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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, given the time limits on speeches, it is tempting to try to speak in a staccato shorthand manner, rather like Mr Jingle in Pickwick Papers. Sadly, I lack Charles Dickens’s skill with words and so I will have to say what I want to say in my own way. I am conscious that I am one of the newest Members of your Lordships’ House, but I am quite a long-standing parliamentarian and spent my last 13 years in the Commons as a Deputy Speaker. I have seen ping-pong at close quarters and know only too well how an amendment to a Bill in this House can strike dread into hearts at the other end of the Palace. As a Deputy Speaker, I spent a long time not speaking but listening and, I hope, learning. I spent much time meeting Speakers and guests from other legislatures and being by turns proud and humbled by their reverence for our parliamentary system and traditions, including your Lordships’ House and the way its procedures work so well. Before any momentous decision is taken, the key question is not how but why. If there is no satisfactory answer to why, then you never go on to how. To do so is only to waste time, effort and money, which should be spent where it could do some good. I am currently reading Adam Nicolson’s book about the making of the King James Bible. The Bible, a work of genius, was produced by a committee of 47, so committees can work. One sentence which guided them in their labours and which leapt out of its page at me in the context of this debate is: "““What virtue was there in newness, when the old was so good?””." Indeed, what value is there in newness when the old is so good? Abolition is self-evidently a bad idea. When weighing the issues, on one side of the scales are many good and treasured things; on the other side, the only thing is this increasingly debased currency of democracy. ““Democracy”” is a word like ““community”” and ““stakeholder””; it had a meaning once but now it has become, sadly, debased. It has become a flag that has been pinned to too many masts; it has become tattered, bedraggled and, sadly, increasingly meaningless. Please let us call a spade a spade. This is not a reform; it is abolition. The press renamed the allowances of Members of Parliament as expenses, to devastating effect. The community charge, whatever you think of it, became the poll tax and was killed immediately. This is abolition and the word ““reform”” must be corrected every time it is uttered. In all this, we must beware of relying on the media to tell a straight tale. They are no longer patriotic; they are no longer guardians of our constitution or cherishers of our traditions. We cannot rely on our newspapers or television even to be fair-minded. Their only concern nowadays is to fill their columns or their programmes with controversial or eye-catching headlines or photographs. If a serious argument goes by default to the detriment of our nation or its children and grandchildren, they show no signs of caring. In my political lifetime, I have watched this happen with growing unease. That now borders on despair, combined with bafflement at their lack of concern for the protection and preservation of a wonderful country such as ours. Others have dealt, in great detail, with the nuts and bolts of the Bill, but the truth is that it is rotten at the core. I finish by using words that Mr Jingle might use: ““Elected Peers not in conflict with the Commons? Nonsense. A 15-year term? Far too long. Continuing appointments? Confirms their value. Modify? Yes. Sensible reform? Yes. Abolition and Americanisation of our House? Certainly not””.