Role of the Lord Speaker

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask the Leader of the House what plans she has to initiate a review of the role of the Lord Speaker.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, almost 11 years ago, in June 2006, the House of Lords took what was considered at the time to be a quite dramatic, almost revolutionary step. Despite considerable opposition, the House decided to elect its own presiding officer: the Lord Speaker. Prior to that, the person sitting on the Woolsack had been a senior member of the Cabinet, appointed by the Prime Minister. When you think about it, it is astonishing that a legislative assembly, the House of Lords, should have had so many of its Members preferring to have a member of the Government as its figurehead rather than someone who the Members themselves could elect—almost as odd, you might think, as having by-elections to elect hereditary Peers.

I mention this bit of history for two reasons. First, I want to remind everyone that yesterday’s revolutionary suggestion soon becomes today’s accepted practice. I do not know of any Member of this House today who is suggesting that we should replace the Lord Speaker with a senior member of the Cabinet. Secondly, the strong opposition at the time explains why the newly elected Speaker was given the bare minimum of powers, reflecting the views of so many Members that we were embarking on such a risky new venture. In fact, I kid you not, when one of the candidates in the first Speaker’s election was asked what he planned to do with the role, he replied, “As little as possible”.

In keeping with the caution of this Chamber, I am suggesting two small changes to the role of the Speaker which I believe would improve both the efficiency of the House and the intelligibility to the public of the way in which we conduct our affairs. The first relates to Question Time. In 2011 the then Leader’s Group on Working Practices produced its report. On Question Time it had this to say:

“The conduct of oral questions is the topic which, to judge by the responses to our invitation for views, concerns Members of the House more than any other … When the political character of question time is combined with the larger size of the House, the result is an increasingly fractious and at times aggressive atmosphere … many Members, from whom the House might wish to hear, and whose knowledge and experience would be particularly valuable … are discouraged from participating”.


The House voted on the proposal of the Leader’s Group to transfer Question Time responsibilities to the Lord Speaker, but the Motion was defeated. But since that vote six years ago, there have been significant changes. The House has grown even larger, in both size and daily attendance. This has made it even more difficult for people without loud voices to make themselves heard at Question Time. What is more, there has been increasing scrutiny of this House and the way in which we manage our affairs by the media and the public. Something that should be of concern to us all is the impression given to the public when they view Question Time. At times it appears to be a complete shambles, with people shouting at each other and no one in control. Anyone who observed Question Time this morning would find at least one example of that.

I believe there is a simple and cost-free solution to this problem: we should give control of Question Time to the Lord Speaker. In recommending this, I want to make one thing very clear. I am not criticising in any way the current Leader of the House, the Chief Whip—I never criticise Chief Whips—or any other Minister who might intervene at Question Time. I am saying simply that where they sit in the Chamber, on the Front Bench, is an absurd position from which to see the House and exercise control.

The House of Lords is unique in many ways but none more so for being the only legislative Chamber anywhere on the planet where the person responsible for maintaining order has their back to half the audience. I know, I have done myself it from time to time. You cannot see who is standing up behind you. You need wing mirrors. The people in the Gallery—the people we are here to serve—cannot see who is in control either. They look to the person in the chair, as they would at any other public event. But the Lord Speaker’s role in the chair is purely decorative—and he does that very well. The Companion to the Standing Orders insists on this. Paragraph 4.06 says:

“The role of assisting the House at question time rests with the Leader of the House, not the Lord Speaker”.


I hear the objectors say, “You are eroding the authority of the Leader”, to which the answer is that from the very start the establishment of our elected Lord Speaker has involved the transfer of responsibilities from members of the Cabinet to the Speaker. I will give a couple of examples. Until 2006 the power to determine whether or not a Private Notice Question should be allowed, believe it or not, was in the hands of the Leader of the House. Imagine that for a moment. The power to grant an Urgent Question, invariably requested by a Member of the Opposition and, to put it mildly, not often welcomed by the Government, until 2006 was determined by the Leader of the House as a senior member of the Government. That power was transferred to the Lord Speaker, and rightly so.

Another precedent involves the Lord Chancellor. Prior to 2006, the power to recall Parliament during a recess lay with the Lord Chancellor—like the Leader, a senior member of the Government. That power now rests with the Lord Speaker. Paragraph 1.55 of the Companion says:

“The Lord Speaker may, after consultation with the government, recall the House whenever it stands adjourned”.


So there are two examples—Private Notice Questions and the recall of the Lords—where power has been transferred from the Government to our elected Lord Speaker. In my book, that is entirely consistent with, and indeed an enhancement of, our valued tradition of being a self-regulating House.

I need to emphasise very strongly that I am in no way recommending a Speaker comparable to the Speaker in the House of Commons. I do not think anyone here, including former MPs like me, would want a Lord Speaker who, for example, had to rule every day on seemingly endless, usually bogus, points of order. There are a number of experts on that sitting around me this afternoon, and occasionally I would include myself. But paragraph 1.52 of the Companion states quite clearly:

“The House does not recognise points of order”.


That prohibition would remain. All I am suggesting is that the Lord Speaker should in future perform precisely the functions that the Leader does at present—no more and no less. I have no doubt whatever that this modest change would diminish the shouting match which often characterises Question Time. It would make proceedings more intelligible to the public and encourage and enable many more Members to participate who are reluctant to do so at present.

I suggest one other change to the Lord Speaker’s role, and today is a timely day to suggest it. I would like to see the Speaker take control of the House when Statements are made. At present, all that happens is that the Minister making the Statement simply stands up and reads it with no introduction. It is bizarre, but we are so used to it that we do not regard it as unusual. I think the Lord Speaker should announce the Statement and call the Minister. Otherwise, the matter is not that intelligible to the public. I have sat in this House many times when halfway through a debate or between two orders a Minister stands up and reads a Statement. It would be helpful if that were done by the Lord Speaker. All we have at present is a message on the annunciator to say that a Statement is due. It would also fall to the Lord Speaker to manage Statements in order to prevent mini-speeches—we had the odd example of that today—and to ensure that as many Members as possible are able to contribute in the 20 minutes that are allowed.

I believe the role of the Lord Speaker has grown over the years entirely to the benefit of the House. I also believe that the profile and leadership shown by the current Lord Speaker in speaking for the House on matters of public interest which are relevant to the House as a whole—both to the press and to the public—have been very much to our advantage. Enhancing his role at Question Time, in particular, and for Ministerial Statements would establishing him more effectively in the eyes of the public and the media as the person who can speak for the House of Lords.

My proposals today represent a small but significant extension to the responsibilities which were given to our first Lord Speaker 11 years ago. Nearly half our Members today—362 out of 804—were not Members then. It is high time that we reflected on our experience of having an elected presiding officer and consider the changes that I have suggested. They would make our proceedings fairer to Members and more comprehensible to the public. They would cost nothing and disadvantage no one. I commend them to the Leader, who will be responding, and to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

His is not a wig.

[Lord Grocott]

It’s real.

[Lord Haskel]

He is lucky.

Thanks to several changes in recent years, the House now has a clearly established code of conduct, with powers to discipline or even expel Members who have broken the code. It is by being a champion for this code that the Lord Speaker plays an important role in maintaining the reputation of the House.

Over the years, we have taken small steps regarding behaviour, standards and procedure, sometimes initiated by the Lord Speaker. Question Time, obviously, is no exception. The role of the Lord Speaker in these matters does not necessarily need reform; what it needs is for the Speaker to be urged and encouraged in taking these small steps, judging when the House is ready for them.

The Speaker’s special role is to help maintain the correct balance between lawmaking and our civil rights and liberties. This is not easy. As times become more difficult, so the Speaker’s task becomes more difficult. At the same time, however, it becomes more necessary.

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[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who, if I may say so, would have made a distinguished Lord Speaker himself, had the House taken a different view late last year. I am grateful, too, to my noble friend Lord Grocott for the opportunity to debate this matter today. I agree very much with what he and my noble friend Lord Rooker said about some of the procedures in your Lordships’ House. I have been a Member of this House now for 13 years and I am still baffled by some of the procedures and still wonder why we tolerate a system which, as was said earlier, benefits those with the loudest voices, those with the most confidence and those who feel that their words should be heard on each and every occasion.

I have to choose my words carefully in these days of equality but I think the self-regulatory system that we have at present discriminates against women Members of your Lordships’ House. A prime example of that took place about an hour or so ago. I have never met or heard before the noble Baroness who was trying to intervene from the Conservative Benches but I thought it was pretty ungallant of some of her colleagues to talk over her in the way that they did, and eventually she gave up and left. I really do believe that if we had a presiding officer—if the Lord Speaker had the power to call individual Members of the House—it would be fairer on those Members on both sides who do not particularly wish to participate in what is a bit of a bear garden.

There are more than 800 of us now, as my noble friend Lord Grocott reminded us earlier, and getting in sometimes at Question Time is extremely difficult. Someone once said all politics is local. All the complaints about what goes on in your Lordships’ House are usually inclined to involve whoever is making that particular complaint. But it is not just getting in to speak that is a problem; part of the weakness in my view of self-regulation in this House is what is actually said. I have lost count of the number of Second Reading speeches I have heard about amendments to particular Bills in the 13 years that I have been here. There is no way of correcting or intervening on noble Lords who behave in a particular way, but many of us do—I have probably been guilty of it. The temptation is there. The fact that there is no presiding officer to intervene makes it even easier.

My noble friend mentioned in particular Question Time on the 14th of this month. A Question was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about Great Western electrification. Without boring your Lordships about the ins and outs of the mistakes that have been made here and the hundreds of billions of pounds of public money that have been wasted on that project, I was rather anxious to hold the Minister to account. I did not manage to intervene on that Question, but no fewer than three noble Lords intervened, from both sides, asking questions which bore no relation to Great Western electrification. The word “railway” triggered off something in their minds, and off they went, one about the east coast, one about railways in Wales, and so on. Again, this is the sort of thing that happens with great regularity. I do not think that the House was particularly deprived by my non-participation on this occasion—

[Lord Grocott]

Oh, I don’t know.

[Lord Snape]

I am prepared to concede that that might be the case if my noble friend says so. However, it illustrates one of the weaknesses of self-regulation in this place.

While I am on my feet and complaining, another matter which having a Lord Speaker with real power would help to combat is the reading of speeches. I have with me a copy of the Companion—noble Lords on both sides will be relieved to know that I do not propose to read very much of it in the five minutes available to me. In paragraph 4, on conduct in the House, the Companion specifically says:

“The House has resolved that the reading of speeches is ‘alien to the custom of this House, and injurious to the traditional conduct of its debates’”.


Again, all too often speeches are read into the record. I understand that in the House of Representatives in the United States, it is possible to have a speech written out, send it to the Congressional Record—their version of Hansard—and it appears the following day. Perhaps we should adopt that system rather than having to sit through noble Lords on both sides—we all do it—reading speeches, some of which give the impression that the noble Lords have never seen them before and that they are written by somebody else anyway. Again, if we had a presiding officer, not necessarily intervening on each and every occasion the rules of conduct are breached, it would help to bring about a more sensible way of conducting our affairs. Having said that, I hope that the Leader of the House will listen to the debate, act on the genuine concerns that have been expressed during the course of it, and we should and I hope we will—thanks to her—look again at our proceedings.

Business of the House

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, this is not really a question to the Leader of the House; it is more an observation about business today and tomorrow. My Bill to end the system of by-elections for hereditary Peers is in Committee tomorrow. It had its Second Reading on 9 September and has sleepily made its way through the procedures of the House. Since 9 September, there were just five amendments tabled, one of which was from me. Coming in this morning expecting a quiet day at the office, I discovered that 59 amendments had been tabled overnight. I make no complaint about that—people use the procedures of the House as they wish to—but I thought it would be for the convenience of the House that I pointed out today that there are nine pages of these amendments for a one-page Bill, which I think is probably a world record. If anyone is thinking of contributing tomorrow, my pointing that out may be helpful, because you will need an hour and a half with a towel over your head to work out the 59 amendments, but we all look forward to getting a successful Committee on the Bill tomorrow.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, has the Leader of the House seen the very damaging publicity to the credibility of the House of Lords arising from the reporting in the national press of the existence of these 59 additional amendments? Is not the Leader of the House and her team rather worried about this? Would it not be wise if she were to prevail on those tabling the amendments to withdraw them to attempt to save the credibility of this institution?

House of Lords: Appointments Commission

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

It is beholden on political parties to ensure that they make effective nominations to contribute to the role of this House; it is beholden on us within this House to work with the best of our ability here. It is also important that we reflect the wide range of expertise and experience of people around this country, so that we can do an effective job on their behalf.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Does the Leader of the House agree that whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the Appointments Commission, it is a far better system for getting people into this House than the system of by-elections for the replacement of hereditary Peers, including a recent by-election where there were nine candidates and an electorate of three? Will the Minister acknowledge that a splendid Bill to eradicate this procedure is scheduled for a week on Friday—modesty prevents me mentioning its sponsor—and agree that the Government should give it their support?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I congratulate the noble Lord on his excellent outline of his own Bill; I think we all know that it is he who is taking this forward. I am afraid that on this occasion I cannot offer him those kinds of assurances. However, it is imperative that all people in this House play their part, and we have a range of skills and expertise that help us to do so.

Brexit: Article 50

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, please, this is not helping. We know that this is an important issue but we get Questions on it nearly every day. It does not look good for the House. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

[Baroness Goldie]

My party believes implicitly in parliamentary sovereignty and my party believes in holding Parliament with due respect. I do not see any conflict in holding that position and in the actions already taken by the United Kingdom Government. I might observe to the noble Baroness that the intervening events from the manifesto, to which her colleague the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred, are that the Conservatives published another manifesto to prepare for the 2015 general election. There was no reference in that to the royal prerogative and, interestingly, the Conservatives won a majority to form a Government—not a privilege afforded to the noble Baroness’s party.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to the importance of what he described as “political integrity”. Does the noble Baroness agree that it is clearly a matter of political integrity—when this House and the Commons, both without dissent, voted to have a referendum to determine whether we should remain in the European Union or leave it—that Parliament should abide by and act on that decision?

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Lord opposite for, frankly, a very sensible and welcome interjection that gets to the heart of the issue. There is an electoral mandate here. There is an obligation on government to implement that mandate.

Strathclyde Review

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, presented his report in his characteristically emollient way. I do not think we should be too taken in by the gentle way in which he presented it, because what he is suggesting is a substantial constitutional change that will transfer power to the Executive from Parliament and will alter the relationship between the two Houses. I do not object to constitutional change but the responsibility for arguing for it must come clearly from those proposing it and we should review it with all the skills of forensic examination that are at our disposal.

I want to look at the two key arguments that the Government and their supporters—or, I should say, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and his supporters—have advanced on the need for this constitutional change. The first is that, somehow, the decision on 26 October had considerable impact on our primary concern, the primacy of the House of Commons, and threatened that primacy. The title of the noble Lord’s review even refers to the primacy of the House of Commons. But it did not. If the Commons or the Government had decided that they did not like the decision that we made on 26 October, they had several simple options open to them. One would have been, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, to resubmit a statutory instrument in a slightly modified form, which this House would have then had to consider. It would probably have been like ping-pong but it would, sooner or later, have been sorted out. Alternatively, the Government could have brought in a simple Bill and timetabled it strictly, and no doubt it would have been designated a Bill over which this House should have no control. They easily had the capacity to remedy and to enshrine the principle of primacy.

The other argument advanced, including by the Leader of the House in her presentation on the report, is that the decision on 26 October somehow threatened the constitutional convention about the Lords not throwing out statutory instruments; she went so far as to say that it was “broken”. I took the precaution of asking one or two Questions of her. First, I asked her how often since the Second World War the convention had been broken. The reply came back that it was on five occasions, in 1968, 2000, 2007, 2012 and 2015; I remark in passing that three of those were when Labour Governments were in office. So we find that in 71 years since the Second World War, on the Leader of the House’s own acknowledgement, the convention has been challenged on five occasions.

I asked the Leader of the House how often the convention had been broken on those five occasions when the Lords threw out a statutory instrument that had come from the Commons, and the answer is once—the last time. I am conceding the Government’s whole case now and saying that the amendment passed here could have been interpreted as a fatal amendment, but even on those grounds—the Government’s own terms—only once in 71 years has the convention been threatened, and now they propose to change the constitution to deal with it. By the way, during the whole of that time there were 41 years of Tory Government, and they suffered two defeats on statutory instruments. If that is the rate of defeat, I do not think it is enough to get in a lather about. So why are the Government determined to go ahead when, quite plainly, on their two principal arguments, the primacy of the Commons is intact and the convention is intact?

I cannot resist doing this; I apologise in advance to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, but he had this to say about secondary legislation and statutory instruments in a debate on the Cunningham committee:

“although many have argued … that a power to reject might be replaced by a power to delay, or even a power to amend, the practical difficulties are great … I think that we need … more legislative restraint by government with fewer skeleton Bills backed by reams of regulation … Sometimes, as the committee acknowledged, rejection may be needed—very rarely—but the circumstances must be exceptional and extremely rare”.—[Official Report, 16/1/07; col. 632.]

They are exceptional and extremely rare, on any reading of what has happened.

So why is this change proposed? It is part of a wider concern of the Government: they do not like it when they are defeated. No Governments like it when they are defeated but all I can say is, “Join the club”. I know what it is like to be defeated. In the five and three-quarter years of this Government, they have suffered 123 defeats. In the five and three-quarter years with which I am particularly familiar, between 2002 and 2008, the Government suffered 325 defeats. I know the response but, even allowing for the undoubted ineptness of the Government Chief Whip at the time, 325 defeats against 123 hardly gives this Government grounds for their persecution complex. They have a very easy time in relation to the House of Lords most of the time. In the 115 years of my dear old party’s being around, only for eight of them has it even been the biggest party in the House of Lords, despite years of Labour Governments. If you do the maths, in 107 of the last 115 years the House of Lords has had the Conservative Party as its biggest party.

The ball is really in the Prime Minister’s court. He has the power and can do what he likes. He can cut our powers, if he brings in legislation and is able to get it through. He can create large numbers of Conservative Peers, as he has already been doing, but if he wants to carry on then no one can stop him. He can even abolish us if that is his wont, since he has a Conservative majority—although he might find it tricky. But I very much hope that he will go away, calm down and decide that, “This isn’t broke, so don’t fix it”. Governments do not like being defeated and I believe that there are enough people in the House of Commons who do not like this unnecessary encroachment of executive power. I certainly hope that should any firm proposal come to cut our powers in this House, enough people here will be certain enough about our responsibilities to ensure that it is rejected.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am conscious of time; everybody is tired. I am going to come on to that; I have just said that that is what I am going to come on to, and I will.

Some noble Lords thought that it would be best to proceed without legislation and instead to codify the convention; certainly there is an argument to be made in respect of that, but that approach would require us to restore a shared understanding about the convention underpinning our power of veto. Most noble Lords focused their comments on the third option put forward by my noble friend, the one that he recommends—as he described it, the ping without a pong. He suggests that that would replace this House’s power of veto with a new power to ask the other place to think again, with the House of Commons having the final say.

What he is recommending there is what noble Lords are arguing for. However, some thought that it would be necessary to retain the veto available to us now. I stress again that all these things are under consideration, but it is important for me to point out that we do not have an absolute veto when it comes to primary legislation. The new power that my noble friend suggests would be more in keeping with the role of this House, and the desire it has to ask the other House to think again.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor and Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others asked me from the Labour side of the House to consider what was possible that would have some longevity and was not about just advancement for any particular party in government. Again, I found it very helpful to revisit what the Labour Party said to the Joint Committee on Conventions about the veto when they were in power. Forgive me for singling out the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, again but it was he who made this point to the Joint Committee. He said that,

“the House of Lords can veto secondary legislation … the very legitimate question arises … whether it would be sensible to consider the proposition that the Lords in respect of secondary legislation should do what it does with primary legislation, and see its function as being a delaying, revising chamber but not a vetoing chamber. That is really the question that is being put”.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will acknowledge that a lot of evidence went to the Joint Committee, which was set up by the Labour Government precisely to look at all these issues. That all-party Joint Committee, although a committee with a Labour majority on it, looked at it and the conclusions that it reached were agreed unanimously and adopted by both Houses. That is the way the process worked and it is the way any new process should work.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I say to the noble Lord that the Joint Committee on Conventions of 2006 was clearly highly respected. It was a very significant committee, and its findings and work have really stood the test of time. The problem we have is that the convention that was set out there and reinforced by the Joint Committee—I am afraid that this is the problem, because we disagree and this is what we are having to address—is no longer operating in the way that it was agreed it should operate.

House of Lords: Strathclyde Review

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his remarks, and I very much take on board his advice about my approach over the next few weeks.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

As something of an expert—if I may modestly say so—on government defeats in the House of Lords, can I put it to the Leader of the House that this is no way to effect a substantial constitutional change that would strengthen Government in relation to Parliament, and fundamentally affect the relationship between the two Houses?

The Leader of the House refers constantly to the events in October. They were bizarre. A Government propose a reduction in the income of people in the lowest-paid families. The House of Lords says, “We think you should think again about this”. The Government say—amazingly—“We are thinking again, and we’ve decided that we agree with the House of Lords”. Yet the Government persist in what can be seen only as a malevolent way to set up a committee like this to cut the wings of the House of Lords.

This is a significant suggestion to the Government, I hope: if you want to effect change of this sort, do it in the proper, conventional way. That is by proper scrutiny—for which we have the 2006 example readily to hand; it came to conclusions not helpful to the Government, I may say—putting to both Houses the proposal of the Joint Committee of senior Members of both Houses, and then for the Houses themselves to decide whether they want to go ahead with this substantial change. A government-inspired report with no witnesses listed, no evidence taken in public, no calls for evidence in a way that we can understand—this is no way to effect constitutional change.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I have huge respect for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I listen carefully to what he says. The key thing that I am trying to identify in my remarks today is that we are in disagreement about what happened in October. That is what I find regrettable. It means that the important convention, which stood the test of time for so long, has been broken. He refers to the Joint Committee of 2006, which predates my time in the House but I understand from all my reading and research how important and respected it was. That committee reinforced the convention, but the convention that it reinforced has now broken. So what we have done is come forward with something which offers that clarity and simplicity. It draws heavily on previous work that has been done by other groups, such as my noble friend Lord Wakeham’s distinguished royal commission. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has come forward with a proposal and all I ask at the moment is that the House considers it—as indeed we in government are considering it.

G20 and the Paris Attacks

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is right in saying that there is widespread support for the measures that we have already committed to taking, and I am very grateful for that. The Prime Minister said very clearly today that he knows that he and the Government have a responsibility to come forward and make their case for the additional steps that we believe are right, and that is what he is going to do. He hopes very much that by doing that in a very clear way, he will attract strong support for the additional action that is necessary to keep this country and its people safe.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Is it not perhaps an unpalatable truth that the progressive removal of border controls—and, indeed, the virtual elimination of boundaries between many countries of Europe—while very good news for law-abiding people, can have pretty serious consequences so far as the movement of terrorists across Europe is concerned? Has the Leader of the House seen reports that it is now a deliberate strategy of the terrorists to make plans for terrorist attacks in one country and implement them in another? Given the dangers facing Europe at the moment, is not the progressive removal of border controls—not, of course, applicable to the UK—an aspect that heads of Governments need to look at?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Lord has just acknowledged, we are not part of the Schengen agreement. We remain very committed to retaining our borders and to policing them strongly. As we have announced in the past few days, we are taking even more steps towards, and investing further in, protecting those borders. We also play a big part in protecting the outside borders of Schengen agreement countries. However, I agree with the noble Lord that this raises very serious issues that have to be considered by countries that are part of Schengen.

Rugby World Cup 2015

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, as the noble Lord well knows, we have the Gold Event Series, launched in November 2012. We invest £50 million of lottery money in bidding for future events, and have had some success. Clearly, the news that we have had this week is a deplorable state of affairs; the WADA report has shocked us all. It is completely right that we should build on the record of the Olympics in having strong anti-doping policies.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very strong point. We had the £20 million First World War Centenary Cathedrals Fund, of course; I was in Norwich this very weekend looking at some of the brilliant repair work that has been done. I think that we in this country are great at looking after historic buildings. We should be telling people overseas and they should be learning from our skills in conservation and architecture.

[Lord Grocott]

Does the Minister agree that one of the key factors, maybe even the key factor, which made the Rugby World Cup such a celebration and a success was that it was available for virtually everyone in the country to view on what we still occasionally call the terrestrial channels, which are free to air? Is the evidence not crystal clear that with major sports longer available on free-to-air television—notably cricket and, increasingly, golf, not to mention Premier League football—the capacity of the country as a whole to celebrate these events inexorably diminishes?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

To be brief, I agree that the television coverage of the Rugby World Cup was amazing. We all watched a lot of games, even though the home countries did not do as well as they should have done. Good television coverage is very important.

House of Lords: Government Review

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The piece of secondary legislation that we debated on Monday was very clearly and exclusively about a financial matter, to the tune of £4.4 billion in terms of the savings it would deliver in the first year of its implementation. It was a decision arising from the Budget in July. What happened on Monday is something that has never happened before.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Leader of the House reassure us that the work of the committee will be evidence-based and, in particular, will take note of the following piece of evidence? It is that, during the five years of the Cameron premiership, on average there have been 20 government defeats per year. In the five years from 2002 to 2007—a period with which I am very familiar—under the Blair and Brown Governments, there were on average 59 defeats a year. I remind the House that that was at a time when the Labour Government had a majority of around 170 in the Commons and Labour was not even the biggest party in this House, let alone a majority party. The Prime Ministers of the time did not work themselves up into a synthetic lather about government defeats. If the Prime Minister is anxious to find evidence about Governments being defeated on a regular basis, I am at the end of the phone to give him that information.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I cannot imagine that when the noble Lord was Government Chief Whip in this House, if he and his Government had experienced the events of Monday in the same way that this Government did, they would not have defined the result in the same way as we have done. The noble Lord talks about the rate of defeats. This was not about the rate of defeats under this Government compared with those under previous Governments; this was about a specific event on Monday that was unprecedented. But if he wants to talk about how often this Government are being defeated, since the general election this Government have been defeated in 75% of all the Divisions that have taken place in your Lordships’ House.

European Council

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend makes some important points. As I have already said, we have applied our effort where we think we should help people—at the point of need—in a way that means that the countries they are fleeing to are able to sustain that support. We very much support what is happening in terms of a plan with Turkey. It is also worth adding that in November there will be the Valletta summit between European and African countries to look at what more can be done to prevent more people fleeing from that part of the world. We have to try to ensure that we support people where they are most in need of that support—that is, before they make these dreadful and treacherous crossings.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, on the renegotiation, there was one line in the Statement that was close to being amusing, which must be a first for a Statement on Europe from any leader. It said:

“I will be writing to the President of the European Council in early November to set out the changes we want to see”.

It is about two years since a referendum was promised and still, if we are to believe what we read, the heads of government of the other 27 member states are not at all clear about the terms that the Prime Minister is trying to achieve; certainly, the people in this country are not clear about them. I want to register my astonishment at that. He will answer in general terms, of course—indeed, there are general terms in the Statement itself—but negotiations are not about general terms: they are about quite specific matters, about which we still do not know.

I put it to the Leader of the House, in her role as Leader, that if the Prime Minister is saying that he is going to spell out these terms by November, and the mechanism by which he is going to do so is a letter to the President of the European Council, copied to member states and presumably to Members of both Houses of Parliament—for which we thank him very much—and of course for the British public to see, at the very least this House, and I can ask her only about this House, ought to see at long last the precise terms that are the bottom line for the Prime Minister’s negotiations, so that we can examine this crucial aspect of the Government’s European policy and question the Prime Minister precisely on the efficacy of the demands that he is making.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I consider it my aim every day to bring amusement to the noble Lord, so I am glad that I achieved that today.

The Prime Minister has been consistent throughout this process. In his Bloomberg speech he set out his vision for Europe. He has been clear about the need to make the case for reform in all the discussions he has had with his various European partners. As I have already explained, detailed technical talks have been going on about the legal implications for change in these four areas. He will set out the detail of the changes that he wants to see in November and will then proceed with his negotiations and he will achieve his best for Britain. I have every faith that he will secure an outcome that will ensure we end up with a better relationship for the UK with the European Union. We will then put that to a referendum; I am pleased that the noble Lord is now supportive of the opportunity that we are providing to the people of this country.