House of Lords: Reform

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster]

My Lords, I was gratified and flattered to hear the noble Lord the Leader of the House, speaking on the radio recently, put first among the categories of experts whose contribution to the House he would like to retain the former Cabinet Secretaries. I am tempted to say to the noble Lord, “Flattery will get you nowhere, my Lord, but please go on trying”.

We argue endlessly about the composition of the House and the way in which its Members are chosen, but we ought first to discuss the powers and functions of the House. How can we come to a good decision about who we should be and how we should be chosen without first deciding what we should be doing? As it is, we seem just generally to assume without much question or debate that the powers and functions of the House should remain just as they are. Perhaps that assumption flows from our tradition and our assumption of subordination to the House of Commons.

Then we are told that an assembly that makes laws for the governance of the people ought to be elected by the democratic suffrage of the people. In this country we have an assembly that makes laws for the governance of the people and which is elected by the democratic suffrage of the people. It is the House of Commons. The House of Lords can and does suggest revisions of draft legislation, but it cannot in the end enforce those revisions against the will of the House of Commons. We are a revising Chamber and a debating Chamber, and valuable in both functions, but we cannot prevail against the House of Commons if it wishes to insist. The House of Commons is sovereign in the matter of law-making. Therefore, we do not need to make the second Chamber electable by popular suffrage to give it representative legitimacy.

I shall not dwell, because many others have done so, on the dangers of elected Members of the second Chamber competing with Members of the House of Commons in their constituencies as well as at Westminster. I pass over, as Cicero might have said, the probability that an elected House of Lords would not for long be content to accept its subordination to the House of Commons. Under the Government’s proposals, as far as I can see, the Government of the day would find getting their business through a good deal more difficult and tiresome. We have seen recently how trying Ministers find our well meant attempts to improve their legislative proposals. That would be like a vicarage tea party in comparison with the frustrations that the Government of the day would undergo if the House of Lords were to be reformed—perhaps “destroyed” is a better word—as Ministers are now proposing. I foresee serious breakdowns in the relationship between the Commons and the Lords, and the River Thames running under Westminster Bridge with much blood.

Where is the pretence of democratic legitimacy in a Chamber whose Members would have security of tenure for 15 years and no risk of being regularly called to account by their electorate? Does it make sense for both Houses of Parliament to spend endless days, weeks, months and perhaps even years discussing what has been stigmatised in this debate as a bad—and, as my noble friend Lord Grenfell said, miserable—Bill?

I suppose that no one starting with a blank sheet of paper would invent the House of Lords as it is today. It is as it has grown up to be as a result of successive piecemeal changes over the centuries. As it is, it functions reasonably well. If we are going to change it, we can afford to take the time needed to devise incremental or evolutionary changes that make sense and that provide constructive reform. We need a second Chamber that complements the House of Commons and enriches the work of Parliament, not something that competes with the House of Commons, in the constituencies as well as at Westminster, and that is a pale and ineffectual carbon copy of the House of Commons, unlikely to command respect in the country or to be attractive to the people of the quality and distinction whom we should want to have as Members.

Over the centuries, the role of the House of Lords has been to represent in Parliament the principal economic and social interests and activities of the country. As at present constituted, we have to admit that we do that rather haphazardly. In an earlier debate I suggested how we might create a House—or reform the House—to reflect and represent the economic, industrial, social and cultural interests and activities of the country in an up-to-date way, with Members chosen to represent the various strands of our contemporary society: industry, commerce, the trade unions, the health professions, the legal professions, the academic and educational professions, the cultural professions, the Church of England and other churches and faiths, and so on. Members to represent those interests could, where possible, be chosen by processes of indirect election. We need to have a system that ensures that the nations and regions of the United Kingdom and the political parties are represented in a balanced way. We could even gladden the heart of the noble Lord the Leader of the House by leaving room for the appointment of experts such as former Cabinet Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces. A House so constituted would have representative legitimacy, even without popular suffrage.

Having taken note this evening of the pipe dreams of the Deputy Prime Minister and his colleagues, let us give them a respectful and honourable quietus. Let us take a little time to work out a scheme of reform that will offer the prospect of a second Chamber that would represent the various strands that constitute the fabric of our society and complement rather than compete with the House of Commons, and whose contribution would enrich the work of Parliament and make a useful and significant contribution to the work of improving legislation and debating great issues.

We need to work up these ideas into specific and detailed recommendations. We need a body, not necessarily but possibly a royal commission, that should include, of course, representatives of the main political parties and people with a sense of history and an understanding of the strengths and subtleties of our constitutional system. With a good supporting staff, such a body would be able to produce within two years a blueprint for significant and constructive reform for an effective House of Lords that could command a wider extent of consensus than the proposals of which we are being invited to take note in this debate.