Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Purvis of Tweed

Friday 11th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

My Lords, I enjoy the interactions with the Minister on this aspect, although we do not see eye to eye. I think he was referring to the previous constitutional history of England when he said “this country”. It is worth mentioning that. We often have to reflect on the previous errors of England in the constitutional history of these nations—plural.

I understood the amendment to require, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, indicated, a more codified relationship between the House of Commons and House of Lords, and that it was not a consideration of a wider British written constitution. But I respect the extensive experience of the noble Lord in the other place and in this House, and share many of his views about the need for a more codified relationship in respect of our governance. It is interesting that those who now seem to set their faces against that—primarily the Government—are happy to institute processes that do not necessarily have any end or focus at all.

One example was the debate we had on incremental and gradual change of the House of Lords. Any objective observer of that process would feel that what the Minister said was a criticism of my Bill, but it could be applied exactly, in fact more so, to the process of reform that his own party is putting forward. That is amplified by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has proposed that external people should interfere in the procedures of this House, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. It is probably more appropriate for the Government to adopt a slightly different tone, because there is now justification for moving towards a more codified system of relationships between the nations and our governance.

I shall go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. Incidentally, if the Minister thinks that a superhuman expert is required for the running of such a convention, the more the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, contributes to that debate, the better. Much as he may indicate that he is ruling that out, I cannot think of anyone more qualified or who could give me greater assurance in running this constitutional convention. He pointed out some of the difficulties we have been having without a more codified system that also ultimately seeks a degree of flexibility.

Turning to the amendment, if the conclusion of the convention’s deliberations was that our relationship with the legislation we consider needs to be dealt with through a written constitution, that would be one of the benefits of such a convention and a justifiable part of it. I take on board the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, but I ask him to withdraw his amendment on the basis that the convention should be empowered to consider this issue itself.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As is often the case in such debates, rather than introduce clarity, I seem only to have introduced more confusion. It is clear that I have not been able to persuade the Committee of the magnitude of the change that will happen if we have two elected Chambers. It is a recipe for clashes all the time, so in my view it is essential that that is taken on board. I appreciate the difficulties of time, but the noble Lord said that it would be a mechanism for changing the written constitution. I said in my opening remarks that there would have to be mechanisms for doing that. If there is no mechanism such as a written constitution, how would we adjudicate between two elected Houses? I suppose that there is only one other possibility. Each time there was a failure to agree, it would have to go to judicial review. However, it would be somewhat ironic to abolish a predominantly nominated, unelected House of Lords of whatever number, only to be governed by a small number of unelected, appointed judges. That needs to be considered more deeply than it has been in the past. I also take on board what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.