House of Lords: Reform

Lord St John of Fawsley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord St John of Fawsley]

Forgive my intervening in this interesting dialogue. I admire your Lordships’ stamina in having sat here for hour after hour listening to speeches, some of which, however fascinating, have had a certain repetitive and soporific effect. I have been using a lot of my energy to keep my eyes open. Anyhow, we are all in the same boat.

The beginning of wisdom is to leave well alone. What on earth is this House doing spending two precious days debating an issue that has no interest outside the Westminster village and for which there is no demand in this country at a time when we are facing a domestic crisis of major proportions? We have problems with the health service—the mind boggles at how we are going to get through that—and a world economic crisis. What kind of a world are we living in when we give priority to this subject which, however interesting to the few, is of no major importance?

Over the past months we have tinkered about with our constitution. We may not have a written constitution but we have a constitution and we are treating it in a very cavalier way. What on earth is the Lord Chancellor doing sitting in the House of Commons when he should be sitting in this House? This is the place for the Lord Chancellor, not there. I know that Mr Jack Straw likes dressing up and he does it very well. I confess to a weakness myself in that regard. I remember once saying in Cabinet to the Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, “Could I leave the Cabinet early, Prime Minister, because I am going to a function?”. “But Chancellor”, she said—I was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster then—we are both going to the same function”. I replied, “But Prime Minister, it takes me much longer to change than it does you”. That became a Whitehall gem.

The hallmark of our constitution is its flexibility, which is in stark contrast to the rigid rules and parallels of the United States constitution. It would be a terrible thing to lose that flexibility. One of the things that we have done is introduce fixed Parliaments. I do not know why we did it. I certainly did not agree with it, although I was seduced by the charms of our Chief Whip into voting for it. I am not in favour of fixed Parliaments at all. I can only think that the Chief Whip persuaded me to vote for it through the exercise of feminine wiles. Who wants a fixed Parliament? A proper fixed Parliament has all sorts of conditions attached to it.

The other horror with which we have been landed is that we will in future, apparently, be elected by a list system, or those who stand for election will be. How did that get in by a side wind? That is a major constitutional disaster as it severs the link between the elected persons and the persons who elect them. If that is started here, it will not be very long before it is adopted down the Corridor. This will be a major disaster and will be looked back on as part of the midsummer madness that seems to get infallibly worse every year, particularly when we get tired, exhausted, slightly grumpy and worn out by the long hours that we spend here.

This Bill threatens not one House but two Houses. It is an extraordinary thing to have two elected Houses when we have so far escaped that peril. We have developed our constitution by experience, instinct and history, not by peddling rules to different people and trying to persuade them of their merits. Disraeli, in one of his two great orations—the Crystal Palace speech—never mentioned the word “constitution”. He said that the duty of the Conservative Party was to maintain our institutions, uphold the empire of England and,

“elevate the condition of the people”,

but it was institutions with which he was concerned, not constitutions.

I listened with very great interest to the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, who said that the first thing that should be done is to take the issue of principle raised by the Parliament Acts, particularly the Parliament Act 1949, before the Select Committee and ask, “What is the truth about this? Can this Act be used to subvert one House of the constitution?”. I firmly believe that it cannot. The shade of Dicey is hovering over us in considering these matters. I do not believe that it can be done and I do not believe that it should be done. Of all the points that have been raised in this marathon, that point, which was raised by the noble and learned Lord, is the single most important point that has come to our notice. We must not allow that to go by default. The Select Committee’s first task should be to clarify the position in that regard.

Parliament is not a coelacanth; it has changed very radically over the years. The argument that because 100 years have gone by since the Parliament Act 1911 was passed and therefore something must now be done has no validity whatever. If nothing has been done for 100 years, that is because it did not need to be done. That is just as good an argument. In fact, some very important things have been done. I single out two of them. One was the creation of life Peers by Harold Macmillan, who pinched the idea from our dear old friend Walter Bagehot, who put it forward in The English Constitution many years earlier. Secondly, we have introduced in the House of Commons—I hope that it will follow in this House—a comprehensive system of Select Committees. That has been one of the real advances in exercising control over the Executive by Parliament as a whole. I would like to see that imitated here, but the essence of it is its comprehensive nature. I remember arguing with the Prime Minister over this, who said to me, “Oh, Norman, wouldn’t one do or two or three?”. No, everyone must be included. It is a comprehensive system, otherwise it has no value.

It will be of great relief to noble Lords at this late hour, when they have shown the nobility of their nature by their stamina, that I am going to go no further.

[A noble Lord]

Hear, hear!

[Lord St John of Fawsley]

There is no need to be quite so enthusiastic. In view of my humility and generosity, perhaps a faint murmur of assent would have been more appropriate.

I must say to the Leader of the House—having myself been the Leader of the House in another place—that the role of the Leader is not the role of the Chief Whip. The Chief Whip’s role is to get the Government’s policy through. The Leader of the House—and I say this with the greatest respect and admiration for him—has a perfect right to his own views on a fully elected, 70 per cent elected or 80 per cent elected House, but that is not his function. His function, if he can do it, is to present to the Cabinet the view of this House of Lords on the issue. That will be quite difficult, in view of the speeches that we have heard. However, that is the duty laid upon him.

Like all our debates, this debate has been extremely informative. I have learnt a great deal from it, as one always does when one comes here. One may be exhausted, but one can take things in. This has been a very enlightened debate because it shows that there is no consensus on this Bill and this White Paper. That consensus does not exist in any part of this House. It does not seem to exist in any part of the other place. It certainly does not exist in the country, so where on earth is it coming from? It is like the ghost train. Where does it come from and where does it go? I suspect that it will end up in a Liberal scrapyard.