Covid-19: One Year Report

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I did not expect to be on my feet quite so soon, but I begin by paying a genuine tribute to my noble friend. I can say no more to him than that his father, who was a deeply admired Member of your Lordships’ House, would have been extremely proud of him.

There is so much one could say. I am greatly concerned about care homes and the fact that those who work in them are not obliged to be vaccinated. My noble friend has been helpful on that. I am very disturbed that next week, Holy Week—the most important week in the Christian year—we will not be able to have both a choir and a congregation in Lincoln Cathedral, which is enormous and could easily accommodate them suitably distanced.

I want to concentrate in my brief speech on the marginalisation of Parliament, which has been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. It is a serious matter. I divide it into two. First is the way legislation has been taken: retrospectively, more often than not; draconian, more often than not; an hour and a half allowed, with speeches limited to two minutes, more often than not. All of this marginalises Parliament.

Of course, that has been compounded by the fact that we have had a wholly inadequate, one-dimensional Parliament. I hope that by 21 June at the latest we will be back as a proper Parliament, able to hold Ministers properly to account. It is no fault of my noble friend, and my tribute was genuine, but the fact is that he is not really sufficiently accountable to us. The rules do not allow us to intervene on a ministerial speech or to say, “Before my noble friend sits down”. The spontaneity has gone out of Parliament. For every Question Time, we have a list of preordained questioners.

I am not complaining totally, because I have enormous admiration for those who have been responsible for making the virtual Parliament possible. I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude, as we all do, but what they have created, clever as it truly is, is a poor imitation of the Parliament that we know—the cut and thrust of debate, the ability properly to hold Ministers to account and to be in the House when we vote. I know that people have sometimes been in their beds when they vote—not that I have actually been in mine at the time, but I know that many have. As a parliamentarian, which is all I have ever aspired to be, this is the place where the Government are and must be held to account. The Government are and must be answerable to Parliament. The Government have had it far too much all their own way over this past year.

That is no fault of the Minister, who will reply; it is no fault of any individual, but we should not really have allowed this to happen and we must get back to a proper, vigorous Parliament. We in this House must get back to a Parliament that is self-regulating and able to have not only spontaneous but vigorous Question Times, where the expertise, of which there is so much in this House, can be brought into effect and take part.

We have to go through this today. I accept that. I would not dream of voting against the orders before us. But we are drifting down a dangerous river, and we must not continue. It is essential that we get back to a full parliamentary democracy with vigorous debate and proper answerability. We must achieve that, I would suggest, by that date of 21 June.