Role of the Lord Speaker

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, as I have said only recently, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—it feels like only the other day but I see that it was last December. Uncharacteristically, I could not hear him as well as I usually can to begin with; it must have been some quirk of the microphones because I am sure that it cannot have been a quirk of the noble Lord.

It is also a pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. I usually do so from behind, but on this occasion I hope that I may be blazing a trail for him. Of course, I have no idea what he is planning to say, but I think we can have a fair idea. If I am right, I hope that my remarks will be supportive, but I in no sense wish to steal his thunder—I am merely the warm-up act for the pyrotechnics to come.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for tabling this QSD and securing this debate, because I have long held that the Lord Speaker’s role needs to be enhanced to give him or her the power to call speakers at Question Time and in response to Statements. A recommendation along these lines—originally emanating from the Leader’s Group on working practices of the House, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, but recrafted by the Procedure Committee for formal presentation to the House—was debated by the House on 8 November 2011. The recommendation ran:

“that the role currently performed by the Leader of the House or Government front bench during oral questions and oral statements be transferred for a trial period to the Lord Speaker”.

It did not go as far as I have just suggested, because it continued:

“the role thus transferred includes the responsibility to arbitrate between groups within the House, but not any responsibility to arbitrate between individual members by name”.

However that may be, it was a good start and I was very much in favour of it—no doubt because it was a recommendation I had myself made to the Leader’s Group. I argued that the principle of self-regulation had not been working well at Question Time. The free-for-all, which was by no means an exceptional feature of Question Time, with Members unwilling to give way to one other, verged on the unseemly. It did not show the House in a good light and called for a greater degree of control than self-regulation appeared to exert.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in that debate, said that,

“our procedures work pretty well on the whole. However, the one area where they do not work well is at Question Time. All I would say is that a House that approaches matters with more dignity than the Commons becomes extremely undignified when we get to Question Time or questions on Statements, and I do not like that”.—[Official Report, 8/11/11; col. 142.]

I also said that I was not alone in thinking it inappropriate that identifying speakers should be the function of the Government Chief Whip. I might interpolate here that as I came into the Chamber this afternoon as the Statement was being discussed, with umpteen people jumping up to speak simultaneously, it was not so much a matter of dignity or unseemliness; the spectacle was simply one of confusion.

In an earlier debate on the Goodlad report on 27 June 2011, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that the role that was proposed to be given to the Lord Speaker was,

“not an enhanced role as such; the role currently fulfilled by the government Front Bench is being transferred to the Speaker. This does, I suppose, enhance the role of the Speaker, but it does not give any more powers—it is very important to note that”.—[Official Report, 27/6/11; col. 1573]

He concluded that, “This is long overdue”.

When the House came to consider the report of Procedure Committee—as opposed to the Goodlad report—in November 2011, there was disagreement as to who could see more of the House: the person on the Woolsack or the Government Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on that occasion as well as this afternoon assured the House—from experience—that it was the person on the Woolsack. The other day I spoke to a Minister sitting on the Front Bench. He was clear that he was handicapped by comparison with the Lord Speaker in not having eyes in the back of his head.

When the House debated the Procedure Committee’s report in November 2011, the proposal to transfer the function of advising the House on which group’s turn it was to speak next was defeated by 233 to 169. I was in the Lebanon at the time and thus unable to attend the debate—otherwise, I am sure that the result would have been different.

At all events, I am sure that it is time for a review of the role of the Lord Speaker. With a new office like this, it made sense to start low key, but the position has now been in being for 10 years and the House now has confidence in it. No one should worry about its going up a gear. Those who make a fetish of self-regulation may have some qualms, but I hope that they are willing to countenance an experiment in the interests of finding out pragmatically what works best.

I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will give serious consideration to instituting a review. You never know, but we might find, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says, that what seems like a revolutionary innovation today becomes the orthodoxy of tomorrow.

Brexit: Triggering Article 50

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, we are at the beginning of these negotiations. We said that we will devolve and expect further powers to be devolved. I cannot go into the outcomes of the negotiations but, as I said, we will look for the best deal for all parts of the UK. We will work closely with the devolved Administrations. I believe that we will come to a deal that works for all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, the Statement makes much of the Government’s desire to represent the whole nation in their negotiating strategy. However, would the noble Baroness the Leader of the House not agree that although many things could be said about the Government’s Brexit strategy, the one thing that cannot be said is that it reflects the concerns of the whole nation? It certainly does not reflect the concerns of the 48%. It does not even reflect the concerns of the 52% now that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has conceded that immigration cannot be expected to reduce consistently once we exit the EU.

House of Lords: Size

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, even if it means that my own humble efforts are likely to be put in the shade. I begin by declaring my interests as a member of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, but I make it clear that anything I say today is said in a purely personal capacity.

The size of the House should certainly be reduced. There are three reasons for this. The first has to do with the character of its membership and its relationship to the House of Commons. Its membership is open-ended, uncontrolled and spiralling out of control. From 666 Members in 1999, membership rose by about 50 in the 11 years to 2010. Since then, it has grown by approximately 150 more to more than 800. It is one-third bigger than the Commons and will be more than that when the number in the Commons is reduced to 600. The UK is the only country in the world with a bicameral system where the second Chamber is larger than the first.

Secondly, the rapid rise in numbers has made the House dysfunctional. Has any noble Lord tried getting on the internet lately? The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, spoke of overcrowding, inefficiency and the enormous burden on both the administration and the taxpayer. In the past five years, the average daily attendance has risen from 388 to 483, an increase of 95. That is up to £28,500 a day more in allowances—which, if the House sat for only 100 days a year, would come to nearly £3 million annually.

The third reason concerns the reputation of the House. Newspaper editorials used, on balance, to be positive about the Lords, but they have become increasingly negative of late. During the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, negative editorials outnumbered positive ones by three to one. I think the House of Lords is often respected by the general public as the conscience of the nation for the way it holds the Government to account and mitigates the worst features of legislation. But this good work is increasingly being obscured by stories about excessive appointments, anachronism, cronyism and sleaze. On account of all the good work the House does, I have heard people say that such unfavourable comment is just perception inflamed by our detractors which bears no relation to reality and that we do not need to worry too much about it. But such perceptions from influential quarters, especially if they come to predominate, can easily influence wider perceptions of reality, and the growing size of the House can come to pose a serious threat to its reputation and hence to its effectiveness, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, has said.

I am therefore certainly in favour of the first part of the Motion, that the size of the House should be reduced—I would think by about 250 to something like 550 or 600, so that it is no larger than the House of Commons, even if that body’s numbers are reduced to 600 with the boundary changes. I do not think that this debate can get to the bottom of the question of how, precisely, that is to be achieved. For that, I think we need the Select Committee that so many noble Lords have spoken in favour of—a Select Committee that can go in detail into all the pros and cons of the various methods that have been suggested, such as fixed terms, a retirement age, a minimum attendance requirement, elections in groups, and so on.

The much-respected authority on the House of Lords, Professor Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit at University College London, in a recent blog post, has outlined four key elements which need to be part of any package of measures if it is to succeed. The first is an initial cull to effect the required reduction, using age limits, attendance requirements or elections as deemed appropriate. The second is a cap on the size of the House at somewhere round about the number reached as a result of the cull. That is essential if the initial cull is not to unravel as a result of the Prime Minister’s use of their unfettered power to make new appointments. As Professor Russell wrote in an earlier blog covering her 2015 report, Enough is Enough:

“Because each Prime Minister appoints more of their own, each change in government results in tit-for-tat action by the new Prime Minister to catch up. This has a continuous upward ratchet effect on the size of the chamber”.

Thirdly, and following directly from that, there needs to be a restriction on the number of new appointments that can be made. The Prime Minister would only be able to appoint to fill vacancies. This is the system that prevails in relation to the Canadian Senate. Finally, it will be necessary to have some fair principles covering the sharing out of new appointments between the groups.

We have no time to lose. I said over a year ago that publicity hostile to the Lords had reached a tipping point. It is important that we are seen to be proactive in addressing this question of numbers. We need the Select Committee and we need it soon, with a specified date by which to report.

Disabled Children: Tax Credit

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Low of Dalston]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to compensate families looking after disabled children who lost the opportunity to claim the higher rate of tax credit between 2011 and 2014 due to an administrative error.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, claimants were able to claim the higher rate of tax credits and many did so at the time. Although it is the claimant’s responsibility to inform HMRC of their eligibility, HMRC’s back-up practice was to take information from DWP to update awards automatically. Last week, we announced that HMRC would issue lump-sum payments to families affected by a breakdown in this back-up to cover what they would have received from 6 April 2016 and ensure that they get their entitlement in future.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but I am sure he would agree that we are dealing here with a major injustice: some 28,000 low-income families with disabled children have lost up to £4,400 a year for five years, all because, between 2011 and 2014, the DWP omitted the box from the relevant form for people to indicate whether or not they received tax credits. As the law currently stands, as the Minister has said, the onus is on the claimant to claim what they are entitled to. However, the system of tax credits is extremely complicated for anyone to understand. Does the Minister agree that the law should be changed to place the onus on the Revenue to pay claimants what they are entitled to, so long as they provide the right information about their circumstances? Will he give serious consideration to this?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that suggestion. HMRC will be contacting the 28,000 families directly, automatically adjusting their award and by the end of January making a lump-sum payment backdated to April 2016. I am sure his suggestion of a future change to the law will be looked at sympathetically in order to try to streamline the system and to avoid the problems that he has identified in his Question.

House of Lords: Appointments Commission

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that the noble Lord will expect my answer not to be yes. What is most important is that this House does an incredibly important job, and we can see by looking across the House, and across all Benches, the wealth of expertise and experience that we have. This is important and we should celebrate and talk positively about the role of the House, rather than perhaps continuing to add to some of the public perception that we do not do the job which we actually do.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. The commission has not discussed this issue but, speaking for myself, an amendment of the kind suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, would be not unhelpful because it is often quite difficult to radically distinguish questions of suitability and propriety.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord for his insight, particularly in view of his role, but as I said, we have no plans to amend the commission’s remit.

Infrastructure Improvements: Funding

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord was, of course, a Minister in the relevant department. He may be aware that, a few months ago, Ministers in CLG announced an initiative to bring back into the market the small builders who have disappeared from it in recent years. The initiative was aimed at making sites available in slightly smaller packages so that the smaller builder would have a chance of developing them, rather than relying on sites that are so big that only major developers can accommodate them.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, does not the Minister agree that private finance initiatives have a very bad record of leaving a legacy of years, or even decades, of inflated debt on projects that are no longer required, such as schools which have been built in the wrong place and accordingly have no pupils, and, as such, need to be evaluated very carefully before being undertaken?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think the noble Lord is somewhat harsh in his verdict on the PFI. For example, the NAO says of the PFI:

“Most private finance projects are built close to the agreed time, price and specification”.

It further states that PFI contracts provide,

“two key advantages over conventional procurement … transparency of pricing in that the public sector knows in advance how much it will be paying”,

and a,

“consistent approach to maintenance as the SPV”—

the special purchase vehicle—

“is under an obligation to maintain the asset in good condition”.

Of course, some projects have not gone correctly, but this country is a world leader in the development of private finance and we should be proud of what we have achieved.

Outcome of the EU Referendum

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I cannot give the noble Lord the assurance that he is looking for because it is just too early to be able to provide that kind of information. I understand the point that he makes about the difference of view in Scotland but the same can be said for the people of London; it was not just Scotland where a majority voted to remain. I come back to what I have already said: we are now seeking to implement a decision that was taken as the United Kingdom, and that is where we must focus our attention. However, that does not in any way diminish the Prime Minister’s commitment to involve all parts of the United Kingdom in the process—and that includes the London mayor and the London Assembly.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I do not find myself in sympathy with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson; I find myself rather closer to the point of view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Does the noble Baroness the Leader of the House not agree that those in the leave campaign won the referendum on an essentially fraudulent prospectus? They said that we could continue to trade with the EU on very similar terms without having to accept freedom of movement. They said that there would be no adverse economic consequences, but we are already beginning to see them. They made completely unrealistic promises as to what could be done with the resources saved from our EU contribution—and, most glaringly of all, with breath-taking cynicism and within hours of victory they were maintaining that they never said that Brexit would enable them to reduce the level of immigration.

Moreover, it is clear that the leaders of the leave campaign have absolutely no plan as to the way forward. In these circumstances, and notwithstanding claims of democracy, does the noble Baroness not agree that the legitimacy of the referendum result is substantially undermined and that there is a very strong case for a second referendum on a more precisely focused question—something that nearly 4 million people have already signed a petition in support of?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Lord. I am not going to comment on the different campaign teams and their campaigns. In my view, the people who voted to leave the European Union last Thursday knew that they wanted to leave the European Union. Their decision may have been motivated by a range of different things, but suggesting that they did not know what they wanted and that we should therefore somehow now seek another referendum to ask them, “Are you sure?”, is not the right way for us to go from here. I think that the right thing for us to do now is to focus on implementing that decision and to do so in a way that brings success and opportunity to the people of this country. We should make sure that it delivers a future that is good for everybody in this country.

European Council

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I wonder whether we might hear from the noble Lord, Lord Low.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, it would be entirely appropriate for the Government to make the case which they support for remaining in the European Union with all the strength at their command. The case for remaining within the European Union does not stand or fall by the details of the deal that the Prime Minister negotiated in Brussels at the weekend. Nevertheless, it is very clear from the Prime Minister’s Statement, which the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has repeated for us, that the deal tends much more to the substantial and significant, as was depicted by my noble friend Lord Hannay, rather than the trivial and inconsequential, as portrayed by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. However, it is probably fair to say that the balance of the media comment and their portrayal of the deal has tended towards the trivial and inconsequential. Given that, will the Minister provide an assurance that the Government will spare no effort to get across to the British people the substantial and significant progress that the Prime Minister has made in persuading the European Union to accommodate the British position and that it does not remain within the Westminster bubble, as we have heard it described this afternoon?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I certainly think that the Government have a responsibility to be clear about what they are advancing and to communicate that directly to the people. But I also think that the media play an important part in our democratic process. Noble Lords have been arguing about other people making their case, and it is important as well that, through the media, people get to hear the arguments for and against. I would never stand at this Dispatch Box and criticise the work of the UK media.

Housing Estates

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, the House is calling for a Cross-Bencher so we must go to the Cross Bench first.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, when making large-scale policy changes on social housing or in implementing estate regeneration programmes, tenants desperately need access to information, advice and advocacy about their rights and options, on the implications for them and their families? Will she ensure that strategies for supporting housing and social welfare advice, commonly provided by such organisations as Shelter, citizens advice bureaux and law centres, are factored into the funding and effective structures for delivery?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a very important point on the need for those tenants not to feel that this has been imposed on them or that things have been done to them, but that they are very much part of the process that is taking place. I know that that is foremost in the mind of my noble friend Lord Heseltine. It will be a collaborative process with tenants to do the best for them.

Syria: UK Military Action

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I was hesitant to join a debate to which so many noble Lords had already signed up to speak. I wondered whether to contribute the thoughts of a humble Peer in the street. I hesitated to mix it with the big beasts of the foreign policy and defence establishments, but I was scandalised into putting my name down to speak last night by David Cameron telling his MPs that they should not be walking through the Lobbies with Jeremy Corbyn and a “bunch of terrorist sympathisers”. Those are not the words of a statesmanlike Prime Minister seeking to lead a unified nation to war. They are a disgrace, for which he has refused to apologise. He should be ashamed of them and I hope very much that the noble Earl will disown them when he comes to reply this evening. These are complex issues about which honest people can disagree and it is quite inimical to the spirit of rational discourse—which is, after all, one of the values that we are supposed to be defending—to brand anyone who takes a different point of view as a sympathiser with terrorism. That is to adopt the mindset of ISIL, not that of the leader of a free country.

I cannot enter the debate without saying something about how the issues appear to a humble Peer in the street. They seem to come down to a few quite simple propositions. What ISIL has been doing is an unconscionable outrage and an affront to human and civilised values. Paris is only the latest and worst excess. ISIL should be completely eliminated if at all possible, but this is not straightforward. ISIL is not like a conventional army. It is a hydra. Take one head out and two more spring up somewhere else. I am not a knee-jerk opponent of military action, but we should beware of falling into the trap of saying, “Something must be done; this is something, so it should be done”. What should be done has to be effective. The actions of the American-led coalition have been largely ineffective in degrading ISIL to date. No one believes that flying a few extra sorties over Syria will make a great deal of difference, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, who has great experience, confirmed.

The political build-up has been quite extraordinary for such a comparatively minor extension. This is just gesture politics. As several speakers have said, to mean anything there will have to be troops on the ground. The Prime Minister assures us that there are 70,000 ready and waiting, but this has attracted widespread scepticism. If there are 70,000, they are a bit like Falstaff’s army and do not always have very savoury credentials. The Iraqi army, if it can be called that, runs away whenever ISIL appears. The Kurds are the only ones who can be relied on, but they are already fighting to the limit of their ability. I am aware of the arguments about solidarity with our allies, but we can express solidarity without putting planes in the air. Canada does.

No one believes that military action against ISIL will make us safer in this country. I have never believed that that was a plausible expectation to have of foreign ventures against jihadist terrorist organisations—in fact, quite the reverse. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and intelligence and security chiefs all think that it will make us even more of a target.

This is the wrong action at the wrong time. As I was pleased to hear a moderate Syrian spokesperson confirming on the radio the other day, if we were to bomb Syria, it should have been in the first year, in support of the peaceful protests that President Assad was seeking to suppress, while they were still comparatively moderate and unified. Five years on, the situation has long since spiralled out of control and we should keep well out of it.