My Lords, I should have spoken to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, before deciding what to speak about because he has said nearly everything that I wished to say, so I will not be very long. Your Lordships have heard me, and listened patiently to me, addressing the House about this misuse, this abuse, this failure to comply with constitutional conventions. As I spoke, I believed it and I still believe it. What has happened to Cabinet responsibility? Gone. What has happened to the confidentiality of Cabinet? What has happened to the constitution when the Minister for the Constitution is not a member of the Cabinet? What is happening and has happened with Henry VIII clauses now strewn like confetti at a happy wedding in the old days when, if I may say so to the Lords spiritual, the vicars did not mind if there were confetti on the path all the way back to and in the church?
When I read about the constitution, democracy and rights commission, I thought, “Hurrah! We’re going to address the problems. We’re going to address the misuse and the abuse. We’re going to try to make the Government more answerable to Parliament.” Then I thought, “Isn’t that funny? Democracy and rights are what constitutions are about. Why bother to have a commission into constitution, democracy and rights? Why add those words if your real concern is the constitution?” As the noble Lord, Lord Young, reminded us, the Prime Minister has told us in a briefing that the idea is to develop,
“proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates.”
He has listed some of the many issues that have to be addressed. I suggest that the very first objective of any commission addressing the constitution should be to identify the misuses and abuses of it by both sides—by the coalition, too—in a practical way to establish and protect the constitution from further misuse and abuse and, in particular, to extinguish the misuse of unaccountable power by the Executive.
However, I could not dispel the suspicion that this is really all about the Prorogation decision of the Supreme Court.