House of Lords: Abolition

Simon Hart Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

Forgive me. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I will come to that point later in my speech. I was talking about when there were solely hereditary peers. I thank him very much for allowing me to correct the record.

The House of Lords clearly needs to do more, however it is composed, to ensure it is representative of the country, not just by reflecting public political opinion, expressed in general election results, but by having more women and people from ethnic backgrounds. It is interesting to note, however, that both leaders of the two main parties in the Lords are female, and that all three leaders of the main parties are younger than their counterparts in this place. Funnily enough, the House of Lords has done its bit for gender equality by electing its first male Lord Speaker, Lord Fowler. It has a good record of supporting women in the most senior positions, but clearly there is more it can do.

The work of the Lords is not just the legislation debated in the Chamber, but its Committee work. Its Select Committees are formed differently from ours: while ours tend to reflect Departments, its Committees tend to be more cross-cutting. The Science and Technology Committee, for example, makes the most of the House of Lords’ expertise. Essentially, the House of Lords does things that the House of Commons does less of because the time available, and our different political imperatives and priorities, drive us in different ways. However, it should not go beyond its remit, as it clearly has on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.

A lot of checks have been introduced over the past 100 years. The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 prevent the House of Lords from blocking legislation and money resolutions. It can hold up Bills for up to a year, but the Government can reintroduce them without seeking the House of Lords’ consent at the beginning of the next parliamentary session. Having some tension is no bad thing, but there have to be limits, and the House of Lords has overstepped the limits in this instance.

The Salisbury convention would normally kick in for a measure such as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, because, like our pledge to leave the customs union and the single market, it was clearly in our 2017 manifesto. However, that only prevents the Bill from becoming law in this parliamentary Session. There is obviously a timescale issue with the EU withdrawal Bill, because we will leave the EU at the end of March next year, so we have to get the Bill through in plenty of time to ensure we leave in an orderly way. If it is held up for too long or changed beyond recognition, that will affect our negotiating position now and our capacity to leave the EU in an orderly way next March.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

We are in the rather strange and unusual situation of having a two-year parliamentary Session. If we had stuck to the normal protocol of having a one-year session, the Parliament Act could have applied and the blockage could have been removed in time for us to leave the EU in March next year. The Government are at fault for having this extended Session, which has rendered the Parliament Act rather difficult to deploy.

[Paul Scully]

These are obviously unusual circumstances for all manner of reasons. Brexit and the two-year Session are incredibly unusual. I have talked a lot about the fact that, in my view, the Lords have overstepped their remit. The petitioner is not talking about the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, so I will park that after this point. We need to look at the Bill as a whole. The Lords may be thwarting the Government now, but it depends on how the process finishes. If we can get the Bill into the form originally intended after consideration of Lords amendments on Wednesday and Third Reading, even if it has been amended, which is exactly what the Lords are there to do, as long as it has not been amended beyond recognition and its original remit—there will have been a lot of tension—we will have got there in the end. A lot of the things we do in this place may look odd or arcane to people, but they tend to have a way of working. That is done not just in the Chamber, but through the usual channels and debate and discussion outside the Chamber.

The reforms have been only half completed. The possibility of having an elected Chamber has been mentioned. That is one option. Do we abolish? Do we go elected? Do we have a hybrid system with a mix of elected and appointed peers, or do we keep it the same? I do not think anybody is saying we should keep it exactly the same. We went through the process of looking at an elected House of Lords before my time in this place, and nobody could agree on the detail. Although there was a lot of sympathy for having at least an elected element of the House of Lords, no one could say what percentage it should be and how long the terms should be. That is one reason why it did not go through. It will take a lot of parliamentary time—I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about this—if that proposal were to come back to us. What could we agree on and coalesce around?

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker.

Many Members will be familiar with the Dunny-on-the-Wold by-election. The winning candidate, S. Baldrick of the Adder party, stood to represent a constituency whose population consisted of three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named Colin and a small hen in its late 40s. The candidate went on to surprise everyone by achieving 16,472 votes. I am of course referring to the plot of an episode of “Blackadder the Third”.

All very amusing, but that scenario is only slightly less absurd than the one referred to in the opening comments of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully): the election on 19 April 2016 of Viscount Thurso of Ulbster, who was one of seven candidates before an electorate of three. I am pleased to report that on that occasion at least the turnout was 100%. It gets worse, because despite being elected by only three people, Viscount Thurso actually boasts one of the largest democratic mandates among the 780 Members of the other place.

If that was the plot of a comedy series, we would laugh; if that was the situation in another country, our media would sneer; but that is what apparently passes for democracy in the United Kingdom in the 21st century. The situation is one that successive Governments have chosen to allow, and the response of the Government to the petition that we are debating shows that things are unlikely to change. They said:

“Whilst comprehensive reform is not a priority, the Government will also continue to work to ensure that the House of Lords remains relevant and effective by addressing issues such as its size.”

I argue that it is extremely difficult for the House of Lords to be relevant as long as it remains unelected. The fact that 169,000 people have signed the petition that we are debating shows that we cannot continue to kick the issue down the road or into the long grass. This historical aberration has to change.

We are told that, despite the lack of democratic accountability, the Lords at least do a good job—although there might be mixed views on the Government Benches about that at the moment. That is indeed true of some Lords. I have worked closely with many Members of the other place and have been extremely impressed by their contribution. However, I see no reason why, with such ability, they would not have a good chance of being able to continue to serve in public life were they to subject themselves to the will of the people.

Some in the other Chamber, sadly, are much less assiduous. In an age when the electorate is often criticised for its apathy, I was astonished to find that the record turnout for a vote in the House of Lords in recent times was only 3% higher than the turnout at the last general election. Even at their absolute best, one in five Members of the other place does not cast a vote. Furthermore, that exceptional turnout I just referred to is very much out of the ordinary. On average, only between half and two thirds of the upper House attend, and many Members have not spoken or voted in a considerable time. That they can do so without any apparent accountability is an affront to democracy and an insult to the public.

[Simon Hart]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but does he recall that when reform crashed and burned under the coalition Government, it did so because of the suggestion—almost insistence—of an elected element? That was all about the primacy of the House of Commons, so what was actually going on was reform of the Commons, because it was argued that at the moment that anyone in the House of Lords was elected, such Members had as much legitimacy as those of us in the Commons. The blockages and delays that we are experiencing now would therefore only become more profound, and would have some justification. That is why the reform proposal failed.

[Justin Madders]

I appreciate that, but it does not make the existing system any more acceptable. The problem that successive Governments have found with the House of Lords, and the trap that they and we all fall into, is that we obsess about how we shall make the system work, rather than saying as a statement of principle that we do not believe that an unelected Chamber in this country is an acceptable way to proceed. We should state as a starting point that we want abolition, then, if we agree, we should have a period of time in which to work out exactly what we want instead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I came here with no intention of making a speech, but I was reminded by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) of those days back in 2011 and 2012 when the coalition was in office and House of Lords reform was debated in the main Chamber in Government time. It was frustrating that there were numerous reforms with which we all agreed and would have proceeded had our partners in the coalition not been so wedded at the time to the concept of an elected second Chamber that nothing else mattered. The entire reform programme fell pretty well as a result of that intransigence.

I was amused, as I always am, by the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). I agreed with some elements but not with others. I took it—I hope I am not misquoting him—that he gave a pre-refusal should he be offered the honour of a place in the House of Lords when his long, illustrious political career in the Commons comes to an end. He can always intervene and tell me if I am wrong, but if that is the case, it is one less to worry about.

As I mentioned in an intervention, this debate is about the primacy of the House of Commons. All those years ago those measures fell because we could not find a way around the fact that, if we wanted the Commons to be a proper representation of public opinion and public feeling and not to be compromised, it had to have primacy. This is an argument not against House of Lords reform, but against having elected elements in it, and particularly some of the crazy schemes for two seven-year terms or whatever. The moment there is any suggestion of an elected element to the upper House, the Commons would suffer as a consequence.

It seemed we could not get around the idea that we were considering not abolition or reform of the House of Lords but wholesale constitutional reform of Parliament, and of the Commons in particular. It struck me then, and it strikes me now, that if as a result of the mood of the electorate we had a substantial Government majority in the Commons matched in the House of Lords, checks and balances would be significantly reduced, and the ability of the Lords to review, improve and scrutinise legislation—sometimes aggressively—would be somewhat reduced.

We should not be too pompous about some of the arguments we are getting from the House of Lords at the moment. It is important that the Government’s position on Brexit is challenged, however uncomfortable that might be. It is a little early to write off the House of Lords—in my view it is an anachronism worthy of abolition—before the process has ended.

[Tommy Sheppard]

The hon. Gentleman is basically saying there would be a problem with which House would be the most legitimate at any given point if both were elected. Will he speculate on why so many countries across the world manage to have a bicameral structure with two elected houses without that problem arising? If he thinks that problem is fundamental to the structure of Parliament, should we not first exhaust the possibility of a unicameral legislature before deciding whether and what type of revising Chamber we might wish to have?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman is right. This is not about dismissing other potential reforms. I am simply making observations about why, back in 2011 and 2012, when we had the opportunity and momentum and there was spirit behind the proposals, they failed. They failed because they spooked Members of the House of Commons, who thought their primacy was in danger of being compromised. Unsurprisingly, they also spooked Members of the House of Lords, who felt that they would have to face the vulgarity of an election from time to time. We have to be pragmatic, and my point is about pragmatism. If we want to proceed, it is no good quoting what may be the case in other countries, however bona fide their examples may be; we must get the proposals through both Houses of Parliament. I am interested in exploring ways in which we can legitimately do that and make progress.

The other point I would make in response to the intervention of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is that if we can dip our toe in the reforming water and find that it is actually okay, other reforms will follow. Part of the situation is a fear of anything different. I suspect that if we can make the process evolutionary rather than revolutionary, many of the reforms we have talked about that have so far apparently been impossible will become a little easier. I am not attempting to dismiss the hon. Gentleman’s comments. They are legitimate, but we must look at them in the context of the history of numerous attempts in the past 10 or 20 years to address the problem, most of which have been unsuccessful so far.

As I was attempting to explain, the Brexit situation stimulated interest in House of Lords reform. I have no particular fear of the Lords making uncomfortable observations about the direction in which the Government are going, but I would take a different view if it became obvious that the Lords’ intention was to frustrate the will of the elected Chamber. Those two things are different and we are not there yet. We might be there in a matter of days, but we are not there yet, and therefore we are unable to pass or should be cautious about passing sentence today.

The hon. Member for Stroud hinted at reforms that could bring about progress. I am entirely sympathetic to a reduction in numbers—not so much for the Commons, in case the Minister is listening, but for the House of Lords. I completely understand that. He also mentioned expertise. I agree with pretty well all of his contribution, although I suspect that if we went down a different route it might cost money rather than saving it. The positions might have to be salaried if an appointments panel simply advertises vacancies and selects people—if we create a second Chamber that is properly diverse and representative, it could come at a salaried price.

Thirdly, there may be opportunities to look again at the Parliament Act 1949. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who opened the debate, pointed out, that has its drawbacks because it was created at a time when the present circumstances were not anticipated. Perhaps revisiting it with a view to ensuring that the Commons can get its way in a rather more timely fashion might be one way in which to start making sensible progress. We need a pragmatic approach to reform. Otherwise we shall find, as we often have so frustratingly in the past, that no progress can be made because someone somewhere will lose out. If we continue to make proposals that are not politically digestible, we will have this debate again in a few years’ time.