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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, most Members of your Lordships’ House, including me, believe that a system that got us here must be pretty good. Where I differ from most other Members is that I believe that election would be an even better system. I start from a very simple and basic proposition. In a democracy the legislature should be elected by the people; that means the whole legislature, not just one House, and it means being elected by the whole electorate, not by special interest groups, as suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. Any departure from that proposition needs to be justified by very strong arguments indeed. Most Members of your Lordships’ House want an appointment system, but appointment by party leaders has been discredited by recent events and, in any event, gives far too much opportunity for patronage. Appointment by an Appointments Commission, however impeccable its integrity, may be okay for the appointment of a limited number of Cross-Benchers, but would be absolutely wrong for the appointment of political Members. How could we justify having a quango of perhaps a dozen members having power to appoint all or most Members of one House of Parliament. We on all party Benches are politicians. We should earn the right to sit here by standing for election, which, after all, is what politicians are for. We have heard objections to election to membership. Some noble Lords say that it would damage the primacy of the House of Commons. That primacy is based on three pillars: first, on the control by the House of Commons of the supply of money, a rule applied for centuries which no one would suggest should now be changed; secondly, on the Parliament Act, which enables the House of Commons to legislate without the consent of your Lordships’ House; and, thirdly, on the rule that the Government must have the confidence of only the House of Commons to remain in office. None of those three pillars would be removed or to any extent weakened by giving people the right to vote for membership of your Lordships’ House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, pointed out yesterday, a reformed upper House could not seize powers for itself. An elected House would and should enable your Lordships’ House to exercise the power it already has, but to exercise it more effectively. That for me is the main purpose of the proposed reform. Such a House could, for example, make more use of its power to block secondary legislation if it thought that it was being used in an inappropriate way or needed amendment. It has been argued that there would be a decline in the quality of the Members; I do not believe that. Membership of an elected upper House would remain an honour and a privilege. It would continue to attract people who had finished their career in the House of Commons but wished to remain involved in national politics. It would attract people who have held senior positions in local government and want to move on to the national scene. And it would attract people like me, who have tried and failed to get into the House of Commons. These are all groups which already make up a large proportion of Members of your Lordships’ House and who, I believe, would not be put off by the need to fight an election. There would be some loss of expertise among appointed Cross Benchers. I recognise that this expertise has value, though any such appointments should be time-limited because, as my noble friend Lord Smith of Clifton pointed out, expertise has a use-by date. I am therefore happy to retain 20 per cent as appointed Members in a reformed House, not all of them as experts but also to fill other gaps in the membership. Indeed, an 80:20 split would be my first preference. Your Lordships’ House is not just a revising Chamber; it also has an important role, along with the judiciary and the media, in resisting the abuse of power by the Executive. Since the departure of most hereditaries in 1999, your Lordships’ House has done a more effective job than was the case previously, and I believe that it will do a better job still if it has the legitimacy which comes from an 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected membership. There is a serious fault in your Lordships’ House, one which, frankly, has been displayed during our debate of the past two days: it is too inward-looking. I would like to remind noble Lords how we appear to many outsiders by quoting a passage from the speech of John Bercow in the House of Commons last Tuesday. He said, "““although some peers work exceptionally hard and frequently demonstrate great expertise, the most vociferous voices in support of the excellence of the existing House of Lords are existing Members of the House of Lords. On the principle that no one should be judge in his own cause, we should not attach much weight to that kind of special pleading””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/07; cols. 1477-78.]" I have no illusion about the outcome of tomorrow’s votes, but noble Lords should not have the illusion that they can veto reforms of your Lordships’ House for ever. Since 1999 the House has largely ceased to be constituted on a hereditary basis. This satisfies the first half of the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911. I still hope that the second half of the preamble, constitution of the second Chamber on a popular basis, will be completed in time for the centenary of the Parliament Act, and I mean the Parliament Act 1911 not the Parliament Act 1949.