King’s Speech

Baroness Bryan of Partick Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who, in the short time I have been here—only six years—has always made thoughtful contributions to our discussions. He could give Mick Jagger a run for his money. I am pleased he chose this debate for his valedictory speech because I have heard him referring a few times to the situation with the devolved Administrations and their rights—he always comes down on their side. I wish him the very best for his future.

I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, and the noble Lord, Lord Booth, on their maiden speeches; that of the noble and learned Lord, in particular, was a breath of fresh air after the last few years in this Chamber. I welcome him, and the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, to their new posts.

Imagine the critical comments we would rightly make of a wealthy and influential country that had an unelected second legislative Chamber with some Members there on a hereditary basis. Imagine it had reserved places for members of the established religion, that it did not have fair representation of the nations and regions, that less than 30% of its Members were women and that its membership favoured ex-MPs and members of selected well-paid professions. We would probably question the country’s democratic credentials.

Our constitutional problems do not begin and end with the second Chamber; there is a huge imbalance of power between the Executive and Parliament. It was interesting to hear that noted from the Opposition Benches. The new Government have 63% of the Members of the Commons, based on only 33.7% of the popular vote.

Finally, we have no codified constitution, which means there is no protection of fundamental rights that would be usual in other democracies. As we saw in the last Parliament, this is not a hypothetical issue but a real danger. However, instead of seeing the obvious anomalies, we tell ourselves that ours is a special democracy that the rest of the world can learn from.

One of the classic functions of a second Chamber is to protect the constitution and fundamental rights, and this Chamber has fought long and hard to do that. But, without the democratic credentials to be able to justify its role, it will always be overruled. Second Chambers are common in federal states, but our quasi-federal system does not have the usual protections, powers and cross-territorial arrangements that others have. While I welcome the proposed council of the nations and regions, it will currently involve only around 16 people.

While I sincerely welcome the removal of the last of the hereditary Peers, it is disappointing that the Labour Party did not manage to conduct a consultation on the more substantial changes proposed at the 2022 launch of the Commission on the UK’s Future. Because of the lack of democratic credibility of the Lords, we have no legitimate parliamentary means of holding the Government to account when, as has happened, their legislation threatens fundamental rights. Also, there have been numerous examples over the past few years of legislation being imposed on devolved Administrations despite the refusal of legislative consent. The Sewel convention expected that this would happen only in exceptional circumstances, but it has become totally common.

Faced with all this, it is obvious that we need more effective checks on the unrestrained powers of government by having a democratically accountable second Chamber, which I would argue should be a senate of the nations and regions.