Nick Clegg
Main Page: Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat - Sheffield, Hallam)Department Debates - View all Nick Clegg's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful, as will be the House, to the Deputy Prime Minister. Before we get the debate under way, I can inform the House that several dozen right hon. and hon. Members are today seeking to catch the eye of the Chair. The Deputy Speakers and I have compiled a list, very painstakingly. We are doing our best to accommodate as many colleagues as possible, but let me say at the outset that I ask colleagues please not—repeat, not—to come to the Chair inquiring whether and, if so, when they will be called to speak. Colleagues must display some patience. Just wait, attend to the debate and hope for the best. The Chair is trying to accommodate colleagues. To that end, in view of the level of interest, there will be a six-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
No one doubts the commitment and public service of many Members of the House of Lords, but dedicated individuals cannot compensate for flawed institutions. The Bill is about fixing a flawed institution, so let me begin by setting out why our upper Chamber is in need of these reforms—the three simple reasons why I hope Members will give it their full support. The first is that we—all of us here—believe in democracy. We believe that the people who make the laws should be chosen by the people who are subject to those laws. That principle was established in Britain after centuries of struggle and it is a principle that we still send our servicemen and women halfway across the world to defend, yet right now we are only one of only two countries in the world —the other being Lesotho—with an upper parliamentary chamber that is totally unelected and instead selects its members by birthright and patronage.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make a little progress.
The House of Lords is an institution that offers its Members a job for life; an institution that serves the whole of the United Kingdom, yet draws around half its members from London and the south-east; an institution in which there are eight times as many people over 90 as there are people under 40; an institution that has no democratic mandate—none whatsoever—but that exercises real power. The House of Lords initiates Bills, it shapes legislation and, as Governments of all persuasions know, it can block Government proposals, too. These reforms seek to create a democratic House of Lords, matching power with legitimacy.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that it is both flawed in theory, because of its lack of democratic legitimacy, and flawed in practice, because the status quo is unsustainable, as I shall now explain.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall make a little progress before giving way again.
Under our proposals, 80% of Members would be chosen at the ballot box, with elections taking place every five years, and the remaining 20% would be appointed by an independent statutory commission. There would be no more jobs for life—we propose single, non-renewable, limited terms of about 15 years—and our reforms would guarantee representation for every region of the United Kingdom. At the heart of the Bill is the vision of a House of Lords that is more modern, more representative and more legitimate—a Chamber fit for the 21st century.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
A moment ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said that one of the functions of the House of Lords was to introduce legislation. Can he give us an example—of importance—of a Bill introduced in the other House that has affected this country but that did not have the Government’s permission to be introduced and seen through? Is not the Lords job different from ours? Our job is to initiate and pass legislation on the condition of the Government; the Lords job is to deliberate on that legislation.
The Deputy Prime Minister
All legislation, whether it originates here or in the other place, of course requires the support of the Government of the day to make its way on to the statute book.
The second reason that the reforms will lead to better laws—this may help to answer the right hon. Gentleman—is that the Bill is not just about who legislates, but about how we legislate. Right now in our political system, power is still over-concentrated in the Executive. Governments, quite simply, can be too powerful. During their political lifetime, many Members have seen landslide Administrations able to railroad whichever Bills they like through the Commons, and we have all heard colleagues complain about different Governments trying to ram Bills through the other place when they should have been trying to win the argument in both Houses. Despite its assertiveness, too often Governments believe they can disregard the Lords.
Mr Shepherd
My intervention was prompted by the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement of the principle that those who make the law should be elected by those who bear it. Of course, the older and greater principle is that those who make the laws should be accountable to those who bear the laws, and there is no accountability in the process that he is introducing.
The Deputy Prime Minister
In answer to the hon. Gentleman, I would say that there is neither accountability nor legitimacy in the status quo. These are jobs for life, which are entirely discharged without any reference to the British people. Surely, it is simply time to trust the British people.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall make a little more progress, if I may.
The Bill, by creating a more legitimate House of Lords, gives it more authority to hold Governments to account—a greater check on Executive power. That does not mean emboldening the Lords to the point that it threatens the Commons—I shall come on to those concerns shortly—but it does mean bolstering its role as a Chamber that scrutinises Government. It means forcing Governments to treat an elected upper Chamber with greater respect. The aim of the Bill, to quote the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), is to create a second Chamber
“more independent of the executive, more able to exercise independent judgment”.
That will mean not only better laws, but fewer laws, restricting, again in the words of my right hon. Friend,
“the torrent of half-baked legislation”
that Governments are capable of.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The Blair Government were defeated four times in the House of Commons and 460 times in the House of Lords. Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that an elected House of political placemen will do a better job of opposing than does the current House of Lords?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It will be able to discharge that considerable authority with greater legitimacy, and therefore it will be harder for the Executive to ignore the opinions of the House of Lords. I would have thought, if I may say so, that it was a long-standing Conservative principle that it is the people who should be in the driving seat and the Executive who should be kept on their toes.
The third reason to support the Bill—
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall make some more progress.
The third reason to support the Bill is simple practicality. The House of Lords cannot carry on on its current path. We need to reform the Lords to keep it functioning, and we need to do it soon.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will give way in a minute, if I may make this point.
Right now, we have an upper Chamber that is ever-expanding. That is one of the main consequences of the unfinished 1999 reforms. Very simply, after a general election, new Governments will always seek to reflect the balance of the vote in the Lords. But it is impossible to get rid of Members: the only way to leave is to die. So new Administrations inevitably have to make more appointments to get the balance right. [Interruption.] The current membership is 816. That will soon be over 1,000. Clearly, the status quo is unsustainable. [Interruption.] The House of Lords is already—
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister. There is a permanent cacophony in the Chamber and Members might think that it is some sort of laughing matter, but as far as a lot of people observing our proceedings are concerned, it is just discourteous. The right hon. Gentleman has a right both to speak and to be heard with reasonable decorum. That is what Members would want for themselves; that is what Members should extend to the right hon. Gentleman.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The point that I was making, then I shall give way, is that the status quo is unsustainable. The House of Lords is already too big, and it will continue to grow bigger still under whichever Government, unless we do something about it.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
If, for whatever reason, the Deputy Prime Minister is unsuccessful in getting the White Paper through this afternoon—[Hon. Members: “It is a Bill.”]—will he pledge today that he and other senior Liberal Democrats will not take their places in an unreformed House of Lords?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am making the case for the Government’s Bill. I am not going to make predictions about a vote tomorrow, which I firmly believe will be carried.
The Bill reverses that trend. It gradually reduces the membership and caps it at 450, plus 12 bishops. Some people have said that the numbers could be dealt with much more easily, that we can slim the other place by disqualifying convicted criminals or allowing Members to resign.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will give way shortly.
The first solution would bring the total down by a handful, potentially; the second perhaps by none. Others have said, “Yes, cap the House at an appropriate limit, but make it fully appointed.” But how could we possibly justify dramatic reform of the Lords that did not introduce a democratic element? That would be unthinkable. It would be in direct contravention of each of the three main parties’ manifestos, flying in the face of our collective promise to renew our politics. The only way to get to grips with the numbers is fundamental democratic reform. That is what the Bill does.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I entirely agree with the Deputy Prime Minister that the people need to be part of the process and feel that Parliament belongs to them, so will he give them a vote on his proposals?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that a referendum is not justified in this instance, for the following reasons: first, unlike other issues that are a source of great disagreement here, all three main parties are committed to delivering House of Lords reform, by way of their own manifestos, which they put to the British people at the last election, the one before that, and the one before that; secondly, it would be very expensive—£80 million—for something on which we are all supposed to agree; and thirdly, it would detract attention from the much more important referendum taking place in this Parliament: the referendum on the future of the United Kingdom.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen the Bill in the name of his right hon. Friend Lord Steel, the House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill, which addresses the issue of over-membership in the other place and has widespread support there?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I have examined that Bill and discussed it with Lord Steel extensively. Any reasonable person who subjected it to any scrutiny would conclude that it would not deal with the practical issues to which I have alluded—the House of Lords getting bigger and bigger—because voluntary resignation or the kicking out of convicted criminals simply will not deal with the unsustainable trajectory of the size of the House of Lords.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will make a little more headway, and then of course I will give way.
Democracy, better laws and the urgent and practical need for reform are the three reasons why Members of this House should give the Bill their blessing and wish it a swift passage into law. Before addressing some of the concerns about the Government’s proposals, I would like to make the point that the Bill, although it has been introduced by the coalition Government, in many ways is not just the Government’s Bill. These reforms build on the work of our predecessors on both sides of the House. As with all the best examples of British constitutional reform, the proposals look to the future but are respectful of the past. Veterans of these debates will know that the coalition parties cannot claim full credit for the reforms presented here. If we go back to the White Paper produced by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) in 2008, the late Robin Cook’s “Breaking the Deadlock”, the House of Lords Act 1999, Lord Wakeham’s royal commission and everything that went before over the past 100 years, it is clear that these reforms have a long bloodline that includes all our parties and political traditions.
Mrs Main
Does the Deputy Prime Minister not see that there is a degree of inconsistency between his view that we in this House are too powerful and therefore need neutering by the House of Lords and his voting to maintain the strengthening of the Executive and the boundary changes by keeping the number of Ministers yet reducing the number of Back-Bench Members of Parliament?
The Deputy Prime Minister
One of the Bill’s intentions is absolutely not to neuter the House of Commons, but to work in partnership with the House of Commons in holding the Executive to account. I would have thought that Members on both sides of the House would celebrate and support anything that means that Parliament as a whole can hold the Executive more fully to account. Indeed, in 1910, when Government proposals to limit the power of the House of Lords were introduced, it was Winston Churchill who said:
“I would like to see a Second Chamber which would be fair to all parties, and which would be properly subordinated to the House of Commons and harmoniously connected with the people.”
He ended by saying:
“The time for words is past; the time for action has arrived.”—[Official Report, 31 March 1910; Vol. 15, c. 1572-83.]
More than 100 years later, I could not agree more.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Many of us who have sympathy with the need to reform the other place are still deeply concerned about these proposals. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what it was in his recent experiences that has suggested that the kind of democracy we need is one where politicians can say what the hell they like, stay for 15 years and never have to face the voters again?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that it is preferable to their being there, making the laws of the land and never being put before the British people. I would hope that the hon. Gentleman, if he believes in House of Lords reform as strongly as the Labour party always has—it used to be a long and noble campaigning tradition for the party—will not only will the ends by backing Second Reading, but will the means by backing the programme motion.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I could just make some progress—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] Yes, of course I give way.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, but will he cease to quote Churchill on these matters, given that they relate to Churchill’s views on the House of Lords at a time of great conflict between the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the 1920s? As he grew up through his political life, he dropped those views and had great reverence and respect for the institution of the House of Lords—something that I suggest my right hon. Friend should have as well.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I will always refer to the views of Winston Churchill with a great deal of respect, but I point out only that he expressed those views in 1910, when of course he was a Liberal, not in the 1920s. I know that he changed his views later, and they are a matter of record.
Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister cease also to say that the Labour party has supported reform of the House of Lords since 1910? What we supported in 1910 was abolition.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If the Labour party’s views have evolved over the past 100 years, which in this matter, if not in others, they may have, I hope none the less that the right hon. Lady will confirm that there was a clear manifesto commitment from the Labour party not only to support the principle of House of Lords reform, but to deliver it in practice.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall make a little more progress, if I may.
In 2007, the Commons voted overwhelmingly for a mostly elected second Chamber. Each of the main parties stood on a platform of Lords reform at the last election, and since coming into Government the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and I have looked for every way to take it forward by consensus.
We convened a cross-party Committee, which I chaired. We then published a White Paper and a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall make a little more headway.
A Joint Committee of both Houses spent nine months considering that White Paper and draft Bill, and I remain extremely grateful for the Joint Committee’s forensic and detailed analysis. We accepted more than half its recommendations and reshaped the Bill around its advice.
This Bill is therefore the sincere result of long and shared endeavour. Its history belongs to us all: to Liberals, to Conservatives, to Labour and to all other parties in this House, as well as to the great political reformers and pragmatists of the past.
Conor Burns
The Deputy Prime Minister is making an articulate case for a position to which he holds with great conviction, and I respect his integrity in that, but does he accept that many of us fear that by electing the second Chamber and giving it the greater legitimacy he talks about, we will end up creating a rival to this Chamber, rather than the revising Chamber that we all want.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know that the hon. Gentleman holds his views, although different from mine, with great sincerity, and I respect him for that, but in a bicameral democratic system there is nothing unusual about having two Chambers, both of which are either fully elected or mainly elected, and in which there is a clear imbalance, an asymmetry—a hierarchy, if you like —in the relationship of one Chamber with the other. I am sure that we can manage it here. The predictions that it would lead to gridlock and to rivalry between the two Chambers were made when reform took place in 1958 and in 1999. They did not materialise then; I really do not believe that they will this time, either.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I can make a little more progress, I will give way.
Of course, this does not mean that every Member of this House agrees with every clause—[Laughter.] That is an understatement! There is no perfect blueprint for a modernised second Chamber. Even within each of the main parties, differing visions of reform can be found, and this Bill reflects a number of compromises that have been made to accommodate differences across the House. I say to Members of this House who have specific worries about particular aspects of this Bill that this is precisely what further scrutiny of the proposals, in both Houses, will be about. The concerns that remain fall into two main camps: the myths, which I will now seek to dispel; and the fears, which I hope to address. But before doing so, I give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).
Chris Bryant
The Deputy Prime Minister knows that I support reform and have done for a very long time, but there are elements of the Bill that I do not like, such as the 15-year term and the fact that it is not clear enough about the respective powers of the two Houses. If the Government are going to end up Parliament-Acting the Bill because the Lords refuses to deal with it, it is all the more incumbent on us to get it right before we send it down the corridor. That is why I say to him, regretfully, that his programme does not fit the bill.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I would be intrigued if the hon. Gentleman could tell me—if not now, afterwards —exactly how many days Labour Members want.
The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) said today in The Guardian that the reason he is opposing the programme motion has nothing to do with scrutiny of the Bill:
“Within the rest of the legislative programme are loads of right-wing bills which will damage people in Britain. So I don’t think it is any part of our responsibility to try and get those bills into statute.”
In other words, Labour’s ulterior motive appears to be to disrupt the rest of the Government’s business. That is not a legitimate way of dealing with a programme motion, which is a perfectly reasonable way for the Government to try to make progress on this important piece of legislation without disrupting all other parts of our business.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will make a little more progress and then give way again.
First, let me take the myths in turn. I have heard the accusation that the reforms will be too quick and too abrupt and that the Bill amounts to some frantic act of constitutional violence. The truth? These reforms would be implemented over about 15 years. New Members would be appointed or elected in three tranches over three elections. The political parties and groups would have maximum discretion over how to reduce their existing numbers.
I have heard it said that the modernised Lords will cost the earth. The truth? Taken as a whole, and once completed, the Government’s reforms of Parliament will be broadly cost-neutral.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will give way later.
The additional costs attached to running a reformed House of Lords—which, incidentally, are much more modest than some of the estimates doing the rounds—will be offset by the saving from reducing the number of MPs. Once all this is implemented, the real-terms cost of running Parliament is expected to be roughly the same as it is now; the only additional cost will be conducting the elections themselves.
Mr Nuttall
How can the Deputy Prime Minister justify not holding a referendum on these proposals when a referendum was held on the alternative vote system, which, by any stretch of the imagination, was not as wide-ranging?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The reason is that the electoral system that votes Members to this House is a matter on which there is profound disagreement between the parties, whereas the principle of House of Lords reform is something to which we have committed ourselves in all our party manifestos over a prolonged period.
It is essential that we make a start by having the first 120 elected peers elected in 2015. If the hon. Gentleman or other Members of this place want further reassurance about the triggers that would then allow the second and third waves of election to take place, of course I, and the Government as a whole, will be prepared to engage with that.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will make a little more progress and then give way again.
I have heard Lords reform presented as some kind of Liberal Democrat crusade. The truth, as I have said on a number of occasions, is that it made its way into all the party manifestos—in the case of the Labour party, as the right hon. Member for Neath has indicated, going all the way back to Keir Hardie’s 1911 manifesto.
The final myth is this: I have heard it said that the House of Commons should not be concerning itself—
The Deputy Prime Minister
May I first deal with this important point? The hon. Lady has raised it with me personally on a number of occasions, so perhaps she would care to listen to my answer.
The final myth is that the House of Commons should not be concerning itself with Lords reform at a time of economic difficulty. My answer is this: let’s get on with it—proper scrutiny, yes; years of foot-dragging, no. I do not remember this complaint being made when we legislated to create elected police commissioners, or when we were debating local government finance or legal aid reform. It is odd to suggest that Parliament cannot do more than one thing at a time. I certainly agree that jobs and growth are the priority, so let us not tie ourselves up in knots on Lords reform. We do not need to—all the parties are signed up to it. We should vote for the Bill and the programme motion so that we can scrutinise the Bill properly while still allowing ourselves to make progress on other Government priorities.
Mrs Laing
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It happens that he has just hit on the very point on which I agree with him entirely. We do have a duty to reform the House of Lords, even though we are doing other things at the same time. He is absolutely right about that, but what a pity that he does not accept Lord Steel’s Bill and get on with the necessary reform that everybody agrees with. If all three party manifestos gave no choice on House of Lords reform, is that not a good reason to put it to the people in a referendum, because in the election they had no chance to vote against it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Following that logic, the commitment to a referendum on House of Lords reform should have been included in the party manifestos.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know, but it was not in the manifestos of two of the three main parties.
The second point that I make to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who was a distinguished member of the Joint Committee, is that although she and I do not agree on this matter, I hope she does agree that the Government listened meticulously to the conclusions of the Joint Committee, which supported the main tenets of the Bill on a cross-party basis and was chaired by a Member of the other place who was not from either of the coalition parties. That shows how consensual we have been in working up our ideas.
I will move on from the myths that have abounded to some of the fears about the Bill, many of which, I accept, have been expressed in good faith. Broadly, there is a worry that we risk upsetting a delicate constitutional balance, creating a second Chamber that is too assertive and therefore a threat to this place, as was alluded to earlier. I am not surprised by that. It is part of a—
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will give way in a minute, if I may make progress on this point.
I am not surprised by that fear because it is part of a normal and familiar pattern. Every time the other place has been reformed, questions over the primacy of the Commons have arisen, with predictions ranging from disaster to apocalypse. In 1999, some said that the new life peers would not accept the traditional conventions and would block manifesto Bills in which Governments legislate on their election promises, resulting in endless gridlock over Government priorities. As with all such predictions, that was completely wrong. The reformed House accepted that the conventions would continue and adjusted to its new status without overreaching its role as a junior partner, as it will again.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will just deal with the issue of primacy. Although questions of primacy are important and must be answered, we must remember that these fears are the routine reflexes to Lords reform. The Bill will not turn the other place into some kind of monster. It relates to size and composition only and contains no new powers for the other place.
Philip Davies
If we may go back to myths for a second, one myth is that it is an important principle to the right hon. Gentleman that people who initiate legislation should be elected. If that is such an important principle, why does he not insist on elections for European Commissioners, who initiate far more legislation in this country than people in the House of Lords?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the European Commission has no right to adopt legislation. If he applied part of his well-renowned fervour against unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to unelected peers in the House of Lords, we would make a considerable progress.
Ultimately, the primacy of the Commons will remain grounded in our conventions and absolutely guaranteed by our laws.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I may, I will make progress on the issue of primacy.
To ensure that there is a rock-solid legal backstop, the Parliament Acts will remain. We have reaffirmed those Acts in the Bill to make that point crystal clear. The Government will still be based in the Commons, the appointed element of the new Chamber means that it will never be able to claim greater electoral legitimacy, and the Commons will, of course, continue to have sole responsibility for money Bills.
Mr Tom Clarke
The Deputy Prime Minister has referred on a number of occasions to the Joint Committee on which I and other colleagues served. Does he think that it best served the purposes of reform when the Government declined, despite our encouragement, to give us any information about funding and refused us legal advice in the form of the Attorney-General?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his work on the Joint Committee. As I hope he knows, we have published the costings of our proposals in full and in detail. Everyone can scrutinise them line by line. Of course, we were not in a position to provide him with a line-by-line analysis of the costings at that stage because we were waiting to change the Bill in view of the conclusions of the Joint Committee. Without finalising the Bill, we could not finalise the analysis of the costs.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will give way in a moment, but I want to make a couple of points.
A separate but related fear is that opening up the Lords to election will politicise it, creating a Chamber of career politicians likely to rival MPs and robbing the Lords of its wisdom and expertise. Let us be clear about the current situation. The other place contains some extremely eminent individuals who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to Parliament, but it is hardly entirely dispassionate, an institution somehow untouched by party politics. More than 70% of its Members receive their peerage from party leaders—that is, more than two thirds of Members take a party Whip, and very few rebel.
Members of the House of Lords are more likely to come from this place than from any other profession, with 189 being ex-MPs. In a reformed House, Members will see themselves and their role very differently from us here, not least because of their longer term and the means by which they elected.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
If this reform goes through, 189 will be people who never managed to become MPs.
The Deputy Prime Minister
What the hon. Gentleman misses is that the Bill will in fact make space in Parliament for a different kind of politician. [Interruption.] Let me explain. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman must be heard. All this noise just slows up the proceedings. A lot of Members—more than 80—want to speak today, and only a small proportion will do so.
The Deputy Prime Minister
What we are doing is what the Joint Committee itself recommended. The Government not only accepted its recommendation that appointed Members should be able to combine membership with a role outside the House, but have extended that principle to elected Members.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am answering the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh).
The Lords should be a place for people who are public spirited, have political and ideological affiliations and want to serve the country, but who also want to continue to lead a life outside politics. It should be for people who want or need to work and have neither the desire nor the inclination to be an MP. They will not be allowed to leave the Lords and immediately seek election to the Commons, so they will be encouraged to see their time in the House of Lords as their one real chance to make their mark.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister has spoken a great deal about the Joint Committee and his respect for it. Will he please think again about the central recommendation of both the Joint Committee and the alternative report, which is the necessity for a referendum?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will not repeat the reasons why I believe a referendum would be unjustified, expensive and a huge distraction from the most important referendum of all, which is on the future of the United Kingdom. However, I will repeat what I said in response to an earlier intervention. If the hon. Gentleman or other Members feel that they need some assurances after the first wave of peers have been elected, so that the second and third stages of reform are subject to some type of trigger, I will of course be prepared to consider that.
The combination of elections by proportional representation, single terms and a specific duty on the appointments commission to consider diversity could encourage more women, more members of black and minority ethnic communities and more people with disabilities to serve.
The Deputy Prime Minister
May I just make this point? I have been very generous, and I will take more interventions in a moment.
Crucially, the list system will mean that the new membership will be properly representative of all parts of the United Kingdom. Right now, nearly half the Members of the House of Lords are drawn from London and the south-east, whereas only 5% come from the north-west and 2.6% from the north-east. Our proposals will correct that imbalance. Proportionately, the west midlands will see its representation more than double, and for the east midlands it will treble. The Bill has sewn into it the chance to create a richer, more diverse House drawn from many more walks of life.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend not think that people watching this debate will be bemused? Back in 2010, they voted for three parties that had House of Lords reform in their manifesto, yet Back Benchers in some of those parties are now trying to block it. It has been 101 years, and the people voted for it in 2010; let us get on with it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend that, given all the other major challenges that our country faces—particularly the economic and social ones—it is inexplicable to members of the British public that this Bill is the one thing on which opponents want to tie us up in knots for months if not years to come.
Helen Jones
The Deputy Prime Minister has referred repeatedly to democratic accountability. Why, then, does he insist that the Lords should be elected by proportional representation when the voters of this country decisively rejected that in a referendum, which he now seeks to deny them?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Both coalition parties agreed in the coalition agreement that elections to the House of Lords should take place on a proportional basis to ensure that we do not create a carbon copy of the Commons, and to ensure a proper balance of power, reflecting all the different parties and regions of the country in the House of Lords, so that it can play a different role to the Commons, as I am sure the hon. Lady agrees.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider an amendment to the programme motion that I have tabled today? It would allow an extra three days’ debate, which would mean that the Committee of the whole House would be one of the longest on constitutional issues? That would allow us to debate the issues in depth, but it would also allow us to get on with the much needed reform of the other place, which is rotten and based on patronage and entitlement.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I welcome the hon. Lady’s support, hoarsely delivered as it was—she has a cough. It is crucial to wait to hear from the official Opposition what their attitude is to the programme motion. Will they not accept any form of programme motion, or do they have suggestions of their own on the number of days required to deal with the legislation? The Government have been very generous already.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister spoke earlier of the need to reform the other place to make it fit for the 21st century. Does he accept that science and technology are very much part of our future? Will he accept an amendment that would mean greater recognition of expert Cross-Bench expertise in engineering, science, technology, maths and medicine? In addition, I am very happy to explain the correct use of the term “lobotomy”.
The Deputy Prime Minister
We can have precisely that debate and a multitude of others on the detail of the Bill as long as we make progress on Second Reading and the programme motion this week. As the hon. Lady may well know, the appointments commission envisaged in the Bill will be statutorily required to ensure proper diversity and representation of expertise in the 20% of non-elected peers in a reformed House of Lords.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Many hon. Members want to make their views known, so I should like to conclude my remarks. I have been very generous in giving way and would now like to make progress.
I shall conclude my speech as I began. There are three reasons to vote in favour of the Bill and its orderly passage: because we believe in democracy, for the sake of better laws, and because reform cannot be ducked. I welcome the reasoned and expert questions, arguments and concerns that I know many Members will raise. I also know that some will not be interested in rational discussion—those who would oppose Lords reform in whatever form, at whatever time and in whatever century, no matter what commitments their parties have made.
This project has always been dogged by those who fear change. What encourages me is that it is being kept alive by those who champion democracy: the reformers and modernisers who believe simply that power belongs in the hands of the people. We have a chance to finish their work. This has been a 100-year long project. Let us now get it done. I commend the Bill to the House.