House of Lords: Reform

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is no doubt that this is an effective House and a very good value House and therefore I hold to a view that I have made public in the past: that a reformed House, directly elected and with fully salaried Members, would cost more than the current House. However, it would have a legitimacy, and a power and authority, which this House does not have. I remind the House, as I have done many times, that at the last general election all three main parties carried a commitment in their manifestos to reform this House.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Should not addiction to constitutional reform be treated with the same bracing cure as addiction to welfare benefits? Will the Government set a cap on the amount that ordinary, decent, hard-working British citizens are to be required to pay to support the constitutional reform dependency of the Liberal Democrats?

Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham]

My Lords, I declare an interest in these matters. I am a member of the Procedure Committee, a former Leader of this House and the only living person who has been Leader both of this House and of another place—in fact, only the fifth person in British history who has ever held both jobs. I say all that because I think what I am going to say will be pretty disagreeable to a great many people in the House, and I thought that if I said it now, at least they could not accuse me of a lack of experience. My view is that proposal 1 is grossly unfair on the Lord Speaker, is bad for the House and would be the end of self-regulation.

First, the proposal is bad for the House. The working practices report seems to be based on a number of misconceptions. The Leader’s role is not to make decisions but to advise the House of what he thinks the will of the House is, and that expression of view can of course be challenged. The Leader, as is clear from the proposal before us, advises only which group or party he suggests the House may like to hear. That, of course, leaves a big gap regarding what happens, as is often the case, when two Peers from the same party rise to speak.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

A document was issued by the Government Whips Office saying that the Lord Speaker should call sides at Question Time, but the Order Paper talks about calling groups. Which is correct?

[Lord Wakeham]

I have no idea. I am speaking only on proposal 1; that is all I know about. I have had many years’ experience of whipping and I consider that, like other things, it is best done in private.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, no, I am not. I have not read Mr Benn’s no doubt splendid article, but given that the Recess starts later on today, perhaps it should be required reading for all noble Lords.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, why is the Leader of the House so reticent about telling us how many representations he has actually had? He said many—is that 10, 20, 100, 500, 1,000? Will he take this opportunity to correct his Freudian slip when he said that House of Lords reform was not important?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that was well spotted by the noble Lord. Of course the issue is extremely important and something that this Government are very committed to dealing with. Since the general election, we have received over 180 letters from members of the public. Since the publication of the White Paper, we have received over 30 pieces of correspondence. The key point is that the vast majority of these letters call for a change in the way that this House is run.

Japan and the Middle East

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, is it not the case that—

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There are a lot of people trying to intervene. There is room provided that everyone is brief.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, while I welcome the statement from the Arab League and do not in any sense diminish its importance, does the Leader of the House think that there is any real prospect of countries which are part of the Arab League and which have the military capacity taking part in the no-fly zone operation? Does he think that seeking such support would be a help or a hindrance to getting a resolution through the Security Council?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there are members of the Arab League that would have the capability to involve themselves in policing a no-fly zone, but I sense that we are a long way from that at this stage. There is still a diplomatic process to be completed of resolutions in the United Nations, but there is certainly no bar to making the co-operation across nations and alliances as wide and as deep as possible.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have no desire to irritate the noble Lord or, indeed, his noble friends, but the point is that the three main political parties each had a manifesto at the last general election which was broadly in agreement. The Deputy Prime Minister took the view that it was important to bring those political parties together in drafting the Bill. When we get to the creation of the Joint Committee of both Houses, the noble Lord and others of his views—not just on the Cross Benches, but elsewhere—will quite rightly be fully consulted and represented on that committee.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

Does the noble Lord agree that the path that he has now undertaken means that the House will be presented with the choice of the three political parties? It is a bit like Henry Ford: “You can have any choice you like, so long as it’s mine”.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in a way that is how it works in Parliament. Governments propose legislation and then Parliament disposes of it in whichever way it wants—and that will happen. I am sure that what the Government publish and what comes out of this committee at the end of the year is not where we will be at the end of the day. This is the start of the process. It will be up to the two Houses to set up the Joint Committee; it is not the job of government. My noble friend Lord McNally, the Deputy Leader, and I will make the case for the inclusion of all strands in this matter.