House of Lords: Reform

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, a large number of Members, perhaps even 100 or so, in this longest day of the year debate, have commented—or will comment directly—on the merits of an appointed or a largely elected House. But as we have on the table a draft Bill that would abolish this House of Lords and, over a period of 15 years, replace it with a differently composed House, I would like to target my short speech on three points only.

First, an essential point that has been thoroughly referred to but is essential in our discussion of this draft proposal is the question of the primacy of the other House, as it is normally described. It may be better described as the balance of power between the two Houses. Of course, the primacy of the other House based on the control of the finance and the Parliament Act will continue, but the balance of power is quite another thing. The balance of power is what happens in practice between the two Houses. There is no reference to any change in the balance of power in the 194 pages with which we were presented before this debate and which some of us have read. The draft Bill, on the contrary, states in Clause 2:

“Nothing in the … Act … affects the powers, rights, privileges or jurisdiction of either House of Parliament, or the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses”.

In the summary of the proposals, the Government state specifically that there will be no change in the functions of the current House. But as others have said, and as I would like to emphasise, what is missing from these statements is a brief study of human nature.

It is inconceivable that Members elected to a new House of Lords on a longer and larger mandate from bigger constituencies than those of the House of Commons would refrain from seeking a higher profile role and responding strongly to the wishes of those who elected them. It would take time for the change in the balance of power between the two Houses to work through, but gradually the stage would be set for some interesting clashes between the two Houses. The House of Commons would have the greater power, but the new House of Lords would be more legitimate. The results of disagreements would probably depend more on which House received the greater backing of public opinion. In my view it is highly probable, if that ever happened, that it would be necessary to set up some more formal conciliation procedure between the two Houses. That is what would happen. Our references—oh so discreet references—to ping-pong would need to be changed to kung-fu, or all-in wrestling, or some other phrase that would better describe the relationship between the two Houses, at least on primary legislation.

I think that that would extend also to subsidiary, secondary legislation, which we hardly ever discuss. Perhaps we should do so, because there were 2,366 statutory instruments made in the last Session. Those are figures that I got from the Library. A small number, 94, directly implemented European Union law, but the remaining 2,272 were the usual avalanche of national legislation. What do we do? We pass Motions of regret, and I vote for them—but what do they have? They have the impact of a feather duster. If the new House of Lords were largely elected, some at least of those SIs would be challenged or, more probably, simply deleted.

Secondly, I have observed over the past 12 years that the most important people in the House are the ministerial Members. I have seen rather little comment on the provisions of the draft Bill about ministerial Members in any new House of Lords. Under the draft Bill, the number of elected, appointed, transitional and spiritual Members would be capped at each stage of the reduction in numbers and in the final House. The number of ministerial Members, however, is limitless. Clause 34 states:

“The Prime Minister may by order”—

here we come again with statutory instruments—

“make provision as to … the appointment of ministerial members”,

and their number. The prospect of ministerial office is just what we need to encourage good men and women to seek election to a new House of Lords, and I would certainly argue that at least in the final stage, if a new House of Lords were created, the Minister should be appointed solely from among the Members of the government party or coalition in the House of Lords and not be bussed in by the Prime Minister.

Thirdly, it is not surprising that as a former Convenor of the independent Cross-Bench Peers I welcome the recognition by the Government in the draft Bill of an independent appointed element in their proposals on composition. This is emphatically not a selfish point because under the Government’s proposal I and all the independent Cross-Bench Peers have been served with our redundancy notices, to be worked out over the transitional period. I note with satisfaction that Clause 24 states that the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which would be responsible for recommending new appointed Members,

“must take account of the principle that … the role of an appointed member is to make a contribution to the work of the House of Lords which is not a party political contribution”.

If, as many suggest, there ends up a referendum on the question of the abolition of this House and the creation of a new one, we could have a second question in the referendum to ask the British public whether they thought it would be a good idea to have at least some element that was not a party-political element. I think that it would be a shoo-in for a yes vote on that point.

I content myself in this long debate with those three points only.