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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, I was somewhat disappointed by the White Paper, not so much because of its internal inconsistencies, of which there are many, but because it is so timid. The fault is not that it is too radical but that it is not radical enough. Its root problem is that it is essentially concerned only with composition, and that is the wrong way round. A reform driven by a consideration of function, role and purpose could have produced a much more radical set of proposals than one driven purely by considerations of composition. It would have been better to start with what we do reasonably well—I say reasonably well because we could always do things better—which is scrutiny and revision. It should have concentrated on that, seen how it could be improved and strengthened and looked at the real challenges of pre- and post-legislative scrutiny. That is the challenge that a modern legislature should address rather than the lesser order issue of composition. That approach would have led to a much more comprehensive reform that would have had to cover organisation, structure and process and, at the end of the day, would have addressed the arguments about composition. That would have been a fit-for-purpose way of addressing the problem. We should have focused on how a second Chamber can add more value to the process of legislating and how it can add value to the public life of our country. However, in Chapter 6 of the White Paper the Government usefully set down a series of seven principles that they believe should underpin a reformed House of Lords, whatever its composition. It is worth reading them out: primacy of the House of Commons; complementarity of the House of Lords—by which it means revision and scrutiny—a more legitimate House of Lords; no overall majority for any party; a non-party-political element; a more representative House of Lords; and continuity of membership. It would be enormously helpful if my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer could confirm that the Government remain committed to those principles and that any detailed proposals will be argued from them. That would be a very important statement for the Government to make now about their intentions. The White Paper argues: "““The primacy of the Commons rests on three clear factors. First, election of its members as the direct representatives of the people ... Second is the Commons’ power to grant or withhold supply ... [and] Third, the principle of the primacy of the Commons is enshrined in the Parliament Acts””." If we look at the Parliament Acts and how they came about, we find that justification for the limited power of veto that the Lords now have and of the special treatment of money Bills rests squarely on the distinction that the House of Lords is not elected and the House of Commons is. Make the House of Lords, or a second Chamber, elected and the justification for the restrictions imposed by the Parliament Acts falls away. British constitutional history shows that the primacy of the House of Commons is based on its unique claim within Parliament to democratic legitimacy. Remove that unique claim and you will certainly get change in the relationship between the two Houses and endanger the supremacy of the House of Commons. I want to touch on two other aspects of an elected second Chamber: the electoral system and the time of elections. If elections were to take place by some form of proportional representation, that would not just introduce a distinctive basis of election for the second Chamber, it would open up a very real, important and divisive debate on which electoral system produces the most representative Chamber and the most representative politician. We know the Liberal Democrats’ answer to that. They are open and frank in saying that proportional representation produces a fairer and more representative system for a Parliament than first past the post. So the argument is bound to be that a second Chamber based on proportional representation would be more representative than the first-past-the-post elected House of Commons. There is already proportional representation in the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly and in Scottish local government. We are fast heading towards the stage where first past the post for the House of Commons will be the anomaly. How stable and secure would that be? The White Paper favours holding the elections at the same time as the European elections. That opens up an argument about new and eroding mandates. Imagine a Government going through mid-term unpopularity and faced with a newly elected second Chamber that is elected on what some would claim is a more representative basis. In those circumstances, is it likely that such an emboldened and confident second Chamber would content itself merely with scrutiny and revision? Of course not. It would start to challenge the Commons, arguing, as other noble Lords have stated today, that one elected politician is just as good as—in some cases, perhaps better than—another elected politician. In those circumstances, we get either paralysis or another constitutional crisis. My argument—and my argument in previous debates on House of Lords reform—has always been based on the relationship between the two Houses and the need to maintain the supremacy of the House of Commons. Given that, I am not in the business of saving the House of Commons from itself, but I can argue for scrutiny and that the reform should be based on principle. I want reform. I want thoroughgoing, comprehensive, coherent reform. Above all, I want reform that maintains the power and supremacy of the House of Commons. I fear that the White Paper fails to deliver on all those objectives.