House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely, and we have an increasing population. I still do not know the Government’s case for the reduction in the number of MPs—well, I think I know why they decided to reduce the number of MPs. I think it was an attempt to stuff the Labour party, but the Labour party does not need any favours, help or assistance in that regard. It seems to be doing a pretty good job of that on its own.

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

The hon. Gentleman is being very unfair on that point. I think that the decision was made to reduce the number of MPs because in 2010, when the policy came forward, there was a great deal of public feeling that MPs had become too expensive. It was a response to the national mood at the time.

[Pete Wishart]

Of course there is a national mood in favour of such a cut. If we were to ask any member of the public whether they would like to see the size of Parliament and Government reduced—I am sure I will find this when I go back to my constituency at the weekend—they would say, “Yes, of course.” My point, and I believe that the hon. Gentleman might respect this, is that we seem to be reducing the number of elected Members but letting the other place grow exponentially. That is the key point. I am beginning to get the sense that the public are starting to look at what we have got down the corridor and deciding that we have to do this. Enough is enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

The appointment of Ministers is ultimately a matter for the Prime Minister and I am certainly not going to comment on that. Ministerial numbers must reflect what the Prime Minister of the day feels she or he needs for the Government to work effectively.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

On the number of Ministers, the maximum is set by legislation. It is not purely in the gift of the Prime Minister.

[Michael Ellis]

I recognise that—the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, I think—but that relates to the maximum, not the minimum. However, the appointment of Ministers is a matter for the Prime Minister.

There are many different views on what form the House of Lords should take and we have heard some of them this afternoon. Without consensus, as I have said, there is no practical possibility of taking such reform forward, and this was clear from the attempted passage of the House of Lords Reform Bill in 2012. It was withdrawn not for lack of commitment from the Government, but because there was no overall agreement about what that reform should look like. When there are so many pressing constitutional reforms, not least devolving more powers to Scotland and Wales and delivering all that is necessary for the UK’s exit from the European Union, it is on those subjects that we should focus our attention in this Parliament. It would not be right to distract from or derail important reforms elsewhere by making House of Lords reform a priority. That is why we do not support the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who expressed himself with such vim and vigour.

The motion tabled by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is an important motion and a proper subject for us to debate. It is something that we have been debating for hundreds of years. The earliest debate I can find for deciding to limit the House of Lords is in 1719, and we will all remember that the Parliament Act 1911 states that it is a temporary measure until a more democratic means of choosing an upper House can be found.

These problems are not new, and there are serious problems with the House of Lords. I do not think anyone would try to pretend otherwise. It is not by any means perfect and its imperfection is partly in its size, partly in its unaccountability and partly, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire so rightly said, in its Liberal Democrats. I do not say that as a cheap shot against the Liberal Democrats, though those are perfectly fun. I say it because the very large number of Lib Dems who are there, who are abusing their position in the Lords to thwart the will of the elected Government, have made a real problem for the Government and for the democratic legitimacy of the House of Lords. There are unquestionably problems, but what is the solution?

What we have considered in previous Parliaments is a democratically elected upper House. That sounds very sensible in theory, but there is a fundamental problem for us in this House that if we have a democratically elected House of Lords, its powers will be equal to ours. Even if the letter of the law allows us to overrule the Lords, that will soon cease to be a political reality. A democratically elected House of Lords challenges the Commons, and if a democratically elected House of Lords is on a different electoral system, it might even claim a higher validity than we have and therefore the right to overrule us. Then we would probably have a gridlocked system like that in the United States, with the two Houses being unable to co-operate and an inability to govern and to get legislation through.

[Mr Jackson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats were complicit in the failure of their once-in-a-generation opportunity for House of Lords reform by bringing forward a ludicrous proposal for a 15-year non-renewable mandate, which would have challenged the authority and mandate of this House?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

That was part of the problem. The other problem was that they were quite unwilling to set out what they would do between the conventions that both Houses have. If those conventions are legislated for, who is to determine whether the conventions are followed? Would that be the courts, and then would the courts interfere in Parliament? Or would the conventions be decided by consensus between the two Houses? In that case we would be back to the gridlock that I was warning about.

That is why the problem has not been solved. There is not a good democratic solution unless we are willing to downgrade the House of Commons, which I personally would be very much against doing. With our constituency-based relationship we have a wonderful system of democracy through this House. The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) made a very powerful speech, but I disagree with him in thinking that the reform to constituencies is gerrymandering. It really is not. It is getting the numbers to be equal, which is a proper thing to do.

It would be wrong to fight the next general election on the electoral roll from 2000. That needs to be updated, and although the later the date the better—so I am not unsympathetic to the call to move it on two years later— that is not practical. It cannot be done on the absolutely last electoral roll, but by doing it every five years, we ensure that there is continuity in updating and a regular fairness in the size of the constituencies. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that point and think it is important, through that constituency link, to defend the primacy of this House, which is the democratic House.

That is why I am less worried than the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire about the failures of the House of Lords. Ultimately we are in charge. We can use the 1911 Parliament Act. We may decide to use that to do something on statutory instruments if the House of Lords challenges the Government on their democratically mandated implementation of policy. The democratic right overrides the undemocratic element. That gives me certainty and security that the nation is not becoming the People’s Republic of China, Lesotho or whatever other random examples have been brought up, because they do not have that democratic underpinning. Therefore, the size of the House of Lords is just a problem that we will have to live with.

In 1719, the main reason for opposing a limit on the numbers in the House of Lords was that a limit would make the Members who were already there more powerful because their power could not be diluted by adding more peers. That remains true today, because the one great authority this Chamber still retains over the House of Lords, via the Prime Minister, is not so much the 1911 Act, but the threat of creating many more peers, which was, of course, threatened in 1832 and in 1911—on both occasions to ensure the democratic will could prevail. We must maintain the ability to do that, even while recognising that the House of Lords is too big and has problems. However, this needs to be an evolutionary reform, which I would happily go into, Mr Deputy Speaker, but on another occasion.