Constitution: Gracious Speech

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Wills on initiating this debate. I was going to congratulate him on his timeliness, but this debate would have been timely at any point during the last Parliament and probably any time during this one as well, such is the pace of change that this Government are introducing and have introduced in the past.

We have heard today that there is very little in terms of a common approach from the Government regarding constitutional change. There is one common thread, in that most of these changes are botched, fragmentary and not thought through. Many of them, as my noble friend said, are determined by political advantage, which is not a good driving force for constitutional change. During the last Parliament, we had the AV referendum, although I disagree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey on electoral reform. We had the referendum not because the Government as a whole wanted to consider electoral reform but for the wrong reason—because of the coalition deal.

Then we had the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which certainly suited some in terms of political advantage at the time, although I am not sure that the electorate were enamoured of it when it came to that very long election campaign. I wish my noble friend Lord Grocott well in his attempt to repeal that Act. We also had the boundary changes, which several colleagues have talked about today. They were blatantly political. The idea of creating constituencies regardless of the natural boundaries in an area is dangerous. It makes the link between a Member of Parliament and their constituency all the more difficult. Any such constitutional change that has cutting the cost of politics as its purpose is going in the wrong direction. We should be defending the need for an effective representative democracy and not making cheap jibes in order to curry favour.

Nobody has mentioned the House of Lords reform that Nick Clegg introduced. That sank very quickly so perhaps it is best not to do dwell on it. But we saw other changes, such as voter registration. My noble friend produced figures that show that 8 million people will now be off the register. That is a serious situation, not just for our democracy but for our society. It will increase the alienation of many people, which is the last thing this country needs at this particular time.

Many noble Lords spoke about the Scottish referendum, of course. Many noble Lords in this House worked very hard to ensure that the result of that referendum was the right one—a vote for “better together”. However, our efforts were somewhat undermined when, after everyone had rejected the idea of a second question about devo-max on the ballot paper, we then had that vow—the panic measure a couple of days before, on the part of all parties—that undermined all that we had been trying to do.

Then, as others have said, it was even worse after the result, when separation had been rejected. Instead of making a statement consolidating the union, the Prime Minister, as my noble friend said, exploded a time bomb outside Downing Street in the morning, stoking up problems with his announcement about English votes for English laws being such a priority. As my noble friend said, you do not counter Scottish nationalism by fanning the flames of English nationalism— so much for the Government’s apparently enduring settlement aim, which totally contradicts what the Prime Minister did on that day.

It has been said that the purpose of EVEL is to harm the Labour Party. I am not sure that it will as much as people say, but some of that is in our own hands. I am sure that that was the motive behind what the Prime Minister said. Everybody within Parliament should be concerned that the Prime Minister is going to try to change our constitution by introducing English votes for English laws by changing the Standing Orders in the House of Commons, which could be done—and he wants to do it within 100 days. That is rather a fundamental change to go through simply on the basis of changing Standing Orders in another place. It is very serious indeed.

We have seen lots of piecemeal changes. Mention has been made today of the possibility of a constitutional convention, conference, convocation, commission or whatever—call it what you will. I do not think that the name matters. Maybe there should be a Joint Committee of both Houses. We need to know how all of these changes will knit together or I fear that we will have a ridiculous and unnecessary situation with many tensions and challenges, and too many times the courts will end up making decisions and not Parliament. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton: we need to step back, not to try to write a new codified constitution but to clarify the framework and get a coherent approach.

I want to make a final point about one type of creeping constitutional change that has not so far been mentioned: the increasing use—some would say abuse—of Henry VIII powers in legislation. Sweeping changes are now being made by regulation and no proper indication is being given about the nature of those changes at the time that the legislation goes through—even in Committee and on Report. As Ministers we have all tried to push the boundary on that a little, but we used to have in government a legislation committee—a Cabinet committee—that actually looked at how legislation was fit for purpose and fit for being introduced. One of the tests of that was whether the statutory instruments that were being proposed were proportionate. We have got well away from SIs being proportionate. It is almost as if Ministers are competing to see who can get away with the most—on my count the noble Lord, Lord Nash, is winning at the moment. This House probably needs to look at whether we need a new mechanism so that it does not reject or accept an SI but has some powers of delay. That would be very helpful.

I congratulate my noble friend. He is right that we should keep returning to this issue and keep asking the questions about how the constitutional changes will fit together. He reminded the House that part of our role is to be a constitutional long-stop. This House has to take that responsibility very seriously indeed.

Recall of MPs Bill

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

My Lords, I think we are all agreed that this is not the time to discuss recent matters in the press. It is certainly not the time for your Lordships’ House to be apparently trying to make things easier for recalcitrant or erring MPs. I stress, as we all have, that none of us has any time for MPs who transgress the rules or MPs’ discipline in any form.

When we were arguing the case for 15 days rather than 10, it was not a matter of protecting MPs; it was a matter of justice. Things have to be done properly, which is what this House is about. In passing, I will say that I welcome the amendments that we will be discussing later when they are moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, if only because they destroy the defence he offered that we cannot change what has been done in the House of Commons. The refrain we have heard throughout the amendments is that, whatever the case, the other place has decided and we must not seek to overturn it.

I know a lost cause when I see one and I appreciate that the chances are that the Minister will not accept this amendment. However, may I suggest to him a novel procedure? Would he perhaps accept the amendment on the understanding that the reason for doing so would simply be to allow the other place to look at the matter again? This is the last opportunity for that to be done; there is no other way for this to be discussed further unless the Minister accepts this amendment. If he accepts my suggestion of accepting the amendment on the understanding that it is purely and simply to allow further discussion in the other place, I give him my personal guarantee—and, I believe, the guarantee of everyone on this side of the House—that when it comes back there will be no opposition whatever if the Government decide to press on with 10 days.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to add just a few words because this is an extremely important issue. I am very grateful that my noble friend has raised it again. The remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, show how complex the issue is, and yet it is treated as very simple. His comments about the withdrawal of the Whip and the inability of someone subsequently to stand in a by-election have not been discussed and fully thought through. I think that that shows how hastily this legislation has been pushed through despite the fact that people have been talking about it for many years.

However, I support the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Hughes. In all the times that we have discussed this matter in the House, the Minister has never said why the Government have changed their mind and why they are sticking now to 10 days when they thought that 20 days was appropriate. Like my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, I have served on the Privileges Committee in another place. I can vouch, as he does, for the fact that the discussions on that committee—in my day it was under the chairmanship of the late Lord Newton—were never political. Discussions never led to a schism in the committee along political lines. I think that there is a very real danger that that is what will happen if we do not seek some changes even at this late stage.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for persisting with this theme, and for bringing this issue back once again at Third Reading however forlorn the prospect of acceptance of his compromise amendment may seem to be—and it is. As other noble Lords have said, the issue that it deals with is one of very great importance for the House of Commons. I believe, in any case, that by introducing these provisions for the recall process, the House of Commons has demonstrated a catastrophic lack of self-confidence. Specifically, the means of policing its own affairs that the House of Commons has traditionally used is the operation of the Standards Committee. Through the provisions in the Bill, and particularly through the amendment brought in by the Labour Party to reduce the period of suspension from 20 days to 10 days, which would trigger the recall process, the effect will be greatly to reduce the practical capacity of the Standards Committee to perform its proper function.

If the House of Commons is to rehabilitate itself in the public esteem, it must be seen to be able to take responsibility, and to provide effective means to take responsibility, for matters of internal discipline and for disciplining Members of Parliament who transgress or commit serious wrongdoing. In so reducing the realistic scope for disciplinary sanctions that the Standards Committee can recommend to the full House, the House of Commons has portrayed a lack of self-confidence and done itself a deep disservice.

So I add to the plea from my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside that the Front Bench will accept the amendment simply to allow Members of the House of Commons to think again about this. Very few of them participated. Very few of them voted in the debates. Many of them did not realise the import of what was approved by the House. They ought to have that opportunity to think again, in their interests and in the interests of parliamentary democracy. I think that we in your Lordships’ House are fully entitled to offer our advice to them on this matter. As another House of Parliament, and as citizens, we have an interest in the integrity, good name and good functioning of the House of Commons.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I do not disagree that it is for the House of Commons to do that, but it has have taken a decision. My noble friends say that the Members did not know what they were doing—I would not make that comment—but they took a decision by 203 votes to 124 that this was the figure that it should be.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I understand the difficulty that my noble friend is facing, because she has been given a position and she has to try valiantly to defend it, but I do not think that anyone at any stage has explained why 10 days is appropriate. If, as my noble friend on the Front Bench is saying, it is for the House of Commons to make a decision, what is wrong with giving it the opportunity to reflect on this issue again?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My judgment is that it would come to the same view.

Recall of MPs Bill

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Ullswater) (Con)]

My Lords, I must advise your Lordships that if the amendment is agreed, I will not be able to call Amendment 6 because of pre-emption.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, after that introduction by my noble friend, I rise to speak to Amendment 7 in particular. As my noble friend said, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is very much behind my amendment and we all, as the Committee has made clear, regret very much that he cannot be here this evening. At Second Reading, his was probably the most powerful, and certainly the most impassioned, speech of the evening.

This amendment seeks to reverse an amendment that was moved by the Opposition in another place. I regret that very much, because I think that it is a big mistake. In many ways I should not really be talking; I should be saying that we should all take a few minutes to re-read the speech of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. It encapsulated why the decision to move that amendment in another place was wrong. My noble friend has referred to cols. 184 and 185 of Hansard of 17 December.

The amendment in another place looked at the second group of trigger conditions—the second mechanism. Those were the days when a Member was suspended by the Standards Committee. The Government had proposed that the trigger should come into operation if a Member was suspended by the House, following a report from the Standards Committee, for 20 days.

The Opposition proposed 10 days and that amendment was carried, because of the atmosphere about which we were talking earlier, where no one in another place feels that they can stand up for reason, as they would be accused of having something to hide or wanting to let MPs get away with some form of bad behaviour. I regret that atmosphere. It is evident on all sides of the House and has not been helpful either to the reputation of the House or people’s willingness to look at politics in a reasonable way.

When I was shadow Leader of the Commons some time ago, I was a member of what was then the Standards and Privileges Committee. At the time, it was under the chairmanship of Lord Newton of Braintree, whom we all miss in this House. He was Leader of the Commons. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours was on it at the same time.

It was a significant time, because we had difficult cases to deal with. There were concerns even then about the activities of just a few Members of that House. Noble Lords will remember the cash for questions incident and other things. It was also the time when the committee, under Lord Nolan, was looking at new ways forward. People working on the committee spent a lot of time trying to be constructive. I have followed its workings ever since.

When I became Leader of the House in 1997, I did not take up the chairmanship of the committee, because we felt at that time that it should be chaired by a Back-Bench Member. That was an important vote of confidence in the House. I just wish that that confidence could be maintained in that way. Members of the committee were then—and indeed are now—serious about that kind of work. The chairman and all the members take it extremely seriously.

It is a quasi-judicial committee—or at least it is at the moment—and all members are genuine in the work that they try to carry out. They look at the issues and evidence carefully. They hear and question Members very directly about the issues. But, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said at Second Reading, the amendment passed in another place will change the role and nature of that committee. If we have a 10-day period as the trigger, it is inevitable that the committee will be more prone to being party-political. The key to its success over many years has been that its inquiries have not been along party lines. It is not divided in that way. Genuine, serious, senior members have looked at an issue, if not dispassionately—people get very annoyed when anybody does something wrong—then at the facts and making a proper determination. If we change the nature of the committee it will not do anybody any good.

My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours read out the list of those who are now members of the committee and the way in which they had voted on this amendment. It was clear that the current members are not happy with the amendment, because they realise the dangers. It is obvious. Member A has transgressed and is given a suspension of nine days, because either he or she is popular or their party has a majority on the committee. Then somebody else, Member B, comes along; because they are not popular or their party is in a minority on the committee, they get 11 days. If that happens, you are ending the career of that second person. Once people start talking about a recall position of any individual Member, those in their own party will find it very difficult to defend them or even explain the situation—so recall will not be productive in that way.

There will be a momentum that makes it inevitable. The use of social media and so on will increase the pressure all the time, which is very unwise. I have already expressed my reservations about the Bill. If we are to have it, let us have a Bill that at least has a chance of working and not one that will destroy some of the good workings of the House of Commons: namely, the Standards Committee as is.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I have huge sympathy with these two amendments because, of course, Amendments 7 and 8 go together. That is not just for the reasons put so eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. As she has said, she has experience not only on the committee but as Chief Whip and as Leader of the House. In both respects I had a minor role—one of the minor tributaries of the usual channels—in putting colleagues on to those committees. I think that we are all considerably concerned that the current arrangements have met the test of time, but that does not mean that they cannot be put under extreme pressure in the future, which would be devastating. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made an eloquent point in addressing the House at Second Reading when he explained that not one single member of the current Standards Committee supported this particular provision.

My only misgiving is one that I have already discussed with the noble Lord, and I am sure that he would not mind me mentioning it. Asking the members of the Standards Committee to decide between 10 days and nine days puts them in an invidious position, but in these circumstances it is just as invidious to decide between 20 days and 19 days. That is why I have attempted in earlier debates to try to find a way around this. I still think that the Government must think very carefully indeed about the invidious additional pressure that will be put on the current structure of the Standards Committee.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I agree with his point that it is very difficult to decide between 20 days and 21 days. I am not saying that the amendment is perfect and that 20 days is fine. As I have said, I do not want it at all. But actually the Standards Committee would only go anywhere near 20 days if there was a serious offence, so this mitigates at least a part of the problem.

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness and that is why I support the amendment. However, it is important to put on the record the fact that if this Bill goes through in its current iteration, we will be imposing a new and potentially difficult situation upon the Standards Committee.

I do not know whether the noble Baroness has been involved in discussions with colleagues at the other end, but there has been a recognition that it could be in the Bill. Under the Standing Orders of the other place, it would be possible to reconsider the respective roles of the lay members of the committee as opposed to the elected members, whether the lay members could take a more active, initiative role and make recommendations to the full committee, whether there should be more lay members, and so on. All of that is outwith the Bill and unfortunately we cannot deal with those issues, but we should at least put on the record our request for Ministers to consider and to discuss with colleagues in government and in the other place whether there should not be some review of the mechanism. I am quite clear—the noble Baroness has reinforced this from a much more experienced position than mine—that if the current Standards Committee is reluctant to take on this responsibility in its current format, that should be taken as very serious evidence indeed that the Bill is not effective, and is not likely to be seen to be effective by the people who would actually have to implement it.

Too often we in this building do not take sufficient account of the views of those who are going to have to interpret and deliver what we decide. There is clear evidence from what was said at Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that that is precisely the situation in this case. On those grounds at least, I hope that the Government will review this issue.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We do take our lead from the House of Commons on this. I remarked that the Commons Standards Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, was bitterly critical in a speech that I recall very well, is now looking at its structure and procedures. We should welcome that and, on that basis, the Government support the decision of the House of Commons.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said, in answer to his noble friend Lord Forsyth, that the Government accepted this because the Commons did. However, the Government supported this in the Commons. What was the rationale for that support? Does the Minister accept the basic point, made by several noble Lords this evening, that there is a really serious danger of the Standards Committee making decisions along political lines?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Politics cannot be entirely dismissed from anything. Going back to that wonderful period in the 1970s, I recall seeing the excellent play “This House”, in which the noble Baroness is portrayed, about how the House of Commons behaved at the time. I suspect that politics was not entirely absent from the Privileges Committee then. The introduction of lay members to the Standards Committee was intended to make it less political and strengthen the safeguards against it being used for political reasons. That is part of the basis on which the Standards Committee is now reviewing its procedures.

Recall of MPs Bill

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to say a word, perhaps surprisingly, about the amendment, and about the third trigger. I was here at Second Reading, but I did not intervene because I could not stay all day. Anybody who has read that Second Reading debate in Hansard will realise how serious the consequences of this Bill could be. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and my noble friends that this is a dangerous Bill: dangerous to representative democracy—that is the basis of the democracy in this country. That point was overlooked throughout the debate in another place.

We have a responsibility to raise some of these issues, though I share the pessimism of my noble friend over our actually making any real difference here. It may be too late in the day. Why will it be too late? People at the other end will not want to revisit the issue. Why will they not want to? Yet again, it will be used as an opportunity to whip MPs—not in our whipping sense—to criticise them and to imply that they are all badly motivated, on the make and have something to hide.

Quite honestly, that is why we have the third trigger. The first trigger was not enough, nor was the second. We must find another way of attacking the implication that MPs are doing something wrong that needs rooting out. This is extremely dangerous for democracy as a whole, and it has not been taken on board as far this is concerned. The third trigger, as with the other two, is also dangerous, in the sense that it gives the public the impression that all that they have to do is get a little petition and that they will make those decisions. I think that this is an illusion that will not lead to greater confidence in our parliamentary system, but quite the reverse.

Finally, I agree that this is a slippery slope. People are saying that this will not be about issues; the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has just suggested that. It might not be about issues today, but it will be about issues tomorrow.

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

I rise, noble Lords, as a friend of the Bill. I am sorry that I was not able to speak in the Second Reading, but I had a family matter to attend to.

Not for the first time, I do not find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. It was obviously diverting to hear a list of Members of Parliament whom he admired. I felt, uncharacteristically, that he was ill informed about Zac Goldsmith. Even if I do not agree with him on all matters and even if the noble Lord is correct in observing irrelevantly that he is a multi-millionaire, he is actually an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament.

Might we have a self-denying ordinance in which we stop debating something that is not in the Bill? When we have presented to this House the bottom-of-the-slope Bill or the thick-end-of-the-wedge Act, we can have a discussion about the matters that concern those who have spoken in this debate and that would affect my noble friend’s concerns, but they are not in the Bill. There are a number of individual items, where we have to make a judgment as to whether it is sensible to give the public a chance to remove Members of Parliament if they feel that what has happened is significantly serious and that they should be allowed to do this.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said at the beginning that he was concerned that people would add triggers to the Bill. He went on to suggest a number of triggers that he would like to add to it. This seemed to me to be completely incoherent, although by the end I was reaching for a trigger myself.

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[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a Bill which in my view we cannot change. The House of Commons must be sovereign in determining its own rules. However, the fact that we cannot change it is not a reason why we should not, and indeed I think that we are under an obligation to express any reservations we have. That is what we are here for. We should express sincerely and frankly what we feel about the legislation that comes before us.

I agree entirely with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and with some but obviously not all of the comments of my noble friend Lord Foulkes. What I am most concerned about in the Bill is something which may strike noble Lords as a rather theoretical danger; that is, that people might be sent to prison for reasons of conscience and principle—for acting in a way which, from their point of view, is part of their politics and, as a result, part of their responsibility towards their constituents. Although that may seem rather theoretical, it has actually happened several times over the past 150 years.

I am thinking of Charles Stewart Parnell and John Redmond. There were never finer parliamentarians in either House than those two men. They were both sent to prison under the Irish Coercion Acts that we had for governing Ireland at the time for matters of purely political action on their part. Pacifists in the First World War were sent to prison under provisions in the Defence of the Realm Acts which made it a criminal offence to make comments that were inimical to the interests of recruitment. I think that I am quoting the law accurately. Arthur Jenkins and others whose names I am afraid I cannot remember—I remember Arthur Jenkins because of course he was the father of a very distinguished statesman who many of us knew personally —were sent to jail in the 1920s for organising an illegal strike. I cannot think of any recent examples, but someone may well be about to challenge me by asking when it last happened. It is certainly the case that it has not happened recently.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I think that my noble friend will find that a Labour MP from Liverpool was actually sentenced for non-payment of the poll tax as a political protest.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, served time in prison in Belfast for a political rather than a criminal act.

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[Lord Tyler]

It certainly is not, because it is covered by quite different regulation and control: the code of ministerial conduct. It is the responsibility of the Member concerned, whether a Minister or not, if he or she misleads the House of Commons, it is still exactly the same position; it is not affected by the Bill. If it was necessary for avoidance of doubt to make that clear, we could obviously do so.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I understand what the noble Lord is saying about the Code of Conduct, but that would not trigger recall.

[Lord Tyler]

That is exactly what I am saying.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

Therefore, Ministers are being treated in a different way from Back-Benchers.

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Friday 24th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had in the two opening speeches every justification that we might need for agreeing to this Bill. It is indeed a very short and significant Bill and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on introducing it. I will be brief because, as she says, in one sense it completes one area of change that became necessary in this House in respect of discipline. It is right that we should move in this way and the work that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has done has been incredibly helpful to the whole House. I think that is well appreciated by everyone here.

When we talk about these issues, we should not lose sight of the fact that the discipline which became necessary was because of the wrongdoings of a very few individuals. In both Houses of Parliament, the vast majority of Members are doing their job for the right reasons and in an honourable way. My noble friend the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that she hoped that these powers would not be needed; I think that we all hope that and do not expect them to be required in the foreseeable future. The problem that we have, as politicians in both Houses, is that very significant damage has been done to the reputation of politics itself. I hope that measures of this kind can help to restore some confidence that those of us here are keen to put our House in order.

If I may say one other thing, because the Bill should have a speedy passage and we should all be brief in our comments, more can be done to restore the reputation of this House. Other items of modest legislation, in the same vein as what the noble Baroness has introduced, could make some difference. There are also procedural agreements that we could reach in the House as to how we conduct our affairs, which would enhance its reputation. I remind the House of the debate that we had on 19 June on the document A Programme for Progress. That report, as some may remember, was drawn up by a group of Labour Peers but what was significant about that debate was that the recommendations within that report had support on all sides of the House. There are measures there which could be taken by agreement or with modest amounts of legislation and would do significant good to the reputation of the House. On issues such as appointments, retirements, procedures and conventions I think there is widespread support. We should be considering those more because we could make some serious progress.

I notice that the Minister, who is in his place, is the same Minister who replied to that debate on 19 June. He may recall—if he does not, I have the Hansard reference—that he commented in col. 990 on the level of consensus across the House “on the way forward” and responded to a suggestion by saying that “informal, or perhaps … formal” conversations across the Chamber could be undertaken to try to make further progress. Despite the timescale of the next election, there are things that we could do which could move us in the right direction. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. In the mean time, I congratulate the noble Baroness on the Bill. I hope that it can have a speedy passage. I see no reason why it should not.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am trying to be as positive as I can be but the noble Lord knows as well as I do, having been in government, that getting consensus inside the Government, even in a single party, is not always entirely simple and straightforward. You have to get Ministers to concentrate on the matter in hand. When it is a matter of Lords housekeeping it is not entirely easy. I will do my best. I will take this back very firmly and we will have to look at the House of Commons dimension, and we might be able to make at least very considerable progress on the Bill. I take everything that has been said, although I repeat that the Government remain committed to a broader scheme of reform.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I am listening with great care to what the noble Lord is saying and we all know the pressure that we are under towards the end of this Parliament. Will he bear in mind the fact that in the wash-up at the end of the Parliament it is very often easy to get agreement on measures that are as clear-cut as this one?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I also take that point and will take it back. We had rather hoped that with a fixed-term Parliament there would be much less wash-up than before, but I suspect that when it comes we will discover that a number of things have been slid in at the last minute that we nevertheless have not quite managed to agree in either House.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

That this House takes note of the Labour Peers’ Working Group report on the future of the House of Lords and its place in a wider constitution.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to introduce this debate. I start by thanking my colleagues on the working group for their support and the work that they did, and I thank those who assisted the committee. I make particular mention of my co-chair, Lord Grenfell. I am pleased to report to the House that when I saw him a couple of weeks ago in Paris, he was on fine form.

The composition of the group was very mixed in terms of our backgrounds, our experiences, our length of service in this House and indeed our age, but it was also mixed in terms of our long-standing attitudes to an elected Chamber. It was therefore very interesting to debate these matters and we produced a unanimous report. We found that the more we talked through the issues, the more we achieved consensus. I think that there is a lesson to be learnt there, in that on constitutional issues it is wrong to come to knee-jerk conclusions.

It is also important to note—we say this very clearly in our report—that we do not claim that this is the last word on House of Lords reform. We are sure that not everyone will agree with every recommendation but I think that we have a set of positive proposals for real progress. I shall explain what led to this report.

Basically, Labour Peers, like many others, felt that the ill fated attempt by the Deputy Prime Minister to pilot an ill conceived Bill through Parliament highlighted the fact that a simplistic approach to Lords reform was always going to crash, and it did crash when the reality of the complexities of constitutional reform was realised. However, just because that attempt ended in somewhat ignominious failure, we did not think that the issue would go away. Therefore, we wanted to do something constructive to bring together ideas which would help the House to work even better.

We believe that this House has many strengths, and makes a significant and positive contribution to the examination of legislation and to holding to account the Government of the day. We also believe that the House has some problems in terms of its size, its procedures and its image. Steps can be taken to improve all these and they could be taken quite quickly. I am pleased that the Government have stopped blocking any form of change and that the Byles Bill was passed. I hope that we will make further progress based on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.

I turn first to the size of this House. The number of people entitled to sit in this House is causing increasing concern to most active Members. Although daily attendance is much less than the total attendance could be, it is rising. We looked at what, in ideal circumstances, would be an appropriate size for a second Chamber in our system. The Clegg Bill suggested 300 Members and the Joint Committee suggested 450. We decided that two principles should apply. First, the Lords should be smaller than the Commons. Secondly, there should be sufficient Members to carry out the functions of revision, scrutiny and holding the Government to account properly, including the important committee work.

The Joint Committee recommendation of 450 Members seems about right to us, although Members will be relieved to know that we are not suggesting an immediate cull. At the heart of our proposals is the concept of a working Peer. That concept is often talked about but has never really been defined. We believe that all Members of this House should be working Peers but we acknowledge that this does not mean it has to be a full-time role. It is, of course, an honour to be here but we also have a job to do. There are other ways to give honours and to recognise those who have made a significant contribution to British life but whose other responsibilities would prevent them from fully participating in this House.

We suggest that when the Writ of Summons is issued at the start of each Parliament, Members who respond should do so with the intention of serving for the whole of the Parliament as a working Peer. We suggest that there should be an attendance requirement of an average of three-fifths of our Sessions. We recognise that that is a crude measure of contribution but it indicates commitment. We also recognise that there could be some exceptional circumstances, which would require modification.

We recommend—this may be controversial—that Peers should step down from active membership of the House at the election following their 80th birthday. There are always the exceptions and people who make fantastic contributions but two of our eight members of the committee were over 80. They were keen to point out that if we had such guidance, we as Members could think well in advance about when and how to adjust to life outside. As we have a fixed-term Parliament, at least for the moment—I wish my noble friend Lord Grocott well in his Private Member’s Bill—it is possible for us to start thinking ahead as to when would be the right time to step down.

In terms of membership here, more attention should be given to achieving greater diversity and greater regional balance. That is the responsibility of parties for political nominees and the House of Lords Appointments Commission for others. The Appointments Commission, which should be put on a statutory footing, could do better on this, although we realise the constraints in which it has been working in recent times. We think that its published criteria are appropriate. The political parties making nominations should adopt new transparent criteria for nominations based on the principles of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, particularly in respect of ability to make a significant contribution, a person’s range of expertise, a strong personal commitment to the principles and high standards of public life and, of course, a commitment to be resident in the UK for tax purposes. We also believe that no one, no matter how distinguished his or her public service, should have a role in public life—in the Civil Service or wherever—that should automatically lead to a position in this House.

As far as the Bishops are concerned, we make no recommendations. Putting it mildly, there were strong views on both sides. I recall one of my senior colleagues in another place telling me that House of Lords reform would come to a full stop with any Bill that included the abolition of the Bishops. I am not sure whether that is true, but we decided not to go there, such was the strength of feeling both ways.

However, we all agreed on hereditary Peers. I think that there is widespread though not unanimous support for the end of the hereditary principle. We point out how it could be done while acknowledging the very significant contribution of some hereditary Peers. Of course, some of those people could be awarded life peerages on transfer. On disqualification, we simply think that we should always align our rules as closely as possible to those in the Commons.

Political balance is a much more difficult problem. In 1997, the Labour manifesto said that no political party should seek a majority in the House of Lords. In government, we stood by that. Coalition government has created a new situation. There is only one Government and at the moment they have 58% of political Peers in this House, which makes it harder for the House to assert itself.

There have been suggestions that the number of political Peers in this House should be changed after each election and should reflect the percentage of votes at the previous election, although I note that some who advocated that have been quiet on that issue since opinion polls changed. Unfortunately, although it sounds a simple solution, it is a recipe for an ever increasing size of the House and not something that we think wise. In effect, only party leaders can deal with the balance issue. It requires them to be responsible and not just to seek party advantage.

We also make recommendations about procedural reform. The first is that we suggest that all non-Private Members’ legislation should start in the House of Commons. Bills could then have a First Reading in the House of Commons and follow the normal procedures in the Commons or be subject to a referral Motion that would ensure that this House then took on the detailed examination of any Bill. This procedure would reinforce the primacy of the Commons and, with a few tweaks, allow the Parliament Act to be applicable to all pieces of legislation.

We also make a proposal about secondary legislation in this House because the current situation of “accept or reject” causes a great deal of frustration. We therefore suggest that there should be a three-month deferral opportunity so that Members can make the Government think again when there is serious concern about an SI.

We think that more should be done to look at the work of previous committees, such as that chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, in terms of modernising the procedures of this House. In particular, we are very keen on the idea of a legislative standards committee, which we think could be established as a Joint Committee, although it should be established by this House if the other place does not want to go down that route. We also think that, because of the good reputation and the sound work that is undertaken by many committees in this House, there is scope for more short-term ad hoc committees on specific cross-departmental subjects. We also recommend a review of the role of the Lord Speaker, which is not personal but was promised when that role was first established by the House.

We also make recommendations about the wearing of robes. We believe that the wearing of robes creates an image of the House that belies the very modern contribution that the Lords makes to current political life. It may make for good television for some, but it does nothing but detract from our very positive contributions to the working of our democracy.

Those are measures that we think could be implemented quite quickly and, most of them, without legislation, but I will also say a word about our thinking about long-term constitutional change. If the Clegg Bill did anything positive, it convinced many people that piecemeal change, without consideration for the consequential effects, deliberate or otherwise, is most unwise. We point out in our report that, at the moment, there seems to be some common agreement that there is widespread public disengagement from politics and our parliamentary system. That is quite dangerous, and has many causes but very few simple answers. So it is with constitutional change: there are few simple answers. Despite the fact that constitutional change is not a priority for most of the public, we have had a significant number of important but piecemeal changes in recent times, and more are proposed. We have had fixed-term Parliaments, the failed AV referendum, changes to voter registration and votes for 16 year-olds in Scotland. There is also the Scottish referendum to come, maybe an EU referendum, questions about extending powers to the Welsh Assembly and new discussions on the regions and city areas; nor, of course, has the issue of Lords reform gone away. We believe that complex constitutional matters need not only careful consideration but careful co-ordination. We think that such changes should command public support—after some political consensus, we hope—and we acknowledge that referendums might have an important role in this respect.

Many people—committees, commissions, politicians and academics—have looked at all these issues and one thing is, I believe, emerging as almost inevitable. It is not quite there yet, but there is an emerging consensus that there is a need for a constitutional commission or convention, which can take an overview of any and all of these issues. We suggest that such a body should be tasked with reporting within two years of the next election, which would allow time in that Parliament for further legislation where it is needed. This is the only way to ensure a coherent approach and to undertake change in a measured way. We have to make sure that we make our constitution fit for the challenges that lie ahead, and we need that wider view of how to do it. Our report is intended to be a contribution to that, and I recommend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has participated in this debate. Obviously, I am very pleased that there has been a general welcome for the report and that our discussions have, by and large, been on a non-party-political basis, which most of us think is the only way forward. The debate has been very wide-ranging, touching indeed on the very nature of democracy, which is no bad thing. But I think the one thing that all the contributions have shown us, and there are many dimensions to this, is that we cannot look at these problems in isolation. I was reassured by some of the Minister’s remarks a moment ago.

I should very much like to have time to go through all the comments that have been made but that is impossible. I have some sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Dubs said about Bishops. He may have noticed that since he made those comments there have been reinforcements, so perhaps he had better watch out. I want to comment on what my noble friend Lord Rooker said. He is always perceptive and it is a reckless Government or party that ignores his comments. I should have liked to follow up what my noble friend Lord Foulkes said about indirect elections. It is something that I have been interested in for a very long time and I think there is increasing momentum in that area. Those possibilities really need exploring.

I cannot respond to everybody but I want to say just a word about what my noble friend Lord Richard said about a constitutional convention or commission. He has long held the view that any such commission would be kicking the issue into the long grass—the unmowable grass, I think he said on this occasion. I would counter that by saying that if we do not have a commission, we will have a quagmire of piecemeal changes that do not hold together and are an absolute mess. Incidentally, I must point out to him and others that, so far as Labour Party manifestos are concerned, for the whole of the 20th century Labour Party manifestos clearly recognised the danger of having an elected second Chamber. The commitment to election is indeed very recent.

Several colleagues went into some detail about the Clegg Bill, and I think lessons are very slowly being learnt there, in particular the need to look at the bigger picture and not focus on just one area of change. I was reassured when the Minister said in his closing remarks that we have to look at Lords reform in the context of wider constitutional change. I hope he may be able to persuade his leader that that is the case and that you cannot write solutions on the back of an envelope and expect them to get through. We really need to take a comprehensive approach. Looking forward to see where we could get co-operation before an election is no bad thing and something that people will be willing to look at. As the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, said, I hope that we can have sensible and realistic commitments in all the party manifestos for the election. That is the only way forward, and putting that in the context of a constitutional commission would be the way to deliver it.

To say just a word on our short-term proposals, I hope that we will see progress along the lines that many have said would be acceptable and would improve the working of this House. I hope that the Minister will follow through on the suggestion of all-party support. Once again, I thank everyone who has participated in a very important and useful debate.

Motion agreed.

Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who is clearly still on very good form and on something of a high from having delivered an Exocet into the Government’s costings for House of Lords reform. His speech reminded me that 10 days ago I saw a great production of that wonderful play, “Close the Coalhouse Door”, in which the socialist alphabet is sung. I think it includes the line, “G is for gerrymandering, which the Tories all think of first”. I wondered whether my noble friend had also been to see it.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours on initiating this debate. I echo and reinforce what he said about the damage that has been done to our democracy by attacks on the integrity of Members of Parliament when we all know that the vast majority go into politics for the right reasons and stay in often at great sacrifice to themselves. They should not be pilloried as they have been. I am only sorry that party leaderships across the board have not done more to support the good membership that we have in all parties.

This is a very timely and important debate, many aspects of which have already been raised. My main concern is the importance of this issue for the nature of our democracy, especially when there are so many challenges and other unco-ordinated changes that individually—and especially when taken together—could have very significant unintended consequences. As has been mentioned, we see a reduction in the number of MPs, fixed-term Parliaments and individual voter registration. Who knows what will come of the separation referendum in Scotland, or what the outcome of deliberations on the future of this House will be? The combination of all those things, which have not been thought through in any integrated way whatever, could undermine the fundamentals of our democracy in a very serious way.

Turning to the boundaries themselves, I entirely acknowledge that boundary changes are never easy. They will never satisfy everyone and there will always be winners and losers. I speak as someone who has been on both sides of that while a Member of another place. Boundary Commission reviews always raise big issues that are important to everyone and small issues that can be very important to individual constituents who identify with a constituency and its Member. They can raise tempers and concerns very much.

I shall say a little about my experience of Boundary Commissions and my experience in another place. I have given evidence to boundary inquiries on several occasions. My old constituency of Bolton West was subject to significant change in the 1980s and my constituency of Dewsbury, which I represented from 1987, was redrawn in rather an unusual way. I have always given evidence to the effect that I believe that community and identity should be the main consideration and that, although numbers matter, they are secondary to having a community that you can represent and that can identify you as its Member of Parliament. It is important that people can identify in that way and that that relationship can be developed. No one likes losing an election, but it is one thing to lose an election because of the electorate, which is a risk that you take. If you lose an election because your constituency has been carved up by some arbitrary figure, it is far more difficult to take and no one understands it, including the electorate.

In Bolton, I had a straightforward third of the area—an easy, homogeneous group in which everyone could identify who their MP was and the areas that I represented. Later, in my Dewsbury constituency, there was a different situation. The town of Dewsbury was too small to have a Member of Parliament of its own. So was the next-door town of Batley. They had a lot of common interests because they were the heavy woollen industry district. Had they been put together, there would have been one community and one identity, but that never happened. Dewsbury’s three wards were put with Mirfield, which was just down the road on the ribbon development. There was some logic to that because there was some community of interest in work patterns, travel to work, shopping and so on.

However, the Dewsbury constituency also had two wards that are very familiar to my noble friend Lord Clark. He used to represent one of them, Denby Dale. I am sure he would agree that Denby Dale and Dewsbury did not have much in common. There were some rather large hills between them, very few people travelled from one to the other to work, there were no school links, direct bus routes or direct train routes, and people did not go from one to the other for shopping. There was no community of interest whatever. It was like having two parallel constituencies. I enjoyed representing that whole area, but people in Denby Dale and Kirkburton never understood why they were in the Dewsbury constituency when they had no connection to it. As a Member of Parliament, I would rather have had a larger constituency that had an identity than a smaller one that was chopped up and meant representing lots of different areas.

Those are my opinions and my experiences. However, today I want to mention the consequences of the recent proposals and an article in a journal that will be very familiar to the Minister, Parliamentary Affairs. It was published on 3 July and the article is “Representing People and Representing Places: Community, Continuity and the Current Redistribution of Parliamentary Constituencies in the UK” by David Rossiter and Ron Johnston from the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield and Charles Pattie from the School of Geographical Science at the University of Bristol. I am glad to see that the Minister has it and hope he will come to the same conclusions. It has no political axe to grind; the authors are geographers, not politicians. They give a very useful history of the geographical basis of constituencies. Before 1944 there was no set procedure for redrawing boundaries. They show that, from that time until these recent changes, community and identity always took precedence over numbers. Obviously there were guidelines, but community and identity were the most important things.

The Boundary Commission was also given a great deal of discretion and judgment about what was appropriate in different areas. The latest changes are probably the biggest ever. The article shows some of these changes and some of the difficulties. Mention was made of the national quota of plus or minus 5% that has now been established, because other factors can be taken into account only within that size constraint. It is not the same as in previous boundary distributions when people looked at communities and adjusted to try to meet guidelines, so I think that this will prove really difficult in the future. Many existing constituencies fell into that plus or minus 5% range, so many MPs, when this was going through, thought that there would be no change whatever to their individual constituencies. Unfortunately many have had to see very significant changes because of the knock-on effect from neighbouring seats, which my noble friend Lord Lipsey touched on.

In summary, this study says that these boundary changes,

“incorporated much less continuity in the pattern of constituencies”,

and that,

“most existing constituencies were dismembered and many new ones incorporated parts of two, if not three, local authorities”.

Many MPs know that dealing with many local authorities is really very difficult. The report goes on to say that,

“the fracturing of the country’s electoral map was much greater than many … MPs … expected”.

That is clearly true and it is clearly a significant difficulty for many people.

Following on the point that my noble friend made, I point out that this study also shows that,

“The greatest fracturing has been in England’s major urban areas”.

I suggest that those are exactly the areas where we need to engage people more in the political process, and I believe that all that has been said previously about individual voter registration by my noble friends Lord Wills and Lord Lipsey mean that we are going to see a very difficult situation. I fear that it might be appropriate to use the word “toxic”, which my noble friend used.

I will finish by quoting again from this report, which is, as I said, not political. It says:

“If the Commissions’ proposals are implemented—or some variant of them with very similar characteristics ... it will start a process whereby—because a numerical criterion is paramount and geographical criteria secondary—the MPs’ representative role will change. The long tradition that UK MPs represent places and communities will be rapidly eroded; many will just represent numerical aggregates”.

That is dangerous for democracy and why these boundary changes should be opposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Certainly, and I also acknowledge—this is very important—that there has been an enormous degree of centralisation in the way that British politics, and particularly English politics, has operated. Fifty or 100 years ago, certain casework was conducted by local councillors. However, as the central state has taken on what the local authority used to do, so people have come to their MPs more and more, and that has led to a tremendous growth in the amount of MPs’ casework.

I do not entirely recognise a golden age of constituencies in which every constituency represented a long-term and clear place. The noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, will know that the Colne Valley as a constituency has changed very radically over the years. The first constituency that I fought—Huddersfield West—disappeared very rapidly and is now part of Colne Valley, whereas Saddleworth has long since gone somewhere else. The constituency in which I live, Shipley, has a moor down the middle of it and part of Wharfedale, which is occasionally cut off by snow in winter, is part of the constituency. I found myself at my first election as a candidate there having to explain to people in Wharfedale that they were part of the Shipley constituency and not connected with Ilkley or Pudsey.

One could take many examples of this. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, talked about some of the Kirklees constituencies. When I first started thinking about politics in that region, the Spen Valley was a constituency. We then had Batley, Brighouse and Spenborough, and Batley and Spen. In the 2005 general election I spent an afternoon standing in Huddersfield marketplace meeting people coming in from Heckmondwike, Gomersal, Cleckheaton and elsewhere who said, one after the other, “Can you help me? I’m not sure what constituency I’m in”. I realised how little I knew about the changing boundaries of those West Yorkshire constituencies. As we all know, MPs identify very strongly over time with their constituencies, but their constituents very often do not identify so closely with them in return.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Is there not a slight contradiction in what he is saying? A minute ago, he was saying that the incumbency factor was very significant. Does that not mean that constituents must recognise their MPs?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Some do, some do not. However, we have a larger problem which we should also address. More and more constituents—including those who used to vote Labour, according to my experience in Bradford—do not identify with the constituency, any political party or politics as such and, indeed, do not wish to register. We will return to that wider issue in 10 days time, when we discuss the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, asked me to guarantee that there would be no further decline in registrations in the move to individual electoral registration, but of course the Government cannot guarantee that. We know that between 2000 and 2010, the number of people not on the register is estimated to have doubled from 3 million to 6 million. I am sure the Labour Government that were in office at that point had no intention of allowing that to happen—it happened, as we know, for a range of reasons to do with political attitudes and social change. We will be doing everything we can to maximise the completeness of the individual register, but the accuracy and completeness of the household registration system has been going down, which is very much part of the reason for the change.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

My Lords, it is very difficult to follow the noble Lord, because he has given us a comprehensive demolition of the proposals in the draft Bill. It has been rather strange over recent weeks to listen to him speak on the Scotland Bill. He and I agree on very few of the big political issues of the day—the economy, the health service and education—but when it comes to constitutional issues, we agree a great deal, because, although we are politicians, we are practical politicians who want workable solutions. That is not what we have been presented with.

I add to the congratulations offered to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. When I was shadowing the Leader of the House in another place—Lord Newton, who is much missed on these occasions—where we proposed pre-legislative scrutiny, we hoped, expected and perhaps assumed that Bills would be in a better state of readiness than the one that was presented to the Joint Committee. As others have said, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, had a big task, but his hands were tied behind his back because of the limited remit. Therefore, his committee could not address some of the basic problems. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the alternative report, which may become a definitive guide on this issue. The one thing that we all agree on is that we do not have a workable solution. Last week, when this debate was announced, one of my colleagues said, “Well, what is there new to say about this Bill?” My noble friend Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland said that the thing that would be new would be if somebody stood up and said, “I think that the draft Bill is perfect”. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has not spoken yet and he may break that duck, but I doubt it.

I share the concerns of many people; we all have different priorities. Mine are not theoretical but very practical, because I have never, even going back to university student days when we are all a bit wayward, favoured a second Chamber that would or could challenge the House of Commons. Indeed, I think that I would prefer a unicameral system to a confrontational system. The reasons for that are quite straightforward: first, the electorate should have the clearest possible choice at a general election to elect a Government who can get their programme through. For the same reason, I am against proportional representation, which will always lead to post-election deals that no one has voted for. Secondly, if we have a second Chamber with a strong electoral mandate—and some, though not me, would say that a PR mandate supersedes a first past the post mandate—it is inevitable that, in pretty short time, there would be a clash, gridlock and a constitutional crisis.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred to the Scotland Bill. I had the privilege of being Leader of the House of Commons and then Chief Whip. We had then, as now, ping-pong. It was very inconvenient to business managers to have to send things back and forth, and sometimes we had to compromise, but we knew as Commons business managers that, at the end of the day, we would get our Bills. If I were to be an elected Member of the second Chamber, a Senator, then, as the noble Lord asked, why would we give way? Indeed, I can imagine squabbles: “My mandate is bigger than your mandate. My mandate is stronger than your mandate. I was elected on PR”. Why on earth would we give way in those situations?

I must mention Clause 2, which has united many people because no one thinks that it is fit for purpose—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, said that there was devastating criticism. It is obvious to me and, I suspect, to many other people that the Government will rewrite Clause 2. But I hope that no one will fall for a bland rewriting of that clause with promises of future codification of conventions because some people are making that sound simple and it is not. As the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has said on more than one occasion, relationships will evolve and change. The only way in which that will happen is with a second Chamber becoming more assertive.

I heard one analysis that I think sums up the current situation. In many ways, we have a unicameral legislature with an advisory second Chamber, and that works. As the Clerk of the House of Commons said in his evidence to the Joint Committee, at present we have two Chambers that are complementary. If this Bill goes through we will have two Chambers in confrontation. That point above all others is one that Members of another place should bear in mind.

I also want to say a word, as indeed did the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about mixed membership—some elected, some appointed. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has referred to this on many occasions. If the will of the unelected Senators outvotes the will of the elected Senators, how does that enhance democracy?

While we are on that word “democracy”, it is a single cry of those Ministers who are proposing these changes. But democracy is about more than just the vote: it is about accountability. What accountability is there for a Senator who is elected for 15 years and cannot seek re-election? What sanction does the electorate have? It is utter nonsense. If those seeking election as Senators are to do so on a party list, influenced by the party establishment, what is the real difference between those of us who are put here by our party leaders and those who are put on a 15-year list? We might as well put a 15-year limit on our time in this House. There will be no less accountability there because a party machine will still choose and the electorate will not be any better off.

My other very serious concern about what is being proposed is the piecemeal nature of all the constitutional changes that have been proposed and are floating around at the moment. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned the Scotland Bill. He did not mention the Scottish referendum, which will have a significant impact on our constitutional arrangements. Who knows what that will be? It will be upon us very soon.

Surely we must have some coherence in all the changes that have been proposed. We have to bear it in mind that while, thankfully, we do not have AV, because that referendum came out the right way, we do have a change to a fixed-term Parliament. We have a new system where there will be boundary changes for constituencies every five years. We are moving towards individual voter registration, not to mention elected mayors and police commissioners and we will see what the turnout will be for that. I wonder whether all this turmoil is really the way to re-engage the public with politicians. At a time when they are worried about jobs, the health service, housing and so forth, I believe that it is dangerous to alienate the public, especially when we see the far right doing so well in parts of Europe.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred to the Conservative manifesto and the coalition agreement, and I do not want to intrude on private grief there. But will the Minister who is replying follow up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, about the definition of consensus—the idea that consensus is a majority in the House of Commons? I wish when I was Chief Whip and Leader of the House that I had thought of that. We need a denial that that is where we are.

Few people in this debate have said that there should be no change to the workings of this second Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, said yesterday that he had received an indication from the Government that they will give a fair wind to his Bill in the next Session and that is welcome. But we need to go further and incorporate the proposals suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in her very positive and constructive evidence to the committee. Other interesting ideas have come up in this debate, perhaps especially the idea of a secondary mandate, which could lead to some consensus.

We really need some kind of road map of where constitutional change is going. If we do not have that, we will see all sorts of unintended consequences if we go down the path of the Clegg Bill. That is why I was glad to see the recommendation in the alternative report for a constitutional convention. It is also why I remind the House of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, yesterday, which we should all bear in mind. He said that we are talking about the British constitution, not the glue that holds the coalition together.

Constitutional Change: Constitution Committee Report

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Jay and the committee on yet another very interesting report that the whole House would do well to read. I was not surprised that the noble Lord described my noble friend as an efficient chairman. Having worked with her in government, I am sure that she was. I hope she takes that as a compliment.

The fact that so many people want to speak in this very short debate today shows just how important constitutional change is at this time. There is a great deal happening that we have not always fully taken on board. Certainly, we have not always taken on board the potential interrelationships between some of the changes that are being proposed. We have had mention of the Bills that have become Acts of Parliament; there is promise of more reform in the future; and we have the potential for what might happen so far as devolution and a referendum on independence are concerned. If we are going to have such significant changes, perhaps both Houses in this Parliament need to spend a little more time thinking carefully about their consequences. That is assuming that the Government intend to go ahead with further constitutional change at a time when there does not seem to be great public appetite for it given all the other problems of economic challenge that we are facing.

There are many interesting features in the report—the noble Lord, Lord Renton, mentioned some. He drew attention to paragraph 104, which advocates post-legislative scrutiny for constitutional matters. I am very much in favour of post-legislative scrutiny. When I established the Modernisation Committee in another place in 1997, we wanted to get more momentum on prelegislative scrutiny, but I was always disappointed that we were not able to do more on post-legislative scrutiny. When it comes to constitutional change, post-legislative scrutiny might be necessary, but it is a bit late by then. My great concern is that enough thought does not go into the early stages, which is what this report focuses on.

There is, as my noble friend Lady Jay, said, one fundamental difference around the nature and significance of constitutional change. Is legislation on the constitution fundamentally different from other types of legislation? The Government indicate that that is not the case; I for my part believe that it very much is. I can recall from my time as a constituency MP—others will have had this experience—many occasions when legislation being passed through both Houses proved difficult or not up to the mark. The Child Support Agency is a very obvious example. Members of Parliament knew from constituency casework that it was going wrong from day 1. After lots of attempts and changes, we were able to put it right. It was not perfect, but we made it workable. But if constitutional change goes wrong, and if it has unintended consequences, which can very often be the case, how do we fix our democracy and how do we get it back when the damage is done? That emphasises the need for proper preparation.

I think that we could all agree that we are at a time when trust in politicians and political parties, which are essential to choice in a political democracy, is low, and that is for a variety of reasons. My fear is that the nature of the constitutional change that has gone through this Parliament already, and some that is proposed, will militate against improving the situation. For example, fixed-term Parliaments could lead to a crisis if the public felt that a Government should be voted down but, for technical reasons and the way in which that Bill was passed, that could not happen. I believe that problems will arise from the constant turmoil of boundary reviews if these are going to take place every five years—it is difficult enough for many people to know who their Member of Parliament is and identify with them at the moment. I think that many Members at the other end have realised rather late in the day some of the internal consequences of constant boundary reviews. If electoral wards are going to be changed every five years, that will not help the level of trust but, more important and perhaps more obvious than that, it will impact on the work of MPs. If the day after you are elected you have to concentrate on getting reselected for a potential new boundary constituency, you may be spending too much time looking over your shoulder at party or local matters rather than spending your time at Westminster, and it will turn Members of Parliament into constant rivals. It is bad enough when it happens once every 15 years, but if it is going to happen every Parliament, it will be extremely difficult. I speak as someone who has gone through boundary reviews and some of those difficulties. If we are going to have senators with a 15-year mandate, I am not sure where public trust comes in there, especially as we see that at the moment there is very little identification of individual constituents with Members of the European Parliament. You are going to have PR and party establishments are going to decide who is a senator without an Appointments Commission, and I do not think that is going to improve trust.

I think the Government need to learn from this committee’s report, otherwise we will be in danger of constitutional turmoil. I think there are real difficulties and real dangers that people will turn off from politics even further. We have seen an alarming situation develop in some European countries recently where being an elected politician disqualifies you from being part of the Government. That is because of a lack of trust between politicians and the electorate. I think that the Government need to look at this report more carefully. I noted how polite my noble friend was in her description. I was going to say that the ministerial response was complacency with a touch of arrogance, but I hope there is still time, and I urge Ministers not to put this report on the shelf but to be aware of the problems of unintended consequences and the potential turmoil of all the changes being talked about at the present time.