House of Lords Reform Bill

Thomas Docherty Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leigh]

They should, but the Government have got themselves into such a pickle over this that they will not be able to do anything because we will now be talking about it for weeks and months. What is so important about it?

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has repeatedly talked about weeks and months. May I assure Members on both sides of the House that the Opposition have made it clear that we do not intend to wreck or filibuster the Bill? This is about genuine debate, and there is no confusion as to the position that the Opposition will be adopting.

[Mr Leigh]

I think that that was said with a bit of irony and that the hon. Gentleman protests too much. Of course the Opposition are not going to wreck the Bill, which, at an appropriate moment, they will allow to get to the other place—after they have ensured that the country has had the unholy spectacle of our discussing, week after week, while this appalling recession is going on, an issue that, I can assure him, is of no interest whatsoever in the Dog and Duck in Scunthorpe. What on earth are we doing?

What is so wrong with the House of Lords? The point that I make continually is that whereas over the past 15 years, we in the Commons have had the collective courage to defeat the Government only 10 times, our friends in the other place have defeated the Government no fewer than 576 times. That point has been made already, but it is a powerful one.

I argue against this reform from first principles because, inevitably, the people who will be elected to the House of Lords will be politicians. When I made that point to the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday, he said that they would be a different sort of politician. What is a different sort of politician? We are all politicians and we are all ambitious. Although we deny it, we all want office. There is nothing wrong with that. Therefore, to a greater or lesser extent, we are all creatures of the Whips Office. We have to accept that. We come into politics because we have the ambition to become Ministers and to achieve something. The point has been made again and again that many people in the other place are past ambition.

Why do we want to abolish an institution that has held the Government so closely to account that, in the past 15 years, it has defeated them no fewer than 576 times? The fundamental problem is that once the House of Lords is elected, it will become the poodle of the House of Commons. The real problem is not with the primacy of the House of Commons, but that the Executive are all-powerful. It is only in the other place that there is any decent scrutiny and that the Government are occasionally defeated.

I am not only worried that the Government will have an easier ride in the reformed House of Lords; we must ask ourselves why our friends in the Liberal Democrat party are so determined to get the Bill through. It is so important to them because once it is passed, half of our legislature will be elected by proportional representation and, therefore, the Liberals will have a permanent lock on half our Parliament. It will be impossible for people such as me who want constantly to come forward with radical ideas from the right and for Labour Members who want to come forward with radical ideas from the left to wade through the dominance of the Liberal establishment in the other place. There would never have been the kind of reforms that Mrs Thatcher achieved in office under that system. Many people in this House may think that that would have been good, but I think that it would have been a great shame.

That is why this is an important Bill, why we should be discussing it up and down the country, and why we have to defeat it. We cannot just measure this argument in terms of programme motions; we have to measure it in terms of what is right for our country. What is right for our country is to retain the system of an elected House of Commons and a revising second Chamber that does an excellent job of improving legislation. We must leave it alone and defeat this Bill tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I am grateful to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, in what has been a superb second day of this two-day debate.

I noticed that when the Deputy Leader of the House closed the debate yesterday evening, he referred to the fact that it was “half-time” in the football game. I can only assume that Mike Bassett has been coaching those on the Government Benches on their tactics, given the absurd situation in which we find ourselves. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Leader of the House, pointed out last Thursday, we would have Liberal Democrat Ministers arguing for one case on the first day and Conservative Ministers arguing a different case on the second day. We saw that yesterday, when the Deputy Prime Minister said that we had to have a programme motion and that the Bill would collapse without one because it would be filibustered out. Today we heard the Leader of the House say that, actually, that was not the case at all, and that the Bill would still proceed without one. Perhaps when the Minister sums up he can clarify which of the two parties in the coalition he will be supporting in the months ahead.

It is a great fallacy that this debate is about reformers versus traditionalists. Every Member who has spoken has argued the case for reform. The argument is about what reform should be—or, indeed, the argument of those Members who wish to abolish the House of Lords as it stands. Members on both sides of the House have genuinely wrestled with some deeply held views. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends who, although having reservations, were going to support us on the programme motion. I equally pay tribute to hon. Members on the other side of the House who have wrestled with their consciences and their party loyalties long and hard, and have come to the principled decision that the constitution of our country is more important than the narrow party politics of the coalition. Both sides should be equally commended for the principles that they have defended in the last few days.

There are some other fallacies that need to be tackled. This is a Liberal Democrat Bill. We know that from the sheer number of Lib Dems who have sat through the debate.

[Chris Huhne]

It is very clear that this is a coalition Bill. If the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber when the former Justice Secretary and former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) was speaking, he would know how substantial the resemblance between this Bill and the proposals brought forward by the previous Labour Government is.

[Thomas Docherty]

I was here throughout the afternoon, but the fact is that a plethora of Liberal Democrat Ministers have been clearing their diaries. Indeed, I cannot recall the last time when so many Liberal Democrat Members were in the Chamber.

[Conor Burns]

Was it in the tuition fees debate?

[Thomas Docherty]

They were certainly not here for the tuition fees debate, and they were certainly not here to support the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport either, when that issue was discussed just a few weeks ago.

The hard reality is that this is a bad Bill. However, I intend to vote for it on Second Reading this evening, because I believe that the situation can be salvaged. There are some measures that I hope the very reasonable Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) will take back to his boss, the Deputy Prime Minister. One, for example, concerns those who may stand for election. The Government have said, quite reasonably, that no one can serve as a Member of Parliament and stand for the senate, or whatever it will be called—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

The House of Lords.

[Thomas Docherty]

Sorry, the House of Lords. However, there is no such provision to stop Members of the senate/House of Lords standing for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly or, indeed, a local authority, or vice versa. That will lead, inevitably, to examples of what we have already seen in Scotland, where list MSPs have perched on the shoulders of constituency MSPs, cherry-picking casework and local issues. That will inevitably lead to a challenge to the authority of MSPs, Assembly Members and local authorities. I hope that the Government will reflect on that and make the appropriate changes when we reach the Committee stage, hopefully in the autumn.

The other thing that has been raised which genuinely needs to be addressed is the issue of Church of England bishops. I do not believe that the Church of England should sit in the House of Lords or the senate.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Hear, hear.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Lady says, “Hear, hear,” yet she will be voting—and will continue to vote, I am sure, throughout the Bill’s progress—to keep the current arrangement. I am sticking to my principles; I am sorry that she has left hers outside. These are some of the issues that need to be examined.

[Lorely Burt]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the idea of a secular Parliament is wrong? If that is the case, I do not quite understand how that is in conflict with the idea of having an elected House of Lords. Perhaps he could enlighten me.

[Thomas Docherty]

I suggest that the hon. Lady should go and read her Liberal Democrat Bill.

There are many issues that have to be tackled in Committee. When the Minister replies, we would be grateful if he could set out when exactly he will table a committal motion. If that is not to happen in the very near future, I wonder whether he could confirm that the Government intend to take advantage of the gap that may be created to bring forward some other Bills that they had promised to bring forward. They include the private Member’s Bill, which I have helpfully tabled, to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists. Indeed, I know that the Minister is absolutely delighted—[Interruption] —that is why he is not paying attention—about the Bill that we have brought forward.

I will not keep the House any longer, because many Members wish to speak. I congratulate again those Members on both sides of the House who have wrestled with their positions, come to a sensible position and forced the Government to listen to the will of this House.