Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)

With great respect, I would like to conclude my remarks. There were many cases of honourable Members weighing their positions after close consultation with deeply interested constituents. Noble Lords may disagree with the Bill and oppose its objectives, but please do not claim that there is some grave technical deficiency in it to justify that position. I have used, throughout these remarks, the word “we” in describing the House’s handling of the Bill, but this is not about the House as a whole, because what has become abundantly clear to me—and I suspect to many people in the wider community—is how a relatively small number of people in this place have been able to use its procedures, not to scrutinise or revise a Bill supported by the elected House, but simply to seek to block it. In my younger days, I attended a number of lively demonstrations, led by the chant, “kill the Bill”. The message and intent of some colleagues may have been less brutally expressed in this House, but the objective has been clear. Many noble Lords have had grave reservations on particular points in the Bill but have seen it as their duty to seek what they consider would be improvements. They too have been thwarted by the actions of those determined to block its passage. Indeed, the whole House has been denied any meaningful opportunity to express its view on the Bill as a whole and what it was seeking to achieve. This may now prompt a wider debate about the role of this House, the privileges it confers on noble Lords, and whether its procedures are justifiable when they can be used so blatantly to overturn the expressed will of the elected Chamber. I recognise that many noble Lords have genuine, deeply felt objections to the Bill, perhaps as a result of their faith or just a strong personal conviction that this Bill can never build in enough safeguards to satisfy their conscience. I recognise and respect that, but is it right, on that basis, to use the privileged position that this House gives to each of us to impose that personal view on the membership of the House as a whole? I think not. That is a matter of interest to those of us concerned with constitutional issues in our democracy and institutions. I would not run a local trade union branch meeting with a difficult decision to make in this self-regulated way that so many Lords take great pride in. As we lay this Bill to rest and pronounce the last rites over it, at least for now, I think first of all of those ordinary, decent people, perhaps with deeply loved ones in circumstances such as those that faced Daniel, yearning to see this change enacted. They will be bewildered and outraged to understand how it has foundered in this place. On this matter, the House has not served our nation well.