Queen’s Speech
Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord True(4 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bichard; I much agree with what he has just said. I also associate myself with the remarks of my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, about the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. As a vice-chairman of the Local Government Association, I know how true that its.
I welcome the gracious Speech, its measures on crime and the victims of crime outside and inside the home, on good education and a clean environment, and its strong tone of humane concern for those who are sick and old. This is anything but a programme for an extreme Government.
But, of course, when one listens to a gracious Speech, nothing strikes one more than the voice that reads it—that unique, unforgettable voice; how I dread the day when that should be stilled. It is the voice of serenity above turmoil, dignity above conniving, duty above self-interest, healing above rancour. It is the voice of stability, the voice of the United Kingdom.
The bedrock of our constitution is the Queen in Parliament. For my part, I have been sad in these last days to see the expressed will of the Queen in Parliament impeached and overturned. These are matters to which we must return, the fall-out from past legislation and recent decisions which we must review, but I do not want to dwell on them today.
I am deeply troubled by the tone and conduct of this Parliament. Each passing week, the problem seems more acute and the reputation of Parliament sinks lower, and the gulf between Parliament and much of the public grows wider. Was it not sad that on the one day that many of us had longed for, when people for once took some interest in the proceedings of Parliament when they were televised live to millions, a too-clever-by-half procedural device in the Commons denied the nation resolution and prolonged the agony that has surely rent our social fabric for far too long?
There are aspects of this deal that noble Lords will know I do not much care for, but enough—enough. The Spartans have sheathed their swords; let those on the other side show the same spirit of compromise. Let Fabius the Delayer come down from his high place and lay down his sword. Es ist genug. Let us move on.
Today, for the first time since May 1641 and profoundly mistakenly, we have a law that the House of Commons cannot be dissolved except by its own volition. Untouchability in the Commons did not serve us too well in the 1640s. That House avowed very high ideals, but it executed Ministers without trial, beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury, committed regicide, abolished your Lordships’ House and dissolved into military dictatorship. I do not of course say that the House protected by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act—in my view, a written antidote to any cry for a written constitution—is capable of such excesses, but a sense of inviolability inevitably has a behavioural effect. The fixed-term Act protects a Commons reckless of past promises and the popular will. That is a view I know some contest, yet, unequivocally, as proved by its own votes, that inviolable House is unwilling to face the general election that Mr Johnson has offered and test the verdict of the people as to whom they trust to carry the nation forward.
Bad cases do not make good laws. The profound crisis provoked by this Parliament’s failure to do what the people by lawful majority asked should not stampede us to more incautious constitutional change. Before that—and how much I agreed with the wise speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—we should examine the harm and conflict flowing from some recent innovations thrust into our long-standing constitutional law and conventions. I do not exclude from that referendums, first or second.
I am an optimist. I believe that we can rebuild conventions, and the common sense and flexibility that convention both encourages and requires. We can treat our opponents with more respect. That should begin with a Prime Minister who backed Mrs May’s compromise and now offers us another, and who has been subjected to a campaign of personal vilification and who is no would-be dictator. Rather, he is a widely read, deeply civil, good humoured, humane and liberal-minded person, whose optimism appealed across all divides as a twice-elected Mayor of London and wishes to do so again.
We politicians cannot heal this nation without seeing in others opposite the sense of duty, decency, principle and concern for the common weal that motivates almost all who turn their hands to the hard, high vocation of public service. Healing cannot come without respect. Agreement cannot come without compromise. Conflict cannot be ended without permitting a 12 year- old boy to walk home with his father without a police escort.
“O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion”.
I beg that we should hear and heed the tone of the gracious voice of the United Kingdom.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, I want to acquaint noble Lords with the position on the Urgent Question and Oral Statement. The Statement has not yet started in the House of Commons, so we will have to delay our Question and Oral Statement. Let us say that it will not be before 6.15 pm and hope that they will have started it by then. Otherwise, we will have to be flexible again.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord True(4 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord True
It is extraordinary that, when one is trying to round something off amicably, some people mutter in that way. The purpose of all the amendments—the noble Baroness on the Front Bench opposite was extraordinarily gracious on this point—was to guard against the guillotine, something that the noble Baroness said was not desirable in this House. As far as I am concerned, we will give an undertaking that we will abide by any usual channels agreement, as Back-Benchers in this House always do. Certainly, if another attempt is ever made to bring forward a guillotine Motion of this kind, it can expect the same sort of resistance, irrespective of the issue concerned.
I am grateful to those who have been tolerant and to those who have not been quite so tolerant. I am grateful to those who have been kindly and to those who have been less than kind. Everybody wishes the best for this great House and I think that a sensible deal has been reached. I thank all my colleagues who have stayed, supported, thought and voted. I hope that they will support 100%, as I do, the spirit and letter of the agreement. I thank all those involved.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I omitted to say that I am very grateful to all noble Lords on all sides of the House for staying so long. For the avoidance of doubt, we are not taking the rest of the business tonight.
Contracting Out (Functions relating to the Royal Parks) Order 2016
Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord True
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest to your Lordships: first, I am a member of the existing Royal Parks board; and I am also leader of Richmond local authority, which has the privilege of containing some of the most beautiful spaces in this country in the form of the Royal Parks within my borough. Having declared the first interest—as being part of the outgoing organisation—I should make it clear that I am very mindful of the Addison rules. It is not for me to rise in this House and answer the questions that have been asked about the management and future management. Under the rules of this House, those are matters for the Minister, and I am sure that he will answer those points adequately. However, perhaps I may allow myself some general reflections.
I understand that the noble Lord opposite simply does not like the order. That is probably because it has the words “contracting out” in its title. However, some of the services that we have heard about relating to the management of buildings and grounds are already provided by organisations which are contracted out, so no great principle frontier is being crossed here; it is a question of the management.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was very supportive in the first 90 seconds of his speech but not quite so supportive in the remaining 10 minutes. I think that that comes from an understandable suspicion. People love these parks and do not want to see their ethos change. That has always been the guiding principle of anybody who has spent any time trying to support and sustain these parks. However, changing their status was not necessarily something that the Government were pushing for or particularly enthusiastic about in the earlier stages. As I conceive it, the idea is to try to give the parks a status that will enable them to thrive in providing the facilities that they have provided for so long.
In passing—again, without trespassing into saying inappropriate things in this House—I remind noble Lords that these are Royal Parks, and that in itself is something that the House might want to bear in mind.
On the question of the preservation of ethos, the point was made about not wanting too much in the way of entertainments. Again, without going into specifics—clearly, I recognise some of the things that have been said in relation to Winter Wonderland—the point is that local authorities will remain planning authorities. So for major functions, even if this new body—I can tell your Lordships that I have not applied to be a member of it—turned out to want to have knock-down, drag-out rock concerts every day, they simply would not get away with it because the local authority would be all over them. As far as functions in Hyde Park are concerned, I can tell the House that local authorities are all over the park, so I do not think that that fear would come to fruition. I and most of the others involved certainly would not support the change if we thought that that was the way forward.
It is true that the parks have moved to raise more money by means other than government funding. I think that that has been prudent, and it has been done in a way that broadly retains the ethos of the parks. I think that this is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you sit there and say, “We’re not going to do anything”, and, in the light of what we all know is likely to be the ongoing financial situation, you expect the good old taxpayer constantly to go on providing, you are damned for not having used the talent you have been given to try to improve things. However, if you do try to use that talent, you are damned because you are being too commercial. Before and after I was involved, the parks have tried to find a balance, and I am sure that that is what will continue to happen.
I cannot stray too far into the issue of consultation as, again, I am conscious of the Addison rules. However, I can say from my own experience that when there was a proposal to close several gates in Richmond Park, people were all over it very fast. News travels if an adverse proposal is out there. So I think that the Minister needs to answer the questions that have been legitimately asked in the committee’s report and by noble Lords here. I have not become aware of a great storm of concern, but I am sure that the Minister will listen to some of the suggestions about how things might be done better.
On balance, I think that the parks will still be in a safe place under the proposals before us. I believe that the reserve powers of the Secretary of State will still be in place and that there will be careful scrutiny of the contracting arrangements. I do not think that Parliament can supervise KPIs or every detail and point of the contract. As I understand it, there are no plans to move away from the broad strategies that have been set out. Therefore, given the very careful thought that has been put into this measure and the need to reach out to more and more people around the world who love the parks, I think that the new arrangements, if they become charitable arrangements, may enable the parks to be secured.
While fully understanding the concerns that have been put forward by a number of noble Lords—concerns that I would share if I were in their position—I believe that a good way forward will be found. Brompton Cemetery is subject to a massive programme of improvement with an HLF grant, and those kinds of things will, I am sure, continue. I hope that the noble Lord opposite will withdraw his amendment and that, subject to the Minister satisfactorily answering the questions that have been put forward in the debate, the order can be approved.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed, especially the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. He has raised some worthwhile points in his amendment, which certainly deserve an answer, as have other noble Lords. The best thing is for me to start by addressing the points in his amendment, and then I will come on to some of the other questions that have been asked.
The first thing to say is that the Government have no desire to change the overall experience of the parks. We think that this proposal will encourage the parks to take a longer-term view and, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, pointed out, some of the more long-term abilities of not being a government department on an annual budget will allow them to raise more money, which I will come to in a minute. There is absolutely no desire to commercialise the parks more than they are now. I will come on to some aspects of financing in that respect later.