Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, I, too, join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on the work of the Joint Committee on scrutiny of this draft Bill for proposed House of Lords reform. Yet, coming at this Bill as I might as a surgeon preparing for major operation, I am forced to ask what the indications are to justify major constitutional surgery. Is it that your Lordships’ House has failed and continues to fail the people of our country? Is it that, as has been stated by the Deputy Prime Minister, your Lordships’ House is an affront to democracy? If it is the former, what is the evidence that your Lordships’ House has failed to undertake appropriate scrutiny and revision of legislation that we have received from the other place?

What action might be taken to ensure that, in future, your Lordships are better able to fulfil the purpose of scrutiny and revision of legislation? If, however, it is the latter—that your Lordships are an affront to democracy—it is unclear what evidence there is that the proposal in the draft Bill adds to democratic accountability. The proposal is to elect 80 per cent of the second Chamber on a term of 15 years, with no opportunity for those elected representatives to present themselves once again to the electorate for scrutiny of their record, creating a system whereby the elected representatives have no contact with their constituents while discharging work on behalf of those taxpayers who are paying for them to sit in this Parliament.

The second obligation of any surgeon preparing for a major operation, and of any responsible politician preparing for major constitutional reform, is to ask whether the benefits proposed outweigh the risks. The important work of the Joint Committee has highlighted the consensus that Clause 2 is insufficient. In future, work must be done to define properly the powers of an elected second Chamber, to understand how those powers might be exercised and how the relationship between two elected Chambers would be handled, and in particular how disputes between the two Chambers might be resolved.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, rightly identified 60 bicameral Parliaments around the world with an elected second Chamber. The question is how many of those Parliaments have no written constitution, no written definition of the powers of the two Chambers and no written protocol for the resolution of disputes between those two Chambers. The Joint Committee took evidence from Australian Senators, and that evidence is instructive as it touched on the question of a resolution of disputes between the two elected Chambers in the Australian Parliament. If we look back to 1975 and the Australian constitutional crisis, we see that the presence of a written constitution was acutely important. The then Speaker of the House of Representatives in Australia wrote to Her Majesty as head of state requesting intervention. The private secretary to the monarch was able to respond that the written constitution made the position clear and that there was no need for any particular intervention.

It seems very unwise to proceed with the creation of an elected second Chamber unless the important issue of the powers of the two Chambers, how disputes are to be resolved, the potential role that the Supreme Court may play in resolving disputes, and therefore how Parliament may be secured as sovereign in future, are properly defined before a Bill is brought for further scrutiny before this Parliament. However, important opportunities have been identified for a way forward. To make progress with necessary reform at this stage, the Joint Committee report and alternative report, the report of the Leader’s group on working practices and the Bill part-way through its passage in this Parliament in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, all have important elements that could be extracted and brought together to offer useful legislation that could rightly justify parliamentary time being used in an effective and cost-effective fashion for the benefit of the people of our country.

The Prime Minister, speaking on the “Today” programme last week, indicated that House of Lords reform could proceed only if there was consensus. Those who have the privilege of leading our country and have particular responsibility for constitutional reform need to be sensitive to this debate, the Joint Committee report and the alternative report. They must ask themselves, having heard what has come out of this important phase of pre-legislative scrutiny, whether the proposed Bill for House of Lords reform justifies prime legislative time in the forthcoming Session of Parliament. They need to exercise the judgment that many professionals, including surgeons when deciding when to operate, have to exercise, because they have responsibility to the people of our country. They must ask themselves whether the competing demands of needing to hold the coalition together by using Lords reform as the glue to maintain some form of cohesion outweighs the needs of the people of our country to secure a long-term settlement for an effective Parliament that can serve their needs not only in good times but in times of crisis—and, more acutely, a Parliament that will focus on the issues that are their principal concerns today.

The Prime Minister, answering an urgent Parliamentary Question yesterday, repeated in your Lordships’ House by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that,

“the country wants to hear about jobs, investment, living standards and the great challenges we face, like debt”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/12; col. 1243.]

Those of us who have the privilege to sit in this place and the other place need to be acutely sensitive to those wise words and act accordingly.