Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Debate between Lord Rooker and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not intend to contribute, but I just want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for that speech. I shall get Hansard tomorrow, make my little checklist and wait for what is coming from the other place—the borders Bill; the human rights Bill; the electoral reform Bill—and I will check off her claims about parliamentary scrutiny and believing in the House to see how sincere that speech really was.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I would not doubt for half a second that my noble friend was entirely sincere. I also believe that she made some extremely powerful points which apply right across the legislative pattern, and which apply equally to both Houses. I hate to say this of a Conservative Government, but they behave as if they treat Parliament with contempt. Whether one is talking about Christmas tree Bills, Henry VIII clauses or the lack of impact assessments—a point made so very powerfully by my noble friend—the Government are found wanting. If we were marking in Greek letters the performance of the Government, I would, as an old schoolmaster, give them “gamma double-minus.”

It really is sad that we have a Government who are treating Parliament in this manner. I sincerely hope that, when he comes to reply, my noble friend the Minister will give a firm undertaking to draw the attention of his parliamentary masters in government to this debate and to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in particular. They should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it—to quote the collect for the second Sunday in Advent.

When it comes to the substance, I always deplore anything that smacks of retrospective legislation, because that again is treating Parliament with studied contempt. I know how difficult it has been during these last 18 months or more. We all know that—and we all know that mistakes have been made, sometimes with the very best of intentions. But it is deeply disturbing that there has not been a recognition that retrospective legislation is the very antithesis of democratic parliamentary government.

I have suggested many times, including very recently, that there should be a continuing committee of both Houses looking at Covid legislation and being able to pronounce on it quickly. I made this point only recently to my noble friend. He completely, I am afraid, misunderstood it and told me quite inaccurately that this was a matter for the Lord Speaker—but anybody who knows what the Lord Speaker is able to do and not able to do knows that that is fundamentally wrong.

I know that he is new to Parliament and is serving his apprenticeship with great distinction—we all appreciate that—but it is important that the powers that be realise that in an unprecedented situation unprecedented measures are sometimes needed. They have shown that by issuing diktats; they have not shown it by creating a vehicle for continuous parliamentary monitoring—and they should.

On the subject of compulsory vaccination, my noble friend Lord Bethell knows very well that I have been on about this almost from the very beginning, urging that care home workers should receive compulsory vaccination, and I believe that it is entirely logical to extend that to those who work, because people who come into close proximity to patients at their most fragile and their most vulnerable should not themselves be a potential risk to those patients. We know that in some care homes during the early months—I appreciate that it is much better now—you could find that 30%, 40% or even 50% of care home workers, looking after the most fragile and physically feeble of people, themselves not vaccinated.

How do you solve this? It is, of course, a combination of persuasion and cajoling, but at the end there has to be a point where you say that we cannot allow this to continue indefinitely. Therefore, I think on that point the Government are right and I am grateful for it.

However, we are a Parliament and therefore I come back, as I began, to the admirable speech from my noble friend Lady Noakes. She pointed out—as many others have over the past two or three years, particularly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who I think must go to bed with an image of Henry VIII by his bedside—how cavalier has been the treatment of both Houses of Parliament by the Government. We are approaching a new year. Let it be a resolution of the Prime Minister and all his Ministers that they are accountable to Parliament; they are not the masters of Parliament.

Procedure and Privileges

Debate between Lord Rooker and Lord Cormack

Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two quick, minor points. First, I am not looking for crowded Lobbies. Like many other Peers, I have gone through health problems that have left me vulnerable and shielding in the recent past, so I do not think we have to have crowded Lobbies. I am also not looking to take two minutes off the time of a Division. We have not come down to debating that, surely. What does it matter if we have to take a little bit longer? Furthermore, I have no criticism of any of the officials who have worked on these schemes.

I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for 20 years, but I have never found out who runs this place. I feel continually bounced. It is as though they have been to the Barnes Wallis bouncing school to get things through your Lordships’ House. This is a classic example. Take Question Time: look at today. We were bounced into the system. There were seven and a half minutes when nobody could participate. Seven and a half minutes was the time for a Question before Covid, so we are wasting the time for scrutiny. Today was a classic example: I could not have planned it better when I saw the Order Paper today.

Voting should be a serious matter in a legislature. It is not an administrative convenience, or something where you tick the box, it is absolutely serious, both for us and the other place. Having served in the other place for nearly three decades, I have always defended the system of voting, going through the Lobbies, and I still do so on the Peers in Schools programme. I say to people, there is a big advantage, probably more so for Government Back-Benchers than for Opposition Back-Benchers, in that the Ministers cannot escape. That is quite a serious issue, believe you me. It is less important here, but it is the case that we have Ministers here who cannot wait to get out of the Chamber, and having discourse and conversation with Ministers is crucial. There are no civil servants present, no praetorian guard; it is a better system, it works, and my experience is that I am prepared to defend it.

If I had seen my noble friend’s amendment, I probably would not have put mine down, but I just thought this is going too far, too fast. I am not seeking to turn the clock back or seeking crowded Lobbies, but we do not have to rush this today. There is a better way of doing it, so I support the noble Lord.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with a very great deal—almost all—of what both my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said. There is a real seething feeling within your Lordships’ House that we are being confronted with decisions in which we have had absolutely no opportunity to participate. We should have had this debate before the committee deliberated, then it could have listened to what had been said and come up with a report that would have reflected much of that—or one hopes it would have. Because I believe that we are on that slippery slope that was referred to on Friday, perhaps inaccurately, when it comes to conducting the affairs of your Lordships’ House.

Suddenly, as we go back to normal, the clerks appear without any wigs or official garb. That might reflect the view of the House, but it does not because we have had no opportunity to comment on it. It is wrong that there have been significant changes in the way we conduct our business and the way our business is conducted by those erudite officials who sit at the Table; it is important that we have an opportunity to comment. Frankly, there is no such opportunity. Although the committees are there—I pay due respect to them—they are not elected as Select Committees in the other place are. I believe it is very important that we do not continue to put the cart before the horse.

On the matter we are discussing today, a portion of my noble friend Lord Gardiner’s speech disturbed me. He spoke about voting being “more accurate” if it was electronic rather than being counted by clerks. This House has survived a few centuries without having electronic counting. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach were right in talking about the advantages of being able to vote, to nobble Ministers and all the rest of it.

I completely accept that we are still living in very strange and potentially dangerous times. That is why my amendment says that we go back to where we were when the Covid crisis is completely under control or over. I am not proposing that we go into the Lobbies next Monday or the Monday of any early forthcoming week. However, I am saying that it is a tried and tested system that has worked well and enabled the House to be collegiate—it has enabled us to talk to each other and to Ministers and shadow Ministers in the Lobbies as we have cast our votes.

I really believe it would be wrong for us to be stampeded by any committee or Senior Deputy Speaker this afternoon. This House has a right to have its say; its say must not be interpreted as a rubber stamp on proposals we have not had a chance to contribute to. I therefore beg my noble friend Lord Gardiner to take this away and talk to his committee and, if the sense of the House during the debate is roughly in line with what my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I are saying, to think again and come back with a system that can work. It is a temporary system; I have nothing in principle against using the readers, but where they are positioned and how long they are to be used are important. I do not want change by stealth or sloth to take over the running of your Lordships’ House. I beg to move.