Business of the House
Lord Adonis Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, we are very grateful for the work of the Procedure Committee and the Leader and once again, the officials of the House. The team in Millbank is doing absolutely sterling work in bringing people into play for the Virtual Proceedings. I have three specific questions for the Leader in response to her statement. First, is she able to give a date as to when Virtual Proceedings might start? Secondly, as she may be aware, in the Virtual Committee on the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill yesterday, it became clear that there is likely to be a desire to press amendments to a vote unless the Government modify their position on Report. Therefore, it will be essential either that a remote voting system is in place after Whitsun or that no Report stage is taken until we have a virtual House, so how are we getting on with proposals for online voting?
In light of the proceedings in the House of Commons yesterday, where apparently the Chancellor of the Exchequer and 21 other Members managed to vote the wrong way in what I understand was the third vote, will the noble Baroness reassure us that we will be trialling our system in such a way that ensures that we do not repeat the mistakes of the other place?
Business of the House (Virtual Proceedings relating to the Committee stage of public bills and to Messages and First Readings)
Lord Adonis Excerpts(4 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Adonis
To insert at the end:
“8. All bills considered in a Virtual Committee shall be recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration in the Chamber.
9. This Order shall expire on 30 June 2020, or earlier if the House shall so order.”
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, the first part of the amendment provides that:
“All bills considered in a Virtual Committee shall be recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration in the Chamber.”
It may be convenient for the House if I speak to the second part of the amendment too, which is that this order—the arrangements that the Leader has just proposed for virtual Committees—
“shall expire on 30 June 2020, or earlier if the House shall so order.”
First, I echo every word the Leader said about the staff of the House. We pay tribute to them and recognise the great sacrifices they have been making and the intense pressure they have been working under. We fully accept that—in so far as Virtual Proceedings need to take place, which is the key proviso in this respect—special arrangements need to be put in place. I in no way question what the Leader said in that regard. The point that goes to the heart of the matter on Committee stages—and the reason Committee stages are so important—is that this is the House’s role in making the law, which is the most important function we undertake on behalf of the people.
The key issue is how far we need to consider Bills in these virtual Committee stages anyway. We are in a crisis. The overwhelming object of our public duties should be focusing on resolving the crisis. Looking at the legislation it is proposed that we take in Committee next week, it is not clear to me why any of this needs to be considered until the crisis is over. We are considering this legislation at the Government’s behest. The Government are imposing these requirements on the House, not the House itself.
The House’s duty is this. If the Government believe that legislation needs to be considered during the crisis—it is the Government’s decision that the legislation should be considered—our job as parliamentarians is to put in place proper arrangements to see that parliamentary scrutiny takes place in accordance with our constitutional requirements. The problem with the virtual Committees as currently proposed is that this is not the case. The Leader said that Members can take part, but in order to take part—as she said in her remarks—they have to give advance notice of the specific amendments they wish to participate in. This is a radical breach from the House’s normal procedures. Members cannot vote in Committee; there are no arrangements for voting. There are no arrangements at all for spontaneous contributions, and at the moment there is no automatic procedure for recommittal.
I therefore press the Leader: what will happen to these Bills after their virtual consideration? What is the procedure, if noble Lords are dissatisfied with the consideration that has taken place in virtual Committee, for recommitting? My understanding—the Leader can correct me—is that the House itself has to vote for recommittal; it is not an automatic procedure. In this amendment I propose an automatic procedure of recommittal to a Committee of the whole House, which would be either the House itself or the hybrid House, if by then we have the hybrid House. It will not otherwise happen. I would be grateful if the Leader could confirm what the arrangements are in respect of recommittal. If noble Lords are dissatisfied with the consideration that has taken place in virtual Committee, what arrangements will there be for recommittal? If they are not adequate, will she accept my amendment?
The other point of great importance is the temporary nature of these proceedings. If they are to be temporary, the Government should accept a sunset clause. That is the reason I have included the second part of the amendment—that these arrangements for virtual consideration will
“expire on 30 June 2020, or earlier if the House shall so order.”
I would like to press the Leader on one or two specific points. She said that the detailed arrangements for Committee stage were published on Monday. I confess that I have not had a chance to read them, so maybe they are in there. It is not easy to find a lot of the documents being referred to at the moment unless they are pointed up from the Front Bench. Currently, because it is not possible to vote in Grand Committee and decisions can be taken only by unanimity, if noble Lords are not content with proceedings they can object to decisions being taken—I have myself—and they are therefore returned to the House.
In a Committee stage, if a noble Lord online objects to a clause standing part, what happens? Does the clause stand part or not? This is a fairly fundamental constitutional issue. If it stands part, it means that the proceedings in the virtual Committee are of no account, because noble Lords have expressed dissatisfaction and are not prepared to agree to the proceedings, yet the proceedings are still deemed to be agreed. That would be an extreme departure from acceptable parliamentary practice. If Members are allowed to object to clauses standing part, what happens if they so object and the relevant clause is not deemed to be agreed by the virtual Committee? The only solution to that issue I can see is that those clauses are then remitted for reconsideration of the Bill by a Committee of the House.
I would be grateful if the Leader could answer my specific questions. Will she tell us of the Government’s willingness to see Bills recommitted after virtual Committee if there are concerns, what the procedure would be and whether she would be prepared to accept a sunset clause so that for only a very few Bills in these emergency conditions are we expected to undergo this very substandard scrutiny which in no other circumstance but this crisis would your Lordships think acceptable? I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I want to say a few words on this, because the issue of Committees is important and I hope that the noble Baroness can say a bit more about it. It is my understanding that if an amendment is debated in Committee but not voted on, the same amendment can be re-tabled on Report. If noble Lords are dissatisfied with any debate, considering it inadequate or wishing to contribute, they will have the opportunity to do so. That means that our proceedings could be much longer in order to get to that point—it emphasises how superior Chamber proceedings are to Virtual Proceedings.
Committees normally meet on two days a week, Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday. It is therefore imperative that the House moves to a proper four-day working week as a matter of urgency—I think that is scheduled from Monday 18 May. Can the Leader confirm that there will be a normal four-day working week for your Lordships’ House from then? That is important for our overall business.
I also understand the issue about capacity; the point has been well made. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said how much we appreciate the work that has been done to get the Virtual Proceedings running in the way they are—I think that most of us have found them better than we anticipated. I take some responsibility for them not being broadcast over the first few days after the recess because I said that, come what may and even if we were not being broadcast, we had to be back, with the opportunity to question the Government. I was pleased that that lasted for only a few days, but it was important that, whatever the situation, we returned on 21 April to fulfil our responsibilities—even if it was inadequate, we had to do so. It has steadily improved since then and we pay tribute to those responsible.
There is an issue of capacity with Committees. We currently have gaps between business that we would not normally have. Will the Leader keep under consideration sitting on a Friday? If we cannot undertake the work that we have on those four days, is it possible to use a Friday? For example, if Committees were not able to meet because the House was sitting or a debate was taking longer, we could have that open as an extra sitting day in the same way as we have sometimes had sitting Fridays.
The noble Baroness should take some pride, and I press her again to pay tribute to those who have wanted to take part in the proceedings—I think she missed that out. I say that in respect of her own Front Bench, of mine and of all those working on the Back Benches and across the House. They wish to engage because they value the work of this House. We have only to look at how the work of this House is regarded outside. I received numerous representations about the debate on the PNQ last week on child protection, even though it was brief, recognising that, across the board and in all parties, this was the House taking that issue very seriously. If we cannot do our business in the four days—and I ask the Leader to confirm that there will be a solid four days as soon as possible—we should keep open the possibility of Friday sittings.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. I had of course made a note to thank all Peers across all Benches, including the Opposition Front Bench, and of course I thank my Ministers as well for everything they have done to contribute to these proceedings. I apologise for having failed to say that in my response last time, but I wholeheartedly support the words of the noble Baroness.
I will address some comments. Yes, we will be returning on Mondays. I think that was the correct date—I do not know all the dates in May off the top of my head. That will be published in Forthcoming Business and we will move towards four-day weeks from then. The usual channels will always keep business under review to make sure that we are doing everything we can. Obviously we will have to see how Committee stages work in virtual proceedings, but we want to balance scrutiny of government with making sure that legislation comes through, and those conversations will continue in the constructive way they always do.
Quite a lot of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, are mentioned in the guidance, which will be circulated to all Peers. It probably has not been done yet, because we did not want to assume that this Motion would be passed, but as soon as it has been, the guidance will be published. If any noble Lords have further questions, please get in touch and we will clarify them. We have attempted to consider most issues, but I accept that we may not have considered some things. However, I can say to the noble Lord that, as the noble Baroness rightly said, post Committee we will move on to Report, and we have amended the rules to allow amendments in Committee to be brought back on Report if there is not unanimous support; so we are having a bit of flexibility and recognising the virtual proceedings.
The same rules apply to Virtual Proceedings as to Grand Committee, and we feel that there will be ample time for scrutiny. As I said, the noble Lord will see that the sessions for Committees are in one-and-a-half-hour slots, again for all the procedural reasons. Regarding Committee stage as a whole, we normally have various days in which to look at Bills in Committee, and that will continue. So while the sessions themselves may be time limited, that does not mean that Committee stage as such is time limited.
As I say, we are also looking at Report. Members of the commission will know that work is ongoing to build a remote voting function, which needs to be built now that the Commons have, I believe, got their system up and running and are planning to start using it. Some of the gremlins they faced have now been sorted out, and we will be building a similar system so that we will be able to vote as well.
I hope that that deals with all the issues but, as I say, guidance is being published, and if that does not answer all the questions, we will be happy to provide more detail. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis
The big question raised by what the Leader said—I will come back on one of the other points in a moment—is what will happen on Report. Can she give to the House an undertaking that there will be no Report on a Bill until we have a hybrid House, so we do not face the same issues on Report as she has just outlined in Committee about noble Lords needing to indicate in advance that they can participate? That is an absolutely crucial issue.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I am afraid that I cannot make a commitment on a hybrid House, because I do not know when we are going to move to it or what the guidance will be. We are working towards facilities for a hybrid House at the moment, which we are all committed to, but I am afraid that I cannot make promises about how practical it will be, or anything on that basis. However, we will ensure that when Members wish to vote on proceedings on Report, we will have a system up and running to ensure that they can do that.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
But it would be unacceptable at the moment unless we could have some other discussions. My instinct is that Report stage of proceedings as a virtual Chamber would be rather unsatisfactory, so let us keep this under discussion and review. It would be extraordinarily difficult to do it in a way that would satisfy your Lordships’ House.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, the Leader has left me more concerned after her remarks than I was before, for precisely the reason that my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned. It seems that the only way in which these virtual Committee proceedings would be tolerable to the House is if the House meets at Report stage, so that we can have the proper give and take that we accept as part of our proceedings, people do not have to give advance notice of their desire to participate, and we are not forced to make a really significant trade-off in the quality of our scrutiny when making the law. I put on record, which is all that we can do at the moment, my extreme dissatisfaction. That is not just on my part; I have spoken to many noble Lords who cannot be present today about these arrangements and there is very widespread dissatisfaction.
Since the Procedure Committee has not done a very good job so far of taking account of the concerns of the House, the only way that one can send it a message as to the gravity of these concerns—I understand it is meeting on Monday—is to say that, if it were to come forward with any proposal for the fully virtual consideration of Bills on Report, there would be a very significant backlash from all parts of the House on any such arrangement. I am extremely concerned that the Leader of the House has not been able to give an undertaking today that that will not happen.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I may be able to satisfy my noble friend in some way by saying that this would not be discussed by just the Procedure Committee—the usual channels would also discuss it. I have to say that I have grave concerns. Until we have a fully functioning House or an interim stage of it is hybrid, we may be unable to take Report stages, so we have to have those discussions quite urgently.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend, who has reinforced exactly what I have been saying. As far as I can tell, the great majority of your Lordships would not regard it as acceptable to have a fully virtual Report stage. We obviously have no alternative but to agree to these proposals, but this is done very clearly on that understanding.
To reiterate, it is not clear to me who makes these decisions—I am even more confused after these debates about where the Procedure Committee, the House of Lords Commission and the usual channels come in—but whichever of the various bodies and shadowy institutions it is, I hope that they take account of the remarks made in the House today and that we are not placed in a position in a fortnight’s time of having a resolution tabled which would lead to a fully virtual Report stage. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Business of the House
Lord Adonis Excerpts(4 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I beg to move that we substitute “five” for “three”—that is, we have five hours for the debate this afternoon, not three. I was very much hoping that the Leader of the House might accept this amendment; if she is willing to accept it, I do not need to proceed further. I see that she is shaking her head, so in that case, I need to detain the House for longer.
This afternoon, we are faced with a situation for the first time. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said he has been in the House for a quarter of a century—he does not look any the worse for it, if I may say so. I am a spring chicken: I have been here for only 15 years. However, this is the first debate in which I have sought to participate in the House—it may be the first time this has happened in the history of the House, apart from at Oral Questions when of course not everyone can get in—when noble Lords who have wished to speak in the debate are not being allowed to do so.
Because of the need to reconcile the Virtual Proceedings with the number of people who wish to speak and the three-hour time limit, which the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has arbitrarily imposed, many noble Lords are being told that they cannot speak in the debate. I am one of the fortunate ones who—I am not quite sure by what procedure—my noble friend the Labour Chief Whip has chosen to allow to speak rather than many of my noble friends who are not allowed. It is completely unacceptable that noble Lords should not be able to fulfil their parliamentary duties and speak in a debate.
The debate in question is that tabled by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, calling attention to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on poverty and disadvantage. That goes to the heart of the crisis that the country is undergoing at the moment. If we have any role at all, it is to debate such issues and to bring them to the attention of the House. The House is meeting only in a part-time capacity at the moment anyway. So far as I am aware, there is no reason whatever why the proceedings today cannot last for five rather than three hours. If they lasted for five hours, all noble Lords who wished to speak would be able to do so, there would be full consideration of the issues and we would be performing our duties properly. Instead, the noble Baroness the Leader is arbitrarily cutting the proceedings of the House and not allowing noble Lords to take part.
If the noble Baroness is not prepared to accept my amendment, she will find that we routinely object, and, as soon as we are able, we might start voting on the time limits for debates—something that has never happened in the history of the House. She needs to understand that this House works through give and take, and one element of that is that noble Lords are able to make their contributions. That is the whole basis and understanding on which the usual channels have worked. If, through force majeure on the part of the Government, which is what the noble Baroness is proposing at the moment, noble Lords are not able to make their contributions, the understandings on which the business of this House is conducted will break down. Indeed, they are breaking down at the moment. I can tell the noble Baroness that, from discussions I have had with other noble Lords, that is happening, because noble Lords are being told that they are not allowed to speak in a debate this afternoon. As I said, that has never happened before.
I am very sorry that the noble Baroness is not prepared to accept this amendment. It seems to be perfectly reasonable. Any ordinary member of the public looking at this debate would find it incomprehensible that we are not able to debate the Motion in the name of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York on the impact of Covid-19 on poverty for five rather than three hours in order to give it fuller consideration. The noble Baroness has not offered a single good reason why we cannot do so. If she persists in imposing this arbitrary time limit on the House, I give her notice that in future I will seek to amend all the Motions relating to the time limits for business of the House to provide for more time. There will be a growing head of steam on this issue across the House and, as soon as we are able to vote, the Government might find that they lose control of the procedures of the House entirely. That will not be in the best interests of the Government or maybe even the House as a whole. I beg to move.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I want to speak briefly in support of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. The noble Baroness shakes her head but I too wished to speak in the debate this afternoon and was intending to flag up the global impact. It will be enormously more challenging to meet the sustainable development goals after this pandemic. However, I withdrew from that debate because about 15 Liberal Democrats wished to speak. Therefore, I am an example of what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said. It is incredibly important, globally, to address this issue and I regret that I cannot put that case this afternoon.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
I want simply to draw the noble Baroness’s attention to one reason why people find this frustrating: the repeated assertions about what was technically possible and possible for practical reasons have turned out not to be the case at all. She needs to understand that some of us have been working online and virtually for a long time and in many circumstances, both nationally and internationally. We know what is possible and what is not. There seems to be a lack either of imagination and creativity or of something else. She needs to understand that that is one reason why trust is breaking down on this point.
Lord Adonis
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. How can I choose my words diplomatically? It is not credible to assert that it is not technically possible to sustain an online debate for longer than three hours, as the noble Baroness asserts. That is an assertion—she has hidden behind the technical difficulties—but I do not believe that it is credible. I participate in many virtual meetings that take longer than that. As far as I am aware, no aspect of Zoom means that a meeting cannot continue for more than three hours.
I am afraid we are coming to a sharp disagreement here. It is my view that the reason this is happening is to do not with the technical capacity of the House but with the Government’s desire to suppress debate. That is why, unless this issue is rectified soon, the noble Baroness will find significant ongoing controversy. The precise reason for that is that we are all taking seriously our duties as parliamentarians to consider the Covid-19 crisis and its impact on the country.
Walter Bagehot famously said that an assembly that does not meet is deficient in a primary degree. The House of Lords cannot undertake its responsibilities if it does not meet. Our duty is to see that we meet and give the proper consideration that we should to these weighty issues. I simply do not think that the arbitrary time limits that the noble Baroness seeks to impose are satisfactory or technically required. On that basis, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
House of Lords: Allowances
Lord Adonis Excerpts(4 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, there are two issues here: allowances and the wider issue of the conduct of the House during the lockdown, as was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Alderdice and Lord Newby.
The Leader of the House concentrated her remarks on allowances. On that specific issue, I agree with the commission’s proposal for the reasons that the Leader gave. In a time of great crisis when people are making great sacrifices, it is absolutely right that we follow suit. The right compromise on this is a halved allowance, for the reasons given by the noble Baroness. That should continue for as long as we are meeting virtually because the actual costs that most noble Lords—I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that it is not true of all noble Lords—need to meet are lower.
However, I agree entirely with the thrust of the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Alderdice, about the conduct of the House in lockdown, including that our arrangements should be considered emergency arrangements—because they are, or at least I hope that they are, unless the Government make further changes—to deal with an emergency situation. I say this directly to the Leader: the great concern among many Members is that the emergency changes we are all willingly making to meet the exigencies of this crisis may become permanent. As all of us who have dealt with these situations in other contexts know, precedent always becomes the justification for further changes, particularly in dealing with the proceedings of Parliament. Some key aspects of the arrangements for the House in lockdown are causing acute concern; the noble Lords who just spoke were absolutely right to raise them.
Very significant departures from established practice have been taking place. From time immemorial, it has been a principle that noble Lords who wish to participate in our debates can do so. For the first time, as far as I am aware, in the eight centuries of the history of the House of Lords, under changes that are not even the subject of specific resolutions of the House but are the consequence of going online, noble Lords are being told that they cannot participate in the proceedings of the House. The Motion in the name of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, which we will debate this afternoon, goes to the heart of the crisis facing the country: the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the poor and disadvantaged. Many noble Lords have been told that they cannot participate in this debate because of the arbitrary three-hour time limit that has been imposed and because of the exigencies of the Virtual Proceedings.
The answer is obvious: the proceedings should be longer. There is no reason why we should sit for only three hours. We could sit for five hours. We are sitting only on a limited number of days anyway. Many of us think that we should sit for longer. The noble Baroness can correct me but my understanding is that the Government have been the motive force in restricting our sittings and not holding more debates or longer ones. It is absolutely within our control to fix this.
The second issue is that of a wholly virtual House. It is obvious now to anybody who considers what has happened that the Procedure Committee and the House of Lords Commission made a major error in the arrangements that they put in place for our proceedings after 21 April. They should have moved immediately to a hybrid House, as the House of Commons did. Indeed, it has made a great success of it. I just came into your Lordships’ House from watching Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister was doing a perfectly good job of answering questions and dealing with points made by both the leader of the Opposition in the House and MPs joining via Zoom. That has kept the House of Commons at the centre of the public debate; it has not become invisible. We went wholly virtual, which was a huge mistake —the Procedure Committee needs to get a grip on this when it meets next Monday—and which made us wholly invisible. For the first week of our Sitting, proceedings were not even broadcast, which is a major departure from established parliamentary practice. They are now being broadcast but, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, rightly said, they are not getting a fraction of the attention they get when they take place in this Chamber.
We need to speak bluntly at this point. The Procedure Committee has been very seriously remiss in meeting its duties to the House and to the public, and I hope that it will get a grip and that the Senior Deputy Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord McFall, will fulfil his duties to the House as a whole and not simply implement the wishes of the Government regarding the arrangements for the lockdown.
I hope also that three issues can be addressed immediately. The first is the move towards a hybrid House, so that we can fulfil our duties to the public and do not become invisible. The second is that noble Lords who wish to speak in debates can continue to do so, because that is absolutely central to the performance of their parliamentary duties. If that means longer debates, we should have longer debates—we are here to serve the public, not to serve ourselves. The third aspect, which is vital, is the proceedings on legislation. Your Lordships’ House is a legislature. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, said that we are tempted to exaggerate our importance, but we should not underplay in any way our importance as a legislature. We make the law and there is no more important function in the country than making the law.
Under the arrangements that we are going to debate in a moment, the rights of noble Lords to participate in the Committee stages of Bills and to fulfil their constitutional functions are being severely circumscribed, and for no good reason. If we had a hybrid House, people would be able to participate in Committee proceedings as normal. We have an absolutely unprecedented situation whereby noble Lords who want to engage in the Committee stages of Bills next week have to give advance notice. This has never happened in the history of the House of Lords: that for Members to participate in consideration of a Bill, they have to give advance notice. The whole point of debate is that there is give and take and people come in as they see how debates continue. I have tabled an amendment that would ensure the automatic recommittal of Bills which have been considered only virtually in Committee, so amendments could be moved thereafter.
We have grave responsibilities to the public during this crisis: to debate the challenges facing the country and to bring to Ministers’ attention the severe tribulations being suffered by millions of people up and down the country. We can do that only if we can make our voices heard, and if we can sit properly. I do not believe that the Procedure Committee has enabled us to do that, so it needs to take immediate radical, remedial action before our constitutional duties are severely undermined.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and a pleasant novelty to agree with every word that he has said. I speak in support of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice.
When I entered your Lordships’ House four and a half years ago, I spoke of the deep sense of privilege. But I was also very aware that that was underscored by the knowledge that I am not in any way, shape or form a member of a privileged elite. My fear is that the decision we are discussing today perpetuates the dangerous myth that that is all the House of Lords is about, visible or invisible: that people assume that we are simply part—that we are the epicentre—of the privileged elite.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I am not going to make a commitment to do that now, but I will certainly reflect on it.
Lord Adonis
I fully accept the Leader’s commitment to these arrangements being temporary, but the best guarantee that the House can have of that is a sunset clause. Why will the Government not agree to that?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
As I have said, these issues are under constant review. We are looking at them all the time, but a sunset clause sets an arbitrary date. These are temporary measures and we are looking to develop things. Lots of ideas have been mentioned today about how we may wish to move forward, and we are committed to that. I think that that negates the need for specific dates.
Business of the House
Lord Adonis Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I deplore the Statement just made by the Leader of the House. It is deplorable that in the middle of a national crisis the Government are proposing that Parliament should abdicate for a month. We should, day by day, be debating the situation, holding Ministers to account, reporting back to them the tribulations that millions of our fellow citizens are undergoing in this great crisis, and ensuring that the Government are held to account for their actions to deal with it.
In our debate earlier, we heard that there is still no package for the millions of self-employed people in this country who are facing potential destitution because their incomes have disintegrated. We are told that the Chancellor might make a Statement tomorrow, but not in Parliament because Parliament will not meet, and that it will not be possible to put questions to him or his representative in this House. When the noble Earl, the deputy leader of the House, appeared before us earlier, he said that we could make representations by other means. The whole way in which Parliament makes representations is by meeting.
This is a truly deplorable Statement. It is also out of line with how Parliament has handled previous crises. My noble friend Lord Harris said that the Prime Minister is fond of making comparisons with the Second World War. In 1940, Parliament met almost every week. There was no period of more than 18 days in which Parliament did not meet. It is true that coronavirus is contagious, which is why it is right that we look at modernising our working practices, including video conferencing, but it is perfectly possibly for us to meet. No one can suggest that if it was possible for Parliament to meet weekly in 1940, it is not possible for us to meet weekly in 2020. Let us hope that the Government agree to a recall, so that we can debate the conditions which the country will go through in the next few weeks.
I wish to put on record that it is a dereliction of our public responsibilities for us not to meet for the next 28 days when the Government, by the consent of all of us, are imposing in effect a state of emergency on the entire country.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Oates, with two supplementary points, the first of which the Leader may think has a degree of self-pleading because I live in Scotland.
If this House is to function properly, there must be not only active Members who can physically participate, but Members from all four nations of the union. As with many people who have to work across the union, there will be Members of Parliament, in this place and in the other place, who by necessity have to travel across the United Kingdom to carry out the democratic functions, and rightly so, but it is harder for them. I hope that the Government will consider not excluding Members who cannot physically be here of cannot be here by virtue of geography. Thankfully I do not fall into the category of being over 70. Nevertheless, the point about geography is important.
Secondly, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Government will inevitably table a great many statutory instruments during this period, which we will have to consider after the piece. That is not desirable. It may be necessary in some regards, but it is not desirable. Will the Government be much more flexible over access to Ministers and in the provision of written material to Front-Benchers through the usual channels, so that lines are communication are much freer than they normally are? I know that Ministers in this House are frequently available and receptive but there is an extra burden on the Government at this time because, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and other noble Lords have said, governing an emergency by executive authority alone is not the British way. If we are to carry on, we will do so through our democratic institutions.
Finally, on technology, I hope that the Government will speak to the other democratic institutions, not only here, with the House of Commons and our Parliamentary Digital Service, but to local authorities and our cities, which are undergoing similar challenges, the European Parliament, which has instituted new regulations for voting electronically, and others, so that democratic institutions across the United Kingdom can carry on functioning as best as they can.
Coronavirus Bill
Lord Adonis ExcerptsWednesday 25th March 2020
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Coronavirus Act 2020 View all Coronavirus Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 110-I Marshalled list for Committee - (24 Mar 2020)
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, the objectives of my noble friend’s amendment are clearly correct. It proposes that we should keep under review the operation of the powers that are granted in key areas of the Bill because, as she rightly said, they could be extremely damaging and possibly catastrophic in certain sectors of society.
I have two concerns that I would like to probe. First, what my noble friend has done is select one of the many very serious areas that are affected by the Bill. My noble friend Lady McDonagh just raised another to do with protective equipment. We could go into the arrangements for mental health in the Bill, which are extremely serious. We might want to keep under review—I believe we should—the arrangements regarding testing, because it looks increasingly clear that only if we can move towards some form of mass testing will we be able to get this crisis under control. My noble friend has selected just one area but, if there is to be a review of this kind, it needs to look at the operations of the Act at large.
I also have a bigger concern. What my noble friend seeks to do—perfectly understandably, because Parliament will not be sitting for the next month and, as I understand it, will sit only intermittently after that—is set up a body that would do what is surely our job as parliamentarians, namely to keep under review the exercise of the powers that we as Parliament are granting. This goes to the heart of a wider issue. It is proposed that Parliament will not sit in any form for the next month. We will be in complete recess. As I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—there will not be provision for any committees to sit formally, not just in person but online or by using what is not even 21st-century technology but rather 20th-century technology to hold meetings.
Surely the right approach, which will be vital as we conduct our affairs in the weeks and possibly months ahead, is that we should keep under review both this crisis and the powers we are granting. When it is not possible to do this by meeting, we should do so electronically. We should do this regularly and in all the principal areas in which we, of necessity, are granting to the Government wholly exceptional powers that could have a very big social impact. I believe it is our duty to keep these under review.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I too support the amendments in this group and the spirit in which they have been put forward. Many of us will have received briefings from various charities and organisations that are doing important work face-to-face with very vulnerable people. I declare an interest as my grandson is in lockdown in a residential unit for disabled children and children with epilepsy. As noble Lords can imagine, we as his family are very worried and concerned about the outcome of that. There are already staff shortages in that facility, as I am sure there are up and down the country.
I received a briefing from Barnardo’s and it resonated very much what with what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey- Thompson, was asking about yesterday, so I shall ask about vulnerable children and children with disabilities, many of whom may possibly be falling through the cracks and will not have support networks if local authorities are rolling back some of their duties under the Bill. It makes sense that charities and other bodies could come together under a local authority directive or umbrella to make sure that children who are in care or leaving care or who have disabilities receive care. Those who would normally be attending school and would receive support in school will not be getting that support now, so there is huge concern about thousands of children up and down the country who face incredible disadvantages and possible dangers without these systems in place and without local authorities functioning in the ways they normally would have done. Will the Minister tell us what measures can be put in place for the most vulnerable and at risk? Will the Government work with charities such as Barnardo’s and many others up and down the country to ensure that vulnerable children are identified and receive the support that they need?
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I put my name to this amendment, because I too am about the need for economic support for the self-employed, freelancers and workers on zero-hour contracts. Yesterday, the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, told the House that compensation for these people must be part of a package that is comprehensive, co-ordinated and coherent. However, he was not prepared to put a timetable to that announcement.
As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, just said, this amendment will give support straightaway to the 5 million self-employed workers, four-fifths of whom fall below the £2,500 a month threshold suggested in subsection (4)(b) of the proposed new clause, which is about the medium wage. It would be in line with the job retention package for employees announced last Friday.
However, I cannot emphasise enough that the scheme needs to be enacted very quickly. Failure to do so is threatening the lives of workers and those they serve. The great fear is that many self-employed workers have to decide between self-isolating and having no money coming into the house. That is particularly so in the care sector. I talked to a support worker on a zero-hours contract at a private residential home in Somerset run by a charitable trust. At best, she works two 15-hour night shifts a week for minimum wage. Together with her husband’s state pension, it is hardly enough to cover her rent and food bills as it is. Her husband is in bad health and vulnerable to the virus. Eventually, after some soul-searching, she decided that in the present crisis she could not threaten his health by continuing to go to work and has gone into self-isolation.
That support worker has done the right thing, even though she will now start running up debts that could take a long time to pay off. But this is a very real dilemma for many lowly paid self-employed people and workers on zero-hours contracts. There are real fears in the care industry that some workers who look after some of the most vulnerable people in this country will ignore any symptoms of the virus and continue going to work because they cannot afford not to. As a country, we cannot take that risk. I urge the Minister to accept the amendment. If he is not prepared to do so, at least will he tell the House when the Chancellor will come forward with a package of help for the self-employed, freelancers and workers on zero-hours contracts? Time is of the essence.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, the proposals that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has put forward commend themselves to the House. Essentially, he proposes that the Danish system be introduced here. The Resolution Foundation published a paper this morning that applies considerable expertise and global knowledge to this issue and proposes something similar.
I slightly regretted that the noble Lord made party-political points towards the end, because I do not believe that there is any party-political difference on this at all. We are all looking to the Government—indeed, many Conservatives take the same view. I hope that we can address all these things as a House together and not make party points on them.
However, my concern about this amendment is exactly the same as on the previous one. What we are talking about here is one of the most important decisions that the Government will take in dealing with this crisis. The noble Viscount was completely right about the social impact; 5 million gig workers in the economy, all of whom are self-employed but have been dependent on income from services that have been reasonably predictable in their provision, face their livelihoods being decimated at the moment. Unless provisions of this kind are put in place, they will face serious hardship. Unless a Statement is made today by the Chancellor, Parliament will not have the slightest impact on what is proposed, because we will have no opportunity to question Ministers about it—neither the Chancellor in the other place or Ministers in this place—and we will not get to give any views on this issue again until, I understand, 21 April.
That is not satisfactory. These issues are costing billions of pounds to the taxpayer and will have a huge social impact, but Parliament will be entirely irrelevant to the discussion and the announcement of those proposals. I therefore hope that the noble Earl can give us some indication of how Parliament will be involved in both the announcement and the assessment of the package in respect of the self-employed when it is made. It is not satisfactory that we will play no part in this for another month.
Lord O’Shaughnessy (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked for a cross-party view so I will make a brief intervention. The economic and moral case for doing something for this group of people is unarguable. No one in this House or in the other place disagrees with that. Their needs are just as great as of those who have the good fortune to have employed jobs, and it is on all of us to make sure that we have a solution.
If it was possible to do what is in the amendment, it could have been done already. There are technical and potentially moral hazard issues why this specific amendment might not be right. I do not stand in judgment; I just know that there are technical issues, and I know that there is a great deal of sympathy for this kind of solution. However, I know that the Treasury has been looking at this and other solutions and that it has its concerns. However, the most important thing is not to agree today on the specific line-by-line items of a package. Exactly as noble Lords have said, this is about getting a sense from my noble friend about when this package of equal weight and power will happen.
There are economic and moral reasons for doing this but health reasons too. If you are young, financially insecure or both of those things, you are highly likely to be at the very wrong end of the economic consequences, but you are also likely to look at it and think, “I might not get this disease and I’m almost certainly not going to die of it, so I’ll take my chances. I need to pay the rent”—or whatever it is. We simply cannot all be in this together if we have created a system which creates perverse incentives for certain groups. My noble friend knows that I am saying this with support for him and for the Government, but it is incumbent on us all to solve this so that we can act in unison to make sure that we deal with this health crisis together.
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness makes a very good point and one that I was familiar with in my previous role as a Health Minister. She is absolutely right: agency workers form a key part of the health and social care network and in other areas of our economy. I can assure her that they will not be overlooked.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, the Minister did not deal with the point about why the statement on this crucial issue will not be made in Parliament and be subject to debate in Parliament.
Earl Howe
My Lords, as the noble Lord rightly said, Parliament will not be able to debate any package of measures for the self-employed which my right honourable friend may announce until it returns on 21 April. That is a statement of the obvious, but it does not preclude parliamentarians from making appropriate representations to the Government once Parliament reconvenes. It will not be too late to do so at that point. One reason why my right honourable friend the Chancellor has not yet made an announcement is his determination to make sure that any scheme for the self-employed— which would inevitably be more complicated, as my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy said—is workable, clear and, above all, fair, without any danger of moral hazard. The measures already announced for those in employment have been widely welcomed. We do not want anything different to happen for any further measures.
Lord Adonis
Is not the reason why Parliament meets precisely so that it can make representations to the Government?
Earl Howe
Absolutely. That is what I indicated that parliamentarians, including your Lordships, would be able to do once we return from the Easter Recess. I suggest that, at that point, it is not too late to influence the Government in any announcement that may or may not have been made.
Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]
Lord Adonis ExcerptsFriday 7th February 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I cannot quite believe that we are having this debate and wasting Parliament’s time on such a monumentally inconsequential reform. However, I at least congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, on producing what I think, in my 15 years in this House, is the most minor change to the statute book of any that I have yet been a party to. By my calculation, there are 794 Members of the House of Lords and the total electorate of the nation is 45,775,800. That means that the noble Lord’s Bill would add 0.00173% to the electorate. If we were able to give an hour or two of debate to every issue in the country that could make a 0.00173% improvement to the relevant public policy of the country, we would sit continuously. Maybe we would do some good but we certainly would not give so much scrutiny to this issue.
Indeed, I was trying to work out whether it would make any difference at all to any constituency. It is just possible that it might have done, although I fear perhaps not in Northamptonshire. However, I note that in Kensington, where many noble Lords live, there was a majority in the 2017 election of only 20. So maybe, if the Bill had become law, in one constituency in the nation in one election in history, it might have made a difference. Perhaps all those who are residents of Kensington should be allowed to cast their vote retrospectively in the 2017 election and we might have a different Member of Parliament. Otherwise, it will not make any difference. As Ernest Bevin famously said on another occasion:
“If you open that Pandora’s Box, you never know what Trojan horses will jump out”.
This Bill is not of any great consequence—I could not really care whether it passes. Maybe in Northamptonshire people stop the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, in the street and ask why this great scandal of him not having the vote is allowed to perpetuate. However, I admit to your Lordships that no one has ever said that to me. Far more often, they have said, “Why are you there at all?” What on earth is the argument for the noble Lord, for the noble Earl, Lord Howe—
Lord Adonis
Who forced my noble friend Lord Blunkett not to have a vote in a general election? He accepted the peerage and, by virtue of that, he does not have a vote. The reason that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, does not have a vote is not that some great constitutional outrage is taking place but because he chose to become Lord Naseby. None of us is forced to be here, because we no longer have hereditary succession without the right not to accept the peerage. Everyone is here by choice. The argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, whom we hold in great respect, and an argument that I assume the noble Earl will make again from the Front Bench—that in our democracy everyone should have a voice, which I argue noble Lords have by virtue of participation in this Chamber—is completely correct. If people want to vote for the other House, they should not come here. The idea that somehow there is a parallel with other Chambers in other countries is completely false, because this is the only second Chamber in the world, apart from China, in which people are here simply by virtue of who they are rather than by virtue of any representative credentials whatever.
As I said, I do not think that the Bill would make any difference one way or the other, apart from to the 794 of us here, but it raises principles. The noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, said that incremental reform is a good thing. I am in favour of incremental reform that improves things. The reforms that he mentioned—the introduction of life Peers, for example—improved the working of this House significantly, but this Bill will not of itself improve anything at all. It deals with what is arguably an anomaly or arguably not an anomaly—it depends how you look at it—but it would do nothing whatever to improve the operation of the constitution. Indeed, it would do nothing to address any of the issues that were very well put by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, concerning the working of our democracy. He raised very timely issues such as the right to vote at the age of 16. We should spend the time of this House debating issues such as that, not minor issues of this kind.
As we are being forced to have this debate, perhaps I may make two points.
Lord Adonis
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, has tabled the Bill and we are doing him the justice of debating it, although, as I said, I think that it is entirely inconsequential. My first point concerns our contribution. We are all here by virtue of being individuals who have been given peerages. I speak as someone who wrote a book on the subject of the operation of the House of Lords in the late 19th century when it was under the almost dictatorial control of Lord Salisbury—the portrait of him addressing the House of Lords on the rejection of the Irish home rule Bill faces the Bishops’ Bar. One striking and extraordinary thing about the House of Lords as an institution is how little the operations of this House have changed to enable Peers to make an impact.
In most areas of public policy that matter to this country where we could have an impact, we have zero impact because we have no committee system. We have been here for about eight centuries and have had time to put this right but the only developed committee of this House is our European Union Committee. It is arguable whether over 45 years it made any difference to our membership of the European Union but, unfortunately, it has had no impact at all on most areas of public policy. I was a Minister for five years in this House—indeed, I was a Secretary of State for one year—but never in that entire time did I appear before a Select Committee of the House of Lords because there was no Select Committee of the House of Lords to appear before. I appeared monthly before the relevant Select Committee in the House of Commons, which conducted very good scrutiny, but the great potential in this place, where there were many experts in all fields, was completely neglected.
The way that we organise our business has changed very little since the 19th century. All the changes that have taken place in the House of Commons in the last 50 years have passed us by. We have no proper departmental Question Time; we still have the haphazard business dating back to the mid-19th century of individual Peers tabling Questions that are entirely random, depending on their interests; and there is no proper Question Time. The way that we consider Bills has not changed, including the extremely cumbersome Committee stage process, which is entirely unintelligible to people outside. In particular, the fact that it takes place in the Chamber is a very great occupation of the time of the Chamber that could be spent on other matters. The size of the House has increased but our procedures have not changed at all. We do not really have debates which, by the standards of the House of Commons, constitute debates. We simply divide whatever time there is, no matter the number of speakers, which often means that we have literally four or five minutes in which to speak. For the most part, we read speeches that are reported in Hansard, and there is almost no give and take in debates.
We have not undertaken all the incremental changes of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, referred to. We are a fossilised, atrophied institution that massively plays below its own weight and it needs reform, if we were capable of that. However, the bigger issue that I hope the noble Earl will tell us about is the wider context of reform, which might lead to the replacement of this House, as should surely happen in due course.
Lord Naseby
I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will remember that the scope of this debate is just this Bill; it is not the wider scope that the noble Lord has been talking about for the last 10 minutes. I say that with the benefit of having been a Deputy Speaker in the other place.
Lord Adonis
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for pointing that out, but he has raised the issue of reform of the House of Lords. He presented this as an issue of reform, so it is perfectly reasonable for those of us who have other ideas about reform to raise those too.
Can the noble Earl tell us about the commission on the wider reform of the constitution? That could be an opportunity for substantial reforms of the House of Lords. When will the commission be set up? Will it be a cross-party commission? What will its terms of reference be? Over what timescale will it deliberate? Those are hugely important issues that I think should engage us, and anything that the noble Earl can tell us on that score will be very welcome.
I make one final point: I had not realised—it is fascinating—why the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, took his title. It was after the Battle of Naseby in 1645 between the parliamentarians and the royalists, which he said was a great advance in the move towards democracy. But of course it was Oliver Cromwell, in his very first act after the execution of Charles I, who abolished the House of Lords as dangerous and useless. Maybe it is time for us to look more widely at the legacy of the Civil War.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, on his persistence in bringing this legislation before us for the second time, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett for having previously tried to get it through. I commend the Library on its excellent briefing, which saved me doing a lot of homework. It is all there to quote from.
My Bill got a little further than some of the others; it got to the Commons. I will remind your Lordships of what happened, and I shall be critical of the procedures in the Commons; I think that I am allowed to do that. The normal practice is that, after the Bill is called, it takes one anonymous voice in the Commons to shout “Object”, and that kills it. I knew that this was liable to happen, so I wrote to all the Members of the Commons who had a reputation for shouting “Object”. I pointed out that my Bill was modest, did not affect them, had the support of this House and was well worth backing. I sat in the Gallery and a voice said, “Object”. It is quite undemocratic that one voice can do it, without one knowing who the MP is or what he or she represents. I was quite puzzled, but that is what killed it.
We have already had references to whether change should be incremental, piecemeal or done all in one go. My understanding, or slight suspicion—as I turn aggressively to the Lib Dem Benches—is that it was Nick Clegg who did not want any incremental change to the Lords; he wanted all or nothing. I cannot prove it, but I have some circumstantial evidence which might help. Certainly, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, when he wound up the debate here on behalf of the coalition, said:
“On Lords reform, we have to look at a package.”—[Official Report, 5/7/13; col. 1421.]
On that basis, he argued that the Government should resist this “small, partial proposal”. That is why I think the Lib Dems had a key part to play in stopping us having a vote in the elections that followed. As has already been said, we have had the right to vote in local elections, the European Parliament and referenda. The Lords Spiritual, of course, are allowed to vote—whether they exercise that right I do not know. Using the analogy of the United States, American senators can vote in elections for the House of Representatives. All these are good arguments for doing it.
My noble friend Lord Adonis spent 10 minutes—10 minutes—telling us that we are wasting our time. I agree with him that this is not the most important issue. I helped in about eight different elections in eight different constituencies. I was out almost every day in the last election, knocking on doors and getting my knuckles ripped off in letterboxes as I put leaflets through—all things that I am sure my noble friend did too. Did he?
Lord Dubs
Of course, nobody asked me about the right to vote in the Lords. There are no demonstrations in Parliament Square or people marching down Whitehall backing this Bill. They are not saying, “What do we Want? Votes for the Lords! When do we want them? Now!” Of course they are not, but quite a few issues are matters of principle. We do not have to stir up public demos; this just happens to be the right and proper thing to. I feel personally hurt when I tramp the streets trying to get other people to vote and then find myself denied that basic right. I find it personally painful every time there is an election. My own views do not matter much in the scheme of things, but that is how I feel. We pay our taxes. What we surely want to do by voting is to have some influence on who the Government will be. Once the Government are elected, we can influence legislation. I think we can do a better job, as my noble friend Lord Adonis suggested, but we can talk about that another day. It is just that I would like to have some influence on who the Government will be, not just on the legislation that follows, but I have no chance to do that at all. I can influence my local authority, and previously I could influence the European Parliament, but not the Government. Surely that is a basic and simple right, and it will happen sooner or later.
I actually feel sorry for Ministers who have to answer because, in my brief two or three years as a Minister, I found it difficult when my heart was not in the argument that I was putting forward.