Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Trimble Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, I was a member of the Joint Committee and I begin by echoing the compliments paid by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, to the chairman and the clerks. I also signed the alternative report, and I think that between that and the full committee report one finds a devastating critique of the Bill. However, I will not try to cram all my views on all aspects of the report into seven minutes; instead, I will pick one issue. It was one of the two issues that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, acknowledged as being the primary concerns of the Commons. We have concentrated quite a bit on the first question, which is that of the primacy of the Commons. The other is the way in which Members of another place are very nervous about having other elected persons tramping over their patch; they want their constituencies to remain inviolate.

I will focus on that issue because, as so often happens, when I read the report after we had finished—after it had been printed and it was too late to do anything about it—a paragraph jumped out and hit me, and I thought, “That doesn’t quite reflect the evidence we got”. I went and read the evidence and felt that my initial reaction was right. I confess that when we nodded through the paragraph I did not notice the points that I will make now; that was my error. I am referring to paragraph 213, which summarises the evidence that we received from the Australian Senators.

We made a considerable effort to take evidence from Australia because we felt that it might give us a good comparison with what might happen here if we had an elected upper House. It is a Commonwealth country, it operates within a common-law system, and it has an elected upper as well as lower House. We wanted to speak to Australian Senators to hear their views on a number of issues. That of constituencies is dealt with in paragraph 213.

The paragraph starts off properly by referring to the view of a member of the Government of Australia, Senator Stephens, who stated that the people of Australia regarded Members of the House of Representatives as their local representatives and identified very clearly with their Member. The Senator went on to say:

“I will ask Senator Rhiannon to respond to your question about constituencies. I will just explain the Government’s method of dealing with that. As a Member of the Government in the Senate, I am allocated a number of seats that are not held by the Government in the lower House in my state. I look after those constituents who do not have a government representative. Those people might come to me about issues and legislation”.

We should bear in mind the point about the way in which constituencies are allocated to Senators for them to nurse. The Senator then referred to Senator Rhiannon of the Green party, who said that the issue of working with constituents was very important and took up a lot of their time.

There was then a reference to the views of Senator Ronaldson, a member of the opposition Liberal Party, although he kept describing himself as a conservative—I feel that there must have been a simple explanation for that. The report says that he thought that elected Members of the Lords might engage in constituency-type work if in an area with other elected representatives from other parties. What he said was:

“I do not think that you can make the assumption that you will not be engaged in constituency-type work”.

That is putting things a little more strongly. This may be a nuance, but it is a significant nuance. He is quoted as saying that, in terms of elections:

“Senators do not campaign as Senators. They campaign for one of the lower House Members of their own party in a marginal seat, or … against a marginal lower House Member from another party”.

On this point, it would be good to look at Senator Ronaldson’s comment. He was asked a question by Eleanor Laing from another place:

“I think that I am right in saying, Senator Ronaldson, that you said that we should not assume that Members of the upper House will not be involved in constituency work. Does that also mean that they campaign in constituencies? Could we explore a little further what happens on the ground … Is it normal for Members of both Houses to be campaigning in a constituency all the time?”.

Senator Ronaldson replied:

“The Senators do not campaign as Senators. They campaign for one of the lower House Members of their own party in a marginal seat, or they vigorously campaign against a marginal lower House Member from another party. Senator Stephens talked about arrangements where we, as parties, will look after various seats. They are described by the Conservative Party as patron Senators. I am patron Senator for a number of seats, some of which are winnable, including one that I very much hope we will win and then become the Government. Senator Stephens will be similarly campaigning in Conservative seats to ensure the election of a new Labor Member or to support the incumbent Labor Member”.

The picture that comes from the passages that I have quoted very clearly shows that Senators are heavily involved in political work in areas. They are quite obviously put by their political party into areas where the party does not have a Member and hopes very much to get one, and they are engaged in campaigning not just during elections but all the time throughout the area. I am bringing this out so that Members of another place can get a clearer picture of what might happen when this comes. I am not sure that we should be saying that it ought not to happen.

I must say that the provisions that the report suggests for limiting the finances available to Members of the elected upper House with regard to constituency work are unfair and unworkable. They are unfair because they will mean that a rich elected Lord or Senator will be able to finance an office and have an advantage over those who cannot. A person may not have an allowance for an office, but parties will make offices available, and I am sure that political parties will make sure that newly elected Members of the upper House work just as hard as their Australian counterparts in campaigning all the time, especially to undermine opposition Members holding seats in their patch.