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House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, while I of course congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on the introduction of this Bill, I am opposed to it, not because I do not agree with at least one of its proposals—eventually to remove the remaining hereditary Peers—but because I am profoundly opposed to its proposed method of appointing life Peers. As a matter of principle, the idea that nine people, be they ever so good and ever so great, should be responsible for deciding who should be the Members of our legislature is no longer appropriate in a modern world. However, I oppose the Bill largely because its time has passed. It is not quite like rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship, as that would be too cruel an analogy for your Lordships’ House. Perhaps closing the door after the horse has bolted would be a more apt description. The horse that has bolted in this case is the vote in the other place earlier this year that said in clear and unequivocal terms that your Lordships’ House should either be wholly elected or that a majority of it should be elected. This decisive vote has been welcomed by the Government and by the main political parties. The Green Paper The Governance of Britain, published in July 2007, stated that the Government will develop reforms for a substantially or wholly elected second Chamber and that the cross-party discussions led by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Justice will seek to bring forward a comprehensive package of reforms. I agree with that and I was in the minority of your Lordships who voted for a substantially or wholly elected Chamber earlier this year. In preparing for this debate, I went back to the debates of 1999, when I sat through almost all the hours during which your Lordships’ House was debating what we, and certainly I as a very new Member, thought would be the first stage of reform. I believed that the second stage would surely soon follow. I am older now, certainly; whether or not I am wiser I leave for others to judge, but I have come to realise that reform of this Chamber is not and never will be easy. Since 1997, we have had a royal commission, two Joint Committee reports, four government White Papers on Lords reform and now this Private Member’s Bill. While I disagree with the Bill, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for trying to find a way to edge forward in the further reform of your Lordships’ House. However, there is no doubt that, willy-nilly, we have over the past 10 years reformed ourselves and the way in which we conduct business. For example, we elect our own Speaker. In my view, we need more elections to important committees in this House—and why not? But I digress. Because of the accumulation of internal and external reform, there is no doubt that we are a more confident and businesslike House than we were, we are taken more seriously by the Government and, if the number of organisations that beat a path to one’s door is an indication, we are taken seriously by many organisations and groups that seek to influence our deliberations. However, I do not believe that, just because this House does a good job, that justifies efforts to continue our existence or our composition as it currently stands. With respect to my noble friend Lord Lea, who is not in his place, I believe that he is mistaken. There is no consensus in the Labour group about how this House should be reformed and I regret to say that he is completely out of step with his own party policy and manifesto. We have hereditary Peers and we have an absurd by-election system to replenish them. The methods of appointment of the rest of us are not easily understood or justified. We have just emerged from a period of examination about how we are appointed, linked to a suspicion that some may be here because they donated or loaned money to a political party. Like many noble Lords, I spend some of my time explaining to others the work of this House—to schools, students, women’s institutes and political gatherings. I can assure noble Lords that the recent police investigation and discussions have damaged all of us. When one links the unhelpful publicity to what it is like attempting to explain to a crowd of 18 and 19 year-old students the composition of the House, with its Bishops and its hereditary Peers, and how the rest of us got here, the lesson is salutary. There is disbelief, amusement and incomprehension. There are questions about why we have the established Church sitting as of right in our legislature, when the only other country in the world that has such a system is Iran. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said in a recent debate about the composition, "““we sometimes fail to see ourselves as others see us””.—[Official Report, 12/3/07; col. 556.]" I am convinced that he is right and that we have a tendency to convince ourselves that because we do a great job—as, indeed, we do—the lack of democratic accountability can be justified in the 21st century. The House of Lords must look at itself much more carefully. We must adopt the principle that, one way or another, directly or indirectly, the consent of the people is required if we are to be part of the legislature.