Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane]

My Lords, that seems to be an excellent question. I open by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and everyone on his committee for a thorough report. It was narrow in its remit, but it therefore focused on the issue. The committee did as good a job as anyone could in such a short space of time.

It would also be churlish not to acknowledge the part played by the Government in this. I genuinely congratulate the coalition Government on bringing a draft Bill before the House. I recall an exchange between the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and, I think, my noble friend Lord Grocott, on this side. The noble Lord taunted my noble friend with the fact that Labour had failed to bring forward a Bill, and that the coalition Government were going to do so. He was as good as his word. They have done that, and it was a courageous decision to do so. I mean that sincerely, but also in the sense in which Sir Humphrey means “courageous” when addressing Ministers in “Yes Minister”, because the fact is, when you look at the Bill, you can understand Jack Straw’s reluctance to bring one forward. It is a shambles of a Bill. One cannot think that the Government will proceed with it. After all, they set up a Joint Committee of both Houses to look at the Bill, and it has shot it to pieces—at least on its principal conclusions. It would therefore be wholly inappropriate simply to ignore the findings of the Joint Committee and proceed with the Bill.

The problem is that it is very easy to have one White Paper after another, one consultation after another, cabals of Front Benchers, and everyone thinks elections are a great idea. “Elections” is a banner that is easy to march behind, but when you get to the destination and someone delivers a speech on the draft Bill, you find that that support disaggregates at an alarming rate. Take the first decision: in an effort to try and avoid competition with MPs if people were to be elected to this place for five years, the proposal is, “Right; make it one term only for 15 years”. You immediately destroy any accountability whatever. One of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, was crying for was that this place must be made accountable. A term of 15 years would not make us one whit more accountable than we were previously.

The great problem is that that will not achieve even the purpose of preserving the primacy of MPs, simply because of the democratic dynamic. If I were to stand for this new House, how would I differentiate myself from the other candidates to secure election. What will my manifesto contain? What am I going to promise to do? If I promised to do anything, then forget seeking re-election, I would want—even to preserve my reputation—to achieve what I had promised to do. If I needed powers to do so, I would horse-trade my way to get them. You cannot have an election without people demanding more powers to fulfil the promises they make to the electorate. You cannot square the circle, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, put it earlier.

I think that one of the reasons why the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, found his colleagues in the House of Commons getting rather alarmed about this Bill was precisely the finding of the Joint Committee that Clause 2 was wholly inadequate in protecting the primacy of the House of Commons. That is not going to do much for MPs in the House who, in the case of Scottish MPs, already feel threatened by the devolved powers that MSPs have, and possibly the total loss of their raison d’être if Scotland goes fully independent. It will not allay the fears of MPs who, facing perhaps prominent elected mayors, can see their own importance as city MPs dwindling slightly. No wonder that there are alarm bells in the House of Commons.

Do not mistake me; there is a good case for an elected House of Lords. It is just that it will not be an elected House that is anything like the present one in its relationship with the House of Commons. There is nothing that would stop it being at least equal—if it is elected by a different system, possibly superior—to the House of Commons

As somebody who is against election, I fear the results of a referendum. I think that a lot of the public, for an entirely wrong reason, will say, “We want a House of Lords that is more powerful than the House of Commons. We will vote for an elected House of Lords”. That is very unfair to MPs, because what is wrong with House of Commons is not the individual MPs but the system. It starts with their election. Are people elected to control the Executive or to become part of them? With a payroll vote of more than 100, no wonder there is no scrutiny of legislation. At least another 100 want to be part of the payroll vote, so they are bought off as well. Nothing is properly scrutinised in the Commons.

Somebody mentioned costs. I do not want to go into great detail on costs but just to add a few points. Whatever the figures are, they will be 50 per cent more if the recommendation of the Joint Committee is accepted by the Government, as I think it should be. One presumes that the Government have done some costings—if they have not, they are guilty, because they should have done—so they are not telling us, possibly because they are scared. In my view, the costs have just gone up by 50 per cent.

There is the inequity point, which my noble friend Lord Lipsey mentioned. Transitional Peers will still get an allowance while the newly elected Peers will receive a salary. The comparison is worse than the one he suggested. Apart from the fact that the transitional Peer will get an allowance only on the days on which he attends, the elected Peer will receive a salary for 15 years whether or not he turns up. If somebody says to me, “Ah, but if he doesn’t turn up, we will recall him”, that is fine, but please put that in the Bill. Watch how many MPs love the idea of being recalled by constituencies every now and again.

There is a further point which your Lordships will forgive me if I make as a Scot. Will an elected Peer receive an allowance to cover the cost of living in London, as I understand that the Joint Committee recommends? That is a novel idea that would certainly appeal to those of us who come from Scotland and who bear the cost from our own pocket at the moment. Will that disparity remain?

There are two more important points about cost. First, the electorate will think, “Hold on. This House of Lords used to get an allowance. Now we are making them salaried they must be more important than they were or doing different things”. The House of Lords will appear to the electorate to be more important than it was. That might be a welcome thing, but I am not sure that the House of Commons would welcome it.

I invite my noble friend Lord Richard to reflect on a further point—this apparently clever idea that we will not give allowances for doing constituency work. You cannot stop an elected Peer doing constituency work. All it means is that the rich Senator will be able to do it and the poor Senator will not—hardly a great democratic option.

Generally, I think that this is close to a Eureka moment. We cannot square the circle of election and subservience to the House of Commons. I do not think that we will see a Bill in anything like its current form before us. That is because I hope that the Government, who presumably set up the Joint Committee to listen to its findings, will genuinely take account of what they hear and realise that they should ditch the fundamental points of the Bill and instead proceed with some meaningful reforms which are in it and are adumbrated in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the evidence submitted by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.

That is what I hope will happen. If it does not, I do not think that the Bill will get through the House of Commons. People do not remember that a majority of Labour MPs, even in 2007, at the height of the “cash for peerages” scandal, voted against 80 per cent election. A bigger majority of Conservative MPs voted against, despite the fact that it was in the Conservative manifesto. Since then, what have they seen? They have seen the growth of power elsewhere. One can only presume that the Government gave Clause 2 their best shot but they have also seen a Joint Committee of both Houses say that the protection is meaningless, despite any assurances that may be given, and I am sure that the Whips will say, “Oh, we’ll fix it; don’t worry”. Incidentally, I really did not like the idea put forward by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours of dealing with the issue of primacy in the oath. Why not put a provision to support the Government in the oath and then we could really get to a police state rather more quickly? Anyway, I do not see Peers going for it. The position has become slightly rockier since 2007 for various reasons, and I think that the House of Commons will defeat the Bill.

I do not want this matter kicked into the long grass. I want somebody to get out a lawnmower, clear a plot of ground and give the idea of an elected second Chamber a decent burial.