House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Debate between Lord Stephen and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Goodness! That took me by surprise in more ways than one, but I am pleased to be speaking earlier than I expected.

I join in the effusive and widespread congratulations to my noble friend Lady Taylor and to Julian Grenfell—or the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, as we used to call him—who moderated our work so well. They had a diverse group of people to deal with. An awful lot of work was put into this, by the way. We met every Wednesday morning for more than six months—it seemed like six years. It was a long time with a lot of work and a lot of thinking, and we have a pretty comprehensive and relatively concise report in the end that focuses on the main issues.

To be honest, I am not going to talk about what I planned to talk about because I was so incensed by what my noble friend Lord Richard, who has gone, and the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, said. I will deal with the short term later, but looking at longer-term reform, they made two completely false assumptions from which they started their argumentation. First, it is a false dichotomy. We are not talking just about the possibility of a non-elected House or a directly elected House. There are forms of indirect election that can be really effective and produce a second Chamber as we see in other countries with a different role and a different purpose drawn in a different way.

Some of us recently went to Paris and met with senators and found that they are elected in a different way, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, by grands électeurs. In every departement, the mayors and elected members get together and choose their regional representatives to go to the Senate. Then we discussed with the senators how they resolved problems between the Senate and the National Assembly. They have a way, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said—it is defined and it is clearly the case.

[Lord Stephen]

Our general point, which I hope was not a false point in any sense, was that the Labour Party has had rather a long time to consider all this, has made many manifesto pledges in relation to this issue and still seems to be talking in pretty generic, general terms about visits to France.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The noble Lord is preoccupied with the past. I am talking about the future. That is all we should be talking about. I am not talking in general terms: I am talking in specific terms about what happens in France. We could also look at Germany where the Bundesrat, the second Chamber, represents the Länder. It has a different role and is elected in a different way. There are different models. We could look at Ireland and different models around the world. We can learn from other countries. We should be learning. We do not have a monopoly of knowledge here in the United Kingdom, so we should be doing that.

I would explain to my noble friend Lord Richard if he were here why I am enthusiastic about a constitutional commission. The issue will not be kicked into the long grass. We are saying that the commission should have a period of two years in which to report. I am enthusiastic for two reasons. The first is because we have piecemeal devolution and centralisation—I think that the Liberal Democrats agree with me on that. That needs to be structured, reformed and looked at. But also, looking at how devolution and decentralisation fit in with this Westminster Parliament will help to bind the United Kingdom, which is in danger of fracturing at the moment. The second Chamber can perform a valuable role, not just as a revising Chamber, but by bringing together the various parts of the nation of the United Kingdom and the regions of England. It is worthwhile doing that kind of exercise.

I welcome the contribution of my noble friend Lady Bakewell because it was not one of those reread, pre-prepared contributions. It was commenting on the debate. I hope that during the rest of the debate—and I hope it is a genuine debate in spite of the Front Bench opposite trying to stifle proper debate—we do not just go back into the old tram lines of whether the second Chamber should be directly elected or appointed. There are different ways of looking at it.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Stephen and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I treat the noble Lord, Lord Steel, as a friend of mine; in fact, he was at the party as well. He will not be coming to my 80th, that is for sure—no, that is a very good point.

It illustrates the absurdity of it all. When I was a Member of Parliament for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, which we considered a relatively safe seat, I had meetings all over the place. I produced literature and spent almost the limit to make sure that I got elected. In 1997, I ended up with the largest majority in Scotland as a result. We worked hard to get elected. It seems absurd, having worked hard year in, year out to get elected as a Member of Parliament in that constituency from 1979 to 2005, I just floated in easily to the Scottish Parliament. It is a strange system.

[Lord Stephen]

Not having been invited to the birthday party, can I, perhaps unfairly, point out that the voting system was to be proportional, which was agreed through the constitutional convention? The Liberal Democrats, as always, proposed a fair and appropriate system—the single transferrable vote in multimember constituencies. My clear recollection is that the Labour Party, in conceding a proportional system of election, was prepared to agree to anything except the system that was being proposed by the Liberal Democrats. Therefore, it was the Labour Party that devised the system that we now have in the Scottish Parliament. I would welcome it if the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and other members of the Labour Party were now suggesting a fairer system of proportional representation. Perhaps the noble Lord will give his backing to the single transferrable vote.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I was commending the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and David Cameron earlier for not being party political in terms of support for the union and for not looking for party advantage. As the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, will find out, I am doing the same in relation to this. I will come to that in a moment.

We were told by the architects—it is coming back to me now. It was not the noble Lord, Lord Steel, who was guilty, but probably Henry McLeish who was the architect; he is the guilty person. If he is not, he is getting blamed for it now, but I am sure that he is.