European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report)

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Simon) (Lab)]

My Lords, the original question was that this Motion be agreed to, since when an amendment has been moved at the end to insert the words as set out in the Order Paper. The question I therefore have to put is that this amendment be agreed to.

Policing and Crime Bill

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, in response to similar amendments in Committee, the Minister pointed out that reduced drink-drive limits in other countries did not necessarily result in fewer drink-drive-related deaths. She went on to highlight the importance of penalties, which are harsh in the UK: enforcement, although this is likely to be less with the cuts in recent years to roads policing in the light of cuts to police budgets generally; and hard-hitting campaigns that have successfully made drink-driving socially unacceptable in a way that it is not in other countries. But these are not alternatives to a reduction in the drink-drive limit; they would still apply.

Reducing the opportunities to evade prosecution and carrying out medical tests to ensure that offenders are not dependent on alcohol before they get their licences back are also very good steps. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, made some very powerful points. She said that the number of drink-drive-related deaths had been static over recent years. My understanding is that the overall number of deaths on the roads has been reducing over the years because of improved safety. If it is true that the number of drink-drive related deaths is not reducing in line with that, it is an increasing problem, not a static one.

A wide range of organisations—motoring organisations, the police and others—supports a reduction in drink-drive limits. Although I found the arguments around the different limits in Scotland and in England and Wales a little complex—rather like a whodunit—clearly there is an anomaly there. The plain and simple issue is that current drink-drive limits enable people to take the risk of having a drink and driving. The proposed limits would deter people from drinking anything before they got into a car. Surely that would be safer. On balance, and having discussed this with our transport spokesperson, we support the amendments.

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, I will mention just a couple of things. First, in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act all those years ago I got an amendment through on the evidence on roadside breath-testing, which will get the readings there and then, rather than two hours or so later at the police station. I would love to see this kit eventually approved by the Home Office. It has not been approved yet. Secondly, we are talking about having a glass of wine or whatever. I am teetotal so I would not have the slightest idea but I have been told that the glasses of wine in most restaurants and pubs have got bigger. Therefore, the chance of going above the limit has also increased.

[Lord Rosser]

Unfortunately, I was not able to get to the meeting that was organised yesterday but, bearing in mind that previously the Government’s stance has been not to go down the road of these amendments, it would be of some use if the Minister made it clear whether or not, in the light of what has been said in the debate, they are going to take any note of what does or does not emerge from what has happened in Scotland, which has already reduced the limit, and whether the Government themselves are going to initiate some sort of investigation into what the impact has been in Scotland. I think the Government’s argument has been that any change should be based on hard evidence. That is one obvious source of hard evidence. It would be a bit disappointing if there was any indication by the Government that they are not actually going to pay very much notice to what does or does not happen in Scotland as a result of the reduction in the limit.

Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has set in motion a change in the way that hereditary titles and various other matters are passed from the male route to the first born. Of course, only a few hereditary Peers are still Members of this House and any change will have little effect in this Chamber.

So what effect will this measure have? A Peer whose titles might go back many centuries might not have a son and, in order to find the closest male relative, it might be necessary to proceed to, let us say, a seventh cousin twice removed who is totally unknown to the immediate family. However, that Peer might have a daughter who could succeed and in this modern age this would make so much more sense.

Family heirlooms often have a sentimental value rather than a monetary one. They can be passed from one generation to another regardless of the gender of the recipient. Following the House of Lords reform and the reduction in the number of hereditary Peers who sit in this House, a family title is now often no more than an heirloom—however, one that the custodian has no choice in who to pass it on to. In addition, when there is a monetary value gained through the land, property and chattels, why should this not be passed to the next generation in the immediate bloodline?

My title dies with me, but I have a child, a daughter. Should she inherit my title? Most definitely. I am going to get personal. My daughter has risen to the top of her career in an age when we are encouraging more gender equality in the boardroom. Her experience has included working in government departments in countries where there are distinct segregated societies where women have only recently been allowed to have formal education, drive a car and have the right to vote. She is often asked whether she has faced any issues based on her gender during her international work. She has the skills and expertise and can rightly say that she has not. The only place where she faces equality issues based on her gender is here, in this House.

However, we now have female MPs and Ministers of the Crown and have had a female Prime Minister. The successor to the Crown can now be a female if she is the first born of the monarch, and it was announced only this week that a stumbling block has been removed for women thinking of applying to be part-time High Court judges. Things change and the succession to hereditary titles needs to catch up in the name of equality. I look forward to seeing this Bill being passed.

Government’s New Approach to Consultation: “Work in Progress” (SLSC Report)

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am tempted to speak at double speed in the hope that we may finish before we have the next Division. This is for me also the second debate in two weeks on machinery issues, as it were—how we go about things. I started on both thinking, “This is very dry”, but I think that this shows the House of Lords very much at its best—looking at, in the previous instance, how we handle secondary legislation and, in this instance, how we handle consultations.

I intend to answer this not by defending the current Government, because I am aware that these are structural problems of government and of the way in which the Executive deal with the legislature and vice versa. I am conscious, as I think back, that I first used to worry about Henry VIII clauses when I was in opposition many years ago. In reading back to the 2007-08 consultations, I come across phrases like “consultation fatigue” and “the struggles of the Better Regulation Executive”. Indeed, I have a dim memory that my wife was on the Better Regulation Advisory Council at the time, and would come home very frustrated with some of the problems that it was facing about all the different contradictions in attempting to improve regulation and consult with the widest number of parties but nevertheless to reach an end to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hart, rightly said that speed is not the universal hallmark of good government, but of course delay over extended periods is not the universal hallmark of good government either. If one looks back at some of the other areas in which successive Governments consulted most—airports policy in south-east England, for example—one could not say that one ever cut short consultation on that process. Over the past 30 years, the occasional decision by a Government, whichever Government it was, to override one or two of those consulted parties might have been a good idea. Consultation does not necessarily lead to consensus. I have been involved in consultations over House of Lords reform over the past 20 years, and we have not quite reached consensus on it yet through each successive process of consultation.

One of the starting points for the current Government on consultation is to say to departments, “The earlier that consultation is engaged in, the better”. A process in which you more or less decide what it is you want to do and then, when you have decided, you carry out a 12-week consultation process in which you ask everyone what they think about what you have decided is actually a very bad thing. It would be much better and more constructive—this is part of what the Cabinet Office has been saying to departments—to engage with your stakeholders as early as possible, before things have hardened into a consensus within Whitehall, so that you learn where the obstacles are likely to be and you can actually have a worthwhile exchange of views. That of course means that the Government are likely to consult first with the visible stakeholders and that there is always the problem of those who might be excluded or those who want to be involved. A later-stage consultation in which you allow others who you might not have thought of in the first instance to come in nevertheless is there to be added at the later point. Late consultation risks being a formal allowance for objections to be made; the earlier it is, therefore, the better.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee rightly talked about the burden of consultation on both sides. That came back in some of the evidence submitted to the committee —the number of occasions on which the Government are asking for consultations.

Looking back into some of this, I was struck when I came across the phrase, “the consultation and engagement community”; the professionals who were out there doing their best to catch each consultation as it came through. I am conscious of how far this industry—in a sense, this community—has grown. Coming back on the train—

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Simon)]

My Lords, a Division has been called in the House. We will adjourn until 6.56 pm.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)]

Has the noble Lord moved the amendment yet?

Constitutional Change: Constitution Committee Report

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Grand Committee

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is acting as Teller, we will resume when he comes back.