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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Birt, for doing the count so that I know I am number 100 on the speakers’ list. I count with my noble friend Lord Goodhart that, out of the previous 20 speakers, only three were, like me, in favour of a wholly or mainly elected House. I was beginning to feel a bit lonely until the splendid speech of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, for which I thank him very much. Noble Lords may think that this two-day debate on our future is long enough, but it is a mere hors d’œuvre in comparison with the meal our predecessors made of the Parliament Bill in 1911. I revisited the splendid account of the passage of that Bill that summer contained in the biography of Asquith by my old boss, Roy Jenkins, to see what we could learn for the historic challenge that we face 96 years on. He wrote: "““The Lords turned distastefully to the Parliament Bill in the last week of May, and proceeded after a three-day debate to give it a Second Reading without a Division. But it was made clear that this emollient attitude was only a prelude to severe amendment in Committee. Knowledge of the exact severity of the amendments, however, was not available until after a Whitsun Recess lengthened to include the Coronation””." There was no danger of burnout through overwork in those days. Roy Jenkins’s account continued: "““The Lords returned to the Parliament Bill on June 28th and proceeded in six committee days to make a massacre of the Government’s intentions””." The King then made it clear that he was prepared to create as many new Peers as were necessary; Asquith had a list of 249 ““men of liberal conviction”” in his pocket, and, "““from this point the battle became an internal one within the Unionist party””." The battle continued and the final Division was taken at 10.30 pm on 10 August, when the House decided not to insist on its amendments. Most Unionists abstained. The Parliament Act became law and the King left London to join the Duke of Devonshire’s shooting party at Bolton Abbey. What can we learn from that? Listen to Roy Jenkins’s devastating analysis of the tactics of Lansdowne, the Unionist leader in the Lords: "““He neither dug in for resistance à outrance nor prepared himself for retreat. He merely decided to stay where he was for as long as he could in the hope that delay might shift the dispute onto slightly different ground and enable the powers of the Lords to be preserved. He started on a course which six months later was to lead him into a position of humiliating weakness””." Substitute ““composition”” for ““powers”” in that passage and that is precisely the position today. The House of Commons has spoken loud and clear. We now know that this House will inevitably become wholly or mainly elected. We in this place can either accept the primacy of the Commons in its decision and argue and engage constructively with it, or we can forget 1911, turn ourselves, and force the Commons to ram through with the Parliament Act, as it will, a blueprint for a reformed Chamber on which we will have had little or no say. I want us to preserve the best of our traditions and pass on to a democratic Chamber all we can of the independence of thought, expertise, rational debate and painstaking process of revision and scrutiny that I have valued more with each of the seven years that I have been in this place. Although I will vote for both options, there is a good case for preferring the 80 per cent elected and 20 per cent appointed option to a wholly elected House, but only on the basis that all party-political appointments end and all new independent or Cross-Bench Peers are appointed by a totally independent statutory commission. Either way, the timing and method of elections to this House must be carefully planned to give the maximum freedom to individual voters to choose which candidates they prefer—women, rather than men, for example. We want a system that is achievable, whereby well known Members of this House, for example the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, could be elected without official party backing. To ensure a reasonable turnout without making elections to this House a sideshow of a general election to the other place, I propose a ““Super Thursday”” election day in June every five years, with elections to the second Chamber, the European Parliament and local councils—the local council elections having been moved from May. If 20 per cent of the membership of our House continued to be appointed, we could still ensure, as the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford put it, "““that the many voices of the faiths and the Churches are heard in this place””." He was right to say: "““Many voices, including some crucial religious ones, need to be heard in the shaping of our public life””.—[Official Report, 12/3/07; cols. 475-76.]" However, we should not take the word ““crucial”” too literally. If a fully reformed House ends with about 100 appointed Members, as it would, there could not be room for even 16 Bishops from a single faith established in only one of the four nations of the United Kingdom. Of course, the statutory Appointments Commission will need to ensure that the Church of England is properly represented along with the many other Christian denominations. Lately, there has been talk that anti-Semitism is again rearing its ugly head in our country. What a boon it would be to have the Chief Rabbi or an equally authoritative voice of Judaism in our House. A statutory commission should work hard also to let more Hindu and Muslim voices be heard—and I do not believe that we have a single Sikh. I was encouraged, in Church last Sunday, to make these points by a retired occupant of the Bishops’ Bench. If we want to work towards a smooth transition to a mainly elected House, personal Prime Ministerial patronage must stop. The Government’s White Paper argues against it; three out of every five Peers—366 out of 614 in this House—have been appointed under Mr Blair. That is enough of a legacy for anyone. We die off steadily at about 20 a year—six so far in 2007—so a smooth transition to a House elected by thirds every five years is manageable without compulsory redundancies, but only as long as there are no new appointments. If Mr Blair drew up a resignation Honours List, after all, it could look pretty odd. Would it include post-dated peerages, pending possible prosecutions? No, the Prime Minister should abide by the decision of the House of Commons. I return to the words of my mentor Roy Jenkins. He praised Asquith’s moulding of events from 1909 to 1911, which, he said, "““amounted to a masterly display of political nerve and patient determination. Compared with Lansdowne’s sullen lack of foresight or Balfour’s casual indecisiveness, his leadership was outstanding””." That is what the forces of reform need today. The leadership of all three parties is on our side. We have a clear vote in the House of Commons behind us and we will win. The only question for your Lordships’ House is whether, after what amounts to a two-day cry of pain—that is what this debate really is—we will roll up our sleeves and get on with what we do best: revising, scrutinising and improving the 2008 or 2009 Parliament Bill when it comes from the Commons. In that way, we can really shape our future. But, if we spit into the political wind, as in 1911, we will fail our Parliament and our people.