House of Lords Reform

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Strathclyde]

That this House takes note of the case for reform of the House of Lords.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I for one am delighted to have been able to find this very early opportunity in the lifetime of this Parliament to discuss your Lordships’ House. I can say to noble Lords who have an interest—and many do—that this is the first of such opportunities that we will have to discuss the future of this House.

[Lord Corbett of Castle Vale]

It is a mockery!

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[Lord Strathclyde]

The noble Lord who asked a question a moment ago is now leaving the Chamber.

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Lord Strathclyde]

So I shall not bother telling him the good news about how often we hope to hear him speak in these quality debates over the next year.

Before the election, we knew that if Labour had won we would now be faced with a Bill based on Jack Straw’s committee paper, seeking to legislate on an elected senate in Labour’s historic fourth term—but that was not to be. Equally, we believed that, with a Conservative victory, reform would not be such an urgent priority and we could continue to seek a consensus for a long-term reform. Under the coalition Government, the three main parties all share similar objectives and the issue has now been given greater priority. Today’s debate is an opportunity for the Government to lay out the structure of their plan and an opportunity to listen to the views from your Lordships’ House.

There were more speakers who had put their names down on the speakers list but decided not to go ahead. Some have written to me with their views, but, as I said a moment ago, this, I think, will be the first of such opportunities to discuss the future of this House.

We seem to have been living with propositions for reform of your Lordships’ House for years, indeed decades. It is neither the most important question facing the country nor the least important; this is one House in a sovereign Parliament. It is a House that has often been proved right in recent years, but its voice needs to be better heard. Your Lordships’ House does an outstanding job, but it has not been able to avoid this country having a near disastrous experience from a surfeit of spending, legislation and regulation. We have done what we can well, but it has not always been enough to achieve all that we wanted, whether that was in the fields of ancient liberties, choice or plain old common sense. If the first job of your Lordships is to call the Executive to account and to challenge the other place to do its job, we have not lately excelled. It is at least legitimate to ask if one of the constraints on our ability to act lies in how we are constituted.

There have been years of debate since the 1999 Act changed this House for ever by ending the right to sit by virtue of hereditary peerage alone. We have seen umpteen schemes and watched them drift down umpteen backwaters, often with many here cheering loudly as they ran aground in the mud. We have seen umpteen propositions for change within the House, with my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood perhaps the most persistent in his bid to create the wholly appointed House that both Houses rejected in 1999. Many have hoped that it would all go away, but it has not. Indeed, all three major national parties promised a largely elected House in their manifestos only a few weeks ago, while the SNP pledged our abolition outright. A reformed House could play a great part in pulling together the voices of the devolved nations. No wonder those who would divide our kingdom see no place for any upper House, representative or not. That is a view that I totally reject. I have no doubt that this country needs a second Chamber with authority in all parts of the kingdom—one with confidence, powers and the willingness to use them in the public interest, even as the House that we now have acted to protect jury trial, defend habeas corpus and rejected the tyranny of electronic surveillance by compulsory ID cards. Can we create a Chamber better able to do all those things? That is the question before us. I believe that we can. Others believe that nothing under the sun could be better than this. As Leader of the House, I want to ensure that the voice of this House is heard from the outset in this debate, as sadly it was not always—indeed, some argue ever—heard in the past decade.

The coalition Government’s declared intention is to bring forward a draft Bill on reform of the House, which will provide a proper focus for debate and decision. It is something that I and many other noble Lords called for many times over recent years. My noble friend Lord McNally and I will set out the government agenda, but we are also, just as importantly, here to listen to your Lordships’ views. I can promise you this will not be the last opportunity. I know that many of your Lordships will have greeted this element of the coalition’s programme for government with a degree of apprehension, although the work of the cross-party group led by the former Lord Chancellor, Mr Straw, set it at the heart of the programme of the party opposite, too.

I hope that we will be able to reassure the House today that your Lordships, indeed both Houses, will have a full opportunity to take part before ever any legislation is introduced. In our programme for government, we said we would establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper Chamber on the basis of proportional representation. We have done that. My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister is chairing that committee, which is composed of members from all three major political parties as well as from both Houses. My noble friend Lord McNally, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I all serve on it. The committee is charged with producing a draft Bill by the end of the year.

[Lord Barnett]

Whatever is in manifestos, the plain fact is that at the moment the Front Benches of this House are on this committee and, as the noble Lord and all sides of this House know very well, in advance of a debate the Back Benches do not agree with the Front Benches. Why is there not a single Back-Bencher on that committee?

[Lord Strathclyde]

Because, my Lords, this committee is charged to create a Bill in draft. There will be a full role for Back-Benchers in both Houses, on all sides and with different views, when we set up a Joint Committee of both Houses which will then give it the scrutiny it deserves before it is introduced to each House.

[Lord Grocott]

Could the Leader of the House, in the spirit of the coalition document, referring as it does to the importance of transparency, ensure that the agenda and minutes of this committee which is meeting at present are made available to the House and to the public?

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[Lord Strathclyde]

I am very happy for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to discuss that with the Leader of the Opposition, who sits on the committee, but the Government will not be publishing either the agenda or any minutes because our objective is to come forward with a Bill in draft. That will be the result of the committee and we hope to do that before the end of the year. This will be the first time that legislation setting out how an elected second Chamber might be constituted will ever have been published by any Government.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Before we leave the matter of the composition of the committee, perhaps the noble Lord could explain why representatives of three of the main groups in this House are on that committee while the fourth group—the Cross-Benchers—is not represented? In order to save him from doing something which will irritate those around me quite a lot, will he please not say that it is because we have already made up our minds as to the shape of a future House?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have no desire to irritate the noble Lord or, indeed, his noble friends, but the point is that the three main political parties each had a manifesto at the last general election which was broadly in agreement. The Deputy Prime Minister took the view that it was important to bring those political parties together in drafting the Bill. When we get to the creation of the Joint Committee of both Houses, the noble Lord and others of his views—not just on the Cross Benches, but elsewhere—will quite rightly be fully consulted and represented on that committee.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

Does the noble Lord agree that the path that he has now undertaken means that the House will be presented with the choice of the three political parties? It is a bit like Henry Ford: “You can have any choice you like, so long as it’s mine”.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in a way that is how it works in Parliament. Governments propose legislation and then Parliament disposes of it in whichever way it wants—and that will happen. I am sure that what the Government publish and what comes out of this committee at the end of the year is not where we will be at the end of the day. This is the start of the process. It will be up to the two Houses to set up the Joint Committee; it is not the job of government. My noble friend Lord McNally, the Deputy Leader, and I will make the case for the inclusion of all strands in this matter.

[The Earl of Onslow]

I am normally an enormous fan of my noble friend on the Front Bench, but surely his argument about not including Back-Benchers is slightly destroyed when it becomes a cartel of the three Front Benches. If it was solely my noble friends on the Liberal Front Bench and my noble friends on the Tory Front Bench, his argument would be absolutely solid. However, as it has included the Labour Front Bench, which as far as I have gathered is not part of the coalition—even though 1931 might come again—surely to exclude Back-Benchers is not a sensible idea.

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[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the point I was trying to make is that Back-Benchers will play their full part in the process when we get to the creation of the Joint Committee of both Houses. The committee that the Deputy Prime Minister chairs, with all his might and authority, is designed to create the Bill that your Lordships and others can then comment on. I suggest that we are not going to agree on this issue this afternoon, but I hope that we can move on.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

Is my noble friend the Leader of the House aware that there is another point of view? On 5 July, the question of due process concerning the setting up of this committee and its functions is due for consideration. There are two views. One is that of my noble friend the Leader of the House and the other is certainly my own.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am well aware that there is more than one view on this issue. Today we will hear from 68 speakers and we may well end up with more views than there are speakers. The point of the Deputy Prime Minister’s committee is to produce a Bill. Then a Joint Committee will examine it and that will have representatives from the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Bench. I look forward to them playing their full part in it. We would not wish to exclude anybody from this process. That is likely to mean that it will be a substantial committee. It will have a substantial job to do, but that will be next year’s job, not this year’s.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord has been very good in giving way. Perhaps he could help me a little. I understand that this committee will produce a Bill. Will it produce a Bill in a legal form, properly drafted by parliamentary draftsmen? Will parliamentary draftsmen be attached to a committee of the three Front Benches to draft a Bill? Is that really the position, so that when the committee reports we get a Bill in draft—which can be introduced in the House—and carry on from there?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, yes. I would hope that the noble Lord would not be so incredulous. One thing that has been missing from this great debate is precisely that—a Bill in properly drafted form. It will not be introduced to Parliament as part of a legislative process, but as part of a pre-legislative process for proper discussion. I am not going to give way too often.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I hope I can save the noble Lord the Leader of the House a little time. Will the draft Bill that is being produced by the committee deal with transition? I think it might shorten the number of speeches today if the noble Lord could be more forthcoming on that.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, yes, it will deal with transition, which is one of the most important issues. I do not suggest for one moment that the noble Baroness will agree with whatever we propose, although she might. I cannot tell her what it will be because we do not know either at this stage. It is still very early days. However, the Bill will cover that subject, as it must. Once the Joint Committee has completed its work, at the end of the process, it will be for the Government to decide whether to bring forward legislation. I hope that by the time we reach that point, this House will have had the opportunity for input—first into the work of the committee, and then that of the Joint Committee—before we get to a final decision.

[Lord Rooker]

I seek clarification on this point. Like other Members, I have read all three manifestos, which all talked about the House being mainly or wholly elected. Not one of them raised the issue of what this place is for. At what point will the House get the chance to debate what a Second Chamber is for, what it is to do and what its powers are? Surely, all we are talking about at the moment is its composition, which seems to be the wrong way round.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was a senior Minister in the former Government. They must have debated these issues many times in the build-up to the 2008 White Paper. Of course we have to decide what this House is for and what it will do. The view at the moment is that the House should continue to have the powers that it holds and do the work that it does. We are looking at its composition and how people get here, rather than what they do once they get here. I have hardly started in my speech. I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and then I will get on.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am most grateful but, in the light of all the peculiar circumstances, it is important to know that, when the Bill is brought to the House, it will not be whipped so that there can be a genuinely free debate.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have consistently taken the view over a long period—I am not saying that I will retain that consistency—that whipping a Bill on reform of the House of Lords is a particularly fatuous exercise as I suspect that Peers will make up their own minds, almost whatever the Whips tell them. However, we are a long way from having legislation on which we need to take a view on whether it will need to be whipped.

The coalition agreement, which noble Lords will have seen, envisaged a wholly or mainly elected House with elections on the basis of proportional representation. As the noble Baroness pointed out a moment ago, it also anticipated the transitional arrangement that a “grandfathering” system would be put in place for current Members of the House. I know that noble Lords will be anxious to know what both these things mean. They mean that we as a Government have yet to take a view—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

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[Lord Strathclyde]

We have yet to take a view on whether a reformed House should be fully or partly elected. Those words mean that we recognise the case for an orderly process of transition if the composition of the House is to change, just as in 1999 both Houses saw the wisdom of retaining a transitional element from the old House.

As I said at the outset, this House can be proud of so much that it does, but it lacks democratic authority. As a result, I believe that it does not carry the weight that the quality of its work merits. While we remain an overwhelmingly directly appointed House—something like 85 per cent appointed as against 50 per cent before 1999—our membership continues to grow. It is now fast approaching 800, with daily average attendance rising over 400. More new Members are due to be introduced over the coming weeks and months. I believe that it is time to examine what avenues could be created to make it possible for Members to leave the House permanently. To this end, I can announce that I will be setting up a Leaders’ Group, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, to investigate the options available. The group will include representation from all sides of the House and will be tasked with identifying the options that could be considered to allow Members to leave or to retire from the House.

Over the past 18 months, public confidence in politics, but more especially in Parliament, has been dramatically eroded. While many may reject the case for change, both Houses must surely consider it. Some in this House did not want change in Parliament in 1832, 1911, or, indeed, that much in 1999. Incredible though it may seem, the party opposite even voted against the creation of the life peerage in 1958. However, we came to accept all these great changes, just as in 1958 the then hereditary House accepted the case for change.

We cannot know precisely how this debate will unfold, but we know that it cannot be avoided. A great debate is beginning, or perhaps for some of us it is restarting. This House of all places cannot sit this one out. There is not a single Peer, whatever his or her views, who does not love this place, understand the need for a stronger Parliament and want the best for our House. This House, and its Members, must be at the heart of the debate ahead. I want to ensure this House a place in that process. That is the reason today’s debate was arranged. I look forward to all the contributions that will follow today and in the months ahead. I beg to move.