| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Concessionary Television Licences for Pensioners
Mr. David Winnick accordingly presented a Bill to extend the concessionary television licence entitlement to all pensioners living in households consisting only of pensioners; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 23 July, and to be printed [Bill 115].
House of Lords Reform
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Hanson.]
3.46 pm
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): Although it is, of course, right and proper that we debate the White Paper, I doubt whether hon. Members will find much new in what I propose to say. The legislation that the White Paper accompanies is very much stage 1 of an enduring process. Although the White Paper provides the context for the legislation that it describes, it also sets the framework for a royal commission and for further legislation. That first stage of reform is still being debated in the House of Lords--the House of Lords Bill will return to this House--while the second stage is now with the royal commission.
The legislation reforms the House of Lords by abolishing the right to sit and vote there on the basis of heredity alone, without regard for the personal qualities or qualifications of the inheritor. As the White Paper identifies, the effect of that decision--should it be carried through into law--will be to create a transitional House of about half the present size, in which every Member will sit as a result of their own achievement and reputation.
That is certainly preferable to the present position, but it still in our view has serious flaws. Although it diminishes the permanent in-built Conservative majority, there would still be, for example, a wholly disproportionate representation of the main parties--even in a transitional House that is created solely by the removal of hereditary peers. That is because of the exploitation of the Prime Minister's sole power of patronage during the 1980s and 1990s, which led to the creation of infinitely more Conservative life peers than those of any other party, and exacerbated the in-built Conservative majority among hereditary peers.
That position is certainly unacceptable to my party, although I have noted that, in the many debates on this matter in the House of Lords, the proposal to remove that in-built majority has been described pejoratively as acting "to our own"--the Labour party's--"advantage". On the contrary, we strongly believe that it is to the country's advantage that no political party has an overall majority in the House of Lords. That is the principle that we are enshrining in the arrangements for the transitional House, seeking only parity with the Conservative party.
Such a principle has, on occasion, been espoused by the Conservative party itself, but it has been most notable that, whether in this House or in the House of Lords, today's Conservatives have been most reluctant to accept that national interest should override the political interests of the Conservative party.
Rather than following the precedent created by his Conservative predecessors, the present Prime Minister is determined to diminish the unfettered power of patronage that he now enjoys--although nobody would think so to listen to some of the rubbish that has been uttered from the Opposition Benches during many of our debates. The Prime Minister is, for the first time ever, to forgo his power to object to the names of those nominated by other party leaders.
We are to set up an appointments commission--using machinery devised by the previous Government, to ensure a proper process of appointment--with a suitable independent element, as well as representation from the political parties. That appointments commission will take over the job of scrutinising proposals for adding Members to the House of Lords. The whole process will, therefore, be much more transparent and independent than ever in the past, and will represent the first ever diminution of the sole power of patronage enjoyed by a Prime Minister in Britain's history.
Against the background of the creation of the transitional House, the Government have also proposed the setting up of the royal commission--itself chaired not by a Labour, but by a Conservative peer, and with a balanced and independent-minded membership. We have given the royal commission a tight timetable, and we acknowledge that. However, those who criticise us for the timetable being too tight are, in many cases, the very same people who said that unless the royal commission worked to a tight timetable, it would prove that the Government had no intention of going beyond stage 1 and the transitional House. They really cannot have the argument both ways. The tight timetable for the royal commission is itself evidence of the Government's good faith in seeking proper and fundamental reform of the House of Lords. It is also evidence of our practicality in trying to ensure that, on this occasion, after more than a century of debate, it is actually achieved.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire):
Will the right hon. Lady acknowledge that Conservative Members were calling for a royal commission for more than a year before it was established?
Mrs. Beckett:
I acknowledge that Conservative Members have called for a royal commission, although I also acknowledge that they nevertheless resist any attempt at change. As I shall say later in my speech, one of the Government's objectives is to ensure that the royal commission will be able to take account of other constitutional change. The commission would not have been able to do that if it had been established earlier.
The Government have established some broad principles against which the royal commission should begin its work. It is asked to consider, first, the role of a second Chamber; then, the powers required to fulfil that role; and, finally, the composition of the body that should be established to exercise those powers and perform that role. That seems to us to be the only sensible and logical way in which to hold a proper debate on the new second Chamber. We have never had such a debate in Britain before.
All previous discussions have tended to begin with the matter of composition, partly because the composition of the current House is so self-evidently unjustifiable. They have also been dominated by composition because--perhaps unsurprisingly--the principle preoccupation of many Members of the current House of Lords has been their own role in a new second Chamber, and whether and to what degree they might continue to exercise legislative power. Therefore, the stranglehold that they have enjoyed over any previous attempt at reform has ensured that the debate has almost always begun with composition, and been driven very heavily by what they were prepared to
accept in a successor body. That has created an artificial context for previous debates, so that what a second Chamber ought to be has never been properly considered.
The House of Lords Bill cuts that Gordian knot. It allows us to begin as we should, by considering what Britain needs and not what hereditary peers are prepared to accept. However, just as the House of Lords Bill enables us to separate stage 2, and what should come in the future, from stage 1 and the first steps of the reform process, it is extremely important to encourage the new debate without allowing it to be bogged down in comparisons, valid or otherwise, with the current House of Lords.
Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring):
Perhaps for the sake of clarity, will the right hon. Lady tell us whether, in general, she believes that a reformed upper House should have more, the same or fewer powers than the current one?
Mrs. Beckett:
I shall tell the hon. Gentleman that later in my speech. If he will forgive me, I shall not do so now, as I want to make a specific point that should underpin the debate.
I very much hope that we--by which I mean not only those participating in the debate, but everyone who engages with the issue--shall free ourselves from looking at the House of Lords as it is and saying what we should make different, whether in its powers or its composition, and instead begin from first principles, by considering not what people have been criticising or even campaigning for, but what type of new second Chamber Britain actually needs.
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross):
I am extremely encouraged to hear the Leader of the House speak in those principled terms about the role of the House of Lords. Does she think that, conformable with those terms, the commission should not listen to siren voices suggesting that a reformed upper House should depend on actions taken in this House to reform itself, but that--although there are connections between the two Houses' roles and functions--the commission's job is one that can properly be carried very far by simply examining the functions of the second Chamber?
Mrs. Beckett:
The right hon. Gentleman is right. The commission would find it difficult to get engaged in that area of argument and doing so would make it very difficult for it to report within the time required.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham):
While it is right that the commission should address the functions of the second Chamber, in determining what those functions are, should it not consider the extent to which this House properly performs its democratic role of holding the Executive to account?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |