House of Lords Reform

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate in Westminster Hall and I thank the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for giving us this chance. We have had a good debate on House of Lords reform. Although there is a need for fundamental change—I will reaffirm Labour’s support for fundamental change—I think all hon. Members acknowledge the very hard work of many Members of the other place in scrutinising and seeking to improve legislation.

I will start by addressing what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire set out as his principles for reform, because he set them out very well. They were, first, that the second Chamber should be democratic; secondly, that it should be smaller than it is now, but also smaller than the House of Commons; and, thirdly, that there should be a clear definition of the second Chamber’s role as scrutinising and improving legislation. That is very important. I have never accepted the argument that the primacy of the House of Commons is somehow automatically challenged by having a more legitimate and democratic second Chamber. Definition is a way of addressing that problem. As an aside, alongside seeking to make changes in the House of Lords, we need to recognise that the House of Commons needs to get its act together when it comes to the scrutiny and improvement of legislation. The Government need to get their act together by presenting to the House of Commons legislation that does not require, when it goes to the other place, the level of amendment that we have seen both in this Parliament and under the Labour Government.

Fourthly, as the hon. Gentleman said, we need to get shot of the deference. That, crucially, reminds us of the importance of completing the work to remove the remaining hereditary peers. I would add a fifth principle, which the hon. Gentleman accepted in his speech and which most hon. Members, apart from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), have acknowledged, which is that there should be a second Chamber. Some hon. Members, including in my party, favour a unicameral solution. It is very important that we have checks and balances in our system; having a second Chamber that can provide scrutiny and improvement of legislation is very important.

This is not a new issue. It has been around for more than 100 years, as has been acknowledged, and it has been debated, certainly during the two stints that I have had in this place, at great length. When I was elected in 1997, the Labour party ran on a programme of very dramatic constitutional change, as the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, and I am very proud of what we did on devolution, freedom of information and the Human Rights Act 1998. We started the job of House of Lords reform with the 1999 legislation, and it is interesting to look at the experience of 1999 through to now, because it demonstrates some of the pitfalls of trying to reform the House of Lords.

The original legislation in 1999 was to remove all the hereditary peers, and then in effect a deal was done between the then Government and the Conservatives in the House of Lords—not the Conservatives in the House of Commons—to retain 92 hereditary peers. In one way, it was a dramatic reform, because the number of hereditary peers was reduced very significantly, but even so a compromise was accepted that the 92 would remain. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said, we have the absurdity of the only elected Members of the other place being the hereditary peers who are elected in the event of an hereditary peer leaving the other place through either death or retirement.

The aim was always to have a second stage. I served for a year, between 2001 and 2002, as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. Robin Cook was the Leader of the House and was determined to see fundamental reform, both in modernising the House of Commons and in reforming the House of Lords. Colleagues may recall that we had a series of votes on reform of the other place. I cannot remember the exact order, but we voted on its being 100% elected, 0% elected, 80% elected, 20% elected—right the way through—and every single proposal was defeated. That reminds us that these things are not easy, that there is a range of views, and that we sometimes allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Personally, I voted for a 100% elected Chamber, but I also voted for one that was 80% elected. Some were purists and were not prepared to vote for anything less than 100% elected.

We have had further votes since in which there has been a clear majority in the House of Commons for an elected second Chamber. Under the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the House of Commons voted for both 100% and 80% elected. As we have been reminded, the Bill in this Parliament received a very clear majority on Second Reading. We can therefore say that the will of the House of Commons is for a democratic second Chamber. The principles set out today are absolutely the right ones.

How do we take things from here? It is right to remind ourselves that a general election is coming up and there is an opportunity in manifestos for commitments to be made. It is very important to make those commitments, but we need to learn the lessons from past failings. There are two lessons. First, as is the case with any constitutional reform, the greater cross-party consensus we can forge, the better. People in all political parties will have different views, so the more cross-party consensus, the better. Secondly—I say this as a long-standing reformer—we have not tended to engage citizens. The more we can engage citizens in all parts of the country in proposals for reform, the better.

The Labour party’s position is that we want a democratic second Chamber. We have talked about forging a senate of the nations and regions that can be truly representative. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire rightly reminded us of the patronage in the appointments system and of the injustice of hereditary peerages. The third element that is worth emphasising is that there is no geographic representation in the other place. Its Members are heavily drawn from people who are from London and the south-east of England—just over half of peers are from London or the south-east of England. The region that I now represent in Parliament, the north-west, has just 6% of those who are in the other place.

[Mark Field]

I speak as a London Member and someone who has spent all his adult life in London. It is probably fair to say that many but not all of those—I accept that there is an imbalance—who are notionally from London and the south-east originated in other parts of the United Kingdom, but have spent much of their professional career in London and the south-east. That slightly skews the figures, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. The opportunity of a democratic second Chamber is clearly to have one that has fair and proportional representation from all parts of the country. Obviously, that would include London, but also Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England.

Let me finish by saying something about how best we can take this forward. Clearly, there are long-standing plans for reform, which were reflected in the legislation presented earlier in this Parliament, but there is a broader set of challenges. After the Scottish referendum, there are questions about England, and questions about devolution to city regions, counties and local communities. There is sense in looking at these issues in the round, which is why a number of the democracy and citizens organisations have argued for some time that we should have a UK constitutional convention to address them. Labour and other parties support that. The broader the support we can build for it, the better. It needs to happen quickly. We need to start the work now. I welcome the discussions that are already happening, but the right way to reform Parliament, including reforms relating to legislation that affects only England or England and Wales, and to reform the second Chamber, is through a constitutional convention that is led by citizens, that has a majority of members of the public on it, that reports back quickly after deliberation and whose proposals are then considered in this place. If we can get such a constitutional convention set up this year, there is an opportunity to get this right and get a blueprint that creates a truly democratic second Chamber—a senate of the nations and regions—and we can finally deal with an issue that has been in contention for well over a century.

To finish where I started, I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has given us the opportunity this morning to address this very important issue. We must not allow it to fall off the political agenda.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

That is not a decision that the Government took. It has not been possible to undertake the substantial reform that we wanted, so the Government have continued to appoint peers to ensure that the balance of peers and the parties that they represent is, broadly speaking, representative of that in the House of Commons.

I would like to pick up on some points that hon. Members have made. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire will be reassured to hear that he can call the other place the House of Lords. That is a minor change towards less deference, or at least greater clarity.

I get frustrated when hon. Members refer, as the hon. Gentleman did, to other major parties as “establishment” parties. The Scottish National party, which he represents, is very much an establishment party in Scotland; I am sure that some of his criticisms of the major parties here could be turned around and directed at him and his party in Scotland. I thank him for highlighting in his tweets what he was going to say in today’s debate. That gave us advance notice. Readers of Hansard will be able to judge for themselves whether the debate has been a good one, as he predicted it would be.

The hon. Gentleman said that only one peer had chosen to retire, but my understanding is that under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, five have chosen to retire. Before that, three peers retired under a voluntary retirement system. Earlier still—I am sure we agree that we would not particularly want to trumpet this—five peers retired because of the rules that required those who were not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes to retire. There have been some genuine retirements in addition to the one that he mentioned.

The hon. Gentleman referred, understandably, to the question of donors who have subsequently become peers. To return to my comment about his party being an establishment party, I am sure that the same degree of scrutiny is applied, for instance, to the relationship between the leader of the SNP and Brian Souter, and to the donations that the party receives through that route. Indeed, I hope that the relationship, and the two dozen meetings that took place, between Alex Salmond and Rupert Murdoch received the same degree of scrutiny as do donors here.

I commend the hon. Gentleman on his work for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy—something that I have done in the past—which is an essential organisation that provides support to parties outside the UK. I agree that it is difficult for him as a trustee, as it was for me, to explain to other countries around the world why we have the House of Lords. I understand the difficult position in which that puts him.

I agree with all the key principles that the hon. Gentleman set out. However, I understood him to say that he did not want the House of Lords to initiate any legislation. If that is his position, I hope that he has considered the fact that such a system would present some significant logistical issues for the House of Commons legislative programme. If all legislation was required to start in the House of Commons, either there would have to be much less legislation or Members of Parliament would have to work much longer on the legislative programme and spend a lot less time in their constituencies.

We all agree with the hon. Gentleman that we want a modern, democratic Chamber. Slightly lacking in his speech was the bit in between—the route map that will take us from our concerns about the present system to the creation of a modern, democratic Chamber. That is the difficulty that we all face. The solution proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) was a federal UK Parliament with four national Parliaments. That has the advantage of being a straightforward solution, but there are significant risks associated with it. For instance, the Scottish Government has led to more centralisation in Scotland, and I am concerned that the simple solution of an English Parliament might suck powers upwards into such a Parliament, which is the exact opposite of what I want to achieve.

[Stephen Twigg]

indicated assent.

[Tom Brake]

I believe that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) agrees. I would like to see genuine devolution to communities. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster that English votes for English laws, or proportional English votes for English laws, must move hand in hand with devolution. The knock-on effect on House of Lords reform must also be taken into account.

My hon. Friend had a pop at the Liberal Democrats for swelling the number of special advisers. On the cost of politics, I am sure he is aware that the number of ministerial limos is down. Ministers’ pay has been cut by 5%. Some Ministers—I do not know whether this was the case when the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby was Deputy Leader of the House—have unpaid ministerial roles. Successful attempts have been made to cut the cost of politics.

On the West Lothian question, we all agree that something has to be done, but the question is what is deliverable. There was agreement in party manifestos on the need for House of Lords reform, but when it came to doing it, it was not possible to get people to agree because although some, like me, were willing to make compromises, others were not.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said that he believed the solution to the House of Lords question would have been for the Deputy Prime Minister to press a different programme motion. I assure him that that sort of thing was considered at the time; if it had been the solution, it would have been done. I hope that his karma does not suffer too much from being shanghaied by the feng shui of rearranging our constitutional settlement. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is not in his place, highlighted the need to reduce the number of people in the second Chamber, which is something that we all support.

This has been an interesting and instructive debate, which has engaged questions that go to the heart of our constitution. I am sure that the next Government will return to the matter alongside other key constitutional questions. I hope—as does, I believe, the majority of the House—that a degree of consensus sufficient to support real reform will, at last, be forthcoming.