House of Lords: Reform

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, first do no harm. That is the guiding principle in my professional life as a surgeon. The noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, also a surgeon, will recognise the importance of that principle in undertaking any major surgical intervention. The proposed Bill, which, effectively, abolishes your Lordships’ House and replaces it with an elected second Chamber, represents in many ways major constitutional surgery. I would like to look at it in that frame, through the eyes of a practising surgeon.

The first question that we have to ask ourselves in any major intervention is: what is the indication for the intervention? Here, it is not entirely clear. The introduction to the Bill and the White Paper makes it clear that the House of Lords does its job well and that, in the future, as a replaced elected Chamber, it is to retain the same functions with the same powers, yet it appears that the purpose is to overcome some democratic deficit. That will be achieved through creating instability through having a democratically elected second Chamber, but with appointed Bishops and with the continuing ability of a Prime Minister of the day to appoint Members to the House. So we will end up in a situation where we have a kind of half-pregnancy, which is not possible; we will have a half-democratic legitimacy. That is a potential source of instability in the future.

Another potential indication for change could be to focus on the proposals that have been discussed on many occasions in the past two days and put forward in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. That is a good stepwise direction of change in terms of achieving reform of your Lordships’ House that is urgently necessary.

The second important consideration is always to try to avoid complications and unintended consequences of a particular intervention. Sometimes complications can be fatal and, if they can be predicted, one should take mitigating action to try to avoid them. Over the past two days, we have heard of a number of potential unintended consequences and complications that may attend this Bill if it becomes law. The first relates to the primacy of the other place. There appears to be a consistent and consensus view that one thing that must be maintained is the primacy of the other place. I certainly agree with that. How will that be achieved? It is irresponsible to assume that the primacy will be maintained just because it is the wish of the Government and because a particular Bill says that it will happen.

We have heard that there are 61 parliaments around the world that are bicameral and have an elected second Chamber, but I wonder how many of those bicameral parliaments with an elected second Chamber have no written constitution. How many of them depend merely on convention, which, as we have heard, is a fragile constitutional settlement to ensure a relationship between the two Chambers? That is an important question that the Joint Committee might wish to consider further. Such consideration may help us to understand whether we need to move forward with some form of written constitution, codifying the responsibilities and powers of two elected Chambers, if that is the direction of travel.

Another issue that has been raised, and which I think represents a potentially serious future complication, is the voting methods used to elect Members to the other place and to a future elected senate or second Chamber. We recently had a referendum on methods of voting for the other place and the people of our country decided that first past the post was their preferred method for sending their elected representatives there. The Joint Committee might consider the implications of that vote in determining whether it needs in a future Bill to enshrine the fact that the people have spoken and have declared that the most democratically legitimate method of election is first past the post and that any other method used to elect a second Chamber would be less democratically legitimate than that used to elect the House of Commons.

Another area of considerable concern for unintended consequences is the potential impact on the constitutional monarchy. In our Parliament we have three elements: the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the constitutional monarchy. The Lord Great Chamberlain sits as a Member of your Lordships’ House and one of the important responsibilities of that great office is to serve as a channel of communication between the monarch and the House of Lords. Noble Lords have alluded in this debate to the risk, if there are two elected Chambers at loggerheads, that the position of the constitutional monarch may become complicated and that they may be drawn into political controversy. I suggest that we need an absolute assurance that an unintended consequence of this legislation will not be that in some way the constitutional monarchy is undermined in future.

A third issue of considerable importance is the role of the Parliament Act, which has been considered principally in terms of its use to drive forward potential legislation to abolish your Lordships’ House and to replace it with an elected second Chamber. The Parliament Act also contains a very important reserved responsibility for your Lordships’ House, which is to ensure that the life of a Parliament is not extended beyond five years. We should be concerned about how that responsibility will be maintained in future to ensure that a tyrannical Government cannot extend the life of a Parliament because they control two elected Chambers.

Finally, it is important that we have some form of informed consent. In this regard, it is important at the outset of the process of considering the Bill that the Government commit themselves to a free vote both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. We need to be absolutely certain that any proposals that are finally considered will enjoy genuine confidence.

We have heard over the past two days that Members of your Lordships’ House lack democratic legitimacy. However, every Member of the House today has important obligations and responsibilities to the people of our country, who expect us to use the opportunities and privileges of membership of your Lordships’ House to serve their interests and to ensure that the laws to which they are subjected are the best possible laws. We must not take for granted the fact that we live in a wonderful country where, over the past 100 years, we have enjoyed democracy, prosperity, the development of universal health care and education, common decency and the assimilation of a variety of different cultures into our society. None of this would have been possible without a stable parliamentary system. In this regard, the relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons—the understanding and respect between them—has been absolutely critical. We must think carefully about the consequences of any future Bill and its implications and impact on denying the people of our country the rights, opportunities, obligations and pleasures of being citizens of the United Kingdom.