Lord Scriven
Main Page: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, in following the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, I speak as a new boy. I will perhaps give an impression of what it feels like to come into the House and look at its timetable. The pattern of the week reminds me slightly of the nursery rhyme:
“Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go”.
That is roughly how it goes. Of course,
“the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.”
Then we go back to this House again. That sort of works.
I cannot speak with any expertise or deep experience of any of this, but I instinctively side very much with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. It is very important that the House is a social institution in some senses. The conversations that take place throughout the building are a very important part of it, and a very important part of those conversations is that they are with people who have seen many different aspects of life, actively, and in other ways and other places.
As a journalist, I covered this in the House of Commons. I find it very different here—and in a good way. As a new boy, I never pass half an hour without meeting someone in a corridor, a tea room, the Chamber or somewhere from whom I learn something to my advantage. I will not be invidious by mentioning other noble Lords, but I see one behind me. I have mentioned him almost by mistake: the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, is a very interesting person to talk to at this precise moment in history, and here he is.
We need to keep that spirit in mind in everything we do. There is one phrase that I do not like hearing and have heard rather a lot about both Houses recently: “We are a workplace like any other.” We are not; we are fundamentally different from most workplaces because most workplaces, quite rightly, have an executive function by which they must get through their business as quickly as they possibly can. That is not the case with legislatures: we are deliberative, discursive and ruminative. We can sometimes be bloody long-winded, but that is not wrong. If we get rid of that and start to think that we have to do everything in a way that is compatible with all sorts of rules, HR procedures, being like everybody else and “valuing everyone”, we will be going the wrong way. We will not be doing our legislative duty. In that spirit, I am inclined very strongly to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and to reject the proposal.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, I stand rather nervously. This is the first time in my eight years here that I have spoken on anything to do with the Procedure and Privileges Committee. To be honest, my eyes normally glaze over. I cannot be called a traditionalist in any way, shape or form. In fact, many people on many Benches tell me in the politest way to get knotted over my tie.
I am agnostic in this debate, apart from on one issue that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raised, which is young people and educational visits. It is really important that we look at this Parliament through the prism not just of our convenience but of what it means to those outside, particularly the spark of democracy and current affairs for young people. Bringing young people into this House and getting them to see, observe, feel and touch is very important.
I looked at some facts. I am not sure whether many noble Lords are aware of the submission that the Education and Engagement Team gave to the committee that this will affect 8,000 young people. If we move the times, 8,000 young people will not be able to see this Chamber and have a full experience of Parliament. I thought it was quite discourteous of some Members to groan when the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned this, because it is really important.
I am agnostic on this, but unless someone can explain to me how those 8,000 young people’s experiences will be allowed to take place, I feel that I cannot vote for the change in time. It is not for my own convenience that I come to that decision; it is for the convenience of those young people and the spark that brings to democracy. I am of the view that, regardless of the issues for us, unless the question of how those 8,000 young people will be able to experience this Chamber can be answered, I cannot vote for this change.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for making that point very clearly and pointedly. I am grateful to him.
I want to take a different approach. Whenever a change is made, one should always ask, “Who is the ultimate beneficiary?” The ultimate beneficiary here will not be your Lordships, wherever you live and however you like to conduct your day. The ultimate beneficiary will be the Executive.
I say that very deliberately, because I was 40 years in the other place and I saw the changes that took place there. I well remember the arguments over the change of hours which followed the election of the Labour Government with a huge landslide victory in 1997. There was one roguish colleague, much beloved and long lamented, Eric Forth. He was determined to, in his own words, get his own back on Labour. What did he do? Night after night after night, without any discernment or discrimination, he kept the Government up. It so happened that, at the time, I was the constitutional affairs spokesman for the party and deputy shadow leader of the House. The then shadow leader, my noble friend Lady Shephard, and I saw Mr Forth, and we tried to persuade him to discriminate, but he would have none of it. We warned him that if he went on like that, the Labour Government, having a huge majority, would do what they wanted: curtail our hours and deprive him of the opportunity he was exercising too prodigally. That is precisely what happened. As a consequence of that, we said we would reverse it when we had a Conservative Government, but of course it proved to be so convenient to the Executive, coupled with the automatic timetabling of every Bill, that the Conservative Government decided it was one convenience that they wished to keep.
The long-term consequence of that has been that the House of Commons, the other place, no longer scrutinises legislation. We frequently lament that point in this House, and we should lament it because Bills come to us with whole chunks that have not been discussed on the Floor of the other place or even in committee. I love this House and I love Parliament, but I lament what has happened at the other end of the corridor. I do not want this House to go down that road. Many a time over the past two or three years a number of us have said that we are very concerned about the increasing power of the Executive and the increasing tendency for Henry VIII powers and Christmas tree Bills, and nobody has uttered more of a clarion call on that than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I just do not want that to happen.
I shall just mention one other thing, which my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Taylor referred to. The word “collegiate” has come up again more recently, with the admirable brief but forceful intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Moore. We are a collegiate body. Today, at the Long Table, we had a Labour Peer, a couple of Cross-Benchers and a Conservative, and there was a wonderful conversation in getting to know each other. One of the reasons why debate in this place is not as bitterly partisan as it is in the other place is because we know each other better. The other place does not have the Long Table, but it was so much better when Members dined in more often. I well remember in the dying days of my membership having dinner one night in the Members’ Dining Room with only one colleague present, my noble friend Lord Hailsham. We had an agreeable dinner together, but that was no substitute.
It is crucial that we maintain a collegiate atmosphere here and do not allow the Executive to take power at our gift. I urge noble Lords in all parts of the House to vote for my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment, to which he spoke admirably. If we need to come back to this subject, and we probably will, let us have some real discussions involving Members in all parts of the House, over a period, and maybe three or four of the Speaker’s forum sessions devoted to this alone. Please do not make this precipitate change tonight.
Lord Scriven (LD)
The report, therefore, is factually incorrect. The submission by the education and engagement centre, which I have a copy of and have read, says that 8,000 young people would not be able to visit this Chamber in the normal way that they do now.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)
In that case, I hope the Senior Deputy Speaker will clarify that, either in his closing remarks or in a letter subsequent to this debate. I do not know whether that is a future projection of numbers, but the report says there will be 116 fewer school visitors per week. I think that is something to be managed.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I will not make myself popular with my Chief Whip, but if that is the case, surely, until such time as it has been sorted, we should not be voting for the change.