Queen’s Speech

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, this is a Government who have devalued many of the democratic principles that underpin our constitution. The claim that

“Her Majesty’s Government will ensure the constitution is defended”

is one of which we should all be sceptical. Crucial to our constitution is the maintenance of balance between the powers of the Executive and the legislature. Perhaps not since Charles I has the Executive branch of government sought in peacetime to curb the powers of Parliament and to remove so many of the checks and balances in our constitution.

We saw this in the way Parliament was declared to be prorogued in 2019, illegally and dishonestly, in a clear attempt to avoid proper parliamentary scrutiny of what has turned out to be a terrible Brexit deal. We saw it in the way that courts and individual judges could be challenged for upholding the law concerning Parliament’s role in triggering Brexit, and in the failure of the Government to defend the independence of those judges from attack by their media allies. We saw it in the last Session, with government Ministers taking effective control of the previously properly independent Electoral Commission.

The Prime Minister has also changed the election rules so that he can choose when to fire the starting gun in a race in which he is competing. The next general election will be fought on constituency boundaries using electoral registers that exclude around 15% of the people who should be included on them. This does not just deprive many people of the opportunity to vote; it means that more Conservative-leaning seats are being created by the Boundary Commissions and fewer seats are created where they are less likely to win.

The most obvious methods of getting everyone entitled to vote on to the electoral registers and enabled to vote are ignored, while new barriers are being put in the way of the 2.2 million who do not have the government-prescribed forms of photo ID. Unsurprisingly, the 2.2 million are less likely to vote Conservative and, based on the initial introduction of photo ID in Northern Ireland, 1 million people on the voting registers may be unable to vote at the next general election.

The Government also appear to be acting to block legitimate freedom of information requests, with a special unit advising on how to try to dodge replying. I will give an example. I and most opposition parties were suspicious about the basis of a sudden government ban on volunteers delivering leaflets in the run-up to last year’s elections. It was strange that the then Minister for the Constitution suddenly announced the ban a year into the Covid pandemic, the nature of which must have changed suddenly for a dramatic change to the rules governing elections to take place. The ban on volunteers delivering leaflets primarily affected the opposition parties. There was no equivalent ban on existing commercial organisations distributing leaflets, primarily used by the Conservative Party.

Frequent Parliamentary Questions sought evidence to justify the strange distinction between different forms of campaigning that had similar levels of risk. But no evidence from any source based on scientific, medical or health advice was ever produced, so I turned to making a freedom of information request for this evidence in January 2021. Fifteen months after I made it, the Cabinet Office, after much obfuscation and contradictory responses, still refuses to disclose this information. I am still waiting, and the Information Commissioner is now also seeking answers.

Underpinning a democratic constitution is media freedom. We have relied in this country on excellent public service broadcasting to inform people about issues which help to determine their votes, but this Government have spent years trying to tame the BBC and prevent it being too critical of government policies such as Brexit by threatening the source of its income. Now they seek to privatise Channel 4, the only justification for which is that it has been a thorn in the side of the Government.

At the same time, we have seen government appearing to hand out taxpayers’ money to sections of the newspaper industry without proper transparency. The Byline Times yesterday quoted Dominic Cummings claiming that the Government made “bungs” dressed up as Covid relief. He says:

“Newspapers negotiated direct bungs to themselves”


with the Prime Minister and that there were “no officials” present on these calls, but that the officials were subsequently told to send the money

“dressed up as ‘COVID relief’”.

The Government refuse to say how the money for the All In, All Together advertising in certain newspapers was distributed. There was a total of perhaps £50 million or even £100 million. Taxpayers will in effect have been giving money to some of the billionaires who control too much of our press, and perhaps buying favourable coverage for the Government.

Finally, important questions about party financing are raised today by an article in the New York Times showing how £450,000 was transferred to the Conservative Party prior to the last general election from the account of a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine. A basic principle of a democratic constitution is that it should not be for sale.