War Powers and Treaties

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate initiated by my noble and gallant friend Lord Guthrie. The document giving the agenda for the debate seems to be well written, although as a pedant of many years’ standing I cannot avoid noting that the Secretary of State for Defence and for Scotland on page 8 spells his name in two ways—once with an ““e”” at the end and once without. Can we assume that the ““e””-less Brown is for the Scots, or the Picts perhaps? Paragraph 44 refers to the fact that this country last declared war in 1942. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, told us that the declaration was against Thailand but the Library assured me it was against Romania. That is of no great importance now, except to note that a formal declaration of war has not been made since the Second World War. The proposal in the consultation document argues that we should put on a formal basis the discussions with Parliament which, as the excellent table on page 21 explains, have almost always happened informally and effectively. The Government also suggest that a discussion with Parliament should be limited to, "““a vote in the Commons alone””," as mentioned on page 23, paragraph 37, so there are two important matters to be discussed. On the first matter of the legal requirement, like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, and many others, I think we would be better served by a convention. Parliament depends for its good working on convention as much as on legal requirements. No two international threats are quite the same. Iraq was different from Suez, even though both were put forward as issues for international intervention on what my noble and gallant friend Lord Bramall rightly described as false premises. I do not see that a legal requirement to consult Parliament would remove the risk of false premises but I could be convinced of the benefit of a legal requirement if it were successfully argued that the armed services desired or needed it. The second matter is the consultation of your Lordships’ House. The Government think this is unnecessary but I think that view is mistaken. The other place is still known for its great debates but on important issues, as we in this House know only too well, it is usually easy enough for the Government of the day to secure a majority. The great change experienced in the other place in the last century has been the lamentable vast increase in the number of members of the Government who are Members of that other place—98 last week before the reshuffle. There also are about 50 Parliamentary Private Secretaries and I dare say at least another 50 Members of Parliament are hoping to catch the Whip’s eye so that they might one day become Parliamentary Private Secretaries themselves. The Government’s strength is perhaps 200. With that number it must be always easy for good Whips to secure good majorities. One subject many of us would like to see treated in the context of a future discussion on the governance of Britain would be the reform of the other place. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, implied that that would be desirable, perhaps by cutting the number of Members, as was once suggested by a distinguished Labour Foreign Secretary, the late Mr Anthony Crosland. It is also worth mentioning that this House has one or two important residual powers. For example, we are legally obliged to approve any plan by the other place to extend the life of a Parliament, as happened in 1939. Because the other place is not—and I hope this remark is in order—in an especially independent stage of its history, there would be a great benefit to requiring that this House be always consulted on matters of war and peace. It is generally admitted that this House is in rather good shape and always has had among its Members persons of military experience. Let us hope that whatever reforms are afoot, we will always have them. Our noble and gallant friends in this House are in a strong position in our legislature, considering that there are few Members of the other place with military experience, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in a fine speech in this House on 22 November. If there is to be a legal requirement, my preference would be for the constitutional reform Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, in January 2006, which is described on page 20 of the consultative document, whereby, unless there is overwhelming urgency, the Government would before an international armed conflict require backing from a resolution in both Houses of Parliament. That is, in fact, close to the present position, for there was an important debate on Iraq in this House—without a vote, it is true—on 18 March 2003, two days before the other place voted on 20 March.