Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Friday 11th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I am very sorry that the noble Lord no longer speaks in an official capacity on the Liberal Front Bench. I do not know whether he has been demoted or has voluntarily moved to the Back Benches or is moonlighting; I am not quite sure what the position is. It is a novel concept from the Lib Dems—I can understand in the light of the recent general election why they may need the odd novel concept—to say that for them it is a reactionary position to respect the views of the British people as expressed in a referendum. I regard that as a very progressive position. Although I do not mind in the slightest being accused of being a reactionary on the constitution from time to time, it might be at least reassuring if we heard occasionally from the Liberal Democrat Benches, whether officially or unofficially, that they do respect the wishes of two-thirds of the British people in a nationwide referendum.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I did speak at Second Reading. The main point I made was that I thought the Bill was far too ambitious. I am very disappointed to see that the terms of reference in Clause 2 remain pretty well as they were at Second Reading, although I thought the noble Lord said that he would consider the fact that there might be quite a lot to do.

The Economic Affairs Committee of this House spent four months looking at the single issue of the financial consequences of devolution in the United Kingdom and produced an excellent report, which has had quite an impact in Scotland and beyond in making people aware that it is necessary to agree and know the fiscal framework before you set in place further structures of devolution. I do not quite know how it would be possible for this constitutional convention not only to consider,

“the devolution of legislative and fiscal competence to and within Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland”,

but deal with,

“the devolution of legislative and fiscal competence to local authorities within the United Kingdom”,

and,

“the reform of the electoral system”,

and,

“the reform of the House of Lords”,

which we have spent more than 100 years discussing. Furthermore, I looked for the kitchen sink, and the kitchen sink is there, described as,

“constitutional matters to be considered in further conventions, and … procedures to govern the consideration and implementation of any future constitutional reforms”.

The convention has to do all this within a year. It is ridiculous.

Who will do this? The convention will be composed of representatives from,

“registered political parties within the United Kingdom”.

I think there are about 600 registered political parties in the United Kingdom, a point that was made very eloquently by my noble friend in winding up at Second Reading, but that is what we are still left with in Clause 4, along with representatives of “local authorities” and,

“the nations and regions of the United Kingdom”.

In addition:

“At least 50% of the members of the convention must not be employed in a role which can reasonably be considered to be political”.

First, finding such people might be difficult. Secondly, there is the experience that we have had with the Smith commission. One has only to read the Committee debate so far on the Scotland Bill to see the mess you get into when you have a group of people working out what they would like to happen without advice and without the ability to translate that into legislation.

It is also quite an impertinence to suggest that issues relating to reform of the House of Lords are matters that should be decided outside this House and outside Parliament. The noble Lord chuckles, but it would be extremely difficult for people to be educated on and understand the procedures of this House and achieve everything within a year. Although I very strongly support the idea of a constitutional convention with the limited purpose of sorting out the mess that we have brought ourselves into because of piecemeal constitutional reform, we have already determined what we think about House of Lords reform. We spent a large slice of the last Parliament discussing it. As for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I have always thought of him as a radical and not a conservative, but a radical with common sense, intellect and a practical frame of mind.

It just seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is putting forward a Bill that will discredit the idea of having a constitutional convention and make it very easy for those of us who support having one to be brushed aside by the Government on the basis that what is being proposed in the Bill is unrealistic. I very much hope that Clause 2 does not stand part of the Bill as drafted. If it does, the Bill will have to be consigned to the wastepaper bin, for it does not offer a way forward on determining our constitutional arrangements.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the first two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. It was very striking in our Scotland Bill debate how general is the consensus in this House on the need for a convention and how general is the concern that proceeding piecemeal is a very bad idea. It has got us into a lot of trouble.

I oppose Amendment 1, which I think is what we are trying to do. I am against Amendment 1—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

We are discussing Clause 2.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

The stand part debate? Very good. I support the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, has put forward, and congratulate him on doing it. I agree with the principle of it, but I do not agree at all with Clause 2, which seems far too long and detailed. We need to stop, reflect and think about principles. We need to start with a long period of reflection. I am also against Clause 3, which sets a timetable. Like the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I do not think it a timetable that could possibly work.

I was secretary-general of a convention which sat for 16 months, with four or five months of reflection, four or five months of working groups and then a drafting session at the end. We were overambitious and tried to do too much, and then were shut down by the Governments, who refused to extend our timetable. These were both mistakes. The idea of a period of reflection—which was President Giscard’s idea to begin with—was a very good one. That is how conventions should start. Clause 2 is overprescriptive in setting out the tasks that the convention should attempt—we are overdefining here.

My terms of reference would be very simple: “The convention must consider the governance of the kingdom, the relationships between its constituent parts and appropriate devolution of legislative and fiscal competence”. I would go back to principles. I do not think it a good idea to consider devolution to local authorities, as Clause 2(b) suggests. That is a secondary issue, and there is no reason in my view why there should be absolutely standardised devolution to local authorities across the kingdom as a whole. It could vary in the constituent parts.

On reform of the electoral system, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said. It seems to me that there is no longer a single electoral system: there are a lot of electoral systems. I have no reason to think there should be a standardised electoral system. It is not necessary for the system for local elections in Scotland to be exactly the same as that for local elections in England, for example—if such was the agreement of a convention starting from principles, Parliament should be invited to devolve generally.

I absolutely do not think that reform of the House of Lords is appropriate to a convention that is looking at principles. The composition of the House of Lords should be a function of the House of Lords: one needs to decide what the House of Lords is for. A constitutional convention ought to fetch up consideration of what cements the union—what are the appropriate ways of holding the union together? In my view, there is a considerable role for the House of Lords in that. But it would be a mistake to consider reforming the House of Lords at the same time as examining the fundamental principles, before you have reported back to Parliament and the country about those principles and discovered whether they are to some extent acceptable. There is too much bottom-up in here. We need to start with thinking about general principles, rather than getting into too much detail.

--- Later in debate ---

I found the debate this week extremely painful, because it was not clear to me that the Government understood what was wrong with the Bill. I was very sad to see the Opposition Front Bench take exactly the same position—that because it is in the Smith commission, it must be there in exactly these words. It seems that the words of the Sewel convention may not be changed; they must be written into the Bill, even though we all know that if you make what is normal—the “normally” in the wording of the Sewel convention—justiciable you set yourself up for endless debate and difficulty. We need to go back to principles. We need to get out of this habit of making it up on the hoof and then trying to adjust the statute book to match it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Did the noble Lord notice that this very week, the Scottish Parliament sought to argue that the Sewel convention would apply to the Trade Union Bill? The Presiding Officer took the view that it would not but the First Minister indicated that she plans to have a word with the Prime Minister about this, arguing that because there are trade unions in Scotland, there is a Scottish dimension and therefore there should be some kind of legislative consent procedure. Does that not underline how important it is to define what is meant by the Sewel convention and to have legislation that is clear?

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and look forward to agreeing with him again on Monday when the issue for debate is financial privilege.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I concur with and emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the need for this convention. I will not go through that—others made the point much more strongly than I could. I just want to make sure that that is clearly on record.

On the second issue, electoral reform, I think my noble friend Lord Grocott misunderstood whom he was addressing. He obviously thought he was addressing the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, but he will recall that there was another “Lord Wallace” in the Government before the election, and that he was in favour of this House moving to reflect the votes at the last general election—at which the Liberal Democrats got some 8%. Obviously, the fact that my noble friend thinks that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has moved is simply because it is a quite different Lord Wallace.

The only other issue is a serious one, touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the one bit of electoral reform that I hope will be considered very considerably: the votes of 16 and 17 year-olds. It seems the Government will play games over whether it is a financial measure, but if this House cannot, along with 16 and 17 year-olds who put their opinions forward, take a view on that, then I want—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Surely the noble Baroness would accept that this matter was decided by the clerk in the other place and not by the Government.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Indeed, but I understand that the Government were very happy to overturn the votes of this House, which decided that 16 and 17 year-olds should be able to vote in the referendum. There are bits of the electoral system that are worth looking at, if only because the Government seem unable to hear either the will of this House or the views of 16 and 17 year-olds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

On the point about the scope of Clause 2, will the noble Lord tell the House how many hours and how many meetings he anticipates would be required to cover this ground within a year?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

I cannot set that. Legislation cannot set that. Legislation can set what is a reasonable time for these areas to be considered, the political imperative about why they should be considered within 12 months and that the Government should report on them. Fundamentally, we should be going into the next UK general election with more consensus about the constitutional future of our union rather than with it fractured into a piecemeal approach. My noble friend Lord Steel called it a guddle; we will be having five years of guddle. A convention can consider these aspects within 12 months, and it is reasonable that a Government should have a timeframe in which to respond.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

We can follow two models. It can be very short, like the Smith commission, which perhaps on reflection has been too short and has not considered the wider view of the people, or it can be like the Airports Commission. I would not use the Airports Commission as the model for the constitutional convention. We can do better, and I hope the Government agree on that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, tabled an amendment to the Scotland Bill for a convention to review the Bill, but it was late in the day, so he did not move it. I am pleased to see that the wind is back in his sails today at an earlier hour. If we are to have a convention, and it is to be citizen-led, it is not in any way an impertinence, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, for the people of this country to consider what this second House does in Parliament. It is not an impertinence to involve the people of our country in considering a revising Chamber’s role and how its functions should be set.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I did not plan to interrupt again, but as the noble Lord referred to me, what I said would be an impertinence was for an outside body to tell us how our rules and procedures should operate. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made the correct point. The constitutional convention should look at the high level—at the role and function of the House. Procedures are a matter for this House.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

There is nothing in Clause 2 that would prevent that. On that point of broad consensus—