Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, looking around the Chamber, I see a great deal of shellshocked people, so I will try not to detain your Lordships for long. I was rather surprised at the cricket analogy, given that your Lordships have been good enough to miss the Manchester derby, which is a far more important occasion. I hope that you all realise that Manchester City are now heading the table.

When I came into your Lordships’ House 17 years ago, there was a notice in the Prince’s Chamber which said that your Lordships should not indulge in vexatious argument, which was from an Act of Parliament of 1623. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, remembers the notice; it has now gone. That is important to me because, when you turn on the television and watch Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, you think how appalling Parliament is in its complete lack of rational argument, with people simply slavishly following a stupid political line. There is a serious risk that that brings our politics into disrepute. When you add the guillotine and people walking through the Lobby without having listened to the arguments, there are serious questions which also affect your Lordships’ House. I have found it very dispiriting in recent weeks when we have felt that we have to do that out of loyalty to our side. I feel that this House works best when it is not too political—although it has to be political to some extent.

I remember sitting at the top of the table when I chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee 10 years ago and I could not say who was Labour, who was Conservative, who was independent and who was a hereditary Peer, because everybody there had an important point to make which was worth looking at. At my first meeting of that committee, nuclear waste was the issue and there was a risk of our decision being split. I was told by my clerk, “Whatever you do, please try to avoid a vote”. Looking at the report of my noble friend Lord Richard, one has to say that it is constantly split with votes. Is this democracy at work? I am not sure that it is.

At this late hour, I shall not go into great detail. I noticed a frown on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and I saw his wise comment in the Times last week about my being here by patronage. Perhaps he knew more than I did. When I came into this House and met my noble friend Lord Richard, he asked whether I might consider taking the Labour Whip. I said, “Actually, I’m a member of the Labour Party”, to which he replied, “Are you sure?”. It is a pity that he is not in his place to confirm that this evening. I am not sure what “by patronage” means but a large number of us on both sides of the House will try whenever we can to vote according to our beliefs. With the health Bill, for example, there were at least two amendments on which I was seriously at odds with my own side. It was one of the most horrible Bills that I have dealt with and I felt very strongly about it, but I could not vote with my own side on two occasions because I thought that occasionally we, too, are wrong.

Finally—I shall reserve most of my comments for later, because this issue is going to come back again and again—there are no easy solutions to what is proposed. The idea of an electoral college sounds good but there are so many problems associated with sorting out an electoral college that I am not sure it would work. I think that a referendum ought to be seriously on the cards but your Lordships should remember that they may not get what they anticipate when it happens.