House of Lords Reform

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I well understand the concern being expressed around the Chamber about due process, but quite frankly, as Leader of the Opposition, I am not responsible for that due process. This is a matter for the Government and noble Lords should continue to put their questions to them.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My noble friend appears to agree that the Government have made a crashing error of judgment in excluding the Cross-Bench Peers, who clearly have a legitimate interest in the outcome of the draft Bill. Will my noble friend therefore not adopt a grandmotherly attitude, listen to the Cross-Benchers herself and be prepared to put forward their view, as they are excluded from the committee?

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, it would give me great pleasure to listen to the Cross-Benchers and to put forward their views in the committee. I must rapidly move on and come to a conclusion.

From everything that has been said, it is clear that this is going to be a separate Bill and not part of a great reforming Bill. However, can the Leader of the House confirm that its separation will not mean that it will be considered in isolation from issues such as voting systems? Would it really be sensible for the people of Scotland, for example, to be subjected to as many as four different voting systems, perhaps on one day?

In relation to pre-legislative scrutiny, can the Leader of the House state that a Joint Committee, which I welcome, will be given enough time to consider, in depth and in detail, all the complex issues involved in further substantial reform of the House? For example, can the Leader confirm that such a Joint Committee will fully take into account the stipulation of the last cross-party Joint Committee of both Houses, chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling, on the conventions of this House, that if substantial proposals on the reform of your Lordships' House are brought forward, then the issues considered by the Joint Committee will need to be examined again?

The powers and functions of this House are significant and merit careful consideration, which I hope they will be given. Can the Leader of the House also set out the coalition Government's attitude to the Bill covering a range of reforms of this House brought forward again by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood? I welcome the Leader’s announcement about a small group to look at people leaving the House.

I shall detain the House no longer, other than to say that, in this next period, we on these Benches will be holding the Government to account, both inside the Cabinet committee and outside it, on four key points—that the major issues of further reform of your Lordships' House, including the conventions of its relationship with the other place, are properly considered; that the process of pre-legislative scrutiny is full, thorough and sufficient for the nature of the issues involved; that due regard is given to and provided for any necessary transitional arrangements—I am glad that the grandfathering idea is mentioned in the coalition agreement; and that the issue of further substantial Lords reform is a matter for a referendum of the whole country.

We on this side of your Lordships' House, together with the Liberal Democrats on the Benches opposite, have long been in favour of reform. If, in becoming a member of the coalition, the Conservative Party, and not just its leadership, is now also in favour of reform, we in the reform group genuinely welcome that. History and experience might suggest otherwise, but we shall see. As the noble Lord himself suggested, we know that change is inevitable. As ever, however, the questions are: what kind of change is intended? What will be the rate of change? How will the change be managed? And, crucially, what is the change for? As my noble friend Lord Rooker said, “What will it achieve?”. Will it make our Parliament, our politics, our constitution and our country better? Those are real and important issues, and throughout this process we shall seek answers to these extremely important questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, we are invited to note,

“the case for reform of the House of Lords”.

In fact, the debate has noted the case for only limited reform or no reform at all. Clearly, House of Lords reform is very much a minority interest. As my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon said, if there were to be a referendum just on this, one would anticipate a very small participation. The Conservative component of the Liberal-Conservative Government read public opinion better than its Liberal Democrat junior partners. For the Conservatives, at best before the election this was a third-term issue, which means that there would have been no conclusion during the lifetime of the first Parliament. They recognised that there are many issues much higher up the political agenda.

Thus, the question is: why now in government has this issue been accelerated against the political instincts of the Conservative Party? The answer is clear. For the Liberal Democrats, strictures on constitutional structures are very much part of their raison d’etre. There is a certain wide-eyed zeal, believing this to be, after 100 years or so, the unfinished business of Lloyd George. Just as Mr Clegg misread the significance of the Reform Act 1832, so I believe he has misread that of Lloyd George.

Lloyd George in my judgment would have shown himself to be a pragmatist at this time. One recalls the Limehouse speech:

“They toil not, neither do they spin”.

That is a world away from your Lordships’ House. Today’s House has a very different role and composition from his time. The truth is that the Liberal Democrats are so zealous that they were willing to pay a high price to obtain reform—not just voting reform, but including the reform of the second Chamber. But, the Minister, Miss Featherstone, as quoted in today’s Daily Telegraph, has said that she now recognises the sort of price that is being paid. It is the price of a free rein on constitutional reform for the Liberal Democrats so that the Conservative Party can have a free rein for a Tory Budget and massive welfare cuts, which will harm the poor particularly. It is sad to see the willingness to sacrifice the poor and the deprived in the country on the altar of constitutional reform. We have been here before. At an international parliamentary conference I recall a Florida Congressman saying that everything that can be said has been said, but not everyone has said it. So he proposed to make his own speech.

Let me try to expose some illusions. One illusion is that an 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected Chamber,

“answers the claims of democracy and accountability”.

That is absolute nonsense on stilts. If there were to be one election every 12 years with no possibility of facing the electorate again, how can such an individual be deemed to be accountable because they happened to pass an electoral test at one stage in the distant past? How can they in any way be accountable to an electorate?

The second illusion is that such a changed House would not rival the House of Commons. I think that it was Berkeley who said that no institution is static; all institutions are dynamic. Certainly, a House of Lords with democratic legitimacy would inevitably challenge the House of Commons more regularly and with greater ease.

Another illusion is that in a reformed House of Lords one can still expect the same expertise as we have now in this House. For me the argument is less strong, having seen some of the arguments in favour of a Welsh Assembly. We were in favour of an Assembly, but one of the arguments was that we would have a new sort of person coming from all corners of Wales and not from the traditional political structures. Alas and alack, although there are many very good people, the normal pathway to the Welsh Assembly is through being in the office of an existing Assembly person. One has to pass through the normal political structures if one values the expertise which one has from senior lawyers, senior medics and senior military people. Does one expect those lawyers, medics and generals to find a place on a party list? Of course they would not. If they were to expect to find a place on the list, the argument put to them would be: “What have you done? Have you laboured in the vineyard? What have you done for the party?”. It would be a different sort of House, which would be a pale reflection of the House of Commons and of those who, for various reasons, were not able to find their way here. They will not be the new people. Indeed, the old will prevail:

“New presbyter is but old priest writ large”.

Finally, the reality for all of us is that, ultimately, reform will come, as my noble friend Lord Hoyle has said. There will be a House wholly or mainly elected even if there is a Passchendaele of trench warfare in this House on the way. The other place seems not to understand that there is a real danger that much of value will be lost. Surely there is a case for analysing the strengths of the current House of Lords and for asking how one could mitigate the negative aspects of change.

That means not just altering the composition, but at present this House is less partisan than the other place, is more expert, has a stronger representation of women and minorities, is much stronger on human rights and is willing to be a curb on Government in this and other respects. So any change should ensure that no one party has a majority. At least 20 per cent of its composition should be appointed for their expertise and should be based on diversity. In the past, we have altered our constitution gradually, smoothly, moving from precedent to precedent. The Steel Bill, in my judgment, offered such a way out for the Government, but the zealots have rejected it, as the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, said. I fear that much of value will be lost, and that we will indeed be a weaker reflection of the other place unless there is a clear analysis of the virtues of this place now and a serious attempt to preserve these so far as is possible.