Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, again, this debate has ranged fairly widely. I am happy to discuss further with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, the level at which abortion law should be dealt with. I remember that some years ago the most obscure protocol to the treaty of Rome was added to a revision negotiation by the Irish Government, which said, “Nothing in this treaty shall countermand Article 39”—I think it was—“of the Irish Constitution”, which meant “Keep off”. About six months later, the Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow asked that this should be devolved. As soon as we are into multi-level government, the question of what level you do things at—at which level you decide that prisoners should have the vote, to take a hypothetical example—begins to be contested among the different levels. We now have several levels, and I am happy to talk about that further.

We discussed some of what we are discussing now, in not dissimilar terms, on the then Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, in which the Government were very much concerned in particular about the possibility of foreign money coming in through various umbrella groups and intervening in and influencing election campaigns. I recognise that there is a potential problem here, but we think it can be contained.

Here as elsewhere, in drafting the Bill, we employed the regulatory regime for campaign spending and donations drawn from existing electoral law. The proposed campaign rules for recall petitions follow those for referendums. In referendums, you have to report your spending at the £500 limit. In recall campaigns, £500 buys you a very small amount of activity. It does not seem to us that the image which the noble Baroness depicted almost, of a gentleman arriving from Switzerland with plastic bags with cash in them to distribute to various local householders, is a likely one; or, if it were to happen, that it would not appear in the Guardian or the Mail very quickly. We therefore think that £500 is the de minimis amount.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord mentioned a situation in which a Member of Parliament might have been campaigning against certain practices by Hoffman-LaRoche—or indeed by a subsidiary of HSBC. There might be international interest in disposing of that Member of Parliament.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I was merely making the de minimis point. Above £500, you have to report. These amounts are then controlled and the question of what is a permissible donor comes into the existing corpus of electoral law. We are proceeding here in the same way as we have been proceeding in other cases. We have not diverged from the principles of regulation that have been proved to work and which are compatible, in our opinion, with the nature of campaigning. The de minimis is £500, and for accredited campaigners, those who are intending to spend over £500, only payments of over £500 are considered donations. These must be verified to confirm that they come from a permissible source and are reported as part of the recall petition return. The £500 limit for registration and reporting logically relates to the £500 limit below which payments do not have to be regarded as donations.

There has been some concern expressed that recall petitions will not be local events. We understand that we all prefer these to be local events. A recall petition is a question about who should be the representative of local issues at Westminster and therefore we wish local residents to have as much influence as possible. Our hesitation over designating one lead campaigner on both sides is partly because in those circumstances the likelihood of a national organisation being the first to come in to the arena and claim to be the accredited campaigner is part of the argument that we would resist. Incidentally, we do not assume, as I think that those who have spoken do, that there will be a huge imbalance on one side, with the poor MP left with only one sort of supporter gathered in his own campaign, and on the other side all the armies of Gideon arrayed around in different orders. An MP who has a justified case is likely to have a range of supporters on his or her side.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am merely talking about the difficulty of having one accredited lead campaigner on either side. That takes us too far into the referendum campaign. The question of how one gets towards agreeing one accredited campaigner will need, I suspect, a good deal more than eight weeks to sort out.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

If it were accepted that there could be more than one accredited campaigner on each side, would there be any objection on the Minister’s part to aggregating the expenditure of the campaign’s pro and con, for and against the Member of Parliament, so that the totality of the funding available to the range of accredited campaigners was limited to £10,000 or whatever the appropriate limit would be?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will have to take that one away and think about it. The Government have not considered this so far and it is therefore not within my current brief.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I hope—I think—that I understand him as saying that it is something he will be prepared to look at so that we could consider it again at Third Reading.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot give that assurance at the moment. Between now and Third Reading we have some time, as he well knows. Of course we continue to consider all matters, but at the moment I am not persuaded.

We do not see the question on Amendment 23 as entirely justified. The argument for an accredited campaigner in a referendum, as was said before, is that they are then rewarded with a substantial government grant to support the campaign. That will not take place in this area.

Perhaps I may finally stress that permissible donations for accredited campaigns will also follow the same rules as others. They will be reported and controlled. If I may refer to Amendment 24, which we will discuss next, I see value in ensuring that the Electoral Commission in particular has access to the information necessary to assess the appropriateness of the spending and donation rules. We will be debating this in the next amendment. The question of how far in we pull the Electoral Commission is one to which the Government are live and sympathetic.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Page 6 of the report states:

“We believe self-regulation, with external input, is the appropriate system”.

As someone who recognises that parliamentary privilege is not something we wish to throw out of the window, I agree strongly with that sentiment.

We have also touched on the question of how far we restore popular trust in Parliament and the political system, or indeed how far any of us can ever restore trust in Parliament or our political system. I think we all recognise that this Bill is intended to assist in that process, but none of us has any illusion that it will solve the problem. It is much broader than that.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked whether the process of amending Motions to report recommendations to the Standards Committee on the Floor of the other House will continue. That is a matter for the other place. It is a matter of its procedures into which the Bill and this House will not wish to intrude. In introducing the amendments, my noble friend Lord Tyler said that this quite radical proposal would remove two of the three triggers, thus radically changing the basis of the Bill, which has been through the scrutiny of the other House and a good deal of other scrutiny besides. I thank my noble friend for the very constructive conversation we have had since Committee and for his active engagement in discussions about the most appropriate triggers for recall petitions.

The Government considered a number of options and came to the conclusion that a custodial sentence was one of the appropriate levels for a trigger. It is of course difficult to know exactly what line one wishes to draw, but we have concerns, which have been expressed by a number of noble Lords in this debate, that lowering the threshold to include all convictions would risk MPs having to face recall in circumstances where it was not appropriate: for example, for minor traffic offences or for offences of strict liability where no criminal intention needed to be proven. The Government’s intention for the Bill is that the recall process should be there as a safeguard which does not, we hope, need to be used very often in an atmosphere of generally good behaviour. My noble friend Lord Tyler’s amendments might well lead to recall becoming a quite frequent procedure, one which a very large number of people would not regard as justified.

I understand my noble friend is concerned that the second trigger for recall petitions relies on recommendations of the Standards Committee, and he is doubtful about that. We all recognise many of these problems, but we do not see his solution of removing two of the three triggers from the Bill as being the answer. I understand my noble friend’s concern about politicising the Standards Committee and also about MPs themselves being involved in the triggering of recall. However, I do not think the answer is to take away from a constituent the ability to recall their MP for wrongdoing that might be serious enough for them to question whether they want their MP to represent them. Collapsing the three triggers into one would drive a coach and horses through the Bill.

This brings me to Amendment 6, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, which would add to the definition of the Standards Committee in Clause 1. I simply say that we will consider the Standards Committee report and whether there needs to be anything in the Bill that relates to the report or whether, on the basis that things are moving in the direction in which the noble Lord wishes, we should leave well alone and leave out matters that are not central to the Bill. We will consider that between now and Third Reading.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Will the Government provide their response to the Standards Committee’s report before they proceed to the Third Reading in this House?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will certainly take that back and see what the Government can do. I hope that I have provided constructive answers to a very constructive debate, and I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord emphasised that the Government are anxious to limit the influence of big money and outside money, and he quite rightly made the point that neither big money nor outside money can trigger the recall process. However, he gave no explanation as to how the provisions of the Bill would in practice limit the power of either big money or outside money to influence such local campaigns. It would be helpful, because it is very important, if he could explain what the safeguards are; and if he cannot, if he could undertake to go away and invent some.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the distinction between local and national money, as all of us currently preparing to fight a range of local campaigns at the next general election know, has become increasingly blurred over the years. As we know well, NGOs and civil society organisations have local branches of national organisations, so of course there is not a rigid distinction between local money and national money. We understand that one cannot entirely build a wall around a particular constituency in terms of funding. However, the limits proposed are intended to limit the amount of money that can be spent, and thus to limit the role of outside funds.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

But there are no limits to the number of organisations that are able to mount such campaigns. The Minister is rejecting the amendment that my noble friend has proposed, but he does not seem to have any other safeguards.

[Lord Grocott]

I put the question in a slightly different way. If the Minister is confirming what I think that he has been saying, it is really alarming. I was most interested in the earlier parts of the Bill. Whereas we all know that in a local election campaign for a particular Member in a particular constituency, there are controls over what each candidate can spend which have been there since about the 1870s, I think that that—not the figure, but the principle—is understandable, because a number of different choices are available: Labour, et cetera. In the case of whether there is or is not to be a recall, there are only two possible positions: you are for it or against it. You may be for it or against it for a variety of different reasons, but the decision to be made is binary, there are two choices.

It seems to me so fundamental as to be hardly worth stating that there must be a balance between the expenditure on the two sides of that simple argument. Is the Government’s position that there is no need to worry about that and that, on a range of different issues, one side in what I repeat is a binary decision can spend vastly greater sums of money than the other? Are the Government comfortable with that?

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let us discuss it off the Floor of the House rather than detain the Committee further.

Of course, we will be relying on the discretion of the petition officers, who will be the local election officers, on the use of public premises around each constituency. I note the strength of feeling that has been expressed about four centres not being enough in a number of constituencies, although I also note the section of the Electoral Commission’s report which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did not quote, which states that, equally, four signing locations may be more than is required in some constituencies. There is, perhaps, a greater degree of flexibility and I am willing to take this away and discuss whether a degree more flexibility is desirable.

Let me touch on a number of other issues that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, discussed the impact assessment. I can assure him that, under the Bill when passed, the costs of each recall process will be reimbursed to the local authority. The impact assessment covers the fact that the direct and indirect costs, including training, will be reimbursed.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Will the Minister write to us before Report with a detailed analysis of the costings that led the Government to come to the conclusion that they expressed in the impact assessment? It was:

“The cost attributed to one recall petition in the United Kingdom is estimated to be in the region of £55,000”.

It would be very helpful if he would explain how those costs are made up.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will be happy to promise that we will reconsider that and I will write. Perhaps it is also worth talking at this point a little about regulations. A number of the amendments before us today consider how much should be in the Bill and how much should be in regulations. We have placed in the Library of the House a draft sketch of the regulations, but I should stress that it will not be possible to lay the regulations before either House between now and 7 May. The exact regulations will be the responsibility of the next Government and will come before the two Houses within the first year of the new Parliament.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware that I had said “none” of them. A sketch of the regulations—which I am sure that the noble Lord has looked at—has been placed in the Library of the House, but the final form of the regulations have not been entirely agreed. As the noble Lord well knows—although he is looking in puzzlement at me—things like this have to be agreed closely through consultation with the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission and others. These things need to be done well and they take time, after one has agreed the overall shape of the Bill. That is the process through which we are now going.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The Minister says that these things take time and have to be done carefully, but it is some four years since the Government produced their draft Bill. What have they been doing?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government have been fairly busy with a range of issues. We have perhaps taken longer on this than we should have done, and I note that the House is currently enjoying itself. The question of adequate training is, I suggest, a matter for regulations rather than for inclusion in Bill. I am happy to discuss that with the Opposition Front Bench between Committee and Report. Having said that we will discuss these issues further, I hope that the noble Baroness—

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is being a little mischievous. There have of course been extensive discussions with the Association of Electoral Administrators and others throughout on these matters. They have not come to a conclusion because the details will need to be worked out as we move forward. For example, this detailed amendment concerns the question of how many places one will have open for signing over an eight-week period. I have just offered to take that back and consider whether we could be a little more flexible. I have also explained that our proposals came as a response to a report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to which evidence was given by a number of these people—so we are not simply starting from the beginning. There has been quite extensive consultation, with which I am sure the noble Lord is familiar, and on that basis—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Does the Minister recollect that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee advised the Government to drop the Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not recollect that. I recognise that all those in this House who have been MPs are deeply unhappy about the Bill. I also recognise that outside the Palace of Westminster there are many who would like the Bill to be a lot rougher and tougher than it is.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

When the Minister replies, will he explain to the Committee why the Government have not, apparently, involved the Electoral Commission in this process? It is so obviously the organisation equipped and tasked to deal with matters of this sort and it is a mystery why it is not more fully involved here and in other aspects of the procedure. The commissioners are not normally shrinking violets. I even wonder whether the Electoral Commission, in taking the view that this is a thoroughly ill founded measure, has declined to play a part. I do not know, but in any event is it not really reckless to put the definitive wording of the petition in the Bill before it has ever been tried? If it turns out in practice to be inadequate, everybody will be in very great difficulty and primary legislation will be needed to change it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hesitate to suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has come to the debate a little less well prepared than he sometimes is. I have here the Electoral Commission’s briefing of 13 January for Committee, which does indeed remark on the consultations that it has had with the Government on the Bill. It says:

“Whilst the Commission has given informal advice on the current wording of the petition card and signing sheet based on our experience of testing referendum questions, we have not undertaken any user-testing of the wording. We understand that the Government plans”—

as has already been said—

“to user-test both the petition card and signing sheet with members of the public”.

It goes on to say:

“We are not persuaded that this amendment is necessary, given that the wording of the petition signing sheet can already be amended by regulations”.

The Electoral Commission has not been left out of the process, as one would naturally expect.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

That is just what I said. It has been only informally consulted. I do not understand why it has not been given a formal role in this process.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Electoral Commission unavoidably has a formal role throughout this process and has been consulted throughout. Informal consultations are part of the formal process. We need not batter about words too much. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, that an election or a petition process that generates such excitement would be a joy to many of us. Part of the pleasure, in a sense, of the Scottish referendum was that it did indeed generate a great deal of excitement.

It is the nature of a petition that a petition is one-sided. The noble Lord, Lord Martin, remarked that petitions are petitions—they are not elections. I hesitate to suggest that some wish to turn the recall petition process itself into the by-election that may or may not follow.

I will speak first to government Amendment 43, which would make a small change to the final sentence of the wording to appear on the petition signing sheet that is set out in Clause 9(4). The signing sheet must include this specified wording, as it explains to the eligible constituent that they are signing the petition for their MP to lose their seat and for a by-election to be held.

During debates in the other place, it was suggested that the wording could be improved in relation to explaining when a by-election would not take place. The Government agree and therefore this amendment responds to the debate in the other place by making it easier for the elector to understand that the MP will not lose his or her seat and a by-election will not be held if less than 10% of the registered electors in the constituency sign the petition.

The wording of the petition signing sheet was developed with input from the Electoral Commission before the Bill was introduced, but we have a power to amend the formulation in regulations if that proves necessary after undertaking user testing of the signing sheet and notice of petition with members of the public. In doing this, it will be possible to confirm whether the formulation that we have best serves constituents’ understanding. I repeat that the Electoral Commission was happy with the proposals as set out in the Bill.

Amendments 40 and 44 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would remove the specified wording of the signing sheet from Clause 9 and replace the power to amend that wording through regulations with a power to set the wording in regulations following further consultation with the Electoral Commission and the Welsh Language Commissioner. The signing sheet must include wording specified in Clause 9, which explains to the eligible constituent that they are signing the petition for their MP to lose their seat and for a by-election thereafter to be held.

There is value in the appearance of the wording in the Bill, as it has allowed MPs to express their views on it. This mirrors the position for UK parliamentary elections, where the form of the ballot paper appears in primary legislation, the Representation of the People Act 1983, but may be amended through regulations that must be approved by a resolution of both Houses. No amendments were tabled in the other place to remove the wording outright, but an amendment was tabled to improve it, so I think we should be mindful of that when considering this issue.

A further modest but worthwhile advantage of the appearance of the signing sheet’s wording in the Bill is that future changes made to it would then be reflected in the text of the parent Act, which helps to make the law as clear as possible for petition administrators, parties and campaigners.

On consultation with the Welsh Language Commissioner, I can assure the Committee that the Government will prepare a Welsh translation of the wording in secondary legislation, as is the practice at other statutory polls, using a power and following a principle established in the Welsh Language Act 1993. This translation will be subject to user testing in the same way as the English version. I hope noble Lords are aware that, throughout this Bill, we are following as closely as possible comparable regulations and comparable legislation in other Acts concerned with our democratic process.

As is usual practice, we will consult the Electoral Commission’s Welsh language experts to ensure that the translation is accurate and will accommodate any changes identified through user testing. One of the amendments suggests that, in addition to consulting the Electoral Commission, the Minister should consult the Welsh Language Commissioner. The Welsh Language Commissioner has an important role in promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language, but it has not been standard practice at elections to consult the commissioner directly on Welsh translations of voter-facing forms and notices.

In summary, I believe that it is important that the wording of the petition appears on the Bill but that it is user tested and commented on to ensure that any improvements that are identified can be made. For these reasons, I hope that I have persuaded the noble Baroness not to press her amendments.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord has not yet used it since. I stress again that we are following the existing law and regulations as closely as we can, and not attempting to take through major electoral changes. The first two amendments in the group are, after all, an attempt to take through a major change, whereby 16 year-olds would be able to vote for a recall, even though they would not yet vote in the subsequent by-election. There are differing opinions among the three parties; indeed, there are differing opinions within the current coalition Government on this issue. This is not the place to address it. It is an issue on which we need to build consensus. I am personally in favour but as a government Minister I am not prepared to accept that we move towards it. We need to discuss the whole question of the franchise at some point in the not-too-distant future.

The amendment to allow a signatory to withdraw their signature also would introduce a major innovation. There is no precedent for returning officers withdrawing ballot papers on the request of electors who change their minds prior to the beginning of the counting of votes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord is talking about two entirely different situations. If one is voting in a conventional election, one is doing so at a single opportunity on one day, and of course one cannot scratch that vote once one has cast it. It is entirely different when there is an eight-week rolling period, during which campaigning is taking place. What argument does he have as to why people should not be allowed to be influenced by these campaigns?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have already said that we have now extended the period for postal voting. Indeed, postal votes may be delivered nearly three weeks before the election. If the principle in the amendment were to be accepted, the question would come up as to whether postal voters might be allowed to change their minds in the light of events they learnt about in the final two weeks of the campaign. That would be a major innovation also. With postal votes, we have slipped from a vote on one day to a vote that takes place over a period. Perhaps the noble Lord has not yet recognised that, but that is the position we are in and the current law is that when one votes one does not have a chance to change one’s mind.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, let me speak briefly to the government amendments, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, remarked, are consequential to amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench and passed in the Commons by a significant majority. We have also tabled three amendments, Amendments 6, 9 and 10, to future-proof the second edition by ensuring that the reference to the Standards Committee captures any other committee that in future exercises the relevant functions. Perhaps I should mention that the Standards Committee is at present reviewing its arrangements, including the role of lay members—although I suspect that it is more likely to expand the role of lay members rather than to do what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, would like, and dismiss them.

The amendments therefore make it clear that any other committee doing that function, whatever it is called, will continue to be given that function. They also make it clear that it is the report of the Standards Committee from which suspension follows and has to relate to the conduct of a particular MP, rather than, for example, a report about conduct or suspensions more generally.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has tabled several amendments. Amendment 5 is a wrecking amendment, which would render the Bill unworkable by making the first condition ineffective and by removing the second condition. Amendments 7 and 8 would overturn the will of the other place, which voted on Report by 204 to 125 to support an amendment tabled by the Opposition Front Bench to set the threshold at 10 sitting days, as has been remarked on. I suspect that those who were absent were doing other things elsewhere, rather than sitting outside determined to abstain but frightened that the Daily Mail might see what they were doing, which is what I think some noble Lords were suggesting.

Amendments 12 and 36 would amend how the seat might otherwise be vacated by deleting the phrase “or otherwise” from the Bill. Another way of future-proofing the Bill is to emphasise that the seat may be vacated for a number of other reasons—disqualification, death or other causes which the Commons may in future decide for itself. That would of course mean that no recall process was necessary. If the MP’s seat becomes vacant for whatever reason, the MP will not need to face a petition. Those words are therefore needed to stop unnecessary recall petitions being started where the seat has already been vacated.

Perhaps I may say a few wider words on the tone of our Committee so far, because what I hear is a number of noble Lords saying that we have to save the Commons from itself—we know better than the other place. I wish that when we had been debating House of Lords reform, we had the same sense that the other place knows better about us, but I did not hear that sentiment from noble Lords—particularly those here at the time. We have to be very careful not to have nostalgia for British politics of the 1960s as a golden age in which we had two-party politics, mass parties, respect for MPs and Parliament and deference.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Do not Members of both Houses equally have a responsibility to try to ensure the integrity of Parliament and that our institutional arrangements are such that Parliament is effective in the way that we all wish? Is not the right test to apply whether proposed reforms will improve the performance of Parliament or otherwise?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I wish we had heard that sentiment a little more often when we were discussing reform of this House. We have to be very careful about nostalgia. I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, say: “It should be as it always was”. I thought about that wonderful quotation from The Leopard:

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”.

We have to be very careful not to abandon ourselves to the same nostalgia for the world of our youth that motivates those who vote for UKIP.

Hong Kong

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, is there not a striking contrast between the passion for democracy among the people of Hong Kong and the democratic inertia and cynicism of so many people in this country who are entitled to vote and do not do so?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I can only agree, but it is up to all of us and the Members of the other place, as well as all those involved in democratic politics, to re-enthuse the British public with democratic politics as far as we can and, in particular, in the next five months.

Electoral Registration: National Voter Registration Day

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government recognise that they alone cannot do everything in this regard. We welcome conversations with all other organisations. I wondered whether the right reverend Prelate was going to promise that the Church of England would give sermons on the subject. Once, when I was a parliamentary candidate, I was taken by a young woman called Liz Barker—the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, as she is now—to the Methodist church in which her father had been a minister. The sermon came as close as possible to suggesting that the congregation might like to vote for me.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the Prince’s Trust reported recently that more than three-quarters of a million young people in this country believe they have nothing to live for. How will the Minister seek to motivate those young people to engage with the formal processes of our democracy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a huge question which engages—or should engage—all of us in political parties and beyond. We recognise that alienation, of the younger generation in particular, from conventional politics is a problem which has developed over the last 25 years or more and it will take 25 years or more to reverse that trend. It will take a whole host of initiatives including, I suggest, some changes in our constitutional arrangements.

EU: Balance of Competences Review

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not a lawyer, so far be it for me to question the sort of language they use, in particular international lawyers.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

As our officials wander around Europe begging for bits and pieces that might be repatriated, does the Minister sometimes worry that the Government will end up generating a good deal of diplomatic irritation without achieving any genuine reconstitution of the relation between Britain and Europe?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

No, my Lords, I do not. I am very struck by the extent to which a number of other Governments are following a similar agenda to ours. I am sure that the noble Lord is familiar with the Dutch Government’s recent study of subsidiarity. In the process of publishing the opening stage of papers, the Minister for Europe and I spoke to Ministers in other European Governments and many of them have very similar views to our own. We are pursuing a reform agenda for which there is a great deal of sympathy in a number of other Governments.

Poland: Restitution of Property

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government have said on a number of occasions to the Polish Government that we regret the slow progress on this issue. We supported the 2010 Terezin declaration. We will be an active participant in the review conference next year and are actively engaged with other like-minded Governments on this issue. We do not have a formal position at present on the question of an EU representative for Holocaust restitution.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, will the Government be more ambitious in, at any rate, the field of cultural property? Will they take this opportunity to put forward proposals for a treaty, possibly a convention—perhaps under the auspices of UNESCO—to establish internationally agreed legal principles for the determination of claims for compensation for, or restitution of, cultural property that was wrongfully taken in circumstances of war or occupation?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure how far back the noble Lord wishes to take that. I remember being taken around Prague Castle in 1993 and shown the empty spaces on the walls where the pictures that the Swedish army had taken away in 1643 had been. As we know, the issue of cultural property, particularly that of the 20th century, is actively being pursued. A number of museums are extremely hesitant about this, and there was an interesting article in one of last weekend’s supplements about this. We are engaged in the whole issue of cultural property and restitution but, as the noble Lord knows from a number of current cases in New York, this can sometimes raise immensely complicated questions.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have 40 minutes to decide whether we wish to send this to Report stage or not. Some may be happier to do that than others. I stress that the Government are neutral on this Bill, as noble Lords know. The consensus of the House appears to be that this is a housekeeping Bill. It is not the case that nothing else is happening. The Government have put forward a draft Bill that proposes a much more comprehensive scheme of reform. There is now a Joint Committee sitting on that which has held its first two sessions. That includes the proposal for a statutory appointments committee, so things are moving on a much broader and more comprehensive front. I have carefully noted that a number of the hereditaries who have spoken in this debate have declared their passionate enthusiasm for an 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected House. I look forward to them giving enthusiastic support to the Government’s comprehensive scheme when that comes before us.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware of that. I thank the noble Lord for the information.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the Minister has just told the House that the Government are concerned about the speed of constitutional change in the Congo. Is he also concerned about the speed of constitutional change in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am sorry that the noble Lord did not ask whether I was concerned about the speed of constitutional change in reforming the House of Lords, which, he will remember, has so far taken 100 years.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Whitaker and I have stood shoulder to shoulder in campaigns for good design in recent years and I am happy to join her in the field tonight. It is too much, no doubt, to ask that the magnificent £50 billion Building Schools for the Future programme should be continued, but it is essential that design standards should not be dropped in the school building that does continue. Presumably that will mainly be the construction of academies. Do the Government intend still to provide some funding to support the creation of fine new academy buildings, as their predecessor did? Will the Government at least maintain minimum design standards?

This matters very much. Children and staff in schools, like everyone else, should work in a good built environment. The benefits of that for their morale, spirit and performance are marked. Good design is practical and works better. Well designed schools, like well designed hospitals, hospices, railway stations and magistrates’ courts, are statements about the values we hold as a society, our attachment to civic values and the public realm and our commitment to sustainability, an important point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. There are important symbolisms in good design.

Good design is an expression of national self respect. It is a manifestation of the respect we have for our community. There is a noble tradition of design of school buildings and it is one which we must not lose. Our Victorian and Edwardian forebears took it as axiomatic that a school should be a proud statement on behalf of the community in its design. The school building programme launched after the Second World War by Ellen Wilkinson, as Secretary of State, led to a commitment in a number of local education authorities to good design in a modern idiom. The schools designed in Hertfordshire for the local education authority by Stirrat Johnson-Marshall were celebrated. He was an architect who was described as,

“Socratic in manner of discussion and intolerant of formality in any guise”,

which, I think, means that he sought to find out what people thought, to elicit their best ideas and to develop his designs accordingly, as good architects do. Equally, later in Hampshire, the schools designed by Colin Stansfield Smith were celebrated, and the local education authorities which committed themselves to a programme of high-quality design in school building were strongly and admirably supported by the ministry’s architecture and buildings department.

More recently, under the previous Government, we had the Building Schools for the Future programme. I shall mention two schools that were jewels in that programme. The Mossbourne Academy in Hackney was built in an area known as “murder mile” because of the gangland killings there. It replaced Hackney Downs comprehensive, a school which had gone so far down in the world that the tabloids described it as the worst comprehensive in England. The school reopened in 2004 in buildings designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership. The first intake of the new school consisted of children, nearly half of whom were eligible for free school meals and 30 per cent had special educational needs. They took their GCSEs in 2009 and achieved some of the best state school results in the country. The Mossbourne Academy topped the league tables in value added. That was, above all, due to the leadership of Sir Michael Wilshaw and first-rate teaching by his colleagues, but design, they acknowledge, was also an important factor—as was the case at the Westminster Academy, which my noble friend and I visited earlier this year. There, the architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris were awarded the RIBA Sorrell Foundation Schools Award. This is an opportunity for this House to pay tribute to Sir John Sorrell and his wife Frances for their extraordinary generosity and creativity in their support through their foundation for good school design. The design of the Westminster Academy is beautiful and clever. As my noble friend said, the results in the new school soared by comparison with the results in the old school because pupils were treated with respect through design, and thus learnt to treat their school and neighbourhood with respect. The head teacher and her staff above all deserve the credit, but she insists that the quality and nature of the design of the school were crucial in making possible the curricular flexibility which, in turn, was key to the motivation and success of that school.

The Government want to impose the minimum bureaucratic burden on academies, and that is right. Good design cannot be promoted by regulation, but bad design can be averted. I hope that the Government will keep the minimum design standards that the DCSF pioneered in the public sector. I hope also that the Government will keep the engagement of CABE, which is not a quango to cull. It mobilises at negligible cost talented and expert people to illuminate and promote good practice in design. Here the leadership of Ministers is needed and, as elsewhere in education, leadership, aspiration and ambition are the magical ingredients. Only the best should be good enough for our schoolchildren, their teachers and the staff in our schools. We can afford the best. Good design costs no more than bad design. It is simply a matter of doing the job well. Indeed, good design costs less over the lifetime of the building.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am tempted to answer that lengthy catalogue of good schools in London and close to London by giving examples of schools in Yorkshire and outside the south-east, because often in this House and even more in the national media we tend to focus on what happens in London, not in the rest of the country. One thing which disturbed me in recent years was when I visited a school in Yorkshire which appeared to have been built for a 25-year lifespan. Its sustainability was not good. Also a prison was built for a 25-year lifespan. That is part of what is wrong with current thinking about public buildings as a whole. I also went to a school last year which had been built within the past 10 years and had almost no worthwhile roof insulation. Sustainable standards are not very good in many of the new schools that have been built under the BSF programme. So let us not kid ourselves that the previous Government left us with an unsullied legacy of well designed, highly sustainable buildings of comparable quality to those wonderful Victorian school buildings now being replaced.

I appreciate the thinking behind the amendment, and I am conscious that behind it are stories about charter schools in the United States being put up in warehouses. We had some friends visiting us from New York this weekend who talked about some of the problems that they have run into there with people starting schools in unsuitable buildings. Of course, we wish the premises of all schools to meet the needs of their pupils, including those with disabilities. We are well aware that the quality of the built environment of the schools in which they are educated does affect their outcomes. However, sufficient protections are already in place to ensure that children at academies are as fully protected as those at maintained schools. All schools, including maintained and independent schools, are required to comply with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which include a requirement to prepare and implement accessibility plans. These provide for the implementation of improvements to the school premises to accommodate existing and future disabled pupils within a reasonable period. The 1995 Act will be revoked by the Equality Act 2010, but the requirement for all schools to prepare and implement accessibility plans is replicated in the new Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Will the Minister confirm that the department will continue to keep in operation the minimum design standards that operate at present?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have no reason to doubt that—and if I discover that it is not the case, I will of course write immediately to the noble Lord.