House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Stephen Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stephen (LD)]

My Lords, when I first came to this Chamber I expected quite quickly, as I hoped, to vote for and deliver radical reform of the House of Lords, and now I wonder. I thought that in voting for that radical reform I would have the support of the Labour Party, and now I wonder.

The Labour Party has a pretty reasonable track record in some areas of constitutional reform but a less dynamic record in others. In 1999, there was a good year with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the introduction of PR for the European elections, but in 2007 I fought an election campaign in Scotland where Labour said, “This far but no further”. If a different, more flexible approach had been taken in that election, I wonder whether we would have ended up where we are just now in terms of the future of the United Kingdom. These issues are really important, as is the view of the Labour Party. With a bit of encouragement, Labour did deliver PR for local government in Scotland, which was a very good thing.

This report, however, is not at the leading edge of Labour’s radical thinking. Its tenor is also as though little or no thinking about reforming your Lordships’ House had taken place in the past 15 years or so and as though the suggested convention would be able to reveal new answers which the nine cross-party committees and commissions that have examined this issue since 1999 have been unable to proffer. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, quoted from the 2010 Labour Party manifesto. I will not repeat that, but one can go back as far as 1992, when the party committed to a package of reforms,

“leading to the replacement of the House of Lords with a new elected Second Chamber”.

In 1997, it promised to,

“make the House of Lords more democratic and representative”.

In 2001, it said:

“We are committed to completing House of Lords reform, including removal of the remaining hereditary peers, to make it more representative and democratic”.

In 2005, it said:

“In our next term we will complete the reform of the House of Lords so that it is a modern and effective revising Chamber”.

Labour won that election, so there was a next term.

Surely the Labour Party’s policy forum, when it comes to consider this issue, will not be fooled by this prospectus of yet more navel-gazing around a committee table. Surely this is not the Labour way; either Labour is committed to democracy or it is not. If it reneges on that commitment now, it will be abandoning a very long history of manifesto pledges with a long tradition within the party, as if the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, along with Smith, Blair and Brown, have all been ditched for some pretty soft and flexible wording about a convention.

If this House is to be reformed so that it is electors and not party leaders who put people here, then there is little alternative better than the 2012 Bill. It was developed over a decade, with its key principle of retaining always a more powerful mandate in the Commons than in this House, while ensuring that this place had real democratic legitimacy. The architecture of the Bill was based almost brick for brick on that suggested by Jack Straw in his White Paper in 2008. That presumably is one reason why an overwhelming majority of Labour MPs—more than 200 of them—voted in support of the Government’s Bill in 2012. Despite their reservations, it also attracted a more than two to one majority of the elected Members of Parliament from the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. All Liberal Democrat MPs supported it. What is so astonishing is that with that huge mandate, Peers at this end were threatening to torpedo the Bill with blocking tactics, while expressing their deep concern for the vital primacy of the House of Commons.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

If that is the case, why did Clegg agree for the Bill to be withdrawn? Why did he not insist within the coalition on that Bill being brought forward to this House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stephen]

The noble Lord is well aware of the circumstances, which directly involved the attitude of the Conservative Party to these matters.

The House of Commons has clearly spoken on these issues and has consistently voted for democracy, in 2003, 2007 and 2012. Noble Lords who shake their heads should reflect seriously on the position of the other place and the fact that it has consistently backed democratic reform of this Chamber. Surely 2015 should not be the time to think about this for even longer through another commission.

I want to challenge one of the central assumptions of the report, that embarking on this wide consultation and engagement will lead to a consensus. On this issue, a wide consultation does not inexorably lead to a consensus; this is a matter on which some people’s views are intransigent. The preface to the report says that the majority of the authors think that a majority of their group believes that,

“election would lead inexorably to the Lords challenging the primacy of the Commons”.

That has not historically been the Labour Party view on this issue, as has been described, but wide consultation and engagement will not stop anyone who insists on that point. It also ignores the fact that elected Chambers work alongside each other in many other Parliaments, and that the 2012 Bill had specific mechanisms built into it—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord will give way on that point. He is really rather glossing over some of the difficulties of the 2012 Bill relating to the respective powers of the two Chambers. Surely in those Parliaments where there are two elected Chambers—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, with the greatest respect, it is not in the noble Baroness’s gift to either let me intervene or not. The noble Lord is clearly well able to debate and wants to do so. The only point that I want to put to him is this: in those places where there are two elected Chambers, there tends to be a written constitution. Is that not really at heart the problem—that no one has yet resolved the balance of power between the two elected Chambers in the UK?

[Lord Stephen]

We can always make it too difficult, tough and complex to deliver change. I would be delighted to see a written constitution as well. As I have just pointed out, though, those commitments running back over not just one decade but two from the Labour Party were to radical reform and democratic change, but during its time in office that has never been delivered. It is our system that, I emphasise again, is the exception, not the rule, and the rule should be a democratic one.

If noble Lords will give me just a little leeway, I will finish very quickly. The fact is that some people do not wish to be persuaded of the case for real reform. While that is the case, there will be no real reform and no consensus unless the political parties take a different approach. What can be achieved will be achieved if those manifesto commitments for change are delivered by one majority party or, as I would prefer on an issue of this importance, by cross-party majorities, which I believe exist in both Houses of this Parliament and can deliver democratic reform. After the next general election, that is what can and should be delivered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Goodness! That took me by surprise in more ways than one, but I am pleased to be speaking earlier than I expected.

I join in the effusive and widespread congratulations to my noble friend Lady Taylor and to Julian Grenfell—or the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, as we used to call him—who moderated our work so well. They had a diverse group of people to deal with. An awful lot of work was put into this, by the way. We met every Wednesday morning for more than six months—it seemed like six years. It was a long time with a lot of work and a lot of thinking, and we have a pretty comprehensive and relatively concise report in the end that focuses on the main issues.

To be honest, I am not going to talk about what I planned to talk about because I was so incensed by what my noble friend Lord Richard, who has gone, and the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, said. I will deal with the short term later, but looking at longer-term reform, they made two completely false assumptions from which they started their argumentation. First, it is a false dichotomy. We are not talking just about the possibility of a non-elected House or a directly elected House. There are forms of indirect election that can be really effective and produce a second Chamber as we see in other countries with a different role and a different purpose drawn in a different way.

Some of us recently went to Paris and met with senators and found that they are elected in a different way, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, by grands électeurs. In every departement, the mayors and elected members get together and choose their regional representatives to go to the Senate. Then we discussed with the senators how they resolved problems between the Senate and the National Assembly. They have a way, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said—it is defined and it is clearly the case.

[Lord Stephen]

Our general point, which I hope was not a false point in any sense, was that the Labour Party has had rather a long time to consider all this, has made many manifesto pledges in relation to this issue and still seems to be talking in pretty generic, general terms about visits to France.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The noble Lord is preoccupied with the past. I am talking about the future. That is all we should be talking about. I am not talking in general terms: I am talking in specific terms about what happens in France. We could also look at Germany where the Bundesrat, the second Chamber, represents the Länder. It has a different role and is elected in a different way. There are different models. We could look at Ireland and different models around the world. We can learn from other countries. We should be learning. We do not have a monopoly of knowledge here in the United Kingdom, so we should be doing that.

I would explain to my noble friend Lord Richard if he were here why I am enthusiastic about a constitutional commission. The issue will not be kicked into the long grass. We are saying that the commission should have a period of two years in which to report. I am enthusiastic for two reasons. The first is because we have piecemeal devolution and centralisation—I think that the Liberal Democrats agree with me on that. That needs to be structured, reformed and looked at. But also, looking at how devolution and decentralisation fit in with this Westminster Parliament will help to bind the United Kingdom, which is in danger of fracturing at the moment. The second Chamber can perform a valuable role, not just as a revising Chamber, but by bringing together the various parts of the nation of the United Kingdom and the regions of England. It is worthwhile doing that kind of exercise.

I welcome the contribution of my noble friend Lady Bakewell because it was not one of those reread, pre-prepared contributions. It was commenting on the debate. I hope that during the rest of the debate—and I hope it is a genuine debate in spite of the Front Bench opposite trying to stifle proper debate—we do not just go back into the old tram lines of whether the second Chamber should be directly elected or appointed. There are different ways of looking at it.