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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, last night, I hope that the observations of a relative newcomer to the House will not seem out of place and that they may add value. I draw encouragement from the statement of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that no one should feel inhibited about expressing their views. I would be content for mine to be seen as the contribution of a rising star amid this galaxy of heavyweights. I can hope only that my star will not be snuffed out too precipitately as a result of the discussions on which we are embarked. I associate myself with the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, in his maiden speech shortly after my own on 21 November 2006. He said that it had come as a revelation to him to witness at first hand, "““the wealth of experience, the depth of knowledge and the fierce independence at work in this Chamber, which are almost certainly beyond the recognition and appreciation of the wider British public””." A leitmotif running through this debate has been the extent to which the work and the working of your Lordships’ House are neither understood nor appreciated. The noble Lord, Lord James, went on to say: "““It would be a tragedy if the public discovered what they had had only by losing it””.—[Official Report, 21/11/06; col. 270.]" I speak only as I find and I hope that I will not be considered to be too self-serving and complacent in making these observations. As will appear, I am not wholly uncritical of the working of the House and believe that changes could usefully be made. I had always entertained a measure of scepticism about the cliché that the level of debate was superior in your Lordships’ House to that in another place. Perhaps that scepticism would have been justified in the dog-days of the House identified by the White Paper when only a fraction of your Lordships’ predecessors attended on a regular basis. But since I arrived, I have been awed by the level of expertise, the analytical prowess and the forensic command evident in your Lordships’ House, which is so devoid of the kind of political knockabout with which we are so familiar in another place. I do not believe that that can be attributed solely to my accession to the House. More than once I have attended a debate with the thought that I might make an intervention, only to abandon the idea rapidly on recognising that I was in the presence of people who knew 10,000 times more about the subject than I did. Some debates have been among the best seminars that I have ever attended. I say ““seminars”” because I have sometimes wondered what difference they made. It has occurred to me that there could be merit in our recording our view in a resolution that is slightly less bland than is customary in your Lordships’ House, which need not be confrontational. The Government may wish tomorrow that we had recorded our view with slightly greater emphasis at the end of our recent debate on the renewal of the Trident missile system. However, on the matter in hand, there is a problem of legitimacy. To the bien pensants who consider themselves to be of a generally progressive disposition, there is something faintly disreputable about the House of Lords. One detected that in the reaction to one’s own appointment in certain quarters: ““Not really to be condoned, but perhaps, since it’s you””. This stems from the association with aristocracy and the hereditary principle, which is surely anachronistic with the renaissance of your Lordships’ House following the 1999 Act, since when, by common consent, it has worked with unparalleled effectiveness. It is also specious, as many speakers have shown, to say that legitimacy comes only from election. The most significant thing to come out of the debate over these two days is the destruction of the argument for election as the only basis of legitimacy, along with illustrations of the lack of knowledge of this place and the absence of demand for reform, as attested by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and other speakers. That is not to say that there should be no change. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, and others have suggested some basic changes, but not the kind that will be offered in Motions 2 to 7 tomorrow. I believe that your Lordships’ House is in many ways more democratic than the other place. In the absence of the stranglehold of party discipline, the organs of civil society have much more genuine access to the legislative process. The problem of legitimacy is much more one of perception than reality. The remedy is much more one of education—rather than election—about how the House is composed and how it works. It is said that public opinion wants an elected House, but I am not aware that any attempt has ever been made to engender a proper understanding of these things. However, severance of the link with the peerage probably would make a difference to how things are perceived. I am not so much in favour of appointment as against elections, at least of the kind proposed—in geographical constituencies from party lists, however open. Indeed, I would not feel able to vote for an elected element if it was to be elected on such a basis. The idea that this will confer legitimacy is laughable when one considers the regard in which the other place is held. Such elections will simply produce a cardboard replica of the other place, a House full of party hacks good only for political knockabout and devoid of the expertise and analytical mode of operation that make this House so fit for purpose as a revising Chamber. A number of other arguments against election need to be considered. It is said that election will alter the balance of power between the Houses. Though much is made of this, I do not think that it is as strong an argument as is commonly supposed. Election of the upper House may give rise to tension and have a destabilising effect, but it cannot actually alter the balance of power except in so far as the other place allows. On the other hand, I am certain that election of Members to this House on the basis of geographical constituencies will bring them into conflict with the representative role of Members of the other place. We have heard about this from noble Lords who are familiar with the Scottish situation. Finally, there is what I might call the ““fourth XI”” problem, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, drew our attention in his intervention in the debate on the Queen’s Speech and to which other noble Lords have alluded. That goes to the very heart of the issue of quality and fitness for purpose. However, I am anxious to be of help in moving towards a consensus, and I think that I can be. If elections were to be based on constituencies reflecting the different sectors of civil society—the arts, sport, medicine, the law, trades unions, education, the voluntary sector, the women’s movement, disability, black and ethnic minority communities, the different faiths and so forth—it would be possible to combine the requirement for expertise with that of election. Such systems are usually dismissed on the grounds of complexity and impracticability, but there are precedents in other countries, and as I see it they offer the only basis for consensus between those who want a method of recruitment to the second Chamber that maximises expertise and those who want a House whose composition is determined by election. It therefore behoves us, I believe, to try a little harder. I understand the difficulties. Other noble Lords, led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, have their own lists of constituencies, but if the Government were to come up with a scheme and consult on it, and all our different ideas were to be pooled, I cannot believe that it would be beyond the wit of man to arrive at a scheme that commanded general acceptance. I would be happy to submit my ideas, and no doubt other noble Lords will have theirs. If the proposals have flaws, as no doubt they will, I hope that that will be a stimulus to improve them rather than a reason to reject them out of hand.