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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, I had the honour and privilege to be the chairman of the two most recent Joint Committees of Parliament looking at these issues. In spite of the kind remarks from both Front Benches on the second report of the Joint Committee on Conventions, I want to stress that I shall give a personal opinion this afternoon and do not in any way claim that the views that I express are the views of those committees. As the debate moved on, the important word in the thinking of the Government—or at least many members of the Government—was ““legitimacy””. I can accept arguments in favour of legitimacy; certainly, elections bring legitimacy. But one either has legitimacy or does not. Because the Government’s position has not been underpinned by any consistent principles over the period, they have slithered from one expedient to another. The lowest common denominator—a 50 per cent elected and 50 per cent appointed House—became the Government’s position. Where is the legitimacy in that? Half the House could claim legitimacy; the other half could not. That is the problem with all arguments about hybrid Houses. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said that we had always had a hybrid House, but we have not had one in which 50, 60 or 80 per cent of the Members were elected. That is a fundamental difference from everything that has gone before. What of elections? The Government and others argue that we should make the most profound and historical changes to our Parliament, or at least to one of its Houses. I am not in favour of the status quo. In 40 years of fighting elections at all levels—local, national, student, whatever—I never stood to defend the status quo. What I cannot understand in this whole argument, and there is a great lacuna in the Government’ position here, is that the Government urge these profound changes, but quickly assert, as have some of my noble friends, that nothing will change and that the House will go on exactly as before. I do not see it. Where are these candidates, chosen by party lists or by any other means, who will say, ““Yes, we are legitimate, we are elected, we have a mandate, but we have come here to accept everything exactly as it is””? What kind of candidates are they? Which party will they come from? I even heard someone say in the debate today that that they should be people with no political ambition. That makes it even worse. What an appeal to the voters of this country—to say, ““We are going to accept the status quo, we have no political ambition of any kind at all, but please elect us to the second Chamber of Parliament””. It really is absurd. The reality is—and I remind noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord McNally—that the report on the conventions made clear in paragraph 61, unanimously agreed, which was the great strength of this report, that those recommendations applied to the situation as it is now, and we very carefully worded that paragraph to say that if things changed, the conventions would be bound to be called into question. I think that that was a reasonable, rational statement—not extreme in any way. It did not go beyond the evidence that we were given as a committee and that is surely the reality of the situation. On the other hand, I can accept the argument for elections. I have been a democrat all my life. I have spent more than half of it fighting and, on the whole, winning elections of one kind or another. But the Government’s problem is that, while they want to claim legitimacy for their proposals, they do not want to face the consequences, because, as many noble Lords have said, if there are 100 per cent elections, there will be no Cross-Benchers, no Bishops and none of the expertise that people proudly say they admire and respect in your Lordships’ House. I do not want to be too unkind to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, because we are old friends and colleagues, but he said that the House should not vote again for a train wreck. Among others, he was adamant throughout the work of the Joint Committee on Conventions that this House above all else should preserve the right to say, ““No”” and to say to the other House, ““We don’t agree, we think you’ve got that wrong””. So there is a dichotomy in that argument. This House is entitled to say what it wants to say about these proposals. This might or might not please the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, but perhaps a quotation from the Gospel according to St Mark is apposite. Chapter 3, verses 24 to 25, states: "““if a household be divided against itself, that house will never stand””." We are talking about proposals to divide this House against itself. They are not particularly well-thought-out proposals—the Government’s White Paper leaves many questions unanswered. Are the people of Britain really keen on having a second Chamber full of professional politicians? Are they keen to face the financial and other consequences of that? Are they prepared to build Portcullis House mark II? These are really serious questions in a democracy. We cannot expect people to sign what is, in effect, at the moment, a blank cheque for proposals without much further serious discussion about the most profound consequences that will flow from them. I hope that my noble friends and my right honourable and honourable friends in the other place will take very serious note of the views expressed in this House and genuinely go away and reflect on the direction in which, to quote the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, this train is running. One of the problems with this train is that too many people have a ticket on it, regardless of its destination. We should think very, very carefully before taking what will be irrevocable steps in changing fundamentally the constitution of our country. The reality is that we have checks and balances now, but it is also the case—and all my experience shows this—that it is possible to fragment power, it is possible to disperse power, it is possible to dilute it and share it, but it is never possible to get it back again.