Procedure and Privileges Committee

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

I can assure the House that these proposals are extremely unlikely to apply to me. However, seven of your Lordships exhibit significant physical and moral courage by visiting far-flung parts of the world, often to the irritation of the Governments concerned. The noble Lords do not hesitate to call out serious human rights abuses or corruption, and these proposals would leave them extremely vulnerable to coercion or attack. I propose that the Senior Deputy Speaker puts his Motion to the House in the usual way but undertakes to ask the relevant committees and House authorities, for foreign jurisdictions only, to task the Leave of Absence Sub-Committee with deciding whether a Member should be excluded, rather than have it occur automatically. I beg to move.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I am relieved that the committee did not follow the other place by excluding Members on the basis of allegations alone. That has led to palpable injustices—for example, Andrew Rosindell and his constituents; he was excluded for two years because of malicious allegations that nobody who knew him could possibly have given credence to and which were subsequently rejected.

But I am worried that even the proposal the committee does make undermines the sacred principle of innocent unless and until proven guilty, which Parliament ought to uphold more emphatically than everybody else. The report specifically undermines that principle by justifying exclusion on the basis that a charge means that

“the prosecuting authorities must be satisfied that there is a realistic prospect of conviction”.

In other words, we should assume that anyone charged is probably guilty, not innocent. Secondly, the proposal justifies a precautionary exclusion by invoking that,

“the duty of care towards those on the parliamentary estate, including school parties,”—

ignoring that they are always accompanied by adults—

“should be paramount”.

Paramount means it takes precedence over the presumption of innocence or it means nothing.

Why should noble Lords, or those who serve us, have more protection than the general public? The courts have the power to hold on remand people charged with serious offences that make them, in the opinion of the court, a potential threat to the public. Why should we second-guess the courts or give ourselves a higher degree of protection than the friends, neighbours and acquaintances of noble Lords elsewhere?

Finally, this is a solution looking for a problem. As far as I know, no noble Lord charged with an offence has ever molested anyone on the Parliamentary Estate, least of all the school parties invoked to defend this proposal. I hope the committee will think again and put the presumption of innocence first and foremost.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as a former barrister, may I ask whether it is the committee’s understanding that the presumption of innocence is sacrosanct in our criminal justice proceedings but that in workplaces around the country that face the same issue it is a relevant consideration? There are workplaces up and down the country, such as schools, where you remove somebody from the premises when they are arrested because of the risk they pose.

I wonder whether the Senior Deputy Speaker could answer the question of the regret amendment. Is it the same high bar of offence that you would have had to have committed overseas to be temporarily excluded from the premises here?

Although the Senior Deputy Speaker outlined the potential risk to children, in the manner of work here, one is often stopped in the corridor, as I have been, by staff asking us to deal with this issue, because they work unorthodox hours in a building that is full of nooks and crannies. As well as their safety, I add that noble Lords need to consider the House’s reputation. We are fortunate to be in a wonderful building that is a UNESCO world heritage site. If anybody were charged with arson and were then able to gain free access to the estate, our reputation would be on the line. Could the Senior Deputy Speaker outline those points?