Governance of Britain

I, too, welcome the statement, and I would have welcomed early sight of the papers accompanying it. In his announcement today, the Lord Chancellor has given the strong impression that he is running to catch up with the statements of the Prime Minister outside the House. Nevertheless, I welcome many of the proposals in the statement. The changes to the royal prerogative in terms of war-making powers are long overdue. It is extremely pleasing to hear the support from the Government Benches and from the Conservatives for something that they flatly rejected when it was proposed by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) not long ago. Even with the provisos that were already in that Bill about morale, operational flexibility and legal liability, it seemed impossible for those on either Front Bench to support even the principle of that Bill at that stage, so the conversion is welcome. With reference to the royal prerogative on treaties, I invite the Lord Chancellor to provide a further gloss on what he said about European Union treaties. Where no change in domestic law is required by the treaty, it does not receive line-by-line scrutiny in the House. Some of us believe that any treaty should be subject to the oversight of the House. On the independence of the judiciary, I welcome the discussion paper on separation of powers—almost, as it would seem, as an academic subject. The large number of examples from other jurisdictions have sparing relevance to our system, but if we can further cement the independence of the judiciary, that is extremely important. What new thinking is apparent on the Government's part since the last time we visited the issue? After all, we have only just put in place new provisions to strengthen the role of the Lord Chief Justice. On the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, I note what the Lord Chancellor says about concerns among campaigners and other citizens, and we need to listen to those concerns. May I suggest an innovation to him: that this House actually listens to Members when they raise concerns in the context of the Bill? We fought every inch of the way on the provisions, because we knew exactly what the consequences would be. We would have welcomed the support of those on the Conservative Front Benches in both Houses all the way in arguing against those provisions, but unfortunately we did not receive it. We would apparently have received the support of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) if he had been in the House at the time. His observations, presumably made in his bathroom at home, are extremely welcome in that respect. This legislation is working to suppress the right of free speech and demonstration, and if one wants illustration of that fact, one has only to look at the case of Maya Stevens or the march that took place only the other day with on-off permission from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the threat even to hon. Members of this House that they would not be able—