Queen’s Speech

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, although those on this side of the House celebrate the scale of the Government’s success in December—a sentiment that may be shared by many on the Benches opposite, although covertly—it is important that we do not learn the wrong lessons.

Notwithstanding the earnest and sometimes frivolous contributions of the Prime Minister, the person and policies that contributed most to that remarkable outcome was Mr Corbyn and the Momentum-inspired manifesto. Among those who voted Conservative there were millions who, like me, feared the damage that Mr Corbyn would cause to Britain, yet more than they feared the damage that would flow from Brexit. While I accept that the election is authority for leaving the European Union on 31 January, it is not authority for a no-deal or hard-deal Brexit. I am profoundly concerned by the provision in the withdrawal Bill that purports to prevent the extension of the transitional period beyond the current year.

I turn directly to the aspects of the Queen’s Speech more precisely relevant to the terms of today’s debate and wish to make a very brief comment on the following: the police, prisons, Northern Ireland and the constitution. However, before doing so, I express my concern about the number of Bills contemplated by the Speech. I have counted 24 in number. It beyond the capacity of Parliament—even of this House—to deal with that volume of legislation in a proper and effective manner. In the Commons there will be mandatory timetabling, and there will be thousands of pages of unamendable secondary legislation. This is thoroughly bad for democracy and should be considered by the commission on the constitution.

Turning now to the police, although I welcome the royal commission on the criminal justice system, it is even more important to establish a royal commission on policing in England and Wales. Nobody could or should be satisfied with how the police service in England and Wales is presently performing. A royal commission should examine the resources dedicated to the police, the number of forces, the appointment of senior officers, the training of constables and, perhaps above all, the prioritisation of objectives. There will be hard decisions to take and they will be robustly resisted, but the recommendations of a royal commission will add credibility to the resulting polices.

I now want to say a word about prisons. I note the Government’s commitment to more prison places. When I was the prisons Minister at the back end of the 1980s, there were just over 40,000 prisoners; there are now over 80,000. I doubt the justification for this. It is essential that priority is given to improving the fabric of the estate, to the provision of meaningful out-of-cell activity, to remedying the defects in the basic educational attainments of many prisoners and to the development of workplace skills. The provision of more effective non-custodial sentences, backed by a reinforced probation service, is yet more important.

As regards the prosecution of servicemen for offences alleged to have been committed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, I find it deeply offensive—indeed, an abuse of process—that service and police personnel should be prosecuted while individuals alleged to have been involved in terrorism are welcomed into the political community and have held high political office. The only sensible way forward is a statute of limitations that will prevent all prosecutions for all alleged offences relating to the Troubles committed prior to, for example, the Good Friday agreement. Although it grieves me to suggest that an alleged terrorist should be treated in the same way as a police or security officer, I do not think that the law can or should permit a distinction.

My find word is on the commission on the constitution. For familial reasons, alluded to by the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord McNally, I have long been concerned by the threat to our democracy that could be posed by a Government with a large parliamentary majority. This indeed is the elective dictatorship of which my father wrote and spoke. We do not live in a society that has firmly entrenched rights, and we should be very slow to reduce the power of the courts to declare unlawful the actions of an over-mighty government. Those of my friends who take a different view should consider where they would stand on this matter in the event of a Momentum-inspired Administration.

In the coming months we will have much to consider. I very much hope that we hold this Government to account and seek to improve the volume of legislation that will be brought before us.