Queen’s Speech

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Indeed, and I am not very comfortable with that. One thing that we ought to do is to learn from our mistakes in the past, look at the problems that have arisen from things that we have done and not do it again. That is what I am arguing very strongly. It would be an entirely nonsensical system, just as it is nonsensical to suggest that an elected Chamber would not demand extra powers. That goes against every principle of politics. Look at the devolved Parliaments—they are asking for extra powers, saying, “We are elected and we want more powers”. That is just so obvious that it should be accepted by all politicians. A hybrid House would have real problems in terms of having two classes of Members.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I wonder whether the noble Lord has given some thought to this question, which could be part of his constitutional convention’s considerations. Given that in this country, unlike many other countries in the world, the Executive are not elected separately—the Government are the Government because they command a majority in the elected House—if there were two elected Houses, which one would determine the Government?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very good question, and there is no answer that I can give to it and no answer given by the proponents of the Clegg Bill. What the noble Lord, Lord Reid, says is yet another argument. Day by day, week by week and month by month, the arguments accrue in favour of a constitutional convention to look at all these things to get some coherence into our constitutional changes instead of the piecemeal changes that we have had in the past.

My fourth point about the Clegg Bill is that no account is taken of the possibility of Scottish independence or indeed of the West Lothian question and the McKay commission. So let us abandon the Clegg Bill and find another way forward—in the short term, as I have suggested, with the beefed-up Steel Bill, and the constitutional convention in the long term. It is not just the extra problems of the economy and others that are facing the Government. We could do with a little less legislation considered a little more carefully and we could spend more time dealing with legislation that really matters to our people. We could also continue to fulfil the other important role of this House, which we share with the other House, of keeping a check on the Executive—and my goodness that is needed more and more each day.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I will follow up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, before I turn to the issue of this House. The amount and complication of legislation is a far more serious long-term issue for this Parliament than we generally recognise. Although some may say that the Queen’s Speech is shorter than some, it still contains 20 pieces of legislation, several of them very major indeed. For example, we have reform of the courts and of security and intelligence services; we have a raft of complex reforms around children, families and parents; we have reforms of banking utilities; and so on. To legislate as we do, more than any other free democratic assembly in the world, is one of our besetting sins. I am sure that most noble Lords know that we put on the statute book between 12,000 and 15,000 pages of statute law a year, while repealing only 2,000 or 3,000. That is inevitably bureaucratising, centralising, complicating and demoralising. It has a great deal to do with the disaffection of politics by so many of our fellow countrymen. That disenchantment is tracked rather effectively—for those of you who do not know of it—by the Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement. It has been conducted year by year for eight years, and at the start of the executive summary says:

“The growing sense of indifference to politics … appears to have hardened into something more serious this year: the trends in indicators such as interest, knowledge, certainty to vote and satisfaction with the system of governing are downward, dramatically so in some instances”.

The report says that,

“only …49% … agree that the issues debated and decided in Parliament have relevance to their own lives; only 38% agree that the government is being held to account by Parliament; and only 30% agree that Parliament encourages public involvement in politics”.

We need to pay much more serious attention to that piece of evidence—and there is much more like it—because we cannot go on as we are going. I suggest that one major cause of this tsunami of legislation is indeed the system that prevails in the other, superior, Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, touched on it when he spoke about the way in which that Chamber conducts its business. Some may recollect that, in the reform debate that we had last week, I referred to the degree of holding to account by the Commons. My noble friend Lord Wallace said that he would answer my questions in this debate, and I much look forward to that. I got from the helpful Library staff comparable figures for Lords and Commons over the last 10 parliamentary Sessions, from 2001 to 2012. I thank Patrick Vollmer here and Paul Lester there. In that period in the Commons there were 3,078 Divisions, of which the Government lost six—one every two years. Is that holding the Executive to account? It is a farce; it is a rubber-stamp machine down there. Whatever one says about this extraordinary place, although it certainly could not withstand scrutiny by a panel of academics drawn from across the realm, at least in 1,455 Divisions we defeated the Government 425 times, or one in every three or four votes, compared down the other end with one in 513 votes. I fear that I am out of step with the majority on these Benches, but before we take this astonishingly pregnant step of electing Members to this place, we must address what is already a fundamental defect in our parliamentary system.

We are therefore between the devil and the deep blue sea. The devil would be to go ahead with election to this House without seeking to ensure that it did not become a replica of the other place. I am afraid to say that I do not see how it could fail to become a replica of the other place. A 15-year term would not counterbalance the even greater dependence on party patronage that the regional list system would necessarily involve. Those who would effectively elect to this place would comprise a tiny caucus of party faithful—all good men and women. None the less, they would adopt those of their own kind. Once here they would be ever more grateful for the party patronage that got them here, given the system of election, given that they would have been put on the list and given that they would have been given priority in the list.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

Although the noble Lord makes the point very well, he underestimates the problem because at least under the system of election at present, although there is a party influence, there are different ideas and opinions within each party constituency, so there is a degree of separation between the patronage of the leadership and local communities. Under the list system, it is completely in the gift of the party leadership. Therefore, even before someone got in here under the list system, they would already be the creature of the ideological and political leadership of the party.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that comment as it constitutes my next point.

Pakistan

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, the assassinations of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti were tragic for both Pakistan and the rest of the world. They were a personal tragedy for me because of my personal relationship with Shahbaz Bhatti. However, as I promised him, I visited Karachi when I was in Pakistan, and specifically visited a convent school for girls and met the Archbishop of Karachi. The school is an excellent example of service to education and to interfaith relations. It is run by an Irish nun who has been in Pakistan for 58 years. I was delighted to hear from the Archbishop that the Christian community in Karachi is doing well, despite its challenges.

Our main commitment to aid in Pakistan is through the education programme. We are committed to 4 million more children being educated as a result of DfID’s commitment in Pakistan. I am sure that all in your Lordships’ House would agree that the best way to open minds and to deal with the challenges of extremism is through better educated young people.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, in the midst of the current political difficulties in Pakistan, will the Minister take the opportunity to reaffirm that the stability of Pakistan, and its friendship with this country, remain key political objectives of the Government, not only because it is a member of the Commonwealth and a sovereign state with nuclear weapons, but because of its important role in the whole of that region?

Electoral Registration

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, I would like to make two brief comments in the gap: one about the short term and one about the medium to longer term. In the short term, the Government have found themselves in a problem largely because they are trying to row in two directions at the same time. I agree with the short-term measures to patch up the electoral registration system and the voting system that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, mentioned earlier on. They are sensible if we are going to stick with the present system. However, to do it in the context of the introduction of legislation which is going to have a counterbalancing and opposite effect seems to be completely non-productive. We have a plus and a minus, and I cannot see how, in the context of the present legislation, even the introduction of the advantageous advances mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, would compensate for that.

It is really about the medium and longer term that I want to speak. When I read and listen to these debates, the elephant in the room has been ridden by every other component in our society, such as retail trade, financing trade and social networks. It is electronic communication. It seems to me absolutely inconceivable that we can be planning for a future without three elements using modern information technology: first, individual registration; secondly, ease of access to voting; and, thirdly and very importantly because the first and second require the volunteering of information, the protection of information should it be lost or stolen or otherwise accessed by others.

I know the controversy that surrounded this, but it was precisely that third element that lay behind voluntary ID cards. That is because online registration is now prevalent for bank accounts and necessary to receive benefits. The amount of information that one supplies to the Government which is sitting there in huge data banks will be added to by any form of electoral registration, particularly if national insurance numbers are added. That electronic information, just like paper information, is going to be lost or stolen. When and if it is lost or stolen, it is not an argument against biometrically protected ID cards. It is an argument for having biometric identification, because in those circumstances, no one can access that information. No one can go into your bank account unless they happen to have your five fingers and your iris. It is precisely about the protection of the individual.

Therefore, I would suggest that at least some serious consideration is given to online registration and the introduction in the medium to longer term of some form of identification that protects the individual’s identity through their iris and fingerprints. I do not entirely agree with my good and noble friend Lord Maxton; I have never been in favour of compulsory ID cards. However, I am in favour of compulsory registration. I believe that the future is having an ID card in your pocket. I have one and it was massively convenient in allowing me to walk into France and Germany without a passport, giving inviolable proof of my identity to anyone, unlike every smart card in my pocket.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government and the Electoral Commission are both looking at this. Regarding the question of where canvasses are concentrated and how far one looks at suggestions such as the need to supply postal addresses on envelopes, council tax bills and utility bills, other Governments have experimented with, for example, the need to provide utility bills. This is part of the issue of asking what relevant data one might be able to use to help to pick up, as the noble Baroness said, particularly those who are young and unmarried, who move much more often or who live in private rented accommodation—those who, as we all know, are in the vulnerable sector.

One thing that we have done is to publish draft legislative provisions to extend from 17 to 25 working days the timetable for registering to vote in parliamentary general elections. This will take effect in time for the intended 2015 general election. Part of the reason for that is that we have discovered a surge in late registrations once an election has been announced. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, remarked, once polling cards are sent out, people living in multi-occupancy accommodation sometimes think, “Oh dear, I didn’t get a polling card. I am not on the register, and I must register”. On the other hand, that of course opens opportunities for fraud, particularly regarding late applications for postal votes. Therefore, there has to be sufficient time for some checking of late applications in those terms. That is the game we are attempting to negotiate, so to speak.

The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, says that voting is rather old-fashioned in the electronic age and that we should be using much more modern technology. The Government propose to move towards electronic registration, but we are approaching somewhat more cautiously the issue of moving towards electronic voting. Once I had been briefed on cybercrime, cyberwarfare and the ease with which one can hack, I was a little less enthusiastic than I had been previously about moving immediately to electronic voting.

As to the problems of citizenship engagement, I have some sympathy with the preference of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for the democratic moment in which the majority of people—

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

Going back to the cyber question, it is a big problem. Is the Minister aware that the best protection against misuse or fraud on cyber issues is biometric protection? With identification by your own iris or fingerprints, no one else can pretend to be you.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I take that point on board and we will feed it back into our considerations, as and when the issue of electronic voting comes up.

I was commenting on whether the physical act of voting in a particular place, within a particular community, or—for those who are deeply committed to single-Member constituencies—within a particular constituency, ought not to be part of the way in which the citizen relates to his community and thereby to his state. We should not entirely rule out the importance of that.

A number of noble Lords asked about pilots. The Government, in their response, will discuss some of what has been learnt through the attempts at data-matching—comparing different databases, not integrating them. A certain amount has been learnt and this is part of the way forward for picking up those who would otherwise have been missed. Again, we have been looking at international comparisons of electoral systems and the Electoral Commission has produced a useful paper on them.

Other uses of the register were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and others, ranging from the letter I received from a number of charities, which talked about the importance of access to the register in order to send out fundraising letters, to commercial use and credit checks, as well as jury service, which is also part of the citizen’s obligation to the state.

The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, asked about members of the armed services. The new employment model for the armed services will enable many more armed services members to have a longer-term home base. We already know that a number of service members are registered from their home base, and the number of those who are voting from abroad by postal votes may therefore indicate that the system is underestimating those who are able to vote. A number of us have family members serving abroad. My wife currently has a proxy vote for our son, who is on postdoctoral study in the United States. That issue also extends to the armed services. The new employment model will therefore help considerably with the levels of service registration.

The question of fraud has been raised. That is part of the issue of integrity. There is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, remarked, some not insignificant fraud in particular constituencies, and I am well aware that it takes place. Therefore, we have to maintain an effective system of checks, and that is part of the reason why we have to close down late registration and late applications for postal votes some days ahead of each election in order to provide sufficient time for adequate checks.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, raised the question of—