Queen’s Speech

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, the gracious Speech and so many of the speeches we have heard today referred to the one-nation approach to politics. I therefore suppose I ought to declare an interest as a former member of the one-nation group in another place. Sadly, when one leaves the other place or even comes here, one is excommunicated from that admirable dining group, but there we are.

I shall say a few words about the constitutional position of your Lordships’ House. For many years now, I have said that, given a Conservative Government, the worst job in the world must be to be government Chief Whip in your Lordships’ House. I recognise the problems which confront my noble friend the Chief Whip with only 29% of the vote in this House. I certainly welcome the statements from opposition parties recognising that final decisions lie with the other place and that the Salisbury convention still has great relevance. I hope those statements are the truth and are not mere words. Of course, we accept the right of the Opposition to make mischief and a nuisance of themselves so far as the Government are concerned, but I hope that the traditions of both Houses will be acknowledged, given that the Government of the day have only 29% of the vote.

My principal concern is the composition of your Lordships’ House. For 10 years or so, I have made various suggestions, so let me comment on your Lordships’ House as I see it in the light of the general election. I do so in the light of two principles. First, I do not want to see an elected House, and secondly, I do not want us to move towards proportional representation. So far as proportional representation is concerned, the electorate do not want it. Although it was not on that exact issue, the referendum made public opinion clear. The fact of proportional representation to which I am so opposed is that it is a potential recipe for weak government through alliances.

Next, I come to the problem with regard to numbers. By common consent, your Lordships’ House is much too big with 788 members. I find it a joke when I talk to my American friends who say that their upper House manages very well with 100 members and ask what on earth we want 788, or around 800, members for. Therefore, I believe that the House should have its membership reduced by statute in tranches at successive general elections to a figure which we could discuss: let us say 500, or even 400. That is for discussion. The question is: how do you do it? The answer is, in exactly the same way as for the 92 hereditary Peers who were elected back in 1999. Each party caucus knows best who attends, who contributes, who should stay and who should go, and I would reduce the numbers in that way, with each party deciding at each general election. Total numbers must be reduced down to what would be a statutory figure of, as I say, 500, for example, and during a Parliament a statutory limit should be put on the number of new elevations, let us say of 5%.

I come to what should be the composition of Lords by party. It is vital that the House has some reflection of the current political environment. It should be broadly representative of current thought. Again, I think by common consent, there is a general view that the Cross-Benchers, who play such a valuable role, might have a statutory 20%, but I note in passing that they now have 178 Members, which is 23% of the whole vote. However, with regard to party representation very careful thought needs to be given. There must be a good deal more flexibility than we have now. The present balance does not reflect the current democratic atmosphere in this country, and the only way is to find a formula so that one can allocate numbers for each party which broadly reflect the current atmosphere.

I have often warned your Lordships’ House that if a leader were to come forward, as has happened in other countries, and bring a party from nowhere into forming a Government, the composition of your Lordships’ House would look particularly stupid if there was no representative here of that new governing party. In a minor way we have seen this happen in the course of the past month. We have seen the Scottish Nationalist Party gain 4.7% of the votes—8% of the seats in another place—while in your Lordships’ House they have no representation at all. UKIP, with 12% of the votes, has only one seat, and has only three Members of your Lordships’ House. I am sure that some of my friends will kill me for saying this, but in the next list some representative appointments ought to be made from both the Scottish Nationalist Party and UKIP.

Conversely, as I come to the end, with regard to the Liberal Democrat Party, which had 7% of the votes and only 1/10th of 1% of the seats, yet has 13% of the membership of your Lordships’ House, at this time it would be very hard to justify new Liberal Democrat appointments to this House, because that party is significantly overrepresented at this time. If the Liberal Democrat Party believes in PR, surely it would be a good moment for its Members to vote among themselves to find a substantial number to stand down under the new rules, to make way—this is important—for some of those highly qualified former Members of the other place to come here. I think particularly of Sir Menzies Campbell and Sir Alan Beith. It would be very hard to justify making new Liberal appointments at this time.

I am sorry—I have spoken longer than I should have done. I have previously drawn attention to the need for flexibility, and today that is even more important than in the past.