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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, if the noble Lord reads my speech in Hansard tomorrow, he will see that I am trying to follow a consistent theme, which is not helped when entirely irrelevant interventions are made. Some Members of this House, and even more of the other place, have used primacy of the Commons as shorthand for primacy of the Executive. It is not the same thing. Before the 2005 general election, a distinguished group of Labour Peers produced a report advocating greater subservience of the Lords to the wishes of the majority in the Commons—that is, to the Government of the day. The group was led by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and included the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours, Lord Hogg and Lord Tomlinson. They were insistent that your Lordships’ House should be more sensitive to the views of MPs, especially when they were backed by manifesto commitments. We should recall that all three major parties were committed in their 2005 general election manifestos to democratic and representative membership of this House. It is true that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were more specific than Labour, but surely some speakers have been disingenuous in suggesting that the Labour promise meant retaining the status quo. I also note that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, said in the 2003 debate that the role of this House, the second Chamber, is—and we must never forget this—to respect the right of the Commons to decide. How, then, will all those champions of Commons primacy and a manifesto commitment vote tomorrow, now that the House of Commons has voted so decisively for reform? Even more important, how will they and other Members respond to the opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill and then of a Bill? If this House gives the impression that it is fighting a last-ditch rearguard action to preserve the status quo with foot-dragging filibustering, so vividly described last night by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, we will be in big trouble. My noble friend Lord McNally said yesterday that the status quo, or anything close to it, is simply not an option. Defiance of the Commons will lead us down a very dangerous path and make us miss the chance to negotiate from relative strength. The vote in the Commons last week for our abolition should surely be an alarm bell: 163 MPs voted for a single-chamber Parliament. If Members here do not recognise that we have a responsibility to respond positively and constructively, not only do we risk our good reputation with the public, but the number of MPs seeking our abolition will grow. Nothing would delight the abolitionists more than months of delaying tactics in your Lordships’ House. Those Peers who value our bicameral system—I am one of them—should think carefully about the trap that has been set. Instead, after a century of indecision, we should be pressing the Government to get on with the job. We must have an assurance from Ministers that there will be no further nominees to this House, even from an outgoing or incoming Prime Minister, in the mean time. We must give no excuse to drag feet in that direction. I have campaigned throughout my political career for a more powerful bicameral Parliament holding the Executive to account and, thus, for a second Chamber that can match the quality of its work with the legitimacy required to make it truly effective. To that end, when the last attempt at reform collapsed, I convened a small cross-party group of reformers in the other place, comprising the late Robin Cook, Mr Kenneth Clarke, Dr Tony Wright, Sir George Young and me. Two years ago, we produced a report and a draft Bill under the title, Breaking the Deadlock. We all had similar ambitions for this, your Lordships’ House, but obviously we had to compromise on our individual hobby horses. In the Commons debate last week, Mr Clarke referred to our group as ““stout reformers””. He speaks for himself in that respect. We were supported by 28 other leading members of both Houses, including former leaders of both the Labour and Conservative parties. I pay tribute to the work of Mr Jack Straw and that of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, not least because they have built on that cross-party consensus and the draft Bill and have sought to expand that consensus on the way forward. I am happy to offer them the draft Bill as a starting point. It meets many of the objections and concerns expressed by many Members of your Lordships' House in this debate. For example, with a third of the Members elected on each occasion, there is no danger of individual or collective challenge to the electoral mandate of Members of the House of Commons. Secondly, with the single transferable vote and multi-member constituencies, we can avoid the party patronage of the list system and give the real choice to the voter. That system offers the chance of genuine independents being elected. Next, we can guarantee that no one party ever has an overall majority in this, your Lordships’ House—or, if it was renamed, the Senate. It would achieve a better regional spread. At present, two-thirds of the Peers appointed since 1997 come from London and the south-east. Any system that we proposed would ensure a much better spread. If there are to be any appointees, our draft Bill will make specific provision for a totally independent Appointments Commission. Incidentally, we also sought to reduce the size of this House. Given that only 25 per cent of the current membership asks 87 per cent of the questions and makes 76 per cent of the speeches and interventions, there is clearly room for a bit of slimming down. I am not going to deal with cost. I will have a private seminar with the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, later, but his figures are balderdash—I have been through them. What happened last week was only the beginning of the process. We should have no doubt that that process has started. Those speakers who believe that nothing happened last week are daydreaming. The choice now is not between doing nothing and doing the absolute minimum; it is between a predominately elected and a fully elected House. In the Commons debate last week, my honourable friend John Thurso—the only MP to have previously served in your Lordships’ House, as he did with great dedication and distinction as Viscount Thurso—summarised the position. No one can accuse him of misunderstanding what we do in this House. Given his experience in counteracting what is usually a one-way street in this direction, he speaks with special wisdom. He concluded: "““It is unthinkable that our great democracy should continue to live in a time warp of heredity and patronage. It is time to reform. It is time to put our trust in the people, and it is time, frankly, for a stronger Parliament””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/07; col. 1451.]" I agree.