Lords Sitting of 17 March 1999

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

Working Time Directive
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are still negotiating with the European Commission on implementation in the United Kingdom of the working time directive and possible exemptions from it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, the working time regulations, which implemented the European working time directive, came into force on 1st October 1998. The European Commission announced final proposals on 18th November 1998 to extend the working time directive to the currently excluded sectors. We are seeking to ensure through negotiation that any new measures are balanced, sensible, accommodate our concerns and do not adversely affect the competitiveness of industry or the delivery of healthcare within the National Health Service.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. The Commissioners have now interrupted their own working time—some may be granted a continuous exemption—but has progress been made in the case of share fishermen, who do not fit into any regular patterns of hours or of employment?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, perhaps I may give the position before the current events interrupted. The vast majority of the 20, 000 fishermen in this country are share fishermen. Those who are genuinely self-employed will not be covered by the proposals as the directive applies only to workers. Perhaps I should say, in this context, "workers who are employed" is the legal interpretation. The directive also contains more flexible provisions for mobile workers, which will apply to fishermen who are employed. The proposals provide a large degree of flexibility for these workers. The limits on hours are annual limits. The night work limits, rights to daily, weekly and rest breaks are replaced with a right to adequate rest. That is likely to be defined in a specific directive for sea fishing, which the Commission has said it will publish later in 1999. The right to paid annual leave will not apply to employed share fishermen. The Danes have recently put forward proposals that will provide greater flexibility for sea fishermen's working time, and we are currently considering those proposals.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the introduction of the regulations on 1 st October caused
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a problem because of the speed with which they were introduced particularly as neither House was sitting at the time and therefore proper scrutiny of the regulations by Parliament was not possible? Will he undertake that that problem will not arise in respect of any future extension or amendment of the regulations?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, a considerable amount of time was given for the introduction of the regulations. There has been extensive consultation on them and it will be some time before they are implemented.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord has spoken of negotiations with the Commission. Presumably the people with whom representatives of Her Majesty's Government are negotiating have some authority. Given that those in command are no longer in position, at what level is that authority? Is there anyone at the Commission in a position to give a ruling on something with which a future Commissioner may disagree and with which the present Commissioners have no powers to disagree?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I appreciate that this is a good moment to make such a point, but, in terms of the serious negotiations, I cannot see that the present situation will lead to any serious interruption.
Lord Elton: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord whether he does not recognise the abolition of the fount of all authority within the Commission as a serious matter—not a debating point—which will have serious effects on the negotiations he has described. Can the Minister tell the House what those effects will be?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, one has to make a distinction between the current situation, in which there is clearly a limit on the authority of the Commission, and negotiations which are not due to be concluded for many months to come. I cannot believe that in those circumstances there is any serious point concerning these negotiations.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I am sure it was inadvertent, but can the Minister reply to the. question of the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, who asked whether any future amendment of these regulations will be brought before Parliament and not while we are not in Session? I fear that in the course of conflict the Minister forgot to answer that question.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I confess that I am not certain whether the regulations would have to be brought back. I will write to the noble Lord and confirm the situation.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that what he said was not readily intelligible in the form in which it was stated? This is part of the problem. There was a reference to "these workers". There are at least three categories of workers. With respect to the noble Lord, it was not a wholly intelligible answer.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, if the noble Lord's question concerns fishermen, the distinction I was

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making was between the self-employed, to whom I referred earlier, and people who are employed. In that context I referred to them as workers. If that was not clear at the time, I regret it.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that fishermen, whether they are employees or employers, are extremely concerned that they have not been properly consulted on the common fisheries policy, and indeed on the working time directive. Will the noble Lord give an assurance that both sides of the industry will be properly consulted before any further agreements are made?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, there has been extensive consultation. However, if fishermen want to make further representations, I am certain that we would be delighted to hear them.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, on the one hand, the regulations are ambiguous and, on other hand, according to Adair Turner, they represent European legislation at its absolute worst? Can he explain how it is possible that in the matter of paper boys and paper rounds the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said categorically that the regulations do not apply to people of compulsory school age but at the same time the European Commission, which was in control at the time, said that they do apply?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, at this point we are talking about the negotiations that are taking place. As far as concerns the previous regulations, those have come forward with a fair degree of understanding on all sides. To the extent that they have not, there are some key questions, and we shall be issuing further documents to answer those questions and clarify any points. But I think that the regulations have come in well. The noble Baroness asked about paper boys. We have said clearly that the regulations do not apply to those under the age of 16 but they do apply to anyone over that age. In our view, that is the correct interpretation of them.

Iraq: Sanctions
2.45 p.m.
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their latest assessment of the effectiveness of sanctions against Iraq.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, sanctions against Iraq have contained a brutal dictator and are a key tool in coercing Iraq into compliance with its obligations under Security Council resolutions. We reject the propaganda which suggests that sanctions are responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people. It is the government in Baghdad which ensures that over
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275 million dollars worth of medical supplies lie undistributed in warehouses and that food produced locally is sold to neighbouring countries rather than feeding the Iraqi people. We are putting forward ideas to the UN assessment panel currently addressing the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
Lord Judd: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is precisely because the Saddam regime is one of the most cold-blooded, ruthless and oppressive in history that we should do everything possible to protect the innocent and to deny that regime any propaganda advantage? Can my noble friend assure us that the thinking which the Government have been doing on the application of sanctions can be rapidly applied to the Iraqi situation so that sanctions are targeted on those upon whom they should be targeted so that suffering can be relieved? Does my noble friend further agree that the ultimate test of all we are doing on sanctions is our clear long-term objective for security in the region as a whole?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, if my noble friend is suggesting that we should relax sanctions against Iraq, I cannot agree with him. Relaxing those sanctions without Iraq having met its obligations would be a serious mistake. It would reward the obstinacy of a brutal dictator, it would leave him free to build up a military threat against others in the region and it would signal that the international community had lost the will to enforce its demands as put forward in the United Nations Security Council resolutions. I remind my noble friend that the latest reports of the UN special rapporteur, Max van der Stoel, hold Iraq primarily responsible for the precarious food and health situation in that country. My noble friend made reference to the review of the sanctions policy which my right honourable friend announced earlier this week. It is true that the Government have been looking at ways of targeting sanctions more against regimes than against some of the innocent people in those countries. But in putting forward those plans my right honourable friend also made clear that he did not believe that it would be possible to have that kind of specific targeting in the case of Iraq.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, what is the Government's assessment of the state of President Saddam Hussein's programme for developing weapons of mass destruction?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the noble Lord asks an extremely important question. It was in order to try to assess what is happening over the programme of weapons of mass destruction that, on 30th January, the Security Council set up three panels. One is looking into what has happened to Kuwaiti prisoners; another is examining the humanitarian aspects; the third is looking at weapons of mass destruction and the way in which the Security Council resolutions can still be carried forward. We hope that

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the results of the work being undertaken by the United Nations will be put forward shortly, possibly in a couple of months' time.
Lord Steel of Aikwood: My Lords, is it not the case that allied policy has perforce had to change to more military containment of Iraq, which hurts the regime there directly? In that context, is it not reasonable to ask that the discussions that are starting should see some lifting of the sanctions, which hurt the people of Iraq directly?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, there has been some military activity. I assume the activity to which the noble Lord refers is that which we have seen in the no fly zones, notably on 28th February and 1st March. I assure the noble Lord and the House that the action of the allies has been defensive action, strictly limited to proportional responses against Iraq's weapons and facilities which pose a threat to the coalition forces. The Security Council is presently discussing ways in which to make the oil-for-food programme more effective in meeting the needs of the Iraqi people. One of our proposals is to lift the ceiling on the oil-for-food programme. That would mean that there would be no limit to the amount of oil that Iraq could export to fund oil-for-food. That said, the key to all of this must be the willingness of the Iraqi regime to ensure that food reaches hungry people and that medical supplies get to where they are needed.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, in view of the enormous amount of censorship, how much information is beamed into Iraq so that people there know that the food is being stored?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as I mentioned in answer to my noble friend Lord Judd. we have the report of the special rapporteur. We know that the latest Iraqi plans on the distribution of food involve a reduction in the calorific value of the daily food ration. We know that Iraq has allocated 25 million dollars to the purchase of banknote counting machines and 100 million dollars to the purchase of telecommunications equipment—all of this while Iraq is holding 275 million dollars' worth of medical supplies and distributing only 15 per cent. of medical equipment. Iraq is also attempting to sell food to its neighbours—for example, to Syria and it has attempted to do so to Jordan.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, in view of the adoption of five new principles which should govern sanctions and which were announced on Monday by my noble friend in a Written Answer to my noble friend Lady David, and in view of the fact that the current sanctions on Iraq breach at least three of those five principles, can my noble friend give any idea as to when she hopes to lift them?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as I indicated, the Government have been doing a
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great deal of work on sanctions policy. We are examining whether policies can be improved so that they punish the regimes of the countries concerned rather than innocent people in those countries. When my right honourable friend published the outcome of the review, he made clear that there would be rare occasions when comprehensive sanctions should be imposed where the behaviour of the target regime justifies the toughest measures. My right honourable friend said that Iraq is one such place.

NHS Hospitals: Private Finance Initiatives
2.54 p.m.
Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking in response to the recent UNISON report Downsizing for the 21st Century which analyses plans for the North Durham Acute Hospitals Trust private finance initiative development.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, we have carefully considered the report to which the noble Lord refers. It contains a number of inaccuracies and misunderstandings and we intend to issue a formal response shortly. A copy of that response will be placed in the Library.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Instead of that report, I could easily have cited a report by St. George's Hospital medical school in relation to seven other PFI contracts which demonstrate that PFI schemes do not deliver either the quality or the amount of service that publicly funded schemes deliver, and that they offer less value to the public. Is it not time that the Minister's department woke up to the problems associated with the PFI? Will the department join the BMA, the NHS Confederation, UNISON and the Health Select Committee in their reservations? Is it not time that the department instituted an urgent review of the PFI schemes in order to ensure that they secure value for money and much-needed beds?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, of course we must ensure that PFI schemes, and indeed publicly funded schemes, provide value for money. I need not remind the House that there have been problems in the past, in terms of both time and cost overrun, in relation to hospital building in the public sector. Equally, we must ensure that the number of beds and the range of services provided in new schemes, whatever the means of procurement, are adequate for the health needs of the population. That is the reason that we are undertaking a national bed survey. However, where PFI schemes such as the one in North Durham (as the report to which the noble Lord draws attention makes clear) offer value for money against strict and accepted criteria, when they deliver a hospital in one phase in three-and-a-half years

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instead of in two phases in seven years, and to a better design specification, and when more cash is coming back into the NHS through land sales, I do not believe that we should say for ideological reasons that that method of procurement is not right.
Earl Howe: My Lords, does the Minister agree with the UNISON report that, under the PFI, North Durham will be spending more for a reduced level of service than would have been the case under the public sector option? If that was the result of the capital investment appraisal, was there therefore a ministerial direction to the Department of Health accounting officer to proceed with the PFI option—and if not, why not?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, it would be difficult for the House to go into the textual analysis of a report that it has not seen. However, I assure the noble Earl that the economic appraisal showed the Durham scheme as providing better value for money than its public sector comparator over the 60-year period against which the Green Book states that investment decisions should be assessed. There is no question of not providing value for money. That is one of the misunderstandings in the report to which I referred. We shall make that clear in our response. As the noble Earl will be aware, new hospitals initially cost more than the old, outdated facilities that they replace. But the step changes in the standards of care which the modern NHS needs to deliver can best be achieved by building new hospitals, whether under the private finance initiative or from public funding.
Lord McNair: My Lords, does the Minister have any idea how many beds are available in the private health care sector which could be used when there is a shortage of beds in the National Health Service?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I do not have the figures available for the number of beds across the private sector as a whole. I will write to the noble Lord. The assumption that such beds could be made available when they were needed involves many hypothetical issues. I am not sure that a definite decision could be arrived at. Our aim is to provide within the NHS adequate facilities for treating NHS patients. As I said, the national bed survey will look closely at whether, over the past two decades, we have reduced bed numbers too sharply in this country.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that her reply to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, means that the Dryburn hospital scheme, compared to a publicly funded scheme, provided worse value over 30 years than over 60 years?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we do not have the figures for five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, or 40 years. The standard economic appraisal accepted across the board and by the Treasury against which
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value for money should be judged is the full economic life of the asset. That is 60 years for hospitals and that is the appropriate comparator to use.

Carers: Right to Assessment
2.59 p.m.
Baroness Pitkeathley Baroness Pitkeathley asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to improve carers' awareness of their right to an assessment under the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, our recently published National Carers Strategy made it clear that general practitioners and primary care teams should tell carers about their right to an assessment from social services. My honourable friend John Hutton, the Minister with responsibility for carers, recently launched the "Ask for an Assessment" campaign, run by the Carers National Association, which is designed to raise carers' awareness of assessments.
Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I am sure that she is aware that all the research shows that more needs to be done at a local level to ensure that carers are aware of their rights. It is to that end that the Carers National Association has initiated a campaign, launched by the Minister with responsibility for carers, with the aid of the Prudential Carers Awareness Fund. Can the Minister tell us the Government's view of the recommendation in the National Carers Strategy that all carers should be entitled to at least an annual discussion of what they need and what is available and how the Government intend to ensure that carers actually receive that?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that we need to raise local awareness, and that is why the Carers National Association campaign will be particularly helpful. I also agree that carers, particularly those who provide a great deal of care, should be able to expect at least an annual discussion of what they need, what is available, the help they receive and the care provided. An annual discussion is important because people's needs change over time. We are in the process of finding out what is being done on the ground and how many assessments are taking place so that in due course we can publish guidance to local authorities on this subject. One of the ways in which we shall ensure that this is done is through the new performance assessment framework for social services, which is intended to include the number of assessments of carers' needs as one of its indicators.
Lord Rix: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in a recent survey conducted by MENCAP it was discovered that over 40 per cent. of carers of people with a learning disability had been unable to have an evening off in the previous six months? Can the Minister hold out any

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hope that before the end of this Parliament short-term breaks may become a statutory right for such hard-working and often elderly carers?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has been pre-eminent among many others in arguing the case for short breaks for carers, their importance and their cost-effectiveness in allowing people who take on a tremendous responsibility to continue to do so. That is why, as part of the Carers' Strategy, we have allocated a grant of? 140 million over three years for local authorities to provide short-term breaks for carers, particularly those with substantial responsibilities. As the noble Lord will be aware, we are looking at ways of doing that more flexibly than in the past so that when carers take breaks the person for whom they care can continue to receive care in the home.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that proper support for carers will reduce the cost to social services and to the National Health Service over the long term for both the carer and the cared-for?
Baroness Hayman: I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. That was the concept to which I alluded when I referred to short breaks as being cost effective, as well as the right thing to do.
Lord Laming: My Lords, does the Minister agree that special consideration should be given in future guidance to the needs of the growing numbers of young people who take on a heavy burden in caring for a parent, sometimes with high dependency needs? That care is often given at the expense of a young person's education and normal contact with other young people.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, yes, this is an important area which was perhaps not properly recognised in the past. It was certainly recognised in the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, and children who act as carers are covered by that Act. Within the National Carers Strategy we also outlined our concern that the needs of these children, which can often be overlooked in a school setting, should be properly addressed. We are hoping to have someone responsible in every school for ensuring that, in one way or another, support is given to these vulnerable children.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, when does the Minister expect that legislation will be introduced to allow local authorities to provide services directly to carers?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Astor, implies, we are anxious to allow local authorities to provide direct services to carers, not simply to those who are cared for, and that was part of the National Carers Strategy. We shall do it as soon as legislative time permits. The House would not expect me to say anything different. If it is helpful, I can certainly say that we are anxious to get on with it.
Baroness Ludford: My Lords, can the Minister say what plans the Government have to help carers with
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regard to pensions, given that they are unable to make pension contributions, and whether the Government have proposals for ensuring that carers qualify for old age pensions?
Baroness Hayman: Yes, my Lords. In future, time spent caring will qualify carers for entitlement to a second pension. It is a major step forward and will represent a significant improvement in the financial position of carers and former carers on reaching state pension age. I believe that that is a proper recognition of the value of the work they do when they are caring.

Parliamentary Government Bill [H.L.]
3.6 p.m.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make new provision about parliamentary government and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time. — (Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

House of Lords Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, I think the House will find it helpful if I take this opportunity to outline the Government's proposals for the Second Reading debate on the House of Lords Bill. It is proposed that the Second Reading debate should begin on Monday 29th March and run until the end of business on Tuesday 30th March. In order to accommodate the large number of speakers expected to attend, however, I propose to go further than merely setting aside two days for the debate on the Bill. I propose that the House should sit at 11 a. m. on the second morning in order to increase the time available for debate. This should allow the House to rise at a reasonable time on the Tuesday. Wednesday will, as usual, be for balloted debates. The House will not sit on Maundy Thursday. The list of speakers for the Second Reading is now open in the Government Whips' Office in the usual way.
I should like to take this opportunity to clarify my remarks yesterday, at column 652 of the Official Report, when I indicated that my noble friend the Leader of the House had inadvertently omitted to read page 3 of the Statement on the European Commission. For the sake of completeness, I have been asked to state for the record that my reference to page 3 was to the third, fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs of the Statement that is now printed at column 629 of yesterday's Official Report
Lord Henley: My Lords, I thank the Government Chief Whip for that apology on behalf of the Leader of

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the House. Those of us who were not in the Chamber when the Statement was repeated were somewhat confused by his references yesterday and, when we acquired Hansard today, we were not sure which part of the Statement the noble Baroness had not repeated to this House. I am grateful to the noble Lord for clarifying the position.
I now turn to the first part of the Chief Whip's Statement. We on these Benches have considerable concern and deep disquiet about his proposal that we should proceed quite so rapidly to the Second Reading of this very important Bill, and in Holy Week, too.
The noble Lord proposes that we should have about 23 hours of debate on the Bill beginning at 2.30 on Monday and 11.30 on Tuesday in a week when many noble Lords will be away and will have difficulty attending. Many noble Lords have already made arrangements for Tuesday morning and will find it quite difficult to attend on that occasion. We have looked at business taken in Holy Week during the past few years. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that on a number of occasions relatively controversial Bills—but only relatively controversial ones—have been considered at that time, but that occurred with the agreement of the usual channels on both sides of the House. On this occasion there has been no agreement on this side of the House. I am upset that the noble Lord has not acceded to our request to deal with this matter on a later occasion.
The noble Lord well knows that we have co-operated with the Government a great deal on a large number of Bills. We assisted them on the Health Bill by allowing them to have the debate a day earlier to allow them to send it back to another place a whole week earlier. We assisted on the Road Traffic (NHS Charges) Bill. We have not even objected to the fact that there is to be a debate next Monday on a report of the European Communities Committee, despite the fact that that has not been discussed with the usual channels and is being held only a matter of four days after the publication of that particular report. I make these remarks purely to show that we have co-operated with the Government and will continue to do so as and where it is appropriate. We object to the Government's attempt to steamroller through a Bill of this kind without allowing adequate time to discuss these matters.
The noble Lord well knows that when this Bill was originally in another place it was proposed that Report and remaining stages should be taken the day after Committee stage finished. It was only after interventions at the highest level that the Government finally agreed to delay Report and remaining stages until yesterday which allowed the Government to bring it forward for First Reading today and then for Second Reading in the briefest possible time allowed under the usual time limits.
I ask the noble Lord—I apprehend that other noble Lords will also put this question—whether the Government will reconsider the matter and offer the debate for Second Reading some time after Easter.
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I stress that if the Government are prepared to do that we shall continue to co-operate as we have co-operated throughout the Session so far.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I hope that we shall not have a Second Reading debate on this Bill today. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, referred twice to Holy Week. From my recollection over a number of years in this House, I can remember many controversial pieces of legislation being debated in Holy Week without any complaint from any part of the House. It is a bit rich to say that this Bill is being steamrollered through the House. It has been subject to lengthy debate, properly so, in the House of Commons and it will have lengthy debate, very properly, here as well. I can see no argument whatever against the proposal of the Government Chief Whip to hold this debate beginning Monday week. It will be a prolonged debate, as will be the Committee and Report stages. Let us get on with the business as soon as we can.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, I am very impressed by the expressions of devotion from the Opposition Front Bench. I can spot at least four noble Lords from my own diocese. We look forward to seeing them in church on the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week.
First, I should like to express my gratitude to the Government Chief Whip for his kindness in seeing me privately yesterday and for his courtesy in writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain the decision about the timing of the debate, which he much appreciated.
Whatever our interest or lack of it in the particular subject of this Bill, it is nevertheless a constitutional issue of considerable importance. Because of the historic role of bishops in this House and their long corporate memory, they are sometimes able to offer advice to the House on constitutional matters. It is therefore a pity that the timing of this debate—at the beginning of Holy Week—makes it extremely difficult for all of us to attend and impossible for most. This has nothing to do with party issues. We on these Benches have no interest in delay for its own sake. We might or might not have supported the Government. That is not for me to say. We are rather proud of our tradition of unpredictable independence. But it is a pity that we shall not be given the chance to express our opinion one way or the other. The House might have been interested to hear what we had to say.
Lord Renton: My Lords, in view of the very serious situation that occurred yesterday with regard to the European Commission, which affects the whole life and future of the European Union, are we to be given an early opportunity to debate that matter?
Baroness Goudie: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Jewish Passover starts on the Wednesday before Easter and that Holy Week in the Christian Church is at the same time? Holy Week in the Orthodox

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Church is later. Has my noble friend received any representations that government business should take into account those dates?
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, following the comments just made by the noble Baroness, I am absolutely shocked that a matter of such constitutional importance is to be debated in this House during Holy Week. I am even more shocked by the comments of noble Lords on the other side whom I highly regard. I do not believe this to be a laughing matter or that there should be chit-chat while noble Lords on this side of the House seek to make a serious point.
Invariably the Passover holidays coincide with Holy Week. For the past 10 years I have taken my mother to Israel to visit my brother to share the Seder Night together on Wednesday 31st March. When I knew there was a possibility that this might arise, despite the fact that I intended to travel with my mother and husband, I asked the airline to hold a ticket for a flight late on Tuesday night. I believe that this particular debate is far too important to miss.
I do not believe that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House can possibly be responsible for such an insensitive decision. I must believe that somehow or other this is a directive from one of her honourable colleagues in the other place who have not appreciated the sensitivity of this matter to many in this House. From the comments made on the other side, perhaps it applies only to noble Lords on this side of the House. I beg the noble Baroness to appreciate—as I am sure she does—that she is not just the leader of Peers who take the Labour Whip but is Leader of the House. She should do her best to speak for all Peers and send that message to the other place. This is an extraordinarily important matter.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, does not feel that we are treating this subject with the seriousness that she obviously believes it deserves. She may be right. I shall tell her why I say that. We do not treat it with seriousness because we do not feel that the party opposite believes what it is saying.
I spent six-and-a-half years as a fairly fluid part of the usual channels. Some of that time was spent in opposition and some in government. Not once in those years was the question raised of the quality of legislation and debate in this House during Holy Week. When the other party was in government I did not detect a great deal of restraint on its part as to the legislation that it proposed to debate in that particular week. Certainly, at no time did the party opposite come to us and say it was terribly sorry but it could not put in Bill X because it was Holy Week and therefore it had to put in Bill Y.
When I was in government at no stage did the party opposite come to me and ask that we should not deal with a particular piece of business during Holy Week. I just do not believe that the Opposition are sincere in
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what they say. This outbreak of piety on the part of the party opposite, I believe, is artificial and the House should see it for what it is.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, following what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, perhaps your Lordships will take it from me, as an equally fluid member of the same usual channels at an almost identical period, that, whatever the religious feelings being expressed today in your Lordships' House, I well remember a number of occasions—I do not wish to be ad hominem about it, but in particular one in which the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, was much involved—on which a sense of total outrage was expressed at the idea of important legislation being taken either at the very beginning of a Session after a break or at the very end of a Session before a break.
I hope and believe that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and I, who were then responsible for those matters, met noble Lords opposite in (heir objections. I am sorry to find that that honourable tradition is being broken in this case.
Lord Ahmed: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Hajj and Eid ul-Adha are on 27th, 28th and 29th March? Have the Moslem community made any representation?
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I hope that without controversy I may escape religious devotion and underline what the right reverend Prelate said. The bishops of this House have sat in this House for longer than almost anyone else. It seems unfortunate that the Government did not consult the Archbishop before the decision was made. It is not a question of whether we attend church in Holy Week. There are 26 bishops in this House. Before the Reformation the clerics were in a majority. We are making a massive constitutional change. It seems to me insensitive, to say the least, that the Leader of the House did not pick up her telephone and ring Lambeth Palace and ask. It seems unfortunate that the right reverend Prelate had to raise the matter at this stage.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I do not feel qualified to pontificate on Holy Week and whether we should have any particular form of business then. However, during his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, raised the question of the debate next Monday on the future financing of the European Union. I wish to address myself to that issue.
Since the report was published only yesterday, and there has been no government response, why on earth should we debate that report from Sub-Committee A of the Select Committee next Monday? I understand that the chairman of the Select Committee wanted the matter debated before the heads of government meeting. But, with respect, the report is to this House. It is not to the heads of government meeting. Nor is it to the Government. Members of this House will not have had time to read and assimilate the report, consult and formulate their own views in the short time available. Many will not know that the report has been published.

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The contents of the report—I shall not go into them— are hardly likely to be helpful to the British Government, although they may be helpful to those who want to get rid of our rebate. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will reconsider the timing of that debate and put it back further so that Members of this House can properly consider what has been said by Sub-Committee A of the Select Committee.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief response. I understand the problem that Members of your Lordships' House will have in dealing with an important report at short notice. However, Sub-Committee A worked extremely hard on the report in order to get it out in time for it to be debated before the European Council meeting.
One of the problems for the Select Committee is the timing of our activities. If we begin too soon the proposals may be in such an embryonic state as to be useless when they are finally agreed. On the other hand, if we leave things too long the amount of influence that a report from your Lordships' House can have once the decision has been set in concrete makes the whole exercise useless.
On this occasion we felt that it would be sensible to have the report out in good time before the meeting of the Council on, I think, 25th March. To that end, Sub-Committee A speeded up its inquiry and produced the report. I believe that it was announced in forthcoming business on Thursday of last week.
I recognise the difficulties with which noble Lords may be faced, but I believe that it is more sensible to have something before your Lordships' House at a time when it can do some good, not after the matter has become dead.
Baroness Young: My Lords, when he responds to this short debate, I hope that the Chief Whip will take account of the points made from this side of the House. We are being asked to debate a constitutional Bill of unparalleled importance at a time which is very unusual, to say the least.
I, too, have had responsibility for business in this House. I know full well that when discussions took place they were by agreement. One of the most unfortunate and unpleasant aspects of this matter is that there is no agreement on it. It is a divisive Bill; and the jeers and laughter coming from the government side, if I may say so, are unworthy of them and certainly unworthy of the House. They will not contribute either to good government or clear thinking on a very important matter. I think it is absolutely deplorable that this matter will be debated at the end of the business before the Easter Recess. I take very much to heart the points made about Holy Week, and all those who will be affected, whose personal religious beliefs the House has a right to expect will be respected.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, perhaps I may add my support to the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon in regard to the debate which
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is due to take place on Monday. Aside from the question of the absence of notice and shortness of time for reading the report, there is a further question. The report is obsolete, as indeed admitted by the committee at page 5 of the report where it states that it does not take account of any events since 19th February. Important events have taken place since 19th February, all of which conspire to discredit most of the representations made in the report to the Select Committee.
I therefore suggest in the interests of the House as a whole that the Select Committee abide the delay for a little while, and reconsider the issue in the light of the independent expert report on the integrity of the Commission.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, on the timing of the Second Reading of the House of Lords Bill, are we not the masters of our own procedure? Is it not possible for me, or any other noble Lord, to move that the matter be taken after Easter? The view of the House is sovereign. The Government do not rule the House; we rule the House.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, before the Chief Whip replies, will he be kind enough to give more thought to the issue? Having said that they want to do a certain thing, I know that it is always difficult for a Chief Whip or a Government to change their mind. But we are dealing with a serious matter. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich said that he saw a number of members of his congregation in the Chamber and that he expects to see them in church. I happen to be one of the members of his congregation. I suppose that one will be obliged to choose between God and Mammon; and I think on this occasion God might expect me to choose Mammon.
The important point is that this is a highly controversial Bill. It ought to be given the appropriate consideration by your Lordships' House, including the right reverend Prelates. It is a pity, as we have heard from all sides, to bring it on at a time which causes maximum consternation among all members of the different religious faiths. It is a great pity to start the Second Reading in Holy Week. If the noble Lord the Chief Whip could find a way of postponing it, he would achieve harmony, which is the best way of dealing with a controversial Bill.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the question about the Select Committee debate has already been answered by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. He said that the timing of the debate was at the specific request of your Lordships and the European Communities Committee. The committee has done valuable service to the House in producing a short report in time for the House to debate the issues in advance of the Heads of Government meeting next week. Fifteen noble Lords have already put down their names to speak in the debate, indicating that many Members welcome the opportunity.
When it was put to me recently that the Second Reading of the Lords reform Bill should not be taken in Holy Week I assumed that there was some reason other

733
than the simple desire to hold up progress on the Bill. However, try as I might, I am afraid that I can find no other reason. As a practising Christian—
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the Chief Whip. He says he can find no other reason. Does he believe that the right reverend Prelate and all the Members on this side of the House are lying?
Lord Carter: My Lords, I shall come to that in a moment. Perhaps I may say at the outset that as a practising Christian, like many other noble Lords I shall be attending a number of church services during Holy Week on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Those noble Lords who wish to attend the debate and go to church during that week will have plenty of time to do so.
I find it surprising that a particular observance of the Christian Church is being brought into a debate on Lords' reform in this way. So far as I can discover, there has never been any assumption that important and contentious government business should not be taken in the week before Easter. I have pages of examples which I could quote to your Lordships, but I will not. However, there are two which may be directly relevant. In 1996, the Defamation Bill was taken the week before Easter. Your Lordships may recall that the Bill was used to amend the 1689 Bill of Rights to enable Mr. Neil Hamilton to sue the Guardian. That could reasonably be regarded as both contentious and constitutional.
The second example, which is of even greater relevance, concerns the Sunday Trading Bill in 1994. The Committee stage was taken on the Tuesday before Easter with important votes on that day. There was a long debate in which the Archbishop of Canterbury and four other bishops took part, and 16 bishops went through the Division Lobby at the end of the debate. I fail to see why Sunday trading can be debated in Holy Week, but reform of the Lords cannot.
I always do my utmost to be accommodating in the organisation of business when reasonable requests are made. However, I am afraid that, in this instance, the noble Lord the Opposition Chief Whip and I have, it is to be hoped, a rare occasion on which we must agree to differ.
As; regards steamrollering the Bill through the House, the steamroller started last October and has rolled for 40 hours. We are obeying the normal intervals for the Bill. In fact, I deliberately chose to make the Business Statement today, which is a day early. It would normally have appeared on the future of business tomorrow. It has been known for some time that it was intended to take the Bill on those two days.
I understand and respect the feelings of those noble Lords who, like me, are practising Christians. I know that the noble Lord the Opposition Chief Whip falls into that category. However, I announced as long ago as 4th February that the Easter Recess would include the week beginning 5th April. The House has thus known for a long time that Holy Week would be a sitting week. There are so many precedents for this House sitting in Holy Week that they are much too numerous to mention.
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I have listened to the remarks that have been made and I am not convinced. I know that your Lordships will not like it, but I must say that I regard it as an attempt to delay the progress of the Bill. This is a major Bill of constitutional importance and we are following the normal intervals with a two-day debate. I have already tried to accommodate the House by starting the second day early. I am prepared to start the first day early, if that will help. If noble Lords would like to meet at 11 o'clock on the Monday, I am prepared to consider that. For all those reasons, I believe that we should leave the arrangements—
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may repeat that I am not mentioning the devotional habits of noble Lords opposite or those on this side of the House. I wish to refer to a constitutional point which I am sorry the noble Lord the Chief Whip did not mention. Twenty-six Bishops have sat in this House since the Reformation. They have a professional duty in Holy Week, which is denied to the Chief Whip or myself—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, it is. Please listen. It is therefore unfortunate that the Chief Whip did not say why the noble Baroness the Leader of the House did not consult the Archbishop as to why there should not be a substantial number of bishops present to answer. I speak not as a Tory, but as an Anglican who cares for the constitution. I am not in the business of wrecking the Government's business, but I am sorry that the Chief Whip did not mention the point raised by the right reverend Prelate.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I had no intention of taking part in the debate, but it might be useful for me to make a few comments. I deeply regret the fact that the Government Chief Whip has held up some ridicule on behalf of the Opposition Benches and has accused the Bishops Bench of hypocrisy and double standards—
Noble Lords: Withdraw!
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I believe that —
Noble Lords: Withdraw!
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, I believe that on behalf of many Members around the House, I am inclined to ask the noble Lord to withdraw that last remark.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, perhaps in withdrawing that statement, since I do not wish to offend the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, I may explain my meaning in another way. We heard the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich talk about his difficulties and those of that Bench in making this very important engagement on 29th and 30th March. We then heard the Government Chief Whip give an example whereby many bishops had

735
attended during the week before Easter. I regarded that as an accusation of double standards to the Bishops' Bench. Having gone through the logic myself, I still believe that there was a hint of that accusation. However, when the Chief Whip replies, he can explain himself so that even I can understand. I do not wish to offend the Government Chief Whip or the noble Baroness the Leader of the House.
The issue which faces us is important because it goes beyond that of religion, piety or devotion. It has to do with the way in which business is managed in this House. In that context, I refer to the words of my noble friends Lady Young and Lord Cranborne. The House knows that I have a great deal of experience in the management of business, as does the Government Chief Whip and the noble Baroness. Business in this House proceeds by agreement. I, too, have a list of the business taken in the week before Easter since 1989. Some important and controversial business has been taken and been dealt with. I became Government Chief Whip in 1994. At no time was any controversial or important business taken during the course of the week before Easter if the Opposition did not agree to it. That is the important point.
That also comes in the context of a statement that was made by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House in February about pitched battles. How are we to take that when the first time that the Opposition ask for the Bill to be delayed until a time which is more convenient the Government decide to dig in their toes?
Those who understand the procedures of the House know also that it gives the Government the ability to introduce the Committee stage in the first days immediately after the Easter Recess, thus giving very little time for this House to prepare amendments and to consider the issues that have been raised at Second Reading. If the Government Chief Whip will not oblige us by moving a Motion against this Second Reading being taken in the week before Easter, then I must ask him to give an absolute guarantee that the Committee stage will not take place in the week after the Easter Recess. In doing so, I urge him to reconsider the position that he has taken about Second Reading.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, since the feelings—
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will consider whether we are now in order. It was understandable at the very beginning, when the noble Lord, Lord Henley, rose and spoke and addressed his remarks in public to the Chief Whip. But we are now having a debate in which noble Lords are speaking from all sides of the House on many different points and subjects. Should we not now come to order? I believe that we are now out of order, or getting very close to it. I suggest that we should bring this matter to a conclusion, recognising that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, is about to introduce an important debate immediately afterwards.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, since the feelings of these Benches have been imputed, I make it
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absolutely clear that I took no offence whatever at the remarks of the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip about Sunday trading. Perhaps we had more notice in 1994 but it was a point well made, which I accept. I emphasised—and I do so again—that we have appreciated the great courtesy of the Government Chief Whip.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate has made the point for me. I was merely pointing out that on an important Division in Holy Week the Bishops were here. That is all. That is not to impute any motives. Sunday trading was discussed in Holy Week. That was an extremely important subject. The Government in 1994 arranged for it to be discussed in Holy Week. There was an important Division on the matter and the Bishops were able to arrange their affairs in Holy Week in order to be here. That is all I was saying.
I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition for reminding me of an oversight on my part. I had intended to tell the House that the Committee stage of the Bill will not take place in the first week after the Recess. There will be one day in Committee in the second week back; that is, in the week beginning 19th April. That is to be arranged through the usual channels.
I have listened to the debate with great care. Your Lordships will know that since I have had the job of Chief Whip I have done my very best to be as accommodating and reasonable as possible. But there are times when the Government have priority in relation to the business. This is an important constitutional matter. We are allowing two days for debate. I deliberately organised that your Lordships should not sit on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. There will be two days of debate on the House of Lords Bill; balloted debates will be dealt with on Wednesday; and we then break for the Easter Recess. When we return, there will be no Committee stage of the House of Lords Bill in the first week. There will be one Committee day in the week beginning 19th April.

Parliament and Democracy
3.44 p.m.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington rose to call attention to the need to maintain respect for Parliament and to safeguard democracy, and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am very glad to see my noble friend Lord Jopling in the Chamber now and I hope that what I am about to say will not make him too nervous. But I remember that when I joined the Whips Office under the then Mr Jopling back in 1979, I had occasion on one day to go to see him to tell him that I had been into the Smoking Room and I anticipated great trouble because there were a number of people in the Smoking Room who were plotting to vote against the government. "Oh", said Mr Jopling, "Don't worry about that. Go back into the Smoking Room and get them all to go into the Chamber and listen to the winding-up speech by the Minister". So I went back into the Smoking Room; I rounded them all up and I got

737
them into the Chamber. They listened to the winding-up speech of the Minister and they all voted against the government.
The following day we had a post mortem and my noble friend, then Mr Jopling, said that new tactics had to be deployed and from that moment forward, we were not to encourage any of the trouble-makers to leave the Smoking Room. That is what we did and that really is the clue to 11 years of successful government under Mrs. Thatcher. That is where it all began.
It is a while since I was in the other place and it would be very surprising if some changes had not taken place in the way in which the Whips operate and the way in which the House conducts its business. But there is all too much evidence that some changes which have taken place have not been at all beneficial and that, overall, the place has become less effective, less influential and is not performing as efficiently as it might its role as guardian of the rights of the citizen against the Executive.
There seem to be a number a reasons for that. Among them, obviously, is the large government majority and the comparative inexperience of Members of the Labour side, many of whom have apparently not yet learned that they are not just lobby fodder but are there to call the Executive to account.
But I am sure that the principal reason is that the government do not treat the House of Commons as central to the nation's affairs. The fact that that is the case when the Government seem to be bent on diminishing the authority of this place should be a matter of concern to all who believe that, in the words of the Motion before the House, Parliament should continue to have a central role in the nation's affairs, and all who wish to see respect for Parliament maintained and democracy safeguarded.
There is every reason to be concerned about the Prime Minister's own attitude to Parliament, not least because of his reluctance to appear there. His voting record is truly extraordinary. Mr Blair voted in 14 Divisions out of 325 last year, leading Mr Patrick Dunleavy, Professor of Government at the LSE to describe him as,
"the least active premier for 120 years in terms of prime ministerial accountability".
It is not for him to cheer on the troops in the dark watches of the night. Come to think of it, there are not any dark watches now. But there are other occasions when he could show enthusiasm rather than disdain for the place.
There is the matter of Prime Ministerial and Ministerial Statements. The Prime Minister's failure to report to Parliament after an important visit to the Middle East last year led to protests in the House on 22nd April 1998 (col. 828 of Hansard). Yesterday, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde reminded us of the refusal of the Prime Minister to come to the House after last autumn's Noordwijk Summit at which agreement was reached on major increases in EU infrastructure spending.
Sometimes Statements have not been made in matters of the gravest moment. It is instructive to contrast the regular Statements made to Parliament by my noble
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friend Lady Thatcher—then Mrs. Margaret Thatcher— during the Falklands War with Mr. Blair's way of dealing with events in Iraq. When a few weeks ago Mr. Tony Benn remarked that,
"The Commons is dying on ics feet. Democracy is being squeezed out of the system",
Mr. Tarn Dalyell, who so tormented Margaret Thatcher over the sinking of the "Belgrano", spoke in a similar vein. He said,
"The House of Commons is atrophying. In 36 years I have never known membership of the Commons be so marginalised"'.
He described how, on 16th December last year when he was struggling to try and force a Commons vote on Iraq and being prevented from doing so by the Government, Mr. Blair was not in the House of Commons telling the representatives of the people what was going on in the skies above Iraq, but announcing government policy in presidential style in Downing Street.
There are many other ways in which the Government are side-lining Parliament. Instead of coming to Parliament the Prime Minister and other Ministers use press conferences, talk shows, phone-ins and interviews to communicate their views. Things are getting to a pretty pass when the Speaker, Miss Boothroyd, is provoked into complaining at the way in which that has usurped Parliament's position. Again, chapter and verse is available for all noble Lords to read in Hansard for 12th February 1998.
The habit of briefing the press and private lobbies before announcements or debates in Parliament has been taken to absurd lengths, with the result that when announcements are made they are no longer news, but chronicles of events foretold. The leaking of ministerial Statements to sympathetic, some may say sycophantic media figures—to what a rather more independent-minded writer perhaps rather rudely and ungenerously referred to as the "Campbell clique—that slavering little coterie of pundits who take dictation from the No. 10 press spokesman"—in advance of their presentation to Parliament has now become absolutely commonplace.
That provoked some pretty tart remarks from the Speaker. On 21st July 1997 at cols. 699 and 702 of Hansard she said:
"The House is rightly jealous of its role in holding Ministers to account. If it is to fulfil its function properly, it must be I he first to learn of important developments in Government policy. I deprecate most strongly any action taken that tends to undermine this important principle, …I deprecate those very heavy briefings, given either by Ministers, civil servants or Ministers' aides".
On 3rd July 1998 Miss Boothroyd had to make the same point.
"I cannot deprecate strongly enough the leaks and the briefings that go on, perhaps behind our backs, in such matters". —[Official Report, 3/7/98; col. 632.]
In December 1998 she said,
"What is happening is that this House and the status of this House is being devalued and I deprecate it most strongly. I hope that those on the Front Bench, senior members, will note what I have said and see there is no recurrence of this".
I hope some of them had the grace to blush.

739
It has to be said that there have been few protests on the Labour side of the House about the very many ways in which the House of Commons is being deliberately side-lined by the Government, except from old war horses like Tony Benn and Tarn Dalyell. The rank and file have proved themselves either unwilling or unable to resist what is going on. They have apparently allowed themselves to be intimidated, manipulated and used by party headquarters and Downing Street which are so obsessed with the need to maintain control of Labour MPs, presumably for fear of splits in the party, the likes of those which kept the party out of power in the 1980s and the early years of the 1990s.
The proof of what I am saying, that I am not exaggerating, can be found in the way in which, when Statements are made to Parliament, at Question Time and in debates, government spokesmen are hardly subjected to rigorous interrogation from the Government Benches. A year or so ago the Speaker actually complained that successive Labour MPs were not asking questions after a Statement on the English Regions by the Deputy Prime Minister, but they were congratulating him in the most monotonous fashion over and over again. On the 15th May last year in a debate in this place the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to a particularly gross example of how the bleeper is used to ensure dutiful, respectful and servile questions. The noble Earl said that at 3.25 p.m. the bleepers bleeped in unison and after the Foreign Secretary had made his Statement on Sierra Leone the sheep got up in turn and baaed in identical terms.
I have referred to the impotence of MPs on the Floor of the House, but it is not just on the Floor of the House that one sees a remorseless chipping away of the authority of the Commons. The work of Select Committees is being undermined as a result of what can only be described as institutional leaking. Leaks unfortunately have always occurred, but I never thought I would see the day when a Foreign Secretary would accept a leaked document and then, far from returning it to its rightful owner, conceal from Parliament that he has it. So the important role played by Select Committees in scrutinising the activities of the Executive is being deliberately weakened by the deceit of Ministers, and it is being weakened at a time when the Civil Service's role in seeing that the Government behave with propriety within the rules and conventions built up over the years has become much more difficult and its influence as a force for the maintenance of proper standards has been weakened by the flood of political advisers who have descended on departments, twice as many as at the end of the Major administration.
Parliament is certainly being bypassed and its authority undermined by the big increase in the use of referendums, referendums called at times and on terms of the Government's own choosing. Take the promised referendum on the euro which is to take place only after tens of millions of pounds have already been spent preparing for entry. We are to be softened up and the impression created that joining the euro is inevitable.
Two pieces of news in the papers at the weekend may have struck noble Lords in the way that they struck me. The first was the enormous cost of the new parliamentary building—£250 million for an office block, complete with a waxed bronze roof. The other item was the resignation of Mr. Lafontaine. That second item brought forth crows of delight from Downing Street, the first to recognise that the resignation of a German minister now had far more important consequences for Britain than the resignation of a British Minister could possibly have.
Then we came to yesterday, and the dramatic events in Brussels. Mr. Blair made a very brief Statement. I am not surprised that noble Lords did not even notice when the Leader of your Lordships' House failed to read one of the pages. It certainly was not a Statement brim full of excitement. Mr. Blair made that Statement following the report of the Committee of Experts with its revelations of fraud, irregularities and mismanagement and its conclusion that it was difficult to find anyone in the European Commission who had even the slightest sense of responsibility. It was a miserable minnow of a Statement, in which Mr. Blair said little more than that there should be reform of the Commission with better financial management. There was no sign of any willingness to address the fundamental flaws in the whole rotten system, no questioning of the usefulness of the institutions themselves, let alone of the whole federalist direction in which the European Union is going, driven by the Commission now exposed in all its dreadfulness.
Surely the situation can be summed up in these words: as the Commons does less and less, it costs more and more. As Mr. Blair talks more and more, it matters less and less.
Perhaps in the longer term Mr. Blair's sidelining of Parliament will not matter because Parliament will have little purpose as a result of the creeping surrender of power to the European Union, with its Commission riddled with corruption, cronyism and fraud, and its Parliament so ineffectual, and so tainted itself.
Yes, the Parliament is tainted, with its bloated expenses, its placemen and its majority which is now taking credit for the Commission's resignation but which only a few months ago, long after the fraud was known, was with the connivance of governments, including our own Government, doing all it could to save Jacques Santer's and Mme. Cresson's skins. The truth is that as power slips away from this Parliament, it is being transferred to European institutions where democracy as we know it plays virtually no part.
Perhaps recent events will bring people to their senses. My fear, I have to say, is that the present crisis will be used by Mr. Blair to argue that now the Commission is going to be cleaned up, we can carry on as we have up to now with perhaps a little more power being given to the European Parliament. We know what that means from the utterances of virtually every other European leader, including incidentally Mr. Lafontaine's successor, Mr. Eichel. It means continued steady progress towards a European superstate.
I am surely right to call attention to the need to safeguard democracy because we are well on the way to losing it.
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for giving us the opportunity to consider a matter of fundamental importance to all of us. Whatever else our differences are, I think that we all value enormously our Parliament and the democracy which underlies it.
I agree with a number of the points made by the noble Lord—I shall indicate them at the appropriate stage in my remarks—but I must advise him that a number of the problems that he defined and a number of the practices that he attacked did not begin on 1st May 1997. They have a history that goes back into habits which are developing in our Parliament, and into policies that have been developed under successive governments. This should not be a party political debate because we are talking about Parliament. As far as I can, I shall refer to that subject rather than to the particularities of one government as opposed to another.
Having said that, and before I indicate my main sources of concern, I should like to point out that in spite of many defects, our Parliament in terms of its functions still satisfies many of the most urgently felt needs of our people and, indeed, of any effective democracy. First, broadly speaking, government policy reflects the will of the majority of the people. Secondly, Parliament provides a forum in which, in spite of often great difficulties, the Government can be held to account. They can be held to account partly by the Select Committees. Although they have certain defects, the development of those Select Committees was an excellent and very important innovation. The Government can be held to account also by the role of the Opposition. Frankly, I wish that the Opposition were stronger than they are at present in the House of Commons. The Government can also be held to account by Members of Parliament who—perhaps not always, but on the whole and on the important issues— remember that they have been elected to the House of Commons not just because they are members of a political party, but because they represent the electorate, the people of all parties who put them there.
Those are the features of our Parliament and our job must be to reinforce them, rather than to weaken them. That brings me to some of my main concerns. Two dangers face our Parliament and our respect for it. They have developed over the years. The first is what is now called "sleaze" and the second is the feeling that Members of Parliament are party hacks. Those two aspects undermine a great deal of the public's confidence in our parliamentary institution.
I turn first to sleaze. During the past four or five years I have been a member of what was originally the Nolan Committee; now the Neill Committee. That committee was set up by the former Prime Minister, John Major, to look into standards of conduct in public life. Our remit was not limited to Parliament; it extended to
742
virtually the whole of the public sector. I am sure noble Lords will remember that among the events triggering the establishment of that committee were the allegations about cash-for-questions and other irregularities. Those allegations were very damaging. Any evidence of any failure of good conduct and any evidence of corruption must be investigated. Indeed, we have been virtually completely free of corruption in government throughout my political lifetime. However, the existence of even feelings about corruption among Back-Bench MPs who are not in government is very damaging to Parliament and its reputation.
The committee had no difficulty in taking a view on that or in making suggestions to Parliament about how that matter could best be dealt with. The establishment of the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, together with the resolution that that committee immediately passed, were enormously encouraging. Any action in Parliament by a Member of Parliament in return for money was banned, including moving amendments to Bills or asking questions in any way. The committee is to look again at that and at whether that resolution has been followed up and implemented. However, the establishment of that Commons' resolution was a powerful statement and I am sure that in the months and years to come it will be helpful to Parliament and its reputation.
The second aspect that worries people is the feeling that at times Members of Parliament are too easily led by the nose and too easily influenced by party authorities. This is a serious matter. Of course, parties need a certain discipline and leadership. At times, they demand strong leadership. But parties and party leaders must also have respect for dissent and for difference within their own ranks. Indeed, to a great extent I would go even further than that: I think that parties should not merely tolerate dissent but chat they should encourage it in many areas.
By that, I do not mean that I believe government should be paralysed, as it were, by internal dissent. There is a very difficult line to be drawn in that respect. We are all people who are familiar with such problems. Yes, on the one hand, it can go too far and can lead to the discrediting of a party by making it appear to be rudderless and fraught with internal dissent. However, on the other hand, the appearance of a party whose members seem to be acting like sheep brings no credit at all to that party in anything but the very short-term. So there is a danger there.
This is not the first time, following 1st May 1997, that a very large majority has, in a sense, reinforced those tendencies. I seem to remember the noble Lord, Lord Pym, when he was Chief Whip in another place, having the "unwisdom", the boldness, after a previous election in which a large government majority was returned, to express his unhappiness that a majority of such a size had been obtained. He thought that it would have been a good thing if it had been smaller. He was right. I do not want Parliaments where there are majorities of 200 Members. I am quite sure that we will not have that again.

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Incidentally, that is where we in the Lords come in to some extent. The most important argument for having a second Chamber with powers is to prevent the party in power, with a large majority, becoming arrogant. There will not be many occasions in that respect, but when they occur they are very important indeed. In such circumstances that party must be checked. The people must be given an opportunity—though I do not agree with what the noble Lord said about a referendum— to intervene to ensure that what is being done is really acceptable to them and not just to the majority in the House of Commons and to the particular leadership of that time.
So what can we do about it? Frankly, a good deal depends on the legislation that we were discussing the timing of a short while ago. I am much more relaxed about that than many other noble Lords, because of the pledge that the change will not bring about a majority for any one party in the reformed or the changed Chamber. Further, there will be built into the changed Chamber a body of independent or Cross-Bench Lords who will on occasions be quite decisive in allowing or refusing legislation that the Government wish to promote.
Perhaps I may say a few words about another development, which I am glad to say the noble Lord touched upon. I shall be brief. Frankly, I am very disturbed by the failure of the media to behave responsibly about Parliament. The discontinuance by the broadsheet newspapers of reporting Parliament and parliamentary debates is a disgrace. I cannot understand it. After all, freedom of the press is one of the things that comes out of a parliamentary democracy that is respected, unchallenged and seen to be working. They benefit from it, so they should not, as it were, disparage it in the worst sense of all by totally ignoring and disregarding the debates and what people have to say.
Again, with the growth of the inquisitorial interviewer in both radio and television, there is no doubt in my mind that there is an obvious desire to replace the Chambers of the Commons and the Lords with the television studio, as though that was to be the great forum of debate; that is to say, not the elected representatives of the people but the highly-paid inquisitors in the employ of the television companies. In this area in particular my remarks should go straight to the BBC, which has a particular responsibility in this area. Its business is to defend democracy, to educate and to inform as well as to entertain. Its failure there is a very serious one. I hope that those remarks may even be reported and at least read by BBC reporters.
Finally, I must say that I agree with the noble Lord about the foolishness and disrespect for Parliament shown by Ministers, not just of this Government but also of previous governments. They go to the studios or speak into a microphone outside No. 10 Downing Street and tell the nation, as it were, what they should be telling Members of Parliament in terms of a Statement in the House. It really is disparaging Parliament in a way that is totally unacceptable. The Speaker of the House of
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Commons, Betty Boothroyd, is absolutely right in her refusal to accept it and in her constant efforts to promote improvement in ministerial behaviour in that respect.
Frankly, an awful lot of this lies within the power of members of governments to rectify. They do not have to go to such studios. I did not do so when I was a Minister; indeed, I refused on principle because I felt that my duty was to give my statement to Parliament. After that, "Yes, you can have me, and torture me in the studio. I don't mind". However, I felt that my first duty was to Parliament. I am sure that many other Ministers and Members of Parliament feel exactly the same. That was the only other point that I wanted to make on that subject. I should move on now to a conclusion because, although this is an open-ended debate, I realise that many other noble Lords wish to speak. I have but a few words to say about what I believe to be the most fundamental challenge of all. I also want to make a comparison between now and just how awful things could become if we were to follow a certain example, not all that far away, of another Parliament.
The biggest problem is whether our Parliament will become irrelevant; whether it will be marginalised; and whether we are transferring far too much of the power of our people away from decisions within the House of Commons to external bodies and authorities. I believe that we are. Moreover, I believe that many share that view, although I am not necessarily convinced that that is the view of everyone in this Chamber; I wish it was. Nevertheless, we shall soon reach a point which is acknowledged on the Continent by virtually all political leaders but which our own leaders fail to recognise. We are reaching the point where two-tier government is emerging in Europe. The upper tier, the federal tier, will be in Brussels and the state tier, whether it is a kind of New York, California, or whatever, will be here. If that process evolves, power, interest and authority will be transferred from our own elected people to those who claim to speak for them in Europe.
If anyone wants an example of a "nightmare parliament", it surely must be the Strasbourg Parliament. Indeed, for them now to claim that they have come of age because they have dealt with, so to speak, the Commission and dismissed it, is an unbelievable piece of impertinence. It is not just the point made by the noble Lord; it is also the fact that the European Court of Auditors has failed to discharge the Community's budget for the past four years. Indeed, in the words of Article 24 of the Treaty that I have before me, the Court of Auditors,
"shall provide the European Parliament and the Council with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions".
This has to be reported to the Parliament and everyone else. What happened in year one, when the Court of Auditors could not approve the budget and its honesty, regularity and reliability? In year two that happened again, and again in year three. But then in year four a brave young man—as I said yesterday—spilt the beans and revealed the corruption that was taking place. Only then was a special investigative body set up to report on the matter.

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We are all conscious of the fact that even the MEPs are aware that there is to be an election in three months' time. It has taken all of that to make them do their minimum duty of holding the executive of the European Union—the Commission—to account. Thank God we have not quite reached that stage here, and nor will we, but we must continue to control our own affairs. I hope this debate has been helpful in that great purpose.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Bell: My Lords, I rise to address this House for the first time having chosen a rather unfortunate moment. In speaking after the noble Lord, Lord Shore, I feel a little like the batsman who followed Brian Lara's double century the other day. It is with genuine trepidation that I rise to address your Lordships. It has been a huge privilege, if somewhat daunting, to have had the chance to listen to the independent thinking that goes on in this House and to debate of the highest quality, as I have since I was introduced in October last year. I shall do my best to try to maintain those high standards.
That I rise at all is only because my noble friend Lord Glenarthur sprang the idea on me at such short notice that I have not had the opportunity to change my mind. I hope that your Lordships will display that other quality which I have seen in this place; namely, tolerance. I shall try to take only a few minutes of your Lordships' time. In fact, even without the spine-stiffening supplied by my noble friend Lord Glenarthur, I would have wanted to speak in this debate so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. It touches on issues with which I have been involved in one way or another over the past 30 years—30 years in which my main job has been the management of reputations.
One of the most important lessons I learnt over those years is that any institution is respected only if it sets out to earn respect. I was brought up to respect Parliament, as I am sure most of your Lordships were. However, that is not the case these days. People do not automatically respect Parliament, nor do they automatically respect our other great institutions. The forelock-touching society has gone, and a good thing too. Who can blame people if we ourselves do not bother to respect their intelligence by engaging them in a dialogue and telling them why Parliament matters? Anyone who has been involved in elections in other parts of the world, as I have, knows how precious our democracy is. But in this country we need to work much harder to defend the reputation of our democratic institutions.
I am reminded of a story—I am sure it is apocryphal—that was told to me by a Conservative Party worker who was sent to Zimbabwe at the time of its first independent elections to advise the people on how to partake in a democratic election. While visiting a village he saw another election adviser lecturing the villagers on how to vote. He told them, "When you enter the polling booth you will be given a voting paper and on this paper will be the names of the three candidates: Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo and Bishop Muzorewa. If you wish to vote for Robert Mugabe, you should place a large cross in the box next to his name. If you do not
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wish to vote for him, you should place a small cross in the box next to his name". Democracy is a little fragile if one is not careful with it!
However uncomfortable many of us may feel about the changes to our institutions we see going on around us, the plain truth is that those institutions are in the firing line because they lost touch with the public. Although the electorate is extremely wise, we cannot expect people to guess what it is that a particular organisation or institution does and to know why it should be held in high regard. In politics as in business, if an individual or an institution has a good reputation, if people think well of them, it is easier for them to achieve what they want to achieve. By the same token, if an institution does a wonderful job—like this noble House for example—but does not tell people about it, then, as we have seen, that institution is much more vulnerable to the threat of change.
That brings me to my second point; namely, that good communication is about giving information, not manipulating it. It is about persuading people; not conning them. It is about working at talking to people to build credibility, not simply talking to them when it is convenient or necessary to do so. It should always be done in plain language. To those who think it is clever to mislead the public or the media for short-term gain, I would say, "As you sow, so shall you reap". Any business or organisation which seeks to shore up its reputation in the short term by telling an untruth should understand that it will always be found out in the long run.
And that takes me to my third point. If an individual's or an organisation's reputation is in tatters, do not blame the media; or rather, do not blame only the media. For, as the illustrious ex-editor of the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, once said to me, "If you don't want it written about, don't do it".
What can we do to help people care more about Parliament, for surely that is the essence of this debate? We could start by making it much easier for them to vote. The Government are right to make it easier for people to vote by post. I believe they are also considering voting by e-mail, which I would support. It seems to me that as part of a campaign which they should run to encourage people to vote—they are running such a campaign in Scotland and in Wales and they should run such a campaign throughout the United Kingdom and at every election—they might seriously consider compulsory voting. I believe that would be good for voters and politicians alike.
If everyone had to vote, politicians and political institutions would have to speak to everyone. They would have to engage them in the democratic process and make them feel part of the decisions that emerge at the other end. The alternative is alienated citizens and institutions which are increasingly thought to be out of touch with the everyday concerns of the public
The truth of our modern life is that institutions which capture the public's goodwill live on and those that remain aloof and cannot be bothered to engage and involve the people they serve are unlikely to survive. I thank your Lordships for listening.
4.27 p.m.
Lord Newby: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bell, in that thoughtful maiden speech. As many of your Lordships will be aware, the noble Lord, Lord Bell, is a colossus in the world of political communications. It is rather the fashion at the moment to suggest that Peter Mandelson invented a whole range of spin doctoring and communications activities related to politics and political campaigning. The truth is that the noble Lord, Lord Bell, is the doyen of his profession. Although I have been on opposite sides in campaigns and I disagree with the noble Lord on a wide range of issues, I have the greatest respect for his professional skills. I am sure that your Lordships' House will benefit from his presence here. While on that subject it is also a pleasure to welcome the other great Lords of communication, the noble Lords, Lord Saatchi and Lord Chadlington. That is a formidable trio and testimony, if it were needed, to the importance of the issue before us today.
The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, is clearly to be congratulated on raising this issue at this time. In his speech he dealt with a whole range of issues, most of which I cannot touch on because of time constraints. However, when I heard the great tirade against all things and institutions European, I could not help thinking that, as far as I can recall, the word "sleaze" first entered my political vocabulary in respect of this place rather than anywhere else. That should be borne in mind as we cast stones at other institutions.
On a slightly lighter note, I agree absolutely as regards the tyranny of the bleeper system. I should like to give your Lordships an unequivocal assurance that the Liberal Democrats on these Benches will not behave like sheep. We will not always slavishly follow the line of the party Whip, and I hope we will continue to demonstrate the independence of spirit which is traditionally associated with your Lordships' House.
I should like to concentrate this afternoon on the way in which Parliament is dealing, or in my view failing to deal, with the major constitutional changes which are taking place as we speak today. It seems to me that Parliament finds it very difficult to change in any respect, in terms of its procedures and certainly in terms of its composition. As the Scottish Parliament is about to establish itself, we see there a whole range of new thinking, looking at ways in which the Parliament will conduct its business and how best it can become an effective legislative chamber. I suspect that by the end of the year the way we do business here is going to look extremely tired and outdated.
However, the more important question I wish to raise this afternoon is how Westminster will deal with what for a very long time has been known as the West Lothian question. After May, the Scottish Parliament will be responsible for primary legislation across a whole swathe of policy issues, including, for example, health and education, which most exercise the minds of both the public and politicians. Westminster will have no future role in discussing those areas of legislation in Scotland, but Scottish MPs and peers will still be able
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to speak and vote on English and English/Welsh public policy-making in areas for which the Scots have sole responsibility.
I gather that the Leader of the House in another place has said that the simplest way to deal with this change in circumstance is to ignore it and to carry on as though nothing had happened. So far as I am aware, there has been no formal debate on how your Lordships' House might respond in its procedures to devolution. I think it is illogical and unacceptable to have Scots speaking and voting in English debates. Although there will be far fewer debates which refer purely to English matters and not to English/Welsh matters, to the extent that there are purely English debates it seems to me strange, illogical and unacceptable to have Welsh MPs and peers speaking in those debates also. I should like to ask the Minister whether it would be possible for time to be found in the foreseeable future for these issues to be considered on the Floor of the House.
It seems to me that the main problem about the Government's approach to this issue in the other place is that, while at the moment they have a huge majority in England as well as in Scotland and Wales, serious difficulties will arise if and when they do not have a majority in England but could conceivably have a majority across the United Kingdom. How then could they justify to the English electorate forcing through legislation on the back of votes from Scotland and Wales, when those nations and regions are able to take legislative decisions themselves?
Some people argue that the way in which this issue should be dealt with is to establish an English parliament. I do not believe that that is the way forward because there would then be a tension between the dominant part of the United Kingdom, in terms of population, and the peripheral nations and regions, which would be likely to lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom itself. It seems to me that the way forward is to look at the whole issue of devolution within England.
This is required for two reasons: first, for the one I have given and, secondly, because there is now a democratic deficit in the English regions outside London. Indeed it seems to me that the English regions are faced with a democratic pincer movement. On the one hand they will have Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with powerful parliaments and assemblies, able to lobby for public policy changes that would benefit them and, more specifically, able to lobby for more resources and more cash for their parts of the United Kingdom. On the other hand, a London authority is about to be called into existence—and I greatly support it—and that will start to say that it wants some of its money back. I think this will be an inevitable consequence of political activity in London. We see it now very firmly at the masthead of the putative campaign set in train by the noble Lord, Lord Archer, to be the Conservative candidate as mayor of London, making the point about the extent to which London subsidises the rest of the United Kingdom.
While London will be able to make that argument powerfully, with elected politicians claiming a mandate from their people, Scotland and Wales will be able to

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rebut it powerfully because their politicians will claim a mandate from Scotland and Wales. The English region will have nobody with any equivalent political credibility to make their case. It is the case that the English regions are getting regional development agencies, but they are not getting a democratic structure. The Government's attitude is that they will look again at the question of democratic institutions in the English regions when a demand has been demonstrated.
I believe that that demand is already there. Some 25 years and more ago, the Kilbrandon Royal Commission undertook a lot of research on attitudes across the whole of the United Kingdom towards regional devolution. It found on a raft of measures that the demand for the devolution of substantial powers, and almost total powers, to regional decision-making bodies was as great, if not greater, in virtually every single English region as was the case in Wales.
I do not believe that that position has changed today, and if we are faced with the situation of conducting a referendum in Wales as opposed to the north-east as to whether a regional assembly should be established with significant powers, I would feel much more confident about winning a substantial majority in the north-east than was the case in Wales. The Government seem to be arguing that there is no demand for this just on the basis that there is no evidence, but, to the extent that there is any, I suspect that it goes the other way.
If we look at what is happening in the English regions, in the north-east there has been for some time a campaign for a northern assembly. We now have the establishment of a constitutional convention, explicitly modelled on the Scottish experience, with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham as its chair. In Yorkshire we have a campaign for a Yorkshire assembly, a claim of right—it sounds slightly quaint, as someone who has signed it, to have Yorkshiremen establishing a claim of right in the same way as the Scots. However, it stems from the same feeling that there is a regional identity which cannot be politically expressed adequately at the moment.
Similar developments are to be found in the West Midlands, where the Bishop of Aston is again chairing a cross-party body. There is a growing demand within the English regions for their position to be taken more seriously and for constitutional change to affect them in the same way as it has affected the other regions. These demands are already substantial. They are growing and will continue to grow more quickly after the Scottish and Welsh elections. This House has spent many, many hours discussing the Scottish question, and the time has now come to address the English question.
4.39 p.m.
Lord Weatherill: My Lords, it is the function of your Lordships' House not just to scrutinise legislation, to amend it and improve it, but also to have wide-ranging debates of the kind that we are having today. There are few debates that have been as important as this, and I warmly congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Waddington and Lord Bell, for their speeches on this occasion. It gives us an opportunity to look at the role and function of Parliament as a whole.
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We know, as a result of discussions that we had earlier today, that we shall be dealing with the reform of the House of Lords in Holy Week. I shall not enter into that but I hope that, having dealt with the reform of your Lordships' House—and reform should mean better—the Royal Commission will be given: the power to look at the function, the role and the composition of the House of Commons. In my view, the: House of Commons needs rather more reform than your Lordships' House, not least with regard to the West Lothian question, a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Newby.
It is against a background of some 28 years in the other place—during which I spent 12 years as a Whip, mostly in opposition, then four years as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and then almost 10 years as Speaker—that I express some thoughts in respect of Parliament and the safeguarding of democracy.
First, it is worth bearing in mind that lack of respect for parliamentarians is certainly not new. In the 15th century a man was whipped and pilloried and put in prison for life for cursing Parliament and all its works. Today there is a dangerous disenchantment, which is deeply felt and has dangerous implications for democracy. We should never forget that it is far easier to lose our freedoms than to regain them and that freedoms are usually lost for what appear to be little good reason at the time. I have mentioned before, but it is worth repeating, that one can trace the demise of virtually every civilisation. Sometimes it has been through enemy action but usually it has been through apathy. Apathy is the most dangerous enemy of freedom. Civilisations have gone from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency once more into bondage.
What can be done to encourage greater interest in and respect for Parliament and all of its works? Unhappily, the Chamber of the other place is no longer the forum of the nation. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shore, about that. When we turn on the television set today we find that the Chamber is very largely empty. When I was Speaker I hardly ever received complaints about bad behaviour—very largely because the behaviour was probably better than it had ever been; one has only to read the records of Parliament in the last century to know the truth of that—but I did receive complaints about the emptiness of the Chamber. Very sadly, to a large extent, television has destroyed debate in the other place. With television there was increasing repetition and the obvious point being made, and gradually people failed to turn up.
One of my favourite anecdotes of Mr. Enoch Powell relates to an occasion when I was a new Speaker. I was rather pompously on my feet trying to protect a young Member by saying "Order. The honourable Member has a right to be heard". When I got back to Speaker's House I received a note from Mr. Powell, who had written, as I suppose one should write to Speakers, "Mr. J. Enoch Powell presents his compliments, Mr. Speaker, and begs to point out that no honourable Member has a right to be heard". I summoned him for a glass of milk later in the

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evening and he said to me, "I don't think you thought it through, Sir". I said, "What is that, Enoch?". "Well, you said a Member has a right to speak, Sir. If you call him, we have no obligation to listen to him". That of course is the truth. Members of Parliament will leave the Chamber if they hear repetition or the obvious point being made.
I agree with what has already been said about Statements being made outside the House. I had the same problem that the Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, has in trying to bring Ministers—particularly Prime Ministers—to the Floor of the House to make Statements. I had to insist on one occasion because I had heard a very important Statement being made to Mr. Redhead. The Prime Minister was very good; she came and made the Statement. I know that I was accused of granting far too many Private Notice Questions and emergency debates. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, was Chief Whip at the time and complained to me about that. However, it was one way of getting important matters raised on the Floor of the Chamber. I had to use what weapons I had.
Perhaps the most important reason for the empty Chamber these days is the flood of constituency correspondence. In no country in the world is the electorate more carefully and well looked after by Parliament than in this one. This morning, before the debate, I checked up again with the Postmaster in the other place. The figures I was given are worth bearing in mind. I was told that 95, 000 letters come into the Palace of Westminster every day and 75, 000 go out. It is a tremendous flood of correspondence. I used to have to explain to people who wrote to me about empty Chambers that the Members were there but that they were in their offices dealing with the letters that they had written to them.
We should do something about the constituency correspondence. It arises largely from the fact that we all had constituency surgeries or advice nights, almost as though we were touting for business. I remember on one occasion, when I was rather busy at a constituency surgery, trying to explain to one of my splendid constituents that I would not be able to help him to get a council house. He said, "Why not?". I said "Because I am not a councillor". He said "What has that got to do with it?". I said "If it was called parliamentary housing I would be able to help you. But, as it is called council housing, that means it is a matter for the local council. This lady sitting next to me is a local councillor; would you mind going direct to her and telling her about it?". He poked me in the chest and said "Look here, mate, you're paid to do it". The councillor was there, and she took it all down; and then she wrote to me, and I wrote to him. If we could return to local government the powers that have been taken from it in recent years we would do two things: first, we would increase the prestige of local councillors and of local government; we would also go a long way towards stopping the flood of correspondence to Members of Parliament which largely has nothing to do with their prime role as parliamentarians; that is, holding the Government to account.
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Very few governments positively set out to make life more difficult for themselves. All honour to the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she set up what were called the St. John-Stevas reforms whereby Select Committees monitor every government department. The real action in the other place these days goes on in the Select Committees. I would make the chairmanship of Select Committees—which is already very prestigious— even more prestigious, to the extent that the Chairmen of Select Committees should be paid, probably the same as Ministers of State. Members of Parliament should aspire to be Chairmen or members of Select Committees rather than seek to be Ministers.
As I have said, I was a Whip for 12 years. Increasingly I came to the conclusion that I had far too much influence. One only needed to appeal to ambition to get Members to do their duty. That is not right. Fortunately, for the last six years of my term in the Whips Office I was in charge of the "troublemakers"— a schoolboy expression which I suppose I should not mention in your Lordships' House. They were among the best MPs. You could not buy them in any way; you had to persuade them. When most Secretaries of State are long, long forgotten, people will still remember the likes of Tony Benn, Tarn Dalyell, Dale Campbell-Savours and the splendid Robin Maxwell-Hyslop, who caused your Lordships' House so much trouble a few years ago on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
The payroll has increased to a dangerous extent. When I first entered the House of Commons, only very senior Ministers had PPSs. Today, very junior Ministers have PPSs. The trouble with that is that they are, generally speaking, among the best Members of Parliament. But they are neutered because they are unable to participate in debate. The patronage of the Government should be carefully looked at.
I believe it was Mr. Gladstone who said to his own supporters, "It is not your job to run the country. It is your duty to hold to account those who do". At the moment, this is rather better done in your Lordships' House than in the other place. Just before the last election the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, was kind enough to give me a drink. He said to me, "It is our perception that since you have been the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers we seem to be defeated rather more regularly than we were in the past. Have you been telling them what to do? Have you been issuing a Whip?". I had to assure him that we never did anything like that. But I said, "If anyone comes to me and asks, 'Do we happen to have a line on this?', I say, 'You had better go into the Chamber and listen to the argument'", to which he replied, "My God, you don't do that, do you?" In relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said, perhaps we will not get back to listening to the argument in respect of the political parties, but I hope that that will always be the case in terms of the Cross-Bench Peers.
This has been a splendid opportunity to look at the role, the composition and the functions of Parliament. As I have said, when we have dealt with the House of Lords, I hope that a similar scrutiny will be made of the role, functions and composition of the House of

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Commons. In doing so, we should always bear in mind that respect for Parliament and the safeguarding of democracy is one of the prime responsibilities of all of us who are privileged to serve in either House of Parliament.
4.52 p.m.
Lord saatchi: My Lords, I am delighted that, by an accident of history, I am following the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, because my remarks will concern him directly and also because, in the light of what he said about the payment of the Chairmen of Select Committees, I know he will particularly appreciate what I am going to say.
All parliamentarians agree that the power of the executive has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished. How can that be achieved? I have a proposal, which I shall try to express in a crisp form. First, according to commentators, the main virtue of the House of Lords is its independence of the executive. Secondly, according to the same commentators, the main defect of the House of Commons is its lack of independence of the executive. Thirdly, the method by which your Lordships' House is seen to demonstrate its independence is through our large and illustrious number of Cross-Bench colleagues. Fourthly, the method by which another place is supposed to demonstrate its independence is through our time-honoured and respected system of Select Committees. Fifthly, I find in Erskine May that the chairmen of Select Committees normally exercise a substantial measure of authority in the conduct of committee affairs and the practice whereby the chairmen of committees are chosen from the membership of each committee by its members is a tradition of the House rather than a requirement of Standing Orders.
Therefore, I propose, sixthly, that the best embodiment of the best virtue of this House—the Cross-Bench Peers—should be loaned to the House of Commons to serve as the independent chairmen of Select Committees. Seventhly, the result would be a boost to the Select Committee system, proving that these committees can perform, and be seen to perform, the vital task of holding a potentially over-mighty executive to account. We would all be comforted for, in the words of the Motion of my noble friend Lord Waddington, "respect for Parliament" would be maintained.
4.54 p.m.
Lord Berkely: My Lords, I shall try to be as brief as the previous speaker although I am not sure that I will succeed in that. I speak as a comparatively new hereditary Peer who comes from a business background. I have not been in the House of Commons but I have watched it with great interest from the outside. I remind the House that we are debating respect for the British Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Bell, said in his thought-provoking speech, respect needs to be earned. I believe that we should set an example as parliamentarians.
I intended to confine my remarks to the House of Lords but I was interested in some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, about Labour's large
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majority and the sycophantic MPs running around with their pagers. I seem to recall that similar things happened, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, in the 1980s. I recall that new MPs at that time behaved perhaps not quite like sheep but there was a certain amount of following the leader. Independence in Members of Parliament grows as they stay longer in Parliament and they learn. I believe that independence will emerge as it did in the Conservative Party over its 18 years in office. In fact that nearly killed it. The same comment applies to sycophantic journalists. There are plenty of those around. I know from my business work at that time that they seemed to think that everything the Government did was marvellous. If one or two are saying that today, it just redresses the balance; a little.
Perhaps I may turn to Select Committees. The alleged leaks to Ministers of Select Committee reports is unfortunate. But can we be certain that that did not happen in the 18 years of the Conservative government? I have my suspicions. Reference has been made to the influence of Select Committees. I certainly believe that the Select Committee which examines the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions—the committee in which I am most interested—has a much greater influence now with this Government than the committee had with the previous government
I have the privilege of serving on your Lordships' European Communities Committee. We were discussing at a meeting of the committee only yesterday how to improve the scrutiny of European legislation. As for the new building for Members of Parliament and its grossly inflated price, the building was started by the previous government. I understand from some of the engineers working on it that if the committees concerned had accepted that Westminster Underground station should close for a couple of years and that honourable Members and noble Lords should walk to St. James' Park station, £50 million or £100 million could probably have been saved on the cost. Therefore to criticise the present committee is a little rash. It is surely possible to walk to St. James' Park station.
I turn to Parliament in general. In the past 20 years we have heard a great deal about subsidiarity. The then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, kept on waving her handbag saying that we must have subsidiarity from Brussels. I entirely agree with that. But when it came to subsidiarity with respect to the regions and Parliament here, that policy seemed to be slightly different. I certainly support the present Government's devolution proposals. I hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, that they will extend eventually to the English regions. But for all those institutions respect must be earned. And if they succeed, they will succeed because they have earned respect.
I now turn to the subject of your Lordships' House. It is my impression from talking to people outside, to those in the media and so forth, that outside opinion of the workings of this House is that our debates are generally good; we talk sense most of the time; we are thorough; we are informed—and occasionally a little bit dotty. That is all right. However, I wonder whether we are in danger of losing some of those qualities.

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Some noble Lords will already have read the Freedom and Function report published on 1st March. I understand that the report is soon to be debated in this House. I read it with great interest. Many aspects of the report deserve careful consideration, one being the use of the second person in addressing Members during debates; once we begin using "you" as a form of address, matters become personal. Another is the reference to personal criticism. We have heard a lot of that recently. It is very sad: in the four or five years that I have been a Member of this place I have noticed a difference. Walking in front of speakers and between speakers and the Table is a small matter but it nevertheless affects people. And there are many other matters about which your Lordships can read in the report. They are all in the Companion, and I hope that we shall soon know the proposed changes. But we are self-regulated. Today's proceedings are a good example. We welcome and relish our freedom, but we have to earn it.
I say as an hereditary Peer that it is tempting for us to adopt a more aggressive and almost less professional approach as the time for our departure draws near. I am sad about that. I hope that we hereditaries will depart in a manner whereby we can feel proud of what we have done. I hope that we shall feel that we are remembered for the positive contribution that we have made rather than for behaving rather badly, sometimes almost like a group of schoolchildren, in the last months or years.
I hope that the House will soon be able to debate this excellent report. It is an interim statement of how we might improve procedures quickly. That will improve the quality of our debates and, as a consequence, improve the respect in which the House is held.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Birdwood: My Lords, imagine how surprised I was to read these words in The House Magazine two weeks ago:
"Parliament has lost power and authority to the executive, to Europe, to the courts, to the media"
The writer goes on:
"Major statements apart, newspaper reports of what goes on in the Commons chamber are confined these days to the waspish efforts of a talented band of sketch-writers who largely see the Commons as a vehicle of entertainment, a backcloth to a string of witticisms"
Who could that reactionary medievalist be? Why, none other than Robin Oakley, the political editor of the BBC. The temptation has been nearly unendurable simply to read out the whole of that tough, uncompromising essay and call it my speech, so well does it accord with my own reflections. But I must use the privilege of this afternoon's debate to embrace the anxieties implicit in the Motion—and a nod of thanks to my noble friend Lord Waddington is more than due—in my own words.
Here is a proposition. This Government swept to power on the promise, among others, of efficiency. The brand management with its emphasis on "new" and "modern" was quite unambiguous in that as a priority. And how could anyone challenge that? Efficiency is critically important in running a great complicated thing like a country, and the more efficient the better.
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Surely there can be no argument with that. But there is a permanent war in any political system between two ideological constants. One is efficiency; the other is democracy. You see, the enemy of efficiency is dissent. If one is a political party with a huge mandated majority, there is precious little one cannot dream up that cannot be executed. Make everybody paint their houses pink? No problem. Perpetuate the Parliament past five years? Good idea. Much more efficient. It would mean that Ministers could really get to grip with matters. Repeal the laws of thermodynamics? Worth a try.
And look: here come the referendums to validate our policies. "Throw the big budgets at the issue and we've got it in the bag" is the logic. As an aside, the part played by the referendum in the political process is worth a whole debate on its own. We have turned it into a kind of quiz show accreditation to any ideological cook-up of the moment. Tough on crime? Go to the people; they will tell you—especially if you have just chucked £5 million at them in telling them so.
How deeply irritating, therefore, it must be to have to explain to the Chamber of the other place, let alone this one, what bright, efficient action is in mind. This, after all, is the Government of the "whim of iron". Let me be clear. I bow to no one in ascribing to this Government— to be more accurate, to the inner circle of this Prime Minister—motives which are utterly wholesome, benign and Simon-pure. If a little bit of personal freedom is to be sacrificed, so goes the thinking, it is a small price to pay for the big idea.
I frame three paradoxes. The first is the tension between efficiency and democracy. The second is the way in which the new bourgeoisie of complacent affluence has been decoupled from the political process. The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, brilliantly traced the cycle which included apathy as a key threshold of decay. The trade-off runs as follows: do we really mind a little less liberty if we have all these material goods?
Of course this does not mean that I am for inefficiency or in favour of material deprivation. But there lie hidden in these paradoxes the seeds of a velvet tyranny. It has been pointed out that the idea of nation is being squeezed out and is being replaced with new affinities. Not a few of those are affinities of perceptions of victimisation. This a new landscape of power for which the map-makers are the media. This is not the time for me to revisit the question of the power of single issue groups. But when one digs into the recent past, the way in which Parliament has been made to dance to the ephemera of media campaigns riding on image-friendly stridency, has itself contributed to the perceptible shrinkage of its own status. Did the Conservatives do their share of dancing to media pressure? Listen, we showed the way. And we acquiesced in this House.
But I accuse, in the name of this Motion, the party opposite. To the party opposite debates such as this are just games. They look across at these Benches and what do they see? No journalists to please or appease; no TV ratings to cause a moment's concern. They see men and women, many of whom are in any case guaranteed to disappear off the stage like conjurers' assistants with one wave of the executive wand. And how much more

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efficient this House will seem to be when it is in permanent harmony with the Stepford majority in the other place.
My third paradox is being present here, now. I could surely be mocked for my impertinence in speaking of democracy when my credentials have none; but nor have those of any speaker here today. When a curator accepts responsibility for the treasure in his stewardship, he is a creature of the duty; he is not himself the treasure. The chain of custody is forged in vigilance. Our inheritors must not look back on these years and see that dissent was sacrificed in the name of efficiency and that our legacy was the democracy which died of neglect.
5.10 p.m.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I was prompted to put my name down to speak in the debate because of the induction for new Peers which I attended this morning. It was made plain that the quality of debate in this House was very high. The Senate in the US was reflected upon. There, senators appear for their speech and then disappear. Is it not possible that the hereditary Peers have some connection with this high quality of debate? Should they be abolished before there is a clear idea of how this high quality should be maintained in the newly constituted Upper House? Parliament should be judged on its acts. By having a clear idea of how that characteristic of good debate is to be maintained in the newly constituted Upper Chamber before the hereditary Peers are abolished, we can ensure that it persists. A Parliament that legislates for tomorrow and today will be respected. Is not respect for Parliament the best safeguard for democracy?
5.12 p.m.
Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, I, too, welcome the topical and important debate introduced by my noble friend Lord Waddington. In my view, respect for Parliament rests on twin pillars. The first is good representation of the people—understanding their aspirations, their feelings, their hopes and their fears. A classic definition of this relationship was given by Edmund Burke to the electors of Bristol is 1774:
"Your representative owes to you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinions".
I suggest that that is as true now as it was then, although we should no doubt express it in a somewhat different form today.
Representation of the people involves both Houses. In the case of Parliament there is direct representation through elections. Once a Member of Parliament is elected, he is responsible for, and to, all his constituents, whether or not they voted for him. But we, too, are part of that representative process. One has only to consider the enormous increase in our mailbags in recent years to see very clearly that the British public want and expect us to represent them. Indeed, it can be said that we sometimes represent people's wishes more effectively than does a heavily-whipped other place. A good recent example of that is the issue of student
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fees, with particular reference to Scotland. I suggest that people are better represented if both Houses are effectively involved.
The second pillar is the holding of Government to account. Here again both Houses are involved and both Houses have a responsibility. Your Lordships' House prides itself on revising legislation. The value of that revision process is shown very clearly by the number of government amendments which are tabled as a direct result of debates in your Lordships' Chamber or in Select Committees in your Lordships' House.
It has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Waddington that it is difficult to maintain these twin pillars when the government of the day have a substantial majority in another place. No matter what the colour of the government, there is always a temptation in those circumstances to steam-roller things through, knowing that one will get away with it. But it is significant that the rumblings which are now appearing in the other place are coming from senior and experienced Members. The chairmen of Select Committees in another place, the majority of whom are respected Labour Members, are now complaining strongly that they and their work are not being treated seriously by the Government.
An even greater threat to parliamentary sovereignty is the constant stream of statements and leaks that Ministers and their aides are now giving outside Parliament. This has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Waddington, the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, and others. I shall therefore not repeat those arguments, except to say that it is extremely dangerous when Parliament is sidelined and passed over in this way. Ministers are not responsible to the media; they are responsible to Parliament. Major policy statements should be made to Parliament, where Members can question and call to account the Minister making the statement.
Another problem concerns devolution. This was referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Berkeley. We are in the midst of a constitutional revolution. I do not think it is yet generally realised what a major effect devolution will have on both Houses of the Westminster Parliament and how there will be a need to develop a new relationship—and it will be a very delicate one—between Westminster and these new bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A new relationship will be needed and it will take time to develop it.
Many important questions concerning devolution remain unanswered. I tried to refer to these when I spoke in the two-day debate on the 23rd February and I shall not repeat those arguments now. Above all, there is the problem of the English question. Unless these problems are resolved, and resolved quickly, we shall be storing up great trouble for the future of Parliament.
In conclusion, perhaps I may mention two reforms which I believe can lead to a stronger and more effective Parliament. They may seem small in themselves, but I believe that they will be of considerable significance if they are adopted. The first concerns pre-legislative scrutiny. I give great credit to the Government for

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introducing draft Bills on a number of relatively non-controversial issues. That is much to be welcomed; some of us have been advocating it for a good many years. It will give the opportunity for Parliament, in co-operation with government departments and outside interests, to examine and improve Bills before they are set in concrete. Once the Bill is published, it is more difficult to persuade Parliament to make amendments. I believe that this welcome development will lead to better Bills and better scrutiny of the Government's legislative programme.
I understand that the departmental Select Committees of another place will consider draft Bills. Your Lordships' House does not have departmental Select Committees. I suggest that we need a new Select Committee whose specific duty it will be to examine draft Bills. Your Lordships' House is very well fitted and qualified by a variety of expertise to examine Bills. Furthermore, I believe that your Lordships' House would have more time to do a thorough job than the overburdened committees in another place. It would be a great pity if this very welcome new parliamentary opportunity were not grasped with both hands by your Lordships' House. I have been assured that either the Liaison or the Procedure Committee will consider this proposal, and I greatly look forward to its report.
The second proposed reform that I mention is concerned with secondary legislation. Secondary legislation has increased, is increasing and will not diminish. The number and importance of secondary legislation has increased enormously in recent years. I believe that the procedure in both Houses for scrutiny is woefully inadequate. Your Lordships' House is reluctant to vote against secondary legislation and therefore debates lack teeth. I believe that the time has now come when your Lordships' House should be able to delay or amend secondary legislation in the same way as it is able to do for primary legislation. Of course, that proposal also has implications for another place. These reforms, modest as they may appear, would make the House more effective without in any way threatening the pre-eminence of another place. I hope that when he comes to reply the noble Lord the Minister will be able to comment capably on these suggestions.
In conclusion, Parliament is in a state of flux. That is due largely to the Government's constitutional reforms. Amid all the uncertainties of the new situation there is an urgent need to strengthen both Houses, and to do so now.
5.22 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, it was the reference in the noble Lord's Motion to the need to maintain respect for Parliament that caught my attention. He assumes that we win or lose people's respect for Parliament through our own behaviour and the way in which we treat each other. He spoke about the way in which the Government treated Parliament. I have no experience of the other place, but I find this attitude rather inward-looking. I believe that people's respect for Parliament also
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depends on the way in which Parliament treats them. The noble Lord, Lord Bell, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley made the same point.
Some noble Lords look back with nostalgia, but to illustrate my point I look forward to a future in which we treat ourselves in Parliament as we treat others. I paint the following picture. The year is 2020; the place is Westminster; the scene is Parliament. The spin doctors refer to it as the Year of Perfect Vision. The serious press refers to it as the two Packets of Cigarettes Parliament. Others refer to it as the fag-end parliament because our sponsors in that year are the Intergalactic Tobacco Company. That company won the sponsorship through a combination of clever lobbying as the nation's largest tax contributor and by submitting the most competitive bid.
It is mid-August and parliamentarians are back at work. They are rather nervous because the Westminster Parliament has come in low in the parliamentary league tables. The Scottish Parliament has come top and the European Parliament second. There is talk of a hit squad coming in. Lots of measures have been tried to improve our performance. Performance-related pay was introduced, but that served only to change a reasonably helpful and co-operative attitude to one of competitive unhelpfulness. The National Institute for Parliamentary Excellence was formed for the purpose of "ensuring good parliamentary outcomes" but the results were mixed. The institute designed public service agreements between parliamentarians and their constituents, but there has been a good deal of argument as to where to set the targets. The institute tried self-assessment, but it was not successful. Parliamentarians feel that the appraisal inspections that now take place occupy a lot of their time and do little to improve their performance.
Of course, consultants were called in at a fairly early stage. Every parliamentarian filled in the detailed forms to recount his or her activities. The consultants decided that performance would be judged on what they called voter value and funds allocated on the voter value scale. It is paid out monthly and is regulated by the rules of voter governance. It has given rise to endless complaints from parliamentarians about their inability to plan for the future due to the short-term financial horizon. The Inclusive Parliamentarians Association is campaigning to change that. I believe that noble Lords get the drift of my argument. I could go on to explain how the shift system works in Parliament in 2020. Parliamentarians work shifts because the PFI contracts to re-equip Parliament over-estimated the rates of interest and inflation. This means that Parliament has to work 168 hours a week to achieve the monthly capital cost repayment.
That is a picture of parliamentary life in 2020. Perhaps that is the nightmare Parliament to which my noble friend Lord Shore referred. I hope that noble Lords will not consider it to be too far-fetched. Each element that I have described is a feature of many people's lives in Britain today in both the public and private sectors. My point is a very simple one: if we want the public to have respect for Parliament we must be sensitive to the effect that Parliament has on the self-respect of the public.

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I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for drawing our attention to the need to maintain respect for Parliament and to safeguard democracy. He is right. What is more, his timing is right. As many noble Lords have pointed out, we are on the verge of big, fundamental changes: devolving power to the regions and the cities, moving towards the euro while keeping our economy steady and reconciling an enterprise economy with a fairer society. These are the right things to do. That is being done with confidence and clarity. But no one really knows what the consequences will be. For that reason we need the solidarity that is brought about by mutual respect; that is, people in Parliament respecting each other.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Chadlington: My Lords, first, I add my thanks and congratulations to my noble friend Lord Waddington for initiating this debate today. I should also like to express my admiration for the outstanding maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Bell. As I wish to address the relationship between a democratically elected government, those who present government policy and its effect on both democracy and the sovereignty of Parliament, I must, at the outset, declare an interest. For the past 35 years I have worked in the public relations and advertising business in different capacities. I have served successive Conservative administrations.
The media today present both a threat and a challenge to any modern democratically elected government. On the one hand, the media provide the only way to reach most of the electorate on a daily, even hourly, basis. On the other hand, it has an insatiable appetite for news and comment, the timetable of which pays scant regard to the working hours of Parliament. No modern-day Prime Minister can follow the example set by Harold Macmillan. On returning from an overseas trip he was asked by a BBC interviewer at the airport, "Prime Minister, do you have anything to say to the BBC?" Following a brief moment of reflection, Mr. Macmillan replied, "No, thank you very much. Not today".
The demand for hard news is reflected by a vast increase in TV channels, radio stations, newspapers and magazines and, of increasing importance, the Internet— all equally hungry for news and comment. Moreover, if a Government do not comment, others will—searching for political advantage, choosing perhaps to misrepresent or disrupt government business. The unpoliced and unregulated Internet, which has no editorial gate-keeper, provides the ideal medium to give currency to unsubstantiated rumour which in turn feeds into more traditional media.
The lobby brief is now an integral part of the Government's round. But almost more important to opinion poll ratings is the "Richard and Judy Show", "Des O'Connor", "Breakfast TV" and the "Jimmy Young" programme or their equivalents both nationally and regionally.
Against that background New Labour has without doubt carried through a brilliantly successful communications offensive. From the launch of New
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Labour, through the election and during the first two years in power, it would be churlish not to admit that the Government have successfully put across their policies, plans and prospectus with clarity, consistency and in general, they have been given a favourable media reception.
I now believe that this Government have changed the face of politics forever. I cannot foresee how any government of any colour could now enter office, particularly as media opportunities escalate, without a thoroughgoing professional marketing and publicity machine. And if that is true, the effect this change will have on the sovereignty of Parliament and on democracy as a whole must be carefully considered. At the very least, we must review the conventions which apply to the relationship between Government, Parliament and the media.
We can consider that from four aspects—public relations; research; marketing and advertising. First, public relations. As has already been emphasised, government policies are trailed in the media daily. These are not only minor political leaks. Only a week or two ago the key elements of the Chancellor's Budget were explored by the media daily for a week before Budget day even dawned. The convention of telling Parliament first appears to be under threat. To some extent it is not difficult to see why. The evening ministerial announcement, which is too late to catch the morning papers and is old news by the day after, has to be trailed at teatime to catch the evening television news—often well before the Minister is on his feet in another place. As long as the media do not believe that they have a prime role as media of record, practices such as this will continue. Some may argue that while those activities run counter to convention, they ensure that the public—the electorate—at least has the opportunity to hear what is proposed and debate the issues. Sticking to the letter of the convention can prevent the debate from taking place at all.
But it is Parliament which is the proper forum in which Government can propose and defend policies under the scrutiny and questioning of those who are elected to oppose those policies. While a balanced debate can be held in another place, a leaked story will usually only present one side of a case: that of the leaker.
In any event, the media debate is orchestrated and managed by a new breed of unelected special advisers— "spin doctors" in the popular parlance. Over the past two years, as my noble friend Lord Waddington pointed out, reflecting the growth in this activity, the number of special advisers has doubled.
We need to clarify the role of this army of political advisers, not only in terms of cost and role, but in terms of their relationship with other parts of the Government, particularly the Civil Service and information officers. The objectivity of the Civil Service from one year to the next, and one Government to the next, must at all times be protected. However great and increasing the power of the Government's political PR machine, the great divide between politicians and civil servants must be maintained. Similarly, the traditional role of the

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information officer as a bipartisan public servant who is reactive to inquiry, willing and able to "give objective advice to requests for information, cannot be compromised into selling or promoting government policies.
Spin doctors want favourable coverage in the media for their political masters' policies. That is why they are there. Ideally, they want the debate which precedes and follows policy announcements to be constructive and favourable too. If a tabloid newspaper runs a poll on a new policy it wants its readership to endorse it. That gives it the chance to say, "It is what the people want! It is democracy at work!" Focus groups play an important part in this process. They tell governments what commuters, parents, teachers, doctors and pressure groups want and what policies they need to solve their problems.
Analysis of focus groups can determine government policy. By playing back to the electorate through the media the very policies they have identified through these groups, spin doctors create a virtuous circle of applause.
New Labour has spent £22 million on focus groups— three times what the former Tory Government spent— including £500, 000 to run the People's Panel; 5, 000 randomly selected people who are regularly consulted to tell the Government what "ordinary people" think. This seems to me, with two very important provisos, to be a reasonable, sensible, modern approach. Staying in touch with the electorate is one of the most difficult things for an incumbent government to achieve.
My first reservation is that if such research is publicly funded then all findings must be in the public domain so that they can be used by all parties to inform and develop debate. I am sure that the Government would carefully avoid any implication that public money be used for party purposes.
My second important proviso is the need to ensure that in this marketing approach to policy, political leadership is not lost. Doing what is right for the country as a whole, whether it is popular or not, is an essential part of parliamentary government and democracy. There is the world of difference between parliamentary democracy and populist democracy.
While we can think of many unpopular decisions which were wrong, many of our greatest political leaders have made unpopular decisions, risking electorate displeasure but being proved right in the end. We must never lose courageous, political leadership. Reflect on the political life of Roosevelt or Churchill to secure the point, my Lords.
Advertising has also been an effective instrument in promoting government policy. The Government are now set to outspend Coca-Cola on TV with a budget of over £80 million for public service advertising. In the past 12 months, there have been 28 separate government campaigns on TV and 106 different campaigns in the national press—a 35 per cent, increase in advertising expenditure at the COI.
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In principle I think that it is right to inform the public about issues which affect their lives. Indeed, I have argued in this House for greater advertising spending behind both the NHS and the Police Force to help build a reservoir of goodwill among the public to offset the constant torrent of bad press which these public services regularly attract. But again, we need to be certain that this huge advertising spend is genuinely being driven by the need for public information rather than political self-advantage. We cannot use public money to fund party propaganda.
So the introduction of modern PR, marketing, research and advertising skills into the political arena has brought great benefits to this Government as I believe it will bring great benefits to governments in the future. But there remains real suspicion that these new skills bypass Parliament and challenge democracy. However right or wrong these allegations may be, the perception is more important than the reality. This is a government who pride themselves on a modern view of Britain. They have certainly achieved that in communications. They now have the opportunity to analyse the implications of that communications revolution and ensure that parliamentary sovereignty and democracy are protected.
It will require a radical agenda. There are wide-ranging radical steps which can be taken. Perhaps, in conclusion, I may suggest four headline actions which could initiate some government thinking. First, put the Lobby on the record: film it live; show the journalists; show the briefing. That would dispel the view that there is some hidden cabal with a quid pro quo, a two-way street of gossip and innuendo.
Secondly, insist that newspapers quote their sources by name. No more, "A close aid to the Prime Minister said". Either the journalist puts his own name behind the story, or the source is willing to back his quote with his own name, or the story does not run.
Thirdly, limit the free flow of jobs between the media and ministerial special advisers—both ways. Insist on a significant period of purdah between the two professions. Fourthly, establish an independent group to arbitrate and audit both the content and levels of advertising spend for public information advertising.
Those four steps, or some variation of them, coupled with other radical initiatives, would provide the transparency which the electorate is beginning, rightly, to demand. I believe that, as all future governments will follow the example of New Labour in using the full panoply of management and marketing skills, the Government have a responsibility and opportunity also to ensure that Parliament continues to be respected and democracy safeguarded.
5.41 p.m.
Lord Norton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for the opportunity to debate this important matter. It is a brave Motion, given the executive performance of the previous Administration, but one should be encouraged, for all sinners are entitled to repent. Furthermore, it could be said that the

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Executive, accounting to Parliament, played a large part in the downfall of the previous Administration. I will confine my remarks to the role of the Executive.
"It would be hard to find a more pompous, high-handed, self-important autocratic bunch. Blair's Cabinet is probably the most arrogant in British history…New Labour rides roughshod over Parliament, public opinion and at times the very basics of democracy".
Those are not my words, but those of the nation's favourite newspaper, the Sun, which is read by millions and is a government supporter.
What makes that statement so telling is that prior to the election the Opposition were making statements such as,
"Labour is the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole".
The manifesto goes on to state:
"Over-centralisation of government and lack of accountability was a problem of governments of Left and Right. Labour is committed to the democratic renewal of our country through decentralisation and the elimination of excessive government secrecy…Our mission in politics is to rebuild this bond of trust between governments and the people. That is the only way that democracy can flourish".
The quotes go on and on. The British people were ready for such and with a 43 per cent. share of the national vote the Government were given a landslide. I have no argument with that—strong government allows clear direction; but they are wholly dependent on the Executive respecting the democratic and parliamentary tradition.
So how does it come about that after less than two years in government the newspapers and other political commentators show such concern about our system of government? One of the reasons, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, is respect. Respect has to be earned. That cannot be underestimated. How can it be that the gloss of New Labour is so tarnished? They seem to have continued where the Conservatives have left off. They hit the ground running with tobacco sponsorship and cash for access fiascos.
The attempt is to allow the secretive sponsorship of almost anything in government. Why is government expenditure subsidised by private commercial concerns? And why does it always have to be commercially confidential? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Neill, has taken those points for further consideration by his committee in paragraphs 4.6 and 4.8 of his latest report. The ethical foreign policy was blown to bits in East Timor by the secretive supply of more weapons than the previous Administration to the Indonesian authorities.
Then there is the democratic reform of your Lordships' House; a House where the overwhelming majority of hereditary Peers are willing to go for the greater good of a reformed Chamber. Here there is a government arrogance that is displayed by not allowing the objective input of the hereditary Peers in the reform process. Instead, we have the brilliant introduction of the Cross-Bench amendment, organised by the No. 10 press office one afternoon. It was as much news to the Cross-Benchers as it was to the rest of the House. After the Government's primary message, a possible solution with the precious brand image "Cross-Bench approval"
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had been achieved and the amendment was renamed, quite rightly, the "Weatherill" amendment. To my mind, it is quite simply the single most brilliant piece of control that the Executive has pulled off to date. It has stifled debate, set Peer against Peer and is quite irrelevant to the future conduct of the House, which is what the debate should be about. It is sponsorship of a most subtle form.
When the Executive is asked to account verbally or in writing, the tactic appears to be obscure and there is a golden rule that mistakes are never, if at all possible, admitted. One has only to look at the years of effort that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, has had to make to get to the bottom of the organophosphate problem to see this tactic used brilliantly. Lesser people would have gone away a long time ago. Who really does not believe that with objective honesty this problem could not have been solved years ago and much suffering relieved?
Legislatively, more and more Bills are skeletal in nature; for example, the Pollution Prevention and Control Bill, which drew such condemnation from the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee; or the Data Protection Act 1998, which was passed in such haste in order to comply with the European Directive by October 1998. Yet the Act is still not in force and the orders defining basic working of the Bill have yet to be seen.
Raft upon raft of order-making powers are conferred upon Ministers, which makes the understanding of how legislation is to work in practice impossible to understand at the time the legislation is being debated by Parliament. However good the spin, this is not the decentralisation of power. There is a tragedy associated with this need to control and be secretive. In seeking office, New Labour was delivering many honourable messages. Among those in the manifesto, at number 9, is the pledge:
"We will clean up politics, decentralise political power throughout the United Kingdom".
One has only to look and observe the manipulation of power by the Executive on matters relating to Scotland, Wales and London to realise that politics are not any cleaner and real power is not being decentralised. That is why, on the judgment of occupations by the people of this country, politics still ranks down at the bottom.
If we need to see the long-term effects of an unaccountable Executive, one need look no further than the Olympic movement or the European Union.
5.48 p.m.
Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, I, too, welcome the debate and congratulate my noble friend Lord Waddington on initiating it. I am also delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton, not least because it demonstrates that he and I are not one and the same person!
I agree with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, that much is right about Parliament, but much is wrong with it. I wish to focus on that, related to the central theme of today's debate. Parliament has a poor reputation among informed commentators and among the public. Informed

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commentators see a body that is poor in scrutinising the executive and poor in scrutinising public policy. Electors see a body that is essentially self-serving, unruly and partisan. Both see a body that is subservient to the government.
Surveys have shown that, by international comparison, there is a low level of confidence in Parliament. There is an even lower level of trust in politicians, though not in the local Member of Parliament. Constituents have a relatively high regard for the local MP as the local MP, but not for the institution of which the MP is a Member.
That negative view of the institution of Parliament is clearly bad news for Parliament. It is also bad news for government. The government are elected through Parliament and their authority rests on Parliament. Diminish the authority and reputation of Parliament and, in the long run, we diminish the authority of government. A confident government benefit from and indeed need an effective Parliament. Given the nature of our parliamentary system, citizens sometimes confuse government with Parliament. If one falters, there is a danger that that undermines popular trust in both.
The ideal situation is a confident, responsible government operating within and through an effective, responsible Parliament and for that relationship to be popularly recognised and appreciated. Regrettably, we do not have that ideal situation. I shall try to identify some of the reasons why not and pick up on a number of points that have been made already during the debate. The first body responsible for the absence of that ideal relationship is Members of Parliament. There is an intrinsic tension within our parliamentary system, though not one confined to the United Kingdom. Most Members of the elected House are elected to sustain one party in office. At the same time, all Members are elected as Members of a body which serves to subject the government to scrutiny. So for Members of the governing party, there is thus a potential conflict between loyalty to party and loyalty to the institution of which one is a Member. In practice, party has generally been the winner, necessarily so, but there must be something of a balance between the two. Party is essential to the system but a complete stranglehold destroys the capacity of the institution to call government to account. In recent years, that balance has tipped too heavily towards the party in government.
A number of developments have exacerbated the situation. One has been the growth of the career politician. Time precludes us from looking in detail at the consequences of the growth of the career politician but they are extensive. Another has been the ratchet effect of partisan conflict. Once one party employs a new partisan tactic, the other side copies it and partisan conflict edges out detached, informed scrutiny.
A further complication already mentioned during this afternoon's debate is the sheer size of the new membership of the House of Commons—one-third of the full membership—which has been socialised into that excessive partisan environment and has no experience of detached, critical scrutiny.
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The second reason for the imbalance is the attitude taken towards Parliament by Ministers. When Ministers are secure in office, bolstered by a large parliamentary majority and courted by important bodies outside Parliament, there is a danger of neglecting Parliament and of treating it with arrogance. They can treat it with arrogance because MPs, or at least most of them, let them. That arrogance may result from longevity or newness in office. We have evidence of both. I am not certain that that arrogance is totally institutionalised which is why I refer to Ministers rather than government. But it exists and regrettably, as has been mentioned today, it exists at the very head of government.
Therefore, we have a critical imbalance in the relationship between government and Parliament. Clearly, as has been mentioned already, that does not help Parliament's reputation. However, Parliament's reputation is undermined also—and again this was touched on earlier in the debate—by the attitude taken by the mass media. Journalists, or at least most of them, no longer take Parliament seriously. That, in part, is Parliament's fault for the reasons I have touched upon. It is also a consequence of entertainment squeezing out public service broadcasting.
Furthermore, Parliament's reputation is undermined by a lack of popular understanding of what Parliament does. That is attributable in part to the nature of media coverage. But it is also more pervasive. There is little teaching of what Parliament is about. Even if there were, there is no guarantee that the public's evaluation of Parliament would be positive.
That brings me full circle. Parliament must do the job that is expected of it and has to be seen to be doing it. How do we achieve that? That answer lies in part, but not wholly, with parliamentarians. Parliament will be able to call government to account only if the political will to do so exists. There is no point in discussing structure, procedures and other means of calling government to account if the political will to make them work is absent.
How do we achieve the political will? I suspect that that is not by appealing to politicians' better natures but rather by addressing their self-interest. We must persuade Back-Bench MPs that it is in their own interests to engage in more independent scrutiny of government. They can have a greater influence on public policy. There are past precedents for that. They can bolster their positions in their constituencies. They may have a greater chance of advancement. Historically, there are many examples of able rebels being brought into government while not very able loyalists languish on the Back-Benches.
I do not underestimate the difficulty, the magnitude of the task but it is worth the effort. I am not saying that it will happen, but it should happen. Government Back-Benchers can help to force a better balance between government and Parliament and can do so without necessarily threatening the continuance of government in office. The creation in 1979 of departmental Select Committees in the other place showed what is possible as a result of Back-Bench pressure.

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The other crucial point is that it is in the self-interest of government to take Parliament seriously. A government who engage in a real dialogue with Parliament are likely to enhance their reputation, their own authority and to have the benefit of better measures. Trie adoption by Ministers of an arrogant attitude towards Parliament generally reflects insecurity. Ministers who take Parliament seriously benefit from engaging in a discourse with Members, something apparent in your Lordships' House where one sees that take place frequently, and from building up a body of goodwill. Arrogant Ministers who falter politically are vulnerable Ministers.
Once the political will is there, Parliament—and I mean principally the House of Commons which is where the problem essentially exists—can then begin the task of strengthening the means of scrutiny and strengthening the Chamber and its committees. But even then the problems of media coverage and public understanding will remain. There are proposals already discussed in your Lordships' House for civic education to form part of the curriculum in schools. That is one way forward. There is a much more immediate problem in terms of media coverage. A more effective Parliament may attract greater media attention but that is not certain and it is not clear that even if it did, it would be sufficient.
It is clear that that is a very real problem and that that problem is not amenable to a simple or single solution. Certainly it is not amenable to change solely within Parliament itself. In so far as it is, then there must be the political will to make Parliament a more effective and efficient body for calling government to account. The nettle must be grasped and must be grasped by parliamentarians. In this House, we can only do so much. The real challenge is faced by Members of the other place.
6 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I want to add my thanks and congratulations to my noble friend Lord Waddington for bringing this matter forward for debate today. The subject of this debate worried many Members of your Lordships' House, and indeed people outside, as we have witnessed power being transferred from Parliament to No. 10. In other words, we have seen Parliament bypassed, as the Executive has high-handedly taken action without reference to either House. It appears that the views of focus groups are more important than those of your Lordships or Members of another place. I shall illustrate that by giving a few examples of what I mean.
Within days of taking office the Government took unilateral decisions without reference to opposition parties. Perhaps the first instance of that was when, out of the blue, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave authority for an independent Bank of England. It is not for me to comment at this juncture on whether that was a good idea, but I do most earnestly believe that it was a matter which should have been debated and the opportunity given to those who wished to express a view.
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A few days later the Prime Minister made the extraordinary decision to subject himself to answering parliamentary questions only once a week and without any consultation with the leaders of other parties. I use the word "extraordinary" because I believe it takes away the very purpose of the case for Prime Minister's Question Time, which I have always understood to be the questioning of the Prime Minister on topical issues. Having a session only once a week means that some issues are comparatively out of date before the Prime Minister has to stand up and answer to Members of another place. Since those early days we have seen many other examples of similar cavalier behaviour
My main concern is, however, the break-up of the United Kingdom. This has been done by sleight of hand. The Labour manifesto is to the Government a Bible which must be adhered to, although perhaps I may remind your Lordships that there was no mention of an independent Bank of England in the manifesto, nor, indeed, any mention of tuition fees for students. It did state, however, that there would be a referendum on devolution in Scotland and Wales. Scotland voted for it in significant numbers. It was what people wanted and as a consequence was accepted by everyone.
However, in Wales there was, I believe, gerrymandering to obtain a result to the Government's liking. There was the fixing of the actual date of the referendum, one week after the Scottish poll, against the wise advice of your Lordships. It was also decreed that a simple majority would suffice. That majority was just about achieved and now the Welsh people will have to live with the consequence of a costly extra layer of government. Now that the Assembly is there, we, as Conservatives, will do all in our power to ensure it works properly and is as successful as possible.
There was also mention in the Labour manifesto of regional government in England, but only as and when people wanted it. Nowhere did it state anything about the demise of England, or the promotion of the interests of Scotland and Wales at the expense of England. I meet many people from all walks of life as well as speaking to different groups round the country, and I can assure noble Lords that there is an abundance of strong feeling that the Government have let the genie out of the bottle and as a result the United Kingdom as a nation will disappear.
The Government appear unable to stop changing things in what they call the modernisation of a United Kingdom fit for the new millennium. All Government Front Bench speeches repeatedly mention the words "modern", "modernising" or "modernisation" time after time. I can understand a party that has been out of office for so long having plenty of ideas, but what I cannot understand is the apparent mad rush to change everything in this quest to be modern—whatever that means!
The Prime Minister states that he wants to create a society of which he can be proud. Perhaps I may take this opportunity to say again that there are many on these Benches who are fiercely proud of this country and its glorious past, even if he is not. It is for that reason that I felt compelled to speak today in order that such sentiments should not go by default.

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I turn to quangos and I refer noble Lords to House of Commons Hansard, col. 453, on 24th February 1994 when Mr. Michael Meacher moved a Motion on unelected state bodies. The Labour attitude to such bodies was expressed clearly in what appears to have been a rather long and acrimonious debate. The criticism of quangos was loud and clear and there was a commitment to end many of those organisations, which they said,
"are not publicly accountable to elected representatives"—
and that—
"their proliferation has been accompanied by a loss in the quality of public services, by increased fraud and waste, and by falling standards in public life".
That was a clear condemnation, and yet what do we see today? We see a Government appointing their supporters to those very organisations they so despised in opposition. There were also accusations that when we were in government we had not cut back on quangos as we had promised in opposition. I looked for guidance in the Statistical Summary of Public Bodies 1998 and found that in 1979 there were 492 bodies employing 217, 000 people. Those figures had reduced to 305 bodies employing 106, 400 people by 1997. It is interesting to note that in 1998 the number of people employed increased to 107, 800, so the growth for patronage and cronyism is there and we can watch the figures closely.
This Government are not two years old and yet we have witnessed devastating changes, and that is even before the Bill to reform your Lordships' House starts its passage through this House. I shudder to think of what the state of our country will be by the time of the general election, whenever it is called.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I too would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for initiating this important and timely debate.
We can all agree with the Motion, but how can we help? I suggest there are two essential ingredients. First, Parliament should make just and fair laws. Secondly, the House of Commons should be seen to be the ultimate authority and be held accountable to the people through the ballot box.
To make just and fair laws there must be respect. Respect is a two-way street. Let me give your Lordships some examples of lack of respect, which I contend has led to lack of respect for Parliament. To set my remarks in context, we have to remember that from 1945 until 1979 the object of government policy—whether Labour government or Conservative government—was to ensure full employment, decent housing and rising living standards for all our citizens.
However, in 1979 all that changed. First, there was the contempt for ordinary working people by the advent of mass unemployment. Secondly, there was the contempt for democracy itself by the attacks on local government, which led to the abolition of the metropolitan counties and the GLC. I have to admit that Ken Livingstone had one little failing. I well remember
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his touching faith and belief that the House of Lords would in some way stop the abolition of the GLC. We know that it did not do that.
We then had the contempt for advice from fellow Cabinet members who counselled against the poll tax. I well remember discussing the poll tax with an ordinary Conservative Party member as the tax was about to be introduced. I explained to him how it would work and his reaction was one of complete disbelief. He said that surely the House of Lords would never allow such a terrible law to be passed. We all know that it did. We were part of the process.
Where do we fit in? What are our strengths and weaknesses? Our strengths are that many Members of the House of Lords can and do speak with immense authority, with wisdom, with deep personal knowledge and experience. We debate the great affairs of state in calm and measured terms. Our weaknesses are that we are too often perceived as a superior body to the House of Commons. Our careful and constructive debates do not always then lead to equally careful and constructive decisions. We won all the arguments in our debates on the poll tax, for example, but then we lost virtually all of the votes.
I suggest that to counteract our weaknesses and to build on our strengths we should, in every utterance we make, never suggest that we are in any way superior to the House of Commons but should always deliver our opinions as advice rather than instructions. We can also go a long way to ensuring that the decisions at which we arrive after our great debates are a better reflection of the debate by acceding to the reform of the House of Lords, already debated and agreed by the House of Commons in its House of Lords Bill which is now before us.
To summarise my argument, we should resolve to be an advisory Chamber to the House of Commons in the manner of an elderly uncle offering the advice of experience to a favourite nephew, with the best of intentions, but with no power to insist that the advice is taken.
Perhaps I may give your Lordships an example. I refer to the speech given in your Lordships' House on 23rd January 1985 by the late Lord Stockton. I shall not quote it because it is a matter of public record. The noble Earl spoke for 25 minutes in a magnificent maiden speech. I believe that there was some reference to the family silver. I offer that as an example of the best advice that an elderly uncle could give. It is only a pity that that advice was not heeded. If we follow that example, we shall help to maintain respect for Parliament and to safeguard democracy.
6.11 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Waddington on giving us this opportunity to discuss the importance of maintaining respect for Parliament and safeguarding democracy. As has already been said, this is a timely debate. For almost two years now new legislation which will result in constitutional change with far-reaching and as yet unknown consequences has been passed by Parliament.

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The reform of the House of Lords, which is currently under consideration, is one more ill-thought-out proposal. Is it not a disgrace that on such an important constitutional Bill the Government should have accepted a closure Motion to curtail the debate in another place last night?
Even more arrogance, disdain and contempt for Parliament was shown by the Minister, Mr. Hoon, in deliberately breaking with all precedent and winding up the debate on the Third Reading before my honourable friend Sir Patrick Cormack had spoken for the Opposition Front Bench, and that while Sir Patrick was speaking, following the Minister's wind-up speech, he was rudely curtailed by the use of the closure Motion. That was supported with relish by the Government Benches. There remained in the Chamber a number of MPs still wishing to speak and Sir Patrick had not completed his speech, but that was of no matter to the Government.
Such utter contempt for Parliament and its processes has become the hallmark of this Government. It really is shameful. While I am referring to the official record of what happened yesterday in the House of Commons, perhaps I should point out that during the Statement on the European Commission the Prime Minister commented on the part played by my right honourable friend John Major in the appointment of M. Santer. When my right honourable friend spoke, he put the record straight. What Mr. Major said was factual and a matter of record, but the Prime Minister chose simply to disagree with it.
Mr. Blair and his spinning machine work hard and, I have to say, with pretty good effect, to hoodwink the nation with their soundbites, warm glowing rhetoric and sleight-of-hand policies. The Budget last week was an excellent example of that. In some areas they execute a ruthlessness when influencing outcomes. Witness the treatment of the people of Wales with the imposition of Mr. Blair's chosen candidate Alun Michael to lead the Welsh Assembly, using the might of the block vote. Witness the treatment of Mr. Dennis Canavan in Scotland and I have to say to Mr. Livingstone, "Look out, it's London next".
The list of examples of this Government's arrogance grows daily. I refer to the way in which the Bank of England was made independent without any recourse to Parliament, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe said. I refer also to the changing of Prime Minister's Question Time from twice to once a week; to the refusal by Ministers even to reply to Written Questions; to the costly presentations, announcements and endless re-announcements of the same policy issue, often with an overt political spin. In fact, I asked after only a few months of this Parliament for a list of government presentations and a breakdown of their costs. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, who is to reply to this debate, replied to me by saying that it would be disproportionately costly to reply to that question. That was after only a few months of this Government.
There have been so many launches and re-launches of the £19 billion for education that local education authorities and their schools can be forgiven for having
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such high expectations, only to see them dashed when reality sets in. The truth is that so much money is now being top-sliced by the Government to pay for the growth of bureaucracy at national level that the core funding for schools is being reduced and distorted. Incidentally, trying to get a breakdown of the spending and commitments for the £19 billion has proved impossible.
Even when questions are replied to, the answers are sometimes wrong. I have had to query questions which were answered incorrectly by the DfEE and Ministers in another place. No attempt has been made to put the record straight in Hansard, merely to place letters in the Library.
Your Lordships may remember the high-handed way in which the Government introduced education action zones. Apart from the unconstitutional, precipitate action taken by the Government and the lamentable lack of detail on the face of the Bill, information which was refused to me as a Front-Bench spokesman was passed to a public body and distributed to local authority members. A rigged balloting system has been introduced to get rid of grammar schools. There has been an attack on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge by the phased reduction of their college fees. There has been an attack on the interview and selection of children for entry into our schools. Who said that the politics of envy was dead?
Now, we have centralisation, even to the extent that good quality, professional teachers are even told how the children should be arranged in the classroom for teaching. The Civil Service is regularly compromised by the use of an unprecedented member of political appointees.
As has been mentioned, we now also have the serial leaking of Select Committee reports, whether final or interim and in draft. It would seem that so long as the Minister can claim "incredulously" that he has not read them, that becomes a legitimate defence for having received and not returned those reports. I would have more respect for the right honourable Mr. Cook and for the right honourable Mr. Brown if, on receipt of those reports, they had either informed the Speaker of the House or the chairman or clerk to the Committees.
We now know that the House of Lords Bill is to be introduced into this House before Easter, in Holy Week. I found today's debate when that announcement was made deeply depressing because of the ridicule that came from the Benches opposite of people with genuine and sincere reasons for wanting to get to Israel for Passover, as my noble friend Lady Miller said. Others were concerned about controversial legislation being passed in that week. One important point was not made in that debate. It is not just a question of people attending services on the relevant days. It is a question of the clergy of this House—all 26 of them—having a great deal of preparation work to do for those services. It is not a question of the Chief Whip, myself or any other Member attending such a service; a great deal of thinking and work goes into the preparation of the services. I say with some sadness that I am sorry that that point was not put more robustly by the right

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reverend Prelate. No account whatever has been taken of those who will be preparing for the religious festivals, both Christians and Jews. I join all those who have said that a feature of this House has always been that it is extremely tolerant of the race, colour, creed and background of all its Members.
This is a serious constitutional Bill and it is unprecedented. There has never been a constitutional Bill, the proceedings on which have run for two whole days, held in Holy Week at any time in parliamentary history. Any Member who wishes to engage in those debates should be free to do so. I am sorry that it has not been made possible by the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip to do that. I ask the question: what is the urgency? There has been no response to that question. Could it just be that Mr. Blair, who displays such a paranoia about this place, hopes to neutralise its effect? It will be out with the hereditaries, in with a few more cronies and—hey presto!—the command and control freaks will have their way.
If I sound angry about such constitutional vandalism, it is because I am. Respect for Parliament and safeguarding democracy is essential. The key to that is a strong, independent and effective Second Chamber. From all that I have learned from government papers and what Ministers have been saying, I see no sign of this. Centuries of history are to be cast aside, and for what? Even that question has not been given proper consideration. We have set out on a constitutional rollercoaster with no thought as to what may ensue. Parliament is being treated increasingly as irrelevant. The Executive is becoming more autocratic and the centre of gravity is moving more and more to Brussels. Although the noble Lord, Lord Shore, is not in the Chamber at present, I must say that he gave a pretty stern warning that we would all do well to heed.
This Government will go down in history not as a great government but as one who presided over the breakup of the United Kingdom; and as one who made a mockery of parliamentary democracy. I believe that we have something special here in the House of Lords— a House which is frequently apolitical. It is independent; it is relentlessly courteous; and it is thoughtful and effective. It is a depressing fact of life that the people will only regret the passing of all the constitutional legislation when it is too late.
The combined effect of devolution for Scotland and Wales, regional governments, proportional representation and a drastically emasculated Second Chamber will present us with great challenges. We should all continue to be engaged in this debate.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I begin by joining those other speakers who have congratulated my noble friend Lord Waddington on introducing this important debate. I do not believe that there is any dissent from the central constitutional principle that in our country Parliament as a whole, and not merely the House of Commons, is the source of political authority and provides legitimacy for the exercise of power. With our long history of
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unbroken constitutional evolution it is not surprising that we have developed a particular and distinctive structure in this respect. It is a structure that has grown up upon the basis of a hierarchy within our jurisdiction which, by itself, is more or less capable in itself of completing the framework within which it is necessary for our citizens to conduct their lives.
The challenge as I see it for Parliament and democracy, for the two are different—indeed, the two joined together in the phrase "parliamentary democracy" are something different again—is how can Parliament continue to exercise its proper power in the public interest in a society where power is no longer distributed vertically within our own jurisdiction, rather it is to be found across a series of networks wrapped round the globe, much of it outside the jurisdiction?
The most obvious development in that respect is the evolution of the European Union system over Western Europe, which provides an alternative to traditional intergovernmentalism. We have an intricate spider's web of systems for administrative action, political decision-making and legislating under the umbrella of a common transnational legal order.
It is often suggested that this arrangement is either inherently federal or at least without proper parliamentary legitimacy, at least as far as concerns this country. I believe that this is not the case. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has frequently put it, and with much more authority than I could, United Kingdom participation in the entire enterprise depends upon our country's Parliament having given its consent, and continuing to give its consent, or at least not withdrawing its consent from that participation.
I have said on previous occasions that, in my view, the greatest weakness in the way in which we in this country—I suspect that this is true also for other member states—have conducted our membership of the Community and subsequently of the Union has been in the links, or perhaps the lack of links, between national parliament, the source of political legitimacy in this country, and those activities carried out under the authority of our country's Parliament at arm's length from it. That is not to say that the answer to this problem is easy; on the contrary, self-evidently it is not, be it in respect of the UK Government's actions in the Council of Ministers, in respect of the Commission or, for that matter, in respect of the activities of the European Parliament.
Recent events concerning the Commission have laid bare aspects, but only aspects, of its conduct that are quite unacceptable, quite monstrous and which quite properly cannot be laughed off. They must be dealt with ruthlessly and without delay. It is quite right that heads should roll, procedures should be changed and processes reviewed. However, it is also important to remember that not everyone who works in the Commission is corrupt. There are plenty of men and women conscientiously and honourably carrying out their jobs who are in no way tainted.
In the context of recent events, it is important not to heed the knee-jerking siren voices of the europhobe iconoclasts who see this as an opportunity to progress

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their vision of a reconstruction of the world order long since vanished—indeed, if it ever once existed—and certainly never to return. I believe it is important for continuity to be maintained in the Commission, which, after all, is an institution of very great importance. While the bad apples must be thrown out of the barrel, those that are not tainted—I understand, I am pleased to say, that that includes both the UK Commissioners— will be able to continue to maintain continuity with the past and move forward to help put to rights what has clearly gone seriously wrong. We should be in the business of getting a better future starting from here, rather than hallucinating in the world of political virtual reality. Reform for the longer term, and I have no doubt at all that it is desirable in a whole variety of respects, must be considered and thought through with care.
It is also interesting to note that something seems to have been overlooked in the events of the past 48 hours or so; namely, that the European Parliament has in fact carried out its constitutional duty. It is true that that should have occurred in January and that, for ignoble and grubby reasons, it did not. But the events of this week seem to me to vindicate that institution which I now expect to have come of age, albeit that that probably should have happened some years ago. The balance the system was designed to have may finally be falling into place.
There are those who argue that the intergovernmental approach is the right one for dealing with decisions that we have to take in a multi-jurisdictional context. Yet in my view it is very difficult to see how, in practice, national parliaments alone will police the workings of the multi-jurisdictional systems. For that reason I believe it is necessary for multinational scrutiny to take place. First, this is partly because there is a need for matters to be viewed collectively, as well as from the perspective of any individual member state; and, secondly, because if these matters are solely conducted by national parliaments the priority is likely always to be that of the domestic parliament. Hence matters would not necessarily be given the priority or the perspective that they deserve. In short, there is the need for a watchdog, which does not need to be an alternative to national parliaments, whose authority is derived from, but is not part of, our national Parliament to enable it to oversee what is going on and, if necessary, in the interests of the system as a whole, to take very serious steps as would have happened earlier this week if the Commission had not jumped before it was pushed.
All the European Parliament's political power vis-?-vis this country and in respect of the activities of the Union as they affect this country is directly derived from Westminster via the treaties. The identity of the Members, too, who come from this country is similarly derived from Westminster, which has set down in statute the detailed manner of their selection. This is somewhat similar to the way in which activities put into local government's hands are exercised by those elected according to the Westminster Parliament's approved form of selection; and perhaps even more interestingly, it is similar to the system shortly to come into being in Scotland.
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I believe that what is needed—it is interesting that the concept is mentioned in the Government's proposals for reform of your Lordships' House, although it is not quite put in these terms—is for those who are exercising scrutiny and power on authority derived from Westminster to be more closely linked to this Parliament in the future. After all, the Parliament here is the ultimate source of the authority they exercise. When all is said and done, Members of the European Parliament and Members of both Houses here in Westminster are allies in the noble task of scrutinising and ultimately holding to account in the public interest the executive and its various manifestations. In a world where the sources of power are changing, the ways of carrying out that essential duty must change too, for otherwise we shall be letting down all our fellow citizens.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Nunburnholme: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, who was ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Shore. He had a lot to say, it was very good, and my goodness he knows how to
say it!
I feel honour bound to make the position of my party, the Democratic Party, clear in respect of the two issues being debated at this moment. While the Democratic Party has a full range of policies, the European situation is a major threat to democracy and hence must receive our full attention at present. The Democratic Party believes that the events of the past 48 hours have illustrated the need for Britain to withdraw from the European Union and return to the apparent democratically valid position of the 1975 referendum: in essence, that we trade freely with Europe without loss of sovereignty or political integration, a position that the British people thought was the issue at the time. We believe that the European Parliament as currently constituted is not a democratic authority and hence should not be supported in any way by the United Kingdom.
In particular, we are worried that a very small proportion of the British electorate will vote at the Euro elections and an apparently valid candidate will be elected when in fact the majority of constituents will not have taken part, probably deliberately. This is not democracy and hence we advocate that the British people boycott the Euro elections.
At the next general election, and probably at prior by-elections, the Democratic Party will stand candidates so that the electorate will have available a truly democratic candidate who will not merely listen but will also implement the wishes of the majority. We issue a call today to the nation, a call for national unity, a call to the sovereign electorate, for their support in the restoration of full powers to government at Westminster from the corrupting state within a state in Brussels.
It is now clear that the very badly designed bureaucratic edifice of the European Union is causing hostility both between member states and, even more worryingly, Britain and its traditional friends and allies. We also deplore the proliferation of anti-EU factions who do not appear able to unite. One wonders why this apparently natural gravitation is not taking place. The

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time has come when individual or party ambition must be put aside and the interests of our country and its people given the absolute priority that they deserve.
The good intent of the latest pressure group, New Europe, is untenable because monetary union and sovereignty are indivisible. I must also remind Members in the other place of their duty to represent the wishes of their constituents and remember the promises made before their election. They must not blindly follow the instructions of a few and hence support a dictatorship. My party has been specifically founded to return Britain to a true democracy and is an expression of the wishes of not merely the "grass roots" but the very earth of this country.
6.35 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I am sure we all enjoyed the noble Lord's election address!
We have had a variety of speeches in this debate. Notable for me were three by extremely skilled, well known political analysts. During the first hour we heard, very importantly, from three enormously experienced parliamentarians, my noble friend Lord Waddington, the noble Lord, Lord Shore, and the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill. All those three have enormous practical experience of the link between respect for Parliament and the democratic process itself. They know that democracy, even when well rooted and of long standing, remains for ever a delicate plant that needs careful tending.
I believe that the people of the United Kingdom have long been, and in fact still are, as deeply understanding and accepting of their own democratic ways as are any people in the world. I confess that I first came to understand this properly by way of my own experience when I was elected 25 years ago—new to party politics—to local government. I was frankly astonished at how instantly, after the battle and hostility of the hustings—which I had not much enjoyed—I moved to being recognised as a person serving all my constituents regardless of how they voted. Everyone seemed to understand and accept this without comment or fuss. This was my first experience of deep-seated democracy. I found myself at that time comparing how people behaved here with Western Germany, where I frequently visited. There democracy was, and still is by comparison, new and consciously valued. The Germans talked of it a lot. They were very proud of it, whereas we in this country took our system for granted and hardly mentioned it at all. We just operated it.
As history and social change move on, every country has to tend its democracy more and more carefully. With care, Germany's system has stood the very special strains of unification remarkably well. They now of course have enormous new pressures to withstand. Here in the United Kingdom there are many new pressures too. Many of them have been discussed in this debate. But I believe perhaps the most dangerous of all is the one spoken about by my noble friend Lord Chadlington; namely, the pressures created by the modern techniques which now allow a government constantly to sound out
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how the public are feeling—the noble Lord mentioned how the public are thinking but I believe the matter mostly concerns how the public are feeling—and the ability constantly to respond to those feelings over the head of Parliament.
From one point of view, of course, this works beautifully. President Clinton has proved that, and so far it is paying off for this Government too, as it will pay off for future governments. I do not think it is a thing for just this present moment. By direct communication with the public, we now see that it is possible to stay high in the polls, even when things are actually going rather badly—but at what cost?
The cost is turning out—my noble friend Lord Waddington spoke about this—to mean that the Government reckon they can govern while treating Parliament as of secondary importance. So when the Prime Minister comes along one day a week to answer Questions he frequently gets away with jokes instead of Answers. Also, as several noble Lords have said, he seldom finds the need to vote. The Chancellor can get away with a Budget speech which, well leaked beforehand, at the time it is made misleads and is delivered in a style which, as one commentator put it, was,
"more like a school prize-giving address than an audit of the nation's finances".
Parliamentary Statements are so often given ahead to the media that Madam Speaker tells me she takes her Walkman to the park so that she knows what is coming. There is a constant stream of glossy brochures, with announcements, repeat announcements, possible proposals and the Government's passing thoughts all mixed up. It is increasingly hard, it seems, to distinguish between a White Paper, a Green Paper, a discussion paper and a bit of party propaganda. That is another example of the problem of discerning what funding goes to government business and what to party propaganda.
Likewise, the Government are getting away with the current Health Bill, which is drafted so as to be entirely incomprehensible except to lawyers, and they have been forced to put in the Library translations and consolidated versions of some of the clauses so that we in Parliament can understand what is being done. The Bill makes massive changes to the health service in Scotland, but it may not even have become law before the Scottish Parliament takes all those changes over. It is a quite extraordinarily casual piece of legislation by any standards. All these and many other instances that have been identified by noble Lords in this debate show the increasing disregard on behalf of the Government for Parliament.
That, I believe, is re-emphasised by the slightly sneering and sarcastic denigration of half the Members of this House—and also of course by the Government's insistence on fixing the date for the Second Reading of the House of Lords Bill for the week after next, disregarding the most important elements of the self-regulation of this House by doing so and also disregarding the importance of what the Bishops may wish to contribute, as well as the interests and sensibilities of many of us who feel that the timing is bad.

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The polls show that in relation to the elected House, while the Prime Minister and the Government continue with high popularity poll ratings, approval of the House of Commons is slipping. Surely this Government and future governments must take this warning very seriously. Direct communication with the electorate is an up to date and useful way to proceed, but to maintain the Government's popularity by that means at the expense of proper answerability to the electorate by way of Parliament is dangerous stuff.
We have only to look at the events in the European Commission today to see what happens when people enjoy power for some time without direct answerability. For a government to disregard Parliament for whatever reason—for political ends, for apparent convenience, because of enthusiasm for extra-parliamentary communication or whatever—is to neglect the delicate and precious plant of properly understood democracy on which we in this country all depend. I hope that, for all our sakes, the Government will pay great heed to this debate.
6.45 p.m.
The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Waddington. I confess surprise, ever so gently, that the noble Baroness, the Lord Privy Seal, is not responding to this debate on behalf of the Government. After all, respect for Parliament and safeguarding democracy are fundamental issues. We could reasonably have supposed that the noble Baroness, as Leader of the House, might have been a little more interested—or is this all of a piece with the Prime Minister's attendance and voting record in another place?
Of course, this is no criticism of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey: heaven forbid! The noble Lord is an assiduous parliamentarian. His contributions to your Lordships' House are hugely admired and respected on all sides, but at the very least there is scope for misgiving that the noble Baroness may somehow feel that the substance of our debate today is beneath her.
That said, I hope also that the noble Lord does not fall into the same trap as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The old chestnuts of "18 years of Tory misrule", of "not taking lessons from the Conservative Party" or of the Government's standing in the polls have been deployed far too often. It neither explains nor justifies the matter under discussion. It is the Government of the day who should respond on their own account, rather than hiding behind any aberrations that may have existed in the past. Indeed if, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, maintained, there were such aberrations in the past, it is doubly wrong that the present Government should persist in them.
In all this I am drawn to a particular feature of our governmental system which was touched upon by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. It has been observed that:
"parliamentary government is not government by Parliament. The Government govern in and through Parliament. "
That is pretty crucial stuff. It infers that should an administration seek to bypass Parliament it is in effect denying itself proper authority to govern. As many
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noble Lords have observed, examples of this Government's contempt and disdain for due parliamentary process are legion. We have had the curtailment of Prime Minister's Question Time; the making of major announcements to the media instead of to Parliament; the receipt of leaked reports from Select Committees and so on. We are in a sorry slate indeed when we have an administration that almost takes delight in the ritual abuse of Parliament and, in so doing, undermines its fitness to govern.
This leads in turn to a crucial element of our system. As the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney, explained, it is generally acknowledged that, apart from a few honourable—noble even—exceptions, Members of another place are increasingly perceived as mere ciphers of their respective political parties. They have assumed the status of little more than a rubber stamp. Indeed, so diligent are they that they find the prospects of rubbing shoulders with today's icons of populist culture at the Brit awards infinitely more appealing than debating the Government's flagship Bill of this Session. The Government's omnipotent majority in another place and the mute acquiescence of their—and, in their own way, the Liberal Democrat—Back Benches have the regrettable effect of conferring ownership of that House upon the Executive. But this should not obscure the fact that Parliament—both Houses—should belong to its membership, not to the Executive. Government should be at the service of Members of Parliament, not the other way around.
In our own experience there are increasing signs that Ministers believe that this House exists merely for their convenience. Questions from your Lordships are routinely glossed over or not answered at all. By way of example, my noble friend Lord Chesham is still awaiting an Answer to his Written Question of 13th January. As the noble Lord the Minister knows, my noble friend has been provoked to table a further Question asking why his original Question remains unanswered. The traditions of the House are summarily ridden roughshod over, as with the recommendation, advanced by the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip, that we should consider changing our debate days from Wednesday to Thursday. The courtesies of the House are being undermined as the process of politicisation gathers pace. It will be a sad day if this continues and this House is made as much of a creature of the Executive as another place.
Nowhere is this presumption more obvious than in the intransigence of the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip earlier today. I make no apology for returning to this matter. The scheduling of the Second Reading of the House of Lords Bill will have the undesirable effect of preventing a significant number of your Lordships—not least the Bishops—from taking part because of other and prior commitments. That would suit the Government well. But it beggars belief that so many of those with the greatest experience of and interest in the operation of this House are to be denied their entitlement to contribute. The only interpretation to put upon it is that the Executive really does believe that Parliament functions for its

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convenience. That is rank arrogance and does nothing to ensure proper and adequate scrutiny of the Government's legislative programme.
Anyone who doubts this interpretation need look no further than the comments of the junior Home Office Minister in winding up the Third Reading debate on the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill in another place. I quote:
"…the other place had better listen to the democratically elected Chamber, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it crystal clear that we do not intend for the will of Parliament to be thwarted again". —[Official Report, Commons, 1/3/99; col. 807.]
In the first instance, I offer the junior Minister one small bit of advice. The institution of Parliament is composed of two Houses and the Crown. Like it or not, that is our constitutional arrangement. It will still be our constitutional arrangement once the Government's proposals for this House have been enacted. Despite that, the Executive issues its decree as to what will happen and demands that there be no deviation from that by your Lordships. No matter that the issue is subject to a free vote; no matter that the overriding duty of this House is legislative scrutiny. So far as concerns the junior Home Office Minister, all that matters to the Government is that they are not obstructed, not criticised, not held to account. What a parody this is. Where is the respect for Parliament in such arrogance?
What astonishes is the sense in which the control and power conferred upon this Government by virtue of their mandate—I am conscious of how much the phrase "elective dictatorship" rankles with them—is insufficient for their needs. It is almost as if a doctrine of the "divine right of the Executive" is being developed. This is a throw-back to a darker age. In the name of "modernisation" seriously, there is a sense in which we are reverting to a perverse form of absolute monarchy.
From another perspective—it pains me to say this— there is a curious symmetry here between the mire in which the European Commission now finds itself and the Government's disdain for Parliament. Only the infatuated deny the existence of the democratic deficit in Europe. Its main cause lies in the failure to provide adequate measures of accountability within its institutional structure. By turns, the Government's lack of respect for Parliament institutionalises and visits that self-same deficit on our own system. It is about time that they recognised and understood that Parliament has to belong to its membership. Whatever Mr. Mandleson may have said in the past about the era of representative democracy coming slowly to an end, this is the most certain way of ensuring that the process of government belongs to the electorate.
6.56 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for introducing what has been an interesting debate on a very important subject.
Of course, complaints about the increasing powers of government and the decline of the independence of Parliament are nothing new. We certainly could have
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had this debate at any time, at least since the organised party systems started to emerge in the days of Gladstone and Disraeli. I suspect that we have had this debate on a good many occasions in previous years.
Of course we need to maintain respect for Parliament and safeguard democracy, but we need to consider what are the present dangers to Parliament and to democracy and how we guard against them. Let me start with the question of respect for Parliament. For most people, of course, Parliament means the other place, the House of Commons. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, I never had the privilege of serving there, but, reading from Hansard, I see that good speeches are made there—even if, perhaps, not quite as often as in your Lordships' House—and I see that serious debates are held there. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, pointed out, they are held in an empty House. The House fills up mainly for Prime Minister's Questions, when the House is seen probably at its worst, with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the "Yes, I did", "No, you didn't" shouting matches reminiscent of Christmas pantomimes, and Government supporters asking questions of cringe-making sycophancy which one would expect the parliamentarians of North Korea to ask their dear leader.
It is hardly surprising that the press, therefore, gives little attention to serious debates. What coverage Parliament gets in the press now comes mainly from Matthew Parris, Simon Hoggart and the other sketch writers. We cannot blame the media for this. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Bell, said in his excellent maiden speech. Media coverage simply reflects the fact that when a government of any colour has a working majority proceedings in Parliament really do not matter very much. It is difficult to think of more than one speech in Parliament in the past 20 years which has actually changed the course of politics. That speech is, of course, the resignation speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon.
It is widely recognised, and has been said by many speakers in the debate, that the main cause of the low respect in which Parliament is held—the main flaw in the British system of democracy—is the lack of control of Parliament over the Executive. That is why it is so important that your Lordships' House should be reconstituted on a basis that will give it legitimacy to act as a brake on a runaway executive. Its membership must be predominately elected and must be elected by a system or a timetable which would ensure that the elected membership of your Lordships' House is not a clone of the other place.
Equally serious is the decline in respect for politicians as a group. On that I agree again with the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill. I never managed to be elected to the other place but I have done a good deal of canvassing for myself and for other people in elections. I found nothing more depressing than the reaction one so often experienced on the doorstep: "You politicians are all alike. You are only in it for what you can get out of it". That reaction is a travesty of the truth. Politics in this country is an honourable profession. We are indeed lucky in this country. Serious corruption among British politicians of all parties is now extremely minimal.

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Quite to the contrary, most politicians earn far less in politics than they would in outside jobs and the sacrifices that they make not only in terms of money but in terms of time and leisure are enormous. We need to bring the public perception closer to the reality. We need public education in politics, not to persuade school children of the merits of one party's policies as against another but to teach them about the political system, how parties work, why we need political parties and what it is that politicians do.
However, I believe also that politicians need to change the way they work. On these Benches we have been saying for years that what we need is a less confrontational system and more co-operation between parties—to coin a phrase "constructive opposition" rather than knee-jerk opposition, which turns off voters. We believe that proportional representation can achieve that and we now have an opportunity to find out whether we are right. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly will show whether elections by proportional representation can change the political culture.
The mention of Scotland and Wales leads me on to look at democracy as a whole and not just democracy at Westminster. Some people—I think that includes the noble Lord, Lord Waddington—look at democracy and Parliament as being essentially the same thing. That view was encouraged 100 years or so ago by the constitutional scholar A. V. Dicey, who taught that the only principle of the British Constitution was the absolute sovereignty of Parliament. But democracy is very much wider than that. Natural communities of any size need their own democratic institutions. Wales and Scotland are clearly natural communities—indeed, they are separate nations—which should have their own representative institutions within the United Kingdom.
Local democracy is also of the highest importance. One thinks back to the great days of local government in the 19th century: the reform of the ancient borough corporations; the creation of local government in the counties; Joe Chamberlain's Birmingham in the 1870s; and the founding of the LCC in the 1890s. One of the worst acts of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was to emasculate local government by taking away its powers and depriving it of control over its own funds. She abolished the GLC, though London surely is a natural community if ever there was one. All that was deeply anti-democratic.
The problems are serious but I do not think that democracy is in crisis. On balance, I believe it has improved during the time of the present Government. This year we will see the formation of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly; next year we will have a London mayor and assembly; and some time this year we will, pray God, have a Northern Ireland Assembly. The local government strait-jacket is being relaxed a little.
But much still remains to be done. Local government needs to be strengthened. We need to end finally the capping of local government and to give local authorities more sources of income under their own control. We need to bring greater democracy to the European Union by giving more power to the European
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Parliament. It has shown this week that it has teeth; but it still needs more and sharper teeth. I welcome the recognition of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, in what I thought was one of the best speeches in the debate, of the importance of the European Parliament. We need to make the composition of your Lordships' House more democratic and to give it greater legitimacy. Above all, we need to make people understand that democracy matters to them; that democracy is not just the least bad system but it is the only system which, in the long term, can secure their freedom, prosperity and peace.
7.5 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Waddington for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important subject and to listen to a number of interesting and thoughtful speeches. A group of three—I am not sure whether it was a troika or, if I may be Scottish, a reel of three— of the most experienced practitioners in the world of communication have come today to tell us their views on these matters. They were led by my noble friend Lord Bell who made a very interesting maiden speech. He said that institutions must earn respect. That is absolutely right. That is what they must do. My noble friend Lord Saatchi showed us all how to make a brief speech. Your Lordships will not be surprised to know that I do not think I am up to following his example.
My noble friend Lord Chadlington said that one of the problems—it is a problem we all appreciate—is that modern governments manipulate the media and that there is a comfortable and sometimes cosy relationship between the media, the spin doctors and the political advisers. That applies not just to the present Government but to all modern governments—the present Government are just rather better at it in many ways. When I heard my noble friend say that. I could not avoid recalling that two political correspondents with whom I had a good many dealings when they worked for the broadcasting media in Scotland suddenly materialised one morning—or the next morning—as, in one case, a directly paid spin doctor for the Labour Party and in another case one of the Secretary of State's spin doctors. That kind of relationship is uncomfortable and is not one we should encourage.
Anyone who has a doubt about the need for parliamentary scrutiny of the executive just needs to look, as my noble friend Lord Inglewood reminded us, at what happened in Brussels this week. Frankly, the executive there in the form of the Commission was under no one's control and no one's scrutiny. For a long, long time we talked about these problems in your Lordships' House. We talked about them during this Government's term of office and we talked about them during our term of office, when I occupied the position of spokesman for the Treasury which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, now occupies. But the real problem was that no one was in a position directly to scrutinise the Commission. So the lesson, if there is one, from what happened in Europe this week is that any new Commission not only needs people of a great deal more integrity than a few of the commissioners had in the

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previous Commission, but also needs to be more firmly controlled by either the Parliament or by the Council of Ministers.
I am not one of those who believe that the House of Commons has gone to the dogs for any reason other than that very few of its Members appear to want to attend hour after hour and day after day; indeed, they do not even want to attend the normal eating and drinking places in the other place, so busy are they on their word processors. The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, gave us some advice on that. His comments reminded me of a remark that the late George Thomas—Lord Tonypandy—used to make when people said how noisy the House of Commons was and sent him letters of complaint. He wrote back and said: "If you want to hear a silent Parliament, go and look at the Supreme Soviet and ask yourself which you prefer".
If I have any quarrel with the present House of Commons it is the sycophancy that goes on there. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, described the exchanges between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition as, to paraphrase his remark, "Yahoo politics". I have to say to the noble Lord that his own leader plays a third part in the Yahoo politics. He does not seem in any way different from the Prime Minister or my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition. What is most disturbing is the way in which Government Back-Benchers behave in trying to get themselves promotion by not merely soft over-arm bowling, but soft under-arm bowling to the Prime Minister. That was brought to everyone's attention by the splendid Mr. Andrew Mackinlay, who asked the Prime Minister on 3rd June:
"Does the Prime Minister recall that, when we were in opposition, we used to groan at the fawning, obsequious, Softball, well-rehearsed and planted questions asked by Conservative Members of the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major)? Will my right hon. Friend distinguish his period in office by discouraging such practices—which diminish Prime Minister's Question Time—during this Parliament? Furthermore"—
I add this rather against my own side—
"in view of the rather depleted official Opposition, will he encourage rather than discourage—without fear or favour, and without showing partiality or affection—loyal Labour Back Benchers who wish to seek and provide scrutiny and accountability in this place?"
He received a pretty inscrutable reply from the Prime Minister:
"I fully respect my hon. Friend's independence of mind and shall do my very best to ensure that he retains it"—[Official Report, Commons, 3/6/98; cols. 358–59.]
The position in the other place has not improved since last June, as any noble Lords who listen to Prime Minister's Question Time will know.
I was surprised that my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree was the only one to raise the matter of the lack of scrutiny of secondary legislation. It was the one point that I wanted to make in a major way. I am not going to allow the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, to score an easy goal by saying that it is entirely this Government who are responsible. In fact, it is a problem that has developed over the years. More and more primary legislation consists of more and more secondary legislation, and that secondary legislation becomes
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larger and more complex. Frankly, neither House examines secondary legislation properly. The position is perfectly simple. Both Houses have the option to take it or leave it; to accept it in its entirety or vote against it. Your Lordships' House, in my view rightly, has a self-denying ordinance in this. Divisions in the Commons do not make any difference because it is a matter of either the whole lot or none of it.
It is perhaps time that we thought in terms of finding a method, either in this House or in another place, of scrutinising secondary legislation—not in the same way as primary legislation with Second Readings, Committee stages, Report stages, and so forth, but perhaps scrutinising one particular stage of secondary legislation. I know that this matter worries Members of this House. After all, it was this House that set up a delegated powers scrutiny committee to examine primary legislation and to be particularly vigilant on Henry VIII clauses and how governments decide Parliament should deal with secondary legislation, affirmative or negative.
I think it is fair to say that the Government have taken on board most of the recommendations made by the committee to date, as we have done. It will be interesting to see what they do in relation to the pollution Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Norton, described as a skeletal Bill in its purest definition. We ought to think in parliamentary terms of how we can deal with it.
We recently debated a huge order relating to Scottish parliamentary elections. I was perfectly content with most of it, as were other noble Lords who took part in the debate. It largely replicated the rules, forms, ballot papers and procedures of parliamentary elections to the House of Commons. But there were differences, because there are top-up second ballots. One of the problems was that there was no proper provision for recounts in the second ballot. The only such provision was at the constituency stage. After that, the constituency result goes to the regional officer; he waits for all the constituency results to come in; he then receives all the first-past-the-post results; he performs the d'Hondt divisor (on which we spent many happy days of debate in this House) and he then comes to a decision on who is elected.
The simple fact is that it is not until, in the case of Wales, the fourth and last member is decided and, in the case of Scotland, the seventh and last member, that anyone will know whether the result is close and whether there is a need for a recount. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and I made that point, and I believe that government Ministers understood it, though they gave all kinds of reasons as to why they could not accept it.
If we had scrutinised that legislation in any kind of detail, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and I might have brought forward an amendment. We may well have pressed it to a Division, and we may well have won. I prophesy that, had we done so, we should have prevented problems which may well arise following the Scottish and Welsh elections if either of the fourth or seventh places are at all tight.

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Talking about Scotland and Wales reminds me of the use of referendums. The point was raised by my noble friend Lady Seccombe. In the matter of Scotland and Wales, pre-legislative referendums were held. They were attempts almost to gazump Parliament; to make sure that the Government always had a trump card— the referendum had already decided the issue; who were Members of Parliament to start to look carefully at the proposals?
If we are to have referendums we should incorporate them properly and fairly into the system. To date, the Government have refused to countenance doing so, despite the excellent report from the commission on the conduct of referendums set up by the Electoral Reform Society and the Constitutional Unit, chaired by Sir Patrick Nairne and including two Members of this House—neither was on my side of the House; they were the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, and the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham.
What we need is a referendums Act and a referendums commission which ensures that the rules and questions are properly and fairly dealt with and that both sides have a proper sight of the ball, so to speak. It must become a genuine exercise in determining the desires of the British people and not just the Government asking a question to which they have already worked out the answer.
A test of the Government's integrity and democratic credentials will arise this Friday in the other place when a referendums Bill is to be presented for Second Reading. If the Government do not work with the promoters of the Bill to ensure its passage through to the statute book this Session, it will show not merely a contempt for Parliament, but a contempt for the whole democratic process.
My noble friend Lady Blatch mentioned that the Third Reading of the Bill to reform this House was taken yesterday in the House of Commons. The Third Reading debate began at two minutes past six. With many Members still wanting to speak, including the Official Opposition spokesman who was still winding up, at two minutes to ten the Government imposed the closure and the troops went through the Lobby. And that was that—on a debate which I believe is of some importance and which, judging from their reaction, Members on the Government Benches also believe is of some importance, though perhaps for different reasons.
The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, described the House of Commons as the forum of the nation. The noble Lord reminded us that, when he was Speaker, he forced Mrs. Thatcher (brave man) to come to the House of Commons and make a Statement on a particular issue. He also allowed PNQs and emergency debates in order to ensure that the Government were daily held to account.
The noble Lord's remarks illustrate—and I shall not argue with him—that my party was not exactly immune from some of the bad practices about which some of my noble friends have complained. But I believe that we were amateurs at the business. The field is now held by the professionals. They certainly know how to do it. The Prime Minister has led the way in reducing the
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importance of Parliament by going to the House only once a week to answer Questions. That reduces his exposure to Questions on vital issues to the vital issues of just one day instead of two days. That accords, of course, with his desire to keep as far away from the House of Commons as he possibly can.
My noble friend Lord Waddington publicised the Prime Minister's Division record. I suspect that it must be the worst Division record any Prime Minister has ever had. The problem is that the Prime Minister has clearly shown—and it has infected all his Ministers— that it is far better to give a good media briefing than to go and answer to the House of Commons.
Let us look at Monday's Statement on NHS modernisation. The Statement was made, as usual, at half past three in the afternoon in the other place. In fact, at six o'clock in the morning, on Radio 5 Live there was a detailed report on the setting up of admission wards in hospitals, a report which could only have come from a detailed knowledge of the contents of a Statement due to be made nine hours later. Subsequently, the "Today" programme carried all the details. I discount the only explanation other than leaks—and very good leaks—which is that Jim Naughtie, fine Scot though he is, is gifted with what we in Scotland call "the second sight". I do not believe he has the second sight.
Let us look at the health Department. I do not pick that out because it is particularly bad but because Monday was that department's day. The leak of the Statement on NHS modernisation was not the first leak. The nurses' pay award was leaked to the press two weeks before publication. The Ashworth Hospital Statement was leaked to the Daily Telegraph the day before it was made to the House. The mental health Statement was leaked to the Sunday Telegraph two days before it was made. Details of the social services Statement appeared in the Independent and the Guardian on the morning of the day it was to be made. Details of the children's safeguards Statement appeared in the Evening Standard on the morning of the day it was to be made. And so I could go on.
I know the reason for it. When I make an important speech—I think I make a few; not many people agree— if I tell the media before I make it, I get an interview on the radio. If I tell them after I make it, I do not get an interview; the news is dead. They are only interested in news that is about to happen. While that may be the excuse for the Government doing what they are doing— and, to an extent, what we did—it does not justify what has now become an art form of allowing Statements to come out in the press before they are made to Parliament. We all have a responsibility for the situation that has developed, but perhaps the Government should think of themselves in terms of New Labour a bit more and restore Parliament to being the central forum of debate in our nation.
I leave your Lordships with the words of Madam Speaker on Monday 15th March with regard to the health Statement. My noble friend Lord Waddington quoted a few of her comments. When asked by my

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honourable friend Michael Jack about the broadcasts in the morning, the Speaker said this:
"As to the right hon. Gentleman's substantive point, I repeat how much I deprecate leaks of any kind. I listen avidly to the morning news, including the 6 o'clock news to which the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) referred and every news from then on. I use my Walkman to listen to the news when I take a walk and I hear far too much information that is made public often days before it is revealed at the Dispatch Box. I shall continue to deprecate that practice for as long as it continues". — [Official Report, Commons, 15/3/99; col. 723.]
I suggest to the Government that they listen, heed, mark, inwardly digest and act upon those words of the Speaker of the other place.
7.23 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for introducing this debate and in particular for the terms of the Motion, Perhaps I may remind the House of those terms because, if I may say so, some of the speeches were slightly wide of them. The terms of the Motion were as follows:
"To call attention to the need to maintain respect for Parliament and to safeguard democracy".
In what I have to say I shall, of course, seek to respond to the debate as best I can, but I should like to put in your Lordships' minds two themes which I believe should infuse the way in which government think about these issues. The first was referred to by a number of noble Lords but perhaps most effectively by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. It is the fact that democracy is wider than Parliament. In this country democracy includes Parliament, of course, and Parliament is the fountainhead of democracy because we are a unitary state, but democracy includes local government; it will include regional government; and it will certainly include devolved government in Scotland and Wales. Everything we do to provide a devolved democracy closer to the people and to communities is an enhancement of democracy, even if sometimes it is a diminution of the powers of central Parliament; and it is still democratic.
The second point relates to Parliament and, in particular, the House of Commons. We should recognise that there is an eternal tension between the government and the Parliament, and that is in the nature of our political system. Bagehot said it best nearly 150 years ago:
"The whole life of English politics is the action and reaction between the Ministry and the Parliament".
Sometimes it goes one way and sometimes it goes another way, but that is inevitable. It is part of our politics. We are entitled to complain about the balance being in the wrong direction, but we must not expect that that creative tension will go away.
From some of the speeches I heard this afternoon, it seems that some noble Lords think there was once a golden age of Parliament, when Parliament was supreme and commanded the Executive, exercising a profound influence on the way the Executive governed the country, if not governing the country itself. I wonder
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whether that is true. I do not need to go back to the 18th century, but I think the cartoons of Hogarth and Rowlandson are evidence of the contempt in which politicians have been held for many years, and probably throughout the history of our democratic system.
It would be hard to argue that Parliament is held in as high respect outside Westminster, as it was let us say 50 years ago. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, gave us evidence about the lack of respect in which politicians are held today. I do not know whether he has the historical evidence with him but, as a survey researcher myself, I seem to recall that, although I think things have become rather worse in the past 10 or 20 years—I am not making a party point here—there have been long periods in our history when disrespect for Parliament was widespread. Perhaps public opinion, the media and even the judiciary were too deferential at some times in the past. When this happens, the only thing that government can do is to encourage measures which improve Parliament so that it earns greater respect. Here I profoundly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, that an effective government need an effective parliament. I paraphrase what he said. I am sure that that is right, and I am convinced that that is the view of the Government, although it contrasts with a number of statements made by noble Lords opposite.
In the 1990s respect for Parliament has been affected by perceptions in the media and elsewhere about the funding of political parties generally. That is one issue which did not come up in debate, and I am sorry about that because I believe it ought to have done. We asked the Neill Committee to examine the funding of political parties, and later this year we shall bring forward a draft Bill to reform the law in this area. We have encouraged both Houses to improve procedures for standards of conduct. Not everything has gone smoothly, but I venture to suggest that general perceptions of standards of conduct among Members of Parliament and peers are higher than they were only a few years ago—I will not even say two years ago—before the Nolan and then the Neill process took place.
While I am on the subject of Nolan and Neill, let me say a word about referendums. I simply do not accept that the ideal of democracy is to have a Parliament where the only direct chance of participation by the electorate is, once every four or five years, a vote on all issues combined together in the way which suits the political parties. Without saying that they should become a substitute in any way for parliamentary government, referendums as they have been used in the past few years, particularly in a constitutional sense, have been a valuable addition to, not a subtraction from, democracy. But in turn that implies that there should be rules for referendums.
For that reason the Neill Committee has proposed rules for referendums. The Government intend to respond to that committee's recommendations about the conduct of referendums in the form of a draft Bill this summer. The duty of government to get the balance right and put the clear issue to the electorate in a referendum is a very complex matter. It will be particularly difficult in the context of the referendum on European monetary union and the euro, but it is essential

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that we are in agreement and should debate thoroughly the rules under which referendums are to be carried out, and we are determined to do that.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, in referring to the referendum on this issue did the noble Lord say "when" or "if?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know which I said. I do not speak from a script. When the Government have decided that it is right for the country to adopt the euro they will proceed, but only after a decision of Parliament and then the decision of the people in a referendum. Our present position is prepare and decide.
I challenge the contention that the constitutional changes that are taking place weaken Parliament and democracy. All of them were spelt out very precisely in the Labour Party manifesto which was endorsed overwhelmingly in the general election less than two years ago. The devolution settlements have been approved in referendums. The legislation has been discussed and amended, despite the comments of some noble Lords, and passed by Parliament. Voters will return to the ballot boxes to elect members of the devolved bodies. Is that undemocratic? I do not believe that it is.
The constitutional changes will be underpinned by incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Freedom of Information Bill. Both measures will strengthen our democracy and not undermine respect for Parliament. Indeed, they will extend the rule of law and greater disclosure of information. I believe that both of those are objectives for which Members of your Lordships' House have pressed for many years.
I should like to say a word about the quality of legislation. Criticism has been made of some legislation. When we had a comparable debate in May of last year, it was conspicuous how many noble Lords said that the quality of legislation had on the whole improved. I do not know whether that is universally the case. I am sure that there is a long way to go. However, since May of last year the introduction of explanatory notes to legislation has made it enormously simpler for Members of Parliament and your Lordships' House to understand what legislation is intended to do and what it actually does.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, for his observations about the extension of pre-legislative scrutiny. We set up a joint committee to examine the draft Financial Services and Markets Bill. A Select Committee in the Commons is taking evidence on the draft Food Standards Bill. Two other Bills have already been examined. There will be further draft Bills this Session on freedom of information, local government and the funding of political parties. That is a practical way of maintaining respect for Parliament.
We are doing more about the consideration of Bills. The explanatory notes to which I have referred give Members of both Houses a clearer understanding of legislation. We have introduced informal meetings in
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this House involving Members of the House, Ministers and officials on specific Bills. In the Commons we have revived the procedure for the establishment of Special Standing Committees. This very week the Immigration and Asylum Bill is going through a Select Committee-style evidence-taking phase. From the start of this Session we have brought into effect Section 19 of the Human Rights Act at the earliest opportunity so that every government Bill will be accompanied by a ministerial statement on compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights.
As to European legislation, we have implemented our manifesto commitment to overhaul the system of scrutiny. Changes have been made to the procedures of both Houses to ensure that documents under the second and third pillars of the Treaty of Maastricht are subject to parliamentary scrutiny. We have also taken steps to improve non-legislative scrutiny in both Houses. I refer to the committee of this House that deals with monetary policy following changes to the rules of the Bank of England. A joint committee on human rights will be set up later this year. In the Commons there is a new cost-cutting Environmental Audit Committee. None of these is the action of a government lacking respect for Parliament.
I should like to make a few comments on some of the negative points made about the accountability of Ministers and the Government in general to Parliament. I do not accept the factual basis of some of the criticisms that have been made. I agree that the Prime Minister answers Questions only once a week, but he does so for 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes, so it is the same time in total as that for his predecessor. He is much less likely to miss these sessions through international commitments. He has missed only one session since the general election, and that was at the time of the Good Friday agreement. He has answered more Questions, and for longer, than his predecessor over a comparable period. He has also made 17 Statements to the House on such matters as Northern Ireland, Iraq and Europe, compared with 10 by his predecessor in a comparable period.
Referring to Statements, obviously a government elected in 1997 after a long period in opposition would be bound to be active. But if we failed to have respect for Parliament we would have had fewer, not more, Statements. In the previous Session, 117 Statements were made to both Houses, compared with 97 in an equivalent period after the 1992 election. We spent more time on Statements in the Commons and have had more Private Notice Questions, and there were 82 appearances by Cabinet Ministers before Commons Select Committees in the previous Session.
I heard what noble Lords said about leaks. We take the criticisms of the Speaker very seriously indeed. There are several kinds of leaks. Some leaks may be official or semi-official. The Speaker has criticised such leaks. It is far more likely that it is impossible to keep policy away from the media given their present power and the intense scrutiny to which government actions are subject by an increasingly powerful media. That reached a climax when I heard the complaints about the leaks on the Statement concerned with access to the

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countryside and the right to roam. The complaints were not that the leaks were right but that they were wrong. On which side are we? Are we complaining about information getting out or saying that if the information gets out it should be accurate? There is also the question of leaks from Select Committees to Ministers. That is a serious matter which is being investigated by the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. Noble Lords would not wish me to anticipate the outcome of that matter.
Having covered the main themes of the debate, I should like to respond to some special points raised by individual noble Lords. I begin with the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington. He made a very powerful speech about the role of communication between the public, the media and government.
I note that in an excellent maiden speech, the noble Lord, Lord Bell, described his business as being the management of reputation. I note that in referring collectively to the terrible triplets Chadlington, Bell and Saatchi, the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, referred to their trade as "communication". When the Conservatives do it, it is communication; when the Labour Party does it, it is spin doctoring. Is that the distinction? I just want the definitions on the record.
However, I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, said. He referred to special advisers. Let me assure the noble Lord that the position of special advisers has been regularised since the election. Their model contract was made public for the first time in May 1997. My experience of special advisers is that rather than politicising the Civil Service, they have made it possible to maintain the Civil Service code for those who are civil servants by separating those activities which are properly party activities rather than making it more difficult for civil servants. If noble Lords were civil servants, I think that they would generally agree. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was famous for having a thorough press summary at eight o'clock every morning. I have one too, but it is not paid for by the taxpayer; it is produced by the Labour Party, and very good it is too. That is another example of the separation of politics from the role of the Civil Service.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I doubt whether he can answer now, but perhaps he can look into the matter and write to me. I am informed that the political advisers to the Secretary of State for Scotland will resign in order to campaign with the Secretary of State for Scotland who hopes to be the leader of the Labour Group for the Scottish parliamentary elections. Will they be reappointed as members of the Civil Service after the election?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know the answer. I shall write to the noble Lord. I suspect that there may not be an answer. I suspect that no one knows whether they would want to be reappointed even if that were possible. But I can assure the noble Lord that whatever decisions of that kind are
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taken, they are taken in public; they are taken by the Secretary to the Cabinet; and they are taken in accordance with published codes.
In an excellent two-minute speech, the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, made a complicated seven-part syllogism which concluded with a proposal for a lease-lend scheme for distinguished Cross-Benchers. I think that he should consult the Cross-Benchers rather than expect a response to that from Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, could repeat the four positive points he made in evidence to the Neill Committee which is consulting now on the effectiveness of its first report. I am sure the noble Lord knows where to go for that. He asked me about the People's Panel and the publication of the results. He is entirely right. The results have been published so far, and they will continue to be published. They are available, if nowhere else, on www. servicefirst. gov. uk. I apologise for the somewhat Orwellian name of the website, but it is there.
I have taken up enough of your Lordships' time. I am sorry if I have not responded to some of the more negative points. This has been a very mixed debate. There have been some excellent speeches; and there have been some of the worst speeches that I have heard in my time in your Lordships' House. It is only right that I pass on, having said that. However, I hope that I have shown that this Government recognise the need for an effective democracy of which an effective Parliament and House of Commons are a part. We recognise the difficulties of maintaining that, but we are determined that it will continue.
7.44 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I feel indebted to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, for the courteous way in which he sat through the debate, and the way in which he summed up the matter. I shall not take him up on any of the points he made, although I do not agree with him that any of the speeches we heard today were other than extremely useful and well informed. I think that we have had a very good debate. We have had excellent contributions from experienced parliamentarians such as the noble Lords, Lord Shore of Stepney, and Lord Weatherill. We have heard from experts in the handling of the media (or whatever is the appropriate way to describe their activities).
I am grateful to every noble Lord who has taken part in the debate. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Nagorno-Karabakh
7.45 p.m.
Viscount Waverley Viscount Waverley rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe solutions to the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I have initiated this debate in an effort to achieve balance on the complex issues which underlie the dispute. A clash

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between the principles of territorial integrity and self determination has created the longest inter-ethnic dispute in the former Soviet Union, unleashing suppressed hostility between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The dispute began in 1988 when local Armenians in the mountainous part of Karabakh in Azerbaijan asked Moscow to attach their autonomous district to Armenia. Since then the conflict has escalated into one generally characterised by violence, expulsion of rival nationals, allegations and counter allegations. Azerbaijan seeks to preserve its national integrity but Karabakhs of Armenian origin now comprise 100 per cent, of Karabakh. Since the war, 20 per cent, of Azerbaijan is occupied territory.
Intractable issues include Armenian withdrawal from Azeri territory outside Nagorno-Karabakh, peacekeepers and security guarantees, and most of all the status of Karabakh itself. Demands for action by the OSCE and the United Nations led Russia to negotiate a ceasefire in May 1994 that has held despite violations— approximately 400 people were killed on the ceasefire line last year. The situation is tense.
The position of the various co-chairs of the Minsk group—United States, Russia and France—is fraught with difficulty and contradiction. The US State Department attempts to be neutral although Congress favours Armenia. In 1992, it passed Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, a ban on direct US aid to Azerbaijan to pressure Baku to lift its so-called blockade of Armenia. I shall return to that point.
The Administration supports repeal, rightly contending that the ban negatively affects its ability to mediate the conflict. Armenian Americans oppose repeal, advocating that that would serve only to harden Azeri positions. Armenia meanwhile receives the second highest per capita aid from Washington of any country in the world—number one being Israel.
Interestingly, Jews and Azeris are now lobbying together in Washington's foreign policy arena to take on the influential Armenian lobby groups and thus remove the stigma of Azerbaijan being the sole aggressor in the Karabakh conflict and to clear Azerbaijan's name in Congress. Although many can identify a dominant Russian agenda, there are those who believe that the United States has been dilatory in seeking solutions. That is somewhat borne out by Strobe Talbot who, in testimony before Congress last March, referred to Nagorno-Karabakh as one of the most vexing challenges of the post-Cold War world, observing that the United States is "patient" regarding the issue.
Russia is widely criticised for its decision to station S300 surface-to-air missiles and MiG 29 fighter aircraft in Armenia where Russia has two military bases. This compromises their impartiality and undermines regional security. There is also the accusation that Russia has been covertly supplying arms to Armenia, and so by extension to Karabakh, between 1994–97 which would violate its obligations under the conventional forces in Europe treaty.
Azerbaijan regards the military co-operation between Russia and Armenia as a threat to Azeri security and has determined to develop relations with the NATO
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Partnership for Peace in addition to examining an Azeri-Turkish military alliance to counter the Armenia-Russia axis. France also has a sizeable Armenian Diaspora.
I shall briefly summarise where we are today. An annex to the statement of the chairman of the OSCE at the Lisbon Summit, endorsed by all 53 members except Armenia, referred to Azeri territorial integrity as a basis of settlement. The Armenian Foreign Minister told a meeting this afternoon in this House that the process had been hijacked with the current Prime Minister rejecting those proposals.
Last November, Russia floated a new proposal centred around a concept of "common state", thereby taking Armenian views into account more than previously. The Azeris rejected the proposal. Could the Minister please confirm the current status of solution proposals?
I had not wanted to enter the rights and wrongs of the past or stir ingrained sensitivities—far better to concentrate on resolution. However, an NGO has sent me a briefing note highlighting a number of emotive issues. I feel with regret compelled to comment, drawing on my experience in other conflict arenas.
A continuous one-sided message of ethnic cleansing, blockade, suffering, the systematic bombardment of civilians, and saying that anything other than support for Armenians and Karabakhs would be akin to supporting the Nazis over the Jews, undermine the interests of the very people that organisation is trying to help. Such extremist views serve only to exacerbate tensions.
Evidence points to both sides being perpetrators of acts of attrition, atrocities and unilateral deportation. It is also important to distinguish between a blockade and an economic embargo which, for example, is exactly what the United States is inflicting on Cuba and Iran.
NGOs must differentiate the role of humanitarian good works and that of conflict resolution. This failure makes the work of peace-makers more difficult. The situation on the ground was and is not as clear-cut as many would have us believe. A newly published definitive account of the war and its aftermath suggests that distant commentators should carefully consider,
"before furthering the promotion of facts based on repetitive errors".
With all that said, an intractable conflict is a disservice to all. The clocks cannot be turned back. It is for the participants to achieve peace through compromise and reconciliation—not an imposed peace, but a lasting one. Our job as outsiders is to encourage that process, not to be one-sided and to convince them that to win the peace is infinitely more important than winning the war.
The immediate inability to find a solution for Karabakh and an Armenian-Azeri compromise, however, is complicated by other regional issues which will also have to be addressed. Individual relations between Russia and the states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, relations between Trans-Caucasian republics and Georgia, issues within CIS including oil pipeline routes, and the complex long overdue Iran/United States rapprochement.
In addition, any siting of American air bases in Azerbaijan would be akin to waving a red rag at a bull for Iran and Russia. That, however, is considered a potential insurance policy option against Russia/Armenian geo-strategic designs.
So what can and should Britain do to help? The United Kingdom is highly regarded and we should capitalise on that reputation. As is well-known, we do have oil interests in the region and while those interests need to be protected it should be remembered that we have interests throughout the region. Working towards a pluralistic regional stability with our fair, even-handed approach, must single us out to play a part beyond commercial consideration. I would always opt for constructive engagement, as that is the best evidence of friendship.
I believe that one of Britain's most helpful contributions would be to offer guidance on the apparent conflict between the OSCE principles of self-determination, on the one hand, and territorial integrity on the other. It would seem to me that an internationally accepted right to self-determination can only be accepted after recognition of territorial integrity, which in turn would require the acquiescence of the two states.
How else can this issue be reconciled? Continued failure to establish guidelines allows minorities to grasp at straws and prolongs disputes. I do believe that OSCE is doing as good a job as it can. Certainly it has the expertise, but it lacks the tools. It is severely under-resourced and it may be that the Minister will look again at a long-standing Foreign Office request for an additional Russian-speaking monitor.
A raft of military, economic, political and humanitarian confidence-building measures could usefully be introduced to help massage the negotiation process ranging from the need for more people-to-people diplomacy to generally extending discussion beyond official circles.
Other areas of common ground are the environment, particularly river pollution projects; strengthening local NGO activity; de-mining; media exchange; prisoner information and direct contact between local commanders in joint military commissions to clarify mistaken troop movements and so make resumption of hostilities less likely; co-operation in oil and gas sectors; and the important development of transport infrastructure such as the TRACECA project, which would link Baku with Yerevan.
In short, all activities should be directed towards creating formulae for direct negotiations and creating economic co-operation and regional investor confidence. The vexing issue of the refugees is a powder keg and I can only hope that they are not used as a pawn for creating social upheaval.
Two points are categorically not helpful. First, ill-advisedly to promote this dispute as a Christian/Moslem divide; and, secondly, that Armenia could possibly be admitted to the Council of Europe before Azerbaijan. Inter-parliamentary dialogue has a
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real role, so I was delighted that MPs in Yerevan share the perception that admittance should be simultaneous and accelerated.
In conclusion, there will be much for the Government to consider, but are they minded to become a Minsk co-chair? If so, I have little doubt that that decision would have the full support of this House. The grim reality is that the Karabakh question really is one of the world's more desperate situations involving both principle and pride. All three camps have positions which are deemed essential and non-negotiable. But I would urge them all to realise that the benefits of peaceful resolution would be immediate not only to the participants but to the world at large.
7.55 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, while I share the noble Viscount's commitment to balance, there are situations which are inherently asymmetrical.
Having visited Karabakh 41 times, many of them during the bitter war, I believe it is essential that the OSCE takes historical and current asymmetries into account. Since Stalin gave this piece of ancient Armenia to Azerbaijan, the Armenians have suffered threats to their survival.
In the 1980s, Azerbaijan changed the ethnic composition of Karabakh, moving in large numbers of Azeris. In 1991, the famous "Operation Ring" brought brutal deportations of Armenian villages: civilians rounded up, possessions looted; many tortured and killed; survivors driven off their land.
In 1991, Azerbaijan also said that it would annul Karabakh's autonomous status and re-name Stepanakert with a Turkish name. Karabakh would become like Nackichevan, another part of historic Armenia, where Azeris had driven out every Armenian and where now they are systematically destroying ancient Armenian churches.
In January 1992, Azerbaijan launched full-scale military offensives. Throughout the 1990s, successive Azeri presidents declared explicit policies of ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Karabakh. Cease-fires were repeatedly broken by Azerbaijan. For example, in June 1993, I was in Stepanakert just after a cease-fire agreement. Bombs started to pound in from Azeri positions. Azeris denied any offensive. We brought back fresh shrapnel.
Azerbaijan's continuing violations of cease-fires forced the Armenians to create a buffer zone, capturing towns in Azerbaijan, inevitably displacing thousands of Azeris. Armenians were denounced as aggressors, but what could they do given continuing Azeri assaults on their civilians from these bases?
In war, violations of human rights occur on both sides. But evidence proves that Azerbaijan was the primary aggressor in at least six ways. First, Azerbaijan undertook the systematic, unilateral deportation of Armenians in that infamous Operation Ring. Secondly, Azerbaijan first used Grad multiple missile rocket launchers against civilians. In 1992, 1 counted 400 Grad missiles pounding daily onto civilians in Stepanakert and other towns. Thirdly, only Azerbaijan used aerial

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bombardment of civilians. Fourthly, only Azerbaijan used ground-to-air missiles, detonated to explode over civilian targets. Fifthly, Azerbaijan and Turkey are still maintaining their blockade of Armenia. Even after the earthquake of 1988, Azerbaijan would not allow the passage of humanitarian aid. Sixthly, a report by Physicians for Human Rights documents recent torture of Armenian hostages by Azeris, even during this cease-fire.
The Armenians of Karabakh achieved military victory, through immense courage and sacrifice. But they now face threats to their security from interventions by the international community, including the OSCE. Of course Azeris suffered too. I helped with aid to them, also. But major aid organisations such as UNHCR and UNICEF, which have given them aid and advocacy, have not even been present in Karabakh. Also, Azerbaijan, with massive oil reserves, has many other advocates promoting the Azeri cause.
I turn to two current issues. First, those displaced by war. Many visitors to Azerbaijan are taken to see Azeri refugees still kept in camps in harsh conditions. But Armenia has found accommodation for comparable numbers of people displaced by war, by Azeri massacres in Sumgait and Baku and by earthquake, in spite of economic hardship from the blockade. Therefore, will the Government ask Azerbaijan why it is still keeping so many people in camps; what it has done with the money from UNHCR and other organisations; and why it has not been as successful as Armenia in providing for displaced people?
Secondly, I turn to the OSCE proposals. Given all that the Armenians have suffered at the hands of Azeris, they can never again accept Azeri sovereignty. Until recently, the OSCE has put territorial integrity before self-determination and threatened the Armenians with proposals they could never accept. But the most recent proposals, which imply less threat of subjugation, have been rejected by Azerbaijan. There are now indications that Azerbaijan may start another war. Possibly in order to legitimate further aggression, the Azeri Embassy recently distributed a mendacious and inflammatory statement concerning a so-called "massacre" at Khodaly. There was a tragedy in which Azeri civilians died, but independent reports confirmed that the Armenians gave repeated advance warnings of their offensive, urging civilians to leave. They tried to negotiate safe evacuation. Civilians were tragically killed in the cross-fire as Azeri soldiers escaped, intermingled with women and children. The Armenians allowed the Azeris to return to collect their dead and the Azeris used the tragedy for massive propaganda, falsifying numbers and mutilating bodies postmortem. I shall place an analysis in your Lordships' Library.
It is a matter for concern that the western media flocked to the staged scene in Azerbaijan but never went to Karabakh. Soon afterwards, Azeris perpetrated a massacre in the Armenian village of Maraghar, sawing off the heads of 45 villagers, burning others and carrying out numerous atrocities. I was there within hours and witnessed the decapitated and burnt corpses and burning
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homes. I returned with incontrovertible evidence, yet no western media reported that massacre of Armenians by Azeris.
The Armenians have therefore had to contend with asymmetries of many kinds—military resources, aid and advocacy. They now face the possible prospect of another war. Azerbaijan has been buying huge stocks of long-range missiles and fighter aircraft. The Karabakhis have also developed a strong defensive and retaliatory capacity, able to inflict damage on Baku. If Azerbaijan again attempts ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Karabakh, Armenia could not stand passively by. If Armenia engaged, that would trigger a regional war with incalculable suffering and would destabilise the entire region militarily, politically and economically.
I finish by asking the Minister three questions. First, is she aware that there is deep concern over Azerbaijan's request for a NATO base? During the recent war, Azeris used NATO weapons, presumably supplied by Turkey. What assurances can the Minister give that such a NATO base would not support Azerbaijan if it renews hostilities; and what safeguards could ensure end-user accountability of NATO weapons?
Secondly, will the Minister give an assurance that the Government will not support any OSCE proposals which do not take adequately into account the need of the Armenian people for security against further threats to their survival?
Concern has been expressed in some quarters over Armenia's links with Russia and Iran. But what alternatives were available to it? With the economic blockade imposed by Turkey and Azerbaijan and with the west looking the other way or even supporting Azerbaijan during that bitter war, where else could Armenia go for support?
Thirdly, is the Minister aware that the agreement to hold the forthcoming OSCE summit in Istanbul has caused deep offence to many who are worried about Turkey's abysmal human rights record? Will she give an assurance that Turkey will be brought to account for its continuing violations of human rights against its political opponents and against the Kurds and the Assyrian Christians; and that Turkey and Azerbaijan will be required to end their blockade of Armenia?
Armenia has survived earthquakes, war and many assaults on its people. Despite those threats to survival, its economy is developing and it has created perhaps the most stable democracy in the former USSR. It must be in the interests of all concerned with peace, justice and political stability not to allow oil interest to tilt policy in favour of Azerbaijan, jeopardising the security of Armenia and peace in the region.
It is clear that I am an unashamed advocate of the Armenian cause in Karabakh. That is born of direct experience and grounded in evidence. In Christian Solidarity Worldwide, we try to emulate Andrei Sakharov, who was always on the side of the victim. Evidence shows that the Armenians have been the primary victims. Would the principle of "balance" have applied to the Nazi genocide of the Jews? We should

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not forget Hitler's infamous question, before embarking on his assaults on Poland:
"Who speaks today about the Armenians?"
We speak of the Armenians today and shall continue to do so. I hope that the Government will behave more honourably towards them than has been the case historically and that this Government, committed to human rights and an ethical foreign policy, will remember Gladstone's dictum:
"To serve Armenia is to serve civilisation".
8.3 p.m.
The Earl of Shannon: My Lords, first, I should start by declaring my interest both as a member of the British-Armenian Parliamentary Group and the British-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Group. Here we are dealing with an extremely intractable problem, as your Lordships have just heard. I shall leave the matter of the horrors to others who have more detailed and recent experience than I have.
I wish to concentrate on the differences in culture arising from the history. Since the dawn of history, the history of that area has been based on invasion, conquest and subjugation. Drawing attention to the differences which have arisen from such historical occurrences may help to resolve the situation.
We would laugh today if anybody were to say that France claims to have control of England because, after all, let us face it, it was a Norman Frenchman who conquered it in 1066. What about the fact that the Black Prince conquered most of France in the time of Edward I? We do not worry about such matters, but we must remember that in the Caucasus their history is still very real to them and carries a great deal of bitterness which we should not consider to be appropriate today.
It is no wonder that there is such a total and utter lack of confidence and trust among the people there, both in the outside world and among themselves. So however well-intentioned the wise gentlemen who met at Lisbon and Minsk and from the OSCE, it is no wonder that they hit a brick wall straight on as soon as they started to define the eventual political status of the Karabakh. Any subsequent talks and confidence-building stages would immediately be a non-starter.
We must also bear in mind something to which we do not attach great importance here but to which they attach great importance there; that is, the importance of saving face. Also in this day and age we should consider it utterly inconceivable that talks should be held to decide the fate of a country and its people when one of the major players insists that the very people whom they are talking about should not be allowed to participate in the talks because of their "face".
We have had a slightly potted history of the Karabakh but I should like to go over it again. At the whim of a despot in the 1920s, Karabakh was given as an autonomous—and that is rather interesting—oblast within Azerbaijan. On the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Karabakh declared its independence under the
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existing Soviet constitution of the time and held a referendum and decided upon self-determination. Azerbaijan only did so very much later.
The West wrings its hands over the sanctity of Helsinki. We may wish to consider the sanctity of the existing Karabakh at the time, before Helsinki. Perhaps that is a matter for the lawyers to consider. In any event, the net result was the invasion of the Karabakh by Azerbaijan, helped greatly by the armaments provided by the Soviet Fourth Army, which had quietly demobilised itself at Baku, leaving all its kit behind.
Hence the theoretically overwhelming might of Azerbaijan; its large population; Turkish officers in uniform commanding troops; and Mujahideen, whom I interviewed through interpreters, being paid 500 dollars per month to come to fight for the Azeris. The infinitely smaller Karabakh population threw out that overwhelming might and drew a cordon sanitaire around its country to stop it being shelled over the border. The reason is quite simply that the Karabakh Armenians are front-line soldiers and I am afraid that the Azeris do not measure up to the same quality. Therefore, the Karabakh Armenians won and there is no military solution.
Azerbaijan only wants the Karabakh because of loss of face and it is extremely important that that is taken into account on the part of Azerbaijan. Also, I suspect that there is a certain amount of disquiet in Azerbaijan. It had the most enormous international clout because it could say, "We've got the oil". Oh dear, just recently, some of those exploration contracts have had to be handed back because the oil that was prospected to be there was not there. So the Azeris do not have the clout that they used to have and that is worrying them.
I suggest that the only way to break that deadlock is by somehow giving a cast-iron guarantee for the security of the Karabakh Armenians. That is not an unreasonable request. That guarantee must be achieved first and the admirable proposals which have been made from time to time must come later. You cannot expect the victors in the war, as they are, to make concessions when they can clearly see that that will mean an early resumption of the butchery through which they have been before. Two heads of state of Azerbaijan have made well known public statements. President Elchibey said that his people could hang him in the square at Baku if there were any Armenians left in the Karabakh by the month of October. President Aliyev has said that the solution to the Karabakh problem is the elimination of Karabakh Armenians in the Karabakh.
Such statements of national policy of ethnic cleansing were almost unheard of since Genghis Khan. International negotiators please get real. Unless the Karabakh Armenians are convinced that they are no longer under a sentence of death, you can hardly expect them to agree to a lengthy process of talks, eventually leading to their execution being carried out. That must be the prime role before going any further with talks.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Newall: My Lords, anyone who has looked into the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh knows that it is not an easy situation to solve. It is a classic example of every coin having two sides.
When Russia allowed the region to be autonomous, it had previously belonged to Azerbaijan, which at that time had about 59 per cent. of the population. As noble Lords have already heard, by 1989 the Soviets wanted to join Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in fighting. In 1991 the Armenian population voted for independence. That independence has never been recognised by the international community.
Nagorno-Karabakh remains autonomous, but part of Azerbaijan. After 1991 the battles continued and many Azeris were massacred by Armenians. I have no doubt that the reverse happened as well. I respect the first-hand knowledge of my noble friend Lady Cox.
The area is backward in many ways, despite the oil and it has always had quarrels and fighting, but several times the United Nations Security Council has called upon the Armenians to stop the fighting. That has virtually been ignored and the Armenian fighters have refused to implement the OSCE Minsk Group's solution, set up in Lisbon in 1996. Having listened to the Foreign Minister of Armenia today, I understand that some progress may be possible on that score. We shall have to wait and see. Currently it is believed by some that Russia is sending arms to the Armenians and even joining in the fighting, but, of course, the arms are not in Armenia itself, but in Nagorno-Karabakh.
President Aliyev of Azerbaijan has started many good reform measures although he admits that he has further to go to stamp out corruption. The cost in lives is enormous and the refugee problem in Azerbaijan is vast, with hundreds of thousands of Azeris pushed out of their homes and now living in some squalor in dozens of camps in Azerbaijan.
That is the situation that exists today. Although there are many areas where conflict continues, it is very good that the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, has initiated this debate when so much of what is heard is either very one-sided or completely inaccurate.
I wonder whether the Government have taken more than a passing interest in the plight of the Azeri refugees and whether the Minister will be able to initiate assistance for them and alleviate some of their distress in the future. I know that the United Kingdom is not involved in the Minsk Group, but I hope that we may hear some encouraging news to help the people in that area, especially those who have been thrown out of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Let us hope that negotiation will take place and that the difficulties will be sorted out. I am hopeful, but I am not very confident.
8.13 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, do we still remember the moment when it seemed that so many people suffering under the Soviet tyranny were to achieve a measure of freedom? Do we remember
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Sakharov or Galina Starovoitova so recently murdered in St. Petersburg? I ask those questions because they were among the first to tell the world about the ethnic cleansing that was being carried out from 1988 to 1991 by the Azeris, the Soviet OMON and other special troops in Nagorno-Karabakh, a small enclave largely peopled by Armenian Christians. The area had been arbitrarily included in Islamic Azerbaijan.
I am sorry to go into detail but it is an important issue. Christians and people who are fervently Islamic find it difficult to live together. The area was then taken back by Soviet Russia in 1989 and handed back to Azerbaijan in the same year. It was treated throughout in typical Soviet fashion as a parcel. Sakharov wanted to take it back to Soviet jurisdiction only because he believed in those words "glasnost" and "perestroika", as did the people. Gorbachev found it easier to give it back to the Azeris who lost no time—like the Turks in Cyprus—in sending in Azeri settlers.
Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh has suffered war, ethnic cleansing, inhuman treatment, blockade and privation. Most of all, it has suffered from being regarded as, to put it bluntly, a nuisance. We are spending time and precious resources actively trying to resolve the not dissimilar problems of Kosovo. But Nagorno-Karabakh's present and future has been left entirely to the Minsk Group in the OSCE. Who are they? They are Russia, France and the United States. Russia has a shifting, but constant range of interests in the area. There is a Caspian oil plant, a gas pipeline and, on the other hand, Russia has an important defence presence in Armenia. France has important oil interests and ties with Armenia.
When Britain signed a number of oil contracts with Azerbaijan in July last year, Aliyev, the Azeri leader, noted with satisfaction that the British supported the OSCE summit of December 1996. That advocated territorial integrity for Azerbaijan and Armenia and a legal status for Nagorno-Karabakh which would give it a multi-ethnic autonomous identity under Azerbaijani sovereignty, with the right to its own constitution, national anthem and flag. As a free economic zone, it would have a budget financed exclusively from its own resources and the right to its own national guard and military police.
The Lisbon summit talked of the highest degree of self-government within Azerbaijan for Nagorno-Karabakh and a guaranteed security for Nagorno-Karabakh and its whole population, including mutual agreement to abide by the settlement provisions. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in a debate on the subject in July 1997 (Official Report, 1/7/97; cols. 169 and 170) quoted the provisions that were agreed in the Lisbon agreement, but nothing happened.
It is 11 years since Nagorno-Karabakh's troubles began, yet we seem to content ourselves with only the most general pressure on Azerbaijan through the EU and to some extent through the UN to behave better. We have given some humanitarian aid for refugees and displaced people in both Azerbaijan and Armenia. But there is no UN presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, as there is in Bosnia and negotiations are left to the Minsk Group. As I said in the July 1997 debate, the OSCE plan

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for Nagorno-Karabakh in April 1997 was to recognise that entity—here we come back to what I was saying earlier—as multi-ethnic and autonomous.
The important point is that the OSCE also proposed to throw an OSCE cordon around the area, requiring first that the Karabakh armed forces be withdrawn to within the 1998 Soviet boundary. That would have removed the Armenian-occupied Lachin corridor which is Nagorno-Karabakh's only access to Armenia and to the outside world. It is, therefore, a lifeline. The OSCE proposed that the Lachin corridor should be "leased to Azerbaijan by the OSCE", which would set the borders and be responsible for the link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. The Lachin district would come under Azerbaijan jurisdiction; Azerbaijani refugees would be returned to Armenian territory. One wonders how many years the OSCE would have to stay to enforce such a complicated and extraordinary set of proposals. It is not surprising that that plan was rejected therefore, but I wonder whether the details of the latest OSCE plans are any better.
We know that the OSCE wants the next set of proposals to be executed by stages whereas Nagorno-Karabakh wishes the issue to be settled as a package. Let us at least support the idea that the matter should be dealt with as a package. Under the OSCE plans, what it wants to happen by stages is, first, that Nagorno-Karabakh's forces would be withdrawn from all the six districts of Azerbaijan, presumably including the Lachin corridor, which they at present control. Only then would the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the political settlement, be considered.
Nagorno-Karabakh not unnaturally doubts whether there would be a satisfactory political settlement once the Azeris have all that they want. The Azeris and the OSCE have so far defined their future political status as "the highest degree of autonomy" which, according to Aliyev, means the model of the Russian autonomous regions. But he has also said that, under the settlement, occupied lands would be liberated, Azerbaijan territorial integrity would be restored and the Azerbaijan state would control its entire territory. Those words are not as fierce as some that have been quoted by other noble Lords, but they are still pretty frightening to Nagorno-Karabakhis. In the light of such intentions it is not surprising that they should insist on a package deal and not a stage-by-stage procedure.
The OSCE has talked in the recent past about bringing in a multi-national contingent of peace-keepers through Turkey and of setting up a headquarters for OSCE forces. Have we accepted any part of that proposal? I cannot help feeling that that would simply be impractical.
The Caspian is a potential tinderbox, with Iran, Russia and Turkey all confronting one another in a situation which could well become a serious problem for NATO's southern flank, for reasons which have already been described by other noble Lords. Surely we cannot afford to allow the dispute to continue and to smoulder in such a way in what could very easily be a powderkeg. Frankly, I do not believe that the Minsk Group is doing any good although I would strongly contend that it
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might be better if we were in it. The Kosovo commitment is important, but the Russian Foreign Minister has said that the military issues cannot be discussed until the political issues have been agreed. That is exactly the formula that the Nagorno-Karabakhis want. I hope very much that, as that is their position, we shall support them in arguing that they need a package. We have seen enough in Northern Ireland and Kosovo to know that packages are better than stage-by-stage proposals.
8.21 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I join in the thanks that have been expressed to my noble friend Lord Waverley for initiating this debate. It is both necessary and timely.
In April of last year, I had the privilege of visiting Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia in company with my friend and colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. She has a much longer and deeper experience of those countries than I, and I greatly admire what she has done to enable the local people to develop limb-fitting and rehabilitation for their war wounded.
When I returned here last year, I very soon went to see His Excellency the Azeri Ambassador in London and I listened to him at some length. I also put on paper 15 reasons why the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and, indeed, their cousins in Armenia cannot accept any form of rule or sovereignty from Azerbaijan. Those reasons, which some noble Lords may have seen, are rooted in history. They also concern the arbitrary and undemocratic nature of the internal boundaries that used to exist within the former Soviet Union. Self-determination was not a factor then taken into account, as can be clearly seen both north and south of the Caucasus mountains. Other reasons relate to the conduct of the war between 1991 and 1994 and to atrocities, particularly against civilians, committed during that war, together with planned attacks against Armenian religion and culture.
We were clearly told during our visit by the President of Nagorno-Karabakh that horizontal or contractual relations were the only possible ones with Azerbaijan. Statehood, he said, is not essential to us, provided that we enjoy its de facto attributes.
It seems to me that that is a case where the classic OSCE doctrines of "territorial integrity" and "national self-determination", which have been mentioned, notably by my noble friend Lord Waverley, are in fact quite incompatible. The wisest course may therefore be to count Nagorno-Karabakh within the very limited class of nations, such as Bangladesh and Eritrea, which have succeeded in establishing their claim to secession by force of arms.
At present, the situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan is in urgent need of attention; of that there can be little doubt. It seems to me essential to prevent an arms race between those two countries which could lead to renewed fighting. Both countries have pressing needs for development and neither can reasonably afford large and heavily armed forces. Therefore, I ask Her Majesty's Government to use the Minsk Group of

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the OSCE, and any other available channels, to work for arms control and the greatest possible degree of transparency.
There may be another approach through NATO's Partnership for Peace, to which both countries belong. I trust that discreet confidence-building, conducted between military men, may help to defuse what might otherwise be politically controversial.
Western Europe, in the century ending in 1945, experienced at least three devastating major wars. That experience led to a revolution in attitudes, to a radical shift of paradigm. War and forceful conflict management are now universally seen in the region of western Europe as obsolete. The resolution of conflicts, so that all sides emerge as winners, is perceived as the desirable goal. Co-operative behaviour, rather than confrontation, is the only way towards civilised living.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey have huge potential. Through them, the resources of the Caspian sea and of central Asia need to pass en route to their natural markets. I was therefore greatly encouraged to hear only this afternoon the Foreign Minister of Armenia describe Nagorno-Karabakh as a potential "bridge for co-operation". As things are now, Christians and Moslems, Sunni and Shia, face each other across the frontiers. Can we in the West, who have already experienced a considerable paradigm shift, help these ancient traditions towards their own revolution in attitudes? The challenge is vast and daunting, but I hope and trust that it will be accepted.
8.27 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, for introducing this debate, and, like the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, I declare an interest as a member of the British Azeri Group. I should add that my son represents President Aliyev, but I have no financial connection with that situation. Your Lordships will no doubt take that into account when hearing my remarks.
Like other noble Lords, I listened to Mr. Vartan Oakanian, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Republic of Armenia. Although he appeared to be conciliatory, he was quite clear that there was no way in which the problem could be resolved by returning to the 1988 boundaries.
Nevertheless, the matter has been before the international community. The chairman of the OSCE at the time of the Lisbon Conference regretted that he could not show that any progress had been achieved in resolving the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh, which itself was the subject of previous UNSCRs in 1993. I refer to Nos. 822, 853, 874 and 884. The co-chairmen of the Minsk Group then, as I understand it, following majority approval, recommended supporting the territorial integrity of both parties to the dispute. However, only Armenia, among 53 other states, refused to ratify.
Mr. Oskanian told us this afternoon that the plan was unfair and that the other 53 states had been succoured by the Azeris. That must be listened to with the scepticism that it deserves. The situation led the Minsk
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Group to propose, in accordance with the UNSCRs, the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the six occupied Azerbaijani districts with the deployment of an international peace-keeping force and the rehabilitation of refugees, together with the re-opening of communications between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In addition, it required the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Lachin and Shusha and new negotiations over the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Incidentally, perhaps I may ask the Minister to suggest to the Secretary of State, as has already been mentioned in this evening's debate, that we propose ourselves as members of the Minsk Group. I believe that our influence in that body would be of benefit to all concerned, and I would be grateful for an assurance on that point. The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, referred to our standing in the area. I agree with what he said in that respect.
The Minsk plan drew a gradually increasing acceptance from President Ter-Petrosyan who, unfortunately, was unseated by his colleague the self-styled President of Nagorno-Karabakh, Mr. Kocharian, before he had persuaded his colleagues to come to terms with the plan. As I understand it, Mr. Kocharian has since hardened the Armenian position and laid new accusations of desecration and atrocities to keep the pot boiling. There have been stories of atrocities in this area for many centuries, and there is no evidence of this ceasing immediately.
Mr. Oskanian gave his commitment to the OSCE and to UNSCRs this afternoon, but then went on to say that they were one-sided. That does not augur well for any agreement on that front. As we know only too well, the problems that arise from a combination of religious and racial factions within a disputed territory are difficult to control. Indeed, one has only to look at the map to perceive that the occupied territories of Nagorno and the neighbouring areas, situated as they are in the heart of Azerbaijan, make administration of that country practically impossible while there is a war situation going on in the middle.
Although there have been appalling atrocities on the part of both Azerbaijan and Armenia in the course of this dispute, it is a fact that there have recently been reasonably democratic elections in Azerbaijan resulting in the election of President Aliyev. I noticed that the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, views that with some disrespect. However, his administration needs support from all sides, while at the same time encouraging Armenia to come to terms with the will of the international community. It would seem that anything that can be done in the form of a concerted effort by the all-party groups would be most constructive. There are two groups in this House: the All-Party Azeri group and the All-Party Armenian group. If we cannot sit together and agree a programme for the future of this area, what possible hope can there be for them to do so? I recommend that those who are interested in this problem, together with the two groups, should unite into a single group to bring forward a separate plan, present it to the ambassadors and then move forward in that direction.
8.34 p.m.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron: My Lords, I, too, should like to begin by declaring an interest as regards my business involvement in the region, including Azerbaijan, and in membership of the British Azerbaijan Parliamentary Group. I should like to make a few short points. First, we have heard about big business, particularly the oil business, in the region. However, this is really a humanitarian problem. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that there are almost I million Azeri refugees who are displaced. In particular, I have in mind the 20 per cent. of Azerbaijan territory which is currently occupied by Armenian associated forces and civilians.
Secondly, as has already been said, neither side has a monopoly on innocence in this matter regarding the unfortunate events in Nagorno-Karabakh. Similarly, there is no advantage to be had in trading atrocity stories; indeed, no doubt they exist on both sides. It would be highly unconstructive to dwell on such points.
Thirdly, I should like to refer to the Minsk Group Lisbon principles. The first concerns the territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The latter is a principle which, as we all know, is in general recognised in international law. It is only lightly encouraged to be upset. That is a principle by which all fair-minded people should abide. The second principle of the Lisbon declaration stated that Nagorno-Karabakh was to have the highest degree of self-rule, albeit within Azerbaijan sovereignty. We have heard about the need for Nagorno-Karabakh to have an autonomous status. I suggest that the highest degree of self-rule recommended by the Lisbon principles equates to this autonomous status. The third principle was that of the guaranteed security for Nagorno-Karabakh and its whole population. That point has rightly been emphasised by previous speakers. It is clearly an essential part of any settlement. Fourthly, I believe that Azerbaijan should continue to improve its record on human rights.
To sum up, as a previous speaker said, I believe that this country is very much respected in the region. I have travelled reasonably widely there, as well as in other parts of the former Soviet Union. We could definitely play a much stronger role, given the standing in which we are held. There is one message that I should like to leave with your Lordships: I hope that Her Majesty's Government will play a much more active role than they have hitherto in trying to resolve this extremely unfortunate dispute. I hope that they will do so on the basis of the Lisbon principles, or something close to them, for the benefit of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and, indeed, the whole of this very important region.
8.38 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I should declare an interest in that I have advised the Armenian Government on the future of their insurance industry, but I have no commercial interest in that country to declare. I have to congratulate the Azerbaijanis. I think that this is the seventh or eighth debate that we have
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had on the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh over the past nine years. However, I believe it is the first time that I have heard any Peer rise in your Lordships' House to suggest that the history is not entirely one-sided and entirely in favour of the Armenians.
I feel that I should say a word or two because I am one of the few in your Lordships' House who has visited Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. Indeed, I was present on the second mission of my noble friend Lady Cox to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991. I saw with my own eyes the start of the aggression by Azerbaijan and the Soviet Fourth Army, the Soviet OMON and indeed Soviet Speznaz troops. I am in absolutely no doubt—because I have followed the story closely since then—that my noble friend Lady Cox, the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, my noble friend Lady Park and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, have it absolutely right. There is no room for manoeuvre for those who would try to say that the Azerbaijanis have suffered to anything like the degree of the Armenians in Karabakh, and indeed Armenia, in this unfortunate conflict.
I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, let us indeed look for the balance in this matter, but let us be in no doubt where the balance lies. I say to my noble friend Lord Newall that he may indeed have heard a very much one-sided version of events in this unfortunate area because those events are one-sided.
I noted that my noble friends Lord Clanwilliam and Lord Fairfax rightly declared interests in the area. I therefore take what they had to say with the caution which such interests might lead one to express. I say to my noble friend Lord Clanwilliam that if we in this House are indeed to unite into a single group to try to find some way forward which may be of service to those who are engaged in more official negotiations, there is no point in doing so unless we do so on the basis of the facts. Those facts are as stated by my noble friend Lady Cox and the other noble Lords I have mentioned.
8.41 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, it is a great temptation to follow almost every one of your Lordships who have spoken in this debate down the byways of history. But I shall resist that temptation and concentrate, if I may, on the proposals which have been developed under the Minsk Conference, and on what the British can do to support them.
As to the proposals of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that we should put ourselves forward as an additional co-chair at the Minsk Conference, I remind him that it was only as recently as 1997 that the then chairman-in-office enlarged the co-chairmanship to three members: France, Russia and the United States. But Britain has neither been involved as a lead player so far in the process, nor as a member of the larger Minsk Conference. I was glad to note that we have assisted in the past by attaching a diplomat to the staff of the chairman-in-office, and have seconded officers to the High Level Planning Group. However, we are not directly involved in the formulation of proposals or in attempting to align the views of the parties with one another.

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It seems to me that the resources of the Foreign Office are already fairly stretched in the tasks that it has undertaken and we should be wary of assuming additional responsibilities in relation to these difficult problems that we are discussing this evening, even if that could be done without cutting across the initiatives which are being taken under the Minsk Conference.
The previous chairman-in-office, Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek, on a tour of the regional capitals in November secured the agreement of the parties that the conference is the most suitable framework for the continuation of the peace process. The two governments, and the authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh, expressed their firm support for the resumption of negotiations, and all parties agreed to an exchange of prisoners of war. The incoming chairman-in-office, who took up his post in December, Norwegian Foreign Minister Vollebak, said at the Oslo ministerial council meeting in December that he is committed to doing everything he can in the search for mutually acceptable political solutions. He said that given the necessary political will and courage, 1999 could be the year when the so-called frozen conflicts begin to thaw.
The current discussions are focused on the exploration of what autonomy would mean for Nagorno-Karabakh, and this new idea which has been mentioned of the common state, with both Armenia and Azerbaijan having some influence and involvement in its affairs. If I may say so en passant it seems to me that this proposal has overtaken the Lisbon principles which were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, and others. We have to recognise that we are looking at a new set of proposals which have now been formulated and are in front of the parties. We do not have the exact details because we are not members of the Minsk Group, and it may be that the co-chairs have deliberately avoided filling in the blanks until they get the agreement of all the parties that the idea should form the basis for negotiations. So far, President Aliyev has stuck to the line that Baku is prepared to offer the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh republic broad autonomy after Armenian troops are withdrawn from occupied Azerbaijani territory and displaced persons have returned to their homes. As that means a return to the discredited system of government which operated in Soviet times, it is a non-starter.
The common state represents some movement, however, from the Armenian position that Nagorno-Karabakh should either have total independence or be unified with Armenia. Therefore, I hope that Azerbaijan will also take the small step necessary for substantive face-to-face negotiations based on this principle to get under way. Presumably the idea will be discussed when Minister Vollebak visits the region in mid-April, and it is now the only proposal on the table. The European Parliament has endorsed the common state as a basis for discussion to end the negotiating deadlock, and has proposed that EU aid to both countries be linked to tangible progress in the areas of human rights and democracy. The president of Nagorno-Karabakh said in New York recently that the proposal opens the way to peace and stability in the
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region. Nagorno-Karabakh itself has accepted the proposal, believing that for the sake of peace it was worth taking some risks. The Armenians have accepted it too but the Azerbaijanis are still hesitant.
What should we do, standing slightly outside this process? I think Britain and the European Union should throw their weight behind this common state proposal as the best and the only foundation on which any agreement could be forged. We should encourage both Armenia and Azerbaijan to distance themselves from their communist past, and create the institutions of freedom and democracy, because secure democracies tend to resolve their disputes by peaceful means. Armenia's human rights record is poor, but Azerbaijan's is abysmal according to Human Rights Watch, and progress in 1998 in both countries was patchy However, there are some things going for the situation. The ICRC has access to detention facilities run by the Ministry of the Interior in Armenia and it is able to visit any prisoner in prisons or local police stations. In Azerbaijan, however, the ICRC has access only to prisons where persons are held in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Various embassies have asked the Azerbaijani government for permission to visit all prisons. I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate she can say whether we are one of those who has asked for this permission.
The ICRC says that cross-border hostage-laking is a problem. It has successfully assured a number of prisoner exchanges but has no access to undeclared hostages. Ceasefire violations continue to occur by both sides and they have resulted in deaths among combatants and civilians, and the taking of prisoners, including civilians. I hope that Mr. Vollebak will ask if the parties could refrain from all hostile acts across the de facto frontier, and see whether services can be offered in mediation where disputes arise on the boundary. Let us not exaggerate the contribution that Britain can make to the solution of this difficult problem, but let us back the OSCE in its latest initiatives.
8.48 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, on securing this balanced debate this evening. The speeches we have listened to have provided a valuable opportunity once again to draw attention to this running sore between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which continues to hinder and undermine economic and social development and prosperity in a region which has so much potential.
The long-standing unresolved dispute over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is not just a dangerous, potentially inflammatory conflict in its own right. It is also a symbol of one of the most difficult and intractable challenges of the post-cold war world, which has seen the eruption of ethnic and religious animosities dormant in the days of communist rule.
In the post-cold war decade we have witnessed for ourselves that, when self-determination is extended too far into separatism and nationalism, it can lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Likewise, territorial integrity, a

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nation's right to maintain its borders, which has a justified place in international law, can be taken too far until it becomes territorial encroachment. Bosnia, and now Kosovo, stand as a devastating testament to these evils.
My noble friend Lady Cox has already spoken eloquently on the rationale behind the decision of Christian Solidarity Worldwide to move from a position of impartiality to a position of advocacy on behalf of the Armenians. I would be very interested to hear the Minister's response to Christian Solidarity Worldwide's analysis that, unlike Azerbaijan, whose oil resources excite much international and commercial interest, the plight of the people of Karabakh is not seen at first hand by those who represent the international community and who make decisions affecting their future, so that, as a result, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are generally denied the opportunity to present their case that Azerbaijan is the primary aggressor.
But there have been some signs that it may be possible to break the impasse, and these fragile shoots of hope must be nurtured. The guns in Nagorno-Karabakh are for the moment silent, as both sides have generally observed a Russian mediated ceasefire in place since May 1994, although, as your Lordships have heard, regular violations do, regrettably, occur. Moreover, both sides have expressed their support for the OSCE-mediated peace process, now entering its seventh year. But, while this state of affairs is welcome, it alone is not enough. Without progress towards a durable settlement it could break down. In the absence of real peace and a permanent solution to the dispute, it is precarious and will continue to hurt both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Much more must be done to bring lasting peace and genuine regional co-operation.
As your Lordships have heard, there was some optimism just over a year ago that the Minsk Group could foster a political agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The French, Russian and United States co-chairmen drew up new proposals for an interim settlement, based on the premise that at present there is no status for Nagorno-Karabakh that would be acceptable to both sides and therefore that it would be constructive to concentrate on the security aspects of ending the armed conflict in the first place, with talks on status issues to follow.
Does the Minister agree with the Minsk Group's rationale in drawing up this proposal, that, short of imposing a solution on one side or the other—something the international community has vowed not to do— discussions on status could take many years, during which time the life of the region would be disrupted by the ever-present threat of war, while stunted economic development, particularly in Armenia, would continue to deprive the people of the Caucasus of the well-being and stability that they deserve? Does the Minister agree that concentrating on status first is likely to return the talks to the circular exchanges of maximalist positions that have characterised negotiations to date? Furthermore, what steps or suggestions do the
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Government have which may break this stalemate? Will they take a positive approach to build on this proposal in order to negotiate an early settlement?
Let me now turn briefly to the position of Her Majesty's Government. Although the United Kingdom is not a member of the Minsk Group, Ministers have always been willing to support its efforts. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in particular, pointed out, a diplomat has been attached to the Chairman in Office's staff, and officers have been seconded to the High Level Planning Group. As my noble friend Lady Park has pointed out, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said during the debate in your Lordships' House in July 1997 that the Government had not yet reviewed the position on the relationship between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity in relation to the Caucasus developments in the context of the OSCE's principles guiding relations between participating states.
The second of these principles refers to the inviolability of internationally recognised frontiers, and the fourth refers to the territorial integrity of states. Have the Government yet reviewed the position and can the Minister give an assurance that the Government's policy remains that any change in the status of Nagorno-Karabakh has to be mutually agreed by the authorities of the countries concerned and that the right to self-determination does not equate automatically to a right to secession?
I should now like to turn to the important consideration put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, on the question of human rights. I should like to ask the Minister about the Government's recent representations and discussions with the authorities in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh on issues of human rights and democracy, particularly in view of the Government's ethical dimension to foreign policy. Last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross visited 11 people held in relation to this conflict—six held by Azerbaijan and five held by the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities. In their most recent annual report, Amnesty International gave details of 20 possible prisoners of conscience who were reportedly held solely on grounds of their ethnic origin in connection with the Karabakh conflict, half of whom were subsequently released in prisoner exchanges.
I hope that the Government have offered to help the International Committee of the Red Cross in their repeated requests to the concerned parties to provide notification of any persons captured in relation to the conflict, to provide access to all places of detention connected with the conflict and to release all such prisoners, as well as to provide information on the fate of persons reported as missing in action. There is consensus in this House that the international community has not only a moral but a strategic imperative to seek a comprehensive negotiated settlement to end the destruction, suffering and uncertainty caused by the forces of separatism and nationalism, as clearly demonstrated by the dispute between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
Stability in this strategically vital area—an area which may contain as much as 200 billion barrels of oil—is critical. Central Asia and, within it, the Transcaucasus,

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borders China, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan and has growing economic ties with Pakistan and India. Armenia and Azerbaijan are located on what has the potential to be a valuable trade and transport corridor along the old Silk Road which once linked Europe's trade with Asia.
So, in conclusion, it is incumbent on the international community to support reform, democracy, economic development and integration, to strengthen modern political and economic institutions and to assist in energy development. Much is at stake, and the United Kingdom has always been ready to play its part, with the international community, in the quest for a just and lasting resolution of such conflicts. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what initiatives the Government intend to take in this respect.
8.55 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I too thank the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, for introducing the debate this evening. Indeed I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in it.
The House last debated Nagorno-Karabakh in July 1997 and I regret to tell your Lordships that there has been little progress in negotiations since then. The international community, in particular the OSCE Minsk Group, has been working for seven years to facilitate and negotiate a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Success is still some way off. However, there is a positive side. The ceasefire has held for nearly five years. We welcome the commitment of the parties to continue it until there is a political settlement. But the situation, as many noble Lords have described, remains very fragile. All parties need to exercise restraint in all actions and also in their rhetoric.
I am bound to say that much of what we have heard this evening has been profoundly depressing in the description of the history of this conflict. I was forcibly struck by the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, about the difficulties of getting people together when on occasions we cannot even get some discussions in your Lordships' House. But the Government have been working—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—as did the previous government to encourage the states in the Transcaucasus to see that their common interests lie in an early resolution to all the conflicts in the region through dialogue. We are convinced that there can be no military solution to these problems. The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, says, of course, that we are not members of the Minsk Group, but we do give full support to its efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh and we have given practical assistance such as seconding the official of whom the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, spoke to work as an adviser to the personal representative of the chairman-in-office of the Minsk Group.
The noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, asked me about the possibility of Her Majesty's Government joining the Minsk Group. We decided not to do so when it was set up in 1992, but we keep an open mind on possible future membership. We would wish to join only if we could be
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sure of making a positive contribution to the negotiating process and provided that the Minsk: Group and the parties were in favour.
The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, has referred to an outstanding request for additional assistance to the OSCE. The personal representative has asked whether we could appoint a successor to the official who worked with him in 1997. We have not yet identified a suitably qualified individual. But we supported the proposal at the December 1998 meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council to open OSCE offices in both Baku and Yerevan. I understand that the OSCE chairman-in-office is pursuing this matter at the moment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Park, alluded to the tensions between, on the one hand, territorial integrity and, on the other, self-determination. Indeed, many of your Lordships alluded to that striking of a balance, including the noble Lord. Lord Hylton, and the noble Viscount in his opening speech.
We want to see a solution in Nagorno-Karabakh based on the three key principles set out at nhe Lisbon Summit: the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Republic should be preserved; the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be defined in an agreement based on self-determination to the highest degree possible; and the security of Nagorno-Karabakh and its whole population should be guaranteed, including mutual obligations to ensure compliance by all parties with the provisions of a settlement. Fifty-three out of 54 member states of the OSCE supported these principles in Lisbon. Only Armenia objected.
A number of noble Lords have asked about the Minsk Group's "common state" proposals. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, rightly said, as non-members we are, rightly, not aware of the detail of the negotiations between the co-chairs and the parties to the conflict. We must recognise that, despite the best efforts of the Minsk Group, there can be progress only if the parties to the dispute negotiate in good faith. We have been encouraged by the meetings between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, most recently in December last year. We urge them to resume this dialogue.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I welcome the plans of the chairman-in-office of the OSCE, Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek, to visit the region in April. We hope that his visit will help to achieve a resumption of regular talks between the parties, to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred.
The noble Earl, Lord Shannon, described what I thought he thought of as an intractable conflict. But Her Majesty's Government strongly desire a sustainable peace in the transcaucasus region. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, it is a region with great potential for economic growth and prosperity, but with a tragic recent history of conflict. As the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, said, the United Kingdom enjoys good relations, respect and growing economic ties with all three countries in the region, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, the Foreign Minister of Armenia is visiting this week. Some noble Lords have obviously heard his address this afternoon in the Moses Room. He has met my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and for Defence, as well as representatives of British business and academe. Noble Lords may also recall the successful visit of President Aliyev of Azerbaijan in July last year. We have tried to use these visits to encourage both countries to engage seriously in the search for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
We have an interest in stability in the region, not least because our economic stake in it is growing. The engagement of British companies in developing the very significant energy reserves of the Caspian Sea is well known. Despite the current depressed conditions in the oil market, the signs are that British companies wish to remain engaged for the long term. But that is not the whole story. We have a diverse and growing trade with Georgia and Armenia. Official Armenian figures show that their imports from the United Kingdom in 1998 were around six-and-a-half times those of the previous year, an exponential growth.
Noble Lords may be aware that as part of our long-term commitment to relations with the Caspian region, Her Majesty's Government are increasing our diplomatic effort in the region to a level closer to that of our main competitors. We know that more peace in the region would mean more prosperity for its peoples and—I am not ashamed to say—more opportunities for the United Kingdom. But unresolved conflict puts a brake on the development of infrastructure, slows economic development and threatens investment.
I believe very strongly that we must not despair. I agree with the points that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, made about the importance of nurturing what I think he described as the "shoots of hope for the future", fragile though I agree they are Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are involved in a European Union project, with our support, to revive the silk road by improving transport infrastructure and policies throughout the whole region—the TRACECA Project, as it is called. This should help the Transcaucasus once again to benefit from its position astride major trade routes, and both countries can see the advantages to them of co-operation in it. The development of Caspian oil and its export to world markets should provide an economic stimulus to the whole region.
We will continue to encourage economic development through trade and investment. But we shall not neglect the importance of integrating the states into the international community in other ways. We shall continue to urge Armenia and Azerbaijan to address the
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human rights concerns which so many noble Lords have raised this evening and which, together with the failure to find a resolution to the conflict, are hindering their entry into the Council of Europe. I am pleased to note that the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly has recommended that Georgia be invited to become a full member of the organisation, with the requirement that Georgia meets certain commitments. I hope that this will act as a spur to her two neighbours.
We have also done what we can to alleviate the suffering of the refugees and internally displaced people in the region, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, referred. Since fighting began in 1992 we have given more than £10 million in bilateral humanitarian aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan, channelled mainly through reputable relief agencies, to assist the displaced populations. The United Kingdom has also given more than £2.5 million to appeals for the Transcaucasus region. There has been some concern expressed about care being taken in the ways in which we do this. I can assure your Lordships that we are very careful on those points.
I also welcome the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley—similar points were made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury—about confidence-building measures for the future. I commend to your Lordships the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that inter-parliamentary dialogue may help foster peace. I hope that this House and another place may be able to play a role in that. For their part, the Government have already urged both Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel landmines. We will continue to look for creative contributions in the future.
A number of detailed questions were asked. The noble Baroness asked me about prisoners; the noble Lord, Lord Newall, asked about Azeri refugees; and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked a specific question about prisoners. I should like to reply to those points in writing as I see that the clock has beaten me. However, I hope that some of the points I have been trying to make to your Lordships across the board answered a number of the points that have arisen in the debate.
"What are we going to do?", asked the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. We are going to continue to do everything we can to encourage our friends and partners on both sides of this bitter and fruitless conflict to work for a fair and sustainable peace so that the region can at last begin to realise its potential. In recent years other conflicts—in Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere—have had more attention from the international community. That is of course true. But the OSCE Minsk Group and its three co-chairs have continued to work patiently to narrow the gaps between the parties. We very much hope that their efforts will bear fruit; and, for our part, we shall do all that we can to support those efforts.
House adjourned at eight minutes past nine o'clock.