Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and members of the committee for their report, but more particularly I am grateful to the members of the committee that produced the excellent alternative report. The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said that democracy is in trouble or danger, I think because of the lack of power, or the weaknesses, of this House. I should like to say to him that democracy and Parliament are in trouble because, over the years, we have given away so many powers to the European Union. That is why our democracy is in danger. It is not because of any shortcomings of this House. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that, over the years I have been here, we have largely neutered Parliament by giving away powers of immigration, employment, social policy, trade, agriculture, fisheries and energy—to name just the most obvious.

I recently asked a Question for Written Answer about the Budget put forward by the Government when they said that they were going to increase the price of alcohol in supermarkets. I asked,

“whether their proposal for minimum pricing on alcohol is compliant with European Union law”.

The Written Answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was:

“The Government are currently in discussions with the EU Commission on this issue”.—[Official Report, 23/4/12; col. WA 292.]

That is where we have got to. Parliament, whether it is the House of Commons or this House, cannot even decide the price of drink in this country without going to members of the Commission in Brussels to tell us what we can or cannot do.

Before putting my name down to speak, I asked myself why there is all the fuss. Arguing about the reform of the Lords sometimes seems like two bald men arguing over a comb. It is just not worth it. Then I reminded myself that, over the past two years, all recent opinion polls have shown that a great majority of the people of this country want a referendum on our membership of the European Union. I was also encouraged by a poll in the Sun the other day that showed that UKIP has recently overtaken the Liberal Democrats as the third most popular party in the country. After people in this country have been given the right to vote in a referendum on membership of the EU, Parliament will get its powers back. Therefore, discussing the reform of the House of Lords is valuable, and I am delighted that we have the opportunity to do so today.

I am more attracted by the alternative report than by the Joint Committee’s report. I do not think that the alternative report should be spoken of as a minority report. Looking at the figures, it seems that, excluding the chairman, the alternative report was produced by exactly half the members of the committee; so it has, to my mind at least, at least equal validity with that of the main committee. I am quite surprised that some of those who produced the alternative report felt able to sign the committee’s report at all, given the list in the alternative report of the fundamental areas on which they differed from the committee’s report.

On page 33, the report lists:

“Primacy … Electoral mandate … Powers … Electoral democracy … Constituency issues … Funding limits … Ministerial voting … Transition”.

On all these points the alternative report argues persuasively against the conclusions of the committee. I hope very much that we will not have to waste a lot of valuable time vetting the Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill, but if we do, this House owes a vote of thanks to the members of the committee who produced the alternative report—the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and others—who have given a lot of time to producing this valuable document. I support its conclusions and the recommendations for incremental reform based on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and for the establishment of,

“a new Constitutional Convention to consider the next steps”.

In preparing for this debate, I looked back to the 1911 debate in this House on the introduction of the Parliament Act, which was held on 10 August 1911, two days before the beginning of the grouse-shooting season. My grandfather led the opposition to that Bill as leader of the so-called “die-hards” or “last ditchers”. I realise of course that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and the others who produced the alternative report would baulk or recoil at the thought of being called “last ditchers” or “die-hards”, but I hope the one thing they will share with my grandfather is the conviction to stand up for their beliefs. I will certainly stand with them if the battle is ever joined.