---

Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it is a sheer privilege and pleasure to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, who enlivens the House. I agree with everything that he said, albeit that I have been here for 20 years and am 92. I accept totally what he says about 15-year terms, although I am a bit over the limit. I was going to speak about the separation of powers and how it impacts on and affects the governance of the realm by the introduction of Bills—not only the Bills in the gracious Speech, to which I am not speaking, but other Bills too. The separation of powers involves setting up a constitutional court on the extended jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which has been spoken about by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. This is in a sense a revival of the spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers and Thomas Paine. It is a new dawn for all Her Majesty’s subjects of whatever political persuasion or none, and it could well affect the acknowledged function of your Lordships’ House as guardian of the constitution to divert the exercise from amendments to delay a Bill towards an application to the constitutional court for approval of what would have been the substance of such putative amendments. It is entitlement of a totally new dimension. A constitutional court devises its own procedures to afford the requisite flexibility. It may reform or shield our constitution from political junketing and from the imposition of prime ministerial decrees, which erode, and perhaps debilitate or even destroy, the constitution, as they are made without consultation with either Parliament or the Government. It is a new hope for all those subjects of Her Majesty of whatever political persuasion or none. I do not suppose that anyone is very interested but I shall try to be short about what I have to say. This is, to my mind, a crucial subject—it concerns the awakening of an entitlement to a better way of governance. A couple of amendments that have been lying around and have been spoken to in your Lordships’ House could well qualify for reference to the constitutional court. One is the segregation of the combined appointment of the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice. The other concerns the restoration of the entitlement of the Lord Chancellor, at the conversion of policy into law, to advise the Cabinet and the Secretary of State as to the withdrawal or amendment of a Bill for want of conformity to constitutional principle and the rule of law. Nobody—even here—could say that that is not relevant to the governance of the realm. The constitutional court’s decisions are not subject to the supranational jurisdiction of the federal Supreme Court as they are concerned with unwritten, ever- evolving constitutions of a constitutional monarchy. They cannot apply to the written constitutions of the EU member states, so we cannot be subservient to the jurisdictions of that court. There is not much time to deal with what my noble friend Lord Kingsland said about the two issues to which I referred, and which I know the Minister knows. With seven on the clock, I shall just give the reference, which is Official Report, 18 November 2008, cols. 1123-24. Everything that my noble friend said is there. He was a veritable master of the esoteric art of forensic persuasion, and he did it much better than I can at this hour. If the Lord Chancellor’s entitlement, which was slighted into abeyance by the setting up of a combined appointment, were to be restored, first it has not been abrogated by statute; secondly, there would be no need to have any conflict with extant statutory provision; and lastly, by virtue of the statutory retention of the Great Seal—it was the only amendment accepted by the Government of my many amendments to that Bill. It was accepted and maintained the office of the Lord Chancellor that the then Prime Minister sought to abolish in June 2005. I conclude with deference to the Supreme Court, the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, which I respectfully suggest would have to make applications to the court, and to my noble friend Lord Kingsland.