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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, in 1964, there was a change of Government after the Conservatives had been in power for 13 years. The Labour Party under Harold Wilson had campaigned on the message of change using the slogan "thirteen wasted years". We are now approaching a general election some 13 years after the current Government were elected. When it comes to constitutional changes, I could not go so far as to suggest that the entire period since 1997 has been wasted. We now have the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the London Mayor and Assembly. All of them, including our Members of the European Parliament, are elected by better means than first past the post. However, on the key constitutional issues of giving voters the power to choose how their MPs are elected and the power to choose Members of your Lordships’ House, it is clear that three large majorities in three Parliaments have been wasted over these 13 years. The lack of measures in the gracious Speech to implement real political reform means that many of the high hopes from 1997 have finally been dashed. In 1996 and early 1997 I served as the joint secretary on a consultative committee established between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats to consider the process of implementing constitutional reform in the likely event that the then Conservative Government were defeated. The committee was jointly chaired by my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart and the late and much missed Robin Cook. My opposite number was Pat McFadden, now an MP but then Tony Blair's adviser on constitutional affairs. Its membership included the present Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, the late Donald Dewar, the noble Baronesses, Lady Symons and Lady Taylor of Bolton, the noble Lords, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Lord Plant, together with my noble friends Lord McNally, Lord Lester and Lord Wallace, and others including my good friend Nick Harvey and several constitutional experts. A number of proposals were agreed by this committee and outlined publicly prior to the general election, on the basis that constitutional change was best brought forward by more than one party, and not simply on the basis that a party could be accused of manipulating change simply for its own benefit. Key among its recommendations, it was agreed that the issue of which proportional alternative to the present first past the post electoral system was to be determined by a commission established soon after the general election. This agreement was included in the Labour Party manifesto of 1997, which stated: ""We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system"." That commission was created and it was chaired by the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, and it included the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, the late Lord Alexander of Weedon and Sir John Chilcot. They did their job. But the Government have not done the job that was the basis on which they were elected. The gracious Speech again showed that this promise would not be delivered in the 13 years in which this Government could have acted. It need not have been so. The current Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, called in the Times in May last year for the referendum to be held on polling day in the General Election, so that the issue could be considered in the same way as it is in many other countries. He argued: ""The adoption of AV+ would shift the political focus currently concentrated almost exclusively on a few swing voters in a handful of marginal seats. It would end the perversity of the party with the most votes nationally forming the opposition rather than the government, as has happened twice since the war"." With respect to reform of the system for choosing MPs, it has been 13 wasted years, and the gracious Speech was another disappointment. This period, however, is relatively short compared to the hundred years or so of waiting for both Labour and Conservative Governments to complete the reforms of your Lordships’ House begun by a great reforming Liberal Government in 1910. I suspect that many of us enjoy entertaining guests in the Palace of Westminster and conducting them on a tour. As my guests arrive at the Peers’ entrance, they often ask me about the process of reform of the House of Lords, and I begin the tour by showing them how, when I first arrived in this House in 1999, we had to share coat pegs in the cloakroom. It was one coat peg between two. With the reform of the House of Lords and the removal of most of the hereditaries, we now have our own coat pegs. That is how I illustrate the progress of reform of the House of Lords. However, much more significant reform should have been expected and it should not have taken a further 10 years to end the hereditary principle altogether. We should by now have seen elections for at least a substantial element of the membership of this House. In any event, the House should be much more representative of the voting opinions and the composition of the country than it is today. Women have been appointed as life Peers since 1958 and more than half of your Lordships’ House has been appointed since 1997, yet the proportion of women in your Lordships’ House is just one in five. In any legislature in the 21st century, that is a disgrace. The promised publication of a draft Bill on Lords reform is simply a reflection that so much of the past 13 years has indeed been wasted. People seeking real reform of our political institutions should take note of those failures in the forthcoming general election.