House of Lords

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Monday, 30 April 2012.

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Oxford.

House of Lords: Stonework

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:36

Asked By

[Lord Flight]

To ask the Chairman of Committees whether there are any plans to tidy up and clean the stonework in the inner courtyards of the House of Lords on a similar basis to the work done on the Royal Court, Speaker’s Court, Commons Court and Commons Inner Court.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)]

My Lords, the Parliamentary Estates Directorate is planning to begin trials of stone-cleaning work in Chancellor’s Court and State Officers’ Court in October 2014. It is hoped that work on these courtyards will be completed by October 2015, after which work on Peers’ Court will begin in October 2015 to be completed by October 2016. I should point out that these are only estimated timings at the moment and that the programme of works may change.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, this is somewhat of an end-of-term Question but I am delighted for the Chairman of Committees to announce the plans for cleaning the seven internal courtyards of the Palace of Westminster. For 15 years, it has struck me as a great pity that, while two or three had been cleaned, the majority in the middle were a dirty mess. I would just comment that we have had announcements of cleaning, but what about tidying up?

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, there are a great many other works going on in the palace—principally fire safety, mechanical engineering and cast iron roofs. All those require facilities for contractors on the estate, which on the whole means portacabins. I am afraid that they will be around for as long as is required. As for other bits of tidying up, we obviously do our best to make sure that there is not too much clutter in the courtyards but it probably is an inevitable result of the great deal of work that is going on elsewhere.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, during last week’s heavy rain, much of the new footpath across Abingdon Green was under water, as was the area in front of Old Palace Yard. Can the Chairman of Committees do something about the drainage in those areas? In the mean time, if we have any more warnings of severe rain, could those of us who do not have offices in the palace be issued with waders?

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, having come from home yesterday, I can say to the noble Lord that there was a great deal of rain around there too. A lot of the roads and pavements were flooded. Until this drought is over, we may have to put up with that. As for the provision of waders to noble Lords, a few years back there was a project of issuing umbrellas. That was not a success as most of them disappeared rather quickly, largely on account of the fact that they had the House of Lords logo on them. I believe that they could be found on eBay relatively inexpensively.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, is this not the last occasion on which the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, will answer Questions in his present capacity? We thank him and congratulate him on what he has done over the past 10 years.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.

[The Chairman of Committees]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and for the expression from the House. It is indeed the last time on which I shall answer a Question on these sorts of matters. But I can tell noble Lords that the issue of the works going on in the palace will go on for a lot longer and many more of my successors will be dealing with it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, if Mr Clegg has his way with the House of Lords, does the noble Lord think that the value of those umbrellas on eBay will go up or down?

[The Chairman of Committees]

I am not certain that I should try to answer that question, mainly because I do not know the answer, but I would have thought that they would go up in value as historic items.

[Lord Dixon-Smith]

My Lords, I wonder if I might return to the subject of the original Question. Will the noble Lord consider retaining one of our courtyards in an uncleaned state as a permanent reminder to all of us of the casual environmental damage we sometimes cause, which reveals itself only many years after we have caused it?

[The Chairman of Committees]

That is an interesting suggestion. I am old enough to remember the great London smogs that caused this damage to the building in the first place, and therefore on the face of it the noble Lord’s suggestion is a good one. However, I would resist it because of the damage being done to the building as of now, and therefore it is necessary to get on with cleaning and repairing it.

Abu Qatada

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:41

Asked By

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current position regarding the deportation of Abu Qatada.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, we await the decision of the European Court of Human Rights on whether to accept Qatada’s referral request. We wrote to the Strasbourg court to ask that it reject this application both on the merits of the case and on the timing of his request. Qatada, meanwhile, remains in detention.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, let us forget the shambles of last week. Will the Minister explain exactly how and when this terrorist is going to be deported?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I cannot give a precise answer on when he will be deported because that matter is in the courts. However, I do not accept what the noble Lord says about there being a shambles last week. It was quite clear from all the advice and all the precedents that the three months for making the referral expired at midnight on 16 April. My right honourable friend made her decision on that basis. We now await to see what the courts are doing.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, on 7 February, the last occasion on which the noble Lord answered Questions about Abu Qatada, he was asked whether the Government could provide a new reassurance that this sort of situation would not recur, and he referred to the fact that the Government were hoping that reform of the Strasbourg court might make it less likely. We have now had the Brighton declaration. Can the Minister tell the House whether the Government think that this is more or less likely to happen again, and if it is less likely to do so, why?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is a lawyer and therefore will know that we can never give an absolutely cast-iron guarantee about what the courts or lawyers might or might not do, but I can say to him that the agreement reached at the Brighton conference represents a substantial package of reforms and marks a significant step towards realising the goals that the Prime Minister set out at Strasbourg.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Will the noble Lord give the best guesstimate he can of how much, over the past decade and under both Governments, the British taxpayer has had to pay to keep this man and his family in this country by way of social security payments and legal aid? When will this end?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I cannot give that figure to the noble Lord, much as I would like to because I think it is one that the public ought to know. If I can make some sort of guesstimate, working with my own department, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions, I will certainly do so. However, I can give him an assurance that my understanding is that he is not to have his costs paid in the current matter of the referral to the European Court of Human Rights.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Has not the Minister rather overplayed the importance of this when compared with the Government’s objectives in the Brighton declaration? Will he give an assurance that we will abide totally by the Brighton declaration, that we will cease as a country to suffer the humiliation of having our Government condemn the European Court of Human Rights, and that we will regard it in the way that it always should have been regarded, as the bulwark of our civil liberties?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept what the noble Lord says at all. All I said was that I thought that the declaration represented a substantial package of reforms. There could be many more reforms to that court. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that it very often exceeds its functions and goes beyond what was ever intended in 1950 when we signed up to the original convention on human rights.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the procedural issues are important but so, too, is the substantive issue. With the Government having reached what they regard as an acceptable memorandum of understanding with the Jordanian Government as to the evidence that will be used in a trial in Jordan, can the Minister tell the House how that process will be monitored to ensure compliance with the memorandum of understanding?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we will maintain very close contact with the Jordanian Government when we manage to extradite this man to Jordan and he faces his trial there. We will make sure that we keep fully cognisant of what goes on in the trial in that country.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, when I was the Security Minister I was constantly struck and somewhat surprised by how my opposite numbers in a number of European countries seemed able to return terrorists to the countries to which they belonged. Perhaps we could ask those countries how they manage to circumvent the rules and how they avoid getting into the complete muddle that we seem to have got in.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, other countries do things in other ways. The important thing to remember is that this country abides by the rule of law and listens to what the courts say, however unpalatable that might be. I think that what that court has done is unpalatable. We hope that it will see reason on this occasion and accept that his referral is out of time and that there are no merits in the case whatever.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, whatever the merits of the 24 hours that were being debated at the beginning of this matter, did my noble friend notice that the infection can spread to the Back Benches opposite? The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, suggested in his supplementary that the dramas had happened last week when in fact they had happened the week before. Seven days is an even longer period to lose.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I would not want to comment on the sense of timing of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the Minister has already referred to listening to the court. In terms of lost days, he will know that the Prime Minister told the BBC that his officials had checked with the European court the deadline for the appeal. Will the Minister give the House of Lords chapter and verse as to when the Home Office checked with the European court and what the court said?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the Home Office and other parts of the Government have been in regular contact with the court ever since the judgment back on 17 January. We are absolutely clear, and both precedent and legal advice are clear, that the deadline for the referral was within—I stress “within”—three months, by midnight on 16 April, and that the judgment comes into effect after three months; that is, after midnight on 16 April. That could hardly be clearer and the precedents could hardly be clearer.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, as this is a leap year, does not the Home Secretary have a day in hand?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am advised that leap years do not come into it.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, it appears that all the discussions and advice were handled verbally. Are we to believe that that is the case? Is there nothing in writing or a paper trail to say specifically that these deadlines were properly arrived at? If not, why can that not be published?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can only repeat the answer that I gave to the noble Lord’s noble friend, Lord Hunt. I said that we have been in constant contact with the court, that all legal advice and legal precedents indicated that this was the case, and that the difference between the timing for the referral, which had to be within three months, and the timing for the judgment—that is, after—made it quite clear that midnight on the 16th was the moment in question.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, the Minister has not given the information on exactly when the court advised the Government that that was the date. He referred in his answer to my noble friend Lord Hunt to legal advice and general advice in correspondence with the court. What is the exact date on which the court in Strasbourg gave advice to the Government that the final date was the one which the Government used?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the point I was making, if the noble Baroness would be fair enough to listen to me, was that we had been in regular contact with the court on these matters. It was quite clear from precedent and legal advice that the case that I have put forward is the right one. Therefore we were satisfied that we were right to consider that the last possible moment for referral was 16 April at midnight.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, this is a serious question—with respect to those opposite—and the Minister has still not answered the questions about the future. What are the Home Office’s plans for dealing with this man and when can we expect him to be deported? Please can I have an answer?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, and like the previous Government—who tried to do something about this for 10 years—I and all other noble Lords would like to see this man deported as soon as possible. He represents a very real risk to this country, and this has been going on for 10 years. However, we must abide by the rule of law and we must wait until the court makes its decision. I do not know when the European court will deal with this referral case. As far as I am concerned as a very simple lawyer, this looks like a pretty simple case that the court could deal with pretty quickly, if for no other reason than that it is obvious that he is out of time in his referral.

Police: Race Relations Policies

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:51

Asked by

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will encourage HM Inspectorate of Constabulary to undertake a thematic review of race relations policies within police forces in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the Government take recent allegations of police racism very seriously. The firm actions taken by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police are exactly those that we would expect other service leaders to take if faced with similar issues. We do not believe that a thematic inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary is necessary at this stage.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

I thank the noble Lord for his reply. He will recall that on 29 November he assured the House that there was no racism in the police force. Circumstances have shown that he was wrong. Will he consider again encouraging the police force to begin racism awareness training among the constabulary? We need to get rid of the Aryan myth of white superiority once and for all and I believe that it is necessary that we should all understand what that is.

The Commissioner’s statements were very encouraging. Is the Minister able to arrange a meeting between those of us who are very interested in this subject and the commissioner so that we can explain to him what is really meant by institutional racism and the recommendations in Macpherson can be acted on?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I owe the noble Baroness an apology if I suggested that there was no racism within the Metropolitan Police. It is obviously wrong to suggest that any organisation has no racism within it. What I was trying to get over on that occasion, and on the two occasions last week when I dealt with questions of this sort, was that institutional racism within the Met has largely been dealt with. It was encouraging that the most recent cases of racism were reported by the police themselves and therefore this was a strong sign that these matters were being dealt with.

I would be more than happy to assist in arranging a meeting between the noble Baroness and others and either the Commissioner or the Deputy Commissioner, whomever she considers the most appropriate person to deal with these matters. Meanwhile, as I made clear on the Question from my noble friend Lord Sheikh and the Statement that I made on another occasion when I believe the noble Baroness was present, I believe that the Met is making considerable strides in this area.

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the wider police service must show great vigilance and endeavour to respond well to race and diversity issues? They must not become complacent and somehow see race as yesterday's problem or yesterday’s issue. This is an ongoing challenge that the service must respond to well at all times.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Condon, with his great experience, is absolutely correct to express those points. I fully agree with him. I remind him and the House that an important part of the regular reviews by HMIC—the inspectorate of the constabulary—is that any force inspections should always include some detail of an assessment of equality, diversity and those matters.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, at least 27 police officers are under investigation for racist behaviour. The noble Baroness, Lady Howells, is rightly concerned about that. She has done a tremendous amount of work following the death of Stephen Lawrence on the adversarial contact between the black community and the police. While we appreciate the action taken by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is it not right that we should have a thematic inspection of racial issue policies, particularly in relation to training, recruitment and retention, bearing in mind that the cuts to police expenditure are likely to impinge on these areas?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful for the question from my noble friend Lord Dholakia. I stress that I did not rule out a thematic review—I just said that I did not think it necessarily appropriate at this stage. I can assure my noble friend that there have been thematic reviews in the past. If necessary, that could be looked at again. I repeat the important point in the answer I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Condon, that this is already part of any inspection of the police force. Also, on the very unfortunate recent cases that have appeared in the Met, the great thing is that such cases are at least being reported by their fellow police officers. That is a sign that something is being done. It is progress.

[Lord Soley]

Does the Minister agree that, over the years, training of the police on racism has improved dramatically but there is a real problem when they then finish their training and join forces which are not representative of the diversity of this country? Should we not put all the emphasis on recruitment and retention of people from across the range so that our police forces represent this country? In that way, you would do far more to resist racism in a force than you would simply in the classroom alone.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I fully agree with the noble Lord. Training is very important but it is also important to make sure that recruitment and retention continue so that all police forces can represent the appropriate diversity of their individual areas. That is the important thing: to make sure that they can then continue to police their area with the proper consent of those being policed.

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords, in the current atmosphere of Islamophobia, could we have an assurance that race includes religion? It seems to me that Muslims are becoming disproportionately targeted. They are of many races and can come in all colours and shades, but because of their religion they are being singled out.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a very valid point and one that I am sure is taken into account in initial and all further ongoing training.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that successive Governments, probably over the last 40 years, have found it extremely difficult to recruit the maximum number of officers from among ethnic minorities? Can he assure the House that the greatest effort will be made and the heaviest emphasis placed upon this crucial factor?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can say that great progress has been made over the last 40, 30, 20 and even 10 years on increasing the diversity of the police force so that it better represents the areas that it covers. That will obviously vary from Wales to the Met. I can also tell the noble Lord—and this is important—that the figures from black and ethnic minority communities on their satisfaction and confidence in our police forces seem very similar to figures from white communities.

Migration: University-sponsored Students

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:59

Asked By

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to excluding university-sponsored students from the United Kingdom’s net migration statistics.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the UK uses the internationally agreed definition of a migrant, which is someone coming to or leaving the United Kingdom for a period exceeding 12 months. It is right that students intending to stay for that period should be counted because during their stay they are part of the resident population and contribute to pressure on public services infrastructure. It is not appropriate to discount them from net migration statistics.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, the department makes no distinction between temporary and permanent migration. Many other countries do, and still fall within the UN definitions. That means that the Home Office is targeting net migration figures that include overseas students, which is directly contrary to the policy of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Surely now that the e-Borders system will be able to track very closely non-EEA students and other citizens coming into this country, it is time to exclude those students from the net migration figures and have a unified government policy.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am afraid that in terms of migration my noble friend has got it right. I do not think he would want me to adjust the figures purely to achieve the ends that he suggests, as there might be complaints from the House that we were fiddling the figures, and I do not want to be accused of that. We stick by the long-standing international United Nations measure that students who come to the UK for more than a year are counted as migrants.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I have just returned from the annual UK-India round-table meeting, and this very question was raised. Why cannot the Government exclude foreign students from the target? Foreign students bring up to £8 billion of revenue into this country. In fact, the Government should be trying to double the number of foreign students from 440,000 to 800,000, bringing in another £8 billion. Does the Minister agree—I know this from experience, as my family was educated in this country from India for three generations—that by encouraging foreign students you build generation-long links, with huge benefit to this country?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord in that I accept that students coming to universities—and I stress that the Question is purely about students coming to universities—provide very great value to this country, and we want to see their numbers increase in many areas. They have increased over the past year or so, as I understand it, but we want to get rid of some of the bogus students who come here not to study but to work—and that is what we are doing.

It is important that we stick to international UN definitions. As I said, there would be considerable criticism of me if I suggested that we should fix those figures purely for our own purposes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if the Government were to accept the proposal put to them by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would they not thereby confer a great benefit on UK universities and on bona fide international university students, as well as on our international standing, and at the same time be able to hit their own immigration target figures, which they have otherwise not a hope of achieving?

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is, yet again, another one who wants me to fix the figures. I do not want to do that. We want to do these things in a proper way, and the definition of migrants is that they are people staying for over a year. We welcome students and do what we can to get them, but we are not going to fix the figures in the manner that he suggests.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

My Lords, is it not the case that the situation has been made very much worse by the numbers of students who have come here from foreign countries and not left but remained here, making great difficulties? Is not that point at the heart of this difficulty?

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is right to point out that quite a large number of students stay on, but the other point to make to her is that quite a number of people coming over in the past—not the university students that we are talking about—were coming over to colleges that did not really exist and were there purely as a scam to get around migration statistics. That is what we have been trying to deal with.

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, is this policy not the result of a basic intellectual confusion that has very serious and harmful effects? First, it distorts the statistics on immigration, which causes concern. Secondly, as we have heard, it is extremely harmful to universities and deters many would-be bona fide students from overseas countries, with a great loss of revenue. Thirdly, it seriously imperils relations with Commonwealth countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and India. Should we not think again?

[Lord Henley]

I think that if the noble Lord looks at the statistics he will find that there has actually been an increase in the number of students from Malaysia and Singapore. I appreciate that there has been a decline in the number from India, but there have been increases from elsewhere. Here we are talking about university students, and we have not seen an overall drop in those numbers.

Again I go back to the point that it is quite obvious that the noble Lord seeks to ask me to fiddle the figures. I do not want to do that.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, if the Government are not happy to change the system of permanent and temporary migration figures, and given that in the past they have said that they cannot always track students leaving the country, will they please consider using the HESA statistics, which record students when they leave the country—or, even better, get the border agency to ask students as they leave whether they have completed their studies rather than just where they are going?

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend goes on to a somewhat more detailed point, which I will have to look at. I would certainly be more than happy to do that and write to her.

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords, as a student who stayed and was educated at school and university here, I have to say that many of us do not come here just to work but to contribute. We have a lot to contribute, and the current limitations mean that students from the Middle East, particularly from countries such as Iran but also elsewhere, cannot get access any more because the limits are so tight that anyone from outside the Commonwealth has enormous difficulty getting in. Some of us do make good.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think the whole House is grateful that the noble Baroness came and stayed here, and for the contribution that she has made to the House, but she will also recognise that we have a duty to make sure that we have some control over our migration figures. We are trying, as I was trying to make clear earlier, to get some control over some of the more bogus applicants who claim that they were coming in to study, whereas in fact they were coming in for other purposes.

Business of the House

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Motion to Agree

15:06

Moved By

[Lord Strathclyde]

That Standing Order 40(1) (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Tuesday 1 May to enable the resumed debate on the Motion in the name of Lord Richard http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/26702 to be taken as first business, and that no Oral Questions be taken on that day.

Motion agreed.

Public Bodies (Abolition of Courts Boards) Order 2012

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:07

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the draft order laid before the House on 31 January be approved.

Relevant documents: 53rd Report from the Merits Committee, 41st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 25 April.

Motion agreed.

Trusts (Capital and Income) Bill [HL]

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

15:07

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, a Second Reading Committee considered this Bill in the Moses Room on Wednesday 25 April, and I therefore beg to move this Motion formally.

Bill read a second time.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

15:08

Moved By

[Lord Richard]

That this House takes note of the report from the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. (HL Paper 284)

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, perhaps I might say right at the outset that I am glad this debate is now to extend over two days. The subject deserves proper treatment, and to have to discuss it at two or three o’clock in the morning would be unacceptable. I start by paying tribute to the Clerks of this Joint Committee. From this House we had Mr Rhodri Walters, the Reading Clerk, and from the House of Commons Mr Liam Laurence Smyth, Principal Clerk. They jointly led a group of committee clerks who were, frankly, as powerful and formidable as any group I have ever come across. We are all indebted to them for their skill, determination and commitment to the committee’s deliberations. I am extremely grateful to them and wish to acknowledge this publicly.

It is important, too, at the outset for this House to be clear as to what precisely the Joint Committee was asked to do. Our mandate, in a sentence, was to examine the draft House of Lords Bill. The committee consisted of 13 Members from each House, a total of 26, who I think were carefully chosen to represent as best they could all the views that existed in each House. For the Lords, there were four Conservative Peers—one of whom, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is an hereditary Peer—four Labour Peers, two Liberal Democrats, one Cross-Bencher and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. From the Commons, there were six Conservative Members, five Labour, one Liberal Democrat and one Ulster Unionist. On any view of the matter, this was a large committee. While that of course made it more difficult to achieve consensus, it nevertheless meant that almost every variety of view found expression.

We had 15 evidence sessions, stretching from October 2011 to the end of February this year. We heard evidence from 20 witnesses, including the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Mr Mark Harper, who we saw no fewer than four times. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nick Clegg, gave evidence to us in a lengthy session. We also took evidence via videolink from members of the Australian Senate, particularly on the issues of primacy and constituency representation. In addition to all that, we received 227 written submissions of evidence. I would not recommend that people read every word of the evidence, particularly in relation to the scope covered, unless they are extremely enthusiastic, but I urge them at least to glance at it. Taken together, the oral and written evidence represents as full and comprehensive a survey of the current position, and of possible ways of reforming the House, as it is possible to get. I cannot think of any major issue that was not covered and was not therefore firmly before the committee.

May I now say a word about the function of the committee? It was not a royal commission. Had it been, I hope it would have been smaller and its membership less political and more widely drawn, and it would certainly have been more wide-ranging in its terms of reference. We did not start by being presented with a clean sheet of paper. We were not told to produce a plan for a future House of Lords; that was not the purpose of the committee. We had a Bill to consider, which itself had specific provisions. The Bill had 68 clauses and nine schedules, and was accompanied by a detailed White Paper. That had to be our starting point. However, in looking at the Bill we had to examine virtually all the major issues around the central themes of an elected House versus an appointed House, the primacy of the House of Commons, the electoral system, the size of the House and its functions and powers.

That the committee was divided was not, perhaps, surprising. The issue has proved divisive now for well over a century. It would have been remarkable had this not been reflected in the committee itself. There were divisions within parties and within the Houses. There was no clearly visible Labour view versus a Conservative view. There was no clear Lords view versus a Commons view. Opinions inevitably differed. However, we managed to create a genuine atmosphere of what I would call rational discussion. The mood in the committee was, on the whole, equable and tolerant; I pay tribute to its members for that. Thankfully, we avoided a “Lords versus Commons” direct confrontation. Both sides and all members of the committee felt that the issue was a bit too serious for that.

I turn now to some of the specific recommendations that the committee made. First, and perhaps most importantly, it agreed by a majority that the reformed second Chamber should have an electoral mandate. That was agreed after a division in which 13 voted in favour and nine against. Of the 13 in favour, nine were MPs and four were Peers. Of the not-contents, seven were Peers, one was an MP and one was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. It was a clear vote and a clear majority. In relation to the alternative report, I am somewhat fortified in saying that by the remark on page 31, which says that that a vote of 13 to eight was a considerable and substantive margin.

Secondly, it was agreed that 80 per cent of Members of the reformed House should be elected and 20 per cent should be nominated. In the vote on that, there were 16 contents and six not-contents. Of the contents, nine were MPs, six were Peers and one was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. Of the six not-contents, two were MPs and four were Peers. Again, it was a clear vote and a clear majority.

One of the most important points that the committee discussed—and discussed, and discussed—was the primacy of the House of Commons. We unanimously agreed that Clause 2 was of little use and should be discarded. It was, in the committee’s view, declaratory only and risked becoming justiciable. Again, there was a vote on primacy of the House of Commons. This was a topic on which we spent a great deal of time. Those arguing in support of the proposition that primacy could not be safeguarded based their case primarily on the belief that once the House of Lords had an electoral mandate it would behave in an unpredictable and confrontational way and would not accept its subordination to the House of Commons. It was argued that that would apply even in the case of finance and taxation.

The other side of the argument pointed out that the Commons would continue to be the House where Governments were made and destroyed; that the Commons had the exclusive right to determine financial and taxation policy; that the House of Lords would be elected on a different electoral system; that 20 per cent of the membership would be appointed not elected; and that the Parliament Acts would continue to apply. The Government’s position was that the current relationship would evolve but that on balance Commons primacy could be maintained. In the end, the committee, by a majority of 12 to 10,

“while acknowledging that the balance of power would shift, consider that the remaining pillars on which Commons primacy rests would suffice to ensure its continuation”.

The vote was 12 in favour and 10 against. Of the 10, one was an MP; of the 12, eight were MPs. I could not help observing at the time, and, indeed, still do, that it is passing strange that if the primacy of the House of Commons is such a burning issue to the House of Commons, only one MP voted against the proposition and eight MPs voted in favour of it. One would expect that Members of the House whose primacy is deemed to be so much under attack would be reluctant to accept that the Bill ensured its continuation, but far from it. The committee agreed with the Government’s proposal for election under the STV system, with the variation to take in the practice currently used in New South Wales, which gives voters the right to express a preference between parties as well as individuals.

The committee agreed that conventions governing the relationship between the Houses cannot be legislated for and that such conventions would evolve further once the House of Lords was reformed. We recommended that any new conventions, or modification to existing conventions, should be promulgated by the adoption of a concordat in the form of parallel identical resolutions prepared by a Joint Committee and adopted by each House. In a sense, this is the daughter of Cunningham, if I can use that phrase. It provides a framework within which the two Houses can operate, work out their relationship and within which primacy can be maintained.

On the size of the House, the committee unanimously agreed that a House of 300 Members was too small and that the size of the House should be 450. We also accepted that Members should serve a 15-year, non-renewable term. The vote on that point was somewhat interesting: the contents were 20; the not-contents were two—the two being the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Trimble. Every other member of the committee then present voted in favour.

One of the most important issues that we discussed was the transition from the existing House to the one proposed in the Bill. I wish to say one or two words about the transitional arrangements because I am very conscious that they are of great importance to Members of this House. Of the three transitional arrangements proposed in the White Paper, the committee agreed with that preferred by the Government and set out in the draft Bill. However, the committee also recommended an alternative option, which makes a bigger cut in the transitional membership in 2015 with no further cut until the end of transition in 2025, so that there would be one cull, so to speak, at the beginning of the process and the remainder would go at the end of it. That proposal has the following three characteristics: first, a transitional membership in 2015 would be equal to a benchmark figure derived from the total number of Members attending two-thirds or more of sitting days in the 2011-12 Session. Those transitional Members would remain in place until the final tranche of elected Members arrived in 2025—at which point all the transitional Members would leave. There would be an allocation of the transitional seats to parties and Cross-Bench Peers in proportion to the current membership. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, parties and Cross-Bench Peers would determine for themselves the persons to serve as transitional Members. The transitional Members would continue to receive daily allowances rather than salaries. We agreed by 13 to 7 votes that Bishops should continue to have ex-officio seats in the reformed House of Lords, and we agreed by 13 to 5 that that number should remain at 12.

In the course of our deliberations, we dealt with many other issues—all of which are set out in the report. We made recommendations, for example, on the operation of the Appointments Commission, disqualification of Members and the position of Ministers parachuted into the Lords as Ministers. However, I should like to say a word about two of the more prominent issues that troubled the committee.

It became apparent that one of the issues concerning Members of the House of Commons was the relationship between an elected Member of the House of Lords elected, as he would be, by STV on a large constituency basis and an individual Member of Parliament elected by first past the post for a particular constituency. MPs were clearly worried that elected Members of the Lords would involve themselves in personal casework of the kind currently undertaken by MPs on behalf of their constituents. We therefore recommended that IPSA should make no provision for Members of a reformed House to deal with personal casework, as opposed to policy work, or to have offices in their constituencies. We did, however, consider that elected Members would inevitably be concerned and be approached about regional, local and legislative matters.

The possible use of the Parliament Acts was a subject we considered. We had evidence from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, both written and oral, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Their evidence raised two issues. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, told the committee that the Parliament Acts could properly be used to reform the Lords, and that the courts would uphold such a decision. As to whether the Parliament Acts would continue to apply to a reformed second Chamber, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said that there was at least doubt that the Acts, or all their provisions, would apply. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that the better view was that the present Acts would not apply to a reformed second Chamber. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said that it would, however, be open to Parliament to legislate now—now, my Lords—to make clear that the Parliament Acts should operate in the same way in relation to an elected second Chamber, although the present clause was not acceptable for that purpose. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that it was vital that the reform Bill specified clearly whether or not the Acts would continue to apply to a reformed second Chamber, and he agreed that Clause 2 did not adequately address the question. The Joint Committee therefore recommended that if the Government wished to ensure that the Parliament Acts applied to a reformed House, they should make statutory provision for it. Both Peers considered that the issue could be resolved by suitable wording in the Bill. That seemed to me to be persuasive evidence.

I should like to say something about costs. We accepted the recommendation of the Government that the salary of an elected Member should be somewhat below that of an MP but above that of a Member of a devolved Assembly. We also accepted that the sort of constituency allowances that were paid to MPs should not be available to elected Members of the House of Lords. So far as transitional Members were concerned, they should continue to receive a per diem allowance. This was also to be applicable to appointed Members—the 20 per cent. What we could not do was go into the costs of the whole exercise, very simply because although we asked the Government to produce some figures, they did not do so. I regretted that very much because, apart from anything else, it prevented us having a sensible discussion on the issue.

I am sorry to have taken up so much of the House’s time with the details of the report, but in view of some of the comments that have been made, I thought it was important that the House should get a clear picture of what we actually recommended. We undertook a thorough and detailed analysis of the proposals put forward in the Government’s draft Bill. It is now for the Government to consider our proposals before coming forward with the final Bill, which they can present to Parliament for further scrutiny.

Finally, I say one or two words about the alternative report. By the rules of the House, there could not be a minority report. There was, however, nothing to prevent members of the committee issuing their own commentary on the process, and this the alternative 12 have done. I have read the alternative report with great interest and some surprise. I see that the alternative 12 now call for reconsideration of the 15-year term. I cannot help but observe that 10 of the 12 voted for it in the committee. However, the main problem I have with the alternative report is the suggestion of a constitutional convention on further reform of the House of Lords. It would be lengthy, time-consuming, diffuse and, judging from the report, distinctly overpopulated. I will not bore the House by reading out the provision in the report which sets out the dramatis personae of those who are supposed to be eligible to take part in the constitutional convention. I recommend Members of the House to read it and observe the ominous words at the end of the list:

“This list is not exhaustive”.

More important than that is the fact that there is really nothing much left to say about this issue. We have been round this course now year after year after year for more than a century. In the 22 years since I have been in this House, it has been the subject of intense discussion in the course of which the same points are made, remade and re-remade again, again and again. I see no virtue whatever in setting up a convention to reiterate the differences which already exist and which we all know about.

The idea that somehow there is a mechanism whereby all those differences can be fused and that there will then be a general agreement about proposals to reform the House of Lords is fanciful. It is an absurdity. There are divisions in the House as to whether we want an elected House or not, whether we want people to come here as a result of a democratic election or to continue to be appointed. It is high time that people recognised that the time has come for a decision on these issues, not further discussion and then further discussion after that.

I think that the committee has produced a better Bill as a result of our deliberations. I think that that Bill is important constitutionally, indeed, it is important enough that it should be presented to the people in a referendum. That way, we will begin to make some real progress. I beg to move.

15:28

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I know that I do so on behalf of the whole House. I reiterate the Government’s thanks to him and to all noble Lords who served on the Joint Committee. Perhaps the noble Lord feels like a juror who has sat on an especially long, complex and lurid trial, and he may wish to put in a plea to be excused from any further service to the House of this nature; I am sure that we would readily accept it.

With me and a few others, he shares enormously long experience in debating these issues on the Floor of this House. He was right when he said at the end of his speech that the time has surely come for Parliament to decide once and for all what we want to do.

The Joint Committee has produced a detailed and comprehensive report which will undoubtedly leave its mark on the Government’s final proposals. The report is a milestone in a process that began in 1997, shortly after Mr Blair first described this House as an affront to democracy, and which led to the enactment of the House of Lords Bill in 1999. Since then, Labour in government sought to find a policy for the second phase of House of Lords reform, since when the future of this House has been hanging in the balance. During that period we have seen a royal commission in 2000, a first White Paper in 2001, a Joint Committee in 2002-03, a Green Paper in 2003, a second White Paper in 2007, a cross-party working group in 2007-08 and, finally, a third White Paper in July 2008, with, during that time, also votes in the House of Commons. Following the general election in 2010, this coalition Government established a further cross-party committee and went on to publish for the very first time a draft Bill alongside a White Paper in May last year, and that is the Bill which has now been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Committee.

That chronology alone should serve to demonstrate that the search by successive Governments for consensus on a second phase of reform of this House has been very nearly as exhaustive as the Joint Committee’s report. Although it may have proceeded in fits and starts, the broad parameters of those discussions have remained constant for some time. Indeed, the central elements of the Government’s draft Bill—the scaffolding, so to speak—are derived from the accumulated wisdom acquired through cross-party deliberations over the past 13 years. In the end, however, there is only one way to test whether consensus on the second phase of reform of this House exists or can emerge, and that is to introduce a Bill and then to allow Parliament to take a view. By publishing a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny, the Government have taken the first step in that process. If a Bill to change the composition of this House is included in next week’s Queen Speech, it will be in Parliament that we establish whether the consensus which the Government believe exists can be drawn upon to take the Bill forward and on to the statute book. After all, is that not what Parliament is for?

Today is an opportunity for the Lords members of the Joint Committee to elaborate on the conclusions they reached in the course of the pre-legislative scrutiny, and for other Members of the House to comment on those conclusions with a view to informing the Government’s deliberations as we consider how best to adapt our proposals. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, has been frank that his chairmanship was a far from simple task. The issues around reform of your Lordships’ House have been vigorously contested over the years and it is no surprise that there were robust debates and differences of opinion among the members of the committee. Those culminated in an alternative report, to which no doubt some noble Lords will refer.

It is none the less the case that by a majority the Joint Committee agreed a report that lends support to many of the central elements of the Government’s initial proposals, and the Government welcome that. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, has already addressed some of those in his opening speech. Most importantly, the Joint Committee’s report concurs with the Government’s view that a reformed second Chamber should have a strong electoral mandate, that 80 per cent of Members should be elected under the STV system for 15-year non-renewable terms and that 20 per cent of Members should be appointed, with reserved places for the Lords Spiritual. Of course, the devil is in the detail—it always has been—but that is what the parliamentary process, of which the pre-legislative scrutiny is the first stage, is for.

We have a second Chamber in order to keep the Executive in check, and the Government believe that a democratic mandate obtained through direct elections would enhance the House’s ability to perform this function. If anyone has anything to fear from the proposed reforms, it should be the Executive, not least because it is likely that with elections by PR there would never be an overall majority for the Government in a strengthened upper House.

The Joint Committee shares the view that the election of 80 per cent of a reformed House will make the House more assertive. Intriguingly, however, it concludes that a more assertive House would not enhance Parliament’s overall role in relation to the activities of the Executive. I should be interested to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, or from other members of the committee who are due to speak today why they reached that particular view.

The Joint Committee concurs with the Government that the reformed House should be much smaller than the current House of Lords, but recommends a House of 450 Members rather than the 300 proposed in the draft Bill. The committee appears to have been persuaded by witnesses who suggest that 300 Members might be insufficient to carry out the current functions of the House. Some of those who gave evidence also introduced a distinction between full-time and part-time Members. The Joint Committee went on to recommend that appointed Members should not have to attend as frequently as elected Members and appears to justify the 450 figure on that basis. Of course, the Government will consider carefully the committee’s recommendations on the size of a reformed House, but I invite those who served on the committee to elaborate on the arguments for the specific figure of 450, their comparison with today and the expectations that they propose in respect of attendance.

For my part, I am not clear what is meant by full and part-time membership of a reformed House. A significant proportion of Members of the House today attend almost every sitting yet the current House is rightly described as a part-time House, most obviously because the House does not sit for long periods of the year. In other areas of our political system, such as local government, individuals manage to hold down a full-time political office, such as being the leader of a council, alongside other remunerated employment. I am not clear whether the Joint Committee envisages that only appointed Members would be able to maintain professional expertise elsewhere. Elections and expertise are not in themselves incompatible, as some Members of another place continue to remind us.

The Government welcome the Joint Committee’s support for our proposals that Members of a reformed upper House should no longer serve for life but for a single 15-year non-renewable term and that elections should take place in thirds at the same time as general elections. We are also pleased that the Joint Committee endorsed our proposal for elections to be held by a single transferable vote and we will examine its argument in favour of the STV system used in New South Wales as an alternative to the STV system proposed in the draft Bill. The Government and the Joint Committee are also agreed that there should be no change to the powers and functions of the two Houses.

The Joint Committee argue that the election of 80 per cent of Members will make this House more assertive and affect the balance of power between the Houses in favour of the upper House, even if its formal powers remain the same. However, a majority of the committee considered that the existing conventions and other pillars on which Commons primacy rests would suffice to ensure its continuation, and that therefore Clause 2 of the draft Bill may be unnecessary. Clause 2 was included in the draft Bill in order to put beyond doubt our intention that the House of Commons should retain its primacy. We note the committee’s warning that Clause 2 could lay the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament open to judicial intervention, and its insistence that no provisions in the Bill should afford such opportunities in a manner inconsistent with Article 9 of the Bill of Rights. The Government agree with the committee that the conventions governing the relationship between the Houses cannot be legislated for and will, inevitably, continue to evolve.

I observe in passing that some Members of the House, who have been most vociferous in their concern about securing the primacy of the House of Commons, are the very same Members who have recently urged us to break with convention and challenge the financial privilege of another place.

On the Parliament Acts, which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, raised, the Joint Committee received evidence casting doubt on whether the 1911 Act would apply once the House had been reformed. The committee opted to leave that evidence from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to speak for itself. Let me be clear: we produced a draft Bill on the basis that the Parliament Acts will continue to apply to a reformed House. We believe that they are well understood and would provide the backstop guaranteeing the primacy of the House of Commons. None the less, we shall consider carefully the evidence given to the Joint Committee by two distinguished Members of this House.

The Joint Committee’s report concludes by recommending that, in view of the significance of the constitutional change brought forward for an elected House of Lords, the Government should submit the decision to a referendum. The committee argues that otherwise there would be no opportunity for the electorate to provide a mandate for these proposals. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, when he winds up—and if not him then other members of the committee present today—will elaborate on the reasoning for this and set out why they concluded that the reforms to the composition of the House proposed in the Bill merited a referendum, bearing in mind that the 1999 reforms that produced the current composition of the House were not endorsed in that way. It is worth reminding the House that at the last general election, the manifestos from the three main parties were remarkably similar, whereas this was not true in 1997.

I also invite noble Lords to explain how the committee envisaged that a post-legislative referendum might work; what kind of question might be put to the electorate; and when it should take place. I particularly hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition will seize the opportunity to set out her party’s approach to these matters, not least because it endorsed the principle of a referendum in its last manifesto. I should also like to hear her objections in detail to the Government’s initial proposals which, as many noble Lords pointed out, bear a passing resemblance to those drawn up by Mr Straw in 2008. To many of us, the Labour Party always appears to be in favour of reform but never quite follows through. I very much look forward to hearing the noble Baroness on this point.

The Joint Committee made valuable observations and recommendations in a number of other areas, notably in proposing an alternative transition arrangement and in recommending a per diem allowance in lieu of a salary for transitional Members, and potentially for appointed Members. I will not set out all those areas now, trusting that other noble Lords will touch on them in the course of the debate.

It will be pointed out rightly that the Joint Committee did not agree with everything that the Government proposed, and that there were considerable differences of opinion within the committee. However, it should be clear from what has been said thus far that there are very considerable areas of agreement between the Government and the majority of the committee. I noted at the outset that we had embarked on this process in order to explore whether a consensus existed on the second phase of reform of the House. The Joint Committee’s report encourages us in the view that it does.

We have not yet reached the final decisions on the Government’s proposals and will therefore consider carefully the Joint Committee’s recommendations, as well as the House’s response to the recommendations expressed in today’s debate. Although we may not in the end agree with all the answers that the Joint Committee and individual noble Lords offer, much of the value of the process will have lain in throwing up the right questions to the Government and, in the course of the debate, to the Joint Committee.

[Lord Elton]

Will my noble friend tell the House what he means by “consensus”?

[Lord Strathclyde]

A consensus will be the majority in the House of Commons that passes the Bill. I will add, for noble Lords who need tutoring, that if there is no majority in the House of Commons, no Bill will come to this House.

15:43

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I echo the thanks of the Leader of the House to my noble friend Lord Richard for his speech opening this important debate. I also thank my noble friend and all those who served on the Joint Committee, especially those from all sides of this House, for the enormous amount of work and effort they put into their task. The House has every reason to be grateful.

We are told that further reform of your Lordships’ House might form the centrepiece of the Government’s legislative programme for the forthcoming Session, to be set out in the gracious Speech to this House next week. Even this close to the Queen’s Speech, it seems incredible to those on these Benches—and, I believe, to the whole country—that, given the problems facing the whole country, the coalition Government think that the issue they need to focus on above all is the future reform of this House.

After the Budget there were rows over the granny tax, the pasty tax, the caravan tax, the charities tax, the conservatory tax and the churches tax—virtually every kind of tax. The Government provoked panic petrol buying, there was a cash-for-access row, the embarrassing mishandling of the Abu Qatada case, social cleansing in public housing, attacks in the most dismissive terms from their own Back-Benchers, personal abuse from MPs such as Nadine Dorries, and searching strategic criticism from MPs such as Bernard Jenkin. Then came the entanglement of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Worst of all are the Government’s economic policies: the spending cuts going too far too fast, and the absolute lack of a growth strategy tipping Britain back into recession. All of them are linked by one theme and are driven by what the Government have done. They are all self-generated and self-inflicted.

People across the country are deeply worried. They are worried about their jobs, prices, whether they can afford to put meals on the table, whether they have enough money to fill up their cars, the health service, education and crime. What is this Government’s response to their worries? It is House of Lords reform. It is no wonder that the polls are day by day a disaster for this Government. Yesterday, the Tories’ ratings were below 30 per cent for the first time for eight years. The day before, 67 per cent said they thought that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were out of touch. Sixty-eight per cent think that the Budget shows that they can no longer even try to claim that we are all in this together. What is the Government’s answer to being thought out of touch? It is Lords reform. When the Government are described as incompetent, what is their answer? It is Lords reform.

The reform of your Lordships’ House is an important issue and one that we need to get right, but the idea that it is the most pressing issue facing the country is risible. We on these Benches will have more to say on these matters and on the Government’s priorities when we begin to debate the Government’s legislative programme next week, but we have in front of us today the report from the Joint Committee on the Government’s draft House of Lords Reform Bill, and alongside it we have the alternative report from the minority group of members of the Joint Committee. Both are important contributions to the debate on the future of your Lordships’ House.

The Joint Committee’s report makes many important points, but I particularly want to highlight just four: first, its conclusion that this House should have an electoral mandate provided it has commensurate powers; secondly, its conclusion that Clause 2 of the Government’s draft Bill, which seeks to preserve the primacy of the House of Commons simply by asserting it, is not in itself capable of preserving the Common’s primacy; thirdly, that work should begin as soon as possible on re-examining the conventions between the two Houses of Parliament as specified in an earlier report by the Joint Committee on Conventions, chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling, which is something that I advocated a long while ago and in doing so was accused by the Deputy Leader of this House of being a reform refusenik; and fourthly, the Joint Committee’s recommendation that,

“in view of the significance of the constitutional change brought forward for an elected House of Lords, the Government should submit the decision to a referendum”.

These are important points, but I accept that they are not points on which every Member of your Lordships’ House will be able to agree. I know, for example, that some Members of this House, on all sides of the House, are not in favour of this House having an electoral mandate, although I am sure that the Joint Committee’s insertion of the important qualification that an elected House of Lords needs to have powers commensurate with that electoral mandate will interest all Members of the House.

I also know that there will be Members of your Lordships’ House who are not convinced of the need for a referendum. In this, I do not mean Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches who are following the bizarre insistence of the Deputy Prime Minister that a referendum is not necessary. No one would suggest for a moment that this opposition to a referendum is anything to do with the outcome of last year’s AV referendum, a referendum that the Deputy Prime Minister embraced with as much enthusiasm as he has in refusing to embrace a referendum on Lords reform. As an aside, I am not a betting woman—well, not often—but I just put the notion to this House that if there is a Bill on Lords reform in next week’s Queen’s Speech, at some stage during what I suspect will be a very difficult parliamentary passage without necessarily a clear conclusion in prospect, proposals for a referendum will go into the Bill.

Far be it from me to offer advice to the Government, but it would be much better for the Government, whether the Tory part or the Lib Dem part, to acknowledge what I believe is the inevitable and accept that a constitutional change of this level of importance requires a referendum. The Government should stop trying to deny the British people a voice on this issue, and that is the position of these Benches.

Labour will make it clear in its response to the Queen’s Speech that it will take a close look at whatever proposals for further Lords reform the Government bring forward. We have seen the Government’s draft Bill but, for instance, we do not believe that the Government can seriously attempt to proceed with Clause 2 of the draft Bill, mentioned by the Leader, given that, as the Joint Committee’s report makes clear, it has no support at all beyond the ministerial opinions of Mr Clegg and Mr Mark Harper.

We do not know what Bill we will get yet, but we on these Benches will test it against three criteria: a referendum, dealing properly with the issues of powers and conventions, and our policy of a fully elected House. I know that there are those around this House, including a number behind me, who would not agree with all those criteria. I acknowledge and accept those differences, which reflect views that are strongly, passionately and legitimately held. I know that we will hear those differences in the two days of debate in front of us, and they are clearly displayed in both the report of the Joint Committee and the alternative report of the minority group. However, I urge that these differences of view are respected, whether they are held by Members of your Lordships’ House or by individuals and organisations beyond. Strong argument on the issue is right and to be welcomed.

Significantly, I believe that what we see in the alternative report from the minority group of the Joint Committee is just a difference of opinion. We see clear disagreement, but I welcome the fact that the minority group has set out with equal clarity the areas and issues on which it agrees. These areas include: the functions of this House; the greater assertiveness that an elected House would unquestionably wield against the House of Commons; the role of the Bishops in your Lordships’ House, the prospect of introducing representatives of other faith groups, and the importance of diversity; the application of the Parliament Acts; and the importance of a referendum. I am sure the whole House will agree that these issues are vital.

Individual Members of your Lordships’ House will make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions on the areas in which the minority group makes clear that it does not agree with the Joint Committee—in most cases because it wanted to go further than the Joint Committee felt it was able to go, given its narrow remit of scrutinising only the Government’s draft Bill. These areas include the importance of the primacy of the House of Commons—and I note the emphasis given in the alternative report to the authoritative view of Erskine May of what the primacy of the House of Commons rests on and why—as well as issues such as accountability, constituency issues in an elected House of Lords, transitional arrangements for Members of the current House, and the cost of an elected House.

We on these Benches support the criticism made by my noble friend Lord Richard earlier today and by the minority group of the Government’s refusal to provide proper costings for an elected House, and I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Lipsey for the work that he has done. We give notice that we will seek to hold the Government to their commitment, given just last week, that in the wake of the publication of these reports they will now provide accurate figures of what an elected House of Lords will cost so that at a time of national austerity the public can take those important views and facts into account.

The minority group makes a strong case for all these issues to be considered by a constitutional convention. The case made by the minority group is interesting. The reform of your Lordships’ House is important but it suggests that such a convention should also consider what would happen to the House of Lords, the House of Commons and Parliament as a whole, as well as to the union itself if the people of Scotland were to vote in a referendum in favour of independence. The vexed issue of the West Lothian question also remains on the table, and that should not be considered in isolation. A constitutional convention might also be suitable for considering the impact of such issues on the other devolved areas and the Assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland.

Since 1997, we have seen a significant programme of constitutional reform, which we on this side of the House believe was well considered, well thought through and well grounded, such as devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This reform was necessary and has the support of the people. However, since 2010 we have seen proposed constitutional reform that has been none of these things: for example, the political gerrymandering of what is now the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies Act; the political partiality of what is now the Fixed-term Parliaments Act; the decisive outcome of the AV referendum; and, finally, the bad Bill that is the Government’s draft legislative proposal on further House of Lords reform. These issues should have been properly thought through, and they were not. I therefore understand the argument made that the constitutional convention has merit in being a vehicle that could consider these and allied issues.

I am sure that there will be great interest in the recommendation of the consideration given to indirect elections to the House of Lords, including the idea of the secondary mandate. I welcome the proposals put forward in evidence to the Joint Committee by the former Lord Speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, formerly of these Benches, for what she described as ground-clearing reforms. Of course, I welcome too the advance that the legislation put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has made and hope that it can be expedited in the coming Session.

There are many constructive proposals that would aid the reform of this House and which I believe many on all sides consider to be necessary. The Joint Committee and the alternative report have raised a plethora of vital issues that have not been properly thought through in the Government’s draft Bill, including the application or otherwise of the Parliament Act to a reformed House. We shall see what comes before us when the Government set out their legislative programme in the gracious Speech next week. The Bill on further reform of this House may be better than the draft Bill considered by the Joint Committee. I certainly hope so.

The reform of this House has a long history. In its most recent incarnation, it has been going on for the past 100 years. For some, such as the Deputy Prime Minister, it is an absolute priority. However, I am doubtful that the public, facing the problems that they are facing, would agree with that priority. Real reform of your Lordships’ House is not a matter for easy slogans. Constitutional reform is a deeply serious matter, the purpose of which cannot be to try to glue the coalition together, albeit at the top. As my right honourable friend Sadiq Khan MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, has forcefully said:

“Avoiding the promotion of political and constitutional reform on the basis of short-term expediency is imperative”.

Reform is a matter of careful consideration. I am confident that over the next two days, Members of your Lordships’ House will bring precisely that approach of careful consideration to the issues before us. I believe that both reports before us today are an important contribution to that, and I look forward to the debate ahead.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness a question. The coalition agreement provided for the Deputy Prime Minister to establish an all-party group, which would come forward in a Motion, I think from memory, by December 2010. The noble Baroness served on that group. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde in his remarks implied that the draft Bill, which has been considered, was somehow connected with the deliberations of that group. Will the noble Baroness tell us what happened to the Deputy Prime Minister’s committee and how its conclusions are in any way related to this Bill?

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I was proud and privileged to be a member of that group, as the noble Lord said. However, during our deliberations, it became clear that there were various issues on which there was no meeting of minds. Towards the end of our deliberations the group stopped meeting. A draft Bill was published that, it might be fair to say, did not have the full support of all members of that committee.

15:58

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I speak as a survivor of the Joint Select Committee. In doing so, I offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for his very able chairmanship. I should also like to echo his remarks about the work of the clerks and my colleagues on the committee. About a year or so ago, I would have agreed with the consensus in this House that constitutional reform of this nature should be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. But after six months on this committee, I am much less sure.

It is certainly true that there are advantages in having a committee of both Houses and I think that we benefited from that. We have certainly produced a vast array of material for the delight and delectation of noble Lords even if they do not read every word. But there are problems with pre-legislative scrutiny on topics such as Lords reform because it is always tempting to move on to the broader constitutional questions which, although relevant, are outside the direct scope of the Bill. I would have liked to have spent some time scrutinising the current arrangements with the same rigour used to scrutinise the proposed arrangements, but I believe that the chairman was right to rein us in and to stick to the confines of the draft Bill. It would have been very odd indeed, on a piece of legislation in which one of the key issues was the ability of the Government to get their business, to have spent 18 months or two years doing pre-legislative scrutiny.

The other problem is that constitutional matters cannot really be scrutinised in quite the usual way because all members of the committee are to an extent themselves experts, and often know as much about the topic as the people from whom they are taking evidence, and of course all the members tend to come with views which are pretty well entrenched. It is also difficult in this case because there is a draft Bill that stands on the simple proposition that the second Chamber should be elected. For those who disagree with that view, scrutiny of the rest of the Bill is very difficult. We found that arguments became very circular and at times frustrating, and of course the requirement to reach enough of a consensus to produce a report runs the risk of compromising the work. Perhaps that answers the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who asked in his opening remarks why we came up with some of our conclusions. So we need to think very hard about the sort of Bills that are put forward for pre-legislative scrutiny.

Two phrases are constantly used in the context of Lords reform. The first is the one about turkeys voting for Christmas. It is an expression I have come to loathe. We supporters of an elected House will have to do better than that in support of our case, and I believe that we will do so. But, equally, those who argue “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, which is my second hated phrase, will also have to do better. If our system is not broken, it is certainly showing signs of wear and tear, and I do not believe that we can ignore those signs indefinitely.

First, we are the creatures of patronage, either ancient or modern, and we should recognise that that is increasingly anomalous in an age where transparency and open process are the norm. People are entitled to understand how and why those who influence their laws come to arrive in this place. When I do outreach visits, I am always asked if I live in a castle. Many people believe that we are still an aristocratic House, and the titles we hold reinforce that. The real diversity that we have here is not well understood outside. As a Member of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, I know how hard we work to ensure transparency by publishing on the website the processes and our criteria for selection, but we appoint only a small percentage of the people in this House. On the majority—the political appointments—the commission has a more limited role. One of our main concerns is addressing the question of party donors, because whether we like it or not, there is a perception outside that cash for honours is widespread.

My second concern is about the increasingly political nature of this House. I have been here for 12 years and in that time I have seen the House become more confrontational and less courteous. Debate is much more partisan and the majority of votes are cast along party lines. At some point in the future, having a political house with no equivalent electoral mandate is going cause us a problem.

The third and most serious problem is the size of the House. We all believe that this House is too big. It is too big to run efficiently and so big as to risk bringing ourselves into disrepute. The experts in this House find themselves making three-minute contributions to important debates because there are so many of us. But the size of the House is inextricably linked to the power of the Prime Minister’s patronage, and it is a response to the growing politicisation of the House. People say, “Well, the Prime Minister should stop appointing people”. Let us hang on for a minute. Every Prime Minister for the past 50 years has had the right to appoint Members at a time and in the numbers of their choosing. Under the current arrangements, how on earth should we decide when Prime Ministers should stop appointing and when they can start again? We have no constitutional framework for deciding how large this House should be and what its political make-up should be. If you believe in the status quo, that is fine, but you then have to answer for the consequences of it—and the consequences are that every Prime Minister seeks to rebalance the numbers in this House.

Between the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and the formation of the coalition in 2010, there was only one change of Administration, in 1997. If during that 31 years we had had a change of Government at every election, and more Peers were created to make the political balance work, we would have had to face up to this problem much earlier. If we have frequent changes of Administration in the future, this is an issue that we will have to deal with.

Of course, there are ways of addressing this problem other than through election, and I have no doubt that many of them will be put forward genuinely today. The trouble is that I see no evidence that we could ever get agreement to, for example, a single 15-year term, or a retirement age, or a cap on the size of the House. Many of the proposals put forward by the Goodlad committee have been rejected, and despite widespread support throughout this House for the proposals in the Steel Bill, it has been completely filleted.

In the final analysis, even we must rule by consent. There is a danger that if we turn our faces against all reform, those who argue that there is no need for a second Chamber will grow in number. For the opponents of change, there is a danger that we will win this battle but lose the war.

16:06

[Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Joint Committee and as a signatory to the alternative report. Perhaps I may add my own words of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. His was not an easy task, as we slogged our way towards a total of 30 meetings—a record, I gather, for a Joint Committee. I am perhaps a touch unusual in getting seriously excited by constitutional matters, but as the tally of our sessions mounted, even I was reminded of that shrewd observer of our country, George Bernard Shaw, who said that the English invented test match cricket in order to give the British people a sense of eternity. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, got us through and on time, and I am grateful to him and to our clerks, though I should point out to the noble Lord that there were two Cross-Bench members of his committee, not one as he suggested.

Every generation or so, we take a crack at the question of Lords reform. We throw the particles in the air and hope that, this time, they will fall in a way that paves a path on the road to consensus. Once again, we have failed, as the voting figures in volume 1 of the Joint Committee’s report show, as does the existence of the alternative report. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, spied the outline of a consensus. Over those 30 meetings of the Joint Committee, I have to tell the noble Lord, there was not a flicker of consensus. The noble Lord the Leader of the House is succumbing to an attractive outbreak of Pollyanna-ism, which is always pleasing but in this case is utterly misleading.

So, what next? In the coming Session of Parliament, we could immerse ourselves in the constitutional mire, dissipating copious quantities of parliamentary time and political nervous energy on the Government’s proposed Bill, probably boring the country and ourselves rigid except at moments of showdown and all with no guarantee that the statute will emerge at the end unless the coalition is prepared to reach for the Parliament Acts in what could well be the near twilight of its term. Is it wise to attempt to settle the future of the second Chamber before we know the outcome of another grade 1 listed constitutional question, Scottish independence, which is to be the subject of a referendum in autumn 2014?

There is an organic, incremental alternative to the invasive surgery proposed by the coalition for your Lordships’ House. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, described it with great eloquence in her oral evidence to the Joint Committee, as did Peter Riddell, director of the Institute for Government, in his. Put their thoughts together with the content of the Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, and the proposals under consideration by the usual channels from the Leader’s Group on Working Practices chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and you have in the making a substantial and hugely worthwhile reform which would have the additional benefit of being fuelled by a high level of genuine consensus.

The Joint Committee’s report acknowledges this in paragraph 11, which reads:

“Other approaches to reform are of course possible. A number of our witnesses advocated an incremental approach, focusing on issues on which there exists a large degree of consensus: the mode of appointment, the size of the House, retirement, disqualification and expulsion”.

The paragraph continues:

“Lord Steel of Aikwood's private member's Bill attempted to address some of these issues. The Joint Committee was established to consider the draft Bill, however, and we have kept within our remit”.

The alternative report, on pages 78 and 79, goes further and actively urges the Government to,

“consider including further proposals for immediate reform, including those put forward by Baroness Hayman, the former Lord Speaker, and those contained in the Leader’s Group report of working practices in the House of Lords, chaired by Lord Goodlad”.

Among the candidates for what the alternative report calls “immediate reform” are: reducing the size of the House to about 500, future appointments to carry a fixed term, the Appointments Commission to be made statutory, an end to the link between peerages and the honours system, a retirement scheme for Members, the matter of expulsion and exclusion and the ending of by-elections following the deaths of hereditary Peers. I know that the last will not find consensual support from several noble Lords whom I respect and admire.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I am listening very carefully to the noble Lord’s interesting proposals. Do any of them relate to the issue of democracy and election?

[Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield]

In the purest sense, no, but the virtue of our system, as I have always seen it, is that the undisputed primacy of the House of Commons, if I can put it bluntly, takes care of democracy. I know that the noble Lord and I will not agree on this although we agree on so many other things.

The danger is that while anticipating the so-called big-bang answer to the question of the Lords, nothing will happen, needed reforms will be stymied and the planning blight that has afflicted your Lordships' House since the departure of the bulk of the hereditary Peers in 1999 will continue. The ingredients of a substantial reform are lying at our feet. Let us pick them up, fashion them into something coherent, something valuable, and let us implement that bundle of reforms before the next general election.

16:12

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, as a member of the Joint Committee, I add my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, as chair for his skill, staying power, stamina and achievement in delivering a report on time. I recollect that the retiring most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury recommended that his successor should have the skin of a rhinoceros and the constitution of an ox, and it occurs to me that after his work on the Joint Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, might consider allowing his name to go forward for that position. In speaking today, I apologise to the House that urgent business in my diocese will make it impossible for me to be in my place when this debate concludes tomorrow. I am grateful to the Leader’s office for making an exceptional concession for me on this occasion.

In the mid-summer’s day debate on the draft Bill in your Lordships' House last year, I reminded the House that on these Benches we recognise along with very many of your Lordships that some reform of this House is long overdue and that the test of any reform is that it helps to serve Parliament and the nation better, not least by resolving the problem of its ever-increasing membership. To measure that, I pointed to four tests that we might apply to any proposal to replace this House with a wholly or largely elected second Chamber. The Joint Committee’s work has in my view made it very clear—to me at least—that these tests have not been met.

The first was whether the proposals flowed from a clear enough definition of the functions of a reformed House. Because of the limits put on the Joint Committee’s work referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, this matter has been addressed in some detail by the alternative report, which I signed. That report makes it clear that the overwhelming mass of evidence received by the Joint Committee pointed to the difficulties that will arise between the two Houses as a result of the Government’s determination to hold to the position that the primacy of the Commons will be undisturbed by the advent of an elected House of Lords.

The second test is related and is of course about primacy. It rests on the assertion that the Bill contains nothing that will affect the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses. The unanimity of the witnesses on this point is beyond dispute. It is manifestly unreasonable to argue that you can change one part of a delicately balanced system and leave the other parts unaffected. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, has argued that this appears not to concern Members of Parliament but he knows that at least two MPs on the Joint Committee expressed consistent and vehement concerns on this very issue.

Thirdly, I proposed a test relating to the independence of the upper House from party political control. The Joint Committee explored whether any of the available voting systems offered the possibility of electing people who would take an independent view and speak from time to time with a voice distinctive from that overwhelmingly influenced by party discipline. It is clear that a mainly elected House would become a creature of the party system, whatever mechanism for election was chosen. On this test, too, the proposals fail. I welcome the recommendation for further consideration of a nationally, indirectly elected House.

Fourthly, I sought to apply a test relating to the claims of democratic legitimacy. Would a non-renewable, 15-year term provide this House with a sense of conscious connection to, awareness of and responsiveness to the changing priorities of the electorate? I remain persuaded that this kind of democratic legitimacy is so diluted in the draft Bill as to be almost pointless. Here lies the intellectual incoherence of the draft Bill. On the one hand, the Government want a House that is accountable to the electorate but, on the other, seem to recognise that any such House might assert itself to the point where it radically disturbed the fine balance between the two Houses of Parliament.

We are left with a Bill predicated on the encouragement of greater assertiveness by an elected upper House yet one so circumscribed by the electoral proposals and so dependent on the Parliament Act that a reformed upper House would soon either find itself frustrated in its attempts to behave representatively or assert its determination to test the present conventions to breaking point. Either way, the risks are considerable. I have no doubt that this House will look carefully at those risks today and conclude that the benefits of radical reform as proposed cannot justify them.

In spite of these concerns, on this Bench we are pleased that the Joint Committee was persuaded that in a reformed House there should remain a place for the Lords spiritual. This question was not at the front or centre of the committee’s attention, but I am grateful that the committee found time to hear evidence from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who spoke tellingly about the grounded relationship between the Church of England and the communities in which our parishes and churches are set and drew the committee’s attention to the particular role of the Church of England in supporting, encouraging and convening other faith communities, especially in our great cities. His views were endorsed by significant voices from the Jewish community, the Muslim Council of Britain and others. I am pleased that the Joint Committee has pressed for the increasing presence of leaders of other denominations and faiths. A reduction in the proposed number of Bishops from 26 to 12 will be testing and challenging for the Church of England, but we will work hard to achieve a consistent presence from this Bench. We recognise that this will entail careful consideration of the processes by which members of the Bench of Bishops are selected.

It was a privilege to serve on the Joint Committee, not as a professional politician. I learnt a great deal from my colleagues and my respect for those who spend their lives living a vocation to politics has been substantially enhanced. But if I have brought a particular perspective to the discussions, it may be that I was continually asking myself how these proposals will serve the people of the diocese in which I live and work. With the passing months of the committee’s work, my puzzlement increased. At a time like this, when we need leadership that unifies our country and vision in Parliament that addresses the needs of the people, why are we embarking on proposals for reform which will be manifestly divisive? At a time of continuing recession, these proposals run the risk of setting the two Houses of Parliament against each other, dividing Parliament from the country’s evident needs and suggesting that the political leadership is out of step with the membership. That is why I felt it right to vote for a referendum.

Surely it is partly the responsibility of the Lords spiritual to raise questions about those things that can demonstrate Parliament’s capacity to respond to the mood of the day and raise our sights to the urgent need to address the common good at a time of severe economic risk. My fear is that in three years’ time we may have achieved a reformed Parliament but, in the process, have unintentionally created one that feels even less relevant and responsive to the people’s needs. I hope that the Government will heed the voice of this House today.

16:20

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, as a supporter of the Government perhaps I may say how encouraging it is to note that on the definition offered by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, so far in this Parliament the House of Commons has managed to reach a consensus on every measure brought forward by the Government. I was also interested to hear that we will not be having a referendum because all three party manifestos agree, including the Labour Party manifesto, which promised a referendum.

I too served on the Joint Committee and I too pay tribute to my fellow members. As we have heard, the committee devoted considerable time and effort to examining the draft Bill. However, it was fundamentally hampered in two respects. The first was that the Government presented us with a Bill of which we had the detail but for which we had no justification. Assessing the Bill on the Government’s own terms is not possible if the Government make no attempt to say what they are.

If one reads the White Paper, one can extract from the disparate comments two criteria, each of which is asserted rather than justified: that is, that the Bill delivers an elected House—a “fundamental democratic principle”, according to the White Paper—and that it maintains the existing relationship between the two Houses. The report of the Joint Committee demonstrates that the Bill fails by the Government’s own criteria. It may provide for election but the attempt to ring-fence the position of the House of Commons through Clause 2 is inadequate to the task. Indeed, if you read the evidence, it is fairly clear or would suggest that you can have one but not the other. The committee, as we have heard, took evidence on the Parliament Acts. As the report mentions, it would be possible to make statutory provision for them to continue in force. That, though, is to say what could be done, not what should be done. But even if the Acts were maintained, that would not be sufficient to maintain the existing relationship between the two Houses. As one reporter put it to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, at last week’s press conference, how exactly do you prevent an elected House from ignoring conventions? You cannot.

The second limitation was that of time. The committee did the best that it could with the Bill before it. It may, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said, have set a record for the number of meetings it held. Despite that, there was not time to examine the Bill in depth. Even if the Parliament Acts were maintained, they are blunt weapons for determining outcomes, and to rely on them on a regular basis would likely create significant tensions within the political process. The draft Bill provides no deliberative means for resolving disputes and, given the pressures we were under, the committee did not address how such disputes should be resolved. We dealt with it only in the negative sense of finding that Clause 2 was inadequate for maintaining the present relationship between the two Houses.

I take that as illustrative of what was not considered. The report is as important for what it omits as much as for what it includes. That is not a criticism of the committee but of the limitations under which we operated. I know the response adopted by some—we have already heard it—is that we did not need to address the fundamentals of what was proposed, and that further time was not needed, because the issue of Lords reform has been discussed for the past century. There is, in their view, little more to be said on the merits, and it is a case of agreeing the detail.

That view is not only wrong but dangerous. The case for an elected House and hence for the Bill is based on contested concepts and philosophies. We hear trotted out claims as if they are self-evidently true. There will be other opportunities to address these claims; here, I just wish to focus on the assertion that the issue has already been extensively considered over the course of a century or more.

Consideration of the future of the second Chamber, and its relationship to the first, has been sporadic and very rarely undertaken in terms of first principles. There has been little consideration of the role of Parliament in our constitutional arrangements and the place of the second Chamber within Parliament. The two principal exercises were those of the Bryce commission in 1918 and the Wakeham commission in 2000. Otherwise the debate, though extensive at times, has been at a rather superficial level, essentially of detail rather than principle. Even in 1911, the debate on the Parliament Bill was not a principled debate about the place of the second Chamber in the constitution of the United Kingdom. It was shaped by politicians’ stances on Irish home rule.

We need to address the issue from first principles. We need to consider how the second Chamber, and indeed the first, is composed once we are clear as to what we expect of Parliament. We have not really done that. There is reference to parliamentary reform at times, but that normally refers to procedural and structural change in the Commons. Lords reform usually refers to changes to the composition of this House. There have been few attempts to address change from the perspective of Parliament as Parliament.

That is why I am a signatory of the alternative report. I have previously argued the case in this House for a constitutional convention, to undertake an exercise in constitutional cartography. Significant constitutional change is difficult to reverse. It usually has significant consequences for other parts of our constitutional framework. We need to get this right. Contrary to what some have said, the place of the second Chamber has not been thoroughly thought through. The report of the Joint Committee has demonstrated what is wrong with the Government’s proposals. The report, though, should not be the end of a process of examining the place of the second Chamber, but rather an impetus to look holistically at our constitutional arrangements. We cannot afford to get it wrong.

16:27

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for his introduction to the debate and for his chairmanship of the Joint Committee. His stamina and determination were both fully tested in his chairmanship of a very diverse and opinionated group of parliamentarians. I declare an interest not only as a member of that committee but as one of the signatories to the alternative report. There were 12 of us—just one short of half the Joint Committee. Our group of 12 was also diverse, with MPs and Peers from both the Labour and Conservative Parties, and with Cross-Bench and episcopal support. Some of us supported a fully elected second Chamber; others did not.

However, the crucial and fundamental starting point on which we all agreed was that the draft Bill and White Paper offer a misleading prospectus for change. Reading them, that is apparent from the start. The introduction to the White Paper, strongly emphasised by the Deputy Prime Minister in his evidence, says that,

“it is important that those who make the laws of the land should be elected by those to whom those laws apply”.

The House of Lords is of course part of the legislative process—we scrutinise legislation and suggest amendments to the Commons—but every single decision that goes into law is ultimately a Commons decision. When I was a young civil servant, I was told that that is why the Commons votes Aye and No and we in the Lords vote only Content and Not-Content. The lawmakers—the ultimate decision takers—are the Commons, because they are elected.

Another questionable premise is set out in the summary of proposals which deals with powers. The summary says that it is proposed to elect the Lords without changes to the fundamental relationship with the Commons which, it claims, rests partly on the Parliament Acts and on Commons financial privilege. Commons primacy rests on the simple fact that the Commons is elected and we are not. Erskine May makes this absolutely plain in the section that deals with the power and jurisdiction of Parliament. On primacy, Erskine May states:

“The dominant influence enjoyed by the House of Commons within Parliament may be ascribed principally to its status as an elected assembly, the Members of which serve as the chosen representatives of the people”.

On financial privilege, it states:

“As such the House of Commons possesses the most important power vested in any branch of the legislature, the right of imposing taxes upon the people and of voting money for the public service”.

Moreover, the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 states that the Act was necessary because the Lords was not,

“constituted on a popular … basis”.

That is, it was not elected. Once the Lords is elected, the reasons for the Parliament Act are eroded. Both Houses will be constituted on a popular basis and contain, as Erskine May says,

“the chosen representatives of the people”.

Despite these arguments, it is still possible to argue that, as part of the legislative machinery, Members of this House should indeed be elected. One can mount a logical and sustainable argument to support that. What is not logical or sustainable is to argue that Commons primacy and the current relationship between the two Houses will be unchanged. The Government were obviously aware of the problem and proposed Clause 2 of the draft Bill. We took a great deal of evidence on Clause 2. Only two supporters gave evidence in favour of it—the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg, and the Minister responsible, Mr Harper. The entire Joint Committee agreed that Clause 2 is a nonsense—unworkable and misconceived. However, many of us believe that there is more to it than that. There is a fundamental flaw in the Bill, which is the unbridgeable gap between the Government’s proposals for electing the House of Lords and the continuation of Commons primacy.

An elected House of Lords may well strengthen democracy. Having campaigned, canvassed and got support, Members would be elected on the basis of a mandate. They would represent their electors and be expected to exercise a mandate on behalf of those electors. The Government seem to think that democracy is solely about elections, but it is about the elected acting on behalf of their electorate. Why should an elected Peer subjugate the wishes of his or her electorate to those of an elected MP? What is the logic of continuing Commons primacy after the Lords is elected?

The Government have one basic answer to that question: do as much as possible to distance the elected Peer from his or her electorate. The supporters of the draft Bill claim that, if enacted, it would strengthen our democracy and the House would be more democratic and legitimate. However, at every point, the draft Bill and the White Paper seek to distance the elected Peer from their electors. They are quite open about this. The 15-year term is designed to ensure that the Commons mandate is always fresher. The non-renewable nature of the Lords’ term and the block on an elected Lord standing for the Commons have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with protecting MPs from locally elected Peers who may become just a bit too popular.

The huge multi-constituencies of more than 500,000 people will ensure distance between the electors and the elected. These measures will not achieve their ends—that of protecting the Commons. Nor are they anything like as democratic as they should be. Elected Peers with a 15-year term, representing more than 500,000 voters, will be alongside MPs with five-year terms and constituencies of around 76,000. Will a Peer who is entrenched for 15 years, representing 500,000 and possibly elected by thousands more than the local MP, have more or less weight than the local MP?

Secondly, there is self-evidently little or no accountability in this system. At one point in the Joint Committee’s discussions, I was told that this is not about accountability. I may be wrong but I thought accountability was part and parcel of a modern democracy. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, is quite right: of course, we need reform. I support the sort of reform put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. We could take that forward now, but then we would need to turn to the much bigger and more serious question of House of Lords elections. Electing the Lords would change the political and constitutional landscape of this country and would affect the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies. It demands serious consideration of electoral systems, including indirect elections, but above all it needs an honest and clear determination of what the new relationship between the two Houses will be. To achieve that we need to do two things. First, we need to reconvene the Joint Committee on Conventions originally chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham. The Deputy Prime Minister says that the conventions will evolve. We cannot run a country on a “let us see what happens” basis. That would be constitutionally disastrous and utterly irresponsible. No Government worth their salt should even contemplate doing so.

The second thing that we need to do is to set up a properly comprehensive constitutional convention to work through all the questions that need answers. I know opponents of this say that it constitutes kicking the measure into the long grass, but that is a feeble answer to such a serious question. A constitutional convention is the responsible and sensible way to resolve the huge questions that the supporters of the Bill have so conspicuously failed to answer. We did it for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so why not do it for the United Kingdom as a whole? Why should our constitutional settlement be treated with any less care and respect than those of our constituent parts? Of course, political decisions need to be taken on this matter but we need to do so much more than that. We need to hear from the people of this country what they think.

Therefore, ultimately, we need a referendum. I understand why the Liberal Democrats are so opposed to that; the AV result must have been a terrible shock to them. However, they argue, and the noble Lord the Leader of the House has argued, that there is no need for a referendum because at the 2010 election all three parties supported the election of the House of Lords. However, the noble Lord needs to remember that no one actually won the 2010 election. In fact, like us, the Liberal Democrats lost seats. The only party that won seats was his party, which said that this was a third-term issue. Real democracy means electing the Lords with commensurate powers, as the main report says—a point left out by many who have spoken on this issue this afternoon. We were agreed on the need to have commensurate powers and for the individual to have the power to act on behalf of his or her electorate as a Minister, Secretary of State, even Prime Minister, and to be part of a properly constituted democratic body.

In a speech that he made in December last year, the Deputy Prime Minister accused this House of having only a “veneer of expertise”. I put it to your Lordships that this Bill will not do because it has only a veneer of democracy.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I entirely agree with her remarks about primacy, but is there not also a concern that such a system would rob us completely of the independent Peers in this House?

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, of course, the position of the independent Peers is very important. It is addressed in the main report. That is, of course, why so many people want to see the House being elected on a 20:80 basis, which would address the point about the Cross-Bench Peers. However, what it does not address is independence within the parties because, as we all know, the Whip would be cracked a bit more effectively over all of us than it is at the moment, and that would rob us of a degree of our independence.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, would the noble Baroness like to reiterate her support for a 100 per cent elected House?

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, I do, if this House is to be elected with commensurate powers. That is my starting point. We did not vote simply on electing the House. The committee agreed that there should be commensurate powers. If there are commensurate powers—that is, doing away with Commons primacy and everything else to which I have just referred—yes, I do support a 100 per cent elected House on that basis, but only on that basis.

16:40

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, I think it was Oscar Wilde who once said that in a democracy the minority is always right. I have to say, as a Liberal Democrat, that it is a saying that has given me much comfort over the years, and I have a suspicion that it will have to give me some comfort today. I rise, of course, to argue the case for a democratically elected second Chamber—a case made by my party for 100 years. The time was ripe for that 100 years ago. It is essential now.

I just ask my noble colleagues in this place whether they find it acceptable, at a time when people are dying for democracy, that we should have in this place somewhere that infringes the fundamental principle of a democratic state, which is that the people’s laws should be made by the people’s representatives.

[Noble Lords]

They are.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

They are not. We are not the people’s representatives, but we make and amend laws, and are part of the process of producing the laws of this country. We infringe that principle daily. I was sitting here and listening to the arguments made around the Chamber, many of which were, “Yes of course we are in favour of democracy, but not now, not on these proposals, but at some time in the future”. St Augustine should be living at this hour.

However, the question is this: when we frame the laws of this country—you cannot say that we do not participate in this—we do so because we carry with us a democratic mandate. That is the principle of democracy. I was imagining what kind of a debate we might be having if, instead of debating our institutions today, we were debating the institutions in Brussels. I can imagine the kind of thunderous rage that would be expressed against the fact that those undemocratic commissioners in Brussels are able to make laws imposed upon the people of Britain. But we are undemocratic—we participate in that process.

I was imagining what kind of argument might be made if we were discussing Italy. People would have said, “The present Italian Prime Minister is not directly elected, but is elected only by Parliament”. We are elected by no one. As my noble friend Lady Scott said earlier, we are placemen here—no more and no less. I thought that that went out with the Stuart kings. We are the creatures of patronage. There are only two ways to get into this place. One is because you are a friend of the Prime Minister, or at least he does not object to you, and the other is because your great-grandmother slept with the king. There is no other way of getting into this place and the votes of the people have no hand in this process whatever.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I will give way, but allow me to make a little more progress.

The truth of the matter is that this place, whether you like it or not, is a creature of the Executive. When the new Prime Minister comes in, the first thing he or she does is help themselves to a replica of what exists in the other place in order to give themselves the power to push through this place the legislation that they require. Are we really content with that?

I recall well, because I was partly involved, that in 2004 the world’s greatest Muslim democracy, Indonesia, went to the polls. The European Union issued a view, a wish—not an instruction, of course—that when those polls were finally counted there would be no placemen to alter the democratic judgment and that there would be no act of patronage to add to the legislatures people such as army officers or even bishops to alter the voice of the democracy. Yet, so we are here today.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I shall make my point and then I will happily take my noble friend’s point.

On this day, Egypt votes for a new president. The Muslim Brotherhood has recently constructed the Egyptian constitution. Imagine if it had said, “We will have a constitution in which the primary House, which we control, will give us the right to appoint who was in the second Chamber”. Would we not have declared that to be a democratic outrage? Yet we are replicating that precise position here today. I give way to my noble friend.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am most grateful. I always listen with huge attention to what my noble friend Lord Ashdown says, not least because he put me here.

[Noble Lords]

You are a placeman.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am a placeman, fair enough. My noble friend said, with emphasis, that we are a creature of the Executive. I ask him then, what he makes of the following statistics. In the 13 years of the Blair Government, the Commons defeated the Executive six times. In the same 13 years, this place defeated the Government 528 times. In the coalition period, the Commons has not yet defeated the Government, except on a debate which had no legislative purport; and we have defeated the Government 48 times. It does not sound to me as if it is we who are the creatures of the Executive.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I will come on to my noble friend’s point in a moment, except to say this. The question is not what we do; the question is how we are created. We are created here with a balance in this place that reflects the balance that the Executive enjoy in the other. I will come on to my noble friend’s point, but time is relatively limited, as we were advised, so allow me to make a bit of progress.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me. We have been advised to speak for seven minutes; I am already at six.

[Lord Trefgarne]

The noble Lord made a highly offensive remark just now and I would like to challenge it. He said that some of us were here because our ancestors had slept with a queen. I am the second Lord Trefgarne; my father was the first Lord Trefgarne. He was a Liberal MP.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

He came here by an act of patronage, then, which is the point I was seeking to make.

Let me cite some statistics that may illustrate the point. Despite all the arguments made about primacy, et cetera, all the arguments made that we have to work out the new relationship, here are the figures. The House of Lords Library tells me that there are 71 bicameral legislatures around the world of which, leaving aside the micro-nations in the Caribbean whose constitutions were written by us to reflect ours, only seven are not elected second Chambers, seven have no connection with democracy, and seven are appointed, as we are—leaving aside Great Britain. One of them, for reasons that utterly perplex me, is Canada. But the other six may give us cause to pause for a moment. They do not include great democracies. They are Belarus, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Jordan and Lesotho. That is the company we keep. Those are not great defenders of democracy. How is it that in every other legislature, all of them with elected second Chambers, issues of primacy, the issues which hold up people’s agreement with democratic reform in this place, are not great problems?

Here is the reason why it is said that we do not have to observe the principles of democracy. My noble friend alluded to it a moment ago. It is because, apparently, it works—in that curious, untidy, rather British way, nevertheless, it works. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It does not work. There are two functions of a second Chamber. The first is to revise and the second is to hold the Executive to account. The first of those we do rather well. We are graciously permitted to follow along with a gilded poop-scoop, clearing up the mess behind the elephant at the other end of the Corridor, but when it comes to stopping the elephant doing things, when it comes to turning it round, when it comes to delaying it on the really big things that matter, we do not succeed. How can we challenge the Executive on big things when we are a creature of the Executive?

I do not believe that if we had had a reformed, democratic second Chamber, we would have had the poll tax, but we did. I do not believe that we would have gone to war in Iraq either, but we did. The last time that I said that, there was much twittering saying, good heavens, should a second Chamber have the right to say whether a nation goes to war? Yes it should. I see no problem with that. There is no problem with the Senate in America. That has not stopped America going to war. There is no problem with the Senate in France, one of our closest and immediate allies in Libya and which put more troops into Bosnia than any other nation and suffered greater casualties.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I will make the point and then I will take the noble Lord’s intervention. There is one nation in Europe which may be insufficiently able to take decisions about military action when it needs to, and that is Germany. The Bundesrat, the second Chamber in Germany, has no say over going to war. However, there is no reason why a second Chamber should not be asked whether to ratify treaties or whether it is reasonable to go to war. Why is that possible everywhere else in the world but impossible here?

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, if a second Chamber can block the nation going to war, what does that tell us about the primacy of the first?

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

Of course the first Chamber is going to have primacy. That is readily established in every other bicameral system in which there is an elected second Chamber. However, on the issue of whether to go to war, in the United States the President has to get the agreement of both Houses of Congress. Has that seriously prevented the United States going to war? Quite the contrary. This is an issue on which this House, as an elected Chamber, should be able to exercise its rights.

The time has arrived to bring this place up to date. The time has arrived when we have to stop what is not only an anachronism but an undemocratic anachronism. We send our young men out to fight and die and, perhaps worse still, to kill others in the name of democracy but we do not have a democratic second Chamber in this country, as is the case with the vast majority of bicameral systems throughout the world. Why can they cope with democracy but not us? Is our democracy so ineffective and immature and are our institutions so weak that we cannot cope with what they can cope with and we have to resort to the kind of principles that operate in Bahrain and Belarus?

This place is an anachronism and an undemocratic anachronism, and I am in favour of a fully elected second Chamber. However, if the proposition put forward by the committee as a compromise is the best one that we can achieve, I shall happily vote for it. By the way, I also believe that it should be supported by a referendum. The reality is that this is a reform that can no longer wait. Our democracy is in danger. We have to start renewing the democratic structures of this country, and the reform and democratisation of the second Chamber is part of that process. We cannot keep this waiting any longer. We have a proposition; we should take it up and do the business now.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I remind the House that noble Lords are speaking for quite a time. If all noble Lords take as long, we shall be sitting very late indeed.

[Lord Stirrup]

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he can help me on one extremely important point. I think that he referred to the most important element or principle of democracy as the right of the people to elect those who represent them. Rather, is it not the right of the people to remove those who represent them—something for which I believe there is no provision in this Bill?

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, there is a provision in the Bill, although one might argue that a 15-year term is rather long to make that as effective as it should be. I am not claiming that the Bill is perfect—of course I am not. There are things that I would wish to see that are not there, not least that it should be a fully elected second Chamber. I am simply saying that we have an opportunity to reform. You have to choose between keeping this place as it is, which in my view is totally insupportable, or moving towards democratically based reform of the sort proposed by the Bill. The second of those may be a compromise but it is one that I embrace with enthusiasm because it will at least start the process.

16:49

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I am a 1660s placeman and I am very proud to have been in this House to represent my family for such a long time. I shall try hard to keep exasperation out of my voice today but, in my view, the coalition is propelling us towards certain constitutional disaster. The draft Bill will run straight into the sand and I can find very little comfort in the Joint Committee’s report—partly because we have read it all before but also because we have seen that it is a clear expression of the spectrum of discontent and confusion about our present situation and the way forward. However, it covers new ground and I know that a lot of serious people have contributed to it.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, I do not see elections to this House as a necessary route to legitimacy or democracy. Indeed, I am among those reformists who value and cherish the traditions of this House and the practices of our revising Chamber as they are now. They just need to be improved. An increasing number of Peers and MPs think that a Bill advocating the abolition of the present House, or even contemplation of it, is nothing less than madness and perhaps political suicide. MPs recognise that. At a recent 1922 Committee meeting, as many as 40 Back-Bench MPs are said to have opposed it; several PPSs are against elections; and perhaps as many as six Cabinet Ministers have expressed severe reservations about the Bill. Oliver Heald MP, former shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, apparently changed his mind after listening to expert witnesses. That is what we want to hear. The Conservative manifesto speaks only of working towards building a consensus, and it is already clear that there is no consensus on this issue.

As we have heard, there are positive reforms that could be enacted at once, building on the work done by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others. They appear in Chapter 5 of the alternative report, on pages 78 to 79, but I have put them in my own order of priority: first, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has already demonstrated, the establishment of a statutory appointments commission well away from Downing Street, which has been recommended for years but patronage still prevails; secondly, ending the hereditary by-elections, the principle having already been removed by the 1999 Act, although the public do not know that we are still electing hereditary Peers; thirdly, cutting the link between the honours system and membership of the House of Lords; fourthly, reducing the size of the House, with a moratorium on new Peers; fifthly, improving the balance of membership with more attention to diversity and the representation of other faiths; and, sixthly, provisions for the retirement and exclusion of Members of the House of Lords. I personally feel that one year’s expenses would be a reasonable offer to older Members of the House who might wish to retire voluntarily.

I do not accept schemes based on attendance because so many of our most valuable independent Peers attend only occasionally. I do not see the point of a constitutional convention proposed in the alternative report, which will only delay reform even further. It cannot be said too often that the coalition still has an opportunity to carry out these reforms now, and it is possible that during the passage of the Bill there may be openings for concessions that would lead to that situation; otherwise we will have an inevitable debacle with the present Bill, which the Joint Committee has shown to be defective, especially on primacy and powers in Clause 2.

When there are already so many urgent matters, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out, why are this Government so keen to squeeze all other legislation into a corner while the juggernaut of reform proceeds over the next two years, dominating time in both Houses? One can foresee colossal blockships ahead, multitudes of amendments, night after night of pure frustration on a greater scale than we have already endured with recent Bills on parliamentary reform. Long before the Parliament Act is invoked, which is still a highly contested issue, there will be havoc and destruction. Morale in this House will sink to its lowest level, as surely it must, if we are talking of the destruction of this Chamber.

Having spoken to one member of the Cabinet last week and indeed attempted to entertain him with teacakes next door, with mixed success, I have tried to read the Government’s mind and have come up with this; Lords reform is the glue that keeps the coalition going. There are enough passionate Liberals to keep it on the list, although many of them disagree. On the Tory side, as we have heard, the 1922 Committee meeting showed that much more trouble is brewing. Public opinion is claimed to be on their side but I have my doubts about that. There has been a surge of opinion in favour of the Lords after amendments to the legal aid, health and other Bills proved to the public that this House is essential to the democratic process.

Abolition would certainly not carry public support in a referendum, and many people will smell a rat if the coalition disguises it as reform. Public attitudes to this House are quite complex and contradictory, as a House of Lords’ Library note makes clear, and a referendum could be very misleading and damaging.

I freely admit that there are some in the Commons who believe that two elected Houses can work together as well as the present ones, and that the existing conventions can endure, but most MPs are thinking about the composition and not the powers of the two Houses, which are bound to collide as they do in the United States. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, was right about war-making there.

Finally, the Government understandably are avoiding the question of costs. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and others demonstrated conclusively that the transition to an elected House would cost a lot. The Treasury will hardly advertise such a waste of resources now.

There is an excellent group in this House, led by the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton, that genuinely seeks a compromise on reform and would like us to move now towards an effective rather than an elected Chamber. I again urge the Government to listen to the group, as more and more Members of another place are doing, and to take this last opportunity to drop the Bill or to accept amendments that will lead quickly to a solution and avoid the expensive quagmire that otherwise will be inevitable.

17:01

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, I was a member of the Joint Committee and I begin by echoing the compliments paid by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, to the chairman and the clerks. I also signed the alternative report, and I think that between that and the full committee report one finds a devastating critique of the Bill. However, I will not try to cram all my views on all aspects of the report into seven minutes; instead, I will pick one issue. It was one of the two issues that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, acknowledged as being the primary concerns of the Commons. We have concentrated quite a bit on the first question, which is that of the primacy of the Commons. The other is the way in which Members of another place are very nervous about having other elected persons tramping over their patch; they want their constituencies to remain inviolate.

I will focus on that issue because, as so often happens, when I read the report after we had finished—after it had been printed and it was too late to do anything about it—a paragraph jumped out and hit me, and I thought, “That doesn’t quite reflect the evidence we got”. I went and read the evidence and felt that my initial reaction was right. I confess that when we nodded through the paragraph I did not notice the points that I will make now; that was my error. I am referring to paragraph 213, which summarises the evidence that we received from the Australian Senators.

We made a considerable effort to take evidence from Australia because we felt that it might give us a good comparison with what might happen here if we had an elected upper House. It is a Commonwealth country, it operates within a common-law system, and it has an elected upper as well as lower House. We wanted to speak to Australian Senators to hear their views on a number of issues. That of constituencies is dealt with in paragraph 213.

The paragraph starts off properly by referring to the view of a member of the Government of Australia, Senator Stephens, who stated that the people of Australia regarded Members of the House of Representatives as their local representatives and identified very clearly with their Member. The Senator went on to say:

“I will ask Senator Rhiannon to respond to your question about constituencies. I will just explain the Government’s method of dealing with that. As a Member of the Government in the Senate, I am allocated a number of seats that are not held by the Government in the lower House in my state. I look after those constituents who do not have a government representative. Those people might come to me about issues and legislation”.

We should bear in mind the point about the way in which constituencies are allocated to Senators for them to nurse. The Senator then referred to Senator Rhiannon of the Green party, who said that the issue of working with constituents was very important and took up a lot of their time.

There was then a reference to the views of Senator Ronaldson, a member of the opposition Liberal Party, although he kept describing himself as a conservative—I feel that there must have been a simple explanation for that. The report says that he thought that elected Members of the Lords might engage in constituency-type work if in an area with other elected representatives from other parties. What he said was:

“I do not think that you can make the assumption that you will not be engaged in constituency-type work”.

That is putting things a little more strongly. This may be a nuance, but it is a significant nuance. He is quoted as saying that, in terms of elections:

“Senators do not campaign as Senators. They campaign for one of the lower House Members of their own party in a marginal seat, or … against a marginal lower House Member from another party”.

On this point, it would be good to look at Senator Ronaldson’s comment. He was asked a question by Eleanor Laing from another place:

“I think that I am right in saying, Senator Ronaldson, that you said that we should not assume that Members of the upper House will not be involved in constituency work. Does that also mean that they campaign in constituencies? Could we explore a little further what happens on the ground … Is it normal for Members of both Houses to be campaigning in a constituency all the time?”.

Senator Ronaldson replied:

“The Senators do not campaign as Senators. They campaign for one of the lower House Members of their own party in a marginal seat, or they vigorously campaign against a marginal lower House Member from another party. Senator Stephens talked about arrangements where we, as parties, will look after various seats. They are described by the Conservative Party as patron Senators. I am patron Senator for a number of seats, some of which are winnable, including one that I very much hope we will win and then become the Government. Senator Stephens will be similarly campaigning in Conservative seats to ensure the election of a new Labor Member or to support the incumbent Labor Member”.

The picture that comes from the passages that I have quoted very clearly shows that Senators are heavily involved in political work in areas. They are quite obviously put by their political party into areas where the party does not have a Member and hopes very much to get one, and they are engaged in campaigning not just during elections but all the time throughout the area. I am bringing this out so that Members of another place can get a clearer picture of what might happen when this comes. I am not sure that we should be saying that it ought not to happen.

I must say that the provisions that the report suggests for limiting the finances available to Members of the elected upper House with regard to constituency work are unfair and unworkable. They are unfair because they will mean that a rich elected Lord or Senator will be able to finance an office and have an advantage over those who cannot. A person may not have an allowance for an office, but parties will make offices available, and I am sure that political parties will make sure that newly elected Members of the upper House work just as hard as their Australian counterparts in campaigning all the time, especially to undermine opposition Members holding seats in their patch.

17:07

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Richard and his committee on the work they have done, even if I dissent from some of their conclusions. We have already reached the point in the debate when everything has been said, but perhaps not yet by everybody.

If we had had reform in 1997 or 2001, I would have been happy to stand for election to this House. In fact, I would have preferred to be an elected Member of this House, although I think it is a privilege to be here anyway, and I appreciate it. I have always believed in an elected second Chamber. When the right reverend Prelate spoke earlier, he said that we do not have too much by way of party politics. Although the Whips may not have many sanctions, and although we have Cross-Benchers who are not subject to discipline, the fact is that we have party politics pouring out of our ears here. We get a Whip every week, we have three-line Whips and anybody who says that there are no party politics here does not understand the way this place works. Without party politics, the Government could not get their business through. So let us be clear, we are talking about a House that is political—party-political in the main—that exists to get the Government’s business through or to dissent and hold the Government in check.

I welcome the fact that the Joint Committee report supported elections. That is the fundamental point about what it did. Of course, the Bill has many flaws, and I want to deal with them in a moment or two. Clause 2 is one of them. I have also read the alternative report with interest; I spent much of yesterday doing that. While I agree with parts of it, there is a fundamental point that is inimical to the thrust of policy. It says:

“We believe there is an unbridgeable gap between an elected House of Lords and the primacy of the House of Commons”.

I contest that absolutely. I do not think there is an unbridgeable gap; I think that gap can be managed and dealt with.

Public opinion is not terribly interested in this debate, except for a small element of the public and the media who will think that we are doing ourselves and the country a disservice if we do not move forward towards reform. However, I have talked at public meetings—mainly Labour Party and Fabian meetings—all over the country over the years, and with one exception they all supported an elected House. I will be honest and admit that I went to speak to some students in Cambridge. I took a straw poll before I started and about 60 per cent wanted an appointed House. By the time I had finished, 90 per cent wanted an appointed House. Well, I did my best. However, the rest of the meetings and indeed most of the people I speak to all think it absurd that we do not have an elected House.

The key issues are clearly accountability, elections and the primacy of the Commons. Yes, I support elections, at least partly because of accountability. Of course, as the alternative report says—and the Joint Committee report disagrees—anybody elected will have to do some constituency casework. I do not see how one can apply to be selected in a local constituency and say, “I am not going to do any work for local voters”. It is untenable; it just cannot be done. None of us would be selected if we applied on that basis. Of course there has to be casework, and I am pleased that the alternative report actually says that. It says:

“Elections are, in themselves, principal methods of accountability. A candidate stands for election, and if elected, is held accountable for the platform and proposals on which they stood”.

I campaigned very hard for the Labour Party in the last elections and I was happy to support the manifesto on which I was door-knocking for Labour candidates, including our commitment to an elected second Chamber.

I am not happy about being elected once for 15 years. It seems to undermine the basic principle of accountability. Accountability is not just how one gets there in the first place; it is also being accountable for the decisions one makes, the votes one casts and the positions one takes. Quite frankly, I sometimes say to my friends and others, “I vote on issues that affect your lives and the lives of other people, yet I am not answerable to anybody”. If anybody asks me why I voted in a particular way, I do not have to justify myself; I can just say, “Because I am here”. Of course, I do not take that attitude, but that is the position we are in.

A point that has not been made so far is that having a basis in a constituency makes a politician a different sort of person. Elected politicians get their sustenance, at least in part, from engaging with their constituency, maybe doing casework, dealing with their local parties and all the other organisations that lobby an elected politician. It seems to me that being under that sort of pressure makes one a different sort of person. Quite a few Members of this House have been elected and they understand that; others have not and make a fist of it. But some do not, and I think it is an important point.

I remember that there was a by-election in south London while the House was sitting and I spent the day tramping the streets knocking on doors. I got an earful on housing, transport, social security, planning, education, the NHS, et cetera. Unless we as individuals go out and canvass in elections, we do not get that earful from voters, and there is nothing healthier in a democracy than hearing what voters have to say—even if they are saying to us, “We will vote you out if we do not like it”.

Of course I believe, as everybody else does, in the primacy of the Commons. Individually elected Members of the second Chamber would be able to assert themselves a bit more. If I were elected, I certainly would have more confidence to go to the Labour Party conference and say my piece; because I am not elected, I feel constrained from doing so.

I worry about the idea of a constitutional convention, unless there is a time limit of about a year. I fear it is a recipe for long delays and there are other ways of achieving such ends—but the point has been made already. One of the strengths of the Joint Committee’s report is the idea of a concordat between the two Houses. Work on that could start quickly. I very much welcome the detailed suggestions in the report on the idea of a concordat as regards the conventions.

I also am advised by people who know more about this than I do that the Parliament Act could be strengthened to deal with secondary legislation. It could work whether legislation starts in this House or in the Commons and would enable the Commons to retain its primacy.

Finally, reference has been made to Erskine May but, for all its strengths as a document and a tome on parliamentary procedure, it is not a constitutional document. It is a treatise on law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament. That is made very clear in the alternative report. Ultimately, I hope that reform will not be based on the views of this House. I hope that it will come from where it should start, the Commons, and that, if the Commons makes that decision, we will give it our support.

17:15

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and members of the committee for their report, but more particularly I am grateful to the members of the committee that produced the excellent alternative report. The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said that democracy is in trouble or danger, I think because of the lack of power, or the weaknesses, of this House. I should like to say to him that democracy and Parliament are in trouble because, over the years, we have given away so many powers to the European Union. That is why our democracy is in danger. It is not because of any shortcomings of this House. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that, over the years I have been here, we have largely neutered Parliament by giving away powers of immigration, employment, social policy, trade, agriculture, fisheries and energy—to name just the most obvious.

I recently asked a Question for Written Answer about the Budget put forward by the Government when they said that they were going to increase the price of alcohol in supermarkets. I asked,

“whether their proposal for minimum pricing on alcohol is compliant with European Union law”.

The Written Answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was:

“The Government are currently in discussions with the EU Commission on this issue”.—[Official Report, 23/4/12; col. WA 292.]

That is where we have got to. Parliament, whether it is the House of Commons or this House, cannot even decide the price of drink in this country without going to members of the Commission in Brussels to tell us what we can or cannot do.

Before putting my name down to speak, I asked myself why there is all the fuss. Arguing about the reform of the Lords sometimes seems like two bald men arguing over a comb. It is just not worth it. Then I reminded myself that, over the past two years, all recent opinion polls have shown that a great majority of the people of this country want a referendum on our membership of the European Union. I was also encouraged by a poll in the Sun the other day that showed that UKIP has recently overtaken the Liberal Democrats as the third most popular party in the country. After people in this country have been given the right to vote in a referendum on membership of the EU, Parliament will get its powers back. Therefore, discussing the reform of the House of Lords is valuable, and I am delighted that we have the opportunity to do so today.

I am more attracted by the alternative report than by the Joint Committee’s report. I do not think that the alternative report should be spoken of as a minority report. Looking at the figures, it seems that, excluding the chairman, the alternative report was produced by exactly half the members of the committee; so it has, to my mind at least, at least equal validity with that of the main committee. I am quite surprised that some of those who produced the alternative report felt able to sign the committee’s report at all, given the list in the alternative report of the fundamental areas on which they differed from the committee’s report.

On page 33, the report lists:

“Primacy … Electoral mandate … Powers … Electoral democracy … Constituency issues … Funding limits … Ministerial voting … Transition”.

On all these points the alternative report argues persuasively against the conclusions of the committee. I hope very much that we will not have to waste a lot of valuable time vetting the Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill, but if we do, this House owes a vote of thanks to the members of the committee who produced the alternative report—the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and others—who have given a lot of time to producing this valuable document. I support its conclusions and the recommendations for incremental reform based on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and for the establishment of,

“a new Constitutional Convention to consider the next steps”.

In preparing for this debate, I looked back to the 1911 debate in this House on the introduction of the Parliament Act, which was held on 10 August 1911, two days before the beginning of the grouse-shooting season. My grandfather led the opposition to that Bill as leader of the so-called “die-hards” or “last ditchers”. I realise of course that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and the others who produced the alternative report would baulk or recoil at the thought of being called “last ditchers” or “die-hards”, but I hope the one thing they will share with my grandfather is the conviction to stand up for their beliefs. I will certainly stand with them if the battle is ever joined.

17:22

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for two reasons. One is that he very properly paid a compliment to the alternative report, and—in declaring an interest as the co-chairman of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, to which the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, referred—I can say that, from moneys subscribed by Members of your Lordships’ House and coming from nowhere else, we have been able to fund the publication in a permanent form of this admirable document. There are copies in the Cloakroom, the Library and all the Whips’ offices, and any Member of the House who has difficulty in obtaining one has only to ask me or the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and it will be presented to them; in her case, it will be autographed.

The other reason I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, is this. He referred to the part his grandfather played in those momentous days in 1911. That gives me an opportunity to remind your Lordships’ House that we often talk as if nothing has happened since then. How ridiculous that is. This House has altered more during the reign of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth II than almost any other institution in this country. When the Queen came to the throne, there were no women in this House, and there were no life Peers. I remind your Lordships that it was a Conservative Government who produced the legislation which led to the advent of women Peers and life Peers.

Then we had that other momentous change at a time when I was privileged to lead on constitutional affairs in another place, when the Government of Mr Blair decided on a mass expulsion of hereditary Peers. I was unhappy about the way that was done, but it has altered your Lordships’ House beyond recognition. I might say in parenthesis that if the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, had only accepted a Bill I introduced in another place in 1984 which would have cut down the number of hereditary Peers—they would have elected so many of their number at the beginning of each Parliament—we might not have had the traumas of 1997 to 1999, but that is another story.

We are now debating the report of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on the draft Bill that was produced by the Government almost a year ago. We all owe the noble Lord and his colleagues on the committee a great debt of gratitude. However, he very honestly said that his committee was constrained, dealing not with a clean sheet of paper but with a draft Bill. He decreed, quite rightly, that that was what they had to concentrate on, which is one reason why the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and others decided that they wanted to produce a more far-reaching report, for which we are very much in their debt.

That the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee were very constrained was underlined by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, who talked about going back to first principles. The committee had no opportunity to do that. It was dealing with a document and a premise that were essentially flawed—the premise that you could maintain the supremacy of the House of Commons if you had two elected Chambers. The committee of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, drove a coach and horses through Clause 2 and made it quite plain that that just was not the case.

One therefore has to face up to the question of what the relationship between the two Houses is to be. Here again was the flawed premise, because, in constitutional matters, form should follow function. That is why the noble Baroness has suggested in the report that she and her colleagues have produced that there should be a constitutional convention to look at first principles, to look at function and then to determine form. We are asked to agree to form without regard to function, which is wrong. It is illustrated particularly in that—I must choose my words with moderation and care; I would have said “fatuous”—strange proposal that there should be a hybrid House.

What happens in a hybrid House if you have 20 per cent of the Members appointed and the others elected? You have two categories, two classes, of Member. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, pointed out at a meeting that I attended only last week—and I made the point in my own evidence to the committee—if you have a situation where the non-elected 20 per cent carry the day, you have the makings of a constitutional crisis if the Bill is important. If you recognised the validity of that proposition and therefore had a 100 per cent elected House, you would do away at a stroke with that valuable ingredient in your Lordships’ House to which the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, referred in her intervention: independence.

I sat at the other end of the corridor for 40 years. During the whole of that time, we had virtually no independent Members elected to the House of Commons. There were those who bore the label, but it was either because there had been some constituency spat—sometimes within the political party concerned, as in one of the Welsh seats; I think that it was Ebbw Vale—or because there had been a local issue such as Wyre Forest and the Kidderminster hospital, but there was no phalanx of independent Members. So even if those who are here because of their illustrious careers in the Foreign Service, the Civil Service and all the rest of it sought to stand for election, which many of them would believe was not the right and proper thing to do in a political contest, they would not get here anyhow.

What if one values a House with an independent group of experts? As I speak now, I look across and see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris—our experts do not all sit on the Cross Benches. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, informs every debate in which he takes part in this House with his superb knowledge. I may not always agree with what he says, but, by Jove, he enriches the place by his presence. You would not get that in the sort of assembly that would result from a cobbled-together Bill such as we are now threatened with, and I hope that it will not come to pass.

In her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, said that we were suffering from wear and tear—some of us more than others perhaps. But she is completely right. This House needs reform. However, as others have pointed out, there is a Bill, the so-called Steel Bill, which addresses most if not all of these issues and on which I believe that it would be possible to have consensus. We could reform this House in a way that would be acceptable and much less expensive than the elected House with which we are now threatened. I urge the Government to consider it very carefully and consider the convention suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. It merits serious and sympathetic consideration.

We are talking about the British constitution. We are not talking about something that should be the plaything of any particular political personality or something that should be regarded, as someone said, as the glue that holds the coalition together. We are talking about the future of our country and there are other things that could be done in the future. The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, who will address us shortly, has an idea for electoral colleges, which he will explain, which has some merit and is worth serious consideration and debate.

I end on this note. I have two points. When he gave evidence to the Joint Committee, the Clerk of the House of Commons said that at the moment the House of Commons and the House of Lords are complementary to each other. If we had two elected Chambers, they would be in competition with each other. If we are to move to that undesirable state, surely the people must have the ultimate decision. How fatuous to wave the flag of democracy but say, “You can’t have a vote on it”. That is the ultimate insult to the British people, and up with that we should not put.

17:32

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The congruence of our views on Lords reform are long-standing and determined—and as a long-standing and determined opponent of an elected second Chamber, I have difficulty with many of the conclusions and recommendations in this report. However, that in no way diminishes my admiration for the extraordinary achievement of the Joint Committee and its chairman, my noble friend Lord Richard. The fruits of nine months’ hard work are impressive. As a piece of pre-legislative scrutiny, it fulfils the requirements of rigour, comprehensiveness, focus, careful argument and a clarity that contrasts starkly with the draft Bill and the White Paper into which it inquired. I would not be surprised if the two hefty volumes of oral and written evidence stand for a long time as the best repository of informed opinion on this hugely important constitutional issue.

The immediate conclusion that I draw from reading the report is that the draft Bill as a vehicle for reforming your Lordships' House is not fit for purpose. As the emergence of a well-reasoned alternative report confirms, the conclusions and the recommendations reached by a bare majority of the committee members reflect a glaring lack of consensus. In short, the draft Bill will just not do. It is obvious from the start, as many have pointed out, that it is fatally flawed. The absurdity of the assertions made in Clause 2 relating to the preservation of the primacy of the House of Commons undermines the very premise on which the drafters of this Bill sought to build their case for an all or partially elected Chamber.

To me, the logic is that, in the face of this total lack of consensus on how to proceed, we should not proceed on the basis of the draft Bill, the White Paper or the recommendations of the report before us. Has not the Prime Minister told us more than once that reform of this House must be achieved by consensus? Or has he changed his mind? Am I naive in suggesting that the Government’s threat to use the Parliament Act makes an utter nonsense of his call to reform by consensus? Or—as the noble Lord the Leader of the House intimated earlier—does he intend to exclude the opinion of your Lordships' House from such a consensus? To my mind, that would be outrageous. That said, I could scarcely blame the Prime Minister if he has changed his mind, since it must now be blindingly obvious even to him that consensus is unreachable on any reform remotely resembling that so dear to the heart of his Deputy Prime Minister. He has only to listen to a substantial bloc of his own Commons Back-Benchers to recognise that.

In preparing a necessarily short speech I had difficulty in deciding on which of the report’s many arguments, conclusions, options and recommendations I might focus. So, mindful that there are more debates to come in the new Session, I decided to focus on the overall message that I received from a first reading of this report. I recognise that others will have received a different message, but the message to me is that if the coalition is still hell-bent on abolishing this House and replacing it with an all or partially elected Senate, it will have to go back to the drawing board.

But not just any drawing board. Because the Joint Committee, by its mandate, was restricted to the examination of those subjects covered by the draft Bill and the White Paper, it had insufficient scope for the kind of broad consideration of the functions and powers of both Houses, without which the contribution of a reform of the Lords to the enhancement of government simply cannot be devised. The authors of the alternative report state that while they agree with the findings of the Joint Committee's report as a whole, the content and constitutional significance of the draft Bill needs consideration in a much broader context. That, they claim, is best achieved through a constitutional convention, which would consider the next steps on further Lords reform and any consequential impact on the Commons and on Parliament as a whole. That surely is the right way to go, and I warmly support it.

Of course defenders of the draft Bill, or of a hastily amended version of it, will cry, “Delaying tactics!”. So be it. The Government have had their chance and have blown it with this deeply flawed draft Bill. They now have no right to impede the efforts of those committed to finding, through a truly fit-for-purpose mechanism, a more comprehensive and workable solution.

I end with three short points. First, I deplore the petty-mindedness of the Government in their attitude to the Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. They cry, “There is really nothing in it”, as if it was not on the Conservative Benches here that the evisceration of the Bill was plotted. How cynical can you get? I hope that rumours that there may be some second thinking on that are well-founded.

My penultimate point: whatever the method used in a further attempt at consensus—through a constitutional convention, as I would plead; or without one, which I would strongly warn against—the resulting agreement, if any, must, imperatively, be put to the people for approval through a referendum. It is far too significant a constitutional matter to be decided otherwise. Let me be blunt about this. The Government are opposing a referendum for short-term political advantage, not for the long-term betterment of government, which is what the people deserve and on which their voice should be heard.

My third and final point: how on earth could the coalition Government get the ordering of their priorities so wrong? Is it not absurd that the Prime Minister should bow to his deputy's insistence that Parliament invite upon itself a lengthy and acrimonious period of legislation on an issue that strikes no chord with a public who are rightly demanding that the Government and Parliament focus urgently on the double-dip recession, on unemployment, on housing, on schools, on health, on welfare, on pensions, on the Scottish question and a host of other life-changing concerns? It is our duty to make the Government think again.

17:39

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow such a weighty and impressive speech. First, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee on having produced a comprehensive analysis of the issues and arguments in, all things considered, a remarkably short space of time given the amount of work undertaken. It will be an invaluable resource in the debates to come. I also congratulate the authors of the alternative report on having produced a trenchant critique and a number of valuable ideas that represent a constructive contribution to taking the debate forward.

I will make two points. The issues need to be divided into two: elections and the rest. My contention—I think many would agree with it—is that progress on the rest has been hamstrung by the absence of any agreement about elections and the desire in some quarters to get agreement to a comprehensive package that contained them. Indeed, some insist that there cannot be a package that does not contain them. I want to suggest a way forward around which a consensus might be built. As I say, for this to happen, the issues must be divided in two.

First, there is already a lot of consensus around a number of changes that need to be made—short of elections. We have heard about them in a number of speeches this afternoon: reduction in the size of the House, the need for a cost-neutral retirement scheme, an end to hereditary by-elections and a proper statutory basis for the Appointments Commission, as well as the reforms contained in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. That has already passed this House and simply awaits the imprimatur of the Commons. A package of reforms could be put together around these changes in this Parliament which would attract widespread support. Even if nothing more were done, that would constitute a legacy of House of Lords reform that the coalition could point to as a substantial achievement. I am pleased to see that the alternative report agrees with this. It is only the vain quest for the holy grail of a final solution which has prevented agreement on such a package in the past 10 years. Up to this point, I am on all fours with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy.

Secondly, more can be done with a much broader base of support than can be mobilised for elections as currently proposed. That may take a little longer. As regards the final solution, I do not believe that this can be arrived at until the shape of the United Kingdom has been decided. I am against elections, at least of the kind currently proposed. I will not rehearse the arguments. Your Lordships have heard them far too often to make that necessary. Suffice it to say, I am in accord with Professor Sir John Baker, who is cited by the Joint Committee as saying that the House’s essential scrutiny role,

“does not require the sanction of the ballot box to give it legitimacy any more than the judicial role, because the House of Commons can insist on the last word”.

In other words, he drew attention to the House’s complementary but different role as a revising Chamber.

Of course, if you do not have elections there is still the question of patronage to deal with, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, reminded us. With acknowledgement to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for the trailer, I favour a system of appointments by an Appointments Commission as at present, but greatly strengthened by supporting it with a system of nominations from a series of electoral colleges representing the different branches of civil society. In other words, it would be a form of indirect election. I was pleased to see that both the Joint Committee and the alternative report called for further work to be done on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said that only seven countries do not elect their second Chambers. According to the Joint Committee, 34 second Chambers are indirectly elected and 16 of them wholly so. This would not be election as conceived of by those who favour elections, but it would represent a significant democratisation of the appointments process. It would retain the emphasis on expertise, experience and distinction in their field by which those who do not favour elections set such store.

Of course, indirect election can take a number of forms. Oliver Heald MP, a member of the Joint Committee and chairman of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, issued a pamphlet through that society to coincide with the publication of the Joint Committee’s report. In that, he proposed a secondary mandate system in which each party would publish a list of its candidates and gain seats in the House of Lords in exact proportion to the share of the electorate’s support won in the general election. There were at least four submissions to the Joint Committee proposing a system of indirect election or something like that. I say nothing of my own humble contribution. Dr Alex Reid of Cambridge proposed a system in which the 80 per cent elected element of the House would be indirectly elected via political parties. John Smith of Stamford, Lincolnshire, submitted a well worked out scheme of indirect election from constituencies of expertise with a general college for those not affiliated to any particular constituency and a parliamentary college for politicians. Finally, Mr Martin Wright would have the colleges that represent constituencies of expertise make the nominations but elections would be by members of the general public. They would vote in the college of their choice for the candidates of their choice on the basis of statements or CVs circulated for the purpose.

It seems that there is much merit in the alternative report’s suggestion of a constitutional convention to go into more detail than the Joint Committee possibly could on these different proposals, as well as the multitude of other issues identified by the alternative report. I was sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, poured such scorn on the idea of a constitutional convention. I thought that the alternative report made the case quite well that a good deal more work needed to be done to bottom these issues out.

17:47

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I apologise in advance for lowering the very high tone set just now by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the speakers who preceded him. I will stick to my special subject, as the House’s resident geek—namely, the cost of what is proposed. Some noble Lords might not think that that is the kind of thing we should debate this afternoon but I can assure the House that it matters a good deal to the people out there who have to bear the cost.

The Joint Committee puts no cost on its proposals, although my noble friend Lord Richard said in presenting them that we will not get a second Chamber for free. That is one thing that he said that we can certainly all agree with. However, the alternative report produced a costing—mine. This is the cost of the Government’s original proposals drawn from my evidence to the Joint Committee, although the alternative report omits the six footnotes and 13 detailed references attached to that evidence which set out the assumptions that underlie it. The headline numbers are that the extra costs of the reforms will be, in year 1, £177 million, and over the five-year Parliament of 2015-20, £433 million. To put that in a more down-to-earth way, it is the equivalent of 80,000 hip replacements—a comparison that should appeal to Members of your Lordships’ House—or a year’s salary for 13,000 nurses.

There has been some confusion over these costings in the press. They are what they were billed to be or what it says on the tin: costings of the Government’s original proposals, given by me in evidence to my noble friend Lord Richard. They are not and could not be costings of my noble friend’s proposals, simply because that report only became available last Monday. As the committee failed to give costings—because the Government failed to give them—someone has to fill the gap, and I will have a go. I am working with the assistance of the Library to do a costing of the Joint Committee’s proposals.

I say two things about that. First, it is likely to come out a little lower than the costings I have already done of the Government’s proposals. Secondly, it will come out lower because some of the Joint Committee’s recommendations seem to be wholly unrealistic. Under them, you would have one lot of new Peers with salaries and support allowances and another lot—the transitional Peers—who would just get our current allowances. Whatever happened to the rate for the job? If you take out that assumption, the Joint Committee proposals will cost more than the Government’s proposals, simply because it proposes more elected and new appointed Peers.

Mark Harper, the constitutional affairs Minister, described my costings as “speculative”. In one sense, Mr Harper is right, as they depend on assumptions about what precisely will be in the Bill when it eventually appears and, indeed, on assumptions as to how the Bill’s proceedings will be implemented in practice. To that extent, the costings are speculative, as indeed will be the Government’s own costings, which he has promised to publish, belatedly, if and when the Government publish a Bill. The costings of every single policy adopted by this House and Parliament are speculative, in the sense that you cannot know exactly what will happen until it has happened. What a convenient brush-off the word “speculative” represents. Anyone who knows the first thing about government will know that cost estimates would have had to be given to the ministerial committee considering the White Paper, to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister. Why should we not see them too, as those who have to legislate about those proposals?

Here is a thought for your Lordships. Let us suppose that the costings given to the ministerial committee, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister had shown that the new House would cost not more, as it will, but less. Does anyone seriously suppose that that would not have been broadcast from the rooftops, with the Government showing how marvellously they were economising with our politics with their proposal? Of course they would. They have decided not to tell us the cost for one reason and one reason only. The cost of these proposals is an Exocet heading straight for the engine room of their ship. So they hope to manoeuvre, zig and zag, this way and that to avoid the impact, at least until their ship is a bit nearer port than it is today. That is of course why they resist a referendum, as recommended by the Richard committee, as they know that the chances of the public voting yes to reform will melt like a snowball in the midsummer sun once people understand the bill that they will have to pay for this folly. In this age of austerity, does anyone seriously believe that the public will agree to hand huge chunks of their hard-earned money to a whole new gang of second-rate elected politicians?

Let me issue this challenge to the Minister. I have published my costings—let us have yours. Opinion is free, but facts are sacred and, in this day and age, ought to be freely available for all of us to debate. Unless the Minister, in answering this debate, agrees to this, he will confirm what the whole House in its heart knows: this is a cover-up, which disgraces those who have perpetrated it.

17:53

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I, too, was a member of the Joint Select Committee and I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for his chairmanship. As is self-evident from the report, his task was a difficult one, which he fulfilled with skill, courtesy and balance. I pay tribute, too, to the clerks who served our committee, who had an enormously difficult and voluminous task; a huge volume of work was theirs, and they discharged it with skill and efficiency.

Very few members of the Joint Select Committee agreed with everything in the report. Indeed, a number of us, including me, agreed to an alternative report—but, again, views were not unanimous. May I say, in parenthesis, that your Lordships may wish to consider the arrangements for widely held dissident views on a Select Committee to be more easily expressed than is at present the case? But let that be a matter for another day.

I turn to the substance of the issues before your Lordships as considered and reported on. The essential proposition set out in the draft Bill, supported by the White Paper and by the right honourable gentleman, the Deputy Prime Minister, when he gave evidence, is that there should be a fundamental change to how Members of the upper Chamber are selected while the powers and role remain unchanged. The introduction of a process of election is said to be required to meet a perceived democratic deficit. As I shall say later, I do not necessarily disagree with the concept of a properly elected Senate, but I most strongly disagree that that can and should be achieved while the role and powers remain unaltered.

I believe with complete conviction that if we move to a wholly or largely elected second Chamber, the new House will straightaway use its existing powers more aggressively and very soon be agitating for more. The Parliament Act 1949, which reduced allowable delay from two years to one, as originally proposed in 1911, will no doubt be an early target. Indeed, the 1911 Act itself, according to some authorities, may well become inapplicable, given its preamble, with which your Lordships will be familiar, on the temporary nature of its provisions pending a properly elected House of Lords.

Furthermore, the conventions, which are not part of statute law but which form such an important part of the present relationship between our two Houses, are likewise very soon to come under pressure. I see the Salisbury convention, for example, being the first of these to be questioned and, perhaps, abandoned. So I have to say to my noble friend and your Lordships that with the Bill as drafted primacy will move measurably away from the House of Commons to the new Senate, notwithstanding the aspirations of Clause 2 which, in the committee’s view, would be quite ineffective.

I turn to the intervention of the new Senators—the most likely title for these people, it would seem—in constituency affairs. It will be difficult if not impossible to prevent Senators taking up local issues brought to their attention if they so choose. Frankly, it would be wrong to attempt to do so. Perhaps some modus operandi can be found, but this matter will need to be resolved if friction is not to ensue.

Noble Lords will have observed that both the draft Bill and the Joint Select Committee report anticipate that the new Senate will be chosen by PR, probably some variation of STV. Whatever may be the merits of PR—and the British people were pretty unconvinced when they were asked about this issue last year—it will surely mean that one or more of the smaller parties, such as the Lib Dems, the Greens or even UKIP, or maybe a cocktail of all three, will hold the balance of power in the new House. No doubt that is why my right honourable friend Mr Clegg is so keen on the proposals. Other party leaders, not to mention the electorate, may be less sanguine.

I have previously taken the liberty of detaining your Lordships on the question of the 92 hereditary Peers. My position on that remains unchanged. I agree that if this Bill, for all its shortcomings, were to become law, that would mean the end of the by-elections and eventually the departure of the 92 hereditaries along with the life Peers. However, if the proposed Bill does not reach the statute book and some more limited interim measure is proposed, I would wish to reserve judgment for the present of what my view might be with regard to the by-elections.

I was also an adherent to the alternative report now before your Lordships. I do not agree with all of it, but I agree that the constitutional forum that the alternative report proposes would go a long way to meet the undertaking in the Conservative manifesto that we should seek a consensus. That is surely the right way forward, and a referendum would clearly complete that process, and it is supported by the Joint Select Committee and myself.

I dare say that I am seen as some kind of hereditary dinosaur opposed to all change, but that is not so. I am in favour of what I see as proper reform—namely, a fully elected Senate with full powers perhaps along US lines. This Bill seems to be the worst of all possible worlds, and I hope that it will not reach the statute book.

18:00

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a supporter of the Campaign for a Democratic Upper House, and as a long-standing member of the Labour Party—a party which, within its DNA, has sought to reform the House of Lords and to move towards an elected second Chamber in this country. That is not to say that I am in agreement with everything that the Campaign for a Democratic Upper House has been saying in this context over the past few weeks and in its submissions, any more than it means that I supported the Government’s White Paper and draft Bill when it first came out. Indeed, when it did I was quite critical in a number of respects, particularly in regard to Clause 2. I was unhappy about the 15-year term and the absence of accountability which I believe this House needs to have introduced.

I have been in this House since 1997, and when I first came in I believed that the House should be reformed. Much as I have come to love the place and the people in it, and to respect the very significant contribution that it makes to society through its work, knowledge and expertise, I have over the years felt the embrace of the House on me to shift my position. The noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has left the Chamber, but I have been almost seduced to switch my position by the efforts that he has made with his several Bills. However, I have not shifted it. In that respect, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee for reaffirming my position.

I want first to say that over the past months I have watched people trooping through the Lobbies who for many years were opposed to what they were voting for in regard to health and social care—and that is what the public see, too. They were people who for many years had fought for benefits, particularly for the disabled, but who were voting in a manner quite contrary to anything I had previously seen. I am thus reaffirmed in the view that the public are entitled to have a say on who is in this House.

I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and all the members of his committee for the report which has been produced for us. It has not been an easy task, as we all recognise, but they have moved us forward. This momentum has been under way since the 1990s, and it will not stop. In particular, I am pleased that a majority of them embraced the circumstances in which we, as representatives, cannot resolve this issue and find a consensual approach, and have recommended that the people should decide what should be done with the second Chamber. On that there was, fortunately, a very substantial majority in the committee.

I am pleased that my leader in this House has reaffirmed in the Lords today the Labour Party’s position in favour of a referendum. We indicated that in our manifesto. However, I was disappointed earlier to hear the Leader of the House, when speaking on behalf of the coalition, say that the Government saw no case for it. I hope that the Government are going to reflect on that and change their minds, that that will not become a point of dissent between and within the two Chambers, and that we can move forward and let the people have their say. When they have had their say, it should rest with a House of Commons, whose primacy we want to see maintained, to take a decision on the composition and powers of the House of Lords. That was a big change and is a big step forward, and I thank the committee for it very much indeed. In a sense, if the proposal goes through, the committee will have taken it away from the warring factions, which have so far been unable to move forward on it.

Finally, I want to say something on Clause 2, which I have been very unhappy about. I have long been an advocate of the Government working on codifying our conventions. They have resisted doing that so far, and I have looked at the arguments that they have advanced when they have gone before the committee, but I still believe that those issues need addressing—as do other topics that are still left over. We need a dispute resolution procedure beyond that which has been presented by the Government, and further work on codification or addressing the conventions of the House. When we examine the report which the noble Lord has produced, we see that within it there is an answer to most of the problems which have been presented hitherto by those who are opposed to us shifting on this ground: that the primacy of the Commons would be challenged.

I urge noble Lords to re-read the report because it provides us with a foundation on which we can build in moving forward. It also provides for those, perhaps particularly on the Cross Benches, who are fearful about the possible attack on that primacy from the Lords if we had elections. There is a scheme within it to cover that. I suspect that the minority on the Joint Committee have realised that there is quite a lot in this report, sufficient to have moved them to provide an alternative. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has done his best today to make sure that everybody reads it. Again, I urge people to read it fully, because it is a very useful document, although in some areas it does not quite represent the full position.

In conclusion, I will pick up a point from the alternative report. In its executive summary it says that the Government’s Bill “purports” to set out a system of an elected second Chamber that will not challenge the primacy of the Commons, but it fails to do so. I asked noble Lords to ask themselves: why should a Government—indeed, why should the previous Labour Government—whose power depends upon their position in the House of Commons set out to do any such thing to undermine their power and primacy? Why should they do it? Nobody has looked at or answered that question. The simple fact is that the Commons will continue to have their power there. Governments will want that, whether they be Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative or coalition. That is the way they will want it, and they will make sure that the laws of the land are structured so that that primacy is retained, even if they have to change it en route.

I look forward with great interest to seeing where we end up with the Bill, when it comes to us. I look forward, too, to the people taking a decision on this. I will be one of those canvassing and fighting hard to make sure that those people who have the right to make the law are there through the votes cast by people who have to live under those laws. We will then see where we end on the primacy issue. If the Commons come out with a majority in favour of change, as seems likely from the way that the voting has gone within the Joint Committee, this House should be willing to accept it.

18:09

[Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market]

My Lords, for those who have the earlier version of the speakers list, perhaps I could explain why I am speaking now. I put my name in last week but, by mistake, it was left out and there is a new version. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, had a difficult task and he has my sympathy. I understand and can see that he approached his chairmanship with thoroughness and sympathy, and he approached it well, but at the end of the day this was clearly a divided committee. As the noble Lords, Lord Willoughby de Broke and Lord Grenfell, pointed out, it is 13 to 12 because one member of the committee, as I understand it, attended hardly any of its sessions. There are therefore almost two versions of the report. I strongly support the alternative report. I commend members of the committee on their impeccable logic, the cogency of their analysis and the conclusions of their report. We have had excellent and convincing speeches today from some of its signatories. I shall make just four points in the time available. Inevitably, I will be somewhat repetitive but there is nothing wrong with that as this debate needs to reflect the overall response of the House.

First, on Clause 2, the committee was unanimous. Indeed, the overwhelming evidence that it received from nearly all the witnesses meant that it could hardly have concluded otherwise. It is pretty devastating. The committee was,

“firmly of the opinion that a wholly or largely elected reformed House will seek to use its powers more assertively, to an extent which cannot be predicted with certainty now”.

It went on:

“We concur with the overwhelming view expressed to us in oral and written evidence that Clause 2 of the draft Bill is not capable in itself of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons”.

It also stated that the possibility of judicial review was “profoundly undesirable” and said:

“The Government’s approach in Clause 2(1)(c) of the Bill … risks judicial intervention”—

which—

“would be a constitutional disaster”.

Those are pretty strong words. Given the unanimous opinion of the Joint Committee, the opinion of most Members of both Houses and all the expert opinion outside Parliament, I cannot see how the Government can bring forward a Bill without a wholesale reconstruction of Clause 2. It would be a travesty of consultation and almost an insult to the parliamentary process to do otherwise. That covers the problem of conflict between the two Houses.

Secondly, I turn to the problem of conflict in the constituencies. Some people have suggested that this would not happen. Here again, the alternative report, half the signatories to which have long experience of elections and being elected, got it right. It says:

“We believe that this is a wholly misplaced notion of the reality of practical politics”.

My noble friend Lord Trimble went into some detail on that today. It is pretty obvious that there will be conflict at the constituency level, not least because in today’s world of the internet and e-mail anyone can put their views forward very quickly, either to their elected MP from the other place or to anyone else that they wish. I simply do not believe that elected Members of this House would not be subjected to large numbers of such e-mails and correspondence.

At the regional level that they will represent—the wider constituency level—there will be many issues that are not related to individual constituency cases but are of great concern to all the constituents, over which there will, frankly, be rivalry between the Members of this House and those of the other House, particularly if they represent different parties. It is obvious that there will be constant conflict then. The Government have attempted to solve this with 15-year terms and no re-election. I cannot emphasise strongly enough that this completely destroys the democratic accountability case on which the Deputy Prime Minister hangs his whole argument. I agree very strongly with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on this point.

I now turn quickly to two points that have not been covered so far. The first concerns who will stand. I find it very difficult to work out who will stand for the alternative House that is being proposed. It certainly will not be those who wish to seek a proper political career. In the other place, one can be re-elected every five years and, if not re-elected for one constituency, can stand in another. Members thus have the opportunity of a long-term political career. At the age of 37, someone who wants a political career will not be very happy to come to this House for 15 years, with no possibility of being re-elected to the other House. Also, if they have proper ministerial ambitions and want to play a part in the policies of the Government to which they hope to belong, those ministerial ambitions will be best satisfied in the other place. Of course, if they stand for this House in the hope that it will lead to a career in the other House, under the proposals they will be prevented by the case that has been put forward. Therefore, I cannot see why people who want a full political career will wish to stand under the present proposals.

Nor can I see those in other professions and occupations—who it is apparently hoped will bring the expertise and specific experiences that many of the Cross-Benchers here now offer—wishing to stand for this place in mid-career. Neither the salaries offered nor the career prospects are very great. If you are 37 or 40 and thinking of coming to this place for 15 years, taking a complete break from your career, what chance will you have of going back to that career after 15 years?

Therefore, it would tend to be rather an elderly House. Most probably, those who do not have political ambitions would think of standing for this House in the late stages of their other careers. They would seek a further few salaried years and perhaps find them interesting. That would be like the Cross-Bench Peers in the present House. However, it would be a House that challenged the primacy of the House of Commons, which the other place strongly opposes, and at much greater cost than the present House, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, pointed out. The electorate will almost certainly dislike that, to put it mildly. I am deeply worried by the thought that this would be an attractive career opportunity for many, and I doubt that any reform would bring the expertise and experience of this House as it stands.

Having listened to the speakers before me, I probably carry most Members with me so far, but in my final point I may have a little more difficulty. While I strongly support the proposals in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and have always done so, and strongly support the additional points made so properly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which are appropriate for the reform of this House, there is one issue on which I urge a word of caution. I do not think that we have properly addressed it yet. It concerns our most vulnerable point: the size of the House. We have recently adopted proposals for voluntary retirement, which have had a puny—almost minimal—response and will obviously not solve the problem. We need to go further. I do not find at all attractive the suggestion of appointing no more new Members until the grim reaper has played his part and the numbers have come down. It is important that this House is constantly refreshed with new people, new experiences and new expertise. Therefore, we have two options, which we will have to address—that is, retirement on the grounds of either length of service or age, which happens in pretty well every other profession and occupation, including for judges. I believe that we will have to include this in the Steel-Hayman reforms and it is something that we have still to address.

That does not detract at all from my overwhelming view that this House is right to say that the alternative report is the right one, addressing the right issues and making the right point, and that the Government’s proposals therefore remain deeply flawed.

18:17

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, I suppose that, like the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, I must declare an interest, as I am the newly elected president of the Lloyd George Society. Your Lordships may recall that Lloyd George did not have much of an opinion of this place. Indeed, he said that it was 500 ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed. Your Lordships will gather from that that we do not do deference very well in north Wales. It is part of my DNA; I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that.

It will not surprise your Lordships to know that in my first election, in West Flintshire in 1964, I campaigned on three principles. The first was a Parliament for Wales; the second was proportional representation; and the third was abolition of the House of Lords. I found a fellow toiler in my friend, colleague and adversary, the late Lord Williams of Mostyn, who came from 20 or 30 miles from my home town and was educated similarly to me. Although we were in different parties, we shared the same values. On past occasions when we debated House of Lords reform, he and I walked almost alone, together, through the “100 per cent elected second Chamber” Lobby. We continued to do so over all that time.

Some three weeks ago I was invited to speak at a dinner of Flintshire County Council, at which I was told not to be too political. You are not allowed to be political at these events where there are lots of people in chains from all the county councils and local councils around. I indulged in a little fantasy. Since the House of Lords is so perfect in many people’s eyes, what would Flintshire County Council look like if it were composed in the same way? Ten of the councillors would be hereditary. Some of my Liberal friends on that county council have admirable sons and grandsons who could inherit their seats. Some 50 would be appointed for life by the local constituency parties. I am sure that they would be very glad to be relieved of the sort of things they are doing at the moment, such as knocking on doors, giving out leaflets and canvassing. Then we would have to think of the others—perhaps the Bishop of St Asaph; the former commanding officer of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers TA; the former commodore of HMS “Rhyl”, and various other people of a similar variety. The suggestion that drew the sharpest intake of breath was that former chief executives of local authorities should be appointed to this body for life.

It is absurd, is it not? I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on elections. There is nothing wrong with knocking on doors, meeting people and talking to them about their problems or pushing leaflets through doors, as I have said. We on the Liberal Benches are not “too posh to push”. We would welcome elections if they came along.

It is said that this place works, but only because the other place fails. Noble Lords who were present during the final moments of the passage of the legal aid Bill, as I was, will recall that many on the opposition and Cross Benches complained about the lack of time that had been given to that Bill due to the guillotine and programme Motions that had been applied in the other place, which meant that the issues that we discussed at length had not been taken up in the House of Commons at all. This place works only because there is a void that we have to fill. We are the people who are lobbied and have to make changes to hastily introduced legislation.

What we are facing here in opposition to the Bill are the forces of inertia, however it is described. Lloyd George understood and even sympathised with this notion. After all, he had spent six years in coalition with the Tories. He was the Nick Clegg of his day, you might say. He had the Nick Clegg experience. Speaking at the National Liberal Club in 1924, Lloyd George said:

“Toryism undoubtedly makes an appeal to one essential mood of human nature—that of fundamental inertia; and that is sometimes a real human need … every man tends to become a Tory himself when tired, disinclined for exertion, wishing to be left alone, cross with anyone who proposes new efforts, and, may I add, tempted to view the drink traffic with an unusually friendly eye. Toryism makes an inherent and instinctive appeal to very prevalent moods in human nature—contentment with your own lot; indifference to the lot of others, often through ignorance of the conditions or the imagination to realise them; rooted habits and prejudices”.

However, Toryism, as Lloyd George defined it, is just as active on the opposition Benches as it is on these Benches. “Not now”, says the noble Baroness the former Leader of the House, “Not like this”. “Give us a constitutional convention”, others cry—anything except action. Toryism on all sides of the House, said Lloyd George, would, if left alone, do nothing. Liberals would break the soil with the plough.

[Lord Morgan]

Will the noble Lord kindly explain to the House why Lloyd George was against an elected House of Lords?

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

He was for the abolition of the House of Lords, as I recall.

18:24

[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

My Lords, Lloyd George came here. Perhaps the noble Lord does not know that. Anyway, that is by the by.

The so-called reform of the House of Lords—I use “reform” with a degree of irony—has been an intractable question bedevilling those interested in the constitution for more than 100 years. Despite the distinguished membership of the Joint Committee, I have to say with the greatest of respect that the report does not carry the issue any further forward. The problem that the committee had to face was that its terms of reference did not permit it to reach the conclusion—the only conclusion at this time in my opinion—that doing nothing, or practically nothing, was an option.

It is clear from the majority report and the persuasive alternative report that the committee was divided across the parties, within the parties, and between the Houses. In one case, however, the committee’s report is unanimous. It states that,

“a wholly or largely elected reformed House will seek to use its powers more assertively”,

and that,

“a more assertive House would not enhance Parliament’s overall role in relation to the … executive”.

Is it likely that the Members of the Commons will meekly vote for losing their acknowledged primacy? The report makes it clear that Clause 2 of the draft Bill is defective and fails to preserve the primacy of the Commons, and insists that it will be impossible to legislate to that effect. If we are to have a major constitutional change, it must be by Act of Parliament and not by the nods and winks of an unwritten convention. The committee was unable to agree on such vital issues as the composition and powers of a changed House—I decline, even here, to say “reformed House”—the method of election, the term of office, the running cost of the House, how the Members should be remunerated, whether they should be Peers, and so on. In fact, we are still where we were a century ago.

In the end, the committee abdicated the need for a firm conclusion by proposing a referendum—a classic case of kicking the issues into the long grass. This is not Switzerland. We do not govern by referenda. We expect our legislators to take on the responsibility of making difficult decisions. A referendum is not an exercise in democracy but a way of passing the buck, which this report proposes to do. My final word on referenda is that no matter how many people vote for a bad idea, it is still a bad idea. The alternative report, acknowledging the committee’s failure to provide a conclusive answer, has suggested the setting up of a constitutional convention. How many have there been in the past on the same topic? However, it must be a properly constituted commission with impartial, non-political, non-party members, with expertise in history and constitutional law who must also have knowledge of the workings of other legislatures. Its members must have ample time to take and consider evidence and not be constrained by the social engineering ambitions of professional politicians who are only too well aware of the transient nature of their individual influence, which is subject to the whim of the electorate.

In all the contradictory thinking displayed by the two reports, one thing is clear. This Parliament, with just three years to run at most, has absolutely no authority, despite the coalition agreement, even to attempt to impose a permanent change to our constitution for generations to come. I await to see whether the Government will be rash enough to introduce the defective House of Lords Reform Bill, which has received absolutely no unequivocal support from the committee set up to consider it—nor, it should be said, from most of the media, from many politicians of all parties, and in particular from the public. I predict an exceedingly rough ride in both Houses and outside Parliament if they do so. I was going to say “if they are stupid enough to do so” but I had better not use that word, especially as Members of the House of Commons are present.

18:30

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, the answer to my noble friend’s question to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, as to why Lloyd George did not support an elected House is very simple. At that time, the unionist opposition was proposing an elected element for the House of Lords precisely to make it more powerful. One thing that Lloyd George did not want was a House of Lords more legitimate and powerful than he already had facing him, which is why the 1911 Act carefully avoided going down the elected path. All the themes that we have discussed—an elected House, the way to reconcile a quarrelling House of Commons, joint sessions and referenda—were rehearsed way back before the Parliament Act 1911 was passed. You have only to read Roy Jenkins’s book, Mr Balfour’s Poodle, to find that out. Again, given where we are, do we want to make the House of Lords more powerful than it is?

I compliment my noble friend Lord Richard on the excellent report of his Joint Committee, but I should say that one of the central contradictions is that the Government have proposed a draft Bill but have been somewhat timid with their reforms. Had they been really bold, they would have said, “We want an elected House of Lords, but it would be difficult to retain the primacy of the House of Commons unless some drastic things are done along with the Bill”. Everyone has agreed—including the Joint Committee’s report, the alternative report and many of the witnesses—that Clause 2 will not do because it will not resolve the issue of the primacy of the House of Commons. The question would then be: is the primacy of the House of Commons there not because it is elected but because we are unelected? If we get elected, will the primacy of the House of Commons make sense any more? That is the question that people ought to pose. The financial privileges of the House of Commons derive from way back in the 17th century, before it was elected in anything like its present form. That had to be reaffirmed and established in statute in the 1911 Act because those privileges were not guaranteed by the conventions of that time. If we are again to assert the primacy of the House of Commons, we have to establish that in statute—perhaps as a separate Parliament Act, not mixed up with the House of Lords Reform Bill. If you do not do that you cannot rely on conventions because, as the balance of power changes, conventions will change—and previous conventions will, no doubt, be challenged. One of the things we therefore have to do is make quite sure that if the two Houses of Parliament want to preserve the primacy of the House of Commons we must spell out what that primacy consists of and establish it by statute, because nothing can be taken for granted in an unwritten constitution whereby one Parliament can change what another Parliament does.

The nub of the problem is the nature of the elections to the House of Lords, which a lot of noble Lords have spoken about. It is clear that if we have elections on whatever territorial basis—either singly or as a group, as we do for the European Parliament—the House of Lords will replicate the House of Commons. If the Lords is elected by PR, that would in at least some people’s eyes be more legitimate than first past the post; and a House of Lords elected on the same territorial basis as the House of Commons, by what some may think is a better method, will no doubt challenge the legitimacy of the House of Commons. One should not be surprised by that. One ought to look at that issue in advance and do something about it.

What I proposed in my submission to the committee somewhat overlaps with what the noble Lord, Lord Low, said earlier. It was that we should have elections to the House of Lords for 80 per cent of its Members—I would prefer 100 per cent, but I pass on that—but the elections should be on a regional basis. Of course, we are not a federation and it is difficult to justify a second Chamber if the country is not a federation, as many experts told the Joint Committee. We already have three devolved Parliaments, and England is supposed to have 10 regions. I know that the regions do not actually want autonomy, but we shall have to impose some autonomy on them. If we elect an equal number of MPs from the 13 regions—quick arithmetic tells me that if we have 20 from each region we would have 260 elected Lords in a House of 300; and the number could be adjusted to 450—and the list is regional and not attached to any constituency, the Members elected will in some sense be representative but will not be rivals to the way that the House of Commons derives its legitimacy.

There is another advantage—a House of Lords elected by regional lists will fill the one big gap in our system. Your Lordships’ House is at present always accused of being too London-biased and that a regional dimension is missing from our Parliament. If we could get a regional dimension into Parliament through elections, either directly or indirectly, it would provide for an elected element to the House of Lords that would not challenge the legitimacy of the House of Commons, which is based on an entirely separate constituency system.

That is one way of reconciling two difficult problems. As for the 20 per cent who would be appointed, I entirely agree with the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Low. We have many electoral colleges, including the Royal Society, the BMA and the Law Society. Each could elect one representative, and the appointed element would also have some legitimacy. These sorts of schemes have been proposed for the British constitution over the past 100 years; there is nothing new about that. In that way, we will have an elected element in your Lordships’ House, it will not threaten the legitimacy of the House of Commons, and we will definitely have a better House than at present.

I shall say just one more thing. It is a fallacy to think that elected people do not have expertise. You have only to go to the House of Commons, which over many years has included professors, lawyers and scientists. I recall Dr Jeremy Bray, whom I used to know well; he was a distinguished scientist and a very good MP. Elected people can have expertise. You do not need to be unelected to be an expert.

18:30

[The Earl of Clancarty]

My Lords, as has been pointed out, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that the committee did not have a blank sheet. That is fair enough, but it is worth bearing in mind that the draft Bill that the committee looked at is called the House of Lords Reform Bill. It is not called the “Composition of the House of Lords Reform Bill”—important though that area of reform will of course be.

In that spirit, I want to use my intervention to hold a magnifying glass over a specific topic of House of Lords reform that has not yet been mentioned and was not in the report but that would be a significant and timely measure for reasons of transparency, public confidence and modernity. My topic is the official recording of abstentions. This issue also throws up interesting questions about underlying attitudes that reform should address and challenge.

While this matter is not exclusive to the reform of the second House, our continuing refusal to record abstentions in either House is emblematic of the continuing emphasis in Parliament as a whole on a rigid two-party parliamentary system, despite the current reality that we have a coalition as well as renewed public interest in the notion of party politically independent candidates. It is a style that remains primarily confrontational, the very thing that the public do not like and are reacting against, and a style that, it has to be said, was reaffirmed by the decision to keep the first-past-the-post system for election to the Commons. Although tempered in the Lords, this system is nevertheless the foundation on which both Houses are currently built.

This system is of course reflected and reinforced by the very geography of both parliamentary Chambers, where Dispatch Boxes and rows of Benches are set up in opposition to each other. We are not of course the only Parliament in the world to use this layout, but it is a geography that, in relation to other more modern Parliaments that use a more open and often semicircular layout for their Members, can appear inward-looking and hermetic.

In an exchange in the Commons on 3 February last year, Caroline Lucas, on the subject of abstentions, said that people had told her, “If you can’t make up your mind, you shouldn’t be in politics”. That is clearly a view that people still hold. What occasioned that exchange was six Lib Dems voting the previous evening in both Lobbies on the forestry debate. It is possible to vote in both Lobbies in the Commons but not in this House. The Deputy Speaker reiterated that voting twice in the Commons was “unparliamentary”. I agree, and I am sure that if the public were to be asked, they would heartily disapprove of that practice. It is also obviously an inelegant and cumbersome solution if one takes abstention seriously.

A more sophisticated and sensitive system and a more sensitive Parliament would appreciate that there are often shades of opinion on, for example, amendments to Bills. An amendment can sometimes carry within it two principles which Members of the House may feel are both valid but are in conflict. Indeed, there was a prime example of such a case in this House just last week during the Protection of Freedoms Bill when, as noble Lords will recall, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his speech from the opposition Front Bench, asked all opposition Members to abstain on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, on entry to premises, on the basis that protecting the privacy of occupants and the protection of consumers’ rights were equally important.

The fact is that abstentions happen and will certainly happen even more, with or without recording, particularly if we are to continue to have coalition Governments. Disagreements between partners ought to be acknowledged as a fact of coalition life and are not necessarily something that Parliament needs to be embarrassed about. Hardly a vote has gone by when there have not been abstentions on some of the very complicated Bills that we have discussed recently.

If we introduced recorded abstentions, we would simply be getting up to speed with the more modern, and in my view more progressive, systems of many, if not all, European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Germany—and locally now including the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

The main argument is that we need a more transparent Parliament. This is a time when many are concerned about bringing a truer picture of Parliament to the public. If you are in this Chamber at the time of a Division, you know full well who has abstained. Members will often make it very clear when they sit down to be counted—to coin a phrase—often in no uncertain terms, that they are abstaining. That is a significant aspect of the business of this place and could make the difference between whether a vote is won or lost. It is insulting to the public that that information is in effect kept secret and not made available. It might not be the wilful neglect of the public, but it is wrong. That goes hand in hand with the scornful attitude in some quarters to websites such as TheyWorkForYou and the Public Whip, which number-crunch the votes and are all part and parcel of the larger public interest in Parliament.

The possibility of recording abstentions was last considered in 1998, when the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons produced a consultation paper on voting methods, finding that a majority—slim, but a majority nevertheless—of 54 per cent of Members were in favour of introducing that measure. It is high time, 15 years on, that that was looked at again. My understanding from research by the House of Lords Library, for which I am grateful, is that it might be possible to introduce that through a Standing Order, as another measure considered by the same committee, the practice of deferred Divisions, was introduced in that way in 2004—although an amendment might also be brought to the House of Lords Bill. The measure might well be trialled in the Lords as part of current reform.

I do not think that we should wait for the introduction of electronic voting systems, which is something of an excuse not to introduce this measure. There is no reason why abstentions could not be recorded with the clerk in the Chamber itself. Neither is it a measure that depends on the final composition of this House. It would be a significant improvement in the democratic workings of Parliament as a whole, not only for itself but as a sign of greater transparency and accountability.

18:44

[Lord Crickhowell]

My Lords, Parliament has never before faced a situation in which a draft Bill sent for consideration by a Joint Committee has been totally demolished by the members of that committee. That is the effect of the two reports produced by its members—the Joint Committee report agreed by all and the alternative report signed by 12—which have to be taken together. They create a balance of opinion more significant than the individual votes—on which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, laid much emphasis—a balance of opinion vividly and wonderfully described in a tremendous speech by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester.

Clause 2, the keystone of the Bill, supposed to hold up and guarantee the continuing primacy of the House of Commons, was pulled out and discarded as worthless by the whole committee, and the alternative report argued that,

“the proposals represent an unbridgeable gap between the election of the House of Lords and the primacy of the House of Commons”.

It is now clear that what is involved is not just the introduction of elected Members to the Lords but a titanic upheaval with massive implications for the Commons. If the Bill is introduced, Parliament is then confronted with the necessity of trying to bridge the unbridgeable by making fundamental changes that seem bound to include amending the Parliament Acts, a review of codification of conventions by a Joint Committee and the examination of a plethora of vital issues that have not been thought through, to cite the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition. They include the future of Scotland and the devolved Administrations, among others.

The report identified other consequences that are almost equally damaging, among them the very large cost of introducing an additional 450 paid politicians to Parliament, 360 elected by a system of PR likely to ensure that a minority party always holds the balance of power. I say to my friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches that they should not optimistically assume that they will be that minority party. They may find that others of whom they strongly disapprove hold the balance in that situation. There is the lack of accountability of those politicians elected for a 15-year term and unable to seek the endorsement of the electors for a second term. There is the absurdity of the proposition that, having been elected, they should not take up constituency issues, with restrictions placed on expenses provided to enable them to do so. The case for the necessity for a referendum has been compellingly made and the arguments against exposed as shallow and unsustainable.

It is abundantly clear that there is now no consensus about the way to reform this House. To cite the noble Lord, Lord Richard, chairman of the Joint Committee, there is division within the parties and within the Houses. I disagree very strongly with his view, supported by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, that we should just press on ahead with what has been presented to us so far. In this situation, it would be political madness and deeply unsound constitutional practice were the Government, after only the briefest consideration, to commit themselves in the Queen’s Speech to the introduction of the same Bill or one closely similar. For Parliament to attempt on the Floor of both Houses to reconstruct and make sound a Bill that has been so comprehensively demolished is likely to wreck parliamentary business for the whole Session, threaten and perhaps destroy the coalition Government—goodness knows, they are facing enough troubles as it is at present—and produce a deeply flawed and unsustainable reform. To use the Parliament Act to force through a Bill in those circumstances would be a constitutional outrage.

The manifesto commitment of the Conservative Party was to,

“work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords”.

The Prime Minister repeatedly made it clear to members of his party that it was not a priority or a task likely to be attempted until after a subsequent election. Now that it is abundantly clear that the work to build a consensus has failed, I hope that he will have the courage and good sense to insist that adequate time is taken carefully to consider the proposals made in the alternative report and the ideas for incremental reform that have been advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and others.

If Ministers simply press on and attempt to force through Parliament a Bill similar to the draft, I will base my actions on the firm belief that, confronted with a choice between supporting a legislative programme that includes a deeply flawed reform Bill or defending fundamental constitutional principles and an effective Parliament, my clear duty lies with the constitution and Parliament. I will make my speeches and cast my votes accordingly. I am optimistic that I will be just one of a very large number of Members of both Houses who will act in the same way.

18:51

[Lord Hoyle]

My Lords, there has been debate over whether this is a decision that should be made now or in the future. Many want to see it made in the future but I suggest that we have been waiting a very long time for this reform—since 1912—and it is time that it was acted upon. We cannot continue to pretend that this issue does not exist, and pretending that we have a democratic constitution is absolutely ridiculous. Looking back at Labour Party manifestos from 1997 onwards, I see that we called for House of Lords reform in all of them. We were very specific in the last Labour Party manifesto, when we said:

“Further democratic reform to create a fully elected Second Chamber will then be achieved in stages. At the end of the next Parliament one third of the House of Lords will be elected; a further one third of members will be elected at the general election after that. Until the final stage, the representation of all groups should be maintained in equal proportions to now. We will consult widely on these proposals, and on an open-list proportional representation electoral system for the Second Chamber, before putting them to the people in a referendum”.

It has been interesting to hear the views expressed today. Some have been in favour of reform, and I think that I speak for the minority when I say that I am very much in favour, although I would prefer to see a 100 per cent elected House. However, I can see the argument that has been made for 80 per cent of Members to be elected, with 20 per cent being appointed. We have had a long debate about the primacy of the House of Commons and the Bill will be going to the Commons. As my noble friend Lord Richard made clear, of the MPs on the committee, only one opposed the proposition. Therefore, primacy will be an issue and it will be discussed, but I do not believe that it is an obstacle that cannot be overcome. As I said, after the Bill has been considered, we shall make a decision on that matter and it will evolve as time goes on. Both Houses, as well the people, will have a say on how it comes about.

The other point I should like to make is that about 400 people, give or take a few, regularly sit in this House. It is not always the same 400 people, so I think it is right that the number of Members envisaged in the Bill is increased to about 450.

Of course, people have been talking about this matter for a long time. When proposals for reform have been put before us in the past, they have failed because there has not been time to carry them out. However, that will not be the case if such a Bill is put forward in the Queen’s Speech. It can be delayed but at the end of the day there are going to be changes, and this House should address itself to the kind of change that it wants to see. It is no longer good enough to say that staying as we are will do for the future. The question may be asked—it has been asked today—whether this is a measure that should be raised. That sort of question is always asked. The big thing at the moment is obviously the economic situation, but nobody is suggesting that only the economic situation should be dealt with; other things should be looked at as well.

As I said, the need for us to look at this matter is long overdue and I look forward very much to the Bill being introduced. I hope that account will be taken of the report of the committee led by my noble friend before the final Bill is put before us. It will be very sensible to look at the views expressed in the committee. However, one thing that we should realise is that the current composition of this Chamber cannot remain in the future. The future lies with a predominantly elected Chamber. As I said, I should like to see 100 per cent of its Members elected.

I have no doubt that we shall return to this matter time and again before legislation is passed, but I wish to put myself firmly on the side of reform and an elected House. My noble friend Lord Dubs said very eloquently that he would feel far happier speaking as an elected Member of a second Chamber. He said that he had found universal support from all sections of the Labour Party wherever he had been, apart from Cambridge University, where unfortunately I do not think they listened carefully enough to the eloquence with which he expressed his views.

I am conscious that many other noble Lords wish to speak, so I shall not go on any longer other than to say that not only is this decision due now but it is long overdue. It is a decision that this House will have to face up to. Whatever the method of election, we have to face up to the fact that the second Chamber of this country will be largely elected in the future.

18:58

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, I join other Members in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the Joint Committee for their report. It seems to deal well with the issues directly covered in the draft Bill, as was the role of the committee, and to avoid becoming too deeply enmeshed in questions that are not covered in the Bill and which are clearly not subject to any consensus. I also thank the members of the committee who have made their alternative report available.

However, it is our duty to look a little beyond the terms of the draft Bill when we consider that some of the consequences that would follow from a move to a largely elected second Chamber are not dealt with, or are dealt with only cursorily, in the draft Bill. That is particularly true in relation to the future powers of the proposed largely elected second Chamber and the likely effect on the operation of Parliament as a whole—that is, a new sharing of power between the two Houses. These matters are dealt with in recommendations 2 to 16 of the conclusions and recommendations of the Joint Committee. They are also dealt with more trenchantly in points one and two of the executive summary in the alternative report.

There are hundreds of points in the draft Bill that will need discussion, and there are 87 conclusions and recommendations in the Joint Committee’s report, but the House will be glad to know that I shall not deal with them all today. There will no doubt be opportunities to do so in the weeks, months, probably years and possibly decades ahead. Today, I shall deal only with the question of the powers of the two Houses if there were a largely elected second Chamber.

I start with the simple proposition that the draft Bill would have one tremendously important consequence: it would bring to an end the House of Commons’ monopoly in democratic legitimacy. That is just about the most fundamental change that could happen to the first Chamber of a Parliament. It is difficult to detect in the draft Bill a full comprehension of the consequences of that change for Parliament as a whole. However, the Joint Committee has understood it and I would like to pick out and approve what it says on a number of points. First, the Joint Committee imposes an important condition where it records that a majority of its members consider that a reformed second Chamber should have an electoral mandate, and that condition is,

“provided it has commensurate powers”.

Of course, an electoral mandate is not an abstract concept; it is thousands of citizens trooping into a polling station and electing their Member of the second Chamber and, as a direct consequence, looking to him or her to respond to their wishes and deliver the goods. I am absolutely certain that a reformed House in respect of its elected Members would have a representative function, because the electors would demand it and the second Chamber would evidently be more assertive, not to say aggressive, in using its powers.

The events of last week on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill provided a good example of what happens now and what would be likely to happen if Parliament were to consist not of one but of two democratically elected Chambers. Representative organisations and many members of the public already recognise that in draft legislation the House of Lords is now the principal revising Chamber. I had 256 e-mails last week from such organisations and others mostly recommending or pressing for specific changes in draft legislation—and I have not even been elected yet. I am amazed that a press that reports on the House of Commons gives little or no publicity to the fact that important parts of draft legislation are not discussed or debated in the House of Commons or are dealt with only cursorily in a very short time because a guillotine is almost universally applied.

Currently, the House of Lords scrutinises thoroughly and proposes amendments, where appropriate, but we are quite reticent about pressing them if the House of Commons cursorily rejects them. Evidently, that situation would not prevail between two democratically elected Houses. Some mechanism for conciliation between the two Houses in such cases would be needed. I do not think that it would have to be statutory because we would run into judicial interference, some sort of mechanism for conciliation would be an inevitable consequence of two democratically elected Houses.

Secondly, there is the specific question of the conventions between the two Houses. Clearly, those would need to be reviewed, and where necessary changed, to reflect the role of the two democratically elected Houses. I strongly agree with the Joint Committee that the current text of the Bill in Clause 2 risks making judicial intervention possible, contrary to Article 9 of the Bill of Rights, and is to be rejected. The conventions themselves will almost certainly need to be redefined, and that could be done in a concordat between the two Houses.

In my view, that should apply to all legislation, including secondary legislation, which has hardly been mentioned today. The House of Lords has shown almost complete restraint in dealing with secondary legislation, despite the fact that 10,662 pages of almost wholly home-grown—not Brussels—secondary legislation went through this House in a recent year. In the new circumstances, the second Chamber would clearly be more ready to strike off secondary legislation of which it disapproved.

Thirdly, and finally, like many other Members I shall say a word about the primacy of the House of Commons, which is central to the Bill, although the Bill does not deal with it adequately. The Joint Committee points out that Clause 2 is not capable of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons, so if it comes forward in that or a similar form, I am sure we shall have serious problems when the Bill itself comes before us.

I believe that the issue of financial privilege is more complicated than it has appeared to be in the discussion today, because we cannot have a situation in which we have two completely free tax-raising Chambers of Parliament. On the other hand, a democratically elected second Chamber would need a way of dealing with issues that are important but that had some financial consequences. I saw the south-west news at the weekend, which showed many people holding up banners that said, “The pasty tax is a nasty tax”. I am sure that that would be thought about by a Senator who came from Cornwall if we had change in the structure of this House.

I also believe that we need to maintain the structure under which there is a weapon of last resort, which is currently the Parliament Acts. I have noted the views of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in the report, but if the new circumstances come about it would be necessary to make statutory provision for some form of last resort—yes, more time and perhaps more controversy.

News Corporation: Conduct of Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Statement

19:06

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, perhaps this is an appropriate time to take a short break from the debate on the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. With the leave of the House, I shall repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister earlier this afternoon in response to an Urgent Question from the Leader of the Opposition. The Statement is as follows:

“Last Wednesday I answered questions on this issue at PMQs and the Culture Secretary made a full statement. But let me set out the position again. I set up the Leveson inquiry last summer to investigate the culture, ethics and practices of the media and the relations between the media and the police, and the media and politicians. It is a full judge-led inquiry, with evidence given under oath and full access to papers and records. No Government before have ever taken such comprehensive action. It is this Government who are putting these issues properly on the table and getting them dealt with. Let me deal with the three issues in this question: the conduct of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; the nature of the inquiry needed to get to the bottom of these issues; and the wider issues over the relationship between politicians and the media.

First, on the Culture Secretary, as was made clear in his Statement last Wednesday, in every respect with regard to the News Corporation bid, the Culture Secretary asked for independent advice and acted on it. He was not required to ask or to follow such advice, but he did so. He acted fairly and impartially and in line with the advice of his Permanent Secretary. Indeed, as he set out in his Statement to this House last Wednesday, he acted against the interests of News Corporation on four key decisions: on being minded to refer the bid to the Competition Commission; on refusing to accept News Corporation’s undertakings without advice first from the OFT and Ofcom; on extending the consultation; and on going back to Ofcom for further advice about the impact of phone hacking. I have seen no evidence to suggest that in handling this issue the Secretary of State acted at any stage in a way that was contrary to the Ministerial Code.

In terms of the Secretary of State’s responsibilities towards his department let me say this. The Permanent Secretary of the department approved the approach his department took to the quasi-judicial process, which included a small number of people acting as contact points with News Corporation, as is required and normal in such a process; and the Permanent Secretary of the department has stated that he was ‘aware’ and ‘content’ for contact to be made between the Culture Secretary’s special adviser and News Corporation. However, it is quite clear that this contact became improper and inappropriate and went beyond the requirements set out by the Secretary of State or the Permanent Secretary. That is why the special adviser resigned and he was right to do so.

There are correct procedures to follow in this regard and they need to be followed scrupulously. That is why last week I asked the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, and the head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake, to write to all departments clarifying the rigorous procedures that they should have in place for handling cases of this nature.

This leads to the second issue: the nature of the inquiry or inquiries best suited to get to the bottom of this issue. I consulted the Cabinet Secretary and decided it was right to allow Lord Justice Leveson to conduct his inquiry and not to commission a parallel process to establish the facts. Let me repeat; what we have is a judge-led inquiry, with witnesses required to give evidence under oath, full access to papers and records, and cross-examination by barristers—all live on television. There is nothing this tough or rigorous that the Civil Service or independent adviser could provide.

Of course, it is not for Lord Justice Leveson to determine whether a Minister has broken the Ministerial Code. That is an issue for me and I will deal with it properly. I will not wait until the end of the Leveson inquiry to take action if action is needed. If new evidence emerges from the Leveson inquiry that the Ministerial Code has been broken, I will either seek the advice of Sir Alex Allan or take action directly. But the key point is this: in order to do this, it is neither necessary nor right to have a parallel investigation that could duplicate, cut across or possibly pre-empt what Lord Justice Leveson is doing. Lord Justice Leveson offered his own view on Wednesday when he said that,

‘although I have seen requests for other inquiries and other investigations … it seems to me that the better course is to allow this inquiry to proceed’.

I agree with him entirely.

Let me briefly turn to the bigger picture. I am and always will be a fierce defender of the freedom of the press in this country; it is one of the central pillars of our democracy. But the relationship between politicians and the media has been too close for decades. The Leveson inquiry—which this Government set up—gives Parliament and politicians of all parties the opportunity to get this right for the future. Already we have introduced transparency about the meetings we have with the media. Everyone can see which proprietors or editors I meet, whether publicly or privately.

Let me just say this: like other party leaders in our country for decades, I have tried to convince media outlets to support the policies of my party and now my Government. But let me be clear: there was not and never has been a grand bargain between the Conservative Party and Rupert Murdoch or James Murdoch. Indeed, look for one moment at the number of meetings that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had with Rupert Murdoch when they were Prime Minister. Blair had seven, Brown had 13 and I have had four. The idea that there was some agreement that in return for their support we would somehow allow this merger to go through is simply not true. I have to say if that was the case, and while I respect him deeply, what on earth was I doing making the right honourable Member for Twickenham the Business Secretary responsible for this? The proprietors of News Corporation have denied under oath at the Leveson inquiry any type of deal, and I will do the same.

Let me just make this last point. Unlike the party opposite, we were not trying to convince a centre-right proprietor of a set of newspapers with solidly centre-right views to change the position of a lifetime. We were arguing a simple proposition: that the last Government were irresponsible, exhausted and bad for our country, and that they ought to go.

While I have said that the relationship between politicians and the media has been too close, I note that none of the people opposite has disclosed any of the meetings they had with News International or other newspaper executives while they were in office. Instead of endlessly trying to use the Leveson inquiry for party-political purposes, is it not time that they were honest about what they did in government? While the country wants to hear about jobs, investment, living standards and the great challenges we face—such as debt—they just play one-sided party politics. Instead of endlessly trying to use the Leveson inquiry for party-political purposes, is it not time that they were honest about what they did in government—and face up to the real mess that they left this country in?”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement of the Prime Minister, which we will now deal with in the usual way.

19:15

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating as a Statement in your Lordships’ House the remarks made by the Prime Minister earlier today in the other place in relation to the position of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and to his, his office’s and his department’s connections with News Corporation over its failed bid last year to take over BSkyB.

When the allegations against the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt MP, emerged last week, arising from material released by the inquiry into relations between the press, politicians and the police, headed by Lord Justice Leveson, my party called for the Secretary of State to resign or be sacked. We do not as a party make such calls lightly. We have a right to do so; the Secretary of State should have resigned then. Having failed to do so, he should resign now.

The release by the Leveson inquiry of material relating to the Secretary of State and to News Corporation’s bid led directly to two events: first, the resignation of Mr Hunt’s special adviser, Mr Adam Smith, over the e-mails and other communications that he had with News Corporation in connection with its BSkyB bid; and secondly, in the wake and as a result of that resignation, calls for the Secretary of State to be investigated for potential breaches of the Ministerial Code, the Cabinet Office rules that govern the conduct and behaviour of government Ministers.

The Government, led by the Prime Minister, sought to avoid such an investigation, arguing that the correct procedure for inquiring into these matters is the already extant inquiry led by Mr Justice Leveson, and that a second, parallel inquiry would be confusing and inappropriate. The Prime Minister and the Government also sought to insist that in their view the Secretary of State had not breached the Ministerial Code. That was the burden of the Statement by the Prime Minister that the Leader of the House of Lords repeated today.

This simply will not do. Judges tend not to welcome what they regard as interference by politicians. Judicial independence is a central element in the justice system and the constitution of our country. Rightly, therefore, Lord Justice Leveson both rejected the misguided attempt by the Secretary of State to use the inquiry for his own personal and political ends by seeking to reschedule his appearance before it, and made it clear that the inquiry was not the correct or appropriate mechanism to resolve matters relating to the Ministerial Code.

I looked again today at the terms of reference for the Leveson inquiry. It is transparently clear that there is nothing in the terms of reference that could possibly give it any locus in matters relating to issues covered by the Ministerial Code. For the Prime Minister or other Ministers, including the Secretary of State, to do so was wrong. The Prime Minister told the BBC yesterday that he would investigate the Secretary of State under the Ministerial Code if there were evidence of wrongdoing, or if any material came from the Leveson inquiry that warranted such an investigation.

The purpose of such an investigation under the Ministerial Code is to determine whether there has been any breach of the code, not to mount an inquiry after the fact of the wrongdoing has become clear. The e-mails and other matter released by the Leveson inquiry last week precisely constitute, under the code, material that warrants further investigation. The code is clear and explicit on the point. Paragraph 1.3 sets out the matter. After stating that it is not the role of the Cabinet Secretary or other officials to enforce the code, it states:

“If there is an allegation about a breach of the Code, and the Prime Minister, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary, feels that it warrants further investigation, he will refer the matter to the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests”.

Let us look more closely at that paragraph. It specifies an allegation. Is there an allegation in this case? There is indeed: a serious allegation that the Secretary of State kept informed one of the parties to a bid that he was considering in a quasi-judicial manner of the progress of that bid in a way that was wholly inappropriate to that role; an allegation that the Secretary of State was in breach of paragraph 1 of the Ministerial Code, which requires Ministers to act in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety; a serious allegation that as part of the information that was incorrectly and inappropriately supplied, details of the announcements to be made to Parliament and to the Stock Exchange were made to the bidder in the case, days before such announcements were made public; an allegation that the Secretary of State was in breach of paragraph 9.1 of the code, which stipulates that announcements by Ministers must be made in the first instance to Parliament; and an allegation that the Secretary of State is currently in breach of paragraph 3.3 of the code, which focuses on the activities and operations of special advisers, and the responsibilities of both special advisers and the Ministers for whom they work. Again, the code is clear, stating:

“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment”.

In this case, that is clearly the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

“Individual Ministers will be accountable to the Prime Minister, Parliament and the public for their actions and decisions in respect of their special advisers”,

says the code, and clearly, in this case, it is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The role of the Minister is clear.

In this case, the conduct of the special adviser, Mr Adam Smith, was such as to warrant his resignation from his post within government the day after the Leveson inquiry released the material last week. Mr Smith took responsibility for his actions, but the code makes it quite clear that the Minister is ultimately responsible for the actions and conduct of his special adviser. If in this case Mr Smith believed that his actions warranted his resignation and that in this case, as in all others, the Minister is responsible and accountable for the actions and conduct of his special adviser, then it clearly follows that it is for the Secretary of State or, if he will not do so, the Prime Minister on his behalf, to act in the way that the special adviser has done. That is why we call for his resignation. We believe that it is transparently clear that the Secretary of State is in breach of the Ministerial Code and that, like his special adviser, he should go.

There are clear, specific allegations. Paragraph 1.3 of the code, on investigations under the code, stipulates that the Prime Minister must consult the Cabinet Secretary on any allegations. Has the Prime Minister consulted the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood? We are told that he has. We do not, of course, know the nature of any such consultations between the Prime Minister and his Cabinet Secretary, who is an official of high ability, high repute and high integrity. Having consulted, does the Prime Minister feel that the matter warrants further investigation? Clearly, from his public statements, and from the Statement repeated today by the Leader of the House, he does not. We on these Benches argue that he is wrong in that opinion. The matter clearly warrants further investigation.

Support for this position has come from a number of sources, but among the most notable have been three former Cabinet Secretaries, all Members of your Lordships’ House: the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Turnbull. All three noble Lords were men standing in precisely the position of the current Cabinet Secretary. With slightly differing emphases, all three believe that there has indeed been a breach of the Ministerial Code in this case. Accordingly, we on these Benches believe that the Prime Minister should refer the matter to Sir Alex Allan, the current independent adviser.

Do the Government accept that there has been in this case an allegation—indeed, a number of allegations—about the conduct of the Secretary of State? Do the Government accept that the resignation of the special adviser to the Secretary of State supports irrefutably that there are such allegations? Do the Government accept in the light of the opinion expressed by MPs, Peers, academics, commentators and, indeed, three former Cabinet Secretaries, all distinguished and senior Members of your Lordships’ House, that the allegations warrant investigation under the terms of the Ministerial Code? Do the Government therefore accept that the Prime Minister accordingly must refer the matter to the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests for investigation? If the Government do not accept these questions, will the Leader of the House set out, bearing in mind the entirely appropriate insistence by Lord Justice Leveson that his inquiry is not the correct method of examining these matters, on what possible basis the Government do not accept them?

A Minister’s actions, a Minister’s integrity and a Minister’s career are not matters to be considered lightly, let alone dismissed lightly. We on these Benches do not do so, but even if it is not accepted that there is wrong here—and we believe there is wrong here—it must be accepted that there are serious matters here that warrant proper investigation. We believe that the Government should act, and act today.

19:24

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I do not say this very often, but I think there are very few times when a prime ministerial Statement is more suited to the House of Commons than it is here, and I think this is one of those occasions. Notwithstanding that, the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition says that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State should resign at once, yet she admits that she has not heard all the facts of the case. That is what she started off with. In fact, that repeats something that Harriet Harman said. Within 23 minutes of the evidence being made clear, she called for the resignation of my right honourable friend. That is a ridiculous way to go about business. My right honourable friend is entirely entitled to give his evidence in the same way as those who have accused him of wrongdoing, and that is what he is going to do.

There is no point praying in aid all these former great Cabinet Secretaries who distinguish themselves in this House. The former Cabinet Secretary the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, made it clear that following the process that the Prime Minister has chosen:

“Much more will be made public than if it is done by a nominated retired civil servant”.

The noble Lord is someone of tremendous eminence.

What is going on here, and what is going on with Labour’s position? The people opposite are those who defended Charlie Whelan and Damian McBride who, I gather, were special advisers in the previous Government. Did any Ministers resign as a result of their appalling wrongdoing?

The noble Baroness said that the Secretary of State should be investigated for breaking the Ministerial Code. The Prime Minister has never said that he will not launch an investigation into whether the Ministerial Code has been broken. All he has said is that there should be a proper process and that it should start when the Secretary of State gives his evidence to the Leveson inquiry. Lord Justice Leveson himself has accepted and agreed that there should not be a parallel process so, as far as I can see, it is all about timing.

What about the specific allegations? Did the Culture Secretary mislead Parliament by saying he was publishing all the exchanges between his department and News Corporation? He certainly did not mislead Parliament. He has laid out clearly in the House of Commons what he is going to do, and he will do it. He has said that he will make available all relevant communications, including texts and e-mails, to the Leveson inquiry and, at that stage, he will be judged upon them.

Was the Ministerial Code breached when the special adviser Adam Smith leaked the content of a Written Ministerial Statement to News Corp the day before it was given to the House? We have to turn to the words of Adam Smith himself in his resignation letter. He said that the extent and nature of the contact between himself and News Corporation was not authorised or known about by either the Culture Secretary or the Permanent Secretary. I think that absolves the Secretary of State, but I am not going to rush to judgment in the way that the noble Baroness has done, although I am sure that he behaved impeccably in everything that he did. There is a process led by Lord Justice Leveson and at that stage I think it is up to the Prime Minister to make up his mind what he wishes to do.

19:28

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, surely it would be absurd to have two inquiries going on at the same time. The order that the Prime Minister has announced seems entirely sensible, given that the parliamentary inquiry can then follow the evidence that is given to Leveson. However, is there not a wider issue here? Does the Leader of the House recall that last week, when we debated this issue, the Minister who replied, who is now sitting next to him, said that there was all-party consensus on my proposal that politicians of any party should be taken out of the role of deciding on media bids? Then on the “Today” programme on Tuesday morning, the leader of the Opposition specifically rejected that proposal and said that he intended to continue with the discredited system. Can we urge Mr Miliband to think again on this issue, for is it not the case that there will always be a suspicion of conflict of interest if politicians take decisions about media companies which they—we—have done so much to woo? It is a clear conflict of interest, and it should be stopped.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for very much supporting the position of the Prime Minister. Many others have taken on this question of having two parallel inquiries going on at the same time. Like him, I am convinced that we have made the right decision.

As for his specific question, the House will know that my noble friend Lord Fowler is pretty much pre-eminent in this House and elsewhere with his expert knowledge on this subject. I cannot speak for the Leader of the Opposition, but my advice to the noble Baroness is that she ought to bring to his attention the words of my noble friend Lord Fowler, and he might change his mind.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, perhaps the Leader of the House can help me. I do not understand the Statement that he has just made. He says that there is a process and the process should be followed. What is the process? The process is that evidence was given to Lord Justice Leveson; Lord Justice Leveson has said he is not going to decide the issue as far as Mr Hunt is concerned. It is astonishing for the Leader of the House to say that it should go in front of Lord Justice Leveson when Lord Justice Leveson has just said that he does not want it to come in front of him.

What is the object of the exercise? Is it that Mr Hunt should give his evidence to Lord Justice Leveson, and the Prime Minister should look at it and say, “I am satisfied with that so we will not do anything else”, or alternatively say, “Something may be wrong here”, and then perhaps he will refer it to somebody else? The fact of the matter is that Lord Justice Leveson cannot resolve the issue. For the noble Lord to come here and say, “There is a proper process and the process is Leveson”—as indeed the Prime Minister did in the House of Commons—is wrong. There is a process and the process is to use Sir Alex Allan: that is what he is there for; that is what he is set up to try to do. With great respect to the Leader of the House, I do not understand what the Government are playing at.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is quite deliberately misunderstanding the position and misunderstanding what the Prime Minister has said. An allegation was made at the Leveson inquiry. It is entirely right and proper that the Secretary of State should be able to go and give evidence on the same terms and by the same method as those who have accused him of wrongdoing.

Incidentally, the decision on whether to refer the case to Sir Alex Allan is a decision for the Prime Minister. He can make that decision whenever he wants. He has suggested that he will make that decision—or take action, if he believes there was any wrongdoing—following the evidence being made public in the Leveson inquiry. The Leveson inquiry is a proper inquiry where, as I pointed out, evidence will be taken under oath and there will be cross-examination of the witnesses by barristers; in other words, the evidence that has been given already will be properly tested. That is entirely appropriate and there is no confusion at all between the two issues.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has said that he will await the evidence given by Mr Secretary Hunt to the Leveson inquiry. That may or may not be a rational stance to take. I take very much on board what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, says. It is outside the remit of the Leveson inquiry to adjudicate upon that matter. Putting that aside, perhaps I may ask this pertinent question of the Leader of the House. When the time comes for the Prime Minister to decide whether or not to refer this matter to Sir Alex Allan as a matter of ministerial discipline, will the Prime Minister be acting in a political capacity or a quasi-judicial capacity? If I may be allowed the luxury of a supplementary question, will the Prime Minister be regarding himself as acting in a judicial or a political capacity?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in that event, the Prime Minister will be acting as Prime Minister. He will decide whether to take action directly himself—or not to, because he believes there is no evidence—or to refer the matter to Sir Alex Allan.

[Lord Gilbert]

My Lords, is it not clear from the Prime Minister’s Statement that the Government have now abandoned the Secretary of State’s claim that the Permanent Secretary authorised what was going on? The word “authorised” did not appear once in the Prime Minister’s Statement—and I was listening very carefully. The Leader of the House cannot hope to slither away and say, “What is the difference because the Permanent Secretary is supposed to have said that he was content?”. There is a difference between authorising something and being content with it. Authorising has to do with things ex ante; content has to do with things ex post. When was the Permanent Secretary first made aware of these activities?

My second question is about Sir Alex Allan, who seems to have one of the best sinecures going—in fact, I might put in for it myself. Has it ever occurred to this Government to ask Sir Alex Allan whether he considered it appropriate for him to consider this matter and, if so, what response did they get?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, on the latter part of that question, I am not aware of any conversations having taken place. Incidentally, there is no way that I could slither away from anything in this House, particularly when asked by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert. The Permanent Secretary has said that the content and extent of Adam Smith’s contact with News Corp were,

“without authorisation, and were contrary to the clear requirements set out”,

by both himself and the Secretary of State. He has said that he was “aware” of and “content” with the arrangements that were made initially.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, whatever the outcome of the present episode, does my noble friend the Leader agree that in future it must be absolutely clear that when a Secretary of State and his department are considering such a bid, all contact between the department and an interested party must first be through permanent civil servants; secondly, it must be properly authorised; thirdly, it must be properly recorded; and fourthly, it must be of a formal nature only? Does he also agree that it must be clear that political advisers should not be involved in such contacts in any circumstances, nor should such contacts be marked by the informality and appearance of partiality that marked the e-mails that have recently been released, and that guidance to that effect should be issued formally as quickly as possible?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very helpful intervention. Of course, we can all use the benefit of hindsight and see that things were not done in an appropriate way. That is why the Prime Minister, as early as last week, asked the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, and the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake, to write to all departments and Ministers,

“clarifying the rigorous procedures that departments should have in place for handling cases of this nature”,

so that suspicion does not fall on departments, Ministers and their special advisers.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, when the Leader of the House was replying to my noble friend Lady Royall, he kept asking—I have to say, in a slightly excitable way—“What is going on? What is going on?”. It is very simple. It is the enforcement of the Ministerial Code. That is what we on this side of the House—and, I think, many Cross-Benchers—are very concerned about. The fact is that the Prime Minister tried to refer this to Lord Leveson. Does the Leader of the House agree with Lord Leveson that it was inappropriate for the Prime Minister to try to refer this matter of ministerial discipline and the Ministerial Code to Lord Leveson, which is not within his remit, as the original Statement clearly showed? That is the first point.

The second point is that the special adviser says that the Secretary of State knew nothing about his contacts. That may be so and no doubt an investigation will show whether or not that is correct. Notwithstanding that, paragraph 3.3 of the Ministerial Code—which is what we are talking about—is clear. It states:

“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment”.

Mr Hunt made the appointment. The special adviser’s contraventions were so serious that he has had to resign. Should the Secretary of State not have had mechanisms in place for discharging his very specific responsibility for the “management and conduct” of his special adviser and, if he did, what were they?

[Lord Strathclyde]

I will tell the noble Baroness exactly what is going on here. These are the cheapest and most vulgar political attacks on my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, whose evidence has not been heard at all. The noble Baroness asked about Lord Leveson’s statement. What did Lord Leveson say? He said:

“I have seen requests for other inquiries and investigations and, of course, I do not seek to constrain Parliament, it seems to me that the better course is to allow this Inquiry”—

that is, his inquiry—“to proceed”. That was done, and the Secretary of State will be able to give evidence to that inquiry in due course. When we have all heard the evidence, it may be that many noble Lords who have spoken today will be eating their words. As to the possible lack of oversight of the special adviser, the special adviser has resigned, having made a fulsome apology and explaining that the action that he took was way beyond the authority given to him by the Secretary of State.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has used this rather particular phrase, that there has been no “grand bargain”, twice now—once at the weekend in his press comments and once in the Statement. Will my noble friend assure us that when the Prime Minister says that there has been no grand bargain, he includes that there have been no small bargains either?

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords.

[Lord Wills]

Can the Minister explain what he understands by the extent of the responsibility of a Minister for his special advisers?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, how can I possibly answer that at this stage? I have not seen any of the evidence any more than the noble Lord has.

[Lord Wills]

I was not asking specifically in relation to this case; I was asking generally. What does the Minister understand by the extent of a Minister’s responsibility for his special advisers?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that is clearly set out in the Ministerial Code. In this instance, one would expect a special adviser to stick to the agreements and instructions they had been given by their Secretary of State.

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster]

My Lords, as the Leader of the Opposition has referred to what I said about this matter, I should like to clarify that if I may, and ask the Leader of the House whether he agrees with it. I have said that the Prime Minister is responsible for decisions about ministerial conduct and for deciding whether a Minister has or has not breached the code. If he has, or thinks he has, sufficient evidence to justify a decision not to refer the matter to Sir Alex Allan, or to confirm the Minister in his position, he is entitled to do that. If he has doubt, he can ask Sir Alex Allan for advice. He is not obliged to take that advice, but clearly the advice will be very important.

In this case, as I understand it, the Prime Minister takes the view that the evidence that comes before Lord Justice Leveson will be more pervasive, extensive and comprehensive than anything that Sir Alex Allan could get. Lord Justice Leveson is not being asked to take the decision about the Ministerial Code. As I understand it, it is being suggested that the evidence given to his inquiry, elicited by questions from counsel and by all the other procedures, is likely to be more comprehensive and more reliable, since it will be evidence taken on oath, than anything that Sir Alex could achieve. However, Lord Justice Leveson is quite right in saying that he cannot take the decision or give advice about the Ministerial Code. The only person who can take a decision is the Prime Minister, and if he wants advice, he will have to ask Sir Alex Allan.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, put his question, and the tone in which he did so will no doubt calm the atmosphere of the House. He described the situation entirely correctly. This is a decision for the Prime Minister. When it comes to disciplining Ministers, the Prime Minister is entitled to make that decision in any way that he wants. Equally, the decision that he has taken, as the noble Lord has laid out, is that the evidence laid before Leveson—in the manner and way in which it will be laid—will be more authoritative and ultimately gain more public acceptance if it is done publicly at the Leveson inquiry rather than secretly by Sir Alex Allan, although I have no doubt that he would do it extremely well. Finally, I agree that Lord Justice Leveson himself cannot make the decision under the Ministerial Code; he has no locus to do so. The Prime Minister will no doubt be able to make a decision once the evidence has been given, and that decision is entirely up to him.

[Lord Borrie]

My Lords, following the very helpful intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, is it not the case that there is no way—as and when the Minister makes his appearance at Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry—that the Prime Minister can ensure that the questioning by counsel will bring out all the vital matters that relate specifically to the question of whether the Ministerial Code has been broken? The Leveson inquiry is a general inquiry into the relationship between the media, politicians, the police and so on and does not specifically address the question of whether the Ministerial Code has been broken. Are the Government therefore not relying on the matter coming out incidentally at the inquiry? The Prime Minister is not even prepared to wait until Lord Justice Leveson gives his report. Like the rest of us, he is simply going to watch what is said on television and so on, which may or may not reveal very much. What is really needed is a specific inquiry on whether the Ministerial Code has been broken.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I reiterate that Lord Justice Leveson is not being asked to take a view on whether the Ministerial Code has been broken. We started all this because allegations have been made in the Leveson inquiry. Surely it is only right and proper for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to be given the opportunity to deal with those allegations by providing whatever evidence he wants. He has laid out the kind of evidence that he will provide, and I believe that it will entirely restore his reputation. During the course of that evidence-taking—and let us remember that this is all about the relationship between politicians and the media—the Prime Minister can take a decision on whether he believes that the Ministerial Code has been broken, and whether to instruct or invite Sir Alex Allan to look into it, or whether to believe that no further action needs to take place. I very much hope that it will be the latter.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, if the leader of the Opposition was playing party politics with his question, what on earth was the Prime Minister doing with his Statement? I have three questions for the noble Lord. First, how does he reconcile what he said about the Leveson inquiry with Lord Justice Leveson’s refusal to get drawn into the Hunt affair? Is it not the case that the Statement that the noble Lord has quoted came at a rather earlier stage of the proceedings? Secondly, the noble Lord has said that the Secretary of State took independent advice when he did not need to, and acted upon it. However, is it not the case that Ofcom advised him to refer the matter to the Competition Commission, which he did not do? Finally, the noble Lord has said that the Permanent Secretary approved the special adviser’s role as a conduit between the Secretary of State and the Murdoch organisation. However, he was decidedly shifty about this when questioned on it by the Public Accounts Committee. The noble Lord said that the Permanent Secretary was aware of the special adviser’s role and was content. Does the noble Lord agree that that is not the same as giving approval?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the Prime Minister was invited to make a Statement by the leader of the Opposition, who was clearly trying to play politics. I do not want to offend the noble Lord, who is a distinguished Cross Bencher, but those of us better versed in the means of politics can see what is going on utterly clearly; it is as clear as daylight. I am under the impression that everything the Secretary of State was required to do during the bid process, he did. He accepted an offer of undertakings by BSkyB, but he referred them as well; and of course when the undertakings were themselves withdrawn, the full referral then took place. As for the role of the Permanent Secretary, I think that I have said everything I can possibly say about that.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the time has come for us to move back into the other debate.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note (Continued)

19:50

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, your Lordships can now return to an equally controversial matter, on which I think the camera has somehow got too close to the subject. I know that there is a general impression outside this House, although probably not inside it, that we are observing the early to middle stages of a power struggle between the two Houses, whereas we are actually in the closing stages of a power struggle between the Crown and Parliament.

The Crown and Parliament are the protagonists on whom we should keep our eye. By “the Crown”, I would have said “the Government”, but when one talks about the Government, one tends to think of what is only a thin veneer of ambitious politicians laid over a vast machine with a collective memory that goes back for centuries and which understandably regards Parliament as something of an obstacle to its objectives. As a Minister, one can detect this in individual civil servants, although I should say at this stage that I am commenting not on individuals but on human nature. However, you find that there is surprise and resentment that some proposal that appears to be eminently sensible to people who are not in touch with the mood of public, which as a Minister one has to be, can be obstructed by the parliamentary machine. The combined apparatus of ambitious politicians and career civil servants has a momentum of its own. The Crown as such has been trying to retrieve the power that it lost to Parliament in the 13th century, and it has retrieved a great deal of it.

One cannot survey the history in seven minutes, but I can give a good illustration of the state of play in more or less contemporary times by asking noble Lords to look at the year of 2005, and in particular to what happened between noon on Thursday 10 March of that year and 7.31 pm on the following Friday evening, which if I have calculated the period correctly is a total of 31 hours. Many noble Lords who took part will remember that the then Government had brought in a Bill with a clause that would have empowered the Home Secretary—in the legislation I think it is the “Secretary of State”—having consulted a single senior police officer, to sign a bit of paper that would consign a British citizen to what was called “derogated detention” for up to 90 days without the intervention of any legal force whatever.

Anything less consonant with British liberty or standards of democracy is difficult to imagine. It was got through the House with a government majority of 131 and was carried by a majority of only 14. We removed the clause and sent it back. Commons messages arrived and then we started on a round of ping-pong. As a result, that draconian measure was subject to very thorough judicial supervision and did not resemble what had been sent to us to start with.

Why was the House of Commons not able to control the Government? I remind noble Lords that Parliament was invented to control the Government. What was the difference between that House and this place? There are four differences. The first is that Members of the other place receive a substantial salary and are in what we would regard as career jobs. As has been alluded to, if you lose your seat you can move on to another, but if you lose your seat you lose your job and your salary. It is certainly true that the Whips have the power to deselect a Member so that he actually loses his job and perhaps cannot pay his mortgage, the school fees and so on. That is it, really. Members of Parliament have to be re-elected to hold on to their jobs, so they have to toe the party line; and if a Government have a substantial majority they actually hold those jobs and livelihoods in their hands. In this House, we are not elected and we do not have a salary. Although I benefit from it, I regret the fact that we now have a certain incentive and an interest that we ought to declare in this debate: if we claim it, we are in receipt of £300 a day for attendance. To that extent our continuance in office is a matter of personal concern, but of course we cannot be turned out, as the others can.

The present Government proposal entails the introduction of a majority of elected people who inevitably will have to be paid large sums of money in the form of salaries, and in effect those salaries will be in the gift of the Whips, if they have to be elected Parliament by Parliament. If we are going to move to something along the lines of what is being suggested, it is essential that the term of office, the tenure, should be for at least 15 years, although I would rather see it set at 20 years.

Perhaps your Lordships would pause to reflect for a moment that it was actually the undemocratically produced House that in March 2005 defended the electorate from a democratically elected Government when the elected House was unable to do so. Therefore, I see no need for election. Further, on appointing Members, I would remind noble Lords that more than 50 per cent of this House was appointed during the prime ministership of the then Prime Minister, and I believe I am right in saying that the Government suffered the largest defeat of any Government since the war. So I am here merely to say: please remember that we are trying to preserve the power of Parliament in the face of the Government, and to do that you need at least one House of Parliament with what the Americans call “tenure”. As it is not available in the other place, we ought to have it here.

19:58

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, this issue has engaged me since the launch back in the 1980s of Charter 88, which called for House of Lords reform as part of a serious rethink of our constitutional architecture. I chaired Charter 88 from 1992 to 1997 and played a role in putting constitutional reform on the Labour Party manifesto prior to the 1997 election.

More recently, I chaired with the Conservative politician, Ferdinand Mount, the Power inquiry, which also recommended the reform of this Chamber. However, I reinforce the point that those recommendations for a change to this House were set against a backdrop of holistic constitutional reform, a recognition that if you want to reform this House that reform will have knock-on effects and therefore should be seen in the wider context of the checks and balances that are needed to make our system work well. You have to ask questions: what is the second Chamber for, and what are its powers?

For that reason, Charter 88 in its manifestation argued for a written constitution, something that I still believe is necessary, particularly as we become a more mature and sophisticated democracy. We continued to argue in the Power inquiry report that there had to be a written declaration of what the powers of this House would be in relation to the House of Commons. If the primacy of the House of Commons was to be maintained, there would have to be some kind of statutory document or concordat setting down the nature of the respective powers.

We also suggested that there should be a regional basis on which this House might be elected. Parliament is at the heart of our democracy and it is vital that it has the confidence of the people. When the Power inquiry went around the country and asked the public what they felt about the House of Lords, they said that they wanted it to be elected. Interestingly, when the follow-up questions were asked as to what kind of membership they wanted, they said that they wanted it to be expert; they wanted Members to have a hinterland and to have experience in many different walks of life; and they wanted to see independence. They wanted in a strange way to square a very difficult circle, because finding an electoral system to produce that is the real challenge. I am not satisfied that the recommendations in the recent reports meet the requirement.

People repeatedly told us that they wanted independence of mind and a distance from party diktat. They were very clear that they did not want any extension of dominance and control by the main political parties. They did not want any reform that brought an increase in the writ and power of the Executive—that is, Downing Street— whichever party was in power. This was not in relation to any specific distrust of any particular political party. They liked the idea that people had a lifetime’s experience in different walks of life and that that would provide a different kind of Chamber from the other. It is here that I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, who asked what kind of person would want to be in this new Chamber if they could not see a progression in their career. What people really like about this Chamber is that it is filled with people who are not professional politicians as we see in the other House.

What people did not want—we should concentrate a little on what is not liked about this House as we congratulate ourselves on our successes—is for the Lords to be used to reward party donations or as payback for services rendered to a political party or Prime Minister in some form or other or as a place of refuge for persons being removed from the House of Commons. They did not want it to be seen as a place to bump someone into to provide a safe seat for a party favourite. I am afraid that those suspicions are regularly reiterated by critics of this House.

There is wide agreement, therefore, about the need for reform. We are too large, and it is clear that there has to be a review of our size and our purpose, but we have to reflect for a moment on how you achieve that. It really is not becoming for us to congratulate ourselves on how terrific we are and on the quality of our debates. It is for others to say whether that is what they think. It is not enough for us to say that we should be allowed to stay here for ever. It is for others to decide on that. We cannot therefore talk about reforming this House without giving the public their say in how it should be done. It is for that reason that I urge that we consider taking a step similar that to that being recommended by the alternative report, which is that there should be some kind of constitutional convention but not in the form that is being suggested, with the great and the grand and the academic researcher being put on it.

The people doing that should come from among the general public. This is not something that has not been considered in other nations. Recently Canada, which looked at whether it should renew its electoral system and change it from first past the post to a proportional system, created a convention made up of a cross-section of its public. There is a clear methodology for doing that. It had proper and full debates, with evidence gathered from a properly drawn cross-section of the public, who in fact all decided that they preferred first past the post to the proportional representation that had been proposed. It is the public who should decide on this and not parliamentarians, who may have vested interests.

The person to whom we should turn is a very distinguished professor of political science at Stanford University, James Fishkin, who with a whole team of people there has developed this deliberative polling system. He has done it for Canada, and he has done it for other parts of the world when presented with constitutional issues of importance. I would advise this House to embark on having his team conduct such a thing here over the next period and advise our political leaders.

The complementary relationship between the two Houses should be at the forefront of our minds, but it is not acceptable in the 21st century for this House to be created through patronage. Power has to be given to the people. We have been enriched, no doubt, by the many people on the Cross Benches who have come here independently and not as part of the party system, but that could still be done under an electoral system. I am happy for it to be 80:20 per cent hybrid House if that is the consensus, but it is the public who should decide and not us.

20:06

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness in debate, especially on constitutional matters, where she has such expertise and knowledge. I want to begin with a personal apology to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. Due to transport problems from Scotland today, I am afraid that I caught only the tail end of his speech, which I very much regret, because I say genuinely that the report that he and his colleagues have produced is a most valuable document for the House, as indeed was the alternative report.

In my seven minutes, I want to say just three things. The first is about what was my own Private Member’s Bill. I say “was”, because once it had been passed by this House, I regarded it as a House of Lords measure, which unfortunately lay unattended in the other place for some seven weeks. However, having registered my fury and the disappointment of the House, I am happy to report that sweetness and light have broken out and that it has been agreed that if a Bill identical to the one that left this House is reintroduced early in the new Session, it will be proposed to be put through the House by expedited procedure so that we do not have to go through all the stages again. When it is sent to the other place, it will be given a fair wind by the Government. I am very pleased to report that. It is important to disentangle that from the wider issues from the wider issues of reform, because it is a measure that we all want now, this year, and not between 2015 and 2025. I look forward to progress on that issue.

My second point is on the Leader of the House’s suggestion that the manifestos of the three parties were remarkably similar at the last election. Well, up to a point, yes; they were also remarkably dissimilar. Of the three, I have to say that I prefer the Liberal Democrat one, because it was unambiguous in saying that we should have a fully elected Chamber. The words “fully elected” are very important because I keep pointing out, especially to my colleagues, that Mr Asquith and the preamble to the 1911 Act never used the words “universal suffrage” or “elected”; they talked about replacing the hereditary House by one based on a popular mandate. I believe that that could be achieved through the alternative report’s suggestion of a constitutional convention and the fact that the committee’s report and the alternative report both gave a nod in the direction of an indirectly elected Chamber merits further consideration.

I have read with interest the pamphlet of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, by Oliver Heald. It does not feature among my regular reading, I must admit, but I thought that it was a very good report. I understand that similar evidence was given to the committee by Mr Billy Bragg, who I think would claim to be on the left of the Labour Party.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am interested in the noble Lord’s support for what has come to be known as the secondary mandate. Should he not go back to Viscount Bryce’s conference of 1917, which essentially proposed that?

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

I am all for digging up older conventions in order for them to be considered by the new one.

I was going on to say that I have looked further at the work of the Cambridge Liberal Democrat, Dr Alex Reid, whom the noble Lord, Lord Low, mentioned, who also came to this conclusion. There is a measure of support across parties for looking again at the possibility of indirect elections. Dr Meg Russell, in her evidence to the noble Lord’s committee, pointed out that 34 countries used this as their method of obtaining a second Chamber. What I did not know until recently was that there is a precedent for that in the United Kingdom. Precedent is terribly important in this House, I know that, and the precedent existed in Stormont. In the old Stormont, the Senate was elected by the lower House, so there is a precedent for doing that here.

There are certain advantages of the indirect election system as against universal suffrage. First, there is a good chance that if the electorate were existing MPs, MEPs and Members of the devolved Parliaments—a confined electorate—we would retain some of the expertise that appointments brings which we are afraid of losing. It would prevent conflict between the two Houses because the upper House would not be elected by universal suffrage. There would be no territorial conflict between senators and MPs because there would be no territorial definitions. The costs would be much less, both of the election and of running the House. Most important of all, the fundamental difference is that it would be possible, if such an election were held every five years after a general election, for the House to be adjusted proportionately without increasing the numbers, which is the way it is already constantly adjusted.

The last thing I want to say is that I disagree with the main report in its recommendation that there should be a referendum. Here I rather agree with what the Leader of the House was saying. To coin a phrase that has not been heard much recently, I agree with Nick. The question of a referendum is dangerous. We have to remind ourselves that the coalition came together for the specific purpose of putting right the nation's finances—full stop. We have not yet succeeded in doing that. We may not have succeeded in doing that by 2014-15 if the present economic situation continues. If we go to the electorate and say, “Okay we have not quite succeeded in putting the country right as we had hoped to do but would you mind voting for a more expensive new upper Chamber?”, they will say to us, “But you've already asked us about a slightly obscure form of proportional representation. You've already messed about with constituency boundaries and tinkered with the National Health Service. You’ve spent months in both Houses reforming the House of Lords and what we want is to get the nation's finances back on a proper footing”. They might say no. They are very likely to say no.

I end with the recollection that I was involved in the referendum in 1979 in Scotland. The late John Smith was a very good personal friend of mine from student debating days, despite our political differences. I remember that the one time we fell out was during that referendum because I said, “You’re daft to have pictures of Jim Callaghan, after the winter of discontent, on posters with the word ‘yes’ underneath. The public are minded to say no to the Government whatever the question”. I that fear the same will happen again and we could end up with nothing at all.

20:14

[Lord Quirk]

My Lords, I join the many, blessedly without even attempting to repeat the views of the many, who have grave misgivings about the draft Bill and would favour only modest, provenly necessary, incremental reform of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, introduced in his Bill, which we are glad to know is back on course.

Of course, everyone here has benefited from reading the report of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I was for example reinforced in my support for our bicameral Parliament that we have enjoyed for so long, at least until such time that the House of Commons can be trusted to scrutinise the Bills that it passes upwards. I welcome the idea of reducing the size of the House of Lords to something under 500. I welcome bringing in a term limit, and 15 years sounds just about right to me although I would prefer this to be done in three five-year bites, which could be manipulated to give the Appointments Commission a bit more room for manoeuvre. I share the strong feelings over Clause 2, as one who welcomes and would go on supporting the primacy of the House of Commons. I note with alarm the words in House of Lords Reform: An Alternative Way Forward that the draft Bill reveals an,

“unbridgeable gap between the election of the House of Lords and the primacy of the House of Commons”.

What I miss in the report is any convincing argument that the proposed massive change would mean that a new second Chamber would be any better than our present Chamber at what the present Chamber does best, which is revising and advising. Just think of the legislation that has passed through this House this year on health, welfare and legal aid. Bills were not only in need of root and branch revision, but they got it and, let us be fair, they got it above all through the intervention of the Cross-Benchers.

Obviously I would say that. I grant that not all the House’s expertise, for which we are famed up and down the land, resides on these Cross Benches. But most of it does. I am astonished at the way in which we have come to expect something like a reduction to 20 per cent of a reduced total House as sufficient to get the kind of expertise that we have at the moment. The hybrid House that we are threatened with would be a very poor exchange for an alternatively revised House in which the independents in fact would form the core, serving and served by a political architecture like at present but smaller, representing the structures of government and opposition. My sense of the national mood is that our people would happily settle for such a House of Lords. I do not think that the people at large are so enamoured of what they currently get in the House of Commons as the result of their democratic vote as to be anything other than perfectly happy to forego the privilege of something similar but of paler complexion in the House of Lords.

20:20

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, when the House debated its proposed reform on 21 June last year, I commented on a single issue: the Parliament Acts. I will do the same today. There are now two issues. The first is whether the Parliament Acts can be used to drive through a House of Lords reform Bill without its consent—the antithesis of a consensual approach. Secondly, there is whether the Parliament Acts will continue to be effective once the second Chamber has an elected element in it.

I proposed to the House and later suggested to the committee that the Attorney-General’s advice be sought. The Attorney-General declined, in the main on the grounds that it would not be,

“appropriate for the Law Officers to advise Parliament on issues relating to the Government’s legislative programme”.

The Attorney-General was not asked to advise on the programme but on a particular draft Bill. I would have thought it highly desirable for the law officers, who can call on the widest possible resources upon which to formulate their views, to assist Parliament as requested. The committee quite bluntly states that it,

“regrets that the Attorney General felt unable to assist the Committee to understand his reasoning in respect of such an important matter”.

If I was Attorney-General, I would be very unhappy to have such a weighty Joint Committee of both Houses pass such strictures. Perhaps the Attorney-General would think again if a specific Bill were brought to his attention. His interpretation, in addition to the weighty legal opinions that he points out exist within this House, would be extremely beneficial to our proceedings.

I set out in my earlier speech the caveats entered into in the opinions of Law Lords in the fox-hunter case, Jackson v Attorney-General, on possible limitations to the use of the Parliament Acts. Despite the caveats, I concluded that,

“the weight of opinion … may well lead towards recognising a considerable supremacy for Parliament”.—[Official Report, 21/6/11; col. 1188].

By “Parliament”, I mean the House of Commons. This preliminary view is reinforced by the more deeply researched and persuasive views of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith.

That aspect in itself was not my main concern, as I said in my letter to the committee. Since the issue is justiciable, courts at different levels have been known to disagree with each other and, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn,

“the courts have a part to play in defining the limits of Parliament's legislative sovereignty”,

does Parliament wish to run the risk in such litigation of the possibility of at least the perception of politicising the courts? I leave it at that.

The second issue, which is more germane, is whether there is any reason why the Parliament Acts could not be used if we had an elected House of Lords. Both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, commented on that and raised their concerns, to put it mildly. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said in his evidence that,

“the better view is that the 1911 Act would not apply in the event that the upper Chamber were wholly or mainly elected”.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, says,

“the vague and general provisions of the proposed Section 2 … do not seem … adequate for that purpose”.

The committee, having considered the matter, concludes:

“If the Government wish to ensure that the Parliament Acts apply to a reformed House, they should make statutory provision for it”.

The alternative report reaches a similar conclusion, and I agree with it. The Joint Committee reports that,

“the Government … placed great reliance on the fact that the Acts will continue in force, and may be used with more frequency, even after the reform is in place”.

This is one of the important building bricks to underpin the thesis that, despite this House being elected, the primacy of the Commons will prevail. If so, why on earth are the Acts not referred to in the draft Bill? This is a startling omission and either the Government do not mean what they claim as regards primacy or it is sheer incompetence. I strongly suspect that the Attorney-General was not consulted on this. I commend the overwhelming view that the Bill should be specific and state that the Acts will continue to play their part as the committee maintains if the reforms proposed ever come about.

20:27

[Viscount Astor]

My Lords, it is worth repeating that this Chamber is the second largest political Chamber in the world, second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress. It is the only second Chamber in the Commonwealth that is larger than the first. It needs reform. But the commendable report from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has shown up the problems of the Government’s planned reform. It is not really the Government’s plan, of course, but a Lib Dem plan as part of the coalition agreement. The Lib Dems want, implemented in three stages, the House of Lords to represent the popular share of the vote, and have never given up on AV despite losing the referendum. But if one looks at it closely, one can see that the law of unintended consequences takes over. A Chamber of 450, on the basis of some of last week’s opinion polls, would have about 45 UKIP and about 10 BNP Members. In fact, UKIP could have more Peers than the Lib Dems. Of course, it depends on what system of STV is used, but the fact is that UKIP stands to gain most, and there is the rather frightening thought that the BNP might for the first time be represented at Westminster. One would have thought that was the very last thing that the coalition would want, but it is difficult to argue that only the main parties should legitimately benefit from PR.

Everyone agrees that this House needs reform, but no one agrees how—elected, appointed, half and half or the many variations of all three. The last Labour Government managed stage 1 reform, getting rid of the majority of hereditary Peers, but never managed to go any further. Labour realised that the sensible solution was to talk the talk of further reform, but do nothing. As we have heard today, that is still their policy. Some in the House of Commons do not see the point of a second Chamber at all, but most agree that the power of the Executive should be controlled by more than just the House of Commons.

The key questions that have to be answered on any proposal for reform of this House are on what its role is going to be and, if it is largely the same, will the new Lords work better or least as well as it does now? The current membership is diverse. Some Members hardly ever speak, which is made up for by the Members who speak all the time. But they represent a wide range of views, with expertise and ethnic, gender and social diversity, and it is difficult to see how an elected House would have the same diversity. The Lords cannot be an absolute mirror of the House of Commons, as then we have an elected dictatorship, with absolutely no check on the Executive. The likelihood is of course that a new elected Chamber will want to exert more power—to block Bills, challenge the concept of financial privilege of the House of Commons, and amend secondary legislation. We would then find ourselves veering toward the American system, which is often gridlocked between the Executive, Congress and the Senate. Some may say, “No bad thing”, as there would be less legislation, but it would be a profound change for this country. The break-up of the union is another complication, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons.

The Government have argued that the people who make the rules should be accountable, but this House does not make rules—we amend. You do not have to be elected to be accountable. This reform is disliked by almost everybody. It offers an elected transition—a hybrid House. The only real defence I have heard in this debate is that if we go on without doing anything, this House will get even larger. There is a simple remedy to that, as my noble friend Lord MacGregor pointed out: a retirement age. As for the elections for a 15-year term, those who have sat in another place tell me that what sharpens up Members of Parliament is not their first election, when neither they nor the electorate know each other, but their second election when they have to defend their record.

[Lord Cormack]

And subsequently.

[Viscount Astor]

And, indeed, subsequently.

The supporters of this draft Bill cry popular democracy, but what we need is popular legitimacy rather than popular democracy. This can be by either an appointed or elected House of Lords but if it were to be under the current proposal, with 80 per cent being elected, the pressure would be to have 100 per cent elected. I very much doubt that the 20 per cent appointed would last more than one Parliament. Following its endorsement in the report, it certainly looks as if the referendum clause will be added in another place. That must be a good idea.

The question the Government have to answer is whether Lords reform, in their current Bill, is worth taking up hours and days of sittings in the House of Commons and in this House, while having the Government’s other Bills blocked in the process. Of course the problem is that if there is a deal to be done, who do they deal with? Neither side in this House controls their Back Benches when it comes to Lords reform but it is clear that constitutional reform should be well thought-out, not cobbled together in some back room—albeit, perhaps, smoke-free this time—as part of an agreement between two political parties. This House should—and does—bring a range of perspectives to bear on the development of public policy, be broadly representative of British society and play a vital role as one of the main checks and balances within our constitution. We provide a voice for the nations and the regions of the United Kingdom at the centre of national politics. More by accident than design, we have managed to achieve that.

The proposed Lords reform is heading for an almighty train crash. I wonder whether sensible voices will be heard down the other end, or whether the train will have to crash before a sensible plan appears. One result of the Labour reform of 1999 is that the House of Lords has become more authoritative and self-confident. We see ourselves as more legitimate than prior to 1999, while maintaining that the House of Commons is the pre-eminent Chamber of Parliament. The result is that this House is not going to allow itself to be dictated to by a lower House if it thinks it is wrong. We will fight to preserve what is best and what works well. When one looks at the current offer, one has to say that an appointed House still comes out on top. In the last Parliament, the majority of another place voted for a fully elected Chamber. Equally, a large majority in this House voted against. We know now that many in another place are having second thoughts. Indeed, there are many new Members there.

When I last spoke on House of Lords reform, I followed the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and as I respectfully disagreed with almost everything that he said I described his speech, slightly tongue in cheek, as a virtuoso performance. I certainly paid the price for that, as I received lots of e-mails from Lib Dems congratulating me on supporting him. Perhaps I can apologise to him for that and say that in case there is any doubt of where my sympathies lie, we should turn our energies not to looking at the Bill in this House but to persuading those in another place to throw out this Bill.

20:35

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am in favour of an elected House—a position I made clear on my appointment. I strongly support the thrust of the excellent Richard report, which we have before us today. I have no intention of using this occasion to argue the case for reform; I shall do that in Committee when we are finally presented with a Bill. I want to concentrate today on the referendum and Clause 2.

I favour a referendum due to what I believe to be a growing resistance to a Bill in the Commons. There is a fundamental dishonesty and artificiality about the debate there. Conservative Members argue publicly for reform in tune with their manifesto, while privately they are strongly hostile. Liberal Democrats are unsettled by the prospect of their coalition partners reneging on the coalition agreement in this area. My own colleagues in the Commons are increasingly uneasy over the emergence of a competing institution. The danger for reformers is that a coalition of the concerned will, for a combination of diverse reasons, set out to block the Bill in the Commons.

Some MPs who have historically supported an elected House on public platforms—in the media, during general elections and even in Parliament—will use any excuse in a desperate attempt to block the Bill. Some will claim to be unicameralists. Some will argue that they oppose an open-list STV system, which they say is the wrong PR system. There are those who will quibble over the 15-year term. Others will argue over the cost of the whole project. Some object to the extended transition period. Many will oppose the hybrid House in an all-or-nothing argument. Quite a few will argue that the Bishops should be excluded. Some have expressed concern about overlapping parliamentary mandates, and there are those whose motives are far more cynical. They want to come here in due course, either because they wish to retire or are to be displaced under the Government’s ill considered proposed reduction in constituencies. That is the real world in which we live. All sorts of excuses are now being deployed in the campaign to block an elected House.

That is why I want a referendum. While I recognise that there are those who support a referendum because they believe that the public will kill the Bill, that is not my view. I believe that supporters of an elected House can win and I am confident in that judgment, as I was in my belief that the AV referendum would be lost. Furthermore, a yes vote would lock Parliament into a position of reform. Parliament cannot reject the judgment of the people in a referendum. The alternative report proposes delaying a national vote, pending a report from a “long grass” constitutional convention. I reject that approach. The talking must come to an end; it has gone on for too long.

The problem is that if the referendum is in the Bill, it will be impossible to secure passage of the legislation prior to the next general election. We cannot allow provision for a referendum to be held up in the logjam of delay over the Parliament Acts. We all know that the Parliament Act will inevitably be used to delay implementation. Indeed, I presume that the government Whips have already factored calculations on extended debate in the Lords and delay under the Parliament Act into their legislative timetable. In my view, we need two Bills running coterminously. I cannot conceive of circumstances in which the Lords would seek to block a referendum of the people; it would be seen as nothing short of self-serving.

Moving to Clause 2, I strongly believe that a constitutional settlement on powers between the Houses is attainable, although I recognise that an elected House will inevitably seek to increase its powers and will probably, in time, succeed. We cannot be naive by failing to consider the possibility of gridlock—that is, unless some constitutional lock can be deployed which impeded that development, allowing the Commons some flexibility to concede greater responsibilities to the Lords over time.

I propose that we turn to the oath and the signing of the undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct which we take when we enter this House. I have raised this idea with a number of colleagues. It has found little support among colleagues in the Lords but has received a sympathetic hearing among some colleagues in the Commons. We enter the House only after taking the oath under the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866. The form of the oath is prescribed by Section 2 of the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 and Section 1 of the Oaths Act 1978. Alternatively, we can affirm. No oath means no entry. The refusal of elected Sinn Fein MPs to take the oath meant that they could not take up their seats. I argue that the oath could be amended to include an obligation to accept the constitutional settlement between the two Houses as underpinned in legislation—both an amended 1866 Act and the proposed 2014 Act—the settlement to include the limitations on the statutory and non-statutory powers as set out in paragraphs 39 and 40 of the committee’s report. The oath could then provide us with a constitutional lock. I am not advocating that an elected Lords could not debate the case for increased powers. However, I am advocating an arrangement under which the Lords would be unable to threaten to delay, or to delay, legislation with a view to securing greater powers. Nor would the Lords be able to initiate an amendment to the constitutional settlement. The process of amending the settlement would be initiated only by the Commons deploying its primacy.

I know that some have written off the proposal as a constitutional nonsense. They argue that it could be challenged in the courts and that Parliament cannot bind its successors, which, of course, would not be the case if the Commons had the powers to amend. However, there is a division of opinion on these matters. I ask only that the idea be considered.

20:42

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, I join those who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee on all the hard work that they have done and, more particularly, those who have worked even harder and more extensively on the committee that is supplementing the work of the Richard committee.

My problem is that the Richard committee was asked to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of a Bill that is fundamentally flawed. The argument is very simple and is put forward by the Liberal Democrats and others: namely, if we have an elected House, Britain will be more democratic. I do not believe that that will be the case. We are already 100 per cent democratic and that democratic legitimacy rests in the House of Commons. If both Chambers were elected, that legitimacy would inevitably be divided and, I believe, would be less effective.

Therefore, there is a very real problem here. The committee faced up to it and decided as follows. The report states:

“The Committee, on a majority”—

I stress “on a majority”—

“agrees that the reformed second chamber of legislature should have an electoral mandate provided it has commensurate powers”.

It seems to me clear that “commensurate” is the wrong word. If both Chambers are elected, the wording ought to be “equal powers”. More particularly in that context, if the upper Chamber is elected on proportional representation, which Mr Clegg tells us is more legitimate than first past the post, we would end up with an upper Chamber that is more legitimate, and ought to have more powers, than the House of Commons. This, clearly, would be a pretty absurd position in which to get ourselves.

I must say that, after the events of the past 10 days, I am more and more convinced that the priority is not reform of this end of the building but reform of the other end. We have had the appalling use of programming at the other end, not only in the initial stages of a Bill, where major issues are not debated at all, but the effective guillotining—not in the old efficient way, but by programming—of amendments from this House, whereby the time allocated for consideration of four amendments was barely as much as the time that this House had spent voting on them. We therefore clearly need reform as far as that end of the building is concerned.

However, it is not true to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown said, that we are creatures of the Executive. We have certainly not been so in recent days, but if we were an elected Chamber we would be much more likely to be heavily whipped, to be creatures of the Executive and to lose the technical expertise that we have at present. I hope that those who were so anxious that we should hear their views on many subjects in the past few days will realise that electing this Chamber is not in their interests and that they will campaign on it, whether or not it be done in a referendum or more generally. They are the kind of interest groups that we have been defending and I hope that they will campaign.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I intervene because the noble Lord mentioned me by name. I want to ask him a question, because the issue genuinely puzzles me. If it is the case that having an elected second Chamber produces the kind of dire consequences that he and everyone else in this place—or at least most people who have spoken—predict, how come about 60 of the other 71 bicameral Parliaments across the world do not suffer these problems when they have elected second Chambers? Is he really saying that our democracy is so weak that we cannot cope with what everyone else can cope with?

[Lord Higgins]

No, on the contrary, I recognise that what is fit for other countries is fit for them, but we have here a unique institution—a highly expert and unbelievably cost-effective second Chamber. Therefore, the reasons that we are putting forward in its defence are the right ones.

I want to come to the crucial point raised by the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, relating to primacy. The committee certainly rejects—not out of hand but after careful consideration—the idea that Clause 2 will carry out the purpose of preserving the primacy of the other place. I am glad to see the noble Lord indicating his assent. I certainly do not believe that it would, but it would be very strange if next week something in the Queen’s Speech said, “Measures for reforming the House of Lords will be laid before you, and we regret the fact that Clause 2 will not carry out the intention of the Government”. We shall have to wait and see what, if anything, is proposed, but it would seem rather odd if the Government were to include anything without having resolved this absolutely crucial question.

My other point relates to the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor—the utterly absurd idea that election without accountability is democracy. The whole basis of democracy must be accountability and, if we have a system whereby a Member can remain here for 15 years without election, there is no accountability whatever. That cannot increase the amount of democracy in this country.

I want to spend just a moment or two on the question of referendums. Throughout my 33 years in the House of Commons, I was strongly opposed to referendums. I take a strong Burkean view that Members of the House of Commons are representatives not delegates. A referendum is the antithesis of that. However, it is the case that on a major constitutional issue it is less appropriate for the House of Commons to act in that way, so a referendum may indeed be more appropriate. My problem is that, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, I am not optimistic that a referendum will produce the right result.

The reality is that the public are unbelievably ignorant about this House and are not likely to understand the way in which we work or the good work that we do. Certainly if you had an opinion poll asking how Members of the House of Lords normally dress, they would reply very simply by a large majority, “They all look like Father Christmas”. There is a real problem here. The press time and again publish pictures of the State Opening, which is composed not of the House of Lords but of many other people who are not in the House. Therefore, if such a referendum takes place, we will have to engage very strongly, despite the splendid efforts already made by the Lord Speaker and her predecessor, to try to publicise the work that this House does.

I am out of time. I end by saying that I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on what he just said, but the Bill that has gone to the Commons from this place is much less than his original Bill. We still need to do far more and we certainly must do something greatly to reduce the size of this House. I hope that we will manage to do that.

20:51

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, I start by stating clearly that I think that this is a bizarre priority at the moment, when we have an economic crisis and massive levels of unemployment and when people are suffering from poverty. However, we are where we are, so I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Richard and his team for the considerable work that they have done on their report.

I say from the outset that I am in principle very much in favour of a fully elected House of Lords. I want to stand by the manifesto commitments to reform put to the electorate by my party and others at the general election. It is right and proper that the people who are able to initiate and amend legislation should be accountable to the people to whom it will apply. The Chamber as currently constituted, whatever its considerable merits, is a complete anachronism. It is undemocratic in the 21st century. It is only through elections that we will preserve and enhance this Chamber’s vital constitutional role.

Arguments that suggest, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”, simply do not wash. That is a recipe for preserving this institution in aspic. It assumes that it is not broken. Even Winston Churchill suggested:

“If we are to leave the venerable if somewhat crumbled rock on which the House of Lords now stands, there is no safe foothold until we come to an elected chamber”.

Several areas of Lords reform are desperately needed. It is broken. In no way can we argue that the current set-up reflects the country as a whole. The underrepresentation of women is not unique to this Chamber, but it needs to be addressed. Likewise, the number of people from an ethnic minority background needs to be increased. The age profile of the Chamber does not reflect society, with an average age of 69 and more than 82 per cent of the membership over 60. Although I accept that with that comes a whole host of knowledge and expertise, it would be very difficult to make the case that we here represent the disparate voices of the whole country.

The south-east is hugely overrepresented, with 70 per cent of Members with a London base. When we have seen a considerable shift in the constitutional arrangements of the UK to reflect growing devolution to the nations of the UK, it is time to revisit our arrangements to ensure that all areas of the country are adequately represented. The suggestion that Members should be elected on a regional basis I would welcome wholeheartedly.

If we are serious about keeping the integrity of the UK as a nation, we need to be serious not just about respecting devolution in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but about moving towards increasing regionalisation in England. Electing Members to the Lords regionally on a basis similar to the European regional constituency boundaries would allow a more balanced picture of our country to emerge in this Chamber. My preferred option would be for the regions to be equally represented, as my noble friend Lord Desai suggested earlier, so that this place really would look and feel different from the other House. In that way, we would be able to respect devolution but take into account the fact that we were seeing an asymmetric development of regionalism in the UK.

The ongoing debate in Scotland on further devolution, and perhaps even independence, is something that we should not duck. Let us not be naive in thinking that the outcome of the referendum north of the border will not have a dramatic influence on the way we are governed across the whole of the UK. The West Lothian question must also be put into the mix—a fact that has probably not been adequately dealt with in the Richard report, given the committee’s tight remit.

Questions are already being raised in Wales and Scotland about the need for second Chambers to scrutinise primary legislation going through those parliaments. Although I would resist calls for new second Chambers to be established in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we have to be able to say why there is a need for a second Chamber at Westminster if there is no need for such scrutiny in those institutions, which also deal with primary legislation. Therefore, I could foresee the possibility of the elected Members of the new Lords Chamber being given the broader remit of being a scrutiny body for primary legislative powers in devolved bodies.

Plenty of people will be asking for this debate to be set in the broader context of trying to establish a grand constitutional convention. However, do we really believe that this will help to move the debate on? If we cannot build a consensus on one aspect of our constitution, what hope is there if we broaden the debate? All parties recently and historically have been guilty of snatching and reforming bits of our policy development and decision-making framework, watching how it goes and then moving on. Despite the shortcomings of this approach, I have no doubt that this is how we will continue to work. That is why I believe that we should use this unique opportunity with all three main political parties making a commitment to further reform the institutions. I would not want to see us pushing this reform into the long grass.

What kind of people would be attracted to sit in the second Chamber? What kind of Members do we want? To a large extent, the make-up of the new Chamber will be determined by the political parties, but I have real concerns that the pool from which parties can choose candidates is particularly small. It will be incumbent on parties to try to be more creative in the way that they select candidates. Political parties should be encouraged to seek out experts and attempt to place them high on their party lists, as happens in continental parties. This is one reason why I would be in favour of a closed list system. The Government should be allowed to draft in experts as Ministers, who should be given a temporary seat in this Chamber.

One question that I have been asking myself is: what would it take for me to put my name forward to stand for this Chamber? There are, I am afraid, some serious shortcomings in the proposition as it stands. For me, one of the key problems is the length of the mandate. I guess that that probably sounds a bit odd, as I have accepted a life peerage, but let us be clear: an elected mandate would put Lords representatives in a very different position. The implication is that they would have a full-time role and that it would be possible to hold an additional job only if they were appointed Peers. I am afraid that the practicalities of that if you are not based in London just demonstrate once again the London-centric approach to the reforms.

I believe that people of my generation who are talented and ambitious would be extremely reluctant to accept a 15-year mandate. My generation has not been brought up in a job-for-life culture and I believe that many would feel too restricted by a 15-year tenure. The longest legislative term among elected legislative Chambers today is eight years. If we wanted to attract people of my generation to stand, we would need to ensure the introduction of a closed party list system so that, if someone were to step down, that person would automatically be replaced. However, that would cause all kinds of problems for any independents who stood and would send out the bizarre message, “This is a 15-year mandate—unless you want to break it”.

The second point is that it is very difficult to envisage why someone would want to put their name forward for a reformed Chamber that did not have decision-making powers. Surely the most talented would be attracted to the House of Commons, so we would probably end up, once again, with an older Chamber that does not reflect society.

Clause 2 of the Bill needs to be amended. Enough experts have stated the position on that. I believe that, at the point when we insist on Peers being elected, that would represent a significant shift in our constitutional arrangements and as such would require a referendum. The public should be the arbiters of how they are to be governed. I have confidence that the British public would support such a move.

It is fair to say that none of us believes that any of this is going to happen quickly. Indeed, even if the current proposed timetable were respected and the first new elected representatives of the second Chamber were elected in 2015, it would be 13 years before we would see the 80 per cent elected Peers in place as proposed. In the mean time, I believe that there is an urgent need to follow the advice of the Constitution Unit in its recommendations for immediate action: an immediate moratorium on Lords appointments, to be lifted only when the number of Members has dropped below 750; allowing retirement from the Lords, as proposed by the House of Lords Leader’s Group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt; and any future appointments to be put on a more transparent and sustainable basis, with the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission determining how many vacancies exist and inviting nominations from the parties.

I thank the members of the Joint Committee for their considerable work and I look forward to a long debate on this issue.

21:02

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, like most of my colleagues in the Liberal Democrat Party, I am a strong advocate of a fully elected second Chamber and constitutional reform was one of the reasons I joined the Liberals in 1974. I share the frustrations of those who have gone before us, in the preceding 150 years, in finding it almost impossible to make this Chamber directly accountable and transparent to the people of the United Kingdom to whom it is answerable.

Walter Bagehot, in 1867, in his seminal book, The English Constitution, on the nature of constitution and the functioning of Parliament, reported:

“A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it”.

In those days, the Lords were noted for their opposition to any kind of reform such as the great Reform Bill earlier that century, and 100 years ago your Lordships’ House was certainly not in favour of women’s suffrage, a point noted by my noble kinswoman Baroness Stocks of Kensington and Chelsea, a suffragist who marched on Parliament during those turbulent years. Indeed, I remember her description of your Lordships’ House in her autobiography, My Commonplace Book, when she joined it 50 years later: she called it her “eventide home”.

The House of Lords has no age of retirement and it has already been pointed out that the average age is 69, with more Members over 90 than under 40. When I was introduced last year, my family was told that I would be called “young Brinton”, something that my children still find hilarious. More worryingly, Peers may be removed only by an Act of Parliament and those convicted of serious crimes may return after serving their jail sentence, subject, as we know, to specific votes of the House, but that is only ever a temporary measure.

That brings me back to the issue of perception. Like my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, I have faced sixth forms and public meetings with questions that demonstrate that many, probably the majority, have no real idea how we arrive here, or even what we do. Lords of the Blog, tweeting and other more modern methods of communication are beginning to help. However, when it is explained to them, most people are clear that they want reform, because they cannot understand why, in the 21st century, we have a House of Parliament that is not elected. This was confirmed in a number of polls, most recently a couple of weeks ago in a BBC poll for “World at One” that showed that nearly seven out of 10 people wanted an elected House of Lords and a referendum of the people. Given that all three major parties supported reform of your Lordships’ House at the last general election, the case is unassailable. As for a referendum—if it is the will of Parliament, bring it on.

I recognise that it will be impossible in this House to reach consensus on reform. Despite my preference for a 100 per cent elected Senate, I believe that the report of the Joint Committee presents Parliament with the best available option to move forward. It would be better to achieve significant reform now and move on to the final stages of reform in the future. Now is as good a time as any—otherwise, no time, ever, will be good.

The core issues in the report that Parliament will have to tackle concern primacy and the nature of the work that a reformed House would undertake. We heard much earlier today about the need for clear conventions to ensure clarity about primacy. The proposals in the report do that. The regional constituency basis of election will create a very different Member to the traditional Commons MP. A regionally elected House of Lords—even without a specific embargo on individual casework—would be unlikely to draw casework to its Members; but with that rubric written in, it would be straightforward. I also draw noble Lords’ attention to the relationship between MPs and MEPs on casework. MEPs, too, are elected on the proposed regional system. There are no great fights over casework. In fact, most people automatically go to their local MP on local issues and their MEP on wider, strategic issues.

Secondly, the single term of office means that Members of a reformed House will not be worried about their own re-election; and election by thirds once every five years will ensure that the Commons will always have the most up-to-date mandate. Revisions to the Parliament Act might be necessary, but people speak as if that is an impossible thing, which is not the case. It has to be possible to adjust all the parts of the constitution that we need to while undertaking major constitutional reform.

Your Lordships’ House is rightly regarded as having considerable expertise in reviewing and scrutinising draft legislation. Indeed, if there were no second Chamber, the Commons would need to rethink how it operates because, given time constraints, it cannot provide the level of detailed scrutiny that this House undertakes. This must remain a key function of a reformed House, and I see no reason why an elected House could not carry this out as effectively as the present one.

I conclude by returning to the argument for reform. Once inside the Westminster bubble, it becomes comfortable to argue for the status quo because we can see the benefits of the present system. However, as a fairly recent arrival to your Lordships’ House, I say that the quaintness of the traditions, no matter how well grounded they are in our history, makes us seem part of the problem of politicians being distant from the people. To be placed here through patronage starts to build an invisible wall around us. Title and deference quietly reinforce the construction, and a lack of accountability bangs the door shut.

As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that we must break down those walls. No matter how excellent is your Lordships’ House, I am with Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who in 1905 said:

“Good government could never be a substitute for government by the people themselves”.

Let this report and the draft Bill move forward so that we can, 107 years after that statement, take the firm steps towards accountability and transparency that are the bywords of any good, modern democracy.

21:09

[Lord Howard of Rising]

My Lords, like many of your Lordships, I find it amazing that the other place could even consider making this House an elected or indeed partially elected Chamber. This would only increase this House’s legitimacy to the point where it would have the right to challenge the power of the other place. I do not know whether reform of this House is, yet again, a piece of red meat thrown to the wolves to distract them or whether this urge by the House of Commons to pursue a course of action which will do it so much harm is the same urge for self-destruction which has led it to surrender so much of its authority to the European Union or is a wish to introduce more democracy into the government of this country.

If it is a wish to improve democracy, then I suggest the other place starts by taking a good look at itself. I shall quote from a distinguished Member of the other place.

“Every bill now has a ‘programme motion’ setting out how much time can be spent scrutinising and debating each part. These are automatic guillotines, and the time allowed for scrutiny is set in advance, before anyone can see whether or not a particular issue is contentious or complex. Watching a Minister in the Commons drawing out one point for an hour to fill the time, to an audience of dozing backbenchers—this is not accountability. How has the mother of all Parliaments turned itself into such a pliant child? If we’re serious about redistributing power from the powerful to the powerless, it’s time to strengthen Parliament so it can properly hold the government to account on behalf of voter. The House of Commons should have more control over its own timetable, so there is time for proper scrutiny and debate”.

Those words were written by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. May I respectfully suggest that parliamentary time would be better spent restoring the ability of the House of Commons to hold the Executive to account than in messing about with this House, a matter for which there is no public desire or interest?

Time is the chief weapon of opposition. For an example of how effectively this weapon can be used, we need only look back to the Parliament (No. 2) Bill in 1969, an occasion when a proposed reform of this House was seen off by talking the Bill out.

As my noble friend Lord Higgins commented earlier, constantly programming Motions and imposing timetables increases the power of the Executive to the point where, in practical terms, the role of the other place is reduced to that of a cipher.

My message to this unelected Government comes from the Bible:

“How canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye”.

21:09

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I have not come with a text this evening. I think we owe the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his crew—if I can put it that way—a great debt of gratitude for clarifying the issues. However, I am rather afraid that the debate tonight has shown that, as a whole, this House is no further forward. Veterans of this debate will know that I am a pretty unreconstructed supporter of the democratisation of this House and of the process of election to it, and I am so for the reasons expounded by my noble friend Lady Morgan just now, although she alarmed me somewhat by reminding me that I am nearly the average age of the House now; earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott; and by colleagues on these Benches.

At the beginning of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who is still in his place, said that not a flicker of consensus was revealed by the Joint Committee report and the alternative report. The debate tonight shows that there is not even an empty matchbox of consensus here. We are where we have been for many years: gridlocked on the options. The majority opinion in this House is obviously against democratisation. Some of it is now being justified on the grounds that we should legislate for function before form, and to some extent I agree. Perhaps slightly strangely, I find myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, to some extent, although he starts from a different position and comes to a different conclusion.

Almost all the arguments seem to be about the relationship between this House and another place, and the composition of this place, when the real constitutional issue ought to be about the relations between the legislature and the Executive. This gets confused partly because in the media people often talk about the House of Commons when they actually mean the Government. Within the clear roles of legislature and Executive, there needs to be some differentiation between the roles of these two Chambers.

As far as the relationship with the Executive is concerned, I am a strong believer in a strong state—unlike some members of the coalition—but a strong state requires an ability to deliver effective, high-quality legislation, good administration and general good governance. To do that, I am afraid that it needs a stronger legislature to challenge it than we have had in recent years. I have been here under four Prime Ministers and the same applies in all cases.

If we are moving to election for this House, there is a very clear and differentiated role for this House compared with the House of Commons. An elected House of Lords that is engaged in heavy scrutiny and that has a revising role and the general ability to hold the Government to account—through, I hope, more powerful Select Committees—performs a different role from the House of Commons, which provides the Government and decides on the broad structure of policy. Of course, an elected House of Lords would not have power over financial matters. Here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown; I do not think it would have a veto over a declaration of war, for example. However, it is possible to define what powers this elected House would have, and its role and function, and to differentiate those from the role of the House of Commons.

I think we all agree that, frankly, the Government have their head in the sand if they deny that election of this House will not change the nature of the relationship between this House and another place. It is also a gross exaggeration to say that the primacy of the House of Commons is not compatible with an elected House of Lords. This is not an unbridgeable conflict. A clear and new definition of relations between the Houses, once both are elected, is vital. I accept that it is difficult, but it is hardly impossible. After all, over two-thirds of all other bicameral jurisdictions find a way of doing it, although not all in the same way and not without periodic difficulties, and have done so for many decades and, in some cases, centuries.

I think we are also all agreed that the attempt in Clause 2 to redefine this relationship is completely insufficient and rather pathetic. Relations at present are defined in statute—to a limited extent, in relation to the Parliament Act—in conventions, in understandings, in procedural mysteries via the usual channels, and in various other ways that are pretty much unknown to the general public. Codifying the Cunningham conventions and cross-referring to them in statute is not a solution; nor is it a concordat, which is itself only a codified convention.

We have to define the different roles and functions here in primary legislation. At present the Parliament Acts statutorily define and limit the Lords’ powers, and they need to be explicitly reiterated in this Act or modified to meet the new situation—I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon on that. Even the financial privilege is not reflected in those Acts and by statute. In view of recent events, that would require further definition as well. Removing the inhibition of the House of Lords because of its non-elected status would indeed make us a more assertive Chamber, but only in the areas that the statute would then define as us being responsible for.

The argument against putting all that in the statute book is limited. It seems that if you did so it would be justiciable—in other words, judges could challenge the operation under that part—but that is also true if you cross-refer to conventions and concordats in primary legislation. In any case, we are not in the United States. We would not have a Supreme Court that struck out actions by the Government or that struck out legislation on the grounds that they are unjustifiable. I know that even the present statutory base is challengeable in court; I, after all, had a major role in the Hunting Act, and the use of the Parliament Act in that respect was challenged by several people. Luckily, the judges saw sense in that respect, although others may disagree. Nevertheless, in general the judges would not override the clear will of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. We would also need to set out a clearer pattern of dispute resolution. Again, institutionalising ping-pong is not impossible.

I have other concerns about what is in the Bill and the report. I have concerns about the electoral system and the length and non-renewable nature of the proposed term, as well as concerns about the means of culling—I apologise, I mean the running down of—the current membership of this House. I have opinions about the survival of the Lords spiritual, which I will not go into because they have all disappeared tonight.

My central point, and the central point about how we proceed from here, must be that, as far as the public are concerned, a lot of these esoteric arguments about the role of the House of Lords and the House of Commons are not relevant. From change, the public want to see improvement in government. If they do not, or they are not convinced that the change that we have proposed will bring about improvement in government, we will not get a vote for it in a referendum. Inevitably, whether we want it or not, we will go for a referendum. Whatever we do with this Bill when it emerges after the Queen’s Speech, we must ensure that the final outcome is better governance and that we are not quite so esoteric and inward-looking within this Palace of Westminster.

21:21

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Whitty has just spoken about what the public expect. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, spoke about the importance of telling the public what we do. They are both right. Outreach is one way in which your Lordships’ House communicates with the public. I have participated in the outreach schemes since they started several years ago. I have spoken about this House, and taken questions, not only at many schools but also at regional WI conferences, Rotary meetings, business conferences and political meetings. Rarely am I asked about legitimacy and reform, although I am asked about diversity and experience.

However, if there is one threat running through all these meetings, it is that people have high expectations of us. They have such expectations because we are appointed. It is to satisfy those expectations that we need to be very careful about the reform of your Lordships’ House. I am in favour of reform and, eventually, an elected House, if that is what our powers, duties and functions, as my noble friend Lord Whitty spoke about, require. But I also agree with my noble friend Lady Royall. I am in favour of taking the steps when they have been properly thought through. It is then that we will satisfy the high expectations that the public have of us.

Sadly, the draft Bill presented to your Lordships and considered by the Richard committee does not satisfy these expectations. It speaks of objectives but rarely speaks on how to achieve them. The call for evidence listed in appendix 2 of the Richard report is, in effect, a list of these shortcomings and, quite rightly, the committee is asking people to help them to do the Government’s thinking for them. Both reports point to many inadequacies, about which noble Lords have spoken. In particular, they have spoken about the primacy of the House of Commons in Clause 2. As regards appendix 7, in the supplementary written evidence on Clause 2 from Mr Mark Harper, he agrees that the Government have not thought matters through and asks the committee to do it for them.

The Richard report and the alternative report point to many other areas where the objectives have not been properly thought through: the relationship with the other United Kingdom assemblies; necessary changes in the House of Commons; the honours system, separate from membership of the House; differences over numbers; conflicts in the constituencies; and the accountability of elected Members. Many noble Lords have added to this list and, as a result, the suspicion must be that it is political expediency which is driving this reform, not wisdom—a suspicion that both reports attempt to rectify, but something which the public do not expect from this House.

I am in favour of reform but, because of the difficulties we are debating, I am in favour of dealing with it incrementally through a series of small steps. They should be steps which have been properly thought through, such as the proposals from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about reducing numbers, and from the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on discipline and reforms to our procedures. When these small steps have been taken satisfactorily and the other matters properly thought through, that is the time for a referendum. Of course there should be a referendum on such a major constitutional change, but only when the smaller steps have been taken and shown to work, and when the other more major changes have been properly considered and decided. Otherwise, a referendum will be a fiasco because it would be seen as a way of covering up for inadequate thought and preparation.

I join my noble friend Lord Lipsey and other noble Lords in their concern about costs. We all know that making changes without a budget ensures not only that costs will rocket, but that the intended changes will suffer. Yet the costs are not spelt out—and this from an austerity Government. The alternative report tries to deal with it. An analysis on the fullfact.org website raises a number of serious queries, and using the Freedom of Information Act it is trying to get the Government’s costings. I look forward to the Government providing the House with a proper budget by which we can hold them to account so that we can judge the value and appropriateness of the expenditure.

I add my thanks to those given to my noble friend Lord Richard and his committee for the report, and to those who have written the alternative report. Both are valuable contributions. However, neither really settles the old arguments about our duties and whether election equals the legitimacy to carry them out. A recent Hansard Society report tells us that the public have become less engaged in politics and more suspicious of politicians, which is hardly the right climate in which to devote our attention to an elected House. So let us take the small steps, think through the big steps and explore whether there is a consensus. We will then carry the public with us because, after all, we are here to serve them.

21:28

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and his considered words. I am very much of his view that we should seek more incremental change. He reminds me of an occasion when I sat next to a colleague of his over tea one afternoon. She told me that my father had visited her primary school many years ago, and how important an experience it was to have a Member of the House of Lords come to her school, take an interest in what the children were doing, and talk about the Lords. One of my concerns is that with the publication of a Bill of this kind, we may be forced to look inwards and so do less of that kind of outreach work. Indeed, I have the honour to be a co-chair of an inquiry into the issue of children who run away from local authority care. We have heard from some good witnesses. However, unfortunately I was not able to attend a meeting today because I felt that I had to take part in this debate. Noble Lords have only so much time. I share the concern expressed by others about the current austerity.

I thank, as many others have done, the members of the Joint Committee and its chair, and particularly my noble friends Lord Hennessy and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for their work on the report. I am grateful also to the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and her colleagues for their alternative report.

As many Peers have said, we are in a time of extreme austerity. We are hearing of ever more of our citizens having to depend on food packages. We hear that further significant cuts in welfare payments are possible. It is a difficult time. We know that we need more growth in the economy if people are going to find employment, yet we also need to secure the confidence of the investment markets to avoid having to pay higher interest rates. Those are huge challenges for us. Is this the right time to take on this huge challenge in this House and to devote so much of our time and energy to this area?

I shall concentrate on the powers of your Lordships and the primacy of the other place. Two things in particular come to my mind. The first is the example of bickering parents—parents who are so busy getting at each other, trying to assert their own will against another person, that they neglect their children or allow the strongest child to bully the other ones. I am also reminded of an old story about an old king who decides to divide his power among his three daughters, which seems to him a very good idea at the time. However, he comes to realise that he has given up something which leads to great pain for him and his family and great conflict within the nation that he runs. A comment is made upon him: he only ever slenderly knew himself. The suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and others of a conventional assembly to dig down further into these issues is important, because I would hate us to enter into something which might undermine our ability to make the changes that we are in a good position to make to the benefit of our nation.

My father took his seat in this House back in the 1930s, during the time of the depression. He was immensely privileged, being an Etonian and Cambridge and Oxford-educated. He wanted to use those privileges to help people without those sorts of leads, much in defiance of his family. I share with him the thought that we are extremely privileged, particularly in this place, and we can make a huge difference to the most vulnerable in society. However, if we lock ourselves into constant conflict with the other place, we are in danger of losing that capacity. Let us think about children’s homes. In the evidence to the inquiry in which I am involved on children who run away from care, we hear from the police a familiar story: that there are a few poorly run children’s homes from which children run away again and again. I am afraid that there are possibly gangs of men who are looking at those homes and thinking about what they can do with some of those children. This is such an old story; it needs to be sorted out. I know that the Government are thinking about instituting an inquiry into such children’s homes and trying to do some good work in that area, but if we become so engrossed in this discussion about what we do and who we are, we are less likely to be able to give time to such work. This Government and the previous Government have done a huge amount of good work in improving the status of social work, which has involved many different measures. To pursue programmes of that kind is challenging when we may be involved in such self-obsessed expenditure of energy.

Let us think of the benefit to lobbyists of seeing two Houses that are about equally strong. I have in mind tobacco lobbyists, who have been so effective when they have wished to oppose tobacco legislation going through this House on a number of occasions. They had deep pockets. A former Secretary of State had been on the board of directors of British American Tobacco, for instance. They used all sorts of means to lobby very effectively. If the upper House is as strong as the lower House, we give them a second bite at the cherry in which they can frustrate such legislation as putting plain packaging on cigarettes or preventing children seeing cigarettes in newsagents.

I think also of examples in the United States. President Carter won a mandate from the public to pass laws to restrict energy consumption at the time of the oil crisis, but that was frustrated. There were so many checks and balances to which that legislation was subjected that he could not make it work and he could not win his way. Again, President Clinton’s health reforms were frustrated even though he had a mandate from the public.

I encourage noble Lords to look at the oral evidence from Dr Meg Russell to which the noble Lord, Lord Steel, referred. There are some important points there. In particular, she notes that nobody expected the authority of this House to be as strong as it is now, following the removal of the hereditary Peers. We are a far more assertive House than anyone expected, according to her. We need to think very carefully how much more assertive we might be if we were an elected House and not simply an appointed House as we are today.

21:36

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, we have in front of us today two very fine reports. They are both very well written, which makes them easy to read and understand. However, I have one secret wish: I hope that perhaps they will be the last reports on this subject for a decade or two.

The more closely one looks at these coalition proposals for House of Lords reform, the more they seem to resemble the eurozone. First, the design of both contains the seeds of their own destruction. Secondly, they both look as if they may result in the humiliation, or worse, of their architects. Thirdly, the most enthusiastic supporters of both have been among the Liberal Democrats.

I focus on only two of those seeds of destruction. The first is the use of the guillotine as a parliamentary instrument, which has already been referred to by others. In my years as a parliamentary lobby correspondent, the use of the guillotine was a media story. It was usually a story of political conflict and the inability of the Government of the day to resolve important legislation and disputes by debate. The guillotine was an instrument of last resort. It was not there to prevent or inhibit parliamentary debate but to limit and contain the use of parliamentary obstruction.

I am afraid that it was Mr Blair, for whom I have much respect, who introduced the guillotine as routine for virtually all legislation. It was not long before the effects on this House became obvious. An avalanche of ill-digested legislation, much of which had been subjected to little or no scrutiny, descended upon us. Of course, the production rate of the House of Commons was hugely increased, but the quality of the output fell.

I had assumed that the lesson had been learnt and that a new Government would scrap the routine timetabling of Bills. To my disappointment, and not to his credit, Mr Cameron has perpetuated this bad practice. Far from improving the presentation and quality of the legislation, it has got even worse. Our efforts have been even more needed to knock it into shape. How long would it be before an elected senate was subjected to a guillotine? It would then be another stepping stone towards the elective dictatorship that the great Lord Hailsham warned us against. We will watch with fascination to see whether the House of Commons allows the Government to timetable this Bill if it is introduced.

The second seed of self-destruction is the anti-elitist argument so widely used by advocates of the replacement of the House with an elected senate. Provided that elites derive from open opportunity, ability, achievement and merit, they are an essential ingredient for all organisations, including Parliament. If there were a criticism, it is perhaps that we are not sufficiently elite. In my view, the anti-elitist culture of recent decades has done much to erode the quality of our Civil Service. To insist that it is more important for Civil Service recruitment to reflect the diversity of Britain rather than be drawn from the ablest of Britain is counterproductive to what it is there for. The superb quality of the 20th century British Civil Service stemmed from the 1855 Northcote-Trevelyan reforms which substituted competitive examination for patronage.

I doubt whether France, with its politicians, would have survived as well had it not been for the unashamed elitism introduced by de Gaulle through ENA. I remember that years ago, in order to write about ENA, I went to interview its director, Monsieur Pierre Racine. He was remarkable man. I said finally to him, “How is it that you get such marvellous people all wanting to come to ENA?”. His answer was, “Well, because they end up running France et ça c’est amusant”.

One problem is that MPs are so inadequately remunerated. In my view, they should get a salary of about £100,000—about what a GP gets. They should be freed from the arrogant and insulting invigilation of IPSA. IPSA behaves incredibly badly and will quite soon have a serious effect on people wanting to be subjected to that sort of treatment. To invite people to give up 15 years of their lives for £50,000 a year, and subject to IPSA, is hardly going to entice the ablest young people to divert from other careers or enterprises to service in the new second Chamber. Nor are many of those approaching, or who have reached, the pinnacle of their careers likely to be tempted to stand for most of the remainder of their lives as virtually full-time Members of an elected House. I say “virtually full-time” because, even with 450 members, 90 appointed places would not provide anything like the depth or width of expertise and experience which the present House provides.

This really is a potential disaster. In the history of doomed enterprises, it brings to mind the advances of Napoleon and Hitler on Moscow, and the recent repeated attempts to subdue Afghanistan. Fortunately, even if there is reference to the Government’s draft Bill in the Queen’s Speech, it will not be too late to pull the plug on this ill-conceived and rather sordid coalition deal, and perhaps revert to the sort of package of reform referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. Of course the House of Lords is anachronistic, as is much of our constitution, but it is none the worse for that. I was very surprised when my noble friend Lord Ashdown kept telling us about the strange collection of countries—Belarus and other places like that—that we should emulate. I would suggest that they have not quite got to where we have. Our constitution has evolved over at least 1,000 years since the days of the Witan—that body of notables which advised the Anglo-Saxon kings. What an honour it is to be a Member of a descendant of such a body. I believe that, far from being undemocratic, the present House of Lords underpins our democracy, which is and I hope always will be in the House of Commons.

21:45

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my friend the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, but I shall take a different line. Like my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, I am a member of the Campaign for a Democratic Upper House, and I very much follow his analysis.

I mainly want to record my support for the Joint Committee’s endorsement of a democratic second Chamber, with an electoral mandate and commensurate powers, so ably navigated by my noble friend Lord Richard, and a lingering degree of surprise that the principle should still be so contentious. I have quite often found myself advocating causes not shared by others, but I would never have dreamed that the election of even part of one Chamber of a modern democratic state legislature might become one. I think that future centuries will look back at proposals to cling to an entirely appointed Chamber as an extraordinary aberration. Opinion polls confirm this. Some may even find it a betrayal of all those who fought in the struggles for emancipation over our history.

It is also the case that I quite often do not agree with the Government, so I am also surprised to find that to a degree I may, with reservations, somewhat agree with them over the Bill. But then, I am not sure that the Government agree with the Government, so I await with interest the Minister’s reply. Of course, constitutional change needs fundamental thought; the preservation of the primacy of the House of Commons needs to be worked out with great care. But evidence to the Joint Committee has laid out sensible and authoritative ways to do that. There is also the idea of a binding oath suggested by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. The nature of the mandate also needs thought, but the report provides a good starting point, and I do not doubt that our native capacity for innovative and practical constitutional thinking will be equal to this task. But the timidity evinced by some at the prospect of reform will need reassurance at various levels.

I would like to say a word about the alternative report. I find it slightly misleading. On primacy, for example, the alternative report says that it cannot be maintained with an elected Chamber. A majority of the committee felt that the remaining pillars on which Commons primacy rested would be sufficient to ensure its continuation. None the less, it is agreed that a means should be established to define and agree the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses by means of the adoption of a concordat. The alternative report calls for the same outcome in the light of the Cunningham committee as the Joint Committee proposes, but it simply ignores the principal mechanism recommended for securing agreement. It therefore adds nothing to the committee’s recommendations while ignoring the solution that it proposes.

On costs, the Joint Committee rejected salaries for transitional Peers and for office and staffing costs for personal case work. The effect of that is to remove £264 million from salaries for the transitional Peers and considerably cut down the £186 million estimate for office costs. So it is not quite as it seems in the alternative report.

Finally, the alternative report claims that the Joint Committee gave no material consideration to alternative means of dispute resolution—clearly, a very important point. The Bill does not give any material consideration to that but the report does, in paragraphs 369 and 370.

There is just one other aspect which the Joint Committee might have looked at. It is a second-order question, but I am concerned that the term Senate will have different associations from what the committee recommends. Could we not have a term of our own, such as a state council? I thank the Joint Committee and I hope that, when we come to the Bill, we can move forward on its conclusions.

21:50

[Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on his labour of love in chairing this demanding committee. I also thank my colleagues, my noble friends Lady Scott of Needham Market and Lord Tyler, who were members of the committee and worked long and hard. It is a very useful report as far as it goes, but that is not very far. We might have anticipated this, given the purpose and terms of reference of the committee, and its membership. In the introduction to the report, we are reminded of the principal milestones in the long march since the 1998 White Paper and my noble friend Lord Wakeham’s royal commission. The 15 divisions tell the story of substantial failure. Instead of a consensus on a matter of the highest constitutional significance, the committee was often seriously divided.

Since the royal commission, opinion has, however, moved on the primacy of the House of Commons. At least, my own perception of it has. What is much clearer now, given the report and today’s debate, is the inescapable challenge of an elected or partially elected House of Lords to the Commons. I share what other speakers have said on the importance of paragraph 34 of the report, which states:

“The Committee is firmly of the opinion that a wholly or largely elected reformed House will seek to use its powers more assertively”.

It adds, in paragraph 35, that:

“The Committee considers that a more assertive House would not enhance Parliament’s overall role in relation to the activities of the executive”,

and, in paragraph 55, that:

“We concur with the overwhelming view expressed … in oral and written evidence that Clause 2”—

the crucial clause—

“of the draft Bill is not capable in itself of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons”.

I also note that David Howarth, my Liberal Democrat former colleague in the Commons and now a reader of law in Cambridge, said in evidence on Clause 2 that it “is just silly”.

In a previous debate on 22 June, I said that the House of Lords and the House of Commons were,

“joined together in a single Parliament. The balance of powers … works very well despite some rough edges. After scrutiny, debate and negotiation in Committee, including … ping-pong, the elected House of Commons … wins, and so it should be”.—[Official Report, 22/6/11; col. 1267.]

Despite the report and the valuable evidence, and what we have heard in today’s debate, I remain firmly opposed to a wholly or partially elected House. That was my view when I joined this House 20 years ago, and since then it has been broadly the same. Perhaps I may say again, especially to my colleagues on these Benches, that 13 years ago I wanted to end then the hereditary principle in the House—quite a different matter from election, but a major reform. Alas, my then leader in the Commons, my noble friend Lord Ashdown, did not see it that way.

At no time have I justified the status quo. Given a non-elected House, I could be happily persuaded by a number of important further changes, given a relaxed open choice in details across the parties. I would be content to have 400, 450 or 500 parliamentary Peers. They could serve for 15 or 20 years and retire at 75 or 80. As for the Lords spiritual, having read 24 paragraphs and seven recommendations in the report, I could support 12 Bishops, only two—such as the two we have seen here today—or none at all. I would not be upset if those who remained in the second House became Senators. For me, these are all tolerable options.

What should happen as 22 or more men and women sit around the Cabinet table and try to agree the final draft of the Bill to reform the Lords? Perhaps they should push the Bill through both Houses, through thick and thin, in a clean sweep. Perhaps they will be attracted by the alternative way forward, which was drafted as a minority report, of setting up another committee to examine the conventions between the two Houses. Perhaps they should split the Bill, proposing important changes but stopping short of an elected House, with a further legislative stage some time ahead in the next Parliament or beyond, as I would prefer. Above all, as Cabinet Ministers sit there, they should have at their elbow that enjoyable autobiography of Rab Butler, The Art of the Possible. The coalition, which I strongly support, is passing through hard times, as are my Liberal Democrat friends. It should remember that politics is the art of the possible and think of priorities for the nation and the voters in these difficult economic and social years.

21:57

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, we are told that all three manifestos claimed that the reform of the Lords was a priority. However, no one voted for the coalition. Were you a voter, which none of us is, you could not have found a party that thought differently. Then I ask myself, “What did we in the Conservative Party say in our manifesto?”. I had a quick look at it and I see that we committed ourselves to,

“work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber”.

I congratulate my noble friend the Leader on the Front Bench. He has worked tirelessly to find such a consensus. When challenged this afternoon, he tried to define a consensus—not very convincingly, I have to say. The fact is that there is no consensus, but we can give him 10 out of 10 for hard work, and he has met the manifesto commitment.

When I look at the team promoting the Bill, I note the depth of experience of the leading voice and the Minister of State. Both have served for seven years in the House of Commons. One of them has never done anything outside other than politics; the other had a career in the world of finance. However, I do not think that the commitment of two colleagues from the other place with 14 years’ experience—experience that was never without guillotines, incidentally—is something in which to have much faith in terms of leadership.

Perhaps I am being too party political, but it seems that the hidden agenda behind part of the drive, particularly, dare I say it, from our Liberal Democrat colleagues in the coalition, is to have proportional representation to ensure that there is a lock on what this House does from the Liberal Benches. Frankly, I do not want that to happen. The country voiced its view in the referendum on the alternative vote. It was not at all in favour of it, by a majority of more than two to one, so we already broadly know what the public’s view of the electoral system that is being considered for the Bill is.

I looked at the report in some depth. I will not repeat the passages from which my noble friend Lord Rodgers quoted, but I will pick on just two paragraphs. Paragraph 40 is the original statement of the primacy of the Commons. As it states, that goes back to the resolutions of 1671 and 1678 that:

“all aids and supplies, and aids to his Majesty in Parliament, are the sole gift of the Commons; and … ought not to be changed or altered by the House of Lords”.

After all, in case we forget, that was what the civil war was about. That was the whole purpose of Parliament’s rebellion against the king. Dare I mention that Parliament reigned supreme at the battle of Naseby? That was the catalyst for democracy. That is the fundamental reason why the Commons has supremacy. Why did the Commons decide to have a Chairman of Ways and Means? It did so simply because it did not trust the Speaker to deal with financial matters. That role has continued—I had the privilege of being the 58th holder of that office—and should and must continue. A Member of the Commons should continue to exercise that control over money matters.

The other paragraph that I think is of great importance is paragraph 45, which concerns Clause 2. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred to that this afternoon. It is pretty damning that the Government wanted this Joint Committee and set it up, but the committee records that:

“The Minister declined to share the Government’s Drafting Instructions for Clause 2 with the Joint Committee, on the grounds that such Instructions were subject to legal professional privilege”.

Frankly, that is amazing. I had the privilege of chairing the body that took the Maastricht treaty through the other place. The process took 25 days and there was no guillotine on that Bill. It became law in the end, although it was duly amended. I have searched through my notes on that procedure and there was no problem then with the so-called legal professional privilege. Therefore, I wonder why legal professional privilege has suddenly appeared as an excuse for not providing data to the important Joint Committee.

As several Members have said, we are in the depths of probably the worst recession that we have ever experienced. There is turmoil in the Middle East, threats from Iran, North Korea, Argentina and al-Qaeda and the very real danger of the euro collapsing. Frankly, the coalition lacks confidence at the moment and certainly the public have no confidence in our Government. Yet the priority, apparently, has to be the reform of your Lordships’ House. You only have to open any paper of any sort to pick up the public’s feeling on this issue. A headline in the Times states:

“Kick this shambolic reform into the jungle”.

Another headline in the Sunday Telegraph states:

“The House of Lords is working fine—don’t fix it”.

A letter to the Evening Standard has the headline, “Keep Lords unelected”. Another letter to the Evening Standard has the headline:

“Should we have to elect Lords?”.

The “Letters to the Editor” section of the Telegraph bears the headline:

“A reformed House of Lords would gobble up power and pick a fight with constituency MPs”.

We do not want that, do we? At least, I certainly do not want it. Frankly, this Bill is a real test of the leadership of the Commons and, by definition, of the Prime Minister. He and his colleagues must decide where their priorities lie.

Furthermore, the Bill must not be guillotined or subjected to any timetable Motion. I hope that the Commons will ensure that we go back to the old system that a constitutional Bill is held on the Floor of the House and that every single Member of Parliament who wishes to do so can take part. I say to my former colleagues in the other place that they need to think long and hard about safeguarding the primacy of the Commons against the very real threat that would come from elected Peers. I am afraid that it will also be a test of the leader of the Opposition, Mr Miliband. If he is a leader, he will act in the national interest and vote down the Second Reading and get on with rebuilding his party and providing good alternative government leadership. However, if the Bill should get a Second Reading in the other place, I would see it as my duty to try to defeat it. If necessary, I will support a referendum.

The Leader asked this afternoon: what on earth could the referendum question be? Just as a suggestion, it might be: “Is it a priority for you”—by implication the elector—“that the House of Lords becomes mainly elected at a cost of at least £200 million a year?”.

22:05

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane]

My Lords, that seems to be an excellent question. I open by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and everyone on his committee for a thorough report. It was narrow in its remit, but it therefore focused on the issue. The committee did as good a job as anyone could in such a short space of time.

It would also be churlish not to acknowledge the part played by the Government in this. I genuinely congratulate the coalition Government on bringing a draft Bill before the House. I recall an exchange between the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and, I think, my noble friend Lord Grocott, on this side. The noble Lord taunted my noble friend with the fact that Labour had failed to bring forward a Bill, and that the coalition Government were going to do so. He was as good as his word. They have done that, and it was a courageous decision to do so. I mean that sincerely, but also in the sense in which Sir Humphrey means “courageous” when addressing Ministers in “Yes Minister”, because the fact is, when you look at the Bill, you can understand Jack Straw’s reluctance to bring one forward. It is a shambles of a Bill. One cannot think that the Government will proceed with it. After all, they set up a Joint Committee of both Houses to look at the Bill, and it has shot it to pieces—at least on its principal conclusions. It would therefore be wholly inappropriate simply to ignore the findings of the Joint Committee and proceed with the Bill.

The problem is that it is very easy to have one White Paper after another, one consultation after another, cabals of Front Benchers, and everyone thinks elections are a great idea. “Elections” is a banner that is easy to march behind, but when you get to the destination and someone delivers a speech on the draft Bill, you find that that support disaggregates at an alarming rate. Take the first decision: in an effort to try and avoid competition with MPs if people were to be elected to this place for five years, the proposal is, “Right; make it one term only for 15 years”. You immediately destroy any accountability whatever. One of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, was crying for was that this place must be made accountable. A term of 15 years would not make us one whit more accountable than we were previously.

The great problem is that that will not achieve even the purpose of preserving the primacy of MPs, simply because of the democratic dynamic. If I were to stand for this new House, how would I differentiate myself from the other candidates to secure election. What will my manifesto contain? What am I going to promise to do? If I promised to do anything, then forget seeking re-election, I would want—even to preserve my reputation—to achieve what I had promised to do. If I needed powers to do so, I would horse-trade my way to get them. You cannot have an election without people demanding more powers to fulfil the promises they make to the electorate. You cannot square the circle, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, put it earlier.

I think that one of the reasons why the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, found his colleagues in the House of Commons getting rather alarmed about this Bill was precisely the finding of the Joint Committee that Clause 2 was wholly inadequate in protecting the primacy of the House of Commons. That is not going to do much for MPs in the House who, in the case of Scottish MPs, already feel threatened by the devolved powers that MSPs have, and possibly the total loss of their raison d’être if Scotland goes fully independent. It will not allay the fears of MPs who, facing perhaps prominent elected mayors, can see their own importance as city MPs dwindling slightly. No wonder that there are alarm bells in the House of Commons.

Do not mistake me; there is a good case for an elected House of Lords. It is just that it will not be an elected House that is anything like the present one in its relationship with the House of Commons. There is nothing that would stop it being at least equal—if it is elected by a different system, possibly superior—to the House of Commons

As somebody who is against election, I fear the results of a referendum. I think that a lot of the public, for an entirely wrong reason, will say, “We want a House of Lords that is more powerful than the House of Commons. We will vote for an elected House of Lords”. That is very unfair to MPs, because what is wrong with House of Commons is not the individual MPs but the system. It starts with their election. Are people elected to control the Executive or to become part of them? With a payroll vote of more than 100, no wonder there is no scrutiny of legislation. At least another 100 want to be part of the payroll vote, so they are bought off as well. Nothing is properly scrutinised in the Commons.

Somebody mentioned costs. I do not want to go into great detail on costs but just to add a few points. Whatever the figures are, they will be 50 per cent more if the recommendation of the Joint Committee is accepted by the Government, as I think it should be. One presumes that the Government have done some costings—if they have not, they are guilty, because they should have done—so they are not telling us, possibly because they are scared. In my view, the costs have just gone up by 50 per cent.

There is the inequity point, which my noble friend Lord Lipsey mentioned. Transitional Peers will still get an allowance while the newly elected Peers will receive a salary. The comparison is worse than the one he suggested. Apart from the fact that the transitional Peer will get an allowance only on the days on which he attends, the elected Peer will receive a salary for 15 years whether or not he turns up. If somebody says to me, “Ah, but if he doesn’t turn up, we will recall him”, that is fine, but please put that in the Bill. Watch how many MPs love the idea of being recalled by constituencies every now and again.

There is a further point which your Lordships will forgive me if I make as a Scot. Will an elected Peer receive an allowance to cover the cost of living in London, as I understand that the Joint Committee recommends? That is a novel idea that would certainly appeal to those of us who come from Scotland and who bear the cost from our own pocket at the moment. Will that disparity remain?

There are two more important points about cost. First, the electorate will think, “Hold on. This House of Lords used to get an allowance. Now we are making them salaried they must be more important than they were or doing different things”. The House of Lords will appear to the electorate to be more important than it was. That might be a welcome thing, but I am not sure that the House of Commons would welcome it.

I invite my noble friend Lord Richard to reflect on a further point—this apparently clever idea that we will not give allowances for doing constituency work. You cannot stop an elected Peer doing constituency work. All it means is that the rich Senator will be able to do it and the poor Senator will not—hardly a great democratic option.

Generally, I think that this is close to a Eureka moment. We cannot square the circle of election and subservience to the House of Commons. I do not think that we will see a Bill in anything like its current form before us. That is because I hope that the Government, who presumably set up the Joint Committee to listen to its findings, will genuinely take account of what they hear and realise that they should ditch the fundamental points of the Bill and instead proceed with some meaningful reforms which are in it and are adumbrated in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the evidence submitted by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.

That is what I hope will happen. If it does not, I do not think that the Bill will get through the House of Commons. People do not remember that a majority of Labour MPs, even in 2007, at the height of the “cash for peerages” scandal, voted against 80 per cent election. A bigger majority of Conservative MPs voted against, despite the fact that it was in the Conservative manifesto. Since then, what have they seen? They have seen the growth of power elsewhere. One can only presume that the Government gave Clause 2 their best shot but they have also seen a Joint Committee of both Houses say that the protection is meaningless, despite any assurances that may be given, and I am sure that the Whips will say, “Oh, we’ll fix it; don’t worry”. Incidentally, I really did not like the idea put forward by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours of dealing with the issue of primacy in the oath. Why not put a provision to support the Government in the oath and then we could really get to a police state rather more quickly? Anyway, I do not see Peers going for it. The position has become slightly rockier since 2007 for various reasons, and I think that the House of Commons will defeat the Bill.

I do not want this matter kicked into the long grass. I want somebody to get out a lawnmower, clear a plot of ground and give the idea of an elected second Chamber a decent burial.

22:16

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, I do not think that I can add much to that, so I shall go off in a different direction. I think that we are now galloping towards the Becher’s Brook of constitutional reform, and matters are, unsurprisingly, pretty confused. Perhaps this is inevitable. The confusion and discomfort arise because many noble Lords and many others want an elected House of Lords because it will have greater legitimacy. However, they do not want it to have too much legitimacy because that might challenge the primacy of the Commons. This ambivalence, to which there is no very easy solution—perhaps no solution—has been with us for a century, and it is manifest in the fact that we have not one but two illuminating reports on the draft Bill, with a near even split of members of the scrutiny committee supporting each.

Of course, we are not alone in this confusion; I fear that the public are with us. I have often asked members of the public whether they would prefer an elected House of Lords. Typically—although a good deal less often recently—the answer has been, “Yes, it would be more democratic”. I then ask, “So more like the House of Commons?”, to which I get the answer, “Oh, no. Not like that!”.

A point that I do not think has received sufficient attention in the discussion of reform of your Lordships’ House is that, as party-political loyalties and affiliations have waned in the country, people have increasing ambivalence about the parliamentary results of democracy. I think we need to pay much more attention to the reality that the public may want more democracy in the abstract but they do not want more party politics—certainly not as they see it on television.

From that perspective, the fact that this House actually discusses legislation, with some courtesy and some care for the most part, is pretty important. Scrutiny is, after all, about reasoning, challenging, listening and keeping an open mind, and, whatever else we do, we need to make sure that a future House is genuinely designed to continue and to carry these tasks. However, the draft Bill concentrates on the process by which people arrive as Members of your Lordships’ House but not on the powers and functions for which they are responsible when they get here. It deals with the abstract question of the process of arrival but says little about how changing that process is likely to alter the membership.

It is less than clear that there would be as wide a range of experience and expertise on the party-political Benches of an elected House. Campaigning for election places great strains on any career, and I expect that a number of distinguished noble Lords on the political Benches might not have taken the electoral route to your Lordships’ House if it had been available. At this moment, I catch the eye of the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I think that he might be one of them, together with many other distinguished medical colleagues. If we come to debate the Bill, we must therefore try to gauge whether future elected Members will in fact still be eager to engage in scrutiny in the way that the process of this House demands, assuming that its role is unchanged.

It may be said that the draft Bill takes account of these demands in considering the retention of a proportion of appointed but non-party-political Peers, selected, it is often said, for their expertise—in effect, supposedly successors to the independent Cross-Bench Peers. No doubt like other noble Lords, current Cross Benchers bring such experience and expertise as we can muster to the task. However, our role depends fundamentally on something different—not on experience and expertise but on the fact that we are unwhipped. There is plenty of experience and expertise on the party-political Benches but they are in a different position because they are whipped, and although they do not always vote the party line, that is nevertheless the default position. While there are sufficient numbers of unwhipped Members Governments obviously have to attend to the reality that they might lose an amendment. They have genuinely to engage and to think, and scrutiny then is possible.

So I think that the unwhipped Members will remain important, if there are any. However, it will be said, “The problem is that they will not be elected”. Again, that is not obvious to me. It is not obvious to me that it is impossible to have independents who are elected. Would it not be possible—it is not considered by either report from the scrutiny committee, but I think that it has some parallels perhaps with suggestions made earlier today by the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston—for a statutory independent commission, and I do not say Appointments Commission for a reason, to nominate a list of potential independent Peers which was then presented to the electorate? Of course such Peers would not be elected for constituencies; and their election would be on a closed list basis, which the scrutiny committee—rightly, I think—rejected as a basis for constituency elections.

Election of independents would, however, have to meet two conditions. Those nominated would—this is the easy condition—have to be demonstrably free of party-political connections, and have been free for a considerable period, using the criteria currently used to distinguish independent Cross-Bench Peers—as noble Lords know, not all who sit on the Cross Benches are independent Cross-Bench Peers—or perhaps stronger versions of those criteria. Secondly, it would have to be open to the public to cast a vote for any political candidates who were candidates in their constituencies or for the independent list. The electorate would have to have a choice. This would have the effect that the proportion of independents elected could vary, and it would have the effect that the House could be wholly elected.

I hope that those noble Lords who are keen on an all-elected House might take up this thought, and that they will not let themselves be deterred by fears that the party-political proportion of the membership of the House might fall below 80 per cent if the electorate were so minded. That would surely be the proper test of commitment to democracy, rather than to party politicisation. A test of this proposition: would those noble Lords who are campaigning for a wholly elected second Chamber balk if it does not guarantee a party-politicised Chamber?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for allowing me to intervene before he starts his speech. Noble Lords may find it helpful if I remind the House of the guidance time of seven minutes. If all noble Lords were able to stick to that time, we should be able to conclude the speakers list well before 1 o’clock this morning.

22:24

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the report of the Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. I will also examine the alternative report, produced by 12 out of the 26 members of the committee, which I particularly welcome. I noted the very important comment from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, earlier, that he and his committee were not starting with a clean sheet of paper. The draft Bill had to be the starting point. He also carefully emphasised that certain paragraphs were only passed by a majority, which in some cases was very small. Even the proposal for an elected House was passed by only 13 votes to nine.

I am not in favour of an elected House, unlike the majority on the committee. An elected House would undoubtedly want more powers than the current House. I agree with paragraph 4 of the report’s conclusion that this would not benefit Parliament’s overall role. There would be more scope for gridlock in legislation. An elected House would want more powers, for instance with regard to financial matters, and this should be borne in mind by the other place. Financial privilege, too, would be a much more contentious matter. I support the alternative report’s very sensible conclusion that if there is an elected House, as per the Cunningham report, the conventions between the two Houses would have to be examined again.

I move on to the subject of the primacy of the House of Commons. The inclusion of conventions in Clause 2 of the draft Bill could mean the courts deciding what these were. The committee, as many noble Lords said, also stated that Clause 2 of the draft Bill alone was not capable of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons. I agree with the committee’s view.

The size of the House was the next topic brought up by the committee. Its proposal of 450 Members was more sensible than the draft Bill’s number of 300, but I would rather see it achieved by the elapsing of time than by this radical reform. The idea that appointed Members should not have to attend as often as elected Members seems wrong.

The electoral system recommended is a form of proportional representation. It allows voters to cast a simple party vote or express preferences among individual candidates across parties as well as within them. The report prefers the version of STV used in New South Wales to the one in the Bill. As I understand it, that means compulsory voting. STV is also complicated. In addition, as the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, explained so well, the 500,000 size per constituency is ridiculous. Non-renewable terms of 15 years are proposed by the report, but how will MPs feel when they face an elected parliamentarian with a 15-year term rather than their own five-year one? Not very happy, I imagine.

I move on to the paragraphs on the Appointments Commission. I cannot understand why the commission has been so long in coming, given that we first encountered it in the House of Lords Bill 1999. However, I have two criticisms of the report. First, in paragraph 248 there is not enough detail of the areas of expertise needed: in particular, of areas such as manufacturing, finance and other professions. Secondly, it appears bizarre that paragraph 257 of the report states that appointed Peers should serve for an initial period of only five years, although with the ability to be reappointed up to the maximum limit of the elected term. Why should we not have the confidence to give them a full 15 years?

On the role of the bishops, I agree with paragraph 62 of the conclusion to the report that there should be no reserved places for bishops in an elected House. I also agree that their numbers should be cut to 12. I concur with paragraph 65, which states that the Appointments Commission should consider faith as part of the diversity criteria that it has recommended. The disqualification criteria in the report give different rules for appointed and elected Peers. It seems strange to treat Members of the same House in different ways.

I move on to the Parliament Act section in paragraphs 83 and 84 of the conclusion. It is very interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, believe that a court might rule that the Parliament Acts did not apply once the House of Lords was reformed. This would be a serious change to the balance of power between the two Houses. I agree with paragraph 368 of the main report, which states:

“In spite of the Government’s confidence, distinguished lawyers have some doubts as to whether the Parliament Acts would continue to be effective once the second chamber was elected or largely elected”.

The last main issue of the report that I will cover is paragraph 385, in which the majority of the committee agreed that the Government should submit the decision to a referendum. I was very supportive of this happening in the case of the House of Lords Act 1999—although the amendment did not succeed—and I support it now.

The alternative report has an extremely sensible conclusion not covered in the main report. It is that the Government should establish a new constitutional convention to consider the next steps on further reform of the House of Lords and any consequential impact on the House of Commons and on Parliament as a whole. While the draft Bill is faulty, the Steel Bill, as amended, could be brought to the statute book.

Overall, I am not in favour of an elected House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has produced some very interesting figures on the extra costs of a reformed House, and we have to rely on them because the coalition has refused to produce its own figures, which is a disgrace. On page 61 of the alternative report we can see an estimate of the total extra cost in year 1 of £177 million, and from 2015-2020 of no less than £433 million. Can the Minister break new ground and give the coalition’s estimate? Is this a wise use of taxpayer’s money at this very difficult time? Indeed, is this a wise piece of legislation when there are so many more important issues affecting people’s lives in these difficult economic times?

22:31

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, the late noble and learned Lord Bingham said in his 2009 Jan Grodecki lecture,

“for over a century the future of the House of Lords has been regarded as a problem. Our belief in the power of reason generally leads us to believe that all problems are amenable to a rational solution if sufficient thought is devoted to them. But there is in truth a small category of problems which are not amenable to a rational solution, and the problem of reforming the House of Lords while preserving its present form is one of them. That is why, despite an immense outpouring of time and talent, no solution has been found”.

A few years ago, I had some responsibility for this policy area. When I met Lord Bingham after his lecture, we had a lively discussion that left a very deep impression on me. Although I will be supporting my party on this issue, I am very pessimistic that it will ever happen, as there is clearly no consensus, so I want to make sure that although, tragically, the noble and learned Lord is no longer with us, his thoughts are represented in the record of our debate today in case we have to return to this issue, as I fear we will, in future years.

In my contribution tonight, I will follow Lord Bingham and his lateral thinking about this issue. I am going to suggest two things: we should use this opportunity for a constitutional moment of reform to make the House of Commons more effective as a legislating Chamber and, since the Lords does invaluable work as a revising Chamber and in the work of its specialist committees, seek to enhance that contribution by creating what Lord Bingham called the “Council of the Realm”.

It is clear from the huge number of discussions and debates we have had on this topic that the main issues which bedevil any discussion of how to reform your Lordships’ House are the reform of its composition and the interrelated but different reform of the powers of the Lords. On composition, we are not the only country to be having problems about how to organise our second Chamber. A recent report has suggested that,

“few democracies were content with their second Chambers, and that many were engaged ‘in an apparently incessant dialogue about how they should be reformed’”.

That sounds familiar. It continued:

“The reason why so many countries are unhappy with their second chambers is that there is a problem of a very fundamental kind in creating a second chamber in a modern democracy, especially in a non-federal state. A second chamber needs to be based upon an alternative principle of representation to that embodied in the first chamber. But what is that principle to be? How can the same electorate be represented in two different ways in two different chambers?”.

Our House of Commons,

“represents the principle of individual representation. What alternative principle should the second Chamber represent?”.

As Lord Bingham was quick to point out, the irony is that the current composition of your Lordships’ House enables it to evade the conundrum of finding an alternative principle of representation to that used for electing the House of Commons. This is a point I want to return to.

On powers, it is arguable that, for most practical purposes, one of the main consequences of the Parliament Acts has been to produce unicameral government in Britain. I say that because it is patently clear that the Lords cannot effectively resist the legislation of a determined Government. This effect is magnified by the coalition, and we have seen this Session that the Government can whip their legislation through both Houses without much difficulty. The truth, as Professor Vernon Bogdanor has said, is that the Parliament Acts have, in effect, ensured that Britain has not developed a strong bicameral legislature. What we have is a unicameral system with two Chambers. The consequence is that this unelected, and hence undemocratic, House spends a great deal of time doing what the House of Commons does not do well enough: ensuring that the Government’s legislation is fit for purpose, making government more efficient, but, in essence, within a unicameral system, albeit across two Houses. Surely we should try to sort that out first.

In 1975, a former Conservative Leader of this House, Lord Windlesham, wrote that,

“the House of Lords should not attempt to rival the Commons. Whenever it has done so in the past it has failed, and usually made itself look ridiculous in the process”.

He goes on to argue:

“In any well-tuned parliamentary system there is a need and a place for a third element besides efficient government and the operation of representative democracy. This third element is the bringing to bear of informed or expert public opinion”.

In other words, was Lord Bingham right to suggest that if one could make the House of Commons do its job more effectively, one possible future role for your Lordships’ House would be to provide a forum in which “informed public opinion” can take shape, and that we should do more of what we are already good at: providing a space for the deployment of special knowledge and the representation of interests not otherwise present in the House of Commons?

In his lecture, Lord Bingham suggested that since it was not possible to come up with a rational reform of the House of Lords, what should happen is that the House of Commons should do what it is elected to do and the House of Lords should become what he called the “Council of the Realm”. I would prefer pinching the ancient title of the Privy Council, but whatever it was called, the council,

“would differ from the House of Lords superficially in that membership would involve no outdated pretence of nobility, and it would differ fundamentally in having no legislative power. It could not make law. It could not … obstruct the will of the Commons”.

Its power would be to recommend amendments, which the Commons would have a statutory responsibility to consider.

According to Lord Bingham:

“The Council would, however, resemble the House of Lords in crucial respects. Its members, appointed not elected, would be very much the same people, and the same sorts of people, as now make up the house. It would perform, but in an advisory and not a lawmaking way, the revising function it now performs. Its expert committees could function much as they do now. It could debate issues of public moment”.

Future recruitment would be by appointment, by a statutory appointments commission, with a remit to ensure wide experience, broad representation of interests, and gender and diversity balance. Lord Bingham suggested that,

“the number of members would be governed by the need of the Council to be able to call on members with knowledge and experience in politics but also, and particularly, in the multifarious fields which fall to be considered in a complex modern state … In this way, the most valuable functions of the existing house could be preserved”.

but the clever point is that what was referred to as,

“the features of the house which fuel calls for reform could be eliminated”.

Of course, more detail is required to flesh out this proposal, but as it neatly sidesteps many of the difficulties likely to be faced by the Government’s draft Bill, I hope that Lord Bingham’s thoughts may at some future point be considered worthy of consideration by your Lordships’ House. At the very least, we should keep in mind his view that there is,

“a small category of problems which are not amenable to a rational solution”,

and recognise that neither of the two excellent reports, nor the Bill likely to be before us shortly, provide that elusive solution.

22:38

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I am privileged to have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for almost two years now. In that time, I have lost count of the number of times people have urged that the House of Lords should prevent Bills passing and that, despite being an unelected Chamber, we should prevent the elected Chamber from delivering its programme. As we know, this reflects in part a lack of understanding of the role of this Chamber. We exist, and must continue to exist, to revise and to scrutinise legislation, not to challenge the primacy of the House of Commons.

Too much legislation reaches us without proper scrutiny having been undertaken. It would be unthinkable for there not to be a second Chamber in which such revisions can be made. The role of this Chamber must remain to revise legislation for consideration and confirmation by the elected Chamber, but it does not follow that a wholly or partly elected second Chamber would inevitably end up competing for primacy with the House of Commons, as has been claimed.

I was impressed by the submission of the Hansard Society on this matter. It argued:

“The different electoral system, term lengths and limits proposed for the reformed Lords, coupled with the constitutional reality that it is the Commons from which the government is formed and where it must sustain confidence, should underpin the primacy of the Commons”.

I concur with its thinking and, with an agreed concordat and the codifying of Lords powers and conventions as proposed by the Electoral Reform Society, it is entirely possible to prevent the potential for conflict.

I believe instinctively in a 100 per cent elected second Chamber. It is hard to see on what basis it can be democratic for this Chamber to be unelected. When we revise Bills we are inevitably legislating and, in so doing, we should have a clear democratic mandate for what we do. I do not accept the argument that House of Commons primacy takes care of democracy, because the House of Commons cannot do everything. The House of Lords influences and amends Bills significantly. In so doing, it should derive its power from its own democratic mandate.

However, I am very conscious of the independence of thought and the expertise that comes from the system of nomination to this House. In particular, the Cross Benches provide an essential antidote to domination by party politics. For that reason, I would be very content with a House in which 80 per cent of its Members are elected and 20 per cent are nominated by an independent appointments commission. With 450 Members altogether, the present culture of this House could continue with no party in majority control.

To prevent domination by one political party requires a system of proportional representation, as recommended rightly by the Joint Committee. But the use of proportional representation is vital for another reason. In 2000, the royal commission concluded that there was a need to ensure greater representation from some of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. In the 12 years since then, little seems to have changed. Of the 614 Members of this House who have registered an address as their main residence, only 74 are in the north-west, Yorkshire and the north-east. The north-east has 16 Members, Yorkshire has 27 and the north-west has 31. If we add the 15 Members from the East Midlands and the 23 from the West Midlands to the 74 from the north of England, just 112 Members of this House are from those five English regions. That amounts to just 18 per cent of the total when they have a population of 24 million, which is almost 40 per cent of the UK. These figures compare with 273 Members from London and the south-east—some 44 per cent of the total membership, but with a population that is seven million fewer. An electoral system for 80 per cent of the membership of this House based on proportional representation would go a long way to putting right this serious anomaly and would ensure that this Chamber reflects the nations and regions of the UK.

Finally, public opinion is strongly behind reform. A recent YouGov poll showed 69 per cent in favour of reform of the House, with 33 per cent wanting a fully elected second Chamber and only 5 per cent wanting the status quo. The British Social Attitudes Survey has found that one-fifth of people would prefer to close this House down altogether. Therefore, we need to think very carefully about what the public feel because I do not think that trying to maintain the status quo, as some would like to do, will work. Parliament needs to listen to the general public on this issue and to act accordingly, which is why any proposed constitutional change simply must be backed by a positive vote in a referendum. It will not be enough to rely solely on three party manifestos.

22:43

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, one can wait for years for a report to come along, then two arrive at the same time. I should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and all those concerned with the Joint Committee report and the alternative report. The default position for supporters of the draft Bill is that it is needed because of our democratic deficit. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, who compared us earlier today to Belarus—or was it Baluchistan or Bahrainistan? Anyway, he was very angry about it and proclaimed that our country’s democracy is in terrible danger, so why not let us give this democracy thing a go and wander down the path to see where it leads?

The first thing to be said about democracy is that it is not simply about voting. Lots of countries have voting, but that does not make them democracies, and if voting were the answer we would already be in Camelot. Over the past 20 years we have elected more politicians than at any time in our history, yet the other day Hansard Society reported that political disengagement and disillusion in Britain has reached record levels. But, we are told, we have got to have more of the miracle cure—more elected politicians because the people want them, including an elected Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has just told us that opinion polls prove the point. But that leaves me wondering, if opinion polls are so meaningful, why, for instance, do we not bring back hanging or get out of the European Union? Democracy can be a funny old game and we should kick it around with care.

Rather like the committee, I wonder why those who speak loudly about the merits of democracy are so often the same voices raised to deny the people their say in a referendum. I seem to recall spending much of last year being whipped through the Lobbies to vote for dozens of different referenda for every new EU post from dog catcher to crèche convener. We have the money to spend on all that, but we have neither the time nor, it seems, the will to ask the people about one of the most significant constitutional changes in a century. The committee saw this as being profoundly inconsistent, and it was right.

As so many noble Lords have pointed out, we are in the midst of a double-dip recession, yet here we are with a Bill that proposes to shove still more taxpayers’ money down the throats of politicians. Is that really what democracy is about? Ask the Government how much more money and they come over all coy and refuse to answer. They have not worked out the sums, so they say, perhaps because the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has got there first and exposed just how costly this Bill would be. But let us not argue too much right now about the odd few hundred million; I am sure the people will understand what good value an elected second Chamber would be. However, my suspicion is that high up the list of democracy’s demands is for a Parliament that is above board and honest, or at least reasonably so. I am long enough in the tooth to know that no Parliament is ever painted pure white, but if you were to ask the people which of this country’s Houses of Parliament has a reputation for scandal and sleaze and self-interest, they would not be pointing the finger at this end of the building.

There is another awkward little thing. Democracy demands a Parliament that makes sound laws: government for the people. But what the people seem to get as a matter of course nowadays is something totally different: legislation that starts off being ill-conceived then goes on to be ill-considered as guillotines chop their way through debate and sensible discussion—at least until it gets to this, unelected, Chamber of Parliament. If there is a democratic deficit in our system, it is not at this end of the building. Yet the cry goes up: let us have elections, more elections. Where will it stop? Should we elect our judges too? There is just as much logic in that. Or should we even elect our monarch? Suddenly, voting does not seem as much fun or so necessary.

There is one final argument that gets used to establish this Bill’s democratic credentials, which is that it was in all three party manifestoes. I have an admission to make: I am a Conservative. In the 18 or so words with which this matter was set out in my party’s manifesto—widely read from end to end of this country, I am sure—it called for consensus. That is what I feel bound to and that is what, over the coming months, I will do my best to achieve. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee have spelt out just how difficult that will be, but we must live in hope. And while we are struggling to achieve consensus, we can leave the Government to concentrate on their own noble struggle to dig us out of our economic mess.

The hour is late, so let me conclude. I am very keen on the reform of this House, but this misbegotten draft Bill is not it. The Bill will not do, and it is so demonstrably flawed that it will not go through. The people will not understand, nor will they forgive, if the Government waste months of parliamentary time on this self-indulgence when they should be putting their interests and future first.

22:50

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, to be listed at 53 in the batting order is not just a new experience but a promotion for me. However, if the exercise was a cricket match, I would by now appeal against the light.

I am sure that the House is grateful to the Joint Committee and its contributors, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who led their work. Unlike other attempts at Lords reform, this debate is informed also by what is described as the alternative report. I have to disclose that, on balance, my preference goes to the latter for reasons that I shall explain later.

The authors of both reports will have recognised that some of these issues were last explored by the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords led by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham—here I declare an interest as a member of that commission. The issues were as clear then as they are now: the need for a democratic revising Chamber which holds the Government to account without challenging the supremacy of the elected House and the existing conventions.

The question posed by the draft Bill is how we get to that dual destination. There are only three routes: direct election, appointment or a combination of both—the 20:80 formula. Common sense tells us that a direct-elections system does not necessarily deliver the required expertise for the task of scrutiny and accountability.

Before I joined the royal commission, I was quite clear about the need for a fully elected second Chamber. At face value, that need seems very clear: those who make the laws that govern the people should enjoy the mandate of the people. But how would we guarantee the broad range of experience that I see before me when I come into your Lordships’ Chamber, and the expert opinions which inform our debates and bring experience to our scrutiny in our committees and in our Chamber?

I have yet to hear a debate in this Chamber during which there has not been at least one Member, and often many more, able to offer real-life experience of the subject under discussion. We hear from those who have spent years working and building expertise in many professions—in the sciences, medicine, commerce, the private and public sectors and, yes, trade unions.

In many instances, it is not a question of getting elected. I doubt whether many here would even stand as candidates. That is why I see the report of the Joint Committee as work in progress and why, as I have already declared, my preference goes to the alternative report as the guiding rails for future travel.

I have come to this conclusion because it is clear that, save for the Joint Committee on Conventions led by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, which reported in 2006, no serious effort on Lords reform has been made since the Wakeham commission reported in 2000. It is therefore an opportunity missed, as it appears that the Joint Committee restricted its consideration to matters exclusive to the draft Bill and the White Paper.

We pride ourselves on being an open democracy with public interest in our work, but our working hours and working practices are not exactly public-friendly. We end up debating to an empty Public Gallery because of the way that business in our House is organised. It is little wonder that the alternative report declared the Bill and the White Paper to be a flawed example of delivering a stated objective.

However, my key reason for supporting the alternative report is the proposal for a constitutional convention. As we know, constitutional conventions are a political tool used here at home and abroad. At home they are used to pursue and co-ordinate opinion, as we have seen in respect of the Scottish Parliament and devolution in 1999. Therefore, I stand four-square behind the proposals in the alternative report for a Westminster-led constitutional convention with broad representation and a wide agenda that will include a root and branch review of the conventions that underpin the relationship of our two Houses of Parliament.

While I welcome the recognition for pluralism in the alternative report, I see no specific commitment to diversity, which I believe to be an important component in a plural democracy. On that point, I conclude with some words and actions by President Clinton. In his first term of office, he rejected a number of nominees for office in his Administration. When challenged to explain his reasons for rejection, he said simply that he wanted his Government to look like America. I want the House of Lords and our public institutions to look like the United Kingdom.

22:57

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I remember that soon after David Cameron took over as leader of the Official Opposition, he came to meet the Cross-Bench Peers and was asked what he thought of House of Lords reform. He said, “Of course we believe in a mainly elected House of Lords, don’t we, Tom?”, referring to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who is not in his place. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, looked up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. David Cameron continued, “But of course, Tom, that is something I will deal with in my third term”. Mind you, Mr Cameron said that back in 2006 when Britain’s economy was booming, as was the rest of the world’s. As the Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, pointed out last week:

“Britain is officially in double-dip recession, and has achieved the remarkable feat of doing worse this time around than it did in the 1930s”.

On top of that, we have a Government in crisis in so many areas with many issues that have upset many people, such as the recent Budget. So many of the Government’s austerity measures have been rushed through and not thought through—the strategic defence and security review in 2010, for example. On top of all that, we have the eurozone crisis, which in all probability is about to blow up, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, what are we debating today, tomorrow and for days on end following the gracious Speech is not a plan for growth and recovery in the economy but a plan for House of Lords reform. Yes, it has been pointed out that this was in the manifestos of all three parties and that evolutionary reform was called for in the shape of the reforms originally outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, in his Bill. But this is not the time to force on us revolutionary reform of the House of Lords, which will turn our constitution upside down.

The Prime Minister who most radically reformed the House of Lords in the previous century was Tony Blair and even he said that,

“the key question … is whether we want a revising Chamber or a rival Chamber. My view is that we want a revising Chamber”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/1/03; col. 877.]

One of the main reasons that we are going through this unfortunate distraction is because of the will of one my Cambridge contemporaries, the Deputy Prime Minister. He holds a utopian, ideological view that elected equals democratic equals legitimate. Mr Clegg and his allies have also tried to use the argument that other bicameral Parliaments have democratically elected upper Houses so why should we not? There are other Parliaments that do not even have upper Houses and countries whose upper Houses do not work properly, do not have the talent that we do or are in constant gridlock with their lower Houses. The ultimate, democratically elected upper House with real power and the resources to use that power is the United States Senate. The drawback, of course, is that the Senate does not have the depth or diversity of expertise that we have. Some 54 per cent of Senators in the United States are lawyers and powers are divided between the two Houses. In many cases, the Senate has more power than the lower House. That is not on the table in this country. Why do the Government not have the guts to go all the way, the whole hog, and propose a US-style Senate for Britain?

No, like the other hasty proposals that this Government have put forward affecting our economy, education, healthcare and defence, this draft Bill has not been thought through. A hastily put together Joint Committee has come up with a report that half its members do not agree with, to the extent that, for the first time that I can recall, they have broken away and published their own alternative report. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, is not in his place, yet this was not a Joint Committee but a disjointed committee. Instead of reforming our House, we are making laughing stocks of ourselves.

As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said on the argument that polls show that people want an elected House of Lords, that is only because, as other polls show, there is a huge lack of understanding of the working of the House of Lords by the public. I have seen this time and again in speeches that I have given around the country. When I ask the public if the House of Lords should be elected, they initially all say yes, but when I explain to them the function and working of the House of Lords, they change their minds and say it should stay appointed.

There are two key issues here. First, what is the role of the House of Lords, does it have the right people in its make-up to carry out that role, are they effective in that job, and, as a result, is the House of Lords effective? The second issue is constitutional. We decided in 1911 that the House of Commons should have supremacy as a democratically elected Chamber, so there could never be a prolonged deadlock between the two Houses. On both these issues, the House of Lords as it stands today fulfils its role as the guardian of this nation, as a check and balance, scrutinising, questioning and challenging the Government and the Commons each and every day through its legislation, debates and questions, and through its Select Committees. It does this in a way that the House of Commons could not even dream of imagining.

I challenge people regularly to name me a renowned world expert in any field in the House of Commons. They cannot name one. I am proud that in the House of Lords we have a sense of independence and objectivity that the other place simply could not match. This credible and incredible wisdom is unique in the world. Our method of debating through the self-regulating system is also unique. We do not need to be like or copy anyone else. After all, Westminster is the mother of all Parliaments. We do all this for a fraction of the cost of the House of Commons. What the Government propose will cost us at least half a billion pounds more per Parliament, if not much more. Unsurprisingly, the Joint Committee report does not even attempt a costing. It says that that is because the Government refuse to give a costing. Would you start a new business without doing a proper business plan? This is pathetic.

Whatever the Government say about the current conventions remaining in place, they are living in a dreamland. There is no way that an elected or partially elected House of Lords would for long accept subservience to the House of Commons. What is more, I cannot see how, by making people stand for elections, we could possibly maintain the amazing depth and breadth of knowledge we currently have in this House. We would end up with a House full of second-raters compared to the one we have today. Even today, the public holds very little respect for politicians. How will they feel if the House of Lords was filled with career politicians rather than the experts with real-world knowledge that it has today? Is this the way we increase the legitimacy of the House of Lords? It would have exactly the opposite effect.

Mark my words: if we go down the route of an elected House of Lords, we are moving to a written constitution. If we are moving one step closer to a written constitution, we are moving one step closer to a republic. Not only are we wasting precious time here, we are playing with fire. By pushing through this reform, the Government will throw the baby out with the bath-water. We have a delicate yet robust, a very ancient but tried and tested, a very complex but yet crystal clear unwritten constitution, one that has stood the test of time. By putting means before ends this Government are endangering, destabilising and wrecking all this by wrecking this precious House. As I have said before, the fundamental lesson in home improvement is that you can move the walls and raise the levels, but when you play around with the foundations you risk bringing the whole House down.

23:05

[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, our country is facing a perilous economic situation, which is likely to last for some time to come. For any Government, coalition or otherwise, to attempt to drive through major disruptive and potentially disastrous changes to our long-established and proven parliamentary structure in this situation strikes me as utter folly.

The structure of our two Houses that make up Parliament is not responsible for any shortcomings in government that there may be. It is how we, the Members of both Houses, use the structures that really matters. Some people seek to change things in the name of democracy, and we have heard much about that in today’s debate, in the mistaken belief that the changes will improve government. The truth is that the way in which we behave is often more important than the structures themselves. Certainly, change for change’s sake solves nothing; it can do more harm than good and, as in this case, could damage beyond repair a unique institution that, although far from perfect, by and large does the task asked of it very well indeed.

The only justifiable reason for change is to produce better government, but that can be achieved without destroying existing structures. I suggest that the Government and its Ministers should concentrate not on legislation but on sound administration. I was for 27 years a Member in the other place, from 1983 to 2010. I ask your Lordships how many education Acts were passed in those years. The answer is 33. Most grammar schools were abolished and the whole educational system deteriorated. How many health Acts were passed in that time? The answer is 35. We got rid of matrons from our hospitals and everybody knows what a mess the NHS was reduced to. How many Acts in that period were on criminal justice? There were 100—a veritable torrent of legislation that produced little or no benefit to anyone. The answer must surely be better administration and less legislation.

I would like to add to less legislation two things—pre-legislative scrutiny of all Bills and the abolition of the guillotine, or programming as it is currently called. If we could stem the torrent of legislation and persuade Ministers and their departments to concentrate their energies on sound administration, if we could subject every Bill to detailed all-party scrutiny before it was even published and if we could abolish the guillotine to prevent this House from having to deal with wagon-loads of undigested legislation that comes down the Corridor, perhaps your Lordships’ House, with its wealth of experience and wisdom, could be allowed to carry out its traditional role of revising, fine-tuning and, yes, occasionally rejecting legislation brought before it, which it is uniquely qualified to do. These measures, coupled with the modest reforms that the House is already prepared to accept, would deliver better government without the need for the drastic and dangerous experiment that is this draft Bill.

23:10

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, to say that this Bill is half-baked is to put it politely, and the idea of pushing it forward in the next Session, even with the guillotine, is offensive. That would be a procedure which would be admired in a banana republic. Indeed, it is perhaps not untimely to go right back to the fundamental question: what is the problem? I must conclude that the only instrument that the Government had to hand was a sledgehammer. One would not otherwise use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The whole point about that metaphor, which we use every day of the week without perhaps stopping to think about it, is that you do not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The sledgehammer in this case is, to use the demotic, to deal with some deficiencies in the procedures and method of appointment to this Chamber. Indeed, I am reminded a bit of that other great example of overreaction which took place during the Second World War, when a leading admiral in the United States Navy went to see President Roosevelt and said, “Mr President, Sir, I’ve got the solution to the U-boat problem”. “Well”, asked the President, “what’s that”? “Drain the north Atlantic”, said the admiral. That did not go down all that well, but there are a few jokes in this. Anyway, there you go: you win some and you lose some.

However, there are many practical things that many of us have advocated for many years. Indeed, the Labour group wrote unanimously to Tony Blair five years ago in answer to his request, “Have you got any ideas?”. I had a hand in writing the letter, as a matter of fact, along with Robin Corbett. We had a whole string of things, including a statutory appointments commission which would entail the Labour Party, as well as the other parties, looking seriously at reducing prime ministerial patronage and finding out about the different constituent parts. This is in the same spirit in which my noble friend Lord Morris of Handsworth was speaking: to find some new formula—whether regionally, industrially or in any other way—to give more confidence within the constituency parties that this was a House of Lords of which they had some ownership. The Labour Party constitution could certainly be easily adjusted to provide it. That is a practical answer to a practical problem, without overreacting in this totally dramatic way.

We have some very sober committee reports on the record. I, too, recall what I think was the unanimous report of the Cunningham committee, that one could not simply state that the conventions would remain. Yet here we are, and as far as I can see the Richard report has more or less said, “Yes you can”, when clearly the answer is, “No you can’t”. We cannot just look at the next Session and expect to get the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, or some equally brilliant draftsman, to rewrite Clause 2 to remove the problem. This is not that sort of problem. Perhaps noble Lords will correct me in a few minutes.

The report sees there being no change in the powers and functions of the two Houses. How? This leads to the committee struggling with the corset that it wants to put around the new Senate to make sure that these conflicts with the House of Commons do not arise. I think I am right in saying that there is some reference to the fact that IPSA should make no provision for casework by the Senate. Surely, that is struggling a long way to make sure that the corset still holds the Senate in check.

This relates to a point made in a most interesting way in one of the most interesting contributions, by my noble friend Lord Whitty. He said, “After all, we are not America. We don’t have a Supreme Court that arbitrates between the House of Representatives and the Senate”. I have been thinking about that in the past half-hour. One could put up a plausible—if not even more convincing—case to say the opposite. Are there not members of the Supreme Court right now, on the other side of Parliament Square, licking their lips because that is exactly the function that they will have? They are servants of the people; they work 24/7.

If there is a historian of the American Senate and House of Representatives here, I am sure I will be corrected but I do not think I have got this wrong. We are celebrating the centenary of the 17th amendment of the American constitution, which was made in 1912. It effectively meant that, instead of the states doing their own thing through their own indirect methods to appoint the Senate, they moved to direct elections. Many historians would say that this was when the Senate started to become the more important of the two Houses. I think it would happen here for all the reasons that made it happen in the United States. There is every reason to say that we are not like America, from the monarchy downwards. However, in this respect there would be that opening, which we might regret, for a role for the Supreme Court.

On the role of MPs, when somebody says that we do not hear MPs say openly that they are worried about their relationship, that is true, but the reason is the one that would have been given by Mandy Rice-Davies: they wouldn’t say that, would they?

I conclude from the same position as my noble friend Lord Morris of Handsworth. I vote for the alternative report and, from doing my sums this evening, I think that I am alongside at least three-quarters of this House.

23:19

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I thank those who compiled this report and those who compiled the alternative report. I find myself much more in sympathy with the alternative report. Tonight I speak against my instincts. My instincts are for democratic elections to be held wherever they are practical and worth while. I know that some of my noble friends, if not all of them, agree with that. However, I am not at all persuaded that the proposed reforms of this House will achieve their aims, irrespective of whether it is wholly or partly elected. Indeed, I think that a partly elected House would be more of a dog’s dinner than a wholly elected one. I am much more committed to the reforms proposed in the original Steel Bill, with others besides—in particular the reform of the appointments system, which is lacking. I believe that criteria for appointments should be agreed between both Houses of Parliament.

Having said that, I am very concerned that we are throwing the baby out with the bath water and not recognising sufficiently the very considerable benefits that accrue from the status quo: namely, that this House adds value to the other place in two ways that I am convinced will not survive election. Everyone has referred to those two principal virtues: namely, that we in this place are experience-rich and relatively independent. Those virtues stand in increasingly strong contrast with what happens in the other place, which I have no wish to disparage. It is made up of good, true and well intentioned young men and women. However, they are young and inexperienced, as others have said. They come mainly from a professional flight path and are ever more susceptible to the regimentation and partisanship that have made the other place into a wholly ineffective control on the Government of the day.

You only have to look at the number of guillotines that are applied and the number of Bills that arrive in this House having been only partially considered. You only have to look at the quantity of legislation that is enabled by this production line, to which the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, referred. We are now legislating between 12,000 and 15,000 pages of new statute law a year and we repeal only about 2,000, 3,000 or 4,000 pages. We are legislating more than any respectable democracy in the western world by far. Dire consequences arise from having this excessive quantity of legislation, much of which is half baked and not implemented, or implemented unevenly; and we know it. I believe that the election of this House would worsen that state of affairs. The notion that this place, when elected, will somehow be a better check on the Executive is laughable. I will say a word or two more about that in a second.

We spend more time dealing with the legislation here and we deal with it in a more open-minded fashion. Above all, we do not take the Government’s word for it, as they constantly do in the other place. I repeat the statistic that I put to my noble friend Lord Ashdown: in the 13 years in which the previous Labour Government were in power, they suffered less than one defeat in the House of Commons every two years. That made a total of six over 13 years. What sort of control on the Executive does that represent? By contrast, in this House—it is hard to believe it—the Labour Government were defeated not six times but 528 times. In the nearly two years of the coalition’s term in office, there have been no defeats in the other place but 48 in this House. Noble Lords may say that those defeats do not stick and are overturned in the other place. However, that is not the case. A great deal of hard work has been done on this by the Constitution Unit at UCL. It is not an easy calculation to make, but Meg Russell and her colleague, Maria Sciara, reckon that 40 per cent of the amendments that we win through the Lobbies in the Lords stick in whole or in part, although there are compromises, of course, and that we make a major impact on legislation. We are doing the job that the primary, the only democratic, Chamber does not do. What does that tell us about our state of affairs and the health of our democracy? Not much, I suggest.

Public disenchantment with politics has been referred to by one or two noble Peers. We have to be very careful indeed about giving way to reforms that could, I believe, worsen that state of affairs. I refer to one particular poll that noble Lords may have seen referred to in the useful Library Note on public attitudes towards the reform of this place, published in March this year. The final poll in the report deals with general attitudes and was conducted by Ipsos MORI in 2009. It found that in 2001 the proportion of the public satisfied with the work of Parliament as a whole was 45 per cent. By 2009 it had dropped to 20 per cent. The dissatisfaction level had risen from 30 per cent in 2001 to 63 per cent in 2009. More tellingly, when the figures between the Commons and Lords were broken down, the poll found that in 2009 15 per cent were satisfied with the performance of the House of Commons, while 71 per cent were dissatisfied. We did not do too well, but we did a heck of a lot better—23 per cent were satisfied and 50 per cent were dissatisfied. That is scarcely a case for the major reform of this place, and is more likely to be a case for reform of the other place.

The level of disenchantment is important, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, referred to the Power inquiry. The public want less party control, more independence, more life experience and less legislation. Moreover, there is no public agitation for election to this House. If there were people on the streets with petitions and rest of it, I would take a different view, but there is no sign of them. Anecdotally, I find very few people who do other than come up to me and say, “Thank God for the House of Lords”. When I held a public meeting in Sudbury to consider the matter of electing this House or not, a poll at the beginning of the meeting found quite a number in favour, but at the end of the meeting—and all points of view were fairly represented—there was a complete switch. Again and again, this is the experience.

I am sorry; I should sit down and shut up. However, there is a paradox at the heart of all this. I am content for the Commons to be the democratic Chamber and for us, as the inferior House, to retain the virtues of complementariness.

23:28

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

My Lords, the duck-billed platypus is a remarkable creature but is evidence that evolution does not always go as planned, so when I read in the committee’s report that,

“We agree with the weight of the evidence we have received which suggests that the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses will evolve further once the House of Lords is reformed and would need to be re-defined”,

I am fearful.

An elected second Chamber, whether 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected, would very quickly evolve into a challenger to the House of Commons’ primacy. I cannot claim to have been the first to have made that observation today, but when you come on at number 58, it is very difficult. However, it is for that reason that I cannot support the idea of the drastic constitutional change that is now being proposed. Clause 2 of the draft Bill would not guarantee primacy to the Commons.

Under the previous Government, we saw unprecedented constitutional change: a Supreme Court, devolved Assemblies with new electoral systems, and statutory human rights. The changes came fast, and problems such as the unsolved West Lothian question followed closely behind. If the implications appeared to be unconsidered, it is perhaps because they were. A senior Cabinet Minister of that period has since said:

“Although I don’t think we necessarily meant to do this, we did effect a very fundamental change in the way government is run. We deprived the Executive of a lot more power than we ever intended”.

If we are to effect fundamental change in the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament, we should at least mean to do it. It would be unforgivable to have what the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, criticised as a “give it a try and see what happens” approach.

The Government seem determined to alter our constitution drastically, with little idea of where it will end. The PR involved here is not proportional representation but public relations with the Liberal Democrats. At the very least, such a far-reaching change should be put to a referendum, as the Joint Committee recommends, but the Deputy Prime Minister would deny us that. His response to the idea of a vote was to ask:

“Why is it that we should spend a great deal of money asking the British people a question that frankly most people don't worry about very much?”—

a good question. Most people have other things to worry about at the moment. As the country faces a double-dip recession, the essential hunt for economic growth is not being obstructed by the House of Lords. On the contrary, this Chamber is working hard to come up with ideas that might help. However, extended parliamentary debate on the future of this House may well be a dangerous distraction from the most important issue: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

That is not to say that there is no need for reform. As a relative newcomer to your Lordships’ House, I have been hugely impressed by the extent of the work that goes on here, both in the Chamber and in committees, but we could and should be more streamlined and efficient. The Steel Bill is an obvious starting point. It could be quickly activated. I was also interested in the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston. The House of Lords Appointments Commission might be receptive to nominations from colleges of experts. It might even hold a certain number of seats for them.

However, there are other ways to make us look relevant and counter criticisms that we are a talking shop. Too often, maximum speaking times are interpreted as minimum speaking times. We could speed up our proceedings by embracing the view that less is sometimes more, so I will sit down.

23:32

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, looking around the Chamber, I see a great deal of shellshocked people, so I will try not to detain your Lordships for long. I was rather surprised at the cricket analogy, given that your Lordships have been good enough to miss the Manchester derby, which is a far more important occasion. I hope that you all realise that Manchester City are now heading the table.

When I came into your Lordships’ House 17 years ago, there was a notice in the Prince’s Chamber which said that your Lordships should not indulge in vexatious argument, which was from an Act of Parliament of 1623. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, remembers the notice; it has now gone. That is important to me because, when you turn on the television and watch Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, you think how appalling Parliament is in its complete lack of rational argument, with people simply slavishly following a stupid political line. There is a serious risk that that brings our politics into disrepute. When you add the guillotine and people walking through the Lobby without having listened to the arguments, there are serious questions which also affect your Lordships’ House. I have found it very dispiriting in recent weeks when we have felt that we have to do that out of loyalty to our side. I feel that this House works best when it is not too political—although it has to be political to some extent.

I remember sitting at the top of the table when I chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee 10 years ago and I could not say who was Labour, who was Conservative, who was independent and who was a hereditary Peer, because everybody there had an important point to make which was worth looking at. At my first meeting of that committee, nuclear waste was the issue and there was a risk of our decision being split. I was told by my clerk, “Whatever you do, please try to avoid a vote”. Looking at the report of my noble friend Lord Richard, one has to say that it is constantly split with votes. Is this democracy at work? I am not sure that it is.

At this late hour, I shall not go into great detail. I noticed a frown on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and I saw his wise comment in the Times last week about my being here by patronage. Perhaps he knew more than I did. When I came into this House and met my noble friend Lord Richard, he asked whether I might consider taking the Labour Whip. I said, “Actually, I’m a member of the Labour Party”, to which he replied, “Are you sure?”. It is a pity that he is not in his place to confirm that this evening. I am not sure what “by patronage” means but a large number of us on both sides of the House will try whenever we can to vote according to our beliefs. With the health Bill, for example, there were at least two amendments on which I was seriously at odds with my own side. It was one of the most horrible Bills that I have dealt with and I felt very strongly about it, but I could not vote with my own side on two occasions because I thought that occasionally we, too, are wrong.

Finally—I shall reserve most of my comments for later, because this issue is going to come back again and again—there are no easy solutions to what is proposed. The idea of an electoral college sounds good but there are so many problems associated with sorting out an electoral college that I am not sure it would work. I think that a referendum ought to be seriously on the cards but your Lordships should remember that they may not get what they anticipate when it happens.

23:37

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. When I was his chairman at Imperial, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, was also on the college council, and I do not think that she or I managed to catch up with him, so following him is quite easy—I am used to it.

I do not agree at all with the noble Lord’s strictures on the report; nor do I agree with the stronger strictures from the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. As I understand it, it is an agreed report with a supplementary alternative. To call the report disjointed is unfair but I think it is more unfair to criticise it for the defects of the Bill. The terms of reference to which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, worked—and we owe him and his committee a great deal of thanks—were to report on the Bill, not on Lords reform. Therefore, there are a number of matters that the committee has not touched on in detail because the Bill does not do so. In particular, it is a pity that indirect elections have not been more explored. Both the report and the alternative report make it clear that their authors believe that the issue should be explored further but it just does not happen to be in the Bill.

I also think it is a pity that the potential future role of the Lords as the cement of the United Kingdom is not discussed. My noble friend Lord Hennessy spoke of this as the grade one issue. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, also spoke of it, and I agree with both of them. I think that there is a very important role for the Lords. I suspect that we will have further devolution that will make the West Lothian question still more significant, and part of the answer may be found in this House.

I have been very polite about the report, but there is one point which is touched on only obliquely and briefly in one paragraph—paragraph 104. The noble Lords, Lord Cunningham of Felling and Lord Cormack, are quoted as talking about the difficulties that could arise if the non-elected Members were decisive in a vote on a constitutional issue. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to it today as a point that I have made. I have made the point and it is very nice of him to attribute it to me but in the report it is attributed to him.

I am very concerned about hybridity, which seems to me to mean instability—hybridity without a rationale. There is no rationale in the Government’s White Paper or in the Government’s Bill or in the Richard report. If democratic legitimacy is to be the determinant or the touchstone—I see the argument for that—then by definition the non-elected, the non-democratically legitimate are illegitimate.

The House was good enough to vote for a couple of amendments that I tabled on the EU Bill, but I found it very difficult to vote for them when they came back after they were rejected by the House of Commons. My difficulty would be greatly enhanced if I were in the small, unelected minority in an 80 per cent elected House of Lords. That would be a two-tier House. The Richard report talks about differential arrangements for remuneration and differential arrangements for disqualification procedures for the elected and non-elected Members. I think it is probably right but I am not talking about that; I am talking about something much more fundamental. If you think the Cross Benches are worth preserving, I do not think that you can preserve them in that way. It would be very difficult or disastrous to be a Cross-Bencher if your vote were decisive in an important question on which the two Houses came into conflict.

I also think that it is very odd to produce numbers with no rationale. Why is it 80:20? Why is it not 75:25? There has to be a basis for the figures. If you are writing a constitutional settlement, it has to be capable of being taught in schools; you have to know why the figures are 80:20. It is not enough to say,

“it delivers a little democracy—but not too much”,

in the words of the alternative report. You have to know why those are the right numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, is a scientist and there must be some scientific rule that explains why the figures are 80:20. I think this is a fudge and I think that fudges come unstuck. Hybridity means instability. Constitutional settlements should be premised on stability.

[Lord Tyler]

Perhaps I can help the noble Lord with a little bit of information. The two options of 80:20 or 100 per cent have been placed before Parliament because that is what the House of Commons voted for. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for introducing such an interesting contribution at a quarter to midnight. The reason why it is a fudge is because the House of Commons voted for a fudge.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

That is fine, but in 15 years’ time how will you explain that in schools? You cannot have a fudge; you have to have a rule, a principle, a rationale, otherwise it will be unstable. When it starts to go wrong, when there is a showdown between the two Houses and the independents, and the unelected have played some role in that, the numbers will get changed. People will decide on a different number.

When we voted on possible compositions, I voted for an all-elected Chamber or an all-nominated Chamber. I could not vote for any of the numerical compromises. If we go for a compromise, we ought to look either in the area to which the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, was pointing us or in the area to which the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, was pointing us: the area of indirect election. There are good arguments for indirect election and by choosing indirect election constituencies or interest groups, you could achieve possibly the degree of expertise that you are looking for, which you were kind enough to say that you get at present at least partly from the Cross Benches.

23:45

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, probably one of the most frequently used phrases in the speeches that I have heard in the debate has been that this issue is “not a priority”; it was repeated time and again. We also heard of opinion poll evidence that seems to back that up. Nadhim Zahawi, the Member in the other place who was formerly the chief executive of YouGov, cited his opinion poll that showed that Lords reform was proposed as an important issue for the Government to tackle by exactly 0 per cent of the population.

That is very interesting, but the reality is that we are where we are and in all likelihood a Bill will come before us next week. It may not be the greatest priority. I suspect—although I have no knowledge of this—that it is not the greatest priority of the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the present time. I am sure that they would subscribe very much to those arguments. However, it is in the nature of their commitment to the coalition, and of their honouring of agreements, that even while they do not agree that this is necessarily the best way for both Houses to spend their time over the next year, none the less they signed up to a deal in 2010 and therefore will see it through and honour it. That is to their credit.

Some noble Lords in the debate talked about references to reform being in all three manifestos. I dusted down my copy of the manifesto—of course I should say that it has no dust on it, because it is so frequently reread—and eventually found the reference, in paragraph 6 on page 67 out of 85. It was not exactly a rampant endorsement, but merely stated:

“We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords, recognising that an efficient and effective second chamber should play an important role in our democracy and requires both legitimacy and public confidence”.

Most noble Lords and Members in the other place will recognise the realities of how we have got to where we are. However, we are where we are and we have to deal with it.

The architecture of the building in which we are debating these matters is incredibly grand, astonishing and humbling to walk into each day. However, nobody suggests that if it were knocked down we would rebuild it with the Pugin and Barry designs for this great building being replicated by the noble Lords, Lord Rogers or Lord Foster, should they be commissioned with the task. The building would be different; it would reflect the culture, ideals and drives of the time in which we live. Therefore, even if this question is not a priority, if it is put the only credible answer in present times is to have a wholly elected House.

We extend our work around the world through organisations such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I cannot believe for one minute that we would dispatch people around the world, to the Arab world or anywhere else, to argue that they ought to have an entirely appointed House with our present composition, or indeed one with an 80:20 ratio; they would argue in favour of a fully elected House.

In many ways, the position that we find ourselves in is made more difficult by the piecemeal reforms that were embarked on by the Blair Government. They embarked on the great task of rebuilding and reshaping this constitutional building and then, half way through, lost interest and walked off the job. It is in that sense that I worry about the sustainability of an 80:20 solution, because that would be to ensure that in five, 10 or 15 years’ time—or perhaps even in one year’s time—people would be coming back to have further reports about how we tackle this issue. It has been going on long enough. The view is there, and we need to settle this once and for all.

I shall make two very brief points that perhaps have not been touched on as much before. The first is to stress the importance of the House being representative. One of the great strengths of the House of Commons system and the fact that our Executive are drawn from the legislature is the linkage that even the Prime Minister has. In the midst of all that he is dealing with, at some stage he has to answer questions and letters from his constituents. He has to go back to his constituents and listen to their concerns in a constituency surgery. That grounding of the debate is very important in the grounding of politics and a sense of accountability.

I was quite persuaded in the debate. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said—I am paraphrasing him—that it is not the first election that instils accountability but the second. Therefore, rather than thinking of single 15-year terms, we ought to be thinking of some mechanism to introduce re-election to the system.

I am aware that my time is going, but my final point is that I think that a change of this magnitude requires us to have a referendum. If we are going to have referendums for local mayors, which we are campaigning for at present, something as major as this needs to be put to the people for them to express an opinion. That is very much in keeping with the founding fathers of Parliament. On 13 November 1295, Edward I summoned Parliament and said in his Writ of Summons:

“What touches all should be approved of all”.

That is the case for the referendum.

23:49

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, what are the failures and problems in our political system that most need attention? Are they in the House of Lords? Many of us might agree that relations between the media and politics, the financing of our politics, the debilitated condition of local government and the relation between Scotland and the United Kingdom and its implications for Parliament are major and urgent issues to which reformers should soon apply themselves. There are problems about the lack of public trust in Parliament and the domination of the House of Commons by the Executive, but would an elected second Chamber make a useful contribution to the solution of either of those problems? What is the problem that the proponents of the draft Bill purport to solve? The Government tell us that it is a flaw in our democracy. In their foreword to the White Paper, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister said:

“In a modern democracy it is important that those who make the laws of the land should be elected by those to whom those laws apply”.

The Prime Minister has added that the Bill would strengthen Parliament. The first of these propositions is based on a misrepresentation of fact, and the second is a rhetorical and unsubstantiated assertion to which the Joint Committee gave short shrift. As a matter of fact, the House of Lords does not make the laws of the land. The House of Commons decides what is to be the law. The House of Lords advises and influences, but in the event of disagreement between the two Houses, ultimately the appointed House defers to the elected House. Our parliamentary system is, after all, democratic.

What if the second Chamber were to be elected? The Government say that we should not worry because the Parliament Acts, perhaps revised in consequence of the advice on this matter received by the Joint Committee, and financial privilege guarantee the primacy of the House of Commons. If so, what gain would there be in an elected second Chamber expressly designed to be powerless? What candidates of quality would stand for election to it? Why would voters bother to vote in elections to it? I anticipate that there would be low turnout and that rather a lot of voters would cast their votes frivolously and in protest. I fear that we would see BNP and Respect senators elected, who would then be in the reformed second Chamber for 15 years. I do not know whether noble Lords on the other side of the House would contemplate with equanimity a state of affairs in which a UKIP block vote were to determine the outcome of votes in the second Chamber for 15 years to come.

What would be lost in such a change? As the alternative report grasped clearly, we would lose the representativeness that the present House has of the diversity of the professional, cultural and ethnic make-up of our country, and we would lose the gender balance that we have, which is at least better than that of the elected House of Commons. We would lose the eminent professional ability that this House contains. Above all, we would lose the experience of Members of this House. I prefer not to make the case for an appointed House in terms of expertise, because expertise falls away but experience grows. Whether or not your Lordships are posh, you are not boys. You have seen a good deal of life and a very great deal of government, and it is for those reasons that you are qualified to advise Ministers and the other place.

I believe that the quality of our debates would be poorer, that there would be less shrewdness and persistence in scrutiny, and less candour in the advice offered by a House that was more tightly controlled politically. Whatever the quality proved to be of an elected second Chamber, the Joint Committee and the alternative report are as one in agreeing that it would challenge the House of Commons in new ways, and that Clause 2 of the draft Bill is wishful thinking. The Joint Committee anticipates that a new assertiveness would lead to clashes between the two Houses becoming routine, and I fear that the public would find that frustrating and distasteful and that their disaffection from politics at Westminster would be compounded.

As Professor Bogdanor put it in his evidence, the revising Chamber would become “an opposing Chamber”. If we have impasse and an inability to legislate, it would be a disaster. The courts would have to intervene to resolve the conflicts between the two Houses, as we see at the moment with the Supreme Court in the United States of America determining the legitimacy of legislation produced by the two elected Houses of the American Congress. Replicating such a situation in this country would be a constitutional disaster.

I fear that we would see a deterioration of our democracy, and the erroneous propositions of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister should not be the foundation for massive constitutional change. Instead, we should address the modest reforms that are really needed and which have been put off for so long. We should improve the functioning of the existing Chambers. The House of Commons should remember itself and resume the practice of thorough scrutiny of legislation. The House of Lords should be allowed to pursue the agenda of reforms set out by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman: the establishment of a statutory appointments commission tasked by Parliament, and provisions for disqualification, limitation of tenure and the end of the hereditary by-elections.

Constitutional change and reform in our country have been continuous, but the British tradition has been to be cautious, pragmatic, respectful of the inherited constitution and conscious of the distinctive history of United Kingdom; to address significant problems in due time to build the maximum consensus; to pause at each stage to see what the effects of reform prove to be; and to proceed incrementally.

The authors of the alternative report propose a constitutional convention on the future of the House of Lords. I rather think that this is a sensible proposal in all the circumstances. Certainly, if the membership as they recommend is broadly drawn, their terms of reference enable them to consider all the relevant issues because so many constitutional issues are inter-related and the work is not rushed. Most valuably, as the alternative report recommends, the convention could consider the implications for the Parliament at Westminster of the Scottish referendum on independence.

There is no sense in undertaking radical reform of the House of Lords at a time when the Scots are about to force huge constitutional issues affecting the role and the structure of Parliament upon us. The political developments that have occurred in Scotland are a complete game changer and they have happened while the enthusiasts for an elected second Chamber were not looking. It would be particularly valuable if a convention was therefore able to head the parties off from leaping into the dark with ill-considered manifesto commitments for devo-max with incalculable consequences.

Finally, the proposal from the alternative report is that the recommendations that emerge from the constitutional convention should be put to the people in a referendum. Reluctantly, I accept the principle that major constitutional change should be subject to a referendum. But let us be careful: let the debate run; let the issues clarify; and let understanding mature first.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am in favour of an elected House, so I hope that the Government will have the courage to come forward with a Bill. However, I do not envy their prospects. On the one hand, if they go down the route proposed by my right honourable friend Nick Clegg, they will be faced with a rebellion in the other House and in this House. On the other hand, if they pull up short of that, they look like causing some severe fractures internally in the Government. It will be a hard choice and I do not suppose that they will have gained anything from the debate today, which has to my mind been pretty polarised.

I will concentrate on a bit of ground between the opposing parties, which no one else likes but for which I happen to have an affection; namely, the list system. Those who favour an elected House say, “It’s appointment by another name”, and so it is. We could preserve all the virtues of the current House under a list system. Those who have argued that we must preserve the House as it is say that the list system would be an election. But it is not an election to fear. At the moment, the Government create the list of Peers they want in the dark after the election and all sorts of odds and sods come through. My peerage comes from buggery and bribery, although things are better these days. None the less, to expose the people proposed for peerages to an election would be a positive step forward. It would not interfere with the process and would tend to result in a better selection of Peers in this place.

There is a lot to be said for my right honourable friends bringing forward a Bill based on a list system. To our surprise, I think that we would find that we could agree on it.

12:03

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, at the end of a long day—indeed, it is a different day from the day on which we began this debate—which is before another morning of debate on this subject, one week before another two days of debate on constitutional reform and 101 years after the passage of the Parliament Act 1911 that promised to replace the hereditary basis on which men came to this House with a popular principle in its place, I shall be brief. But I want to address the issue that has again been contested today as to whether these proposals are best described as evolutionary or revolutionary.

First, I want to respond to the alternative report and to those noble Lords who have so far argued that there has been insufficient debate about proposals for reform of your Lordships’ House in order to proceed with a Bill along the lines proposed by the Joint Committee, which was so well chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.

It seems to me that it is only in the House of Lords that the argument could be advanced that 101 years is insufficient time properly to consider the merits of a proposal, especially when the proposal is as basic as the principle of democracy, which many of us so easily advocate for other countries. I would also like to correct a mistake I made in a recent article I wrote for a public sector magazine about Lords reform. I said that our country was in a league of two with Lesotho in maintaining the hereditary principle in the legislature. I now understand that I was wrong. I am told that Belgium preserves the right for the children of the king to be members of its upper House, but by convention they do not vote. So in fact we are, in this country, alone with Lesotho in maintaining voting rights in Parliament that are inherited. I believe that the changes now proposed by the Joint Committee are logical and evolutionary because they build on previous legislation such as the Life Peerages Act 1959, which enabled men and, for the first time, women to come here without committing their descendants, and the House of Lords Act 1999, which ended the hereditary principle save for 92 seats, and known then as stage 1 reform.

The proposals now follow more than a decade of cross-party work which has seen proposals similar to these from a royal commission, a Joint Committee of both Houses, the Public Administration Select Committee, a cross-party group of MPs convened by my noble friend Lord Tyler, and two Labour government White Papers. After another decade of discussion, it must be time for stage 2 reform. The Joint Committee’s report states that:

“It is readily apparent that many of the principal elements of the current draft Bill have been proposed before”.

It is time to decide and not just to debate.

I also agree with the committee proposal that the appropriate size for the House in the future, especially in the absence of serious devolution within England, is 450. That is a number big enough for the House to do its work, and big enough for elections under a proportional system to be proportional within large constituencies or regions. It would improve diversity, but not include extremes. Of course, and despite the references made by many noble Lords earlier in the debate, a proportional system is very different from the alternative vote system which was rejected by voters last year and which is in fact only a small modification to first past the post. In practice, we should be electing 120 Members of this House in three years’ time. That would be an appropriate time, in my view, to complete the promise of the 1999 legislation and that of 1911, and bring an end to the principle of inheriting a right to vote in the legislature.

12:08

[Lord Cobbold]

My Lords, given the late hour, I shall be brief. I am one of those who feel strongly that the proposal to turn the present House of Lords into a wholly or partly elected Senate is not reform but abolition, the abolition of an institution that has a unique history and which performs a valuable function in the scrutiny of new legislation. It does not create legislation, and where there is disagreement, it always recognises the supremacy of the House of Commons.

The strength of the House of Lords is the experience and expertise of its Members in most walks of life. Its Members have made a mark in life and will be reluctant to stand for election. The new Senate would be more party political and considerably more expensive. Most important, there can be little doubt that the newly elected Senate would sooner or later challenge the primacy of the House of Commons, and for this reason alone I am surprised that any Member of the House of Commons supports the idea of an elected Senate.

To argue that the proposed Bill should be rejected is not to say that this House is not in need of some reform. I join others in this debate who have recommended that the Bill before us today should be rejected and that, in its place, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, preferably in its original form, should become the basis of further debate on Lords reform.

12:10

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I have clearly drawn the short straw for the last of the graveyard slots today. At this late hour, I hope that my remarks will not hasten your Lordships into repose, because I will focus on a proposal that so far today has not been aired. It bears a passing resemblance in substance to the constructive speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.

It is of great concern to me, and to so many Members of this House and the other place, that there is no compelling argument in the Joint Committee report behind the main tenet for reform, which is election over appointment. It is no more than an easy and populist mantra for the Deputy Prime Minister to say that a largely elected House will bring “a smidgeon of democracy” to the House of Lords. In my view, the idea has arisen simply because it sounds good. I believe that it is baseless, wholly wrong and dangerous. It will lead to the undoing of the successful and enduring balance of power that forms the bedrock of our much-admired constitution.

I welcome the alternative report which 50 per cent of members of the Joint Committee felt compelled to write. The report highlights the abject failure of Clause 2 in arguing a case for preserving the primacy of the Commons by abolishing the Lords and introducing 80 per cent elected Senators.

The arguments against election have strength and some clarity: the challenge to the primacy of the Commons; the quality of Senators in an elected House would be restricted and reduced only to those who wished to fight an election campaign to gain their seat; elected Senators will be costly to the taxpayer; and elected Senators, with larger constituencies than MPs, will be much diverted from their primary function of scrutiny to manage their mailbags and hold surgeries.

However, I am convinced that some reform is required. To that end, I welcome the proposals to reduce the number of Members in the House. In my submission to the Joint Committee I recommended an upper House of around 400 Peers, and the Joint Committee recommends 450. I commend the idea of a sensible retirement policy for Peers as well as a provision for the exclusion of Peers with serious criminal convictions. Both of these are contained in the Steel Bill. This Bill has been like a rugby ball, available in a ruck of unresolved conflicting views, and I am pleased to hear this evening from my noble friend Lord Steel that the coalition is now scooping up the Bill and heading for the baseline, hopefully to make it law.

In my submission to the Joint Committee, I also made some suggestions to improve the system of appointments to the House, a process on which I would like to focus my remarks today. The alternative report states that the starting point for reform should be to determine how Parliament best serves the needs of the British people—I think that we would all agree with that. However, the reason that we are all debating this issue is that the British people need to trust that the Lords fulfils its role in this country as effectively as possible and that there is transparency and accountability around the process of appointing Members to it, a point made by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth.

To achieve this, there must be some basic premises: the system must be meritocratic and not be perceived as elitist; Members should be highly regarded in their field of work, across a broad range of sectors, taking account of their background, skills and reputation; their knowledge and skills should be current and relevant and remain so; and Members should be committed and active in this House.

A proactive, transparent and open appointments system is the only way to secure the optimum quality of Members in this House. So I suggest a 100 per cent appointed House and not a 20 per cent appointed one.

I welcome the recommendation in the Joint Committee report to have a statutory Appointments Commission. From this base, I suggest a more rigorous appointments process to mirror that practised by leading executive search consultancies, a sector in which Britain excels.

Your Lordships’ appointments panel is currently somewhat opaque and shrouded in mystery. The executive search process should be adopted to extend the scope for more applications from society. It would work in the following way. A small number of sector panels would be set up, headed by appointed luminaries in each sector. Its sole purpose would be to find suitable candidates to represent sectors such as agriculture, tourism and the Armed Forces, for example, to sit in the Lords. Positions in the Lords would be open to all eligible British citizens. The process would include the review of all CVs received.

Additionally, a proactive headhunt would ensure that suitable and recommended individuals were approached, thereby finding people who otherwise might not have considered entering the Lords. Each sector panel would draw up the candidate list to present to the statutory Appointments Commission which would finally appoint, with successful candidates filling vacancies in those sectors under-represented in the Lords. Consideration would be given to party or no party affiliation.

As an example, if an exceptional head teacher based anywhere in the country wished to apply for a position in the Lords, he or she could send an application to the education sector panel, or he or she could be approached so to do. With luck, the application would be submitted up to the statutory Appointments Commission. Following assessment and interview, he or she could be appointed.

The sector panels and Appointments Commission would be wise to utilise the services of the executive search sector to expedite the process and to take advantage of its sophisticated IT systems and databases. After all, the executive search professionals already research, approach and appoint our most senior leaders in this country across the public and private sectors. The appointments process should be regularly reviewed by an independent body to ensure transparency and rigour for selection. It should provide regular feedback, published for public scrutiny.

It may be wishful thinking, but I suggest that this provides a basis for consensus. The proposed constitutional convention should give serious consideration to these proposals. They are proposals that would provide for the necessary continuation of the breadth and depth of experience in our House. It would also add some credibility to a “smidgen of democracy”.

Debate adjourned until tomorrow.

Scotland Bill

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Returned from the Commons

The Bill was returned from the Commons with the Lords amendments agreed to.

House adjourned at 12.18 am.