Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness in debate, especially on constitutional matters, where she has such expertise and knowledge. I want to begin with a personal apology to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. Due to transport problems from Scotland today, I am afraid that I caught only the tail end of his speech, which I very much regret, because I say genuinely that the report that he and his colleagues have produced is a most valuable document for the House, as indeed was the alternative report.

In my seven minutes, I want to say just three things. The first is about what was my own Private Member’s Bill. I say “was”, because once it had been passed by this House, I regarded it as a House of Lords measure, which unfortunately lay unattended in the other place for some seven weeks. However, having registered my fury and the disappointment of the House, I am happy to report that sweetness and light have broken out and that it has been agreed that if a Bill identical to the one that left this House is reintroduced early in the new Session, it will be proposed to be put through the House by expedited procedure so that we do not have to go through all the stages again. When it is sent to the other place, it will be given a fair wind by the Government. I am very pleased to report that. It is important to disentangle that from the wider issues from the wider issues of reform, because it is a measure that we all want now, this year, and not between 2015 and 2025. I look forward to progress on that issue.

My second point is on the Leader of the House’s suggestion that the manifestos of the three parties were remarkably similar at the last election. Well, up to a point, yes; they were also remarkably dissimilar. Of the three, I have to say that I prefer the Liberal Democrat one, because it was unambiguous in saying that we should have a fully elected Chamber. The words “fully elected” are very important because I keep pointing out, especially to my colleagues, that Mr Asquith and the preamble to the 1911 Act never used the words “universal suffrage” or “elected”; they talked about replacing the hereditary House by one based on a popular mandate. I believe that that could be achieved through the alternative report’s suggestion of a constitutional convention and the fact that the committee’s report and the alternative report both gave a nod in the direction of an indirectly elected Chamber merits further consideration.

I have read with interest the pamphlet of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, by Oliver Heald. It does not feature among my regular reading, I must admit, but I thought that it was a very good report. I understand that similar evidence was given to the committee by Mr Billy Bragg, who I think would claim to be on the left of the Labour Party.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am interested in the noble Lord’s support for what has come to be known as the secondary mandate. Should he not go back to Viscount Bryce’s conference of 1917, which essentially proposed that?

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

I am all for digging up older conventions in order for them to be considered by the new one.

I was going on to say that I have looked further at the work of the Cambridge Liberal Democrat, Dr Alex Reid, whom the noble Lord, Lord Low, mentioned, who also came to this conclusion. There is a measure of support across parties for looking again at the possibility of indirect elections. Dr Meg Russell, in her evidence to the noble Lord’s committee, pointed out that 34 countries used this as their method of obtaining a second Chamber. What I did not know until recently was that there is a precedent for that in the United Kingdom. Precedent is terribly important in this House, I know that, and the precedent existed in Stormont. In the old Stormont, the Senate was elected by the lower House, so there is a precedent for doing that here.

There are certain advantages of the indirect election system as against universal suffrage. First, there is a good chance that if the electorate were existing MPs, MEPs and Members of the devolved Parliaments—a confined electorate—we would retain some of the expertise that appointments brings which we are afraid of losing. It would prevent conflict between the two Houses because the upper House would not be elected by universal suffrage. There would be no territorial conflict between senators and MPs because there would be no territorial definitions. The costs would be much less, both of the election and of running the House. Most important of all, the fundamental difference is that it would be possible, if such an election were held every five years after a general election, for the House to be adjusted proportionately without increasing the numbers, which is the way it is already constantly adjusted.

The last thing I want to say is that I disagree with the main report in its recommendation that there should be a referendum. Here I rather agree with what the Leader of the House was saying. To coin a phrase that has not been heard much recently, I agree with Nick. The question of a referendum is dangerous. We have to remind ourselves that the coalition came together for the specific purpose of putting right the nation's finances—full stop. We have not yet succeeded in doing that. We may not have succeeded in doing that by 2014-15 if the present economic situation continues. If we go to the electorate and say, “Okay we have not quite succeeded in putting the country right as we had hoped to do but would you mind voting for a more expensive new upper Chamber?”, they will say to us, “But you've already asked us about a slightly obscure form of proportional representation. You've already messed about with constituency boundaries and tinkered with the National Health Service. You’ve spent months in both Houses reforming the House of Lords and what we want is to get the nation's finances back on a proper footing”. They might say no. They are very likely to say no.

I end with the recollection that I was involved in the referendum in 1979 in Scotland. The late John Smith was a very good personal friend of mine from student debating days, despite our political differences. I remember that the one time we fell out was during that referendum because I said, “You’re daft to have pictures of Jim Callaghan, after the winter of discontent, on posters with the word ‘yes’ underneath. The public are minded to say no to the Government whatever the question”. I that fear the same will happen again and we could end up with nothing at all.