Queen’s Speech

Lord Mawhinney Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, like most if not all speakers, I came with a prepared speech. However, this is a debate so I will start by acknowledging and expressing appreciation for three speeches. The first was that of the noble Lord, Lord Owen. He raised sombre, significant, far-reaching and urgent points. I very much hope that the Government will address them in the depth that they deserve before the debate on the gracious Speech winds to a conclusion. Secondly, the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for his insightful and true criticisms of the House of Commons scrutiny procedure. The third speech that I acknowledge with appreciation is that of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, who set out a compelling intellectual case. I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that no Bill will go anywhere unless the points raised by my noble friend Lord Norton and the noble Lord, Lord Laming, are addressed to the satisfaction at least of this House.

The convention is that we are debating the constitution, and I will do that. However, as this is my only chance to speak on the gracious Speech, I will very quickly say how much I welcome the proposal to legislate on adoption. It is high time that Parliament put in its place political correctness at the expense of children. Secondly—this may differentiate me from a few Members on these Benches—I compliment the Government on their continued commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid. No matter how difficult times are—and I acknowledge them to be very difficult—the truth is that we are all better off than the poorest in the world, and it is appropriate for a British Government to recognise that reality. The Government have to do more about the effective delivery of that aid, but I welcome their acknowledgement of the need for it.

As to the constitutional aspects of the gracious Speech, I wish to refer to two of them. At the heart of our constitution is free speech, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to bringing forward legislation to improve and modernise the laws of defamation. Some noble Lords will know that I have to declare an interest because I had the privilege of chairing the Joint Committee on the draft Defamation Bill. I have some reason to believe that the Government found our report helpful and I look forward to reading the Bill to see just how helpful they thought it was. However, there are big issues in the constitutional position of freedom of speech: the “chilling effect” that takes place at the moment; the need for mediation and arbitration as an alternative to rushing off to court; the cost of defamation proceedings; and the need to address the anonymous contributions on the internet. This is an important constitutional Bill and I welcome it.

On House of Lords reform, I have to be honest with the House and say that, as a former chairman of the Conservative Party, I am a little surprised that we are addressing such a Bill from a Government in which our party has a majority, given the history of the Conservative Party and its relations with your Lordships’ House. But there you are: life continues to be surprising. If my noble friends were trying to surprise people, at least they had a success with me.

I go back a long way with the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, from when we were both kid MPs. We have a friendship that dates back a long way and I pay tribute to the bravery of his speech. This was also acknowledged by my noble friend Lord Naseby. It brought to mind something which I read in the Independent the other day, which was a Lib Dem spokesman saying that even on the doorstep in the local elections, Lords reform was not raised. If Lib Dem campaigners cannot get people on the doorstep to talk about Lords reform, then there really is no interest in the country about doing anything.

We hear that something has to be done because there are 800 of us. I would gently remind your Lordships that that is not because of some divine intervention—unless Tony Blair has a status of which I am unaware. He flooded the place, and an incoming Government who needed to have some balance for legislative reasons had to respond. There is no argument that the numbers need to go down; it is the proposal at the heart of the proposed Bill which is the problem.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Solely; we are not legislators but revisers and reviewers. If we were legislators our will would prevail, at least some of the time, but ultimately our will does not prevail. I, for one, utterly reject the idea that we have to be democratically elected because we are not legislators in the pure sense of the term.

As someone who has in his time drawn up election addresses on behalf of the party, I am hugely unimpressed. Never mind what the words say—the noble Lord, Lord Lee, has given a helpful indication of their importance—the truth is that the party’s election address is not a matter of great consultation among the party, and not even among the MPs. I know that because I have been there, done that and got the T-shirt. For those of your Lordships who have never stood for election, I can tell you that the party’s election address arrives long after individual candidates have written their own local election addresses. To suggest that what is written at party headquarters and released half way through an election becomes a binding commitment on every candidate is nonsense. It is not even worth the time to argue about it.

Then we move on to consensus. I was intrigued by the speeches of the Leader of the House and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and indeed by that of my noble friend—and personal friend—Lord Wakeham. I am more confused than I was when this debate started. I have no idea what “consensus” means. Is it Front Bench/Back Bench? Is it the majority? Is it arm twisting to get a deal somewhere in the middle? Is that what consensus is? I have to say to your Lordships that if I had used language as loosely as that when I was seeking to get my university degrees in science, I would have failed, and if I had done that I would not be here today. Let us talk about what it is we actually mean, because if we try to conduct this debate on the basis of jargon, the country will suffer.

Let me add my support to something that others have said: this issue needs to focus on structures, on relationships and on primacy. It needs to outline the difficult questions and to find broad agreement on what are and should be the answers to those broad questions. I hope that my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth will forgive me because I think I have said what he said, but not with the elegance or the intellectual rigour. However, the point is well made and I want to support it.

The public priority was mentioned at the very beginning of the gracious Speech in the words:

“economic growth … reduce the deficit and restore economic stability”.

That is what the public are focused on at the moment: jobs, investment and small businesses. The gracious Speech acknowledged that and then moved on. Perhaps I may say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that for public confidence, competent delivery and persuasive communication are the essence of good politics. I can speak from experience as the Conservative Party chairman in the run-up to the 1997 general election. If the public lose confidence, it is virtually impossible to get it back, and it is against that background that this debate needs to be conducted.

My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said something the other day which I cannot have been the only one to have noticed. He said, “I believe that Parliament can handle more than one thing at a time”. Parliament can handle more than one issue at a time but, if that issue is trying to get people elected into this House, it may just be that the Prime Minister will need to revise his judgment.