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Constitutional Reform

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Pearson for so eloquently introducing the Bill in my name, which had its First Reading about a month ago. In the time allowed I will touch briefly on only three points. Since both the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Stoddart, have been rather exercised about the number of MPs, perhaps I could make one or two points on that. Yes, of course, constituencies would be larger; I do not necessarily accept that that is a bad thing. My Bill will, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, wished, give far more power to local authorities. At the moment, I think it is fair to say that some MPs do a lot of work that might normally be done by local—whether district or county—councillors. They take on quite a lot of local work, which could better be done by their much more local representatives. As for making Parliament weaker, my feeling—which I hope is not unfair—is that Parliament is weak enough as it is. The other provisions in the Bill will strengthen it. Of course, this is a sighting shot. These proposals could be discussed later in Committee and amended if that was the wish of the House. On fixed-term Parliaments, I take the point about the dramatic impact of a vote of no confidence, but it does not happen very often. Certainly, it is outweighed by the advantages that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was kind enough to enumerate; namely, certainty and the inability of a Prime Minister to call elections, even if they get the timing wrong. Turning to the Bill itself, the principle of Clause 1 —withdrawal from the European Union—is a sine qua non because otherwise all or most of the provisions would be unachievable, so that is where we start from. Whether we agree with the exact numbers or not, it seems to be common ground that we have too many legislators, who are certainly passing too many Bills. Why do we need 640 Members of Parliament and 750 Members of your Lordships’ House? There is too much legislation and yet not enough time to debate it. In the last 10 years we have passed nearly 500 Acts of Parliament: six on immigration, eight on terrorism, a dozen on education and 25 on criminal justice. In the same period Parliament has passed nearly 40,000 statutory instruments. That does not even include the thousands of statutory instruments which have direct application, coming straight from Brussels into UK law, not even seen or voted on by Parliament. We do not have the right to do that. This endless avalanche of legislation really has overwhelmed Parliament. It has made proper scrutiny and debate virtually meaningless. A telling statistic is that a statutory instrument was last overturned 30 years ago, in 1979. It really is time that Parliament passed fewer laws. It is not just the expenses scandal which has so outraged people and, I am afraid, brought Parliament and its denizens into contempt; it is the sense of powerlessness that is important here. Surely it is time for a transfer of power away from the centre to people. I remind noble Lords that 1 million people marched in London against the Iraq war, and half a million people marched against the proposal to criminalise hunting. Were those voices listened to? No, they were not, so people naturally feel powerless. People care about politics but if they feel that they do not have a voice, they will not vote and that is what has happened. In the local elections, European elections and general elections there has been a successive and increasing loss of interest. That must be unhealthy. The solution, as my Bill makes clear, to a working democracy in practice, is referendums, such as are held in Switzerland—arguably the most democratic country in the world—where referendums work very well at both national and local level. Their great advantage is that they give people a say in what is happening. They give people a real feeling that they have had a proper input into the laws that affect their lives. My Bill makes provision for referendums to be held at national and local level, as in Switzerland, initiated either by the Government or the required qualifying number of voters, who sign a petition for a referendum to be held. Many of us in this House will have heard the patronising arguments against referendums, advanced by some of your Europhile Lordships during our debates on the Lisbon treaty; that is, people are too ignorant or too irresponsible to be granted the power that is given by a referendum. I do not accept that for a single moment; that is an argument against democracy itself. We should really have none of it. Sir Francis Bacon said: ""A country is less free if it is all in the hands of the state"." That is surely right. Power to the people: that is what my Bill is about.