Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, had any part at all in encouraging the deluging of some of our colleagues in verbal sewage, he should apologise.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, who I imagine has not read any of this, is making totally unfounded allegations and he should withdraw them.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I said that if the noble Lord has any part in it, he should apologise.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans will have heard the strong support across the House for his amendment. He said at the beginning of his remarks that he intended to press the matter, and I would strongly encourage him to do so. It looks to me as if he will have a commanding majority across the House.

The Minister’s speech was very odd. Indeed, it was so odd that I cannot think that he actually wrote his own speech. It must have been written by some political adviser in his department, who just put together a set of remarks that he thought would basically tell the House of Lords to get lost. That was the gravamen of his argument, presumably hoping that, the third time around, we would not press this—indeed, that we would not even get into the arguments.

The Minister said—I noted it down carefully—that the proposal in the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans was “inappropriate and unworkable”. I was waiting for him to describe to the House why it was inappropriate and unworkable, but he did not. He said that he would not comment in detail at the beginning, but would do so at the end. That is not much use to us, because the debate takes place before his closing remarks, not afterwards, and we have no means of replying to them. That argument is clearly of no account, unless the Minister has such compelling arguments against the right reverend Prelate that, on hearing them, we will be completely silenced.

When we read the amendment, it is impossible to see how it could be described as inappropriate and unworkable. The right reverend Prelate proposes, first, that the costs may not be passed on to leaseholders or tenants—an argument in its absolute state, which the Minister has objected to, and I understand his arguments. However, the crucial part of the amendment is subsection (2) of the proposed new clause:

“This section has effect only until a statutory scheme is in operation which ensures that leaseholders and tenants of dwellings do not have to pay for remedial work attributable to the provisions of this Act.”


What is inappropriate and unworkable about that? The right reverend Prelate proposes simply that the Government’s own scheme, which one assumes will not be inappropriate or unworkable, must be before Parliament and subject to consideration before people are faced with costs—unless I have missed something in the arguments. The right reverend Prelate is nodding in agreement, and the Minister has not said anything to the contrary.

By definition, that cannot be inappropriate and unworkable, because we are talking about the Government’s own scheme. All that the right reverend Prelate seeks to do, which it is absolutely within the role of a revising Chamber to insist on, is that leaseholders should not be subject to these costs, which could bankrupt them and cause them enormous distress, being simply unmanageable, until there is a scheme. The scheme must have been presented and agreed before they face these costs.

We have heard harrowing stories from people with individual and personal cases at stake, but also, as the right reverend Prelate so rightly says, there are potentially—we are not quite sure what the numbers are—hundreds of thousands of people affected. What impact will that have? It is not unreasonable for this House to insist that before leaseholders are faced with those costs, we must know what the scheme is and it has been subject to proper consideration.

What makes it all even odder is that the Government themselves say that that is their intention. When the matter last came before the House of Commons, the Minister responsible, Christopher Pincher, said:

“We have been working hard to ensure that those with broader shoulders and those that should pay do pay.”


That is precisely the principle we are all seeking to establish. He continued:

“That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced at the Budget that there will be a levy on tall buildings and a tax on the sector. We do not want to absolve the industry of its responsibility. We are finalising how the levy will be calculated and the Treasury is leading on the development of the tax. Of course we want to ensure that it works effectively, and that small and medium-sized developers are not unfairly disadvantaged. We want to get it right and we want to get it done as quickly as we can … We will bring forward as soon as we possibly can the workings of the financial support scheme that we announced at the Budget that will ensure that leaseholders in buildings below 18 metres pay no more than £50 a month.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/21; col. 707.]


Those commitments and statements by the Minister are completely consistent with the proposal of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, which simply says that the scheme must be ready, approved and operable before leaseholders pay any costs. The Minister’s substantive argument—that the right reverend Prelate’s proposal is inappropriate and unworkable—is clearly nonsensical and wrong.

The Minister’s other argument was that we were somehow delaying matters. The House of Commons last debated this issue on Monday 22 March. The date today is 20 April, a month later. The reason for the delay in considering this Bill has nothing to do with your Lordships, nothing to do with the leaseholders, nothing to do with the right reverend Prelate, and everything to do with the Government.

Indeed, on the same day as the House of Commons considered our amendments to the Fire Safety Bill, they also considered our amendments to the Trade Bill. Those of your Lordships who multitask—some of us do more than one Bill at a time—will know that the amendments to the Trade Bill were dealt with in your Lordships’ House within a matter of days. It was, I think, three or four days later, because it was still the twenty-something of March when we dealt with them. The reason why we have not considered this matter until 20 April, very close to the end of the Session, has nothing whatever to do with your Lordships, and everything to do with the Government.

We still have time between now and the end of the Session. As the right reverend Prelate so rightly said, if the Prime Minister can spring into such dramatic action in response to developments in the Football League, he and the Government can certainly get their act together to consider and put forward proper proposals in respect of a scheme. Much more pertinently, if they say that the full resources of the Government, drafting and all that, are not available, because the parliamentary draftsmen are on holiday or whatever and so cannot do it—the noble Lord, Lord Newby, could read out more “Yes Minister” excerpts on this—all he needs to do is to accept the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. That is what we are urging him to do. It would give him the time to do it, because its key provision is that leaseholders will not be faced with these charges until the statutory scheme is in operation, so he will have the time that he needs.

However, it is not just that the reason for the delay is the Government and not this House; we are dealing with a situation that is nearly four years old. It is not as if Grenfell happened a few months ago, we are still trying to estimate what the impacts were, and we are being rushed into legislation and the design of a scheme. It has been four years, and there is a whole public inquiry, the first stage of which has already reported. Again, the reason for the delay in this respect has nothing to do with the leaseholders, nothing to do with this House and everything to do with the Government.

What was the special adviser who wrote the Minister’s speech actually seeking to do? I think it is pretty clear, because most of us here are seasoned politicians. They were seeking to see that the Fire Safety Bill becomes law before the impact on the leaseholders is fully known. We need to get to the heart of what is happening here. Obviously, in response to the urgent and compelling safety crisis that we face, there had to be changes in the safety regulations. More precisely, we had to see that the existing safety regulations were actually enforced. That is what we are really talking about as the fundamental point of principle here.

The Government do not want leaseholders, who may face large bills of potentially tens of thousands of pounds and who in many cases may not be covered by the schemes, which are only in outline at the moment in their descriptions, to be faced with those costs or any knowledge of what they might be before the Bill becomes law. However, that is all the more reason why Parliament should not be prepared to play the Government’s game, because this is not a political game or a script of “Yes Minister”; these are the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who face bills of tens of thousands of pounds. It is perfectly reasonable that this House and the House of Commons should at least know what the schemes are, in respect of which people are going to have to pay these sums, and should have given their assent to them before they become law.

The Minister said that the right reverend Prelate’s proposal was inappropriate and unworkable. There is nothing inappropriate and unworkable whatever about ensuring that a statutory scheme must be in operation before leaseholders face bills that could, as I say, run into tens of thousands of pounds. The only reason for the delay in the past and now is because of the Government. This could all be sorted out in the next few days, before the end of this Session, if there is a will to move.

For that reason, I strongly urge the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who have a right to expect fair play from Parliament, to press this amendment to a vote.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, having heard so much this afternoon, I do not think that I really wish to add to the powerful arguments that have been advanced.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from my noble friend, can the Chief Whip tell us precisely how many noble Lords will be able to take part physically in the Grand Committee proceedings?

I want also to raise an issue on procedure. We all understand the need for accommodation to be made in respect of hybrid proceedings and, for as long as there are safety considerations, that will need to continue. However, there is a fundamental contradiction between the first and the second line in the Motion before the House. The first line states:

“The procedure shall follow, so far as practical, procedure in Grand Committee”.


However, the second line states that

“no member may participate unless they have signed up to the Speakers’ List”.

It is stark staring obvious that Members do not need to have signed up to the speakers’ list in order to participate in person. That is not true in the Chamber, nor is it true in Grand Committee. This is a particular issue in respect of Committee stages, which of course is what the Grand Committee largely exists for, although some other debates can take place, because of the give and take in Committee. At the moment, we now have the utter absurdity that in order to intervene after the Minister, if you are in the Chamber, you need to email the clerk who will email the Lord Chairman sitting on the Woolsack, who will then call you. If, as I found once, you do not get your email in fast enough, you cannot be called after the Minister even though you are actually in the Chamber and you can catch the eye of the Lord Chairman. This is palpably absurd. The reason for it is the levelling-down mentality that nothing that cannot be done in the virtual House should be done in the physical House.

We are all trying to make the best of these procedures and I even had some sympathy for that concept when only a handful of Members were participating in the Chamber and it might have been thought unfair that noble Lords who were taking part virtually would not have the same opportunities as those who were present in the House. However, now that we are encouraging Members to come back to the House where they can and we will have Members physically present in the Grand Committee, it seems utterly absurd and contrary to good practice to deprive noble Lords of their rights in the Chamber and in Grand Committee because of the understandable need to bring other noble Lords in remotely.

The Chief Whip cannot change procedures in response to this debate, but I do not think that the arrangements that have been proposed are either correct or sustainable. It is regrettable that they have been replicated in the arrangements being made for the Grand Committee proceedings from September, so I hope that the noble Lord may be able to give us an undertaking that this issue will be considered further—perhaps even before the beginning of September.

On that note, I wish him a happy holiday. I say to him and to the staff of the Clerk of the Parliaments that we are all enormously appreciative of the work that they have done to make the House operate as well as it has over recent months. It is the aim of us all to make it work better and not to take away in any way from the phenomenal contribution that those who have enabled us to continue working during this time of crisis as we have.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, just said about my noble friend the Chief Whip and others in the usual channels and elsewhere who have enabled us to function through some extraordinarily difficult times.

However, having said that, I believe that we have to move on. We have to try to get back to as near to normality as possible, as soon as possible. That means encouraging noble Lords in all parts of the House to regard it as the normal thing to be here and the exceptional thing to participate virtually. I must confess that I had never used a computer before. I was determined that I was not going to be excluded from your Lordships’ House, so I made what my noble friend the Chief Whip would probably say were far too many interventions via virtual participation. But I hate it. It is a horrible thing talking into a screen, not being able to see your colleagues and not being able to sense the reaction of the House. We must get back to that and to a self-regulating House as soon as possible.

With these lists, all spontaneity has gone. The Government cannot be held adequately to account because the Minister, whoever he or she may be, can get away with whatever he or she wants. There is not the opportunity to question them save in the very artificial form to which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred in respect of Committee, when you have to send an email and get another email back and then you can ask a question. Some noble Lords, particularly those participating virtually, have abused that system by making a speech that they should have made on the amendment concerned or even at Second Reading. I am glad to see noble Lords on the other side of the House assenting to some of these points, because they are important.

I know that there is a fundamental problem about numbers, which will perhaps remain for a very long time. I therefore put to the House what I have put privately to the Clerk of Parliaments and others: we should give serious consideration to moving the Chamber to the Royal Gallery. In 1983, that happened. The late Manny Shinwell, who had just celebrated his 100th birthday, was nearly killed by a bit of timber falling from the ceiling. Thank God it was not the end of an illustrious career, but, because of that, this Chamber had to be vacated for restoration and, for a time, noble Lords met in the Royal Gallery. As a Member of the other place for nearly 20 years by then, I found this very interesting and in sharp contrast to the war years, when of course—I remembered it because my noble friend Lord Trefgarne was here in 1947 for the first time —the Lords met in the Robing Room. That would be completely impossible, but it would be possible to have more people, physically distanced, in the Royal Gallery. I know that there are problems, but they have been overcome in the past and they should be overcome now. We could have noble Lords sitting on individual seats, or the Benches could be put in and augmented. It could be tiered, as it is for the State Opening of Parliament every year. It is a serious suggestion that I commend to your Lordships for serious consideration.

One or two other things would help edge us back towards normality. We are brilliantly served by our staff in this House, but I find it very sad to go into the Library and find not a single clerk on duty. Surely there could be a rota system—again, I am glad to see noble Lords assenting—because that Library is of fundamental importance to every Member of your Lordships’ House, and there should be clerks on duty so that Members can consult them. I hope that that can be the case, whether we are serving in Grand Committee or on the Floor of the House, when we come back in September.

I have another suggestion which may not command such universal assent. We are brilliantly served by the Clerk of the Parliaments and all the clerks, but, in edging towards normality, although none of them could ever be accused of being anything other than impeccably dressed, it would be nice to see them properly dressed when we come back in September. Again, it would make the place a little more normal and a little more like the House of Lords that we know and most of us love.

I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing this Motion. I wish him success. I wish him a restful and happy summer—no one deserves it more—but when we come back, let there be more of us and let us be functioning in a more normal way.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

Can the noble Lord tell us where he proposes that the memorial should be moved to?

[Lord Cormack]

There are many places where it could go. It could go to one of the great London parks, but the Imperial War Museum, which has offered a site and has adequate parking, would seem an admirable destination. It already has galleries that graphically and movingly describe the Holocaust, so that is a possibility. This afternoon I am simply saying to your Lordships that it is very important that we look at this carefully and without prejudice.

To those of my noble friends who are strongly in support of the Holocaust memorial, I say: please remember that those of us who have reservations are not against having a memorial; we are not Holocaust deniers or in any sense opposed to the Jewish community, which has given so much to our country over the last three and a half centuries since the Jews were readmitted by Oliver Cromwell in 1652. I speak as one who lives in a city—Lincoln—that had the second largest Jewish community in the country in the Middle Ages, and we honour that. Indeed, at the moment, together with Jewish colleagues and others I am planning a great exhibition to commemorate that, to be held in two or three years’ time in Lincoln.

Therefore, it is not a question of a Holocaust memorial being something that we do not want. We do want it but this is not the place, and it is certainly important that all aspects are considered carefully by the body that the Bill establishes. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

I take it from what the Leader and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, have said that these decisions are beyond the point of no return. That being the case, is not this debate a complete waste of time?

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, my noble friend does not appear to be answering the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and has asked me to withdraw my amendment. I made it quite plain when I moved it that I rather honour the convention in your Lordships’ House that we do not divide in Committee and I have no intention of seeking to do so. However, I would like to say two or three things.

First, it is very important indeed that any application relating to the immediate environs of the Palace of Westminster, and that could conceivably impinge upon what we are going to do, should at least be looked at by the body we are formally establishing in this Bill. That is very important, and I may well seek to move an amendment when we come to Report. If I was so minded, I would want to consult the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, before doing so.

On the subject of the Holocaust memorial, it is important that the Committee has been able to debate this extremely important adjacent development. In responding, my noble friend the Leader of the House indicated that it is almost a fait accompli, but I gently remind her that the planning authority has yet to determine, and I certainly hope that it will take most carefully into account not only the powerful speeches of my noble friends who have so strongly supported this, but those of us who have perfectly reasonable, legitimate concerns about the effect it may have. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for what she said, and to my noble friend Lord King and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his moving and powerful speech. These are not arguments that should be lightly dismissed or cast aside, and it is entirely legitimate that those of us in this House and in the other place should have views. If they diverge sharply from those equally sincere views held by my noble friends Lord Pickles, Lord Polak and Lady Altmann, that is what democracy is all about. We cannot always agree on everything, as we have demonstrated quite successfully over the past three years. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

Surely my noble friend understands that, having had well over an hour on his amendment, it was time to move on. It was the general wish of the House to move on. His amendment was really without the scope of the Bill. It would be an admirable subject for a separate Bill and I would support it, but what we have seen today—I hope that my noble friend, having provoked me, will concede this—is a rather sophisticated filibuster to ensure that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, does not complete all the amendments. That is a disgrace, given the overwhelming support he has in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, what we have seen today is a serious abuse of the procedures of the House by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, to stifle debate on a matter of significant public moment. That is what we have seen. I never thought, having been in this House for 15 years now, that I would see this abuse of procedure in the House. The issue of how people are appointed to this House is not a side or minor issue, it is fundamental to the working of our Parliament. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on putting this issue before the House and I completely agree with him that we should continue to raise these matters, because this squalid Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has promoted to perpetuate a nominated House of Lords is fundamentally against the interests of the people.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly add my strong support to the noble Lord, Lord Empey. He has made an extremely important point, which is all the more important because the Executive are not in being and the Assembly is not meeting. It is therefore incumbent on this House and the other place to look in some detail at matters which affect the lives of people throughout Northern Ireland. I add my plea to his: we should not indulge in this process again, especially during a time when Northern Ireland has no adequate devolved government.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, makes an extremely strong case. Surely the presumption should always be against an extraordinary procedure. We have had this a number of times in respect of Northern Ireland legislation, and the case being made by Members of the House from Northern Ireland seems to me to merit very serious consideration by the Leader.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

I have learned more about the British constitution in the last five minutes than in many years. I had no idea about the arrangements for the rotation of the office of the Lord Great Chamberlain. I hope that whoever succeeds the present one has a more pronounceable name than the Marquess of Cholmondeley because the problem with holding receptions in the Cholmondeley Room is that nobody knows how to pronounce the name of the person after whom the room is named.

This is an issue with my noble friend’s Bill. I strongly object to my noble friend’s Bill because it entrenches a nominated House, which is his purpose—my noble friend wants to entrench a nominated House. He is not interested in a democratic House and he is not even interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, wants, which is incremental reform, although I notice that the noble Lord did not say what his next incremental reform would be. Maybe he might tell us in due course. Perhaps he does not want any further incremental reform.

[Lord Cormack]

This reform.

[Lord Adonis]

Just this reform and no further. We need to be clear about this. This will entrench a nominated House in perpetuity.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords,

“Up with your damned nonsense will I put twice, or perhaps once, but sometimes always, by God, never”,


as Richter said to the first flute in the orchestra. The noble Lord ought to know that we have in this House a Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which I have the honour to chair and which my noble friend Lord Norton convenes; it has many Members of his side—enthusiastic Members, who are nodding as I am speaking. We believe in incremental reform. This is one more incremental reform following Steel, which dealt with retirement, following the Hayman Bill, which dealt with expulsion and there will be others. I hope that the big instalment later this year will be Burns. I would love to see that. It does not need legislation. That was why Burns was so skilful. I hope that we will have that, and it will be a further stage of incremental reform. It is not all legislative.

[Lord Adonis]

But these incremental reforms are so minute that no member of the public outside will have the faintest idea that any of this is happening. The reform that they will notice is whether we fundamentally change this House to turn it from being a nominated House that has no democratic legitimacy into an elected House which has legitimacy. That is the reform that will make a difference that people will notice. All this other incremental reform that the noble Lord is talking about is so much stuff and nonsense. It will have zero impact in the way that the House is perceived externally, and nothing other than a tiny, marginal impact on the actual operation of the House internally.

However, in terms of the integrity of the Bill, because I know that my noble friend is keen for us to stay on message, in so far as there is any principle at stake in the Bill at all, I do not accept it because I do not think that it makes the House any more legitimate than it is at the moment. To have hereditary Peers is fundamentally illegitimate. As a nominated House, as it would become after the passage of my noble friend’s Bill, it does not even achieve my noble friend’s objective. I understood that his objective was, over time, to eliminate the hereditary Peers. Now we discover from the noble Lord’s amendment that two hereditary Peers will remain, so there will still be an hereditary component in this House, even after the labours of Hercules that my noble friend has engaged in over many recent months.

The nonsensical nature of this Bill—nonsensical if one believes in wider reform, which some of us do—is made even greater when one looks at the actual detailed provisions. It does not even achieve my noble friend’s objective of seeking to entrench in perpetuity a nominated House.