House of Lords Reform

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers]

Humanism has always seemed to me to be the absence of faith. We could debate the hon. Gentleman’s rather philosophical point endlessly, and I would be very happy to do so some time.

The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire referred to a unicameral system. It would be a mistake to move to a system with only one Chamber. However, I would point out that, with devolution, Scotland is almost a unicameral Assembly; I will leave that matter to Scottish National party Members.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Although the Scottish Parliament has one Chamber, it has a very strong committee system. It is not an Assembly, but a Parliament in which the Government sit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

When I first wandered into the Chamber today, I thought I had come into the wrong debate, because the Annunciator shows the title of the debate as “House of Lords reform”. Neither my colleagues nor I believe that there can be any reforming of something that is so deeply undemocratic and rotten to the core.

There is no doubt that the general public across the UK are deeply disengaged from and alienated by much of what goes on in this place. It is dangerous for democracy when the very people it is intended to serve lose so much interest and faith in it. We can come up with warm words and grand ideas about how to tackle that, but perhaps the single most important thing we can do to repair some, although not all, of the damaging rift between those of us who serve and those whom we seek to serve would be to hear the calls—a deafening din in Scotland—to abolish the House of Lords. It is no better than a carbuncle on the face of democracy across the United Kingdom, and there is a deep sense of frustration with it across communities in Scotland. It has already been pointed out that this archaic, outdated and medieval and anachronistic institution has no place in any state that purports to be a modern, enlightened and forward-looking democracy. Just to be clear, we do not simply object to the personnel in the House of Lords, although we do; we do not recognise its legitimacy or its right to legislate over the citizens of the UK.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree very much with what the hon. Lady is saying. The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) suggested earlier that this subject never came up on the doorstep. Does she agree that that is because people’s first concerns are jobs, housing, poverty and the health service? However, if people are asked about the House of Lords, many would say that we should abolish it.

[Patricia Gibson]

I absolutely agree with what the hon. Gentleman has just said. When people talk to us on the doorstep, their priorities are of course job security, benefit sanctions and putting food on the table, but if we scratch the surface, we find that the House of Lords is universally hated, across the UK in my view. There might be small pockets of support among what might be called traditionalists, but for the ordinary man and woman in the street, the House of Lords is an affront to modern democracy.

What I am about to say has already been mentioned earlier in the debate. That is one of the disadvantages of being so far down the speaking list. It is bad enough that the House of Lords is unelected, but it really is quite incredible to think that we are the only state in the world apart from Iran that has clerics pontificating on legislation. That further illustrates the absurdity of this relic.

Despite all the plaudits and feeble attempts to justify the other place, perhaps by those who have pals or cronies there or those who seek to retire there themselves when the voters reject them, it cannot be justified to retain those who are unelected. They have often been actively rejected by the voters. It is arguably worse that some of them have shied away from presenting themselves to the voters at any time at all, despite having political ambitions. That really makes the House of Lords a laughing stock in the eyes of the rest of the world.

[Steven Paterson]

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that this Government, who made their one MP from Scotland Secretary of State, had to aggrandise or ennoble someone and put them in the House of Lords to fulfil the role of deputy—Under-Secretary of State—in the Scotland Office?

[Patricia Gibson]

Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I wish to add my disappointment at the fact that the Leader of the Opposition, who considers himself to have very left-wing credentials, has co-opted Members of the House of Lords into his shadow Cabinet. That is a travesty if ever there was one.

I may have been a huge fan of the political novels of Anthony Trollope in my formative years, but I have no wish to live in the 19th century. Madam Deputy Speaker, if you will indulge me for just a moment, I feel that I must share some figures with the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) has shamed me into doing this, and marital relations would become strained if I did not mention the fact that the distinguished—certainly he is in my house—MSP for Cunninghame North unearthed some figures that showed that nearly 75% of appointments to the Lords are defeated, retired or deselected MPs or former advisers. After every election, we actually hear the stampede towards the ermine, from this place to that place. If this matter were not so serious, I would be laughing. We have hereditary peers and Church of England bishops—I have often wondered whether that means that God is an Englishman.

[Martin John Docherty]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if God were a Scotsman, he still would not want a place in the House of Lords?

[Patricia Gibson]

Absolutely. We have in the Lords cronies, party donors, party-placed men and women—although there are fewer women than men—failed politicians, and retired politicians who are looking for a wee hobby in 2016. Perhaps that was fitting in Anthony Trollope’s time, but, for the love of God—Madam Deputy Speaker, forgive me—let us get a grip. I bet that when we do get rid of this relic, just like the smoking ban we will wonder why it took so long and why we waited so long. No one on these Benches is saying that there are not some folk in the House of Lords who are well intentioned or who have much expertise and skill to offer their country’s legislative process. No one is even saying that we should not enter into a debate about the relative merits of a second Chamber to revise legislation. That is a debate that we could and should have in the future. What we are saying is that anyone who seeks to pontificate over, revise, introduce or influence legislation in our Parliament should be elected by the people whom they purport to serve. It is as simple as that.

I am almost embarrassed to repeat the numbers for China’s National People’s Congress—as I have now made comparisons with China and Iran, I can see that we are in good company with those beacons of democracy.

[Alison Thewliss]

In his book “The Point of Departure”, the late Member of Parliament for Livingston recalled an incident at a Europe-Africa summit. A president of one African country said that they could not be criticised for failing to introduce full democracy after only 50 years of independence when Britain had failed to get rid of the hereditary principle after 500 years.

[Patricia Gibson]

As I have said, we are becoming a laughing stock all over the world.

In addition—and this is a very, very serious point—we are told that these are austere times. We cannot afford to help the so-called “benefit scroungers”, but we can afford to help the “strivers”—and the House of Lords is full of them. We must punish families with more than two children, because everyone knows that if a person has a third child, they are clearly trying to get money out of the taxpayer. Yet here we have in the House of Lords what many of my constituents would call a trough. It is costing £94.4 million. This dripping roast, as my constituents would call it, costs more than the Scottish Parliament—elected, accountable, forward-thinking, enlightened and representative of the people—and has even more Members than the European Parliament.

In my view, Clement Attlee was being extremely kind when he described the House of Lords as

“like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days”.

I much prefer the analysis that the best cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it. When we sanction vulnerable folk on benefits who are five minutes late for an appointment at the jobcentre, when we hammer women born in the 1950s by moving their retirement age further away, when my constituents see Scotland’s budget being squeezed and we hear this being called “a sustainable economic plan”, I and many others ask how that sustainable economic plan impacts on the waste, the affront to democracy, the dripping roast that is the House of Lords—and these people dare to pontificate on Scotland’s constitutional future. Even the Lords themselves hardly take it seriously: attendance is around 60%, although it has improved recently, perhaps because the dripping roast is drying up and much must be suckled in the dying moments of the House.

What a tragedy it is that the 2015 Conservative manifesto indicated that the party did not consider House of Lords reform a priority. No, let us instead prioritise bashing the vulnerable and taking benefits away from the poor. The Strathclyde review was a wasted opportunity —then again, turkeys do not vote for Christmas. They can tinker at the edges all they like; they will never make this affront to democracy palatable enough for the people in my constituency that they see it as having any legitimacy. Let us abolish this carbuncle on the face of democracy. Let us listen to the people. Then, they may begin to listen to what this place has to say. I urge the Minister to screw his courage to the sticking place, to get a grip and to get rid. It is time the UK grew up.