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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, in a perfect world, this debate would not be necessary. As other noble Lords have said, our forefathers intended to move from a hereditary House to an elected House. Instead, they chose to move from a hereditary House to an elected House via an appointed House. Who is to say that they were wrong? Slow change is a feature of life in this country, and I am in favour of it as long as we are moving in the right direction. Last week’s vote in another place indicated that we are moving in the right direction. The excessive patronage provided by a fully appointed House now seems totally out of place on the 21st century. Cash for honours has made it even more so. But a single move from an appointed House to an elected House is too drastic. That is why I am in favour of a hybrid House—a transitional hybrid House. I was in favour of this when we debated the House of Lords Act in 1999 and, indeed, was the joint author of a paper arguing then that we should have a hybrid House on the way to an elected House. As my noble friend Lord Desai and a number of other noble Lords have said, reform is inevitable. As ever, the devil is in the detail, and this is not the time to deal with it. However, there are some principles that I would like to assess in detail. The first principle must be that we now have a bicameral system. Indeed, this is what the other place voted for by the largest majority. My second principle is that the primacy lies with the other place. We are a revising Chamber to complement and challenge, but not to replace. This primacy is defined not only by the conventions between the two Houses and the Parliament Acts, as other noble Lords have pointed out, but by the fact that the other place forms the Government and is in charge. It controls the budget and holds the purse strings. This is what defines the powers of this House and of the other place. The Cunningham conventions will certainly need revising to enable the Government to get their business through a hybrid House, while still enabling Members of this House to exert their independence. Much of that independence comes from the fact that this House does not form the Government. The electors cannot remove us. That is the source of our independence. There may be members of the Government in this House, but Executive Ministers are responsible mainly to senior Ministers in the other place. I join my noble friend Lord Whitty in asking whether we need Ministers in this House. The third principle is that there should be a majority of elected Peers, leading to an elected House. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hoyle and others that this acknowledges that we rely on the judgment of individual electors and that we entrust the public with our democracy. After all, this is what we stand for. As my noble friend Lord Graham said, this is what we have gone to war for and what we are fighting for. My fourth principle concerns the membership of this transitional House. To ensure their independence, I would like elected Members to serve for a single period of 12 or 15 years, with one-third elected every fourth year. As some noble Lords have said, who will want to bother with being an elected Peer, with little promise of political advancement? I disagree. This will attract a different kind of person from the Commons—perhaps older, wiser and more experienced; yet wanting to serve. Many people want to serve. Look at the large number of people who are joining the voluntary sector. It is quite incredible. My next principle deals with numbers. I would like to see 300 elected Peers and 150 appointed Peers who would sit on the Cross Benches. I think that 450 is more than enough to do the job here. Unlike many other noble Lords, I think that the two kinds of Peers would work perfectly well together. I am told that the same arguments about incompatibility between different kinds of Peers were used by the hereditary Peers in the debates in the 1950s when the Life Peerages Bill was being debated in this House. You cannot have two types of Peers, they said, so they opposed the Life Peerages Act. Life Peers and hereditary Peers have worked perfectly well together without any conflict over legitimacy. Indeed, the life Peers have now taken over the territory. In turn, I think they will cede it to the elected Peers. During the transition, which of necessity will be long, life Peers should be offered an inducement to leave. There will have to be a retirement age, and I would hope that those hereditary Peers who have given exceptional and distinguished service to the House would be treated as life Peers. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, that of course Members will have to be paid a proper salary. This would be in return for a commitment to attend and to work, as happens in many professions, so that the years of service in this House could become part of someone’s career pattern. Age and need would not stand in the way. Basing the membership of the House of Lords on these principles would make it more modern, more representative of the union, and more independent. It would ensure the primacy of the other place and ensure that there is no overall majority. With no majority party in the House, we would have to work with the discipline of having to persuade other parties or the Cross-Benchers in order to form a majority. That is a very important discipline. Most importantly, however, this would enable the House of Lords to carry out what may be its most important task in the future—to be the place where the Government are held to account, as this seems to be declining in the other place. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, spoke about this. There is a vast amount of detail to be looked at, but if we are going to have a bicameral system that in the end is to be wholly democratic and elected, a hybrid House of Lords is a sensible stop on the way. This is a different House since the House of Lords Act 1999. Much has changed. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, who was in his place, said that we are poor at explaining ourselves. I agree, because we now know that once Members of Parliament and the public fully realise and understand this, and learn of the quality of our Select Committees, the depth and rigour of our revision work, and our concern for the liberty and freedom of the citizen, they want us to retain these valuable assets. Many noble Lords argue that these qualities are the reason why we should stay as we are; to retain them. They are wrong. These qualities are the baby we must not throw out with the bath water. They justify our existence, and we must retain them while moving towards the goal of a democratic second Chamber.