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Coalition Government

My Lords, the coalition was formed of two parties, neither of which won the confidence of the people at the general election. The manifesto of neither party was endorsed. The coalition agreement is an important document, but it does not have the status of a manifesto and is not holy writ in that sense. In these political conditions, we would expect humility, even diffidence, on the part of the Government. Of course the country needs decisive and effective government—it always does—but it is reasonable to expect, as the people of this country do, that the approach of a coalition Government should be consultative and consensual. I acknowledge that the country welcomed the coalition. There has been a great dislike of adversarial politics in the country and many people were delighted to see what they took to be an outbreak of courtesy and a new spirit of co-operation between political parties. The problem has been that that courtesy and co-operation have not been extended to the parties not in government. The magnanimity of the coalition parties appears to have been exhausted in five days of negotiation last May. Of course, our constitutional tradition leads to an expectation that the Opposition in Parliament will challenge, interrogate and hold the Government to account. I am not arguing that in a hung Parliament there should be parliamentary ecumenism. However, given the vast powers that our system of the Executive in Parliament provides, there is also always a constitutional expectation that Governments will act with some self-restraint. Where there has been no electoral endorsement of a Government, it would be all the more proper for the coalition to act with restraint. It has a duty to govern, but it has no entitlement to implement a radical programme. As always, but more so, a coalition Government without an electoral mandate have a duty to consult and to proceed as far as possible by agreement. So far from that, however, this coalition has the bit between its teeth and is driving a radical legislative programme through Parliament in a raging hurry. The coalition did not win, but it is taking all. It is immoderate. It is insisting on enacting policies that were not only not endorsed at the election but were not even exhibited to electors at the general election. Some policies, such as reform of the National Health Service, about which the noble Lord, Lord Owen, spoke, are doctrinaire and reckless. I agree with him that that policy is not legitimate. It is certainly not legitimate for the coalition to pursue this legislative programme given the background of the conditions in which it came into office. The reform was not even in the coalition agreement, the so-called Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform. Where do we see the coalition’s concern for stability? It is interesting to contrast the approach of the coalition with the approach of the Obama Administration. The policies of President Obama were presented at length to voters across the United States during the presidential campaign and led to massive electoral endorsement. However, President Obama in office has proceeded consultatively; he has sought to build consensus; he has always been willing to compromise; and he has always been reasonable. In his remarkable speech in Tucson, he reproached the intransigents in modern politics. That is a speech that not only the Leader of the House but the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister would do well to read and reflect on. Here, by contrast, the coalition received no electoral endorsement, but has it proceeded to build consensus or been willing to compromise? Where have been the Green Papers? What preliminary debate has it inaugurated before moving to implement policy? Where has been the pre-legislative consultation about which my noble friend Lord Hart of Chilton and a number of other noble Lords have spoken? For example, we are seeing the coalition exploit the constitution in their extreme and reckless approach to reducing the fiscal deficit. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, was overgenerous to the coalition on that score. To take public sector demand out of the economy on a substantial scale when one in five young people is unemployed and to remove the Future Jobs Fund, the policy intended to mitigate that disaster, is hardly likely to lead to appreciation of our parliamentary system or loyalty to the constitution among this generation of young people. No one disputes that the deficit needs to be reduced, but we are not seeing pragmatic policy on the economy within an intellectual consensus; we are seeing an ideological crusade against the state, dressed up in a spurious rationale of crisis and masquerading as fiscal responsibility. The coalition is set to exploit its exceptional dominance of both Houses of Parliament to marginalise elective local government. Britain’s excessively centralised government is to be made more centralist still. In the drive to see more free schools and academies created, elective local education authorities are to be swept aside, exacerbating a baleful tendency over recent decades to reduce the role of local government. The Localism Bill has very worrying implications for local democracy, that important part of our constitution. In higher education, we have seen the coalition take it upon itself to triple student fees, which of course has led to a stirring of national resentment, to extra-parliamentary resistance and to much damage to trust in politics and our constitutional processes. We are seeing an abuse of the constitution. The doctrines of winner takes all and the omnicompetence of Parliament have always seemed to me to be dubious, but not only is what we are seeing improper constitutionally, but it is also foolish. Bold propositions on the part of the Government are fine, but crude imposition of policy is wrong and alienates the consent on which our system of parliamentary government is predicated. The coalition would be wiser to allow full public debate. In the process of that, it would be able to discern what is special pleading, what is merely defence of vested interests, what is timid orthodoxy and, on the other hand, where the genuine dangers lie. It would allow assent to grow where its propositions proved genuinely persuasive. But that is not the character of this coalition. The implications of coalition parliamentary government in our time may be disastrous. We are seeing a torrent of constitutional legislation, unheralded, unauthorised by the people at the election and timetabled so that scrutiny in the House of Commons is cursory and scrutiny in the House of Lords is under severe threat. The constitution is not a toy to be played with by the Liberal Democrats while the Conservatives gratify themselves in other policy areas. The problem is being seen particularly vividly, as many noble Lords have noted, in your Lordships’ House at the moment. The struggle over the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is a struggle over the future of your Lordships’ House as a revising Chamber. Our present difficulty derives not only from the lack of trust between the coalition parties, as my noble friend Lord Wills suggested, but also from the arrival of the coalition with an effective majority of the coalition parties over the Labour opposition party in this House. What has differentiated the House of Lords from the House of Commons in the past, until the arrival of the coalition, is that, since no one party had a majority over the others in this House, the Government have always had to win the argument. But now the Government fancy that they can bulldoze this House as they can bulldoze the other place. This House will not willingly be crushed. The House of Commons, as the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, suggested, emasculated itself some years ago in agreeing to timetable all legislation. But when this House, too, can be browbeaten by the Executive, nothing stands in the way of the narcissism and shallowness of Ministers. They feel no need to respond to reasoned argument and to the knowledge and the experience of Members of your Lordships’ House. They will not negotiate; they will not agree that their legislation should be amended. I hope that the Leader of the House will heed the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, about negotiation. Referendums are a threat to parliamentary government. Why are we having a referendum on the alternative vote? I personally believe that it is right that major constitutional issues should be put to the people in a referendum because it is their constitution, but we are having this referendum to prop up the coalition. The Liberal Democrats wanted electoral reform; the Conservatives did not. The coalition’s solution is to have a referendum. There will be no accountability of Ministers to Parliament in this situation. The legislative decision will be made directly by the people. So, as the price of coalition, populism replaces parliamentary sovereignty. With the falling away of support for the two main parties, we are led to expect that we shall see more coalitions. Therefore, there will be more pressures from minority parties to be bought and appeased. Shall we in the future, for example, see referendums to satisfy UKIP or the Greens as potential coalition parties? Coalition in modern conditions risks being the death knell of parliamentary government in any worthwhile sense.