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Coalition Government

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, for introducing this interesting and measured discussion of very important issues. We have had the usual mixture in your Lordships’ House of expert practitioners, expert academics and journeymen working Peers like myself, which has produced far more consensus around the Chamber than many of us thought would happen before this debate started. There has been a slight obsession with the Liberal Democrats, perhaps understandably. There is only one that I really want to pick up on. I hesitate to quibble historically with a distinguished historian such as the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, who went back a long time, though only in this country, to tell us of the past history of coalitions and the disastrous effects that they had on the Liberal Party. The point is that each of the ones he cited followed a significant and catastrophic split within the Liberal Party. That is not the case now and it is not going to be the case. We are in this for five years and so all of us have to make it work in the mean time. If this is a new type of coalition, as the noble Baroness suggested, then it is a completely new governmental and parliamentary situation. It started off when the coalition was being negotiated, when nobody in the political parties had thought it through properly beforehand. It had to be made up as they went along. It is still being made up, week by week, month by month. The position is still evolving. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, a great deal of whose speech I agreed with, said that the coalition had had a major effect on the process of formation and the resulting policy. Another effect is on the ongoing processes of government, which, as I said, are still evolving. My noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, pointed out in an intervention that the coalition was put together in five days. One of the important lessons must be that in future coalition-building in this country after an election really ought to take place at a slightly more measured pace, and to take the normal 10 or 14 days which everybody else in the world expects as a minimum. The five days led to two defects. First, the coalition agreement was not comprehensive and missed great chunks out. What was in was often too detailed, not always properly thought out and in some cases the political implications of what was agreed as a quick fix had not been thought through at all, notably and most importantly on tuition fees, which have proved so harmful to my party. Secondly, there was no time during that period to think seriously about the processes of government, the changes that were forced on the Government and Parliament by the fact of coalition, and those which were not forced but were perhaps thought to be desirable. The result was the attempt we have seen to fit a two-party Government into a one-party mould. A great deal of the problems that have arisen with the coalition since then have resulted from the application of procedures, customs and practices which have been designed for a single-party Government when we now have two parties in government together. It started off with all the new Ministers getting a memo from the Civil Service—I presume it was the one that would have been sent out anyway—which was inappropriate for a two-party Government. One of the first coalition documents sets out what is really little different from what had gone before in terms of the way the Government were going to work and ministerial responsibility. It was basically what had gone before. Since then processes have evolved and are still evolving. As members of a coalition party who are not members of the Government, we are involved in some of those processes but they have not gone far enough. The processes still do not really accept that what we have are two parties from different traditions with different philosophies—a centre-left liberal party and a centre-right conservative party. I use a small ““l”” and a small ““c”” for the words ““liberal”” and ““conservative””, although they are obviously the party names as well. Like my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart, I believe that the internal processes of government must be more open and transparent. Both parties will benefit if their positions are better understood in the country and if the inevitable compromises and trade-offs which are taking place day by day, week by week and month by month are much clearer to people who are interested. There is a need to explain the discussions that are going on and the results of those discussions. It is foolish to pretend that detailed agreement exists between the two parties on every issue. It is foolish to see Liberals going on programmes such as ““Newsnight””, defending Tory policies in detail that we all know they do not really agree with, and vice versa: it is foolish to see Tories trying to defend things they do not agree with which they have had to accept because they are in coalition with us. As my noble friend said, the foreword to the coalition agreement states that, "““we will extend transparency to every area of public life””." It is time that it started at the top. People will say that it is very difficult because we live in a media environment which is one of the worst in the democratic world. The media observe policy differences and call it a split; they observe policy discussions and call it a row; they observe compromises and call it a betrayal; they observe trade-offs and call it broken promises; they observe a refusal to agree with consultation responses and call it ideological stubbornness; they observe changes as a result of consultation and call it a U-turn; and if they do not see any of these things they invent them. However, that is the media we have to deal with and the difficulties that we have with the British media should not get in the way of what should be done. For the whole of my political lifetime over 50 years, people have said of the Liberal Democrats, ““You are never in power. You can say what you like but it is a waste of time voting for you””. Now they are saying, ““You have thrown away your principles for ministerial seats””. They are both points of view, but when they come from the same people very rapidly it is, at the least, a little annoying. The real problem is that in all these things the Opposition—I do not blame the Labour Party specifically for this because Oppositions take their opportunities within the adversarial system that we have—cannot resist joining in; they cannot resist chasing the cheap headline to feed off the prejudices and the way in which the press works. I am not suggesting that we would not do the same in opposition, but they cannot resist pandering to pressure groups who thought they would get a particular policy through but now find that things have changed. Those kinds of attacks on the coalition undermine a sensible coalition environment. I say to the Labour Party, ““You may be in coalition the next time or the time after that. Think about it. If there is a new political environment, perhaps the debate needs to change””. There has been enough material put forward by this Government which can be rationally and constructively criticised, for heaven’s sake. I shall do so myself as a Back-Bencher. There is plenty of that to do without descending to silly, childish abuse. Many noble Lords have referred to the implications for this House. It is absolutely vital that legislation receives detailed and sufficient scrutiny, revision and improvement as a result of constructive and tolerant interchange. That is what this House is all about, and this group is totally committed to continuing that under the coalition environment. As other Lords have pointed out in different words, this House works because there is an atmosphere of agreement and tolerance between the different sides of the House. The Government’s side of the deal is to listen, discuss, negotiate and accept some changes, even if they are not completely thrilled about them. The amendment about the Isle of Wight that was discussed yesterday is a case in point. That amendment does not undermine the foundations of the Bill; it does not cause the whole thing to come tumbling down; it is a detail. The detail on the Scottish islands has already been accepted and, if the Government are prepared to accept the amendment on the Isle of Wight, it will be an indication that at least they are beginning to become a little flexible. The deal on the Opposition is that, in return, they do not abuse the procedures; they do not destroy the ability of the House to scrutinise, revise and improve; and, in particular, they have a duty not to make self-regulation impossible. That is the deal, but it has broken down on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. We can argue about who is right, who is wrong and who is most to blame. I say the Opposition are to blame—but I would accept the Mandy Rice-Davies caveat that I would say that anyway. Nevertheless, it does not matter who is to blame; it has broken down and both sides of the House have got to repair it. If we do not, it will become impossible for this House to carry out its duties on all kinds of new Bills. We have a pivotal role—I shall finish with this—in that we possess loyalty and support for the coalition. We are not going to undermine its fundamentals—we are in it for five years—so do not think anything different. However, we are still an autonomous group within the coalition with a distinctive perspective on politics. We are also committed to the proper role of this House. Those three matters cause us great difficulties at times because they conflict in all kinds of ways. We are committed to the coalition and will try to make it succeed. I hope other parts of the House will understand what we are trying to do and help us to do it because it will help the Opposition if we are able to play that role.