---

House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, it has been a pretty impressive two days of debate, and I venture into this debate with some hesitation, not least because I still regard myself as a comparatively new kid on the block. I was one of the first wave of 15 Peers selected by the newly established Lords Appointments Commission, the first samples of a new breed—introduced, it is hard to believe, only six years ago. However, one of the things that has prompted me to say something is that I have had the privilege—the advantage, indeed—of having been, in the role of a politically interested spouse, an observer, over more years than I care to remember, of just how both Houses and their inhabitants, operate and behave. I have one very simple, not new, but important point to make—that this House is very different from the other place. The inhabitants are different, too, and we behave differently. Why? It is because we have different functions to perform. That difference is very easily explained: it is in the Parliament Act. The noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, called for its repeal before further changes and, of course, he is right about that, because it is the other place, the elected House that takes the final decisions and has the last word. I suspect that not one of us, in either House, really wants to change that. The Houses themselves have been changing. Membership of the other place, for example, has become more and more dominated by professional politicians with considerably less experience than previously in the outside world of successful achievements in other careers and professions. So, increasingly, it has been more and more important to offer them advice, from very different points of view—independent advice, based upon a range of expertise and experience unparalleled in any other legislature in the world. I am constantly amazed—indeed humbled—when I contemplate the diverse expertise of the colleagues who were appointed with me. People like Lord Chan, so sadly no longer with us, who brought regional as well as ethnic diversity—a Chinaman from Merseyside—as well as a very distinctive medical expertise; or my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who will address us later this evening, who brings from Wales her own immensely energetic and knowledgeable blend of academic and medical skills; or my noble friend Lord Hannay—by no means the only one of his kind, but with hugely impressive international insights. To take much more recent examples, my noble friends Lord Low and Lord Bilimoria have already spoken today and are taking an active role in your Lordships’ House. Last, but not least, my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham is the winner of this year’s Channel 4 award of campaigning parliamentarian of the year for his outstanding contribution to debates and Bills on penal reform. Then there is the other, even wider, diversity of colleagues who have arrived here by other well tried routes including the political parties, of course, and the right reverend Prelates with their connectedness, as they put it, with both our national traditions and every corner of your Lordships’ country. Two consequences of that diversity are worth emphasising. First, there is an increasing number of women Peers; a higher proportion of life Peers than MPs are women. They have been able to make contributions based upon their extensive practical experience of NGOs, as well as their professional lives and backgrounds. Secondly, there is the unique contribution that continues to be made by our legal fraternity. Their role today is even more valuable, as other noble Lords have said, with so many Bills being passed on to us by the other place with most of their clauses wholly unexamined. I have often voiced the view, perhaps partly to tease my noble kinsman, that the world contains far too many lawyers. That is certainly not the case in your Lordships’ House. I have vividly in mind an early experience of the domestic violence Bill in Committee, in which the late Lord Donaldson would from time to time question whether a particular clause would be interpreted by the courts in the way that everyone—including the two noble Baronesses leading for the Government and Opposition—had assumed. The effect was electric and, almost without exception, appropriate changes were made to the Bill before Report stage. Perhaps most significant for me in today’s House is that all our votes have the same weight and are as good as each other. That was not the position before 1999, with its built-in hereditary Tory majority. Until then, it was easy for critics to separate the so-called sheep from the goats—the hereditaries from the rest—and so discount the results accordingly. That does not happen today. For me, that is the most striking thing about this House: the extent to which we are able, and do, work together as partners in a common cause, regardless of our origins. That priceless pattern of mutual respect, that invaluable parity of esteem—if I may borrow a phrase from the long-running education debate—would be fatally damaged by the introduction of a totally different tranche of elected members. They would not hesitate—or if they did for a moment or two, the media would not—to claim their elected status as conferring extra so-called legitimacy upon them, thus discounting our own contributions. This House would once again be divided, with its authority correspondingly diminished, and we should have lost all the ground gained since 1999. Thus far, I have tried to underline the benefits, as they appear to me, of the present system of appointing Members of this House. It is notable, as other noble Lords have observed, that the so-called ““cash for peerages”” mischief only came to light because of the work of the commission established in this very context. That underlines how perverse it is to exploit that scandal as an excuse for replacing us all with elected Members. But, given the vital role it played, your Lordships should certainly have no difficulty in agreeing that the commission has more than earned its right to be given statutory status. It follows that I regard as totally misconceived the notion so casually commended in the first Division in the other place: the replacement of this House by a second, entirely elected, chamber. That strikes me as so thoughtless and reckless a proposal as to destroy entirely the credibility of any of the other alternatives. Accordingly, I shall vote for an entirely nominated Chamber, and against all the alternatives.