House of Lords Reform

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on securing this debate. I often say that a debate is timely, but this debate really is: we are at a crux of time in our country when we are looking at who we want to serve us. There is a real crisis of trust in our democratic institutions, so it is only right that we talk about this issue.

I am proud to be given this opportunity to speak about Labour’s plans to make our Parliament fit for the 21st century. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his contribution and I agree with him. I speak as a democrat, proud to be part of a democracy but shocked to be part of only half a democracy at many times. There is a democratic deficit in an unelected Chamber belonging to a bygone era that undermines the value of the expertise that has been rightly pointed out by many Members in the debate. Change is needed.

I cannot continue without paying tribute to our tireless Labour peers. Time and again, they have stood up against the Government’s worst excesses, whether that is by blocking attempts to strip refugees of their rights and dignity in the Nationality and Borders Bill or by inflicting a record 14 defeats on the Government’s anti-protest clauses in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Many lords are expert and hardworking, and deserve the respect of us all on the Opposition Benches.

In the past year the House of Lords has considered 5,244 changes to 100 Bills. Members in the House of Lords raised concerns, pressed the Government for action, questioned decisions with debates, asked daily oral questions and tabled urgent questions, in more than 3,350 hours of business. We are not saying that the House of Lords does not do a lot of hard work or that lords are not, often, experts in their field; we are saying that the Lords could be far better with a democratic mandate.

The time has come for change. We need a Lords that is properly accountable, where the expertise is strengthened by that democratic mandate, and that is up to the task of rebuilding the whole of Britain after 13 years of Conservative failure. The next Labour Government will scrap the House of Lords and replace it with a new second Chamber that truly represents people across the UK.

[Anthony Mangnall]

May I ask for a bit of clarification? Is the hon. Lady saying that the Labour party is wholly committed to a wholly elected Chamber of the House of Lords? If she is, does that mean there will be a referendum, as has been promised on previous occasions when Labour policy has suggested large constitutional change?

[Fleur Anderson]

I do not think the hon. Member is alone in having questions about our policy, which is to have a conversation with the British people to decide what the future policies would be. I am not going to be outlining all the dotted i’s and crossed t’s of Labour party policy, because that would be wrong. We need to have further conversation about the result of our conversations. Later in my speech, I will go into what will underpin that.

The SNP has used this debate about the second Chamber for game playing, to undermine the strength of the Union, and has denied Scottish people a voice in the second Chamber by boycotting it—by just leaving it alone. It has no interest in making Westminster or devolution work. Labour will work with the Scottish people to give Scotland and other parts of the UK an even greater say in UK-wide legislation through a new second Chamber. Under a Labour Government, a second Chamber that is more representative will give Scottish people more of a mandate to deliver for Scotland and undo the damage caused by the SNP and the Conservatives.

There are three reasons why we need reform, the first of which is trust. Trust in Westminster is at an all-time low, and in many ways who can blame the public? Never before has the privilege of power been used and abused for personal gain so much and so frequently. The mantra of “It’s one rule for them and another for us” is said far too frequently; people should not feel like that about their elected bodies, and the Lords is a prime example.

Take the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). He recommended 87 new life peerages, but two of those people have not made maiden speeches, even though one was appointed in September 2019 and the other in July 2020. His brazen attempt to subvert democracy by rewarding donors, lackeys and friends makes him the latest in a long line of Conservative Prime Ministers who have gamed the system by installing a conveyor belt of their cronies into the House of Lords, undermining it as a result. Instead of rewarding Conservative donors, we should be rebuilding trust in politics.

[Kirsty Blackman]

How many peers did the most recent Labour Prime Minister recommend?

[Fleur Anderson]

I do not know, but we are talking about the system. It should not be the patronage of the Prime Minister that gets to recommend those who vote on our behalf; the people should decide who is going to make those decisions. That is the point I will be making, whichever party the Prime Minister comes from.

In the past seven years, every former Conservative party treasurer bar one has been offered a seat in the Lords, and 22 of the party’s biggest donors have been made lords since 2010. We cannot keep on sheepishly asking for the trust of the people: we need to show how things will be different. Reforming the second Chamber has to be part of that.

The second reason is democracy. Devolution was a major achievement of the last Labour Government, and the next Labour Government are committed to continuing that proud democratising tradition. We have shown that we will put our money where our mouth is when elected. We must go further than the devolution that has already taken place, which includes making the second Chamber of our Parliament fit for the 21st century. It must be more democratic and accountable, and therefore effective, and must accurately represent the people of our diverse regions and nations across the United Kingdom.

We need reform that retains expertise, yes, but the right expertise from throughout the country, not just expertise in knowing the right people. Consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers have ridden roughshod over the system of appointing people to the House of Lords. If things continue as they are, there will not be many experts left; instead, the House of Lords will be packed to the rafters with those who owe their place to favours and dodgy dealings rather than talent and expertise. For too many, a peerage is a fancy title or an Instagram photo opportunity, which undermines the work done by so many hard-working peers.

Hansard tells us all we need to know. There are 41 Members in the House of Lords who have only made one contribution since the beginning of the 1992-93 Session—one contribution in 30 years—yet those Members can claim more than £300 a day for attending and can vote on any issue, changing the lives of people up and down the country. They are not accountable; there is no check or balance. Those Members do not have to look into people’s eyes and be accountable for what they have done, how many times they have attended, what they have said and what they have voted on.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I think the hon. Lady mentioned 41 lords; could she help me with something, because it is important to be accurate? Of those 41, how many have claimed allowances, how many have actually voted and how many have attended the Chamber at any point? How many of them actually have parliamentary passes? I ask because we need to be clear about this matter; otherwise, someone can start setting a narrative that is not accurate about the important work that is done in the Lords.

[Fleur Anderson]

The fact is that they have the right to come and vote if they want to, the right to attend and the right to take the money for their daily attendance, no matter what happens. It is just a job for life. They have the notoriety and the title, which gives them some credibility, yet they are not doing the work that should accompany their position. They should be accountable. If they are not attending, not taking the money and not voting, they should do the right thing and resign their positions.

YouGov polling from August last year shows that the public have had enough. Only 6% of British people favoured a House of Lords that is mostly appointed, whereas 48% supported a House of Lords that is mostly elected. Our plans are not just democracy for democracy’s sake, though, even though that would be reason enough. That brings me to the third reason for why reforms are vital. We cannot fix the economy without fixing our institutions and we cannot bring about the social change that we need in this country without fixing our institutions. They are fundamental to our decision making. Inclusive growth must go hand in hand with inclusive governance. A second Chamber packed with the mates of former Conservative Prime Ministers, all of whom have given up on the levelling-up agenda as far as I can see, will not deliver equal growth and opportunity for all nations and regions.

Labour will consult members of the public from throughout the UK to determine the exact size and make-up of the new second Chamber. We launched the commission on the UK’s future, which was chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and involved people from throughout the country, including people from academia, local government, the legal profession and trade unions. As a result, we have articulated three clear principles that will underlie our vision of reform. First, Members of any new Chamber should be elected by voters rather than being appointed by politicians; secondly, it should be truly representative of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom and play an important role in safeguarding the devolution settlement; and thirdly, it must remain a second and secondary Chamber and continue to have a role complementary to the work of the Commons. It will not replace the Commons.

We have to earn back trust. That will happen only with a Labour Government. Only Labour has the ideas and the credibility to fix our politics as well as our economy, and we are the only party that sees the intrinsic connection between the two and that will make the change that is needed.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister and remind him to leave a couple of minutes for Patrick Grady to speak at the end.