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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, I offer the noble and learned Lord my commiserations and, indeed, admiration because, as noble Lords will have seen from the speakers’ list, not only is he opening this debate but he will close it tomorrow evening. That, in itself, is no mean feat. We have a record number of speakers—nearly 130. The number of speakers has fluctuated a little, but it is certainly the longest list I have seen in my 21 years here. It shows well the stamina of the noble and learned Lord, although there is another explanation: when he asked for volunteers, no one stepped forward—how unlike the response of my own noble friend, the shadow Lord Chancellor, who leapt at the chance to make the winding-up speech for these Benches, to which I very much look forward. The list may be long, but feel the quality. My eye is drawn to the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, who is making his maiden speech from the Back Benches. Like the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, I wish to spend a few moments on last week’s votes in another place, especially the vote on Mr Straw’s preferred option of a 50:50 hybrid House. That option was given a humiliating drubbing by a majority of 263 votes and proved the least popular option. Although it was not clear from what the noble and learned Lord said, I assume that the 50:50 House is dead in the water, and I hope that life will not be breathed into it again. However, from their television appearances at the end of last week, you would be forgiven for thinking that Mr Straw and the noble and learned Lord had always been in favour of a wholly elected House. They said they were delighted with the result and that it was all just as they had wanted it: the Government were delighted, everybody was delighted, even the gargoyles in the Palace of Westminster were delighted. However we come at this huge question, which has intermittently engaged Parliament for well over a century, however you look at last week’s votes, and regardless of whether you argue that there was not a majority in this or that party or whether you think that the final vote was affected by tactical voting, those votes have changed things dramatically. In the most public way possible, the other place has voted for only two options to be considered. In both they say that all political Members of a new House must be directly elected by the people. The elected House has said, therefore, in two Divisions that it sees no objection in principle to two elected Chambers and has firmly rejected the idea of an all-appointed House. Many will find that fact—Ministers profess delight in it—painful and surprising, yet when you look at the breakdown of the votes, nothing is as clear as we first thought. Labour MPs voted against every option except the all-elected option. The Cabinet voted for an all-elected House by a majority of six—the smallest margin of the day, but with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the holders of the three great offices of state abstaining, and Mr Straw, among others, against them. There was no consensus among Conservative MPs either; in fact, there was a majority of them against every option. The only main party not to split onthe options was the Liberal Democrats. Those clever Liberal Democrats have worked out that, under proportional representation, they get to controlthe second Chamber. Is that what the Government want? Most of this House will profoundly disagree with another place on the value of an appointed House, and another place will have to reflect deeply on your Lordships’ views, but those votes have created new realities with which we must now grapple. I agree with the noble and learned Lord: we can no more dictate our model to the other place than it should seek to impose one on us. There was talk last week of an early Bill—another Bill, just as last week's Bill was being shredded—and of readiness to use the Parliament Acts. I ask the noble and learned Lord to say unequivocally that the Government will not use the ParliamentActs to impose unilateral legislation in thisParliament. That is not to ask for a Lords veto, as some Ministers have put it; it is a matter of constitutional equity. There was no proposal in the Government’s 2005 manifesto for an elected House, and in this Parliament this House might legitimately consider resisting a Bill to introduce one. To lift the threat of the Parliament Acts would be wise. We could then use the time until the end of this Parliament to work out the implications of those votes—as the noble and learned Lord suggested, there are many—and to seek real consensus on the way forward. Time is essential. When Mr Straw moved to close the cross-party talks at the beginning of this year, which he had conducted with such characteristic courtesy and skill, I asked the Government to allow more time in view of the many questions still unresolved. They refused, but I welcome the commitment today that those discussions should be restarted. Those talks will be hard. The Houses are divided; the parties are divided; and, in so far as the nation thinks about it at all, which I fear is not very much, the people themselves are divided. We also have two very different prospectuses from the other place. In one, with which I would agree, independent Cross-Benchers would remain as life Peers in this House; in the other, they would go. In one, with which I again agree, the right reverend Prelates would remain in this House; in the other, they would go, with all the immense implications for the establishment of the church. It would not be disestablishment, asthe Queen would remain Supreme Governor of the Church, but it would hew a mighty stone out of the arch.