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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, it may shock my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer to find out that he also has more people behind him who disagree with him than agree. I suppose that the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and the right reverend Prelate will go along with this attempt to seek consensus in the hope that Jack Straw meant his 80 per cent vote, which leaves them with residual hope, rather than the 100 per cent vote which he also cast, showing his consistency of thought and commitment to principle. I can see that happening. Consensus is in danger of being my right honourable friend Jack Straw offering himself as the dog whose tail is to be wagged by the Liberal Democrats. That is not the sort of consensus that will greatly lead this House forward in the discussion that it must have. My noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg broke the monastic silence he has suffered over recent months with a wholly admirable speech and clear conclusions about his voting intentions. I fully welcome his views and share his voting intentions. During our discussions, ever since the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, produced his Royal Commission report, I have asked a succession of Ministers in private meetings the same question about your Lordships’ House. What added value does election bring to it? If it is high, why only 20 per cent at one time, 50 per cent at another and80 per cent now? If it is low, why even those figures? So far, there has been a singular failure to define the perception of added value that election will bring. It tends to be summed up in a couple of words: incantations around the word ““legitimacy”” on the one hand and ““accountability”” on the other. My noble and learned friend Lord Irvine demolished the argument about legitimacy, and what sort of accountability is therein a system where you would be elected for 15 years, in which you can create any sort of mayhem anywhere in the country because you will never be allowed to seek re-election? Accountability comes through seeking re-election, and is specifically debarred in these circumstances. We have the very antithesis of accountability. Neither legitimacy nor accountability demonstrate added value. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, was eloquent about accountability, but the accountability in the White Paper’s proposals is mythological. What on earth does this sort of structural non-accountability, accompanied by a party list system on the mysterious basis of a partially closed list, mean? We will not see the independence of an Appointments Commission, but a party fix on the ordering of places on a list. I do not know about other parties, but we saw how that worked in mine with the first operation of a closed-list system in the European Parliament elections, when it was used to cull those regarded as awkward. I am not opposed to change, but it must be rational. There must be a clear addressing of specific problems, with a possibility of solving them and creating a better solution. We have had a White Paper in which a particular voting system for determination of the outcome was regarded as imperative, and was dropped a couple of weeks later because Jack Straw saw that he could not get it through the House of Commons. We saw a government view committed to 50:50, followed by, ““Well, 80:20 might be okay, but I shall vote for 100 per cent as well””. There is no rationale in that. It addresses no problem other than change for change’s sake. What is the problem that this sort of approach seeks to address? Before I vote for change I need to know what is the problem to be addressed. To judge the relevance of any proposed solution, and if election is part of that solution, I need to know with precision the basis of constituencies, the system of election, all the problems of the list and, above all, what the relationship will be with another place. None of those things is clear in these proposals, and that is why, like my noble and learned friend, I will be voting this week for an all-appointed House and opposing the other options. My final word is to say to those who argue that we must take note of what was said down the other end: of course we must, but consensus does not mean that we capitulate to their point of view. We take note of it, but, if they want it to be taken seriously, it has to be much more cogently argued than it has been at present.