House of Lords: Reform

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I am in the minority in the House and on the speakers list, although I am much comforted by some of the speeches that I have just heard. It is both right and just that those who have power over the lives of others and who can make and amend laws—and we in this House do have powers—should be subject to the will of those people, the electorate. Therefore, in principle I seek a democratically elected and accountable second Chamber. In this I am in accord with my party and its traditions. Noble Lords may have heard statements to the contrary today, but the Labour Party stands for a democratically elected second Chamber and I do not believe that it will change its view in future years.

There has been a lot of talk also about MPs at the other end changing their views. I do not know from my contacts whether this is the case. However, I have spent some time looking at MPs who spoke in the debates at the other end, and it seems that many of them have been around for quite some time. A fair number of them are coming to the end of their careers, and possibly a number might hope to come to the House of Lords. It is very difficult to get a measure of the strength of feeling among the new MPs—and there are a lot of them down there. My guess is that if push comes to shove, most of them will stand with their leadership. Secondly, they will look at the manifestos on which they were elected. All the manifestos, even if the parties did not get majorities, have statements to the effect that those parties want an elected second Chamber. The MPs will also look at allegations that have been made about their conduct, and about breaking their promises, particularly after what we have seen in the past 12 months. Again on this issue, if it comes to the push, I believe that they will not leave themselves open to the allegation that they have breached the promises given in their manifestos.

I urge the House to look a bit wider than this debate has done so far—and I am very much a supporter of the House and in love with the House. We had rather a surprise three or four years ago when more people in the Commons voted for the change. People down this end did not believe that would happen. It is important that we do not misjudge the mood and the momentum. This topic is very much about momentum. It has been on the move since 1997 and there is a long way to go yet.

There is also a change of mood taking place among the public at large at a very fast pace that it ill behoves us to ignore, particularly in relation to the media, to communications, to the internet and so on. We can be caught out if we do not watch what is happening. If there was a referendum on whether the House should be 100 per cent elected, the public would throw it out completely, no matter what arguments were made.

There has been some movement in the Commons but I certainly cannot see it standing on its head and supporting the Steel Bill or 100 per cent appointments. I just do not see that happening; it is not the reality. They are not going to do that even if there was more opposition to election. We have to take note of some of those points. They will also be conscious that we are now a House of over 800 and that they are to be reduced in due course to 600. They will ask questions about the cost and sustainability of what we are doing. These are all topics that have not come up so far today but I think we should look at them.

Some people here are taking note of the need for change beyond just talking about tinkering around the edges. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, this morning. He is a greatly respected Peer and not a man who is about disturbing the normal state of affairs—he is a man for stability and a man who knows when there is a mood and change taking place and when there is a requirement to respond to it. It is interesting that he now advocates a move towards a form of election—not direct election, true, but indirect election—but this change is starting to take place in some areas in this House. The message for those of us who listen carefully to each other is to listen very carefully to what is going on around us.

If this Bill went through, I suppose that would be my manifesto for an election next time round and I would be out on the first list in 2015—one of the number to be ejected. The view has been put to me that if you are in favour of elections you will be the first to go out of the House if changes do come. Maybe I will respond to that.

Having said all that, I find the Bill a huge disappointment in certain respects, mainly in regard to omissions—it is what is not in there but which should be in there that I worry about. First, like the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, I am in favour of accountability and that means at least once going back to the electorate for election. In fairness, the Labour Party never had a policy which went down that road. We argued with Jack Straw and some of us hoped that we might be able to persuade the party that it should introduce some accountability because otherwise it makes a mockery of claiming that this is fully legitimate.

Secondly, I come to the infamous Clause 2 and failure of the Bill to address the issue of powers. I am an advocate of broadly maintaining the present relationship between the two Houses. Over time I have been asked about what work the Government were doing on codification of the powers and conventions between the two Houses. I am absolutely surprised that this has gone completely off the agenda and not been mentioned at all. I find this amazing. The last Government knew it had to be done and was starting to look at it but this Government have left it wide open. I hope that the Government will reflect on that carefully because there is no way you can keep the status quo. It was mentioned this morning that over 200 secondary legislation SIs came through the House last year. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, knows himself what you can do with an SI in this House: you can have a fatal vote on an SI and you can change completely a government policy—as indeed Members in this House did on the Gambling Bill when they threw out the SI. When you have elected people in the Chamber, can you leave the freedom for them to do that? In no time you will be in trouble.

My next question is linked to the Parliament Act. Do the Government have in mind using the Parliament Act on a frequent basis? More particularly, do they have in mind the possibility that, as previously when the delaying power was reduced from two years down to one, one of the ways in which they could deal with a problem between the two Houses is to change the delaying power from one year down to nine months, six months or even three months? I would be grateful if the Minister would address that point because it is fairly fundamental. It would be very difficult to put through but, if it went through, it could create an entirely different relationship between the two Houses.

My time is running out. I regret that the Government have not spent any time looking at the issue raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and others—the quality, calibre and experience of this House. How do you get such expertise through a system which requires selection and election? Many alternatives could be used instead of the present arrangements, which rest with the existing parties, and I am sorry that the Government in being radical—as they are trying to be—have not spent some time looking at that issue to see how we can get nearer to a system of finding people willing to stand for election who are similar to the ones we already have in the House. I hope the Government will look at that issue. I have raised it with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and I hope that the Joint Committee will be prepared to look at it.