Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the report of the Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. I will also examine the alternative report, produced by 12 out of the 26 members of the committee, which I particularly welcome. I noted the very important comment from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, earlier, that he and his committee were not starting with a clean sheet of paper. The draft Bill had to be the starting point. He also carefully emphasised that certain paragraphs were only passed by a majority, which in some cases was very small. Even the proposal for an elected House was passed by only 13 votes to nine.

I am not in favour of an elected House, unlike the majority on the committee. An elected House would undoubtedly want more powers than the current House. I agree with paragraph 4 of the report’s conclusion that this would not benefit Parliament’s overall role. There would be more scope for gridlock in legislation. An elected House would want more powers, for instance with regard to financial matters, and this should be borne in mind by the other place. Financial privilege, too, would be a much more contentious matter. I support the alternative report’s very sensible conclusion that if there is an elected House, as per the Cunningham report, the conventions between the two Houses would have to be examined again.

I move on to the subject of the primacy of the House of Commons. The inclusion of conventions in Clause 2 of the draft Bill could mean the courts deciding what these were. The committee, as many noble Lords said, also stated that Clause 2 of the draft Bill alone was not capable of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons. I agree with the committee’s view.

The size of the House was the next topic brought up by the committee. Its proposal of 450 Members was more sensible than the draft Bill’s number of 300, but I would rather see it achieved by the elapsing of time than by this radical reform. The idea that appointed Members should not have to attend as often as elected Members seems wrong.

The electoral system recommended is a form of proportional representation. It allows voters to cast a simple party vote or express preferences among individual candidates across parties as well as within them. The report prefers the version of STV used in New South Wales to the one in the Bill. As I understand it, that means compulsory voting. STV is also complicated. In addition, as the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, explained so well, the 500,000 size per constituency is ridiculous. Non-renewable terms of 15 years are proposed by the report, but how will MPs feel when they face an elected parliamentarian with a 15-year term rather than their own five-year one? Not very happy, I imagine.

I move on to the paragraphs on the Appointments Commission. I cannot understand why the commission has been so long in coming, given that we first encountered it in the House of Lords Bill 1999. However, I have two criticisms of the report. First, in paragraph 248 there is not enough detail of the areas of expertise needed: in particular, of areas such as manufacturing, finance and other professions. Secondly, it appears bizarre that paragraph 257 of the report states that appointed Peers should serve for an initial period of only five years, although with the ability to be reappointed up to the maximum limit of the elected term. Why should we not have the confidence to give them a full 15 years?

On the role of the bishops, I agree with paragraph 62 of the conclusion to the report that there should be no reserved places for bishops in an elected House. I also agree that their numbers should be cut to 12. I concur with paragraph 65, which states that the Appointments Commission should consider faith as part of the diversity criteria that it has recommended. The disqualification criteria in the report give different rules for appointed and elected Peers. It seems strange to treat Members of the same House in different ways.

I move on to the Parliament Act section in paragraphs 83 and 84 of the conclusion. It is very interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, believe that a court might rule that the Parliament Acts did not apply once the House of Lords was reformed. This would be a serious change to the balance of power between the two Houses. I agree with paragraph 368 of the main report, which states:

“In spite of the Government’s confidence, distinguished lawyers have some doubts as to whether the Parliament Acts would continue to be effective once the second chamber was elected or largely elected”.

The last main issue of the report that I will cover is paragraph 385, in which the majority of the committee agreed that the Government should submit the decision to a referendum. I was very supportive of this happening in the case of the House of Lords Act 1999—although the amendment did not succeed—and I support it now.

The alternative report has an extremely sensible conclusion not covered in the main report. It is that the Government should establish a new constitutional convention to consider the next steps on further reform of the House of Lords and any consequential impact on the House of Commons and on Parliament as a whole. While the draft Bill is faulty, the Steel Bill, as amended, could be brought to the statute book.

Overall, I am not in favour of an elected House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has produced some very interesting figures on the extra costs of a reformed House, and we have to rely on them because the coalition has refused to produce its own figures, which is a disgrace. On page 61 of the alternative report we can see an estimate of the total extra cost in year 1 of £177 million, and from 2015-2020 of no less than £433 million. Can the Minister break new ground and give the coalition’s estimate? Is this a wise use of taxpayer’s money at this very difficult time? Indeed, is this a wise piece of legislation when there are so many more important issues affecting people’s lives in these difficult economic times?