Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The Minister quite rightly made trust a major theme of his speech. Does he not consider that part of the decline in public trust in Parliament has a great deal to do with the excessive regimentation in the other place, where in the past 15 years Members voted against a government resolution only six times, while here we did it nearly 600 times? Is that not a crucial difference that will be lost if this place is wholly elected?