House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, for the way in which he moved his Bill again. I get closer and closer to some of his arguments. As I look down the speakers list, I see that out of the 25 speakers probably six or seven of us believe that the Bill is insufficient. I have spoken from that position on previous occasions when we have had the Bill before us, and I continue to do so, but I shall try to be positive to a degree because I recognise that there is much in the Bill that needs to be addressed by the Government if they intend to move forward with proposals that would remedy the deficiency in the Bill as I see it.

I make the point for the record, so that nobody says that noble Lords have not spoken for an elected Chamber, that some of us still believe in standing by party-political manifestos. I know that that may not be particularly fashionable in some quarters these days, but I believe in that. All the parties went to the British electorate at the last election with the very clear mandate that they wanted to reform the House of Lords and, in so doing, wanted to move towards a more democratic and accountable House than we have at the moment. I stand by that. I believe that if we are to build and restore trust with the public, there are a number of areas in which we can do that—and one in particular is by standing by manifesto commitments. Those who do not will suffer in due course, I believe. I wrote my notes at midnight last night and wrote some rather harsh things about some of our friends on the Lib Dem Benches which I shall not repeat today. But I believe that it is an important factor in the nature of the relationship between Parliament and the public.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, went through the history of how the House has changed. It is worth recalling that there has been a considerable change in attitude in the House of Commons to its relationship with this House since the 1990s. We have seen a whole series of attempts to affect change, but among the major changes that have taken place in the other place has been a move towards a majority in favour of an elected Chamber, although I am not certain whether it is wholly elected or partially elected. But that is a big change. If we believe in the supremacy in the Commons, we should take note of it—but, more particularly, we should take note of the votes that have been taken there, because never has there been anything like a majority vote in favour of a wholly appointed House. There is no indication at all that there is any support for that.

I move to one question that I need resolving fairly soon from the Government. Are we going to have a wholly elected House in the draft Bill that will come before us, or will we have a partially elected House with 20 per cent coming in by appointment and perhaps to the Cross Benches? If we are, that would answer many of the arguments that have been advanced so far against the way in which the quality of the House will be undermined if we move towards elections. I should like to have a response on that.

There is much merit in the major points made in the Bill. Yes, we need to have a change on hereditary Peers, and I believe that a majority here are in favour of that. Yes, we need a change on the leave of absence or retirement policy. Then there is what we do with people who commit certain acts and may be sent to prison. Yes, we need a change on that front.

Then we come to the major issue—the statutory appointments committee. I share the view that we need to move toward one, particularly if we have the 20 per cent appointed under the arrangements that may come this way. Does the noble Lord, Lord Steel, believe that what he has proposed so far is sufficiently open and transparent on the basis of the commission that he has advanced to date? We are now seeing the Commons call into account some of the appointments made to public bodies by the Government of the day. I think that we will find ourselves in a very strange position. We see a change recently by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is now saying of the committee of which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was chair that in future the House of Commons will have a right to veto who is appointed to the committee that will deal with budgetary control. It would be strange if we moved to set up a statutory committee to make appointments in this House that was done like the Star Chamber—in secret, with no access. We made the point about Lord Laidlaw, who made promises. Promises of that nature, when a committee requires people to give commitments, should be made in the public domain and be accessible by the public and be open to question by the public, rather than being done in secret, with debates afterwards about the nature of the exchanges that have taken place between people seeking to come into the House under this commission. Would the noble Lord, Lord Steel, consider the possibility that we might move more towards the kind of arrangements that they have in the United States, where congressional sessions are able to address in the public domain candidates for a particular post? They can see precisely where they stand and what they are prepared to do in future. That would be an important point worth considering and, one would hope, acceptable to most of the people interested in this. That is a positive change that we could look to in future.

I come back to the work that is being done. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, will speak later. He missed the brief Question that we had earlier this week—the discussion on the Lords—when we talked about how the conventions will be addressed. I have been pressing this for quite some time, but I have been told that I must wait. Had I had the opportunity of coming in earlier in the week, I would have asked the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, why if the previous Government under the Prime Ministership of Gordon Brown were able to set up a committee to do work on the conventions that was disbanded only when we came to the general election, and why if the Members of this Government saw the need for that work to be undertaken, are they now arguing that it does not need to be done until we have the draft Bill before us? The noble Lord, Lord Wills, asked that question, and as yet we have not had an answer, so I would be grateful if the Minister could give a response today.