Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
RT HON
LORD FALCONER
OF THOROTON
QC AND ALEX
ALLAN
28 FEBRUARY 2006
Q160 Mr Tyrie: You must have discussed
this with the Prime Minister and you clearly will not disclose
exactly what those discussions were but it does seem pretty extraordinary
that the Prime Minister himself has ruled out an option on the
grounds that it is unworkable and you are now suggesting—and
indeed you have more or less made it clear in the exchange that
we have just had—that that is exactly what any consensus
is likely to throw up.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: What
I am saying is the right way forward on Lords reform is that if
there is a consensus let us harvest the consensus and make the
reform. I am saying as well, and it is from the Chairman's first
question, is that a consensus that senior members of the Government
could sign up to? Answer, yes it is, there is a consensus there
but I do not know what will happen in these discussions.
Q161 Mr Tyrie: There do seem to be
quite a number of views coming out of the Government on all of
this. Baroness Amos, who is Leader in the Lords, has expressed
a very clear view on this only recently. I do not know whether
you know this.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Is
this the Glasgow Herald interview?
Q162 Mr Tyrie: Yes, in which she
said that she favours halving the size of the House of Lords and
the introduction of 80% elected and 20% appointed. Is it now open
season within the Government's expression of views? We have a
Prime Minister whose views are going to be set aside by you, although
you are not going to describe it as that, in seeking this consensus.
You have got your Leader of the Lords expressing a very clear
view about the direction of reform before the joint committee
has reported. I will come on to what Lord Carter said this morning
in a seminar, if I need to, in just a moment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: It
is an area, is it not, where for a very long time, certainly since
the manifesto and the general election, it has been a free vote
issue? Therefore, you would expect members of political parties
within the same political party to have different views. That
is why the consensus building process is something that is worthwhile
to do because you might well discover that although there were
disagreements on the margins, on the question of what the main
elements of reform should be, should it be hybrid, for example,
should the primacy of the Commons be preserved, there would be
broad agreement.
Q163 Mr Tyrie: The good news that
I took from your interview was—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Was
there bad news as well?
Q164 Mr Tyrie: I think the bad news
is that the Government is at sixes and sevens on this. It is kind
of you to ask me some questions. The good news is that you appear
to be saying that you want to bring composition and powers back
together again if you can find a consensus for them whereas the
previous approach, and the one that was articulated this morning
by Lord Carter, is that your manifesto commitment enables you
to go ahead with one of those without the other, indeed the government's
commitment to democracy has effectively been dropped. Those were
his remarks this morning. Could you clarify where you stand on
that point?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: In
terms of the consensus building, the consensus would have to be
on both powers and composition because I think the two go together,
though you need to look at both to reach a conclusion. You are
not going to have a consensus if there is disagreement on one
or other of those two issues. The consensus I seek to build is
one that covers both of those issues, as I think it has to.
Q165 Chairman: On constitutional
issues, a couple of further points: have you any initial response
to the report being produced by the group chaired by Baroness
Kennedy on the broad constitutional and parliamentary issues?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I think
it was a very important and very timely report. I think we do
need to consider very, very carefully the recommendations that
she is making. Obviously, we do not agree with every single one
of them. For example, we had indicated that whilst we would come
back to the issue of votes at 16 that might not be something for
immediate implementation. The points he is making about the need
for there to be more democratic engagement seem to me to be broadly
right. The question is how, and she has got 30 recommendations
and I think we need to consider them very carefully.
Q166 Chairman: Are you going to make
some kind of structured response at some stage?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: We
will definitely make a structured response—and this is not
a matter for me but it is obviously subject to the usual channels—and
it is plainly something which, certainly speaking for the House
of Lords, we should, subject to the usual channels agreeing, think
about having a proper debate about as early as possible because
I think a lot of people who engage in democratic politics would
agree very strongly with the identification of the problem. The
question is how we gather round a number of solutions.
Q167 Mr Tyrie: That was a very helpful
and constructive reply and my heart is warmed by it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I am
very glad you are keeping us fully informed as to your feelings
throughout. If there are any more medical bulletins—
Q168 Mr Tyrie: I am glad that the
Government is picking up the report and it has many views on this
subject. You did say just a moment ago, which I thought was very
interesting, that you are definitely going to go ahead with a
free vote on composition before the end of the year.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Yes.
Mr Tyrie: Are you going to make any effort
to guide how that vote should be conducted in terms of options,
because what went wrong last time was that we just had this plethora
of options which ended up—
Q169 Chairman: I hear a preferential
system.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: There
are two things to say on that. Yes, obviously, there needs to
be some way to work out, and I think it is much more for the Commons
to work this out than anybody else, what it is that people actually
genuinely want to vote on and how you can ensure that you structure
the vote in such a way not that you get a particular answer but
that you get the questions that people in the House of Commons
actually want answered. It has to be sufficiently clear what people
are voting on and I suspect there have to be maybe fewer questions
than there were previously.
Q170 Mr Tyrie: Can I suggest four
votes: wholly appointed, wholly elected, largely elected, largely
appointed, and leave it for a committee to define exactly what
they mean subsequently? You can have a huge influence on this
if you want to.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I note
what you say in relation to all that. The other point I was going
to make was that it is a free vote, as we have said, but if a
consensus emerged then no doubt we would give an indication of
what we thought at that point.
Q171 Chairman: While we are talking
about voting systems, your department has been beavering away
on voting systems for ages. In July 2005 Harriet Harman said,
"We were reviewing those systems and officials in my department
are doing desk research". When is this PhD going to be published?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I cannot
give you a precise date as to where we are but the work continues.
This is the review on how the various electoral systems throughout
the country work or are operated and the work is going on in my
department.
Q172 Chairman: Is this a process
that has a next stage? At one stage it was said that there was
going to be some public consultation at the end of this.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: It
is work being done internally within the department by officials
looking at how the various systems work.
Q173 Chairman: But there are books
and theses written on all this.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: So
many books and theses are there that it has taken a very long
time to go through all these books.
Q174 Chairman: No consultants are
involved?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: No
consultants, no. It has been done by my excellent officials.
Chairman: We await a report without much
eager anticipation at the moment, but let us turn to another problem.
Q175 Jeremy Wright: Lord Chancellor,
can I bring you to the question of extraordinary rendition and
first of all ask you this? Are you satisfied now as to the facts
of whether extraordinary rendition has happened in this country
and, if it has, how often?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I have
the facts as stated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, various
statements made by Jack Straw about it, which I accept.
Q176 Jeremy Wright: What do you think
the duty of the Government is so far as extraordinary rendition
is concerned? What I mean by that is how active a duty do you
think the Government has to investigate whether or not this has
happened?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: We
are a signatory to the Torture Convention. Article 12, I think
it is, of the Torture Convention requires a signatory of it to
investigate through the competent authority where they believe
that torture or something associated with it—those are not
the exact words—might be taking place. The competent authority
would plainly be the police in these circumstances. That is our
obligation. If there were a reason for us to believe that rendition
through this country was taking place, and by extraordinary rendition
I mean people being rendered to another country for the purposes
of torturing them, we would have an obligation to investigate
it and stop it in so far as it was happening in this country.
Jack has set out what the position is in some detail. He has thoroughly
looked into what the position is and I accept what he says in
relation to it.
Q177 Jeremy Wright: But you are,
of course, a Minister with direct responsibility in this area,
are you not, in relation to human rights and to inhuman and degrading
treatment, it therefore follows, so you would want to be satisfied
yourself, would you not, that every potential incident of extraordinary
rendition had been properly investigated? That must follow.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Indeed.
Q178 Jeremy Wright: And it is right,
is it not, that you have seen, as we have all seen in the press,
specific allegations particularly of American flights coming into
this country? Again, just to be clear, are you satisfied on a
personal level that each of those alleged incidents has been fully
investigated by the police or by other agencies?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I cannot
say for sure that I have looked at every single allegation that
has been made because I do not know the range of allegations that
have been made. I am responsible for human rights policy in the
Government. That is a different role from being a police officer
in relation to extraordinary rendition. If a government department,
for example, is responsible for sex or race discrimination within
the Government, that does to mean that that particular government
minister becomes a police officer responsible for going round
every single department and investigating every single incident,
and indeed it would be both wrong and an ineffective way of preventing
the sorts of things to which you are referring to make the relevant
minister a police officer. I regard myself as having a responsibility
in this respect. Equally, I am part of a Government where there
is mutual trust and confidence between myself and the Foreign
Secretary and between my department and the FCO.
Q179 Chairman: There is a Lords division
now and I will not adjourn the committee in the Lord Chancellor's
absence because I would like to ask Alex Allan a question, which
is that we are in discussion with you about your spring supplementary
estimates.
Alex Allan: Indeed, yes.
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