Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Relevant document: 5th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords for taking part and being here today, and for the strong support from many more who are unable to be here today. I see from the speakers list that my noble friend Lady Suttie and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will be taking part, so I know that this debate will not only concern our United Kingdom but will have an international perspective as well. I look forward to all the contributions from noble Lords today. I am grateful, too, to those outside this House, in the other place, in academia and in citizen organisations, who are supporting the Bill. These range from signatories to an open letter in the Times today, right through to the Local Government Association.

The questions we must all ask ourselves are: will our current approach to the constitution of our union be stable and sustainable for the long term; and has our piecemeal approach to reform in recent years been the best way to secure this—indeed, is it secure at all? In looking forward to the Minister’s response, I recall that he answered a question from his noble friend Lord Lexden, whom he said had marked his work when he hired him to the Conservative Research Department. In the debate on the office of the Lord Chancellor on 7 July, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, described a constitutional convention as an,

“obvious means by which coherence could be brought to sets of separate initiatives and the framework created for a new constitutional settlement that would stand the test of time”.—[Official Report, 7/7/15; col. 123.]

I agree with him. In fact, I will struggle to put it better today, so I am hoping that his protégé, the Minister, will do so too and gain good marks for a positive response to this debate.

One of the arguments against a convention is that it is simply the recourse of inaction when political parties cannot agree or do not know how to proceed on policy. Thus a convention may be a long-grass exercise with a veneer of activity. In response to a Question by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, said that Harold Wilson once remarked about royal commissions, “They take minutes and last years”. He is actually reported to have said, “They take minutes and waste years”. We all know that there have been occasions when royal commissions have met because conferences have been convened, but not all of them have secured the delivery of their proposals.

I am not discouraged by the fact that there have been attempts at bringing people together. Rather, I am encouraged by a degree of consistency that suggests that constitutional policy should try to be forged from as wide a consensus as possible. This could be described as “the British way”. The groundwork for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament was done because of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. There have been debates on the balance of powers and responsibility of that Parliament since—I have sought to lead some of them—but its founding was based on wide consensus. It also benefited from agreement at the outset on a clear outcome, and thus sought consensus on how to get here. I will return to this important point later.

First, I will consider where we are today. There is much constitutional activity by this Government, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. There will be much burning of constitutional calories, but the union will not be fitter as a result. In the recent Labour Party debate, I said that I feel our union is not at ease with itself. I believe that profoundly, and it concerns me. The referendum in Scotland was not just something I had to endure as a supporter of the union; it was a profound and challenging time with consequences that are still unknown. We have been too quick to assume that we know what they are, and we have not acted appropriately. It highlighted how many of us struggled to have a coherent and forward-looking definition of what our union is and what it means to young people and generations to come. We have seen nationalism coming to the fore in all parts of the union. I have spoken about this in the House before on a number of occasions, so I need not rehearse my view this afternoon, but I will return to it briefly before I conclude.

There is a real practical benefit to having a government-sponsored process with full technical assistance from the Treasury, DCLG, the national offices and Secretaries of State and the Cabinet Office to bring together the disparate changes proposed so that they are part of a coherent whole. It was rather telling that in the debate this week on the changes to universal credit, the Minister making the case for the change across the UK was unaware of the fact that the Government’s Scotland Bill, which is before Parliament, proposes the part devolution of that power. He was therefore unable to say how it would work and what a “concurrent” responsibility, which is in the Scotland Bill, means. The tensions over EVEL, the clumsy shorthand for English votes for English laws—or, as I suggest, EVET, English votes for English taxes—highlight the difficulty of a reform in isolation approach.

I am looking forward to my noble friend Lady Randerson’s speech. I suspect her strong Welsh experience and knowledge may form part of her contribution. The same could be said for the human rights agenda and for the proposals for the Welsh Assembly to become a parliament with full powers.

All these areas have recently seen Ministers at the Dispatch Box with the greatest confidence in their approach, only to be followed by pause, delay or retreat because the issues are complex and interrelated and require consideration as a whole. The list is even longer when we add the changes within England, where the approach that the cities Bill is taking has been challenged in this House and is asking more questions than it seems to answer.

We do not have a properly considered view on what powers should permanently be held within the union Government and what naturally should be the remit of the nations and of the regions within England. Neither do we have a properly considered view about the financial powers that could be balanced, and upon what principles across the union that could be done. Indeed, I see that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has a question on the Order Paper about the Government moving ahead in spite of there being no fiscal framework agreed between the Scottish Government and the UK Government.

Within England, the impressive paper on English devolution by the Local Government Association is useful to highlight this issue too. How will the new powers on tax and welfare for Scotland interact with each other, and what role does this place have within the union overall in this changed landscape? How are disputes resolved, and how will the Government work when in many areas it is an English and Welsh Executive who will become almost exclusively an English Executive? Its relationship with Parliament and the other Governments is not forming part of a holistic whole.

These are no longer theoretical questions for cerebral discussion in the academic seminar rooms or the Edinburgh salons. These are questions that we must resolve now, primarily as we are starting from a base of reform in recent years, but which need to be brought together as we are not resolving them satisfactorily by our piecemeal approach. The issue is how we resolve them, not whether they need to be resolved. Would a convention take minutes and waste years? I do not wish us to waste further years on discussing process.

I turn to the substance of the Bill and why I believe that it is a timely, focused and sensible measure that will produce a mechanism to gain wider consensus on a practical way forward for constitutional reform, and will not waste years but take only one. The Bill is already the result of a move to gain cross-party consensus. Its drafting reflects the legacy paper of the All-Party Parliamentary Party on Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK—yes, I confess that we could have come up with a better title for the all-party group. The group has been generously supported by the Wales Governance Centre and then more recently by the Local Government Association, and my co-chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I are grateful for the input across the parties. The draft terms of reference for a convention and its composition were agreed within this wider group, with considerable external academic support.

Clause 1 outlines the proposal on how the convention would be established. Clause 2 proposes the terms of reference—a narrow list but a broad one, with the issues necessary to be discussed. Clause 3 states that the convention must not take longer than a year—a tight timeframe for some, I know, but equally I believe that it needs to have a focused timeframe. Clause 4 proposes its composition and that it be inclusive, geographically and politically. It also means that the convention must have a majority citizen-led composition. This is because of my strong conviction that the convention will not work if it is simply a lowest-common-denominator agreement between political parties. It must have depth and, if we are defining what the union is and what it offers, we must take stock of the wider view of citizens. There are models for how the citizen component will be constituted, and this will be resolved before regulations in Clause 5 are brought forward. I am pretty convinced that work on how that could be brought about will have been done in government, both before and during the general election, so I look forward to hearing the Minister respond on that point.

So what might a conclusion of a convention be? There needs to be a balance of allowing the convention to take its own form and make its own conclusions but I offer my view that, as I said earlier, minds are focused when a proposed outcome is in mind; joint ownership of that outcome becomes stronger and is more sustainable.

I conclude by suggesting what an outcome could be for the convention. Some years ago I published a cross-party devo-plus paper, arguing for a statement of the new union, outlining in brief terms the necessity of a formal statement of union. I believe that the outcome of the convention should be a royal charter of new union, formed from the citizenry and in the name of the monarch. In many respects, the legacy of her own reign, with her own family, seems secure for generations to come. We cannot say that politicians are offering a similar legacy for the union for generations to come.

A charter of the new union can be a legacy from the head of state who has seen the union in peril from external foe but also from internal angst. Such a charter, perhaps ratified by plebiscite, would also be of a sufficient constitutional standing that it would stand the test of time. It also can act as a complementary statute of the United Kingdom that would be the machinery of government to resolve many of the questions I have raised today about how our multilevel and multisphere Government will operate in the union to come.

Again, I am grateful for the wide support already received, and I sincerely request that the Government retain an open mind, even though I am aware that this is not yet on their agenda: to allow this proposal to develop, to allow citizens’ groups, academics and those within all parties who believe that a process such as this is necessary to come together, and to allow the technical expertise of the Treasury and other departments to assist in that process. Our all-party group will make an exciting announcement next week to show that even wider support is emerging. I am grateful to those who are taking part today, and to those who share my view and that of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, that we seek coherence that will stand the test of time. I beg to move.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the debate, but for the convenience of noble Lords who might have missed the announcement made earlier by my noble friend the Chief Whip, I remind the House that the advisory time for Back-Bench speeches is six minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all those who have taken part. If nothing else, I have allowed the Minister to reflect on some contributions about how we may improve how we conduct our business in Parliament. I commend his research in advance of this debate, and I will read Hansard to see whether there is any living flesh on the skeleton that I can take as a positive from his speech. He was also most helpful by clarifying that an amendment proposing the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as chairman of any convention will not be forthcoming. Whether or not the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is or has ever been a member of the Grumpy Old Men Political Party is for the noble Lord alone—who signals his joy at such a proposition—to say.

There are a couple of aspects of the Minister’s comments on which I hope that he will reflect. He said that the Government have what I may describe as an absolute mandate for their agenda. He is going too far down the line when he defines the mandate for his party in government. The SNP says exactly the same thing about Scotland. Let us at least have some form of wider aspect that there are some other views. Indeed, that is what led the Strathclyde commission, from his own party, to propose the establishment of a committee of all the Parliaments and Assemblies of the UK to carry on such discussions. I think that that was a very constructive and positive proposal—some may argue that it is a better proposal than mine. Nevertheless, both the Strathclyde commission and I come from the position that this process simply cannot stand going forward.

I warmly welcome the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, who put this into the wider context. I am most grateful for that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said, in the absence of this being a public or government Bill, it is incumbent on those of us who believe in the proposition to put it forward and allow Members to scrutinise it, as we will be doing further.

My noble friend Lady Suttie highlighted that it is no longer a West Lothian or Scottish question—it is a union question. As a Liberal, I seem to have secured the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, which I appreciate causes him unease. However, his subsequent comments, in which he poured scorn on my proposals, restored the equilibrium and reassured us both that his head is not following his heart in this regard. He raised the point about a Joint Committee of Parliament. Although I make no comment on that proposal, I do not think it is any longer sufficient that we look only at the procedures in this Parliament. Noble Lords have indicated that this now impacts on other Parliaments in the United Kingdom and other regions.

I will reflect on the comments made by noble Lords. I have sought to address the dilemma—to try to bridge the gap between the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Norton—that we start either from grand principles or from where we are currently going and try to create a road map that we understand. That is a dilemma and I have put forward a proposal at least to put it on the agenda, so that we can perhaps refine and reflect on it in Committee.

I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that I will reflect on his idea that I have a “little red book” of constitutional reform that will be perpetual reform.

I will not only reflect on the comments of all noble Lords but am also happy to discuss any of their proposals as they seek to amend and improve on the remit, timeframe and composition of the Bill. In the light of that, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.