Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, does that mean that the demands of time for the Electoral Commission are more important than the demands of time for us to make sure that what we decide on is the right way of tackling this Bill?

[Lord Cormack]

Further to that, my Lords, could the Electoral Commission be gently told that it itself should not procrastinate as much? We were debating an issue yesterday where the Electoral Commission has taken so much time that we were not able to consider its recommendations on the Scottish referendum question because those have not yet been made. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in the process of considering this Bill I have met quite a large number of electoral registration officers. They are a subculture that works incredibly hard during electoral campaigns. I have real respect for what they do and how hard they work at the local level. We all have to recognise that getting this right, and improving the declining accuracy and the incompleteness of the current register as we move towards a different one, is a very important goal which we share across all political parties and Benches in this House.

EU: Scottish Independence

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I can confirm all of that. It is a recognised, long established principle of public international law that when a part of a state secedes it inherits obligations under treaties but it has to apply to join international organisations. When the Soviet Union broke up, that applied to Ukraine, Belarus and others. When India broke up, it applied to Pakistan and then to Bangladesh, so this is a well established principle.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, do we know yet precisely what legal advice the Scottish Government took on this issue?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we do not know. That is one of the things that everyone is longing to discover.

First World War: Centenary

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this year I watched the Remembrance Sunday commemoration very closely from the Foreign Office and I did not think that it had become more militaristic. I was also struck and encouraged that a number of veterans from other countries were marching in the parade. That is also highly desirable. It is not entirely, therefore, a national or nationalistic occasion.

On the question of the wider social context, that is absolutely part of what we will do. In my area, the Saltaire History Club and the Bradford World War One Group—there is one—are already discussing how they will look at the impact on the mill in Saltaire, which turned over to producing khaki cloth and all the other dimensions. A large number of its workforce ended up being women.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, can we make 4 August 2014 a day of national reflection, with all the shops closed and with a proper opportunity for everyone to consider precisely what terrible things happened in a war on which, on the very last day, when the Armistice was signed, twice as many people were killed as have been killed in Afghanistan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, 4 August is not the easiest day in the year to ask people to reflect solemnly on anything. One of the questions with which the Government are currently concerned is: which is the most appropriate day, and what to do? Perhaps I might also add that while the British wish to commemorate the beginning of the war, the Somme battle and the end of the war, many of our Commonwealth partners and allies will want to commemorate other dates: Vimy Ridge for the Canadians, Gallipoli for the Australians and New Zealanders. There is therefore quite a lot of delicate negotiation about how we manage all this. Finally, among the great expertise in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has given me a copy of her volume, in Chinese, on the origins of the First World War, which I am very happy to lend anyone who would like to read it.

House of Lords: Appointments

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, over lunch I made a calculation which, even though I was unable to find a calculator, I hope was correct. If one were to be strictly accurate, the Labour Party as represented in this House is roughly in tune with the percentage that it received in the last election. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is as good as 10 people. The most underrepresented group, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, knows, is of course the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, if the Government take this House and Parliament seriously, how can they continue to refuse to contemplate reforms along the lines of those included in the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel? My noble friend has referred to this as an interim House. Some believe that it can be a permanent House, giving permanent value to our constitution. The Government are flying in the face of that fact.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the consensus in this House is not the only factor which has to be taken into consideration. The House of Commons voted by a substantial majority in favour of the principle of an elected second chamber. All three parties had the principle of an elected second chamber in their manifestos in the last election and the coalition programme stated that we will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. We want to achieve a consensus. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who has laboured very hard to achieve a consensus on reforms. That is clearly the only long-term way forward.

Georgia: Public Services

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I received a detailed briefing from the Georgian embassy this morning, as they discovered that I was due to answer this Question. We are doing a number of things that work in the same direction: we are looking at the provision of the public service estate, and the capital assets pathfinder exercise, working between central and local government, is looking precisely at how you can bring offices together so that services are integrated. In Hampshire, the new Havant public service village, which is the furthest along in this development, is a project that will bring together Hampshire County Council, Havant Borough Council, Hampshire PCT, Hampshire and Isle of Wight police, Capita, Citizens Advice and other voluntary sector partners in the same building. The aim is to transform public service delivery in Havant. That is very much the sort of thing that we have in mind and, incidentally, will save a considerable amount of space by the time it has finished.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, has G4S been to Georgia, and if not, why not?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, G4S is an international company but I have absolutely no idea whether it has yet been engaged in Georgia.

Civil Service: Training and Development

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that was a good joke. The Prime Minister’s speech set out proposals for what he thought the Conservative Party should do post-2015. That is rather beyond my brief.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, what is being done to ensure that civil servants communicate in plain, concise English? Will he arrange for all civil servants to be given a copy of Sir Ernest Gower’s classic work, The Complete Plain Words, so that they write and speak English and we get rid of the appalling jargon that disfigures so many public documents?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thought that the noble Lord was going to pay attention to Civil Service spelling mistakes. Perhaps I should inform the House that I discovered some rather bad spelling mistakes in Hansard last week, which I have reported to the Hansard writers.

Historical Manuscripts Commission

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cormack]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the work of the Historical Manuscripts Commission is continued.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am delighted to have this opportunity to ask this Question for Short Debate.

I would like to dedicate this debate to the memory of a very great Member of your Lordships’ House and former chairman of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Lord Bingham—Tom Bingham, as so many of us knew him for so long. He was one of the great judges of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He loved being chairman of the commission, so much so that when he ceased to be Master of the Rolls and became Lord Chief Justice he continued in the chair. In a sense I am raising in your Lordships’ House the unfinished business in the late Lord Bingham’s files because we were in communication on this subject to within a month or two of his death.

The background to this is that I served as a royal commissioner on historical manuscripts from 1980 until 2003, when the royal warrant, which had been issued for the first time in 1869 to establish the commission, was updated so that the Keeper of the Public Records became the sole commissioner. It is worth reading to your Lordships an extract from that warrant. It states: “Our said Commissioner”—

now the sole commissioner—

“shall make enquiry as to the existence and location of manuscripts, including records or archives of all kinds, of value for the study of history, other than records which are for the time being public records by virtue of the Public Records Acts; with the consent of the owners or custodians inspect and report on them; with the consent of the owners or custodians reproduce and publish or assist the publication of such reports; record particulars of such manuscripts and records in a national register thereof; promote and assist the proper preservation and storage of such manuscripts and records; assist those wishing to use such manuscripts or records for study or research; consider and advise upon general questions relating to the location, preservation and use of such manuscripts and records; and promote the co-ordinated action of all professional and other bodies concerned with the, preservation and use of such manuscripts and records”.

It is important to have the royal warrant on the record in your Lordships’ House because when the merger of the Historic Manuscripts Commission and the Public Records Office was first proposed, there was real concern among commissioners. I was particularly vocal on the commission in expressing that concern. Lord Bingham was very understanding—so much so that he went to infinite pains to seek assurances from Ministers and others that the staff and resources devoted to the HMC would be preserved within the new National Archives, that the royal warrant from which I have just quoted would be embodied in the vision and objectives of the National Archives, and that the new body would be put on a statutory footing in legislation that would encapsulate those undertakings.

Lord Bingham retired from the chair in 2003. I served on the National Archives successor body for two years, and we kept in touch because I remained concerned. In 2009, when Dr Anthony Smith retired from the commission—he is now the chairman of the British Records Association—he contacted me to express his alarm at what he saw as a downgrading of the role and resources of the commission and its identity. As a result, I contacted Lord Bingham, who was, to put it mildly, very perturbed. We had a meeting in this very building with the then Minister—I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Wills, in his place—about six weeks before the general election of 2010. Tom Bingham was by then a very sick man, but he came and was very vigorous, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Wills, would readily attest, in expressing his concern at being personally let down on the undertakings and assurances that he had received. He pointed out that staffing levels had fallen, three permanent posts had gone and people had not been replaced. He was also concerned that the identity of the HMC had been lost; it was very difficult to find it, or any reference to the warrant from which I have quoted, on the website. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, was so concerned about this that he gave certain instructions but, of course, the election intervened and I was away from Westminster for a long time—six months.

When I took my seat in this House, one of the early things that I did was renew my friendship with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and together we saw the noble Lord, Lord McNally. As a result of the meeting that I helped to arrange with the Lord Bingham and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and the meeting that the noble Lord and I had with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, there have been some welcome developments. There is an increase in the visibility of the identity of the royal commission. An advisory forum, under the chairmanship of the Master of the Rolls has been established. We welcome that very much indeed, but it is, frankly, no substitute for the vigorous, independent and experienced body that was the royal commission.

The consequence of all this is that a very small percentage of the staff at the National Archives deals with more than 50% of the nation’s historic archives. Perhaps I may quote from a letter that I received only today from Dr Susan Davies, one of my fellow commissioners in the dying days of the royal commission, in which she says,

“the opportunity to consolidate HMC’s functions following amalgamation with the PRO to create that National Archives in 2003 has been missed, and”

there has been,

“a marked decline in the staff allocated to HMC functions, its profile and public information about its work”,

which,

“has been unfortunate to say the least, because it has resulted in a declining ability to carry out those functions”.

She is referring, in other words, to the functions that are clearly listed in the royal warrant.

What I am asking the Minister, my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who is to respond to this debate, is this: can we please have a proper independent monitoring body that is independently selected, to which the chief executive is, to a degree, answerable, and from which he is obliged to take some advice? This is no criticism of the chief executive but we need to recognise that more than 50% of the nation’s archives are, to a degree, at risk. Can we also have an assurance that, as the budget permits, the number of staff who deal with the HMC functions is increased? Can we have a commitment that those magisterial publications that adorn the shelves of historians and university libraries around the world, and which have now ceased, will, when the time is appropriate, appear again and we will have more scholarship?

What we are talking about here is a nation that has the richest written heritage in the world, and the largest element of it is in archives that are not public records but collegiate, corporate, ecclesiastical, industrial and, above all, private. All over the country, there are those who have archives of immeasurable worth and received a service and an advice service from the royal commission that had no equal anywhere else in the world. All this has, to a degree, been put at risk. I criticise no individual, but circumstances have developed that make all of us who are concerned for the nation’s archives deeply concerned, and I hope that we will have a reassuring response from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I recognise the question. My understanding is that the Syon Park meeting in December is intended to fulfil a great many of those commitments. If the noble Lord is not satisfied with that, I undertake to write to him on that score. I spoke to him before this debate, and I have also taken fully into account the concerns expressed by a number of people both outside this Chamber as well as inside it. Looking at the current situation I am relatively assured that most of the points made have been met, except for the question of funding. We would all like a great many more staff to assist.

[Lord Cormack]

I support very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said. I suggest that the Minister and the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Wills, and I at least have a get-together soon to discuss these matters.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am happy to accept that proposal. I look forward to that meeting, which will be after the Diamond Jubilee Recess.

We all recognise the importance of private archives as well as public archives. Several of us here hope, when we finish being quite so committed in the Lords, to spend more time digging around in private archives. That is one of the great joys of retired life as well as everything else. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for introducing the debate and wish everyone a very happy Diamond Jubilee.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I do not pretend that Egypt is a perfect democracy—of course I do not. But if it is prepared to elect its second Chamber, on that matter and in this instance is it not a better democracy than we are in this place, who resist that?

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I will give way in a moment. Let me just make it clear that across the world, or at least a very great deal of it, people are on the streets demanding democracy, while here we sit huddled, determined not to even let it enter through the doors. It is an unsustainable position.

[Lord Cormack]

I am most grateful. A couple of weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, asked his noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford why Lloyd George—the hero of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown—did not believe in an elected second Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, could not answer that question. Can the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, do so?

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I did answer that question. I said that Lloyd George was for the abolition of the House of Lords. “I am a single Chamber man”, he said—and in that he was assisted by Arthur Henderson and Keir Hardie.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Well, headmaster, to be honest, I did not. If my noble friend had taxed me on that point, he would have realised that I was then not certain as to what my views were on election. Having been here, I am afraid that my views are now certain: I want heavy reform of this place but not direct election. He and I will have to differ on that. Of course, the place is stuffed with party patronage but we can reform in a way that does something about that and that makes this place more representative of the nation as a whole but does not destroy its two signal virtues vis-à-vis the other place. First, there is here a depth of experience of the real world, which, sadly, Members of the other place have less and less—fine men and women though they are. Secondly, we have that level of independence that is an essential counterbalance to what goes on down there, which is one defeat of the Executive every two years. We have to exist; without us the situation would be appalling. If this place were directly elected, frankly, I would have great anxiety about the possibility of there being majorities in both places. What would happen to the volume of legislation then because the manifesto theory looms large down the other end—and reasonably so up to a point? However, when you have modern manifestos of more than 100 pages for each party, packed with 1,000 commitments to every interest group in Christendom, I fear to think what could happen if these two Chambers were aligned politically. You would see an amount of legislation—

[Lord Cormack]

And timetabled!

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Timetabled and all the rest of it. Therefore, I have to say—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rennard]

I think that Lloyd George in his many arguments against the hereditary basis of the House of Lords felt otherwise as he tried to introduce radical legislation.

Turning to more recent times, I would dare to suggest that opposition to the Government’s legislative programme in the past two years has often gone well beyond polite exhortations to the Commons to reconsider. This House has real purpose and real power, even if limited today to the significant power to delay non-financial matters. The power to delay can in practice often be the power to prevent.

The issue of legitimacy for this House to exercise its powers has been debated for more than 100 years. It is frequently suggested that we may now be moving too rapidly to conclude that debate. As I have said previously, it is probably only in this place that a Government intent on proceeding with a principle contained in all major party manifestos and introducing a phased programme of democratic reform over about 15 years could be accused of acting with “undue haste” with only a mere century of deliberation so far.

Proposals for reform appear to have shocked many noble friends to my left in this Chamber—I do not mean to my political left, of course—as well as a few around me. Some of those around me should recall that we have two words in our party title. The first word is “Liberal”, which takes us back to the party of Lloyd George and Asquith and that fight to end the hereditary principle and, at least in Asquith’s case, to replace it with the popular principle for membership of the House.

[Lord Cormack]

My noble friend will of course remember that both Lloyd George and Asquith accepted hereditary peerages.

[Lord Rennard]

Indeed they did, and some of us accepted life peerages. Some of us who I know were strong supporters of the principle of democracy and elections to this place accepted peerages because it was the only way in which we might have a voice in these debates and eventually a vote to support those principles.

For Members around me perhaps looking for a little further guidance as to where our party should be on this issue, I suggest that there is a clue in the second word of our party name, “Democrat”. I take a simple view about the nature of representative democracy: I strongly believe that those who approve the laws should be elected by those who have to obey them.

As for noble Lords who take a more Conservative position, I understand that it took a long time for their predecessors to accept such principles as the universal franchise, the secret ballot and the abolition of rotten boroughs, but I might remind them of what their party has said in more recent times. Under the leadership of Mr William Hague in 2001, the Conservative Party manifesto stated:

“We would like to see a stronger House of Lords in the future, including a substantial elected element”.

Under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, in 2005, the Conservative Party manifesto said that,

“proper reform of the House of Lords has been repeatedly promised but never delivered … We will seek cross-party consensus for a substantially elected House of Lords”.

In 2010, the manifesto on which 307 Conservative MPs were elected stated:

“We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords”.

[Lord Cormack]

I know that my noble friend likes to be accurate, so would he acknowledge that in 2007, when another place voted on these proposals, more Conservative Members voted against the party’s official policy of 100% elected than for it? That policy, enunciated in manifestos, has been repeatedly repudiated by the majority of Members of the Conservative Party.

[Lord Rennard]

Indeed, but the question must be put as to why the party stood on that manifesto in 2010 as clearly and unequivocally as it did. The Conservatives stood on that basis over 10 years, with three manifestos— whether there would be a substantially or predominantly elected element or changes to the House of Lords. It was on that basis that they were elected. That is a matter for others to judge them on.

It will be to the relief of the House that I will not quote every Labour manifesto on the subject of House of Lords reform. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, tried to refer to 11 of them in brief. I will quote just one, which happens to be the one on which the last Labour Government were elected. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is not in his place. He suggested that whenever the Labour Party advocated Lords reform, it lost. I seem to recall that the Labour Party won the 1997 general election, and did so decisively with a majority of 179.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rennard]

I simply think that PR is a matter of democracy and we need democracy within this House.

Given the Labour Party’s recent history on House of Lords reform, I am surprised by this new-found enthusiasm for a referendum on the issue. I note that that was in the Labour Party’s manifesto in 2010 but not previously. In the 1996-97 period, leading Liberal Democrats such as my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart, together with the late Robin Cook and other noble Lords and Baronesses—some of them present in the House tonight—agreed a fundamental reform of the House of Lords in the event of the Conservatives losing the 1997 general election. There was no suggestion that there should be a referendum on the proposals. It seems that if there is to be a referendum on the issue it would be because parliamentarians in the other place have failed to do the job that they were elected to do.

I would like to refer briefly back to the report on referendums—

[Lord Cormack]

How does my noble friend square his championing of the referendums for electing mayors of our cities and for AV with resolutely being against a referendum for the biggest constitutional change in the composition of our Parliament that we will have seen for over a century?

[Lord Rennard]

My noble friend and other noble Lords will never have heard me argue the case for referendums for mayors. Noble Lords present during the debates last year on the Localism Bill will have heard me express strong reservations about referendums. There are often major problems with the conduct of referendums. The only exception I have thought of to my general belief in representative democracy above referendums is that the system by which Members are chosen in the place that has primacy should be chosen not by those Members themselves but by the voters.

A number of noble Lords have suggested this evening that electors a year ago chose first past the post and rejected proportional representation—that was the implication of a number of arguments. I remind noble Lords that the option of proportional representation was never offered to the voters last year because noble Lords from other parties and Members of another place were too fearful that people might decide to have that system rather than first past the post.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this will be a shorter Session than the last one, as I am sure all noble Lords have noted. We will see what progress we can make. The speed with which progress will be made on the Lords reform Bill and on other Bills will depend on the reasonableness with which they are met in each of the two Chambers.

I move on to the question that a number of Peers raised about the rationale for the Bill. There are three important points. The first is that we are a transitional House. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said:

“The transitional House which will be created as a result of the Bill will be exactly that: transitional and not permanent”.—[Official Report, 11/5/99; col. 1092.]

The Labour Government promised on more than one occasion to take the next step. In this Chamber on 20 July 2007 the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, then a Minister, declared:

“We have the prospect of agreement between the parties on the way forward”.—[Official Report, 20/7/07; col. 535.]

He stated that this was for the House to be “substantially or wholly elected”. We are moving on to the next stage now because the previous Labour Government failed to do so—and we are closely following the model that they intended to put forward.

Since 1999, we had a royal commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham; a first White Paper from the then Labour Government; a Joint Committee; a Green Paper; a second White Paper; a cross-party working group; and, finally, a third White Paper and two reports that we have debated over the past 10 days. In May last year, the Government published a draft Bill—and now is the time to move forward.

The issue of composition arises because we are a patronage House, and the patronage that leads us all here is something that we think is not sustainable. The third is that we are talking about evolutionary reform: the next stage in a pattern of Lords reform.

[Lord Cormack]

As one who has heard every single speech in the debate, and who did not leave the Chamber on any occasion, might I ask my noble friend to be a little more receptive to the consensus that has emerged in this House during the debate—namely, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that there would be a very large measure of agreement around a Steel-type reform, but that there is genuine, deep and bitter concern about the proposal to drive forward with elections for which certainly there is no consensus? Will he not at least report that to the Deputy Prime Minister before the Bill is finally drafted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise the noble Lord’s concerns and I compliment him on the speed with which he has moved from being—as he described himself—a House of Commons man to being very clearly a House of Lords man. Of course I will report back to the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Cabinet Office Bill team had read Thursday’s debate when I discussed it with them this morning. We are listening, but we have not only the opinion of this House to take into account as we move forward.

I move on to the question of a constitutional convention, which appears in the alternative report as a strongly proposed idea and has met with a lot of sympathy around this House. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, went further and suggested that we should approach constitutional reform “from first principles”. The only time that I can recall that the English were tempted to rethink our constitution from first principles was between 1647 and 1650. It was a revolutionary period when the king was beheaded, the Putney debates discussed fundamental principles of authority and democracy and some of the parliamentary army mutinied. Since then, the British have prided ourselves on our unwritten constitution, which changes through evolution rather than revolution. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, entitled the chapter in one of his books “Our Uncodified Constitution”.

The alternative report says that constitutional conventions are a well known process in other countries and cites France’s National Convention of 1792 and the American conventions of 1786 and 1787 as appropriate examples. But in France and in the USA these followed revolutions. They beheaded the king in France too.

Alfred Dicey stated in his introduction to Law of the Constitution that it rests on two pillars: parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in his book, The Hidden Wiring, quotes the first Lord Esher summing up that the underlying principles,

“of our written constitution rest on precedent and reasonableness”.

Reasonableness or restraint expressed through conventions has, in our constitution, moderated the primacy of the Executive and their use of the doctrine of the primacy of the Commons.

Some of those who support the arguments of the alternative report are in effect highly radical, wanting to shift the United Kingdom towards a written constitution. The Americans, mistrustful by far of any Executive, produced from their convention a written constitution designed on the principle of mistrust and unreasonable behaviour. It was designed therefore to lead to deadlock on occasions between Congress and the President and between the two Houses of Congress, as we see now. None of us wants a constitution like that.

The question of costs has been raised. The Government have not yet been able to produce their estimates of costs partly because of the size of the House. The Government’s draft Bill proposed 300 Members and the Richard committee proposed 450. Of course, that makes a difference. If we have 450 part-time Members, it might cost little more than 300 full-time Members. The costs of a constitutional convention proposed by the alternative report would themselves be very considerable. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, asked about the Government’s thinking on severance payments for retiring Peers. I am not aware of any discussions within the Government or any proposals on that basis, but that raises questions of costs as well.

The question of how we search for consensus is rather like hunting for the Snark. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, reminded us all of the immensely constructive work of the Wakeham commission 10 years ago. I found the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, to this debate constructive and wise. He reminded us that his report was received with much hostility at the time. More than 10 years later, it seems more acceptable because it is less radical than the draft Bill, just as the Steel Bill which was so strongly opposed in this House when it was previously presented, has now become much more popular now that it appears to be the lesser evil.

The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, said that the Labour Party,

“has to think again about the idea that it can have 100% elected membership. It is quite simply unrealistic. A consensus outcome will not produce that”.—[Official Report, 10/5/12; col. 49.]

Perhaps I may quote one more remark made by the noble Lord, which I think all noble Lords would do well to consider. He said:

“I suggest that we use with some humility the position that we are somehow superior in public perceptions and in our judgment of the public good”.—[Official Report, 10/5/12; col. 50.]

We have to remember that the way this Chamber handles proposals for its further reform will reflect on its reputation outside. We have to understand the likelihood that at some point the sketch writers and tabloid columnists will look to see how they can make fun of this House as well. I would suggest to the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, that it is unwise to describe membership of the Lords, as I think I heard her say, as “peaceful retirement”. If the image of the Lords becomes that of a retirement home for former MPs, and that were to catch the attention of the popular press, the prestige of this Chamber would not be raised.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the amount of time in the next Session to be spent on this subject will depend partly on how dispassionately both Houses approach the issue.

On the principle of the wedge, if we accept this, it will be impossible to stop short of further and disastrous consequences: a written constitution, a judicially arbitrated constitution or, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, suggested, a republic. Others want a written constitution before we reform the Lords or argue that further reforms will fundamentally alter the nature of Britain. In considering whether this House might introduce an elected Chamber, my noble friend Lord Cormack told us that we are talking about the future of this country.

Alternative proposals have been scattered across the Chamber: an indirectly elected House, the modest reform put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, or a full constitutional convention. I was utterly surprised by the enthusiasm expressed around the Chamber for the Steel Bill, given the bitter opposition to so much of it in the Chamber over several years. I am still not sure whether the support has been expressed for the full Steel package or for the emasculated Bill that emerged from Third Reading.

We have had plenty of other arguments against change: constituency competition, the bug bear of former MPs. In one way or another, those of us who live outside the metropolitan south east already play some of those roles and we see them as part of our responsibility within an appointed House. I have been president of my party’s Yorkshire region; I spend time at weekends going to constituencies and conferences; and I run into Peers from other parties at various Yorkshire events. We already fulfil some of those constituency responsibilities.

The issue of costs has been raised. We must be very strict about costs, although if we have to have a referendum we will spend £100 million on it.

Primacy of the Commons is a wonderful obstacle against which one can kick. If necessary, we must do all that we can to defy the will of the Commons in order to preserve its primacy and its financial privilege. Conventions must be written in stone, although the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, remarked that conventions, of their nature, are not rules and that they must be allowed to evolve and that a concordat between the two Houses would therefore be an appropriate way forward.

I hear some people say that there is not much interest in Lords reform among the public but, nevertheless, there must be a referendum. I respectfully remind Members of this House that one of the most fundamental constitutional changes that we have witnessed since I joined the House is the separation of the judicial function from the legislative function through the establishment of the Supreme Court and that was carried through without a referendum.

Hybridity has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, as completely unacceptable because it would make the House unworkable. This House has always been hybrid; it consists of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal and, when I joined the House, it was partly hereditary and partly appointed. I recall a colleague in the Association of Conservative Peers saying that in the Conservative group the hereditaries referred to the Life Peers as “the day boys”. Only those who have been to boarding school know how dismissive that is; it refers to a subordinate body to the lifers. This would merely be a shift to another form of hybridity.

The argument has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, that a second Chamber elected on proportional representation might even claim greater legitimacy than the Commons because it would be more fully representative of the opinion of voters as a whole, which suggests that we all prefer a less legitimate voting system than the one that might be used for this House. Above all, we have to wait for a consensus in this House or in the Commons.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I had hoped that the Minister would indicate that he has listened to what has been said and that the Government would reflect on what has been said in the debate on such issues as hybridity, referendum and primacy. My noble friend is coming suspiciously close to saying that he has a closed mind on these issues. I hope that he will draw back and indicate that what has been said in the official report, the alternative report and on the Floor of this House over the past 24 hours will be taken into account before the Government decide whether to proceed with a Bill and what sort of a Bill it will be.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to almost the entire debate and particularly to my noble friend’s contribution. Many within the Government will be reading the debate in Hansard. As I said at the beginning, I did not hear much with which I was not already familiar. I suspect that that may be true of many noble Lords. Of course we shall be reflecting on matters and, if proposals are brought forward in the Queen’s Speech, a great deal of what has been said will be reflected in those proposals.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 10th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has said. However, I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench and my noble friend Lord Steel to consider very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord True, has said, bearing in mind that the power of the Commons to expel, which it does have, is the power to expel from that particular Parliament. Expulsion from this place could be something very different. If we are to try to equate our rules with those of the other place, so far as they can be equated, all those things should be borne carefully in mind. That is why the offer of the noble Lord, Lord True, to withdraw his amendment should be accepted so that sensible discussions can take place on this issue.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I make the same request to the noble Lord, Lord True. Amendment 280, which was moved but later withdrawn by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, proposes that there should be a right of appeal in case something is not quite right. We must always take the charitable view that if someone cannot pay back what they owe, there may be a reason for that other than intent. We ought to allow room for exceptions in certain circumstances.