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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. These are important matters that should be heard with equal fairness on both sides of the House.
Mr. Duncan Smith: The Labour party does not care about the constitution. All it cares about is gerrymandering the constitution so that it can have its people in the right place at the right time. That is the charge. The Prime Minister is guilty of fiddling with the system without consultation. He has sacked his boss, promoted his flatmate and fiddled throughout.
The one clear message coming from the Government from last week's botched reshuffle is that neither this House nor the British people can have any faith in the Government. We cannot believe a word the Prime Minister says any more.
The Prime Minister: Let us first deal with consultation. We said on Thursday that there would be consultation papers by the end of the summer on the independent judicial appointments commission and the fact that the Lord Chancellor would no longer sit as a judge in the House of Lords. Of course, both changes would have to be subject to Acts of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman asks how long the transition will take—it will take as long as the Acts of Parliament. Of course, we will have a full debate in both Houses of Parliament about it, so the idea that there is no consultation or chance for debate is plainly absurd.
As for the speakership of the House of Lords, again, as we said on Thursday, that will be subject to their Lordships' wishes—it is up to them. I would have thought that they would welcome the chance to have an independent Speaker in the House of Lords, nominated by them. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman asks why we do not ask them. We are asking them. That is exactly what we are doing. That is why, until they agree, we cannot change the position, but we want them to agree because it makes sense for the modern world.
Let us suppose that the Speaker in the House of Lords was elected by that House at present and I said, "I'm going to change that. I'm going to have a Cabinet Minister doing that job." Imagine the outcry that there would be then. All we are proposing is that the other House have charge of selecting its own Speaker as we do here. How that is a move to dictatorship baffles me.
The one thing that I never heard from the right hon. Gentleman was his position on the changes. He says that I am perpetrating this terrible constitutional outrage. Does he agree that there should be an independent judicial appointments commission? [Hon. Members: "Answer!"] Let's have some quiet. He said that there has been no consultation. I am consulting—I am asking him now. Does he agree with an independent judicial appointments commission? He cannot tell us—[Interruption].
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he has made a statement and the questions are put to the Prime Minister. I think that we will make more progress if we maintain that traditional balance.
The Prime Minister : We do not know either whether the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) agrees to the Lord Chancellor being a member of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. What is the Conservatives' position? We do not know, but we do know their position on the Secretary of State for Scotland—in their last manifesto, they advocated getting rid of that as a separate office.
As for the right hon. Gentleman's statement about how much he wants all Scottish affairs to be dealt with by Scotland and all English affairs to be dealt with by
English Ministers, who is his shadow Secretary of State for Scotland? The hon. Lady in question sits for a constituency in the London borough of Bromley. Here we are with this great constitutional outrage and the Conservatives cannot even tell us whether they are in favour of the changes or against them. They are outraged "don't knows". It is no good the right hon. Gentleman pointing his finger. He should give us his position.The fact is that these are sensible, modernising changes, which have been sought for many years. They involve the Prime Minister giving away power rather than keeping it. They are of a piece with the changes that we have already made. Of course, when we proposed devolution, the Conservatives said that it would lead to the break up of the United Kingdom—now, they support it. When we proposed the Human Rights Act, they told us that it was a constitutional disgrace—now, they support it. When we told them that we wanted hereditary peers out of the House of Lords, they said that it was terrible—and they still think it terrible. Now, the right hon. Gentleman wants to fight to the death to keep the Minister in charge of our court system in a full-bottomed wig, 18th century breeches, and women's tights, sitting on a woolsack rather than running the Court Service. That says a lot more about the Conservative party than about the Labour party. If that is the centrepiece of the right hon. Gentleman's electoral strategy, roll on the election.
Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Inverness, West): My colleagues and certainly those on the Labour Benches will be relieved to know that I simply want to put some brief questions to the Prime Minister. Of course, that is a reflection of my own inadequacies as I have not benefited from the tremendous mechanism known as the No. 10 website.
The Prime Minister is well aware, as is the House, that the Liberal Democrats have long been urging further constitutional reforms upon the Government. Our two parties co-operated in opposition and we saw the fruits of that when Labour came to power, and we would like the progress on constitutional reform to continue. Therefore credit is due for the package that has been announced. As Ministers have indicated, however, that has been somewhat overshadowed by the confusions and fracas that accompanied it. Listening to the Prime Minister make his statement I thought that the more its content was analysed, the greater the case became for having had a proper White Paper with an accompanying consultation process.
First, the move towards the creation of a supreme court is both overdue and very welcome. The Liberal Democrats' only regret is that it does not go far enough. We would prefer the establishment of a department of justice, bringing criminal and civil justice together under one head. Will the Prime Minister say whether he has ruled that out in his own mind or whether it could be a legitimate part of the consultation process, even if it means renewed debate with the Home Secretary and the Home Office as a whole?
The Government have a practical difficulty in that there are no fewer than 500 different references in statute to the existing role of the Lord Chancellor. The Prime Minister says that we can make good progress. In abolishing the role of Lord Chancellor, how long does he envisage that it will take to delete or amend those references accordingly? There are a lot of them.
Of course we welcome the independence of judicial appointment for judges, but will the Prime Minister also acknowledge that the present system tends to favour unduly barristers who appear regularly in the higher courts, thereby discriminating against solicitors, women and those from ethnic minorities? Does he agree that that is a pertinent question that should be considered in the consultation process?
On the changes to the Wales Office and the Scotland Office, would it not make more sense to create a department of nations and the regions? In the context of the statement made this week by the Deputy Prime Minister—we certainly welcome the moves towards consultative referendums and the hope of more regionalism within England—could not all those be brought together in one huge territorial department in the longer term?
On the proposal that there should be a department for constitutional reform, is it not something of an anomaly that that would be presided over by a Cabinet Minister who is not answerable to the elected House of Commons? We want to consider the anomalies associated with the role of Lord Chancellor, but we must also be conscious of the anomalies that the proposals would create.
Finally, will the Prime Minister acknowledge that there is one yawning gap in the plans outlined for further constitutional reform? It is the predominantly unelected nature of the upper House. Now that he has appointed a new leader of that House who is himself in favour of a democratically elected second Chamber, will he give his backing to that further move in that direction? Can the consultation process involve a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament, and obviously all Opposition parties? If we had had a greater and more sensible level of consultation, could we not have avoided some of the difficulties of the past few days? Is not that one of the important lessons to learn from this recent episode?
The Prime Minister: First, I take it from that that the Liberal Democrats are basically in favour of the proposals. I therefore find it odd that so many of them voted with the Conservatives against the proposals last night. Anyway, perhaps that should not really be a matter of surprise.
In respect of the point about the supreme court, that will be part of the consultation process. We announced last Thursday that two consultation papers on each of these major issues will be put to people before the summer recess. The proposals will have to be introduced, of course, through an Act of Parliament, which must go through this House with debate and through the upper House with debate. Therefore, the idea that there will be no debate or consultation is patently absurd, because of the process that we need to go through.
As for a ministry of justice, I am not in favour of that. Let me explain to the right hon Gentleman why that has never been proposed by the Government or me. It is
important that we keep the criminal law and criminal justice system with the Home Secretary in respect of police fighting crime and other issues. What we have been trying to do over the past few years is to move out of the Home Office some of the constitutional functions so that it can concentrate, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is doing so well, on law and order, fighting crime, antisocial behaviour and asylum and immigration issues. That is why the Lord Chancellor's Department is obviously going to deal with many of the constitutional issues that the Home Office has been dealing with up to now.In relation to solicitors and ethnic minorities, the right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. That is one of the reasons why people have thought that it is better to have a more transparent and open system.
I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned this because I was going to point this out if he did not. He has put forward the Liberal Democrat proposal in relation to the Secretary of State for Scotland and Wales, which effectively means getting rid of those posts and having one Secretary of State for the nations and regions. Of course, that is one possible avenue. The reason I do not think it is the right one, however, is that it would be very odd then in circumstances where, let us say, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was Secretary of State for the nations and regions, to go up to Scotland as Secretary of State for Scotland, effectively speaking for Scotland—[Interruption.] There is a debate about those issues, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman can see that there would be anomalies in the position that he puts forward, too.
In relation to the issue of an elected upper House, I have already said that that should be a matter in which Members of Parliament should have a free vote. There will be different views: different views exist in the Cabinet, and, I am sure, in the shadow Cabinet. There are different views in the right hon. Gentleman's party, too. The most important thing, however, is that we have a debate as Members of Parliament and that we decide. My preoccupation on this issue has always been that we must not end up replicating the House of Commons in the House of Lords. That would be a mistake, and it would not help our constitution.
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