House of Lords Reform

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend, as always, puts his finger on it. I will come to that precise point in a moment.

I remember some years ago knocking on a door when I was standing for Southampton city council for the first time, and somebody said to me that they thought there should be one major constitutional innovation in this country, which they deemed would improve our politics dramatically. They said that anyone who actually wanted to stand for Parliament should be barred from so doing. I have to say, sometimes when I look around and listen, I have some sympathy with that. The point of the other place is that it brings into Parliament people who would not dream of putting their name forward.

My noble Friend, and my predecessor’s predecessor, Lord Eden of Winton, asked some fundamental questions in a speech in the other place last week. On what basis would candidates put themselves forward for election to a revised second Chamber? Would they bear a party ticket, and would they be answerable to any form of mandate? By what form would they be chosen by the political parties? Would there be a risk that we would be putting more and more power into the hands of the party apparatchiks? Government and Opposition Members have seen what that manipulation can mean.

I do not know whether the Deputy Prime Minister has seen the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the noble Lord Eden that the Deputy Prime Minister should be based permanently in the other place and subjected to regular parliamentary oral questions. I suspect that if he thinks the response he is getting here is fierce, it would be considerably fiercer at the other end of the building.

I wish to deal briefly with the argument that reform was in every party’s manifesto. It was, to some degree, and the Liberal Democrats, who had the most pro-reform manifesto commitment, got 23% of the vote in the general election. Labour, which was slightly more lukewarm, got 29%, and the Conservatives, who were the most lukewarm, got 36%. There is almost an argument that if we want to do things on the basis of what was in the manifestos, we should remember that the most people voted for the party that was most lukewarm on the issue.

We have to ask ourselves, as at the time of Maastricht, when all three Front-Bench teams are united on something, how do those who dissent make their view known? I say to Opposition Members that they could do no better than listen to the words of the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who was very clear in saying that

“the key question on election is whether we want a revising Chamber or a rival Chamber”,

which was why it was a question

“not for one Parliament, but for the long term.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 877-878.]

Despite manifesto commitments, he twice committed himself to a free vote in the House of Commons so that every hon. Member could put their points across.

My biggest worry is that we will create a rival to the House of Commons and to the supremacy of this place, which we will come to regret. We will have the problem of mandate creep. It may start innocuously, but I point out the words of the noble Baroness Williams when the matter was last debated in the Lords, in 2003. She said that

“I want to say simply that, having listened to many speeches on the issue of the right of a non-elected House to challenge the other place, Members on these and many other Benches in this House declare that it is not our wish to be a non-elected House.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 November 2003; Vol. 655, c. 18.]

In other words, when that place gets more democratic power under an electoral system, which the Deputy Prime Minister is on record as saying he believes to be more constitutionally robust and right, its Members will not sit there and happily accept that they have no power at all.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I say to my hon. Friend that the Australian Senate is elected on a different, more proportionate electoral system, and it does not have that problem.

[Conor Burns]

And I say in response to my hon. Friend that it is at the core of Conservative beliefs that if something is working, one does not mess around with it. The other place is working, as is shown by the fact that we in this place accept more than 80% of the amendments that it sends back to us. It is playing its proper role as a revising Chamber.

There is one point of consensus on all sides. We want to see an effective second Chamber that works. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister saying that he is open to ideas for reform and improvement, and as the Joint Committee embarks on its important work, I hope that it will consider ideas for improving the second Chamber from those of us who want to improve the status quo. We all want it to work in the interests of our constituents, but I am not convinced that the proposals that the Government have on the table at this point will achieve that objective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffiths]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He makes the exact point that while we are devoting valuable time in this Chamber to the subject—we will devote more time to this discussion over the coming months and probably years—our constituents want us to talk about things such as employment.

[Andrew Percy]

I want to ask my hon. Friend whether anybody in his constituency had ever written to him about fixed-term Parliaments or the electoral system, and whether he voted for those Bills.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I cannot agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I have received quite a lot of letters about fixed-term Parliaments. Most of them came from Liberal Democrat activists who wanted me to vote in favour, so that point is not quite right. The reality is that our constituents want us to spend our time in this Chamber producing legislation that will have an impact on the things that matter to them. They want us to talk about jobs, the economy, schools and the health service. Above all, they want the legislation that comes out of this place to be the best possible legislation with the best chance of making the kind of difference that they want.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Stevenson]

We are talking about the democratic institutions that make laws and byelaws, so I would take a different view on that point. We elect Members of this House, but for whatever reason we do not elect those who sit in the second most important part of our democratic institutions. For that reason, the House of Lords lacks true legitimacy and accountability. However great its expertise, diversity or experience, it is simply not elected. Of the 71 major Parliaments around the world, 61 have an elected or partly elected second Chamber. In fact, Canada is the only other major democracy with a fully appointed upper Chamber.

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the Conservative Government in Canada have just introduced a Bill in the Canadian Parliament to ensure that the Senate is elected for periods of nine years.

[John Stevenson]

That is an interesting point that I did not know, but it helps to support my argument. As someone who lives in a democracy, I think it is absolutely right that I should have the opportunity to stand for any elected Assembly in that country. As someone from this country, I should have the right to stand for election to the House of Lords. It is completely wrong that membership can be determined by a person’s religion. Interestingly, there have been comments about the Church of England, but as a member of the Church of Scotland I take a slightly different view.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I have given way a couple of times and I am going to continue.

The reason for having elections is not to give legitimacy but to deliver accountability. People say that we need to have greater legitimacy for the House of Lords, but if we gave it democratically elected legitimacy, it would then become a rival to this Chamber. That is one of the problems that is overlooked.

The proposals will not deliver accountability. There will be single terms of 15 years, and there is no chance of a failing lord being thrown out at the end of it. Accountability works when one can fire people who fail; if one cannot do so, it defeats the object of the exercise. We ended up with the stipulation of 15-year terms, because even the advocates of this reform recognise that as a consequence of having a democratically elected second Chamber people’s independence might be compromised, because they would have to jump to the electoral cycle and would be more in hock to the parties that sponsor them.

The proposed Chamber would have a mixed nature, with some people being appointed and 80% being elected. Who would be blamed if they failed? Would it be the fault of the ones who were elected or of the ones who were appointed? That would cause confusion where there should be clarity. It should be either all elected or all appointed.

We must also consider how the elections would work in practice. People will typically make these judgments on the same day as a general election. They will not necessarily vote for the best people to scrutinise Parliament in the House of Lords. It will be rather as it is with the European Parliament at the moment—a national opinion poll on whether the Government are doing well or badly. People will therefore not be selected on their ability to scrutinise the Government.

[Andrew Percy]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[George Eustice]

No; I have given way a couple of times and want to make some progress.

What is legitimate about electing people based not on their own performance or ability, but on the performance of the governing party or the Opposition? That is not the right way to select a Chamber that is, after all, there to revise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) has said that the average age of Members in the other place is 69. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was also rather scathing about the advanced years of some Members in the other place and the quality of the debate. However, the House of Lords is the forum that we provide for debate for the older generation and people who have experience. [Laughter.] This is an important point, if Members will hear me out. I believe that the dynamic between the other place and this place should be akin to that between a non-executive chairman and a chief executive, or between a father and a son. It is a natural dynamic. This place makes the decisions as new Governments come in with fresh ideas that they want to implement. However, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that we are so clever that we do not need another Chamber of people who can bring to bear their experience and say, “Well, we tried that in the ’70s and the ’80s and it didn’t work.” That is the reason for having a revising Chamber.

I do not think it necessarily matters that not everybody in the other place is of a completely independent mind, such as those with a political background or former politicians. The key thing is they have independence of mind coupled with experience. Retired politicians who go to the other place are often of the view that they have been told what to do for long enough by the Whips and that they will use their experience to change legislation sensibly, which must be a good thing. If we change to an elected House, we will lose some of that. The types of people who will stand for election to the House of Lords will tend to be people like us. They will be of the same generation as us and might include people who were unsuccessful at the last general election and so decide to stand for the House of Lords instead. We will lose the natural dynamic between the two generations, which is important.

To conclude, I will say a little about the areas that could be meaningfully reformed without having an elected Chamber. First, we could make the Lords smaller. Secondly, we could limit the time that people are there, so that they serve 10 or 15 years and then retire. Thirdly, we could tighten the appointments criteria, so that there are more independent people, if that is what we want to achieve. The single most important thing that we can do is to expect people to attend and participate. All too often in the past 10 years, people have been granted a peerage in recognition of something that they have achieved in life, but not with the expectation that they will work and attend debates. If we changed that, it would be a more meaningful and important reform than having an elected upper Chamber.