House of Lords: Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, those of us—and there are many in this House at the moment—who have been through the various constitutional proposals that the coalition has brought forward in the past year could be forgiven for thinking, “Here we go again”. This is, after all, the third major constitutional proposal within a year, or the fourth if you consider the first Act as being in effect two major constitutional proposals.

This proposal, the House of Lords Reform Bill, comes from the same production company that brought us the referendum on the alternative vote. We are told that the Bill is compensation to Mr Nick Clegg for losing the referendum, so wonderfully won by the no campaign. I dread to think what would be happening now if he had won the referendum; you wonder what kind of proposals we would have to deal with.

The Bill has many similarities with the proposal for the alternative vote referendum. It proposes to spend money that the country cannot afford in order to answer a question that the country has not asked.

[Lord Tyler]

We were told earlier that the noble Lord and his colleagues are absolutely united in opposition to the current White Paper. Can he tell us how united he and his colleagues were in support of Jack Straw’s White Paper, which in all material respects is identical to the present one?

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, when the alternative vote was put to the country—and I suspect that the situation would be very similar with any other proposal—it was overwhelmingly defeated, not only by people in the noble Lord’s party but by people in my party as well. The noble Lord is waving a document around, but I am probably a reasonably good judge of opinion within the Labour Party—the Labour Party was hostile to that document in the country and I suspect that it would be hostile to anything similar that was put before us today.

I need to remind the House that that referendum produced an overwhelming defeat. I have no doubt that those of us who object to this draft Bill will have the same comments addressed to us as were made during that referendum. We will be called dinosaurs; we will be called roadblocks to reform; we will be called the opponents of people who want to mend our broken politics—a phrase which I heard the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, use earlier and which is a favourite of his leader. The AV referendum was supposed to mend our broken politics. I simply say to this House that the public do not think that our politics and constitution are broken in the way that the Liberal Democrats constantly repeat.

I want in the short time available to me to address the fundamental question which keeps coming back but which both Jack Straw—to whom we have already had reference—and Mr Nick Clegg have refused to address: what would the effect be of a directly elected House of Lords on the House of Commons? The clause in the Bill that deals with this must be—and there is a lot of competition for this accolade—about the most vacuous clause ever included in any parliamentary Bill, proposed or otherwise, faced by this or any other House. It states:

“Nothing in the provisions of this Act about the membership of the House of Lords … affects the primacy of the House of Commons”.

That is nonsense; it is palpable nonsense. Every attempt to explain that case away has failed. I shall mention just one or two respects in which it is nonsense. First, this House does not exercise the powers that it has. It is not a question of giving this House any more powers; this House has massive powers already. It chooses not to exercise them in defiance of the House of Commons. Frankly, it is ridiculous to suggest that, somehow or other, 300 democratically elected senators would exercise the same self-control in dealing with legislation coming from the House of Commons. It is clear that they would not. It is also quite clear that it would be ludicrous for an elected senator, faced with a Bill that he or she did not like coming from the House of Commons—let us say that it was the health Bill and let us say that it was a Labour senator and let us say for a moment that it was Senator Grocott, which has a ring to it—to say, “I know the people of the West Midlands have elected me, but I know the House of Commons knows better, so this health Bill is going to go through”. That is inconceivable.

It is also inconceivable, and I say this directly to the Liberal Democrats, that they would for long resist the temptation to say that a Chamber of Parliament elected on the basis of first past the post was somehow less legitimate than a Chamber of Parliament elected under proportional representation. It would be beyond their self-control to resist saying that within moments of the new constitution being enacted.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

How can I resist? I ask the noble Lord the following question yet again, because he makes a lot of it. Of the 77 bicameral Chambers in the world, 61 are elected. In no single one of those has the primacy of the lower Chamber been affected. Why then should it be a risk for us if it is not a risk in any one of those cases?

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord tried that intervention once before and it did not work then. I shall answer him very simply: the overwhelming majority of other constitutions are written constitutions precisely defining the powers of the two Houses. The difference with our constitution—the noble Lord ignores a statement of fact—is that this House already has powers that are almost equal to those of the House of Commons, yet he expects that elected Members would reject that. He says that an elected House of Lords would be a more effective check on the House of Commons. As an ardent supporter of the coalition, he knows perfectly well that if this House was now elected on proportional representation there would be an overwhelming government majority in this House and that, when proposals came from the House of Commons, they would be rubber-stamped. They pretty well are now, but they would certainly be rubber-stamped if whipped Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members or senators were faced with proposals coming from the lower House.

Despite the interventions, I shall take only another minute. I need to address this issue because the only substantial argument that the proposers of the Bill put forward is that people who oppose the idea of a directly elected House of Lords are hostile to democracy. Many in this House have fought a number of elections—not many have lost as many as I have—and our democratic credentials are fairly substantial. My case, as a democrat, for rejecting direct elections to this House is simple. It is that the absolute heart of our democracy is the House of Commons, which is elected by the people and from where the Government come. We have the people, the Commons, the Government and vice versa: if the Government lose the confidence of the Commons, they go back to the people.

Anything that diminishes the House of Commons diminishes our democracy. That is why I, as a democrat, am so concerned about the proposals in this Bill. It is not because I am concerned about the future of this House, although I am, and it is not because I think that this House is perfect—it is certainly not filled exclusively with the great and good and outstanding people of talent and ability; if it is, then quite a few of us have got here under the wire. That is not the justification for retaining this House as a not directly elected House. The justification is in order to protect the primacy or the supremacy—I do not mind using that word ultimately—of the House of Commons.

With regard to those Members of the House of Commons who are wavering on this issue—I have heard Jack Straw suggest this in the past—and those of us who keep repeating our belief in the primacy of the House of Commons, the argument is sometimes made that we should accept the vote of the House of Commons of a couple of years ago and simply lie down and agree that this legislation should pass. I say simply this: of course, ultimately the House of Commons must prevail. I make no argument about that; that is the heart of our democracy. However, if my friend is determined to jump off the cliff, I will do my utmost to prevent him from doing so. That is the risk that the House of Commons takes if it establishes, votes for and insists on a directly elected House of Lords.