House of Lords: Reform

Lord Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gilbert]

My Lords, were we to move to a wholly elected House of Lords, in my view we would do immense damage in three directions. First, we would make the job of trying to create a Government hugely more difficult for the Prime Minister of the day. When confronted with the results of the democratic process, Prime Minister after Prime Minister shudders and sends people here to complete his Government. We all know that that is true not just of the previous election but of election after election. That is one reason why we have the marvellous noble Lord, Lord Adonis, sitting here—he could not find a position as Transport Secretary in the other House—and we are very grateful to him for that.

The creation of a wholly elected House of Lords would do immense damage to the House of Commons as Members elected to this House, by whatever method, will not replicate the size and number of constituencies of the other House. The respective elections could not be held on the same day: to do so would be utterly pointless. Elected Members of this House could say to Members of the other House, “I have a much better mandate than you, my friend. I was elected by more people and I was elected more recently, so you just listen to me”. Anybody who thinks that the balance between the two Houses will remain as it is today has another thing coming to them. You do not need to know very much about constitutional history to know that the United States Senate was first an appointed body. Then the House of Representatives was foolish enough to allow the Senate to be elected. Who is top dog now? That process did not take very long and will inevitably happen again, whatever restrictions are imposed on the relationship between the two Houses. This House will say, “I want supply—to hell with the Parliament Act—and I want more Cabinet Ministers”.

The third place where the damage would be done is quite clearly in this House. We would lose the Cross-Benchers, and that would be a terrible thing. There would be no military experience to speak of here. There is none down the other end; you can be quite sure of that. You would lose the Bench of Bishops. I think we made a great mistake in getting rid of the Law Lords. There just would not be the experience. You would have just the B team, the failures and the duds who could not even make it there and who were insufficient in number to make a Government. That is what you would get in this place, and then you would get the pernicious influence of the Whips. I have said enough.