Oliver Dowden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Mar 2025 · Community Hospitals · Hansard source

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  Following the Government’s regrettable decision not to fund Watford general hospital’s refurbishment in this Parliament, providing community care facilities in a town such as Borehamwood in my constituency—a significant town without its own dedicated facilities—is more important than ever. Will the Secretary of State undertake to use his offices to urge the ICB and others to get their act together so that we can finally have those facilities in Borehamwood?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The moment may have passed somewhat, but I think my point is still apposite enough to make. If there are any apologies to go round, they should come from the Labour party. In every single election campaign in which I have been involved for at least the past 25 years, the Labour party has run a scare story about the Conservatives scrapping the winter fuel payment, and the moment they get into office, what is the very first thing they do? They remove the winter fuel payment. That is what has upset so many of my constituents so much.

• 26 Feb 2025 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The attitude of the Government of the United States is absolutely central. There has been a profound change in the stance taken by the Government of the United States, with the election of the new President. Instead of embracing that and seeing it as an opportunity, the Labour party seems determined to railroad through a deal that does not, it appears, command the support of the Government of the United States. It is a preposterous position to be in.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will give way. We should not be surprised that the Labour Government have only introduced this short Bill because they have no clear plans for wider Lords reform. In 2022, the Prime Minister endorsed Gordon Brown’s plans for an assembly of the nations and regions, but now that has been kicked into the long grass. Labour grandees such as Lord Blunkett have warned it risks mirroring “gridlock” too often seen in the United States. Lord Mandelson described the plan as a “multi-layered cake…barely been put in the oven yet, let alone fully baked.” Lord Adonis observed that within Labour, “there is no consensus on reform” and that it will be “difficult and controversial.” Even the current leader of the Lords, Baroness Smith, admitted this year that an elected Chamber risked “losing the primacy of the Commons.” Therein lies the dilemma for the Labour party and its new-found Commons majority. Perhaps Labour Ministers are starting to realise that Lords reform is challenging and difficult.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Paymaster General knows how much I respect conventions, but that is ultimately a matter for the other Chamber.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House declines to give a Second Reading to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill because it is not an acceptable or effective method of enacting major constitutional change, because it proposes a significant alteration to the composition of the House of Lords which should not be considered in isolation from other changes, having regard to the undertakings given by the then Government in 1999, because it drip-feeds changes that hinder proper scrutiny of measures that could change the relationship between the two Houses, because it risks unintended consequences, does not reflect the lack of political consensus on House of Lords reform and does not provide for full consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny which would give the opportunity to consider the case for overall reform, seek cross-party engagement on proposals, and review the implications of all proposals.” The British constitution is not codified. One might not choose to craft such a system if one were establishing a new country from scratch, but we are proud to be an old country. The checks and balances of the House of Lords—its tried and tested conventions—work. The House of Lords does not claim to be a democratic Chamber. That is the key point: this elected House has primacy. Of course, the British constitution does—and should—continue to evolve, but we should fix only what is broken and be cautious about rushing into change. Our evolution should start with questions of efficacy, not optics. We should be guided by the wisdom of past generations, and the continuity of history and tradition. As Edmund Burke wrote: “We have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage, and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties from a long line of ancestors.” The Paymaster General has described the excepted peers as “out of step” with modern Britain. Like the Blair and Brown Governments, this Government seem obsessed with change for change’s sake. We have seen it all before. We have seen this rebranding spun to give the impression of progress: the Law Lords replaced with the Supreme Court; the Lord Chancellor’s Department aping the US-style Justice Department; even Her Majesty’s Stationery Office recast as the Office of Public Sector Information. At best, it is cosmetic; at worst, it risks irreversible damage. As we saw with the changes to the House of Lords’ judicial role, rushed constitutional change leads to unintended consequences. We should, therefore, proceed with caution.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will give way first to the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) and then to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell).

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some more progress and then I will give way. In 1999, the reforms recognised the challenge. In this July’s King’s Speech background brief, the Labour Government asserted that the continued presence of excepted peers is “by accident”. That is simply not true. In 1999, Labour’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, told the other House that the presence of hereditaries was an intentional anomaly; it would ensure a future Government undertook proper and considered reform of the Lords. His fellow architect, Viscount Cranborne, called that “the sand in the shoe”. —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 22 June 1999; Vol. 602, c. 791.] Now, this Labour Government want to declare war on the past without a clear target in sight. As they cannot agree on what to do, the Prime Minister has gone for this chipolata of a Bill, the mantra of change serving as a tiny fig leaf to cover his embarrassment. The emperor has no clothes—perhaps other than from Lord Alli.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  That is a very important point. I believe that the Government have plans to address that in the legislation. Having those people, with their experience of organising coronations—as I saw during the coronation two years ago—is another part of how our constitution works. All of the elements work together, and if we pick away at one, there are unintended consequences.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  Well—

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman grows into a sturdy oak, like all the great oaks on the Benches behind me. There is a path to be followed to achieve that. Many people may well enter the House with pre-existing views, and that is of course the basis on which many of them were elected, but my argument is that we should consider the consequences of one change in relation to hereditaries for the wider composition of the House of Lords and the constitution.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The purpose of the 1999 compromise was to ensure that we did not remove hereditary peers without considering the wider consequences. That is precisely my concern with the approach being pursued by the Government. This meagre Bill is not motivated by considered and enlightened principle. Labour wants to remove the independent and experienced voices of excepted peers so that it can parachute in a wave of new Labour cronies. It is change in the name of an Executive power grab, not change to serve the British people. The excepted peers are immune from the needs of political patronage. They work in the public interest for the good of the nation. Edmund Burke once described them as “the great Oaks that shade a Country”. The same, I am afraid, cannot be said of the saplings of the new Labour intake.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  As we have seen in the debate so far, there is a range of views on both sides of the House about how we should proceed with reform. The argument that I am making is that this House should have the opportunity to consider all the changes together in the round before we rush ahead with constitutional change for the sake of virtue signalling and optics rather than what suits the needs of the nation.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  It will not surprise my right hon. Friend to hear that I completely agree with him. As ever, he makes an erudite point.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Labour party was in power for 11 years after the 1999 changes. It completely failed to undertake this reform, and that was for a reason. We have a delicate and complex unwritten constitution of checks and balances, of principles and conventions, and when one starts to pick away at some of them, one realises the consequences of doing so. If we are to proceed down this path, it is important that Members—many on the Government Benches have been elected Members for only four months—have the opportunity to scrutinise the changes. This is a new Parliament and we should have the opportunity of proper scrutiny.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I shall give way one more time.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress and then I will give way. Instead of proceeding with caution, the Government have done precisely the opposite. The Bill has had no pre-legislative scrutiny, no Joint Committee and no cross-party engagement. Indeed, Labour Ministers have explicitly refused to consult on the removal of excepted peers. All that forms a pattern with Labour’s past constitutional tinkering. We have the Equality Act 2010, which both the Equality and Human Rights Commission and His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary have said in recent months is too complicated and needs changing. There is also the Human Rights Act 1998, which, in departing from Britain’s common-law tradition, further expanded judicial review, undermining the very laws made by this Parliament and dragging the courts into answering political questions that should be a matter for the legislature. The same applies to Tony Blair’s successive surrenders to EU treaties. Those Acts created new problems for an old country, and this Bill risks doing exactly the same.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The risk is taking away something that has formed part of the fabric of our constitution. The role of those two officeholders has been essential to the role of the Crown, and preventing them from fully playing their part in the House of Lords may have unintended consequences that are deleterious to the interests of the nation. Hereditaries and appointees aside, I would argue that the precise composition of an unelected second Chamber is a second order issue. Both the Government and Parliament should be considering how we can better improve the scrutiny powers of the revising Chamber. We need a strong Government, but we need a muscular Parliament too. All Governments should be held to account, particularly one with the biggest gap in history between their number of MPs and their popular vote. We should particularly consider how Parliament can better scrutinise the quango state—unaccountable tiers of government that are ballooning under this Labour Government. Lords reform is challenging. For a century, no one has cut the Gordian knot—certainly not Gordon Brown. The system we have inherited from the turn of the millennium still works, proving the strengths and adaptability of the British constitution. Constitutional change is an area where one should tread lightly. It requires proper consultation, engagement and consideration. On that basis, as set out in our reasoned amendment, the Opposition will oppose the Bill, not to defend the privilege of old, but in defence of a strong and independent Parliament that stands up to an over-mighty Executive, and for our nation’s long-standing liberties and freedoms.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the reforms were introduced in 1999. By my calculation, the Labour party was in power for another 11 years and did precisely nothing further. I will come to this point in a moment, but the reason the hereditaries remained in the House of Lords in 1999 was to ensure that all these things were considered at the same time. The Government are breaking a principle that they agreed to previously.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will give way in a moment. I shall prove my point. Before the election, Labour sources admitted that “we’re going to need to appoint a dozen peers on day one to do big junior ministerial jobs that the MPs shadowing them aren’t up to doing.” In 1999, Lord Strathclyde, the then shadow Leader of the Lords, presciently warned of “the return of an almost medieval executive power—a noisome bramble-patch of presidentialism, patronage, private pressure, preferment and place”— past words that speak truth today. One central argument evinced by the Paymaster General is that no one should be in Parliament by “an accident of birth”. Yet, today’s Labour party reeks of the hereditary principle—the elevation of the nepo babies of north London, the coronation of the red princes: the Goulds, the Falconers, the Kinnocks, the Benns, the Eagles, the Reeves. Many of them are distinguished Members, but under Labour’s closed shop, it is hereditary peers out and hereditary MPs in. The question this House must address is whether a wholly appointed Chamber and waves of new Labour peers will improve the governance of our nation. Will they mean a proper impact assessment of the cuts to the winter fuel payment? Will there be better scrutiny of the proposed French-style union laws? Or, as Michael Foot told the House in 1969 when opposing Harold Wilson’s Lords reform Bill, will it become just “A second Chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs”? —[ Official Report , 3 February 1969; Vol. 777, c. 88.] The Labour party apparently wants to apply that phrase to this House, given the diktat from the Labour Whips banning their Members from tabling amendments without permission. The Downing Street boys do not want dissent from either House of Parliament.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I doubt I have much chance of joining the next shadow Cabinet. This is my swansong rather than my audition. I have set out the reasons I oppose the Bill—it is rushed and we have not considered the wider consequences.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress and then I will give way. In 1999, Baroness Jay, the then Leader of the House of Lords, said that a partly reformed Lords with only excepted hereditaries remaining would be “more legitimate, because its members have earned their places” and would have more authority. That was termed the Jay doctrine at the time. If the excepted peers go, what other conventions are at risk of change—the Salisbury convention, or the restraint against vetoing secondary legislation? The lack of consultation and scrutiny, and the Government’s piecemeal approach to reform, has meant such questions have the potential to be reopened.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I join the Government in paying tribute to the hereditary peers. The argument that I will elucidate in my speech, as set out in the amendment, is that if this Government are committed to reform of the upper House, they should consider all the consequences of that reform, and this House, and the other place, should have ample opportunity to consider it properly.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am strongly of the view that we should consider all these things in the round. There is merit here—that is why we are proposing a reasoned amendment—but the risk of proceeding in a rushed fashion is that we come to regret it, as we have on many previous occasions.