House of Lords: Reform

Lord Desai Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, over the weekend I completed 20 years in your Lordships’ House, so I am, by the Goodhart criterion, five years past redundancy and I shall await the chop falling on my head when the Bill is passed.

Over those 20 years I have never been persuaded of my own perfection as a legislator or of the perfection of your Lordships’ House as a Chamber. We are, as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said, a weak second Chamber. As the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, reminded us, if we were democratically more legitimate, we could provide a stronger check on the Executive than we do at present. The British Executive do not receive a sufficient check from the House of Commons alone; we need the House of Lords.

I recall how the reputation of your Lordships’ House went up when, during the many years of Mrs Thatcher’s prime ministership, petitioners for halting some of the changes had to come to the House of Lords. I particularly remember the abolition of the ILEA and arriving here in those days to lobby Bishops to do something about that. I think that the reputation of this House has grown in more recent times because the Executive have become more powerful as the Whips at the other end have become more powerful. Therefore, we should see our strength more as a reflection of the imperfection in the system rather than as an example of its perfection.

I have always supported reform of your Lordships’ House. I believe in a 100 per cent-elected House. However, I quite agree with all the noble Lords who have said that this Bill is an abolition of the House of Lords as it is at present. I do not see why the Government or the Liberal Democrat party are being so shy about their radicalism. We are about to replace the House of Lords with a senate. If that is the programme, let us say so openly.

Such a replacement cannot be done piecemeal by saying, “We shall retain the primacy of the House of Commons”. It is obvious that we shall not. During the debates on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill we passed an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that said that since no Parliament can bind any future Parliament, each Parliament should reaffirm the fixed-term decision. Would we like each Parliament to reaffirm the primacy of the Commons in the future? That is what would be required once we had replaced the House of Lords. As a reformer, I do not want to soften the blow; doing so would get us not good reform but muddled reform. After all, we have been discussing this for 20 years, and I have been speaking about Lords reform for about 15 years non-stop. There is a great continuity of ideas in the royal commission’s report. The draft Bill and White Paper have not come out of nowhere; they come from the royal commission under Jack Straw and should not have surprised anyone.

If we want to retain the primacy of the Commons, we should follow what the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said yesterday: there should be a statutory provision, in a separate Bill that is somehow in a form that future Parliaments cannot easily amend, affirming the primacy of the Commons, not just in Clause 2 of this Bill.

We are going to have elections but the various reports have been timid about the basis for them. I agree that if you make constituencies—whether large or small—the basis for electing a second Chamber, you are repeating what already exists in the Commons. Here is an opportunity to do something completely different and not rely on, for example, European Parliament constituencies. I would take up the idea that the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, has suggested, but I would make electoral constituencies the basis. He has suggested—as I think did the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, in a previous debate—that we should have constituencies other than territorial constituencies as the basis for electing people to this House. It could be the Royal Society, the British Academy, the CBI or the TUC.

Over the 12 years since we passed the previous House of Lords reform Bill, British politics has become much less unitary than used to be the case; we now have three devolved Assemblies. This trend towards quasi-federalism ought to be given a further push. We ought to make Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales constituencies from which, senate-style, 20 Members can be elected to your Lordships’ House—directly or indirectly; it does not matter. We now have many elected mayors in English cities. Perhaps every city with an elected mayor should be asked to send a representative—again, it would not matter if they were directly elected by PR or not. Why do we not use some imagination and fancy, and create a different type of representation? It has already been remarked—I think that my noble friend Lady Quin said this yesterday—that the Midlands and the north of England are underrepresented here. We should look at how we can achieve regional representation indirectly by means of representatives from local authorities or cities. We should aim to have a much richer mix of representatives here who will be elected but will not be able to challenge the House of Commons on the basis of territorial representation. Members of the House of Commons will remain accountable to constituents as defined on a territorial basis whereas the new senate that is to replace your Lordships’ House could have another kind of representation based on regional, commercial, industrial or cultural factors. The Joint Committee, which will be chaired by my noble friend Lord Richard, will have plenty of time to think about these alternatives. There are ways of achieving an elected House of Lords which are not enshrined in stone in the draft Bill. We may yet be able to fashion a better bicameral system that is more accountable than the present one. I predict that that will not happen in this Parliament but it may happen in the next.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

I am very confused. I am not being wicked about this, but I did not understand what the noble Lord was saying. Is he suggesting that we should abolish this House?

[Lord Desai]

I am saying that any proposal to have an elected House involves abolishing this House and replacing it with a senate. Whether or not you call that reform does not really matter; it is de facto abolition and we should say so.

Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

Lord Desai Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I welcome the debate. I did not testify to the Committee, but I believe that this is a very timely report.

One great problem that we always face is that, when we consider retirement or some other arrangement, we feel that we should wait for the big Bill that will reform the House of Lords as then all such problems will be settled. Although every now and then my hopes rise—they are about to rise again in the coming year—we cannot wait for the passage of a Bill for reform of your Lordships’ House. Even if a Bill comes before us sometime in the summer of next year, it will have to go through at least two rounds before the Government find the courage to use the Parliament Act 1949—which I very much doubt they will—so the status quo may continue, much to my regret. We will have to tackle the problem of the size of this House independently of the future reform of your Lordships’ House. For that reason, we ought to take this interim report very seriously and hope that the committee will come back with some more solid proposals.

I want to lay down a couple of principles. First, nobody should be compelled to go away, under any circumstances. We should have no scheme under which people feel coerced to leave your Lordships’ House, because we are a self-governing House and our principle of self-government also means respect for every Member of the House, regardless of what and how much they do. That principle has to be respected. Secondly, if we agree on a scheme, it should be non-discriminatory. It should not discriminate either on the ground of age, negatively, or on the ground of the number of years for which a person has been a Member or on the ground of non-activity. None of those criteria should be used, because they would be discriminatory and they would be resented.

I know that I am advocating a very mild, passive road, but I think it very important for the smooth working of your Lordships' House that we respect each other and let each person decide how much he or she will contribute to the House while they continue to be a Member. That leaves us with those who want to retire voluntarily and those who—we could mildly suggest this to them—have not been coming to your Lordships' House, who could perhaps be asked to consider that possibility.

We could suggest that, if people retire, they could continue to have access to the House’s facilities, which may be a point that they are worried about. If people could be allowed access to the facilities of the House, they may be willing to take retirement. Although they cannot attend your Lordships' House, they may be able to do other things, so that would be one way out. Perhaps a letter should go out to ask people whether they wish, for whatever reason, to take permanent leave of absence, as it were, to see what the response is.

There is an urgency to the matter, because the size of this House—including the number of working Members of this House—is getting beyond management. We are overcrowded. I know that we are only excluding people who do not come here any way, but sooner or later we will have to discuss other means of managing the size of the House much better on a day-to-day basis. However, that is for another day.

In the mean time, if we can get people voluntarily—almost gladly—to take leave of the House, that would be very welcome. I hope that we will make it non-discriminatory and will do it with as much dignity and respect for the Members of your Lordships' House as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am very tempted to follow my noble friend and try to explain the massive underrepresentation of our party in the past, particularly when the leader of his party refused to make appointments from our Benches. As I understand it, all our new recruits have already committed themselves to vote for substantial radical reform when they come here, which is a step in the right direction.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his colleagues, because it is a very good report. It has the advantage of brevity, which is not always the case in your Lordships’ House, and I confess that I have changed my mind as a result of his and his colleagues’ persuasion. I thought that we had a relatively simple issue here, and that as long as we avoided either excessive financial remuneration for those leaving or some enormously bureaucratic IPSA-like machinery, we could find some way through. I am not sure that that is the case.

I also thought that the key issue was the disentangling of the honours system from service in Parliament. I think that that is a critical issue. As the noble Baroness the Convener of the Cross Benches said, we must face up to that as soon as we can. Whether we have to wait for the wholesale reform that I will come to in a minute, I am not so sure, but I am persuaded by the report that the issue is a great deal more complex.

However, I am also persuaded, as is my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, that if we have to wait for the full reform package, which I estimate can come as a Bill—not a draft Bill—only in the Queen’s Speech of May 2012, we must do something earlier than that. There must be an interim solution. That is why the report is so helpful. It has caused me to react in two distinct ways—which are, potentially, I have to say, in conflict.

First, noble Lords may have examined table 3 on page 11. I am staggered that in Session 2009-10, 79 Members of your Lordships' House did not attend on one single day. As I understand it, that does not include those who had taken leave of absence; 79 Members who thought that they still were active Members of the House never attended on a single day. Why should the taxpayer pay for them to continue to stay away? That would be totally illogical. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice has already said, they are not here, so there is no point in paying them to stay away; nor, if we now introduce new qualifications, should we encourage them to come, because that would make the situation even worse.

Why should any taxpayer feel confidence about recompensing those who simply turn up to claim their allowance?

[Lord Desai]

I am somewhat lost. A person who does not come here does not get paid anything and does not cost anything. What is the problem?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has misunderstood me. I was suggesting that it would be wrong to pay them not to come in future, because they are not here anyway. That is all I am saying. I think that the noble Lord made a similar point earlier, and I am very sorry if he misunderstood me.

Why should we now recompense people who, frankly, turn up only to draw that allowance—who do not make a contribution, do not speak, do not ask Questions and perhaps only occasionally vote as the Whips tell them? That is not a real contribution to the work of your Lordships' House. Occasionally, I hear Peers say that we can take credit for being unsalaried. As has already been said, if you are not salaried, surely that precludes any redundancy payment or pension payment, by definition.

I was struck by the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. We should consider very carefully taking a leaf out of the Bishops’ book. The idea of one in, one out, is admirable. Whether the different party groups and the Cross-Benchers would find that acceptable I do not know. As I understand it, when those on the Bishops’ Bench take retirement on an orderly basis, they do not get any golden goodbyes.

Incidentally, it is important to think for a moment about why the Bishops are here. They are not here to be the conscience of the nation; they are here because their ecclesiastical ancestors had to be in the counsels of the monarch of the time because they were hugely important landowners—feudal barons. They were important at Magna Carta. It was important to have them on your side if you wanted to go to war because they had a lot of money.

I am told on good authority that in medieval, feudal times, there were more Lords Spiritual than Lords Temporal, including abbots and abbesses. The first women in the English Parliament were pre-Reformation abbesses. That was nothing to do with the conscience of the nation, and predated the established church. I may be misled; I am a historian rather than a politician really, underneath, but perhaps there is a Henry VIII lesson for us here. If there is a political and practical imperative, that will have to take precedence over every other consideration. That is why my noble friend is so right: we simply cannot wait to have a new solution imposed upon us.

I did not think that I would ever say this, but I have to echo the words of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers—that is something new for me. I thought he was absolutely right. If I were really devious—and, of course, I am not—I would support the most absurd, ludicrously generous retirement package for those who cannot be tempted to go otherwise because it would undoubtedly increase and harden the public’s support for reform of your Lordships' House, which I believe in. That seems to me to be the right answer. If we want to get this on the road, let us be ludicrously generous because that will increase the public’s support for real reforms, but I do not think that is what is here.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Desai Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, with whom I totally disagree, although I shall not explain why as I do not have the time.

I have been in this House for 19 years but I still fail to admire myself so much that I think of myself as indispensible to the British constitution. It is difficult not to be in love with oneself but I try. I am for a wholly elected House of Lords and always have been. I belong to a party which, I remind my noble friends on this side of the House, had to be dragged from being abolitionist to being in favour of a reformed House of Lords. If some of us have now moved to a no-change position, I shall not join them.

This, I believe, is the first time that we are in serious danger of being reformed. We at last have a Government who have the commitment to do that and, given what they are doing—I believe, rightly—to the economy, they need a political programme that will prove their radicalism. This Government have the majority in the House of Commons—and perhaps even in the House of Lords, although whipping is difficult—that will make it possible for them to pass a Bill on reforming the Lords to a wholly or partially elected House. That is quite a serious possibility. This is now the time to stop thinking that this issue will go away or that people will get into a discussion about powers and conventions and that somehow reform will never happen.

I take this matter very seriously. I believe that this Government should not only draft a Bill for whichever option they choose—as I said, I prefer the wholly elected option—but should also be prepared to use the 1949 Act. When Tony Blair came to visit the Labour Peers’ Group about five years ago just after he had made a hospital pass to Jack Straw about House of Lords reform, I remember asking him whether he was going to use the 1949 Act. He looked as though I had assaulted him. He said, “No, of course not. I am going to rely on consensus”. At that moment, I knew that reform would not happen.

Constitutional change does not happen by consensus; it happens by conflict, as British history shows, although I shall not go into that. If we are serious—and I am very serious about this—then we have to get this Bill through. We have already waited 100 years. The right honourable gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister may not quite get what he wants in 2011 but he may get it in 2012. I want reform because of the inadequacy of the House of Commons to be a check on the Executive and because our appointed position does not make us powerful enough to check the Executive, despite the evidence that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, gave of our amendments being accepted. When push comes to shove, we always have to say that the other place is right and that we are wrong.

I consider the primacy of the Commons to be an historical accident of the past 1,000 years or so. It is an historical accident because your Lordships’ House is unelected. No Commonwealth countries adopted this bicameral model when they left the Empire. They all took a bicameral model but none had an appointed or hereditary House.

[Lord Pilkington of Oxenford]

Can I correct the noble Lord? What about Canada?

[Lord Desai]

I stand corrected. I always think of larger countries such as India and Pakistan. I apologise for that. However, Canada did not make its second Chamber hereditary, because at that time it did not have that option. There was not even an appointed element in your Lordships’ House when Canada made that choice.

The point is that other countries manage to have bicameral legislations with elected representatives and they get into conflict. Conflict is the essence of politics and conflicts get resolved. There are established ways of reconciling conflicts between two Chambers of a Parliament wherever there are two Chambers. Why are we afraid of conflict? Solidly belonging to my party, I believe that good things, including progress, come out of conflict; progress does not come out of reconciliation.

If we want a really effective Parliament—one that will be a check on the Executive—perhaps we will have to abandon the wisdom and sagacity of your Lordships’ House and have a Chamber which is elected and legitimate and which will be able effectively to check the Executive. We will then have to consider on what grounds we elect that Chamber, and a number of suggestions have already been made. The noble Lord, Lord Low, in particular, made a very interesting suggestion about appealing to various constituencies such as the royal societies and so on. However, we have to move to an elected principle—perhaps not on territorial grounds like the House of Commons—with Members who cannot be re-elected so that they are independent. Fear not, my Lords. There are other people who are very capable; the fact that they are not here does not prove that they are not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

That is why I was going to sit down before the noble Baroness asked her question. She has been in Government. If I said at this Dispatch Box now, “We are going to use the Parliament Act”, those on half the Benches would stand up, and quite rightly so. We are going to produce a Bill that we are going to ask you to look at in the most constructive form possible. Let me end—

[Lord Desai]

The noble Lord mentioned the Salisbury convention. That convention had to do with a party’s manifesto before the election. If there is a coalition, there is not one manifesto; there are two. How does the Salisbury convention apply if there is a coalition Government?

[Lord McNally]

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is already preparing a book on the whole subject. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Desai, when he was a troublemaker at the LSE. He has not changed.