House of Lords Reform

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, with whom I totally disagree, although I shall not explain why as I do not have the time.

I have been in this House for 19 years but I still fail to admire myself so much that I think of myself as indispensible to the British constitution. It is difficult not to be in love with oneself but I try. I am for a wholly elected House of Lords and always have been. I belong to a party which, I remind my noble friends on this side of the House, had to be dragged from being abolitionist to being in favour of a reformed House of Lords. If some of us have now moved to a no-change position, I shall not join them.

This, I believe, is the first time that we are in serious danger of being reformed. We at last have a Government who have the commitment to do that and, given what they are doing—I believe, rightly—to the economy, they need a political programme that will prove their radicalism. This Government have the majority in the House of Commons—and perhaps even in the House of Lords, although whipping is difficult—that will make it possible for them to pass a Bill on reforming the Lords to a wholly or partially elected House. That is quite a serious possibility. This is now the time to stop thinking that this issue will go away or that people will get into a discussion about powers and conventions and that somehow reform will never happen.

I take this matter very seriously. I believe that this Government should not only draft a Bill for whichever option they choose—as I said, I prefer the wholly elected option—but should also be prepared to use the 1949 Act. When Tony Blair came to visit the Labour Peers’ Group about five years ago just after he had made a hospital pass to Jack Straw about House of Lords reform, I remember asking him whether he was going to use the 1949 Act. He looked as though I had assaulted him. He said, “No, of course not. I am going to rely on consensus”. At that moment, I knew that reform would not happen.

Constitutional change does not happen by consensus; it happens by conflict, as British history shows, although I shall not go into that. If we are serious—and I am very serious about this—then we have to get this Bill through. We have already waited 100 years. The right honourable gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister may not quite get what he wants in 2011 but he may get it in 2012. I want reform because of the inadequacy of the House of Commons to be a check on the Executive and because our appointed position does not make us powerful enough to check the Executive, despite the evidence that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, gave of our amendments being accepted. When push comes to shove, we always have to say that the other place is right and that we are wrong.

I consider the primacy of the Commons to be an historical accident of the past 1,000 years or so. It is an historical accident because your Lordships’ House is unelected. No Commonwealth countries adopted this bicameral model when they left the Empire. They all took a bicameral model but none had an appointed or hereditary House.

[Lord Pilkington of Oxenford]

Can I correct the noble Lord? What about Canada?

[Lord Desai]

I stand corrected. I always think of larger countries such as India and Pakistan. I apologise for that. However, Canada did not make its second Chamber hereditary, because at that time it did not have that option. There was not even an appointed element in your Lordships’ House when Canada made that choice.

The point is that other countries manage to have bicameral legislations with elected representatives and they get into conflict. Conflict is the essence of politics and conflicts get resolved. There are established ways of reconciling conflicts between two Chambers of a Parliament wherever there are two Chambers. Why are we afraid of conflict? Solidly belonging to my party, I believe that good things, including progress, come out of conflict; progress does not come out of reconciliation.

If we want a really effective Parliament—one that will be a check on the Executive—perhaps we will have to abandon the wisdom and sagacity of your Lordships’ House and have a Chamber which is elected and legitimate and which will be able effectively to check the Executive. We will then have to consider on what grounds we elect that Chamber, and a number of suggestions have already been made. The noble Lord, Lord Low, in particular, made a very interesting suggestion about appealing to various constituencies such as the royal societies and so on. However, we have to move to an elected principle—perhaps not on territorial grounds like the House of Commons—with Members who cannot be re-elected so that they are independent. Fear not, my Lords. There are other people who are very capable; the fact that they are not here does not prove that they are not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pilkington of Oxenford]

My Lords, as an old history master, I must give a little correction; Peers assessed themselves until, I think, 1663. That said, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, was right to say that you must consider the history of every country when you consider their constitutions. As the 38th speaker on the speakers list, I can only underline what other noble Lords have said. The fact is that the British Executive are one of the strongest in the world. As noble Lords know, in recent times Lord Hailsham described it as an elective dictatorship. Paradoxically—and we have got to face this fact—this House is the most independent element in the English constitution. The late Lord Peyton was a great friend of mine. Those of you who knew him here know that he was an awkward and independent man. The Whips once got hold of him and said that he ought to knuckle under and be more supportive of the Government. He replied, in a very pretty phase, “Look, you’ve got nothing to give me that I want, and there is nothing that I have that you can take away from me”. That is, in a way, the essence of this House. We are all independent. I am possibly more independent than many, which is why I am 38th on the list.

The basis for this executive power is the political party. There is a book to be written on the English political party. It is one of the strongest in western Europe and was created from Gladstone, Disraeli and Salisbury onwards. It is the basis of the power of the Executive. Many Members know more intimately that I do what happens when you rebel against a political party. Very few rebels last after one election. The party holds the power. Harold Wilson descried it by saying, “If you don’t wear my dog collar, you won’t get anywhere”. That is the historical background we are operating against. The political party will not alter its power and will remain, and that is why I oppose elections. You would not have men like the late Lord Peyton. The noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, who spoke eloquently in favour of democracy, is also an independent man, but would he be in an elected House with a career to prove?

A long tenure has been suggested. The English political party has refined and developed its methods and would deal with that tenure in no time at all. When the poor fellow passed his tenure, he would be told that he had no hope unless he committed himself to the party.

I am opposed to election. I think we are walking blindfold into an abyss. I agree with all that my noble friend Lord Norton said, but that does not mean that I am happy with the present method of appointment, although I was a beneficiary of it. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise a system of appointment that is fairer and more independent and that would produce a House that is better, possibly, than the one we have now. It is crucial that, with a strong Executive and iron political parties, there is an independent element somewhere within our legislature. The fact is that we are it. If we abandon this, we get over the abyss and hand total control of the legislature to the English political parties. I suggest that we would do that at our peril. History would not reward us for what we did. I ask noble Lords to think. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, spoke about democracy. It is a sort of magic word. We have forgotten who invented the referendum; it was Napoleon, and he never lost one. We also forget that the greatest beneficiary of the democratic system was the late Adolf. We should not plunge ourselves into that abyss.