Role of the Lord Speaker
Earl Attlee Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the extremely experienced and noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for tabling his QSD. I have agreed with much of his counsel in the past, and even today, but on this occasion, I think we should maintain the status quo and rely entirely on our excellent system of self-regulation.
I observed that when I was a junior Member of the Opposition Benches, I had no difficulty in getting my fair share of questions, even though I do not particularly have the gift of the gab. When I have guests attend Question Time, they often marvel to me how your Lordships know when to get up, as the Lord Speaker appears to have no role and very often my noble friend the Leader has no need to intervene. When she comes to respond, perhaps she can tell the House how often she has had to intervene. I also take this opportunity to say how well she performs her duties and to express our gratitude to her.
No doubt, many noble Lords will focus on Question Time, and I shall point out some of the advantages of the current arrangement that could be lost with any changes. I expect many noble Lords will make the point that the Leader has a better view of the House than the Lord Speaker. Although, unlike the Speaker in the Commons the Lord Speaker sits on his own, in the House of Lords, the Leader, the Government Chief Whip and the Clerk of the Parliaments work together as a team, especially at Question Time. Either the Chief Whip or the Leader will create a matrix to ensure that each Bench has its fair share of supplementaries. The Leader will need to be seen by the House as being scrupulously fair or she will risk losing the confidence of the House, and then be in danger of losing her job.
For ordinary legislative business, Statements and time-limited debates, the role of the Leader is usually delegated to a junior Government Whip, who seeks to express or suggest the sense of the House, in the same way as the Leader. Your Lordships will recall that I have performed this role, and I sought to do so as a servant of the House and not of the Government. I had no difficulty in helping the House manage Statements: it was quite easy. Once, when I got the sense of the House slightly wrong, I was able to say, “My Lords, this is a self-regulating House and a self-regulating Committee. If the Committee wants to hear more from the noble Lord, he should continue”. That is what self-regulation is about.
When noble Lords address the House, they generally do so looking very carefully at the Minister and the Government Front Bench in order to gauge their reaction. They do not look at the Lord Speaker. If a noble Lord is running out of his time, the Whip has a number of non-verbal techniques, which can be escalated, and these can easily be detected by the noble Lord speaking long before the Whip need rise to the Dispatch Box. In these circumstances, noble Lords know that they should drop their remaining points and conclude. Indeed, when I did have to go to the Dispatch Box to intervene on a noble Lord regarding time, I regarded it as a failure on my part. The beauty of this arrangement is that the Whip’s activity will not be seen on the video link, and no guests will be aware—they will not realise that the Government Whip is giving non-verbal directions to the speaker.
I have another reason for being very cautious about expanding the role of the Lord Speaker. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was very careful to say that this would be only a very small change, but I fear that we are talking about a slippery slope—the noble Lord correctly anticipated that. With the sensible exception of money Bills, nothing on God’s earth can prevent a Peer tabling an amendment and having it debated to the extent that he or she desires and then if, necessary, calling a Division. In the Commons, amendments are grouped and selected by the Speaker, obviously,
“for the convenience of the House”.
We should be ever so careful about expanding the role of the Lord Speaker, lest we eventually find ourselves in the position of Back-Bench Members of the House of Commons, who are severely constrained.
My final point is this. I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, believes that he has a unique parliamentary style which will in time make it necessary to give the Lord Speaker increased powers. The noble Lord looks shocked at that, and I can assure him that this is not the case. When my noble friend Lord Trefgarne was a Minister, he had to enjoy the antics of Lord Hatch of Lusby, who had a similar style—I am getting gestures from the Opposition Benches, but I am not yet getting anything non-verbal from the Government Whip. When I arrived it was Lord Molloy. Now it is the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I can assure him that the House has no difficulty in accommodating him or his predecessors, or in enjoying his contributions.
Outcome of the European Union Referendum
Earl Attlee Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, the tone adopted by some leading politicians at times during the referendum debate was nothing short of racial incitement to hatred, and demonstrated the worst of British politics. I was so dismayed and concerned by the tone and exaggerations of the debate that I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, on 13 June drawing his attention to the fact that some Ministers were failing to comply with the Ministerial Code and the seven principles of public life, which include maintaining the highest standards of integrity and honesty. Despite the scaremongering about minority groups, immigrants, Turkey joining the EU and Turkish Muslims “swamping” the UK, we must not confuse the leave vote with people who are entirely far right in their political views or who are mostly racist or xenophobic.
I agree with my colleague, Tim Farron, who stated that it has been absolutely heart-breaking to see the spike in racist and xenophobic attacks following the referendum. Many warned that the rhetoric of Farage and the leave campaign could lead to a rise in the intolerance we are now seeing. We must be clear that the outcome of the referendum was not a green light to xenophobia. It must not be allowed to damage the multicultural, multi-ethnic and multifaith society that Britain is and will remain. The vote to leave the EU is not, and should not be seen as, a victory for the far right. No serious leader should fall back to regressive policies that demonise minorities or communities, or put in place policies which undermine our civil liberties.
The tone used in debates around immigration was disgraceful, and those politicians who took part in such attacks should hang their heads in disgrace. It is imperative now that all politicians give clear leadership in uniting and condemning racism and xenophobia, and work towards stressing the importance of the key roles that EU nationals play in making Britain—the UK—a success in every aspect of our daily lives. We are all, mostly, a nation of immigrants; it is merely a question of time.
I accept that there are legitimate questions and concerns about the state of our public sector and the services within it. I will share some facts with your Lordships on polling, which were thus: those working full-time or part-time voted to remain in the EU. Most of those not working voted to leave. More than half of those retired on a private pension voted to leave, as did two-thirds of those retired on a state pension. Around two-thirds of council and housing association tenants voted to leave. Among those whose formal education ended at secondary school or earlier, a large majority voted to leave. There is a pattern here and the polls demonstrate that many disadvantaged people in poorer communities voted to leave the EU because—I have heard them say this—they had nothing more to lose.
David Cameron has often expressed a simple message: “If you want to work hard and get on in life, this Government will be on your side”. Yet the terrible tax credit cuts envisaged by the Chancellor, which would have affected over 3 million Britons and their supplements to low-paid work, exposed the hollowness of this claim. Although the Chancellor reversed these cuts, when people move onto universal credit, regrettably, many of the larger and poorer families will again be disadvantaged. Yesterday, it was announced that there would be a cut in corporation tax. This is likely to mostly benefit larger businesses and corporations. Those benefits are not likely to translate into many more jobs, and so will do little for those needing help and support in disadvantaged communities. Indeed, cuts in corporation tax may lead to further cuts in public spending, such as in the NHS and in the welfare budget, as the Chancellor tries to make difficult ends meet.
Clearly, successive Governments have failed to listen, and act upon, improving the lives of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society. You have only to visit places in the north of England to see derelict housing, poor transport infrastructure and struggling communities. Governments have talked the talk, but talk and slogans have not translated into concerted action; the northern powerhouse is one such example. Of course, many people have legitimate concerns about access to hospitals, GPs, good schools, good transport infrastructure and affordable housing, and to decently paid, permanent jobs. But the poor and the disadvantaged feel these issues more acutely, because they often find themselves and their families trapped in low-paid jobs and inadequate and expensive housing, with greater levels of ill health. Social justice and reform must work for everyone, and ensuring that everyone has the best chance in life must surely be a right for all, and not a right for only the privileged or those with power and influence.
The result of the referendum to leave the EU is likely to mean that inflation rises and that benefits continue to be frozen. This will hit the spending power of people on disability benefits, those who are jobseekers and those on low pay. Brexit-voting pensioners have already seen their annuity values crashing with the flight into gilts. Clearly, the disadvantaged people in every area who voted out will be worst hit by job losses and high inflation. What will the Government do to mitigate against this?
The Government have set out their life chances strategy to tackle poverty, aimed at transforming the lives of the poorest in Britain, with a focus on tackling the root causes of poverty, family breakdown, worklessness, drug and alcohol addiction, serious personal debt and assessing educational attainment at 16 years of age. But they omitted to include income as a means of getting on in life. The Government also need to look at reskilling and upskilling people in poorly paid and part-time jobs.
We need a new and inclusive vision, with new and honest politics that give hope to all in our nation—but most importantly to those who need us the most. We want an inclusive, tolerant, equal and fair society, committed to a new set of values of fairness and hope.
Earl Attlee (Con)
The noble Baroness made a fascinating speech, and I am sure that the House was very interested—but where did she get the data to say which way individual voters voted?
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, they were from polls that Lord Ashcroft undertook, and they were mentioned in the Guardian newspaper as well.
House of Lords Reform
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for not being present for the majority of the debate. I put my name down to speak in this debate as well as the defence debate before the usual channels decided to separate the two, and I could not decide which one to scrap from.
The Leader of the House urged us to keep it simple. The role of the House of Lords is to revise legislation, be an additional check on the Executive and be a source of expertise. In answer to the Lib Dems, it is not clear to me why you need to be elected to perform that function. However, to be a revising Chamber, it must be possible to defeat the Government of the day in your Lordships’ House, or at least somewhere in Parliament, otherwise legislation cannot be revised. The Leader and the Prime Minister need to understand that you can alter the arithmetic in this House as much as you like, but you will not stop the Government of the day being defeated.
I can remember that, in the early 1990s, despite the huge Tory preponderance, the then Railways Bill nearly died in your Lordships’ House. As noble Lords have already said, of course the Government of the day must be able to get their business through the House. The simple answer is for the Leader to tell the Prime Minister to stop appointing new Peers and making us a laughing stock. However, it is a bit late for that, as—in my opinion and that of many of my noble friends—we already have far too many Liberal Democrat Peers.
I was intrigued by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, and my noble friends Lord Astor and Lord Ridley that we should consider some sort of cull. We should consider these suggestions very carefully. I am not sure about the committee component of the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, because it hands too much power to the Whips and to the system. In the last cull— in which I took part, in 2000—all the affected Peers were electors as well. It might be a better system, if a bit tougher on the electors. It was indeed very painful in 2000, because we were electing on the basis of capability and availability, and nothing else. It was quite tough to write down the list of Peers you wanted to consider. Obviously, the Front Bench was fairly secure, but with the middle-ranking people, you looked at the name and thought, “He’s a lovely chap, but actually we don’t need him”, and put a line through it. It was a very tough process, but we might well have to go through it again.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, was right to draw attention to the snags of a cull. I did see one hereditary Peer make a strategic move from these Benches to the Benches opposite, but the machinery on the Benches opposite was very clever and he was not successful in staying in your Lordships’ House. My noble friend Lord Horam advised us to avoid legislation. If we wanted to go down the route of a cull, we could achieve this just by choking off the allowances of unsuccessful Peers, because in those circumstances they would probably decide to gracefully retire.
I have no doubt that this House is far too big in terms of active Peers. I say to my noble friend the Leader that even before 2010 it was starting to become a bit tight. In earlier years, if I got fed up with what the Government were doing and Written Answers were not really giving me the right answers, I could roll into the Minute Room and say to the clerk, “Oral Question—first available slot to ask Her Majesty’s Government”. You cannot do that now—you have to queue up—but in those days there were fewer active Peers and it was rather easier to operate. At the very least, therefore, we need no more new Peers and we will have to consider some sort of cull mechanism along the lines suggested by noble Lords.
Palace of Westminster Committee
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Grocott (Lab)
To follow on from my noble friend’s point, on a related matter, he is quite right that this is an issue that affects both Houses of Parliament but there are many other issues, one of which is highly relevant, pertinent and newsworthy at the moment: English votes on English laws. It has been suggested that the rules relating to that could be made in the Commons without any proper joint consultation with Members of this House. There should be at least a Joint Committee of some sort to look at the implications for both Chambers of changes of this magnitude.
I do not use the word “disgrace” lightly, but it is a disgrace that we are making fundamental constitutional changes by an order in the Commons without any reference to us whatever. Changing the legislative process, in which we are intimately involved, unilaterally in one House without any consultation, let alone agreement, between the two Houses is unacceptable. I put it to the noble Baroness respectfully that she, as Leader of the House, has a duty to those of us here, particularly the Scots, not to allow our rights to be in any way diminished by any changes in the constitutional arrangements—at least, not without both Houses being fully involved.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, returning to the subject of the debate, I urge my noble friend the Leader to carefully consider the need for full debate in your Lordships’ House before the committee does too much work.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
My Lords, is the logic of what is being said not so much whether or not this or that decision is the correct one but that this needs to be a two-tier consultation exercise? The noble Baroness the Leader may care to say a bit more about the process of selecting who goes on to the Joint Committee, as has been said, but there are also some leading questions about the 40-year impact and so on that surely need to be brought back to the House for people to be able to comment on, when they have been considered more systematically by the Joint Committee, before final decisions are taken. It should not just be a question of saying yes or no to a report from a Joint Committee.
Air Pollution
Earl Attlee Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, is it not the case that other European cities are experiencing very similar problems and that the reason is that some of the technical changes made to heavy goods vehicles in recent years have not delivered the benefits expected?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, my noble friend is right. It is fair to say that all countries in the EU have difficulties with adhering to the limits. The most recent figures show that 17 of the 27 EU countries are in difficulties on their nitrogen dioxide limits. That is why in this country we want to deal with it as swiftly as we can.
House of Lords: Procedures and Practices
Earl Attlee Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for asking this Question for Short—perhaps far too short—Debate, as hitherto I have been unable to give my counsel on this matter. I spent 13 years in opposition, but I did not find any difficulty in holding the Government to account, even though I was a very junior member of the Opposition; I felt that I had all the tools that I needed.
I found little to agree with in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, although I did have some sympathy with some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours about the size of the House. My noble friend Lord Dykes commented on our new Leader. I gently point out that my noble friend the Leader was a Government Whip for some time, and she understands how this House operates left to right, back to front, and inside out. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, talked about the difficulty of securing a QSD debate. My understanding is that, very often, the usual channels offer a day for a debate but it is not taken up.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
On that point, I forgot to say, by the way—and I meant to say in my introductory remarks—how grateful I was to the staff of the Government Chief Whip and of the Leader, who were very helpful in guiding me to an appropriate day and getting everything organised. I was really grateful to them.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I know from my own personal experience that they are extremely capable.
Most of us pride ourselves on the extraordinary fact that we are a self-regulating House, and most noble Lords believe that we should stay that way. My understanding of the situation is this. When we are not quite sure what we should be doing, or a noble Lord has forgotten some detail hidden in the Companion, the Leader of the House expresses the sense of the House. In other words, she tells us what we should do if we had the time to work it out for ourselves.
A great advantage is that the Leader can be flexible and pragmatic by taking account of the circumstances of the time and not adhering slavishly to precedent or the rulebook. There are some who believe that the Leader might act in a partisan manner, but I have never seen it as a real problem, even when I was in opposition. The Leader will be careful not to do anything that will lose her the confidence of the House and, in any case, a competent Minister, properly briefed, can answer any question that may arise at Question Time. My noble friend Lord Gardiner, responding just now to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, demonstrated a brilliant intervention to help the House with what we should be doing.
There is one particular reason why a stronger Lord Speaker is not a solution to the alleged problem of a partisan Leader. Yes, the Lord Speaker is neutral, but the Deputy Speakers and Deputy Chairmen are often rank and file party members on a Whip.
As for Question Time, when I was a very junior Member on the opposition Benches, I had no difficulty in asking a reasonable number of supplementary questions —and I still do not experience any difficulties now.
When the Leader, Deputy Leader or Chief Whip is not present in the Chamber, it falls to the junior Whip on duty to act on behalf of the Leader and in the same way. Obviously, I have a slight interest as, until earlier this year, I was a junior Whip—but I managed to escape.
Your Lordships will recall how challenging the early part of this Parliament was for all of us, with some very controversial but necessary legislation. I will take this opportunity to praise my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns, the then government Chief Whip. It is not generally recognised how much effort she put into training the junior Whips so that we knew what we would be doing long before we were appointed. It is fair to say that if she had not been so far-sighted, the House would have experienced far more difficulties than it did.
It is possible for a junior Whip either to get the “sense of the House” wrong or not to enjoy the support of the House. It happened to me in Grand Committee one day, but, with our system of self-regulation, it was easy to get out of. I just said, “My Lords, it is a self-regulating House and a self-regulating Committee. If the Committee wants to hear more from the noble Lord, the noble Lord should continue”.
My noble friend Lord Trefgarne suggested having extra Oral Questions. He may have forgotten that we tried that some years ago and, by the end of the fourth Question, the House was very bored and we stopped doing it. I also believe that I hold the record for a Minister answering the most supplementary questions in a seven and a half minute slot. I will now sit down.
Immigration
Earl Attlee Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, it is too early to provide such an assessment. We have taken the advice of the independent Migration Advisory Committee, which concluded that it would not be sensible or helpful to policymakers to make predictions about likely volumes. The Government are doing everything they can to ensure that people who come to the UK from the EU do so for the right reasons—to work hard and to contribute to our economy and society.
Lord Balfe (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his reply. Does he accept that migrants from these countries, many of them highly skilled, come to Britain because the expanding, vibrant and welcoming economy gives many opportunities for self-advancement? Secondly, has he sympathy with Romanian Ministers who have pointed out that, with 866,000 persons in the UK being registered unemployed for more than a year, the UK Government might be well employed in reviewing benefit levels for the UK unemployed to a level at which they might be encouraged to apply for some of the vacancies currently being filled by the migrants?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, on my noble friend’s first question: yes, this is one of the benefits of the free movement of labour around the community, so if one country is doing better than another we can get a flow of labour to equalise things. On the second point, on benefit levels, it is not my responsibility to answer for the Home Office on migration issues.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, amid all the unpleasantness in parts of the media over the past few weeks about Romanians and Bulgarians, has the noble Earl had the time to see the study recently published by a team from University College London, which shows that immigrants from the EU over the past 10 years have contributed far more in taxes and national insurance contributions than they have consumed in public services and in benefits, unlike the position of the native population? In other words, they have supplied us with a substantial financial and fiscal surplus, to the benefit of every taxpayer in this country. Is there not every probability that hard-working Romanians and Bulgarians will follow in the same footsteps?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord’s last question is yes. On his first question, I handled business on that particular report. I cannot remember the precise details, but I broadly agree with the noble Lord’s thrust.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
Can the noble Earl confirm my recollection that all three main parties supported the seven-year transition period that expired last week for Romanians and Bulgarians, and gave it wholehearted support when this House and the other place ratified their accession treaties?
Earl Attlee
Again, the noble Lord is right. This is what we signed up to in the accession treaties for these two states. However, we need to stimulate a debate within the community about how best to manage transition in the future.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware, as I am, of the benefits of free movement enjoyed in the past, now and, I hope, in the future, by British citizens in the EU? Is it not a case of, “Do as you would be done by”?
Earl Attlee
My noble friend is absolutely right. There is two-way traffic, both to and from member states in the EU. There are great benefits from the free movement of labour.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, would my noble friend remind the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that when we debated the question of former satellite countries joining the European Union, some of us were considerably less than wholehearted. In fact, we queried whether the figure of 13,000 likely new arrivals was accurate. As it turned out, of course, it was nearer a million than 13,000, so our reservations at that time were fully justified.
Earl Attlee
My noble friend may have been talking about the accession of Poland. A very large number of Poles came to this country. I was talking about Romania and Bulgaria, where we expect that the numbers will not be so large.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister said in his Answer that it was too early to make an assessment of the numbers. However, some of the language from the Government has been quite alarmist rhetoric. Would it not be better to look at measures to stop any workers being exploited, such as stronger and better enforcement of the national minimum wage, and also to tackle those loopholes that allow agency workers, often from overseas, to be employed at much lower rates than home-grown employees?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. One thing that we have done is to increase very significantly the fixed penalty for employers for not paying the minimum wage. We also need to look at a number of instances where immigrant labour is being abused—for instance, agricultural workers from eastern Europe. The noble Baroness is right; we need to keep a grip on this.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, whatever reservations we might or might not have had concerning the expansion of the European Union, will Her Majesty’s Government give an undertaking that unless and until we extricate ourselves from the Union, we will loyally and honourably accept all our legal obligations in respect of it?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I assure the House that Her Majesty’s Government do have a policy of adhering to treaty obligations. That is why we are very happy with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU, and with the free movement of those peoples, from 1 January.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am grateful to the noble Lord. Am I having an aberration? The opposition Front Bench complained about loopholes introduced by the agency workers scheme. Will my noble friend confirm that the scheme was introduced by the previous Labour Government?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord is right—but, equally, we must close the loopholes and avoid the abuse of low-cost labour from eastern Europe.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, if what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about the seven-year accession arrangements was correct, why do Mr Cameron and government Ministers go on television and accuse the previous Labour Government of acting irresponsibly?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, it is important to make sure that we have transitional arrangements for future accessions that work properly and do not have undesirable effects, especially when the acceding state has a lower GDP per capita than the rest of the community.
House of Lords: Size
Earl Attlee Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, the proposition I wish to put to the House is straightforward. In terms of membership, the House of Lords has grown, is growing and ought to be reduced. There is an immediate problem; there is an even greater prospective problem.
My starting point is that this House does a good job in fulfilling functions that add value to the political process. It complements the elected Chamber, not least in carrying out tasks that the other House may not have the time, resources or political will to fulfil. However, the fact that we do a good job does not mean that we could not be even more effective than we are. Enhancing our effectiveness has two elements. One is making changes to how we operate and the other is bolstering public confidence in what we do. Unlike the other place, we cannot take our legitimacy for granted. We have to earn it. The changes that would enable us to fulfil our functions more effectively and enhance public support go well beyond limiting how many Members we have. However, addressing the size of the House is critical because of its relevance to fulfilling the functions of the House and our public standing.
There are two aspects to the size of the House. One is the total membership and the other is the active membership. The total membership is especially relevant to how the House is seen by the public, and the active membership is relevant to the capacity of the House to do its job. In terms of total membership, the House has grown markedly since the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999. At the start of the new Session of 1999-2000, we had 666 Members—in other words, a membership slightly larger than that of the House of Commons. Today, we have a total of 835 Members, making the House more than a quarter larger than the House of Commons. We are the largest second Chamber in the world. That remains the case even if we exclude those who have taken leave of absence or are ineligible. Excluding those who are ineligible or have taken leave of absence, we have 781 Members. However, we have to take into account the fact that ineligible Members, such as those holding judicial posts, will in due course be able to resume their seats. Some of those on leave of absence because of the positions they hold, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, may well resume their seats upon completion of their current posts.
However, even working with the figure of 781, imagine what will happen if a new list of Peers is announced. Then think ahead to the next Parliament and the likely creation of another list. There may be ebbs and flows—we lose some Members each year and there is a lull between lists—but the underlying trend is clear. That is demonstrated graphically in Figure 2 of Meg Russell’s pamphlet, House Full, published in 2011. As she points out, the largest single number of Peers to be created in any one year since 1999 was the 117 who were created in 2010-11.
The number, be it of all Peers or just of eligible ones, is rising and has risen most markedly in the past three years. It is not beyond reason to envisage a House at some point in the next Parliament with a total membership close to, or even in excess of, 900 Members. A House of that size, whether active or inactive, does nothing for the reputation of the House; it is difficult to defend in the public arena.
One can certainly justify a House similar in size to that of the other House, given that we need a large membership to sustain an active House of part-time Members. We benefit fundamentally from Peers having outside links and maintaining current expertise. This House forms an invaluable arena for discourse by civil society. However, the more that we grow in number beyond the size of the other place and, like Topsy, just grow and grow, it is difficult to defend against the criticism of being primarily an expanding repository of political patronage.
There is no obvious justification for the expansion in terms of fulfilling the tasks that are core to our activity. The more that we grow in size, the more that the position becomes indefensible. It would not be bad if there were a rational argument for the growth in numbers, but there is no clear intellectual basis for it. The composition of the new membership in this Parliament bears little relationship to the stated aim of the coalition agreement in terms of membership proportional to votes in the general election. To achieve proportionality now would require a further, substantial injection of new Peers.
There is a more tangible problem in terms of the resources of the House. The growth in membership in recent years has brought in Members who contribute regularly to the work of the House. This is reflected in the daily attendance: the average daily attendance in the Session 2009-10 was 388, while in the most recent session, 2012-13, it was 484. As Meg Russell records, this substantial recent growth in the active membership generates three problems. First, it puts pressure on the limited resources of the House. Secondly, it puts pressure on the work of the House, not least in terms of demands to contribute to Question Time and debates. Thirdly, it has a negative impact on the culture of the House. The more that Members are brought in quickly and in large numbers, the more that this makes it difficult to socialise Members in the accepted norms of the House, and the danger is that the House may become more fractious and partisan.
The pressure on resources is fairly obvious, not least in terms of space. Members have always been underresourced relative to Members of the other place. This is shown in the extent to which Peers are allocated not offices of their own but rather desk space. The pressure is also obvious in the Chamber, in that at various times it is not able to accommodate all the Members who wish to attend. We have a smaller Chamber than that of the other place but a larger membership. The Commons has seating for more than 60% of its Members; we cannot match that, even based on the average daily attendance, and the situation is clearly growing worse.
The increase creates particular problems in a House that works on a fairly lean support base. The cost of this House is notably less than that of the House of Commons. In the previous Session, the cost to the public purse of the House of Commons was £392 million while the cost of the House of Lords was £87 million. We may take some pride in delivering value for money, but making a case for more public money at the present time is difficult. We are expected to make efficiency savings. That will be difficult with an influx of new and active members, each eligible for an attendance allowance and transport costs and adding to the demands on the resources of the House. There is clearly a problem in how this will be seen by the public. There is also the problem of how we can cope within our existing physical capacity and administrative support. The demand is in danger of outstripping the ability of the House to meet it.
So the situation that we are in is clearly problematic, and if there are many more creations then it will likely become unsustainable. What, then, is the answer? There are various steps that can be taken, although in taking them it is important to have regard to certain principles. One is that no party or coalition of parties forming a Government should have an absolute majority. Another is that there should be a protocol, a formula, on the balance between the parties in order to prevent another escalation in membership. Any reduction needs to have regard to the balance between political groupings in the House. A third is that we should work towards a membership that is smaller than that of the House of Commons. That may take time but it is a useful aspiration; it provides a framework for managing the reduction in numbers.
One immediate and rather modest step would be to put a limit on the size of the House. One proposal is to have a moratorium on the creation of new Members. I would propose a cap on membership. That way, one could create new Members but only when existing ones had demised. One could develop a formula of creating, say, only one new Peer for every three who left the House. That would gradually reduce the size of the House; it would be a slow process, but over the course of the Parliament it would reduce the size of the House by at least 50.
Other steps include those embodied in the Bill introduced in this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and that in the other place by Dan Byles, such as removing Peers who hardly ever attend. That would not affect the active membership but would have a beneficial effect in terms of public perception. Another provision of the Bill would create a form of retirement provision, which would have the effect of the Members ceasing to be Members of the House, with no provision for retirement to be rescinded.
More radical proposals have been canvassed. These include proposing a mandatory retirement age or imposing a set period for which a new Peer may serve, such as 10 or 15 years. The problem with each of these is that it has the potential to rid the House of Members who are making a substantial contribution to it. There is another proposal that would not have such an arbitrary effect and could be geared to the need to maintain a balance between the parties in the House and allow for some recalibration in each Parliament: to determine the number that each political grouping should have in a Parliament and to allow each to elect from within its own ranks those who should remain within the House—in other words, a scheme not dissimilar from that employed in 1999 to determine which hereditary Peers should remain in the House.
My purpose this afternoon is not to put forward a particular proposal, but rather to emphasise the necessity to address the problem. The more we can get on record the need to act, the sooner we may be able to achieve some steps by government to address the compelling need for some corrective action. Accepting the need for a cap on membership would be a starting point.
Given that, may I invite my noble friend the Leader of the House to focus not simply on where we are now, but on where we are likely to be in two, five and 10 years’ time? In terms of creations already announced, could he give us some indication of the additional costs estimated to be incurred in a full financial year once the introduction of the current tranche of new creations has been completed? Does he accept that a further list of Peers in the current Parliament will create not just additional but significant difficulties in terms of the finite resources of the House? Projecting ahead, would my noble friend accept that the problem will be exacerbated in the next Parliament, especially in the event of the return of a new Government? That will be the case if the new Government is a majority Conservative Government. Would not the new Government expect to create more Peers? If my noble friend accepts that there is a problem, either now or prospectively, what steps does he anticipate the Government taking to address it?
The problem has been touched upon by various bodies in recent years, including the Leader’s Group chaired by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, who I am delighted to see in his place, as well as more recently by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. My noble friend told the committee that he found that there was a broad consensus among Members that the current House is too big and the overall size should be reduced. Given that there is such a consensus on the problem and what should be done about it, I look forward to hearing from my noble friend, speaking as the Leader of the House, what he plans to do to give effect to the will of the House. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, may I point out to the House that the timings are very tight indeed for this debate? I can help.
Woolwich and the EU Council
Earl Attlee Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her overall welcome, and I associate myself very much with many of the points that she made, particularly about the awful situation in Woolwich.
On the noble Baroness’s specific questions on the Statement and the proposals on tax, our view—and it may be hers as well—is that it is best if this is done on an international basis. We can use the G8—as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is doing—the G20 and the OECD to drive that agenda forward. We need to take action. It is a global problem and it is best to address it in that way.
I agree very much with the noble Baroness’s comments about the overall situation in Syria. I think she said that there are no good options and that we are talking about the least bad option, and I very much take that point.
On Geneva 2, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary—the Government—have always been clear that we are very much in favour of a negotiated political solution, so we welcome the fact that the Russian/American talks will be taking place. That is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister himself has had talks with Presidents Putin and Obama to try to bring about diplomatic pressure, so that all sides will come to the table.
As for the risks of lifting the EU arms embargo, as the Statement made clear, it would be wrong to deny that there are risks with all courses of action. However, the risks of inaction are also clear to see. As the noble Baroness made clear in her comments about the numbers of those already displaced and suffering and the numbers who have been killed, the price of doing nothing is extraordinarily high.
As for the safeguards on the use of weapons, the framework agreed at the Council made it clear that any provision of arms would be only to the Syrian national coalition, and it has to be intended for the protection of civilians. There are safeguards to ensure that delivery goes to the right hands, and confirmation that existing obligations on arms exports remain in place.
As for the flexibility of the embargo, the Foreign Secretary regularly updates the House of Commons on developments. I know that he will continue to do so. Things can move fast and he needs to be able to reflect and respond to that.
On Woolwich, I associate myself with the noble Baroness’s praise for the local leaders. I agree with her about the three things she set out that we, all of us together, need to do—to bring the perpetrators to justice, to bring people together and to learn the lessons. I am grateful to her for her welcome for the new task force on extremism and, indeed, for the role that the ISC will be carrying out. She made a number of practical suggestions on points to do with earlier intervention and with violent extremism and gangs and the link between them. They are very sensible points. There is no monopoly of wisdom here and we should be open to all kinds of sensible, intelligent suggestions from people who know, and try to take those into account.
As for communications data and legislation, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister earlier this afternoon made clear that we need to have a frank debate about this issue. There is a problem—we know that 95% of serious crimes involve the use of communications data—but it needs to be addressed in a sensitive and careful way. If we can find a way of getting cross-party support to take this forward that would be desirable.
Overall, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the support she gave for the steps that the Government have taken specifically on Woolwich, and I associate myself with the tributes that she paid to the people involved in that situation.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, perhaps I may remind the House of the benefit of short questions for my noble friend the Leader so that he can answer as many questions as possible.
Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust Inquiry
Earl Attlee Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, will the Minister make it clear that brief interventions are required? Otherwise not everyone will be heard.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement made earlier in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:
“Today Robert Francis has published the report of the public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
Mr Speaker, I have a deep affection for our National Health Service. I will never forget all of the things doctors and nurses have done for my family in times of pain and difficulty. I love our NHS. I think it is a fantastic institution and a great organisation that says a huge amount about our country and who we are. I always want to think the best about it. I have huge admiration for the doctors, nurses and other health workers who dedicate their lives to caring for our loved ones.
Nevertheless, we do them—and the whole reputation of our NHS—a grave disservice if we fail to speak out when things go wrong. What happened at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between 2005 and 2009 was not just wrong, it was truly dreadful. Hundreds of people suffered from the most appalling neglect and mistreatment. There were patients so desperate for water that they were drinking from dirty flower vases. Many were given the wrong medication, treated roughly, or left to wet themselves and then to lie in urine for days. Relatives were ignored or even reproached when they pointed out the most basic things which could have saved their loved ones from horrific pain or even death. We can only begin to imagine the suffering endured by those whose trust in our health service was betrayed at their most vulnerable moment. That is why I believe it is right to make this Statement today.
There was a healthcare commission investigation in 2000; a first independent inquiry from Robert Francis in February 2010; and, long before that, the testimony of bereaved relatives such as Julie Bailey and the Cure the NHS campaign. They all laid bare the most despicable catalogue of clinical and managerial failures at the trust. But even after these reports, some really important questions remained unanswered. How were these appalling events allowed to happen and how were they allowed to continue for so long? Why were so many bereaved families and whistleblowers who spoke out ignored for so long? Could something like this ever happen again? These were basic questions about wider failures in the system—not just at the hospital but right across the NHS, including its regulators and the Department of Health. That is why the families called for this public inquiry and that is why this Government granted one. I am sure that the whole House will want to join with me in expressing our thanks to Robert Francis and his entire team for all their work over the past three years.
The inquiry finds that the appalling suffering at Mid-Staffordshire hospital was primarily caused by a “serious failure” on the part of the trust board, which failed to listen to patients and staff and failed to tackle what Robert Francis calls “an insidious negative culture involving a tolerance of poor standards and a disengagement from managerial and leadership responsibilities”. But the inquiry finds that the failure went far wider. The primary care trust assumed that others were taking responsibility and so made little attempt to collect proper information on the quality of care.
The strategic health authority was “far too remote from the patients it was there to serve, and it failed to be sufficiently sensitive to signs that patients might be at risk”. Regulators, including Monitor and the then Healthcare Commission, failed to protect patients from substandard care. Too many doctors “kept their heads down” instead of speaking out when things went wrong. The Royal College of Nursing was “ineffective both as a professional representative organisation and as a trade union”, and the Department of Health too remote from the reality of the services that they oversee.
The way Robert Francis chronicles the evidence of systemic failure means we cannot say with confidence that failings of care are limited to one hospital. But let us also be clear about what the report does not say. Francis does not blame any specific policy; he does not blame the previous Secretary of State for Health; and he says we should not seek scapegoats. Looking beyond the specific failures that he catalogues so clearly, I believe we can identify in the report three fundamental problems with the culture of our National Health Service.
The first is a focus on finance and figures at the expense of patient care; Francis says that explicitly. This was underpinned by a preoccupation with a narrow set of top-down targets pursued in the case of Mid Staffordshire to the exclusion of patient safety or listening to what patients, relatives—and indeed many staff—were saying.
Secondly, there was an attitude that patient care was always someone else’s problem. In short, no one was accountable. Thirdly, he talks about defensiveness and complacency. Instead of facing up to and acting on data which should have implied a real cause for concern, Francis finds, all too often, a culture of explaining only the positives rather than any critical analysis. Put simply, managers were suppressing inconvenient facts in favour of looking for comfort in positive information.
That is one of the most disturbing findings. It is bad enough that terrible things happened at that hospital, but this inquiry is telling us is that there was a manifest failure to act on the data available not just at the hospital but more widely. As Francis says:
“In the end, the truth was uncovered … mainly because of the persistent complaints made by a determined group of patients and those close to them”.
The anger of the families is completely understandable. Every honourable Member in this House would be angry—furious—if their mother or father were treated in this way, and rightly so.
The previous Government commissioned the first report from Robert Francis and, when he saw that report, the former Secretary of State, now the shadow Health Secretary, was right to apologise for what went wrong. This public inquiry not only repeats earlier findings but also shows wider systemic failings, so I would like to go further as Prime Minister and apologise to the families of all those who have suffered for the way that the system allowed such horrific abuse to go unchecked and unchallenged for so long. On behalf of the Government—and indeed our country—I am truly sorry.
Since the problems at Mid Staffordshire Hospital first came to light, a number of important steps have been taken. The previous Government set up the National Quality Board and the quality accounts system. This Government have put compassion ahead of process-driven bureaucratic targets and put quality of care on a par with quality of treatment. We have set that out explicitly in the mandate of the NHS Commissioning Board, together with a new vision for compassionate nursing. We have introduced a tough new programme for tracking and eliminating falls, pressure sores and hospital infections, and we have demanded nursing rounds every hour, in every ward of every hospital.
However, it is clear that we need to do more. We will study every one of the 290 recommendations in today’s report and respond in detail next month, but the recommendations include the three core areas—patient care, accountability and defeating complacency—on which I believe we should make more immediate progress. Let me say a word about each.
The first is how we put patient care ahead of finances. Today, when a hospital fails financially, its chair can be dismissed and the board suspended, but failures in care rarely carry such consequences. That is not right. We will create a single failure regime where the suspension of the board can be triggered by failures in care as well as failures in finance, and we will put the voice of patients and staff at the heart of the way that hospitals go about their work.
In Mid Staffordshire, as far back as 2006, there was a survey in which only about a quarter of staff said that they would actually want one of their own relatives to use the hospital they worked in. During the following two years, bereaved relatives produced case after dreadful case and campaign after chilling campaign, but those voices and horrific cases were ignored. Indeed, the hospital was upgraded to foundation trust status during that period. We need the words of patients and front-line staff to ring through the boardrooms of hospitals and beyond to the regulators and the Department of Health itself.
From this year every patient, every carer, every member of staff will be given the opportunity to say whether they would recommend their hospital to their friends or family. This will be published and the board will be held to account for its response. Put simply, where a significant proportion of patients or staff raise serious concerns about what is happening in a hospital, immediate inspection will result and suspension of the hospital board may well follow.
Quality of care means not accepting that bed sores and hospital infections are somehow occupational hazards and that a little of them is somehow okay. They are not okay. They are unacceptable—full stop, end of story. That is what zero harm means. I have asked Don Berwick—who has advised President Obama on this issue—to make zero harm a reality in our NHS.
Francis makes other recommendations. Today, you can give hands-on care in a hospital ward with no training at all. Francis says that that is wrong, and I agree. Some simple but profound things need to happen in our NHS and our hospitals. Nurses should be hired and promoted on the basis of having compassion as a vocation, not just academic qualifications. We need a style of leadership from senior nurses which means that poor practice is not tolerated and is driven off the wards. Another issue is whether pay should be linked to quality of care rather than just time served at a hospital. I favour this approach.
Secondly, there is accountability and transparency. The first Francis report set out clearly what happened within Stafford hospital. It should have led to those responsible being brought to book by the board, the regulators, the professional bodies—and, yes, even by the courts. But this did not happen.
Most people will want to know why on earth not. We expect hospitals to take disciplinary action against staff who abuse their patients. We expect professional regulators to strike off doctors and nurses who seriously breach their professional codes, and, yes, we expect the justice system to prosecute those suspected of criminal acts, whether they take place in a hospital or anywhere else. In Stafford, these expectations were badly let down. The system failed. That is one of the main reasons we needed this inquiry.
Now that the recommendations about systemic failure are public, the regulatory bodies in particular have difficult questions to answer. The Nursing and Midwifery Council and the General Medical Council need to explain why, so far, no one has been struck off. The Secretary of State for Health has today invited them to explain what steps they will take to strengthen their systems of accountability in the light of this report, and we will ask the Law Commission to advise on sweeping away the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s outdated and inflexible decision-making processes.
The Health and Safety Executive also needs to explain its decisions not to prosecute in specific cases. Indeed, Robert Francis makes a strong argument that the executive is too distant from hospitals and not the right organisation to be focusing on healthcare and criminal prosecutions in such cases. We will look closely at his recommendation to transfer the right to conduct criminal prosecutions from the Health and Safety Executive to the Care Quality Commission.
Thirdly, we must purge the culture of complacency that is undermining care in our country. This requires a clear view about what is acceptable and what is not. In our schools, we have a clear system of deciding whether a school has the right culture and whether it is succeeding or failing. It is a system based on the judgment of independent experts, who walk the corridors of the school and analyse more than just statistics. The public therefore know which schools near them are outstanding and which are failing. They have a right to know the same about our hospitals. We need a hospital inspection regime that does not just look at numerical targets but examines the quality of care and makes an open, public and explicit judgment.
So I have asked the Care Quality Commission to create a new post—a Chief Inspector of Hospitals—to take personal responsibility for this task. I want the new inspections regime to start this autumn. We will look at the law to make sure that the inspector’s judgment is about whether a hospital is clean, safe and caring, rather than just an exercise in bureaucratic box-ticking. In the mean time, I have asked the NHS Medical Director—Professor Sir Bruce Keogh—to conduct an immediate investigation into care at hospitals with the highest mortality rates and to check that urgent remedial action is being taken.
Complacency in the system has meant that all too often, patient complaints have been ignored. I am today asking the honourable Member for Cynon Valley and the Chief Executive of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Tricia Hart, specifically to advise how hospitals in the NHS should handle complaints better in future.
I have talked today about some of the systemic failures, but at the heart of any system are the people who work in it and the values and vocation that they hold. As Francis says early on in his report, and it is worth me quoting in full:
‘Healthcare is not an activity short of systems intended to maintain and improve standards, regulate the conduct of staff, and report and scrutinise performance. Continuous efforts have been made to refine and improve the way these work. Yet none of them, from local groups to the national regulators, from local councillors to the Secretary of State, appreciated the scale of the deficiencies at Stafford and, therefore, over a period of years did anything effective to stop them’.
What makes our National Health Service special is the very simple principle that the moment you are injured or fall ill, the moment something happens to someone you love, you know that whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever is wrong, however much you have in the bank, there is a place you can go where people will look after you and do everything they can to make things right again. The shocking truth is that this precious principle of British life was broken in Mid Staffordshire. We would not be here today without the tireless campaigning of the families who suffered so terribly, and I am sure that the whole House will join with me in paying tribute to their incredible courage and determination over these long and painful years.
When I met Julie Bailey and the families again on Monday, she said to me that she wanted the legacy of their loved ones to be an NHS safe for everyone. That is the legacy that together we must secure. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I remind the House of the benefit of short questions in order that my noble friend the Leader of the House can answer as many questions as possible, which I am sure he is very keen to do. If necessary, I can help.
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, we, too, welcome the Francis report, and the many recommendations that we believe will strengthen the whole NHS. In particular, we welcome Francis’s recommendation of a statutory duty of candour: the duty of a clinician to explain and apologise when things go wrong. When and how does my noble friend see this being implemented?
Lord Harris of Haringey
The noble Lord the Leader of the House has referred to the fact that there is now to be a contractual obligation of candour on healthcare organisations. Presumably Robert Francis was aware of that in framing his recommendations, feels that it is inadequate and is advocating a statutory duty of candour, which, so far, the Government have resisted. I hope that policy will change. The noble Lord the Leader of the House also talked about the importance of an independent voice for patients. Given the suggestion that has been made about merging Monitor and the CQC, will he accept that it is therefore inappropriate that Healthwatch England, the national voice of patients, should be subordinate to that monster new body? Secondly, does he also accept that it is inappropriate, if you are to have an independent voice, that local Healthwatch is subordinate to local authorities, some of the organisations that they are supposed to monitor?
Baroness Williams of Crosby
Many of us during the course of the debate were obliged to listen to a very great deal of what I might call Twitter propaganda, and I think it is only fair to say that Mr Burnham has a responsibility to respond to this report.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
I am going to continue, so noble Lords had better get used to it.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I think the sense of the House is that we would like to hear from the noble Lord the Leader of the House.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s emphasis on the importance of involving patients and their relatives more centrally in decisions about their own care. Does the Minister think that principle should be extended throughout the NHS, including the new policy on value-based pricing for new medicines?