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5.30 pm
Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester): Parts of that speech by the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), with its class-based attacks, sounded slightly nauseating. I want to place on the record right away my tribute to the service of the hereditary peers, who have done an outstanding job. I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), who began his remarks with a similar tribute.
The old House did work, after a fashion. It was imperfect, but that is true of many British institutions that have grown up over the years, and we should not expect it to be perfect. Now that it has been fundamentally shaken up, I believe that, in the 21st century, there will be no logical stopping-off place short of a democratically elected second Chamber. The majority of Opposition Members probably believe that, and I suspect that a very large minority of Labour Members believe it, too.
However, I am afraid that that does not enable me to support the Blair-Cranborne deal, which has been renamed the Weatherill amendment because Lord Weatherill is a Cross-Bencher and it sounds slightly more cheerful. I shall explain why I shall not support the deal, but first I want to say a few words in support of amendment (b), which stands in my name and those of a good number of my right hon. and hon. Friends.
We have always been told that the Bill is an interim Bill, yet it has never contained even the briefest reference to stage 2 of reform. However, now there is one. Subsection (3) of the Lords amendment says that peers who satisfy the Weatherill conditions shall be excepted throughout their life
I have two views on that wording--one optimistic, one pessimistic. Perhaps in a minute the Minister will tell me which one I should assume to be right. One view is that the Government have started to think seriously about plans for an elected, or largely elected, second Chamber; there are a few reasons for thinking that they might have gone down that road. As I said, there may be a majority in the House for such a proposal. I strongly suspect that there would be, on a free vote. Eighty per cent. of the population support that approach in all opinion polls. Even Lord Wakeham is feeling the need to nod in that direction.
Moreover, that approach is logical. If the Executive wants to create an effective second Chamber, democracy is the only sensible route to take, for only an elected Chamber can hope to challenge the Executive in this place.
However, I am a pessimist. I expect that my pessimism will be confirmed in a moment.
Mrs. Beckett:
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will realise that he is straying down an unnecessary diversionary route. I remind him that the proposal was not made by the Government. It was put forward in the House of Lords by a group of Cross-Bench peers, including Lord Weatherill.
I understand that the words to which the hon. Gentleman referred were included to make it clear that this section of the amendment does not confer membership of the Lords in perpetuity to those who are covered by the provision. It gives them legitimacy in the transitional House, but only in the transitional House. One could argue that it is a belt-and-braces approach, referring to the fact that a later Act of Parliament could remove them. That, as I understand it, is the reason for the wording.
Mr. Tyrie:
I hope that the right hon. Lady understands her own legislation. The idea that it was drafted by a group of Cross-Benchers in a fit of absence of mind, while the Government hardly knew what was going on, and that the Government will now vote for this rather defective measure is absurd, as is the argument that the origins of the idea lay anywhere else but in meetings between Lord Cranborne and the Prime Minister. It is well documented that back-room deals were done time and again by Lord Cranborne and the then Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Richard, in order to secure the Executive's objectives.
It is scandalous to suggest that this is not a piece of Government legislation. Of course it is. That is why there is a three-line Government Whip to get it through, and why I am pessimistic. The right hon. Lady has made me even more pessimistic about the purpose of the wording of subsection (3). My best guess is that, as she implied, it is a threat to the 92 survivors who have made it through the Blair-Cranborne deal into the lifeboat. The bracketed words tell them that they do not even have life peerages, and that they could be chucked overboard at any moment.
So I come to the wider question of whether the Blair-Cranborne amendment strengthens or weakens the interim House. If the 92 peers could be chucked out at any moment, it would weaken the House. The hereditaries who remain have heard their death sentence read out and seen some colleagues' blood run, and the lucky few have been given a stay of execution. I do not believe that those peers will want to make trouble for the Executive or rock the boat. The Lords have been
Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge):
My hon. Friend may be right, but there is another explanation as well, which is given by many of the 92 hereditaries. They believe that they can still make a contribution in what would otherwise be a House of cronies. It is unthinkable that peers whose families have been in the other place for up to 500 years are impressed by the prospect of another two year in a House of cronies, just because it gives them some power or prestige. Will my hon. Friend at least do
Mr. Tyrie:
I think that the motives of those peers are honourable, and I hope that they will act in that way, but I fear the worst. I fear that they will be all too easily cowed by the threat that they will be booted out if they misbehave. The same goes for the lifers, as they now have an interest in hanging on to the remaining hereditary peers. They know that once the hereditaries have gone, the next thing that will come their way is democracy, which is as much a threat to the life peers as the Bill is to the hereditaries.
I fear that there will be much synthetic opposition from the interim House. There will be some genuine attempts to make it work, but I do not believe that it will amount to a genuine second Chamber playing an effective role--quite the opposite. Once the amendment is on the statute book, the Government and all peers will have a vested interest in minimal further change. Writing the amendment into the Bill will make change less, not more, likely.
There are many other reasons for voting against the amendment. It is "riddled with anomalies", an "artificial fix, a sop", or "a gigantic Pooh trap". Those are the words of three hereditary peers speaking in debate in the House of Lords. They use colourful language in another place--the Official Report is well worth reading.
As for the election rules and the rules of procedure, Lord Mancroft said:
The Blair-Cranborne amendment has nothing to do with what is right for the constitution and everything to dowith an understandable struggle for survival by some hereditaries, and a determination by the Executive to minimise any checks to its authority from another place.
It is insulting to the electorate in the 21st century that part of our legislature will be chosen by electoral colleges of 92 hereditary peers. That proposition contains many absurdities, but I shall list just a few.
The electoral colleges that are being created mean that a couple of Liberal or Labour hereditaries will be able to choose who should replace one of their number if he or she dies. Those places in the legislatures will be even more rotten boroughs than Old Sarum or the one whose name I forget, which disappeared into the sea--
Mr. Gummer:
As it is in my constituency, I can tell my hon. Friend that Dunwich has not yet disappeared into the sea, and those who live there are, I am happy to say, staunch voters for me.
Mr. Tyrie:
I hope that the rest of my right hon. Friend's constituency does not disappear into the sea for a long time. I am always grateful for his interventions.
No provision has been made for the possibility that one of the remaining hereditaries may wish to move from one party group to another. Under the interim arrangements, it is impossible to change parties. I understand that there was not even a serious debate about the matter.
So there is to be some semblance of a legislature--I am not sure whether the Government want a serious legislature--but no proper scrutiny of the election system. We would find that unacceptable in almost any other country. The Clerk of the Parliaments will have the final say on whether the election was held properly and in any dispute about the rules. That is why I tabled an amendment to subsection (6).
I understand that none of the procedure in an election or a by-election for one of those places in the interim Chamber is justiciable. The courts can have no say. If there is a dispute about an election to this place, we can go to the courts, which can scrutinise what has happened. That remedy will be unavailable for those places in the interim Chamber.
"until an Act of Parliament provides to the contrary".
I wonder how that got into the legislation. I wonder what the Government have in mind. We were not enlightened at all by the Minister as to what that Act of Parliament might contain.
"bought off by the short-term survival of 92 hereditaries who are virtually hostages for good behaviour."
Those are the words of a hereditary peer in a letter in The Daily Telegraph today.
"It is ludicrous, it is a farce, it's a complete joke".
He rather spoiled it by going on to say that he would none the less stand for election as one of the 92 remaining hereditaries, "but only reluctantly."
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