House of Lords Reform

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, since I first came to Parliament, I have listened to many debates on the reform of this House but I have never spoken in one. My fondest memory is of the debates on House of Lords reform in the other place in the late 1960s, when a coalition of Michael Foot and Enoch Powell, both eminent parliamentarians, held the Labour Government to ransom. As we did not have a sufficient majority to impose a closure, that Lords reform Bill was obviously dying on its feet. Its unenthusiastic author, Jim Callaghan, departed to the warmer climes of a Commonwealth conference, leaving the management of the Bill in the interminable, long nights to his young Parliamentary Secretaries, Lord Merlyn-Rees and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. In one of his late night interventions, Mr Foot reminded the House of a naval battle in the Mediterranean, when the admiral had been shot on the deck of his ship, leaving his young son standing alone on deck, whence all had fled. Michael said of the two young Parliamentary Secretaries that never had such responsibility rested on such young shoulders,

“since the boy stood on the burning deck”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/4/69; col. 885.]

Soon afterwards, that attempt at reform was abandoned. I forecast a lot of trench warfare on this occasion, too.

There may be greater success if we keep at the forefront of our minds what I regard as some important facts. First, in our time, there have been massive changes in the entitlement to membership of this House. Secondly, it would be counterproductive to have piecemeal, individual reform of the two branches of the legislature. The Commons must be the primary House. Supply must be its concern and its concern alone. That is why I have looked with great disfavour when the head of a major spending department is in this House. Traditionally, my view used to be the attitude of the Labour Party, too. To achieve any worthwhile reform of this House and to ensure the stability of that reform, the powers of both Houses and the relationship of Westminster to the devolved legislatures should be considered first. We have had that reiterated time after time in this debate.

It is said from time to time that there is no intention of giving this House more powers. Powers are the key to the future. It is said that the powers of this House and of the other place would remain the same. That is nonsense. No self-respecting reformed House of Lords would be content with that. Elected Members of this House, with their staff and offices and with the enhanced credibility of having been elected, would demand their place in the sun. Unless a provision is built in to limit in some way their re-election—and there could be human rights problems with such a proposal—they will strive for more powers and the publicity from the exercise of those powers. Within our shores, we have seen in the last few years the demand from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly for more powers. The same would happen with an elected House here.

Michael Foot also said, “Don’t ever think that you can make the House of Lords an India paper edition of the House of Commons without creating eternal conflict”. We are approaching a situation in which we have too many elections—to the Commons, Europe, the devolved legislatures and councils, as well as referenda, with more to come. Over the years, the percentage of those voting has gone down. It would be a brave person who would claim that, with different kinds of voting for different kinds of bodies, the percentage of those voting would go up. What sort of poll could we expect from another tier of elections for this House, unless we piggyback that election on another one?

Dare I say that there is a problem of identifying people who are prepared to stand the rigours of election to office? I surmise, with respect, that many if not most of our present membership would not dream of doing so. Given the resources that MPs now have to carry out their duties, can the totality of their number, which has been increasing over decades, be justified? When the Welsh Assembly was created, my postbag and my surgery workload as an MP were halved overnight. For all these reasons, I suggest a different approach. We now need an impartial study, probably by a royal commission—as we used to have, particularly on matters pertaining to the constitution. The most recent one in my time was the Kilbrandon Commission on devolution. The remit of the royal commission would be to examine the powers and constitution of both Houses; the number of Members; and Westminster's relationship with the devolved assemblies. Before we proceed any further, we should do that.