House of Lords Reform

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, I take it that, notwithstanding the title of this debate, it provides an opportunity for your Lordships to put points to the cross-party committee which is preparing a draft Bill for a partly or wholly elected House. Like other noble Lords who have spoken, that is profoundly not what I want and I think it is a fundamental mistake. Nevertheless, although I do not agree with it, I accept it for the purpose of the remarks I am going to make. I want to put a case rather different from that which other Members of your Lordships’ House have made. I suggest—I hope not entirely frivolously—that the House could find itself going down this route, through the process of so-called reform, having an elected House, and finishing with something not very different from what your Lordships’ House is today. I will explain why.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, the starting point is: what are the functions of the House? The Leader of the House answered that question this afternoon. He said that he envisaged that the functions of the House would continue to be as they are now, and its powers very much the same. What are those functions? I suggest that they fall under three headings. One is to provide an alternative forum of accountability for the Executive. The second is to provide the sort of detailed scrutiny of legislation which the other House fails to provide. I was struck by the statistics given by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, about the times when this House acts against the Government’s advice but its advice is accepted in the amendment of legislation; and by what the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said about that. The third—to which I think the public attach enormous importance—is to act as a partial counterweight to the dominance which the Executive have established in the other place and which, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, quoting from Tony Wright’s report, said, is the fundamental reason why the public have lost so much of their confidence in their Government.

I think your Lordships would agree that that power of the House of Lords—to act as a counterweight to the Executive—cannot be achieved if the Executive have an overall majority in this House. Since voting patterns for your Lordships’ House would be likely to follow closely those for the House of Commons, that can only be achieved if there is a significant independent membership of the House of Lords. I follow the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Rooker, in feeling uncomfortable about having a hybrid House which is partly appointed and mostly elected. However, I do not see any other way of achieving an independent element. If there was a section of the House that was reserved for independent Peers, if I were not to be a grandfather I would stand for it, but I do not see any basis on which the electorate would be likely to know whether to vote for me. I find it difficult to see how an independent element can be produced without the method of appointment.

Then we come to the elected Members of the House. Of course the political parties will continue to exercise great influence. They will determine who will stand in their name. To say that this is people being elected at random is absurd. It will be a method of appointment which goes under the guise of election but will, in effect, be appointment by the political parties. Since the coalition manifesto makes clear that the people who will be appointed will be appointed for a long, single term, with a period of quarantine before they could stand for another place, it is unlikely that there would be people standing for election who have future political ambitions. Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, I give the political parties the credit of supposing that they will want to have sitting in their names in this Chamber people of experience, wisdom and weight, and people without further political ambition. That seems a very close specification for the type of Members that we have sitting for the political parties in this House now. I think the best outcome would be if those people were on the list and were elected.

So, what would we have after this period of reform? We would have a significant element—let us call it 20 per cent—of independent Members, who I think would have to be appointed. Eighty per cent would be elected on a party-political ticket and it is likely that they would be senior and experienced members of their parties, who have no further ambitions for the other place. If so, that would be a House very much like we have now. We would have gone through all the agony of reform. Certainly, the people sitting for the parties would have been nominally elected but in fact they would have been appointed. We would have gone through it all and we would wonder what the point of the agony had been.