Among the best speeches in yesterday’s debate on Lords reform were those made by Lord Cope of Berkeley on the Conservative benches, Lord Walton of Detchant on the cross-benches and Lord Rooker on the Labour benches. Lord Rooker drew on his experience in both Houses, including as a minister. One of his most telling observations was:
“After 27 years in the Commons, the last four as a Minister, I will admit that I was very ignorant about your Lordships’ House. Not any more-but as a transferring Minister from one House to the other, fresh from the Commons, in my first seven years in this place, in my four departmental roles as a Minister, I genuinely felt under greater scrutiny than I ever was in the Commons. There is no question about that in my mind and I have thought about that a lot. The scrutiny level here is much greater-and my experience ranges across six departments.”
I would agree, Lord Rooker is reliably circumspect and penetrating, and uses common-english well.
I thought every other speaker had at least one commendable point to make, too.
This time the one speech I leaned forward to hear out, and keenly took immediate note of was Viscount Eccles who in apparent nervousness began without ceremony
“My lords, I suppose in the outcome, what we are hoping for is that we are going to be better governed”. He went on to respect first-principles but to warn of the danger “when something has been going on for a very long time, that we stop thinking strategically” and instead start accepting an inevitability of the outcome in disregard of the longer-term circumstances, which Lord Richard had already said quite powerfully.
Viscount Eccles went on to address a tricky sub-topic brought up by the leader of the House concerning Public confidence and whether people’s expectations are fulfilled.
Viscount Eccles thought that there is a deep lack of confidence within the Public “because the Public believes that the Parliament is not in a good position to deliver; and indeed worse than that, that it is unreasonable to expect it to do so”; and for sound historical reasons and failures.
“The public is aware” that Parliament has been increasingly unable to design or describe end-results, and finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the details of events, such as of the BP experience or of Climate ‘Change’.
So Viscount Eccles thinks that political-leadership now lies much more in establishing long-term directions of travel than in committing us all to masses of short-term end-result-unclear legislation.
“And if we are to pursue successful directions of travel” as Lord Lowe also had said, “then we need to deepen the dialogue both within Parliament, within the Houses of Parliament, and with Civil Society.”
Viscount Eccles and more than one speaker said that we should definitely not go into mere tactical actions, which indeed started in 1911 but have not and can not bring us better governance simply because they are only tactical, whereas we need far-seeing Strategy: “we need first principles, to think through the challenges to our democracy as they are today, and not as how they used to be”.
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However ‘self-centred’ upon the needs of the House of Lords those lords and ladies are, they were none of them, I feel, taking the name of the People in vain.
Which is more than can be said of the much more powerful and almighty membership in the House of Commons (as I touch upon in the neighbouring post “Debating Lords reform”).
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(JSDM0157Th010710).
Telling.
Geoff Rooker never did perform well in the HofC
but even I have noticed that he does none too badly at all in the noble place, and enjoys it far more too.
Good on Geoff Rooker. He fits the place and the place suits him.
Thanks for that resumé JDSM which is useful.
“Viscount Eccles thought that there is a deep lack of confidence within the Public “because the Public believes that the Parliament is not in a good position to deliver; and indeed worse than that, that it is unreasonable to expect it to do so”
Which may well be due to the lack of joined up thinking and government between the EU govt and the UK one.
The penny drops for a good many when I get on my hobby horse of Central Asian international govt as being the answer to war in Afghanistan, and the fact that newly developed EU policy is the only policy which will effectively work towards it.
Whitehall may discuss it until the cows come home, and make no progress at all, unless they properly defer to Strasbourg and Bruxelles.
EU committees, and 7 sub committees in HofL?
ROLL ON!
VE suggested “failure to solve the boom-bust cycle and the global-warming threat” as two of the British causes of popular no-confidence (rather than the lack of EU – UK link-up and thinking).
Are you thinking “Get Turkey into the EU” and (ampersand)”promote a new Middle-East – cum – Central-Asian Union” ?
Or is your “Central Asian international government” as the answer to (all ?) war in Afghanistan (and in any other country)something that will be allied with the EU ?
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JSDM2038Th0107)
Another off-topic ramble..
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/politics/article-23851708-sleepless-in-westminster-mps-bed-down-at-work-after-losing-perks.do
Surely if noble Lords were to ‘adopt-an-MP’ then you could kill both the birds of ‘Lords overnight allowance’ and ‘stitched-up MPs’ with one stone ?
——-“Are you thinking “Get Turkey into the EU” and (ampersand)”promote a new Middle-East – cum – Central-Asian Union” ?————–
NO.
——- is your “Central Asian international government” as the answer to (all ?) war in Afghanistan (and in any other country)something that will be allied with the EU ?”——–
It can only be sponsored by other international governments to be successful. I only used it as an example, not as a direct reply to the main subject thread.
—-He fits the place and the place suits him.— I sometimes wonder about the sibling relationships of young peers, who are keen on that place at an early age, regardless of the “honour” of peerage.
I could understand young 8th Generation Earls being prepared to take on the “socialists” in the 80s and 90s, to protect their estates and introduce their own bills for the purpose, but for a young life peer
to take on all the gerontocratic features of
the HofL, has always seemed to be mind bendingly unwise, for the sake of a minor cabinet post at the wage.
The new Baroness Warsi, aged 21, may regret the membership in the long run; at least her long run will be longer than that of 99.9% of the rest of the place, which may be the only favorable thing to say about her membership.
Some video moments from the debate:
Tip! Click the pause button before you move the slider, then press play. If you get out of sequence it will lock up and you will have to start again by closing the web page. Unfortunately, the BBC Media Player does not show a time index as you move the cursor and you cannot manually set a ‘start from’ time on the Democracy Live video web page. It is particularly bad on low bandwidth internet connections.
To make things equally difficult Hansard on the Parliament site has its ‘Next Section’ link at the bottom of the page but does not have the same link at the top. If you set the browser page ‘Find’ function to search on a word which is found automatically indicated by the box background changing colour then if not found you must page down to the bottom LHS of the page to move on; designed by techies with little imagination or user empathy.
Lord Lowe (Part 1, 1:35:22) Indirect Elections, Electoral Colleges
Baroness D’Souza (Part 1, 42:43) Explains why XB peers will not be sat on the committee for the draft bill. Why fix what ain’t broke?
Lord Norton (Part 2, 2:02:30) What is a settled view?
Lord Gilbert (Part 3, 56:26) Tom-Toms and some Oiks.
Baroness Hooper (Part 3, 1:03) Indirect Elections, Electoral Colleges
Lord Selsdon (Part 3, 1:14:05) Elected Committee and Dignity
Lord Tyler (Part 3, 2:17:30) Manifesto commitments, role of revised chamber
Lord Lucas (Part 3, 2:31:15) Last to speak, Steele Bill, appointed peers chosen from a closed list elected from an open list. Train wreck.
Front benches closing remarks (Part 3, 2:36:58) White paper, ‘Break the Deadlock’. Medical definition of term ‘Grandfathering’. Use of Parliament Acts.
No mention anywhere of LIFO Peers, Last-In-First-Out?
Ref: Reforming the HoL; Breaking the Deadlock; Jul 05, 2007
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/spp/publications/unit-publications/119.pdf
Health Professions Order 2001: Part III: Article 13(2.a)
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20020254.htm#13
Part 1: Lords Reform Debate, Jun 29, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8774000/8774158.stm
Part 2: Lords Reform Debate, Jun 29, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8774000/8774185.stm
Part 3: Lords Reform Debate, Jun 29, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8763000/8763218.stm