House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Smith of Clifton Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, I was very glad to see on the speakers list that I was following the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I shall embarrass him deliberately by saying that he could be relied on to make a most riveting speech going to the very kernel of the dilemma that we face concerning the future of the House of Lords. Therefore, I am very grateful to him for that. I hope that he will not mind my saying that I have long been a fan of his, and I was confirmed in that yet again when he made some very tough suggestions today. Your Lordships should pay attention to a lot of them.

How proud I was, like everybody else, that in this country we do not have a written constitution. We thought that we were totally unlike all the others with their foolish written constitutions. What a mistake. We have our excellent system of—I was going to say “checks and balances” but I am not sure about that now. Governments—post-war, too—have increasingly ruled without a genuine majority vote from the public, shutting out all alternative legislation, and driving unpopular and badly drafted legislation like a coach and horses through the whole system. Thank goodness that there was a still unelected House of Lords to act as the revising Chamber, doing its best to make sure that some of the very badly drafted Bills coming increasingly from the Administration in the other place were improved—at least, at the margin—with some amendments occasionally being accepted by the Executive.

However, this is still all very amateurish and limited. I am grateful for the many excellent suggestions in the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and her team for further improvements following the Steel Bill, as well as other suggestions about modernising some aspects of the House of Lords. That is all very important.

As well as being proud of there being no written constitution, I was also very keen on the idea of an elected House of Lords. Democracy in action—what a good idea. However, the more I have thought about it, the more I have changed my mind on both those things. This country suffers severely from not having a written constitution. A current complication is the Scottish referendum, but that has to be dealt with.

I am sorry; I have hay fever and therefore my throat is rather bad today. Perhaps one of the doorkeepers will very kindly bring me a glass of water because my voice is getting into a bad state. I apologise; I thought that it would be all right. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Northover for bringing me some water.

[Lord Smith of Clifton (LD)]

A written constitution would deal with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Smith of Clifton]

My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, for introducing this debate, I also record my regret that your Lordships will not have the benefit of hearing from Lord Grenfell, who co-chaired the working group. He is already sadly missed.

The report is acceptable as far as it goes, which is not very far. The authors restricted themselves to a modest agenda. Most of the recommendations it makes seem sensible enough. I hope that the proposals do not have the unfortunate and unintended consequence that, if implemented, they give credence to a belief that the Lords is modernising itself so that more fundamental reform can be postponed. That was not the intention, but that may be the effect. The report is aware of that and calls for a constitutional convention to review our role, along with other major issues such as devolution. I agree strongly with that suggestion, but doubt that it will figure large in the party manifestos for the 2015 general election. We have learnt from recent experience that major changes in the role and composition of the upper House are very difficult to achieve.

Many noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, have said that we need to look closely at reform of the House of Commons. If there is a constitutional commission, it must set about that as a first step, a precursor to wider issues, because if we have proposals to reform and modernise the House of Commons, it will make the Commons more confident to contemplate reforms elsewhere in our system of government. That is very important. As other noble Lords have alluded to, the Commons is not a very self-confident place these days. Not only has it had the expenses scandal to cope with, as my former student the right honourable Peter Hain has just shown, the quality of MPs now coming into the Commons is very poor in respect of being a self-perpetuating group of political people who, from being president of their student union, go to work for a research department, then become a spad, then become an MP and then become a Cabinet Minister. As Peter Hain pointed out, that is at the heart of the alienation between electors and the elected.

Thirdly—again, the right reverend Prelate referred to this—there is the growth of pressure groups, in particular, the growing encroachment of corporations in dictating the public agenda. What President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex has also emphasised the decline in the position and powers of Westminster. If you want political power today, become a director of a multinational corporation and you will have much more influence on public policy, not just in this country but in most countries.

Only when the Commons is reformed and equipped to deal with the needs of the contemporary polity can we have a constructive approach to Lords reform. Thus, while looking at the UK’s constitutional arrangements in the round, a constitutional convention should start by proposing how the Commons could be made far more effective in its primary duty of holding the Executive branch to account. If its tasks and structures were codified and strengthened, that would enhance the work and status of MPs and may help to bridge the gap between the electorate and the elected. All are agreed that growing public alienation and disaffection is an issue that is in desperate need of being addressed.

It is no comfort that popular disdain for the political elites is by no means confined to the UK. The Tea Party effect is felt well beyond the shores of the US. I am sure that at this very moment, a very bright young political sociologist is beavering away writing a definitive treatise entitled “The End of Western Democracy”, in the manner of Daniel Bell’s The End of Ideology and Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History. It behoves all of us to prove that western democracy can be refashioned and made fit for purpose.

I speak, therefore, to support the promotion of a new wave of constitutionalism, to which the Labour Peers’ report alludes. We need to regain the momentum that Charter 88 unleashed three decades ago. Gordon Brown recently observed that we must examine the case for a more devolved, almost federal United Kingdom that, among other things, might in turn release an authentic and substantive form of localism. Bringing government closer to the people seems essential as one means of bridging the gap between the rulers and ruled. Sir John Major this week on the “Today” programme alluded to that likely outcome following the Scottish referendum.

One final point: in any reform of this House, serious consideration should be given to enable it to distill and reflect what I call the UK-ness of the United Kingdom. If more devolution and subsidiarity are to become the operational principles guiding future changes in our governing arrangements, provision needs to be made for the expression of the wider sense of the overall nationhood of the UK.