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Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the model whereby some Lords sit ex officio, as the bishops do, is useful? They have authority because of the office they hold, and that is not resented. It also serves a useful function in this House by sparing us the deliberations of the clergy of the established Church.
Mr. Hurst: That is an interesting point. It was well said by Bagehot that if we had an ideal House of Commons, it is certain that we should not need a higher Chamber. To paraphrase more modern authors, as Simon and Garfunkel said in "Mrs. Robinson":
- "Every way you look at it you lose".
Why are we going through such heated discussion and intellectual strain to achieve an upper House? It is because we believe that we are failing in two ways. We are failing to operate the House of Commons effectively and also failing to control the Executive. That is why we endlessly
discuss what to do about the upper House. We should not put off the day when we consider the real problems before us--this House and control of the Executive--but we delude ourselves by thinking that we can solve the problem by creating a strange new upper House.
Mr. Grieve:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we reform the upper Chamber correctly, it will provide a powerful incentive for the reform of this House?
Mr. Hurst:
If we attempt to reform the upper House, we will put off till doomsday any consideration of the reform of this Chamber or any effective controls on the Executive. I was pleased that the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham mentioned the words of Dunning about the powers of the Executive increasing and needing to be diminished. I remember reading that in an A-level history examination in 1963--not in a contemporary question, but in one that related to the 18th century. That problem has been with the House for centuries and, until we can tackle it within this place, it will continue.
Mr. Letwin:
I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's observations about the need to check the Executive within the House, which has been a theme common to many speeches this afternoon. Is he optimistic that enough can be done in this place--without diluting the Government's ability to govern--to cure the problem in the absence of an effective second Chamber?
Mr. Hurst:
I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has ascertained where my remarks are leading: we do not need a second Chamber. We have believed throughout modern times that we needed a second Chamber, but the majority of democracies do not have one. It is argued that single Chambers work only in small democracies. There are normally second Chambers in federal situations and, despite what Opposition Members might say, we are not yet in that situation.
If we had single-Chamber government, we could apply our minds to reforming the problems in this place. As a comparatively new Member of Parliament, one of the main problems seems to me to be that, when a Bill leaves the Floor of the House and goes into Committee, the party system operates as sternly in Committee as in this place. A solution might be to have a single Chamber--the Lords within the Commons, if I may put it that way--and not to allow party majorities to operate in the Committee system. It could draw instead upon a pool of independent experts and those who are learned in particular subjects.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent):
I have been astonished by the frequent references to the reform of this place--I thought we were perfect, and popularly
The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst), who made an interesting and entertaining speech, advanced a rather strange proposition. He basically said that this place works so badly that, if we destroy the only mechanism--however frail--of checking our bad behaviour, we will be so frightened by our behaviour that we will be forced to reform ourselves. That is an interesting and an ingenious argument, but it did not carry me altogether.
I think that we have accepted rather too readily the proposition that the primary role of the House is the creation and scrutiny of legislation. Apart from anything else, I think we legislate far too much, and I wonder what proportion of each legislative programme is spent making good the mistakes of previous programmes rather than introducing new legislation. I believe the Government spend far too much time worrying about announcing their business and organising their timetable, rather than ensuring that a smaller body of legislation is scrutinised properly so that it does not have to be repealed two legislative programmes down the track.
I think that our job is also to call the Executive to account for the way in which they perform their functions. Above all, my constituents want me to chase the Government about the way in which they and their agencies deliver on policies and on legislation that has been passed. Most of my correspondents and my constituents are concerned about oppressiveness, inefficiency, bureaucratic delay and all the other elements of a creaking administrative system for which Ministers are responsible. I am not sure that we have effective mechanisms in this place to address those problems, but that is as much a part of the House's role as passing legislation.
I think also that our purpose--this is manifestly borne out by the interest of the media, which is notably lacking in most of what we do--is to be seen to debate the great issues of the day. It does not matter very much whether there is a vote at the end of a debate. This place is still seen to be the centre of national debate on issues such as genetically modified food, euthanasia or any other subject that seriously exercises the public. Indeed, it is one of the few areas of debate in this place that the media take the trouble to cover.
Mr. Garnier:
Does my hon. Friend believe his concerns will be exacerbated by the removal of many debates from this Chamber to the Grand Committee Room? Will those debates be reported more widely than those that take place in this Chamber?
Mr. Rowe:
It will be a shame if, in the mad rush to pass legislation through this place, debates that are central to the national interest are removed from this Chamber. I would rather see the legislative programme trimmed so that we may hold the main debates of our time in the House. For example, the media have been covering our debates on Kosovo--an area where the House has virtually no power--with meticulous care. In fact,
I share the Mackay commission's view that if we are to have a second Chamber--I believe that we should--it must have its own programme. The commission is right about that. It is ridiculous that two Chambers that share the same building should engage in so little joint action. The two Chambers should co-operate much more when the new second Chamber is created. I agree with those who argue that the second Chamber should not include representatives of the Executive.
We must explore whether the traditional pattern of Chamber service is the only way to go. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) painted an all too accurate picture of the disincentives to serving in this place, and it seems to me that those disincentives will operate with almost equal force in the second Chamber. I reckon that I am wholly unemployable in the outside world after 16 years in this place--I may have been unemployable when I escaped here in the first place, but that is certainly the case now. The same will be true of people who have served 15 years or so in the other place, so we need to think of ways to attract the lively specialists on whose expertise we all seem to be anxious to rely.
I wonder whether we could acknowledge how Members behave now and allow those who bring especial expertise mainly to attend the debates in which they can contribute that expertise. The practical difficulty with that would be voting. If there is an insistence, as there is in this place, that votes take place frequently, people who have been appointed because they are experts in social services or heavy engineering will feel inhibited about taking the job. If they could take part only in the debates to which they could make a specialist contribution, they might be delighted to do so, but if they had to turn out for regular votes, they might be reluctant to take the job. We need to examine that practical problem and to consider changes to the procedures for voting in the second Chamber.
I wonder whether there could be a much closer link between the second Chamber and the European Parliament. One of the most lamentable features of our parliamentary process is the fact that we have an almost entirely separate team with their own agenda and view of life who nominally represent us but have little contact with us. There is no time for that contact here, and our procedures do not make it easy to establish contact, but there is no reason why, in a revised second Chamber, it should not be possible, for example, for Members of the European Parliament to have a right of audience or to attend by invitation.
I remember vividly the meeting at which the Conservative party hierarchy decided that we would not allow Members of the European Parliament even to have a room at 32 Smith square because they were such undesirable, grossly overpaid characters and we were jealous of them and did not want them. That did enormous damage to the Conservative party because the divide between the Conservative team in the European Parliament and the rest of the party was unnecessarily exacerbated, and it led to a number of troubles on which I shall not dwell.
On the composition of the second Chamber, I am entirely in favour of direct elections. I agree with the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) that we must have a different franchise and that the Members should be elected for a different period. The Mackay commission suggested multi-Member constituencies for at least part of the Chamber's constitution. That is a possible method, but we should have direct election of one sort or another. Like the American Senate, the second Chamber should be elected for a different period and in a different election year.
It is nonsense to suggest that direct elections give institutions equal authority. Authority is defined by the rules. For example, nobody believes that local authorities, which are directly elected, have power or influence equal to that of this place, because the powers of local authorities are defined by this place. If we define the powers of the second Chamber, there is no reason why we should create a Frankenstein's monster that will gobble us up sooner or later.
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