Parliament: Elected House of Lords

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I chaired the Power inquiry into our democracy. We took evidence around the country and a high percentage of the public thought that the House of Lords should be reformed. There were many things about the current House that people liked, especially our role over the last few decades—not just with the previous Government, but with the one before—in holding the Government to account and challenging policies which might have slid through without sufficient scrutiny. However, they still wanted this House to be elected. Here is the rub. When you asked them what sort of person they wanted to see in this House, they said independent-minded people with expertise. That is the problem. They did not want it to be full of people embedded in party-political machines; they wanted people who were going to contribute some wisdom—perhaps a tall order. They wanted a House that took the long view and was not just looking over its shoulder. They were making a high demand.

We ultimately made a recommendation. It was because of the concern of the public to square that circle that we recommended that there should be a 70 per cent elected and a 30 per cent appointed element. Many have sought to complain about a hybrid House but in fact that was what we recommended. We thought that retaining a cohort of appointed independents would help to maintain the culture of this House as a forum of independents, as a forum that protected the constitution and would guard future generations’ interest when there was a rush to legislation because of demands, particularly of the tabloid press.

You cannot imagine what it feels like to people outside to hear what sounds like self-interest when we all say that we should be left as we are, that we are wonderful. It really is too self-congratulatory. For this reason, I suggest that one of the recommendations that we should be making is that there should be a role for the public in considering the way forward. Why should parliamentarians be the ones to decide how they should be reformed? There should be a deliberative poll where you have a cross-section of the public and you organise it in a way that has been done in other jurisdictions—in Canada and elsewhere. That cross-section of the public would hear evidence about the role of this House and how it might affect the Commons. It may be that the public would opt for little or no change, because they would understand how you all worked. I suggest that that should be done.

We should be very careful in constitutional change, but caution is not a recipe for resisting change. It is important that we recognise that there is a desire out there for this House to change; we should go at this with some care, but we should listen to the public and not just our own voices.