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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, for those kind words. All I can say is that whatever other feelings are going through my breast, it is a genuine pleasure to come back to such a friendly, civilised place as this. It is a triumph of human creativity to have a place such as the House of Lords. When you are away from it, you appreciate rather more its extraordinary organic functioning; the grace and lack of partisanship; the friendship and warmth; and the willingness to listen to people and have, as far as possible, open minds. I have missed all of that. It is something of an irony that the last time I was on my feet in this Chamber, in the summer of 2006, it was to lay before the House a Private Member’s Bill permitting the resignation of life Peers. It was partly the provocation of that provision in this Bill that ultimately forced my wavering hand. Many have said, very eloquently, that this is not the way to treat a major constitutional Bill. There is nothing to add to that. The one point that I have not heard emphasised, and is worth emphasising, was made by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, at the beginning. He said that in the Commons a third of the Bill was not even debated. If I have learnt even more than I already knew in the nearly four years that I have been away, it is from the quite stupendous number of times that people have come up to me, knowing that I had stood down. They said many things but two prevailed. One was a great respect and regard for this House, over and above the House of Commons. The people of this country appreciate what we do here and the manner in which we do it. They appreciate the intelligence and experience we bring to bear on it. The other thing that was and is said to me again and again is, "We are completely lost. You legislate so much, so furiously and so complexly that we cannot feed into the process". There is a lack of ability for the public—those who might be inclined so to do—to react to this very important Bill. The lack of opportunity, which will not be there because of the way in which the Bill is being dealt with, is not a small issue. It is part and parcel of the disconnectedness and disaffection that so many of our fellow citizens feel towards this place at this time, quite apart from the sad expenses saga, and so on. I had to make that point. I will refer briefly to some of the drafting in the Bill. It is interesting. I recently had cause to look at the public Acts of 1906. That was the year that Bonar Law lost to Campbell-Bannerman. The total length of all the public Acts of 1906 is less than that of this Bill. That gives pause for thought. Some of the drafting in the Bill is of extraordinary complexity. We will not have the chance to unravel and improve it in the normal way, as we should. I cite Clauses 54 to 57, which deal with the removal, expulsion, resignation and disclaimer of life peerages, and with Peers convicted of crime, and so on. They are almost impenetrable even to Members of this House. They are not fit for purpose. Had we the time, I think we would have uncovered internal contradictions within those four clauses. If you suffer from insomnia, take to bed Clause 29 of the Bill. When you cannot get your mind off whatever it is, read subsection (4)(d) of that clause. In trying to understand it, you will surely nod off. I defy anybody to make sense of that subsection. Contrast this with the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which is, I am afraid, a stunning indictment of what we have here. I will briefly say, as many have, that had we had the opportunity to consider the Bill and table amendments to it, many of us would have done so. Many examples have already been given. Why, for example, do we still not have votes for Members of this House? That is not quite true, because the Bishops have them. On what conceivable basis can the Lords spiritual have more temporal power than the rest of us? It is bonkers! We might also, I suggest, have considered putting in a clause which allowed those of us who do not like titles not to have them forced on us. We could simply call ourselves Andrew Phillips MHL—Member of the House of Lords. It could be entirely voluntary. Titles are great for those who want them and, for those who want to keep them to their graves, better still. However, for those of us who do not like them, why should they not be voluntary? It might be a small step in the direction of lessening the distance that can exist between us and the public. I would have liked to have seen reference in the Bill to what has certainly been referred to in the debate—I cannot remember by whom; I think it was my noble friend Lord McNally—a referendum on the composition of this House, with choices. Was not the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, the author of that idea? Why should it not be in the Bill? The disagreement between us on the composition of the House is considerable and the public should decide who comprises this Chamber, not us. This is classically an issue for the public. I wish to make two further points. The first relates in particular to Clause 65 which deals with the appointment of justices of the peace. Noble Lords may remember that the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 removed this power of appointment from the advisory committees under the Lord Chancellor to the Judicial Appointments Commission. A number of us said at the time that that might not be a great idea, and it was not. The commission simply cannot cope with the appointment of JPs. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Bach, may not be able to reply tonight, but I should be grateful if he let us know whether, under the change made by the Bill, the Lord Chancellor will take up that appointment role and, in particular, use local advisory committees—I hope under their present distribution, because there are indications that, as with everything else in our nation, consolidation is in mind, whereby bigger always equals better. Of course, we know it does not. My final point was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, and relates to protest law. Some of us were involved in the Bill that became the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005—SOCPA. My only contribution to it was to object to Sections 132 to 138, which I and many others thought gave far too wide powers to the police to manage protests. Many of those provisions, which would fortunately be repealed by this Bill, related to that wonderful eccentric Brian Haw, who insisted on living with his tatty placards opposite the entrance to the House. I commend much of the repeal of SOCPA, but there is one blemish which, if we had time, we should have dealt with. Clause 61 and Schedule 9 of this Bill add a new Section 14 to the Public Order Act 1986 to allow the Secretary of State, by secondary legislation, to provide the requirements subject to which the police will in future manage protests outside this place. It is wholly contrary to our tradition to allow matters of basic personal liberty to be dealt with by means of secondary legislation. This is yet another matter which is not little, but is potentially very important, because we know well enough that secondary legislation is quite useless in terms of the powers of this House. We cannot amend it and throwing it out in toto is extraordinarily rare and, even then, ineffectual. With those points I shall come to a close, and I am sorry that I have overrun my time.