Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Dubs]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, this is not a new issue. It has been going for several hundred years. But what surprises me—perhaps it should not—is how many members of the public are not aware that we cannot vote in general elections. They say, “I am surprised, I thought you could vote”. I know that the public are not generally excited by this issue and there are no demonstrations in Parliament Square supporting my Bill—or even opposing it. Nevertheless, it is a matter of some importance.

Many eminent people in history have argued that Members of this House should be able to vote in parliamentary elections. I will take just one: Benjamin Disraeli. In 1868, during the debate on the Electoral Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill, the Hansard record—which was not verbatim at the time—said:

“The Members of that House were now taxed by the Votes of the House of Commons, and therefore he could not understand why a Peer of the Realm should not have a right of voting for Members of Parliament and taking part just as another individual in the general business of a free country like this, with the view of protecting his property and guarding his own interests”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/07/1868; col. 1383.]

Perhaps there is not much more to be said. I am indebted to the House of Lords Library for its note on this issue, which saved me hours of research.

Let me say at the outset that this measure has nothing at all to do with Lords reform as we normally speak of it. It is an entirely separate matter and it is quite wrong to link the two. It is a single issue and does not represent the beginning of a slippery slope. I can assure your Lordships of that and I made sure that in the Long Title of the Bill that is the case.

Over my years in this House, I have often heard three arguments against change. One is, “We have always done it this way so why alter it? It has been good enough for the past 150 years so why change it?”. Secondly, there is the argument that this is the thin end of the wedge and dreadful things will inevitably follow if we take such a dangerous step. The third argument is that we should not make haste on an important issue. Of course, I reject all these arguments and I think that most of your Lordships will do so as well.

During the debates in October 2011 on the Steel Bill, one Member of this House—he is present today but I shall spare his blushes—urged caution in moving too quickly on a very important matter. I realise that 1868 is only yesterday but even so, we can be too cautious when it comes to change.

After talking informally to Members of this House, the argument against being able to vote at parliamentary elections appears to be that we are in such a privileged position in being able to amend and influence legislation that we have no need to vote at general elections. I find this a very strange argument. We are the only second Chamber in the world whose Members are not entitled to vote in elections for the first Chamber. About 190 countries have a second Chamber, according to the records. Even in Washington there is no problem: members of the Senate have the right to vote and it has caused no problems whatever.

In any case, logic ought to play some part in this. We try to argue logically. We can vote in local elections, in European elections and indeed in referenda. Surely it is only sensible and logical that we should be allowed to vote in parliamentary elections.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Is my noble friend aware that we are also able to vote in elections to the Scottish Parliament if we reside in Scotland?

[Lord Dubs]

I thank my noble friend for that very helpful intervention.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

And referendums.

[Lord Dubs]

I have said we can vote in referenda. Indeed, of course, Members of the House of Commons are entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Furthermore, the prohibition on voting in parliamentary elections does not even apply to all Members of this House—I think we all know who I am talking about. The Lords spiritual have the right to vote, though they sometimes do not avail themselves of it. It would not be compulsory to vote; all I am saying is that we should be on the same basis as the Lords spiritual. The present position lacks logic and is unsustainable.

I have heard a further argument against the change, which has been used in previous debates, that legislation concerning the House of Lords should not be introduced in small packages; in other words, do not change anything until you can change everything. Until recently that was the position of the Deputy Prime Minister but I think he has moved away from that. It is absurd to say that we can only change everything—a sort of big bang theory. In practice, and we know this, it is usually better to argue for changes on an incremental basis rather than adopt an all or nothing approach. In any case, the only change I am suggesting is a vote. I repeat that this is not linked to any other suggestions about reform of the House of Lords.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Is my noble friend not missing the main argument, that it is easy to distinguish the Scottish Parliament, local elections and so on because we in the House of Lords have no say in those, whereas we do have a say in this House in national decisions?

[Lord Dubs]

Of course, that would also apply to the Commons but the point is surely this: it is not a matter of influencing legislation, which we do and are very privileged to be able to do, but of being able to have some small voice in deciding who will be the next Government of this country.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

Surely the point the noble Lord made earlier about this not being the beginning of the slippery slope is counteracted by his other statement that it should be incremental, bit by bit. So is it a slippery slope or is it incremental?

[Lord Dubs]

I understand what the noble Baroness is saying, but my point is not illogical. People have argued in this House that we should not make this change without changing a lot of other things. I have argued that that is not right; I have argued that we need to change only this one thing in order to achieve the aim that I am talking about. I should repeat that this proposal is not linked to any other reforms of the House. A single change should not be conditional on changing everything else.

I admit that I feel emotional about the issue; perhaps that is an unusual sentiment to express here. To me, the right to vote is an enormous privilege, but it is also a crucial aspect of democracy. People have died for the right to vote in our history—the Suffragettes. This is not on a level with the right to vote for women, but it is still a point of principle.

In most general elections, I have campaigned actively in a number of constituencies. It is quite frustrating that, having spent my days knocking on doors and trying to get Labour colleagues elected to the House of Commons, when it comes to vote, I cannot take part. Sometimes, if the general election coincides with local elections, I can get one ballot paper but not the other.

[Lord Cormack]

Was the noble Lord not aware of this when he accepted his peerage?

[Lord Dubs]

Yes, my Lords, I was aware of it, but one has to arrive at a balance. Should I have said, “No, I am not prepared to accept the privilege of being here because I cannot vote in general elections”? My feeling is that it is better to get here and try to achieve the changes by using the arguments. I think that that applies to many of us. Even the noble Lord, I am sure, is not ecstatically happy about every aspect of our procedures here, but that did not stop him coming here and he is a very welcome Member of this House, even though I occasionally disagree with him.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

How solicitous does my noble friend think returning officers and clerks in polling stations are about enforcing this position? Every time I have gone to vote in a local election that has coincided with a parliamentary vote, the returning officer has seemed oblivious to the fact and I have had to tell them, “Please don’t give me a vote for the parliamentary election because it is illegal”.

[Lord Dubs]

Well, I think that there is something in that, but, in the course of history, Members of this House have voted in general elections and that vote has been challenged.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

The other side of the story is that when I go to vote in local elections that are on the same day as a parliamentary election, I am frequently told that I cannot vote in either.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I did not realise that a debate about a simple matter was going to be quite so wide, but I welcome the contributions that have been made. No, it is not easy for returning officers. Sometimes, when we fill in our form to register to vote, it is not easy to indicate that one is a Member of this House and therefore one is limited. One can indicate that one is from a Commonwealth country, from Ireland or whatever it is, and one’s age, but one cannot indicate that one is a Member of this House. When I have been to vote either they have known somehow, or I have not tried to cheat the system, so I felt that the best way is to change the law rather than to put myself on the wrong side of it.

The issue is very simple, and I do not want to take up more time. Of course, it is an enormous privilege to serve in this House and to influence legislation—that is why I was very honoured when I became a Member of this House—but I still find it sad not to be able to influence, just in a small way, who will be our Government after the election. I believe that the change that I am arguing for is inevitable in the longer term, but I would like to see it happen now. I put this Bill forward not as an idle gesture or a bit of political rhetoric; I put it forward because I seriously believe that it has a chance of becoming law. Of course, there will be difficulties in the Commons about getting this Bill through, but I shall do some lobbying there if this House passes it. I believe that it has a chance of becoming law and I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will come back but, unfortunately, the Government resist this small, partial proposal for reform of the Lords.

[Lord Dubs]

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him one question. Given what he has said—and I will deal with that in more detail when I wind up—will he give one small undertaking? Assuming that the Bill gets through this House and goes to the Commons, will he undertake that the Government will not use their strength to block the Bill but will give it free passage and let the Commons decide on its merits?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot give that commitment immediately. We would clearly have to consider that. Private Members’ Bills make their way, sometimes with the Government’s blessing and occasionally without, first through one House and then the other. Let us see how we go on this.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, it has been an interesting Friday morning. The debate has been good tempered, but has extended well beyond the very narrow purpose of the Bill. I suppose, if one says anything about the future of the House, one can get into a debate about everything to do with the future of this House, which is something I have tried to resist.

I will comment briefly on one or two of the contributions. My noble friend Lord Wills argued that this change should be part of a wider package of changes, and that I should add it to another Bill. That is, of course, exactly what I did when the Steel Bill went through. I did precisely what he said before I had the benefit of his advice and it was rejected on the grounds that it would make the passage of the Steel Bill too difficult and my proposal should stand on its own. I am getting conflicting advice on that. I did what he suggested some time ago and it did not work, which is why I am doing it this way.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, rightly put forward an argument of which I was not aware, about members of the Supreme Court. It is yet another instance of where we are in an entirely illogical position. In arguing for a little bit of logic, I do not think that I am being out of order. My noble friend Lord Parekh gave us a good historical sweep and was the first—apart from Disraeli—to talk about money Bills.

I have very high regard indeed for the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—I have known him for a long time—but I am not sure that the slippery-slope argument is a good one. It has been used by opponents of change since the beginning of time.

[Lord Cormack]

I just point out that if that argument has been used, it was not used by me.

[Lord Dubs]

In that case, I misunderstood; I thought that the noble Lord was using the argument himself. However, I very much agree about the power of the Executive and that it is up to both Houses to contain the power of the Executive—so I am with him on that, even if we have a difference of opinion about the Bill itself.

I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Hayter was supportive of the Bill. I pay tribute to her long political experience, with the Fabian Society and elsewhere. She said something about the 5 July anniversary of the start of the National Health Service. If I may trespass on the time of the House, I was in hospital on that day, in Stockport Royal Infirmary. I was quite ill, and I was the only child in the ward. In those days, when the consultant came around, one had either to stand or lie to attention because that was the discipline. A consultant and his big team came along and looked at me, and I asked, “Are we having a party?”. He looked at me as if to say, “How dare you speak before I have spoken to you?”, and then said, “Why?”. I said, “Well the hospital is ours today. We should have a party”. He gave me a dirty look and walked on. I felt that I had made my contribution to the health service at that time. I apologise for digressing a little but, but other noble Lords have digressed as well.

Finally, I did not think that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, would disappoint me quite as much as he did. Without wishing to be impertinent in any way, I feel that his heart was not in it. I think that, in his heart, he knows that I am right and he is wrong. It showed. I know what it is like being a government Minister. One has to defend things that are sometimes difficult; I have done it myself, although never quite to the extent that the noble Lord has done it today.

On the cherry-picking argument, and this is nothing to do with the Bill, I understand that if we were to move to an elected second Chamber, of course we would have to deal with issues like the primacy of the Commons, methods of election and so on. It would be a whole package of measures, as was evidenced in the Government’s Bill that did not get anywhere. However, if we had the vote in parliamentary elections, nothing would change in this House except that we would have the right to vote. It would not affect the way in which we operate, it would not affect our legitimacy and it would not affect our debates or anything else. It stands entirely on its own, so as to the argument that I was cherry-picking: if there are only cherries on the tree, that is all that one can do. That is not a valid argument.

This issue stands entirely on its own. It need not, should not and does not have any connection with any other aspects of Lords reform. We might throw it into a wider Bill on Lords reform, as I have tried to do, but I would argue that we should get on with it. Let us make this change. I believe that there is overwhelming support in this House and in the Commons for this. Of course, the difficulty is that it only takes one government whip to say, “Object” on a Friday, and that has killed the Bill. That is the problem in the Commons. If the Commons was allowed by the Government to have a go at this, I believe it would overwhelmingly support it, as I believe that this House would overwhelmingly support it. However, the difficulty with Private Members’ Bills is that they can be too easily blocked in an undemocratic manner.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is not responding to my suggestion that if he perhaps linked the introduction of voting to a limitation of tenure and a retirement age, this might be more acceptable. He is not rising to that particular float.

[Lord Dubs]

Give me time. I have got it down here to comment on. If I had put forward a Bill saying the statutory retirement age from this House is 75 or 80, of course many Members of this House would have got incredibly excited about it, which would have diverted attention away from my purpose. It would have made it, as a Private Member’s Bill, totally unmanageable. The Minister knows that; I know that; we all know that. It just would not have got through. The point about a Private Member’s Bill is to keep it very simple if it is to have any chance of getting through. Once it gets complicated it has no chance. That is why I have brought it forward in this way.

Finally, the Minister disparaged the idea of logic. The position at the moment is inherently illogical. It is illogical by any standard, and I urge the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.