Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, having listened to many of the speeches yesterday—I confess that I missed some of them because I went to the theatre to see a play appropriately called “The Collaborators”—and having read the others, it is difficult to know what to say about this debate that is different. But I wonder whether your Lordships remember the Austin Allegro. The Austin Allegro was probably the worst car ever built. It was completely unreliable, it had a totally underpowered engine, and its big selling feature was that it had a square steering wheel. This car was designed by the management for political reasons. They ignored the people who knew about cars and design and it was meant to save British Leyland. It was the management’s answer. In fact, they were so convinced that it would save the company that it was nicknamed the “flying pig”.

I do not know whether noble Lords can see the parallel that I am drawing here, but it seems to me that this Bill, which has been so comprehensively filleted by the Joint Committee, has many similarities to the Austin Allegro in so far as the Deputy Prime Minister believes it will save the Liberal Party at the next election. It was conceived for political reasons and without any recognition of the needs of the consumer and the customer—in this case the wider electorate.

The case is being made for “reform”. However, I think “reform” is the wrong word here because actually it is the abolition of this House that we are talking about and we are talking as well about the destruction of the House of Commons as we know it. So “reform” is the wrong word to use. It is the right word to use in the context of the Bill of my noble friend Lord Steel, which for too long has been ignored by the Government for reasons that are incomprehensible to me. The Government could perfectly well bring about some reform that would deal with most of the issues and avoid all the difficulties that the Joint Committee has so comprehensively illustrated.

I want to deal with two of the fibs which have been repeated during the course of our debate. The first is that this was a Conservative manifesto commitment. It was not a manifesto commitment. Our commitment was to seek a consensus on Lords reform. One has only to listen to the chiding given by the chairman of the Joint Committee to the excellently produced alternative report to realise that there is no consensus. A casual reading of the committee’s report will show that we have failed to reach consensus. So as far as I am concerned, as a Conservative, we have discharged our manifesto commitment.

The second fib which is told is that it was part of the coalition agreement. The agreement was that the Deputy Prime Minister would convene a hand-picked committee to look at this issue with a view to producing a Motion by December 2010. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out as a member of that committee, it failed to do so. In fact, it failed to reach any agreement at all, to the point where the committee stopped having meetings because it was impossible to make progress. So on both of these counts, the obligations of the coalition agreement and the obligations of the Conservative manifesto have been discharged.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has come up with a new definition of consensus. “Consensus” is what the House of Commons votes for on a three-line Whip on a constitutional Bill. The play I saw last night was about Stalin, but not even he would have used that argument. I have to say, listening on the radio this morning to a beleaguered Minister trying to persuade the chief executive of British Airways, or whatever it calls itself nowadays—the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, may be able to help me with that—who had explained that there are queues at Heathrow, that they are not really as long as he said they were, made me wonder this: what does the country think? Do people think that it is better for us to spend money on 450 superannuated politicians rather than on immigration officers at Heathrow to deal with these problems? As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out, this is not an issue that is central to the problems facing our country.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to intervene. I am most grateful to him.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, I knew that an intervention would be popular.

Can the noble Lord address the central question? Can he explain why it is that this Chamber cannot follow the same principle as the vast majority of second Chambers elsewhere in the world, which is by being democratically based? Is it because our democracy is so weak? Is it because we are totally unique in the world? Or is it because the House of Lords is, as it always has been, opposed to democratic reform?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I have to say to my noble friend that I read his speech with interest. In it he made that point repeatedly, along with the point that this House should have the right to decide whether we go to war. He did not actually explain what would happen if this House, elected by PR, voted against going to war and the other place, elected by first past the post, voted in favour. How would we resolve that? The point about this House—what makes it effective—is that it is completely different from the House of Commons.

In his speech, the noble Lord—my noble friend—said that this place ought to be able to decide things, which is a perfectly respectable point of view, but it is one that I do not agree with. That is because, like him, I served in the House of Commons. I love the House of Commons. It is the central feature of our democratic system. It is the body which guarantees our liberty and its sovereignty is crucial. By creating a competing House here, we will undermine it. Another noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in her speech that she was sick of hearing about people talking about turkeys voting for Christmas. The turkeys will be in the House of Commons, not in this House, if they vote for this legislation, for it will undermine the power of the House of Commons. It will turn this into a competing Chamber, and that will be a disaster for the House of Commons. So I do not agree with my noble friend that we should become a kind of House of Commons.

At the same time as we had the Austin Allegro there was a very popular programme on television which I used to enjoy—watching with my children, of course—called “The A-Team”. If we have an elected House here, it will be very much the B-team. Who in the A-team is going to want to be part of a Chamber that is perceived to be secondary? Who will put up with that? But if I had been elected on a 15-year term with a popular mandate, I have to say with regard to the Scotland Bill—on which I think I spoke for quite a long time—that under the powers which already exist in this House it would have been perfectly possible for me to kill that Bill. That is one of the things to consider when people talk about the existing powers. This House has enormous powers, but we do not use them because we respect the fact that the House of Commons is the elected Chamber. I could easily have killed the Bill, but I did not do so. Although I hate the Bill, I did not do so because I am not elected and I do not have a popular mandate. If I had a 15-year term, so that even if it was unpopular in my constituency I would never be held to account, I tell you what— I would certainly have done it.

That is the problem with this whole Bill: it will change behaviour. I can tell noble Lords something else. There are not too many Conservatives in Scotland. If I was elected as a Conservative Member of this House on a 15-year term, I would make it my business to secure in every constituency the election of other Conservatives to the House of Commons. I would be there for 15 years while the average term of a Member of the House of Commons is, I think, eight years. I would be there for 15 years, so I would know all the issues. I would be interfering in constituency business. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that, by not giving them secretarial services, they would not interfere. The noble Lord himself was a Member of Parliament— I do not know what his constituency was.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, it is important that we are clear on this—by the way, of course I agree with that position. Is the noble Lord saying that the Labour Party would not support 80 per cent elected, 20 per cent appointed?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Our position is very clear. If there is to be an elected House, it should be 100 per cent elected. Of course, we also believe that we have to sort out the powers issue, because the two go together.

I come back to the issue of costs. I thought that my noble friend Lord Lipsey put forward some interesting evidence. I thought that it was a bit unfair for the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—his interventions are always enjoyed by your Lordships’ House—and Ministers to dismiss his work as highly speculative, because the Government will not put their costings into the public domain. This can be sorted very quickly if the Minister will offer to the House today to put those costings in the Libraries of both Houses so that we can study them with great care.

As for the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on salaries, I would have thought that that meant that only rich people need apply, but that is a rather familiar refrain from some parts of the coalition Government at the moment.

We come to the end of our debate. I, too, hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will provide some reassurance that the Government will reflect on this debate and study both reports with great care. I say again that I hope that the Government will not rush to produce a Bill with minor tinkering around Clause 2. That would be very disappointing.

I also hope that the Minister will explain why, when the country faces so many challenges, not least on the economy, Lords reform is apparently to be a centrepiece of the Government’s legislative proposals in the Queen’s Speech. That is a rather strange sense of priorities. Last night, my noble friend Lord Stevenson referred to the observation of the late Lord Bingham that there is simply no solution to the problem of Lords reform. That is why, Lord Bingham said, despite an immense outpouring of time and talent, no solution has been found. I do not go that far, but I think that in a non-federal state, working out the relationship between two elected Houses is very difficult. The charge that I put to the Minister is that the Government have not begun to think this through.

I hope that the Government will agree to allow for the role, functions and powers of an elected second Chamber to be determined before proposals on membership are made. Above all, I hope that the Government will agree to such proposals being put to the British people in a referendum. In the end, should not the people decide?