Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, nobody is better suited than the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to inject into a debate on a European-related matter a degree of intricacy, complexity and subtlety. He did it with great success in a number of earlier debates on this Bill. However, from my point of view this is not a complex issue. This amendment that we are addressing is not about the substance of the Bill as such but about whether the Bill should contain a sunset clause. That seems a much simpler issue, which can be much more directly addressed. We need to ask only what the objectives of the proponents of this amendment might be and what their motive might be for the future of the Bill.

The Bill is essentially about national sovereignty. It is about the protection of our national political security and about long-term national confidence. It is an attempt to halt the endless drift of sovereignty, salami-sliced over the years, with the erosion of our long-term security and constitutional stability by that drift towards the European Union. All earlier such commitments to restrain that kind of drift seem to have failed. I remember that at one time the watchword was “subsidiarity” and we all cheered subsidiarity around the time of the Maastricht treaty. It was going to make life so much easier and more direct, and stop the endless flow. Of course, it did not and has not and that is one more attempt that has failed.

However, this Bill is for the long term. It is an attempt to stop the rot. No Parliament can bind its successor; that seems to be the simple answer to those who believe that a sunset clause is necessary in the Bill. They say that it undermines our constitutional sovereignty. It does not because Parliament has that degree of sovereignty and could reform, repeal or change this Bill at a later date. Yet in European matters a strand of sovereignty, once lost, tends to prove irrecoverable. Without the certainty of an established position by an Act of Parliament, that trend could resurface and continue. Against that background, a sunset clause would inject uncertainty and short-termism. It would undermine the purpose of the Bill, which is perhaps the objective of the movers of the amendment. This House is here to revise and improve legislation, not to destroy the objective of that legislation. For that reason, the amendment should be opposed.

[Lord Jopling]

My Lords, I follow what my noble friend Lord Lang said, but I come to rather a different conclusion. Some of the speeches that we have heard on the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, have reverted in some ways to Second Reading speeches. I do not intend to move in that direction. I take a very simple approach to this amendment. I have now worked in this building for almost 47 years. Throughout my entire political life I have had the greatest loathing for referenda in principle. I dislike them intensely. I have always taken the view that the more referenda you have, the more people will say, “If you have these, I don’t see much point in being a Member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords”. I therefore start with a dislike of referenda.

I have reluctantly supported the Bill in all the Divisions that have taken place on it. However, the point I want to make is the one to which my noble friend Lord Lang has just referred. Very simply, at the beginning of each Parliament, why should that Parliament not decide for itself whether it wants to revive this legislation? The amendment suggests that it should be done in a simple way by order rather than by imposing on Governments all the rigmarole of primary legislation. I cannot see why it would be necessary, given the sunset clause, to impose that on a new Parliament.

As many of my friends on both sides of the House will know, years ago I was a business manager in the other place. Early in a new Parliament, before new Bills are ready, there is plenty of time to set aside a day for deciding whether it is desirable to reactivate the European Union Bill. This would mean that at the beginning of each Parliament, following the result of the general election, a decision could be taken that reflected the views of the public. That is what Parliament should be doing and the way that Members of Parliament should operate. I therefore have every intention of supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, the whole Bill has had some sense of unreality about it since it started. The more that one looks at it, the clearer one issue becomes. Whatever we do with the Bill, it will not operate in the lifetime of this Parliament. I have never come across a situation in which, in the first year of a new Government, legislation is introduced that is designed to affect not the current Government but the next one. We have had assurances from the Government that none of the issues that will provoke a referendum will happen in this Parliament because the Government will make sure that they do not. What on earth are we playing at? Shall we seriously sit down and produce the details of a major constitutional change against the background of a Government saying, “Don’t bother about it too much, although it may be a major constitutional change”, which moving from a parliamentary system to one of referenda clearly is? The Government are saying to us all, “It’s not going to happen. It will happen only in the next Parliament, but we shall legislate now so that it is on the statute book when the next Government come in”. Frankly, that is unreal and unfair and should be resisted.