Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, I join those who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee on all the hard work that they have done and, more particularly, those who have worked even harder and more extensively on the committee that is supplementing the work of the Richard committee.

My problem is that the Richard committee was asked to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of a Bill that is fundamentally flawed. The argument is very simple and is put forward by the Liberal Democrats and others: namely, if we have an elected House, Britain will be more democratic. I do not believe that that will be the case. We are already 100 per cent democratic and that democratic legitimacy rests in the House of Commons. If both Chambers were elected, that legitimacy would inevitably be divided and, I believe, would be less effective.

Therefore, there is a very real problem here. The committee faced up to it and decided as follows. The report states:

“The Committee, on a majority”—

I stress “on a majority”—

“agrees that the reformed second chamber of legislature should have an electoral mandate provided it has commensurate powers”.

It seems to me clear that “commensurate” is the wrong word. If both Chambers are elected, the wording ought to be “equal powers”. More particularly in that context, if the upper Chamber is elected on proportional representation, which Mr Clegg tells us is more legitimate than first past the post, we would end up with an upper Chamber that is more legitimate, and ought to have more powers, than the House of Commons. This, clearly, would be a pretty absurd position in which to get ourselves.

I must say that, after the events of the past 10 days, I am more and more convinced that the priority is not reform of this end of the building but reform of the other end. We have had the appalling use of programming at the other end, not only in the initial stages of a Bill, where major issues are not debated at all, but the effective guillotining—not in the old efficient way, but by programming—of amendments from this House, whereby the time allocated for consideration of four amendments was barely as much as the time that this House had spent voting on them. We therefore clearly need reform as far as that end of the building is concerned.

However, it is not true to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown said, that we are creatures of the Executive. We have certainly not been so in recent days, but if we were an elected Chamber we would be much more likely to be heavily whipped, to be creatures of the Executive and to lose the technical expertise that we have at present. I hope that those who were so anxious that we should hear their views on many subjects in the past few days will realise that electing this Chamber is not in their interests and that they will campaign on it, whether or not it be done in a referendum or more generally. They are the kind of interest groups that we have been defending and I hope that they will campaign.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I intervene because the noble Lord mentioned me by name. I want to ask him a question, because the issue genuinely puzzles me. If it is the case that having an elected second Chamber produces the kind of dire consequences that he and everyone else in this place—or at least most people who have spoken—predict, how come about 60 of the other 71 bicameral Parliaments across the world do not suffer these problems when they have elected second Chambers? Is he really saying that our democracy is so weak that we cannot cope with what everyone else can cope with?

[Lord Higgins]

No, on the contrary, I recognise that what is fit for other countries is fit for them, but we have here a unique institution—a highly expert and unbelievably cost-effective second Chamber. Therefore, the reasons that we are putting forward in its defence are the right ones.

I want to come to the crucial point raised by the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, relating to primacy. The committee certainly rejects—not out of hand but after careful consideration—the idea that Clause 2 will carry out the purpose of preserving the primacy of the other place. I am glad to see the noble Lord indicating his assent. I certainly do not believe that it would, but it would be very strange if next week something in the Queen’s Speech said, “Measures for reforming the House of Lords will be laid before you, and we regret the fact that Clause 2 will not carry out the intention of the Government”. We shall have to wait and see what, if anything, is proposed, but it would seem rather odd if the Government were to include anything without having resolved this absolutely crucial question.

My other point relates to the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor—the utterly absurd idea that election without accountability is democracy. The whole basis of democracy must be accountability and, if we have a system whereby a Member can remain here for 15 years without election, there is no accountability whatever. That cannot increase the amount of democracy in this country.

I want to spend just a moment or two on the question of referendums. Throughout my 33 years in the House of Commons, I was strongly opposed to referendums. I take a strong Burkean view that Members of the House of Commons are representatives not delegates. A referendum is the antithesis of that. However, it is the case that on a major constitutional issue it is less appropriate for the House of Commons to act in that way, so a referendum may indeed be more appropriate. My problem is that, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, I am not optimistic that a referendum will produce the right result.

The reality is that the public are unbelievably ignorant about this House and are not likely to understand the way in which we work or the good work that we do. Certainly if you had an opinion poll asking how Members of the House of Lords normally dress, they would reply very simply by a large majority, “They all look like Father Christmas”. There is a real problem here. The press time and again publish pictures of the State Opening, which is composed not of the House of Lords but of many other people who are not in the House. Therefore, if such a referendum takes place, we will have to engage very strongly, despite the splendid efforts already made by the Lord Speaker and her predecessor, to try to publicise the work that this House does.

I am out of time. I end by saying that I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on what he just said, but the Bill that has gone to the Commons from this place is much less than his original Bill. We still need to do far more and we certainly must do something greatly to reduce the size of this House. I hope that we will manage to do that.