Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

In 1993, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, wrote an excellent book, Making Aristocracy Work. It was about the proceedings of this House in the years 1884 to 1914. The book refers to a memorandum written in 1904 by the Earl of Selborne to Cabinet colleagues complaining that proceedings at the end of every Session of Parliament were damaging the reputation of this House. The Earl of Selborne wrote: ""The House of Commons send up in the closing hours of the session a batch of important Bills which the House of Lords has to dispose of post-haste. As a consequence, the proceedings are undignified and the work is badly done. It is not an abuse of language to apply the words ‘farce’ and ‘scandal’ to what takes place"." Since 1904, this House has become a professional, expert revising Chamber for draft legislation. We now aim to promote the highest standards of transparency, accountability and scrutiny, and we criticise ourselves, perhaps more than we are criticised by others, when we fail to meet those standards. Indeed, in opening this debate, the Minister emphasised the importance of transparency and accountability. It is therefore extraordinary—I use the word used by the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member—that in relation to this important constitutional Bill the Government should be contemplating the use of a wash-up procedure that is the very antithesis of the high standards of scrutiny, transparency and accountability that we must attain, and which we repeatedly tell ourselves we must attain, if we are to secure the confidence of the people of this country in our proceedings. I do not impugn the good faith of the usual channels, but "the usual channels" is no more than a euphemism for a complete lack of transparency and accountability. The usual channels are no substitute for discussion and debate on the Floor of this House to examine the content and implications of clauses in a Bill and to consider possible improvements to them. That is true however important or attractive parts of a Bill appear to be. In opening this debate, the Minister asked, perhaps unwisely, a rhetorical question—why now?—concerning one aspect of the Bill. The answer is surely self-evident: the Government now see constitutional reform as a vote winner, rightly or wrongly, and the need for proper, mature consideration of this Bill’s provisions must for them take second place. One could give many examples in the Bill of provisions that look attractive but need detailed consideration. For example, Part 12, on public records, is relatively uncontroversial, but one sees in Clause 86 that it is linked to Schedule 15, which would amend the Freedom of Information Act to create an exemption for communications by public bodies with the heir to the throne. This raises difficult and important issues. Is it really appropriate that the heir to the throne should be able to write to public bodies, with the purpose and the effect of influencing their decisions, and have such correspondence concealed from the public? If such an exemption is appropriate, it needs to be carefully considered and confined. It is regrettable that there will be no opportunity to seek to add to the Bill much needed other constitutional reform. If the Bill had come to this House in good time and had had a Committee stage, I had intended—with the support, I know, of many noble and noble and learned Lords—to table an amendment raising the retirement age for all Supreme Court justices from 70 to 75, a reform that has the support of the President of the Supreme Court, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. It is absurd that Supreme Court justices, who inevitably take time to rise up to the highest levels of the judiciary, are required—as in the case of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Collins of Mapesbury, appointed only last year—to retire within two years of appointment. However, such matters will, I am afraid, have to wait for the next Parliament. I hope that the Minister and the Government will have received and understood the message from all parts of the House in this debate agreeing in substance with the view of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee that the Bill is simply not suitable for a wash-up procedure. The irony, of course, is that the Government’s treatment of this constitutional reform Bill as a political weapon—because that is what it is—to be manipulated from time to time for partisan purposes, irrespective of basic constitutional proprieties, demonstrates with clarity the urgent need for fundamental reform of the machinery of government in this country.