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Constitutional Reform

My Lords, I am the only woman to speak in this debate, so it is perhaps appropriate that I take the "pouring the tea" role of looking at domestic matters inside this House. This House is not in a shape to be able to respond swiftly and effectively to the public’s pressing demand that our democracy should be reinvigorated. We do not adhere to the fundamental principles of good corporate governance—clear leadership, overt lines of accountability, fit-for-purposes processes, and clear mechanisms for proper engagement by Members. Unless we get our own House in order, we will never be able to assert the important role of Parliament in relation to the Executive, play our proper complementary role to the Commons or become a modern, proactive second chamber, whether or not we change the membership. Members need to develop a sense of ownership of the House in relation to its administration and the way that we determine the business. I fully understand that the Government are entitled to get their business through this place in a timely manner. Before coming here, I had naively believed that the government Executive and Parliament were two separate things and that the House of Lords would have governance and accountability systems in place that would be explicit, written and connect me as a Back-Bencher with the business of the House. I was given the Grey Book. On this parliamentary route there is only one double-decker bus and the driver and conductor are the Government and their inseparable mates, the usual channels—of whom of course there is no mention the Grey Book, and they are a total mystery for at least five years after you arrive. We are said to be a self-governing House, but that should not mean a House where everyone has the power to be awkward, as it frequently seems to mean. It should mean that we elect respected leaders of our choice and allow them to govern our House on terms that we have decided. Wherever there is a power vacuum in a corporate body, any well organised group will inevitably rise up and take that power. In our case the better organised group is the usual channels. I hasten to add that I do not blame individuals, political parties or the Government for this; it seems to be an inevitable consequence of our history, but we need to do something to reverse it. Even the desk that I am allowed to sit at is determined by the usual channels. That goes for everyone here. Is that common sense? The usual channels are the lead weight that keeps the moribund body of self-governance from floating to the surface for some air. The role of the Management Board as the executive implementation of House Committee strategy and policy is clear. We are served by a talented team of clerks and directors of services who, to give them their due, have been in the vanguard of developing the annual plan, the strategic planning round, the risk register and so on, and who are improving daily the ways in which they serve us. It is we who let them down by the dead weight of our time-worn procedures. Most of the time, this House runs well—until there is a crisis. This is what someone has called the problem of the car crash scenario, when the question "Who really decides?" is horribly sticky. We have created the new post of the Lord Speaker but have given her few powers. She chairs the House Committee, which officially is the strategic governing body of this place but which is dominated, like everything else, by—guess who—the usual channels. There is in reality a vacuum, a black hole, in which the Lord Speaker, the Leader of the House and perhaps the Chairman of Committees whirl about with insufficient and competing powers. There is no thinking powerhouse with a remit to translate ideas for modernisation into a House strategy. In the absence of a clear parliamentary leader, we fall back on the Government’s representative in this House. Should our leadership be someone who we as parliamentarians choose, not a member of the Cabinet? I do not criticise individuals—indeed I am a real fan of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the way that she has tackled problems recently. Individuals have to make our difficult systems work as best they can, but the system is crazy. We should perhaps reassess the potential for the Lord Speaker to play a real leadership role in parliamentary business, both inside and outside the Chamber. It is of pre-eminent importance that we should prise the administration and business of this House, and the connection to Back-Benchers, from the shackles of the usual channels.