General Elections: Peers’ Exclusion from Voting
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is a Conservative and has taken very Conservative views on the reform of this House. I would have hoped that he would therefore agree with the statement of Lord Campbell, as Lord Chief Justice in 1858, that by,
“an ancient, immemorial law of England … Peers sat in their own right in their own House, and had no privilege whatsoever to vote for Members to sit in the other House of Parliament”.—[Official Report, 5/7/1858; col. 928.]
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I cannot believe that the Minister is saying things that he actually believes. Will he concede that this House passed a Bill to give us the right to vote in elections which was blocked by some dissident Whips or other people at the far end for no good reason, and that it is offensive that, when the voters of Britain have a chance to express their views, we are not allowed to? Surely, it is time for the Minister to say that if he had a chance and was Minister for long enough, he would do it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I would very much like to introduce a more rational and modern approach to the second Chamber, but we will have to do that in an overall way. There are many anomalies in our voting system. The position in which citizens of the Irish Republic and the Commonwealth can vote in British parliamentary elections is also quite extraordinary, but has a long tradition behind it.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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“Election courts: recall
Within 2 years of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report assessing the merits and feasibility of granting election courts the discretion of initiating a recall petition process.”
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, we debated an amendment in Committee to deal with this matter. Put simply, the problem is this: if the Bill becomes law, we will have two different systems running in parallel. We will have the system as envisaged in the Bill and a separate, older system, which is the election court. As I said in the previous discussion, it is possible for an election court to punish a Member of Parliament, deprive him or her of their seat and not allow them to stand for a number of years in any by-election for a lesser offence than that covered by the Bill. Clause 1(11) states:
“The loss by an MP of his or her seat under this Act as a result of a recall petition does not prevent him or her standing in the resulting by-election”.
That is very clear, yet the election court has the power—and used it in the case of Phil Woolas in 2010—to prevent a Member of Parliament standing in any by-election for a number of years. That seems to me, at the very least, inconsistent and potentially unfair. After all, under this Bill an MP could be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of up to a year, yet he would still be subject to the Bill and would be able to stand at the by-election. In the case of Phil Woolas and the election court, he was not sentenced to imprisonment but he lost his seat. I am not talking about the merits or demerits of what he did; I am talking about what the election court did to him, which was at variance with the purpose of the Bill.
Therefore, the amendment is very simple. It is much milder than the amendment we debated in Committee, so I hope that the Government will find it fairly easy to accept. It says:
“Within 2 years … the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report assessing the merits and feasibility of granting election courts the discretion of initiating a recall petition process”.
We are not making a dramatic change; we are saying that, if the Government are so minded, they can take steps to ensure that in future an election court can say, “No, we don’t want to do what we did to Phil Woolas. We want to subject him to the provisions of this particular Bill”. It seems a very reasonable and mild amendment, and the Government can surely say yes to it. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, behind this issue are some large questions about the role of election courts and the seriousness of electoral offences such as electoral fraud. The role of election courts is to assess whether electoral fraud has taken place and to determine whether it has had a material impact on the outcome of an election. I know that what happened to Phil Woolas preoccupies a number of noble Lords on the Labour Benches. I went back and looked at that sad history and I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, suggested in Committee that he be acquitted on appeal. He was indeed acquitted of one of the three offences but the other two were affirmed.
Electoral fraud is a serious business. I can think of other potential occasions where we could find ourselves with contested results of elections. We had a contested issue in east London in local elections where the severity of what is pled or what might perhaps have happened is not—as I think is being suggested here—something less serious than other potential misconduct. I understand the noble Lord’s intentions in tabling his amendment but I am not persuaded that, after two years, a particular fact will have come to light which would necessarily cause the Government of the day to reappraise the role of election courts, which is what this is really about.
I am also concerned that granting election courts the discretion to initiate a recall petition risks sending a confused message about the seriousness of electoral fraud as such. At present, there is a public expectation that those who commit offences that breach electoral law should face the appropriate penalty and that the appropriate penalty is set. Those offences are particularly relevant to the MP’s democratic mandate, and they are intended to affect the MP’s democratic mandate because, thankfully in this country, we have a very low level of electoral misconduct during campaigns and of electoral fraud; but we are conscious that the potential is always there. In the event that fraud has been committed by a sitting MP, his or her constituents might be confused if they were asked to sign a recall petition, knowing that an election court had already identified proven wrongdoing on the MP’s part.
The Government do not consider that this Bill should be a vehicle for the election court’s functions to be adapted, or for the consequences of established electoral offences to be altered; that is a different and other serious set of issues. There is also a risk that an MP, having been subjected to a recall petition by the election court, could then be prosecuted and sentenced in the criminal courts for an offence of which the election court had found him or her guilty. If the MP had held on to his or her seat following the first recall petition and were then sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 12 months or less, this could trigger another recall petition under the first recall condition.
There are some complicated issues here, but I end where I started. Election fraud or an election offence during a campaign that materially affects the outcome of that election are serious offences. That is the role of election courts. However, the Government are not persuaded that we should now downgrade the severity of that offence.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I am disappointed in the Minister’s reply because he has not really faced the point that we were seeking to make in this amendment—and I thank noble Lords who gave their support to it. What happens now, under the Government’s present Bill, is that a Member of Parliament can be sentenced to six or nine months’ imprisonment, yet he would still be subject to the recall procedure and he could stand again. It seems to me that a sentence of six to nine months’ imprisonment is pretty serious, yet the Government, in their wisdom, have a Bill that says, “Yes, but you can be subject to the recall procedure and you might well be re-elected”. Indeed, in our history, Members of Parliament who have been refused their seats have stood again and have got re-elected—so that is up to the voters. The whole point of this amendment is that we must trust the local voters to make the right decision, and they can decide one way or the other.
On the subject of severity, I do not have all the details of the Phil Woolas case in front of me, and I do not think that I said in Committee that he had been acquitted. What I am saying is that the electoral court proceedings lost him his seat, but there was no further sanction in terms of imprisonment. Imprisonment is serious, yet under the Bill an MP can be imprisoned and can still be subject to the recall procedure. So the position is entirely inconsistent; it does not make any sense. The amendment simply proposes that the Secretary of State assess the merits and feasibility of granting election courts this discretion. If it is too difficult, the feasibility study would say, “No: it is too difficult”, for the reasons the Minister gave. We are asking only for the Government to have a more detailed look at this than the Minister suggested in reply.
We have been debating for quite a long time and there are further amendments to come. Part of me is tempted to test the opinion of the House. I will not do that, but I wish that the Government could be a little more flexible. Frankly, they have lost the argument. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
I rise to give my wholehearted support to this amendment and very much endorse the views that have been expressed so far. We had a pretty good debate on this in Committee, where there was a universal feeling from all sides of the House that this change had to take place. We were held up because the Minister said that there was going to be a review. Looking at what the Minister said on that occasion and at the wording of this amendment, I would have thought that this amendment very closely reflects what the Minister had in mind when he spoke to us. That was certainly the intention in the drafting of this amendment. I do not know what the Minister is going to say, but I would have thought that he would have a job not to accept it. All we have done is save him and his officials a lot of work in drafting an amendment. He has it there on a plate, and all he has to do is to say, “Yes, that’s good”. That might happen. It has happened before, if not very often. It is a challenge to him.
Of course, we all want to support our creative industries. Although times have been bad for television, and television advertising has gone through a difficult phase, at the moment it is doing a little better—ITV and Channel 4 have certainly been doing better, I believe. However, that is not necessarily a permanent state of affairs, and it is very likely, with increased competition, the new electronic media and so on, that companies such as ITV will find it tough. It is even tougher if they have to compete where there is no level playing field. To put it this way, they are not able to negotiate or compete at all; they simply have constraints imposed upon them. We have a situation where the commercial public service broadcasters subsidise the pay TV platforms. It is absolutely preposterous. Although it is alleged that the Labour Party is not in favour of business and competition, we are, and this is one example of how we are. It is very clear that this is a constraint on competition, and an outdated constraint as well—one, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, appropriate to a “bygone age”. We have all moved forward a great deal.
The Government have sort of announced a review, which I very much hope will be fully compatible with the amendment that we have put forward. After all, it has taken nearly six months from the Minister saying there was going to be a review to getting here today, and we still have not had much sign of it, so it is a fairly slow process. We are anxious to make progress and do not want the general election to be an excuse for delaying things. We believe that an amendment such as the one we have down would enable progress to be made in the review, so that the election does not delay things and so that, whichever party or combination of parties triumphs in the election, there will be a seamless move forward.
In moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked a number of questions, which I do not want to repeat. However, it would be useful to learn a little more about the timing of the review: when it will start and how long it is likely to take. What we do not want is for this issue to be put into the long grass. There is always a fear that when Ministers announce a review, it is a way of saying, “Let’s get this out of the way. We can deal with it some time in the future”. Let us not look at it that way. The benefit of this amendment is that there is no need for further primary legislation—it can just happen.
It is very unusual for Back-Benchers in either House of Parliament to say, “Don’t worry about legislation, just take the powers and do it”, but here is a case where we are doing it, because we believe there is widespread agreement on the anomaly that we want to deal with and that waiting for further primary legislation would simply delay things. We do not want to delay things. We think we should move forward, and move forward quickly.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and declare an interest as a producer at the BBC. The pay TV platforms already pay to transmit the digital channels from ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, so what can their objection be to adding the main channels of ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5? They say that the transmission fees would represent a double tax for consumers, but in the case of the commercial PSBs at least this is obviously untrue. Viewers do not pay to watch the commercial PSBs, but they have a news and current affairs obligation, which costs ITV, for example, at least £100 million a year. All that could benefit from the extra revenue provided by the new fees, which is what we have seen happen to channels in America.
There have also been scare stories from Virgin Media saying that full-blooded commercial negotiation could led to blackouts, with PSBs removing their channels from the platforms. This may have happened in the US, but it is not being threatened by the PSBs in this country, and it is clearly an absurd allegation as the commercial PSBs are legally committed to put their main channels on the digital platforms as part of their licence agreements. I agree, of course, with noble Lords who want the Minister to elucidate the timeframe and the terms of the review. When it is completed, the recommendations should not be put on the back burner.
The introduction of retransmission fees will allow PSBs to maximise investment in UK-produced programmes, so that we can build on the world-beating programmes that we all enjoy so very much.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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“Further recall condition: illegal practices in parliamentary elections
(1) It shall be a further recall condition under this Act that on consideration by an election court of a parliamentary election petition it is shown that illegal practices committed in reference to the election of an MP for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of that MP have so extensively prevailed that they may be reasonably supposed to have affected the result.
(2) Where an election court finds that the condition under subsection (1) has been met, it must notify the Speaker of its decision.
(3) Where the Speaker receives a notification under subsection (2), he must follow the procedure set out in section 5, as though the second recall condition had been met in relation the MP against whom the election court made the decision.
(4) Subsection (1) shall not apply if the election court finds that the illegal practices amount to corrupt practice.
(5) If subsection (1) applies, and the election court finds that the illegal practices do not amount to corrupt practice, the election of the candidate shall not be void.”
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, this is of course a probing amendment, although I would very much like to see it incorporated in the Bill in the fullness of time. However, for this evening’s purpose it is simply to give us a chance to debate the matter.
As the Bill stands, Members of Parliament may be penalised in ways that are described in the Bill. However, the amendment also refers to the work of the election court. We have an anomalous situation, because a Member of Parliament may be penalised by the election court for a lesser offence than might apply under the Bill, and yet the punishment would be more severe without any recourse to voters. That is pretty onerous, it is unfair, and we should put it right. The purpose of the amendment is to bring at least a large element of the work of the electoral court—particularly its conclusions—within the ambit of the Bill.
As I said, a Member of Parliament may be penalised by an election court for a lesser wrongdoing, but the penalty may be much more severe. Indeed, the Member of Parliament may be penalised to the point of losing his or her seat and not being allowed to stand again in the resulting by-election or any election in that constituency for a number of years. The most recent instance was after the 2010 election, when Phil Woolas had to appear for a transgression to do with the way his election campaign was run. The election court dismissed him. He lost his seat as a result and he was not able to stand again. I am not saying that what he did was right or wrong. That is not the purpose of the debate. The purpose of the debate is to say that the election court had a power which is much more than is contained in the Bill. I want to bring that part of the work of the election court within the ambit of the Bill.
In the amendment, I distinguish between illegal and corrupt practices. As I understand it, there is no statutory definition of an illegal practice so we have to be careful about being too precise, but there is a range of illegal practices which might be the subject of decisions by the election court. I will not go through them all now but they are, for example, to do with election expenses in excess of the maximum permissible; paying election expenses otherwise than through the election agent; paying them out of time; or failing to make the return or declarations as to the expenses. Other examples could include disturbing a meeting, making a false statement concerning the personal character or conduct of a candidate, and so on. There is a whole list. They may or may not be serious. How serious they are will depend on the particular circumstances and the way the practice actually happened. In other words, a very minor failure in the accuracy of the return may not be too serious, but a large failure is serious. It depends on the circumstances.
The aim of this amendment is to bring these things within the scope of the Bill. We all know that the judiciary—and for this purpose I refer to those on the election court as the judiciary—does not like being put in the position of having to unseat an elected politician. At least, I believe that is what it thinks. I certainly hope that is what it thinks. If we accept this amendment, a decision by the election court could be used via the Speaker to trigger the petition which—if it received 10% of signatures—could then lead to a by-election. That is a fairly clear-cut way of doing it. The enormous benefit is that in the end, the decision is by the voters. If enough of the voters want a by-election, there will be one; then when they have a by-election, the voters can decide whether or not to chuck the former MP out. It seems to me that this is a much better method than the way the election court works at the moment.
As I said, this is a probing amendment. The Minister may find all sorts of technical points that prevent him from accepting it. That may well be. I had the enormous help of the Public Bill Office in drafting the amendment, but even so, it is quite difficult. A few more weeks of work might have improved the wording. However, the principle is clear. I hope the Minister will give it a sympathetic ear and will say it is worth considering at the next stage of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Soley (Lab)
The election court is outside the ambit of this Bill, but my noble friend makes the case for including it. I make a brief point in support of my noble friend’s comments. I believe that my recollection is right that Phil Woolas won his case on appeal, but by that time it was too late. In effect, we had a court taking a decision which resulted in the electorate not being able to select a person who they might well otherwise have selected.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his probing amendment and the debate that we have had on it. As he said, his amendment would introduce a further recall trigger where an election court finds a person or persons guilty of illegal practices in respect of a parliamentary election. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, rightly asked what consideration has, and could be, given to this suggestion.
Under the Representation of the People Act 1983 the result of an election can be challenged by any eligible person by lodging a petition with the relevant election court. The election court will first consider whether the MP was fairly returned. If the court, upon hearing the evidence, finds the candidate or other persons guilty of corrupt or illegal practices, it will produce a report. Any report produced will state the names of all persons who have been proved at the trial to have been guilty of corrupt or illegal practices, and it will be laid before the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A candidate or other person reported as guilty of corrupt or illegal practice shall not be able to: register as an elector or vote in any local government or parliamentary election held in the United Kingdom; be elected as an MP; or hold any elective office. In the case of a person reported as guilty of a corrupt practice—for example, personation—these incapacities will apply for five years. A person found guilty of an illegal practice—for example, double voting—will be subjected to these incapacities for three years. The incapacities will apply from the date of the report, and the person must vacate any elected seat held.
Under the noble Lord’s amendment, if an election court found that illegal practices by a person or persons had resulted in the election of an MP, but the MP was not found guilty of any offence, this would automatically trigger a recall petition. However, under Section 167 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, an MP would automatically be guilty if his agents were found to have engaged in corrupt or illegal practices during the election, and would therefore have to vacate his seat.
If the noble Lord believes that an MP should not automatically be found guilty because of the actions of others in securing his seat, that would require an amendment to the Representation of the People Act. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, but it is the Government’s view that the system and penalties that we currently have in place under that Act are sufficient. For that reason, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. I am most grateful for the comments that have been made. Although I cannot promise to bring anything more back, this has been a very interesting debate.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I did, in fact, try to distinguish between illegal and corrupt practices to indicate that there was a degree of severity under the term “corrupt” that would apply less to “illegal”. He has merged the two. I am sorry that he will not look at my proposal in a lot of detail. I genuinely believe that there is an issue here, but unless the Minister can be persuaded to think further, I shall have to call a halt—tonight, at any rate—and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, before I come to the substance of what I want to say, I will comment briefly on what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, just said. I found myself agreeing with quite a lot of it, until he came to his idea of recall petitions. I cannot think of anything that would undermine democracy more than to have an open door for any group of people in a constituency, particularly those who are well financed, to have a go at an MP. How can an MP vote according to their conscience, how can an MP do their job, if they are always watching their back to see whether there is a group of people trying to undermine them? It would destabilise the position of MPs, and I do not think it would be a good idea.
Lord Norton of Louth
My whole point is that such a provision would raise the bar that would have to be overcome before there could be a recall petition. It would actually protect the Member far more than if there were a lower threshold. The chances of its being used are extremely slim, to put it mildly—but the fact that it was there would be a protection for constituents, a majority of whom in a ballot would have to vote for a recall.
Lord Dubs
I am afraid that if it is simply a matter of collecting signatures, I am not sure whether that provides the protection that the noble Lord claims. All I know is that I would have been miserably unhappy in my time as an MP if I had had always to watch my back—not on issues of principle, not where there were clear arguments at stake, but because some group of people who did not agree with my views on abortion, or whatever, might seek to undermine me. And they would have done—of course they would have done. I just do not think that representative democracy can work on that basis. I have to differ from the noble Lord; I think that if he talked to most people who have been elected to the House of Commons, they would agree with me and not with him.
I watch “Question Time” quite often, and I watched it last Thursday night. One of the things that happened also happens at other times on that programme. Whenever an adverse comment about the integrity of MPs is made, either by somebody on the platform or by somebody in the audience, there are enormous cheers from the audience. I find it rather depressing and sad that so many of our fellow countrymen and countrywomen—or at least, those who get selected as a “Question Time” audience—think that jeering and shouting abuse at the people who are elected is somehow helpful to democracy. I think that we have gone far too far in denigrating those whom we elect; I shall say more about that in a minute.
I support the principle of recall, as does everybody else who has spoken—but we must be careful that, in putting this Bill forward, we do not seem to overpromise to the voters about what will happen. I suspect that some of them will believe what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has just said—that that is what they are in for. We must be careful, because the Bill is, in some ways, rather limited.
Comments have been made about whether, when an MP switches parties, there should be a by-election. To the best of my knowledge of this—I have not done a survey—MPs who switch parties have a by-election only if they think they are going to win. If they do not think that they are going to win, they jolly well hang on in there until the next general election. Looking back at this over the years, it seems to be the case. I am not arguing that this is not a matter of integrity, and that if an MP switches party they should not call a by-election. It may be a good thing—but I am talking about what happens in practice.
All parties, in their last election manifestos, made some reference to the desirability of recall. I am conscious that when the House of Commons passes a measure that affects that House rather than what we do here, we must be very careful before we take issue with what its Members have decided to do—because it is very much their responsibility. Nevertheless, I think we are right to be critical: there is no point in having a second Chamber unless we can be critical of anything that the other House does.
I particularly want to comment favourably on the speech made by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. He put his finger on something absolutely crucial. He speaks with a great deal of experience, and he has driven a coach and horses through that provision in the Bill—because it is obvious that behaviour on the Standards Committee will be precisely as he said it would be. We must look hard at that provision.
Of course it is right—this is where I differ from the suggestion of open recall—that elected politicians should not be subject, between elections, to recall for their views, even if some of their views might not be too popular among their constituents. The time to deal with that is at the following general election. Otherwise we would belittle the principle that matters of conscience are important, and belittle the ability of Members of Parliament to exercise their conscience without being under pressure from one moment to the next.
I looked up what the excellent Library Note says about other recall measures in different countries. In the United States they seem to have a variety of models of recall. Some of them are open, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, suggested; some are more limited. I am not sure that there is anything very useful we can learn from them. In Switzerland, although there is no right of recall for federal elections, six of the 26 cantons do have the right of recall—but that right applies to the whole of the canton, not just to individual elected politicians. I am not suggesting that we should do that, although I suspect that if we had that sort of right of recall, the coalition would have been thrown out several years ago—I just mention that in passing.
One matter that bothers me is not included in the Bill. That is the question of the election court. I think it was in 2010 that Phil Woolas, a Labour MP, appeared before the election court, lost his seat and was not allowed to stand again in the following by-election. Whatever he did, some other potential wrongdoings by Members of Parliament may appear more significant. I am not saying that he did nothing wrong, but if we are to have a system of recall as envisaged in the Bill, we should include what the election court does, because I see no reason why Phil Woolas should not have been allowed to stand in the following by-election, his voters having heard what the election court said. The penalty on him was out of all proportion to what he did.
Perhaps I may say a little about respect for elected politicians, which I mentioned at the beginning. We now have a culture in which it is standard to abuse elected politicians. They would do it to us if we were elected. That does not mean that I do not support elections here, but that is a different argument. The way in which MPs are denigrated, abused and vilified, as my noble friend Lady Corston described, devalues democracy. One cannot run a democracy effectively unless there is some respect for the people who are elected through that system. We are weakening our democracy by allowing that to continue, and it is important that we speak up.
It may be that the Bill is intended to be a small step along that path—if so, fine, although we have reservations about the detail. It is time that we as a country stood up and said, “We elect these people. They face the electorate every few years. They can be thrown out, but in the mean time, we should not denigrate and abuse them and imply that they have the basest of motives”. From my knowledge of MPs—I have known quite a few over the years—whatever party they are from, they are all there to perform an act of public service. They are not doing it for the money—or if they are, they are jolly mistaken if they think that that is the way to get money—but for principles. I may not agree with some of their principles—that is why we have a party political system—but they are there because they want to serve their fellow citizens, and it is time that we all stood up and said that.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Officials are now arranging the use and testing of the wording of the petition and are in contact with the commission about the form that that testing will take. We can discuss that further—if necessary, off the Floor.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I would say simply that under this Bill, if a recall petition is successful, the sitting MP will be entitled to stand again in the by-election; so the Woolas incident could not happen under this Bill. I hope that that is entirely clear.
Lord Dubs
My point is that we now have two different systems—the system in the Bill and the system in the electoral court that caused Phil Woolas to lose his seat and not be allowed to stand again. That seems to be an anomaly. Surely we should encompass the electoral court within the ambit of the Bill, so that a future Phil Woolas could stand again or there could be a recall procedure.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I think I hear the noble Lord considering an amendment in Committee on that question. Again, we are open to consideration on all of this.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, tells us that he will reintroduce into our Chamber a revised form of the amendment introduced by my honourable friends David Heath and Julian Huppert. I look forward to that with interest. I have already discussed this with him, although I have to say that, at the moment, neither I nor the Bill team is persuaded that it is a workable additional trigger in its current form.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked about the technical amendments that the Government are introducing and whether that changes the 10-day trigger. The answer is no, they do not change the 10-day trigger. These are purely technical amendments to ensure that the amendments put in in the Commons fit with the language of the Bill. If he wishes to raise the 10-day question in Committee, that is a matter for him.
Qatar: Migrant Workers
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The British Government of course have discussions with FIFA, but, like the International Olympic Committee, this is an autonomous body with which we have a dialogue, but we are unable to give instructions. We support everything that FIFA is doing to try to improve construction issues in relation to the World Cup 2022 and of course we have many other issues relating to the necessary reform of FIFA.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that workers are not allowed to join trade unions in Qatar? If they were, might not some of the problems we are talking about be better dealt with?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the workers charter issued in January refers to including workers’ representatives in forums to discuss labour conditions. I look forward to that being developed.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I want to make just two points in relation to the Bill, as some others that I might have made have already been covered adequately by Members of this House. My first concerns Clauses 21 to 27 and Schedule 7 on public rights of way. I welcome the briefings from the Open Spaces Society and the Ramblers, which I am sure many of us have received. They are basically in support of these clauses, whose purpose is to speed up, streamline and simplify the process for getting the official maps of public paths up to date. At the moment, many of them are not. It is urgent because there is now a cut-off date of 1 January 2026—that seems a long way ahead but we might get there very quickly—which means that if the process has not been completed, any pre-1949 unrecorded routes will be extinguished. That will be damaging for the rights of walkers, riders, cyclists and carriage drivers. I should say that I am a very keen hill walker myself, so I feel close to this issue. These clauses came from Natural England’s stakeholder working group on unrecorded public rights of way, so they represent a consensus by representing the public path users’ body, the landowners, the occupiers and the local authorities. That is a pretty impressive consensus, so I hope that these clauses will go through unamended and unaltered because they represent something very important.
My second point is quite different, and it is really a sin of omission. It concerns Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It is essentially a provision that adversely affects the commercial television companies—that is, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. I should say that I used to be chair of the All-Party Group on ITV and am now the vice-chairman, and I have had very helpful briefings from some of the broadcasters.
To repeal Section 73 would be a clear deregulatory measure. Many representations have been made to the Government, who seem to say two things in reply. The first is that there is ongoing litigation between the public service broadcasters and TV catch-up. This has been going on for some years. In fact it has been going on for such a long time that it is getting to the stage of being like Jarndyce and Jarndyce. In any case, it is not appropriate to wait for ever for litigation that is so prolonged. That is not right. Secondly, Oliver Letwin, a Minister at the Cabinet Office, has said that this Bill is not the right vehicle for such change. My goodness me, those of us who have been around for a long time know that, time and again, Governments have two excuses for opposing things: either an amendment is technically defective—well, I am not amending anything yet—or the Bill is not an appropriate vehicle for such a change. That has been a standard excuse from Governments over the years. Oliver Letwin, after saying that the issue is rather complicated so the Bill is not appropriate, then does the other usual thing, which is to pass the buck. He says, “Try DCMS”. We have now tried the Cabinet Office, DCMS and BIS. Government departments seem to be passing this issue from one to the other. I shall argue in a moment that it is a clear deregulatory measure and that the buck should not be passed any longer—particularly because if nothing happens now, we will be stuck until after the election and heaven knows how long it will take.
Originally, Section 73 had a purpose, but that has gone. The passage of time has eroded it. Indeed, the Bill says that other measures have become obsolete with the passage of time. British television is at the heart of British creative industry. It is vibrant and dynamic and it has great content and global reach. The way in which Section 73 works undermines investment in our commercial television sector and is quite an outdated measure. There is no longer a level playing field. What happens is that what are called third party aggregators, often large companies, take the content for free without payments to those who have created it. That seems quite wrong. The simple fact is that Section 73 is an historic measure, designed effectively to deliver a subsidy from public service broadcasters to encourage cable rollout in the 1980s. That is a long time ago now.
Section 73 prevents public service broadcasters having any form of negotiation for the supply of PSB channels to the cable platform in the UK. There is not even a commercial opportunity for them to negotiate. It is perverse that, for example, PSBs subsidise Virgin Media, which is owned by Liberty Global, a multimillion-pound global TV distribution platform. We have British television companies, some of which are doing fairly well but which are not that affluent, subsidising an enormous global player. If Section 73 were to be repealed, that at least would enable some form of commercial arrangement to be reached on cable transmission but within the overall Communications Act framework. That framework includes the “must offer” obligation of PSB channels to key platforms such as cable and satellite, subject to the agreement of terms.
British television content is the envy of the world and its continued success depends on its ability to get a return on investment. I am in the Labour Party and I am talking about business and so on. This Bill provides an important opportunity to repeal Section 73. I urge the Government not to miss the opportunity to consider amending the Bill to repeal the section. I do not know what we are waiting for. It is not as complicated as the Cabinet Office says. It is fairly straightforward. There has been so much discussion and negotiation. I think we ought to get on with it. It would be best if the Government brought forward their own amendment. I hope the Minister will agree to that, but, if not, I would like the Government at least to accept a Back-Bench amendment on this issue.
House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report
Lord Dubs Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor and Lord Grenfell on the way in which they jointly steered this Labour Peers’ working group forward. I was delighted to be an elected member of that group—elected by my fellow Labour Peers. I am bound to say that my noble friend may have been extremely persuasive in her opening remarks today but, my goodness, she is much more persuasive when she is chairing a committee, and she ensured that we got agreement.
I was happy to support the report, although I should have liked it to go a bit further and I want to develop that in a moment. However, I want to say something about the Clegg Bill, which managed to unite in opposition to it those of us who support an elected Lords and those of us who oppose it. It was quite a political achievement to get all those people on the other side.
Furthermore, in so far as some of us believe in an elected second Chamber, as I passionately do, we believe in it because of accountability to voters. A 15-year term manages to avoid such accountability because once one is elected, one is no longer answerable. So I did not like that 15-year period. There is another argument against that 15-year period that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, advocated, which is this: if people are going to give it 15 years of their lives, they will not be young people. After 15 years, what will they do? How will they get into a career? A 15-year term seems to be recipe for only older people. That is surely the last thing that we want to advocate at this stage. I am against the 15-year term, whether it comes through appointment or election.
The size of the House is getting unmanageable. Let us be clear about that. More people are coming in. When one looks at the figures—and given the number of people who are attending—one can see that it is extremely difficult for this place to function sensibly. If we are to adjust the membership of the Lords after every election, unless there is a way of getting rid of people, there are will be more and more people. The number will rise exponentially.
Lord Dubs
Well, he is a Lib Dem. Anyway, I genuinely believe that the House will become unmanageable if it goes on being made larger and larger. We have to find some way to control its size. That is why we on the working group looked at a retirement age of 80, coupled with people who do not play their part in this House no longer being Members. Those two things have to go together. I still think, even if I have to fall on my own sword, that that is at least one option for reducing the size of the House.
My noble friend mentioned that all First Readings of Bills should be in the Commons, even if half the Second Readings then come here. That would ensure that the Parliament Act would bite on all legislation. As for giving only a delaying power for orders or statutory instruments, that seems sensible. All of us when in opposition have wrestled with disliking an order and not wishing, as an unelected House, to actually kill it; we have all had that difficulty. So a three-month delay period would be sensible.
As for reviewing the role of the Lord Speaker, although this is not a debate about that important role, the way in which Questions work in this House means that those who are more pushy—I hate to call my fellow Peers bullies, but those who act like bullies—push out other noble Lords in getting supplementary questions. That is not satisfactory, and we know that it does not work. We know that some of us are reluctant to push in with supplementaries simply for that reason.
I noted what the right reverend Prelate said about robes. His argument would be that we should wear them all the time—heaven forbid. The problem, as my noble friend said, is that whenever there is a photograph of Members of this House, we are always wearing those robes and we look totally out of date for modern times. Frankly, it is just not a sensible way forward. I should like to add to that the suggestion that we get rid of titles. If one is introduced or if one introduces oneself with a title, the other person—if they are a normal human being—looks at us as if we are complete nerds, or they become entirely deferential. Neither is a sensible way to have a rapport with anybody. It stands in the way of our dealing and engaging with ordinary people.
I put forward one suggestion before without getting much acclaim, which was that anyone who wants to stay in this House should drop the title and, if they want to keep the title, they should retire for good. That would sort out those who say that they keep their titles only because their wives demand it, which I have heard on more than one occasion.
I support the idea of a constitutional commission, provided that it is not a long-grass job and that there is a time limit, because there are too many difficult issues that need to be resolved. I wanted the report to steer the constitutional commission towards working out how best to achieve an elected second Chamber, but I was dissuaded from that by my noble friend on the very sensible grounds that, if we tell a constitutional convention or commission what it should do, it will hardly be able to do its job properly. We would simply be ordering what should happen.
Yes, many hereditary Peers make a fantastic contribution to this House, but I think that the time for having them is over.
I shall just tiptoe on thin ice on the subject of Bishops. I believe that many of them make an enormously useful contribution to this House, but they do it because of the individuals they are. If Bishops are to continue to sit in this House, I should like them to be appointed or elected to it in the same way as everyone else.
I fear that my next comment will offend the right reverend Prelate. He criticised lobbyists. That is fair enough. However, I fear that I shall make a lot of enemies by saying that the only paid lobbyists in this House are the Bishops. That is an anomaly.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I thank the noble Lord for that comment which deserves a response. Bishops do not represent the Church of England in this House but seek to represent some of the feelings in their diocese as a whole. As the right reverend Prelate said, he is in touch with all the communities in Derby. The Bishops are not pursuing the interests of the Church of England alone but also representing other faith communities.
Lord Dubs
I hear what the noble and right reverend Lord says. However, I stick by my point: we took care to avoid having paid lobbyists in this House, and we should ensure that we do not apply that principle selectively. However, as the group said, we should leave that matter to a constitutional commission. This is not a bad report. I welcome it and hope that the House will endorse it.
Courtesy Titles
Lord Dubs Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am much better informed on that issue than I was a week ago. Perhaps I may have forgotten in a week or two’s time.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord might well say that; I could not possibly comment.
Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]
Lord Dubs Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, first, I apologise: I have actually got 16 people for lunch and am meant to be chairing a meeting down in Committee Room G, so I will be jumping in and out a bit.
Even if the Bill does not become law, people will look at it should they wish to produce an equality Bill on titles, so I want to point out some things which need to be considered when rewriting it. The easiest point at which to do this is probably on this amendment. I have some amendments in the second group but I think they are all generically the same—about how you define the titles, how you define a registered title and what gets caught up in that.
I have added my name to several amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, because they are alternatives. With my amendment I have tried—particularly in Amendment 2 and some of the other consequential ones—to define the words “hereditary title” as being,
“hereditary peerage, baronetcy, or other heritable office of the Crown or State”.
That means that all the things we want to include are included in the words “hereditary title”, which means that you do not then need to amend the Long Title or so much of the Bill—you just need to take out the words “hereditary peerage or” and put in the words “hereditary title”.
The current definition of hereditary title, which comes right at the beginning of Clause 1, is too wide. It can catch up certain things that are not titles conferred by Her Majesty the Queen. All sorts of things could be caught up, for instance Scottish clan chiefships, which can devolve separately and differently, and which are regulated by the Court of the Lord Lyon. Therefore I thought it much easier to keep those out of it. In fact, many of the amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, also intend to do the same thing. I thought that an easier way was to define it right at the beginning, so that the term “hereditary title” is restricted in its definition and does not inadvertently catch up all sorts of other honorifics, honorary titles and other things which may be hereditary, such as the hereditary keeper of the something or other, or the hereditary groom of the something or other, and so on. Those can all go on doing what they do, the major titles will be dealt with in the Bill, and then we can put in the equality provisions, to which I have other amendments and for which I will join other noble Lords.
That is why I prefer my Amendment 2, which is the main one, and the other bits, which basically bring it back to hereditary titles. That means that we can leave the term “hereditary title” in the long title of the Bill without having to change it, because it is dealt with immediately later on. I apologise again because I will have to pop in and out, and I will speak as briefly as possible.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I am not sure that I am capable of following all the subtleties of those contributions. I am not sure where the argument about the Labour Party comes from. As far as I am concerned, it is very simple, although I cannot speak officially for the Labour Party. We are, simply, opposed to discrimination on the grounds of gender, as the noble Baroness said a few minutes ago. That is all there is to it; surely that proposition is so simple. Of course the Bill will get blocked in the Commons. If any noble Lords have nothing to do on a Friday afternoon at 2.30 pm when the Commons is sitting, you will see the government Whip with a list of all the Bills, and he shouts “Object” to all of them. Last Friday he even objected to the Bill to give a pardon to Alan Turing. I thought that that was absolutely shameful. This House totally agreed that that Bill should go forward. That happened for reasons that the Government do not have to explain. The procedure in the Commons is absolutely lacking in total transparency. I will not digress too much on this, but it is quite wrong that an anonymous person—it happens that one can see that it is a government Whip—objects to all of those Bills. To object to the Alan Turing Bill was a really shabby thing and the Government should be ashamed of that.
To return to this Bill, the proposition is very simple. I do not speak for the Labour Party, but we are opposed to discrimination on the grounds of gender. I do not have any particular views on the rights of the aristocracy in any other respect, but the proposition is absolutely simple. If the Bill were to go through quickly, the Government might object, but it would send a signal in the hope that before too long, the Government will themselves take the matter in hand and do something about it.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
I came into this debate believing that a vow of omerta would probably be the best approach, and I intend to stick to that. However, I wanted to upset the noble Earl on his happy day. I am afraid that as my noble friend Lord Dubs just said, he is confusing several things. The position that we have adopted is as stated by my noble friend Lord Dubs: in relation to the way in which titles are transferred we believe in equality and we will support that. We do not believe in the hereditary principle, therefore his continuous presence in this House is something we would oppose.