House of Lords Reform Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It will be able to discharge that considerable authority with greater legitimacy, and therefore it will be harder for the Executive to ignore the opinions of the House of Lords. I would have thought, if I may say so, that it was a long-standing Conservative principle that it is the people who should be in the driving seat and the Executive who should be kept on their toes.

The third reason to support the Bill—

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I shall make some more progress.

The third reason to support the Bill is simple practicality. The House of Lords cannot carry on on its current path. We need to reform the Lords to keep it functioning, and we need to do it soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will make a little more headway, and then of course I will give way.

Democracy, better laws and the urgent and practical need for reform are the three reasons why Members of this House should give the Bill their blessing and wish it a swift passage into law. Before addressing some of the concerns about the Government’s proposals, I would like to make the point that the Bill, although it has been introduced by the coalition Government, in many ways is not just the Government’s Bill. These reforms build on the work of our predecessors on both sides of the House. As with all the best examples of British constitutional reform, the proposals look to the future but are respectful of the past. Veterans of these debates will know that the coalition parties cannot claim full credit for the reforms presented here. If we go back to the White Paper produced by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) in 2008, the late Robin Cook’s “Breaking the Deadlock”, the House of Lords Act 1999, Lord Wakeham’s royal commission and everything that went before over the past 100 years, it is clear that these reforms have a long bloodline that includes all our parties and political traditions.

[Mrs Main]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister not see that there is a degree of inconsistency between his view that we in this House are too powerful and therefore need neutering by the House of Lords and his voting to maintain the strengthening of the Executive and the boundary changes by keeping the number of Ministers yet reducing the number of Back-Bench Members of Parliament?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

One of the Bill’s intentions is absolutely not to neuter the House of Commons, but to work in partnership with the House of Commons in holding the Executive to account. I would have thought that Members on both sides of the House would celebrate and support anything that means that Parliament as a whole can hold the Executive more fully to account. Indeed, in 1910, when Government proposals to limit the power of the House of Lords were introduced, it was Winston Churchill who said:

“I would like to see a Second Chamber which would be fair to all parties, and which would be properly subordinated to the House of Commons and harmoniously connected with the people.”

He ended by saying:

“The time for words is past; the time for action has arrived.”—[Official Report, 31 March 1910; Vol. 15, c. 1572-83.]

More than 100 years later, I could not agree more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

It is not for me to get involved in private family grief.

It is simply not clear how any dispute about the use of powers or appropriate interpretation of conventions could be adjudicated or effectively enforced? We think the Bill will need to play a more active role in addressing powers and conventions, particularly if we are to placate the legitimate fears of colleagues on all sides and in both Chambers. Failure to do so risks storing up big problems for the future.

[Mrs Main]

I should appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s comments on the function of this apparent second House. Does he share my fear that when the majority of its Members are elected and a small proportion will be appointed, there will be a divided second House some of whose Members will have more power than others? When it comes to a tied vote, who will really win?

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Lady raises one of the issues that need to be resolved.