Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Elton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, of course, this is a debate to take note of the Richard report. It has been read extensively within the Government as well as outside. I trust that all noble Lords have read all three volumes, including the splendid compliment made by my noble friend Lord Cormack to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, in which he commented on her extreme youth. The conclusions will be considered within the Government, but the proposals on the table are those on which the Richard report commented.

I recognise that many noble Lords would like some entirely different proposals. Undoubtedly, if the proposals are brought forward, they will be modified by comments made in this House and elsewhere. That is the nature of the to and fro of democratic debate and those are the efforts that we all make in attempting to reach a consensus.

The question is, as the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, remarked: what is our central problem? Part of the central problem, which the Government aimed to address, was how to increase the legitimacy—

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, the noble Lord does not seem to be addressing, in the appropriate slot, what many of us, including me, regard as the principal issue at stake, which was sharply focused on by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and by the noble Lord, Lord Ryder, in their recent interventions and which I rather cloudily tried to draw to the attention of noble Lords last night. How will they use this opportunity not to expand but to curb the power of government over Parliament? In reflecting on that, may I remind the noble Lord that he has been sufficiently long enough in government to be infected with the virus which makes people think that they will always see things from the Government’s point of view. However, the day—distant or near—when he will be sitting on the other side of this reconstituted House is of course drawing nearer.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for his reminder that an issue that we need to take into account as we consider this is the balance not just between this House and the Commons but between government and Parliament, and that reform of this House should contribute to redressing the balance of power between the Executive and the legislature as a whole.

When we debate the Queen’s Speech, we will again discuss constitutional reform. If the Government produce a Bill on this, I hope that noble Lords will place this piece of the jigsaw of constitutional reform in the wider pattern of popular disengagement from politics and distrust of politicians. We need to look very carefully at the evidence. We need to consider the appropriate balance between representative democracy and direct, popular democracy before we slip perhaps a little too far down the road towards direct democracy. We need to have a concern to rebuild popular trust in our political institutions. Quiet, calm deliberation should be the way in which we seek to disentangle the knot of this highly tangled issue.

We heard some remarkably apocalyptic speeches in this debate, and even threats to wreck the rest of the Government’s legislative programme in order to prevent reform progressing. However, we serve in this House by appointment and by the privilege that that gives us—not by right. The way in which we discuss the future of the House will reflect, for good or ill, on our reputation. We will return to the subject—I hope a little more dispassionately—again and probably again.