Governance of Britain

I thank the Lord Chancellor for giving me a brief early sight of his statement and for the delivery of the documents to my office this morning. I congratulate him on pulling rank over his right hon. and learned Friend the deputy leader of the Labour party and the Leader of the House by making his statement ahead of the business statement. The Lord Chancellor says that this is about changing how Britain is governed, and strengthening Parliament. Will he confirm that the Prime Minister will be making a speech shortly on the Human Rights Act outside the House, as has been widely reported in the press this morning, not least on the front page of The Guardian? The press has clearly been briefed. Will the Lord Chancellor tell the House how, when the Prime Minister makes such an important speech outside the House and prevents us from being able to debate it, that constitutes the strengthening of Parliament? In our Opposition day debate on 15 May, we called for the strengthening of parliamentary approval of international treaties. Our democracy taskforce, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), proposed that international treaties be exempt from the royal prerogative, and be required to be laid before Parliament, together with an explanatory document. Why do the Government believe that statutory change is necessary, when a resolution of the House of Commons would be adequate? The consultation document says that proposals on parliamentary approval would relate to new international treaties, but what about existing ones? The House will have a chance to vote on the EU constitutional treaty, signed by the Prime Minister in Lisbon last week, but none the less it will not be put to a vote of the people. Is that the way to rebuild the public's trust? Given the frequency of deployments and the controversy that that has created, there is growing consensus in this country that the decision to go to war requires democratic legitimacy. We have already said that parliamentary assent, for example through a resolution of the House of Commons, should be required to commit troops to war, international armed conflict or peacekeeping activity. We favour that being done through the development of a parliamentary convention. The consultation paper proposes that, apart from informing the House, there be no requirement for any further parliamentary procedure, but if the Government really want to strengthen Parliament, should not the House be able to have a decisive say if the Government make a wrong call? Of course there are serious issues relating to the potential for a negative vote when troops are already in the field, but there should be no blank cheque. In matters as critical as a major deployment in an emergency, why should there not be an opportunity for retrospective approval, not just an obligation for the Prime Minister to inform Parliament? It is right that the House should vote before troops are committed to military action overseas, but we had a vote when the war in Iraq was declared, and the House was not given a full and accurate account of the position. Does the Lord Chancellor not appreciate that what has caused a haemorrhaging of public trust in Government is not the failure to give Parliament a vote—there was a vote—but the fact that the Government in which he was Foreign Secretary misled the public on the issue? We welcome moves to strengthen the Intelligence and Security Committee—but will the Lord Chancellor confirm that appointments to the Committee will not be in the gift of the Government Whips? We welcome the measures to allow protests around Parliament. Indeed, when the reprehensible legislation on the subject was passed, I said that it was more appropriate to Tiananmen square than to Parliament square. [Interruption.] Will the Lord Chancellor explain exactly how such a flagrant attack on freedom of expression was not found to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998? Was that not an example of the way in which the Act interferes with our ability to deal with terrorists and serious criminals, but fails to protect essential civil liberties? [Interruption.]...It is unfortunate that the Government find themselves trying to ensure greater independence in the appointment of judges, as only recently they have done far more to threaten the independence of the judiciary by forcing judges, without prior consultation and still without their agreement, into a Department where their budget is imperilled by the prisons crisis. Will the Lord Chancellor tell the House when he will be able to make a statement on negotiations with the judiciary to protect their independence in the new Ministry of Justice? We welcome measures to limit political involvement in judicial appointments. Does the Secretary of State for Justice now accept that ensuring judicial independence is far more important than gestures such as moving the judiciary to a different building on the other side of Parliament square? The Government now admit that that will cost more than £100 million to set up, and £12.3 million a year to run, although the current arrangements cost virtually nothing. Independence is not the only principle that guides judicial appointments. It is quite right that judges should have to be competent, diligent and people of the utmost integrity. Above all, as the consultation paper says:"““Linked to independence is the principle that judges should be appointed on merit.””" How does the Lord Chancellor reconcile that principle with the commitment to ensuring that judges are drawn from diverse communities? Can he rule out any suggestion of any kind of quotas or positive discrimination in judicial appointments? All three of the consultative documents that the Government have published today are welcome, and we will engage fully in debate on them. ““The Governance of Britain”” Green Paper says that the Government want to forge a new relationship between Government and citizen, but does the Lord Chancellor not understand that there will be no such new relationship until trust is rebuilt? Talking about strengthening Parliament will count for nothing if Parliament is undermined, as it was when the Prime Minister cynically made his announcement of troop withdrawals to the press. Talking about giving people more power will count for nothing if the Government put party interests ahead of voters' interests, as the Electoral Commission found that they did—