House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stephen (LD)]

My Lords, when I first came to this Chamber I expected quite quickly, as I hoped, to vote for and deliver radical reform of the House of Lords, and now I wonder. I thought that in voting for that radical reform I would have the support of the Labour Party, and now I wonder.

The Labour Party has a pretty reasonable track record in some areas of constitutional reform but a less dynamic record in others. In 1999, there was a good year with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the introduction of PR for the European elections, but in 2007 I fought an election campaign in Scotland where Labour said, “This far but no further”. If a different, more flexible approach had been taken in that election, I wonder whether we would have ended up where we are just now in terms of the future of the United Kingdom. These issues are really important, as is the view of the Labour Party. With a bit of encouragement, Labour did deliver PR for local government in Scotland, which was a very good thing.

This report, however, is not at the leading edge of Labour’s radical thinking. Its tenor is also as though little or no thinking about reforming your Lordships’ House had taken place in the past 15 years or so and as though the suggested convention would be able to reveal new answers which the nine cross-party committees and commissions that have examined this issue since 1999 have been unable to proffer. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, quoted from the 2010 Labour Party manifesto. I will not repeat that, but one can go back as far as 1992, when the party committed to a package of reforms,

“leading to the replacement of the House of Lords with a new elected Second Chamber”.

In 1997, it promised to,

“make the House of Lords more democratic and representative”.

In 2001, it said:

“We are committed to completing House of Lords reform, including removal of the remaining hereditary peers, to make it more representative and democratic”.

In 2005, it said:

“In our next term we will complete the reform of the House of Lords so that it is a modern and effective revising Chamber”.

Labour won that election, so there was a next term.

Surely the Labour Party’s policy forum, when it comes to consider this issue, will not be fooled by this prospectus of yet more navel-gazing around a committee table. Surely this is not the Labour way; either Labour is committed to democracy or it is not. If it reneges on that commitment now, it will be abandoning a very long history of manifesto pledges with a long tradition within the party, as if the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, along with Smith, Blair and Brown, have all been ditched for some pretty soft and flexible wording about a convention.

If this House is to be reformed so that it is electors and not party leaders who put people here, then there is little alternative better than the 2012 Bill. It was developed over a decade, with its key principle of retaining always a more powerful mandate in the Commons than in this House, while ensuring that this place had real democratic legitimacy. The architecture of the Bill was based almost brick for brick on that suggested by Jack Straw in his White Paper in 2008. That presumably is one reason why an overwhelming majority of Labour MPs—more than 200 of them—voted in support of the Government’s Bill in 2012. Despite their reservations, it also attracted a more than two to one majority of the elected Members of Parliament from the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. All Liberal Democrat MPs supported it. What is so astonishing is that with that huge mandate, Peers at this end were threatening to torpedo the Bill with blocking tactics, while expressing their deep concern for the vital primacy of the House of Commons.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

If that is the case, why did Clegg agree for the Bill to be withdrawn? Why did he not insist within the coalition on that Bill being brought forward to this House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I will let the noble Lord continue, but I remind the House that noble Lords who have signed up for this all have an opportunity to put their case. They should therefore be chary of eating into the time of other people.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

It is a debate.

[Baroness Northover]

Noble Lords will have their time. I will let the noble Lord continue his point, but I point out that noble Lords will have their opportunities later on to make the case that they wish to make and that they should be chary of eating into other people’s time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dubs]

I thought that we were against the death penalty, but it is an interesting suggestion.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Says the Minister!

[Lord Dubs]

Well, he is a Lib Dem. Anyway, I genuinely believe that the House will become unmanageable if it goes on being made larger and larger. We have to find some way to control its size. That is why we on the working group looked at a retirement age of 80, coupled with people who do not play their part in this House no longer being Members. Those two things have to go together. I still think, even if I have to fall on my own sword, that that is at least one option for reducing the size of the House.

My noble friend mentioned that all First Readings of Bills should be in the Commons, even if half the Second Readings then come here. That would ensure that the Parliament Act would bite on all legislation. As for giving only a delaying power for orders or statutory instruments, that seems sensible. All of us when in opposition have wrestled with disliking an order and not wishing, as an unelected House, to actually kill it; we have all had that difficulty. So a three-month delay period would be sensible.

As for reviewing the role of the Lord Speaker, although this is not a debate about that important role, the way in which Questions work in this House means that those who are more pushy—I hate to call my fellow Peers bullies, but those who act like bullies—push out other noble Lords in getting supplementary questions. That is not satisfactory, and we know that it does not work. We know that some of us are reluctant to push in with supplementaries simply for that reason.

I noted what the right reverend Prelate said about robes. His argument would be that we should wear them all the time—heaven forbid. The problem, as my noble friend said, is that whenever there is a photograph of Members of this House, we are always wearing those robes and we look totally out of date for modern times. Frankly, it is just not a sensible way forward. I should like to add to that the suggestion that we get rid of titles. If one is introduced or if one introduces oneself with a title, the other person—if they are a normal human being—looks at us as if we are complete nerds, or they become entirely deferential. Neither is a sensible way to have a rapport with anybody. It stands in the way of our dealing and engaging with ordinary people.

I put forward one suggestion before without getting much acclaim, which was that anyone who wants to stay in this House should drop the title and, if they want to keep the title, they should retire for good. That would sort out those who say that they keep their titles only because their wives demand it, which I have heard on more than one occasion.

I support the idea of a constitutional commission, provided that it is not a long-grass job and that there is a time limit, because there are too many difficult issues that need to be resolved. I wanted the report to steer the constitutional commission towards working out how best to achieve an elected second Chamber, but I was dissuaded from that by my noble friend on the very sensible grounds that, if we tell a constitutional convention or commission what it should do, it will hardly be able to do its job properly. We would simply be ordering what should happen.

Yes, many hereditary Peers make a fantastic contribution to this House, but I think that the time for having them is over.

I shall just tiptoe on thin ice on the subject of Bishops. I believe that many of them make an enormously useful contribution to this House, but they do it because of the individuals they are. If Bishops are to continue to sit in this House, I should like them to be appointed or elected to it in the same way as everyone else.

I fear that my next comment will offend the right reverend Prelate. He criticised lobbyists. That is fair enough. However, I fear that I shall make a lot of enemies by saying that the only paid lobbyists in this House are the Bishops. That is an anomaly.