House of Lords Reform

Lord Neill of Bladen Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Neill of Bladen]

My Lords, it is past 10 pm and I am the 60th person to speak. I will try to be brief and depart from what I was going to say. If anyone is interested in what I think on the general subject, they will find it in previous copies of Hansard and I will be happy to supply references.

I was very struck by the debate that took place in the first half-hour of our proceedings, when people began to ask questions about the nature and size of the committee that was looking at this proposal, and its plan to bring forward a draft Bill in December. I listened to the voices raised by your Lordships, the overall tendency of which—although not unanimous—was to be, I suggest, very much opposed to the thinking of the Deputy Prime Minister and the notion that we would proceed to a House that is elected or partly elected. The realpolitik as we face it is that the chairman of this small committee is, I understand, the Deputy Prime Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, are members. There is no Cross-Bench member. I pause for a moment on that. Why not? The reason I heard some time after 3 pm was that they did not want Cross-Benchers or Back-Benchers on the committee because they want a political consensus. I have attributed this—I hope not unfairly—to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. He can contradict me if I am wrong. In my respectful submission, that is the wrong approach. What is wanted is something that will unite everybody.

The first thing to do is to address the topics that have been raised here. What is the purpose of having a second House? What sort of people do we want to form its membership if we are going to achieve the best result? You want to start with that before you take out the drafting pen or call in a parliamentary draftsman and say, “Can we have a draft?”.

I respectfully suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the conclusion of what we have heard today is that there is no will to look at a draft Bill in December. That document is not wanted. Many Members of this House think that the committee has been wrongly set up with no Cross-Benchers, which means that a quarter of the House is not represented, and no Back-Benchers from the other place.

We should apply common sense to the present position. We are not dealing with the statutory position. As I understand it, the committee is set up by agreement between the leaders. There is nothing to stop them for the time being dropping the proposal that they will come up with a draft Bill in December. It is not impossible for them to alter the nature of the committee to include Cross-Benchers from this House and Back-Benchers from another place. Serious consideration should be given to both these ideas before we have a long period of six or seven months while the committee toils away producing that which is not wanted and making proposals which are not acceptable. It would be much better for it to produce a report or a White Paper—call it what you will—which faces up to the various points on which we know there is dissension and disagreement, produce a report by December which we can assess and reorganise the committee’s membership. Those are my suggestions to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde.