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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, with whom I served on the Joint Committee on Conventions. I find that her main point is one that I would reinforce. It is a privilege to speak in this debate. Yesterday, we had many fine speeches. There were outstanding speeches from the government Benches by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, from the Conservative Benches by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe and from the Cross Benches by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd. They all agreed, and I agreed with what they said. I shall not repeat their arguments, but there is a consensus across the Benches that ought to be followed. The voting in the House of Commons last week was not, as was feared, a train crash; it is probably better described as a nuclear missile that went off at half-cock. Yesterday, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that we must take the vote on 100 per cent elected at face value. That would be extraordinarily naive. In reality there was an enormous amount of tactical voting. It is important to analyse how people voted last week, and I shall do so, reinforcing the point made by the noble Baroness a moment ago. I first make one or two simple points. First, I support the views expressed, as quoted yesterday, by Mr Alan Williams in another place. He was my pair for some 33 years, succeeded me as chair of the Liaison Committee and is now Father of the House. He pointed out that hybridity is not only the worst of all possible worlds, but intrinsically unstable. At the end of the day, the choice can only really be between wholly elected or wholly appointed. Secondly, the idea that democracy would be increased in this country if we had elected Members of this House is false. We already have a system that is 100 per cent democratic; one cannot make it more than 100 per cent. Having elected Members of this House would change the balance between the two Houses. We would lose what is now an effective system, both in revising legislation—I see the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, opposite, with whom we did a great deal—because the Commons is no longer revising and scrutinising legislation as it should, and in holding the Government to account. It is inconceivable that this House would hold the Government to account—let us say at Question Time last week, on defence or the National Health Service—with the same expertise if we had elected Members. The Government, in support of their view that an elected element in this House would be all right, points out that other countries have elected double chambers. However, they did not point out in the evidence to the Select Committee that all those countries have written constitutions. As far as I know, the Government do not propose that for this country, although given the rather oracular remarks of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor yesterday, I am not sure that he is not moving in that direction. As to the future and the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said yesterday that we will reconvene the cross-party group. If one analyses the votes in the House of Commons last week, however, it is clear that the official policy of the Conservative Party is not supported by a majority of Conservatives in the Commons; nor, as I am sure we will find, is it supported by a majority of Conservatives in this House. The Government’s preference is not supported by 128 to 188 Labour Members in the House of Commons. We shall wait and see what happens on the Labour Benches in this House. In reality, it would be completely absurd to reconvene that committee without having effective representation of the views of the majority of each party in each House. We simply must sort that out, because there will be no effective progress without it. No doubt my noble friend Lord Strathclyde will make many points with which I agree—for example, on the dangers of proportional representation and other issues. On the fundamental issue of whether we should have elected Members of this House, however, it is clear that that is not the case. If we are to move forward, we must follow the line which—to my surprise, because I had not anticipated it coming immediately before my speech—was laid out by the noble Baroness. We must sort this out. It is an unusual situation, but it is essential to do so. That is the immediate problem. The other problem is that there is much speculation in the press that this will all be kicked into the long grass—Mr Gordon Brown, or whoever else happens to become leader of the Labour Party, will not be keen to have a constitutional confrontation in the first two years of their period in office—although it will turn up in the manifestos. If there is one feature of our democratic system that is very doubtful, so far as democracy is concerned, it is manifestos; they are agreed behind closed doors, there are no free votes and one is stuck with them. It may be that at the next election the manifestos of all three parties are in favour of an elected element. The Joint Committee will then have to examine in great detail whether or not the Bill is a manifesto Bill. I hope that we will look again at what the committee says, because the whole question of whether a manifesto Bill must not be opposed in this House is rather doubtful. I refer to one point in the committee’s report, when it qualified what it said about manifesto Bills. It said that it offered no definition of a situation in which an attempt to defeat a Bill on Second Reading would be appropriate, save that that would include free votes. I leave noble Lords to consider the implications of that point in relation to manifesto Bills. It may well be that, whatever the manifesto, there are those of us who would still feel that we ought to oppose any elected element in this House. It is important that we should not get to that stage. We should try to resolve this matter before the next election. All that needs to be done is to have an Appointments Commission that is not open to criticism in the way that the present system is. I also believe that the continuation of the by-election system for hereditary Peers is not helpful to our overall situation. Its removal and the establishment of a proper Appointments Commission are all that is needed at present. Parliament is working very well now. One of my hereditary colleagues said to me a little while ago that it is working better than it has done in the past 700 years, and that is probably true. Therefore, while I am not in favour of the status quo—there are changes that need to be made—the right approach is to oppose any elected Members of this House. I shall vote for a wholly appointed Chamber, and oppose all the other options.