Parliament (Participation of Members of the House of Commons) Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is my great pleasure to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Adams of Craigielea, on her maiden speech. She comes to this House with enormous experience in central and local government. I remember when she first came to the House of Commons just before I left and I also remember with affection her husband who was for many years MP for the same constituency. I also remember talking to Tony Benn on the day his son, Hilary, was elected Member of Parliament for Leeds Central, and the enormous pride he had in that. When he was telling me about it, he looked at me and said, ““I want to create a dynasty, but by democratic means””. So the noble Baroness followed, by democratic means, a family tradition. She is not the first to do so—many have—and she is certainly most welcome in this House. I congratulate her on her powerful speech—to say that it was not controversial would be flattery of a kind to which even I cannot stoop. However, it indicates that her contributions on many other subjects will be much appreciated by all of us in this House. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Baker on his timely and important Bill. There was never any problem about my noble friend making a good speech because he always makes a good speech. Indeed, I have on a few occasions heard him make an extremely good speech when he had a very bad case to deploy. But today he made a good speech on a good case and it will take a bit of answering. What happens to my noble friend’s Bill as it goes through Parliament is important to me, but, equally important, is that the problem will not go away whatever happens. Sooner or later, voters in England will find a way of righting what is increasingly seen as an injustice. My noble friend’s proposals are sensible and practical and I support them, but I must admit that part of my desire to make a short contribution to the debate was to listen to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He cannot dodge this issue, certainly not in the charming way his predecessor managed to do, as already alluded to; that the best way of dealing with the West Lothian question is not to ask it. That was the substance of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Sewel. They feel that the problems that may be created, if they cause trouble, are insufficient when it comes to keeping the union together. My noble friend and I also strongly believe in the union and want to find a way of keeping it together. The problem will not go away. The late and much-missed Donald Dewar made clear that the original devolution settlement was only stage one of the process. One has only to read his St Andrew’s Day speech of 30 November 1998 to see that. Therefore, the previous views from the government Front Bench are not an adequate solution to the problem. My noble friend touched on the different alternatives that he saw, the obvious one being reducing the number of MPs at Westminster who represent devolved parts of the United Kingdom. I do not believe that would work, not least because the necessary reduction would present us with enormous problems. I want to pick up on what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Adams. The Barnett formula has been around for most of my political life. I do not believe that even its architect—the noble Lord, Lord Barnett—now defends it as a sensible way of dealing with these matters. So things must change, but the solution is not to reduce the number of Members at Westminster, although a strong case can be made for it. The Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords, which I had the honour to chair, looked at the subject in an indirect fashion. We were conscious that it was a problem and we made two proposals. Both are relevant, but are not necessarily sufficient to deal with the major issue which my noble friend’s Bill addresses. First, we proposed that the House of Lords should set up a Select Committee to monitor the relationship between the devolved assemblies and Westminster to deal with clashes between the two bodies. A committee of officials within Whitehall already does that, but it seemed to us that there was a case for a more transparent Select Committee. Secondly, we proposed an elected element from the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. Small though that elected element was for other good reasons, it was intended that the Members of your Lordships’ House here to represent the nations and regions of the United Kingdom would be able to perform a great service in helping to maintain the unity of the United Kingdom. But neither of those proposals, both of which were worth pursuing, is likely to deal with the problem of the major anomaly increasingly facing us that a great many English people feel that the present constitution of the House of Commons is not fair or democratic and needs to be changed. My noble friend’s Bill has a number of difficulties and I have no doubt that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has a fistful of arguments that he will deploy about why it is difficult. We know it is difficult. In my view, the Bill is the best proposal that has been put on the table, certainly recently. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will give us the benefit of his thinking, not just on my noble friend’s excellent Bill, but on what is increasingly seen to be a problem in the United Kingdom.