House of Lords Reform

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am well aware that there is more than one view on this issue. Today we will hear from 68 speakers and we may well end up with more views than there are speakers. The point of the Deputy Prime Minister’s committee is to produce a Bill. Then a Joint Committee will examine it and that will have representatives from the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Bench. I look forward to them playing their full part in it. We would not wish to exclude anybody from this process. That is likely to mean that it will be a substantial committee. It will have a substantial job to do, but that will be next year’s job, not this year’s.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord has been very good in giving way. Perhaps he could help me a little. I understand that this committee will produce a Bill. Will it produce a Bill in a legal form, properly drafted by parliamentary draftsmen? Will parliamentary draftsmen be attached to a committee of the three Front Benches to draft a Bill? Is that really the position, so that when the committee reports we get a Bill in draft—which can be introduced in the House—and carry on from there?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, yes. I would hope that the noble Lord would not be so incredulous. One thing that has been missing from this great debate is precisely that—a Bill in properly drafted form. It will not be introduced to Parliament as part of a legislative process, but as part of a pre-legislative process for proper discussion. I am not going to give way too often.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, there is a strong sense of déjà vu about this debate. We go round and round and round again; it is not a magic roundabout, it is an eternal roundabout. I have heard nothing today which I have not heard in the past 10 years and I do not expect during the whole course of this debate to hear anything new said about this issue.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, has been persistent and consistent in his views: he does not like the thought of an elected Chamber and has passionately advocated the status quo. For my part—I do not think anyone in this House would doubt it—I have persistently advocated precisely the opposite. As he has asked the question, I shall try to answer it. It is a fair question. The debates in this House are of extreme quality—no doubt about it. The people who take part in those debates are of extreme quality—no doubt about it. We deliberate, come to a conclusion—and nothing happens. The fact of the matter is that no one is listening to us. Why are they not listening to the House of Lords? They are not listening to the House of Lords for one very simple reason—we are capable of being ignored.

When I was in the House of Commons, as any other Member here who was in the House of Commons will know, the last thing we ever did was consider what was going on in the second Chamber. Why did we not consider what was going on in the second Chamber important? Because it did not represent anything. It was a group of people, some of whom are extraordinarily distinguished, I do not deny that, but—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords—

[Lord Richard]

Perhaps I may finish the sentence. But we are not a debating Chamber. This is a legislative Chamber; a part of Parliament. It is not here for us to have good debates and to produce good reports, which people do not thereafter read. The noble Lord wants to enjoin me.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I wondered if the noble Lord recalled the fact that if it had not been for the intervention of this House, we would probably now have 90 days’ detention without trial.

[Lord Richard]

If he wishes, the noble Lord can take the view that that is a massive justification for a non-elected legislative Chamber; I am bound to say that I do not. I have a simple view on this, and I have persisted in it for many years now: if you are a legislator, you should be elected by the people who are going to be affected by your legislation. It is a simple proposition.

I am pleased that the Government, with the extraordinary coalition that they now have, seem to have come to the conclusion that a mainly elected second Chamber is desirable. I share that. What we need in our constitution is a predominantly but not exclusively elected second Chamber. I am fortified in that, because that is almost the wording that John Smith used to describe what Labour Party policy was supposed to be when he was leader of the party, and that is going back a very long time. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is now in exactly the same position on this issue as he was in 1997 and 1998. His position has not moved on, but it has to.

I support the idea that there needs to be legislation, but I have one or two reservations. The first concerns the powers of this Joint Committee. For the life of me, I do not see how it is going to produce a Bill. I do not see how you could conceivably instruct parliamentary draftsmen when there may be opposition on that committee. If we get a piece of paper in our hands that says, “This is the Bill”, I shall be extraordinarily surprised.

I shall make just two further points, because I am anxious to sit down within my seven minutes. It is easy to see the ends that one wants. Very often we get to this stage of the negotiations: you agree what you want to achieve, but how on earth do you get there? We had this the other day on the Barnett formula—everyone on the committee agreed that it ought to be reformed and what we ought to see, but how on earth did we move from were we were now to where we wanted to be?

I emphasise that the transition provisions will be crucial to this enterprise. I follow the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on that. Many of the people in this House are life Peers who came here on the basis that they were here for life. Maybe they will not be—I do not know—but it was a legitimate aspiration on their part, given the way that they were approached and introduced. Personally, I had a fond notion that I would be staggering into the House on my Zimmer frame at the age of 85, and I sincerely hope that that will still be the position. I do not know how the grandfather concept is going to work, but I look forward with great interest to hearing about it. The transition is very important.

The second thing that is important is the system by which Members will be elected to the House. I am sure that this will shock the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and many other Members of this House, but I am totally heretical about this: it should be an election on the basis of constituencies, rather like the present European constituencies, and it should be done by PR. Elections to this House should be fixed and they should not be coterminous with elections down the other end.

In terms of the health of British democracy, the situation in which this House can provide a better check upon the Executive because of the way in which it has been elected, and because of the composition of this House compared with the composition of the other House, is a greater check on the power of the Executive than the glorious speeches that we make in this Chamber and the glorious debates that we have. If you want to check the Executive you have to have power, and in order to have power you have to earn it—it has to come from an election. It has to have a legitimacy that arises from the people.

I hope that this venture moves, although perhaps not too quickly, towards fruition. I will give it my support. I hope that at the end of the day this House will be more efficient and effective, it will be heard more and it will be more democratic and more justified.

Local Government Bill [HL]

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I, too, support the Motion. I declare an interest as a resident of Norwich and as a former leader of the city council. I wish to repeat a couple of points in addition to the excellent speeches that we have heard from all around the House. This Motion is not about the merits or otherwise of the Bill. It is certainly not about the merits or otherwise of unitary status. The debate is not even about whether the Bill is hybrid, despite the speech of the Minister, who is seeking to act as judge and jury—if I may put it that way—on that issue. The House is not being asked to decide that. That is a matter for the Examiners, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, put it so well. What we are discussing is a procedural “reasonable doubt” issue.

The most relevant guideline comes from the Speaker’s ruling, also on a local government Bill, which was quoted by my noble friend. I repeat it, because it represents a very low hurdle indeed. The ruling stated:

“I accept the true position to be this, that if it be possible for the view to be taken that this Bill is a Hybrid Bill”—

I repeat, “if it be possible”—

“it ought to go to the examiners. There must not be a doubt about it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/62; col. 45.]

I will not explain what the hybrid issue is; the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has done that very well. However, given that there is such a very low hurdle, is it possible, in the words of the Speaker of the Commons, for the view to be taken that the Bill is hybrid? Such a view should clearly not be whimsical or something that I thought up in the bath. In fact, we have the view of learned counsel and of parliamentary agents, Sharpe Pritchard, which has stated that it is strongly arguable that this Bill is hybrid. Others, perfectly properly, may take a different view.

However, we are not asking the House to judge that this afternoon. That is a matter of judgment. We are asking it merely to decide whether the arguments from QCs and parliamentary agents meet the very low hurdle of the test set by the Speaker, when he said,

“if it be possible for the view to be taken that this Bill is a Hybrid Bill”,

it should go to the Examiners. Opinion from learned counsel and parliamentary agents would seem to me not to be frivolous, but a serious one that should be explored by the Examiners.

Counsel’s opinion is, therefore, unambiguous and it seems to me that the Speaker’s ruling applies unambiguously, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, argued. If the House ignored that ruling—and the Clerks’ advice was given in advance of them seeing learned counsel’s opinions to the contrary—that would flout not only the clear ruling of the Speaker and the House would be, if I may say so, behaving in a very high-handed way which all of us have studiously sought to avoid, precisely because we are not elected.

Whatever our views about the Bill—and I fully accept that they will be various—I do hope that we all agree that we should be seen to be meticulous and transparent in our procedures. If not, we cut away further at our distinguished history and that will leave us more exposed in the future. Whatever noble Lords’ views about the merits of the Norwich and Exeter case, I hope that they will support this Motion, because that would show the House of Lords at its most reflective best.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, perhaps I may make two or three points. First, this Motion is certainly not about the merits of the Bill. As far as the Bill is concerned, I was not in favour—and I am still not in favour—of Exeter becoming a unitary authority. On the contrary, as someone who spends a large part of his time down in Devon, it is important that Exeter should remain with the rest of Devon. However, that is not the issue. I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan when he said that it is a simple point—it is. Where are we? What is the dilemma facing the House? It is simply this: on the one hand, we have the Clerks. They have given their respected, respectful and highly considered opinion which states that the Bill is not hybrid. On the other hand, we are now in a position whereby an eminent Queen’s Counsel, who is experienced in this branch of the law, has also given a firm and unequivocal opinion that the Bill is, or could well be, hybrid. How can we resolve that? We cannot.

I am not in a position this afternoon to argue whether or not the Bill is hybrid, but I am in a position—and I hope that the rest of the House will follow me in this—to say that there is a clear argument as to whether the Bill is or is not hybrid. That being so, the procedures on how to resolve that are perfectly clear: the Bill has to go to the Examiners. The Examiners are there to assist the House in coming to a conclusion. It seems to me that we cannot come to a conclusion today, except by ignoring one or other reputable opinion by reputable people. I am not prepared to ignore one set of views in favour of another; I am not in a position to make up my mind. There is a clear issue here and, that being the case, the Bill should go to the Examiners and I shall support the Motion.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, it is appropriate that this has been a short debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, trailed her Second Reading speech but this is not a debate about the merits of the Bill. She told us that the Government strongly believe that the Bill is not hybrid. We know that they strongly believe that but others, equally strongly, take the contrary view. I perfectly respect the views of the Clerk of Public and Private Bills and I respect his role. I make no criticism whatever of the advice that he has given, which I think has been entirely proper. However, I think that it is wrong of the noble Baroness to invite the House to agree with her that the Bill is not hybrid, because that is not the issue or the role of this House.

The question is whether there are reasonable arguments for saying that the Bill is hybrid. The crucial point, made very well by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, was that opinion that this House should not ignore was provided to us after the Clerk had given his view. Therefore, we cannot question that there is doubt about the status of the Bill. The Speaker’s rulings have made it absolutely clear that, where there is such doubt, the Bill should be referred to the Examiners so that they can determine the matter. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, explained the nature of the doubt. My noble friend Lord Richard, a former Leader of the House and a QC—incidentally, not a supporter of unitary status for Exeter and Norwich—advised the House that it would be appropriate to refer the Bill. I do not think that this House can ignore the advice received from QCs or eminent parliamentary agents, and I very much hope that we will therefore refer the Bill to the Examiners.