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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, I regret to find myself in disagreement with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, with whom I so often find myself in almost entire agreement, but we have to recognise that the game has changed. The votes in the House of Commons last week were decisive. We cannot go back to the debates of five, 10, 15 or 20 years ago. The question of party political appointments is now more and more difficult, and the question of cash for peerages has made party political nomination much more difficult. I suggest to noble Lords in all seriousness that there is very little point in dividing on a 20 per cent or on a 40 per cent elected House and perhaps not even on a 50 per cent or 60 per cent elected House. The realistic options for us now are an 80 per cent elected House or a fully elected House. Secondly, this is part of the long-term process of constitutional reform. Jack Straw, on introducing the debate in the other place, said: "““Strong government must be balanced by a strong Parliament””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/07; col. 1390.]" I add that a strengthened second Chamber strengthens Parliament. That shows Jack Straw to be a good democrat whose views have evolved as the debate has gone on. As he pointed out in the opening paragraph of the White Paper, the British Parliament has evolved since the Anglo-Saxon Witan—he clearly believes in the myth of Alfred and the Saxons—all the way towards the relatively open constitutional democracy that we now have. We are not yet very democratic; Britain now stands out among constitutional democracies for having fewer elected representatives per head of population than any other democracy in the developed world. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said that no one can deny that Britain is a well functioning parliamentary democracy; I do deny that. We have rising distrust of our political institutions and a declining electoral turn-out. The popular image of Westminster is of a closed world. The deep distrust of the electoral process that I hear in this debate is an inadequate response to all of that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, warned of a surfeit of elected politicians. Would we be better off with a surfeit of nominated lawyers or—even worse—nominated academics? I declare an interest. The worst of the arguments was put forward by a number of Labour Members of the other place, quoting my noble friend Lord Steel, that competition with a single Member constituency MP from other elected people on his territory would somehow interfere with the democratic process of representation. Why can we not have a little more competition in democratic representation? Thirdly, there is the argument that an elected House would not attract the right people. There is somehow an illusion that the majority of party nominees in this House are somehow non-political nominees; party members who are above politics. We are the experts, and they in the Commons are unqualified party hacks; except of course for those former MPs who have been miraculously transformed into experts by translation to the Lords. When I first came to this House, I was struck by the fact that those who did most of the hard work of legislative examination were almost entirely former county councillors, district councillors and people whose expertise had come through the elected process, through learning about education, local housing, local environmental issues and who had come all the way through to nomination to this House through many hard-fought elections. Those who come up from the House of Commons have not always appreciated just how much we depend on our former councillors. I was flattered in one of the many articles about constitutional reform to be referred to as one of the experts in this House who would not have come here by election. I am proud that I have stood for election several times, as have many of my noble friends on these Benches, and I do not denigrate the process of election. An elected House would have a not dissimilar balance to that which we have now. The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, claimed that no independent would ever get elected under whatever process that we had. I remind him that there is an independent—a doctor—in the other place, even under the first past the post system. It is highly likely that under our different electoral process some independents would come through. They might even be the sort of experts who are doctors and others. Fourthly, there is the idea that a hybrid House would not work because different classes of Members could not work together. I simply fail to understand that. This House has been a hybrid House ever since the Anglo-Saxon Witan. It consisted of the Lords Spiritual and the Lords Temporal; that is pretty hybrid. When I first came into the House, it was a hybrid House of hereditaries and lifers. I am told that on the Conservative Benches, the hereditaries would refer to their Life Peer colleagues as ““the day boys””. We managed nevertheless as a hybrid House, and we could manage as a different sort of House again. A predominantly elected House would adjust in its turn. I argue firmly that we should not delay further. We should proceed to complete reform. This is a process of Lords reform that started in 1911; let us make sure that we finish it before 2011. There are other issues of constitutional reform, including strengthening the power of the Commons against the Government. There is no reason for us to delay in strengthening the role of the second Chamber. I support the proposal of my noble friend Lord McNally that the Prime Minister should take the lead now and announce that there will be no more nominations to the House and no resignation honours list. On that basis, let us move towards a democratic framework for a reformed second Chamber now.