House of Lords Reform Bill

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

This Bill is concerned with the very heart of the constitutional settlement of this country. It is not just about the abolition of a 700-year-old institution; it is about the way in which a Government are formed and sustained, and about the primacy of the Commons—the elected House. To pretend that nothing in the relationship between this House and the other place will change should this Bill pass into law is folly, whether it be wilful or unwitting.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will not give way, because of time and the fact that many colleagues want to speak.

There are aspects of the House of Lords that should be reformed, but elections address none of them. On reform to improve the working of the scrutinising and revising Chamber, I am convinced that we in this House and those in the other place would come to a speedy consensus. There would be no opposition to the introduction of retirement procedures, to the reduction in the number of working peers, to the weakening of party patronage or to the forfeiture of the right to sit by peers who break the law. Such measures address the concerns of our time and could be enacted without affecting the constitutional settlement. There must be good reason to reject this path of consensus.

We are told that if we believe in democracy, we must support elections, that the laws of the land should be made by people elected by those who obey the laws of the land and that there is a democratic deficit in our polity because the upper House is not elected. That is disingenuous; there is no democratic deficit because the will of the elected House is unambiguously superior. The will of the people cannot be gainsaid. It is only through pretending that peers are law makers that one can confect a democratic deficit from the supremacy of the elected House. Of course, peers are not legislators; they are scrutinisers and revisers, and they accept that settled role in the constitution. However, it is absolutely true that those with the legitimacy of a democratic mandate will expect to be legislators. These new senators will not accept the limitations that are currently readily accepted in the other place.

The Bill would have the primacy of this House continue after reforms are made, but it does not explain why. Consent to taxation by the populace through its representatives in Parliament has been a thread that has endured through the near 800-year history of this institution. The House’s sole privilege of the purse has existed since the reign of Charles II. In the last century, the right of the Lords to frustrate the will of the Commons was denied it by the Parliament Acts and by the self-denying Salisbury doctrine.

When an elected upper House would have a mandate from the taxpayer why should it be denied a say in financial matters? On what legitimacy would the Parliament Acts rest if the House against which the Commons is imposing its will has been elected by the people? How can the Salisbury doctrine endure when the Deputy Prime Minister’s new senators will presumably be elected on party manifestos of their own? What will the Commons do but back down when an elected upper House opposes it with the support of the people? How can a Government endure when they cannot carry their legislation through the other place? In such circumstances, how can Governments continue to be formed solely on the basis of a majority in the House of Commons?

The Executive and the legislature derive their legitimacy from the same electoral mandate, which is why comparisons with the US are so bogus. Elections to a reformed upper House would weaken that essential relationship between the election of the Commons and the formation of a Government. Why is that not admitted? Why do the proposers of the Bill believe that they can hold back the natural forces of constitutional change with clause 2? That clause simply states that the Parliament Acts “will continue to apply”. No explanation is offered of their continued legitimacy. The clause would also repeal the preamble to the 1911 Act, because it is merely

“a short statement of the Government of the time”.

The preamble contains the seeds of the Act’s destruction, explaining that legislation would follow to create an elected upper House and to codify its powers, in essence nullifying the validity of the Parliament Act.

The Bill before us can seek to repeal a preamble, but it cannot repeal the self-evident truth: to change the Lords is to change the relationship between it and the Commons. The Bill labours under the delusion that nothing will change. In repealing the 1911 preamble, the Bill’s promoters admit that the powers of Governments are but transitory. The Government of today are soon the Government of yesterday and soon enough the Government of yesteryear. Constitutional reform is not an experiment; it can be undertaken only when there is just cause, not at the whim of whoever happen to be today’s politicians. The 1911 Act solved a constitutional crisis. There is no crisis now, but the Bill will surely create one.

Colleagues can vote on the principles of the Bill confident in the knowledge that the undertakings in the programme for government have been delivered. A commitment was made to whip both coalition parties to support the AV referendum, but there was no such commitment on Lords reform. Proposals have been made and it is now up to the advocates of those reforms to convince Members of this House that they are right. An unfettered debate will allow arguments on both sides to be made, and we can then vote on the principles of this momentous decision. I am glad that the programme motion will not be moved and the Government should comfort themselves with the fact that so many principled and sound constitutionalists sit on their Benches and stand ready to work on a Bill for Lords reform on which there is consensus.

The fact is that the progenitors of this Bill have tied a chain around one of the central pillars of our constitution and are pulling at it for all they are worth, cheerfully telling us as the marble begins to crack that its removal will not bring down the entire edifice. I will not be party to that; I will not support this Bill.