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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, that the Statement is being presented to Parliament on 14 July, when the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille, demonstrates that someone in the Ministry of Justice has a sense of humour, if not a sense of history. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for repeating the Statement made in another place, and for giving me an advance opportunity to read the White Paper. It is the third White Paper on this House from this Government, and there have been even more major statements on its role, Members and powers over the years. Of course, many proposals have preceded it since the curbing of this House’s powers in 1911, when both Houses resolved that in due time the House should be constituted on a popular basis. We had the Bryce commission of 1918, the talks of Lord Longford and my noble friend Lord Carrington in 1968, the Home report, the Plant commission, and the royal commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham. One has only to read a few of the names to realise how long the debate about the future of our House has continued. For all the Lord Chancellor’s ingenuity, the problem has been neither newly identified nor finally resolved in the White Paper; there is much work to be done before a Bill could be presented. This House is no stranger to reform. The Conservative Life Peerages Act 1958 was a revolutionary experiment in composition, enacted some 80 years after the controversy over life peerages first raged in the Wensleydale case. The Conservative Party enabled women who inherited peerages to enter this place in 1963, and in 1968 the House voted for substantial further reforms only to see those plans scuppered in another place. In 1999, half this House departed in the face of the House of Lords Act. Much as they disliked it, they accepted that as their duty in view of the binding undertakings given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, to provide for a comprehensive stage 2 reform. In 2005, further legislation reversed the first life peerages provisions in relation to the judiciary and provided for Law Lords to be excluded. So let it not be said that this House is not prepared to entertain change, accept it or adapt to it when it occurs. I thank the Lord Chancellor, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, who joined the cross-party talks referred to in the Statement actively when she became Leader of the House, for the care with which they conducted them. They did so with responsibility and a clear understanding of the role, authority and importance of this House in our bicameral constitution, something not always seen from every member of this Government. Equally, I know that the cross-party talks have created resentment in this House, although cross-party talks are of course normal in a functioning democracy. Many of your Lordships felt excluded, which was unnecessary and avoidable. For my own part, I would have had no difficulty with publishing the papers or the records of the talks, and I always thought that it would be wise to have a parallel process made up of Back-Benchers examining the implications of the votes of this House on reform. There is a majority in this place for a fully appointed House, an idea that in itself presents substantial practical issues. However, the Government chose to proceed on the basis of votes in the House of Commons for an 80 or 100 per cent elected House, which made known—for this Parliament at least—the will of another place. Of course, the Government could not and should not have ignored the votes of another place and—I must say, bluntly—neither should we as a House. If we do not engage with another place, it can impose its will on us; we cannot just sit this one out. That is why the Front Benches in this Parliament, the noble Baroness the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, and the right reverend Prelates accepted the Lord Chancellor’s invitation to participate actively and constructively in wrestling with the issues arising from the votes in the other place; I make no apology for that. After all, the unilateral proposals for change put forward by this Government since 1999 have not exactly had a rapturous welcome. We started the talks with the aim of working out what the House that another place voted for might look like and setting out for both Houses to consider a potential design for such a House. The paper published today is a step towards this, but let me make it clear that it is a government White Paper, not a cross-party paper, although, as the Statement says, we found wide areas of agreement. That is hardly surprising, given the commitments of the main parties to seek consensus for a partially elected reform. However, it is equally unsurprising that we also found major areas of disagreement and it is inevitable that this White Paper will be the basis of a long and heated debate which I hope will take place in this House some time after we return from the Summer Recess. Without pre-empting that debate, I shall sketch briefly some areas of agreement and disagreement. If there is an elected House, we must keep, so far as possible, the strengths of this House while increasing its will to use its powers. We agreed that that means no reduction in the powers of this House. We agreed that it means long non-renewable terms for Members, so that they are free of coercion and as independent as possible from threats and rewards by party Whips. We agreed that it means retaining the right reverend Prelates. It also means, in my view, ““no”” to a 100 per cent-elected House, because that would exclude the Cross Benchers who put a particular stamp on this House and whose expertise is so valuable to Parliament. Any reformed House must pass these and other key tests. It must complement the other place, not compete with it; it must not be a House of opposition, but nor should it be servile; it should be no less capable of performing the key roles of the current House and it should be a House to which the people of this country can genuinely relate. That takes me to an area of major disagreement—how an elected House should be chosen. It may surprise noble Lords to hear that the Liberal Democrats shocked us in the working party by calling for proportional representation. We prefer smaller constituencies based on our historic cities and counties, with Members chosen directly by ““first past the post””. The Government sat on the fence. That is not a good basis for legislation. Many grey areas also remain for which the White Paper has not provided adequate answers for public scrutiny. There are the difficult questions of the transition from one House another, the pay and pension arrangements for the new House and outgoing Members of the present one and, indeed, the overall costs of a reformed House. These issues cannot be fudged in a Bill. There has been perhaps a little fudging, which is why this is not really a White Paper at all. It is a Green Paper. The Government’s mind is unclear on so much that you have to wonder why they are publishing it in the first place. Even the name of a reformed House is a mystery. Leaks a few weeks ago suggested that it would be called a senate, but even that seems to be too radical a step for this Government, and the name disappeared in the final draft. What will the House be called? The Minister and the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will have to make the Government’s position far clearer in the months ahead. There is a great deal yet to do. There should now be a pause while both Houses, the wider public and, in due time, the next Parliament work to resolve the many questions raised by this process. That should be no excuse for suspending further work. The Executive are too strong and Parliament, for all the efforts of your Lordships over the past 10 years, is too weak to restrain them properly. We have too many laws in this country and too many lawmakers who lack the capacity or authority to prevent or improve them. We must not set our faces against change that might help Parliament to do its vital job more confidently. As I am sure all noble Lords will agree, this is a great House, a House of ceremony and dignity, a place to which all of us feel privileged to belong. The 20th century was not the happiest for our House, but in some ways in this new century, against all expectations, we have begun to feel our way back to the heart of national affairs. The White Paper does not impede that movement, but it leaves us far from agreed legislation. The next reform of the House will be a democratic one—I am sure of that and I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will agree with me—but when will it happen? Of that, I am far, far less certain.