House of Lords Reform

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me and I will deal with that exact point shortly.

To those who say that an elected House of Lords will be stronger, I reply, “Good.” It will be good for the House of Commons and good for Governments of any stripe to face more effective and assertive scrutiny, and, where necessary, revision of their legislation from the House of Lords. That is not the same as advocating the overthrow of the primacy of the House of Commons, or as saying that the House of Lords will be a rival to the House of Commons. This country’s democratic problem is not neutered Government, emanating from the House of Commons, but under-scrutinised, under-accountable, over-centralised and over-confident Government.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

In the first minute of his speech, the right hon. Gentleman said that the House of Lords would not be more powerful; in the fifth minute, he said it would be. I think that it would not be a bad thing if the House of Lords were more powerful, but we ought at least to recognise what we are doing.

[David Miliband]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I have my speech in front of me, and I did not say that the House of Lords would not be more powerful. I made the logical point that the House of Lords could have a stronger voice in the nation’s affairs; that it would not become a rival to the House of Commons, but that it could provide more effective scrutiny of legislation proposed by a Government elected to this House.

The problem in the current system of an over-centralised and under-accountable Government would be significantly reduced by an elected House of Lords. The simplest and most principled case is for a wholly elected House. It has my support. However, I do not accept the argument that the reservation of 20% of seats for independent voices, independently selected, torpedoes the purpose of reform. It is less pure than a wholly elected House, but it may be more practical. The argument that it creates a hybrid House is not strong, given the current composition of the House of Lords, in which the hereditary peers and the non-party peers are in a class of their own.

Let me conclude with some history, which addresses the point that the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) made. I had the pleasure of writing with Lord Irvine of Lairg the 1997 Labour manifesto that committed the new Government to removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords. The wording was designed to pre-empt any queries from the other place on Salisbury convention grounds. However, we did not bank on the willingness of Viscount Cranbourne and his backwoodsmen to threaten the whole of the Government’s programme if we proceeded with the abolition of all hereditary peers. That was the origin of the then Government’s acceptance of the so-called Weatherill amendment, which reprieved 92 hereditary peers.

In speaking to the historic motion to remove some 650 hereditary peers from the Lords, Lord Irvine said that the compromise in respect of the 92

“would guarantee that stage two would take place”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 30 March 1999; Vol. 599, c. 204.]

One reason for its not taking place is that, until now, the Conservative party has been officially opposed to an elected House of Lords. However, the Conservative Opposition in the House of Lords in 1999, in reply to Lord Irvine, said that it was absolutely crucial that one amendment to the Bill should be a timetable setting out exactly when stage two would be put in place.

Twelve years on, we are still waiting, to the shame of all parties in this House. Many of us fear that the Deputy Prime Minister’s Joint Committee will be another recipe for foot dragging. However, for the first time in centuries, the Conservative party has been dragged to support an elected House of Lords. Let us get on with bringing it about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a real privilege to follow the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound).

I begin by declaring an interest, because I have two noble kinsmen in another place, one a Cross Bencher and one actually on the Labour Benches. I feel it would be unhelpful of me to try to abolish them. Generally speaking, as I am sure you would agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, our noble kinsmen should not be abolished.

I am concerned about the draft Bill, because I do not think it tackles the fundamental constitutional issue that we ought to be considering—the fact that there used to be a balanced constitution, with the Crown, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, each having considerable power, authority and influence. In the 19th century the Crown lost its power, and over the 20th century the Lords lost its power, so now all the power in the constitution is theoretically vested here in the House of Commons. Of course, it is not, because it has gone back to the Prime Minister. Effectively, the Crown is more powerful than it has been since the time in the 18th century when the House passed the motion saying that the power of the Crown

“has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished”.

My concern about the draft Bill is that it has been introduced without an examination of how that constitutional imbalance ought to be reformed and improved to get a better-working constitution that does not put all the power in the hands of essentially one person. Our coalition has changed that a bit at the margins—it is sort of one and a half people—but that really is not a very satisfactory constitutional settlement.

We have heard a lot of talk today about the Parliament Act 1911, without, as far as I know, anyone reading it out. I feel that I must put good that omission. The preamble to the Act is very clear, stating:

“Whereas it is expedient that provision should be made for regulating the relations between the two Houses of Parliament:

And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation:

And whereas provision will require hereafter to be made by Parliament in a measure effecting such substitution for limiting and defining the powers of the new Second Chamber”.

We have not got that. That is the absolute nub and crux of the debate. We need to decide whether a fully elected House of Lords will have such legitimacy that it will then be an equal partner with this House of Commons, as it was prior to 1911 and the Parliament Act. Her Majesty’s Government argue at the moment that that will not be the case, and that all will remain the same. I simply do not think that is credible.

An Opposition Member said that since the removal of the hereditaries, the House of Lords has exercised its muscle more. Why? It has done so because it feels legitimate. It questioned the Salisbury convention. Why? It did so because the life peers thought that they had a greater legitimacy than the hereditaries. We know that secondary legislation is not covered by the Parliament Act, under which we cannot force things through until a year after the end of the current Session. Had their lordships dug their heels in on the alternative vote referendum, nothing could have been done until after the Queen opened Parliament about a year from now. Their lordships did not do that, because they recognised that it would have been an abuse of their non-elected power against the elected House.

As it happens, I am all for an elected second Chamber on that basis. I believe that a lot of legislation that is passed is bad, and I like what happens in the United States, where there is gridlock, and the mad ideas of one politician who happens to be in office for a short time are gummed up. In particular, that would make it difficult to effect major constitutional change on the whim of a junior partner in a coalition based on 23 words of his manifesto—23 words of the Liberal Democrat manifesto against a total, helpfully counted for me this morning, of 21,668. Of those 23, “House of Lords” is repeated twice. Once that is taken out, there is virtually no policy on the Lords in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto, yet they say that that is enough to change our constitution fundamentally. That is an absolute scandal. We have already had a referendum on their pet project of AV.

Of course, the Labour party is right in its manifesto: if we are to make the change, it can be made only if it is put to the British people. They have to be given a choice about that constitutional settlement, and we have to be realistic about the fact that it will completely change the relationship between the two Houses. It will mean a strong House of Lords that will exercise its power, and if one thinks that that is a good thing, one may wish to support Her Majesty’s Government. However, those who want this House to remain primary must oppose the change. The Government’s statement in their draft Bill that Lords will not interfere in our constituencies is fair old bunkum. Of course they will—they are politicians. It will give them a chance, in exactly the same way as we interfere in matters that rightly belong to the councils. I oppose the proposal as it stands.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—