European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, in this important debate. Perhaps I should preface my remarks by stating quite simply that I voted to remain for reasons that I still consider valid but with which I will not bore your Lordships this afternoon. As soon as the result of the referendum was declared, I took the view that the decision to leave had been taken and that we should all buckle down and get on with delivering it. That remains my view and it is what I rise up to support.

The Bill we are debating—at once both vital and utterly prosaic—simply starts the clock ticking and lets negotiations begin and, in due course, end. That is its purpose. However, it reaches us with huge momentum behind it. Three years ago the referendum Bill was passed in another place without a single opposing vote at either Second Reading or Third Reading. The referendum asked the United Kingdom electorate whether the United Kingdom should leave or stay in the EU—an important point that I make in passing. The result last June was close but clear cut and, though technically it was advisory, the outcome was reinforced beyond any doubt by the repeated commitment of the Government, both in their 2015 manifesto and throughout the campaign, to implement it. So the Bill before us—overwhelmingly approved at all stages in another place and unamended—should command our respect as well as our scrutiny.

I say that in spite of, not because of, the somewhat crude, ill informed and self-defeating remarks of a few people in other quarters on what our duty in this House should be. The sovereignty of Parliament is not confined to one Chamber.

The Constitution Committee called for the decision to trigger Article 50 to be debated and approved in Parliament. We are pleased that that is happening, albeit by a somewhat circuitous route, and I hope the Government will consider carefully the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, about the approval that is to be sought at the end of negotiations.

We have called in the past for fast-tracking to be justified on the face of such a Bill. That has happened in this case and we welcome it. It is unusual for a Bill with constitutional implications to be fast-tracked, but this Bill’s significance and the political implications driving the timetable have been widely acknowledged. Its clarity and brevity make fast-tracking more palatable and, as long as this exceptional situation sets no precedent on constitutional issues, it should be acceptable to your Lordships.

We in the Constitution Committee sometimes complain on your Lordships’ behalf about long Bills inadequately scrutinised in another place, but that can hardly apply in this case. Indeed, the very brevity of the Bill underlines its singleness of purpose. That is its strength, which we should not seek to undermine. It is concerned simply with the timing of the negotiations—when they start and when they finish—and no more. It is not a skeleton Bill, it is not a Christmas tree Bill and it needs no adornment.

There seems to have been a tendency in recent months for us all to get ahead of ourselves, rushing our fences. Every time more information emerges, the demand comes for still more, ignoring the advances already made and all the debates, statements and committee work now under way, which my noble friend the Leader of the House illustrated in her speech. Of course the issues are many, complex and often interrelated, and as the binary decision of last June translates into a multitude of different issues, each having a separate decision-making process circling around it, we need to work between government and Parliament together to achieve the best Brexit we can.

We also need a little more cool, calm deliberation. That should reveal that a lot of things are beginning to fall into place. The Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech certainly carried things forward and the White Paper was full of information and undertakings that surely render many of the amendments now in contemplation unnecessary. The Lancaster House speech was transformative. It completely reset the dynamic for the forthcoming negotiations. Now, instead of seeming the anxious supplicant, desperately begging to hang on to so many features of that mighty European construct, she has cast us in a new light, determined to break free from that vortex of institutions, rules and regulations, and to come to the table as an unburdened applicant with much to offer in exchange for the new deal that we seek. That approach has already transformed the mindset of the other side and has perhaps begun to level the uneven playing field that we face.

Trade was mentioned with some degree of pessimism across the Floor of this House. As a former Trade Secretary—there are a few of us in this House; indeed, we are two a penny—my experience was that trade negotiations are usually driven by mutual self-interest, whether in a declining Europe or in a growing world of trade. That mutuality can certainly give us much more reason for optimism than has been expressed in some quarters today.

Now, with things beginning to move and clarity emerging, we should focus on the job in hand. Future debates and statements will be needed and will undoubtedly be plentiful, along with much primary legislation. The planned great repeal Bill—or great repeal and re-enactment Bill—especially will raise some uniquely difficult issues, about which the Constitution Committee is preparing a report at present that we hope will be a helpful contribution to the kind of co-operation between government and Parliament that will be needed.

Of more immediate concern, however, is our responsibility to fulfil both our parliamentary role and the declared will of the electorate and to get on with the job of approving this short, simple Bill, free from impediments that might slow its progress, so that the negotiations can begin.

Strathclyde Review

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord that this House has a vital role to play, but we must remember that the elected House has the final say, because it is the elected House. What we can do is add our voice and our expertise to ensure that opinions are reflected, and that we can improve legislation—but we are reliant on the House’s self-regulation and discipline to achieve that. As I said, I believe that we are constructive and we work well together—but if that breaks down, we will have to reflect on what that means.

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, I am not at all averse to joining in universal congratulations where they are deserved, and I warmly congratulate my noble friend on her role in helping to bring a sensible conclusion to this matter. This House works best, in a bicameral parliamentary democracy, when each House understands and respects the powers, responsibilities and limitations of the other. I hope that as a result of this past confrontation, now resolved, there will be greater understanding in the future. The suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, of further consultation between the Houses may well offer an appropriate way forward.

As for secondary legislation, I assure your Lordships that your Constitution Committee has made this a long-running campaign for improvement. This is a besetting sin of successive Governments—it is by no means confined to the present Government—and I would suggest one way forward to my noble friend: if the Government would take a self-denying ordinance over ever inserting primary legislation into delegated secondary legislation, that would be a good start.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I do not want to give answers that diminish the enthusiasm we are showing today, but I shall not make promises I cannot keep. I add my thanks for the work of the Constitution Committee, both for its report on this review and for its wider work, which is extremely valuable and well respected.

Government and Parliament

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, like others, I begin by complimenting the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, not only on the timely arrangement of this debate, but on much that she said, with which I find myself in agreement. I believe that her specific suggestions, and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, which we have just heard, are worthy of further consideration. I hope that this debate will generate a large number of such suggestions that will be considered very carefully.

I propose a slightly more general approach in my remarks. They are triggered as a result of the unsettling mood that exists on constitutional matters at present following the words of the gracious Speech referring to the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons. Why did it say that? What does it mean by it? Others have wrestled with this and reached different conclusions. They are both familiar concepts, but each is utterly different from the other, so the juxtaposition is strange: they are not two sides of the same coin; they do not complement each other, nor does one qualify the other. The sovereignty of Parliament is a familiar and profoundly important core principle of our constitution. It is the basis of the rule of law and of the authority of all our lawmaking. But the Parliament to which it refers is not the House of Commons, but the bicameral Parliament of two quite deliberately and desirably different Chambers, each playing its distinctive part and complementing the other. So the concept of Parliament is thus indivisible. It embraces both Houses.

The primacy of the House of Commons is a fact, but it exists de facto rather than de jure. It is built on the existence of the Parliament Acts, the unelected nature of this House and on various established practices and procedures—perhaps not so strongly nowadays on conventions, because they were broken, or certainly badly damaged, last October. That in itself raises problems that have to be addressed. Primacy, however, is not something for the Commons to claim. It is for this House to acknowledge and to volunteer, as we always do. Our restraint, when we adhere to it, is a vital component of what makes the system work. The reason it has broken, or has been crumbling for some time, is partly the loss of restraint in respect of our normal way of behaving on various occasions, but more so—this is the burden of what I want to say, even though it has already been touched on extensively by others—because of the poor quality of the legislation that has been fed into the system in recent times.

The Constitution Committee, which I have the honour to chair—although I stress that my remarks are of a personal nature—has been reviewing the draft of its sessional report for the year 2015-16. It pains me to say that we have found a litany of bad lawmaking habits. The then Scotland Bill was probably the most egregious, for a whole complicated list of reasons from beginning to end that I will not bore the House by developing today, but it is a shaming indictment of how to make laws. I hope it is never repeated in any shape or form with any other legislation. But there is also the growing abuse of delegated legislation, as referred to by others. We reviewed too high a number of vaguely worded Bills that conferred broad and undefined delegated powers on Ministers, with few restrictions, to achieve legislative objectives.

It has been suggested that an effort is now in place in government to improve the preparation and internal consideration of new legislation before publication. I hope that it happens; we have yet to see it. But whatever happened to Green Papers and White Papers, to pre-legislative scrutiny? Instead we have had a diet of skeleton Bills, Christmas tree Bills, very urgent Bills and Henry VIII powers like a sauce added to everything, followed by a flood of slippery secondary legislation, often hoping to slip though policy changes. The trend is not new with this Government. It is true that the numbers are not very much greater than they have been at any time in the last 20 years, but what is different is that they are longer and have more substantive contents, including the trend towards policy development.

I could go on about this but in setting up the Strathclyde review, Her Majesty’s Government blew their own cover when they described its purpose as being,

“to secure their business in Parliament”.

They went on to refer to,

“the decisive role of the elected House of Commons in relation to its primacy on financial matters, and secondary legislation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/11/15; col. 25WS.]

These two quotations are, in the first case, a clear statement not about the constitutional proprietaries, where they may have had a case of some sort, but about the Executive getting their way by whatever means they could deploy; and, in the second, at best a highly polished gloss of the true position and at worst a distortion of it.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde accused my committee of castigating him. I am bound to say we did not; we actually let him off the hook because our conclusion was that he had been asked the wrong question and therefore his answer was not really relevant to the issues before us. Our committee and two others separately reached that view. If the words I quoted explain what was meant by the cryptic reference in the gracious Speech to the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons, I suggest that the Government might be about to take the wrong kind of action.

It may be that there is a case for reforming the relative powers of the two Houses. It seems, for example, slightly bizarre that this House can amend primary legislation but has power only to reject secondary legislation. Let such matters be considered in the proper and unhurried way, but it is essential to preserve the present balance of powers between the two Houses. We may be faced with some proposals to codify in some way the damaged convention system. If that can be done in a way that maintains the delicate balance of powers between the two Houses, let us at least examine it—though I am sceptical that a way will be found that does not undermine the standing of this House.

However, if the Government come forward with changes simply to make it easier to get their business, that is quite another matter. That would provoke a strong and sustained reaction here. At the end of the day, Governments must get their business. Overall, the present balance of powers provides for that, and so does the general will of this House. The issue should not be sovereignty, the balance of power or primacy but the nature and quality of the legislation laid before Parliament by the Executive. That deserves close scrutiny. It is high time the Government did a better job.

English Votes for English Laws

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I do not enter into the heat of this debate this evening, tempted though I was by the intriguing announcement by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that he has discovered that rare nugget, a new Scottish grievance—I thought we had mined them all pretty well. I will not even rise to that particular fly because there are other Scottish Members of this House to speak later, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for example, does grievance far better than I can.

However, I thought it would be helpful to the House if I sought to explain the context of the Constitution Committee’s proposed involvement in monitoring, for a period, the operation of the reformed Standing Orders for the other place, which I understand are to be brought forward tomorrow—assuming, of course, that they will be passed. I do so because it is an unusual matter for our committee to become involved in, and it is not a task that we would have sought. Normally, we never comment on the internal procedures of the other place. However, when one is expressly asked by the Leader of the House of Commons to undertake this task—reflecting, I suppose, the fact that this House had sought, through the Motion it passed in the summer, to be involved in further scrutiny and consideration of EVEL through a Joint Committee with the other place—that changes things. It would, I believe, be wrong to refuse such a request. So in the expectation that the Joint Committee will not now materialise—and conditional on that and on the other place approving the proposals of the Leader of the House of Commons—our committee agreed at its meeting this morning to accept the task. The Procedure Committee and the Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs in the other place will also, I understand, be involved, although separately from our committee.

We will not of course be involved in assessing or commenting on the merits either of the amended Standing Orders or indeed of the policy of English votes for English laws itself—that is not our function. We value the independent, non-partisan nature of our all-party committee. We will, however, proceed with our inquiry over the next few months in our usual way—calling for evidence and interviewing experts and practitioners, including, very possibly, Members of your Lordships’ House—as the new arrangements start to deliver legislation or other business to this House through the use of EVEL. We shall seek to identify any constitutional implications and anomalies that may emerge and, in our usual way, we will draw them to the House’s attention as deserving of further consideration in a report that we will publish thereafter. I hope that my giving that background and clarifying what I see as our role in this business has been helpful to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I must apologise, too, that I shall speak in the gap. This has been an excellent debate and I hope that the Leader will be able to respond to the substantive points raised.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I pay tribute to the Leader—I do not think that she has an easy job—but she needs to convince us tonight that the Government are at least paying some attention to the points raised by your Lordships, because, so far, there is scant evidence of it.

I do not want to go into the circumstances of the failure to respond to our request that a Joint Select Committee be established, but it is a very serious matter that there has been no response. The Leader has prayed in aid Mr Allen’s amendment. Although it may be considered tomorrow, there is no guarantee that the Speaker in the other place will choose it. The noble Baroness prays in aid the amendment as a reason for not responding to your Lordships, but of course her colleagues in the other place will then do everything they can to determine that, even if it is called, it will be defeated. That is not a satisfactory response.

I have noted the point that Chris Grayling made, that he wishes to see our Constitution Committee work with the Commons Procedure Committee, but what does this mean and what if the two committees disagree? If he wants the committees to work together, why on earth not establish a Joint Select Committee?

Of course, we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lang, who made a helpful intervention informing us that his committee has agreed to accept the task that it has been asked to do.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

It is not being suggested that we work together with one of the committees in the other House; we all work independently and we would be more concerned with the output that came through to this House rather than what goes on down there.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I fully understand that, but the question I am raising is: what happens if the two committees reach different conclusions? That is why I think it would have been much better if there had been a Joint Select Committee. From what the noble Lord has said—and I hope that the Leader will agree with me on this—it is clear that accepting this proposition and agreeing to do the work does not mean that the committee is saying that it endorses EVEL or the way in which the Government have chosen to do it.

So many risks are involved in the changes—so many risks to our constitution and so many risks to the union—yet the noble Baroness describes them as simply a matter of procedure and the property of the other place. It is a terrible precedent to use Standing Orders in the other place to make what is a huge constitutional change. We have heard that the contrast between the position of Scottish Members here—the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was very clear on this—and in the other place is not simply a matter of procedure, and nor is the role of the Commons Speaker. The noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, spoke eloquently about the problems of a Speaker being embroiled in hugely controversial political decisions. The 31 pages of memorandum from the Cabinet Office that we have seen are mostly about the Speaker’s role. There are dangers in involving the Speaker—even with the aid of two wise people, as the health docs used to say—and sharing that decision does not fill one with confidence.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, raised an important point. A Bill passed by your Lordships’ House goes to the Commons and is passed there, but is vetoed by English MPs because of the lack of a double majority. The constitutional implications of that are profound.

The noble Lord, Lord Butler, made a pertinent point on whether Scottish MPs are to be given a veto in the circumstances he described. My noble friend Lord Reid gave us wise words about the dangers of establishing a series of grievances that put the union at risk, and they should be a warning to us all.

My time is up. I would simply ask the noble Baroness to really convince us that the Government are going to listen. The profound threat to our union and the integrity of the United Kingdom is very apparent in the debate tonight. Procedures in the Commons are not the way to do it.

Economic and Social Inequality

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, the facts do not bear out the noble Lord’s question. I accept that wealth inequality is higher than income inequality—although he is shaking his head—and that is the case both in the UK and across the OECD. However, it has not changed since records began in 2006. Internationally, the level of wealth inequality in the UK remains below the OECD average and significantly lower than that seen in the US.

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, we have not yet heard from anyone from either the Liberal Democrat Benches or the Conservative Benches, but because we have so far had some contributions from the Opposition Benches, perhaps I may suggest that we start with my noble friend Lord Lang and then go to the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, in addition to the excellent answers already given by my noble friend to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, should he not also draw attention to the fact that raising the tax threshold has also been an enormous advantage to those at the lower end of the social equality scale? This, together with the other excellent points he has made, completely confounds the arguments coming from the Benches opposite.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My noble friend is absolutely correct. Since 2007-08, the annual average disposable income of the poorest 20% of households has risen by £100 in real terms, while the average annual income since 2007-08 of the richest 20% has fallen by £3,000.