European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

The House of Commons is not in control of the legislative canvas—the Government are. This amendment, sent to the Commons, would provide it with a canvas on which it can operate. It can change it or modify it if it does not like bits of it and send it back, but without this canvas it cannot operate in the way my noble friend is describing.

[Lord Grocott]

I have never seen the word “canvas” in Erskine May—I do not know quite what my noble friend refers to. However, we know that the House of Commons can pass legislation if it wants to; it can be introduced by a Private Member’s Bill if required, although obviously not on a matter like this. Legislation can be introduced—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lisvane (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 53 in this group is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and Lady Wheatcroft, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and—most recently and much to be welcomed—the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. In Committee I had occasion to speak about the legislative Damascus road so I am very glad that in respect of this issue at least the Minister has added this highway to his travel plans.

I respectfully commend my noble and learned friend Lord Judge for his excoriation of Henry VIII clauses. It is a very poor rejoinder to say that the exercise of these powers is subject to the way that Parliament deals with statutory instruments, whether they be affirmative or negative, because too often that is an occasion for merely perfunctory examination. Over a period of time—and I have looked at quite close quarters at the way that the threshold between primary and secondary legislation has moved upwards over the past couple of decades and more—it is ultimately subversive of the primary legislative process.

If my noble and learned friend presses his amendment, I will of course support him, but if he chooses not to do so or fails to convince your Lordships, I will fall back on my amendment, to which the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has so helpfully added his name.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate, which is way above my pay grade, but in answer to the question asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—which I invite the Minister to get briefed on—about how this has been allowed to happen and when, I say that it would not have happened in David Renton’s time. He was the Member for Huntingdonshire in the other place and was still active here at 92, taking parliamentary draftsmen apart on a weekly basis, under the Government of whom I had the privilege to be a member. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, recalls this. He was meticulous. He chaired a report in the other place in the late 1970s on the drafting of legislation. It was his life’s work. He could pick apart these issues. No one is doing that these days and it is allowing slipshod work by parliamentary draftspeople to get on to the statute book, and it is about time we did more about it.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am a signatory to Amendment 53, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, and I want to contribute one very small thought to your Lordships. Many of us will recall that at the outset of consideration of this Bill by your Lordships’ House, there were many attacks in anticipation that we might amend it. But the very fact that the Minister has signed our amendment indicates that your Lordships’ House is doing its job. That is the whole point of our presence in the legislative process.

Ministers were egged on and convinced by the more incendiary Back-Benchers in the other House, and the tabloid media, that it would be outrageous if your Lordships’ House amended in the tiniest detail this wonderful Bill that was going to be put in front of us. The Minister has now helped us do some amending. We have already had seven changes, I think, improving the Bill, with a large majority in some cases. So I plead with the Minister to recognise in future that we are doing our job when we improve this Bill. It did not come to us perfect. It will go back to the other place a great deal better than when it came to us. I hope that there will not be so many incendiary attacks on your Lordships’ House in future by curious Back-Benchers in the other House.

Incidentally, I yield to nobody in wishing to reform your Lordships’ House, as some noble Lords will know to their cost. I was a strong supporter of the agreed Cross-Bench 2012 Bill. I now find it rather odd that the people who want to reform this House, or indeed to abolish it, are the very people who stood in our way on that occasion.