House of Lords Reform

Andrew George Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

And for direct, full election, which is obviously something that I welcome—we are at one on that. To address the hon. Gentleman’s point, anyone in doubt should remember that there are 61 elected second Chambers in the world, and the overwhelming lesson is not the one that he has underlined but that they do not threaten the primacy of the first Chamber. As Baroness Quin, who was rightly cited earlier as having delivered an excellent speech last week, eloquently put it:

“Experience from abroad shows that second Chambers generally live within their powers. They cannot increase them unilaterally and they do not cause gridlock on the whole…Surely our Parliament, with its long and proud democratic tradition, is capable of creating a democratic, competent and respected second Chamber for the future.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 1233.]

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

On the 61 countries in which the second Chamber is elected, does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that in those countries there is a written constitution that clearly enshrines the relative powers between the first and second Chambers? I welcome many of these reforms, but I have many misgivings about that particular aspect.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is the view of the Government that this reform, which is long-overdue and long-debated, can take place without the embellishment and framework of a written constitution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s worry that the danger lies there. I believe that the danger lies in this Chamber. Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friends, have asserted the primacy of this Chamber, but they are the same people who slavishly accept the bizarre convention that operates in this House that the Government will not accept amendments in this Chamber, even when they accept that they are right and logical and make sense, but will instead concoct their own version. The unelected Chamber then gets this great score rate of all the significant amendments, precisely because that is the way this Chamber accepts it. This Chamber accepts being bound and trussed with programme motions that everyone complains about but then votes for, just as everyone says they want House of Lords reform, but manage then always to conspire against it, and somehow there is a sufficient coincidence of objection to one proposed reform or another. I would worry whether this Chamber is up to the challenge. Perhaps the challenge of an elected Chamber next door is what this Chamber needs for it to assert itself a bit more against the Executive. Moreover, if the Executive seek to have Government Ministers only in this Chamber, that too would be an improvement.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good argument in favour of reform of this Chamber. Does he not accept that in the White Paper, under the section on powers, it is clear that the Government have no intention of addressing the issue of the existing conventions? There is no intention to codify them in any form, so there is a chance of the leach of power from one Chamber to the other.

[Mark Durkan]

That is only if the measures go forward as they are in the Bill. That is not an argument for the status quo; it is an argument for getting necessary change and getting it right, making sure that there are clearly distinct roles and powers. Those distinctions will be clear in the minds of Members of the respective Chambers and in the minds of the public who will be separately and distinctly electing people.

There is the idea that one form of election will trump another. In Northern Ireland, even those parties that defend the first-past-the-post system for elections to this House all agree that the elections for our three seats in the European Parliament should be by single transferrable vote, because it is fairer, better, safer and avoided geo-sectarian tensions and everything else. At no point are the mandates of MEPs used to trump or override the individual mandates of MPs in any sense. If we clearly distinguish between the two Chambers in how we work and function, there will not be a problem.

There is also the issue of other supernumerary members, not just those appointed temporarily as Ministers, but the bishops from the Church of England. I do not believe that that should be the case. However, from my own background and experience, I am obviously very aware of religious and constitutional sensitivities. If representation is to continue, there is no reason why there should not be some sort of pastoral Bench in the second Chamber, for, yes, Church of England bishops, but for other faith interests as well, perhaps without the right to vote, but with the right to address issues so that they can offer their sincere reflections without being trapped into various procedural devices and partisan ruses. Many of those pastoral interests might prefer to speak without the bother of the vote or being caught having to decide between amendments here and particular votes there. If we have 80% election, part of the 20% could be elected or approved indirectly through some of the devolved Chambers, and perhaps that could include some of the faith interests and some pastoral representation as well.

We need to think reform through a lot more than is provided for in the Bill, and we need to use the Committee to improve it. Unfortunately, I note that the only two parties in the Chamber that have never appointed anybody to the House of Lords—that have always refused to do so on principle—are not involved in the Committee. We are serious about reform; I am not sure if anybody on the Committee is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) because he has expressed a view from the Conservative Benches that is probably discordant with the views of the majority on those Benches and I shall do the same from mine.

I welcome many of the reforms, such as the removal of hereditaries, the constraint on patronage and the limit on the term, which is probably a matter for debate, and the reduction in the number of peers, which should also be debated further. There are also the Government’s intentions about the maintenance of function and power and about the primacy of the Commons over the other place. In addition, we have the right to retire, which will clearly be welcome, and a beefed-up Appointments Commission. The transitional arrangements have been debated elsewhere.

Unless the other place can do things that we in this Chamber cannot do, or bring into the legislative process something that we in this rather more tribal environment are unable to achieve, frankly we need to ask ourselves the unicameral question: why bother having a second Chamber at all? It would be far better for the country, particularly in these rather straitened times, to turn it into a museum and generate resources rather than for the nation’s resources to be sapped by something that contributes nothing to the process itself.

I have a great passion for democracy, but we do not need to democratise everything that moves. What we are about is improving the primacy of this Chamber. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is no longer in his place, rightly emphasised that properly to have a debate about the need for this Chamber to function effectively we need to establish a written constitution that empowers this Chamber in relation to the Executive. It is not necessary to create a mirror image Chamber at the other end of the Corridor that contributes nothing to the legislative process.

There is a debate that we have not properly had. We have leapfrogged over the question of what we want a second Chamber for to how people get into that Chamber. The risk in the Government’s proposals is that we are welding the worst side of what we have in this place—its tribalism—into another place, rather than helping it to achieve the kind of objective that we want and the nation needs in order to balance what we do here with what is required in what should be a revising Chamber, a place for sober second thoughts, and not one that simply reflects the same kind of party tribalism that we have here. It will contribute nothing. We might as well not have it at all.

The potential risk of the seepage of power from this Chamber to the other is addressed in the draft Bill, but not sufficiently. It acknowledges on page 11 that the balance of power is established on the basis of statute to a certain extent, but also convention, and of course convention is changed by convention. One of the conventions that will be under a great deal of scrutiny and is at risk is that if there is no intention to codify the relationship between the two Chambers, powers will seep to another place. There will certainly be a challenge to take those powers to another place. Rather than go through the process of electing members to another Chamber, we should establish and work on a written constitution for this country.