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Points of Order
3.30 pm
Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude), the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, quoted what he had said on 14 July last year. He said:
- "The Chancellor hopes that we will oppose his plans to spend more money on health and education, but I am going to disappoint him . . . we welcome . . . money for those priority services."--[Official Report, 14 July 1998; Vol. 316, c. 195-96.]
- "I said that last year and I say it again today. We support increases in health and education spending."--[Official Report, 9 November 1999; Vol. 337, c. 893.]
Madam Speaker: Order. Just a moment, Mr. Brooke. I will hear out this point of order properly.
Mr. Brooke: There is an Alice in Wonderland dimension to the exchanges, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer can say not once but four times the precise opposite of what the shadow Chancellor has just said. The remarks of both right hon. Gentlemen are recorded in yesterday's Hansard. Can you advise us, Madam Speaker, as to the best way of dealing with this matter? It is patently one of fact--not of debate.
Madam Speaker: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, I cannot comment on the utterances of right hon. or hon. Members. I have no responsibility for what any of them say--providing that it is within order. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he creates opportunities to raise the matter through the Order Paper--Question Time, early-day motions or even an Adjournment debate. He can then put the record straight as he thinks fit. He must use the Order Paper, and, as a long-standing Member of the House, he well knows how to use it to the best advantage.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In response to a question from the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice) at last Wednesday's Question Time, the Prime Minister said that, within a few days, the Home Secretary would make an announcement about the Labour party's approach to fox
hunting. We have now almost reached the end of the Session. It has been suggested that, as a fig leaf for the Prime Minister's embarrassment, the Home Secretary might answer a written question tomorrow. Have you, Madam Speaker, received a request from the Home Secretary to come to the House to make a proper statement on the subject?
Madam Speaker: No, I have had no request for any such statement.
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you have received a request from the Government for a Minister to make a statement to the House about the position in Chechnya, where hundreds of innocent civilians are being killed and wounded, refugees are being denied safe passage and it appears that we may well be on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe. Has any Foreign Office Minister requested an opportunity to make a statement on those matters?
Madam Speaker: I am very conscious of the serious situation in that part of the world. As yet, I have not received a request from any Minister to make a statement on the issue.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. This weekend, the Prime Minister will attend the meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government. Many of us are concerned about the outcome of those negotiations--and in particular whether the Prime Minister will raise the issue of the Commonwealth ban on beef. Given that we have the unhappy coincidence of Prorogation with that meeting, is there a mechanism whereby the Prime Minister can report back to the House on the outcome of the meeting, as he would do if we were sitting?
Madam Speaker: When the House is prorogued, the Prime Minister can make no report to the House.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In the light of your preparedness to listen to the point of order raised by the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), may we therefore presume that points of order of that nature will be heard by the Chair?
Madam Speaker: No, the hon. Member cannot assume anything. I receive many requests for points of order that are in fact points of frustration or anything other than points of order. I believed, on hearing the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), that he was about to make a serious point of order that should concern me. It was for that reason, and that reason alone, that I felt he should be heard.
Orders of the Day
House of Lords Bill
Lords amendments considered.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
I beg to move amendment (f) to the Lords amendment, after 'time', insert 'no more than'.
Madam Speaker:
With this it will be convenient to take amendments (b), (c) and (e) to the Lords amendment and Lords amendments Nos. 3 and 5 to 12.
Mr. Mackinlay:
I understand why the Government accepted the Weatherill proposals. Although I do not welcome them, I always recognise the need to seize political opportunities. That is precisely, and legitimately, what the Government have done in furtherance of our objective to abolish the hereditary peerage and establish a reformed upper House. However, there are some consequences of the Government accepting the Weatherill amendment which I do not accept. The devil is in the detail, as I shall draw to the House's attention. As a result, I tabled amendments (c) and (f) to the Lords amendment.
As the Bill stands, it provides for elected hereditary peers to be succeeded on death. The Weatherill compromise threw up, by election, some 90-odd hereditary peers. When we heard of the instigation of the so-called Weatherill compromise, many of us assumed that those who were elected would be the last of the large body of hereditary peers. However, in the detail--detail that was added in the final stages of proceedings on the Bill in the House of Lords, and therefore not part of the original so-called deal--there is provision for an elected hereditary peer to be succeeded by another when he is
called to the great parliamentary Chamber on high. That is not satisfactory or in the spirit of what we were led to believe was the Weatherill compromise.
My amendments would ensure that those who have been elected would remain in the House of Lords for life, but, as a group, their membership of it would wither on the vine. Indeed, the consequence of striking out subsection (4) would be to create life peers of the elected hereditary peers. I remind my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that, in so doing, we would be fulfilling a manifesto commitment.
I, my right hon. Friend and our hon. Friends are the custodians of our election manifesto, which it is always helpful to have with one on these occasions. I hope that the House will permit me to refer to the explicit undertakings in our manifesto, which says:
I have acknowledged the need to accept the so-called Weatherill compromise, but I believe that we can still do so and fulfil to the letter our manifesto commitment. I invite my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to break new ground and accept amendments (f) and (c). During the hocus-pocus and consternation relating to the Weatherill compromise, when the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords was sacked, it was never spelled out that we would allow hereditary peers to be succeeded. A very generous compromise has been reached, and I believe that we should say that we stand by our election manifesto in that regard.
I believe that I can call upon historic precedent in this matter.
"As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute. This will be the first stage in a process of reform".
There is no ambiguity about that. We made a firm election commitment to abolish the hereditary peerage in this Parliament.
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