Budget: North East of England

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. She will know that the industrial strategy, which was launched at the same time as the Budget, promised, among other things, to make the UK a more connected country, with high-speed fixed-to-mobile access available in all areas including rural ones. It also aimed to make decisions on infrastructure more geographically balanced. That is at the heart of the industrial strategy. My noble friend will have an opportunity to develop her arguments after Christmas, when there will be a whole day’s debate on the industrial strategy.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister may not have a handle on the tribal conflicts in the north-east, but I have a slightly better handle on the tribal conflicts in Yorkshire. There is a real worry that the whole of the east Pennines is losing out in relation to resources which would otherwise be available if the plans for elected mayors in the city regions there had actually been carried through. If they do occur in the months ahead, will the noble Lord give an assurance that the resources earmarked for authorities with elected mayors will be available, and backdated, for combined authorities that move forward with an elected mayor in the way he has described?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that there is a Sheffield regional city devolution deal with an elected mayor. That is being set up, with an election scheduled I think for May next year. If other parts of Yorkshire want to approach the Government and offer a similar devolution deal, of course we would listen. When it comes to backdating resources, my colleagues in the Treasury might just pause before signing up to that one. But what we do not want to do is have an all-Yorkshire deal which then unwinds the deal that is already going ahead with the Sheffield City Region. The Government would listen very warmly to any work the noble Lord can do to encourage more authorities to come forward with devolution deals and elected mayors.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the last point, I see from the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 manifesto that they committed themselves to cutting the number of MPs by 150, so I am not sure why the noble Lord is so squeamish about reducing the number by 50. There are a record 46.8 million people on the register, and what he has proposed is yet another Liberal Democrat delay to the Boundary Commission proposals. The dates for the current boundary review were approved by an amendment—to which the noble Lord put his name—to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill back in 2013. The amendment made it clear that the electoral register as at 1 December 2015 would be used in this review. That was an amendment to which the noble Lord put his name.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I put my name to none of this. I simply say to the Minister, who is a very reasonable person, that if there are 46.8 million people on the register but a substantial number of them are not counted in the reconfiguration of boundaries, that would be unacceptable to any political party.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The date for the boundary review is inevitably a snapshot. During the period of all boundary reviews, people are added to the register. As I said, the date of 1 December 2015 was approved by this House when the relevant legislation went through, and any interference with the current review would mean that the next election would be fought on boundaries dating from the year 2000. That cannot be in the interests of democracy.

Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I was waiting to see whether anyone else would intervene. I will not detain the House very long. Will the Minister, either now or in writing—I promise I will not talk about Sheffield this afternoon—be kind enough to reflect on the juxtaposition of the existing Data Protection Act 1998 with the Digital Economy Bill in relation to data sharing and, crucially, with the general data protection regulation of 2016, which the Government indicated on 1 March they would be taking forward and putting on statute the necessary changes, prior to implementation, in May 2018?

I welcome very strongly the proposals for the pilot schemes. The discerning approach will be very important for getting to households that are difficult to reach, dealing with churn and ensuring that, particularly with the Glasgow and Birmingham proposition, there is a real understanding of the difficulty within inner cities. I am concerned that we do not get caught with what is otherwise a very sensible privacy change—a tightening of the regulations under the GDPR—taking into account, as the Minister indicated, that there will be a privacy impact assessment. Will he say a little more about that?

Electoral Fraud

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I am not familiar with the electoral system in Estonia. When we pilot a number of projects next year, we will be looking at various means by which the voter can identify themselves at the polling station. This might be a bus pass, a bank card or an NUS card, but in order not to exclude those who do not have those forms of identification, we are also looking at non-photographic identification. I will see that the helpful information that the noble Baroness has given us about proceedings in Estonia is fed into the options.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I wonder whether the excellent Minister will reflect on a practice which involves freepost by a political party, encouraging those who have signed a postal vote to send it back to the party’s local headquarters. Does he feel that that is totally inappropriate, as I believe it was in the 2015 general election, practised on behalf of the former Deputy Prime Minister?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Without getting involved in Sheffield politics, it is certainly inappropriate for postal votes to be handled in that way. As I said in response to an earlier question, that practice is already discouraged in guidance from the Electoral Commission. There have been recommendations that it should be banned for precisely the reason that the noble Lord explained, and the Government are deciding how best to take that forward when legislative opportunities present themselves.

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) (Amendment) Order 2017

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am inspired by those words of the noble Baroness to say that she makes an extremely good point and one that would be warmly echoed in Lincolnshire where there has been a decision not to have a directly elected mayor because it is not felt suitable in such a large county and for a largely rural area. This obsession with elected mayors is frankly ridiculous. It may be appropriate in certain urban areas, although to me it is inimical to the British tradition of local government, but that is my prejudice and I readily admit it. It frankly does not sit happily in largely rural areas. For the Government to say, “You cannot have your devolution unless you have a mayor”, is a thoroughly unreasonable ultimatum.

Shortly after Mrs May became Prime Minister, I was greatly encouraged when it was noised abroad that she is not wedded to this idea. That is one divorce which I hope she will expedite because it is not a good idea in rural areas, it should not be persisted with and I hope my noble friend, while possibly rebuking the noble Baroness and me for talking about areas which are not the subject of this order, will take the message that is coming from both sides of the House and all political parties that in rural areas this is something up with which we should not need to put.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the points just put by my noble friend Lady Hollis and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I shall address the order before us in relation to the Sheffield City Region. I obviously have no objection whatever to the order that is being laid. It makes sense in the light of the decision of Derbyshire County Council to take the judicial review. In this case, with some reluctance, the combined authority has agreed to an elected mayor and Chesterfield Borough Council wished to join the city region, as did Bassetlaw. Unfortunately North East Derbyshire District Council does not appear to have taken the same decision, even though travel to work, travel to leisure and the whole synergy of economic, social and cultural life would lead to the conclusion that it might in the future. Although I understand Derbyshire County Council’s desire not to see its bailiwick confined, my concern this morning is to seek confirmation from the Minister, who I have known for a very long time, that the Government will continue providing the necessary support, encouragement and facilitation for the combined authority to be able to get on with the job, both with those aspects that have been devolved and those which would follow through from a mayoral election for the city region in 2018.

There are two reasons for this. First, it is really important that the vision strategy that was published on 17 February this year should be carried into fruition rather than languish on a shelf. Secondly, as some of us east of the Pennines have recognised, the difficulty that the Leeds City Region has been having with progression means that the north of England, Greater Manchester and to some extent Merseyside are now taking the lead on what the Government came to pronounce as the northern powerhouse.

There was a great deal going on before the northern powerhouse was “invented”, including One North and combined activity on transport and economic development. But there is a real danger that having the north-west of England as the driving force—even though it is clearly welcome and flows from very sensible bottom-up drivers, particularly from Greater Manchester—will imbalance the north of England. Yorkshire has a population slightly greater than Scotland, yet because we do not have a devolved block grant, its investment from national government is confined. It is really important that the inevitable delay spelled out in this order should not preclude government working with the city region to ensure that the driving force of not just economic change but also social change is encouraged and supported rather than being held back by the inevitable delays spelled out in the order.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests as laid out in the register, particularly as a member of Sheffield City Council. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. He may not agree with everything I am about to say, but he may agree with some of it. First, I welcome the devolution deal to Sheffield, even though it does not go as far as it should do and particularly, as other noble Lords have said, even though it is predicated on a mayor—I wish it was not, and was based on another model, but we are where we are and we have to go forward with the deal that has been negotiated between the leaders in South Yorkshire and the Government. But I thank the Minister and the Government for keeping their confidence in this, and for keeping going and being patient despite the most frustrating of circumstances, which are destabilising the confidence of some in South Yorkshire about whether the deal will actually go ahead under the leadership that has been shown so far there.

I will remind your Lordships how we got here. There has been infighting and dithering—and, as one businessperson said to me, complete incompetence—among the local leaders back in South Yorkshire about this deal. First, we thought it was signed, sealed and delivered, but then the leader of Sheffield City Council decided either that she had not read it or had not understood it, and that there were things in it which she wished to change. That slowed down the process and caused disruption and, again, misunderstanding among South Yorkshire businesses about what was happening. We then had the botched consultation, which I shall return to, and more recently the four leaders fighting about whether they are going to be in a Yorkshire deal or a South Yorkshire deal. All this undermines business confidence in the deal going forward, and it must stop. It does not instil confidence in local business, and it shows a lack of clear local leadership to deliver the devolution deal.

The botched consultation was a basic mistake. It did not ask the people in the consultation whether Chesterfield Borough Council should be a member of Sheffield City Region. Why did Sheffield City Region, the combined authority or the four local leaders of the councils in South Yorkshire not see this basic mistake? The error, for which no one has apologised, taken responsibility or been held to account, has cost the South Yorkshire taxpayer dearly. I thank BBC Radio Sheffield for putting in a freedom of information request that has shown exactly how much taxpayers in South Yorkshire are paying for that mistake. The consultation cost just over £104,000. The legal costs to Sheffield City Region to defend Derbyshire County Council’s judicial review are £130,000. Furthermore, the taxpayers of Sheffield City Region have had to fund Derbyshire County Council’s costs of £161,000. That is over £430,000 of taxpayers’ money wasted on a consultation that has stopped, or at least stalled, the devolution deal that is about empowering our local area to deliver greater economic impact. The costs do not include the 500 hours of officer time at both Derbyshire County Council and Sheffield City Region, or the London fees. It is estimated that overall the deal will cost taxpayers £500,000.

I have three simple questions for the Minister. First, does he agree that local leaders in South Yorkshire, who have wasted £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on this botched consultation, should be held to account and apologise? Secondly, does the in/out dithering approach to this £1 billion deal not undermine confidence locally and should it not stop immediately? Thirdly, what message are the Government sending to local leaders back in South Yorkshire that this kind of dithering and incompetence must stop to get the deal over the line so that business and our local economy can move forward?

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to oppose Amendment 150. I am sure that noble Lords will listen very carefully to the arguments that have not yet been made. I should make it clear that I speak as someone who is firmly in favour of foreign students. I agree with much of what my noble friend Lord Hannay had to say, and it is hard to disagree with most of the contributions that we have heard this afternoon from people who run universities and colleges, who know students and who are absolutely clear about the benefits of foreign students. I agree with that.

However, that is not the issue. The issue is whether there is a problem here in relation to immigration—a massive issue for the public—and, if so, what should be done about it? Is it sensible, viable or feasible to make immigration policy by legislation? I rather doubt that, and if your Lordships look a little more carefully at this amendment, you will see that there are matters in it that do not square up with the reality of how the immigration system works and really go beyond legal matters in terms of trying to suggest what policies should be.

The first, most incredibly obvious, point to make—and it has not been made yet—is that any student who comes here, does his course, maybe works for a while and then goes home, does not contribute to net migration. They are counted in and they are counted out: they do not make any difference to net migration. What is more, all of our competitor countries mentioned today—Canada, the United States, and Australia—include, by the way in which they calculate their immigration figures, their students who stay on. There is no question about that. Therefore, the issue for public policy is, surely, how many do stay on illegally, not how many stay on legally. As my noble friend Lord Bilimoria mentioned, that is a matter, at the moment, of intense scrutiny by the ONS and the Home Office, and rightly so. That issue needs to be resolved. If there is a serious degree of overstaying, that has to be dealt with. If the statistics are weak, then we need to change our tune and perhaps change our policy.

It is not clear to me what, in practice, this amendment is intended to achieve; in the real world, the ONS will continue to use the international passenger survey in order to assess the flow of students in both directions—exactly the same definitions used by all of our competitors. If the amendment is intended to mean that students should be ignored, both on their arrival and on their departure, there is simply no measure whatever of whether they contribute to net migration or not. As international students from outside the EU now contribute 46,000 a year to net migration, it is a significant number. We do not know whether that is accurate, but it is a significant part of the case and needs to be considered.

Therefore, this proposed new clause will not clarify matters: it will only add to confusion over the numbers. If its only purpose is, as some noble Lords have suggested, to require the Government, when all the numbers are put together, to put into a separate paragraph those who are students, that is fine, but that is a political decision, not a matter for legislation. Whoever takes that decision is going to have to say, “Now wait a minute: what happens if we actually do that?”. I can think of one or two newspapers that might add them straight back in and then accuse the Government of fiddling the figures. That needs to be borne in mind.

Lastly, subsection (3) of the proposed new clause seeks to legislate to prevent any tightening of conditions for foreign students. Surely that is a matter for policy and not law. The House will be aware, I hope, that there are very strong pressures on our immigration system and, in particular, that there has been widespread abuse at the college level. The National Audit Office estimated that in one year, to 2010, about 50,000 students from the Indian subcontinent came here to work rather than to study. That largely explains the drop in students from India, which has been referred to once or twice. The House certainly knows that 900 bogus colleges have lost their licence to bring in foreign students. That is a massive number. This has been a scandal that has gone on for years and I very much regret that from the academic lobby, which should be powerful, accurate and on the case, hardly a word have we heard. I sometimes wonder whether some of the stuff put out by Universities UK gives a negative impression of our universities. These are the people who have been complaining and complaining for six years—of course foreign students are going to think that something is up and they are not terribly welcome.

I turn now to the university level, which I think is what most noble Lords have been talking about. We cannot preclude the possibility that there will, in future, be scams that apply to universities. Noble Lords will remember, I hope, that in 2011-12 the highly trusted sponsor licences were suspended from Glasgow Caledonian University, Teesside University and London Metropolitan University. Why? Because they had been on the fiddle. What will happen in the future if this amendment is passed and a raft of smaller, less distinguished universities than those mentioned by my noble friends start fiddling the system, one way or another? The Government’s hands will be bound by law. That cannot possibly make any sense.

In my view, these amendments do not amount to scrutiny nor to holding the Government to account. Rather, they are an attempt to make policy by legislation. I suggest to the House—and I am not in a majority tonight—that that is wrong both in practice and in principle.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be very brief. I did not intend to speak but when I hear the noble Lord, Lord Green, I understand that what he believes to be fact, others perceive to be opinion. It seems to me that we need to get this straight. We are not talking about bogus colleges in this amendment at all. The noble Lord has drawn attention to the example of 2012. I do not normally go out of my way to defend a Conservative-led Government, but that example actually demonstrated that the toughening-up of the system in higher education was working, albeit there were questions at the edges in relation to the 10% threshold. However, it also demonstrated that the system of inquiry and review was secure.

What we are talking about tonight has to be good for Britain, by common sense, morality and economy. It has to be good for Britain for a psychological reason, which I probably need to try to explain to the noble Lord, Lord Green. It is true that students who come in and go out eventually contribute to the net migration calculation. But if we have a drive to bring people to the United Kingdom, which I think virtually everyone in this House wants, then when those increased numbers come in they show up in the immigration figures as a net increase, but it is down the line that they show up as a net decrease. By driving to bring people here, you negatively affect the psychology of the way in which people perceive net migration. If higher education students are taken out of the figures, it would immediately reduce the perceived totals—the headlines to which the noble Lord referred in the tabloid newspapers for which he has written and for which, from time to time, I have written myself.

It is all about the way people perceive that the Government are failing in their net migration targets because things are included that should not be, specifically higher education students. People see the headline figure and they react to it—understandably so, because they do not have the arguments put in the way that we are debating them tonight. I am sorry to delay your Lordships’ House but when the noble Lord, Lord Green, speaks, my hackles rise and my intellect demands that I at least try to counteract his lifelong drive to reduce the number of people coming to the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend raises a very important issue, which has been well broadcast and covered in the media in the past couple of days. That is why we are carrying out an asbestos review going through all schools. We will publish it in due course, and action will have to be taken.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Q11. I was thinking of raising with the Prime Minister the Conservatives’ so-called long-term economic plan—like Pinocchio’s nose, it grows longer and less attractive by the day—but with just two Prime Minister’s questions to go, I thought that I would ask the Prime Minister whether he shared my imminent relief that neither he nor I will have to pencil in 12 noon on a Wednesday any longer.

[The Prime Minister]

May I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman, as he will shortly be leaving the House? As a new Back Bencher, I will never forget coming to this place in 2001 and, in the light of the appalling terrorist attacks that had taken place across the world, seeing the strong leadership he gave on the importance of keeping our country safe. He is a remarkable politician, a remarkable man. I remember once in the Home Affairs Committee that, even though he could not see who we all were, he knew exactly who was concentrating and who was not. I do not know how—he has this extraordinary gift—but he is an extraordinary politician. I pay tribute to him, and I know the rest of the House will join me in doing so.

House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Friday 28th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

With hindsight, how fortunate it is that we are not sitting in private to discuss these important matters, which will be of interest to the nation at large, concerning retirement or resignation from the House of Lords.

Amendment 2 would simply add a line to clause 1 to the effect that a peer may not resign until they have been a peer for a minimum of 10 years. If somebody accepts a great honour from the Crown, it seems to me that they have an obligation to live up to that honour. Circumstances might change and require a different lifestyle that makes it impossible for them to attend the House, but to enter lightly into the receipt of a peerage—that great honour bestowed by our sovereign of being a legislator in the second House of Parliament—and then to give it up after a day or two or, conceivably, even after a minute, seems improper.

People enter into a life peerage, and understand that they have done so for life, hence the name. It is amazing how often an obvious point about something is made in its title. There is no obfuscation in the title “life peer”. It is not a temporary peerage, a Parliament peerage or a dated peerage, but a life peerage. One of the glories of the House of Lords is that it represents age. It is not full of scribbling youths, but has people of mature years, of wisdom, of grey beards, and even of grey flowing locks, which shows how much they have learnt and experienced over the years.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I was here for Second Reading, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and must recommend him to the BBC as a panellist on “Just a Minute”—he would be absolutely superb. In the light of his speech on Second Reading and his contribution this morning, which clearly will be enlightening, may I ask whether he opposes any kind of reform of the House of Lords?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The return of the hereditary peerage is the sort of reform that would improve the quality of the House considerably. I do think that there are opportunities for reform but, as I said on Second Reading—I had better not go through this all again, Mr Speaker—I have concerns about this process for reforming the second Chamber. I think that reform ought to have been proposed in a Government Bill and considered in a Committee of the whole House.

Although the Bill is simple, it would fundamentally change the nature of the House of Lords. Removing the absolute certainty that a peerage is for life would allow people appointed to the House to remain there for a term. That change in structure would allow Governments that are not necessarily as benign as this one—I will talk about this further in relation to some of my other amendments—to ensure that peers are in the House for only a certain period, and possibly to get them post-dated cheques for when they might resign. I think that that reform should have been handled differently, but there are certainly reforms that could be made to the House of Lords.

Amendment 2 ties in with amendment 3. The point of amendment 3 is to insert a minimum age for retirement, whereby no peer under 65 could retire. Being a peer—a legislator in the upper House—should not be a marker in somebody’s career. It should not be a point on their CV so that when they apply for jobs in merchant banks, or wherever, they can say “I was a peer for 10 years.” People who take it on should commit to do so for an extended period, so that if a peer is raised to that rank, style and dignity at the age of 40, there will be an expectation that the major part of their future life and career will be a commitment to serve the House—this country—in the second Chamber.

These two amendments, in essence, offer the House the choice of saying that there ought to be a minimum period and that it ought to be longer than a single Parliament. Ten years obviously equates to two Parliaments under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. That gets away from the risk that people might use the House of Lords as a means of advancing their political career in relation to the Commons, a point to which we will return in a subsequent group of amendments. The amendments are about expecting people to follow through on the commitment they have given, so that when their letters patent are issued they will be doing this for life.

House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Byles]

As I said, my hon. Friend has me at a disadvantage, because I was not aware of that particular scheme.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dan Byles]

I would be grateful for some assistance.

[Mr Blunkett]

I will not hold up the hon. Gentleman. I just want to say: stick to your guns, as I believe you are right.

[Dan Byles]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I will certainly take great interest in that scheme at Committee stage and I will be happy to look closely at it, but I have been assured by those who have far greater knowledge of these matters than I do that whatever the scheme is that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is referring to, it is not a permanent method of retiring or leaving the House of Lords, because no such system exists. It may be a form of extended leave of absence; I am not sure. The Minister might receive some inspiration before he speaks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and to Members on both sides of the House, for the fact that I will not be able to be here for the whole debate due to a long-standing and immovable commitment.

I commend the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) for using his successful bid in the private Members’ Bills ballot for what he has described as, and clearly is, a modest Bill that is none the less necessary. The interventions this morning have reinforced in my mind how lucky I have been never to have been drawn high up in the ballot. The difficulty of getting anything through, no matter how limited it is, has been shown by the number of Members who have danced on the head of a pin this morning.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to stick to his guns and make this limited but necessary improvement. This could have been called a House of Lords Improvement Bill, if some people are upset by the word “reform” in the title and others are upset by any kind of move, no matter how limited, thinking that it might undermine substantial reform such as an elected House of Lords. It is strange that those who are so strongly in favour of compromise and of always being here to compromise that they want proportional representation—so that there is permanent compromise—do not want to compromise when it comes to the House of Lords. They say, “If we can’t get what we want, we don’t want anything”. That has bedevilled attempts at improvements to the House of Lords—its operation, its relationship with the House of Commons, its make-up and membership, and its reflection of society as a whole—since 1911, through the post-war changes, the 1958 debates that have been referred to today and the great combination of Michael Foot and Enoch Powell, all the way up to the magnificent efforts of the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), which seem like a lifetime ago—was it last year? Thank goodness, he was successful in stopping a constitutional outrage.

Not even those Government Members who are worried about the particulars of the Bill could view it as a constitutional outrage. It is a modest effort to be encouraged and supported. If hon. Members believe that there are too many Members of the House of Lords for the place to function properly, and there clearly are, they will back the Bill, even if it achieves only a modest improvement in that regard; if they believe that the Bill is too modest to effect any substantial change, they will not oppose it, because it is so modest that it could not possibly upset anybody. Either way, we should support the hon. Member for North Warwickshire.

It is appropriate that the Bill should have its Second Reading in the week in which the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform reported. The Committee highlighted just how much progress we could make if people on all sides were of good will, and if the hon. Gentleman’s optimism about us all being grown up were realised. I have been here 26 and a half years, and that was one of the most optimistic statements that I have heard.

When we sit down with and talk to people across the parties in this House, we find a whole range of feelings and views. Setting apart those who are absolutely dedicated to the belief that the House of Lords cannot perform an acceptable role unless its Members are voted for—even though the voting would be done on a list system, on a regional, proportional basis, so it would just affirm the party list and delude the electorate—when we come down to basics, there is consensus across the House. There is consensus on sensible reform; on building on the recommendations of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee; on whether we are able to develop the steps that are being advocated this morning; and on building on the Steel Bill of six years ago, and on Baroness Hayman’s modest proposals. There is actually consensus across the House on making sensible, logical changes.

The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee rightly identified the fact that consensus on the make-up and balance of the House of Lords is controversial and difficult, though not impossible, to achieve, but everybody accepts that if we move to more than 1,000 peers in the House of Lords, it will implode. Those who want to keep the House of Lords should be in favour of substantial, sensible, non-elected reform; those who want reform because they believe in reforming the House of Lords and its nature should be in favour of reform per se; and those who could not give a damn should leave the rest of us to try to get on and make some sense of the situation. Then we might have a House of Lords that has a new relationship with the Commons.

In future, we should not simply be debating make-up, or even the balance between parties; we should be debating how we can improve and reform this House, and then its relationship with the House of Lords as part of the broader constitutional changes taking place around us almost daily. There are the changes in the power of the Mayor of London and the Greater London authority; the change to the powers of the Assembly in Wales; the vote next September in Scotland and its aftermath—let us pray that the Scots vote to retain the Union—and our changed relationship, whatever happens, with the European Union after the referendum in 2017. All those changes, and many other major economic, social, political and cultural changes, are happening around us, but we are struggling to make any sense of the relationship between this House and the House of Lords, or of the Lords’ make-up, function, and purpose. I hope that the measures outlined by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire will enable us to do that.

I also hope that those who are concerned that the Bill does not go far enough in slimming down the House of Lords, or are more generally concerned that the House of Lords is becoming dysfunctional, will do their utmost to persuade the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister that stuffing even more people in there, on this side of the general election, is not a very sensible idea. As I said, if people believe that the House of Lords should continue, they must believe that it should continue on a functioning and acceptable basis.

[Mark Tami]

Does my right hon. Friend agree—in some ways, the Bill is an example of this fact—that we are looking for ways of tinkering, whether we are talking about election, the different types of election, or appointment, when what we should be talking about is what the House of Lords is there for?

[Mr Blunkett]

Yes, I do believe that, and I put forward a paper to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on how the House of Lords could have a different function, building on what it already achieves and is good at, if we took away, very carefully, the element of it being a legislature. That does not mean that it could not debate and put forward legislative propositions; I am talking about the constitutional role that it plays, which is what upsets people so much—people not being elected to it— even if, under the proposal of the Deputy Prime Minister, those people would not be responsible or accountable to the people who elected them, because they would never have to stand for election again; nor would they have held offices, or have had to report back to their multiple constituencies in any meaningful sense. It would be good to start with the question of what we want the House of Lords to do, and then go on to how it should be made up, and how we could make it function better.

Unfortunately, as the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, who opened this Second Reading debate, is always ready to acknowledge, the pressure on him was to minimise any suggestion of any proposition whatever. He cannot be blamed for bringing forward a Bill that moves—I was going to use the term “goalposts”, but I think that has been overdone in the past fortnight.

[Mr Nuttall]

We are talking about badgers again.

[Mr Blunkett]

I was thinking of pitches. Let me put it this way: it is a Bill that moves the sods very little at all. We should commend the Bill, ask ourselves whether we are serious in wanting reform, and put it to our respective parties that it would be quite useful to put in the manifestos commitments to finding solutions, rather than putting up propositions that we all know will meet their demise once the practicalities, sensitivities and realities are examined and voted on in this place. Then we might get commendation from the electorate for acting like grown-ups and adults, and for being prepared to move our constitution on a little bit, while the rest of world moves the constitution around us.

I give my support to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. Whatever heads of pins people may stand on, and while they might make sensible points in amendments to the Bill, it would be a great shame if so modest a measure was scuppered by people who wanted the perfect as an alternative to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the coalition agreement makes it clear that the Government, pending further reform of the House of Lords, will continue to take steps to make it reflective of the result of the general election, in terms of the representation of parties. On the measures that have been proposed, there has been a degree of concern that the provisions, for example, on the consequences of criminal convictions, are out of line in the other place with those in this place.

The Select Committee, on which my hon. Friend serves, has reflected on the leave of absence provisions and has noted that they have not been very effective in providing a mechanism for Members to retire. So the support that the Government are willing to give specifically reflects concerns that have been expressed beyond this House, but also by Committees of this House, and this is a way to facilitate the correction of those aspects, if not the wider aspects that we have debated from time to time.

[Mr Blunkett]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be good enough to reflect to the Prime Minister that it is a bit odd for a Conservative-led Government, irrespective of what is in the coalition agreement, with only 18 months to go till a general election, to allow the minor party to press a point that would undermine the stability and functioning of a Chamber that the majority party in the Government supports and wants to work. Is that not perverse?

[Greg Clark]

The creation of the coalition was based on a coalition agreement. That was discharged. The Bill was put to the House and the House took a view on it. My hon. Friend’s Bill does not relate to those matters. It relates to some specific reforms that have come from a variety of sources, endorsed by one of the Select Committees of this House, and on that basis I am happy to confirm the Government’s support for it to proceed into Committee, if that is the wish of the House.

Debate on the Address

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I hope the test will come when we vote on those measures. In the past, of course, we have heard that the Opposition will support welfare measures, then they do not; we have heard that they will support deficit reduction measures, then they do not. Every time the Opposition are tested, they fail.

The immigration Bill is a centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech. Let me be clear: this is not just—

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

rose—

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

I will give way to both right hon. Gentlemen in a minute. Let me just make one point. The Bill goes across government, because for the first time we will look to ensure that everyone’s immigration status is checked before they get access to a private rented home; for the first time, we will make sure that anyone not eligible for free health care foots the bill, either themselves or through their Government; and for the first time, foreign nationals who commit serious crimes will be deported, wherever possible, and will then have to appeal from their home country. That will be the effect of the Bill.

[Mr Blunkett]

Perhaps it would be easier for Labour to vote for the Bill if there was a verifiable way of ensuring that it could be implemented. Will the Prime Minister take a suggestion from an old hand that might square the circle between the Home Secretary and the Business Secretary on the immigration proposals and the deregulation Bill? We could go back to the idea of a verifiable identity register, and a little card, such as the one I am holding, to ensure that doctors, landlords and employers can easily and sensibly know whether someone is entitled to be in the country and draw down services.

[The Prime Minister]

At last we have had a concrete policy from the Labour party, but I am afraid to say that it is one with which I completely disagree. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but is it not extraordinary that the previous Government spent so much time and effort on a compulsory identity card that no one wanted while overseeing a massive uncontrolled rise in immigration? What we have done is to cut migration by a third and we have not introduced ID cards. That is a far better approach.