House of Lords Reform Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for making a Statement to your Lordships' House on the Government’s revised House of Lords Reform Bill, which has been introduced today in the other place and given a First Reading. I am grateful, too, for an advanced sight of the Statement. I thank the Leader and the government Chief Whip for offering to extend to 40 minutes the normal period for Back-Bench contributions to the debate today.

This country is facing enormous difficulties. We are in a double-dip recession; we have no economic growth; unemployment, especially youth unemployment, remains high. The Governor of the Bank of England did not mince his words yesterday when he spoke of the depth of the economic crisis. Further efforts will be made this week at the EU summit to try to resolve the eurozone crisis. We need jobs and we need growth; we need a change of economic strategy. Those are the country’s priorities and those are the Opposition’s priorities. What are the Government’s priorities? Apparently, they centre on further reform of your Lordships’ House. Not only is reform of your Lordships’ House not at the top of the priority list of the people of this country; it is not even at the bottom of the priority list. In fact, it is not on the list at all, because it is not a priority. Even the most positive polling figures suggest that less than a fifth of the people of this country regard further House of Lords reform as in any way urgent. Yet this is what this Government have placed at the heart of their legislative agenda; this is what the Government are focusing on today. Why are the Government making reform of your Lordships' House such a priority in the light of the economic challenges facing us?

We do not from these Benches say that constitutional reform is unimportant. From 1997 onwards in government, we brought forward a serious programme of constitutional reform, including major changes such as devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Constitutional reform, including further reform of the House of Lords, goes to important questions about how Britain is governed. We on these Benches did not seek a Bill on further reform of your Lordships' House to be included in the Government’s legislative programme, but it has been; it is there; and we as the Opposition must respond to it.

Labour’s commitment to a fully elected second Chamber was explicit in its manifesto at the last general election. Labour has a long commitment to reform and has enacted that commitment. We want to see reform, but we want to get that reform right. For the Labour Party, that means a fully elected second Chamber. It means getting the powers and role of the House of Lords right, not only in itself but in relation to the House of Commons. We believe, too, that the issue is of such importance that it should be put to the people of this country in a referendum, a commitment which is strongly supported by the public according to opinion-poll evidence.

We will want to examine in detail the Government’s revised version of the House of Lords Reform Bill. The first version of the Bill, published last year, was a bad Bill. We thought so; the Joint Committee on the Bill thought so; and the alternative report from the Joint Committee’s minority group thought so. Pretty well everyone thought so, apart from the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Government are proposing their revised Bill in the face of serious and searching criticisms of their first attempt. We will need to consider how far this version gets in dealing with the very big questions which need to be resolved, including those about the primacy of the House of Commons. The Government’s revised Bill today attempts to shore up in various ways the wholly discredited Clause 2 of the original Bill, on Commons primacy, by scrapping the provision entirely and replacing it with a statement in the Bill about the applicability of the Parliament Acts. The Bill also repeals the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911. Are there any further constitutional implications of repealing the preamble? I look forward to hearing the views on this issue of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and of my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith.

On the applicability of the Parliament Acts, can the Leader of the House explain why, in the Government’s response to the report of the Joint Committee, which has also been published today, they refer on page 7 to their response to recommendation 84 of the Joint Committee, on the Parliament Acts, when their responses to the recommendations go from 82 to 86, without recommendation 84 being included at all? That is interesting.

There are also questions about the powers of the second Chamber; about the exact proportion of elected Members, the length of their terms, whether they should be renewable; about the system of election; about the relationship between the Lords and the Commons, about the position of this House in relation to the outcome of a referendum in Scotland on independence; about the place of bishops or other religious representation; about transitional arrangements, and about the costs of the Government’s reforms.

On the question of costs, the Government have, as the Leader of the House said, finally published the costings today on their revised proposals. I note that these include provision for a number of allowances for Members of an elected House, including an accommodation allowance and a staffing allowance. The costings do not, however, include the cost of elections for the House, put separately by the Government at £85.7 million for each of the elections proposed. Will the Leader tell the House what the Government believe the total net cost of all their proposals will be?

Can the Leader of the House explain to Members of your Lordships’ House what the position will be in an elected House in relation to remuneration? The Government have been briefing the media heavily in the past few days that Members of the new elected House will not be paid a salary but will instead have a daily allowance before tax of £300. However, new Section 7A of Clause 46 of the Bill specifies that,

“members of the House of Lords are to be paid … on a monthly basis in arrears”.

Will the Leader of the House clarify which is correct?

Of huge importance to my party and to the Joint Committee, the revised Bill does not contain a referendum. There is little logic in a position which says that we have referendums to decide whether we have city mayors, but not to decide whether to alter radically the composition and structure of our Parliament. We shall see whether the Government’s present non-inclusion of a referendum in the Bill survives whatever parliamentary processes the Bill faces. However, can the Leader of the House say why he believes that 55%—according to the latest opinion poll—of the people of this country are wrong in wanting to have their say on these matters in a referendum?

On these matters, Labour, whether in the other place or in your Lordships’ House, will seek as an Opposition to scrutinise, amend and improve the Bill during its passage through Parliament. Lords reform is a serious issue and we expect the Government to take Parliament seriously, too, in considering it. That is why we want to see proper scrutiny of the Bill in the other place, where it will be taken first. That is why we will oppose in the other place the proposed timetable for the Bill, which would, effectively, guillotine debate. However, we are a party in favour of reform, which is why Ed Miliband also announced yesterday that Labour in the Commons will be voting for a Second Reading of the Bill. For a Bill about which we have real reservations, this is an unusual step for an Opposition. There is indeed plenty of precedent for legislative proposals being opposed at this stage.

For example, in 1999, the party opposite, including 11 members of the current Cabinet, proposed and voted for a reasoned amendment and against the Second Reading of the Labour Government’s 1999 House of Lords Bill on hereditary Peers. We know that there are members of my party, both in this House and the other place, who would wish to vote against the Bill for reasons of principle. I respect those who hold this view, but the shadow Cabinet, of which I am a member, disagrees with them, and Labour will vote for a Second Reading in the other place later this month.

[Noble Lords]

Next month.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

It is next month, forgive me. It is not July—hell.

We know, too, that there are great differences of opinion—vast gulfs of opinion—between the constituent parties of the coalition, and within the ranks of the Conservative Party, both in the other place and in this House. As the Prime Minister said in the other place earlier today, there are those in all parties who oppose further reform of the House of Lords, just as there are those who support further reform. We shall see how those differences emerge as the Bill goes through its Commons stages.

It is likely that those stages will be protracted. The Bill is, I suspect, many months away from coming before this House, if indeed it manages to get out of the Commons. Given the dates for Second Reading in the other place, it is likely that the House of Commons will go into Committee on the Bill when it sits in September. Recently the noble Lord the Leader of the House all but issued as a threat the possibility that this House would have to sit in September to deal with the Financial Services Bill. Can I inform him that in order to deal with a range of matters, such as the Government’s legislative programme and their record on jobs and growth, we on these Benches would welcome sitting in September when the Commons will be deliberating on this Bill. I ask the Leader of the House to arrange now that this House should indeed sit in September to consider these important matters.

On the overall matter of further reform of your Lordships’ House, there are wide differences of opinion across the House. That was clearly demonstrated right across the House in the days of debate we have had on the issue recently, both in considering the report of the Joint Committee and the alternative report and in the days devoted to the constitutional issues during the debate in this Chamber on the gracious Speech. However, what was also demonstrated in those debates was a seriousness about this issue—a determination that it should be considered properly, and a clear intention to scrutinise fully whatever proposals the Government place before Parliament. Can the Leader of the House give us a commitment that if this Bill does get to your Lordships’ House, the Members of this House will have all the time they need to scrutinise the proposals fully and properly?

We have revised proposals before us today. In this House we have time—possibly a good deal of time—to consider these proposals while they are in the House of Commons. That is what I expect that many individual Members of this House will wish to do. For our part, both in the other place and, if necessary, in your Lordships’ House, we will ensure that the Government’s proposals are properly debated, properly considered, properly questioned and properly scrutinised. That is the job of the Opposition; and starting from the publication of the Bill today, that is the job that we will be getting on with.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, having read what Mr Miliband said in support of the prospect of reform, I was surprised by much of what the noble Baroness said this afternoon. I was very impressed with what Mr Miliband said yesterday. He pledged the Labour Party’s support for the Second Reading of the Bill, even before he had had an opportunity to see it. Perhaps when he has read it, he will decide to support a programme Motion to rush it through the House of Commons and into this House as quickly as possible.

The noble Baroness asked whether this should be a priority. It has been hanging around for so long that we have to get around to it at some stage. It started in 1998-99 as a great priority of the previous Government. They published their last White Paper in 2008. I dare say that if the Labour Party had won the election it would have brought forward a Bill. This coalition has decided that it is time to bring this debate to an end and to ask Parliament what its view is, and it is right that we should do so.

There is also the bizarre suggestion that when important things are happening, Parliament cannot decide on other important issues. It is worth reflecting that on 6 and 7 June 1944, the House of Lords was debating the all-important Butler Education Act on Second Reading. Of course, getting growth into the economy is important, but that is not going to be done just in Parliament; it is going to be done by businesses and entrepreneurs up and down the country.

The noble Baroness reiterated the Labour Party’s view that what is most important in reform is that the House should be 100% elected. Respectfully, we disagree, as did the Joint Committee. Although she did not say that the powers between the Houses should be codified, I think that is what she meant. Again, respectfully, we disagree. She said that there should be a referendum. We see no case whatever for a referendum on the issue. Parliament should decide. It would cost £80 million to have a referendum on this issue, which was included as part of all three main parties’ political manifestos. I urge the Opposition to have more confidence in their manifesto, which is only two years old. I hate to point out to noble Lords opposite that there were no referendums in 1958 or 1999, when the composition of the House was changed, and we see no case for one now.

On the question of primacy, it is true that the Joint Committee had a substantial debate on Clause 2, helped by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the Government reflected on that. That is why we have changed the Bill in this way. This is in part because this Bill is about the composition of a reformed House of Lords and the transition arrangements for getting there. It is not about the functions, powers and role of the two Houses, which we would like to see remain unaffected by that change. The Bill clearly states that the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 will continue to apply after the introduction of elected Members.

The Parliament Acts underpin the primacy of the House of Commons in statute. They limit the legislative power of the Lords and ensure that any Administration with a majority in the Commons can ultimately pass legislation without agreement of the House of Lords. We are not aware of any further constitutional implications of repealing the preamble to the 1911 Act.

On the questions of cost raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, she rightly pointed out that the cost of election was excluded from the cost of the House; it stands at £85.7 million every five years. We believe that at the end of the transition period the projected additional annual cost of the House of Lords will be £13.6 million. Of course there will be other associated costs during the course of transition. As for pay, there is something inherently useful about the current arrangements whereby Peers have a daily allowance, and we wish to replicate that through a per diem salary that would be paid monthly in arrears but would be assessed on daily attendance in this House.

In the course of the next few months, there will be many opportunities to discuss some of these issues, but it is also right for the House of Commons now to take its view. I have no idea when the House of Commons is going to discuss these issues, and whether it will be early or late in the autumn. We also have work to do and we should get on with that before dealing with the Bill when it gets to us some time in the winter.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, for the avoidance of doubt can I say explicitly that if my Government had been in power now and had faced the economic situation which the country faces now, this would not have been at the top of our priorities and we would not be discussing this Bill in the House of Commons today?