Governance of Britain

My Lords, I have had just a few more minutes than the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, to examine the Statement and the consultation documents. This is as much as anything a restatement in a number of important directions but, nevertheless, my noble friends and I welcome it. To deal with easy matters first, we very warmly welcome the decision to review the rights of democratic protest. We always thought that it was ridiculous to include in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 an attempt to try to control the rather messy experiences that we witness daily in the middle of Parliament Square. It was not an appropriate vehicle for dealing with the very proper right of the British citizen to protest in public and close to where we hope these decisions will still be made—in the Palace of Westminster. We must examine the issue of judicial appointments with extreme care, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has already advanced, because in our constitution we have a rather ineffective separation of powers. The noble Lord himself has probably gone all over the world advising new democracies on the necessity of keeping separate the judiciary from the legislature and Executive. Until quite recently we had here on the Woolsack someone who was a member of the Cabinet and therefore a part of the Executive, a member of the legislature as a Member of this House, but also the supreme head of the judiciary. That was quite extraordinary. So whatever methods we are going to adopt, we shall have to look at extremely carefully. With any sort of confirmatory hearings, surely the real confirmatory hearings should be for those responsible to Parliament. New Secretaries of State should surely come before either Joint Committees or Select Committees of the other House. As the Statement has made clear, there are 12 areas in which the royal prerogative could be re-examined—and only a few are dealt with in the process in front of us today. There is no reference to the dissolution of Parliament, which may in the light of recent events be rather more significant and urgent than the issues that are in the Statement. It would be extraordinary if the Government so lost their majority in the Commons that they could not carry the day on that issue—and, if they can carry the day, the only effect in terms of real change to the balance of power in this country would be a further restriction on the monarch, who in certain circumstances can potentially still have a view on that matter. On the war-making powers and treaty ratification, we look forward to hearing the Government’s proposals for your Lordships' House. We believe that in both cases there is a role for us in this place, as well as the other place; but we are very strongly in favour of placing the issue of treaty ratification on a statutory basis. We do not believe that an informal convention is sufficient. In the Statement there is also a welcome change in the Government’s attitude on the issue of requests for freedom of information. We very warmly welcome the decision to review that; we thought that it was anti-democratic that the charging regime should have been ratcheted up on the basis of previous proposals. We also welcome the decision to look again at how the resources of the National Audit Office could be made available to both Houses. The future of the Human Rights Act is only very briefly mentioned at the end of the Statement but we understand that it will be the subject of a rather fuller explanation of the Government’s policy from the Prime Minister outwith Parliament today. We believe that the Act needs strengthening, not weakening, and we shall examine that very carefully. What are not in the Statement but are in the Green Paper are matters that we believe are equally urgent to those that are contained in it. Nothing more need be said about House of Lords reform at the moment—but one hopes that in the next couple of weeks we will hear more. The concordat referred to in The Governance of Britain Green Paper between central and local government is a really urgent issue and nothing has been said about it. Members of your Lordships' House will recall that on all sides and in all parties the relationship between central and local government is considered to be at a critical stage, and this concordat will be very important. At the time of the Green Paper much reference was made to a proposed Speaker’s Conference. What is the remit for that conference? What will be the representation in that conference, and what is the intended timescale? The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said that our constitution does not need renewing. These Benches believe that it certainly does, and for one very important reason. It is surely an absolute basic right of every British citizen to be confident that his or her vote is equal in value to that of every other citizen. Surely in a representative democracy that is a very basic citizen’s right. Given that there is now wide recognition that three-quarters of the electorate have no impact on the outcome, and their vote is therefore wasted, when will Ministers release their internal departmental examination of voting systems? We have long been promised the report. It was referenced in the Green Paper in paragraph 156 that it was imminent and should be with us before the end of the year. The end of the year is coming very swiftly. When will the Government accept that this gross distortion at the heart of the democratic governance of Britain should at least be referred to the Speaker’s Conference and to a general wider consultation among the public? Otherwise at the very heart of the Government’s proposals there is an aching void.