identity card that no one wanted while overseeing a massive uncontrolled rise in immigration? What we have done is to cut migration by a third and we have not introduced ID cards. That is a far better approach.
Royal Charter on Press Conduct
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I commend the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and their colleagues and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and his deputy, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—and, indeed, Lord Charlie Falconer, who has done excellent work with them—on finding what I believe to be not a fudge, but an elegant and sophisticated solution to squaring the circle. I have a registered interest both as a contributor to the press, and, with my family, as a victim of hacking—an issue that has not yet run its course.
What happened to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) in the courts today indicates just how far we still have to go to get some branches of the press to understand what they have done and what they need to put right for the future. I also commend the victims of press attack who have been so assiduous in carrying through—sometimes with great pain to themselves—the campaign to get to where we are today.
Let me say that the solution that we have reached—and I am very glad that we have reached it—protects the freedom of the press while also protecting the reputation of Britain across the world. It is important that what is done in this House or in our media cannot be misused or abused when it comes to the oppression of a free media in other parts of the world. We still have a problem in this country, however, in respect of what is now described as “the new media”. I hope that the charter and the sophisticated way in which penalties will be applied to those outside it will help us. I was sorry that Lord Justice Leveson’s report did not deal with the future, but we have an opportunity to do so now.
I make this brief speech because I believe that Parliament and politicians of all parties have demonstrated a professionalism, sophistication and maturity that, if applied to other areas of our lives, would be commended by the British people. Let me also make an appeal to some branches of the media and some campaigners who still “don’t get it”, to quote the words originally used when Leveson was being debated.
I want to ask Index on Censorship, which was on the radio at lunchtime, please not to mislead people into believing that this agreement achieves something that it does not or says something that it does not. I want to say to those in the media who have been extremely vocal over the weekend that they should please accept today’s agreement as the best possible outcome to a situation that was at one point seen as virtually impossible to resolve, with no squaring of the circle. The circle has been squared; Parliament has lived up to its historic reputation; the leaderships all political parties have stood up and been counted—and we should be proud of this Parliament and our leaders today.
Hillsborough
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is right. Justice is being done by the full revelation of all the documents. As I put it in my statement, obviously we cannot bring back those who have been lost, but what we can do for the families is have the full revelation of all the facts and all the documents. In that way, people can rightly see that they have access to the truth. It will take us all a lot of time to study exactly what has been revealed, but, as I tried to outline in my statement, we can see very clearly from the introduction to the report that some of the key points that the families have been making year after year have been thoroughly vindicated.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
May I reiterate the appreciation expressed to the panel and the excellent secretariat and thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for their words and for the apology? The families and the people of Merseyside have known all along that the hearts of the people of Sheffield have been with them, as demonstrated on that terrible weekend by the help and support that was given by my own wife, Margaret, who treated some of the injured, and I visited others in hospital. No one in their right mind could have blamed the victims for what happened that afternoon, given where they were in the ground and the consequences for them. May I say to the Prime Minister that one of the lessons that has to come out of this is surely that cover-ups can only cause, and continue to cause, the greatest hurt and harm to those involved, and that in a democracy transparency and openness must be, and always will be, the right way forward to get to the truth?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point that echoes what my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said. In holding inquiries and inquests, both of which were held in this case, not enough was done to reveal the full picture, and that is what this report does.
I reiterate that it is very important that all parliamentary colleagues study the report before making more detailed comments on it. For example, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the role that people in Sheffield played in helping those who were injured. Let me read one small segment of the report:
“Viewed entirely as an operation to deploy ambulances to the stadium, and to transport casualties as quickly as possible to hospital, the…response was rapid and efficient.”
But it then goes on to say that
“this ignores a significant component of the response to a major disaster set out in the”
ambulance service’s
“major incident plan: the provision of appropriate assessment, prioritisation and treatment on site.”
What I am trying to say is that when it comes to criticism of the police, the ambulance service or other emergency services, it is very important to look carefully at what the report itself says.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman seems to be delivering answers to his own questions, so I might be redundant in this, but he is correct that, unlike on House of Lords reform, where we had a commitment to deliver legislation, and indeed elections, come 2015, in the coalition agreement we are sticking to retaining legislation on boundaries, for which, by the way, as I know he is meticulous about such things, there was no timetable stipulated in the agreement. On boundaries, we are, I suppose, strictly speaking, adhering to the coalition agreement, unlike on Lords reform—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wants a detailed answer and I am giving it to him. There is little else going on this first afternoon back at Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that, because the primary legislation is still on the statute book, there is nothing in my power to stop the work of the boundary commissions, but I have made it clear that, since I think I reasonably believe that the constitutional reform package was exactly that—a package—and since this is the first time that either of the coalition parties has been unable to deliver on a major coalition agreement commitment, it is therefore right to rebalance things and not to proceed with an unbalanced package.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Substantial reform of the House of Lords, way beyond that proposed in the Steel Bill, could have been possible with 100% agreement across the House, had the Deputy Prime Minister chosen to take that route. I ask him this simple question: as the boundary changes have been linked to dropping the House of Lords Reform Bill, will Ministers under Liberal Democrat auspices—his Ministers—be asked to abstain or vote against boundary changes?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have made it very clear that all Liberal Democrats, whether Front Bench or Back Bench, will vote against the changes coming into effect before 2015. On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, I wonder whether he could advise the House on what more the Government could have done to seek to understand what a cross-party approach would be. We convened cross-party discussions on seven occasions when the coalition Government were first formed. We published a White Paper and a draft Bill. We convened a Joint Committee, allowed it to continue its work for months and months, and adopted the vast majority of its recommendations. We chopped and changed our legislative text, taking on board suggestions from Opposition and Government Members. For the right hon. Gentleman to say that that was a capricious exercise unilaterally conducted by the Government ignores the painstaking work put in by the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), me and many others to try to generate proper cross-party support for this now long overdue measure.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Allen
My hon. Friend makes his point, but anyone looking objectively at this House would see two competing teams, one for the Government, the other against, and it is rare that there is rebellion or independence of mind, as he well knows.
We should not fear the liberty and the improvement of the second Chamber. It might actually be the making of the freedom of the first Chamber. It might be one step on the road to having a free and independent legislature that would challenge the power of the Executive.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Mr Allen
My right hon. Friend, having been a strong member of a past Executive, knows where he is most powerful. Is he most powerful sitting on the Back Benches here, or was he most powerful when in Whitehall and commanding a Government Department? We could discuss how effective the scrutiny was that he went through.
To have an un-elected Chamber with a say in passing laws over our citizens is a democratic abomination. It is not a deficit, an anachronism or a quaint ceremonial corner; it is an insult to every elector in the land. It is hobbling and repressive. It says to our citizens, “You are not capable or worthy of deciding your own future, of deciding who should run your country.” It says that this country is about deference and patronage, about a lack of self-confidence and belief, and about insiders and those who know better. It is about our past, not our future. It is an open wound in the body of our democracy and it must be healed.
That wound can be healed only by introducing the elective principle to the second Chamber. That is what this generation of parliamentarians in both Houses can achieve over the next year, and it can be done without beheading those whose service in the second Chamber deserves our respect, not our abuse. For those of us who for 25 years or more have worked for reform, standing on the shoulders of a century of giants before us, these proposals are the most serious attempt yet to bring about a change in our democracy and bring it into the modern era. Their courage and ambition mock the flaccid indecision of recent years.
Are the proposals perfect? No, of course not. Only the 650 different plans in the minds of each hon. Member are perfect, but that is why, theoretically at least, we have a parliamentary process. There is a—
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I think that this afternoon we have established that the calumny that if someone is against this Bill they are against reform and modernisation has been laid to rest. It is absolutely clear that someone can be in favour of a very different second Chamber based on a very different franchise and be vehemently against what the Government propose in this Bill.
Secondly, I think that we have established that we genuinely need as much time as possible to debate this Bill. That has been shown by the variety of views expressed, including by those who are in favour of the Bill and will vote, at least in principle, for it tomorrow night. The views expressed this afternoon about the future of our constitution, the nature of our government, and the relationship between this Chamber and the second Chamber are so numerous that they demonstrate, if ever it needed demonstrating, that we need not only time to scrutinise the Bill properly, but the constitutional convention advocated by at least half the Joint Committee.
We need that constitutional convention for this reason: this afternoon we have had demonstrated a number of substantial constitutional changes introduced over the past 15 years, many of which have proved to be successful, but the idea of one fundamental constitutional change taken in isolation demonstrates that we do not have joined-up thinking in this country about where our constitution is going. We have, as the Deputy Prime Minister himself demonstrated this afternoon, the real danger of the break-up of the United Kingdom and the vote on the future of Scotland. We have the McKay commission on existing devolution. We have propositions on a written Bill of Rights. We have, undoubtedly, in the future a new relationship between the United Kingdom, in whatever guise, and the European Union and the eurozone. We also have a range of minor constitutional changes that have already happened. In those circumstances, taking the future of the second Chamber out of the equation and dealing with it separately does not make sense. Furthermore, and fundamentally, we have also had demonstrated this afternoon the fact that certain individuals on both sides of this House—those on my side and among Liberal Democrats—do see our constitution in different terms.
I have also learned this afternoon, although I really already knew this, that quite a lot of people do not understand the constitutions of other countries. I can only presume that those who have spoken—good Labour friends of mine—do understand what they are proposing when they suggest a system that would actually have the Executive outside Parliament rather than in it. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) suggested that, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) came close to suggesting it. The Liberal Democrats—through the development of proportional representation; through the break with the single-Member constituency; through the advocacy, as is in this Bill, of being able to appoint Ministers who are not from or within Parliament, but who are from outside it and then do not have to be part of the Parliament; and through the criticism of the way in which the Government within Parliament do not allow for scrutiny—are demanding a debate, and it is one that we should have, about whether we should fundamentally change our constitution for the future. I am against that change; I believe that we should elect a Government. A clear mandate from the people for a Government is something people in this country have valued. We can do that only by the single-Member constituency, the electoral system we have and the Parliament to which we give primacy.
Hazel Blears
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue of single terms of 15 years goes right to the heart of accountability and democracy?
Mr Blunkett
That is at the heart of the criticism of this Bill. Once legitimacy is given to elected politicians without the accountability of their having to seek re-election and be re-elected, the very fundamentals of democracy are undermined. That is because, as I am on the record saying on the morning after the election, democracy is not simply about electing people; it is about being able to get rid of them. The admirable speech made at the Magna Carta lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 15 June demonstrated that par excellence.
Simon Hughes
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that nothing in this Bill suggests that Governments would not be formed on the simple principle of needing to command a majority in the House of Commons? That is as it has been and as it is, and there is no proposal that it should not continue in that way. If that is the case, the threat, and the suggestion he makes, that electing people to the other place would change that is entirely unsupported by anything in the Bill.
Mr Blunkett
I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman read the Bill, because it suggests, for the first time in our history, that Ministers can be appointed outwith the second Chamber but report to it. We have always had to appoint people to that Chamber, who have worked within it and have continued to be a part of it, if they were to be Ministers.
The fundamental rub I foresee is that we will create mistrust in the electorate. We will say that we are going to replace people who are unaccountable and not legitimate, but then we will put up regional party lists—in the case of Yorkshire, the region covers 5 million people—and simply tell electors to tick the box on the list. People will turn on us, because that is a delusion. That is why we should vote against the Bill and against the programme motion.
Mr Heath
The right hon. Lady will have to make up her mind. Either the right hon. Lady believes that we are not going to win any seats in the next election, in which case we will not have any seats in the House of Lords under this system—although we would under an appointment system—or the reverse. She cannot have it both ways. I am afraid that there is a slight logical inconsistency in her argument.
The issue of ministerial appointments was raised, and I am happy for us to examine that in Committee. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) inveighed against the practice of bringing people in from outside, giving them ministerial posts and putting them in the upper House. I wonder whether he ever had that conversation with Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool, or with any of the other GOATs who were brought in by the last Government.
Mr Blunkett
The point that I was attempting to make—obviously not successfully—was that those Ministers were brought in as, and remained, Members of Parliament. The Government’s proposals do not allow that. They impose a system which will mean that, for the first time in our constitutional history, Ministers will not be part of and embedded in our Parliament.
Mr Heath
The right hon. Gentleman may not have studied the Bill assiduously enough. It is true that those Ministers will not be there for life: the right hon. Gentleman is right about that. Under the present system they are there for life even when they have clearly outlived their ministerial usefulness.
We heard arguments in favour of secondary election, and I think that that is a perfectly valid debate for us to have in Committee. We also heard arguments about primacy. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made what I considered to be a very sensible suggestion about the possibility of a concordat. I thank him for that: it is something that we need to debate.
The hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) asked which legal expert the Government had consulted on clause 2. It was Lord Pannick, who I believe the hon. Gentleman thinks is a very good lawyer indeed.
Diamond Jubilee
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
In supporting the motion, I know that I speak on behalf of the bulk of the people in my beloved city of Sheffield in offering my congratulations and reflecting on the respect and affection in which Her Majesty has been held over the past 60 years. Reference has been made to the enormity of the change that has taken place in that time. I was reminded, listening to the radio this morning, that the first edition of the New Musical Express, published 60 years ago, featured Paul Robeson. I do not know what Her Majesty will make of this year’s Eurovision song contest, but some things never really change. Some changes have been very much for the better, in regard to tackling discrimination and gross inequality, and creating a care across the world that did not exist 60 years ago. Some of them have illustrated a loss, however, including the loss of the mutuality and reciprocity that were a feature of many of our communities 60 years ago.
One thing is absolutely certain: over those 60 years, I have managed to achieve the dishonour of making mistakes in front of the Queen on a number of occasions. The first was not, in fact, in front of Her Majesty. It involved a little boy, coming up to the age of six, in a school for the blind, when we were celebrating the coronation. Elgar was blaring out from a loudspeaker, and I rushed across the playground only to smash into a little four-year-old girl, spilling lemonade all over her skirt and blouse, which resulted in her bursting into floods of tears. That was the first, but not the last, occasion on which I have made people cry over the past 60 years.
Many moons ago, as leader of Sheffield City Council, I tasted the tea before Her Majesty arrived and described it as “absolutely disgusting”. I had it changed, only to discover that I had set aside her favourite brew. On another occasion when I was leader of Sheffield City Council, I made the mistake of declining Her Majesty’s help at lunch, when she offered to help me with a Barnsley chop. Had I accepted her help, I would have been spared the embarrassment of being told, at the end of the meal, that she was quite used to cutting up the meat for the corgis.
Dogs are a feature of Her Majesty’s life, and I could not let this occasion go by without recalling how much dogs’ instincts affect us, in the political arena as well as in their capacity as pets and social companions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) will remember our hosting an official visit by President Putin, in his first incarnation as President of the Russian Federation. As the arms were presented, my then dog, Sadie, uttered a deep growl from her chest which developed into a bark. That was obviously a precursor to the political change that we have seen in the Russian Federation.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition referred to the Queen’s ability to put people at their ease. Perhaps I should mention the way in which she put me at my ease when I made another blunder. It was when I was being inducted as a member of the Privy Council in 1997. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn will recall that he had set me in the right direction to kneel on the cushion, but I missed it slightly. I was put right, and the Queen gently assured me that I did actually brush her hand with my lips, rather than her elbow with my mouth, which was the direction in which I had been heading.
These have been 60 years of a Queen for her people here and in the Commonwealth. She has been a Queen who has touched the hearts of those of all classes, distinctions, races, ethnicities and religions. We have had a Queen who has been able to hold our nation together, and I hope that her life will be long and that, in the years to come, she will be able to hold the United Kingdom together in the way that many of us wish for.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I would be delighted to do that. I do not have any immediate plans to visit north Lincolnshire, but I do support local television. I also think that north Lincolnshire had some very good news with the Siemens plant going into Hull. That is excellent news for the whole region.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Q2. In the early new year the Government intend to announce a wholesale revision of the national curriculum. May I put it to the Prime Minister that it would be perverse—in fact it would be absurd—to require those coming from abroad to settle in Britain to learn about our democracy and to take citizenship courses while withdrawing the teaching of citizenship and democracy to our own children in our schools?
The Prime Minister
I listen very carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman says, because I agree with some of the proposals about citizenship that he put forward when he was Home Secretary. Many Members will have been to the citizenship ceremonies that he was responsible for, which have been a good addition to our country and our democracy. On behalf of the whole House, I pay tribute to him for that. We will look very carefully at what he says about the curriculum, but the key aim has to be to making sure that we teach the basics properly and well, and that we test on those basics, because if someone cannot read and write properly, no lessons in citizenship will mean anything at all.