House of Lords Reform

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I could not at this juncture speak for my party on that issue, but personally I am a firm supporter of compulsory voting. However, that is my personal view.

On other occasions, my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington, a distinguished former Leader of the House, has asked what the point is of the committee of which I am now a member. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, will raise a pertinent issue in his Question on 5 July and, with typical shrewdness and incisiveness, my noble friend Lord Richard has made the point that, if the committee is to consider fully the outstanding issues of Lords reform, it is unlikely to be able to produce a Bill by the end of the year.

[Lord Higgins]

Will the noble Baroness clarify whether, in her understanding, this will be a government draft Bill, or will it be agreed to by the Opposition as well? More particularly, is it not rather strange to say that we will have a draft Bill before we have taken the decision on whether we want a partially or wholly elected House? Surely that would be a complete waste of time. The vote on the main point of principle ought to take place first, not during consideration of a draft Bill that has been stitched up by the Front Benches.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, as I mentioned, this is a government committee on which the Government have invited members of the Opposition to sit. That does not mean to say that, at the conclusion of the committee’s work, the opposition party will fully sign up to it. The noble Lord makes a powerful case in relation to a referendum, but whenever the referendum takes place—

[Lord Higgins]

My point was not about a referendum; I was asking whether the cart is now being put before the horse—that is, should we not vote first on whether to have a wholly or partially elected House before debating the establishment of a committee which assumes that that is going to be the case?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, we are asked to take note of the case for reform of the House of Lords. In fact, we have had two related debates: on the one hand, the arguments about whether the present House of Lords should effectively be abolished and substituted by a wholly or mainly elected House and, on the other, the arguments for reforming the House of Lords by improving the present structure of the appointed House. To some extent, those in favour of moving to an elected House feel that progress on the second issue would undermine their case, because it would then be working even better than it does now. That is a mistake. It is becoming increasingly urgent that we should reform our proceedings, and I wholeheartedly support the proposal put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which, after all, was carried without any dissent in the last Parliament. We have had in addition the proposals of the three committees set up in the last Parliament—under the chairmanship of the noble Lords, Lord Filkin and Lord Butler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy respectively—putting forward a number of important ways in which we could improve our procedures. Since it is unlikely that rapid progress will be made on the first issue, it would be a mistake not to treat as a matter of great urgency progress on the second; namely, the reform of our procedures within the context of the present House.

The Leader of the House said that the reform of the House of Lords is not the most important issue which we face at present. That is true if one takes into account the state of the economy or Afghanistan—there are many issues which might well be regarded as more important. However, while the question of reforming the House of Lords may be more or less important, it is fundamentally different, because it alters the way in which we deal with all the other issues. In addition, any change is likely to be irreversible. While fundamental reform may not be the most urgent or important issue, we must recognise none the less that it is different in kind from the other issues. Budgets come and Budgets go, and even wars come and wars go, but the way in which we reach decisions on these matters is quite different.

I turn to the Government’s pressing ahead with a so-called Bill and there being considerable objections rightly raised by the Cross-Benchers as to how they are going about it. It is very curious indeed that the Opposition have apparently agreed to be involved in what the Government are proposing. We are not then clear whether it is a government Bill and, inevitably to some extent, the Opposition will be committed to whatever eventually emerges. The difficulty as I see it is pressing ahead with that Bill—the Government are saying, “We must have a Bill; we haven’t had a Bill before”—before we have reached a decision on whether we want a Bill which introduces elected Members to this House. That was the point of my earlier intervention on the Leader of the Opposition. If we are to proceed in this way, we should have a debate on whether we should have a partly or wholly elected element before we decide to draft the Bill. It is of course rather a cunning approach to it: we will find the Opposition to some extent committed and we will find anyone who serves on any pre-legislative committee also implicitly agreeing with the basic proposition. So we should agree the principle first then come to drafting a Bill. We do not know how the House will decide.

It was absolutely clear in the last Parliament that the leaderships of both the main parties were totally at odds with their membership. In the other place, the official Labour Party policy was not supported by a majority of Labour Members, and the same went for that of the Conservative Party. In this House, both were vigorously rejected. There is therefore a gulf between the leadership and the Back Benches. Therefore, to set up a committee made up solely of the leadership of the three parties with no regard for the Cross-Benchers or the Back-Benchers is unlikely to be a fruitful or helpful way of proceeding.

We must confront the fundamental issue: we are told that if we have elected Members, the House will be more democratic. I simply do not believe that to be the case. Mr Clegg said the other day that the House of Lords was an affront to democracy. How does having an elected House make the country more democratic? We are already 100 per cent democratic in this country, and that democracy is vested in the House of Commons. Having this House elected will in no way increase the extent to which this country is democratic. It will undoubtedly result in a division of powers between the two Houses, with no ready means of resolving it. We are going along this road. Unless we hear a more convincing argument than that it will increase democracy, it is the wrong way to go. But there is no other argument. For some reason, the leaderships of the parties have decided that there is a huge public demand for election to the House of Lords. Anyone who went around on the doorstep during the last election will not have been overwhelmed by a view that “we must have an elected House of Lords”—certainly not in some of the south London constituencies where I was canvassing. That is one of the main arguments against a referendum.

We have a problem both in the House of Commons and among the public at large. There is the most appalling ignorance of how this House operates, certainly at the other end. We do not know, if we have a vote similar to the last one, how the House of Commons will vote. It is always a danger with a new House of Commons that the new Members will not want to revolt too readily against their leadership, whichever party they may be in. That is clearly a danger. However, we need to take stock. The proposals put forward by the Government with regard to the committee and so on are totally out of sync. We have to reach a decision on the principle first, and then we know where we are. But there is also the most appalling ignorance about this House of Lords in the public at large. That is why a referendum is certainly not the right way in which to go. People do not have the remotest idea about what they are really voting about or about the value of this place, which is the most cost-effective legislative Chamber in the world. To ask them to express a view on it would be completely wrong. However, we need to press ahead with the second group of reforms, as I have suggested, in which the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the various committees have put forward constructive approaches that will enable us to get this House right, not least with regard to numbers, before we go to anything more fundamental.