Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said to me in the corridor the other day, “I hope you won’t disappoint me”. I am very sorry to say that I have to disappoint him on a number of grounds. In his opening speech, he said that this measure has nothing to do with Lords reform, so it is a non-Lords-reform Lords reform, if I understand what he is putting forward. Of course it has a great deal to do with Lords reform. It is one of many small items that we might consider if we go to a smaller package of Lords reform in what is being discussed within Her Majesty’s Government and outside as “a number of housekeeping measures” for both Houses that might be introduced next Session.

For the best of reasons, the noble Lord wishes to cherry-pick one of the changes that would carry through on Lords reform without accepting some of the others. I say this particularly because he remarked that Bishops in the House of Lords can vote without remarking that that is because they do not have permanent membership of your Lordships’ House. They retire at 70, well before the onset of statutory senility. Had the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, linked regaining the right to vote with a statutory retirement age, the Government might perhaps, I think, have looked on this rather more, although it would be very interesting to know what retirement age noble Lords would have accepted—whether it would have been 70, 75, 80, 85 or perhaps 95.

The argument for noble Lords not having the right to vote has partly been that we are permanent Members of your Lordships’ House. I recall that when we were discussing the major House of Lords Reform Bill last year a number of Labour Peers—and I am looking at one or two of them—were arguing in the corridors that they sit in the Lords by royal summons and by right of the sovereign’s appointment and that means that they are not entitled to retire. That is part of our medieval, fundamentally illogical constitution, which is part of what we are here for.

The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, talked about citizenship. Of course, in the British constitution under which we all sit here in this wonderfully illogical House, we are subjects of the Crown. It is the Crown that appoints us, so it is as subjects that we sit here. That is one of the many reasons why the citizenship debates in Britain still have a degree of weakness because we have not quite worked out what that splendidly republican concept “citizenship” should mean for all of us.

The noble Lord also advanced the argument that logic should play some part in this. If we were to redesign the British constitution on logical grounds, we would have a very different British constitution. Some noble Lords will have noted that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and other noble Lords signed a letter in the Times the other day which was a passionate defence of the tradition of common law and its conventions and traditions against the threat of logical, rational, Roman law from across the channel, institutionalised in Brussels and Strasbourg. There is a sense that there is an existential threat to our tradition of Englishness through the logical, rational principles of Roman law which come from across the channel, although many people do not recognise that they are also there in Scotland. So many people who talk about the defence of distinctive British institutions appear to forget that Scotland is a central part of the United Kingdom.

If we are to introduce common sense rather than common law, we are moving into a fairly radical change in the way the British constitution works.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

The Minister referred to the fact that we are already Members of Parliament. Does he accept that in certain areas defined by law this is a unicameral system in that we are excluded from areas of activity that are for the Commons? Throughout history, there have been quite a lot of battles about no taxation without representation. That is an area in this House that could be looked at. I suspect that if my noble friend began the argument a different way, your Lordships’ Chamber would be packed and the Press Gallery would be full, because he could have argued that given that we have no say on taxation, and therefore do not have representation, we should not be taxed. I think that would incite the public much more.

My noble friend could instead argue that we regain equality of powers with the House of Commons. That would have Members of the House of Commons up in the Gallery. The noble Lord is, I think, being a little less clear than is his usual practice.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not accept that we are in any sense a unicameral Parliament. This is one of the more influential second Chambers around the world. The fact that we are now definitely the second Chamber and that there are areas in which we have very much less influence than the House of Commons is one of the things that makes this clearly a second Chamber, but some of the other second Chambers, as I note, very definitely have less influence over the breadth of legislation.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I would be grateful if after the debate on the Second Reading, which I hope will be granted, the Minister would write to me giving examples of where this Chamber has insisted to the point of the House of Commons backing down on legislation over the past few years.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am happy to promise to write to the noble Baroness on that. I think the record is that a full 40% of amendments moved in this House are accepted by the Government, but I will check the figure and come back to her.

I do not wish to detain the House for too long. I have made the point that the permanence of Lords membership has to be linked with the right to vote. On Lords reform, we have to look at a package. Last year, we presented a large-scale package to the House, and the House, for many diverse reasons, did not like it. The Government are considering whether to present a more modest housekeeping package.