House of Lords: Reform

Lord Grenfell Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, I am thrilled to join this succession of tweeters. The abolition—that is what it would be—of the House and its replacement by an elected second Chamber would be a constitutional upheaval, the outcome of which cannot conceivably leave us with an unchanged relationship between the two Houses. The 2008 White Paper advised us that a reformed second Chamber would almost certainly be more assertive, but rather strangely went on to state:

“A second chamber that is more assertive than the current House of Lords, operating against the background of the current arrangements for its powers, would not threaten primacy”.

This position has been swallowed hook, line and sinker by the coalition Government. On what grounds do the Government make the assumption that “a more assertive House” will wish to continue to operate,

“against the background of the current arrangements for its powers”?

Those of us who claim that an elected House would demand more powers are accused of failing to explain how such powers would be granted if they were dependent on the agreement of the primary Chamber. This is the point. There is of course no guarantee that they would be granted. As the noble Lord the Leader of the House told us on 29 June:

“The view at the moment is that the House should continue to have the powers that it holds and do the work that it does”.—[Official Report, 29/6/10; col. 1666.]

What is virtually certain is that an assertive elected Chamber would none the less demand greater powers. If, as is likely, the primary Chamber refused the demand, the scene would be set for a continuing and bitter struggle between the two Houses. The Government and those on other Benches advocating an elected Chamber clearly do not wish to acknowledge that possibility. Such self-deception is worrying and dangerous.

I have not said anything that has not already been said, but the more people who say it and the more often they say it, the greater the hope that the coalition Government may see the light. I certainly hope that is the case.