House of Lords Reform: debate continues
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
The third omission last week was a lack of evidence that a wholly or partly elected House of Lords would do a better job than we do now. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the speech by Robert Marshall-Andrews MP, who said that he had changed his mind twice, from being a unicameralist in 1999 to supporting a substantially elected second Chamber in 2003, to supporting the status quo now. He said:
“I asked myself if, in the past 15 years, professional politicians, especially from the Labour and Conservative parties, had been elected to the second Chamber on a list system, the House of Lords would have set its face against the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill and the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No. 2) Bill, and whether it would have opposed the removal of the right to elect for trial by jury. My view is that it would not have done so”.
A fourth omission from the debate was any serious criticism of how this House deals with government legislation. The situation has changed significantly in the nearly eight years that I have been here. There is a balanced membership where no one party has more than 30 per cent of the total membership, the Government still lose votes and the Commons is asked to reconsider legislation, sometimes two or three times, but in the end the elected Chamber has its way. The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, on the Police and Justice Bill on 7 November has been widely quoted. A few minutes ago, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, quoted the exchange between Jack Straw and Chris Mullin at the beginning of the debate. In agreeing with Mr Mullin that the nub of the problem is that an elected or part-elected House would be used to undermine the legitimacy of the House of Commons, Mr Straw rather gave the game away. You will look in vain, my Lords, for any suggestion that the Government have a solution to that.
If there were a new constitutional settlement, not only between the two Chambers but also between Parliament and the Executive, possibly with no Ministers at all in this House, there could be some logic in establishing a wholly elected second Chamber. In those circumstances, it would be unimaginable that an elected House would be content with the very limited powers that we are content to exercise here now. For Members in the other place to argue, as some did last week, that you could indefinitely maintain the existing powers of the House of Commons, reinforced by the absolute control of supply and the back-up powers of the Parliament Acts if there were a wholly or predominantly elected second Chamber, is just fantasy.
What happens now? Much is being made of the votes in the Commons last Wednesday, but they are a long way short of demonstrating that there is a consensus, even in the other place. The 80 per cent elected option was supported by less than half the Members in the House, and an analysis of the Division list on the final vote, on 100 per cent election, shows some interesting tactical voting, as my noble friend Lady Symons pointed out earlier.
Like other speakers, I cannot believe that any Prime Minister, whether Gordon Brown or David Cameron, would want to clog up the parliamentary timetable for a measure that has no popular support, is wholly unnecessary, will weaken the effectiveness of this House and threatens the constitutional settlement and conventions between the two Houses. Indeed, I am reliably told that Mr Cameron told Conservative Peers at a dinner the other day that Lords reform was a priority for his third term.
Yet Mr Straw clearly believes that he has a sufficiently cosy relationship with the Front Benches of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to press on with the issue, possibly by publishing a draft Bill. I find it curious that the usual channels in this House seem to have been drawn into this too, given what appears from our two-day debate to be the almost overwhelming hostility in all parts of the House to the Government’s White Paper. Our debate has indicated that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, speaks for very few on his Benches apart from himself, as the excellent intervention yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, demonstrated. Even the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has some serious doubters among his troops.
I make it clear that I do not favour the status quo, and I want to see this issue finally settled. It can be done by a simple Bill that acknowledges that heredity should not be a criterion for membership of this House, by abolishing the by-elections. I would not, however, support the expulsion of the 92, as it would be simplest for them to remain in this House as de facto life Peers. There should also be a provision relating to disqualification following a serious criminal conviction. Our rules should be the same as those of the Commons on this matter.
I would like to see the establishment of an Appointments Commission on a statutory basis. I go along with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that those who serve on the existing non-statutory commission deserve our thanks. They were responsible for blocking four controversial appointments last year, and their role could certainly be enhanced in ways that not only reduce the scale of party political patronage but achieve cultural diversity and the representation of the entire country in a way that elections on party lists could never do. We may hear more about that from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who will follow me.
Such a Bill, if one is introduced, would demonstrate that there is a broad consensus in this House on what should happen next. Most of us believe that we have been given undertakings by the Prime Minister and by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that this House would be part of the consensus that would be a necessary precondition for reform to proceed. I hope that my noble and learned friend can confirm that that is the case, and that there is no question of the Parliament Act being used to force through a Bill against the wishes of this House and the spirit of that consensus.
Like most other Peers, I intend to vote tomorrow for the all-appointed option and against all the other options.
My Lords, like other speakers in this debate, I spent a happy couple of hours at the weekend reading the Hansard reports of the debate in the other place last Tuesday and Wednesday. I was surprised to find that there were some remarkable omissions from the Ministers’ speeches. A number of Ministers spoke, and a lot of questions remained unanswered. My noble friend Lord Lipsey clearly hit a raw nerve by drawing attention to the astronomical cost—more than £2 billion over 15 years—of creating a 100 per cent elected House. The Leader of the House of Commons described my noble friend’s calculation as “utter balderdash and nonsense”, but he declined to put forward any figures of his own, so I support the call made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for the Government to publish the figures.
There is a lack of any evidence that the public has a desire radically to change the role or composition of this place. Indeed, a number of MPs made the point that they had not received a single representation from a constituent on this subject in all the time that they had been in the House of Commons. Others referred to opinion polls that report 70 per cent satisfaction with what we do here. That is despite the pathetic refusal of much of the media to take seriously what we do here. I agree completely with my noble friend Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, who said that the habit that the media has of only publishing pictures of your Lordships in their robes at State Opening gives a totally false impression of what we do.
The third omission last week was a lack of evidence that a wholly or partly elected House of Lords would do a better job than we do now. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the speech by Robert Marshall-Andrews MP, who said that he had changed his mind twice, from being a unicameralist in 1999 to supporting a substantially elected second Chamber in 2003, to supporting the status quo now. He said:
“I asked myself if, in the past 15 years, professional politicians, especially from the Labour and Conservative parties, had been elected to the second Chamber on a list system, the House of Lords would have set its face against the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill and the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No. 2) Bill, and whether it would have opposed the removal of the right to elect for trial by jury. My view is that it would not have done so”.
—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/07; col. 1582.]
A fourth omission from the debate was any serious criticism of how this House deals with government legislation. The situation has changed significantly in the nearly eight years that I have been here. There is a balanced membership where no one party has more than 30 per cent of the total membership, the Government still lose votes and the Commons is asked to reconsider legislation, sometimes two or three times, but in the end the elected Chamber has its way. The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, on the Police and Justice Bill on 7 November has been widely quoted. A few minutes ago, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, quoted the exchange between Jack Straw and Chris Mullin at the beginning of the debate. In agreeing with Mr Mullin that the nub of the problem is that an elected or part-elected House would be used to undermine the legitimacy of the House of Commons, Mr Straw rather gave the game away. You will look in vain, my Lords, for any suggestion that the Government have a solution to that.
If there were a new constitutional settlement, not only between the two Chambers but also between Parliament and the Executive, possibly with no Ministers at all in this House, there could be some logic in establishing a wholly elected second Chamber. In those circumstances, it would be unimaginable that an elected House would be content with the very limited powers that we are content to exercise here now. For Members in the other place to argue, as some did last week, that you could indefinitely maintain the existing powers of the House of Commons, reinforced by the absolute control of supply and the back-up powers of the Parliament Acts if there were a wholly or predominantly elected second Chamber, is just fantasy.
What happens now? Much is being made of the votes in the Commons last Wednesday, but they are a long way short of demonstrating that there is a consensus, even in the other place. The 80 per cent elected option was supported by less than half the Members in the House, and an analysis of the Division list on the final vote, on 100 per cent election, shows some interesting tactical voting, as my noble friend Lady Symons pointed out earlier.
Like other speakers, I cannot believe that any Prime Minister, whether Gordon Brown or David Cameron, would want to clog up the parliamentary timetable for a measure that has no popular support, is wholly unnecessary, will weaken the effectiveness of this House and threatens the constitutional settlement and conventions between the two Houses. Indeed, I am reliably told that Mr Cameron told Conservative Peers at a dinner the other day that Lords reform was a priority for his third term.
Yet Mr Straw clearly believes that he has a sufficiently cosy relationship with the Front Benches of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to press on with the issue, possibly by publishing a draft Bill. I find it curious that the usual channels in this House seem to have been drawn into this too, given what appears from our two-day debate to be the almost overwhelming hostility in all parts of the House to the Government’s White Paper. Our debate has indicated that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, speaks for very few on his Benches apart from himself, as the excellent intervention yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, demonstrated. Even the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has some serious doubters among his troops.
I make it clear that I do not favour the status quo, and I want to see this issue finally settled. It can be done by a simple Bill that acknowledges that heredity should not be a criterion for membership of this House, by abolishing the by-elections. I would not, however, support the expulsion of the 92, as it would be simplest for them to remain in this House as de facto life Peers. There should also be a provision relating to disqualification following a serious criminal conviction. Our rules should be the same as those of the Commons on this matter.
I would like to see the establishment of an Appointments Commission on a statutory basis. I go along with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that those who serve on the existing non-statutory commission deserve our thanks. They were responsible for blocking four controversial appointments last year, and their role could certainly be enhanced in ways that not only reduce the scale of party political patronage but achieve cultural diversity and the representation of the entire country in a way that elections on party lists could never do. We may hear more about that from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who will follow me.
Such a Bill, if one is introduced, would demonstrate that there is a broad consensus in this House on what should happen next. Most of us believe that we have been given undertakings by the Prime Minister and by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that this House would be part of the consensus that would be a necessary precondition for reform to proceed. I hope that my noble and learned friend can confirm that that is the case, and that there is no question of the Parliament Act being used to force through a Bill against the wishes of this House and the spirit of that consensus.
Like most other Peers, I intend to vote tomorrow for the all-appointed option and against all the other options.
© Lords Hansard 13 March 2007