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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, when, for three separate periods over a number of years, I was part of the usual channels in another place, it was my duty to visit your Lordships’ House frequently, which I greatly enjoyed. I prided myself on understanding the ways of your Lordships’ House, its traditions and its foibles. Little did I realise until I came here, less than two years ago, the depth of my ignorance and how imperfectly I understood the elegant subtleties of your Lordships’ House. My noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon observed earlier how little Members of the other place understand your Lordships’ House. He is right. Why should they? Their priorities lie entirely elsewhere. In a sense, we are like Bertie Wooster’s aunts: aunt baying to aunt, "““like mastodons … across the primeval swamp””." Perhaps like the historian, FW Maitland, who was accused of seeing medieval England through a mist of moots and witans, my former colleagues in the other place looking along the Corridor see through a prism of coronets and ermine, with a wholesome contempt for the great and the good and the privileged—not parliamentary privilege, of course, which is sacrosanct in the other place. Noble Lords here are exasperated by the wilful, even disrespectful, reluctance of the other place to acknowledge our wisdom, experience, expertise, independence, diversity and modesty. Some of my former colleagues are, even today, ageist, which is certainly not politically correct and, in some circumstances, is illegal. I suppose that it was ever thus. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, in her remarkable speech, suggested an all-party committee of both Houses to take matters forward. I do not normally favour setting up ever more committees to take decisions, but I believe that on this occasion it is an excellent suggestion. Indeed, the more such committees there are, the better. The Government are seeking consensus and I hope that one may emerge. These things are always relative. The case against an elected or predominantly elected House has been analysed in the White Paper and powerfully argued, especially by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, my noble friend Lord Lawson, and others, so I shall not repeat their arguments. Suffice it to say that no system of election could be devised that would deliver the gender, racial, religious and other aspects of diversity that we have in your Lordships’ House—far more so than is or ever could be the case in the other place. That can be achieved only by the Appointments Commission. The Australian Constitution of 1901 stipulated that each state should have the same number of senators, irrespective of population. The intention was that senators would represent the interests of states in a body where the most populous states could not dominate the less populous. In practice, the Senate was quickly taken over by the principal party machines—a condition that has prevailed to this day. A wholly, or 80 per cent elected, second Chamber here would undergo the same experience. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the Conservatives would have had the upper hand in elections. From the mid-1990s until recently, it would have been the Labour Party. The assumption that an election could not deliver a single-party majority in the Lords is clearly false. Elections are unpredictable. My right honourable and learned friend—he is a great friend—Ken Clarke in another place spoke of an idealised Chamber in which Members would be immune from the Whips. Pigs might fly, but I do not think that they will. No doubt the world would not come to an end if there was a single-party majority in the second Chamber but, as the White Paper recognises, the conventions of this place whereby your Lordships’ existing powers are not used to bring the Government to a halt and cause gridlock would need to be enshrined in statute—in effect, a written constitution, on which we are far from agreeing. If a second Chamber were controlled by the same party as the other place, we would have produced an elective dictatorship. If it were controlled by the Opposition, there would be a high risk of gridlock. Neither would be the end of the world, but they would hardly be an improvement on what we have now. Nor is it what people want. In recent years, the House of Commons has ceded substantial power to Brussels, Strasbourg, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Students of Tudor and Stuart history of my generation were advised to read Wallace Notestein’s learned tract, The Winning of the Initiative by the House of Commons. Future students may read a tract about the present era entitled, ““The Losing of the Initiative by the House of Commons””. Power is indeed finite, as the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said. It is a zero-sum game. Some see creating an elected second Chamber as a way of checking the overweening power of the Executive, but surely if primacy means anything, that is the job of the other place, not of a revising and deliberative Chamber. The noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, deplored, as I do, the new procedure of programming all legislation in the other place—what we used to call the guillotine. However, MPs do not have to vote for these measures. Perhaps tomorrow night’s rebellion will give government Back-Benchers the appetite for a little more independence. The solution to an overmighty Executive lies in the other place. That is what primacy is about. Like other former Members of the other place, I never had any correspondence about House of Lords reform. Jack Straw referred in the other place to, "““the pent-up feeling for devolution””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/07; col. 1399.]." He was talking about the situation prior to the devolution legislation. There is no such pent-up demand for an elected House of Lords today; in fact, quite the reverse. Consensus lies in creating a statutory Appointments Commission, charged with appointing Peers from all walks of life, all regions—Owen Paterson in the other place pointed out the preponderance of the south-east—all faiths, all ethnic minorities and all age groups, and ending the system of by-elections for hereditary Peers. We have been asked to consider a massive constitutional change, about which few details, such as functions and methods of election and so on, are apparent, as the Government concede. The noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, said that we are being asked to sign a blank cheque. All the White Paper offers us for our blank cheque is a pig in a poke. Since 1999, our Chamber has been characterised by independence and diversity, where all parties are represented but none has a majority, and all agree that it is performing well—as well, some say, as it ever has in history. We should let your Lordships’ House continue to evolve, with a statutory Appointments Commission, as envisaged in the White Paper and as described by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, and others, and we should revisit the matter in years to come if the present and envisaged arrangements, which are very new, seem unsatisfactory. There is no hurry.