House of Lords: Reform

Baroness O'Cathain Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, yesterday’s debate—plus all the debates that we have had since I joined the House—confirms my view that some things never change, and highlighted the old adage, “If it is not necessary to change, it is not necessary to change”. As I am 63rd in the list and after some truly amazing speeches, it is difficult to say anything novel on this subject. It is particularly difficult if one goes back through the literature on previous attempts in the 20th century to reform the House of Lords. Not one of these attempts was put forward with the claim that it would in any way improve the House of Lords. Surely the purpose of reform—particularly political reform—is to improve something so as to benefit the community at large. Improvement must be well thought out and not just an exercise in change for change’s sake.

Many of the speeches yesterday and today, together with many of the speeches in previous debates, dealt with—or purported to deal with—the demand for greater legitimacy and/or repairing the democratic deficit of the House of Lords. We have been told that there is a demand for change. Where is the demand coming from? Where is the evidence of a great swell of concern? What is negative in our operational efficiency now? If we accept that scrutiny is our most important task, is this affected by the lack of legitimacy or by the democratic deficit?

Last weekend I tried to distance myself from the rather frenetic and fetid mood in the House as I prepared for the debate this week. I decided to try to ascertain what the political atmosphere was in which the arguments and processes of the Parliament (No. 2) Bill in 1968-69 were undertaken.

There is a riveting description in the biography of Enoch Powell by Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. When the Bill was introduced, it was apparent that the Government had not made clear their detailed intentions because, according to the author, the Government “did not itself know”. According to Simon Heffer, the Bill was so poorly drafted and such a provocation to the Back-Benchers that even after three days in Committee hardly any progress had been made; and the Government, embarrassed and angered by this, and not least by the guerrilla tactics operating from their own side, began to show the first signs of cracking.

That is a relevant warning from the past to the Government as the similarities between the two Bills, 43 years apart, are striking, although one is in draft. Both are of similar length. Both are very badly drafted; and both were produced on the back of cross-party parliamentary discussions that were discontinued. It did not work then; does the Minister think it will work now?

The end of the Parliament (No. 2) Bill was a devastating defeat for the Wilson Government. After 13 days in Committee, only five clauses had been dealt with. It was jamming up the legislative programme and was, finally, dumped. Not only was the other place disaffected, it was clear that there was neither demand nor desire from the public for House of Lords reform. I defy anyone to put up a good argument to defeat my assertion that there is no more public demand or desire now than there was then for House of Lords reform.

In the closing section of this contribution, I wish to move from an historical analysis to the issue of the experience and expertise available in this House, which is greatly appreciated by the selfsame public and, markedly so, by academics, EU member states and further afield. There is an office in this building—and I am sure it is not unique—which houses 10 noble Lords, 10 desks, each with a two-drawer integral filing cabinet and 15 stand-alone two-drawer filing cabinets. The office is a model of political correctness as it has an equal gender balance. Prior to entering the House of Lords, each of the 10 occupants had individual offices, secretaries, assistants et cetera. There has never been a complaint about our working conditions. Why is that? It is because each of us is so absorbed in the work of the House, particularly scrutiny, so busy in preparing for Committee sessions, so involved in attending various meetings and in working in the Chamber that we have no time to think about being caged up in a cramped office, 96 steps from the entrance with a dodgy lift. The lights are normally on at 8 o’clock in the morning—and they were on earlier this morning—and are never off before 10 pm. They went off at 11.15 pm last night. The occupants have never complained about the working hours. Why would they? They are honoured to have the opportunity to work very hard for this country in scrutinising legislation and ensuring that, using their experience and expertise, they can influence such legislation for the better.

In this case, the experience and expertise of the Peers is quite astonishing. Where would one get a group of 10 elected Members—call them what you will—who between them have: combined membership of the House of Commons totalling 85 years: held a position as a professor of government and acknowledged constitution expert and have well over 30 years of academic teaching: served as a Treasury Minister; served as a Health Minister; served as an Education Minister; served as Paymaster-General; served as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons; served as local government leaders, as two have done; operated in the charity sector as administrators and fundraising experts, as four have done; and hands-on business experience of agriculture, food, retailing, air transport, communications and utilities? I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who unfortunately is not in her place, that that experience and expertise resides in a Conservative office, not a Cross-Bench office, and I suspect there are plenty of offices like that in all parts of the House.

Do the Government think that if this draft Bill succeeds in its present form those 10 Peers could, or would, be replaced by others with such varied experience and expertise, all of which is used in the important work of this House? Would they work as hard? Would they achieve as much? Those who would stand for election to this House, almost certainly as their second option, having been defeated in attempts to be elected to the House of primacy, are hardly likely to possess such a range of skills, or does the Minister think they might, and how much does he think it might cost?