Parliamentary Democracy and Standards in Public Life

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in 2019, when Parliament was certainly not at its best, the think tank Onward found that two-thirds of younger voters were in favour of a strong man leader prepared to defy Parliament. We had a leader, Boris Johnson, who flagrantly broke the rules and lied. The Hallett inquiry has exposed habitual use of foul-mouthed language in No. 10. Civil servants in No. 10 colluded with the rule-breaking by the Prime Minister. A senior Minister unblushingly told the House of Commons that the Government intended to break international law. Two independent advisers on ministerial interests have resigned. There has been the affair of PPE procurement, the VIP channel and the bounce-back loans—an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, referred to in her admirable speech.

In 2021, a Savanta ComRes poll showed that 76% of voters were concerned about corruption in government. A series of parliamentary by-elections has been precipitated by episodes of sexual abuse and other bullying, and by improper lobbying. There are institutional reforms that a new Prime Minister intent on restoring the integrity of public life, as Keir Starmer is, could implement. The so-called Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests should be given power to initiate inquiries and his recommendations should be enforceable other than at the caprice of the Prime Minister. The admirable but airy Nolan principles should be given teeth through new powers for the Committee on Standards in Public Life to investigate and regulate; the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, ditto. The revolving door of lucrative opportunities for both Ministers and officials scandalises the public. The existing feeble legislation on lobbying should be toughened up.

A new Prime Minister could refrain from constantly playing musical chairs with ministerial appointments. If Ministers stay in office for only five minutes, they cannot do the job properly and the public feel let down. Similarly, for confidence in the competence of government to be restored, civil servants should stay longer in the same post. There should be a new dispensation for local government, with radical decentralisation of power to revitalise democracy at the grass roots. Supercilious attitudes at the centre to the mayoralties and devolved Administrations should end.

A new Government must grasp the nettle of the funding of political parties. Consensus seems unobtainable. Such is the urgency of dispelling the public’s perception that political donations buy power, policy and honours that a new Government should legislate with no further ado for public funding of political parties.

If we want politics and government to be respected, Ministers must tell people the realities and not run scared of focus groups. Leaders should lead. Whatever institutional changes are made, there is no substitute for good government.

Cabinet Manual: Revision (Constitution Committee Report)

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Friday 16th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords—

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

My Lords, we cannot hear the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. I suggest that we move on to the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and come back to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, when the technical problems have been resolved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Cabinet Manual is a guide to the operation of government —its laws, rules, procedures and conventions—primarily for those working in the Government. I understand that, at the time of its preparation and publication in 2011, it was also intended to be a work of reference and an educational instrument, as my noble friend Lord Stansgate just suggested, for all who wished to understand how our system of parliamentary government is supposed to work. For all the difficulties that the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, drew to our attention, the description of conventions that it contains is as important as the description of legalities. It describes not only the mechanics but the proper ethos of government. It should be a covenant between the Cabinet and the people, against which the conduct of our Government can be judged.

However, if the Cabinet Manual is not kept up to date, it ceases to have this value. The then Cabinet Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, stated in his foreword to the Cabinet Manual in 2011—as he reiterated in his oral evidence to the committee—that its content must not be static. I am extremely sad not to have been able to hear his speech just now because of the technical problems we had, but we are deeply indebted to him for his achievement in bringing the 2011 Cabinet Manual to its birth. The Cabinet Manual must evolve to take account of new legislation, constitutional change, and developing precedents, procedures and conventions. Much has changed since 2011, including Brexit, further devolution and the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, yet we have had no new edition of the Cabinet Manual.

The noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, told the committee that work was in hand before September 2020 to draft a new edition while he was Cabinet Secretary, as my noble friends Lady Drake and Lady Warwick noted. Simon Case, his successor, has recognised its importance in articulating norms, standards and culture, and has acknowledged the need for an update of the Cabinet Manual.

The noble Lord, Lord True, whose personal under-standing of and commitment to the proper principles of the constitution are exemplary, has told the Constitution Committee that the Government agree that the Cabinet Manual should periodically be updated and will publish an updated version before the end of this Parliament. However, the committee recommended that a draft should be published for extensive consultation no later than July 2022, and it is disappointing that this has not happened.

The recent chaos in Downing Street must have rendered it hard to produce a new version. That very chaos showed the need for the Cabinet Manual to be a living, current, familiar and respected account of constitutional propriety. Never was it more needed than in the period of serial abuse of the constitution by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson has been powerfully arraigned by my friend the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and his co-author, Professor Andrew Blick, in their book The Bonfire of the Decencies. I strongly agree with the case they make there. My noble friend, as we all call him, spoke just now with restraint but powerfully in proposing the content of a Prime Minister’s oath.

For me, the principal items on the constitutional charge-sheet include: abuse of the prerogative in the unlawful Prorogation of Parliament; contempt for the rule of law in the disparagement of judges, moves to weaken judicial review, denial of the necessary resources for the courts and access to justice, and the brazen declaration of the Government’s intent to legislate in breach of international law; the dishonouring of the Government’s commitment to the treaty embodying the Northern Ireland protocol; habitual discourtesy to the devolved Administrations and evasion of the Sewel convention; repeated inclusion of Henry VIII clauses in legislation; suborning the independence of the Electoral Commission; publicly blaming officials for matters for which Ministers are responsible; providing incorrect figures to Parliament; circulating untruths in respect of the Chris Pincher case; and Mr Johnson’s repeated mendacity. These are all in blatant breach of Lord Nolan’s seven principles of public life and of the precepts of the Cabinet Manual.

We cannot assume that because eventually Mr Johnson was expunged from No. 10 by Conservative MPs, the stable has been cleansed. He is said to be biding his time before seeking to return to Downing Street—fantasy, perhaps, but there is reported to be a sizeable cohort of incorrigible Conservative MPs who want him back as party leader and Prime Minister. Meanwhile, their lost leader, notwithstanding that he is a sitting MP, is touring the world making a quick fortune.

I want to believe well of our present Prime Minister. I accept that he was ambushed when he found himself taking part in a law-breaking social event at No. 10. Perhaps it was unavoidable that he reappointed to government so many fellow travellers in Mr Johnson’s journey of constitutional abuse, but he should not have appointed to Cabinet some of the most egregious violators of the principles embodied in the Cabinet Manual and the Ministerial Code. It will be a fundamental test for Mr Sunak’s leadership to show that he fully understands and respects the values that should inform the operation of our government.

The maintenance of the proper spirit of the constitution depends not only on checks and balances but on the personal values of those who exercise power within it. It would be no different if we were to have a written constitution, as we see instantly if we look at the USA, President Trump and the Republican Party. For our unwritten constitution to function as it should, it requires that the participants—politicians, officials, judges, political journalists, party activists and voters— have an informed understanding of it and a moral commitment to it. The Cabinet Manual, in enabling that understanding, therefore needs both regular updating and vigorous publicity.

We are at a time of exceptional political disruption and dissonance, when many no longer find meaning and value in traditional institutions, significant numbers of young people are tempted to repudiate democracy itself, and populism and authoritarianism are beguiling. It behoves us to keep the storm-tossed ark of parliamentary democracy in good repair. A new Cabinet Manual can help to rehabilitate our constitution and our political culture.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Lord to speak.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in moving this proposed new clause, superficially so bland, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, beckons us along a path which leads towards constitutional and moral anarchy.

What is dangerous constitutionally about this amendment is that it would undermine the way we do parliamentary government. Forcing the Government to lay a Bill before Parliament and to enable Parliament to consider the issue, as the proposed new clause requires, would be a coup. This Back-Bench amendment would usurp control of the parliamentary agenda from the democratically elected Government. In the last Parliament we saw Back-Bench MPs, with the collusion of Mr Speaker Bercow, contriving to set aside Standing Order 14(1), which gives precedence to business tabled by the Government, in order to substitute their own agenda on Brexit. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was very much opposed to that.

Parliament proceeds by precedence, and these are dangerous new precedents, as any noble Lord who sees their party as a party of government must surely agree. While it is for Parliament to interrogate government and hold it to account, it is not for Parliament to claim for itself the role of the Government. Parliament is incapable of governing and it should not dictate the parliamentary programme. If Parliament makes exceptions to that principle to gratify a faction of its Members in either House, and if the principle that it may do so becomes established through reiteration so that the Government no longer control the legislative agenda, the ability of Governments to govern will suffer. Our system of parliamentary government is battered and unsteady as it is; we should not injure it further.

The moral anarchy that lurks in this new clause is that it would legitimise in a new way the taking of human life by other human beings. I readily acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and other proponents of what they call assisted dying are motivated by compassion and kind intentions. I profoundly believe, however, that their approach misreads human nature and that legislation to permit assisted suicide would create more suffering than it would alleviate. The offspring of this compassion would be a coarsening of our society and a diminution of the value we place upon life.

Some people make a moral case for assisted suicide on the basis of personal autonomy. I understand the appeal: I want, or I think I would want, such choice and control for myself at the end of my life. But that is not a good enough argument. Our responsibility is not just to ourselves, or even to those individuals we love the most, but to our community. For a community to be healthy, it must have norms. It has been a norm in our culture to place an especial value on human life. We reaffirmed that value when we abolished capital punishment. Since then, we have subjected our society to decades of laissez-faire ideology and chaotic individualism, and among the consequences of that have been a dissolution of community bonds and new harshnesses.

If we continue to dissolve our traditional norms, we are at risk that there really will be no such thing as society. As we look at our society now, at lethal child abuse and domestic abuse, at murderous assaults on women, as we look across the world at the millions consigned to death in the pandemic by the refusal of rich countries, including our own, to share intellectual property and technology to enable poorer countries to have vaccines, and as we witness increase discriminate mass killing in Ukraine and Yemen and genocide in Xinjiang, do we really think we should be preparing to sanction a new class of killing?

The new clause requires that a vote in Parliament on the intended legislation must be a matter of conscience. Let us examine our consciences very carefully indeed as we consider the proposal the noble Lord has put before us.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 170 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to which I have added my name.

As the noble Lord made clear, there is no realistic prospect of a Committee day for my Assisted Dying Bill. This makes the point that the current procedures limiting Private Members’ Bills to Fridays do not enable important legislation such as the Assisted Dying Bill to reach the statute book.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, introduced his amendment brilliantly. It leaves me only to reiterate that we are not discussing the pros and cons of assisted dying this evening. The House is expected to rise at 1.30 tomorrow morning. I hope for the sake of everybody in this House that noble Lords on both sides of the assisted dying debate will resist the temptation to get into such a debate—that is not as what this amendment is about. We are debating whether it is acceptable that there is no procedure at present to enable the Westminster Parliament to test the willingness of both houses to pass such a significant and popular piece of legislation. We know that not only Scotland, which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned, but Jersey and even the Isle of Man have procedures to enable them to pass an assisted dying law, and all those three are likely to pass such legislation within the next one to three years.

We therefore ask noble Lords: do we really think it is satisfactory that the Westminster Parliament is hamstrung without a procedure for Parliament properly to debate a Bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people who are mentally competent and who are suffering unbearably? For Westminster to be upstaged on such an important and popular human rights issue by our much smaller neighbours is surely unconscionable. Amendment 170 from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, deserves our support.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is taking part remotely. I invite him to speak.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on bringing back this issue on Report; I was sorry not to be able to speak in Committee. We must also be grateful to the academics at the University of Surrey who followed the money and, a year ago, published their exposé, Careless Finance.

The noble quartet of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett, Lady Brinton, Lady Tyler and Lady Altmann, has previously provided the House with an excellent analysis of predatory financial manipulation of the social care sector by hedge funds and offshore entities. I just want briefly to underline certain points.

What we have been seeing is legalised theft. Financial operators are leeching, for their own profit and benefit, substantial proportions—16% to 20%—of the funds provided for social care by both the public purse and self-funding individuals; “grey gold”, the profits thus extracted are sometimes called. This racket, unacceptable at any time, has been perpetrated during a period when the Government have chosen to underfund social care lamentably. Because sufficient budgets are not available to local authorities, many people who should be eligible for social care are not receiving it and many who are in social care are experiencing threadbare services. The workforce is depleted and miserably paid.

It is in the context of this crisis that unscrupulous operators have been ripping off a broken system. In their greed they are putting the business survival of providers at risk. As Christine Corlet Walker, Angela Druckman and Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey have reported, we have been seeing a large-scale transfer of money from the poorest to the richest. As they say,

“the ongoing cost is the silent tragedy of the most vulnerable in society.”

Meanwhile, the Government have made little or no effort to address the problem, which indeed they do not appear to acknowledge exists. The noble Earl, Lord Howe—for whom personally I have great regard—in his response on behalf of the Government in Committee, said that the noble Baroness’s amendment to improve transparency was not proportionate or necessary. He suggested that the Care Act 2014 and the CQC’s market oversight scheme should take care of any problems. However, since the abuses continue, it is obvious that these policies have been ineffectual with regard to them.

The noble Earl also said that it was for local authorities to shape, oversee and manage the market, but only the Government can act to close opportunities for rogue investors to carry out these abuses. He suggested that BEIS was on the case, but BEIS has been inexcusably dilatory.

The Government claim to be fixing social care, but all they are doing is providing a meagre and delayed increase in funding for social care by dint of imposing extra tax on the poor. The only reform they are truly interested in is to relieve the affluent of the need to sell their homes to pay for care.

Even the Government are now exercised about the abuses by Russian kleptocrats. So too they should be very seriously exercised by the abuses of the social care system by unscrupulous investors. Can they not see the evils that have flowed from marketising the social care sector? As the noble Baroness has just said, on Wednesday, the House will debate the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill. We should also be debating an overdue “social care financial abuse (transparency and enforcement) Bill”, brought forward by the Government.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is also taking part remotely. I invite her to speak next.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully support the desire expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that there should be full consultation between the Government and the devolved Administrations and, indeed, the Assemblies in the devolved countries. I also fully support his plea for mutual courtesy and respect, but I question whether this new clause is appropriate. I doubt whether it is appropriate to lay down in statute the procedures for consultation between the Government and the devolved Administrations—to so formalise, as it were, the agenda that it is placed in a Procrustean bed. That could be too rigid and inflexible. Of course, as he urges, all concerned should seek consensus, which will be extremely important in ensuring that what emerges from the negotiations on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU is viable in each of the devolved territories.

However, the achievement of consensus must be a matter of culture. I do not think that you can legislate for consensus. If you legislate and there is still not the good will and the willingness to give and take, along with the willingness to achieve mutual understanding, it will not work. So, strongly as I support the noble and learned Lord’s objectives in this amendment, the means that he proposes to achieve what we all desire may not be the right ones.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord. I do not know from whom I am quoting, but the Joint Ministerial Committee is a “poor thing, but our own.” It has not worked very well, because it has not met very frequently. There has been no programme, its membership has varied, and it has not been a particularly effective arrangement so far. Hence, in my view, it is important that it should be put on to a statutory basis, in which case a report would be made to both Houses of Parliament and we would know where we stood. So far, we do not know.

The devolved Administrations never know when the current Joint Ministerial Committee will meet. It is important, for the sake of the union, to achieve a consensus where possible. In our discussion yesterday on another amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, it was obvious that there had been no discussion with the Welsh Assembly. I fear that the Minister’s reply to our debate was less than persuasive. There is an alternative arrangement that could have been used under Section 109 for an Order in Council that would result in a consensual as opposed to an imposed change. Hence, I very much support the amendment in the hope that there will be a change of heart in Westminster.

I fear that there is still a denial in the Westminster establishment that devolution has taken place at all. It has been there for a long time now and it is part of our establishment. Legislators, particularly those who draft Bills for the Government, should recognise that the devolved Administrations have been set up within the United Kingdom and are there to further the union. I would hope that if this amendment is accepted, it would strengthen the union and put the committee on a proper basis, and then there would be an expectation of regular, frequent meetings with serious and senior representation of the Westminster Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and indeed all noble Lords who have spoken on the amendment. I feel that it is appropriate for me to start by saying something with a degree of emphasis about the Joint Ministerial Committee, which, I have to say, has received an undeservedly negative press from some noble Lords, both in Committee and today.

The Government have a high regard for the Joint Ministerial Committee structure and have engaged with the devolved Administrations through it, and indeed through numerous other means, throughout the EU exit process. The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations, which I will call the JMC (EN), was established in the months following the UK’s decision to leave the EU, and it has met 21 times since November 2016. From the Government’s point of view—and, I hope, from everyone’s—it has proved an invaluable forum for the exchange of information and views between the UK and the devolved Administrations.

Proposals for intergovernmental engagement on the next stage of negotiations formed a large part of the most recent meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations earlier this month, and are due to be discussed again at the next meeting of the JMC (EN) next week—chaired, if my memory serves me right, by the Welsh Government.

I hope that I can give a sense of how effective a forum the JMC (EN) has been for discussions on the Bill. The Bill was first discussed at the JMC (EN) in the summer of 2018, when we gave the devolved Administrations the opportunity to feed into the White Paper. We then used the forum to share our thinking on policy development through the autumn and winter of 2018, sharing iterative drafting on the Bill. It was through these discussions that we made changes to the Bill to address the concerns of the devolved Administrations. This included providing them with an important role in appointments to the board of the IMA, both in the Bill itself and through ministerial commitments.

I therefore do not accept that the JMC (EN) has been either inactive or ineffectual. On the contrary, it has contributed significantly to both ministerial and official engagement between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, and that is exactly the way we mean to continue.

The amendment seeks essentially to set the joint ministerial arrangements in concrete. It remains the Government’s firm view that it is not in the interests of the UK Government or the devolved Administrations to place the terms of reference of the JMC (EN), or the memorandum of understanding on devolution, on a statutory footing. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom were absolutely right in what they said.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord has heard serious warnings about the potentially dangerous consequences of a failure by the Government to consult adequately and work closely with the devolved Administrations. He will know that, in Wales, his rather upbeat assessment of the achievements and benefits of the Joint Ministerial Committee is not widely shared. If he will commit the Government, on their honour, to consult and work closely with the devolved institutions, along the lines laid out in this amendment, that would do a very great deal to improve trust and confidence and ensure good, practical outcomes. Will he do that?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I say again that it is our absolute wish and intention to engage constructively with the devolved Administrations over the negotiations ahead of us.

Intergovernmental relations have always operated by the agreement of the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. We wish that pattern to continue. The existing terms of reference of the JMC (EN) were agreed jointly in October 2016. In my view, and indeed in others’, those terms of reference have served us well, but to set the terms of reference in legislation would inhibit this joint process. Apart from anything else, to legislate for this would anticipate the outcome of the review of intergovernmental relations, due to be discussed with the devolved Administrations next week at the JMC (EN). Putting the terms of reference of the JMC (EN) in legislation would pre-empt those conversations and restrict the ability of the various Administrations to develop future intergovernmental structures, such as the JMC (EN), to reflect the constitutional relationship between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations once the UK leaves the EU.

I hope noble Lords will appreciate how important it is for the JMC (EN) to have flexibility in its role to develop and adapt as the negotiations progress. Indeed, the terms of reference proposed in this amendment seem to be narrower than the existing agreed terms of reference, which refer to

“issues stemming from the negotiation process which may impact upon or have consequences for the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive.”

This amendment would restrict the focus to economic and security matters. In fact, I believe that, if one reads the current terms of reference in full, one will find that they are miles better than those suggested in the amendment.

The essential point remains that a fixed statutory basis would not support the flexibility required to ensure that the JMC (EN) can operate as effectively as possible, which is what we want it to do. I hope I have provided noble Lords with assurances of the Government’s commitment to work collaboratively with the devolved Administrations to discuss their requirements of the future relationship with the EU. In the light of those assurances, I respectfully ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Priorities for the Government

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the most reverend Primate for his comments. He is right that there are things that the Government can visibly do, but there is also support and there are things on the ground that we need to help develop, and that will certainly be part of our plans. The new Prime Minister has set out his vision covering domestic policy. I am delighted that I was not asked a question on Brexit because we want to look at how we can improve quality of life for people across our country and to focus on our future. That is why he is particularly focused on, and has highlighted, the fact that he wants to protect older people from the fear of having to sell their home to pay for care. I hope noble Lords will be pleased to hear that we will be publishing proposals in this area soon, because it is one of those areas that will make a significant difference to families across the country and to people’s lives, and it is something that we really must grapple with.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, if money is now to be abundant, and if the new Prime Minister and his Ministers genuinely seek to build a more just and humane society, why is there no mention in the Statement of the Government’s intention to remedy the grave failures in recent years in terms of access to justice? Perhaps, in this new fiscal climate, there is now an opportunity to restore the cuts in legal aid that should never have been made and to create more decent conditions in our prisons. If the Government really intend to pursue the liberal and just policies that they proclaim, I hope they will include those among their intentions.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid it is slightly above my pay grade to add further priorities to the Prime Minister’s list, but obviously we have a new Secretary of State for Justice and I am sure he will be very interested in the comments that the noble Lord has made. I am sure there will be lots of new thinking going on within the department in order to tackle some of the issues that he has raised.

European Council

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I think the noble Lord will recognise that I have never breached that convention, and I will not be doing it now.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness clarify the constitutional issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan? Is it not the case that, under the terms of the EU withdrawal Act, if Parliament does not approve the statutory instrument, we leave on 29 March? Is she none the less saying to us that EU law does not permit the Parliament of the United Kingdom even to determine the date of Brexit? If that is so, does it not illustrate powerfully why a majority of voters in the referendum who cherish our parliamentary democracy believe passionately that it is right for us to leave the EU?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid I can only restate that 29 March is no longer a date on which we can leave the EU. The agreement made is a matter of international law. It has always been the case that agreements at an international level take precedence. The House of Commons voted to seek an extension to Article 50, which is what has been done. Rejecting the SI would not stop the extension being agreed or coming into force because it is a matter of international law.

Lord Speaker: Powers

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I assure my noble friend that the Chief Whip and I do everything we can to ensure fairness around the House in answering Questions. In fact, almost 85% of tabled Questions asked since July did not come from the government Benches. We try to ensure as Question Time goes on that all Members of the House are given the opportunity to speak and to ask questions, which is an extremely important part of scrutiny of the Government.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, how does the Leader of the House choose between us?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I think noble Lords have just shown that they can do it for themselves.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness the Leader of the House recall Walter Bagehot’s distinction between the dignified parts and the efficient parts of the constitution, and his observation that the dignified parts were imposing, old and venerable? Does she agree with me that the Lord Speaker on the Woolsack should remain dignified—not to mention imposing, old and venerable—and should not become efficient because, as the previous Lord Speaker has said, it is crucial to the effectiveness of this Second Chamber that we preserve our culture and practice of self-regulation?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

What I can say to my noble friend is that the Government and all Members involved in these meetings are approaching them in a constructive spirit without preconditions, and everyone who has been met has taken the same approach. As the Statement made clear, following discussions with senior parliamentarians, the Prime Minister will be considering how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support. She will then take those conclusions back to the EU.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Leader of the House agree that parliamentary government requires that the Government lead? Does she accept that there is a widespread view, shared by the ghost of Mr Gladstone, that procedural initiatives by Back-Benchers in another place, to wrest from the Government control of the agenda and the timetable for parliamentary business, are subversive of parliamentary government and set a dangerous precedent?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I do not think that my directly commenting on Commons procedures is helpful. I can certainly say that attempts to remove the Government’s power to negotiate our orderly exit from the EU at this crucial time are undoubtedly concerning and risk further paralysis in Parliament.

EU Council

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can say to my noble friend that the focus of the Government is to get through the deal that has been negotiated—a deal that delivers for the UK and the EU and a deal that both sides say is the best deal possible.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness the Leader meets her Cabinet colleagues tomorrow to discuss preparations for no deal, will she encourage them not to waste their energies on trying to conjure political rabbits out of the House of Commons hat, to dismiss the lurid propaganda about cliff edges and catastrophes, to apply themselves vigorously to preparing for an orderly transition to WTO rules and to embark at the earliest possible moment on negotiations for a free trade agreement with the EU?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the noble Lord knows, and as I have said in response to earlier questions, we do not want no deal but it is only right that a prudent Government plan for one. He will also be aware of the extensive work that has already been under way to prepare for no deal over the past two years: the 106 technical notices, the various agreements that we have in place and the money that we have put into preparing for it. This is not a situation that we want to be in but we have to ensure for the British people that all contingencies are covered, and that is what we are doing.