House of Lords Reform

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, the fundamental flaw in the approach in the Statement made by the Leader of the House yesterday is that we are playing at demotic politics without the demos. For years we have been carrying on as though there is an issue in the country but, wherever else there is an issue, it is not in the country. We have therefore had to invent a demos who want something, which we then have to give them. A moment’s thought suggests that that is an erroneous starting point. There can be many other starting points, but I wish to clear that one out of our subconscious first.

This leads directly to the second fallacy in the line of proceeding. Someone has said that we must have a committee with a limited remit—build a Trojan horse. If you want to build a Trojan horse there is not much more you can do other than build it. I cannot think of someone saying you should put down an amendment if you want to build a Trojan horse—you have got to get on and build it. My metaphors are often hard to keep running, but this one would result in a process whereby it would be hard to look at anything other than building the Trojan horse.

Can all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and many of the points made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester—who made an interesting contribution, as did the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston—be brought within the building of, or even inside, the Trojan horse? That will produce a difficulty for many of us; it is an impenetrable remit that will prevent us getting to the practical and philosophical points that lie behind it.

Therefore, to use the vernacular that has been used more than once, it would be nice if we could take literally, objectively and honestly the famous aphorism, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. However, what is it that is broke? Let us say, “Okay. This is not a perfect place. Something is perhaps a little bit broke. Let us look at it”. There is a gap in the range of people who come here. The noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, who is not in his place, said in his evidence to the Constitution Select Committee—this was drawn to my attention by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth—that there is a danger that we are appointing too many people in our own image. There is something in that. It raises the practical question of what you do to avoid appointing too many people in your own image.

In the Labour Party there is certainly scope for getting the National Executive Committee and the conference to look at the appointments system. This is a reform measure and, as the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, said in an excellent speech, the Labour Peers’ Group is a practical reforming group. A majority of the group—indeed, it was a consensus—wrote to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in answer to his suggestion that we should put forward any ideas, and said that we wanted these four points considered. I am not saying that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, did not have an idea in his head until that moment in history, but he picked up on that principle and no one at any stage has ever said that there was anything other than genuine reform in it.

The only request I would make of my very good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is that he does not repeat the canard that we are only putting forward the Steel Bill in order to put off the revolution of election: that in the Steel Bill we want a body of six or seven people to make all political appointments and so on. Perhaps I may put on record for the nth time that that is specifically not what we want. In the last version of the Steel Bill before the election, it was spelt out specifically that that is not what we are proposing. We are proposing virtually the opposite: that the parties should put up criteria to be registered with the Appointments Commission.

Two aspects of democracy would then be met and the balance between the parties would not be too far out. The Liberal Democrats would say that there are not enough Liberal Democrats, but the balance between Labour and Conservative over the years has met the three elections’ average. This is not like the nonsense in the coalition document. The worst drafted sentence in the whole document is that they want a House of Lords that reflects the last general election. I do not know which innumerate person in the coalition talks late at night wrote that sentence, but it would be totally impossible unless there were 1,000 Members within a few years—we leapfrog you, you leapfrog us.

The way in which these ideas can be looked at side by side with building the Trojan horse may cause a difficulty. One way through may be to look at the way in which we relate to Members of Parliament. There is no feeling among most MPs that this demotic politics needs to find the demos, but there has been a bit of a reaction. As Jack Straw said late at night here in the wash-up—this was reported in the newspapers so it can only be accurate—coming up to the House of Lords is like going to another planet. If these two planets are to have Members who know each other, and there are no pointed heads on one side or the other, we ought to get to know our colleagues at the other end a lot more than we do. There are some very notable colleagues—my noble friend Lord Grocott springs to mind on our side—who have spent many distinguished years in the Commons. We know many people in the House of Commons who, as soon as you have the second pint with them—but not only because you buy them a second pint—start to see the sense of what you are saying.

We should find a way in which we can continue to look at the merits of the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and parallel proposals, side by side with this mad idea of building a Trojan horse. George Woodcock, who was the very distinguished general secretary of the TUC when I joined, used to quote something that I never understood. He said, “Structure is a function of purpose”. After 50 years, I begin to see what he was talking about, and that is where we should begin the conversation.