House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Stephen
The noble Lord is well aware of the circumstances, which directly involved the attitude of the Conservative Party to these matters.
The House of Commons has clearly spoken on these issues and has consistently voted for democracy, in 2003, 2007 and 2012. Noble Lords who shake their heads should reflect seriously on the position of the other place and the fact that it has consistently backed democratic reform of this Chamber. Surely 2015 should not be the time to think about this for even longer through another commission.
I want to challenge one of the central assumptions of the report, that embarking on this wide consultation and engagement will lead to a consensus. On this issue, a wide consultation does not inexorably lead to a consensus; this is a matter on which some people’s views are intransigent. The preface to the report says that the majority of the authors think that a majority of their group believes that,
“election would lead inexorably to the Lords challenging the primacy of the Commons”.
That has not historically been the Labour Party view on this issue, as has been described, but wide consultation and engagement will not stop anyone who insists on that point. It also ignores the fact that elected Chambers work alongside each other in many other Parliaments, and that the 2012 Bill had specific mechanisms built into it—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord will give way on that point. He is really rather glossing over some of the difficulties of the 2012 Bill relating to the respective powers of the two Chambers. Surely in those Parliaments where there are two elected Chambers—
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I will let the noble Lord continue, but I remind the House that noble Lords who have signed up for this all have an opportunity to put their case. They should therefore be chary of eating into the time of other people.
Baroness Northover
Noble Lords will have their time. I will let the noble Lord continue his point, but I point out that noble Lords will have their opportunities later on to make the case that they wish to make and that they should be chary of eating into other people’s time.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, with the greatest respect, it is not in the noble Baroness’s gift to either let me intervene or not. The noble Lord is clearly well able to debate and wants to do so. The only point that I want to put to him is this: in those places where there are two elected Chambers, there tends to be a written constitution. Is that not really at heart the problem—that no one has yet resolved the balance of power between the two elected Chambers in the UK?
Lord Stephen
We can always make it too difficult, tough and complex to deliver change. I would be delighted to see a written constitution as well. As I have just pointed out, though, those commitments running back over not just one decade but two from the Labour Party were to radical reform and democratic change, but during its time in office that has never been delivered. It is our system that, I emphasise again, is the exception, not the rule, and the rule should be a democratic one.
If noble Lords will give me just a little leeway, I will finish very quickly. The fact is that some people do not wish to be persuaded of the case for real reform. While that is the case, there will be no real reform and no consensus unless the political parties take a different approach. What can be achieved will be achieved if those manifesto commitments for change are delivered by one majority party or, as I would prefer on an issue of this importance, by cross-party majorities, which I believe exist in both Houses of this Parliament and can deliver democratic reform. After the next general election, that is what can and should be delivered.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am very interested in what the noble Lord said about the group of Lib Dem Peers. I am constantly puzzled by why the Deputy Prime Minister refused to engage on the issue of powers. Can the noble Lord throw any light on that?
Lord Dykes
My natural sense of modesty, and because it is above my pay grade, prevents me from trying even to give a putative answer to that matter. It was just the way in which things are rushed into with badly drafted, inadequate and mediocre legislation in the House of Commons. More and more is churned out which has to be repaired two or three years later by another set of Bills to rectify the mistakes. That was in the early days of the Deputy Prime Minister being in the House of Commons for one term.
Lord Rennard (LD Ind)
My Lords, when future assessments are made of this Parliament, I suspect that the biggest disappointment for many—but certainly not all—Liberal Democrats will be our failure to achieve substantial reform of this House. For over 100 years, Liberals have fought to complete a reform that was begun with the Parliament Act 1911 to move this place from depending upon the hereditary principle to resting upon the popular principle.
Only in this House could 100 years be too short a period to consider properly making such a change. I suspect, however, that our failure to achieve House of Lords reform will not be such a concern to the wider electorate. The failure of the House of Lords Reform Bill came as a relief to many Members of this House. Nevertheless, among most Members there is at least widespread agreement, as this debate has shown, that the size of the House is now too large.
Failure to achieve reform means that there also remains significant concern about the powers of patronage exercised by the major party leaders to put their loyal friends and supporters into Parliament. This power of patronage may make the numerical problem even greater in the near future. We could perhaps be heading for a series of Parliaments in which power changes regularly, and each new Prime Minister will wish to add to his or her ranks in the House of Lords to reward their followers, sustain support in their party and assist the swift passage of new legislation.
In the latter part of the 20th century, the Conservative and Labour parties both won large majorities in the House of Commons, which took long periods to ebb away. In the 30 years between 1979 and 2009, we had had only three Prime Ministers. However, in the next 30 years we may have many more than three Prime Ministers, and with each new occupant of 10 Downing Street might come new waves of appointments to this place. The House of Lords could become simply incredible because of its increased size, and much less respectable in public perception than it is today.
Something therefore needs to be done, and it needs to happen soon. I do not think that a lengthy commission is required to work out what should happen; we already have too many dust-gathering reports on this subject. Most of these reports have come to some broad conclusions: that the number of Peers must be contained and eventually reduced; that elections should take place for at least some of the future places in the House of Lords; and that any elections should at any one time elect no more than a third of the Members of the House. Most recent reports have also suggested that Members should serve a single long, non-renewable term, thereby preserving the independence of the House and the primary accountability to the electorate of the House of Commons.
The Government presented Parliament with a Bill that would have done all these things two years ago while retaining a strong contingent of Cross-Bench Peers. Despite strong support in all three parties and an overwhelming majority at Second Reading in the House of Commons, that Bill could not make progress. As it became clear that the idea of more democracy was too much of a threat for some to let a Bill such as that progress, I came to the conclusion that any plan for reform must be rather more pragmatic while retaining a clear aim and purpose.
I would hope that the parties could agree in advance of 2015 that there should be no new lists of politically appointed Peers beyond the Dissolution Honours List.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I have no knowledge of the current list. My proposal was simply that there should be an agreement that there should be no more lists of that nature beyond the Dissolution Honours List in 2015. In the mean time, we should pledge to stop the absurd practice of the hereditary by-elections. The idea of “topping up” to keep their number at 92 is simply ridiculous. The hereditary presence in the House should therefore be ended for all but some of the most active hereditary Peers.
We should let voters elect 120 Members of the House early in the next Parliament. Such an election could coincide with the devolved elections in 2016, including in Scotland if it remains a part of the United Kingdom. Such an election could be held rapidly, as indeed Members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were elected shortly after the 1997 general election. Each of these Members should be elected for a single, non-renewable term of 15 years. At the same time, the number of appointments made through the Appointments Commission should be limited to 30 over the course of a five-year Parliament. That is probably enough for one Parliament. Those in both Houses who prophesied that the sky would fall in if we elect a number of Members of this House, rather than have them appointed by party leaders, will see if their prophecies prove true.
If they do not, it will be after 2020 before Parliament has to think again and consider whether to elect, say, another tranche of 120 Members in that Parliament, or whether to return to a system of patronage. In the mean time, we would be joined by elected Members who would contribute to the work of the House. Such a number could not and would not fundamentally change the character of the House as a revising “think again” Chamber. If the sky has not fallen in by 2020, the parties could agree again not to make any patronage appointments, and a further set of elections for, say, 120 Members could happen soon after the 2020 general election. At this point, the number of life Peers—by a process that it is quite hard to find appropriate and polite words to describe—will have reduced significantly.
The use of proportional representation in the elections will ensure the continuation of a healthy balance of opinion in the House, in which no single party has a majority. Those of us who believe that elections to this House can happen without a fundamental upset to the balance between the two Houses will have a chance to prove our point before further stages of election are considered, and everybody will be able to examine the evidence of such an arrangement working over time.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I, too, start by congratulating my noble friends Baroness Taylor and Lord Grenfell on their co-chairmanship of the group, and indeed all members of the group, on their work. I should inform the House that I, too, was a member of the group, although I was nominated by the leader of my party. I am not altogether confident, if I were to put my name forward for election that my colleagues would have elected me, given my views on Lords reform. None the less, it was a great privilege to serve on the group and I think we have had a very good debate indeed. It may not be the last word on Lords reform, but it seems to me to set some sensible proposals on which we could make progress. I hope the Minister will be positive in responding. In fact, I hope he might invite my noble friend Lady Royall and the Convenor of the Cross Benches for a cross-party discussion on how we might take forward some of these proposals.
A number of noble Lords have said that many decent proposals have been put forward and, essentially, the Government of the day have rejected them because they have said substantive reform is round the corner and other proposals would get in the way of it. I am guilty of that as much as anyone. Like my noble friend Lord Whitty, when I was appointed in 1997 I remember telling my wife that I would be here for only three years because by then we would have had a substantive reform Bill. Here we are, many years later. Who, hand on heart, can say that substantive reform will be with us any time soon? In view of that, the argument for incremental reform becomes much more persuasive. I was grateful for the contribution made by my noble friend Lord Richard on that particular matter.
My own party is committed to democratic reform, but we also want to see progress in dealing with the issue of the ever increasing size of the House. I have no doubt that my colleagues’ report can enable us to make a great deal of progress. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, with some late support from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was a lonely champion of the 2012 Bill, in his fascinating tour round Labour Party manifestos. The problem with the 2012 Bill was that it simply did not deal with the big issue of the function and powers of this House if there were to be two elected Chambers. I have consistently voted in favour of Lords reform, but I do not think it can happen without explicit agreement about the respective powers of the two Chambers and how disputes are dealt with between two elected bodies in one Parliament. Those who have argued that that can be done say that the Lords will carry on as it currently does, but we do not use all our powers because we are not elected. If we have an elected House, it is bound to use those powers up to the limit. There you reach the problem.
I do not buy the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for that reason. He accepts it may not be possible to go all the way, so he would add 120 elected Members to what we currently have. The problem with that is, the moment elected Members are added to this House, the dynamic changes. My noble friend Lord Rooker is right: there is no getting away from the fact that those who want substantive reform—I count myself among them—have to be very explicit about powers and functions.
It is good that there is general consensus about the size of the House. Not everyone agrees we should come down to 450; in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made points about that. However, it seems to me that there is a general consensus that we need to reduce the size of the House over time. This is where I should like to ask the Minister whether the Government are seriously proposing to make another long list of appointments. I can hardly believe that they will do so but I ask him to confirm, with a yes or no, whether that is the Government’s intention. Also, does he accept Meg Russell’s analysis that adopting the coalition’s formula of making the membership of this House dependent on the votes cast at the previous general election will lead to an existential increase in the size of this House and to it being completely unmanageable? My noble friend Lord Lipsey pointed out some of the consequences of what we have now.
I also challenge whether this House should be a mirror image of the House of Commons. That is essentially what would happen if you had a formula basing membership on votes cast at the last election.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord may not have noticed that the House of Commons is not entirely composed on a proportional basis because of our current electoral system. Therefore, the House of Lords would not entirely duplicate the House of Commons.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
None the less, both Chambers would be elected based on the votes cast at the same election. I think that that would be a pretty odd formula on which to base two separate legislatures, and the more you examine it, the less it stands up.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Does what the Minister has just said imply that he is about to accept the request from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, for a large number of UKIP Peers?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
That would be the inevitable consequence of having a half-baked formula for deciding the size of your Lordships’ House. The Government might resist the UKIP argument for one term, but I doubt whether they could resist it long term. They have a coalition agreement and it is pretty explicit in saying what the membership of this House should depend upon.
There is one other factor that we also need to consider and it is probably one of the most important—that is, the role of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, generously recognised that we cannot be a revising Chamber unless the Government not only fear defeat but are actually defeated. However, there is a great risk that if the Government continue to appoint many more of their own Members, those defeats will become more difficult. We know that at the moment the Government have lost about 18% of the votes in this Parliament compared with 33% during the period from 1997 to 2010. This is a serious issue. The House must feel that it has the ability to defeat the Government in order to make sure that the kinds of compromises that existed when the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was a Minister take place. I have certainly noticed in opposition that Ministers are much less ready to talk to the Opposition and to compromise. That is because the debate is between themselves and their coalition partners to the exclusion of the Opposition and other Members of the House. We have to consider that.
On the question of retirement at 80, not all noble Lords are in favour of that and some think that we should have an election among the party groups. However, being an observer of the hereditary elections, I am not entirely convinced that that is something that we ought to follow. My noble friend Lord Gordon said, in essence, that it is the least worst option, and I think that that is the best way to describe it.
There is, I think, general agreement on people having to commit themselves to the work of this House. I understand what my noble friend Lady Bakewell said—that some people with busy careers could not commit themselves in that way—but I think it is right to expect people in a legislature to devote their time to it.
There is a lot of agreement about secondary legislation. The irony is that we have an absolute veto on secondary legislation but we hesitate to use it because we are not elected. Giving ourselves a delaying power—I think that we need to pick up the issue of amendments—would give the House far greater scrutiny powers in relation to secondary legislation. Of course, when the Parliament Act was passed in 1911, secondary legislation was perhaps not as frequent as it is now, and that is the big difference in parliamentary scrutiny and accountability.
On the question of the Bishops, one treads carefully. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I think that it is inevitably entwined with the establishment of the Church of England, the position of Her Majesty the Queen as Supreme Governor and the fact that many legislative measures that come from the church have to be approved by Parliament. I suspect that until the Church of England itself wishes to be disestablished, which I do not think can be ruled out in the long term, Bishops will continue to play a valuable role in your Lordships’ House, and we should certainly extend membership to other religions. However, this is a cul-de-sac down which I would not particularly wish to go.
There is some support for reviewing the role of the Speaker, particularly at Oral Questions. Having spent two years trying to assist the House at Question Time, I detect an emerging consensus that the Speaker’s role might be extended in that way.
My noble friend Lord Maxton made a very important point about what might be discussed in a convention. Not all noble Lords are in favour of such a proposal, but we cannot consider Lords reform in isolation from the many other pressing issues that we face in relation to the constitution, not least, as my noble friend said, in today’s era of new technologies, and also, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said, in view of young people’s disengagement from politics. My noble friend Lord Maxton wants to move out of this Chamber. I can only tell noble Lords that a warm welcome awaits them in the beautiful city of Birmingham.
On the Appointments Commission, I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, concerning what he described as a quango making appointments to a legislature of the UK Parliament. On the other hand, when it comes to political appointments, there is a case for some external scrutiny. However, I certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about protecting the independence of the Appointments Commission.
The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, raised the interesting issue of hereditary Peers and referred to the agreement of 1999, from which he quoted. I was the government Whip on the Bill at the time and I remember it well. That was of course 15 years ago and we have had three general elections since then. I say to the noble Earl that stage two of the reform has never been defined. At least in relation to the by-elections, I certainly sense that there is a consensus for those to come to an end.
In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. From all sides of the House they have been generous about the work of the working group and that is very much appreciated from this side. I hope that the Minister will be able at the very least to say that the Government are prepared to consider these issues and that they will invite my noble friend who is sitting on the Bench beside me and the Convenor of the Cross Benches to a meeting to see whether we can agree to take these measures further.
Courtesy Titles
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that is taken care of within the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. I understand that exceptions have been made for this in that Act and in the earlier Marriage Act. The coalition Government and, I am sure, all parties are much concerned about the weakness of social mobility in Britain. I am not sure that we should spend too much time concerning ourselves with the subtle finesse of social stratification.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, that was a truly Conservative answer. The noble Lord has spent far too long on that Bench. My question is entirely relevant to the question of courtesy titles. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are intending to introduce yet another list of new Peers to your Lordships’ House? Can the noble Lord reassure me that that is not the case?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am not informed on the subject so I can neither assure nor reassure the noble Lord. I have asked some female colleagues in this House how much their husbands care about not having a title and a number of them have told me robustly that their husbands not only do not care but positively do not wish to have them. I am aware that a number of wives of Members of this House do not use their courtesy titles either.
Electoral Fraud
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am informed that, in practice, almost all electoral registration officers are already checking 100% of postal votes, although they are currently required by law to check only 20%.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, coming back to the point raised by my noble friend and the issue of potential impersonation at polling stations, does the Minister recognise that in some places, particularly Birmingham, there are instances in which large crowds of men gather outside schools and intimidate some voters to prevent their going into vote? Does the noble Lord agree that that is what attention should be focused on and that the police need to be advised that they should take action when it occurs?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I do a lot of my politics in Bradford, as the noble Lord knows, and I am well aware of the differences between the local problems we have with the voting system. One of the reasons that the new regulations allow for police community support officers to be present in polling stations is precisely to deal with that sort of occasional outbreak of intimidation. There is, as we all know, a problem of registration fraud—ghost voters being put on the register—but, again, it is localised. As I am sure all noble Lords know, this is much more of a problem for local elections than for parliamentary elections.
Health: Birth Defects
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted again to applaud my noble friend for raising this matter and I hope that we can look forward to a positive response from the Minister. My noble friend Lord Turnberg explained the science and it is clear that there is very credible support for my noble friend’s position. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition’s 2006 report recommended mandatory fortification of flour to the Government. That was endorsed in 2007 by the Food Standards Agency board. More recently we have all, I think, had a briefing from the British Medical Association which also supports folic acid fortification of flour. I thought that the BMA was very much to the point when it argued that the current guidance to women to take folic acid supplements has a number of limitations. As the noble Countess, Lady Mar, said it does not take account of unplanned pregnancies and, given that almost half of all pregnancies in the UK are unplanned, it is clearly an inadequate response. It is also a fact that poor compliance with the advice to take supplements means that women planning a pregnancy only marginally increase their compliance with folic acid supplement use. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, made some very powerful points about this and about the very hard decisions parents subsequently have to make.
Noble Lords have already dealt very effectively with the concerns that have been raised about the links between folic acid and cancer. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, which advises the Food Standards Agency, said that the evidence in relation to bowel cancer was insubstantial and that any increase in cases could be down to improved screening. It recommended that those deemed to be at greater risk of colon cancer should receive precautionary advice on taking extra supplements containing folic acid and that the situation should be monitored. The Chief Medical Officer then requested further investigation by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition into the potential link between folic acid and colorectal cancer. The committee upheld its previous recommendation, with an amended recommendation to clarify the advice on supplement use for particular population groups.
We roll forward to January 2013, when the noble Earl, Lord Howe, told the House:
“Additional advice on folic acid and cancer risk was requested by the then Chief Medical Officer and provided by SACN in 2009. The papers underpinning the advice from SACN have not yet all been peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal. Ministers need to very carefully consider this complicated issue and would like to see all information in the public domain before making any decision”.—[Official Report, 8/1/13; col. WA 44.]
I am a great admirer of the Department of Health, having enjoyed many happy years there, but I recognise long-grass briefing when I see it and that is the kiss of death. I hope that the Minister, if she cannot say that the Government are going to go down this route, will at least give a timetable for when the Government will make a definitive decision, or must we wait, month after month, for every single paper to be peer-reviewed? I think that that would be a great pity.
In conclusion, I shall ask the Minister a rather more general question coming back to the issue of advice given by health visitors and midwives in relation to vitamins and minerals generally. The reason I do so is that in September 2012 in another place my honourable friend Kate Green secured a Westminster Hall debate about the rise in the incidence of rickets. She talked about vitamin D deficiency across large sections of the population and quoted a study by the Clinical Effectiveness Unit at Stockport which found a surprising lack of awareness among health professionals about vitamin D across eight acute and six primary care trusts in the north-west. Only 24% of health visitors and just 11% of midwives reported having had training in vitamin D supplementation. I realise that this is a little distant from folic acid, but since the Government now put such reliance on advice given to women, does the Minister think that, as part of a wider response to the issues raised by my noble friend tonight, more needs to be done to ensure that midwives and health visitors are adequately trained in providing advice in relation to vitamins and minerals in pregnancy and before?
That is not a substitute for the action that my noble friend wants, and I very much hope that the Government will recognise that this would be the right thing to do. I hope that the Minister will be able to make a happy announcement.
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, I am telling noble Lords what I have been briefed. I am more than happy to write to noble Lords and, if they are happy for me to do so, leave the letter in the Library for everyone to check. I will also need to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on his question regarding terminations.
The noble Countess, Lady Mar, asked about the risks and benefits, and assessing impacts, of fortification, giving due consideration to the implications of additional recommendations by SACN. We will take into account the views of the Chief Medical Officer, who raised the issue in her annual report, and of the devolved Administrations. The other point raised by the noble Countess was on ensuring that NTDs are avoided in pregnancy and on preventing vitamin B12 masking. We need to get this right. SACN considered the amount of folic acid to recommend and also recommended developing guidance on supplement use for particular population groups, along with implementing measures to monitor evidence of long-term exposure to intakes of folic acid. We are carefully weighing the benefits and risks of SACN’s recommendations and will take account of all views.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, asked what foods would be considered for fortification. Currently, breakfast cereals are voluntarily fortified with folic acid in the UK. The FSA considered other foods, including soft drinks, fruit juice, milk and chewing gum, when it made that recommendation, but the consumption rate of these products is not considered to be universal across women of child-bearing age and would therefore not be suitable for fortification. Other foods were also considered. Bread was finally decided upon as the universal food as—to answer a point raised by both noble Baronesses—it is universally consumed across the population and all socioeconomic groups: more than 90% of households eat bread. Fortification of wheat flour would also include other wheat-based products such as pizzas, pastries and biscuits.
I think I have replied to several points that were raised.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, will the Minister write to noble Lords—clearly the Government will have to consider this—and set out a timetable on when they will come back to Parliament with an answer?
Baroness Jolly
That sounds eminently sensible. I am happy to write to noble Lords to give them that information. I hope that I have provided reassurance—I am not convinced that I have—that the Government are committed to reaching the right decision on the fortification of flour with folic acid, doing proper justice to the work of SACN and others and ensuring that, while seeking to deliver the benefits, we minimise the potential risks. In the mean time the Government will continue to raise awareness of the need to take folic acid supplements and are supportive of all those who are raising awareness of this issue. I thank the noble Lord for securing the debate.
House of Lords: Membership
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. It has been an excellent debate. I have to say to my noble friend Lord Lea that I plead guilty as charged, although I hope that the Minister will also plead guilty. I notice that he left the Conservative Party office charge sheet, which rather disappointed me, but perhaps he just felt short of a bit of time.
I thought that the Clerk of the Parliament’s report was excellent, particularly paragraphs 36 and 37 in relation to a strengthened leave of absence scheme, including minimum levels of attendance and enforced leave of absence. Will the Minister state clearly what the Government actually intend to do to progress this? As noble Lords have said, the Leader of the House has already indicated that he is not in favour of it, but I think the House and the Committee are entitled to a proper explanation of why this should not be taken forward.
I also ask the Minister about the statement made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, at Question Time this morning. She made what seemed to me to be a new statement of government policy in relation to the balance between the parties. I would be grateful if he would expand on what the Minister said in the Chamber.
Thirdly, I come to the point raised by my noble friend Lady Hayman. We have what I think is a ludicrous coalition agreement policy of saying that in one Parliament the membership of the House should reflect the votes cast at the last election; clearly, we have seen lists of new Peers being announced in order to make progress towards that. Our estimate is that the Government will shortly have a political majority in the Chamber of more than 100. What is the point of it? We are a revising Chamber; if the Government cannot be defeated, revisions cannot take place. In my own experience as a Minister, as my noble friend Lady Hayman will know—
Baroness Hayman
The noble Lord is definitely my friend, but in procedural terms in this House he is not my noble friend.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am duly dealt with on that. The noble Baroness was also a health Minister. I would have expected to lose five or six votes on any health Bill that I took through, and I took through rather a lot. This does not happen any more, and I want to ask the Government whether they expect to win every vote. Is this the intention? If it is the intention, frankly, I do not see the point of your Lordships’ House. If the Government are not defeated on a fairly regular basis, we cannot send matters back to the House of Commons and there is no point to us. I am increasingly of the view that in that scenario the only way out is to get rid of the House. I do not think that the Government realise the significance of this. We cannot revise unless the Government are defeated a healthy number of times.
We should look at other reports, as well as the Clerk’s. My noble friend Lord Foulkes has given the game away, in the sense that there is a Labour group looking at some of these issues. The House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has produced a very interesting report, with a number of suggestions as to how we might deal with these issues. We may not agree with all of them, but I particularly draw your Lordships’ attention to recommendation 10, on determining the relative numerical strengths of party groups in the House of Lords. In the end, surely we need to have sensible discussions and reach an agreement which will enable us to get a proper balance, allow the House to do its proper job in revising, and keep the numbers at a reasonable level.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this is for the first time a coalition Government and part of the issue is whether you count the entire coalition of both parties as one or as two. The Government do not have an overall majority in this House because we have a large number of Cross-Benchers. If I may say so, one of the first things I learnt when I entered this House was that if you want to defeat the Government, what you need is a speaker from each of the four main groups, because at that point the Government will recognise that they are about to lose. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is occasionally very good at being part of those groups which challenge his own Government. That is the way the House of Lords behaves.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
With respect, my Lords, there is one Government and the numbers are clearly added together in your Lordships’ House. I should like to put a question to the Minister. What would happen in 2015 if the Labour Party were to win the general election with a majority? It would be faced with a majority of 100 Conservative and Lib Dem Peers over the Labour group in your Lordships’ House. There would then be a dissolution list, to which I assume both Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg would contribute. What advice would the noble Lord give to a Labour Government about the number of Peers they should appoint?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we are getting into very difficult constitutional questions here. Again, I have heard discussions about this among some of my noble friends. A Labour Party that wins a majority of seats in the House of Commons on perhaps 35% of the vote and a 60% turnout raises the question of whether that is really a majority or not.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
We need some quiet discussions among the parties and I am glad to hear people suggesting that what we need is another committee. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, would love to serve on another committee looking at some aspects of Lords reform; he has a great appetite for it.
English Premier League Football
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I speak as an occasional supporter of Forfar Athletic and as a season ticket holder of Birmingham City. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, talked about the joys. Supporting Birmingham City mainly teaches you to come to terms with the disappointments of life—except for one game against the Arsenal.
It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, is right that we should celebrate the magnificence of the Premier League. The excitement is clearly palpable; the statistics quoted by the noble Lord are indeed impressive. I have no doubt that he is right about the contribution that it makes to the image of our country and to its coffers. He is right, too, to celebrate some of the successes. However, there are also some downsides and I thought that some of the points put to the House by my noble friend Lord Lipsey were very pertinent.
I share with a number of other noble Lords real concerns about issues to do with governance in football that go beyond the Premier League to other league clubs as well. I commend the fantastic work in this area of Supporters Direct. Its concern is that so many sports clubs are being put in jeopardy because of vested interests, poor financial management and inadequate standards of governance. This has been backed up by the CMS Select Committee, which has done some magnificent work in this area. It has real concerns about the ownership of clubs and about the fact that the ability of league authorities to investigate ownership issues seems to be very limited and at risk.
The Select Committee found, for instance, that while the Premier League was able to invest more in procedures and specialist assistance to find out the identity of the ultimate owners of some of the clubs, the Football League was not in such a good position, relying only on information provided by the clubs themselves which is then checked against records in the public domain. Remarkably, neither league is prepared to provide to fans the information that it holds and put it in the public domain.
I mention this because it is extremely relevant to the plight of two clubs in the West Midlands. They are not in the Premier League at the moment—so I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me—but they have been and aspire to be again, although when is a matter of some conjecture. I refer noble Lords to Coventry City, who won the FA Cup, remarkably, some years ago. On Saturday, thousands of supporters marched through the city centre protesting at plans for the club to play its home games at Northampton Town, 30 miles away. No wonder the fans are angry at the contemptible way in which they have been treated by the club owners. I refer noble Lords to a debate in the other place on 12 March in which Mr Bob Ainsworth raised this issue and talked about the financial difficulties of Coventry City. He said:
“Five years ago, when it had lost its ground … and most of its assets, the club was sold to the hedge fund Sisu … Sisu specialises in acquiring distressed assets, and under Sisu the club’s ownership is multilayered, opaque and partly offshore in the Cayman Islands”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/13; col. 63WH.]
It is clear that the interest of supporters is right to the last as a priority.
My own club, Birmingham City, is owned by a holding company based in Hong Kong and registered in the Cayman Islands. We have a major shareholder, Carson Yeung, who is at the moment on trial in Hong Kong on charges of £60 million of money laundering. The holding company, Birmingham International Holdings, was censured by the Hong Kong stock exchange for breaching rules in September 2012. There have been major delays in presenting the audited accounts of the club. Very recently, the Birmingham Mail reported that the parent group of Birmingham City has been told to demonstrate its plans to sell the club or it will not be allowed to trade on the Hong Kong stock exchange again. Stock market chiefs demanded to know what plans Birmingham International Holdings Ltd had for the club and how it was going to deal with “management integrity concerns” regarding Mr Yeung, who, as I have said, is now standing trial for money laundering.
While this dreadful ownership problem has been going on, the club has been relegated, the players have been sold and there is real concern about the future. The supporters, who turn up through thick and thin—or thin and thin, as it sometimes is—seem to be considered least. They are the heart of the club yet they are treated with absolute contempt by just about everyone concerned. What are the football authorities doing about this? Can one turn to the authorities to intervene? The answer is no. They do not intervene and they do not disclose information about ownership. They do not seem to respond to the needs of the supporters at all.
What is the Minister going to do about Birmingham City? More generally, the Select Committee recommendations are right in relation to ownership and the involvement of supporters on the boards of clubs in the future. The Minister for Sport has made some excellent responses to this issue but the football authorities are completely unable to govern themselves. That has been staring us in the face for years. I do not want to see statutory regulation in sport but in relation to football they are not going to be able to sort it out for themselves. They cannot see that their interest, first and foremost, should be the supporters or the interest of the national team. I am afraid that the time has come for statutory regulation.
Civil Service: Permanent Secretaries
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they accept the advice of the Civil Service Commission that the final decision in the appointment of Permanent Secretaries should be made by a selection panel independent of ministers, to safeguard a non-political civil service.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, in view of some of the exaggerated comments in the press in the last few days, it is perhaps best if I quote the statement by the First Civil Service Commissioner earlier this week:
“We agree that Ministers should have significant influence on the appointment of senior civil servants with whom they work closely; and, as more senior jobs are opened up to competition, we have developed a more active role for Ministers in top appointments than is generally understood”.
In paragraph 8 of the accompanying explanatory note on Recruiting Permanent Secretaries: Ministerial Involvement, it says:
“Under the terms of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 the final decision whether or not to appoint the recommended candidate rests with the Prime Minister”.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord for reading extracts, but he has been rather selective. The fact is, his right honourable friend Mr Maude is essentially bullying the Civil Service Commission and threatening new legislation in order to give Secretaries of State the power to appoint Permanent Secretaries. Why are the Government going down that route? Do they not accept that it puts the political neutrality of the Civil Service at peril?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we do not. I quote the right honourable Jack Straw, who said:
“I welcome his proposals for greater involvement by Secretaries of State in the appointment of their permanent secretaries”.
He went on to say,
“in each of the three permanent secretary appointments that I made”—
that is, Mr Straw—
“in the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice—I insisted that there was a shortlist of at least three candidates from which I should choose. There was not the least allegation that I had acted in a partisan or cronyist way”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/12; col. 749.]
House of Lords: Appointments
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether further appointments to the House of Lords are expected to be made during the remainder of the current Parliament.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, any appointments will continue to be made in line with the commitment in the coalition programme for government to reflect the share of the votes secured by the political parties at the most recent general election.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, yesterday the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, made it clear that, regrettably, he and the Government will not support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, in the other place. Given that, and given the size of this House, is the Minister really saying that the Government are determined to make dozens more appointments, to increase the size of the House and to shore up the political majority of the Government? Surely not.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the idea that we are packing the House with coalition Peers is a little idiotic. Of the 122 appointments made since May 2010, nearly one-third, 39, have been Labour Peers. That is not packing the House on one side. The largest group in the House remains the Labour Benches.
One of the ways in which we wish to maintain a vibrant House is to refresh the House from time to time. The committee on retirement has proposed that the statutory retirement scheme is now available. We regret that only two Peers have so far availed themselves of it. However, 20% of this House is now over 80 and, as we know that life expectancy in this House is very good, we encourage others to consider that scheme.
House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the Bill and I hope that we can agree to send it to the other place as soon as possible after due scrutiny. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on explaining to the House in his introductory remarks that his Bill is neutral concerning the Government’s Bill in the sense that it is neither complementary nor competitive. It should be treated on its merits as a stand-alone piece of legislation. I very much support that.
As for the three provisions, it seems very sensible to allow voluntary retirement. It builds on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. We had some very interesting comments from my noble friend Lord Soley and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds about the benefit of retirement. Given that the average age of your Lordships’ House is 69, I am not sure that the precedent of bishops retiring at 70 is one that we altogether warm to. I certainly agree that there may come a time when some noble Lords may feel it is time to move on to other places. I do not think it should be forced on Members of your Lordships’ House, but it should be an option.
On non-attendance, it seems absolutely right that unless there are sound reasons, due perhaps to illness, for a Member not attending for a whole Session, he or she ought no longer to be a Member of your Lordships’ House. I very much take the point raised by a number of noble Lords that some Members have been appointed who have hardly come here at all. It raises the issue of what conversations take place between the Prime Minister, Downing Street and some noble Lords about the commitment that they were asked to give.
I know we are not really meant to talk about—as my noble friend Lord Soley said—the war, but the Government seem to have got themselves rather mixed up about whether they actually want noble Lords or Members of the House in future to attend. Any noble Lord who has carefully gone through the calculation on the cost of the proposed new second Chamber will note that, remarkably, the Government seem now to want Members of the reformed House to be part-time Members. Indeed, in the calculations that they have made, they are calculating that elected Members would attend only 75% of the time. This goes along with the other remarkable suggestion from the Government that elected Members of this House would not seek to represent their constituents. Seeing that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is here today to answer this point, I would like him to comment on the Government’s expectation for attendance, either in your Lordships’ House now or in an elected House in the future.
There is general agreement in relation to the forcible retirement of those convicted of serious offences, but my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Wills have raised some important points. Will the noble Lord, Lord Steel, agree to meet my noble friends between Second Reading and Committee so that these matters may be satisfactorily resolved?
On retrospection, the wording of the noble Lord’s Bill follows the terminology in relation to the Commons. I understand what he is saying, but it would be helpful if the noble Lord, either in winding up today or in discussions after the Committee stage, could clear up that point to make it absolutely clear that retrospection is not to be applied.
I come to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and my noble friend Lord Wills about whether we prefer omnibus change or incremental change. Your Lordships’ House has not been very good at omnibus change since it has never been able to achieve it. Certainly, there is a persuasive case that if substantive reform is unlikely, then sensible incremental change ought to be made. No one sitting here today could say with certainty that the Government are going to get their Bill through or in what form they are going to get it through. Even the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that champion of democracy in your Lordships’ House, has been heard to say in recent weeks that he thinks the Government have only a 50% chance of getting the Bill through.
Lord Dobbs
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I seem to remember the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, standing manfully at the Dispatch Box week after week calling for consensus and, looking around the House, it seems to me that he has achieved it. It is just not the consensus that he wanted.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, having sat in the place where the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is now sitting on many debates on House of Lords reform when my party was in government, the only compensation I ever got from defending our position was looking at the faces of the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde.
The argument that incremental change is important and should take place in this context is persuasive. None of us knows what the outcome of the Government’s proposals will be. The proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, are entirely sensible and I hope that we can give them support.
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, raised Mr Clegg’s rather pejorative remarks about your Lordships’ House. Well, we are grown up, and I think we can take them. I saw the video clip of him speaking to a group of young people in which we were being condemned for our age, if not for other sins. I wonder why Mr Clegg does it. What is it that he hopes to achieve? Whatever one’s views on whether the second Chamber should be elected, surely no one could doubt the integrity of your Lordships’ House in the effective scrutiny of legislation. I hope that, whatever our views on Lords reform, we will hold our heads up high about the quality of the work that we do.
On the question that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, raised about conflict between two elected Houses, I know that we are not really talking about the substantive Bill, but I think I should put it to the Minister that the claim has come from the Deputy Prime Minister that the primacy of the Commons is not affected by the Bill. I refer him to the new Clause 2, which is actually worse than the old Clause 2 because it removes the preamble to the 1911 Act. The significance of the preamble is that it recognises that the Parliament Act was developed to govern the relationship between an elected Chamber and an unelected Chamber. The preamble also states that when an elected Chamber arose, the powers of the second Chamber would essentially have to be codified and restricted. In taking away the preamble, the Government are saying that an elected second Chamber would have all the legitimacy to be as assertive as possible within the constraints of the Parliament Act. Therefore, it could reject every piece of legislation that was brought here. It could take huge chunks out of legislation that was brought here. It could veto every piece of secondary legislation. Given that and given that the reformed House would be elected by proportional representation, how long would it be before the conventions died and the claim came from elected Members that the second Chamber had more legitimacy than the Commons because it more neatly matched the votes cast at a general election? As someone who has supported reform and an elected House, I think the Government owe it to this House and to the nation to set out exactly how their proposals will not eventually challenge the primacy of the House of Commons.
Finally, does the noble Lord not concede that his Government’s proposals are a substantial constitutional change to this nation? Given that, what are they so frightened of that they refuse to call a referendum? Surely, in the end, the people should decide. In the mean time, we wish the noble Lord’s Bill godspeed.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this is the sixth sitting day since Easter for us to enjoy being able to discuss aspects of Lords reform. It is a pleasure to hear a number of positive speeches about some degree of Lords reform being made around the House. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, opened up the wonderful prospect of a whole series of extremely modest Bills carrying on for several years, slowly and gently putting through little bits of Lords reform. I am not sure whether that would take more or less time than one comprehensive Bill but it is at least an interesting prospect.
The right reverend Prelate is a very brave man to raise the question of age limits and whether one’s relevant and current expertise and responsibilities should be taken into account when considering continuing membership of the House. I have sometimes wondered whether, if the possibility of retirement were put to a vote, the proposal that 95 should be the age limit would pass the House. No one has yet tried; perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Soley, will try it with a Private Member’s Bill in the next Session if it is needed at that stage.
I intend to take to heart the opening comment of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that the less said about the other Bill in this context the better. We are discussing a Private Member’s Bill and this is an extremely modest proposal. I will simply answer a few of the questions that have been raised, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.
The Government’s response to the Joint Committee does indeed say in paragraph 53:
“The Government agrees with the Joint Committee that allowing individuals to maintain relevant professional expertise and attracting individuals who would not want to commit to a full-time role would strengthen the reformed House, as it does the present House. The Government therefore accepts that it is desirable that appointed members should not necessarily be expected to attend every sitting day of the reformed House”.
I do not have to hand the figures for how many Members of the House of Commons attend every day. Of course, Members of the House of Commons often argue that constituency work is more important than attendance at the House every day.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the Government have also said that they do not expect elected Members of your Lordships’ House to dabble in constituency work. The whole purpose of these elected Members is to be here in Parliament. The calculations do not show 75% attendance by the 20% of appointed Members; they show 75% attendance by Members of the reformed House. It is quite remarkable that the expectation is that elected Members will attend your Lordships’ House 75% of the time when their sole purpose will be to be here to scrutinise legislation.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that is precisely the point that the Government’s response deals with. We have a House that consists of a large number of Members who continue to have other aspects to their lives outside. The point has frequently been made on the Labour Benches that the last thing that we want is for Members of a second Chamber to spend a great deal of their time on constituency work. This response deals with that area. However, at present, I do not wish to be drawn further into discussion of a different Bill from the one before us. I merely draw attention to the excellent article by a Conservative—
Queen’s Speech
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Lord Rennard
I agree that it would be difficult for Parliament to say no in that event. I do not totally rule out the idea.
Let me first refer the noble Lord back to the report on referendums by your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. In the debate in this House on that report, it appeared to be generally agreed by almost all noble Lords present that referendums should be rare and that there were significant problems with holding them—not least the propensity of the electorate to vote in response to a different question from that which appeared on the ballot paper. However, the report concluded that it would be appropriate to hold a referendum if abolition of either House of Parliament was considered. It is probably on that basis that some noble Lords consider the justification for a referendum. Yet when we look back to the 1911, 1949, 1958 and 1999 Acts, they were never considered to be Acts of abolition, even though they significantly changed both the powers and the composition of the House.
Gradually reforming composition does not amount to abolition. The draft Bill and the proposals of the Joint Committee suggest a transitional period that would not be complete before 2025—some 114 years after the 1911 Act and 15 years after all main parties promised in their manifestos to work for such an outcome. Ending the hereditary principle, removing patronage from party leaders and allowing people to choose their legislators do not amount to abolition of this House, so I do not see any case for a referendum before 2015. In the mean time, I believe that in 2015 we should begin the first phase of real reform by electing a small proportion of the membership of your Lordships’ House and finally ending completely the hereditary basis for membership. There may be more of a case for a referendum later, on proceeding to the second or final stages of reform.
I also want to address briefly another important constitutional issue in the gracious Speech—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Can the noble Lord clarify that? Earlier in our debate, the proposition was made that the coalition is now considering a new option, which is essentially to go for a small number of elected people in 2015—rather following the Wakeham and Irvine proposals at the beginning of the previous decade—and then pausing to ponder whether we move on from that position, perhaps by referendum. If the noble Lord is saying that, it is important, given that he speaks with a great deal of authority on those Benches.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I hope to speak with authority, but I have to say that I speak for myself on this issue. It is logical that if we were to consider a reform which meant that 92 hereditary Peers were no longer Members of your Lordships’ House—which was of course the aim of the 1999 legislation—and if, for the sake of argument, we were to elect 120 Peers in 2015, that would not be a great change. It would not be revolutionary and it would not justify a referendum. We might consider it at some point in the following Parliament—perhaps on the same day as the country was voting in the European elections in 2019, to minimise the cost of a referendum. Then, when people saw the House working effectively without an hereditary element—although I have great respect for many hereditary Members of this House—with a small elected element of, say, 120 Members, that would not be dissimilar to the initial proposals of the commission of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. We could then say, “That is how it is working. Do you want to proceed with the remaining life Peers going in phases and a wholly elected House?”. We could vote on that at some point. Complete change is abolition of this House. I suggest that if we were proceeding along that way by 2015, there would be no need for a referendum before then.
I have spoken a number of times about the important issue of individual voter registration. I would like to say little about that as it was also referred to in the gracious Speech, but I will be brief. It is of considerable importance in all elections that we have a complete and accurate electoral register.