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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, it is with pleasure that I follow the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, whom I meet not only in this Chamber, but very frequently on east coast main line trains as we make our way to and from this House each week. I speak with some trepidation, partly because of the excellent quality of the debate so far, but also because I sense that, if the weight of speeches is anything to go by, I shall be in minority in this House in my views. As a Member of the other place, I was a member of the first committee on House of Lords reform, presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling. During my time on that committee, I favoured, and still favour, the option of a wholly or substantially elected House of Lords. I have not changed my mind, notwithstanding the great respect that I have for the way in which this House conducts its business. However, the basic reason for my favouring a largely or wholly elected House is simply that, in a democracy, the authority of Parliament and government derives from the people, the electorate. The way in which this House is currently composed denies people any say and any sense of ownershipof it. This would not be a problem if we were simply an arm’s-length advisory body, giving opinions to Parliament and government in the same way as do economic and social councils and committees in other countries. However, I believe that it becomes a problem when we are an integral part of the legislative system and of the parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive. When I put my name down to speak in this debate, I did not imagine that the outcome of the votes of the other place would be as it was. I am surprised and pleased by the outcome; I note that some have claimed that those who voted for a wholly elected House included some cynics about the process but, if that is true, they have simply made a big majority into a near-decisive one. How should the Government move forward? First, I should like them, despite the fact that their 50:50 preferred option was rejected, not to abandon the many good and detailed provisions in the White Paper. I believe that the provisions in the White Paper went a long way towards securing two important objectives: first, that a reformed second Chamber should not be a clone of the House of Commons and, secondly, that it should be largely complementary to it and not a rival to it. The provisions concerning the timing of elections, the length of terms of office and the barring of re-election, the cooling-off period in the rather unlikely circumstance of ex-second Chamber Members wishing to enter the House of Commons and the career route into government clearly remaining through the primary Chamber are all very helpful features, to which I hope the Government will hold fast. Reading previous debates in your Lordships House, I find there are frequent concerns on which I would like to express my view. There is rightly a concern to retain expertise in the second Chamber. However, there is sometimes behind this premise an assumption that elected politicians are incapable of being experts. I hope that we do not think that that is the case because, in fact, many former and even current elected politicians often have years of expertise behind them. Furthermore, although the presence of experts in this House is very welcome, given our varied legislative programme for much of the time experts here are voting on issues which are not related to their expertise. I urge the Government, in taking these arguments and the issue forward, to look to ways in which to involve experts, particularly in the relevant committee work in the future of this House, and harnessing expertise in a more targeted way than perhaps has been the case up to now. The cost of a reformed Chamber was raised most recently in the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, and the point has been made that the House of Lords does its job effectively but cheaply. Indeed, this point is always mentioned when the expenses of MPs are published. But it is fair to say that we are not comparing like with like, since MPs have constituency offices to run and a great deal of local commitments to be involved in. I am sure that I am not the only ex-MP in this House to notice a very big reduction in workload as a result of no longer having constituency responsibilities. A third concern frequently made in debates on this subject, including today, is that an elected second Chamber will automatically demand and get new powers. This was forcefully argued by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, in the debate that we had in January 2003. But an elected second Chamber, even if it wants more powers, cannot give itself those powers. I know of no second Chamber in the world which can unilaterally grant itself powers; indeed, in all countries such changes can be sanctioned only with the approval of the primary Chamber, and usually it has to be by a substantial majority. Furthermore, one encouraging aspect of the situation that we are in is that there is an impressive consensus already across the House about what the powers of a second Chamber should be. I urge the Government to build on this consensus in the coming months and years. A point of agreement in previous debates that has been mentioned somewhat infrequently today has been the importance of better and fairer representation across the countries and regions of the UK. I was very interested in the document which, I am sure, other noble Lords have seen, that was prepared by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon. In some ways the figures in his document about the variety of regional links that Members of this House have were valid, but some others of his figures worry me a great deal—for example, that there should just be one Member with a definite connection to Merseyside and 24 from Sussex, or125 from Greater London and only three from Tyne and Wear. I think that the noble Lord said that there was only one the noble Lord from Tyne and Wear, but by my calculation there are three. As a north-easterner I feel very concerned about regional representation in this House. Elections would solve this problem by automatically ensuring representation from across the UK. I urge the Government to move forward along the lines of the White Paper in a way that corrects the unsatisfactory aspects of the way in which we are constituted while retaining the maximum number of our strengths. Of course, that is not easy—the devil is in the detail—but I do not see why the devil should win. Jack Straw was right to insist that we should not let the best be the enemy of the good. There is no perfect system, but we need to identify the better of the many alternatives. I, for one, hope that the Government will not run away from reform and from responding to the vote in the other House. I hope that they will confront the challenges ahead and not be daunted by them.