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7.36 pm
Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock Chase): I am about to make some high-minded and non-partisan points, so I shall begin with a thoroughly partisan point. The process of reforming the second Chamber--which is entirely to be welcomed, and I applaud the way in which the Government are making progress--has caused us to forget why we are doing it. The reason is that we have a second Chamber that, in its present form, is entirely indefensible.
There are people who doubt whether stage 2 will ever happen. We have heard hon. Members say with some authority that the transitional stage may become the final stage, which is a genuine fear. Nevertheless, we must not think of the current second Chamber as a faded antique that we simply have to touch up. It is fundamentally unsatisfactory. The idea that, at the end of this century, we still have a second Chamber composed in large part of an hereditary element is an outrage. We must tell ourselves that throughout today's rather high-minded discussion.
To remind myself and other hon. Members of that, I turned to the history of the other place, which I shall take a moment to recount. It involves the history of the Conservative and Liberal parties early in the century when they were merrily selling places in the upper Chamber. I shall give two examples before I move on to the high-minded part of my speech. The Bonar Law papers provide conclusive proof that honours were bartered for subscriptions to party funds in the early part of the century. When Bonar Law became Leader of the Conservative Opposition in 1911, he received a memo--
Mr. Grieve:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Wright:
Not until I have made my point. Bonar Law received a memo from the party manager, Arthur Steel-Maitland, on the state of the party's organisation and finances. The document reported that the party had a nest egg of £300,000 and that
Mr. Grieve:
I am trying gently to encourage the hon. Gentleman to move on to the high-minded bit by reminding him that, although he is talking about the hereditary system of peerage at that time, there is a great deal of evidence that similar things have been happening under the appointed system of peers. I therefore fail to understand how he sees anything more legitimate about the appointed system.
Dr. Wright:
I am interested in that intervention. If any hon. Member does not find the sale of peerages the most outrageous thing concerning the second Chamber this century, they do not quite understand what has been happening in that institution or, indeed, our political system. I shall, therefore, give the hon. Gentleman the second bit of low-mindedness, which refers to the Liberal party and Lloyd George's sale of the century: the 1922 birthday honours.
I refer particularly to the case of Sir Joseph Robinson, who was to be elevated to the peerage. It was discovered that he had been engaged in all kinds of shady business dealings in South Africa. Indeed, the South African Supreme Court asked him to repay £500,000 as a result. That caused some consternation; there was a debate in the House of Lords in which it was discussed how on earth a man of such a disreputable character could have been offered a peerage. It was announced in a further debate that Sir Joseph had written to the Prime Minister asking to be allowed to decline the peerage offered to him.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Lloyd George's reply to Sir Joseph, accepting his decision to refuse a peerage, was delivered to Robinson at the Savoy hotel by an official of the National Liberal party. Sir Joseph misunderstood the message, reached for his cheque book and asked, "How much more?" I am afraid that that is the history of the institution in the early part of this century; that is the outrage and that is the motivation for ensuring its reform.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Although I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for
Dr. Wright:
I can understand why such issues should be unsettling, but it is important that we get the history right. Only the Labour party has not been involved in the sale of peerages. That is simply the case. If we want to bring the story slightly up to date--
Dr. Wright:
I shall finish answering the previous intervention. It was only in the previous general election campaign that the Conservative party defended the rights of hereditary peerages and argued for the status quo. We may argue about history and how right it is to refer to it when talking of reform, but the fact nevertheless remains that the Conservative party was so wrong on so much so recently concerning this issue that it is difficult to take it entirely seriously when it argues for the positions for which it seems to be arguing--although not terribly coherently.
Mr. Forth:
The hon. Gentleman's party has been successful only because it has adopted so many Conservative party policies. If our policies were so wrong, why has his party been so successful?
Dr. Wright:
I confine myself to the point at issue--[Interruption.] It is a rather important point at issue. I do not want to be detained by it, but the fact is that the Conservative party went into the election defending the hereditary peerage and opposing reform of the House of Lords, just as it opposed a freedom of information Act, devolution and a human rights Act--all things that are making our political system more democratic and decentralised.
Mr. Tyrie:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Wright:
In order that I may endeavour to find some common ground, I would rather move on and give way later. Perhaps I should not have stirred things up, but there it is.
It is rare that we have an opportunity to think freshly about a political institution. We make modest reforms here and there, but, on this occasion, we are being asked to think freshly about what we want to do with a central institution of the political system. We can do so only if we are fairly clear about the issue--what we think are the difficulties and the problems to which a reformed institution might be the answer. Unless we do that, we shall get into all kinds of difficulties.
It is possible to invent a second Chamber that might be able to do all kinds of interesting things and might be composed in all kinds of interesting ways. We might
look around the world at other second Chambers and borrow this from there and that from here. In all sorts of ways, that would be mistaken because second Chambers are usually responses to particular situations in particular political systems. Sometimes, they are a way of trying to heal religious or regional differences, or of bringing the country together. We must be clear about the central problem; if we do not know what it is, we shall not know what reform might be the solution to it.
I agree very much with those who say that the central problem is that of an Executive who have too much power, and that the agencies and institutions that are there to check have too little. There is nothing original in saying that. It has been the standard critique of our political system for as long as I can remember. Twenty years ago, Lord Hailsham famously described our system as an elective dictatorship. He was right then; the analysis is true now.
Parties wax and wane on the issue depending on whether they are in government or in opposition. As we have seen in this debate, a party in opposition is terribly interested in issues of scrutiny and accountability--all things in which they had no interest when in government. Similarly, a party in government rapidly loses interest in issues of scrutiny and accountability in which it had great interest in opposition. I am afraid that that is one of the truisms of political life.
The central fact nevertheless remains that we havea peculiar system of what is often called strong government--a Government who have concentrated Executive power. Because we do not have a separation of powers, and because the Executive are drawn from the dominant party in the House of Commons, if we are not careful, we almost necessarily have a supine House of Commons. Necessarily, the House of Commons is controlled by the Executive.
"a year's peerages are hypothecated".
Steel-Maitland went on to say that he hoped for an income of between £120,000 and £140,000 by the end of 1913.
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