Parliament: Elected House of Lords

Lord Sewel Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, my earlier speech was on Somali pirates; my second is on reform of your Lordships’ House. There is no connection.

With this question we come to the nub of the issue which was highlighted immediately. It is quite simply: how can you have an elected second Chamber without fundamentally changing the relationship between the two Houses? The primacy of the House of Commons rests on its monopoly of democratic legitimacy. That principle underpins the restrictions on the House of Lords’ powers brought in by the Parliament Act 1911. You have that Act only because you accept that principle.

Give the second Chamber democratic authority and you change everything—not immediately, but inevitably. The elected second Chamber will become more and more assertive. Indeed, if elected by STV, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said, some will argue that the second Chamber has greater legitimacy than a House of Commons elected on first past the post or even AV—God forbid. Create a legislature that has democratic authority, and it will push for more and more power. You do not have to have a crystal ball for this; look at what is happening in Scotland or in Wales. We are promised a Calman Bill, we have already done something for Wales, and there is to be a referendum on more powers for the Welsh Assembly.

The previous Government thought that they could get out of this issue in their draft Bill, which admittedly received limited circulation, by including a clause which stated that the powers and—listen to this—the conventions of the House of Lords would not be changed. That is simply not good enough. It will not work because it lacks any underpinning principle. If you are doing constitutional reform, you actually need an informing and uniting underlying principle, and there is not one in this debate.