House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Graham Allen

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes his point, but anyone looking objectively at this House would see two competing teams, one for the Government, the other against, and it is rare that there is rebellion or independence of mind, as he well knows.

We should not fear the liberty and the improvement of the second Chamber. It might actually be the making of the freedom of the first Chamber. It might be one step on the road to having a free and independent legislature that would challenge the power of the Executive.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I wouldn’t hold your breath.

[Mr Allen]

My right hon. Friend, having been a strong member of a past Executive, knows where he is most powerful. Is he most powerful sitting on the Back Benches here, or was he most powerful when in Whitehall and commanding a Government Department? We could discuss how effective the scrutiny was that he went through.

To have an un-elected Chamber with a say in passing laws over our citizens is a democratic abomination. It is not a deficit, an anachronism or a quaint ceremonial corner; it is an insult to every elector in the land. It is hobbling and repressive. It says to our citizens, “You are not capable or worthy of deciding your own future, of deciding who should run your country.” It says that this country is about deference and patronage, about a lack of self-confidence and belief, and about insiders and those who know better. It is about our past, not our future. It is an open wound in the body of our democracy and it must be healed.

That wound can be healed only by introducing the elective principle to the second Chamber. That is what this generation of parliamentarians in both Houses can achieve over the next year, and it can be done without beheading those whose service in the second Chamber deserves our respect, not our abuse. For those of us who for 25 years or more have worked for reform, standing on the shoulders of a century of giants before us, these proposals are the most serious attempt yet to bring about a change in our democracy and bring it into the modern era. Their courage and ambition mock the flaccid indecision of recent years.

Are the proposals perfect? No, of course not. Only the 650 different plans in the minds of each hon. Member are perfect, but that is why, theoretically at least, we have a parliamentary process. There is a—