Business of the House
Lord McNally Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
That the debates on the motions in the names of Lord Pendry and Baroness Thornton set down for today shall each be limited to two and a half hours.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde I beg to move the first Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord McNally Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Falconer of Thoroton
The Cabinet Secretary would not have had any vote on legislation, but he might have had an even more important influence, I respectfully suggest, on legislation than people voting here would. What is more, as we can see from the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, he could reasonably have expected to come here to legislate at the end of it. There are lots of important people in the state and a lot of people with privileges, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says. However, I respectfully suggest that the key point is that this is a democracy and the Government are chosen not from the Lords but from the Commons. The key question is: why are we excluded from being democratic participants in choosing the Government? The essence of democracy is that it is not just a process; it also represents values. The critical value that democracy represents is that we are all equal in the choice of the Government. Why are we not equal in that respect? I do not think, with respect, that either the answer that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, gives—“They will elect us next”—or the answer that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, gives, which is, “Well, we are jolly privileged”, is an answer to that essential democratic argument. I would be interested to hear what the Leader of the House has to say.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I would be equally interested in what the Deputy Leader of the House has to say.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I have been stripped and ready for action for three days. As the Leader of the House has pointed out, he and I are joined at the hip on this Bill. However, in that spirit of co-operation, he said, “Tom, you take Clause 2 and I’ll take Clause 1”. That seemed fine at about 7 pm on the first day of this debate, when I thought that I would be coming on straight after the dinner hour. Three days later, I come on with three minutes to go.
This has been an excellent mini-debate and I suggest that those who are interested in it should read the speech given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. No wonder he was facing the other way to deliver it; he was giving us both sides of the argument. It is very good that he should do so.
I fully respect the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I know that he has campaigned on this and that he feels strongly about it. I hope, given what he has said, that perhaps we will get one of the opposition days to debate the issue, or perhaps a Question for Short Debate. The issue is worth debating and I look forward to him carrying on his campaign. The problem is, as he himself acknowledged and, indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, acknowledged, that this is not the place for it. It is a good political ploy to use a Bill to hang a campaign on and to get the issue raised and I fully respect the noble Lord for doing so. However, we are concerned specifically with who should vote in the referendum on the parliamentary voting system. Basing the franchise for the referendum on that for the Westminster general election seemed the most sensible thing to do. Yes, we have made a concession in that we have put alongside that noble Lords, who are entitled to vote in other elections. The Government thought that that was a fair and logical approach. I suspect that, if we had not included noble Lords, there would have been an amendment to include them.
Lord Rooker
Does the noble Lord genuinely mean that? I regret losing my vote, but I agree more with the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Hamilton, than with the Front Bench. Why make the concession? If you are going to keep the Bill narrow, clean and tidy, whereby it relates purely to the electoral system for the other place, we are entitled to scrutinise the Bill; so there is no argument about that. There is no justification for giving Members of this place a role in choosing the voting system for the other place. If you are logical about it and you want to keep the Bill clean and simple, why make that concession in the first place?
Lord McNally
It is because we judge that to be a fair and logical approach. As I said, whichever way we had done it, amendments would have been tabled. Perhaps the noble Lord wants to table an amendment for Report to take out Peers’ votes? See how that goes.
Lord Rooker
My name is not on the other amendment. This amendment is to remove part of Clause 2. I shall leave it now; it is time enough.
Lord McNally
There will be other times. Now is not the right place for this debate. I understand why the issue has been raised, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will not press his amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I was wondering whether the noble Lord was going to respond to my question on why, having put one excluded group into the referendum, the Government did not include citizens of other European Union countries.
Lord McNally
It is because I was intending to reply to Amendment 36A, which is in a later group, and deals particularly with that point. When we all return—I hope including the noble Baroness—we can have that debate.
Lord Dubs
I shall respond only briefly. First, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, that I have heard many arguments against what I have proposed, but I have never heard that one before. It characterises a feature of this House—the “thin end of the wedge” argument that whatever change one brings about, it will lead to other undesirable changes. Surely to goodness, it is possible for us individually to troop off to a polling station and cast a vote, without opening all sorts of other floodgates. I would simply be doing what in every election I encourage a lot of people to do, which is to go and vote. In my case, I of course urge them to vote Labour. I watch them go into the polling station knowing that I cannot do so, if it happens to be a general election. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, he made a good effort at the thin end of the wedge, but I do not think that that is a good argument.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, did not give any hint that he agreed with me. In his heart of hearts, of course he does. He is too sensible a person not to agree with me. In his heart of hearts—
Lord McNally
I encouraged the noble Lord keep on with his campaign. As they say where I come from, a nod is as good as a wink.
Lord Dubs
I am really grateful, because I was about to say, when the noble Lord said that an issue is worth debating, that that left it in the realms of Questions for Short Debate, or whatever. I take a lot of comfort from what he has just said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 34 withdrawn.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord McNally Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I think I noted a moment during my noble friend’s closing remarks when the eyes of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, turned to a closed position. I quite understand when it comes to the detail of voting systems that that is a tempting posture for any man of good sense to take. However, those of us who have devoted many years to the study of these subjects are of course more excited by them.
Lord McNally
My Lords, it has been a long-established practice in this House that Members occasionally close their eyes and lean back to the loudspeaker to concentrate more on the wisdom coming through it. I am shocked that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is not aware of that.
Lord Lipsey
We should make sure that the noble Lord’s microphone is finely tuned, so that should some noises which indicated to the contrary emit from him, the whole House would be aware of them. I did not mean to criticise him, because it will be a long hard Bill and we all have to get our naps in when we can.
Turning to the amendment, I, as my noble friend knows, do not agree with him on which is the best of the different majoritarian systems proposed as alternatives to first past the post. I prefer the alternative vote; he prefers SV and the London alternative vote, which we will discuss the origins of in a minute. However, I most strongly agree with his fundamental point that this issue has never been looked at.
Noble Lords will remember that I was on the Jenkins committee which proposed AV as part of its solution. I have to say that we had bigger fish to fry and we never considered the difference between various AV systems. We considered SV, but only fairly cursorily. That was perfectly appropriate for a broad committee of inquiry trying to take us to square one in this reform process. It is not appropriate at a time when Parliament and your Lordships’ House are considering matters which can fundamentally affect—I do not exaggerate by saying that—the constitutional future of this country.
Lord Grocott
I always tremble a little when I follow my noble friend Lord Snape, who was also my Whip during the 1970s. I shall follow the habit of a lifetime and agree with him on this matter. I was delighted that my noble friend Lord Foulkes was able to penetrate the weak thicket of my arguments and deduce that, on balance and weighing all things up, I am totally in favour of first past the post. I am pleased to be on exactly the same side of the argument in respect to this amendment as my noble friend Lord Rooker. That may surprise noble Lords given that, although we agree on most things, over the years we have not agreed on electoral reform. His argument about the need for this to be an indicative referendum was absolutely convincing.
Surely we can all agree that this is a very unusual amendment. I want to deal briefly—I hope this is the last time that I have to do so—with the argument put forward by the Lib Dems that somehow the Labour Party in opposition must be bound by every dot and comma of the manifesto on which it has just lost the election. The concept of a referendum on AV has already been road tested. The Conservatives and the Lib Dems opposed it before the election and are now bringing it in, presumably claiming that they have a mandate to do so. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord McNally, can tell us whether he thinks that there is a mandate to do that. I hate to keep repeating the fact that the one party that would have had a mandate lost the election. I do not like losing elections, even though I have lost an awful lot of them over the years. Therefore, we can put that issue to bed, but if anyone raises it again I give whoever does so, particularly the Lib Dems, a severe warning that I shall look through all their election manifestos covering the elections they have lost, which now covers a period of about 100 years, check on all the commitments that they made and start reading them out. If people are awake at the end of it full marks to them, but can we please put that argument behind us because it does not hold water?
This is, indeed, a very unusual referendum. Whatever we think of the merits of it, I think we can acknowledge that it is unusual. As a lifelong member of the Labour Party, I find myself agreeing in key respects with both the Conservative Prime Minister and the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister. I agree with the Prime Minister’s opposition to AV, and whenever the referendum takes place—I hope that will not be for a while—I shall be voting the same way as him. However, I must say in passing that it must be the first time ever that a Government have called a referendum which they hope to lose. That is a constitutional first, if nothing else. I agree very strongly with the right honourable Nick Clegg’s description of the measure as a miserable little compromise, as my noble friend said. However, to put it mildly, that is not a strong basis on which to hold a referendum. In addition, the Government are committed to holding it on the same day as local elections, which means that it will be a legislative referendum. That is essentially what it is; it is not an indicative referendum but one which legislates. We know that there are massive differences in turnout in different parts of the country. That is not a good basis for any decision, but is a particularly bad one when we are effectively asking the electorate to legislate. As I have already said, for different reasons the two key members of the Government are not wholeheartedly committed to the referendum, so for that reason, if none other, it should be no more than an indicative referendum.
I conclude by asking the noble Lord, Lord McNally, a question which will need to be asked sooner or later as it is very important to the nature and integrity—if that is not too pompous a word—of the debate that is taking place. I cannot claim that I have read by any means all the various reports on this matter, but there seem to be very strong indications emanating from the Lib Dem negotiating team in the coalition building programme. This is a serious question and I hope that the noble Lord will give it a serious answer. The members of the team were very keen indeed for either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party to bring forward legislation to impose the alternative vote system on the British people—neither party having campaigned for it—and that it should be imposed without a referendum. Either that is a fact or it is not—I do not know as I was not part of either negotiating team and would not have expected to be. However, we need to know the answer to that question before we can proceed any further with this passionate commitment.
Lord McNally
Rather like the previous Government, I think we shall leave to the memoirs what was or was not said during negotiations. However, what is on the record is the coalition agreement, which is the basis of this Bill. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is dragging through this House an enormous red herring.
Lord Grocott
I had expected the noble Lord to tell me that I was a constitutional Conservative, or some other such epithet. I think that on the previous occasion he described me as a Neanderthal; now I am dragging red herrings. I asked a fairly simple question—but I think that the House feels that it is an important one—regarding the integrity of the passionate commitment to a legislative referendum which, as I understand it, his party was opposed to in the coalition agreement.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
No I do not, and what happened in the Scottish and Welsh referendums indicates that that is wrong. It is a question of being clear that the referendum is intended to be a precursor to legislative change, as it was in relation to the 1997 referendums in Scotland and Wales. The noble Lord is wrong.
For the two reasons that I have given—namely, that an indicative referendum avoids the need for thresholds and allows for a proper debate on AV—I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am grateful to the House for this debate. Observers will see a pattern developing: reform, but not this reform; people did it to decide, but not on this particular date; and we want to help, but only on the basis of delay. I am afraid that most of the comments are based on that approach.
There is, in fact, very little pattern to constitutional reform in this country. The great Reform Bill was passed in the other place by a single vote. The Welsh Assembly referendum was carried by 50.3 per cent to 49.7 per cent. I remember it well. I was just about to go to bed and said to my wife, “I’ll watch this first Welsh result come in, and then I’ll be up to bed”. At about a quarter to six in the morning, the final result that tipped the balance came in. However, I do not see parties campaigning now to reverse that decision.
I remember the Cunningham amendment. The key issue was that George Cunningham was very much against devolution, and his amendment was there to try to prevent devolution and succeeded in delaying it for 20 years.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Does the noble Lord not agree that although it did, as he rightly said, delay devolution, we actually ended up with a much better scheme in the end? Paradoxically, although we all hated George Cunningham at the time, we may have something to be grateful to him for.
Lord McNally
That is another one for the memoirs. If we wanted to continue in this way, the 1911 reform of this House was carried under the threat of creating a large number of Peers. The point is, as I have said before in this House, that constitutional change has come to us in a variety of ways. Perhaps I may say that my affection for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is boundless, as he well knows. We have the occasional joust in this House and I know that his position is sincerely held, but I do not have the faintest idea about the question he asked. I do know what the final agreement was. It was drawn together by the two parties, and adopted by my party in a special conference, as the basis for the coalition. As I have said, that is the basis on which we bring the Bill before the House. Noble Lords asked: where is our mandate? Our mandate will come from the decision of the people in the referendum. Everyone is making points about whether the Conservatives are in favour of this, or whether the Liberal Democrats or the Labour Party are in favour. The whole structure of this is that there will be two campaigns that will take their cases to the people.
Lord Campbell-Savours
On the basis of the historic utterances of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the whole question of alternative vote systems, does he think that the proposition being put to the House in this form of referendum question and this system is ideal?
Lord McNally
Of course I do, and I would not be at this Dispatch Box advocating them to the House if I did not. After all, for a while, I earned my living dredging up quotes from political opponents, sometimes out of context, for Lord Callaghan to use. I would not accuse the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, of using researchers—I know him too well. He probably did the research himself. Nevertheless, we go back to the central point recurring in this debate. The Opposition put forward various ideas, all of which have within them an element of delay.
Lord Sewel
The central issue in the debate is the recognition by Members of your Lordships’ House that there is a very real danger of introducing major constitutional reform through a referendum with a small majority on a low turnout. Will he answer that?
Lord McNally
I would suggest that you have the threshold debate on Clause 8. The threshold debate that I have just quoted, however, was in fact a device of an opponent of devolution to delay devolution. Let us not pretend that a threshold does not turn every abstention into a no vote. We will have that debate under Clause 8, and an interesting debate it will be. These three amendments seek to turn it into—
Lord Browne of Ladyton
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I am sorry if I exasperate him by intervening. Perhaps I may return to the point that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours put to him. I do so because I have experience of campaigning in referendum campaigns both in Scotland and in Wales and it is helpful to be equipped with the arguments on the doorstep. I have read every single word that has been said in these Houses of Parliament on this issue. I cannot find one explanation of why this form of voting is the best of the alternative forms of voting available. Will the Minister please point me to where I can find that qualitative assessment of this form of voting?
Lord McNally
That is for the voters to judge. If you want this reform to fail, you do all the kind of things that the Opposition are putting forward. The coalition, on the basis of the coalition agreement, has put forward a simple proposition that we believe provides for fairer voting.
I can go on like this: we have all been in the House of Commons and seen the wind-up speeches. The last time there were 23 interventions, but I am okay—we’ve got many a long time. Of course you don’t like it, but the coalition agreement is for a fairer voting system based on fairer constituencies. We are willing to take our case to the country, and we have already had the approval of the House of Commons for that.
Lord Campbell-Savours
What the noble Lord is missing is that those of us who support electoral reform see what is happening now as our only window of opportunity, perhaps for a whole generation, to see through an electoral reform. So the system on offer has to be one that commands the support of the public. I cannot understand the Liberal Democratic view whereby they say it does not really matter what system we put forward as long as we get something through. They bear responsibility in history, in the event that this referendum fails, because they have not done their homework. They should be insisting on a system that is credible. They are not doing it, and nor is the Minister.
Lord McNally
We keep on making these speeches. That is the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, but it is not the opinion of the Electoral Reform Society, which is just as committed to electoral reform as he is. We are putting our proposal to Parliament and our intention is to let the people decide. It is of course a difference between us, and if the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, wants to press his amendment, we will resist it.
On Saturday I was waiting with bated breath for the Blackpool result to come through. I flicked on my television and there were the final stages of that magnificent film “Waterloo”. It is absolutely marvellous because it is not digitally enhanced or anything—those were real people moving around. It showed you this depiction of the Battle of Waterloo with these two great armies ready to do battle. That is what I am hoping will happen on 5 May. There will be these two great armies ready to do battle and make their case to the people. I do not believe, and here I agree with my noble friend Lord Phillips, that we will get the engagement, the excitement, the involvement if we say to the people—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I can imagine this wonderful picture of the Battle of Waterloo, just as we see in the Royal Gallery. What the Minister has not made clear is: which side will Napoleon be on in this battle?
Lord McNally
We have already seen the Labour Party retreat on AV. I will leave it at that for today. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has destroyed an absolutely breathtaking peroration. I will leave him to face the resentment of his colleagues, who were warming to my theme, and ask the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, at the beginning of the debate on the Bill—I do not mean this in a personal, patronising way—I have not been impressed with the two responses to the debates that we have had. This is serious work. I want reform, but this reform forces me into the first past the post camp. I led the Labour campaign for electoral reform for five years. I took the issue to the party conference four times to force a referendum on the voting system, which the Labour Party never delivered on. My commitment is there. When I moved from first past the post to PR, I began to engage with all kinds of people whom I had not talked much to before. I engaged at the time with a lot of Liberals and discovered that they did not know much about electoral systems, because they had been born into a party that went for STV and never discussed anything else, such as the minutiae of how you make a system work—because you can make any system do what you want and no one claims that there is a perfect system.
In my opening words, I said that this was a very narrow amendment. It does not destroy the Bill or the system. I almost implied that if the amendment were accepted, I would walk away from my other amendments, because this goes to the heart of what we are trying to do. It will be a lifeboat for the Government and for Parliament to say, “Let us make this consultative”. It will not diminish anything: the argument will still take place. All other referendums have been consultative and we can recognise a victory when we see one. I will never use the example of a low turnout: it undermines my case. I used the example of a 50 to 60 per cent turnout, which is respectable. I then used the example of a 1,000-vote majority for yes. Would anybody say that that was satisfactory for what we are attempting to do? I said that the only political thing that most people do is to vote.
I will make another personal point to the noble Lord, Lord McNally. All my notes and amendments are my own. I have no researcher. Half of my amendments will be opposed by my noble friends. I am doing this because the Bill could be better. I want reform: in that respect I am with the noble Lord. However, it would be better if we said to the people, “We want to hear what you say. We want to have a battle. We want to hear the arguments”. Let those who wish put the case for reform that will end up in the Bill, and let others put the case against, with all the toing and froing in which the media will take an interest. We will listen to what is said, and woe betide Parliament if we do not take cognisance of it. The scenario could be a very tight result. In those circumstances, Parliament should be allowed to look at the result and make dispositions accordingly. There may be nuances and changes, but why bind ourselves into a legal straitjacket when there is no need to do so? We could test the will of the Committee tonight and say that we will come back on Report, but this will not go away. This is a lifeboat. We should all get in it quickly in the Division Lobbies. I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord McNally Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, it is considerably later than we had intended to start the main business of the day, but I now beg to move that the Bill be read a second time. This Bill is a core part of the coalition Government’s programme. It is a simple measure that provides for three things: a referendum on the voting system for the other place; a modest reduction in the number of MPs; and fairer, more equal constituencies. It would not have existed in its present form without the creation of the coalition. Speaking for my party as well as for the Government, I say clearly that we are completely committed to honour the coalition agreement. That is why, as Leader of this House, I open for the Government on the Bill.
Of course, I would have liked 20 more Conservative seats at the general election, but that was not the people’s choice. They did not deliver a majority for a single-party Government. They asked us to work together —and that, I believe, is our duty.
This Government have started on the giant task of restoring this country from the economic, diplomatic and social wreckage of the past 13 years.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord McNally Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I have cited the example of the Railways Act, which was a piece of legislation that dealt with the whole issue, whereas this Bill does not. This Bill leaves two constituencies out.
Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, has pointed out, it has been said that the Commons have not declared the Bill to be hybrid. That is true, but no vote was sought and no application pursued. It is for each House to make its own decision, and I strongly urge this House not to accept that, if the Commons reach such a conclusion, we are bound by it. That would diminish the importance and independence of this House on constitutional issues.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord would correct a remark he made at the beginning of his speech. He said that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, wrote to me and that I did not reply. In fact, I consulted the Clerk at the Table who is the expert on hybridity in this House. Prompted by the discussion, he wrote me a definitive letter on hybridity, a copy of which I sent to the noble Baroness, as well as placing a copy of the exchange in the Library of the House. I certainly did not ignore the noble Baroness’s letter.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I withdraw the point. The noble Lord did not write a letter to my noble friend, but it was a bad point for which I apologise. I certainly did not intend to suggest that the noble Lord had been in any way discourteous, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, had not for one moment suggested that to me. I therefore apologise to the noble Lord.
The practice of this House is to refer a Bill to the Examiners if the House is satisfied that it is reasonably arguable that the Bill is hybrid. That happened recently in the case of the Bill that covered Exeter and Norfolk. Subsequently, the Examiners held that that legislation was not hybrid. No argument was in fact advanced to them that the legislation was hybrid because a court case after the vote in the House made the issue academic. I hope very much that the House will consider our arguments on their merits rather than on the basis of the previous occasion.
I respectfully submit that this Bill is hybrid. I have dealt with the arguments advanced against, but all that I need to do is to satisfy the House that the case is reasonably arguable. My argument also reflects the merits of ensuring that the process to determine what the exceptions are is transparent rather than just dealing with things by fiat. This Motion would allow a proper approach to be followed in selecting those constituencies that are to be exceptions to the Bill. I suggest that the House should be urging for a non-political basis to this.
House of Lords Reform
Lord McNally Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Wright of Richmond
I intervene very briefly to remind the House that I am the only surviving Cross-Bench member of the conventions committee. We came under strong pressure from the then Government to make it clear that the conventions as they existed at that time would continue. In response, we made it very clear that under an elected House—
Lord Wright of Richmond
But not another Cross-Bench Member. We made it very clear that an elected House would totally change the conventions.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I was interested to hear the quotation of Abbé Sieyés. The only one I know is that he was asked at the end what he did during the French Revolution and he said, “I survived”. That is a good lesson for everyone in politics.
I was looking at the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I thought that he looked fit and happy and 10 years younger, and then I suddenly realised why. For many a day in the previous Parliament, when we sat over there on the Liberal Democrat Benches, we used to initiate debates on reforms of this Chamber, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, used to sit here, tense and flipping through his notes, waiting to reply. It is a lot more difficult on this side than it is on the other and I wish him good health.
I immediately take up the noble Lord’s point on grandfathering rights. If this excellent legislation will have his imprimatur on it, I shall certainly bring it to the attention of the Deputy Prime Minister. On the matter of the voting record, as he knows well, the record for this Government so far is that we have lost every vote in this House.
This is going to be difficult. I know that if I am too firm, clear and decisive then noble Lords will be up on their feet and saying that I am bouncing the House, not consulting it, and they will ask where all this came from. If I say we are listening and will consult, noble Lords will say that it is all wishy-washy. I can assure the House that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I and indeed the Deputy Prime Minister are in listening mode. We are simply trying, with the best of intentions, to set out a road map for this House and for Parliament so that they can deal with an issue that some would say has bedevilled it for 100 years. Certainly those who have been around for the past 10 years have seen it being dealt with without much progress.
In 1909 the then Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, received the following assessment of prospects of reform of the House of Lords from his Parliamentary Private Secretary, Edwin Montagu. He wrote:
“The history of all former attempts at coming to close quarters with the House of Lords Question shows a record of disorder, dissipation of energy, of words and solemn exhortation, of individual rhetoric … without any definite scheme of action”.
In some ways, try as they did, that could be the description of the previous Government between the reforms of 1999 and the cascade of deathbed repentances which ended up in the CRAG Bill. We are desperately trying, perhaps in time for the 100th anniversary of the first passing of the Reform Act, to make some progress.
I want to make a correction. Noble Lords will know that the 1911 Act was passed on 10 August, and I said in an earlier debate that we all know why they managed to pass it then—their Lordships wanted to go off and slaughter grouse. Not at all, it turns out. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, immediately brought me his grandfather’s memoirs. His grandfather was the leader of the last-ditchers, and he explains in graphic terms that the reason why they failed to derail the 1911 Bill was that the bishops ratted. When the last-ditchers needed their votes, they were inexplicably absent. Those noble Lords who are relying on the bishops this time around, remember that precedent.
Quite seriously, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I know how much work he and Jack Straw put into attempts to make progress on this. That is one of the reasons why the Clegg committee is able to get off to a flying start; as the members will know, we are using quite a lot of that work. Some of the officials and experts have been on this topic for 10 years so they are not new to the issue, and the work that has been done, I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, includes some drafting of parts of a Bill that was commissioned by Jack Straw. As I have said before, some of the building blocks are there.
Yesterday, when we were talking about the expenses regime, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, pointed out that this House has not been slow in bringing reforms forward. She said:
“In the space of less than a year we now have a stringent code of conduct, an active sub-committee on privileges and standards and greater financial transparency”.—[Official Report, 28/6/10; col. 1515.]
That is backed up by an officer of the House who is going to police those reforms. So we have carried reforms forward and we continue to do so.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. As I have said before, I sometimes think that we missed an enormous chance by not taking up the Wakeham recommendations; we would have been almost halfway through his transition period by now. That is a lesson sometimes in politics. I have said to the Deputy Prime Minister that he could well with profit read the Wakeham report as part of his reading on this subject.
I pay tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Filkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, for their initiative on the other matter of trying to parallel the Wright committee’s report. There are things that we could and should be doing as we approach the issue of major reform.
Let me take head-on the structure of the committee. Lots of people have asked, “Why are the Cross-Benchers not on it?”. I put it quite bluntly to the Cross-Benchers: they can be one of two things. They can be the fourth political party in this House or they can be what they all take pride in—individuals who come as independents to put an independent view to this House. Their strength is their individuality, which makes them separate from the political parties but does not make it easy for them then to be on a committee made up of three political parties which, in their manifestos, have just taken a case to the country.
Having had the experience of the past 10 years—this is something that always happens with these debates in the House—I know that there are colleagues who couch their speeches in notes of surprise as though some of the issues that have been raised have never been put to them before; this is all a matter of shock, goodness gracious, we must start from first principles and it will take at least five years. But if you start in the first few weeks of the Parliament, you are then accused of rushing them. Then, if you leave it, as the previous Government did, to the last few weeks of the Parliament, you are told, “This can’t be done in the last few weeks of a Parliament”. I know Catch-22 when I see it.
We are trying to produce what we have not had in the last century—a Bill which we can focus on. All the issues can be considered. It was said that Cross-Benchers were not being consulted. I assure your Lordships that not only will the Hansard of this debate be put before the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the other members of the Clegg committee, but so will a paper analysing the major themes that have come out of it. This is part of a consultation that we want. It is not matter of just going through the motions; it is a matter, at this stage, of having a committee of the willing to try to draw up a Bill to make progress. I have in my notes a line—it is all mine—that says that if the Member for Old Sarum had been on the committee for the 1832 Reform Bill, he might still be in the House of Commons. I was going to leave that out of my speech so as not to be provocative, because my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, “Don’t provoke them. Be conciliatory”. I really resent the attack of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on my noble friend, whom he implied was trying to lure the House in directions that it would not otherwise wish to go, which is again far from the truth.
We are trying to set out the Government’s strategy, listen to the views of the House and then try to resolve the differences such as we can. However, if I believe in a directly elected House and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon believes in a wholly nominated House, I have with all respect to ask him what alchemy will provide a solution. The late Liberal MP David Penhaligon used to say, “If you believe in something, write it on a piece of paper, stick it through a letterbox and persuade people to vote for it”. That is how democracy works—I assure my noble and learned friend that I am not telling him how to suck eggs. I cannot see a way of resolving a dilemma such as this other than by the political parties taking their case to the country and then bringing it back to Parliament. That is the process that we are undertaking at the moment. We have taken our case to the country; we are bringing it back to Parliament for a full debate, for full scrutiny, on the basis of a draft Bill. I cannot for the life of me see any other way forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Norton, asked why the Parliament Acts exist. I have always understood that the Parliament Acts are there to underpin the supremacy of the Commons. It was asked what the new reformed House would do and how it would challenge Parliament. There are many bicameral regimes around the world that manage to work out the relationship between Houses and do not end up with gridlock. I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that I see this as an advisory and a revisory House. I was on the Cunningham committee. I remember the debates, and I remember why the refuseniks were so determined to write in to the Cunningham committee to say that its proposals should apply only to an unreformed House. They want to do exactly what they are doing now, which is to raise the spectre of some great constitutional battle between the two Houses.
I signed the Cunningham committee in the end, not, as the noble Lord, Lord Wright, implied, on the basis that at the point of reform there would be a great constitutional crisis; I signed it on the basis that it would apply to a new House, but that at the point of reform it would have to be looked at again. Noble Lords can read the Cunningham committee report, and that is what it says. That is absolute common sense. My belief, which was confirmed in many discussions in the Cunningham committee, was that the Cunningham committee conventions would still work and operate in a reformed House. If there was a transitional period, there is no doubt that it would give the opportunity for a proper look at where and what part of the Cunningham conventions would need to be looked at again. I do not see them as the great crisis point implied in the debate.
A number of noble Lords said that we should not be looking at this because there was a great economic crisis. As I said during the Queen’s Speech, the Churchill coalition brought in the Beveridge report and the Butler Act and won a war. I do not believe that Governments are one-trick ponies; they should be able to bring forward other reforms at the same time as dealing with the economy.
I have no doubt that if a pre-legislative scrutiny committee of both Houses was set up to look at a subject as important as this one, whatever I say from this Dispatch Box, those Members will not be bullied or railroaded. They will do a proper, thorough job. Every one of them will know that it will be one of the most important pieces of pre-legislative scrutiny that anyone has ever considered, and I do not believe that it would be a problem. I am sure that I have missed some other questions.
On the attitude towards the Steel reforms, I am a little worried, as the Minister responsible for freedom of information, that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, breached the Act by revealing our e-mails. I have always said that we should let the Steel reforms be part of the mix, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has already indicated that one particular reform will be taken forward in a study group. The other elements will certainly be reported to the Clegg committee.
On the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, on working practices, I am assured that the usual channels are looking to make an announcement very, very shortly—and that means very, very, very shortly, within the next few days—about how to go forward with a full debate on that issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, asked what would happen if a party came from nowhere to amass an overall majority. There is ample precedent for that. Labour was the junior partner in the war coalition but won a landslide at the 1945 election. I like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that on a regular basis. Again, that shows you how the House deals with such things. That is where the Salisbury convention came from. One of the great things about our Parliament is its ability to adjust to new circumstances, and that is a good example of it. We all want now to go to our beds—
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Forgive me, my Lords. The noble Lord answered the question from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about future use of the Parliament Act, but my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and others asked whether that Act would be used in the case of a forthcoming Bill on House of Lords reform. I wonder whether the noble Lord could clarify that.
Lord McNally
That is why I was going to sit down before the noble Baroness asked her question. She has been in Government. If I said at this Dispatch Box now, “We are going to use the Parliament Act”, those on half the Benches would stand up, and quite rightly so. We are going to produce a Bill that we are going to ask you to look at in the most constructive form possible. Let me end—
Lord Desai
The noble Lord mentioned the Salisbury convention. That convention had to do with a party’s manifesto before the election. If there is a coalition, there is not one manifesto; there are two. How does the Salisbury convention apply if there is a coalition Government?
Lord McNally
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is already preparing a book on the whole subject. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Desai, when he was a troublemaker at the LSE. He has not changed.
Lord Rooker
With respect, he deserves an answer. The political parties all took legal advice before they drafted their three manifestos as to whether their words would cover them in the event of the Parliament Act being used. That was the case and it is why they are so similarly drafted. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, deserves an answer to his question tonight.
Lord McNally
I am not aware of that. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde said that the Labour Party must have had more money than sense if it was taking legal advice. Look; the fact is that the commitments made in our manifestos have been merged into the coalition agreement. If the Labour Party is saying that it is planning some kind of guerrilla warfare on that basis, while as far as I am concerned the Salisbury convention and the Cunningham conventions will still be operated in this House, we will have to wait and see.
The Earl of Onslow
What is slightly odd in this thing is that those on the two Front Benches and I, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, agree. There is a sea of people from all over the place who do not agree, so those who are causing trouble will be led by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who is a Labour Peer, and by my noble friend Lord Cope, and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, who are Conservative Peers. I am sure that I can think of one here as well. It is not a party political issue of where the Parliament Act arises. It seems to me totally wrong for this House to throw out a Bill like that, which had been agreed by the Commons. That is why I could never, ever agree to that myself.
Lord McNally
It slightly chills the soul to think that my sole supporters are the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, but I will take any help I can on this. However, the noble Earl makes a valid point. This is something else that this House has to think about, and it is why we want to take it gently through this. If the other place, on the basis of a substantial majority, brings a Bill to this House, this House will have to think very hard about what it does next. I think that has been understood over a long period.
I will give your Lordships two quotes to finish, and shall then sit down. The historian Janet Morgan, writing over a quarter of a century ago, wrote:
“On summer evenings and winter afternoons, when they have nothing else to do, people discuss how to reform the House of Lords. Schemes are taken out of cupboards and drawers and dusted off. Speeches are composed, pamphlets written, letters sent to the newspapers. From time to time the whole country becomes excited. Occasionally legislation is introduced; it generally fails”.
That is a very pessimistic view, so I finish with this. As something of an historian manqué, I subscribe to History Today. The latest edition has an article on the 1832 Act. We might find its opening useful as we go to the next stage of Lords reform. It says:
“There is a curious but almost entirely consistent feature of the history of constitutional change in Britain, a feature which could be said to typify the twin national characteristics of boldness and caution. It is that significant political alterations … are generally resisted for decades, but once adopted are almost immediately absorbed into the general pattern of stable political continuity”.
I believe that would happen if we faced up to the fact and reformed this House.
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Lord McNally Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord McNally
Clearly the noble Lord is not going to be sensible about it. Let him go on.
Lord Tomlinson
Is the noble Lord aware that there was unanimity in the Wakeham committee right up to the point of our last meeting? At that meeting, the idea of a flat-rate allowance was introduced. As a result of that discussion, I entered a footnote of reservation to the Wakeham committee report, because I do not think that considering that flat-rate allowance fitted with the mandate of the House, which was to work within the structure and architecture of the SSRB report. There was no such reference in the SSRB report, hence my note of reservation. The particular reasons for there being dissent also in the detail will come out in the debate, but let it not be said that the idea fitted in with the architecture and the principles of the SSRB report. That is why there is a note of reservation.