Queen’s Speech

Lord James of Blackheath Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

My Lords, at this hour of the evening, I am deeply concerned as to the propriety and responsibility of making the speech with which I have come prepared. I have no greater desire than to see the whole of this Brexit process end with a satisfactory completion and an unarguable vote, but I am deeply concerned that we have a serious error in the process by which this House counts votes, and it could have a significant effect on the outcome.

It would be irresponsible of me to share too much of my story in a way that could be copied by the press and perhaps acted upon to the detriment of what we are trying to achieve. So I will share a little of it and offer to sit down with the clerks to look at what I am saying—quietly, separately, outside this meeting—with a view to seeing whether it can be corrected or we can do something about it. But I do not want to be the trouble-maker I am likely otherwise to be.

All this started on the day when we finished and went home for the election. I went to the clerks’ office and asked a question that I should have asked long ago: “What does it take for this House to be quorate for a vote?”—a question that I used to ask all the time before any board meeting of any of my companies. The reply that I got was: three Peers present to ratify a Statement to be read into the record, and 30 Peers for any part of a Bill. I then asked, “But what do we do with regard to the disallowance of votes from Peers who have become disqualified for failing to live by the oath they took on being signed in?” “No, Peers are allowed to vote once they have taken the oath.” “Yes,” I said, “but a lot of Peers have broken their oath.” “No Peer ever breaks his oath.” I thought, “I know I have, and I’m not the only one.” I have broken the oath because I did not object to the Lisbon treaty when I was here. I am therefore in breach of that oath and have been ever since, and so has anyone else who has been here since that time. I said, “Then do you count my vote when I come in here to vote?” They said, “Yes, we do.” I said, “Then your votes must always be wrong.”

This is much more complicated than that because you then have to go back to the Maastricht treaty. Anyone who was here when that treaty began has Brownie points-plus, because the Maastricht treaty introduced the levy that effectively increased the omnipotence of Parliament, not reduced it. So anyone who voted thereafter and then went to the Lisbon treaty is probably cleared to vote again now, because the Lisbon treaty only took away what had been given by Maastricht in the first place so it is probably a Mexican stand-off.

After that, it is a question of just how many votes are excluded and included. As some of our votes are not that big, it would not take more than a variance of 10 or 20 to be significant in swinging a vote. I think that we ought now to have a new approach to voting in this House based upon the fact that everyone should have a voting code included on the register when we go through the Lobby saying whether we were valid or invalid according to the time when we took our oath and what has happened since. It could be easily fitted and done up in the next few days before we come to a vote, and it would give an accurate and realistic vote that could be unarguable in whatever took place afterwards.

I do not want to go into too much detail and give a hostage to the press to have fun with us, but I am seriously concerned that we have an error in our system. God help us, I hope that we get a right vote and a clear one, with no argument. I will help the clerks in any way that I can to understand my problem.