House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Pete Wishart and Peter Grant

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

There is very little about that that I cannot agree with—it is a very good suggestion. The reason we brought this motion to the House was to invite such contributions from Members.

I know that lots of Conservative Members will not support our motion, but—I am taking this as a positive—I am beginning to sense a desire to address this, and we should work together as a House to do so. We first have to accept that there is something drastically wrong with the second Chamber—that it is not working and is starting to embarrass us. In the past, Conservative Members have always said that it is not an issue for them—“Why touch something that people are not concerned about?”—but I am beginning to sense a turnaround in that sentiment. A number of national newspapers have taken this up as a campaigning issue that they want to have addressed. As I have seen in my mailbag, more and more people are concerned about the quality of our democracy. If we allow a political circus like this to stand, we diminish our own role as the nation’s representatives. We are allowing it to continue as a feature of our democracy when we should be tackling it. I encourage hon. Members, even if they are not going to support us tonight, to look seriously at how we start to do so.

I was in the House when we previously looked at this—I am going back about 10 years now—and I voted for all the proposals that suggested replacing the Lords with a majority of elected Members. There was another failed attempt to address it at the time of the coalition Government. It is now incumbent on the Leader of the House—I am glad that he has joined us—to come forward with solid proposals on how we address this, because we have to do it: we cannot let it stand.

Today I, along with all my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), who has left us, found out about our new constituencies. The Government intend to reduce the number of Scottish Members of Parliament from 59 to 53—six will be lost under their proposals to reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 600. I had a little look to see how many Scottish Lords there are. I found 61 who have registered addresses in Scotland, and that is apart from the aristocrats and landed gentry who have lands and estates in my country. The number of Members of Parliament in Scotland has been cut from 72, when I was first elected, to 53, so we now have more Scottish peers than Scottish Members of Parliament.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that perhaps the starkest illustration of how bad things have become is that if the United Kingdom—or what was left of it at the time—tried to get back into the European Union at any point, it would be disqualified from membership because countries that were under Stalinist dictatorships 25 or 30 years ago are more democratic?

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, which I will let stand on its own merits.

The Government say that they are reducing the number of Members of this House to save money. Of course, if the number is reduced from 650 to 600, savings will be made—that will happen as a natural consequence of spending less.