Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2012

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I do not know whether this is in order, but if it is I would like to do it. My noble friend should know that concern about this matter is not confined to the other side of the House. I also think that, notwithstanding what has just been said or what the previous Government may or may not have done in 2006, this raises real questions about the relationship in practice as it has existed over many years between the two Houses of Parliament. I think that we are entitled to an opportunity to hear a Statement and ask questions about just where that relationship is now going.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am prompted to stand because of the reference to the Cunningham committee on conventions. I simply put this serious question to the Leader of the House. I recognise the great difficulty at times—which was expressed in the length of his answer—in interpreting financial privilege, and the difficulty that he has in convincing Members of the House, including Members on his own side about if and when it should be applied. But can the noble Lord imagine himself telling 300 elected senators that matters such as benefits received by cancer patients or for disabled children were none of their business whatever and if any of their constituents raised any of those issues with them, as constituents inevitably would, they would have to explain that there was nothing they could sensibly do because it was not within their powers?

His position in trying to justify and hold that line would be quite impossible. Clause 2 of the draft Bill as it stands, which still insists that there will be no change in the conventions between the two Houses in the event of an elected House, is absolute nonsense. I therefore just put it to him as I did in perhaps less impassioned terms yesterday, that this is really an issue that the committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Richard must examine before it reports and advises the two Houses of Parliament.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, I support very strongly my noble friend Lord Newton's point. While the House of Commons is perfectly entitled to claim privilege, it is not compelled to do so. The constitution of this country operates by conventions. It is one of the conventions of the constitution that this is evoked very sparingly and on rare occasions. For it to be invoked promiscuously is completely contrary to the conventions of the constitution. This raises serious issues and the House of Commons would be wise to think again.

Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his kind invitation for some procedural advice. We will be dealing with the Welfare Reform Bill when it comes back from another place. I should say that matters for privilege are not a matter for the Government but a matter for the House of Commons and the Speaker of the House of Commons on advice from his clerks. The position of privilege has of course been jealously guarded by the House of Commons since 1671. It is well precedented and there is nothing unusual, although the second Chamber might always think that the Commons using financial privilege is a little unfair.

We will get to that Bill in due course. I cannot comment on the Health and Social Care Bill, which is of course the subject of the Motion before us now, as to what the Government’s attitude will be on defeats. But, as I said earlier, there is nothing unusual about financial privilege being prayed in aid. Since there are many former Members of another place present in this House I am sure that they will readily understand.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the Leader of the House has given us a proper and guarded answer to quite a difficult question. However, does he not agree that this encapsulates the kind of problem which needs to be resolved before we have a directly elected second Chamber? It goes to the heart of one of the issues that has been accepted as the norm by both Houses for many decades but which would undoubtedly be challenged time and again in the event of a directly elected House. I do not expect the noble Lord to give an immediate answer now—he will give a guarded response—but can I try to be helpful and suggest that this is the kind of issue which the committee of my noble friend Lord Richard should look at, and that that may involve an extension of the period of time the committee needs to consider it? But it is clearly issues like this—alongside, in relation to an Oral Question taken earlier, issues like the impact of a referendum in Scotland—which need to be considered by the Joint Committee before we proceed any further.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, before the House approves the Motion, perhaps I may ask the noble Earl, Lord Howe, a question about the risk register appeal, because we now have some dates that change the debate. I understand that the Report stage is to begin on 8 February and that it is expected to complete by somewhere around the middle of February.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest estimate of the cost of running a reformed House of Lords in the first transitional year of its operation.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the costs of a reformed House will depend on a number of variables. In particular, both the net cost and total cost of salaries and allowances will depend on the transitional arrangements and the number of Members. We intend to consider the views of the Joint Committee before finalising our proposals for the reform of this House.

[Lord Grocott]

With respect to the Leader, that is not the most satisfying response I have had to a Question. I find it particularly odd that we have no figures when Governments of all persuasions manage to tell us how much an aircraft carrier will cost but cannot workout what 300 senators will cost. It is particularly unsatisfactory because the Deputy Prime Minister has already announced to the country that his flagship Bill in the next Session, announced ahead of the Queen’s Speech, will be a Lords reform Bill. He has apparently done this without having the faintest idea of what his project will cost. I hope that I might therefore ask the Leader, on behalf of the House, to speak to the Deputy Prime Minister and ask him please to give us the detailed costings with all those variables, which he must have. If he does not give us an answer, the suspicion will be that he knows it will cost a lot more than the present House and he is simply too embarrassed to tell us.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am sorry if I disappointed the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. It may have been in his estimation an unsatisfactory reply, but that does not stop it being true. The fact is that the Government have not made a final decision on the arrangements for the House, particularly on the transitional arrangements or the size of the House. There is a process of pre-legislative scrutiny continuing under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and until that process is over we will not be able to come up with these figures. However, as is perfectly normal, if a Bill is published after the Queen’s Speech in the next Session of Parliament, it will include a financial memorandum with a detailed breakdown of the costs of a new House.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I really do not think that that is the way to impress either the Prime Minister or his Deputy.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, what in the estimation of the noble Lord the Leader of the House adds greater value to our political system: the House of Lords in its present form or the Deputy Prime Minister?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, both.

European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Republic of Korea Framework Agreement) Order 2012

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, we are being asked to approve en bloc 11 Motions relating to individual cities in the United Kingdom and to agree that they should be sent to Grand Committee. I will certainly not go into the merits of directly elected mayors. Although I am opposed to them, obviously I acknowledge that they were introduced under the previous Government. Surely the fact that it is the Leader who is proposing that the orders should go to Grand Committee—that is relatively unusual; it would normally come from the departmental Minister—is an acknowledgement of what I believe to be the case: namely, that this is a fairly significant constitutional change affecting the way in which our country is run. Eleven major cities are to hold referenda on the future structure of their local government. That alone ought to justify my request that the usual channels consider whether it is proper that this should be debated in Grand Committee or whether constitutional issues of this sort should be debated on the Floor of the House.

Individually, the orders may not be of tremendous interest to all noble Lords across the House; but collectively, all the cities represent a big proportion of the population of the country. In terms of public expenditure at this time, I would imagine that if I knocked on 100 doors in the West Midlands, where I live, and asked people whether it was a good idea to spend a fair bit of money on a referendum on the structure of their local government, the answer would probably be a universal no. We should air these issues on the Floor of the House and not in Grand Committee, and I appeal to the noble Lord to reconsider this. I am not asking noble Lords to vote on it, but perhaps the noble Lord would reconsider it in the spirit of Christmas that we keep referring to. Could he just once say yes to me?

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, why are the Government so keen on all these referendums on the comparatively minor matter of who becomes the mayor in these cities while they refuse a referendum on the far greater issue of whether we stay in the clutches of the corrupt octopus in Brussels or leave them?

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, asked for an explanation. The Joint Committee has been meeting regularly and is considering this Bill in a full and detailed way. It is being given full and detailed consideration. All I am saying is that we need another month to continue with that full and detailed consideration, at the end of which we will no doubt produce a report.

[Lord Grocott]

Following that comment, will the noble Lord the Leader of the House make it clear that, should the Joint Committee find that it cannot reach a conclusion by the new date that has been set—many of us anticipated that that would be the case when it was set up—the timetable under which it operates will not be determined by what is required for the Queen’s Speech, the date of which has still not been announced? In particular, can he tell the House—I cannot recall this ever happening before—whether the second most important Minister in the country has announced the Government’s flagship policy for the next Queen’s Speech even before the date when that speech should take place has been determined? In order to regain propriety, rather than following what seems to be a make-it-up-as-you-go-along policy, and having told us the most important content of the next Queen’s Speech—in the Government’s estimation, not mine—will the Leader of the House help us by at least giving us the relevant date?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is always nice to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is the guardian of the Government’s conscience. I can assure him that my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister is not the first keen Minister to wish to pre-empt Queen’s Speeches and make sure that there is a clear case for his Bill, nor will he be the last. The date of the end of this Session, and therefore the date of the beginning of the next Session, will be announced a few weeks before in the normal way, following well-worn precedent. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, spoke extremely eloquently a minute ago. No doubt he and his committee came up with the date of the end of March because they believed that it would be possible to achieve that date. I am sure that Members of the committee will hear this debate and will have seen what was in the papers yesterday. I very much hope that we will not need to extend any longer the time that we have to wait for this report.

Business of the House

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is very much subject to the progress of business. As to the quality of legislation, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I wonder whether it would be helpful to the House if, rather than explaining the context in which Sir George Young made his Statement in the other House, we actually repeated the words that he used. He said:

“I made a statement, I think, last year on the fact that the Queen’s Speech will be held in May to coincide with the fixed election dates of every five years”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/11; col. 454.]

That promise—and I think that I can put it in those terms—was repeated endlessly during the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill by, I think, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I even put down an amendment to try to ensure that there would be a fixed date for the Queen. Given the Government’s obsession with fixed-term Parliaments—which I oppose, but the Bill has been passed—there should be fixed Sessions. Surely there is a logic to that. Frankly, if the Queen’s Speech is not in May of next year, it will be very close to breaking faith with the clear undertakings given during the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. I therefore ask the Leader to do more than just consult his colleague down at the other end—perhaps they should try to get their acts together.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, we will make an announcement in the first part of next year about when the actual date will be, and we are very happy to stick with spring. It is true that this Session has been very long, for reasons which I think will be readily understood. However, we believe that from the start of the next Session, we will go towards annual Sessions that will aim to finish around April or May.

Legislation

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

I think that it is the turn of the Cross Benches—the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar.

Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, I want to make a very short intervention because everything I have on my notes has been said by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, so really there is little more to say but this. The question is: are we to retain a self-regulating Chamber? If so, why dabble with the concept of opening a gateway that can never be closed? To what end and where is the justification for it?

Last night I read the official reports on this. There is not a shred of evidence to support proposal 1. Whatever was said about the Leader of the House and the Convenor of the Cross Benches, it forgot to mention the interests of the spiritual Benches. They are all the people who will decide what to do; they have the authority. You cannot land this job on a Speaker who does not have the authority and should never have it. I am not criticising any person or Speaker; I am talking about how the House should be run. It should be run by the arrangement of consultation that was referred to by my noble friend Lord Wakeham.

The last thing is that this is a question of crucial importance which also relates to other outside concepts that would have to be considered in legislation. It is quite wrong that we should now, without justification or evidence simply to please some concepts, do away with the maintenance of self-regulation of the House. It is the same sort of problem that we will have later on with retention of the ethos of the House.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I know the concerns that are being expressed principally, although not exclusively, on the other side of the House. They basically imply that we are in danger of ending up with a situation like that of the Commons Speaker. I sympathise with those concerns. We do not want a Speaker in the sense of someone who has to adjudicate constantly on points of order and decide on balance whether difficult issues should be debated and so on. We do not want to go in that direction for all sorts of reasons which I think are well understood. However, I strongly support the proposal because I do not think there is any risk whatever of that happening under this change.

Indeed, I would offer as a kind of reassurance to those opposite that all these kinds of anxieties were expressed five years ago when the Speakership in its present form was established in this House. It was pretty vehemently opposed in all sorts of ways, while all sorts of forebodings were expressed as to what it would result in. I put it to the House that those forebodings have simply not been fulfilled. The Speakership has worked extremely well. I think that should be of some reassurance to those who feel that something serious, even cataclysmic, will happen if we support this proposal.

My main concern for wanting to be assured that this proposal will go through, and why I support it, is the issue that has not been mentioned. We are here to serve the public and part of that is for our procedures to be intelligible. Let us leave aside the term “self-regulation” at the moment—if there is regulation in any debate or at Question Time, it comes spasmodically from the government Front Bench. That is totally unsatisfactory for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and for the practical reasons given by my good and noble friend Lord Rooker that you physically cannot see. In no Chamber anywhere on this planet or at any time in this planet’s history has the person responsible for order had half the audience sitting behind them. We are an absolute one-off on that, which is the position that we are in at the moment.

I simply put it to the House that we should do as every other representative organisation that I, or I guess anyone else in this Chamber, have ever had any experience of by having the person with a kind of responsibility for easing things along sitting in the centre and at the front—so far as there is a front here—of the audience, which would make it immediately intelligible to people watching in this Chamber or on television. It is such a minimal change. It does not advocate any new powers; it simply says that the power should be transferred from somewhere that—let us be blunt—does not operate that wonderfully at present. I defy anyone to say that it is a model in how it operates at present that others should follow. It is a small change in the right direction without any fear that has been expressed or any likelihood of being justified in the exercise. I urge the House to support this unanimous proposal from a committee on which I was very proud to serve. It was a very diligent committee that took evidence from everywhere across the House, and we should let this proposal go forward.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I suppose that all of us come to these matters very much with our own experience, so it is perhaps no great surprise that a very distinguished Leader of your Lordships’ House should take the view that things should stay with the Leader, and a very distinguished lady who was Speaker in another place should feel that the Speaker is the more appropriate person. I therefore confess to having a good deal of sympathy for what the noble Baroness said, as I found myself in that situation some time ago.

Of course, the way in which one conducts oneself as a Speaker is not identical in different Chambers. Whatever the sense of authority might be in the other place, in the place in which I served there was the idea that the Speaker should exercise authority over some of the Members of that place rather than facilitate and persuade them. I need only state that idea for noble Lords to understand my point. In fact, I took as my guide Speaker Lenthall, who when confronted by the monarch and asked to identify Members of the other place said that he had neither eyes to see nor lips to speak other than the House gave to him.

That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about an end of self-regulation because we are not talking about new powers for anybody. We are simply talking about an element of the responsibility that lies currently with the Leader of the House to be taken not by the Leader but by the Lord Speaker, who has been elected by noble Lords. It is not a change to the procedures, the authority or responsibilities. It is simply that a different person undertakes those responsibilities on behalf of the House and in sympathy with the House—not exercising authority over the House.

We should not think of this as an end of self-regulation or even a change to self-regulation. This is simply a question as to who is the most suitable person and in the most suitable place to undertake this. I have no criticism of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who conducts himself with great decorum and a good deal of subtlety and has helped us through the difficult expansion of our numbers and the pressure on the work of the House. I must say, however, that there are some points of difficulty in our work, particularly at Question Time.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of their proposals for a reformed House of Lords of 300 Members, what they regard as an appropriate size for the House of Lords in the interim.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the Government’s policy is to work towards securing in the House of Lords a better reflection of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the previous general election, as proposed in the coalition agreement.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I really am sorry that the Leader of the House is unable to give a more specific Answer to the Question, because I am sure he acknowledges and understands, as I do, that there is a very widespread view right across this House, in all parties and in all parts of the House, that the present total membership of 826 and record daily attendances are getting us close to the point where the House is unsustainable. I appeal to him, given that he has frequently told us, in opposition and in government, that his job as Leader is not just to speak, as he quite rightly does, for the Government, but also to speak on behalf of the whole House. I therefore put it to him that he should say to his colleagues in government that until such time as there is an agreed process for reducing the numbers of people in this House, there should be no further wholesale intake of Peers.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am not at all surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, should come up with that. After all, the Labour Party is the largest party in the House of Lords, and I quite understand the political imperative to preserve that position. Since May 2010, 119 new Peers have been made up to this House, and nearly half of them were Labour Peers. The Government reserve the right, as the previous Government did, from time to time to refresh the Benches in the House of Lords. On the question of size, we now have a system of permanent retirement, and if any Peers are so discombobulated by the size of the House, they should immediately go to the Library, write their resignation and send it to the Clerk of the Parliaments.