Business of the House

Lord Newby Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Well, the Liberals say: “We would never do that”. The Chancellor has announced major increases in expenditure on education, on health—

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I know noble Lords do not want to hear this—on health, education and social care. This very day I had a letter from the Secretary of State for Health in my capacity as Chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee responding very positively to the future of social care and the commitments being made. We have no opportunity to discuss that this afternoon. We have no opportunity to have the Statement because this game-playing by the Opposition continues.

[Lord Newby]

I am interested to know whether the noble Lord could give an example of when this House had taken the spending Statement by the Chancellor on the day on which it was made.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord knows perfectly well that this is a self-regulating House. If the Government and Opposition wished to do so, that would be possible. Can he give me an example of when, in the entire history of this House, anyone has put forward a guillotine Motion on the Order Paper? I will give way to him if he can, but he cannot, because it is utterly and absolutely unprecedented.

[Lord Newby]

I am sorry for interrupting the noble Lord, but I think it might be to the benefit of the House if I answer all his points sequentially when I make my speech.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

That reminds me of the points that Screaming Lord Sutch used to make about the Monopolies Commission in various election campaigns. If there is a Division on this matter, I hope that the noble Baroness will join us in the Lobbies because she is making a very important point. In order to prevent the guillotine procedure being used in this House, it is necessary for us to table amendments—the only thing we can do—that will enable this House to keep talking until one minute past 10 am on Friday. I agree with the noble Baroness that it is outrageous that we should have to do that, but it is her doing. That is what we have to do in order to prevent this dangerous constitutional innovation in this House.

When I say “dangerous”, in agreeing with the former Lord Chancellor, I think it is dangerous for this reason—I am determined to make this point. If this House is going to be subject to a guillotine procedure, we will be in exactly the same boat as the House of Commons. If we are in the same boat as the Commons, we will not be able to do our job of scrutinising legislation, and if we are not able to do the job, what is the point of us continuing to exist? This Motion leads the way to unicameralism. My noble friend Lord Hailsham, who is not in his place, was burbling on yesterday about the elective dictatorship. What this does is to transfer huge power to the Executive.

I know your Lordships do not want me to go on for too long, but we are discussing serious issues which point to us having to be in Committee. I shall make a point which may appeal to our friends on the Liberal Benches and in the Labour Party. If we get to a position where these guillotine Motions can be used in this House, we cannot have a situation where the Government do not have a majority of Peers, so with each change of Government we will end up with a House of about 1,500 to 2,000 Peers as the Government try to maintain that position. What the noble Baroness is doing in order to avert something she supposes may happen—that somehow this House will not operate in its normal way in considering legislation—is putting a bomb under this Chamber and this institution. I hope that I might persuade your Lordships that we should sit in Committee and consider the implications.

Noble Lords will note that I have not sought to talk at length and I have not mentioned Brexit or any of the proceedings in the other place; I am entirely focused on the rights and opportunities of this House. I hope that every Member of this House, if they are not prepared to take this in Committee, will urge the noble Baroness to withdraw this wretched Motion. She said she will withdraw it if the Government give an undertaking to give safe passage to a Bill which has not even been passed in the other place. She might like to reflect on this. What is the Prime Minister meant to do when the Opposition are now so gutless that they are not even prepared to have a general election and let the people decide on these matters; when they are going around the country saying they want people to have more opportunity to discuss the issues arising, but they are bringing in guillotine Motions in this House to prevent us discussing those issues? It sounds like—are we allowed to say “hypocrisy” in this House? Is it parliamentary? Whatever the equivalent of hypocrisy is, that is what we are seeing from the Front Bench today. I beg to move.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I support the Motion of the noble Baroness wholeheartedly. I do so, according to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, as a member of a bunch of malcontents who, apparently, are being dictated to by Jeremy Corbyn. Well, you could have fooled me. The Motion is proposed by the Leader of the Opposition as a matter of convention, but it is supported absolutely by me and my colleagues on these Benches, by many on the Cross Benches—including many of the most distinguished parliamentarians, civil servants and former judges in this country—and by a significant number on the Conservative Benches. To try to characterise, to trivialise, the motivation behind the Motion as something to do with a plot by Jeremy Corbyn does the noble Lord and this House no service.

In supporting the Motion, I am not acting lightly. I have sat through many thousands of hours in your Lordships’ House, at literally every hour of day and night, when there has been no time limit. I have accepted, through stiff bones and weary eyes that, on balance, our normal system was preferable to that in the Commons where, as the noble Lord says, so many debates, however important, are severely truncated. I sat through 150 hours of debate on the withdrawal Bill, when debates on individual amendments often took several hours. I did so cheerfully, despite the odd moments of tedium, because I knew that we were debating issues of first importance for the country and that they deserved exhaustive deliberation. I would have been more than willing for the debates on the Bill that we expect from the Commons tomorrow, and which we have to make provision for today, to follow our normal procedures. But if I had done that, I would have had to acknowledge that there would be a real—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I must point out to the noble Lord that we do not have a Bill. When he uses the phrase, “we have to make provision for it today”, the provision he is making is to prevent this House discussing it properly. How does he justify that?

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[Lord Newby]

The provision we are making today is specifically to allow this House to debate it properly and in a proportionate manner. If, however, we had simply waited for the Bill to arrive and started debating it tomorrow under our normal procedures, I would have had to acknowledge the real possibility that it would not pass. The reason for that is straightforward: we are faced with Prorogation on Monday next, and if the Bill is to pass, it must receive Royal Assent by then. In the absence of some sort of time limits on our proceedings, even with good will—and even if we sit over the weekend—things would be, at best, tight. However, it became clear at an early stage that such good will, at least from the Government’s side, would not be forthcoming.

Last Thursday, I was contacted by a senior political journalist. She had just been in discussion with a Downing Street spokesperson. The Downing Street line was that if the Bill, which is being debated in the other place today, passes the Commons—as it is likely to do—it would not get through the Lords because there would be a government-inspired filibuster. I have no reason to believe that Downing Street was not accurately representing the position of the Government, although I am willing to be told that it was not. Indeed, the spate of amendments before us today, clearly co-ordinated, gives some support to that thesis. Given that I believe that this is an issue of the first importance for the future of the country and that we will face a filibuster on the Bill itself, what options lay before us, other than to shrug our shoulders and capitulate?

The first was that we could have repeated the performance that we had with the procedural amendments on the substance of the Cooper/Letwin Bill. As noble Lords know, we were able to get that through only because we repeatedly moved that the Motion be now put. We would have been faced with that prospect on the substantive issues of the Bill and some issues might well not have been debated at all. That did not seem to be a sensible way forward.

The only other alternative before us was a timetable Motion such as we have today. It has of course been objected to on the grounds that it goes against our normal practice, that it will set a baleful precedent and that it is intended to curtail debate. However, as has already been said, we are not seeking to stifle debate. I am happy to debate hours into the night with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—it is a peculiarity of mine that I quite enjoy it. However, the brutal, unprincipled Prorogation with which we are faced on Monday is specifically there to curtail debate, and it is in the context of that Prorogation that we have to decide what we do today. It goes against our normal practice. According to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, it is an abomination. That is a pretty strong word but frankly—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

It was the former Lord Chancellor’s word, aired in the press, to describe the threat of a possible guillotine Motion. “Abomination” is not my word; it was his.

[Lord Newby]

It was a word that the noble Lord happily appropriated. However, how does he describe the unprecedented Prorogation, the sole purpose of which is to curtail debate? How does he describe a senior Cabinet Minister going on the television, as happened at the weekend, and saying that the Government would decide, after the event, whether to follow a piece of legislation duly passed by Parliament? I think that that is an abomination and that what we are proposing is eminently reasonable.

If we pass this Motion, your Lordships’ House will have some 14 hours to discuss the Bill. That is over four times the amount of time being given to it in the Commons. It would give seven hours for the principle of the Bill to be debated. Is that unreasonable? Clearly not. By our normal standards, we are undoubtedly talking about a tight timetable, but in the circumstances it is an eminently reasonable timetable.

Of course, it has been suggested that this is the beginning of a slippery slope, but it is not unusual for your Lordships’ House to take an entire Bill through all its stages in one sitting day. That is the norm for Northern Ireland legislation. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, helpfully points out, that is normally done by agreement between the parties. This Bill is undoubtedly urgent and, in the absence of agreement between the parties and as a self-regulating House, it is for your Lordships to decide whether the proposals before the House today are proportionate and necessary in their own right. I hope that we never find ourselves in such a position in the future, but the only future that we should have in our minds today is the future prosperity, security and influence of our country, and in order to protect those we need this Bill and we need this Motion.

[Lord True]

I rise to second and support the proposition put by my noble friend. The coercion, or the instinct to coerce, could never have been put with more charm, eloquence and mildness than it has just been put by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. He made everything sound so reasonable, so normal and so in line with what we always do—that nothing we have here has never happened before. But when I went to the Table Office and saw that Motion in black and white, the like of which has never been tabled in this House in its history—by a Government, still less an Opposition—I must confess that, to appropriate a phrase, it was a dagger in my heart. It was the same thing that the Lord Hart of Chilton, who we all esteemed—

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am being heckled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to withdraw my Motion. If we were sure that the legislation, if passed in the House of Commons tonight, would go through your Lordships’ House in the usual way we do our business and it was guaranteed by all noble Lords that we would complete our deliberations and conclude prior to Prorogation, there would really be no need for my Motion.

[Lord Newby]

In an attempt to simplify matters, I support the idea of a simple, straightforward, short break, not to insert any other business, because that would be confusing, but to accept that any agreement reached among the usual channels in your Lordships’ House at 7 o’clock might be conditional on various things happening in the Commons in the next few hours. In that way, we would know what to do in various circumstances. I am loath to see a long pause, because if for some reason the good will, which I am pleased to see breaking out, did not lead to an agreement, we would be back to where we were, and the sooner we got back to where we were, the better.

As it is now 18.48, I should have thought that if we had half or three quarters of an hour, that should be perfectly long enough to—

[Lord True]

I am attempting to withdraw my amendment. I agree with what the noble Lord is saying, but if we have to come back, of course we will go through all the amendments. However, let us hope that the spirit of amity continues. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I thank the noble Lord in what is probably his first major outing as Chief Whip in your Lordships’ House. It has been quite a night. This has been a long debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have stayed the course and are still here. It shows how much this House values both the importance of the work we do and of the issue we are debating.

We can now confirm that we shall be able to complete all the stages of the Bill in your Lordships’ House in a time-honoured way by 5 pm on Friday. It was not an easy decision to table a Motion to ensure that we could continue our deliberations on the Bill and conclude them in good time. I understand the anxieties that were so eloquently stated by noble Lords who spoke in support of the amendments that this House has considered this evening. We recognise that such a Business Motion is a wholly exceptional response to the very unusual circumstances of the imminent Prorogation. We hope that it will not be treated as a precedent and that it will not have to be deployed again.

I thank all noble Lords for their patience. I had hoped to come back to your Lordships’ House earlier about the arrangements that were being made. Tomorrow morning, I shall be tabling a new Business Motion, which will confirm that we shall complete our consideration of the Bill by 5 pm on Friday 6 September.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I endorse the words of the Government Chief Whip and of the Leader of the Opposition. Passions run very high on this issue in your Lordships’ House, as they do across the country. It is not surprising that they have been high today. Carrying on through 24 or 48 hours, as we have been doing, in a sort of pathetic attempt to set a new Guinness world record for consecutive votes in your Lordships’ House, would not do anybody any favours.

These Benches felt it was key to ensure that this Bill, which we shall be receiving tomorrow, was able to finish its passage in your Lordships’ House before the weekend and that it would then get Royal Assent before Prorogation. With the assurances that we have had from the Minister, I feel confident that this will happen, so this is a positive outcome.

I cannot finish without thanking colleagues on my and other Benches who have supported us during a very long period. I am pleased that I will not be needing to use my duvet.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am grateful for what has been said. I had my toothbrush as well. I think that we were in a good place some hours ago. In this House, it is always wise to reach agreement. I believe that I speak for all my colleagues, who never had any intention to frustrate.