Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor]

My Lords, it is worth repeating that this Chamber is the second largest political Chamber in the world, second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress. It is the only second Chamber in the Commonwealth that is larger than the first. It needs reform. But the commendable report from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has shown up the problems of the Government’s planned reform. It is not really the Government’s plan, of course, but a Lib Dem plan as part of the coalition agreement. The Lib Dems want, implemented in three stages, the House of Lords to represent the popular share of the vote, and have never given up on AV despite losing the referendum. But if one looks at it closely, one can see that the law of unintended consequences takes over. A Chamber of 450, on the basis of some of last week’s opinion polls, would have about 45 UKIP and about 10 BNP Members. In fact, UKIP could have more Peers than the Lib Dems. Of course, it depends on what system of STV is used, but the fact is that UKIP stands to gain most, and there is the rather frightening thought that the BNP might for the first time be represented at Westminster. One would have thought that was the very last thing that the coalition would want, but it is difficult to argue that only the main parties should legitimately benefit from PR.

Everyone agrees that this House needs reform, but no one agrees how—elected, appointed, half and half or the many variations of all three. The last Labour Government managed stage 1 reform, getting rid of the majority of hereditary Peers, but never managed to go any further. Labour realised that the sensible solution was to talk the talk of further reform, but do nothing. As we have heard today, that is still their policy. Some in the House of Commons do not see the point of a second Chamber at all, but most agree that the power of the Executive should be controlled by more than just the House of Commons.

The key questions that have to be answered on any proposal for reform of this House are on what its role is going to be and, if it is largely the same, will the new Lords work better or least as well as it does now? The current membership is diverse. Some Members hardly ever speak, which is made up for by the Members who speak all the time. But they represent a wide range of views, with expertise and ethnic, gender and social diversity, and it is difficult to see how an elected House would have the same diversity. The Lords cannot be an absolute mirror of the House of Commons, as then we have an elected dictatorship, with absolutely no check on the Executive. The likelihood is of course that a new elected Chamber will want to exert more power—to block Bills, challenge the concept of financial privilege of the House of Commons, and amend secondary legislation. We would then find ourselves veering toward the American system, which is often gridlocked between the Executive, Congress and the Senate. Some may say, “No bad thing”, as there would be less legislation, but it would be a profound change for this country. The break-up of the union is another complication, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons.

The Government have argued that the people who make the rules should be accountable, but this House does not make rules—we amend. You do not have to be elected to be accountable. This reform is disliked by almost everybody. It offers an elected transition—a hybrid House. The only real defence I have heard in this debate is that if we go on without doing anything, this House will get even larger. There is a simple remedy to that, as my noble friend Lord MacGregor pointed out: a retirement age. As for the elections for a 15-year term, those who have sat in another place tell me that what sharpens up Members of Parliament is not their first election, when neither they nor the electorate know each other, but their second election when they have to defend their record.

[Lord Cormack]

And subsequently.

[Viscount Astor]

And, indeed, subsequently.

The supporters of this draft Bill cry popular democracy, but what we need is popular legitimacy rather than popular democracy. This can be by either an appointed or elected House of Lords but if it were to be under the current proposal, with 80 per cent being elected, the pressure would be to have 100 per cent elected. I very much doubt that the 20 per cent appointed would last more than one Parliament. Following its endorsement in the report, it certainly looks as if the referendum clause will be added in another place. That must be a good idea.

The question the Government have to answer is whether Lords reform, in their current Bill, is worth taking up hours and days of sittings in the House of Commons and in this House, while having the Government’s other Bills blocked in the process. Of course the problem is that if there is a deal to be done, who do they deal with? Neither side in this House controls their Back Benches when it comes to Lords reform but it is clear that constitutional reform should be well thought-out, not cobbled together in some back room—albeit, perhaps, smoke-free this time—as part of an agreement between two political parties. This House should—and does—bring a range of perspectives to bear on the development of public policy, be broadly representative of British society and play a vital role as one of the main checks and balances within our constitution. We provide a voice for the nations and the regions of the United Kingdom at the centre of national politics. More by accident than design, we have managed to achieve that.

The proposed Lords reform is heading for an almighty train crash. I wonder whether sensible voices will be heard down the other end, or whether the train will have to crash before a sensible plan appears. One result of the Labour reform of 1999 is that the House of Lords has become more authoritative and self-confident. We see ourselves as more legitimate than prior to 1999, while maintaining that the House of Commons is the pre-eminent Chamber of Parliament. The result is that this House is not going to allow itself to be dictated to by a lower House if it thinks it is wrong. We will fight to preserve what is best and what works well. When one looks at the current offer, one has to say that an appointed House still comes out on top. In the last Parliament, the majority of another place voted for a fully elected Chamber. Equally, a large majority in this House voted against. We know now that many in another place are having second thoughts. Indeed, there are many new Members there.

When I last spoke on House of Lords reform, I followed the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and as I respectfully disagreed with almost everything that he said I described his speech, slightly tongue in cheek, as a virtuoso performance. I certainly paid the price for that, as I received lots of e-mails from Lib Dems congratulating me on supporting him. Perhaps I can apologise to him for that and say that in case there is any doubt of where my sympathies lie, we should turn our energies not to looking at the Bill in this House but to persuading those in another place to throw out this Bill.