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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

My Lords, first, and quite genuinely, believe it or not, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I have not agreed with every word—not with many of them, actually—but the quality of the speeches has been great. The expertise that we have seen on Civil Service reforms around Part 1 of the Bill has been especially illuminating. It was great to hear the "second maiden speech" of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury; I think that I recall his first, some years ago. For him to see the Government kicked from pillar to post must have been as though he had never been away, but it was good to see him back and I hope that he is here to stay. Next, I particularly enjoyed the refreshing speech of my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton. It was one that it was good to hear in this House and on the kind of subject that we have kind of shied away from, no doubt for good reasons. I listened with bated breath for whether the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, or anyone else on the Conservative side would try and answer the points that he made so well, but I am afraid that answer there was none. I shall turn to a couple of quick points before going onto the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. At the very end, if I have time, I shall come back to the Constitution Committee’s comments. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, who is not in his place now and was never down to speak, asked me in the opening whether Part 4 undermines the independence of the trustees of the MPs’ pension scheme. The answer is that the measures in Part 4 do not undermine the independence of the trustees. These provisions have been agreed with the trustees themselves; they will still be able to manage the assets of the scheme. In the other place we accepted a number of amendments put forward by the trustees. I said that I would answer the noble Lord’s query and I have. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made a refreshing speech, if I may say so. It was not so full of the—I almost said self-righteousness, but I dare not use that word in this House even at this hour of the night—strong feeling that was expressed throughout the debate. His speech was a welcome difference. He asked about war powers. I should point out that war powers were never in the draft Bill. The Government concluded that they should be dealt with by way of a parliamentary resolution, as recommended by the Constitution Committee. I now come to my main point. The very severe criticisms of the Government today in a sense cover up the fact that a large part of the Bill is agreed by a large number of noble Lords in the House. The Official Opposition describe it as a dog’s dinner of a Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, criticised Part 6 on the tax status of Peers and presumably MPs, but it worth reminding noble Lords opposite that on Third Reading of the Bill in another place, the honourable Dominic Grieve, shadow Secretary of State for Justice, welcomed large parts of the Bill. He welcomed the move to put the Civil Service on a statutory footing; he welcomed the "Crown employment: nationality" provisions in Chapter 4 of Part 1; he welcomed ratification of treaties in Part 2; he welcomed the clauses relating to IPSA in Part 4; he welcomed what he described as some sensible amendments in respect of the House of Lords, which we also welcome. He said that he awaited with interest how the other place responded to them. I do not know how he expected the Front Bench in another place to respond to them, but it was certainly different. He welcomed the tax status of Peers; he welcomed the human rights claims against devolved Administrations; he welcomed the work on judicial appointments; he welcomed the proposal to beef up the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s national audit role; and not least, he welcomed Clause 37 and Clause 90 on overnight counting, adopted from an amendment tabled by the Conservative Front Bench. Listening to a Front Bench spokesman on the Conservative side one could not believe that the shadow Justice Secretary, presumably officially on behalf of his party, welcomed all those many provisions. The truth is that the Constitution Committee in its report was not very critical of many of the parts of the Bill which it looked at. There is a lot of support for the Bill and—