Rule of Law

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I, like other speakers, begin by welcoming this important debate and the remarkable speeches we have heard. In addition, I congratulate the noble and learned Baroness the Advocate-General on both her appointment to her role and the splendid maiden speech she gave us.

We are talking about something that really matters in today’s turbulent and uncertain political world, both here at home and abroad. From my perspective, freedom, democracy and the rule of law are the main building blocks of our own country’s political being. None of them by themselves can ensure its continuance, but each is a necessary, if not a totally sufficient, component. I do not think that it is alarmist to point out, as others have in this afternoon’s debate, that it was not all that long ago that we spent quite a lot of time in this Chamber discussing the then Government’s wish to disapply the courts’ oversight of their own activities. It concerned me then, and it concerns me now, and I do not think it is an esoteric or theoretical topic: it is a contemporary and a relevant one. These things are now in the political air, and when they are there, it is time for us all to be vigilant.

In the run-up to the general election, some of the incoming Government’s advocates were calling for reform of the House of Lords to remove some of their political opponents from Parliament. I should explain that I am a hereditary Peer and, unlike the noble Baroness the Advocate-General, I am heading for the knacker’s yard—although I can say that I became a Member of two Parliaments in one week and, since the other one was the European Parliament, neither is now possible. I think there are plenty of good reasons to reform your Lordships’ Chamber, but that particular one is the worst, not least because of the Parliament Acts.

I have said it before and, no doubt, may well say it again: there is a real case for at least thinking about and looking at the Parliament Act 1911, as amended, in the context of the abolition of the hereditary Peers Bill, to see whether it is necessary and appropriate for some special additional exclusion to be included, lest, at some time in the future, some Government wish to completely reform the second Chamber or abolish it—or even, I suppose, possibly, in theory, abolish Parliament. We are not now in 1911 or 1949, and the world is a different place: the “good chaps” theory of government is less widely endorsed.

When we were thinking about this debate, something struck me—and I am clearly not the only member of your Lordships’ House who thought it. While enormous areas of current activity in the world are regulated in some form or other by soft law, which is hardly touched on in Lord Bingham’s seminal book, the cocktail of policy, hard law and soft law is various and wide ranging, and the rule of law—which, as we have heard, apart from anything else, has to provide redress—is in a bit of an uncertain place in some respects. This got me thinking about the recent budgetary announcement in respect of BPR and APR.

First, I apologise for bringing it up in this context. Secondly, I have to declare a personal interest, which will affect my family more than me, I think. I am sure the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General will tell me that this is completely irrelevant, so I raise the point now to save him the trouble—but actually I am not quite so sure. We know from what the Secretary of State for Defra has publicly stated that he and his department were blindsided by this move. We also know that the Government have laws and policies in respect of food, land use, the wider environment, climate change and so on, and these clearly were not taken into account when formulating that policy.

We also know from the recent cases of Finch and West Cumbria Mining that the Government, in exercising their discretion, must take all their policies into account. The purpose of raising the tax is to get your hands on the money—the money that the farmers and the businessmen own. That is what taxation is all about. It would be perfectly possible to do this without damaging the other policies and destroying working capital in an important sector that is currently under the cosh because of the policies of this Government and the last and which, in a period of change, faces particular expense.

While many in this debate are lawyers of much greater distinction than I could ever be, I am possibly the only one of us who has a City and Guilds qualification from an agricultural college in dairy enterprise management and farm business management. Agricultural economics is different and distinct from conventional mainstream economics and does not necessarily accord with the more generally understood rules of City banking and academic and commercial analysis.

Empirical analysis suggests that the way in which farming and land use happens is a bit different. In approaching this, the Government have not only ignored their own policies but applied an inapplicable methodology: conventional business economics. This is not the right way to do it. The proper way of approaching this matter would be a bit different. What they have done does not accord with the principles of the rule of law; the process is flawed and will not command public confidence.

I conclude my remarks by saying that the rule of law should and must be at the centre of our political processes and culture because, if it is not, we shall be replacing it with the law of the jungle, where life is nasty, brutish and short—and I do not think that any of us wants that.