House of Lords Reform

Baroness Miller of Hendon Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

My Lords, let us face it—the subject of reform of the House of Lords is but a euphemism for introducing an elected second Chamber, where the protagonists of election in the last two Parliaments have conducted a bizarre Dutch auction between themselves as to the precise number of elected Members that there ought to be. The figures have ranged from 20 per cent to 80 per cent and 100 per cent, with those of us who dare to say 0 per cent being marginalised as undemocratic reactionaries.

Let us admit at the outset that the composition of your Lordships' Chamber is anything but democratic and that if we were creating a new Parliament today there would be no possibility of having a second Chamber such as the one we have now. Let us admit that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, this House may be the worst form of a second Chamber, except for all the other forms that have been tried from time to time. However, we are where we are with a revising Chamber that, without exception, is described by commentators as the finest anywhere. We have a revising Chamber which, far from being undemocratic, invariably bows to the will of the elected Chamber, prodded without doubt by the Parliament Act 1911, but also by the outstanding act of self-denial, the Salisbury convention. We have a revising Chamber which, far from being undemocratic, exists to remedy the errors and omissions of the other place, where the legislative sausage machine operated by the Whips allows whole swathes of legislation to reach us without having had a single minute of debate or discussion, it being left to your Lordships to put these matters right.

On the subject of democracy, I say as forcefully as I can that our constitution does not belong to one Parliament, one party, or to one group of politicians who happen to have no more than a leasehold five-year term of office. How much less does it belong to a Parliament whose Members were held in such low esteem, given their unacceptable behaviour, that no party was able to secure the unequivocal mandate of a majority in the other place? Whatever the issues were in the recent election, I can tell your Lordships that, apart from the fine print buried in the massive verbiage of the three party manifestos, the so-called reform of your Lordships' House featured nowhere on the doorstep, as my noble friend Lord Higgins said. He may have been talking about south London, but the same applied in north-west London. Voters were interested in jobs, housing, immigration and above all the effect of the economy on their own lives.

Members of your Lordships' House who have been Members of the other place, party activists or have served their trade unions have already done more than their fair share of electioneering. I cannot see the leaders of industry, academics, Nobel laureates, distinguished commanders of our forces and others who are here honoris causa submitting themselves to door-to-door canvassing or to toadying up to the Whips in the hope of securing a higher place on the list if, as has been suggested, an election is held on the PR system.

The House of Lords has existed for more than 800 years. It is not open to a transient group of politicians to change it without the full knowledge and consent of the public and after a comprehensive, detailed debate. If this sounds like a call for referendum—I have never really approved of that—it is, but it is very low key. As we know, the outcome of a referendum can be manipulated in advance by the phrasing of the question. My choice would be exactly the same as that of the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and of the noble Lord, Lord Lea, “Do you subscribe to the view that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it?”.

I assure your Lordships that I wish to discuss briefly the basic question posed by this debate. If the “reform” is not simply to alter the composition of your Lordships' House, what is to be reformed? The current President of the United States of America got himself elected by constantly repeating the mantra calling for change. Change from what to what was never specified. What reform do we need to enable us to perform our functions better without the other place ceding us additional powers, which, of course, it will not? In fact, the package of reforms proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, in the Motion in his name on the Order Paper is indeed worthy of our support as it deals with difficulties that we have. The beauty of Britain's unwritten constitution is its flexibility and adaptability. Before we give a single day's consideration to the reform of the membership of your Lordships' House, it is essential to define what its functions should be. What is it supposed to do? What powers shall it have? What powers will be ceded by the other place? In short, what inducement will there be to persons of the same quality as those here now to put themselves up for the rigours of election?

Reform of the House is a distraction when compared with the vital and pressing subjects with which the country and the new Government should be concerning themselves first and foremost. The cosmetic issue of reform of the House, accompanied by the sound of the hoof-beats of hobby horses thundering through the corridors of the Palace of Westminster, is an irrelevant act of self-indulgence which the country is neither interested in nor has the time for at present. I only hope, but with not much optimism, that after today's debate the Government will accept that they have far more important issues on which to expend further valuable parliamentary time.