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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): No one is likely to dispute the need to defend the public against those who undoubtedly suffer from the personality disorders that my right hon. Friend has described. However, does he accept that there is bound to be unease--this has already been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House--over the possibility of abuses and the nightmare scenario of finding in 25 years' time that someone has been wrongfully detained from the beginning? The House should be concerned with individuals as well as with the general public. If the powers are to be taken, is it not essential that there should be sufficient safeguards to make it difficult for the mistakes that I have mentioned to occur? There must be regular reviews and people who have been detained without committing an offence must be represented. It will be difficult to be fully satisfied, but the review system should be sufficient to make us reasonable satisfied that the rights of individuals will not be abused.
Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend raises an important point. As I have said, we have to ensure that there are safeguards. The regular reviews--I have talked about them occurring every year or two--should make it impossible for someone to be wrongly detained for 25 years. An individual may protest for 25 years that he has been wrongly detained, but the decision will be for the court or tribunal, which will regularly review the situation.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham): Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a blanket condemnation of care in the community as a failure saddens and angers the many thousands in the community for whom it has been a success and the volunteers and professionals who look after them? Does he anticipate a change in the balance of care for those with severe personality disorders away from incarceration--which his statement reeked of--towards a more therapeutic community and a greater provision of secure accommodation in the health service?
Mr. Straw: I do not for a second condemn or criticise those who have the care of the mentally ill in the community, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has said that, in his judgment, care in the community has failed vulnerable people. I, too, have long
held that view, not least from my constituency experience. The hon. Lady and I may disagree on the matter, but I do not regard current provisions as satisfactory.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Since your 12 o'clock meeting, there have been reports of civilian casualties and of further military action over Iraq. Ought it not to be made clear to the House whether we are in a state of war? If we are not, and there is a direct hit or a malfunction by a Tornado, the pilots, British or American, will be in a simply parlous position. Have you had any request from the Foreign Office to make a statement either about the military situation in Iraq or about the reports of Iraqi threats against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Perhaps this is a matter of paramount importance.
Madam Speaker: I have not had any request from the Foreign Office to make a statement today on that issue. We have tomorrow to look to, but, as far as I know, there is no statement forthcoming.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you read the report by Oxford Economic Forecasting and the London business school, stating that we are already technically in a recession? Have you received any request from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come to the House and explain how a golden economic legacy could have been so quickly transformed?
Madam Speaker: I fear that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to prolong debate rather than to raise a point of order. Let us move on.
Orders of the Day
House of Lords Bill
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 5, leave out 'a member' and insert
'entitled to vote in a division'.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 23, in page 1, line 6, at end add
', except that holders of an hereditary peerage shall enjoy the same rights as any other member of the House of Lords (including the right to speak and vote) during any debate on a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of a Parliament beyond five years.'.
No. 10, in title, line 1, leave out 'End' and insert 'Restrict'.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
I thank the President of the Council for so readily accepting that this Bill, perhaps above all others, is one that should be taken in all its stages on the Floor of the House. I am delighted to see her here. Having said that, there is little else on which I can congratulate her. The amendments have one aim in view: to make a bad Bill better.
Now is not the time to repeat all the arguments that were advanced on Second Reading a fortnight ago, but it was clear from that debate that the Government had moved far too hastily and introduced a Bill without giving proper thought to its consequences or any thought whatever to the consequences of stage 2. I recognise that it is not appropriate for us to debate stage 2 in detail, or even at all. I shall, therefore, concentrate my remarks entirely on stage 1. Amendment No. 1 is designed to try to ensure that the interim House of Lords has quality and can still perform as effectively as the present House, and that there is some continuity.
The amendment's aim is not to challenge the Government on the hereditary peers' right to vote, but there is a great deal to be said for allowing hereditary peers to sit in the interim House of Lords and to perform the duties in which many of them have been conspicuously successful over the years. On Second Reading, I pointed out that 40 per cent. of the regular attenders in the House of Lords are hereditary peers. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their hard work, and I was glad that the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office, who wound up the debate on Second Reading, accepted that without equivocation. If that 40 per cent. are not allowed to attend the House after the Bill's passage, there will be a large, consequential burden on life peers.
We have to remember that we are discussing not paid legislators, but those who have a high ideal of public service. The average peer costs the taxpayer some £6,400
a year in allowances. Although we in this place are not paid a king's ransom, we are paid significantly more than that. There is hardly a peer in the other place who draws more than £10,000 in allowances. We are dealing not with full-time legislators, but with people who give their time, talents and expertise, often in specific areas where they have particular knowledge, and do so entirely selflessly.
In recognising that fact, we must recognise the type of Chamber that the other place is. Parliament has two main functions. One is to hold the Executive to account and the other is to scrutinise legislation. Nobody could argue that it is not appropriate that the holding to account should be done particularly in this Chamber, where the elected representatives of the people, day after day in Question Time and other forums, have the opportunity to call Ministers to account.
Equally, one could not argue with any great conviction that our powers of scrutiny are exercised as effectively as they should be. Whole swathes of legislation, particularly secondary legislation, are never adequately debated in this Chamber, but much of that legislation is effectively scrutinised in the other place. In the previous Session, for example, 3,963 amendments were passed in the House of Lords. There were only 179 Divisions in the Lords during the whole Session, of which the Government won 134--about 75 per cent. Those Bills were subjected to a degree of scrutiny and attention that they did not receive here. That scrutiny came not only from life peers, but from hereditary peers, who play a substantial part in the positive work of improving legislation.
It is easy to single out certain hereditary peers as being exemplary, both in their attendance and their achievement. I have no desire to delay the Committee inordinately by going through a catalogue of such peers, because we desire not to hold up the Bill's passage, but to subject it to proper scrutiny.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
Did my hon. Friend notice that, when he was paying justified tribute to the selfless public service and excellent scrutiny providedby hereditary peers, the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell) was snorting in disapproval? Does my hon. Friend think that, if Government Back Benchers do not want similarly to pay tribute, they ought to explain by what, if not public service, hereditary peers are motivated and whether Labour's game plan is to reduce legitimate scrutiny in future?
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