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Therefore, we have a solution. We should sit down with the House of Commons. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, in that regard. He should not be surprised to hear that one thing I did when I first came here and got attacked for being a hereditary Peer was to say, “When I was a temporary shop steward in the Transport and General Workers' Union, and about to suffer from asbestosis, I remembered the words of my uncle, Stafford Cripps”. Or I could have said, “I am a chinless wonder hereditary merchant-banking Peer who ought to be put down, because I am environmentally unfriendly”.
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In this House, we are more representative than anybody else. If noble Lords look at my paper they will find that in the regions there are more Members of the House of Lords than Members of the House of Commons. We have more women and ethnic-minority groups and more of Jewish faith. It is an amazing place which could not have been created other than by accident—and I hope that the accident continues.
7.58 pm
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I propose to call on a thus far unmentioned quality of this House—its fortitude. As speaker number 60 in the speakers list today, I am reminded of a colleague of mine who came to the Court of Appeal from Manchester many years ago. He was last in the list and, after a very long day, the presiding judge said, “This had better be short, Mr Smith”, to which he replied, pulling out his railway ticket, “I agree; this is a cheap day return”. So I shall keep it brief.
Constitutional reform usually occurs because of great events. It is most unusual for it to occur in what we can call quieter times. We are in such a time. We have had constitutional change: devolution, the dispatch of most hereditary Peers, and the Constitutional Reform Act, creating a Supreme Court and the independent appointment of judges. There is no reason why Parliament itself should not be the subject at least of review with a view to reform. But that is Parliament, not just the House of Lords. Reform means change for the better. Both Houses of Parliament act together to serve the public, so any reform must be shown to be, first, necessary and, secondly, likely to be effective, better to serve the public.
When we look at our parliamentary system, no one can seriously challenge the bicameralism entrenched in our constitution. A single Chamber would quickly become dictatorial; two Chambers, with their mutual respect and tension, should better serve the nation. Nobody can doubt that the House of Commons has primacy; it is the elected Chamber. The Parliament Acts ensure that primacy and the Salisbury convention makes it work. The question is therefore: why, if the House of Commons has primacy and is the engine of parliamentary democracy, do we turn to consider reform of the secondary Chamber first? That is extremely difficult to follow.
Without comment, I ask these questions of the other place. Is it holding the Executive fully to account? Is its committee system properly serving investigation and the need for accountability for all forms of unelected government? Are its present structure and stature among the people commensurate with its constitutional responsibility? Is it attracting the best quality of candidates to be Members of Parliament? Is it, above all, influencing the affairs of the nation so that there is a third element in the public debate of this country, beyond the Executive and the media? When I hear the answer “Yes” to those questions, I shall say that it does not need reform. If I hear too many noes, I ask “Why not?”. The House of Commons cannot currently plausibly argue that it is achieving the constitutional and democratic objectives that I have outlined. Its reform is necessary.
What of the secondary Chamber—us? I shall talk not about civil liberties but about British constitutional
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Reform, yes. Stop people coming. Reduce the number of people in the House. Give us fixed periods to serve as appointed Members. There is plenty to be looked at. But if asked on your Lordships’ behalf whether we are effective, I challenge anybody to say that we have not been in recent times. Is reform necessary? Why? When will it happen, how will it occur and what effect will it have on the dynamics between the two Houses? These are unknowns.
Is it therefore appropriate that we should start our constitutional reform debate at the end, with the composition and election of the secondary Chamber, without starting at the beginning? What is the elected House doing for our nation? I issue this not as a rhetorical challenge, but as an invitation to both Houses—the other in particular—to remember their constitutional and democratic duty to the country. That kind of change requires time, reason and focus; it requires both Houses to ensure that the change, which is properly to be called reform, will benefit us all. Can we abide the prospect, over the next parliamentary Session or two, of Bills about our election and composition? Is there nothing more important in our constitutional debate than that? Is it not appropriate for each party here present in Parliament to put constitutional reform into the public debate, by way of a royal commission, a constitutional assembly or whatever it takes—not by newspaper opinion poll, but by rational debate?
If, at the end of that, reform is necessary, I shall gladly look to it and determine whether I think it appropriate. This particular proposal is appropriate neither in its timing nor in its necessity. My noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg demolished the proposal yesterday with relentless logic. He was right. A better proposal may yet come, and we can look at it. But this is not the way to reform the British constitution.
8.06 pm
Lord Elton: My Lords, in the wake of that splendid speech it will take some agility on my part to adjust what I was about to say. I declare an interest as an elected hereditary Peer. That interest is perhaps not exactly what some people think it is. We were not put here to perpetuate either our own membership or the present composition of the House of Lords. We were put here to ensure, as far as we could, that what came after us was no worse than what is here now and, God willing, a good deal better. If we can achieve that, and do so in my absence, I, for one, shall go on my way rejoicing.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, would agree with me that a significant shortcoming of the White Paper is its title, House of Lords: Reform. To say that the House of Lords is to be reformed is rather
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As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York so succinctly put it, we are here, as is the other place, to protect the freedom of the individual and all that goes with it. Up to the arrival of King George I, the Executive were out there and we were in here. Then the Hanoverian dynasty arrived, speaking German. It was necessary to have English speakers to conduct the King’s business and we started, for the first time, to have Ministers in Parliament; they got a foothold in the body that was actually provided to control them. Now, if you count both Ministers and PPSs, there are roughly 100 members of the Executive in the other place, which is supposed to be the most powerful instrument for the control of the Executive.
This chimes exactly with what the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, said; it is why the House of Commons is becoming consistently less able to do its job. The noble Lord cited two prime examples of it letting things through that were a threat to the liberty of the individual, and which this House stopped. It is clear that, as long as the constitution of the other place remains as it is, our function is to balance the weakness of that place with a strength of our own.
The great pity of the present development is that we are being encouraged to think of this as some sort of competition between the House of Lords and the House of Commons for primacy. We are speaking to each other as if we did not share an interest. That is because there are so many members of the Executive in the other place. The other place and this place should be allies in the face of the threat to the population of an overmighty Government. It is essential, between now and the next stage, that that communication should start.
A good beginning could be made by my noble friends on the Front Bench and the noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite and on my right in seeing that the cross-party group is not merely seized of the opinions of those who sit behind them but is capable of representing them, which means some change in its composition. That is if the cross-party group is to have an effective role; if it is not, what it does must be discounted and set aside firmly. The weaker the House of Commons is, the stronger this House must be.
That almost brings to an end what I wanted to say, except to add that I would like to see the request made of the Government by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, answered. I would like to see the Government’s costing of what they propose specified and
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8.11 pm
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, many of your Lordships have rightly pointed out that it is pretty silly to reform your Lordships’ House before sorting out the House of Commons. After all, some 40 per cent of the electorate do not see the point in voting even in general elections any more, and modern Governments are formed by only some 40 per cent of the 60 per cent who bother to vote, or 24 per cent of the electorate. That 24 per cent has to vote for the whole of the Government’s manifesto, which typically contains around 150 commitments. So it is hard to understand how modern Governments have the nerve to believe that their administrative programmes have the support of the British people. That does not stop them, of course.
I am sure your Lordships would be disappointed if I did not point out that democracy in this country is now quite a bit sicker than that, thanks to the folly of our membership of the European Union. The former German president, Roman Herzog, has recently announced that 84 per cent of all national laws in Germany between 1999 and 2004 were imposed under the EU system of government. There is not much reason to suppose that the percentage is very different here, but so far the Government have only admitted that a majority of all law affecting our commerce and industry “originates in Brussels”—which is bad enough. The British Chambers of Commerce are somewhat less coy, and calculate that 72 per cent of the cost of regulation affecting business is imposed by Brussels.
Whichever way you look at it, it is probably safe to say that a majority of our national law is now imposed by our membership of the European Union under its unique system of making laws, which is the very antithesis of our democracy. Let us not forget that EU law is proposed in secret by the unelected Commission, negotiated in secret by the unelected Committee of Permanent Representatives, or COREPER, and decided in secret by the Council of Ministers, where the UK Government are now reduced to some 8 per cent of the vote. That law is agreed by the EU Parliament, after which it has to be rubber-stamped by the House of Commons and your Lordships’ House. It is then executed by the Commission. If necessary, the Luxembourg Court of so-called Justice can be relied upon to confirm the process of integration, and there is no appeal against its judgments.
I say that this system is the antithesis of our democracy because, as I have reminded your Lordships more than once, the central principle of our democracy is that the British people should elect and dismiss those who make their laws. They no longer do, not by miles. Twenty-four per cent of them elect a Government who boast 8 per cent of the votes in the Council of Ministers that imposes most of their law. No wonder so many of them cannot see the point of voting in general elections, or that they hold politicians and our political system in such low esteem. How right they are.
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I suppose I should also remind your Lordships in this debate of the big idea that gave birth to the fateful project of European integration, to which its devotees still cling: that nation states were responsible for the carnage of the two World Wars and for the long history of bloodshed in Europe, so the nation states, with their tiresome and unreliable democracies, had to be emasculated and diluted into a new form of supranational Government run by a commission of technocrats. Hence the Commission’s continuing monopoly on proposing legislation and executing it once it has been through the Brussels system.
I accept that that idea was honourable enough after the last war, but it has gone wrong and it is getting worse. “The project”, as it is known in Brussels, was supposed to reach its fulfilment in the recent EU constitution. That was legally killed by the French and Dutch people in referendums, but the Eurocrats are not letting a small matter like that get in their way. They are surreptitiously putting most of the constitution into place, using clauses in existing treaties, illegally, to do so. One of those clauses is Article 308—to which I have drawn your Lordships’ attention before—which allows the EU to take power only,
That clause was in the original 1957 Treaty of Rome, and was designed to permit small tariff adjustments and so on in the emerging Common Market. Now this article is being used to pass a whole string of powers to Brussels, and Her Majesty’s Government—
Lord Bowness: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I am sure at this stage in the debate we would all be interested to know which of the options before the House the noble Lord thinks would improve the situation he is describing—somewhat inaccurately, I submit.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I am most grateful. If the noble Lord has patience, he will follow my argument to its obvious and irresistible conclusion.
Lord Trefgarne: Only three minutes to go.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: If I am not interrupted, I may end quicker.
This article is being used to pass a whole string of powers to Brussels. For instance, there is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a vast new human rights law, which Keith Vaz said would have no more force than the Beano and the Prime Minister assured us would not become justiciable in the Luxembourg court, yet the Commission has ordained that all new law must respect it, and the Luxembourg court adheres to all its judgments. Other powers being taken by Brussels under Article 308 include the control of civil contingencies, a massive new EU propaganda campaign, the co-ordination of social security systems and the prevention and management of terrorism—hardly the operation of a Common Market.
The existing Article 308 is not the only flagrantly illegal basis for the constitution’s advance. On
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Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I thought your Lordships would appreciate that.
That will leave them with only one ambition, the big one: the new legal personality for the EU, superior to that of the nation states. The EU becomes a country, able to sign treaties and declare war, and thus reaches the goal of that big idea born more than 50 years ago.
I submit that it is against that background that the future of your Lordships’ House should be considered. First, the United Kingdom should retrieve its democracy from the clutches of the corrupt octopus in Brussels. Then we should consider how the House of Commons, which once again will be making our law, can better hold the Executive of the day to account. Only when we have done that should we turn our attention to the role and composition of the second Chamber. In the mean time, it would be folly not to leave your Lordships’ House as it is.
8.20 pm
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, on Second Reading of the reform Bill in 1998 I said that the best way forward would be to look at Parliament as a whole in the light of the devolution process in the United Kingdom and even taking into account the role of the European Parliament, of which I was once an elected Member. I argued that the House of Commons was as ripe for reform as was the House of Lords and that we should look at the powers and functions of both Chambers before deciding on their composition.
Consistency is, I hope, my strong point so I was heartened that many of your Lordships said much the same thing in this debate, in spite of the fact that the White Paper does not give us the opportunity to take that wider view. What we have at present, as the result of hundreds of years of history and continuity, and some more recent attempts at modernisation, is what the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, succinctly described yesterday as,
It seems strange that, as the Mother of Parliaments, we cannot find a solution to our bicameral dilemma when so many other countries have. When winding
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It is interesting that relatively few countries around the world other than Commonwealth countries have chosen to follow the Westminster model. Most have a presidential system on the lines of the French system, which was most famously copied by the United States. Perhaps we should catch up with the de facto situation here and convert, or at least consider converting, to the presidential alternative. Then we could be looking at a senate and assembly or congress, with the checks and balances that they imply, as some speakers advocated. But that may be too radical.
At the previous opportunity we had to vote on the composition of the House of Lords, like my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and a number of other hereditary Peers, I voted in favour of a 100 per cent elected House with a fallback position of 80 per cent elected and a 20 per cent topping up to ensure the necessary breadth of expertise. I intend to do the same tomorrow although I listened with great interest to the arguments that were advanced. I am particularly conscious that we need to ensure the diversity represented in your Lordships’ House, particularly in respect of the religious representation. Our Bishops’ Benches provide a very valuable dimension to our deliberations, apart from leading us in prayers each day. The disappearance of that element would be a retrograde step even if that representation should be wider.
However, in view of the House of Commons vote last week, and in spite of the White Paper recommendations, my solution for a 100 per cent elected House of Lords is to advocate indirect elections. I realise that the Wakeham commission discounted this, in part at least, and that the White Paper considers only one form of indirect elections. Yesterday my noble friend Lord James of Blackheath put the justification extremely well so I shall not repeat all the arguments, although he reached a different conclusion to mine. If electoral colleges were set up to elect their own distinguished representatives, doctors, nurses, lawyers, architects, academics, local authorities and so on could each form an electoral college, not forgetting the churches or, indeed, the hereditary Peers, who at present have a separate electoral college, which seems to work rather well. Elections do not have to be direct to make them democratic. That system would enable a period of years to be set on the service of Members so elected and would have many other flexible advantages. I hope that, whatever the result of tomorrow’s vote, there will be an opportunity for that to be considered.
I have not heard too many noble Lords discuss the name of our House. My view is that a change from calling ourselves the House of Lords is essential. If the real thing—in other words, the hereditary Peers—is not allowed to sit here any more, it is absurd to create hundreds more Peers of the realm, albeit
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