Sue Gray Report

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The Prime Minister has said that he takes full responsibility; he has repeatedly apologised and, as this Statement shows, is committed to making changes to address these issues. Hence, as I mentioned, he is going to look at changes to the way that No. 10 and the Cabinet Office are run, creating an office of the Prime Minister with a permanent secretary and a review of various codes, as discussed. He has said that he will say more in the coming days about the steps being taken to improve the No. 10 operation and the work of the Cabinet Office, to strengthen Cabinet government and to improve the connection between No. 10 and Parliament. He has certainly said that he takes these matters extremely seriously.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is that not where it has all gone wrong? This is not something that started with this Prime Minister—the way in which the role of Cabinet government has been eroded and the relationship with the Civil Service. I can remember being in government and, if Robin Butler—the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell—said “Jump”, you jumped, because there was respect for the Civil Service. Now we have got into a situation where we have special advisers—many of whom have never had a proper job—telling Secretaries of State what to do. We really need to go back to the principle that Secretaries of State are in charge of their departments, the Prime Minister is first among equals, and we have respect for the Civil Service and do not try to blame officials when things go wrong.

Covid-19

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness of course makes incredibly important points. We already know that about 60% of those in intensive care have not been vaccinated. We know that unvaccinated people are up to eight times more likely to be hospitalised. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about the importance of this, which is why we are pushing the constant message about getting boosted. She will, I hope, be pleased to know—I am not saying that this solves the problem by any stretch—that we have seen more people coming forward to have their first jabs. There was an increase of 44% in the seven days to 22 December, compared to the previous seven days, which is a move in the right direction. However, the noble Baroness is absolutely right: we need to work with social media companies and are continuing to do so to identify and remove dangerous disinformation about vaccines, and make sure that we are getting our positive messages out.

We have allocated £22.5 million to help areas with low vaccine take-up. We recruited vaccine ambassadors, who speak 33 languages between them, to promote take-up across the country. We have a community vaccine scheme to target the 60 local authorities with the lowest uptake and use local networks to promote accurate health information. So we are trying to use a range of sources in order to try and either address the disinformation or the nervousness that is preventing people from coming forward.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, should we not congratulate the Prime Minister on having made the right judgment call about the arrangements between Christmas and new year and on deciding to prevent us from having to have a PCR test on returning from abroad? I declare an interest, having been to the United States over Christmas and new year to see my grandchildren and paying an exorbitant amount in costs for testing. Is it not obvious that profiteering is going on, both in the supply of tests and in the costs that people are being asked to pay in order to be able to go abroad or continue to work? Will the Government ask the Competition and Markets Authority or some other body to look at this and end this absolute rip-off?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My noble friend is right. It is something that I know noble Lords and our colleagues in the other place have raised. Work is going on to try to take action in this area. When the omicron variant was first identified we introduced the travel restrictions to try to slow its arrival, but now that it is so prevalent these measures are having a limited impact but are obviously having a significant impact on the travel industry. I think these are welcome measures that will, I hope, be welcomed by the public. However, there are no changes for unvaccinated adults.

Tributes: Sir David Amess MP

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, as time is short, I will not say very much about David. So much has been said already. We both entered the House of Commons on the same day, along with my noble friend Lord Howard. David served for 38 years; I lasted 14 before I was asked to leave.

I am grateful for that in some ways, because I missed the cesspit that is social media. I used Twitter for about three months, but that was as much as I could stand. That is not to say that lots of negative material was directed at me, but social media is a cancer at the heart of our political system. The fact that people can write this stuff anonymously and without being accountable for it is something that needs to change.

David was an exceptional person, but there are many exceptional people at the other end of this building, as there are in this House. The role of an MP is not a job, but a vocation. At this moment, as we think of David’s family, we should think of the sacrifice they have made. There are the endless phone calls on a Sunday afternoon about drains, someone’s views or to say that “You’re not getting your message across”. Those who have been in the House of Commons will be very familiar with those. There are the distractions—the inability to go and see your children play sport and so on. It is a complete way of life and the support which David had from his family is something we should all be profoundly grateful for. That he should be robbed of the joy of retirement and the chance of seeing his children perhaps go on to produce grandchildren is a particularly savage thing to have happened to such a nice man.

I looked at Hansard for this year to see what David had been saying. He spoke on topics from endometriosis to forced adoption, from car charging points to the Maldives fishing industry, from motor neurone disease to night flying, from knife crime to Operation Yewtree, and of course the now celebrated campaigns for city status for Southend and a memorial for Vera Lynn. Both David and Vera were great patriots and supporters of our country and, to echo the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, David was also a fantastic supporter of the union of the United Kingdom.

The launch of the campaign for the statue of Vera Lynn included a song called “Irreplaceable”—how ironic. David is irreplaceable to the people of Southend; he was a one-off—I hope that will not be used by anyone in the by-election campaign. I began to think about which song would be appropriate for David. I thought of Vera Lynn’s “When You Hear Big Ben, You’re Home Again”, but then thought that, with David’s hugely energetic campaigns, it is probably “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”.

David Amess and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, worked tirelessly in support of persecuted Christians around the world. We should honour that by tackling these issues and recognising that it is in all our interests and in our nation’s interests that we support freedom of expression and freedom of religious belief. David Amess was a champion of that.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard wonderful tributes by people who knew Sir David much better than I did, but I want to put on the record very briefly some messages that I picked up from his constituents. Jill Allen-King, aged 82, has written about her guide dog. Most recently, she asked me to write a foreword for her latest book about being blind in lockdown. In that book, she talks about Sir David, and when I phoned her a couple of months ago, she described what a wonderful man he was: attending charitable dos when it would have been a lot easier not to; helping her with fundraising; and being there at the drop of a hat. That was the measure of Sir David Amess.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I remember him from 1992, because two or three days before the Sheffield rally, I went to Basildon to campaign and it was patently obvious then that we had lost. I knocked on doors, and the response was not just about whether people were going to vote for Labour: they were going to vote for David. I went back and reported to headquarters that we were shot. Unfortunately for us, we were.

I say to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, “Yes, we must not let hate succeed”. There is a “Panorama” programme on BBC television tonight, “Why do they hate me so much?” Yes, social media has whipped this up and made it more prevalent and dangerous. However, apart from those who are seriously mentally ill, to whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, referred, we have a phenomenon of hate that is about difference, intolerance and the way in which people can no longer have the dialogue that allows us to speak strongly, think emotionally and believe that our values are worth fighting for, but do so by upholding them in the spirit of democracy. So often now, the hate is about—with Sir David, it certainly was not about the individual—our system, our democracy and the world around us.

One thing that I picked up over the last few weeks about Sir David that is very close to my heart was his engagement with young people learning about politics, citizenship and democracy. If there is one thing that we can carry forward, which I hope will bring comfort to his family and close friends, it is being able to teach our young people how to do democracy, how to be understanding and how to have very strong opinions but express them in a way that is respectful to others as well as to themselves. If that comes out of this and people can have a dialogue across the country about how we could make that work better, Sir David’s life —wonderful as it has been—will also be remembered for making another contribution, like that of Jo Cox, to changing the way in which we do our politics.

Health and Social Care

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Lord will be well aware that historically there has been very low demand for social care insurance products and insurers have actually withdrawn products from the market. We believe that there will now be certainty about costs faced by individuals. We hope that more financial products will come on to the market to enable individuals to plan for their future care needs. We intend to work with the financial services industry to innovate and help people insure themselves against expenditure up to the limits.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, of course everyone welcomes the extra money for the health service. The last big additional sum given to the health service was some £20 billion, which is more than the entire spending on social care. Social care is in immediate crisis; it needs the money now. There are 1.5 million people not getting the care they need and care has been rationed by local authorities that have not got the costs. How will the Government cope with this? The importance of having a settlement for local government to deal with that is there. How do the Government expect this money to get to social care in three years’ time, given what we know will be the pressures on the National Health Service? How will that money be ring-fenced? If it is not, the most vulnerable people in our country—that includes half the budget going to people of working age—will suffer.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I can certainly reassure my noble friend that the levy will be specifically ring-fenced for health and social care. As I said, HMRC will send funds to the health bodies in all four nations of the UK and by 2023 to social care funding bodies such as MHCLG, which will deliver through local authorities. In the up-and-coming three years, £5.4 billion will be provided to support social care.

Afghanistan

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with that last point from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It is very hard to overestimate the scale of the catastrophe following the Biden Administration’s disastrous implementation of the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The report of your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Select Committee, The UK and Afghanistan, which was published as recently as January, has sadly proved prescient. It is disappointing, to say the least, that so many of its recommendations fell on stony ground. The committee, under the outstanding chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Anelay, warned:

“The UK’s interests in Afghanistan are not unique and distinct: they are bound up with those of its allies, led by the US. The UK has had limited opportunities, and has shown little inclination, to exert an independent voice and, along with other NATO Allies, has followed the US’s lead. This is regrettable, not least in view of the UK’s very substantial commitment to Afghanistan, both financially and militarily.”


It went on:

“There is a real risk that the principal national security challenges still posed by Afghanistan, namely terrorism, narcotics and regional instability, could worsen, and the gains made since 2001 could be lost.”


It was utterly disingenuous for President Biden to present the Afghans as unwilling to fight for their country, after having withdrawn vital US support services without an agreed ceasefire, precipitating the collapse of the Afghan state. The US allies, including the Afghan Government, were bypassed in Doha by President Trump, who signed a withdrawal, not a peace, agreement. Twenty years of sacrifice were abandoned for bumper-sticker politics, with no effective plan to protect those who had put their trust in the United States. Again, the Select Committee of this House warned:

“The ongoing presence of UK troops in Afghanistan depends on the deployment decisions of the US. We were disappointed by the … analysis of the implications of the planned US withdrawal from Afghanistan provided by ministers”.


On 12 October 2006, at Oral Questions, I asked the then Defence Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Drayson:

“has the Minister read the history of foreign intervention in Afghanistan, and why does he think that history will not repeat itself on this occasion?”

In his reply, he said:

“I have studied Afghanistan’s history and think the important point is that the Soviet campaign and the campaigns of the British Empire were absolutely different in nature from what we are undertaking. We, with our coalition partners, are supporting the development of a democracy in Afghanistan, with the complete support of the people of Afghanistan as expressed in their democratic elections. That is completely different.” —[Official Report, 12/10/06; col. 359.]

Listening to President Biden, it was apparently not about that at all. History is repeating itself, and exacting a terrible price in human misery and insecurity.

House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham, and I agree with much of what he says. I associate myself with the thanks so many people have already expressed to the staff who have made this remote Parliament possible. I also agree with the right reverend Prelate about the importance of being here in person.

I also congratulate the commission which has, in advance of this debate, anticipated what we were going to say by relaxing the rules today. I make that point partly as a criticism, because I would have thought it would be better to wait for the debate before deciding what relaxation should be considered—but then I am old-fashioned; I have this idea that we are a self-regulating Chamber.

Let us face it: the experience of this virtual Parliament has not made this House look particularly good in the eyes of the outside world. We have been subject to a degree of mockery. The clue really is in the name: Parliament—“parley”. It is about being able to parley and engage with each other, and remote operations have certainly not enabled us to do so. If this House thinks that the other Chamber can relax its rules and go back to normal and that we should do nothing, it is on the way to extinction, in my view. I will not repeat the points made by my noble friend Lord Howe in opening this debate, but I will say that, probably for the first time, I agree with every word that has come from the Front Bench today—except, perhaps, the last sentence, where my noble friend suggested that it was for the commission to come forward with its views. It is for this House to come forward with its views.

I think we should have a care for the Government, who have the duty to carry forward the legislative programme. My noble friend Lord Howe mentioned the sudden increase in the number of Divisions. I am a believer in markets and, therefore, I am not surprised that we have seen a large increase in the number of people participating in voting and in the proceedings of our House when the incentives are such—but perhaps I am rather cynical.

For those who say, “Well, actually, we have to make allowances for people who cannot come to this House”, I will give one little anecdote. In her latter years, when she was very frail, the late Baroness Thatcher would ring my office—I worked for JP Morgan at the time—to say, “I am thinking of going into the House this afternoon; would you come along and support me?” So I would cancel all my meetings and go. This was happening quite frequently, so I said, “You know, Margaret, you have been Prime Minister. You have saved our country—you don’t need to come as often as you do”—at which point there was an explosion. She said, “Michael, when we were appointed to this House, it was our duty to turn up and participate in these proceedings. And, by the way, how often do you come when I am not coming?” I think that is an important point: we do have a duty to participate, and if we feel that we are not able to do so, or do not want to do so, we should make way for those people who are.

In introducing this debate, my noble friend talked about the temporary nature of the changes made—and they were temporary. However, listening to some of the speakers opposite, I am beginning to think that they are about as temporary as the introduction of income tax. They were temporary because there was an emergency, so the starting point should be that we return to normal. Yes, if we want to make changes, fine—but let us not delude ourselves that what we had before worked perfectly well.

On the issue of committees, I chair the Economic Affairs Committee. In our current inquiry on quantitative easing, we have been able to talk to and have as witnesses central bankers from all over the world and some very distinguished people—who, incidentally, seem to be flattered to be asked to give evidence to our House. That is great, but we could always do that; we could always have witnesses remotely. Of course, we also have the committees sitting virtually. I do not know whether it works well for members of the committee. It is great if you are chairman, because you are in complete control—but you have no interaction. People can put their hands up, but you do not have the same degree of interaction. So I say to those who argue that we should continue our committees in this way that I think we would lose a very great deal.

Of course, we need to think about the staff, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, pointed out. I believe that the operation of Parliament is central to the future of our country. Therefore, those people who support us in carrying out our work, and those people in the other place, are essential workers. Why do we not have the courage to stand up and ensure that all of them are able to get vaccines if they wish to do so? That would completely change things. The answer is that we are afraid of the tabloids. Well, let us just take it on the chin from the tabloids, because many of them are no friends of this place.

On the issue of holding Ministers to account, what they say from that Dispatch Box is important. If a Minister says that travelling is dangerous, it affects hundreds of thousands of people throughout our country. We should be able to challenge those statements, and we are unable to do so. It is central to our entire purpose and, if we fail to do that, I am afraid that we will disappear.

Finally, on the impact of this virtual Parliament, we have people reading speeches to a computer screen, unable to interact. Reading speeches actually used to be banned—in the old days, people would start saying, “Reading!” We lose that interaction between us.

So I want us to go back to where we were. If people want to propose changes for improvement as a result of this experience, let them do so. But let us not delay making this Chamber—this Parliament—effective, because that is what the people of this country expect.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I have always felt immensely privileged to be a Member of this House and able to speak in it, but today I feel a real sense of privilege in being able to say something about a man whom I have long admired and respected and to have the opportunity, in common with everyone else here, to pass on my condolences to Her Majesty the Queen and the other members of the Royal Family. I was thinking what on earth I was going to say that would be new and not said many times already; I confess that I will fail utterly in not repeating some of the sentiments that have been expressed, but I make no apology for that.

I will say something about the Duke of Edinburgh’s love for Scotland—the clue lies in the name and title. All of us are very much aware of his love for Balmoral and the outdoors. Much has been said about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, but I believe that Prince Philip’s early experience as a founding pupil at Gordonstoun—which some ignorant people present as a school where people have cold showers and run around in bare feet; it is rather more than that—was fundamental in shaping his character. That character is the reason all of us are so impressed by his achievements today.

I listened to the service from Westminster Abbey and the dean’s preaching on Sunday. He had it absolutely to a tee; he talked about the importance of the Prince’s character and how his faith gave him strength in his attitude towards life and public service. The motto of Gordonstoun School is “Plus est en vous”—noble Lords will excuse my pronunciation—or “There is more in you”. It could almost be a template for the Duke’s whole approach to life itself. It was certainly a template for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award; Gordonstoun had a thing called the Moray Badge, which members of the school could compete for, as well as people from outside in the community. It taught them the importance of volunteering, of service, of adventure and of taking on that challenge which is more than you believe you can do. The great benefit of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award was not that you learned how to put up a tent or work a Primus stove, but that it gave you confidence in yourself and raised your expectations of what could be achievable. So many millions of youngsters, as we have heard, have benefited from that. I am extremely grateful to Members of this House such as my noble friend Lord Kirkham who have played such a part in making the scheme so widely available around the world.

In recent days, all of us have learned a huge amount about the Duke of Edinburgh and his activities. I pay tribute to the BBC. I pay tribute to the BBC—I say it twice because it is not usual for me to do so, but it has done a fantastic job. My only slight niggle is that it would have been quite good if it had published and publicised some of these things while he was still alive and given him credit for them. Of course, he occasionally said things that upset people; to me he was the antidote to the celebrity culture—the me, how-great-I-am culture. He just got on with the job in hand and moved on to the next thing.

The happiest day of my ministerial career was when I was Secretary of State for Scotland; the Queen accepted an invitation to come and open the new hospital in Oban, which had been much promised and longed for. She came into the bay with the Duke on “Britannia” on a beautiful, sunny day without a cloud in the sky—which is usual for Oban—and as they disembarked I thought how proud I was to be British, what a fantastic day it was and how marvellous would be the ensuing publicity in the Scottish press. The Duke wandered off to talk to some people and made one of his jokes. To my horror, the headlines were about the Duke of Edinburgh’s gaffe. A journalist had taken away an out-of-context joke. I thought, “What must it be like to be the Duke of Edinburgh, carrying out these public services every day and getting no credit for it?” I now know the answer, as a result of the coverage we have heard in recent days—he did not really care. He just wanted to do the right thing and get on with the job.

What can you say about the Duke of Edinburgh? He was a man of faith. He left his country in an orange box and has got all of us here today paying tribute to the immense contribution he has made to our country. He sought no acclamation and no credit; you can see that in the arrangements he left for his funeral and the rest. He embraced change while still valuing the past. However, surely his biggest legacy will be the devotion which he has shown to Her Majesty the Queen, enabling her to serve our country as no previous monarch has been able to do, with such distinction.

How can I sum up his legacy to us, I thought, in two or three words? I decided on this: weren’t we lucky.

House of Lords: Appointments

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, regrettably I cannot do that as I do not have the privilege of being a member of your Lordships’ Appointments Commission, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Bew. I will write to the noble Baroness, having consulted him.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, in view of the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on reviewing the criteria for appointments to the House, could we carry out such a review to establish why, given the Liberals’ performance at two general elections, we have ended up with more than 100 Liberal Peers?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I would think the Liberal Democrats’ adherence to the principle of proportional representation should raise various questions in their minds on that issue.

House of Lords: Future Location

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend think that when people in so many constituencies in the north lent their votes to the Conservative Party they were longing for more politicians to be sent to them? Or does he think that they wanted a Government who would concentrate on the things that actually matter, such as health, social care and infrastructure? Should the special advisers in No. 10 not turn their attention to those matters?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. There may be other and possibly more substantial ways to bring jobs and investment to the north of England than relocating the House of Lords.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I think the noble and learned Lord will find that, at the time, we proposed several amendments to the Bill that the noble and learned Lord rejected. Even in my wildest dreams, I did not suggest that it would be strong and stable government. I think the contradiction is that, at the time that the noble and learned Lord was taking the legislation through, he said that it would stop the politicisation of elections—nobody would call an election for political advantage. What do we think is happening at the moment?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Will the noble Baroness give way?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I will, because I think the noble Lord recognises the comment I made earlier in my speech.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I need to confess that I was the Member that the noble Baroness referred to, and I was right about Boris Johnson—he is a winner, as she is about to discover. She is making a very devastating criticism of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, so can we assume that in the Labour Party’s manifesto there will be a commitment to repeal it at the earliest opportunity?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

The noble Lord tempts me, and I have to say I would argue that case. Whether my party would fully accept everything I want in the manifesto is another matter, but I would certainly argue for it, because what is happening at the moment is that every time the Fixed-term Parliaments Act becomes inconvenient, the Government and their supporters could bring forward a Bill such as this in order to do away with it. Already, the Act has become nonsense.

During the Queen’s Speech debate, I joked that the first Bill in the Government’s programme would be a “Fixed-term Parliaments (Repeal) Bill”. I thought I was being clever—I have to say that my grandmother would have said I was being “too clever by half”. It was a joke, but I think it would have been a lot more honourable and honest to bring forward that kind of legislation. Perhaps the noble Lord and I could have a conversation afterwards, because if he wants to bring a Private Member’s Bill, I think it would find a fair amount of support in the House.

In that speech, I also joked about not having had a Queen’s Speech or Prorogation for more than two years, and then expecting two or even three in quick succession. I really was only joking, but some might now suspect I have a crystal ball in my office. The programme for government that we heard less than three weeks ago was, as we said at the time, a test run for the Conservative Party election manifesto rather than a serious programme for the coming year, but even we did not imagine that the election would be quite so blatantly soon. I have to say that the Tory Party’s enthusiasm for a general election every time it changes leader is proving to be rather expensive for the taxpayer. With a general election, a new Parliament and yet another Queen’s Speech all within a matter a months, perhaps the normally Conservative-supporting TaxPayers’ Alliance, with its diligent examination of public spending, will be sending an invoice to the Tory Party for the October event. If not, I might just be tempted to do so myself.

So much seems to have changed since 19 October. As we sat on a Saturday to consider the Government’s Brexit deal, I reflected that time and patience was running out for everybody: the public, the politicians and the EU. A situation without resolution was unacceptable to everybody. The bungling of Brexit has fractured our nation and divided friends, families and our politics. If MPs were unable to reach a conclusion on the slightly revamped but inferior deal, I conceded that the way forward would have to be to ask the public to consider the issue. The stalemate in Parliament has made me think again about a confirmatory referendum. A bit like in The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes,

“when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.

As I said then, if this was the best Brexit, one that a Brexit-supporting Prime Minister said was “a great deal”, then we should all have the confidence to ask the public if they agree. At the time, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, speaking for his party, agreed with me. He said—and I am sure that he will not mind me quoting him—that his party was,

“absolutely sure that an early general election would deliver it many more seats. The same cannot be said for the Conservatives or Labour”—

we will see about that—

“yet we do not believe it is in the national interest to have one”.—[Official Report, 19/10/19; col. 289.]

As my hero, Harold Wilson, would have said: “A week is a long time in politics”.

I said that my party will not stand in the way of this election: our doubts have been only about the timing, rather than the event itself, which we have been calling for and planning for for so long. I was sorry that our amendment in the other place for an earlier date was rejected. I wonder how tolerant a politics-weary electorate will be about interrupting their Christmas preparations to consider party manifestos. I hope that no party will be tempted to dress their leader in Santa costumes.

Let us be clear, first, that a general election is not just about Boris Johnson’s pledge to “do or die” or “Get Brexit done”. Those soundbites are about as meaningless as Theresa May’s “Brexit means Brexit”. A referendum would have been about the single issue of Brexit, but a general election is about so much more. It is about a vision for the direction of this country, and the Conservative Party will have to stand on its record. By contrast, we have an offer that will make a real difference for the people of this country in health, education, the environment, with a new generation of affordable homes and renters’ rights, free personal care for our loved ones who are most in need and a genuine transformative vision to support our economy and workers in creating the green future that we need. Inevitably, it will also be about the damage that a Johnson Brexit or a crash-out Brexit would do to our country.

Secondly, I make a plea for decency and integrity in campaigning. To hear a Conservative MP say that the country needs an election to “drain the swamp”, and other such inflammatory and disgraceful comments, is both sickening and dangerous. A general election based on the denigration of MPs from any party or all parties, who have been charged with the most difficult decisions and negotiations for a generation, would further undermine any public confidence in our politics. We expect our candidates and leaders to behave with the dignity that office demands, and we must pledge to do all we can to uphold that. If this election is truly to resolve the divisions largely caused by the bungling of Brexit, all parties must seek to heal as well as to win.