Lord Robathan
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Lord Robathan Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I absolutely agree, and it is questionable whether it is necessary. My understanding is that the Prime Minister has already indicated that she plans to ask for an extension of our Article 50 period, so we do not need this Bill. I am told that when this point was put to our putative Prime Minister, Sir Oliver Letwin, he said he needed it as an insurance policy. I am sorry, but subverting our constitution for an insurance policy seems a pretty high premium to me.
Lord Robathan (Con)
Is my noble friend aware of the opinion of the excellent and rather consensual chairman of the House of Commons Procedure Committee? He said the following yesterday:
“The House of Commons is about to pass a major piece of legislation without a Report stage or a substantive Third Reading. If the Government did this, the House would rightly be deeply irritated with them, so the House should find no virtue in its actions this evening”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1211.]
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Indeed, and perhaps even at this late stage the noble Baroness might be prepared to reconsider her Motion. I would be perfectly happy if we had Second Reading today and took the Committee stage another day; there is no great issue here.
The noble Baroness suggested that the amendments had been tabled by people in favour of no deal; that is what she said. As I said at the beginning, this is not actually about the merits; we will get on to those later. As she sought to imply that one was coming from a biased position, I wonder if she would like to look at the pamphlet produced by Sir Stephen Laws and Professor Richard Ekins, entitled Endangering Constitutional Government: The Risks of the House of Commons Taking Control. They also picked up those words I quoted from Oliver Letwin, and this is what they say:
“By those words, Sir Oliver announced his intention to create a constitutional crisis, and invited MPs to join him in a flagrant and destructive attack on our current constitutional settlement. However, even if many MPs resile from the conclusion that the Commons must become the Cabinet, the course of action MPs have now set in motion, with help from the Speaker, is one which undercuts the Government’s capacity to govern and its freedom to set the agenda—to propose policy which Parliament might then choose to resist, adopt or adapt.
If the Commons continues down this path unopposed, the Government will end up in office but unable to govern. The Commons would nominally have confidence in the Government but would in practice not extend to the Government the freedom that such confidence would otherwise entail to carry out any policy initiative. Again, the constitution does not require that Parliament should accept the Government’s proposals. But unless the Government enjoys the initiative in formulating and proposing policy, the country cannot be effectively governed; and the relationship between the political authorities and the people will break down if MPs act in mutually inconsistent ways in performing their dual role both as an electoral college for government and in exercising oversight over the conduct of public affairs”.
What a mess we are in. Members opposite, in this House, of all places, where we have conducted the debate in a civilised manner—
Lord True
The noble Lord is a great wag, is he not? I have often thought the same about him, but I find him too engaging to have said such a thing.
I return to my argument. One thing I regret about the amendment I have tabled—but it was necessary because of the nature of the Bill before us—is that it mentions the House applying,
“unprecedented procedures to this Bill”.
I believe my amendment would be better if it said “any non-emergency Bill”. I think your Lordships are teetering slightly on the edge of a different dangerous place from that which was put to us earlier in the debate. In this part of our proceedings, the argument is ultimately about procedure. That may be arcane, but later in my remarks I will develop why I think that that is extremely important.
Our first discussion today was when my noble friend asked us to go into Committee. I would like to have spoken on that and I will now develop the points that I would have made then because they are absolutely germane to the point. My noble friend was responding to a situation where the Official Opposition, at the behest of the Labour Party, has come to the House and for the first time is asking your Lordships to accept this unusual procedure: the combination of the Bill before us and what happened in the Commons yesterday. That deserves to be examined. Why did my noble friend suggest that we should go into Committee? The reason was shown to us. When the former Leader of the House, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, tried to intervene on the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, based on all of his experience—my noble friend Lord Strathclyde enjoys great respect on both sides of the House because he is a great servant to this place—he wanted to ask for an explanation from the noble Baroness, acting for the Official Opposition, about usurping the role of the Government and demanding that this House pass legislation which is not approved by the Government in one day, she declined to take his intervention.
That showed me why my noble friend was right to ask that we should go into Committee. Why should not the Official Opposition or anyone else who might want to use this procedure in the future not be required to make the same response to the House on the whys and wherefores as a Minister of the Crown who comes before noble Lords has to do? What is it about the Official Opposition with this bogus cry—
Lord Robathan
I am very interested in what my noble friend is saying. For clarification, do the people who are backing this not understand that this will be used against them if it is allowed to continue?
Lord True
Well, my Lords, it is for each noble Lord to draw whatever conclusion he or she wishes. I simply draw attention to the fact that this is a device that is being used by the Official Opposition, with the approval of the leader of the Labour Party, against the House of Lords.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Oh! I had not noticed. Mr Baker was looking forward to the Bill coming to your Lordships’ House, in the,
“fervent hope that their Lordships will examine this Bill line by line”,—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1217.]
and give it good attention. The hope was that we would get on and deal with the Bill, and that is what this Motion is about.
However, I speak now to only the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True. He asked me why I did not take an intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I was moving a Motion: normally, you move a Motion, then people stand up and ask questions and points of order, and at the end one comes back with the clarification. That seems to be the correct way to do it.
On the particular issue of whether we should have a committee, we have a committee report on this Bill. Even if we did not, the point of committees is to assist this House, not to stand in the way when something needs doing. Their members are also Members of this House, and can therefore give their very wise—and often learned, in the case of the Constitution Committee —advice directly to the House. We can do it then.
The important thing I want to raise, because I was not able to on the last amendment, is the idea of how awful it was that we were moving this, rather than the Government. As I said at the beginning, it should have been the Government who brought the Bill to the House, because that was what the House had passed before. We are doing it because that was not done. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House said that it is normally the Government who table Private Members’ Bills. Yes, but they failed to do so. We will do it when they do not. The Leader of the House is obviously in a difficult position—
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I think I will continue, if the noble Lord does not mind.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I am sure the noble Lord does, but I would like to answer the point that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House made some time ago, which I have not been able to answer. She is in a difficult position; I understand that. She is a member of the Cabinet and of the governing party, but she is also the Leader of the House. In the absence of a Speaker with authority—although we do have a very authoritative Speaker—she also has to consider the whole House’s interests. It would have been her responsibility in that role to have brought forward this Bill as it was voted for before.
We have talked about a “constitutional monstrosity”, “tearing up the constitution” and “constitutional vandalism”. We are asking that this House considers a Bill sent to us by the other House. Is that “constitutional vandalism”? As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, this country faces a national crisis. The people in the Gallery—I am sorry that there are some there, because I am quite embarrassed that they are watching us—must wonder what on earth is happening when, at a time of national crisis, we are debating not the content of the Bill or the issues that have been raised by some speakers, but whether we should even consider the Bill today. This is out of order. In fact, I think it is shameful that this is being done. I find it shameful that the Government are helping on this.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I think the noble Lord has spoken quite enough. We have heard from him; I think we know his views. We should not still be debating the content of the Bill, because we have not got on to it. We want a Second Reading. We can vote against the Bill if we do not like it; that is the democratic way of dealing with a Bill that you do not like. But to try to talk out the ability of us even to take the Bill is an abuse of process. I will not support the amendment to my Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True.
Lord Robathan
Since the noble Baroness does not like taking interventions, I will have to make a speech. It will be a very brief one.
Lord Robathan
I always thought that this House was about courtesy, but I have noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, does not really agree. Never mind. Indeed, if I might digress slightly, the noble Lord rudely accused my predecessor in the seat of Blaby in the House of Commons of being in Parliament too long. I note that the noble Lord first wanted to come into the House of Commons in 1966—that would make it 53 years—so he has not done badly himself, although the electorate kept throwing him out.
The point I would like to make is this. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked why the Government had not put down a Motion. It is quite straightforward: the Bill was not passed until 11.30 pm last night. How could the Government possibly have put down a Motion then? The Bill was passed by one vote—I regret to say that it was passed at all. There was never any certainty of it being passed, and it would have been extraordinary if my noble friends on the Government Bench had said, “Oh, we’ll put it down just in case”. That is not the way Parliament works. It has procedures. That is the whole point of the amendment.
Motion
Baroness Noakes
I hear the noble Lord, but to put the onus on my noble friend Lord Forsyth to delay the debate on his very important reports issued last year is unfair. We are in this position because of the action taken by the Opposition in tabling the Motion to deal with this in one day.
Lord Robathan
The truth is that the objection of most of us to this business Motion is to it being rushed through. Why, for instance, could the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, not move for Committee on Monday and have only Second Reading today? How about that? It would seem to be a reasonable compromise.
Lord Robathan
Leave out from “Commons,” to the end and insert “notes that more than one day is required for this House to have sufficient time to scrutinise the European Union (Withdrawal) (No.5) Bill received from the House of Commons that has had less than one day of consideration in that House, and had not been received by this House by the end of business on 3 April.”
Lord Robathan
Okay, I shall be quite brief; not least because my noble friend Lord Young on the Front Bench has implored me—begged me on bended knee—not to go over 15 minutes. I doubt I shall.
The first point to make is that this is not about Brexit. It will not have escaped many of your Lordships’ attentions that I believe we should leave the European Union, and I voted so to do. However, I do not wish to mention Brexit again, because this is a procedural Motion and we need to concentrate on the procedure, which is extraordinarily important. Other noble friends have made that point well.
We are legislating in unseemly haste, nearly three years since the referendum and two years since Article 50 was triggered. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, who I do not think is here, said it is a crisis. Of course it is a crisis, but we have had two years, arguably three, to sort it out. I find it worrying that we are now rushing through something that does not need to be rushed.
I quote from the chairman of the Procedure Committee, Mr Charles Walker, who said:
“The House of Commons is about to pass a major piece of legislation without a Report stage or a substantive Third Reading. If the Government did this, the House would rightly be deeply irritated with them, so the House should find no virtue in its actions this evening”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1211.]
I implore Members opposite and on the Cross Benches: if we make this a precedent, the Government—it could conceivably be the Government I support, or a different Government—might push forward such a procedure. I say to all noble Lords that this is not sensible. Another MP said yesterday that:
“I know how their Lordships feel about ill-considered and briskly prepared legislation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1217.]
This is ill-considered and briskly prepared legislation, so we should not rush it through as people are trying to.
My final quote from yesterday’s House of Commons Hansard is from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. We are talking about really serious legislation. We have talked about crises, and people have said how important it is to get this through, yet the Secretary of State in charge of this says:
“It is being passed in haste, and the fact that we have a time limit of two minutes for a number of speeches this evening is an indication of the fact that the Bill is being passed in haste. It is constitutionally irregular and, frankly, it fails to understand the decision-making process by which any discussion of an extension or agreement of an extension at the European Council will be reached”.
He goes on:
“The Bill also calls into question the royal prerogative. It has been a long-standing practice that Heads of Government can enter into international agreements without preconditions set by the House that would constrain their ability to negotiate in the national interest”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1145.]
That is powerful stuff, and the reason is that this is not about—I will not mention the B-word—a particular Government or political hue; it is about the way Parliament functions.
Yesterday, this particular Motion was passed by one vote. I regret that it was passed. Previously, a similar Motion was defeated in the House of Commons, so there is a certain lack of consensus there. Without mentioning the B-word, those who want a second referendum say it passed by only 1.25 million extra votes. This was one vote, so we need to consider it.
Is it contentious? It is extraordinarily contentious. Parliament and the people are divided. With this Bill, we are looking at constitutional change and precedent. If we accept this, it will come back and bite us all, not just the Conservative Government, which we can fairly say is in disarray, but any Government and, I fear, any relationship between Parliament and the country.
My noble friend Lord Howard said that we act as a “constitutional check”. My noble friend Lord True asked: “Why are we here”? I heard a rather unseemly cry from the Benches opposite in answer to that, but I will tell noble Lords why we are here. I have been here for three years now. I talk a bit; too much perhaps.
Lord Robathan
Thank you; I accept that. First, we are here to revise legislation. Although we do not get it perfectly right, we do it quite well—much better than the other place, in which I sat for 23 years. That is to the credit of the House of Lords. The second reason we are here is to act as a check—it can only be a minor one—on the tyranny of the elected House. We should be very concerned about this being pushed through the way it is. We legislate in haste; we will repent at leisure.
Other noble Lords—I am looking at two or three on the Benches opposite—were here for the Dangerous Dogs Act. After it was passed, in haste, everybody said that it was a terrible mistake because it was not properly thought through, or examined by Parliament, Select Committees or the clerks. It was not properly examined at all, and what we are doing here is the same. I am not even talking specifically about the Bill that will come up later. I am talking about the whole process by which we pass legislation. The way this procedure has been brought forward is an abuse of Parliament.
The debate has been closed down by one Liberal Democrat, one Labour Peer and at least two Cross-Benchers. Be careful what you wish for because, guess what, if this is to be accepted practice, it will be used against every party, every person on their feet, and every person who wants to raise an issue, by the Government, by the Opposition and by whomsoever. I appeal to noble Lords: of course we all have strong feelings about this but let us remember that the procedures of this House are here for a purpose. They are not perfect, and here I take issue with my noble friend Lord Ridley who said that he did not accept that they were arcane. Actually, some of them are, but, without a dictionary, I do not know if “arcane” is necessarily that appalling.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the noble Lord has talked a lot about the procedures of this House. However, going back over many years, the House does know when a filibuster is going on and takes action to stop it. The noble Lord talks about the tyranny of the other place. It is usually tyranny of Governments that we talk about. The reason the Commons has had to do this is that, as he said, we have a shambolic Government who have completely lost control of the most important issue that this nation has faced for many decades. The Commons has had to take control. We should surely at least respect that by giving the Bill an opportunity to have a Second Reading. The noble Lord talks about the role of this House. The role of this House is not to filibuster.
Lord Robathan
I am grateful to the noble Lord. I agree: it should not be about filibustering. However, I and a great many other people believe we are acting as a check on the wrong procedure down the other end. The noble Lord was here in January 2011. I wonder whether he took part in the filibuster I looked up, which tried to stop the referendum on parliamentary voting. Did he not? Perhaps he was on the Government Benches at the time? No, he would not have been. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, formerly Deputy Prime Minister, who is not in his place, was apparently very active in it. So I am afraid that filibusters—as the noble Lord suggests this might be—are not unique to any particular party. We should go by constitutional precedent, proper convention—
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I remind him that I have been here for over 12 years. I cannot remember when this House has asked, time after time, to put something forward like this. We normally take the time that is required. The threat was, “Be careful what you wish for”, but this has not happened in 12 years because we have not needed it. Today, we have spent more than five years on five amendments. The whole country is watching us make a complete disgrace of ourselves. The noble Lord is bringing shame to this House: it is pure filibustering and should not be allowed.
Lord Robathan
I am grateful to the noble Lord for filling up a couple of minutes. It is not five years, as it happens.
Lord True
The point being lost here is that which I based my remarks on, which is simple. Noble Lords opposite should be asked when the last precedent was for this abuse of our procedures. That is the fundamental point. I have heard 30, 40 or 50 speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, on this subject. I have made about five in the period, so I think we are entitled to have our say in this House.
Lord Robathan
I think that is right, and I am still not going to talk about the B-word. Furthermore, I intended to be brief, so I shall sit down very shortly—unless I get any more helpful interventions from the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, or somebody else.
There is no precedent, as the noble Lord said, for five closure Motions, or whatever we have had today. But then there is no precedent for the Business of the House Motion that we have in front of us. I genuinely think, not just because I take a different view on leaving the European Union from many in this House, that if we start tinkering with our procedures, we will all rue the day. When closing down the debate on this Business of the House Motion, I say to noble Peers opposite and elsewhere in the House: be careful what you wish for.