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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, there are many strong views in this matter, and we have heard many of them today from all parts of the House. My strong view is this: it is necessary to make change only if there is clear evidence that such change will improve the work of this place and therefore of our Parliament. There is no such strong evidence. In the speeches made in another place last week, there were many assertions about elections that would bring about effectiveness, legitimacy and more accountability and that would be more representative. There were many assertions, but there was not a great deal of evidence. Nor was there a great deal of evidence in the White Paper. I do not believe that a wholly elected, or partially elected, House will necessarily be more representative of the people of this country than the House as presently constituted. Indeed, no matter how much all the political parties seek to refer to their manifestos at the most recent general election, none of them called for a wholly elected House. This House has undergone considerable change in the past few years, and it is close to common ground that there is a need to complete the matter of hereditary Peers sitting in the House. However, I take the view that this can be readily resolved by ending the system of election for vacancies and therefore allowing the remaining hereditary Peers to continue to sit as if they were life Peers. With that and putting the Appointments Commission on a statutory footing, we will have done a great deal. In fact, we should then leave the matter well alone. We are all aware that politicians may not be as highly regarded as they ought to be. Save for the fact that we in this House are invariably shown by the media, including the House Magazine, as always dressed in our robes, I do not believe that it is this House that has contributed to the state of affairs regarding the public’s view of politicians. I have lived in Dumbarton for a number of years, and no one there has ever told me that they want another set of elections or that they want me to be replaced by an elected Member. Rather, some of them complain about a surfeit of layers of democracy—with councillors, MSPs, MPs, European MPs and the attendant costs. I support a Parliament in Edinburgh, so I do not completely agree with that line of thinking, but it is much more real to most of the population than any demand for full-blooded reform of this place. Whether in Dumbarton, Downpatrick, Durham or Denbigh, people are not lying awake at night worrying about reform here. Nor do I know of any Members of another place who find people queuing up at their surgeries to complain about the make-up of this House. Nevertheless, MPs of all parties are certainly exercised by the issue. Sometimes that is because of history, and sometimes because of political advantage. Sometimes it is because of personal views or human prejudice. One of my daughters said to me some years ago that when the Commons gets around to saving foxes, it will get around to getting rid of me. I thought that she was being cynical, but she was probably prescient. I want to make it clear that my opposition to anything other than a wholly appointed House is not driven by enlightened self-interest. The White Paper proposals seem to provide sufficient and reasonable safeguards for most existing Members. These safeguards may be torn up now as a result of the votes last week, but no matter—I do not change my view. Neither is it, as newspaper columnists want to put it, that those of us who support an appointed House have grown used to the feel of ermine. I venture to suggest that those of us who argue thus do so because we think that it is right. We are told that an elected element will confirm legitimacy, which will, in turn, increase confidence in our work. We are told that it will lead to a House more reflective of different groups in society and that this elected House will somehow start to reflect multi-faith Britain. There will have to be some planned democracy if elections are to do better than an appointed House. Like other speakers, I have little time for the list system, but at least it allows for planned democracy. My party’s machine, and every other party’s machine, is unlikely to allow otherwise. For those at the top of the lists, it will be in effect a shoo-in and an appointment for a career of 15 years or thereabouts. We have many clever women on all Front Benches of this House. There are two outstanding black women Ministers, one of whom is Leader of the House. I do not have any comparative figures to show how this House fares with another place on representation of the different faiths, but I venture to suggest that we are as well or better placed than down the Corridor. The paper by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, appears to bear out my views, although I accept that we have some way to go, but that could be assisted by a statutory Appointments Commission. Elections, of necessity, do not confer legitimacy—otherwise we would need to follow the United States example of electing all sorts of public officials. No one suggests that judges in the United Kingdom should be elected. No one questions their legitimacy or that of many other holders of high office. On accountability, if Members are to be elected for something like 12 to 15 years, what does that mean? Are we lookingto people to give up a career at perhaps the age of 45 to 50 to stand for a once-only election? Even if there is a very high salary on offer it is unlikely that there will be a huge rush of talents. As we have already heard, there may be a rush from many of those who have failed to get into the Commons, the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. If we have a hybrid House, what will happen, beyond peradventure, is that elected Members will take the view that they are more legitimate than appointed Members. The press pundits will gleefully report on the balance of elected versus appointed Members, particularly in government defeats. Elected Members, whether able to seek re-election or not, may interfere in constituency matters because they will get correspondence and will want to act on it. They may disagree with their MPs because they come from different political parties. They may just want their photograph in the local paper. The dog’s breakfast of list MSPs in Scotland tramping around the patch of constituency-elected MSPs, as well as the propensity of many Members of the Scottish Parliament who want to get involved in matters reserved to Westminster, should serve as an apposite illustration of problems to come. It will not stop there. A partially elected House will, certainly in the medium term, prove to be unsustainable and, as sure as night follows day, will become a fully elected House. Any House with elected Members will not leave the powers between the two Houses as they are. There will have to be change, as the committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling has said. What about the costs? The White Paper is silent on these. Elected members will want sufficient funds for support. They will want salaries and pensions for their staff and for themselves commensurate with their duties and responsibilities. They will also require accommodation. There are various estimates, all of which are costly. If the estimates given by my noble friend Lord Lipsey are even remotely accurate, certainly my friends in Dumbarton will not be contemplating whether these can be justified. If we want an informed debate about what the people really think, we have to put evidence on how this Parliament can be improved and the estimates of these costs into the public domain. No doubt one or more of the tabloids will tell us how many members of my profession—nursing—could be employed for that sum of money. I am not against elections per se. I have stood in elections: I have lost some and won some, including being elected unopposed. But in my world it was only on the wilder shores of Trotskyism that it was claimed elected people were the only sources of legitimacy. Therefore, I will vote for a wholly appointed House and I will vote against all other options.