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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, in last week’s debate in the other place, Sir Gerald Kaufman said of the White Paper, no doubt with a degree of hyperbole: "““This is an utterly irresponsible way to create a new House of Parliament from scratch. After 800 years of the other Chamber’s evolution, the Government basically want to abolish it and to start anew””.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/07; col. 1533.]" Yesterday in this Chamber, the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, spoke of the danger of changing fundamentally the constitution of this country. Earlier today, a former Cabinet Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, spoke of a profound and fundamental change being proposed—a leap into the unknown. When such warnings are laid alongside many other words of warning, not least from the former Lord Chancellor—who has now, one hopes, irreversibly broken his Trappist vow in the Chamber—they need to be weighed very carefully. Previous speakers have subjected to scrutiny the claim that the legitimacy of this House and its Members could only be provided by at least a substantial elected presence. When the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor introduced the debate, I felt that he was rather restrained in his deployment of that argument; he spoke of the need for a democratic element or a democratic connection. I find the arguments against the fundamental hybridity in the House persuasive. I accept that there is a degree of hybridity at the moment, but that seems quite different from introducing into this House people who are elected in ways that parallel the election of Members of the other House. That would introduce the principle of hybridity in a wholly new way. No doubt with traditional British good sense, it could be made to work after a fashion, provided that the electoral process really did generate Members of quality, although there are strong questions about whether that would happen in practice. Along with the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, I suspect that more radical changes would be needed if one were to get through the process of election people of the quality that we require here. Any fundamental hybridity between elected and appointed Members seems to carry a substantial danger of instability, for reasons that have been widely advanced. Senior figures argue that, once an elected element has been introduced, the pressure would be there to increase the elected proportion. I think that that is the real message of the vote in the other place last week. Once you start, where do you stop? In one sense, they drew the logical conclusion. I agree that this House needs a democratic connection but believe that that is best achieved by attending to its relationship with the elected House rather than by muddying the waters of our own House. As has been said, do we really think that electing somebody for 15 years, with no prospect of re-election, provides any form of accountability at all? I professionally believe in acts of faith, but that seems to be an act of faith beyond anything that I have attempted so far in my life. As I read the debate in the other place in Hansard, I sensed the feeling that all was not well with our democracy as a whole. But rather than being fundamentally a problem for this House, the problem surely lies primarily with the inability of the other place to lead in the exercise of a democratic restraint on an overpowerful Government and Executive. In a previous incarnation, I was a chemist. I was taught the basic rule that when there are a number of variables in a situation, one should not change them all at the same time. The priorities, it seems to me, should be to bed down effectively the major and substantial constitutional changes that the Government have already made. Most of these are still in their early days, as the nature of the campaign for the Scottish Parliament illustrates well enough at present. Then there is the need to improve the relationship between the Government and Parliament, not least with the office of the Prime Minister. I do not dispute that there are also issues that need to be attended to in this House, but I suspect that what is needed are more modest proposals than those in the White Paper, let alone those expressed in the other place last week. Aspects of the White Paper are beginning to generate a significant consensus. In a persuasive contribution yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, identified three areas in which the working of this House could be addressed. Changes do not have to be comprehensive to be appropriately radical. The changes consequent on the Supreme Court have been agreed on their merits. Other changes, including, if desired, the gradual removal of the remaining hereditary Peers, could also be considered on their merits. I include here the question of religious representation. I agreed fully with the speeches yesterday by my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, but neither argued simply for the status quo. The case for having religious representation in a revising and deliberative Chamber in the UK Parliament can be made more powerfully today than it could 20 or 30 years ago, but that needs to be broadened, both ecumenically and in relation to other faith communities. In its submission to the Wakeham commission nearly 10 years ago, the Church of England said: "““A reformed second Chamber…must be seen to take full account of the nation’s growing ethnic and cultural diversity””," including different religious traditions. If that was true 10 years ago, it is even truer now. I believe that this is urgently required, but it implies some reduction in the number of Bishops on these Benches. In conclusion, there are two basic priorities before us. First, we must address the problem of what Lord Hailsham termed the developing elective dictatorship in our country. If it was that then, it is much worse now. That is mainly, although not exclusively, a matter for the other place. Secondly, we need to broaden this House to be a more representative forum for the whole host of professional bodies, communities and interest groups, including regionally based bodies and people of many types of expertise who exist in our wider society. I continue to believe that, with proper checks and balances, this will best be achieved at the present time with an all-appointed House, aided by a properly constituted Appointments Commission.