Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow such a weighty and impressive speech. First, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his committee on having produced a comprehensive analysis of the issues and arguments in, all things considered, a remarkably short space of time given the amount of work undertaken. It will be an invaluable resource in the debates to come. I also congratulate the authors of the alternative report on having produced a trenchant critique and a number of valuable ideas that represent a constructive contribution to taking the debate forward.

I will make two points. The issues need to be divided into two: elections and the rest. My contention—I think many would agree with it—is that progress on the rest has been hamstrung by the absence of any agreement about elections and the desire in some quarters to get agreement to a comprehensive package that contained them. Indeed, some insist that there cannot be a package that does not contain them. I want to suggest a way forward around which a consensus might be built. As I say, for this to happen, the issues must be divided in two.

First, there is already a lot of consensus around a number of changes that need to be made—short of elections. We have heard about them in a number of speeches this afternoon: reduction in the size of the House, the need for a cost-neutral retirement scheme, an end to hereditary by-elections and a proper statutory basis for the Appointments Commission, as well as the reforms contained in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. That has already passed this House and simply awaits the imprimatur of the Commons. A package of reforms could be put together around these changes in this Parliament which would attract widespread support. Even if nothing more were done, that would constitute a legacy of House of Lords reform that the coalition could point to as a substantial achievement. I am pleased to see that the alternative report agrees with this. It is only the vain quest for the holy grail of a final solution which has prevented agreement on such a package in the past 10 years. Up to this point, I am on all fours with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy.

Secondly, more can be done with a much broader base of support than can be mobilised for elections as currently proposed. That may take a little longer. As regards the final solution, I do not believe that this can be arrived at until the shape of the United Kingdom has been decided. I am against elections, at least of the kind currently proposed. I will not rehearse the arguments. Your Lordships have heard them far too often to make that necessary. Suffice it to say, I am in accord with Professor Sir John Baker, who is cited by the Joint Committee as saying that the House’s essential scrutiny role,

“does not require the sanction of the ballot box to give it legitimacy any more than the judicial role, because the House of Commons can insist on the last word”.

In other words, he drew attention to the House’s complementary but different role as a revising Chamber.

Of course, if you do not have elections there is still the question of patronage to deal with, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, reminded us. With acknowledgement to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for the trailer, I favour a system of appointments by an Appointments Commission as at present, but greatly strengthened by supporting it with a system of nominations from a series of electoral colleges representing the different branches of civil society. In other words, it would be a form of indirect election. I was pleased to see that both the Joint Committee and the alternative report called for further work to be done on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said that only seven countries do not elect their second Chambers. According to the Joint Committee, 34 second Chambers are indirectly elected and 16 of them wholly so. This would not be election as conceived of by those who favour elections, but it would represent a significant democratisation of the appointments process. It would retain the emphasis on expertise, experience and distinction in their field by which those who do not favour elections set such store.

Of course, indirect election can take a number of forms. Oliver Heald MP, a member of the Joint Committee and chairman of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, issued a pamphlet through that society to coincide with the publication of the Joint Committee’s report. In that, he proposed a secondary mandate system in which each party would publish a list of its candidates and gain seats in the House of Lords in exact proportion to the share of the electorate’s support won in the general election. There were at least four submissions to the Joint Committee proposing a system of indirect election or something like that. I say nothing of my own humble contribution. Dr Alex Reid of Cambridge proposed a system in which the 80 per cent elected element of the House would be indirectly elected via political parties. John Smith of Stamford, Lincolnshire, submitted a well worked out scheme of indirect election from constituencies of expertise with a general college for those not affiliated to any particular constituency and a parliamentary college for politicians. Finally, Mr Martin Wright would have the colleges that represent constituencies of expertise make the nominations but elections would be by members of the general public. They would vote in the college of their choice for the candidates of their choice on the basis of statements or CVs circulated for the purpose.

It seems that there is much merit in the alternative report’s suggestion of a constitutional convention to go into more detail than the Joint Committee possibly could on these different proposals, as well as the multitude of other issues identified by the alternative report. I was sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, poured such scorn on the idea of a constitutional convention. I thought that the alternative report made the case quite well that a good deal more work needed to be done to bottom these issues out.