House of Lords Reform

Steven Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I will start by reading an amendment that was moved in this place during a debate on the House of Lords by a former leader of the Labour party. It was to add the words,

“the Upper House, being an irresponsible part of the Legislature, and of necessity representative only of interests opposed to the general well-being is a hindrance to national progress and ought to be abolished”.

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of that former Labour party leader, Mr Arthur Henderson. He tabled that amendment during a debate on the House of Lords on 26 June 1907—never let it be said that Westminster rushes to reform. Predictably, the amendment was defeated, although it was part of a national debate that led to the introduction of the Parliament Act 1911, which made the supremacy of the elected Chamber over the unelected Chamber clear and beyond doubt. That was a very good thing, but we must go further.

I contend that radical change to the constitution is overdue, and that there is no place for a bloated, unelected Chamber of retired politicians, cronies and placemen in the modern day. It is 105 years since the Parliament Act, and I ask the House—not before time—to embrace democracy in all that we do. That means moving to an elected second Chamber and the abolition of what we currently have. Democratic change is normal, and we must move towards that.

We must bring the governance of the United Kingdom into line with the 21st-century standards of democratic accountability to be found across the developed world—we would all like to think we are part of that. In 2016 we have a Tory Government who are committed to the protection of this unelected, unaccountable, political establishment, and whose only desire to reform the House of Lords stems from the Lords’ own efforts to stymie and oppose Government legislation. That problem was created because the previous Government were so effective at stuffing the place with their own appointees, and this Government would rather stuff more voting fodder into the already bloated second Chamber in order to get their way. Perhaps they are not content with the fact that the UK has the second largest appointed parliamentary Chamber after the Chinese National People’s Congress, and they want to show the world that when it comes to undemocratic and unaccountable government, nobody does it better than the UK.

In 2015, 45 new peers were appointed to the House of Lords, including 26 on the Government side. Make no mistake, the House of Lords is not impotent, despite the fact that the Parliament Act 1911 has only been used, I think, seven times. The Chamber possesses the ability to halt legislation that affects no fewer than 64 million people. That is not the democratic will of the people; it is the will of 821 unelected, permanent peers, 92 of whom hold their seat for their entire lives simply through an accident of birth.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

A small clique in Downing Street gets to determine who sits in the Lords. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that gives rise to a fundamental unfairness and means that there is no correlation between the number of votes cast and the composition of the Chamber? For example, it is possible for a party to get 4 million votes in an election, but have zero appointed peers. Is that fundamentally unfair?

[Steven Paterson]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I think that it is fundamentally unfair and that we must move to democracy. Appointing peers is ridiculous and disgraceful in this day and age.

[Dr Murrison]

I am noting the hon. Gentleman’s comments on appointees, and such appointments are ultimately made by people who are elected. The concern that people overseas have, particularly in countries that are developing their democracies, is that here in the mother of Parliaments we still have as part of our legislature Members of the House of Lords who are hereditary peers. Although I have the greatest affection and admiration for many of them individually, and they give great service, it is a rather difficult thing to explain to people in other countries who are growing their democracies and who look to the United Kingdom for a lead.

[Steven Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and we must move to democracy. That means that the hereditary peers—they really do stick in the craw—will be among many who have to go. We should have elections to determine that, and perhaps we should be holding conversations about how, not whether, we do that. I would certainly like us to move towards that point.

[Bob Stewart]

I support the idea of UKIP having a Member of the House of Lords. It is rather sad that there is no UKIP Member of that House, and I look forward to it happening. May I suggest that it might give the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) a certain amount of pleasure if that Member’s first name was Nigel?

[Steven Paterson]

I will let the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) speak for himself on that one. My own view is simply that, whatever the country, people should get the representative Government they vote for. Whether I happen to agree with the hon. Gentleman’s party or not, if people vote for it then that is who they should get as a Government—that is what I believe in terms of democracy.

How does the crooked, anti-democratic nature of the House of Lords manifest itself? To answer that, let us consider for a moment the curious case of the quite inappropriately named Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats were hammered at the ballot box—not before time, many of us would say. That happened first in Scotland in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, when they were reduced to a rump of five MSPs out of 129, and was followed up at the UK general election last year when they were reduced to a rump of just eight MPs out of 650. In a democracy, the people speak and the message is sent. That is not the end of the story, however. The Liberal Democrats defy democracy thanks to the House of Lords. There are an incredible 111 of them along the corridor there sitting—or sleeping—on the red benches, grazing, collecting their tax-free £300 when they pass go, occasionally contributing to the debates and maybe even voting. They are down at the other end of that corridor, unelected and unaccountable. They are Westminster’s own political zombies. We really have to move forward. They are not elected and the people’s views must be paramount.

Some would say that the House of Lords provides access to expertise that cannot be found among MPs in the House of Commons. I acknowledge, because I have met some, that there are some Lords who certainly have expertise, but there are many hon. Members in this place and it cannot be beyond the wit of this place to find experts on a range of issues.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman talks about expertise. It would be possible to have an advisory body of experts. The Lords have legislative power—that is the difference.

[Steven Paterson]

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There are a number of things we could do and that suggestion is certainly one of them.

One of the many problems with the House of Lords is that it is stuffed to the gunnels with former politicians who failed to win seats but are none the less looked after by the powers that be. One of my predecessors as MP for Stirling is one such. Michael Forsyth has not won an election since 1992. In his 14-year career as MP for Stirling, he was democratically chosen by the people of the constituency to serve in that role. He has now spent 17 years in the unelected Chamber along the corridor. This illustrates a fundamental problem. There is a long, long list of such former political big beasts out to pasture at the end of the corridor; former elected politicians of such inestimable stature as Jeremy Purvis, for example. There are then those apparently picked at random, perhaps for saying the right things at the right time to help the party in government, or making the requisite donation to their political party.

[Wayne David]

The hon. Gentleman makes many trenchant criticisms of the other place, a number of which I agree with. In the interests of even-handedness, however, does he accept that the House of Lords does some good and effective work in holding the Government to account, and that from time to time it makes a very principled stand, such as on tax credits?

[Steven Paterson]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but that does not mean you do not need a new clock.

Margaret Thatcher, at the end of her term as Prime Minister, said:

“I calculate that I was responsible for proposing the elevation to the Lords of some 214 of its present numbers.”

My problem is that some of those 214 are still there after all this time: unelected spectres interfering in legislation to this very day. The serious point here is that they have legislative authority over the lives of millions of people across the UK with no democratic mandate whatever. Radical democratic reform or outright abolition of this tired, antiquated and undemocratic institution is necessary and long overdue. Just as successful reform was passed in 1911, reform in 2016 must effectively represent the necessary change to bring our democracy, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.