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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, your Lordships might be forgiven for thinking that they had come to the House this afternoon at last to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, we have been offered a House of 57 varieties. The Government promised consensus but, instead, are giving us a mudge of compromise, which has itself been compromised once again by the Cabinet, no less. They offer choices but cannot even decide the name of the reformed House, and, when they make a decision, they make the wrong choice. So, while I thank the noble and learned Lord for repeating the Statement, I sympathise with him, for he has a difficult task today. On the one hand, he comes here with unpopular proposals, thought by many to be unnecessary, and, on the other, he offers an undertaking that the present House can stay for life. My response will not surprise the noble and learned Lord. This is a proud House. It does not deserve, and will not brook, another botched attempt at reform. Whatever we think of the White Paper ideas—I find them still not fully thought through and, frankly, as they are, unacceptable—they mean much more major constitutional upheaval, more far-reaching even than in 1999. With a Government clearly at odds with themselves and thinking it out as they go along, there is not much basis for progress here. Lords reform is like opening the lid of Pandora’s box: who knows where debate might lead if there is no firm guiding principle behind it? So will the noble and learned Lord answer, just this once, the basic question? Exactly what problem is this package aiming to solve? Is the House too strong or too weak? Is the aim to enable us to defeat all Governments more, with ““more legitimacy””, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, used to say, or what? The White Paper lacks real clarity of purpose or principle. There is agreement in this House, to which I subscribe, but the only proper basis for major constitutional change is that, first, it should be undertaken only if it strengthens the authority of this House to control the Executive and, secondly, it should be attempted only with consensus across parties and across the two Houses. These proposals, I believe, fail both tests. In other areas, too, the Statement assumes too much. For example, we have not agreed, and do not agree, that the undertakings given to this House by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, in 1999 that elected hereditary Peers will not be excluded before stage 2 is complete can be set aside just on the basis of a preferential vote in another place. Even to make the suggestions that the White Paper does is deeply dishonourable. So areas of agreement there may be, but consensus there is not. Indeed, there is not even consensus inside the Cabinet. Confused and divided government can deliver only a confused and divisive reform. So can the noble and learned Lord say how many Cabinet members back these ideas? Has the Chancellor of the Exchequer approved them? And what of the Prime Minister himself? In 2003, he said that, "““a hybrid [House] … is wrong and will not work””.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/1/03; col. 877.]" What made him change his mind? Can the noble and learned Lord explain the thinking about the timing? Why bring this all up now, when there is so much unwelcome police attention to the appointment of life Peers? How can we have a rational discussion about the role of appointed Peers against this background? Can the noble and learned Lord give us some clearer sense of the time that this House will be allowed to reflect on its own future? Will it be three weeks or three months? Is the aim to have a Bill this Session or next? What would the Government do if the other place voted for election and this House did not? Would it use the Parliament Act and would the divided Cabinet be whipped into unity on that? I know that of course, as the government Chief Whip has just reminded us, we will have an opportunity to debate the White Paper. No Peer should feel under pressure not to contribute. This affects us all, and brings the method of our coming here into the full glare of the public gaze. That may not always be comfortable. Can the noble and learned Lord tell us what plans the Government have to allow us to debate this new system of preferential voting? It is a major constitutional change in itself, and the House should have time to come to a view. Is it envisaged, for instance, that the process will be used more generally for legislation? It looks, from the papers that I have seen, that another place will need to vote 11 times before coming to a conclusion. Is the same envisaged for your Lordships? The noble and learned Lord proposes that 50 per cent of the House be chosen by party lists, and another 30 per cent selected by party bosses. What kind of a democracy is that? If there were a firm government proposal for real reform—for example, truly elected political Peers with a 20 per cent balance of independents—we could get on and discuss it. But reform should be real, not a mush of PR and political correctness that is simply appointment by another name. It should be based on constituencies to which people can relate: cities and counties, not huge, remote Euro-regions as the White Paper proposes. Why is it on European election day? If we are to have election, then the terms must be long, non-renewable and with elections staggered. In that, at least, the White Paper is right and follows the reports of my noble friend Lord Wakeham and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay in some respects. This House is seen as offering tremendous value: high quality at very low cost. What will the proposed reformed House cost, larger as it will be, as if the public were crying out for more paid politicians? Why is the White Paper so coy on cost? It is costing £50 million to expel 12 Law Lords from this House. How much will the total annual pay for 800 Peers be, and how big the pay-offs? These areas will get intense scrutiny in the media, and the Government must lead on them. The SSRB cannot necessarily be relied on to deliver a sensible or restrained answer. Our talks over these past few months were constructive, and I thank the noble and learned Lord and Mr Straw for the way in which they conducted them. In particular, I thank them for giving me advance notice of the White Paper and this Statement. I cannot fault them on their courtesy and behaviour in that respect. I, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, and the right reverend Prelates took part in a constructive spirit. It would have been wrong not to have sought consensus. It was right to attempt it. There is no disgrace in failure, but if the noble and learned Lord assumes assent for this paper, failure it will be. We are now at the fag-end of a prime ministership. I understand the haste to search for a legacy, but this House is old, with centuries of work done and, please, centuries more to come. Some think that it does not do so bad a job, and cry out for reform not here, but in another place. How disappointing that the White Paper is silent on that. If the Government try to force this mish-mash through, then our ways will part. These confused plans are not real reform, and risk bringing division and perhaps discredit on us all. The wise thing would be to pause for mature reflection in both Houses and to gather the wisdom of Parliament, treating this plan as the Green Paper that it really is and giving us all time to consider what is and is not in it in far more depth and in a less febrile climate than today’s.