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So, where does all that leave us so far as the Motions before the House are concerned? First of all, it is ridiculous to contemplate having elections to this place without recognising that its new legitimacy would have to be reflected in new powers. Secondly, I do not think we should give the Government any encouragement to bring forward a Bill providing for a wholly or partially elected House when it is plain that any such Bill would provide for the worst possible system of election.
Mr Straw’s preferred plan may now be a dead duck, but if he had his way, 30 per cent of the membership would have come here because their names had been put on a party list and then sent forward to the Appointments Commission; 50 per cent would have arrived here because they had been put on another party list. In short, the whole 80 per cent would have owed their places in the Lords to their party bosses. A 100 per cent-elected House would be little different from a 100 per cent-appointed House, but rather worse because those who had in effect been appointed would not have had to pass scrutiny by an appointments commission.
Mr Straw knew what he was doing when he decided on this fake election procedure. He did it before when he forced on us the regional list system for elections to the European Parliament, with the result, judging by Gallup polls, that nine out of 10 voters do not have a clue who their MEPs are; and he tells us in the White Paper why he wants those elected to this House to rival MEPs in anonymity. The voter, says the White Paper, should not be encouraged to vote for an individual rather than a party, nor should he be encouraged to spread his votes among the parties and individual candidates, because in that way people standing for election might have a high public profile and be able to speak with authority. Under those proposals, it would be far better to get people in to the House who probably would not even be known to the people they were supposed to represent. What a come-down from the democratic second Chamber that Labour promised in 1997.
I am in favour of a largely elected House, but it should be properly and democratically elected and it should have new powers to reflect its new status. I am not in favour of fake democracy, so I cannot possibly vote for any of the Motions providing for an elected element to enter the House, and I shall abstain on those. Until the Government address this matter properly, as regards powers and a proper system of election, and because at the moment our present system works remarkably well, I shall vote for a nominated House.
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3.13 pm
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, when I am asked what it is like to be in the Lords, I reply that, as occupational therapy goes, it beats basket weaving. Having listened to most of the speeches in this debate and the thrust of many of the arguments, I am now not so sure—basket weaving suddenly seems quite attractive.
Much is made about the quality of debates in your Lordships’ House. I congratulate the other place on coming down, at long last, in favour of an elected upper Chamber. Of course, one would hope that this reforming zeal would be extended to demanding an overhaul of the House of Commons, but, short of a miracle, that is most unlikely in the foreseeable future; 2111 AD might be a date to hope for.
In the course of this two-day debate, the overwhelming majority of speeches have been replete with arguments for maintaining the status quo and very few voices have been raised in support of the principle of a wholly or mainly elected Chamber. As usual on these occasions, it is the House speaking to itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said. With the exception of the three opening speeches and a few others, most speakers have dismissed the Commons vote last week but, more importantly, they have disregarded public opinion on the matter. As I said on 10 January 2002, when we discussed the previous White Paper, 54 per cent of the public wanted a majority-elected House with only 21 per cent wanting a mainly appointed one. That ratio remains fairly constant.
As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said, most speeches have been conservative, complacent, self-congratulatory and lacking in self-criticism. Much is made of the quality of debates in your Lordships’ House. This one, I feel, will prove to be an exception. As Jackie Ashley forcefully argued in yesterday’s Guardian, the context has changed dramatically. Too much hyperbole is used in exalting the virtues of this House.
An up-to-date audit of the operations of this House would have to take account of the following facts. First, attendance and the contribution to the work of its committees are very patchy. Probably fewer than 200 Peers are fully active, with some commendable exceptions, and that is largely true of the “people’s Peers”, while Cross-Benchers as a group have very low voting records. Secondly, some of the “celebrity” life Peers created since 1997, who nominally take the Labour Whip, rarely attend.
Thirdly, the Conservatives have great difficulty in holding up their numbers. On 26 February, for example, during the Report stage of the Mental Health Bill, the first amendment was carried with, among others, 99 Conservatives voting, as was the second with 89 Conservatives voting, but the third—a Conservative amendment, it should be noted—was lost by three votes because the Conservatives could muster only 58 of their number. It was at 6.51 pm and dinner clearly, as always, was the priority.
Fourthly, there is the question of expertise available to the House which nurtures the quality of
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As for our much-vaunted expertise, that, too, is overdrawn. As I said in 2002, it is highly overrated. Given the average age of Members of the House, which approaches 70 years, the expertise tends to be outdated, especially in these days of very rapid change and innovation. I take myself as an example. As an erstwhile professor, I have not regularly taught students for more than 20 years. As an ex-vice-chancellor, retired for eight years, I would not be abreast of the numerous changes that will have taken place in tertiary education over that period. I think that that would be true of any other former vice-chancellor in your Lordships’ House, and I should be surprised if it were not true of most others, whatever their career specialisation. Legislators and legislation need the benefit of up-to-date expertise.
The time has come—indeed, it is well past—for reform of this Chamber, which will put it on a wholly elected basis. The idea of the Prime Minister using the royal prerogative to nominate up to 10 life Peers in any one Parliament, as Mr Blair has promulgated quite out of the blue, should be seen as the anachronism that it is. The “people’s Peers” experiment has not worked. These innovations, far from refreshing and revitalising the image of the House of Lords, have merely exacerbated the problem. I will, somewhat reluctantly, vote for an 80:20 elected:appointed ratio, but I will vote enthusiastically for the principle of a 100 per cent-elected Chamber.
There is still much detail to be thrashed out, particularly to avoid the discredited closed-list system, but the momentum of reform must be maintained. The leavening of kindred spirits, such as the noble Lords, Lord Desai, Lord Richard, Lord Plant and Lord Hoyle, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Quin, on the Labour Benches, together with the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, on the Conservative Benches, plus most of my noble friends, has persuaded me to continue the occupational therapy here and to eschew the basket weaving.
3.19 pm
Lord Monson: My Lords, conscious of the time pressures on anyone speaking three-fifths of the way through an extremely long debate, I shall not refer to the White Paper, so ably dissected by a number of noble Lords. Instead, I shall concentrate on trying to knock on the head the myths and misconceptions about the House that keep resurfacing. I suppose that we are stuck for evermore with the public image of elderly, moustachioed Peers, sitting hour after hour clad in red robes every working day. The caricature is too valuable for cartoonists to jettison easily, even though some elected hereditary Peers may never have worn robes in their lives.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, reminded us yesterday, it is not just cartoonists who misrepresent the House. A week ago today, a respected broadsheet slated us as,
The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, was too polite to name and shame the organ in question, but I can reveal that it could be considered pink in more senses than one. Although it is true that we are, on average, 18 years older than MPs, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, pointed out yesterday, both ethnic minorities and the disabled are better represented here than in the House of Commons and women are almost as well represented. Moreover, we are a great deal younger than the French Senate and a lot less male-dominated, yet one hears few calls for a complete revamp of the French Senate. Our age pattern gives us one fortuitous advantage over the other place which will persist for a few more years: as a higher proportion of us were born before or during World War II, a high proportion of us will have served in one or other of the armed services and in a great many cases will have seen action; therefore, we are better placed than the House of Commons to make informed judgments on defence matters.
A more important and damaging allegation is that we, unelected individuals, exercise power over ordinary people and can single-handedly control or alter their lives. On 28 February the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland said that,
I am sorry to say that that was echoed yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for whom I have always had great respect. Of course, the reality is that not a single proposal that emanates from this House, not even a correction of a minor drafting error to a government Bill, gets anywhere unless the elected Chamber endorses it, which is fair enough, even though it means that some extremely worthwhile measures fall by the wayside, as there is always pressure on the parliamentary timetable and Commons legislation must always take priority.
Our only power is the brief power of delay. As a former Labour Cabinet Minister, Frank Dobson, wrote in the Independent on 7 March,
He went on to say that that would no longer apply if the Lords were elected. That point was powerfully enlarged on yesterday in a magnificent speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, later backed up by, among others, the noble Lords, Lord Lawson and Lord Forsyth. It cannot be expressed often enough that, although the House of Lords can make life extremely difficult for the Executive when necessary, it has absolutely no unilateral powers over anyone else, nor would it ever wish to have.
The next most important myth that needs challenging is, unfortunately, very widespread: that elections to this House would give ordinary people
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I freely confess that I have changed my mind since we last debated this matter at length, when I broadly supported the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for a 60 per cent elected element. However, that was a while ago; since then we have had more time to ponder the contradictions of a hybrid House. Above all, we have had seven years to observe how extremely well the reformed House works, with its much fairer political balance, the instinctive co-operation between those of different political and philosophical persuasions and the persistence of an admirable degree of independence, even among those who take the party Whip. Why spoil that?
One thing has not turned out as forecast: in 1999, it was widely predicted that independents would always hold the balance of power, but in practice only very rarely do Cross-Bench votes determine the outcome of a Division. Those who hold the balance of power are without question the Liberal Democrats. When the Liberal Democrats support Labour, the Government almost always win; when they support the Conservatives, the Opposition usually win, if they turn out in sufficient numbers. A House elected under some form of PR would not weaken the power effectively held by the Liberal Democrats; on the contrary, it would considerably strengthen it. Is that really what the Government and the Conservative Front Bench want?
Lord Ampthill: My Lords, having implied that we do nothing in this House, does my noble friend not accept that, over the past 10 years, we made on average 3,400 amendments a year to the Government’s Bills?
Lord Monson: Yes, my Lords, indeed we did, but the Commons eventually accepted them.
3.26 pm
Lord Sewel: My Lords, I was somewhat disappointed by the White Paper, not so much because of its internal inconsistencies, of which there are many, but because it is so timid. The fault is not that it is too radical but that it is not radical enough. Its root problem is that it is essentially concerned only with composition, and that is the wrong way round. A reform driven by a consideration of function, role and purpose could have produced a much more radical set
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However, in Chapter 6 of the White Paper the Government usefully set down a series of seven principles that they believe should underpin a reformed House of Lords, whatever its composition. It is worth reading them out: primacy of the House of Commons; complementarity of the House of Lords—by which it means revision and scrutiny—a more legitimate House of Lords; no overall majority for any party; a non-party-political element; a more representative House of Lords; and continuity of membership. It would be enormously helpful if my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer could confirm that the Government remain committed to those principles and that any detailed proposals will be argued from them. That would be a very important statement for the Government to make now about their intentions.
“The primacy of the Commons rests on three clear factors. First, election of its members as the direct representatives of the people ... Second is the Commons’ power to grant or withhold supply ... [and] Third, the principle of the primacy of the Commons is enshrined in the Parliament Acts”.
If we look at the Parliament Acts and how they came about, we find that justification for the limited power of veto that the Lords now have and of the special treatment of money Bills rests squarely on the distinction that the House of Lords is not elected and the House of Commons is. Make the House of Lords, or a second Chamber, elected and the justification for the restrictions imposed by the Parliament Acts falls away. British constitutional history shows that the primacy of the House of Commons is based on its unique claim within Parliament to democratic legitimacy. Remove that unique claim and you will certainly get change in the relationship between the two Houses and endanger the supremacy of the House of Commons.
I want to touch on two other aspects of an elected second Chamber: the electoral system and the time of elections. If elections were to take place by some form of proportional representation, that would not just introduce a distinctive basis of election for the second Chamber, it would open up a very real, important and
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We know the Liberal Democrats’ answer to that. They are open and frank in saying that proportional representation produces a fairer and more representative system for a Parliament than first past the post. So the argument is bound to be that a second Chamber based on proportional representation would be more representative than the first-past-the-post elected House of Commons.
There is already proportional representation in the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly and in Scottish local government. We are fast heading towards the stage where first past the post for the House of Commons will be the anomaly. How stable and secure would that be?
The White Paper favours holding the elections at the same time as the European elections. That opens up an argument about new and eroding mandates. Imagine a Government going through mid-term unpopularity and faced with a newly elected second Chamber that is elected on what some would claim is a more representative basis. In those circumstances, is it likely that such an emboldened and confident second Chamber would content itself merely with scrutiny and revision? Of course not. It would start to challenge the Commons, arguing, as other noble Lords have stated today, that one elected politician is just as good as—in some cases, perhaps better than—another elected politician. In those circumstances, we get either paralysis or another constitutional crisis.
My argument—and my argument in previous debates on House of Lords reform—has always been based on the relationship between the two Houses and the need to maintain the supremacy of the House of Commons. Given that, I am not in the business of saving the House of Commons from itself, but I can argue for scrutiny and that the reform should be based on principle.
I want reform. I want thoroughgoing, comprehensive, coherent reform. Above all, I want reform that maintains the power and supremacy of the House of Commons. I fear that the White Paper fails to deliver on all those objectives.
3.36 pm
Lord Goodlad: My Lords, when, for three separate periods over a number of years, I was part of the usual channels in another place, it was my duty to visit your Lordships’ House frequently, which I greatly enjoyed. I prided myself on understanding the ways of your Lordships’ House, its traditions and its foibles. Little did I realise until I came here, less than two years ago, the depth of my ignorance and how imperfectly I understood the elegant subtleties of your Lordships’ House.
My noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon observed earlier how little Members of the other place understand your Lordships’ House. He is right. Why should they? Their priorities lie entirely elsewhere. In a sense, we are like Bertie Wooster’s aunts: aunt baying to aunt,
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Perhaps like the historian, FW Maitland, who was accused of seeing medieval England through a mist of moots and witans, my former colleagues in the other place looking along the Corridor see through a prism of coronets and ermine, with a wholesome contempt for the great and the good and the privileged—not parliamentary privilege, of course, which is sacrosanct in the other place. Noble Lords here are exasperated by the wilful, even disrespectful, reluctance of the other place to acknowledge our wisdom, experience, expertise, independence, diversity and modesty.
Some of my former colleagues are, even today, ageist, which is certainly not politically correct and, in some circumstances, is illegal. I suppose that it was ever thus. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, in her remarkable speech, suggested an all-party committee of both Houses to take matters forward. I do not normally favour setting up ever more committees to take decisions, but I believe that on this occasion it is an excellent suggestion. Indeed, the more such committees there are, the better. The Government are seeking consensus and I hope that one may emerge. These things are always relative.
The case against an elected or predominantly elected House has been analysed in the White Paper and powerfully argued, especially by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, my noble friend Lord Lawson, and others, so I shall not repeat their arguments. Suffice it to say that no system of election could be devised that would deliver the gender, racial, religious and other aspects of diversity that we have in your Lordships’ House—far more so than is or ever could be the case in the other place. That can be achieved only by the Appointments Commission.
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