House of Lords: Reform

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, the road to parliamentary hell is paved with good intentions translated into sloppily drafted, ill prepared, insensitive legislation. We have had a plethora of it over the past year. The White Paper and Bill do not even have the redeeming feature of good intentions. Perhaps the most scandalous revelation we have had in this debate was that by the Leader of the Opposition, when she told us how the members of the Joint Committee set up to produce the proposals were treated. They met only seven times—the last time six months before publication—and neither saw nor approved the draft White Paper or the Bill. I am amazed that they did not resign in indignation at that treatment.

I shall focus on just two points. The first is the practical constitutional one, which we have talked about, which is the balance of power between the Legislature and the Executive. Secondly, I shall suggest how to reduce the size of the House of Lords in a way that is voluntary, democratic, compassionate and cost-effective.

It was in his 1976 Dimbleby lecture that Lord Hailsham described Britain as an “elective dictatorship”. “Parliament”, he said,

“is now largely in the hands of the Government machine, so that the executive controls the legislature and not vice versa”.

He went on:

“Owing to the operation of the guillotine and other regulations designed to curtail debate, much of the programme is often not discussed at all”.

Although at that time the House of Lords had a massive built-in Tory majority, the constitutional conventions inhibited its use. In 1997, this situation took a serious turn for the worse. The Blair Government decided to use the guillotine routinely on all legislation so as to maximise the flow of legislation, with little regard to the consequences.

I was for 16 years in the Lobby. Indeed, I must confess that, apart from a few years as a party fonctionnaire, I cannot claim to be a proper politician at all. I was a mere observer of and commentator on the political scene, and I suppose that that is all I remain. However, I remember clearly that when there was an important Bill that was running into real difficulties, we used to speculate that the Government might be forced to introduce a guillotine. In those days, that had real political significance.

I had hoped, and indeed was confident, that one of the first things the coalition would do would be to end the automatic use of the guillotine on legislation. To my disappointment and to Mr Cameron's shame, there is no sign of that happening, so our people remain ever more reliant on the House of Lords to subject legislation to proper scrutiny untrammelled by timetables. Since the 1999 reform, this House has had growing confidence in doing so.

Who can doubt that if Mr Clegg's dreams were enacted it would not be long before that opportunity for scrutiny would be emasculated? All Governments are ruthless when they can be, and a regular guillotine would arrive with the senate. That, incidentally, is why the Opposition should never repeat the disgraceful filibuster tactics that they used here last year—although I admit that they had much provocation.

I come to the best way of keeping the size of the membership of the House within reasonable limits. I do not buy the idea that it is making the House harder to operate. An overcrowded Question Time is no bad thing. After the House of Commons was bombed, the new Chamber was designed precisely to achieve that. However, our membership is now more than 800, although the daily attendance is 450. I would set a limit of about 500. None of the alternatives in the Leader's Group report on the issue of Members leaving the House, which we will discuss in due course, seems to be acceptable. I believe the proposal for group elections put forward in the excellent speeches by my noble friends Lord Jopling and Lord Reay involves compulsion, which would have undesirable consequences.

One reason that voluntary retirement on its own would not work is the new daily tax-free allowance of £300. I most warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on his courage in introducing it, because it has ended once and for all the risk of further scandals on expenses—in this House, anyway.

My proposal is that on taking permanent retirement, any Peer should receive a tax-free single-sum gratuity for public service. Each Peer would receive the amount he or she asked for—provided, of course, that no one was prepared to accept a lower sum. One way of operating it would be for the Government to open it for, say, 50 retirements. Anyone could apply and the sums paid out to those who succeeded would of course be published; the unsuccessful bids would not. Bids would be accepted up to a limit of 50 seats or so or until the sum available had run out. The process could be repeated periodically until the number was down to the required total.

That may be an unusual suggestion, but I believe that once it had been thought through by the media and the public it would be seen as being transparent, truly voluntary and, most importantly, cost-effective.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I would be grateful if between now and the report from the committee scrutinising the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, could write for me what he thinks the Sunday Telegraph and the Mail editorials would be on his proposal.

[Lord Marlesford]

I never attempt to write editorials for other papers.

Meanwhile, I support the call for a moratorium on numbers made in April by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and others in the UCL House Full report.

Mr Cameron has a problem. In this package, he is offering Mr Clegg a sum of Danegeld that he cannot pay; his cheque will bounce. As has been made clear, there can be no question of whipping this Bill through this House. The simplest solution would be for the House of Commons, where there is, in any case, a growing number of Members opposed to Mr Clegg's best guess, to be offered a free vote at Second Reading, if ever it gets that far, and for the Conservative Whips to indicate that the Prime Minister would not be heartbroken if it were defeated. After all, it is the supremacy of the House of Commons that we are debating.

On the point about us not being representatives, many people in this House have been elected representatives for a long time, but now we are all servants of the people. That is no dishonourable title.