House of Lords

Lord Elder Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elder (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel on his major initiative and on putting it before the House. Perhaps some will think that it should have been put to the individual groups in the House before bringing it here, but I take the view that that would not necessarily have been a way of opening up discussion—perhaps rather the opposite. The debate is certainly timely. It comes at a time when all Members, I am sure, are aware that the present and future size of the House raises questions about the workings of the House that have not been much to the fore in the past. People who turn their back on any kind of proposal for change perhaps fail to face up to the inexorable rise of numbers here, which has made a very significant difference to the effective working of this place.

First, I will make clear in my eccentric way my preferred first option in the reform debate, which I am afraid is still both not available and probably very unpopular here—namely, the move to a unicameral system. That is not because I have anything other than respect for what this House is or does, but because I wish to preserve the primacy of the House of Commons. Of course, an elected second chamber with the links between the two Houses covered as part of the written constitution of this country could still preserve the primacy of the other place, but we are further away from that than from anything else.

However, I am not in favour of reaching a unicameral system or indeed any other reform of this place by accident rather than design. That is what will surely happen if we continue to see an increase in the size of this House in the way that has happened over the past few years. This House will simply collapse under its own weight. If there has to be a major adjustment in the size of the House after each election—a point which I would personally dispute—unless something is done to ensure that that can be achieved by a reduction in the size of the House as well as by its increase, we shall end up in a ludicrous situation, at which point reform will be forced, and I doubt that that will lead to a satisfactory outcome from anyone’s point of view.

I am a unicameralist precisely because I would not wish to see the second Chamber challenge the legitimacy of the first, which would surely happen if both were elected. Of course, the position would be even worse if the second Chamber was elected by a different system, which would mean that there could be challenges of legitimacy depending on which electoral system individuals preferred. It is no answer to say that we need a full written constitution to cover all that on top of what is already there, because at the present rate of progress that will take most of the foreseeable future.

If we accept that the primacy of the first Chamber is part of the constitution, there is no need to have the second Chamber roughly in the same proportions as the other place—which is in danger of implying an undeserved democratic legitimacy in votes cast in this place. After all, if it is to be representative of the votes cast in a general election, this House may end up being regarded—leaving aside the Bishops and Cross Benches —as at least as legitimate as the directly elected House.

However, the ever increasing size of the House means that something has to be done, some initiative taken—now. After all, if the Electoral Reform Society is right, and adjustment continues to be made after each election to the base number of each group’s membership, the Lords will move from being about half of the total number of parliamentarians a few years ago to being three-quarters. Peers who disagree with that scheme need to point to a different solution that has a chance of making progress. I accept that there are many schemes, but few of them, if any, have much chance of making progress. I have become convinced that the only group which can take a reasonable initiative for reform of your Lordships’ House is this House itself—hence the great usefulness of the discussion we are having today, led by my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel, and future deliberations here and in the Procedure Committee.

This proposal has the potential to give us a way to raise and deal with the question of numbers. No doubt there could be flexibility in the final numbers, with perhaps 400 plus the 25% top-up, rather than it being included. Either way, it would lead to a House of a very effective size. It would be ideally placed to be a revising Chamber, but would still not be able ultimately to challenge the other place. It would not collapse under its own weight, and would leave intact the appointment of Peers as part of the honours system.

This scheme concentrates the mind in the way that an endless number of other schemes, ranging from constitutional conventions downwards, do not. It reminds us that in this House we have both the powers and responsibility, perhaps, to take effective action relating to our size, should it be the case, as I believe it will be, that other discussions lead nowhere. There is at the moment nothing actively on the table for discussion. For opening up this debate in a new and pragmatic way, my noble friend is to be congratulated.