Local Government Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, support the Motion. I declare an interest as a resident of Norwich and as a former leader of the city council. I wish to repeat a couple of points in addition to the excellent speeches that we have heard from all around the House. This Motion is not about the merits or otherwise of the Bill. It is certainly not about the merits or otherwise of unitary status. The debate is not even about whether the Bill is hybrid, despite the speech of the Minister, who is seeking to act as judge and jury—if I may put it that way—on that issue. The House is not being asked to decide that. That is a matter for the Examiners, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, put it so well. What we are discussing is a procedural "reasonable doubt" issue. The most relevant guideline comes from the Speaker’s ruling, also on a local government Bill, which was quoted by my noble friend. I repeat it, because it represents a very low hurdle indeed. The ruling stated: ""I accept the true position to be this, that if it be possible for the view to be taken that this Bill is a Hybrid Bill"—" I repeat, "if it be possible"— ""it ought to go to the examiners. There must not be a doubt about it".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/62; col. 45.]" I will not explain what the hybrid issue is; the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has done that very well. However, given that there is such a very low hurdle, is it possible, in the words of the Speaker of the Commons, for the view to be taken that the Bill is hybrid? Such a view should clearly not be whimsical or something that I thought up in the bath. In fact, we have the view of learned counsel and of parliamentary agents, Sharpe Pritchard, which has stated that it is strongly arguable that this Bill is hybrid. Others, perfectly properly, may take a different view. However, we are not asking the House to judge that this afternoon. That is a matter of judgment. We are asking it merely to decide whether the arguments from QCs and parliamentary agents meet the very low hurdle of the test set by the Speaker, when he said, ""if it be possible for the view to be taken that this Bill is a Hybrid Bill"," it should go to the Examiners. Opinion from learned counsel and parliamentary agents would seem to me not to be frivolous, but a serious one that should be explored by the Examiners. Counsel’s opinion is, therefore, unambiguous and it seems to me that the Speaker’s ruling applies unambiguously, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, argued. If the House ignored that ruling—and the Clerks’ advice was given in advance of them seeing learned counsel’s opinions to the contrary—that would flout not only the clear ruling of the Speaker and the House would be, if I may say so, behaving in a very high-handed way which all of us have studiously sought to avoid, precisely because we are not elected. Whatever our views about the Bill—and I full accept that they will be various—I do hope that we all agree that we should be seen to be meticulous and transparent in our procedures. If not, we cut away further at our distinguished history and that will leave us more exposed in the future. Whatever noble Lords’ views about the merits of the Norwich and Exeter case, I hope that they will support this Motion, because that would show the House of Lords at its most reflective best.