Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, I start by stating clearly that I think that this is a bizarre priority at the moment, when we have an economic crisis and massive levels of unemployment and when people are suffering from poverty. However, we are where we are, so I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Richard and his team for the considerable work that they have done on their report.

I say from the outset that I am in principle very much in favour of a fully elected House of Lords. I want to stand by the manifesto commitments to reform put to the electorate by my party and others at the general election. It is right and proper that the people who are able to initiate and amend legislation should be accountable to the people to whom it will apply. The Chamber as currently constituted, whatever its considerable merits, is a complete anachronism. It is undemocratic in the 21st century. It is only through elections that we will preserve and enhance this Chamber’s vital constitutional role.

Arguments that suggest, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”, simply do not wash. That is a recipe for preserving this institution in aspic. It assumes that it is not broken. Even Winston Churchill suggested:

“If we are to leave the venerable if somewhat crumbled rock on which the House of Lords now stands, there is no safe foothold until we come to an elected chamber”.

Several areas of Lords reform are desperately needed. It is broken. In no way can we argue that the current set-up reflects the country as a whole. The underrepresentation of women is not unique to this Chamber, but it needs to be addressed. Likewise, the number of people from an ethnic minority background needs to be increased. The age profile of the Chamber does not reflect society, with an average age of 69 and more than 82 per cent of the membership over 60. Although I accept that with that comes a whole host of knowledge and expertise, it would be very difficult to make the case that we here represent the disparate voices of the whole country.

The south-east is hugely overrepresented, with 70 per cent of Members with a London base. When we have seen a considerable shift in the constitutional arrangements of the UK to reflect growing devolution to the nations of the UK, it is time to revisit our arrangements to ensure that all areas of the country are adequately represented. The suggestion that Members should be elected on a regional basis I would welcome wholeheartedly.

If we are serious about keeping the integrity of the UK as a nation, we need to be serious not just about respecting devolution in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but about moving towards increasing regionalisation in England. Electing Members to the Lords regionally on a basis similar to the European regional constituency boundaries would allow a more balanced picture of our country to emerge in this Chamber. My preferred option would be for the regions to be equally represented, as my noble friend Lord Desai suggested earlier, so that this place really would look and feel different from the other House. In that way, we would be able to respect devolution but take into account the fact that we were seeing an asymmetric development of regionalism in the UK.

The ongoing debate in Scotland on further devolution, and perhaps even independence, is something that we should not duck. Let us not be naive in thinking that the outcome of the referendum north of the border will not have a dramatic influence on the way we are governed across the whole of the UK. The West Lothian question must also be put into the mix—a fact that has probably not been adequately dealt with in the Richard report, given the committee’s tight remit.

Questions are already being raised in Wales and Scotland about the need for second Chambers to scrutinise primary legislation going through those parliaments. Although I would resist calls for new second Chambers to be established in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we have to be able to say why there is a need for a second Chamber at Westminster if there is no need for such scrutiny in those institutions, which also deal with primary legislation. Therefore, I could foresee the possibility of the elected Members of the new Lords Chamber being given the broader remit of being a scrutiny body for primary legislative powers in devolved bodies.

Plenty of people will be asking for this debate to be set in the broader context of trying to establish a grand constitutional convention. However, do we really believe that this will help to move the debate on? If we cannot build a consensus on one aspect of our constitution, what hope is there if we broaden the debate? All parties recently and historically have been guilty of snatching and reforming bits of our policy development and decision-making framework, watching how it goes and then moving on. Despite the shortcomings of this approach, I have no doubt that this is how we will continue to work. That is why I believe that we should use this unique opportunity with all three main political parties making a commitment to further reform the institutions. I would not want to see us pushing this reform into the long grass.

What kind of people would be attracted to sit in the second Chamber? What kind of Members do we want? To a large extent, the make-up of the new Chamber will be determined by the political parties, but I have real concerns that the pool from which parties can choose candidates is particularly small. It will be incumbent on parties to try to be more creative in the way that they select candidates. Political parties should be encouraged to seek out experts and attempt to place them high on their party lists, as happens in continental parties. This is one reason why I would be in favour of a closed list system. The Government should be allowed to draft in experts as Ministers, who should be given a temporary seat in this Chamber.

One question that I have been asking myself is: what would it take for me to put my name forward to stand for this Chamber? There are, I am afraid, some serious shortcomings in the proposition as it stands. For me, one of the key problems is the length of the mandate. I guess that that probably sounds a bit odd, as I have accepted a life peerage, but let us be clear: an elected mandate would put Lords representatives in a very different position. The implication is that they would have a full-time role and that it would be possible to hold an additional job only if they were appointed Peers. I am afraid that the practicalities of that if you are not based in London just demonstrate once again the London-centric approach to the reforms.

I believe that people of my generation who are talented and ambitious would be extremely reluctant to accept a 15-year mandate. My generation has not been brought up in a job-for-life culture and I believe that many would feel too restricted by a 15-year tenure. The longest legislative term among elected legislative Chambers today is eight years. If we wanted to attract people of my generation to stand, we would need to ensure the introduction of a closed party list system so that, if someone were to step down, that person would automatically be replaced. However, that would cause all kinds of problems for any independents who stood and would send out the bizarre message, “This is a 15-year mandate—unless you want to break it”.

The second point is that it is very difficult to envisage why someone would want to put their name forward for a reformed Chamber that did not have decision-making powers. Surely the most talented would be attracted to the House of Commons, so we would probably end up, once again, with an older Chamber that does not reflect society.

Clause 2 of the Bill needs to be amended. Enough experts have stated the position on that. I believe that, at the point when we insist on Peers being elected, that would represent a significant shift in our constitutional arrangements and as such would require a referendum. The public should be the arbiters of how they are to be governed. I have confidence that the British public would support such a move.

It is fair to say that none of us believes that any of this is going to happen quickly. Indeed, even if the current proposed timetable were respected and the first new elected representatives of the second Chamber were elected in 2015, it would be 13 years before we would see the 80 per cent elected Peers in place as proposed. In the mean time, I believe that there is an urgent need to follow the advice of the Constitution Unit in its recommendations for immediate action: an immediate moratorium on Lords appointments, to be lifted only when the number of Members has dropped below 750; allowing retirement from the Lords, as proposed by the House of Lords Leader’s Group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt; and any future appointments to be put on a more transparent and sustainable basis, with the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission determining how many vacancies exist and inviting nominations from the parties.

I thank the members of the Joint Committee for their considerable work and I look forward to a long debate on this issue.