Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not think that there is the remotest possibility that this country will join the euro while I am in government.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

There are concerns that the net effect of the Government’s changes will be under-registration in England and Wales. Has the Deputy Prime Minister appraised the impact of that on the distribution of seats to the territorial boundary commissions under the Sainte-Laguë formula?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I do not agree that moving to individual elector registration in the way we are—in the way advocated by the previous Government, too—will necessarily lead to the outcome he suggests. That is why we are putting so much time into data matching, making sure that there is a period of grace so that people can re-register on the other side of an election, and ensuring that people go from home to home to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be individually registered.

Parliamentary Lobbying

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) on securing the debate, which has largely been helpful and balanced.

The contribution of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was useful because it put into context the fact that lobbying can be very helpful and that it enables Members of Parliament to be better informed. He gave the example of the Mental Health Bill. I had the same experience in opposition, when I worked with many disability organisations and charities. In opposition, some of the assistance and resources of lobbyists are needed to help the argument and ensure that legislation is framed properly and that well-informed questions can be asked. The problem occurs when those types of contacts are not transparent. The right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made that point. The issue is transparency.

I will say this from the start as it may pre-empt some interventions: we are committed to introducing a statutory register. We will publish our proposals for consultation before the end of this month, and then I hope we can engage in that debate. Several hon. Members have alluded to that matter. The reason we are publishing our proposals for consultation is very simple: we want to get it right. We need to get the definition of who would be captured by the term lobbyist correct. We must not stifle legitimate lobbying or the ability of our constituents and other people to talk to us or Ministers, but we need to ensure that the relevant information is out in the open. We must deal with the issue correctly, so we will publish our proposals and have a thorough consultation on which everybody—Members and those outside—can have their say. We can then ensure that we strike the right balance.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is there not an element of “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza” in all this? As the Minister says, when the proposals are published, there will be consultation and debate. No doubt that will involve a considerable degree of lobbying. What will be his attitude to the lobbying approaches he receives as Minister during that consultation period?

[Mr Harper]

Let me come on to that at in a moment because I want to set out my thoughts logically.

I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) for his relatively consensual approach because it is important that we get dealing with the issue right. The subject affects all parties, and all parties have lessons to learn. We need to ensure that we approach the issue on that basis. He struck the right note, but to encourage other Labour Members also to take such an approach, I will remind them of what they did or did not do in Government. An amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats on having more transparency on lobbying was mentioned. Every single Labour MP here who was in the House at the time happily voted against that. The hon. Member for Newport West clearly paid very little attention to the new clause when he voted against it because if he had read it, it sounds as though he would have agreed with most of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

He or she will have equal access and will exercise a decisive role in leading the reform of the civil service so that we can create a genuinely modern, progressive civil service that a modern Britain requires.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is the Minister satisfied that with the split of the new roles, the various questions of probity, propriety and procedure that were aired in the O’Donnell report on the Werritty affair will be clearly brought to a known figure in the future, or will there be confusion?

[Mr Maude]

We will make sure that those issues are properly scrutinised, as they were on that occasion, and that there are proper arrangements to ensure that that is the case.

European Council

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have to ask clearly, “What is in the UK national interest?” At the heart of our national interest, when it comes to the EU, is not only access to that single market but the need to ensure that we are sitting around the table of the single market determining the rules that our exporters have to follow. That is key to our national interest, and we must not lose that.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Which situation does the Prime Minister hope that we will arrive at first: the eurozone passing a brink without teetering on it, or his Eurosceptics passing a top without going over it?

[The Prime Minister]

That one obviously took a long time to construct. I believe that the eurozone countries are coming together and seeing the need for a big and bold solution. That needs to happen. It will not solve the problem—because there are still major stresses and strains within the eurozone that need to be dealt with in the long term—but I think that it will happen this week. It is up to the House of Commons how it votes tonight, but I am clear that it is in our interest to be in the EU but seeking our national advantage and national interest at all times.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

I think that the hon. Gentleman knows our views on double jobbing in relation to Northern Ireland. He will equally know of my view that everybody in this place is equal. I take a rather more positive view than he does. The Governments in Edinburgh and Cardiff and the Executive in Northern Ireland are up and running and functioning. I therefore believe that it is time we looked at how parliamentary business—the business of this House—can be done better to reflect a post-devolution United Kingdom. That is what the commission will look at. That should reinforce the strength of the Union—something in which he and I both believe.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

5. What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the regulation of credit unions in Northern Ireland.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

Following discussions between Treasury Ministers and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority published a joint consultation paper in August setting out proposals for the transfer of the regulation of Northern Ireland credit unions from DETI to the FSA on 31 March 2012. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber, notably on the Opposition Benches. I would have thought that everybody would want to hear Mr Mark Durkan.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Tomorrow is international credit union day, and credit unions in Northern Ireland have been waiting for the change that he described for a long time so that they can offer their members a much greater range of services. Will he assure us that his work with Treasury Ministers will mean that the primary legislation will be adequate, the secondary legislation will follow fast and the transition arrangements will have a strong regional presence so that the credit unions can work with the new regulator to make a success of the new powers?

[Mr Swire]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, and his predecessor John Hume, on championing the cause of credit unions for many years. There are 177 credit unions in Northern Ireland. They are part of the big society agenda, and we think they are great institutions. We want them to be able to expand and offer the services that credit unions in Great Britain currently can. He will agree that what is important during the change is that people with their money in those credit unions are properly protected. Like me, he will no doubt welcome the move to bring credit unions under the FSA or its successor, to protect them in a way that the Presbyterian Mutual Society savers were not protected.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. People should listen to what the Governor of the Bank of England said yesterday:

“With a lower level of sterling and a credible plan to reduce the fiscal deficit over the medium term, we were on track. But the problems in the euro area and the marked slowing of the world economy have lengthened the period over which a return to normality is likely.”

That is what we face in this country, but it means that we should stick to the plan of dealing with our debts and our deficit. If we listened to the Labour party and added £23 billion to the deficit this year, it would not be “Greek-onomics”; it would be “freakonomics”.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Q2. The Prime Minister has acknowledged that there was collusion in the murder of Pat Finucane. Does he accept that in order to get to the bottom of that we have to get to the top of that? Does he recognise that many of us lack confidence that a desk review by even an eminent lawyer will be able to do that? Will he reflect further on the grave misgivings expressed by the Finucane family and the Irish Government?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If my hon. Friend thinks back to our earlier debates on the Bill and its effects, he will remember that this is not just a mechanical process to do with the detail of the Dissolution itself. Rather, it is about the consequences that flow from that. Much of our debate revolved around what will happen to the nature of the parliamentary process if we have fixed terms—what will be the benefits and potential negative consequences. The reason for looking at it after a full fixed term is to enable the committee to consider whether, as I would hope, the possible positive outcomes we debated have come about, and alternatively whether some of the concerns that have been expressed on both sides of the House have been proved accurate, and then to make some recommendations and publish a report. As a consequence, this House will be in a good position to debate the matter and discover whether further legislation is needed.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

So far, the Minister has focused on the fixed-term Parliament aspect of the Bill, but there is also the constituency aspect. Will the review that the amendment would allow also be able to look at issues such as whether the number of constituencies should be fixed at 600 or there should be more flexibility, and whether the boundary reviews should take place every five years?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman took part in many debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill before it was enacted, and he will remember that we set up a similar type of review mechanism to look at the operation of that legislation in respect of parliamentary boundaries. A similar type of post-legislative scrutiny and review was set up to consider precisely those issues in that legislation, therefore. I hope that deals with the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I have just said that that would take place—the consensus on the committee’s terms of reference, as is usual. That is very sensible; we do not want to put all the detail in the motion. The hon. Gentleman should read this morning’s written statement—I will not dwell on it, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you would call me to order if I did—and I am sure that we will have the opportunity to discuss some of the details tomorrow, when we debate a private Member’s Bill. The written statement sets out our overall position on the commission on the West Lothian question. We will consult Mr Speaker on some of the details involving the House, and we have also said that we will have a full opportunity for all the parties to consider the matter. That was in this morning’s statement.

[Mark Durkan]

May I take the Minister back to the points about consultation that may be involved when the committee is formed? Will he assure us that that consultation will not just be through the usual channels with the Opposition, but will involve all parties? As a matter of principle, my party has never accepted nomination to the House of Lords, and we were singularly excluded from any consideration in relation to the committee that has been formed on that matter.

[Mr Harper]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point on that and thank him for making it. Given the nature of the matter, it would be helpful if the committee were wide ranging. That is also a good reason not to be too specific about, for example, the size of the committee. Clearly, we need to ensure that Members from all parts of the House are able to be represented properly. On setting down how big the committee should be, there is, of course, a tension if committees are too large, but if they are too small they can be too narrow. It would be helpful to be able to have that debate when we know something about how the measures have worked in practice.

Libya

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said in my statement, I do not subscribe to this idea that because we cannot fix every problem in the world, we should not fix any problem in the world. It seemed to me that, in a totally practical way, here was a problem that we had a moral obligation to try to deal with because we could prevent a massacre—as well as, if you like, an “ought”, there was also a “could”. We were able to do this because we had the support of Arab nations, because we had NATO behind us and because we convinced the UN Security Council to vote for it. When “ought” and “can” come together, there is a pretty good case for action.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Prime Minister has spoken of hope across the wider region following events in Libya. Will both the premium that he and other international leaders have put on inclusion and consensus in building constitutions and states, and the primacy of democratic elections also be reflected in their response to the current efforts of the Palestinian Authority in respect of statehood, given that this month is the target date when statehood was to be recognised at the UN?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, I see all these issues as being linked. Just as we want to see greater democracy, peace and progress in middle eastern countries across the board, so we want to see the Palestinians have the dignity of their own state. However, we believe in the two-state solution, so it must be a Palestine alongside a secure Israel. When it comes to the whole issue of recognition, the test for us is: are we doing something that will help to push forward the peace process? That is the most important thing. In the end, we cannot compel Israel and Palestine to reach peace between themselves; they have to want to do it.

Phone Hacking

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, one thing that the second part of the inquiry will consider, as well as the first police investigation, what went wrong and why it was insufficient, is the review of that investigation and why it did not result in further action. Those are difficult questions and it is right that an inquiry should consider them.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Has the Prime Minister satisfied himself that the proposed double-barrelled inquiry will be proofed against the possible chicane of legal challenges to its conduct and scope that it could face from various interests? Has he also anticipated the various calls, a few of them valid, for legal representation at the inquiry? Will Ministers or former Ministers, when they are giving or preparing evidence, do so with the support and assistance of Law Officers?

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good question. I have found, doing this job, that almost nothing is chicaned, as he put it, from legal inquiry. We think we are doing this in the right way under the Inquiries Act 2005 and all the things that flow from that, but I can perhaps consider the detail of his question about preparation for Ministers.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I agree. The fact remains that we are taking powers away from this House and giving them to the other place. It has been clear to me from our earlier debates that that view is not widely shared in this House, and indeed, interestingly, it does not appear to be widely shared in the other place. As I observed from careful reading of the report of the debates there, many speakers were very concerned about the primacy of this House, which was good of them. They said that they did not want to damage it in any way. Plainly their support for the amendments was inadvertent; they may not have thought through the consequences fully. I therefore think it would be sensible for this House to disagree with their lordships, and to give them an opportunity to reconsider their decision and return the Bill to the form in which it left this House.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I recognise the strength of the Minister’s arguments. The effect of the amendments, surely, would be to leave us with not a Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, but a Fixable-term Parliaments Bill. We could get into a constitutional “fix” in trying to “fix” the term, with an elected Chamber voting one way and an—in all likelihood—still unelected Chamber voting another way. If that happened, what would be the default position?

[Mr Harper]

I agree. The hon. Gentleman has put it very well. Under the Bill as the Government want to see it—this House having disagreed with their lordships, and their lordships having accepted that the Bill should remain as it is—its provisions would be in force unless and until a future Parliament changed them. It would be this House that would determine whether an early election should take place if two thirds of Members, that is, a broad consensus, were in favour of it—which returns us to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone about what would happen if there were a general view that the state of the nation was such that there should be an early election—or if the Government no longer had the confidence of this House. The other place would have no role in that process at all, which I think is right.

As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, if the amendments were in force there would be a “fix” in each Parliament: each Government would effectively be able to choose whether to have a fixed-term Parliament, because they could block the motion passed by this House. Worse, it would not be a choice that the Houses took at the start of a Parliament, because the amendments make no provision for that. At any point during the Parliament, the two Houses, if they passed the motion, could suddenly convert the Parliament to a fixed term. That would be likely to lead to the position described by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, with people putting a fix in place to suit a particular short-term need.

[Mark Durkan]

Does any provision in the Lords amendments or the Bill specify or restrict who can table such a motion in either House, and when or how many times it could be tabled again if whoever tables it does not succeed on the first occasion?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on it. The provisions are completely silent about that. They do not say who would table the motion, or whether the same question could be continually repeated.

The amendments are not very well drafted. I think that they are wrong in principle, because under the normal procedure legislation that is passed stays in force unless it is changed by a future Parliament, but even if we liked the concept of a sunset provision, such a provision ought to be much better drafted and much more effective. This House can choose only between accepting the amendments and disagreeing with them, and I think I have almost made my case that we should disagree with them.

It has been argued that we are trying to bind future Parliaments. That is not what we are trying to do at all. We are merely trying to re-establish the normal constitutional position. We are passing legislation which we hope will become the established position, but if a future Parliament, perhaps the next one, decides that the fixed-term Parliament experiment—an experiment that is common to many countries around the world—has not been successful and has not led to better government, it will be perfectly free to pass another piece of legislation that repeals these measures either in full or in part. We do not have an arrangement whereby we “sunset” every piece of legislation, and an incoming Government then find that the rules are unwritten and they can choose what those rules should be. That would not be a very sensible constitutional position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

My contention and, I think, Lord Pannick’s contention is that this is a fix in a different way, because it is essentially rigging the constitution so as to make it possible for the coalition to remain in government until 2015—against the manifesto commitment.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[Naomi Long]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Let me finish my point. Lord Pannick also cited the Constitution Committee in the House of Lords, which said:

“the origins and content of this Bill owe more to short-term considerations than to a mature assessment of enduring constitutional principles or sustained public demand.”

I think their lordships were right. I will now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and then to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), who is slightly my hon. Friend.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Earlier, he indicated to the Minister that he assumed that the resolution provided for under the amendment would be moved at the start of a Parliament on the basis that any Government worth their salt would do it then. Can he tell us what he believes any Opposition worth their salt would do in relation to such a resolution? Would not the scenario that he is arguing for, of a Government doing that at the start of a Parliament, mean that the very unedifying spectacle that we have seen in this Parliament of a Government fixing the term to suit themselves would happen in every Parliament?

[Chris Bryant]

I suppose it is true that every Opposition will always want to take an opportunity to have an early general election. The nature of opposition means wanting to become the Government, so the Opposition would want the chance to have a general election. I think that is the drift of what my hon. Friend said. As I have said, I think we would have a better piece of legislation if we had had pre-legislative scrutiny and had been able to sit around a table, not just with the main parties but with the smaller, minority parties too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Syms]

It is this House that determines who the Government are. This is the majority House. As we know, the upper House is a hereditary or semi-hereditary Chamber. Even under the proposals for election, it will not be the majority House. It is therefore proper and responsible that this Chamber should determine whether there should be a fixed-term Parliament. That is not the business of the upper House. The decision has to be made in this House.

The only question to debate is whether it is the Prime Minister who makes the decision or the House. Historically, it has been the Prime Minister. We have had a constitutional change. I am a conservative with a small c and I do not generally like change, but one has to acknowledge the fact that in order to command a majority in the House, the measure is part of the deal. That is a good reason for doing it. If that was not part of the deal, one would not necessarily be in government and doing many other good things for the country under our programme.

We all know that Prime Ministers lose the confidence of the House. There are occasions when Prime Ministers are challenged, and one of the things that bolsters unpopular Prime Ministers is the threat of Dissolution. It is up to them. They can throw the cards up in the air and call a Dissolution, even if they lose the confidence of their own party. That has always been one reason why Prime Ministers have stayed in Downing street when there was good reason for moving them out and having a vote of no confidence in a political party.

The other factor, which is one of the different features of modern politics, is that there are now more parties in the House—we have the Greens in this Parliament—more of a fracture in the current political system and more regional parties. It will probably be more difficult in the longer term for a party always to be confident of a majority in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is right. Coalitions may be more a part of the future than some of us who prefer majority government would like to think.

The Government’s position is tailored to that situation, so I will support what they are doing today. Circumstances have changed, and if one has to make a decision, it is better that political parties and the usual channels in the House determine a Dissolution than an unpopular Prime Minister who may have a different agenda from others in the Chamber.

[Mark Durkan]

I am delighted to be able to agree with the thrust of the remarks of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) in relation to the key effect of the Lords amendments, which would extend the power of the House of Lords as it now stands and in whatever future shape it takes, by making sure that the upper House was in a position of dual control with this House on whether there was a fixed-term Parliament. We know from sentiments already expressed in that House—echoed many times in this House—that there is opposition to serious proposals on Lords reform, and in those circumstances I would certainly not indulge any extension of their powers or ability to trespass on the primacy of this House, which is exactly what the amendments would do.

A number of weeks ago the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) rightly lampooned the democratic credentials of the other Chamber, and yet now he wants to extend its control over the democratic proprieties of this Chamber and over whether there is certainty on when there will be a general election. I fully agree with him that those of us who believe in fixed-term Parliaments face a predicament with the Bill, because many of us believe that four years is the natural term for a Parliament. It was the natural term that this Parliament chose for the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments, and it was right that they were comfortable with it, but because Parliament is opting for five years, those assemblies will also have to shift to five years, which I do not believe is the natural rhythm for fixed terms.

Nevertheless, it would be a bit much for someone like me to use the fact that I believe in four-year terms, in addition to believing in fixed-term Parliaments, to vote for rupturing the nature of the Bill. As someone who is proudly in the Irish Labour tradition, I have great regard for Jim Larkin, who once said that the purpose of politics was to keep narrowing the gap between what is and what ought to be. I believe in fixed-term Parliaments. Unfortunately, the only choice we now have is five-year terms. In future, I hope that other parties will be elected with a mandate to alter that fixed term to four years and that future Parliaments will do that, but I believe that we will reach that stage quicker by voting for fixed-term Parliaments now and amending the length of the term in future. If instead we get to the meaningless point of having a Bill that is a fixed-term Parliaments Bill only in name, rather like the two-hour dry cleaners that tells customers to come back next Tuesday because “two-hour dry cleaners” is just the name of the shop, that Bill will not fulfil its purpose in any real way.

In relation to the amendments, there is a curious idea that both Chambers would decide on whether there would be a fixed term, but there is uncertainty on when those resolutions would be laid and who would lay them. The references to the Prime Minister in some of the amendments relate only to moving the date of an election back by up to two months, and I think that some people have misread that and think that it means that the resolution would have to come from the Prime Minister, but it would not. It seems that we would be left with a curious situation in which anyone could seek at any time to move such a resolution in either Chamber and create various difficulties that would simply add to the political mess and to the uncertainty on whether we have fixed terms.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda in his criticism of the Bill’s provenance and the fact that it came about not to fix the term of Parliament, but to fix this Government. It was intended to create a fixed-term Government and a fix for this Parliament. For that reason it is wrong and it is bad. However, the amendments would have the effect of prescribing legislation that would have every Parliament begin with a Government using their majority to fix the term in a way that suited them. He said that any Government worth their salt would do that early on in the term, and presuming that an Opposition worth their salt would oppose it, we are left asking what the point would be and what such legislation would achieve, other than an unedifying procedure each time a recently elected Government appear to fix the terms on which they will govern which the Opposition resist. The whole idea of a fixed-term Parliament Bill is to ensure that there is no political speculation or contention on those issues. Looking at the nature of some of the other clauses and amendments, I do not believe that the Prime Minister is ceding as much power as some hon. Members have said.

This is an unusual and uncomfortable experience for me, but I concur with the Government on these Lords amendments. Unfortunately, on this occasion I have to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda while fully agreeing with his basic, continuing underlying criticism of some of the background to the Bill.

[Mr Shepherd]

I agree with a lot of the points made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). I am conscious that this a Bill to fix a Parliament: that is the purpose behind it, plain and simple. The difficulty that the House of Lords faced and that we face in this House—it is the reason I voted against the Bill on Second Reading and otherwise—is the incoherence of the constitutional change that these amendments, to some extent, address.

We are embarked on almost reckless constitutional change with no overall coherent view of what we want. I know what I want, and I rather suspect that the hon. Member for Foyle knows what he wants—a democratically elected, accountable House of Lords. That raises all sorts of subsidiary questions as to which has primacy and which does not. We have here a fix, without any view as to what the constitution is going to be, that has involved nothing other than the coalition partners bringing forward a Bill that contains certain propositions that do not relate. I appreciate that we have had all the debates about four years as opposed to five years and the rhythm of the process. We have had the AV referendum, which was again unrelated to how the constitution was going to look.

That is why the Lords tabled these amendments. In a sense, they are not serious amendments—serious in the sense of how they prick this process and bring in a wider consideration of what the constitution should be, to whom is it accountable, and how we make these changes. Essentially, this fixed-term Parliament proposal is “back of the envelope”. Do we really want a five-year fixed term when we might have had only four years? I think that that was the position of the Labour party in its manifesto, and the position of the Liberal Democrats. The joyous thing about it is that we did not have a view, other than against, in our election manifesto.

House of Lords Reform

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and I think I agreed with virtually everything he said. There have been some outstanding independent-minded speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, including three excellent speeches: the last speech and those made by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) and the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy). I agree with them all. It is a bit of a pity, if I might say so, that the Deputy Prime Minister did not stay for longer, because this is an important constitutional issue. I know that a lot of people in the Dog and Duck are not very exercised about it, but why should they be? It is an important debate and it is important that the Government should listen to it. I know the Minister is listening. Virtually every speech we have heard has been thoughtful and very critical of the proposals and it would be highly regrettable if the changes were forced through on a three-line Whip. I believe that the House of Commons should consider all the options very carefully and by all means come to some sort of compromise, but it would be regrettable to force this through on a three-line Whip, with people who have taken no part in the debate, who perhaps have very little interest in it and who have their careers to look after, being poured in, especially given that the proposal was not in a manifesto. Let us consider that.

I sympathise with the Deputy Prime Minister in a sense, because he has an impossible task. In the absence of a written constitution he is trying to create an elected second Chamber that is not a rival to the House of Commons, but that is a virtually impossible task. He has therefore come up with the idea, which was well summed up by the right hon. Member for Torfaen as “dotty”, of electing people for a single, 15-year term. We really have to kill that idea; I am not aware of any other major legislature in the world that does that. The points have been made again and again, so I do not need to repeat them. Those people will be elected but unaccountable, and what sort of life will they lead if they are in the House of Lords for 15 years and never have to stand again? Is the senator for the east midlands, which is a vast area, really going to want to go and talk to Poverty Action in Nottingham on a rainy Saturday night, or to their local party in Leicester on a wet Friday evening? That is not going to happen. Those people will be sitting in the Lords knowing that they are never going to be allowed to stand again—so, unaccountable in that sense—but they will claim that they are elected, and it is for the birds to suggest that they will not take on this House. Of course they will, especially if they think they are more representative because we are elected under this old-fashioned, first-past-the-post system—which by the way people quite like, but let us forget the people for a moment—and they are elected under a much more democratic, proportional representation-type system.

I think it is the worst possible system and I say to the Minister that it does not address the real problem. The problem is not a great constitutional dispute between the people and the House of Commons or between the House of Commons and the House of Lords: the problem is that there are too many Members of the House of Commons who are not sufficiently independent, because, yes, they are elected but, quite rightly, they are ambitious and they want to be Ministers as the only outlet for their energy. I suspect that once the people in the Lords are elected for their 15-year term, they will start off with all the joys of spring but will very soon be like the rest of us—they will want to become Government Ministers and they will be as much under the thumb of the Executive as most Members of Parliament are. So what will the changes achieve? Having just got rid of 50 Members of Parliament, because, apparently, too many of us are under the thumb of the Executive, why are we creating another 280-odd up there who, after a couple of years, will also want to become Ministers?

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Why, if the other Chamber is to be a revising Chamber, should there be Ministers in a reformed House of Lords? This Chamber could be well distinguished as having primary powers by being the only seat of Government Ministers—not the other Chamber.

[Mr Leigh]

That was an excellent intervention. There are many other legislatures in the world, such as the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, in which one cannot be a Minister. That is why Senators in the United States are much more independent of the Executive than Members of Parliament here are. If we were to create an elected Chamber, why not have a rule that nobody up there who was elected could become a Minister? Then, perhaps, they would be free from the powers of patronage, which strongly militate against genuinely free debate in this Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) perhaps agreeing with his last observation—that what we will see is a coalition of reaction against reform and change from the traditional right and the traditional left. Essentially, when we talk about House of Lords reform, we have a situation in which so many people consistently aspire to a democratic Chamber but then consistently conspire to sustain the undemocratic status quo. That is happening on both sides of the House. I agree with other hon. Members that this has been a good debate up to a point. I do not know how many Lords-in-waiting we have heard from in the debate, but we have definitely heard from some, and—surprise, surprise—it is clear where they stand. They see themselves moving into a slightly adjusted, slightly reformed Chamber, but certainly not a democratic one.

To my mind, the Joint Committee is going to be a mixture of hypocrisy meeting up with futility on the way back from apparent amnesia about people’s positions, and it will be detained by self-interest in various forms. We have a situation in which people who said they were committed to democratic reform of the House of Lords in the past now say that they did not mean to vote for it because it was just a tactic and they cannot even remember why the tactic was needed. That is not a very believable case against reform. As I said on the day that the Deputy Prime Minister made his statement about the draft Bill, I fear that this is going to be another situation where we have a penalty shoot-out in which no one scores, with everyone putting their case for reform.

Some say there cannot be reform without consensus, but the same people also say, “And by the way, because we don’t trust consensus, we want to make sure that there are free votes on any proposals.” We also had the nonsense of the scratchcard idea. Everybody could vote for different proportions of electability to the second Chamber, safe in the knowledge that there would never be a sufficient cluster around any one for there to be a clear outcome. So I am not impressed with some of the arguments that I have heard.

I have some sympathy with some of the arguments against some of the proposals. We run up against the tensions that have been created by the constituencies part of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. House of Commons constituencies will change every five years, possibly significantly. If Northern Ireland loses a seat, all our constituencies will change relatively significantly, and MPs may feel that it is more difficult for them to deal with changing constituencies if there are elected Members of the other House who sit there for 15 years without having to worry about boundary changes or anything else. I accept that point only in relation to how it affects the position of MPs, but I do not accept that this Chamber would be at all undermined by an elected second Chamber if that second Chamber had a clear, limited role in relation to qualitative revision of legislation. That is one reason why I do not agree with the proposal in the draft Bill for supernumerary Members to accommodate the appointment of temporary Government Ministers.

[Conor Burns]

As the Bill stands, I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but is there not the potential for a creep in that over time? In the event of a conflict, if both Houses were elected and one had a fresher mandate, it could claim that it had an equal voice in the debate.

[Mark Durkan]

I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s worry that the danger lies there. I believe that the danger lies in this Chamber. Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friends, have asserted the primacy of this Chamber, but they are the same people who slavishly accept the bizarre convention that operates in this House that the Government will not accept amendments in this Chamber, even when they accept that they are right and logical and make sense, but will instead concoct their own version. The unelected Chamber then gets this great score rate of all the significant amendments, precisely because that is the way this Chamber accepts it. This Chamber accepts being bound and trussed with programme motions that everyone complains about but then votes for, just as everyone says they want House of Lords reform, but manage then always to conspire against it, and somehow there is a sufficient coincidence of objection to one proposed reform or another. I would worry whether this Chamber is up to the challenge. Perhaps the challenge of an elected Chamber next door is what this Chamber needs for it to assert itself a bit more against the Executive. Moreover, if the Executive seek to have Government Ministers only in this Chamber, that too would be an improvement.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good argument in favour of reform of this Chamber. Does he not accept that in the White Paper, under the section on powers, it is clear that the Government have no intention of addressing the issue of the existing conventions? There is no intention to codify them in any form, so there is a chance of the leach of power from one Chamber to the other.

[Mark Durkan]

That is only if the measures go forward as they are in the Bill. That is not an argument for the status quo; it is an argument for getting necessary change and getting it right, making sure that there are clearly distinct roles and powers. Those distinctions will be clear in the minds of Members of the respective Chambers and in the minds of the public who will be separately and distinctly electing people.

There is the idea that one form of election will trump another. In Northern Ireland, even those parties that defend the first-past-the-post system for elections to this House all agree that the elections for our three seats in the European Parliament should be by single transferrable vote, because it is fairer, better, safer and avoided geo-sectarian tensions and everything else. At no point are the mandates of MEPs used to trump or override the individual mandates of MPs in any sense. If we clearly distinguish between the two Chambers in how we work and function, there will not be a problem.

There is also the issue of other supernumerary members, not just those appointed temporarily as Ministers, but the bishops from the Church of England. I do not believe that that should be the case. However, from my own background and experience, I am obviously very aware of religious and constitutional sensitivities. If representation is to continue, there is no reason why there should not be some sort of pastoral Bench in the second Chamber, for, yes, Church of England bishops, but for other faith interests as well, perhaps without the right to vote, but with the right to address issues so that they can offer their sincere reflections without being trapped into various procedural devices and partisan ruses. Many of those pastoral interests might prefer to speak without the bother of the vote or being caught having to decide between amendments here and particular votes there. If we have 80% election, part of the 20% could be elected or approved indirectly through some of the devolved Chambers, and perhaps that could include some of the faith interests and some pastoral representation as well.

We need to think reform through a lot more than is provided for in the Bill, and we need to use the Committee to improve it. Unfortunately, I note that the only two parties in the Chamber that have never appointed anybody to the House of Lords—that have always refused to do so on principle—are not involved in the Committee. We are serious about reform; I am not sure if anybody on the Committee is.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I share my hon. Friend’s view entirely.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[George Eustice]

I have given way a couple of times and I am going to continue.

The reason for having elections is not to give legitimacy but to deliver accountability. People say that we need to have greater legitimacy for the House of Lords, but if we gave it democratically elected legitimacy, it would then become a rival to this Chamber. That is one of the problems that is overlooked.

The proposals will not deliver accountability. There will be single terms of 15 years, and there is no chance of a failing lord being thrown out at the end of it. Accountability works when one can fire people who fail; if one cannot do so, it defeats the object of the exercise. We ended up with the stipulation of 15-year terms, because even the advocates of this reform recognise that as a consequence of having a democratically elected second Chamber people’s independence might be compromised, because they would have to jump to the electoral cycle and would be more in hock to the parties that sponsor them.

The proposed Chamber would have a mixed nature, with some people being appointed and 80% being elected. Who would be blamed if they failed? Would it be the fault of the ones who were elected or of the ones who were appointed? That would cause confusion where there should be clarity. It should be either all elected or all appointed.

We must also consider how the elections would work in practice. People will typically make these judgments on the same day as a general election. They will not necessarily vote for the best people to scrutinise Parliament in the House of Lords. It will be rather as it is with the European Parliament at the moment—a national opinion poll on whether the Government are doing well or badly. People will therefore not be selected on their ability to scrutinise the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

In years to come, when the proud constituency of Camborne and Redruth is mentioned, one speech will spring to the memory: the glorious suggestion of the Saga Chamber or the pensioners’ Parliament, where the old, the tired and the formerly famous can shuffle off to some distant spot where they will do no harm; where the dust will slowly settle, the clocks gently unwind and the ermine capes float through the detritus of torn Order Papers and House of Lords Hansard; where, like in the dying days of the court of Emperor Haile Selassie, no wages are paid; and where, like in the great zoos of Addis Ababa, giant pachyderms sink to their knees and surrender to starvation. There, in the House of Lords, a few people with their last breath will say, “Well, at least we weren’t out there causing trouble. We had been put somewhere safe. And who have we got to thank for it? Let us look to Camborne and Redruth.”

I suggest that there are other, better ways. I am not entirely sure that we suffer from a democratic deficit; I think we suffer from a flipping democratic surfeit. I, as an honest burgher of a sophisticated west London borough—Ealing, obviously—am represented by three first-class councillors; an MP of certain qualities, that is to say myself; a member of the Greater London authority; Members of the European Parliament; and Tony Blair, who certainly represents me in some forum somewhere, because he represents us all all the time. Do I really want somebody to be trailing his escutcheon through my constituency every few years, touting for votes, presumably on vellum and hand-engraved? There would be nothing so vulgar as an election, but I am sure that there would be some process, which would no doubt be worked out in North East Somerset. Do we really want that? I think that we probably have too much democracy.

There have been a few occasions on which people have sat down and thought about whether they actually needed a second chamber. One thinks obviously of the great Philadelphia convention, but some of us also think of the 1937 constitution of the Republic of Ireland. Those great legislators sat down and said, “Do we need a second chamber?” They came to the conclusion that, by and large, it was a fairly good idea to have one. I will not ascribe any ignoble motives to that, but it might have been a form of care in the community. To this day, Ireland has the vocational panels. The original idea was that there would be vocational panels to represent all aspects of modern Irish life. That is why people such as Oliver St John Gogarty, in between being thrown in the Liffey, and W. B. Yeats were Members of the Seanad Eireann. To this day, Ireland has the cultural and educational panel, the agricultural panel, the labour panel, the industrial and commercial panel, the administrative panel, and, of course, the national university of Ireland panel and the university of Dublin panel. I miss people such as A. P. Herbert who were elected to this place from the universities. Why does the university of West London not elect someone? If it cannot elect them to here, let it be to the other place.

Let us ask ourselves the most simple, basic, obvious question: is it really true that the only way in which experts can bring their light to bear is in the upper place? Did the noble Lord Ara Darzi achieve more as one of the finest and most famous surgeons in Europe than as a Member of the House of Lords? Look at the single greatest social change of the 20th century. The person behind that—Beveridge—was not in the House of Lords. He did not have to sit as a Member of the upper House to come up with the extraordinary idea of the national health service. The upper House is not the sole repository of wisdom, and it is not the only place where the great, the good, the bright and the brilliant can go and shine. There are so many other ways.

So do we need the House of Lords? I am not entirely sure, in all honesty, that we do, but as with so many things in this country, let us leave well alone. It is some glorious, great Gormenghast of a building that no one would ever build nowadays, but around which accretions, crenellations, towers and ramparts have emerged over the years. Hardly anybody knows what the original purpose was, but it does little harm, it is attractive, and on occasion it can actually add to the limited pool of intelligence and expertise that exists in this place.

I want to say that I have no ambitions whatever.

[Mark Durkan]

For now.

[Stephen Pound]

At least not this week, no. The difficulty, obviously, would be what level of expertise I would bring to the House of Lords. However, I have to say that I am instinctively opposed to the idea of a replicate second Chamber. We cannot have a dual mandate and have the same level of accountability in two places at once. Man cannot serve two masters; Parliament cannot have two masters.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s very positive winding-up speech. He clearly listens to the debate in this House, which is unlike that in the House of Lords. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the House of Lords debate last week, there were 101 Back-Bench speakers, of whom 19 were in favour of a wholly or mainly elected House, at least in principle. I thought that was actually quite encouraging, given the turkeys and Christmas principle. It is worth noting that 68 of those speakers were former Members of this House, which gives the lie to the idea that all those who speak in the other place are disinterested experts; they are largely people who have been in politics and remain in politics. It seems to me that such people would have no problem standing for election.

Our debate was more balanced. Out of 34 Back-Bench speakers, I counted 15 who were broadly in favour of the proposals, 16 who were not in favour and three who were broadly in favour of reform, but had significant concerns about our proposals. It was a fairly balanced debate, which I think is why the Opposition Front Benchers became more enthusiastic about our proposals as the debate proceeded. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) started very positively by saying that he was committed to a 100% elected Chamber. However, I detected that there was a danger of his letting the best be the enemy of the good.

The right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) gave a sensible counsel of action. He made it clear that he was in favour of a 100% elected Chamber, as is my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. However, neither of them wants to let attempting perfection prevent any reform whatever, and both think that ending up with 80% of Members of the House of Lords being elected would be an improvement on the position that we have today. I hope that other Members will pay attention to that.

It is worth reminding everyone at the beginning of my remarks that we are considering a White Paper and a draft Bill. We are carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny, which we were urged to do on previous constitutional Bills. A Joint Committee has been set up, with 13 Members of this House and 13 Members of the other place of varying degrees of enthusiasm for reform. If we look at the Committee in the round, we see that it is broadly representative. I hope that it will consider the issues raised in the House of Lords last week and the House of Commons today. I know that a significant number of its Commons members were present today and listened to the debate either in full or in part.

[Mark Durkan]

Is the Joint Committee not really going to be just a theatre for screensaver politics, in which images are going to be projected, an impression of activity and movement generated and shapes thrown, but nothing real will actually be achieved?

[Mr Harper]

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. There are serious people on the Committee, and it is chaired by a very senior Member of the other place, the noble Lord Richard. It has the capacity to consider the matter seriously, examine our White Paper and our draft Bill and bring forward a serious report that we in this House and the other place will consider. It has that opportunity, and it is up to the Committee whether it decides to grasp it or to do what the hon. Gentleman says. From looking at the members of the Committee appointed from this House and the other place, I have confidence that it will take the matter seriously. The Government will listen to it if it engages seriously in the process, and I hope that it will.

A number of Members wondered why are introducing these proposals. The simplest answer is that those who make the laws should be elected. One Member of the other place, who will remain nameless, said last week that she did not believe there was a democratic deficit, or that elections were the only form of democracy. In response, the noble Lord Sharkey said:

“She argued that the scale of the House’s outreach and its collective wisdom constitute a kind of democratic system.”

He continued, in a way that I thought was appropriate to the House of Lords, that that allowed

“a much more flexible definition of democracy than is usual.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 1233.]

I agree with him. Democracy is based on direct election to key institutions, and the House of Lords is a key institution that makes laws. It is a legislating body. Having been responsible for steering legislation through Parliament, I am not sure about the idea that the other place simply gives the Government advice, and it is entirely up to us, in a relaxed manner, whether we take it or leave it. I am afraid that was not my experience of trying to get legislation through the other place. It is part of this Parliament, so its Members should be elected.

A number of Members suggested today that they had concerns about primacy, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who was the first Back Bencher to speak, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley). We have not said in our proposals that there will be no changes if Members of the other place are elected. We have said that there will be an evolution of the relationship between the two Houses, but that ultimately the primacy of this House is guaranteed by the Parliament Acts. We control the supply of money, and ultimately we can pass legislation without the agreement of the other place. The relationship will change, as it has over the past century. It has changed since last year, with the advent of a coalition Government and the fact that the Salisbury-Addison convention does not operate in the same way, if at all. That change will continue, but ultimately this House is supreme, and that is guaranteed by law.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), supported by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), made the point that this is not a zero-sum game. Improving the way in which the other place works could mean that our game is raised, and that collectively these Houses will do a better job of holding the Government to account. Many Members have referred to the role of the other place, which is to scrutinise and revise legislation, but also to hold the Government to account. Both Houses have a responsibility to do that, and both could do it better.

I say to those concerned about primacy that we considered carefully how to constitute the other place and examined ways of preventing it from being able to argue that it was more legitimate than this House. We proposed a different system of election, and elections by thirds, so that the House of Lords never has a more recent mandate than the House of Commons. We have said that Members should be legitimate by being elected, but we recognise that they will not be as accountable as us because they cannot be re-elected. They cannot therefore argue that they are more legitimate and usurp our powers.

Let us consider the point about talents and skills. Broadly 25% of the current House of Lords are Cross Benchers; the rest are already party political nominees appointed by the party leaders and the Executive. The idea that the other place is somehow free of politics or party politics is simply wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) explained that elections will be an improvement on patronage.

The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said that the House of Lords was larger than all Assemblies except China’s National People’s Congress, which has more than 3,000 Members. That was a particularly topical reference given Premier Wen’s visit today. I will not pass on that news to the Prime Minister—he might think that 3,000 Members is a target for which to aim rather than something to be discouraged.

The serious point is that the other place has talented Members on the Cross Benches and the party political Benches, but I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda: so does this place. Someone mentioned a national health service debate in the other place, in which Lord Howe of Aberavon referred to the number of experts there. We have them in this House, too. We have a practising dentist, a former GP, a former hospital doctor, former nurses, former members of the armed forces, former business people, former opticians—[Interruption.] I skipped over lawyers deliberately, but we have other talented people who can contribute to the House. We should not do ourselves down and pretend that Members of this House do not have a lot to offer.

I have been present for the entire debate and I have read Hansard for the two days of debate in the other place last week. Frankly, I must say that more fresh and considered ideas about improving the draft Bill came out of today’s debate from elected Members of this House than emerged from the debate last week.

One or two hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), asked why we favoured proportional representation. The answer is simple. First, the Government should not have a majority in the other place. It should not be a carbon copy of this House, so the system should be different. We selected single transferable vote in the draft Bill. We recognise that there is a case for an open list. The STV system would reduce parties’ control and allow Members to be more independent. People said that they liked that aspect of the existing House of Lords.

I agreed with the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) when he said that having first past the post in this House, which he and I supported in the recent referendum, and proportional representation in the House of Lords, forms a solid constitutional settlement. The two Chambers have a different role and should therefore have different electoral systems that play to those different roles.

For the future, we have a draft Bill, and both Houses have appointed a Joint Committee, which can start its work. Both Houses have given the Committee an “out” date—we want it to report by 29 February next year. If the Committee wants more time, it can come back to both Houses, as is usual. The Government will listen to what the Committee states in its report. We have listened carefully to the debate last week and today, and we will continue to listen to hon. Members’ views. We will listen and adapt our proposals, and in the next Session we will introduce a Bill to reform the other place, with the first elections in 2015. I hope that we will get the support of as many Members as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of House of Lords reform.