Lord Purvis of Tweed
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Business of the House
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I will take this opportunity also to welcome the continuation in their role of the Leader and the Chief Whip.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I apologise to the Chief Whip if I have just doomed his chances in the reshuffle. Now all of his Back-Benchers are keeping a beady eye on their phones to learn his fate. I also thank on behalf of these Benches the outgoing Ministers for their service. They were open, accessible and often responsive. We thank them for their service and we wish them well. For those Ministers who will be either reappointed or newly appointed, we wish them luck in their role.
On more occasions than I can remember, the noble Lord, Lord True, has said that the House functions on the basis of a degree of respect among the usual channels. He has said it is a fundamental of how this House functions. We are a House of minorities, after all. He has reminded us on many occasions that, if the usual channels break down, the House does not function as it should.
The Chief Whip is leaving the Chamber. I think this brings a new meaning to “The Whip is off”.
Today’s Motion was not highlighted in the usual channels at all. The Government were not informed or consulted. My Benches were not. The Cross Benches were not. The usual channels were ignored. If the noble Lord considers the usual channels to be the fundamental principle of how this self-regulating House operates, why is it just today that he believes that they should be summarily ignored—not consulted, informed or written to?
On the subject of being written to, Peers across the House were this morning written to in a letter from the noble Lord condemning the Government for making announcements outside Parliament first. With a superpower level of irony, the letter was released to the press last night at 9.38 pm. When these Benches were asked by Sky News last night for a comment on the letter, my immediate reflection was to say that this could not have happened: colleagues were not written to, and I did not receive a letter, so obviously this was not the case. Sky News then pinged on X—I will happily give way if the noble Baroness wishes to correct the record.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Might I correct the noble Lord? I spoke to both the Government Chief Whip and the Lib Dem Chief Whip last night well before 9.38 pm.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
The noble Baroness is well aware that there are recognised ways that the usual channels operate. She may protest, and if she wishes to intervene again, I am happy to take it.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I am not protesting; I am stating a fact.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I indicated that these Benches were not consulted or written to with regard to the noble Lord. That is perfectly clear. When the press were told at 9.38 pm, when the House was still sitting, there was no convening of the usual channels to discuss the business ahead. Can the noble Baroness confirm—she can intervene on me again—whether there was any meeting of the usual channels last evening when we were still sitting?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I can absolutely confirm that I discussed it with both the Government Chief Whip and the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip. We do not generally convene as a three; we speak separately and together, often.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, it might help the House to know that, by the time the noble Baroness spoke to the Chief Whip, the Motion had already been tabled and we had been alerted.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
The usual channels were not convened, informed or written to. When we were notified that a Motion had been tabled, that is not the way that the usual channels operate our business. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can confirm the point that the Leader indicated. Had the other Benches been informed—
Noble Lords
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
The Chief Whip, who is back in his place, or the Opposition Chief Whip might be able to confirm to the House whether the Motion had been tabled before the noble Baroness informed those she claims were consulted. No—there is silence. I think that confirms that matter. So, we are now debating a complaint about announcements being made outside Parliament first, which itself was an announcement made outside Parliament first.
Setting aside the nature of this for one moment, it is probably worth noting that when there were three Conservative Prime Ministers in three years—I checked Hansard—there were no debates in this House on the political priorities and legislative agenda of each Prime Minister when they took office. In 2022, when Liz Truss took office, she appointed the noble Lord, Lord True, to be Leader of this House, and there was no debate. I do not blame him for not scheduling a debate, because there was not enough time in her period of office for us to debate this fully.
Lord True (Con)
If it cuts short the noble Lord’s speech, which seems to be an attack on this side rather than any kind of examination of the other, in the case of Mr Johnson, he went immediately to Parliament and answered questions at great length on his programme. In the case of Liz Truss, she did Prime Minister’s Questions within two days and gave a full account to Parliament in the proper way. The same thing happened in the case of Rishi Sunak. What is different in this case—the noble Lord can tell me if it is not—is that there is no mechanism by which Mr Burnham has allowed himself to be examined by the House of Commons or to be properly accountable to Parliament.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, as Hansard will show and as I indicated very clearly, there was no debate on the Government’s priorities, political or legislative, in this House, as the noble Lord is seeking that we have. It is his right not to be consistent—I understand that—but when it comes to Prime Ministers seeking to avoid scrutiny, all of us remember that it was Prime Minister Johnson who prorogued Parliament specifically to avoid parliamentary scrutiny, which was deemed illegal.
In pre-issuing the letter about the debate, I do not think the noble Lord had been consulting some of his colleagues in the Commons, because much of this Motion now seems to be a bit out of date. The Conservative-chaired Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee conducted an inquiry into government announcements made outside Parliament. It reported and gave its considerations on 9 January. It said that the code was out of date, given modern media considerations, and needed clarity. In paragraph 40, it said that
“the media environment has changed significantly in recent years, and the provisions on the need to make the most important statements of government policy to Parliament first have remained substantively the same since the Code was introduced in 1997. It may well be the case that this section of the Code needs to be modernised to reflect the ‘Parliament first’ principle while also recognising that governments must seek to communicate their policies effectively to the public they serve”.
It was a Select Committee in the Commons chaired by a Conservative MP which made that recommendation. The Government published their response on 4 June accepting the recommendation and have stated that the code will be revised. The noble Lord’s Motion is out of date. The Conservative chair, Simon Hoare MP, said that he welcomed the Government’s acceptance to amend the code to be more flexible on announcements given the new media environment:
“It has been clear for some time that the current situation regarding the Ministerial Code and major policy announcements is untenable. It is refreshing to see that the Government have shown they are willing to adapt the code in a way which ensures it is fit-for-purpose”.
The letter that colleagues received this morning is substantively out of date. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord True, will wish to speak to his Commons Conservative colleagues to have an ongoing debate about how the code will be amended.
Notwithstanding that we seek an opportunity for there to be proper consideration of the political priorities and legislative agenda of the Burnham premiership, so far, we have noted that the new Prime Minister has said that he regrets that there have been major omissions, such as real action to fix the crisis in social care and to reduce the crippling burden on businesses, which is wrapped up in Brexit bureaucracy. We need a clear direction on major reforms to our body politic, and tinkering at the edges will not do.
Lord Gove (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. This is an historic speech on his part; this is probably the most momentous missing of the point since the crowd called for Barabbas to be freed. Am I right in thinking that the Liberal Democrats will not vote for greater scrutiny and will decide tonight to let the Government off the hook, because their attachment to their friends in the Labour Party is greater than their commitment to democracy?
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
It is not exactly Churchillian to ask for a take-note debate. I do not think that “We will take note of them on the beaches, we will take note of them on the landing grounds, we will always take note” is the speech that the noble Lord thinks we need to make. I think we have taken note of enough from that side.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I will make a pertinent single point, quoting the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister wrote to Labour MPs on 8 July, setting out his approach to how he wanted to treat Parliament. He said that Ministers would respect the House. I presume by that he meant that Ministers would respect the Houses. He also said in his email that he wanted to see us do politics differently.