House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, I was very glad to see on the speakers list that I was following the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I shall embarrass him deliberately by saying that he could be relied on to make a most riveting speech going to the very kernel of the dilemma that we face concerning the future of the House of Lords. Therefore, I am very grateful to him for that. I hope that he will not mind my saying that I have long been a fan of his, and I was confirmed in that yet again when he made some very tough suggestions today. Your Lordships should pay attention to a lot of them.

How proud I was, like everybody else, that in this country we do not have a written constitution. We thought that we were totally unlike all the others with their foolish written constitutions. What a mistake. We have our excellent system of—I was going to say “checks and balances” but I am not sure about that now. Governments—post-war, too—have increasingly ruled without a genuine majority vote from the public, shutting out all alternative legislation, and driving unpopular and badly drafted legislation like a coach and horses through the whole system. Thank goodness that there was a still unelected House of Lords to act as the revising Chamber, doing its best to make sure that some of the very badly drafted Bills coming increasingly from the Administration in the other place were improved—at least, at the margin—with some amendments occasionally being accepted by the Executive.

However, this is still all very amateurish and limited. I am grateful for the many excellent suggestions in the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and her team for further improvements following the Steel Bill, as well as other suggestions about modernising some aspects of the House of Lords. That is all very important.

As well as being proud of there being no written constitution, I was also very keen on the idea of an elected House of Lords. Democracy in action—what a good idea. However, the more I have thought about it, the more I have changed my mind on both those things. This country suffers severely from not having a written constitution. A current complication is the Scottish referendum, but that has to be dealt with.

I am sorry; I have hay fever and therefore my throat is rather bad today. Perhaps one of the doorkeepers will very kindly bring me a glass of water because my voice is getting into a bad state. I apologise; I thought that it would be all right. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Northover for bringing me some water.

[Lord Smith of Clifton (LD)]

A written constitution would deal with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dykes]

As always, I am very grateful for the excellent suggestion from my noble friend Lord Smith of Clifton.

This is a moment of truth for us. The party systems are not functioning in the House of Commons. There is no agreement on party funding. Why not? Why is it taking so long? The party leaders overreacted on the expenses scandal. Only a small number of MPs were involved, yet the party leaders said that the whole House of Commons was at fault in some way—or the press did on their behalf. The House of Lords is a much more sedate, gentle and dignified Chamber than the House of Commons, which we and the public like. But it does not have the necessary powers to keep the Executive in check once badly drafted Bills have come from the Commons. That is the kernel of the matter.

I have changed my mind too on an elected House of Lords. The House of Lords should not be elected, which I have said repeatedly in the past three or four years as I think more about it. I, like some other Liberal Democrat Peers, strongly opposed the Clegg Bill saying that we should be elected because of the absence of any definition of the powers and the relationship between the two Chambers. I live in France as well, where the relationship between the Senate and the National Assembly is set out in the Fifth Republic constitution. The Senate has considerable power and authority, and a proper salary and expenses, which is another reason why I am no longer in favour of an elected House of Lords. I hope that the senators, as I suppose they will be, will not be wearing robes. I agree very strongly with that recommendation and I disagree with the right reverend Prelate, who has left his place, that robes are important. They are for individual officeholders but not for the collectivity. Therefore, the way in which this is dealt with in the future is crucial.

Senators of an elected House of Lords presumably would be elected with some kind of regional multi-member constituency—probably STV, which is the best internal voting system for parties, as well as for members of the public, in a country such as Ireland. Once that is done, those senators would not only demand proper office expenses for their team and their advisers. Quite understandably, men and women would want a proper salary—and I hope that there will be more women in the future. They would then inevitably challenge the power of the Commons because they would be approached by members of the public who will say, “You must really increase your activity now that you are paid a salary. You are a senator elected democratically by a swathe of people in a multi-member constituency. It is your job as a senator to answer the wishes of the people as well as deal with the healthy revision of the legislation that comes from the Commons”. They also would launch new legislation because the powers would be shifted completely. That is the reality of it and has to be accepted. Therefore, if we do not want that, the Lords should remain unelected. However, there are many additional aspects of modernisation that this Chamber could do which would score well.

Despite the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, nobly gave me a glass of water, I hope that she, as the Whip on duty today, will not be offended if I say that I thought that it was quite right in debates in this place for people to rise and intervene on someone’s point, otherwise it would be just like a conference with people reading out written speeches all through the debate. It would be like a conference on machine tools manufacture in Central Hall Westminster or something like that. In a genuine debate, everyone has the right to intervene—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am very interested in what the noble Lord said about the group of Lib Dem Peers. I am constantly puzzled by why the Deputy Prime Minister refused to engage on the issue of powers. Can the noble Lord throw any light on that?

[Lord Dykes]

My natural sense of modesty, and because it is above my pay grade, prevents me from trying even to give a putative answer to that matter. It was just the way in which things are rushed into with badly drafted, inadequate and mediocre legislation in the House of Commons. More and more is churned out which has to be repaired two or three years later by another set of Bills to rectify the mistakes. That was in the early days of the Deputy Prime Minister being in the House of Commons for one term.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Is not that because the Deputy Prime Minister has never studied the British constitution?

[Lord Dykes]

It is for others to give their views. I am a great admirer of the Deputy Prime Minister but in this case he was just at the beginning of a learning curve. All that will come out again in the wash. This country takes a long time to make fundamental decisions about its modernisation. Irrespective of what happens in Scotland, which is a great complication, the sooner we have a written constitution and agree to be a modern, powerful, well paid, revising, unelected—that being my preference because if it is elected that would change matters completely—institution, the sooner it will have more powers, otherwise we will drift along with an inadequate system of which we are artificially proud for some bizarre, historical reason.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is an option, absolutely. It is possible to look at a unicameral option. I was in favour of that. When I was in the other place, I voted for abolition. We have heard about the examples of New Zealand and Israel, and all the Scandinavian countries operate unicameral systems. My only doubt is because of what has happened in Scotland. In Scotland, there is one Chamber which is controlled by one party, which is controlled by one man who decides who the Presiding Officer should be and who members of the committees should be. The committees do what they are told and they do not challenge the Parliament or the Executive. There is no House of Lairds to question, challenge or revise. I am beginning to doubt unicameralism because of that. I have made the main point about the future.

[Lord Dykes]

If the Commons were on its own, you could not have timetabling of Bills either.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very good point.

Having made my main point, I am glad that I abandoned what I was going to say but I want to make one or two quick points about the immediate changes. I completely agree with getting rid of the robes. I constantly get this. Some people actually believe that we are sitting here day by day wearing ermine. That is what they tweet about me—that I am sitting here in ermine. Anyone who watches regularly can see that I am not.

I agree with the provisions relating to hereditary Peers and agree, of course, with the idea of working Peers. We saw in the Senate in Paris that they are properly paid and resourced. When we do have an efficient second Chamber, that is one of the things that the Government and the taxpayer will have to take account of.

I also do not understand why we have a State Opening every year. We have one Parliament, and a Government are elected for that one Parliament. Why do we not just have one State Opening at the beginning of the Parliament? Why do we need all this carryover and flummery every year? One Parliament is elected, so let us have the one State Opening and get on with it. I am getting some nods, which is very encouraging.

Reform of the House of Lords is overdue. Sitting here, I can get up and say things—I am doing that now—but I do not really have a mandate or authority. I do not have the legitimacy that I had during 26 years in the other place. Reform is long overdue, but I say to and plead with people such as the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, who I greatly admire, not to think that the only option is direct election. There are other ways in which we can give legitimacy to this second Chamber.