I have spent several hours this weekend – to be honest, more than I intended – finishing reading Chris Mullin’s second volume of diaries, “Decline and Fall” – the excellent follow up to “A View from the Foothills”.  I had thought that without the vignettes of (junior) ministerial life, it might be less interesting than its predecessor.  In fact, I found I could hardly put it down.  His account of the last days of Pompeii (editorial note: this is a metaphor) remained riveting and his accounts of those events where I too was present were unerringly accurate and beutifully described.  So, if you’ve not already bought it, I recommend you get it for yourself as an early Christmas present.

I have just been to an event organised by the Probation Association for MPs and Peers to meet probation trust chairs and chief executives.  The intention was to broaden the understanding by Parliamentarians of probation – often regarded as the Cinderella of the criminal justice system.  This was a laudable intention and there was a good turnout of members of both Houses.

What was striking, however, was how mono-ethnic the probation trust chief executives were.  I spoke to Beverley Thompson, whom I first knew when she chaired the Metropolitan Police’s Independent Advisory Group.  She is now the Acting Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Probation.  However, as far as I could tell, she is the only black chief executive in the country – and an acting one at that.

Given the probation service’s workforce and the make-up of their clientele, I find this lack of senior black probation leaders surprising and depressing – it’s a bit like the Police Service.

The Prime Minister was very critical about the failure of the Metropolitan Police to protect Conservative Party HQ on the occasion of the last demonstration by students. 

In planning for today’s demonstration, it seems that Sir Paul Stephenson has taken to heart the comments about “a thin blue line”.  When I went through Trafalgar Square earlier the entire Square seemed to be surrounded by police carriers and a former Commissioner of the Met has just informed me that he had seen three rows of police horses a few minutes earlier. 

And kettling is back – as called for by Gareth Bacon, a Conservative member of the London Assembly.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jscatalunya#p/a/u/0/pDGXMsmjYcE

Lynne Featherstone MP likes to describe herself rather grandly as ”Minister for Equalities” In fact, she is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (usually abbreviated to PUSS in civil service parlance) in the Home Office.  During her pre-Ministerial life she had a reputation as a campaigner for whom no gesture was too demeaning for her to make it.

Now, as a Minister, she tries to behave all-statesmanlike.

And today, she was called to the House of Commons despatch box to answer an Urgent Question granted by the Speaker because a policy change had been announced to the media before it had been reported to Parliament.

And the announcement?  This was that the Conservative Coalition, of which she is proud to serve as Equalites figleaf/Minister, has decided not to implement legislation passed by Parliament (under the Labour Government) earlier this year which would have required public bodies to take action to address socio-economic disadvantage.

And the justification?  There was no need for such a duty and to include such a duty in Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 was “an empty gesture”.

Apparently, Lynne Featherstone MP – the Minister – wants to reassure us as she put it today:

“Equality is at the heart of what this coalition Government are all about.”

Of course, that is not what Lynne Featherstone MP – the non-Minister – said last year in the debate on the Second Reading of the Equality Bill.  Then she called for even more powers in the Bill.  Her words were:

“The Government should have made legislative proposals to tackle socio-economic inequality in a Bill of its own”.—[Official Report, 11 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 579.]

As Fiona McTaggart MP for the Opposition pointed out after Lynne Featherstone’s public u-turn in the House of Commons this morning:

“Dropping the socio-economic duty was not in the coalition agreement. It was a major part of the Equality Act 2010, which Parliament passed only this year. While we know that the Conservatives have never wanted Government to take responsibility for building a more equal society, that is not the view that the hon. Lady herself has previously taken.”

And asked:

“What proposals will the Minister now bring forward to assess the impact of Government policies on the most disadvantaged? Despite her fine words, is it not true that this Government simply do not care about socio-economic inequality? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has proved that the Government are hitting the poorest hardest. If there is no duty, how will people know about the impact of Government decisions on the most disadvantaged?

With this duty in place, public bodies would have had to think about what they should be doing to improve life chances. We all know about Sure Start; indeed, the Minister referred to it. We know its fantastic work, and how its impact is greatest on the most disadvantaged children. Councils would have had a duty to take that into account if they were thinking of closing children’s centres, but she is now saying that they will not. Does she think that is right?  …

The Minister said that we cannot deliver inequality by legislation, but the simple truth is that the Government do not believe that they have any responsibility to deliver a fairer society. Of course, legislation does not work like magic, but it is a key way that Government can change things. Road safety legislation does not stop all accidents, but it does make our roads safer and it does save children’s lives. This duty would have helped to make our society fairer, and it would have given poorer people a fair chance, so why is she scrapping it?”

Answer came there none.

When I was a member of the London Assembly from 2000 to 2004, the membership included three life peers (apart from myself, LibDems Baroness Hamwee and Lord Tope).  Then when I lost my seat, the number fell to two from 2004 to 2008.  However, since 2008 there has been no cross-representation between the House of Lords and the London Assembly.

I understand now (from three separate sources) that next month this will change when Dee Doocey is made a Baroness as part of the massive Upper House packing operation that the Conservative Coalition is about to embark upon.

I gather she will will be one of fifteen or so new LibDem peers who will be appointed along with an additional thirty odd Tory peers to give the Conservative Coalition an effective majority in the Upper House of around seventy and bring the total membership of the House to well over eight hundred.

The “touch of class” (note the irony) she will bring to the London Assembly will be short-lived, as she is standing down from the GLA in 2012.

The House of Lords is about to start its consideration of the Bill to cut the number of MPs in the House of Commons by around 8%.  So far the Conservative Coalition have resisted suggestions that if the Bill is passed the number of Ministers sitting in the House of Commons should be reduced pro rata.  Such a reduction would prevent increased domination of the House of Commons by the Executive – a point argued in the recent report of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution.

Meanwhile, over the weekend in France President Sarkozy has restructured his Government and cut the number of Ministers by a quarter from 40 to 30.

So the French President has shown that it can be done, will the Conservative Coalition make a similar commitment?

Probably not, while they have to keep all those Ministerial slots available for their LibDem “friends”.

Staff in the Government Whips’ Office of the House of Lords have opened up a home-made cake stall today in the Ministerial corridor of the Lords to raise money for the BBC’s Children in Need appeal.  By 11.30am large slabs of chocolate cake had already been sold.

This will no doubt be cited as proof that the Big Society can work anywhere …..

You cannot spend any time in the Palace of Westminster without being aware of the deep dissatisfaction that MPs have with IPSA, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

So I am somewhat surprised that there has not been more fuss about the fact that the Information Commissioner has reprimanded IPSA for a security breach just before the summer recess when MPs’ personal information – including banking details and home telephone numbers – were at risk for 21 hours.

According to ITPro:

“A data breach at the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) led to MP’s information being placed at risk, including banking details and home telephone numbers.

The breach occurred on 13 July following IT maintenance on an MP expenses database, allowing people with an expenses account and their clerks to access the information.

The security loophole was left open for 21 hours and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ordered the IPSA to take steps to ensure such a breach does not occur again.

“This case highlights how any work carried out on a database must be subject to rigorous security testing before being re-launched,” said Mick Gorrill, head of enforcement at the ICO.

“MPs carry out a high profile role and the information their expenses claims include could put them at risk of fraud and endanger their security.”

The IPSA, which said it reported the breach to the ICO as soon as it happened, has now signed an undertaking, which includes a requirement to ensure system administrator accounts are reviewed regularly.”

IPSA will shortly be offering courses on how to win friends ……

The House of Lords had another bout of “speed-dating” tonight with speakers limited to two minutes each on the following question:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what would be the effect of an elected House of Lords on relations between the two Houses of Parliament.”

The opening speaker (who had longer than two minutes) was Lord Bruce Grocott, a highly-respected former Chief Whip, who pointed out that the current primacy of the House of Lords would not continue if/when the House of Lords is elected.  Of the relationship between the Lords and the Commons. he said:

“The basis of the relationship could not be simpler; the primacy of the Commons is secured by the fact that it is elected and we are not. That is the conclusion of the report, which explains the current relationship. My argument is very simple and I shall try to develop it. An elected upper Chamber—whatever you call it—would fundamentally change that relationship for the worse.”

He argues that an elected upper House would no longer defer to the House of Commons, pointing out:

“Frankly, it would be bound to be the case. People who say that there is nothing to worry about do not even begin to imagine what it would be like to stand as a senator for this House—I refer to senators for the sake of argument—and say to one’s electorate, “I very strongly oppose the poll tax”, or, “I very strongly oppose the imposition of an identity card system and will do so as strongly as I can as a senator in the House of Lords but ultimately I will stop opposing it if the Commons insists”. That would be a very peculiar plea to put to your electorate when you are hoping to be elected to this House.

I wish to dismiss the other common argument reasonably quickly: that is, when people say that there is nothing to worry about because other parliaments across the world have no difficulty whatever in having two elected Houses. The answer to that question is so obvious that I am almost embarrassed to repeat it; they started with a blank sheet of paper. We have a House with existing powers, which in most respects are identical to those of the House of Commons. That is the difference between us and other parliaments. If we were starting with a blank sheet of paper, of course we could define what the Lords does and what the Commons does and away we go—there would be no problem. It clearly would be a problem if you had an elected House taking over the powers that we enjoy but which—this is crucial—we choose not to enforce. That is the difference between the present position and the one that would apply if this House were elected.

I am more than half way through my time, so I shall recount quickly what I think are the inevitable, predictable consequences for the relationship between the two Houses of an elected second Chamber. First, there would be a constant battle for legitimacy between the two Houses and constant arguments about which represented the most authoritative voice of the British people. Would noble Lords on the Lib Dem Benches who are so passionately in favour of proportional representation—we are told that we will have proportional representation in the upper House—declare that an upper House elected on the basis of proportional representation is not as legitimate as the other House down the Corridor, which is elected on first past the post? Of course they would not say that. There would be endless debates and arguments about which was the most legitimate Chamber.

The second inevitable consequence would be that this House would demand more powers. I do not know of any House anywhere, whether it is the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the European Parliament, where people, once they are elected and in situ, do not demand more, not fewer, powers. I say that to people who argue that the only answer is to have a written constitution. I ask them whether they can really imagine sitting down and writing a constitution, the first few paragraphs of which would have to state, “We are now going to have an elected upper House instead of the appointed upper House, but we think it is important to start by reducing its powers”. That would be quite a difficult argument to get across in any rational debate.”

And then he asked:

“In a situation in which there are two elected Houses and a Motion of no confidence in the Government, what is to stop both the Houses having Motions of no confidence in the Government? What happens if one says, “We have confidence in the Government”, but the other says that it does not? I should like to know the answer to that question.”

He went on:

“Even more seriously—this is not frivolous—we have now decided that it is pretty important for the elected House of Commons to make a judgment before our troops are committed in battle. If one House, democratically elected, said yes it is right to go ahead, and the other House, also democratically elected, said no it is not, I would not like to be the lawyer to work that one out. Those are the kinds of questions, when there are two elected Houses with equally democratic legitimacy, that simply have not been sensibly addressed. The only reason why I wanted to raise this issue today is that I believe it is the absolute duty of the Government to think not only about whether the House of Lords should be elected or not elected, but about the consequences not just for the House of Lords but for the House of Commons, for MPs’ relations with their constituents, and for relations between the two Houses. That needs to be addressed before any fundamental change is made.”

After that, speakers were limited to two minutes each.  Ominously for the Conservative Coalition some trenchant questions were also posed by senior Tories.

Lord Howe of Aberavon made his position very clear, posing questions that he said:

“ought to be answered in light of the prospect of the arrival of elected Members in this House. First, will any fault be corrected thereby? Secondly, will any improvement be achieved thereby? Both those questions have so far secured only absolutely void answers. On the contrary, virtually all the judgments on the performance of this House have been strongly positive.”

And later Earl Ferrers was even blunter:

“My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for introducing this debate, because it seems elementary not to realise the huge problems that there will be between the two Houses if your Lordships’ House becomes an elected Chamber. It seems obvious.

People—particularly our dear friends the Liberal Democrats—always say, “Reform the House of Lords”. It is as if they feel they are in the sixth form and have been told to write an essay on how you make a democratic Parliament and the answer is “Two elected Chambers”. Of course that may be so, but as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, we are not starting from there. That is what the dear Liberal Democrats do not ever seem to understand; we are not starting from scratch. We have inherited a constitution, which is the envy of all other countries, and it works. It works. Yet we are now out to try to destroy it. It is a great privilege. It has worked for 600 hundred years and the answer is that you want to build on it, and not destroy it. Whatever Members of another place may say about wanting an elected second Chamber, their successors will hate it because there will be another Chamber saying, “We have been elected too, we have got just as much right as you have to have our views prevail and our votes too”. Are people going to offer themselves for election to a House which has the powers that we have? The answer is no. The power between the Houses is finite and if your Lordships’ House gets any more powers, another place will have to give up some of their powers. Is it likely to do that? No.”

House of Lords reform is going to be messy …..