House of Lords Reform

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, at its best, the House of Lords is an unrivalled repository of experience and expertise that can challenge the first Chamber to think again, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, and our very limited power if we cannot persuade is to delay legislation for a short and limited period—a power hardly ever used. That is no argument for retaining the status quo, for this House is certainly in need of reform.

First, mainly thanks to successive Prime Ministers, the size of the House has been steadily increasing and is far too large. On 22 October, we had 829 Members. We should reduce to 600 Members, and, importantly, that 600 should be a hard cap not to be exceeded. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on both counts.

Secondly, whereas the majority in this Chamber have had distinguished careers and bring extraordinary expertise and experience to our discussions of policy and legislation, some do not. There are a number of examples of unwarranted appointments, but I shall mention just one category: no donor to any political party should be able to buy their way into this House. As others have said, a second element of reform needs to be a broad-based statutory body, a new HOLAC that validates the quality of anyone put forward for membership of this House by whatever route.

Thirdly, we need a formula to establish the appropriate size of the political parties and Cross-Benchers in a reduced House. For the parties, it could be the share of the popular vote in the last two elections—not one—with Cross-Benchers, bringing a non-politically partisan perspective, taking up something like 25% of the 600 seats. Under that formulation, both main parties today would be virtually equal in size, with the rest of the House holding the balance.

Fourthly, to allow that to happen, we obviously need measures to bring down the size of the House from today’s 800-plus to 600. There is wide agreement that many hereditaries and Bishops make invaluable individual contributions, but their participation in this House by right is an historic anomaly not mirrored anywhere else in the democratic world, and it should end. That said, many individual hereditaries and Bishops have a strong claim, which I completely support, to be reappointed as Cross-Benchers, and I hope they will be. However, removing the hereditaries and Bishops would reduce the numbers by only 114. Removing the minority of Peers, around 150, whose participation is limited and who attended fewer than 20% of the sittings in the whole of the last Parliament would reduce the total number close to target.

Labour’s manifesto also trails the idea of Peers stepping down who are 80 or over at the end of a Parliament. Assuming an election in autumn 2028, that principle would produce 303 exits. I am conflicted, but losing at one go 300 of many of the most active and effective Peers in this House would be brutal, to say the least. No organisation of any kind could afford easily to recover its competence after such a scale of loss, and, to put it very politely, the idea that some of the most active should give way to the least active appears perverse.

Fifthly, every part of this House needs to be more diverse, more systematically representative of every kind of interest, whether by gender, ethnicity, experience, nation or region. I do not think enough people have said that. One role of a redesigned HOLAC should be to foster diversity, as well as to validate the appropriateness of individual appointments on all sides.

I conclude by saying to the Leader of the House: please do not kick the can down the road. Partial reform does not work in any setting. If we do not deal resoundingly with all these issues, an institution that has evolved over centuries into something of unique constitutional value will come under existential threat.

Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL]

Lord Birt Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, no one will stand in the way of promoting greater gender equality in any grouping in this House, but I would like to express my disappointment that a new, and so far decisive, Government are not preparing a comprehensive, holistic and long-overdue approach to the overall reform of this House, including the representation of the established Church—a process hinted at by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

I support the plan to end the birthright of hereditary Peers to sit in this House—it is a feudal anachronism. That said, many individual hereditaries reach here on personal merit, as we all know, and I hope that a way can be found to retain those who make a most distinguished contribution to our proceedings.

The guaranteed representation of the Church of England in this House is a second feudal legacy, embedded centuries before the notion of democracy gathered pace. Its representation produces many peculiarities. For instance, it is essentially the Government who appoint bishops. I used to work at No. 10 alongside a most delightful and extraordinarily able civil servant, one of whose jobs, when a bishopric fell vacant, was to take soundings in the diocese—and more widely—and recommend who should be appointed as its bishop. Accordingly, No. 10, not the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, announces the appointment of a new bishop. Church and state are very definitely not separate.

As this proposed legislation underlines, Bishops take their turn to sit in this House—except in the case of what I think is a bizarre anomaly. We heard the example earlier: if you are appointed the Bishop of Winchester, you are automatically and immediately entitled to a seat in this House. That is extraordinary.

Moreover, the Anglican Church may be represented in this House but it denies its clergy the right under law passed in this House and enjoyed by the rest of the citizenry to enter a gay marriage. Thus, that charming and witty national treasure, the Reverend Richard Coles, was denied the right to marry the man he loved. That is a shocking, unholy, indefensible anomaly.

There are other and very fundamental reasons why embedding representatives of a single church in this House is no longer appropriate. In the 2021 census, almost everyone—56 million people—answered the question about their religion. Less than half of the UK’s population declared themselves even to be Christian, and 22 million people declared themselves to be of no religion. In other surveys, more people say that they do not believe in God than believe in one. Of those who identify as Christian, only 21% are Anglican. More claim to be Catholic than Anglican.

The reality is that we are now an incredibly diverse society—a society comprising people embracing many faiths and none. We should not embark on a long-overdue radical reform of this House without recognising that fact, and that embedding the Church of England in our legislature is an indefensible, undemocratic anomaly.

That said, the greatest strength of this House is its diversity—its range of expertise, perspectives and experience. I have the greatest possible respect for the individual qualities and inherent goodness of the many leaders from many faiths whom I have met in my time. I think, for instance, of the outstanding and sensitive work of Bishop James Jones in leading the inquiry into the Hillsborough tragedy. I hope and expect to see faith leaders of every kind represented in a reformed House, but appointed on individual merit, not as exercising a right existing in one form or another for half a millennium.

Finally, I say to the new Leader of the House, another person whom I greatly respect, that piecemeal reform in any domain does not produce effective and enduring solutions. May we please consider the many ways in which this House needs reform, and consider them all together and in the round?

Afghanistan

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the United States came to our rescue in two world wars. Without its intervention in the second, Europe—including the UK—might now be under either a Soviet or a Nazi yoke. We should be for ever grateful for that. But the US was a reluctant interventionist. Separated from most of the world by two mighty oceans, there is a deep isolationist tendency in US society. Never forget that it was Japan’s ill-judged attack on Pearl Harbor that forced America into World War II and al-Qaeda’s monstrous attack on 9/11 that took the US into Afghanistan.

We and our allies are broadly united in our foreign policy goals: we want to protect our security; we want a prosperous and accessible global economy; we want—and the pandemic explains why—the benefits of a healthy world; we do not want to see suffering, abject poverty or starvation; and we want a world which promotes democratic values, equality, freedom of expression and the rule of law.

Yet we appear a long way off achieving this better world. So many countries, on every continent, are in the grip of totalitarianism or despots of various shades. The chaotic exodus from Afghanistan, following decades of investment and sacrifice, marks a serious reverse in the most unstable region in the world—the 4,000-kilometre arc that spans from Syria to Pakistan. As then Senator Joe Biden so presciently said in 2003,

“the alternative to nation building is chaos, a chaos that churns out bloodthirsty warlords, drug traffickers and terrorists”.

Europe and the United States share a bedrock of common values. Europe’s GDP, including the UK’s, matches that of the US. However, as America’s unilateral withdrawal so painfully illuminates, Europe is no match for America in terms of military capacity. It is all too clear that the nations of Europe cannot alone protect and promote all their global goals; the risk of dependency on, or even of abandonment by, the US is too great. It is time for all of Europe to stand back, to review and to reflect.

EU Council

Lord Birt Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I reiterate that the meaningful vote will be held in the week of 14 January. Obviously we are looking towards winning that vote. As I have also set out, if the House of Commons rejects the deal then there is a process set out in legislation but, as the Statement said, if the deal goes through then we are looking at ways in which we can engage Parliament further in future as we move into the political relationship.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

Perhaps alone, I think the Prime Minister actually makes a rather compelling case for her deal in the Statement. Yes, it is a compromise, and it is risky and unpalatable, but it offers a route to a productive future relationship with the EU. In this febrile atmosphere, though, I fear that no one is listening to her.

I have two buts. First, we should not wait a month for a meaningful vote; if this does not get through, we need a plan B much more quickly than that. Secondly, I disagree—I hope the noble Baroness the Leader will tell the Cabinet tomorrow the mood of this House—with the Prime Minister’s argument that another vote would divide our country. That is simply not true. I think the opposite is the case: if we run out of road, and it looks as if we are doing so, another vote will be the only way to unite the country.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, what we will be focusing on in the weeks before the vote in January is to hope to provide reassurances to MPs so that they vote to support the deal. We will be continuing to talk about the fact that we believe that it is a good deal for both the EU and the UK. That is what our European partners have said and it is what we believe, and we will continue to make the case while trying to get the reassurances that MPs need in order to feel able to support it.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Birt Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I was a passionate remainer but I will vote to pass this Bill without a moment’s pause for we simply must respect the people’s choice. However, we are woefully underprepared for the gigantic challenges ahead. The White Paper, complete with its correction slip, was shockingly flimsy—as flimsy as the paper it is printed on. There were 300 to 400 bland words on immigration, for instance, and a host of questions about matters such as sectoral impact that should have been answered long ago.

Secondly, we are woefully overoptimistic. We are in a weak, not strong, negotiating position. It is in the EU’s overall economic interest to negotiate a bespoke deal with us that facilitates free trade, but politics will trump economics. Some of the 27 countries on the other side of the table have very different priorities. Most will not want to see us benefit from exit and incentivise future breakaways. Some will put the spoke in the wheel for their own domestic reasons. For example, Spain’s concerns on Gibraltar may affect the multiple freedoms our airlines currently enjoy in Europe, worth a whopping £60 billion a year to the UK economy. Some European countries will be opportunistic and look for advantage. I have a good friend working for the French authorities to facilitate the transfer of financial services from the City to the Île-de-France. I personally know of one major British bank that is actively exploring moving half its workforce out of Britain. The EU 27 represent 44% of UK trade, but we are just 8% of theirs. We need a deal far more than they do, so no one but no one can predict with any confidence at all the outcome of such complex, multiparty negotiations.

Thirdly, we appear woefully blind to the risks we are running. There are three roughly equal trading blocs in the world—North America, Asia and Europe—but trade halves as distance doubles. It is hard to believe that the scope for increasing our trade with the rest of the world—56% of our trade now—will be greater than the damage we risk to the 44% of trade we conduct on our own European doorstep.

We are also poorly positioned economically and politically to navigate these unsettled waters. We have just experienced nearly a decade of, I would suggest, unavoidable austerity. Ten years of flat personal incomes or worse and a creaking, overstretched public sector, accompanied by the biggest surge in immigration in our history, created the sourness and frustration that underlay the 23 June result. Yet, immigration is vital to our economy at every level, whether picking the cauliflowers in Lincolnshire, staffing our care homes or attracting some of the best brains in the world to power our financial service industries. We meddle with all that at our economic peril. Squaring the circle—meeting our economic interests while achieving the political consent of a discombobulated population—is a huge political challenge.

The backdrop to meeting that challenge is grim. The noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, mentioned his role in the IFS. As the IFS’s work demonstrates, it seems highly likely that Brexit will prolong public and private austerity in the UK well beyond 2025—well into a second decade. The mood of the country will become more disgruntled still, with unknown consequences.

We are all in this together now. What the Government must do from here on in is show proper respect for our institutions; involve Parliament meaningfully; unite a nation divided down the middle; be hopeful yet realistic, but not giddily optimistic, about our prospects; and be honest and open with the British people about continuing austerity and the white-water ride ahead.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, some voting for Brexit were sincere British nationalists, opting for the romance of freedom and independence. For most, however, it was a vote of pure protest against an elite that has let them down. Our failure in the UK, as elsewhere, effectively to regulate the financial sector and to be prudent with government finances has brought nearly 10 years of austerity.

Immigration is vital to our economy, it enriches our culture and society and I support it wholeheartedly. But the biggest surge in immigration in our history has, in recent years, brought incredibly rapid change to agricultural centres such as Boston in Lincolnshire, and to our older, poorer industrial areas, and it has placed a heavy strain on our social fabric. In the past three years, for instance, Peterborough’s maternity unit has been closed on 41 occasions to women about to give birth—a traumatic experience—for want of capacity in one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities. That is an unpardonable failure of government to forecast need and to provide.

While it is easy to understand the frustration and anguish that has prompted the Brexit protest, the vote is a catastrophe for the UK and for its people. One of the EU’s most important achievements, alongside other international institutions, has been to foster a stable, collaborative environment in Europe after centuries of destructive conflict. This is especially poignant for me at this moment because, 100 years ago last Friday, my grandfather Joe went over the top on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. As a child, I knew him well and was transfixed by his many tales of that horror-laden and wasteful war. Weakening the ties that bind Europe together cannot be in our long-term interest.

For our economy, the consequences are immediately adverse. I have witnessed that for myself in the first full working week since the Brexit vote, and old and trusted colleagues in the finance sector have shared their own direct experiences with me. I will give some examples; I could give more. I have had a briefing on a major Asian financial institution pulling out of a done deal to acquire a major and valuable British company. I know of another sales process involving a major British-owned company which trades heavily all over Europe that was stalled because of buyer unease over Brexit, and because debt financing was now uncertain. If negotiations within the EU are prolonged, our economy will be racked by uncertainty for years to come. The Chancellor has already been forced to withdraw the targets for reducing our still massive indebtedness. We risk a recession and a further shock to our system when we are not yet over the last one, and we risk 20 years or more of continuing austerity, not just 10.

Our only hope is to negotiate terms to remain full members of the European single market. The notion of some in the Brexit camp that we should not want to be an equal participant in the biggest market in the world beggars belief. They appear not to have the slightest notion of how global markets work or of how complex are the activities of leading British businesses. We are paying a high price indeed for their naivety, for the professionalisation of our political parties and for the diminishing life experiences of some of our leaders. Nor do the most buccaneering of the Brexiteers appear to have the slightest notion of how global investors operate: how professional and how aware of risk they are. It will be entirely rational for global investors to be extremely cautious about investing in the UK until there is crystal clarity about all our circumstances.

But negotiating to remain part of the single market will not, of course, be easy, for our negotiating position is now weak. We need access to Europe’s markets far more than Europe needs access to ours. Some EU members will want the UK to pay a painful price in negotiation in order to discourage exit or secessionist movements in their own countries. Some sectoral interests in Europe will press to advantage themselves over their British counterparts. Some electorates, wounded by a sense of British rejection, will want their leaders in turn to reject us. I work a great deal in Europe these days and I had many pained emails last week from European business friends and colleagues. One senior German industrialist recounted an exchange he had witnessed in his local bakery, with an overexcited shopkeeper shouting that Germans had to accept as a reality that the British hate Europeans. Local Mercedes workers in the same queue joined in angrily to assert that Mercedes should find other markets to sell their vehicles. Being nice to the Brits may become bad politics.

Yet we must hope and we must strive. Britain is already a member of the EU on special terms—absent from the euro, absent from Schengen—and there is a mutual interest in the UK remaining in the single market. While other countries will not easily give up the notion of the free movement of labour, perhaps all will recognise the advantages for all members of qualifying that freedom to gain the economic benefits while reducing social friction. Let us hope that we can find an accommodation. If at all possible, we need an exit negotiation which is not prolonged but rather is simple and quick and reduces uncertainty for all. Without that, the white-water ride ahead could be very rough indeed.

Syria: UK Military Action

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, the Middle East has been tragically riven by religious, sectarian and tribal strife and difference. It is a region where feudal rulers, cruel despots and now barbaric terrorism have flourished. Much of the area’s wealth flows from a single, much sought-after commodity. The West’s imperial past and more recent superpower intervention have fermented an already deadly mix. Like a nightmare video game, one scene of horror effortlessly morphs into something new, unexpected and worse. The human cost for people trying to live ordinary lives within the region is appalling. Now the problems spill over on to our and other shores.

For centuries, Europe itself was in turmoil, so we may hope that one day peace, harmony and prosperity may characterise the Middle East, too. The journey to that destination will be prolonged indeed, but the Vienna talks offer a hopeful sign. Barbarism may yet prod us into starting that long haul now.

My difficulty with the Government’s position is one of emphasis. I would like to see us marshal the peerless skill of our diplomats to deploy their expertise and wisdom to exploit what prestige and influence the UK still has in the world. I would like to see us sharing the lessons of our own experience, including of failure. I would like to see us defining a path to peace across the whole region.

That is an awesomely difficult task, but the history of the past 70 years surely tells us that piecemeal solutions do not work. It is in that context, with clearly defined goals, widely supported in and outside the region, that I would sign up to wholehearted military action using the full power of the West’s might. But, for all the undoubted brilliance of the RAF and the bravery of our pilots, it is hard to believe that extending their reach across a desert border marks a significant step on that long path to peace.

Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt]

My Lords, over a long career in broadcasting, I had many encounters with Mrs Thatcher, as she then was. Some were surprisingly endearing, even tender, and some were extremely challenging, as noble Lords might expect, especially when I was at the BBC. I see the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, is with us today. When Mrs Thatcher left No. 10, the staff in her private office clubbed together to give her as a parting gift a shortwave radio. The noble Lord said, “Prime Minister”, as she was for another day or so, “this is so you can be angry with the BBC all over the world”.

I first encountered Mrs Thatcher almost 40 years ago when, as a young television producer at ITV, my colleagues and I, several of whom I see here with us today in the Chamber, chronicled the deepening crisis in the UK in that grimmest of decades to which many of your Lordships have already referred—the 1970s. It was a decade of stagnating state-run industry, of accelerating inflation touching almost 30%, of three-day weeks, of the Times unpublished for a year, of widespread industrial strife and thrombosis. It was a decade in which the UK had to turn to the IMF for a standby credit.

On “Weekend World”, where I worked at the time, we canvassed proposed solutions to our dire circumstances on both left and right. We took a particular interest in the ideas of Keith Joseph, not mentioned yet today, and his then protégé Margaret Thatcher. She did not emerge as Leader of the Opposition fully formed. I recall her as a tentative and nervous interviewee under Peter Jay’s intense and rigorous cross-examination. Her fiery conviction would come later.

When Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, the country was anxious for all that to end—but the resistance that she had to overcome was still enormous, including, as others have said, from within her own party. But as we know, her conviction intensified, her determination grew and her courage proved formidable. Mrs Thatcher set out single-mindedly to address her toxic inheritance, and in due course she did indeed eliminate inflation. She introduced discipline to our public finances, she privatised the nationalised industries and she brought the trade unions under a new system of law. All that reform was unavoidable, but it also, as others have suggested, came at a high social cost.

In other ways, her premiership was not clear cut. Mrs Thatcher was an economic but not a social liberal. She was viscerally uneasy about Europe yet embraced the single market. She hated communism, but she championed détente. As we all do, she left behind unfinished business—in her case an under-resourced, underperforming public sector. While she liberated markets and inspired a new spirit of enterprise in the UK, we would in due course learn that without strong and effective regulation we would suffer gravely from untrammelled market excess.

However, if Churchill saved us from Nazi domination and if, as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, has already mentioned, Attlee was the architect of a benevolent social state in the UK, it was Baroness Thatcher who reversed our post-war economic decline and restored Britain’s confidence and standing, and who offered her successors a chance to build a new Jerusalem.

In an interview for the series on her premiership that she recorded for the BBC after she left office, Lady Thatcher declared,

“the Prime Minister should be intimidating. There’s not much point being a weak, floppy thing in the chair”.

She was never that—she was a very great Prime Minister indeed and truly the right person at the right time. The nation is deeply grateful to her.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt]

This is a powerful debate with more consensus than I anticipated. It is a privilege to follow so many distinguished contributions.

The steady, incremental and non-revolutionary development of the UK’s constitutional framework sets us apart from other countries. Unsurprisingly, therefore, our system lacks a neat and elegant design rooted in a clear set of principles. The US example offers a contrast, although not one I envy. Our system, for all its untidiness, has great strengths. For me, its critical virtue—although some of your Lordships plainly do not agree—is the ferocious intensity of a near-sovereign House of Commons. Governments will always make mistakes, but in our system they are cruelly exposed. National problems may receive insufficient attention, but eventually in our system they will surface and be addressed.

When, as now, and as in 1945 and 1979, we have to be bold and we can be decisive. I place great value on that. Inevitably, however, our system has had, and still has, many anomalies. We have only just separated our Supreme Court from our legislature. Uniquely among modern democracies, a religion nationalised by a tyrannical king nearly 500 years ago remains firmly embedded in our Parliament. While today’s hereditary Peers would justify a place on merit in any system, the birthright principle should have no place in a modern political system, as others have said.

There are constitution issues on which others have not touched thus far. As more and more power and responsibility are devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it is increasingly anomalous that Members of the Westminster Parliament elected from those countries can have a decisive impact on policies that affect England alone, when the converse no longer holds. Moreover, while there continues to be a massive transfer of wealth from England to those nations—in effect, now taxation without representation—there will eventually be a clamour for a Parliament for England.

If the coalition Government are to redirect some of the awesome energy and political capital that they will need to reduce the deficit towards further constitutional reform, I hope that they will either take a truly fundamental look at the arrangements for the United Kingdom as a whole or confine themselves to more traditional incremental reform of the existing system, as most noble Lords have urged. Like others, I support the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. Whichever direction the Government take, they must address the simple question: what is the optimal role for a second Chamber? Then, and only in the light of that, should they ask what its composition should be.

At the moment, we sit in an essentially advisory Chamber with no significant powers. Provided that the process of appointment is democratically rooted, and provided that it is considered and sound, appointment is a perfectly reasonable means of ensuring that an advisory Chamber has an independent cast of mind and contains appropriate expertise and insight. Maintaining the advisory role but changing the composition whereby the upper House is wholly or largely elected is likely, as others have said, to have unintended consequences. An elected Chamber could never be happy for more than a moment with our limited role and powers, and would soon simply demand an increased role and greater power.

Moreover, a Chamber elected on a more proportional system may forever subvert the power of the Commons and of the Government of the day to act decisively. Such an outcome would be a momentous break with our history and would not be in our long-term national interest. We all appreciate and understand the immediate urge for a more raw form of democracy—just talk to the bright young political activists in all three major political parties—but let us please consider all the consequences with due wisdom before we risk fatally unbalancing our constitution.