Proposed Changes to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I do not wish to repeat the arguments that were put in the debate last Thursday which was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, or indeed in the debate on Friday when we discussed the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. However, the Motion proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is a very sensible one. It is of course a matter for the House of Commons whether it wants to have a Joint Committee but it is also a matter for the Government to provide a lead on what is becoming a highly complex series of interconnected issues.

If, for example, we are to keep the Barnett formula and have English votes for English laws, as it is dubbed, that will have an impact when we come to discuss the Scotland Bill which is before the House of Commons. I wonder what the problem is here that EVEL is trying to solve. I have had a look at the Bills promised in the Queen’s Speech, and only one of them could conceivably be affected by EVEL. That is a buses Bill which gives local mayors—in Manchester, Birmingham or wherever else—the power to run the buses. If I amend that Bill when it comes to this House to include provosts in Scotland, despite it having already been certified as an English Bill, it will go back to the House of Commons as a United Kingdom Bill. There will be no opportunity for the House of Commons to consider the amended Bill in Committee; instead it will be subject to a double vote: one of English MPs and one of the House as a whole.

On Thursday, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, my noble friend the Leader of the House said:

“English MPs cannot overrule the whole House and the whole House cannot overrule English MPs; neither side can force something through without the consent of the other”.—[Official Report, 16/7/15; col. 764.]

That is not the case here. What is happening is that English MPs are being given a veto, which is not what my noble friend described. This is the concern that is being created.

I was talking to a colleague from the other end of the building the other day who said, “We have to have EVEL—look what they have done to us on foxes”. EVEL would make no difference whatever to any vote on foxes, whereas, as my noble friend and others have suggested, reducing the number of Scottish MPs would have an impact on such a vote.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, referred to one thing which really exercises me: at the very last moment, on the revised version, it was made clear that EVEL would apply to finance Bills. Income tax must be about 20% of a Government’s revenue, and that change would mean that a Labour Government, who would perhaps have a majority in the country, would have to have a majority in England in order to get their supply through.

When I was a little boy at school, I was told that the House of Commons was there because it enabled Government to get supply and the consent of the people, and that if a Government could not get supply then it folded. We already have five-year Parliaments and bigger majorities than simple majorities. Now we are adding to that. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, is absolutely right that all these issues must be looked at together so that we have a long-term, stable basis on which to go forward.

On the question of stability, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, also pointed out that the commitment made by William Hague in the last Parliament was that this would be put on a statutory and therefore permanent basis. Amending Standing Orders means that the moment you lose a majority in the House of Commons somebody else can go along and add their version of it. It is not a permanent solution to the problem with which our manifesto was concerned: that we must do something about the fact that we have devolved power to Scotland and English MPs are not able to vote on those issues while Scottish MPs are able to vote on the others.

I hesitate to disagree with my noble friend Lord Wakeham, particularly as it is his 30th wedding anniversary today and he was my former Whip. I have always shown great deference to Whips. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, as Cabinet Secretary was, as I said on Friday, the next thing to God as far as I was concerned when a Minister. Yet Gladstone wrestled with this issue: the whole debate was about “in” and “out”. In the end, they tried all this with Irish votes for Irish laws, British votes for British laws and the rest—and they gave it up. They concluded that the right thing to do was to keep a United Kingdom Parliament and reduce the number of MPs commensurate with the amount being devolved. We have done this for years—we did it with Ulster. When there was more power here, when we had direct rule, they had more Members in the House of Commons Chamber. That works. It has even worked with Scotland. Even Alex Salmond in the last Parliament accepted that there would have to be a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs if there were to be more powers. That is what this very building will discuss over the next period.

The other thing I was taught as a little boy was that constitutional changes to the golf club or anywhere else should be done by consensus. You should not do something that gets one group against you as they will then do that to you when they get the chance. That is why a Joint Committee would be a good opportunity to get consensus. To be fair to the Labour Party, I nearly fell off my chair the other day when listening to the spokesman for the Labour Party in Scotland—their sole MP in Scotland; like us, the party is now outnumbered in Scotland. He said that Labour accepted in principle the question of English votes for English laws. If we agree the principle, then a Joint Committee might be able to get something permanent which will not damage Parliament or help the nationalists—who are making hay. A recent poll in Scotland found that a majority of people had no idea what the Smith commission was about or what the new powers being given to Scotland were but at the same time a big majority felt that those powers did not go far enough. This is what happens if you proceed in a piecemeal manner and move forward on the basis of pressure rather than a coherent, constructive approach.

I am attracted to this idea because the Government have set their face against a constitutional convention. That is unfortunate but when I listened to the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and all the things he would have put into his constitutional convention—it was all to be decided within a year—I began to see the Government’s point of view. If you are to have a constitutional convention, the terms of reference should be narrow and the timescale set. The Government set their face against that. A Joint Committee is an alternative that would enable them to keep control.

In the debate on Thursday, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, pretty well said that if the Government do not set up the constitutional convention others will and they will have the resources. We made a big mistake in Scotland not in opposing devolution—we said it would lead to this mess—but in refusing to participate in the constitutional convention. We were not there to make the arguments about the asymmetry that led to this difficulty. We should not repeat that mistake.

When I was a youngster, I used to work in my father’s garage. He once asked me to strip down an engine and put it back together again. I did that but I was left with one bolt at the end, so I had to do it all over again. The Government are in danger of being left with more than one bolt. We need an engine that will take our country forward. I strongly support the noble Lord’s Motion.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, it would be perverse of me not to say that I have every sympathy with English votes for English laws. After all, I want Welsh votes for Welsh laws, and on that basis quite clearly the same should apply for England. However, with regard to the provisions being put forward by the Government, there are questions relating to Wales that have just not been answered. The most fundamental question has to do with the financial implications of the Barnett formula. We had Acts in the last Parliament that were supposed to be England-only, such as the Health and Social Care Act 2012. We are told that 99% of health is totally devolved, yet that Act had a negative effect of £11 million on my local health authority. Because of the way the Barnett formula works, issues arise with regard to cross-border communications between Wales and England.

Quite frankly, these proposals do not start to answer the fundamental questions. If we accept that there will not be independence for Scotland or Wales, certainly within this Parliament, what stable, ongoing constitutional settlement will be able to meet the reasonable aspirations of people in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but also deliver the English votes for English laws proposal that the Government have in their manifesto? One needs to get the answer right in the long term, not just apply bits of sticking plaster. I am quite prepared to look at any proposals that the Government put forward to move in the right direction on this, but I beg that the Government, and indeed all parties, try to find that long-term stable solution, rather than short-term expediency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

The noble Countess is the first Member of this House ever to have criticised me for addressing her. I do apologise.

I raise that point because there are very difficult issues that need to be addressed, and the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition has made it clear that the Labour Party also recognises that. These issues have tested Governments over many years, as my noble friend Lord Wakeham said; we all remember Tam Dalyell and his problems with the West Lothian question.

The Government have put forward some proposals. If noble Lords study Mr Grayling’s speech and the interventions he took when the Commons debated this issue recently, they will see that the Government have recognised that these proposals are subject to further revision; however, they do ensure that something is in place for the forthcoming year. If we have a Standing Joint Committee that, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, has to report by March 2016, that report will then have to be considered. One can therefore write off the next Session of Parliament—nothing will change until the next Summer Recess. It would be sensible to see what problems emerge from the Government’s proposals.

As the Leader of the Commons has made clear, what we are proposing is likely to come forward for approval there in September, and he has asked the Chairmen of the Commons Procedure Committee, and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, to start monitoring the situation now, rather than waiting until May 2016, as my noble friend suggested, to see where the problems arise.

The advantage with Standing Order changes, as opposed to going down the statutory route at this stage, is that if issues arise they can be tackled much more quickly. I do not rule out that at the end of this very difficult process, when perhaps by trial and error we have found the right basis on which to proceed, things could then be put on a statutory basis. That would meet the point that my noble friend Lord Forsyth made about the difficulties arising from a different Government coming in and changing everything. That is one approach that could be adopted.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Can my noble friend give an example of legislation that would be altered in any way if EVEL were not in place in the next Session, or if it were in place? Of course, if this is put on a statutory basis, it is then challengeable through the courts.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My noble friend has done the same homework, in a sense, as Mr Grayling, who made this point. He said that the only Bill that anyone could find at the moment that might be affected would be the one giving mayors powers over buses. I think that it would be something short of a constitutional crisis if someone suggested that one more provost should have a bus pass. Therefore, problems will arise, as I think everybody recognises.

My noble friend Lord Cormack asked why the Constitution Committee of this House should not do something about this so that this House is seen to act now. I made some inquiries about that and the answer I got was that it has been the long-established practice of the Constitution Committee of this House not to interfere with the procedural arrangements of the House of Commons—it has regarded that as being outside its remit.

The noble Lord, Lord Butler, has avoided part of the problem by talking about a Joint Committee. However, we have to be careful how we exercise the undoubted power that we have in this House. There is an obvious sensitivity around this issue which, as we know, is felt strongly in English constituencies. The Government’s approach has been to say that we will probably carry the Standing Orders through in September. We will then take the opportunity that the Leader of the House has given us for a debate, and watch the issue very carefully. I hope that the noble Lords who have strong feelings on this matter will give evidence to the Procedure Committee and to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Commons when it considers the procedure.

The problem is in aligning the reluctance to interfere with the procedures of another place, which are its prerogative, with an acknowledgement of the experience of your Lordships’ House that can be brought to bear in a number of fields. I hope very much that this can be resolved. We all know that this is a difficult issue, but I hope that it can be approached sensibly and without producing conflict between this House and another place.