Parliament: Elected House of Lords

Lord Kilclooney Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kilclooney]

My Lords, I have served in five different parliamentary institutions—seven years in the Northern Ireland Parliament, 10 years in the European Parliament, seven years in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 18 years in the other place and now nine years in your Lordships’ House. The worst of these was the European Parliament; the best is your Lordships’ House, in so far as quality of debate is concerned.

First, if we have an elected upper House, irrespective of the electoral system or the size of constituencies, there will be competition between the elected Members here and the elected Members in the other place. Secondly, there will be political yes-men and no independence. That will be a severe loss to this House—the loss of the independent voice. Most important of all, as I saw during my experience in the European Parliament, it had been a nominated Parliament and then became an elected Parliament. It spent every day struggling to take powers away from the European Commission in Brussels. The same would happen here with an elected body. It would spend every day fighting to take powers away from the other place. I hope that Members in the other place recognise that if they vote for an elected upper House they are diminishing their own status and it will truly become the lower House in the United Kingdom Parliament.

It is important that the public know what the role of the House of Lords is. Last night, as a taxi driver took me out, he said, “Are you a Labour Peer or a Conservative Peer?”. I said, “Neither, I’m an independent Peer—non-party”. To which he said, “I didn’t know there were independent Peers in the House of Lords”. The sooner we get the public educated, the sooner will the cry for an elected upper House disappear.