UK Constitution: Oversight and Responsibility (Report from the Constitution Committee)

Lord Harper Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, and I think he rather did himself an injustice in the humble way he introduced his speech. I think he will see when I develop my remarks that I largely agree with what he said, and I think the whole House will have heard the wisdom that he brought as a practitioner at local level on implementing these things. It is a very good lesson that the point of the constitution and the point of all these principles is to make sure that we are better governed for the people we are entrusted with. Of course, that is the purpose, and I think he set it out very well.

I was very pleased that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, referred to the Cabinet Manual. He was right in saying that one chapter was developed and published under Gordon Brown, and that proved to be very helpful in the process of forming the coalition Government. It fell to that Government to develop the rest of the Cabinet Manual, and he referred to the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, who was then the Cabinet Secretary, who led the official team putting it together. I was the junior Minister responsible at ministerial level for the Cabinet Manual. The noble Viscount is quite right that the first edition, the version we produced in October 2011, remains the only edition and has not yet been updated. That is partly because we did a reasonably good job in the first place, which is largely to the credit of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and his team, but it needs updating, and there would be some merit in that. It does not cover the whole constitution; it was deliberately supposed to be about central government’s responsibilities; but I think that having all that in one place and having some clarity about what the rules are would be very helpful in ensuring that they were followed. I was pleased that he raised it before I did. When you are the co-author of something, it is almost slightly embarrassing to be the first person to raise it in a debate in a complimentary way, so I am glad he beat me to it.

I strongly agree with the committee’s first and second conclusions and its third and fourth recommendations about the central position of the Prime Minister on these matters, but also the importance of the civil servants, not just across the Civil Service as a whole but those specifically tasked with looking after this. My noble friend Lord Waldegrave referred to the importance of the Cabinet Secretary’s role in this. When I was in the constitutional role, I felt very well supported by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and his entire team. If it is not inappropriate to point out, I note that one of the former officials who gave evidence to the Constitution Committee, Alex Thomas, who is now the programme director at the Institute for Government, was one of my key officials at the time. He exemplified the quality of the officials that we benefit from and gave very sound advice. In the end the decisions were mine, but I felt very well supported by the team. The recommendation to keep that team together in the Cabinet Office is a very sensible one that the Government should follow.

I also agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier about the importance of the law officers. Recommendation 6 here is a very important one. From my experience in government, it is still the case, notwithstanding all the changes with the role of the Lord Chancellor, that the law officers, active politicians though they are, still have an important role in government when they set out their authoritative position about what the law is for Ministers. The more we can strengthen their authority within government and take them slightly out of that day-to-day political fight, the better. That would be welcome and I strongly support what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said and the recommendation by the committee.

I understand the point of recommendation 7, referred to by a number of noble Lords, on appointing a weighty figure to support the Prime Minister on the constitution. It is a worthy idea, but I think that fundamentally, it will not work. In the end, in our system, particularly on constitutional matters, the buck stops with the Prime Minister. It is not just the day-to-day work. The evidence that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster gave about the Prime Minister being a very busy man is true, but a lot of the way the constitution is followed in government is not about whether the Prime Minister spends a lot of time thinking about it or looking at lots of papers about it, but about the tone that the Prime Minister sets for how his or her Government are conducted, the standards and the expectations that they have for others and—and this is where the word integrity is important—the standards they set and expect of themselves.

Integrity is an important word. It is about what you do when you do not think anybody is looking. That is very important, and it is something we should all think about when we are thinking about who the right people are to be Prime Minister. It is that tone and culture that they set in Government. Whatever we say about other people, in the end, the buck stops with them. They are the King’s first Minister and adviser on the constitution. Yes, they can take advice from the Cabinet Secretary—all of these functions are valuable—but in the end, it is the Prime Minister who sets that tone.

My final point is about recommendation 14 to put various things in statute. This is where I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley: the genius of our constitution is that it is flexible and can respond to the political situation. I will give just one brief example. I had the pleasure—pleasure is maybe not quite the right word—of giving evidence to the Constitution Committee back in 2010, in a session chaired by my noble friend Lord Norton. It was a very gruelling experience, with high-calibre people on the committee, and it was about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which I had to take through Parliament. That was a very good example of trying to put things into statute which were probably best left not. The reason why it did not work was that a set of circumstances evolved after the Brexit referendum which we could not possibly have foreseen, and therefore the system was not capable of responding. I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, that we should leave things flexible. In the end, the political system has to deal with these matters, and our flexible constitution is therefore best placed to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I am going to say yes, and we will see how much trouble I have just got myself in.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

On that point, it is quite important that the Minister commits to consulting Parliament, but it was very clear that the Cabinet Manual remains an executive document and it should not be approved by either House of Parliament; it should remain owned by Ministers. I think that distinction is worth getting on the record.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and probably just saved me from myself—I would have got in trouble. This is very clearly an executive document, as he was party to, but this Government will want to consult as widely as possible, which is why I also want to meet the noble Baroness on other issues, because wider consultation is important. The noble Lord did nearly get me in trouble.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, touched on the UK internal market. We are going through the statutory review process. Although we are ahead of time, we have just finished the consultation, and we are currently reflecting on it. She made an important point.

There were many other points raised that I realise I am not going to get to, but that just shows quite how important and wide ranging the debate has been. I will come back to noble Lords on their point that I have not been able to touch on. I thank noble Lords for their participation in today’s debate, and for, as ever, ensuring that I learn something in your Lordships’ House.