Government and Parliament

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who brings a wealth of experience of Parliament from different aspects. I begin, as many others have, by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, on the calm, moderate, sensitive and sensible way in which she introduced her Motion. What has been remarkable about this debate is that there is an emerging consensus. It has not been put into specific words—I will try to make an attempt at that.

We are dealing with the implicit tension in a system where the Executive are drawn from the legislature and then expect the legislature to be their creature. This has been a tendency under Governments of all parties—the Labour Government, the present Government, the coalition Government. One sees the way in which successive Governments try to deal with this subject and the excessive payroll vote in the House of Commons by those who find themselves politically emasculated and those who are very ambitious, who are always a little reluctant to cross swords with the masters of the day. We see it specifically in the background to today’s debate.

I have enormous and genuine regard and respect for my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, but his appointment was a transgression of the balance that should exist between the Executive and the legislature. It was the Executive who told my noble friend to sort out your Lordships’ House. He came forward with a number of proposals based on his great knowledge and came to a conclusion with which, apart from the legislative aspect, many of us could have a degree of sympathy—namely, that our powers should certainly not be removed but perhaps, in respect of statutory instruments, should be to a degree curtailed. We also have to recognise that this comes in the wake of a specific event and, as the Commons committee put it very succinctly,

“there was in fact no constitutional crisis arising from the defeat of the Tax Credits measure”.

But the Government made one. Subsequently, the Government decided not to persist with the tax credits measure—a very sensible move, in my opinion.

We have to recognise these things and to try to come to a sensible, balanced and moderate conclusion. I respectfully suggest to your Lordships’ House that we take on the implicit—and some explicit—suggestions of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and set up a Burns-type committee with a strictly defined remit and timetable to look at the whole issue of secondary legislation, particularly in the light of the apposite and telling comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I thought that he made an exceptionally splendid speech. That committee could report back to your Lordships’ House and, following that, I would myself very much like to see a proper Joint Committee of both Houses looking at the way in which secondary legislation is dealt with both in the other place and here.

The most encouraging remark this afternoon was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, when she paid a degree of respect to the Salisbury convention. We have to recognise that our recent problems—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said that we have never been in this situation before with a Conservative Government—are exacerbated by the disproportionate representation of Liberal Democrat Peers. I say to them, many of whom I count among my good friends, that they recognise that too. They might even consider not putting more than 50 Members in the Division Lobby at any one time. That would go a long way to dealing with many of the problems.

Above all, we must remember that no rules have been broken. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, made an excellent speech today. It was her Motion that was carried and it did not transgress anything. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde mutters sotto voce, “Of course it did”. No, it did not, because if we did what he wanted we would have a power to amend statutory legislation, and she was merely saying, “Take a bit more time”. That is all she was saying and that would have been very sensible. We also have to remember that no legislation was lost in the previous Session.

In conclusion, hard cases make very bad law, as we all know. It is very wrong to consider introducing legislation to change perceived transgressions when there was no actual transgression. I think there is an emerging, calming consensus, thanks to the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. Let us look at these things in a calm, reflective light. Let us give to a committee of your Lordships’ House a particular remit and timescale, and then let us get together with our colleagues in another place to try to ensure that secondary legislation, which should never include Henry VIII clauses, is properly examined in both Houses and is capable of amendment in both.