House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes his point, but anyone looking objectively at this House would see two competing teams, one for the Government, the other against, and it is rare that there is rebellion or independence of mind, as he well knows.

We should not fear the liberty and the improvement of the second Chamber. It might actually be the making of the freedom of the first Chamber. It might be one step on the road to having a free and independent legislature that would challenge the power of the Executive.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I wouldn’t hold your breath.

[Mr Allen]

My right hon. Friend, having been a strong member of a past Executive, knows where he is most powerful. Is he most powerful sitting on the Back Benches here, or was he most powerful when in Whitehall and commanding a Government Department? We could discuss how effective the scrutiny was that he went through.

To have an un-elected Chamber with a say in passing laws over our citizens is a democratic abomination. It is not a deficit, an anachronism or a quaint ceremonial corner; it is an insult to every elector in the land. It is hobbling and repressive. It says to our citizens, “You are not capable or worthy of deciding your own future, of deciding who should run your country.” It says that this country is about deference and patronage, about a lack of self-confidence and belief, and about insiders and those who know better. It is about our past, not our future. It is an open wound in the body of our democracy and it must be healed.

That wound can be healed only by introducing the elective principle to the second Chamber. That is what this generation of parliamentarians in both Houses can achieve over the next year, and it can be done without beheading those whose service in the second Chamber deserves our respect, not our abuse. For those of us who for 25 years or more have worked for reform, standing on the shoulders of a century of giants before us, these proposals are the most serious attempt yet to bring about a change in our democracy and bring it into the modern era. Their courage and ambition mock the flaccid indecision of recent years.

Are the proposals perfect? No, of course not. Only the 650 different plans in the minds of each hon. Member are perfect, but that is why, theoretically at least, we have a parliamentary process. There is a—

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[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I think that this afternoon we have established that the calumny that if someone is against this Bill they are against reform and modernisation has been laid to rest. It is absolutely clear that someone can be in favour of a very different second Chamber based on a very different franchise and be vehemently against what the Government propose in this Bill.

Secondly, I think that we have established that we genuinely need as much time as possible to debate this Bill. That has been shown by the variety of views expressed, including by those who are in favour of the Bill and will vote, at least in principle, for it tomorrow night. The views expressed this afternoon about the future of our constitution, the nature of our government, and the relationship between this Chamber and the second Chamber are so numerous that they demonstrate, if ever it needed demonstrating, that we need not only time to scrutinise the Bill properly, but the constitutional convention advocated by at least half the Joint Committee.

We need that constitutional convention for this reason: this afternoon we have had demonstrated a number of substantial constitutional changes introduced over the past 15 years, many of which have proved to be successful, but the idea of one fundamental constitutional change taken in isolation demonstrates that we do not have joined-up thinking in this country about where our constitution is going. We have, as the Deputy Prime Minister himself demonstrated this afternoon, the real danger of the break-up of the United Kingdom and the vote on the future of Scotland. We have the McKay commission on existing devolution. We have propositions on a written Bill of Rights. We have, undoubtedly, in the future a new relationship between the United Kingdom, in whatever guise, and the European Union and the eurozone. We also have a range of minor constitutional changes that have already happened. In those circumstances, taking the future of the second Chamber out of the equation and dealing with it separately does not make sense. Furthermore, and fundamentally, we have also had demonstrated this afternoon the fact that certain individuals on both sides of this House—those on my side and among Liberal Democrats—do see our constitution in different terms.

I have also learned this afternoon, although I really already knew this, that quite a lot of people do not understand the constitutions of other countries. I can only presume that those who have spoken—good Labour friends of mine—do understand what they are proposing when they suggest a system that would actually have the Executive outside Parliament rather than in it. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) suggested that, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) came close to suggesting it. The Liberal Democrats—through the development of proportional representation; through the break with the single-Member constituency; through the advocacy, as is in this Bill, of being able to appoint Ministers who are not from or within Parliament, but who are from outside it and then do not have to be part of the Parliament; and through the criticism of the way in which the Government within Parliament do not allow for scrutiny—are demanding a debate, and it is one that we should have, about whether we should fundamentally change our constitution for the future. I am against that change; I believe that we should elect a Government. A clear mandate from the people for a Government is something people in this country have valued. We can do that only by the single-Member constituency, the electoral system we have and the Parliament to which we give primacy.

[Hazel Blears]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue of single terms of 15 years goes right to the heart of accountability and democracy?

[Mr Blunkett]

That is at the heart of the criticism of this Bill. Once legitimacy is given to elected politicians without the accountability of their having to seek re-election and be re-elected, the very fundamentals of democracy are undermined. That is because, as I am on the record saying on the morning after the election, democracy is not simply about electing people; it is about being able to get rid of them. The admirable speech made at the Magna Carta lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 15 June demonstrated that par excellence.

[Simon Hughes]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that nothing in this Bill suggests that Governments would not be formed on the simple principle of needing to command a majority in the House of Commons? That is as it has been and as it is, and there is no proposal that it should not continue in that way. If that is the case, the threat, and the suggestion he makes, that electing people to the other place would change that is entirely unsupported by anything in the Bill.

[Mr Blunkett]

I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman read the Bill, because it suggests, for the first time in our history, that Ministers can be appointed outwith the second Chamber but report to it. We have always had to appoint people to that Chamber, who have worked within it and have continued to be a part of it, if they were to be Ministers.

The fundamental rub I foresee is that we will create mistrust in the electorate. We will say that we are going to replace people who are unaccountable and not legitimate, but then we will put up regional party lists—in the case of Yorkshire, the region covers 5 million people—and simply tell electors to tick the box on the list. People will turn on us, because that is a delusion. That is why we should vote against the Bill and against the programme motion.

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[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Lady will have to make up her mind. Either the right hon. Lady believes that we are not going to win any seats in the next election, in which case we will not have any seats in the House of Lords under this system—although we would under an appointment system—or the reverse. She cannot have it both ways. I am afraid that there is a slight logical inconsistency in her argument.

The issue of ministerial appointments was raised, and I am happy for us to examine that in Committee. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) inveighed against the practice of bringing people in from outside, giving them ministerial posts and putting them in the upper House. I wonder whether he ever had that conversation with Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool, or with any of the other GOATs who were brought in by the last Government.

[Mr Blunkett]

The point that I was attempting to make—obviously not successfully—was that those Ministers were brought in as, and remained, Members of Parliament. The Government’s proposals do not allow that. They impose a system which will mean that, for the first time in our constitutional history, Ministers will not be part of and embedded in our Parliament.

[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Gentleman may not have studied the Bill assiduously enough. It is true that those Ministers will not be there for life: the right hon. Gentleman is right about that. Under the present system they are there for life even when they have clearly outlived their ministerial usefulness.

We heard arguments in favour of secondary election, and I think that that is a perfectly valid debate for us to have in Committee. We also heard arguments about primacy. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made what I considered to be a very sensible suggestion about the possibility of a concordat. I thank him for that: it is something that we need to debate.

The hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) asked which legal expert the Government had consulted on clause 2. It was Lord Pannick, who I believe the hon. Gentleman thinks is a very good lawyer indeed.