House of Lords Reform Bill

Stephen Dorrell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

We look forward to seeing what proposals the Government actually bring forward. I tried earlier to get a few hints from the Leader of the House, but he seems not to know the answer yet. I hope that we will know soon what the Government intend to do, but the principle that the entire Bill must have adequate scrutiny and that when it leaves this place, it must be fit for purpose is the one that is in our minds.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

Opposition Front Benchers asserted yesterday that the timetable motion on today’s Order Paper would not give adequate time for the Bill to be debated as it goes through the House, so they must have some idea of how much time is adequate if they were able to reach that conclusion. Just why was the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) on how many days are adequate a silly one in that context?

[Ms Eagle]

We have to see what progress the Bill makes. With good will on both sides, Parliament can do the job that it was elected to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). I have the same aspiration as he has for the other place, but I draw the opposite conclusion about the Bill. Over the past couple of days, I have listened to a number of speeches, few of which have been full-hearted in their support for the Bill. I am quite strongly in support of the principles set out in it, however, because I believe they provide an effective answer to the challenge of creating a stronger House of Lords to check the legislative torrent that has become the habit of Executives over-dominant in the House of Commons.

Several speakers have said that the answer to Executive dominance of the Commons is to change the balance in the latter, and reformers have set out to deliver that objective over the 30-odd years I have been here. Let us stand back and look at the results. Under Conservative Governments before 1997 and Labour Governments between 1997 and 2010—and even occasionally under this coalition Government—it became too easy for Ministers to bring measures to the House, to get them approved by the House and to pass them without effective check in the House of Lords. It was too easy for those measures to end up on the statute book.

My hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) asked what was the question we were seeking to answer. In introducing an elected element into the House of Lords, we are seeking to answer the question first posed not by the coalition or, with respect, by the Liberal Democrats, but by Lord Hailsham 50 years ago when he spoke of an elective dictatorship. Under our system, we have a general election and a Government are elected based on a majority in this place, but that does not provide sufficient checks and balances, particularly on the legislative ambitions of Ministers.

[Jesse Norman]

It is an interesting solution to an elective dictatorship to propose two elective dictatorships. The Blair Government was defeated four times in the Commons and 460 times in the Lords. Does my right hon. Friend wish to replicate the record of the Commons in the Lords?

[Mr Dorrell]

My hon. Friend repeats a point made several times in the debate, and I accept that it is a serious point. His point is about the Blair Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough quoted 576 defeats in the Lords, presumably over a slightly different time scale. However, those defeats were over individual measures in a Bill, and they often came back to be reversed by this place.

When we stand back from the matter, we see that the House of Lords cannot be said to provide the check on ill-developed, badly thought out legislation. Too often, Ministers are tempted down the road of trying to create legislative monuments for themselves. Occasionally, when I sat on the legislative committee in the Cabinet—in another existence, many years ago—we heard it argued that we needed a Bill from a particular Department to create a political centrepiece for the Government’s programme. That is not a good reason for proposing legislative change. To be effective, legislation needs to be properly thought out. It is far better seen as a rifle than a blunderbuss.

[Mr Leigh]

But why should elected people in the other place be any more willing than elected people in this place to vote against the Government? History is against my right hon. Friend.

[Mr Dorrell]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend. Either the Bill will create a logjam—because people in the other place, with a different mandate and a more leisurely time scale, have the willingness and the capacity to create an effective check—or the other place will merely be a poodle. We can pay our money and take our choice between those two arguments. Personally, I think that the longer mandate, as well as all the other elements of the primacy of the Commons which are included in the Bill, are more likely to create an effective check on the legislative ambitions that I have mentioned. In other words, for me, the issue in the Bill is not the balance between the Lords and the Commons; it is the balance between Parliament as a whole and Whitehall. I am a strong supporter of a more effective Parliament, in order to create a more effective check on the legislative ambitions of Whitehall.

We have heard various speeches. Some have argued for a unicameralist approach. I have made it clear why I am not in favour of a unicameralist approach. I am in favour of a strong second Chamber that will create a genuine check on the legislative ambitions of Whitehall. I am persuaded that the best way of providing that is to introduce an elected element into the upper House.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend not find it ironic, however, that he is presenting his case in a Parliament during which, over two years, we have seen more changes in Government policy as a result of effective scrutiny and demand from both MPs and peers?

[Mr Dorrell]

I am not going to be drawn into developing the examples that we have seen in the last couple of years, but we have seen examples in that time of legislation that has been passed by this House—and, ultimately, passed by the other House—despite it being acknowledged that the ambition could have been achieved without the grand legislative context in which the measures were included.

The question for the House this evening is extremely simple: to elect or not to elect? I am in favour of election.