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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord and I defer to his wisdom and experience. Indeed, he gave an introduction better than I could produce to my speech. The Gods appear to have ordained for their pleasure that these debates and votes should ensue during the Ides of March. Auguries are not as propitious as some noble Lords might wish. But it will all take quite a bit of time—not because of delay for the sake of delay but delay to get it right. In that sense, stand-off between the Houses has not arisen and, as I see it, there is no particular anxiety that it should. The assumption is that our unwritten constitution is to be retained. That is about the only assurance that I want from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. That assurance goes to the root of one of the main arguments. If that is retained, the extant working relationship between the two Houses under the Parliament Act as implemented in amity by convention cannot be improved by any proposed option, other than option one. No justification is produced for improvement of that working relationship, which goes to the essence of the main argument. The electorate—we do not have any PR in this House, as far as I am aware—has very little interest in this political power struggle generated by the White Paper, which is not a White Paper, at the behest of government. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, referred to it as a struggle for power and the authority to use it. All that one can know about the electorate is that in an opinion the other day, 72 per cent took the view that the House as constituted was doing a pretty good job. This could only favour a wholly appointed House under option one. A hybrid House is no compromise; it was simply a Trojan horse that was stuck there to try to secure some agreement as an aid to going forward to stage two. I am afraid that the horse collapsed. In fact, I am rather glad it did. A hybrid House would engender conflict between the Houses. Even more than that, it would destroy the ethos of your Lordships’ House, to no advantage at all, and would involve the appointment of a disciplined Speaker along the lines of the Speaker in another place. Our whole ethos about giving way and not dominating, to which the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, referred, would go. Such an appointment would be the end of it. Therefore, on any showing, this is the worst possible option. It is even worse than a wholly elected Chamber. As I understand it, the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, acknowledged the status of the hereditaries under the Cranborne deal, and appeared to seek in the wake of this debate and vote a fresh start in the discussion on the reform of the House and what was in the best interests of the nation and both Houses under our excellent unwritten constitution, without the pale of doctrinal political pre-emption. Those are my words. They are not the words that he used; that is how I interpreted his feeling about the matter. If that is his feeling, I wholly endorse it. The speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, my noble friend Lord Wakeham and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe were in favour of a wholly appointed House, for the reasons given by them. The context was given by the speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and other noble Lords. Only one other matter remains for me to discuss. It has already been discussed so well that it would be a shame to try to improve on it. The speeches made this morning by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, and my noble friend Lord Higgins set out the essence of the problem that most Back-Benchers, like me, have in this House. I am very grateful to them for the way in which they put it.