General Elections: Peers’ Exclusion from Voting

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I would very much like to introduce a more rational and modern approach to the second Chamber, but we will have to do that in an overall way. There are many anomalies in our voting system. The position in which citizens of the Irish Republic and the Commonwealth can vote in British parliamentary elections is also quite extraordinary, but has a long tradition behind it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for asserting his Conservative instincts in answering this Question. Would we not be better employed in seeking to persuade all those who do have the vote that it is their civic duty to use it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have spent considerable time over recent weekends and when visiting universities and colleges doing exactly that, and I hope all other Members of this House do the same.

Electoral Register

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is up to all of us, not just the Government, to make sure. I was with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, at UCL the other week. We all three made the point that it was extremely important that students both register and vote, and we should all be repeating that message each time we go to a college, university or school. The noble Lord will have seen the Electoral Commission’s announcement of its pre-election campaign earlier this week. That is another dimension of this. There will be advertising online and in the media. The Government are very happy that in February a million new applications came in to register. We expect there to be a similar surge in the last few weeks before the closing date, as there was in 2010. We are not at all complacent, but as the election gets closer, we expect interest to rise and we expect the 2.7 million applications which have come in since last December to be added to by, we hope, another million.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, as there are penalties for not registering, can my noble friend explain to me—he has failed to do so in the past—why we do not move towards compulsory registration?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, has also asked me this question on a number of occasions. We would be moving towards a different relationship between the citizen and the state. In Denmark, Finland and Germany, there is a national population register. If you are on a national population register, you are automatically also on a voting register. It is also used for welfare, taxation and a range of other questions. That takes us down the road towards national identification numbers and national identity cards. We will have to have that debate in the next Parliament. It is not the tradition in this country.

Iraq: Nimrud

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the blockage on that has been a matter of finding legislative time. Reading through the preparation for this, it seems to me that this is an ideal Bill for one of us to take through this House if there is not time in the first Session of the next Government. We last considered the question of ratification in 2004. Sadly, no Government since then have found time in their legislative programme.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we all think that is extremely sad. Can my noble friend tell us what we are doing to educate Muslim pupils in British schools in the fact that their heritage is being destroyed and despoiled by these evil people?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will have to write to the noble Lord about that. It is a very good question. The complex history of the Middle East and the relationship between different religions in the Middle East is part of what is being destroyed. Those of us who have visited, for example, the Great Mosque in Damascus, which has the tomb of St John the Baptist inside it, will know the extent to which what is happening in the Middle East is sadly destroying its historic diversity. That is something that we certainly need to teach our Muslim British about.

Electoral Registration

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government are not complacent: we do not have a crisis. The figures for last December show that, under the transition, we are roughly at the level that we were at three years ago. That is not good enough—there were already 7.5 million people missing three years ago. We are continuing to work, and everyone here should be continuing to work, to encourage people to register. I saw in this morning’s Daily Mirror that it is running its own its own campaign with a bus, the cast of “The Only Way is Essex” and various others to encourage particularly vulnerable groups to come on board. We all have to work on that, and I am still confident that many of the missing young people will actually use their mobile phones to register online in the last two or three weeks before the deadline.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, whatever the case may be against compulsory voting—and frankly, I am moving in that way myself—what is the case against compulsory registration?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are asking some large questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, might stand shoulder to shoulder with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, on a number of these issues.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to delay my noble friend; I shall not do so for more than a moment or two. I made it quite plain in Committee that I thought this was a dreadful Bill, unimprovable and really unamendable. That remains my position. I could not take exception to the extremely cogent speech of the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench. This is a terrible Bill that the Commons are inflicting upon themselves. I wish they were not. It betrays a lack of self-confidence in a great institution that is superior to any other in this country. Recall is the process that goes on at a general election. That is where I rest my case, and that is why I shall not put myself in either Division Lobby tonight.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for that very brief Second Reading speech, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for the meticulousness with which she has pursued this delicate issue—although perhaps not for some of her slightly ungenerous little comments in moving her amendment.

There are a number of difficult issues here. There are issues of potential intimidation and certainly issues of electoral fraud that require that a marked register be assembled and is available to those who want to check against impersonation—so we are conscious both that this cannot be an entirely secret process and that there are arguments that it should not be an entirely public process. The Government have considered this and consider that we can designate a process that guards against impersonation but which also provides some safeguards against intimidation.

As I said in Committee, signing a petition, particularly in person, is unavoidably, to a degree, a public act. However, that does not go so far as sanctioning the publication of the full list of those who have signed the petition—the marked register—as is implied by the Opposition’s amendment. I agree that regulations should specify—

Electoral Registration

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, you can register online on smartphones. The Government are also using social and other media to add links to the registration website and to remind people as they use social media that now is the time to register to vote.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that we all wish my noble friend success in his mission to Tower Hamlets this evening. Could I ask him to reconsider the Government’s attitude on compulsory registration? It would really be very sensible, and I am glad to see noble Lords opposite nodding. I hope the Government will consider it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are not convinced about compulsory voting, which raises some large questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state—

Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Tyler. As one who fought all the elections to which my noble friend the Minister referred, will he accept that those of us with that sort of experience have evaluated? We do not need to wait until 2020. This is a disservice to the constitution and the sooner it is consigned to the legislative rubbish tip the better.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord demonstrates that his conservatism on constitutional matters is as deep as that of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. It was in the Labour Party’s manifesto for the last election that it would legislate on a fixed-term Parliament—as indeed in others. This transfer of, what was after all, executive power to Parliament was, one would have thought, an extension of our democratic system and a limit on prime ministerial power.

Chilcot Inquiry

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware that I, certainly, had ever called it “illegal”.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, after all the excitement and excitable nature of yesterday’s proceedings, would not pre-election purdah be rather a good idea?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Pre-election purdah does not formally start until late March, but the Government have committed that if the report is not available for publication by the end of February, it will be held back until after the election.

Iran: Ghoncheh Ghavami

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are certainly acting delicately. We all understand the delicacy of raising human rights issues with other countries. However, the human rights situation in Iran is dire. The periodic universal review of the Iranian position on human rights by the Human Rights Council, which is now under way, has raised a number of serious issues. Her Majesty’s Government contributed to raising those issues and we look forward cautiously to Iran’s response at the next meeting of the Human Rights Council in March 2015.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, while I do not necessarily suggest that we emulate the Don Pacifico incident, there is a limit to delicacy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, of course there is a limit to delicacy. The Iranian political system is one of the most complex in the world. We are dealing with a democratically elected President, a judiciary that is partly responsible to the clergy and a Supreme Leader, not to mention the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. We are never quite sure, as we negotiate with the Iranian authorities, which authorities have the key ability to respond.

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Friday 24th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

If it is less of a wash-up, there is only a very tiny dish.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely understood. Unfortunately, some rather larger dishes may yet be introduced, which the Government may wish to try to push through.

We all hope that these powers would not be needed. We all recognise that we will need to look before the Bill is completed at the sort of things that will need to be in Standing Orders, because this Bill is quite a substantial extension to the power of the House, in spite of the wonderful phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, used—that it is intended to be merely an “amelioration”. However, I am very happy to talk further with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and certainly take this back to the Cabinet Office to see what is possible.

Before we depart, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that I look forward to her next proposals on accretion or amelioration. I am happy that I hear around the Corridors a number of noble Lords on all Benches discussing the possibility of retirement at the end of this Parliament. That is another useful way forward. We should encourage it. However, perhaps the noble Baroness will, at the beginning of the next Parliament, produce a Bill that will suggest a retirement age by consensus. I look forward to giving her my support, from wherever I am at that point, on that next stage in amelioration.

Scottish Referendum

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the enthusiasm, the high rate of turnout and, earlier, the high rate of registration in Scotland was a lesson for the rest of us. It is very much part of the Government’s response to consider the devolution of power not only in further devolution in Scotland, Wales and perhaps in Northern Ireland, but also within England.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, does not my noble friend accept that the biggest danger to the union would be to encourage rampant English nationalism?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely agree. I trust that my noble friend has not the slightest temptation to give way to that.

National Voter Registration Day

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, certainly. We trust that the churches will play their own role, and perhaps we will have mentions in sermons of civic duty and what one should render unto Caesar as well as unto God.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, why do we not require young people to register?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in this country, it has not been compulsory to vote or to register to vote. That would raise all sorts of questions about civil or criminal penalties, and some fundamental questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state. This country has not wanted to use compulsion where it can possibly avoid it.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is one way of addressing the question of topping up after the election. We also have to grasp the question of retirement. It was intended, when the retirement proposals came in, that a larger number of Peers would take the option of retirement and follow the excellent example of Lord Grenfell in that respect, but that has not actually transpired so far.

There were a number of recommendations in the report about the appointments process. I note that the appointments process will remain centralised and largely agreed by party leaders, although that is itself a question. The Bill that the Government put forward proposed to make the House of Lords Appointments Commission a statutory commission and, in any comprehensive reform, that would happen. The question of political balance is one of the most difficult ones. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that if UKIP establishes itself as a significant party in British politics, it would of course be appropriate to have a number of UKIP Members in this House. He might have wished to add that given the level of attendance of the current UKIP Members, both here and in the European Parliament, we might not notice the difference. We already have a Green Member of the Lords, which recognises that British politics is shifting. That is also part of what is appropriate to reflect the changing political balance.

The need to reflect diversity across the UK is a tremendous problem, which election on a regional basis would resolve, as of course would indirect election. I am struck by the number of Peers who raised the question of indirect election in this debate, as it has not received very much attention until recently. The noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Trimble, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and other noble Lords mentioned it. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, talked about it having an occupational or functional basis—a sort of guild socialist approach. The Cross Benches, after all, are well organised: the academies, in particular the medics, always put forward their members. Incidentally, when it comes to lobbies, I have to say to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby that the biggest lobby in this House is the academic lobby—I hope he has noticed that I used to be part of it myself.

As to working Peers, part of the reason that attendance has risen in recent years is because one is asked, before one comes in, whether one is prepared to work hard. However, those of us who were appointed when we still needed to earn our pensions would like to go on working until we have finished earning them, so the Government do not intend to produce a high bar of the sort that is proposed here. It is a matter of judgment the extent to which Members should be full-time or part-time but, again, if we want Members under the age of 60 who still have children to bring up and careers to finish, we have to consider how much we insist on their attending all the time.

The House can decide to end the wearing of robes. I have much sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that it would be a little more radical to suggest that we might end the use of titles, but that would be a more deliberative step.

Do we need a referendum on Lords reform? The Government’s view is that, since each of the major parties had it in their manifesto last time, it was a clear consensual commitment and a referendum is therefore not necessary. A number of procedural reforms were proposed in the report which, as I have already said—

[Lord Cormack]

To be entirely fair, would my noble friend acknowledge that the Labour Party did have a commitment to a referendum in their manifesto?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have to admit that I do not recall whether the party had a commitment to a referendum on Lords reform. If it did, that is fine.

I will wind this multifaceted debate up as quickly as I can. The House of Lords has changed a great deal over the past 20 years. Certainly, since I came in, in 1996, we have become a much more effective revising Chamber and a much busier Chamber. We have become the area through which the lobbies outside know that they can get things. Figures were quoted about the number of government defeats, although my figures do not entirely agree with those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and we might perhaps exchange ideas outside the Chamber. As a Minister taking Bills through, I am conscious that we are always saying to Commons Ministers, “You won’t get that through the Lords unless …”. As we all know, a great deal of what happens in the Lords is about bargaining and about the Government bringing back proposals to meet criticisms that have been made.

Let us treat this as a final-year-of-Parliament debate. There is not time for legislation before the general election but ideas such as those produced can feed into the thinking of the next Government—whoever they may be—and perhaps even build a consensus across the parties on the way forward.

Voting: Young People

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. We all know that there is a broader and long-term problem, which did not arise simply with this Government, of popular alienation from politics, and a sense that national politics and Westminster have little to do with the lives of young people in particular. All of us here and in the other place have a shared interest in combating that, rebuilding trust in politics, and regaining a sense of shared citizenship and political values. The Government cannot do that on their own.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, bearing in mind that these are all citizens and subjects of this country, have the Government considered compulsory registration?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government have considered it, and have not accepted it.

West Lothian Question

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, some dilemmas never go away. We have an asymmetrical system of devolution in this country and we have to make it work. As someone who has spent most of his political career in the north of England, I have doubts about the imbalance of advantage within England itself, but that is another issue which we will debate another time.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I do not have the advantage of my noble friend in remembering personally what happened in 1886, but I keep in close touch with Mr Tam Dalyell. I suggest that it would be very wise to take advice from Mr Dalyell on this issue. He still has the same vigorous intellect we all remember fondly and I am sure that he could bring some wise counsel to bear.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sure that we all wish to send him our best wishes.

Credit Unions

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will take that back and see what we can do about a cost-benefit analysis. I should mention that, apart from the Houses of Parliament, the other department of government that already has an employer-based credit union arrangement in place is the National Offender Management Service. Members will consider whether they think that is a good parallel to our work or not.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, while I am entirely in favour of the “nudging” to which my noble friend Lord Deben referred, what we really want is explicit, enthusiastic public encouragement by government Ministers of this very important movement.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is exactly the purpose of the credit union expansion plan.

House of Lords: Membership

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 24th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this debate raises a large number of questions. Let me try to answer as many as I can. I start by saying that the Government remain committed to thorough reform and the creation of an elected House. This is part of the reason why we resist proposals to end by-elections of hereditary Peers. I was here when that particular concession was made by the then leader of the Conservative Peers, now the Marquess of Salisbury, on the basis that it would remain until thorough reform took place.

The Government are committed to thorough reform. However, we now have a number of proposals which I have heard described as housekeeping proposals, which are on an interim basis. We recognise that there will not be another attempt at House of Lords reform until well after the next election, when I look forward to seeing a commitment to an elected second Chamber appearing once again in all of the party manifestos. Having said that, we have to recognise that there are some real problems in the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, disappointed me enormously in his speech. I looked forward to him saying that we must tackle the question of retirement age, a topic on which I thought he was intervening the other day. I recognise that at the core of much of this are the difficulty of a retirement age or of encouraging retirement, and the balance of the groups within the House.

When I joined the House, now some 17 years ago, I was told that by entering the House of Lords I was raising my life expectancy by a further two years. It is such an interesting place and it keeps us lively and fit. As I sat listening today I reflected that, if I decide that I really ought to take permanent leave of absence when I am 95, I have only 23 more years of service to go. I will then have served in the House for 40 years. We recognise the problem of keeping the House lively and renewing membership.

Incidentally, there is also the problem of different age balances among the different party groups. The Conservatives are the oldest group in terms of appointments, because many of them were appointed in the Thatcher years. Particularly when I talk to some of the older Labour Peers, I am conscious that the reluctance to retire of those on both the Labour and the Conservative Benches is sometimes expressed in terms of, “I would be letting my side down if I retired but some of them didn’t. We would alter the age balance against us”. Anything we talk about in relation to retirements feeds back into the question of party balance. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that it is not just the party groups who vote in this House. We have a very active group of Cross- Benchers. I will check on the incidence of votes lost in this Parliament compared to votes lost in the last Parliament. I was not aware that there was a substantial difference in the number of votes lost. In the Bills that I have dealt with, the concessions which one must make in order to avoid votes being lost, and the number of votes lost, are certainly important matters. I give way.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, but does my noble friend really believe that the House of Lords should have a significant majority on the government Benches?

Church of England: Appointment of Bishops

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 14th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did not take the other path appropriate to the Question, which is that the Bench of Bishops is the only section of this Chamber that has an upper age limit, which is 70.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, after that hilarious question from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, does my noble friend agree with me that it is somewhat unfortunate that Episcopal vacancies are now advertised? Is there not an anti-vocationary element there?

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

For very obvious reasons, I am not able to say that. I am privy only to some of the discussions that have taken place on this, but I can assure him that the intervention would not be aimed at command structures. Someone suggested that we want to take out the President himself or, indeed, that it would be aimed at chemical weapons stocks. For very obvious reasons—

[Lord Cormack]

How does my noble friend square the statement that we are not bent on regime change when the Government do not recognise the regime?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in a limited operation you do not attempt to go for regime change. Perhaps I may go on to my next point. We are of course all concerned to learn the lessons of Iraq. Disastrously, our American allies dismantled the entire structure of the state and the armed forces when they went into Iraq. The reason why we are all attempting to achieve transition in Syria is that we maintain as much as we can of the current state and social structure. We are all aware that to allow the Assad regime to collapse altogether would be to risk chaos following. That is why we have been pursuing, through Geneva I and, we hope, the Geneva II conference, proposals for some form of agreed transition in which—with, we hope, the help of Russia and others—some members of the regime would be removed but which some of the officials within the current regime would help to manage. We are not, therefore, attempting to promote that sort of disastrous regime change.

Ministerial Code

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that question is currently under discussion, although of course the doctrine of collective responsibility prevents my telling the House exactly where those discussions are at present.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, did the Liberal Democrat Ministers change their minds as well as their votes, bearing in mind the Deputy Prime Minister’s earlier firm agreement to boundary changes?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, coalition government is a matter of constant negotiation and discussion. Unfortunately, we have not managed to deliver much of the political reform agenda that we agreed to in the coalition agreement. All three parties bear some responsibility for failing to deliver that agenda.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Thursday 17th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, does that mean that the demands of time for the Electoral Commission are more important than the demands of time for us to make sure that what we decide on is the right way of tackling this Bill?

[Lord Cormack]

Further to that, my Lords, could the Electoral Commission be gently told that it itself should not procrastinate as much? We were debating an issue yesterday where the Electoral Commission has taken so much time that we were not able to consider its recommendations on the Scottish referendum question because those have not yet been made. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in the process of considering this Bill I have met quite a large number of electoral registration officers. They are a subculture that works incredibly hard during electoral campaigns. I have real respect for what they do and how hard they work at the local level. We all have to recognise that getting this right, and improving the declining accuracy and the incompleteness of the current register as we move towards a different one, is a very important goal which we share across all political parties and Benches in this House.

EU: Scottish Independence

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I can confirm all of that. It is a recognised, long established principle of public international law that when a part of a state secedes it inherits obligations under treaties but it has to apply to join international organisations. When the Soviet Union broke up, that applied to Ukraine, Belarus and others. When India broke up, it applied to Pakistan and then to Bangladesh, so this is a well established principle.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, do we know yet precisely what legal advice the Scottish Government took on this issue?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we do not know. That is one of the things that everyone is longing to discover.

First World War: Centenary

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this year I watched the Remembrance Sunday commemoration very closely from the Foreign Office and I did not think that it had become more militaristic. I was also struck and encouraged that a number of veterans from other countries were marching in the parade. That is also highly desirable. It is not entirely, therefore, a national or nationalistic occasion.

On the question of the wider social context, that is absolutely part of what we will do. In my area, the Saltaire History Club and the Bradford World War One Group—there is one—are already discussing how they will look at the impact on the mill in Saltaire, which turned over to producing khaki cloth and all the other dimensions. A large number of its workforce ended up being women.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, can we make 4 August 2014 a day of national reflection, with all the shops closed and with a proper opportunity for everyone to consider precisely what terrible things happened in a war on which, on the very last day, when the Armistice was signed, twice as many people were killed as have been killed in Afghanistan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, 4 August is not the easiest day in the year to ask people to reflect solemnly on anything. One of the questions with which the Government are currently concerned is: which is the most appropriate day, and what to do? Perhaps I might also add that while the British wish to commemorate the beginning of the war, the Somme battle and the end of the war, many of our Commonwealth partners and allies will want to commemorate other dates: Vimy Ridge for the Canadians, Gallipoli for the Australians and New Zealanders. There is therefore quite a lot of delicate negotiation about how we manage all this. Finally, among the great expertise in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has given me a copy of her volume, in Chinese, on the origins of the First World War, which I am very happy to lend anyone who would like to read it.

House of Lords: Appointments

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, over lunch I made a calculation which, even though I was unable to find a calculator, I hope was correct. If one were to be strictly accurate, the Labour Party as represented in this House is roughly in tune with the percentage that it received in the last election. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is as good as 10 people. The most underrepresented group, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, knows, is of course the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, if the Government take this House and Parliament seriously, how can they continue to refuse to contemplate reforms along the lines of those included in the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel? My noble friend has referred to this as an interim House. Some believe that it can be a permanent House, giving permanent value to our constitution. The Government are flying in the face of that fact.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the consensus in this House is not the only factor which has to be taken into consideration. The House of Commons voted by a substantial majority in favour of the principle of an elected second chamber. All three parties had the principle of an elected second chamber in their manifestos in the last election and the coalition programme stated that we will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. We want to achieve a consensus. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who has laboured very hard to achieve a consensus on reforms. That is clearly the only long-term way forward.

Georgia: Public Services

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 16th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I received a detailed briefing from the Georgian embassy this morning, as they discovered that I was due to answer this Question. We are doing a number of things that work in the same direction: we are looking at the provision of the public service estate, and the capital assets pathfinder exercise, working between central and local government, is looking precisely at how you can bring offices together so that services are integrated. In Hampshire, the new Havant public service village, which is the furthest along in this development, is a project that will bring together Hampshire County Council, Havant Borough Council, Hampshire PCT, Hampshire and Isle of Wight police, Capita, Citizens Advice and other voluntary sector partners in the same building. The aim is to transform public service delivery in Havant. That is very much the sort of thing that we have in mind and, incidentally, will save a considerable amount of space by the time it has finished.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, has G4S been to Georgia, and if not, why not?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, G4S is an international company but I have absolutely no idea whether it has yet been engaged in Georgia.

Civil Service: Training and Development

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that was a good joke. The Prime Minister’s speech set out proposals for what he thought the Conservative Party should do post-2015. That is rather beyond my brief.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, what is being done to ensure that civil servants communicate in plain, concise English? Will he arrange for all civil servants to be given a copy of Sir Ernest Gower’s classic work, The Complete Plain Words, so that they write and speak English and we get rid of the appalling jargon that disfigures so many public documents?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thought that the noble Lord was going to pay attention to Civil Service spelling mistakes. Perhaps I should inform the House that I discovered some rather bad spelling mistakes in Hansard last week, which I have reported to the Hansard writers.

Historical Manuscripts Commission

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I recognise the question. My understanding is that the Syon Park meeting in December is intended to fulfil a great many of those commitments. If the noble Lord is not satisfied with that, I undertake to write to him on that score. I spoke to him before this debate, and I have also taken fully into account the concerns expressed by a number of people both outside this Chamber as well as inside it. Looking at the current situation I am relatively assured that most of the points made have been met, except for the question of funding. We would all like a great many more staff to assist.

[Lord Cormack]

I support very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said. I suggest that the Minister and the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Wills, and I at least have a get-together soon to discuss these matters.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am happy to accept that proposal. I look forward to that meeting, which will be after the Diamond Jubilee Recess.

We all recognise the importance of private archives as well as public archives. Several of us here hope, when we finish being quite so committed in the Lords, to spend more time digging around in private archives. That is one of the great joys of retired life as well as everything else. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for introducing the debate and wish everyone a very happy Diamond Jubilee.

Queen’s Speech

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this will be a shorter Session than the last one, as I am sure all noble Lords have noted. We will see what progress we can make. The speed with which progress will be made on the Lords reform Bill and on other Bills will depend on the reasonableness with which they are met in each of the two Chambers.

I move on to the question that a number of Peers raised about the rationale for the Bill. There are three important points. The first is that we are a transitional House. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said:

“The transitional House which will be created as a result of the Bill will be exactly that: transitional and not permanent”.—[Official Report, 11/5/99; col. 1092.]

The Labour Government promised on more than one occasion to take the next step. In this Chamber on 20 July 2007 the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, then a Minister, declared:

“We have the prospect of agreement between the parties on the way forward”.—[Official Report, 20/7/07; col. 535.]

He stated that this was for the House to be “substantially or wholly elected”. We are moving on to the next stage now because the previous Labour Government failed to do so—and we are closely following the model that they intended to put forward.

Since 1999, we had a royal commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham; a first White Paper from the then Labour Government; a Joint Committee; a Green Paper; a second White Paper; a cross-party working group; and, finally, a third White Paper and two reports that we have debated over the past 10 days. In May last year, the Government published a draft Bill—and now is the time to move forward.

The issue of composition arises because we are a patronage House, and the patronage that leads us all here is something that we think is not sustainable. The third is that we are talking about evolutionary reform: the next stage in a pattern of Lords reform.

[Lord Cormack]

As one who has heard every single speech in the debate, and who did not leave the Chamber on any occasion, might I ask my noble friend to be a little more receptive to the consensus that has emerged in this House during the debate—namely, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that there would be a very large measure of agreement around a Steel-type reform, but that there is genuine, deep and bitter concern about the proposal to drive forward with elections for which certainly there is no consensus? Will he not at least report that to the Deputy Prime Minister before the Bill is finally drafted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise the noble Lord’s concerns and I compliment him on the speed with which he has moved from being—as he described himself—a House of Commons man to being very clearly a House of Lords man. Of course I will report back to the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Cabinet Office Bill team had read Thursday’s debate when I discussed it with them this morning. We are listening, but we have not only the opinion of this House to take into account as we move forward.

I move on to the question of a constitutional convention, which appears in the alternative report as a strongly proposed idea and has met with a lot of sympathy around this House. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, went further and suggested that we should approach constitutional reform “from first principles”. The only time that I can recall that the English were tempted to rethink our constitution from first principles was between 1647 and 1650. It was a revolutionary period when the king was beheaded, the Putney debates discussed fundamental principles of authority and democracy and some of the parliamentary army mutinied. Since then, the British have prided ourselves on our unwritten constitution, which changes through evolution rather than revolution. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, entitled the chapter in one of his books “Our Uncodified Constitution”.

The alternative report says that constitutional conventions are a well known process in other countries and cites France’s National Convention of 1792 and the American conventions of 1786 and 1787 as appropriate examples. But in France and in the USA these followed revolutions. They beheaded the king in France too.

Alfred Dicey stated in his introduction to Law of the Constitution that it rests on two pillars: parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in his book, The Hidden Wiring, quotes the first Lord Esher summing up that the underlying principles,

“of our written constitution rest on precedent and reasonableness”.

Reasonableness or restraint expressed through conventions has, in our constitution, moderated the primacy of the Executive and their use of the doctrine of the primacy of the Commons.

Some of those who support the arguments of the alternative report are in effect highly radical, wanting to shift the United Kingdom towards a written constitution. The Americans, mistrustful by far of any Executive, produced from their convention a written constitution designed on the principle of mistrust and unreasonable behaviour. It was designed therefore to lead to deadlock on occasions between Congress and the President and between the two Houses of Congress, as we see now. None of us wants a constitution like that.

The question of costs has been raised. The Government have not yet been able to produce their estimates of costs partly because of the size of the House. The Government’s draft Bill proposed 300 Members and the Richard committee proposed 450. Of course, that makes a difference. If we have 450 part-time Members, it might cost little more than 300 full-time Members. The costs of a constitutional convention proposed by the alternative report would themselves be very considerable. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, asked about the Government’s thinking on severance payments for retiring Peers. I am not aware of any discussions within the Government or any proposals on that basis, but that raises questions of costs as well.

The question of how we search for consensus is rather like hunting for the Snark. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, reminded us all of the immensely constructive work of the Wakeham commission 10 years ago. I found the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, to this debate constructive and wise. He reminded us that his report was received with much hostility at the time. More than 10 years later, it seems more acceptable because it is less radical than the draft Bill, just as the Steel Bill which was so strongly opposed in this House when it was previously presented, has now become much more popular now that it appears to be the lesser evil.

The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, said that the Labour Party,

“has to think again about the idea that it can have 100% elected membership. It is quite simply unrealistic. A consensus outcome will not produce that”.—[Official Report, 10/5/12; col. 49.]

Perhaps I may quote one more remark made by the noble Lord, which I think all noble Lords would do well to consider. He said:

“I suggest that we use with some humility the position that we are somehow superior in public perceptions and in our judgment of the public good”.—[Official Report, 10/5/12; col. 50.]

We have to remember that the way this Chamber handles proposals for its further reform will reflect on its reputation outside. We have to understand the likelihood that at some point the sketch writers and tabloid columnists will look to see how they can make fun of this House as well. I would suggest to the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, that it is unwise to describe membership of the Lords, as I think I heard her say, as “peaceful retirement”. If the image of the Lords becomes that of a retirement home for former MPs, and that were to catch the attention of the popular press, the prestige of this Chamber would not be raised.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the amount of time in the next Session to be spent on this subject will depend partly on how dispassionately both Houses approach the issue.

On the principle of the wedge, if we accept this, it will be impossible to stop short of further and disastrous consequences: a written constitution, a judicially arbitrated constitution or, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, suggested, a republic. Others want a written constitution before we reform the Lords or argue that further reforms will fundamentally alter the nature of Britain. In considering whether this House might introduce an elected Chamber, my noble friend Lord Cormack told us that we are talking about the future of this country.

Alternative proposals have been scattered across the Chamber: an indirectly elected House, the modest reform put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, or a full constitutional convention. I was utterly surprised by the enthusiasm expressed around the Chamber for the Steel Bill, given the bitter opposition to so much of it in the Chamber over several years. I am still not sure whether the support has been expressed for the full Steel package or for the emasculated Bill that emerged from Third Reading.

We have had plenty of other arguments against change: constituency competition, the bug bear of former MPs. In one way or another, those of us who live outside the metropolitan south east already play some of those roles and we see them as part of our responsibility within an appointed House. I have been president of my party’s Yorkshire region; I spend time at weekends going to constituencies and conferences; and I run into Peers from other parties at various Yorkshire events. We already fulfil some of those constituency responsibilities.

The issue of costs has been raised. We must be very strict about costs, although if we have to have a referendum we will spend £100 million on it.

Primacy of the Commons is a wonderful obstacle against which one can kick. If necessary, we must do all that we can to defy the will of the Commons in order to preserve its primacy and its financial privilege. Conventions must be written in stone, although the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, remarked that conventions, of their nature, are not rules and that they must be allowed to evolve and that a concordat between the two Houses would therefore be an appropriate way forward.

I hear some people say that there is not much interest in Lords reform among the public but, nevertheless, there must be a referendum. I respectfully remind Members of this House that one of the most fundamental constitutional changes that we have witnessed since I joined the House is the separation of the judicial function from the legislative function through the establishment of the Supreme Court and that was carried through without a referendum.

Hybridity has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, as completely unacceptable because it would make the House unworkable. This House has always been hybrid; it consists of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal and, when I joined the House, it was partly hereditary and partly appointed. I recall a colleague in the Association of Conservative Peers saying that in the Conservative group the hereditaries referred to the Life Peers as “the day boys”. Only those who have been to boarding school know how dismissive that is; it refers to a subordinate body to the lifers. This would merely be a shift to another form of hybridity.

The argument has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, that a second Chamber elected on proportional representation might even claim greater legitimacy than the Commons because it would be more fully representative of the opinion of voters as a whole, which suggests that we all prefer a less legitimate voting system than the one that might be used for this House. Above all, we have to wait for a consensus in this House or in the Commons.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I had hoped that the Minister would indicate that he has listened to what has been said and that the Government would reflect on what has been said in the debate on such issues as hybridity, referendum and primacy. My noble friend is coming suspiciously close to saying that he has a closed mind on these issues. I hope that he will draw back and indicate that what has been said in the official report, the alternative report and on the Floor of this House over the past 24 hours will be taken into account before the Government decide whether to proceed with a Bill and what sort of a Bill it will be.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to almost the entire debate and particularly to my noble friend’s contribution. Many within the Government will be reading the debate in Hansard. As I said at the beginning, I did not hear much with which I was not already familiar. I suspect that that may be true of many noble Lords. Of course we shall be reflecting on matters and, if proposals are brought forward in the Queen’s Speech, a great deal of what has been said will be reflected in those proposals.

Telephone Hacking

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 6th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am well aware of the strong feelings that many people have about the broader issues involved in this matter. The noble Lord raised the issue of payments to the police. Clearly they would have been illegal and I know that some have now been admitted. Of course it is necessary for the police to have a close relationship with the media, because the media can help to solve crimes, but payments for information are clearly illegal. I should add that the two senior journalists arrested yesterday have been bailed.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, do not these very regrettable events underline the need for a statutory Press Complaints Commission?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is very much one of the larger issues that it would be appropriate for the sort of general inquiry for which the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, is calling to look at once the current investigations are complete.